In "Salvation and Sin," David Aers continues his study of
Christian theology in the later Middle Ages. Working at the nexus
of theology and literature, he combines formidable theological
learning with finely detailed and insightful close readings to
explore a cluster of central issues in Christianity as addressed by
Saint Augustine and by four fourteenth-century writers of
exceptional power. "Salvation and Sin "explores various modes of
displaying the mysterious relations between divine and human
agency, together with different accounts of sin and its
consequences. Theologies of grace and versions of Christian
identity and community are its pervasive concerns. Augustine
becomes a major interlocutor in this book: his vocabulary and
grammar of divine and human agency are central to Aers' exploration
of later writers and their works. After the opening chapter on
Augustine, Aers turns to the exploration of these concerns in the
work of two major theologians of fourteenth-century England,
William of Ockham and Thomas Bradwardine. From their work, Aers
moves to his central text, William Langland's "Piers Plowman," a
long multigeneric poem contributing profoundly to late medieval
conversations concerning theology and ecclesiology. In Langland's
poem, Aers finds a theology and ethics shaped by Christology where
the poem's modes of writing are intrinsic to its doctrine. His
thesis will revise the way in which this canonical text is read.
"Salvation and Sin"concludes with a reading of Julian of Norwich's
profound, compassionate, and widely admired theology, a reading
which brings her "Showings" into conversation both with Langland
and Augustine.
"David Aers's "Salvation and Sin"is an important and provocative
book. It throws a particularly enticing gauntlet down to
medievalists, daring us to return with Aers to the primary texts,
to think with key authors, and to subject literary texts to a
logical scrutiny as powerful as that we apply to theology.
Beautifully organized and written, his book is a model of
scholarship in its learning, clarity, and humility." --Lynn Staley,
Colgate University"In "Salvation and Sin" Aers continues to break
new ground in his ongoing discussion of Christology and
ecclesiology in medieval literature and culture. His reading of
Langland and Julian is rooted in a bold and refreshing approach to
Augustine that serves as a powerful corrective to the dominant,
Pelagian view of theology in "Piers Plowman," one that leads the
reader to embrace a new understanding of how Langland imagines
divine will and human agency." --Jim Rhodes, Southern Connecticut
University "David Aers does not reconstruct an Augustinianism for
the fourteenth century--an exercise that would have been an ode to
an empty abstraction. Instead he begins with a profound reading of
Augustine's own struggle to acknowledge the patient work of grace.
He then goes on to refract this reading through the theological
inventions of William of Ockham, Thomas Bradwardine, William
Langland, and Julian of Norwich. The result is, at one level, a
rich grammar of incipiently modern theologies; at another, it is
the amplification of an original inspiration. Some of our best
theologians are apparently residing in English departments."
--James Wetzel, Villanova University
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