Dante, by distributing punishments in Purgatory, preserves the traditional hierarchy of capital sins in the Middle Ages, ratified with authority by Gregory the Great and translated by the mnemonic formula “siiaagl”: superbia (pride), Invidia (envy), iracundia (wrath), acedia (sloth), avaritia (greed), gola (gluttony), luxuria (lust). By adopting this conception, the poet testifies his fidelity to medieval theology. Notably, the theory expounded by Virgil in Purgatory 17, 91 ff. is based on principles which are also found in St. Thomas Aquinas. This is the case of natural love, considered as the principle of all operations carried outby the creator and his creatures. (« Omne agens, quodcumque sit, agit quamcumque actionem ex aliquo amore » Summ. theol. I, II, 28, 6) and distinguished from the love of soul or election (Summ. theol, I, 9, 1).
Following the medieval classification, Dante conceives that pride, which leads Lucifer to rebel against God, is the first and most serious sin. If he places greed among the faults of incontinence, his moral fibre and his reformist ideals lead him, however, to regularly expose the divergent positions taken by those who identified greed as the most serious sin against the spirit of Christianity. This opinion is defended, for example, by Saint Augustine (De diversis quaestionibus octogintatribus 36), who considers that greed hinders the exercise of charity. Saint Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, discussed Augustine’s thesis and moderated Gregory the Great’s opinion, which includes betrayal, fraud, deceit, perjury, anxiety, violence, and lack of empathy as products of greed. He observes that the avarice accumulates wealth not to satisfy his desires, but to enjoy the simple fact of possessing it. He deepens his definition of avarice, conceived as a vice, “in appetitu cujuslibet exterioris rei,” by carrying out a lively psychological examination which allows him to see that this sin is an obstacle to the exercise of virtues such as justice and liberality.
In the Convivio (IV XII 4 s.), Dante also clearly engages in a psychological examination of avarice by illustrating the torment caused by the unfulfilled desire for wealth. To support his thesis, he quotes the Holy Scriptures, Boethius (also quoted in Cv. IV, XIII, 13), Cicero, Seneca, Horace, and Juvenal. In Inf. 1, 49-50 and 97-99, he implicitly adopts this perspective by representing the she-wolf of the dark wood overwhelmed by an insatiable desire. In the first canto, however, Dante clearly states that greed must be identified as the most important source of corruption in society. He then invokes the coming of a great moral reformer who will intervene against this sin.
If the poet considers that this vice taints the individual, he condemns it especially for its collective repercussions. Indeed, in several passages of his poem, he associates greed with communities, to social groups or individuals whose actions have had a disastrous impact on society because of their important political or religious role: this is what popes and cardinals are all about (Inf. 7, 47-48; 19, 104; Purg. 19, 115 et 121; Par. 9, 130-136; 27, 40-42), but also from civil communities like the Florentines (Inf. 6, 74; 15, 68), the Bolognese (Inf. 18, 63) and the Catalans (Par. 8, 77).
In the same sense, we find the figure of Hugues Capet, in Purg. 20, 82, who declares that the baseness of the whole dynasty of the Capetians derives from greed, perceived by their founder as a fatal and tragic legacy. Dante also condemns the greed of Frederick II King of Sicily (Par. 19, 130), of literati (Cv. I, IX, 2), of contemporary princes and lords (DVE I, XII, 5). In opposition to these figures, he evokes the exemplum avaritiae resistendi incarnated by the figure of Fabrizio (Mon. II, V, 11). See also Purg. 22, 23; 34; 53.
In the Dantean conception of greed, the assumptions of moralists and theologians are fueled by the desolate direction taken over the course of history. Above all, they deplore the policies of popes thirsty for power and wealth whose policies go beyond the spiritual field. They also denounced the undertakings of state unification carried out by Rodolphe of Austria and Philippe le Beau, eager to increase their power. They also criticize the growing political and economic initiative of the merchant class, whose effects the poet notes in Florence: it “puts forth and spreads the accursèd flower / that has led astray both sheep and lambs, / for it has made a wolf out of its shepherd” (Par. 9, 130-132). Dante’s thought reflects the political and social transformations of an agrarian economy progressively inclined to be based more on the circulation of goods and capital, abandoning the universalist ideal of the papacy and the empire in favor of the development of modern states.
Moral and religious engagement contained in such an economic transition leads the poet to regret a happy time when the clergy practiced the virtues of renunciation. His admiration for those who disdained material goods, like St. Francis of Assisi and his first disciples, is expressed in Par. 11, 58-84; and in Par. 21, 127-135, the figure of St. Peter Damian praises clerics who know how to show self-denial in the same way as the apostles, and he condemns modern pastors who live with pomp. The political ideal linked to this position feeds the nostalgic feeling of Dante towards Florence from the time of Cacciaguida, sober and preserved from the excesses of luxury caused by the accumulation of wealth (Par. 15, 97 ff.). He exalts generosity, which he conceives as a virtue opposed to greed, prioritized by the knights in the same way as the exercise of the knightly arms (Purg. 8, 129).
Dante thus perceives greed as the most dangerous obstacles to the establishment of justice in the world. In this thirst for justice lies the poet’s condemnation of this vice: if it is not the most serious sin in the eyes of God, it is most harmful to the maintaining of order on Earth.
Therefore, although the Dantean perspective is close to that of Thomas Aquinas, the poet also welcomes the concerns of the Franciscan doctrine, which confirms the irrefutable connection he makes between moral theory and political theory. This is reflected in the explicit statements in the Monarchy – in addition to what we deduce from the reading of the Comedy: Dante establishes a distinction between the two goals pursued by humans, namely happiness on Earth and heavenly bliss, and assigns to the emperor the function of ensuring peace on Earth by repressing the source of all disorder, greed: “Et cum ad hunc portum vel nulli vel pauci, et hii cum difficultate nimia, pervenire possint, nisi sedatis fluctibus blandae cupiditatis genus humanum liberum in pacis tranquillitate quiescat, hoc est illud signum ad quod maxime debet intendere curator orbis, qui dicitur romanus Princeps, ut scilicet in areola ista mortalium libere cum pace vivatur” (Mon. III, XV, 11). Greed is homologous to avarice, i.e., it excites an insatiable appetite for power, symbolized by the ancient wolf in Purg. 20, 10. This vice is defined by Saint Thomas as “appetitus inordinatus divitiarum” (Summ. theol. I, II, 84, 1) and recognized by Aristotle, quoted in Mon. I, XI, 11, as the worst obstruction of justice.
If the meaning of greed corresponds to that of avarice, it is not by chance that Dante preferred the former to the latter term in the Monarchy and in the political epistles (V, 13; VI, 22). According to the broader semantic field, the term “avarice” implies an inordinate thirst for wealth and defines its consequences as the manifestation of narrow-minded egoism and the desire for power (cf. Avaricious and Prodigal).
Consult the entry of the Enciclopedia Dantesca in Italian.
Entry taken from the Enciclopedia Dantesca published by the Istituto Treccani — Texts revised by the Centre d’études médiévales of the Université de Montréal.
Editing: Gabrielle Hamelin, Martyna Kander.
English translation: Brittany Buscio.
