Bad Faith (and Good) in the “Test of Faith” of Paradiso 24

Focusing on Paradiso 24, which contains the so-called test of faith, this essay argues that Dante is conflicted between his desire to remain faithful to the church of his time and his desire to seek the truth wherever it leads. Insofar as he is aware of this conflict but unwilling to acknowledge it explicitly, the result is a version of what Jean-Paul Sartre in Being and Nothingness called “bad faith.” In Paradiso 24, to be sure, Dante is making a good-faith effort to glorify faith and to assimilate a theological account of what constitutes faith to the demands of his terza rima; nevertheless, the repressed conflict mentioned above manifests itself in “residues” that offer themselves for analysis. This essay focuses on three: the epithet of “chief centurion” (alto primipilo) that Dante (the pilgrim) applies to Saint Peter; the ambivalent treatment of syllogistic reasoning (not in canto 24, but when measured against two other cantos of the Paradiso); and finally, the metaphor of the coin that Peter applies to faith.