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Ascend - The Great Books Podcast
Purgatorio: Envy and Wrath (Cantos 13-17) with Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson
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- [00:00]
A
Today on Ascend the Read Books Podcast we have a wonderful conversation as we continue our journey through Dante's purgatorio on Cantos 13 through 17, the terrorists purging envy and wrath. To guide us today, we have a wonderful guest, Dr. Jessica Houghton Wilson from Pepperdine. Always enjoy her insights, always appreciate her as a guest. One of our first guests that we had on the podcast, but today she actually points out to us that the middle canto of the entire Divine Comedy is in this reading section and why that's important. It's an insight I greatly appreciated. It's an insight that I am still kind of mulling over and contemplating. Also, if you haven't checked it out already, please go look at our guide to Dante's Purgatorio. 51 questions on the Purgatorio, 35 pages, single spaced. A wonderful guide for you or your small group. We are very much here to help. Dante is the master. We're just another student. But we very much want you to learn these beautiful, beautiful truths. So today check us out and join us for a wonderful conversation with Dr. Jessica Houghton Wilson on Cantos 13 through 17 purging envy and wrath. Welcome to Ascend the Great Books Podcast. My name is Deacon Harrison Garlick. I'm a husband, father of five and serve as Chancellor and General Counsel for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa. We're recording on a beautiful afternoon here at the Chancery. If you're new to Ascend to our weekly podcast that helps guide you through the great books we've read the Iliad, the Odyssey, many of the replays, several of the Platonic dialogues with a reread of Homer's Odyssey before the movie comes out this summer is in Plato's Republic on the docket later this fall. Check us out on X, YouTube, Facebook and Patreon. We appreciate all our supporters. They have access to some community chats on the Great Books and also to our written guides. Visit thegreatbookspodcast.com and also we have a whole written guide to Dante's Purgatorio as well. So go check that out on our Patreon page. Also, I want to say thank you to the center of Beauty and Culture at Benedictine College and Dr. Jason Baxter for promoting our read of Dante's Purgatorio this Lent. And go check out Dr. Baxter's new translation, which is the one that I am reading through and really enjoying it today. We have our fourth episode on Dante's Purgatorio covering Cantos 13 through 17. The second terrace purging Envy and the third terrace purging Wrath. To guide us through these terraces, we have the Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson, who serves as the Fletcher Jones Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University. One of our first guests on the podcast ever, joined us very early on for the Iliad, had a fantastic conversation and also joined us last year to help us with Dante's Inferno. So welcome back.
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B
Thank you. I mean, yeah, I'm going to be on any conversation that's about the great books, if I can be. So.
- [02:57]
A
Yeah, no, we appreciate it, but I, I. Okay, so I do have something, though. I'm slightly disappointed in your commitment to the podcast because I got on X and you posted a picture of yourself teaching the Origin of the Species. Oh, yesterday you were in costume. You had dressed up and you were like teaching this great book and you had a beard and a hat and like you, the whole thing. And so I was like, oh, I wonder what costume she'll wear. I mean, you had so many good options. You could have like, you know, sewn your eyes shut. You could have given a podcast from smoke. You got so many good options. So I just, you know, we're gonna have to work on your.
- [03:38]
B
There's not enough drama. We gotta get more dramatic rendering. You do these podcast conversations.
- [03:44]
A
So do you like. So when you do that in class, when you do you dress up as an author, like often?
- [03:49]
B
Is that something you do about once a semester? I surprise students with it. I mean, so every class gets something like that. I just enjoy keeping them on their toes.
- [04:01]
A
So when you, when you do that, do you go in and then speak first person as the author or.
- [04:06]
B
No, I do, but I also, it doesn't last very long because, I mean, we're having discussion. It just doesn't last that long. So I, you know, I came in and a few of them were funny, you know, where's Dr. Wilson? And, and I usually start class in prayer, but because I was Darwin, I was like, I don't believe in God anymore. So, like, how do I start the class? You know, so some of those kind of things are, are interesting, but students remember it, it makes a strong impression and brings things to life. And again, like I said, keeps them on their toes.
- [04:40]
A
Yeah, no, I, I doubt they would forget that. Okay, so outside of like the costumes, tell us a little bit about like the Great Books program at Pepperdine.
- [04:48]
B
Yeah, so when I went here As a student 25 years ago, it was a four semester program and it's pretty much stayed like that for a long Time. If you know the great books at all, you know Mortimer Adler's name. Mortimer Adler came out here in 1985 and was big into the great books and sold the vision to the president and to a professor, Michael Ghost, who started the program. And he was actually my instructor when I was here. And now we are expanding. We're kind of like doubling down on our Great Books program. And since I've been here, we received some grants to expand it and have a alternative Core foundation curriculum for students so that all of their classes, if they want them for their core, would be great books outside of their major.
- [05:36]
A
Nice. Congratulations.
- [05:37]
B
So that's what we're working on right now. Yeah, it's fun because I'm teaching a lot of professors who've never understood great books content or pedagogy. And I'm getting to do a lot of professional development and show how this is virtue education. And it's a different way of thinking about your discipline than maybe you have before. So I had lunch recently with a poli sci fi professor and she was trying to think about how to teach these things. And I was like, well, for example, you could teach Frankenstein as a conversation in human rights and what makes human beings. And, you know, so it was really exciting. And I, out of these faculty and they're just, they're all on board. It's going to be. It's going to be fun to see what the next couple of years hold. We plan to roll it out in the next couple years. So. Yeah.
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A
That's fantastic. Wonderful news.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Do you all read Purgatorio as part of your Great Looks program?
- [06:24]
B
Yes. So right now, the current four semesters, and then we actually have a fifth and sixth that are Asian great books is the fifth and the sixth is post colonial great books. So it's mostly 20th century text from around the world. But the first four are what you would expect from a Great Books program to have like ancient. So we do. I'm actually doing Plato's Republic the fall. You talked about that. I'll be teaching that in the fall. Then we do medieval. So the rise in Western Europe of the Church, and we start with the New Testament and go through Augustine all the way up to the Reformation. And then the third is Post Reformation. And really it's. I always joke that it's. It's when everyone stops believing in God, but that's kind of what happens. So it's a lot of enlightenment, there's a lot of Kant, a lot of Equiano and discussions about freedom and Liberty and. And we end with Frankenstein and Jane Austen. And then the fourth semester is like my heyday because that's my specialty. So we begin with Kierkegaard, you know, Darwin, which I just did. Nietzsche, the brothers Karamazov, T.S. eliot, Simone de Beauvoir, W.E.B. du Bois. And then we end with Larry O'. Connor. It's such a fun semester, no?
- [07:42]
A
It sounds like it. Yeah. No good things happening out there. Okay, so when you. When you tell your students that you're going to read the Purgatorio, why do you tell them this is a book worth reading?
- [07:53]
B
So the Divine Comedy is by far one of my favorite texts out of all the texts we teach. So I teach probably a hundred books on the regular, and this is in my top two, so the Brothers Karamazov and the Divine Comedy. And then the third would be Augustine's Confessions. So it's an easy sell for me, especially Purgatorio. Well, if they don't have time to teach the entire Divine Comedy, then you should only then teach. Don't just teach Inferno and don't just teach Paradiso, but teach Purgatorio. And it's the most human canticle out of all of them because it takes place on Earth. Right. You know, of course it's a supernatural, metaphysical earth, but it is really supposed. It, you know, has the day and the night. It has art and education. It talks about the Church coming together. It's the unification that ends in Eden. You know, not to be too much of a spoiler alert, but, like, it is the rehumanization that matches what the educational process should look like. So I talked to students, if you really want to know what it means, like how to live. This is the Canticle that Dante writes in a way that shows you how to live a flourishing life. And whereas Inferno, you know, convicts you of your sin and you guys already went all. Inferno just convicts you that you need help. But Purgatorio shows you where the help can come from and starts moving you so that you actually want it and desire it. Right. It kind of is forming or reforming your desires along the journey.
- [09:22]
A
Yeah, very well said. And we look at Dante the pilgrim, you know, as an analog to humanity. Right. To us. And then on the moral reading, that it's really to my own soul. And so I think one thing that people realize as they work through the Divine Comedy is that you have a spiritual maturation along with Dante, Pilgrim. So, like, everyone likes the Inferno because everyone's very familiar with sin. We're very familiar with disordered desire and giving into it and what it's like to be handed over to that. That's fascinating to us. But a lot of times, the first time people get a taste of the Purgatorio, I think in a lot of ways, you really have to have some kind of appetite for wanting to be better. And once you have that appetite, you have that your soul's desirous of actually becoming more beautiful, like Christ is beautiful. Then the Purgatorio is a priceless map of spiritual growth. Like, I. I just love it. And particularly then I remember, like, after ordination, the Purgatorio itself was such an amazing guidepost on having to talk about certain subjects, or if you have to give a homily on a gospel or whatever. Okay, well, this is the vice that's being pointed out at. Or this is the virtue that's being pointed out. Well, then you have this whole beautiful connection that Dante's given you about how to map this out and how to help your soul ascend up the mountain. I mean, it's just. It's a book that I, particularly in recent years, have really, really come to appreciate in a way that I didn't really appreciate as a younger man.
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B
Yeah. So you're familiar with classical education. So I was the keynote at their National Classical Ed in Arizona last year, and I actually said this talk that we all pass around from Dorothy Sayers on the Lost Tools of Learning. I think she wrote it. Well, I know she did. She wrote it while she was translating Purgatorio. So she was. When she is saying we have to go these things that rehumanize us and give us the tools for our formation. She's in the middle of translating Dante's Purgatory, and you see this big connection that she's making between what education should be and what Dante shows that real education looks like when we're teaching people to love what is worth loving in this. Right. And so her essay, the Lost Tools of Learning, I think correlates really well to reading Purgatorio.
- [11:37]
A
Wonderful. Yeah. No, I didn't know that connection. That's fantastic. Okay, let's jump into the text. So we are at Canto 13 of the Purgatorio. We've just gone through our first terrace. So last time we went through the terrace that I think very obviously the first sin that has to be purged is pride. We really just had this, like, beautiful mapping of, hey, here's some wonderful examples of the contrary virtue of humility. And then we have this, like, very poetic images that are kind of carved into the floor of all of these examples of the vice, they have contrapassos. They were carrying these boulders. It was really just a wonderful fixture. We get a prayer, we get a beatitude, we have an angel. There's this whole, like, picture that comes together on the terrace. And now we come to the second terrace, which is going to be the purging of envy. So where. Where's a good place to start as we look at Canto 13?
- [12:34]
B
Well, as you enter, I think it's important to note, since you've only gone through one other terrace, to realize that there's this repetitive pattern. Dante's being formed as kind of a liturgy of the classroom. So just as you had those opening sculptures and the Realm of Pride, that showed him examples of humility through art, right. And then he gets to have the same kind of thing on the exit in which he sees the examples of what not to do, like the warnings and the cautions. The same thing will happen here when we get into envy. So when you jump in, so this is around lines like 25. Instead of art sculptures, you have the examples being called out by voices. So he's hitting all the senses, Right. The poetic imagination is being turned on and being re attuned to God's voice. And it happens first through these different examples, orally, of what it looks like to do the opposite of envy, Right. Which is generosity or magnanimity. And so I don't know if you want to read the. It's the first voice that calls out, I think is like verse 28. You have three different examples you could look at if you wanted to.
- [13:50]
A
Yeah. Before I get to the three examples, I think this is one example in my own reading of where I had to mature. So I remember the first time I read the Purgatorio when I realized that this was. This is just going to repeat. This is a pattern. I think you called it a liturgy. I like that a lot. There's this catechesis that. That Dante the poet's going to give us on each terrace that's going to have this mirroring as we go through. The first time I read that it, I was, like, bored with it. I was like, oh, you know, Because I like the Inferno. It's chaotic. You don't really know what's going to happen. Sometimes you get through a circle in one canto and then the next canto, it's like 10 cantos to make it through. Like, there's this, like, chaos that keeps you Engaged. And. And I think this is part of that maturation that then, like, no, once I matured to really wanting to take my soul seriously, like, this imprint, this map, this liturgy that he gives you for every single purging of one of the deadly sins is priceless. And now, as I read it, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's great. Like, I can write this down. I can understand how this works. So just as a side note, because the first time I read it, the. It's a very structured book, more so than the Inferno. And now, I appreciate that in the beginning, I didn't. But as you mentioned, he gives us three examples right here at the beginning of the Contrary Virtue. So the first one we get is a real beautiful one of the wedding at Cana, in which Our lady basically tells our Lord, right, they have no wine. So you see this as the opposite of envy, Right? So what is envy? Maybe we should talk about that. Right? What is. What is envy? Because it's also particularly distinct from jealousy, which is sometimes, you know, hard. So my. Like, just a brief sketch, my understanding is, like, you know, if you're jealous about something, like, you. You want it, right? Okay. I'm jealous of that car. I'm jealous of the house. We're jealous about many things. Envy, though, has, like, a particularly malicious streak to it, where I don't only want that thing, I also hate the fact the other person has it. Yeah, right. And so it has this, like, malicious underpinning that jealousy tends to not have. Or jealousy, I think, can obviously mature into a certain envy over time. And so what are we seeing here? So that's the sin that has to be purged. It's interesting. That's the second one in Dante's kind of catechesis that has to be purged from the soul. And so what, we get a example of Mary seeing someone in need and then turning to the Lord and interceding for them and saying, here's this need. Can you fit them? Because really, for her, it's all about the other people. It's all about the bride and groom. It's their wedding. It's their embarrassment, if you will. It's their hospitality, and she intercedes for them. And so that's our first contrary virtue that we get.
- [16:27]
B
Well, and when you think of envy, you have to think it's. It is a way of being in the world. And this is what Dante is getting at. The reason he's doing these is because it's not enough to define envy for people, Right? He could have written like a systematic theology. He's saying that your heart is so mis seeing or misimagining. Right. He'll develop imagination a little bit in Canto 17 as well. But you're misimagining the world and envious people, immense scarcity of resources. So the reason that they want what you have is not enough. They also don't want you to have it because they don't think there's enough to go around. Interesting, right? Like, they live in a mindset of scarcity versus a mindset of abundance. And. And so here, when she says, like, they don't have enough, right? The envious person would be like, being like, well, there's no way. There's no solution to this. There isn't enough. Not everyone gets it. Not everyone can have. But Mary has a mindset of abundance even when enough isn't there. She odd is abundant and able to supply where it looks like there's not enough in the world. And so it's just a different imagination in which the Lord is full of more than we even see in front of us. That's why. Example.
- [17:43]
A
Yeah, no, very well said. I appreciate you parsing that out. Then the second one we get is, I am Orestes. So this was interesting to me. So on the podcast we've read the Oresteia, you know, this is for those who are unfamiliar, this is the, you know, story of Agamemnon goes home after the Trojan War. He's killed by his own wife, Clytemnestra, and then his son Orestes is stuck in this problem of justice, of, well, I need to avenge my father by, you know, killing his murderer. But the murderer is also my mom, who I own piety to. And so this, it's a beautiful, beautiful triad because it really brings in the question of justice and piety and cosmos. But this is pulled from, like, a different text I'm not as familiar with. What is this example?
- [18:28]
B
I'm trying to remember because I don't know if it's with the Iphigenia, like, when he goes. I'm thinking that it might be that the what is lost has been found. So Iphigenia at Aulis, or Iphigenia with basically his sister Christ. And when Agamemnon kills her, she's gone, supposedly. But the Iphigenia play returns her. So she magically was returned when it looks like she was lost. And so when he reveals himself as Orestes to her, right. What was lost is now found. What you thought was no More has been given again. And so they come back and they are reconciled as brother and sister and family is reconciled in a way that once was torn apart and lost and full of envy and wrath and jealousy. And instead now they. They overcome their parents sin in some ways by revealing to each other their family tie.
- [19:29]
A
Yeah, and that's a wonderful story too, because for those who are familiar with the sacrifice of Ephigenia, it is brutal. And so to have this like, almost like Abraham and Isaac moment where she's. Oh, no, she actually was swept away is really what the reader wants. I'm not really sure it's, you know, at least it's what I want. You have to wait to a different point. Yeah, there's another. There's another reading of that too, in which it comes from Cicero. So apparently Cicero has a story. Dr. Baxter comments on this in his. His text.
- [19:56]
B
Oh, well, he's. He's the expert. So trust, Trust Jason on that.
- [20:01]
A
Well, he has. Well, anytime Ephigenia gets brought up, we're going to go for it because it's. That's a fantastic story. Cicero tells a story of Orestes and Pylades getting caught. And Pylades actually cries out, I am Orestes. And.
- [20:16]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [20:18]
A
You know, on behalf of his friend. So again, there's that opposite envy, putting yourself in front of the others, et cetera. And then the third one is really just the statement from Scripture. Right. Love them from whom you suffer evil. So these are the three. Yeah, you're right. These are kind of disembodied voices that we're hearing that Dante's getting as he's working through this. One side note, I would mention this canto that I'm sure people picked up is he plays on sight a lot. He talks about eyes, sight. I think Virgil gives even a short prayer to the sun at the beginning. You're like, what? Why is the pagan praying to the sun at the beginning of this camp? What's going on? So he's playing with this because when he finally sees. Right. The. When he sees the damned of this terrorist, their contrapasso is that their eyes are sewn shut with like an iron wire.
- [21:15]
B
Yeah.
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A
Which is, like, brutal. What is. What is the catechesis here? Like, what. What is Dante, the poet, trying to teach us about envy?
- [21:22]
B
This is so good. So I gave a chapel talk years ago in which I had everyone in the chapel stand up and put their backs to the other person and then close their eyes and imagine that on one side of them was a cliff and to feel what that feels like. And I do this with students, too, to lean on one another when you are blind. Right. So there's a dependency that is visceral. And I think what Dante is saying, it's the actual human condition that we mask over or we fight against when we're in our lives, right. We. We don't want to be dependent. We don't want to see our need for others. We want to judge others by what they have or what we don't have. And so instead, he is having them experience what is our true condition. Right. Which is to be dependent and interdependent on one another. He makes it, like, known or dramatically engaged. Right. Through the way that he describes them.
- [22:25]
A
Yeah. It's such a beautiful picture of the soul. Right. Particularly how envy usually comes into the soul via sight. We see things and we become jealous about them. We start to actually crave them, and we hate the fact the other person has them. And so, yeah, I think there's a wonderful line where he. In which they're discussing with one of the shades. And it's. I think, line 1 33, he says, my eyes. Say again.
- [22:55]
B
I was gonna say. Well, before you. Before you jump to like him describing it, do you mind describing the. The vision thing that you were just talking about? That's like 67 through 73. But I didn't know what it says in yours where it says, the sunshine never benefits. That's what mine says. 67.
- [23:14]
A
Yeah. So in 67, it says, for the blind, the sun will do no good. So too, the light from heaven did not share itself with the shades of whom I speak. All their eyelids are pierced and sewed together by strings of iron, which I wrote in my notes. Then corresponds back with the opening prayer of Virgil at the beginning of the canto around line 16 or so. Oh, sweet light in whom I put my trust, he said for help along this unknown way, now lead us in the manner this place requires. You warm the world and shine upon it. Unless other reasons guide us. To the contrary, your ray should always be our guide. So he prays to the sun that we see by your light, and then runs into damned who has their. Or not. Damn. Sorry. To the. To the penitent who have their sewn shut.
- [24:12]
B
Yeah, I think that's important. So I wanted you to get to read that, because that's. That's kind of the point. Is like, because they were so envious of one another's gifts and needs, they've now lost the true source by which they even saw those things. Right. The bounty of light that was available to them, and they didn't trust that bounty or desire that bounty. They desired other bounties. And so it's like by not having the bounty of light from the sun, they're now desiring it. They're learning to love the bountiful light of God rather than the things that were false lights or false gifts or false desires.
- [24:50]
A
Yeah, I like that a lot. Because we see, you know, that play off all the time of sun as the good and the eyes as the intellect. And so they're. I like that a lot. So they're deprived now of the sun and of their eyes because in life they did not see these things through the light of the good. Right?
- [25:12]
B
That's right. Yes.
- [25:13]
A
Yeah. No, that's beautiful. That's wonderful. And so it's a wonderful moral meditation as well, about how we see the goods around us and what we crave and what we actually think is important.
- [25:24]
B
Yeah. So good. Okay. I cut you off from what you were going to read, but I didn't
- [25:30]
A
mean to do that.
- [25:30]
B
If you want to go back to what you were going to read in 130s.
- [25:33]
A
Yeah, no, fine. It's 133. He just says, my eyes, I said, will here be taken from me for only a little, since small as the offense committed by them through envious looks, Much greater is the dread that hangs upon my soul regarding the torment below. Its weight over it crushes me within my mind. So this is Dante, the pilgrim speaking about. So this is interesting, right? So he is alive. He's going through purgatory, and he's becoming aware of his own sins. And this is kind of interesting. He's like, yeah, I don't know if envy is really my problem, but I'm really worried about the pride. And I just saw what goes through there. And I'm actually still thinking about how long I'm going to be on that terrace and how big my boulder is going to be.
- [26:18]
B
Well, and if you look at the line, I don't know, I have the Italian, but in the Italian, he actually changes one of the words, the word envy, to Latin as though he is confessing. Right. Because it would have been confessing in the church. And so he changes it in line 135 to Nvidia. And I think he's also using it because the literal meaning is to, like, look cross eyed, Right? So envy is to look cross eyed on another blessings. Right? To, like, look askance is the way he puts It. So it's just. He's kind of playing on. On these words, trying to get you into that mode, like you said, where he's learning to confess these things. Like, I. I didn't see all the time great in my own life. I get that. But more than anything, my ego was the size of a giant mountain, so that's what I'm gonna have to pay back the most.
- [27:09]
A
You know, one. One aspect, too. Please push back on this if this is not a correct read. But one thing I thought was interesting, that I don't think I noticed before is when he first sees the penitent, he. So this is around 58, he says it seemed like they were wearing hair shirts and each held up another with his shoulder, and all were propped up against the bank of the rock. And so one thing I didn't realize that it looks like then you obviously pointed out to. In your. Your chapel example is I didn't realize the first time I read this, how much their blindness then makes them have to extend a kindness to each other. Because you get a. There's a. There's one or two other examples in this canto in which a spiritual kindness is extended. And that's something I don't think I quite understood the first time I read it, that it's not just simply the being deprived of the eyes, but because of that deprivation, they're forced then into being kind to people where they had a malicious will towards people on Earth.
- [28:11]
B
Yes, yes. Now they're actually practicing what they should have been doing, which was leaning on one another, helping one another, giving out of their own bounty.
- [28:21]
A
That's fantastic. Any other thoughts on can of 13?
- [28:27]
B
Yeah, I would just say just a couple of things just to compare to Inferno. So I don't know if you're doing a lot of vertical reading, but one of the things that I was. Was taught by some Dantistis was like, the vertical reading can be really powerful when you compare some of these cantos to the ones that came before an Inferno. And here you have Dante reaching out to the sinner and looking for someone from Italy. And if you remember, an Inferno where he meets Montefeltro, and Montefeltro rises out of the coffin and is like, basically, they're both Italian. And Montro finds reasons that they were on the other side of the Ghibelline Guelph controversy. He, like, finds a way to divide himself from Dante. Right. Like, yeah, we're both Italian, but you were on that side and I was on this side. Right. Divisive. So Here, Dante, still being kind of in the mindset, has to relearn new ways that are not the ways of hell, is like anybody from Italy, right? Do we have anything in common? And the soul responds to him in the opposite of the way of Montefeltro, my brother. Each man is a citizen of one true city. What you mean to say is there's someone who was once a pilgrim from that land, and so he overcomes the way of being divisive and shows how to even speak in a unifying language about what we have in common, rather than to talk about what divides us. And so he's learning even to overcome the sins of Inferno that he was taught and misformed. Right. As he, like, was led through Inferno. Now Dante, too, is practicing a new way of being from what he saw there.
- [30:06]
A
Yeah, really well said. Just for those who are unfamiliar, and I. I'm very nascent in this conversation as well. So when you talk about a vertical reading, like, just to give, like, a picture, like, imagine, like, you're stacking the books on top of each other, right? So you got the Inferno and they got Purgatorio, and then you have the Paradise. And so part of Dante's, If I understand correctly, part of Dante's brilliance, Dante the poet, is that there's then mathematical coordinations of the Cantos through this. So we're not just comparing the sins and the contrapassos and et cetera, which is really beneficial to look at how they're punished in the Inferno and how they're punished here in Purgatorio. But the Canto numbers actually line up, and there are lessons in that, and you can spend a whole study in that. I mean, can you just say a little bit about that? Because I. That's like a whole nother level. That's a fantastic. I mean, I've been introduced to it. I don't know if I could articulate it well, but can you just say a little bit about what Dante the poet does there?
- [30:59]
B
Sure. So, again, I'm not a Dante. Everything I'm saying is, like, stolen from the experts, right. Who taught me. And so when we imagine, like, how could he see all those books and, like, see all the way they lined up? Well, he has the one page of Kanto 13 from Inferno in front of him as he's writing the one page of Kanto 13 on the other page, right? Like, and he can see what he's doing. So he's not just writing Canto 13 of Purgatorio in response to Canto 12 of Purgatorio. He's also writing Canto 13 of Purgatoriosio in response to Canto 13 of Inferno. And so he's kind of like looping together this song so that refrains that go together so that as the pilgrim is circling or spiraling upwards, the things that he's repeating back from the past.
- [31:49]
A
Right.
- [31:49]
B
And have these new higher registers or higher frequencies aren't lost in the process. And. And there's. There's some really strong correlations and then there's some other ones that people find a little bit weaker, but for the most part, really enhance your reading once you read all the way through to go back and kind of do some comparison and some linking between what he says in Inferno to Purgatorio to Paradiso, and kind of read it that way too.
- [32:16]
A
And if memory serves, I'll have to go back and check and make sure I'm correct on this. But if memory serves, one of the clearest examples of this is where he mentions Odysseus in each text, that that's. They actually clean up throughout the entire Divine Comedy. So, yeah, it's just, you know, I feel like every time I start to get somewhat of, like a foothold into what Dante's doing, there's just like a whole other level that he just invites you into. So. No, I appreciate your laying that out for us.
- [32:44]
B
Yeah. Yeah, he's a master.
- [32:46]
A
Any other Comments on Canto 13?
- [32:49]
B
No, I think we can move on. I mean, Sapia. Right. Again, if we're going to draw back from Inferno, kind of matches up, I think, really well with. Oh, the flying Girl. And my. The word has left my head where she's flying around. Yeah, thank you. Sorry, it's. I need another coffee. I think. So. And Francesca. Right.
- [33:10]
A
The only reason I know that is because we did an episode on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and someone was like, oh, yeah, like the couple that's flying around in the circle, Francesca. And my brain could not remember their names for the life of me. So the reason I know that is because I actually went back and looked and chastised myself. So. Yeah, go ahead.
- [33:25]
B
Well, I think you and I were talking about Paolo and Francesca on the Inferno episode, so it's like it should come to my mind. Right. But anyways, I do a lot with Francesca in my classes, so I'm sorry, it's for that, like, brain blip. Um, but it's. It's the opposite there too. Right. So Francesca has this long winded speech blaming everyone except for Herself. And the opposite happens with Sapia. So you see Sapia and she. I was called Sapia, but that name isn't even true because I was never sapient. Right. I. There's harm for my own good. Trust me, it's no lie. Which is the opposite of Francesca, who lies the whole time. So you know, Dante is constantly doing this unwinding of. Of the sins of Inferno. Right. He really has to rebuttal or refute all of the sins that he had and. And be changed himself as he's changing his reader. So.
- [34:15]
A
Yeah, not very good. Okay, let's look at Canto 14.
- [34:21]
B
Right. So don't I kind of want to fly a little bit through 14 because. Because 16 and 17 are so good.
- [34:31]
A
Okay, well, we're going to fly over 14. Like what's that 30,000 foot view? Like what. What do we need to kind of pluck out of this?
- [34:40]
B
So you're going to get the end of the liturgy. So as he's exiting, you're going to get to see like the. Hear the sounds of the bad examples. So again, it reminds you, I think this is important for educators, but. Or also for pastors. Anybody who has a responsibility to help form other people, parents. It's not enough to just start with the good examples. What he shows is you have to start with the good. You have to have some sort of practice or conversation. Right. With the contrapasso that overcomes the bad habits in your lives. But then you also have to have the bad examples of vice so that you know what you're staying away from. So it's all three pieces that Dante is doing for you and all three pieces have to be part of it. And we can't just have one. Right. We just can't show people just like this is how they fail and look at how envious they are. We can't say, look at how good other people were. You also have to have that conversation like he does with brother. You know, on we're members of one city and we're all pilgrims and Sapia, I was never sapient. You have to have still also those conversations and dialogue. 2. So all three pieces I think are necessary.
- [35:50]
A
Yeah, no, very well said. Yeah. And we get the example of Cain. That's probably not too surprising to anyone.
- [35:56]
B
The starter of it. All, Right.
- [35:59]
A
Yeah. And then an example from Ovid's Metamorphosis about an individual who is transformed into stone because she would not let Mercury go into her sister's bedchamber. Right. So there's like a envy there which is also a fraternal story as well. So you mentioned the liturgy. We should probably, if we push into the liturgy here just a little bit. So he's going to give. So I'm gonna look at my helpful notes, cheat sheet that we have here on Ascend. So my understanding is. Is that. So you have this liturgy of, like, what are we gonna get on each terrace? So we're going to get examples of the contrary virtue. And what's gonna happen is, like, every example, the first example is usually going to be Marian. It's going to be Mary in Christ, right? So there's always this Marian. So she is going to be kind of the disciple par excellence that we look to for all of these contrary virtues. And then, you know, sometimes we get like a scriptural one or whatever, but we're also always getting a pagan one. And I think this also kind of throws people for a loop. And even in the examples of the vices, we usually get both a Christian and a pagan example. And I think what. And this can throw people for a loop. Maybe not so much. Once you make it through the inferno, you're like, oh, yeah, Cerberus was down there and a bunch of other people. And so I'm used to it by now. But I think one thing to keep in mind, though, is just a relationship between nature and grace, that we can see these sins, right? We can see whether they're virtues or we can see the vices. And sometimes they're expressed in a graced scenario, like we have with Our lady, with the Christians, with saints and things like. Like this. And sometimes they're expressed just in a natural way of the human condition. So I think it's interesting that he holds both of those together as part of the liturgy, that he's always giving you both examples. And then obviously, we all. We get a Beatitude as well. And then we typically get. Also get a prayer, correct? Yes.
- [38:02]
B
In every single one, I guess.
- [38:04]
A
Yeah.
- [38:04]
B
You have the prayer for the Son. I didn't realize you got a prayer for every single one. I know you have the, you know, like the redoing of our Father. Right. With pride. And then you have. You said the prayer for the Son for envy. I guess I didn't notice there was a prayer each time.
- [38:17]
A
I think you get. I'd have to look and see where it is. You get an invocation to. You get the litany of the saints with the envious. I don't have the line number.
- [38:30]
B
Oh, Michael, Mary, pray for us. Peter, when they call it, the names yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I remember that.
- [38:35]
A
Yeah, yeah. So you get a litany of the. And then in the. In the Wrath, it's the Angustai that comes up.
- [38:45]
B
Oh, okay.
- [38:46]
A
You get a. So you get a beatitude, a prayer, contrary vices or contrary virtues. The example, the vices, and then the contrapasso, the penance.
- [38:57]
B
Right, yes, for each one.
- [38:58]
A
And again. So this, like, creates beautiful mapping of like. Okay, if I'm struggling with whatever this is, here's all these stories, prayers, examples to help you overcome that and to ascend the mountain towards perfection.
- [39:13]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's. It becomes an apologetic for liturgy and for great books education. It's like these. This becomes your two parts to helping actually be reformed into Christ's image is the liturgy. And then the stories.
- [39:27]
A
Yeah, very good. Okay, so We've got our 30,000 foot view of Canto 14. Anything there before you soar over.
- [39:35]
B
I know, I have a history of soaring over. Only because, you know, when you start this is such a big poem, it's almost impossible to do justice to like five cantos in one hour. So I would just be ashamed if we missed out on Canto 16, which I think is so crucial.
- [39:52]
A
No, that's fine. So let's go to Canto 15 then. So if we're kind of looking at these, like major threads, what should we look at in Canto 15?
- [40:05]
B
So we're entering into the realm of Ma, of Wrath, and you're going to get the layout of Hell. It's really. I jump ahead, but when we get to the layout, you'll see why. This is pride, envy, wrath. So hopefully we can talk about that before we all wrap up. But there is an order to this. Right. It can feel when you're starting to read through this journey at this point and you've just come from Inferno, where the ways, the sins descended in and of itself that, you know, that geological journey became enlightening for you. Right. Like limbo and lust and those things being at the. By the time you get a fraud, you're like, oh, I get this. This is like the most unhuman thing we could do is be fraudulent and liars. But then when you're starting to build back up the mountain, it doesn't match. Right. So you expect to be the opposite. Like to unfraud at the beginning or something and. Right. And then just to go against violence, you would expect it to map entirely to Inferno. And it doesn't. It begins with pride and wrath, and it should be a little befuddling to you. And I think that Dante finds that important for you to feel a little lost at this point in order to actually kind of go through some of the failures of thought so that you don't think you have this all figured out. Right?
- [41:25]
A
That's really good. That's a really good point, particularly for the first time readers, because sometimes you read these texts so many times you get habituated certain things. So, like, one of the big questions of the Inferno is, well, wait, where is pride? Where is pride purged? This is. This is the queen of sin. Where. Where is she? Or not purged, but, you know, where is she punished? And you don't get that this one, then it's like, okay, the seven deadly sins, that. That makes sense to me. So. No, I think trying to understand the way that Dante arranges the sins, I, I think is very fascinating. I think if we, if we kind of root it, then in this Canto. Right, Canto 15, what's interesting here is that he starts to give this inquiry into different types of goods and that there are basic. Please push back. But like, how I read this was, are, you know, exhaustible goods? There are goods then that obviously, like, you know, if I take a piece of the pie, you can't take that piece of the pie. So then the pie is diminished. And so we see. It's very easy to see then why we're getting this kind of catechetical talk on goods as we're exiting the thing on envy, who just had their eyes sewn shut. And so now Dante is getting this kind of catechesis on goods. But then there's also inexhaustible goods, which is a. Which is really, you know, a true common good. So a lot of times, particularly as moderns, if we talk about common good, a lot of times we're thinking about, like, oh, do we have, like, food and water and shelter? And like, they're just like basic necessities, and those are necessary but not sufficient because we're not cows. We don't. Like, you can't just shelter and have food and like, we're happy. And so there are then, particularly, like in the Church's tradition, inexhaustible common goods that you and I can both have, but they don't deplete. So, for instance, like, justice. So, for instance, like. Or we seek justice. You can have justice and I can have justice. And it's not a competitive good. It's something that we can both share in. And ultimately then, you know, you have true good and beautiful, and then ultimately you have the common good, which is God. We can all participate in God, have a relationship with him and receive his goodness. And it's not competitive with anyone else. So that's how I kind of read this kind of lecture on goods in this canto is he's trying to make a very particular distinction. Because to go back to what you said, and then I'll be quiet.
- [43:55]
B
No, I want you to also read the quotes too, because your point is so good. And Dante, I think words it really well, too well.
- [44:03]
A
One of the things that I think that we. Maybe not so much here, but in the Inferno, there's always a lot of struggle of, like, why is this sin punished more than the other one? Things like alchemy and thievery are really far down into hell. And like, heresy is up here, but schism is very deep. And like, what are we doing? And even like the seventh circle on violence, we have like, the tyrants. Okay, that makes sense. Then underneath them, right, we're gonna have suicide. And then things like usury, blasphemy, sodomy. Like, how are these things ordered at all? And I think that one. One really good take, or at least that I've. I've kind of found very hopeful. And Dante is. He's. He quietly also arranges them according to the harm that they cause the common good, that there's a deep political reaching in these as well. And so Prudlo at the University of Tulsa was helpful in kind of parsing this out, that when you see these sins that are like, why is this so far deep? A lot of times it has to deal with is, does this sin corrupt you particularly, or does it corrupt like the common good? And it makes basically a. It makes human society struggle based off the sin. Because the other thing too, that, that I think when I read the Inferno with a lot of guys that they struggle with, is that basically, you know, a lot of Catholic guys get together, we know that grace perfects nature, grace elevates nature. So clearly the corruption of the higher is the worst, right? So the higher the angel, the greater the demon. So if you. It would seem then if you strike out against, you know, something supernatural, something graced, it would be a greater sin. But over and over again in the Inferno, Dante puts things like simony, selling church offices as a lesser sin than selling temporal offices of the state. And you're like, what? How is that even remotely possible? And so one argument there is, is that it's a common good argument of how much does this actually harm and cause basically the Common good to be non functional. And since grace does build upon nature, if the nature becomes corrupted and broken, it won't work. And the other thing too is that grace can endure even corruption. So you have, you know, a bishop that's ordained because he bribed someone. Well, he's still a bishop. And that grace can endure and God can do things through him. You do that on the temporal side and you sell an office. There's no grace there to endure. It just becomes corrupted. So I found this really interesting. We can read some lines if you want. But as I meditated on this, I thought it was really interesting that he does it after the Envious, where we have very much a conversation about goods. And two, I think it's part of a larger conversation in Dante's mind about how the common good is kind of integrated into our vice and virtue.
- [46:57]
B
Yes, I think. I think you're actually really unpacking. I had not realized the difference between the grace element, where you talk about the simony and the temporal offices. I had not made that connection before. But at this point in the journey, if Dante's really ordering his poem, this is Canto 49 and 100. So he does want to start making some shifts towards you understanding how he's plotting this, you understanding what he's doing here. And that's why I think these lines are really important, as he's trying to say we have to transcend reason here. Whereas before our guide Virgil, like, reason was very helpful. And now there's going to be something that starts moving towards going beyond what's reasonable. So I was looking at lines like 61 through 79ish, kind of jumping around in there. If you want to read any of that, that kind of goes to your book. Yeah, he says, different version. So I don't want to read it.
- [47:57]
A
No, you're fine. He says, how can it be that goods divided among more owners could make them richer than if possessed by fewer people? And he to me, because of your. Because you fixed your mind on earthly things alone. You pluck the fruits of darkness from true light, the infinite ineffable good which is above, will race toward love like rays of light that comes as much. And I just got to keep reading because this next verse is pretty good. He says, and so the more up there intending love, the more there are who love aright, the more there is of loving mirrors reflecting one another, which, as I read this, one thing that actually occurs to me is here he's talking about the light and how there's like this refulgence that comes down and then it gets reflected. I really wonder if that's still. If this is the bookend to Virgil's opening prayer to the sun.
- [48:56]
B
Oh, interesting.
- [48:57]
A
Does that make sense? Because here you have it, like, in a supernatural way, where Virgil opened up as the main analog of the sun overall.
- [49:08]
B
Yeah. But it's also showing you. I mean, it really is. It's such a shift moment because, like, when you get to Canto 50, you almost have to imagine that these are encantos of a hundred. Right. And this is a big shift. And he's almost pointing you toward heaven, like the mirrors of souls that burn and reflect one another downward. I mean, that's what paradise is going to be structured like. So he's already kind of pointing you towards the end of this journey, but he's also explaining what you said a second ago is it's unreasonable to imagine that if you have something good and you share it with someone, you're going to have more of it. When you share, that's not a reasonable conclusion. You can't take a pie, cut out pieces of it, give those pieces away, and still have. Right. So there has to be something that's beyond reason for Dante to really get the vision that he needs.
- [49:57]
A
Yeah, very good. Okay, so moving a little bit Forward in Canto 15. So they're coming to the third terrace, the terrorist that is going to purge wrath from the soul. So anger itself is actually not a sin. We saw our Lord become angry, drive people out of the temple. But wrath, right? This, like, malicious anger is one of the deadly sins. So again, as you talked and you helped us understand there's a liturgy to this, there is a pattern, this kind of spiritual catechesis that we go through. And so what do we see here? Right at the beginning, we have these examples of the contrary virtue. So the first one is. We have. This is line. What is it? 88. My son, why have you acted thus toward us? Behold, your Father and I in sorrow have sought you, then turning silent, as she had done before she also vanished. So this is. I actually thought this was really interesting. So this is Mary and Joseph losing Jesus and later finding him in the temple. And Dante gives this as what? Example of. Of anger, but under control. Like, that's actually really fascinating to me. So Mary become angry at this. They don't sin in that anger. Just trying to understand, you know, where has their son gone?
- [51:21]
B
Yeah. And then again, going through the arts, that each of this is gonna be a different way of capturing your. We had the sculpture of pride. We had the oral reminders for envy. And now you have a scene of drama. You have a dramatic rendering in front of you, like a play.
- [51:35]
A
Because he's seeing these, right? He says, yep. Okay, so that's really fascinating. So this is moving through the senses. These are. Baxter calls these ecstatic visions.
- [51:45]
B
Yes. He says, I became dramatic.
- [51:49]
A
Yeah, that's fascinating. Okay, so we're moving. So these are being given to the penitent souls in different ways. That's fascinating. Then his other one, 94, another image was shown to me of one with sorrow, with drops of water on her cheeks, like those that come from great resentment. Who is this?
- [52:12]
B
Yeah, that's somebody I don't know. This is where the notes are really helpful when you get the pagan examples, because not all of us have the classical education Dante had.
- [52:20]
A
Right. So this is really interesting. So this is a story of a tyrant. So Dante Baxter has a note here that this tyrant of Athens, when a youth in love with a daughter of his came up to her in the street and kissed her, and his wife urged that he be put to death for this, replied, if we slay those who love us, what shall we do to those who hate us? So again, this. This so pagan example. But even a tyrant, it's funny that it comes from a tyrant that someone maybe who is prone to wrathful activity does happen to bridle that anger in a moment and say, okay, this. This dumb, imprudent youth kissed my daughter. Maybe we shouldn't have him killed in front of everybody.
- [53:07]
B
Yeah. And this is what I love about Dante is because you can find examples of good everywhere. Like, he doesn't demand that his examples of good come from only saints. Right. And you. Ha. It's almost like he's attuning us to just be looking everywhere for where goodness could be. Wherever the Lord is at work, it could be all sorts of places. I love that.
- [53:28]
A
Yeah. I think it. It opens up the soul also, as you mentioned earlier, to the human element. So let's say this guy's a tyrant. So even in the midst of being a tyrant, he can elect to act with virtue and be a model for virtuous living in this moment. So, yeah, I like it. You mentioned that earlier that the Purgatoria was a very human text, and I liked that a lot. Not only just because it's on, you know, Earth, which is symbolic of that, but this is the struggle. This is what we see. This is us trying. We're in the midst of this battle right now. We are the Church militant. We're trying to actually perfect ourselves. And again, we get a beautiful mapping.
- [54:11]
B
Yes. Yeah. And that's why Our Lady. I was gonna say that's why Our lady is the example. Right. So you could have Jesus being the example as the most human one, but Jesus is also divine. So it kind of clutters the picture a little bit for Dante. Whereas if he can stick with Mary as being the sinless, human one who pursued righteousness. Right. It gives him a different kind of example and model in Purgatorio. He'll uplift Jesus when we get into Paradiso. But I think it's a really good transition because the name of Jesus and Mary are never, you know, mentioned earlier until now. We have it in Purgatory.
- [54:46]
A
Yeah, that's right. They're never actually mentioned by name in the Inferno, which as kind of a note of piety. Yeah. And what. And that's maybe for those who aren't familiar with seeing Mary like that, you know, particularly in the Catholic tradition, the high Church traditions, Mary is often seen as, like, the disciple par excellence. Like, she followed our Lord. The last thing that she says in the Gospel, Right. Is do whatever he tells you to do. That's the last thing she says. She's with him at the cross. And so I think Dante's playing off that tradition, particularly. And then also, you know, one thing to think about there, too, is that the belief that the highest creature in all creation is now a woman. And there's this gentleness, I think, that comes out, like, as they're purging their sin, they're looking to Mary, the highest creature in all creation. Right. The Mother of God, to then see the gentleness in which she lived her life. And that kind of like, quiet but very strong virtue that she tends to exhibit. And he has to be pretty creative, actually, because I thought this was a pretty creative use of a Marian example of that anger. But it makes me somewhat feel better as a parent that you should get angry in such a scenario. I mean, it makes sense to me. Yeah. So, no, it's very good. Okay. So speaking of saints, our third example. And then I saw. This is 106. And then I saw people with hearts that burned to slay a youth with stones and frantically were shouting among themselves, kill him. Kill. And I watched as his head, already drooping toward the ground, then dropped in death. And yet he made his eyes two doors for heaven, and then he asked for pardon for his persecutors. And so this is St. Stephen.
- [56:30]
B
Yeah, it's so good. Because how do you respond all of us who raise children, the minute you ask a kid, okay, what did you do wrong here? When a kid, like, loses its temper, the kid will say, well, so and so. They'll start the story with, right, well, so and so did this. You know. And I'm like, no, no, no, that's not what I'm asking. I'm not asking, like, how they mistreated you and made you angry. Asking, like, how did you respond? And so it's great. Like, here. Steven would have every right in this moment to meet anger with anger, and he meets anger with martyrdom instead.
- [57:06]
A
What's up? Another fascinating thing here, if I read this correctly, is that Virgil does not see these.
- [57:13]
B
Oh, really?
- [57:14]
A
I think so. Let's see, let's see. If I read a correction, I'd have
- [57:16]
B
to look into it.
- [57:18]
A
It's 1:18. My leader watched me acting like a man who shakes off sleep, then said, what's wrong? Why can't you keep yourself together? You've walked half a league or more. Your eyes seem veiled. Your legs go crooked like one knocked over sleep or wine. Oh, my good father, if you'd but hear me, I tell you of the thing veiled to me. I said, well, my legs were stolen from me. And he. If you were wearing a hundred masks upon your face, not even that would hide your inner thoughts, however subtle. So it's interesting because remember, Virgil, throughout the Inferno, seems to be able to read Dante, the pilgrim's mind. So here I read this as he. He can read Dante's mind, but he doesn't see the visions.
- [58:02]
B
That's interesting. Yeah, I think that's.
- [58:04]
A
Because I think one thing that's. And I'm not sure if this dovetails into this or not, but one thing I'm still wrestling with is why Virgil is his guide. Still, because you kind of think, like, you know, okay, the second part, you get a new guide. Also, you'd get someone who's graced. You'd get someone that's actually going to go through this. Because unlike hell, there's several times Virgil in Purgatory is like, yeah, I have no idea where we gotta go. We gotta find someone to tell us, like, what's going on here. And he doesn't. I guess this is also similar to the Inferno, that then there are aspects that he can explain to a certain extent, but he can't. Full Christian understanding. So even when we talked about common goods, one thing there that we didn't mention was, was that at the end of that, he says, oh, and by the way, you're going to have to talk to Beatrice about this.
- [58:51]
B
Yes, right.
- [58:53]
A
So there has to be this grace. Like, wait, how does this happen actually in a, you know, Christian context? So I, Yeah, I just. It's a small note, but it's something that I've been thinking about because I still have not settled on Virgil's role. And Virgil's story, by the way, which I guess for first time readers, I don't want to give away Virgil's story throughout the Purgatory, I still actually think is one of the most, I don't know, gut wrenching stories in the whole comedy. I mean, I can still remember. It's one of the things that stood out to me the most when I read the Purgatory the first time. Wasn't that thrilled with it overall, but the story of Virgil and how his story ends in the Purgatory was one that just gut punched me. So I'm just still wrestling with it.
- [59:35]
B
I love that you're asking this question because I haven't reflected enough on it recently. And I think it's a really good point. And I also think it lines up very well with education. Like, what is the point of the journey of Purgatory? It's to become free. Right. And so along the way, it's the liberal arts that Virgil is training him in towards freedom. And so it's not to become a Christian is the end of Purgatory. It's just a return to Eden. It's just to become human again. And, and so it makes sense, like why you have Cato at the start versus like a Christian saint opening the door to Purgatory. Like purgatory is accessible to everyone. Everyone. Right. Like, I mean, as far as I think the metaphor he's using is he's trying to say you can all become human again. Like there is a way to become human again. Right. That's a smaller goal. But when you get into paradise, it'll be, what does it mean to be sanctified? And that becomes like, Virgil can't take him there. But the classical authors, the classical examples can help us become more human.
- [60:42]
A
Which then is an antecedent to the faith. Right? The pursuit, one of the things that's. Yeah, because again, that goes back to that. Grace perfects nature. And so the nature of then serves as a forerunner, as an appetizer to understanding grace the pagans. In a lot of way, that's not how a lot of people see the pagans today, but a Lot of ways, the pagans are that antecedent to the Christian imagination, and then Christianity builds on top of that, just like grace builds on top of your. Of your soul. And I think that's one of the things, too, that we've kind of discussed on the podcast as a. As a moral read, something I think that's very important in Christianity, that in pursuing God and pursuing Jesus Christ, two things happen. Well, many things happen, but two things that maybe are not always apparent. One, you actually become more human. Right. So a lot of times it's. It's. You become less of something, but not only do you, one, become more human, you become two. More of yourself.
- [61:37]
B
Yes.
- [61:38]
A
Right. So Jessica becomes more Jessica the more that she pursues Jesus Christ. And that is not always the case in religion. So a lot of times there's the emptying, but there's never the filling back up. And so you come to know yourself more. Right. I think about the line in first Alcibiades, it's a gloss. But where God is the greatest mirror of the soul, you come to see yourself as you should see yourself in God, and He knows you. And then Christianity, you know, there's even an intimacy there in which God, you know, knows your name. Right. You know, he gives you that white stone in Revelation. So there's an intimacy there that you become more of yourself, and that's not always the case. And I think that's something really important to understand as we're kind of going through this journey, as we're ascending up the mountain. And I like what you say is that it's a human journey in a way that I don't know if we always appreciate.
- [62:26]
B
Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. And even the eyesight that you need to become human is a different eyesight or a different lens than the one it takes to become like God. Right. So there are two different stages of discipleship that I think Dante's getting at.
- [62:42]
A
Okay, very good. What should we. Anything else that we need to kind of pluck out of Kanto 15?
- [62:49]
B
No, but I was gonna say we've
- [62:53]
A
been trying to get to Kanto 16 for an hour, and we're finally here. Okay, let's go to Kanto 16. Okay. So why is Kanto 16 important? Like, what's going on? Is it important to the comedy? Like, why have we been trying to get here?
- [63:08]
B
Yeah. So it is by far the most important Kanto in the entire Divine Comedy. And maybe, you know, maybe second to Canto 100. Right. Or Canto 1. So those the. The bookends are, of course, the alpha Omega of the Divine Comedy is really important, but this midpoint becomes crucial because in some ways it offers a key that unlocks a lot of the riddles in the text. And this midway point, as Dante's journey shifts, you really get an understanding of what it is that he's doing overall. He's trying to, as Marco, you know, will show him how to do, or mark the Lombard, whatever your text says. But as he'll. This dialogue will unveil, he's trying to become free. And, and this becomes. Once you start realizing the language of freedom is really the. The key that unlocks our access to discipleship. Right. You're free in Christ. This freedom becomes kind of the watchword for, I think, the next 50 Kantos. Right, but definitely, definitely here.
- [64:19]
A
Okay, can you help us with that a little bit? Because, turn, I'm a little worried because when we say freedom as modern, like America, like this, this means something like, very different. Right? Like land of the free. When you say freedom, which is aligning then tethering to, like when Dante says, says freedom, what does that actually mean?
- [64:42]
B
So, yes, that's really good. So he is talking about a freedom in Christ. And he begins, of course, Kantos 1 through 49. The kind of freedom that you're discussing, like when you're going through Inferno, it's the shackles that are dehumanizing to the person. And once you're freed from those at the beginning of Purgatory, you realize that in a lot of ways, your imagination or your reason was still accustomed to kind of being shackled. Even once you're freed from Inferno. Right. Like, even once he begins this journey and has confessed his sin, he has all these habits that are keeping him unliberated. And it's those habits that a lot of times we say, oh, we're free to do whatever we want, meaning free to sin. And he's saying that kind of license is actually not freeing. Right. You become enslaved, and you don't even know it. You're in. You know, you're enslaved to your habits, and you're enslaved to bad desires, enslaved to becoming less of yourself, to becoming less of a human being. And so the freedom that Dante is talking about is a freedom in which your. Your will will match God's so entirely by the end of this journey that he'll be free to love what is completely worth loving, has not been able to for this journey. So that. That's the freedom that he's moving towards is. Is really A freedom to love.
- [66:08]
A
Well, and that dovetails in so. Well, to your comments about the liberal arts. Why are they. Why are they called liberal? Like, we. We've had to do this catechesis in our own diocese, you know, as we launch schools that have the liberal arts. Like, why liberal? Like, why. Why. Why would we have liberal arts? It's like, hey, well, it's not liberal like Rush Limbaugh. Like, we have to, like, play this out, that word underneath it, right? That liberty. So that true liberty of the soul, that it's actually going to free your soul, you know, from its own passions. You'll be. You'll actually govern your own soul. You won't be a slave to your lower appetites, and you'll be free then to contemplate the true good and beautiful. Right. There's this true inner freedom, which I think dovetails well, your comments on liberal arts. It dovetails well to the freedom that I think we're seeing here in Dante, to just reiterate. Yeah. We tend to see freedom as, like, a plurality of choice. So, like, the more free I am, the more choices I have, regardless of whether those choices are good or bad. Right. So this is typically how I think freedom is used. One of the problems with modernity is our grammar. So we use the same words that the ancients used, but we've completely gutted them of their meaning. And one of them is definitely freedom and liberty and these kind of, you know, free will and et cetera. And so the idea then, that freedom is actually given to you as a faculty to choose the good. It's not about choosing, like, good over sin. It's actually choosing good amongst goods. That's actually what it's there for. How do I actually choose amongst the plurality of goods? You know, the goods exist in hierarchy. You know, even if you're avoiding sin, you have a million decisions to make about how you live your life and what vocation is, et cetera. That's what freedom is that we pursue. So, no, I appreciate you parsing that out for us. So help me understand, though, like, okay, so, great, so this is the 50th Canto. It's the middle of the text. You already helped us see that Dante is playing with these types of structures. So how does freedom then become like a dominative theme? Or. Why would Dante the poet reserve this subject for this canto?
- [68:15]
B
Well, let's look at his conversation with Marco. Okay, so we're entering into the profoundest darkness. And as we mentioned when we were looking at the envious the eyes sutured shut was a way of them learning to desire the bountiful light. So it is similar here that rather than see by your own eyes, which can be prohibitive actually, right? Because you don't know what goods to choose or how to choose them. Well, so here we have the darkness that is training them. It becomes the contrapasso, so that they can desire something better, right? They can desire the light, see the light, and he is actually experiencing this with them in a way that he didn't have his eyes sutured shut earlier, but he is in this darkness with them. So he enters this realm of darkness, and he meets a man named Marco the Lombard or Mark the Lombard. And as he does in every cond. You know, every time he meets somebody, he wants to ask a question, right? But this becomes Dante's big question, I think that defines the entire Divine Comedy is the question that he asks here. So I don't know how Baxter's reading is of it, but it begins for me through 62 or 63, right there. So do you want to read his question? Yeah.
- [69:37]
A
Yeah. He says the world is now a desert. It's barren of every virtue, as you have claimed, but also overgrown and covered in malice. But please, I pray you, tell me why, so I can see. I'll make it known to others. So blame the heavens, others, things below. Then he says, deep sighs emerged, squeezed out by sorrow into O. And then said, brother, the world is blind. It's clear you've come from it. You living souls attribute blame to the heavens for every single thing, as if all things arise from necessity. If that were the case, indeed, free will would be destroyed in you. No justice in gaining joy for good or grief for evil.
- [70:27]
B
Yeah. So in the question, the way that he forms this question is key, right? The world we live in is deserted of all the virtues, and vices run wild. So this is. This is Purgatorio. It has. Every realm has begun with virtues and has ended by showing you vices. And if you're not able to know what the virtues and the vices are, how then are you going to practice or love the good? So Dante starts with this question, and then he says, but what is the cause? Right? What is. I mean, it's to simplify it. What's wrong with the world? Why is there no virtue and tons of vice? Can you just answer me the biggest question of all? Which is, what is wrong with the world and how has it been caused? Like, that's. That is the whole question of the Divine Comedy. And so he's been asking all these other creatures and all these other people these things, but this is like the big question. And I love that Mark, Mark of the Lombard is, is still in wrath. He's a penitent, so you notice that he is like, oh, you know, he gets this question. So he's not quite over his frustration at other people. But you know, okay, my buddy starts with my brother, just like we did in nb. The world is blind and you're obviously from there. Right? It's an insult right away. It's a big sigh. But at the same time, it's such a key reminder to all of us reading, we do not see things as they are. The entire Divine Comedy is retraining our imagination to see things at right rather than the blindness by which we're guided. And so then he starts analyzing Dante's question. Like you would say it's this or this, because you don't know. You don't have enough reasons to supply your answers. And that at the center of all of this, if you look at what he's talking about, he says free will three times in this small dialogue between line 70 and 81. And you're not going to see it as much in the English, but in the Italian you'll see libero, libero, liberi. He's repeating it again and again. Free, free. And the final phrase that he has in 83, he says, if you want to know 82 and 83, what is wrong with the world, look at yourself, because in you is the cause. I don't know how Jason renders it, but that's essentially what in a la cajione in voici kea in you is the reason for this. Right. That's a big statement to put right in the middle of the Divine Comedy. You want to know what's wrong with the world.
- [73:17]
A
Dr. Baxter translates it. Line 82. So if the present world has gone astray, it's you who are the reason. Look at yourselves. But let me scout this out for you.
- [73:29]
B
Yeah, yeah. This is, this is Mary Jo Bang. I'm just going to read a few translations because it's such a good line. If the contemporary world deviates the causes yourself, you have to question yourself. And I'll be standing by like a truth telling spy, which I like that phrase. Right. I'm going to decide whether you're actually going to learn to speak the truth to yourself. Like, can you even see that you are the problem? And a lot of times when I teach this section, I quote G.K. chesterton, who an editor wrote him that letter that said, what is wrong with the world? And he wrote back, I am right. And then signed his name. So. But I think that that is the truth. Right. Dante has to get us to the point. And I don't think we could have recognized this truth earlier in our reading. But by the time you get to 50, if you don't cause of the wrong in the world and the problem is still out there, like it was with Francesca. Right. Or the problem is still other people's sin and it's not you, you're not gonna be able to understand the rest of the Divine Comedy. Like, he has to take you to this moment where you look at yourself and it's very pointed in the way he. In the middle.
- [74:40]
A
That's pretty good. I appreciate you. I did not have an appreciation for this being in the middle of the Divine Comedy. So I really appreciate you leaning into that and then asking, why would Dante, the poet, like, what's he going to focus on in this? That makes it even more fascinating to me because in my mind, or at least how I read, this is the free will is the first of three things that he talks about. So you have the free will. Then he talks about laws at 94. And so you need the laws for pulling in the reins. You need a king who has observed at least those towers of the true but distant city. So this goes into, like, if you think of St. Thomas Aquinas, where you have your interior motion, like your free will, but then you have exterior things that can help guide you as well. And one of those is the law. The law can come alongside you. It's an ordinance of reason. So if you decide not to act rationally, hopefully the law can kind of help. You know, shepherd, you belong to what you need. So why this really caught my attention is. And I. I'm really. I really want to meditate more on the fact that he's put this in his 50th Canto. He gives probably one of his clearest critiques of politics. And this is. And that's really fascinating because it's just coming off the prior canto, talking about the common good. Yeah, these two things seem deeply tethered to me. So let me. Let me read this because I think this is important. So this is 106. It says, can you go back?
- [76:18]
B
Go back to 103 and then go. And then. Because it's. All of that is about the bad leadership that you're about to read. So 103 through like 110.
- [76:26]
A
So he says, can you now see that this evil guidance and thus the reason that the world's evil, it's not that nature has become corrupt in you. Rome, who made the world good, once had two sons, which helped us to see the first and second, the world's and that of God. But now one son has put the other out, and sword is joined to crook, the two are forced together, ill suited they go along, but poorly matched, because combined, the one won't fear the other. Okay, so let me just try and play this out and let me about where I think he's going with this, because it's such a. This is, in my opinion, this is an incredibly alien concept to us as moderns. I mean, we are democratic, we are liberals, broadly speaking. Like, all of our stuff is downstream from that. Dante's not a liberal. And so what is he talking about here? So the Church's traditional political teaching was called duo sunt. There are two. And Pope Gelasius in the four hundreds, writes the emperor, and he explains this, and that's where that term from comes. That term comes from. He says there are two. And he explains that our Lord has given humanity two powers. There is the temporal power, which is held by the Caesar, and then there's the spiritual power that is held by the Pope. What's interesting is, is that both of them are held by the Church. So it's. This is. There's a wonderful book called Before Church and State by Andrew Willard Jones, which is a. It's his PhD thesis on King Louis IX's kingdom about how did politics actually work, you know, prior to liberalism. And really, honestly, just the introduction is very much worth reading because one of the things like his title says, is that church and state are modern concepts. So if you look at Pope Gelasius letter in the 400s, both of these powers are held by the Church because the temporal power, the laity are baptized. So it's not correct to speak of church and state because they're also part of the Church. So it's how it's spoken of as temporal power and spiritual power. So throughout history, then, there's many different ways that this is expressed. Pope Boniface viii, who Dante really does not like, wrote an encyclical on this in which he talked about them as two swords. The Church holds two swords. There's other documents from like papal nuncios, et cetera, that talk about it as the two lights, like the sun and the moon, and that they guide you. So the Whole image here was that what Providence ordained was that man basically has again, both nature and grace. He's going to have both politics and the ecclesial, right, what we would call the Church, because he's both body and soul. He's. Everything comes together in these two things. So what God has done in his providence is he gave us a leader in both. From the temporal side, he gave you a Caesar. On the spiritual side, he gave you the Pope. So these are the two sons, right? Like sun in the sky, these are the two sons that then come out of Rome. Now he says two sons here. I've seen it elsewhere in writings where it's a sun and a moon. But regardless, this is how man's life is illuminated. And there's two roads, so one spiritual, one natural, one the world's and ones of God's. But they're both inside the Church. Like, he doesn't mean that as like antagonistic. Like, it's not like John's use of the term the world, if that makes sense. So what's happened, though, is. And this is what I think breaks Dante's heart, and he mentions it all the time, right, Is that Italy is no longer. There is no. Well, there is Caesars and they come up and whatever. We saw that in the last one, like, you know, that they don't come back down and they're never crowned. And what happens, Italy is constantly fractured. It's this atomized collections of kingdoms and republics and you're just. They're slaughtering each other and viciousness reigns and etc. And he wants this Caesar, he wants a temporal power to come in and bring peace. Well, one of the problems is, is that when there's not. What we saw in the Middle Ages is that when that temporal power is weak or not present, then the other power tends to pick up that gap, right? Or illuminate that darkness, which in certain points is great. So the Church has, you know, sometimes when society and empires collapse, the Church has survived and provided some type of structure. By the time you get to Boniface viii, we've got Papal States, we've got Pope's leading armies, we've got all kinds of things of them taking in that. And that's what he means by the sword is now joined to the crook, right? So now the sword, the temporal power, has been joined to the shepherd staff. And we need to separate these because I think it's really easy to go wrong. And I'm not saying I'm an expert. And please push back. I think it's really easy to go wrong on Dante's politics because he'll critique the Pope a lot, and people are like, oh, look, he doesn't like the papacy. No, he wants the Pope to go be a pope. That's the problem's trying to be a pope and emperor. And then he'll chastise people that were supposed to be the emperor but aren't doing their job. And then there's like another layer where he's like, well, I do want the pope and emperor, but by the way, I also believe in subsidiarity, and I really don't want you guys for it there. So I think it's really, you know, that he roots all of this in this 50th Canto and provides this vision of how should man actually be illuminated in his earthly pilgrimage.
- [82:09]
B
Yeah, And. And definitely, like, for Dante, it's. It begins with your elf, as. As it should. But it's almost. What he's saying is like, it's impossible to be good by yourself. So you. Right, so you begin with yourself, but then what if all the laws around you are bad? What if the leaders around you are bad? What if the church, like, how are you going to be good all by yourself? You can't. And so Marco doesn't leave it with just look at yourself. He then unpacks everything you just said. And by the time we get to Canto 27, Virgil will say, lord of yourself, I crown and miter you. And he brings these two authorities that are poorly done in the temporal space, right. In the world of Italy during the 14th century. And he puts them on Dante right to that his will is most free now that he has been crowned and mitered himself within this. This community. So, yeah, that's why it's so crucial for. For us to get at what Margo is saying in Canto 50. It's the clearest sermon that Dante has about what's wrong with the world.
- [83:16]
A
But, Dr. Jessica Houghton Wilson, I know you have to run, so I deeply appreciate you being with us today and guiding us through this. I know people can find more about you. Pepperdine, you're on X. You've got books out that are very good. I just wanted to let you know that I deeply appreciate you being with us and guiding us through these Cantos.
- [83:36]
B
Yeah, I love it. Please have me back on when you're doing something else. I enjoy talking about the great books, and hopefully people get to finish Canto 17 and you still lead them through it. So.
- [83:44]
A
Okay, very good. Well, thank you again. We really appreciate it.
- [83:47]
B
Yep. Blessings.
- [83:49]
A
Okay. Dr. Jessica Houghton Wilson had to leave. We appreciate all of her time and attention and guiding us through these cantos. So let's just make sure we have a good overall picture of wrath and then move in quickly in Canto 17, because we have to understand the structure of the mountain of Purgatory. So we're halfway through and we get this example of how is this mountain actually structured? So a very important part in the text. But if we look at wrath overall, what have we seen? Well, it's the third terrace. They're punishing or being purged of wrath. They're blinded by the smoke. Just as their souls were blinded by wrath on earth, so now they're blinded by this thick smoke. Then they'll have to learn how to bridle, how to temper their anger, to dissipate that smoke so they can actually see. And you'll see the analogs there, because the eyes again represent the intellect. So your wrath, you see red. The wrath overcomes your intellect. And so these penitents that are in this dark cloud have to learn how to see, how to mitigate that wrath around them. We saw the examples of the contrary virtue, which here is like a gentleness, it's a meekness. We saw Mary as Mary, and again Christ in the temple. We saw the example of the tyrant who did not kill the young man who kissed his daughter. And then we saw St Stephen, the Christian example of how he prays for his persecutors, even in the midst of his own persecution. Then we get the examples of the vices. Where do we see wrath, people giving over to wrath? The first one is a pagan example of a woman who killed her own son in order to punish her husband for attacking her sister. So she, in her wrath against her husband, she kills her own son. That kicks in at line 19. Then on line 25, we have the story of Haman, which you might remember from the book of Esther, in which he ends up hating Mordecai so much that he's going to have the Jews killed, and Mordecai will be hung on the gallows. And obviously, Haman's conspiracies, through the workings of Esther, fall upon himself. And he has killed on the gallows that he built for Mordecai. So he allowed his wrath to overtake him, and then he was given over to that wrath and died in a way that he designed for another. And then our third example in line 34 of the mother who in her wrath hangs herself. A story from The Aeneid. And as we mentioned earlier, each terrace has a beatitude and a prayer. So on the third terrace, dealing with wrath, the prayer is the Angus dei, the Lamb of God. Think about it. A lamb, it's meek, it's contrary to wrath. If you go back in the Canto, you'll see that our Lord is called Lamb a few times. It has that motif, because meekness, then is that contrary virtue to wrath. We'll get the Guardian, which is the angel of peace, and then the Beatitude is blessed are the peacemakers. Because, again, just to mention, anger is not a sin. Anger is part of that thematic part of the soul that the spirited part that allows you to do something difficult, to overcome, something that's arduous for the sake of a good. Sometimes, like our Lord cleansing the temple, anger is not a sin. But wrath, something not tempered by reason, and anger that clouds the eyes of the mind, is a sin. Okay, so we end canto 17 just like a quick lesson on how is the mountain of Purgatory structured? So this is something that we can't skip. We have to talk about it. So, pulling from our notes, we have a whole guide to Dante's Purgatorio. So how is Purgatory structured? Well, we already seen that there is the anti purgatory, like an antechamber, and these are all the late repentants and also the negligent rulers. They're at the foot of the mountain. Then we have what's called lower Purgatory. These are the first three terraces of the souls. And now we've seen them all. This is pride, envy and wrath. These are misdirected loves. These are loves that are completely misdirected, and therefore it causes the soul to go into some type of deep disorder. So in pride there's a love of the self, in envy there's a love of the goods. And in wrath, there would be some love of an object or a person or something. But in that love that moves us, we allow that anger to overcome our intellect. So the first three terraces of the mountain of Purgatory are a misdirected love. Then there is a middle terrace. The middle terrace is going to be an insufficient love, a deficient love. And this is one of my favorite terraces in the entire Purgatorio, one where he gives a speech that I think is incredibly important, in which he's going to purge sloth, acadia, the cooling of love. So this is where the sin is that there's deficient love, there is not enough love. So we go from misdirected love to not enough love. Then the top three terraces on Mount Purgatory are an excessive love, and these are avarice. So that would be loving money, gluttony, loving food, and the very top would be lust, loving the body. These are excessive loves because they're all goods. Food, money, sex. These things are not evil per se, they are goods. But the love that's directed to them is excessive. It dominates and again moves the soul away from virtue, from harmony, from being well reasoned. And so I just wanted to sketch that out for you real fast because I think it's incredibly important. As we're journeying through the Purgatorio, you might remember that Virgil does this about halfway through the Inferno as well. We finally start to understand the structure. So as we look at Purgatory, we're first going to be dealing with those loves that are misdirected, the first three terraces of pride, envy and wrath. Then we're going to have the deficient love, that one terrace in the middle of the Seven Deadly Sins, which is a sadia, a slothfulness, a cooling of the love, and one of my favorite speeches that Virgil gives in the entire Purgatorio. And then the top three terraces are going to be then the excessive love, where a love was given to a good in a disproportionate manner. So we'll have avarice, then gluttony, and then lust. And again, Dante the poet is offering you a catechetical image, as these are moving from the most severe sins, those that are less like love, being absorbed into yourself. Pride is contrary to then the love that we give to others. As we move up, the severity of the sins becomes less. Where you get to lust at the top, which is then the closest to love itself, but is given in an excessive way. Now, some people stumble over that. So I want to make a distinction between the fact that the severity of the sin and how many people fall into the sin or how prevalent it is in the culture are two different questions. We saw this in the Inferno, where lust was one of the lesser sins as we moved into the Inferno. But then a lot of people would couple that with, say, Our lady of Fatima's comment that more people go to hell for sins of the flesh than any other reason. Those both can be true simultaneously because they're discussing two different things. All right, so I appreciate your patience as we work through these Cantos this week. Hopefully you enjoyed the conversation I had with Dr. Jessica Houghton Wilson. She is always awesome. Go check her out on X and her website also at Pepperdine. She's always got good things going on. Next week, we welcome Dr. Sarah Berry from the University of Dallas to come and discuss Avarice and prodigality. That's Cantos 18 through 22. I appreciate you all. I appreciate you so much. I appreciate all the support you give for the podcast. I hope this reading, this Lent is very beneficial for you in your spiritual growth. May you become more beautiful as Christ is beautiful. Go check us out on X, Facebook and our Patreon page, also on YouTube. And I will see you next week. Thank you again.