1. Morgan Boyer
Dr. Boyle
World Literature
Dante and Dostoevsky:
two views of the same God
When one tackles a topic as vague as God, or the idea of its existence, or the nature it
may perhaps take, said person often goes in with their own frame of reference in how the world
they inhabit works. This oftentimes directly impacts how they view God. Dante and Dostoevsky
are two examples of this; both of them are writers. However, they come from vastly different
cultures and five hundred years apart in terms of time periods. The way people lived had
drastically from the time the Divine Comedy was written to whenever Dostoevsky wrote Crime
and Punishment. They do, however, share two similarities; both openly condemn corruption in
the church. While Dante and Dostoevsky both share the belief in the Judeo-Christian God and a
hatred of the corruption that occurred in the church, their views of God differ in how forgiving
they are and their role in human society.
As always, it is important to know a bit about these two men prior to going in depth about
the content of their work. This is not a biographical paper, but some exposition about their life
experience is needed to understand why they may have viewed God as they displayed in their
literary works.
Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 in Florence, Italy (Biunno, Diane). When he was nine,
he met his forbidden love and lifelong muse, Beatrice (Biunno, Diane). However, he was forced
to marry Gemma Donati, who would bear to him four children (Dante Alighieri Society of
Massachusetts). Beatrice married a banker and died at the age of twenty-four (Biunno, Diane).
After Beatrice’s death, much of Dante’s literary attention turned to describing how beautiful and

2. astonishing she was (Biunno, Diane). However, Dante’s work does not focus solely on his
beloved Beatrice.
He was heavily involved in politics. He served on the side of the Guelfs, a political party
who supported the pope instead of the emperor, prior to them taking control over Florence
(Dante Alighieri Society of Massachusetts). After that, tensions rose between two newly-formed
factions within the city, the Whites and the Blacks (Biunno, Diane). Dante was exiled from
Florence in the year 1300 (Biunno, Diane). He spent time in various city-states and countries
during his time in exile, from Tuscany to Paris to Spain (Dante Alighieri Society of
Massachusetts). During this time, he composed his most famous work of literature, the epic
poem that we now know as the Divine Comedy. He died in 1321 when he was of fifty-six years
old.
Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in the late fall of 1821 in Moscow, Russia (Teuber,
Andreas). He began to attend an engineering school in St Petersburg when he was sixteen and
graduated in 1843 at the age of twenty-two (Teuber, Andreas). He served for a brief period of
time in the Russian Army after his graduation (Teuber, Andreas). Soon after that, he got
involved in a socialist group led by a man named Petrashevsky. This eventually led him, as well
as his fellow socialists, to be sent to Siberia where they were nearly killed by a firing squad.
However, they were pardoned by the Tsar at the very last minute, and instead were forced to
work in a labor camp for the next four years (Teuber, Andreas). He was then forced by the
government to serve in garrison before he was finally allowed back in St Petersburg in 1859
(Teuber, Andreas). Nearly a decade of Dostoevsky's entire life was spent in forced labor and
service. Being that he lived to the age of sixty, nine years would be fifteen percent of his life.
Upon his return to St Petersburg, he was finally able to pursue a literary career. He was
the editor of several literary journals throughout the last two decades of his life (Teuber,

3. Andreas). However, he suffered from epilepsy throughout his life. Upon his return to St
Petersburg he developed a crippling gambling addiction which caused him to flee the country for
a short period of time (Teuber, Andreas). He died in 1881 of a blood vessel bursting out of his
throat (Gocsik, Karen).
Two things that these writers share in common is that they were both persecuted in
some way by a government figure or establishment. However, they both came out of it with a
very different viewpoint. Dante still has faith that God is directly connected to government
institutes. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, has less positive views on the mixture of government
and the church. While Dante was exiled for a longer period of time than Dostoevsky, he got to
spend backpacking through several different countries with gorgeous mountainsides and lush
vineyards. No human being with a shred of sanity in their central nervous system and a
developed temporal lobe has ever consciously uttered the words, “I am so saddened that I was
sent to this quaint, rustic wine-making village in Tuscany”. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, was
nearly killed with his friends and had to spend his years working in Siberia, one of the most
miserable barren wastelands that the human race has ever inhabited.
This is manifested in the story of the Grand Inquisitor, one of Dostoevsky’s most famous
passages in the Brothers Karamazov. The Parable of the Grand Inquisitor is the story of Christ
coming back to Earth in the fifteen-hundreds, only to be persecuted by the Inquisition.
"There are cries, sobs, confusion among the people, and at that
moment the cardinal himself, the Grand Inquisitor, passes by the
cathedral. He is an old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a
withered face and sunken eyes, in which there is still a gleam of
light. He is not dressed in his gorgeous cardinal's robes, as he
was the day before, when he was burning the enemies of the
Roman Church. He sees everything; he sees them set the coffin
down at His feet, sees the child rise up, and his face darkens.”
(Dostoevsky)

4. Most people could easily come to the conclusion that the Grand Inquisitor is a villainous
character who only cares about his own position of power. There are sinners in the Divine
Comedy who were major church leaders or even popes, but they are usually not the main focus
like the Grand Inquisitor is in this story. The Divine Comedy more focused on the various unique
settings, much like Alice in Wonderland. Most of the attention is not on Alice, just like Dante is
not the center; it is the settings. People remember what punishment happened in the eighth
layer of Hell sooner than which church leader was in there. However, this is not the case in the
Brothers Karamazov.
In the Grand Inquisitor, it is contrasting the actions of the literal son of God with the
actions of the established church in power. “He sees everything...sees the child rise up, and his
face darkens,” (Dostoevsky) this paints a complex character who when something good
happens to the people of Seville, like a little girl being risen from the grave, he automatically
thinks it is bad for his position.
These people bow out of fear to him, “...the people cowed into submission and trembling
obedience to him, that the crowd immediately makes way for the guards, and in the midst of
deathlike silence...,” (Dostoevsky). His entire livelihood is based off of their extreme suffering.
He is also quite capable of committing murder, and in an extremely brutal manner, “he was
burning the enemies of the Roman Church” (Dostoevsky). He has burned some of these people
alive at the stake. This leader in the Roman Catholic Church is the very opposite of Jesus
Christ, who comes down to Earth and helps the poor people of Seville.
Two of Dostoevsky’s most Christ-like characters, Sonya from Crime and Punishment
and Prince Myshkin from the Idiot, are both extremely dysfunctional by society’s standards.
Prince Myshkin is a man who had been hospitalized in a country halfway across Europe until he
was twenty-six years old (Thapa, Surendra. Une, Yasuhito., 2007). Sonya is a desolately

5. impoverished prostitute with a horrible stepmother and a drunken father. They have extremely
low status.
Hence, its most likely that based on his characters, Dostoevsky may have believed to be
more ideally Christlike, one has to be poor like Sonya and not be corrupted by power like the
Grand Inquisitor was. So he may have believed that God’s role in humanity was not within the
government system itself, but with the poor.
Dante came from a time in which church and state were extremely intertwined. The
Pope oftentimes had quarrels with the kings and queens of powerful countries. He could easily
ex-communicate or exile rulers or political leaders that he felt were a threat to his power. Dante
would have probably seen or met people who were like the Grand Inquisitor or maybe acted
worse than the one in the story. Dante was a statesman who had ties to the very corrupt Roman
Catholic church. Whether or not Dante Alighieri himself was a benevolent gentleman who
practiced what he preached and cared for the Florentine poor is something humanity will have
to wait for the invention of the time machine to find out. We as a race can only hope and pray
that he was, but given the tense political climate, it is very likely that was not the first thing on his
mind.
The reason why one can come to a conclusion that Dante and Dostoevsky have a very
different view of God’s role in the church and government is because of one major fact: the very
existence of the circle of Arch-Heretics in the Inferno. Logically, since he created a circle for the
heretics, Dante viewed it as a major sin. If Dante did not think that heresy was a major crime,
heretics might have wound up either as a circle purgatory like the ex-communicated or in a
higher level of hell like the virtuous pagans like Virgil. Heresy is defined as, “adherence to a
religious opinion contrary to church dogma” (Merriam-Webster, 2015). In the Brothers

6. Karamazov story, the Grand Inquisitor calls Jesus Christ, the only son of God who the church’s
teachings are supposedly based on, a heretic (Dostoevsky).
In the Inferno, the heretics are forced to lie in tombs with fire inside of them. Dante
forces the adorable bee-loving Virgil, who was an Epicurean in reality, to say this, “The private
cemetery on this side serves Epicurus and his followers, who make the soul die when the body
dies.” (Dante, Canto X, lines 13-15).
For reference about who these so-called sinners are, the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy says that Epicureans thought that the soul does not survive death, and the body’s
atoms just disperse back into nature, hence there is no punishment in the afterlife (Konstan,
David). Obviously the thought that the soul does not survive death contrasts the Judeo-Christian
belief in an afterlife, let alone a complex system of rewards and punishments like the one Dante
developed.
This leads to the second point in the paper; the difference in how forgiving God is in the
works of Dante versus that of Dostoevsky. One can easily say that the God in Dante is not a
very forgiving one.
The punishments in the Inferno range from being frozen solid, burnt while being locked
inside of in stone tombs, being chased around by killer snakes, being stuck in a river of blood
and tears, being forced to wear lead coats to being in a desert with burning sand. That is not the
actions of a God that is in any way, shape or form merciful or sympathetic. Even the minor sins
of the body which are on the higher levels of Hell, like gluttony, someone has to spend the rest
of eternity being drooled and gnawed on by a giant three-headed dog.
The God in Dostoevsky’s view is far more forgiving. This is manifested in the reaction of
Sonya when Raskolnikov admits to killing the pawnbroker and her sister Lizaveta in Crime and
Punishment. When the impoverished prostitute Sonya suggests that he goes to the police,
Raskolnikov refuses the thought at first. Sonya then says to the distressed Raskolnikov, “But

7. how will you go on living? What will you live for?...how is it possible now? Why, how can you
talk to your mother?” (Dostoevsky, pg 399). Raskolnikov refuses her suggestion still, but then
Sonya continues to urge him to confess, “It will be too much for you to bear, too much!”
(Dostoevsky, pg 399).
This begins to shift the conversation between Sonya and him. The axe-murderer
Raskolnikov begins to reflect more on the current events that have unfolded regarding the
investigation, his family, and what would happen to him if he turned himself into the police.
Sonya promises to follow him to Siberia and visit him while he serves his time in incarceration
(Dostoevsky, pg 400).
As a promise from that conversation, right before Raskolnikov is about to go to the police
to confess to the crime, he visits Sonya to get the cross from Lizaveta, one of the women that
he himself had murdered just a short time ago. Sonya is overwhelmed with joy as she welcomes
Raskolnikov into her room.
The powerful symbolism of how Christlike Sonya is shines throughout this entire scene,
“Without a word Sonia took out of the draw two crosses, one of cypress wood and one of
copper. She made the sign of the cross over herself and over him, and put the wooden cross on
his neck,” (Dostoevsky, pg 495). These are not expensive or rare materials. They are not gold
or ivory crosses that the Grand Inquisitor or one of Dante Alighieri’s political allies or enemies
would have around their necks. Raskolnikov even draws attention to that, “‘The wooden cross,
that is the peasant one; the copper one, that is Lizaveta’s--you will wear it yourself, show me!’”
(Dostoevsky, pg 495).
In the epilogue, Sonya, who has moved to Siberia to keep watch over Raskolnikov,
writes back to the double axe-murderer’s sister Dunia and brother-in-law Razumikhin, who was
also his close friend throughout the entire novel, about his overall condition--mentally, socially

8. and emotionally. She finds a simple job as a seamstress near the prison. Raskolnikov reads
the famous story of Lazarus who was raised by Jesus from the grave, which Sonya had read to
him earlier in the novel, and ponders what life will be like for him, Sonya and his family once he
is released from prison.
This God is a forgiving one who is concerned for the sinner’s friends and family. This
God worries about how the sinner will deal with what he has done mentally and emotionally for
the rest of his life.
This God will be there for you when you spent time in prison and when you are down on
your luck. Dostoevsky’s God is a humble, kind, empathic one who welcomes all people, even if
they have committed a serious crime like murder. This is in direct contrast to Dante’s view of
how God acts.
This manifests when Dante and Virgil land in the evil pockets, that were known as the
bolgias in the original Italian, which lie in the eighth layer of the Inferno. The various
punishments that Dante’s God is adamant in just how terrible, gruesome and unreasonable they
are in contrast to the forgiving ideals of Dostoevsky.
In the Third Bolgia, Dante meets two of his political enemies; Pope Boniface VIII, who
was the one that sent the Pilgrim into exile for the rest of his life, and Pope Nicholas III. Dante
describes his joy in seeing their horrific suffering, “O Highest Wisdom, how you demonstrate /
your art in heaven, on earth and here in Hell! / How justly does your power make awards!”
(Dante, pg 239, lines 10-12).
Dante just saw people being whipped by giant winged demons in the last bolgia. Most
people would have questioned whether that was really necessary for a person to do that to a
captive, much less alone a powerful God to allow that to a large group of humans.

9. In the Fifth Bolgia in particular, in Canto XXI, Dante describes the Malbranches who
torture the unfortunate souls of the Grafters on lines 16-17, “...here by God’s art, not fire, / a
sticky tar was boiling in the ditch” (Dante, pg 261). This means that he views this tar-covered
kitchen a work of God’s justice and not a disaster.
For example, note that in Canto XXII where Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil see what
happens to the Grafters, “like squatting frogs along the ditch’s edge, / with just their muzzles
sticking out of water / their legs and all the rest concealed below” (Dante, pg 269). These people
are being boiled in a giant pot like lobsters. The demons even treat them like food, too, and
speak very casually about such actions as one of them says to his colleague in crime on lines
40-41, “Hey, Rubicante, dig your claws down deep / into his back and peel the skin off him”
(Dante, pg 269).
On the next page, Dante interviews one of the sinners who is being held by a boar-like
demon named Ciriatto. Again, the culinary imagery and comparisons continues throughout this
entire Canto. Virgil tells Dante on lines 62-61, “if you want more from him, keep questioning
before he’s torn to pieces by the others.”,” (Dante, pg 270). These people are being chopped up
like ham. Granted, they did terrible things in life, but most people today would not wish that sort
of treatment on their worst enemies.
Yet still Dante somehow accepting of this kind of punishment, as his diction displays on
lines 82-84, “receptacle for every kind of fraud: / when his lord’s enemies were in his hands, /
the treatment they received delighted them:” (Dante, pg 271). Dante describes the demons as
being delighted. Whether this is a fantasy in Dante’s twisted, messed up mind or if one wants to
argue the literal interpretation, there is no doubt that his God is a far less forgiving one than
Dostoevsky worshipped.

10. Dante Alighieri and Fyodor Dostoevsky have a vastly differing view on God’s role in
human society and how forgiving he is of those who have committed grave sins such as murder
or fraud. Much of these differences come from the surrounding political environment, time
period and cultural values that these two writers were surrounded by. The nature of their exiles
and imprisonment by ruling authorities at the time may have played a major role in how much
they trusted the church being involved in human institutions like governments. In the Brothers
Karamazov, Dostoevsky tells the story of the Grand Inquisitor, a gentleman who calls Christ
himself a heretic while feeding off of the suffering of the poor. Dante Alighieri puts those who
disagree with whatever the church thinks into flaming stone tombs. In the classic novel Crime
and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky displays a loving, humble God in the form of a dirt-poor
prostitute who forgives a man for killing two ladies with an ax. In Dante Alighieri’s Divine
Comedy, the Pilgrim praises God for allowing people to be boiled, chopped up, whipped and
eaten by demons. Dostoevsky believed in a God that would forgive all of the sinners in the
Inferno.
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy: Volume I: The Inferno. Trans. Mark Musa. New York:
Penguin, 1984. Print.
Biunno, Diane. “Dante’s Biography”. Dante Illustrated. Villanova University's
Falvey Memorial Library. 2015. Web.
Dante Alighieri Society of Massachusetts.“Guelphs and Ghibellines”. 41
Hampshire St. Cambridge, MA. 2015. Web.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Trans. Constance Garnett, Juliya
Salkovkaya, and Nicholas Rice. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2007. Print.

11. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. "The Grand Inquisitor by Fyodor Dostoyevsky." The Grand
Inquisitor by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Trans. Constance Garnett. N.p., Feb. 2010.
Web. 21 Nov. 2015. Print.
Konstan, David. “Epicurus”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2014. Web.
Gocsik, Karen. “The Brothers Karamazov: resources and chat area for “The
Brothers Karamazov” text”. Darmouth College. 2011. Web.
"Heresy." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.
Thapa, Surendra. Une, Yasuhito. “Study Guide for Dostoevsky’s THE IDIOT”.
Edit. Vicks, Meghan. Middlebury College Russian Department. 2007. Web.
Teuber, Andreas. “Fyodor Dostoevsky Biography”. Brandeis University. 2009.
Web. F