Because
that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were
thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish
heart was darkened" (Rom. i. 18-21). He refers to the Greeks. The
Epistle to the Romans, by the way, would naturally be Dante's
favorite. As Saint Paul made the Law, so he would make Science, "our
schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by
faith" (Gal. iii. 24). He puts Aristotle and Plato in his Inferno,
because they did not "adore God duly" (Inferno, IV. 38), that is,
they "held the truth in unrighteousness." Yet he calls Aristotle "the
master and guide of human reason" (Convito, Tr. IV. c. 6), and Plato
"a most excellent man" (Convito, Tr. II. c 5). Plato and Aristotle,
like all Dante's figures, are types. We must disengage our thought
from the individual, and fix on the genus.
[152] It is to be remembered that Dante has typified the same thing
when he describes how Reason (Virgil) first carries him down by
clinging to the fell of Satan, and then in the same way upwards again
_a riveder le stelle_. Satan is the symbol of materialism, fixed at
the point
"To which things heavy draw from every side";
as God is Light and Warmth, so is he "cold obstruction"; the very
effort which he makes to rise by the motion of his wings begets the
chilly blast that freezes him more immovably in his place of doom.
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