They arrive in the sixth bolgia just ahead of the pursuing Malebranche, who cannot enter — each bolgia is governed by its own law, and the demons of the fifth have no authority here. Dante and Virgil slide down into it and find a group of souls walking slowly, weeping, exhausted. They wear cloaks — beautiful on the outside, gilded and gleaming, with hoods pulled low, like Cluniac monks — but lined inside with lead so heavy that the cloaks of Frederick II (said to have executed traitors by covering them in lead and melting it on their bodies) were lightweight by comparison. Hypocrites: beautiful on the outside, crushing within.
On the floor of the ditch, three stakes driven through him, pinning him to the ground, lies Caiaphas — the high priest who told the council that it was expedient for one man to die for the people (John 11:50), the political calculation that sent Christ to the cross. He lies crucified in the road and every hypocrite must walk over him as they pass. Father-in-law Annas lies nearby. It is the most concentrated image of contrapasso in the poem: the man who used religious authority to authorize a judicial murder now is the road beneath the feet of all who wore religious authority as a false surface over political ambition. Virgil asks about the route; the Malebranche lied — the bridge ahead is broken. He is briefly shamed, then collects himself and they climb on.