The still-unknown shade answers Virgil’s questions with an explosive claim: The souls on Mount Purgatory stand up and declare their own purity. Their will is its only proof. But this is an easy passage to misread (or just overstate) in the modern world. There are at least two safeguards the soul’s answer.
Read MoreOn the third terrace of anger on Mount Purgatory and in a dark, dense smoke that permits no light, Marco of Lombardy continues his great discourse on free will with a surprising turn: a developmental hypothesis of the soul as a little girl.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim has asked the angry Marco of Lombardy the central question: why have things become so bad on earth? Marco's begins his answer with both exasperation and affection, then he launches into the heart of the matter: free will. The cause is in all of you.
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