The Sin of Refusal
While at times we are set on pursuing the good that is found by participating in the divine, we fall astray, usually many times, and end up chasing after those things which lead down the path to damnation. Yet doing wicked things decried by Sacred Scripture is not the only path to Hell. We can arrive there by other less wicked and more subtle means: by refusing to do what is good.
One of the most famous refusals is that of Pontius Pilate. After interrogating the Christ himself concerning accusations of perversion and unlawful claims to kingship, Pilate finds “no crime in this man” (Luke 23:4) and sends Him to Herod Antipas for a local jurisdictional decision, yet this backfires because Herod just sends Christ back to Pilate after mocking Him. The decision is then returned to the Roman governor’s hands. After asserting that “nothing deserving death has been done by him” (Luke 23:15), he says he will only scourge and release him. The crowd wants Barabbas and he does not want to kill an innocent man, yet the crowd’s “voices prevailed” (Luke 23:23). The Christ was delivered up to the will of the people to be crucified. Pilate did not actively make a decision that would uphold truth; he was pushed around by others and due to the intense pressures that he was facing from the Jews, he made a decision that for him seemed self-preserving. He didn’t desire a new Jewish insurrection like the Romans had to deal with in years past. He refused to do what is right, what he knew to be true against the rest of the clamoring crowd. He acted in a cowardly manner.
Of course, it is easy enough to say that we should not be like Pilate. Refusal is a sin not only disapproved of in the Scripture, but also in Dante’s great Divine Comedy. Yet here we come across an interesting repudiation of refusal that has challenged readers and commentators of the poem centuries after he wrote it. Dante creates an antechamber for Hell containing both neutral angels—those which chose neither to serve God or rebel with Lucifer, a Dantean invention—and neutral men, cast out by both Heaven and Hell, doomed to be stung by insects and chase after a banner for eternity. Because they made no movement to choose either good or evil, they are perpetually forced to do that which they never did—move in one direction or the other. They embody the words of John in the Book of Revelation: “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold or hot, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16). It is here he identifies “the shade of him, / who made, through cowardice, the great refusal” (Mandelbaum, Inferno III.59-60). While as much as I would like to say that this soul is Pontius Pilate, the early commentary tradition is stacked against me, recognizing this soul as most like that of Pope St. Celestine V, who abdicated the papal throne to return to a monastic life.
I, like many, are uncomfortable with the greatest poet damning a canonized saint. It reflects one of the few times where Dante misses the mark in the Comedy by expressly going against the Church’s infallible actions. Celestine V was canonized in 1313, while Dante was in the process of writing the Comedy. Why would Dante do this? Just how bad is this sin? It very well could have been politically motivated, as Celestine V’s resignation brought forth Pope Boniface VIII, Dante’s hated enemy for his involvement in the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict in Florence and his desire to gain more temporal power for the Church. It could also, as he writes blatantly, that he thought Celestine’s giving up of the papal throne was a grave act of cowardice, one that would land him in the antechamber of the neutrals. While the ecclesiastical situation at the time of Celestine’s election and his papacy was tumultuous, it would seem that Dante would have lauded a perseverance in the office itself rather than a desirous retreat into monastic life. If God so willed through the cardinals that you were to become pope, then perhaps you take up the shepherd’s crook and cleanse the Church as best you can. I think Celestine’s abdication can be read from both sides, either as an act of cowardice or prudence, even if Dante has chosen the harsher. We, however, should take note of the examples that both these men set before us, one being a man who through his refusal allowed Christ to undergo the Crucifixion and the other a saint who, bent on giving up the throne out of a desire for a purer life, allowed for a much less saintly man to take up the mantle. Refusing to choose the good is a dangerous endeavor.
Doing evil things can drag us to Hell, yes, yet being cowardly enough to not do the good is also damnable. “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me” (Matthew 25:41-43). The goats on the left sinned in not doing the good. Pilate sinned in handing over Our Lord. (Did Celestine sin by resigning the papacy?) The goats neglected to serve Christ in the poor and vulnerable and were damned for it. Let us not be in their camp. The bar that Christ sets for us is high, much higher than the Law of Moses, yet He pours out His grace so that we can achieve what He desires for us.
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