in the movie “The Others” there is talk of the 4 levels of hell.
i couldn’t make out what they were saying…and am curious.
Anyone know what they are?
one of them is - Purgatory
According to Dante’s Inferno, there is more than 4 layers. I’m pretty sure there are 9, but as for the names for each one, I couldn’t tell you. If you’re interested enough, you could probably manage to find an English copy of Dante’s Inferno somewhere.
Or read ‘Inferno’ by Larry Niven (and possibly Jerry Pournelle)
GO HERE , follow the path down, & you shall decend into Dante’s Inferno, an immortal poet’s vision of Hell.
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here (and please, wipe your feet).
Are you sure your heard correctly?
Dante’s Divine Commedy is often mentioned as having four levels of perspective or interpretation: literal, allegorical, moral, and mystical. However there are three (not four) sections of the work: Inferno (hell), Purgatorio (purgatory), and Paradiso (heaven). Each of those sections have multiple “levels” of descent or ascent: Inferno, for example, has nine circles descending into the pit of hell, while Purgatorio has seven tiers climbing up its mountain.
If it’s of any help, here’s a map of Dante’s hell.
This version of Hell is divided into two major sections, and I quote,
Oddly enough, as in the Map of Hell that I linked to, Hell is indeed divided into four sections—Two sections for Incontinence, one for Simple Fraud, and the deepest level for Compound Fraud (i.e., Traitors).
Though technically, Dante’s hell isn’t cannoical. No church I’m aware of feels that hell is really structed in such a way, or at least the way Dante describes it(Centaurs and popes in hell are not exactly the kind of things that jive with the church).
Still an excellant read though.
Though I don’t have it here, I clearly remember that my copy states that Dante’s classification and hierarchy of sins etc was consistent with catholic church doctrine at the time. But you’re right to say that the physical description wasn’t something that was part of doctrine. From memory, Dante draw on a lot of sources including ancient Greek and Roman legend and contemporary folklore for his model of hell.
I still love the idea that all of this time the center of Hell has been thoroughly frozen over.
Among the sources of his Divine Comedy, Dante extrapolated the discussions of evil and virtue (and their requisite punishments and rewards) as expressed by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica. As Motog notes, the descriptions are (allegorically) consistent with accepted Catholic speculation of the period.