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.See Purgatorio 6, 112–114; Inferno 19, 115–117; Paradiso 20, 55–60; and Monarchy II, 11, 8; III, 10–14; 12, 7.157 Dante, Inferno 1, 124–129.158 On Dante’s universal monarchy as a secularized version of the Church, see E.Gilson, Dante, 165–167 and especially 79: “By a curious paradox, Dante was able to raise up a universal Monarch vis-à-vis to the universal Pope only by imagining this Monarch himself as a kind of Pope.” See also D’Entrèves, Dante as a Political Thinker, 50; Kantorowicz, The King’s, 463 and 484.Dante applies the traditional image of the seamless garment, taken from John 19.23, to the Empire rather than to the Church; see Monarchy I, 16, 3; and III, 10, 6.159 See Monarchy III, 11 ,7, in which the perfect man becomes the measure of both the pope and the emperor inasmuch as they are men.See also Monarchy III, 15, 8–10, which presupposes that the imperial power and philosophy are identical or closely linked.160 Contra Dante Vernani upholds the position of St.Augustine, that there never was a true empire or emperor among the pagans.See Guido Vernani, De reprobatione Monarchiae, ed.N.Matteini, Il più antico oppositore politico di Dante: Guido Vernani da Rimini (Padua: Il Pensiero medioevale, 1958), 98, 7; 99, 16; and 116, 1.161 This also seems to have been the position of Frederick II.See Kantorowicz, Frederick , 519–526.CHAPTER SIXDante and ChristianityThe imperialist interpretation of the Comedy that we have proposed is subject to a major difficulty which we have hardly touched upon thus far and which it is now time to consider if we want to see just how far Dante wished to go in his thinking.We said that the autonomy of the temporal power in relation to the spiritual power implies as a corollary the autonomy of natural reason in relation to theology.As many scholars have pointed out, the two questions are inseparable, for if man has a supernatural destiny, his earthly happiness is to be subordinated to it, and the truths of the natural order that lead to this earthly happiness must give way to revelation.Such was the opinion of the theologians of the day, and it is hard to believe that the author of the Comedy would have found fault with it.Nonetheless some Dante scholars, more sensitive to the ambiguous or polyvalent aspect of the poet’s language, have acknowledged that his political opposition to the papacy could have been joined to a spiritual opposition to Christian dogma itself, numerous signs of which could be found in the Convivio in particular, a work stamped by rationalism.Catholic by birth, Dante would have spent some time in heresy, perhaps even unbelief, then came to his senses and returned with enthusiasm to the doctrine of the Roman Church.He would have recalled these strayings in the scene in Purgatorio in which Beatrice succeeds in wrenching his acknowledgment of wrongdoing.“The enigma of Dante,” as Philippe Guiberteau puts it, “is that he is a convert.”1 This is a seductive hypothesis, the more so in that, if it turned out to be correct, it would resolve the mystery that has always hovered over his work.It nevertheless has the disadvantage of failing to take into account that the Comedy itself is filled with all kinds of enigmas that one would wish to clarify before making a definitive judgment on the poem’s deepest meaning.The Enigma of StatiusOur consideration of the relations between Dante and Christianity can best begin with the dialogue that takes place among Dante, Virgil, and the poet Statius in cantos 21 and 22 of Purgatorio, which forms a decisive moment in the story that is told to us.This is a mysterious episode if there ever was one, especially since it introduces one of the most important characters in the Comedy.Statius figures in no less than thirteen cantos; in this he is surpassed only by Virgil and Beatrice.Like them he goes from one place to another, something no one else does in the poem.The reader has been prepared for what is to come by the allusion in the preceding canto to an earthquake that has just shaken the mountain.2 This tremor, as we soon find out, was not due to natural causes, whose effects are no longer felt in the upper part of Purgatory; rather it signaled the deliverance of Statius, whose soul had sojourned in this place for several centuries in expiation of his sins.3 What is the significance of Statius’s presence in the poem and to what does he owe this honor for which history does not seem to have destined him? Let us first recall the salient details of the three poets’ first meeting.In the course of their journey toward the summit of Mount Purgatory Dante and Virgil come upon Statius on the fifth terrace.As soon as they come together, the three strike up a conversation.Statius, who as yet knows nothing of the travelers’ identities, begins to speak of his literary career and especially his admiration for Virgil, to whom he is quick to confess his indebtedness as a poet.4 There follows a recognition scene of the utmost finesse, at the end of which Statius, forgetting for the moment that he is but a shade, rushes forward to embrace his revered master.5Virgil is astonished at first to see that, despite his “wisdom,” Statius foolishly allowed himself to be conquered by avarice.6 Statius explains that the vice he was in the process of expiating at the time of their arrival was not avarice but another, less reprehensible vice, the vice of prodigality, and that he was placed among the greedy because the vices opposed to the same virtue—in this instance moderation in the use of riches—are punished in the same place.7 In fact, the fifth terrace is the only one to hold more than one category of sinners, even though it is not easy to distinguish among them.We learn subsequently that thanks to the famous prophecy in Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue regarding the inauguration of a new order marked by the return of the Golden Age,8 Statius converted to Christianity, but that, fearing the persecutions of the emperor Domitian, he remained to the end of his life a secret Christian, “chiuso cristian [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]