Come read the two better parts of Dante's masterpiece, in which he takes on harder questions and plumbs deeper into the human psyche than in the Inferno - all while writing in increasingly bold and experimental language that includes numerous invented words, borrows frequently from other languages, and masters his own poetic form to a degree reminiscent of Shakespeare's last plays. For anyone interested in the religious and philosophical questions Dante raises, there are few more stimulating texts in the history of the West. (After 2023-24 TheTreasures.org will likely take a hiatus from offering Dante groups, at least in the current form; groups that move at a slower pace may be available.)
Saturdays at 2:30 Eastern, weekly from January 6. Part-time participation is welcome.
Eight bi-weekly sessions will continue the study begun in the fall of the intriguingly varied and creative ways in which Christians have understood the fundamental ritual that predated, and arguably created, their church. We will start with sermons by Augustine on the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, move on to medieval disputes (Ratramnus, Berengar of Tours) that presaged the Reformation, and perhaps have a look at some Scholastic systematizers before passing on to the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century discussions whose aftermath still shapes Christian thought, and perhaps quite a lot of non-Christian thought, today. All are welcome: Christians of various denominations and non-Christians are present in the current group, and participation in last fall's group is not a prerequisite for participating in the spring.
Every other Wednesday at 7:00 Eastern, from January 10. Small adjustments to schedule may be possible to meet group needs.
TheTreasures.org hosts online reading groups designed to provide access to texts that are endlessly engaging, thought-provoking, possibly life-transforming — and typically texts that few people would work their way through on their own.
When one no longer has to work on one’s own, what once seemed a daunting task changes into a joyful experience, a highlight of the week: discovering that a “classic” like Dante’s Divine Comedy or Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy is not a far-off block of impenetrable literary marble, but a living, changing artwork that has vital things to say to us, and perhaps to do to us, in our twenty-first-century lives.