Anagoge (ἀναγωγή), sometimes spelledanagogy, is a Greek word suggesting a climb or ascent upwards. The anagogical is a method ofmystical orspiritual interpretation of statements or events, especiallyscripturalexegesis, that detects allusions to the afterlife.[1] Certain medieval theologians describefour methods of interpreting the scriptures: literal/historical,tropological/moral,allegorical/typological, and anagogical. The four methods of interpretation point in four different directions: The literal/historical backwards to the past, the allegoric forwards to the future, the tropological downwards to the moral/human, and the anagogic upwards to the spiritual/heavenly.[2]
The Gazan asceticsBarsanuphius,John the Prophet andDorotheus of Gaza considered the Bible anagogical in nature by considering it to have its purpose to lead people to Christ. In their view, it was not simply a moral-teaching manual that could be roughly paraphrased with a rough equivalent, but the pedagogical sense of Scripture was dependent on its anagogical capacity to lead to faith in Christ.[3]
Hugh of Saint Victor, inDe scripturis et scriptoribus sacris, distinguishes anagoge from simple allegory as a kind of allegory.[4] He differentiates in the following way: in a simple allegory, an invisible action is (simply)signified orrepresented by a visible action; anagoge is that "reasoning upwards" (sursum ductio), when, from the visible, the invisible action isdisclosed orrevealed.[5] In a letter to his patronCan Grande della Scala, the poetDante explains that hisDivine Comedy could be read both literally and allegorically; and that the allegorical meaning could be subdivided into the moral and the anagogical.[6]
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