In the book The Inferno by Dante Alighieri, the author himself is the protagonist of his own poem where he travels inside hell with a companion named Virgil. Dante travels downwards the center where he passes “circles” that represents the different type of floors with different sins. As they go downward, the sins become worse for each circle until they reach where Satan is located where everything is frozen and surrounded by ice, unlike the imagery of hell in the bible where everything is scorching hot and surrounded by “everlasting fire” (NIV, Matthew 25.41). Although the description of hell is different between Dante’s version and the Bible, Dante used Christianity as a framework of his poem and added references using mythology due to the
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Virgil explained to Dante, “these were sinless. And still their merits fall/for they lacked Baptism’s grace, which is the door/of the true faith you were born to (Ciardi 4.34-5). Here, Virgil told Dante the reason why they are stranded in limbo was because they were baptized , although there were no punishments unlike the other circles of hell. Dante meets the great poets Homer [known as the author of the book, ”The Iliad”], Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. Furthermore, they also met the warriors Hector, son of Priam (Richards 175), Julius Caesar, a military leader (Sayre 242) and Aeneas, warrior of the Trojan (Richards 132), which are characters from Homer’s The Iliad. Meanwhile, they also met the philosophers Hippocrates, Plato (Sayre 203-4) and Socrates (Sayre 202). These men created a huge impact in the Roman history due to their achievements yet they were put in hell because they were not baptized since Christianity was not well known in their era; they believed and prayed to mythological gods like Zeus (Richards 139). According to the bible, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2.38). The bible presses the requirement of being baptized in order to be fully …show more content…
Furthermore, the ninth circle was separated in four rounds that are specifically named after the person that committed a certain sin. One of the rounds was the first round that is named after Cain, Abel’s brother and killer (Genesis 4.8), and punished by having “their necks and heads out of the ice and permitted to bow their heads” (Ciardi 32.0) to represent their treachery against their own blood family. As they reach the center, they found Satan, with his lower body hidden inside a mass of ice, at the last round of the ninth circle gnawing on as a representation of the seriousness of the sin they have committed. One of the sinners that was being chewed on by Satan’s central head was Judas, who doubted and betrayed the Christ. In the bible, “When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders” (Matthew 27.3). This shows that Judas fell into despair and created blasphemy against the Spirit of God that God himself finds unforgivable and shall be punished without mercy at all. On the side head of Satan, Dante found Brutus, the “founder and first consul of the Roman Republic” (Sayre 241) who betrayed Julius Caesar in order to return Rome into a
Virgil explained to Dante, “these were sinless. And still their merits fall/for they lacked Baptism’s grace, which is the door/of the true faith you were born to (Ciardi 4.34-5). Here, Virgil told Dante the reason why they are stranded in limbo was because they were baptized , although there were no punishments unlike the other circles of hell. Dante meets the great poets Homer [known as the author of the book, ”The Iliad”], Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. Furthermore, they also met the warriors Hector, son of Priam (Richards 175), Julius Caesar, a military leader (Sayre 242) and Aeneas, warrior of the Trojan (Richards 132), which are characters from Homer’s The Iliad. Meanwhile, they also met the philosophers Hippocrates, Plato (Sayre 203-4) and Socrates (Sayre 202). These men created a huge impact in the Roman history due to their achievements yet they were put in hell because they were not baptized since Christianity was not well known in their era; they believed and prayed to mythological gods like Zeus (Richards 139). According to the bible, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2.38). The bible presses the requirement of being baptized in order to be fully …show more content…
Furthermore, the ninth circle was separated in four rounds that are specifically named after the person that committed a certain sin. One of the rounds was the first round that is named after Cain, Abel’s brother and killer (Genesis 4.8), and punished by having “their necks and heads out of the ice and permitted to bow their heads” (Ciardi 32.0) to represent their treachery against their own blood family. As they reach the center, they found Satan, with his lower body hidden inside a mass of ice, at the last round of the ninth circle gnawing on as a representation of the seriousness of the sin they have committed. One of the sinners that was being chewed on by Satan’s central head was Judas, who doubted and betrayed the Christ. In the bible, “When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders” (Matthew 27.3). This shows that Judas fell into despair and created blasphemy against the Spirit of God that God himself finds unforgivable and shall be punished without mercy at all. On the side head of Satan, Dante found Brutus, the “founder and first consul of the Roman Republic” (Sayre 241) who betrayed Julius Caesar in order to return Rome into a