From La Tradizione Romana by Guido De Giorgio.
The traditional gold vein of Rome in the living unity of the two forms supplementing each other in a perfect match and equilibrium, is found again in all its wholeness in Dante who was the first to reveal the mystery of Romanity. The sacred arriving at the creative synthesis of the elements contained in the ancient and new traditions for which he can be called the prophet of Fascist Catholicity [Cattolicità Fascista] in the absolute meaning of the expression.
Poetry in him resumes its place and its sacred destination, it follows “the footprints” as Boccaccio said, the traces “of the Holy Spirit”, it is no longer psychological and artificially descriptive, but an initiation, revelation, and realization. While theology is expository and proceeds discursively, submitting itself to the limits of reason illuminated by revelation, poetry grasps with supersensible intuition the mystery of the symbols and internalizes them, transforming them into shapes, living them, surpassing their representative exteriority so that to make of them the most suitable vehicle for liberation. In this sense, and in this sense only, Dante is the poet and the Comedy is the sacred poem, vehicle of the divine truth and supreme effort, the highest perhaps that was ever accomplished, to transform the sensible image the reason for the realization of traditional metaphysical principles, grasped in two directions, the ancient and the new, indissolubly unified in the occult name of Rome that is the seal of the divine song.
Thus, the universality of Dante was unique among men and poets, even though the anagogical interpretation of the Comedy had not yet been tried, in order to be completed and realized only ascetically by those who belong to the Race of the Spirit and who are the true key bearers of sacred science and the fasces bearers of divine power.
The Comedy is the supreme pilgrimage of the worlds considered as the only temple of God: if the point of departure is the earth and that of arrival is heaven, this apparent duality shows man only what he must reach when he is not what he is, what he must become in order to be what he is, and how his earthly humanity is only a veil, when removed, the Divine Reality is revealed in His original unity, ineffability of the Ineffable. Only at this point poetry ceases and with the realization of the mystery of man who is the Reality of God, the Comedy finishes because the pilgrimage is completed, the end is reached, death is overcome, fieri [becoming] became esse [being] and esse the radical non-existence of the Divine Night.
Heaven and earth are dissolved in the last smile of the Comedy, when the bright axe that dominates the Fasces [Fascio Littorio], resolving the enigma of the two-faced Janus through the plenary universality of the Cross, revealed the occult name of Rome and dissolved the Vestal fire on the lips of the Lord of the last rite. Here the mystery ends and the brilliant flashing ends in the essential tonality of the Silence, lord of Forms and Rhythms, the highest peak of integral realization. The ancient and new tradition led the poet to the secret of the Primordial Tradition, to the “letizia che trascende ogni dolzore” [“joy that transcends every sweetness of delight”]. In the paradisiacal vortex, it is completed and having completed itself it untied the traditional knot, nor can there be anything in what alone is it integrally and completely.
This is the miracle of the occult name of Rome and this is the reality of Dante and the Comedy.
The vision of the peak, insofar as it is so imperfect of the expression that tries to grasp its mystery, permits it to better consider the foundation and the progression and, what is more important to our task, the unification of the two traditions in Rome, i.e., in the Spirit of God. It is not possible to allude to this, unless metaphorically, in this simple introduction to the doctrine of the Roman Tradition, that cannot try to be more than what it is, a vestibule to the Temple, a preparation to the work of integral restoration of Traditional Romanity contained in the Comedy that is the sacred poem of Rome, no longer the ancient and new, but the eternal.
What antique sources, on the existence of a secret name of Rome, do we have?
The occult, or secret, name of Rome is an idea that may be unfamiliar to some readers. Besides its public name, Rome had a secret name that was only used in certain rites and rituals. Only the High Priest and his associates even knew that name. Presumably, this secret name has long been forgotten. Some say it is Amor (Roma spelled backwards), which means Love.
The way to encourage us to provide more translations, which, obviously, we do not require for ourselves, is to engage in a lively discussion in the comments. Readership has gone down in each of the four installments, so, unfortunately, not everyone shares your enthusiasm.
Never mind, just read one of your earlier comments that states you will provide more. Apologies.
These translations of de Giorgio have been great. Are you thinking of translating anymore? His approach to Tradition I must say is rather fascinating (and from the description of him in Evola’s Path of Cinnabar, de Giorgio the man is fascinating).
Here we see de Giorgio as the reconciling force of the Wester Tradition, finding unity and harmony where others can only see difference and conflict. Unlike contemporary men who read into the past their present experiences, this is how the Medievals saw themselves. Like the ancients, the medievals had their High Priest and Emperor in Rome; despite the differences in outward form, their was a continuity in their inner life. Dante is, therefore, the holy culmination, the prophet, the revealer of that continuity.
Poetry in Dante is has nothing to do with the psychological fantasies of the moderns; rather, for him, it is a revelation of the Holy Spirit, the way of initiation, with the goal of realization. The symbolism of the Comedy is intractable to the rational mind and is comprehensible only to those with a developed spiritual intuition.
The Comedy describes a pilgrimage, or a quest, from the three worlds, analogous to those of the Tao. When the path is travsersed, death is overcome, becoming becomes being in the Divine Night.
When de Giorgio writes of Fascism, he is not just referring to a limited political movement in Italy of the 30s, but rather to the Roman Tradition, which was the ultimate source of the symbol of the Fasces.
The Comedy leads us to the Primordial Tradition, which has a joy that transcends any little delights we may experience in our ordinary life. The path leads from earth to heaven. Nietzsche exhorts us to “become what you are”. But it requires a Dante to tell us who we are and how we can become it.
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Apart from the annoying mispronunciation of “Guenon”, this lecture was more about Fr. Johnson than Rene Guenon. It addressed a small, albeit important, aspect of Guenon’s oeuvre. A minor point: pace Fr. Johnson, Guenon did indeed make a distinction between Eastern “religions”, such as Buddhism, and Western (so-called Semitic) religions.
This text is like poetry in itself. A world of light and life eternal opened before my mind’s eye when reading this. Beautiful, thank you.
“Night is preferable to a day.”
Cologero, your hunch (more aptly, intuition) about Fr. Johnson was correct.
Here’s Johnson’s relatively new podcast on Guenon.
http://reasonradionetwork.com/20120315/the-orthodox-nationalist-rene-guenon