An Irish precursor of Dante : $b a study on the Vision of Heaven and Hell ascribed to the eighth-century Irish saint Adamnán, with translation of the Irish text
Dante Alighieri · en
Sinners that have been induced to see the errors of their ways and
to amend, find the bridge narrow and difficult at first, but easy
afterwards, while those fall off who have persevered in evil. We thus
have only three of the usual four categories which frequently occur in
Irish eschatology, as in the Book of Enoch: the _boni valde_, the _boni
sed non valde_, and the _mali valde_. However, the _mali sed non valde_
are represented, approximately, by those spirits of mingled qualities,
and those sinners that are redeemed by their good works, who are dealt
with specially in the sequel.
The torments meted out to evildoers are of the usual description,
though represented with that increasing fulness and terror which had
been perceptible for some time previously in the Irish visions, or
_Imrama_, the result, apparently, of increased familiarity with the
Continental writers of this kind, who, so early as the Apocalypses of
St. Peter and St. Paul, had devoted much ingenuity to this horrible
branch of their subject. We may also perceive an attempt at a more
accurate classification of crimes and punishments; in this respect,
too, those Apocalypses display more method than the visions of
subsequent writers. The classification adopted by our author, which
would seem to be his own, contains indications both of his nationality,
and of his acquaintance with foreign literature. Four categories of
evildoers are enumerated, in which, although they exhibit nothing of
Dante’s scientific precision, a certain system is apparent, in spite
of the several classes overlapping to a certain extent. In chapter
25 fratricides and sacrilegious persons are dealt with, including
fraudulent Erenachs--the guardians of the Church’s temporalities--who
had abused the considerable powers which the tribal constitution
of the Irish Church had given them. The class described in chapter
27 comprises, for the most part, those guilty of various kinds of
dishonesty or violence, though some of them, such as false judges,
sorcerers, and teachers of heresy, would seem to belong rather to
the two following classes, the one of which comprises renegade
ecclesiastics and heresiarchs (chapter 28), while the other, and last
deals with an apparently heterogeneous collection of crimes, all of
which, however, will be found to involve, somehow, a breach of faith on
the part of the offender.