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PUT THIS IN OPENING SECTION IF ANYWHERE Many evangelicals prefer the term "abstinence" to "celibacy". Assuming everyone will marry, they focus their discussion on refraining from premarital sex and focusing on the joys of a future marriage. But some evangelicals, particularly older singles, desire a positive message of celibacy that moves beyond the "wait until marriage" message of abstinence campaigns. They seek a new understanding of celibacy that is focused on God rather than a future marriage or a lifelong vow to the Church.

PUT THIS IN THE CATHOLIC CELIBACY ARTICLE IF ANYWHERE The classical heritage flourished throughout the Middle Ages in both the Byzantine Greek East and the Latin West. Will Durant has made a case that certain prominent features of Plato's ideal community were discernible in the organization, dogma and effectiveness of "the" Medieval Church in Europe:+"Greater understanding of human psychology has led to questions regarding the impact of celibacy on the human development of the clergy. The realization that many non-European countries view celibacy negatively has prompted questions concerning the value of retaining celibacy as an absolute and universal requirement for ordained ministry in the Roman Catholic Church"+"The declining number of priests in active ministry, the exemption from the requirement of celibacy for married clergy who enter the Catholic Church after having been ordained in the Episcopal Church, and reported incidences of de facto nonobservance of the requirement by clergy in various parts of the world, especially in Africa and Latin America, suggests that the discussion [of celibacy] will continue."

Christianity

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, an Algonquin-Mohawk Catholic laywoman who took a private vow of perpetual virginity

St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness by Raphael, circa 1517

A Russian orthodox nun and monk in the Old City of Jerusalem, 2012

When Jesus discusses marriage, he points out that there is some responsibility for a man marrying a woman (and vice versa). Not having assets of their own, women needed to be protected from the risk of their husbands' putting them on the street at whim. In those times marriage was an economic matter rather than one of love. A woman and her children could easily be rejected. Restriction of divorce was based on the necessity of protecting the woman and her position in society, not necessarily in a religious context, but an economic context. He also points out that there are those "which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake", but in the original Greek, the word εὐνοῦχος means "castrated person". It was the custom at the time Jesus lived for priests of some ancient gods and goddesses to be castrated. In the pre-Christian period Vestals, who served the virgin goddess of the hearth, were obliged to forgo marriage, and so were some priests and servants of some ancient deities such as Isis.

There is no commandment in the New Testament that Jesus' disciples have to live in celibacy. The general view on sexuality among the early Jewish Christians was quite positive. Jesus himself does not speak in negative terms of the body in the New Testament. While the Jewish sect of essenes practiced celibacy the general practice of the Jewish community by that time prescribed marriage for everybody, and at an early age. Saint Peter, also known as Simon Peter, the Apostle was married; Jesus healed Simon Peter's mother-in-law (Matt. 8:14), and other apostles and church members among the early Jewish Christians were also married: Paul's personal friends, Priscilla and Aquila (Romans 16:3), who were Paul's coworkers, Andronicus of Pannonia (Romans 16:7), and Junia (Romans 16:7), who were highly regarded among the apostles, Ananias and Sapphira (Ap 5:1), Apphia and Philemon (Phil 1: 1). According to Eusebius' Church History (Historia Ecclesiastica), Paul the Apostle, also known as Saul of Tarsus, was also married. It was the custom in the Jewish community to marry early.

In his early writings, Paul the Apostle described marriage as a social obligation that has the potential of distracting from Christ. Sex, in turn, is not sinful but natural, and sex within marriage is both proper and necessary. In his later writings, Paul made parallels between the relations between spouses and God's relationship with the church. "Husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the church. Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies" (Ephesians 5:25–28). The early Christians lived in the belief that the End of the World would soon come upon them, and saw no point in planning new families and having children. This was why Paul encouraged both celibate and marital lifestyles among the members of the Corinthian congregation, regarding celibacy as the preferable of the two.

Paul the Apostle emphasized the importance of overcoming the desires of the flesh and saw the state of celibacy being superior to the marriage.

In the Catholic Church, a consecrated virgin, is a woman who has been consecrated by the church to a life of perpetual virginity in the service of God. According to most Christian thought, the first sacred virgin was Mary, the mother of Jesus, who was consecrated by the Holy Spirit during the Annunciation. Tradition also has it that the Apostle Matthew consecrated virgins. A number of early Christian martyrs were women or girls who had given themselves to Christ in perpetual virginity, such as Saint Agnes and Saint Lucy.

Desert Fathers

Saint Macarius and a Cherub from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt

The Desert Fathers were Christian hermits, and ascetics who had a major influence on the development of Christianity and celibacy. Paul of Thebes is often credited with being the first hermit monk to go to the desert, but it was Anthony the Great who launched the movement that became the Desert Fathers. Sometime around AD 270, Anthony heard a Sunday sermon stating that perfection could be achieved by selling all of one's possessions, giving the proceeds to the poor, and following Christ.(Matt. 19.21) He followed the advice and made the further step of moving deep into the desert to seek complete solitude.

Over time, the model of Anthony and other hermits attracted many followers, who lived alone in the desert or in small groups. They chose a life of extreme asceticism, renouncing all the pleasures of the senses, rich food, baths, rest, and anything that made them comfortable. Thousands joined them in the desert, mostly men but also a handful of women. Religious seekers also began going to the desert seeking advice and counsel from the early Desert Fathers. By the time of Anthony's death, there were so many men and women living in the desert in celibacy that it was described as "a city" by Anthony's biographer. The first Conciliar document on celibacy of the Western Christian Church (Synod of Elvira, c.  305 can. xxxiii) states that the discipline of celibacy is to refrain from the use of marriage, i.e. refrain from having carnal contact with one's spouse.

According to the later St. Jerome (c. 347 – 420), celibacy is a moral virtue, consisting of living in the flesh, but outside the flesh, and so being not corrupted by it (vivere in carne praeter carnem). Celibacy excludes not only libidinous acts, but also sinful thoughts or desires of the flesh. Jerome referred to marriage prohibition for priests when he claimed in Against Jovinianus that Peter and the other apostles had been married before they were called, but subsequently gave up their marital relations. Celibacy as a vocation may be independent from religious vows (as is the case with consecrated virgins, ascetics and hermits).

St. Augustine

Nuns in procession, French manuscript, c. 1300

In the early Church, higher clerics lived in marriages. Augustine of Hippo was one of the first to develop a theory that sexual feelings were sinful and negative. Augustine taught that the original sin of Adam and Eve was either an act of foolishness (insipientia) followed by pride and disobedience to God, or else inspired by pride. The first couple disobeyed God, who had told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17). The tree was a symbol of the order of creation. Self-centeredness made Adam and Eve eat of it, thus failing to acknowledge and respect the world as it was created by God, with its hierarchy of beings and values. They would not have fallen into pride and lack of wisdom, if Satan had not sown into their senses "the root of evil" (radix Mali). Their nature was wounded by concupiscence or libido, which affected human intelligence and will, as well as affections and desires, including sexual desire. The sin of Adam is inherited by all human beings. Already in his pre-Pelagian writings, Augustine taught that Original Sin was transmitted by concupiscence, which he regarded as the passion of both soul and body, making humanity a massa damnata (mass of perdition, condemned crowd) and much enfeebling, though not destroying, the freedom of the will.

In the early 3rd century, the Canons of the Apostolic Constitutions decreed that only lower clerics might still marry after their ordination, but marriage of bishops, priests, and deacons were not allowed. Augustine's view of sexual feelings as sinful affected his view of women. For example, he considered a man's erection to be sinful, though involuntary, because it did not take place under his conscious control. His solution was to place controls on women to limit their ability to influence men. He equated flesh with woman and spirit with man.

He believed that the serpent approached Eve because she was less rational and lacked self-control, while Adam's choice to eat was viewed as an act of kindness so that Eve would not be left alone. Augustine believed sin entered the world because man (the spirit) did not exercise control over woman (the flesh). Augustine's views on women were not all negative, however. In his Tractates on the Gospel of John, Augustine, commenting on the Samaritan woman from John 4:1–42, uses the woman as a figure of the church.

According to Raming, the authority of the Decretum Gratiani, a collection of Roman Catholic canon law which prohibits women from leading, teaching, or being a witness, rests largely on the views of the early church fathers, especially St. Augustine. The laws and traditions founded upon St. Augustine's views of sexuality and women continue to exercise considerable influence over church doctrinal positions regarding the role of women in the church.

Catholic Church

Conventual Franciscan friar, 2012

See also: Clerical celibacy in the Catholic Church

During the first three or four centuries, no law was promulgated prohibiting clerical marriage. Celibacy was a matter of choice for bishops, priests, and deacons.

Statutes forbidding clergy from having wives were written beginning with the Council of Elvira (306) but these early statutes were not universal and were often defied by clerics and then retracted by hierarchy. The Synod of Gangra (345) condemned a false asceticism whereby worshipers boycotted celebrations presided over by married clergy." The Apostolic Constitutions (c. 400) excommunicated a priest or bishop who left his wife 'under the pretense of piety"’ (Mansi, 1:51).

"A famous letter of Synesius of Cyrene (c. 414) is evidence both for the respecting of personal decision in the matter and for contemporary appreciation of celibacy. For priests and deacons clerical marriage continued to be in vogue".

"The Second Lateran Council (1139) seems to have enacted the first written law making sacred orders a diriment impediment to marriage for the universal Church." Celibacy was first required of some clerics in 1123 at the First Lateran Council. Because clerics resisted it, the celibacy mandate was restated at the Second Lateran Council (1139) and the Council of Trent (1545–64). In places, coercion and enslavement of clerical wives and children was apparently involved in the enforcement of the law. "The earliest decree in which the children [of clerics] were declared to be slaves and never to be enfranchised [freed] seems to have been a canon of the Synod of Pavia in 1018. Similar penalties were promulgated against wives and concubines (see the Synod of Melfi, 1189 can. xii), who by the very fact of their unlawful connexion with a subdeacon or clerk of higher rank became liable to be seized by the over-lord". Celibacy for priests continues to be a contested issue even today.

In the Roman Catholic Church, the Twelve Apostles are considered to have been the first priests and bishops of the Church. Some say the call to be eunuchs for the sake of Heaven in Matthew 19 was a call to be sexually continent and that this developed into celibacy for priests as the successors of the apostles. Others see the call to be sexually continent in Matthew 19 to be a caution for men who were too readily divorcing and remarrying.

The view of the Church is that celibacy is a reflection of life in Heaven, a source of detachment from the material world which aids in one's relationship with God. Celibacy is designed to "consecrate themselves with undivided heart to the Lord and to "the affairs of the Lord, they give themselves entirely to God and to men. It is a sign of this new life to the service of which the Church's minister is consecrated; accepted with a joyous heart celibacy radiantly proclaims the Reign of God." In contrast, Saint Peter, whom the Church considers its first Pope, was married given that he had a mother-in-law whom Christ healed (Matthew 8).

Usually, only celibate men are ordained as priests in the Latin Rite. Married clergy who have converted from other Christian denominations can be ordained Roman Catholic priests without becoming celibate. Priestly celibacy is not doctrine of the Church (such as the belief in the Assumption of Mary) but a matter of discipline, like the use of the vernacular (local) language in Mass or Lenten fasting and abstinence. As such, it can theoretically change at any time though it still must be obeyed by Catholics until the change were to take place. The Eastern Catholic Churches ordain both celibate and married men. However, in both the East and the West, bishops are chosen from among those who are celibate. In Ireland, several priests have fathered children, the two most prominent being Bishop Eamonn Casey and Father Michael Cleary.

Discalced Carmelites from Argentina, 2013

The reintroduction of a permanent diaconate has permitted the Church to allow married men to become deacons but they may not go on to become priests.

In the Catholic, Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox traditions, bishops are required to be celibate. In the Eastern Christian traditions, priests and deacons are allowed to be married, yet have to remain celibate if they are unmarried at the time of ordination.

Catholic priests from all over the world in Budapest, 2013

One explanation for the origin of obligatory celibacy is that it is based on the writings of Saint Paul, who wrote of the advantages celibacy allowed a man in serving the Lord. Celibacy was popularised by the early Christian theologians like Saint Augustine of Hippo and Origen. Another possible explanation for the origins of obligatory celibacy revolves around more practical reason, "the need to avoid claims on church property by priests' offspring". It remains a matter of Canon Law (and often a criterion for certain religious orders, especially Franciscans) that priests may not own land and therefore cannot pass it on to legitimate or illegitimate children. The land belongs to the Church through the local diocese as administered by the Local Ordinary (usually a bishop), who is often an ex officio corporation sole. It includes clerical celibacy, celibacy of the consecrated life, and voluntary lay celibacy.

Protestant denominations

Many of the leading figures of the Protestant Reformation rejected celibate life for preachers and sexual continence for married preachers. A few minor Christian sects advocate celibacy as a better way of life. These groups included the Shakers, the Harmony Society and the Ephrata Cloister.

There are also many Pentecostal churches which practice celibate ministry. For instance, The full-time ministers of the Pentecostal Mission are celibate and generally single. Married couples who enter full-time ministry may become celibate and could be sent to different locations.

Some homosexual evangelicals choose to be celibate following their denomination's teachings on homosexuality. In 2014, the American Association of Christian Counselors amended its code of ethics to eliminate the promotion of conversion therapy for homosexuals and encouraged them to be celibate instead.

Index 1 Biography 2 Cacciaguida in Paradise 2.1 The role of Cacciaguida 2.2 The Canto XV 2.3 The Canto XVI 2.4 The Canto XVII 3 Note 4 Bibliography 5 Other projects 6 External links

Biography

We don't know much about him; the only direct sources that attest to their existence are two documents from 1189 and 1201 [1] , the other information has been handed down to us by his illustrious descendant in an indirect form in the description of their meeting in Paradise . Cacciaguida was the progenitor of the Elisei Alighieri family , who however took their name from his wife, a woman from the "Val di Pado" [2] , whom Boccaccio and other ancient commentators want from Ferrara [1] [3] . His mother was called Maria [4] , and had Moronto and Elisha as brothers [5]. Invested Knight by Conrad III of Swabia , Cacciaguida followed in the Second Crusade ( 1147 - 1149 ), during which he met his death [6] . Regarding the date of birth and death, rivers of ink have been spilled. Dante provides the reader with a very complex astronomical periphrasis:

""From uttering of the 'Ave,' / till the birth In which my mother, who is now a saint, / Of me was lightened who had been her burden, / Unto its Lion had this fire returned / Five hundred fifty times and thirty more, / To reinflame itself beneath his paw." (Paradise , XVI, vv. 34-39)

The date of birth today unanimously recognized by literary criticism is that of 1091 , determined on the basis of precise scientific calculations by Guido Horn D'Arturo after centuries of debate [1] . As for the date of death, the pivot of the debate focused on the figure of the emperor Conrad: Pietro Alighieri confused him with Conrad II the Salicus , while other commentators thought of a confusion of Dante, as Conrad III never went to Italy. as emperor. Against this hypothesis, however, those who are in favor of seeing Corrado III in "lo 'mperador Currado" affirm that he went down to Italy in his fight for the coronation against Lothair II of Supplimburg , and that nothing forbids the historical hypothesis of Cacciaguida's participation in the second crusade [1] , where he died, perhaps, during the retreat of the Christian army [7] . Therefore, the critics are unanimous in considering that vague Corrado the uncle of Federico Barbarossa [7] .

Cacciaguida in the Paradiso

Cacciaguida, illustration by Gustave Doré Cacciaguida's role Dante meets his ancestor during his journey to Paradise, crossing the sky of Mars , which hosts the souls of the fighters for the faith [7] . The chronicle of the meeting occupies three cantos (from the fifteenth to the seventeenth) of the third cantica of the Divine Comedy . The three songs are also important from a political point of view because we provide a lot of information on the most noble and powerful family of the Elisei Alighieri and Florence in the twelfth century , but they are even more for the moral function that Cacciaguida plays. In fact, the crusader becomes a spokesperson [8]of the indignation felt by Dante towards the corruption into which Florence has fallen , recalling the purity of ancient customs. Even more, however, Cacciaguida is the one who reveals to Dante the other post-eventum prophecies revealed to him during the afterlife journey, clarifying his future exile and finally pushing the great-great-grandson to reveal what he has seen in the three kingdoms, thus challenging the hatreds of those who are relatives of the damned seen by Dante. In short, in the Cacciaguida episode:

"And in those songs the most significant expression of the poetic and religious content of the poem is condensed, with its fusion of autobiography and episodic contingent, and of universal instances and expectations ... which is projected towards the future"

( Raffaello Morghen, Dante prophet: between history and the eternal , p. 40 )

The Canto XV

In canto XV , Cacciaguida tells Dante what the Florence of his time was like, still included in the fourth wall, dating back to the time of Charlemagne and reinforced in the following centuries [9] [10] . The little Florence of those times is described as a "sober and modest" town [11], so different from that of Dante's time. Back then, Cacciaguida recounts, women didn't go for a walk with expensive clothes and jewels; the birth of a daughter was not viewed with fear of future rich dowry; the houses were modest and the outward appearance of Florence was not yet sumptuous; no censurable sexual behavior was widespread; the nobles dressed soberly and were not ashamed of exercising humble professions; finally, families did not face migratory odyssey just to carry out trade.

The Canto XVI

In canto XVI , Cacciaguida answers some questions that Dante asks him about past Florence: from the answers the reader learns that the city had a fifth of the inhabitants at the time compared to the beginning of the fourteenth century [12] , who had not yet seen the immigration of families from the countryside, often carriers of delinquency, and that the city boundary was then at Galluzzo and Trespiano [13] . Cacciaguida says that the immigration of new people, favored by the Church, is the cause of the current discords, which will lead to the ruin of the city and concludes by listing some famous Florentine families that were powerful then but decayed at the time of the nephew. Dante's critique of the materialist degradation into which Florence at the beginning of the fourteenth century fell is an implicit accusation against those families of merchants and parvenus who stained the values ​​on which the ancient nobility was founded [14] , also implicitly reiterating that nobility is not only in the coat of arms, but also in the code of ethics and moral conduct. The song ends with the story of the famous clash between Amidei and Buondelmonti in 1215 , which gave rise to the struggles betweenGuelphs and Ghibellines [15] .

The Canto XVII

In canto XVII , Cacciaguida predicts to Dante the events of his future life, that is, his exile from Florence and his wandering and solitary life [16] . It also reveals Dante's mission once he returns to the world: through Cacciaguida, in fact, God invests Dante with the task of revealing his will to humanity in order to save it, and institutes him in the mission of poet- prophet [17] .

Hollander Paradiso Canto 32, Lines 31-32 for disagreeing with Aquinas

On the hierarchy of Heaven and the angels, for example, Dante relies more on his first-hand knowledge of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.

The most obvious influences are found in The Inferno, with classical figures like Charon, the Furies, and the Minotaur appearing as described in sections of The Aeneid, The Metamorphoses, and The Thebaid set in the Underworld. Several tortures in the Inferno are also explicitly compared to classical incidents, such as when the narrator compares the task of describing Vanni Fucci's transformation to the many transformations in The Metamorphoses or when Virgil calls attention to the fact that Dante had heard about talking trees by reading The Aeneid.

While less explicit than in the Inferno, the influence of all four writers is seen in Dante's metaphors and the episodes throughout all three canticles. Most notably, Dante borrows a tragic device from Virgil by having his narrator repeat Virgil's name three times in three lines upon Virgil's departure, just as Orpheus mourned the death of his wife in The Georgics.

Just before that, Dante had made reference to feeling "l'antica fiamma," an Italian translation of the phrase "vestigia flammae" which Virgil used to described Queen Dido's tragic love for Aeneas. This feels kind of irrelevant, but this is all shooting from the hip, so whatever.

How to Cite Dante Lab To cite texts accessed on Dante Lab, please use the following formula:

Cited from the commentary to [cantica, canto.line(s)] by [author(s) of commentary, (publication information)], as found on Dante Lab, http://dantelab.dartmouth.edu.

Example: Cited from the commentary to Purgatorio, IX.124-6 by Jacopo della Lana, Comedia di Dante degli Allaghieri col Commento di Jacopo della Lana bolognese, a cura di Luciano Scarabelli (Bologna: Tipografia Regia, 1866-67), as found on Dante Lab, http://dantelab.dartmouth.edu.

Machine Translation of Relevant Italian Section

Linguistic Sources

One of the most difficult problems of Italian philology is the study of the language of the main authors of its literary tradition. This problem is strictly connected to the study of the manuscript tradition of the works. In Dante's case, the question is much more complex and delicate as the origin of the Italian language has traditionally been identified in the Dante poem. The definition of "father of the Italian language", often used for Dante, is not just a theory of contemporary criticism; generations of readers, starting from the first commentators up to modern exegetes, could not help but confront, even when they put other linguistic and literary models before the Comedy, with the sacred poem. For example, Bembo's theorization in the Prose of the vulgar language, as fundamentally normative, tended to canonize a linguistic model closer to Petrarch than to Dante. Nevertheless, in the Prose, the poem is in any case the most important text to refer to, also and above all in a critical perspective, for its linguistic and lexical richness.

However, the inalienable importance of the Comedy is demonstrated by the weight attributed to Dante's poem in the compilation of the first Vocabulary of the Academicians of the Crusca. Since the number of citations of the Comedy far exceeds that of any other work and since it is evident that the influence of a vocabulary on the historical development of a language is certainly greater than that of any single work, its centrality is demonstrated of the poem for the Italian linguistic and literary conscience.

On the other hand, the history of the manuscript tradition demonstrates how much the process of copying the poem has contributed from the very beginning to the formation of a vulgar Italian literary. However, the exact form of Dante's language is still the subject of study and debate, as is the case with the major works of ancient literature. Usually, it is considered an effective solution to rely on the language of the oldest witness of a work. In the case of the Comedy, it is the Trivulziano manuscript 1080.

Stylistic Sources

Dante cannot be separated from the Provençal poetic tradition, just as the Dolce_Stil_Novo of which Dante was a distinguished representative cannot be separated from Provençal poetry. Dante's style and language derive from characteristic ways of medieval Latin literature: syntactic juxtaposition (short successive elements) caesuras, detachments, a style that does not know the fluidity and the mediated and bound way of the moderns. Dante loves concentrated expression, visual relief and shuns logical ties, his language is essential.

Unlike Petrarch who used a simple and pure language, characterized by a very limited number of words, according to a unilingual criterion, Dante in the Commedia adopts a great breadth of lexicon and stylistic registers, from the lowest and "comic" in the medieval sense of the term, at the highest and "sublime". We therefore speak of Dante's multilingualism.

Scholarship on Dante's Sources

Research on Dante's education is still open; he almost certainly did not regularly attend an institution of higher studies, and yet his work demonstrates perfect knowledge of the disciplines of the Arts, taught as a common basis to all university faculties. The hypothesis of his contacts with a group of Bolognese Averroist philosophers has been advanced. He almost certainly he studied Tuscan poetry, at a time when the Sicilian Poetic School, a cultural group originally from Sicily, was beginning to be known in Tuscany. His interests led him to discover Provençal minstrels and poets and Latin culture.

His devotion to Virgil is evident (You are my teacher and my author, / you are only the one from whom I took away / the beautiful stylus that did me honor, Inferno v. 85 canto I), even if the Divine Comedy brings into play a complex classical and Christian tradition by exalting the Italian culture; wanting to recall some sources, one can start from verse 32 of Hell "I am not Aeneas, I am not Paul" in which the two key texts on which his work is based are presented: the Aeneid, (in particular canto VI) and the Second Letter to the Corinthians of St. Paul, where he tells of his ecstatic rapture.

Numerous other texts act on Dante's imagination, from Macrobius's Commentary to Somnium Scipionis (on a part of Book VI of Cicero's Republic), in which the vision of the celestial spheres and the abode of great souls are narrated, to the Apocalypse of S John, as the less known apocryphal Apocalypse of s. Paul (condemned by Saint Augustine, but very widespread in the late Middle Ages), which contains some descriptions of the infernal pains and the first generic definition of the existence of Purgatory. The theme of the vision had great success in the Middle Ages, and many of these stories of experiences mistics were known to Dante, such as the Navigatio sancti Brendani, the Visio Tnugdali, the Purgatory of St. Patrick and the Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great. The following medieval "visions" should also be mentioned: Ansello's Vision (12th century) and Eynsham's Vision (12th century). It must also be remembered the journey beyond the world (catabasis) of Drythelm in the Ecclesiastical History of England written by Bede the Venerable in the eighth century. In it the protagonist's soul, guided by a luminous spirit, visits the hellish places of the damned where she fears being taken by devils but is saved by the spirit-guide and led to admire the luminous and fragrant meadows of the chosen souls who sing choirs heavenly. After this otherworldly experience the soul reenters the body and the protagonist lives a holy life to deserve celestial bliss. In the Legend of the journey of three holy monks to the earthly Paradise (10th century), it is told instead of three monks of enormous goodness who arrive from the river of Zion to the earthly Paradise whose door is guarded by a cherub. Inside they meet the prophets Enoch and Elijah. Then they leave again believing that they have lived in the earthly Paradise for three days while in reality they have spent three years there.

Even contemporary Jewish eschatology seems to have been present to Dante: in particular, it is thought that he could have read the works of Hillel da Verona, who spent the last years of his life in Forlì, dying there shortly before Dante's arrival in that city.

Very often it is Dante, presenting the various authors in his work, who leaves a superficial view of his library; for example, in the sky of the Sun (cantos X and XII) of Paradise he meets two crowns of wise spirits, and among these mystics, theologians, canonists and philosophers are Hugh of Saint Victor, Gratian, Peter Lombard, Joachim of Fiore etc.

Other more recent and more superficial sources in the Comedy should be considered the rough poems by Giacomino da Verona (De Ierusalem coelesti and De Babilonia civitate infernali), the Book of the three scriptures by Bonvesin de la Riva, with the description of the kingdoms of the Hereafter, and the Vision of the Cassinese monk Alberico. Also worth mentioning is the allegorical-didactic poem Detto del Gatto lupesco (XII century), an allegorical journey of a knight-hero who must overcome three obstacles, a symbol of evil, to reach eternal bliss.

On Dante's classical library one must be satisfied with internal deductions from his texts, with the direct and indirect citations they contain; it can be said that Ovid, Statius and Lucan are the most influential next to Virgil, followed by Livy, Pliny, Frontinus, Paulus Orosius, who were already present, with the addition of Horace and the exclusion of Statius, in the Vita Nuova (XXV, 9-10), meaning that these were the most widespread and most widely read poets in medieval scholarship, leaving open the hypothesis of their frequentation by Dante.

Relevance of the Divine Comedy

Dante's poem is a very high testimony of medieval civilization, a synthesis of cultural, cosmological, historical - philosophical and theological models of that civilization. However, the work also has its perennial validity and has a fundamental historical and civil function. The historian Giuliano Procacci writes: "Through Dante the particular pedagogical and civil function performed by intellectuals in the formation of an Italian koiné (the Italian language, or the illustrious vulgar) was highlighted for the first time and, reading the Divine Comedy, the cultured Italian public had for the first time the distinct sensation of belonging to a civilization which, despite its variety and its polycentrism, possessed common foundations ". Dante then conceived the work as a moral mission that transmitted values such as order, justice, peace, freedom, rationality, moral dignity . It is a system of values opposed to the logic of many political and religious powers as well as to the logic of profit of the mercantile bourgeoisie. Dante's poem also contains the analysis of eternal problems for man such as Good and Evil, life and death, the afterlife.

Content in this edit is translated from the existing Italian Wikipedia article at it:Divina_Commedia; see its history for attribution.

41. La Lingua della Commedia - Treccani Portale Archiviato il 26 giugno 2015 in Internet Archive.

42. The Incredible Vision of St. Drythelm, su classicalchristianity.com. URL consultato il 1º giugno 2019.

43. Il Purgatorio nel Magistero, su reginamundi.info. URL consultato il 1º giugno 2019.

44. Il viaggio dei tre monaci nel Paradiso Terrestre, su iisvaldagno.it. URL consultato il 1º giugno 2019.

45. Detto del Gatto Lupesco - Biblioteca Classica Uroboro, su emt.it. URL consultato il 1º giugno 2019.

46. Libro della Scala - Enciclopedia Dantesca, Enciclopedia Treccani.

47. Frederick Copleston (1950). A History of Philosophy, Volume 2. London: Continuum. p. 200.

48. Intervista a Maria Corti, su emsf.rai.it. URL consultato il 25 agosto 2014 (archiviato dall'url originale il 14 luglio 2014).

49. Giuliano Procacci,Storia degli italiani, Laterza, Bari, 1971)

50. Dante Alighieri, Commedia. Inferno, a cura di G. Inglese, Carocci, Roma, 2007, pp. 385-396