Pharisees

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The Pharisees are mentioned by Dante in Canto XXIII of the Inferno, in connection with the counsel given by the killers of Christ before his crucifixion. The note on verse 116 of Canto XXIII explains that the high priest Caiaphas counseled the Sanhedrin that it was better to let one man die for the good of the people, and that making personal interest in putting Jesus to death appear as love of the public good was an act of supreme hypocrisy. The same note clarifies that, according to Dante's judgment, for this statement the killers of Christ are placed in the sixth bolgia, where the sin of which he himself accuses them in the Gospel is punished. A note on Canto XXVII instead calls those prelates who repeat the sins of the ancient Pharisees 'novi Farisei.' The introduction to Canto XXIII also recalls that the evangelical condemnation of the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, compared to whited sepulchres, inspired Dante's depiction of the hypocrites cloaked in gold and lead.