22. Can a Pagan Be Saved

This lecture deals with a number of important concerns as we move with Dante toward the end of his monumental journey. In Cantos 19 and 20 of Paradiso, in the circle of good rulers in Jupiterwhere the defining virtue is justicewe come back to the question of the salvation of non-Christians that was introduced in the first circle of the Inferno. In this section, the poem presents some intriguing possibilities for salvation by including among the blessed a very minor character from Virgil’s Aeneid named Riphaeus. From the circle of Jupiter, Beatrice and Dante move to the last of the planetary spheres, that of Saturn, where Dante meets such great Christian contemplatives as Benedict of Nursia and Peter Damian.