Purgatorio, Canto 23 with Dr. Paul Contino
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- Dr. Paul Contino of Pepperdine University introduces us to Canto 23 of Dante's Purgatorio.
100 Days of Dante is brought to you by Baylor University in collaboration with the Torrey Honors College at Biola University, University of Dallas, Templeton Honors College at Eastern University, the Gonzaga-in-Florence Program and Gonzaga University, and Whitworth University, with support from the M.J. Murdock Trust. To learn more about our project, and read with us, visit 100daysofdante...
As a Protestant I'd always found the idea of Purgatory foreign at best. This commentary was so helpful for me to change the lense through which I'd been viewing this concept. Thank you!
Thank you.
Nominative case: "We readers" not "Us readers" One would think a Dr teaching at Pepperdine would know the difference...
You are not correct, Phil. Go back and listen - just past the 6:00 minute mark. Referring to the mosaics at the St. Clemente Church in Rome, Dr. Contino states that the mosaic apse in the church "suggests the continuing relevance of Purgatory for Dante's fellow pilgrims, us readers." The preposition "for" takes the objective case, not the nominative. So, "pilgrims" is in the objective case; "us" is in apposition and must agree in case with its antecedent - "us," not "we," is the correct pronoun. Listen before you leap, Phil.
Thank you Dr. Contino! Have had many favorite cantos to this point but yours now ranks the highest! Your interpretation of Psalm 22 closely mirrors mine - far too long has it been preached in terms of God’s abdication of His Son or Christ’s last desperate plea to His Father. I always viewed it as Christ’s fulfillment of the Old Testament reading - a sign to all that He is now the new Israel, the suffering Servant, yes with joy and accomplishment in the reason for His Incarnation! Hopefully we can all merit from Dante’s view of a redemptive Purgatory rather than a punitive one! Bravo!
Canto 23: Although Dante might prefer staring at the strange tree they have seen, Virgil encourages him to continue. They hear the gluttonous penitents proclaiming Psalm 51: “My lips, O Lord ... open them that I might sing your praise," as a reminder that their lips, once used for frenzied feeding, should proclaim praise to God. These shades have emaciated bodies, resulting from their total abstinence from food, although constantly being reminded otherwise by the fragrance of the fruit and watering mists of the strange tree in the middle of this terrace’s pathway. Dante recognizes Forese, a recently deceased friend, among them, and asks how he has reached this Cornice so quickly. Forese informs them that his time on the shores of Purgatory’s island was drastically reduced because of the prayers of his wife, Nella. He compares her modest attire with that of future Florentine women, who will traipse around half-naked, and urges Dante to warn them of the dire consequences resulting from their behavior. Forese also informs Dante that although his contrapasso is painful and terrible to behold, his suffering has actually provided him with great solace (sollazzo), which is seen as a grace or gift of God that Beatrice will, later, explain more fully to him.
"Purgatory is...a contemplative, strenuous, spa."
Thank you, Dr. Contino (great name btw) for your extremely useful explanation of Purgatory as found in this Canto. Protestants and Evangelicals (where I was raised) find this doctrine difficult or heretical. The more I look into it, the more I see that a lot of negative ideas come from confusion between the actual teaching and any abuse of it that happened in history. It also depends on many other beliefs regarding prayer, the afterlife, and sanctification. It is a very implicit doctrine among many, and it is hard for some to see.
Lewis' beliefs on it are always interesting. Tolkien certainly had great influence in this area. Lewis' words ring true, and I it is starting to make sense to me after contemplating some arguments for it. Our souls really do demand purgation once they are fully willing to fly to heaven. The grace of God burns out the sin, and it is gloriously painful. More reading should follow...
Thank you!
That quote, “contemplative, strenuous spa,” 😳😍
I was taken aback by the idea that suffering is an essential part of life as explained by the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the cross of Christ as symbolic of the same thing. It seems to signify that redemption is the objective of our life from our time of birth. I'm sure there's nothing new in that to basic doctrine but the articulation of it is so sophisticated that it gives me pause. I'm not a believer so in one way it fills me with wonder and in another way it fills me with horror that our lives are portrayed as redemption from a sin that occurred long before we were even conceived. That, I think, would mean that both this life and life in Purgatory can both be viewed as redemptive.
I'd love to truly understand this beautiful and profound concept more thoroughly. The first time I ever heard this explanation was from a quote by Edward Pusey. That we can offer our sufferings to God, asking that he will sanctify and unite them with his, thus linking us to the passage in Philippians, becoming like him through the fellowship of our sufferings. But I'm still not seeing it all though I've done this in my own trials many times. How is Christ's cry one of joy? I know it is the joy he set before him, despising his shame. You set out such a gorgeous presentation!!! So deep and helpful in the framework and ground of our desire and linking it with God's that we may be truly free. The punitive God has always been such a regular understanding of people and yet this gracious, happy God is the one he says he truly is!! I cannot thank you enough for this beautiful, thoughtful 💕 teaching of the true loving Jesus we have!!! Thank you with all my heart! I will keep pondering all your words and my notes on them!!! Does Mandlebaum have a commentary too? Thank you again!!!
Dr. Contino, I enjoyed your presentation very much. I was curious about the OMO and I found out that Dante is referring to medieval notion held that the Creator had signed His creation OMO DEI (Homo Dei, the h is silent), “Man is of God”; the eyes forming the two O’s, the brows, nose, and cheekbones forming the M, the ears the D, the nostrils the E, and the mouth the I.
I like the part about prayer in conjunction with Divine Grace will set us free and bring us closer to God's will and in His will we can find peace and how friends can help keep each other accountable and conform more fully to God's will as St. James the Apostle tells us "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed" (James 5:16).
The suffering of penitents in the suffering of Christ reminds me of a poem by Joyce Kilmer entitled: "Prayer of a Soldier in France."
"My shoulders ache beneath my pack
(Lie easier, Cross, upon His back).
I march with feet that burn and smart
(Tread, Holy Feet, upon my heart).
Men shout at me who may not speak
(They scourged Thy back and smote Thy cheek).
I may not lift a hand to clear
My eyes of salty drops that sear.
(Then shall my fickle soul forget
Thy agony of Bloody Sweat?)
My rifle hand is stiff and numb
(From Thy pierced palm red rivers come).
Lord, Thou didst suffer more for me
Than all the hosts of land and sea.
So let me render back again
This millionth of Thy gift. Amen."
Thank you for sharing that poem.
@@raelynearnest3176 You're welcome, Raelyn and God bless you.
@@treborketorm this is such an amazing collaboration and I am so thankful to these professors and universities. Had I read this on my own, I would never have gotten so much from this epic poem. God bless you also.
This resonated deep inside. Friends, husbands and wives holding each other accountable to conform more fully to God’s will in the journey of getting each other to heaven. We can make our suffering in this life redemptive by offering it to Christ and by encouraging each other to do the same because, “In God’s will is our peace.” Good, true, and beautiful. Thank you.
Thank you Dr. Contino! “The suffering is given a transformative affect by being offered to God.”
23-100 Days Transcript
We are nearing the top of Mount Purgatory, getting closer to the earthly paradise, there Dante will once again see his beloved Beatrice and make his confession to her. Here on the terrace of the gluttonous, walking behind Virgil and Statius, Dante hears a voice giving examples of moderation of fasting, where’s the voice coming from? Dante searches for its source. He peers intently, curiously into the green boughs of the tree and he’s gently chided by Virgil, his more than father, (I hear use Mandelbaum’s translation). Virgil reminds Dante that his time can be used more fruitfully. He should rather attend to the words of the penitential Psalm 51, Open my lips O Lord and my mouth will declare your praise. And to the souls who are singing it, each one is emaciated from fasting. They pause to look at Dante like pensive pilgrims. Dante sees their wide, sunken eyes and in each face he discerns the word, Omo, Man, which is to say Dante discerns God’s image in each soul he meets.
I especially love this canto because I believe it uncovers a key theological dimension of purgatory, that is, penitential suffering, such as the suffering these souls undergo, must be understood in the light of Christ. But before I discuss that I’d like to emphasize a theme which prepares for it, one which you’re likely very familiar with, the spirit of community that everywhere pervades Mount Purgatory and the friendships that animate that community.
Here Dante meets his old buddy from Florence, Forese Donate he died about four years earlier. Dante is amazed that he has made it up so far, up so far up Mount Purgatory in such a short time. Forese credits his wife Nella, her sighs, her prayers have helped set him free. In cooperation with diving grace, her prayers for her dead husband have helped bring him closers to heaven where everyone’s perfectly free, as Forese’s saintly sister Picarda will say in canto three of Paradiso, In God’s will is our peace.
Canto 23 of Purgatorio affirms the goodness of married love, the goodness of friendship. It suggests the way friends can hold each other accountable, help them conform more fully to God’s will. Back in the day when Dante and Forese were young poets they’d compete with each other, writing poems as putdowns. Toward the end of the canto Dante remembers this rather degrading practice and he says to Forese, if you should call to mind what you were with me and I with you, remembering now will be heavy. Back then he and his friend hadn’t written poems that had sought to edify or build up; instead they played the dozens, composing clever base rhymes in which they insulted each other ant their marriages. And now Dante remembers it all with remorse, as he has in the past, he participates in the penitential spirit of the community. And Forese, far more mature, foresees and affirms the prophetic dimension that Dante has as a poet. He exhorts Dante not to hide from his readers the human corruption he’s witnessed in Florence.
Now we get to the meaning of purgative suffering. This is clarified in the center of the canto. When Dante asks, why are you all so withered, Forese explains, we freely joined our pain, our hunger, our thirst to that of Christ. In this way they participate in Christ’s salvific suffering on the cross. Here are Forese’s words, I speak of pain but I should speak of solace for we are guided to those trees by the same longing that had guided Christ when he’d come to free us through the blood he shed. And in his joyousness called out, Eli, Eloy Eloy lama bhaktani. How could Christ’s cry, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me, have been joyous? At that awful moment Christ is praying Psalm 22 and He knows that he is fulfilling his calling. His death and resurrection restore our human freedom so too Forese and his fellow souls fulfill their calling to repent.
By analogy, they participate in Christ’s redemptive suffering. AS they yearn for the luscious fruit of the tree that’s before them they think of another tree, the tree that is the cross of Christ. Christ’s cross becomes the true tree of life, the source of their joy. The cross as the tree of life is an image strikingly portrayed in the mosaic apps of San Clemente church in Rome, one that Dante probably knew. And it’s an image that suggests the continuing relevance of purgatory for Dante’s fellow pilgrims, us readers, who seek in Purgatorio an allegory for their own ordinary lives, in which suffering is inevitable. In purgatory penitential suffering is embraced willingly. Its source is the graced gift of human freedom and a person’s desire to restore that freedom when it’s been weakened by the habit of sin. Just two cantos earlier we witnessed this restoration of freedom in the story of Statius, he explained the earthquake. He said that the earth only trembles here when some soul feels it’s cleansed, when it feels fully free.
A reading of Purgatorio focused on willing, penitential, participatory suffering counters any mistaken notion of purgatory as a place of divine penal bookkeeping. One might see the place more like a contemplative, if strenuous, spa. Reading this canto we can better understand what C.S. Lewis meant when he wrote, our souls demand purgatory, don’t they? It also helps us understand what contemporary philosopher Charles Taylor means when he claims that, we have to struggle to recover a sense of what the incarnation means. This includes an understanding that our own suffering can participate in the suffering of Christ. Grounded in a gracious divine initiative, and here I use Taylor’s words, persons are free to willingly accept or willfully reject the call to be free, and in this way human suffering may became associated with Christ’s act. Become a locus of renewed contact with God an act which heals the world.
The suffering is given a transformative effect by being offered to God. Recall canto 11, the beginning of the climb to Mount Purgatory, the terrace of the proud when they pray the Our Father, and as they do they offer their wills in sacrifice to God. Their example fosters the goodwill of Dante and his fellow pilgrim readers. Thank you.
Thank you for the 100 Days Project!
Thank you!
I take notes on all the video presentations, but I copied down almost every word of Dr. Contino. What a jam packed presentation full of wisdom and hope! Thank you.
Well said, Dr. Contino. But isn't it ironic that the idea of suffering as a good of any kind, never mind a good that can actually lift us to heaven, is something modern culture (in the US anyway) says is ridiculous? Almost anyone who offers their suffering for any purposes is subjected to sideways glances or downright hostility. This culture has lost the ability to recognize redemptive suffering in large part because they don't value suffering in any form hardly at all. Flannery O'Connor, for all her human failings, recognized the necessity of suffering in the human lives she chronicled in her stories, but she also knew her audience did not share her Christian ethos and resigned herself to the fact that, for the most part, her audience was not prepared to see the deep theological meanings in her character's journeys. Now we are almost 60 years beyond her death, and from where I stand the culture is not much nearer understanding the role of redemptive suffering in our progress toward salvation. And yes, I'm aware O'Connor would have thrown a shoe, or at least a steely stare, at me for suggesting that we attribute too much deep theology to her stories. But read her letters and read the stories again, and it is hard to miss. Thank you for this analysis.
Who would've thought Trump had a spot on these series
Thank you. A fine discussion.
I appreciate Dr. Contino’s analysis of the basic premises of Purgatory. The key line seems to be 72, from Forese, “Did I say ‘pain’? I should say ‘gift of grace.’” The assumption seems to be that though we may have confessed, been contrite, and, after penance, received assurance of absolution for particular sins, we may retain within us the stain or inclination to repeat those sins (and have done so!). Hence the need for more penance, by the grace of God. What the souls are undergoing appears to be suffering, but it is not against their will. These penitents are like athletes who willingly put themselves through extensive and painful training so they may excel in their sport. A minor note: note that the wooden cross and the upside-down tree are brought together in lines 73-75. Both are narrow at the bottom and widen at the top.
Thank you Dr. Contino for such a great presentation. So here at canto 23, you show all the meaning of the suffering and the cross image, what about 24? I am eager to know. Is it starts to have some taste of joy, or the born of love wakes the poet's heart, "beginning ladies who has intelligence of love"? (line 51)