The cornerstone of his system was the Freedom
of the Will (in other words, the right of private judgment with the
condition of accountability), which Beatrice calls the "noble
virtue."[202] As to every man is offered his choice between good and
evil, and as, even upon the root of a nature originally evil a habit of
virtue may be engrafted,[203] no man is excused. "All hope abandon ye who
enter in," for they have thrown away reason which is the good of the
intellect, "and it seems to me no less a marvel to bring back to reason
him in whom it is wholly spent than to bring back to life him who has
been four days in the tomb."[204] As a guide of the will in civil affairs
the Emperor; in spiritual, the Pope.[205] Dante is not one of those
reformers who would assume the office of God to "make all things new." He
knew the power of tradition and habit, and wished to utilize it for his
purpose. He found the Empire and the Papacy already existing, but both
needing reformation that they might serve the ends of their original
institution. Bad leadership was to blame, men fit to gird on the sword
had been turned into priests, and good preachers spoiled to make bad
kings.[206] The spiritual had usurped to itself the prerogatives of the
temporal power.
"Rome, that reformed the world, accustomed was
Two suns to have which one road and the other,
Of God and of the world, made manifest.
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