Commentary Inf I 125

For Cassell's consideration of the striking word ribellante, see Cass.1989.2, pp. 77-84. His treatment of the way in which Dante thought of Virgil (much in the way that a long Christian tradition insisted of the Hebrews) as owing his faith to the true God has the result of making Virgil guilty of turning his back on a God whom he in some ways knew. The problem with such a formulation is that it would make Virgil's placement in Limbo problematic -- he would have had to be placed deeper in hell, for such behavior would have been an active sin against God. Nonetheless, it is also fair to say that most commentators dodge this troublesome word. (See, for example, Bosco/Reggio, according to whom all that is meant here is that God will not allow Virgil to enter Paradise because he was born and lived a pagan and thus had no possibility of believing in Christ to come [DDP Bosco.Inf.I.124-126]. That is not a satisfying gloss to so strong a phrasing.) For an attempt to find a difficult middle ground see Holl.1983.1, pp. 145-151, and, perhaps more convincingly, Martinelli (Mart.1989.1), pp. 157-58, distinguishing rebellio lumini (Job 24:13), an intentional and prideful act of hostility to God ('rebellion against the light') from a merely ignorant failure to have faith, as was the case with Virgil. We should remember that, within the fiction of the poem, this formulation is Virgil's own and may simply reflect his present sense of what he should have known when he was alive. That is, Virgil may be exaggerating his culpability. It should be pointed out, however, that Foster (Fost.1977.1), p. 252, may have been the first to discuss this possible source, and that, unfortunately, the passage goes on to give as examples of those who so rebel (Job 24:14-15), murderers and adulterers, hardly a fit context for Virgil's less aggressive shortcomings.