Great Books #10: Dante’s Hierarchy of Hell w/ Prof. Jiang (Transcript) 

And this traumatizes him. It breaks him apart. And it splits him from Penelope.

But he longs to return to Penelope and in the process, their love for each other, once they combine, once they bind each other, it expands his imagination. And by expanding his imagination, it allows him to heal himself, all right? Okay, so this is the dynamic at work.

Dante and Homer: Independent but Parallel Frameworks

What’s amazing about this is the Odyssey was written by Homer and this is written by Dante. What’s amazing about what happened is that Dante never read Homer. He read Virgil. Because Dante can read Latin, he can’t read Greek. So he doesn’t have access to the Iliad and the Odyssey. He doesn’t actually know what Homer wrote and said. But working independently, they were able to come to the same framework and understanding of how the universe works. Okay, that’s pretty amazing, all right?

The Problem with Dante’s Cosmology: When the Soul Cannot Expand

All right, so this is the cosmology of Dante. Now, there’s certain problems with this, okay? The problem is this. The spark seeks to love another spark so that the spark can return to the source, okay, which is God, the Monad. In this process, once you truly love someone, your imagination expands, right? And when your imagination expands, the universe itself expands. And this is how and why we were created, to expand the universe. Because God cannot imagine, only we can imagine. Because we can feel pain, because we can sin, because we can forgive each other.

But there’s a problem with this framework, okay? The problem is this. Sometimes we cannot love someone else, okay? Sometimes our soul cannot expand outwards. It’s trapped inside of us. Why? The answer is because we’ve sinned so much, okay? The sin is so much that we cannot forgive each other, okay? We cannot forgive ourselves, we cannot forgive each other. And so we become trapped in who we are. We cannot expand outwards. Therefore, we become distant from the source.

Okay? So rather than moving upwards to the source, which is heaven, we move downwards into our own hell. Okay? So in other words, heaven and hell are constructions of our own imaginations. They’re the consequences of our emotional state. We have free will, and we should choose to love someone else because that’s what brings us back to the source. But sometimes we don’t know that, and we commit so much sin that we don’t think we’re worthy of the source. We’re not worthy of God, and therefore we create hell to imprison ourselves in.

The Iliad as an Example of Self-Imprisonment

And again, this sounds confusing, but let’s use the example of the Iliad. Right? The Iliad is Achilles. He wants to be a hero, but he gets into a fight with Agamemnon. Okay?

The Structure of Hell: Circles, Sin, and Self-Punishment

PROF. JIANG: And Achilles says, screw you, you need me because I’m the best warrior, and if you don’t beg me to return, I’ll let the Trojans kill you. Agamemnon refused to beg, Achilles is in trouble, so he sends Patroclus to die. Right? And then Achilles jumps into battle, kills Hector, and now, once this is done, Achilles is trapped in his own guilt. Right? And rather than feeling elation, joy, and being the best warrior in the world, he instead descends in his own hell. He’s trapped in his own hell. And it’s only when Priam forgives him that he’s able to forgive himself, and then he’s able to restore himself.

Alright, okay, so there’s two dynamics that work. When you love someone, when you do good, you ascend to the source, your imagination expands, the universe expands. But when you commit sin, and the sin is so bad that you’re not able to forgive yourself, then you trap yourself in hell, and you are there for all eternity.

Okay, and what’s really important to understand is that space and time are constructs of our imagination. So in other words, even as we’re speaking now, our souls are also living in eternity. So the moment we commit a sin, we imagine ourselves in a certain place in hell. And we could be there for all eternity unless we in our life choose to redeem ourselves. No one can redeem us, only we can redeem ourselves for our imagination and for our love. Okay, does that make sense?

Dante’s Construction of Hell: The Layers and Circles

Alright, so for Dante, what he’s going to show, he’s going to tell us this much later, okay? But in Inferno, he’s going to construct the structure of hell. Alright, so what is hell? So in hell, there are different layers, okay? Different circles. And obviously, the lower you go, the greater the punishment, the greater the sin. And at the very bottom, the center of hell is this. This is Dante’s word for Satan or Lucifer, okay?

Now, what’s happening is that the sin is greater, and the reason why is we are less capable of engaging in self-forgiveness, alright? So it’s not that others refuse to forgive us, it’s that we refuse to forgive ourselves, okay? Why? Because we’ve become distant from God, alright? And the worse, the lower you go in hell, it’s because not only are you moving away from God, but you’re forcing others to move away from God as well, alright?

So here, at this level, it’s really about trapping yourself in hell. But the lower you go, the more people you trap in hell, and the longer you trap them in hell for.

The Worst Sin: Treachery and the Virus of Deception

So the worst crime, the worst sin in Dante’s world is treachery, okay? Why? Because think of Achilles and Patroclus. In many ways, Achilles betrays Patroclus, right? And as a result, Achilles feels guilt for betraying Patroclus, and if you remember the Iliad, he remembers Patroclus is a ghost that’s haunting him, alright? So treachery is the worst sin because you trap yourself in hell as well as others.

Then you have fraud, deception, okay? So what you’re doing is, you are reducing the capacity of others to love, right? So if I lie to you, you want to lie to other people as well. That’s human nature. When you lie to other people, you cannot engage in love. You cannot engage in giving yourself to others. You become insecure. You become broken, alright? So if you’re a fraud, when you cheat others, others are going to want to cheat others as well. It’s almost like a virus, right?

So those who are in hell are because they’re spreading a virus of deception, of hatred, of betrayal, which spreads all around the world, diminishing people’s connection to God, diminishing people’s capacity to love. In heaven, we’ll find the opposite, where people are in heaven because they choose to love unconditionally, which spreads God all around the world, okay? Does that make sense, guys?

Alright, so let’s look specifically at the construction of hell. Okay, so this is a schematic of how hell is constructed, okay?

The Circles of Hell: From Limbo to the Worst Sins

PROF. JIANG: So remember how we said that in the first circle of hell, it’s called limbo. And limbo, it’s kind of nice, okay? It’s like here, but people live forever. And these people did nothing wrong. They did actually nothing wrong, but they were born before the time of Jesus. And therefore, people were not aware of God, okay? And these people include Julius Caesar, okay? So Julius Caesar is in limbo, along with other great historical figures.

Then we go into people who have committed sin, including lust, okay? So people who commit lust are people like Dido and Cleopatra. And their punishment is they’re just stuck in a whirlwind. And so they are moving around hell. They’re being swept by the wind. If you think about it, this is actually a very appropriate punishment for lust, right? Because lust means that you are swept away by emotions. You are swept away by your lust. You cannot control your emotions. And so what their punishment in hell is, is just being whipped around in a whirlwind, okay?

And the purpose, so the purpose of hell is to force you to engage in reflection. Because remember, the universe is governed by free will, so people are in hell not because they did something wrong, but because they choose to be there, because they thought they deserve to be there, all right? So the punishment, every punishment is constructed in a way that forces people to see the errors of their ways and to want to reform. But you don’t have to, okay?

And then you have gluttony. And gluttony is basically overindulgence. You want too much. And so if you remember the punishment for overindulgence, overindulgence, gluttony, it’s rain, right? And it’s like a rain that never stops. And that’s a pretty fitting punishment for gluttony, where you like food and you don’t want to stop, right? So it’s almost like rain raining on you and it can never stop. Okay, so and again, the purpose is to force you to see the error of your ways, to see the limitations of your sin and to want to reform, right?

The Deepest Sins: Violence, Fraud, and Treachery

And then we get into the worst circle. And here, this is basically self-sin, okay, meaning sin that only impacts you. Now we get to the sin that impacts others, okay? So here it’s violence. Then you go to fraud. Then the very worst is treachery. Okay? And this is how hell is constructed.

All right, so I want to talk about the two bottom circles of hell, traitors to guests and friends and traitors to God, okay? So treachery is a really important concept in divine harmony because treachery is the worst way to condemn people away from God, all right? And what Dante says is that there are four different types of treachery and each is worse than the other.

The first type of treachery, betrayal, is when you betray your family. And for Dante, this is actually the least problematic of all betrayals because you’re born into a family. You don’t actually choose to be part of a family, okay? It’s involuntary. And as such, when we betray someone, it’s bad, but it’s not as bad as if you choose to go into a bond with someone and then betray that person, okay?

All right, so that’s why traitors to guests and friends are the worst because these are bonds created by free will and trust. And so you’re destroying the person’s capacity to trust other people, which is showing that person’s capacity to love other people, all right?

Count Ugolino: A Real-Life Traitor

So the example that Dante uses is this person, Count Ugolino, okay? Count Ugolino. And he’s actually a real person. Do you remember how Dante was participating in these political wars in Italy? Well, from his perspective, the worst culprit was Count Ugolino, who was the head of Pisa. He comes from a very prominent family and he’s power crazy. So what he does is he betrays everyone in order to obtain power. And then finally, he was betrayed by one of his friends, an archbishop.

And this archbishop betrays Count Eulogino and throws him to prison along with his children and then he throws away the key so they starve to death together, okay? And when Dante and Virgil encounter Count Eulogino, he is biting the head of the archbishop. They’re stuck in a frozen lake to represent all eternity, to represent immutability, the incapacity to change. And this is happening over and over where Count Eulogino is biting the head of the archbishop.

Now, if you think about it, this is an analogy to Achilles mutilating the body of Hector, right? Remember in the Iliad, Achilles kills Hector in a battle and at this point, he should return Hector’s body for a ransom to the Trojans so the Trojans can bury him. But instead, Achilles spends all his time just mutilating Hector’s body. Achilles feels guilt and sorrow for the loss of his friend, Patroclus. And he takes it out on Hector, okay, by mutilating Hector’s body.

The same dynamic is happening here where Count Eulogino blames the archbishop for the death of his family, okay? But he in his heart knows it’s not the archbishop that killed his children. It was him himself who condemned his children because he constantly engaged in the pursuit of power. When you engage in the pursuit of power, you move away from love. You lose the capacity to love your children and so you condemn your children to hell and to death, okay? So it’s this self-hatred that drives his hatred of the archbishop. So it’s a very similar dynamic as the Iliad.

What Homer says and what Dante says is the same thing, which is betraying others condemns you to betraying everyone, including your own children. And that makes you hate yourself so much that you burn with self-hatred for all eternity, okay? You are now the most imprisoned in hell because of your self-hatred. Does that make sense, guys?

Count Ugolino’s Story: Betrayal and Its Consequences

All right, so what we’re going to do is we’re going to read this part from the Divine Comedy. And so the story is, again, he’s always engaged in power politics. He’s always engaging in betrayal, including betrayal of his own people in Pisa. Eventually, the people of Pisa get really angry at him and they overthrow him, led by the archbishop. He’s thrown into prison. His children are also put into prison with him. And the archbishop throws away the key. So he’s just left to starve.

As they’re starving, it is implied that Ugolino eats his own children, okay? And it’s a metaphor for what betrayal is because when you betray someone, you’re cannibalizing that person’s soul, okay? And you are cannibalizing the soul of everyone around you.

All right, so this is a story told by Ugolino to Dante, who’s asking him, why are you here, okay? Thank you.

“They were awake by now.”

They were my sons, okay, my four sons. Okay, so again, he’s stuck in prison. They threw away the key and he’s stuck there with his four young sons.

“The hour drew near at which our food was usually brought and each, because of what he dreamed, was anxious. Below, I heard them — nailing up the door of that appalling tower. Without a word, I looked into the faces of my sons. I did not weep, within I turned to stone. They wept and my poor little — Anselm. Anselm said, ‘Father, you look so — what is wrong with you?’ At that, I shed no tears and all day long and through the night that followed, did not answer until another sun had touched the world.

As soon as the thin ray had made its way into that sorry prison and I saw, reflected in four faces, my own gaze, out of my grief, I bit at both my hands and they, who thought I’d done that out of hunger, immediately rose and told me, ‘Father, it would be far less painful for us if you ate of us, for you clothed us in this sad flesh. It is for you to strip it off.'”

So, the count, he’s hungry, he knows he’s at fault for condemning his entire family to death but he cannot bring himself to admit this and he becomes very anxious and he starts biting himself because he’s so afraid of what will happen to his sons. His sons see this and they feel pity for him and say, are you hungry? And he can’t answer, so they basically said to him, you know what, it’s better for you to eat us than for us to see you starve, all right? So, the sons are demonstrating a last act of love for their father and because the man, he has betrayed so many people and he can only see the world in terms of betrayal, he doesn’t recognize this act of love.

He’s confused by it and he’s desperate to feed himself so he has to eat his sons, okay? And so, that’s why treachery is so devastating because it blinds you to the possibility of love, okay? It denies you the possibility of love and it lets you commit the most evil because you refuse to believe that love exists, okay?

The Very Center of Hell: Satan and the Ultimate Betrayers

But now, okay, this is the most interesting part, where we are now at the very bottom of hell, we’ve entered the very center of hell and so this is the place for the worst people and so there are four people in the very center of hell. There’s this Satan Lucifer, okay? The man, the angel who betrayed God and who was condemned to hell and then he’s biting three individuals who betrayed God. He is biting, chewing on Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus, that makes sense. The other people don’t actually make any sense. They are Cassius and Brutus. And I’ll explain to you why it doesn’t really make sense later, okay?

But can you read Ivory? You don’t skip this part. This is Latin. Okay. But basically, the king of God, the story, the king of hell is before us.

“Toward us, and therefore keep your eyes ahead, my master said, to see if you can spy him. Just as, when night falls on our hemisphere, or when a heavy fog is blowing thick, a windmill seems to wheel when seen far off, so then I seemed to see that sort of structure. And next, because the wind was strong, I shrank behind my guide. There was no other shelter. And now, with fear, I set it down in meter. I was where all the shades were fully covered, but visible as whiffs of straw and glass. There are some lie flat, and others stand erect, one on his head and one upon his soles, and some bend face to feet, just like a bow. But after we had made our way ahead, my master felt he now should have me see that creature who was once a handsome presence. He stepped aside and made me stop, and said, look, here’s this, and this is the place where you will have to arm yourself with fortitude.”

Satan as Machine: The Loss of Agency

Okay, so when they meet this, the thing that they discover is that this is mechanical. He’s a machine. He doesn’t have ideas, he doesn’t have words, he doesn’t have free will, he doesn’t have will and desire. This is what happens when you fully remove yourself from God, okay? You lose the capacity to be organic. You become a machine. You just do what you do. So this is almost like an air conditioner, okay? So what he’s doing is, he’s always flapping his wings, and then these wings take the winds of the frozen lake, and then basically make hell more cool, okay, cools hell down. But this lacks agency, lacks ideas, lacks everything, okay? So it’s just a machine now.

And this Satan, Lucifer, is three heads, and on each head are abiding three people, okay? The first is, of course, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus, and again, this makes perfect sense. But you have Brutus and Cassius, and Brutus and Cassius are the ones who betrayed Julius Caesar, okay?

The Paradox of Brutus, Cassius, and Caesar

PROF. JIANG: So if you just extend the logic, you would think, okay, well, if Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, and Jesus is God, and Brutus and Cassius betrayed Julius Caesar, therefore, Julius Caesar should be God as well, right? Therefore, Julius Caesar should be in heaven, but he’s not in heaven. He’s in limbo. This makes no sense, okay? This is a paradox.

And again, Dante does this a lot, where he creates these paradoxes for you to think that maybe everything I’m seeing is not real. Maybe this reality, it’s being created for me by a stronger power, okay?

So the question then is, who would think of putting Brutus and Cassius into hell? And that person, of course, would be Virgil, okay? And this gives us another clue that maybe it’s Virgil who’s master of hell, and not Lucifer, Satan. Because Lucifer, Satan, they don’t have agency, they have no imagination, they don’t actually speak or think, they’re just a machine. Whereas Virgil is the one who’s navigating and negotiating hell, and maybe he wants to put Brutus and Cassius into hell, because Virgil’s master, of course, is Augustus Caesar, right? And Augustus Caesar, his father is Julius Caesar. And in fact, Augustus Caesar made Julius Caesar god of his time, okay? So if you think of this logically, it doesn’t make any sense if we just think that everything is as it seems, right?

Purgatory and the Guardian Cato

Now, what’s going to happen is that they’re going to climb Lucifer and escape hell, and now they’re in purgatory, alright? They’ve left hell, now they’re in purgatory. And purgatory is actually a mountain, okay? And they’re going to climb the mountain so that they can ascend ultimately to heaven.

But on the shores of purgatory, they meet the guardian of purgatory. And this guardian is named Cato. Who is Cato? Cato, along with Brutus and Cassius, opposed Julius Caesar. At this time, Julius Caesar was amassing power for himself in Rome, and there were a lot of people who opposed Julius Caesar, including Ptolemy, and including Cato. Cato chose to kill himself rather than submit to Julius Caesar.

But this makes no sense, because first of all, okay, Cato was born before Jesus. Does that make sense? He was born before Jesus. And Virgil told us that if you’re born before Jesus, the best place you can hope for is limbo. That’s it. But Cato is in purgatory, which is better than hell, but not only that, but he’s the master and guardian of purgatory. That makes no sense. That’s point one.

Point two is, he killed himself. This is a sin, okay? This is a crime. You should be in hell for that. Why is he in purgatory?

The third thing is, he betrayed Caesar, okay, or opposed Caesar. Cato and Brutus also betrayed and opposed Caesar, and they are burning in hell, right? So again, this is a paradox, and it forces us to think about what’s really going on here, alright?

So, can you read, Ivory?

“I saw a solitary patriarch near me, his aspect worthy of such reverence that even son to father owes no more. His beard was long and mixed with white, as were the hairs upon his head, and his hair spread down to his chest in a divided tress. The rays of the four holy stars so framed his face with light that in my sight, he seemed like one who was confronted by the sun. Who are you, who, against a hidden river, were able to escape the eternal prison? He said, moving those venerable plumes. Who is your guide? What serves you both as lantern when, from the deep night that will always keep the hellish dark, you were set free? The loss of the abyss, have they been broken? Or has a new, a changed decree in heaven let you, so damned, approach my rocky slopes?”

PROF. JIANG: So again, this is Cato, okay?

Dante and Virgil Arrive at Purgatory: Cato’s Challenge

And again, Cato is the gardener of purgatory, so he sees Dante in virtual immersion, he’s like, what are you guys doing here? This goes against the laws of the universe. You should not be able to break free of hell.

Alright, can you read it?

“My guide took hold of me decisively, by way of words and bands and other signs. He made my knees and brows show reverence. Then he replied, I do not come through my own self. There was a lady sent from heaven. Her pleas led me to help and guide this man. But since your will will have a far more full and accurate account of our condition, my will cannot withhold what you request. This man had yet to see his final evening, but through his fully little time was left before he did, he was so close to it. As I have told you, I was sent to him for his deliverance. The only road I could have taken was the road I took. I showed him all the people of perdition. Now I intend to show to him those spirits who, in your care, are bent on expiation. To tell you how I led him would take long. It is a power descending from above that helped me guide him here to see and hear you.”

Okay, so what’s happening here is Cato’s like, what are you guys doing here? And Virgil steps up and tries to explain what’s going on. Now what’s interesting is that Cato and Virgil know each other. They were born and they lived around the same time in Rome, okay? And they were in limbo together. So they know each other really well, but Virgil is being very polite to him. He’s almost afraid of Cato, okay? Alright.

Virgil’s Appeal to Cato: Liberty, Death, and a Subtle Bribe

Keep on reading, Ivory.

“Now may it please you to approve his coming. He goes in search of liberty, so precious, and as he who gives his life for it must know. You know it, who in Utica found death…”

Okay, so he killed himself in Utica, okay?

“…found death for freedom was not bitter. A garb that will be bright on the great day.”

So he killed himself because he would rather die honorably than to submit himself as a slave to Caesar. So what Virgil is saying is like, you died a noble death, even though suicide is considered a sin in the Catholic Church. Keep on going.

“Eternal edicts are not broken for us. This man’s alive and I’m not bound by Minos, but I am from the circle where the chaste eyes of your Marcia are, and she still prays to you, O holy priest, to keep her as your own for her love, then incline to us. Allow our journey through your seven realms. I shall thank her for kindness you bestow, if you would let your name be named below.”

Okay, all right. This is really interesting. Okay. What he’s saying is, and Virgil is being very subtle, right? He’s saying to Cato, listen, your wife, Marcia, she’s still in limbo with me. And if you treat us well here, I’ll go back to limbo and treat Marcia really nice. Okay. It’s almost like a bribe, or it’s almost like a small threat to Cato. Okay. All right. Keep on reading.

“While I was there within the other world, Marcia so pleased my eyes. He then replied, each kindness she required, I satisfied.”

Wow. This is really interesting. Okay. “While within the other world.” So what he’s saying is that before I was in limbo with you, Virgil, and my wife, Marcia. Okay. He’s saying that. But remember, when we first read the Inferno, Virgil told us that, listen, if you’re born before the time of Jesus, you’re stuck in limbo. This is the best place you can hope for.

But maybe there are certain people who are so glorious, and they’re such part of a biblical tradition that when Jesus came to hell, he took them to heaven, including people like Abraham, Isaac, his father Joseph, Mary, David — these people who are in the Bible and who are part of the Christian tradition. Jesus took them with him, but everyone else is stuck in limbo.

But he’s saying, Cato, wow, you’re not a Christian. You killed yourself. You were with us in limbo. But you were able to ascend to purgatory while your wife, Marcia, was still left behind. This is like a paradox. Keep on going.

“Now that she dwells beyond the evil river, she has no power to move me any longer. Such was the law decreed when I was freed. But if a lady come from heaven, speeds and helps me…”

Okay, stop. All right. So what he’s saying is, before I love Marcia, but after I was freed and I escaped limbo and now I’m in purgatory, I no longer love her. In fact, I don’t respect her. We can speculate as to why. This is really strange because I already told you in the beginning that what love is giving to other people, right?

So in purgatory, if Cato really loved Marcia, then he should be thinking about scheming as to how to bring Marcia to purgatory, right? That doesn’t make sense. If you make a lot of money, then you want to share this money with the people you love, right?

But again, this is where Dante is different because what is the most important thing is free will. If you truly love someone, you let that person choose. You don’t force that person to do anything against his or her free will.

So I, Cato, I chose to come to purgatory because I willed it. I desired it. Therefore, God let me come. I was able to find the will and desire to self-reflect, to forgive myself, and to come to purgatory. Marcia did not. But I cannot make her self-reflect. She has to choose to do so on her own.

So, as long as she’s there, I have to let her be there. And my love for her won’t change anything. So I choose to focus on other things. Does that make sense? It doesn’t do any good to force anyone to do anything. That’s not what love is. All right. Can you keep on reading?

“As you say, there is no need of flattery. It is enough, indeed, to ask me for her sake. Go then, but first wind a smooth brush around his waist and bathe his face to wash away all of hell’s stains. For it would not be seemly to approach with eyes still dimmed by any mists, the first custodian angel, one from paradise. This solitary island, all around its very base, there where the breakers pound, bears rush on its soft and muddy ground. There is no other plant that lives below, no plant with leaves or plant that, as it grows, hardens and breaks beneath the wave’s harsh blows. That done, do not return by this same path. The sun, which rises now, will show you how this hillside can be climbed more easily.”

“With that he vanished, and without a word, I rose and drew in closer to my guide, and it was on him I set my eyes.”

Okay, all right. So they’re not in purgatory yet, and what Cato is saying is that purgatory is a mountain. They have to climb the mountain to reach heaven, but purgatory is a mountain that is enclosed. So waves and wind cannot touch this mountain. And so we now are in purgatory, and I want you to finish purgatory or try to read as much as you can, and we’ll continue this next week. Are there any questions about this?

So again, this is a journey undertaken by Dante, into the cosmos, and he’s taking us with him.

Understanding Through Misunderstanding

What’s really interesting about Dante is he appreciates that for us to understand, we first have to misunderstand, okay? It’s misunderstanding that leads to understanding. We have to correct ourselves in order to fully understand the truth.

What he also believes is that for us to be virtuous, we first must have to sin, okay? It’s okay to sin because it allows us to recognize our limitations, and it makes us much more virtuous, and it’s this process that drives the imagination.

Does that make sense? If you want to understand, you first have to misunderstand. If you want to be virtuous, you must first sin, okay? Any questions? All right, okay, so we’ll continue this next week, okay?

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