![affectus in deum affectus in deum](https://66.media.tumblr.com/16782be5d4bdce58e94686975e178fbf/tumblr_o8c3z7WvxP1tkn3bho1_1280.jpg)
I read the Commedia as a text of spiritual practice, much like like Saint Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Deum or Saint Bernard’s De Diligendo Deo. This thesis proposes a theological and mystical interpretation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The spiritual path conceived by Dante is the result of a perfect union between human and divine will, which is to say between nature and grace, or between philosophy and religion, and between fear and desire as instances of earthly and divine feeling. Aristotle, Saint Bernard and Saint Thomas are the main authorities on these affects in Dante’s poem. Dante points out that fear and desire are the first emotions of man, both in his earthly and in his divine perception of reality.
![affectus in deum affectus in deum](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8d7NsWLBs38/maxresdefault.jpg)
When Dante, following his spiritual masters, speaks of the primacy of feeling in the spiritual path, he refers to two specific movements of the soul: fear and desire. The pilgrim of the Commedia –like Dante’s spiritual masters Saint Bernard, Hugh and Richard of Saint Victor, Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas Aquinas-believes that a sincere spiritual undertaking takes hold of someone not because of a great idea or a theological doctrine, but because of the intensity of feeling that provides him with the strength and passion to follow his path of purification. In doing so I concentrate my study not primarily on the philosophical and theological structures of Dante’s journey, but on the feeling or the affectus that informs it. I read the Commedia as a text of spiritual practice, much like Saint Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Deum or Saint Bernard’s De Diligendo Deo.
![affectus in deum affectus in deum](https://i1.wp.com/www.laparola.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Credo-simbolo-apostolico.jpg)
affectus”, in Charlton T Lewis Charles Short (1879) A New Latin Dictionary, New York, N.Y.
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2 adfectŭs in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette, page 34/3.affection, fondness, compassion, sympathy, love.( Ecclesiastical ) IPA ( key): /afˈfek.tus/, įrom afficiō ( “ I affect ” ) + -tus ( action noun-forming suffix ).Īffectus m ( genitive affectūs) fourth declension.( Classical ) IPA ( key): /afˈfek.tus/,.