Both in the _Convito_ and the _De Monarchia_ he affirms
that the course of Roman history was providentially guided from the
first. Rome was founded in the same year that brought into the world
David, ancestor of the Redeemer after the flesh. St. Augustine said that
"God showed in the most opulent and illustrious Empire of the Romans how
much the civil virtues might avail even without true religion, that it
might be understood how, this added, men became citizens of another city
whose king is truth, whose law charity, and whose measure eternity."
Dante goes further than this. He makes the Romans as well as the Jews a
chosen people, the one as founders of civil society, the other as
depositaries of the true faith.[213] One side of Dante's mind was so
practical and positive, and his pride in the Romans so intense,[214] that
he sometimes seems to regard their mission as the higher of the two.
Without peace which only good government could give, mankind could not
arrive at the highest virtue, whether of the active or contemplative
life. "And since what is true of the part is true of the whole, and it
happens in the particular man that by sitting quietly he is perfected in
prudence and wisdom, it is clear that the human race in the quiet or
tranquillity of peace is most freely and easily disposed for its proper
work which is almost divine, as it is written, 'Thou hast made him a
little lower than the angels'[215] Whence it is manifest that universal
peace is the best of those things which are ordained for our beatitude.
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