Meditations on the Divine Comedy: Index EFGH

Effort, Labour, Diligence

MedXXXVIII:1 Purgation demands effort. Purgatory is an ascent that wearies, though the weariness eases the higher one climbs.

MedXXXVIII:2 The meeting with Belacqua emphasises the need for effort and steadfastness to ascend the Mount. Belacqua advocates minimum effort given the rules, just as he has delayed his repentance until the last moment. The prize Dante hints is to those who show willpower, effort, desire and do not wait to be driven forward.

Envy

MedVI:1 Highlighted by Ciacco as a root of the political evils in Florence.

MedXIII:1 Dante sees envy as a common vice within political circles.

MedXLVII:1 The envious purge away their sin on the second terrace of the Mount, their eyes, which failed to see correctly in life, sealed with wire. The terrace itself is of bare livid stone. Pride adorns itself, but envy sees only its own nakedness. Its counter-virtue is brotherly love.

MedXLIX:1 Envy is destructive of love which is increased by sharing and mutual understanding.

MedLI:3 A sin arising from a wrong objective of rational Love. Related to Pride and Anger. An error in relationship in the presence of others, it is divisive of community. It fears the preferment of others.

Empire

MedVI:1 Dante’s political ideal was of a central secular authority derived from the laws and concepts of Imperial Rome, separate from the Church, and with no power over spiritual or Papal matters. Equally he envisaged a purified Papacy not involved in secular politics.

MedXIX:1 The Simonists give him an excuse to reinforce his diatribe against the corrupted temporal power of the Church, and assert his links to Rome, which Virgil approves, symbolically clasping him in his arms.

MedXXVI:1 Ulysses, by employing the deception of the Trojan Horse against Troy offended against the origins of the Roman Empire.

MedXXXIV:1 Brutus and Cassius the traitors to Empire are eternally tormented by Satan.

MedXL:3 Dante laments the state of Italy, the Empire and the Papacy. God is the ultimate authority appealed to, as final ruler of Empire and Church. Justinian’s laws have lapsed, Italy is a riderless horse, a garden turned wasteland etc. The clergy usurp secular powers. The Emperor Albert neglects Italy completely.

MedXLI:2 Negligent rulers who failed the Empire, or attacked it, caused dissent, or aligned with the corrupt Papacy.

MedXLIII:1 The Eagle in Dante’s dream is symbolic of regeneration and of Rome and Imperial law, therefore of the purgation of lust from himself and from the world.

MedL:1 Dante emphasises the need for the good ruler, who upholds the law, an idea deriving from Plato and Aristotle etc. His underlying preference is for the single all-powerful monarch as expressed in Convivio IV and Monarchia I. (As the world is ruled by a monarchical God so the world is best under an Emperor. Unity is preferred to multiplicity: political unity leads to peace which furthers intellectual development: spiritual development can then take place in its own proper and separate sphere. The world ruler is not disturbed by greed, since he is all-powerful, and is therefore disinterested and pure!)

MedLXI:3 At the summit of the Mount, radical moral innocence is recovered, and the institutions of earth are superseded by Divine Philosophy. Empire and Church are therefore symbolically superseded by the freed, innocent spirit, with control over itself, and directed towards the good.

MedLXVI:1 Dante sees the relationship between Church and Empire and their history revealed in the symbolism of the Mystic Tree of Empire and the Chariot of the Church. Each should rule its proper sphere.

MedLXVI:2 Dante watches a symbolically enacted history of the Church and Empire. The Church is attacked, corrupted and divided, acquiring temporal power in a fatal confusion of the spiritual and earthly spheres. The vision culminates in the whorish mating of a French pope to the French court, and the transfer of the Papacy from its true home, Rome, to Avignon.

MedLXVII:1 Beatrice prophesies the coming of an Imperial saviour to cleanse the Church and Empire, and restore them to their respective roles. The French connection will be broken, and the Papacy restored to Rome.

MedLXXXV:2 The eagle symbolises the Empire, Divine Justice and Power, the Roman Emperors, God Himself, and Can Grande via his coat of arms.

MedLXXXVI:1 Dante condemns the state of the Empire, and the debased kings of Europe.

MedXCVII:1 Italy will not be ready for Henry VII’s attempt to renew the Empire. A place is reserved for Henry in Heaven, and for Clement in Hell.

Eyes

MedII:2 Beatrice is notable for the beauty of her eyes, the instruments of vision and awareness, signifying the cardinal virtues. See Beatrice.

MedII:3 Lucia, Dante’s patron saint, associated with eyesight, is part of the chain of intercession bringing Dante aid. Dante was troubled by poor or failing eyesight.

MedXLIII:1 Lucia brings help again, carrying Dante to the Gate of Purgatory, and Virgil describes her eyes, symbolic of the cardinal virtues, as pointing out the passage to Purgatory proper.

MedXLVII:1 The envious purge away their sin on the second terrace of the Mount, their eyes, which failed to see correctly in life, sealed with wire. The terrace itself is of bare livid stone. Pride adorns itself, but envy sees only its own nakedness.

MedLV:3 Statius looks Dante in the eye to question his reason for smiling. The eyes in the truthful spirit are the ‘windows to the soul’.

MedLXI:1 Virgil reassures Dante with the hope of seeing Beatrice’s eyes.

MedLXI:3 Dante will rest while Beatrice’s eyes move towards him.

MedLXII:1 Dante’s eyes can cross the stream of Lethe, though he is not yet across. Cardinal virtue goes ahead of the freed spirit.

MedLXII:2 Matilda raises her eyes to Dante which shine with the brightness of primal innocence.

MedLXIII:1 Eyes represent knowledge of past and future.

Prudence has three eyes, which see Past, Present and Future.

MedLXIV:1 While she was alive Beatrice’s eyes directed Dante towards virtue.

MedLXV:2 The cardinal virtues lead Dante to Beatrice’s eyes, which are their physical analogue.

MedLXVI:1 Dante’s eyes gaze too intensely at Beatrice and is rebuke by the Virtues.

MedLXVIII:2 Beatrice gazes at the sun, and Dante imitates her. This is allowed by the power gifted to the human race in the Earthly Paradise but subsequently lost.

MedLXIX:3 The joyful nature of the Divine source is revealed in the way the Angelic virtues shine through their planetary spheres like joyful light through the eye.

MedLXX:1 Beatrice is Dante’s ‘sun’. Her eyes have a ‘holy’ glow of the cardinal virtues.

MedLXXI:2 He is overcome by the love radiated from Beatrice’s eyes at the sign of his spiritual progress.

MedLXXII:1 The overpowering effect of her eyes Beatrice attributes to increased understanding of love, that itself generates greater love.

MedLXXVII:1 The eyes of the reader may gaze at the heavens which the eyes of God never leave. The eyes therefore communicate love downwards, through creation, and draw it upwards through contemplation.

MedLXXVII:1 Beatrice smiles with laughing eyes, her smile being a symbol of the theological virtues, her eyes of the cardinal virtues.

Beatrice’s beauty is too great for Dante to remember the sight. Her beauty increases at each level and the Cross is only the greatest sight he has seen so far because he has not yet gazed at Beatrice’s eyes. The sight is both permissible and purer as they ascend.

MedLXXXII:1 Beatrice’s smile in her eyes overpowers Dante. The depth of emotion unites the physical presence with the intellectual symbol, in a profound way that suggests the incarnation of grace, and the elevation, rather than transendence, of earthly love within the divine.

MedLXXXV:1 An intense moment where Dante is overcome by Beatrice’s eyes and smile, so that she has to draw his attention away to other aspects of Paradise. The active life complements the contemplative life, and Divien Philosophy is not the only path to God, as the presence of the warriors evidences.

MedXCV:1 Dante sees the Angelic orders reflected in Beatrice’s eyes.

MedC:1 The eye cannot turn away from God to another sight, since that vision satisfies all longing.

Examination, Questioning

MedII:1 Dante invites examination of his worth by Virgil. This is an aspect of his humility throughout the DC, a willingness to question and be questioned.

MedV:2 Dante questions Francesca to highlight the seductive but illicit and ultimately destructive nature of their love.

MedVIII:2 A possible allusion to Abelard’s intellectual pride, revealed in his examination of conflicting spiritual authorities, for which he was condemned by Bernard.

MedX:1 A courteous exchange between Virgil and Dante, prompts Farinata to comment.

MedXXVI:1 Virgil interrogates Ulysses to elicit the story of Ulysses journey to the South, expanding his own and Dante’s knowledge. Dante creates a new variant on the fate of the mythological/literary character.

MedXXVIII:1 Dante uses the spirits’ desire for remembrance in the world above to ask information from them in return.

MedXL:2 Dante questions Virgil regarding a passage on prayer in the Aeneid.

MedXLI:1 The exchange between Sordello and Virgil indicates the courtesy of question and answer, that entitles the one who gave information to ask a question in return. Purgatory denotes mutual and reciprocal information gathering.

MedXLVIII:1 Guido del Duca asks Dante’s name and origins, and reveals his own though Dante humbly conceals his identity.

MedXLIX:1 Dante asks Virgil about divisiveness, and is answered by a statement about mutual understanding and sharing.

MedL:1 Dante questions Marco Lombardo concerning the state of the world.

MedLII:1 A key interchange between Virgil and Dante on the question of Love and Freewill.

MedLIII:1 Virgil questions Dante as to why he is staring at the ground, and exhorts him to understand his dream of the Siren and act on it.

MedLIV:1 Dante questions Adrian V but is left unsatisfied by his questioning, presumably as to the swiftest way to pass through Purgatory.

MedLV:2 Dante is driven by his thirst for knowledge, for the water of divine Truth. And Virgil, also not understanding the cause of the earthquake, enquires of Statius.

MedLV:3 Statius looks Dante in the eye to question his reason for smiling. The eyes in the truthful spirit are the ‘windows to the soul’.

MedLVIII:1 Dante questions his old friend Forese about his sister Piccarda.

MedLIX:1 Dante expresses his need to question further, about the nature of the ‘shadow’ bodies of the dead spirits. How can they become lean where food is unnecessary?

MedLXII:2 Dante is puzzled, believing that natural forces have no effect on the Mount, so that there should be no effects of the wind, or the water cycle. Matilda is there to be questioned, and explains the source of the breeze, the nature of the plants, and the two rivers.

MedLXVIII:2 Beatrice anticipates Dante’s questioning regarding their ascent into the heavens. She responds with an explanation of Universal Order.

MedLXIX:2 Dante questions Beatrice as to the dark shadows on the Moon. Her reply uses scientific reasoning from observation and experiment, and indicates that the answer lies in qualititative rather than merely quantitative variation.

MedLXX:1 Beatrice satisfies his questioning using philosophical method. Proof by refutation of alternatives.

MedLXX:2 Piccarda answers his question concerning the desire of spirits in Paradise, which is that they desire what they have and possess no other desires.

MedLXXI:1 Dante questions Beatrice concerning broken vows, and Plato’s belief in souls returning to their stars.

MedLXXI:2 The intellect is never satisfied with anything less than the truth, and Truth can be attained or the longing for it would be worthless (!), so that question leads on to question. In this case Dante wishes to know whether reparation can be made for broken vows.

MedLXXV:2 Dante questions Charles Martel regarding heredity.

MedLXXVIII:1 Aquinas anticipates Dante’s questions concerning the state of the Dominican order, and the status of Solomon.

MedLXXXVI:1 Dante asks the question concerning the denial of salvation to those who do not know Christianity, and is told that it is a matter of God’s justice and faith in that justice.

MedXC:1 After his journey and his ‘education’ below, Dante is examined by the Apostles (Saints Peter, James and John) concerning his understanding of the theological virtues.

MedXCI:1 Saint Peter examines Dante regarding faith and his belief.

MedXCII:1 Saint James examines Dante concerning hope.

MedXCV:1 Saint John examines Dante concerning love.

MedXCV:1 Dante is puzzled as to how to reconcile the structure of the heavenly spheres with that of the angelic orders.

Example

MedV:2 Dante uses the story of Paolo and Francesca to highlight the conflict between illicit secular passion and spiritual progress. There is a hidden sub-text of the Abelard and Heloise story.

MedVI:1 Dante’s use of individuals to highlight ideas or points he wishes to make. The individuals indulge in conversation, interrogation, autobiographical statement, prophecy, examination, etc. Ciacco is used to highlight an aspect of the political future of Florence.

MedXVIII:2 Jason as an example of the deceitful lover.

MedXIX:1 Biblical examples of simony, and its opposite.

MedXXII:1 Dante cites example of corruption from Lucca, and Sardinia.

MedXXVI:1 Ulysses symbolizes Classical intelligence and striving for knowledge.

MedXXVIII:1 Dante’s use of individuals as examples stresses his preoccupations from religious and Roman history, to Italy and Florence, and then the personal, poetry and in the next Canto his own family.

MedXXXII:1 Dante cites treacherous Italians close to home to illustrate his deepest layers of Hell.

MedXLIV:1 Dante cites examples from Christian and Roman history to demonstrate the interlinked nature of the two. Rome was a matrix for Christianity, and Church and Empire are both divinely ordained, the one to rule over the spiritual, the other the secular life.

MedXLVI:1 The pavement of the First Terrace shows many examples of pride alternating between sacred and classical history and legend.

MedXLVII:1 The voices at the start of the second terrace are reminders of fraternal love: Mary and Christ at Cana, Orestes and Pylades, Matthew’s Gospel exhorting love.

MedXLVIII:1 The voices at the end of the second terrace are reminders of envy: Cain and Aglauros. One Biblical, one classical example.

MedXLIX:2 Examples of gentleness on the third terrace: the Virgin in the temple: Pisistratus: Saint Stephen forgiving his enemies.

MedLI:1 Examples of wrath at the exit from the third terrace: Procne, Haman, Queen Amata.

MedLII:2 Examples of haste, counter to sloth: Mary after the Annunciation running to the hill country: Caesar pursuing Pompey: and examples of sloth: the Abbot of San Zeno, the Israelites in the desert, the followers of Aeneas who stayed in Sicily.

MedLIV:1 Examples of liberality and poverty counter to avarice: Mary and the manger at Bethlehem: Fabricius the honest Consul: and Saint Nicholas of Bari.

MedLIV:3 Examples of avarice at the exit from the fifth terrace. Paired Classical and Biblical examples: Pygmalion and Midas: Achan and Sapphira: Heliodorus and Polymnestor: and finally Crassus.

MedLVI:1 Examples of Greek and Roman poets with Virgil in Limbo; and of mythological characters in Statius’s works.

MedLVI:2 Examples of temperance at the entrance to the sixth terrace, counter to gluttony. The Virgin at Cana: the Roman women: Daniel: The Golden Age: John the Baptist.

MedLVII:1 Examples of hunger. The gluttonous are tormented by Tantalus with an inachievable desire. The Classical example is Erysichthon who committed sacrilege against Demeter: the Biblical example is Mary of Jerusalem who, in starvation, consumed her own child, during Titus’s siege.

MedLVIII:3 Examples of gluttony at the exit from the sixth terrace: the Centaurs: the followers of Gideon.

MedLIX:2 Examples of chastity, counter to lust, at the entrance to the seventh terrace: Mary at the Annunication: Diana chasing away the fallen Callisto from her virgin band.

MedLXX:2 Clare as an example of perfect faith. Mucius Scaevola and Saint Lawrence as examples of loyalty under stress.

MedLXXII:1 Jepthath and Agamemnon as examples of takers of perverse vows, in sacrificing their daughters. The one example Biblical the other Classical in Dante’s usual manner.

MedLXXIII:1 Romeo of Villeneuve as an example of a saintly man distracted by his application to earthly ambitions, and subsequently wronged through envy.

MedLXXV:2 Examplars of diverse human skills and roles in society: Solon the lawgiver: Xerexes the soldier: Melchizedek the priest: Daedalus the inventor, craftsman and artist.

MedLXXVI:2 Dido, Phyllis and Hercules, as three examples of intense earthly love: for Aeneas, Demophoön, and Iole respectively.

MedLXXVIII:1 Saint Dominic and Saint Francis are chosen as exemplars of the life of practical wisdom, of how to live virtuously within the earthly life, lives of action unmotivated by worldly possessions, lives of wisdom and love.

MedLXXX:1 Solomon as an exemplar of ‘royal prudence, worldly wisdom’. Examples of knowledge: religion, the number of moving spirits in the heavens: logic, premises and conclusions: philosophic, the acceptance of a first mover: mathematical, right triangles within semicircles. Examples of practical wisdom: harvest, rose, ship, human behaviour: stressing caution and patience in not judging prematurely and not relying wholly on human wisdom, God’s justice is not ours.

MedLXXXIV:1 Dante justifies his use of famous names as examples, better to impress his readers, and influence famous men of his own time.

MedLXXXV:1 Examples of famous warriors who defended the old and new faith.

MedLXXXVI:1 Examples of the evil or ineffective kings of 1300.

MedLXXXVII:1 Examples of just spirits.

MedLXXXIX:1 Saint Benedict signifies the simplicity and discipline of religious order.

MedXCIV:1 Peter gives examples of the Popes who died for their faith, according to tradition.

MedXCIX:1 Bernard names the examples of the redeemed who sit beside and below the Virgin.

Exile

MedI:3 Dante positions himself outside the simple political framework of Church versus Empire. He aligns himself to a Rome that was the ancestral source of Florence, and to its great history, that Justinian will later summarise in the Paradiso.

MedXIII:1 Piero delle Vigne’s reference to Florence awakens Dante’s love of the native city that he is to be (and at the time of writing had been) exiled from.

MedX:1 Farinata prophesies Dante’s exile from Florence in 1302.

MedXV:1 Brunetto, exiled after Montaperti, prophesies the enmity of the Florentines towards Dante.

MedXXIII:1 Dante’s exile was on trumped-up charges, and he links the hypocrisy involved to that of the Jewish Council regarding Christ, leaving us with an image of Caiaphas ‘in eternal exile’.

MedXLV:2 The illuminator Gubbio prophesies Dante’s need to beg for hospitality in exile.

Faith

MedI:3 MedII:1 The keynote of the Paradiso. Faith, Hope and Pity align with Paradise, Purgatory and Hell.

MedV:2 Bernard regarded faith as a mystery beyond human reason, a position which Dante ultimately adopts.

MedXXXII:1 Dante’s Hell is graded downwards in the direction away from Faith, from the pagans, through the incontinent, to the violent, the deceitful and the treacherous. Treachery breaks the bonds of trust that are the complement to Faith. Mis-applied belief and misuse of free will are evident in the higher circles, failure of trust and belief and malicious use of free-will are evident in the lower circles, with treachery at the base.

MedXXXIV:1 The antithesis of trust and faith is treachery which is punished in the deepest, the Ninth Circle, of Hell, where Judas, the arch-traitor, and Brutus and Cassius, are tormented eternally for their unfaith, as enemies of Religion and Empire.

MedXXXVII:1 Virgil queries Dante’s lack of trust in himself. Purgatory is the place where trust and faith must be strengthened. Human beings should be content with the ‘what’ of existence and not the ‘why’, and have faith in the divine providence.

MedXXXIX:2 The spirits in Purgatory demonstrate trust in Dante’s good will.

MedXL:2 Dante is to have faith in Divine Philosophy, in Beatrice, and not in human philosophy as derived from Calssical writing, where matters of religion are concerned.

MedLXIII:1 Indicated by the colour white, and sometimes leading the three theological virtues.

MedLXVIII:1 The keynote of Paradiso is Faith (= Belief, Trust, Loyalty etc), and the first canto begins with a statement of Dante’s belief in (the truth of, in his view) the Neoplatonic structure of the Universe centered on God as the Aristotelian prime mover.

MedLXIX:1 The sphere of the Moon is that of faith, and the content of faith, which is taken on trust, in this life, will ultimately be revealed, realised, self-evidently, as truth. Medieval Ptolemaic astronomy considered that the Earth threw its shadow, i.e. created imperfection, as far as the third sphere of Venus (in the Copernican system it only throws its shadow on the Moon, Mercury and Venus being in inner orbit round the sun).

MedLXIX:3 Dante (through Beatrice’s words) presents the Neo-platonic order of the Universe as a revealed Truth, a matter in which the intellect should trust (an aspect of faith), and which it will find realised self-evidently hereafter.

MedLXX:1 The Moon is the sphere of faith, and its related concepts, trust, belief, loyalty, the keeping of vows, and corresponding imperfections are also illustrated here.

MedLXX:2 Clare as an example of perfect faith. Constance as an example of keeping inner faith under stress.

MedLXXI:1 Beatrice indicates that Divine Justice is a matter for faith, and may occasionally seem unjust to human beings.

MedLXXI:2 Dante asks whether reparation can be made for broken vows. The passage has a personal ring to it, and Beatrice’s immediate response is approving and loving. He is no doubt considering his promise made at the end of the Vita Nuova to dedicate himself to her and the higher ideal, and from which he had strayed.

MedLXXII:1 A vow is a pact between God and the self, made freely, and therefore breaking the vow is an abuse of freewill and a severance of the pact made, which was an act of self-sacrifice and self-dedication. Dispensation if given with knowledge and authority allows the content of a vow to be substituted but only with greater content, so that the supreme religious vow, that of the self, cannot be so recompensed. Vows should be serious and not perverse. Dispensation should be accepted only from the right authorities in accordance with Scripture and the authority of the Pope.

MedLXXVII:1 Dante is unable to express the brightness of the sphere of the Sun by any known means, intellect, art, or knowledge, but it can be a subject of faith and hope. Sigier’s presence may be due to his acknowledgment of the superiority of faith to philosophical dispute where there was a conflict.

MedLXXXVI:1 God’s Justice is beyond human understanding. Dante asks the question concerning the denial of salvation to those who do not know Christianity, and is told that it is a matter of God’s justice and faith in that justice.

MedXCI:1 Peter examines Dante regarding faith and his belief. Faith is an intellectual virtue to the Catholic Church, and Dante here quotes Saint Paul’s definition (in Hebrews xi:1) ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Further philosophical and theological issues are resolved.

Fame

MedII:1 Dante is confident of his future fame.

MedIV:2 Dante is accepted among the great poets in Limbo.

MedXVI:1 It is fame that determines the spirits which Dante will meet, and they in turn hint at or courteously wish for his fame also.

MedXXIV:1 Fame as the only way in which the individual survives on earth.

MedXLI:1 Sordello salutes Virgil’s fame.

MedXLV:2 A famous passage on the transience of fame. Giotto has superseded Cimabue in painting. Guido Cavalcanti has superseded Guido Guinicelli, and Dante both of them. Artistic fame and political glory are likewise doomed to transience.

MedLXXXIV:1 Cacciaguida prophesies Dante’s future fame.

Fear

MedI:1. The anti-heroic Dante is afraid of Hell. Where the main classical heroes do not show fear, this protagonist already does.

MedXXXIV:1 Words are insufficient to express Dante’s feelings of fear in the Judecca. At the end of the journey through the Inferno as at the beginning Hell inspires fear.

MedXXXVII:1 Dante’s shadow cast by the sun causes him fear when he sees that the spirits, including Virgil, cast none. He is unique and has the fear that uniqueness and difference brings.

MedXLIII:1 Dante is filled with fear after his dream at the entrance to Purgatory proper, and is comforted and given hope by Virgil.

MedLIV:3 Dante is fearful, through ignorance of the cause, after the earthquake on the Mount.

Florence

MedII:1 The native city, symbolic of the personal life. The place of Dante’s meeting with Beatrice.

MedX:1 Farinata, representing the older Florentine aristocracy, prophesies Dante’s exile from the city. He also implicitly links the City of Dis to the City of Florence.

MedXI:1 Usury condemned. Florence would later be a banking centre for Europe.

MedXIII:1 Florence seen as a city of violence, stemming from its history.

Dante is nevertheless filled with love of his native place.

MedXV:1 Brunetto mentions Florence’s founding from Fiesole, a mixture of Romans and Fiesoleans, the harsh nature, and the pride, envy and avarice of its people, as Ciacco had previously suggested.

MedXVI:1 Florence a buzzing beehive perhaps, a perverse city under the influence of new men and sudden wealth. One riven by faction, but once having possessed men of the older generations capable of caution, and judgment.

MedXXI:1 MedXXII:1 The episode of the barrators and the Malebranche Demons is used to highlight the political corruption of Florence and the trumped-up charges used to banish Dante (and confirm a sentence of death on him in 1302, if he returned to Florence).

MedXXIII:1 Dante refers to past Florentine corruption, and goes on to link the hypocrisy of the charges against himself, to those against Christ, and therefore the corruption of the Florentine leaders to those of the Jewish Council.

MedXXV:1 Dante selects five individual thieves from the nobility of Florence to point the finger once more at the sinfulness of his native city.

MedXXVI:1 Florence mirrors Dis, and its citizens are spread throughout the Inferno making it notorious. Punishment will follow.

MedXL:3 Dante attacks Florence, during his diatribe on the State of Italy,

its people are too quick to judge, greedy for office, profligate and changeable. The city is compared with deep irony to Athen and Sparta rich in arts and laws.

MedXLV:2 Over-proud and humbled at Montaperti.

MedXLVI:2 Dante mentions the steps at San Miniato overlooking Florence, and has an ironic jibe at that ‘well-guided’ city.

MedXLVIII:1 The Florentines compared to wolves.

MedLXXXIII:1 Cacciaguida speaks in detail about ancient Florence, and the modern degeneration of the city.

Forgiveness, Absolution

MedXLIII:2 Signified by the third step of the Gate of Purgatory. The golden key signifies the ability of the confessor to exercise judgement and grant absolution.

MedXLV:1 Forgiveness should be granted to others as we ourselves seek forgiveness.

MedLXIII:1 Matilda comfrims her role as the keeper of the threshold of forgiveness by singing ‘Beati, quorum tecta sunt peccata: Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.’ (Psalm 32: verse 1).

MedLXV:1 Dante undergoes the sacrament with Beatrice as confessor, the three stages of penitence, confession and forgiveness.

MedLXV:2 Matilda as the active agent of forgiveness draws Dante through the waters of Lethe, and makes him swallow the waters, which erase the memory of sinful acts.

MedLXV:2 Dante is forgiven and Beatrice reveals her smile which is that of the three theological virtues, with charity equating to love and forgiveness.

Fortitude

MedLXXXI:2 Prudentia, or practical wisdom, one of the four cardinal virtues, and represented by the sphere of the Sun. Dante treats prudence as the virtue of engaging religiously with the world. The mendicant Orders therefore figure significantly, as well as the practical philosophers and theologians.

Franciscans, Franciscan Radicalism

MedXXVII:2 Guido da Montefeltro, the mercenary turned Franciscan, serves to hint at Franciscan radical poverty compared to the corrupt Papacy.

MedXLVII:2 Pier Pettignano the Franciscan’s intercession for Sapia.

MedXLIX:1 Virgil’s comments on the nature of shared love, and the distinction between earthly possession and spiritual mutuality, echo Franciscan ‘spiritual’ thoughts on communal simplicity, and spiritual rather than temporal intensity.

MedLXVI:2 Dante watches a symbolically enacted history of the Church and Empire. The Church is attacked, corrupted and divided, acquiring temporal power in a fatal confusion of the spiritual and earthly spheres. The vision culminates in the whorish mating of a French pope to the French court, and the transfer of the Papacy from its true home, Rome, to Avignon. All this is an application of the imagery of Apocalypse to politics in the style of the radical Franciscans.

MedLXXVIII:2 The concept of the idealised Beatrice may have a source in Saint Francis’s embrace of ‘Lady Poverty’, the facets of Courtly Love being transferred to a purely spiritual symbol.

MedLXXIX:1 By including Joachim of Flora in the circle of lights Dante is expressly approving the prophetic interpretation of scripture and prophecy generally, and the more extreme radical views within the Franciscan Order concerned with the cleansing of the Church and Papacy, where these do not verge on heresy. This is despite Bonaventura’s actions against the Joachites.

MedLXXXI:1 Bonaventura’s is the outermost circle nearer to God. Dante acknowledges his affinity with Franciscan thought.

Fraud, Deceit

MedV:1 One of the divisions of the malicious is those who are guilty of forms of fraud.

MedXI:1 Fraud is subdivided into fraud against natural bonds, and treachery which is fraud against human trust as well as natural bonds.

MedXII:1 The Minotaur signifies the deceit of his conception as well as violence, and the unnatural.

MedXII:2 The Centaur Nessus who deceived Deianira, signifies fraud.

MedXVI:2 Geryon personifies Fraud, and is on the path to the lower eight and ninth circles of fraudulent malice. Geryon, the mythological Spanish king, whose cattle Hercules appropriated, has traditional associations with triple-headedness and with the alphabet. As an enemy of Hercules he is thereby an enemy of Rome, since Hercules was the protector of the ancient site of Rome and Evander’s people. (See Virgil’s Aeneid VIII 108 et al. His use as an allegorical representation of Fraud seems to have little mythological basis. Spain in 1300 was stable after the Reconquista, but perhaps there is some reference to Moorish Granada. Dante’s attitude to Spain would bear some more research.)

MedXVIII:1 Malebolge, the eighth circle, holds the ditches where the fraudulent are tormented. They have shown malice, through fraud rather than violence, and have broken the natural but not the divine bonds between men.

MedXXI:1 The Malebranche Demons are treacherous, and Malacoda their spokesman lies to the Poets.

MedXXII:1 The incident of Ciampolo and the Demons illustrates the ethos of organized corruption, the mutual deceit, overt and covert violence, the lying, trickery and malice. Florence is the subtext.

MedXXIII:1 Malacoda has deceived the poets, and the Devil is the father of lies. Fraud underlies the whole of Hell, since sin is both a self-deception and a betrayal of the Good.

MedXXVII:2 Ulysses and Guido da Montefeltro, show the weaknesses and strengths of human reason, and the ultimate inadequacy of human knowledge and authority, since despite wisdom and intelligence, they abused freewill through cuning and the acceptance of sophistry. There is an ironic illustration of the Demonic use of valid logic, showing that human reason is not a skill of the divine alone. Intellect is therefore seen to be a two-edged sword, capable of immoral as well as moral usage.

MedXXX:1 Leaving the Eight Circle, the tenth chasm is like a vast hospital, an analogy with the world above diseased by fraud and deceit, lying and falsity.

Free Will, Freedom

MedII:1 The (Christian) Individual is free to follow the path of spiritual achievement and therefore determine his/her own spiritual destiny.

MedIII:2 The spiritually neutral who failed to make any use of their free will are condemned to a no-man’s land.

MedIII:3 The spirits gathered at the Acheron who misuse language in blasphemy as they have misused freewill in life.

MedV:2 Love regarded as a path to human freedom, for example by Heloise in her letters, may for Dante conflict with the spiritual path. The right exercise of freewill for Dante is in accord with mainstream religious and spiritual orthodoxy.

MedVI:2 The importance of the theme of free will stressed in Dante’s letter to Can Grande.

MedXI:1 The structure of Hell depends on the non-use, misuse and abuse of free-will. Neutrality, Ignorance, Heresy and Incontinence thus figure as less serious than Malicious abuses of freewill which involve violence or fraud, including treachery. The treatment of heresy is interesting, and indicates Dante’s endorsement of the need for intellectual vigour, and his sympathies with the intellectually adventurous, but also recognition of the ultimate inferiority in the spiritual sphere of intellect to grace, intercession and revelation.

MedXIII:1 Suicide is normally an abuse of free-will.

MedXIV:1 Despite Cato’s suicide he was a champion of freedom and virtue, and his suicide was perhaps a virtuous exercise of free-will for a greater cause. Note that his suicide harmed only himself and not others.

MedXXXI:1 The Giants represent the mailicous abuse of power and free will.

MedXXXIV:1 The worst abuse of free will is treachery, since it destroys the closest bond, attacks faith and trust, and renders the salvation of the invidual impossible. The abuse is punished in the deepest pit of Hell.

MedXXXV:2 Cato, who committed honourable suicide, represents the right use of the free will in Classical times, and the type of the moral lover of freedom.

MedXLI:1 There is a degree of freedom in Purgatory, witness the extent to which Sordello can wander and guide the Poets. However the will is not yet wholly free, and night inhibits the Poets from climbing further, just as intercession and grace from above is needed to guard the approach to Purgatory proper.

MedXLII:3 Ethical progress through the right active use of free will is possible during the day on the Mount. It is presided over by the Southern Cross, its fours stars symbolic of the theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity.

MedXLII:4 Conrad Malaspina wishes Dante may have the will power needed for the ascent.

MedXLV:1 The Angels sacrifice their free will to God in humility.

MedL:1 Though the stars have divine influence on fate, the will is free, and divine goodness creates the mind which has moral awareness.

MedLI:2 Free-will is in abeyance at night on the Mount, and the Poets cannot progress upwards on foot during the night.

MedLI:3 The free-will which is abused or misused among others in Hell, is purged and re-oriented in Purgatory, and expressed fully in Paradiso.

MedLII:1 Freewill is an innate virtue, allowing the power of self-control, and the refusal of assent to wrong objectives. It is ‘the noble virtue’ to Beatrice.

MedLV:2 In Purgatory the free will is made eager for punishment as before it was desirous of sin, until it is finally purged of its sin and feels free, and is empowered to progress onwards. At this point the Mount quakes and the spirits celebrate. So Statius can now go upwards with the Poets.

MedLIX:1 Statius explains the origin of the individual, unified, soul. After death it retains intellect, memory and will, and around it a ‘shadow’ or ‘shade’ is manifested that reflects its desires and affections. Freewill can therefore be exercised after death.

MedLXI:3 At the summit of the Mount the will is freed, and is directed towards the good, making it right to follow its promptings. The spirit has attained moral innocence, and earthly knowledge. This was the purpose of the journey through Inferno and along the Mount.

MedLXVIII:1 The reason that there are so few great poets is in Dante’s eyes due to a failure of will. It is significant that the Paradiso ends with the energising of Dante’s will (to write the Commedia).

MedLXX:2 Piccarda answers his question concerning the desire of spirits in Paradise, which is that they desire what they have and possess no other desires. Their will is subsumed in the Divine will.

MedLXXI:1 Dante accepts the view that the stars influence human propensities, but not the idea, an interpretation of Plato’s Timaeus, that would imply the soul beng split from a star at birth, and returning to it at death. He is always concerned to follow the ‘soft’ astrological view of planetary influence on human life but not pre-determination of it, so leaving room for the key human attribute of free will. Mucius Scaevola and Saint Lawrence are given as example of the power of the free will to remain loyal to an ideal.

MedLXXII:1 Beatrice extols free will as the greatest gift of God, most matched to Him, and most valued by Him. It is possessed by intelligent creatures. A vow is a pact between God and the self, made freely, and therefore breaking the vow is an abuse of freewill and a severance of the pact made, which was an act of self-sacrifice and self-dedication.

MedLXXIV:1 Adam condemned the race to exile as a result of his original sin in eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. His sin was an abuse of free will since he failed to restrain his will appropriately.

MedLXXXIV:1 Cacciaguida emphasises that knowledge of the future in Paradise, does not imply pre-destination. God and Paradise are extra-temporal.

MedLXXXVII:1 Dante once more toys with the issue of pre-destination. God seems to pre-ordain certain things, but not all. Prayer can fulfil what is ordained but not alter it. God’s justice can ordain things that seem unjust or inscrutable to the human mind. Trajan was pre-destined to be saved therefore. Ripheus is saved even though technically a pagan unaware of Christ. God seems to guide history but not fully determine it.

MedXCV:1 God is ultimate truth. Blessedness depends on the vision of truth, on seeing, rather on the degree of love. Love is a consequence of being blessed, rather than a cause of it. The extent of vision depends on grace and right use of the will.

MedXCVIII:1 Beatrice now rests as Dante’s guide, and Dante in gratitude celebrates her goodness, and her grace that has led him to freedom and the hope of salvation, and asks for her protection.

Future

MedII:1 Part of the Triplicity of Time which the ‘copyist’ will capture in the DC.

Gluttony

MedLI:3 A sin arising from excessive love for what should be loved only in moderation, food. It is related to Avarice and Lust. A wrong response of Rational love to desire for the good.

MedLIII:1 The Siren symbolizes the temptation towards this excessive desire among others.

MedLVI:2 Examples of temperance, counter to gluttony. The Virgin at Cana: the Roman women: Daniel: The Golden Age: John the Baptist.

MedLVII:1 The gluttonous have mouths freed now to praise. They hunger and are filled with desire for food and drink by the perfume of the tree. Like Tantalus they are tormented by the inaccessibility of what they desire.

MedLVIII:3 Examples of gluttony at the exit from the sixth terrace: the Centaurs: the followers of Gideon. Dante links excessive desire to excessive eagerness for Knowledge.

MedXCIV:2 Beatrice condemns human greed.

God

MedI:4 All-present, though his city and throne is in Paradise. God is therefore present everywhere in the architecture of the universe, including Hell and Purgatory, as the supreme Maker.

MedXXXVII:1 The divine power does not will that the workings of itself and the universe should be fully understood by human beings.

MedXXXVII:3 God willingly pardons the repentant spirit.

MedXXXIX:1 God fills the penitents with desire to see Him.

MedXL:3 Dante calls on God to turn his eyes towards Italy. He is the deity who was crucified in his son Jesus Christ, and the ‘highest Jupiter’ having authority over Empire and Church, and superseding the Pagan Gods.

MedXLII:2 He hides his first cause so that there is no path to it. Dante journeys through His singular grace.

MedXLV:1 God is associated with the starry Heavens, not because he is limited in Space, but because he loves His first sublime creations most.

MedL:1 The soul, beloved of God, issues from his hands like a little child, in simplicity, and draw towards the good.

MedLI:1 Imagination operates on the rapt mind, as a light formed from heaven, or a Divine will from there. Dante implies the revelatory and inspirational God-given nature of his Vision.

MedLIV:2 Hugh Capet’s speech conjures the idea of an angry and vengeful Old Testament God. Dante is not speaking in the first person.

MedLIX:1 Statius explains the origin of the individual, unified, soul. After death it retains intellect, memory and will, and around it a ‘shadow’ or ‘shade’ is manifested that reflects its desires and affections. It is God who breathes the rational spirit into the human brain, delighting in it as a work of nature.

MedLXII:2 Matilda explains that God created Man good, and for goodness.

MedLXVIII:2 God is the source of Love, and his glory fills the universe. He most influences the world through the four Cardinal virtues (Temperance, Fortitude, Justice, and Prudence) when they are joined to ‘form’ the three theological virtues (Faith, Hope and Charity). The happiest constellation is therefore Aries, the sign in which the Sun was at the Creation, when the spring equinox fell there, making this configuration of four celestial circles joined in three crosses.

MedLXVIII:3 The higher creatures with intellect see the stamp of the Maker in the order of the universe, for which purpose the order was created. God created the (Neo-platonic) structure, and the intellect is drawn towards Him.

MedLXX:2 Blessed spirits in Paradise take their being from Divine Love and therefore cannot be in conflict with God’s will.

MedLXXII:1 Beatrice extols free will as the greatest gift of God, most matched to Him, and most valued by Him. It is possessed by intelligent creatures. A vow is a pact between God and the self, made freely, and therefore breaking the vow is an abuse of freewill and a severance of the pact made, which was an act of self-sacrifice and self-dedication.

MedLXXIV:1 God as an act of love mercy and justice sent Christ, his Word, his messenger, to Earth, taking on human nature with the divine nature, since only by Himself incurring punishment through the Crucifixion could reparation be made for original sin, that reparation being beyond Man’s power alone.

MedLXXIV:2 God breathes life into human beings directly, and the body will be resurrected as Adam and Eve were first created, directly.

MedLXXV:2 Divine providence structures and controls the creation in its nature and its continuing welfare. This is achieved through the angelic intellects present in the planetary spheres. Since God and they are perfect then the results must be regular and not chaotic, art and not disorder. Dante expresses his belief in the completeness of this created Nature.

MedLXXXVIII:1 The human mind is not adequate to understanding the Divine Will, since even the spirits cannot do that. Nor should human beings presume to try.

MedXCIII:1 God is the supreme Good, and therefore the object of supreme Love, since we yearn for what is good, and what the mind sees as the highest good is therefore the most desired.

MedXCIII:2 Everything is reflected perfectly in God, while nothing itself perfectly reflects God.

MedXCV:1 God is the prime Mover, the ultimate Truth, centre and circumference of the universe, but outside it in the spaceless and timeless Empyrean.

MedXCVI God created his creatures out of Love, so that they could know existence.

Golden Age, Utopianism, Primal Innnocence

MedXIV:2 The Old Man of Crete is a metaphor of the decline of man from the Golden Age of Saturn.

MedXLVIII:1 Gudio del Duca’s lament for a lost golden age of the Romagna and its past virtues.

MedLVI:1 Virgil’s Eclogue IV predicts the return of the Golden Age.

MedLVI:2 The Golden Age, as a time when the human race lived om natural plenty as described by Ovid in the Metamorphoses (I 103 et seq.)

MedLXII:1 The wood before the Earthly Paradise, and the scene beyond the stream of Matilda gathering flowers, invokes the primal innocence of nature, the uplifting dawn beauty of resurrection and regeneration.

MedLXII:2 Matilda suggests that ancient poetic ideas of the Golden Age were dreams of the Earthy Paradise. This invokes a smile from Virgil and Statius, poets who referenced the Golden Age in their works.

MedLXXXVIII:1 The seventh sphere of Saturn with is golden light is associated with the Golden Age of simplicity, moderation, and innocence.

Goodness, The Good

MedI:3 As an objective of the political saviour of Italy who is yet to come.

MedLXII:2 Matilda explains that God created Man good, and for goodness. The Earthly Paradise was created as a home for that goodness.

MedLXXIV:1 What conforms most closely to the Divine Good is most pleasing to God since it reflects Himself. Sin is what clouds human nature, and makes it dissimilar to the Good. An action is more gracious if it reveals more of the goodness of the heart it comes from. Christ was wholly pure and good, representing the state of Man before the Fall.

MedLXXXVII:1 Dante implies that one is not condemned for an action intended to do good that has evil consequences. So Constantine is not to blame for the evil effects of the (unhistorical) Donation.

MedXCVII:1 Dante unites Truth and Goodness, to be known by the intellect, out of which flows the transcendent joy of Love. Though Truth and Love coexist in God, intellect and knowledge in Man is the cause of human love.

MedXCVIII:1 Beatrice now rests as Dante’s guide, and Dante in gratitude celebrates her goodness, and her grace that has led him to freedom and the hope of salvation, and asks for her protection.

MedC:1 Dante’s final Vision, in the moment of supreme stillness, beyond time, is of a universal unity, bound together by Love in a simplicity of Light. Within it is the concentrated and perfect Good, the object of will and desire, which the eye cannot turn away from to another sight. Outside it all things are in some way defective in their goodness.

Grace

MedII:2 Divine grace enables Beatrice to visit Virgil in Limbo without fear of Hell’s flames.

MedV:2 Bernard regarded Divine grace as necessary to achieve salvation.

MedXLIII:1 The Eagle in Dante’s dream is symbolic of regeneration through Divine Grace, and of Rome and Imperial law.

MedXLV:1 Peace is an act of grace.

MedLVIII:3 Grace illuminates those who are blessed with moderate desires and hunger for what is right and just.

MedLXV:2 Beatrice reveals her face and her smile out of grace which is needed to supplement human wisdom, prompted by the three theological virtues who are also the three dancing Graces.

MedLXXIV:1 An action is more gracious if it reveals more of the goodness of the heart it comes from. God displayed His divine goodness, in the Incarnation, by acting with maximum grace to reveal the maximum goodness, employing both mercy and justice.

MedXCV:1 God is ultimate truth. Blessedness depends on the vision of truth, on seeing, rather on the degree of love. Love is a consequence of being blessed, rather than a cause of it. The extent of vision depends on grace and right use of the will.

MedXCVIUnlike Satan who fell through pride the other Angels opened themselves to God, and understood their place humbly, and it is a virtue to open oneself to grace likewise.

MedXCVIII:1 Beatrice now rests as Dante’s guide, and Dante in gratitude celebrates her goodness, and her grace that has led him to freedom and the hope of salvation, and asks for her protection.

Gratitude

MedXLV:1 Praise of the divine is a natural act of gratitude for the gifts of the Creation.

MedLXIX:1 Beatrice directs Dante to show gratitude for God’s grace.

MedLXXVII:1 Beatrice encourages Dante to show gratitude for his ascent into the sphere of the Sun.

MedXCVIII:1 Beatrice now rests as Dante’s guide, and Dante in gratitude celebrates her goodness, and her grace that has led him to freedom and the hope of salvation, and asks for her protection.

Guides, Spirit-Guides

MedI:3 Virgil appears as the spirit guide for the Inferno and most of the Purgatorio. He is qualified as poet, moral teacher, Imperial Roman, and writer of the fertile sourcebook the Aeneid. He represents human philosophy.

MedLXVIII:2 Beatrice who appeared to Dante in the Earthly Paradise, is his guide through Paradiso. She represents Divine Philosophy and Grace, and carries the charge of the living and beloved Beatrice while incorporating the attributes of saint and blessed spirit.

MedLXXVIII:1 Aquinas identifies Dominc and Francis as the two guides of the Church in both realms.

MedXCVIII:1 Beatrice now rests as Dante’s guide, and Dante in gratitude celebrates her goodness, and her grace that has led him to freedom and the hope of salvation, and asks for her protection.

Heresy

MedV:2 The Paolo and Francesca episode parallels the history of Abelard and Heloise, where Heloise’s love at least can be considered heretical in its preference for a secular passion over religious dogma. Abelard was separately condemned as a heretic by Bernard on thological grounds.

MedX:1 The sixth circle holds the heretics, including the free-thinking Epicureans who denied the immortality of the soul, according to Dante.

MedXXXVII:3 Dante treads a careful path in the Commedia between orthodoxy and unorthodoxy. How acceptable was his claim to have seen Hell, Purgatory and Paradise in his Vision, or his use of prophetic statement, frowned on by the Church, even though it is often merely a literary device? How acceptable was his nearness to the radical Franciscans in his condemnation of the Papacy, or his view of Classical Roman history as evidence of Divine providence at work?

MedLXXX:1 Examples of opposing heresies, those of Arian and Sabellius. Sabellius, denied the separate persons of God and his son Christ though they are unified in essence, Arius denied the essential unity of God and his Son though they differ in person.

Hierarchy

MedII:3 The Virgin’s intercession on Dante’s behalf is passed down the hierarchy, from Virgin, to Saint (Lucia), to Beatrice, to Virgil (in Limbo).

MedXI:1 The implied hierarchy of God, Nature and Human Art by which the divine power flows to human society.

MedXXXV:2 The lower realm of Marcia’s Limbo cannot influence Cato at the foot of Purgatory. The lower cannot move the higher.

Hope

MedI:4 A major dimension of Dante’s understanding of Purgatory. Faith, Hope and Pity align with Paradise, Purgatory and Hell.

MedX:3 Virgil offers Dante hope by holding out a promise of seeing Beatrice, and learning his own fate.

MedXXXVIII:1 Hope is the keynote of the Purgatorio, and Virgil is a guide who gives Dante hope, both of reaching the summit of Purgatory and seeing Beatrice.

MedXL:2 Virgil gives Dante renewed promise of seeing Beatrice, and hope eases his weariness.

MedXLIII:1 Virgil replaces Dante’s fear with hope, when he wakes startled, after the dream of the Eagle.

MedXLIX:1 Virgil gives Dante renewed hope of seeing Beatrice.

MedLV:2 Statius gives Dante hope of gaining knowledge.

MedLXI:1 Virgil reassures Dante with hope of seeing Beatrice and her eyes that represent the cardinal virtues, beyond the purging fire.

MedLXI:3 Virgil’s last speech sends Dante onwards, beyond his own knowledge, into the beatitude of the Earthly Paradise. It is full of the hope and promise of seeing Beatrice and reaching Divine wisdom that the journey through Inferno and Purgatory has presaged.

MedLXIII:1 Indicated by green leaves, and the colour green generally.

MedLXXII:2 The sphere of Mercury represents hope, and its imperfection earthly ambition.

MedLXXIII:1 Dante stresses the hope of peace under the law that the Empire represents. Justinian his spokesman offers hope that the factional quarrels of Italy will cease with the Ghibellines purifying their cause, and the Ghelph threat allied to France going the way of all the greater historical threats to the Empire.

MedLXXIV:1 Beatrice explains the Incarnation and Crucifixion bringing hope of redemption.

MedLXXVII:1 Dante is unable to express the brightness of the sphere of the Sun by any known means, intellect, art, or knowledge, but it can be a subject of faith and hope.

MedXCII:1 Dante expresses hope of returning to Florence, and is examined on the subject of Hope by Saint James, who is appropriate for a number of reasons mentioned. He replies in words closely resembling Peter Lombard’s ‘Hope is the certain expectation of future bliss, coming from the grace of God and preceding merit.’ He goes on to explain that his hope is of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body.

MedXCVIII:1 Beatrice now rests as Dante’s guide, and Dante in gratitude celebrates her goodness, and her grace that has led him to freedom and the hope of salvation, and asks for her protection.

Humility

MedI:2 Dante is humble before his master and guide Virgil. He exhibits anti-hero traits in this journey of a sinner. He is different from the heroes of previous epics in the nature of his destiny. Yet he is himself the protagonist of his own epic.

MedX:1 In his exchange with Virgil, Dante demonstrates his humility and willingness to expose his inner thoughts. Virgil is in the role of father, friend, master, guide, teacher and confessor.

MedXXXV:2 Dante is cleansed and a rush, the symbol of humility, is bound round him by Virgil.

MedXXXVII:3 Dante addresses the spirit of Manfred, humbly.

MedXLIII:2 The Angel at the Gate of Purgatory has robes of ashen grey signifying the humility of the penitent and of the confessor.

MedXLIV:1 Examples of Humility: The Annunciation: David before the Ark: Trajan and the widow.

MedXLV:1 The Angels sacrifice their free will to God in humility.

MedXLV:2 Provenzan Salvani as an example of humility. He played the part of a beggar to raise money for a friend’s ransom.

MedLV:3 The passage between Virgil and Statius expresses the humility and equality of the spirits after death.

MedLXVIII:1 A flash of pride in his own poetic abilities escapes the net, even in Paradise!! It is quickly followed by a humble corrective statement.

MedXCVIUnlike Satan who fell through pride the other Angels opened themselves to God, and understood their place humbly, and it is a virtue to open oneself to grace likewise.