Musing Medieval

Say what you want about Dante's errant theology (and rightly deserved), he's not all bad. Consider this discourse on Original Sin, the Incarnation, and Atonement from the Paradiso (Canto VII):

Your nature, when it took sin to it's seed,
sinned totally. It lost this innate worth,
and it lost Paradise by the same deed.

Limited man, by subsequent obedience,
could never make amends, he could not go
as low in his humility as once,

rebellious, he had sought to rise in pride.
Thus was he shut from every means himself
to meet God's claim that He be satisfied.

Thus it was up to God, to Him alone
in His own ways--by one or both, I say--
to give man back his whole life and perfection.

All other means would have been short, I say,
of perfect justice, but that God's own Son
humbled Himself to take on human clay.


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