Authority and Legitimacy, How Can They be Distinguished from their Opposites?

How Should We Interpret Their Symbols in Our Ordo Amoris?

The Decline and Fall of Institutional Authority?

Dante, "Inferno" (Canto V):

FROM the first circle I descended thus

Down to the second, which, a lesser space

Embracing, so much more of grief contains

Provoking bitter moans.  There, Minos stands

Grinning with ghastly feature: he, of all

Who enter, strict examining the crimes,

Gives sentence, and dismisses them beneath,

According as he foldeth him around:

For when before him comes th' ill fated soul,

It all confesses; and that judge severe

Of sins, considering what place in hell

Suits the transgression, with his tail so oft

Himself encircles, as degrees beneath

He dooms it to descend.  Before him stand

Always a num'rous throng; and in his turn

Each one to judgment passing, speaks, and hears

His fate, thence downward to his dwelling hurl'd.

"O thou! who to this residence of woe

Approachest?"  when he saw me coming, cried

Minos, relinquishing his dread employ,

"Look how thou enter here; beware in whom

Thou place thy trust; let not the entrance broad

Deceive thee to thy harm."  To him my guide:

"Wherefore exclaimest?  Hinder not his way

By destiny appointed; so 'tis will'd

Where will and power are one.  Ask thou no more."