In Dante’s series of poems, he incorporates paganism views and spins them to fit into his views of Christianity. Paganism is a term initially used in the fourth century by early Christians as a way to depict people in the Roman Empire that practiced ethnic religions other than Judaism or polytheism. In inferno, aside from biblical figures, there are a lot of mythological creatures and greek and roman figures as well. However, he still incorporates them in a way that still follows his Christian beliefs and ideologies.

One instance is when Dante meets Virgil. Virgil was born before christ making him pagan, but that did not matter to Dante. Dante was a very Christian person, therefore he would not have liked him nor gotten along with him. However, Dante makes him out to be a good man and respects him enough to call him an admirable poet. (Cantos 1, lines 79-87) However, in true Dante fashion, he still manages to depict how Virgil being pagan affects him by then letting him say that he was not able to lead him past hell. He still sinned at the end of the day, therefore he is confined to hell. (Cantos 1, lines 121-126)

This carries into visiting the first circle in hell as well. Virgil tells Dante that the souls in the first circle were either born before christ, did not get baptized, or did not practice Christianity. These people did not in fact sin, they just didn’t live by Christian ideologies, and therefore they were sent to the part of hell with the least amount of suffering. They still were not going to make it to heaven though, they were in a “limbo” as Virgil described it. (Cantos 4, lines 31-42)

Dante also incorporates pagan mythological creatures through most cantos into his Christian hell such as Charon (Cantos 3) In this cantos he also encounters souls that seemed to be neutral in the sense that they did not do much evil, nor did they also do much good as well. Dante’s sense of justice is punishment to complete a sin, therefore they followed a blank banner and were stung by hornets and wasps while naked. Meanwhile, worms intake their tears and blood. (Cantos 3, lines 34-32 and  61-69) All in all, Dante incorporated a ton of paganism and Christianity views and/or figures in Inferno, which ultimately were spun for his ideologies.

Durling, Robert M, and Ronald L Martinez. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri.: (Inferno). Vol. 1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Print.