From The Nature and Aim of Fiction by Flannery O'Connor The kind of vision the fiction writer needs to have, or to develop, in order to increase the meaning of his story is called the anagogical vision, and that is the kind of vision that is able to see different levels of reality in one image or one situation. The medieval commentators on Scripture found three kinds of meaning in the literal level of the sacred text: one they called allegorical, in which one fact pointed to another; one they called tropological, or moral, which had to do with what should be done; and one they called anagogical, which had to do with the Divine life and our participation in it. Although this was a method applied to biblical exegesis, it was also an attitude toward all of creation, and a way of reading nature which included the most possibilities, and I think it is this enlarged view of the human scene that the fiction writer has to cultivate if he is ever going to write stories that have a chance of becoming a permanent part of our literature. (italics added) The Senses of Scripture from the Catholic Catechism 115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church. 116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal." [83] 117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs. (1) The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian Baptism. [84] (2) The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction". [85] (3) The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, "leading"). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem. [86] 118 A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses: The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith; The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny. [87] [83] St. Thomas Aquinas, S Thess I, 1, 10, ad I. [84] Cf. I Cor 10:2. [85] I Cor 10:11; cf. Heb 3:1 -4:11. [86] Cf. Rev 21:1 - 22:5. [87] Lettera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia. Augustine of Dacia, Rotulus pugillaris, I: ed. A. Walz: Angelicum § (1929) 256; Augstine of Dacia, Rotulus pugillaris, I: ed. A. Walz: Angelicum § (1929) 256. (Catechism from https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/catechism/index.cfm?recnum=467, and FOC quoted from this concise paper on Flannery O'Connor, Dante, and medieval exegesis of secular literature: http://literatureandbelief.byu.edu/publications/flannery_veil.pdf)
