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Jesus and Cicero Essay

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Jesus and Cicero Essay
Jesus and Cicero Essay
Sinning is one thing people feel that when people do die, they should automatically go to the underworld, or hell, due to their sinful actions. In the Aeneid, book number six, Virgil describes a place where these people go when they perish on earth. When these people get to the underworld, they are judged by their actions and punished depending on the severity of it. Virgil gives us the idea that there is indeed an afterlife, just like Jesus did. But when it came to sinners, Jesus forgave people who have sinned because he wants people to learn the idea of forgiving. Also he wants people to know that nobody is perfect, and that in order for God to forgive one’s sins, he or she must forgive others. When it comes to the idea of sin both Virgil and Jesus agree that there is an afterlife; but Virgil and Jesus’ idea of sin differ when it comes to punishments and judging people as human beings.
Virgil shows his readers that the underworld is a place of punishment and cruelty. When sinners die, they are sent to the underworld to admit their wrongdoings and face the consequences for their actions. In the underworld there is a man named Rhadamanthus who listens to the sinners and sentences them to different penalties based on what they did. Once Rhadmanthus listens to the sinner’s story, he sentences them to different sections of the underworld. The underworld contains different sections that are based on levels of severity. The greater the sin someone commits, the greater the punishment that that person will receive. For example, in the sixth book of the Aeneid, Virgil says that, “Here come those who as long as life remained held brothers hateful, beat their parents, cheated poor men dependent on them; also those who hugged their new found riches to themselves and put nothing aside for relatives- A great crowd, this-then men killed for adultery, men who took arms in war against their right, not scrupling to betray their lords” (181:813-820). In this

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