Dante, Fortune, and the Universal Destination of Goods

In Canto 7 of Dante's Inferno, the narrator and his guide, Virgil, descend deeper into Hell, encountering the avaricious and profligate. Here Virgil tells Dante, "Bad giving and bad keeping has deprived them of the lovely world and set them to this scuffling.... Now you can see, my son, the brief mockery of the goods that are committed to Fortune, for which the human race so squabbles" (7:58-59, 61-62, Durling trans.). These sinners have erred by keeping too much, or too little, as if they were somehow able to avoid the allocations of Fortune.

Dante, seeking to better understand asks, "This Fortune that you touch on here, what is it, that has the good of the world so in its clutches?" (7:67-69) Virgil replies:

He whose wisdom transcends all things fashioned the heavens, and he gave them governors who see that every part shines to every other part, distributing the light equally. Similarly, for worldly splendors he ordained a general minister and leader who would transfer from time to time the empty good from one people to another, from one family to another, beyond any human wisdom's power to prevent.... This is she who is so crucified even by those who should give her praise, wrongly blaming and speaking ill of her; but she is blessed in herself and does not listen: with the other first creatures, she gladly turns her sphere and rejoices in her blessedness. (7:73-81, 91-96)

Just as the celestial bodies have "governors" - imagine here some kind of angels that enforce the laws of physics and keep the stars and planets on their courses - so too earthly goods have a governor, Fortune. Like the angels who oversee the heavenly bodies, she is "blessed" and does not care what praise or blame is given by men.

But why would God create Fortune at all? Why must the sphere of worldly goods turn in the way that the celestial bodies turn? There are probably many potential answers, though one that strikes me involves what we have come to know as the "universal destination of goods." As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains,

In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits. The goods of creation are destined for the whole human race. However, the earth is divided up among men to assure the security of their lives, endangered by poverty and threatened by violence. The appropriation of property is legitimate for guaranteeing the freedom and dignity of persons and for helping each of them to meet his basic needs and the needs of those in his charge. It should allow for a natural solidarity to develop between men.

The right to private property, acquired or received in a just way, does not do away with the original gift of the earth to the whole of mankind. The universal destination of goods remains primordial, even if the promotion of the common good requires respect for the right to private property and its exercise. (CCC 2402-3)

In other worlds, while particular individuals hold particular goods (i.e., private property) in order to care for themselves, all goods ultimately belong to everyone. Although private property is the day to day norm, the "primordial" reality of the universal destination of goods remains. But what if someone should acquire too many goods, to his neighbor's detriment? Here Fortune turns her wheel: the wealthy are impoverished while the poor are enriched. Or, as Mary puts it, God (acting through Fortune)

has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
And has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty. (Luke 1:52-53)

There is certainly a coherence to Dante's notion of Fortune: she reflects the justice of God, her creator. The sins of avarice and profligacy are rebellion against her God-given authority and, for such rebellion, those who commit such sins are punished. And I think there is merit in the idea of Fortune as the guarantor of the universal destination of goods.

But for anyone who has observed the actions of Fortune, she often seems capricious, even vicious. It is one thing for the man of comfortable means, upon having lost some bit of wealth he did not really need, to curse Fortune as fickle. He is in the wrong, as Virgil contends. But what of children who starve because of natural disaster? Can we look upon them and glibly say, "Fortune gives and Fortune takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord"?

Aquinas argues that there is no discontinuity between chance and the divine order (Summa theologiae, 1a, q. 22, articles 2-3; Summa contra gentiles, 3.94) while Boethius likewise argues that seemingly random events in fact have a divine cause (Consolation of Philosophy, 4.6). I am not well-versed in the works of either Boethius or Aquinas, and I happily admit my intellectual poverty in their company.  (I only have the citations because Robert Durling provided them in his notes on Dante.)  But I can hardly think that the problem of destructive and capricious Fortune is so easily resolved.

Here we must recall that Adam and Eve's fall has ripples that are wide and enduring, not only for human beings but for the entire world around us. Where once rains simply watered the earth and made it bring forth food, now they also produce flooding and devastation. Although the natural world was created good, it too is fallen and can now bring forth evil as well as good. Fortune, like storms or fire, has been damaged by our sins. How exactly this came to be I do not know - perhaps no one does - but it accords with both Dante's understanding of her as akin to the forces of nature and with everyday experience of Fortune's power and vicissitudes.

Today's image is from the medieval Burana Codex.

Dante in Exile

One image that has remained with me since those days long ago when I sat in LitTrad II is that of Dante as an exile. Dante ended up on the wrong side of the incessant disputes between the Ghibellines and the Guelphs in Florence. And, Dante never let you forget that he was on the right side all along, and that he was suffering in exile for it. Some critics, as a consequence, might simply dismiss Dante as petulant and vengeful, and would point to his penchant for placing his personal enemies in Hell as justification for their view.

This view, however, though not completely unreasonable, fails to do full justice to the experience of Dante’s exile. What is it, then, that makes exile such a uniquely harsh punishment?

Other forms of punishment can, of course, take a greater physical toll. An ordinary prisoner sits in his cell for a dozen years, all the while constantly abused by guards and fellow inmates. An exile, on the other hand, leads a free life in another country. Nor is exile harsh because the exile is forced to go to a place he does not particularly enjoy. Ovid, for example, did not enjoy being confined to a little village on the coast of the Black Sea, but at least he was not rotting in prison. It must be something more than physical pain or boredom.

What makes exile such a unique punishment, I would suggest, is the wound inflicted on one’s identify. Who inflicts this wound on the exile? His own native land inflicts it on him by rejecting him.

The legal distinction between expatriation and deportation might help clarify this idea of rejection. In legal terms, an expatriation is quite different from a deportation. When somebody is deported, the government declares merely that the deportee never even had a right to move into the country. In an expatriation, on the other hand, the government declares that one of its own citizens has committed such a horrible offense that he is now no longer worthy to remain a citizen. Moreover, the nature of the offense is different than an ordinary criminal offense. If the exile were a regular criminal, the government would just lock him up or execute him. But, the exile has almost always committed a political offense. Put a little less delicately, he pissed off the wrong person in power. And, that person has used his power to have the country reject him on the basis of his beliefs.

How does this rejection inflict such a grievous wound on an exile’s identity? To answer this, we have to look at a typical exile. The typical exile is an intelligent, public-spirited individual who has crossed a powerful politician, or an entire faction. Usually, he has done so quite visibly, and has probably made a fool of these politicians too. They are embarrassed and want revenge, so they turn public sentiment against him and ostracize him, before finally forcing him to flee the country. Such a person is aware of his position and his importance, and this self-consciousness is the source of his vulnerability.

What are the effects of exile on such a person? First, the exile is systematically excluded from public life in his native country. This cuts him off from his country’s living history. Before exile he saw himself as involved in shaping the land he loved; now that land hates him. Furthermore, he is physically cut off from his own native land; he loses contact with the places he loves most. Also, he is cut off from many of his family and friends. He is alone and without moral support in a strange land. Finally, he is often cut off from his own language. Even if he speaks the language of the country to which he has fled, the exile cannot easily explain to the people around him how he has been wronged. In summary, the exile is abandoned to fate.

Some of these effects can be clearly seen in Dante's Inferno. For instance, in Canto X (the Epicureans), the Tuscan dialect creates an instant bond between Dante and Farinata, one of his enemies. Not only does Dante show his love for his native tongue at the beginning of his dialogue with Farinata, he shows his desire to be on the right side of Florentine politics. When Farinata boasts of defeating Dante’s party, Dante is very quick to point out that the defeat was only temporary. All this in the middle of Hell! So strong is Dante’s constant concern with his exile that it preoccupies him throughout his journey through Hell. Interestingly enough, however, Dante is generally able to transcend these concerns later in Heaven with Beatrice. Dante makes far fewer complaints about exile in Heaven than he does in Hell. Dante’s experience of Heaven and Hell must have shown him how unimportant his political exile was in comparison to our utter helplessness when exiled from God. Once he allows himself to be purified in Purgatory and abandons himself to God’s mercy in Heaven, he seems capable of accepting his exile.

Exile, then, is a uniquely effective way to punish an outspoken individual for his beliefs because it affects the very identity of an individual who is already quite self-conscious and aware of his intelligence, influence, and ambition. It takes everything away from him, and he is helpless. The only way to overcome this helplessness is self-abandonment and abandonment to God.

On the Subversive Use of Language - Part I

Machiavelli has given his name to a certain style of cut-throat politics characterized by intrigue, backstabbing and the unbridled pursuit of power, though he was neither its first advocate nor its most adept practitioner.1 More unique to Machiavelli’s thought is the use of language as a weapon: instead of employing language in the head-to-head combat of traditional arguments, he deploys his words on deep flanking strikes that take his opponents in the rear. “He gradually alters [words’] meaning by changing their context,” playing with double meanings or creating new meanings altogether.2 The Prince “presents evil as if it were neither evil nor good but merely useful or counterproductive. By the end unwary readers find themselves agreeing that both good and evil have their worthy places in a new ethical framework structured by the concepts of necessity and usefulness.”3 It is a linguistic coup d’etat accomplished not by force of argument but by slight of hand.

Machiavelli’s Christian contemporaries were appalled by his work, “not as virgins shocked by political horrors they did not know existed” – for medieval Christendom had its share of assassinations, intrigues and the like – but because his work is at odds with the Christian world-view. Whereas Machiavelli contended that this present world alone matters, and framed political actions accordingly, Christian political philosophy acknowledges that there are norms which transcend this world and ought to order it. Thus, Augustine and others articulated the concept that the City of God, though present in this world, will only be fully realized in the life to come. The greatest political actions undertaken by medieval Christendom, the crusades, amply illustrate this Christian world-view in action. Jonathan Riley-Smith points out that “the most characteristic feature of crusading was that it was penitential. Crusaders had engaged themselves to fight as an act of penance in which they repaid God what was due to him on account of their sins.”4 The crusaders were not any more or less calculating than Machiavelli; the difference is that their calculations included a final judgment before the Almighty and the possibility of eternal life at His side. “The last thing most sensible crusaders would have expected was material gain,” but they had much bigger matters in mind.5

For the Christian, this desire to make life conform to the highest truths extends to the use of language.

For Dante [an exemplar of the Christian position], the function of language is to describe the nature of things. To the extent that men understand the place of everything in a divinely ordered natural hierarchy, they may attune themselves to reality. Words express men’s best understanding of how every piece of reality fits with every other. Therefore, although words are not quite the means of grace, they have much to do with steering men toward saving truth or damning error…. [Machiavelli’s] thesis is that languages are essentially particular articulations of the universal struggle for primacy.6

Machiavelli’s Christian critics see that he undermines the connection between human behavior and transcendent truth and they fear for the salvation of souls. While their concern may be well-founded, these concerns need not result in a rejection of his methods out of hand.

Part II coming soon...


1. See Angelo M. Codevilla, introduction, The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), x.
2. Codevilla, “Words and Power,” The Prince, xx.
3. Ibid, xxv.
4. Jonathan Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, 3rd ed (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002) 3.
5. Ibid, 72.
6. Codevilla, “Words and Power,” xxiii.