Age of Dante

We can not recreate the medieval order, but the principles that built Dante’s society can be used to rebuild ours.

In the beginning of The Divine Comedy, Dante writes, “When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does stray.”¹ From there, Dante, would write his magnificent poem charting a journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. 

This work of art represents the highest expression of Christian civilization, a perfect synthesis of theology, philosophy, mythology, and politics that sought to bring order in what was a very disordered time. Over seven hundred years after its completion, the poem continues to have a transcendent impact on Western civilization.

As we celebrate Dantedì, the day Dante began his descent into hell, we should not forget the work of the Florentine poet. Instead, Dante’s artistic masterpiece must become a guide to combat the disorder in our current order.

Beginning of the End

Dante, who wrote his magnum opus in political exile, witnessed the end of the Medieval order and the birth of a new era in Europe. Born in 1265, he was tutored in medieval philosophy and engaged with the great works of Virgil, Boethius, Cicero, and Aquinas.

Dante took a keen interest in the political situation of the Florentine Republic. The continental division of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines engulfed Florentine politics. Even after the Guelphs took control of Florence, the party split between the White and Black Guelphs. The result for Dante was his loss of power and expulsion from Florence and subsequent exile. 

Much like our own time, Dante, lived on the cusp of massive political change. Often seen as the highest expression of Medieval thinking, the poet’s work was published as Europe was about to transform. Christendom was about to experience massive changes as the social and religious revolutions would shatter the unity of the Christian political order and sow the seeds of liberalism in the West.

Europe had rebounded from the Black Death, but commercial interests and national monarchies had chipped away at the foundation of the feudal system of government, along with a decline in morality. As Russell Kirk wrote, “the Age of Faith approached its close, and with it a sense of unity and spiritual community under the medieval ideal of Christendom.”²

Dante was a visionary, seeing these problems brewing and seeking to combat them through his writing. The change the poet was experiencing bled into the pages of The Divine Comedy. As a former politician, Dante understood truth and the fundamental nature of politics, seeking to bring several important messages to his readers. 

Against Treachery

Dante’s political exile bled into the pages of his works. Dante was a man without a home or party, forced to travel the Italian peninsula without hope of returning home. All Dante could do was write in the hopes of leading people to the truth based on the Christian values instilled in him. Along with this knowledge, the cold and depressing state of his life formed the basis for how Dante would depict the worst sin of all: treachery. 

In the final chapters of their journal through hell, Dante and Virgil, the Roman poet and his guide, travel to the ninth and final circle, where they witness the frozen lake of hell where the treacherous suffer.

In the ninth circle, Dante places treachery as the worst sin any man could commit, as treachery is the opposite of charity. The treacherous sinner does not regard human warmth to himself or those who depend on him. Charity brings warmth and comfort, demonstrating the Divine light of God, while sin leads away toward the cold abyss of hell, visualized with the damned frozen since they are the furthest away from God’s love. The deeper the treachery, the deeper the dammed are in the ice. He writes, “I stood on souls fixed under ice to me they looked like straws worked into glass.”³

The frozenness of hell is the perfect contrapasso or punishment for traitors. It is a visual representation of those who separated themselves from the love and charity of those who depended on him. The treacherous sinners all remain with Satan as he pitifully wails and whimpers.

It is only fitting that the sinners suffer in this manner, as Dante wrote, “the world is best disposed for the best when Justice reigns therein; wherefore, desiring to glorify the age which seemed to be dawning in his day.”⁴

So too, treason separates us from the love of others, resulting in the distrust that plagues modern politics. Loyalty is a form of charity and obedience necessary to create a virtuous society. Liberal philosophy rallies against loyalty, instead advocating for remaining loyal only to oneself. Even the “conservatives” of our own polity betray their supporters in the hopes of self-preservation or political gain. But Dante provides his reader with eternal punishment for the treacherous. 

Dante’s travels through hell reflect the reality of our political order. Sin and disorder are the standard in our liberal society, promoted at the highest levels of government. In a world in which disorder and chaos reign, our politics should reject, as Dante did, the vices that only bring us closer to Satan and away from the common good. 

Beatific Politics  

Dante’s final voyage is to journey through the eternal kingdom of Heaven with his love, Beatrice. Dante and Beatrice ascend into the nine spheres of heaven and experience the fullness of God’s great love and wonder. 

Through the final leg of the journey, Dante, the pilgrim, understands the final destination of politics — the Beatific vision. In heaven, Dante still has material desires. He yearns for Beatrice’s love and wants to know his political future (the pilgrim’s journey is set before his exile from Florence). Yet, each time he converses with Beatrice, her eyes remain fixed on the light of God radiating above. 

Finally, the two arrive at the Primum Mobile, the final sphere of heaven where God resides. Dante receives a new guide as Beatrice leaves him to take her place among the elect. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a member of the Cistercian order, guides Dante to the Beatific Vision.

Dante is enamored with what he witnesses. The complexity of God is so powerful that the poet cannot find the words to describe what he is seeing accurately. He tries to understand how the three circles, representing the Trinity, can be one. The pilgrim notes, “my mind was totally entranced in gazing deeply, motionless, intent; the more it saw the more it burned to see.”⁵

Though the pilgrim is in heaven, he gives up his task to describe what he is seeing. Even in heaven, Dante cannot comprehend the mystery of God. This leads to the epic’s final words, “by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars,” beautifully encapsulating the end of politics.”⁶ God is love and that love rules the world. Through this singular good, other goods bear fruit — justice and love must be the center of our Catholic political mission. 

Dante’s final line of his journey reminds us of the powerful love that permeates every facet of our lives. It is the love that became incarnate and the love that willingly went to Calvary for us. Thus, Dante’s is a journey completed by transforming his entire being from the transcendent encounter with God. 

This eternal good forms our political order and does not detach itself. God can never be separated from politics, as all good will come from the Eternal Good. Our conception of the common good, the realness of our political order, and the individual’s responsibility stem from the Divine Logic. Truth and order are absolute, and they are best realized under God’s dominion. 

Dante’s pilgrimage is an excellent guide for navigating the perilous nature of the sinful world. He wrote the poem as the forces of liberalism were just beginning to shatter the unity of Christendom. As Dante saw these seeds being planted in Italy, he hoped the book would warn his readers to return to that singular truth. Russel Kirk wrote that Dante hoped that “right reason might disclose truth to men’s eyes again, and order might be regained by courageous acts of well. Such was the vision of The Divine Comedy.”⁷

This poem should not be seen as a sole work of art but as a guide in our disordered world and inspiration for a return to the proper values that shaped Western civilization. We journey with Dante from the lowest parts of our wretched existence to the highest expression of the good, being God Himself. 

It is no wonder, Pope Benedict XV said, “that we find in it a treasure of Catholic teaching; not only, that is, essence of Christian philosophy and theology, but the compendium of the divine laws which should govern the constitution and administration of States.”

We can not recreate the medieval order, but the principles that built Dante’s society can be used to rebuild ours. It is time we follow Dante and emerge from our own dark woods.

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1. Alighieri, Dante, The Portable Dante, pg. 3.

2. Kirk, Russell, The Roots of American Order, pg. 223.

3. Alighieri, Dante, The Portable Dante, pg. 187.

4. Alighieri, Dante, De Monarchia, pg. 50.

5. Alighieri, Dante, The Portable Dante, pg. 583.

6. Ibid, pg. 585

7. Kirk, Russell, The Roots of American Order, pg. 223.