Belief in the Divine Comedy

The greatness of The Divine Comedy is recognized all over the world, as Canel said in Heroes and Hero Worship: "Dante is like a burning star, hanging high in the sky, from which great and noble people of all ages take fire; He is the possession of outstanding elements all over the world indefinitely. "

So what's great about The Divine Comedy?

For the history of western literature, the Renaissance is an extremely important turning point, and it is the collision and integration of "Greece and Greece" traditions. Although the Renaissance seemed to attach more importance to ancient Greek and Roman literature, it was the first coordination between the two Greeks. Humanism, as well as the later classicism and Enlightenment, has been permeated with the concept of humanism. It can be said that the influence of the Renaissance on western culture is incomparable at any other time.

The Divine Comedy can be said to contain both humanistic thoughts and rational thoughts emphasized by classicism and enlightenment literature. But its glory lies in the height and depth of thought that makes people feel lofty and profound at any time. I think the reason why The Divine Comedy has such dazzling brilliance lies in its profound interpretation of faith, which can be said to be rare in the whole human history. We might as well follow the road paved by Dante's Divine Comedy to review its ideological course.

In The Divine Comedy, Dante reviewed his route many times. In the dark forest at the beginning, Dante said that only by looking back at his own route can he know that the route is sinister and not done by strangers. There should be two meanings here. One is that you are about to enter the world of the soul. I think it means that life is full of dark forests and other places. If you are not careful, you will lose yourself, so you need Virgil (for reason) to save you. Only reason can keep you from getting lost, even if you walk into the dark forest, you can return to the right path.

Dante also said "look back" many times. I don't know if it was Dante's intention or coincidence. But they all show the same thing, that is, Dante is a person who always reviews his own line. He attaches great importance to what he saw and did along the way. In the fourth chapter of Net World, he himself said, "Because a passenger likes to review his route during a break." Even on the eighth and ninth days of heaven, I reviewed the lower bound twice in a row.

This kind of review was difficult for me to understand before. People should look forward, especially Dante. He went from hell to heaven step by step, from evil to good. In retrospect, it is really a very strange thing. Until one day, on the way down Dinghu Mountain, I inadvertently looked up and saw the five characters "Know the way from here", and suddenly I was suddenly enlightened. I walked down the hill and got what I deserved. Everyone in the divine comedy is like this. No matter where they come from, they will go, dust to dust, dirt to dirt. The fate of each of their souls is determined by their own behavior before their death. Whether it's hell, hell or heaven, in Dante's view, in the end, it's all in its place.

Dante is a man with very religious beliefs. In the turbulent and difficult society at that time, he was afraid of losing himself, especially after middle age, he had to live in exile. All this is a test for him. The change of environment will inevitably affect a person, especially for Dante, who suddenly fell from the political peak to the bottom. He must be very puzzled. When the black party asked him to confess his guilt in exchange for the right to return to his hometown, I believe he was not unwavering. After all, for a person who can never go back to his hometown, any opportunity to go back to his hometown is a very strong temptation.

But Dante's belief is so firm that no one who has read The Divine Comedy will doubt it. What he was afraid of was not that he could not endure hardship and resist temptation, but that he accidentally took the wrong road and walked into the "dark forest." Therefore, he had to review his route from time to time and carefully tell himself how to go on. So at the end of article 30 of Online Game World, Beya Terriqi said, "But as soon as my life changed in the second period of my life, he left me and devoted himself to other things." And "he is too addicted to save him unless he is shown the fallen sinner." So I knocked on the door of the deceased and asked the man who led him with tears in his eyes. "

As we all know, in The Divine Comedy, Beat Liqi symbolizes faith, but we know that Dante has always loved Beat Liqi deeply. In reality, Dante did lose himself once because of Beatrice's death, but soon he continued to take an active part in political activities. In other words, Dante did wander, but his faith never changed (just as his love for Beya Treize never changed). Therefore, although Dante said, "worldly treasures, with their illusory happiness, led my footsteps elsewhere the moment your eyes left me." But he said, "I don't remember when I left you." At this point, my conscience is not uneasy. " It is also worth mentioning here that Beya Trizzi replied, "So your forgetting proves that your desire has looked elsewhere." Because Beya Trizzi Dante was lost, but also because Beya Trizzi Dante found herself.

Dante told the world through the mouth of Beat Ritchie that only by taking the final destination of ancestors' souls as a mirror can we find the right path and finally move towards the light. But how to make this road perfect? As mentioned earlier, to "recognize the road from the past" means to take the road you and others have traveled as a mirror and shine the right way for the future. But this is just the "eye of review." In order to climb the net boundary mountain of life, we also need "sunshine on the top of the mountain". In The Divine Comedy, Dante's perfect route is led by Virgil, who represents reason, and Virgil is instructed by Beya Ritchie, who represents faith, to show Dante the way. In other words, for Dante, reason is indispensable, but faith is supreme. It can even be said that for Dante, everything in his soul comes from faith.

Faith can be said to be the most important theme of divine comedy. Even for Dante at that time, it may be more urgent to need its political significance, but it is precisely because Dante is not limited to this that the Divine Comedy has become a permanent peak of western literature. Divine Comedy is one of the three great religious masterpieces in the west, but if its belief is limited to religious piety, I think I, a non-religious person, can't appreciate its greatness. Although Christianity emphasizes the fraternity spirit of "God loves the world", it has always worshipped the will of God. If the Christian spirit is developed to the extreme, it can be said that man has completely become a slave of God.

The beauty of Divine Comedy is that Dante's understanding of religious belief broke the limitations of the Middle Ages, not only had a very sincere belief in God, but also affirmed the importance of human individual will. The book says that "free will" is the most worthy of God's praise, a masterpiece of God and the greatest gift of God. If the religious belief in The Divine Comedy is different from the extreme belief in the Middle Ages, what is the belief in Dante's eyes? In Chapter 24 of the Paradise Part of The Divine Comedy, Dante directly explained faith. He said: "Faith is the essence of what is hoped for, that is, the evidence of what is not seen." At that time, when I saw this sentence, I didn't understand it at first, but then my head exploded and it felt incredible. This feeling is a sense of shock that I have never had before. "Hope" and "Invisible", the piety of Dante's faith has made me hard to understand, but he even said that faith is "Hope" and "Invisible", which makes me feel incredible. That'll be the day! Put yourself in my shoes, I won't believe anything I haven't seen, such as ghosts and gods.

But think about it, no matter what the times, Dante's wisdom is by no means mine. If he can sincerely believe in things that don't exist, he will never be blind. Is it really impossible to believe in something that doesn't exist? I tried to recall whether I ever believed in something that didn't exist, and found that it was not only possible, but also something that we all had. I believe that everyone has seen fairy tales when they were young, and the world in fairy tales is beyond doubt. This is not because we know it exists, but because we want it to exist.

"Hope" means the pursuit of beauty and perfection. God is the rational ideal pursued by human beings. In fact, the existence of God is not an important issue. What matters is what is the difference between the existence and non-existence of God. Not exactly, faith can be said to be a pursuit of spiritual realm. Beatrice symbolizes faith, but in fact Dante's love for Beatrice is only his love for the spiritual world, but this pure love can only exist in the spiritual world. A person's soul needs Virgil's guidance if it wants to avoid hell and climb the realm mountain smoothly, but it must be Beatry Qi if it wants to reach the supreme heaven. Without faith, it is impossible to be perfect and complete.

If Virgil represents reason because he is a "sea of wisdom", then why does it represent Beya Treize, whom Dante loves deeply, instead of God or any angel? Naturally, part of the reason is the lofty image of Beya Treize in Dante's mind, but I think a greater part of the reason is that the god in Dante's mind, that is, the entity he believes in, is love. This kind of love is not love in a narrow sense, but love in a very broad sense. Even in Dante's view, it is this kind of love that constitutes the whole world and pushes it forward. The twenty-eighth time in Heaven said, "You know, he turned so fast because he was excited by passionate love." We can see this kind of love full of light everywhere in heaven.

It is natural to be full of love in heaven. Interestingly, Dante also attributed the classification of the seven evils to love. "The key to classification lies in the word' love'. Abnormal love: first, arrogance, gratifying than me; The second is jealousy, which has a curse on gratifying people; The third is anger, and I like to blame others for all my mistakes. Lack of love: this is laziness. People are indifferent and have no enthusiasm for anything. Love too much: this is greed, greed, gluttony and lust. " Mr. Wang Weike is quoted here.

Love is a word full of humanity. The Divine Comedy moved me that although it is a religious work of "preaching", it is full of the brilliance of human nature. In Hell, we can see that Dante's attitude is not his hatred for people who go to hell, but more his pity and sympathy for them. Although he has faith and his rationality, he tells him that "there should be no pity here." Isn't it a sin to express sorrow for God's judgment? "He still can't stop his tears. Going to hell is no better than going to the underworld, and there will never be a chance of redemption (except those awaiting trial). In Dante's view, it is a pity that many people go to hell, but what they did before their death has doomed their souls to be permanently scorched by the fire of hell. Dante's tears reveal a broad feeling of "God loves the world", which is pity for the world. I hope the world will never fall into hell one day.

Divine Comedy reveals the dawn of humanism, but its achievement, in my opinion, is far from it. After the Renaissance, although it was a liberation of human beings and a development of society, too much emphasis on "people" led to a decline in moral standards and social chaos. But in the Divine Comedy, we can not only see "love", but also see the brilliance of reason. Even if God is above us, it is not "absolute obedience" but "free will" that gives people. With this kind of "free will", we can naturally move towards a better future by constantly reviewing our own route.