Inferno 3

Study Guide Questions for Canto Three

If you are looking for the beginning of the study for Dante’s Inferno then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide as it becomes available. If you would like to see the growing list of book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!

Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)

Justice, Cowardice, Fate

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. According to the inscription above the gateway into Hell, what led the “High Architect” to create Hell in the first place?

2. According to Virgil, what have “the souls who dwell in pain” lost?

3. What disturbing sounds and scene did Dante encounter as he and Virgil entered through the gate of Hell?

4. What torment was being inflicted upon the “worthless wretches” just inside the gateway to Hell?

5. What were the “band of people gathered at the banks of a broad river” eager to do?

6. What did Charon say to Dante when he first saw him?

7. Towards whom and what were the people hurling blasphemies as they were clamoring to board Charon’s boat?

8. According to Virgil, what turned the people’s fear into desire?

9. What happened when “a lightning bolt” out of Hell flashed before Dante’s eyes?

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. In describing God, the “High Architect” of Hell, the inscription refers to him as “the Highest Wisdom and the Primal Love.” What does wisdom and love have to do with the creation of Hell?

2. What kind of people are being described as simply stuck in the entryway to Hell because “Heaven drives them out – to keep its beauty pure, nor will the deep abyss receive their souls?” What quality was theirs which made them acceptable neither in Heaven nor Hell?

3. Why is it said of these in the entryway that “the world allows no rumor of them now. Mercy and justice hold them in contempt?”

4. Why was Charon objecting to Dante’s presence there?

5. Virgil responded to Charon’s objections by saying, “Be still! No Questions – only know that this is willed where power is power to do whatever it wills.” What did he mean by this?

6. What is meant by referring to “the bad seed of Adam?”

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. The inscription on the gate of Hell in Dante’s Inferno states that Hell was created by “The Highest Wisdom, and the Primal Love.” Skeptics of orthodox Christianity sometimes challenge the existence of Hell as being inconsistent with an omnibenevolent (all-loving) God. How would you respond to the charge that Hell is unjust and unbefitting of the loving God that Christians claim to believe in?

2. Virgil told Dante, concerning the people clambering to cross the Acheron, that “Justice Divine so goads and spurs them on, that what they fear turns into what they desire.” Are there things in this life of which it could be said that people come to desire them when they ought to fear them? What might be a good example of this?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Revelation 3:14-22. What connection could we make between the warning Jesus gives to the church of Laodicea and the people stuck in the entryway of Hell?