Essay: Aabout Pagan Beliefs And Believers In Purgatory

An Essay Aabout Pagan Beliefs and Believers in Purgatory Throughout this Fall semester’s Western Literature class, I have had the opportunity to read a variety of ancient books, poems, plays, and essays. Throughout my time in this class, the assigned readings have broadened my knowledge of forgone cultures by requiring me to read a variety of works by authors I would have otherwise never read. Specifically, works such as the Odyssey, Aeneid, and the Divine Comedy have broaden the spectrum of my knowledge surrounding the culture of the literary works. Because of these epic poems, I was able to learn about the similarities of Roman and Greek mythology and the Catholic view of the afterlife. Whether fighting or peaceably living adjacent to each other, Greek and Roman civilizations have developed similar mythological …show more content…
Catholics believe that both sinner and believe are divided into rings of increasing degree of punishment. The former resides in Hell and the latter in Purgatory. For believers, after spending an extended amount of time in the nine levels of Purgatory in order to atone for their sins, Christians walk through a cleansing fire and into the presence of Jesus in Paradise. Dante Alighieri’s epic poem, the Divine Comedy, vividly portrays the nine levels of the Inferno and Purgatory. Depicting the gruesome punishment in each ring of Hell, the reader walks along Dante and his guide Virgil as they explore each of the circles of the Inferno. Subsequently, the two extend their travels to Purgatory, where the sinful Christian resides. Because of the delineation of each realm, my knowledge about the afterlife in Catholicism broadened. While my religious beliefs do not align with those depicted in the Divine Comedy, I enjoyed deepening my of knowledge of the Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise of Dante Alighieri’s epic