A Companion To St Paul In The Middle Ages

This volume surveys the interpretation of St. Paul by patristic and medieval exegetes. It also examines the use of Paul by medieval reformers, canon lawyers, and spiritual teachers and Paul’s portrayal in medieval literature and art.

The notions of other peoples, cultures, and natural conditions have always been determined by the epistemology of imagination and fantasy, providing much freedom and creativity, and yet have also created much fear, anxiety, and horror. In this regard, the pre-modern world demonstrates striking parallels with our own insofar as the projections of alterity might be different by degrees, but they are fundamentally the same by content. Dreams, illusions, projections, concepts, hopes, utopias/dystopias, desires, and emotional attachments are as specific and impactful as the physical environment. This volume thus sheds important light on the various lenses used by people in the Middle Ages and the early modern age as to how they came to terms with their perceptions, images, and notions. Previous scholarship focused heavily on the history of mentality and history of emotions, whereas here the history of pre-modern imagination, and fantasy assumes center position. Imaginary things are taken seriously because medieval and early modern writers and artists clearly reveal their great significance in their works and their daily lives. This approach facilitates a new deep-structure analysis of pre-modern culture.

A Companion to Medieval and Early Modern Confraternities presents confraternities as fundamentally important venues for the acquisition of spiritual riches, material wealth, and social capital in early modern Europe and Post-Conquest America.

An introduction to the Rules and Customaries of the main religious Orders in Medieval Europe: Benedictine, Cistercian, Carthusian, Augustinian, Premonstratensian, Templar, Hospitaller, Teutonic, Dominican, Franciscan, and Carmelite.

The medieval dissenters known as ‘Waldenses’, named after their first founder, Valdes of Lyons, have long attracted careful scholarly study, especially from specialists writing in Italian, French and German. Waldenses were found across continental Europe, from Aragon to the Baltic and East-Central Europe. They were long-lived, resilient, and diverse. They lived in a special relationship with the prevailing Catholic culture, making use of the Church’s services but challenging its claims. Many Waldenses are known mostly, or only, because of the punitive measures taken by inquisitors and the Church hierarchy against them. This volume brings for the first time a wide-ranging, multi-authored interpretation of the medieval Waldenses to an English-language readership, across Europe and over the four centuries until the Reformation. Contributors: Marina Benedetti, Peter Biller, Luciana Borghi Cedrini, Euan Cameron, Jacques Chiffoleau, Albert de Lange, Andrea Giraudo, Franck Mercier, Grado Giovanni Merlo, Georg Modestin, Martine Ostorero, Damian J. Smith, Claire Taylor, and Kathrin Utz Tremp.

How we interpret “the god of this age” in 2 Corinthians 4:4 has significant implications for Bible translations, our doctrines of God and Satan, and missiology. Is this about God or Satan? Dr. Ivor Poobalan illuminates this unique Pauline phrase through his comprehensive examination of the history of interpretation and careful exegesis rooted in the historical and literary contexts. Entering into centuries of debate, this work challenges the two major pillars for the “Satan argument” – Apocalypticism and ancient Jewish views of Satan – to highlight the inconsistencies that make these foundations untenable. This insightful work brings a fresh voice that returns readers to an interpretation that “the god of this age” is the sovereign God responding to Jewish unbelief. For biblical scholars, translators, theologians, and pastors, Who Is “the God of This Age”? makes accessible previously difficult sources and opens up the implications of this interpretation.

This book presents an overview together with a detailed examination of the life and ideas of a major thinker and protagonist of the first half of the fourteenth century, Richard FitzRalph (1300-60, Armachanus). A central figure in debates at Oxford, Avignon and Ireland, FitzRalph is perhaps best-known for his central role in the poverty controversies of the 1350s. Each of the chapters collected here sheds a different perspective on the many aspects of FitzRalph’s life and works, from his time at the University of Oxford, his role as preacher and pastoral concerns, his contacts with the Eastern Churches, and finally his case at the Papal court against the privileges granted to the Franciscans. His influence and later reputation is also examined. Contributors include: Michael W. Dunne, Jean-François Genest†, Michael Haren, Elżbieta Jung, Severin V. Kitanov, Stephen Lahey, Monika Michałowska, Simon Nolan O.Carm, Bridget Riley, Chris Schabel, and John T. Slotemaker

A Companion to Job in the Middle Ages provides a thorough introduction to the wide range of interpretations of Job produced in the medieval Christian West, from those in exegetical and theological works to those in poetry and art.