Dante and Virgil go to the gates of Hell. Dante sees an inscription over the door ending with, “Abandon All Hope, You Who Enter Here”. Dante, the pilgrim, is afraid after he reads it and asks Virgil to explain. Dante is not dead, but alive. Will he be lost here?
“All fear Must be left here, and cowardice die. Together,
We have arrived where I have told you: here
You will behold the wretched souls who’ve lost
The good of intellect.”
Auguste Rodin (1840 – 1917) did a huge bronze sculpture of the Gates of Hell based on Dante’s Inferno. Other artists have tried to capture their imagined thoughts of what the Gates of Hell would look like. Would the gates be huge? Large? Richly appointed? Mean wooden doors? A cave entrance? Dante gives little specifics so we don’t know exactly how he imagined them.
These words I saw inscribed in some dark color over a portal.
As Dante and Virgil go through the gates, Dante, the poet, describes his the initial scene. Dante, the pilgrim, is distraught with pity for those he sees. But Virgil will teach him not to waste pity on those found in the circles of Hell as they are there of their own choice. Throughout the journey, Dante learns sin is not to be pitied.
The sighs, groans and laments at first were so loud,
Resounding through starless air, I began to weep:
Strange languages, horrible screams, words imbued
With rage or despair, cries as of troubled sleep
Or of a tortured shrillness – they rose in a coil
Of tumult, along with noises like the slap
Of beating hands, all fused in a ceaseless flail
That churns and frenzies that dark and timeless air
Like sand in a whirlwind…
Hell is the place for those who deliberately, intellectually, and consciously chose to reject Jesus Christ, whereas Paradise is a place of reward for those who consciously chose to accept Jesus Christ. But what about those who refused to choose one way or the other? According to Dante, they reside in Hell’s entrance with the angels who didn’t take satan’s side or God’s side in the rebellion (a medieval tradition). They are the uncommitted.
He: “This is the sorrowful state of souls unsure,
Whose lives earned neither honor nor bad fame.
And they are mingled with angels of that base sort
Who, neither rebellious to God nor faithful to Him,
Chose neither side, but kept themselves apart…”
In the Bible, God tells us that when we die, we go to Hades, the Place of the Dead. Hades is divided into two sections, separated by an uncrossable chasm: Paradise (Heaven) and Torment (Hell). When we die, our mortal bodies are consigned to the grave and our spirits will go to Paradise or Torment. Those who accept Jesus Christ as their Savior will go to Paradise to await the 2nd Coming of Jesus. Those who refuse Jesus Christ as their Savior will go to Torment where they suffer. Before the return of our Lord, He will come in the sky and rapture His followers who are still alive. He will also resurrect the mortal bodies of those who have died previous to His rapture and we will be reunited with our bodies which will be new and immortal. Then comes the Great Tribulation. After the Great Tribulation, Jesus returns and this time sets food on Earth. He will begin His 1,000 year reign on earth and He will bind satan in chains for 1,000 years. In the beginning, all of it’s citizens will be those saved by Jesus Christ. We will live with Him and rule with Him. Unfortunately, there will be people born during this 1,000 year reign of Christ. These people must make their own choice as to whether to follow Jesus or reject Jesus and many choose to reject Christ. When satan is released from the 1,000 year bondage, he will gather these people in a rebellion against Jesus. The winner is Jesus Christ! This time, satan and his fallen angels (demons) will be cast into the Lake of Fire. Then all are judged and those whose names are found in the Lamb’s Book of Life will remain with Christ and those who aren’t will join satan in the Lake of Fire forever.
The great white throne judgment is described in Revelation 20:11-15 and is the final judgment prior to the lost being cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:7-15 says this judgment will take place after the millennium and after Satan is thrown into the lake of fire where the beast and the false prophet are (Revelation 19:19-20; 20:7-10).
Then Jesus ushers in a new Heaven and a new Earth and a new Jerusalem. We will live with Jesus in this new place for eternity and nothing evil shall ever be allowed!
Isaiah 2:4 “He that rejects Me, and receives not My words, has one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day”
Luke 16:19-31 (BSB, Jesus speaking) 19 Now there was a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, who lived each day in joyous splendor. 20 And a beggar named Lazarus lay at his gate, covered with sores 21 and longing to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 One day the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham from afar, with Lazarus by his side.
24 So he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. For I am in agony in this fire.’
25 But Abraham answered, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, while you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you, so that even those who wish cannot cross from here to you, nor can anyone cross from there to us.’
27 ‘Then I beg you, father,’ he said, ‘send Lazarus to my father’s house, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also end up in this place of torment.’
29 But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let your brothers listen to them.’
30 ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone is sent to them from the dead, they will repent.’
31 Then Abraham said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”
That last verse means that even though Jesus Christ lived, was crucified and resurrected… people still would not believe. Jesus came back from the dead and people still refuse to believe Him! There is no convincing some people.
Matthew 25:31-46 (BSB, Jesus speaking) 31 When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.
34 Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you took Me in, 36 I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you visited Me.’
37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 When did we see You sick or in prison and visit You?’
40 And the King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’
41 Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave Me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, I was naked and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’
44 And they too will reply, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’
45 Then the King will answer, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.’
46 And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
From these scriptures on the afterlife, and many more, it doesn’t say anything about those who don’t make a choice and are uncommitted, the neutrals. To me it seems that if you don’t make a choice, you have made the choice to reject Jesus Christ. You may be agnostic and unsure if there is a God. If you die in that state, it doesn’t put you in Limbo or Purgatory or whatever the Catholics believe. It puts you in the place of Torment and the Lake of Fire is your end. You’ve had every chance during your lifetime to choose Jesus Christ. Because you refused to choose makes it a rejection of Jesus Christ. You don’t go to Heaven by default.
To get back to Dante’s Inferno, he has the Uncommitted here in a long line of misery. They couldn’t make a choice in life, so they are forever following a “banner”, running naked in circles while being stung by flies and wasps. They did not use their God-given intellect to choose to follow Jesus so now “the wretched souls who’ve lost the good of intellect,” have lost the ability to find God’s truth.
Revelation 3:14-16 (BSB) 14 To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Originator of God’s creation.
15 I know your deeds; you are neither cold nor hot. How I wish you were one or the other! 16 So because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to vomit you out of My mouth!
A whirling banner sped at such a rate
It seemed it might never stop; behind it a train
Of souls, so long that I would not have thought
Death had undone so many…
Beyond all doubt that this was the dreary guild
Repellent both to God and His enemies –
Hapless ones never alive, their bare skin galled
By wasps and flies, blood trickling down the face
Mingling with tears for harvest underfoot
By writhing maggots.
As an army is organized and marches behind banners, this long train of souls follows a blank banner held by no standard bearer, a parody of a standard. These people are weeping and bleeding as they are stung by flies and wasps. They refused to follow Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our Lord, our King, and when we choose to believe on Him and accept His sacrifice on our behalf, we have chosen to follow Him. He is the Leader and the Standard we follow. The Word of God is our manual and standard by which we measure all things.
Jesus is our Lord. We can only enter into salvation through confessing Jesus as our Lord. Jesus is our example because He has gone before us. We keep our eyes fixed on Him and follow Him.
1 Peter 2:21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
These people refused to choose their Leader and refused to follow a Leader and refused to give their all to their Leader of choice. So now they follow nothing. Going back and forth, in a body, being led by nothing and going nowhere. As they followed nothing in their lives on earth, now they follow nothing for eternity. They never shed their blood for a cause but shed it unwillingly now for nothing. The idea that they are missing something is compared to the stinging insects. They no longer have reasoning and intellect to figure out what they are missing.
Dante, the pilgrim, recognizes one soul whom he calls “him who made the Great Refusal, impelled by cowardice”. Dante is referring to a Pope named Celestine V.
Peter of Morrone was a monk and hermit who found the order of the Celestines as a branch of the Benedictine order. He was elected Pope but only served for 5 months in 1294. As Pope he took the name of Celestine V. He abdicated in order to return to his previous humble life as a hermit. There had been high hopes that this humble man would reform the papacy of it’s corruption but he gave his elected position away. The succeeding Pope was Pope Boniface VIII. Various parties, including Philip IV of France, had opposed Celestine’s resignation and the new Pope Boniface VIII worried that one of them might install him as an antipope. So he had Celestine V arrested and imprisoned so as to avoid Celestine V, or any followers, claiming the papacy back. He died in prison in 1296 at the age of 81 probably of starvation. Philip IV of France nominated him for canonization for sainthood and he was canonized on 5/13/1306. Dante saw Celestine as one who lacked the courage to fulfill his duty as a Pope. He considered him one of those who refused to take a stand out of cowardice.
Dante and Virgil move on to a river called Acheron. Here Dante, the poet, mixes classical Greek mythology.
In ancient Greek mythology, Acheron was known as the “river of woe”, and was one of the five rivers of the Greek underworld. The Roman poet Virgil called it the principal river of Tartarus, from which the Styx and Cocytus both sprang. Acheron had been a son of Helios and either Gaia or Demeter, who had been turned into the Underworld river bearing his name after he refreshed the Titans with drink during their contest with Zeus. The Titans were giants who rebelled against the Gods. Acheron would have been aiding the Titans by giving them drink. The Titans lost. – Wikipedia
At the River Acheron, Dante and Virgil are jostled by a crowd, when they see a boat coming.
Then, at the river – an old man in a boat:
White-haired, as he drew closer shouting at us,
“Woe to you, wicked souls! Give up the thought
Of Heaven! I come to ferry you across
Into eternal dark on the opposite side,
Into fire and ice!…”
Charon, in Greek mythology, the son of Erebus and Nyx (Night), whose duty it was to ferry over the Rivers Styx and Acheron, that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead, those who died. He was called the Ferryman. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on the mouth of a dead person. Some authors say that those who could not pay the fee, or those whose bodies were left unburied, had to wander the shores for one hundred years, until they were allowed to cross the river. – Wikipedia
That silenced the grizzled jaws
Of the gray ferryman of the livid marsh,
Who had red wheels of flame about his eyes.
But at his words the forlorn and naked souls
Were changing color, cursing the human race,
God and their parents. Teeth chattering in their skulls,
They called curses on the seed, the place, the hour
Of their own begetting and their birth. With wails
And tears they gathered on the evil shore
That waits for all who don’t fear God. There demon
Charon beckons them, with his eyes of fire;
Crowded in a herd, they obey if he should summon
And he strikes at any laggards with his oar.
Charon calls each one and they obey when he summons or face being struck with his oar.
“My son,” said the gentle master, “here are joined
The souls of all who die in the wrath of God,
From every country, all of them eager to find
Their way across the water – for the goad
Of Divine Justice spurs them so, their fear
Is transmuted to desire. Souls who are good
Never pass this way”…
Excerpts of Inferno are from a new translation by Robert Pinsky.
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