Doxological Pedagogy (Part Five)

The Convivio

Dante opens the second treatise of the Convivio with an explanation of what has of old been called the quadriga, or the fourfold method of interpretation. This approach seeks to discover (in this order) the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical (or eschatological) meaning of a given text (Convivio II, i, 1-7). This methodology was commonly used to interpret Scripture, and would have certainly been taught at the religious schools Dante attended. But here he applied this method to his own lyric poetry, laying the foundation for its use with any text. In this way, Dante was able to look at and look through a text at the same time, discovering and (in terms of his own poems) developing multiple layers of meaning, with various applications for the soul’s progress toward ultimate, divine wisdom. The donna gentile, at the head of her classroom, directs her pupils (that is, human souls) to recognize not just the thing itself, but also the thing signified. Furthermore, she draws her moral lesson from the same, and finally places it in the context of eternity, giving it eternal significance. The use of the quadriga outside of interpreting the Scriptures allowed Dante to look at all of life sacramentally, as a reflection of the divine wisdom. If all things are created and sustained by God, then it follows that every created thing can (and should) be seen as a reflection of His nature, as a vehicle to know Him better. This was the material around which the donna gentile built her lesson plans. To use, then, the quadriga more broadly than was usual, indicates a desire to see all things, and not just Scripture, in light of how they reflect the divine wisdom. Certainly this is how he interprets his own poems, as is proved by the Convivio, and later with the Commedia. And the implication is that the same can be done with all of life. Philosophy, that which is signified by the donna gentile, is the love of wisdom, and wisdom understood as a comprehensive submission to, and love for, the will of God in every aspect of human existence. Therefore, to interpret and embrace creation through the lens of the fundamental, and layered, purposes for which God created it is to draw the human soul closer to His will. The quadriga becomes a tool in the hands of the donna gentile to align the human will with the divine will, which is the ultimate aim of philosophy as Dante conceives it.

The Liberal Arts in the Heavens

Following this fundamental hermeneutical approach to life and experience, the donna gentile brings her pupil to the seven liberal arts (or sciences), and adds to them physics, metaphysics, ethics, and theology proper (Convivio II, xiii-xiv). Dante “assimilates them precisely to the heavenly spheres, with theology and moral philosophy at the highest point” (Freccero 88). In mapping these eleven arts onto the ten heavens of Ptolemaic (and Medieval Christian) cosmology, Dante implied an inherent “hierarchy of excellence.” Typically, the liberal arts have been conceived of in a linear fashion, with a student working through them one at a time, until he has achieved academic perfection and is thus ready for some earthly pursuit, such as the law. What Dante does differently, in mapping them onto the ten heavens, is to give them a vertical, instead of a horizontal, orientation. He turns them into a ladder, one which the student would climb up to reach higher and higher levels of understanding. The trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) naturally leads upward into the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, astrology [or astronomy]), which is pictured as an ascent through the spheres of the seven planets (the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). These seven arts are preparatory for the next ascent into physics and metaphysics, represented by the firmament, or the heaven of the fixed stars. This in turn prepares one for ethics (or moral philosophy), pictured as the crystalline heaven. Each level leads upward to the next, and is necessarily transcended by what follows. The one who has achieved the vantage point of this ninth heaven has a total command of everything that has come before; a proper education, according to Dante, leads to this point. In comparing the primum mobile with moral philosophy, he says this:

Of a truth there would be no generation here below [without the crystalline sphere], nor life of animal nor plant; night would not be, nor day, nor week, nor month, nor year; but all the universe would be disordered, and the movement of the other heavens would be in vain. And, not otherwise, were moral philosophy to cease, the other sciences would be hidden a certain space, and there would be no generation, nor life, nor felicity; and in vain would the other sciences have been written down and discovered of old. (Convivio II, xiv, 17-18)

Thus, he says, “it is right clear that this heaven may be compared to moral philosophy.” Moral philosophy is both the foundation and the telos of all the other earthly sciences. Just as, in Ptolemaic cosmology, the primum mobile is the first sphere moved by God in giving order and meaning and movement to the entire universe, so too moral philosophy is that science that moves and orders the nine sciences that have come before. Neither Grammar nor Logic, on up through Physics and Metaphysics, would “have been written down and discovered of old” apart from Moral Philosophy giving it life.

To tie this all together, as a potential extrapolation of Dante’s theory of education, I propose we consider this ninth heaven, the heaven of moral philosophy, as the dwelling place of the donna gentile. This is her sphere, where she exercises complete authority over the eight beneath her. But the function of the donna gentile, residing as she does in the crystalline heaven, is not simply to rightly interpret everything the student has mastered to reach her sphere. More than that, as a reflection of the Divine Mind, she is a tool in the hand of the supernal Authority to turn and introduce her pupil to the Empyrean, the tenth and final heaven, the divine presence of God. It is here, over all the sciences, including Moral Philosophy, that Theology sits as queen. This is where Dante’s distinction between philosophy and theology, as discussed above, is crucial to understand. Every other science, each rung on the ladder, operates with authority over its own realm; but ultimately they each serve a higher purpose defined by the knowledge of God. All education, in this sense, is religious education; for all the sciences operate within, and are governed by, that final, celestial sphere. Dante quotes Solomon, calling all the other sciences handmaidens to theology, which “is without taint of strife, and this he calls perfect because it makes us see the truth perfectly, wherein our soul is quieted” (Convivio 129 [II, xiv, 20]). To reach the Empyrean, to attain a full knowledge of God, to sit under the divine science, which is “full of peace,” to love wisdom for its own sake as the revelation of the divine mind — that is where the human soul finds ultimate rest. A “quieted soul” is the final aim of education— to discover our restlessness outside of God, and seek our rest in Him, to find our soul’s ultimate peace in His will. Here, the pupil becomes greater than her teacher, and in so doing, achieves the donna gentile’s deepest desire: the quiet rest of a perfected human will, governed solely by that Love that moves the sun and other stars.

Hierarchical Learning

This framework of hierarchical learning will be the foundation of the following chapter, but to bring this one to a close, it remains only to emphasize that this ultimate understanding of the soul’s formation and education was Dante’s great passion. Temporal happiness, unless it culminates in eternal bliss, is ultimately pointless. Thus, Dante condemns the philosopher for hire, that philosophy which is centered only on self and what self can obtain in this life, without reference to man’s highest end. He is rejecting what is in essence a protosecular philosophy of education, a training that equips the self for the sake of self alone. He says,

We are not to call him a real philosopher who is a friend of wisdom for profit, as are lawyers, physicians, and almost all the members of the religious orders, who do not study in order to know, but in order to get money or office; and if anyone would give them that which it is their purpose to acquire they would linger over their study no longer. And as amongst the different kinds of friendship that which is for the sake of profit is least to be called friendship, so these, such as I speak of, have less share in the name of philosopher than any other folk. Wherefore, just as friendship contracted in virtue of worthiness is real and perfect and abiding, so is that philosophy real and perfect which is generated by worthiness alone, with no other respect, and by the excellence of the soul that feels this friendship, in virtue of right appetite and right reason. (Convivio 198 [III, xi, 10-11])

Instead of a philosophy that prepares self to acquire the means to obtain worldly treasures and gifts, Dante envisions one that is based on right appetite and right reason, which we have seen can only be understood as dependence on and love for God. Plato and Rousseau, by contrast, isolate reason and appetite from their true end, life in the Empyrean. And by rejecting Christ (one out of ignorance, one out of willfulness), their respective philosophies lose their ability to help students toward their ultimate end. Instead, their philosophies inevitably fall into the category of “wisdom for profit.” For anything other than the worship of God must end by being the worship of self. To stop at the crystalline sphere and not cross over into the Empyrean is to waste the journey.

But a true love of wisdom, a true fear of the Lord that governs every aspect of our education, is one “which is generated by worthiness alone… by the excellence of the soul that feels this friendship, in virtue of right appetite and right reason.” This friend of philosophy, who is a friend for the sake of the worthiness and beauty of Truth itself, and not for what it can ultimately profit self, is a true lover of wisdom. This friend, instead, profits from the experience, from the sacramental awareness of the world, and from the hierarchical nature of learning, being equipped to see himself correctly, as an image-bearing child of God. This is the work and instruction of the compassionate schoolmarm, and Dante loved her for it, enthroning her over all human wisdom. But from her position in the crystalline heaven, she acts, under God’s authority, as door keeper to the Empyrean, where theology reigns supreme over every lower sphere. She is but the handmaid of the Spirit, performing the specific function given to her by the Spirit, the task of preparation and education. As such, she stands as a schoolmarm at the head of her class, eagerly awaiting the day when her pupils will be equipped to leave, and walk out boldly and confidently into the supernal light of the sun.

For those unfamiliar with what Roman Roads has to offer, we have an array of excellent texts and curricula, including

Old Western Culture: a fully integrated, 9-12th grade humanities course, touching on literature, philosophy, history, theology, and more, complete with a 16-volume set of original texts, spanning from Homer and Vergil to Jane Austen and CS Lewis;

Calculus for Everyone: a text that gets to the heart of why Calculus works… and why it is important;

Dante Curriculum: an in-depth, canto-by-canto consideration of one of Christendom’s greatest achievements, Dante’s Divine Comedy, from a solidly Christian perspective;

Fitting Words: a course in the classical art of formal rhetoric, training students to speak powerfully and elegantly;

Picta Dicta: A Latin curriculum in which students learn through all four language pathways (reading, writing, speaking, and hearing), making it both more enjoyable for them to learn and easier to retain. 

Furthermore, we have a growing collection of standalone works, such as Cicero’s On Duties, Dr. Gordon Wilson’s Darwin’s Sandcastle, Elizabeth Landis’ The Forgotten Realm: Civics for American Christians, and Christiana Hale’s Deeper Heaven: A Reader’s Guide to CS Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy, plus several more.