What Does Heetry Represent In Dante's Inferno

961 Words2 Pages

Cantos 3 commences and Dante is about to enter hell, and he notices an inscription on the gate. Dante inquires Virgil the meaning of the inscription. Virgil responds and tells him that he must have courage. He reminds Dante what he told him previously, “you will see grieving peoples who have lost the good of the intellect.” Pg.55,13-18 As they enter Hell, Dante sees the damned souls and hears the sighs, weeping, and their words of pain and anger. He is horrified by what he witnesses, despite his fear, simultaneously, he sheds tears and is sympathetic. However, as you progress through Inferno, Dante becomes more inured and less sympathetic towards the damned.
Although the quote above speaks specifically on those angels and humans and their …show more content…

This would imply that although angels are the closest beings to the divine, they still have free will. They are free to make their own decisions and are not controlled by God. This is puzzling, because why would angels who are not predisposed to committing sin, as humans are, jeopardize his or hers spot in heaven? These angels were cast out of heaven after the original wave of fallen angels that included Lucifer. They did not rebel against God as those angels did but did not praise him either. In a way, the angels still rebelled because they understood what their purpose was and they refused to, in a sense, follow protocol. God makes the decision to direct an angel to do his bidding, it is not an angels decision to work independently from God. Angels are supposed to praise and serve God, they are Gods messengers and carrying out his judgment. These are a peculiar sect of fallen angels, the last part of the quote above states, “but were for themselves”. We can only speculate what Virgil meant, because the bible never hints at what an Angel does when they are for themselves. This could mean that these angels wanted to enjoy heaven just like the humans who are saved do and did not want to do Gods “dirty work”. Angels are not robotic, the bible does state that angels possess intelligence (Matthew 8:29), show emotion (Luke 2:13) and exercise will (Luke 8:28-31); which could mean they were

Open Document