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In response to Nazi exclusion of the Jews from German society on racial grounds, Erich Auerbach (1892-1957), a secular Jewish intellectual inspired by cultural Protestantism and Catholicism, formed a vision of a cosmopolitan Judeo-Christian civilization that reintegrated the Jews as biblical founders and cultural mediators. But the integration expunged any mark of traditional Jewishness. Focusing on Christian figurative thinking (typology), Auerbach viewed the binding of Isaac through the crucifixion, and contemporary Jews as civilization's (unwilling and undeserving) martyrs. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, his cosmopolitanism reached a crisis, reflected in his postwar vision of Western decline. The progressive mandarin who had begun his intellectual life elevating Dante's care for everyday life and sympathizing with French realist social critique ended endorsing Hugh of St. Victor's alienation from reality and Pascal's acquiescence in totalitarian rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Auerbach's goal in writing "Figura" and Mimesis was the rejection of Aryan philology and Nazi barbarism, based on racism, chauvinism and the mythologies of Blood, Volk and Soil, which eliminated the Old Testament from the Christian canon and hence from European culture and civilization. Following the Nazi Revolution of 1933 and the triumph of Aryan philology, Auerbach began writing "Figura," published in 1938, where he provided an apology for the Old Testament's validity and credibility, striving to prove that the Jewish Bible was inseparable from the New Testament contrary to the claims of Aryan philology and Nazi historiography. Auerbach's "Figura" should be considered not merely as a philological study but also, and more importantly, as a crucial stage in his response to the crisis of German philology with Mimesis, in turn, seen as his affirmation, against Aryan philology's Nazi racist and völkish views, of the humanist, Judeo-Christian foundation of European civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on one specific theological tool regarding some Christian ritual practices, i.e., the character indelebilis or indelible mark. Though the notion existed in some patristic sources, the theologoumenon was reframed in early scholasticism. Theologians of the 12th–13th century used the restricted code of Aristotelian psychology in order to better control theological predication and moved from baptismal theology to the theology of priesthood. Since Thomas Aquinas is the main theological reference in the development of the theologoumenon, special attention will be paid to his proposal. Revisiting the metaphorical nature of some of his statements and the iconic value he assigns to the indelible mark may contribute to a better understanding of the current theological debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay will suggest that Dante's journey through the earthly paradise in the Purgatorio is a figural representation of the journey of Cleopas and the unnamed disciple on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. By making several references to the Gospel of Luke, Dante seems to be setting the stage for the reader to understand his own pilgrimage through the Garden of Eden as a retelling of the Emmaus story in the context of the Church Triumphant. Indeed, reading Luke 24 alongside Cantos XXIX–XXXI of the Purgatorio helps students to unpack the complex images of Dante's experience in light of the themes present in the Emmaus story. For example, the concealment of Beatrice's face and the gradual unveiling of her beauty mirrors Christ's gradual revelation of his nature to Cleopas and the unnamed disciple. Cleopas and his companion also walk away from the promise of God revealed in Christ by leaving Jerusalem, just as Dante "took himself" from Beatrice and "set his steps upon an untrue way" (XXX 125, 130). In developing these and other parallels as well as elaborating on their significance for the latter cantos of the Purgatorio, this essay will attempt to establish a pedagogical approach to Books XXIX–XXX that draws on students' recollections of the familiar Gospel text of Emmaus, which Dante clearly intends (among others) as a resource for appreciating his vision of an essential passage in Christian life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]