WEBVTT 00:01.500 --> 00:08.300 Prof: Today we are going to look at the three cantos in 00:08.296 --> 00:12.526 the eighth sphere of Dante's cosmos; 00:12.530 --> 00:16.270 we are beyond the planets, beyond all this so called 00:16.265 --> 00:19.195 eighth sphere, or the Heaven of the Fixed 00:19.197 --> 00:19.927 Stars. 00:19.930 --> 00:23.320 Before we get to, which will be next week-- 00:23.320 --> 00:29.790 next time, the Empyrean, the heaven of light and fire 00:29.789 --> 00:36.759 but now we are in the heaven of the fixed stars and Dante 00:36.756 --> 00:42.226 discusses the three theological virtues. 00:42.230 --> 00:44.530 The three theological virtues, unlike-- 00:44.530 --> 00:48.250 they are so called to distinguish them from the 00:48.253 --> 00:52.793 cardinal virtues that Christians share with the classical 00:52.785 --> 00:57.505 tradition, namely the fortitude, 00:57.505 --> 01:02.175 prudence, and justice, etc. 01:02.179 --> 01:09.159 These are the virtues that deal with the understanding of the 01:09.162 --> 01:14.522 divine; they open up this horizon of 01:14.519 --> 01:20.829 speculations about the language of God, 01:20.830 --> 01:24.770 the way God speaks to us, theology in this sense, 01:24.769 --> 01:26.889 the way in which we speak about God, 01:26.890 --> 01:28.770 theology, the logos. 01:28.769 --> 01:33.929 In theology there's the word logos and the way God speaks to 01:33.925 --> 01:38.015 us, so it's the place in paradise 01:38.022 --> 01:44.802 where Dante will focus on the meaning of what I call-- 01:44.800 --> 01:48.290 it's not my phrase, "basic words," 01:48.288 --> 01:53.318 the words which are foundations of the way in which we come out 01:53.319 --> 01:57.559 to discover who we are; they are words that we use, 01:57.555 --> 02:02.245 the words that we many not even know exactly what they mean and 02:02.251 --> 02:05.131 yet Dante will try to define them, 02:05.129 --> 02:08.419 they are, I repeat faith, hope and charity. 02:08.419 --> 02:13.389 The three virtues that Dante will-- 02:13.389 --> 02:20.259 in this, using Paul's letter to the Hebrews where he accounts or 02:20.258 --> 02:25.598 gives a definition at least of faith and hope, 02:25.598 --> 02:29.058 but they are words--they are terms that always implicate each 02:29.057 --> 02:29.517 other. 02:29.520 --> 02:32.710 You cannot go explaining faith without really talking about 02:32.705 --> 02:33.085 hope. 02:33.090 --> 02:36.200 You cannot go on talking about hope without explaining faith, 02:36.199 --> 02:40.899 and both of them are recapitulated and come together, 02:40.900 --> 02:44.790 gather within the question of--within the virtue of charity 02:44.792 --> 02:46.472 and the virtue of love. 02:46.470 --> 02:51.960 They are words that--they are very mysterious in many ways but 02:51.960 --> 02:56.370 there are degrees of understanding all of them. 02:56.370 --> 03:00.730 The three examiners, because Dante will go through 03:00.728 --> 03:04.818 the equivalent of a university examination, 03:04.818 --> 03:09.518 a medieval Bachelor's degree, that's the term comes to us 03:09.520 --> 03:12.820 from the universities, medieval universities, 03:12.823 --> 03:13.593 the Bachelor. 03:13.590 --> 03:18.240 Dante is a bachelor who presents himself to the teacher, 03:18.238 --> 03:22.718 the teacher is testing him, and he will give an answer 03:22.717 --> 03:24.997 according to textbooks. 03:25.000 --> 03:29.790 Authentic--where the authentic--the departed of one's 03:29.793 --> 03:34.773 own beliefs, one's own hopes, and one's own charity are 03:34.770 --> 03:35.970 gathered. 03:35.970 --> 03:41.550 The three teachers are going to be three Apostles who are known 03:41.550 --> 03:43.530 as Peter for faith, St. 03:43.530 --> 03:48.750 Peter for faith and that makes sense because Peter himself, 03:48.750 --> 03:53.700 the name stands for the cornerstone on which the edifice 03:53.699 --> 03:59.589 of Christian belief is built; the second one is going to be 03:59.593 --> 04:04.543 for the virtue of hope is going to be James, known as the 04:04.544 --> 04:08.974 Galician because--why him; it would seem to be less 04:08.971 --> 04:13.081 obvious than the other two because he among of all the 04:13.081 --> 04:17.891 Apostles is the one whose death was recorded in the Acts of the 04:17.889 --> 04:22.619 Apostles and so he lived in a certain expectation of a life to 04:22.620 --> 04:26.310 come, so he would seem to be the real 04:26.314 --> 04:29.784 figure of hopefulness of some idea of-- 04:29.778 --> 04:36.668 some way of expecting a future and the life of eternity. 04:36.670 --> 04:44.090 The virtue of charity instead, is examined by John, 04:44.091 --> 04:49.881 the Apostle, to distinguish him from the 04:49.879 --> 04:55.669 seer, the writer of the Apocalypse. 04:55.670 --> 04:59.520 So it's the three Apostles Peter, James, 04:59.523 --> 05:00.613 and John. 05:00.610 --> 05:05.160 Are there ways in which we could--I could give you some 05:05.163 --> 05:09.303 summary ways of trying to understand some of these 05:09.297 --> 05:10.307 virtues. 05:10.310 --> 05:15.170 One thing that I would ask you to look through when you have 05:15.170 --> 05:18.550 time to go into detail of these texts, 05:18.550 --> 05:22.480 it seems to me that all the three cantos deal, 05:22.480 --> 05:27.070 or have as a kind of what I would call under text, 05:27.069 --> 05:31.469 the subtext of them, something running through but 05:31.468 --> 05:36.048 sometimes even visible but not all the time visible, 05:36.045 --> 05:38.645 is the question of exile. 05:38.649 --> 05:43.049 Dante is retrieving the language of exile as if these 05:43.045 --> 05:48.455 virtues are clearly virtues that don't concern at all the blessed 05:48.456 --> 05:51.966 in heaven; they can only concern us here 05:51.966 --> 05:52.686 in time. 05:52.690 --> 05:56.970 The blessed in heaven certainly do not need faith, 05:56.973 --> 06:02.313 or hope, or they don't really need to know about what love may 06:02.307 --> 06:04.767 be; either they have it or they 06:04.767 --> 06:09.527 wouldn't be there so this is-- but it's the language of exile 06:09.528 --> 06:14.808 is running through these three issues just as the language of 06:14.807 --> 06:17.997 time, so the connection between time 06:17.995 --> 06:21.585 and exile probably needs not much explanation, 06:21.591 --> 06:22.951 much glossing. 06:22.949 --> 06:25.049 We are in time, we are fallen, 06:25.048 --> 06:29.318 and it's only in the language of the fall that it's possible 06:29.319 --> 06:31.129 to think about exile. 06:31.129 --> 06:35.619 The other element running through this is really the 06:35.617 --> 06:40.107 question of, very visible, especially in Canto XXVI, 06:40.105 --> 06:43.885 the actual question of language itself. 06:43.889 --> 06:45.499 What is the language of God? 06:45.500 --> 06:48.540 What are the names of God? 06:48.540 --> 06:49.960 Dante asks that question. 06:49.959 --> 06:54.339 Are we talking about an entity with a name, 06:54.339 --> 06:57.979 and if so, you know the whole debate about the so-called 06:57.976 --> 07:02.496 tetragrammaton, the four letters that are 07:02.497 --> 07:05.477 supposedly that name God. 07:05.480 --> 07:08.070 That's what the word means, the four letters. 07:08.069 --> 07:14.549 Are they known or is God just an effable? 07:14.550 --> 07:19.130 Is there some--Is He some kind of reality we can never even 07:19.127 --> 07:24.097 hope to name or are we going to be related and connected to this 07:24.100 --> 07:26.680 idea, this knowledge of God by 07:26.684 --> 07:28.334 analogical discourse. 07:28.329 --> 07:31.809 These are positions, the mystical position that 07:31.814 --> 07:35.454 denies even our knowledge of the name of God, 07:35.449 --> 07:39.649 the analogical position put forth by Aquinas, 07:39.649 --> 07:42.639 for instance, that we really talk about God 07:42.641 --> 07:46.491 analogically and know the qualities we attribute to God 07:46.490 --> 07:50.980 only they're not real by what we may know in our own lives. 07:50.980 --> 07:54.300 Dante asks this question about what is the language of God? 07:54.295 --> 07:57.605 What are the names of God and how do we get to know God? 07:57.610 --> 08:02.010 The first virtue then is the virtue of faith. 08:02.009 --> 08:04.949 There are many ways literally--I call it a basic 08:04.947 --> 08:08.757 word because it's really a basic word because it founds us. 08:08.759 --> 08:13.199 It's a stone, Peter asks for the foundation 08:13.201 --> 08:19.231 of all this poetic edifice of the Divine Comedy. 08:19.230 --> 08:21.590 I would like you to think about this-- 08:21.589 --> 08:24.139 the actual--when we get into the text, 08:24.139 --> 08:31.599 there is actual apostrophe at the beginning of Canto XXIV of, 08:31.600 --> 08:34.960 "'O fellowship elect to the great supper of the blessed 08:34.962 --> 08:36.862 Lamb, who feeds you so that your 08:36.856 --> 08:39.976 desire is ever satisfied, since by God's grace this man 08:39.975 --> 08:42.885 has foretaste of that which falls from your table, 08:42.889 --> 08:47.349 before death appoints his time, give heed to his measureless 08:47.346 --> 08:50.366 craving and bedew him with some drops; 08:50.370 --> 08:53.460 you drink always from the fountain whence comes that on 08:53.464 --> 08:56.334 which his mind is set.'" He wants to know-- 08:56.330 --> 09:00.520 what I do--what I would like to stress is the presence of this 09:00.519 --> 09:02.649 actual metaphor of a banquet. 09:02.649 --> 09:09.139 It is as if Dante is--clearly we're dealing with two metaphors 09:09.144 --> 09:11.454 here; one which is exilic, 09:11.447 --> 09:17.237 the manna in the desert, the falling of this dew on the 09:17.243 --> 09:19.273 exiles, the wanderers, 09:19.274 --> 09:22.094 the Jewish wanderers in the desert, 09:22.090 --> 09:25.450 and the other one is the eschatological banquet. 09:25.450 --> 09:31.640 It is as if any debate about faith has to be placed within a 09:31.636 --> 09:33.626 communal context. 09:33.629 --> 09:37.919 This is not going to be the professional faith the way you 09:37.922 --> 09:41.012 may have it, let's say in 1550 roughly. 09:41.009 --> 09:47.639 I'm really alluding to, as a contrast, 09:47.639 --> 09:49.299 just to make you understand the case, 09:49.298 --> 09:54.568 the great debate between two figures of the Renaissance 09:54.573 --> 09:57.313 called Erasmus and Luther. 09:57.308 --> 10:00.318 They debated, at length, about the question 10:00.317 --> 10:04.897 of whether or not how a text written about a century earlier, 10:04.899 --> 10:07.339 around 1440, a text by Valla, 10:07.340 --> 10:11.870 a great humanist who wrote about the free will in the 10:11.874 --> 10:15.714 defense of the free will-- on free will. 10:15.710 --> 10:19.250 He--they were--it was unclear to them what Valla really meant 10:19.253 --> 10:22.393 so they go on debating; the text in called On Free 10:22.388 --> 10:22.958 Will. 10:22.960 --> 10:27.080 Erasmus maintains that Valla really had defended the 10:27.080 --> 10:29.100 existence of free will. 10:29.100 --> 10:33.910 Free will, which is a gift of God, it's something that has 10:33.908 --> 10:38.968 been given to us and therefore we really have to come to know 10:38.970 --> 10:43.950 God through the acknowledgement of his authority because the 10:43.947 --> 10:47.967 freedom that we are talking-- that he is talking about, 10:47.966 --> 10:49.456 he thinks Valla is talking about, 10:49.460 --> 10:52.710 actually comes from him, and so by the free will we come 10:52.712 --> 10:56.502 to know and come to choose also the existence of the divinity. 10:56.500 --> 11:02.820 Luther had very radical ideas about the question of freedom. 11:02.820 --> 11:09.920 There was not such a thing he would argue as free will, 11:09.918 --> 11:14.348 and actually the world, the universe is a universe of 11:14.346 --> 11:18.046 absolute faith, and faith is freedom and it's 11:18.053 --> 11:22.033 given to us by freedom because it releases us from all 11:22.028 --> 11:25.268 obligations, it frees us from all 11:25.274 --> 11:30.594 constraints, it just makes us understand that our own 11:30.590 --> 11:36.720 relationship to the Creator is without any other intermediary 11:36.724 --> 11:39.284 forces of the world. 11:39.279 --> 11:43.079 It's a radical, theological claim of freedom, 11:43.083 --> 11:44.903 and faith together. 11:44.899 --> 11:46.569 It's very possible; many people, 11:46.568 --> 11:50.398 just to extend this argument, there are many poets and 11:50.399 --> 11:54.749 thinkers who go on changing his scenario and believe that, 11:54.750 --> 11:58.790 for instance, freedom is actually the source 11:58.794 --> 12:01.904 of not faith but faithlessness. 12:01.899 --> 12:06.079 That the idea of--one's own faithlessness may come, 12:06.080 --> 12:09.330 as a denial of God, may come from the assertion of 12:09.326 --> 12:13.166 one's self and the assertion of one's own total freedom. 12:13.168 --> 12:16.618 But this is--I'm giving you this to exemplify the nature of 12:16.615 --> 12:19.165 the debates and the force of the debates. 12:19.168 --> 12:23.768 Dante insists--so removes the question of faith from one of 12:23.768 --> 12:27.018 radical subjectivity or radical faith, 12:27.019 --> 12:32.799 aware that there may be some kind--some flip side to it, 12:32.798 --> 12:37.058 that faith and lack of faith really both depend, 12:37.058 --> 12:39.148 if you reduce them to subjectivity, 12:39.149 --> 12:45.639 one can go on sliding into one of the two options very easily. 12:45.639 --> 12:47.829 Dante focuses on, with this first image, 12:47.827 --> 12:51.077 on the question of the communal experience, the banquet. 12:51.080 --> 12:53.760 That to me is part of the shared world, 12:53.759 --> 12:57.029 this eschatological banquet, where they're all the-- 12:57.029 --> 12:59.289 the vision where, at the end of time, 12:59.288 --> 13:05.628 but the allusion is also to the manna where these various 13:05.629 --> 13:09.549 figures are-- the community comes together 13:09.553 --> 13:14.903 and then Dante goes on really focusing on the individuality, 13:14.899 --> 13:19.009 on the private professional faith, it's really about him. 13:19.009 --> 13:23.689 The interesting thing that I want to point out is Beatrice's 13:23.691 --> 13:27.091 words to Peter, around lines 30, 13:27.092 --> 13:33.632 she goes on appealing to him to go on to examining, 13:33.629 --> 13:36.929 but she does so in a peculiar way. 13:36.928 --> 13:39.208 Let me read this passage, "And she," 13:39.211 --> 13:41.931 lines 32, "'O eternal light of the 13:41.934 --> 13:45.514 great soul with whom our Lord left the keys," 13:45.509 --> 13:49.779 this is very canonical, it's part of the hagiography, 13:49.783 --> 13:54.793 the account of the iconographic representation of Peter with the 13:54.787 --> 13:58.237 two keys, "which He brought down of 13:58.244 --> 14:02.314 this wondrous joy, test this man on points light 14:02.313 --> 14:07.053 and grave as thou seest good regarding the faith by which 14:07.052 --> 14:09.932 thou walkedst on the sea." 14:09.928 --> 14:14.558 This is an allusion recorded in the Gospel of Peter walking out 14:14.562 --> 14:17.252 of an act of faith, walking on water, 14:17.251 --> 14:20.541 because Jesus asks him and tells him so. 14:20.538 --> 14:26.348 The strange thing about this reference is that Peter did not 14:26.346 --> 14:28.706 want to walk on water. 14:28.710 --> 14:33.190 It is the moment of, let me call it the crisis of 14:33.190 --> 14:36.450 faith, the moment where Peter had no 14:36.447 --> 14:39.447 faith and in fact Jesus calls him, 14:39.450 --> 14:43.070 "Oh man of little faith why don't you walk," 14:43.067 --> 14:47.087 and then I guess feeling that he's teetering on the brink of 14:47.094 --> 14:51.294 the abyss you can imagine, really see soaring over the 14:51.293 --> 14:54.153 waves, finally does manage to go on. 14:54.149 --> 14:58.199 This is a poignant moment because clearly Dante's 14:58.201 --> 15:02.841 emphasizing that there are degrees of faith and that the 15:02.844 --> 15:08.504 so-called crisis of faith must not be seen as denials of faith. 15:08.500 --> 15:12.040 On the contrary, that somehow there is a sort of 15:12.044 --> 15:16.574 dialectical movement between a profession of faith and doubts 15:16.570 --> 15:20.920 about owning and that's the-- owning this gift, 15:20.922 --> 15:24.212 of having this gift of faith. 15:24.210 --> 15:28.910 This is one of the strange moments and it's in the light of 15:28.913 --> 15:33.703 this strange fluctuation between faith and experience of not 15:33.698 --> 15:38.158 faith that I think that what happens later has to-- 15:38.158 --> 15:41.998 the wait has to be understood, and then whether he loves 15:41.995 --> 15:44.805 rightly and rightly hopes, and believes, 15:44.806 --> 15:47.466 here are the three--three of the language-- 15:47.470 --> 15:50.960 the three theological virtues all come together. 15:50.960 --> 15:53.600 "Is not hid from thee, since thou hast seen it 15:53.596 --> 15:57.576 there," and so on and then Dante uses both the language of 15:57.578 --> 16:00.008 the university, academic life, 16:00.005 --> 16:03.535 as if this were really an academic test. 16:03.538 --> 16:06.688 We'll come back to this issue in a moment. 16:06.690 --> 16:11.020 Just as the bachelor--that's the--the Bachelor of Arts, 16:11.018 --> 16:15.428 the baccalaureatus, as we call it arms himself so 16:15.427 --> 16:16.867 there are two. 16:16.870 --> 16:19.700 There is the weapon of knowledge, the academic, 16:19.700 --> 16:23.850 knowledge as a force, knowledge as a weapon, 16:23.850 --> 16:27.470 "just as the bachelor arms himself and does not speak to 16:27.474 --> 16:29.714 the master," magister, 16:29.710 --> 16:31.870 "submits the question-- for argument, 16:31.873 --> 16:34.123 not for settlement." 16:34.120 --> 16:40.500 These issues are issues that always need the open-endedness 16:40.504 --> 16:47.004 of argumentation and not that of a settling of the point. 16:47.000 --> 16:49.860 "I armed myself with all my reasons while she was 16:49.860 --> 16:52.940 speaking, to be ready for such a questioner and for such a 16:52.940 --> 16:53.750 profession. 16:53.750 --> 16:57.890 'Speak, good Christian, declare thyself.'" 16:57.889 --> 17:03.779 This is a knowledge that makes him visible, 17:03.778 --> 17:06.698 "declare thyself," but a knowledge that does not 17:06.696 --> 17:09.326 keep him hidden, sort of brings him into 17:09.326 --> 17:11.916 existence, makes him visible to us. 17:11.920 --> 17:16.610 What is faith and that's the question that he--that Peter 17:16.613 --> 17:17.203 asks. 17:17.200 --> 17:21.060 And the answer is, "'May the grace which 17:21.058 --> 17:25.358 grants it to me to make my confession to the Chief 17:25.356 --> 17:29.106 Centurion,' I began, 'give me right utterance for my 17:29.106 --> 17:29.656 thoughts.' 17:29.660 --> 17:32.590 And I went on: 'As the truthful pen,'" 17:32.593 --> 17:36.023 an allusionist to Paul, a questioning an authority, 17:36.023 --> 17:38.733 and the word authority, as you know, 17:38.733 --> 17:43.693 is that which is--what do we mean by authentic and 17:43.692 --> 17:48.432 authorities are key words, the word is auctoritas. 17:48.430 --> 17:53.820 It means that comes which is worthy of faith. 17:53.818 --> 17:58.598 The teacher is not necessarily worthy of faith. 17:58.598 --> 18:02.028 You can question the opinions of the teacher and reject the 18:02.027 --> 18:05.337 question of the--there's a distinction between the master 18:05.336 --> 18:06.456 and the author. 18:06.460 --> 18:10.220 The one--or the authority, the one who is an author is one 18:10.219 --> 18:13.199 who is worthy of belief, worthy of faith, 18:13.203 --> 18:16.333 so he quotes Paul, so this is a canonical answer, 18:16.327 --> 18:19.127 "'As the truthful pen of thy dear brother," 18:19.134 --> 18:21.444 Paul, "wrote of it with thee, 18:21.442 --> 18:24.442 father, put Rome on the good path, faith is the 18:24.435 --> 18:27.425 substance," literally the foundation, 18:27.430 --> 18:30.090 that which lies under all the things. 18:30.088 --> 18:33.978 The ground of all things, substance of things hoped for, 18:33.980 --> 18:37.390 so faith--if you want to understand faith we ought to 18:37.392 --> 18:41.692 probably go and read about hope, things hoped for and the 18:41.685 --> 18:44.095 evidence of things not seen. 18:44.098 --> 18:49.218 This I take to be its quiddity, quiddity and medieval--part of 18:49.221 --> 18:53.671 the medieval lexicon meaning its constitutive essence, 18:53.670 --> 18:55.350 its specificity. 18:55.348 --> 18:59.778 Now if you thought that in the Middle Ages that we'll go on 18:59.781 --> 19:03.911 talking about faith, the famous formulation of faith 19:03.913 --> 19:09.493 comes from Tertullian who says, "I believe because it is 19:09.490 --> 19:13.490 absurd," so that faith becomes the 19:13.490 --> 19:16.890 consequence of, the extension of, 19:16.894 --> 19:19.294 the absurdity of all things. 19:19.288 --> 19:23.918 Because the claim made on what one believes has in itself the 19:23.920 --> 19:28.170 idea of going--being beyond reason, absurd in that sense 19:28.165 --> 19:30.245 would be beyond reason. 19:30.250 --> 19:35.680 That's one of the ways in which faith is defined. 19:35.680 --> 19:39.380 It really means that faith exceeds the law of reason; 19:39.380 --> 19:43.040 it means that faith can never really quite be an object of 19:43.038 --> 19:43.808 knowledge. 19:43.809 --> 19:46.809 Dante does not pursue that line. 19:46.808 --> 19:51.338 He tries to make faith a reason co-extensive. 19:51.338 --> 19:55.428 This is the sense of the--I've got to qualify the term 19:55.425 --> 19:58.225 co-extensive, and I will in a moment, 19:58.232 --> 20:02.452 because obviously they are not, but they are--they belong 20:02.453 --> 20:03.243 together. 20:03.240 --> 20:08.970 This is the sense of the whole metaphorical pattern of the 20:08.969 --> 20:11.079 university context. 20:11.078 --> 20:15.298 That is to say, you can know something about 20:15.298 --> 20:20.208 belief, knowledge and faith really belong together, 20:20.205 --> 20:23.145 they implicate each other. 20:23.150 --> 20:26.340 They are not the same thing because if you really could know 20:26.343 --> 20:29.593 everything of what you belief then there is no reason why you 20:29.590 --> 20:32.870 should belief, that which faith becomes 20:32.865 --> 20:35.875 necessary-- a necessity only because they 20:35.875 --> 20:38.925 are-- it's a way of acknowledging limitations of 20:38.930 --> 20:40.100 what one knows. 20:40.098 --> 20:44.048 But linking knowledge and faith is not just simply a way of 20:44.054 --> 20:48.144 saying that reason can know some of the content of what Dante 20:48.144 --> 20:50.574 believes, that there is a reasonableness 20:50.568 --> 20:52.478 to what one believes, that's all true. 20:52.480 --> 20:55.560 To say that reason and faith go together, there are certain 20:55.564 --> 20:58.494 claims about the reasonableness of what one believes. 20:58.490 --> 21:03.020 It really means, I think, at a deeper level, 21:03.015 --> 21:07.535 that faith itself is a mode of knowledge. 21:07.538 --> 21:10.528 That it is a mode of knowledge exactly the way you have the 21:10.530 --> 21:13.630 knowledge of philosophy though its modalities are going to be 21:13.625 --> 21:17.215 different, because philosophy submits to 21:17.217 --> 21:22.387 the rules of the rationality, but faith opens your eyes and 21:22.386 --> 21:26.476 it's a way of showing you something about the world that 21:26.478 --> 21:28.708 the reason alone cannot do. 21:28.710 --> 21:31.910 The binding of the two metaphors, that's what I meant 21:31.909 --> 21:33.939 co-extensive but not identical. 21:33.940 --> 21:37.840 I didn't mean they're identical; the joining of philosophy and 21:37.840 --> 21:43.110 theology, reason and faith, makes and projects faith as a 21:43.114 --> 21:44.814 way of knowing. 21:44.808 --> 21:51.558 It makes you see the world in different ways then if you were 21:51.564 --> 21:58.434 trying to look at the world in the light of natural reason and 21:58.431 --> 22:03.161 from the point of view of rationality. 22:03.160 --> 22:08.210 So this seems to be the argument and I set the terms 22:08.210 --> 22:11.980 against, let's say, a modern subjective 22:11.980 --> 22:15.960 idea of freedom, freedom of faith as freedom, 22:15.959 --> 22:21.049 that frees you from all, and you are only accountable to 22:21.046 --> 22:24.656 the Creator, or faith as a mode of 22:24.663 --> 22:29.623 responding to the absurdity around oneself, 22:29.618 --> 22:34.278 which is really the language of Tertullian and this scholastic 22:34.279 --> 22:39.339 argument that Aquinas, of knowledge and faith really 22:39.336 --> 22:41.936 needing to be together. 22:41.940 --> 22:46.920 Then the examination goes on and I want to talk about 70, 22:46.920 --> 22:49.660 "'Thou thinkest right," this is the 22:49.660 --> 22:52.790 beginning, the top of the page Canto XXIV, 22:52.790 --> 22:54.930 line 68, "Then I heard: 22:54.930 --> 22:59.470 'Thou thinkest rightly if thou understandest well why he placed 22:59.465 --> 23:03.705 it among the substances and after among the evidences.' 23:03.710 --> 23:07.880 And I then: 'The deep things that so richly manifest 23:07.882 --> 23:12.462 themselves to me here are so hidden from men's eyes below 23:12.463 --> 23:17.213 that there their existence lies in belief alone." 23:17.210 --> 23:21.400 Now, it's the distinction, this is a cesura between belief 23:21.402 --> 23:24.972 and what we are-- the evidence of things not 23:24.971 --> 23:29.821 seen, the paradox remains, so there are things visible 23:29.817 --> 23:35.667 here in the heaven of the fixed stars and not available to those 23:35.667 --> 23:40.217 of us who are in time and in the fallen world. 23:40.220 --> 23:42.450 "On which is based the lofty hope; 23:42.450 --> 23:45.290 and therefore it takes the character of substance. 23:45.288 --> 23:47.728 And from this belief we must reason, without seeing more; 23:47.730 --> 23:49.890 therefore it holds the character of evidence." 23:49.890 --> 23:55.640 This is a gloss on the medieval theological lexicon that Dante 23:55.640 --> 23:57.620 has been deploying. 23:57.618 --> 24:00.808 "Then I heard: 'If all that is acquired below 24:00.809 --> 24:04.129 for doctrine were thus understood, there would be no 24:04.131 --> 24:06.281 room left for sophist's wit.' 24:06.278 --> 24:09.868 This breathed from the kindled love; 24:09.868 --> 24:12.678 and it continued," I want you to pay attention to 24:12.679 --> 24:15.309 this metaphor, for I wish you had--we're 24:15.305 --> 24:19.095 really sitting around the table where I could ask you to 24:19.102 --> 24:22.902 speculate about the presence of the coming metaphor. 24:22.900 --> 24:26.730 "If all that is acquired below for doctrine," 24:26.728 --> 24:27.648 I am sorry. 24:27.650 --> 24:34.870 "'Now the alloy and the weight of this money have been 24:34.867 --> 24:39.287 well examined; but tell me if thou hast it in 24:39.294 --> 24:43.194 thy purse.'" All of a sudden the question of 24:43.188 --> 24:46.108 money and the question of faith-- 24:46.108 --> 24:55.038 faith is literally given as said to be money. 24:55.038 --> 24:59.668 Do you have this coin in your purse? 24:59.670 --> 25:02.890 "I therefore: 'I have indeed, 25:02.891 --> 25:08.751 so bright and round that of its mintage I am in no doubt.' 25:08.750 --> 25:13.200 Then there came from the depth of the light that was shining 25:13.201 --> 25:15.771 there: 'This precious jewel,'" 25:15.767 --> 25:20.367 that's one reason why the metaphor of money is used for-- 25:20.369 --> 25:22.729 clearly for faith. 25:22.730 --> 25:26.930 It's a precious jewel on which every virtue rests, 25:26.932 --> 25:30.452 "whence did it come to thee?" 25:30.450 --> 25:33.210 And the language is going to be--it's from the plenteous 25:33.209 --> 25:36.269 reign of the Holy Spirit and the new parchments and so on, 25:36.269 --> 25:41.379 but that metaphor of money as faith really sort of has a way 25:41.375 --> 25:44.055 of lingering on in our minds. 25:44.059 --> 25:45.689 What is the connection? 25:45.690 --> 25:49.280 One connection, I repeat, is to indicate the 25:49.282 --> 25:52.462 preciousness of the faith one holds. 25:52.460 --> 25:58.470 It is really as rare maybe and it's valuable as rare, 25:58.472 --> 26:01.482 beautiful jewels can be. 26:01.480 --> 26:05.000 That's one thing, but clearly there is more, 26:05.000 --> 26:07.910 because the word money which Dante uses in Italian, 26:07.910 --> 26:10.590 moneta, is the same word becomes a 26:10.593 --> 26:15.173 character in an English epic, moneta comes from the 26:15.171 --> 26:18.991 Latin form meneo, the word money as you know 26:18.990 --> 26:23.050 comes from-- meaning a warning, 26:23.051 --> 26:29.071 it's an advice, it's a warning, 26:29.068 --> 26:35.088 a warning about its mintage, it's part of the language of-- 26:35.088 --> 26:38.588 we have the word admonishment that comes from it. 26:38.588 --> 26:40.748 It admonishes that it's not a counterfeit, 26:40.750 --> 26:44.160 that it is really pure, so that's another way of 26:44.156 --> 26:47.126 referring to the purity of this faith, 26:47.130 --> 26:50.010 the preciousness before, now the purity of this faith, 26:50.009 --> 26:53.119 the authenticity of it so to speak. 26:53.118 --> 26:56.708 Another trait of money is that money has-- 26:56.710 --> 27:01.370 it's that which establishes the value-- 27:01.368 --> 27:05.038 it circulates first of all, has the power of circulating, 27:05.038 --> 27:10.018 that's not said by the text but it's implied by the metaphor. 27:10.019 --> 27:15.099 It is as if faith has that power, has that virtue that puts 27:15.095 --> 27:19.275 everything into motion, and therefore questions and 27:19.278 --> 27:21.658 establishes, that's what makes it a basic 27:21.661 --> 27:21.961 word. 27:21.960 --> 27:25.000 It establishes, it's the substance that 27:24.996 --> 27:29.946 establishes the values of all the things that are around us. 27:29.950 --> 27:34.220 Fourth, I cannot really get past my mind that Dante wants us 27:34.217 --> 27:38.627 to think about this kind of the resonance of prophenation that 27:38.630 --> 27:43.110 is in the language of money and link it with really this purity 27:43.114 --> 27:44.204 of faith. 27:44.200 --> 27:47.710 It is as if there is--the distinction is really never 27:47.714 --> 27:51.644 quite between prophenation and the purity of faith and that 27:51.636 --> 27:55.086 somehow the world of faith comes out of the world of 27:55.085 --> 27:56.365 prophenation. 27:56.368 --> 28:01.308 That it belongs to the world of time, it can be profane and yet 28:01.313 --> 28:05.303 it still manages to put things into circulation. 28:05.298 --> 28:08.128 It's really the ambiguity of money, the ambiguity of the 28:08.130 --> 28:12.470 metaphor of money; I think sheds a lot of light on 28:12.469 --> 28:17.059 this virtue that Dante has been examining. 28:17.058 --> 28:21.048 He has been examined about it but he has been--he is examining 28:21.045 --> 28:21.825 it for us. 28:21.828 --> 28:26.458 Let me go and see how--whether we can see more about this 28:26.461 --> 28:30.681 virtue by looking at the question of hope that comes 28:30.678 --> 28:34.318 immediately after with the examination by St. 28:34.317 --> 28:35.307 James. 28:35.308 --> 28:40.058 I begin to tell you here just a little story that-- 28:40.058 --> 28:44.138 it's not really an unusual story, but as you probably know, 28:44.140 --> 28:51.580 the Greeks never thought of hope as a virtue. 28:51.578 --> 28:59.378 There's a reference to hope in--as being one of 28:59.375 --> 29:09.195 Pandora's--being one of the entities available in Pandora's 29:09.203 --> 29:10.563 Box. 29:10.558 --> 29:15.728 You know about Pandora's Box, which was opened and all the 29:15.726 --> 29:19.706 evils of the world came out of Pandora's Box, 29:19.714 --> 29:21.804 save for one, hope. 29:21.798 --> 29:25.468 It's a statement, it's a view that all is-- 29:25.470 --> 29:30.240 that really casts hope as clearly, some kind of evil or a 29:30.238 --> 29:32.458 delusion, and in fact, 29:32.460 --> 29:38.460 for the Greeks the idea of hope is always a term that implies 29:38.460 --> 29:41.060 the delusion of exiles. 29:41.058 --> 29:46.388 It's really what befalls an exile, someone who loses one's 29:46.387 --> 29:51.527 land and what is left for him to do nothing but hope. 29:51.529 --> 29:55.609 It's the radical illusion; it's a kind of hope against 29:55.608 --> 29:56.028 hope. 29:56.029 --> 29:58.829 I have nothing more to do; it's a self-deception, 29:58.827 --> 30:00.467 that's really what it is. 30:00.470 --> 30:05.660 Dante does not follow that route for hope, 30:05.660 --> 30:09.060 and in effect, I think that he finds in the 30:09.057 --> 30:14.587 Bible the idea that-- or a kind of a new--a different 30:14.587 --> 30:20.937 horizon for the rethinking, the way in which hope can be 30:20.943 --> 30:21.783 viewed. 30:21.778 --> 30:26.158 Hope, first of all, is literally a virtue of time. 30:26.160 --> 30:31.210 More so faith--the language of the clock, you must have noticed 30:31.205 --> 30:34.945 in Canto XXIV introducing the world of hope. 30:34.950 --> 30:38.020 I did not want to talk about it because I know that I'll be 30:38.020 --> 30:39.240 talking about it now. 30:39.240 --> 30:42.510 Hope is as much of faith a virtue of time, 30:42.509 --> 30:45.779 because it's a virtue not only of time; 30:45.779 --> 30:48.709 it's a virtue specifically of the future. 30:48.710 --> 30:54.180 It tells me whenever--if I have hope--I can't really hope about 30:54.175 --> 30:58.845 the past, it would be--it would fly against all sense, 30:58.849 --> 31:00.789 against all logic. 31:00.789 --> 31:04.909 I hope yesterday it didn't rain; it doesn't make sense does it? 31:04.910 --> 31:08.370 I mean it's--but I can hope that tomorrow it won't snow. 31:08.368 --> 31:11.658 I can have that hope which would be a silly hope, 31:11.659 --> 31:15.699 but it's a hope nonetheless because it's a virtue of time in 31:15.701 --> 31:16.731 the future. 31:16.730 --> 31:20.100 It's a way of experiencing time in the future, 31:20.101 --> 31:24.521 that's one thing that Dante is doing, linking therefore hope 31:24.520 --> 31:26.020 and temporality. 31:26.019 --> 31:28.089 But it's not only a virtue of time; 31:28.088 --> 31:30.728 it's the most realistic of virtues. 31:30.730 --> 31:33.730 Normally, we think, and the Greeks would sort of 31:33.734 --> 31:37.124 give us a cause to pause, that if you really hope it's 31:37.124 --> 31:39.494 because you are really desperate. 31:39.490 --> 31:45.180 You hope because they have no rational reason, 31:45.180 --> 31:49.670 no realistic reason to believe that things are going to go the 31:49.673 --> 31:53.813 way you wish they went for you, so you go on hoping. 31:53.808 --> 31:57.868 Dante says no, hope is the most realistic of 31:57.874 --> 32:03.834 virtues because it tells me that nothing is really ever over. 32:03.829 --> 32:05.639 That's what makes it realistic. 32:05.640 --> 32:10.190 The negation of hope, the opposite of hope would be 32:10.190 --> 32:11.100 despair. 32:11.098 --> 32:14.908 Dante, you remember, is the scene for Dante, 32:14.910 --> 32:17.680 is the scene that we find in canto-- 32:17.680 --> 32:20.010 we never read it, and now retrospectively I can 32:20.010 --> 32:22.190 tell you that you should go and read it, 32:22.190 --> 32:25.690 Canto VIII of Inferno, and even in Canto IX, 32:25.690 --> 32:29.260 the encounter with the Medusa is that fear of despair, 32:29.259 --> 32:30.739 that idea of being petrified. 32:30.740 --> 32:33.660 The Medusa can turn you into a stone; 32:33.660 --> 32:36.910 that is to say, that you are imprisoned and you 32:36.909 --> 32:41.149 remain caught either in your standpoint or in that particular 32:41.146 --> 32:45.096 reality that you have or the idea of yourself as you like 32:45.103 --> 32:47.613 to-- as you think you have been, 32:47.613 --> 32:49.353 and the idea of the past. 32:49.348 --> 32:52.028 Dante says, no hope is a virtue of the future; 32:52.029 --> 32:55.379 it's a virtue that can even change the past. 32:55.380 --> 32:58.110 In that sense, it's effective on the past, 32:58.111 --> 33:02.171 though it's--because it tells us that the past may not be what 33:02.173 --> 33:03.643 we thought it was. 33:03.640 --> 33:06.410 Whatever disaster you may have had, 33:06.410 --> 33:09.270 whatever disappointment you may have had in the past, 33:09.269 --> 33:13.949 that disappointment may contain seeds that really will reappear 33:13.946 --> 33:17.586 in the future, and maybe a preparing a future 33:17.585 --> 33:19.465 that will surprise you. 33:19.470 --> 33:24.240 This is a different understanding of time that Dante 33:24.240 --> 33:25.270 presents. 33:25.269 --> 33:29.829 It's an understanding of time that once again Dante links with 33:29.825 --> 33:34.145 two moments of his which is-- in that sense it's really not 33:34.146 --> 33:36.876 different from faith, it fulfills faith, 33:36.875 --> 33:38.955 it unveils the element of faith. 33:38.960 --> 33:44.230 You cannot really go on hoping about something like that unless 33:44.232 --> 33:47.042 you have some--an act of faith. 33:47.038 --> 33:51.548 Dante goes on explaining it in existential terms and tying it 33:51.545 --> 33:55.145 to his own hope of returning to his homeland, 33:55.150 --> 33:59.120 his own native city, and the larger pattern of 33:59.123 --> 33:59.833 exile. 33:59.829 --> 34:02.069 I want to examine that with you. 34:02.068 --> 34:06.308 The poem begins with a subjunctive; 34:06.308 --> 34:09.638 Canto XXV begins with an optative, what we call, 34:09.641 --> 34:12.831 "I wish" that things were going that 34:12.831 --> 34:13.401 way. 34:13.400 --> 34:20.750 "If it ever come to pass," contingency, 34:20.750 --> 34:22.270 the word is contingency in Italian, 34:22.268 --> 34:25.798 it uses the Latinism because we don't really use that in that 34:25.800 --> 34:29.460 sense, but I'll read in Italian even 34:29.458 --> 34:33.518 if Margaret-- I wish she were here se mai 34:33.518 --> 34:36.628 contingua, that's a Latinism, 34:36.626 --> 34:40.046 if ever I were to-- contingent, if it ever happened 34:40.047 --> 34:41.987 in that sense, "that the sacred 34:41.994 --> 34:44.374 poem," "poema sacro," 34:44.365 --> 34:47.235 "if it ever come to pass the sacred poem," 34:47.244 --> 34:50.824 and the sacred means-- remember that Dante uses the 34:50.822 --> 34:54.492 word "sacred" always in a double sense. 34:54.489 --> 34:59.059 A sacred, he's not investigate with some kind of magic, 34:59.059 --> 35:02.779 idolatress power because for Dante the sacred is never 35:02.775 --> 35:06.135 reducible or localizable, that's a verb, 35:06.137 --> 35:10.327 in one object or in one particular place. 35:10.329 --> 35:14.049 He means it ambiguously as that which contains the profane and 35:14.047 --> 35:16.297 the sacred within it, hell and heaven, 35:16.302 --> 35:18.622 the scriptures of heaven and hell. 35:18.619 --> 35:22.309 "The sacred poem to which both heaven and earth have set 35:22.309 --> 35:25.079 their hand," it's an incredible moment of 35:25.076 --> 35:26.856 prophetic self-awareness. 35:26.860 --> 35:31.430 I am writing but I know that without God I would not be able 35:31.434 --> 35:35.494 to be writing this poem, "that it has made me lean 35:35.490 --> 35:37.780 for many years," writing now. 35:37.780 --> 35:42.410 I'm sorry that I'm giving you this kind of simple paraphrase 35:42.407 --> 35:46.637 of it, but the ascesis of writing, writing is a--do you 35:46.641 --> 35:48.761 understand what I mean? 35:48.760 --> 35:52.210 Writing is an ascetic labor of the soul, 35:52.210 --> 35:57.970 it makes me lean as if he were undergoing fasting, 35:57.969 --> 36:05.319 the rituals of the commitment to a particular labor, 36:05.320 --> 36:08.320 so I call it the ascetic labor of the soul; 36:08.320 --> 36:12.320 "should overcome the cruelty that bars me from the 36:12.324 --> 36:14.034 fair sheepfold." 36:14.030 --> 36:18.260 If I could ever go back home, but he called back home 36:18.255 --> 36:22.315 Florence, in the canto of hope where he's an exile, 36:22.320 --> 36:26.140 and the city is described in passive terms. 36:26.139 --> 36:30.409 The metaphor of the city as a sheepfold, 36:30.409 --> 36:33.459 the Passover language, the language you expect to have 36:33.458 --> 36:35.528 in the Eclogues of Virgil, 36:35.530 --> 36:37.250 the pastoral tradition. 36:37.250 --> 36:40.080 The idyllic world, that's what we mean by the 36:40.079 --> 36:41.429 pastoral tradition. 36:41.429 --> 36:47.299 If there ever were some peace, some idyllic circumstances in 36:47.297 --> 36:49.817 that city, and you can continue, 36:49.815 --> 36:52.905 "where I slept as a lamb," here he continues 36:52.909 --> 36:56.319 with the pastoral language, "an enemy to the wolves 36:56.315 --> 36:59.205 that make war on it, with another voice now, 36:59.208 --> 37:02.128 and other fleece I shall return a poet, 37:02.130 --> 37:05.400 and to the font of my baptism take the laurel crown; 37:05.400 --> 37:09.340 for there I entered into the faith that makes souls known to 37:09.338 --> 37:11.278 God, and after, because of it, 37:11.275 --> 37:13.875 Peter thus encircled my brow." 37:13.880 --> 37:19.160 Dante is still in the circle of hope and the heaven of hope, 37:19.159 --> 37:23.089 and yet now he's really thinking about the last ceremony 37:23.090 --> 37:26.380 of Peter on him who blesses him three times. 37:26.380 --> 37:31.150 It is as if literally faith, and hope are now converging, 37:31.146 --> 37:33.866 the two virtues come together. 37:33.869 --> 37:37.489 What is Dante saying though here in this proem, 37:37.490 --> 37:40.090 at the beginning of this canto? 37:40.090 --> 37:45.260 He's casting his hometown Florence in the pastoral 37:45.262 --> 37:48.112 language, as a sheepfold, 37:48.110 --> 37:54.010 and they know he's alluding to a Messianic time where-- 37:54.010 --> 37:57.620 when if it were just--when the peace were restored, 37:57.619 --> 38:01.339 when the factions, the wolves, the Guelfs, 38:01.340 --> 38:04.700 the pun of wolves and Guelfs, that's very clear that's what 38:04.695 --> 38:07.295 etymologically the word Guelfs comes from, 38:07.300 --> 38:10.340 from wolves and the lambs will lie together, 38:10.340 --> 38:14.150 almost a kind of impossible time, a Messianic time, 38:14.150 --> 38:16.960 when finally peace will be restored. 38:16.960 --> 38:20.760 He goes on adding that he would be acknowledged, 38:20.760 --> 38:23.600 that's part of his hope, he will be acknowledged, 38:23.599 --> 38:27.679 there will be--at that time he would acknowledged as a poet on 38:27.675 --> 38:31.345 the font of his baptism, which as you know he refers to 38:31.347 --> 38:32.647 the Baptistery of St. 38:32.653 --> 38:36.703 John, where we do have records that he actually was christened. 38:36.699 --> 38:41.179 That's simple language, but you have to ask yourselves, 38:41.181 --> 38:43.091 why would Dante talk? 38:43.090 --> 38:45.390 Why would he use this particular metaphor? 38:45.389 --> 38:49.099 The baptism is clearly the place where a community is 38:49.097 --> 38:52.947 constituted, then the baptismal font has that value. 38:52.949 --> 38:55.269 Not only has that value, it's actually the same 38:55.266 --> 38:58.586 baptismal font that Dante had-- you remember there had been a 38:58.585 --> 39:02.925 prophenation of it in canto-- described in Canto XIX of 39:02.929 --> 39:08.609 Hell where Dante says that he broke one of those 39:08.612 --> 39:11.652 Guelfs, which we try to understand in 39:11.646 --> 39:15.396 figurative terms since it would be inconceivable that Dante 39:15.402 --> 39:17.672 would be capable of breaking it. 39:17.670 --> 39:20.820 He says he began to rescue someone who was dying. 39:20.820 --> 39:22.340 What is a baptismal font? 39:22.340 --> 39:26.850 For those of you who have no inkling of what this is it's 39:26.846 --> 39:29.536 the-- what we call the sacramental, 39:29.538 --> 39:34.298 the typological, if you really--more textual and 39:34.297 --> 39:39.267 historical about that sacrament, that ceremony, 39:39.266 --> 39:41.316 re-enactment of Exodus. 39:41.320 --> 39:46.110 When a child is baptized, he is literally said--he's told 39:46.106 --> 39:50.976 actually that he is once again re-enacting the crossing of 39:50.978 --> 39:51.918 Exodus. 39:51.920 --> 39:56.850 To me this is extraordinary, that Dante says that he would 39:56.846 --> 40:02.116 be now acknowledged and be given the laurel of the poet on the 40:02.117 --> 40:03.757 baptismal font. 40:03.760 --> 40:06.920 The question you have to ask yourselves is, 40:06.920 --> 40:10.160 no doubt, is, Dante's asking how does a poet 40:10.155 --> 40:11.205 come home? 40:11.210 --> 40:14.580 He imagines a triumph at the baptismal font, 40:14.581 --> 40:18.581 is there a home--what is the homecoming of poets? 40:18.579 --> 40:20.889 That's the hope, hope for a homecoming where 40:20.885 --> 40:23.885 everybody will be at peace and there will be a feast, 40:23.889 --> 40:27.529 a festive mood and he was going to be welcomed back and he would 40:27.525 --> 40:29.655 hailed and acknowledged as a poet, 40:29.659 --> 40:34.669 a great fantasy of every--of the winner's return. 40:34.670 --> 40:37.480 That's literally what he is saying. 40:37.480 --> 40:41.360 Yet, he's using this language of a baptismal font which is the 40:41.355 --> 40:42.685 language of Exodus. 40:42.690 --> 40:46.230 It is as if he were saying that the poet can only come home in 40:46.233 --> 40:49.663 order to tell his community that I have to get out again. 40:49.659 --> 40:53.409 That all of them will have to do exactly what's happening to 40:53.414 --> 40:55.254 him, that the exile that has 40:55.253 --> 40:57.683 been--with which he has been punished, 40:57.679 --> 41:01.049 and which has befallen him, is really the message that his 41:01.045 --> 41:04.525 poetry can only give to the community from which he has been 41:04.530 --> 41:05.180 exiled. 41:05.179 --> 41:09.459 He is convoking the whole community around the baptismal 41:09.456 --> 41:11.716 font, which is the figure of exile, 41:11.719 --> 41:14.379 to tell them this is really where we belong -- 41:14.380 --> 41:19.020 in exile, in the language of spiritual exile, 41:19.018 --> 41:25.298 a language in which clearly implies some kind of re-making 41:25.297 --> 41:28.277 of oneself, re-thinking of oneself. 41:28.280 --> 41:32.990 Now, with this in mind, Dante goes on seeing the barren 41:32.994 --> 41:37.184 for whom below they visit Galicia, an allusion to 41:37.184 --> 41:41.204 Santiago, and then she herself will go on. 41:41.199 --> 41:48.529 I want to--before we read the passage I want to give you this, 41:48.530 --> 41:53.450 "And that compassionate one," line 50 that 41:53.454 --> 41:57.124 Beatrice's presentation of Dante to St. 41:57.123 --> 41:58.093 James. 41:58.090 --> 42:02.970 "And that compassionate one who directed the feathers of 42:02.974 --> 42:06.234 my wings," a flight of the soul, 42:06.230 --> 42:10.610 the name of the family Alighieri, "to so high a 42:10.610 --> 42:15.420 flight anticipated my reply: 'The Church Militant,'" 42:15.420 --> 42:19.260 this is Beatrice, "'has not a child more 42:19.257 --> 42:22.467 full of hope, as is written in the Sun that 42:22.465 --> 42:27.505 irradiates all our host; therefore is it granted him to 42:27.507 --> 42:33.707 come from Egypt to Jerusalem, that he may see it before his 42:33.711 --> 42:36.601 warfare is accomplished. 42:36.599 --> 42:39.249 The other two points about which thou didst ask--not for 42:39.251 --> 42:41.371 enlightenment, but for him to report how dear 42:41.373 --> 42:43.643 this virtue is to thee--I leave to himself; 42:43.639 --> 42:46.939 for they will not be hard for him, nor occasion for 42:46.940 --> 42:49.650 boasting," and then like a pupil once 42:49.646 --> 42:53.536 again taking this language of school, the school child. 42:53.539 --> 42:57.219 The main thing about this self--this presentation by 42:57.222 --> 43:01.992 Beatrice is that Dante's journey is glossed through one figure, 43:01.989 --> 43:05.719 one figure that I have been telling you ever since we 43:05.719 --> 43:09.509 started this course, these classes in September 43:09.510 --> 43:11.980 through the figure of Exodus. 43:11.980 --> 43:16.470 Dante's journey here is literally described as a journey 43:16.472 --> 43:21.862 from Egypt to Jerusalem, which is the master plot of the 43:21.858 --> 43:27.808 Hebrews' exile from the bondage to the story of freedom and 43:27.806 --> 43:33.566 exile becomes really the-- that of exile is the figure 43:33.567 --> 43:37.177 of--the master figure of the poem. 43:37.179 --> 43:41.069 Dante then therefore is linking now exile and hope, 43:41.070 --> 43:44.620 and I think I already have indicated to you that this idea 43:44.623 --> 43:48.243 of writing as writing in the mode of exile is also the-- 43:48.239 --> 43:52.129 it's not to be seen in a subjective way only relating to 43:52.125 --> 43:55.095 him, or the pre-condition to his own 43:55.103 --> 43:58.473 poetry but involves the whole of history. 43:58.469 --> 44:04.119 History has to be seen from the standpoint of exile, 44:04.119 --> 44:13.529 so there's at the top of page 363, line 69, 44:13.530 --> 44:15.820 "'Hope' I said," again, 44:15.820 --> 44:19.980 "is a sure expectation of future glory," 44:19.981 --> 44:23.551 as is the openness to time as futurity, 44:23.550 --> 44:25.930 "and it springs from divine grace and precedent 44:25.927 --> 44:26.297 merit. 44:26.300 --> 44:28.430 This light comes to me from many stars, 44:28.429 --> 44:32.239 but he first distilled it in my heart who was the sovereign 44:32.242 --> 44:35.202 singer of the Sovereign Lord," David, 44:35.199 --> 44:40.349 who to Dante is the greatest of poets. 44:40.349 --> 44:46.589 Now we move on from here now to the last virtue, 44:46.594 --> 44:50.054 the last virtue of love. 44:50.050 --> 44:55.320 It is--there is a progression faith, 44:55.320 --> 44:57.460 hope, and charity, it is as if only-- 44:57.460 --> 45:01.780 you have to know these virtues before the beatific vision can 45:01.777 --> 45:03.647 even be possible to you. 45:03.650 --> 45:07.540 You have to understand what it is that they do to you and they 45:07.543 --> 45:08.633 produce in you. 45:08.630 --> 45:13.560 We come to love, however, we are--we would be 45:13.563 --> 45:20.183 looking for a definition of it as at least in a formula, 45:20.179 --> 45:26.049 in a kind of a citational formula given and available in 45:26.050 --> 45:29.610 Canto XXIV and XXV, we would be looking for it in 45:29.608 --> 45:29.858 vain. 45:29.860 --> 45:36.680 There's no definition of love, and it's clear to me, 45:36.679 --> 45:40.489 it's clear to you, I take that Dante really thinks 45:40.489 --> 45:43.289 that this is "the word." 45:43.289 --> 45:47.439 Love is the key word that seems to escape all possible 45:47.436 --> 45:50.216 definitions, which we know around us, 45:50.217 --> 45:54.287 in a variety of ways, we understand it and yet we 45:54.293 --> 45:58.053 cannot quite confine it and define it, 45:58.050 --> 46:02.070 and that to define it would really literally be a way of 46:02.065 --> 46:05.345 reducing its impact and reducing its value. 46:05.349 --> 46:09.529 It's such a basic word that Dante says that the only word 46:09.532 --> 46:14.012 that is really left, imaginary, etymologizing in 46:14.007 --> 46:18.397 this treatise on language that he writes, 46:18.400 --> 46:21.660 this treatises on the De vulgari eloquentia, 46:21.659 --> 46:26.649 he says that the word love is the only residual term from the 46:26.648 --> 46:30.388 past that means that language is a way of-- 46:30.389 --> 46:34.069 like food, the banquet, the beginning of Canto XXIV, 46:34.070 --> 46:37.580 is a way of gathering us and bringing us together, 46:37.579 --> 46:40.829 so love and food, food is given as a metaphor at 46:40.833 --> 46:44.053 the beginning, now love that escapes any 46:44.047 --> 46:48.607 particular definition and yet it's the culmination of all 46:48.614 --> 46:50.984 these theological virtues. 46:50.980 --> 46:57.240 What Dante does see and he has--I really want to turn to 46:57.237 --> 47:03.607 this scene at the end of Canto XXVI, Dante meets Adam. 47:03.610 --> 47:07.620 It's the confrontation with the beginning, 47:07.619 --> 47:10.629 it's the confrontation with the arch poet, 47:10.630 --> 47:13.660 because Adam is the one who names the world, 47:13.659 --> 47:16.169 and therefore brings it into existence; 47:16.170 --> 47:19.640 that's really what we mean by poet and that's what we're 47:19.635 --> 47:22.965 expecting of poets to do, since this is the meeting, 47:22.965 --> 47:26.835 the encounter with him, lines 90 and following, 47:26.840 --> 47:32.580 Dante addresses him, "O fruit," 47:32.583 --> 47:38.493 though the word really is apple, 47:38.489 --> 47:43.229 "O fruit that alone wast brought forth ripe." 47:43.230 --> 47:45.270 What on earth does he mean? 47:45.268 --> 47:48.128 That's a strange way of addressing someone, 47:48.126 --> 47:51.726 "oh fruit alone wast brought forth ripe." 47:51.730 --> 47:58.130 There were a lot of theological debates as to ripeness is an 47:58.130 --> 48:02.800 element of grace, a description of grace for 48:02.795 --> 48:03.875 Dante. 48:03.880 --> 48:07.590 If you're not ripe, when you are ripe when you have 48:07.585 --> 48:10.325 received and been touched by grace. 48:10.329 --> 48:15.119 The argument was, Adam created in a natural 48:15.123 --> 48:21.403 state, or was he already created in a state of grace? 48:21.400 --> 48:26.210 How long was he in the earthly paradise before he fell? 48:26.210 --> 48:33.910 If he was in a state of grace why could he--why did he fall? 48:33.909 --> 48:38.619 If he was in a state of grace why could he commit this sin of 48:38.623 --> 48:39.883 transgression? 48:39.880 --> 48:44.530 Is it a transgression that he commits by eating of the fruit 48:44.527 --> 48:45.627 of the tree? 48:45.630 --> 48:49.220 Dante implies that he was in a state of grace, 48:49.219 --> 48:52.179 ripe, refers to him as ripeness, the idea of 48:52.181 --> 48:55.901 "fruit that alone was brought forth ripe." 48:55.900 --> 49:01.050 "O ancient father of whom every bride is daughter, 49:01.050 --> 49:04.930 and daughter-in-law," this is the very language that 49:04.929 --> 49:08.389 Dante will deploy in Paradiso XXXIII for the 49:08.393 --> 49:12.553 prayer to the Virgin and being the daughter of her son-- 49:12.550 --> 49:18.220 the question of the divinity and humanity of Christ. 49:18.219 --> 49:21.639 "As humbly as I may I besiege thee to speak with me. 49:21.639 --> 49:24.369 Thou seest my wish, and to hear thee sooner I do 49:24.367 --> 49:25.527 not tell it." 49:25.530 --> 49:31.710 Let me just skip a few lines and see the answer that Adam 49:31.706 --> 49:35.626 will give, line 115 and following, 49:35.625 --> 49:41.345 "Know then, my son, that not the tasting of 49:41.349 --> 49:48.059 the tree in itself was the cause of so long exile," 49:48.056 --> 49:52.486 so even Adam, the fall was in a state of 49:52.487 --> 49:57.647 exile, exile from the garden, falling into the wilderness 49:57.646 --> 50:02.596 where he had to transform the wilderness into a garden, 50:02.599 --> 50:06.519 so that the work would be the way in which he could regain 50:06.521 --> 50:10.961 that which he had lost, the garden, "but solely 50:10.956 --> 50:14.356 the trespass beyond the mark." 50:14.360 --> 50:16.610 I'll come back to this. 50:16.610 --> 50:20.090 "In the place from which thy Lady sent Virgil," 50:20.085 --> 50:22.455 in Limbo, "I longed for this 50:22.456 --> 50:25.946 assembly during four thousand, three hundred and two 50:25.951 --> 50:27.711 revolutions of the sun." 50:27.710 --> 50:33.220 He's clearly thinking about the harrowing of hell by Christ so 50:33.221 --> 50:38.101 that added now years to the four thousand he counts. 50:38.099 --> 50:41.489 "I saw it return to all the lights on its track nine 50:41.490 --> 50:44.520 hundred and thirty times while I lived on earth. 50:44.518 --> 50:49.458 The tongue I spoke was all extinct before Nimrod," 50:49.458 --> 50:54.528 we saw him as the founder, the giant, it's a residue of 50:54.525 --> 50:57.315 gigantomachy, the classical idea of the 50:57.315 --> 51:01.795 giants fighting the gods, Nimrod who builds the Tower of 51:01.795 --> 51:05.375 Babel, so the debate between them 51:05.380 --> 51:07.550 hinges on language. 51:07.550 --> 51:11.710 Language is the key now and retrospectively we really come 51:11.706 --> 51:14.766 to understand the language of theology, 51:14.768 --> 51:18.908 the question of what is the--what are the properties of 51:18.914 --> 51:23.444 theological language and what are the properties beyond that 51:23.443 --> 51:24.753 of all words? 51:24.750 --> 51:26.070 That's the argument. 51:26.070 --> 51:29.550 "I spoke with… Nimrod's race gave their mind 51:29.552 --> 51:32.972 to the unaccomplishable task," the building of the 51:32.972 --> 51:35.952 Tower of Babel that would not be finished, 51:35.949 --> 51:38.659 "for no product whatever of reason-- 51:38.659 --> 51:42.449 since human choice is renewed with the course of heaven-- 51:42.449 --> 51:45.239 can last forever. 51:45.239 --> 51:50.139 It is a work of nature that man should speak, 51:50.141 --> 51:57.161 but whether in this way or that nature then leaves you to follow 51:57.159 --> 51:59.609 your own pleasure. 51:59.610 --> 52:04.140 Before I descended to the anguish of Hell the Supreme Good 52:04.143 --> 52:08.923 from whom comes the joy that swathes me was named I on 52:08.916 --> 52:10.186 earth." 52:10.190 --> 52:13.340 "I" in Italian, not "I" 52:13.344 --> 52:16.884 in the sense of the subject; I don't think that that's what 52:16.876 --> 52:17.426 Dante meant. 52:17.429 --> 52:20.829 "And later he was called El;" 52:20.829 --> 52:25.559 Dante's using two Hebrew words, what he takes them to be Hebrew 52:25.561 --> 52:27.701 words for the name of God. 52:27.699 --> 52:31.099 God was called "I" first and then he was called 52:31.097 --> 52:32.127 "El." 52:32.130 --> 52:36.240 In fact, this is--one of my students suggested to me that if 52:36.235 --> 52:40.195 you read them backwards they really spell out the word Eli 52:40.202 --> 52:44.452 which would be a word that we would acknowledge maybe nowadays 52:44.447 --> 52:47.647 as being the word for an appeal to God, 52:47.650 --> 52:51.570 I and he was called El, "and that is fitting, 52:51.570 --> 52:54.980 for the usage of mortals is like a leaf on a branch, 52:54.980 --> 52:57.910 which goes and another comes. 52:57.909 --> 53:01.479 On the mountain that rises highest from the sea I lived, 53:01.480 --> 53:05.580 pure, then guilty from the first hour to that following the 53:05.583 --> 53:07.853 sixth, where the sun changes 53:07.849 --> 53:11.029 quadrant," and that's the end of this 53:11.030 --> 53:12.040 encounter. 53:12.039 --> 53:18.569 Let me focus on this question of the language that Dante's 53:18.570 --> 53:25.330 really with--encounter with Nimrod explicitly highlights. 53:25.329 --> 53:30.249 Adam changes Dante--through Adam is changing the account he 53:30.251 --> 53:34.411 had given in the De vulgari eloquentia, 53:34.409 --> 53:36.339 which is a story about the origin of words, 53:36.340 --> 53:38.950 of language, and where he had claimed that 53:38.952 --> 53:42.302 Hebrew persists; Adam's language unchanged 53:42.304 --> 53:46.454 through history because it was inconceivable, 53:46.449 --> 53:49.919 he adds there, that Jesus would be using a 53:49.918 --> 53:54.828 language other than the primal language and not the corrupt 53:54.826 --> 53:57.276 language of human beings. 53:57.280 --> 54:02.150 Now the story changes, actually Adam's language has 54:02.152 --> 54:08.102 suffered alterations already in the Garden, where the names of 54:08.096 --> 54:10.236 God keep changing. 54:10.239 --> 54:12.409 This, I think, is the key. 54:12.409 --> 54:15.149 This is the whole question of theology then, 54:15.152 --> 54:18.152 the names of God, the way we speak about God. 54:18.150 --> 54:22.950 God was called "I," and then he was called 54:22.947 --> 54:26.897 "El," there is no proper name for 54:26.896 --> 54:27.646 God. 54:27.650 --> 54:34.630 We only have words or languages that keep changing according to 54:34.628 --> 54:38.678 our own historical circumstances, 54:38.679 --> 54:43.069 and Dante goes on changing his own paradigmatic account about 54:43.067 --> 54:45.697 the status of the sacred language. 54:45.699 --> 54:50.399 He says there is no such a thing as a persistent sacred 54:50.396 --> 54:52.306 language in history. 54:52.309 --> 54:58.579 What comes out is that language is the mark of our own distance 54:58.577 --> 55:02.737 from the divine, that we are--and the language 55:02.742 --> 55:07.612 that we use is a part of our own exilic circumstances and exilic 55:07.612 --> 55:11.222 predicament, and therefore all the language 55:11.219 --> 55:15.719 of theology that Dante has been describing is part of this 55:15.722 --> 55:18.412 exilic longing of human beings. 55:18.409 --> 55:23.409 This is the story from XXIV, XXV, and XXVI. 55:23.409 --> 55:28.899 Dante uses theology and examination of theology only to 55:28.900 --> 55:34.680 place us back on the world-- on this world where we go on 55:34.681 --> 55:37.501 hoping, believing, and loving, 55:37.498 --> 55:41.728 realizing that these are all mysterious terms, 55:41.730 --> 55:44.350 without which, however, that's another meaning 55:44.351 --> 55:47.031 of the word for-- the resonance of money, 55:47.025 --> 55:50.105 without which we-- where we know faith is a form 55:50.114 --> 55:53.464 of trust without which you cannot really be functioning 55:53.456 --> 55:54.196 together. 55:54.199 --> 55:58.319 Where we have hope as the realization of faith, 55:58.320 --> 56:01.200 and where we have love as that which is-- 56:01.199 --> 56:05.829 we are always longing for and somehow the meaning of which is 56:05.833 --> 56:07.923 mysteriously escaping us. 56:07.920 --> 56:11.210 These are, I think, the three fundamental issues 56:11.210 --> 56:15.270 that Dante is discussing and let me take some questions. 56:15.269 --> 56:25.469 56:25.469 --> 56:30.659 Student: You passed over briefly this statement of 56:30.661 --> 56:36.221 Adam that his transgression was not in the act of testamentary 56:36.215 --> 56:39.035 but in crossing a boundary. 56:39.039 --> 56:43.399 I wonder if you could unpack that a little more because it 56:43.396 --> 56:46.336 seems to me not-- it seems to me a bit of a 56:46.335 --> 56:49.835 controversial statement first of all because the command was 56:49.838 --> 56:53.168 "do not eat from the tree," so for Dante to say 56:53.166 --> 56:55.466 this, it seems like he's--there's 56:55.474 --> 56:59.344 something very specific that he wants to get across in this idea 56:59.338 --> 57:01.588 of boundary, maybe if you could elucidate 57:01.594 --> 57:02.964 that for me a little further. 57:02.960 --> 57:05.580 Prof: The question is, a question that I really 57:05.583 --> 57:07.863 welcome, and I was hoping someone would ask. 57:07.860 --> 57:11.580 The question is that I did not--I read from, 57:11.579 --> 57:17.629 I did not really explain the Adam statement when he says that 57:17.626 --> 57:22.866 his sin was not in the tasting of the tree but in the 57:22.865 --> 57:28.235 trespassing of the limit, the mark, and therefore it 57:28.242 --> 57:33.672 seems that there is some issue of boundaries here and would I 57:33.670 --> 57:38.010 care to reply-- try to give a response to that. 57:38.010 --> 57:43.840 Yeah, I could give a response on a number of levels. 57:43.840 --> 57:47.730 First of all, I would remind you that this is 57:47.731 --> 57:52.071 Canto XXVI of Paradise, and Canto XXVI of 57:52.070 --> 57:57.080 Paradise is symmetrically connected with the other two 57:57.083 --> 58:01.213 Cantos XXVI, the canto of Ulysses who also 58:01.213 --> 58:06.493 trespasses the boundaries, who is a metaphysician of 58:06.487 --> 58:11.747 sorts, who is dealing with space and who himself-- 58:11.750 --> 58:15.690 there is really nowhere on earth he is really going; 58:15.688 --> 58:19.318 he doesn't know; he's trying to go somewhere but 58:19.320 --> 58:21.200 doesn't really know that. 58:21.199 --> 58:27.819 They are connected--and then Canto XXVI of Purgatory 58:27.822 --> 58:34.332 dealing with love in its perverted form of Guinizelli, 58:34.329 --> 58:37.359 of the poets and Caesar, so that's one of the 58:37.356 --> 58:38.316 connections. 58:38.320 --> 58:41.740 Another connection is that these are three cantos where 58:41.742 --> 58:43.962 Dante is using foreign languages. 58:43.960 --> 58:50.740 There's a deliberate connection there in the Canto of XXVI of 58:50.739 --> 58:52.659 Inferno. 58:52.659 --> 58:56.829 You may remember that Virgil goes out of the way to speak-- 58:56.829 --> 58:59.429 be the one who is the interlocutor of Ulysses and 58:59.434 --> 59:02.234 supposedly to speak Greek, in Canto XXVI of 59:02.231 --> 59:05.361 Purgatory, Dante uses the Provencal 59:05.364 --> 59:09.344 language of Arnault Daniel who now starts speaking in 59:09.336 --> 59:11.686 Provencal, and then now we are 59:11.690 --> 59:14.310 using--Dante's using the foreign language, 59:14.309 --> 59:19.739 Hebrew, the names of God, so it's--that's one connection, 59:19.739 --> 59:23.179 so there are a lot of other, of these connections. 59:23.179 --> 59:26.989 In the case of Adam, who makes that distinction, 59:26.989 --> 59:30.079 to come specifically to your point, 59:30.079 --> 59:33.239 who makes the distinction between the tasting of the fruit 59:33.242 --> 59:35.632 and it was not that he tasted the fruit, 59:35.630 --> 59:39.750 but that he trespassed the mark. 59:39.750 --> 59:44.170 That seems to be--you're right, that was a very controversial 59:44.168 --> 59:47.658 subject, because indeed that was the 59:47.657 --> 59:52.577 command given to Adam, "Thou shall not taste of 59:52.579 --> 59:57.479 the fruit of this tree," and Dante presents Adam who 59:57.483 --> 1:00:00.203 instead goes out to do that. 1:00:00.199 --> 1:00:04.829 It's clear that he thinks that the tasting of the tree was 1:00:04.831 --> 1:00:08.491 not--he's saying that that was not his sin. 1:00:08.489 --> 1:00:10.499 That's Dante's take on it. 1:00:10.500 --> 1:00:14.000 It's not the tasting of the tree that was the sin; 1:00:14.000 --> 1:00:20.130 the sin was that he abolished all boundaries. 1:00:20.130 --> 1:00:25.660 I read that--I'm restating the--changing slightly so I'm 1:00:25.659 --> 1:00:31.989 giving a paraphrase of what has been--what seems to be the issue 1:00:31.994 --> 1:00:32.904 here. 1:00:32.900 --> 1:00:39.200 It's clear that Dante thinks that Adam's act of eating of the 1:00:39.202 --> 1:00:44.252 tree was good, and Adam's act of the eating of 1:00:44.253 --> 1:00:49.943 the tree was actually the discovery of a knowledge that 1:00:49.936 --> 1:00:53.246 had-- that managed to elevate him and 1:00:53.253 --> 1:00:54.453 that was good. 1:00:54.449 --> 1:00:58.009 From this point of view this is--there seems to be a contrast 1:00:58.010 --> 1:01:01.100 between Ulysses' form of knowledge and Adam's form of 1:01:01.097 --> 1:01:01.927 knowledge. 1:01:01.929 --> 1:01:07.059 Ulysses' form of knowledge is that he literally is-- 1:01:07.059 --> 1:01:09.909 does not go, doesn't even know where he is 1:01:09.913 --> 1:01:12.083 going, that's part of the problem, 1:01:12.079 --> 1:01:13.789 in purely metaphysical terms. 1:01:13.789 --> 1:01:17.679 He had no directions, it was a gratuitous quest. 1:01:17.679 --> 1:01:21.949 In the case of Adam, getting to know of the fruit of 1:01:21.952 --> 1:01:24.302 the tree was not an issue. 1:01:24.300 --> 1:01:28.330 In fact, Dante says, that maybe real knowledge is 1:01:28.333 --> 1:01:32.953 always going to be tied to an act of making discoveries, 1:01:32.954 --> 1:01:35.564 making even transgressions. 1:01:35.559 --> 1:01:39.249 What was the problem is that there had been a loss of 1:01:39.246 --> 1:01:41.086 boundaries that he lost. 1:01:41.090 --> 1:01:43.340 How are we to understand the loss of boundary? 1:01:43.340 --> 1:01:48.190 It was the kind of knowledge that made Adam realize that he 1:01:48.186 --> 1:01:51.596 could be divine; that was his problem. 1:01:51.599 --> 1:01:55.089 As soon as you--the imposition of the boundary, 1:01:55.090 --> 1:01:58.980 God's imposition of--or establishment of the boundary 1:01:58.976 --> 1:02:03.606 between the human and the divine was also a way of letting Adam 1:02:03.612 --> 1:02:06.152 know-- I'm not going to read this as 1:02:06.152 --> 1:02:09.372 if it were a kind of atheistical statement at all, 1:02:09.369 --> 1:02:14.279 it's letting Adam know that he had to be aware that he was not 1:02:14.275 --> 1:02:16.955 divine, that he was a human being. 1:02:16.960 --> 1:02:20.280 What he, Adam, wanted to do was grow in 1:02:20.275 --> 1:02:24.985 knowledge and discover that he could also be divine. 1:02:24.989 --> 1:02:26.179 Do you understand what I'm saying? 1:02:26.179 --> 1:02:27.759 That is the issue. 1:02:27.760 --> 1:02:32.480 For him to fall then would be a way of re-establishing that 1:02:32.476 --> 1:02:37.596 boundary and realize that he is a human being and not divine. 1:02:37.599 --> 1:02:40.699 It's a growth in self-knowledge. 1:02:40.699 --> 1:02:43.969 If you really know that you--if you really know who you are, 1:02:43.969 --> 1:02:45.799 you are really--you have grown. 1:02:45.800 --> 1:02:47.110 Do you see what I'm saying? 1:02:47.110 --> 1:02:53.930 Dante's changing the sense of what the fall of man is, 1:02:53.929 --> 1:02:58.159 and the fall of man is not the fall in the growth of knowledge 1:02:58.157 --> 1:03:02.107 but that growth of knowledge that leads you to erasing the 1:03:02.108 --> 1:03:04.708 boundary, to believe that you are by 1:03:04.710 --> 1:03:07.720 virtue of that knowledge that you have gained, 1:03:07.719 --> 1:03:09.999 that you are now divine. 1:03:10.000 --> 1:03:14.330 This is really--the whole poem is trying to convey to us is 1:03:14.333 --> 1:03:18.973 that this is a steady temptation that human beings seem to have 1:03:18.965 --> 1:03:21.595 and we can't-- we need to be reminded, 1:03:21.601 --> 1:03:24.861 and when we hear it from God himself we don't quite believe 1:03:24.856 --> 1:03:27.696 it, and then we have to grow into 1:03:27.702 --> 1:03:32.862 that recognition of boundaries between ourselves and something 1:03:32.862 --> 1:03:36.502 that we aspire to but we are not it yet. 1:03:36.500 --> 1:03:40.090 Good question, but I had anticipated this 1:03:40.085 --> 1:03:44.205 answer, I must say, in a number of ways talking 1:03:44.208 --> 1:03:46.628 about Adam in the past. 1:03:46.630 --> 1:03:49.100 I hope that you don't remember because more or less I said the 1:03:49.097 --> 1:03:51.157 same thing--I don't know that I mentioned before. 1:03:51.159 --> 1:04:03.229 1:04:03.230 --> 1:04:07.380 One might wonder, just to go back to that issue, 1:04:07.380 --> 1:04:12.750 one might wonder, does Dante really make it clear 1:04:12.753 --> 1:04:19.803 that he's really not Adam but he still thinks that he is Ulysses 1:04:19.804 --> 1:04:21.824 at this point? 1:04:21.820 --> 1:04:26.320 One thing that he understands that he is-- 1:04:26.320 --> 1:04:32.130 the canto before he acknowledges King David as the 1:04:32.134 --> 1:04:34.634 supreme-- and he did earlier, 1:04:34.625 --> 1:04:39.975 the supreme poet, he's really placing himself in 1:04:39.981 --> 1:04:48.461 David's Psalms are the lyrical recapitulations of and glossing 1:04:48.461 --> 1:04:50.271 of Exodus. 1:04:50.268 --> 1:04:54.988 That's really where he now I think is trying to move that 1:04:54.992 --> 1:04:57.902 he's more-- he cannot be like Ulysses, 1:04:57.904 --> 1:05:00.644 he knows he's not-- he does not want to be, 1:05:00.641 --> 1:05:04.831 he cannot be Adam, that's the kind of model he's 1:05:04.831 --> 1:05:07.961 trying to regain for himself. 1:05:07.960 --> 1:05:12.660 Okay, maybe you see the connection with where we said a 1:05:12.663 --> 1:05:17.373 little earlier with what I--the response I gave to your 1:05:17.367 --> 1:05:18.497 question. 1:05:18.500 --> 1:05:24.250 1:05:24.250 --> 1:05:26.970 Yes. 1:05:26.969 --> 1:05:29.009 Student: I'm just going off of Dante's theological 1:05:29.010 --> 1:05:29.370 beliefs. 1:05:29.369 --> 1:05:32.859 In Canto XXIV he talks about his belief in the Trinity and I 1:05:32.862 --> 1:05:36.182 was wondering if you could just explain that further, 1:05:36.179 --> 1:05:40.039 because he seems to be saying both that the Trinity are three 1:05:40.041 --> 1:05:42.231 separate entities and the unity. 1:05:42.230 --> 1:05:45.370 I know there was controversy and different factions of 1:05:45.369 --> 1:05:47.639 different-- different factions in 1:05:47.639 --> 1:05:51.989 Christianity believe different things about the Trinity and so 1:05:51.994 --> 1:05:54.784 I was wondering what Dante believed. 1:05:54.780 --> 1:05:57.540 Prof: Well, Dante has a number of 1:05:57.543 --> 1:06:01.443 references throughout Paradise to the Trinity. 1:06:01.440 --> 1:06:05.910 One of them actually, a very significant one, 1:06:05.909 --> 1:06:10.309 that we never talked about was in Canto XXV of Purgatory 1:06:10.309 --> 1:06:14.709 where Dante thinks that the way we human beings understand-- 1:06:14.710 --> 1:06:19.470 can understand it--one of the ways which we can understand the 1:06:19.471 --> 1:06:23.451 Trinity is to think about the structure of the mind: 1:06:23.452 --> 1:06:25.212 memory, intelligence, 1:06:25.211 --> 1:06:28.821 and will because there are three but part of one thing, 1:06:28.820 --> 1:06:30.310 and three functions. 1:06:30.309 --> 1:06:33.059 Or, in Canto XXIV, of Purgatorio that 1:06:33.059 --> 1:06:37.099 Professor Lummus, I'm sure explained to you, 1:06:37.096 --> 1:06:40.636 is that the-- if you want to understand Dante 1:06:40.641 --> 1:06:43.501 there seems to imply when he talks about, 1:06:43.500 --> 1:06:48.390 I am one when he declares his own poetic practice and one who 1:06:48.391 --> 1:06:51.411 when loved and dictates inside me, 1:06:51.409 --> 1:06:54.949 I go on using my language and so on. 1:06:54.949 --> 1:06:58.269 One way, in which the Trinity was explained, 1:06:58.268 --> 1:07:01.818 they would say, think about speaking to make it 1:07:01.818 --> 1:07:05.058 existentially compelling and concrete. 1:07:05.059 --> 1:07:07.949 When you speak, you have an idea in your mind, 1:07:07.954 --> 1:07:09.504 otherwise it's babble. 1:07:09.500 --> 1:07:15.260 You have an idea in your mind, you emit a sound, 1:07:15.260 --> 1:07:18.760 but to emit the sound you need the breath, 1:07:18.760 --> 1:07:21.790 and you cannot have the sound without the breath, 1:07:21.789 --> 1:07:23.729 and you cannot have the sound without the idea, 1:07:23.730 --> 1:07:30.070 so that speaking encompasses this three-fold components of 1:07:30.072 --> 1:07:30.742 one. 1:07:30.739 --> 1:07:32.869 The Trinity is always connected to one. 1:07:32.869 --> 1:07:35.859 Then in Canto X of Paradise, 1:07:35.860 --> 1:07:37.520 you remember, we spent some time there, 1:07:37.518 --> 1:07:40.268 having this idea of the love of the Father, 1:07:40.268 --> 1:07:42.618 and the Son, and the breath of love that 1:07:42.623 --> 1:07:45.033 joins them, they go on gazing together, 1:07:45.029 --> 1:07:48.259 this idea of the fecundity or this idea of the Trinity as 1:07:48.264 --> 1:07:51.004 source, or Dante who thinks about God 1:07:50.996 --> 1:07:55.256 in the form of the Mover, but he does go into that and 1:07:55.260 --> 1:08:00.130 yet he understands that that's not the effective theology he 1:08:00.126 --> 1:08:03.836 wants to think of God as the Prime Mover, 1:08:03.840 --> 1:08:09.340 to think as the efficient cause, it makes God as such a 1:08:09.342 --> 1:08:13.522 mechanic or a clockmaker or something, 1:08:13.518 --> 1:08:18.888 one of these images of God who imparts order and recedes from 1:08:18.886 --> 1:08:19.866 creation. 1:08:19.869 --> 1:08:21.499 That's really not Dante's idea. 1:08:21.500 --> 1:08:28.470 He wants to think of a divinity that is partaking of creation's 1:08:28.471 --> 1:08:29.261 love. 1:08:29.260 --> 1:08:34.500 Dante's idea of the Trinity--so he has many, many--he tests all 1:08:34.496 --> 1:08:36.266 of these paradigms. 1:08:36.270 --> 1:08:38.350 I don't think that he ever excludes one. 1:08:38.350 --> 1:08:42.980 He does not really agree with the reading of Joachim of Flora 1:08:42.979 --> 1:08:46.759 who thought that the Trinity was the unity of-- 1:08:46.760 --> 1:08:49.860 that Trinity could be dissolved into three separate beings, 1:08:49.859 --> 1:08:51.669 so that's no longer a unity. 1:08:51.670 --> 1:08:55.550 To have a unity you got to have all three clearly present, 1:08:55.546 --> 1:08:57.516 that's what Dante believes. 1:08:57.520 --> 1:09:02.800 A unity with a kind of--is it a prismatic unity let me call it, 1:09:02.801 --> 1:09:03.911 that's why. 1:09:03.908 --> 1:09:08.028 Dante would say, we all have some recognition of 1:09:08.025 --> 1:09:12.715 the Trinity, whether it's God and the Word 1:09:12.724 --> 1:09:19.734 of God being the Qu'ran from eternally or God and the Word of 1:09:19.725 --> 1:09:23.105 God being the Christ, etc. 1:09:23.109 --> 1:09:26.879 We all have the word made flesh, we all have some kind of 1:09:26.881 --> 1:09:30.481 idea of the Trinity, where one acknowledges God as a 1:09:30.475 --> 1:09:32.835 Father, or as a Spirit, 1:09:32.838 --> 1:09:39.088 ways in which we can understand this thing we call, 1:09:39.090 --> 1:09:42.040 I don't mean irreverently, we call God. 1:09:42.038 --> 1:09:47.808 That's the response to what you asked. 1:09:47.810 --> 1:09:49.890 Please. 1:09:49.890 --> 1:09:52.290 Student: From what you said in answer to the other 1:09:52.292 --> 1:09:54.492 question, it seems like you were saying 1:09:54.489 --> 1:09:57.699 that if Dante takes the fall it's good enough because it 1:09:57.695 --> 1:09:59.265 leads to self-knowledge. 1:09:59.270 --> 1:10:02.220 Dante thinks the fall is good because it leads to more 1:10:02.215 --> 1:10:03.155 self-knowledge. 1:10:03.158 --> 1:10:05.338 I understand how it's different from-- 1:10:05.340 --> 1:10:08.250 Adam is different from Ulysses in that he is trying to go 1:10:08.252 --> 1:10:10.352 somewhere, like he's trying to become more 1:10:10.350 --> 1:10:12.870 like God and that's good because it's a definite end, 1:10:12.868 --> 1:10:16.368 but it still seems that if the means of trying to achieve that 1:10:16.368 --> 1:10:17.228 end is wrong. 1:10:17.229 --> 1:10:19.559 If he's trying to become more like God by, 1:10:19.560 --> 1:10:23.020 like grasping instead of--like we've been talking a lot about 1:10:23.015 --> 1:10:25.675 how the-- and that's real essential and 1:10:25.676 --> 1:10:29.236 if he's choosing the wrong way to get to his end, 1:10:29.238 --> 1:10:32.108 if that changes the end itself so that he's not even really-- 1:10:32.109 --> 1:10:35.299 Adam's not even like having the proper end in his search for 1:10:35.301 --> 1:10:36.331 knowledge either. 1:10:36.328 --> 1:10:39.188 If it changes because he's going about it in the wrong way 1:10:39.189 --> 1:10:42.099 and just how that kind of reflects on whether the fall-- 1:10:42.100 --> 1:10:43.840 whether Dante thinks the fall itself feels like it's good and 1:10:43.840 --> 1:10:45.030 is actually leading to something else, 1:10:45.029 --> 1:10:46.169 if that's clear. 1:10:46.170 --> 1:10:48.820 Prof: No, it's very clear. 1:10:48.819 --> 1:10:52.619 The question is--the earlier question, of course, 1:10:52.618 --> 1:10:56.418 was about what Dante thinks about the Trinity. 1:10:56.420 --> 1:11:01.790 Now the question is going back to the point of Adam, 1:11:01.788 --> 1:11:06.878 and my suggestion that the fall is good, 1:11:06.880 --> 1:11:11.960 and because ultimately Adam seems to be really wanting to 1:11:11.956 --> 1:11:17.666 reach God and I made a contrast to Ulysses and the limitation of 1:11:17.666 --> 1:11:22.376 Ulysses' quest is that he really does not know-- 1:11:22.380 --> 1:11:23.870 he's driven by curiosity. 1:11:23.868 --> 1:11:28.438 That's what I meant which we will talk about, 1:11:28.435 --> 1:11:30.715 this evil curiosity. 1:11:30.720 --> 1:11:36.200 But if the movement toward the good is bad, because after all, 1:11:36.201 --> 1:11:40.071 Adam does choose to trespass the boundaries, 1:11:40.065 --> 1:11:44.195 why should that really be thought as good? 1:11:44.198 --> 1:11:46.878 Is that--that was the question really? 1:11:46.880 --> 1:11:51.180 Well, let me just restate this issue. 1:11:51.180 --> 1:11:54.670 The problem with Adam--I'm sorry, first of all, 1:11:54.670 --> 1:11:58.710 with Ulysses I call it now the curiosity, 1:11:58.710 --> 1:12:02.280 which as you know, eventually will become good in 1:12:02.277 --> 1:12:05.347 the Renaissance, scientific curiosity, 1:12:05.354 --> 1:12:07.184 that's the good thing. 1:12:07.180 --> 1:12:11.160 In fact, I have a young colleague who is writing a 1:12:11.158 --> 1:12:15.138 thesis about curiosity--a book about curiosity. 1:12:15.140 --> 1:12:17.510 She has written a thesis about curiosity linking it with 1:12:17.506 --> 1:12:19.736 women's curiosity, it's a very interesting thesis 1:12:19.738 --> 1:12:22.268 to say that women are really smarter than men because they 1:12:22.265 --> 1:12:23.565 are-- they have been attacked for 1:12:23.568 --> 1:12:25.968 being curious, so she has found Renaissance 1:12:25.966 --> 1:12:28.616 texts were-- some written by women who go on 1:12:28.621 --> 1:12:30.191 making that kind of claim. 1:12:30.189 --> 1:12:31.629 I think it's a great idea. 1:12:31.630 --> 1:12:34.590 How did Dante understand curiosity? 1:12:34.590 --> 1:12:37.550 How do the Fathers of the Church understand curiosity? 1:12:37.550 --> 1:12:38.430 Why is it bad? 1:12:38.430 --> 1:12:42.890 Because that is the trait of Adam, because curiosity has a 1:12:42.886 --> 1:12:46.526 particular quality about it, it's something that continues 1:12:46.525 --> 1:12:48.835 this whole understanding, and especially with curiosity 1:12:48.841 --> 1:12:50.951 I'm going to give you, well in to the eighteenth 1:12:50.952 --> 1:12:51.362 century. 1:12:51.359 --> 1:12:56.019 The curiosity is bad because it uses up; 1:12:56.020 --> 1:13:03.440 curiosity has a sort of restlessness within it. 1:13:03.439 --> 1:13:06.559 I am curious of a particular object, I observe it and I move 1:13:06.564 --> 1:13:07.734 onto something else. 1:13:07.729 --> 1:13:12.279 I literally consume, I use up a particular object 1:13:12.280 --> 1:13:17.970 and devalue it in that process, that's really what made it so 1:13:17.970 --> 1:13:18.730 bad. 1:13:18.729 --> 1:13:22.399 Ulysses, who goes from one thing to another and is always 1:13:22.404 --> 1:13:24.474 open, fascinating figure of the 1:13:24.467 --> 1:13:30.017 Renaissance spirit of discovery, but that's really what undoes 1:13:30.015 --> 1:13:36.225 this element almost of desire, a kind of--a figure of--I don't 1:13:36.229 --> 1:13:39.969 want to make-- I'm using this to badmouth 1:13:39.967 --> 1:13:42.407 Ulysses, but a figure of this way of 1:13:42.407 --> 1:13:45.517 thinking of the curiosity of Ulysses is really the don Juan 1:13:45.516 --> 1:13:48.516 who goes from one woman to another in an endless movement 1:13:48.520 --> 1:13:52.780 of curiosity and knowledge, that he's driven by knowledge 1:13:52.780 --> 1:13:56.820 to get to know certain particular situations and 1:13:56.819 --> 1:13:57.679 people. 1:13:57.680 --> 1:14:01.420 Adam, to go back to the question of Adam, 1:14:01.422 --> 1:14:04.982 I'm only giving you Dante's reading. 1:14:04.979 --> 1:14:08.709 Dante's reading--he distinguishes very carefully 1:14:08.713 --> 1:14:12.533 between the testing, the tasting of the fruit and 1:14:12.527 --> 1:14:15.067 the trespassing of the mark. 1:14:15.069 --> 1:14:19.739 The trespassing of the mark meant you cannot really violate 1:14:19.743 --> 1:14:24.743 the boundaries that I want to place between you and myself, 1:14:24.738 --> 1:14:28.658 because once you get to know yourself for what you are you 1:14:28.664 --> 1:14:31.504 may get to know me, that's what the part of the 1:14:31.497 --> 1:14:32.717 violation of boundaries. 1:14:32.720 --> 1:14:35.340 You may get to know me for what I am, 1:14:35.340 --> 1:14:40.200 so it's a wall that protects both the essence of the divinity 1:14:40.201 --> 1:14:44.821 and the specific quality of the human that is at stake. 1:14:44.819 --> 1:14:49.409 Adam eats, which means that he wants to grow in knowledge, 1:14:49.408 --> 1:14:52.548 and Dante says, that's not the issue. 1:14:52.550 --> 1:14:55.530 That was not a problem that I want to grow in knowledge. 1:14:55.529 --> 1:14:59.829 The consequence of that growth in knowledge was the 1:14:59.826 --> 1:15:03.606 trespassing--actually very well be the cause, 1:15:03.605 --> 1:15:06.695 the trespassing of the boundary. 1:15:06.698 --> 1:15:13.388 Had he really grown, that's really an acceptable 1:15:13.386 --> 1:15:15.556 aim; you have to grow in knowledge. 1:15:15.560 --> 1:15:19.610 I'm willing to say about Adam exactly the things that you may 1:15:19.613 --> 1:15:23.943 recall I said about the scene of pride when we discussed Canto X, 1:15:23.935 --> 1:15:24.945 XI and XII. 1:15:24.948 --> 1:15:28.648 It's good that you have this love of excellence and love of 1:15:28.646 --> 1:15:30.556 the growth of your own mind. 1:15:30.560 --> 1:15:36.170 The consequence of it or the flip side of this quest for more 1:15:36.173 --> 1:15:41.603 knowledge is the violation of boundaries and that has to be 1:15:41.601 --> 1:15:43.381 re-established. 1:15:43.380 --> 1:15:46.810 The fall of man is only a re-establishment of the 1:15:46.810 --> 1:15:49.660 boundaries; it's not a way of mortifying 1:15:49.662 --> 1:15:51.382 the quest for knowledge. 1:15:51.380 --> 1:15:55.230 I'm restating what I--different terms-- 1:15:55.229 --> 1:15:57.179 slightly different terms what I said before, 1:15:57.180 --> 1:16:00.600 but I think that's really a crucial distinction and I would 1:16:00.604 --> 1:16:05.194 ask you to try to think-- I see a difference between the 1:16:05.185 --> 1:16:06.775 two situations. 1:16:06.779 --> 1:16:11.999 I hope you--I have time for another--no we don't. 1:16:12.000 --> 1:16:14.640 See you next time. 1:16:14.640 --> 1:16:20.000