classics digests, reflections and reviews
Hell vs. Purgatory What is the difference between Hell and Purgatory in Dante’s Divine Comedy? To put the question in a different way, what determines whether a person stays in Hell or Purgatory? According to St. Augustine, it is the grace of God, which restores free will in man and enables him to desire and attain the Good. Firstly, those in the Inferno are confined to their respective circles, and never […]
Read morePlotinus’ idea of “unity-in-diversity” is perhaps best reflected in music in the art of the Fugue, which invariably brings me to J.S.Bach and Glenn Gould, my favorite interpreter of Bach on the piano. There is philosophy in music, and prayer too, if I may say so. I recently came across a WP post on Glenn Gould, with a link to a very interesting film titled “Thirty Two Short Films About […]
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Many people have struggled with the idea of eternal punishment in Hell. “Punishment should fit the crime, but what crime could man possibly commit in this temporal life to deserve eternal punishment?” I’m not qualified to address that question fully from a theological perspective. Truth be told, I don’t quite understand it myself. Hopefully whoever reads this might shed some light on the issue or contribute to the discussion. All I […]
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It is written in the Ten Commandments: “You shall not steal.” “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” I’ve never thought much about the existential significance of these commandments until I read Dante. Thieves are assigned to the Eighth Circle of Hell, […]
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“I saw horned demons with enormous whips, who lashed those spirits cruelly from behind Ah, how their first strokes made those sinners lift their heels! Indeed no sinner waited for a second stroke to fall-or for a third.” Dante assigned panders and seducers to the Eighth Circle of the Inferno, people who seduce women or prostitute women to others for their own profit. According to Dictionary.com, pander is “a person […]
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“nature follows-as she takes her course- the Divine Intellect and Divine Art;… when it can, your art would follow nature, just as a pupil imitates his master; so that your art is almost God’s grandchild. From these two, art and nature, it is fitting,… for men to make their way, to gain their living; and since the usurer prefers another pathway, he scorns both nature in herself and art, her […]
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One of the prominent feature of Dante’s justice is “contrapasso”, derived from the Latin contra and patior, literally, “suffer the opposite”, in other words, “whatever a man sows, that he will also reap”, or, punishment fits the crime. In the Inferno, the heretics are buried in great tombs of stone, through which flames were scattered, kindling all of them to glowing heat, and from each tomb they cry in agony. […]
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