Civilization #30: Dante as the Second Coming of Homer

There are secrets, mysteries, and paradoxes embedded in Dante's Divine Comedy. The ultimate secret of the universe is that we are in God and God is in us. This breaks apart the idea of the Holy Trinity. The idea of the Holy Trinity is 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, which goes back to Homer, is that for Dante, love is the unifying force of the universe. 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, our legacy, and 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 and 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 Divine Comedy is historically significant because it becomes the intellectual blueprint for the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. You might ask yourself, "When I read The Divine Comedy, I don't really understand what's going on. So how did it come to be so historically significant?" The answer is that it is poetry, and poetry is a unique form of writing. Poetry is meant to be memorized.

For thousands of years in Western history, you were educated through the memorization of classical poets. How did the Greeks educate themselves? They memorized Homer. The Romans memorized Virgil, and the Italians memorized Dante. Poetry is uniquely designed in order to be memorized.

Poetry as a Superfood for the Brain

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 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, mysteries, or contradictions. It's always trying to resolve these contradictions to formulate a coherent understanding of the world. That's why paradox is so powerful within The Divine Comedy. The work is full of paradoxes, which forces your brain to consciously work to resolve them.

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's True Enemy: Virgil

What Dante realized when he wrote The Divine Comedy is that if he has to create a new modern brain—a new scientific, romantic mind—then his true enemy is not Augustine. It is actually Virgil. 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.

When Dante 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. 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 and their habits first. If you threaten their habits and customs, they will see you as a threat and reject you. So Dante has to perform surgery on the brain that is nuanced, subtle, and sophisticated.

The way he does this 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. We start off with Dante the poet lost in the woods, 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. Dante understands Virgil is his ultimate nemesis, and in order to defeat Virgil, he makes Virgil the hero of his epic. This is the idea of the unreliable narrator.

Let's study some passages from The Divine Comedy to see how Dante does this. It's very clever and 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 if you were to read The Divine Comedy by yourself, you wouldn't notice it. The brain, however, 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.

The Unreliable Narrator: Virgil in the Inferno

Virgil and Dante are now going to explore the Inferno, Hell. They first end up in Limbo, the outer circle of Hell. It's a very nice place—not Paradise, not great, 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. So if, unfortunately, you were born before the time of Jesus, you are put in Limbo, and that's where Virgil is.

Virgil explains to Dante (there are all these encomiums for Virgil; he is the father to Dante, the master to Dante):

"Before you go on, I want you to know,"
my kindly Master said, "these spirits you see
did not sin; but if they have merits, it is not enough,
for they did not have Baptism, the gateway
to the faith that you believe.
"And if they lived before Christianity,
they did not worship God as they should have,
and I myself am one of these.
For such defects, and for no other fault,
we are lost, and afflicted only this way:
that without hope, we live in desire."

This is why he is in Limbo. He is as virtuous as can be, but because he was not baptized in the faith, he is stuck here. Of course, this raises a question for Dante, who has nothing but questions. Dante asks him if this is an iron law of the universe or if there were exceptions.

"Tell me, my Master, tell me, Lord,"
I began, wanting to be certain
of the faith that vanquishes all error,
"did anyone ever leave here, by his own merit
or another's, who then was blessed?"

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 the 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.

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. 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 whose story
you want to know," he said to me then,
"was empress of many tongues.
"She was so broken by the vice of lust
that she made lust lawful in her law
to take away the blame she had incurred.
"She is Semiramis, of whom we read
that she succeeded Ninus and was his wife:
she held the land the Sultan rules."

But now there's a second person.

"The other is she who killed herself for love
and broke faith with the ashes of Sychaeus;
next is Cleopatra, the lustful."

This is interesting. There will be about a thousand spirits parading before Dante and Virgil, and what's interesting is that Virgil names every one of them except this person: "The other is she who 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 the Inferno? Because Virgil put her there. And 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, you discover 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.

So who is Dido really? If she's a literary creation of Virgil's, we can surmise that Dido must have existed and 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 surmise that Virgil really hates this person and 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. So what he does is create 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 Dante will name Dido. He sees "those spirits 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.

The Contradiction in Purgatory

Now they go through Inferno and 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 Purgatorio:

I saw beside me an old man, alone,
his face worthy of so much reverence
that no son owes more to a father.

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. And 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. So Cato says to Virgil and Dante, "Who are you? How are you able to escape from Hell?" And then Virgil says, "Let me do the talking because I know this guy. We're friends."

"I do not come of myself. A lady came down from Heaven,
at whose prayers I helped this man
with my company.
"But since it is your will that our condition
be more fully and truly explained,
my will cannot be that you be denied.
"This man has not seen his last evening,
but through his folly he was so close to it
that very little time was left to run.
"As I said, I was sent to him
to rescue him, and there was no other way
than this one I have taken.
"I have shown him all the guilty people,
and now I mean to show him those spirits
who purge themselves under your care."

Now, this is what Virgil says to Cato:

"You know it, for death was not bitter to you in Utica,
where you left the garment that on the great day
will be so bright.
"The eternal edicts are not broken for us,
for this one is alive, and Minos does not bind me;
but I am of the circle where the chaste eyes
of your Marcia are, who in her look still prays to you,
O holy breast, that you hold her for your own.
For her love, then, incline to us.
"Let us go on through your seven kingdoms:
I will report your kindness to her,
if you deign to be mentioned down there."

What Virgil is doing is saying to Cato, "Listen, you may be the guardian of Purgatory, you may be master of this realm, but I have power in Hell. So 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:

"Marcia so pleased my eyes while I was over there,"
he said then, "that every kindness she wanted of me, I did.
"Now that she dwells beyond the evil river,
she can move me no more, by the law
that was made when I came out from there."

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. And 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 Flawed 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 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 created quick to love,
is responsive to everything that pleases,
as soon as by pleasure it is roused to act.
"Your faculty of apprehension draws an image
from a real thing, and unfolds it within you,
so that it makes the soul turn to it;
"and if, being turned, the soul inclines toward it,
that inclination is love; that is nature,
which is bound in you again by pleasure."

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. Your apprehension draws an image from a real object and expands upon that object until the soul has turned toward it. 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 from last class where you meet this beautiful woman and you say, "I want to marry you because you're so beautiful," and she says, "I will if you give me $10 million." 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. 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.

"Then, just as fire moves upward
by its form, which is born to rise
to where it lasts longer in its matter,
"so the captive soul enters into desire,
which is a spiritual movement, and never rests
until the thing loved makes it rejoice.
"Now you can see how the truth is hidden
from the people who claim that every love
is in itself a praiseworthy thing,
"perhaps because its matter always seems to be good;
but not every seal is good,
even if the wax is good."

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

Dante replies:

"Your words and my wit that followed them,"
I said to him, "have revealed love to me,
but that has made me more full of doubt;
"for if love is offered to us from outside,
and the soul walks with no other foot,
it has no merit, whether it goes straight or crooked."

"for if love is offered to us from outside,and the soul walks with no other foot,it has no merit, whether it goes straight or crooked."

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:

"As much as reason sees here, I can tell you;
beyond that, wait only for Beatrice,
for it is a matter of faith.
"Every substantial form that is distinct from matter
and is united with it, holds a specific power
in itself, which is not perceived except in operation,
nor is it shown otherwise than by its effects,
as the life in a plant by its green leaves.
"Therefore, where the understanding of the first cognitions
comes from, man does not know, nor of the inclination
to the first objects of appetite, which are in you
as the instinct in the bee to make honey;
and this first will admits no merit of praise or blame.
"Now, so that to this will all others may be gathered,
the power that counsels is innate in you,
and ought to hold the threshold of assent.
"This is the principle from which the occasion
of merit in you is derived, according as it gathers
and winnows good and evil loves.
"Those who in their reasoning went to the foundation,
perceived this innate liberty;
therefore they left morality to the world.
"Thus, even if we grant that every love that is kindled in you
arises from necessity, the power to curb it
is in you.
"This noble power Beatrice understands as Free Will;
therefore, see that you have it in mind,
if she should 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 this: if you truly love someone, then you only want what's best for that person. So 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.

The Climax in Purgatory: Virgil's Final Failure

Now they're climbing up the mountain of Purgatory. Purgatory is an isolated mountain with 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 her 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:

"The will to climb was there before, but the desire
to do penance, which Divine Justice sets
against the will, as it once was to sin, did not allow it."

The people in Purgatory are those who have committed a sin and need to do penance before they can go to Heaven. This is really important. 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?

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. 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 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.

Statius continues:

"And I, who have lain in this suffering
for five hundred years and more, just now felt
my free will for a better threshold.
That is why you felt the earthquake and heard the pious spirits
through the mountain praise the Lord—
may He soon send them upward."

Statius is the happiest person in the universe at this point because he has found Paradise. Virgil says:

"Now I see the net that holds you here,
and how it is broken, and why the mountain shakes,
and why you all rejoice together.
"Now may it please you to let me know who you were,
and in your own words, tell me why
you have lain here for so many centuries."

Statius explains who he is:

"In the time when the good Titus, with the help
of the highest King, avenged the wounds
from which the blood sold by Judas flowed,
"with the name that lasts longest and honors most,
"replied that spirit, "I was famous over there,
but not yet with faith.
"So sweet was the spirit of my poetry
that Rome drew me, a son of Toulouse, to herself,
where I deserved to have my brows crowned with myrtle.
"On earth my name is still spoken: they call me Statius.
I sang of Thebes, and then of the great Achilles;
but I fell on the way with the second burden.
"The sparks that warmed me, the seeds of my ardor,
came from the divine flame from which more than a thousand
have been lit; I speak of The Aeneid:
"it was a mother to me, it was a nurse to me
in poetry; without it, I would not have weighed a dram.
"And to have lived on earth when Virgil lived,
I would agree to one more year than I owe
to come out of my exile."

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

These words made Virgil turn to me
with a look that, in its silence, said: "Be silent."

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, while Virgil is not.

The reason why Statius is able to go to Heaven is that 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 and reflection to improve himself. Virgil is not.

Virgil's Disappearance

Let's go to the very last passage, from Canto XXX. 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. 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.

I had been in her presence many times before,
and I felt the awe and trembling of that time,
though it was long ago. But now, though my eyes,
veiled as she was, could not see her directly,
through the hidden power that moved from her,
I felt the great power of old love.
As soon as the high virtue struck my sight,
which had already pierced me before
I was out of my boyhood,
I turned to my left with the confidence
with which a little child runs to his mother
when he is afraid or when he is in distress,
to say to Virgil: "Less than a drop of blood
is left in me that does not tremble:
I recognize the signs of the ancient flame."

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. And where is Virgil?

But Virgil had left us deprived of himself,
Virgil, my sweetest father,
Virgil,to whom I gave myself for my salvation;
nor did all that our ancient mother lost
keep my cheeks, though washed with dew,
from turning dark again with tears.

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 disappeared. No one knows where he is. 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. So 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."

Beatrice says to Dante:

"Dante, because Virgil leaves you,
do not weep yet, do not weep yet;
for you must weep for another sword."

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. And 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?

This goes back to The Aeneid, which everyone would have read. If you read The Divine Comedy, you must have certainly read The Aeneid. What happens in The Aeneid is that Aeneas, a prince of Troy, is going to Rome to 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. So they send Mercury, the messenger of the gods, to tell him, "Hey man, Aeneas, go to Rome." And Aeneas, because he's pious—that's what he's famous for—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." And Aeneas is basically like, "Yeah, go kill yourself." So he leaves, and she kills herself. She stabs herself with a sword and then throws herself into a fire.

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. Aeneas finds it awkward and thinks, "I should go say hi." But the moment he tries to say hi to Dido, she runs away. What's happened is that in Hell, not only is she burning, but she's lost the power to speak, which for the Greeks and the Romans was even worse than death.

Dante is continuing this idea in The Divine Comedy. He's assumed that if you're reading his work, you've already read The Aeneid, which was what you had 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 in the first circle of Hell proper. 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 the ideas of Limbo and Purgatory come from?

Dante is dealing with an entire cosmology of Christian thought. Throughout Christian history, there have been a lot of problems. One big problem is, let's just say that you're a baby born before the time of Christ, and you die because you're sick. According to Christian theology, that baby would burn in Hell. That doesn't make any sense because a baby is without sin and just got unlucky. So they created this place called Limbo for these special cases.

Purgatory is another idea that was created as a middle ground between Hell and Heaven. There are lots of special cases where a 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 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.

If you actually read The Divine Comedy, it's clear that Dante is drawing a lot of his ideas from Gnosticism. In other words, 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 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, in orthodoxy, 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, an act of inspiration, rather than an act of redemption.

How did this lead to the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution?

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. 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. You're able to do that because God is within you, and you are within God. Therefore, through self-study, you're able to access truth yourself.

When we talk about the Scientific Revolution, the main idea 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.