Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Week 14 Reading: Dante's Inferno Part A

 

 

Layers of Hell

 

The Gate of Hell and Charon

Charon, the ferryman of the Acheron

carries souls of the newly deceased across the river Styx 

A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on the mouth of a dead person

Some authors say that those who could not pay the fee, or those whose bodies were left unburied, had to wander the shores for one hundred years, until they were allowed to cross the river


Limbo

The First Circle: Limbo - The Heathens

 Virtuous pagan is a concept in Christian theology that addressed the problem of pagans who were never evangelized and consequently during their lifetime had no opportunity to recognize Christ, but nevertheless led virtuous lives, so that it seemed objectionable to consider them damned.

Prominent examples of virtuous pagans are Heraclitus, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Trajan, and Virgil. Dante Alighieri, in his Divine Comedy, places a number of virtuous pagans in the first circle of Hell (analogous to Limbo), including Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan.


Bibliography

Dante's Inferno

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