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Reading Dante's Commedia Through Augustine's Hermeneutics of Caritas

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Reading Dante's Commedia Through Augustine's Hermeneutics of Caritas Reading Dante’s Commedia through Augustine’s Hermeneutics of caritas Rory David Sellgren Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of History Institute for Medieval Studies June 2019 -ii- The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Rory David Sellgren to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2019 The University of Leeds and Rory David Sellgren -iii- Acknowledgements This research has been carried out with the support and encouragement of my supervisors, Matthew Treherne, School of Languages, Cultures, and Societies, and Mark Wynn, School of Philosophy, Religion, and History of Science. As well as the support of my post-graduate tutors in the Institute for Medieval Studies, Emilia Jamroziak, Julia Barrow, and William Flynn. I owe a special thanks to my examiners, Claire E. Honess, University of Leeds, and Heather Webb, Selwyn College (Cambridge), for their guidance and encouragement. Also a special thanks to David Bowe, Somerville College (Oxford), for his friendship and co- organisation of Dante sessions at the International Medieval Congress in 2016 and 2017. Thank you to friends and colleagues in the IMS who I have shared many cups of coffee and tea with over the course of this research. I am also deeply appreciative to my second family and neighbours at St Michael and All Saints (Headingley), St Chad’s (Far Headingley), and All Hallows (Hyde Park) for patiently listening and attending my Dante talks and Bible Studies. Above all, I am most thankful to my parents, Peter and Susan (and our cats), for supporting, encouraging, illuminating, and calming me in moments of anxiety, frustration, excitement, and joy all these years. -iv- Abstract The aim of this research is to consider Dante’s Christology in terms of Augustine’s hermeneutical practice. This thesis examines four figures in Dante’s Commedia who exemplify reading through proper and improper hermeneutical approaches and how their approaches are related to good and bad forms of love, which Augustine identifies as caritas and cupiditas: Francesca and Virgil from the Inferno, Statius from the Purgatorio, and Piccarda from the Paradiso. This thesis also examines moments in which Dante invites readers to engage with the Commedia hermeneutically. In applying Augustine’s hermeneutics of caritas, as presented in De doctrina Christiana, to a reading of Dante’s Commedia, this research considers how the Commedia directs readers to conduct themselves toward God and neighbour in accordance with Christ’s teachings. Augustine’s rules for Biblical interpretation are founded on his gloss on Jesus Christ’s words to love and enjoy God on God’s own account and to love and enjoy neighbours in relation to God (De doctrina Christiana 3.10.16). Christ’s commandments set the standard for Christian morality and provide the hermeneutical key to understanding Scripture and the ideal form of love that Christ himself paradigmatically exemplifies. Those who follow Augustine’s rules of interpretation know that all of Scripture reveals these two commandments and offers examples of how to live Christologically in accordance with these teachings. Augustine’s rules for interpretation were one of the prevailing approaches to hermeneutics in the Middle Ages and one which, when applied to a reading of Dante’s Commedia, illuminates the same Christocentric teaching. -v- Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................ iii Abstract ............................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ................................................................................. v Chapter 1 Introduction ......................................................................... 1 1.1. Dante and Augustine ........................................................................... 3 1.1.1. Dante’s Knowledge of Augustine ........................................ 4 1.1.2. Augustine’s Influence on Dante’s Writing ......................... 6 1.1.3. Dante and Augustine’s Hermeneutics ................................. 8 1.2. Dante and the Bible ........................................................................... 11 1.3. Dante and Biblical Hermeneutics .................................................... 18 Chapter 2 Augustine’s Hermeneutics of caritas ............................... 29 2.1. Scripture Reveals Love ...................................................................... 34 2.2. Relationship between Reading Correctly and Loving Correctly . 41 2.2.1. Steps to Holiness .................................................................. 44 2.2.2. Consequences of cupiditas .................................................... 53 2.3. Charitable Reading as Cooperative Reading .................................. 57 2.3.1. Proper Order of Relationships ........................................... 58 2.3.2. The Necessity of Instruction .............................................. 61 2.4. How to Read Through and Act on Proper Love .......................... 65 2.4.1. Reading Through the Proper Senses ................................. 66 2.4.2. Acting Through the Proper Sense ..................................... 68 Chapter 3 The Commedia’s Readers ................................................. 73 3.1 Amor and carità: The Two Loves of Francesca and Piccarda ....... 74 3.1.1. Francesca’s cupiditas and Piccarda’s caritas ......................... 76 3.1.2. Reading Tropologically ........................................................ 90 -vi- 3.2 Christ’s Harrowing and Resurrection: Christological Readings of Virgil and Statius ........................................................................... 103 3.2.1. Descensus Christi: Virgil’s Misreading of Christ ................ 105 3.2.2. Biblical Hermeneutics: Statius’s Christological Reading of Virgil ..................................................................................... 116 Chapter 4 Caritas and the Commedia’s Reader .............................. 138 4.1. Addresses to Readers ...................................................................... 140 4.2. The Hell Gate Inscription .............................................................. 151 4.3. The Gates of Dis.............................................................................. 161 4.4. The Beatitudes in Purgatorio ............................................................ 175 4.5. The Cross and the Heaven of Mars .............................................. 199 Chapter 5 Conclusion ...................................................................... 215 5.1. Future Research ............................................................................... 222 5.2. Final Reflections............................................................................... 224 Bibliography ..................................................................................... 226 -1- Chapter 1 Introduction The primary aim of this research is to test a hermeneutical approach to Dante’s Commedia through Augustine of Hippo’s hermeneutics of caritas as they are presented in De doctrina Christiana. Two key aspects of this hermeneutical approach are the distinction between good and bad forms of love, and the relationship between good and bad forms of love and right and wrong reading. Augustine’s hermeneutics of caritas are Christological because they are anchored to Christ’s Double Love Commandment, which Christ himself paradigmatically exemplifies: Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo, et in tota anima tua, et in tota mente tua. Hoc est maximum, et primum mandatum. Secundum autem simile est huic: Diliges proximum tuum, sicut teipsum. In his duobus mandatis universa lex pendet, et prophetae. (Matthew 22:37–40) (“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”.)1 In reading the Commedia through this hermeneutical approach, this thesis proposes that Dante’s Christology can be located in the hermeneutical practices he imitates rather than in a discussion about Christ-centred passages in the Commedia itself. In the methodology chapter of this thesis, I discuss the details of Augustine’s Christological hermeneutics and its system of interpreting and acting upon good and bad forms of love. In general terms, properly ordered love is caritas, which is the ideal form of love because it loves God for God’s own sake, and integrates the love of creatures into the love of God. A bad form of love is 1 Parallel passages include Mark 12:30–31, Luke 10:27, and John 13:31–35. All Latin passages of Scripture are from the Vulgate, Biblia Sacra juxta Vulgatam Clementinam, ed. by Alberto Colunga and Laurentio Turrado, Biblioteca de Auctores Cristianos XIV, 5th edn (Madrid: La Editorial Catolica, 1977). All English translations are from The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version, National Council of Churches of Christ in the
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