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3 books match the query 'Angelology & Demonology'
Prophets in Their Own Country
Living Saints and the Making of Sainthood in the Later Middle AgesAviad M. Kleinberg
University of Chicago Press, 1992
In this original study of the making of saintly reputations, Aviad M. Kleinberg shows how sainthood, though frequently seen as a personal trait, is actually the product of negotiations between particular individuals and their communities. Employing the methods of history, anthropology, and textual criticism, Kleinberg examines the mechanics of sainthood in daily interactions between putative saints and their audiences. This book will interest historians, anthropologists, sociologists, medievalists, and those interested in the study of religion.
"[A] fascinating and sometimes iconoclastic view of saints in the medieval period." —Sandra R. O'Neal, Theological Studies
"[An] important new book. . . . [And] an excellent piece of scholarship." —Diane L. Mockridge, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion
"[Kleinberg's] style is clear and accessible and his observations insightful; the book is a pleasure to read." —Veronica Lawrence, Theological Book Review
"Original and interesting. . . . [Kleinberg] has made a major contribution." —Anne L. Clark, American Historical Review
"Kleinberg's concern is not just with perceptions of sanctity, but, refreshingly, with what actually happened: and he is especially good on the conflict of the two. . . . [This] is not just a book but a way of thought, and one that promises interesting conversations at all levels from the church porch to the tutorial and the academic conference." —Helen Cooper, Times Literary Supplement
"[A] fascinating and sometimes iconoclastic view of saints in the medieval period." —Sandra R. O'Neal, Theological Studies
"[An] important new book. . . . [And] an excellent piece of scholarship." —Diane L. Mockridge, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion
"[Kleinberg's] style is clear and accessible and his observations insightful; the book is a pleasure to read." —Veronica Lawrence, Theological Book Review
"Original and interesting. . . . [Kleinberg] has made a major contribution." —Anne L. Clark, American Historical Review
"Kleinberg's concern is not just with perceptions of sanctity, but, refreshingly, with what actually happened: and he is especially good on the conflict of the two. . . . [This] is not just a book but a way of thought, and one that promises interesting conversations at all levels from the church porch to the tutorial and the academic conference." —Helen Cooper, Times Literary Supplement
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Salvation through Temptation
Maximus the Confessor and Thomas Aquinas on Christ's Victory over the DevilBenjamin E. Heidgerken
Catholic University of America Press, 2021
Salvation through Temptation describes the development of predominant Greek and Latin Christian conceptions of temptation and of the work of Christ to heal and restore humankind in the context of that temptation, focusing on Maximus the Confessor and Thomas Aquinas as well-developed examples of Greek and Latin thought on these matters.
Maximus and Thomas represent two trajectories concerning the woundedness of human emotionality in the wake of the primordial human sin. Heidgerken argues that Maximus stands in essential continuity with earlier Greek ascetic theology, which conceives of the weakness of fallen humankind in demonological categories, so that the Pauline law of sin is bound to external demonic agents that act upon the human mind through thoughts, desires, and sensory impressions. For Thomas, on the other hand, this wound consists primarily of an internal disordering of the faculties that results from the withdrawal of original grace: concupiscence or the fomes peccati. Yet even in this framework, the devil plays a significant role in Thomas’s account of postlapsarian temptation.
On the basis of these differing frameworks for human temptation, Heidgerken demonstrates the centrality of Christ’s exemplarity in the Greek account and the centrality of Christ’s moral perfections in the Latin account. As a consequence of these emphases, the Greek tradition of Maximus places distinct limits on the ability of human emotionality (even that of Christ) to be perfected in this life, whereas Thomas’s approach allows Christ to completely embody a perfected form of human emotionality in his earthly life. Reciprocally, Thomas’s account of Christ’s moral perfections and virtue places distinct limits on his affirmation of Christ’s experience of postlapsarian temptation, whereas Maximus’s account allows for Christ to experience interior forms of temptation that more closely mirror the concrete moral experiences and circumstances of fallen human beings. Salvation through Temptation recommends a retrieval of early ascetic theology and demonology as the best contemporary systematic and ecumenically-viable approach to Christ’s temptation and victory over the devil.
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Tears and Saints
E. M. Cioran
University of Chicago Press, 1995
By the mid-1930s, Emil Cioran was already known as a leader of a new generation of politically committed Romanian intellectuals. Researching another, more radical book, Cioran was spending hours in a library poring over the lives of saints. As a modern hagiographer, Cioran "dreamt" himself "the chronicler of these saints' falls between heaven and earth, the intimate knower of the ardors in their hearts, the historian of God's insomniacs." Inspired by Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, Cioran "searched for the origin of tears." He asked himself if saints could be "the sources of tears' better light."
"Who can tell?" he wrote in the first paragraph of this book, first published in Romania in 1937. "To be sure, tears are their trace. Tears did not enter the world through the saints; but without them we would never have known that we cry because we long for a lost paradise." By following in their traces, "wetting the soles of one's feet in their tears," Cioran hoped to understand how a human being can renounce being human. Written in Cioran's characteristic aphoristic style, this flamboyant, bold, and provocative book is one of his most important—and revelatory—works.
Cioran focuses not on martyrs or heroes but on the mystics—primarily female—famous for their keening spirituality and intimate knowledge of God. Their Christianity was anti-theological, anti-institutional, and based solely on intuition and sentiment. Many, such as Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, and Saint John of the Cross, have produced classic works of mystical literature; but Cioran celebrates many more minor and unusual figures as well.
Following Nietzsche, he focuses explicitly on the political element hidden in saints' lives. In his hands, however, their charitable deeds are much less interesting than their thirst for pain and their equally powerful capacity to endure it. Behind their suffering and their uncanny ability to renounce everything through ascetic practices, Cioran detects a fanatical will to power.
"Like Nietzsche, Cioran is an important religious thinker. His book intertwines God and music with passion and tears. . . . [Tears and Saints] has a chillingly contemporary ring that makes this translation important here and now."—Booklist
"Who can tell?" he wrote in the first paragraph of this book, first published in Romania in 1937. "To be sure, tears are their trace. Tears did not enter the world through the saints; but without them we would never have known that we cry because we long for a lost paradise." By following in their traces, "wetting the soles of one's feet in their tears," Cioran hoped to understand how a human being can renounce being human. Written in Cioran's characteristic aphoristic style, this flamboyant, bold, and provocative book is one of his most important—and revelatory—works.
Cioran focuses not on martyrs or heroes but on the mystics—primarily female—famous for their keening spirituality and intimate knowledge of God. Their Christianity was anti-theological, anti-institutional, and based solely on intuition and sentiment. Many, such as Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, and Saint John of the Cross, have produced classic works of mystical literature; but Cioran celebrates many more minor and unusual figures as well.
Following Nietzsche, he focuses explicitly on the political element hidden in saints' lives. In his hands, however, their charitable deeds are much less interesting than their thirst for pain and their equally powerful capacity to endure it. Behind their suffering and their uncanny ability to renounce everything through ascetic practices, Cioran detects a fanatical will to power.
"Like Nietzsche, Cioran is an important religious thinker. His book intertwines God and music with passion and tears. . . . [Tears and Saints] has a chillingly contemporary ring that makes this translation important here and now."—Booklist
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