Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown's new book borrows its title and theme from Dante's Inferno, an account of the Italian poet's imagined journey through hell. Writer and church historian Stephen Tomkins gives a 10-point tour of the underworld.



Dante Aligheri, author of La Divina Commedia

1. Hell is conical
Hell, as Dante described it, consists of nine concentric circles, going deeper each time as they get smaller, towards the centre of the Earth. Which of the nine you are condemned to depends on your sin, with circles devoted to gluttons, heretics and fraudsters. The centre point of the surface of the cone is Jerusalem. The river Acheron runs around hell, separating it from the outside world. Outside hell itself, but still part of the scheme, there are the people who somehow never did anything good or evil in their lifetime. Even they are punished for their neutrality, running round for eternity being stung by wasps while maggots drink their blood.

2. Hell is diverse
The modern cartoon image of Hell, with flames and pitchforks for everyone, is tragically bland compared with medieval depictions. This modern version is probably the legacy of Milton, who in Paradise Lost describes hell as "one great furnace" whose flames offer "no light, but rather darkness visible". Then again, he is setting it in the time of Adam and Eve when its only population is demons, so even his Hell might have livened up a bit later. In the medieval hell explored by Dante and painted by Hieronymus Bosch, punishments are as varied as sin itself, each one shaped to fit the sin punished. In Dante, sowers of discord are cut to pieces, those who take their own lives are condemned to live as mere trees, flatterers swim in a stream of excrement, and a traitor spends eternity having his head eaten by the man he betrayed. In Bosch, one man has a harp strung through his flesh while another is forced to marry a pig in a nun's wimple, and other people are excreted by monsters. This Hell is not a fixed penalty, but the fruition of bad choices made during our lives.

3. Hell is underground - maybe
In the Middle Ages, people generally thought of Hell as being underground, and there were legends of travellers seeing its smoke coming up through holes in the ground. Dante agreed, and because he assumed that the Earth was round, he had Satan at the bottom of Hell, with his waist the centre of Earth's gravity. Milton's Hell, however, is far from Earth. Paradise Lost is set in the time of Adam and Eve when the Earth was still perfect, so it would be incongruous for hell to be in the centre of it. Dante manages to do the whole tour of Hell, purgatory and heaven in less than a week. Meanwhile it takes Milton's Satan nine days just to fall from Heaven to Hell.


The road to Hell: A street in Florence celebrates the city's most famous writer


4. Hell can freeze over
Actually it can be pretty sweltering, especially in Milton, who describes hills, caves, beaches and bogs of fire. Dante has a river of boiling blood for people guilty of bloodshed, tombs of fire for heretics, and a desert where it rains flakes of fire on blasphemers, usurers and homosexuals. But many of Dante's circles aren't fiery. In the second circle, the lustful are blown about by strong winds, while the gluttons in the third are subjected to sleet and sludge. In the ninth and deepest circle of hell, Satan himself is encased in ice to his waist. For the Devil, it's always a cold day in hell. Even for Milton, beyond the fire plains of Hell there are regions of ice, hail, snow and wind, where the damned are taken on forced excursions. The change offers no respite, as "cold performs th'effect of fire", and in fact the variation only makes things worse.

5. Hell is other people (and they're real)
Hell is full of popes. Milton's Hell doesn't have any people in it yet, though it would surely have an abundance of popes when the time came. But even for ardent Catholics, the Vatican provided a wealth of damnations. Dante finds many popes in hell, including Anastasius II for heresy and Nicholas III for buying episcopal office. The Catholic scholar Erasmus wrote a dialogue called Julius Excluded, where Pope Julius II is rudely turned away from the pearly gates for his many sins. Michelangelo, in his fresco The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, shows real people being pulled down to Hell, including Biagio de Cesena, the Pope's Master of Ceremonies who opposed the artist's depiction of nudity and is shown with a snake eating his genitals. Dante's Inferno includes many people he knew personally, and not just enemies. He is shocked to see his friend and teacher Brunetto Latini suffering the punishment for violence because his sex life did violence to the natural order. At the bottom-most pit of hell, three real people are eternally eaten by a three-headed Satan - the arch traitors Cassius, Brutus and worst of all (because headfirst) Judas. "With six eyes did he weep, and down three chins/Trickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel."

6. Hell is unreal creatures
Hell is full of creatures from pagan myth. Dante sees centaurs and harpies, the Minotaur, and the three-headed dog Cerberus. Michelangelo includes Charon and Minos, the boatman and judge of the Greek underworld. Even Milton puts Medusa and Hydras there.


See you in Hell: Greek mythical monster Medusa features in Paradise Lost

7. Hell is pandemonium
Pandemonium ("all the demons" ), although it has come to mean noisy chaos, is a word Milton invented for the capital city of hell, where Satan and his followers meet for their infernal parliament. Milton also coined the phrase "all Hell broke loose", which again did not originally refer to noisy chaos, but to demons escaping. When Satan arrives at Eden to tempt Adam and Eve, Gabriel asks him: "Wherefore with thee/Came not all Hell broke loose?"


A scene from Dante's Inferno, illustrated by Gustave Dore (1832-1888)

8. Hell is gated
Dante's gate is famously inscribed "Abandon hope all ye who enter here". Less famously, this is only the last of a nine-line inscription, which includes the claim that the realm within was created by "the highest Wisdom and the primal Love". In Paradise Lost there are nine gates, three of brass, three of iron, and three of adamantine rock, and they are guarded by Sin, Death and the ever-barking hounds of Hell.

9. Hell isn't all that interested in sex
Christianity may have a bad name for obsession with people's sex lives, but sex doesn't feature very prominently in the behaviour punished in Hell. Admittedly Brunetto Latini is treated harshly in the seventh circle for "unnatural" sex, but mere sins of lust are dealt with in the second circle (the first being limbo, a pretty nice place for unbaptised babies and sinless non-Christians) making it the least of sins.

10. Hell isn't all that Biblical
Very few of these ideas are from the Bible. The Bible does refer to Hell and its fires, but more of the details in Dante are drawn from Greek and Roman myths, and the vast majority are the creation of medieval Western imagination. Eastern Christian artists never shared their interest, and even in the West it was a late development - the doctrine of perpetual torment was propounded by the Lateran Council of 1215, just a century before Dante wrote. In modern times Christians have become increasingly sceptical about Hell. There are 622 verses in the Bible (in the New International Version) which mention Heaven, and 15 that mention Hell.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22512160

Pygru: #RUBBISH

loveroftruth:

My friend, good day.

I am still waiting for you to answer the question why you think you your self are not a false prophet?

Pls do, i am waiting.

Image123: 1. Hell is real.
2. The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God.

EatmyShorts:

Jesus is Lord.

Do you know your name is on the list for Hell-Fire?! You better come to my church, so i can beg Jesus on your Behalf.
Don't say you were not forewarned.

Jesus is Lord.

Pastor MarcAnthony

frosbel: Some people are willing victims of cultic brain washing.

Image123: 1. Hell is real.
2. The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God.

Image123: ^
i do not particularly enjoy pouring water into baskets.

Pygru:
You Again
Wetin I go talk now
I no sabi how to write story like Frosbel oh.
Hmm, Ok!
Are you ready?
1... 2..... Ready.... Go!

Pygru:
False prophets/teachers are known/identified by their teachings.


1 Corinthians 14:29
King James Version (KJV)
29 Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge.

Galatians 1:6-9
King James Version (KJV)

6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed

Pygru:
“ Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping ” (2 Peter 2:2-3)

Pygru:
“ there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them bringing swift destruction on themselves ” (2 Peter 2:1)

Pygru:
Why I think I am not a false prophet?
Did I go about teaching damnable Heresies

Pygru:
You deny the existence of hell whereas the Bible Says it exists. Are you not a false prophet

Pygru:
You say pre-marital se.x btw to consenting adults (Fornication) is not a sin. Are you not a false prophet

Pygru:
You teach damnable heresies. Are you not a false prophet

Pygru:
When you compare what they teach with what is written in the Bible, like the Berean christians of old did, you discover that a large percentage of teachers here are reprobates, apostates & false teachers/prophets who are sent by their master, the Devil! To decieve the gullible.

Pygru:
Now to answer your question.
Did I teach damnable heresies
Did I pervert theGospel of Christ
Did I teach another Gospel

Pygru:
Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge.

#End

truthislight:

"Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption." (Acts 2:27-31).
.............................................

Jesus went to "hell" ^.

The word hell is a latin word that its meaning has nothing to do with the Jews that Yahweh gave his words to.

How can someone that traslated the hebrew word Sheol/grave/pit to hell be doing a sane thing?



The word refering to fire that Jesus mentioned is Gehena >>> a refuse dump outside the wall of Jeruselam, sustain by fire.(go figure out)

That people later translated the bible into latin Years later and introduced the word "hell" is their cup of tea and a foreign idea to the Jews.

See what Jesus told the samaritans woman:

"Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship what you dont know we know what we worship: for salvation originated with the Jews. " (John 4:21-22).
...................................................

So, of what use is the latin word "hell" to the Jews and to me?

Nothing!

frosbel: Some people are willing victims of cultic brain washing.

Pygru:
You Again
Wetin I go talk now
I no sabi how to write story like Frosbel oh.
Hmm, Ok!
Are you ready?
1... 2..... Ready.... Go!

False prophets/teachers are known/identified by their teachings.


1 Corinthians 14:29
King James Version (KJV)
29 Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge.

Galatians 1:6-9
King James Version (KJV)

6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed

“ Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping ” (2 Peter 2:2-3)

“ there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them bringing swift destruction on themselves ” (2 Peter 2:1)

Why I think I am not a false prophet?
Did I go about teaching damnable Heresies

Just as I said earlier, you identify false teachers by their doctrine.

You deny the existence of hell whereas the Bible Says it exists. Are you not a false prophet

You say pre-marital se.x btw to consenting adults (Fornication) is not a sin. Are you not a false prophet

You teach damnable heresies. Are you not a false prophet

When you compare what they teach with what is written in the Bible, like the Berean christians of old did, you discover that a large percentage of teachers here are reprobates, apostates & false teachers/prophets who are sent by their master, the Devil! To decieve the gullible.

Now to answer your question.
Did I teach damnable heresies
Did I pervert theGospel of Christ
Did I teach another Gospel

Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge.

#End

loveroftruth:
what has that to do with the question: if you are a false prophet?

but you are bringing the way into "disrepute" with the way you act couple with the fact that you cannot teach.

are you one?

But you dont know any, even how to teach

read this thread again.
You will learn something.

did frosbel do that?

Why is your own beliefs not "heresies"?

why that is true, why is your own beliefs the "truth"?

Read this thread again, some people are making more sense far more than you.

bizmahn:

Pygru well beloved.A vocal audible voice against false teachings and teachers on nairaland.Let your hands not be feeble or weary.The Lord is your sure eternal reward.

Image123: 1. Hell is real.
2. The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God.

Pygru:
Are you saying you can't decipher what I wrote
You asked:
'why you think you are not a false prophet'

And I replied:
False prophets/teachers are Known/identified by their teachings.

If I be one you no go know by wetin I dey teach
#Smh

Omg! Really?


I resemble one


I take that as a compliment


Nothing to learn!


Wetin concern me with frosbel?
You asked:
'Why you think you are not a false prophet'

Maybe your question should have been put this way:
'why Frosbel is a false prophet and you are not'

Btw, I hope you are not Related to Frosbel or Even Frosbel.
Your posts looks suspicious!


Already answerd in my previous post!

Already answed that in my previous post!

I take this also as a compliment.


I hope say I never derail this thread ooh.
Mods, pls pardon if found guilty

Pygru:
Amen ooh
And more Megabyte/GB to my device

loveroftruth:

What i am getting from you is that, since you dont teach you are not a false prophet, abi?

So, how then are you qualify to know whose teaching qualifies one as a false prophet?

What qualifies you to pass such a sentence since you cannot teach or research?

loveroftruth:
Why not debate frosbel and prove that he is wrong instead of blackmailing him?

Do you think that black mailing others is a mark of true christians?

Jesus christ and his apostles were also blacked mailed, did that means that the black mailers were "true prophets"?

If i open your profile, i can show you how you have been black mailing people in this forum, does such make you a true prophet and a Good christian? Or it makes you a false prophet, since you cannot teach but accused others?

Why not you just take on frosbel on a debate on this thread topic from the bible if you are a true christian disciple of christ?

May the Holy spirit help you in the debate if you are a true christian disciple having the holy spirit.

Pygru:
Don't misconstrue me.
I no talk so.
Na simple English I speak ooh.
You know a false prophet by his teachings

No be mad man behavior or dressing you go take know say something dey wrong with im head