Anthony Esolen has a translation of the Divine Comedy which is what the guests were reading in this episode and recommended to our listeners. It’s in three parts: Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise.

• Inferno
• Purgatory
• Paradise

Catholic Courses (also called TAN courses) has a lecture series on the Divine Comedy also by Anthony Esolen. It’s excellent and is highly recommended as an accompaniment.

• Inferno Lecture Series
• Purgatory Lecture Series
• Paradise Lecture Series

SPEAKERS

Professor Neff, Julia Long, Father Jonathan Torres

 

Julia Long  00:00

Welcome to Conversatio the Belmont Abbey college podcast. This podcast focuses on the way of formation and transformation so that each of us reflects God’s image in an ever more palpable and transparent way. I’m Julia Long and today I’m joined by Professor Alisa Torres Neff in the Honors College, and her brother, Father Jonathan Torres. We’re going to be discussing how we can take concepts from Dante’s classic texts, and apply them to friendship today. But before we kick off, I’d like to give each of you a chance to just tell the audience a little bit about yourselves, Professor Neff, why don’t we start with you?

 

Professor Neff  00:36

Sure. Well, thanks for having us, Julia. I’m really excited to be here today and have this conversation about Dante with you. I graduated from Belmont Abbey College in 2017. And I took off a few years after high school to work at Tan books in Charlotte. And during that time, I actually worked for their particular kind of branch company called Catholic courses, okay. And so I was in videography and, and some audio work there, and marketing. And so during that time, I actually was introduced to Dante for the first time. And through a professor Anthony Aslan, who actually translated the copies of Dante’s Divine Comedy that we’re working with today. Sure. And he really inspired me to go back to education and to learning. And that was just 15 minutes away from Belmont. So I said, well sign me up for the nearest liberal arts college. So I came to Belmont, and majored in English and theology, and then went off to the University of Dallas, and just came back this past fall. Me and my husband are teaching for the honors college now. And it’s been really, really wonderful to be back at the Abbey. It’s home for me in many ways. And so we’ve learned a lot over this past year, to say the least, and is your husband and along to he’s not I met him at the University of Dallas. So he went to Houston Baptist University, and then converted to Catholicism at the University of Dallas. And now we’re, we’re here.

 

Julia Long  02:11

Okay, so you’re literally sharing your home and community with your husband. Yes. Sharing your husband with your community. That teaches us something about love and friendship, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. And further towards Why don’t we hear from you?

 

Father Jonathan Torres  02:23

Yeah, again, thanks for having us. Sure. Dante is a big passion. And I first came across a text at Belmont. So I graduated in 2014. And, yeah, it was reading Dante that really inspired me to take my feet a little bit more seriously. I grew up Catholic, you know, went to Mass every Sunday with my family. But it wasn’t until I started reading some more classical texts. Like Dante, where I started seeing the faith in a wider group from a wider perspective. Yeah. And it was really his portrayal of beauty. That really moves me. And so I fell in love with my faith all over again. And everything. I like I said, I graduated in 2014. went to seminary, okay, in the, at the Josephinum, in Columbus, Ohio. Okay. And I was ordained two years ago in July 2020, for the Diocese of Charlotte. So now I am a parochial beggar, and Assistant priest at St. Matthews in Valentine. Okay. And I’m also working as a high school chaplain, and I’m sure the Catholic High School. Wow. So busy. But um, I’m glad to be doing things like this. It keeps my own intellect sharpened. Yeah, you know, so, especially after being in school for so many years, or, you know, going had been in seminary, six years of it was philosophy and theology. And so, yeah, I really enjoy having these conversations, kind of going back to the books, and finding me of what inspired me to take my faith more seriously.

 

Julia Long  04:08

Absolutely. And we’re talking. One thing that strikes me as interesting is that the two of you have both ended up working with the younger populations today. So I’d love as we know about this conversation to hear from you about what it’s like to work with those populations. And, I mean, do you share those texts with them? Is this do you all have conversations about? Yeah,

 

Father Jonathan Torres  04:28

you know, it’s interesting, because I think a lot of people can initially think that Dante is a daunting text, you know, it’s this centuries old, Italian poem. How can we glean something from it today? Right, yeah. But I think the very fact that it’s still endures in our curriculum to this day, tells us that there’s something important here that tells us about human nature on a universal level, or else it wouldn’t still endure to this day. And so, you know, while I don’t I delve deeply into Dante on my everyday life, I do share some insights that I’ve gained over the years for our reading. I think there’s so many of us in this friendship is just one. But like I said, earlier, what inspired me was his love the good and the true and beautiful, that He expresses in figures of virtuals poetry, you know, figure of Beatrice. All these things are not just medieval ideas. I think they have bearing today. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think the fruit of you know, what I do for the people as a priest, in part can be traced back to Dante.

 

Professor Neff  05:43

Yeah. So yeah. And I see Dante is very influential in the way that you think and you and preach in your ability to persuade, because I think that that is something that increasingly, is becoming more difficult, I think and evangelization trying to persuade by the sheer force of ideas is not it’s not working. And there’s, there’s a lot of reasons for that. But especially now, the the, the need for beauty, the need to persuade, through images through lived experience. And I think that’s something that Dante can really afford any any reader, there are some difficulties when coming to the Divine Comedy. There are, it’s deeply historical, it’s deeply political. Yeah. But I think if if a student especially if they have a good guide, such as Dorothy Sayers has a really good translation and good notes, Anthony acelin, if they can, you know, maybe look at those footnotes. So you kind of get the history, the history, you get the politics, and then you allow yourself just to be taken on this adventure. You accompany John Dante on his journey through through hell, Purgatory and heaven. And all of a sudden, these ideas that, you know, the church has been preaching for, so long really come alive, you know, there’s actually an encyclical written on Dante, and the church has called him the most eloquent singer of the Christian idea. And I really love that because they the emphasis there is, you know, the singer, right, he is a singer. And, I mean, any, any, any person in their youth any, any one who has really lived, right knows how important music is, right? And how that can carry the soul to places that, you know, mere ideas can’t write, you know, it kind of brings you there. So there is a little bit, there’s an element of faith when you read The Divine Comedy that, that I think the Honors College believes in, so I taught Divine Comedy this past semester. Okay. And so that experience was really wonderful for me. And, you know, I kind of tell my students from day one, right, we are giving ourselves over to this text, we are we are going to enter Dante’s medieval cathedral. And it really is that it is it is a cathedral it is the kind of creative genius behind this work is just unfathomable. I mean, you can study the Divine Comedy for its mathematical genius for its poetic genius. There’s a certain pattern in in the way that Dante has written everything, you can read it horizontally, and by that I mean, you can go between each parts each canticle. So hell purgatory Paradise, and you can, it’s broken each each part is broken up into 33. cantos, except for Hell’s 34. And you can kind of read it across, you can read it backwards. I mean, it’s phenomenal. Right? And so that, that is it’s daunting for me, you know, I mean, I’m no expert by any means. But I even reading it a couple of times, I realized, gosh, I’m so far from having an excellent grasp. That said, even even a beginner’s approach to the text, I think I think of a reader really gives himself to it, we’ll find that these are these are living ideas that Dante is presenting. This is the story of, you know, Dante is the poet, he’s the author, but he’s also the protagonist. So he puts himself into the story, he is the pilgrim. And his, his journey is is far from outdated. Right. This is this, this is a poem about learning. It is a poem about conversion, about growth, about mercy. And, and I think anyone who gives himself to it will will be edified. You know, I believe in that.

 

Father Jonathan Torres  09:32

Yeah, I think you know, getting closer to our topic at hand with friendship, a good way to approach text is to read it with somebody. So what I found helpful is I’ve had the opportunity to read it in a classroom setting a couple of times, actually, both at Belmont Abbey and also at the Josephinum seminar. But even outside of that, to talk about it with a friend. Yeah, I think texts really take on a different dimension when you are able to bring these ideas out into the open surely speak these ideas. There’s something that really happens when you’re engaged with the texts in community. So, of course, you know, the commentaries by Anthony Sol is one of my favorite commentaries for the Divine Comedy reading, those are very helpful. But then to add an additional layer of aid, to be able to bring in stuff with your friends, to talk about it in a setting a communal setting, very helpful.

 

Professor Neff  10:24

And Dante shows us how to do that the pilgrim right because he’s led through, he’s led through Hell and Purgatory by Virgil. Virgil is a Roman poet, he wrote The Aeneid. And then once he gets to Paradise, he’s led by Beatrice who was, I mean, maybe you can say maybe a quick word about Beatrice because his relationship with her is crucial, right? I mean, it’s, it’s what inspired the whole text,

 

Father Jonathan Torres  10:49

right? And the figure of Beatrice is a complicated one, you know, in his life, she only spoke one word, I think, appealing to him. So he didn’t really have a true friendship with her as we understand friendship today, right. And yet, nonetheless, in the inferno, he calls her, the woman that saved his soul. And he gives her a place of honor among the saints, right next to St. Lucie, who is under our mother, Mary. Yeah. And so to give her this high position of heaven, without knowing who she truly, truly was, may seem odd at first. But I think this speaks to the nature of beauty in which he was so he was so enraptured with your beauty that he was drawn to think of God. And in thinking of God, you can consider Beatrice fulfilling the Great Commission of Christ, you know, go out and preach the good news. And so in a sense, her beauty was the fulfillment of that great commission that Christ gave us, in a sense for beauty saved the soul, Dante. So that’s why I think he gives us such a high place of honor he she’s such a prominent figure in paradise with lots of dialogue, despite the fact that he didn’t actually speak to her in real life. But I think that that’s, you know, it may seem like an antiquated image or very romantic, I should say, idea of beauty and but at the same time, it also speaks to the idea of the true the good and the beautiful, right, in general.

 

Professor Neff  12:32

So yeah, I think he he spoke about his encounters with Beatrice in Lobby Tenova. My, the new life as these these encounters, he called them apparitions. Right. I think a lot a lot of the students were scandalized by it. Right. But there’s, I think there’s something really important, something very incarnational about Dante, that he is able to, he is truly able to see Christ at work in anything that is good and true and beautiful, that that hit that he can encounter. But there are some difficulties in that. And maybe we can get to that, you know, in our topic on friendship now, because, you know, especially in paradise, there are these moments when Dante wants to turn to Beatrice and kind of fix his gaze upon her. And she says, No, not yet. Your your gaze is not to be fixed upon me, it’s there’s a higher vision that I want to direct you towards. You know, and so for for Dante, the pilgrim, his journey is a kind of, you know, a purification of his vision, and I find reading this, it’s, it does purify the vision, right? You know, it kind of forces you to think what, where are my loves? What What have I set my gaze upon? And how is that informing my actions and my life? And so I think this is this is where Beatrice Can, can really give us a good example of how this the same thing, even if it’s good can direct us in the wrong way. And we don’t have the right intentions towards it.

 

Julia Long  14:05

Yeah, one of the things that you said a little bit back, but I’m still kind of that struck me was what you say to your students about giving yourselves over to the text. I think in a world where control has become so important, right? Control over ourselves control over things we can’t control control over others, and really a lot in society resistance to give things over to God into faith. Right? I think the the way that you set the stage for this text is really beautiful. And in large part if you don’t relinquish this control, the society is constantly expecting us to have you might really miss something. Right. So is there are there any other thoughts when you think about Dante and the concept of control that you think are important to mention, maybe in friendship or on his journey himself?

 

Father Jonathan Torres  14:59

Yeah, um, I also top of my head I think, control, I think could be connected to a sense of individualism, I can figure out my own life, right, I have the power to grasp at whatever it is that I want that I think will make me happy, right. And that individualism, I think is antithetical to friendship, right friendship necessitates a kind of vulnerability, right? And I’m getting that I’m weak, I need help, right. And so we see that in doctor immediately, when the text opens, he finds himself lost in a dark word. Right. And I love the way he is situated. He says, midway through the midway through our life, I find myself in a dark ward. So immediately, he’s the context of Dante’s journey begins with a sense of community, he’s situating himself, within a larger community by saying midway through our life, as in this is we’re all in this together, right? And I’m very human, just like everyone else. And this image of the dark word, it means that he is lost, or he needs help. And this is something that we see throughout the entire text is just data being very, very vulnerable. Right. He’s a man that admits that he needs help, which is incredibly important. Yeah. So durability. Right, exactly. And so I think that that, you know, just relating it back to your question about control. Dante, the pilgrim seems very comfortable with admitting that he is not in control. Yeah. You know, especially when he’s met with the three beasts. He just, he’s always in danger. He’s always worried. He’s, like I said, he’s vulnerable. Now, this is not a man. This is not your modern American individual that thinks that they can just do it themselves. Sure. This is a man who is in touch with his humaneness. Which, again, that humanity is connected, necessarily to community for

 

Professor Neff  16:58

the larger cosmos. Right? That’s, and that’s a big difference between the ancient model of storytelling versus the modern, you have, you know, the epic, right, this is an epic, it begins in media res right in the middle of things. And, you know, I like to contrast this with like, the beginning of Dostoyevsky’s, the underground, man, right. I am a sick man, this is where he starts and he’s, you know, in his apartment, he’s kind of, you know, it’s the Notes from Underground, he’s the Underground Man, the entire journey of that story is in his mind for the first half of of that novella, right. Dante is concerned, it is a personal journey. It is his journey and story of conversion, but it takes place within a larger Cosmos, because I think that’s something that the ancients can really help, I think us understand is that that part of spiritual maturity, part of growth is to accept life on life’s terms, not our terms, right to accept life on life’s terms. And that’s part of Dante’s story is that he needs to grow and become more fully perfected, but not according to his own micro cosmos of himself. But according to the grander Christian Cosmos, you know, that is the world, you know, so. So there are several moments that I can think of, you know, when Dante you see these moments of growth, I think, maybe more than others, the Purgatory is, you know, to kind of demonstrate these moments of growth maybe the most, because that’s the only of the three canticles that actually takes place in time. For Hell and Paradise, your choice is fixed, right? Whereas for purgatory, there is still conversion and learning taking place. And so Dante has these, you know, three, or I’m sorry, seven p’s and scripted on his head, which is Patkar tomb, you know, the word for sin in Italian. And, and you see, as he grows, that these peas are, are slowly wiped off of his head as he learned his lesson. But one, one particular example I could think of when it comes to control is the the soles in the ring of pride in Purgatory, they have to carry these huge boulders on their back and they’re forced to bend down and look at images of humility, or look at images of pride and humility. So they see Satan falling like lightning from the sky, they see these examples of pride and how their actions have rendered them inhumane. And then they see examples of humility. And it’s really this this marvelous kind of predation that the souls go through, but they have to repeat you know, they repeat together and this chanting mode, I can no more, I can no more right that is, as you mentioned, I like how you said that relinquishing control, right. Interestingly enough, and this is I mentioned this i I’m how you can read The Divine Comedy horizontally so that I think canto 10 and 11. In the paradise canto 10 and 11. We have this really incredible encounter with St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure. And this is where we, I think, get a really a positive view of friendship in the Divine Comedy. The Paradise really shows us what what friendship is, and what it feels like, you know. So maybe I did want to bring up a passage briefly on our saints. Yeah, St. Thomas, and and Bonaventure. Before we get there. Did you want to mention anything? I know, we’re jumping to paradise here, but maybe we should kind of backtrack a little bit with Inferno? I mean, how would you say? How is friendship depicted in in the inferno? Kennedy even exist? If you know, are there any examples you can think of?

 

Father Jonathan Torres  20:56

Yeah, I think the examples of friendship in the inferno are kind of in this, like a V and negative, right? Yeah. You see how disassociated the souls are in on a lot of different levels. imprimer preparation for this podcast, me and Elisa, were talking about how, like if, for instance, in the woods of the suicidal souls, Dante depicts these souls as these trees and from their branches hangs their flesh. And it’s a pretty gruesome, imaginative depiction of the suicides. But I think it tells us something about how, in, in these souls centered self centeredness I guess, they’re, they’re not even able to have a friendship with themselves. And I think that’s something that’s a prerequisite for friendship is that in order to have a friendship, you need to first have your own soul in order. And so even in health in specifically, in the words of the suicides, you have this image of disassociation, even from yourself. Yeah, and this is something that, you know, expanding a little bit outside of the text moving into theology is, is something that the fall of creation kind of teaches us is that one man fell from grace. In the garden, Adam and Eve, when they fell from grace. What happened was that they not only broke off their friendship with God, but they broke off their friendship with creation as well. And also themselves, right. So there’s this triple fault, in a sense. And so ultimately, friendship is not just this nice thing to have in your life. But I think it’s absolutely essential, especially from a Christian anthropology, right to understand that this is something that not only, like I said, it’s not just a nicety, but it’s actually crucial to being human. And that’s what happened with when we felt the same is that we broke that essential part of our souls. Ultimately, the greatest friendship we can have is with God. Right. But because we’re predicting that the image and likeness of God, who himself is a relationship of friendship of three persons, that speaks to our the necessity of us having friendship,

 

Julia Long  23:28

and that showing mirrored in our personal life, exactly, exactly. Healthy, almost Christ like way we could Yeah,

 

Father Jonathan Torres  23:35

exactly. And so in the inferno, you see, I mean, the inferno, at large is essentially just separation from God. That’s what hell is it? That’s the ultimate definition of how is separation from God? Yeah. And so it’s the loss of that ultimate friendship. Yeah, that’s how you can understand how. And so I think throughout the in front of you see these examples of just how the souls are suffering and contending with that separation. And it’s really, really fascinating. Indian Furneaux you have souls tell Dante stories of themselves or other people, but it’s never out of charity for another person. They’re in charity. And so one example I’m thinking is count Gulino and canto 33, he says that he will give the story of the person who killed him, not to not in any benefit for this person, but so that people can hate him more, in a sense. And so even Yeah, even all the actions in the in front of all these different souls, it’s almost a slight another person to divide people against each other.

 

Professor Neff  24:52

You see this in the ring of the traders. Dante is trying to get someone’s name. He’s saying, Tell me who you are. Tell me your story. And And this particular soul is, oh, you’ll never find out who I am. And then it’s someone else who screams, you know, hey Bulka, you know, and he says, I’ll tell you who this person is, right? So they’re even in hell. They’re constantly betraying one another. In the mouth of Satan, the final canto 34. Satan has these three heads. He’s just kind of inverted image of the Trinity. And he’s chomping down traders right in there in his mouth. He’s got caches and Brutus who betrayed Rome, Julius Caesar, a friend, right and then Judas Iscariot. Right. So the great kind of forces in Dante’s you know, worldview, Rome and the church. These have been betrayed right and through through the manner of friendship, right. And so it’s not just a political treachery, but Brutus, right at tu, Brute a, you know, Brutus was Julius Caesar’s friend. Yeah. And that’s kind of a horrifying thing to see. And so, I think your you know, Father tours, you’re, you’re right, right on there in terms of the inverted vision of friendship, right, we don’t get a lot of positive portraits. You know, we get a few souls who are who are kind of linked together. You know, I think of Ulysses and Elena, I’m forgetting who, who was with Ulysses, but one of his his comrades who kind of traveled the oceans with him. They’re kind of in this flame together. And then you have famously, Francesca, and Paolo, and these were lovers. And their story is really quite sad. And they so Francesca was married to paulose Brother, and they and so Francesca had an affair with her brother in law and mid act, she was murdered, they were both murdered. And and so there’s this just incredible line where she says, she’s telling her story to Dante. And right before she does, she says, there, there is no greater grief than to recall a time of happiness while plunged in misery. And so you can tell that these souls haven’t really learned their lesson, because they’re still referring to that terrible sin as a time of happiness. Right? And, and there’s a lot of accounts like that where people don’t know who they are in hell right then and punishment in hell, according to Dante is not this kind of arbitrary thing, you know, you’re going to timeout because you ate this cookie. You know, it’s it’s not an arbitrary punishment. So I know the way we might experience it when we’re young. It’s the natural consequences of their actions. It’s their actions lived out in the fullest extreme, stripped from its sparkling, it’s, you know, glittering pleasure. And this is what hell is. And so when we ship to purgatory, interestingly enough, so that was Kanto five, with Francesca, and Paolo, canto five in or actually count to five and Paradise. That’s where we’re, I’m coming to has an interesting story to parallel this one. This, this is where and you know, fatherhood, as you alluded to this, the way in which souls interact in Inferno, they always want something, right? They want to get something out of this, what’s in it for me? For paradise? There’s a shift there, they say, you know, I will tell you who I am. Why, because Dante you can pray for us. You can pray for us. Right? And so they are eager to come to Dante, they are eager to share their story and they see this as something they see community as as a real aid, right, not not taking away their good or diminishing what they have not as competition. I think that’s that’s something we could talk about, in terms of modern applicability, right, the way in which envy and competition can really poison friendship and motive for friendship as well. Oh, sure. Yes, right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Whereas for Paradise, you know, what, what do they say when another so they see down there are these souls in heaven and they’re dancing about having conversation among themselves, and then they see Dante and what do they say? This is from canto five, he and the Divine Comedy is filled with these beautiful images and similes. So he says, as in a fishing pool pristine and still, the fishes swim to something dropped below should they believe it’s good to feed upon more than 1000 splendors all aglow, I saw a pro chess and heard them say, Look, here is one to make our friendships grow. Right, so you can just imagine this pawn and all of a sudden there’s a little morsel kind of tossed, tossed into it and all these fish come you know, scattering from from all corners of the pond and they come to center around this this This good thing to feed upon, and they think this is something that will make our friendships grow. Right. And that’s the kind of beauty of community and Paradise, that the good that they share is not diminished, the more people partake of it, right? It’s not quantifiable. Right?

 

Julia Long  30:17

Yeah. And I think I think this gets to something that I’d like to hear both of your thoughts on. While you were talking, I was thinking what you would say, Dante’s qualifications for a good friendship would be, you know, how would he qualify that? Because I think there are a lot of things here, right. There’s the kind of motives for friendship, there’s the different parallels that you both spoke of, of kind of this in the paradise that maybe this free flowing, loving community, and then, you know, versus in the inferno, almost this kind of like tortured, forced relationships here that are definitely not what we would define as healthy. Right. So I think he’s really showing us a pretty amazing parallel hill here, that’s pretty relatable, because I think all of us can think back to times in our own lives, where it’s like, oh, that relationship that I had was not healthy, right. But it taught me x, or, wow, the minute that I got into a relationship with someone who believed, you know, the same thing, you know, being Catholics and Christians, I think we can all speak to the fact that when you form a friendship with another believer, that’s unlike any friendship that you have otherwise, right? Because that’s what’s at the bottom of the pond. You know, there’s this unifying thing there. So I think there are a lot of things kind of floating around here, inspired by these texts, if you had to kind of nail down some specific things like if Dante were here sitting in this room. What qualifiers Do you think he would hold up against the lens of friendship? What would he say?

 

Father Jonathan Torres  32:00

Yeah, that’s a really good question. I am drawn, again, to The Inferno. There’s a great day a great example. Again, it works kind of in via negativa a negative way. To answer your question, at least you mentioned, Satan, and his three heads chewing on the three individuals. I wanted to bring light to Judas. Yeah, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ. Yeah. And so that was the ultimate friendship. Right? Yeah, this was Christ and His 12 closest friends. And one of those friends gave him up to be crucified. Yeah. And I think what that shows us is that, ultimately, friendship has to be based on a good, a shared common good. Sure. And when you look at the apostles, and Christ, their shared common good is Christ Himself. And what unifies all these apostles, is this mission, to spread the word to be entered the earth. And Judas was supposed to be part of that. This was his vocation. And so he, in a sense, had the opportunity to become one of the greatest people in history. And yet he denied that and began and gained from self, the lowest place in hell. And so I think there’s this message there that we can, or this meaning that we can learn from, in seeing Judas being eternally not by saying that in giving up this good, this shared good that he could have had with the Apostles in Christ Himself. Now he has to suffer that consequence. And, you know, yeah, I think that that’s, it shows us how that shared good in Christ when you give that up, just how dire the consequences can be.

 

Professor Neff  33:56

And you use the word non there, which I’m reminded of, you know, John six, right, you know, whoever desires live, right? He must, he must consume me, right? And right, eat my flesh. And and there are these really strange images of cannibalism, the further down in hell you go in Dante’s Inferno, and it is this perfect image. It’s a perfect inverted image of that communion that is so important in paradise. I mean, I’m, so to answer your question. You know, Dante, the first person he meets it upon his journey is virtual, and virtual is kind of sent to him because Beatrice knows that Dante will listen to Virgil because Virgil is a poet, right? He has sweet verses that that will persuade Dante and so you have this kind of friendship at the very beginning. It’s united on poetry. But Virgil is a pagan. He died before Christ, and so he actually cannot accompany Dante all the way through. And so you gave that example of why is it Why does it seem so intuitively true that those friendships that we share that we can share our Christianity with? Seems so qualitatively different than many other ones, right? The last person that is with Dante is actually Bernard of Clairvaux. And what’s interesting about that is Bernard is this great singer of Marian piety, right? He loved her Blessed Mother. And so you have throughout paradise, Dante is you know, looking at Beatrice and she says, No, you have to look towards you know, God, you know, with hold your vision, I’m guiding you hang in there, and then all of a sudden, she takes her place, what’s called the Empyrion, this kind of beautiful white rose, celestial rose, and Dante is standing next to Bernard. And Bernard says, Dante, your gaze must be turned toward God. And Dante says, but I was already doing what Bernard asked me to do, his gait is already turned toward God. And that image of Dante and Bernard both standing side by side, looking towards God, that is friendship, right. And it actually, Dante is really inspired so many incredible poets, but CS Lewis comes to mind as something someone who really took Dante as, as his own guide as Dante took Virgil. Yeah. And he says that, for he compares friendship, you know, in the four labs, this is cs cs Lewis’s work on, on, on love, and one of these loves is friendship. But he says, actually, of the four loves, friendship is least understood. So erotic love, filial love the love that a mother has for her child, a lot of these have a kind of biological motivation. Right? Right. They’re kind of there’s this natural basis for it. But with friendship, there is so so much is dependent upon choice, relying upon character. You know, I’m sure you’ve heard it said, you know, show me, show me who your friends are. And I’ll tell you what kind of character you have. Right? You know, and our friends are an extension of our choices, right? And that’s a scary thing to think about, you know. But he gives us image CS Lewis, he says that two lovers, their love can be depicted by, you know, the image of two people looking at each other face to face, right. They are, they are face to face. He says friendships don’t stand face to face, friends stand side by side, looking at something else. Right. And so, friendship kind of exist on this sliding scale. And many philosophers in our tradition will point that out. Aristotle is one of them, you can have a friend, your friendships basically are as good as the thing you both share in common. Right? And so it’s you can you see this difference? When you’re when you’re coming of age, the way that you know, parents kind of coordinate and micromanage friendships, you know, and we’re friends, because our families have been friends for years, and then that can kind of fade away once you’ve Once you’ve chosen your, your, your life for yourself, you know. So there can be friendships that are motivated around utility, right? I use what what what can you give to me? Right? There are friendships that are motivated around pleasure, right, we just enjoy having a good time together, or friendships that are motivated, motivated by by good, the good itself, right, the fact that there’s a kind of a kind of perceivable character about you, that attracts me, because it is informed and directed towards the ultimate good. Right. And so that’s something that I think can be a helpful way to think about it, because the way friendship is talked about now. I mean, the qualifications, you know, the way you mentioned that earlier, the qualifications for friendship are, have been really reduced. Right? You know, there’s not, we aren’t challenged by that concept anymore, right? It’s not something you know, we’re not really asked to focus on, on virtue on conversation, you know, that’s something that is really, I think, important. Now, there is a crisis of conversation, we don’t even know how to have a good conversation anymore. And so and we’re afraid to, because that, that might mean I might have to change what I believe. And that’s, that’s kind of scary, right? That’s where these books can kind of come in and help us maybe create some cognitive dissonance. You know, it’s not true that, you know, reading Dante makes you automatically a virtuous person. But but at least it can create some cognitive dissonance and think, oh, this, you know, I have never thought about that before. Right.

 

Julia Long  39:41

only it were that easy. Yeah.

 

Professor Neff  39:43

Well, I wish Yes, exactly. So, yeah. Yeah, I’m in there.

 

Julia Long  39:49

I know. Professor Neff, and we were talking earlier. We thought one thing that might be fun to do and helpful for our audience will be to kind of take this out her really wide view and pull in a friendship today in real time to talk about, and I racked my brain and I’m I’m not pretending to be a pop culture expert, but I couldn’t think of anyone. And then I started thinking that’s probably ignorance on my own part, but maybe it’s also because friendships in this context simply might not exist as often anymore. And hence, I can’t just easily pull it into mind, right. But one thing that has been coming to mind as we’ve been talking, Are either of you, Lord of the Rings fans. Okay, so I’ve been constantly writing. Know, I’m like, oh, maybe this is a bad example. But I just keep thinking about the friendship between Frodo and Sam, and really about how, if I had to use one word to describe it, it would probably be constant. Even though if you were to ask me, Is there friendship positive? I couldn’t say 100%. Yes. Right. Because I think in my mind, as I’m thinking about this, is it 100% healthy? Well, Sam was incredibly loyal, and did exactly what he set out to do and more, but he also kind of completely bent to Frodo all the time. And in the context of modern relationships, we wouldn’t quantify that as healthy. Right? So being Lord of the Rings fans, I mean, are there things that you think about Frodo and Sam’s relationship that might apply here?

 

Father Jonathan Torres  41:27

And I think one of the things that make that such a great image of friendship is send Sam’s constant challenge to photo Yes, and not become like God. And, you know, at first photo takes offense at this, right? It’s like, no, no, this is my burden. I have to do this on my own. Right. You know, there’s a sense that he wants to become this individual self made, man. Yes. And Sam is not letting him do that. Right. Yes, he’s not in control. Right. And so, you know, one thing that we see that’s really powerful in that friendship, is Sam’s challenge to Frodo to become the person who is called to be yes, to carry this burden. It says you don’t have to carry it along. I’ll help you. Right, right. And, you know, one thing that is a beautiful moment in their friendship is when they’re on the slopes of Mount Doom. And, you know, he, Sam, that famous line in the movie where, you know, he picks up sound like, you’ve picked up sort of like a sack of potatoes. Yes, mountain. But the first thing he says to Frodo is Do you remember the Shire? Remember, the Shire? And it’s that recalling of what they share in common, right, but they’re both fighting for Yeah, that is the core of their friendship. They’re both, they both set out to save the shutter. Yeah. And I think that that is something that we see in Dante as well. Is a virtual MPH is Beatrice. constantly reminding Dante of why he’s on a journey. It’s that remembering. And so the anchor of swords. Exactly. And so, you know, I think the Shire for the rings can be a standard for the good, right? Yeah. Remember the good that we’re fighting for? Yeah.

 

Julia Long  43:13

Too expensive, interesting.

 

Professor Neff  43:17

And they’re upon a journey to I think that is something that is so foreign to us moderns, right? I mean, where we’re about experiences, you know, what is it I mean, there is that that kind of trite saying about being, you know, not the destiny, but it’s the journey or something like, but I don’t think that that’s the same, the same concept of journey that really is guiding someone like Dante or someone like Frodo and Sam, but it’s a beautiful image. And I’m glad you brought it up, because I think their friendship really does show how, what an incredible force friendship is, right? I mean, you’ll hear Cicero and Aristotle say life is not worth living if you do not have friends. Right? And that is powerful. Right? And you you see that at work with, with Frodo and Sam, you know, the way in which I mean, it is simply true that that Sam could not have done photos task for him, right? And you see Sam encouraging Frodo, you know, giving him hope at the very end, you know, photos, you know, basically like, Okay, I’m done. Just leave me on this rock. And then Sam says, it’s not like me, it’s not like me to give up. Let’s just take one more step. Right, one more step down. And that’s, that’s, I mean, so true of what friendship can do. I mean, when when you think that you’ve really, you know, that you’ve encountered the abyss? Certainly, there cannot be any, any possible hope to my situation. Sometimes it’s your friends who can have that hope for you. Yeah. Right. And they can remind you know, you’ve actually been through worse, right, and you got through this. Right. And that’s, that is that’s a kind of an experience of reading literature. Right. You think? Wow. If Dante I can go through this, then maybe my situation is not as dire as it seems to be. And it’s it is true about our real life encounters with with those who are closest to us that they can see the bigger picture that we can’t, right.

 

Father Jonathan Torres  45:11

And that’s I love that image in the inferno. We’re virtual, like, almost like shouting at Dante to challenge him and say, Why can’t you climb that mountain? And he says, I am not St. Paul, right? I can’t do this. But then Virgil reminds him of Beatrice reminds him of Beatrice, and then suddenly he has this image that inspires him saying, okay, maybe I have more in me than I thought. And that’s what I think a good friend does. You right, going back to that example, sort of when Sam, with Sam challenging photo, saying the ring is taken over you, let it go. This is what we see with Virgil. When he’s first introduced to Dante, it’s that challenge is that immediate challenge to finish the journey, or to really begin the journey where Dante think that he doesn’t have strength enough. But Virgil calls him out to be better than thinks he is.

 

Professor Neff  46:05

Exactly. But a friend I’ve heard it said, right, that a friend wants the best for the best part of you. Right, which which means that they know what is the worst part of you to write, you know, and so they know you’re not living up to your potential, right. And that might be harsh to hear, but it is what ultimately progresses your journey in life, right. So there’s so many so many lessons that we can talk about here. I mean, I’m just reminded to have you know, I mentioned Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure. That’s a beautiful scene in paradise where Thomas Aquinas, he said, or it’s actually I think it’s St. Who is it? St. Yeah, St. Bonaventure is talking, he’s a Franciscan, and he is introducing the life of St. Dominic, who’s the founder of the Dominicans. And then you have St. Thomas Aquinas, who is a Dominican, and he is introducing the story of the founder of the Franciscans, right? And you have these just incredible lines where, you know, they’re just saying, I am compelled, I am compelled to speak about the life of my friend or I’m compelled to speak about the life of my Optus founder. And they’re, they’re courteous that word actually comes up a couple of times. You know, and Dante says that when he looks at those who are around God, he says, I saw faces persuasive in their charity. And I think you you really feel this, there’s this kind of this is beyond duty, right? Friendship is beyond duty. It’s beyond what, you know, what you’re obliged to do. This is a kind of outpouring of yourself, you know, that that goes beyond comprehension. Right, you know,

 

Father Jonathan Torres  47:45

Ratzinger put it really well, I wish I could see the quote, in its fullest, but I’m going to butcher

 

Professor Neff  47:53

the original chairman, in original doing

 

Father Jonathan Torres  47:56

something like only the lover understands that doing the bare minimum is falling, and only excess is enough. And this is I think this is true. And friendship is that when you’re when you’re trying to calculate, what should I do? What should I say? Did I go like, Is this enough in my friendship? Then your love is not great enough? Right? Yeah. Only access will do in friendship in love. Yeah. And so yeah, I

 

Professor Neff  48:23

think that’s a really good point. And you and you can really feel that with certain friendships that perhaps put a strain on you, where you feel kind of exhausted after hanging out with them. And you’re walking on eggshells the whole time. Yeah, you you’re withholding things from yourself, right. Oh, I can’t tell them about this promotion. Because who knows what it will inspire? Right sadness, envy, you know, whatever it is. And when you begin to feel that way, I think that’s that’s indicative of, of someone who doesn’t want the, the good for the, you know, the best for the best part of yourself. Right. This is this is there’s a kind of competition that is wearing this relationship down. Right. And so that is it’s it’s friendship is a tricky thing, right? There’s a kind of intuitive radar that we have to have, in terms of, you know, how we treat others, in terms of what parts of ourselves or we might, you know, maybe we’re affirming certain actions in our friends that are actually aren’t the best for them, or were maybe pushing, pushing down thwarting certain, maybe better, better parts of them that really should be cultivated. Right. So it’s a dance, to say to say the least. Yeah,

 

Julia Long  49:33

and I think earlier when father Torres was talking about the parallel between our relationship with God and our relationship with our friends, when you think about what God has done for us, the I mean, commitment is not even a strong enough of a word, right? But the choice to send his son, the conviction to save us the commitment to do that and to sacrifice and then to consider stantly You know, be here and care for us and provide us a place for eternity. You know, you, you brought up the suffering and hell. I mean, I think a lot of us when we read that, because it’s so difficult to read, we tend to think like, Okay, this is an episode of torture. But this is not one episode. This is forever. This is eternity, right? And so when we think about relationship and friendship, we know it now in a context of okay, we’re friends in the earthly sense, right? But then we take a bird’s eye view and look at where we’re spending eternity. And we really, I think most of us would say, we want that view of paradise. We want God’s love, we want the godly friendships, you know, rather than, than that of hell. So I think that’s a really important point, and probably a rubric that we should all use when thinking about our friendships. And to your point, Professor naff, you know, we’re also not saying that our friendships are always going to be easy, right? I mean, it’s great when you have a friendship that you leave and, and you’re high on life, because you just spend time together, and you laughed, and it was great. But you’re, like you said, also going to have those friendships where you’re fairly drained? And it might be difficult, but to your point, we’re giving access, right? And maybe that’s what we’re called to do. On a certain scale. There’s boundaries, of course, but probably the rubric has we think about modern friendship.

 

Father Jonathan Torres  51:20

Absolutely. And I think, in our world today, you know, what we’re so obsessed with not offending anybody. Sure. That’s really antithetical to friendship to, you know, going back to virtual challenging to hunty aren’t Sam charging Frodo, you know, we’re afraid to offend. But in our fear, were kind of sacrificing our friends souls, right. So if we do have that bigger picture, if we are concerned with eternity, if we are like, professor, and I’ve said, standing shoulder to shoulder looking at the good, wanting that good for the other person, then we’re not going to be afraid of offending the other person because the other person is also not afraid of offending us, right, we’re riding together, we’re stumbling along the way to get ashore. And if we can admit, like Dante, that we are sinners that were lost in the dark wood, then we want that help. And to neglect that, I think, is to neglect friendship, as a whole. Yeah. And

 

Professor Neff  52:14

to be, and to be like Dante, and one of the first word that he says, in the entire Divine Comedy, is music. Or you may, right have mercy upon me. And this is something that is actually increasingly difficult to find in our culture, right? There’s no forgiveness, there’s no mercy, there’s no second chance. And it’s very easy to block someone who just, you know, all of a sudden doesn’t share our opinion or something to that effect. Right. So yeah, you know, I was reminded when you were talking Giulia, you know, what Christ says about friendship, in that he says, there’s, there’s no greater love, than to lay down your life for your friend, which I think is a really interesting passage to meditate on, because, and Aquinas talks about this a bit, whether it is better to love your enemy, or to love your friend, what it does to your soul. And that’s interesting. And he actually says, It’s better to love your friend, it’s better in this, it’s better in the sense that it’s better for you, because we are informed by what we love. Right? Right. And so he says, It’s better to love the good than to love what is evil. Right, you know, and so the way we think about virtue two, I think, is all wrapped up in in, in the topic of friendship. I mean, you know, the ancients call friendship, a virtue, which is an interesting thing to, you know, I think, and that has something to do with choice that that the fact that it has to be worked on. Right. There’s a habit to use. There’s a habit there. Yes. As opposed to being a mother, which, of course, there are motherly qualities and virtues that have to constantly be worked on. Sure. But there is a biological aspect, you know, that is a default, whereas friendships will dissipate. If they are not cultivated intentionally, right. Yes. So yeah, so no greater love than there is then to lay down one’s life for one’s friend, right. So that in friendship, our loves are actually protected. Right, and that we are we can grow in our own characters by loving those who are good. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Julia Long  54:10

I want to be respectful of time. We’ve been rolling for just under an hour is real. This has been so much fun, right? Is there anything else before I do the sign off that either of you want to say anything you want to read anything you want to share? Or do you think we’ve covered up

 

Father Jonathan Torres  54:29

if you have not read Dante to read Dante.

 

Professor Neff  54:33

And there’s, there’s several good resources out there. If you want it to pick up the Divine Comedy, and maybe you’re afraid to do it by yourself? I mean, of course, I’m always a proponent of reading groups, you know, just just get one other person and you you go on that, that journey together. But just to give a few maybe helpful, maybe some some guidance. Baylor actually has a really good YouTube series. It’s called 100 days of Dante, right. And so they have, you know, five minute videos on every single Cantu. So if you read this, you know, you listen to that it’s kind of a helpful little dialogue to get going. And then also Catholic courses, which we worked for, has a really excellent series and that’s by Anthony acelin. And so that’s available for purchase. I think it’s on Audible and Amazon. You can get the video you get the audio. Yeah, s Aslan is wonderful. Yeah, so highly recommend him. And don’t be afraid to enter the medieval cathedral. It might be daunting, no pun intended. daunting. But but it is worth it. And we can we can all learn. Learn something from from him.

 

Father Jonathan Torres  55:42

What translation would you recommend?

 

Professor Neff  55:45

I would recommend Aslan, I think Aslan is very accessible. And, and he provides the Italian if you if you want to have fun with that as well. So

 

Father Jonathan Torres  55:54

I think excellent translation is he really puts a spotlight on the theological aspects of it. And it’s a very literal translation. He has the Italian side by side. Yeah, translation. Mark Musa is on the penguin edition. That one’s very easy to read. So the language is a little simpler. Okay, so if you want to just kind of not that you should breeze through it, but it’s a simpler translation, and then um, Mandelbaum is it? Yeah. Elemental? Yes. Yeah, I find his translation very beautiful. So we want to pick up some of the beauty of the poetry. Translation. That’s a good translation.

 

Professor Neff  56:34

And Dorothy Sayers, she, she’s the only English translator that has attempted to, to translate in what’s called her salaryman. So she keeps the rhyme scheme, which is tremendous. But because of that, some of the translation is a little bit clunky, because she’s kind of, you know, put it against this very structured rhyme scheme scheme. Her notes are incredible. She She is just she was one of the Inklings. So friends with taupe, Tolkien and Lewis, and she also also penguin publishes her series as well. So I would recommend that one as well.

 

Julia Long  57:06

And we can link to some of these perfect Yeah, yeah. Sounds great. Well, I want to thank you both so much for being here today and for hanging out with a Dante novice, but I definitely want to read these now. So you’ve given me a good starting place. Thanks you both so much. I also want to thank our audience for joining us and if you enjoyed Conversatio please subscribe and tell your friends Conversatio is available through Spotify, Spotify, and Apple and Google podcasts. Until next time, I’m Julia long. God bless