God Economics

“Of worldly splendor He assigned a guide/And minister-she, when time seems proper, spreads (71)”

The idea of Fortune I thought was confusing. I did not realize that in Christianity there was this idea of other “intelligences” having control or God assigning roles to other spiritual beings. I thought the idea of Fortune seemed kind of mythological, one specific goddess in charge of one specific task. She is like Apollo, god of the prophecy, poetry, and music. Fortune is in charge of the spread of wealth, very goddess-like. The fact she was in charge of spreading wealth seemed a little odd. Man, not god, created wealth and money. Humans control the way it is to be dealt out. Fortune takes away our control over man made wealth. I just never thought of god as being to concerned with economics. I figured He would be more worried about ethics. But that time period the church was everything and controlled everything. People’s wealth was no exception so god has to have some say, even if He does not deal with it himself.

“’But pray you: when you return to earth’s sweet light,/Recall my memory there to the human world./Now, I respond and speak no more (61).’”

I thought this was an interesting request, to ask Dante to talk about him to others. And in a way Dante did through his poem. He wanted Ciacco to be a warning to others against gluttony. The notes in the back say other souls Dante encounters request the same thing. They all want to be remembered as warnings to the reader. They use Dante to make their shout outs. Dante creates them as examples. In the story they ask to be made examples.