The crime of the uncommitted is refusing to accept the burden of faith, yet not straying far from its path; a soul travels the predestined road, yet they refuse its ideology. The Inferno, an ancient epic poem written by Dante Alighieri, describes a journey through the various circles of Hell, but there is one part of Hell that is very briefly described: The Vestibule. The Vestibule is the false home to those labeled “uncommitted”; the lost souls who travel the boundaries of Hell searching for their meaning. In lines 32-48 of Ciardi's translation of the third canto of the Inferno, Virgil explains to Dante that there are two types of people who inhabit the outer ring, the angels of neutrality and the faithless. The text reveals to us that the angels simply refused to partake in the battle between God or Satan, but it fails to shed any light on the second class of inhabitants, thus leaving it up for interpretation.
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The Bible speaks briefly of Lucifer's Rebellion, which is the battle between the envious angel, Lucifer, and God. The first class of sinners, the neutral angels, decided to not play a part in this fight, which would naturally create a layer of disorder. Since these angels did not pick a side, they were susceptible to temptation from both sides of the war, and this temptation could result in greater amounts of damage to the holy realm. For example, if an angel on God's side attempted to recruit a neutral force, who's to say the force will not get offended? Thus, in turn, the neutral force could react in a way that is detrimental to both himself, and the holy angel. This allows us to understand what Virgil meant by saying they were removed from Heaven to protect its beauty from impair. The secondary class of sinners made a mistake similar to this during their physical existence: neither choosing to worship a deity, nor opposing
The Bible speaks briefly of Lucifer's Rebellion, which is the battle between the envious angel, Lucifer, and God. The first class of sinners, the neutral angels, decided to not play a part in this fight, which would naturally create a layer of disorder. Since these angels did not pick a side, they were susceptible to temptation from both sides of the war, and this temptation could result in greater amounts of damage to the holy realm. For example, if an angel on God's side attempted to recruit a neutral force, who's to say the force will not get offended? Thus, in turn, the neutral force could react in a way that is detrimental to both himself, and the holy angel. This allows us to understand what Virgil meant by saying they were removed from Heaven to protect its beauty from impair. The secondary class of sinners made a mistake similar to this during their physical existence: neither choosing to worship a deity, nor opposing