"[230]
"By malison of theirs is not so lost
Eternal Love that it cannot return."[231]
Nor does the sacredness of the office extend to him who chances to hold
it. Philip the Fair himself could hardly treat Boniface VIII. worse than
he. With wonderful audacity, he declares the Papal throne vacant by the
mouth of Saint Peter himself.[232] Even if his theory of a dual
government were not in question, Dante must have been very cautious in
meddling with the Church. It was not an age that stood much upon
ceremony. He himself tells us he had seen men burned alive, and the
author of the _Ottimo Comento_ says: "I the writer saw followers of his
[Fra Dolcino] burned at Padua to the number of twenty-two together."[233]
Clearly, in such a time as this, one must not make "the veil of the
mysterious Terse" _too_ thin.[234]
In the affairs of this life Dante was, as we have said, supremely
practical, and he makes prudence the chief of the cardinal virtues.[235]
He has made up his mind to take things as they come, and to do at Rome as
the Romans do.
"Ah, savage company! but in the Church
With saints, and in the tavern with the gluttons!"[236]
In the world of thought it was otherwise, and here Dante's doctrine, if
not precisely esoteric, was certainly not that of his day, and must be
gathered from hints rather than direct statements.
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