1. Day 30: Dante’s Inferno and Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
A taste of the humanities and how literature can affect the social sciences.

2. Some Opening Questions
1) How important is your vision of the afterlife in the way you conduct yourself during your lifetime? 2) Is answering the questions of the afterlife, the most important function of religion? Are there more important reasons to have religions? Explain.  3) Are there multiple paths to heaven, or only one? Explain. 

3. Now on to a Quick Prezi

4. A Classical Quest through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise
The Divine Comedy
A Classical Quest through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise

5. Dante’s Structure: The Quest
For Salvation
Paradiso
Inferno
Purgatorio

6. DANTE ALIGHIERI Born in Florence, May, 1265.
His family was old and of noble origin, but no longer wealthy.
He probably spent a year at the University of Bologna as part of his education, studying the Trivium and the Quadrivium, typical of Medieval curriculum.

7. BEATRICE
As customary, Dante had an arranged marriage in his youth to Gemma Donati, daughter of Manetto Donati.
But Dante’s greatest love, and the greatest single influence on his work, was a woman named Beatrice.
Dante met Beatrice when he was nine and she eight, at his father’s home, most likely for a May Day festival.
Beatrice married another man about 1287, and died in 1290 at the age of 25.

8. STRUCTURE OF THE DIVINE COMEDY
DANTE’S WORLD WAS ONE THAT BELIEVED IN MYSTICAL CORRESPONDENCES AND THE POWER OF NUMBERS, STARS, AND STONES
EVENTS OF HISTORY—CONTAINED A MYSTICAL SIGNIFICANCE.
DANTE’S NUMERICAL SYMBOLISM:
3 A SYMBOL OF THE HOLY TRINITY
9 THREE TIMES THREE.
33 A MULTIPLE OF 3
THE 7 DAYS OF CREATION
10 CONSIDERED IN THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD A PERFECT NUMBER
100, THE MULTIPLE OF 10.

9. INFERNO, PURGATORIO, AND PARADISO
THREE SECTIONS OF THE DIVINE COMEDY
INFERNO, PURGATORIO, AND PARADISO
3 was a holy number to Dante— suggesting the Holy Trinity.

10. THE INFERNO
The sign above the gates to the entrance to hell

11. THE SPIRALING INFERNO
ITS REGIONS ARE ARRANGED IN A SERIES OF DESCENDING CIRCULAR STAIRCASES THAT DIMINISH IN CIRCUMFERENCE THE DEEPER THAT VIRGIL AND DANTE TRAVEL.
THE HIGHER UP A SINNER, THE LIGHTER THE SIN, THE DEEPER THE SINNER, THE DARKER AND MORE TERRIBLE THE SIN.
DANTE’S HELL IS A HUGE FUNNEL SHAPED PIT.
THE CENTER IS LOCATED BENEATH JERUSALEM.
THE NINE REGIONS ARE DESIGNATED FOR A PARTICULAR SIN.

12. Circle of Hell Sin Vestibule Uncommitted Acheron River Circle I—Limbo
Virtuous Unbaptized
Circle II
Lustful
Circle III
Gluttonous
Circle IV
Prodigal, Avaricious
Circle V (Styx)
Wrathful
City of Dis: Capitol of Hell
Circle VI
Heretics
Circle VII:
Violence
Against Neighbors,
Self, God, Nature
Abyss (Geryon)
Circle VIII: Malebolge
(Evil Ditches)
Fraud
Panderers, Seducers, Flatterers,
Simonists, Soothsayers, Grafters
Hypocrites, Thieves, False Counselors,
Counterfeiters, Falsifiers
Circle IX (Cocytus)
Traitors to:
Kindred, Country, Guests, Masters

13. CONCEPT OF DIVINE RETRIBUTION
PUNISHMENTS IN HELL ARE REGULATED BY THE LAW OF RETRIBUTION.
THESE PUNISHMENTS ARE RELATED TO THE SINS EITHER BY ANALOGY OR ANTITHESIS.
AS ONE SINNED IN LIFE, SO HE OR SHE IS PUNISHED IN DEATH.
CONTRAPASSO: “SUFFER THE OPPOSITE”—PUNISHMENT OF SOULS BY A PROCESS EITHER RESEMBLING OR CONTRASTING WITH THE SIN ITSELF

14. POINTS TO REMEMBER
THE INFERNO IS PART OF A WORK CALLED THE DIVINE COMEDY.
IN THE MIDDLE AGES COMEDY MEANT SOME HUMAN EXPERIENCE THAT BEGAN IN TRAGEDY AND ENDED IN HAPPINESS.
IT IS ALSO AN ALLEGORY.
THE MORAL PURPOSE IS TO POINT OUT TO THOSE STILL LIVING THE ERROR OF THEIR WAYS AND TO PUT THEM ON THE PATH OF SALVATION.

15. THE FINAL
GOAL:
SALVATION BY
THE CROSS

16. Jonathan Edward’s, “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God”