Divine Liturgy

Dante Gabriel Rossetti once dug up his wife’s grave to retrieve his lost poems; that is adumbrative of his dedication to writing and art. In London, England on May 12th, 1828, an Italian teacher gave birth to one of the best literary minds of all time, Dante Rossetti born Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, his father, an Italian political refugee, and college professor(Riggs, 1998). Born into a family of talent, Dante was the second of four children in the Rossetti family, all four of which would…

A Dark Wood “Midway along the journey of our life / I woke up to find myself in a dark wood, / for I had wandered off from the straight path. / How hard it is to tell what it was like, / this wood of wilderness, savage, and stubborn / (the thought of it brings back all my old fears) / a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer” (1.1-6) Dante Alighieri, who was a politician, intellectual, and poet, was born in Florence, Italy under the sign of the Gemini in the year 1265. Much of Dante’s…

The concept of Hell, to many world religions, refers to either an existential condition or a symbolic or literal place of damnation where the most evil and disgusting are eternally punished for their wrongdoings. Although the exact description of hell varies, the idea and concept of hell alone is known in many religions. Hell is mostly known and described as a disturbing fiery place filled with every fear imaginable, some say it’s located in the middle of earth and some believe it’s another…

In The Divine Comedy: Inferno Dante shows how reading matters in life. There are many reasons of why Dante wrote The Divine Comedy one of them is for literacy purposes. He wrote the comedy in Tuscan Italian instead of Latin; even though, Italian had not been standardized into one language yet. Dante’s Comedy was one of the Italian writing and it became the language that all educated could understand and study. He may have written the comedy for revenge as many think, but in my opinion he wrote…

Deciding the accuracy of the order of sin in Dante’s Inferno, was not easy for me to initially question. Without much familiarity of Christian’s thought on sin, other than not to do them, I decided to start my analysis of Dante’s order of sin from the top. I agree with the placement of Limbo as being the first circle of Hell because the victims had no knowledge of God. My one question for this circle is if not knowing makes one guilty or innocent? Because this question seemed to philosophical…

In order to find one specific idea within the many themes and symbols found in Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno”, I had to look past the obvious themes such as justice, evil, man’s place in the natural world and religious beliefs. Instead I wanted to focus on a theme that occurs in almost every story known to man. The theme I chose is the “journey”, or the concept of importance within a journey. A theme that I feel is mostly overlooked because the audience and character(s) are too focused on the…

God 's Call, by John E. Hare, is based on three lectures Hare gave at Calvin College in which he presents and defends his version of Divine Command Theory. The books is separated into three essays. The first essay gives the historical context of Hare 's theory. In the second Hare lays out his theory. In the third he defends his theory, and compares it to his understanding of Kant 's theory of ethics. Hare argues that the history of moral philosophy is a story of compromise. There exist two…

it is only natural that they reach many points of consensus. When Charles I came into power in 1625 religious conflicts and internal tensions had already begun to form in the aftermath of the protestant reformation. Charles believed that he had a divine right to rule and supported hierarchies in the anglican church. Protestants had a strong opposition to anything that…

Absolutism means that the sovereign power or ultimate authority in the state rested in the hands of a king who claimed to rule by divine right the idea that kings received their power from God and were responsible to no one but God. Catherine The Great and Tokugawa Ieyasu were both known as prominent absolute rulers but, Ieyasu was a more effective absolutist ruler. Tokugawa controlled his country by reasonable means that wouldn’t cause uprisings and distrust while still being the only one to…

Morality Exists Independently from Religion Historically, religion and morality have had an influence on each other. The influence of religion has led to the development of some aspects of morality. For example, many abolitionists were religious leaders. On the other hand, morality has had an influence on religion. For example, morality has influenced the Catholic Church’s role over women and abortion. While religion and morality may influence each other, is one necessary for the other? It is a…