Fraud in The Inferno

After completing this weeks reading, the main thing that stood out to me was the fact that those who had committed fraud seemed to have some of the worst punishments in hell. This included Pope Nicholas III, who had payed his way into his position in the church and as punishment had to lay headfirst in the ground with flames leaping up at his feet. This appears slightly odd (at least to me), since the sin of fraud is punished significantly more than murder itself. On top of this extremely harsh punishment, we find that this group of sinners is the only one in which Dante shows no sympathy for whatsoever. In fact, we see a rather fiery side of Dante when the pope tells him the reasons for his punishment. Sarcastically, Dante drills Nicholas with questions: "Please tell me, how much treasure did our Lord insist on from Saint Peter before He gave the keys into his keeping? Surely he asked no more than 'Follow me.'"Through this encounter we start to understand Dante's real opinions about how and why certain sins are worse than others. During his lifetime Dante undoubtedly saw several examples of fraud and hypocrisy in the Catholic church, and it is my belief that as a result of this he makes it so that these church-related crimes are most hated by God in The Inferno. Because of this situation, one must wonder if all the levels of hell that Dante creates in his poem are based simply on his own opinions as to which sins are worse than others. One instance that would seem to support this comes from one of the first levels where those who had committed lust were punished. As the history of Dante's actual life goes, it is clear that he dealt with lust; this may be why he made this sin to seem "not as much of a big deal." With this in mind, this helps make it clear of what Dante's opinions towards certain sins were during his lifetime.