Dante's Satan

A very famous portrayal of Satan, we can find in Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy (1308-1321). This canonical classic describes Dante the poet's descend through the nine circles of Hell, and his ascend through Purgatory ending in Paradise. His guide through the afterlife is the Roman poet Virgil, who unfortunately just missed out on Christianity and is therefore caught in Limbo with other famous non-christian characters.

The depiction of Hell is probably the most famous part of the book (certainly the most entertaining in my opinion) - in which each sin is punished by a somewhat corresponding punishment. For example flatterers are steeped in excrement.



Reaching the absolute pits of Hell the two poets find the ultimate sinner, namely Satan himself. In Dante's depiction, Satan is not the ruler of Hell, nor is he eternally fighting God for power, as is the usual portrayal. Satan's battle against God was lost a long time ago in his initial rebellion, and now he is stuck in the deepest jaws of Hell, forever frozen and chewing on the three biggest traitors according to Dante: Brutus, Cassius and Judas.

It is in other words a totally powerless Satan against a omnipotent God. Hell therefore is God's domain as much as Paradise is, which he uses to punish sinners, and to take this logic a bit further, Satan is not some force corrupting man (as in the song), man is responsible for his own actions and has freedom of will to choose good or bad.