![]() ![]() The anagogical applies the principle to the final state of the believer.Īnother famous letter to Can Grande Della Scala, which some scholars discount as Dante's, also argues that this same system can be applied to The Divine Comedy.Īccording to the letter, Dante's Divine Comedy should be understood as a work that literally describes the afterlife - hell, purgatory, and heaven.The moral draws ethical principles from the literal action.The allegorical tends to understand the literal set of actions as being symbolic of certain other principles.The literal represents the most obvious reading.There, he reflected the traditional medieval understanding that interpretation can take place on four levels: the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical. "So when one person has said 'Moses thought what I say', and another 'No what I say', I think it more religious in spirit to say 'Why not rather say both, if both are true?' And if anyone sees a third or fourth and a further truth in these words, why not believe that Moses discerned all these things? For through him the one God has tempered the sacred books to the interpretations of many who could come to see a diversity of truths."ĭante himself wrote on the nature of interpretation in his early work Il Convivio (The Banquet). As a result, he argued that truths might be intended by God in scripture that the human author had not intended: Paul takes this story and interprets it as an allegory of life under the Old Testament law versus life under New Testament grace.Īugustine, as well, held a view of scripture that examined passages from an allegorical perspective. Sarah, who has given birth to her own son, Isaac, no longer wants Hagar and Ishmael to vie for Abraham's attention. Paul takes a story from Genesis in which Abraham is commanded by his wife Sarah to put away her slave and his concubine, Hagar, who had born to them a boy Ishmael. But what does Scripture say? 'Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son.' Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman." At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. Now you brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. For it is written:īe glad, O barren woman, who bears no children break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. "These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. It has remained in print since it was published prior to Dante’s death in 1321, which indicates what an enduring piece of literature it is.This passage from Paul (Galatians 4:24-31) is often credited with the beginning of allegorical interpretations of scripture: The Divine Comedy is a classic piece of literature that everyone should read at least once. Dante followed the Inferno with Paradise, the last part of the Divine Comedy, in which he finds himself in Heaven. When they emerge on land, they are on the opposite hemisphere on Easter morning.ĭante’s Inferno is a long allegory that is symbolic for the punishment of sin, as well as trying to reach God. When Dante and Virgil reach Satan, they escape Hell by climbing over Satan and going through the center of the Earth. After round four is the center of Hell where Satan resides waist deep in ice. ![]() In the ninth circle the souls are stuck in ice, and from round to round the souls are lodged deeper and deeper in ice. Finally, round four is Judecca for Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ. The third round is named Ptolomaea after Ptolemy, who betrayed his guests by killing them. ![]() Round two is Antenora for Antenor of Troy, who betrayed his community. Round one is Caine, and it is where those who have betrayed their family go. This circle of Hell is divided into four rounds, and is named after people who symbolize the sin for that round. The ninth circle of Hell is guarded by biblical giants, who ring the entire circle.
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