The Divine Comedy - Dante's Journey

The Divine Comedy is a story about Dante's journey through hell and Purgatory. This journey will lead him to Paradise. His journey is not an easy one his path is filled with a lot of obstacles and trials for him to overcome. His faith is tested the entire way. At points you can see his fear overcome him and he must learn to control his fears to complete his mission. His mission to me is very similar to the mission of a person trying to come to Christ. We must fight out temptations and fears and give out heart and mind to god. Christianity and the classic culture are similar in a lot of ways. They both seem to operate off the same principles. The gods are similar and the belief in the afterlife is the same. Both cultures believe in a heaven and hell.

Dante's could not complete this journey alone he tried but was turned around by the beast who blocked his path. Dante's guide was Virgil how was a great guide for Dante. Virgil was a person who change his life and began to be a follower of god and was consider pure or righteous. Dante and Virgil when through several layers of hell or as the book refers to it as the nine circles of hell. Each circle represented different levels of sin. The first five circles represented the self indulgent sins. Limbo and lust were the first two circles. I did not quite understand the first circle or the purpose of the four pagan poets. The third circle was Glutton. This is where he meets Ciacco who tell he of his pain and suffering. He warns Dante that the city is full of envy and warns him that envy will cause him to suffer the same fate he has suffered. The fourth and fifth circle show Dante wealth and greed are sins and that they are sins that are punished harder than other sins that he have encountered so far.

Circles six and seven represent violent sins. This is made clear in Canto XI where it says,"in the first of the circles below are all the violent; since violence can be used against three persons, into three concentric rounds it Is divided. Violence can be done to god, to one self and to one's neighbor." The boiling river of blood represented the violence of men. The eighth and ninth circle represented malicious sins. Dante's journey is deeper than finding his way through hell to heaven it is about Virgil guiding Dante's spiritually. He is leading Dante's down the right path in life not just the path on his journey. Dante was not lost in the dark woods but he was really lost in sin. Dante was a sinner and Virgil was a man of god and he was to help Dante get his life together and find god.

It is surprising to me that this writing is not considered a Christian story. It relates to Christianity is such a way that is it almost impossible to distinguish the difference between the two. Even when you look at the way this piece is written. It uses metaphors just as the bible does. Nothing is straight forward.