Friday, April 26, 2024

Dante on John 19:30

 


By Adam’s sin we were all sinners, for the Apostle says: “as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death, so death entered all men, in whom all have sinned.” Accordingly, if satisfaction for that sin had not been effected through Christ’s death, we would still be “children of wrath by nature,” namely by our corrupt nature. But this is not the case since the Apostle said To the Ephesians, when speaking of God the Father, “he has predestined us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the purpose of his will, unto the praise and glory of his grace, in which he has graced us in is beloved son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of his glory, which has superabounded in us.” Moreover, it is also not the case because while Christ was personally undergoing punishment, he himself said, in the Gospel of John: “It is finished.” This proves the point because when a thing is finished, nothing remains to be done. (Dante, Monarchia, 2.11.2-3, trans. Richard Kay, in Benjamin Wheaton, Suffering, Not Power: Atonement in the Middle Ages [Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Academic, 2022], 43-44)