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The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained Russell McNeil, PhD Editor, Malaspina Great Books In 1862 the English literary critic and poet Matthew Arnold described Marcus Aurelius as "the most beautiful figure in history." The Stoicism of Aurelius is grounded in rationality and rests solidly on an ethical approach rooted in nature. Stoicism promises real happiness and joy in this life and a serenity that can never be soured by personal misfortune. This philosophy has universal appeal with practical implications on problems ranging from climate change and terrorism to the personal management of sickness, aging, depression and addiction. I truly believe that the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius has much to offer us now...(Click on book cover for more)

Category:	Medieval Literature Medieval Science
Name:	Dante Alighieri - Astronomy A Short History of Hell
Birth Year:	1265
Death Year:	1321
Representative Image:
Biography, Lectures, and Research Links:	Biography - Astronomy Series, Theology Series Blog Dante Alighieri! SEARCH NOW: by title by author Italian poet, born at Florence, 1265; died at Ravenna, Italy, 14 September, 1321. His own statement in the "Paradiso" (xxii, 112-117) that he was born when the sun was in Gemini, fixes his birthday between 18 May and 17 June. During his exile from Florence he sought and received refuge and protection from a branch of the Malaspina family in Mulazzo and pays tribute to this in his Purgatorio. He was the son of Alighiero di Bellincione Alighieri, a notary belonging to an ancient but decadent Guelph family, by his first wife, Bella, who was possibly a daughter of Durante di Scolaio Abati, a Ghibelline noble. A few months after the poet's birth, the victory of Charles of Anjou over King Manfred at Benevento (26 February, 1266) ended the power of the empire in Italy, placed a French dynasty upon the throne of Naples, and secured the predominance of the Guelphs in Tuscany. Dante thus grew up amidst the triumphs of the Florentine democracy, in which he took some share fighting in the front rank of the Guelph cavalry at the battle of Campaldino (11 June, 1289), when the Tuscan Ghibellines were defeated by the forces of the Guelph league, of which Florence was the head. This victory was followed by a reformation of the Florentine constitution, associated with the name of Giano della Bella, a great-hearted noble who had joined the people. By the Ordinances of Justice (1293) all nobles and magnates were more strictly excluded from the government, and subjected to severe penalties for offences against plebeians. To take any part in public life, it was necessary to be enrolled in one or other of the "Arts" (the guilds in which the burghers and artisans were banded together), and accordingly Dante matriculated in the guild of physicians and apothecaries. On 6 July, 1295, he spoke in the General Council of the Commune in favour of some modification in the Ordinances of Justice after which his name is frequently found recorded as speaking or voting in the various councils of the republic. Already Dante had written his first book, the "Vita Nuova", or "New Life", an exquisite medley of lyrical verse and poetic prose, telling the story of his love for Beatrice, whom he had first seen at the end of his ninth year. Beatrice, who was probably the daughter of Folco Portinari, and wife of Simone de' Bardi, died in June, 1290, and the "Vita Nuova" was completed about the year 1294. Dante's love for her was purely spiritual and mystical, the amor amicitiae defined by St. Thomas Aquinas: "That which is loved in love of friendship is loved simply and for its own sake". Its resemblance to the chivalrous worship that the troubadours offered to married women is merely superficial. The book is dedicated to the Florentine poet, Guido Cavalcanti, whom Dante calls "the first of my friends", and ends with the promise of writing concerning Beatrice "what has never before been written of any woman". At the beginning of 1300 the papal jubilee was proclaimed by Boniface VIII. It is doubtful whether Dante was among the pilgrims who flocked to Rome. Florence was in a disastrous condition, the ruling Guelph party having split into two factions, known as Bianchi and Neri, "Whites" and "Blacks", which were led by Vieri de' Cerchi and Corso Donati, respectively. Roughly speaking, the Bianchi were the constitutional party, supporting the burgher government and the Ordinances of Justice; the Neri, at once more turbulent and more aristocratic, relied on the support of the populace, and were strengthened by the favour of the pope, who disliked and mistrusted the recent developments of the democratic policy of the republic. The discovery of a plot on the part of certain Florentines in the papal service (18 April) and a collision between the two factions, in which blood was shed (1 May), brought things to a crisis. On 7 May Dante was sent on an unimportant embassy to San Gemignano. Shortly after his return he was elected one of the six priors who for two months, together with the gonfaloniere, formed the Signoria, the chief magistracy of the republic. His term of office was from 15 June to 15 August. Together with his colleagues. he confirmed the anti-Papal measures of his predecessors, banished the leaders of both factions, and offered such opposition to the papal legate, Cardinal Matteo d'Acquasparta, that the latter returned to Rome and laid Florence under an interdict. Guido Cavalcanti had been among the exiled Bianchi; having contracted a fatal illness at Sarzana, he was allowed, together with the rest of his faction, to return to Florence, where he died at the end of August. This, however, was after Dante's term of office had ended. Enraged at this partial treatment, Corso Donati, in understanding with his adherents in Florence, appealed to the pope, who decided to send a French prince, Charles of Valois, with an armed force, as peacemaker. We find Dante, in 1301, prominent among the ruling Bianchi in Florence. On 19 June, in the Council of the Hundred, he returned his famous answer, Nihil fiat, to the proposed grant of soldiers to the pope, which the Cardinal of Acquasparta had demanded by letter. After 28 September he is lost sight of. He is said to have been sent on a mission to the pope at the beginning of October, but this is disputed. On 1 November Charles of Valois entered Florence with his troops, and restored the Neri to power. Corso Donati and his friends returned in triumph, and were fully revenged on their opponents. Dante was one of the first victims. On a trumped-up charge of hostility to the Church and corrupt practices, he was sentenced (27 January, 1302), together with four others, to a heavy fine and perpetual exclusion from office. On 10 March, together with fifteen others, he was further condemned, as contumacious, to be burned to death, should he ever come into the power of the Commune. At the beginning of April the whole of the White faction were driven out of Florence. A few years before his exile Dante had married Gemma di Manetto Donati, a distant kinswoman of Corso, by whom he had four children. He never saw his wife again; but his sons, Pietro and Jacopo, and one of his daughters, Beatrice, joined him in later years. At first, he made common cause with his fellow-exiles at Siena, Arezzo, and Forli, in attempting to win his way back to Florence with the aid of Ghibelline arms. Dante's name occurs in a document of 8 June, 1302 among the exiled Bianchi who at San Godenzo in the Apennines were forming an alliance with the Ubaldini to make war upon the Florentine Republic; but, in a similar agreement signed at Bologna on 18 June, 1303, he no longer appears among them. Between these two dates he had made his resolution to form a party by himself (Par., xvii, 61-68), and had sought refuge in the hospitality of Bartolommeo della Scala, the lord of Verona, where he first saw Can Grande della Scala, Bartolommeo's younger brother, then a boy of fourteen years, who became the hero of his later days. Dante now withdrew from all active participation in politics. In one of his odes written at this time, the "Canzone of the Three Ladies" (Canz. xx), he finds himself visited in his banishment by Justice and her spiritual children, outcasts even as he, and declares that, since such are his companions in misfortune, he counts his exile an honour. His literary work at this epoch centres round his rime, or lyrical poems, more particularly round a series of fourteen canzoni or odes, amatory in form, but partly allegorical and didactic in meaning, a splendid group of poems which connect the "Vita Nuova" with the "Divina Commedia". Early in 1304 he seems to have gone to Bologna. Here he began, but left unfinished, a Latin treatise, "De Vulgari Eloquentia", in which he attempts to discover the ideal Italian language, the noblest form of the vernacular, and then to show how it should be employed in the composition of lyrical poetry. Even in its unfinished state it is a most illuminating book to all who wish to understand the metrical form of the Italian canzone. On 10 March, 1306, the Florentine exiles were expelled from Bologna. In August we find Dante at Padua, and some weeks later in Lunigiana, where, on 6 October he acted as the representative of the Marquess Franceschino Malaspina in making peace between his family and the Bishop of Luni. About this time (1306-08) he began the "Convivio", or "Banquet" in Italian prose, a kind of popularization of Scholastic philosophy in the form of a commentary upon his fourteen odes already mentioned. Only four of the fifteen projected treatises were actually written, an introduction and three commentaries. In allegorical fashion they tell us how Dante became the lover of Philosophy, that mystical lady whose soul is love and whose body is wisdom, she "whose true abode is in the most secret place of the Divine Mind". All certain traces of Dante are now lost for some years. He is said to have gone to Paris some time between 1307 and 1309, but this is open to question. In November, 1308, Henry of Luxemburg was elected emperor as Henry VII. In him Dante saw a possible healer of the wounds of Italy, a renovator of Christendom, a new "Lamb of God" (the expression is the poet's) who would take away the sins of the world. This drew him back again into the tempestuous sea of politics and the life of action. It was probably in 1309, in anticipation of the emperor's coming to Italy, that Dante wrote his famous work on the monarchy, "De Monarchia", in three books. Fearing lest he "should one day be convicted of the charge of the buried talent", and desirous of "keeping vigil for the good of the world", he proceeds successively to show that such a single supreme temporal monarchy as the empire is necessary for the well-being of the world, that the Roman people acquired universal sovereign sway by Divine right, and that the authority of the emperor is not dependent upon the pope, but descends upon him directly from the fountain of universal authority which is God. Man is ordained for two ends: blessedness of this life, which consists in the exercise of his natural powers and is figured in the terrestrial paradise; blessedness of life eternal, which consists in the fruition of the Divine aspect in the celestial paradise to which man's natural powers cannot ascend without the aid of the Divine light. To these two ends man must come by diverse means: "For to the first we attain by the teachings of philosophy, following them by acting in accordance with the moral and intellectual virtues. To the second by spiritual teachings, which transcend human reason, as we follow them by acting according to the theological virtues." But, although these ends and means are made plain to us by human reason and by revelation, men in their cupidity would reject them, were not they restrained by bit and rein. xxxxx" Wherefore man had need of a twofold directive power according to his twofold end, to wit, the Supreme Pontiff, to lead the human race in accordance with things revealed, to eternal life; and the Emperor, to direct the human race to temporal felicity in accordance with the teachings of philosophy. It is therefore the special duty of the emperor to establish freedom and peace "on this threshing floor of mortality". Mr. Wicksteed (whose translation is quoted) aptly notes that in the, "De Monarchia" "we first find in its full maturity the general conception of the nature of man, of government, and of human destiny, which was afterwards transfigured, without being transformed, into the framework of the Sacred Poem". The emperor arrived in Italy in September, 1310. Dante had already announced this new sunrise for the nations in an enthusiastic letter to the princes and peoples of Italy (Epist. v). He paid homage to Henry in Milan, early in 1311, and was much gratified by his reception. He then passed into the Casentino, probably on some imperial mission. Thence, on 31 March, he wrote to the Florentine Government (Epist. vi), "the most wicked Florentines within", denouncing them in unmeasured language for their opposition to the emperor, and, on 16 April, to Henry (Epist. vii), rebuking him for his delay, urging him to proceed at once against the rebellious city, "this dire plague which is named Florence". By a decree of 2 September (the reform of Baldo d'Aguglione), Dante is included in the list of those who are permanently excepted from all amnesty and grace by the commune of Florence. In the spring of 1312 he seems to have gone with the other exiles to join the emperor at Pisa, and it was there that Petrarch, then a child in his eighth year, saw his great predecessor for the only time. Reverence for his fatherland, Leonardo Bruni tells us, kept Dante from accompanying the imperial army that vainly besieged Florence in September and October; nor do we know what became of him in the disintegration of his party on the emperor's death in the following August, 1313. A vague tradition makes him take refuge in the convent of Santa Croce di Fonte Avellana near Gubbio. It was possibly from thence that, after the death of Clement V, in 1314, he wrote his noble letter to the Italian cardinals (Epist. viii), crying aloud with the voice of Jeremias, urging them to restore the papacy to Rome. A little later, Dante was at Lucca under the protection of Uguccione della Faggiuola, a Ghibelline soldier who had temporarily made himself lord of that city. Probably in consequence of his association with Uguccione the Florentines renewed the sentence of death against the poet (6 Nov. 1315), his two sons being included in the condemnation. In 1316 several decrees of amnesty were passed, and (although Dante was undoubtedly excluded under a provision of 2 June) some attempt was made to get it extended to him. The poet's answer was his famous letter to an unnamed Florentine friend (Epist. ix), absolutely refusing to return to his country under shameful conditions. He now went again to Verona, where he found his ideal of knightly manhood realized in Can Grande della Scala, who was ruling a large portion of Eastern Lombardy as imperial vicar, and in whom he doubtless saw a possible future deliverer of Italy. It is a plausible theory, dating from the fifteenth century, that identifies Can Grande with the "Veltro", or greyhound, the hero whose advent is prophesied at the beginning of the "Inferno", who is to effectuate the imperial ideals of the "De Monarchia", and succeed where Henry of Luxemburg had failed. In 1317 (according to the more probable chronology) Dante settled at Ravenna, at the invitation of Guido Novello da Polenta. Here he completed the "Divina Commedia". From Ravenna he wrote the striking letter to Can Grande (Epist. x), dedicating the "Paradiso" to him, commenting upon its first canto, and explaining the intention and allegorical meaning of the whole poem. A letter in verse (1319) from Giovanni del Virgilio, a lecturer in Latin at the University of Bologna, remonstrating with him for treating such lofty themes in the vernacular, inviting him to come and receive the laurel crown in that City, led Dante to compose his first "Eclogue" a delightful poem in pastoral Latin hexameters, full of human kindness and gentle humour. In it Dante expresses his unalterable resolution to receive the laurel from Florence alone, and proposes to win his correspondent to an appreciation of vernacular poetry by the gift of ten cantos of the "Paradiso". A second "Eclogue" was sent to Giovanni after Dante's death, but it is doubtful whether it was really composed by the poet. This correspondence shows that in 1319 the "Inferno" and "Purgatorio" were already generally known while the "Paradiso" was still unfinished. This was now sent in installments to Can Grande, as completed, between 1319 and 1321. If the "Quaestio de Aqua et Terra" is authentic, Dante was at Verona on 20 January, 1320, where he delivered a discourse on the relative position of earth and water on the surface of the globe; but, although the authenticity of this treatise has recently found strenuous defenders, it must still be regarded as doubtful. In July, 1321, Dante went on an embassy from Guido da Polenta to Venice. Two months later he died, at Ravenna, on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and was buried in the church of San Francesco in that city. The whole of the "Divina Commedia" had been published, with the exception of the last thirteen cantos of the "Paradiso", which were afterwards discovered by his son Jacopo and forwarded by him to Can Grande. The "Divina Commedia" is an allegory of human life, in the form of a vision of the world beyond the grave, written avowedly with the object of converting a corrupt society to righteousness: "to remove those living in this life from the state of misery, and lead them to the state of felicity". It is composed of a hundred cantos, written in the measure known as terza rima, with its normally hendecasyllabic lines and closely linked rhymes, which Dante so modified from the popular poetry of his day that it may be regarded as his own invention. He is relating, nearly twenty years after the event, a vision which was granted to him (for his own salvation when leading a sinful life) during the year of jubilee, 1300, in which for seven days (beginning on the morning of Good Friday) he passed through hell, purgatory, and paradise, spoke with the souls in each realm, and heard what the Providence of God had in store for himself and to world. The framework of the poem presents the dual scheme of the "De Monarchia" transfigured. Virgil, representing human philosophy acting in accordance with the moral and intellectual virtues, guides Dante by the light of natural reason from the dark wood of alienation from God (where the beasts of lust pride, and avarice drive man back from ascending the Mountain of the Lord), through hell and purgatory to the earthly paradise, the state of temporal felicity, when spiritual liberty has been regained by the purgatorial pains. Beatrice, representing Divine philosophy illuminated by revelation, leads him thence, up through the nine moving heavens of intellectual preparation, into the true paradise, the spaceless and timeless empyrean, in which the blessedness of eternal life is found in the fruition of the sight of God. There her place is taken by St. Bernard, type of the loving contemplation in which the eternal life of the soul consists, who commends him to the Blessed Virgin, at whose intercession he obtains a foretaste of the Beatific Vision, the poem closing with all powers of knowing and loving fulfilled and consumed in the union of the understanding with the Divine Essence, the will made one with the Divine Will, "the Love that moves the sun and the other stars". The sacred poem, the last book of the Middle Ages, sums up the knowledge and intellectual attainment of the centuries that passed between the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Renaissance; it gives a complete picture of Catholicism in the thirteenth century in Italy. In the "Inferno", Dante's style is chiefly influenced by Virgil, and, in a lesser degree, by Lucan. The heir in poetry of the great achievement of St. Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas in christianizing Aristotle, his ethical scheme and metaphysics are mainly Aristotelean while his machinery is still that of popular medieval tradition. It is doubtful whether he had direct acquaintance with any other account of a visit to the spirit world, save that in the sixth book of the "Æneid". But over all this vast field his dramatic sense played at will, picturing human nature in its essentials, laying bare the secrets of the heart with a hand as sure as that of Shakespeare. Himself the victim of persecution and injustice, burning with zeal for the reformation and renovation of the world, Dante's impartiality is, in the main, sublime. He is the man (to adopt his own phrase) to whom Truth appeals from her immutable throne, as such, he relentlessly condemns the "dear and kind paternal image" of Brunetto Latini to hell, though from him he had learned "how man makes himself eternal" while he places Constantine, to whose donation he ascribes the corruption of the Church and the ruin of the world in paradise. The pity and terror of certain episodes in the "Inferno" - the fruitless magnanimity of Farinata degli Uberti, the fatal love of Francesca da Rimini, the fall of Guido da Montefeltro, the doom of Count Ugolino - reach the utmost heights of tragedy. The "Purgatorio", perhaps the most artistically perfect of the three canticles, owes less to the beauty of the separate episodes. Dante's conception of purgatory as a lofty mountain, rising out of the ocean in the southern hemisphere, and leading up to the Garden of Eden, the necessary preparation for winning back the earthly paradise, and with it all the prerogatives lost by man at the fall of Adam, seems peculiar to him; nor do we find elsewhere the purifying process carried on beneath the sun and stars, with the beauty of transfigured nature only eclipsed by the splendour of the angelic custodians of the seven terraces. The meeting with Beatrice on the banks of Lethe, with Dante's personal confession of an unworthy past, completes the story of the "Vita Nuova" after the bitter experiences and disillusions of a lifetime. The essence of Dante's philosophy is that all virtues and all vices proceed from love. The "Purgatorio" shows how love is to be set in order, the "Paradiso" shows how it is rendered perfect in successive stages of illumination, until it attains to union with the Divine Love. The whole structure and spiritual arrangement of Dante's paradise, in which groups of saints make a temporary appearance in the lower spheres in token of the "many mansions", is closely dependent upon the teachings of the Pseudo-Dionysius and St. Bernard concerning the different offices of the nine orders of angels. It is doubtful whether he knew the "Celestial Hierarchy" of Dionysius at first hand, in the translation of Scotus Erigena; but St. Bernard's "De Consideratione" certainly influenced him profoundly. Dante's debt to the Fathers and Doctors of the Church has not yet been investigated with the fullness of research that has been devoted to elucidating his knowledge of the classical writers. His theology is mainly that of St. Thomas Aquinas, though he occasionally (as when treating of primal matter and of the nature of the celestial intelligences) departs from the teaching of the Angelical Doctor. On particular points, the influence of St. Gregory, St. Isidore, St. Anselm, and St. Bonaventure may be traced; that of Boethius is marked and deep throughout. His mysticism is professedly based upon St. Augustine, St. Bernard, and Richard of St. Victor, while in many places it curiously anticipates that of St. John of the Cross. Mr. Wicksteed speaks of "many instances in which Dante gives a spiritual turn to the physical speculations of the Greeks". Even in the "Paradiso" the authority of Aristotle is, next to that of the Scriptures, supreme; and it is noteworthy that, when questioned by St. John upon charity, Dante appeals first of all to the Stagirite (in the "Metaphysics") as showing us the cause for loving God for Himself and above all things (Par., xxvi, 37-39). The harmonious fusion of the loftiest mysticism with direct transcripts from nature and the homely circumstance of daily life, all handled with poetic passion and the most consummate art, gives the "Divina Commedia" its unique character. The closing canto is the crown of the whole work sense and music are wedded in perfect harmony; the most profound mystery of faith is there set forth in supreme song with a vivid clearness and illuminating precision that can never be surpassed. Dante's vehement denunciation of the ecclesiastical corruption of his times, and his condemnation of most of the contemporary popes (including the canonized Celestine V) to hell have led to some questioning as to the poet's attitude towards the Church. Even in the fourteenth century attempts were made to find heresy in the "Divina Commedia", and the "De Monarchia" was burned at Bologna by order of a papal legate. In more recent times Dante has been hailed as a precursor of the Reformation. His theological position as an orthodox Catholic has been amply and repeatedly vindicated, recently and most notably by Dr. Moore, who declares that "there is no trace in his writings of doubt or dissatisfaction respecting any part of the teaching of the Church in matters of doctrine authoritatively laid down". A strenuous opponent of the political aims of the popes of his own day, the beautiful episodes of Casella and Manfred in the "Purgatorio", no less than the closing chapter of the "De Monarchia" itself, bear witness to Dante's reverence for the spiritual power of the papacy, which he accepts as of Divine origin. Not the least striking testimony to his orthodoxy is the part played by the Blessed Virgin in the sacred poem from the beginning to the end. It is, as it were, the working out in inspired poetry of the sentence of Richard of St. Victor: "Through Mary not only is the light of grace given to man on earth but even the vision of God vouchsafed to souls in Heaven." Our earliest account of the life and works of Dante is contained in a chapter in the "Croniche Fiorentine" of Giovanni Villani (d. 1348), who speaks of the poet as "our neighbour". There are six commentaries extant on the "Divina Commedia", in whole or in part, composed within ten years of the poet's death. Three of these by Graziolo de' Bambaglioli, then chancellor of the commune of Bologna; an unidentified Florentine known as Selmi's Anonimo, and Fra Guido da Pisa, a Carmelite extend to the "Inferno" alone; those by Jacopo Alighieri, the poet's second son, Jacopo della Lana of Bologna, and the author of the "Ottimo Commento" deal with the entire poem. Graziolo appears as the first defender of Dante's orthodoxy (then fiercely assailed in Bologna); the author of the "Ottimo" (plausibly identified with a Florentine notary and poet, Andrea Lancia) professes to have actually spoken with Dante, and gives us various interesting details concerning his life. About 1340 Dante's elder son, Pietro Alighieri, set himself to elucidate his father's work; two versions of his Latin commentary have been preserved, the later containing additions which (if really his) are of considerable importance. Some time after 1348, Giovanni Boccaccio wrote the first formal life of Dante, the "Trattatello in laude di Dante", the authority of which once much derided, has been largely rehabilitated by more recent research. His commentary on the "Inferno" is the substance of lectures delivered at Florence in 1373. A few years later came the commentaries of Benvenuto da Imola and Francesco Buti, which were originally delivered as lectures at Bologna and Pisa respectively. Benvenuto's is a living book, full of humour and actuality as well as learning. The little "Life" by Leonardo Bruni (d. 1444), the famous chancellor of the Florentine Republic, which supplements Boccaccio's work with fresh information and quotes letters of the poet other than those which are now known and the slighter notice by Filippo Villani (c. 1404), who is the first commentator who refers in explicit terms to the "Letter to Can Grande", bring the first age of Dante interpretation to an appropriate close. The title of father of modern Dante scholarship unquestionably belongs to Karl Witte (1800-83), whose labours set students of the nineteenth century on the right path both in interpretation and in textual research. More recently, mainly through the influence of G.A. Scartazzini (d. 1901), a wave of excessive scepticism swept over the field, by which the traditional events of Dante's life were regarded as little better than fables and the majority of his letters and even some of his minor works were declared to be spurious. This has now happily abated. The most pressing needs of Dante scholarship today are more textual study of the "Divina Commedia", a closer and more thorough acquaintance with every aspect of the minor works and a fuller investigation of Dante's position with regard to the great philosophies of the Middle Ages; such as will justify or restate the pregnant opening of the epitaph that Giovanni del Virgilio composed for his tomb: Theologus Dantes, nullius dogmatis expers quod foveat claro philosophia sinu ("Dante the theologian, skilled in every branch of knowledge that philosophy may cherish in her illustrious bosom"). Dante may be said to have made Italian poetry, and to have stamped the mark of his lofty and commanding personality upon all modern literature. It can even be claimed that his works have had a direct share in shaping the aspirations and destinies of his native country. His influence upon English literature begins with the poetry of Chaucer, who hails him worthily in the "Monkes Tale", and refers his readers to him as "the grete poete of Itaille that highte Dant". Eclipsed for a while in Tudor times by the greater popularity of Petrarch, he was afterwards ignored or contemned from the Restoration until the end of the eighteenth century. The first complete translation of the "Divina Commedia" into English, the work of an Irishman, Henry Boyd, was published in 1802 (that of the "Inferno" having been issued in 1785). Dante came again into his heritage among us with the great flood of noble poetry that the beginning of the nineteenth century witnessed. The eloquent tributes rendered to him by Shelley (in "Epipsychidion", the "Triumph of Life", and "A Defence of Poetry") and by Byron (especially in the "Prophecy of Dante") as after them by Browning and Tennyson, need not be repeated here. Through Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites, he has been a fruitful influence in art no less than in letters. In the interpretation and criticism of Dante, English-speaking scholars at present stand second only to the Italians. Never, perhaps, has Dante's fame stood so high as at the present day, when he is universally recognized as ranking with Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Shakespeare, among the few supreme poets of the world. It has been well observed that his inspiration resembles that of the Hebrew prophet more than that of the poet as ordinarily understood. His influence moreover, is by no means confined to mere literature. A distinguished Unitarian divine has pointed out that the modern cult of Dante is "a sign of enlarging and deepening spiritual perception as well as literary appreciation", and that it is one of the chief indications of "the renewed hold which the later Middle Ages have gained upon modern Europe" (Wicksteed, "The Religion of Time and of Eternity"). The poet's own son Pietro Alighieri, declared that, if the Faith were extinguished, Dante would restore it, and it is noteworthy today that many serious non-Catholic students of life and letters owe a totally different conception of the Catholic religion to the study of the "Divina Commedia". The power of the sacred poem in popularizing Catholic theology and Catholic philosophy, and rendering it acceptable, or at least intelligible to non-Catholics, is at the present day almost incalculable. The place of honour among Dante societies belongs unquestionably and in every sense to the "Societa Dantesca Italiana", an admirably conducted association with its headquarters at Florence, which welcomes foreign students among its members, and is distinguished for its high and liberal scholarship. In addition to courses of lectures delivered under its auspices in various Italian cities, it publishes a quarterly "Bulletino", a survey of contemporary Dante literature, and has begun a series of critical editions of the minor works. Of these latter, volumes dealing with the "De Vulgari Eloquentia" and the "Vita Nuova", by Pio Rajna and Michele Barbi respectively, have already appeared, and may be truly said to mark an epoch in the critical and textual study of Dante's Latin and Italian writings alike. The association known as the "Dante Alighieri", on the other hand, is essentially a national and political society, and is only indirectly concerned with the poet whose name it bears. Of Dante societies other than Italian, the "American Dante Society" of Cambridge, Massachusetts, stands first in importance. The small but distinguished "Oxford Dante Society" does work of a high order of scholarship. The "Dante Society of London" is noteworthy for its large number of members, and publishes its sessional lectures in volume form; but its aims appear to be social rather than scholarly. [Adapted from Catholic Encyclopedia (1908)] The Great Books: Dante Alighieri Please browse our Amazon list of titles about Dante Alighieri. For rare and hard to find works we recommend our Alibris list of titles about Dante Alighieri. Offer Comments, Questions or Suggestions! This database is maintained by Malaspina Great Books.
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	Malaspina Great Books Lecture Series A Short History of Hell Russell McNeil, PhD (Copyright 2005) [Malaspina Great Books Exclusive] 1. Introduction Arguably, Dante's Inferno has had as much influence on the human imagination as any poem in any language at any time. The horrors of divine retribution as painted in this terrific allegory really have not lost much of their punch in 700 years. Dante's hell remains as terrifying and chilling for moderns as it was to the medieval imagination. What is it about this poem that speaks to us now? Is it fascination with the underbelly of the Cosmos? Perhaps. But, this is not the first trip we have taken to the underworld. Homer brought us to the Greek version of the world of the dead in the Odyssey. But those encounters with the shades of Achilles, Agamemnon, the mother of Odysseus. Odysseus, Terisias, and others, fascinate more than strike terror. Hades is no longer convincing. Perhaps this is because that story for us comes from a distant place, a remote time, and a dead system of beliefs. We are interested in Odysseus' bold adventure in Hades, but it is no longer close or fearful, as I'm sure it was for the Greek imagination. The Inferno plays on our fears still. Does this mean that although much may have changed in the world since 1300 clearly much must also have remained the same? I suspect this is so because Dante has successfully mirrored our private beliefs and fears, and done so in a convincing way. I don't mean to suggest that readers believe in an actual physical hell with the detailed cosmology Dante describes. Most of us probably do take the poem as allegory. Yet, many of us, in our private assessment, understand the need "justice." The punishments are bizarre, cruel, unusual and comic, but strangely they are also right. 2. Brief History of Hell There is a teasing possibility here -- that Dante actually got it right. I don't mean he really really got it right. i.e. that there is a hell, like this. What I mean "by getting it right" is that Dante's initial success was is large part because he did mirror real medieval church teaching on hell. The hell of the pre-reformation Roman Catholic Church in 1300 was not the Hell of Dante in its finer and most gruesome details, nor was it cosmologically structured like this -- as a series of descending circles offering punishments that matched the crimes of the souls we find there. Yet, in substance, Dante's Hell does match the doctrine of his day. Hell Today I want to bring some contrast first. Contemporary "Christian" speculation on Hell is as diverse now as ever. However, the mainline theological positions on hell have been muted considerably. The Catholic position, conservative in comparison with many liberal Protestant views, reads like this Hell is the ultimate consequence of sin rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who [by their own free will] separate themselves from god. This position is one developed from attempts to rationalize the various references to Hell in the Bible. The steps in those arguments take this form: God is infinitely good and merciful. Man is free to reject God and to separate from him. Eternal damnation or hell is not imposed externally by God but a development of premises already set by people in this life. The unhappiness this obscure condition brings can be sensed in the light of the terrible experiences we have suffered which, as is commonly said, make life hell. The images of hell that sacred scripture present show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. There you have it -- Hell 2000 -- right from the papal throne -- July 1999. Rather urbane view don't you think? Or is it? It is still eternal. It is still damnation. It is still freely chosen. It is an obscure condition, true, and that's a new spin. But obscure is no less terrible. What counts still is this. Be it a place -- as the medieval mind assumes, or be it a spiritual state as the modern view holds, what does hell feel like??? Well, the pope says it right here -- hell feels, well, like "hell." And what pray tell, feels like hell? How do we answer that? We search for a simile, a metaphor, an allegory. At the end of the day we agree Hell does feel like well -- Dante's hell is as good as any. If hell is about feeling bad, the poor souls in this romp are feeling about as badly as anyone can feel!!! So, did Dante get it right? Or, did Dante get it wrong? Is Dante's allegory intended to reflect a physical world or is it a cosmology of spiritual angst, as the modern church would have us believe? Hell, it's a poem. It's a brilliant poem and I think Dante intended it as allegorical. But its success clearly has much to do with the capacity to engage the imaginations at both the literal and the symbolic levels. Dante gets it right on both counts. The Inferno certainly suited the simplistic and more literal theological beliefs of the 14th century, beliefs Dante himself may have felt somewhat naive; but the Inferno lives on in the modern imagination because its rich allegorical significance also speaks to the theological persuasions of today. Hell 1300 But what about those beliefs of yesterday? What was the climate on hell (if not in hell) when Dante penned this immortal work? Dante did not invent the place. He stepped onto the scene 1,300 years into the Christian era. There was a hell before Dante. And it's that hell that interests me. What was he going on? What was he drawing from? And to what degree would the Church of his day have endorsed this vision? The history of Hell, as far as the Judeo-Christian traditions are concerned, trace back to the earliest Hebrew references to a place under the earth called Sheol. For the early Israelites it was a physical place, under the earth. The Old Testament Book of Numbers 16:30-31 describes Sheol as a place one goes to after death, but not a place of torment. Shoel is rarely interpreted in these contexts as connoting ongoing existence. If anything Sheol is a place or state of non-existence. Often the term Sheol is taken as a parallel for death. In Ecc. 9:10 Sheol is described thus: There is no work, or thought, or knowledge, or wisdom, in Sheol, to which you are going. The transformation of Sheol into a livelier if more goulish yet more interesting place, or state, is indirectly due to the Greeks. When the Hebrew literature was first translated into the Greek language, the Greek Hades often translated Sheol. It would have been more appropriate to leave Sheol as is was by coining a phonetically similar Greek word. Hades and Sheol may bear similar external characteristics, but to the imaginations of the Hebrew and Greek cultures they were very different underworlds. Hades, as we've seen from the Odyssey, flirts with the notion of a life beyond the grave. Nit a great life, but life nonetheless. The shades of Homer's underworld may not suffer the torments of Dante's Hell, but they hardly lead the life of Riley. Life in Hades was nothing to write home about, and of course noone ever does. The Greek translations of the New Testament use two other words for Hell. The most frequent is Gehenna, which, among other things, was the location of the ancient garbage dump, outside of Jerusalem. The other word for Hell, and its used only once in 2 Peter 2.4 is Tartaros and it is described as a place of fire and brimstone. Interestingly, the Gospel of John, the latest and most theological of Gospels makes no reference to Hell at all. The English word "Hell" is derived from Norse mythology from "Hel, " a Goddess of the underworld. In Norse customs only those who fall in battle may enter Valhalla; the rest of us go down to Hel in the underworld, but not necessarily to punishment. 3. Theological Meanings Does Hell Exist? Whether it was due to faulty translations or flawed reasoning, the world that gave birth to Dante was a world that had had embraced??? the idea of hell long before Dante penned the Inferno. Hell was real and hell's existence could be reasoned following Augustinian-style arguments. The arguments ran something like this: Argument for the existence of Hell God -- if he is just -- must avenge any violation of the moral order. If that justice is not done in this life, it clearly must be done after death. A God that did not so act would clearly be indifferent to good and evil. The simple threat of annihilation (negative punishment) after death is insufficient as deterrent or punishment. Whatever punishment it must be positive. Location of Hell In Dante's day Hell had evolved as a more or less physical place. Most, but not all, theologians of the day held the view that Hell was located beneath the earth. It was located near the centre of the universe and at the heart of the most corruptible place in the cosmos. That view would have been bolstered by the earlier endorsement of many, but not all, of the cosmological principles developed by Aristotle. From that perspective Dante's model of hell is thoroughly Kosher -- so to speak -- resting on firm medieval science and firm medieval theology. Drawing on a number of richly descriptive New Testament references, the Hell of Dante's day, was viewed as a place of torment for the damned. It was permeated with unquenchable fire and darkness. The many associations of fire with hell in the new testament were seen as literal descriptions. The richly tiered structure in the Inferno with a circle for every sin and every sin in its circle is of course Dante's invention. But it's a invention that would have pleased the theological convention of Dante's day. Some theologians, Thomas Aquinas in particular, who lived during the same era as Dante, did express less literal and perhaps more enlightened views about hell. The nightmare of literal horrors in Dante's hell would likely amuse Aquinas. For Aquinas, terror and fear could serve no redemptive purpose. As far as Aquinas is concerned, the only way to obtain redemption is through a genuine love of god. Any sorrow for sin springing solely from the fear of hell would not suffice. Dante's Inferno -- read literally and without reference to the two other works in the Divine Comedy -- would certainly terrorize. Furthermore, for Aquinas, the Inferno as such, would certainly do little to instill love for a creator. It can be argued however the complete work is deeply spiritual and completely consistent with enlightened theology, be it Thomistic or otherwise. Is Hell Eternal? Is the punishment of hell eternal? The biblical references to hell and its punishments place no limitation on duration. However, from the point of view of reason, as Augustine would argue, no reasonable argument can be advanced to demonstrate that hell is eternal. For this reason the pre-reformation Catholic Church, the church of Dante's day, was officially silent on the duration of punishment. One of the strongest points against the eternal argument is the notion of cruel and unusual. There is no proportion at all between the "moment of sin," and "the eternity of punishment." Pain in Hell The theological establishment had always recognized two types of pain that the damnation of hell might entail. The terms Poena Damni and Poena Sensis refer to the pain of loss and the physical pain of sensation. Until last summer's pronouncements on hell, the church had been silent as to which was most important or most real. Real physical punishment is currently out of favour, clearly however, that would not have been the case in Dante's day. 4. The Devil From what I can gather from my limited review of Hell, evil, Satan, and sin, the issue of the devil; who he is; what he is; where he is; and why he is; is in a real mess. We have met someone named Satan in Job and Matthew. As we've commented here on several occasions, this figure performs a bureaucratic role on behalf of God or on his behest. The Book of Revelation introduces another Satan who engages and loses to God in a titanic struggle reminiscent of Greek mythology. That struggle seems to have little Old Testament support, although the struggle, logic would demand, must have occurred long before the events of the Old Testament. But those who follow the Christian tradition choose to see support for this myth in certain Old Testament passages, especially Isiah 14 12-15. Of course in Dante's pre-Copernican Cosmos the idea of a Great Chain of Creation with God at the top, hierarchies of angels, and man as a lower order of being, made rational sense. That angels, as well as man would have been offered probation, an opportunity to choose their creator freely, also made rational sense. Theologians for centuries have debated the nature of angels and the sort of probation this order of creation would have experienced. Most speculation has rejected the idea that Satan, an angel of very high intellect, tried to overpower God. As a very smart fellow he would have known the futility of a struggle with the infinite. The sin of Satan, or Lucifer, was held to be one in which some subset of this order of creation wished to be not god, but somehow "as god." So in some sense, the sin of Satan, was a sin of pride - spiritual lust some call it -- a sin for which he paid a very high price. According to some theological schools, Satan and his co-conspirators, have been given a sort of dominion over the earthly realm and headed or heads, in parallel with the City of God, headed by Christ, a City of Satan here on Earth. One of the arguments some use to support the idea of Satanic direction over forces of evil is the success of evil in the world -- a fact that seems to make no sense given the nature of sin. Evil and are chaotic and negative elements. The occasional success of evil, sometimes stunningly successful, seems for some to suggest direction and intelligence in organization which is completely out of proportion and alien to the idea that evil by its nature is chaos and incapable of grand organization . What I find most curious about this idea and the Inferno is that Satan in this text is so clearly detached from the world. In fact he as far from the world as Dante's cosmos allows, buried and immobile in ice at the center of Hell. This remoteness and immobility - flying as it seems in the face of the idea of demons active in a City of Satan -- reflects I feel a rather astute and modern perception by Dante - the de-demonizing of the world in the gospels about Christ. I'll explain what I mean below. The Devil Today More modern theological views of demons argue that the gospel of Christ was explicitly de-demonizing. The God-made-man in Christ so reduces the separation between the God and the created, that the need for hierarchies of in-between beings, angels and devils, is eliminated. In cultures where the gap between the God and man is large and in which the god is indifferent to man, intermediates proliferate. The rich pantheon of lesser Greek gods can be understood in this context. So too can the good aka philosoper's god of Plato. As interesting as Plato's good seems, there is a distinct cleavage between the good and man. The good is remote and inaccessible. The Hebrew Yahweh in contrast is very much in your face and involved in the history of the world. The idea of a de-demonizing Christ seems not to make sense in the light of the New Testament Biblical texts where Christ is active in casting out devils. But those actions need to be seen in light of the wide belief in devils during this time. Although the early Isrealites did not pay much attention to demons, Persian influence between 538 and 300 BCE when Israel was part of the Persian empire transformed popular ideas about devils for many centuries. Those ideas may not have been taught in the pre-christian synagogues, but they seem to have entered the popular mind - in much the same way that modern peoples carry on with irrational astrological beliefs that fly squarely in the face of scientific knowledge - I'm a Capricorn man - what's your sign. Christ arrived on the scene in the midst of these notions. The Zoroastrian belief in two equally powerful Gods Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord) and Anghra Mainyu (Destructive Spirit) must certainly have influenced the Hebrew attitudes during these times. My argument that Satan's symbolic encasement in ice by Dante reflects an accurate gospel view revolves around the modern theological position that Christ preaches the message of God's rule and not the threatening message of Satan's rule. Satan is real I suppose, in this model, for those who choose to misplace their priorities. But real only in the sense that metaphors have meaning and bad dreams are disturbing.
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