As I will explain in this commentary, Dante’s treatment of Limbo is anomalous within the history of this idea. Inferno 4 treats the first circle of Dante’s Hell, dedicated to the space that theologians call “Limbo”. Appendix on the historiography of Limbo.The document “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized”, published by the International Theological Commission in January 2007, effectively constitutes a second Harrowing of Hell - this time releasing unbaptized children from Limbo.The issue of exclusion with its enormous consequences leads directly to Dante’s investment in cultural transmission: textual and oral transmission carries ideas across cultural boundaries and allows access to Christian teachings. ![]() ![]() The issue of virtuous non-Christians involves Dante’s guide Virgilio and will be complicated by the presence in the Commedia of saved pagans, starting with Cato of Utica in Purgatorio 1 and culminating with Ripheus the Trojan in Paradiso 20.Dante’s Limbo also houses a few contemporary virtuous non-Christians, notably three Muslims: a general and Sultan of Egypt, Saladin ( Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn), and two philosophers, Avicenna (Ibn-Sīnā) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd).Limbo as Dante conceives it houses not only the traditional unbaptized children but also virtuous pagans of classical antiquity who lived before Christianity: these pagans include great poets (e.g., Homer, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Lucan) and philosophers (e.g., Aristotle, Socrates, Plato).those who are excluded from the Christian dispensation geographically, being born after the birth of Christ, but in non-Christian lands.those who are excluded from the Christian dispensation temporally, being born before the birth of Christ.In the Commedia Dante creates two categories of virtuous pagans, focusing more attention on the first:.Dante’s personal and anomalous re-conceptualization of Limbo: Dante’s idea of including virtuous pagans in this space is radical, making his Limbo different from all others in the history of this religious idea.
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