At the end of a short introduction to who I am and how I think, I quoted a remarkable passage from Canto XXII of Dante's Paradise, the third and final piece of his Divine Comedy. I must confess it had been a while since I had read that passage, and in the days since rereading it, I've realized it says far more than meets the eye. (And that, by the way, is the hallmark of a truly great work.) Its force has struck me again and again.
After encountering Saint Benedict in Seventh Heaven, Dante is transported into the constellation Gemini, which, as some of you may know, is one of the twelve zodiac signs. Those born from about May 21st to June 21st are under the special patronage of the Gemini constellation. If you're like most Catholics living in the 21st century, an astrological reference like this might make you uncomfortable. But as it turns out, the zodiac constellations are ancient timekeeping methods, even the basis of a twelve-month year. In the Catholic imagination of the High Middle Ages, all things in the heavens above had a role to play in the Divine Economy.
Dante was a Gemini. And his encounter with his stars formed the basis for a remarkable and profound reflection of the virtue of magnanimity.
O light bursting with virtue, glorious stars,
unto whose influence, as I see, is due
whatever I possess of native powers,
The sun was born with you and hid with you
when first I felt the air of Tuscany,
the sun, the father of mortal life;
And when the grace was richly granted me,
I was assigned your region of the skies
for entering your high wheel. Devotedly
Unto you starry Twins my spirit sighs
to gain the strength to master the hard test
that draws on all my force. "You are so near
The ultimate perfection of the blest,"
so Beatrice began, "you must possess
clear eyes and keener vision. So, before
Further in-selving in this blessedness,
gaze down and see how much of the world below
you have already set beneath your feet,
So that, all that it can, your heart will go
gladly along with the triumphing band
that in this ring of ether march with joy."
I turned and looked on all the space that spanned
the seven spheres, and saw this globe so small
I smiled to see how paltry it appeared;
And I approved that counsel best of all
that scorns it--but to think of something higher
truly bespeaks a spirit brave and tall.
How Paltry It All Appeared
Aristotle talks about the virtue of magnanimity as the mean between the deficiency of false humility and the excess of vanity. The vain man is not honest about the fact of his own greatness. The vain man perceives himself to be greater than he is. The pusillanimous man, he says, claims less than he deserves. By contrast, of course, the magnanimous man lays claim to what he, in fact, deserves. In a way that forecasts psychology's discovery of personality trait agreeableness (too much of which can cause all sorts of problems in life), Aristotle notes that the magnanimous man must be disagreeable: outspoken and frank. The magnanimous man speaks what he thinks to be right because he cares more about the truth than what others will think of him. Lastly, the magnanimous man does not seek help from others (or only with great reluctance), for he is confident (and correct!) about his own greatness and, therefore, his ability to accomplish whatever task might lay before him.
After reading such a summary of the virtue of magnanimity, it might be easy to imagine that genuinely toxic philosophies of masculinity (like those espoused by the "incel" movement or folks like Andrew Tate) are the heirs to Aristotle's magnanimity. Or perhaps if we're not willing to go that far, we might guess that good-hearted commentators like Jocko Willink or David Goggins or even Joe Rogan have the right idea: (1) that discipline gets things done, (2) that discipline equals freedom, (3) or that mastering your dark side, the guy who can take anything you put in front of him, makes you magnanimous. Joe, Jocko, David, and others have intuited that we are made of something. What that is, exactly, they don't say. But we're made of something, and we must exert mind control over our own minds to become the fullness of what we were made to be. We must practice, rehearse, toil, work, and be disciplined to be great. And that the resulting greatness is our greatness.
Dante's praise of the constellation Gemini sounds to me like a spiritualization of the philosophy that Joe, Jocko, and David espouse. Dante praises his stars, who, by the mere fact of his birth under their sovereignty, have given him "whatever [he possesses] of native powers." His creativity, his poetry, his greatness, he attributes first to the stars themselves and the grace he had to be born under them, but second his devotion to the crafts they've given him: "Devotedly / Unto you starry Twins my spirit sighs / to gain the strength to master the hard test / that draws on all my force." The very work of writing The Divine Comedy is the brutal test that draws on all his powers. As a writer, Dante crafted each and every one of these lines: he wrote them, and shredded them, and rewrote them to make them the best they could become. What we see in Dante's hymn to Gemini is the same set of ideas we see from Joe, Jocko, and David: you are who you are, and it is through devotion (or discipline) to your craft that you become who you were made to be. And listen, those four men have accomplished great things.
But Dante was a better reader of Aristotle than that. In fact, he was perhaps the best reader of Aristotle in the whole Medieval Period (pace Saint Thomas!). Dante has more to say about greatness of soul than this, and he puts it first into the mouth of Beatrice, his heavenly guide, as a harsh correction: "You must possess / clear eyes and keener vision. So, before / Further in-selving in this blessedness, / gaze down and see how much of the world below / you have already set beneath your feet." Self-built, discipline-equals-freedom greatness might be great, but how does it compare to the whole of heaven? Don't go looking into your own blessings, but gaze out on the whole cosmos as the horizon of greatness. The magnanimous man knows that he is great because he first knows what greatness is, and it isn't the limited sphere of an individual but rather all the spheres of heaven.
And Dante takes this correction with humility. He looked again at his beloved Gemini and all the natural powers that they had given him to perfect with his own devotedness and "smiled to see how paltry it appeared; / And I approved that counsel best of all / that scorns it--but to think of something higher / truly bespeaks a spirit brave and tall."
A spirit brave and tall thinks of something far higher than his own abilities. To revel even in the greatness bestowed by one's own skill or devotedness or discipline is to stoop beneath the level of magnanimity. Scorn it all and think of something higher! To be great is to measure oneself not with man's measure but with the measure of the heights of heaven.