DANTE'S DIVINA COMMEDIA: ITS SCOPE AND VALUE. FROM THE GERMAN OF FRANZ HETTINGER, D.D., PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY LONDON: BURNS & OATES, LIMITED. NEW YORK: CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY CO. 1887. EDITOR'S PREFACE. "THE scope and value of the Divina Commedia" is not a subject which interests merely the student of classic poetry, mediæval history, or the Italian tongue. In the present, even more than in the past, the poem holds its place, apart from its artistic merit, as a profound and comprehensive treatise on the principles of human conduct, and the end and worth of life. Most diverse, however, are the interpretations it receives. Writers, politicians, and statesmen of the foreign "liberal" school see in its pages the first expression and the strongest defence of their theories; while, on the other hand, theologians, religious, and bishops are among the most strenuous defenders of its orthodoxy. At Florence, in 1865, young Italy crowns the bust of the poet as the herald of free thought and revolution; at Ravenna, in 1857, Pius IX. places a wreath on his tomb, as a witness to his Catholic loyalty and faith. What then is the true teaching of the Commedia, and whence arise these conflicting judgments? Dr. Hettinger seeks for a reply by a method comparatively little used. He takes the poet's own teachers, the Fathers and Schoolmen, as his guides, and shows, from their writings, the source, as he thinks, of Dante's song, and therewith its true interpretation. For this mode of exposition Dr. Hettinger is eminently fitted. His great work, the Apologie des Christenthums, of which translations are to be found in nearly every European language, has long since secured him a position in the front rank of Catholic theologians. At the same time he is thoroughly conversant with the modern literature bearing on the Commedia. Of the result of his inquiry we will trace a brief outline. The subject-matter of the poem is the redemption of sinful man, and his ascent, by grace and repentance, from earth to heaven. Hell puts before us the sinner obdurate and chastised; Purgatory the penitent absolved, and advancing in virtue; Paradise the summit gained, and the reward of those who persevere. The idea in its development embraces the whole circle of Catholic theology, demonstrated according to the scholastic method of Dante's time, but expressed in form and language solely his own. Reason and faith, freewill and grace, the State and the Church, and their mutual relationsthe three kingdoms of nature, grace, and glory, and each in detail-man, sinning, repentant, and triumphant-all these fall within the range of the poet's vision. What that vision shows he recounts and describes as it is seen. In his own complex being, in the problems of the schools and of theology, in the world visible and invisible, mysteries deep and unfathomable arrest his thought; but he rejects as puerile and unworthy any temptation to doubt; where reason fails, he believes and adores. Nay, the very fact that God is incomprehensible, that His decrees and works are alike inscrutable, is to him a cause not of despondency but of thanksgiving. He delights to prostrate himself, in his ignorance and nothingness, before his Creator, all wise and all perfect, and then by a single act of love to span the infinite and be one with his God. And in the same spirit of exultant faith he views all things. Hell with its eternal torture, the stumbling-block of the modern philosopher, is to him a creation, not only |