Anagoge

{{Short description|Method of mystical or spiritual interpretation of statements or events}} {{Wiktionary|anagoge}}

'''Anagoge''' (ἀναγωγή), sometimes spelled '''anagogy''', is a Greek word suggesting a climb or ascent upwards. The anagogical is a method of mystical or spiritual interpretation of statements or events, especially scriptural exegesis, that detects allusions to the afterlife.<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/22340/anagogical-interpretation Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "anagogical interpretation", accessed October 11, 2012]</ref> Certain medieval theologians describe four 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.<ref>Charles Cummings, ''Monastic Practices'', CS 75 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1986), 14-15.</ref>

The Gazan ascetics Barsanuphius, John the Prophet and Dorotheus 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Torrance |first1=Alexis |title=What is the Bible? the patristic Doctrine of Scripture|date=2016 |publisher=Fortress Press |location=Minneapolis |isbn=9781506410746 |url=https://www.academia.edu/29435082/Barsanuphius_John_and_Dorotheos_on_Scripture |access-date=1 June 2025 |chapter=Barsanuphius, John, and Dorotheos on Scripture}}</ref>

Hugh of Saint Victor, in ''De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris'', distinguishes anagoge from simple allegory as a kind of allegory.<ref>"De Scripturis et Scriptoribus Sacris", in ''Hugonis de S. Victore... Opera Omnia'', I (of 3), [https://books.google.com/books?id=JoXYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA11 ''Patrologia Latina'' Vol. 175] (J.-P. Migne, 1854), columns 9-28, Chapter III: De triplici intelligentia sacrae Scripturae, at Column 12, loc. B.</ref> He differentiates in the following way: in a simple allegory, an invisible action is (simply) ''signified'' or ''represented'' by a visible action; anagoge is that "reasoning upwards" (''sursum ductio''), when, from the visible, the invisible action is ''disclosed'' or ''revealed''.<ref>"... est simplex allegoria, cum per visibile factum aliud invisibile factum significatur. Anagoge, id est sursum ductio, cum per visibile invisibile factum declaratur."</ref> In a letter to his patron Can Grande della Scala, the poet Dante explains that his ''Divine Comedy'' could be read both literally and allegorically; and that the allegorical meaning could be subdivided into the moral and the anagogical.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Divine Comedy |author=Dante |author-link=Dante |others=Translated by Dorothy L. Sayers |volume=I: Hell |pages=14–15 |publisher=Penguin Classics |year=1949}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}} {{Authority control}}

Category:Biblical exegesis