Hell In Early Christian Art

eternal punishment. These newer books perceive hell as more of a concept than an actual place of punishment.

In complete contrast to this, the Christian Hell is a place of punishment for crimes committed on Earth. There are tons of depictions of Hell across tons of books, movies, and TV shows, but the most widely accepted version of damnation comes from the writer Dante Alighieri, in his world famous title Dante’s Inferno. Alighieri described Hell as a sort of giant funnel, with seven layers on the inside, representing the seven deadly sins, and in Inferno, he and Virgil Maro traverse these layers, and battle their inner demons, while also witnessing the cruel, and ironic torture of those sent to this unholy plain of existence. For example those who were wrathfully in life find themselves trapped in the filthy slime of the Styx, violently beating each other for all of eternity, while those who were sullen in life are drowned just underneath the river, and stepped on by the wrathful. The Buddhist realm of the damned, Naraka, is the most similar to Dante’s Hell, but unlike the Inferno, Naraka is less a place of eternal suffering, and more a place of

Robert Herrick, an English poet, once said, “Hell is no other but a soundlesse pit, where no one beame of comfort peeps in it.” Picture any type of Hell with relief, happiness, or even the smallest crack of a smile. There is no place. In fact, one can only think of the complete opposite, whether it is a Hell filled with neglect, pain, disgust, or a never-ending life of horror. This is the place created by Dante Alighieri; The Inferno is exactly the type of Hell where no person would want to be. Even those who acted upon the lightest of sins suffered greatly. While each realm contained a different sinner, the punishment that each were forced to face was cruel, repulsive, and sometimes rather disgusting. Through grieving tears without an

Inferno, the first part of Divina Commedia, or the Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri, is the story of a man's journey through Hell and the observance of punishments incurred as a result of the committance of sin. In all cases the severity of the punishment, and the punishment itself, has a direct correlation to the sin committed. The punishments are fitting in that they are symbolic of the actual sin; in other words, "They got what they wanted." (Literature of the Western World, p.1409) According to Dante, Hell has two divisions: Upper Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of incontinence, and Lower Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of malice. The

Satan, as in most pieces of literature and media, is depicted as a root of evil in the Inferno and Bedazzled. In Dante’s Inferno, the deepest circle of the

The concept of hell can be viewed as three distinct underworld concepts in the Old and New

In the first place, Christians of the new and old age primarily believe that after death their souls live on in the grace of God's presence. For example, in the Bible it states, “Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies.”’ In Dante’s Inferno, Dante is shunned by God’s grace and is trying to find his way back. In the concluding lines of inferno; “...and beauteous shining of the Heavenly cars. And we walked out once more beneath the Stars” (Alighieri 287). These last words represent Dante climbing out of the nightmare he called Hell and he is gazing upon the beautiful stars of Heaven. Which represents a sense of hope as if his sins are forgiven. Heaven and hell in the Bible have a rather vague description of the details embedded in the experience you will face in the afterlife. All that is very well known and established is Heaven is a place of light and God's love and Hell is the land in which you experience eternal suffering for your sins. These loose interpretations of hell are greatly represented in Inferno because Dante takes these thoughts and roughly based Christian ideology of the after life into his own “Visions of Hell” Henceforth, the Christian faith and ideas are the base to many other religions. Dante’s Inferno a like Christianity has multiple representations of faith including an abundance of Christian Beliefs.

<br>At the bottom left side of the painting is a man about to be eaten by a termite who has a game table on his head. This is illustrating that the tables are turned on the man who has committed some terrible crime. In the Inferno this is represented by Lucifer eating the three worst sinners, Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius, all who betrayed their

Hell exists to punish sin. However hell is insinuated that it existed long before mankind was created so God didn't originally create hell for humankind, he created it to punish his angels when they fell from grace. For example a love of wealth and power, drives many souls to commit terrible sins. The second circle of hell contains those sinners who gave into excessive lust, including the memorable Francesca da Rimini. These sinners follow lust and desire, rather than chaste love like that between Dante and Beatrice. Dante also includes Sodomites in his vision of hell, a category including those who engage in homosexual

“The Christian church … conceived of hell as a place where the good were separate from the evil, and the deeds on earth were weighed and judges.”(Bondanella XXXIII) Hell is a place that was created as a punishment for those people who died with mortal sins and did not ask for forgiveness. In this case Dante’s hell in the Inferno is divided into three sections and nine circles. These circles within hell were based off of the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. Along with the seven deadly sins Dante’s Catholic religion also influenced him in his choices about who to put and where to put people in Hell. According to his beliefs, if you were not a Christian, you automatically went to Hell. (Trotter) As well even though Dante's hell affected all people no matter their religion, the representation of how Hell

Religious people always fear that they will not make it to Heaven or the place their God resides. The bible and other religious text give advice on how to avoid the pain of Hell. Dante Alighieri, a famous Italian poet, wrote about the physical description of Hell and the punishments each sinner would receive for their sins. Although The Divine Comedy chronicles Dante's journey from the depths of Hell to the glory of Heaven it contains a deeper meaning. Dante reveals the true meaning of the Inferno through his leading motif, his interactions between the sinners, and the intertwining of other literary works into the Inferno.

Romanesque art happened to be "crude and unpolished," but they really were trying to become something new and different, many artists before had a lot of the same aspects, and the Romanesque period was the in between stage of Early Christian and Gothic periods. They wanted to make a change in art and many people did not like the fact that someone was going out of the "normal" art so it was considered vulgar. In the beginning, the rooms were made out of wood, this looked very nice but structurally did not work very well. The architects were not fully capable of understanding what could go wrong when they did not use concrete, as many did before. The Romanesque period was such a big aspect because it allowed a transition to have art transformed.

Hell. The four lettered word that trembles in the throats of men and children alike; The images of suffering, flame pits and blood, the smell of burning flesh, the shrieking of those who have fallen from grace. For centuries man has sought out ways to cleanse his soul, to repent for his sins and possibly secure his passage into paradise, all evoked by the fear of eternal damnation and pain. The early 20th century philosopher and existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre saw life as an endless realm of suffering and a complete void of nothingness. His pessimistic ideals of life followed through to his beliefs on death, as death for him was a final nothingness. If death was a final nothingness, Sartre's view of hell was really a final

The idea of making up a "Hell", or inferno, is not an experience in which I, even in my wildest thoughts, had started to imagine. Call me an optimist, but the idea of imagining Hell never appealed to me. However, as I read through the Bible, I have come across many images of hell and will now attempt to create a partial picture.

In both the old times and modern time of Christianity, one of the main controversial topics has surrounded one single word. Hell. Some people hear it and thing noting of it. Others shutter at the name. But everyone has questions about it, whether hell is real or a fable, eternal or temporary, physical or spiritual. Being in the Baptist community since birth, I have believed in a hell since I can remember because “to believe in God and not in hell is ultimately to disbelieve in the reality of human choices.” (Ross Douthat). My definition of hell comes straight from the Bible. That there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mathew 13:42) and that God will say, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil