DANTE'S DIVINE COMEDY - Part 1: INFERNO

To get a better idea of the joys of heaven and the horrors of hell, let me now introduce Dante.

DANTE’S DIVINE COMEDY

Dante Alighieri wrote ‘The Divine Comedy’, an epic poem in Italian, between 1306 and his death in 1321. It is an accurate, though imaginary, portrait of the medieval world-view regarding Christian afterlife. It is divided into 3 parts: Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory) and Paradiso (Heaven). Dante goes on a three-day trip through Hell and up Mount Purgatory on the other side of the world and finally to Heaven in the sky. He is lost in the beginning; so, he asks Virgil (author of Aeneid) to guide him through Hell, Beatrice (the woman he loved) to show him around Purgatory and Saint Bernard to take him to God.

INFERNO (HELL)

As Dante and his guide Virgil come to the gate of Hell, they see inscribed on it the phrase ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’. Just outside the gate are the ‘Opportunists’, souls of people who in life did nothing, neither good nor evil. Also found among them are the outcasts who remained neutral in the 'Rebellion of Angels'. These souls reside on the shores of Acheron; their punishment is to eternally pursue a banner and be pursued by wasps and hornets that continually sting them, while maggots and other insects drink their blood and tears. Acheron (meaning river of woe, according to Greek mythology) was believed to be a tributary of the underworld river Styx over which souls of the newly dead were ferried across to Hades, the abode of the Greek mythological god of death by the same name.

Dante and Virgil then reach the ferry that will take them across the river Acheron to Hell proper. Hell is divided into 9 circles. The circles are concentric, representing the gradual increase in wickedness, and culminating in the center of the earth where Satan is held in bondage. Each circle’s sinners are punished in ways befitting their crimes for all eternity. People who prayed before death for the forgiveness of their sins are to be found in Purgatory. Those in Hell are sinners who want to justify their sins and are unrepentant. They have knowledge of the past and future but not of the present. So, after the final judgment, when time ends, those in Hell would know nothing. The following are brief descriptions of the type of sins for which people are put in each circle, the appropriate punishment, some of the well-known figures therein and my personal comments where appropriate.

Circle 1 (Limbo)

The un-baptized and virtuous pagans are found in this circle. Their punishment is to remain separate from God for all eternity without hope of reconciliation.

Virgil, Homer, Horace, Socrates, and Plato are seen here.

Circle 2

Lust. (Any intense desire or craving for self-gratification. For the Catholic Church, lust mostly means sexual lust.) They are punished by being blown about by a violent storm without hope of rest.

This is symbolic of the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly.

Circle 3

Gluttony. (An over-indulgence and over-consumption of food, drink or intoxicants.)

The souls are forced to lie in a vile mush made by freezing rain, black snow, and hail. It is symbolic of the garbage they made of their lives on earth.

Circle 4

Greed. (Avaricious and miserly.)

The avaricious and misers form two groups running towards each other along opposite sides of a circle. After they run into each other with a crash, they turn about and run back along the circle, only to crash again on the other side of it, and they continue this for eternity. Heads of clergymen are prominent in this scene:

Here Popes and prelates butt their tonsured pates,

Mastered by avarice that nothing sates.             (Inferno 7. 46-48)

[Avarice continues to plague the present clergy in this era and age, but they have made it into a virtue. How else can one explain the lack of financial accountability by the hierarchy, especially those controlling the rich dioceses of Kerala? Traditionally, each parish used to be managed by the parish priest and members of the parish community. From the time of the arrival of the Portuguese in India, their bishops managed to wrest control over the Indian Catholic Church. Canon laws were also suitably changed to leave all wealth in the hands of the bishops with no one to answer to. The present hierarchy has taken full advantage and refuses to involve laymen (except the yes men) in administrative matters, especially those concerning finances. 

Circle 5

Wrath.

The wrathful fight each other submerged in the swampy river Styx.

Circle 6

Heresy.

These souls are trapped in flaming tombs.

The followers of Epicurus are found here.

Circle 7

Violence.

The souls of the violent are housed in three rings.

The outer ring houses the violent against people and property. They are immersed in Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood, to a level commensurate with their sins. Alexander the Great is found here immersed to eyebrow level.

The middle ring houses the suicides. They are turned into thorny bushes and trees with their corpses hanging from the branches. Others found here are profligates, those who destroyed their

lives by destroying what sustains lives, namely money, and property. They are continuously chased by ferocious dogs through the thorny undergrowth.

The inner ring houses the violent against God (blasphemers), the violent against nature (sodomites) and the violent against art (usurers). They reside in a desert of hot sand with flakes of fire continually falling from the sky. The blasphemers lie on the sand, the usurers sit while the sodomites wander about in groups.

Circle 8

Fraud.

The fraudulent are housed in ten bolgie (ditches of stone).

• Bolgia 1. Panderers and seducers: they march in separate lines in opposite directions. They are continuously whipped by the demons.
• Bolgia 2. Flatterers: they are steeped in human excrement since in life their flattery was nothing but a load of crap.
• Bolgia 3. Those who committed simony (the ecclesiastical crime of paying for offices or positions in the hierarchy of the Church): they are placed with their heads in holes in the rock, while soles of their feet are burned with a flame. Pope Nicholas III, Pope Boniface VIII, and Pope Clement V are seen in this group. 
• Bolgia 4. Sorcerers and false prophets: they have their heads twisted around their bodies facing permanently backward. In addition, they are continuously shedding tears, so that they cannot see. This is because in life they tried to see the future by forbidden means, so in Hell, they can only see what is behind them.
• Bolgia 5. Corrupt politicians: they are immersed in a lake of boiling pitch.
• Bolgia 6. Hypocrites: they aimlessly walk around.
• Bolgia 7. Thieves: they are continuously chased and bitten by snakes. The snake bites turn them into reptiles and snakes which in turn chase other thieves and bite them.
• Bolgia 8. Fraudulent advisers: they are individually encased in flames.
• Bolgia 9. Sowers of discord: demons go round hacking their limbs. By the time they return, the wounds are healed and their limbs are hacked again. Mohammed is described as one of the ‘sowers of discord’.
• Bolgia 10. Falsifiers (impersonators, perjurers, alchemists, counterfeiters): they are afflicted by different diseases.

 Circle 9

Treachery.

The traitors are placed in four concentric zones in the circle.

• Zone 1. Caina (named after Cain): traitors to their kindred. The souls are immersed up to their necks in ice.
• Zone 2. Antenora (named after Antenor of Troy who betrayed his city to the Greeks): traitors to political entities. The souls are immersed to the same level as those of Caina but they cannot bend their necks.
• Zone 3. Ptolomaea (named after Ptolemy, the captain of Jericho, who invited Simon Maccabaeus and his sons to a banquet and killed them): traitors to their guests. The souls are punished by immersing them up to half their face in ice so that even their tears freeze shutting their eyes close.
• Zone 4. Judecca (named after Judas the Iscariot, traitor of Christ): traitors of their lords and benefactors. The souls are completely encapsulated in ice and remain grotesquely twisted.

From here Dante and Virgil move to the center of Hell. Here they find Satan who has committed the ultimate sin: treachery against God. Satan has three faces: one red, another black and the third pale yellow. Each face has a mouth that chews on a prominent traitor. The left and right mouths have Brutus and Cassius, who betrayed Julius Caesar and Judas Iscariot in the central mouth. Judas is administered the worst torture: his head is in Satan’s mouth while his back is forever skinned by the claws of Lucifer.

P.S. For a pictorial view, please go to:

https://www2.bc.edu/michelle-principi-2/dante2.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/6mfk30/dantes_inferno_map_of_hell_xpost_from_reurope/

For an interesting video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE5ihycCq54