Thirteenth century medieval Europe was characterized by political, religious, and social conflict; disease, economic depression, war, and religious separation placed a strain on the already weak European economy, leading to increased instability throughout the West. As tragedy after tragedy struck, people searched for ways to unite themselves. Thomas Aquinas and Dante Alighieri are two of many philosophers, poets, and scholars who developed strategies to bring some degree of stability to the emerging “medieval West.” In Summa Theologica, Aquinas rationalizes the instability of medieval Europe through the synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and Christian doctrine. He creates stability through his belief that faith builds on and is consistent with reason and anything within the realm of human knowledge can be explained through faith or reason or both. Dante explores the classification of sin in relation to Christianity in the Divine Comedy. He establishes the belief that reason relies on faith and aspects of knowledge that reason cannot conclude can be explained through faith.
Thomas Aquinas was an Italian philosopher and doctor of the Church who lived and worked in Italy and France during the thirteenth century. He spent much of his life lecturing and writing on the integration of philosophy and faith. His ideas were instrumental to the advancement of Christianity and to the development of philosophy as a school of thought separate from but equal to that of theology. His principles were so widely known and accepted that half century after his death, he was officially declared a Saint by the Church and in 1879, Pope Leo XIII endorsed Aquinas’ philosophy as a model for Catholic thought (MV, 166). His works joining philosophy and theology solidified an understanding of Christianity during a time when large aspects of religion were being questioned.
Part of what made Aquinas such a successful and world-renowned philosopher was his ability to apply Aristotelian philosophy to Catholic ideas. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries in medieval Europe brought a dramatic transition in philosophy – as the culture became more dynamic, the relationship between Christianity and society changed (MV, 166). As Aristotle’s works became more readily available, the effect of his perspective was two-fold: the new ideas served to enlighten Europeans about the world and God but they also highlighted the inconsistencies within the fields of philosophy and theology. Aristotle presented a comprehensive system of describing the order of the universe, but many people found his view of the world as “eternal and uncreated” to contradict the already established Christian doctrine (MV, 168). His focus on the observed and naturalistic perception of the world was unfamiliar and disturbing compared to the Neoplatonic philosophy that had dominated Christian thinkers previously. The opposing beliefs of various philosophers and commentators that revolved around the Church lead to confusion and increased instability as people struggled with the question of what to believe. Aquinas merged the viewpoints of multiple philosophers to create a simplified and precise examination of philosophy and theology that promoted stability within the Church (MV, 167-169).
Aquinas was a remarkably imaginative writer – his works vary from religious works, to lectures, to technical works, but it is from his most famous work, Summa Theologica, that Aquinas receives the most recognition. In this unfinished compilation of the main theological teachings of the Catholic Church, Aquinas explores the existence and essence of God as it relates to the works of Aristotle and other commentators. Aquinas develops five proofs that demonstrate the existence of God (MV, 173). In each of the five arguments, Aquinas focuses on a feature of the universe that cannot be explained through the finite world. He analyses motion, causation, existence of possibility and necessity, gradation, and design of the world, to develop a universal theory that will become the backbone of modern Christianity.
The integration of Aristotle’s philosophy with Christian ideals was a key component of the stabilization of religion throughout medieval Europe. Aquinas’ work provided Europeans with tangible and convincing arguments supporting the existence of God. His teachings reaffirm the relationship between faith and reason as driving factors in the development of order in religion and politics. Knowledge attained through reason is built on sensory experiences and knowledge understood through faith is built on revelation. The question concerning the existence of God lies in the overlap of faith and reason. While faith and reason each can be autonomous sources of knowledge, they are consistent with each other and build upon each other – one can approach similar essential questions from the side of faith or reason.
Dante Alighieri was an Italian poet who lived in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. His most famous work, the Divine Comedy, is a three-part poetic narrative of his pilgrimage through hell, purgatory, and paradise on his journey to reach God. The first poem, Inferno, begins with Dante lost in the forest near the gates of hell. The literary disorientation of the character Dante parallels how the poet Dante has lost his way on the path of life by succumbing to sin and translates to his religious quest to find God in his life. The Divine Comedy is a record of Dante’s and represents what the poet Dante understood to be the universal pursuit of God.
Dante’s Inferno is a taxonomy of human sin. The three animals Dante encounters at the gates of hell correspond to the three fundamental classifications of evil that all sin falls into. The she-wolf parallels the first five terraces of hell, representing bodily sin. Although these sins are considered the least severe violations of God’s will, Dante spends the most amount of time on these layers – roughly the first ten cantos are dedicated to upper hell – because they are the most common sins. The lion embodies the layers of hell that are associated with violence. These sins fall in between upper hell and lower hell and include sins related to violence against oneself and against others. The leopard signifies sin relating to fraud, found in the eighth and ninth circle of hell. These sins are the most severe violations of God’s will and receive the most severe punishments (Inferno). Dante establishes a hierarchy of sin that develops stability within Christianity because it organizes different degrees of sin and provides guidelines for a moral life by outlining what is not virtuous. This systematic breakdown of hell clarifies the mysterious concept of the afterlife by transforming an abstract idea into a concrete image that represents a universal understanding of hell. A hierarchy of sin also reaffirms the role of faith and reason in Dante’s Divine Comedy because where reason fails to explain an idea, faith can. The excess, deficiency, and waywardness of the natural sins in the upper hell can be understood through reason but lower hell uses faith to understand any transgression against God, self, and neighbor. Since reason crumbles in the lower levels of hell, faith is accepted to explain that which reason cannot.
One of the most distinguished aspects of Dante’s Inferno is the ironic connection Dante builds between one’s crime and the corresponding punishment. The pagans in Limbo can never see God because they lived a life without God. The suicides are transformed into trees for eternity because they damaged their body in life. The betrayers of special bonds are forever frozen in ice because these souls denied human love and warmth. (Inferno, 18, 67, 173). The concept of contrapasso is a testament to the transcendent perfection that evil violates. Humans can only know what divine perfection is through what it is not and through the consequences one faces when godly perfection is violated. Reason distinguishes an evil from a virtue but faith supports God’s punishment as fitting and just for the crime. Contrapasso creates stability because it establishes a formula through which one’s crime is assessed and a fitting punishment assigned.
The condition of Europe during the Late Middle Ages stood in stark contrast to the growth and prosperity of Early Middle Ages. The turn of the century marked the beginning of the Crisis of the Middle Ages, a period of European history characterized by famine, social unrest, and intermittent conflict. The unmistakable instability that resulted from a lack of control throughout Europe caused many great thinkers to turn to literature and philosophy for alternative means of establishing order. Thomas Aquinas and Dante Alighieri are two of many great writers to emerge from the Middle Ages after attempting to rationalize the world around them and create a stable viewpoint on faith and reason as it relates to Christianity. The ideas of Aquinas created a system of reliance that prolonged the stabilizing effects of his beliefs longer than those of Dante. Aquinas and Dante both explored aspects of Christianity that were called into question because of emerging beliefs but, where Dante’s interpretation of hell, purgatory, and paradise in the Divine Comedy developed into a narrative, Aquinas’ Summa Theologica remained the basis for most of Christian thought for centuries to come. Today, science disproves the works of both famous authors, but their ideas remain relevant as they serve as a window through which one can observe the religious, political, and social order of medieval Europe during the thirteenth century.