Dante #1 (Historical Context)

Oliver Woods discusses the importance of returning to the original Book of the Covenant given by God to Moses in Exodus 20-24 as a means of finding relief from God's judgment on America. He highlights that the law is relatively simple and even children were commanded to understand it. He also mentions Dante's solution to the constant warfare in 13th century Italy, which was a one world empire. Dante's writings are influenced by his political experiences and he calls for a revival of the imperial Roman Empire. However, his belief in monarchy as the ideal form of government is questionable as any form that rejects the law of God can lead to tyranny. The ultimate unity and liberty under law will only be restored when the nations are united under Christ as Lord. Hey everybody, this is Oliver Woods in TheGreatBibleReset.com. It's the only option we have for relief from the judgment that God is bringing upon America. It's a return to the original Book of the Covenant that God gave to Moses in Exodus 20-24. It's actually called the Book of the Covenant in Exodus 24. So it's not only the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20, but the three chapters of ordinances that follow and explain the Ten Commandments. And what we find is that God's one law is so relatively simple that even children were commanded to hear it and understand it when the law was read to the entire nation in the Old Testament. But today we follow, and this is a quote from Micah 6-16, the statutes of Omri and all the works of the house of Ahab, and in their devices we walk. Therefore I will give you up for destruction and your inhabitants for derision. End of quote. So we've added all these legal devices to the point where we've actually excluded the law of God and we treat it as a strange thing as we read in the Book of Habakkuk. Now Dante faced similar problems in the 13th century with constant warfare among the Italian city-states that we've outlined over the past few weeks. And his solution was a one world empire. So Dante was kind of like the Klaus Schwab of the 13th century, probably not quite as ugly, although that may be debatable. But the church in Dante's day was little more than another secular power trying to impose its will by the sword. So he longed for the Pax Romana of Imperial Rome under Augustus Caesar to be restored in the Holy Roman Empire. Some of the Christian authors like to romanticize the Divine Comedy as an assent to love, but in reality it's an allegory of works righteousness and political salvation. Dante's call for revival of a unitary Roman state is more remarkable when we consider that his birth in 1265 followed the death of Frederick II by a mere 15 years. Now Frederick II was the last of a series of so-called Christian tyrants who dominated the 12th century in their development of secular law codes. And known as the wonder of the world, if anybody personified Dante's revival of a Roman strongman, it was Frederick II. He was a self-styled god walking on earth. Yet his reign ended in utter tyranny. Thus Dante's work represents the triumph of poetry and art above raw power in his exaltation of the savior state over a church reduced to a spiritual role as taught by St. Francis of Assisi who died in 1226, sometime before this era. So we're approaching the Renaissance now of 1300 to 1400. A man named Petrarch set the stage in the early 1300s with his poetry and translation of ancient texts from Greece and Rome. And Petrarch was the morning star of the Renaissance in the same way that Wycliffe was the morning star of the Reformation. We've got huge changes that came with the Black Death, which peaked about 1350, right in the middle of the century, which wiped out anywhere from a quarter to a half of Europe. Prices were high because labor was scarce. Former serfs in the feudal system now commanded more respect and compensation. This is why we know that the so-called pandemic of 2020 was a total fake because there was no such dip in the population whatsoever. The total decline in number of other respiratory diseases, such as pneumonia, bronchitis, was identical to the number of COVID deaths. So we know it was just a big relabeling game to generate fear, drive many to get these so-called vaccine bioweapons. Now Dante lived from 1265 to 1321. He was born in Florence, Italy. He served in the city councils, although he was later exiled. The historical context for Dante's Inferno is a centuries-long war between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines over whether the emperor or the Pope should have more power. In 1309, we also have Pope Clement V moving the papacy to Avignon, France until 1377 due to feuds among the Italian cardinals and their allies. And this was known as the Babylonian captivity of the papacy. But Dante wrote several books on political theory, the best known of which is The Divine Comedy in 1321. In it, he eulogized his infatuation with Beatrice, a woman he met briefly in the streets of Florence. And this is a quote, Love with delight discourses in my mind upon my lady's admirable gifts beyond the range of human intellect, end of quote. So Beatrice and Virgil became Dante's guide through hell and purgatory and heaven. And to add a little color here, Dante struggled to find a benefactor for a number of years. He lived for some years with his patron, in company with an arrogant jester, and the latter was well paid for foolish jesting and buffoonery. One day he asked Dante, How is it that I, who am so foolish and ignorant, should be so rich and favored, while you, who are so learned and wise, should be a beggar? To which Dante replied, The reason is, you have found a lord who resembles you, and when I find one who resembles me, I shall no doubt be as rich as you are, end of quote. And Dante was no doubt fired the next day, although we can't confirm that. But Dante's writings are colored by his political experiences. He was born into the anti-imperial Guelf party in Florence, that were with the pro-imperial Ghibelline party of Pisa. And after they won, the Guelfs exiled Dante due to his pro-imperial opinions. This, we might say, was the first cancel culture. But in Paris, his conversion to the pro-imperial Ghibellines matured. His great political work, Demonarchia, in 1311, defended that cause. And as the Renaissance unfolded, that corrupt papacy tightened its grip on the churches and the city-states. The Holy Roman Empire, under Henry VII of Germany, also wanted to control these feuding Italian cities. Dante wrote to oppose the papal hypocrisy, set forth his solution to the feuding. He wanted a revival of the imperial Roman Empire, with Augustus in charge. And apparently he forgot about Tiberius, Nero, Caligula, and a host of other less than noble Roman emperors. So what were the implications of this? Well, Dante provided a major boost to the development of the powerful secular state, independent of divine restraint. And this stems back to the separation of church and state in the papal revolution of 1075 to 1122. And paradoxically, Dante taught that the more powerful the state, the more secure is liberty in the context of societal order. But Dante's elegant work prefigured Richard Hooker. Hooker's laws of ecclesiastical policy, several centuries later in 1594, gave a theological basis for the divine right of kings. And this appealed to 17th century British monarchs. Dante called for a unitary international state ruling apart from the Bible. And this resonated with the political striving of demagogues emerging from the papal revolution. Dante would have smiled at the 20th century drive for one world rule in the United Nations. He backed a two kingdom theory to divorce civil power from God. So Dante believes that a worldwide monarchy under a single head is the ideal form of civil government. According to Dante, only such a benevolent dictator can keep the peace between the parochial interests and petty squabbling of the multitude of local governments. And this, of course, is what we had under Augustus Caesar. Julius Caesar had been a more or less out of control playboy with claims of deity who was assassinated in the Senate because of that. So when Augustus came in with a firm but seemingly benevolent hand to restore order, he claimed that his strong monarchial rule was in fact necessary to restore the ancient republic. And the pastoral poetry of Virgil reinforced the perception which is why Dante chose him as his guide through hell and purgatory. So the obvious question is, is a temporal monarchy, quote, as Dante said, quote, necessary for the welfare of the world, end of quote. Was Dante correct in asserting that, quote, democracies, oligarchies, and tyrannies drive mankind into slavery, end of quote. According to Dante, any form other than monarchy, democracy, oligarchy, tyranny will degenerate to slavery. Only an enlightened monarchial strongman is capable of preserving man's true freedom. It is indeed the case that democracies and oligarchies will digress eventually into slavery, but this is no less true of monarchy. Any form that rejects the law of God is intrinsically tyrannical. And monarchy, because of its lack of checks and balances, is perhaps the most susceptible of all to producing slavery. And we can cite many examples, including Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Alexander of Greece. And so we have to object to Dante's assertion that monarchy is, quote, necessary for the welfare of the world, end of quote. Dante overlooked or ignored the Tower of Babel where God scattered the nations, confused their tongues for this very reason. So only when the nations are united under Christ as Lord of the nations will that level of unity and liberty under law be restored. In Psalms 2, we learn that God has in fact given Christ the nations as his inheritance. So you can learn more about this in my book, Keys to the Classics, at the bookstore and kingswayclassicalacademy.com. And please visit our store for great deals on quality supplements that help support the school. At boomers-alive.com, only one out of 100 vitamins in that same category have earned this NSF Quality Award, the National Sanitation Foundation Award. And it's true, you just can't get it anywhere else. So we'll get into specifics on Dante's teaching tomorrow.