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0:00Okay. Good morning. So, these next two classes today and on Saturday will be the most intense classes of the series of the seminar. And um the reason why is that um we will we will go from Canto 24 and we will read every line up to Canto 33 to the end of the Divine Comedy. There's a very good reason why I'm doing this, okay?
But before I start, are there any issues from yesterday? Any questions from yesterday that you would like to me to address? Uh yes.
So, uh in Canto 24, uh line line 83, he added, "Now this coin is well examined, and now we know its alloy and its weight. But tell me, do you have it in your purse?" And the reason why I have a question about this is that in Christianity, and especially in Catholicism, it's said that money is the root of all evil. So, why would Dante in heaven talking about faith compare his faith to a coin and his self to a purse?
Okay. So, you're jumping ahead. We actually have not come to this section yet, okay? So, that's something we will do today. So, so could you please wait um until we get to this section, okay?
Thank you. Any other questions? Uh yes.
So, in Canto 11, um that's the one where um in line five he says, uh one was set on the priesthood, and in line eight it said one labored tangled in the delights of flesh. So, that's Canto 11, lines five and eight. Um he seems to be doing almost like a uh talking about the the bad qualities between the mind, body, and spirit, it
2:00seems like. Um and so it seems to me that he's like calling out the Catholic Church perhaps as like tangled in the delights of flesh. Would the delights of flesh be sex? Um and so it's almost
Yeah, and and what is your interpretation?
So it seems like he's he's calling out one after the other. Like he calls out um in line four like uh Uh one meant to plunder, one to politic, one labored tangled in the delights of flesh, one was fully bent on indolence. And so I got this as like all the ways you could corrupt the mind with the sophists, like I'm going to sell you knowledge, but knowledge is free, we can just pick up a book. The second is the body, I can sell the body um and um that would be uh prostitution. But then the other would be the spirit, the selling of salvation.
And I didn't know if he was like calling out the Catholic Church, which seemed like I know that he has problems with the Catholic Church, but I didn't think he'd call them out. [clears throat] So
He's actually pretty blatant about this. Um throughout the Divine Comedy, he will refer to the idea of indulgences. Okay, the idea of indulgences is Okay, let's just say you're really bad person. [clears throat] And but you are filthy rich. And you're like, okay, I'm I'm going to die now, and I know I'm going to hell, but is there a loophole?
And the Catholic Church says, yes, it's called indulgences, where if you pay a certain fine or contribution donation to Catholic Church, the Catholic Church will reduce your penance in purgatory. Um so this is a very common practice at this time. The Catholic Church is using it to finance things like St. Peter's Basilica. Okay?
Um and so Donny is uh criticizing the sprout. And in fact, um the more we go into heaven, the more
4:01blatant the criticism is. Okay? So, that's something to watch out for. So, thank you for the question. Any more questions before we start class.
Okay. So, again, we have a lot to do today and on Saturday. So, let me set the scene, okay? Um Donny will die in year 1321 after having completed the Divine Comedy. Um the cantos that we're reading today and on Saturday, um the last 10 cantos, he's writing this a year or 2 years before he dies.
Okay? He's busy writing like three lines a day. And um I want you to close your eyes and picture where Dante is in his life and in history. Okay? It's like 1320, 1319.
He's exiled from Florence, his home. And not only his home, but the home of his ancestors, of his entire family. His blood enemies, the Black Guelphs, control Florence and they have confiscated his property. So, he's he's lost all his wealth. Um he has no hope of ever returning to Florence.
The Pope, Boniface, is the one who's conspiring against him. Okay? So, you have the Pope angry at you. And yes, you are living in a nice mansion sponsored given to you by a patron of yours, but you are a beggar. And at this time in your life, you know you're going to die soon, and you are filled with despair because you know you're probably never to home again to Florence.
Even if you do go home to Florence, you will never re-reclaim the glory that your family once had. Um and you finish both Inferno and
6:01Purgatorio. They've been both published as manuscripts and they're being circulated around. And the feedback you've been getting is very positive. But you don't know what the reception will be. You don't know if people will truly appreciate and honor your contribution.
And um you you're also afraid of Catholic Church because you've been very critical of the Catholic Church. It's very easy for one of your enemies, the Black Guelph, to point out this manuscript, the Divine Comedy, give it to the Pope and say, "This is heresy. He is criticizing the church. He is promoting ideas that um are heretical, okay?" So, this is the very bottom of Dante's life. And he's got another year or 2 years before he dies.
And at this point in history, the closest analogies we have are Jesus, right? So, imagine the Last Supper. You're Jesus and you know you're going to die the next day. You know that Judas Iscariot, who is sitting with you at the Last Supper, by the way, one of your closest disciples, he will betray you to the um um uh Pharisees or the Sadducees, I can't remember, okay? But you'll be betrayed by one of your closest followers.
And the only fate that awaits you is your painful, agonizing, very slow death, okay? Being crucified is one one the worst things that can happen to you because you may not know this, but when you are being crucified on the cross, what kills you is not um the bleeding. What kills you is the fact that you're too weak to hold your head high. So, you slowly suffocate to death. And it's like a 3 to 4-day process.
It's the most painful way to die, and
8:01that's why the Romans practice this, okay? You know this is going to happen to you. So, how do you feel at this point, okay? And this gives you insight to how Dante's feeling at this point. Another analogy is Moses, the prophet of God, uh the one who uh rescued the Jews from E- from slavery in Egypt and took them to promised land, which is Jerusalem.
[snorts]
And for 40 years, you, Moses, have been wandering and the Jews have been wandering around in the desert. And at this end of 40 years, God comes to you in a vision says, "Moses, you've sacrificed everything to free your people from captivity. Um you will not walk into the promised land." Okay? You can see it, but you will not walk into it. So, imagine how Moses is feeling at this time, okay?
And so, what is magical, what is truly courageous about Dante is that in this time of his greatest despair, when he has absolutely no evidence, no proof that the Divine Comedy will, in fact, change the world, he chooses to embrace faith, hope, and love. And then he writes these next 10 cantos that will forever change human history. These next what we'll be reading today on Saturday are It's shocking. Um and it is magical. And it and I don't think anyone has truly revealed what Dante is thinking, okay?
So, think of these last 10 cantos as Dante's will and testament
10:05to humanity. What his hope for is humanity. And again, no one has really in-depth revealed this will and testament. So, think of this as just the intention of the universe where Dante finishes in 1321 and then 900 900 years later, we gather in Beijing to reveal to the world his will and testament. Um and the reason why is today, we really need to truly understand uh Dante's thinking.
So, there will be three rules for next two classes, okay? The the first rule, uh which is the most important, is Okay. Stay focused. We are here in order to reveal the will and testament of Dante. It's never been done before.
And it has to be done, okay? That's that is our mission for next 2 days. We are going to read Dante line by line and truly understand what his message is to humanity. And it is shocking, it's revolutionary, and it will be cathartic for us, okay? So, stay focused on this.
Second thing is to fully participate. Many of you have come a long way to be here in order to experience Dante. The only way you can make the most of your experience is by fully participating. Um yesterday we had two new members of this class start to participate and that led to richer discussion. Believe that each and every one of you, you do matter and your contribution does make this class better, okay?
More lively, more rich, uh more imaginative. All right? So, please try to participate
12:05as much as possible. And the third thing is to act with
[snorts]
faith, hope, and love. Okay? In other words, put away for these next two classes your ego, your fear, and your doubt. Okay? This class is meant to be one of faith, hope, and love.
I understand that in school you're taught to be critical. You're taught to um think critically and read critically and to introspect, into interrogate, okay? I'm just saying put away that training for the next two days and let's just focus on acting with faith, hope, and love. So, what we're going to do first is figure out what is faith, what is hope, and what is love. What we discussed last class is that faith is ultimately an act of imagination.
Okay? Um what Paul tells us is that there is a plan. What Dante will tell us is we are the plan. Do you understand the difference? Paul's like, "There is a plan." Dante's like, "We are the plan." Our imagination is what animates the universe.
Okay? What we What we're going to learn today is that hope. And this is like really interesting is What is hope? Hope is arrogance. This is a really key concept to Dante, and that's why again he's shocking, he's revolutionary.
If you truly want to change the world
14:05for better, you need hope. But hope is not humility. Hope is not believing God will change the world for you. Hope is arrogance, which is say, "I can change the world for the better." Okay? So, when we say hope, it means like together, we will reveal Dante's will and testament, and show the world how humanity can be better off.
Okay? It's an act of hope, but it's really an act of arrogance. And for for Dante, that's very, very crucial. Uh yes? Did you have a question?
Yeah, are you getting there? Are you getting there because one hopes introspectively, and so you have the I and the ego? You can't I can't hope for you. Like I'm if even if I'm hoping for you, I'm the one that's hoping. And so, are you saying it's arrogance because it's I-focused?
Okay. So, again, let's go back to the um image of Dante alone in his room, writing The Divine Comedy by himself, while in exile and isolation, right? There is no evidence that The Divine Comedy will become the greatest work of literature in human history. There's absolutely no evidence at all. And if you were humble, he'd be like, "You know what?
The chances are that um whatever I write will have made an impact on the people around me, but it won't really change the world for the better." In which case, if that humility, he'd just be like, "I give up because it's not really worth my while." Right? What hope is to say, "I see that 900 years from now, there's going to be people in China, in Beijing, who will read me and who will worship me and who will love me."
16:06Okay? That's an act of arrogance. Right? It's an act of hope, but you think about it, it's really an act of arrogance to say like, "I am the most important person in the world, and I will live forever eternally." And that hope is what allows him to survive for the next one or two years and put all his focus and energy into completing the Divine Comedy. Without hope, without arrogance, he could not have done so.
Right? Uh yes?
How would you say this is different from his ego?
Excuse me?
Uh how would you say this uh
Yeah, that's a great question. Okay.
hope is
Right. Because what he's doing is he's trying to change the world. Do you understand? So, it's an act of he he's gifting himself to the world. He's saying like, "My last year or two years it is not to enjoy myself.
It is not to go around, have dinners, where all these dukes, these princes are praising my poetry." Because he could do that, right? He could be like, "You know what? I've written the Inferno, I've written the Purgatorio. It's fantastic, and I'm getting all these patrons, and they all want because they all want to be in my poetry. So, I'll just go around to these different courts, and I will sing their praises, and they'll give me a lot of money, and I can enjoy myself.
And no, he's like, "No, I'm going to stay in my room away from all the attention, and just focus on finishing the Divine Comedy." Okay? And when you actually read the last two cantos, it is extremely arrogant, and but it's also an extremely selfless act, where he is trying to show humanity a better future, right? It it's it's like Jesus at the Last Supper, and he knows he's going to make the ultimate sacrifice for humanity, but he's arrogant about it. He's like, "Only I can save humanity. Only I can redeem humanity." Right?
And whereas Moses
18:07Moses, again, he traveled in the desert for 40 years, and God says to him, "Well, um sorry, you can't walk on the promised land. You can't set foot on the promised land. You can see it from afar, but that's it." And Moses is doesn't matter. Um but the the the Jews will remember me as the greatest prophet. And it is it is true.
He read the Bible, he is the greatest prophet, okay? All right? So, it's an act of um arrogance, but it's also an act of selflessness, okay? All right? All right, yes?
Um so, something I would I like to ask is that when Dante was doing all of this, when he was doing this selfless sacrifice, was he doing it with the expectation that it will come to fruition?
Uh that's what hope is, yes.
So, if he is doing it with the expectation that it's all coming to fruition, then isn't he being a little bit uh heretical, because he is expecting God to do something for him?
Yes, like as I will show you in the next two cantos, Divine Comedy is pure heresy, okay? If you are a Catholic church priest and you are able to read Divine Comedy in year 1321, you'd be very, very angry. All right? But again, there's nothing you can do about it because you understand in your heart that all art is comes from God as the source. Okay?
So, there is both um anger at Dante, but there's also deep fear and respect towards Dante. Uh yes?
Out of curiosity, how do you think they would have rationalized that at the time seeing that there's this work that criticizes the Catholic Church, but that it's God's will to criticize the Catholic Church?
Right. So, that's a great question. In psychology, there's a phrase called cognitive dissonance. Right? So, you read Divine Comedy and you're a Catholic priest and you're like, "Oh, he's praising God.
He's
20:08praising the church, the bride of God, right?" So, this is cognitive dissonance. That's why Dante is so powerful because only if you truly understand him, can you truly uh appreciate what he's doing. Okay? Because remember where we are. We are um Dante is now studied everything he got from Beatrice and now he's being tested by Peter, James, and John, the three apostles, right?
He's also being tested in an academic setting uh that has been approved by the Catholic Church. So, you if you read this on the surface, um then you have to think that Dante is a very pious individual. And quite honestly, the Catholic Church today believes Dante is a true Christian, okay? Like like it's I mean I mean what what I will teach you is that he's heretical, but you have to have a very nuanced understanding of him in order to appreciate this. Okay?
Does that make sense? Okay? Uh Uh yes?
I'm not talking about his heresy in the eyes of the Catholic Church. I'm talking about his heresy in the eyes of his own construction of his own belief of God. So, according to his definition, God is ineffable. You cannot expect him to do something and he will do it. However, right here he is expecting God to reward him for his effort.
Um okay. So, um we've been um learning about Dante for the past 4 days and it's pretty obvious to me from this comment that you made that you don't really understand what's what's being taught here. What what what what Dante is really trying to teach. God is all-loving, all-forgiving. Uh I I we we will we will look at the look at this, okay?
Just just keep your doubts um in check. Let's let's just focus on what he's going to tell us. All right, yes?
Oh, I'm just really interested how like the Catholic Church at the time
22:08responded to Dante. Like were there any works that they published or like um speeches that they made since Yes.
Okay, so some historical context. Why Dante is able to do what he's doing is because the world is in turmoil. Because the Catholic Church is split. There are in fact two centers of the Catholic Church, okay? There's one that uh is in Rome, but there's also another in Avignon.
Um because the Holy Roman Emperor has appointed another church, okay? Uh so another pope. So, the thing that turned up in the Catholic Church is that um they are at war with each other. It's an internal civil war in the Catholic Church. There are different different factions and that's why Dante is able to do what he's do because there's no central authority in place.
They were too busy fighting each other.
They were too busy fighting each other, exactly. Okay? All right? All right. So, thank you, okay.
All right. So, we have a lot to do today, okay? So, let let's get started, okay? All right. So, remember where we are?
Where um Dante is being interrogated by Peter on what faith is. And um Dante will first respond with Paul's formulation, which is that faith is evidence of things unseen, meaning that only faith can prove that certain things exist, like God. You cannot through science ever prove that God exists. Okay? But then, what he will say that's different from Paul is that Paul is basically saying there are things that exist beyond our imagination.
So, let us be humble and obey God. Okay? That That's what faith is. Faith is one of compliance, one of acceptance. And what Dante says is like, "No.
Everything comes from imagination, and faith is an act of imagination. Without the imagination, um there could be no faith. Okay? It's because we willingly, proactively
24:10believe in something does it come true. It is It is not true by itself. Okay? So, this is a very important distinction that Dante will continue to elaborate on. All right.
Uh so, let's continue.
Canto 24, verse 79. And then I heard, "If all one learns below as doctrine were so understood, there would be no place for sophist's cleverness." This speech was breathed from that enkindled love. He added, "Now, this coin is well examined, and now we know its alloy and its weight. But tell me, do you have it in your purse?" And I, "Indeed I do. So bright and round that nothing in its stamp leads me to doubt." Next, from the deep light gleaming there, I heard "What is the origin of the dear gem that comes to you?"
Okay, stop. Okay, all right. So, um this is a very interesting question, like, okay, if the um Catholic Church is against money, why is Dante referring to faith as a coin? Right? It's a coin.
What's going on here? Yes.
Could it be the indulgences that we're selling? The like the indulgences you mentioned before, so.
Oh, indulgences are evil, right?
Yeah.
Indulgences are like against everything that Jesus had.
faith is a coin because you pay your way into like believing or um doing good things, maybe.
Oh, no, no. Um okay, anyone else?
Uh yeah, uh I don't know. I just try to guess. Maybe because coin is is is stands for money and for fortune because during the back to that period we are and church they just try to ask people to pay the money to redeem their their stains, so maybe uh Dante is just saying the coin is uh is something that the you know, the
26:10church would have to to make use of to try to let people to pay for it so that they can redeem their sin to be uh be be good.
Okay, why is it paradoxical to say that faith is a coin? Why is it paradoxical? Uh yes?
Does it have anything to do with its two-sidedness?
Okay, can you explain?
Um I was just thinking cuz the coin usually has two sides and um I'm not the most knowledgeable about historical or the religious content, but I was wondering if faith also is a two-sided thing in a way.
Okay. All right. Why is Okay, let's let's go on this, okay? There's a paradox, right? Faith is a coin.
Why is that a paradox? Uh I yes and then then then then then you.
Well, a coin is something material and faith is like just in the mind.
Exactly. Do you understand? Okay? Faith is air. It's nothing.
Coin is material. But not only not only is it material, what is it? It's also heavy. You understand? If it's in your pocket, it's going to be the most heavy thing in your pocket.
Right? So, this metaphor what it what it reveals is that faith is the heaviest thing in you. It is the thing that anchors you. Does that make sense? Okay?
So, the I did the coin isn't that it's money. The the the I did the coin is that it's a heavy valuable object inside of you. Uh did did you have a comment or question?
I just wanted to build off uh her comment cuz I do think it's interesting because we talk about let's say two sides of an argument, but it's a paradox because faith is one-sided.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Yes?
So, something that I find interesting is a paradox that's not only evident here in the Dubai community, but also in the church as a whole. So, nowadays our coins are made of like steel, made of metals that are not so precious, so they don't weight as much as this coin of
28:12faith presumably does. And they specifically asked Dante, like the pilgrim Dante, about the coin's alloy. And since it's heavy, even though it's only a coin, I think it's reasonable to assume that it might be made of gold, a very precious
Well, after some in history, yes, they are made of gold.
Well, what I'm what I'm saying is that gold is a very precious metal and the church, well, the church and Dante himself, while simultaneously condemning wealth, they are holding this metaphorical gold coin in their pocket. Why can't they pick another metaphor?
Uh or or or pick one then.
Um, well, I'm thinking maybe they can maybe they can say like milk and honey, the old metaphor.
Milk and honey? That's not Uh, yeah yes?
[clears throat]
I think this coins well examine. There's also a verse in the scripture that says that gold will go through fire and faith is like the gold that can withstand the test of fire. I think maybe this is one of the reasons
Yes, exactly. Thank you. Yes, yes. That's right. Okay.
Okay. All right. Uh, thank you for that. Yes. So, that's why it's important to read the footnotes.
Okay. Um, yes. C- C- Can we keep on reading, um, Carol?
Verse 90. What is the origin of the dear gem that comes to you? The gem on which all virtues are founded. I, the Holy Ghost abundant rain poured upon the parchments old and new. That is the syllogism that has proved with such persuasiveness that faith has truth.
When set beside that argument, all other demonstrations seem to me obtuse.
Okay. So, uh, Peter asked him a question, which is like Faith is inside of you, but where does it come from? How do you have faith? What proves to you that God must exist? And what is his
30:12answer? W- Right, right, but but I'm saying like like how what in your life proves that the Holy Spirit must exist? What did he say?
Holy Ghost abundant rain.
Excuse me?
The Holy Ghost abundant rain poured upon
What does it What's the rain doing? What? Yeah, you go you go you go ahead first.
So basically he's saying that the Holy Ghost abundant rain poured upon parchments old and new and here abundant rain is water. Abundant rain is ink and he is trying to say that the Holy Ghost has inspired so many writings on parchment old and new.
What is a parchment old and new?
New and Old Testament
Yes, yes and the Bible. If God didn't exist, how could you have a Bible, which is this brilliant work of literature, right? Who's giving hope and inspiration to millions around the world and it's persisted for thousands of years. So, the Bible itself is proof that God must exist. If you read the Bible, especially Genesis, it is beautiful.
It's it's one of the greatest works of literature in history, right? And it is the Holy Ghost that infuses himself, right? Like rain, it's a metaphor, throughout the Holy Bible. So, when the people who who wrote the Bible, they were being possessed by the Holy Ghost. That is proof.
Okay? Otherwise, you can't explain the Bible. Okay, keep on going.
Verse 97. I heard the premises of old and new impelling your conclusion, why do you hold these to be the speech of God?
Okay, so it's like how do you know it's truly the work of God, that these people
32:12are speaking for God. Keep on going.
And I the proof revealing truth to me relies on acts that happened. For such miracles, nature can heat no iron, beat no anvil. Say, who assures you that those works were real? Came the reply, the very thing that needs proof, no thing else attests these works to you. I said, if without miracles the world was turned to Christianity, that is so great a miracle that all the rest are not its hundredth part.
For you were poor and hungry when you found the field and so sowed the good plant. Once a vine and now a thorn."
Okay. So, again, what's happening is that Peter continues to interrogate and said, "How do you know for a fact that the Bible is the word of God?" And what Don is says is, "Well, in real life there's evidence." What's the evidence? Yes, sir?
The Bible.
What? But how do you know the Bible is the word of God? Uh yes?
Especially saying all these physical things like parting the Red Sea and stuff actually happened.
No, that's what he's saying. Uh yes?
The fact that
[clears throat]
the whole world has turned to Christianity.
Exactly. Can you please explain to me how this happened? 2 billion people in the world are Christians, okay? Now, I I don't mean to insult Christians, but when I was growing up in Canada, everyone around me was a Christian and they were telling me about how Jesus Jesus crucified himself on the cross. And how um God came to redeem us from our sins like and I was like, "This makes no logical sense, guys, okay?
Do you even know what you're talking about?" Okay? For like decades of my life, even when I was at Yale, uh which was founded as a Christian school, I had no idea what was going on, okay? So, to me it's a miracle that this very
34:14confusing religion is able to conquer the world. Where you have 2 billion people believing in it. That is a miracle. And unless you believe that it is the divine plan of God, it's very hard to explain, okay? Also, guys, I I I I I again I don't to insult Christians, but Jesus, what did he do exactly?
Right? I could understand if you if there's a religion about Julius Caesar or Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great these or Napoleon because they did a lot, right? I'm not sure what Jesus did. Jesus I mean, he was crucified on the cross and that's it. I mean so so but like like like like I'm not trying to like prove that Christianity is like stupid but I'm I'm going to show like there's so many paradoxes in Christianity that unless you accept that um God exists and this is all part of the divine plan it's hard to explain why there are 2 billion Christians in the world.
Does that make sense, guys?
And by the way, I want to add that I don't feel insulted as a Christian.
Okay, right.
Um because I think the dialectics is also part of the journey.
Right, right. Yeah. Yes?
I I think this is actually super great. Like I think that I think that he's being really smart here. This is a really great argument of his, but I'm not sure what he is trying to prove here. Like his audience his audience are all people who speak like Italian, right? Audience are people who speak Italian, who speak Latin, who can who can read.
And these people are going to be educated people in Europe. And these people are going to be Christian already. So why is he proving their own faith to them?
Okay. Um let's appreciate what's going on, okay? In the year 1300 if you go to your priest and say to him um how do we know there's faith in the world? And how do you how do we know that God exists? And how do we uh know the Bible is actually the word
36:15of God? What would he tell you?
Maybe you are it's communicated.
Yeah, maybe maybe the Satan has taken control of you, right? Maybe you're speaking for Satan. That's literally what they would say to you. Right? And what Don is saying is like, "No, guys, let's not do that.
Let's actually try to logically use our imagination, figure this out, because we can do that." Right? You see the difference? It's night and day. You go to a priest like, you make a you ask a question, "Satan is in you." Like don't That's literally what would happen. Right?
And now in the like how it's like, "No, of course you should ask a question. Let's try to figure this out naturally. Okay? Let's use our imagination." This is a revolution. It's a heresy.
Do you understand? Okay? We we you take it for granted today, but I'm not saying in the year 1300, okay? This is a This is revolutionary. What's going on?
All right? And and for this to happen in heaven, right? Not in a university, but in heaven. And it's Peter, the first Pope. Right?
Okay? So, this is all very revolutionary. Uh yes?
Yeah, so I'm still a little confused. If faith is belief without evidence and the Bible is evidence, then how does everything work out?
Okay. So, [snorts] what Don is saying is this, okay? You have to make sure assumptions about the world for your imagination to take root, okay? For you to reason things out. If you're always like, "Let's prove God exists." Uh or let's um uh prove that God has intention, okay?
If you just um try to figure out these fundamental principles, you don't get anywhere. You can go back and forth. Okay? But what what I'm saying is like, let's just assume these things to be true. Let's just have faith that these things are true, okay?
Then from these things, you can start now to use your imagination to work towards the truth. Okay? Does that make sense?
38:15Okay? Yes?
And because I know the Bible can divide into two parts. The first part Old Testament and then the another New Testament. So, some people believe in God, some people believe in Jesus. So, I'm I feel a little bit confused that what about Dante? Do you think Dante just believe in Jesus or believe in the the or God or
Okay. So, this is a question, okay? So, if you actually read the Bible, it's a complete mess. Okay? It's written by like, I don't know, like 100 different people.
There are many contradictions. And so, what Dante is saying is like, "Don't read the Bible literally, guys, okay? Just read the Bible and see it as a portal into the mind of God. And what allows you to enter this portal is your imagination." Uh yes?
Well, at the time, most people didn't even read the Bible because because of the it wasn't Latin. So, like [clears throat] that was at this time, like it wasn't translated yet.
Exactly. Thank you. Yes, okay. Um at this time in history, it would uh be an act of sin to read the Bible by your by yourself. Okay?
Because that would only confuse you because Satan could come into your ear and say, "Oh, you see blah blah blah." Okay? So, that's why um um you weren't allowed to read the Bible. So, so, so you have to read at this time they didn't really um look at the contradictions in the Bible. Uh yes?
Um so, Dante here uh Dante here, he is saying a lot of things. He is saying First, he is comparing faith to a coin. Second, he's using Saint Peter to criticize the church that he can founded. And third, he uh third, he is saying, "Don't read the Bible too literally." So, when all these three things come together, they remind me a lot of Protestantism. So, is is uh Dante influenced by uh various heretical movements, or has he inspired these movements, or is it both?
Okay, we'll never know, but my argument in this class is that he inspired everything, okay? Not just the Protestant Reformation, but also time of revolution, the Renaissance,
40:16Enlightenment, modernity itself, Okay? So so so I mean guys, I this is great, but let's keep on moving on, okay? Go.
[clears throat]
Um line 112.
Yes.
Thus done, the high and holy court resounded throughout its spheres with Te Deum Laudamus, sung with the melody they use on high. Then he who had examined me, that baron who led me on from branch to branch, so that we now were drawing close to the last leaves, began again. That grace which lovingly directs your mind until this point has taught you how to find the seemly words for thought, so that I do approve what you brought forth, but now you must declare what you believe and what gave you the faith that you received. O holy Father, so who now can see what you believed with such intensity that to his tomb you outran younger feet. I then began, you would have me tell plainly the form of my unhesitating faith, and also asked me to declare its source.
I answer, I believe in one God, sole, eternal, he who motionless moves all the heavens with his love and love for him. For this belief I have not only proofs both physical and metaphysical. I also have the truth that here rains down through Moses and the prophets and the Psalms and through the Gospels and through you who wrote words given to you by the Holy Ghost.
So here Peter is asking Dante to declare his faith. What do you believe about God, okay? And what Dante says like, I believe that God is love. Why is this a problem? This is what he's he's been saying throughout the Divine Comedy, right?
God is love. Why would this be a problem? Yes?
Um to me, I think he's making
No, no, not to you. I'm saying historically, would this be a problem?
I'm I'm saying that he's assuming about the nature of God. God has frequently
42:17been shown to be not that loving. For example, the the ark and Noah and Jonah
no, no, no. I'm saying for the Catholic Church, why is this heresy to say God is love? It's heresy. Why?
The Catholic Church hates some people and
No, no, yes.
Well, for the Catholic Church, Jesus is God.
No. No, no, no. At this time in history, what are what are Catholics taught? God is not love, what is God?
Stern father figure who punishes you if you do bad things.
Um, no. Like like what is the official definition of God at this time in history by the Catholic Church? No, no, no, no, no. What is God? Like like like have you guys not
Trinity.
Yes, it's Trinity. Do you understand? Okay? This is heresy. You can't say God is love.
You have to say that God is the Father, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus. They are separate and equal and one, okay? That That is what you must say. It's called the the Nicene Creed. Do you understand?
To di- to diverge from the the Nicene Creed is heresy. Okay? Can can can we drop the Nicene Creed, okay? You're not allowed to make adjustments to it. You're not allowed to question it.
You must be cited, okay? So, at this when Peter asked him, "What do you believe?" He should have recited the Nicene Creed. He didn't do that. He said, "God is love." This is heresy. Okay, just And and I mean, yes.
So, the contention is on uno dio, one God. That's the that's what's heretical?
No, no, no, you know, he's saying God is love.
God is love.
Right. You can't do that.
Not one God versus
Okay, okay, okay. Let's read the Nicene Creed, okay? This is like This is what all Catholics must believe. Not one word can be different, yes?
I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. I
44:18believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered death and was buried and rose again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. I believe in one holy, Catholic and apostolic church. I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.
Um so, yeah, this is the modern version, okay? Sorry. Uh yeah, don't don't worry about it. It's like the the the But the old version is the the Trinity, okay? Um so, this is a problem.
Um Donny got this wrong. But then what he does is he makes a subtle adjustment, okay? You can You can You can continue.
Verse 139. And I believe in three eternal persons and these I do believe to be one essence, so single and threefold as to allow both is and are of this profound condition of God that I have touched on. Gospel teaching has often set the imprint on my mind. This is the origin. This is the spark then that extends into a vivid flame and like a star in heaven glows in me.
Okay, so now what Don is like, "Oh, you know what? It's the Holy Trinity, okay?" So, this is a paradox. God is love, but I also believe in the Holy Trinity. Okay? And this is why Don is such a genius because given this
46:19um impossible situation, like you must declare faith in the Holy Trinity, he go he figures out a way to get out of it and say that God is love, okay? So, I'm going to go over the Holy Trinity. It's very important. All right? So, at this time in history I don't know.
So, not not this time in history, but in the early Christianity, there was a huge debate as to the nature of Jesus. Okay? Um So, the spectrum was that Jesus was was a man uh and then there was those who believed that um Jesus was a god, okay? Pure god. He's either pure man or pure god.
These were the two extremes. And um ultimately, the church settled on in between. He was both man and god. And then the next debate is what's the relationship between Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God? Because all three appear in the Bible, right?
So, are they separate or are they one? And in this time there were many different theories to explain what's going on, okay? And there were three really popular theories that made sense, okay? So, let's go over the these three theories. The first is the theory of modalism.
What does this mean? It means like God can take different forms, right? God can be Jesus, God can be the Holy Spirit, God can be God. Depends where he is. Depends on what he want wants to do.
He takes different forms, okay? Makes sense, right? Then you have the idea of partialism. Partialism is that like in an ocean, you You different seas, right? Well, God is the unity of God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
And so, they just split off and do their own thing now and then, okay? Partialism all makes sense. And then, you had something called Arianism. An Aryan was um a Christian theologian. He argued that Jesus is a lower God, okay?
God created
48:22the universe, and then God created Jesus. And it's okay to worship Jesus because Jesus is the one who died for our sins, okay? So, all three make sense. And all three were rejected by the church. Okay?
In favor of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity states that Okay. Okay, all right. States, and this is really really important, guys, that God
[clears throat]
um Jesus and the Holy Spirit are separate but the same. And you're like, "Okay, I understood Modalism, I understood Partialism, I understood Arianism. I don't understand the Holy Trinity. It makes no logical sense." So, here's the question. Why would the Catholic Church insist the Holy Trinity to be the official doctrine?
In fact, they created something called the Nicene Creed to enforce this on every single Christian. If you did not obey, they would come and kill you. Okay, that's literally what happened. So, so, so what what Why uh yes?
Because they wanted to be special and to prosecute people.
Okay. What what's what's the logic?
Um because the entire scripture concluded or leads to this conclusion, which it's hard to explain like logically, but it kind of if this doesn't like if the Holy Trinity is not true, then the whole Bible like description of God cannot um yeah.
Okay, all right, all right. So, so the word is mystery, okay? Okay? The what the Holy Holy Trinity does is create the idea of mystery, which is like God is not knowable. It you must use faith to accept God.
You understand? That's the reason. The idea of mystery. Uh yes.
It's a litmus test, right?
50:22With the mystery, it's a litmus test. Are you in my group or
Yes, okay. It's a faith test of faith. Do you understand? Okay, the the thing creates something that you cannot logically explain. The Holy Trinity is something that you cannot figure out mentally, okay?
It makes no sense, but you must accept it, okay? It creates faith, it creates mystery, and mystery is the foundation of Catholic Church, right? That's why there has to be Catholic Church, because otherwise, you could just do you could just figure out the word by yourself. You could just go talk to God by yourself. But because of mystery, God uh the Catholic Church must be the shepherd to lead the flock to God.
Does that make sense? That's why the Holy Trinity is crucial. Um but for Dante, he's not happy about this, right? Okay? Why is he not happy?
Because as a humanist, as someone who believes in human in in the human imagination, he's okay with modalism, partialism, and Arianism, not only because it's something that we can all understand, but it's also a story and we can all partake in, right? You can meet Jesus and talk to Jesus in modalism, partialism, and Arianism, but guess what, guys? In no situation can you write a story where you meet the Holy Trinity, right? You are denied access to God. Does that make sense to you?
Okay? Try try it. Try to write a story where where you meet the Holy Trinity. You get nowhere. Okay?
All right? Okay. So, how does Dante resolve this contradiction? He says that God is love and he believes in the Holy Trinity. And this is what makes him genius, yes?
He said both is and are, I guess. So, he kind of admits it. In his verse 142.
I I Okay. Okay. Let's look at 139 and
52:23140, okay? I believe in three eternal persons, the Holy Trinity, and these I believe to be of what to be one essence. What is it one essence?
Love.
Love. Do you understand? Okay, he's like, "Listen, we can reduce this Holy Trinity even further, right?" God is love. Jesus is love. Holy Spirit is love.
God is love. Okay? This is why Dante is such a genius, because he takes an impossible situation, right? Holy Trinity. It's meant to create mystery, and he and he solves the mystery for you.
The essence of everything is love. Yes?
So, what is Dante's stance on ineffability? As in the idea that you cannot predict or you cannot control you cannot predict what God will do. You cannot predict God's nature. What is his stance on this?
No. No. No. No. He's clearly against this, right?
He clearly believes that you have to have a connection to God. That's where your intuition and imagination come from. Right? All right? Okay.
Does it make sense to you guys what what he's doing here? Okay? This is heresy. Like, if they actually understood the Catholic Church actually understood what Dante was doing, they'd burn him at the stake. But, he uses their language.
He makes subtle changes. Okay? You understand? Okay. Uh yes?
So, by defining God as love, is he setting certain guidelines and constraints for God's behavior and motives and personality?
Um what he's saying is that God is perfect. And so, God loves you unconditionally. There's nothing you can do to anger him. There's nothing you can do to um make him hate you. He will love you forever.
Okay? Uh yeah, yes?
I just have one question um about like why did um if Prot- Protestantism is like from directed from Dante, then
54:23why did they also take in the Holy Spirit as like because like Protestants still believe in the Holy Spirit, right? So, why did they still even though Dante is like just says God is love, why why why do they still believe in the Holy Spirit?
Um um so, this is a really complicated question, but Protestantism really is a rebellion of local princes against authority of Catholic Church. Okay? Do you Do you understand? The The idea of the Holy Holy Trinity is useful in that it creates obedience to authority because because of mystery, right? So, Protestantism was not people trying to um promote Dante.
Uh Protestantism was basically a fracturing of um the geopolitical situation in Europe. Okay? Does that make sense?
But, they were still inspired by Dante, you see?
Um it's but they didn't know they were inspired by Dante. Okay? Right? Influence is something you don't really see. Uh you you can you can logically uh yes did did you have a
Uh Protestantism is more like a rebellion against like the political institution of the Catholic Church. It's not about like the theology of the Catholic Church. Well, some part of the theology, but the Trinity part is intact. So, it like uh Martin Luther was okay with Trinity.
All right, so so Protestantism, the idea behind Protestantism, okay, there's like 10,000 different groups, right? But, the idea is you have a direct connection to God for the Bible. That's the main idea. Whereas, Catholic Church is like, "No, you have to go through us. You can't read the Bible by yourself because Satan is in you.
He'll he'll just screw you up, okay?" All right. Uh yes?
Uh so, I was wondering uh if Donte's tried to open a new channel to all the
56:23people because people do not need to just by Bible, but can by love because love if love is Jesus is God and maybe people will they all have love, so love can be the another channel, not only the Bible.
Uh love is what allows you to connect directly to to God. Uh Peter?
Um we have first uh comments online. So, uh the interesting part of about the concept of God is that if all things come from God and nothing exist but through the Father, then God is both love and hate simultaneously.
Um that's an interesting comment, okay? So, um Okay, so the conception of God is that God is both eternal and infinite. Okay, does that make sense? So, God is a source of everything and God encompasses everything. Okay, so God is both um becoming and the source.
Both being and becoming. Okay? So, everything is encompassed in God. And what this is important for us is that this is also a paradox, right? How how you both being and becoming?
And the the way we resolve this paradox is is to is to say that humans are part of the of God itself, right? Because humans are the ones who are becoming, God is the being, and humans are within God, which allows for this process to happen. Do you understand? Humans represent infinity, God represents eternity, but God will encompass both humans as well. Okay?
All right, yes?
I think my simple vibration of this is that if God loves us so much, why did he create hate in the first place?
Do you Yes.
So, I heard I don't know if the source is true, but Einstein used to answer this question that heat is a thing that physically fire is a thing that exists, but cold is not. It's the lack of heat. So, God is the fire or the light just
58:23goes back to chapter 101 that, you know, he's light, but the lack of him is darkness. But darkness is not a a substantial thing, right? Light is particle, is ray, but darkness is not. And so, hate is the the absence of love, but it's not a thing that exists by its own. So.
Okay. All right, so so so let's continue, okay? But but this answer This will be answered to you later on, okay? Because we we will eventually move to a place closer to God, where the angels are. And the angels aren't capable of hatred.
They're incapable of turning away from God. And the angels are perfect, and when we get to that section, you will understand why hate is necessary. Okay? All right, so so let let's continue, all right? Continue please.
Verse 148. Just as the Lord who listens to his servant's announcements, then as soon as he's silent, embraces him, both glad with the good news, so did the apostolic light at whose command I had replied, while blessing me and singing, then encircled me three times. The speech I spoke had brought him such delight.
Okay, so do you understand? Okay, so he's passed the first test. What is faith? He's answered faith. Now, the second test is hope.
And this will be asked by um James, okay, the apostle. Okay, so let's go to 25, please.
Canto 25. If it should happen, if this sacred poem, this work so shared by heaven and by earth that it has made me lean through these long years, can never overcome the cruelty that bars me from the fair fold where I slept, a lamb opposed to wolves that war on it, by then with other voice, with other fleece, I shall return as poet as and put on in my baptismal font the laurel crown.
Okay, all right, so again, we have to remember the image of Dante alone in exile and isolation writing the Divine Comedy. And what his hope is is to
60:23return to Florence one day, right? And then have the Florentines crown him as the greatest poet ever. It will It won't happen, but that is his hope. That is his arrogance. Okay?
Um and in his heart he knows it is going to happen, but he's trying to tell us that that is his great hope. All right? And it will happen eventually. Yes? Yeah, well, well, you know, Florence, so so so tell us Dante in Florence.
Like, I mean, yeah, afterwards he was like they built a statue for him and every and they accepted him as like an honorary man or like a like the most important man from Florence or something.
This is that you have manifestation, right? Where you have absolutely no evidence this is going to be true, but you visualize it so much and God will hear your your your prayer. So, I mean, after he died, first of all, he was not allowed to be buried within Florence with his ancestors. And he And there was even people who wanted to like dig him up and burn him at the stake. Okay.
Yes?
This is my question. Like, if he wanted if he visualized if he tried to materialize this wonderful future for himself returning to Florence as poet laureate, then why didn't God grant it to him? Like, if there's a will, there's a way, right?
But God did. Go to Florence, man. Go to Florence. He's buried beside Michelangelo.
While he was alive, I mean.
Why does God have to grant you this thing when you're alive? What what what matters? Your body or soul? We're starting today. Dante's is staring at us from where he is and smiling at what we're doing.
Right? Isn't that what I mean, who cares if during his lifetime he didn't get the reward. He If you go to Florence, he is God.
62:23I would just like to add to that. So, I think that when we're reading like the previous cantos, I think we did touch upon a point that like God will hear what you want, but like it might not always manifest like the way you want it to be, but it's going to like return to you in in like, you know, a special way. So, I think that even though Dante wasn't able to physically go back while he was alive, like, you know, um his reputation and you know, his his aspirations to be crowned as the greatest poet did happen. So, that is also a kind of like manifesting.
And also like, you know, if you're Moses and you've led the your people for 40 years across the desert, you freed them from the pharaoh, and then you go to Jerusalem become you they call you king, would they remember you like they like remember you today? Would you be the greatest prophet in Jewish history? Would you be uh Moses of today? Probably not, right? If you were a Jesus and you were put on trial by the Pharisees and the Pharisees like, "Oops, we'll let you we'll let you go and we won't crucify you." Prophets have to be persecuted.
All right? I'm sorry if you don't like that. Okay, don't be a prophet then. But prophets have to be persecuted and that's what Donna is saying, "I will be persecuted and this is my hope. I know I'll be persecuted and I accept it because it is God's will and it uh it is God's love for me, okay?"
So, I'm really confused as to what he is encouraging here. So, so he is saying that, "Oh, okay. I am persecuted when I'm alive, but I will get rewards when I die." And he's also saying, "Okay, you guys persecute me while I'm alive. So, you guys will burn in hell once you die." So, what he is saying is that he's delaying the consequences of these horrible actions of what happened to him to the afterlife so that he wouldn't have to act on them, he wouldn't have to act against them while he is alive.
Okay. What he's saying, okay, it's very clear, okay? Do not
64:26plan on rewards. Do not think of the end result. Just act with faith, love, and hope. Just do that. Okay?
Don't worry about anything else. You can have these dreams. God may or may not grant you your dreams. It doesn't matter. What matters is you live a life of faith, hope, and love and that is the most meaningful, purposeful, and happy life you could possibly live.
Okay? Do not ever try to say, "If I do this, then I will, you know, get in Yale and be a lawyer and be a millionaire and and and a must." Okay? That gets you nowhere. Yes?
Well, but he did say that he he did think of the like the end because he said, you know, he he shall return as a poet.
That is his hope, but he has absolutely no evidence that this is going to work out.
Yeah. But he Yeah, okay.
Right.
Okay? So so so so you're right in that, you know, like it is believed that if you truly live a life of faith, hope, and love, things will work out. Okay? And the greater your commitment to faith, love, and hope, the more likely God is to reward you.
But just not in this world.
Maybe not in this world.
Yeah.
All right? And and and and and that's just that's just unfortunate. All right, yes?
It seems like a really passive way to act for me. Like somehow it is
That this is passive?
Yes, this is passive because
To live every life, to live every single day, to live every single moment with with faith, love, and
Yes, yes, you keep
and hope. That's passive?
You keep saying these words, but these words do not get you to your goal. You can live with faith, love, and hope, then that is great for your spiritual health. However, it will not get you back into Florence.
The guy is working his ass off every single day.
And he's working not towards getting himself back into Florence. He's working towards his faith, hope, and love.
Right. And that's what he should be
66:27doing.
Okay, then I guess he should make peace with the fact that he's not in Florence. Okay.
Well, he's definitely made peace because he's written the Divine Comedy, okay? Uh yes?
I I also feel confused because if the faith, hope, love is what Dante believed in, so it's also be contradictory because then you said uh you don't need to be rewarded, but actually if you really believe in love, uh believe in God, and the God will reward you with the faith, hope, and love, then this is reward. So, you know what I mean?
Right right, but but but what we're trying to distinguish between material reward and spiritual reward, okay? Material reward is something you can see, something you can touch. Spiritual reward is something that you have you have to have faith in.
Oh, yeah.
Okay? All right. Okay, let let let let let's continue.
Verse 10. For there I first found entry to that faith which makes souls welcome unto God. And then for that faith Peter garlanded my brow. Then did a light move toward us from that sphere from which emerged the first, the dear, the rare of those whom Christ had left to be his vicars. And full of happiness my lady said to me, "Look, look and see the baron whom below on earth they visit in Galicia.
As when a dove alights near its companion and each unto the other murmuring and circling offers its affection, so did I see both those great and glorious princes give greeting to each other praising the banquet that is offered them on high. But when their salutations were complete, each stopped in silence coram me and each was so aflame my vision felt defeat. Then Beatrice said smiling, "Famous life by whom the generosity of of our basilica has been described, do let matters of hope re-echo at this height. You can, for every time that Jesus favored you three above the rest, you are the figure of
68:27hope. Lift up your head and be assured whatever comes here from the mortal world has to be ripened in our radiance. The second fire offered me this comfort at which my eyes were lifted to the mountains whose weight of light before had kept me bent. Because our emperor out of his grace has willed that you before your death may face his nobles in the inmost of his halls so that when you have seen this court in truth hope, which below spurs love of the true good, and you and others may be comforted. Do tell what hope is.
Tell how it has blossomed within your mind and from what source it came to you.
Okay. Okay, stop. Okay, all right. So, this is James and he's going to interrogate Dante, right? And what the first thing that thought that James says to Dante is, "You're special.
You were picked by God to come to heaven before your death and you have a body." Okay? So, you're still a human. You're not a spirit. So, you've been picked out, all right? So, I'm going to ask you three questions now.
Tell me, what is hope? Then, tell me uh what is your hope? And then the third thing is where does your hope come from? Okay, so these are three questions that Dante is being asked by James. And then something weird happens, okay?
This is a test for Dante, but what's going to happen now is that Beatrice is going to come in, intervene, and answer the second question, "What is your hope?" Okay? This is a paradox. Okay, let's continue to read.
So, did the second flame continue? Verse 3 49. And she, compassionate, who was the guide who led my feathered wings to such high flight, did thus anticipate my own reply. There's no child of the church militant who has more hope than he has, as is written within the sun whose rays reach all our ranks. Thus, it is granted
70:28him to come from Egypt into Jerusalem that he have vision of it before his term of warring ends. The other two points of your question, which were not asked so that you may know, but that he may report how much you prize this virtue, I leave to him.
Okay, stop. Okay, all right. Okay. This is just the arrogance of Dante, okay? Beatrice comes in and tells um James and the entire heavens, and Beatrice is perfect, right?
So, I think she says must be true. She says, "There is no greater Christian than Dante." Okay? "There is no greater Christian than Dante. And he, like Moses, has journeyed from Egypt into Jerusalem. He came from exile into the promised land.
And what is his hope? His hope is to, of course, write The Divine Comedy. It doesn't make sense, guys. Okay? The Divine Comedy is something that is sanctioned by God, by the heavens.
And he has been brought into heaven so that he may find inspiration and the truth to write The Divine Comedy. This is pure arrogance. Right? And this is what allows him to finish The Divine Comedy before he dies. This is what allows him to for the next few cantos write the most spectacular poetry ever in human history, okay?
It's shocking what he will do. Keep on going.
Verse 59 to 60. "But that he may report how much you prize this virtue, I leave to him. He will not find them hard or cause for arrogance, as you have asked. Let him reply, and God's grace help his
72:28task. As a disciple answering his master, prepared and willing in what he knows well, that his proficiency may be revealed, I said, 'Hope is the certain expectation of future glory. It is the result of God's grace and of merit we have earned.'"
Okay, stop. Why would this be heretical, this idea of hope? Hope is the expectation of future glory. It is the result of God's grace and of merit we have earned. Why would this at this time in history be controversial?
It's certainly not controversial to us, but it was controversial back then. Why? Yes?
Well, because um hope couldn't really exist. Or like because just the Catholic Church was the one who issued who went to heaven or not, and they did that by how good of the work you did. And so there wasn't I mean I guess there was some hope, but like you didn't have any like sayings.
Exactly, okay? That your merit doesn't matter. It's God's grace that matters. That's why humility is important, right? Be humble before God, because you what if anything you do doesn't matter.
It's God's grace that matters. Right? And now what Don is saying no is like merit does matter, okay? So it's an act of arrogance. Be arrogant.
Don't be humble. And again, it is very subtle, but that's what he's saying here. If you truly want to ascend to heaven, if you truly want to achieve what you want, you need God's grace, but you also need to have talent. You also need to have to work hard. Okay?
All right. Uh let's keep on going.
Verse 70. This light has come to me from many stars, but he who first instilled it in my heart was the chief singer of the sovereign guide.
Do you guys know who the chief singer of the sovereign guide is? King David, right? Okay? King David. And why is King David
74:30so um important in the Bible? Do do do do you guys know know the the old Bible? What Yes?
Because he was the man after God's own heart.
Exactly. He He is the person that God loves the most. There is no other person that God loves as much as David. Okay, it's explicit in the Bible. All right, keep on going.
73 May those, he says within his deity, who know your name put hope in you. And if one has my faith, can he not know God's name? And just as he instilled, you then instilled with your epistle, so that I am full and rain again your rain on other souls. While I was speaking in the living heart of that soul flame, there came a trembling flash, sudden, repeated, just as lightning cracks. Then it breathed forth the love with which I still burn for the virtue that was mine until the palm and my departure from the field would have me breathe again to you who take such joy and hope, and I should welcome words that tell what hope has promised unto me, unto you.
And I, the new and ancient scriptures, set the mark for souls whom God Friends, for me that mark means what is promised us by hope. Isaiah says that all of the elect shall wear a double garment in their land, and their land is the sweet life of the blessed. And where your brother treats of those white robes, he has, with words direct and evident, made clear to us Isaiah's revelation. At first, as soon as I had finished speaking, Sperandei was heard above us, all the circling garlands answering at this call. And then, among those souls, one light became so bright that if the crab had one such crystal, winter would have a month of one long day.
Okay, so Isaiah is a prophet who was persecuted. And what Isaiah says is that all
76:31prophets will be persecuted, okay? All right, I keep on going.
Verse 103 And as a happy maiden rises and enters the dance to honor the new bride, and not through vanity or other failing, so did I see that splendor brightening approach those two flames dancing in a ring to music suited to their burning love. And there it joined the singing and the circling on which my lady kept her eyes intent, just like a bride, silent and motionless. This soul is he who lay upon the breast of Christ our pelican, and he was asked from on the cross to serve in the great task. So spoke my lady, but her gaze was not to be diverted from its steadfastness, not after or before her words were said, even as he who squints and strains to see the sun somewhat eclipsed, and as he tries to see becomes sightless, just so did I in my attempt to watch the latest flame. Until these words were said, "Why do you daze yourself to see what here can have no place?
On earth
So so again, Beatrice intervenes on Dante's behalf and says, "This soul, Dante, uh he has been asked from the cross to serve in the great task, okay? So not only is Dante being compared to uh Moses, Jesus Jesus uh Moses and David, he's also also being compared to Jesus, okay? This is just pure arrogance on his part. But it's again his arrogance that will drive him to greatness. Keep on going.
Verse 124 On earth my body now is earth and shall be together with the rest until our number equals the eternal purpose. Only those two lights that ascended wear their double garment in this blessed
78:31cloister, and carry this report back to your world."
Okay. All right. So um the reference is this. James um there's a theory in among theologians that James was able to ascend to heaven in his body, okay? And what James is saying is like, "No, that's incorrect.
Only two individuals in history have been able to ascend to heaven with their bodies and that is Jesus and Mary." Can someone tell me what what what the idea here is? Why is it important to to be able to ascend to heaven with your body? Yes?
To ascend to heaven with your body means that you're not quite dead by the time you ascend to heaven. It also means that you're so good that all the base things in your body, like your base desires, your base matter, can be elevated and can be brought into heaven as it is.
Right. Okay. And also judgement day, right?
Yeah.
On judgement day, we will all our our bodies will return to us, okay? All right. So, in other words, they've already been judged and they've been Okay? Again, this is such an arrogant statement. Why is this arrogant?
Dante is also able to ascend to heaven in his body, okay? Right? Think of the arrogance of this. Only James is like, "I'm not even worthy of ascending to heaven with my body, but Dante is, okay?" All right, this is pure arrogance. Uh I can keep on going.
Verse 130. When he began to speak, the flaming circle had stopped its dance. So, too, its song had ceased, that gentle mingling of their threefold breath, even as when, avoiding danger or simply to rest, the oars that strike the water together halt when rowers hear a whistle. Ah, how disturbed I was within my mind when I turned around to look at Beatrice, and finding that I could not see, though I was close to her and in
80:33the world of gladness.
Okay, okay. So, again, this idea of hope. And so, what most people believe is that um we as humans should strive to be egoless, right? To defeat our ego and learn humility. And that's what will allow for the grace of God.
What Dante is saying is, "No. What we must do is turn our ego for good. To be to be arrogant in a way, I should believe that we can change the world for the better, and we can make it happen." Okay? Do you see the difference? This is arrogant, but it is a selfless arrogance driven by the ego.
It All right? All right, let's move on. All right, yes.
Do you think this kind of mindset is also in those big tech CEOs and politicians' minds that they actually are doing something that they turn their ego into some big selfless act that change the world for the better?
Right, you're absolutely right, you know, because everyone believes this, right? Um so, what's the difference between them and Dante? Okay, well, the answer is faith, hope, and love. Right?
So, so you mean those politicians, the tech CEOs, they don't have these faith, hope, and love, or like and why they doing good things?
Dante is coming from a very spiritual perspective, just like Confucius or Buddha is. So, he's like, "I don't want worldly earthly reward or fame or anything." Well, maybe a bit of fame later on after he died, but like most of it, it's like spiritual accomplishments. But for our politicians or entrepreneurs, they still get, you know, stock market shares
82:33as a return. So, it's a bit different.
Okay. So, the major difference is are you turning towards God or you turning away from God? Okay? And the key variable is love. And what is love?
Love is your connection to others. Right? So, are you making others more capable of love? Or are you taking away people's capacity to love? Uh yes?
Um I have like an unrelated question, but like in the last sentence, the word gladness, I think that it actually appears in many cantos, but we haven't really delved into like the Dante's definition of this. So
Happiness.
Just pure happiness or is it like fulfillment or like
Happiness is your connection to God.
Okay.
Right. The closer your connection to God, the more glad you are.
But does it also have like uh maybe fulfillment or serenity like in the word?
All right. So, so this is a really good question, okay? So, gladness is happiness. Happiness comes from your connection to God. And what's really important, okay?
And this And this ties back to your question is the more you're able to help others connect to God, the more happiness is created in this world. Do you understand? So, your mission is to be help others connect to God. That's why the Divine Comedy is a selfless act because by reading Divine Comedy, it helps us better connect to God. Right?
And that's why uh artificial intelligence is evil because it's disrupting our connection to God and focusing our attention to the material, right? It is making us helpless. Right? It's like AI knows knows more than you, to just believe AI. Yes?
So, I I don't really get. So, like uh you said that happiness is our connection to God. And that to strengthen our connection to God, we
84:33have to create as much as hap- as much happiness as possible in others. So, if we're creating this happiness in others, like Dante is, and we're sacrificing ourselves in in this life, and we're not happy, then is our connection to God really faint because we're not happy?
Uh yes.
Your connection to God is not measured by your happiness, it's by your faith or your devotion to God.
Uh and most of the time it can like if you're really connected to God and doing things for him, he'll give you this internal satisfaction or happiness because you feel like you're in the right path or the right way.
Right. Again, like stop focusing on the reward and focus more on the process, right? How should you live your your day? And the answer is live every single day with faith, hope, and love, okay? Faith is imagination, right?
Use your brain. Use your imagination. Visualize things. Hope is arrogance. Believe you matter, believe you can change the world, and visualize a better world.
And then love is your connection to others. Act as to help others. Be Be kind. Be generous, okay? All right.
Okay, let's let's let's let's let's continue. This is 26, right?
Canto 26. While I with blinded eyes was apprehensive from that bright flame which had consumed my vision, there breathed a voice that centered my attention saying, "Until you have retrieved the power of sight which you consumed in me, it would be best to compensate by colloquy. Then do begin, declare the aim on which your soul is set, and be assured of this, your vision, though confounded, is not dead. Because the woman who conducts you through this godly region has within her gaze that force the hand of Ananias had.
Okay, okay, so this is a really important idea where heaven is so bright
86:36that Dante's being slowly blinded, right? And if you're being blinded, how can you now see? Your eyes don't really work, so how can you see now? Uh yes?
Imagination.
Exactly, okay? So now you're forced to use your imagination, okay? You're forced to see with your third eye, okay? Uh let's keep on going. Did you have a question?
Um I'm saying that this is also like Um I think it's really funny because it's actually also a physical manifestation of blind faith, but I think in the context of Dante is more about It's like one of these team exercises where they put a blindfold over your head and then push you backwards and you have to expect not to fall. Uh it's like a trust exercise.
Yeah.
No, I think this is like a reference to when Moses went to the mount to get the tabernacle, he was blinded by the sight of God and couldn't see, so that God gave it him like rocks, um the 10 Commandments written in stone. And so I think this is like a reference
yeah, yeah. You're You're You're You're You're You're right, yes, okay. Yes. Keep Keep Keep on going.
Verse 13. I said, "As pleases her, may solace sooner or later reach these eyes. Her gaze, when she brought me the fire with which I always burn, the good with which this court is satisfied as alpha and omega of all writings that love has, loud or low, read out to me." It was the very voice that had dispelled the fear I felt at sudden dazzlement that now with further words made me concerned to speak again. He said, "You certainly must sift with a still finer sieve, must tell who led your bow to aim at such a target." And I, by philosophic arguments and by authority whose source is here, that love must be imprinted in me for the good, once it is understood as such and kindles love, and in accord with more goodness comes greater love. And thus the mind of anyone who can
88:36discern the truth on which this proof is founded must be moved to love more than it loves all else, that essence which is preeminent, since any good that lies outside of it is nothing but a ray reflected from its radiance. My mind discerns this truth made plain by him who demonstrates to me that the first love of the eternal beings is their maker. The voice of the true author states this too, where he tells Moses, speaking of himself, "I shall show you all goodness." You reveal this too when you begin your high evangel, which more than any other proclamation cries out to earth the mystery of heaven.
Okay, so this is a summarization of what we've learned, right? God is love. God implanted himself in us, so we are all love. We aspire to return to love, and you do that by loving others. Okay?
Does that make sense? All right, carry on going.
Verse 46. I heard, "Through human reasonings and through authorities according with it, you conclude your highest love is bent on God. But tell me too if you feel other chords draw you toward him, so that your voice you voice aloud all of the teeth by which this love grips you. The holy intent of Christ's eagle was not hidden. I indeed was made aware of what he would most have my words declare." Thus I began again.
"My charity results from all those things whose bite can bring the heart to turn to God. The world's existence and mine, the death that he sustained that I might live, and that which is the hope of all believers, as it is my hope together with living knowledge I have spoken of, these drew me from the sea of twisted love and set me on the shore of the right love. Believes and leaving all the garden of the everlasting gardener, I love according to the good he gave to them. As soon as I was still, a song
90:36most sweet resounded through that heaven, and my lady said with the others, "Holy, holy, holy."
Okay, so the idea is that love is an action, okay? It is an act of openness, generosity to others. And when you do that, you turn the universe towards God. And you bring more happiness, you bring more love in the world. Okay?
And while she's saying this, the entire heavens are shouting, "Holy, holy, holy." Okay, I keep on going.
Verse 70. And just as a sharp light will startle us from sleep because the spirit of eyesight races to meet the brightness that proceeds from layer to layer in the eye, and he who wakens is confused by what he sees, awaken awakening suddenly, and knows no thing until his judgment helps him, even so did Beatrice dispel with her eyes rays which shone more than a thousand miles the chaff from my eyes. I saw better than I had before, and as a as and as a stupefied, I asked about the fourth light that I saw among us. My lady answered, and those raised their gazes with love for his creator, the first soul ever created by the primal force, as does a tree that bends its crown because of winds that gust, and then springs up raised by its own sustaining power, so did I while he was speaking. I bewildered then restored to confidence by that desire to speak with which I was inflamed began.
Oh, fruit that was the only one to be brought forth already ripe. Oh, ancient father to whom each bride is as a daughter and daughter-in-law devoutly as I can, I do beseech you speak with me. You can see my wish to hear you sooner, I do not declare it. And the primal soul much as an animal beneath a cover stirs so that its feelings are made evident when what
92:37enfolds it follows all its movements. Showed me through that which covered him with what rejoicing rejoicing he was coming to delight me. Then he breathed forth. Though you do not declare your wish, I can perceive it better than you can perceive the things you hold most certain. For I can see it in the truthful mirror that perfectly reflects all else while no thing can reflect that mirror perfectly.
You wish to hear how long it is since I was placed by God in that high garden where this lady read it read it you to climb a stair so long and just how long it pleased my eyes and the true cause of the great anger and what idiom I used and shaped. My son, the cause of my long exile did not lie within the act of tasting of the tree but solely in my trespass of the boundary.
Okay. All right, okay. So, here um Dante has passed the test. Uh he knows what love is. And now he's talking to Adam, the first man.
Okay? And Adam says to Dante, I know uh your question is how long did it take me to come to heaven, right? Because I had the because I committed the original sin. I uh trespassed the boundary. I trespassed the condition that God gave us.
And you want to know how long did it take take uh for God to forgive me and allow me to ascend to heaven, okay? Why is this paradoxical? Why is this heresy? Yes?
There is no like the sense of time in heaven. So you like you just can't measure how long did it take.
Okay, yeah, that's a good point, but remember he had he was exiled from the Garden of Eden. He had to roam the earth.
94:37Right? So the question is like how long did he have to roam the earth before God forgave him and allowed him to ascend to heaven? All right. But this is But there's a paradox in all this. What What's the paradox?
I think like in the Bible it says he lived to 900 years or something.
Sure, okay, right? There There's a huge paradox here. What's the paradox? Yes?
So maybe Adam doesn't really deserve heaven to begin with. Because you know he ate the fruit and all and he sinned and there weren't any priests around back then to save him and basically he's not all that qualified for heaven.
Like if the original sin could be forgiven then why did Jesus need to like die for us?
Um that is a good question. But but there's an answer to this, which is the problem isn't the original sin. The problem is our pride. And so through you know genetics the the idea of pride the idea of original sin the idea of evil um was transmitted transmitted transmitted from generation to generation. And that's why Jesus had to come in order to redeem us of our evil to ransom us and back from Satan, okay?
That that's the explanation back here. But, there's a paradox here where um Adam is saying I was punished for my trespass of the boundary. What's the paradox of this?
[snorts]
Again, it's very subtle. It's hard to see. Right? But, in the Bible, if you read the Bible, if you if you go to Sunday school, what are you taught about the Garden of Eden and the and the fruit?
Um the Garden of Eden is the best garden the best place that you could ever be, and the fruit is the best thing you've ever tasted.
Who tasted the fruit? Who broke Who broke the boundary?
Uh Eve.
Eve.
96:37What's going on here? It's Eve who trespassed the boundary, and then she tricked Adam into eating it, right? And here you're saying, "No, it's Adam." This is really straight It's a paradox. This is saying that it's Adam and not Eve who was responsible for the original sin. This is revolutionary, right?
Let me ask you this question. What is the status of woman in the Divine Comedy?
They're quite elevated. They're the spokespersons.
Beatrice. Right? Think about this. In heaven, who teaches Dante? Beatrice.
When when we keep on going, you will find like the person that is the most elevated in heaven is not Jesus. Who is it? Can you guys guess? Mary. This is really strange, okay?
So, not only is Adam taking responsibility for the original sin, but Mary is being elevated higher than Jesus. What's going on here? Again, this is revolutionary. This is this is heresy. All right, why is Dante doing this?
Yes?
Maybe he's telling people to stop blaming women for everything that happened to you and start taking ownership of what you have done.
Um okay, sure. Uh yes? Uh you and you.
So, I think maybe because love cuz you know women they just kind of representative love. So, if love does exist as God, then the woman should be
98:37the God. Maybe.
Women should be God, okay? Yes?
Well, I mean, Adam was created first and Eve was made out of his flesh, so I don't know that you could say already that Eve has like a higher form because she's made out of flesh and Adam is made out of um like or dust and and Adam was created as the first human, so he and he was told personally by God that he should not eat the fruit and Eve was only told by Adam that she shouldn't eat the fruit. So, Adam has to take the responsibility for eating the fruit because he he was like told directly by God.
Okay, okay, yeah. So, we're not arguing about it was Adam's fault or Eve's fault, okay? We we go on and on about this. But but like I want to know why women are being elevated to such a degree in heaven where Beatrice is the teacher of Dante. It is Beatrice who who revealed the truth of the universe to Dante.
And where Mary is elevated more than Jesus, why would Dante be doing this? Yes?
And maybe he's using the idea of maternal love again. Like he thinks maternal love is the closest thing to selflessness that God has on this earth.
That is true. He definitely thinks very highly of mothers. Yes?
I think uh
Yes?
I think uh uh for Dante the source of love was originally uh his love toward uh Beatrice. So that's why I think he's uh Beatrice or the feminine uh love uh embodies the you know, the initiator of his love. So I think that's why he thinks uh highly of female.
Okay, true. Okay, that that is that is a motivation. Okay? But
100:37um what are some other motivations? Yes?
I'm not I'm not that sure, but at the time I don't know how the position of women was, but maybe in society they typically weren't the teachers and maybe in the material world they weren't uh so enjoying their lives that much, so sort of inverted in heaven and they could be saved.
Yes, okay.
I'm just guessing, but does this have something to do with like the Catholic Church and how they treated women at the time?
okay. So this is a soliloquy. This is a social critique, right? He's criticizing directly how women are oppressed in society by the Catholic Church. Does that make sense?
And what he's also saying is that if there is if God is to shine in the world, if love is what matters, you can't do that. There has to be equality between the sexes. Otherwise, there can be no love in the world. If women are being oppressed at home in society, then uh this is going to negatively impact society because the children will grow up thinking that men are superior to women. Okay?
If there's If you have If you are to truly access God, if if love must come to the world, a precondition must be equality among the sexes. Okay, does that make sense? Okay? So, it's a very subtle social critique. Any questions before we move on?
Yes?
Well, but Dante doesn't just like make women equal. He elevates them even. Right? So, like
Right. Right. It's an inversion, right?
Yeah, it's
Right. It's a highlight the inequality of of the real world, right? So, so so So, you're drawing this contrast. There's this massive inequality in our world where women are not are not allowed to teach because they don't know anything. They're not even allowed to be educated, really, right?
And where men are always placed in higher positions than than women, so he's going to invert this in order to
102:38show you uh the inequality back in our world. Okay, does that make sense? It's a contrast. Uh yes?
Um I would just like to draw attention to all the tree motifs he has been using. That's all I wanted to say. It's the tree of life, like obviously.
Right. Okay. All right. Yeah, there's lots of reference to the tree. Okay, let's keep on going.
Verse 118. During 4,302 returnings of the sun, while I was in that place from which your lady sent you, Virgil, I longed for this assembly. While on Earth, I saw the sun return to all the lights along its way 930 times.
Okay, so what he's saying is that after I died, I went to Inferno, okay? I went to hell. Um and who saved him from Inferno? Did Did do you Can you guys guess? No.
No. No. Peter doesn't have the power to save Adam from from inferno. Jesus, right? Okay.
I can I can go on.
Verse 1:24, the tongue I spoke was all extinct before the men of Nimrod set their minds upon the unaccomplishable task. For never has anything produced by human reason been everlasting. Following the heavens, men seek the new. They shift their predilections. That man should speak at all is nature's act, but how you speak in those in this tongue or in that she leaves to you and to your preference.
Before I was sent down to hell's torments on earth, the highest good from which derives the joy that now enfolds me was called I. And then he was called L. Such change must be. The ways that mortals take are as the leaves upon a branch. One comes, another goes.
On
104:38that peak rising highest from the sea, my life, first pure, then tainted, lasted from the first hour to the hour that follows on the sixth when the sun shifts to a new quadrant.
Okay. So, there's heresy here. What is the heresy? Uh yes?
Then he was called I.
Yes, that's the heresy. Why why why is this heresy?
Should have been Jesus.
Uh Okay. Uh right. So, what the Catholic Church insists on is the consistency and the constancy of Christianity, right? It's all consistent. And what Adam is saying is, no, it's all change.
We change the name of God over time and that was just a natural process. It doesn't make sense. Okay? Because what the Catholic Church is trying to say is that our faith is immutable and eternal. What Adam is saying no guys, that's not how that's how these things work works, okay?
Faith can be can be changed. What matters is your connection to the divine. Does that make sense, guys? All right. So again, Donny doesn't care anymore.
He is going all out. All right. Uh yes?
But I wonder if the L refers to like El Olam or something like which is used to be a old name of God in the Old Testament. So he was called Jehovah, he was called a lot of other different
Right, right. Okay. So what you're referring to is the fact that in Genesis um what Genesis is doing is combining four different versions of the Bible. And we know this because there are two different names for God in Genesis. There is uh Elohim, which means gods really, and then Yahweh.
Okay, so we know that these are two different writers. Okay, so they're different names. And so Donny is just drawing us back to the to this um simple fact, which is like there is inconsistency in the Bible itself.
106:40Okay? Uh yes?
Uh I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the line from 126, "For never has anything produced by human reason been everlasting." What he means by that.
Let me see.
Oh, right. Okay. Okay. So so what he's saying is this, okay? Um the universe is eternal.
God is eternal. Okay? But language um which is a part of our reason, it is a limited tool to express the divine. And over time, what's going to happen is that we're going to constantly change our language, constantly refresh our language in order to express the divine. Okay?
And the people who will try to refresh our language in order to express the divine are the poets, right? Okay? And this is a natural process. So, don't believe everything in the Bible because the Bible is not necessarily divine. The Bible is a expression divine in order to accommodate our limited senses.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, but could could it also refer to how over years human logic can reasoning can always change like something for example today that we think is normal 1,000 years ago it wasn't and vice versa.
Right.
Um but the uh faith, the hope that that is everlasting.
Right. That that that's exactly what what he's saying, okay? But like but I but what the point the point I'm trying to make is that reason is predicated on language. You only with language can you reason, okay? And what poets do is they constantly refresh our language to allow for more reason to take place, okay?
So, what Dante is doing is he's trying to promote the primacy of poetry
108:40over everything else. Okay? Language. Okay? Does that make sense?
All right, let's keep on going, guys. This is now Canto 27, okay?
Canto 27 Unto the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, glory all Paradise began so that the sweetness of the singing held me rapt. What I saw seemed to me to be a smile. The universe had smiled. My rapture had entered by way of hearing and of sight. Oh, joy, oh, gladness words can never speak.
Oh, life perfected by both love and peace. Oh, richness so assured that knows no longing. Before my eyes there stood a flame the four torches and that which had been first to come began to glow with greater radiance. And what its image then became was like what Jupiter's would be if Mars and he were birds and had exchanged their plumages. After the providence that there assigns to every office its appointed time had to those holy choirs on every side commanded silence.
I then heard, "If I change color, do not be amazed for as I speak you will see change in all these flames. He who on earth usurps my place, my place, my place that in the sight of God's own son is vacant now, has made my burial ground a sewer of blood, a sewer of stench so that the perverse one who fell from heaven here above can find contentment there below."
Okay, all right. This is Peter, okay? And Peter has come out and he is making the most radical the most revolutionary criticism of the Catholic Church, okay? So, Peter is saying "He who on earth usurps my place, my
110:42place, my place that in the sight of God's own son is vacant now, has made my burial ground a sewer of blood, a sewer of stench so that the perverse one who fell from heaven here above can find contentment there below." This is This is kind of crazy, okay? What is he saying? First of all, what is Where is his burial ground? The Vatican, okay? The seat of the Catholic Church.
That's number one. Number two is who has usurped his place?
Satan.
Nope. The Pope, right? Okay? Um he's made my burial ground a sewer of blood, a sewer of stench so that the perverse one who fell from heaven. Who's the perverse one from heaven?
This one, Satan.
He's saying the Vatican is the seat of Satan. This is literally what he's saying. The Vatican is the seat of Satan. What? And where's he saying this?
Where's he saying this? In heaven. Yes?
And you know this is not that much of a surprise because like in Inferno he already condemned the Pope to hell when he dies, so
That's Inferno. This is heaven. What should you be doing in heaven?
Praising, being happy.
How about forgiving others, right? Isn't that like the like the main Christian virtue? Forgive others. Understand others. Show empathy.
Be merciful. Peter, who is the first Pope, who is in heaven, who is beside God, who has all the eternal rewards that he could ever wish for, he just goes on this rant about the Pope saying this is a servant of Satan. What is going on here?
112:42Yes?
Yeah, because in the medieval Catholic Church during the back of that period it was really chaotic, so maybe he just want to represent that out of this guy's is not good.
Okay, I understand why he's angry, but the paradox is uh wait a minute here. You're in heaven, you're beside God, God is all loving, God is all forgiving, all merciful, and you are cursing the representative representative of God on earth. Okay, this is a paradox. I have absolutely no idea how this was able to escape the Catholic Church. Okay, this is pretty blatant what's going on.
Yes?
So I know you won't accept this idea because you said that Dante is perfect, but personally I think that's him and his opinions bleeding through a little.
Well, well, well, clearly he does not like being exiled. Clearly he hates the Pope, right? This is his vengeance. But at the same time he's a poet. At the same time he's trying to speak the truth.
And so again, let us give him grace. Let us assume that what he's doing is to speak for God. Why is he doing this? What's the purpose of this paradox?
[clears throat]
And quite honestly, no one knows. This this has baffled scholars forever. Okay, this passage is like, what is going on here? Was Dante drunk when when he when he wrote this?
I think he he did this maybe just to give a dramatic effect to his poem. Just so that this could be a you know, remember as the shocking literature that was
You're right. This is business, right? We will forever remember this. Okay, but at the same time, again, what Dante's been saying all this time is that God is all forgiving, all love,
114:44all merciful. Yet Peter cannot forgive the Pope. Cannot forgive uh yes?
To warn humanity, beware of false gods. Beware of um just
But everyone knows this, like like like the the corruption of the church is so blatant. Everyone knows this, right? The indulgences are are blatant. Yes?
Or is it because he thinks that what the Catholic Church has done really is the greatest sin in separating us from the divine?
Yes. Can Can you explain? Can you elaborate?
Throughout what we've read in the Divine Comedy, the the main belief of Dante is that we should as humans we can connect to the divine, but he sees that the biggest blocker of this is the Catholic Church. Therefore, what they are doing now on Earth is the greatest sin and it can't be forgiven.
Yes. Okay. Uh yes?
So, I think it started in John and then in Ezekiel and then it goes to the Book of Revelations where they're talking about the Antichrist. And the Catholic Church seems to be more worried about heretics, but the Antichrist is going to be somebody inside the Christian community who's going to purposefully lead them away in an opposite direction of God. Where heretics just have other ideas of God.
Yes, exactly. This is clearly clearly what Peter's saying is that the Pope is the Antichrist. This is This is blatant, okay? There's no misinterpreting this, okay? There just isn't.
Uh yes?
I mean, there's two factors to this. One is that God is all loving and all forgiving, but Peter is not God. Like they're in heaven, they're very close to God, but Peter is allowed to sometimes be a little bit hateful. That's the first part and the second part is that Dante is not here to stay. Dante is not here as a permanent resident of heaven.
Dante is here so that he can take a message and he's going to go back and he's going to tell everyone all about what he saw, what he experienced here. And Peter is giving him this message so
116:44that he can go back and pass it back. And Peter is doing it with this in mind.
Okay, but but but this creates another paradox, which is like you're in heaven and you've been there for thousands of years and all you've experienced is joy and happiness where does this hate come from? Right? This is pure hatred. Yes?
It comes from the hatred of the subversion of the joy and happiness that you've experienced.
Yes. Okay. It's justice, right? It's it's it's it's like the the thing is so unjust that you cannot rejoice in your own happiness. Okay, does it make sense, guys?
Okay? And this this this this is the idea of Martin Luther Luther King's famous phrase. Justice injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Okay? Does that make sense?
Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. So, it doesn't matter if it's happening far away from you. Even it doesn't matter if it doesn't impact you. You must speak out. Okay?
That's what love is. Love is action. Love is concern for others in a way that you must act out. You must You must speak out. Okay, that's what true love is.
Does that make sense, guys? Okay, so great. Uh we'll take a break for lunch and then we'll come back, okay? All right. But but you guys are doing a great job.
We're going really fast. And you know, our mission is to really reveal Dante's will and testament to the world and we're doing that right now, okay? So, thank you very much and we'll continue after lunch. Okay, guys. So, uh we continue, okay?
So, again, um I want to summarize what we've learned so far um this morning. So, um for most of its history
118:46Paul was a major theologian of the Catholic Church. It's Augustine who systematized Paul, but it's really Paul as the heart and soul of the Catholic Church. And he basically has three chief virtues, right? Um faith, um hope, and love. And if you read his letters, he will explain to you what these three things mean.
Faith is just acceptance. Understand the universe is a mystery. God works in mysterious ways. And you have to trust him, okay? You have to accept him, you have to trust him.
Hope is humility. Understand that everything works by the grace of God. You'll be saved by God. And you must be humble before the power and grace of God. Uh and love is just obedience.
To obey the church, to obey God, and then the church will lead you to salvation. And for again, most of its history, the church will teach Paul's understanding, okay? Um Dante is a revolutionary. And he will take these three concepts and radically reimagine them uh as we discussed this morning. So, the for faith, it is not about acceptance.
It is about um imagination, right? We imagine that we are ultimately connected to God. And we're connected to each other. It's an act of imagination. That's what faith is.
Constant recognition that the universe is one and whole. And it is governed by love and free will. Hope is one of arrogance.
120:47To believe that you yourself can be Jesus. You can be David. You can be Moses as long as you have the will to do so. Um and through your actions, you can change the universe. Um and then love is one of action.
Right? It's almost disobedience where if you see justice anywhere, you recognize through your faith, through your hope that you have the power to change it because justice anywhere is justice everywhere. That's why Peter is so angry even though he really has no reason to be angry. Okay? So, a way for us to understand the difference is Paul's saying, "There is a plan and trust it, okay?
Trust the plan." What Donny is really saying is that we are the plan. We are the ones who bring faith, hope, and love to the world. That is the plan. That is why we're here. And that is And so, this is a brief summary of thing of things that we learned this morning.
Are there any questions about what we learned this morning before we continue? I know we're going very fast. Uh you guys are doing a great job, but I want to make sure that you're on track, that you understand what Donny is really trying to say. Yes?
Um so, what Donny is trying to say he's not trying to get rid of obedience entirely. He's He's uh not trying to push self-determination. He's saying, "Okay, be obedient, but don't be obedient to the church. Be obedient to God and the voice within you." Is that what he's saying?
Okay. What I'm trying to point out is what the priorities are. Right? For Paul, the priority the priority is to accept the mystery of God, to be humble with with before God, and to obey
122:47God. And what Don is saying is that no, we are not passive observers. We are active participants in the universe. And we have a responsibility to uh use our imagination to believe we can change the world, to have courage, and to love others. Okay?
To promote justice in the world. It doesn't It doesn't do you no good if you live a virtuous life as long as there's injustice in the world. So, again, every This all radical. This all a radical conception revolutionary conception of our place in the cosmos. Okay?
And again, it's this It's these three things. This imagination, this arrogance, this um desire to take action. Okay? It's the driving force behind modernity, right? It's what will give rise to Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution.
It's these It's these three ideas. Right? It's It's this conception that will change human history forever. I know it's hard to believe, but if you think about it, okay? And you just apply it to human history, it helps explain a lot a lot rather than just say, "Well, history's driven by these structural forces that are materialistic as Marx would argue." Right?
So, so, history is not driven by these structural forces that are materialistic?
This What Don is saying is that history is determined by the active choices that we make. That's what Dante is saying, ultimately. Okay? We're not just passive observers,
124:47right? Marx would say that there's these structural economic forces that drive history, and what Dante is saying is that no, it's humans that drive history. It's us. Yeah?
Could Dante's idea of humans drive history be the root of this great men great people idea of history instead of collective history?
Um that's a hard question for me to answer. Dante is the root of the Renaissance. He will give rise to the Renaissance. And the ideas of the Renaissance will spread. How it spreads, how it interacts with other ideas is a very complicated question.
Okay? All right, so yes?
Um so yeah, [clears throat] I was I was thinking about an interview of you and some other guy I I watched and and you said that individuality and creativity is the greatest threat to the system and basically you when you have that individuality you can deny the reality before you and create your own reality. And that kind of align with what Dante said about the arrogance as hope. Do you find personal connection with Dante in this?
Okay, so I'm going to make a very arrogant statement, okay? So I first discovered Dante 4 years ago when I was forced to teach Dante for this great books course I was teaching in high school. And before I never read Dante. Um and I never had a desire to read Dante. And it was a very tough journey.
And 4 years later I will make the statement where I feel I understand Dante better than anyone else in the world. Okay?
[clears throat]
This is me not knowing a word of Italian. This is me not having studied Dante formally. This is me not knowing the scholarship behind Dante. Okay? But I But you could do this as an expert where you go and try to sit on every
126:48Dante classroom. All right? And I guarantee you that the conclusion that you will make is I have a better understanding of Dante than everyone else. Because what I'm trying to figure out is the psychology of Dante. The heart of Dante.
The mind of Dante. And um I feel as though when I teach Dante I'm channeling Dante. I think Dante is looking at us, smiling at us. And a lot of things that I say, a lot of things I do, I'm trying to harmonize with Dante. I'm trying to open my heart in a way that allows Dante to take possession of me and guide me in a certain way.
Okay? It's almost like the Holy Spirit, right? All right? So that that's what I believe. It's kind of crazy but prove me wrong.
All right? Find me someone who can teach Dante better than I can. Yeah?
yeah, I'm going to be honest with you. I think the only thing that Dante scholars can agree on is that they they have the best definition and best understanding of Dante.
Okay. Give me an example.
Um for example, all these people who scholarship you just attempted to refute. For example, the people in the commento by Bruno Nardi for the type of the text and translations. Their interpretation kind of diverges from yours.
Okay. Well, then I I'd be more than happy for you to read everything they write and then tell us what they write and have an argument. Okay? I'm probably open to that. Just tell us like this Dante scholar believes this.
And And And And I'd be I would love for this for for this argument to take place so that people can hear a diversity of perspectives, okay? But I'm pretty confident that my perspective has more weight. Okay? Uh yes?
So, I like I like what you said about individuality cuz I was trying to I was trying to build it into it. I thought I'd build it individuality into it into action cuz it's individual action. But I The more that I'm looking at this,
128:48maybe instead of Holy Trinity, it's a mortal trinity or something like that because individuality seems to be your individual imagination, your individual arrogance, your individual action. So, all three kind of work into the individual and it's almost like God would want our individualized love.
You're absolutely right. So, Dante, what he does, that's very controversial, is he celebrates individuality to an extreme degree. What he's What he's saying is like, you know, he's not saying, "Working together, we can save the world." He's saying that one person with enough faith, hope, and love can change the entire world. That's arrogance, right? That's That's a celebration of individuality that is pretty extreme.
And uh yeah, so thank you for that, okay? Uh yes?
So, um what I'm actually very interested in is um why um is there any um personal personal experiences of yours that help you or connect with Dante?
Yeah, so it's it's has to do with exile. Right? So, um um all my life I've been in exile. I was an immigrant to Toronto, where I grew up. Then I went to Yale, um which was basically isolation because I I really didn't fit into the cultural milieu of Yale.
And then from Yale I went to China where I was looking for my identity. I was looking for my roots, but it was I was very much a stranger in a strange land because as you can see, my values are very Western, right? And I'm not going to get along with Chinese people because I am very much anti-materialistic. So, it's this sense of isolation, this sense of exile that allows you to connect to a higher truth, okay? And that's the major connection.
It doesn't make sense?
Yes, I think you did.
Yeah, but but but but yes. Uh yes.
Um but I would like to point out that your exile is um mostly voluntary. I want to say that
130:49So, it's voluntary.
Um no, it wasn't.
Yes, it was.
literally forced out of Florence and all his property was confiscated.
Okay, as long as he was willing to admit his crimes, as long as he was able to willing to compromise with the new faction, he would have been allowed to let in. He made the conscious decision to leave Florence, okay? Just go into the history, okay? Like they made many overtures to to him and said, "Listen, let's make a compromise and you'll keep your property, but you must, you know, pay a fine or whatever." He thought it was unjust, okay? So, it's his choice.
Uh yes.
Uh first, I have a question. Is that you're saying that uh your experience like you have lots of experience about the exile to different culture and different countries and you think that I mean those kind of experience make you like quite approaching to the truth, approaching to the free will of of God. So, does that means like uh if for us who never have the experience to to immigrate or like uh being exiled from group, it's much more harder for us to approaching to the approach to the God. So, does that means uh human culture for the people in the like in a population, those kind of people in the population from the culture kind of prevent people to um getting the truth from the God?
Look, I mean, if you live in a city, you're going to be much more creative than if you live in the countryside. If you are cosmopolitan and you travel to many countries, you're going to be more creative than if you are just you just stay where you are, okay? That's that's just historically accurate. At the same time, we need to recognize that Dante never really traveled that much. He really was within Italy himself.
He didn't go and learn all the all these things, okay? So, there seems to be a balance where if you stay in one place, you become complacent, but if you go too far, you
132:50[clears throat] become rootless. Okay? Because what's driving Dante, we have to remember this, is his love for Florence, his love for his family, his love for his neighbors, for Beatrice. Okay? So, he's very much rooted in Florence.
He never really leaves Florence mentally, psychologically. He may leave Florence physically, but even when he leaves Florence, he still remembers Florence, he still is nostalgic for or Florence. He still longs to return to Florence. Okay? Does that make sense?
There has to be a balance. Okay. All right. I Let Let Let us continue, okay?
Canto 27, verse 28. Then I saw all the heaven colored by the hue that paints the clouds at morning and evening, with the sun confronting them. And like a woman who, although secure in her own honesty, will pale on even hearing another woman's failing, just so did Beatrice change in appearance. And I believe that such a close was in the sky when he, the highest power, suffered. Then his words followed with a voice so altered from what it was before, even his likeness did not display a greater change than that.
The bride of Christ was never nurtured by my blood, and blood of Linus and of Cletus, to be employed in gaining greater riches, but to acquire this life of joyousness, Sixtus and Pius, Urban and Calixtus, after much lamentation, shed their blood. We did not want one portion of Christ's people to sit at the right side of our successors, while on the left the other portion sat. Nor did we want the keys that were consigned to me to serve as an escutcheon on a banner that makes war against the baptized. Nor did we want my form upon a seal for trafficking in lying privileges, for which I often blush and flash with anger.
134:51From here on high one sees rapacious wolves clothed in the cloaks of shepherds. You, the vengeance of God, oh why do you still lie concealed? The Gascons and the Cahorsins, they both prepare to drink our blood. Oh good beginning to what a miserable end you fall. But that high providence which once preserved Lucius Scipio, the glory of the world, for Rome, will soon bring help, as I can see.
And you, my son, who through your mortal weight will yet return below, speak plainly there and do not hide that which I do not hide.
Okay, right. So, um this again is Peter and he's and he's saying um And he he he's saying, "Okay, that the Vatican is now the seat of Satan, right? So, what can be done?" What can be done? First of all, why didn't God just intervene? Why didn't Peter just intervene and kill Satan or whatever?
Yes?
Because that would be that is disrespecting people's free will. If intervening.
Exactly. So, God cannot intervene, right? Because again, the fundamental principle of the universe is free will. And free will is a manifestation and expression of God's love for us. Okay?
If you truly love, you must give people choice. Yes?
But didn't God intervene multiple times in the Old Testament?
For example?
Well, the ark of Noah and like in the Noah story.
Um that's not uh right. And then and then what did God say to Noah afterwards?
That it was a mistake.
Exactly. Do you guys Do you guys understand? There's something called the Noahide covenant. So, he told Noah, I
136:51destroyed the world and I shouldn't have done that, man. [laughter] Okay? So, God learns, okay?
But he still intervened.
Excuse me?
He still did it.
What? And he said, I'm sorry. I won't I won't do it I won't ever do do it again.
So, that's the only instance you see. What is it? Just That's the only instance where he intervened.
Um well, I mean he's he's Well, in the Old Testament, he did intervene in quite a lot, right? But
But that's the last one.
No, no, no. That That was him just saying like I won't destroy humanity if I'm angry. Okay? Do you understand? He's like, I will never destroy humanity again.
Uh yes?
Um but you said earlier that God was perfect love. So, why did he self-admittedly do this?
Okay. Um
[laughter]
Yes.
So, um I used to go to a Bible college, so we have to write a lot of essays about these contradiction uh dictions in the Bible, but we can talk about that after class if you want. Yeah.
Okay. Um so, we can go on for years about the contradictions in the Bible, okay? And what Dante is saying is that let's just use our imagination, okay? And look look, there's like 10,000 explanations and one explanation is it's not really God that's doing this, it's the demonic urge that's doing this, which is a false god, right? So so but but like I don't want to go there, it's too confusing.
Okay? But like there are many different explanations for for what happened. All right? So again, the question is Peter says there's so much evil in the world. So what does he tell Dante to do?
What is Don- what must Dante do? To address the evil in the Catholic Church. Write Divine Comedy, right?
138:53Okay? Tell the world. Write Divine Comedy. That's why you're here. That's why God elevated you even in your body.
It doesn't make sense. Okay? Yes?
I'm a little bit confused with the line 56 and 7. Um you the vision is of God. Oh why do you still lie concealed? What what does that lie concealed lie concealed mean?
Why doesn't God Why why doesn't God take action?
I'm sorry?
Why doesn't God take action? Right? You the vision is of God. Right? You God, you're being offended by all this corruption.
So why do you still not do anything about it? Why do you not take action? Why do you lie concealed?
So so you asked to to God, right? This
It's a lament. It's a lament. Yes, it's you God. Yes, okay. Yes, okay.
All right. Okay? Let let let let let's keep on going.
Verse 67. As when the horn of heaven's goat abuts the sun, our sky flakes frozen vapors downward. So did I see that ether there adorned, far from that sphere, triumphant vapors now were flaking up to the empyrean, returning after dwelling here with us. My sight was following their semblances until the space between us grew so great as to deny my eyes all farther reach. At this my lady, see- seeing me set free from gazing upward, told me, "Let your eyes look down and see how far you have revolved." I saw that from the time when I looked down before, I had traversed all the arc from of the first climb, from its midpoint to end, so that beyond Cadiz I saw Ulysses Ulysses' mad course, and to the east could almost see that shoreline where Europa was sweet burden.
Okay. All right. So, Beatrice, they are really up high, okay? They are so close to God, okay? Uh they're about to enter
140:53the empyrean, which is the uh seat of God. And then Beatrice says, "Look down and see how far you've risen, okay?" And he's he's recognized that, "Oh my God, he's traveling higher length of the cosmos." Uh let me ask you this question. Why is Beatrice guiding Dante? Why was Beatrice chosen to be Dante's guide through the cosmos? Uh yes?
Um personally, I would say that it's because uh Beatrice is the person who is familiar to Dante. And all of this is so grand and so beautiful and so great that if Dante tried to take it in himself, or if he was guided by someone uh who is like a saint or someone not familiar to him, then he would have problems taking it all in. So, this Beatrice is kind of like a bridge bridge of love between Dante and God.
Then why not why not Dante's mother, man?
Wait, is Dante's mother still alive at the time of writing?
No. Uh yes.
I I think because uh Dante loved Beatrice.
Exactly. You understand. It's that simple. Because what's elevating you is your love for another person, okay? And the love is so powerful, it's almost like a tractor beam.
It's like a rope that carries you. Okay, do you understand this idea? Okay, he's not flying. And what's allowing him to fly is not Beatrice, it's your love for Beatrice. So, it has to be someone that Beatrice loves with all his heart.
And that's why Beatrice was chosen. And that's how Dante was able to traverse the cosmos the cosmos. Not him, not his will, okay? Not his imagination, but his love for Beatrice. That's what did it.
Does that make sense? Okay, this is a very important distinction. Okay, let's let's continue.
Verse 85. I should have seen more of this threshing floor, but for the motion of the sun beneath my feet, it was a sign
142:54and more way. My mind, enraptured, always longing for my lady gallantly, was burning more than ever for my eyes return to her.
Okay, so so you guys know what's going on. It's like she he is so obsessed with her, okay? He What's keeping him going is the sight of her. Right? That's what gives him faith, hope, and love.
He has to see her. So, wherever she goes, he wants to go as well. And it's his love for him I'm sorry, it's his his love for Beatrice that propelled her his will and his imagination. Okay, that's the dynamic here. And that's the dynamic of the universe.
Uh yes?
Um I remember earlier on you mentioned that for the writer Dante, like Beatrice is kind of like another reflection, but a greater self of himself.
Yes.
And I was wondering, now since we're analyzing um Dante's love towards Beatrice, but since it's also a reflection of himself, but a greater self, could this love be more than he wants?
This is a great question, okay? So so let's sit back and and think about this. Where to love someone, okay? You have to love this person unconditionally. So you have to remove your ego from the equation.
Um but the problem is Dante didn't know Beatrice, right? They they knew each other when he was like eight, and they knew each other on and off. So Beatrice is not a fully conceived person. Uh yes?
So maybe Dante here is preaching a radical self-love because the church tells you to feel guilty for all the sins you have done. Tells you to be uh to feel humility in front of the church, but Dante here is preaching self-love. Be confident and love yourself.
No no, I don't think Dante would do that. This is He would not preach narcissism. I have a hard time believing that.
144:54Well, I don't think it's narcissism. Loving yourself and narcissism is not the same thing. Narcissism is relating your ego. Loving yourself is being kind to yourself.
Okay, this is really important because the reason why I say this is next week we'll be will we will focus on the cosmic battle between Virgil and Dante. Okay? We will focus on the cosmic battle between the Virgil and [clears throat] Dante. It's very important we distinguish clearly what is true love. And when we learn about Virgil, you will recognize that uh there is a narcissism to his concept of love that does not exist in Dante.
Dante's love is unconditional. Okay? Uh yes?
Uh So in the City of God, which I'm I'm kind of digging into now, um Jesus dies as a sacrifice for our sins and and Augustine wants us to mirror his his sacrifice and his suffering. And so I think maybe what what they're asking for is instead of like radical self-love or love of any one thing it'd be the love of the acceptance of this sacrifice and the suffering in this life. Um of Jesus.
Right. Okay, so yeah, so Dante would demand that you leave your ego, that you transcend your ego, okay? Doesn't mean you abandon your ego. Your ego uh is very important, but you have to reach out to someone else. So So again, it's a really interesting question to think about.
Um what's going on here? Dante and Beatrice died when she was like 24, 25, okay? And Dante got married. He married someone, okay, who was not Beatrice. Beatrice married someone else, um and she died actually in childbirth.
Um and so Beatrice is not a fully conceived person. So, what's going on here? Yes?
Um I think two things are happening. First thing is that this is a very contemporary take, but the thing we cannot get is the most perfect in our
146:55mind. So, because Beatrice is dead, like Dante's perception of her remains forever when she was young and when he was a teen basically a teenager, a young adult, and he was thinking that she is all kinds of perfect, and her image is forever frozen at that age.
Is Beatrice a child here?
No. No. That's not what I'm saying at all.
Okay.
I'm saying that his image of her is frozen, and that she cannot do anything to upset it.
No. No. No. No. No.
No. Yeah.
So, I uh you know, since we have a Italian uh scholar already, so I'm going back to text for list and original list analysis. Beatrice means uh the uh you know uh the blessed.
The blessed, yes.
So, maybe uh this whole uh figure in in in in this work is not a real person at all. It's just a you know, a literary
I disagree. No.
construct.
No, no. If If she were not a real person, if she was just a figment of Dante's imagination, the Divine Comedy would not work. It could not hold together. It The Divine Comedy has to be an act of love, okay? She just has to be a real person, yes?
Yeah. Well, I I have a question because I think Dante did believe in love, but if he you don't believe we'll fall in love with someone, and you just get married, then you say you believe in love. So, I think it's a bit contradictory.
Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Look, look, we're out of time, okay? So, so I'll I'll I'll tell you my interpretation, okay? Dante could not have known Beatrice the person, but he could have known Beatrice the soul. Do you understand this? Even though she's dead, he could still, with his imagination, with his will, with his love, he could still communicate with Beatrice.
Okay? And how we know this is all the poetry that Dante wrote about
148:57Beatrice before the Divine Comedy. Right? So, Beatrice was his muse throughout his life. Even though he married someone else, even though Beatrice is dead. This is a really hard thing for you guys to appreciate, okay?
But when you have an imagination, this imagination works by connecting to the entire cosmos. You're able to focus your imagination in a certain way, you're able to talk to the person that you most love. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay.
Does that make sense to you? So so I I'm not saying this this is what happened, I'm saying this this is a resolution to that paradox here. How is it that Dante doesn't know Beatrice as a person? Well, the answer is he knows Beatrice as a soul. Okay?
His mind was able to lift up to heaven um and communicate with Beatrice throughout his life. And then the question is like, how was he able to do this? And the answer is they were soulmates, okay? They were born and they were meant to be together, but because of fate they had to separate. But their souls were still aligned together in the cosmos.
All right, yes?
I am reminded of Piccarda and her story. So like she was in the end forcibly married to a man, but to a man and but she said herself that her heart was still with God and the fact that she is in heaven right now proves this. So I wonder if the situation between Dante and Beatrice might be more of the same. Even though Dante is married to another woman, his heart will always be with Beatrice.
Okay. This This is a really hard question to answer, okay? And again, we're just going to use our imagination. God is the source. We we we long to return to God.
Okay? A soulmate is different. A soulmate is
150:57connection between two two sparks, right? Two lights that communicate with each other and which allows you to draw closer to God together. Does that make sense? This is a very important distinction because Dante will say this and this this is a very important distinction between Dante and Virgil. Dante says you you can only love someone else.
You can only love a person. You can't love God. You can't love a concept. You can't love money. You can only love another person.
If that were not the case, love has no meaning, okay? Whereas Virgil is like, "Yes, you can. You can love God. You can love this. You can love that, okay?" Again, when we when we get to Virgil, we are going to really appreciate this.
Uh Can we move on? Okay, please. I mean, it's it's Okay. So, first of all, um we have a friend. Uh could you introduce her, uh Carol?
I'm delighted to introduce Aurelia, who is a much more recent Yale College graduate than Jon or I, um and is now studying at Yenching Academy, and she has kindly um made herself available to come read um the Italian portion for us today.
And and you've read Dante before?
Yeah.
Okay, good. Okay. All right.
But only Inferno.
Oh, okay. All right. Okay, so this is Paradise. We are now in Paradise. Why is it you guys spend all your time in hell?
Like Seriously.
Hell is so interesting. I mean, there's so many terrible punishments. It's kind of fun to read about them.
All right. All right. Okay, well, thanks so much for coming. And so, what we're going to do is uh maybe you'll read a tercet. And then you'll read the tercet, okay?
And and and and and then and then we'll go on like that, okay? And and again, um why it's important here here the Italian is, it's designed to be read and spoken aloud in Italian, okay? So, you can't really understand the poetry unless you hear it um aloud. Okay? And like, not
153:00knowing Italian, um I'm going to make some stupid guesses about what's going on, okay? Um and then feel free to say I'm stupid or something, okay? All right. Okay. All right.
So, so so let's continue, please.
Um I'll pick up at 88 first, and then we'll do it one by one. My mind, enraptured, always longing for my lady gallantly, was burning more than ever for my eyes return to her.
Oh, wow. That's beautiful. Oh, wow. Okay. This is why Dante is the greatest poet in the world.
You can now hear the beauty, right? Wow, okay. Um any comments about it? Can you Can you do that again? Okay, cuz it's so beautiful.
And can you do it a bit slower so we can catch the cadence, the the the the the the sort of fluctuations in sound? Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. Any any any thoughts, guys?
Any impressions?
Uh to be honest, it sounds much more gentle and it sounds much softer than the English version. I'm going on vibe here, but what I'm saying is that English version does not convey the idea of love enough. It talks about love, but it does not make you feel it.
Yeah. I felt I felt my soul like vibrating, okay? And and and No, I'm serious. And that's what Dante is saying. The universe is energy, it's vibration, it's love.
And this language, it is energy, vibration, and and love, okay? This is why it's important to read the Italian because when you read the Italian, it is structured in a way so that you vibrate with the universe. It draws you closer to the source. Uh yes?
155:04Yeah, I was I would actually like maybe maybe whatever to hear more because we don't even get the opportunity to take advantage of the of the end rhyme scheme, the ABA BCB.
Yeah.
And it it it goes and it it it all be sing song.
Yeah, so that's why people tremble at Dante because it has to be an angel, right? When you when you when when he's be saying this poetry to you, he's like an angel has taken possession of you and conveying the beauty of God. How else do you explain this beauty, right? Okay, so so so let let us go on with the reading.
Verse oops, sorry. Verse 91. And if by means of human flesh or portraits, nature or art has fashioned lures to draw the eye so as to grip the mind, all these Should we probably read a little more than a tercet?
Sure sure sure sure. Yeah, let's let's let let let let let's just
[clears throat]
read tercets, okay?
Okay.
All these would seem nothing if set beside the godly beauty that shone upon me when I turned to see the smiling face of Beatrice. The powers that her gaze now granted me drew me out of the lovely nest of Leda and thrust me into heaven's swiftest sphere. Its parts were all so equally alive and excellent that I cannot say which place Beatrice selected for my entry.
157:34And I will appoint out that now we can connect it together, right? Where I just told you that Dante could only have written this because of his love for Beatrice, right? And like if you hear the language, you hear the Italian, it's almost like they're making love. It doesn't make sense. But this just the vibrations is almost sexual.
It's beautiful.
Yeah, yes, okay. Like keep on going.
I mean, I agree. I feel like there's something like very like the s- the s- like there's a kind of like more uh what's the word?
Sensual.
And then also like the s- the uh what I forgot English like the s- like the the sibilance the sibilance like it like comes through a lot more
Right.
Yes.
Just out of curiosity, how close is this Italian to exactly
It's exact. He created Italian, okay? This is the guy who created the modern Italian language. Yes.
Oh, no, I was just stretching my hands so
Okay, yes. Um so um Dante has created this uh long time ago. I'm wondering if the actual meaning of the words or the pronunciation have changed changed since then.
Uh I'm guessing not. Uh my my guess is it hasn't. But but but you you would know better better than I do.
So it's a different it's different than modern Italian. Like it sounds more It's It's It almost sounds like the dialect that you would find in the south. Like some of the kind of the ways that some of the words are shortened into one or like you can see "Che non so dire." Like that would be k e o non so dire. So he's kind of It's It sounds You can understand it with modern Italian, but it sounds different. Almost like you'd read closer maybe to Shakespearean English.
Kind of that type of feeling.
159:34Okay. Yes.
How different is it for you from Inferno? Reading it.
It's like way more I feel like it's way more transcendent and beautiful.
Yeah, great question. Okay. So So what I My guess, okay, I don't know, okay, but my guess is that Dante is trying to mirror the vibrate vibration of the universe, okay? So obviously in heaven vibrations are higher. Okay.
Lower sounds. Um and in heaven it's deeper, right? Slower vibrations. So harder sounds as well. It It And like having not known anything about Italian, okay?
That's my guess.
Yeah, I remember I actually had to learn a little bit of the Inferno. And I just The only lines I remember is like It's like "Cred'io che credette ch'io credesse che tutti i vo' ch'uci siate per l'alto fiumana." It's like more staccato.
And And you can do that by controlling syllables. Okay, does that make sense? There are some hard syllables and there are some So there are some hard consonants and soft consonants, okay? This is all intentional on his part. Okay?
That's That's how powerful this is. And again, I I said this 2 days ago, but like unless you truly understand Italian, it's almost impossible to understand the Divine Comedy. All right? Uh yes?
Um so something I think Italian is called uh Latin's master child. So basically Italian is really close to Latin and I've learned a little bit tiny bit of Latin and Latin has like endings. So basically you can see a lot of a a a and these are all endings and I think it makes it more rhythmic almost. It makes it easier to rhyme and makes it flow more smoothly than English, which is all broken up and has no endings.
Okay. So, I have a question. So, uh look at the text in every tercet, the last sound of the first sentence and the last sound of the last sentence actually always rhyme. And is there any name for this kind of cadence or, you know,
161:36rhyme in the in the Italian literature? And and by reading English, you cannot get this. You know, it's it's not rhyme.
I'm pretty sure there's some rhyme translations in English, but they are pretty bad. But I I think I can't remember what it's called, but
Okay, so so so first of all, let me ask you this question. This this is neither, right?
Yeah.
Okay, can can can you explain the the the the the meter scheme to for so so we understand? Can can can you actually write it down for us? So so to
So like we can look at which syllables are stressed and unstressed, but I honestly
Okay, it's it's called neither, okay?
Okay.
Sorry. So like And love you too, can I swear to me and do say. So it's like and love you too, can I swear to me and do say. So it's like every other syllable is stressed and unstressed. And love you too.
So I'm pretty sure I need to check my notes because I literally was doing this like years ago, but
So so another thing is this this is music, okay? It's designed to be music. Right? So in other words, the idea is that you hear it once and it sticks in your brain forever. You can sing it to yourself.
Right? That's why this became Tuscan became the official language of of Italy over time. Okay? All right. Okay, so let's let's let's continue, guys.
Okay?
All right. Verse 103. But she who saw what my desire was, her smile had so much gladness that within her face there seemed to be God's joy began. The nature of the universe which holds the center still and moves all else around it begins here as if from its turning post. This heaven has no other where than this, the mind of God, in which are kindled both the love that turns it and the force it reigns.
164:15Um so, let let me ask you this. Um is a language which in towards a sexual climax? It it It's a weird question, but like do you think this language is moving towards a sexual climax?
I'm not sure if sexual, but maybe. I mean, it's she's he's talking about desire, right? There's gladness. Like it feels very like that's kind of what he's talking about.
Okay. So, this is really uh I think I think the language is designed in to in order to demonstrate, to illustrate the conjoining the con- cut the total intertwining of souls together, okay? It's almost like a sexual union, a sexual climax where they've had this very long journey together. They've had many adventures. They've been through a lot of obstacles.
And now that they've reached the end they can now finally make love to each other, okay? Okay? But is that mirrored in the language in any way?
Yeah, I feel like I mean, honestly I do feel like there's like the sibilance that I mentioned earlier and I feel like there's the Also, something I noticed earlier is like the way that the Italian words have I feel like uh meanings that come through. They have similar sounds in English in Italian that don't come through in English. So, there's like one part where it says donna and donna. So, donna means woman, donna is like to give. So, there's like I feel like overlapping in meanings in some of the some of the sounds.
And then also, okay, I just looked it up. Terza rima is the form the rhyme scheme that you mentioned earlier, David. So, like I think the terza rima also has something in there that builds to a climax just because it's like three lines, ABA, you know, BCB, and then continuing on and then ending in this couplet. So, I feel like there is something that's like moving towards something in just the rhyme
166:15scheme.
Yeah, I mean like just trying to figure out what he's trying to do, it seems as though he's trying to to express the consummation of this love but between Beatrice and Dante. Yes?
Uh I think this is also very biblical because in a lot of Jesus uh sermon on the mount or whatever, like there were a lot of wedding things that's talked about. Yeah.
Yeah, this is almost like a wedding. Yeah. Yeah, thank you so much. That That's a great point. Yes?
Uh this is again my personal feeling, but I think that uh this is more like these two uh both joining God and maybe joining together in the process than the two of them like joining together separately because uh before this like before this climax, there's like so many mentions of uh Beatrice looking towards God like uh she's his bride, and of uh Dante looking towards Beatrice not Beatrice is so beautiful, but God is shining for Beatrice, and God is so beautiful. So, maybe they're all both joining together in God, and that's what's making them join, not separately.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, yes, you need to love someone in order to reach God reach to God. Yes?
Yeah, I have a question. So, like you mentioned how they have this like kind of like sexual resonance before between like Beatrice and Dante, and I know like misordered sex is considered as sinful, and I like why are they justified for having these sorts of like resonance? Is it because it's leveled up from like physical to like a more spiritual level? Or
Okay. So, again, uh Dante is a heretic. He is not going to follow church theology. And um the the sexual nature of this language, what what is it trying to do, do you think? What was the point of this sexual language?
What what what is its its effect on on the reader? Yes?
It's a universal language, and the reader is meant to understand it.
168:17Okay. Yes.
It represents the beginning of closest to climax, aka getting closer to God.
Exactly. Okay. The sex is meant to represent God. It doesn't make sense to you guys? Okay.
Because sex what what it is is the union of all things. Okay? All right. So, so, so, so, as we are moving towards God, there has to be the unity of Beatrice and Dante in order for Dante to fully proceed because when you when you approach God, you have to do it by yourself. Beatrice won't be there.
As as I said, it's it's impossible for two people to be with God. You only you can do it. Uh yes?
I'm like I'm reminded of this this Catholic custom of uh limiting the days on which even marital sex can be undertaken. Like it's severely limited. Like no Sundays, no Lent, no Easter. And maybe uh this is a very this is an anachronistic stretch, but maybe Dante here is advocating for not a free, but at least a freer approach to human sexuality than what the church encourages.
There's very very little sex in the Divine Comedy. Uh so Okay. Uh yes?
I think that take is saying that sex is more physical than it is spiritual.
Yes. Yes. Uh Dante is advocating for a spiritual union, okay? All right, but but but let's let's let's keep on going, all right?
Verse 112. As in a circle light and love enclose it as it surrounds the rest, and that enclosing only he who encloses understands. No other heaven measures this sphere's motion, but it serves as the measure for the rest even as half and fifth determine 10. And now it can be evident to you how time has roots
170:17within this vessel and within the other vessels has its leaves.
Luce e amor d'un cerchio lui comprende, sì come questo li altri, e quel precinto colui che il cinge solamente intende. Non è moto per l'a- per altro distinto,
Okay. So what I want to point out is that it's it you can read the poem from infinite angles, okay? So there is the Italian language which provides insight. There are these biblical references. Um but also something that people don't appreciate is the alchemy embedded within the Divine Comedy, okay?
And what I mean by that is that I don't know for sure, but but Dante was probably a member of of a secret society. And guys, the point of a secret society is not to engage in world domination, okay? The point of a secret society at this point in history is to engage in intellectual speculation, which includes alchemy, which is, you know, their form of chemistry. And if you just read this really, really closely, you can see how this is almost a formula for blending in different elements together to create a new uh substance, okay? All right?
So and and there are all these occult elements as well. Okay, so I just point this out. We we don't have to go into it because I don't know about I don't I don't know enough about alchemy to actually encyclopedia, but I'm just saying how Divine Comedy it provides lifetime of endless study from multiple uh angles, okay? All right. Let's keep on going.
172:21Verse 1 2 1. Oh you who within your depths cause mortals to sink so that none is left able to lift his eyes above your waves. The will has a good blossoming in men, but then the never-ending downpours turn the sound plums into rotten empty skins. For innocence and trust are to be found only in little children, then they flee even before full beard cloaks the cheeks.
Okay, so you can just hear the sounds and even not knowing the language, I don't know the language, but you don't you don't really feel the sadness, the pity, the poignancy in the tone, right? Where Dante, Beatrice, they are now up with God and they can look down below and see the folly, the silliness, the shortsightedness of the human of of humans, right? Okay? Where humans insist on fighting for almost nothing in our world and they abandon the spiritual pleasures of a higher world, okay? It's it's it's a it it it sounds like pity.
It sounds like um uh what Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
Oh, yeah, I agree. It sounds like a lament. And also, I wanted to ask like uh we know that in history this time this is the time when Italy was embroiled in
174:21turmoil [cough] and in war. So, could this be Dante's call for his age to stop fighting with each other and start uniting towards peace and greater understanding.
Um no, he's calling for greater enlightenment. He's calling for the recognition of the infiniteness, the vastness of the cosmos, okay? That's the secret. But asking for peace does you no good. What What people need to recognize What What people need to do is expand their imagination, expand their sight.
Okay? That's what That's what what he's literally calling for, okay? And And And And And we'll see that as we go on, okay? Let's keep on going.
Line 130. One, for as long as he still lisps, will fast. But when his tongue is free at last, he, gorgeous, devouring any food through any mouth. And one, while he still lisps, will love and heed his mother. But when he acquires speech more fully, he will long to see her buried.
Just so white skin turns black when it is struck by direct light. The lovely daughter of the one who brings us dawn and leaves us evening.
Okay, let's keep on going.
Verse 139. That you not be amazed at what I say, consider this, on Earth no king holds sway. Therefore, the family of humans strays. But well before 1,000 years have
176:21passed, and January's un-wintered by day's hundredth part, which they neglect below, this high sphere shall shine so that Providence long awaited for will turn the sterns to where the prows now are, so that the fleet runs straight, and then fine fruit shall follow on the flower.
Okay, so another thing that I'll point out is that astrology astronomy are very important in your life. Call me. Again, I don't know astrology, so I can't comment, but you you can see these see astrology, okay? And what And what astrology really is is the cyclical movement of the universe. So, does a language capture cyclical movement?
Are you able to feel and hear the cyclical movement? Spherical movement in the words.
I think like outside of what we already talked about is the rhyme scheme returning. I think there is kind of maybe we can see a little bit more of the openness and the O's and like a certain kind of roundness, I think in some of the vowels that end these So svernine il letta. I feel like it's a little bit more pop e volgerà u'son le prore. And then the fiore. Like I feel like there maybe is like a circularity just to those.
And definitely a blooming and like a return I feel like to the seasons with the cyclicality.
178:22Okay. So, do you guys understand what's happening here? Okay? I'm just making these assumptions just trying to figure out what you're trying to say, right? And what would you what if you guys actually know the Italian, what will happen is the meaning is actually captured in the language itself.
Okay? So, that as you hear the language, images appear before you subconsciously. And it and it it it excites your connection to the divine. Okay? All right.
So, let's keep on going.
Canto 28. After the lady who imparadises my mind disclosed the truth that is unlike the present life of miserable mop mortals. Then just as one who sees a mirrored flame, its double candle stands behind his back even before he thought of it or gazed directly at it and he turns to gauge if that glass tells the truth to him and sees that it accords like voice and instrument.
Wait, stop. Okay, all right. Um this is this is important, okay? Um does it any anyone remember where we saw a mirrored flame before? A mirrored flame.
This is actually very important for for the ending, okay? So, I I draw your attention to this. A mirror flame, a flame in a mirror. Where did we see this before?
Like during the experiment when like
180:23they discussed the dark spots on the moon.
Exactly. Do you remember where Beatrice is trying to prove to Dante that brightness is just as bright no matter no matter the distance, right? And so they construct this experiment where there are three mirrors and you hold a hold a light, a candle, and the brightness is still as bright anywhere anywhere. The The size might be different, but the brightness is still the same. Okay?
I want you to remember this because um this is the metaphor for God that Dante will use at the very end of the Divine Comedy, okay? The mirror flame. Okay, keep on going.
Verse 10. So does my memory recall. I did after I looked into the lovely eyes of which love made the noose that holds me tight. And when I turned and my own eyes were met by what appears within that sphere whenever one looks intently at its revolution. I saw a point that sent forth so acute a light that anyone who faced the force with which it blazed would have to shut his eyes.
Okay, so um something that we didn't want to feel as to appreciate is that what Dante is telling us here is that what is at the center of the universe? Mhm?
God.
God, okay? Okay? Do you understand this? At the very center at the of the universe
182:23it's God. So, everything in the universe is emanating from God, right? Okay? Okay, keep on going.
Verse 19. And any star that seen from Earth would seem to be the smallest set beside that point as star conjoint with star would seem a moon. Around that point a ring of fire wheeled, a ring perhaps as far from that point as a halo from the star that colors it. When mist that forms the halo is most thick, it wheeled so quickly that it would outstrip the motion that most swiftly girds the world. Verse 28.
That ring was circled by a second ring, the second by a third, third by a fourth, fourth by a fifth, and fifth ring by a sixth. Beyond the seventh ring which followed was so wide that all of Juno's messenger would be too narrow to contain that circle. The eighth and ninth were wider still, and each, even as greater distance lay between it and the first ring moved with lesser speed.
184:37Okay, so um let let me point this out where the poetry is written in meter. It's It's written in rhyme as a way to express the mathematical beauty and structure of the universe itself. Okay? Does that make sense to you guys? Where the poetry, the language, the construction uh of the meter, it's meant to mirror the symmetrical structure of the universe.
Okay? It is that true here? Okay, can you explain?
Yeah, I think the the way that we saw how it was written. Uh you know, it was I think he's really trying to overwhelm us with the numbers, right? He's kind of trying to I think reflect in this kind of overwhelming uh rhythmic rhythmic and rhyming vision reflect what the universe is structured like and how beautiful this kind of symmetry is.
So So, it's interesting, okay, because like um we are doing We're We are We are reading this poetry wrong because poetry is not meant to be read, okay? It's meant to be heard and spoken. So, when Dante was writing his poetry, guess what, guys? He didn't He was not writing the poetry. He was speaking it.
He was singing it. And you guys understand this, okay? So, uh we're looking at it, and really it was always meant to be heard and spoken. Uh and that's really the great failing of, I think, um literary education nowadays, where we actually try to read the poetry when it was actually meant to be read aloud. Okay?
All right. Uh let's move on away.
Verse 37. And I believe the ring with clearest flame was that which lay least far from the pure spark, because it shares most deeply that point's truth. My lady, who saw my perplexity, I was in
186:39such suspense, said, "On that point depend the heavens and the whole of nature. Look at the circle that is nearest it, and know its revolutions are so swift because of burning love that urges it." Verse 46. And I to her, "If Earth and the nine spheres were ordered like those rings, then I would be content with what you have set out before me. But in the world of sense, what one can see are spheres becoming even more divine as they are set at more distant from the center. Thus, if my longing is to gain its end in this amazing and angelic temple that has as boundaries only love and light, then I still have to hear just how the model and copy do not share in one same plan, for by myself I think on this in vain.
Okay, so there there's a paradox here,
188:39right? Where what Dante sees is God is at the center of the universe and from there everything else emanates outwards, vibrates outwards. And obviously the closer to God you are, the faster you spin, the faster you you vibrate because you burn for your desire to be closer to God. And as you move out, it's almost like people lose faith, they lose hope um and they spin um more slow, they're more lethargic, okay? That's what he's seeing, but in our world, in the world of senses, uh it's the opposite where if you just look out in the night sky, it seems as as though the further you are uh the faster and also the more holy, the more divine it seems.
So, how can we go about explaining this contradiction, okay? So, based on what we've learned, what's the answer?
Uh yes. Well, I mean I would say that it doesn't make a difference because God is everywhere and anywhere. So, like the sun shines everywhere and every spot. So, you can still feel God.
[clears throat]
For example, like a metaphor.
Okay, good. Okay. All right. God is everywhere. So, there's really no center.
God we are the center, yes? Okay? Any other possibilities? Based on on what we've learned, with what we've discussed. All right.
So, she'll tell us, okay? Well, let's go on with it.
Verse 58. You need not wonder if your fingers are unable to undo that knot. No one has tried, and so that knot is tightened,
190:40taught, my lady said, and then continued, "If you would be satisfied, take what I tell you, and let your mind be sharp as I explain. The size of spheres of matter, large and small larger small, depends upon the power, more or less, that spreads throughout their parts. More excellence yields greater blessedness. More blessedness must comprehend a greater body when that body's parts are equally complete."
Let's Let's just finish her her Yeah, her speech.
"And thus the sphere, which sweeps along with it the rest of all the universe, must match the circle that loves most and knows the most. So, that if you but draw your measure around the power within, and not the semblance of the angels that appear to you as circles, you will discern a wonderful chord between each sphere and its intelligence. Greater chords with more smaller with less.
192:51Okay, so what's the answer? What did she say? How can I explain the paradox where in this realm uh in the spiritual realm, God is center of the universe, but in our realm it's almost the opposite, right? Where we are center of the universe and everything else expands [clears throat] outwards. So God is almost far away from us.
Right? How Yes?
Different perspectives. We are looking at God one way, God's looking at us uh whatever.
Well, it's definitely different perspectives. Right? But Anyone? What's going on What's going on here? Yes?
The we we can become the center center of this universe in the space all around us.
And how do we become the center of the universe? Yes?
Um by becoming one with God who is the center of the universe.
No, no, no. I'm saying how did we develop the uh geocentric model of the universe?
Oh. Because uh the Bible told us so.
Okay. Okay. No. Uh No, it's I think it's Ptolemy who told us so, right? It's in the Bible.
Uh
The the logic here is that God created the entire universe, but God likes humans the best, and therefore he likes the world that the humans live on the best, and therefore Earth is the middle of everything. I think that's kind of how logic works.
Oh, okay. Well, well, um anyone else? Okay. Um I think what he's trying to say is that we live in a world of illusion. Okay?
Everything you see with our eyes is all just things we made up.
194:51Uh it's all an illusion. Okay? It's all a product of our imagination. Because our imagination can both reveal the truth to us, but it can also lie to us. Okay?
Does that make sense? Okay? But if you really want to know the true nature of the universe, feel with your heart. Okay? Feel with your heart.
Feel your soul. If you do that, you will know that God [clears throat] must be at the center of the universe, and those that are most loyal to him, those that um are most virtuous, are closer to him than those who are not as uh virtuous. Okay? That's the truth. So, our eyes lie to us.
But, our heart will not lie to us. Does that make sense, guys? Any other Any other explanations do you do you think? Yes?
Uh, yeah. I have a question because uh, we don't know where the heart is. Uh, because some people say the heart
Our heart is
part of your chest or heart of your mind or
No, your heart is your intuition, right? It's what you feel to be right. Okay? Does that make sense? It's like what you know to be right.
It's not what you see to be right, it's what you know to uh, be right. Okay? Any any other questions? Yes?
Um, like these like these lines seem to like discuss the matter of material and spiritual um, existence. So, to me I think it seems to say that um, our eyes can only perceive the material. Um, so, but that but that um, the material actually aligns with the spiritual in that um, the more
196:51blessed some something is, the more space it takes up and um, the greater
the body is?
Not in our world, though. In the spiritual world. She's referring to the spiritual world, right?
But, like but like our eyes see things farther away as like greater and bigger.
Wait. All right. Okay. So, let me explain some some Kant to you, Immanuel Kant, okay? And this is his understanding of how we perceive things.
So, Kant differentiates between the noumena and the phenomena, okay? Noumena Noumena is just things in themselves. Okay? And this is this is what we Beatrice refers to as the spiritual world, the real world, okay? And then the phenomena are things to us, phenomena.
Okay? So, how we interact with reality is we see the noumena and then we filter it through time and space. And we see the phenomena. So, we can never actually see the noumena. Okay?
So, the only way that you can actually see the noumena is with your heart, with with your faith. Does that make sense? And and and And that's what Beatrice is really saying here. Okay? Let me give you another example, which is Plato's allegory of the cave.
Okay? Plato's allegor- allegory of the cave is where imagine prisoners, a million of them, chained to a floor in a cave. And they can only see what's in front of them, which is a wall, an empty wall, right? Behind them is this fire and you have these people who project shadows
198:53onto the wall with this fire. And you know this to be reality. But then one prisoner escapes and he goes out into the light and he sees the totality of the universe, he sees the sun, and he sees that the world that we're living in is false, okay? So, that's So, that's what Beatrice is saying. Beatrice is saying there are two realities.
There's a real reality, the noumena, and then there's there's a world that we perceive, phenomena. And so, the question then is, how can you escape into the light? What propels you into the light? And the answer, of course, is love. Okay?
Uh Tony's love for Beatrice is what carries him through the cosmos and into the light. Okay, does that make sense? Uh yes?
Uh maybe another way of um uh cons- reconciling this uh you know, this distance versus uh center uh paradox is uh to view God not as uh uh a singularity or or a point, but a comprehensiveness or com- uh you know, uh so, basically,
[clears throat]
the bigger the scheme, the closer we are to God. So, the God is really the most comprehensive, the most in you know, uh permissive uh per- permeative, which means this uh the God uh actually is the biggest scheme, and it's everywhere and nowhere. So, the further we look, the maybe, you know, from the human point of view, the you know, the bigger scheme we have in our eyes, the closer we are to God.
Okay, yeah, good. Good. Right. Uh anyone else? Did Did Did you have a question or
Uh yeah, I still have question because the love is uh I don't know what is love really true love is. It it If If you mean the true love which is soul soulmate, just which can cause love or
200:55just using the the sex the sexuality there which can cause love.
Uh love is something you don't you don't explain. Something Love is something that you do. Love is something you experience, right? A mother's love for her child, right? It's all It's unconditional giving of yourself to someone else.
Okay, uh Did Did you have a question, yes?
Yeah, I just want to ask does human intrinsically have how their intuition to observe or knowing what's really nominal is?
Okay. Um So When we When we appreciate what's going on is that the soul uh is infinite, okay? What I mean by that is that it is existing in different dimensions all at once. So uh you think that all that you see before you is what's real, okay? But there's a higher part of you that is also experiencing the spiritual world.
Okay? So um your soul is fragmented across infinite dimensions. And the soul is experiencing different things at at once. But you bring yourself to focus only on the here here and now. So when you engage in psychedelics, when you engage in meditation, uh you're able to experience different aspects of your soul, okay?
If that makes any sense.
Yeah. So but I feel I just don't understand because for us we're like human, we are limited by the time and space, right? So uh when we
No, you're not. Your perception is limited by time and space. You are not. Okay, so
So okay. So So let's say my perception is limited by the time and my uh by the time and space and like my eyes will be deceived, right? Maybe this is to find the truth. So
202:57uh you're saying that um if I could be like deceived by or limited by my perception like how could I just uh convey the true message into my into myself who are who are stay at the higher layer, you know. Because since since like for me I can only receive the information from
Right. So so we were discussing this like all the time, okay? Use your imagination, use your intuition, act with faith, hope, and love.
Yeah.
And then the soul aligns itself. Okay, does that make sense?
Yeah, I know. So I just uh quite feel confused about the relationship between the soul and the perception because I think sometimes my I mean, in order to make the decision my soul like needs some information from my perception. Is that right? Because I don't think I can intrinsically have those skills to know what is like right for me of my soul.
Okay. All right. This is how the universe is structured, okay? All right. Okay, this is hard to understand, but let's just say there's infinite number of us, okay?
What's happening is that your soul is infinite. It travels across multiple dimensions, right? So what's happening is that depending on on the dimension your alignment with others is different, right? Here you are by yourself, here you are with another person. Blah blah.
This goes on for infinity. Okay, does that make sense? And what you're what you're doing is you're focusing on the here and now, and so what you're doing is you put you think that this is the only reality, when in fact it's only a small fragment of of your total reality. Okay?
Yeah.
All right. Okay. Uh let's let's let's continue. And um for
204:57uh we we we we don't have hour just because we're we're in a rush. Uh we don't have to hear the Italian more. Let's let let Yeah, let let us um read in English. Yeah.
Verse 79. Just as the hemisphere of air remains splendid, serene when from his gentler cheek Boreas blows and clears the sky, dissolves the mist that had defaced the sky, so that the heavens smile with loveliness in all their regions, even so did I become after my lady had supplied her clear response to me, and like a star in heaven truth was seen. And when her words were done, even as incandescent iron will shower sparks, so did those circles sparkle, and in each spark circled with its flaming ring.
Okay, um what is interesting about this language? What What is strange about this language? And it it it's new to us. What's What's What sentence stands out to you? What sentence stands out to you as as weird or confusing?
This didn't happen before, but it's happening now that we are closer to God. Yes, go ahead.
Uh line 88 to 90 is like the orgasm.
206:57Mhm. Right.
Where's the Where's the What's the line?
Yeah, can you can you explain to her cuz it's
Okay. Um Well, um Beatrice supplied her clear response to Dante and like a star in heaven, truth was seen. And when her words were done, even in as incandescent iron will shower sparks, so did those circles sparkle. And each spark circle circled with its flaming ray.
Yeah. Can you guys uh Can you guys understand this thing? The heavens smile with loveliness. Okay, this is really important I I didn't understand, okay? Where you have now reached Empyrean.
And so there is a total unity of everything. So whatever you do is reflected throughout the cosmos. You understand? So if you say something and you smile and you're happy, the heavens smile with you. Does that make sense?
Okay? And this actually is mirrored throughout the universe, but it is less obvious. But now that we are at the very core, whatever you do is now reflected throughout the universe. Okay? If you smile, the heavens smile with you.
Um so even the most subtle thing can have a huge impact throughout the universe. It does look like the butterfly effect, okay? And we're seeing it manifest itself here. Does that make sense to you guys? Okay, let let let's keep on going.
Sparks that were more in number than the sum one reaches, doubling in succession each square of a chessboard, 1 to 64. I heard Hosanna sung from choir to choir to that fixed point which holds and always shall hold them to where they have forever been. And she who saw my mind's perplexity said, "The first circles have displayed to you the seraphim and cherubim. They follow the ties of love with such rapidity because they're as like the
208:57point of scriptures can be a power dependent on their vision. Those other loves that circle round them are called thrones of the divine aspect because they terminated at the first group of three and know that all delight to the degree to which their vision sees more or less deeply that truth in which all intellects find rest. From this you see that less than this depends upon the act of vision not upon the act of love which is a consequence. The measure of their vision lies in merit produced by grace and then by will to goodness and this is the progression step by step. The second triad blossoming in this eternal springtime that the nightly ram does not despoil perpetually sings Hosanna with three melodies that sound in the three ranks of bliss that form this triad.
Within this hierarchy there there are three kinds of divinities. First the dominions and then the virtues and the final order contains the powers. The two penultimate groups of rejoicing ones within the next triad are wheeling principalities and then archangels. Last the playful angels. These orders all direct ecstatically their eyes on high and downward they exert such force that all are drawn and draw to God and Dionysius with much longing set himself to contemplate these orders.
He named and distinguished them just as I do. Though later Gregory disputed them when Gregory came here when he could see with opened eyes he smiled at his mistake. You need not wonder if a mortal told such secret truth on earth. It was disclosed to him by one who sought here above both that and other truths about these circles.
Wait, so this is a hard question, okay? But but but but let's but let me ask you and see what happens. So, here we are in Imperium. And in Imperium are the angels. And there are different orders of angels.
210:59And um these are perfect beings, okay? What How is Dante describing the structure of the Imperium? What analogy can we use this to um ex- to explain Dante's understanding of the Imperium? He It's It's It's If you read the language carefully, he is borrowing um a language, a structure from where? Yes?
Well, you're probably saying that I'm wrong again, but I think this actually reminds me a lot of the circles of hell.
The circles of hell?
Yes, because circles upon circles upon circles. Less than living creatures.
Okay, let me ask you this question. Do you think that these angels are conscious?
Yeah, that's that's that's a problem, isn't it? That's the problem. Like, if they love God so much, if they're incapable of sinning, then do they truly have free will?
Yeah. So, so what is this analogy of? What Like Like let's think about your life and the universe, okay? The The script- The script in here describes what? Really?
Solar system?
The solar system, yes, okay. Yes, the solar system, the movement of the stars, it's all Yes, that's one possibility. But I'm actually think- think- thinking of something else. Yes?
I think this is looks like brain, you know, if you in your in your head and brain seems like
Yeah, it's almost your body, right? It's almost like these angels are different organs in your body. They have actually no free will. They have no consciousness. They have a function.
And there's And there's And they are exist for a different reason. And they must exist together in order to maintain the functioning of the body, but by themselves they have absolutely no free
212:59will. And this is a This is paradox. This is extreme paradox in here if you if you are a Catholic theologian. Why would Why would this be an extreme paradox for you? What are angels?
What do angels represent?
Um they represent like uh dead people. Like your soul goes into heaven and you become an angel.
Come on.
The messengers of God.
To me?
The messengers of God.
Why Why are they messengers of God? What What What do they represent? When you think of an angel, what what Like like like how do you imagine the angel to be?
Like good virtues.
Yes, virtuous, right?
Yeah.
Okay. What else? Virtuous. Perfection, right? You mean [snorts] So, here's a question for you then.
Are these angels being presented in a positive light in The Divine Comedy? We think of angels as virtuous as perfect, but here like do you want to be an angel?
No.
Not really.
No. This is a paradox being created for us, right? Right? I mean you're taught to worship angels. You're taught to believe that angels are higher than you, but you read this and it almost seems like angels are just part of a political system that have absolutely no free will, no consciousness, no purpose.
I mean they have a purpose, but it's not it's not anything that they can control. They don't actually know free will. It doesn't make Yeah?
But I guess maybe um Maybe maybe a Catholic would argue or somebody who thinks
Somebody wants to defend the angels might say, "Oh, but because they're
214:59perfectly united with God, they have kind of have the perfect expression of free will. Like they're the most free because they are free of sin. They don't have to worry about ending up in hell and being chained up for the rest of your life. They They are fully free because they partake fully in the knowledge of God."
Yeah, that's a great point. So, they are free because they can make no mistakes, right? They're perfect. So, so what what we know about the angels is and and he just tells us is like Remember, the idea is that God is calling to you and you want to return to God, but it's your choice whether to turn to God or to turn away from God, right? And here the angels are always turning towards God.
Okay? So, they reach perfection. But my question My question is that Do you think that Dante thinks this is a good thing or a bad thing? Right? Like like I I understand the argument, okay?
But I'm just saying like for Dante, is this a good thing or bad thing in that you are always turning towards God? Yes?
Um bad thing.
But how Why?
They lack imagination. They lack the ability to imagine and that for the lack of ability to truly and not just to love. They're not able to love.
Yeah, they they lack consciousness, right? Okay, we think consciousness is a good thing. Um But but but but but again, I mean like like you can argue like what these angels represent is perfection, right? So, when you um truly embrace God, you're always turning towards God and you then lose consciousness. So, it's a really weird idea to think about, right?
We're huh. So, we're taught to be perfect, we're taught to be virtuous, but that just leads us to losing our imagination, loses our consciousness. This is a really troubling understanding. Okay?
217:00What's going on here? But do we do we agree that that that this is what's happening here? Okay? But um not only do the angels they lack imagination, they lack consciousness, they lack they lack something even more fundamental. And what they lack is memory.
They don't remember anything. Why?
They haven't experienced.
They have Yeah, go ahead.
Sorry. Sorry, I was about to say that they can't feel like time and space and memory I guess has is related to that.
Yeah, yeah, you're right. Okay, so without time and space you can't have an an experience. But but why would But why would you remember an experience?
Uh it's when it's linked to an emotion.
Exactly.
to an experience with an emotion.
Yeah, you need the emotion, okay? Without the emotion you don't have memory. It's impossible if you're a perfect virtuous being to have an emotion because why would you get angry? Why would you get sad? Why would you Why would you cry?
Okay? So, this is a really strange paradox because what it seems like what Donny's really arguing for is the perfection of fallibility. Do you understand this idea? In other words, our flaws, our hatred, our pain, our agony is what allows us to be perfect. Okay?
Does that make sense? The imperfection is what's perfection. The perfection is the imperfection. Again, Donny's one testament. I told you what he's trying to propose is revolutionary, it's shocking, it's mind-blowing, okay?
But I think
219:00given how this is structured, this is what he's trying to tell us. Okay? We come all the way and we are with the angels and we recognize these angels are kind of stupid, actually. Right? You cannot engage in a serious discussion with an angel.
Angels would come to this class and they would not say anything. Okay? They won't remember anything. Uh yes?
Uh so, I have this comment on live stream that really echoes with uh what Professor Johnson says. He says, "Angels are servants of God. We are not perfect and the beauty of human is in his imperfection."
Yes, okay, yes, okay. Yeah, so, um yes. I mean, you could argue like angels are just servants of God, okay? They're not meant to have free will, they're not meant to be conscious, they're not meant to have experiences. They're just meant to ensure the ordering of the universe, okay?
They're just meant to ensure the structure the proper structuring of the of of the universe. They're like minions. All right? But again, this goes against our traditional understanding of of things, right? Okay, I mean, are you Catholic?
No.
Okay, but like um
But I I'm happy to pretend to be.
Okay, all right, okay, but like but like um like like hearing this, what what do you think?
I wonder because I feel like there's a kind of I feel like Dante expresses this paradox throughout the whole project of the of the Divine Comedy because we know he's lost in the middle of a dark forest at the very beginning and he's trying to figure out, okay, how do I escape this like terrible confusion that I feel, which is what I feel like the student brought up. I'm sorry, I don't know your name. But like this kind of confusion of what do I what do I actually want if I want kind of eternity, but also um that I don't know what what my life is meant for. And then I feel like here you're I
221:00think you're so right that there is a kind of uh almost I think we work up to this ecstatic ending and it's just angels circling God and it seems I think he is I think he's being serious by presenting it as, okay, this is beautiful and a wonderful vision of perfection, but then also because this is part of his journey, he is like maybe I feel I wonder if he identifies with Dionysus or Mercury in in this in Beatrice's um final explanation where he is also a visitor passing through and he's seeing this and we know that I think we should take the Divine Comedy seriously. I don't think he's just presenting it as an allegory. I think he's like trying to say, I I witnessed these things and I I bring them back to you. Um but I do think there's a kind of this is his journey from the darkness of the forest and that these angels perhaps do not relate to
Right. Yeah, so the idea is it's confusion that can only that leads to clarity, right? Okay. Thank you. Okay.
All right, let's let's let's continue, okay? Um because I really want to finish the Divine Comedy uh
Oh, can I also just really quickly bring up cuz I know another if somebody also brought up August Augustine, I think there's an interesting similarity with Confessions with like this kind of oh, I'm a fallible human. I kind of desire perfection, but also not really. I think there's of a weird Yeah.
Right. Okay. So, this is going to be Canto 29, okay? And again, Uh yeah. Yeah.
Uh could you please read the Canto?
Canto 29. As long as both the Thomas children take, when covered by the ram and scales, they make their belt at the horizon at the same moment to pass from equilibrium, the zenith held in balance, to that state where changing hemispheres as each leaves that belt, so long did Beatrice, a smile upon her face, kept silent, even as she gazed intently at the point that overwhelmed me.
223:00Then she began. I tell, not ask, what you now want to hear, for I have seen it there, where and what point, oh whence and ubi and not to acquire new goodness for himself, which cannot be, but that his splendor might, as it shines back to him, declare subsistence. In his eternity outside of time, beyond all other borders as pleased him, eternal love opened into new loves. Nor did he lie before this as if languid. There was no after, no before.
They were not there until God moved upon these waters. Then form and matter, either separately or in mixed state, emerged as flawless being. As from a three-stringed bow, three arrows sprang. And as a ray shines into amber, crystal, or glass, so that there's no interval between its coming and its lighting, also did the three, form, matter, and their union, flash into being from the Lord with no distinction in beginning, all at once. Created with the substances where order and pattern.
At the summit of the world were those in whom pure act had been produced. And pure potentiality possessed the lowest part. And in the middle, acts so joined potentiality that they never disjoint. For you, Jerome has written that the creation of the angels came long centuries before all else were made. But this, the truth I speak, is written by the scribes of the Holy Ghost, as you can find if you look carefully on many pages.
And reason, too, can see in part this truth, for it would not admit that those who moved the heavens could for so long be without their perfect task. Now you know where and when and how these loving spirits were created. With this, three flames of your desire are quenched. Then, sooner than it takes to count to 20, a portion of the angels violently disturbed the lowest of your elements.
225:02The rest remained. And they, with such rejoicing, rejoicing, began the office you can see that they never desert their circling contemplation. The fall had its beginning in the cursed of pride of the one you saw, held in constraint by all the world's weights. Those whom you see in heaven here were modestly aware that they were ready for intelligence so vast because of that good which had made them. Through this, their vision was exalted with illuminating grace and with their merit, so that their will is constant and intact.
I would not have you doubt, but have you know surely that there's merit in receiving grace measured by the longing to receive it. By now, if you have taken in my words, you need no other aid to contemplate much in regard to this consistory. But since on Earth, throughout your schools, they teach that it is in the nature of angels to understand, to recollect, to will, I shall say more so that you may see clearly the truth that there below has been confused by teaching that is so ambiguous. These beings, since they first were glad by the face of God, from which no thing is hidden, have never turned their vision from that face, so that their sight is never intercepted by new a new object, and they have no need to recollect an interrupted concept.
Okay, so no need to recollect an interrupted concept just means they have to be no recollection, no memory of anything, okay? Does that make sense to you guys? No imagination, no memory, just pure devotion, obedience to God. Thank you. I'm going.
So that below, though not asleep, men dream, speaking in good faith or in bad. The last, however, merits greater blame and shame. Below you do not follow one sole path as you philosophize. Your love of show and thought of it so carry you astray. Yet
227:03even love of show is suffered here with less disdain than the subordination or the perversion of the holy scripture. There, they devote no thought how much blood cost to sow it in the world, to how pleasing is he who humbly holds it fast. Each one strives for display, elaborates its own inventions. Preachers speak at length of these. Meanwhile, the Gospels do not speak.
One says that to prevent the sun from reaching below the moon when Christ was crucified, moved back along the zodiac, so as to interpose itself. Who says so, lies, for sunlight hid itself. Not only Jews, but Spaniards, Indians, too, saw that eclipse. Such fables, shouted through the year from pulpits, some here, some there, outnumber even all the Lapos and the Bindos Florence has. So that the Retichi and Ignorance return from pasture, having fed on wind, but to be blind to harm does does excuse them.
Christ did not say to his first company, "Go and preach idle stories to the world." But he gave them the teaching that is truth, and truth alone was sounded when they spoke. And thus to battle to and kindle faith, the gospel served them as both shield and lance. But now men go to preach with jests and jeers, and just as long as they can raise a laugh, the cow puffs up and nothing more is asked. But such a bird nests in that cow that if people saw it, they would recognize as lies the pardons in which they confide, pardons through which the world's credulity increases so that people throng to every indulgence backed by no authority. And this allows the Antonines to fatten their pigs and others too, more piggish still who pay with counterfeit illegal tender.
But since we have digressed enough, turn back your eyes now to the way that is
229:04direct. Our time is short, so too must be our path. The number of these angels is so great that there has never been a mortal speech or mortal thought that named a sum so deep. And if you look at that which is revealed by Daniel, you'll see that while he mentions thousands, he gives no number with precision. The first light reaches them in ways as many as are the angels to which it conjoins itself as it illumines all of them.
And this is why, because affection follows the act of knowledge, the intensity of love's sweetness appears unequally. By now you see the height, you see the breadth of the eternal goodness. It has made so many mirrors which divide its light. But as before, its own self still is one.
Okay. All right. So So we'll just finish with Canto 29. Then uh on Saturday we break tomorrow, guys. Okay?
We break tomorrow. Um and then we come back on Saturday and then we just plow through, okay? Um, so on Saturday we'll finish the Comedy uh, Paradise, okay? So, we'll look at cantos 30, 31, 32, 33. Um, so what Beatrice is doing here is he's contrasting the perfection of the angels with the imperfection of the humans, okay?
And um, do you guys want want to be an angel? I don't think anyone Anyone who reads this is like, I want to be an angel now, okay? Because it seems to me that the life of an angel is really, really boring, right? It's perfect, nothing ever changes. And Beatrice, you know, she's sort of like complaining about how stupid humans are and how we just screw everything up, we don't really get anything.
But, I don't think anyone uh, who
231:06reads this comes with the impression like, you know what, I should strive to be an angel. Okay? So, how do we explain this paradox? Beatrice is um, saying how angels are perfect and how angels can do no wrong. Um, she is re- reiterating classical Catholic theology, but when we read this, our instinct is our intuition is like, mm, I'd rather be human, thank you very much.
What's going on here? Uh, yes?
Yeah, I feel confused because Lucifer, you know, Satan, who is also the at the angel of God, right? So, if in Dante's [clears throat] case it means you do not always devoted to God the holy, means you have to have your own awareness and consciousness, so do you think that he believed that the Satan is is right? Because Satan is just have their own wilderness, you know.
you know, this is a really interesting question, right? Because he does mention that there is one angel who defied God, who turned away from God, and as a result, he was banished to hell. And what's And this is interesting because what's what what what's going to happen is that Milton, John Milton, is going to read this. And he's going to come up with Paradise Lost. Which is in many ways a celebration of Satan and his rebellion, okay?
So, um Divine Comedy is an inspirer uh Milton's Paradise Lost. But when we read Inferno, what we will recognize is that there's nothing glorious in the rebellion of Satan. Okay? Because here we're seeing angels without consciousness, without free will. But when we actually meet Satan, Lucifer, in Inferno, he's the same way.
He has no
233:07consciousness. He has no free will. He has no agency, okay? So, it's almost like And this is like really really interesting to think about. It's almost like he designed angels, God designed angels, to lack agency, to lack free will, to lack imagination.
Designed humans to be the opposite, okay? So, who does God love more? Humans. Okay? It's a So, again, this is so revolutionary to think about how angels are the ones who serve God, who are the ones by God.
God has to deal with them every single day, but God, who he truly loves, are we fallen, silly, stupid mortals. Okay? Um and again, it's um God did not give the angels free will. He gave humans free will. And so that just proves that God loves us more.
Okay?
[snorts]
Okay? Does it make sense to you guys? All right. Any other Yes?
I mean back to the um earlier several classes ago there was an analogy about the game master and the game players, right? So can I take this to be like God didn't intend for his his admins, his angels to to to be part of this game, but the game or rather the whatever you did however the universe is designed for, it was designed for the generation of love and imagination by the human beings, the human players.
Yeah, you know, I I think that's correct. I I think the way to understand this is that um God in his perfection, he recognizes he has a problem, which is that perfection is imperfection, right? And so the only way to complete himself, the only way to know himself, the only
235:07way to extend himself is by creating humans in his image. And humans are imperfect, but that is our perfection. Because with our clumsiness, with our silliness, yet our longing for God, we will somehow extend the imagination of the universe. We will extend the boundaries of the universe and let God know himself more, complete himself more. And does that make sense?
Okay? So again, this is like revolutionary at this time because Augustine, right, is preaching that we are sinful, we are proud, we are evil. And what Dante is saying is that no, we are the most superior beings in the world in the universe, okay? We are even higher in elevation than God. Okay?
And then we when we read the end of Divine Comedy, and this is like what makes Dante so shocking is that Dante is going to show us he's superior to God. Okay? Um He's not better than God, but he has an imagination, which allows him to do things God cannot do. So, that is the shocking end towards the Divine Comedy. Um okay, does that make sense?
All right. Yeah. I like the ending is just so shocking, so weird. It Again, like I hate to say this, but it's shocking for us living in the year 2026, but imagine in the year 1300, okay? How revolutionary this is.
And how he's able to do this faith, hope, and love. Okay? So, he is the manifestation he's the total expression of what it means to have faith, love, and hope. And as a
237:08result, that's why he was chosen to go to heaven like Mary, like Jesus. Okay? All right. Okay, any more any more questions? Okay.
Uh well, thank you so much for for for today. I mean, I just hear being able to hear Dante, okay? It's It's It's It's the voice that makes this divine, right? The sound that makes this truly divine. And that's why we call this Divine Comedy.
Okay, so thank you very much. Uh we will continue this Saturday, okay?
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