Abandoning All Hope | Heaven and Hell

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Captions
Whether you’re religious or not, and regardless of what religion you happen to be, thanks to pop culture, we all have a mental image of what heaven and hell physically look like. Like that heaven is in the clouds and has pearly gates. But when I ask you to imagine hell, you won’t be drawing on anything from the bible. Aside from a few descriptions of fire and gnashing teeth, there isn’t much to work with. Instead, what you’ll inevitably describe comes from Dante’s Inferno. Christian fan fiction from 700 years ago that was so important it has completely shaped our pop culture myths about hell to this day. This video is brought to you by Skillshare. Dante Alighieri was a poet from Florence, which was part of Italy, Italy didn’t exist yet, it was still just a bunch of independent city-states. Great, we’re already off track, good start. He was already a pretty well-known poet, but in 1300 he started writing the Divine Comedy, which is actually three books in one, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, and would take him another 20 years to complete. A record I’m sure will soon be broken. Almost all poets at the time wrote exclusively in Latin, keeping literature behind an upper class education barrier. But Dante broke this mold by releasing the Divine Comedy in Italian. The fact that it was written in Italian rather than Latin, opened literature up to the commoner in a way that wouldn’t be topped until the printing press a century later. Dante didn’t write this in order to describe his adventures in heaven, hell, and purgatory. It was a piece of political commentary which was especially negative towards the Catholic Church. But Dante wasn’t stupid, he didn’t want to be excommunicated or burned at the stake. So he wove that criticism into a piece of fiction where he says things about politics without actually saying it, and published it in Italian so the common person could read it. Over the decades and centuries, that satirical element faded away. To the point that many of the things Dante wrote regarding heaven and hell, as a work of fiction, became Christian doctrine. Dante drew from St. Thomas Aquinas, and then the church drew from Dante. Imagine if years after a book was released, someone wrote some fan fiction based on it, that then grew to become just as important… why am I turning shades of gray? Or imagine if years later, someone were to tweet that they used to make poop disappear with magic… and now that’s canon. That’s what happened with many of the things Dante flat out made up in the Divine Comedy, it became canon – especially from the first book, Inferno. Inferno starts with Dante being lost in the woods, where he gets found by Virgil a classical Roman poet who was sent to guide him through hell. Yes, the city superintendent from ODST and all the audio logs are loosely based on Inferno – but that’s just a theory, a ga- Dante is a huge fan of Virgil, which, I mean if I was going to write about my adventures through the Youtube Rings of Demonetization, I’d probably pick an old sage to accompany me too. So Dante fangirls for a bit and is then treated to a personal guided tour. As they enter the gates of hell, they see the now infamous inscription “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Yes, in this case it really is pronounced yee, not thee – it’s complicated. Then they come upon the first circle, which isn’t really the first circle… again, it’s complicated. Complication is going to be a theme. If I were to ask you how many circles there are in hell, I’m going to get a wide range of answers. Officially, there are nine. But the first one, known as the Vestibule of Hell or Circle Zero, brings the total number to ten. So most Dante scholars describe it as nine plus one. It’s similar to the answer to how many states there are: fifty… and DC. For all intents and purposes, it’s a state, it even has electoral votes. Making it 50 plus one. So, there are nine plus one circles in hell, though in truth it gets even more complicated when you realize that several of the circles have multiple circles within them, making it more like 24, but whatever, nine plus one. This zeroth circle is for the Uncommitted. People who didn’t pick a side in life, cowards and outcasts… and angels who didn’t pick a side during Lucifer’s Rebellion of Angels. Which is a whole thing we’ll get into some other time. These people are left unclassified, neither good nor evil; they’re not in hell, but they’re not not in hell. Though they’re technically inside the gate so… Their punishment is to forever chase after an elusive banner, symbolic of what they didn’t do in life, all the while being stung by wasps and hornets. Sure sounds like hell to me, I’ll run into traffic to get away from a wasp if I have to. Then they come upon the River Acheron, the first of the five rivers from the Greek Underworld. Which is another common theme, Dante mixes Christian theology with Greek and Roman mythology constantly. Christians kind of have a habit of incorporating previously pagan beliefs into their own, it’s the reason Christmas is in December and Easter involves bunnies and eggs. They’re ferried across the river by Charon, another figure from Greek mythology. And they reach the first official circle, Limbo, for the guiltless damned and the virtuous non-Christians, people who were never baptized or died before the time of Christ. A lot of pop culture mixes this up with Purgatory, but no, that’s a separate place. There is no punishment here, this is just a holding area for good people who didn’t or couldn’t choose Christ. And this is where Virgil lives since he died 20 years too early. Dante also meets a few of his other favorites here, like Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato. Virgil tells Dante about the Harrowing of Hell, the one and only time anyone was taken from Limbo, when Jesus died and came to hell to save a select few. Including Adam, Noah, Moses, and Abraham – all the biblical greats. Everyone else was left to just sulk over their non-choice, which is actually kinda sad when you think about it… The second circle of hell is where the fun begins. First, you’re greeted by Minos, who wraps his tail around you to judge your sins, the number of times his tail circles around you is what circle you’re damned to for eternity. Makes sense that he’s here instead of at circle zero because how would-? Yeah. People are sentenced to the second circle for sexual lust, specifically consensual mutual indulgence, not rape – that’s violence and they go somewhere else. So this is for people like Helen of Troy and Paris, who started the mythical Trojan war. Their punishment is to be forever blown over by hurricane force winds, symbolic of how they let their sexual desire hold sway over them in life. No, they can’t just lay down, they’re tortured if they do, they have to stand up and be blown over forever. Dante also meets his first Florentine political figure here; he does this several times and we won’t talk about all of them. But it does turn hell into a real place for his readers. Then they come to the third circle of hell, which is guarded by Cerberus. You know, the three headed dog that guards the Underworld for Hades… you know, from Greek mythology. This circle is for the gluttonous, people who gave into their desire for food or drink, or even drugs – all addictions really. They’re constantly bombarded with an icy rain… or sleet? I don’t actually know what sleet is. Anyway, this turns into an icy muddy slush and the people are so ravenous to feed their addiction that they eat it by the handful. The fourth circle is for people whose attitude towards wealth was well outside the norm. Both hoarders and squanderers, which he calls spendthrifts, which is a word we should definitely bring back. These two groups push giant boulders back and forth while yelling at each other – why do you hoard? And why do you waste? They’re so busy with their punishment they don’t stop to talk to Dante, which is good because we need to hurry this along. The fifth circle is the River Styx. Probably the only river from the Greek Underworld you’re aware of. Every time you see this depiction, it’s the fifth circle of hell, reserved for the wrathful. They just fight each other in the river forever, it’s not that exciting. The Styx serves as a moat around the walls of Dis… Dis is the City of Hell… and dis is a ferret, dis is two ferrets. The walls of Dis are guarded by fallen angels, those who chose Lucifer’s side during the rebellion against God. Dante also encounters Medusa here, because… why not? Everything within the walls of Dis is known as Lower Hell and contains all the crimes of malice, including violence and fraud. Heretics are put in the sixth circle of hell. You see, agnostics are out there in the zeroth circle with the uncommitted, but atheists? They’re here in flaming tombs. Anyone who doubts or denies church doctrine ends up here. He talks to a few more people he knows and discovers that in this circle, they can see the distant future back on Earth, but not the present. So at the end of time, they won’t be able to see anything at all. The seventh circle is for violence and contains within it three separate rings for different types of violence. It also happens to be guarded by a minotaur. The first ring is the River Phlegethon, which is apparently made of boiling blood. People are put here for violence against others and are submerged depending on how much of that they caused. Alexander the Great and Atilla the Hun are completely underwater, or under blood I guess. Dante allows for different degrees of punishment based on the offense, warmongers are completely submerged while people guilty of manslaughter or punching a kid on the playground are not… Kevin… with that smug smile. You know what you did. They’re just up to their shins or ankles in boiling blood forever. They’re guarded by centaurs who punish anyone who attempts to rise out of the blood more than what their guilt will allow. This is also the first time anyone notices that Dante is the only one affected by gravity, he leaves footprints whereas everyone else is apparently weightless. The second ring is the Wood of the Suicides. People guilty of violence against themselves are forever turned into trees and feasted on by harpies. Since they took their bodies for granted in life, they are deprived of human form for eternity. Dante puts a rather interesting Florentine politician here: someone who killed himself after he was convicted of a crime that would have put him in a much worst circle, implying that Dante doesn’t really think he was actually guilty. Imagine if he put OJ in the thieves’ circle rather than the murderers’ circle, what message would that be sending? People who wasted their lives rather than their bodies, run through the suicide forest being chased by vicious female hellhounds. I wish for health, happiness, and hella bitches. That’s fitting. You don’t have to censor it if you’re actually talking about dogs! The third ring of the seventh circle is just a desert plain that rains fire, and there are three different groups of people who are punished here for unnatural and sterile actions. Violence against God, against Nature, and against Art. Blasphemers just lay on the burning sand, forever singed by the raining fire. They’re different from heretics who just doubt or deny, these people actively spoke out against God. Sodomites run in circles under the burning rain forever… like that one music festival in the desert. Yes, Dante includes that one group you’re thinking of here. Money lenders and loan sharks are simply huddled and weeping in the middle of the burning plain. Dante was a big fan of the Crusades. So he was offended by anyone charging interest to those who went to the Holy Land to defend the Faith. Which Dante considers to be a form of art, in its own way. They hitch a ride on a giant wyvern-scorpion hybrid to the eighth circle which is… just a mess. This is the circle of Fraud and there are ten circles, or bolgia, within it. The panderers and seducers play tug of war across a giant ravine. Mind the gap. The flatterers, who abused language to play on fears and desires are submerged up to their necks in excrement. As they spewed it in life, they are now up to their necks in literal bulls**t. I mean that’s gotta be the most fitting punishment right there. People who sold ecclesiastical favors, holy relics, and indulgences are buried upside down with their feet set on fire. There are several popes here, and remember, this is 200 years before Martin Luther. The sorcerers, magicians, fortune tellers, and astrologers are a bunch of bad bunnies who had their spines broken and their heads put on backwards. They’re forced to walk in circles, unable to see what’s in front of them for all eternity. Corrupt politicians are next, anyone who made money by granting political favors, and as you might have guessed, Dante puts a lot of his contemporaries here. But the best part of this circle are the guards, the Malebranche. They serve as a weird comedic relief, with names like scumbag, dogbreath, and snotnose, and when they set out to march, their trumpet was a literal fart. The sixth bolgia of the eighth circle belongs to the hypocrites. They walk around wearing a robe that looks pretty nice from the outside but on the inside, is actually extremely heavy and weighted down. Again, Dante recognizes more friars and priests here. This shows that Dante was already well aware of the abuses of the church and disgusted by the idea of buying your way into heaven or purgatory well before Protestant Reformation. In fact, it’s entirely possible that through this political satire, Dante inspired Martin Luther. Thieves are chased around by snakes and large lizards that occasionally bite them and cause them to turn into inanimate objects or burst into flame. As they stole in life, their identities are repeatedly stolen here. The next bolgia is for people who counselled others to do fraud rather than doing it themselves and they’re encased in a pillar of fire. Ulysses is here for that Trojan Horse idea. This next one is kind of brutal, sowers of discord are torn apart by demons, forced to drag their bodies around the circle as they slowly heal, and then the process is repeated all over again, for all eternity. People responsible for family breakups, civil strife, and religious schism. I’m going to pull an OSP here and not tell you the most prominent figure that Dante recognizes… or the fact that his son is also here for causing a schism in that religion, the affects of which we’re still seeing in the Middle East today. The Catholic Church was basically the only game in town at the time, but I’m sure Dante would have put Martin Luther in there too. The final group in the eighth circle are the falsifiers: the alchemists, counterfeiters, imposters, even those guilty of perjury. As they were a disease on society, they are now diseased… with all of them, all the diseases. The Ninth and final circle of hell is the frozen River Cocytus, guarded by giants embedded in the ice up to their waist – including Nimrod, who built the Tower of Babel. He talks a bunch of nonsense and no one can understand him. Traitors to their family are frozen up to their neck, traitors to their country are frozen up to their head, and traitors to their guests lay on top of the ice, all while enduring a freezing wind… the north remembers. It’s here that Dante meets someone who is still alive on Earth, apparently, when you commit treachery, your soul goes to hell immediately while your body remains alive on Earth, possessed by an imp. This was back when they still thought disease was caused by evil spirits, so… Dante and Virgil pass by the traitors to their lords, who are completely frozen in various contorted positions, and finally arrive at the center of hell. The traitors to God. Lucifer is frozen up to his waist and he still has his wings, six of them in fact, though rather than angelic, they’re more bat-like. Most modern pop-culture depicts him without his wings. He also has three faces, each a different color, symbolic of the three races of man. Yellow for Asian, black for African, and red for… European. In each mouth, he is chowing down on a different traitor, Judas, of forty pieces of silver fame, Brutus, of et tu brute? fame, and Cassius of… apparently he was part of the Caesar thing too. These are the three worst people in history according to Dante, well, four if you include Lucifer. Which leaves me with a lot of questions, what was Lucifer doing before Julius Caesar? Did he always have three faces? Has he grown more faces since then? What color are they? To continue on with the tour, Dante and Virgil climb down Lucifer’s legs, and then about halfway down, they have to reverse direction and start climbing up… towards his toes. Because that’s how gravity works! This is the world according to Dante, there are only three continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa, everything else is just open ocean. Yes, they knew the world was round. But, they didn’t orient the world like this, with north on top, they typically used east. I’m serious, here are two different maps, note the Earthly Paradise on top. So Dante gets lost in the woods somewhere in Italy and ends up underground in the various circles of hell, with Lucifer in the middle. When God cast him down after the Rebellion of the Angels, he crashed into Earth and became the center. All of the land displaced by his fall pushed out the other end of the Earth and became Mount Purgatory, a protuberance on the other side of the world with the Earthly Paradise, better known as the Garden of Eden, on top. This is what Columbus poetically wrote that he was sailing towards that one time… this is where that pear-shaped thing comes from, Dante, not Columbus. Anyway, Dante and Virgil travel up the River Lethe and reach… Purgatory is never mentioned in the bible and didn’t even exist as a concept until about the year 1100. The idea of prayer for the dead and indulgences rose out of the invention of Purgatory. You see, the Church oversaw the storehouse of righteousness, and for a small clerical fee, could help you transfer that to a soul stuck in Purgatory. Which then led to the Protestant Reformation, even Martin Luther was against the idea of religious microtransactions. Today, the Catholic Church is a little iffy as to whether Purgatory is an actual place or just a state of mind. But for several centuries, they accepted Dante’s version. Which looks like a mountain in the middle of the ocean, rather than the white nothingness which you see in popular media. This isn’t bad… it’s not that good, but it’s not that bad. It’s so-so. Where the hell am I? You’re dead, Cody. I’m sorry. This depiction is sometimes referred to as the “afterlife antechamber” and appears in a lot of movies and tv shows with religious undertones. We know that Purgatory is in the Eastern hemisphere rather than the South pole because here, the sun travels directly overhead. If that ever happens at the South pole, something has gone terribly wrong. Because of that, Dante notices that he casts a shadow, while everybody else does not. There’s also a strange rule in Purgatory that you can only make your way up the mountain in sunlight, the sun being symbolic of God’s divine grace. Purgatory is where souls go to be purged of the vices and inclinations that cause sin. Hell is more for actions rather than thoughts, but thoughts can still be sinful, so Purgatory is like a temporary Hell, or Heaven’s waiting room. Depending on whether you’re a glass half full or half empty type of person. Purgatory has seven terraces corresponding to each of the Seven Deadly Sins, with the summit being the Earthly Paradise and the bottom level being somewhat of a holding area. So nine levels total, Dante has a thing for the number nine. The first area is known as Ante-Purgatory and it’s where late-repentants and excommunicates sit around and wait to get into Purgatory proper. Late-repentants have to wait a lifetime, whereas excommunicates have to wait thirty lifetimes. Though their sentences can be reduced through prayers and offerings from the living – so light a candle and get your wallet out. Late-repentants are people who, for one reason or another, weren’t able to repent before they died or weren’t read their last rites. Excommunicates on the other hand are a bit tricky. In the Catholic church, excommunication can vary from just a finger wag to we’ve decided that you’re not going to Heaven… and we’ve told God about our decision. Dante putting excommunicates here rather than Hell might be in preparation for what he thinks is coming his way. Dante arrives at the gate to Purgatory and has 7 P’s carved into his forehead, symbolizing the seven sins he must cleanse himself of during his trek up the mountain. Peccatum is the latin word for sin. The first terrace is where people purge themselves of pride, they have to carry large stones around while looking at statues of people being humble, all while reciting a prayer. Each terrace has their own incantations and we’re not going to talk about all of them. Like in Hell, he talks to a bunch of people who want updates on real life and even ask him to deliver messages when he gets back home. The Angel of Humility comes along and removes one of the Ps from his forehead so that he can continue up the mountain. The second terrace is for envy, people walk around in boring grayish cloaks and have their eyes sewn shut so they can’t covet. They have nothing and they learn to want nothing. This terrace is watched over by the Angel of Charity, presumably so nobody stumbles off the edge, who then removes a P from Dante’s forehead. Every level, an angel removes a P so he can move on, I hope that’s established now. Wrath is purged on the third terrace by having everyone walk through a blinding smoke, symbolic of how they let rage blind them in life. The Angel of Peace comes along and removes a- The fourth terrace is for sloth, the people here are so busy running that nobody stops to talk to Dante, because ain’t nobody got time for that. I don’t know how they’re able to go all day, I can only make it like twenty or thirty minutes. It’s by far the shortest terrace of the book, which is fitting, the Angel of Zeal does their thing and Dante moves on. Are you catching on yet? I’ve got things to do, let’s go! Avarice or greed is cleansed in the next terrace with everyone laying on the ground with their backs to the sky, symbolic of how they turned their backs on God in life. There’s another pope here, along with a poet who tells Virgil what a big fan he is. There’s an earthquake while they’re on this terrace, which lets everybody know that a soul has successfully purged themselves of sin and is ready for heaven. This terrace is protected by the Angel of Moderation, which sounds like the most boring angel to be. The sixth terrace is designed to cleanse gluttony, but to me, just sounds like another circle of hell. People walk around starving with delicious fruit just out of reach. Dante notices that the shades are starving and asks Virgil how it’s even possible for shades to be starving… which is an interesting philosophical question. That Virgil doesn’t have an answer for. The Angel of Temperance is likewise stumped and urges them on to the next terrace which is for lust. Again, Purgatory is for lustful thoughts, not actions, acting on lust will send you to the second circle of Hell. People purge themselves of their burning sexual desires by running back and forth through a wall of fire while being watched over by the Angel of Chastity which… I take back what I said, that sounds like the most boring angel to be. And finally, they reach the summit, the Earthly Paradise or the Garden of Eden, they see a bunch of allegorical representations of things from the bible, but whatever, that’s not important. What is important is that Virgil can’t go any further, aww. Being condemned to Limbo for all eternity, he lacks the divine grace to accompany Dante to Heaven, so instead, Beatrice shows up. Who’s Beatrice? Hah, you don’t know? She’s just some girl that Dante creeped on a few decades before he wrote this, she’s not an angel, she’s not his wife. Just some girl married to a banker across the street. It’s somewhat less romantic when you find that out, but anyway, with his new companion, this painfully slow escort quest continues towards… The first thing to understand about Dante’s Heaven is that he actually makes it pretty realistic. Rather than being some other dimension in the clouds, it’s rooted in science… Well, the accepted science at the time. They travel through nine different spheres, which could be interpreted as shells around the Earth, or more commonly, the planets. Though, not the planets as you know them, this is the year 1300 after all. The first three spheres are referred to as “lesser heaven” and are for people who are deficient in certain righteous qualities. The Moon is first and belongs to the Inconstant. People who, for one reason or another, wavered in their vows to God, or in some cases, abandoned them completely. The Moon waxes and wanes just as their faith waxed and waned in life. These people were deficient in fortitude, but not enough that they don’t get to be in Heaven. It’s still pretty awesome, it’s just not as awesome. The second sphere is Mercury, for the ambitious, people deficient in justice, who did good deeds out of a desire for fame rather than altruism. Just as their glory pales next to God, Mercury pales in the light of the Sun. Venus is for the lovers, for people who enjoyed sex just a little too much. They lack discipline… and temperance. I don’t know where the line is between heaven lust, purgatory lust, and hell lust… is there an acceptable decibel level? A question for the philosophers I suppose. It’s also for people who loved anything else more than God, like their country… or learning things on Skillshare… what, too early? Now we move on to actual Heaven, for people with positive virtues. The fourth sphere houses the exemplars of prudence, the wise, the philosophers and theologians, the scientists and mathematicians. And they reside on the Sun. Copernicus hadn’t come along yet, so people still believed in the geo-centric model, the fourth sphere out from the center isn’t Mars, it’s the Sun. Just as the Sun illuminates the Earth with light, the wise illuminate the living with knowledge. Mars is the fifth sphere and also happens to be the Roman god of war, as a result it’s home to the warriors, exemplars of fortitude. Specifically crusaders, granted special passage by the Pope. So all the Christian soldiers and martyrs live here, along with a lot of Dante’s family members. That explains why Dante was such a fan. I know I’m not saying much about what these places are like, because there just isn’t much to say, everyone just dances around or turns into a ball of light and spells things out in the sky. There’s no punishments, everyone is just happy. By the way, our modern depictions of angels in the clouds didn’t come about until the Renaissance. Painters just started putting wings on babies and then that was it. The next sphere is Jupiter, the Roman king of the gods and some would say the king of the planets. It also happens to be the home of the rulers, exemplars of justice. The seventh sphere, Saturn, is home to the contemplatives, monks and other thinky people who serve as examples of temperance. And that’s it, those were the only known planets at the time. Once they get here, Beatrice becomes so beautiful that if she were to smile, Dante’s very soul would be consumed. Apparently, the closer to God she gets, the more angelic and innocent she becomes. The eighth sphere is where things finally get interesting and Dante starts to meet some legit celebs. This is for the Church Triumphant, shining examples of faith, hope, and love. This sphere is made up of all the fixed stars which rotate around the Earth, all of the constellations and everything. This is reserved for people with beatific vision, direct communication with God. Here he comes across the Virgin Mary, who actually plays a huge role in the prayers in Purgatory and the Catholic Church in general. She is the immaculate conception, not Jesus, because she was the only person born without sin. He also meets Saint Peter, who questions him on faith and then denounces the current pope, saying that as far as he’s concerned, the Papal See stands empty. Don’t blame Dante, he’s not the one who said it. But by far the most interesting person he speaks to is Adam, the first human ever. He starts to ask him questions, but Adam has been asked them so many times that Dante doesn’t even have to say them out loud, he just runs through the FAQ. Like, why did he get kicked out of Eden? Apparently, the original sin wasn’t physically eating the apple or taking the knowledge it granted, it was trespassing a boundary created by God. How old is Adam? He was 930 when he died, he spent 4302 years in Limbo, and at that point, 1266 years in Heaven, so, 6498 years old. So according to Dante, creation was 7217 years ago in 2019. Dante also asks what language he spoke, which must have been a big deal at the time. If I only had a limited number of questions to ask the first human ever, that wouldn’t even make it in the top ten. The answer was Hebrew, but languages change and die over centuries, his version of Hebrew was dead long before the Tower of Babel, so just don’t worry about it. Adam really does say that, don’t worry about it. The ninth sphere is somewhat difficult to explain, even Dante struggles to find the words. So, here’s the Earth as Dante knew it. Dang, that is a sweet Earth you might say – Wrong. Because it’s the center of the universe instead of the Sun and has a weird protuberance coming off the side. But then we pass the lower Heavens – the Moon, Mercury, and Venus. Followed by the Sun… sigh… then Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Then we pass through the Fixed Stars, which looks kind of like a celestial globe. And here we are at the ninth sphere – the Primum Mobile, which is basically the black sphere encasing the entire universe, this is the event horizon, the border where time and space cease to exist. Once outside, we are in the proper, other-dimensional Heaven, known as the Empyrean. Things get somewhat abstract here and Dante sees a giant white rose, which is home to all the souls in Heaven. Including Eve, just in case you were worried, she’s safe. Beatrice leaves Dante to go pollinate the rose or whatever and he’s now escorted by Saint Bernard. I would make a dog joke here, but OSP beat me to it. In the Empyrean Rose, along with all the souls of heaven, Dante notices millions and millions of babies. Any unbaptized baby from before Jesus and any baptized and circumcised baby from after Jesus. Dante goes on a rant about how unfair it is that these innocent babies are given a free ticket to the highest sphere of Heaven, while virtuous pagans like Virgil sit in Limbo forever. How is that fair to all of the Indians and Ethiopians who’ve never even heard of Jesus? It’s not like these babies have earned their place! … to which St. Bernard says: Yeah, sometimes it be like that. And that’s it, there’s no further discussion! Dante goes on a rant about this rule that he just made up being unfair and then settles it with a one liner about God always being right. Dante is then enveloped in light so he can go see God. Who appears as three bright lights in one, surrounded by nine rings of angels. Each ring representing a different level of the angelic hierarchy, which again is a story for another time. But just to be clear, people don’t turn into angels, angels are their own thing. Dante then meets God and struggles to understand what it is he’s seeing or even put it into words… But you don’t have to struggle to understand what you’re looking at if you go to skl.sh/knowingbetter6. Skillshare is an online learning community with over 25,000 courses taught by contemplatives in their sphere. Take this course in creative writing so you can learn how to structure your own adventures through mythological planes of existence. Who knows, your work might even get canonized someday. Or this course in backpacking – Dante might never have gotten lost in the woods if he knew what to bring along. You can learn this, and much more for less than $10 a month. But if you head over to skl.sh/knowingbetter6, you can get 2 months of unlimited access to all of Skillshare’s courses for free, you’ll also be supporting the channel when you do. Dante does eventually figure out what it is he’s looking at and describes it as best as he can. But your mortal soul isn’t prepared to hear it. The Divine Comedy is one of the most important written works in history, so if you want to know how it ends, I guess you’ll just have to check it out for yourself. Links in the description, for those of you who are interested. This work of political satire helped sparked the Protestant Reformation by putting a spotlight on the many abuses and hypocrisies of the Catholic Church. But over time, the satirical element faded into the background and we were left with an adventure through Heaven and Hell. It’s worth noting that many Protestants don’t believe in hell as a physical place and almost none of them believe in Purgatory at all. But the people who do believe in these places are heavily influenced by Dante. Dante took Christian doctrine, mixed it with Greek and Roman mythology, and created his own world in order to criticize the Church. Which eventually became doctrine itself. So the next time somebody tells you that you’re going to hell, you’ll know exactly which circle and what to expect, because now, you know better. So what circle or sphere are you headed to? Let me know down in the comments. Would you like to add your name to this list of lost souls? Head on over to patreon.com/knowingbetter. Don’t forget to canonize that subscribe button, follow me on twitter and facebook, and join us on the subreddit.
Info
Channel: Knowing Better
Views: 329,908
Rating: 4.9200001 out of 5
Keywords: knowing better, history, literature, religion, theology, mythology, catholicism, catholic church, dante alighieri, dante's inferno, inferno, dante, purgatory, paradise, heaven, paradiso, christian, purgatorio, christianity, protestant reformation, martin luther, abandon all hope ye who enter here, angels, demons, lucifer, satan, limbo, seven deadly sins, styx, indulgences, prayer for the dead, empyrean, mount purgatory, earthly paradise, garden of eden, divine comedy, spheres of heaven, circles of hell
Id: U4LSnc1DPr8
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 30min 42sec (1842 seconds)
Published: Sun Mar 24 2019
Reddit Comments

Love the shout out to OSP. I’m a big fan of that channel as well.

👍︎︎ 25 👤︎︎ u/princess_awesomepony 📅︎︎ Mar 24 2019 🗫︎ replies

This was such a high quality video wow!!!!

That makeup looked great did KB do it himself (or does he have a girlfriend now???)

Seriously though this was an amazing video I was hooked all the way through.

👍︎︎ 18 👤︎︎ u/Natedude2002 📅︎︎ Mar 24 2019 🗫︎ replies

Did you use the Tetris song during the Purgatory section of the video?

Edit: I finished watching the video and it was confirmed in the comment section. So I guess the next time I notice something in a video and think I'm a genius, I'll know better.

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/AcuteGryphon655 📅︎︎ Mar 25 2019 🗫︎ replies

Well done, really enjoyed the video, especially as a theology enthusiast myself!

While the Divine Comedy may have had a minor influence on Martin Luther's call for reformation as you said, by far his largest influence comes from a contemporary Dutch author named Erasmus.

If you have the time and want to know how people built upon Dante's framework of Heaven and Hell, check out some of Erasmus' work as it definitely takes heavy cues from Dante. Julius Excluded from Heaven is a great one in particular that involves Pope Julius II threatening to declare war on God if he isn't let into Heaven (a reference to Julius' warmongering during his time as Pope).

What's icing on the cake was that even though Luther cited Erasmus as an influence, Erasmus went to great lengths to distance himself and even refute Luther's teaching.

Senpai didn't notice him, I guess.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/quiaudetvincet 📅︎︎ Mar 24 2019 🗫︎ replies

Nice “End of Ze World” reference.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/obiknoke 📅︎︎ Mar 25 2019 🗫︎ replies

One of your best vids yet. Also I might be overthinking it but I have a feeling that you might’ve made a longer video. I love watching them and so does your audience, so don’t be afraid to go into further depth. If that’s not the case, the video was well put together with its duration, and it worked out quite well anyway.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/viniestpumpkin7 📅︎︎ Mar 30 2019 🗫︎ replies

Any chance of a follow up to this?

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/adbdjsuwij13483 📅︎︎ Apr 04 2019 🗫︎ replies

My understanding was that Auguste Rodin (the sculptor) always carried a copy of Dante's Inferno in his pocket. Sad that he spent so much time creating the unappreciated Gates of Hell (inspired by Dante).

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/hmspain 📅︎︎ Mar 26 2019 🗫︎ replies

Super surprised at the devilface paint.

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/DiaDeLosMuertos 📅︎︎ Mar 26 2019 🗫︎ replies
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.