Suzannah Rowntree’s Reviews > Paradise > Status Update

Okay but I love that STRAIGHT after Dante has asked the Just "what about those who die without hearing of Christ", and has been told "whatever God wills is the definition of justice, it's ineffable" he's immediately introduced to two pagans who have found their way to heaven by an unexpected grace of God :')

Okay but this:
"The limpid and distilled benevolence
That from true charity is are diffused
As malice issues from concupiscence"

Malice inescapably issuing from concupiscence. Pithy.

I'm bit past it now but it's wild that in one of the Mercury cantos Dante argues the Roman empire had proper jurisdiction to put Christ to death, so to this day the empire should rule everyone. ...but in the next canto he argues that it was right for Jerusalem to be destroyed for putting Christ to death. so both of them teamed up to kill God but Rome gets rewarded and the Jews destroyed for it?

Dante: at least I have found my dear lady and guide, her eyes aflame with holiest love
Beatrice: *roasts him for 6 cantos straight and counting*

I am reading this as slowly as I like but canto I was gorgeous actually? the big where Dante's like "Beatrice looked at me like I was a delirious infant" made me laugh out loud but the part about how gravity draws the human soul to God as surely as it draws a stream downhill was utterly beautiful