More Serious The Nature Of One's Sin example essay topic

In the Inferno, Dante describes, in great detail, how Hell is laid out, given his understanding of the teachings of Fourteenth century Catholicism. Additionally, Dante's view is affected by the socio-political upheaval of his contemporary Italy. Much of this upheaval was related to controversial religious power struggles with in the Roman Catholic Church as well as changing social structure. In Dante's version of Hell, the souls of sinners guilty of the lesser or minor sins inhabited the upper levels or circles of Hell. The more serious the nature of one's sin, the deeper into the depths of Hell one's soul was sentenced. Additionally, according to the teachings of fourteenth century Catholics, Christ was the personification of God and is referred to as the Everlasting Light.

Therefor, to be closer to god was to be closer to the light of or enlightened by God. This was true for the everlasting soul in the after life. If one lived the Earthly life close to God, their soul would be closer to God in the afterlife as well. This belief is described as the soul becomes enlightened and closer to light, the closer it was to God.

The converse was also believed to be true. The more sinful one was in his Earthly life, the further from God (i.e. the light) one's soul would be in the afterlife. This is evidenced in Dante' description of the appearance of the souls in Hell. The further away from God, that is the further into Hell, the less enlightened and more corporeal the souls became.

At the upper levels, the souls were mere shades of light the flitted about and had no real physical form. They could be seen and recognized, but had no substance. Dante notes this as he begins his descent into the 1st circle, Limbo. Yet by the time Dante and Virgil reach the 5th circle, the souls had become corporeal enough that Virgil is capable of physically interacting with the souls inhabiting the mud of the River Styx, when he pushes the spirit of Flip po Argent i back into the mud. Upon reaching the eighth circle, they are actually able climb aboard and ride a demon to the lower levels of this circle. Dante segregates the three main forms of sin in accordance to their severity as well.

The sins of incontinence are distributed across the second through the sixth circles. Sins of violence are found on the various levels of the seventh circle. The Fraudulent sins inhabit the eighth circle. And finally, the ultimate in evil, Satan, inhabits the bottom floor of Hell, the ninth circle. The method for determining one's lot in the after world is defined by the Latin term contra passo. This means, roughly, the soul will exist in the after life as it did on Earth.

More precisely, the punishment / reward in the death fits the crime / compassion in life. As the inferno deals exclusively with Dante's travels into Hell, his descriptions deal with crime / punishment aspects. The nature of one's sin on Earth directly determined the nature of his sufferings in Hell. As discussed the previously, the more serious the sin the harsher and more suffering the time in Hell. The first example Dante relates is found as he and Virgil enter the gates of Hell, where he finds the indifferent. These are the souls of those that refused to choose between good and evil in life.

These people, in their Earthly life refused to be neither Christian nor evil. They are punished to wander without clothing forever chasing a banner, as they failed to do in life, while being stung by wasps. This suggests the belief that failing to choose sides was almost as bad as choosing evil. Those that practiced flattery in life were immersed in excrement for eternity. This shows that while in life the spoke with honeyed words now they reside in shit.

Similarly, yet further along in the eighth circle, the fraudulent advisors are immersed in flames. This shows both analogy and contradiction. In life they hid their true intentions and spoke with "inflamed" words and additionally they now find it difficult to form words at all.