Religious Significance
Dante’s Satan remains a common image in popular portrayals. The answer to the question of how Satan wound up in the bottom of the pit in Dante’s Inferno lies in Christian theological history. Some interpretations of the Book of Isaiah, combined with apocryphal texts, explain that Satan was cast from Heaven, and fell to earth. Satan, the angel, was caught up in his own beauty, power, and pride, and attempted to usurp God’s divine throne:
“I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit on the mount of assembly on the heights of Zaphon; I will ascend to the tops of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High.”
This immediately backfired on Satan, for he was no match for God. God sentenced him as a betrayer and banished him from Heaven. Dante uses this idea to create a physical place Satan created after his impact with the earth. According to Dante, the pit the Pilgrim climbs down to reach the center of Hell is literally the hole that Satan made when he fell to earth. The extra earth formed Mount Purgatory on the other side of the Earth.
Read more about this topic: Dante's Satan
Famous quotes containing the words religious and/or significance:
“Each religious sect has its own physiognomy. The Methodists have acquired a face; the Quakers, a face; the nuns, a face. An Englishman will pick out a dissenter by his manners.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)