Transcription
Okay, good morning. So today we do Dante. And Dante really is the height of civilization. It does not get better than Dante.
Um, I've taught Dante for three years now. This is my third time teaching Dante. And what's amazing about it is that all students love Dante. But also, each time I teach Dante, I'm able to discover new insights about Dante that I didn't realize before.
Um, my theory is that Dante is someone you can spend your entire life studying, and you will never truly understand his power, his truth, his, um, beauty.
Okay, so, um, we will do, we will spend two classes on Dante, um, today and next Tuesday. And this will end the first semester. Dante is extremely complicated. I can, I want to give you a glimpse into how wonderful he is these next two classes.
All right, so let me give you a quick introduction into Dante. All right, so his book, his book of poetry is called *The Comedia*. The *Comedy*. It's not called *The Divine Comedy*. *The Divine Comedy* is something that we called later on, okay? He first referred to it as *The Comedia*. Why is it called *The Comedy*? Well, because, um, in writing epics, there are two styles. There's the tragic or high, and there's the comic or low. Tragic, high means that it usually deals with gods and kings, and it's written in an extremely sophisticated style. Comic, low means that it deals with ordinary people and is written in a common vernacular.
Um, at this, um, at this period in European history, this, this is the year 1308 to 1321, okay? Those are those are the 13 years that he spends writing the, the *Comedy*. And he will die after he, after he finishes it.
Um, at this point in European history, the high language is Latin. And what Dante does, which is very interesting, is he chooses to write it in Tuscan. And this is the, of course, the, um, local language of Florence, where he is from. And because *The Comedia* is so wonderfully produced, Tuscan will become the official language of the Italian Peninsula. Okay, so in Italy today, they speak the Tuscan dialect of the language.
*The Divine Comedy* is an epic divided into three, uh, structures. Dante goes on a spiritual journey, um, into the cosmos in order to seek truth, to seek, um, God. He starts off with a, um, midlife crisis. Um, and so he has a guy named Virgil who takes him through *Inferno*, okay? And then they go to Purgatory, and then he goes to Paradise. Paradise is heaven. *Inferno* is hell. And Purgatory is the land, the mountain in between the infernal and Paradise.
Um, today we will look at the very ending of *The Divine Comedy*, Canto 33. And I want to set up the, um, poem, okay, give you some context and some background. Dante is in *the Empyrean* and he's trying to figure out the spiritual truth underlying the universe. And then, as he goes on this journey, he concludes his journey by meeting God.
Okay, but the problem with God is, no one knows what it is. It's a mystery. It's the biggest mystery in the universe. What is God? God is there, right there, but no one knows what it is. God, God is surrounded by a, a Heavenly Host. These are angels that have proved themselves worthy to be around God. And these include people like Mary, the mother of Jesus, um, as well as Rachel and, um, and Leah, who we, uh, learned about when we did the Hebrew Bible. And they have absolutely no idea who God is either. Okay? They're in a place called *the Empyrean*. And Dante is being guided by a man named Bernard, an angel, okay, Saint Bernard. And to the left, to the left is God, and he is this pristine ball of light. No one knows what it is. Not even God knows what it is. And over here is the Host. Um, and at the very center is Mary.
What is amazing about *The Divine Comedy* is how Dante restructures Christian theology. Remember, in Christian theology, Jesus is the epicenter. But in Dante's rendering of Christian theology, Mary is at the center. And the reason why is, I ask yourself this question: Is it a greater miracle that a God could come to Earth and die for our sins, or is it a greater miracle that a mortal woman is able to give birth to a God? Okay? This is something that, if you think about it, it's kind of shocking and beating. And that's what happens during *The Divine Comedy*.
There are two, uh, literary devices that Dante will use throughout *The Divine Comedy*. The first is the idea of paradox. Think of paradox as a puzzle. What is the hand? What is the sound of one hand clapping? A paradox, a truth that seems like a contradiction. He will use this all the time. And the other is structure. Okay? *The Divine Comedy* is mathematically precise. It is brilliant. It is 100 cantos, and there is so much mathematics within, within *The Divine Comedy*.
So, to use a metaphor, you can see *The Divine Comedy* as almost as an intellectual jigsaw puzzle. The human mind does not like contradictions. The human mind does not like paradoxes. So what happens is this: If you are to engage with *The Divine Comedy*, you become, you become infraed in it. You become obsessed with it. And then what happens is your mind will slowly, over time, all by itself, you actually don't have to do anything, okay? Your mind will start, will start to unravel these paradoxes and create a new truth of the universe.
Okay? And so we are talking about the creation, for *The Divine Comedy*, of a new mind for humanity. If Homer was the father of Western civil, oh, sorry, of Greek civilization, then Dante is the father of modern European civilization. And the reason why is *The Divine Comedy*, because it, um, is a jigsaw puzzle that will, uh, that will unravel the truths of the universe. It becomes the intellectual blueprint for three major movements in Europe. The first is the Renaissance. Remember, the Renaissance starts in Florence, right? Second is the Protestant Reformation, a religious revolution against the Catholic Church. And the third is the Scientific Revolution. Okay? I will show you today why that's the case, how implanted or imprinted in the poetry, um, are the seeds of these three major revolutions.
All right, okay. Any questions so far before we, before we look at *The Divine Comedy*? All right. Um, Doug, could you, um, okay. So first thing to know about *The Divine Comedy* is that it is part of a literary genre called apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature just means God reveals, reveals the truth to us through a prophet or a poet. Okay? So this is Ezekiel, which is one of the earliest books of the Hebrew Bible. And, um, this really starts the tradition. And so what happens is Ezekiel, he is an, um, Israelite prophet, and he goes to heaven where he meets all these monsters and demons and angels, and he meets God himself. And then God gives him a scroll, puts it in his mouth, says, "Eat that," and he eats it and returns to Earth to tell the Israelites the words of God. And so this starts the idea that a prophet is someone who speaks the word of God.
"He said to me, 'Son of man, eat what you find. Eat this scroll, and go speak to the people of Israel.' So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. Then he said to me, 'Son of man, eat this scroll I give you and fill your stomach with it.' So I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth."
So this is the idea of the apocalyptic tradition. What Dante will do is completely overturn this tradition.
Um, all right, okay. Yeah, next slide. All right, so before we look at *The Divine Comedy*, what, let's review Augustine because, as we discussed previously, Augustine's *City of God* is what starts the, um, Dark Ages, right? Because of the way that the world is presented.
So let's, let's look at a few quotes from *The City of God* to remind ourselves of what the mentality of the Dark Ages was. First, "When man lives by the standard of man and not by the standard of God, he is like the devil." Okay? And the idea here is that the devil is within us. We must constantly fight against our own nature if we are to be with God. Second is, "Now, could anything but pride have been the start of the evil will?" And the idea here is, if left to our own devices, we will strive to be like God. Pride, in *The City of God*, is used almost synonymously with the word ego. Basically, who we are. We humans are born proud and will strive for godhood if we are allowed to. Third is, "His was a venal transgression when he refused to desert his wife's companion." So he's talking about the story of Adam and Eve. Eve was clearly the disobedient one, right? But Adam, what did he eat the fruit because he didn't want to abandon Eve? Therefore, love is sin. Okay? If you love, you will commit sin. You cannot trust love. It is because Adam loved Eve that he ate the fruit and condemned humanity.
"Although the will derives its existence as a nature from its creation by God, its falling away from its true being is due to its creation out of nothing. Its creation out of nothing." So the question then is, if God created us, why are we so bad? And the answer is because God created us out of dust. He created us out of nothing. That's why we are so flawed. Okay? Again, we are, we are a failed science experiment.
"We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God; the heavenly city by the love of God." When we love ourselves, we create evil. When we love God, we do good. And the last one: "In the heavenly city, then, there will be freedom of will." This is a hard idea to understand. What does it mean to have freedom of will in the city of Heaven? It means that in heaven, we will discard our bodies, and only our souls will remain. The body is flawed because it's created out of dust, out of nothing. But the soul is perfect because it was breathed into by God. Okay? Once we are, once we are freed of our bodies, we have no more desire. We don't want to have sex. We don't want to eat. We don't want to fight. All temptations will be dissipated. Therefore, we will be perfect. Okay? And what, what will be left are to enjoy unfailingly the, the light of eternal joys. We will be one with God, and we will know an eternal bliss. That's what we're striving towards. Salvation. Everything on Earth does not matter.
So it is a negation of human will. It is a contempt for human love. Love. It is a distress of all human agency. And these ideas are what will lead to the Dark Ages. Dante is trying to rebut Augustine and free us from the Dark Ages.
So let's go to Dante. And remember, Dante will be a rebuttal to all these ideas.
All right, so this is *the Empyrean*, the final level in the structure of *The Divine Comedy*. And Dante has a mission. His mission is to meet God and tell us who God is, because God doesn't know, and neither do all the other angels around him. Okay? And the reason why is, if God is omniscient and omnipresent, if he knows everything and he is everywhere, then God, by definition, lacks imagination. This is hard. I didn't understand, but I'll explain it. God does not know who he is because he lacks imagination.
All right, so what's happening is this: Bernard and Dante are together, and they're staring at Mary because Bernard will invoke the love of Mary to empower Dante to see God. Okay? He's trying to channel Mary's energy to empower Dante. And not only is he doing this, but everyone, the entire heaven, is praying to Mary to empower Dante.
"O Virgin Mother, daughter of your Son,
more humble and sublime than any creature,
fixed goal decreed from all eternity,
you are the one who gave to human nature
so much nobility that its Creator
did not disdain his being made its creature."
Right away, what you will see in, in *The Divine Comedy* is paradox after paradox. "Virgin mother" is a paradox, right? A mother who gives birth without having sex. "Daughter of your Son" is a paradox. A creature from its creator is also a paradox. And you'll see this in *The Divine Comedy* all the time. These paradoxes.
Then this is the paradox: "You are the one who gave to human nature so much nobility that its Creator did not disdain his being made its creature." If we agree with Augustine and say and believe that everyone is born in sin and we are incapable of redeeming ourselves from our sin, then how do we explain Mary? Mary gave birth to Jesus. If Mary had sin, then God had sin in him. How do you explain that? Well, the only explanation is Mary gave birth without sin. Therefore, she cleansed herself of her sin before giving birth to Jesus. And how did she do that? A mother's love for her child. Right? So this is what Dante says: Love is about love. Love cannot have sin. Now, I mean, you hear this and you're like, "No, that doesn't make sense." Let's just say that I love this woman. She's beautiful, and I say to her, "I love you. Will you marry me?" And then she says to me, "I will, but I want $10 million." So I go and I rob a bank. That's love? What Dante is saying is, that's not love. That is not love. Ask yourself this question: If your mother and your child says to you, "Mother, I only love you if you let me eat chocolate every day." Is that love? As a mother, you will say back to him, "I love you, therefore I will not allow you chocolate every day. I care about your health. I care about your happiness. That's what I care about. I don't want to degrade you." Okay? That's what Dante is saying here. Love is the ultimate power.
And because she cleansed herself, she has so much nobility that she was able to give birth to God. Okay? That's where nobility is. Nobility is not in being free of sin, but redeeming yourself from sin through sheer willpower, through love.
Let's continue.
"And I, who from the deepest hollow of the universe
had come from hell up to this height,
had seen the lives of spirits one by one.
Now pleads, through grace, to grant him so much virtue
that he may lift his vision higher still,
may lift it toward the ultimate salvation."
The ultimate salvation is God, right? But look, look at this phrase: "vision higher still." What does it mean? It means, hey, you cannot see God. You have to imagine God. God is something that you do not see. God is something that you imagine through your will.
"And I, who never burned for my own vision
more than I burned for this..."
This is radical. This is Bernard, he is the highest of the angels. And he says, "His vision, I burn for his vision. I want to know the truth." And only this man, Dante, can give us the truth. Even though we are angels, only Dante, immortal man, has access to truth. We angels do not have access to truth. This is radical and revolutionary. And honestly, if the Catholic Church actually could understand any of this, then Dante would have, would his manuscript would have been burned. This is, this is revolutionary idea.
"Do you offer you all my prayers and pray that they may not fall short, that with your prayers you may dispel all the clouds of his mortality, so that the highest joy be his to see..."
"The clouds of his mortality" just basically means his fear, his doubt.
"...to the celestial Queen, who can do what you would, I ask of you, that after such a vision his sentiments preserve their perseverance."
"Preserve the perseverance" just means he's able to remember what he saw. Okay? So imagination is one thing. You can imagine God, but then you must turn this imagination into a memory. And what is radical about this is that our most advanced neuroscience, our most advanced scientists who understand how the brain works, they will tell you this is exactly how the brain works. You imagine the world, and then over time, you turn the world into a story, and the story becomes your memory. Okay? So 800 years before Dante, we knew our neuroscience, how our brain actually works.
"And I, who was now nearing him who is the end of all desires, as I ought, lived my longing to its ardent limit."
Now Dante is turning towards God. Now is the time for him to experience God for the first time. Bernard was signaling, he smiled to me to turn my eyes on high. But I already was doing what he wanted me to do, because my sight, becoming pure, was able to penetrate the ray of light more deeply. That light sublime, which in itself is true. From that point on, what I could see was greater than speech can show. At such a sight, it fails, and memory fails when faced with such excess.
He is being blinded. His mind is being blown apart. He does not know what he's seeing. It is so vast, it is so beautiful, it's so powerful that he's being blinded.
"In this profound ending, I saw and gathered and bound my love into one single volume what in the universe seemed separate substances, accidents, and dispositions, as conjoined in such a way that what I tell is only rudimentary."
What he's seeing is this: He's seeing God as the universe before the Big Bang, when the universe was this pool of substances that was chaotic. Okay? And then the Big Bang released all of it into the universe, creating our universe. Dante is experiencing God as the universe before the Big Bang, and he's seeing how everything is connected. But he's immortal. He cannot connect all the pieces. He doesn't know what he's seeing. He just knows what he's seeing is so vast and interconnected.
All right, any questions so far? All right, are we clear about what's happening? Keep on going.
"So was my mind completely wrapped, intent, steadfast, and motionless, gazing, and it would get greater and ever more enkindled as it watched."
So he's meditating. He's trained all his life for this one moment, and he's trying his best.
"Whoever sees that light is soon made such that it would be impossible for him to see that light aside from other sight, because, said God, the object of the will is fully gathered in that light. Outside that light, what there is perfect is defective."
God is good. The very goodness is in God. So think back to Plato. Goodness is encapsulated, embodied in God. It is what is perfect and good.
"What little I recall is to be told from this point on in words more weak than those of one whose infant tongue still bathes at the breast."
So this is complicated. What he's saying is this: This is now 10, 20 years after his experience of God. And what he's doing is he's standing by himself, trying to write down what he saw. He's spent the past 10, 20 years writing *The Divine Comedy* to share with the world the truth of God. And so it's not that experience, that is now gone. It is now his imagination of that experience.
"And not because more than one simple semblance was in the living light at which I gazed, for it is always what it was before, but through my sight, which, as I gazed, grew stronger, so that appearance, even as I altered, seemed to be changing in the deep and bright."
"Essence of that exalted light, three circles appeared to me. They had three different colors, but all of them were of the same dimension." So he's spent 20 years trying to figure out what he saw, and now he's able to slowly put the puzzle together. And what he sees are three circles. And this, of course, is the Holy Trinity. So he's figured it out. Okay? He's figured out that the very essence of the universe, the very foundation of the universe, is the Holy Trinity.
"One circle seemed reflected by the second, as rainbow is by rainbow, and the third seemed fire breathed equally by those two circles, separate but equal."
These are separate but they're the same. The Holy Trinity.
"How incomplete is speech, how weak when set against my thought, and this to what I saw is such that little is too much."
He's figured it out.
But he keeps on looking. What does he see?
"Eternal Light, you only dwell within yourself, and only you know yourself. Self-knowing, self-known, you love and smile upon yourself. That circle which, begotten, soul appeared in you as light reflected, when my eyes had watched it with attention for some time, within itself and colored like it in itself, to me seemed painted with our effigy, so that my sight was set on it completely."
There's a problem here. Effigy means a mirror image. What he's saying is this: Within the Holy Trinity, there is an image of us. We are in God. We are at the very essence of God. We are within God. How is that possible? That should not be. This should not be happening. This is the deepest, darkest secret of the universe. Now, how is it that a human is within God itself? That should not be possible. We are separate. God is good, we are evil. That's what Augustine told us.
"As the geometer intently seeks to square the circle..."
If you want to know where the phrase "square the circle" comes from, it comes from this.
"...but he cannot reach through thought on thought the principle he needs."
So it's a paradox. He can't figure it out. This is the ultimate paradox. He cannot figure out what's going on.
"So I searched that strange site, I wished to see the way in which our human effigy stood the circle and found place in it. How is it we are in God? What is going on here? And my own wings were far too weak for that."
So he's been, for the past 20 years, trying to figure out why this is the case. But then, "my mind was struck by light that flashed, and with this light received what he had been asked." He now has an inspiration. He now can imagine what God is. He now knows the answer. He knows the answer. He's figured out the universe. He's figured it out.
"And this is it: 'Force failed my high fantasy, but my desire and will were moved already like a wheel revolving uniformly by the love that moves the sun and the other stars.'"
Oh, this is the ending, guys. He doesn't tell us anything. He doesn't tell us what he saw. We spent, I don't know, years reaching this point, and Dante has figured it out, and he's not going to tell us. Why won't he tell us? Because it's a jigsaw puzzle, right? Because it's something that you have to figure out for yourself. This thing only works if you spend the time putting the pieces together. And it's a lifetime, it's a lifetime journey. Dante has spent 20 years doing this. So I encourage you all to go on this journey. But, you know what? This journey is way too long. So I'll give you the, my version of the jigsaw puzzle answer today. It may not be the best answer. It may not even be the right answer, but it is an answer. To what Dante is saying. Remember, this is a mystery. This is a paradox. This is a puzzle. It's something that you will have to unravel for yourself. But I will tell you my understanding.
Okay, okay. So let's go back to the beginning of Paradise. And this is when Dante is with Beatrice. Who is Beatrice? Beatrice is someone that Dante has loved all his life. They met when they were 10 years old. They, and their families were friends. But unfortunately, Beatrice came from a very wealthy, high-status family, and Dante was wealthy, but not as wealthy as Beatrice's family. So Beatrice was betrothed to someone of her social status, and she died when she was 24 giving birth. Dante never forgot about her. He wrote poetry after poetry, reminiscing about her, celebrating her. He wrote *The Divine Comedy* for her, and to basically pay him back, she invited him to visit her in heaven.
Okay, so now they're in heaven. And you would think, like, okay, they're in heaven, they love each other, they can do whatever they want. Maybe they don't have sex. Maybe they'll just snuggle. Maybe they'll, I don't know, eat chocolate together. Who knows? Okay? But what they do is they start asking themselves questions about the universe. They're in heaven, and they want to know about the secrets of the universe. How, how do the stars work? How does the moon work?
So, so this is what Beatrice says to Dante: "Direct your mind to God in gratefulness," she said. Beatrice, "He has brought us to the first star, which is the moon." In, in this cosmology, the first star is the moon. "I answered with the most devotion I can summon. I thank him who has brought me far from the mortal world. But now, tell me," the first thing he does is, "Hey, I want to ask you a question. What are the dark marks on this planet's body? Why is where the dark marks on the moon?"
Okay, okay. So they talk, and Beatrice says, "Your mortal mind can't possibly comprehend the truth, but try. Tell me what you think causes the dark spots on the moon." And Dante answers, "What seems to us diverse up here is caused, I think, by matter dense and rare." What, what do you mean by this? Let me explain. What he's saying is this: The moon has parts that are dense and rare. Dense just means there's lots of rocks. Rare means like there's an opening, so light will pass through. What is rare? What is hollow? And so it becomes dark. But light will hit dense parts, like mountains, and it will be reflected back. And that's why there are dark spots on the moon. And this is the generally accepted theory. But Beatrice says, "No, no, no. You're wrong. You're absolutely wrong."
There are two possible explanations for this. The first explanation is, the moon, there are some parts that are completely hollow. Light just passes completely through. But then, ask yourself, a solar eclipse. In a solar eclipse, the moon is able to cover the sun completely, right? But in a solar eclipse, there should be some light. If the moon, if there are some parts of the moon that are hollow, there's some holes. In a solar eclipse, there should be some holes, right? And then, and then she's like, "Okay, then your theory is there's some caverns in the moon that go deep." But I'm going to show you that's not the case either. In the spiritual universe, he's not talking about the physical universe. She's talking about the spiritual universe. All light reflects brightly, no matter where it is, because light comes from the essence of God.
All right, um, so, uh, can you skip this, please? You can skip this as well, actually.
All right, so then, then she just says this: "You don't believe me? So here's what you're going to do. We will do an experiment." Guys, they're in heaven, and they're doing an experiment. Why? Because Dante doesn't believe her. Dante thinks she's full of crap. So this, she's saying, "Let's do an experiment." Right? This is revolution. If you don't believe someone, do an experiment.
"It's okay to doubt. Doubt is heavenly, it's divine. Yet an experiment, were you to try, could free you from your cavil, if the cavil is all light reflects just as brightly as anywhere, and the source of your arts core springs from experiment."
"Take three mirrors. This is the experiment, and you guys can actually do this at home as well. Place a pair of them at equal distance from you. Set the third midway between those two, but further back. Then, turning toward them, at your back have placed a light that kindles those three mirrors and returns to you reflected by them all."
"Although the image in the farthest glass will be of lesser size, there you will see that it must match the brightness of the rest."
All right, so here's the experiment. Okay? All right, there's a candle. There's a candle, and there's three mirrors. The third is the farthest. Within, and you're holding the candle within the three candles. These are images of you holding the candle. Now, in the third mirror, you'll be smaller. What Beatrice is saying is the candle will just be as bright. Is that true? Physically, it is true. Physically. Okay? You can actually do this at home. Now, what's really fun about this experiment is you can keep on going. This is a first layer. Let's do another layer. Five mirrors, all back. Are they still as bright? The candle? The answer is yes. How about a third layer? Are they just as bright? The answer is yes. Let's go a million layers. Will they just be as bright as the first candle? The answer is yes. Right? That's the experiment. It shows it proves that no matter how far, how far the candle is, if it is reflected by the first candle, it will just be as bright as the other candles. All right, that's the experiment. Sorry, hold on.
Now, guys, let me ask you this question: What is this? Do you remember? It's Godhead. It's what Dante saw when he experienced God. Remember, he saw three circles, and inside were three humans in effigy. This is the experiment. Okay? So he's telling us that God is that candle that burns in you and reflects the ultimate good. It reflects the good, and it burns in everyone, and it unifies everyone together. The more you love, the brighter the candle burns. And the brighter the candle burns, the closer you are to God. When you love, you experience God. That is why you are without sin when you love. Okay? This is the Godhead. Does that make sense?
Okay, go back. All right, sorry, sorry. Can you go back, please? Okay, sorry. Next slide. All right, next slide. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Forward. Yes. Okay, this is the ending of *The Divine Comedy*. All right, let's read it again now that we have this information here: "Force failed my high fantasy, but my desire and will were moved already like a wheel revolving uniformly by the love that moves the sun and the other stars." He tells us here: God is love. Love is God. Love is the universal force that binds everything together. It is the unifying force of the universe. It is the force that makes things move brightly. The problem is, before we could only see, but now we can now imagine. God is, I mean, you cannot see God. God is something that you must imagine. So that's *The Divine Comedy*. Any questions about this so far?
Um, that's a really good question. Who is he writing to? Um, who is his audience? Um, so he's writing in Tuscan rather than Latin, and he calls it *The Comedia*. So I think he's trying to avoid the Catholic Church, right? Because at this time, um, the Catholic Church writes mainly in Latin. So he's trying to avoid the Catholic Church. That's his main enemy. Because if the Catholic Church actually understood what he was doing, they would have basically burned his manuscript. Right? So, I know it sounds strange, but he's really writing for the universe, if that makes any sense. He's leaving it here as a secret box, and then someone in the future is going to come, and they're going to read it, and it's going to entice them. It's, it's, it's like they're curious as to what this is, and at first they can't figure it out, but they stick at it, and over time, it begins to transform how they see the world. Does that make sense? He's a prophet. He's a poet. And so he's not really writing it to make money or because he has to. He's writing because he has a moral mission to speak the truth. When you speak the truth, you're speaking to the universe, not to an individual.
All right, have a or did the manuscript circulate in? Yeah, no, no. I'm sorry, sorry. Yeah, Doug, thank you. Yeah. Okay, so, okay, at this time, remember before, we said that all writing projects had to be sponsored by a patron. And before it was kings. So he does have a patron. It's, it's like a count or something. And clearly, there are parts in *The Divine Comedy* which are appealing to his patron, right? But, um, he's really using this as a pretext in order to speak the truth. Okay? Does that make sense? He needs, he needs funding. He needs a patron. But what drives him is obviously not the money. What drives him is he believes God has spoken to him, and he believes that he knows God. He believes that in *The Divine Harmony* are the secrets of the, of the universe. He himself probably doesn't know all the secrets, but he believes that they're all there if someone is willing to look hard enough. Does that make sense? Okay, but, but, but you're right, he did have a patron. Yeah.
Okay, any more questions? Okay, just, just a small one. With, I really like the translation here. Oh, yeah. Yes. Okay, so there have been multiple translations of *The Divine Comedy*. This man is named Alan Manobel, and, um, um, he, he's the one I prefer the most, just because he's the most, um, relatable. He, he's the most accessible. I mean, there are, there are these translations by, um, Longfellow, which is beautiful, but it's really complicated. I think, um, Ezra Pound has also done a translation, and then there are translations which are okay. So, so there are different translations. Manobel is, is, I just think, I think just the easiest to teach. Okay. And, and so, um, um, because of translation issues, this, this again was written in Tuscan. I've tried, I try to avoid a close reading, okay? Because with close reading, you want to analyze the word specifically, the diction. But I can't do that because it depends on the translation. Okay? But the ideas are the same. Okay? But, but, but thanks. This Manobel, some people are trauma. We will do a lot of close reading when we get to English literature, which is like Shakespeare and Milton, okay? Because then, because then you can actually do close reading. But with translation, you can't do close reading. It, it, it's too dependent on, on the translation. Okay? Any more questions?
Okay, so, so, so, so, so, can we do one more slide? The Augustine slide, and then we'll end. Yeah. Okay, yeah. So let's go to Augustine. Okay, Augustine says here: "Man lives by the standard of man, not by the standard of God. He is like the devil." Guys, we are in God because God is in us. God is the candle, the love that burns in us. If we love, the candle burns brighter. It brings us closer to God. This is how we know we're doing good, because we know, okay, our hearts will know, people will know, everyone knows what good is. "Pride will be the start of the evil will." No, pride is who we are. We all strive to be better. "His was a venal transgression when he refused to desert his wife." Love is sin. Love is without sin. Love is the greatest force in the universe because it is God. We're created out of nothing. No, we're created out of God. God is in us. God is with us. "The heavenly city was created by self-love." The love of God, "was created by contempt of self."
All right, so this is a really important idea. But the idea is this: Love only exists between humans. It does not exist outside of humans. You can love money. You cannot love money. You cannot love chocolate. You can only love each other because God is within us. If you love God, you don't love God because God is an idea. You have to love each other. You have to love Beatrice. You have to love your mother. You have to love your son.
"In heaven, there will be freedom of will, enjoying unfailingly the delight of eternal joys." Sorry, guys. *The Divine Comedy* says this: There is no end to the universe. At no point will we know everything. We exist because we are continuing God's legacy. When we imagine things, we are creating. We are engaged in the act of creation. That is God. We are like God. And when we imagine, when we love, that is our ultimate mission in life: to love and to imagine, because then we create new worlds for God to celebrate.
All right, all right. So that was the first lecture on Dante. Next Tuesday, we will, um, do the second.