Dante: How many levels was that?

FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010


Dante: How many levels was that?

Yes we are talking about the Inferno. Virgil guided Dante as I guide you. It’s Hell, isn’t it?

Level 1 is Limbo. Charon ushers visitors on the tour across the river Acheron where the unbaptized and virtuous pagans like the philosophers, poets and even rulers languish. They are not made to suffer except those there are not in the shadow of God because they failed to acknowledge God’s existence when alive.

Level 2 is for all the lustful sinners stacked up like cordwood in the perpetual darkness.

Level 3 is populated with all the gluttons lying around in the cold foul slush. Cerberus with his three heads gnarls at those who overindulged in life.

Level 4 is right before the crossing of the river Styx. Plutus the demon of wealth guards the avaricious and greedy… Charity and good works might have saved these folks as they are constantly crushed by weights each rolls back and forth against the other. They await the people that run the credit card companies.

Right slam in the middle of Hell is Level 5 with that damned river running right though it. Mad and naked people are tearing into each other with their teeth to punish their wrathful and gloomy life. Mud bubbles all around covering the unheard hymn of their lamentations. Cruel and vindictive hating people stay here for eternity.

Level 6 is the City of Dis. This is Satan’s wretched city of iron walls. The heretics burn in tombs all across the landscape. This is somewhere no one would want to end up.

Next stop, a visit to the Minotaur snarling and surrounded by the river Phlegethon, the river of boiling blood. Physically violent, assassins, tyrants and war-mongers fill the river and the centaurs shoot arrows at any trying to escape their punishment and the stench. Much more happens on Level 7. Harpies nest in trees of gnarled branches with poison fruit. Those that rose up against God are beyond the forest with scorching hot sand and are showered by the rain of fire that constantly falls upon them. Blasphemers and sodomites and usurers share this crowded level. Among the usurers is another large contingent of Credit Card executives.

The Malebolge, Level 8 is set aside for those guilty of fraudulence and malice; the seducers and pimps. This is an amphitheater shaped pit of stone where there are many levels of sinners constantly whipped by horned demons. There is a special place for the hypocrites who must walk in lead lined cloaks. Magicians, diviners, fortune tellers, and panderers are all here with the thieves wallowing in human excrement. These sinners are paid back in spades.

The deepest level of Hell, Level 9, is reserved for traitors, the most evil of all the transgressors in Hell. Satan flaps his wings eternally; the freezing wind fills Cocytus, this ninth level. Satan is very unhappy and cries constantly as he chews on Judas, Brutus and Cassius... one apostate for each of his evil heads. Sinners are frozen in ice with only their faces exposed; their eyes and mouths frozen shut. There is nothing but despair here for traitors against God, family, country or benefactors. Treachery and betrayal is the worst of all sins.

In the not such old news: “VATICAN CITY (Reuters), April 20, 2007 – The Roman Catholic Church has effectively buried the concept of limbo…” Since I have felt I was in Limbo for a major portion of my life I wonder what I am to do now. Alighieri, that effectively removes one level so how many are left? According to what I have read we started with nine so now it is down to eight. We miss out on all the good pagans and atheists that used to hang in Limbo. Where the hell did they go?

With only eight levels of Hell there is still plenty of room for everyone that belongs there. The worse the sin the closer to Lucifer those sinners shall remain for eternity. Hell is the one sentence that can not be commuted.

The old Level 3 will be filled with some of the Reality Show participants trying to lose weight. Others of them will be just outside Hell in Purgatory if their repentance is sincere enough and they can keep the weight off.

Some of the really greedy bankers that were responsible for at least some of this economic crisis will be moved from the old Levels 4 & 8 to their reservations at the new Level 8 closer to their mentor.

Many EXXON and BP execs will also end up there too with the wildlife they sent there in this life. I am awaiting the new Vatican ruling on this.

We may all end up in the new Level 4 reserved for those who sinned thru wrath and sullenness. Some of us may never get over our anger. The wrathful ruthlessly will continue to attack one another instead of those that are guilty of far greater sins. The sullen will remain for eternity stewing below the surface of the oil covered swamps, beaches and estuaries. We may be in the middle of Hell forever.


Very few of us will be in the Limbo where we are now. So did the Vatican decide that Limbo is here on earth?

It’s HELL, isn’t it?

© 06.18.2010 steven d philbrick SR+ DakotaDawg had nothing to do with this. She lives in Heaven with her kitties.