Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Great Books #11: Dante's Revolution

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Watch on YouTube: https://link-to-youtube.s.gy/gb11In this Friday, May 22, 2026 lecture to his Beijing high school students, Professor Jiang explains Dante's war with Virgil.Notes and References:1. Dante's Divine Comedy, translated by Alan Mandelbaumhttps://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/

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Why? Because Dante's comedy will give rise to the Protestant Reformation, as well as the Senate Revolution, the Enlightenment, Renaissance, basically modernity itself. So the question is, how did Dante accomplish this? He accomplished this basically by responding to Virgil. Okay? So for the longest time, for about a thousand years, Virgil was the most dominant thinker in European history.

And Virgil's Inniad, which we read, becomes the basis for Augustine. He wrote two major books, Confessions and City of God. And this will become the basis of the Catholic Church. So how did Virgil come to become the soul of the Catholic Church? He came up with the idea of human nature. Okay? So Augustine will emphasize the idea of original sin. Okay, so the original sin was an act of disobedience when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the fruit, sorry, the tree of knowledge,

okay? They ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge. That's an act of disobedience because God explicitly said, you can do what you want in this Garden of Eden, but don't eat that fruit. And they disobeyed God. And Augustine points out that what compelled this original sin is pride. We humans cannot bear to serve God, to be humble before God. We seek to overthrow God. And so God had no choice but to punish us. So what drives this original sin? What drives through this original sin is that, yes, it is true that God, he breathed life into us, okay?

He breathed life into us so that our soul is the divine spark. That is true. The problem, though, is that our bodies are made from dust. Okay? Dust. And as a result, because we are dust, we strike. for dirty things such as lust, pride, gluttony, sloth, there's seven deadly sins.

And we can't help ourselves. And the only way to repair the world, the only way for us to seek salvation and redemption, the only path to heaven is obedience, okay? what Virgil will call piety. And so as long as we are loyal to the Catholic Church, we'll be fine. The Catholic Church will guide us, like a shepherd guides his flock, to heaven.

But what's really important to understand is that our nature is dirty. We are sinful by nature, and therefore we can't trust our own intuition. Okay? And this becomes a framework for medieval Europe, which lasts about a thousand years. And this is what led to something called the Dark Ages, when basically the entire world surpass Europe in terms of innovation, wealth, and intellectual creativity. So what Don is going to do is he's going to assert the power and the truth of individual intuition. Okay? So the major argument that Donny's is going to make is that, yes, it is true that we are made of dust. It is true that with bodies, we seek pleasures.

But that divine spark in us, it never went away. And much more importantly, that divine spark still connects us to God. Okay? So as long as we're able to activate this divine spark, we can be imaginative. We can seek true for ourselves. We don't need the Catholic Church. So Dante, what he's doing is he's asserting the primacy of love. We don't need to obey others.

We don't need the church because love, if we just activate the love within us, this will connect us back to God and this connection will drive our imagination which will make us creative and creativity is the ultimate purpose of the universe okay so what what i will do in this part two-part lecture series is the first part look at Virgil what the argument he's making okay and then on wednesday I will conclude with Dante all right so any questions so far about this framework okay so So again, the argument, the debate, it's very simple. Is human nature fundamentally good or bad? Okay, if you think it's bad, then you need to create a hierarchy

to control human behavior. But if you like Dante, you're optimistic, then you don't need to control human behavior. In fact, you want to encourage individual intuition as much as possible, okay? So that's a fundamental debate. All right, so let's look at the, basic structure of the divine comedy, okay?

So we've read the entirety of Inferno. Okay, and from Inferno, Virgil and Dante will go to Purgatory, where souls will cleanse themselves of sins so that they are ready to go to paradise. Okay, so we're going to look at Purgatory today, and then next class we'll look at paradise. All right, so Purgatory is modeled very much in a very similar way as the infernal. Okay. So the wonderful thing about

the divine comedy is it's structured. It's very visual. So in proletary, what you do is, first of all, you enter progatory. Okay, you enter progatory. But the moment you enter progatory, what an angel who guards the purgatory will do is stamp seven peas onto you. Okay? Each P represents a sin. And so what you do is you climb each terrorist of this mountain, and each terrorist has a particular sin, okay? So, Territus 1 is pride, Territus 2 is envy, Terrace 3 is anger,

Terrence 4 is laziness, terrorist 5 is covetousness, Terrace 6 is gluttony, and terrorist 7 is lust. So it's almost like the inverse of infernal. And so each time you clear a terrorist by absolving yourself, by cleansing yourself or particular sin, a pea is removed from your forehead. And once you remove all peas, you climb up to essentially the Garden of Eden, up here. And then up here, what's going to happen is that Beatrice is going to descend from heaven and pick Dante up so that they can ascend to heaven together. Okay? So Virgil is going to guide

Dante through the process of Procatory and then leave Dante to Beatrice. Okay, that's a basic structure of progatory. Any question so far? All right. All right, so we're going to start reading, okay? All right, so again, remember that the fundamental difference between Dante and Virgil is That Virgil is ultimately skeptical about human nature, whereas Dante is optimistic. So we're first going to figure out what Virgil's argument is. Okay, so, I agree, please. And even as I turned towards him, I asked,

What did the spirit of Romagna mean when he said? Sharing cannot have a part. In his reply, he knows the harm that lies in his worst vice. If he chastisizes it, to ease his expiation, do not wonder. For when your longs center on things such as sharing, then the proportion is less to each, then envy stirs the bellows of your size. But if the love within the highest fear should turn your loins heavenward, the fear inhabiting your breasts would disappear.

For there, the more there are who would say ours, so much the greater is the good possessed by each. So much more love burns in that cloister. Okay, so what, so there are in the terrace of envy. And here, people must expiate themselves of their envy of others. And envy comes from misguidance, okay? People are focused on the material world. And in the material world, things are finite, right?

So we struggle over food, over water, over wealth. But if we focus on the spiritual world, if we focus on God, okay, the spiritual, then research are infinite, okay? And in the spiritual world, the more you share with others, the more wealth is created. Okay, because you're uplifting each other's spirit. So that's the difference between the material world and the spiritual world, where in the material world, sharing can be punished because it's a zero-sum game. if someone has an apple, you don't have it.

If you have that apple, someone else doesn't have it. But in the spiritual world, which is focused on love, generosity, forgiveness, the more you love, the more generous you are, the more generosity creates in the world, right? If you smile at someone, that other person smiles back at you. If you're kind of that person, that person is kind to others. So that is the misconception.

That's why people have envy because they are ignorant, of the nature of the universe. Envy is towards to focus on the material world and to expiate yourself of envy, you must focus on the spiritual world. Okay, so here Virgil and Dante do not disagree. Keep on going. I am more hungry now for satisfaction, I said.

I, of course, it's Dante, right? Keep on going. Then if I had held my tongue before, I hosted deeper doubt within my mind. How can a good that's shared by more possessors enable each to be more rich in it than, if that good had been possessed by few. And he to me, but if you still persist in letting your mind fix on earthly things,

then even from true light you gather darkness. That good, ineffable and infinite, which is above, directs itself towards love as light directs itself to polished bodies. Where Arsor is, that good gives of itself, and where more love is, where more love is, there that good confers a greater measure of eternal worth. And when there are more souls above who love, there's more to love well there, and they love more and mirror, like each soul reflects the other. And if my speech has not appease your hunger, you will see Beatrice.

She will fulfill this and all other longings that you feel. Now I only strive so that the other five wounds may be canceled quickly, as it is he already are. The wounds contrition heals. Okay, all right. So what he's saying here is that this spiritual world, is the good, right? God, basically. And so the more kindness, the more love you generate to other people, they reflect that, and that spreads love and kindness all around the universe, okay?

So one way to visualize this is something called Indra's Net. And this is a concept from Hinduism and Buddhism, okay? So what is the soul? Who are we? Well, we are a pearl in a universe of pearls, okay? It's a net. And the thing about a pearl is that it reflects everything. So within us, we reflect the universe. Okay? So within us is a universe. Okay. So do you guys see this? And the idea here is that our souls are a fractal of the universe. And therefore, what if we do, It's reflected throughout the entire universe. Okay? If this pearls choose to smile, every other pearl reflects that smile. If this pearl chooses to be angry, that the other pearls become angry as well.

That's why being sinful or being good is so important, because literally we have the entire fate of the universe in our hearts. Okay? So again, Dante, and Virgil do not disagree here. So do you guys understand the concept here? This is very important for Dante, okay? And this concept is something that will be expanded on

when we get to paradise. That we are just a reflection of the entire universe. All right, can you continue? I agree. Tell me, my gentle father, what offense is purged within the circle we have reached? Although our feet must stop, your words need not. And he to me,

precisely here, the love of good that is too typically pursued is mended, here delays the hour, applies harder. But so that you may understand more clearly, now turn your mind to me and you will gather some useful fruit from our delaying here. My son, there is no creator and no creature whoever was without love, natural or mental, and you know that. Okay, so here the idea of love is just a reflection of God. Okay, remember God breathed his life into Adam and so we have the aspect of God in us.

Okay, so everything has love in it. The question is the degree of love, and the question is how impact is love in our lives? Okay, keep on going. The natural is always without error, but mental love may choose an evil object or error throws too much or too little bigger. As long as it's directed towards the first good and tends towards secondary goods with measure,

it cannot be the cause of evil pleasure. But when it twists towards evil, or it tends to good with more or less care it should. Those whom he made have worked against their maker. Right. Stop. Okay. So this idea of a dual duality, right? Where you have the soul, and the soul is pure love. And it comes from the divine and it's eternal. Therefore, it's always good. The problem is that the soul is inside a body, okay? The body is made of dust. And as a result, it's constantly striving towards evil. And so within the

us is this constant conflict between the soul and the body which seeks material pleasures which basically seeks sin all right and again what Virgil will say is honestly most of us basically cannot withstand the temptation and that's why we need the church and authority and obedience okay keep on going from this you see that of necessity love is a seed in you of every virtue and of all acts deserving punishment. Now, since love never turns aside its eyes from the well-being of its subject, things are surely free from hatred of themselves, and since no being can be seen as self-existing and divorced from the first being, each creature is cut off from hating him.

Thus, if I have distinguished properly, ill love must mean to wish one's neighbor ill, and this love's born in three ways of new clay. There's he who, through abasement of another, hopes for supremacy. longs to see his neighbor's excellence cast down. Then there is one who, when he's outdone, fears his own loss of fame, power, honor, favor, his sadness loves misfortune for his neighbor. And there is he who over injury received, resentful, for revenge grows greedy and angrily,

seeks out another's harm. Okay, so again, the original sin is a sin of pride, okay? So what Virgil is saying here is, look, It's impossible for you to hate God, because God is the ultimate good. It's impossible for you to hate yourself. So the hate comes from your envy of others, your pride, the fact that you want to stand above other people. And if other people are above you, then you conspire against them, and that's a source of all sin. Okay?

All right, let's keep on going. This threefold love is as expiated here below. now I would have you understand the love that seeks the good distortedly. Each apprehends confusedly a good in which the mind may rest and longs for it, and thus all strive to reach that good. But if the love that urges you to know it or to reach that good is lax, this terrace, after a just repentance, punishes for that. There is a different good, which does not make men glad,

it is not happiness, is not true essence, fruit and root of every good. The love that profligately yields to that is whipped on three terraces, on your three terraces above us, but I'll not say what three shapes that look takes. May you seek those distinctions for yourself. Okay. All right. So the purpose of purgatory is for us to cleanse ourselves of our material wants and desires, okay? To focus on the spiritual, to remember where we came from,

and to remember our connection with the good. that will allow us to access heaven at the end. Okay? Keep on going. The subtle teacher had completed his discourse to me. Attentively, he watched my eyes to see if I seem satisfied. An eye, still goaded by new thirst, was silent without, although within I said, Perhaps I have displeased him with too many questions.

But that true father, who had recognized it's him at once, I would not tell aloud by speaking, gave me courage to speak out. at which I said, Master, my sight is so illumined by your light, I recognize all that your words are clearer analyzed. Therefore, I pray you, gentle father, dear, to teach me what love is. You have reduced to love both each good and its opposite. Okay, so basically what Virgil is saying is that love is the fundamental force of the universe. If we move away from love, we do bad things.

If we move towards love, we do good things. Okay? So now, Donnie is like, then tell me exactly what love is. Be specific about love. All right? At Desjardin Insurance, we know that when you own a nail salon, everything needs to be perfect from tip to toe. That's why our agents go the extra mile to understand your business and provide tailored solutions for all its unique needs.

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error of blind who'd serve his guise be evident to you. The soul, which is created quick to love, responds to everything that pleases, just as soon as beauty awakens it to act. Your apprehension draws an image from a real object and expands

upon that object until soul has turned toward it, and if so turn. the soul tends steadfastly. Then that propensity is love. It's nature that joins the soul in you, anew through beauty. Then, just as flames ascend because the form of fire was fashioned to fly upwards, towards the step of its own sphere, where alas, slumpiest. So does the soul, when seized, move into longing, emotion of the spirit,

never resting till the beloved thing has made a joyous. Okay, so this is really important, okay? So let's try to understand what he's saying here. soul comes from the divine, okay? It is a memory of God and it is inside a body, okay? A body that allows it to experience the world. This body confuses the soul and the soul is lost. And the soul believes that whatever is beautiful, I must seek, okay? So the soul, if you leave it alone, it's going to want to return to God. But if it sees something beautiful, It doesn't know if it should, if it's good or bad, okay?

All it knows is like, I want to go to it. So what happens is the soul expands outwards and tries to encompass it. And then what it does is it moves towards it and tries to swallow it whole. It consumes it, okay? So think of Dido and Ineus. where Dido sees Ineus in the Inniad falls in love with him and he must have him, okay? He moves towards him and tries to consume him. It drives her insane.

And the moment he leaves her, she has to kill herself. Okay? So that's easy with the soul. The soul moves towards what's beautiful. And doesn't even know why it's doing so. And when it moves, it tries to absorb and consume it, okay? Because that's what it was trained to do, right? God created it so that the soul would one day return to God.

But because as a body, the soul becomes confused, and if it sees a beautiful woman, the soul is like, I must have her. I must have sex with her. It doesn't matter if I rape her, it doesn't matter if I marry her. I don't really care, but I must have her. I must control her. Okay?

All right, keep on going. Now you can plainly see how deeply hidden truth is from serenitinists who would insist that every love is in itself praiseworthy. And they are led to error by the matter of love because it may seem always good, but not each still is fine, although the waxes. Your speech and my own wit that followed it, I answered him, have shown me what love is, but that has filled me with still greater doubts. word of love's offered to us from without and is the only foot with which soul walks, soul going straight or crooked, has no merit. And he to me, what reason can see here I can impart, past that for truth of faith? It's spears just alone you must await.

Every substantial form I once distinct from matter and conjoined to it and gathers the force that is distinctively its own. The force unknown to us until it acts. It's never shown except in its abject. just as green broths, bows display the life in plants. Okay, so Don is confused by this formulation because if we are trying to consume something that we love, then how can we know what's good and what's evil? What is the mechanism that tells us what's good and what's evil?

The soul is doing what it must do, right? The soul must seek out what's beautiful. and consume it. The soul thinks that whatever is beautiful must be God, but if it gets infused and think that a woman is beautiful and the soul tries to control that woman, then that's a bad thing, right? So why would God create a system in which you are naturally compelled to do evil? All right? And keep on going? And thus, man does not know the source of his intelligence of primal notions, and tending towards desire's primal objects.

Both are in you, just as in bees, there is the honey-making urge. Such primal will deserves no praise, and it deserves no blame. Now, that all other longs may conform to this first will, there is in you, inborn, the power that counsels, keeper of the threshold of your assent. This is the principle on which your merit may be judged,

for it garners and winnows good and evil longings. Those reasoners who reach the ruse of things learn of this inborn freedom, to bequest that, thus, they left unto the world's efforts. Even if we allow necessity of source of every love that flames in you, the power to curb that love is still your own. This noble power is what Beatrice means by free will, therefore remember it if she should ever speak of it to you. Okay, the power to curb that love is still your own. This is what free will is, okay? So here's the logic here. The logic is love is not good or bad, okay?

It's just natural part of you. It's like an animal desires food. Is like good or bad? It's just who we are. So in this circumstance, what is good? What is good is our capacity to control? our emotions, right? In other words, obedience is good. Obedience is what is free will. Okay? If we're able to shift from emotions to reason, that is good. What is reason? Reason is the capacity to restrain our emotions by obeying authority. Because it's only a thing. It's only a

authority that allows us to control ourselves. You know what's right and wrong, okay? And this was the essence. This was the main message of the Inniak, right? Innius is on a mission to found the Roman Empire. He goes from Troy to Carthage to the Italian peninsula. But it's actually a spiritual journey because when he starts this journey, he's very emotional.

He sees Helen and he wants to kill Helen because he thinks that Helen is the person who caused the destruction of Troy. Troy's being destroyed and India just wants to fight the Greeks and die in the process because he wants to save his homeland even though it's being destroyed. He goes to Carthage and he's not supposed to be at Carthage. He falls in love of ditto and he wants to stay there. And each time the gods have to come in and says, hey man, listen, you have a mission to do. Go, you have to go to Italy in order to found Rome, okay? So and then towards the end of the Iliad, Innius recognizes his mission is to obey the gods. He has, he can no longer obey his emotions. Therefore, at the end, when he's finding Ternus, and Ternus is defeated, he wants to show mercy

to Ternus because Ternus has become very pitiful, but he recognizes, no, I cannot allow my emotions sway me. I cannot trust my intuition. I can never, ever show love to others. I must obey the gods. I must obey my mission. I must be reasonable, and so he kills Chernis, and that's how the Inlet ends. Does that make sense? That is the main argument that Virgil is making. It is not love that defines who we are. It's reason that defines who we are, reason as defined by obedience.

If we are able to obey, that demonstrates our free will. Okay? All right. So let's move on to another passage. Okay, keep on going on. a thirst that could never be quenched except by water that gives grace to drought the simple woman of Samaria sought. Tormented me, haste spurred me on the path crowded with souls, behind my guide, and I felt

pity, though their pain was justified. And here, even as Luke records for us that Christ, new, risen from his burial cave, appeared to two along his way. A shade appeared, and he advanced behind our backs while we were careful not to trample on the outstretched crowd. We do not notice him until he had addressed us with. God give you, oh my brothers, peace. We turned at once, then after offering suitable response, Virgil began. And may that just tribunal, may that just tribunal which has consigned me to eternal exile place you in peace within the Blessed Assembly.

Okay, so what's happening here is that Virgil and Dante are making the way up the mountain, okay? And there's seven terraces. And a soul has to clear all seven terraces before the soul can enter paradise. When a soul is able to complete the mission, the entire mountain shakes, okay? And there's an earthquake to signal that a soul has been cleansed of all sins, it's now about to ascend. So there's a shade, okay, who is in a rush to ascend to heaven because he's cleared all seven terraces. And so he's going to rush to heaven.

It's been 500 years. And so he's going to, and so he meets Virgil and Dante. They're in his way, and it's like, excuse me, please, I'm on my way. And Virgil's like, okay, sure. All right. Come on going. What? He exclaimed, ask what you move forward quickly.

If God's not deemed you worthy of assent, who's guided you so far along the stairs? If you observe the signs the angel traced upon this man, my teacher said, you'll see plainly. He's meant to reign with all the righteous, but since she who spins right night and day had not yet spun to spool

that Kloh, sets upon the despass, the staff and adjusts for everyone, his soul, the sister of your soul and mine, in his descent, could not alone have climbed here, for it does not see the way we see. Therefore, I was brought forth from Hell's brought jaws to guide him in his going.

I shall lead him just as far as where I teach can reach. But tell me, if you can, why, just before, the mountain shook and shouted all of it, for so it seemed, down to its sea, bathed shore. Okay, so the soul is confused because if you reach this point in the mountain, then you're going to heaven. So you should be going as fast as possible. And then Vertus trying to explain that actually they are not part of purgatory. Okay?

Keep on going. His question threaded so the needle's eye of my desire that just the hope alone of knowing left my thirst more satisfied. The other shade began. The sanctity of these slopes does not suffer anything that's without order or uncustomary. This place is free from every preservation. What heaven from itself and in itself receives

may serve as cause here, nothing else. Therefore, no rain, no hail, no snow, no dew, no hoarfrost falls here any higher than the stairs of entry with their three brief steps. Neither thick cloud nor thin appear, nor flash of lightning. Thomas' daughter, who so often shift place in your world, is absent here. Dry vapor cannot climb any higher than to the top of the three steps, of which I spoke, where Peter's viker plants his feet. Below that point, there may be small or ample tremors, but here above, of, I know not why. No one concealed in earth has ever caused a trauma. For only trembles

here when some soul feels it cleansed, so that it rises or stirs to climb on high, and that shall follow. Okay. So the mountain only moves if a soul has been cleansed, okay? The will alone is proof of purity and fully free, surprises a soul into a change of dwelling place. Okay, so this is a really important idea, right? So what's driving this cleansing is just the will. If you have the will, you can always achieve heaven.

Okay? So people in inferno, the reason why they're there is they choose to be there. People in purgatory are there because they choose to be there as well. It may take you a long time, but if you have the will, you can always cleanse yourself of all your sins. God is all forgiving. Keep on going. Soul had the will to climb before, but that will was opposed by longing to do penance as ones to sin, instilled by divine justice.

Okay, this is very important, okay, guys. The issue is not that God has not forgiven us. The issue is that we have not forgiven ourselves. You understand? We want to dependence in order to make ourselves worthy of God. Okay, keep on going. And I, who have lain in the suffering 500 years and more, just now have felt my free will for a better threshold.

Thus, you heard the earthquake and the pious spirits throughout the mountain as they praise the Lord, and may He be able to be able to be a better threshold. And may he send them speedily upwards. So did he speak to us. And just as joy is greater when we quench a greater thirst. The joy he brought cannot be told in words. And my wise guide, I now can see the next,

the net impeding you how one slips through, and why it quakes here and what makes you all rejoice. And now may it please you to tell me who you were. And in your words, may I find why you've lain here for so many centuries. So this is a really important correction to Virgil's understanding. Virgil believes that a soul moves to whatever is beautiful, okay? So obviously if you're close to God, you want to go to God as soon as possible.

But this person here is saying, no, that's not true, actually. The soul, yes, wants to move to God, but the soul is love. If you truly love God, you must first love yourself. That means cleansing yourself of all sins so that you are worthy to be with. of God. Okay? So love seems to be also restraint and judgment. And this is very different Virgil who believes that love is incapable of restraint and judgment. Okay? It's love that tells you that, no, I must first forgive myself, because if I don't forgive myself, but I bring any doubt, any hatred, any sin to heaven, this will be unworthy of God. Okay? I must be

a pearl that reflects the universe, and therefore I must be a perfect pearl. Okay, keep on going. You're no longer young people. You're just people. And people are either productive or dead weight. It's my first day of work, and I need to make a big impression. Were you just checking me out? No.

It's too bad. I see at least 15 ladies I need to talk to you before my beta block wears off. My coworkers don't take me seriously. It's not a human. It's just a piece of meat. Someone bring a gurney. With help from the highest king, avenged the wounds from which the blood that Judas sold had flowed, I had sufficient fame beyond.

That spirit replied, I bore the name that lasts the longest and honors most, but faith was not yet mine. So gentle was the spirit of my verse that Rome drew me, son of Toulos, to her, and there my brow deserved a crown of my marble. On earth my name is still remembered. Stadius. I sang of Thebes and then of great Achilles. I fell along the way of that last labor. The sparks that warmed me, the seeds of my ardor, were from the holy fire,

the same that gave more than a thousand poets light and flame. I speak of the Aeneid. When I wrote verse, it was mother to me. It was nurse. My work without it would not weigh in nouns. And to have lived on earth when Virgil lived, For that, I would extend by one more year to time I owe before my exiles end. So Virgil is very impressed by this man, and so Virgil asked, who are you?

And then the person says, my name is Stadius, okay? You may not know who I am, but when Titus was alive, when Titus was a Roman emperor who lived around 70 C.E. This is important because Titus was one who destroyed the temple, okay? The second temple of the Jews. So he's a very important figure in Christian mythology. And he's saying that during this time, and this is only like 40 years after the death of Jesus.

And Jesus is not very well known at this point in history. Stathias says that I was a poet, okay? But he was a Latin poet. And who was my hero? Virgo. Okay? But not only is version of my hero, The Ineat was my mother.

She nursed me. She fed me. I aspire to be Virgil. I want to write the Inniad. Okay? So now what happens is you have a paradox created. Right? Where we just said that Virgil is in hell because he wrote the Inniat

and because he's proposing a theory of love that's not consistent with God. how is it possible that a son of his, a student of his, named status, how is he able to ascend to heaven? Okay? This is really weird. It's a paradox. And we'll see a lot of paradoxes in the mind-comedy. Okay, keep on going. These words made Virgil turn to me, and as he turned, his face, through silence, said, be still.

And yet the power of world cannot do all. But tears and smiles are both so faithful to the feelings that have prompted them. that true feeling escapes the will that would substitute. Okay, stop, okay, right. So you have this scene, right, where Virgil and Dante are talking to Stadius. And Stadis doesn't know who they are. And having this conversation and Virgil is saying to Stadius, who are you? And Stadis saying, I admire Virgil the most.

And Dante is like, oh my God, wow, Virgil! And so Danty feels tremendous happiness for both Virgil and for Stadius. Virgil because he's found a fan and status because he's found his mentor. What is strange though is Virgil's reaction. Virgil is saying to, Dona, shut up, man. I know what you want to do. I know you want to tell him, but don't do it. Keep quiet.

I don't want him to know who I am. This is a paradox. This is a paradox. Why would you do that? Also, remember, Virgil had to do that. has shown tremendous respect and admiration to Stadius for being able to cleanse himself of all his sins and to be able to ascend to heaven.

Right? So Dante is so confused by this that he doesn't actually respond to Virgil's command to shut up. Dante is actually going to tell Stadius that, yes, this is Virgil, man. Do you want going. The eye smiled like a man whose eyes would signal.

At this, the shade was silent, and he stared where sentiment clearest at my eyes and said so may your trying labor ends successfully do tell me why just now your face showed me the flashing of a smile now I am held by one side and the other one keeps me still the other conjures me to speak but when therefore I sigh my master knows why and tells me do not be afraid to speak but speak an answer where he has asked you to tell him with such earnestness at this I answered ancient spirit you

You perhaps are wondering at the smile I smiled, but I would have you feel still more surprise. He who is guide, who leaves my eye on high, is that same Virgil from whom you derive the power to sing of men and of the gods. Do not suppose my smile had any source view on the speech he spoke. Be sure. It was those words he said of him that were the cause. Now he had bent to kiss my teacher's feet, but Virgil told him,

Brother, there's no need. You are a shade. A shade is what you see. And rising, he, now you can understand how much love burns in me for you when I forget our insubstantiality. Treating the shades as one treats solid things. Okay, all right. So sorry, I was wrong, okay?

So Dante is sort of stuck, okay? Because he knows, he wants to tell Stadius, but Virgil doesn't want him to tell Stadius. And then Dona looks at Virgil and Virgil says, fine man, go tell him, okay? And as you can see, status is ecstatic. And he's so excited that he forgets that he's actually just a shade, he has no body. So he goes down and he kisses Virgil's feet. And Virgil's like, stop this man, you're just a shade, you're just a shadow. You can actually kiss my feet.

And so this shows both status excitement, but also shows Virgil's embarrassment. He's embarrassed by all this. mortified in fact he he is so embarrassed by all this and this is very confusing you've got this huge fan Stadius and he's a great person and he should be ecstatic about this so why is he so mortified and the logic is this okay let's imagine that you guys take the great books of me okay and then you go on to America where you go to Harvard and become a professor of Dante. Okay?

And then you come back and I don't know that you're now teaching at Harvard and you're teaching Dante, but you come back and I'm still here after 20 years, unfortunately. And you say to me, Professor Jiang, I want to take you out to lunch because you're such an inspiration. I was like, okay, sure. I'm very happy about this. And then I ask you, hey, where are you teaching now? And you say, Harvard.

I'm like, OK, I need to go now, guys. OK, see you later. So this is what's happening here, where status is supposed to be lower than Virgil. He's supposed to be Virgil student. But how is that status is able to transcend Virgil? Virgil is still stuck in limbo, but status is going to heaven. OK, what happened?

All right, keep on going. Virgil began. Love that is kindled by virtue will in another fine reply, as long as that love's flame appears without. So, from the time when juvenile descending among us in hell's limbo had made plain the ploneness that you felt for me, my own benevolence to your view has been much richer than any ever given to a person when he has not seen. Thus, now these sayers seem short. But tell me, and as friend, forgive me if excessive candor lets my reins relax, and as a friend, exchange your words with me.

How was it that you found within your breast a place for avarice when you possessed the wisdom you had nurtured with such care? So Juvenile is another poet that's a contemporary of Stadius. Okay, so this is really where Stadius is able to ascend to heaven, but Juvenile goes to Limbo. Remember, Limbaugh is a place not for bad people, it's for people who were born before Christ, or who never really acknowledged Christ.

acknowledge Christ, okay? So most people end up in limbo. And so Virgil was basically asking Sadius, how did you end up here in purgatory when you should be in limbo? This makes no sense to me, right? This is destroying Virgil's framework for the universe, where you have to believe in God, you have to swear allegiance to Christ in order to ascend to heaven.

Okay, keep on going. These words at first brought something of a smile to Sadius, then he answered, Every word you speak to me is a dear sign of love. Indeed, because true causes are concealed, we often face deceptive reasoning and things provoke perplexity in us. Your question makes me sure that you're convinced, perhaps because my circle was fifth, that in the life I once lived, Averis had been my sin.

Know then that I was far from Averis. It was my lack of measure thousands of months have punished. And if I had not corrected my assessment by my understanding what your verses meant when you, as if enraged by human nature, exclaimed, why can not you, oh holy hunger for gold, restrain the appetite of mortals? I now, while rolling weights, no sorry joists. Then I became aware that hands might open to wide, like wings, and spending, and of this, as of my other sin, I did repent.

Okay, so he's saying, yes, I should be here because of avarice, but the issue is not avarice, okay? The issue is I don't really understand the universe. Okay, so it took me 500 years for me to truly understand the universe and my place in it. Alright, keep on going. Sorry, let me, uh, all right, sorry. How many are to rise again with has crop quotes? close, whom ignorance prevents from reaching repentance in and at the end of life. And know that when a sin is countered by another fault, directly opposite to it, then here, both sins see their green wither.

Thus, I joined those who pay for avarice in my purgation, though what brought me here was prodigality, its opposite. Now when you sing the savage words of those twin stars of Jocasta, said the singer of the Pucolid Pooca. It does not seem, from those notes struck by you and Cleo there, that you would yet turn faithful to the faith without which righteous works do not suffice. If that is so, then what sun or what candles drew you from darkness to so that in their wake you set your sails behind the fisherman? Okay, so Virgil was confused by all this. Like, you're not a Christian.

Why are you here? Keep on going. And he to him, you were the first to send me to drink with him, Parnaces his caves. you, the first who, after God, enlighten me. He did as he who goes by night and carries the land behind him. He is of no help to his own self, but teaches those who follow. When you declared, the ages are renewed, justice and man's first time on earth return. From heaven, a new progeny descend.

Through you, I was a poet and through you a Christian, but that you may see more plainly, I'll set my hand to color what I sketch. disseminated by the messengers of the eternal kingdom the true faith by then had penetrated all the world and the new preachers preached in such accord with what you said and I have just repeated that I was drawn into frequenting them then they appeared to me to be so saintly that when Domitian persecuted them

my own laments accompanied their grief and while I could as long as I had life I helped them and their honest practices made me disdainful of all other sects. Okay, so again, Virtue was asking Stadius, like, how are you here? You're not Christian. And what Stadis is saying is like, yes, it's true that I never publicly converted to Christianity, but I was always sympathetic towards Christianity.

And it's your book, the Inniad, in which made me convinced that Christianity is a good. good religion, okay? For you our support and for you a Christian, right? But really said that Virgil's Inniad goes against the teachings of the universe. So what this is telling us is that Statius purposely misread Virgil. He loved Virgil for his poetry, but instead of believing Virgil, he, in his heart, chose to believe in himself. Okay? He trusted his own intuition. And that's what saved him. All right. Keep on going. Before, within my poem, I led the Greeks onto the streams of Phoebe's. I was baptized.

But out of fear, I was a secret Christian and, for a long time, showed myself as pagan. For this half-heartenedness, for more than four centuries, I circled the fourth circle. And now may you, who lifted up the lid that hid from me the good of which I speak, while time is slept us as we climb. Tell me where is our ancient Terrence, and Caclius and Plottis, where is various if you know? Tell me if they were damned and in what quarter. All these and Perseus, I and many others, my guide replied, or with that Greek to whom the muses gave their gifts in greatest measure.

Our place is the blind prison, its first circle, and there we often talk about the mountain where those who are nurses always dwell. Okay, so status is saying I was a secret Christian, okay? So I was secretly baptized and I became a secret Christian. But if you're a secret Christian, are you really a Christian? So again, there are many ways that you can interpret this, okay? But obviously this is a paradox and this is confusing Virgil. And it's telling us that maybe even that Virgil says is not correct.

This is actually suddenly and with nuance undermining the argument of Virgil. All right. So now we are moving towards the final part of purgatory when Dante is able to ascend to the mountain top. where Beatrice will come and meet him, okay? Keep on going. This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card

to drop on the check at a corporate lunch. The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence and accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks. level up your business with FedEx, the new power move. The sun's sky becoming rose as they began in the scene, it orange and will be blue, the rest of heaven. In seeing the sun's face rise so veiled that it was tempered by the mist

and could permit the eye to look at length upon it. So within a cloud of flowers that were cast by the angelic hands and then rose up and then fell back. Outside and in the chariot, a woman showed herself to me. Above a white veal, she was crowned with olive bows. Her cape was green, her dress beneath, flame red. Within her presence, I had once been used to feeling, trembling, wonder, dissolution, but that was long ago.

Still, though my soul, now she was veiled, could not see her directly by way of hidden force that she could move. I felt the mighty power of old love. Okay, so Donny has not seen Beatrice in a long time in decades. And his heart has loved Beatrice all his life. And so he's really excited that Beatrice is before him. His entire body shakes. And his first response is he wants Virgil to share in his happiness.

Because he owes everything to Virgil. It's Virgil that brought him through infernal and brought him through purgatory so that he may finish his journey with Beatrice. So that's what Dane wants. He wants to share his happiness with his teacher. Virgil. As soon as that deep forest has struck my vision, the power of that, when I had not yet left my boyhood, had already transfixed me. I turned around into my left, just as a little child, afraid or in distress, will hurry to his mother, anxiously, to say to Virgil, I am left with less than one drop of my blood that does not tremble. I recognize the signs.

of the old flame. But Virgil had deprived us of himself. Virgil, the gentlest father. Virgil, he to whom I gave myself for my salvation. And even all our ancient mother lost was not enough to keep my cheeks, though washed with you from darkening again with tears. Okay. So he is extremely happy.

He's ecstatic to see Beatrice. He turns to Virgil, and he just assumes that Virgil was beside him, and he says, and he wants to tell him how happy he is. is and then we see that Virgil is not there, Virgil has disappeared. He becomes despondent. His ecstasy becomes a depression, okay? That's how high he's gone and that's how low he's fallen. Because all he wants is share his happiness with Virgil, but Virgil has run away.

So this is a paradox again, okay? The divine comely is nothing but paradoxes. Why did Virgil run away? Right? Okay? This makes actually no sense. First of all, Virgil should be proud and happy for Dante, right? He loves Dante, Dante wants to be with Beatrice again, and Virgil made it happen.

You would think that he would want to see Dante and Beatrice together again, okay? That's one problem. Another problem is that Beatrice was the one who asked Virgil to take Dante on this journey. So Beatrice owes him a favor. And you would think that Virgil can say, hey, Beatrice, I did you this favor, so maybe you can do me a favor and get me into heaven. Right? This is like really strange.

And the third problem is that this is like really awkward, okay? This is like really strange. The least you can do is basically say to Beatrice, listen, I brought Dante here and now he's yours. Okay, that's a polite thing to do. And it's like not typical of Virgil. So this leads a huge question in our mind as to, why Virgil did this. Okay? Keep on going. Dante, though Virgil is leaving you, do not yet weep. Do not weep yet.

You need your tears for what another sword must yet inflict. Just like an admiral who goes stern and proud to see the officers who guide the other ships encouraging their tasks. So on the left side of the chariot, I turned around when I heard my name, which of necessity I transcribe here. I saw the lady who had first appeared to me beneath the veils of the angelic flowers look at me across the stream. Wait, stop, okay, all right, okay. So what's even stranger is Beatrice is saying to Dante, Virgil's gone? Forget him. He's not important. What's important is your mission in paradise. Focus on that, Dante. Let's forget Virgil. All right? Let's forget him.

And this creates a huge paradox in our minds. What is going on here? Why did Virgil run away? And again, you can interpret this as many ways as you want, and there's no right or wrong answer. But one interpretation is that Virgil is first and foremost, he believes he is right. He is in hell because he believes that he should be there. No one put him there.

He should put himself there. And he believes he should be there because God can only let in those who are Christians. Okay? And along the way, we discover that's not actually true. Cato, who is not a Christian, is the guardian of purgatory. Statiis, who is a secret Christian, he's able to, to ascend to heaven. So clearly Virgil's framework is wrong.

Virgil does not want to see Dante and Beatrice together again, okay? Because the relationship between Dante and Beatrice is the opposite of the relationship between Virgil and Diddle. Okay? Both are literary creations. The difference is that Dante, put Beatrice into paradise, whereas Virgil put Ditto into hell, right, in the infernal.

Dante believes that love is fundamentally about giving, whereas Virgil believes that love is fundamentally about receiving and conquering. Okay, so these are two major economies, and Virgil does not wanted to see the power of D'Ondy's love for Beatrice, where Beatrice rejected him, Beatrice was never with him, but Dante kept on loving her, okay? Dante was willing to give. He understood that living, that true love is about sharing, it's about bestowing, it's about giving yourself. Whereas Virgil has always claimed that love is about taking, about consuming, about controlling.

Okay? So that's why Virtual had to leave because he did not want to be wrong. Okay? He did not want his worldview to be destroyed. So he would rather burn in hell for of eternity than to say, I am wrong. Okay? All right, any questions? All right, so we will finish the mind comedy next Wednesday.