Note 494 — PART III MOSLEM FEATURES IN THE CHRISTIAN LEGENDS PRECURSORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY

Other picturesque scenes, which Mâle attributes to the working of the popular mind, may also have had a Moslem origin. Thus, the wicked are shown being dragged off in chains to hell by demons (Mâle, 422), just as described in the Koran and the hadiths (Tadhkira, 73). The personification of hell as a monster with open fangs, which Mâle believes to be an imitation of the Leviathan of the Book of Job, is surely modelled upon the monster often quoted in the preceding pages. The avaricious shown in the porches of the cathedrals with their money-bag hanging from their neck are reminiscent of the sinners described in the hadiths on the Day of Judgment as likewise burdened with the corpus delicti, for instance, the drunkards, who carry a flagon slung from their neck, or the fraudulent merchants, who carry a balance (Corra, 12 and 41).