Hell, From the Ancients to Today’s Christians

The Bible states that hell is a place of future punishment and the final destination for all nonbelievers. Merriam-Webster defines hell as “the place where the devil lives and where evil people go after they die according to some religions” (Merriam-Webster Online). It is described in Christian Scripture by using a variety of terms such as eternal fire, outer darkness, a place of weeping and torment, the lake of fire, the second death, and unquenchable fire. The most terrifying reality of hell is that it will be a place of complete and total separation from God. The Christian Hell was shaped by views about the afterlife, death, and justice held by a variety of Mediterranean societies and cultures, with Greek, Jewish, and Roman antiquity having the greatest and most direct influences. In this essay, I will show how Dante Alighiri’s Inferno is a blueprint for modern day Christian’s view of what Hell could be like.

The great Roman civilization had many wonderful things come to light over its 400 to 635 year domination of the world. Romans were known for their adaptations and modifications of existing technologies and cultures to make something distinctly Roman. Even the story of the founding of Rome, The Aeneid, is a classic example of this adaptation. In this epic poem, Virgil follows the tradition of Greek poetry written by Homer. Not only does Virgil study and mirror the classical Greek tradition, but he weaves in Roman thinking. When Dante birthed the Inferno, over thirteen hundred years later, he mirrored Virgil’s literary works in the same manner. Some might say that these works in the whole scheme of things are very similar. Both are relating to brilliance the previous, Virgil on Homer, then Donte on Virgil. I...

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...tution in all of Europe was the Roman Catholic Church. The Church affected almost every facet of life: political, cultural, social, and economic. Dante saw the corruption within the Church and wanted to write about what he saw as the consequences for this corruption. His visions of Hell perfectly fit to what he saw in people’s everyday life at that time. Even though he was forced into exile for refusing to pay a fine for a falsified charge the church accused him of, he still believed, kept his faith and was a devout Christian throughout his life. Dante the man clearly influenced Dante the writer and produced a set of ideas concerning the role of the Catholic Church. In his masterpiece Inferno, Dante Alighieri paints a clear and vivid picture to Christians everywhere, then and now, of what Hell must be like, having a permanent impact on Christians all over the world.