Tropological reading is a Christian tradition, theory, and practice of interpreting the figurative meaning of the Bible. It is part of biblical exegesis.
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Tropological criticism (not to be confused with tropological reading, a type of biblical exegesis) is the historical study of tropes, which aims to "define the dominant tropes of an epoch" and to "find those tropes in literary and non-literary texts", an interdisciplinary investigation of which Michel Foucault was an "important exemplar". The use of the term in relation to cinema may be more common in American English than in other dialects.
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Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis vol. 2, The Four Senses of Scripture (2000 translation), Chapter 6. Literary critic Henry Louis Gates also defines tropological revision in relation to African-American literature, in his work The Signifying Monkey.
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The term trope derives from the Greek (tropos), "turn, direction, way", derived from the verb τρέπειν (trepein), "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change". Tropes and their classification were an important field in classical rhetoric. The study of tropes has been taken up again in modern criticism, especially in deconstruction. Tropological criticism (not to be confused with tropological reading, a type of biblical exegesis) is the historical study of tropes, which aims to "define the dominant tropes of an epoch" and to "find those tropes in literary and non-literary texts", an interdisciplinary investigation of which Michel Foucault was an "important exemplar".
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The thema was then restated and followed by the process, a breakdown of multiple parts of the thema—the historical, allegorical (personified), tropological (moralized), and anagogical (the mystical). Finally, the sermon would close with a recitation (a quick review) and a benediction (blessing).
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To the most widely mentioned edition Crampon and Péronne added complementary annotations from later interpreters. All of the aforementioned commentaries are great in scope. They explain not only the literal, but also the allegorical, tropological, and anagogical senses of the Sacred Scriptures and provide numerous quotations of the Church Fathers and mediaeval interpreters.
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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.Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "anagogical interpretation", accessed October 11, 2012 Certain medieval theologians describe four methods of interpreting the scriptures: literal/historical, tropological, allegorical, and anagogical.
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It cannot be denied that in spite of its merits and great erudition it is in some respects open to criticism. Difficult passages are often passed over lightly, and too frequently different explanations of a text are set down without a hint to the reader as to which is the right or preferable one. The work inaugurated a new method of exegesis. Its author departed from the custom of giving allegorical (mystical) and tropological (moral) interpretations besides the literal.
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Allegorical interpretation of the Bible is an interpretive method (exegesis) that assumes that the Bible has various levels of meaning and tends to focus on the spiritual sense, which includes the allegorical sense, the moral (or tropological) sense, and the anagogical sense, as opposed to the literal sense. It is sometimes referred to as the quadriga, a reference to the Roman chariot that was drawn by four horses. Allegorical interpretation has its origins in both Greek thought and the rabbinical schools of Judaism. In the Middle Ages, it was used by Bible commentators of Christianity.
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B. 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."... est simplex allegoria, cum per visibile factum aliud invisibile factum significatur. Anagoge, id est sursum ductio, cum per visibile invisibile factum declaratur." 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.
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When Marulić completed his poem, he affixed a prose appendix to the work, known as the Tropologica Davidiadis Expositio ("A Tropological Explanation of the Davidiad"). The purpose of this addendum was to stress the poet's belief that David "is a prototype or prefiguration of Christ" and that "all the events of the New Testament lie hidden and anticipated in the Old Testament".Marcovich (1973), p. 372. In other words, it was the view of Marulić that his work was an allegory, wherein David represented Christ (In omnibus fere Davidem puto personam gerere Christi), and Saul represented the Jews who persecuted Jesus (Saulem autem Iudeos, qui Christum persequebantur, significare).
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They did not see the break between themselves and their predecessors that today's observers see; they saw continuity with themselves and the ancient world by using allegory to bring together the gaps. The use of allegorical interpretation in the Middle Ages began as a Christian method for studying the differences between the two Testaments (tropological interpretation). Christian scholars believed both Testaments were equally inspired divinely by God and sought to understand the differences between Old Testament and New Testament laws. Medieval scholars believed the Old Testament to serve as an allegory of New Testament events, such as the story of Jonah and the whale, which represents Jesus' death and resurrection.
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According to ideas developed by the Church Fathers, the literal meaning, or God-intended meaning of the words of the Bible, may be either figurative or non-figurative; for instance, in the Song of Songs (also called Canticles or Song of Solomon), the inspired meaning is always figurative. The typical meaning is the inspired meaning of words referring to persons, things, and actions of the Old Testament which are inspired types of persons, things, and actions of the New Testament. The early uses of allegory and tropology were very close. Later a clearer distinction was made between the allegorical mystical, and tropological moral, styles of interpretation.
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But keeping in view with the proposal the essay discusses the rise of literary theory in America in the twentieth century and the challenges it faces. He points out that, "literary theory can be said to come into being when the approach to literary texts is no longer based on non-linguistic, that is to say historical and aesthetic considerations." This introduction of linguistic and semiotic terminology into literary studies, according to de Man, gives the language, "considerable freedom from referential restraint" and makes it "epistemologically highly suspect and volatile." Drawing on the ideas of Saussure and Nietzsche, de Man points out that the rhetorical and tropological dimension of language makes it an unreliable medium for communication of truths.
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Crucial to Vico's work remains a subtle criticism of all attempts to impose universality upon particularity, as if ex nihilo. Instead, Vico attempts to always let "the true" emerge from "the certain" through innumerable stories and anecdotes drawn mostly from the history of Greece and Rome and from the Bible. Here, reason does not attempt to overcome the poetic dimension of life and speech, but to moderate its impulses so as to safeguard civil life. While the transfer from divine to heroic to human ages is, for Vico, marked by shifts in the tropological nature of language, the inventional aspect of the poetic principle remains constant. When referring to “poets”, Vico intends to evoke the original Greek sense of “creators”.
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The windows as an ensemble. Understanding and interpreting the windows can be difficult in an era out of contact with medieval theology, teachings and sermons commenting on the Gothic cathedrals' stained glass windows. However, the presence of the famous 12th-century School of Chartres suggests that the precise placing of the windows had meaning for their designers. As taken up in the design of other Gothic churches, Suger's arguments showed how all four senses of scripture were present: # Literal (the product of linguistic understanding of the statement) # Allegorical or typological (stating one thing by saying another) # Tropological or Moral (stages that the human spirit had to go through in order to ascend towards God; concerning the present) # Anagogic (giving an idea of final realities which would become visible at the end of time; concerning the future) The windows can be grouped in several different ways.
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The remaining three visions of the first part introduce the famous image of a human being standing astride the spheres that make up the universe and detail the intricate relationships between the human as microcosm and the universe as macrocosm. This culminates in the final chapter of Part One, Vision Four with Hildegard's commentary on the Prologue to John's Gospel (John 1:1–14), a direct rumination on the meaning of "In the beginning was the Word..." The single vision that constitutes the whole of Part Two stretches that rumination back to the opening of Genesis, and forms an extended commentary on the seven days of the creation of the world told in Genesis 1–2:3. This commentary interprets each day of creation in three ways: literal or cosmological; allegorical or ecclesiological (i.e. related to the Church's history); and moral or tropological (i.e.
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One clause in the Jerusalem Talmud asserts that anything which a veteran disciple shall teach was already given at Sinai; and a story in the Babylonian Talmud claims that upon seeing the immensely intricate deduction of future Rabbi Akiva in a vision, Moses himself was at loss, until Akiva proclaimed that everything he teaches was handed over to Moses. The Written and Oral Torah are believed to be intertwined and mutually reliant, for the latter is a source to many of the divine commandments, and the text of the Pentateuch is seen as incomprehensible in itself. God's will may only be surmised by appealing to the Oral Torah revealing the text's allegorical, anagogical, or tropological meaning, not by literalist reading. Lacunae in received tradition or disagreements between early sages are attributed to disruptions, especially persecutions which caused to that "the Torah was forgotten in Israel" — according to rabbinic lore, these eventually compelled the legists to write down the Oral Law in the Mishna and Talmud.
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Pilgrimage is clearly the dominating motif of the Good Samaritan window. Good shoes, such as those provided by the shoemakers of Chartres (Panels 1-3), and food for the journey (if indeed bread is what is shown in Panel 24) are basic necessities for the successful completion of a journey. The window then reproduces in visual form the allegorical interpretations of the parable of the Good Samaritan from such theologians as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Bede, and others who saw the combined narratives as an allegory of humankind (the traveler), which, damaged at the fall and robbed of its divine likeness (just as the traveler was beaten and robbed), can receive no true salvation from the Old Law (the priest and Levite) but only from Christ (the Samaritan, who will return) and the Church (the inn, which provides aid until the Samaritan does return). The tropological conclusion of the combined narratives is recognition by the viewer of the need to strive for restoration of the likeness of God damaged in the Fall, a central means of which is the practice of charity.
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These six medallions contain additional symbols of acts of Christian kindness: # two crutches suggest Visiting the sick as a work of mercy # hiker's walking stick with travel pouch suggests Hospitality to strangers # a loaf of bread, fish and a pitcher of water and wine represent Feed the hungry, quench the thirsty # chains indicate Care for the incarcerated # Christ's garments evoke Clothe the naked # a coffin reminds us to Bury the dead This visual interpretation encapsulates the personal piety of rural peasants, many illiterate, for whom salvation history was expressed in these crucial aspects of God's loving relationship with us and the Christian duty to love of neighbor. Sanctifying grace flows from the Paschal Victim on the Cross, an image Nicholas described in his vision by the stream,Webland.ch where the Tabernacle sits atop a spring that flows forth covering the earth, echoing the rivers flowing from the Temple in Ezekiel's visions. Such profound insights on the allegorical,RTF Study Program - Lesson 2: The Four Senses of Sacred Scripture anagogical and tropological senses of scripture are often lost in modern biblical exegesis that focuses too narrowly on the literal sense, the historical-critical method.
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