Treason of Intellectuals, Dante Style

The Canto XXVII features one sinner, named Guido Montefeltro, who was punished for something which is quite contemporary and resonant.

Corrupt as he was, Guido still recognized that when the Pope asked him to raze a city off the map, it wasn’t quite kosher. Yet, the Pope assuages his conscience: Don’t worry about it. You’ll be granted total forgiveness by me, who holds the keys to “lock and unlock heaven” (Lo ciel poss’ io serrare e diserrare).

Fine, thinks Guido, former soldier, turned Franciscan, and so he carries on with his evil deeds, encouraged as he was by the greatest authority on earth, the Pope.

When he dies, his soul is ready to fly with St. Francis toward Paradise. Not so fast, says the Satan, who captures Guido mid-flight, drags him into the eight circle of frauds, where he is doomed to stroll as a burning torch.

The “black cherub” who dragged Guido to Inferno, proved to be a greater logician than the Pope, asserting that it is violation of logic to be forgiven for something that one doesn’t repent.

How many modern days politicians, scientists, journalists, social media moguls and other assorted scoundrels, carry on with their evil deeds convinced that the highest authority on earth, be it — presidents, parliaments, NYT or BBC — encourages them to do so.

Colin Powell surely felt smug about his testimony concerning “weapons of mass destruction,” as did Clintons, and Albright and Samantha Power, and John McCain along with this ultimate scoundrel, Cheney, pretending as they all were to act in the interest of the public. Well, as Shakespeare reminded us in Macbeth, “you can’t equivocate to Heaven.” Or Hell.

Below is the quotation from Dante and the amazing Dali’s depiction of the Devil devouring the hair-splitting Guido.

Then Francis came, as soon as I was dead,

for me; but one of the black cherubim

told him: ‘Don’t bear him off; do not cheat me.

He must come down among my menials;

the counsel that he gave was fraudulent;

since then, I’ve kept close track, to snatch his scalp;

one can’t absolve a man who’s not repented,

and no one can repent and will at once;

the law of contradiction won’t allow it.’

O miserable me, for how I started

when he took hold of me and said: ‘Perhaps

you did not think that I was a logician!’

He carried me to Minos; and that monster

twisted his tail eight times around his hide

and then, when he had bit it in great anger,

announced: ‘This one is for the thieving fire’;

for which — and where, you see — I now am lost,

and in this garb I move in bitterness.”