Purgatorio, Canto 4 with Dr. Anthony Clark 

Dr. Clark, Thank you for such a philosophical and poetic presentation. As I am pulling myself up the ladder towards enlightenment and my own mountain of Purgatory my hope is that indeed the pain will become less as I ascend and leave the vale of tears far behind, taking care to avoid being dislodged by my personal demons and with the goal of ending my sojourn in the bosom of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Everyone of these videos is excellent and as I read through Dante's work they each give it deeper resonance and meaning. I have read the Inferno and just finished Purgatorio Cantto 4 and I would say that this particular presentation stands out as first among a very worthy group of equals. Thank you Dr Clark.

What a beautiful summary, Dr. Clark. As we climb our way toward and through Purgatory, the comments of you and your fellow experienced readers are making clear that the work we are reading has served as an intellectual touchstone throughout our culture, with great minds, to use your examples, from the fields of architecture and religious life using the lessons Dante presents to illuminate and comment on their own life experience and to call the rest of us to contemplate what they saw. And you, along with your fellow experienced readers, are also pointing out where Dante fits in the development of the themes he focuses on in the Commedia, like your mention of St. John Climacus here, who discussed life's journey in words that seem to be reflected in Dante's several centuries before Dante was born. .Did Dante know of Climacus? You wisely avoid that assertion, but observe that two thinkers on their own journeys separated by hundreds of years reached similar conclusions about the difficulty of a human's path through life. The succinct way you told the story of Canto 4 of the Purgatorio provided us with several ways we could enrichr our learning from Dante's great poem by seeking the works and authors you cite as having preceded us in pondering this work and the themes it contains. Thank you for taking the time to be one of our guides.

Brilliant incite! Thank you, Dr. Anthony Clark.

This commentary is so richly allusive and insightful. Thank you so much Dr. Clark!

As I read C.IV, I wondered if this (and the rest of Purgatorio) was a good concept to consider for our struggle against the flesh. I believe it is. Every new set of sinners being purged strikes a chord in my own life. Don't be indolent. Climb, pilgrim, climb.

Wonderful discussion! I appreciate the connections made with other “pilgrims” (John Climacus, Merton…) as well as the connections to other disciplines (Gustavo Dore’s art….). Thank you!

Wonderfully encyclopedic, "catholic" reading of this canto. Thank you.

Excellent commentary! So glad that Thomas Merton’s “Seven Storey Mountain” came up. I also loved the mention of “Il libro della scala”.

I love Gustave Dore's illustrations.

Thanks to Dr Clark for a wonderful explanation of Canto 4.

Thank you for an eloquent and theologically rich discussion!

Canto 04: Dante continues his experience in Pugatorio’s Narthex with his pondering of Plato’s “error” that a person was animated by three souls: vegetative or plant-like for the body’s past; emotional or animal-like for the senses of the present; and intellectual or human-like for thinking about the future. In his Platonic-vs-Thomistic pondering, he loses all sense of time. Dante was also challenged by the “error” of the mid-morning sun of Easter-tide being in the “wrong” place. However, he recognized the “error” was because his view was now from south of the earth’s equator. The Contumacious, whose error had been not recognizing God’s authority until the moment of death, had brought Virgil and him to a very long and deep fissure tracing an incline on the mountain they must climb. Virgil assured him that once begun, the climb would become easier. Indeed, correcting errors and purifying the integrated soul, while very difficult initially, become easier the more the person changes through penance and prayer. Since errors (sinfulness) have a communal component, the prayers of others help each repentant sojourner on the passage of purification in Purgatory. On the first ledge where they stop to rest, Dante meets Belacqua, a notoriously lazy, lute-playing, Florentine friend, who is now awaiting his time before being allowed by God’s angel to commence his own purification. Before Belacqua can begin to correct his errors, he must endure one year for each year he had lived in laziness (indolence) while on earth, where he had not practiced the integrated virtues of a human soul.

I really enjoy this series, but sometimes feel like each speaker is merely endeavoring to see how many other works they can possibly quote or reference in relation to "their" canto.

I hope one day I will be half as eloquent as this

I wish he had focused more on the Canto itself.