Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #29 - Dante's Divine Comedy and the Liberation of the Human Imagination

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #29 - Dante's Divine Comedy and the Liberation of the Human Imagination

Okay, good morning. So today we do Dante. And Dante really is the height of civilization. It does not get better than Dante. I've taught Dante for three years now. This is my third time teaching Dante. What's amazing about it is that all students love Dante. But also, each of my teach Dante, I'm able to discover new insights about Dante that I didn't really. Dante that I didn't realize before. 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 beauty. So we will spend two classes on Dante today and next Tuesday and this will end the first semester.

Dante is extremely complicated. I can only 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 poetry is called the Comedia. The Comedy.

It's not called the Divine Comedy. Divine Comedy is something that we call it later on. He first referred to it as the Comedia. Why is it called the comedy? Well, because in writing epics, there are two styles. There's the tragic or high and there's a comic or low. Tragic high means that it usually deals with gods and kings and it's written in extremely sophisticated style. Comic low means that it deals with ordinary people and

written in a common vernacular. At this period in European history, this is the year 1308 to 1321. Those are the 13 years that he spends writing the comedy, and he will die after he finishes it. At this point in European history, the high language is Latin. What Donnie does, which is very interesting, is he chooses to write it in Tuscan. And this is, of course, the 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. So in today in Italy they speak the Tuscan dialect of the language. The Divine Comedy, it is an epic, divided into three structures. Dante goes on a spiritual journey into the cosmos in order to seek truth, to seek God. He starts off with a midlife crisis, and so he has a guy named Virchal who takes him through infernal. and then they go to purgatory and then he goes to paradise paradise has happened, inferno is hell

and purgatory is the land, the mountain in between the inferno and paradise today we will look at the very ending of the divine comedy Canto 33 and I want to set up the poem gives some context and some background.

Dante is in paradise, and he's trying to figure out the spiritual truth underlying the universe. And then as he goes on this journey, he concludes this journey by meaning God. But the problem of 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 is surrounded by 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, as well as Rachel and Leah, who we learned about when we did the Hebrew Bible. And they have absolutely no idea who God is either. Okay?

There is a place called the Iperium. And Dante is being guided by a man named Bernard, an angel. Okay, St. 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.

And at the very center is Mary. What is amazing about divine harmony 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, ask yourself this question. Is it a great miracle that a God could come to earth and die for our sins? Or is it a great 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 bewildering. And that's what happens during the Divine Comedy. There are two literary devices. devices that Donde will use throughout the divine comedy. The first is the idea of paradox. Think a paradox as a puzzle. 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. The divine comedy, it is mathematically precise. It is brilliant. There's a hundred cantos and there's so much mathematics within the divine comedy. So to use a metaphor, you can see the vincominy 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 vicarity, you are, you become infralled 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 to unravel these paradoxes and create a new truth of the universe. And so we are talking about the creation for the divine comedy of a new,

mind for humanity. If Homer was the father of Greek civilization, then Dante is the father of modern European civilization. And the reason why is the divine comedy, because it is a jigsawker puzzle 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 Cynic Revolution. I will show you today why that's the case. How implanted

or imprinted in the poetry are the seeds of these three major revolutions. All right. Okay. Any questions so far? Before I, before we, we look at Divine Comedy. All right. Doug, could you, okay. So, first thing to know about 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 poet okay so this is Ezekiel which is one the earliest books of the Hebrew Bible and this really starts the tradition and so what happens is Ezekiel he is an 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 in his mouth says eat it and he eats it and he turns 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.

Okay? He said to me, this is God, Yahweh. O mortal, eat what is offered to you. Eat the scroll and go. Speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth and he gave me the scroll to eat. In my mouth, it was as sweet as honey. Okay? So this is the idea of the apicala tradition.

What Dante will do is completely overturn this tradition. Okay? Okay. Okay. Yeah. Next slide. All right. So before we look at Divine Comedy, let's review Augustine. Because as we discussed previously, Augustine, the city of God, is what starts the dark ages, right? Because of the way that the world is presented. So 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 stand of man and not by the sin of God, he is like the devil. 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 a start of the evil will? And the idea here is, if left our own devices, we will strive to be like God. Pride in the city of God is used almost synonymously like the word eagle, okay? basically who we are. We humans are born proud and will strive for Godhood if we are allowed to.

Third is, his was a venial 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, why did he eat the fruit? Because he did he want to abandon Eve. Therefore, love is sin. 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, it's falling away from its true being is due to its creation out of nothing. It's 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 say we see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love the earthly city was created 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.

Okay, this is a hard idea I didn't 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. 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. Our emotions will all be dissipated. Therefore, we will be perfect. And what will we be left are to enjoy, and feelingly the delight 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. 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. Okay?

So let's go to Dante. And remember, Dante will be a rebuttal to all these ideas. All right. So this is the Imperium, 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 does all the other angels around him.

And the reason why is, if God is omniscient and omnipresent, if he knows everything and he is everywhere, then God, by definition, lacks an imagination. Okay, this is hard. I didn't understand, but I'll explain it, okay? God does not know who he is because he lacks an imagination. All right. So what's happening is this.

Bernard and Dante are together and they're stirring at Mary. Because Bernard will invoke the love of Mary to empower Dante to see God. Okay. So he's trying to channel Mary's energy to empower Dante. And not only is Bernard doing this, but everyone. The entire heaven is praying to Mary to empower Dante. Okay? All right. Virgin mother, daughter of your son, more humble and sublime than any creature, fakes gold decreed from all eternity. You are the one who gave to human nature so much nobility

that its creator did not disdain for his being made its creature. Okay, right away, what you will see in the divine comedy is paradox after paradox. Virgin mother is a paradox, right? a mother who gives birth without having sex. The daughter of your son is a paradox. A creature from its creator is also a paradox. And you'll see this in divine comedy all the time, these paradoxes. Then this is the paradox, okay? You are the one who gave to human nature so much nobility

that its creator did not sustain 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 redeem ourselves from our sin. And how to explain Mary, right? Mary gave birth to Jesus. If Mary had sin, then God has sin in him. How to explain that? Well, the one explanation is Mary gave birth about sin.

Therefore, she cleanses 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 Donnie said. Love is about sin. Love cannot have sin. No, I mean, you hear there and you're like,

no, that doesn't make any sense. Let's just say that I love this woman, okay? 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 her bank, right? That's love, right? What Donne 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 won't even 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 Donnie 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 herself from sin through sheer will power, through love. Okay, let's continue. All right. This man, this is Dante, of course, who from the deepest hollow in the universe, he gave him hell, okay? Up to this height has seen the lives of spirits one by one, now please, okay?

He's been on this amazing spiritual journey. He's seen everyone. 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 at this phrase, vision higher still. Okay. 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. All right? Next one, please. Thank you. And I, who never burned for my own vision more than I burned for Heirs. 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, a mortal 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 Donne would have, his manuscript would have been burned, okay? This is a revolutionary idea. Do offer you all my prayers and pray that they may, not fall short, that with your prayers, you may disparage all the clouds of his mortality so that the highest joy be his to see. The clouds of his mortality basically means his fear, his doubt.

There's two, O Queen, who can do what you would, I ask of you, that after such a vision, his sentiments preserved their perseverance. Preserve the perseverance just means he's able to remember what he saw. 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 this

story becomes your memory. Okay. So 800 years before, Donnie knew our neuroscience, how our grain actually works. Next slide, please. Thank you. And I was now narrowing him, who is the end of desires as I ought, lived my longing towards ardent limit. Okay? Now Donnie's 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 and then speech can show. At such a sight, it fails, and memory fails when faced with such excess. He is, he's being blinded, okay?

His mind is being blown apart. He does not know what he's seen. It is so vast. It is so beautiful. It's so powerful that he's being blinded. Okay? Okay. Next slide, please. And as profoundingly I saw in gather and bound by love into one single volume. What in the universe seemed separate, scattered, substances, accidents, and dispositions as it can join in such a way that what I tell is only rudimentary. What he's seeing is this. He's seen 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. Donny is experiencing God as the universe before the Big Bang. He's seeing how everything is connected. But he's immortal. He cannot connect all the pieces. He doesn't not know what he's seen. He just knows what he's seeing is so vast and interconnected.

Okay? All right. Any questions so far? Are we clear about what's happening? Keep on going? So is my mind completely wrapped, intent, steadfast, and motionless, gazing, and it would get whoever more in kindled 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 for other sight. Because the good, the object of the will, is fully gathered in that light. Outside that light, what there is perfect is defective. God is good. Very goodness, okay, is in God. So think back to Plato. Goodness, it's 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 babes at the breast. Okay, so this is complicated, okay? 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 sitting by himself trying to write down what he saw. He spent the past 10, 20 years writing the divine calm to share with the world the truth of God. And so it's not

that experience, okay? That is now gone. It is now his imagination of that experience. All right? And not because more than one simple simplence was a living light at which I gaze, for it is always what it was before. But through my sight, which as I gaze grew stronger, that so appearance, even as I altered,

seemed to be changing in the deep and bright. Okay, can you continue please? Essence of that exalted light. Three circles appeared to me. They had three different colors, but all of them were of the same dimension. Okay, so he spent 20 years trying to figure out what he saw. And now he's able to slowly put the jigsaw 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 that the very essence of the universe. The very foundation of the universe is the holy trinity. Okay? One circle seemed reflected by the second, as rainbow is by rainbow. and a third seemed fire, breathed equally by those two circles. Separate but equal.

These are separate, or 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, to call it little is too much. He's figured out. Next one, please. But he keeps on looking. What does he see? Eternal light, you only dwell within yourself, and only you know you.

self-knowing, self-known, you love and smile upon yourself. That circle, which begone and soul, appeared in you as light reflected. When my eyes had to watch it with attention for some time, within itself, and colored like it in itself, to me seemed painted with our effigy, effigy, so that my sight was set on it completely. There's a problem here. Effigy means a mirror image. Okay? 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? 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, right? That's what Augustine told us. Keep on going?

As a geometer intently seeks to square the circle, if you want to know where the phrase square the circle comes from, it comes from this, okay? 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 what's going on. So I search that strange sight. I wish you see the way in which our human efforts through the circle and found place in it. How is it we are in God? What is going on here? 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 it 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. Okay, and this is it. Here, force failed my high fantasy, but my design will were moved already, like a wheel revolving uniformly by the love that moves the sun and the other stars. Uh-oh. This is the ending, guys. He doesn't tell us anything. He doesn't tell us what he saw. Okay. We speak. I don't know, years reaching this point and Don 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 think out for yourself.

This thing only works if you spend the time putting the pieces together. And it's a lifetime journey. Dona has spent 20 years doing this. So I encourage you all to go on this journey. But you don't want, this journey is way too long. So I'll give you the my version of the J-Saw puzzle answer today. It may not be the best answer, it may not even be the right answer,

but it is an answer, okay, to what Zawne 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. All right. 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, 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 family. So Beatrice was betrothed to someone of her social status.

And she died when she was 24 giving birth. birth. Dante never forgot about her. She wrote poetry after poetry reminiscing about her, celebrating her. He wrote divine comedy for her. And to

basically pay him back. She invited to visit him in heaven, okay? So now they're in heaven. And you would think like, okay, they don't have in, they love each other. They can do whatever they want. Maybe they'll 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 do the stars work? How does the moon work? Okay. So, this is what Beecher says to Dante. Direct your mind to God in gratefulness. said, Beatrice, he has brought us to the first star, which is the moon, okay? 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, okay, the first thing he does is, hey, I want to ask you a question.

What are the dark marks on this planet's body? Okay. Why is, where are the dark marks on the moon? Next slide, please. 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 Donnie answers, what seems to us diverse up here is caused, I think, by matter dense and rare. What does he mean by this? Let me explain. What he's saying is this?

The moon has parts that are dense and rear. Dense just means there's lots of rocks, okay? Rear means like there's an opening. So light will pass through what is rear, what is hollow, and so it becomes dark. But light will hit dense parts like mountains and it'll be reflected back, okay? 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, okay? Okay? You're absolutely wrong. There are two possible explanations for this. The first explanation is the moon, there's some parts that are completely hollow. Light is passed 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 solar eclipse, there should be some light that if the moon, there are some parts of the moon that is hollow. There should be some holes. in the solar eclipse, right? And then she's like, okay, then your theory is there's some caverns in the moon that go deep. Okay? But I'm going to show you that's not the case either.

In the spiritual universe. She's not talking about the physical universe. She's talking to the spiritual universe. All light reflects brightly, no matter where it is, because light comes from the essence of God. Okay? Move on. All right.

So, can you skip this, please? Okay, you can skip this as well, actually. All right, so then she just says this, okay, 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 an experiment. Why?

Because Donnie doesn't believe her. Donnie thinks she's full crap. Okay? So she should say, let's do an experiment. Right? This is not a revolution. If you don't believe someone, do an experiment. All right?

It's okay to doubt. Doubt is heavenly. It's divine. An experiment were you to try and could free you from your caval. The cavil is, all light reflects just as brightly as anywhere, okay? And the source of your art course brings from experiment. Taking three mirrors, okay, this is the experiment. You guys can actually do this at home as well.

Place a pair of them at equal things. distance from you, set the third in 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 father's glass will be of less size, there you will see that it must match the brightness of the rest. So here's experiment. Okay.

All right. There's a candle. There's a candle. And there's three mirrors. The third is the furthest, okay? Within, and you're holding the candle, within the three candles, are these 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 the first layer, right? Let's do another layer.

Okay? Let's do another layer. Five mirrors, all back, okay? Are they still as bright, the candle? The answer is yes. How about a third layer? Okay. 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. That's experiment. It shows, it proves, that, remember 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 experiment. Sorry, hold on. Now, guys,

let me ask you this question. What is this? You remember? It's a godhead. It's what Donnie saw when he experienced God. You remember, he saw three circles, and inside were three humans. an effigy. This is 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 brother of the candle burns. And the brother of the candle burns. And the brother kind of burns, the closer you are to God. When you love, you experience God. That is why you are without sin when you love.

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.

Forward. Yes, okay. This is the ND, all 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 will 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 universe is the force that binds everything together.

It is the unifying force of the universe. It is the force that makes things move brightly. Okay? The problem is before we could only see, but now we can now imagine. Okay? God is something you cannot see. God is something that you must imagine. Okay. So that's the divine common. Any questions about this so far? That's a really good question. Who is you writing to? Who is his audience? So he's writing in Tuscan rather than Latin. And he calls it the Comedilla.

So I think he's trying to avoid the Catholic Church, right? Because at this time, the Catholic Church writes mainly in Latin. So he's trying to avoid the Catholic Church. That doesn't mean enemy. Because if the Catholic Church actually understood what he was doing, they would have basically burned his name. script. 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 like they're curious as to what this is. And at first they can't figure it out. But they stay at it and over time it begins to transform how they see the world okay does that make sense he's a prophet he's a poet and so he's not really running it to make money or because he has to he's running 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 yeah yeah no no I'm sorry sorry yeah thank you yeah okay so So, okay, at this time, remember before we said that all running projects had to be

sponsored by a patron. And before it was kings. So he does have a patron. It's like a count or something. And clearly there are parts in the Divine Comedy, which are appealing to his patron, right? but he's really using this as a pretext in order to speak the truth. Does that make sense? 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. And he believes that in the divine harmony are the secrets 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? But you're right.

He did have a patron. Okay. Any more questions? Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Okay.

So there have been multiple translations of Divine Comedy. This man is named Alan Menelbaum. and he's the one I prefer the most just because he's the most relatable. He's the most accessible. I mean, there are these translations by Longfellow, which is beautiful, but it's really complicated. I think Extra Pound has also done a translation, and then there are translations which arrive. So there are different translations. minimum is, I think, I think just the easiest to teach.

And so, because of translation issues, this again was written in Tuscan, I tried to avoid a close reading, 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. But the ideas are the same, but thanks. So this is minimal. We'll do a lot of close reading when we get to English literature, which is a lot of English literature, which is like Shakespeare and Milton.

Because then you could actually do close reading. But with translation, you can't do close reading. It's too dependent on the translation. Any more questions? OK, so so so, so, so, so, so, can we do one more slide? The Augustine slide? And then we'll end. OK, yeah.

So let's go into Augustine, OK. Augustine says here, man lives by the standard man, not by the stand of God, he is like the devil, okay? 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. Okay? This is how we know we're doing good, because we know, okay?

Our hearts will know. Your faces 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 transcation when he refused to desert his life's companion.

Love is sin. Love is wealth sin. Love is the greatest force in the universe because it is God. We are created out of nothing? No, we're created out of God. Okay? 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 cannot 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 Evanston, there will be freedom of will, enjoying unfilling the delight of eternal joys. Sorry, guys. Divine Comedy says this. There is no end. to the universe. At no point will we know everything. We exist because we are continued God's legacy.

When we imagine things, 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. Okay. All right. All right. So that was the first lecture on Dante. Next Tuesday, we will do the second. Okay.