Dr. Junius Johnson

It's taking the bad thing itself and turning it into good, not such that you say that it was good that it came about because it was – that this evil came about.

but rather that this evil is undone by being made into what it wasn't before.

And I think that's the kind of, if you're coming to this text as a 14th century literate Christian who's been keeping up with all the trends in literature and whatnot, and you see that at this moment, your head is just exploding because you're just like, this is crazy.

I can't believe he did that.

He made the rose into the highest image of heaven.

Who does that?

Yeah.

One thing that is worth pointing out, we haven't talked about this yet.

Dante sent the Paradiso to his patron, Khan Gandhi, with a letter that we have.

And in this letter, Dante explains fourfold exegesis.

We did an episode on Four Foot Extra Jesus a few months ago, so if you missed that, check it out.

I think it's one of our best.

And the reason Dante writes a letter about this is because he wants to tell him, I want you to read this book that way.

And he means it over the entire Comedia, but he especially means it with Paradiso.

When you get to Paradiso, there's always at least four things happening all the time.

And so part of what you're watching us or listening to us do here in this episode is try to mine down into some of that and reveal some of those riches.

But this is the argument about this not being boring.

It's not boring.

It's demanding.

It requires you to look beyond the surface and to reach for other connections and to see yourself in it and all of these other sorts of things.