The Book That Literally Defined Hell

Hell.

Priests had been talking about it for centuries; making it out to be a scary place, but it wasn’t until Dante’s Inferno that people really started to feel what hell was. 

However, even though Dante’s book brought many people back to the church out of fear, it was also highly controversial.

Religious leaders of his day didn’t approve of the fact that Dante had defined hell and had given it levels. 

It was the levels itself that made it so controversial. The prevailing church wisdom was that there was no ‘small sin’. Dante’s Hell said just the opposite. There WERE small sins, and the punishment for them was less severe.

Some sins were even so small, you could bypass hell altogether, just serve some time in the afterlife, and then get to go to heaven. 

Blasphemous for it’s day. 

However, many people found both solace and forgiveness in Dante’s version of hell.

Not to mention it inspired some of the greatest artists in the world to explore hell though all it’s many levels and corners of sublevels. 

That’s pretty amazing right there. 

It was pretty world-changing. 

How will your book change the world?

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