Following a legend commonly believed in
the Middle Ages that in answer to the prayers of Pope Gregory the Great,
the soul of the Emperor Trajan was delivered from Hell, Dante assumes
that God who could not save Trajan against his will, allowed his soul to
"come back to its bones" and while thus united to use its will for
salvation. So regenerated Trajan is placed by Dante, in the Heaven of
Jupiter (Par. XX 40, 7). Referring to this incident the Catholic
Encyclopedia says: "In itself it is no rejection of Catholic dogma to
suppose that God might at times by way of exception, liberate a soul
from Hell. Thus some argued from a false interpretation of I Peter III,
19 seq. that Christ freed several damned souls on the occasion of His
descent into Hell. Others were led by untrustworthy stories into the
belief that the prayers of Gregory the Great rescued the Emperor Trajan
from Hell but now theologians are unanimous in teaching that such
exceptions never take place and never have taken place" (VIII, 209.)
As to the location of Hell it is the poet Dante and not Dante the
theologian, as we shall see later, who gives definite place and
boundaries to Hell. He knows that on this subject the Church has decided
nothing, holding to the statement of St.
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