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The notion of an infernal place of punishment for 'undesired'
elements in human culture and human nature has a long history both
as religious idea and as cultural metaphor. This book brings
together a wide array of scholars who examine hell as an idea
within the Christian tradition and its 'afterlife' in historical
and contemporary imagination. Leading scholars grapple with the
construction and meaning of hell in the past and investigate its
modern utility as a means to describe what is perceived as horrific
or undesirable in modern culture. While the idea of an infernal
region of punishment was largely developed in the context of early
Jewish and Christian religious culture, it remains a central belief
for some Christians in the modern world. Hell's reception (its
'afterlife') in the modern world has extended hell's meaning beyond
the religious realm; hell has become a pervasive image and metaphor
in political rhetoric, in popular culture, and in the media.
Bringing together scholars from a variety of fields to contribute
to a wider understanding of this fascinating and important cultural
idea, this book will appeal to readers from historical, religious,
literary and cultural perspectives.
The notion of an infernal place of punishment for 'undesired'
elements in human culture and human nature has a long history both
as religious idea and as cultural metaphor. This book brings
together a wide array of scholars who examine hell as an idea
within the Christian tradition and its 'afterlife' in historical
and contemporary imagination. Leading scholars grapple with the
construction and meaning of hell in the past and investigate its
modern utility as a means to describe what is perceived as horrific
or undesirable in modern culture. While the idea of an infernal
region of punishment was largely developed in the context of early
Jewish and Christian religious culture, it remains a central belief
for some Christians in the modern world. Hell's reception (its
'afterlife') in the modern world has extended hell's meaning beyond
the religious realm; hell has become a pervasive image and metaphor
in political rhetoric, in popular culture, and in the media.
Bringing together scholars from a variety of fields to contribute
to a wider understanding of this fascinating and important cultural
idea, this book will appeal to readers from historical, religious,
literary and cultural perspectives.
The Merovingian era is one of the best studied yet least well known
periods of European history. From the fifth to the eighth
centuries, the inhabitants of Gaul (what now comprises France,
southern Belgium, Luxembourg, Rhineland Germany, and part of modern
Switzerland), a mix of Gallo-Roman inhabitants and Germanic
arrivals under the political control of the Merovingian dynasty,
sought to preserve, use, and reimagine the political, cultural, and
religious power of ancient Rome while simultaneously forging the
beginnings of what would become medieval European culture. The
forty-six essays included in this volume highlight why the
Merovingian era is at the heart of historical debates about what
happened to Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. The
essays demonstrate that the inhabitants of the Merovingian kingdoms
in these centuries created a culture that was the product of these
traditions and achieved a balance between the world they inherited
and the imaginative solutions they bequeathed to Europe. The
Handbook highlights new perspectives and scientific approaches that
shape our changing view of this extraordinary era by showing that
Merovingian Gaul was situated at the crossroads of Europe,
connecting the Mediterranean and the British Isles with the
Byzantine empire, and it benefited from the global reach of the
late Roman Empire. It tells the story of the Merovingian world
through archaeology, bio-archaeology, architecture, hagiographic
literature, history, liturgy, visionary literature and eschatology,
patristics, numismatics, and material culture.
The sixth-century bishop Gregory of Tours described how mixing
water with dust from the tomb St. Martin would create a potion that
would act as a "celestial purgative.Indeed, Gregory could observe
Christians being purged of sickness and sin all around him. By
contrast, God's willingness to purge Christians of their sin after
death was a more complicated proposition. As a process hidden from
view, it raised questions: What was purgatory like? Who would
experience it? Did purgatory purify souls, punish them, or both?
And how painful would it be? This book explores purgatory's
earliest history from the first century to the eighth. This was an
era in which the idea that sinful Christians might improve their
lot after death was often contentious, even heretical. In this, the
first study focused on purgatory's history in late antiquity,
Moreira explores a wide variety of interests and influences at play
in purgatory's early formation. Some of the influences discussed
are ideas about punishment and correction in the Roman world,
slavery, the value of medical purges at the shrines of saints, and
the authority of visions of the afterlife for informing Christians
on the hereafter. Finally, this study challenges the deeply
ingrained supposition that purgatory was a symptom of barbarized
Christianity. It assesses the extent to which Irish and Germanic
views of society, and the sources associated with them -
penitentials and legal tariffs - played a role in purgatory's
formation. Highlighting the importance of the Anglo-Saxon
contribution to purgatory, special attention is given to the
writings of the last patristic author of antiquity, the
Northumbrian monk, Bede.
The doctrine of purgatory - the state after death in which
Christians undergo punishment by God for unforgiven sins - raises
many questions. What is purgatory like? Who experiences it? Does
purgatory purify souls, or punish them, or both? How painful is it?
Heaven's Purge explores the first posing of these questions in
Christianity's early history, from the first century to the eighth:
an era in which the notion that sinful Christians might improve
their lot after death was contentious, or even heretical. Isabel
Moreira discusses a wide range of influences at play in purgatory's
early formation, including ideas about punishment and correction in
the Roman world, slavery, the value of medical purges at the
shrines of saints, and the authority of visions of the afterlife
for informing Christians of the hereafter. She also challenges the
deeply ingrained supposition that belief in purgatory was a symptom
of barbarized Christianity, and assesses the extent to which Irish
and Germanic views of society, and the sources associated with them
- penitentials and legal tariffs - played a role in purgatory's
formation. Special attention is given to the writings of the last
patristic author of antiquity, the Northumbrian monk Bede. Heaven's
Purge is the first study to focus on purgatory's history in late
antiquity, challenging the conclusions of recent scholarship
through an examination of the texts, communities and cultural ideas
that informed purgatory's early history.
In early medieval Europe, dreams and visions were believed to
reveal divine information about Christian life and the hereafter.
No consensus existed, however, as to whether all Christians, or
only a spiritual elite, were entitled to have a relationship of
this sort with the supernatural. Drawing on a rich variety of
sources-histories, hagiographies, ascetic literature, and records
of dreams at saints' shrines-Isabel Moreira provides insight into a
society struggling to understand and negotiate its religious
visions. Moreira analyzes changing attitudes toward dreams and
visionary experiences beginning in late antiquity, when the church
hierarchy considered lay dreamers a threat to its claims of
spiritual authority. Moreira describes how, over the course of the
Merovingian period, the clergy came to accept the visions of
ordinary folk-peasants, women, and children-as authentic. Dream
literature and accounts of visionary experiences infiltrated all
aspects of medieval culture by the eighth century, and the dreams
of ordinary Christians became central to the clergy's pastoral
concerns. Written in clear and inviting prose, this book enables
readers to understand how the clerics of Merovingian Gaul allowed a
Christian culture of dreaming to develop and flourish without
compromising the religious orthodoxy of the community or the
primacy of their own authority.
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