DANTE ALIGHIERI'S THOUGHT IN THE DIVINE COMEDY, SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF THE WRITINGS OF SAINT GREGORY PALAMAS. GENERAL ARGUMENTS
DANTE ALIGHIERI'S THOUGHT IN THE DIVINE COMEDY, SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF THE WRITINGS OF SAINT GREGORY PALAMAS. GENERAL ARGUMENTS

Summary/Abstract: In this study, I propose some general arguments for an approach to Dante's work – the Divine Comedy – from a new perspective, non-existent in the vast research dedicated to the text. It is a reading of Dante in the light of the thought of Saint Gregory Palamas. What would such a comparative analysis be based on and why would it be useful? Dante Alighieri and Gregory Palamas are two religious spirits. For them, the knowledge of the Godhead, that is, of the divine mysteries, in and beyond the fabric of concrete existence, represents the major goal of man. Reading Dante through Palamas today means searching for the essence of the thought that distinguishes the Western philosophical mentality from the vision of man in Orthodox Christianity. This comparative exercise therefore exploits Dante's work in an interpretation of its irreducible core. It is possible, in particular, to focus on the power of interconnection of Dante's representations with what is very different from the vision he brings. Dante, under the influence of the thinking of the Western Gnostic orders, but also through admiration for the Platonic position, makes the knowledge of God a privileged path of a chosen group. The knowledge of God thus becomes, for Dante, a good that is acquired by a person through initiation, under the care and through the medium of a master. A good of the knowing elite, in a revelation more closed than open to others, despite the extraordinary poetic creativity in the Divine Comedy.

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