The most complete guide to Christian hell comes from the pen of the great Dante Alighieri. In his mystical “Divine Comedy”, the poet very clearly collected, structured and described three parts of the afterlife - Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Thanks to him, the concept of “9 circles of hell” entered our lexicon. It should be noted that Dante was very interested in the magic of numbers. In The Divine Comedy (1321), Dante somewhat shifted the emphasis in the moral assessment of sins. For him, the sins of the physical plane had the greatest chance of forgiveness, but the spiritual sins were the most serious.
1st circle. Limbo
This circle gathered unbaptized babies, righteous people who did not know Christian teaching. Here Dante settled poets (Homer, Ovid, etc.), heroes of Greece and Rome (Caesar, Hector, etc.), ancient doctors and scientists. There is no torment in this place, only grief over the inaccessibility of paradise.
2nd circle. Lust
All who have succumbed to the sin of debauchery and lust end up here. As punishment, these souls are hit and twisted by a hurricane, thrown against the rocks; the darkness hides this circle.
3rd circle. Gluttony
During their lifetime, gourmets and gluttons now eat insects and frogs while sitting in dirty slurry. Their shells rot, and sometimes they are gnawed by Cerberus, who oversees this circle.
4th circle. Stinginess
Here are gathered those who were the complete opposite in life. Although, both of them could not manage their funds wisely - some were afraid to spend, being stingy, others spent too much, being spendthrifts. Souls drag huge weights across the plain, collide with each other and start fights. And so on endlessly.
5th circle. Anger
In this circle, in the dirty swamp of the ancient Styx, the souls of those who succumbed to anger fight, choking on caustic water, and the souls of the sad ones lie under their feet.
6th circle. Walls of the city of Dita
In this circle the souls of false teachers and heretics are collected under the supervision of the furies. Sinners lie in open coffins made of stone. The coffins stand in a fire that makes the stone walls red hot.
7th circle. City of Dith
This circle, according to guidebook Dante, is divided into several belts, in each of which rapists are gathered, depending on the object of violence.
Phlegethon (first belt) - tyrants and robbers (who committed violence against their neighbors and their property) boil in a ditch of hot blood under the gunpoint of the centaurs Nessus, Chiron and Fol.
Forest of Suicides (second belt) – suicides (who have committed violence against themselves) are turned into crumpled, ugly bleeding trees, tormented by harpies. And between them, hound dogs hunt players and spendthrifts (violence against their property).
Burnt sands (third belt) in the ethereal desert under the bloody rain, blasphemers (for violence against deity), sodomites (for violence against nature) and covetous people (for violence against art) suffer from thirst.
8th circle. Sinopruses
In this circle there are 10 ditches in which those who deceived those who did not trust live on the hot sand under the fiery rain.
1st – under the scourges of demons, two columns of seducers and pimps walk towards each other;
2nd – flatterers are stuck in fetid feces;
3rd – the clergy, who traded in church positions, were imbedded upside down in the stone, fire flowing down their feet;
4th – mute witches, fortune-tellers, soothsayers, astrologers wander around, with their heads turned back.
5th – bribe-takers and bribe-takers are boiling in the tar, being harassed by demons with hooks;
6th – hypocrites walk in lead robes;
7th - here thieves are tormented by reptiles, mutually transforming with them;
8th – the souls of crafty advisers burn inside the lights;
9th – demons disembowel the instigators of discord;
10th - metal counterfeiters are stricken with scabies and relaxed, people's counterfeiters run furiously among them and bite everyone, counterfeiters (money counterfeiters) are exhausted from thirst despite being terribly swollen from dropsy, and word counterfeiters suffer from fever and migraine.
9th circle. Ice Lake Cocytus
The last circle contains the most terrible sinners - those who deceived those who trusted them. There are also several ice belts here:
- Cain's belt - traitors to their relatives are frozen to the waist;
- Antenor's belt - those who betrayed their homeland and traitors to like-minded people are already frozen up to their necks;
- Tolomei’s belt – those who betrayed their friends and dinner companions are pinched with ice on their backs;
- Giudecca belt - twisted, frozen heads down, betraying their benefactors.
And finally, in the very center of the ninth circle, practically in the center of the universe, Dit (Lucifer) is frozen into an ice floe, who at the same time is tormenting in three jaws his most terrible traitors - Judas, Cassius and Marcus Junius Brutus, who betrayed the greatness of heaven and earth.
The idea of being structured and divided into circles is almost as ancient as the concept of hell itself.
It is found in interpretations old testament and in mentioning something new. Different Christian denominations characterize each of the circles of hell differently.
There is no consensus about them in both Judaism and Islam. Representatives of other religions in which hell or an afterlife similar to it appears interpret it differently. Thus, their structure and underworld features vary widely.
Many may note that Christian religious teachings define the presence of everything seven circles of hell, and a similar number of celestial circles.
The concept nine circles of hell, this is a philosophical doctrine and vision of the structure of hell from the point of view of the then realities catholic church respected Dante Alighiere, poet, writer, theologian and thinker from Italy. Lived in the thirteenth century AD.
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy is rightfully considered one of the greatest literary and social creations of Mr. Dante.
It still influences the culture of the entire planet. This story, has three parts, each describing Hell, Purgatory and Heaven respectively.
Dante divided hell into nine circles, unequal in structure and design features, in which the souls of sinners were tormented according to their guilt.
1. Limbo is the first level of hell, where unresolved children, as well as people who lived virtuously but were not Christians, ended up. Their destiny is to experience sorrow right up to eternal judgment.
2. The second circle of hell is reserved for lovers of adultery and passionate love. They have to suffer from the storm.
3. For lovers of gluttony, gourmets and all sorts of gluttons, in the third circle torture is prepared by decomposition and rotting, under torrential rains and an unbearably scorching sun.
4. Circle number four includes greedy people, spendthrifts and misers. Their punishment is very original, they always argue again and again, colliding with each other.
5. People who are always given over to despondency can end up in the fifth circle of hell. And also those who cannot control their anger. Their punishment is an endless fight in the endless swamp.
6. False teachers and heretics, falling into the sixth circle of hell, forever remain ethereal ghosts in hot graves, mocked by the furies.
7. It is interesting that the seventh circle of hell has three zones:
– First belt, prepared for tyrants, robbers and robbers. They are forced to boil in boiling blood in a deep ditch. Those who emerge also receive an arrow from the centaurs.
– Second belt, meets fans of gambling, and squandering fortunes, as well as suicides. They are punished differently. The former are constantly tortured by hound dogs. While the latter are played to shreds by the Harpies.
– Blasphemers who committed violence against the divine, whether it be a physical image or spiritual desecration, as well as sodomites. They have to hang around under the fiery rain in the middle of an absolutely barren desert.
8. The eighth circle of hell is reserved for deceivers. It consists of as many as ten ditches with different torments for different types of deceivers. And each of them is original in its own way.
9. The last circle of the inferno is interesting for its climate; it is icy and consists of four zones. Traitors come here from among those who betrayed loved ones, relatives or friends.
In particular, it is there that Cassius, Judas and Brutus languish. Every sinner there is frozen up to his neck in ice and suffers precisely from the cold.
Conclusion
Analyze "The Divine Comedy" It can take a very long time, but it’s better to do it by reading it yourself. Let us simply note here that this literary work and divisions of hell are not recognized by official religions.
Although it is partly built on the analysis of ancient legends in combination with the Christianity of Catholic Italy of the era in which it was written.
Christianity highlights seven circles of hell, and their features and properties are interpreted slightly differently between faiths. As for occultists and mystics, they are divided into several groups.
The largest group consists of those who recognize the division into seven circles. Many occultists working with the traditions of other cults call different numbers of circles.
A separate group consists of those mystics who do not associate the circles of hell, as the world of demons, with any religious teaching. By at least, directly.
They usually talk about having 6 circles of hell sometimes with the addition of a seventh. Having a completely different property and essentially being not a circle, but a rational being. However, very little is known to outsiders about the views of this group...
Imagine hell to modern man not difficult, good for culture different countries created memorable pictures. We have all heard about the 9 circles of hell according to Dante, seen the breathtaking paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, and seen descriptions of hell in other works - from comics to movies.
Sometimes this information is contradictory, and a person is haunted by the question - what awaits the sinner there, in the afterlife. We can rely on different sources, for example, trust the testimonies of people who have experienced clinical death.
Hell is represented in different ways: some consider it a real place, some consider it a state of mind, and others consider it a fiction.
Ideas about hell are much older than Christianity. It is not easy to trace the origins of the belief that the soul after death can go to at least two places: where it will be rewarded for kindness, or where it will suffer for its sins.
It is difficult, and perhaps not necessary, to form a general idea of hell. It is too different in the world, in religions, in time. There are very contradictory ideas. Here are just some of them:
- Hell is a place of bodily suffering. The deceased person retains physical perception and undergoes torture for some period (possibly unlimited) by fire, cuts, diseases and other means of causing pain;
- Hell is the source of mental suffering. The soul is not corporeal, which means that only mental blows can cause it the greatest pain: something that is personally unbearable for this person. Let's say a person who suffered from gluttony will undergo tortures such as overeating or, conversely, hunger;
- Hell is not some area of the afterlife, but our own world. There is so much suffering here that the conclusion itself is that we are living in hell. Perhaps we are already suffering for a sin that we committed in reality. Or, we simply do not understand the idea of hell, and it was given to us on Earth not as punishment, but as a stage of purification for achieving spiritual maturity. Only after this will a person be allowed into the higher worlds;
- Hell, like heaven, is a region in the human mind. We do not apply there once after life or death, but constantly rush between different states. The righteous person is already in heaven, because perfection reigns in his soul. A sinner, a hypocrite, a criminal, even during his lifetime, is in an internal hell, since he is forced to put up with his imperfection.
This view is shared by the Greek Metropolitan Hierotheus Vlachos:
Hierotheus Vlahos
Metropolitan
“Heaven and hell exist not as a threat from God, but as illness and health. Those who are healthy and cleansed experience the enlightening effect of God’s grace, and the sick and sick experience the scorching effect of God.”
- Hell doesn't exist. God deliberately frightens people with posthumous punishment, but he is too kind to find souls to suffer.
In reality, there are many more ideas about hell. More often than not, hell is an intangible place, so they can only get there thin bodies: souls, consciousness, etc. But there are also supporters that hell is a real, material place that is under earth's crust. A man of flesh may well go down there if he can withstand the temperature. Here are just a few such places:
- Darvaza- gas crater in Turkmenistan. Initially, a funnel was drilled there, but the ground collapsed and let gas in. To prevent it from spreading, it was set on fire. However, for half a century the flame has not gone out.
- Osore- mountain in Japan. It corresponds to the description of hell in some Buddhist sources.
- Masaya- a volcano in Nicaragua. The Spaniards installed a huge cross on its top to prevent the army of demons from reaching the ground.
The idea of hell inside the Earth is closely related to the idea of its circles, as the famous medieval author Dante Alighieri tells us about.
The poet Dante described hell in The Divine Comedy
Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321) is one of the most famous writers in the world. Along with him, only a few are mentioned because such a contribution to literature is a rare merit. He is as significant as Homer, for example, who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Actually, before Homer there were vague ideas about works of art. Their usual purpose is to praise the gods. Homer went further - he created a multi-level work, with images, plot, poetics - something that other authors could not compete with over the next 15 centuries.
Dante Alighieri loved antiquity very much and was not afraid to challenge Homer's poems. He wrote a long poem “The Divine Comedy” (at first simply “Comedy”), which Europeans did not yet know in those days.
It is almost impossible to convey the artistic value of this work in translation, so you just have to take the word of the experts when they say that this is an outstanding work with language.
Dante became a kind of legislator and founder Italian language. His influence on subsequent literature is difficult to overestimate.
The author collected all the techniques and traditions of previous writing and drew a line under them, summarized one era of writers and gave rise to another. Subsequently, there will be an even more powerful work - “Ulysses” by James Joyce, but this is in prose. Dante was a poet.
“The Divine Comedy” is a poem imprinted with the biography and views of the author
It was the “Divine Comedy” that created the description of the nine circles of hell. And not only them. To better understand what kind of work this is, you need to take into account several facts:
- The poem describes not only the structure of hell, but also purgatory, as well as heaven. This is rarely remembered, since few people actually read The Divine Comedy. But it is so. The hero of the work reaches the center of hell, passes through purgatory and ascends to the upper level of heaven, which, by the way, is divided into 10 heavens.
- This is not theological or Christian, but simply a work of art. Dante suffered from serious internal conflict. As a believer and theologian of his era, he considered it necessary to write for the glory of Christianity. Everyone did that. But Dante himself simply adored antiquity. “The Divine Comedy” constantly rushes between two poles, because the author wants to write about Greek mythology, but “should” about Christianity. As a result, Cerberus, the Minotaur, the Titans and other Greek bestiary are woven into the picture of hell.
Among the worst sinners is Caesar's traitor Brutus. The narrator's guide is the poet Virgil. It is difficult for Dante to hide his sympathy for antiquity; it prevails over the Christian core, which is also present. So you need to treat the work not as a guide to real hell, but correctly - as an artistic fiction. Then everything is fine.
- The poem is heavily influenced by Dante's biography.. Some authors distance themselves as much as possible from their works, while others write about themselves. Dante was one of the latter. His hell is filled with references to real places on earth where the poet has been. Among the martyrs, his acquaintances are often noted - some were still living at the time of composition.
A special place in the plot is occupied by Beatrice Portinari, Dante’s beloved, with whom he never decided to start a relationship until her sudden death. The girl is present in most of Dante's works, where he fantasizes about his love coming true with her. Dante himself married for convenience and never had such lofty feelings for his wife.
The Divine Comedy describes 9 circles of hell where sinners live - from righteous pagans to traitors
The poem begins with the meeting of Dante and Virgil in the forest. In every landscape object or character one can see a multitude of symbols, but we will not dwell on this.
First, Dante demonstrates at the entrance to hell the souls that did not go to hell and heaven because they did not do good or evil.
1 lap. It's called Limbo. This is the sweetest place in hell. There is no pain here, only sorrow. Dante placed his favorites here - ancient philosophers and poets who were virtuous, but were not baptized. Unbaptized babies also live here.
2nd circle Here, on the second circle, strong winds and storms are raging. They punish harlots, fornicators, people who succumbed to passion.
3 circle. Gluttons and gluttons. They rot forever under the scorching sun, suffering from their own fattened flesh. A three-headed dog, Cerberus, is running nearby. He willingly devours potbellied sinners.
4 circle. Spendthrifts and stingy people - victims of opposing worldviews - are forced to argue with each other forever.
5 lap. Lazy people always get stuck in a swamp from which they lack the will to get out. Here there are angry sinners nearby - there are only enough of them to endlessly fight in the quagmire. You can go through the fifth circle on the only boat.
The 5th circle of hell, according to Dante, is a swamp where lazy people and aggressors trample
6 circle. The city of Deet begins. It takes several circles inside. For now, only its walls are visible. Here false teachers and heretics are no longer as dangerous as they were in life. They are invisible - just ghosts that lie in burning graves.
7 circle. It is described in great detail, as it includes several zones where different sinners live. But they are all connected by one sin - violence:
- over others;
- over oneself and property;
- above divinity, nature and art.
There is a suicide forest on this circle. They will now have to endure suffering forever. There is a river of blood where robbers and tyrants are forced to hide from the arrows of centaurs. And at the very edge there is a boiling stream, where vandals, blasphemers and sodomites languish in the heat.
8 circle. We have passed 7 circles of hell. The city of Deet is over. Then we go down ten ditches, like steps. In the center of these ditches is the end of hell. But it’s still the eighth round. Deceivers of all stripes are kept here: flatterers, hypocrites, deceivers, counterfeiters, etc. Punishments too big variety: someone is boiling in tar, someone is being gutted, a third is suffering from leprosy, another is being lashed by demons, etc.
9 circle. The very center. It's cold here. This is the surface of Lake Cocytus. The most terrible sin according to Dante is betrayal. There are four categories of traitors:
- who betrayed their relatives;
- who betrayed their homeland or common idea;
- who betrayed friends;
- who betrayed their benefactors.
They were all frozen up to their necks. And in the very center are two of the most famous traitors in Christianity - Lucifer, who, according to legend, betrayed God, and Judas. The devil holds the former apostle in his hand and endlessly eats him.
Next, Virgil leads Dante through purgatory, and then says that, as a pagan, he cannot enter heaven. Here the narrator is met by Beatrice, who died many years ago. After death, both souls unite and move on to heaven.
There are no circles of hell according to the Bible - there is not a word about them in Scripture
How many circles of hell are there, according to the Bible? No one. Holy Bible, in principle, is aimed not at satisfying a person’s curiosity on all issues, but at giving him spiritual guidance. The description of hell in the Book of Books is rather sparse, because the emphasis is not on it. To put it very bluntly, the Bible is a teaching about how not to go to hell, and not a tour of it.
Orthodoxy, like Christianity in general, has no general idea about what hell is like.
For example, from Greek hell is a place devoid of light.
In general, there are several words in the Bible that are often used as synonyms for hell.
Hades- kingdom of the dead in Greek. In Hebrew - Sheol. This is a dark dungeon for the souls of sinners. But at the same time it is the Roman name of the god Hades. And in this meaning it often denotes the kingdom of the dead in general.
Hades is mentioned in the book of Revelation:
(Rev. 20:14)
"Both death and hell were cast into the lake of fire"
From this it is easy to conclude that hades is a place where it may be dark, but certainly not hot.
Tartarus- also a word of Greek origin. Initially - a dark place where Greek gods kept their enemies. In the Sindal translation it means “hellish darkness”.
“For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but, having bound them in the chains of hellish darkness, he handed them over to be judged for punishment.”
That is, this is also a kind of dungeon.
Gehenna- the name comes from the area where pagans burned children. Fiery Gehenna must replace hell.
“Snakes, brood of vipers! How will you escape from condemnation to Gehenna?”
Underworld- translation of the word “sheol” (hades). Synonym for hell.
According to the Bible, hell is dark, but not hot
So the Bible does not give a description of hell and its circles. But we have reason to say that there is hardly a fire burning in hell. Most likely, it's just dark there. The flame is in the description of fiery Gehenna, where the souls of sinners must go after the Last Judgment.
As for Dante's legacy, it should be treated correctly - as work of art. Literature should not be assigned preaching functions. It never ended well. For such purposes there is Holy Scripture. It will tell you about the main thing.
The theme of the circles of hell was already developed by artists, composers, and directors of the 20th century. Many video game fans know that there is a game called Dante: Inferno. And in 2010, a fantasy cartoon based on the book by D. Alighieri was even published.
9 circles of hell: Dante's Divine Comedy
The famous singer and probably the first science fiction writer, Dante, depicted the 9 circles of hell in The Divine Comedy as a huge funnel. The more serious the sin more people suffered from a sinful person, the deeper into the funnel of the earthly underworld will be lowered by King Minos, who meets the deceased on the 2nd circle. The poet Dante described the 9 circles of hell as a place where on each “floor” the souls of the dead serve hard labor. The poem was written in the dark ages, when the human mind was shackled by the fear of purgatory.
Dante worked on the poem for a long time - from 1307 to 1321. That is, the poem has been glorifying the name of this man for more than 700 years. For literature, this is an excellent example of medieval poetry. The entire poem is written in terzas, with a stylistic charm unprecedented for those times.
The poet describes all these circles of hell as very dark and cruel, as only a person who lived in the era of Catholic despotism could imagine. For a general idea, we will describe all 9 circles, as they are depicted in the original source - the poem “The Divine Comedy”.
Description of the first 5 circles of hell
In limbo (1st circle), Dante “settled” poets and scientists of antiquity who were not baptized. So, in essence, their souls belong neither to the lower world nor to the higher one. In this place, the human soul experiences sorrow, but there is no bodily torment, writes Dante.
On the 2nd circle, souls are already tormented. They are tormented by gusts of wind. Just as on earth they were restless and sought joy in voluptuousness, and not in the spiritual world, so here they will forever be tormented by an unprecedented storm.
The next circle is the afterlife haven of gluttons and gourmets. They are doomed to rot under the constant and nasty rain. Next comes greed. This sin is punished by the fact that the soul of the miser is obliged to drag weights on his back forever and fight with other souls who drag the same bales towards him.
The last circle of less serious sins associated with incontinence and craving for material things is a circle for the souls of angry, lazy or despondent people.
Circles of hell for the most terrible torments
The most terrible sins, according to the writer, are violence, deception, extravagance, hypocrisy and betrayal. Circle 6 is for false teachers who have directed human minds to lies for their own benefit. In all the “open spaces” of the 7th tier, rapists are tormented. And the 8th and 9th circles are for the most “refined” hypocrites, heretics, pimps and seducers. As well as trading priests and alchemists. It is these sins that Dante condemns, and for such souls eternal hard labor in the 9th circle is most terrible.
On the very last circle, in the center, is fallen Angel, frozen into a lake with the ancient name Cocytus. Such people are doomed to be tortured in his teeth historical figures, like Judas, as well as those who betrayed Caesar, Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius.
Dante Alighieri describes the 9 circles of hell as truly terrifying and unusual.
Who inspired Dante?
Like every writer, Dante had his own muse. A girl named Bice (the genius himself later gave her the name Beatrice) inspired the talented young man with just her existence. He was so selflessly and for a long time devoted with all his thoughts to only one lady of his heart that his greatest work, like his other poetry, was written in her honor.
Many masters of the brush depicted this girl with the poet. The artist Holiday Henry painted the painting “Dante and Beatrice” (year of painting - 1883).
The exact date of birth of Dante Alighieri is unknown. However, there is information that on May 26, 1265, he was baptized in Florence under the name Durante.
Dante is an Italian poet, one of the founders of the literary Italian language. In his work, the poet repeatedly touched upon issues of morality and faith in God.
In “The Divine Comedy” we are talking about the mortal essence of man, as well as the afterlife. Dante subtly and skillfully describes hell, where eternally condemned sinners go, purgatory, where they atone for their sins, and heaven, the abode of the blessed.
9 circles of hell in The Divine Comedy
According to Dante Alighieri, just before entering hell you can meet people who have led a boring life - they have done neither evil nor good.
1 lap The first circle of hell is called Limbo. Its guardian is Charon, who transports the souls of the dead across the River Styx. In the first circle of hell, infants who have not been baptized and virtuous non-Christians suffer torment. They are doomed to suffer eternally in silent sorrow.
2 round The second circle of hell is guarded by Minos, the intractable judge of the damned. Passionate lovers and adulterers in this circle of hell are punished by being torn and tormented by a storm.
3 circle Cerberus is the guardian of the third circle, in which gluttons, gluttons and gourmets live. All of them are punished by rotting and decay under the scorching sun and pouring rain.
4 circle Plutos rules in the fourth circle, which includes misers, greedy people and wasteful individuals who are unable to make reasonable expenses. Their punishment is an eternal dispute when they collide with each other.
5 circle The fifth circle represents a gloomy and gloomy place, guarded by the son of the god of war Ares - Phlegius. To get to the fifth circle of hell, you need to be very angry, lazy or sad. Then the punishment will be an eternal fight in the Styx swamp.
6 circle The sixth circle is the Walls of the city of Dita, guarded by furies - grumpy, cruel and very evil women. They mock heretics and false teachers, whose punishment is eternal existence in the form of ghosts in hot graves.
7 circle The seventh circle of hell, guarded by the Minotaur, is for those who have committed violence.
The circle is divided into three zones:
The first belt is called Flageton. Those who commit violence against their neighbor, against his material assets and heritage. These are tyrants, robbers and robbers. They all boil in a ditch of hot blood, and those who emerge are shot at by centaurs.
Second belt - Forest of Suicides. It contains suicides, as well as those who senselessly squandered their wealth - gamblers and spendthrifts. Spenders are tortured by hound dogs, and unfortunate suicides are torn to shreds by Harpies.
The third belt is Burnt Sands. Here reside blasphemers who have committed violence against deities and sodomites. The punishment is staying in an absolutely barren desert, the sky of which drips fiery rain on the heads of the unfortunate.
8 circle The eighth circle of hell consists of ten ditches. The circle itself is called Evil Cracks, or Evil Sinuses. The guard is Geryon - a giant with six arms, six legs and wings. In the Evil Crevices, deceivers suffer their difficult fate.
The first ditch is filled with seducers and pimps. All of them walk in two columns towards each other, while they are constantly tormented by demon drivers.
In the second, flatterers languish. Their punishment is fetid excrement, in which lovers of flattery are mired forever.
The third ditch is occupied by high-ranking clergy who traded positions in the church. The punishment for them is the imprisonment of their torso in a rock, with their heads down and hot lava flowing down their feet.
The fourth moat is filled to the brim with astrologers, witches, fortune tellers and soothsayers. Their heads are turned half a turn (towards the back).
In the fifth there are bribe takers, whom demons boil in resin, and those who stick out are pierced with hooks.
The sixth ditch is filled with hypocrites clad in lead robes.
In the seventh there are thieves, with which earthly reptiles copulate: spiders, snakes, frogs, and so on.
Cunning advisers fall into the eighth ditch, whose souls burn in hellfire.
The ninth ditch serves as a refuge for the instigators of discord. They are subjected to eternal torture - disembowelment.
False witnesses and counterfeiters fall into the tenth ditch. False witnesses run around in rage and bite everyone they meet. Counterfeiters are disfigured by dropsy and die from constant thirst.
9 circle
The ninth circle of hell is the Ice Lake Cocytus. This circle is guarded by stern giant guards named Ephialtes, the son of Gaia and Poseidon - Antaeus, half-bull, half-snake - Briareus and Lucifer - guardian of the road to purgatory. This circle has four belts - the Belt of Cain, the Belt of Antenor, the Belt of Tolomei, the Belt of Giudecca.
In this circle Judas, Brutus and Cassius languish. Besides them, traitors of their homeland, relatives, loved ones, and friends are also doomed to fall into this circle. All of them are frozen in ice up to their necks and experience eternal torment in the cold.
Charon- in Greek mythology, the carrier of the souls of the dead across the River Styx (Acheron). Son of Erebus and Nyukta.
Minos- Dante has a demon with a snake’s tail, entwining the newly arrived soul and indicating the circle of hell into which the soul will descend.
Cerberus- in Greek mythology, the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, a three-headed dog with a poisonous mixture flowing from its mouth. Guards the exit from the kingdom of the dead Hades, not allowing the dead to return to the world of the living. The creature was defeated by Hercules in one of his labors.
Plutos- an animal-like demon guarding access to the fourth circle of Hell, where misers and spendthrifts are executed.
Phlegy- V ancient greek mythology son of Ares - the god of war - and Chryse. Phlegias burned the temple of the god Apollo and, as punishment for this, was killed by his arrows. In the underworld, he was condemned to eternal execution - to sit under a rock, ready to collapse every minute.
Dit- the city of Hades, the god of the underworld.
Minotaur- a monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull, which originated from the unnatural love of Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos, for the one sent by Poseidon.
Geryon- in ancient Greek mythology, a giant from the island of Erithia, who had six arms, six legs and wings, and a body consisting of three human bodies. He held three spears in three right hands and three shields in three left hands, and three helmets on their heads.
Ephialtes- the son of Poseidon and Ifimedea, had superhuman strength and a violent temper.
Gaia- the ancient Greek goddess of the earth, the mother of everything that lives and grows on it, as well as the mother of the Sky, Sea, titans and giants.
Poseidon- in ancient Greek mythology, the god of the seas, one of the three main Olympian gods along with Zeus and Hades.
Briareus- in Greek mythology, the son of the sky god Uranus and the earth goddess Gaia. A monstrous creature with 50 heads and a hundred arms.
Lucifer- a fallen angel identified with the Devil.
Brutus Marcus Junius- V Ancient Rome led (together with Cassius) a conspiracy in 44 BC. e. against Julius Caesar. According to legend, he was one of the first to stab him with a dagger.
Cassius Gaius Longinus- killer of Julius Caesar, organized an attempt on his life.
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