We learn about ancient civilizations through literature passed down from generations. The view of an afterlife is what provokes people’s immense fear and concern about the concept of death in which they express that fear in different forms. Salvation means we receive eternal life if we have a personal relationship with God. In modern day society, most people go to church to show their faith to God in thinking they get “saved”. These ancient literature goes into elaborate detail about the horrors Hell provides. The Inferno of Dante goes into detail that there is a hell and the levels inside it are different tortures people have to endure for committing a specific crime. In Virgil’s Aeneid, it gives a description of the Elysium. The Elysium is where the heroic and virtuous go to live blessedly and happily. The idea of an afterlife is one of the main factors in why today’s society attends church and worships God. The details these stories give about Hell frightens people into thinking that Hell can be that torturous. The idea of Hell has shaped today’s society for the better and worse. The stories about Heaven is a paradise filled with peace, happiness, and enjoyment. Today, people are doing more good in their lives because of their belief in God and the
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afterlives. But in spite of doing what’s right and good for its own sake, people are good because they want to go to Heaven and not the demoralizing Hell.
Dante’s Inferno gives very graphic details about the conception of an allegorical Hell. Halfway through the poet Dante’s life, he becomes lost wandering alone in a dark forest. Dante sees the spirit of the great Roman poet, Virgil. Virgil proceeds to tell Dante that before they can climb th...
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... go back onto earth and possess human image once more. “…they may once more revisit the vault above and conceive the desire of return to the body.” (Virgil, Aeneid 6. 628 – 897)
Reading Aeneid, gives people a certain kind of hope that there is eternal bliss and happiness when we die. With Heaven being a type of reward, this drives people now to do good deeds but not with their own free will. Reading Inferno, gives people something to steer away from to become better in their life and towards each other. For me, Reading these books in CH 201 had me thinking hard about the afterlife and what Heaven and Hell could be like. During discussion, students mostly talked about the horrors of Dante’s Inferno and how uncomforting and interesting it was. By this you can tell these books did shape religious views in modern day life.
Works Cited
(Virgil, Aeneid 6. 628 – 897)
Dante Alighieri presents a vivid and awakening view of the depths of Hell in the first book of his Divine Comedy, the Inferno. The reader is allowed to contemplate the state of his own soul as Dante "visits" and views the state of the souls of those eternally assigned to Hell's hallows. While any one of the cantos written in Inferno will offer an excellent description of the suffering and justice of hell, Canto V offers a poignant view of the assignment of punishment based on the committed sin. Through this close reading, we will examine three distinct areas of Dante's hell: the geography and punishment the sinner is restricted to, the character of the sinner, and the "fairness" or justice of the punishment in relation to the sin. Dante's Inferno is an ordered and descriptive journey that allows the reader the chance to see his own shortcomings in the sinners presented in the text.
In all religions key elements exist, cornerstones of their belief system, upon which everything else builds (Wilkins 22). These elements explain the world around us, from the fabrication of the universe to the meaning of life, imparting knowledge of the social mores and customs of the times (Wilkins 3). These myths testify to the moral and ethical code of the society that first conceived them (Wilkins 5). As with all systems of rule, an attempt to force the peoples governed by them into obedience creates possibilities for positive and negative reinforcement via religious beliefs (Wilkins 12). Good and bad, or in more common terms, heaven and hell. Punishment on earth is often short lived and quickly forgotten, but a threat of eternal punishment is well, eternal. From ancient Egyptians to current Judeo-Christian religion, there is always an eternal punishment for infractions of the religious law though the punishments and crimes may vary.
When one tends to think of Inferno they tend to think of Hell and the fiery and evil place that it is. They think of all the terrible deeds that have been committed to put one there or the terrible things being done to the wicked people. Something that would slip most people's mind and really did not enter mine as I was reading it was the fact that a major theme of the book is actually love. Love is what motivated Dante to make this journey in the first place. Love is what kept him going when he wanted to give up. Love is the reason that Hell was created in the first place. God loved all his children so he created a place to punish those who deserved it.
But, enough of heaven, what about hell? The Babylonians believed the afterlife to be much different, a place of waling and gnashing of teeth: “the house where they sit in darkness, where dust is their food and clay their meat, they are clothed like birds with wings for garments, over bolt and door lie dust and silence” (92). Like the Egyptians, the Babylonians buried their dead. Their journey to the afterlife was not something to which one looked forward. Rather, silence dominated their underworld where all people--kings, queens, heroes, and servants--suffered equal torment.
In Dante’s Inferno hell is divided into nine “circles” of hell; the higher the number correlates to the grimmer the sin and the pain you will endure. However, I do not completely agree with Dante’s version of hell, perhaps due to the difference in time periods. In this essay I will be pointing out my concerns with Dante’s description of hell and how I would recreate hell if I were Dante.
In the Inferno we follow the journey of Dante as he wanders off the path of moral truth and into Hell. The Virgin Mary and Santa Lucia ask Beatrice, Dante’s deceased love, to send some help. Thus, Virgil comes to the rescue and essentially guides Dante through Hell and back to the mortal world from which he came. However, things begin to seem kind of odd. When reading the Inferno one may begin to question the way Dante describes Hell and the things that occur within, or even the things we have always believed about Hell. Despite the way it is described and well known in western civilization, Hell is not at all how we expect it to be because of Dante's use of irony throughout this poetic masterpiece.
...ards monstrous figures and sympathy towards those who seem to be tortured unjustly. In his perverse education, with instruction from Virgil and the shades, Dante learns to replace mercy with brutality, because sympathy in Hell condones sin and denies divine justice. The ancient philosopher Plato, present in the first level of Hell, argues in The Allegory of the Cave that truth is possible via knowledge of the Form of the Good. Similarly, Dante acquires truth through a gradual understanding of contrapasso and the recognition of divine justice in the afterlife. Ultimately, Dante recognizes that the actions of the earthly fresh are important because the soul lives on afterwards to face the ramifications. By expressing his ideas on morality and righteousness, Dante writes a work worth reading, immortalizes his name, and exalts the beliefs of his Christian audience.
One of the greatest and oldest human mysteries on Earth is death, and the fate that lies beyond it. The curious minds of human beings constantly wonder about the events that occur after death. No person truly knows what happens after a person ceases to live in the world, except for the people themselves who have passed away. As a result, over the course of history, people of various backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions have speculated and believed in numerous different possibilities for the destiny that awaits them beyond the world of the living. The great ambiguity of the afterlife is extremely ancient that many different beliefs about it have been dated back to several centuries ago. These beliefs go as far back to the beliefs of Ancient Egyptians, which outline the journey that the dead travels to the land of Osiris; and the belief of Ancient Greeks that all souls eventually find themselves in Hades’ realm, the Underworld. Throughout history, views and beliefs from emerging religions continue to develop as the human conscience persists in finding answers to this ancient, unresolved mystery. Prime examples of the various and separate beliefs regarding death and the afterlife are found in the diverse faiths of Roman Catholicism, Islam, and Buddhism.
“They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn't bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn't even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn't bear not to.” (Green) The Divine Comedy is a text that is divided into three parts, the most famous of which being Inferno. Inferno follows Dante through his epic journey through the nine circles of hell in his attempt to achieve a higher understanding of the afterlife. Dante is a man that seems to have, both physically and metaphorically wandered into a very dark place. He has begun to sin without repentance, due to the fact that he doesn’t have a broad understanding of the real repercussions
Murray, Michael J. "Heaven and Hell." Philosophy of Religion: A Reader and Guide. By William Lane. Craig. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2002. N. pag. Print.
Dante’s Inferno presents the reader with many questions and thought provoking dialogue to interpret. These crossroads provide points of contemplation and thought. Dante’s graphic depiction of hell and its eternal punishment is filled with imagery and allegorical meanings. Examining one of these cruxes of why there is a rift in the pits of hell, can lead the reader to interpret why Dante used the language he did to relate the Idea of a Just and perfect punishment by God.
With that in mind, one can look at Inferno as a handbook on what not to do during a lifetime in order to avoid Hell. In the book, Dante creates a moral lifestyle that one must follow in order to live a morally good, Catholic life. This explains why Aristotle and Dante disagree on a few key points about what it means to be virtuous. Aristotle is adamant about not having excess nor deficiency and rather finding a middle ground (mean), whereas Dante abides by the virtues laid out in the Bible.
First of all, salvation plays a monumental role in religion in regards to the whole community. For example, various religions believe that communal salvation can be attained through the introduction of a holy occurrence or Golden age. To illustrate, ancient Israelites believed in the “day of Yahweh”, which is a “period of unbroken prosperity and glory inaugurated by Yahweh’s victorious overthrow of Israel’s enemies” (Livingston, 317). Today, these manifestations are depicted through resurrection, Heaven and Hell, and immortal life (Livingston 320). Correspondingly, these beliefs stimulate communal morality and order through the need of salvation. To illustrate, the terrible images of Hell and the pleasant imagery of Heaven have initiated societal order as individuals follow commandments depicted by the divine in order to obtain salvation. Furthermore, Livingston states, “resurrection was conceived as the establishment of the righteous in a kingdom on earth” (324). Likewise, in regards to immortal life, the community typically ascertains positive characteristics in order to obtain salvation in their next life.
The After is my home, the homes of creatures like me and those humans who have made it here. It is the place, any place we imagine or wish it to be, where humans will live on after their mortal body dies. That is if they can find full acceptance of themselves, or course. Otherwise, they go to the Before – a place where their souls are once again reincarnated into a mortal vessel.
One way in which death can be viewed comes across the Catholic religion. The Catholic believers look life after death in a prospective of three different worlds, such as Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise according to the deeds committed during life. If a person during his or her lifetime committed any sins, this person’s next world will be the Hell. The traditional view in which people refer to hell can be found in the book written by Dante Alighieri, “La Divina Commedia”. The book states that the formation of Hell was given by the crash of Lucifer (the angel that wanted to be better than God) from the sky onto the earth. Crashing on the Earth in Jerusalem, his head formed an upside down cone inside the Earth. This is where is located the Hell. In the Hell, people pay for their sins with different penitences (12-13). For instance, a person that committed homicide will freeze in a lake frozen by the breath of Satan (XXXIV canto). If a person during his or her life commits any sins but asks for forgiveness, then he or she will go to the Purgatory. The purgatory is represented by an island with a mountain (23). One source states that “Purgatory is very similar to Hell; the main difference is that one will eventually be released from torture. The souls that go in the Purgatory are tortured with fire. These souls remain in purgatory until they become sufficiently purified to enter heaven”(2). For example, if a soul in the purgatory asks for forgiveness and pays the punition with some tests, the soul will be released and moved immediately to Heaven (2).