Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

62 Dante’s Inferno
feels lost in the “dark wood” of his own moral
confusion. The Latin poet Virgil, representing
secular learning, is his guide through the depths of
hell and up the Mountain of Purgatory, and
Beatrice, representing the higher divine inspiration,
leads him to heaven and to the inexpressible
divine source of all love.
Dante adopted a punitive inferno, and added a
purgatory, for those who were not cut off from
hope. Paradise follows in one continuous line of
ascent. Hell, in Dante’s scheme corresponding to
the general medieval view of the world, is placed
in the interior of the earth, and is portrayed as the
place of eternal isolation of the souls. It consists of
nine concentric circles that, from the hemisphere
of the earth and across the river Acheron, progressively
diminish in circumference, forming an
inverted cone ending in the center of the Earth. In
each circle, representing the nature and effects of
sin, a distinct class of sinners undergoes a particular
torment according to the nature and gravity of
their wrongdoings.
When he fell from heaven, Satan struck the
earth at the antipodes of Jerusalem, and tore
through its substance as far as the center, where he
remains fixed for all time, a three-faced monster,
champing with his teeth the three arch-sinners
against church and state, Judas Iscariot, Brutus,
and Cassius. The extremity of torture is inflicted
by cold, not by heat. Satan’s wings, perpetually
beating, send forth an icy blast that freezes the
river Cocytus to a glassy hardness, and in it are
immured the four last grades of sinners.
A hidden path connects the center of the earth
to the purgatory, the place of purgation and of
preparation for the life of eternal blessedness. It is
imagined as a mountain formed by the earth that
retreated before Lucifer as he fell from heaven into
the abyss of hell, and it is located at the exact
antipodes of Jerusalem and Mount Calvary, in the
center of the southern hemisphere. After the antepurgatory,
where are placed the excommunicated
and the belatedly repentant, and the passage
through Peter’s Gate, come seven encircling
terraces, which rise in succession with diminished
circuit as they approach the summit. Each of the
cornices corresponds to the seven deadly sins,
from which the soul is purged through the expiatory
labor of climbing the mountain. The terrestrial
paradise is reached through a final wall of
flames and comprehends two streams that wash
away the remembrance of sin and strengthen the
remembrance of good deeds. Dante’s Paradise,
according to the Ptolemaic system of cosmography,
consists of nine moving heavens, which are
concentric with the earth, the fixed center of the
universe, and around which they revolve at a
velocity proportional to their distance from the
earth. Each heaven is presided over by one of the
angelic orders, and exercises its special influence
on human beings and their affairs. The seven
lowest are the heavens of the planets: the moon,
Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn.
The eighth heaven, the sphere of the Fixed Stars, is
the highest visible region of the celestial world,
and the ninth heaven, the Primum Mobile,
governs the general motion of the heavens from
east to west, and by it all place and time are ultimately
measured. Finally, beyond and outside the
heavens, lies the Empyrean, where there is neither
time nor place, but light only, and which is the
special abode of the Deity and the saints.
See also Hell and Heaven; Purgatory; Satan
For Further Reading:
Bemrose, Stephen. Dante’s Angelic Intelligences.
Their Importance in the Cosmos and in Pre-
Christian Religion. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e
Letteratura, 1983.
Edwards, Paul, ed. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
New York: Macmillan, 1967.
Eliade, Mircea, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion. New
York: Macmillan, 1987.
MacGregor, Geddes. Angels. Ministers of Grace. New
York: Paragon House, 1988.
Toynbee, Paget, Dante Alighieri. His Life and Works.
New York: Harper and Row, 1965.
Dante’s Inferno
Spencer Tracy plays Jim Carter, an unscrupulous
entrepreneur who manages to take over a
sideshow from its proprietors, a kindly man and
his niece, in this 1935 film. The purpose of the
exhibits were originally meant to warn people
about the evils of indulgences in greed and
wickedness. The attractions feature demons and
tortures gruesomely modeled directly after Dante