Dante's Paradiso & The 9 Levels of Heaven Explained

hello everybody today we're going to be covering the final part of divine comedy with dante's journey through heaven in paradiso if you're finishing up the now three-part series on the divine comedy i say welcome back and if this is your first entry to the divine comedy then you're really in for it inferno is without a doubt the most famous and remembered part of the series because of all the bizarre descriptions of who's in hell and how people are tortured there and purgatorio kind of exists within the public conscience as this weird story of penance for repentant sinners but pretty much no one knows about paradiso they hear weird details like there's a giant eagle bird and a cross made out of people and that's like it and i think that's a shame because for one the giant eagle person thing is one of the least weird details of the whole story and two i think paradiso may be my favorite part some of my favorite aspects of inferno and purgatorio were these greater concepts of existence and how the divine applies to humanity and what god means to the individual and things like that now that's not to say i see dante as any final authority when it comes to belief but just the idea that hundreds of years ago another christian had the same ideas and broader concepts of religion itself that i have this day is weirdly comforting so if you're either here for that kind of thing or here to see who's on which tiers of heaven or you know just jokes about florence and italian politics in general then we have you covered so if any of that sounds interesting to you stick around as we break down dante's journey through the nine layers of heaven stop smell yourself go ahead do it that's right we can do better and we can do better together thanks to today's sponsor scentbird scentbird is the fragrant subscription service that allows you to shop from over 600 of your favorite designer brands and for only 16 a month you can have these designer brands delivered straight to your house 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check them out link is in the description and we are back to the video we are going to go ahead and get into it but as always thank you for watching so where we left off in purgatory dante and stadius were in the garden of eden and were now made clean of their sins in order to begin their ascent into heaven if you'll remember virgil cannot enter into the garden and instead beatrice took over as dante's guide through hell and purgatory virgil explained to dante the concepts that he could not understand but now that dante's been cleansed of his sins upon entering the garden there's nothing more that virgil can explain to him so it's now up to beatrice to explain to him heaven and divinity itself it seems that whenever dante reaches an equal level of knowledge as his guide that a new guide steps in in order to take him to the next level so now at the beginning of paradiso dante and beatrice begin their ascent into heaven however for some reason stadius isn't there anymore now it's explained later in the story that whenever a soul becomes cleansed through purgatory or they either died righteous and went straight to heaven that they immediately go from that to their assigned level of heaven the same as it was in hell that whenever a soul dies they don't do what dante did and walk through all the layers until they get to their stopping point they're immediately cast to their respective level so because of that we can assume that stadius's absence means that he immediately went to his assigned place in paradise however he's never mentioned through the entirety of paradiso so it is much funnier in my opinion to imagine that as soon as they began their ascent into heaven stadius was instantaneously vaporized like i said that's definitely not what happened and there's no reason for this except my own sense of humor but imagine they're standing in the garden of eden and immediately shoot up to what we're about to see as the first tier and stadius just isn't there like the rush of it just like dissolved him into atoms like could you imagine they're sitting by the river and stadius is like so dante are you ready to go to heaven so at the beginning of our story dante and beatrice are ascending to the realm of god's light dante in his writing ask apollo to help him describe the sights that he's seen another reference to mythology as they rise beatrice explains to dante that the reason that they are able to begin ascending into the heavens is because they are now untethered by sin according to her all of creation is a part of god so therefore all of creation has a natural force that draws it back to god the only thing that keeps humanity from rising to its natural position at god's side or as beatrice calls god the primal source is sin itself this goes in line with the teachings of virgil throughout the story that sin is essentially an absence or distance created between god and man so because dante's sins were cleansed in the garden of eden he is now able to naturally fall in place in the heavenly domain the first thing that dante notices other than you know the fact that he's floating into the stars is that he can view the sun directly beatrice explains to him that the sun is powered by god's love and the reason that people on earth can't stare at it directly is because god's love is too blinding to the natural center but now for the first time dante can experience the love of the sun completely unbridled beatrice explains that this is only the beginning and as we'll see through the rest of this story as dante continues to rise through the different tiers of heaven he gains new physical abilities like being able to stare at the sun because his body is becoming less human and more divine before he gets to the first tier dante warns the readers that if anyone is not experienced with quote eating of angel bread or in other words studying the scriptures then they should probably stop now because the waters are too deep for the unexperienced but that didn't stop me because i can't read so we're on to the first tier and the first tier of heaven is the moon no i'm not kidding this is one of the wildest parts of paradiso to me and i hate that it doesn't get more attention because this is such a cool idea the nine tiers of heaven are the nine heavenly bodies in our solar system this is such an insanely cool concept to me the idea that like the moon and saturn and mercury and all of the planets are the dividing tears of heaven itself now this is based off a 14th century understanding of the solar system so according to dante the earth is at the center and the sun is like the fourth planet out but i don't care this is so cool i love it and you know what makes this even cooler as soon as dante and beatrice step foot on the moon dante asks if this is where cain is because apparently there was a belief in the church at this time that whenever cain was banished to walk the earth forever that god banished him to the moon as it was technically a part of earth or at least earth's system so much so that the craters of the moon were referred to by many at the time as the marks of cain that is one of the coolest concepts i have ever heard and like this i read that immediately after reading that the moon was the first here and this was just like crack to me i love this dante does this thing a lot throughout the divine comedy where he will have the character of dante ask a question so that someone else in the story can refute that talking point so whenever the character of dante asks if this is where kane is beatrice tells him that that's untrue and just believed by people on earth and in actuality the reason that the moon has these dark spots is because the light of the moon is reflected differently on different parts of its structure i mean which is a good guess for the time i mean how is dante supposed to know the thing's got like big holes on it beatrice explains to dante that there are nine layers of heaven itself with a tenth layer encompassing the entire thing known as the imperian it's within this tenth layer that god himself resides the ninth layer or the second outermost layer counting the layer that contains god himself is known as the crystalline the crystalline soaks in the love and divinity of god and diffuses it across the other heavenly layers and the eighth layer just below the crystalline contains the fixed stars also known as the constellations these constellations act as guides that directs god's love that is now crossed over into the crystalline and then projects it throughout earth and the rest of the heavenly systems to make everything that i said less confusing layers 1 through 7 contain actual souls that reside within heaven and then layers 8 and 9 which are the fixed stars and the crystalline respectively exist to transmit god's love and essentially keep all of reality in working order and then finally you have the tenth layer or the empyrion outside of that which is god himself in other words we're going to have seven layers of souls based on their merit and then a final three layers of just pure brain melting universe stuff so which souls you may ask are on the first layer of heaven here on the moon well according to beatrice these are the souls who were inconsistent as dante and beatrice are speaking cloudy figures begin to surround them with their faces moving in and out of the visible spectrum as you can imagine each layer of heaven has an increased level of blessedness compared to the layer beneath it we'll get more to the specifics of how this all relates into the entirety of heaven itself in a moment but for now dante begins to speak to one of the souls on this tier named picarda if you'll remember during purgatorio on the gluten tear of purgatory there was a man by the name of foresee with his friend corso who explained to dante how the gluttony tear worked that man is the brother of picarda they were two people who dante knew in life and he's now seeing them in the afterlife picardo explains that she is a former nun who neglected her vows and essentially turned her back on the promises she made to god which is what placed her in this first tier of heaven again we're talking about heaven now this isn't purgatory so it's not like the tears are any form of punishment you are just rewarded based on the merits you did in life dante asked picarda if she's content spending eternity on what is considered to him a lower form of heaven picarda explains that want and desire itself is a purely human condition that is removed from a soul whenever it enters heaven because everything in heaven follows a perfect and exact order because of that piccarda has no desires beyond that of what she should desire which is her existence as it is because of that there's no bitterness or want for a soul to go to a different layer than the one that it's currently on because everything is exactly as it should be because of that heaven has no punishments or deficiency it's simply different levels of blessing even as dante's talking to picarda he says that she smiles with the love's first flame to glow this is again a reference to love's first flame in other words god and jesus so even on this first tier of heaven he sees that picarda demonstrates a pure form of love and contentment after the conversation picardo begins singing ave maria as she fades away dante then turns to look at beatrice and notices that she's become strikingly more beautiful and radiant beatrice explains that her heavenly form would be too much to show dante uncensored so because of this as dante rises through the tears of heaven beatrice's true form will become more and more apparent so there is some mention in every tear of heaven of dante looking at beatrice and she is unspeakably more beautiful than when he last saw her after the souls of the moon vanish that is a fantastic sentence dante begins to ask beatrice a question but beatrice stops him as she can already tell what he's about to ask he has two questions the first one being how can merit be reduced if it's by force and the second being how are souls residing in the stars as that is an idea that falls in line with the philosopher plato in other words how is plato right if he existed far before christ and would have no greater knowledge of this in response to the second question beatrice says something that completely re-contextualizes the entirety of the divine comedy she says that souls do not exist among the stars however this makes no sense we're already on tier 1 which is the moon and there's already souls existing there so what does that mean beatrice elaborates and says that every soul in heaven exists in the imperian with god himself dante who is still a human simply experiencing heaven and not yet becoming a part of it could not possibly fathom how souls exist in their own being in unison with the creator but also with different levels of blessings it's a concept that's just beyond anything humans are aware of so in order for dante to better visualize it in a way that humans can understand these tears have been broken up to show him the progression of blessings in heaven even though in heaven or the imperian itself there is no division of souls and all are happy this is the easiest way to get the idea across to dante and in a greater sense this serves as an overall statement for the entirety of the divine comedy everything that dante's been saying isn't literal but representative which i don't know any youtubers on the internet who would make jokes about him thinking this was all literal that would be absurd but the purpose of the divine comedy as it is written is to give people the idea or the essence of how souls could be either punished or rewarded on both sides of eternity and the specific layers rewards and experiences are more so representative rather than a literal point that dante's trying to get across that also makes more sense of how a soul can be in heaven with god according to the bible but then here dante sees them on the moon because this hole rising through the moons and different layers of the heavenly bodies is just so a mortal human can better understand the concept of infinite paradise and to answer dante's first question why is merit reduced if it's by force is in reference to picarda herself see in real life picardo was a nun who left the church and renounced her vows so that she could marry in order to further her brother's political interest that brother being the one who i mentioned earlier as being in purgatory and in real life her brother pressured her into leaving the church so that he could further his own position so dante's question is how can bacardi then be judged for that if it was someone else who pressured her into doing this bad thing beatrice explains that the primary judge of a human's character is their own will and spirit and in a concept we're going to see expanded on later a spirit is often judged by its merit rather than its actions in other words regardless of what causes you to yield or fall away from god it's still yielding or falling away from god beatrice tells dante that she could have simply refused and potentially cut off ties to her family or she could have ran away or any other option rather than betraying a promise she made to christ beatrice asked dante to think of the martyrs such as saint lawrence who was burned at the stake for believing in god st lawrence represents the strongest of wills and there may be other people out there who have a will just as strong as saint lawrence although they've never been tested and then on the other side of the spectrum you have people like picarda who when they were tested they fell away from god you could have other people out there who are just as weak-willed as picarda although they'll never break because they never experienced that test since god knows the heart and spirit of that human he understands the perfect place for that soul to reside and again this isn't something to be thought of as punishment versus reward it's just different levels of reward if you have two children and one of them cleans their room and the other one doesn't and you reward the good child with ice cream that doesn't mean you don't love the other child it just means that you are rewarding a good action or as seen in heaven god is rewarding strong will in other words there are no prizes for circumstance only character beatrice continues and says that the evil of the world cannot justify another act of evil if picardo's brother doing a bad thing by pushing his sister into leaving the church could be justified well then anyone who's not in a perfect condition could be justified for doing all kinds of atrocity societal pressure to just be good does not indicate good will nor does societal pressure to be bad justify bad will we're going to see this continue throughout paradiso where god continues to judge souls based on their true will rather than just their actions or as the book of first samuel says man looketh on the outward appearance but the lord looketh on the heart dante also makes a note here that i like he says that while some view questioning god as a bad thing that questions in actuality draw people closer to god because that's naturally how human intuition works and that god should be able to hold up to questioning or else he wouldn't be god in other words if someone seeks the truth they will always find god at the end of it so because of this dante has another question which beatrice perceives before he even asks dante's question being can someone make up for a lost vow this again being in reference to picarda who dante just spoke to beatrice explains to dante that god's single greatest gift to humanity was the gift of free will the short version being that god created humanity and interrupted divinity in order to bring about the existence of choice that's a really big deal the entire reason that the tree existed in the garden of eden is because without it there was no choice to separate ourselves from god so because free will is such a big gift to humanity a vow to god is a really really big deal because it's returning the gift as a show of respect the example dante using here of picardo being a reference to nuns and priests who take catholic valves to the church and to god and in the cases of picarda eventually break them so all of that to say picard is in the first year of heaven but she seems pretty okay with it we are now on to the second tier of heaven mercury upon arriving at mercury the light is almost blinding as the sun is so powerful at this level that it overwhelms everything again this being an example of god's love when dante and beatrice arrive a thousand shining souls run up to dante futures explains to dante that mercury is for those who serve their own self-interest in other words they did good things and are rewarded for it but they did it in order to boost themselves instead of some higher purpose beatrice encourages dante to ask one of the souls who they are to which a soul replies that he is the roman emperor justinian justinian is known historically for reforming the law code of rome and establishing a new age of order however justinian says here that he did it in order to serve himself and to support his own legacy justinian also explains that in the beginning of his rule he was a heretic until a christian told him of christ and he converted after this dante looks over to beatrice and is once again overwhelmed by her beauty this is going to continue through all of the tears and once again beatrice perceives dante's question dante asks how the destruction of jerusalem in 70 a.d was justified and for short context jesus was crucified in jerusalem around 33 a.d about 40 years later in 70 a.d the romans destroyed jerusalem the church at the time saw this as essentially a form of payback for jerusalem you know killing god dante's question is if jesus was supposed to come to earth to die for the sins of humanity then why were the people that killed him punished for killing him beatrice explains that the people who killed jesus were evil in spite of jesus in other words the people who wanted him dead had no care for his greater purpose or destiny and as a matter of fact tried to stop it in several instances it's kind of like well not really but i'm going to use this comedic example anyway it's kind of like if you were trying to carjack so you broke the window of a car and then upon breaking the window of a car you see that there was like a dog in the back seat that was getting you know overheated in a hot car and then you just left like that doesn't mean carjacking is good now i should also clarify that i windagoon am not saying this to justify the destruction of jerusalem in 70 a.d i'm just explaining the philosophy that beatrice passes on to dante in this question beatrice continues to elaborate on this and say that the very existence of calvary was so that humanity could take part in their own salvation in other words there would be no understanding or greater purpose to the choice of salvation if not for jesus becoming humble enough to become a person come to earth and then die to take the place of humanity's sins and humanity crucifying christ was not only an example of our own wickedness but the fact that we did it ourselves and in a manner we can comprehend allows us to maintain the one thing that god decided mattered most for us free will and choice after this dante and beatrice continue to ascend to the third level of heaven venus venus in roman mythology is characterized as the goddess of love that description is fitting as this tears for people who did good things in life however they continue to chase urges and desires while doing it in other words they were believers and virtuous people however they had a lot of the same problems that the people in purgatory also have souls begin to approach dante and one of them identifies himself as charles martell charles was a friend of dante's and begins to speak about you guessed it the decline of florence and how several people throughout history including his own lineage turn wrong because they neglect their roles charles elaborates on this and says that many have a place that god wants them to fit into society where their blessings will be the most however several people want to follow their own pursuits in life and neglect what god has meant for them and charles says this is where the majority of problems arise the example he gives for this is people who were meant to be preachers who instead chased the role of kings another soul there by the name of kinesia says that she chased after earthly desires in life and that's why she's on the third tier dante begins to ask if they regret their actions on earth because you know if they hadn't have done those actions they would theoretically be on a higher tier of heaven another so by the name of falco says that this isn't a concept that exists within heaven things like guilt remorse and regret are purely the consequences of sin in heaven there is no negativity or shame so because of this the souls do not experience regret for the things they did or didn't do in life this is as you can imagine hard for dante or anyone to really understand the idea of life without regret for past mistakes but according to falco any form of negativity doesn't exist in heaven and as mentioned earlier everyone is content in their place and also doubly as mentioned earlier they're not literally on venus forever this is again i guess like a sort of presentation to dante in order for him to better understand also kaneza the one who i mentioned as chasing after earthly desires well her brother ezelino was mentioned in dante's inferno i didn't mention him at the time because he was a figure in italian politics as are a lot of characters in the story but he was in the seventh tier of hell which was the violence tier and specifically he was in the first part which was the boiling river of blood he was there because at the time he had killed a lot of people in italy in order to further his political stance so having a brother be all the way down there in tier seven of hell and now having his sister be in tier three of heaven further emphasizes the point the falco was making that god can lead people into better gifts in their life but instead people decide to further their own selfish desires and that's what causes a lot of evil kuniz's brother being an example also rahab from the bible story of jericho is here rahab was the one who was mentioned as being a prostitute which is probably the reason that she is here in tier three for following after earthly desires but she was the one who helped the spies of israel destroy the city of jericho meaning she followed after god's will and here she's depicted as a beautiful opulent soul after this dante and beatrice continue to rise until they hit the fourth tier the sun like i said the understanding of the solar system wasn't the best but just roll with it if you'll remember i mentioned earlier that the sun was a show or representative of god's love so fittingly the people who reside on the fourth tier of heaven are people who sought knowledge of god while they were alive this is also the turning point from the first three tiers of heaven being people who were good and all but they had certain characteristics holding them back and now transitions into different levels of rewards for acts done in life so you can kind of separate tiers one through three as lower heaven that's a weird phrase tiers four through seven as upper heaven or the rewards for different souls and then tiers 8 through 10 as the wonky stuff we're gonna see here in a little bit also you may be thinking aren't there tears of heaven why does this video title say there's only nine tiers because the 10th tier doesn't really count since it's the empyrean and that's where all the souls technically are but there's nine tiers to show division and also because i want to keep the naming thing the same so fight me the light that dante is seeing whenever he is in the sun is indescribable as you can imagine and flares of light begin to approach and encircle him these flares of light later show their true form to dante as they are souls of leaders of the church two players approach them and identify themselves as thomas aquinas and thomas's teacher albert the gray thomas aquinas is a big figure in catholic history specifically among the dominican group of the catholic idea and he was a figure who dante was very fond of and followed the teachings of the theologians break out into a beautiful song which is more accurately described as a noise of beauty dante is speaking to thomas also known as saint thomas aquinas when another flare appears and begins conversing with thomas the flare identifies itself as saint seiger while they were alive saint seiger and saint thomas were sort of rivals against each other or they had opposing views when it came to christianity however here in heaven they get along and join each other in camaraderie this is an interesting turnabout for dante because what we've seen or at least what i have jokingly pointed out the extensive scene throughout the other tiers of the story is that in hell in purgatory he will kind of use it as a political or religious jab against people he didn't agree with but here in heaven he has saint seiger who if you'll remember dante does not agree with because he followed after the teachings of saint thomas he has saint thomas and saint siger communing together in heaven and being friends which is kind of cool because it implies that yeah even though people on earth have differences of opinion when it comes to religion they're both seeking the same truth and once that truth is found then they're both two people who had the exact same vigor and desire to find more information about god so here they have nothing left to do than celebrate that the souls of this tier begin circling around dante as a sort of chandelier whenever thomas senses that dante has a question again dante can never ask a question through this entire story and people just know what he's about to ask before he does which is kind of funny whenever you look at inferno and purgatorio and think of all the questions he asked the souls he ran into and then compare that to now when he just starts to open his mouth and they're like nope already have you covered dante's question is of the very nature of saint seiger and saint thomas talking to each other how can two people that had radically different takes in life now be conversely seen now be inversely seen as allies in heaven thomas gives a story of two people who were sent from god with a message to earth one of these people was that of burning love and the other one was that of intelligence one of a fiery passion and one of a stoic wisdom thomas begins to talk of the burning love and says that it is saint francis now to give you an idea there were two primary branches of catholicism at least in monasteries at this time one was those that followed saint dominic and the other were those that followed saint francis as mentioned earlier thomas aquinas was a dominican so he followed saint dominic so here as thomas is talking about burning love he's talking about the rival ideology of his own he tells a story of how this burning love chased after a beautiful girl named poverty again as mentioned earlier poverty is more specifically like humility and not boasting one's wealth in other words how the mindset of people like saint francis should be seen as a good thing he also says that poverty is a widow now which is an interesting jab at modern churches of the time implying that the church is now obsessed with wealth and status rather than the poverty it originally chased leaving this personification of a woman as a lowly widow because the church has left her saint bonaventure appears who was a franciscan and begins to praise saint dominic so you have these franciscans and these dominicans who are all existing together and praising each other's teachers it's kind of hard to get across the severity of that to you now because for most of you i probably just explained who these people are that they didn't like each other and now how they do like each other and i doubt that had an impact but at the time this was a really big deal people were pretty die hard about what level of catholicism or breed of catholicism they went with i mean there were several wars over it so now to have all of the figures in heaven communing together like yeah saint francis and saint dominic never tried to kill each other to my knowledge but to have them all in fellowship of heaven because they were all chasing the same truth is really beautiful and i like it they also point out other figures of the bible who are in this tier such as that of the prophet nathan the one who stood before king david thomas begins to explain that all things are originally from god however nature and free will eventually allows evil and bad to corrupt what is good and therefore all of these branching paths of humanity have their different needs and places within humanity as a whole again perceiving dante's questions he answers questions about characters like king solomon king solomon is mentioned in the bible as having wisdom directly from god and says that solomon was a human who again was not created directly from god and because of that he had his flaws however the wisdom was divine and was imparted by god directly god will do that throughout history according to thomas and insert gifts throughout humanity however the further that people go from direct access to god the more decay and evil enter the world he goes further and says there were only two people who were ever made directly by god without interference of humanity and that was adam and jesus adam being directly made by god and you would think eve would count but eve was created again as part of humanity after the first human was made so it's like one step away and the further humanity strays from individual aspects of god the worse they get jesus was directly made on earth by god and was a part of himself or his son on earth as man and that is the reason that he was sinless because he was directly made by god and is god and man in one dante who is still overwhelmed by everything that's happening right now if it sounds like he's been quiet for a little bit that's because he has he's just kind of standing there stupefied at everything happening i mean understandably he does finally get his first question of the story out when he asks how whenever bodies join back to their souls will they be able to take in this beauty this comes from a belief mentioned in revelations that in the end times the souls of the dead and their bodies will reunite and then ascend to heaven and then someone speaks up who has not spoken yet that person being king solomon if you'll remember the one who is mentioned as having wisdom imparted on him by god himself says that all aspects of deficiency in humanity are a product of sin and corruption in other words dante at this moment being unable to take in all the lights and beauty around him is a product of an inferior human form solomon says that whenever the souls are reunited with their bodies and brought into heaven they will be perfect and therefore capable of processing everything after this dante and beatrice continue to ascend into the fifth tier of heaven mars once again upon reaching the fifth tier dante is overwhelmed by the magnificent light at the end of each tier as he begins to better understand why the souls that are present are here he is able to process the light of that tier but as soon as he moves into the next one it's overwhelming once again the light as we continue to see it is representative of god's knowledge and love so it's overwhelming to dante initially but as he begins to process it he's able to better take it in upon reaching the fifth tier dante looks over to beatrice who is laughing and dante says of her laugh the mind cannot follow it nor words express her infinite sweetness ah dante begins to process what he's seen and realizes that the lights are actually a series of smaller lights that have now formed the shape of a cross in the middle of the cross he sees the visage of christ himself this visage not even being christ in his unbridled glory is indescribable to dante while standing there he begins to hear a hymn that gives him the feeling of rising and conquering evil this is fitting as the fifth tier is reserved for warriors and martyrs while pondering this a shooting star comes to dante and identifies himself as dante's great great grandfather his name's this i mean kaka guida i'm not equipped for the italian language so i'm just going to call him gramps after being overjoyed with meeting each other gramps talks about you guessed it italian politics specifically he talks about how florence was in his age and how the families that were noble during his time have turned to sin and treachery in the modern age gramps died in the second crusade which is what netted him this spot in heaven dante asked gramps what will become of him in the future if you'll remember souls have the ability to see into the future of their homeland at least that's how it worked in hell i don't really remember it coming up in purgatory although i could be wrong in fact i'm probably wrong but gramps is doing it now and that's all that matters also the divine comedy was written around 1320 however the story is set during easter week in 1300 so dante is writing about a version of himself that's 20 years younger because of this gramps predicts the character dante's future which is the previous 20 years of the writer dante's life gramps points out that souls cannot see exact futures that humanity will choose only the possibilities that are left for humanity to choose han saw the conversation before about people having different places and wills of god they're supposed to follow but sin and free will leading people away from that choice so there's like you know sort of butterfly effect but gramps gives dante a short rundown of him being banished from florence and eventually finding shelter with a kind family which is the very family that dante was staying with as he wrote the divine comedy dante remarks and i'm talking about the character dante remarks that he is worried about writing everything his gramps said about the future down in his story and gramps encourages him to write because as mentioned earlier truth can only lead to god and that can only be a good thing dante feels a little iffy about writing down the future of italy whenever he returns back home to write about all of this if he returns home to write all this he's not really sure what's going to happen to him at this point but during his confusion he looks at beatrice and it says that he forgets all of his worries and while looking at her beatrice tells him to look at everything happening around him because he's in heaven there's a lot to look at and she remarks these eyes are not thy only paradise it's getting a little steamy up on mars isn't it looking at the cross he sees mighty warriors from christian history such as charlemagne and his chief soldier roland as well as the judge joshua from the old testament also i am leaving a lot of symbolism you know out of the story you can draw your own conclusions between what characters are mentioned and names that are mentioned but it is interesting how the names of the planets they rise to correspond to the thing happening on that planet like for example mars which was the tier of the warriors is the roman god of war venus was the roman god of love and that tier was for urges in humanity etc and that continues as we go on just wanted to mention that i'm not dumb to it i'm just trying to prioritize because this video is already yeah with that dante and beatrice rise to tier vi jupiter upon reaching this tier dante sees a series of bright stars that spell out the words love justice ye rulers of the earth this is the opening verse of the book of wisdom a book of the bible that is accepted as being canon in most catholic traditions and considered part of the apocrypha or non-canon works in protestant traditions the verse is fitting as jupiter is reserved for the just rulers and judges of earth or in other words kings and other leaders that did as they were supposed to and followed god after this these stars which dante realizes are souls begin to form the shape of a giant eagle an eagle was also mentioned by justinian as being the example of true leadership and power the imagery of the eagle itself ties back into rome and if you couldn't tell at this point dante really liked rome so having the souls of kings formed into the shape of an eagle not only symbolizes the idea of unity for one purpose that purpose being justice but also the shape of the eagle means dante really likes rome the eagle begins to speak using all of the combined voices of ancient rulers and says that all humans are subconsciously aware of god's justice in other words to some degree no matter how far they've pushed it down every properly functioning person understands some level of right and wrong the specifics of right and wrong can differ from where you're at but the idea that people from far-off lands will be able to agree with people from other far-off lands that murder is not good is an example of god's will imprinted across all of humanity yet at the same time none can 100 know the complete justice of god regardless of how much someone studies or tries to understand the mind of god god is in himself perfect and omnipotent and people can only hope to have a morsel of that because of that perfect justice can never truly be comprehended dante decides to ask this eagle one of the hardest questions in all of christianity because of course he does but again the eagle perceives it before dante even says it and states his question what happens to people who have never heard of jesus christ this is obviously one of the most pressing questions in christianity and human history really if the purpose of salvation is for humanity to maintain its free will and ability of choice and that's all well and good whenever someone is presented the choice and then chooses to follow god or not follow god then what of those people who are from places that god has never heard of in the first place what is considered justice if a choice was never presented the eagle simply says that god's grace is sufficient and as it says in the bible every man in his own hour has had the opportunity to know god this is a question in the story that i figured he would just kind of rabble about a little bit here and then not pick up again but actually this concept comes up again later in the story and in an interesting way the eagle continues and says that all who are in heaven know of christ however several who are in hell also know of christ there were several people who were clearly presented with the option of christ or not and they still chose to not follow him the eagle also says that there were those in the old testament who believed in the prophecy of christ and the word of the prophets and then there are those after christ who believe in christ himself the eagle remarks that these are the ones who are judged the most harshly in the afterlife because if someone knows the truth and they not only have been presented with the choice but of the doctrine related to that choice and of what true justice and evil is and they still choose to do evil or stray away from god then they absolutely have no excuse the eagle remarks that those who used god's name unjustly or in order to further their own works will be banished to the deepest parts of hell and alternatively those who knew of the truth and followed it the most attentively are given the greatest rewards as we've seen throughout the layers of heaven an example of this you could think about is think about the difference between peter and judas both were men who followed christ in his earthly ministry both heard all of his teachings and both were as close to him as any person could possibly be peter used that knowledge for the good and went on to begin the church and eventually die for the cause of christ and judas uh being god's best friend for over a decade and then selling him for money not a great move and look in dante's story to the position of each we know where judas is thanks to the end of inferno and peter as we'll see in a little bit is given a high role in heaven the most severe judgments are given to those who knew better the eagle tells dante to look into its eye to see the most righteous of rulers and dante sees figures like constantine king hezekiah and king david the man after god's own heart but bizarrely to dante two figures that are around the eye are rypheus and trajan rypheus is a fictional character from one of virgil's poems although in that poem he is mentioned as being one of the most righteous leaders of the trojan military and trajan was a roman emperor who was known for being kind and good-hearted to his people although he was never a christian this confuses dante and the eagle remarks that trajan was given the opportunity to know god as god revealed it to him at the end of his life and that rypheus was so steadfast in knowledge and truth that it naturally led him to finding god so we have two examples someone who was kind-hearted and god opened up a revelation of himself to them and someone who sought the truth and as mentioned earlier the truth led to god the eagle states that none can know the salvation of another and the only soul that you are accountable for is your own this goes back to the question that dante asked of what of those who never knew of god because here are two people who should not have known about god yet here they are in the giant eagle thing the eagle says that the most high is willing to be conquered by love so between these two characters who were given revelations of god and that statement that god himself will allow himself to be conquered by love and for humanity to understand it and the idea that none can know the salvation of another we're starting to see a few answers to dante's big question but as seen here god's mercy is surpassing human understanding with this dante and beatrice moved to tier vii the final layer of soul inhabitants saturn whenever they get there dante notices that beatrice isn't smiling before dante can ask why because beatrice already knows the question she says that she's not smiling because she's essentially growing more powerful or close to her true form every tier they go up and if she was to smile right now it would quote be as a thunderbolt and dante would be as ash so if she was to smile dante would be immediately disintegrated insert the joke from the beginning about stadius dante looks in front of him and sees an infinite ladder with lights descending down from it tier vii is reserved for those who follow discipline and abstainment whenever i was talking about the monastery vows of the first tier if you were to follow through with those in life you would be at tier vii dante asks the first soul he sees why there's no music seeing every other tear all the souls were singing and there's this beautiful noise and it was always indescribable and blah blah and the soul says that if they made the tier vii noise while dante's here he would explode it's so funny to imagine this guy who's so far out of his depths at this point in the past like 48 hours he went all the way through hell purgatory now in heaven and they're like you see that trumpet over there you would be annihilated so dante again being dante immediately asked the soul about predestination predestination is a whole fuzzy topic in christianity pretty much it's the idea that okay all of humanity has a choice right do you want to follow god or not follow god well some argue the point that there is a certain number of people who are meant to follow god but that contradicts the whole idea of free will and choice and then people go okay well isn't god all-knowing and exist outside of time and whatever so if he's all-knowing and exists outside of time then he can see the future and he knows who's going to say yes and who's going to say no which is the same thing as predestination and then it's a whole argument of time and if time's real and everything else so dante walks to tier 7 and he's immediately like hey tell me about the time paradox to which the soul remarks that not even the seraphim who surround god on his throne could know the answer to this question because as i said it's pretty much a paradox that loops in on itself and the soul remarks that whenever humans try to conjecture of something as big as predestination they are essentially blowing mist from their brain or in other words hurting themselves the soul that dante is speaking to identifies himself as peter damien peter says that his successors who are still alive on earth have become too opulent and forgotten the purpose of the monastery lifestyle again a jab at the modern church at the mention of modern successors some of the souls around peter lament or in other words they do the equivalent of being like uh that's so weird they make a noise implying that they're upset like essentially a verbal eye roll and again because the beans on this tier of heaven are so powerful just that involuntary noise immediately stuns dante so dante's like frozen up and can't move and beatrice has to come calm him down because he's screaming and crying and throwing up or he is on the inside at least he still can't move at this time saint benedict approaches and says he agrees with peter that the modern church is lame saint benedict then begins to climb the infinite louder and invites dante to follow him the latter is used a lot as a symbol especially in older catholic traditions to symbolize that one can always rise to higher heights to be near god and then come down to minister on earth the symbolism being the idea of jacob's ladder that god is always working on earth and in heaven with this dante and beatrice begin their ascent essentially up jacob's ladder and cross over at some point during their ascent into the eighth tier the eighth tier being that of the fixed stars now as i mentioned earlier the first seven were for the different souls that inhabited them even though they weren't really there and it was all just kind of like a play for dante i guess but here at tier viii we get into universal workings and whatnot while climbing this infinite ladder dante begins to become more vigorous and able to better process things around him he's rapidly learning the knowledge of god as he's making his way up during this time he begins to pass the fixed stars or the constellations he mentions his own as he passes it which is gemini dante's a gemini do with that information what you will and beatrice now tells him to look down and he can finally from this position see earth and its near insignificance in the grand scheme of the heavens also i forgot to mention with saint benedict and the other souls of the seventh layer their face was completely obscured from him and they said that their visage was too beautiful for dante to look on that it would overwhelm his brain and that he won't be able to see their face until he gets to the top of the ladder so as dante is climbing the faces around him become more clear as well beatrice then says that dante is now ready to look upon her smile and when dante does he says that it seems he has already found the paradise aw he looks out into this distance and sees a bright glowing star that overwhelms all the others beatrice says that this star is christ himself and their eventual destination remember that was just kind of the idea of christ in the fifth tier christ on his throne is still yet to come right after this another incredibly bright star appears who is only overwhelmed in brightness by christ himself and that star is the virgin mary who is being escorted through the heavens by the angel gabriel dante describes her beauty and says that she is the rose wherein the world divine was made and just as gabriel gave her knowledge of christ and divinity while she was on earth now in the heavens gabriel is continuing to lead her to the image of christ i'm not getting emotional yet we're saving that for the end after they finally come to the top of the ladder beatrice explains that now dante must be tested before he can truly enter heaven remember real heaven's the tenth layer and all the other layers are again a showboat according to beatrice in order to enter heaven one must understand faith hope and love the three ideas that permeate christianity and heaven itself now normally when a soul dies and is in its perfect form this is just naturally known but because dante is a very special case he is going to be tested instead i should also mention the whole faith hope and love thing comes from thomas aquinas who was mentioned earlier in this story so it's cool to see dante apply the teachings of someone into the story here with peter and then also throw the character themself in the story standing before this sort of gateway beatrice asks the souls around her if any can test dante and allow him entry into heaven at that time a blazing comet appears from the sky and spins around beatrice and dante before stopping and revealing himself to be saint peter the disciple peter exhorts beatrice when he sees her and says how happy he is that the man she prayed for is now standing before him peter says that he can be the one to test dante and asks him about the first topic faith so peter simply asked dante what is faith to which dante quotes paul in hebrews chapter 11 when paul said faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen peter asked dante to elaborate on this and explains what he means by evidence and substance dante explains that hope is trust in the divine creator therefore the concept of nature and existence itself is the substance of that hope and that substance is proof of unseen powers or as paul said the evidence of things not seen peter asked dante well how do you know all of this and dante says the holy spirit tells him this as he is a believer and he learns more of it through the word of god finally peter asks who or what do you have your faith in and dante says the one true god and the trinity of himself he then goes into a lengthy thing about how nature itself shows evidence that god is real and that seems to be a good answer for peter there's this moment before dante has asked his next question that was incredibly powerful to me while dante is standing there essentially on a cloud overlooking the stars below him he looks down at earth and for the last time thinks of florence and it's here for the first time in the story dante doesn't really care about florence anymore i mean obviously he still cares for the people he knew and the life that he lived and hopes everything works out okay but he is now being questioned by peter the apostle to get entry into the infinite grace of heaven as beatrice who is standing next to him walked through hell in order to drag him up the mountain of purgatory and now stand him before the pearly gates and for the first time he realizes perhaps this journey is greater than myself and this is the last time he mentions florence and it's um i don't know for me who was like making a bunch of jokes about because it was funny and i did enjoy it um to get here at the end and to envision dante who was so scared when this all started and had no idea what was going on now standing at the gates of heaven looking down at earth and at his little city of florence and thinking that maybe what he's doing now is greater than himself it was very touching and impressed me a lot while thinking this another comet appears and identifies himself as james the apostle saint james then quizzes dante on hope before the question is asked beatrice says that there is no one alive who has more hope than dante oh i think maybe that's kind of an insult depending on how you view it but i think it's sweet dante says that hope is an expectation for god to do what he said he will do he says that this hope was instilled in him by the psalms and by james's own writings james then says well what is it that you hope for and dante quotes the book of isaiah by saying he hopes to return to companionship with god so dante's two for three and a final comment arrives to ask him his last question this comment is so bright that as soon as it approaches dante immediately goes blind dante's a little panicked by this but beatrice tells him it'll go away probably the comet that appeared identifies himself as saint john the beloved apostle and fittingly john is here to ask dante about love you know dante who is now blind and laying on the floor and john's like what explain what love is john asks dante what is his soul's eventual goal and dante says to be in communion with christ the beginning and end of all love john asks how do you plan to come into communion with christ and dante says through the scriptures and through philosophy and an understanding of nature itself during this conversation dante who again is blind is talking about how nature makes him better understand and feel closer to god and says that he observes nature through his eyes which he says are the gateways to which beatrice lit the primordial fire again there's another mention of beatrice being that christ figure or that idea of her carrying on the original love of christ himself dante says how could he resist the fangs that are in him that draw him closer to god with every amount of understanding he gains and most importantly how could he neglect the god of creation who would die for his own soul with this final understanding of calvary and true love dante's eyes are reopened as he is now made more powerful as with previous tears and is now able to continue on dante can now see and instead sees four people in front of him instead of just three peter james and john are still there although the fourth one identifies himself as adam dante immediately jumps up and refers to adam as father which is technically correct as soon as dante jumps up adam immediately perceives three questions from him which is hilarious like adam's just looking at him and as soon as dante sees who it is says father and then three questions instantly pop into his brain the three questions are how long were you in eden why did you make god so mad for eating a fruit and what language did you speak the last one about language is because dante had written books about how languages dissolve and change over time which was really revolutionary stuff in his stage and to support this theory adam says that the language him and eve spoke is completely vanished from the earth now meaning it's changed so much it's unrecognizable the second question that dante asked about the apple is a question some people have why was it wrong to eat the tree in the garden of eden but adam explains it was not eating fruit that was the sin it was the direct disobedience of god that caused us to leave the garden and the choice to do so that we took on ourselves this is the craziest part to me so it's a thing in christian theology that no one really knows how long adam and eve were in the garden of eden could have been you know a month could have been 10 years could have been a thousand years for all we know we just know that they were in the garden death did not exist and then they ate of the tree of knowledge and then were kicked out of the garden and that's kind of the start of humanity's timeline so how long do you want to guess that in paradiso adams says he was in the garden of eden a year a couple months a week six hours according to dante adam and eve were in the garden for like a few minutes and we're immediately like that that that's the treat we're not supposed to eat this one right here don't eat this okay so they were in eden for six hours and then adam says that he was on earth for 900 years before he died was in hell as mentioned in inferno because there had not been a payment for sins yet and that he spent 4 000 years in the limbo stage of hell before god brought him out and he's lived the last about 1 300 years in heaven at this dante is now ready to enter into the higher levels of heaven and he says a song erupts from the clouds that he describes as a universal smile and then all of a sudden and what's probably the weirdest part of the story peter turns red i mean like physically red the skies and the clouds turn red there's like a thundering and everyone starts screaming as peter and the others explode in anger over the current state of the church this was like a jump scare for me reading this because it's like oh i'm ready to ascend to evan everyone's happy peter's face is red thunder from the clouds i thought someone died i had no idea what was going on and then it's just another place for dante to make fun of the church specifically pope boniface viii who is the current head of the catholic church at the time of dante's writing and also if you'll remember in hell the whole pope tube thing yeah i'm bringing it back that was reserved for him dante really does not like this guy but i mean you know banishing dante from florence will do that peter does say some pretty hard lines here though so for those that don't know peter was crucified upside down he requested to be crucified upside down because he said he wasn't worthy to die in the same way jesus did anyway and many consider him to be the first or one of the first martyrs of the church so peter says that his blood has built nothing more than greed and warfare which is pretty metal i gotta admit he then tells dante to write all of this down because again truth leads people to god and if the earth does not have god it will perish and with this dante and beatrice rise to the ninth tier of heaven the crystalline also known as the prima mobile upon entering this tier dante sees that there are no stars or anything visible for that matter beatrice explains that that's because the crystalline exists solely within the mind of god and as mentioned earlier it is used to infuse god's love into the other layers of the heavens so they are essentially in god's subconscious this is also the outermost layer of reality itself because the only remaining tear exists outside of time and reality as the home of heaven and god and christ and all the souls dante looks and sees a series of nine rings rotating around each other these nine rings being that of earth and then the eight heavenly rings that they've already passed through the rings spin based on the amount of god's power in them so on the outside it is very powerful and on the inside it's slow as god's love trickles down to the middle as mentioned earlier in the story the farther removed one is from god himself and original creation the more decay and nuance there is to blessings and gifts beatrice also explains that each of these nine layers have their respective angel over them but the normal angels are the ones who are set over earth the archangel set over the first here and then it works itself all the way back until the highest level of the heavens is inhabited by the seraphim and cherubim there's a whole passage here where beatrice explains that creation itself was made to reflect god's light and that god did not create people because he was incomplete because he was god how could he be incomplete but instead to reflect his own light back onto himself in other words an extension not a completion beatrice explains that the reason god created humanity and not just the angels is because the angels have a completely different experience of existence than people do angels do not experience things like will and memories according to beatrice and as mentioned earlier humanity was created in order to establish free will beatrice warns that these concepts are dangerous as most often people who play with them simply have a love of showy thoughts and are false teachers who are trying to exemplify themselves i guess excluding dante but that warning message from beatrice does work because it kind of hinders the idea that dante is putting this in here in order to say exactly how existence is just more so to present the idea for the story and the overarching idea of god's grace she explains that as each of the nine different kinds of angels reflect god's grace differently so does humanity the same way also during this conversation dante is so overwhelmed by the beauty of her rather than the world around her that he can't even put it to words and then finally dante and beatrice cross into the final layer of heaven also the true lair of heaven the emperian in the emperian time doesn't exist understanding and existence as we know it doesn't exist and because of that he's having trouble recollecting or writing down everything he saw although the emotions that he felt are still there to the best of his knowledge as he can describe or give the idea of what he experienced he said that it was a realm outside of space and time where initially all he could see were these infinite beautiful fields and rivers and mountains that all seem to be composed of pure light everything from the water to the flower seem to be filled with these giant sparks beatrice leads dante to a river and asks him to drink of it this river is the final level of knowledge that dante will grasp throughout the divine comedy it is the unbridled uncensored knowledge of creation and existence itself and as soon as dante drinks of it everything around him changes instead of seeing these fields and other things that his human brain is trying to process what's happening into something he can understand dante is for the first time shown reality unbridled he now sees infinite rows of saints and angels mingled together in divine existence he describes it as a snow white rose with each petal being an infinite array of divine creature the river that he drink from travels its way up into the center of the rose where eventually god himself resides the rose itself is seen historically as a symbol of love so the idea that the foundation structure of heaven itself is a picture of love further goes back to dante's points throughout the story dante's overwhelmed by this and he turns to talk to beatrice however when he turns to talk to her she's now gone in her place there is a man standing there and when dante asked what happened to beatrice he points out that she has taken her spot in the heavenly choir the purpose of dante having these guides was so that he could better understand what he was not yet capable of and then whenever he made it to that understanding as i explained at the beginning of this video he no longer needs them and can step out on his own just as virgil walked all the way through hell and purgatory with him until dante was cleansed with the fire and virgil could no longer help him now that dante has taken part of the river of god he no longer needs beatrice dante sees beatrice and all of her beauty setting on a throne surrounded by lovely women and characters throughout history see it says throughout the bible that to be absent with the bodies to be presence with the lord and that souls in eternity are always present and in the presence of god so now all of the souls as he sees are in one accord around the divine creator himself this is why earlier they had to appear on different levels or tears as he traveled through heaven because dante couldn't comprehend everyone being together in the same place of one accord but some receiving more blessings than others again it was all representative of the perfect creation that is before him now so seeing beatrice on her throne out there in front of god himself dante gives her a prayer of thanksgiving in that prayer he says o lady thou in whom my hopes have rest who for my safety has not scorned in hell to leave the traces of thy footsteps marked um so i've talked about this a little bit before with beatrice especially at the end of purgatoro or purgatorio um beatrice is the stand-in for jesus christ right she is the one who sacrificed her place to go to dante and then make sure that he could be carried all the way into heaven so in this part when dante is giving thanks to her it is the symbolic representation of giving thanks to god and more specifically jesus christ the divine or primal love as he described both jesus and beatrice throughout the story um so again as a christian see that's the thing the end of purgatorio got me and this entire time reading this i was waiting for this to get me and then here with dante's prayer towards christ and beatrice essentially uh he did it again i knew he would he'd get me again and that part about thou and who my hopes have rest the one who walked through hell for me um that or more beautifully as he says it uh the traces of thy footsteps marked for my safety for all my eyes have seen i to thy power and goodness virtue o and grace of slave thou hast to freedom brought me and no means for my deliverance apt has left untried in other words i was a slave to my sin but now you would have done whatever it took to bring me into heaven and there's no stone you left unturned and here i am now thy liberal bounty still toward me keep and he ends by saying that when my spirit which thou hast made whole is loosened from this body it may find favor with thee it's just like the the part really got me earlier in paradiso all the way back at the moon and the reason i emphasized that point so much when beatrice explained that this is all representative that this this isn't really what it's like people don't really live on the moon as these like ghost things forever this was just so that a human could understand divinity like this is a land outside of time and existence it's a big concept for anyone and i like that point because it makes me think about a lot of the things throughout the story as being representative and i always you know obviously their symbolism but the idea that dante meant it to be representative that it was never meant to be literal so i think about virgil a poet that he was a fan of in his day and how virgil relates to a spiritual leader that dante may have had in his life or beatrice relating to jesus christ or all these characters and journeys how i was viewing it and i think a lot of people view it as just a fictional fun story going through heaven and hell but when you see it as the idea or the visage um of the christian life or of a a believer who lost his way and then found his way to god's side it's uh it's humbling and um i really like the story so then dante after saying this prayer turns to the man next to him and asks who he is remember every time that a new task has appeared that dante does not know how to deal with someone who's familiar with that task comes forward it was first virgil and then beatrice and now his new guide for the end of this story saint bernard saint bernard is known historically that when he was a young boy he had visions of god on his throne so now here he is to lead dante to the last leg of his journey viewing god on the throne he points out to dante that near the center of the flower virgin mary sets on her throne she outshines everyone else again excluding god himself setting around her feet are eve rachel sarah rebecca and other matriarchs of the bible mary sets on top of a wall and further down also sitting on top of that wall is john the baptist john the baptist being the forerunner and cousin of christ whenever christ came to earth the wall that they are setting upon divides those who existed before christ and those who existed after christ again a visual representation of the two different periods of belief in the bible he sees leaders of the church such as augustine francis and benedict all gathered around as well as several children who are worshiping among the others who saint bernard says were too young whenever they died in other words they were too young to understand concepts of sin and free will so here they exist in the heavenly choir dante asked saint bernard of this and saint bernard says that god sees the soul and those who never had the capability to understand are under grace this is what i meant earlier when i said the question that dante poses of what of those who have never known of christ it seems is kind of answered here at least within dante's narrative dante sees gathered around the furthest part of the rose characters like adam peter john moses anna and lucia lucy if you'll remember is the one who originally told beatrice of dante's plight saint bernard then asked the virgin mary to give dante strength and tells dante that it is now time for him to view god the entire time i was reading through paradiso i was wondering what dante was going to do about god and jesus and them on the throne i was almost nervous to see if he would drop the ball right at the end and i'm happy to say i don't think he did at least in my opinion he did you could think it's lame but this is kind of what i was hoping for and of course what i'm hoping for is just weird abstract ideas and brain melting concepts because have you watched the channel he says immediately upon looking at the visage of god all of memory is wiped from his head because memory as dante describes it is a human need for an inferior existence we don't exist all at once we work through time so because of that we have to remember our past but when looking at god all desire all needs all of existence was completely put away because as dante says all of love and desire was gathered in the one image and because of that his memory left him as he simply didn't need it anymore because of that dante cannot remember directly what he saw to write about it now he said as if it were a dream that when you wake up you completely forget but the emotions and the feeling of those images still remains present and dante says that now while riding he can still feel an infinite satisfaction and love within himself he describes what he sees as the universal form and he says upon viewing it his existence was removed from time itself in that moment that could have been seconds or eons he was infinitely satisfied he refers to it as an abyss of radiance where all is complete he says it's as if every single piece of his existence and his experience on earth all the people he ever met all of nature all of politics all of everything were pages and just now he's realizing that they were all pages laid about but not complete and that looking at this image was as finally viewing the entire book it was the solution it was the purpose it was the universe and man's purpose all in one site he couldn't determine where the image began or ended at but he says it absorbed all of goodness and desire and that he understood finally that all good things and love itself that comes from earth comes from this single image dante tries to describe it with words and again this is like the idea of a memory that he's working with he says deep within this massive image again he can't really tell where it begins or ends there seemed to be three sort of rings one of them had the appearance of a sort of brilliant rainbow of colors that swirled in and out of each other the second ring reflected the image of the first ring back onto it and shown with a bright golden brilliance and the final ring was as thunderous fire that kept swirling in and out of itself as it passed between the other two rings and finally dante says that deeply faintly while using all of his power and focus to stare into the second ring the one that reflects back on the first one he could see within it the form of a man so the first ring the one that shown with all the colors indescribable moving in and out of itself was his mind trying to comprehend god on the throne the second ring that reflected the image of god back on himself and made it more brilliant and beautiful is jesus christ and the fiery spinning ring that moves between the other two is the holy spirit the trinity made in one now viewable to dante in heaven and then deep within the second ring dante could see the body of christ jesus christ now reunified with his heavenly power as an infinitely indescribably beautiful and powerful visage of man and as the bible says if god created man in his own image then the form in the middle of the rings is god incarnate dante says his soul is now complete having viewed divinity and the original source of existence itself and in the final four lines of the divine comedy dante says here vigor failed the towering fantasy but yet the will rolled onward like a will in even motion by the love impelled that moves the sun in heaven and all the stars and that's it with that we have the ending of the divine comedy we end with dante viewing the visage of god and then being unable to describe it afterwards considering he talks throughout the story of how now while writing it he's having trouble recall his entire tale maybe he made it back to earth somehow maybe he's writing this from some afterlife we're not sure considering gramps gave him the vision of his exile i imagine he did return to earth with this vigor in his heart and it makes a lot of the stuff he said makes sense such as telling beatrice whenever his soul leaves his body may he find his way back to her side i love that ending that despite his vigor he couldn't stand up to the beauty that he was seeing but continues to say that his will will roll in even motion with the lord that created love itself and that final line the love that moves the sun in heaven and all the stars what a great ending to the guy who just climbed his way through all the stars and got to see the origin of existence itself and ends with this nice little note that everything is still as it should be god is still on the throne and also all the parts of divine comedy in with the word stars at the end of inferno they said that they once again behold the stars at the end of purgatory they said they're fit for rising to the stars and here at the end it's the love that moves the sun in heaven and all the stars the divine comedy was a fantastic read um i'm really impressed and both saddened that it's as good as it was i'm impressed because i kind of assumed this would just be entirely biblical fan fiction and i joked about it a lot in the first one and yeah it did have some elements of that but there was some concepts in here i did not expect to run into or to confront myself with while reading this and a little disappointed because inferno gets all the credit at least in the united states i saw some comments say that in italy the entire thing's enjoyed but in the united states people just know inferno but purgatorio and paradiso were so good i absolutely love this story and i absolutely love doing this um i would be thrilled to continue to do more videos regarding uh not just theological works like the divine comedy although i would like to do some like paradise lost for example or other weird i guess biblical fanfiction type stuff like dante's works but i would also like to do things like shakespeare because i'm a nerd or i would really love to do lovecraft's works or even some of the really old stuff like homer i had a lot of fun doing this and if you stuck around this long hopefully you could at least tolerate it and if this is being shown in a classroom right now as i'm told some of these videos are i am so sorry but i love this story it not only made me enjoy dante's form of storytelling and the divine comedy itself but it made me look at a lot of questions in my own faith and a lot of the ways you've used them and obviously you know i don't 100 see dante as any final authority or i'm not even catholic so we're already way off on those standards but for me now in 2022 to have beliefs of god and to have questions about existence and faith and then to see that a catholic poet from the 1300s had the same ideas and the same questions that i do is comforting not only because you know it makes me know i'm not alone but also because he had his own solutions or his own ideas behind it even if i don't agree with all of them i can draw knowledge from it or expand on that more and this was really eye-opening for me and i really enjoyed doing it it was it was like i love doing all my videos i love doing videos about stuff i enjoy and stuff i find interesting um but this one was something else this one was soulfully fulfilling and i really enjoyed it again i don't think of this as being any accurate uh when it comes to its depiction but it wasn't supposed to be and um it's in that interpretation that i find a solace and i enjoyed it um well but that was a rant i've got a lot of thoughts running through my head but all of that being said i just want to say thank you for watching um if you stuck around this long you've now watched a three-part series on the divine comedy or again you started with this one which i'm so sorry if you did that had to be awful but i really appreciate your all support with this i appreciate that i can do a three part series over an 800 year old book and people will still watch it that really does mean a lot i'm really thankful to you guys for getting me to hear i'm really thankful for you guys subscribing to the channel boosting it i said it before i think i said at the end of the iceberg you don't know how much it means to no longer ask myself the question of can i do this it's the question now of how far can i go with this and that's thanks to you guys and i'm really humble that it means a lot so thank you for supporting my weird interest and my needlessly thorough breakdowns it probably would have been quicker if you just read it yourself but it's too late now but for real thank you guys so much thank you to all of my ex patrons who got me to this point um i couldn't do it without you guys you put me here and that means the world just thank you all so much for everything i could keep rambling uh but it's late and i also need to get this edited and posted semi on time so i'll go ahead and get to work so that you can see this quicker but i just want to say thank you for watching i hope that you enjoyed and i will see you in the next one bye also someone on twitter said that this was what happened to stadius good morning

Channel: Wendigoon

Views: 1,814,889

Keywords: iceberg, explained, scp, analysis, breakdown, scary, spooky, horror, creepy, comedy, funny, laugh, humor, cringe, intel, deep web, dark web, hidden, tier list, secret, top ten, top 10, countdown, compilation, meme, memes, meme compilation, internet horror, reddit, ask reddit, redacted, childhood, trauma, Mary Celeste, Flannan Isles, Eilean Mor, Island, Lighthouse, Kaz 2, Kaz II, Leviathan, Kraken, conspiracy, theory, mystery, sci fi, true crime, unsolved, panic, crazy, hysteric, hell, heaven, literary, Divine Comedy

Id: b__PdJegZTA

Length: 84min 58sec (5098 seconds)

Published: Thu May 19 2022