Politics of Dante II
by Thomas Fleming
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Dante De Monarchia
Dante’s De Monarchia is not a work of political theory in the strictest sense but is more what we might term a work of moral theology directed towards political understanding. It shares the general aim of all his later major works, which is to show men the way out of misery and toward happiness. Two great instruments toward happiness, the Empire and the Church, had both fallen short of divine their missions. Thus his political message can only be understood in an ethical and spiritual context.
For Dante, the unity of the universe, as designed by its Creator, is a given. Man, by contrast, has a dual nature, ministered to by these two institutions, the one secular and the other spiritual. In this work, concentrating on the secular—as in the Commedia he will focus on the spiritual—he lays out a vision of universal Empire that brings peace to world. Since the end of life, in the Aristotelian/Thomistic sense, is contemplation of the good/divine, and this requires peace, only universal Empire can provide the peace that is necessary for study, prayer, and contemplation. Thus Dante’s approach to the distinct purposes of Church and Empire most be kept separate from modern anti-Christian argument—one quite alien to Dante’s mind and purpose–for the separation of Church and state. Dante is obviously thinking much of the time of Boniface VIII’s ambitious and, he would say, quite wrong-headed plan (e.g., in Unam sanctam) to make the Church supreme in the secular as well as in the spiritual realm—a notion quite alien from the spirit of Gregory I or even of Gregory VII.
In this connection, you should look at Purgatorio XVI, where Marco the Lombard blames primarily the papacy for picking up the sword but also accuses the Emperor Frederick (either I or II) of starting a briga, a quarrel, with the Lombard cities. Both sides are at fault for doing each other’s business and for looking after its own interests.
Following Aristotle in the Ethics, Dante argues that man’s distinctive character is his intellect, whose function is to understand, to know. Let me summarize the argument: Peace is prerequisite for the happiness that requires contemplation (4); While there may be various agents who would promote peace, when there are multiple organs for fulfilling a function/purpose, one takes precedence and rules the others. Thus the paterfamilias rules the household.(5) Partial orders in the human race are subsumed by the greater and more inclusive power (6).
Please observe that he leaves out the Eastern, more legitimate Empire from consideration. By 1300, after the devastating effects of Turkish advances and Western Crusades, the “Greeks”—as our ancestors were now calling them—could be dismissed as a failure. Empire is to kingdoms what God is to man. (7) Because of man’s nature, a supreme judge is needed. (10) The beest order in the world depends on the workings of justice, (11) and the human race is best ordered when it is most free (12) [“potissime liberum”], but the exercise of free will requires judgment (iudicium) as an arbiter between apprehension (that is understanding that something exists and can be sought) and desire. Man is most free when he is existing for his own sake rather than for another’s (say, a master’s or lord’s), thus he is most free under the Empire, because the Emperor, if he is truly emperor, rules for our sake, while other the rulers of other forms of government are crooked and self-seeking, working for the good of the king, the aristocracy, or the lower classes.
Dante cites Aristotle to show that under bad governments, the good man is a bad citizen while under a good government, the good man=good citizen. Why a single universal empire? Because, that which is best is unity, just as God is a unity. (15) Concord is best. Note that as a Trinitarian, Dante must conceive of the godhead as a collaboration of three partners, and if we really understand the political reality of Thomas’s and Dante’s time, we shall not fall into the trap of imagining that Dante is an advocate for a unitary—as opposed to federative/feudal–state. The excellence of unity is shown by the fact that Christ was born when the world ready, that is, unifed under the great Augustus. (Dante would not have known, but Augustus’ Empire was a federation of autonomous city-states.) The world has gone to Hell, he says, since Roman unity was shattered.
In Book II of De Monarchia, Dante tries to show why the Romans and their empire deserved and still deserve the universal monarchy they claimed. The argument here may not be very convincing because it requires us to take Livy’s account of early Roman history as seriously as the Medieval Italians did. As the noblest people in history, says Dante, the Romans deserved to hold power. Since he traces Roman nobilityback to Aeneas and his Trojan ancestors, Dante cannot think that nobility is never transmitted. (3). Since the Roman state was aided by miracles , its empire was destined by the will of God. (4) Whoever intends the good of the commonwealth (res publica) contemplates right (ius) as the objective—as all proper governments do—and thus since the Romans by their deeds aimed at the public good, they pursued aims of justice. (5) The word ius can be tricky, since it can be translated as “right,” “justice,” and “law,” however it only means right in the sense of that which is right or the principle of right and not right in the modern sense of a claim upon someone. Thomas makes the distinction very clear.
After giving us many examples of the Roman pursuit of justice, Dante proceeds to describe Nature as a work of divine intelligence. (7) Thus God through the workings of Nature ordained Roman people for Empire. It was necessary, he says, for nature to complete human society. The Romans acquired their empire fairly by besting all opponents and challengers and by playing according to the rules, as stories of dingle combats demonstrate.
In the discussion, the question has been raised about the Donation of Constantine and by extension the False Decretals. I suggested that some of the material, at least according to one line of interpretation, were pious insertions of traditional beliefs and not in that sense conscious frauds. Imagine someone in 1820 inserting into the First Amendment a prohibition on the election of to the presidency of non-Christians. This would be a forgery but consistent with conventional belief and practive.
More significant is the fact that first under the Goths and then after the Lombard conquests, the only source of stable order–apart from the feeble and faltering exarchate in Ravenna–was the Church, which was officially and unofficially deputized to carry out many secular functions. Local bishops became partners with the Frankish imperial vicars and the diocese and parish became more or less organs of town government, administering poor relief, repairing walls and roads, seeing to the water supply, conducting diplomacy. What is true on the local scale was even more true in areas that came directly under Roman protection. We can see this development in documents of Justinian’s reign and trace it by studying the history of Tuscan cities, such as Lucca, Siena, Pisa, and Florence. Well past Dante’s time, Tuscan bishops were preeminent a sphere of authority that would seem strange today. A century after Dante’s death, the great Bishop Antonino defied the Podestà in claiming his bigamy trial took precedence over an investigation into murder. This is a very long and complex point and only a lengthy study of Medieval Italian history can really clarify it, for which there is no room here. I hope people will take my word for it or else go off and read the history.
Finally, in an argument made familiar by Chesterton, Dante says that the birth of Christ within the Empire and under Augustus confirm his view that the Empire is ordained by Heaven. Then, boldly anticipating the objection that the Romans executed Christ, he says that His death according to law to which he subjected himself confirms Roman authority over humanity–a rather neat twist. (12)
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1 Comment by Michael Warning on 13 January 2009:
(Dante would not have known, but Augustus’ Empire was a federation of autonomous city-states.)
Autonomous? To what extent? If truly autonomous city-states, then one of Dante’s major augments would fail. For instance, Adam’s sin was punished in Christ by the legitimate authority: “Thus if Christ had not suffered under an authorised judge, that penalty would not have been a punishment. And no judge could be authorised unless he had jurisdiction over the whole of mankind, since the whole of mankind was punished in that flesh of Christ “who bore our sorrows”, as the prophet says. And Tiberius Caesar, whose representative Pilate was, would not have had jurisdiction over the whole of mankind unless the Roman empire had existed by right.” Pontius Pilate did not act on his own autonomous authority, but on the authority of the Roman Emperor. Jesus answered: Thou shouldst not have any power against me, unless it were given thee from above. Above, as if to say from the Roman Emperor and ultimately from God. I do not believe that Dante was unaware of the correct structure of Roman Authority, after all Dante relied heavily on Divine Scripture, which described the “degree” of Roman authority here: “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea, and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilina; Under the high priests Annas and Caiphas”
2 Comment by TJF on 13 January 2009:
The way to begin to understand this is to subject one’s self to the evidence and not to impose preconceived opinions. Pilate as procurator–and not a very good one, it would seem–was an officer of the Empire. Neither he nor the little territory he ruled were important enough for him to be a governor. What I said was that the Empire of Augustus was a federation of city-states. In Italy, this simply meant that the major towns preserved the traditional internal authority of the Italian civitates. In the cities of the East, the Romans gradually extended the same privileges. In more barbaric Gaul they treated the tribal confederacies that had major towns as civitates and where they found none, they constructed them and built theaters, baths, public basilicas, etc. This is not a controversial point, though one might debate the limits of the autonomy. The writers of the Scriptures, I am sorry to have to say, are not the best authorities on how the Roman Empire was governed, since none of them was every in a position of real authority and the only way they made the acquaintance of members of the ruling class was by running afoul of the law. That is how Paul met Gallio, the half-brother of Seneca. What Dante may or may not have understood of the Empire may never be learned, but what we do know is that he would have understood how a very similar, albeit looser structure existed when Tuscany was nominally ruled by a Count or Margrave. Again, I cannot tell the whole story of the Roman Empire here, much less the history of Medieval Tuscany. I must ask readers who have not studied to accept more or less the historical reconstructions I have outlined as a means of understanding Dante. If I am knowingly presenting a private and controversial opinion, I shall let you know. But neither the federative structure of the principate (Augustus to Marcus Aurelius) nor the highly decentralized feudal structure of West-Imperial Italy are matters of controversy.
3 Comment by Michael Warning on 13 January 2009:
“Since the end of life, in the Aristotelian/Thomistic sense, is contemplation of the good/divine, and this requires peace, only universal Empire can provide the peace that is necessary for study, prayer, and contemplation.”
“Peace is prerequisite for the happiness that requires contemplation (4); While there may be various agents who would promote peace, when there are multiple organs for fulfilling a function/purpose, one takes precedence and rules the others.”
How very important!. This is the heart of the matter. The universal United Nations can not bring about true and lasting peace, and every one knows this simple fact. And yet the particular purpose of this man made universal authority is to bring about world peace. Simple fact is that the United Nations was created to fill the void left by the absence of the occupant of the Office of the Holy Roman Emperor. Both universal authorities have the same particular purpose, but as Dante said: “And in the same way that each thing exists for its own particular purpose, so too each purpose has some thing of which it is the purpose; and so it is impossible strictly speaking for any two things, in so far as they are two, to have the same purpose; for the same inadmissible conclusion would follow, i.e. that one of them would exist in vain.” We can surmise which universal authority exists in vain. The United Nations is the usurper of the true universal authority. Thanks to Dr. Fleming for brining Dante’s works to light. Dante tells us that “the Roman empire is founded on right will not only disperse the fog of ignorance from the eyes of kings and princes who usurp control of public affairs for themselves, falsely believing the Roman people to have done the same thing, but it will make all men understand that they are free of the yoke of usurpers of this kind.” Now may the world give a reason to be free of the yoke of usurpers of this kind.
4 Comment by Robert on 13 January 2009:
It may be impossible to read Dante today as he presumed a certain view of the world, a certain cultural understanding that is simply no longer available to the contemporary imagination. It might be better to look at some pictures of medieval architecture.
5 Comment by TJF on 13 January 2009:
Difficult but not impossible. It may take a good part of a lifetime, though, to read his love poems and then the Commedia and then his prose works, but they are the expression of an integrated mind with a powerful imagination. It takes a while, admittedly, to get drawn in, and some knowledge of Italian is useful because the beauty of the language is like the beauty of the painting, architecture and sculpture of the 14th century.
6 Comment by TJF on 13 January 2009:
In this connection, you should look at Purgatorio XVI, where Marco the Lombard blames primarily the papacy for picking up the sword but also accuses the Emperor Frederick (either I or II) of starting a briga, a quarrel, with the Lombard cities. Both sides are at fault for doing each other’s business and for looking after its own interests.
7 Comment by Robert on 13 January 2009:
“they are the expression of an integrated mind with a powerful imagination.”
Yes, this is what I meant to say. It is hard for a disintegrated mind with little or no imagination to read Dante.
8 Comment by J Meng on 14 January 2009:
“Dante is obviously thinking much of the time of Boniface VIII’s ambitious and, he would say, quite wrong-headed plan (e.g., in Unam sanctam) to make the Church supreme in the secular as well as in the spiritual realm—a notion quite alien from the spirit of Gregory I or even of Gregory VII.”
It seems there is consistency with regard to what is meant by the principle of “indirect jurisdiction” of the Catholic Church in its relations with the State going back to the fifth century, at least. In his struggle with Philip the Fair, Boniface VIII issued the bull Unam Sanctam, wherein he declared, “in the power of the Church there are two swords, the spiritual and the temporal–the latter to be used for the Church, the former by the Church; the former by the hand of the priest, the latter by the hand of kings and soldiers, but with the consent and at the pleasure of the priest, ad nutum et patientiam sacerdotis.” Continuing, he asserts, “if the temporal power goes astray, it will be judged by the spiritual power, and since this is the supreme power, it can be judged only by God….Consequently, we say, declare, and define that to be subject to the Roman pontiff is necessary for salvation, for every human creature.”
The problem is that at the time of the issuing of this bull its true import was lost in the cacophony of the ongoing debate between “legists” (Pierre Flote, for example) and “canonists” (Giles of Rome, for example) as to the nature of the relationship between Church and State: the legists opting for absolute power on the part of the State, and the canonists for the Church.
To help resolve this argument, John of Paris and Dante both sought a via media. Both of their theses were similar, although John’s was more clear. Fr. Philip Hughes writes in his “A History of the Church” that John of Paris posited, “The two entities Church and State–though unequal in dignity–are co-ordinate in the exercise of authority. Both originate in the divine plan. The State derives its authority from God no less really than does the Church. The spiritual power is indeed the superior of the two, but it is not superior in everything. The pope, though truly Vicar of Christ by Christ’s appointment, is not in fact heir to the totality of Our Lord’s universal royalty over men and kings. In its own order the State is, under God, sovereign.” Yet, John says the spiritual power has authority to regulate the temporal, because the purpose of the spiritual power is a higher thing than the purpose of the temporal. This regulation is done, however, solely “by instructing the conscience of the prince, and, if the prince fails, by administering correction that is spiritual.” This is “indirect jurisdiction” and involves the distinction of the terms supreme and sovereign: the Church and the State are sovereign within their own spheres, but the Church is supreme overall, because of the supernatural destiny of men. Dante, as Dr. Fleming explains, tries to find the via media, also, but seems to give the State (i.e., a universal monarchy) more importance for the happiness of man. Nevertheless, he does admit that the emperor is in some way subject to the Pope “since mortal happiness is in some way established with a view to immortal happiness.” Dante says that the emperor receives from the pope “that light of grace by which he may rule more virtuously”
Really, amid all the acrimony between Philip IV and Boniface VIII, this is what the pope was articulating. Not only this, but he was consistent with the Church’s teaching on this matter. Pope St. Gregory VII was quite conscious of his responsibility to God for all the souls entrusted to him. “Political activity may be a necessarty means, but the end in view is always wholly supernatural. The pope must answer to God for the souls of kings no less than for those of priests and peasants; for kings too must keep God’s law, or find themselves in hell for all eternity.” He wrote such thoughts to William the Conqueror and even told that king, “and how you, in turn, because of your salvation and that you may come to the land of the living, must and ought to obey me without delay.” In all of this, there is no evidence that the pope was aiming to become the emperor of the Christian State.
As Fr. Hughes notes, this principle of “indirect jurisdiction” was not new even at the time of St. Gregory VII. He cites the instruction of Pope Gelasius to the emperor Anastasius in the fifth century that “the shepherd is charged to guide the whole flock.”
9 Comment by TJF on 14 January 2009:
I’d rather not get side-tracked on this issue except to say that there is a difference between a universal spiritual and moral jurisdiction and, on the other hand, secular political jurisdiction. Boniface was a revolutionary both in his teaching and in his practice. The result was a disaster for Italy, for Boniface personally, and for the authority of the Church. If Fr. Hughes argues to the contrary, I fear he is being a bit too partisan. There was always a combination of conflict and collaboration in the relations between Popes and Emperors–both Greek and German. Unfortunately, as the conflict escalated, each side began to take extreme positions. Boniface attempted to elevate the Church in france and Germany above all secular law and responsibility, and he was slapped down. Ultimately, he was beaten for his arrogance and suffered as sad an end of Gregory VII. Though Gregory fought in a better cause, he was, nonetheless, a fool, as one of his closest collaborators put it. One has to be on guard always, in looking at this matter, against the propaganda issued by both sides. Let us go back to Dante.
10 Comment by Sempronius on 14 January 2009:
Dante’s defense of the Empire is a sound piece of reasoning.The Empire represented the only theoretical way that Christian Europe could best organize itself.No other legacy could contend with Rome for the primacy.
But there are problems with it.Claims to Roman succession were,with varying degrees of validity,too numerous,anf far too tangled.Ultimately the various claims cancelled one another out and left Europe prostate before the great national kingdoms.
What I dont believe Dante went into any detail on was the relation of the Empire to these budding kingdoms.In theory the Emperor was suzerain over all of Gaul,Iberia,and Britain, as well as Italy.But only the Italian claims were pressed.Perhaps they should not have been.
This brings to the fore a related topic:Imperial policy.How best to exercise power so as to insure a reasonably secure dominion and safeguard not only the practice of Imperial rule,but also its theoretical foundations.
11 Comment by J Meng on 14 January 2009:
Dante or no Dante, without a Christian morality suffusing the political activities of any emperor, his whole edifice falls apart, as we see, today. And, Sempronius, I know this was a typo, but it is very funny that Europe has a vulnerable prostate.
12 Comment by Sempronius on 14 January 2009:
I’m a lousy typer I admit it.Prostrate.Thanks Herr Meng.I owe you one.
13 Comment by Michael Warning on 15 January 2009:
In Purgatorio XVI, Marco the Lombard tells Dante what is necessary for an Just Ruler: “The Shepherd who is leading you can chew the cud, but lacks the cloven hoof.” St Thomas writes on chewing the cud & the cloven hoof: “The animal that chews the cud and has a divided hoof, is clean in signification. Because division of the hoof is a figure of the two Testaments: or of the Father and Son: or of the two natures in Christ: of the distinction of good and evil. While chewing the cud signifies meditation on the Scriptures and a sound understanding thereof; and whoever lacks either of these is spiritually unclean.” Many believe that this line refers to the Pope. I would contend that this line applies to the qualities needed for a just ruler. Correct discernment and understanding of Scripture in defending the rights of the Office of the Emperor (chewing the cud). And the proper and valid election to that office (cloven hoof). Reason for this is that in this contest between the temporal rights of the emperor versus the pope the popes never have proper understanding of Scripture and were not able to defend their position. In Dante’s Monarchia III the Poet destroys most of the popes Scriptural arguments. So in no way does this line: “The Shepherd who is leading you can chew the cud” apply to the Office of the Pope. The pope is unable and unwilling to chew the cud in Scriptural matters pertaining to the Empire. Now for the cloven hoof, St Thomas tells us that the cloven hoof is a figure of the two natures in Christ, or His Kingship and His priesthood. There is found in Purgatory XXXII a two natured beast, the Griffin , who is to pulls and the Chariot to the tree, which then renews. For many this two natured beast is described as Christ. I would disagree and note that it is reasonable to say that the two natured beast describes the Royal and Sacerdotal natures that make up the Office of the Imperial Electors. Three Sacerdotal and four Royal. St Thomas tells us that: “in the griffon which is hostile to horses and men, cruelty of powerful men is prohibited.” The griffin or Imperial Electors have the civic duty to fulfill in electing the Roman Emperor. Thus making sure that a Universal ruler can limit the cruelty of powerful men over the rest. Back to “The Shepherd who is leading you can chew the cud, but lacks the cloven hoof.” Even if a ruler possesses right understanding of scripture in defending the rights of the Office of the Emperor but is not properly and validly elected by the Imperial Electors he will fail to be a Just Ruler, and would be no better than a usurper who would be unable to limit the cruelty of powerful men over the rest.
14 Comment by TJF on 15 January 2009:
Scripture, properly understood or not, has little or nothing to do with the question, nor, for that matter, do the electors in long stretches of time. Even a cursory glance at the history of the Western Empire reveals that the kingship and empire depend far more on hereditary succession, usurpation, violence, and intrigue than they do on election. What principle determined the elevation of a family of mayors to be kings of France? It was the decision of Pope Zacharias. Now, if the Pope could make a king, perhaps he could also determine–as he said he did–that the kingship would never pass out of the Carolingian family. But it did. It is a serious mistake to pick up a book or piece of history and to scribble on it one’s preconceived opinions. Someone who carries around an ideology–libertarian, monarchist, etc.–can never actually read anything or take away a valuable lesson, because he is too busy reading in his own rigid mindset. The commentators on Dante, which are being drawn upon here, are useful, but it is unwise to accept any point of view until one has actually studied the text, preferably in its original language and with so me knowledge of the historical context. This will prevent not all errors but at least keep the reader out of the trap of hermetic exegesis of texts.
15 Comment by Michael Warning on 15 January 2009:
“Scripture, properly understood or not, has little or nothing to do with the question”, But did not Dante, Ockham and others who defended the rights of the Emperor said otherwise? That according to these defenders of the Emperor that the best defense of the rights of the Emperor were found first and foremost in Divine Scripture. I think Dante says as much in the beginning of Book III of de Monarchia. Most all of the arguments in
“Now, if the Pope could make a king,” That is to the heart of the matter. The Pope has no authority to do so according to Dante and others. Not by the authority of Christ and not by apostolic precept. The pope could never point to the words of Divine Scripture to defend his right to make a king. The office of the Pope was never vested with this authority. One of the Scriptural arguments against the involvement of priestly office in temporal matters is found here: Then the twelve calling together the multitude of the disciples, said: It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables.
“nor, for that matter, do the electors in long stretches of time” But Dante did not give the term to the office of the Imperial Electors as the Proclaimers of Divine Providence? According to Dante there is no other clear way to know the mind of God in the matter of choosing the Emperor. Only by the proper election of the Emperor by the Imperial Electors is one able to accept true rulership of the elected Emperor. The office of the Emperor is not dependent on blood or hereditary right. Just as Dante defended true Nobility from the error of those who insisted that nobility was dependent on Blood and Wealth, Dante here also defends the right of true reulership by claiming that if the Emperor is properly elected by the Proclaimers of Divine Providence then that is truly God’s will and not man’s will.
16 Comment by TJF on 15 January 2009:
There is no time in my few remaining days in the office to provide the historical and literary lessons necessary to keep this discussion in focus. I have therefore decided not to post my treatment of the last book of the De Monarchia and to end the discussion.