Does Achilles regret dying in Troy for immortal glory?

Many say “yes,” because he tells Odysseus he would rather be alive as a poor farmer than dwell in the house of death.

Others say “no,” as you must recall who is telling the story, Odysseus the liar, who frames himself as the hero, the new Heracles.

Yet, others call for a careful reading of how Achilles speaks of his son and father and the subtle lessons there.

The question of Achilles’ regret, under the careful hand of Homer the philosopher, becomes a question of yours—will you regret how you satisfy your soul?

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What is the rage of Achilles?

The Iliad opens with the word “rage,” and it refers to the rage of Achilles—but this is no ordinary rage. It is a Greek word normally reserved for a divine rage, the anger of the gods, but here it applies to a man, Achilles. Why?

Achilles is the son of King Peleus, a mortal, and the immortal sea goddess Thetis. Before their marriage, Poseidon and Zeus were pursuing Thetis, but Prometheus, the titan with the gift of foresight, told them that Thetis’ son would be greater than his father. Zeus was always wary of having a son that could usurp him, as he had done to his father, Cronos, and as Cronos had done to his father, Uranus. It is one reason Zeus delighted in sleeping with mortals, as their demigod sons would never be strong enough to dethrone him.

To preserve his sovereignty, Zeus married Thetis to a mortal, Peleus, to ensure that the offspring would only be part god and thus not a threat. In other words, Achilles has a spirit that was destined to be the new Zeus, the new king of all the gods and men, trapped in a mortal body—an existential angst. Moreover, he has a natural superiority, an unmatched spiritedness that chafes at obeying lesser men. He was supposed to be the king of the gods, and now he is not even the king of men.

The Iliad opens with rage, because this is the central conflict: Achilles, the best of men, is dishonored by the leader of the Achaean army, King Agamemnon.

Yet, Achilles has a choice.

What are the fates of Achilles?

Unlike most men, Achilles was given a choice as to what fate he would endure. In the Iliad, Achilles tells an emissary of Achaeans, including Odysseus, that his mother, Thetis, presented him with two fates. He could either live a long, peaceful life at home, or he could fight and die in the Trojan war. But here is the catch. If he elects to live a peaceful life at home, his name will die out soon afterward; but, if he elects to fight and die in Troy, he will win everlasting glory (kleos)—his name will never be forgotten.

After King Agamemnon dishonored him, Achilles is tempted to return home and live out the fate of a peaceful life. Yet, after Hector, Prince of Troy, killed Achilles’ friend Patroclus, the rage of Achilles is redirected, and he decides to remain at Troy and kill Hector—and win his everlasting glory.

Achilles kills Hector, and his god-like rage returns to a simmer, especially through the acts of Hector’s father, King Priam of Troy. The Iliad ends with burial of Hector, but we know from tradition that Achilles died prior to the fall of Troy—he was shot in the heel by Prince Paris of Troy; hence, the famous idiom of an “Achilles’ heel.”

And many hold that Achilles is the hero of the Iliad.

But does his heroic reputation survive the Odyssey?

How is Achilles a hero?

It would be difficult to exaggerate the mimetic power of Achilles, especially for young men.

He is naturally superior and can best anyone in sheer power, yet he suffers the idiocy of lesser men. He has the spirit to be the king of the gods, but he is not even the king of men—and this rage of his aligns well with the existential angst of many young men who find themselves better than their so-called superiors.

Achilles is a sign of natural right, of a natural superiority and right to rule that outshines the so-often pusillanimous, bureaucratic leadership of lesser men. He is the most thumotic man who has ever lived, a soul with an unquenchable thirst for glory coupled with the capacity to accomplish the great deeds that earn it.

Yet, does Achilles regret his decision?

In the Odyssey, Odysseus travels to the house of death and speaks to the shade of Achilles—and many interpret his words to express regret for his life of glory.

And this would be devastating to the mimetic power of Achilles, to his life of natural superiority and natural right.

Did Achilles regret his decision?

Or is the truth something more subtle, something Homer wants you to notice about what it means to be a hero?

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You must know your soul’s offspring.

Many act as if love were a cheap feeling, a barren emotion unworthy of discipline or deep consideration.

But love is never sterile. When your soul loves something, it is always fecund—it always generates something.

Here is how you can learn the parts of your soul, their loves, and their offspring.

Learn how you can love beauty and bring beauty into the world.

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A Quick Map of the Soul

Everyone wants to feel fulfilled, happy, and at rest. The primal desire of your soul to satiate in beauty and be happy is called eros, your erotic love. It is a need-love, a self-love, the desire to possess good and beautiful things and delight in them. Eros is the primordial force of the human condition, the drive of mankind—the hunger of the soul that animates humanity.

The question of eros is the question of mankind.

What is man and what does he desire?

And it is said that the soul has three parts and each part loves a certain beauty. The intellect loves truth, the spirited part loves nobility, and the appetitive loves pleasure. The intellect (nous) must govern the soul with the assistance of the spirited part (thumos) as the appetitive part (epithymia) and its love for pleasure will dominate if left unchecked.

And it is also said, whether in the books of the Platonists or the Christian saints, that each part of the soul has a virtue that perfects it—a virtue being, as Socrates stated, a type of health or beauty of the soul.

In other words, how does each part of the soul guide its erotic appetite for beauty according to reason?

In sum, the soul is guided by the four cardinal virtues—which are articulated both by Plato and the Old Testament. Prudence guides the intellect, courage guides the spirited, and temperance guides the appetitive.

What of justice? Justice perfects the whole soul, making it beautiful by arranging its parts in harmony and order.

But there is another aspect of the soul that is rarely discussed.

Its offspring.

The Beautiful Offspring of the Soul

Eros is always fecund. When eros satiates in beauty it always produces something in the soul. But how does this work with the three parts of the soul?

When the intellect, the noetic power, embraces truth, it produces wisdom—wisdom is knowledge of the whole. In the Old Testament the author is desirous of Lady Wisdom, and asks for her to be with him always (Wis 9:10), and amongst the Greeks we see the pursuit of truth finds its zenith in philosophy, the “love of wisdom.”

When the spirited part, or thumotic power, embraces nobility, it produces fame, glory, and honor. In the Old Testament, one could think of King David and the glory his deeds wrought, and amongst the Greeks the classic example par excellence is Achilles—the unbridled thumos incarnate. In fact, all the heroes of Troy seek their kleos, their glory, and are desirous of their aristeia, their supreme moment of glory merited by courage on the battlefield.

When the appetitive part embraces pleasure, the zenith of this act is found in the sexual act, hence the normative association of the term erotic, and it produces children. In the Old Testament, as Pope Benedict XVI observes, this erotic desire is set within marriage, and the framework is given within the first human relation: Adam and Eve. Men and women come together in marriage and become one flesh and multiply. Amongst the Greeks, marriage is not stressed as it is amongst the Hebrews, but children are still seen as the zenith of the appetitive, as noted by Diotima in the Symposium.

And the offspring of the soul reveal something more existential about your erotic desire.

It is endless.

And each offspring of the soul hints at deep desire hidden within the human heart.

The Human Desire for Immortality

You always want to be happy. You never want to be unhappy. Thus, if eros is the desire to possess beautiful things and be happy, your erotic appetite is endless. For all things in this life are finite and exhaustible, but your eros is infinite and inexhaustible. You simply and always want more.

This human desire for the infinite can lead to an insatiable desire to consume, an irrational desire to satiate, to possess—what the Greeks call pleonexia. In a Christian setting, you would speak of avarice, envy, and lust.

Yet, in another way, the natural hierarchy of the soul attempts to satiate the soul’s natural desire for infinitude by offering it an immortality of sorts.

In other words, every natural beauty loved by the soul gives it a type of infinity, a type of immortality.

In the intellect, the love of truth leads to wisdom, and wisdom, in the Platonic tradition, is the contemplation of the Ideas, the eternal Forms. St. Augustine placed these Ideas within the Divine Mind, the Logos, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity that became flesh in Jesus Christ. In other words, wisdom leads to the participation of something eternal, something infinite.

In the thumotic, the love of nobility leads to fame, glory, and honor, and these provide a type of immortality—a name that is never forgotten. Again, one could turn to Achilles who elected to die in Troy and receive immortal glory.

In the appetitive, the love of pleasure, which has its zenith in sex and, in the Christian tradition, sex within marriage, produces children—and children are a type of immortality. The self lives on through its offspring, through copies of itself and its beloved.

In fact, to love someone, to want to marry them, is, in a way, a desire to make more of that person in the world. You see something beautiful and good in them, and you want to bring more of that into this world—and in doing so, you achieve a type of immortality that satisfies the infinite longings of the soul.

But only one thing can truly satisfy the soul.

The Final End of Eros

God enkindled eros within your soul to lead you back to Him. The endless desire of your erotic appetite is not the curse of pleonexia but the invitation to ascend to God. For your infinite eros was designed to satiate on an Infinite Beauty, God. For God is Beauty-itself, the All Beauty, for whom the soul desires at its most primal, intimate state.

All beauties are but signposts to the soul to ascend to the Beauty, God.

And it is only in that beauty that the restless hunger of the soul finds rest. The endless desire to consume to be happy slows and delights in a moderate and ordered appetite for lesser beauties.

For the love of God does not replace lesser loves, but rather perfects them—there is a divine refulgence that cascades back down into the soul and its loves.

For example, a man who loves God will love his wife more. The love is perfected. Both because his soul is now filled with God’s love but also because he is not putting the full weight of his erotic desire for happiness on his wife. In other words, many marriages fail, because their spouse attempts to receive from other what can only be given by God.

Now, even the Platonists saw the divine as the final end of eros, but Christianity proclaims another level of intimacy—the God has invited you to participate in His own divine life, His grace. You are invited to live forever with God in the Beatific Vision.

Here, the desire for immortality is not only satisfied but overwhelmed—as the soul cannot receive the full delight of God, Beauty-itself. The cup is filled and then overflows.

The soul rests in the Beauty for which it was made.

Like this writing on eros? Check out Rediscovering Holy Eros and Women as Icons of God.

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is a deacon, husband, father, Chancellor, and attorney. He lives in rural Oklahoma with his wife and five children. He is also the host of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast. Follow him on X at Dcn. Garlick or Ascend.

Piety is rarely understood.

Many think it is superstition, naivety, or zealous belief.

But few understand that the ancients held it to be a force for civilization—a cosmic virtue, a source of gratitude toward the fundamentals of a man’s life. It set his duties and arranged his allegiances.

Homer, Aeschylus, Socrates, Jesus, and others all show you this forgotten virtue.

A pious heart is a grateful heart—and these are the hearts that build civilization.

Let the tradition help you recover this ancient virtue.

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The Ancient Lesson of Piety

Piety is not what you think.

Many may see it as “religious expression” or even pejoratively as a simple, unthinking belief in the divine—but what if piety was about cosmic order?

True piety is rooted in gratitude. The pious man understands that he owes an unpayable debt to his family, his country, and his God. Why? Because these three things nourished him, raised him, cared for him, long before he could ever contribute. He did not earn this care by his family, his country, or his God—it was freely given.

Piety is the response to goods received. Piety cultivates a heart of gratitude over a debt the individual can never pay back—you can never fully repay your parents, your country, or your God for the life you have been given.

And this piety exists in hierarchical order.

Piety to the divine, to God, governs first, and this is sometimes called “religion.” Piety to the country governs next, and this piety is often called “patriotism.” And lastly you are pious toward your parents (and by extension your family), and this is often called “filial piety,” the respect and honor you owe your father and mother.

You can see now how piety becomes a virtue of order.

It is a cosmic virtue that helps man understand his place in the world, as he navigates these three spheres of piety: the divine, the country, and the familial. It helps him understand what is important in life and the hierarchy in which such goods should exist.

And piety is a lost virtue.

Like a pearl lost amongst the field and forgotten, so too is the West’s tradition of piety.

Piety as a political force, a principle of order, a virtue that aligns you with the cosmos is your inheritance.

If you can recover this virtue, your heart will correspond to the contours of reality—and it will be a barrier against the hate, frustration, strife, and pleonexia that dominates our world.

Learn to be pious.

Learn the pious heart is a grateful heart.

Let’s see how this virtue is shown to us in the ancient stories of the West.

Read more

Do you want to start reading the Bible?

But do you have a lot of questions?

What is the Old Testament? Where do I start reading? Do I have to read all of it? How should the Bible be read? What is a Gospel? Who is Moses?

These are all good questions for those thinking about reading the Bible.

And we have answers!

You can read the Bible with just a little help. Come see.

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Everyone is invited to read the Bible, but you want to read it well and with the mind of the Church. The Bible is not a series of loose images from which you extract your own truth, but rather a beautifully woven collection of texts, a sacred library, inspired by God to show you His love for you in Jesus Christ. It is the story of salvation history and it is a history that includes you.

Here are a few basic questions that many first time readers of the Bible have. If you have one not covered in the article, ask in the comments below!

We are here to help.

1. What is the Bible?

The Bible is the story of God’s love for humanity. On its face, it is a collection of different texts that range over different historical time periods from different authors in different genres—it is a complex, beautiful assortment of ancient works; however, Christians believe the Bible is holy, like a sacred library all bound together, inspired by God. The Bible is presented in two parts: the Old Testament (the story prior to the coming of Jesus Christ) and the New Testament (the story of Jesus Christ and His Church).

Its primary purpose is to communicate to you the reality of Jesus Christ, and how you are invited to an unimaginable reality almost too beautiful to comprehend.

Even if you have no faith in Jesus whatsoever (or even of God), the Bible is worth your time as an ancient text with an irrevocable imprint on the Western cultural imagination—like the Iliad or the Odyssey. A lot of fruit can be achieved by comparing these ancient Hebrew texts against ancient Greek texts.

The Bible has something for everyone.

2. What does it mean the Bible is inspired?

Christians believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. In other words, the diverse collection of texts that make up the Bible share in one divine authorship that worked through human authors. It is the divine authorship that makes the Bible a cohesive, deeply interwoven narrative—but in Christianity, the divine authorship does not negate human agency.

Unlike other religions where God simply dictates what should be said to a human (who is less an author and more a scribe), Christians hold that God subtly inspired human authors and worked through them to produce a holy text.

In other words, there is still a humanity imprinted on the text, which means, for example, if you’re reading the Gospel of Luke (written by St. Luke) then understanding who St. Luke is and how he writes is important to the text. The Bible is somehow both a divine but deeply human text. And in its purpose of communicating to you the reality of Jesus Christ and His offer of salvation, Christians hold the text is infallible or without error. It is a text that merits our faith and trust—that the salvation and God it describes is true and worthy of our lives.

The divine authorship, however, is subtle and best seen in a slow, careful read of the biblical texts and how they deftly interrelate over thousands of years.

3. What is the Old Testament?

The Old Testament (the story from the beginning of the world to right before the coming of Jesus Christ) is composed of 46 distinct texts that are organized into four general categories.1

The Pentateuch (meaning “five books”) represents the first five books of the Bible starting with Genesis. The Pentateuch, traditionally said to be written by Moses, lays the foundation for the entire Bible and covers creation, the patriarchs (like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the story of the Hebrews in slavery in Egypt, and how Israel came together as a nation.

The next group, the Historical Books (like Joshua, 1 & 2 Samuel, etc.), tell of Israel’s journey to the Promised Land, their kings, their fall into exile, and eventual return.

Then come the Wisdom Books (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, etc.), and these are deeply poetic, beautiful texts that praise God, wrestle with the difficulties of life, and offer practical guidance (these books make for great spiritual reading—incorporate them into your prayers, if you’re so inclined, especially the Psalms).

The final group is the Prophets, which has both “major” and “minor” prophets. Many people think of a prophet as someone who gives prophecy, i.e., some prediction of the future—but the prophetic voice is first and foremost those who call mankind out on sin and then invite mankind back to God. The prophets therefore deal a lot with broken, sinful peoples being judged, punished, and returned to order and holiness.

One difficulty for first time readers is that the Bible is not organized chronologically; rather, these categories reflect similar genres, even though certain groups, like the Pentateuch and the Historical Books, largely move in chronological order.

4. What is the New Testament?

The New Testament, the story of Jesus Christ and His Church, is shorter and simpler in organization.

The first four books of the New Testament are called the Gospels, and these texts—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—tell the story of Jesus Christ. Each one is written by a different author for a different audience, but together they give harmonious insights into the beautiful mystery that is Jesus.

The second section is like the Historical Books of the Old Testament, but it is only one book: The Book of Acts. It is a historical text that tells of the acts of the apostles (Jesus’ disciples) after Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven. In short, it is the beginning of the Church.

Next comes the Epistles, which means “letters.” Many of the leaders of early Christianity wrote letters to various churches admonishing them or praising them for how they adhered to Jesus Christ. It is a fascinating insight to the early Church and their understanding of Jesus and what it means to be a Christian. The bulk of them, fourteen including Hebrews, are written by St. Paul, and the rest are written by St. James, St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude.

The final section is again only one book, Revelation, written by St. John, it gives an apocalyptic history of the Church and prophesies about the new heaven and the new earth under the reign of Jesus.

Together, the New Testament explores the reality of Jesus Christ and the Church He founded.

5. Where should I start?

There are a few good answers to this question. Many start with Genesis, the first book of the Bible, as it lays a foundation for the whole salvation history and tells the stories of creation and the patriarchs.

Another good starting place is one of the Gospels, especially the Gospel of Mark. Why? Because it is the shortest and a fairly straightforward Gospel. The Gospel of Luke is another good choice, as Luke is writing to Greeks who may not be familiar with the Old Testament. The Gospel of Matthew is good as well, as it is written to Jews and focuses on Christ as the fulfillment of prophecy.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all share many similarities—but the Gospel of John is very different. It is more mysterious, mystical, and focuses on Christ as the Logos, the Eternal Word. The Gospel of John is the foundation of Christianity’s mystical tradition, if you find that appealing.

The Gospels are not terribly long and reading all four as an introduction would not be a bad start.

Keep in mind that St. Luke also wrote Acts, so coupling his Gospel with the history of the apostles would be a good start as well.

6. Is there a list of key books I should read first?

Instead of reading the whole Bible, is there a short list of key books that could be read to establish a good framework and understanding? Yes. Nothing definitive, but here would be a good list for a first pass through the Bible:

Genesis—to lay the foundation of creation, the fall, and God’s covenant promises.

Exodus—to understand God’s deliverance of Israel, the Law, and the covenant.

1 & 2 Samuel—to see the rise of the monarchy, the heart of David, and the promise of an eternal kingdom.

Psalms—to experience the full range of human emotion, prayer, and worship in poetry.

Isaiah—to grasp the prophetic hope of the coming Messiah and God’s plan of redemption.

Mark—to encounter the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in a short, fast-paced narrative.

John—to dive deeper into Jesus’ divine identity.

Acts—to see the birth and spread of the Church through the Holy Spirit.

Romans—to understand the core Gospel: sin, grace, justification by faith, and life in the Spirit.

Much of this list could shift depending on your interests, but the provided list of key books within the Bible would give you a solid foundation in understanding the narrative of salvation history.

7. How should the Bible be read?

The Bible is a complex, ancient library of sacred texts. While all are invited to read it, you should approach it with humility and patience—but one good thing is that the Bible is not new, centuries of Christian saints have reflected upon how to read the Bible and have handed that tradition down to you.

The early Church often read the Bible according to four senses: literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical. These four sense reveal hidden layers to the Biblical narrative that enrich the soul, make the verses come alive, and testify to the one, divine authorship.

The first sense is the literal, and this focuses on the intentionality of the human author. It includes all the historical details of when and where the text was written. It also includes understanding the genre of the book, e.g., is this a literal history or a poetic praise?

The literal is like the foundation of a house. You must understand the literal structure and reality of the book before you can ascend to more complex, rich readings—and many difficulties with the Bible come from books being read contrary to their genre and historical setting.

It should be stressed that on your first read, it is beneficial enough to simply track the literal and track it well. A slow, attentive, prayerful read of the Bible can bear a lot of fruit.

If you’re interesting in understanding the spiritual sense (i.e., allegorical, moral, and anagogical) of Scripture, see How to Read the Bible like the Saints and How to Read the Bible like Dante and Aquinas.

8. What version of the Bible should I read?

There are so many! In Catholicism, one of the best Bibles available is the Ignatius Study Bible, which has copious notes, maps, commentaries, etc., to help you grasp the literal sense of the text and build a good foundation for the spiritual text.

Another good Bible would be Ascension Great Adventure Bible, which tends to focus on understanding the Bible as story—it categorizes the books by color and helps you understand the dynamic narratives of the Bible as one beautiful story of God. The Great Adventure Bible pairs well with the wildly successful Bible in a Year podcast with Fr. Mike Schmitz.

There are many, many translations of the Bible in many different formats.

If you have a favorite, which one would you recommend?

How can we help!?

What questions do you have about reading the Bible?

Or maybe you’re a Christian who wants to offer more advice and encouragement to those who may be thinking about starting the Bible—let us know!

Overall, know that the Bible is a beautiful story of Jesus Christ—and it is a story to which you are invited as a beautiful child of God.

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is a deacon, husband, father, Chancellor, and attorney. He lives in rural Oklahoma with his wife and five children. He is also the host of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast. Follow him on X at Dcn. Garlick or Ascend.

God spits the lukewarm from His mouth.

It is a lesson Dante the Poet knows well, and he shows you the spiritual harm of being lukewarm in his Inferno.

Heaven rejects the milquetoast—but hell doesn’t want them either.

And their suffering is your spiritual lesson.

You were not made in the image of God to be some half-hearted beta.

Dante feels so strongly about this lesson that he places a canonized saint in hell.

Do not miss his warning.

Reminder: this is a teaser of our members-only deep dives.

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The Gates of Hell

We find Dante the Pilgrim before the gates of hell. In his Inferno, Dante the Poet offers you a moral tale, a drama of the soul, that has the purpose of trying to save your soul. Dante the Pilgrim, the character in the Divine Comedy, is lost in the dark woods and meets Virgil, the Roman poet, who has been sent by Beatrice to help guide the Pilgrim. In fact, it is only by enduring hell and purgatory and then ascending into heaven that Dante the Pilgrim might be saved.

Virgil takes Dante down a “deep and rugged road” until they stand before the gates of hell. What is written on the gates is worth consideration:

I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY / I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL GRIEF / I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN RACE.

JUSTICE IT WAS THAT MOVED MY GREAT CREATOR; / DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE CREATED ME, / AND HIGHEST WISDOM JOINED WITH PRIMAL LOVE.

BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS / WERE MADE, AND I SHALL LAST ETERNALLY. / ABANDON EVERY HOPE, ALL WHO ENTER.

Notice that Dante the Poet predicates the gate on three attributes: justice, divine omnipotence (power), and highest wisdom. It is a subtle allusion to the Trinity or rather that the creation of the gates of hell is a Trinitarian act—as is all creation.

Why does the gate say to abandon hope?

Well, in Christianity, hope is a theological virtue—that means it is a virtue infused in you by participating in the life of God, grace. Unlike the natural virtues, like prudence, it is not a virtue to which you can habituate yourself—it must first be given to you and then you can participate in it like a habit. Hope is a gift.

Moreover, we tend to have a very flat understanding of hope. You often hear “hope” used as a synonym for “wish.” “I hope my team wins” is little more than “I wish my team wins.”

But the theological virtue of hope is not a wish but a belief in man’s eternal happiness with God—it is an understanding of the end of man, his telos, his purpose. In other words, “I have hope in God” means “I live my life according to the reality of God and His promises for me.” Often times in sacred art, the virtue of hope is depicted as an anchor. You anchor your soul to God, an immovable understanding in the truth of God and His desire to for you to be happy with Him in heaven.

There is no hope in hell.

No souls participate in the divine life—they are cut off from the reality of happiness with God for eternity. The soul is released from its anchor and drifts in endless despair, the contrary vice to hope.

Yet, there is also no hope in heaven!

Why? Because in heaven there is no future desire for happiness with God for eternity, because the souls are participating in it now. It is not a future reality but a present one. In fact, there is no faith in heaven either, because “faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). In heaven, the beatific vision, God is now seen—there is no reason for faith. Since hope and faith are fulfilled in heaven, this is why St. Paul says the greatest theological virtue is charity (love)—because we continue to love in heaven (1 Cor 13:13). Charity is eternal.

In fact, how you practice charity in this life determines how you experience heaven in the next.

But the souls in hell are deprived of hope—and of faith and charity. It is an endless churning of despair, disbelief, and hate.

What is more interesting, however, is what Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil see once they’ve entered the gate.

The Vestibule of Hell

As they pass through the gates of hell, Virgil and Dante the Pilgrim hear the “sights and cries and shrieks of lamentations echo[ing] throught the starless air of Hell.” Pay special attention to the fact that hell is “starless,” as Dante will use the stars as a sign of hope (each one of the canticles of volumes of the Divine Comedy ends with a reference to the stars…).

But the Pilgrim and Virgil stumble upon a unique place.

The vestibule of hell—or rather, the lobby of hell.

It is a space beyond the gates of hell but before the judgment that casts souls somewhere within the nine circles.

It is the holding place for souls that were rejected by heaven and hell.

Who are these souls?

These are the lukewarm, the milquetoast, the souls who lived for nothing.

And their brutal punishment is your spiritual lesson—a gut-check for the soul.

Dante will not allow you to lessen the effects of being lukewarm—he knows well the harm it does to your soul and those around you.

Your real lesson here is knowing who the unnamed soul is who suffers here.

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King Solomon’s Temple held a hidden story.

The carvings of olive wood overlaid with gold spoke of a primordial time.

And why is this important?

Because it revealed the world as a cosmic Temple, a holy sanctuary set aside for the glory and grandeur of God.

And why is that important?

Because you are part of the story—the world is not a sterile, neutral existence, but one of meaning and beauty.

A subtle lesson in the Bible invites you to see your life in a whole new way.

Reminder: you can support our mission and get all our members-only content for just a few dollars per month:

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How to Read Genesis Well

First, how do you read the Bible in general? Well, the Christian tradition has passed down four senses that help you read Scripture like the early Christians: a literal sense, an allegorical sense, a moral sense, and an anagogical sense. Christians see these senses as interconnecting to reveal various strata within the Scriptures that testify to a Divine authorship and lessons for your own spiritual journey (read more: How to Read the Bible like the Early Church).

Second, using the four senses, recall that Genesis sets the stage for the New Testament. In fact, the New Testament can be seen as a retelling of the Genesis narrative. Christ is the new Adam, Mary is the new Eve, the Cross is the new Tree, et al., and these reveal to you a new creation under Christ that invites you to participate—to be a new creature (read more: The New Testament as a New Genesis).

Third, we have seen how to read the first chapter of Genesis as a dynamic poem that reveals the glory of God. The hidden, subtle structure of the seven days of creation again invites you to understand that the cosmos is an intentional, beautiful creation by God—and you are part of that creation. Christians believe you are made in the image of God and are part of a structured, intelligible cosmos that reveals the grandeur of God (read more: The Hidden Meaning of Creation).

But, there is yet another layer to the story of creation.

One that reveals the cosmos not simply as an ordered creation but as a holy, sanctified space—as cosmic temple.

Let’s see what the Bible says.

Noticing the Small Details about Eden

There are a few subtle details that must be noted about the Garden of Eden:

1. You entered the Garden of Eden from the east (3:24)

2. It was guarded by the angelic cherubim (3:24)

3. It was adorned with trees (2:9)

4. It was on top of a mountain, a source of rivers (2:10)

5. It was where God came down and dwelt with His people (3:8)

Now, why are these details important?

Because Christians see later biblical authors, inspired by God, used these same details to describe the Tabernacle and the Temple. To wit, there are allusions to creation and the Garden of Eden in the narratives about the Tabernacle and the Temple.

And you should note these well, as they say something subtle about the nature of reality and the cosmos in which you dwell.

But, as a preliminary, what is the Tabernacle and what is the Temple?

The Tabernacle, meaning “dwelling place,” was the portable sanctuary and tent of meeting that God commanded the Israelites to construct in the wilderness after the Exodus. The Tabernacle served as God’s dwelling place among them for worship, sacrifice, and divine encounter (Exodus 25:8-9). It featured an outer court, Holy Place, and Most Holy Place containing the Ark of the Covenant and other sacred furnishings, and was filled with God’s glory upon completion (Exodus 40:34).

The Temple (or Solomon’s Temple or the First Temple) was the permanent sanctuary built by King Solomon in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, replacing the portable Tabernacle as God’s central dwelling place among Israel for worship and sacrifice (1 Kings 5–8 RSVCE). It followed a similar three-part design to the Tabernacle—with an outer court, Holy Place, and Most Holy Place housing the Ark of the Covenant—and upon dedication was filled with the glory of the Lord (1 Kings 8:10-11 RSVCE).

The Temple was the dwelling place of God on earth in the Old Testament.

And the fact that biblical authors wrapped the stories of the Temple in language from Genesis should be taken seriously.

Let’s see how they did this.

The World as a Cosmic Temple

The biblical authors draw the comparison between the Temple and creation through several subtle parallels:

1. Like Eden, you entered the Tabernacle from the east (Ex 27:13) and the Temple from the east (Ezek 47:1);

2. Like Eden, the Temple was adorned with cherubim, two large statues made of olive wood (1 Kings 6:23–28);

3. Like Eden, the Temple was adorned with carvings of trees and flowers made of olive wood and inlaid with gold (I Kings 6:29-32);

4. Like Eden, the Temple was depicted as a source of rivers—a sign of life (Ezek 47:1-12; Joel 3:18); and

5. Like Eden, the Temple was the dwelling place of God on earth (Lev 26:12; II Sam 7:6).

Other ancient Hebrew sources explicitly present the Garden of Eden as a Holy of Holies of the cosmic temple of God.1 To wit, God created the Garden of Eden and then, after the fall, had King Solomon build a Temple that was reminiscent of Eden—the trees, flowers, rivers, cherubim, and an entrance to the east. The biblical authors, who Christians believe are inspired by God, then captured these details in the Bible—creating strong but subtle parallels between Eden and the Temple.2

Why would God create these parallels in the Bible?

A Participant in the Cosmic Temple

The parallels between Eden and the Temple are another way to contextualize your life—you are a participant in this cosmic sanctuary called earth. The world the Bible presents is not a sterile, neutral existence, but rather a beautiful, ordered cosmos that unfolds as a story.

The world has a purpose.

You have a purpose.

The world as a Cosmic Temple rejects the idea that your existence is meaningless. It rejects that your life is a flat, random occurrence—but rather it invites you not to another reality, but to the true reality. The world is a Temple designed for the worship of God.

And He loves you.

And He invites you to a beautiful life.

Pleasure can dehumanize you.

Homer, the philosopher, presents a subtle allegory of the soul in his brief story of Odysseus and the Lotus-Eaters.

The sluggish soul longs to wallow in pleasure and purposelessness—but the mind must sometimes lash the lower parts into obedience if it is to save itself from an inhuman existence.

There are other lessons here too—on violence, rhetoric, and political rule.

Homer is a teacher—and he teaches you how to save your soul from a purposeless life.

Do not become a “Nobody.”

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The Story of the Lotus-Eaters

In the tenth year after the sacking of Troy, Odysseus washes up on the shore of the Phaeacians. King Alcinous welcomes him as a guest-friend and, after feasts and games, Odysseus, the “man of twists and turns,” finally tells his story. After the fall of Troy, Odysseus and his fleet raid the Island of Ismarus and then suffer both a “demonic gale” and a terrible tide—and after ten days of suffering “deadly winds,” Odysseus and his fleet land on an unknown island.

Odysseus sends out men to scout the land, and they meet the “lotus-eaters” who “gave them the lotus to taste… any crewmen who at the lotus, the honey-sweet fruit, lost all desire to send a message back, much less return, their only wish to linger there with the Lotus-eaters, grazing on lotus, all memory of the journey home dissolved forever” (9.105). In this narrative, it is Odysseus that reminds his men of their journey home, for he tells the Phaeacians: “But I brought them back, back to the hollow ships, and streaming tears—I forced them, hauled them under the rowing benches, lashed them fast” (9.110). The men, under Odysseus’ commands, depart the island so quickly they “churned the water white with stroke on stroke” (9.116).

The episode of the Lotus-eaters is one of eleven (or twelve, depending on how you count) narratives Odysseus tells the Phaeacians about his journey home.

It is a simple narrative but one saturated with meaning—and an important moral drama for your soul.1

How to Read Homer as a Philosopher

Homer is a philosopher—a subtle one. It is claimed that Plato learned the art of dialectic from Homer and the poets, and that an attentive read of Homer can discover a “poetic dialectic.”

What does this mean in simpler terms?

It means that what Plato accomplishes in his dialogues by having two or more people in conversation to explore a truth, Homer does through contrasting poetic images—and Odysseus is probably the best example of this. You are probably aware of the debates of whether Odysseus is a good man. Many find him heroic and point to many examples in the text, yet many others find him villainous and point to many counterexamples in the text.

Yet, what if Homer’s point is not to present Odysseus as clearly heroic or villainous, but to contrast these ideas in a single character—to hold observations in tension, and it is in that tension, that dialectic, that Homer’s lessons on the human person can be seen. It is in exploring the contrasts that Homer makes you ask questions about what it means to be a good person, a man of excellence (arete). Odysseus the character raises human questions.

In all, this means that Homer is very intentional about the narratives he presents, and it means that his narratives are pedagogical—they are there to teach you about the human condition. To wit, it is impossible to read Homer without a moral layer. Once the dialectics are seen and tensions explored for a commentary on mankind, the next natural question is how does this apply to my life?

It should be recalled that it was the Greek practice of reading Homer (and other texts) in various layers that helped develop the Early Church’s understanding of how to read the Bible according to the four senses—the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical. Christianity owes a debt to Homer.

Homer is a philosopher.

Taking him seriously will make you a better person and a better reader of Scripture.

And the narrative of the Lotus-eaters is nothing less than a drama of the human soul, a subtle allegory of the fight against becoming a “nobody” and being dehumanized.

And further still… it may be a drama on how men must be ruled.

Our modern culture offers us many lotus fruits.

Do not become a slave.

Homer shows you how to fight back.

Read more

Porn is anti-erotic.

People do not know the spiritual harm of porn, because they know neither the truth about erotics nor the truth about God as Beauty-itself.

But knowing the beauty of eros reveals the ugliness of porn.

Porn is a meat grinder to man’s erotic imagination—turning man into a bestial parody of a creature made in the image of God.

The natural ascent of eros plummets into a bestial descent of irrational consumption—sons of God living a life worthy of cattle.

Save your soul. Be skilled in erotics. Let porn go.

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The Question of Erotics

To understand the spiritual harm of pornography, you must understand love—a love that resounds at the very heart of the human condition, a love that moves both mankind and the cosmos. This love is eros—the primal desire to satiate in beauty and be happy. It is the desire for satisfaction and existential rest—to feel loved, whole, and fulfilled. It is a love expressed in the ancient Greek, ancient Hebrew, and Christian traditions (check out Reclaiming Holy Eros).

To understand eros is to understand the desires of the human heart.

And pornography, an unholy coupling of perverted sexuality and technology, preys upon an existential love of the human soul.

Eros not only moves the whole soul (and the cosmos) but each part of the soul as well; thus, to truly diagnose the spiritual harm of a thing, you must understand how it perverts the very love and structure of the soul.

In short, the soul has three parts: the intellect that loves truth, the spirited that loves nobility, and the appetite that loves pleasure. And for the soul to be just, to have a beautiful harmony, these parts must not only love their respective beauties according to virtue but also must remain in hierarchy: for the intellect governs the soul with the assistance of the spirited always attempting to keep the appetitive in moderation. Humans, as Aristotle notes, are the worst animals when it comes to food and sex—for the appetitive part of man’s soul, his love of pleasure, will dominate in the soul if the intellect and spirited part are weak.

The problem of erotics, however, is that the erotic appetite of the human soul is infinite. You want to be happy all of the time and not some of the time. No one desires unhappiness; yet, if happiness is the possession of and satiation in beautiful things, then to be happy you must always have beautiful things.

And this can easily lead to a pattern of irrational consumption, a bestial life of desiring pleasure after pleasure in an attempt to satiate the human heart. You see this all the time—people who simply must have more. The ancient Greeks spoke of the condition of pleonexia, an insatiable desire for more—and we today would speak of lust, avarice, jealousy, and envy.

Yet, this is to be “unskilled” in erotics—for those who are truly skilled in eros understand that the insatiable condition of the soul of mankind is not a curse toward endless consumption but an invitation to ascend toward the divine. Eros calls the soul upward toward the beauties of the higher parts of the soul: the love of nobility and the love of truth. And even Plato, a pagan, understood that at the top of this “ladder of love” was the divine, the “divine beauty-itself.” Christians understand this as God, that, through the grace of Jesus Christ, mankind climbs the ladder of love toward God, Beauty-itself.

To wit, God enkindles eros within you to lead you back to Him.

For the infinite hunger of eros within the human soul is designed to satiate upon an infinite beauty—but all the beauties of this life are finite; thus, the soul must ascend to the spiritual reality and satiate on God, Beauty-itself, the All-Beauty, in which all other beauties participate, to find the true object of desire.

It is here, in the intimacy of the erotic and the divine, that the spiritual harm of pornography can be truly seen.

Pornography as Anti-Erotic

Now, a lustful man does not look up to the divine to satiate the existential restlessness of his soul but rather looks down toward bestial pleasures. The beauty of the female form, instead of being an icon of the beauty of God, becomes the object of irrational consumption. Pornography allows the lustful man to attempt to satiate his infinite erotic desire upon the female form by offering it to him under an artificial and false infinity: online pornography. Porn is a false god made in the image of man’s disordered desire and forged in new technologies. Online porn apes the endless quality of the Divine by offering the lustful soul an abyss of dehumanizing pleasure. It is an endless descent into ever greater inhumanities and degradations.

Porn is anti-erotic. Eros is an ascent to the divine, but porn drags the soul downward into an irrational, bestial state. If to be “skilled in erotics,” as Diotima states in Plato’s Symposium, is to climb the ladder of love toward the divine, then those who traffic in pornography are unskilled in erotics—perverting the very telos of eros.

Porn, made in the image of man’s own disordered desire, mimics the infinity of the divine; yet, like the divine, those who participate in this false god take on its image.

Made in the Image of Porn

Eros is a “self-love,” a “need-love.” To wit, that which we love is a mirror in which we see ourselves. We make ourselves in the image of that in which we satiate our erotic desires. Again, your erotic desire was ignited in you by God to lead you back to Him, Beauty-itself, and it is in God, the true Mirror of the Soul, that you should find your identity. It is only God who can reflect the true you back to you—it is in His image that you are made and you become more you when you love God, not less.

When man satiates on the demonic mockery of the divine, pornography, he becomes a mockery of man—receiving a warped and deformed identity. Porn is a meat grinder for man’s erotic imagination. It will take what is beautiful in man and make it ugly, churning new identities for him that pervert the most primal aspects of his nature. Disorder begets disorder.

In short, porn remakes man into something not man—something less than human, a disordered parody of the Image of God.

Porn will distort man’s understanding of himself and his relation to others.

It recreates man, gives him a new anthropology, and with it, a new understanding of the self, the family, and society. All politics is downstream of anthropology—who is man?

Understand the Danger

Porn and its disordered erotics will distort both the human person and society. It impedes man’s ascent to God and remakes him into an irrational, bestial creature—whose self-love and identity are easily mutilated into a inhuman parody.

Do not believe the lie that pornography is normal or unharmful.

It is fatal to your spiritual life, to the call of eros to ascend to God and become God-like.

Hold close to reason, practice temperance, pray to Jesus for help, and stay away from porn—allow your imagination to heal.

Come to know yourself and others in the image of God and true erotics.

Recover a true anthropology—one of beauty and ascent.

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is a deacon, husband, father, Chancellor, and attorney. He lives in rural Oklahoma with his wife and five children. He is also the host of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast. Follow him on X at Dcn. Garlick or Ascend.

Eros is the primal desire of the human heart to satiate in beauty and to be happy.

It is enkindled in you by God to lead you back to Him, Beauty-Itself.

And the beauty of woman plays a vital role in this erotic ascent.

Yet today we tend to receive the female form either pornographically or puritanically — both of which miss the profound spiritual reality of femininity.

This is a tremendous mistake.

The Hebrew, Greek, and Christian traditions understood something we have largely forgotten: the beauty of woman is a living icon of God — an invitation to ascend.

You can rediscover it too.

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A Brief Sketch of Holy Eros

Recall that eros is your natural love that desires to satiate in beauty and be happy. It is a need-love, an existential desire for rest and satisfaction. Your eros, however, is infinite—you always want to possess the beautiful and be happy. You never desire to be unhappy. As such, your eros is either doomed to move through life satiating on one finite beauty after another—a listless pattern of consumption—or the endlessness of your eros is a clue imprinted upon your soul that it was made for an infinite beauty—this infinite beauty we call God, Beauty-itself.

In other words, the primal desire of the human heart, eros, was enkindled in you to lead you back to God—only in Him is there true rest and bliss.

But how do you ascend to this Beauty-itself?

Eros is a love of ascent. Like fire, it has the nature of tending upward, being desirous of moving from lesser beauties to greater beauties until it finds the All-Beauty, God. It was in Plato’s Symposium that Diotima, a foreign woman, taught Socrates about what it truly meant to be skilled in love or “skilled in erotics.” To wit, the ascent of eros is an image of a perfection of the soul. You climb the “ladder of love” toward greater beauties and the divine by perfecting the loves of the soul and its hierarchy. The soul that ascends is a soul well-ordered.

The first thousand years of Christianity often presents the soul in a platonic fashion, in which the soul has three parts from lowest to highest: the appetitive that loves pleasure, the spirited that loves nobility, and the intellect that loves truth. The ascent of eros is learning how to moderate your love of pleasure while ascending to the greater loves of nobility and truth.

The greatest love of the soul is God, Beauty-itself.

And this truth is expressed in the Christian tradition as well.

Eros in Christianity

In Christianity, the erotic has always been a sign of humanity’s relation to God. In the Old Testament, the love between God and Israel was presented as a marriage covenant, often in erotic images, and idolatry was presented as spiritual adultery. In the New Testament, Christ is the groom and the Church is the bride, who come together in one flesh with Christ as the head and the Church as the body. The Bible begins with the marriage of Adam and Eve and ends with the marriage high feast of the Lamb.

Christians hold that the images of the erotic, either of ascent or of marital union, were adopted into Christian spirituality and perfected by the reality of Jesus Christ. St. Gregory of Nyssa presents Moses ascending Mt. Sinai into the bright darkness of God as an analogue of soul’s erotic ascent to God. St. Augustine’s ecstasy at Ostia in his Confessions shows that the saint understands the soul’s ascent to God is both upward and inward—the higher the soul ascends, the more it explores the depths of itself. St. John Climacus wrote the famous Ladder of Divine Ascent, and the saints like St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. John of the Cross adopted marital erotics to describe the spiritual union of Christ and the soul, the spirituality known as bridal mysticism.

Eros, though often forgotten or misunderstood, permeates both Hebrew and Greek thought leading up to Christ and then is inseparable from the spirituality of early Christianity.

For a thorough introduction to eros both in Plato and Christianity, see Reclaiming Holy Eros.

The Question of Femininity

The erotic appetites of the soul are the primal driving force of humanity. You and every person around you are driven by what they believe to be beautiful and what, if possessed, will make them happy.

The question of erotics is the question of the human condition. It percolates underneath all discussions on religion and politics. To understand eros is to understand what it means to be human.

But do women have a unique role within this cosmic ladder of love?

Both men and women share the same structure of the soul and the same erotic longings for happiness. Moreover, both men and women are made in the Image of God, the Imago Dei, and both look to Jesus Christ, the “image of the invisible God,” to understand how to perfect the Image of God in them.

Yet men and women are different.

Male and female are both reflections of God but remain distinct.

The question is whether the female, as an Image of God, is a unique reflection of the divine—and, if so, what is the role of that reflection in the soul’s ascent to God?

What is the spiritual reality of femininity within eros?

Does the beauty of femininity have a role in orienting the soul toward Beauty-itself?

The ancients have an answer.

Read more

Hospitality is a spiritual art.

In a world of back porches and doom-scrolling, the ancient practice of hospitality can radically transform your life—and your community.

From Zeus overseeing guest-friendship in the Homeric epics, to Abraham welcoming angels, to Benedictine monks receiving the guest as Christ, the art of hospitality forges relations amongst humans and with the divine.

The home becomes part of a sacred ritual, a place of peace and new friendships.

Discover how Homer, Scripture, and Christian tradition call you to this beautiful spiritual discipline—and learn simple ways to begin practicing it today.

Your next act of hospitality could change your life.

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Hospitality Amongst the Ancient Greeks

One of the clearest signs that a people were civilized amongst the ancient Greeks was the practice of guest-friendship (xenia). It was a sacred ritual, overseen by Zeus, that protected both the guest and host—and built bonds of friendship and peace. To wit, a guest would arrive at the house of his host, the host would welcome him without even asking his name or purpose, bathe him, clothe him, and feast him. The host cared for his guest as if it were a god in disguise. In the Odyssey, this scene is played out many times, as Telemachus is welcomed by Nestor and then by Menelaus, and Odysseus is welcomed by King Alcinous.

Only after the guest had been welcomed and cared for would the host ask the guest his name and purpose. Here, you can see that xenia is reciprocal to a degree or rather the guest has a proactive role in this sacred, civilizing ritual. The guest would state his name and tell his story. With Telemachus, for example, he speaks about his efforts to discover news about his father, Odysseus, and with Odysseus the great storyteller recounts his adventures from Troy until the island of the Phaeacians. To a certain degree, the guest takes on the role of the bard being both entertainment and revealing the will of the gods. The host would then give “guest-gifts” to his guest to help him in his purpose.

The Ritual of Guest-Friendship and Piety

The ritual of xenia is deeply tethered to the concept of piety. For the ancient Greeks (and for the West until at least St. Thomas Aquinas), piety represented a gratitude for an unpayable debt. And this gratitude was threefold: a piety toward your parents, a piety toward your polis (homeland), and a piety toward the divine. It was these three that nurtured you in a common good—the family, the political, and the cosmic—long before you could even contribute. In fact, for the ancients, becoming a man included finally being able to contribute toward the common good that nourished you. It was a duty.

And the hierarchy of piety must remain in order—with gratitude due first to the gods, then the polis, and then the parents. Many of the Greek tragedies, like the Oresteia or Antigone, play with the tension between these three layers and what happens if they become disordered. The ritual of guest-friendship is a sign of civilization, because it incorporates all three levels of piety—particularly toward the gods.

Xenia is overseen by the gods, particularly Zeus, and the host and guest play their roles in fear of the gods. Notice that in xenia both the host and guest display an openness and vulnerability; thus, if either violates the ritual and acts unjustly, it is the divine that will punish them. For example, when Odysseus washes up on the shore of Phaeacia, he tests the local women to see if they are civilized by referencing the gods.

Also, recall that the entire Trojan war was precipitated by Paris violating guest-friendship by absconding with his host’s wife, Helen. When Menelaus and Paris duel before the walls of Troy, Menelaus asks Zeus to grant him victory so the world can see what happens to those who violate xenia.

In the famous scene of Odysseus and the cyclops in Book IX of the Odyssey, Odysseus and the cyclops become a perversion of guest-friendship—where the cyclops as the host does not feast his guest but feasts upon them. Odysseus, playing the role of the guest, tells the cyclops his name is “Nobody,” a deceit toward his host, and his host gives him the “guest-gift” of being eaten last.

Xenia requires vulnerability on the part of the host and guest, and it is fear of the gods, piety, that governs it.

Guest-Friendship in Christianity

The ancient Hellenistic practice of guest-friendship has parallels in the Old Testament as well. You could recall the story of Abraham welcoming the three angelic strangers (Gen 18:1-15), the story of Sodom and the angelic visitors who come to Lot’s house (Gen 19:1-11), the angelic stranger who shares a meal with Samson’s parents (Judges 13), or that Job claims he never let a stranger sleep on the street (Job 31:32). Similarly to the ancient Greeks with the gods, the Old Testament presents that the strangers who need your hospitality may be angels—an observation St. Paul makes in the Book of Hebrews: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb 13:2).

In the New Testament, you could see parallels with the famous road to Emmaus narrative, especially since they welcome in the Christ-stranger and only see Him for who He is in the breaking of the bread, a Eucharistic image (Luke 24:13-35). Another good example would be the famous parable of Matthew 25, in which God separates the sheep from the goats (saved from the damned) based on how they treated those in need, including the stranger. Finally, the New Testament exhorts Christians to be hospitable on several occasions (Rom 12:13; I Peter 4:9; Titus 1:7-8).

The practice of hospitality in the Church is probably best seen in the practices of the Benedictine monks who welcome each guest to the monastery as Christ. He is welcomed in honor with usually the Abbot washing his hands or feet before the guest is permitted to eat with the monks—being served by the monks as well.

Practicing the Spirituality of Hospitality

Christianity draws from both Greek and Hebrew culture, and the New Testament exhorts Christians to be hospitable. Hospitality should be seen as a spiritual practice, as it demands virtue on part of the host and guest. The host is willing to be inconvenienced and to place their wealth and time in the service of others. The guest is willing to receive this in gratitude and humility, and then to repay the host with opening up about who they are and what they aim to do in life.

Hospitality is an art, a spiritual art that makes the home a place where friendships are forged and communities are founded. It draws the host out of himself and detaches him from his goods—placing them in service to higher ends. Moreover, in both the Greek and Hebrew side, the stranger is welcomed as divinity—and in Christianity this continues as the guest being welcomed as Christ.

What are some ways you practice hospitality?

How can you better use hospitality to build the community around you?

Hospitality is another way to ascend, to be Christ-like. Explore it!

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is a deacon, husband, father, Chancellor, and attorney. He lives in rural Oklahoma with his wife and five children. He is also the host of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast. Follow him on X at Dcn. Garlick or Ascend.

Would you refuse to become a god?

In Book V of the Odyssey, the goddess Calypso offers Odysseus immortal life as her lover on her island of pleasure.

But Odysseus says no.

How could Odysseus, a pagan, not see this life of satisfaction as the highest goal of man?

What does Homer understand that we do not?

Homer is a philosopher for those who know how to read him—and his subtle lessons in Book V of the Odyssey are amongst the most important in the Western canon.

What does it mean to be human?

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What happens in Book V of the Odyssey?

It is not necessary to have read Book V of the Odyssey to benefit from this discussion, but it may help to have a quick sketch of the overall narrative—in addition to the specific textual points discussed in detail below.

A summary:

King Odysseus is trapped on Calypso’s island. Zeus, at Athena’s pleading, agrees to two proposals: first, Odysseus may leave the captivity of Calypso; and second, Athena may help Telemachus escape the trap set by the suitors (5.24). Hermes, the messenger god, goes and tells Calypso that it is Zeus’ will that Odysseus be set free upon a make-shift raft, and Calypso, though upset, acquiesces to the will of Zeus (5.125, 176). She tells Odysseus he may leave, and he has her promise she is not plotting some new harm against him (5.202). After four days of working on the raft, Odysseus sets sail on the fifth with gifts and provisions from Calypso (5.288).

Poseidon, who is returning from Ethiopia, sees Odysseus has left the island and, “it made his fury boil even more” (5.313). Poseidon sends a storm to sink Odysseus (5.321). As he’s being battered by the waves, a goddess of the sea, Ino, pities Odysseus, and tells him to strip off his clothes, tie her scarf around his waist, and swim for land (5.377). Poseidon smashes the raft to pieces (5.403), and Odysseus, with the help of Athena, makes it to the shore (5.471). The book ends with Odysseus falling asleep beneath two olive trees (5.544).1

The most important detail, however, in Book V is that Odysseus declines Calypso’s offer to become a god, her immortal lover.

And the most important question is how can Odysseus, a pagan, make this decision?

The Hidden Lesson in the First Line

Homer opens Book V with: “As Dawn rose up from bed by her lordly mate Tithonus” (5.1). The line merits attention, because the normal reference to Dawn, the goddess Eos, is about her robes—but here we receive the only reference in the Odyssey to Tithonus.

Who is he?

The citing of Tithonus is a subtle setting of the stage to understand Odysseus’ answer to Calypso. Tithonus was a mortal lover of Dawn, and Dawn asked Zeus to make him an immortal. Zeus acquiesced but stated that Dawn did not ask for immortal youth as well; thus, Tithonus falls into the horrific tragedy of being able to age but not die. He who was promised to become a god withers into a sub-human creature, an undying insect-like being that is finally placed in a basket and put away.

It is a powerful narrative for Homer to subtly invoke on the first line of a story about why a human would not want to become a god.

But even more surprising is how Odysseus, the hero of the tale, is introduced for the first time to the reader in the Odyssey.

Odysseus Crying on the Beach

It should be noted that Calypso’s pleasure cave is so enticing that even Hermes, a god, “would gaze in wonder, heart entranced with pleasure” and “stood there, spellbound” (5.81). Yet, Hermes cannot find Odysseus, and Homer tells us that the King of Ithaca is sitting on the beach, “weeping there as always, wrenching his heart with sobs and groans and anguish, gazing out over the barren sea through blinding tears” (5.92). You should note that this is the introduction to Odysseus in the Odyssey—this is the first glimpse of his character and state since the Iliad.

Why does Homer introduce him crying on the beach?

For first time readers, the scene can seem unsettling and even pusillanimous. The hero of the Trojan war, the great mastermind of the Achaeans, is crying on the beach? Yet, notice the juxtaposition Homer offers you: on one hand, a cave of pleasure where even the gods are enticed, and on the other, a place on the headlands fartherist removed from the cave, a human scene of sorrow, Odysseus yearning for home. Many parallels are presented here by Homer, e.g., divine to human, pleasure to anguish, cave to home.

Calypso’s reaction to Hermes is telling, as she states the gods are “scandalized when goddesses sleep with mortals” (5.130), and she gives a short list of how mortal lovers of the goddesses meet tragic ends (5.134). You can read this simply as the male gods being “lords of jealously,” but one wonders whether Homer is hinting here at something more—something tied into the Tithonus narrative. Is there something unnatural or disordered about a mortal becoming an immortal lover of a goddess? And, if so, in what way would it be disordered?

You could push back and recall the tale of Thetis, the sea nymph, who was pursued by both Zeus and Poseidon until Prometheus told them that her son would be greater than his father—which means that Zeus could sire his own usurper (as both Uranus and Cronos did). As such, Zeus solved the problem by giving Thetis in marriage to King Peleus, a mortal, and they had a son—Achilles. Here, however, though the arrangement saved Zeus’ rule, it did precipitate the carnage of the Trojan war, including a civil war amongst the gods. It was certainly not without consequence.

Here, Calypso reveals that she’s offered immortality to Odysseus (5.150), and Homer continues to explore in Book V how Odysseus can say refuse her offer.

In fact, it is in Odysseus’ response to Calypso that you best see how Homer is a philosopher.

And how his philosophy can teach you what it means to be human.

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Why should you read the Odyssey in 2026?

Because it is not just an ancient poem—it is “our story.”

Homer’s epic opens with a single word: “man.” From that moment, Odysseus becomes every one of us—wrestling with fate and free will, clinging to the sacred idea of home, choosing his humanity over divine immortality, and learning what the gods will demand of him to rectify the injustice that consumes his house.

This isn’t dusty literature (nor something malleable to modern man’s ideologies).

It’s the fountainhead of Western civilization, the poetic training ground for Plato, and a surprising preparation for the coming of the Christ.

Here are 10 reasons to read the Odyssey.

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The Odyssey is certainly worth your time. Here are ten general reasons why this epic by Homer merits your time and attentive. And see below for how you can read it with a group!

10. The Story of Humanity

You read the Odyssey to better understand the nature of man. You should take seriously that the very first word of the Odyssey in the Greek is “man.” Odysseus is in many ways a representative of man and his story is our story. In fact, when Homer invokes the Muses at the beginning of the text to help him sing the story of Odysseus, he asks the Muses to sing of “our story too”—the story of man. As such, the Odyssey is a deeply anthropological tale that weaves together perennial questions about the human condition, like free will, fate, justice, home, place, and the divine.

9. The Question of Fate & Free Will

You read the Odyssey to explore the tension of fate and free will. Though the Iliad is often read as a deeply fatalistic text, the Odyssey is often praised for exploring the agency of man. In fact, in the beginning of the text, Zeus defends the gods and blames the misery of man upon man’s own poor choices. But, to what degree are Zeus and fate separate? At times Zeus seems to be the caretaker of fate, shepherding all things according to a providential pattern; yet, at other times, fate seems to be the alter ego of Zeus, another persona of the king of gods and men. The Odyssey presents these in tension and, in the tension, has you explore perennial questions about free will, fate, and the divine.

8. In Praise of Arete (Virtue)

You read the Odyssey to understand the arete of men (and women). In the Iliad, arete, the excellence of men, is usually reserved for military prowess and skill in combat; yet, in the Odyssey, human excellence takes on a more robust, intellectual character. Odysseus is a man of military might, but he’s also a man of resilience, cleverness, and perseverance. Moreover, Homer uses the term arete to describe Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, who is certainly not a warrior but a clever, faithful woman. Homer is at the beginning of the virtue tradition, and the concept of arete in the Iliad and Odyssey deserves special consideration. What does it mean to be a good man?

7. Understanding Guest-Friendship (Xenia)

You read the Odyssey to explore guest-friendship. The concept of xenia or guest-friendship is a sacred ritual overseen by Zeus in which the stranger is welcomed, bathed, and feasted before he is even asked his name; and, in reciprocity, the guest usually tells his story. The host gives gifts and helps the guest on his way. The ritual is a sign of civilization, and violations of it are sacrilegious—and deserve swift punishment. Xenia permeates the stories of the Odyssey. It also makes for a wonderful parallel to the Bible, like with Abraham and the three strangers (Gen 18:1-15) or St. Paul’s comment that those who host strangers sometimes entertain angels unknowingly (Hebrews 13:2). Hospitality is central to Western thought, and Homer is an indispensable teacher on the subject.

6. Homer the Philosopher

You read the Odyssey to better understand Plato. Homer is not a dull echo of his age. Too often, Homer is seen as some passive collector of oral traditions who simply regurgitates them into a flat narrative. No, Homer is a teacher. He is a philosopher. He is very intentional in his writing and presents concepts and characters in tension—and this tension creates a “poetic dialectic.” In other words, the tension or layers of the text mimics the effect of dialogue—it gives contrasting views that, if contemplated, lead you to a perennial truth. Homer has a philosophy on the human person and his place in the cosmos—if you are willing to listen. It is arguably where Plato learned the art of dialectic.

5. The Coming Home Story

You read the Odyssey for the coming home story of Odysseus. It is a tale of perseverance, glory, and place. One of the most important passages of the entire text is Odysseus refusing to become a god. He declines an immortal life of pleasure with a beautiful goddess. Why? In another passage, he declines to marry a princess and rule over a utopian island blessed by the gods and filled with wondrous technologies. Why? In Odysseus’ journey home, Homer offers you an insight into the nature of man and the importance of place—and he offers you a moral read, i.e., what decision would I make and why?

4. The Coming of Age Story

You read the Odyssey to understand how a boy becomes a man. Often overshadowed by the coming home story, the coming of age story of Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, is a powerful template of maturation. In King Odysseus’ absence, his house is filled with suitors wooing his wife and consuming his goods—Telemachus, the boy, is not a threat to them. Yet, Telemachus must become a threat to this injustice. He must overcome his fatherlessness and become a man who can regain his father’s house. Telemachus has his own odyssey in which he finds his spiritedness, his thumos.

3. Beginning of the Great Books

You read the Odyssey because Homer is the beginning of the great conversation. The so-called “great books” are the most influential texts in Western civilization—and they start with the Iliad and the Odyssey. The great books are great because they engage in the perennial questions of the human condition like free will, the soul, virtue, politics, and the divine. Homer, the teacher, is the beginning of these perennial discussions—save for the Bible. And you must understand that the authors of the great books are all in conversation with one another, as Plato is in dialogue with Homer, and Aristotle is in dialogue with both. As such, you read Homer to enter into this great conversation on the human drama.

2. Understanding Western Civilization

You read the Odyssey to understand the identity of the West. Western culture is downstream from Homer. He plays an unrepeatable role in Western identity, and he is ubiquitous throughout the ages of Western philosophy and literature. The rage of Achilles, the piety of Hector, and the wit of Odysseus serve as constant reference points for exploring the truth of the human condition in the Western mind. Though Homer may seem foreign at first, reading him is like coming home—you see the first conversations that led to the world you inherited. You read the Odyssey to understand yourself and your world better.

1. Homer as a Forerunner to Christ

You read the Odyssey to better understand the reality of Christ. Greek reason coupled with Hebrew faith under Roman order prepared the world for Jesus Christ. As St. Paul teaches, Christ came in the “fullness of time.” The Incarnation is not an accident but an intentional act for which Providence prepared the world—and Greek culture played a large part of that cultivation. The first Old Testament canon, the Septuagint (250 BC), is written in Greek. The New Testament is written in Greek. St. Paul quotes from Greek poets and philosophers (Acts 17:28; 1 Cor 15:33; Titus 1:12). St. John uses a multifaceted but rich Greek philosophical word, logos, to describe the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity (John 1:1). In other words, Hellenistic language—and with it Greek thought—is imprinted on Christianity (and on Judaism before it). To best understand that Greek imprint, you start with the fountainhead of Greek thought: Homer.

PS: Read the Odyssey Now!

Our friends over at Ascend: The Great Books Podcast are hosting a FREE 12-week study of the Odyssey with professors from around the country. Check it out on Youtube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and more. Not too late to join!

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is a deacon, husband, father, Chancellor, and attorney. He lives in rural Oklahoma with his wife and five children. He is also the host of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast. Follow him on X at Dcn. Garlick or Ascend.

Acedia is the demon of our age.

It slips quietly into your soul and works its ways long before you realize it—making your soul dull, mediocre, and fat.

It is the nature of the soul to burn with love and ascend.

But acedia is like a great pall upon the soul that smothers its loves.

It cools your love and makes you purposeless.

Know this demon.

Know your soul and its loves.

Know how to fight back.

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The Demon that is Everywhere but Unknown

Acedia is a quiet evil that slips into your life and slowly starves your soul—making it fat, mediocre, and dull. It is one of the seven deadly vices, yet, it is arguably the least understood—which means it is the least protected against. Can the soul defend itself against an unknown assailant? Acedia or “slothfulness” is the demon of our day. It is both ubiquitous and unseen.

Christians understand that if you want the spiritually mature, if you want to ascend and become more Christ-like, this demon has to be slain.

But what is acedia?

When most people think of slothfulness, they think of being physically lazy. To be slothful is to binge watch a show or “do nothing” all day. And while this could be true, it misses the heart of the sin.

For example, the marathon runner could be a deeply slothful soul. The successful CEO who works 80 hours a week could likewise be steeped in acedia.

How?

At its heart, acedia is a spiritual laziness. The soul has loves for which it was made, and acedia cools those loves until the soul detaches from them. Acedia decouples the soul from its purpose, its telos, and causes it to drift. And souls may find other things to occupy their time, like running or work, but they remain spiritually lazy, not loving what they should, not ascending to God—it is a laziness about the true goods of life.

Acedia is often called the “noonday devil.” It slips into the soul when you least expect it, in the middle of the day when there are no shadows—it comes amongst the light and not the darkness, it comes amongst our work and not our rest. It makes you lose heart in what truly matters in life and sets you adrift toward purposelessness—yet, most souls never realize what has happened, as acedia works within them long before they realize it—if they ever do. You simply wake up one day and realize you no longer love God or the important things in life.

Acedia is a quiet, pernicious demon.

Acedia is the cooling of love—it is a thick heavy pall upon the soul that smothers its natural loves.

But, to understand acedia well, you must understand the love it suffocates.

Acedia as Contrary to Love

In his Purgatorio, Dante the Poet tells the story of how souls must ascend Mount Purgatory by traversing seven terraces—one for each seven deadly sin. Dante’s Purgatorio, like his whole Comedy, is not a claim on the specific details of the afterlife but is rather a story of the soul—a moral story to help you live a virtuous, Christ-like life.

As such, his writings are instructive to the spiritual life, and if you look before Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil enter the terrace purging acedia, Dante the Poet has Virgil give a short lecture on love—the attentive reader would ask why this lecture happens here.

In short, Virgil explains that your natural love, like fire, wants to ascend. As fire burns upward by nature, so too does your love have a nature of ascendancy. And why is this important? Because your natural love is desirous for God. It wants to burn upward, ever ascending, until it returns to the One who enkindled it.

The spark of love within you is given to you by God to lead you back to Him.

Now, what is very important here is that Dante the Poet couples this speech by Virgil with the terrace that purges acedia.

Why does Dante the Poet do this?

Because he is showing you that acedia is the smothering of this natural fire of love. Slothfulness cools love and impedes its natural desire to ascend. In fact, acedia can distort the love of the soul into an unnatural love, one that has lost its desire to ascend—one that no longer burns upward toward greater goods and God.

The soul simply wallows in lesser goods and purposeless life.

How can you fight this demon?

How can you fight what is often unseen and unknown?

To bolster the soul against the subtle cooling of love, you must know three things:

1. A map of the soul and its parts—and how each part has a beauty that it loves

2. How acedia smothers each part of the soul and what unnatural effect this has

3. What virtues are necessary to push back against acedia and reclaim the soul

Acedia is everywhere. It will slip into your soul and leave your soul dull, mediocre, and fat—and what should burn bright for the glory of God and the true beauties of this life, wallows in life far short if its actual glorious purpose.

Learn how to burn off the sordid pall of acedia.

Learn how to burn bright for God.

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Young men desire greatness, and we offer them comfort.

Young men desire glory, and we offer them safety.

Young men are starving for nobility, human excellence, and all the glory, honor, and fame that comes with it.

Yet, how can they live a life they never see?

Well, here are 12 ancient texts to help young men see the spirited life.

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Young Men Need to See Greatness

Young men desire adventure, and we give them screens. Young men desire the heroic act, and we give them comfort. Young men desire glory, and we give them “safe places.” It is a tale almost as old as the West itself—young men must leave the comfort of their homes and achieve something glorious. It is in the adventure that they find themselves and their true capacities.

Young men must become thumotic. In the Iliad and Odyssey, Homer uses the term thumos to refer to the spirit of man, a nascent understanding of the soul. Odysseus, for example, will speak to his own thumos while enduring the battering seas of Poseidon. In Plato, the term is refined to mean the part of the soul that desires nobility—a human excellence. When the thumos satiates in what is noble it produces glory, honor, and fame—men do great deeds and immortalize their names within history. It is the part of the soul perfected by courage, for the thumotic must be brave to overcome the difficulties that merit honor and glory.

Young men must become thumotic.

In English, the word is often translated as spiritedness or the spirited part of the soul. And despite our age of comfort and safety, this part of the soul still yearns for nobility and honor—especially in the hearts of young men. One thinks of Telemachus in the Odyssey, and how he must leave his home and mature—he must become a man, a threat to the suitors devouring his father’s house.

And how do young men learn to be thumotic?

The power of memetics.

Young men need to see the thumos in action—they need to see spirited men doing great deeds. They have to be shown that this type of life, the life of glory and excellence, is a true choice. In our age of so-called civility, it is more difficult for a young man to see the thumotic in action.

Even worse, the thumotic is often intentionally hammered out of young men—cultivating them to be soft, passive, and indecisive.

So, where can young men experience the memetic power of the thumotic?

In ancient texts.

The following is an introductory text on some of the best texts on thumotics from the ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Roman cultures.

1. Exodus (The Story of Moses)

Every man needs to study the life of Moses. Both Jewish and early Christian thought turned to the life of Moses as the quintessential image of the spiritual life—and this includes the thumotic. He is the orphan, the prince, the shepherd, the messiah, and the lawgiver. Moses was educated in the royal house of Pharaoh and knew how to bring together a people; moreover, like most thumotic men, he was hot-tempered and that anger led him at times to righteousness and other times to failure. There is no greater story than the life of Moses—for it is a pattern for the thumotic soul’s ascendancy to God and glory.

2. Book of Joshua

The Book of Joshua is about war and conquest. Joshua, the leader after Moses, receives the direct order “Be strong and courageous” and obeys by conquering the promised land against overwhelming odds. The text cultivates thumos by showing what disciplined, obedient boldness looks like when a man steps into leadership after a great leader like Moses.

In Joshua, the power of memetics shows a leader willing to achieve the glory and future promises to his people—an amazing example of overcoming difficulties.

3. Book of Judges (The Samson Narrative)

Few stories benefit young men more than the narrative of Samson. Outside the tremendously spirited acts he accomplished, Samson is also a warning to young men. You may cultivate a tremendous bravery to cover difficult things—but have you cultivated temperance? What if the evil that comes against you isn’t a raging lion but a beautiful woman? Like David and Solomon, Samson teaches young men that being spirited is not enough—to be truly excellent one must cultivate all the natural virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude.

And Samson is also a story of redemption—of when you fail finding a path back to glory. Samson died with his boots on and took down more Philistines in his death than he did throughout his entire life. He became a blind slave, but he died in glory.

4. I & II Samuel

There are few pieces of literature in the ancient world that can rival the story of David. From the humble shepherd boy to the giant-killer to the warrior-poet-king of Israel, David’s life is an amazing image for the young masculine mind. David is an archetype. He is a man after God’s own heart, a man of righteous anger and poetic beauty. And yes, like Samson, he falls into great sin and suffers for it—but David’s story is also one of redemption.

Young men need to understand the story of David and why God loved him.

5. I & II Kings

Often neglected, the stories contained in first and second Kings offer a lot to the young masculine mind. Stories of the throne, courage, prophets, warrior-kings, and more give a myriad of lessons on justice and leadership. These stories also show that it is one thing to acquire the throne but another to rule—can the thumotic soul not only win the throne but rule wisely? Again, the thumotic is an entrance to the entire moral life and cannot be divorced from virtue over all.

6. Iliad

Often seen as the text of memetic power par excellence, the rage of Achilles and the piety of Hector clash in tremendous tales of courage, excellence, and strength. The rage of Achilles reflects the fire in the hearts of young men—especially those who find their nobility and excellence throttled by bureaucracy and lesser men. Hector, the first of the nine-worthies in the medieval tradition, is an example of both piety and failure. He is the hero of Troy and defends his polis with strength and honor until his death—an image of piety toward the gods, the polis, and the family.

The Iliad, as Socrates tells us, is about justice, but Homer’s lessons are wrapped in gory tales of arete, combat, and personal glory. It is a tale of both the thumotic and its limits. It is a must-read for all young men.

7. Odyssey

Most people focus on the coming home story of Odysseus, but the Odyssey is also about the coming of age story of his son, Telemachus. The young man must leave his home and its influences and become a man—he must find his thumos and become a threat to those who endanger his father’s house. Odysseus too gives a heroic image, one different than the Iliad, of a man who needs both spiritedness and cleverness to survive the journey home. Like Moses and David, Odysseus is not without his faults, and Homer often presents him as a character in tension—but the lessons are found in those comparisons.

The coming home and coming of age stories of the Odyssey make it a must-read for any young man.

8. Plutarch’s Lives

Plutarch’s Lives has memetic power as its purpose. Plutarch gives you short biographies of great men—Alexander, Caesar, Cato, Alcibiades, and more—to show you how real men have grasped glory. He offers a thousand lessons on what to imitate and what to avoid. For young men this is pure memetic fuel: dozens of concrete archetypes of thumotic excellence (and failure) that bypass abstract philosophy and go straight to the part of the soul that is desirous of immortal glory.

9. Xenophon’s Anabasis

One of the best but most neglected books for young men, the Anabasis tells the tremendous journey of ten thousand Greek mercenaries who become stranded deep in the Persian Empire and must journey home. The book is thumos in action: no miracles, no safety net, just grit, discipline, and the refusal to submit. Its memetic power is visceral—a true template for leadership and endurance.

10. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations

Written by one of the two most powerful men in the world, the Meditations is a real-life philosopher-king trying to channel raw thumotic energy into disciplined leadership. A stoic masterpiece, the Meditations pushes the thumotic to the next level—a level of control and reason. In many ways, the maxims of Marcus Aurelius provide the young thumotic soul the next step in its ascendancy toward glory and excellence.

11. Arrian’s The Campaigns of Alexander

Arrian, drawing on eyewitness sources, delivers the definitive ancient account of Alexander the Great’s conquest of the known world—from Greece to India—at the head of his loyal companions. It radiates pure thumos: relentless drive, tactical genius, physical courage, and the refusal to stop even when his own men beg for rest. Alexander the Great is the quintessential young, thumotic conqueror—a model for even Julius Caesar. Most importantly, Alexander the Great showed young men what was possible—to be a world-conqueror. Empire was possible in the West.

12. Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War

Written by Caesar himself, this is the ultimate commander’s dispatch from the front lines: seven years of brutal campaigning, bridge-building, siege warfare, and turning hostile Gaul into Roman territory. It cultivates thumos through calculated boldness, speed of decision, and total ownership of outcomes. Its memetic power is direct and practical—young men absorb the mindset of the man who writes his own victories while making war look like disciplined art, teaching that real leadership means marching into the unknown and imposing your will on chaos.

But what about Jesus…?

Christians teach that grace perfects nature. In other words, participating in the life of God (“grace”) both heals and elevates what men and women have by nature—and this includes the thumos as part of the soul and the natural virtue that perfects it, courage. In other words, the teachings of Jesus on grace presuppose natural virtue. But the perfection from conqueror to martyr, from Achilles to Christ, is a step that best comes when young men have first learned to be brave—to be thumotic. For more on this, see Turning the Other Cheek is not Weakness and also, similarly, When “Love Your Enemy” means Justice.

St. Maximus did not teach against the thumotic, but taught the thumotic must be bridled by gentleness. St. Basil did not teach to reject the pagans, but rather to read them as a natural preliminary to the Bible—a preliminary that will make you a better reader of the Bible. Once again, the classical pagans are not a threat to Christianity, but rather help it raise even higher.

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is a deacon, husband, father, Chancellor, and attorney. He lives in rural Oklahoma with his wife and five children. He is also the host of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast. Follow him on X at Dcn. Garlick or Ascend.

A father lies weeping on his young daughter’s grave.

This haunting medieval tale shatters expectations and teaches a profound lesson on the order of love.

Christians often think of morality as choosing between good and evil.

But much of morality is actually choosing between goods.

And no story teaches you this better than this one about a lost, little pearl.

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The Lost Pearl

We come upon a man who has lost something.

A spotless pearl has slipped through his fingers and is now lost in the earth. He grieves and cries. His heart hurts with a cruel pain and a torment churns within his chest (Pearl, no. 2). He lays on the mound in the garden still seeking his pearl—but his pearl will never be found.

For the pearl that slipped through his fingers into the earth was his young daughter, not even two years old, now buried beneath him.

He lays on her grave crying out for his perfect pearl, and he drifts into sleep.

Providence provides the father with a vision. The man is transported to a celestial garden with crystal cliffs and jeweled forests (nos. 7-9). He walks until he comes to a river with waves like glass illuminated by light, shining like the stars.

On the other side of the river, he observes great heavenly cliffs, and at their base, walking by the river, he sees a beautiful young woman (no.14). She is arrayed like a heavenly queen, a bride of Christ, with glistening robes all adorned with pearls.

The longer the man looks, the more his heart knows that this young woman is somehow his daughter—now grown and arrayed with the beauty of heaven. She is his spotless pearl. Overcome with bliss, his heart expands just to contain the joy. The father cries out to his lost daughter.

Yet, the reunion does not go as he hopes.

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Life is a cosmic play.

And the Divine Playwright has given you a role.

You are called to a life that was written for you before the foundations of the earth were laid. Every person has a part. No one is excluded. No one is relegated to the background.

You matter to God and to this grand human drama in a deep, eternal way.

But here is the question: Can you hear the Voice calling you to your role?

Let’s discover how to discern your vocation.

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What is a vocation?

Vocation comes from the Latin word vocare, meaning “to be called.” Christians use it as a term that means—what is God calling me to do with my life? You have thousands of choices you will make in your life, but a vocation is something deeper, more existential—it is kneaded into your very existence here on earth.

You can look at this life as a beautiful, cosmic play. Everyone has an assigned role. Everyone has a script written for them before God laid the foundations of the earth. There are no meaningless characters. No NPCs. There is no one who does not matter. Every single person is an actor in this grand human drama because, we all share the same Playwright, the same Divine Author who created you with intentionality and love.

You mean something.

Remember, Christians teach that even if you were the only person on earth, Christ still would have died for you. And there is no human soul for whom God did not die. You have worth—you have worth to God in that vertical, intimate relationship and you have worth horizontally amongst your human family, as you have an important part to play in this grand human drama.

Do not sell yourself short.

But how do you know your role?

How do I know my vocation?

So, how do you discern what God is calling you to do in this life?

There are many paths before you.

First, draw close to God. If you want to see in the dark, draw close to the Consuming Fire. Many try and stand apart from God and hear His voice when they need it. And you draw close to Him not necessarily to discover your vocation, but simply to better remake yourself in His image. Christians see their path as being one of sanctification or theosis—one that calls you to be more God-like. Knowing your vocation comes from knowing God.

How do you do this?

Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are the traditional ways of drawing close to God. Spend time with Him in prayer each morning and each evening—make each day look like a miniature of your whole life, beginning and ending with God. Prayer helps to perfect the intellect—and do not be afraid to pray alongside and with texts, like the Bible or books written by the saints. You can read holy works in a slow, prayerful manner.

Fasting helps you to control your baser appetites. In other words, it bridles the appetitive part of your soul, the part that loves pleasure. Though pleasure is not bad per se, the desire for it must be reined in by reason. You could give up lunch once a week and fill that time with prayer or reading the Bible. Fasting is always a bulwark against lust, gluttony, and other sins of incontinence.

Almsgiving helps you cultivate a reliance on God—to detach from worldly concerns and gravitate toward a greater dependency on God. It perfects the spirited part of the soul, the thumotic, by having the courage to detach and rely on God in a radical way.

All of these help the soul draw close to God, and those close to God better discern their vocation. It is hard to hear God’s voice if you do not know Him. Many desire some secret, esoteric way to discern their vocation—but knowing God’s will for your life comes with becoming God-like. You have to have a relationship with Him.

What signs, however, accompany having the right vocation?

How do I know I have the right role in this grand human drama?

How do I know I have the right vocation?

One of the surest signs that you have found God’s calling for your life is peace. When you draw close to God’s will for your life, you feel like you have come home. You feel you are where you are supposed to be. Remember that peace is not simply the absence of conflict but the tranquility of order. When you step into your vocation, you step into harmony—you are playing your part in the cosmic play and the script feels right.

This does not mean there will not be difficulties. Think of the vocations of Abraham, Moses, or David. Doing what God has called you to do often includes difficult challenges—but you know you can face them, because you are where God has called you to be. You do not feel lost or unsettled. No matter the challenge, you feel a resounding sense of peace and belonging. Every vocation has a cross.

Yet, God does not reveal everything all at once.

Sometimes in your vocation, all you can discern is the next step. A young man or woman may feel called to marriage, but not have clarity on who they are supposed to marry—the call now is to grow closer to Christ and prepare for the vocation of marriage.

Similarly, a young man who feels he may be called to the priesthood may find the question “are you called to be a priest?” too much—the real question is whether you are called to discern the priesthood.

God often only shows you one step at a time.

And you move toward what brings you spiritual satisfaction, existential peace.

And here is one more aspect to watch—to not have too rigid an understanding of the vocation to which you are called. What does this mean? Well, a man might be called to marriage, but he needs to be open to receiving the reality of marriage—not his preconceived notion of it. You need to be open and malleable to both if God is calling you to something and your understanding of that thing being made more perfect.

But it is in pursuing the vocation with God that the goal becomes more clear.

As you draw closer to the fire, you see more clearly.

If you bring in preconceived notions about your vocation, it can make you recalcitrant to formation—to God working on you to see the good in the thing He’s calling you to be.

Vocations as an Act of Trust

Overall, your vocation is about trust. It is about trusting your Maker to reveal to you the purpose for which you were made. We all have universal vocations, like to love God and neighbor, but we also have particular vocations—a role only we can play.

You’re not alone.

Discerning your vocation is about staying close to God and staying close to those who help you become more God-like. In that intimacy with God, you hear His voice—you feel the path he has for you, by faith and reason, and you place yourself in His hands.

He is the Divine Playwright.

And you have a special role to play—for your good and the good of all.

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is a deacon, husband, father, Chancellor, and attorney. He lives in rural Oklahoma with his wife and five children. He is also the host of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast. Follow him on X at Dcn. Garlick or Ascend.

What if how you handled money was a mirror for your soul?

In the fourth circle of hell, Dante shows you the spiritual harm of avarice (greed).

The architecture of Dante’s hell is pedagogical—it contains a lesson. Through the grotesque guardian of the fourth circle and the hidden image amongst the damned therein, he reveals how a disordered love of money can fracture God’s call for your life.

The question of avarice is not reducible to how you relate to wealth. It also asks how you see yourself within the cosmos, within God’s Providence.

The choice is yours.

Will avarice render you irrational, an imbecile?

Or will you steward what God has entrusted to you according to reason?

Choose wisely and ascend.

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The Structure of Hell as a Lesson

The architecture of hell is pedagogical. It is here to teach you a lesson—and the location of avarice is no exception.

Avarice (also called greed) is one of the seven deadly vices. It is a disordered love of money and material goods, classically expressed as an inordinate desire to acquire and hoard riches. Dante the Poet places avarice in upper hell, which punishes sins of incontinence—an inability of the soul to bridle its desire of some good. Sins of incontinence include lust (circle two), gluttony (circle three), avarice (circle four), and wrath (circle five). It is distinct from lower hell, which punishes the malicious sins of violence and fraud.

Dante’s hell shows you that avarice is a sin of incontinence that is worse than lust or gluttony but less serious than wrath and the sins of malice—for the lower you are in hell the more severe the sin. And Dante’s architecture of hell has many other lessons, as discussed elsewhere.

But the fourth circle has several surprises.

It has a guardian.

It has more than one type of sinner.

And it makes a secret image.

The Surprising Guardian of the Avaricious

Upon arriving in the fourth circle of hell, Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil run into the esoteric guardian of the avaricious: Plutus. In Greek mythology, he is the ancient god of riches, bountiful harvests, and material abundance, often depicted carrying a cornucopia. He is often conflated, even in ancient mythology, with Hades (in Greek mythology) and Pluto (in Roman mythology), the god of the underworld. Dante the Poet may arguably be playing here with this conflation or mythological overlap.

The guardian being Plutus makes sense, as he’s a minor god of material abundance; but to the degree this figure also represents Pluto, the pagan god of the underworld, you would think he would have a more prominent role in a poem about hell. So, what makes Pluto (Hades) a good image of avarice?

The first clue comes with Virgil calling Plutus the “cursed Wolf of hell,” which is a reference back to the she-wolf that blocked Dante the Pilgrim’s way in the first canto of the poem—the she-wolf represents incontinence, an insatiable desire that consumes the soul. To wit, Plutus is an image of incontinence.

But how would Hades or Pluto, the god of the underworld, represent avarice?

It is because being the god of the underworld also makes Pluto the god of what comes from the ground: wealth. He represents the gold, silver, and jewels that the avaricious crave; thus, whether it is Plutus, Pluto, or some mixture thereof, this bizarre figure represents a full picture of material goods—both on the earth and under the earth.

Yet, even more odd, Dante presents this mythological creature as an imbecile. He is not the glorious god of Hades from Greek myth, but a witless creature that speaks incoherently.

Why does Dante the Poet do this?

Plutus represents the love of money, and Dante the Poet is showing you that the love of money (or of material things, wealth) renders you imbecilic. All sin is irrational, and all sin leads to irrationality. Man is a rational animal, but sin makes man act contrary to his own nature. In sin, man becomes idiotic.

Here, the glorious god of Hades is reduced to a witless, impotent being that is dismissed easily by Virgil—who represents the best of human reason. In other words, ordered reason sees this irrational love of money for what it is—degrading and embarrassing.

Again, Dante the Poet shows you the truth.

But, it is not simply the structure of hell or the guardian of hell that carries a lesson—the very punishment of the avaricious does as well.

And this punishment forms a subtle image, a quiet lesson about your soul and how avarice will fracture God’s call for your life within the cosmos.

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Every Easter season, you see the same jokes.

People laugh and post memes about John recording he beat Peter to the tomb.

Yet, many people couple their jokes with a comment wondering why else would John even record this detail?

Well, what if it wasn’t about humor but about John’s respect for Peter’s biblical role?

In this piece, explore the New Testament’s subtle but consistent portrait of Peter as the leader among the Twelve.

Discover why John’s “humble-brag” might be the ultimate nod to apostolic primacy.

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John’s Story of Beating Peter to the Tomb

After the death and burial of Jesus, Mary Magdalene visits the tomb of Jesus Christ and finds it empty. She reports this to the disciples, and Peter and John run to the tomb. Here is how the Gospel of John records the scene:

Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead (John 20:3-9).

Why does St. John record, twice, that he reached the tomb before St. Peter? Every Easter season this verse tends to solicit a lot of commentary and much of it humorous.

Here are some examples:

And there are always a few good-natured, humorous memes on this verse as well.

While the comedy is enjoyable, what was John’s intent in putting this detail in Holy Scripture? Many Christians defer to a “humorous” read, because they cannot discern any other reason for which John would include this detail.

But is there something more at work here?

Ancient Christianity may have an answer.

The Bible’s Subtle Lesson on Peter

Many people focused on the wrong detail. They focus on the fact that John records that he beat Peter to the tomb, but the most important detail is the John deferred to Peter to go in first.

The arriving first is in service to this important fact.

Why?

Many Christians would claim that the Bible holds a subtle lesson on Peter—one that is only received in giving attention to small details scattered throughout the New Testament.

And the lesson is this—that Peter plays a leadership role amongst the Twelve.

Here are some examples for you to consider.

1. Peter and Special Acts in the New Testament

Peter often is singled out in the stories in the New Testament. Peter is the only one to walk on the water, and he is the one to bring up the famous question about how many times we must forgive.1 You even see people being healed by Peter’s shadow.2

Peter, James, and John are a special group of disciples that are allowed to witness the Transfiguration and accompany Christ to the Mount of Olives.3 Notice, however, in this special group, Peter is singled out as the leader, the spokesman for the group. At the Mount of Olives, Christ finds all three asleep, but it is Peter he addresses. During the Transfiguration, it is Peter who speaks for the disciples.

Peter seems to always be involved in the special events of Jesus’ ministry, and he appears to play a leadership role, speaking on behalf of the followers of Christ.

2. Christ Calls Simon Peter First:

In the Gospel of Luke, Christ calls his first disciples, and the first is Simon Peter.4 The call of Peter is the call to discipleship par excellence—and once again Peter serves as the spokesman for the group speaking with Christ.

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zeb′edee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

It is also notable that the call of Peter is intimately tied to being a fisherman, which ties into another subtle biblical pattern—the lesson on water as chaos and why Jesus called fishermen to be his disciples.

3. The List of Disciples According to Scripture:

Here is another subtle but important detail: every time the disciples are listed, Peter is listed first and even sometimes called “the first.”5 Even further, when referring to the disciples, sometimes only St. Peter is mentioned by name, e.g., “And Simon and those who were with him,” and “Now Peter and those who were with him”.6

The naming of Peter first amongst the Twelve or the only one to be named when the Twelve is mentioned is a small detail that merits close attention.

4. Peter’s Special Vocation in the Gospel of John

After the Resurrection, Jesus appears to the eleven disciples and, like you’ve seen before, has a unique conversation with Peter. Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves Him, and Peter responds “yes” all three times—and many Christians see this passage as a parallel to Peter’s denial of Christ three times during His Passion.

However, the affirmations of love are met by three unique vocational statements. Christ tells Peter and Peter alone: feed my lambs, tend my sheep, and feed my sheep. Peter is given the vocational duty to care for the flock of Christ.7

5. Peter’s Special Vocation in the Gospel of Luke

Similarly to John’s Gospel, Christ tells Peter that Satan has demanded to sift him like wheat. It is notable that Satan has focused on Peter, and that Peter will undergo a test—further unique characteristics of Peter. Jesus then tells Peter: “but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.”8 The “strengthen your brethren” vocational statement is another mandate given only to Peter—and this is seen, at least in part, but another important and unique attribute of Peter, he is the one to preach at Pentecost.

Peter turns from his denials, embraces the reality of the risen Lord, and proclaims the Gospel to the world.

6. Peter’s Special Vocation in the Gospel of Matthew

Matthew’s Gospel has the most famous and most unique vocation given to Peter.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesare′a Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?”

And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Eli′jah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

This vocation of Peter merits close attention and a careful read, but there are a few substantive points that can help you understand the special role of Peter. First, see that Peter responds on behalf of the group, as normal, but also does so as inspired by God. Peter again plays the role of spokesman but it is clear he does so by God’s grace.

Second, one of the most significant events in the New Testament is Christ giving Simon the new name of “Peter” or Kephas (or Cephas) meaning rock.

In the Old Testament, God changing someone’s name denoted a special calling, a new vocation, e.g., Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, and Jacob to Israel. As such, many Christians see Simon’s name change as part of a larger biblical pattern where a name change equals a new vocation, a special role in salvation history.

And, like the other name changes in the Bible, the meaning of the new name is providential and evidences the new vocation. As Abraham was the rock of Israel, the father of faith, so too is Peter the rock of the Church, the new Israel.

It is also important to note that Paul refered to Simon by his new name, Peter or “rock.”9 Moreover, Paul cites Peter as an sign of credibility and approval of his own apostolic ministry.10

Third, Peter is given the “keys of the kingdom of heaven,” and it is important to note that Jesus is perfecting a passage from Isaiah. In other words, this passage is a good example of a basic biblical principle: The Old Testament foreshadows the New, and the New perfects the Old. Notice the similarities with this passage from Isaiah:

And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house. And they will hang on him the whole weight of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons.11

The passage has important parallels between the key(s), the opening/shutting with binding/loosing, and the foundations of tent peg and rock. To wit, as the Davidic king in the Old Testament has his steward that had authority when he left the kingdom, so too does Christ give Peter authority for when He leaves His kingdom.

To wit, this is not simply a unique vocation for Peter, but one that shows Peter as the leader of the Church, the steward caring for the King’s kingdom in the King’s absence.

It is an important insight into why Christ would also include Peter in unique events, and why the Gospel writers would always list Peter first.

Why John Records He Beat Peter to the Tomb

So, why does John record that he beat Peter to the tomb? Because it is part of him recording his deference to Peter, the leader of the Church. Peter is listed first amongst the Twelve, he speaks on behalf of the Twelve, and he is given several unique vocations to lead and guide the Christian Church.

John’s detail is not about comedy.

John’s detail is a subtle nod to Peter’s special, biblical role as the leader of the Church.

What do you think?

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is a deacon, husband, father, Chancellor, and attorney. He lives in rural Oklahoma with his wife and five children. He is also the host of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast. Follow him on X at Dcn. Garlick or Ascend

Eros is the primal desire to satiate in beauty and be happy.

Yet many Christians view eros through either a pornographic or puritan lens.

But the question of the human condition is the question of erotics—it is the primordial force of the familial, the political, and the divine.

It is the call to ascend—to move from lesser beauties to higher beauties until the soul satiates in that for which it was made, Beauty-itself.

Everyone from the Old Testament prophets to Hesiod, Plato, Jesus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and Dante tells you to take the erotic seriously.

Eros is the question of your restless heart.

Eros shows you a path to excellence, happiness, and bliss.

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The Mystery of Eros

You have a primal desire to satiate in beauty and be happy—to feel fulfilled, whole, and at rest. You want to attain what is beautiful and delight in it—and this resounding, primordial yearning in the human heart is called eros.

C.S. Lewis calls eros a “Need-love” that finds satisfaction in the beloved.1 Joseph Pieper says eros is the “desire for full existence, for existential exaltation, for happiness and bliss.”2 You want someone to look upon you and say: “It is good that you exist; how wonderful you are!”3 Leo Strauss describes eros as a “love for the sempiternal possession of the good.”4 Allan Bloom says: “Eros… is the clearest and most powerful inclination toward lost wholeness:”5 Pope Benedict XVI defends eros as an “ecstasy” of the soul, an upward movement toward the divine.6

Many Christians, however, see eros as a disordered love that must be suppressed in the name of Christian charity.

But eros is your natural love given to you by God—a complement to the supernatural love of charity.

Many Christians limit eros to the erotic love between man and woman, which is perfected in marriage.

But eros is not reducible to sexuality—the erotic love for the beloved is simply the first step of the soul’s erotic ascendency to Beauty-itself, the divine.

The beauty of eros has been largely lost—but eros is central to the Christian narrative, because eros is the mystery at the heart of the human condition.

The restlessness of the heart of man is the question of erotics.

And the question of erotics is thus central to civilization—family, politics, and religion.

The Old Testament, Plato, Jesus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and Dante all ask you to take the erotic seriously—for your good and for the good of others.

How can you rediscover this ancient beauty?

Recovering the lost grammar of eros is not easy—there are many presuppositions that need to be unworked and set aside.

Here is your path to ponder eros as a spiritual good.

I. Erotics in Homer & Pre-Plato
II. Plato & the Problem of Eros
III. Plato & the Ladder of Love
IV. What Plato Believes about Eros
V. Eros in the Old Testament
VI. Old Testament Erotics & Plato
VII. Eros in the New Testament
VIII. The Agape of St. Paul and the Eros of Plato
IX. Eros as the Ascent to God
X. Ascent: Eros & Christian Grace
XI. Agape as the Descent from God
XII. Eros & the Greatest Commandments
XIII. Ascend—Eros as Your New Beginning

To understand the human condition, you must understand eros. It is older than mankind and born afresh in every human soul. Those who master their erotics are those of self-discipline, virtue, and a relationship with God, Beauty-itself.

Though this is but a glimpse—a beautiful new way to look at the world awaits below.

I. Erotics in Homer & Pre-Plato

In Homer’s Iliad, an antecedent to Eros is seen in Hera praising erotic Love (philótēs) who may “overwhelm all gods and mortal men.”7 Hera wears Aphrodite’s band—which “the world lies in its weaving”—and uses it to seduce Zeus, and Homer tells us the king of gods and men is “conquered by… the strong assaults of Love.”8 In short, erotic Love is presented as a personified cosmic force, like Sleep, Death, or Dream, that affects both mortals and immortals alike.

In Hesiod’s Theogony, Eros is presented as one of the four primordial gods, alongside Chaos, Earth (Gaia), and Abyss (Tartarus). Though Eros has no offspring of its own, Eros’ role in the primal cosmos is fecundity—to be the generative force within existence. Uranus and Gaia, for example, generate the Titans, and Cronos and Rhea generate the Olympian gods. In other words, without Eros the universe would be sterile and stagnant, because the fecundity of Eros grants life and movement to the cosmos. In fact, Aristotle will later praise Hesiod for his insight that Eros animates existence. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle takes up the question: how does the Unmoved Mover move all things if the Unmoved Mover does not move? Aristotle’s answer is eros—it is love that animates the cosmos.9 All things desire to return to the divine origin according to their telos (purpose, end).

In other words, the erotic desire between man and woman that breeds life is also at work in all creation. Eros, whether a god or a force, is one of attraction, satiation, fecundity, and existence. The many become one, and the one becomes many. Eros is always fecund.

Eros, however, also has a destructive quality.

In Antigone by Sophocles, the chorus sings of the madness that accompanies Eros.10 It is Eros, who is “never conquered in battle,” who neither men nor gods can escape (like Zeus in the Iliad). The chorus says of Eros: “whoever feels your grip is driven mad… you wrench the minds of the righteous into outrage, swerve them to their ruin.” For example in the play, eros transforms Hamon, the calm, rational prince into a patricidal maniac and suicide.

Eros overcomes reason. The desire for beauty, to love and be loved, brings bliss, ecstasy, and elation—what C.S. Lewis associated with our phrase “to fall in love”—but it can also bring a mania or madness that ends in ruin. It is notable, however, that as observed in Antigone, even in its unconquered madness, eros still bends toward justice and the will of fate.11

In a broad sketch, eros prior to Plato is seen as a primordial force of attraction and satiation, of madness and fruitfulness—one that moves the cosmos, the gods, and mankind.

It is this multifaceted and rich tradition that is inherited by Plato.

Read more

In the Inferno, Dante the Poet places the sin of flattery in a worse section of hell than murder. How could this be?

Dante is a master of the soul, and what he offers you is a tremendous insight into the spiritual harm of lying and its corruptive effect upon the intellect of man.

He presents a brilliant catechesis on the soul, truth, and the reality of Jesus Christ.

You will never see lying the same way again.

Dcn. Harrison Garlick discusses The Spiritual Harm of Lying, the most popular article on The Ascent at present, on our sister company, Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, and does a deep dive into this fascinating topic.

Reminder: this publication is 100% reader-supported. We are only able to continue writing it thanks to the members who support our mission.

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Show notes:

Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Deacon Harrison Garlick explores one of the most striking features of Dante’s Inferno: why the poet places liars, flatterers, and the treacherous in the lowest circles of Hell — deeper than murderers, tyrants, suicides, and even blasphemers.

Check out our new INSTAGRAM page!

We are reading the Odyssey over 12 weeks!

Why does Dante rank fraud and treachery as worse sins than violence? What is the spiritual harm of lying? And how is lying profoundly anti-Christ?

Deacon Garlick takes listeners on a deep but accessible journey through:

• The architecture and purpose of Dante’s Inferno

• The nature of truth and the teleology (purpose) of speech

• Why sins against the soul are worse than sins against the body

• The corruption of the intellect as the worst perversion of human nature

• The profound theology of Christ as the Logos — the divine ordering principle of all reality

This episode will challenge you to take lying far more seriously and to see how every lie moves both ourselves and others farther away from Jesus Christ, who declares “I am the Truth.”

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Ascend The Great Books Podcast

04:13 Exploring Dante’s Inferno: The Spiritual Harm of Lying

06:07 Understanding the Architecture of Hell

15:05 The Nature of Truth and Speech

20:26 The Consequences of Lying vs. Murder

24:24 The Nature of Lying and Its Consequences

30:52 Understanding Logos and Its Significance

Key Topics Discussed

• Dante’s moral purpose in writing the Divine Comedy

• The structure of Hell: sins of incontinence vs. sins of malice

• Upper Hell vs. Lower Hell and the City of Dis

• Why flattery appears lower in Hell than murder

• St. Thomas Aquinas on truth: “the conformity of the mind to reality”

• The purpose (telos) of speech: to convey truth and help others conform their minds to reality

• Why lying is a perversion of speech and an attack on the intellect

• The inverted hierarchy of the soul in Hell

• Christ as the Logos (John 1) — the rational structure and ordering principle of all creation

• How lying is an anti-Christ act that divorces the mind from reality and from Jesus Himself

• The spiritual danger of breeding greater errors through falsehood

Notable Quotes / Insights

• “Sins against the soul are always going to be more severe than sins against the body.”

• “The corruption of the best is the worst.”

• “Christ does not say ‘I have come to share a truth with you.’ He says, ‘I am the Truth.’”

• “Every lie moves people farther away from Jesus Christ because you are divorcing the mind from reality.”

Keywords and phrases: spiritual harm of lying, Dante Inferno lying, is lying worse than murder, Dante Inferno flattery, why Dante puts liars in lower hell, spiritual harm of lying Dante, lying worse than violence, Christ as the Logos, logos theology lying, anti-Christ act of lying, Dante hell structure explained, truth and speech Catholic theology, why is lying worse than murder in Dante’s Inferno, spiritual consequences of lying Catholic, Dante Inferno fraud vs violence, what is the spiritual harm of lying, lying as anti-Christ act, St Thomas Aquinas truth conformity of mind to reality, John 1 Logos and lying, Dante Inferno sins of malice, treachery in Dante’s Inferno, flattery in Dante’s hell, Dante Divine Comedy moral lesson, sins against the soul vs body, corruption of the intellect, teleology of speech, Catholic teaching on lying, Aquinas definition of truth, Inferno architecture explained.

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is a deacon, husband, father, Chancellor, and attorney. He lives in rural Oklahoma with his wife and five children. He is also the host of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast. Follow him on X at Dcn. Garlick or Ascend.