1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:03,480 They say that the Divine Comedy is I think, as you pointed out at 2 00:00:03,520 --> 00:00:07,599 the beginning, I just want to restate it's really really important to our universal 3 00:00:07,639 --> 00:00:14,320 history project because it integrates essentially everything that came before it. It brings in 4 00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:18,160 the Greco Roman world, that brings in medieval cosmology and theology and science, 5 00:00:18,160 --> 00:00:23,079 and the Old Jewish and Early Christian apocalyptic traditions and all of the Apocryphate brings 6 00:00:23,120 --> 00:00:25,480 all of that stuff in. There are giants, there are I mean, 7 00:00:25,519 --> 00:00:30,600 it's all there in the comedy. And what's more is that it doesn't invent 8 00:00:30,679 --> 00:00:34,560 But it's probably the best example for modern readers of the idea that man is 9 00:00:34,560 --> 00:00:40,799 a microcosm, that every human being is actually a cosmos. Dante's descent through 10 00:00:40,799 --> 00:00:43,960 the Earth, that is, descent through the spheres, is a deeply personal 11 00:00:44,039 --> 00:00:46,920 journey, and it's one that bridges perfectly, I think, the medieval and 12 00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:53,439 modern worlds because it shows us how this vision of a cosmos, this medieval 13 00:00:53,479 --> 00:00:57,960 model, is not merely just an external vision of things that will fall apart 14 00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:00,039 as soon as you put it under a microscope or into it telescope or whatever. 15 00:01:00,359 --> 00:01:04,120 It doesn't just adequately describe our experience of reality on a day to day 16 00:01:04,159 --> 00:01:22,000 basis, but it is also a map to ourselves. This is Jonathan Pejel, 17 00:01:22,680 --> 00:01:36,359 Welcome to the Symbolic World. Hello everyone, I am back here with 18 00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:41,120 Richard Rowland for one more Universal History episode, and this week we are going 19 00:01:41,159 --> 00:01:46,000 to talk about Dante's Comedy. And the reason why is because, as many 20 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:49,159 of you know, we are getting ready to embark on a long journey through 21 00:01:49,239 --> 00:01:53,760 hell, up purgatory and into heaven. Richard and I love the comedy so 22 00:01:53,840 --> 00:01:57,959 much, and so we've decided to do it as three classes for the Symbolic 23 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:00,760 World really going into it, and the classes will be longer than the ones 24 00:02:00,760 --> 00:02:04,560 we've done before because we really want to take the time, both of us 25 00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:07,479 to make our commentary on this wonderful text, how it is of this powerful 26 00:02:07,520 --> 00:02:12,879 map of symbolism, and how much inside Dante seemed to have into reality. 27 00:02:12,919 --> 00:02:15,639 And so so Richard is going to be our guide in this. He's going 28 00:02:15,719 --> 00:02:20,280 to be maybe my Virgil. I don't know, I'll take it. I 29 00:02:20,319 --> 00:02:23,479 mean you do have to have a guide, that's for sure, and even 30 00:02:23,560 --> 00:02:30,520 Dante needed a guide. But the comedy is about as confusing as the afterlife 31 00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:34,479 itself in certain places. There's just a lot of illusions that are that are 32 00:02:34,520 --> 00:02:38,840 difficult. Sometimes it's a little difficult to cast your mind back into the frame 33 00:02:39,639 --> 00:02:44,479 of why are things important to Dante that are not important to us anymore? 34 00:02:44,639 --> 00:02:47,400 By the way, this is the right question to ask, almost no matter 35 00:02:47,479 --> 00:02:52,639 what you're reading. I've been reading some other stuff in preparation for some other 36 00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:57,319 Universal History videos that we're going to be doing in the future, and I 37 00:02:57,360 --> 00:02:59,439 will just say, by the way, guys, Jonathan said, we're back 38 00:02:59,439 --> 00:03:01,240 for one more Universal History, but it kind of sounded like you was saying, 39 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:05,520 this is the last one. No, no, not the last one 40 00:03:07,319 --> 00:03:09,199 the stomach. Yeah, that's right, that's right. But I've been I've 41 00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:13,919 been reading through a bunch of Celtic stuff. I promise we're still getting to 42 00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:17,280 that symbolism of Ireland, but currently I'm stuck in Wales, so it's a 43 00:03:17,319 --> 00:03:22,080 whole thing. But I've been reading through a lot of Celtic stuff lately, 44 00:03:22,159 --> 00:03:25,159 and rereading stuff and kind of refreshing my memory a little bit and looking for 45 00:03:25,240 --> 00:03:30,879 certain patterns as they occur and reoccur throughout Celtic literature. And one of the 46 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:34,599 one of the great questions to ask yourself whenever you're reading something, especially something 47 00:03:34,639 --> 00:03:38,199 that feels so in a way like deeply foreign, like some of that really 48 00:03:38,199 --> 00:03:45,120 old stuff, is why do they care about something? You know? The 49 00:03:45,159 --> 00:03:46,919 things that they care about aren't the things that we care about in our world 50 00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:50,159 today, at least that's how it seems on the surface. You get the 51 00:03:50,199 --> 00:03:53,039 same kind of feeling reading something like the Iliad, Like, actually, the 52 00:03:53,039 --> 00:03:57,439 whole premise of the Iliad, which is this, you know, Achilles decides 53 00:03:57,479 --> 00:04:00,120 to go and sulk like, seems like to us it all just sort of 54 00:04:00,159 --> 00:04:02,439 seems like he's being a big baby, Like why is he doing this? 55 00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:06,479 And why is this like a reasonable thing for him to do? Is something 56 00:04:06,479 --> 00:04:09,879 that you have to grapple with if you're going to take the poem seriously. 57 00:04:10,199 --> 00:04:17,079 So anyway, all this to say, Dante has concerns and he has interests 58 00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:21,600 and that are very different from ours today. If we were going to write 59 00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:26,079 the comedy today, god forbid that, you know, it'd be very different 60 00:04:26,120 --> 00:04:30,240 in these ways. So yeah, I'm really excited at getting into all of 61 00:04:30,279 --> 00:04:33,240 this looking at it together. I thought what we could do for today would 62 00:04:33,240 --> 00:04:36,800 be to kind of give an introduction to the comedy. And this is going 63 00:04:36,879 --> 00:04:42,240 to be based a little bit on the introduction that I give when I teach. 64 00:04:42,319 --> 00:04:45,879 When I teach the comedy, and then we can just kind of talk 65 00:04:45,920 --> 00:04:49,120 about it, and obviously they'd be a little bit of repeat But the class, 66 00:04:49,160 --> 00:04:54,079 as you mentioned, is going to be pretty long. We basically are 67 00:04:54,079 --> 00:04:58,120 going to have five three to four hour classes, right, so if you 68 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:01,600 want to just sit and discuss the comedy with me and Jonathan for four hours, 69 00:05:02,079 --> 00:05:05,480 I mean this is going to like bring some coffee and then maybe something 70 00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:10,240 else, because it's going to be there's going to be some sessions and I'm 71 00:05:10,279 --> 00:05:14,759 really really really excited about it. It might be it might be more than 72 00:05:14,800 --> 00:05:16,600 anybody can handle, but I'm just really really excited about it. Of course, 73 00:05:16,759 --> 00:05:19,160 if you get the course, then you have the videos so you can 74 00:05:19,160 --> 00:05:25,519 always rewatch certain sections and yeah, but I'm really really excited about it. 75 00:05:25,560 --> 00:05:28,600 So let me say a few words about Dante, who he is when he 76 00:05:28,680 --> 00:05:31,480 lives. I'm not going to spend too much on this, too much time 77 00:05:31,519 --> 00:05:34,920 on this kind of stuff. What I try to give my students when I 78 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:40,160 tease the comedy is just enough information that will come to all of the political 79 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:43,800 stuff in the comedy, and there is a lot of political stuff in the 80 00:05:43,839 --> 00:05:47,399 comedy. People at least have some idea of like who the major players are 81 00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:51,680 and what does this actually have to do about Dante's spiritual journey, which is 82 00:05:51,720 --> 00:05:55,759 really what the comedy is about. Yeah, and it's important for people to 83 00:05:55,839 --> 00:06:00,800 understand that the comedy itself, the way it's structured, it in some ways, 84 00:06:00,839 --> 00:06:05,000 needs to have his personal story as part of it, because what Dante 85 00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:11,639 is doing is linking his personal story with you know, the national story and 86 00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:15,600 then ultimately the cosmic story. And that's actually how symbolism functions. He's showing 87 00:06:15,639 --> 00:06:21,839 analogies between the different levels of reality. But for us sometimes the particular aspect 88 00:06:21,839 --> 00:06:26,279 can be difficult because you're like, why is who are this? Who this 89 00:06:26,439 --> 00:06:29,680 count of so and so? Like Elvis and the Ghibbelins, and what's all 90 00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:32,040 this about? Yes, so you skip to the end a little bit of 91 00:06:32,079 --> 00:06:35,439 what I wanted to say. But that's that's okay, that's great. Yeah, 92 00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:39,759 that the way that all of this becomes personal, you know, this 93 00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:44,079 is this is what's really important about the comedy. So, Dante Aligiuri, 94 00:06:44,759 --> 00:06:46,199 He's born in twelve sixty five, so he lives at the end of the 95 00:06:46,199 --> 00:06:51,920 thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century. He's a Florentine poet. We 96 00:06:53,639 --> 00:06:57,279 it's important to say he's Florentine because at this time the nation of Italy does 97 00:06:57,319 --> 00:07:00,720 not exist. Actually, the nation of Italy is younger than the United States, 98 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:08,680 which is pretty pretty dangn young as nations go up till that time, 99 00:07:10,759 --> 00:07:13,680 I don't know, something happened. Somebody unified Italy. All the trains ran 100 00:07:13,759 --> 00:07:19,959 on time, I don't remember, but anyway, I'm sorry, yeah, 101 00:07:20,079 --> 00:07:24,480 yeah, I'm not saying Massolini unified Italy, but anyway, it was a 102 00:07:24,519 --> 00:07:29,279 whole thing Italian Italian politics and history. Actually, the last two hundred years 103 00:07:29,639 --> 00:07:36,759 really interesting and very yeah, very spicy. But so he's a Florentine poet. 104 00:07:38,600 --> 00:07:41,680 He lives in the second half of the thirteenth beginning of the fourteenth century, 105 00:07:42,560 --> 00:07:46,600 and as a poet, he's primarily famous for his work called the Divine 106 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:50,519 Comedy. And the Divine Comedy is essentially what's a lot of things, but 107 00:07:50,759 --> 00:07:56,279 really at his heart it is an apocalyptic vision. It has three parts. 108 00:07:56,519 --> 00:08:01,319 The first one is called Inferno or hell. The second is called Purgatorial or 109 00:08:01,439 --> 00:08:05,519 Purgatory, and the third one is Perrydic or Paradise. Now, Dante is 110 00:08:05,600 --> 00:08:09,160 part of a movement, which we'll talk more about in the class. You 111 00:08:09,199 --> 00:08:13,319 could even say he's the leading light of this movement that wrote poetry in the 112 00:08:13,480 --> 00:08:18,639 vernacular at a time when everything important in Western Europe was still being written in 113 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:26,079 Latin. And this Dante very consciously in this ties himself to Virgil, the 114 00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:31,519 Roman poet, who wrote his great Epic in Latin at a time when everything 115 00:08:31,600 --> 00:08:35,080 which was the vernacular for Virgil, at a time when everything important in Europe 116 00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:39,039 was being written in Greek. Right, So there's a there's kind of like 117 00:08:39,080 --> 00:08:43,799 a anology between him and I think that for us, I think probably for 118 00:08:43,840 --> 00:08:46,320 you as well. But I know for me, Dante is one of the 119 00:08:46,320 --> 00:08:52,320 reasons why I wanted, you know that Matti and I wrote God's Dog as 120 00:08:52,320 --> 00:08:56,080 a comic book or as a movie, Like we had this vision that in 121 00:08:56,120 --> 00:09:01,039 some ways, these great moments in transition, there are these great moments in 122 00:09:01,120 --> 00:09:05,960 kind of symbolic capture, recapturing. They happen in a way that tries to 123 00:09:05,320 --> 00:09:09,559 inscribe it, you know, in the lowest possible form, you know, 124 00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:13,360 as it's alluding to all these higher forms as well well. And what's really 125 00:09:13,399 --> 00:09:16,759 interesting about this is that Dante's sort of invents Italian as he's doing this, 126 00:09:18,480 --> 00:09:22,039 Like the dialect of Italian that he's using. I mean there's not there's not 127 00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:26,679 a single Italian language at this point, right there are all these local dialects 128 00:09:26,720 --> 00:09:28,679 that are more or less I mean, like Italian is is you know, 129 00:09:28,759 --> 00:09:33,519 it's like bad Latin. Yeah, I just had some tubble read there those 130 00:09:33,519 --> 00:09:37,759 friends, you know, yea French French is worse Latin. And then not 131 00:09:37,840 --> 00:09:39,480 kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, actually, guys, Just so you 132 00:09:39,519 --> 00:09:43,559 know, like one of the most fun things about hanging out with Jonathan is 133 00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:46,600 that somebody will call him on the phone and it'll start speaking French and it's 134 00:09:46,639 --> 00:09:50,799 just like, what is this? This is so yeah, it's it's it's 135 00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:54,080 really it's it's it's really cool. I really as somebody who loves language but 136 00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:58,840 mostly spend spends most of his time studying dead languages. Whenever I meet somebody 137 00:09:58,840 --> 00:10:03,840 who like legitimately bilingual, and I know lots of people who are, but 138 00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:07,600 people who can just like switch back and forth, you know, it's just 139 00:10:07,639 --> 00:10:09,679 amazing. It's amazing. So anyway, it's very very fun to watch. 140 00:10:11,200 --> 00:10:15,720 Okay, So Dante sort of invests the Italian language, is what I was 141 00:10:15,759 --> 00:10:18,600 trying to say, And what I mean by this is that the dialect of 142 00:10:18,639 --> 00:10:22,799 Italian that he uses is kind of a it's a it's a literary dialect. 143 00:10:22,879 --> 00:10:26,639 He's pulling in pieces from Latin, he's pulling in pieces from his own Florentine 144 00:10:26,639 --> 00:10:28,960 dialect. He's actually also pulling in other pieces from other parts of Italy, 145 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:35,320 and this goes a long way to sort of establishing the Italian language. And 146 00:10:35,320 --> 00:10:39,039 there's nothing unusual about this, by the way. Obviously in English we have 147 00:10:39,120 --> 00:10:43,240 Shakespeare and the King James Bible. Basically, the idea is that, you 148 00:10:43,279 --> 00:10:48,200 know, if sometimes a defining literary work in your language, you know, 149 00:10:48,559 --> 00:10:52,399 especially anything that was written right at that time when things were moving from the 150 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:56,000 medieval to the modern, right that little handover right there, that is when 151 00:10:56,600 --> 00:11:03,039 that's when your your that's when you're great literary epics tended to have been written. 152 00:11:03,240 --> 00:11:07,440 And then that in turn kind of defines your language in certain ways. 153 00:11:09,399 --> 00:11:13,360 All Right, So Dante lives in the midst of an incredibly tumultuous political time. 154 00:11:13,159 --> 00:11:18,919 There are basically, let's say, two primary political factions in the Italian 155 00:11:18,919 --> 00:11:24,000 peninsula. There are the Guelfs and they support the papacy, and then there 156 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:26,639 are the Gibolians and I'm not even going to try to say those in Italian 157 00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:31,919 and they support the Holy Roman Emperor. And what happens in Dante's lifetime is 158 00:11:31,919 --> 00:11:37,799 that the Guelf party, which is pro papacy and which Dante is a member 159 00:11:37,840 --> 00:11:43,559 of because his family is a member of it, after they drive the Gibolans 160 00:11:43,639 --> 00:11:46,200 out of Florence, they split into two. For the parties, there are 161 00:11:46,240 --> 00:11:52,799 the White Gelfs and the Black Guelfs, and essentially the White Gelves, which 162 00:11:52,799 --> 00:11:56,279 is the party that Dante is going to end up belonging to. They want 163 00:11:56,320 --> 00:12:01,480 more freedom from Rome, and the Black Gelves take a really hard line on 164 00:12:01,519 --> 00:12:05,000 papal control. Now all of this, the reason this is happening is it's 165 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:09,200 all tied up with something called the investiture controversy, which basically has to do 166 00:12:09,519 --> 00:12:16,200 with kind of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope of Rome being basically rivals 167 00:12:16,240 --> 00:12:20,600 in terms of who can appoint bishops, who can do you know, which 168 00:12:20,600 --> 00:12:22,759 is what the controversy's name refers to. But who could do other things in 169 00:12:24,440 --> 00:12:28,279 the Holy Roman Empire. And so one of the things that happens in the 170 00:12:28,320 --> 00:12:33,080 Italian Peninsula is the Italian Peninsula. You know, all of these city states, 171 00:12:33,399 --> 00:12:35,879 you know, Milan, Florence and so on, are part of the 172 00:12:35,879 --> 00:12:39,799 Holy Roman Empire. But they're going to start pulling away from the Holy Roman 173 00:12:39,840 --> 00:12:45,639 Empire over the course of you know, the next couple of centuries. And 174 00:12:45,639 --> 00:12:48,600 that's all part of what's going on in Dante's time politically. And let us 175 00:12:48,639 --> 00:12:54,840 just say that when I say that there was this was an incredibly tumultuous political 176 00:12:54,840 --> 00:13:00,200 time, what I really mean is it's an incredibly stabby political time. You 177 00:13:00,200 --> 00:13:03,879 can really see how, you know, these people's descendants eventually become like the 178 00:13:03,879 --> 00:13:09,879 mafia, like it's it's it's it's an incredibly violent period, incredibly violent period. 179 00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:15,279 Violent in a personal way. You say, human history has always been 180 00:13:15,360 --> 00:13:20,080 violent, but nowadays we're violent from a distance, right, and so we 181 00:13:20,159 --> 00:13:24,440 have the ability to kill large numbers of people from a distance without really getting 182 00:13:24,440 --> 00:13:28,799 our hands dirty. This is more the kind of like invite somebody over to 183 00:13:28,879 --> 00:13:31,840 dinner and then stab them in the back kind of violence, right, you 184 00:13:31,879 --> 00:13:39,240 know. And so all this to say, we won't get too much into 185 00:13:39,279 --> 00:13:45,120 this except to sort of explain who the major players are. So I think 186 00:13:45,159 --> 00:13:48,840 for people don't need to understand the investiture controversy. I don't know if I've 187 00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:52,000 talked about it a lot in my videos. It's very important in terms of 188 00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:56,600 let's do it, yeah, in terms of understanding kind of the structure of 189 00:13:56,639 --> 00:14:01,559 the world and how things lay themselves out and how is what's the difference between 190 00:14:01,559 --> 00:14:07,960 authority and power and how these things function. Because one of the issues was 191 00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:11,600 that, you know, the pope in theory is the one who crowns the 192 00:14:11,679 --> 00:14:16,919 emperor, and this is something that you know, started with Charlemagne but also 193 00:14:16,919 --> 00:14:20,399 started you know, is I think is also real at least ritually in the 194 00:14:20,399 --> 00:14:26,120 Byzantine Empire. That is that the patriarch is the person who ritually will crown 195 00:14:26,279 --> 00:14:31,840 the emperor. Now, in the West, this became a serious problem because 196 00:14:31,879 --> 00:14:35,840 it seems like in the West there's a confusion between authority and power. And 197 00:14:35,879 --> 00:14:39,759 this has to do with the fact that the pope is in many ways left 198 00:14:39,759 --> 00:14:43,240 on his own and has to have an army and has to act almost in 199 00:14:43,279 --> 00:14:46,120 some ways as often as a civil authority. And so because of that, 200 00:14:46,159 --> 00:14:52,360 there's this weird confusion of what who has the power to do what? And 201 00:14:52,399 --> 00:14:56,639 so the the Bishop of Rome, what he would do is use the fact 202 00:14:56,679 --> 00:15:01,039 that he could crown the emperor to obviously try to get the emperor to do 203 00:15:01,080 --> 00:15:03,360 what he wants. And then the emperor would use the fact that he has 204 00:15:03,399 --> 00:15:09,240 a lot of people with weapons to be able to get the pope to do 205 00:15:09,279 --> 00:15:11,919 what he wants. And so you have this tension that is not only in 206 00:15:11,919 --> 00:15:16,600 the Holy Roman Emperor but Empire, but also ends up happening in France with 207 00:15:16,679 --> 00:15:20,320 the King of France and these different characters where you all you have this tension 208 00:15:20,639 --> 00:15:26,279 between what we could call spiritual authority and temporal power that it's not clear what 209 00:15:26,399 --> 00:15:30,200 one is supposed to be and how it relates to the other person. This 210 00:15:30,440 --> 00:15:37,080 is the this is the defining conflict of the Late Middle Ages. And when 211 00:15:37,080 --> 00:15:41,080 I say it's actually not even correct to say the investiture controversy as though there 212 00:15:41,120 --> 00:15:45,799 was only one, because it really happened in waves, right, So there 213 00:15:45,840 --> 00:15:50,559 is a the investiture controversy that happens in like the twelfth century, but then 214 00:15:50,679 --> 00:15:56,919 that continues to have these ripple effects all through especially German and Italian political life, 215 00:15:56,039 --> 00:16:00,960 which is part of the reason that neither one of those areas even forms 216 00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:06,480 a cohesive nation state until the nineteenth century. The Reformation goes back to this, 217 00:16:06,919 --> 00:16:10,960 right, what do you think those German princes, you know who backed 218 00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:15,279 all the reformers. Yeah, well, I mean you didn't even have to 219 00:16:15,279 --> 00:16:21,600 be cynical about it, like you could just say that there's like, there's 220 00:16:21,639 --> 00:16:25,360 already this precedent set right, there was always already this push pull like and 221 00:16:25,440 --> 00:16:30,440 so what they sort of saw themselves doing is sort of continuing this let's continue 222 00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:33,200 to neuter the power of the church, let's continue to elevate the state as 223 00:16:33,240 --> 00:16:37,799 the right. But that's already the controversy. That controversy has already been going 224 00:16:37,799 --> 00:16:40,919 on for hundreds of years before the Reformation. And so when you can look 225 00:16:40,919 --> 00:16:44,200 at it, like if you take the Bible as an example to kind of 226 00:16:44,279 --> 00:16:48,080 understand the relationship between the two in scripture, the way that God sets up 227 00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:52,840 the covenant with Israel is that those that are the spiritual authority in the sense 228 00:16:52,840 --> 00:16:56,159 that they hold the ritual power, and they are the ones who manage the 229 00:16:56,240 --> 00:17:00,639 sacrifices and all that. They do not have land, they do not rule 230 00:17:00,679 --> 00:17:07,359 over over over a land in Israel. And therefore their their function is to 231 00:17:07,440 --> 00:17:12,039 be a spiritual authority. And that means that they have certain ways that they 232 00:17:12,039 --> 00:17:17,240 can influence the world, but they're not meant to influence them directly towards mechanical 233 00:17:17,319 --> 00:17:19,000 with mechanical causes. That they're not supposed to beat up people. You're not 234 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:22,400 supposed to fight, You're not supposed to do that. And in that way, 235 00:17:22,799 --> 00:17:26,799 when that happens, then ultimately what you want is you want then the 236 00:17:26,880 --> 00:17:32,480 temporal power to submit to that spiritual authority and then be in some ways the 237 00:17:32,599 --> 00:17:37,480 arm of the guiding principles that are held by the priestly caste. And so 238 00:17:37,559 --> 00:17:40,680 they they're the ones who enact the laws, They do the things. They 239 00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:41,759 you know, they have to put people in prison, they do that. 240 00:17:42,079 --> 00:17:45,759 And in the in the West, there there is that structure like it's there 241 00:17:45,839 --> 00:17:49,240 implicitly right. So for example, when you hear about witch burnings, like 242 00:17:49,319 --> 00:17:55,279 the church has never burned anybody in its entire life. What it always did 243 00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:57,920 if it had a problem with someone it was it would judge them for their 244 00:17:57,960 --> 00:18:02,079 spiritual reason and then would hand him over to the state for the state to 245 00:18:02,160 --> 00:18:06,759 do the action. That's the usual relationship. But what happens in the West 246 00:18:06,799 --> 00:18:11,480 is that you start having this problem where there's a confusion at first, I 247 00:18:11,519 --> 00:18:15,559 think with the pope trying to act like a king. And when that happens, 248 00:18:15,599 --> 00:18:18,559 like when there's this, when there's a confusion of levels. This is 249 00:18:18,599 --> 00:18:21,359 the whole by the way, sons of God, daughters of women, thing 250 00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:26,920 like that, when the authority, when the people stop try to take what's 251 00:18:26,039 --> 00:18:32,839 from what's below in an in a legitimate way, then he creates a destabilizing 252 00:18:32,880 --> 00:18:37,480 force and it leads to revolution ultimately. Yeah, anyway, that's the way 253 00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:38,880 to think about it. Well, actually, I mean I think that this 254 00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:42,880 is all really important obviously for Dante. It's the main thing. It's the 255 00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:47,440 whole enchilada, and and Dante comes down eventually, he comes down on the 256 00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:49,160 side of the Holy Roman Emperor in all of this. So he keeps, 257 00:18:49,359 --> 00:18:53,200 oh, yeah, he's he's really looking for the Holy Roman Emperor to bust 258 00:18:53,240 --> 00:18:57,799 into Italy and clean house. This is what he really wants, and this 259 00:18:57,880 --> 00:19:00,640 is what he tries to profess side, and it sort of never happens. 260 00:19:00,680 --> 00:19:03,599 And Andy, we'll get into all of this, but this is what Dante 261 00:19:03,640 --> 00:19:11,279 really wants eventually, because what he sees, uh uh and and actually just 262 00:19:11,279 --> 00:19:17,279 just just for fun, since this is universal history, Dante blames Constantine, 263 00:19:18,359 --> 00:19:19,680 you know, but you know, which is kind of a meme these days. 264 00:19:19,680 --> 00:19:23,480 But the reason that he blames Constantine is because there was a fraudulent document 265 00:19:25,119 --> 00:19:30,599 that was forged by the papacy or by somebody in the West, called the 266 00:19:30,599 --> 00:19:37,559 Donation of Constantine, and and it was used to support the papal claims of 267 00:19:37,559 --> 00:19:41,720 of the pope as sort of that the ruler of the West over the the 268 00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:45,839 Emperor Constantinople and the and the Orthodox Church and anyway, it's just a whole 269 00:19:45,839 --> 00:19:48,720 thing. And but but I and I'm not trying to be polemic about this. 270 00:19:48,839 --> 00:19:52,119 Everybody knows it was forged. The West figured out that it was forged 271 00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:56,440 in the fourteenth century, so like everybody knew this document was forged, but 272 00:19:56,440 --> 00:20:02,079 in Dante's time, they thought it was genuine. And in the Donation of 273 00:20:02,079 --> 00:20:07,720 Constantine, you know, what the document basically said is that the West Empire, 274 00:20:07,759 --> 00:20:11,039 the Western Empire, was left to the Pope upon Constantine's death, and 275 00:20:11,119 --> 00:20:15,359 so the popes were using this document to support the claim not just against the 276 00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:18,319 East but also against the Holy Roman emperors to say, actually, we're the 277 00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:22,319 ones who should sort of be running the show. So on Constantine's death, 278 00:20:22,799 --> 00:20:26,000 upon constantine fraud, well yeah, I mean it took him a little while 279 00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:29,519 to figure it out. Again, to be fair like they it was it 280 00:20:29,599 --> 00:20:32,200 was still like pre modern times when they figured out it was a forgery. 281 00:20:32,319 --> 00:20:36,279 So but but at Dante's time, they still think it's genuine. And Dante 282 00:20:36,559 --> 00:20:40,480 uses the donation of Constantine. It's something he talks about more than once in 283 00:20:40,519 --> 00:20:44,279 the comedies We're going to see. He uses it to directly blame Constantine for 284 00:20:44,759 --> 00:20:48,640 you gave all of this temporal power to the church, which has corrupted the 285 00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:52,880 church. And so this is Dante's One of Dante's major themes is that when 286 00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:57,759 the church holds large amounts of temporal power, that it that it corrupts what 287 00:20:57,799 --> 00:21:00,559 the church is supposed to be, which is the bride of Christ. Right, 288 00:21:00,839 --> 00:21:06,000 So Dante, Dante is, let me just be very clear, he's 289 00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:10,920 a very faithful Roman Catholic. He's a faithful son of his church. But 290 00:21:11,079 --> 00:21:14,240 he also as a faithful son of his church sees the way that it has 291 00:21:14,319 --> 00:21:18,200 been corrupted by everything that's going on in Italy and in Germany and in that 292 00:21:18,319 --> 00:21:23,279 area that's really that they used to call the Holy Roman Empire. So we'll 293 00:21:23,279 --> 00:21:26,799 talk more about all of this stuff, but I do want to kind of 294 00:21:26,839 --> 00:21:30,400 point out one of the reasons that it is important is because Dante is living 295 00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:36,319 at a time when the world is falling apart. You cou'd say, the 296 00:21:36,319 --> 00:21:41,359 medieval consensus is about to start breaking up in certain ways, and all of 297 00:21:41,359 --> 00:21:48,160 this is kind of endemic in the political strike that's going on in Italy at 298 00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:52,000 this time. And what Dante shows us is a way that you can take 299 00:21:52,319 --> 00:21:56,680 this cosmology right, that you can take this model, what sees what was 300 00:21:56,680 --> 00:22:02,200 called the medieval model, and integrate it into your life as a way of 301 00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:04,880 sort of making sense of things when you see the world falling apart. And 302 00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:11,039 I'll say some more about that in just a moment. Basically, after the 303 00:22:11,039 --> 00:22:15,799 Black Gulps sees power in Italy, Dante is specifically in Florence. Dante is 304 00:22:15,839 --> 00:22:21,440 exiled, and he's exiled and he's actually condemned to death in absentia by his 305 00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:26,240 own city. And this is a death sentence that the city of Florence, 306 00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:30,240 by the way, officially revoked in two thousand and eight, so relatively recently 307 00:22:30,279 --> 00:22:33,839 they actually revoked the death, the death sentence on Dante, who was certainly 308 00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:40,599 their most the most famous florent Team who's ever lived. Probably, but yeah, 309 00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:45,839 finally, finally, finally, yes, yeah, right, exactly, 310 00:22:45,599 --> 00:22:49,640 yeah, yeah, some kind of a stereotype there, sure. So while 311 00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:53,839 he's in exile, Dante, who up to this point has been a successful 312 00:22:53,880 --> 00:23:00,200 poet of love poetry and also a relatively unsuccessful politician, goes through a crisis. 313 00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:03,960 And it's in this crisis, in this what he calls the midpoint of 314 00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:08,880 his life, that he writes the Divine Comedy. So the Divine Comedy, 315 00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:11,880 I should start out by saying, is a comedy, not because it's ha 316 00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:17,559 ha funny, although there are some haha funny moments, and it especially in 317 00:23:17,559 --> 00:23:21,920 Inferno, where obviously you would put all your jokes in Hell's there are no 318 00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:25,000 really, there are no jokes in Paradise. So actually they do put all 319 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:26,839 the jokes in Hell. And I will just say the jokes. I mean, 320 00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:32,000 this is like quality stuff people like if you were if you were hoping 321 00:23:32,839 --> 00:23:36,440 to read the greatest work of Western literature, which I do believe the comedy 322 00:23:36,519 --> 00:23:45,319 is in which demons fart out of their butts like trumpets. I mean, 323 00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:48,519 sign up for this class we're going to have. They're gonna be butt trumpets, 324 00:23:48,559 --> 00:23:52,599 like like people in the Middle Ages, like these are their only two 325 00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:56,039 registers. Right, It's like, let's contemplate the mysteries of the divine trinity 326 00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:59,319 or butt trumpets, and there's nothing, nothing in the middle. There's nothing 327 00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:03,200 in the middle. So so yeah, there there are. There are some 328 00:24:03,279 --> 00:24:07,799 jokes in here. It's mostly kind of body humor. But but a comedy 329 00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:11,960 or comedia, right, means that it's a story that starts low and ends 330 00:24:11,039 --> 00:24:14,680 high. So it starts out bad, but it ends happy. Right, 331 00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:18,440 that's the and then there's the divine is the modifier to that, right, 332 00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:21,599 that this is not just a comedy about some kind of earthly life, but 333 00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:26,200 this is the divine comedy. So it's the comedy of this, the whole 334 00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:30,480 story of redemption, the whole story of salvation as experienced by one man, 335 00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:33,839 right, as experienced by one man. So the comedy has its roots in 336 00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:40,319 kind of three sources. The first is the romantic poetry of the troubadours and 337 00:24:40,359 --> 00:24:44,359 the courtly loved tradition, and this is where Beatrice comes in. Dante is 338 00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:48,680 actually part of a whole new movement called up called the Sweet New Style, 339 00:24:48,039 --> 00:24:53,000 which makes me feel like they're all wearing berets and smoking French cigarettes. But 340 00:24:53,079 --> 00:24:57,200 anyway, you know, or there, or they're like hip hop artists or 341 00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:03,519 something. I don't know, but u this is where Beatrice comes in. 342 00:25:03,519 --> 00:25:06,440 So Beatrice is a very important figure for the comedy. I'll say a lot 343 00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:10,079 more about her actually in the purgatorial class. We'll do a small introduction to 344 00:25:10,079 --> 00:25:14,200 her in Inferno, but she really becomes important in Purgatorio and Paradisea. So 345 00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:19,960 Beatrice is this girl that Dante meets when he's he's nine years old and she's 346 00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:25,039 eight. And Dante claims that they only ever met twice. They might have 347 00:25:25,119 --> 00:25:26,359 met more than twice, but they did. The point is they didn't meet 348 00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:30,079 often. But Dante writes about the two times that they met, once when 349 00:25:30,279 --> 00:25:34,039 he was nine and the other when he was eighteen, so nine years apart. 350 00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:37,640 So they only ever meet twice. And actually one of the times that 351 00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:41,000 they met in person like his conduct had been so bad with like other young 352 00:25:41,039 --> 00:25:45,440 women in the city that she wouldn't even speak to him, and she wouldn't 353 00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:48,480 even speak to him in the street. So when we say that it was 354 00:25:48,559 --> 00:25:53,079 love at first sight, obviously we're not talking about boy meets girl, you 355 00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:57,119 know, kind of a it's something a little different here. The way to 356 00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,960 think about it is that Beatrice is sort of his great muse. She's the 357 00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:03,480 impetus for the events that kick off the divine comedy. But their love was 358 00:26:03,519 --> 00:26:07,720 never it was never mutual. There's nothing to indicate, for instance, that 359 00:26:07,839 --> 00:26:11,880 Beatrice ever knew, reciprocated, or even knew about Dante's affection for her. 360 00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:18,960 They both marry different people. She dies when she's twenty five. And as 361 00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:23,039 we're going to talk about the more in the class, there's this element of 362 00:26:23,039 --> 00:26:26,799 being unattainable is actually a key feature of the courtly loved tradition. So it's 363 00:26:26,799 --> 00:26:32,759 actually it's actually like part of why it works. And what Dante is going 364 00:26:32,799 --> 00:26:36,599 to do is take this courtly loved tradition, which is which is a weird 365 00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:41,279 and almost non Christian part of the medieval tradition. It's like very well, 366 00:26:41,319 --> 00:26:47,279 it's very problematic. I think it was actually declared heretical at some point. 367 00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:49,960 Oh yeah, especially especially when it was when you get into the more like 368 00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,559 the religion of love kind of thing, the stuff where basically you're worshiping Eros 369 00:26:53,599 --> 00:26:59,359 as a god and whatnot. But Dante's going to take that tradition and integrate 370 00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:03,480 it into the Great Christian Epic. He also does this with the Greco Roman 371 00:27:03,519 --> 00:27:07,920 epic tradition, particularly Virgil's a Eneid. We already mentioned that the Eneid is 372 00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:14,519 It's one of Dante's main touchstones. You could almost say it's one of his 373 00:27:14,559 --> 00:27:18,519 main justifications for why he can tell a story in this way, because Virgil 374 00:27:18,559 --> 00:27:22,720 already did it. And of course the Eneid, like the Odyssey, has 375 00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:29,200 a descent into the underworld, and Dante will use elements of that descent, 376 00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:33,559 Aeneas's descent into the underworld. He'll use elements of that in the comedy to 377 00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,599 kind of tie all those things together, and then he'll just make other references 378 00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:45,720 to Greco Roman mythology if you want to, if you want to get a 379 00:27:45,759 --> 00:27:48,960 sense of how people in the Middle Ages freely made use of and references to 380 00:27:49,559 --> 00:27:56,599 Greco Roman mythology in a way that freaks out, you know, like I 381 00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:03,480 don't know homeschool parents, now you can. Yeah. The Comedy is is 382 00:28:03,039 --> 00:28:07,319 really the best example that we have going. It's also such a counter example 383 00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:11,720 to the way that people imagine what Christianity has always been. That's right, 384 00:28:11,079 --> 00:28:15,279 this idea that Christianity was this this this this closed minded thing that they got 385 00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:19,000 ridden of all the old stories that you know, they were just you know, 386 00:28:19,839 --> 00:28:23,519 they they really Dante is the best example of universal history that you can 387 00:28:23,559 --> 00:28:27,880 find in the sense that he really tells the story he had, the story 388 00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:30,640 of his own people, and you know, going all the way back to 389 00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:34,799 the to the Greeks, in a manner that he is completely conjoined with his 390 00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:40,119 Christian Christian faith. So it's it's pretty stust and to the point that he 391 00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:44,319 will I'll just scandalize people a little bit ahead of time, like he'll he'll 392 00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:48,640 especially especially in the Comedy or in the Inferno, especially in the Inferno, 393 00:28:48,839 --> 00:28:51,559 which is where most of these reference. You'll find most of these references because 394 00:28:51,599 --> 00:28:56,640 in Hell you meet people from Greek and Roman like mythology and myth like you 395 00:28:56,680 --> 00:29:00,240 meet people from the Illity, the Odyssey and Seven against Thieves, like you 396 00:29:00,319 --> 00:29:03,960 meet those people in hell, right, So they're in hell why because they 397 00:29:03,079 --> 00:29:06,440 blasphemed God. But if you go back and look at the story of this 398 00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:11,319 guy who blasphemed God, it's he cursed Joe, he cursed Jupiter, right, 399 00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:15,160 and so so it's it's it's yeah, it's it's just really it's really 400 00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:21,480 interesting. So we'll talk a lot more about that and look at how and 401 00:29:21,519 --> 00:29:26,079 why he integrates these things and why what he's doing is okay. But the 402 00:29:26,079 --> 00:29:30,720 the other touchstone, So if you if you studied the comedy in college, 403 00:29:30,759 --> 00:29:33,240 you were probably told about the Romantic poetry and the Greco Roman epics, but 404 00:29:33,319 --> 00:29:40,599 you probably weren't told that there's a third touchstone, a third launching point for 405 00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:45,519 the comedy, and that is the Judaeo Christian apocalyptic tradition. So in the 406 00:29:45,599 --> 00:29:52,160 ancient world, in ancient Judaism, especially second double Judaism, and then and 407 00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:56,240 then starting with the Book of Eenoch and then into Christianity, the most important 408 00:29:56,400 --> 00:30:00,200 Christian apocalypse is of course the Apocalypse of Saint John. Like the Book of 409 00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:07,920 Revelation, there is a tradition of a story, and the story always starts 410 00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:11,960 in the middle of something really bad. Right, always starts in the middle 411 00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:15,519 of something really bad. So your people are being persecuted, or you're in 412 00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:19,599 exile or what. Right, Saint John is on the island of patmost the 413 00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:23,640 Church of God is being persecuted, but he was in the spirit on the 414 00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:26,400 Lord's Day, right, and then he has this vision and so then what 415 00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:33,000 happens is you're given a vision of let's say, like the eschatological reality of 416 00:30:33,039 --> 00:30:37,519 the cosmos. So that is to say, sometimes it's the afterlife, but 417 00:30:37,559 --> 00:30:40,799 it's more than the afterlife, because I mean, for instance, the apocalypse 418 00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:44,880 of Saint John doesn't really show you the afterlife per se. It kind of 419 00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,000 shows you the way that everything wraps up and comes together. So it's the 420 00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:52,160 eschatological vision of things, but it's I mean, the word apocalypse means the 421 00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:55,519 pulling back of the curtain, right. Actually, if you've ever gone to 422 00:30:55,519 --> 00:30:59,880 an Orthodox liturgy, all Orthodox liturgies are apocalyptic because of the moment when we 423 00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:07,839 pull back the curtain and Christ is revealed. So one of the defining features 424 00:31:07,839 --> 00:31:11,079 of the apocalypse to tradition, let's say, there are two defining features that 425 00:31:11,079 --> 00:31:15,240 that almost every apocalypse has in common. There are variations on this, but 426 00:31:15,319 --> 00:31:18,039 they're pretty it's pretty standard across the board. One of the things that is 427 00:31:18,079 --> 00:31:23,200 done is that the person who is being shown the afterlife or being shown the 428 00:31:23,319 --> 00:31:29,680 eschatological reality, has a guide. The guide is usually an archangel and some 429 00:31:29,799 --> 00:31:33,640 later Christian apocalypse is The guide is also sometimes Saint Peter or the Virgin Mary. 430 00:31:34,519 --> 00:31:42,640 Dante takes this tradition and turns it on its head a little bit because 431 00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:47,960 he has his guide be a pagan poet, not just his pagan poet, 432 00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:55,119 a pagan pre Christian poet. Yeah, but it's makes so much sense. 433 00:31:55,319 --> 00:32:00,480 It makes so much sense because obviously this this guide is the one who him 434 00:32:00,519 --> 00:32:05,200 through that which is not in the let's say, it's not contained in the 435 00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:10,400 identity of Christianity. Right, Everything that is outside or below or ambiguous is 436 00:32:12,279 --> 00:32:15,720 being brought about by Virgil. And then as soon as he gets the purgatory, 437 00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:19,799 the purgatory is really the beginning of paradise. By the way, It's 438 00:32:19,799 --> 00:32:22,200 hard for people to think that it's like because whoever then purgatory is gonna is 439 00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:24,720 good at some point, gonna make it up the mountain. Yeah, well, 440 00:32:24,839 --> 00:32:29,480 Virgil leaves at the end of Purgatory, but right before he gets into 441 00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:34,279 the earthly paradise, which is which is pretty amazing. Yeah, yeah, 442 00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:37,799 I mean that's the crazy thing, like Virgil leading you through hell. Okay, 443 00:32:37,839 --> 00:32:39,240 that kind of makes sense to me. But then you get this idea 444 00:32:39,279 --> 00:32:44,720 that Virgil is not not only is Virgil leading you through purgatory, but the 445 00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:49,319 entrance to purgatory is guarded by Cato, who is a Roman philosopher who committed 446 00:32:49,359 --> 00:32:53,400 suicide. So there's all kinds of crazy stuff here, guys, and I'm 447 00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:58,640 really excited to talk about it. Yeah. And also like the fact that 448 00:32:58,799 --> 00:33:04,279 even that even Virgil can hear the voice, you know, because there's this 449 00:33:04,359 --> 00:33:09,359 succession of intermediaries that yes, that kind of invoke Virgil to come to Dante. 450 00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:13,039 You know, it starts with the Virgin, and then there are different 451 00:33:13,079 --> 00:33:15,920 saints and Beatrice, and then there's this really the beautiful image of kind of 452 00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:20,640 divine procession, you know, kind of grays coming from above through the different 453 00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:24,480 levels that can handle it up to the up to this encounter with with Virgil. 454 00:33:24,559 --> 00:33:29,680 It's very very beautiful image of reality and very powerful. So that comes 455 00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:34,440 down because basically Virgil is sent by Beatrice, and Beatrice has moved to send 456 00:33:34,559 --> 00:33:37,559 Virgil by the Virgin Mary in Saint Lucy. Yeah, and this is thin 457 00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:40,480 a little bit of a head ahead of ourselves. But let's say Saint Lucie 458 00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:45,640 is very important. She's one of the She's one of Dante's heavenly patrons. 459 00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:50,240 Sat Saint Lucy is who's actually one of my family saints. She's the saint, 460 00:33:50,599 --> 00:33:54,559 she's the patron saint of blindness and blind people, but also the patron 461 00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:58,960 saint of poets, or one of the patron saints of poets. So Dante 462 00:33:59,079 --> 00:34:01,880 is a poet, but he is also struggling with a certain kind of blindness, 463 00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:06,759 and there's a theme of blindness and the recovery of site. The strengthening 464 00:34:06,799 --> 00:34:09,559 of sight is one of the main themes of the comedy. And so there's 465 00:34:09,599 --> 00:34:15,079 this procession down from the Virgin Mary, Saint Lucy, Beatrice, who's also 466 00:34:15,159 --> 00:34:19,960 a saint in the comedy, down to Virgil, who's then sent for Dante. 467 00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:23,199 But then Dante. He proceeds down through Hell, up the mountain of 468 00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:28,440 Purgatory. He gets up to the top of Purgatory, Virgil hands him off 469 00:34:29,079 --> 00:34:35,159 to Beatrice. Beatrice that will later actually hand him off to Saint Bernard right 470 00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:38,599 and right, because because there's like somewhere that even actually Beatrice can't take him 471 00:34:38,679 --> 00:34:43,199 right. So now he's got to go. Now he's got it to rise 472 00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:47,000 beyond even the idea of love as Dante understands love, and into the realm 473 00:34:47,039 --> 00:34:52,320 of pure contemplations. So anyway, this is this is really cool stuff. 474 00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:59,119 Actually, Paradisio's probably my favorite book of the comedy to go through because almost 475 00:34:59,159 --> 00:35:01,440 nobody has read it. That's not the only reason, but almost nobody has 476 00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:05,519 read it. People read Inferno usually in high school, and then they never 477 00:35:05,519 --> 00:35:08,599 get farther than that. A few people might have read Purgatorio, but not 478 00:35:08,679 --> 00:35:13,360 a lot of people have read Perediicio. I think because holiness is less interesting 479 00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:16,199 to most people than wickedness is. Right, Like, there's a certain like 480 00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:20,760 math in the Inferno that kind of makes sense to us. But then when 481 00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:23,559 you when get to Parigiicio, people suddenly start getting very offended by the idea 482 00:35:23,599 --> 00:35:27,400 that there are also levels in heaven, like there are also tears in heaven, 483 00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:30,639 and that some people get more of God than other people. And by 484 00:35:30,679 --> 00:35:32,880 the way, this is one of the key ideas of the comedy, is 485 00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:37,880 that everybody gets as much God as they want. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, 486 00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:39,039 this is one of the key ideas. Yeah, and this is I 487 00:35:39,039 --> 00:35:42,440 mean, this is something you see, you know, taking up all the 488 00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:47,119 way in di cs Lewis or even into a lot of Orthodox visions of the 489 00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:51,039 River of Fire and all these ideas, which is, in some ways, 490 00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:53,440 you are where you want to be. You're always where you want to be. 491 00:35:53,639 --> 00:35:57,000 You're not you know, if you're in hell, it's because you actually 492 00:35:57,039 --> 00:36:00,280 want to be there, and that's definitely the case for Dante's. Actually, 493 00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:04,800 what Lewis says about Dante's version of hell is that it's locked from the inside, 494 00:36:05,559 --> 00:36:07,480 right. Everybody, everybody that's in there is in there because they want 495 00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:12,159 to be there, because they've denied God and really what it is. So 496 00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:15,719 let's talk a little bit about each of the three books. So each of 497 00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:22,239 the three books has thirty three cantos, and then and then there's and then 498 00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:24,840 Inferno also has a prologue, so to make it a total of thirty four. 499 00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:31,559 So that means there's one hundred canto's total. So canto is an Italian 500 00:36:31,559 --> 00:36:36,840 word means like a song, but basically think of it like chapter divisions or 501 00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:45,519 something. If that's helpful. And in Inferno, Dante begins a descent into 502 00:36:45,559 --> 00:36:51,840 the Abyss on Good Friday, and this is after basically coming up a face 503 00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:54,760 with his sin and also the kind of the sins of the Florentine and Italian 504 00:36:54,760 --> 00:37:00,639 people that are allegorized is these three beasts. He can't get past them, 505 00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:04,960 and he's lost in the dark wood, as he says, definitely know that 506 00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:09,519 feeling, and so Virgil assent to guide him. But in order to save 507 00:37:09,599 --> 00:37:13,639 him, in order to recover him, he's got to actually go through Hell 508 00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:17,880 first. And this is a very deep Christian understanding that you always have to 509 00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:22,599 go down to go up, and to you to you always have to descend 510 00:37:22,639 --> 00:37:28,159 to us send. And so he goes down, it descends into ves on 511 00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:31,159 Good Friday, following the path of the herowin of Hades, the heroin of 512 00:37:31,199 --> 00:37:37,719 Hell, to finally emerge on Easter Morning out the other side of the world 513 00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:45,039 literally. And the Inferno is really about confronting sin, right sin. Ultimately, 514 00:37:45,039 --> 00:37:49,280 it's about confronting Dante's own sins. Right sin in the City of Man, 515 00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:52,159 the way that the way that human sin, and there's a very particular 516 00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:55,920 ordering of sin in the Inferno that we're going to talk about. But one 517 00:37:55,920 --> 00:38:01,239 of the main ideas about sin in the Inferno is that sin erodes our personhood, 518 00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:06,000 so that Dante's hell is full of people who have ceased to be people. 519 00:38:06,519 --> 00:38:09,840 They are people who have chosen to identify so strongly with their sins that 520 00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:13,880 they've essentially ceased to be human persons. And this is what we mean when 521 00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:17,840 we say that it's locked from the inside, right, These people have effectively 522 00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:21,920 become their sin. And this is the whole idea of You know, there 523 00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:30,199 are all these gory, horrifying punishments in the Inferno, but none none of 524 00:38:30,199 --> 00:38:35,119 the punishments are arbitrary. Every single one of the punishments in some way sort 525 00:38:35,119 --> 00:38:38,559 of shows what the person with the person became all along and so and this 526 00:38:38,639 --> 00:38:43,920 is a this is a feature of the of the This is a feature of 527 00:38:44,039 --> 00:38:49,440 the the Christian apocalyptic tradition, this idea. But it's more than just let 528 00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,280 the punishment fit the crime, right, It's more than that. What it 529 00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:58,159 really is is the punishment is really just the sinner living with themselves, right, 530 00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:00,400 and so so you can you can very clearly see what they became, 531 00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:06,000 right or sometimes living with other people. If Hell is other people, I 532 00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,159 mean some of the people in Hell, that's definitely being stuck with those people 533 00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:13,559 until the day of judgment is a bad time. I want to ask you 534 00:39:13,599 --> 00:39:16,199 just one question though, Like this is because you know, we we mentioned 535 00:39:16,199 --> 00:39:22,800 that this is part of the Christian apocalypse tradition, the Jewish and Christian apocalypt 536 00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:24,920 tradition, you know, so we have all these images, you know, 537 00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:29,840 whether it's the book in it Enoch three, I guess is that the one 538 00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:32,199 where he goes up first, it's in First Enox. Yeah, and First 539 00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:37,760 Enoch you have this ascent. He goes up, he sees the processes of 540 00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:40,480 the of the heavens. You see that in many texts. But you know, 541 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:45,880 where is there precedent for the descent into haities? I think you mentioned 542 00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:50,559 thirdsdras well. He does see it, and he does see it. You 543 00:39:50,599 --> 00:39:53,679 do see where the wicked are punished in Actually you see in First Enoch going 544 00:39:53,679 --> 00:40:00,679 all the way back, you do see where the rebellious stars are and and 545 00:40:00,679 --> 00:40:07,880 and uh. And actually the word that's also used in uh in Jude, 546 00:40:07,039 --> 00:40:12,880 in Jude's epistle, that's also that's used in Enoch for the stars who abandoned 547 00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:15,000 their right, the angels who abandoned their proper place to the stars they've been 548 00:40:15,199 --> 00:40:19,199 the word is planet, by the way, a wandering star. Right, 549 00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:22,599 that's a anyway, which is which is fun to think about because then you 550 00:40:22,599 --> 00:40:28,320 think about the fact that the ancient like uh Romans and Greeks identified the planets 551 00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:31,320 with the various gods, right who who are sort of like in the Eenolkian 552 00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:35,440 tradition, are actually fallen angels. Anyway, It's that's all very fun and 553 00:40:35,679 --> 00:40:39,000 interesting. We'll talk about that one of these days. So he sees, 554 00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:43,679 so he sees the place where he sees the place where they're being punished, 555 00:40:43,679 --> 00:40:45,920 and he also sees the place where the wicked are being punished. And by 556 00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:51,480 the way, it's freaking like it's it's weird, like it's like he's describing 557 00:40:51,519 --> 00:40:54,800 like gravity well or something like it's a really it's a really evocative description in 558 00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:59,599 first Knox. So but yes, and in our last video I said third 559 00:40:59,599 --> 00:41:02,840 As Dress that I was wrong. It's actually fourth Asdress or second Esdress because 560 00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:07,719 those are the same book for various reasons. So you can see how one 561 00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:14,119 bite confused these things. So in fourth Esdras or second aka seconds dress. 562 00:41:14,159 --> 00:41:20,320 In some numberings, you have a very clear descent as Ezra is taken down 563 00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:25,440 into the underworld. He's taken down into Shaol, and he's shown very clearly 564 00:41:27,079 --> 00:41:31,880 the famous sinners and the ways that they are punished. Right, And I've 565 00:41:32,199 --> 00:41:38,000 sort of I sort of situate the beginning of that particular tradition with that book. 566 00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:45,400 And then there's something that gets riffed on, especially in the there's some 567 00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:51,320 later Christian apocalypses that were very popular in desert areas, let's say, because 568 00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:54,679 people who live in the desert seem to like extreme stuff. I don't know 569 00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:59,039 what's going on with that, but it's one of those one of those things 570 00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:01,400 is like, yeah, the most extreme forms of Christianity always came from people 571 00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:05,920 who are living, you know, just like you know, in constant danger 572 00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:13,039 of starvation and being killed by wild beasts and whatnot. But so there's the 573 00:42:13,079 --> 00:42:19,280 apocalypse of some what's sometimes called the Apocalypse of Saint Paul or the Visiopouli. 574 00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,960 But it's also really that Texas is part of like a whole cluster of similar 575 00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:27,559 texts that are related to each other that were very popular starting in about the 576 00:42:27,559 --> 00:42:30,840 second century. Ap so anyway, all of that to say, we actually 577 00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:35,559 talked about one of those we talked about the the Zeopoli in the Baille class. 578 00:42:36,039 --> 00:42:38,360 But it's also related to Dante. See it is all connected, all 579 00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:43,960 connected, yeah, there. So what's important is to understand that this this 580 00:42:44,119 --> 00:42:47,199 image of descent is there's a precedent for it. There's also the obviously your 581 00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:52,599 president for it in in the in the apocrypha, the Gospel of Nicodemus, 582 00:42:52,679 --> 00:42:57,599 like the apocrypha that shows Christ going down into the sending in the hades, 583 00:42:57,679 --> 00:43:01,760 sending in the hades and kind of freeing the the people there. So I 584 00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:05,239 have a big question for you because actually I don't know the answer to this, 585 00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:08,800 like go for it. No, We often in orthodox thinking will say 586 00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:14,079 there's a difference between shale and Gehena. Right, so it's like a difference 587 00:43:14,119 --> 00:43:19,480 between the idea of the realm of the dead that does have some seem to 588 00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:24,039 have some aspect of suffering of you know, of a lack of personhood like 589 00:43:24,039 --> 00:43:29,639 the way we describe it. Then they're the image of the fire that comes 590 00:43:29,679 --> 00:43:31,800 from the throne of Christ at the end of time. So one of the 591 00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:37,360 impressions that I have when I read when I read Dante, was that that 592 00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:39,519 all gets that all gets kind of joined together, like it's just all the 593 00:43:39,559 --> 00:43:44,440 same. I don't know if you have that so sort of if Dante makes 594 00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:47,880 it very clear throughout the comedy that everybody in his afterlife is still awaiting the 595 00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:52,840 General Resurrection and the Last Judgment. So these people are still awaiting the General 596 00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:58,599 Resurrection and the Last Judgment. And this actually comes up in particular because there's 597 00:43:58,639 --> 00:44:05,599 some sense that may the suicides won't get their bodies back at the General Resurrection 598 00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:09,360 because they've already rejected their body and so this kind of comes up because Dante 599 00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:13,159 is like asking about, well, what happens to suicides at the resurrection if 600 00:44:13,199 --> 00:44:19,519 they've already Yeah. So so everybody in Dante's version of Hell is awaiting the 601 00:44:19,519 --> 00:44:23,000 General Resurrection and some other fate. So he still he still has that I 602 00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:29,880 like especially important slash troubling when you're when you start talking about Limbo. Right, 603 00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:35,639 so the people in Limbo are the righteous Pagans also unbaptized children and the 604 00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:42,559 righteous Muslims, not just ancient right yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah not that, 605 00:44:42,679 --> 00:44:45,880 which which is a big deal that Dante is at all soft on Muhammad 606 00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:50,119 by the way, Oh no, no, yeah, we're gonna see what 607 00:44:50,159 --> 00:44:52,960 happens to him, and yeah, yeah, I think it. Salad is 608 00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:57,840 salad in solid yeah, which who everybody really just like had a huge crush 609 00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:00,679 on in the Middle Ages. He was a better he was like a better 610 00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:02,400 knight than the Christian knights. He was more virtual, right, yeah, 611 00:45:02,599 --> 00:45:07,480 very very honorable man by you know, at least, you know, according 612 00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:10,400 to the standards of this time and the way that people in Western Europe thought 613 00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:15,639 about him. That's a very interesting Actually, that's a hugely interesting study. 614 00:45:16,079 --> 00:45:21,159 Somebody wants to do like a master's thesis or something, look at the ways 615 00:45:21,159 --> 00:45:27,159 that the crusader's route about Semidin. But anyway, okay, so so you've 616 00:45:27,159 --> 00:45:31,639 got these sort of like righteous pagans and these other categories of people, basically 617 00:45:31,679 --> 00:45:36,320 people who were not baptized, people who didn't have an opportunity to be baptized, 618 00:45:36,760 --> 00:45:39,920 et cetera. They're in limbo, which is the first circle of hell. 619 00:45:40,039 --> 00:45:45,360 But it's pretty nice, like there's no torment. Yeah, their only 620 00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:50,480 torment is that they don't have hope. And when we say hope, the 621 00:45:50,559 --> 00:45:53,440 Christian virtue of hope is in It is not. I just we're going to 622 00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:59,079 talk about the virtues in the class because there are certain things that you need 623 00:45:59,119 --> 00:46:01,920 to understand to read people literature. I have a little list, it's almost 624 00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:06,519 like a little catechism that we're going to go through. And one of the 625 00:46:06,559 --> 00:46:08,719 things is, these are the seven medieval virtues, right, and here's the 626 00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:12,760 deadly sins, and here's the stuff like this. You got to know these 627 00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:16,679 things at some point. This was part of everybody's education, like religious, 628 00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:21,880 academic, whatever, and then at some point people stop stop learning about this. 629 00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:25,159 But the Christian virtue of hope is not a vague I hope things will 630 00:46:25,199 --> 00:46:30,199 get better. It is a hope in the resurrection in particular. Actually, 631 00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:32,840 Christians, we don't expect things to get better in this life, not really, 632 00:46:34,599 --> 00:46:38,000 right, But the thing that we're looking forward to is in particular I 633 00:46:38,079 --> 00:46:42,440 look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come. 634 00:46:42,519 --> 00:46:45,440 That is the Christian virtue of hope. So these people live in relative 635 00:46:45,519 --> 00:46:51,519 ease. It's basically it's basically the same place where the righteous, or let's 636 00:46:51,519 --> 00:46:55,559 say, where the virtuous are in virgils in Neiad, like when Inius goes 637 00:46:55,559 --> 00:47:00,480 to the other world and he meets his ancestors and they're there and they they 638 00:47:00,559 --> 00:47:04,679 get sort of like they've forgotten their earthly sufferings and things like that. Right, 639 00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:09,480 So that's where they are, That's what Limbo is. But they don't 640 00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:13,719 have any hope. That is, they have no hope for the resurrection. 641 00:47:14,159 --> 00:47:16,159 So what does that mean? What are the long term implications for those people? 642 00:47:17,039 --> 00:47:19,960 That's one of the things that we're going to talk about in the class. 643 00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:25,199 And and I'll just say, like, obviously Dante is a particular person, 644 00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:30,159 writing at a particular time and a member of a particular church. Not 645 00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:35,840 all of Dante's theology is my theology. Obviously, I'm an orthodox Christian. 646 00:47:36,079 --> 00:47:38,639 We're going to disagree on some things. We agree on more things, obviously. 647 00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:43,159 But what I want to when I want to focus on, is what 648 00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:45,679 is what does Dante think? What is Dante saying about the world. I 649 00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:50,719 also think that there are some really interesting images that he uses. So he 650 00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:54,920 says certain things and then he also alludes to other things by some of the 651 00:47:55,159 --> 00:47:59,639 images, Like in Limbo, there's this is image of them going up a 652 00:47:59,679 --> 00:48:01,559 little, like they go up a little, and then there's like they have 653 00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:05,920 some light that comes from above, and I'm thinking, yeah, that's a 654 00:48:06,039 --> 00:48:09,280 very interesting image that he's using right there in the at the Portal of Hell, 655 00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:15,360 you know, as he there are also so many weird exceptions to even 656 00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:20,480 Dante's own rules, you know, uh where where Dante is like and what 657 00:48:20,519 --> 00:48:22,360 it really is is Dante's wrestling with things in the tradition that seem to be 658 00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:27,280 incongruous and he's trying to put it all together. Yeah, so I'll just 659 00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:30,679 like a little spoiler. You're gonna meet Trajan, who's a pre Christian Roman, 660 00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:35,320 or it's not pre Christian, he persecuted Christians, right. In fact, 661 00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:37,559 the emperor Trajan's daughter is a saint and he killed her because she was 662 00:48:37,559 --> 00:48:43,639 a Christian. Right, so you're gonna meet him in Paradise. Yeah, 663 00:48:43,639 --> 00:48:50,760 well because of that story, yes, don't tell people spoilt them. Yeah, 664 00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:53,960 no, there's uh so anyway, there's there's a there's all. We'll 665 00:48:54,039 --> 00:48:57,000 leave that one as a teaser. Obviously, people can just go look that 666 00:48:57,079 --> 00:49:01,760 up, but you can't actually spoil something that's more than you know, a 667 00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:12,199 thousand exactly. But the my point is that Dante is wrestling with incongruous things 668 00:49:12,199 --> 00:49:16,480 in the tradition, and so sometimes and the important thing is for people to 669 00:49:16,559 --> 00:49:22,000 understand is that Dante is not writing a manual that says the afterlife is exactly 670 00:49:22,079 --> 00:49:28,519 like this. He was so successful and this often happens with It happened in 671 00:49:28,519 --> 00:49:35,159 the English language with Milton as well, where where something is so artistically successful 672 00:49:35,599 --> 00:49:39,239 that it just takes over the imaginations of everybody, right, and this causes 673 00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:46,239 all kinds of weird things downstream, especially when it comes to purgatory, which 674 00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:52,440 we'll talk about when we get there. Everything, almost everything that modern people 675 00:49:52,880 --> 00:50:00,119 and here I'll say Orthodox Catholics everybody thinks about purgatory would have been completely unrecogni 676 00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:04,119 to people in the Middle Ages. Yeah, and even Dante's version of purgatory 677 00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:07,400 is like very innovative in certain respects. And it's because he's got a particular 678 00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:10,960 purpose. He's not saying purgatory is actually like this. He's got a particular 679 00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:15,320 purpose to what he's doing because he I mean he is he's actually making a 680 00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:20,000 map of reality and of the process of transformation. But then also the way 681 00:50:20,039 --> 00:50:23,679 that things lay themselves out in terms of a hierarchy of virtues. You know 682 00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:29,599 and then ultimately as vice is, as their kind of as their flip side. 683 00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:34,440 But that's so it's more about the ontological structure than it is about the 684 00:50:34,480 --> 00:50:38,119 idea of that he's just accurately describing the afterlife, although he's obviously talking about 685 00:50:38,119 --> 00:50:42,480 the afterlife. The way that he places beings at different levels, yeah, 686 00:50:42,599 --> 00:50:46,000 more to help you understand this ontological hierarchy of being and the way that kind 687 00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:51,760 of God manifests himself at different levels in reality. Mostly, what I mean, 688 00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:53,119 by the way, when I say this, is that Dante's version of 689 00:50:53,159 --> 00:50:57,840 Purgatory is the nicest one anybody ever came up with in the Middle Ages. 690 00:50:58,960 --> 00:51:04,079 Previous versions of and I will read some excerpts are pretty r rated. They're 691 00:51:04,119 --> 00:51:09,519 pretty horrifying and just really terrifying stuff. Actually, Dante's version of Purgatory is 692 00:51:09,679 --> 00:51:15,000 very nice. It's very very kind of fluffy compared to not that, not 693 00:51:15,079 --> 00:51:16,519 that it seems great either, by the way, like some of the some 694 00:51:16,599 --> 00:51:19,920 of the things that people are dealing with, but also it is great because 695 00:51:19,960 --> 00:51:22,159 everybody, so here's the thing, everybody in Hell wants to be there. 696 00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:28,360 Also, everybody in Purgatory wants to be there, and so they're all happy 697 00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:30,920 to be going through what they're going so that they can be purified from their 698 00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:36,280 sins. But anyway, we'll talk about all of this, but I think 699 00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:37,960 one of the things that I want to point out that we'll talk a lot 700 00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:44,559 more about is the is the the different ways of thinking about sin that you 701 00:51:44,599 --> 00:51:47,159 get between Inferno and Purgatorial. So, as you mentioned, there's Dante's giving 702 00:51:47,199 --> 00:51:50,880 us a vision of the way the world lays itself out or the way that 703 00:51:50,920 --> 00:51:54,440 reality is structured. But sin is sin is kind of like an anti reality, 704 00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:58,760 and so it has its own hierarchy. There's there's this sort of a 705 00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:06,880 hierarchy to sins in the way that they that they destroy or dement ontological hierarchies, 706 00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:12,840 and so in Inferno, sins are that you can say that the defining 707 00:52:13,039 --> 00:52:15,639 metaphor for sin throughout the entire comedy is that sin is weight. The worstest 708 00:52:15,639 --> 00:52:19,880 sin is, the heavier a sin it is, the more it pulls you 709 00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:22,079 down. Right, You don't want to go down, do you want to 710 00:52:22,119 --> 00:52:23,960 go up? Right? So the heavier sin is, the worstest sin is 711 00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:30,199 the more it pulls you down. Well, in Inferno, the heaviest sin 712 00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:34,039 is treachery to your lord, right, And so at the very bottom of 713 00:52:34,079 --> 00:52:38,159 hell you have the devil, and the devil is chewing on the heads of 714 00:52:38,679 --> 00:52:46,960 three famous traders, right. The least worse sin for Dante is actually like 715 00:52:47,639 --> 00:52:54,239 adultery. Now, I always like to ask people, like, so, 716 00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:58,599 if you were like structuring hell, where would you put adultery? Obviously right 717 00:52:58,639 --> 00:53:01,760 down at the very bottom, because hyper focused on these sources of sins in 718 00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:06,159 our society, right, And it's actually because of the dominance of the courtly 719 00:53:06,199 --> 00:53:07,480 loved tradition, by the way, So the idea that you would yeah, 720 00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:15,079 anyway, So so Dante and the Dante arranges all of these other sins like 721 00:53:15,119 --> 00:53:17,280 somewhere in the middle there. And basically there are two categories in Inferno. 722 00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:22,559 The first category is is sins like animals. If you sin in this way, 723 00:53:22,599 --> 00:53:27,280 you become more like an animal, right. And the second category is 724 00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:30,239 sins like a demon. If you sin in these ways, because you're using 725 00:53:30,239 --> 00:53:34,519 your rational self, you become more like a demon all the way down to 726 00:53:34,679 --> 00:53:40,519 satan. Well, in Purgatorio, Dante does a totally different scheme. Sin 727 00:53:40,599 --> 00:53:46,039 is the wait, but now he's just following the seven deadly sins. But 728 00:53:46,119 --> 00:53:50,000 if you take a look at so there are only seven seven tiers to the 729 00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:52,119 mountain of purgatory, whereas there are nine layers to hell. Right, But 730 00:53:52,599 --> 00:53:55,039 as you wus send the mountain of purgatory, what you start to realize is 731 00:53:55,079 --> 00:53:58,920 that the heavier sins are still like the more demonic one. So pridees at 732 00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:01,880 the very bottom. It's the first tier of purgatory is because it's the first 733 00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:06,760 thing you have to be purified from, and it's also the worst sin is 734 00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:08,000 the sin that makes you the most like Lucifer. It's the sin that makes 735 00:54:08,039 --> 00:54:12,280 you most like the devil. Right so so so he actually keeps the same 736 00:54:12,280 --> 00:54:15,599 scheme in book places. But but you know you're you're you're encountering it in 737 00:54:15,639 --> 00:54:20,239 two different orders, in two different ways. It's it's one of my favorite 738 00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:25,000 things. And the big the big focus in Inferno is Dante has to confront 739 00:54:25,079 --> 00:54:30,599 since So at first in Inferno, Dante the character feels really bad for all 740 00:54:30,599 --> 00:54:35,119 the people and how and it keeps like fate swooning, like fainting because he 741 00:54:35,159 --> 00:54:40,280 feels really bad for how they're suffering, and he's and eventually Virgil rebukes him. 742 00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:44,079 We're gonna see this. Virgil rebukes him, and he makes a great 743 00:54:44,119 --> 00:54:46,599 pun in Italian on the words pity and piety, which are the same word 744 00:54:46,639 --> 00:54:54,960 in Latin. Right. In Virgil's Great Epic, the enead Aneus's dominant heroic 745 00:54:55,039 --> 00:55:00,679 trait is his piatas, which is which you could say, is in it 746 00:55:01,079 --> 00:55:07,960 in the Latin mind, is something like his right attitude towards and understanding of 747 00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:14,519 his responsibilities towards the gods, towards his family, towards his people. So 748 00:55:14,559 --> 00:55:19,480 he's frequently in English translations you'll easily see him referred to as pious Eneas pious 749 00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:23,119 Aeneus, right. But that word pious can mean that, but it can 750 00:55:23,159 --> 00:55:27,119 also mean but it also comes to have a connotation that we think of when 751 00:55:27,199 --> 00:55:32,000 we think of pity or or or I mean, depictions of Christ, you 752 00:55:32,079 --> 00:55:35,400 know, in the arms of his mother being taken down of a cross are 753 00:55:35,440 --> 00:55:37,480 called a piata, right, And so it's it's it's all. It has 754 00:55:37,519 --> 00:55:44,960 all those images contained within it. It's a really robust word. And Virgil 755 00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:51,519 will say, if you had real pity, you would actually be glad that 756 00:55:51,519 --> 00:55:58,159 these people are in hell. And the reason he says this right is he's 757 00:55:58,159 --> 00:56:00,719 making, he's punning on this where he's saying, actually, if you had 758 00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:05,440 the right, a rightly ordered relationship with the cosmos. So there's something wrong 759 00:56:05,480 --> 00:56:07,719 in Dante's soul, and that's why he's here in this, in this dark 760 00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:13,159 wood to begin with. There's something disordered in a soul where he can't at 761 00:56:13,159 --> 00:56:16,320 where like he hasn't been able to turn away from sin, he hasn't able 762 00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:21,519 to become a holy person. Right, And so so what Dante, what 763 00:56:21,599 --> 00:56:23,480 Virgil is saying is that basically, if you really knew what sin was, 764 00:56:24,199 --> 00:56:27,760 if you really knew what sin was, you'd be happy to see it punished. 765 00:56:29,119 --> 00:56:30,559 This is a hard killed, a swallow from modern people. Right, 766 00:56:30,599 --> 00:56:34,599 we'll talk about it when we get there. But then, so Infronto is 767 00:56:34,639 --> 00:56:37,400 about rejecting, is about is, let's say, confronting our sin and seeing 768 00:56:37,440 --> 00:56:40,360 it for what it really is and ultimately seeing ourselves for who we really are. 769 00:56:40,639 --> 00:56:45,920 Purgatorio is about rejecting that sin and becoming purified. And there's this beautiful, 770 00:56:47,039 --> 00:56:53,159 beautiful sense in as as Dante is as Dante's the sending amount of the 771 00:56:53,159 --> 00:56:59,199 Purgatory. He has seven peas inscribed on his forehead. Like burned into his 772 00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:02,760 forehead by an age and they're for Picatu, for sin, the word for 773 00:57:02,800 --> 00:57:09,920 sin in Latin. And as he's ascending the mountain of Purgatory, they start 774 00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:13,639 to fall away, and one of them falls away just like is like brushed 775 00:57:13,679 --> 00:57:16,639 by an angel's wing, and it's just like it's just oh, it's so 776 00:57:16,679 --> 00:57:21,480 beautiful. It's heartbreaking, you beautiful. And then Paradiso is about something which 777 00:57:21,519 --> 00:57:23,519 is almost impossible for any of us to even get. I think it's even 778 00:57:23,559 --> 00:57:28,960 a struggle for Dante. Like the final cantos of Paradisio are going to become 779 00:57:29,039 --> 00:57:34,000 like increasingly difficult for us to understand because Dante is trying to wrestle with with 780 00:57:34,519 --> 00:57:39,280 I think, a very real vision of of cosmic realities and of holiness. 781 00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:46,400 And basically it's about Dante's sight being strengthened so that he can be prepared for 782 00:57:46,639 --> 00:57:52,000 this ascent, so that he can finally achieve the vision of God. And 783 00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:53,840 that's what parodisso is. But we got to go through hell to get there. 784 00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:59,599 So just kind of wrap all this up, maybe say the divine comedy 785 00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:01,599 is I think, as you pointed out at the beginning, I just want 786 00:58:01,639 --> 00:58:10,039 to Restate is really really important to our universal history project because it integrates essentially 787 00:58:10,079 --> 00:58:14,400 everything that came before it. It brings in the Greco Roman world, that 788 00:58:14,440 --> 00:58:19,480 brings in medieval cosmology and theology and science, and the Old Jewish and early 789 00:58:19,559 --> 00:58:22,639 Christian apocalyptic traditions, and all of the Apocryphate brings all of that stuff in. 790 00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:25,280 There are giants, there are I mean, it's all there in the 791 00:58:25,320 --> 00:58:30,159 comedy. And what's more is that it doesn't invent. But it's probably the 792 00:58:30,199 --> 00:58:35,920 best example for modern readers of the idea that man is a microcosm, that 793 00:58:36,280 --> 00:58:39,880 every human being is actually a cosmos. Dante's descent through the Earth, that 794 00:58:39,960 --> 00:58:45,360 is, descent through the spheres, is a deeply personal journey, and it's 795 00:58:45,360 --> 00:58:49,960 one that bridges perfectly, i think, the medieval and modern worlds because it 796 00:58:50,559 --> 00:58:57,039 shows us how this vision of the cosmos, this medieval model, is not 797 00:58:57,079 --> 00:59:00,599 merely just an external vision of things that will fall upon as soon as you 798 00:59:00,639 --> 00:59:02,920 put it under a microscope or into a telescope or whatever, but that it's 799 00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:08,119 actually something which it doesn't just adequately describe our experience of reality on a day 800 00:59:08,159 --> 00:59:14,480 to day basis, but it is also a map to ourselves and to our 801 00:59:14,719 --> 00:59:21,960 movement through reality, right, our struggle to become holy people. So I'm 802 00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:23,880 very excited to be able to go through this with you and with the whole 803 00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:28,440 symbolic world community. Yeah, this is going to be This is gonna be 804 00:59:28,480 --> 00:59:30,880 great. I mean, I can't wait. And we're really going to be 805 00:59:30,239 --> 00:59:34,760 uh can I say this. We're not gonna, we're not gonna hold back. 806 00:59:34,800 --> 00:59:38,239 We're gonna we're gonna We're gonna take our time and really enjoy that. 807 00:59:38,360 --> 00:59:42,280 You know, I've been now I'm diving back into it. I've been ready 808 00:59:42,320 --> 00:59:45,800 in a few years and I just can't believe it. Like the first conto 809 00:59:45,920 --> 00:59:50,760 is just I'm thinking we just take the whole class on the first like three 810 00:59:50,880 --> 00:59:52,360 contos, Well, we have to get through eight in the first class. 811 00:59:52,360 --> 00:59:58,079 So I mean the analogy that he's able to bring together, like these powerful 812 00:59:58,119 --> 01:00:00,840 analogies of all that which is low in scripture, right, so like the 813 01:00:01,119 --> 01:00:06,880 wilderness, the waters, the the animal aspect of it, like all these 814 01:00:06,880 --> 01:00:09,320 images that you'll find for examples like Gregor Nissa or in in you know, 815 01:00:09,480 --> 01:00:15,159 in the spiritual descriptions of what it what it means to be low as analogies 816 01:00:15,159 --> 01:00:19,559 but also just as a like, as a story, as a story trope 817 01:00:19,599 --> 01:00:22,320 of someone who's going through this through this is I mean, I can believe 818 01:00:22,320 --> 01:00:24,599 it, Like all the lines that I was like underlining every word, Like 819 01:00:24,639 --> 01:00:29,800 you can't underline every work because then what's the point of underlining. So I 820 01:00:29,800 --> 01:00:31,280 can't wait to get into this. It's going to be wonderful. Yeah, 821 01:00:31,360 --> 01:00:35,400 all right, So people site up to join the class. I think that 822 01:00:35,480 --> 01:00:37,599 for people who wanted it, this is something people ask for the last time 823 01:00:37,599 --> 01:00:40,960 in the bay Wolf class. There are like payment plans and things like that, 824 01:00:42,079 --> 01:00:45,239 So we've done our best, you know, to make it accessible. 825 01:00:45,320 --> 01:00:47,559 Unfortunately, to do something like this at the level that we're going to do 826 01:00:47,559 --> 01:00:51,400 with that, we do have to, like you have to charge money because 827 01:00:51,679 --> 01:00:54,480 they can take them so much time, so much time. But I promise 828 01:00:54,519 --> 01:00:58,239 it'll be worth it. And like I said, we've done the best that 829 01:00:58,239 --> 01:01:00,840 we can to make it accessible to everyone. Even if you can't join for 830 01:01:00,920 --> 01:01:04,960 the life classes, if you buy the course, you'll have access to the 831 01:01:05,039 --> 01:01:08,599 videos and the discussion boards in perpetuity. So there's there's absolutely no rush to 832 01:01:08,920 --> 01:01:13,800 to like feel like you have to be there present for every single class. 833 01:01:13,840 --> 01:01:19,039 But but sign up as soon as you can join us, and I'll see 834 01:01:19,039 --> 01:01:22,840 you all in Hell, all right, everyone, And uh and then for 835 01:01:23,119 --> 01:01:27,920 us, I think we'll see everybody after Pascas, so it'll be a weird 836 01:01:28,000 --> 01:01:30,920 paradox. We'll see you now and we'll see you in the I. The 837 01:01:31,000 --> 01:01:37,480 ideal way, Jonathan would be to start Inferno during Holy Week itself and then 838 01:01:37,519 --> 01:01:40,840 finish by the by post whole thing. But but that's essentially impossible to do 839 01:01:40,960 --> 01:01:45,320 for people whon't know. Orthodox Holy Week is like forty something hours of services. 840 01:01:45,519 --> 01:01:49,760 Yeah, and it's just it would be impossible for us to to to 841 01:01:49,760 --> 01:01:51,559 to be able to do it. But yeah, so it's gonna be a 842 01:01:51,559 --> 01:01:54,760 little weird. But also I'll be I'll at least be in the mood to 843 01:01:54,800 --> 01:01:59,440 be like, oh yeah, we totally we totally harrowed this place. Yeah 844 01:01:59,480 --> 01:02:01,920 exactly. So don't worry, folks, We're out of We're out of there. 845 01:02:01,960 --> 01:02:05,360 We're just this is just backstone. That's right, that's right, that's 846 01:02:05,400 --> 01:02:07,440 right. All right, everyone, So we'll see you there. Looking forward 847 01:02:07,440 --> 01:02:08,840 to it. Oh bye,