Civilization #30: Dante as the Second Coming of Homer

There are secrets, mysteries and paradoxes embedded into Dante's Divine Comedy. The ultimate secret of the universe is that we are in God, and God is in us. That's the ultimate secret, and it breaks apart the idea of the Holy Trinity. Remember, the idea of the Holy Trinity is that it's an equation that makes God exclusive from us. At the end of the Divine Comedy, Dante inserts us back into God, which turns the equation back into a story, a story that we are empowered to write. It creates the idea of infinity.

The idea behind this, and this goes back to Homer, is for Dante, love is the unifying force of the universe. Remember that God is the force within us that enables us to love and connect with others. The imagination is the animating force of the universe. The more we love, the more we can imagine. It is our responsibility. It is our legacy. It is our gift that we are able to imagine the universe and continue the work of God.

The prime example of this is, of course, Dante. What inspires Dante to create the universe that is the Divine Comedy is his love for Beatrice. It is unrequited. They never got married. They never consummated their love. In fact, Beatrice died when she was very young, but Dante never forgot about her. It was this love for Beatrice that would inspire him to create the Divine Comedy, which is the greatest literary achievement in human history.

The second point is that the Divine Comedy is historically significant because it becomes an intellectual blueprint for the Renaissance, for the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. Then you ask yourself, “Wait a minute here. When I read the Divine Comedy, I don't really understand what's going on. How did it come to be so historically significant?” The answer is this: it is poetry, and poetry is a unique form of writing. Poetry is meant to be memorized.

The way that you're educated for thousands of years in Western history is through the memorization of classical poets. Remember the Greeks. How did they educate themselves? They memorized Homer. The Romans memorized Virgil, and the Italians memorized Dante. Poetry is uniquely designed in order to be memorized. That's the first step.

Poetry and the brain

The second step is this: think of poetry as a superfood for the brain. You are what you eat, and your brain thinks the way that it has consumed information. Poetry is this extremely dense, nutritious food that the brain will use in order to formulate its understanding of the world.

What's really interesting is the brain actually works 99% subconsciously, meaning we are not consciously aware of what the brain is doing most of the time. What the brain is doing most of the time is trying to figure out the patterns of the universe. The brain does not like paradoxes. It does not like mysteries. It doesn't like contradictions. It's always trying to resolve these contradictions in order to formulate a coherent understanding of the world.

That's why paradox is so powerful within the Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is full of paradoxes, which forces your brain to consciously work to resolve these paradoxes. The greatest paradox within the Divine Comedy is the fact that we are within God. That creates a paradox for the brain to slowly resolve. Once it resolves it, it formulates a new understanding of the world. Because of that, this new understanding will become the Renaissance brain, the scientific brain, which will power the rise of modernity.

Dante and Virgil

The third point, the most important point, is what Dante realized when he wrote the Divine Comedy. If he has to create a new modern brain, if he has to create a new scientific, romantic mind, then his true enemy is actually not Augustine. It is actually Virgil because at this time every educated individual was educated through Virgil. It was Virgil's understanding of the world that captured the imagination of the European mind.

Dante, when he writes the Divine Comedy, his mission is to supplant Virgil. It is to remove Virgil from the brain, the mind of the European. He basically needs to poetically do surgery. First I'll explain the thesis and explain what he's trying to do, and then we'll study the Divine Comedy to see how he does that.

Dante understands that if Virgil has become the basis of your mind, if the Aeneid is the way that people fundamentally understand the world, you cannot go into an open conflict with Virgil because people will just reject you. People will choose their customs, their habits first. If you threaten their habits and customs, then they will see you as a threat. They will reject you. Dante has to perform surgery on the brain that is nuanced and subtle and sophisticated.

The way he does that is very clever. Dante makes his arch-nemesis, Virgil, the hero of the Divine Comedy. Virgil is the guide, the narrator, the protagonist of the Divine Comedy. What happens is that we start off with Dante the poet lost in the woods, and it's a symbol or metaphor for his midlife crisis. He doesn't know where he's going. He's confused by the world.

Suddenly, Virgil appears before him and says, “I am Virgil, a poet, and I've been sent by the lady Beatrice from heaven to guide you through Inferno and through Purgatory, where you will learn the secrets of the universe, where you will learn the truth about the world. I am your guide. I will tell you the truth.”

Right from the start, we learn that Virgil is the hero, the guide. That's the first thing that happens. The second thing that happens is Dante turns him into an unreliable guide. We will discover that Virgil does not speak the truth. In fact, Virgil contradicts himself all the time. The third thing that will happen is Virgil, over time, will become displaced by other figures, including Beatrice.

It is one of the greatest literary tricks, where Dante understands Virgil is his ultimate nemesis, and in order to defeat Virgil, he makes Virgil the hero of this epic. It's the idea of the unreliable narrator.

We're going to study some passages from the Divine Comedy to see how Dante does this. It's very clever. It's almost impossible to spot unless you recognize what Dante is trying to do. Once I tell you what he's doing, it's then obvious. But again, if you were to read the Divine Comedy by yourself, you wouldn't notice it. But again, the brain works subconsciously. The brain will slowly, over time, pick up these problems with Virgil and construct a new worldview that is anti-Virgil and pro-Dante. That's the trick of the Divine Comedy.

Limbo

Virgil and Dante are now going to explore Inferno, hell. They first end up in Limbo. Limbo is the outer circle of hell, and it's a very nice place. It's not paradise. It's not great. It's still part of hell, but it's a place specifically for virtuous pagans who were born before the time of Jesus. You can only be saved by Jesus if you were baptized into the faith. If, unfortunately, you were born before the time of Jesus, you're put in Limbo, and that's where Virgil is.

Virgil explains to Dante, “the kindly Master.” There are all these encomiums for Virgil. Virgil is the father to Dante. Virgil is the master to Dante.

Do you not ask who are the spirits whom you see before you? I'd have you know before you go ahead. They did not sin.

These people are virtuous, including himself. These are people who include Plato, Homer, Julius Caesar. These individuals are virtuous.

Though they have merits, that's not enough, because they lack baptism.

The fundamental rule of heaven is you have to be baptized into the faith.

The portal of the faith that you embrace. And if they live before Christianity, they did not worship God in fitting ways and of such spirits, I myself am one.

This is why I'm here in Limbo. I am as virtuous as can be, but because I was not baptized in the faith, I am stuck here. Of course, this raises a question because Dante has nothing but questions. Dante asks him this question: is this an iron law of the universe, or were there exceptions? We have asked:

Did any ever go by his own merit or others from this place towards blessedness?

Were they able to ascend into heaven based on his or her own individual struggle and merit? This is what Virgil says. There was only one time in the entire history of the universe when it was possible for people in Limbo to ascend into heaven, and that was the death of Jesus Christ. Remember that he was crucified, then he died before he was resurrected. When he died, he descended into Inferno, and while he was there, he took the most virtuous members of the Bible, who include Abel, Adam, Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, Israel. He took all of them into heaven, but that was it. That was a rare event because Jesus, God, only dies once. But that's it. That's what Virgil is saying.

Dido

Now that they've been through Limbo, they're going into the inner circles of hell. The first circle of hell is reserved for those who sinned because of love, because of lust. What's going to happen is that there's going to be a parade of all these souls, these spirits who are burning in hell because they died for love or lust. They sinned out of love.

The first of those about whose history you want to know, my master told me, once was empress over many nations, her vice of lust became so customary that she made license licit in her laws to free her from the scandal she had caused. She is Semiramis of whom we read that she was Ninus's wife and his successor.

That's the first person they see.

She held the land the sultan now commands.

But now there's a second person.

The other spirit killed herself for love and she betrayed the ashes of Sychaeus; Cleopatra follows next.

This is interesting. What's going to happen is there'll be about a thousand spirits who are parading before Dante and Virgil. What's interesting is that Virgil names every one of them except this person.

The other spirit killed herself for love and she betrayed the ashes of Sychaeus.

This person, her name is Dido. Who is Dido? Dido is from the Aeneid. She is the literary creation of Virgil. This is really interesting because why is Dido in Inferno? Because Virgil put her there. Not only does he put her there, he does not even bother to acknowledge and name her. This is a complete contrast to the relationship between Dante and Beatrice.

When you actually read the Aeneid, what you discover is that there's only one realistic character in the epic, and it's Dido. The way that she behaves, her love for Aeneas, actually makes her a sympathetic character. But it's her love for Aeneas that causes her to die.

Who is Dido, really? If she's a literary creation of Virgil's, we can surmise that Dido must have existed, and Dido is someone who possibly could have spited Virgil. That's why Virgil has such venom for her. Remember, in the Aeneid, Dido dies by flinging herself into a funeral pyre. She burns herself to death. It's a terrible way to die, and she dies driven into madness by love. You can almost make the argument that you can surmise Virgil really hates this person, and he wanted to punish her for refusing him in real life.

This is diametrically opposed to what Dante did. Dante loved Beatrice, but he could not possess Beatrice. What he does is he creates the Divine Comedy so that Beatrice can be in paradise for all of eternity. This is diametrically opposed. Right away, from this we can understand that Dante and Virgil have opposing perspectives on love. These are not friends. These are enemies.

Virgil refuses to name Dido, but what Dante will do is name Dido.

Those spirits left the ranks where Dido suffers.

Virgil, you refuse to acknowledge your creation, but I will because she deserves our mercy. She deserves our charity and our generosity. You can see how within the poetry there's this massive conflict going on between Virgil and Dante, and it's all very subtle.

Cato in Purgatory

Now they go through Inferno, and they end up in Purgatory. Purgatory is this isolated mountain that is the halfway point between Inferno and Paradise. People have to ascend Purgatory in order to get into Paradise. These are the first lines of Purgatory:

I saw a solitary patriarch near me, his aspect worthy of such reverence that even son to father owes no more.

This person is Cato. Cato is a Roman patriarch who opposed Julius Caesar. When Julius Caesar was about to win the civil war, Cato killed himself. He committed suicide rather than submit to Julius Caesar. What's interesting about this is that Cato and Virgil are contemporaries. They knew each other in Rome, and when they died, they went to Limbo.

What's interesting is this: where's Cato now? Cato is in Purgatory. He's left Limbo. He's left Inferno. Not only that, but he's become the guardian of Purgatory. He's the one who controls access into Purgatory. So Virgil is wrong. Remember, Virgil said it's impossible to leave Limbo regardless of your merit. This right away tells us, no, Virgil is not a reliable narrator. Cato has left.

You would imagine that because Cato and Virgil know each other, they're like good friends. Cato says to Virgil and Dante, “Who are you? How are you able to escape from hell?” Then Virgil says, “Let me do the talking because I know this guy. We're friends.”

I do not come through my own self. There's a lady sent from Heaven.

This lady is Beatrice.

Her pleas led me to help and guide this man.

But since your will would have a far more full and accurate account of her condition, my will cannot withhold what you request.

You want to know why we're here. Let me explain to you why we're here.

This man had yet to see his final evening.

He's not dead.

But through his folly, little time was left before he did. He was so close to it.

He was facing a midlife crisis.

As I've told you, I was sent to him for his deliverance. The only road I could have taken was the road I took.

I had to take him through hell. That's why we're here.

I showed them all the people of perdition.

Now I intend to show him those spirits who, in your care—

Remember, Cato is the guardian of Purgatory.

Are bent on expiation.

People are here in Purgatory in order to absolve themselves of their sins so that they may ascend into heaven. This is what Virgil says to Cato:

You know it, who in Utica found death for freedom was not bitter when you left the garment that will be bright on the great day.

I know who you are. You're Cato. You're the person who killed himself in Utica rather than submit to the tyranny of Julius Caesar.

“Eternal edicts are not broken for us; this man's alive and I'm not bound by Minos, but I am from the circle where the chaste eyes of your Marcia”—your wife—“are”. I know your wife.

And she still prays to you oh holy breast, to keep her as your own, for her love then incline to us.

Remember Marcia, your wife.

Allow our journey for your seven realms. I shall thank her for kindness you bestow if you would let your name be named below.

What Virgil is doing is saying to Cato, “Listen, you may be the guardian of Purgatory. You're master of this realm, but I have power in hell. I'm going to go back, and I'm going to be nice to your wife, Marcia. So give me some face here, man.” This is what Cato says:

“While I was there within the other world, Marcia so pleased my eyes,” he then replied, “each kindness she required I satisfied.”

Now that she dwells beyond the evil river, she has no power to move me any longer. Such was the law decreed when I was freed.

Cato is upset with this. Cato says to Virgil, “How dare you bribe me? How dare you do this?” Marcia is back in Limbo, which means she is no longer as pure in my eyes as I used to think. If I'm able to ascend into Purgatory based on my own merit, then so was Marcia. If she's not able to come with me, that means she's not as virtuous as I once thought.

You can see right away that Virgil is not reliable. He has no authority over Cato. Cato does not respect him, even though they know each other very well. Again, this is very, very clever. It's almost impossible to see unless I tell you what's happening.

Virgil's conception of love

The question, then, is what makes Virgil so unreliable? What is his problem? What Dante will reveal to us is it's really Virgil's conception of love that's the issue. Remember, Virgil is someone who condemned Dido to hell, and it is Dante who sent Beatrice into heaven. These two individuals have radically, radically opposing conceptions of love.

We know what Dante thinks about love. Love is the God-force within us that connects us with God and the entire universe. The more that we love, the more imaginative we will be. You have to direct this love at someone, but it doesn't really matter that that person loves you back. That's not relevant. What's relevant is that you love.

Let's look at Virgil's understanding of love:

The soul, which is quick to love, responds to everything that pleases just as soon as beauty wakens it to act.

The first thing we have to understand is that we are animals with souls that respond to beauty. If I see a beautiful woman across the street, I stop, and I chase her. That's the first thing he says.

Your apprehension draws an image from a real object and expands upon that object until soul has turned toward it.

But then you're like, “But you don't know this beautiful woman.” What Virgil says is what happens next is your imagination will take over, and you will turn this woman into a fantasy woman that you can now control.

Let's go back to the example where you meet this beautiful woman, and you say, “I want to marry you because you're so beautiful.” She says, “I will if you give me $10 million.” Now, if you think about it, she's clearly saying no to you. But it is your imagination that tricks you into believing that as long as you give her $10 million, she will love you. Her love is something that you can master and control and possess.

Then that propensity is love. It's nature that joins a soul in you, anew through beauty.

You must possess her. You will do everything possible in order to possess her, and that's what love is. You see someone beautiful. You turn her into a fantasy, and then you chase after this fantasy until it's yours. That's what love is.

Then, just as flames ascend because the form of fire was fashioned to fly upward toward the stuff of its own sphere where it lasts longer.

You can understand that what Virgil uses is a lot of natural imagery. Fire. These are things beyond our control. We are consumed by our lust and our love for this woman.

So does the soul, when seized, move into longing, a motion of the spirit, never resting till the beloved thing has made it joyous.

We have to possess it. If we don't possess it, then we will be depressed.

Now you can plainly see how deeply hidden truth is from those who would insist that every love is in itself praiseworthy.

There are some people who believe that love is beautiful. No, no, no. It depends on who you love.

And they are led to error by the matter of love, because it may seem always good, but not each seal is fine, although the wax is.

If you love a woman who loves you back, that's fine. But if a woman insists that you go rob a bank for $10 million, then that's bad.

“Your speech and my own wit that followed it, I answered him”—this is Dante—“have shown me what love is, but that has filled me with greater doubt”.

For if love's offered to us from above and it's the only foot with which soul walks, soul going straight or crooked has no merit.

This is a really interesting question. If it is true that when we see someone beautiful, we must have her, then we have no free will. We have no free choice. We're just all animals. This is what Virgil says:

What reason can see here, I can impart; past that for truth of faith it's Beatrice alone you must await.

Every substantial form, at once distinct from matter, and conjoined to it, gathers the force that is distinctively its own, a force unknown to us until it acts, it's never shown, except in its effects, just as green boughs displayed the life in plants.

It is true that our soul wants to possess things that are beautiful. That's what love is.

And thus man does not know the source of his intelligence or primal notions, and his tending towards desire’s primal objects.

We are not aware of the lust within us. We are not aware of how our soul works.

Both are in you, just as in bees there is the honey making urge. Such primal will deserves no praise. It deserves no blame.

We just lust for what is beautiful. That's just how we are made.

Now that all other longings 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 of which your merit may be judged, for it garners and winnows good and evil longings.

What we can do, our choice, our free will in the matter, is to resist our temptation, to say no. That's what Augustine would say. We just say, “No, no, no. Yes, I want her, but it's bad for me, so I will stop myself from doing so.”

But those reasoners who reach the roots of things learn of this inborn freedom. The bequest that thus they left unto the world is ethics.

Even if we allow necessity as source for every power that inflames in you, the power to curb that love is still your own.

The power to curb that love is still your own. We can resist. We can say no. We can deny our love.

This noble power is what Beatrice means by free will. Therefore remember it if she should ever speak of it to you.

This is the conception of love from Virgil. Love can be good, or it can be bad. It's you who must decide. If it's bad for you, then you must resist.

What is Dante's response to this argument? The response is, if you truly love someone, then you only want what's best for that person. If the person says to you, “I will only marry you if you give me $10 million,” then you know that person doesn't love you. You turn away from her and say, “All I care about is your happiness. If you're happier without me, then I will leave. But I certainly will not degrade you by thinking that you're only worth $10 million. To my eyes, you're priceless, and you only degrade yourself if you think that you're only worth $10 million.” Love is not about possession. It's about respecting the person for who she is.

Statius

Now they're climbing up the mountain of Purgatory. Purgatory is an isolated mountain. There's a force field around it that protects it from the natural elements. But every now and then there's an earthquake. The entire mountain trembles. The reason why is because a soul within that mountain has cleansed himself or herself of their sins. She's absolved herself of her sins, and therefore he or she now has access to heaven. The heavens celebrate this with a shake, with an earthquake.

Virgil and Dante meet a man named Statius, a poet who has just expiated himself, who's just released himself from his sins. He's so excited because he's going to heaven. This is what he says:

So I had the will to climb before, but that will was opposed by longing to do penance as once to sin instilled by divine justice.

The people in Purgatory are those who have committed a sin, and they need to do penance before they can go to heaven. This is really important. Why? Ask yourself this question: if hell is a place where people go because they've sinned, and Purgatory is a place where people go because they've sinned, what is the difference?

What we will learn is this: the difference is the question of will. People in Purgatory recognize that they have committed a sin and that they must do penance before they go to heaven. They're willing to admit that they've committed a sin, and they're willing to do the penance. The penance could be a thousand years. It could be one year. It doesn't matter. But they're willing to commit themselves to penance.

Hell is a place where you go because you refuse to admit you've committed a sin. You refuse to admit you're wrong. If you refuse to admit you're wrong, you can never do penance. You can never absolve yourself of your sins. That's the difference, guys. That's the only difference. In terms of crime, in terms of sin, it's the same. But the difference is those in Purgatory have committed themselves to redeeming themselves. Let's continue.

“And I”—this is Statius, by the way—“who have lain in a suffering 500 years”. He's been here 500 years.

And more, just now have felt my free will for a better threshold. Thus you have heard the earthquake and the pious spirits throughout the mountain as they praised the lord, and may he send them speedily upward.

If you are able to release yourself from your sin, there's an earthquake, and now you have access to heaven.

So did he speak to us. And just as joy is at its greatest when we quench a greater thirst, the joy he brought cannot be told in words.

Statius is the happiest person in the universe at this point because he has found paradise. “And my wise guide”—this is Virgil:

I now can see 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. In your own words may I find why you've lain here for so many centuries.

Tell us who you are. Who are you? How are you able to accomplish this?

In that age when the worthy Titus, with help from the highest king, avenged the wounds from which the blood that Judas sold had flowed.

This is about 70, and Titus is the Roman general who attacked Jerusalem, sacked it and destroyed the Temple. The Christians saw this as revenge for the killing of their savior, Jesus.

That spirit replied: I bore the name that lasts longest and honors most but faith was not yet mine.

He's trying to explain who he is.

So gentle was the spirit of my verse that Rome drew me, son of Toulouse, to her and there my brow deserved a crown of myrtle.

On earth, my name is still remembered: Statius. I sang of Thebes and then of great Achilles. I fell along the way of that lost labor.

He's an epic poet, just like Virgil.

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.

What inspired me is the holy fire. Who is the holy fire? We would think God, right? Nope. It is Virgil.

I speak of the Aeneid.

It is Virgil who is the holy fire. It is Virgil who is God.

When I wrote verse, it was mother to me. It was nurse; my work without it would not weigh an ounce.

I was inspired by the Aeneid and Virgil to write my poetry. Virgil is the god, the mother who nursed me.

And to have lived on earth when Virgil lived, for that I would extend by one more year the time I owe before my exile's end.

I've been in Purgatory for 500 years, but if I had a chance to meet Virgil, I would stay one more year. That's how much I love Virgil. That's how important Virgil is to me. He doesn't know that the person standing next to him is Virgil.

These words made Virgil turn to me and as he turned, his face, through silence, said: be still.

He's like, “Shut up, man. I don't want him to know who I am.” What's going on here? What's really important for us to understand is that this shows us that Virgil was lying. Virgil told us in the beginning of the Divine Comedy it was impossible for merit to leave Limbo and ascend to Paradise. He told us that you have to be baptized in order to get into heaven. Statius was not baptized. Statius is exactly like Virgil, a Roman epic poet. But Statius is able to ascend to heaven, but Virgil is not.

The reason why Statius is able to go to heaven is Statius wants to. He's willing to admit there are flaws in his thinking. He's willing to admit that his understanding of the world is flawed, and he needs to undergo introspection, reflection, to improve himself. Virgil is not.

Beatrice and Virgil

Let's go to the very last passage. This is Canto 30. This is when Beatrice is descending from heaven on a chariot, and she's beautiful. At this point, if you're Virgil, you might be like, “Wow, this is my chance to get out of Limbo and go to heaven because Beatrice, who's in heaven, asked me to do her a favor, guide Dante through Inferno and Purgatory. I've done that, man. Now she owes me. Here's my chance to say to Beatrice, ‘Hey, could you do me a favor and get me into heaven?’” That's all he has to do. That would make sense. Let's see what happens.

This is Beatrice descending from heaven, and Dante is enraptured. He's completely focused on Beatrice.

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.

It's been decades since he last saw her, but he still feels for her. He's trembling. He's completely enraptured by Beatrice.

As soon as that deep force had struck my vision, the power that, when I had not yet left my boyhood, had already transfixed me, I turned around and to my left, just as a little child, afraid or in distress, will hurry to his mother anxiously.

He's turning around. Who does he want to talk to? Virgil. There are butterflies in his stomach. He's excited. He's trembling. He says, “Virgil, Virgil, it's Beatrice!” He sees Virgil as his father. He wants to share his joy with Virgil. Where is Virgil?

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.

Virgil, it's Beatrice. I've waited decades for this moment. He wants to share this happiness with Virgil.

But Virgil had deprived us of himself—Virgil, the gentlest father; Virgil, he to whom I gave myself for my salvation.

Virgil has run away. At this climax, at this moment when Dante is finally reunited with Beatrice, the moment that Virgil has completed his quest, Virgil has run away. He's run away. He's disappeared. No one knows where he is.

My cheeks, though washed with dew, were darkening again with tears.

What Dante wants more than anything else is for Virgil to share his happiness. What he wants more than anything else is for Virgil to ascend to heaven like Dante will, and Virgil disappears. Dante knows at this point Virgil will never change. Virgil ran away because he refuses to admit he is wrong.

Once Virgil sees the love between Beatrice and Dante, then Virgil knows his conception of love is wrong because never once did Dante possess Beatrice, but never once did Dante stop loving Beatrice. Love is not about possession. It's about trust. It's about faith. That's what love is. Rather than admit he is wrong, and go to heaven, by the way, Virgil is like, “Screw this. I'm going back to hell because I'm happier there. I'd rather burn in hell for eternity than admit I'm wrong.”

Dante, though Virgil is leaving you, do not yet weep, do not weep yet; you'll need your tears for what another sword must yet inflict.

Beatrice says to Dante, “Let him go. Let him go. You can't save him. You have to save yourself. There's no point in trying to save those who don't want to be saved. It just isn't.”

This is the last we will see of Virgil. As you can understand, at this point in our hearts we've also learned to let Virgil go. This means that slowly, from our minds, the Aeneid will dissipate, will dissolve itself. We will have a new memory called the Divine Comedy come into place, which will reshape the way we see the universe.

How did Virgil put Dido in hell?

How did Virgil put Dido in hell? This goes back to the Aeneid, which everyone will have read. If you read the Divine Comedy, you will certainly have read the Aeneid. What happens in the Aeneid is that Aeneas, a prince of Troy, is going to Rome to basically found the Roman Empire. That is his divine mission sent to him by the gods.

But along the way, he gets shipwrecked on Carthage, and Dido, who is the queen of Carthage, welcomes him and his people. They fall in love. They get married. They have sex and all that. But then the gods get angry because they didn't want Aeneas in Carthage. They want him in Rome. They send Mercury, the messenger of God, to tell him, “Hey man, Aeneas, go to Rome.” Aeneas, because he's pious, that's what he's famous for, for being pious, just basically says, “Fine.”

Dido, of course, gets very upset, and she warns Aeneas, “If you leave, I can only kill myself. I love you that much.” Aeneas is basically like, “Yeah, go kill yourself.” He leaves, and she kills herself. I can't remember. I think she just stabs herself with a sword and then throws herself into a fire. Dido is dead.

On the way to Rome, Aeneas has to go through hell in order to get a prophecy of the founding of Rome. In hell, who does he meet? He meets Dido, and it's awkward for him. He's like, “I should go say hi.” But the moment he tries to say hi to Dido, Dido runs away. What's happened is that in hell, not only is she burning in hell, but she's lost the power to speak, which for the Greeks and the Romans was even worse than death. You've lost the power to speak.

That's what happens in the Aeneid, and Dante is continuing this idea in the Divine Comedy. He's assumed that if you're reading the Divine Comedy, you've already read the Aeneid. Again, the Aeneid is what you have to memorize in school.

In Virgil's cosmology, Dido has to be in hell because she's a pagan. Aeneas is there as well. Aeneas is actually in Limbo, and Dido is the first circle of hell. The problem, though, is that Virgil does not acknowledge Dido. It's like Virgil wants to block Dido from his own mind. He's trying to ignore the fact that Dido is his creation. He feels kind of embarrassed about all this.

Where do Limbo and Purgatory come from?

Where do these ideas of Limbo and Purgatory come from? What's happening is that Dante is dealing with an entire cosmology of Christian thought because throughout Christian history there have been a lot of problems. One big problem is, let's just say that you're a baby, and you are born before the time of Christ, and you die because you're sick. According to Christian theology, the baby would burn in hell. That doesn't make any sense because it's a baby. He or she is without sin, and he got unlucky. They create this place called Limbo for these special cases. That's where the idea of Limbo comes from.

Purgatory is another idea that was created as a middle ground between hell and heaven because there are lots of special cases where this person did some sin and so can't have access to heaven, but the sin doesn't qualify for hell. So they created Purgatory.

The genius of Dante is he's basically accessing all this cosmology, and there are different conflicts within this cosmology. He's creating his own cosmology. Before Dante, the idea of Purgatory was not that common, but after Dante, Purgatory became a much more common concept in Christian theology.

Also, if you actually read the Divine Comedy, it's clear that Dante is drawing a lot of his ideas from Gnosticism. In other words, what's happening is that even though the Catholic Church is trying to impose orthodoxy on the European population, most people are actually resisting, especially the educated elite. They're resisting, and they're creating their own theology in opposition to the Catholic Church. They all believe in Jesus, but the interpretation of Jesus is different.

One major difference in the Divine Comedy is that it's orthodoxy that Jesus died for our sins. But when Beatrice and Dante talk about Jesus, Beatrice tells Dante, no, Jesus died to awaken us, to educate us to our own flaws because otherwise we could not look ourselves in the mirror. The death of Jesus was so shocking that it forced us to look ourselves in the mirror and to see the sin within us. It was an act of education. It was an act of inspiration rather than an act of redemption.

Reflection within the Church

According to Wikipedia, the Catholic Church kind of solidified its own understanding.

At this point in European history, this is the year about 1300, as Doug says, there's a lot of reflection going on. People within the Catholic Church hierarchy understand that Augustine, his theories, his theology are problematic. What happens is that a new theologian named Thomas Aquinas comes, and his orthodoxy starts to replace that of Augustine. Aquinas is a much more enlightened, much more open-minded individual than Augustine is.

When Augustine was around, Rome was at the height of its power. The Catholic Church was an empire. But obviously, a few centuries later, there was the Arabian conquest, and there was the Mongolian conquest as well. There was a lot more self-reflection going on. If you look at the ideas of Thomas Aquinas and Dante, they align very closely.

But what's important for us to understand is philosophy is not as effective as poetry. Philosophy is about ideas, and you debate these ideas, but poetry goes into your subconscious, and it becomes the building blocks of your psyche. Because poetry is language, it was very common back then, it was actually a great practice for people to memorize poetry. They didn't actually know what they were memorizing, but they just memorized it, and it made them much more fluent in language and much more fluid in thought. That's a cultural practice that we no longer do, to our detriment, basically.

Shakespeare in your head.

The Reformation and the Scientific Revolution

You did plant the intriguing idea that the Scientific Revolution, the seeds of the Reformation as well. Pick up one of those.

The key idea of the Protestant Reformation is that you have direct access to God. How do you access God? Through the Bible. You don't need a priest to be the middleman because if there's a middleman priest, all sorts of problems are being created. Corruption is a huge issue, but also orthodoxy.

The idea of the Protestant Reformation is that you can access God through the Bible itself. Why you're able to do that is because God is within you, and you are within God. Therefore, through self-study, you're able to access truth yourself. That's the main idea of the Protestant Reformation.

When we talk about the Scientific Revolution, the main idea of the Scientific Revolution is the institutionalization of doubt. What does that mean? It means we encourage you to ask questions. We encourage you to debate because that's what God wants. Where do we get this idea from? Because in heaven, Beatrice and Dante are arguing all the time. It's divine to ask questions. It's divine to doubt. It's divine to experiment.

Remember, the father of the Scientific Revolution is Galileo. Where's Galileo from? Florence. Galileo grew up immersed in the Divine Comedy. These things aren't accidental.