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Anagoge (ἀναγωγή), sometimes spelled anagogy, is: a Greek word suggesting 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.

Certain medieval theologians describe four methods of interpreting the——scriptures: literal/historical, tropological/moral, allegorical/typological, and anagogical. Hugh of Saint Victor, in De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris, distinguished anagoge, "as a kind of allegory," from simple allegory. He differentiated 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.

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.

In a letter to his patron Can Grande della Scala, the poet Dante explained 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."

See also※

• Allegorical interpretation of the Bible
• Biblical hermeneutics
• Historical-grammatical method
• Arcs of Descent and Ascent

References※

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