It is not unlikely with his precocity for knowledge and sentiment at
that age that he was deeply impressed with the history of that council
especially as its legislation also dealt with the Crusades, the union of
Churches, the reform of the Church, the appointment of a king of the
Romans and an emperor--matters of vital importance to him later. He must
have recalled that Council also with special interest, for two of his
ideal personages, Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure met their death, one on
his way to the Council, the other while actually attending its sessions.
In any event Dante firmly believed the doctrine of the Hereafter "that
they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that
have done evil, into everlasting fire." He held that the punishment of
the damned is two-fold. The greater punishment, called the pain of loss,
consists in the loss of the Beatific Vision, a suffering so great that
the genius of St. Augustine can hardly translate it in human language.
"To be separated from God," he says, "is a torment as great as the very
greatness of God." The other pain of the reprobate consists in the
torment of fire so frequently mentioned in Holy Writ. "According to the
greater number of theologians the term fire denotes a material and so a
real fire .
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