In ordinary conversation, including among the "educated", the word "sin" rarely gets mentioned except when one is trying to be coy or facetious. As Thomas Mann once said, "sin" is nowadays "an amusing word used only when one is trying to get a laugh".

But this small work will interpret sin in its true -- that is, serious -- meaning. What will emerge from its analysis is the discovery that the concept of sin can still serve to unlock the mystery of existence, at least for a thinking that wants to press down to the very foundations.

Needless to say, such an effort will require a kind of "mining energy" of an archeologist of ideas who knows how to recover what was once known (or at least suspected) from time immemorial but has now been forgotten. But Josef Pieper does more than bring to bear on this issue his famous powers of excavation; he also makes meaningful the concept of sin to the ways of thinking and speaking of our time.

Readers of his work already know Pieper as an extraordinarily fitting master in this art of making "the wisdom of the ages" a living reality today. And in this work he brings Plato, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas into a living dialogue with T. S. Eliot, Andre Gide, even with Jean-Paul Sartre. As he shows in this powerful work, none of these writers leaves any doubt that the fact of sin is central: It is the willful denial of one's own life-ground, a denial that alone rightly bears the name of "sin". Paradoxically, this reality is both willed and yet also pre-given, that is, both adventitious and yet somehow innate to our existence -- a paradox which, next to the mystery of existence itself, is the most impenetrable mystery of all.

In The Four Cardinal Virtues, Joseph Pieper delivers a stimulating quartet of essays on the four cardinal virtues. He demonstrates the unsound overvaluation of moderation that has made contemporary morality a hollow convention and points out the true significance of the Christian virtues.

No better guide over the thousand-year period called the Middle Ages could be found than Josef Pieper. In this amazing tour de monde medievale, he moves easily back and forth between the figures and the doctrines that made medieval philosophy unique in Western thought. After reflecting on the invidious implications of the phrase 'Middle Ages,' Pieper turns to the fascinating personality of Boethius whose contribution to prison literature, The Consolation of Philosophy, is second only to the Bible in the number of manuscript copies. The Neo-Platonic figures - Dionysius and Eriugena - are the occasion for a discussion of negative theology. The treatment of Anselm of Canterbury's proof of God's existence involves later voices, e.g., Kant. Like other historians, Pieper is enamored of the twelfth century, which is regularly eclipsed by accounts of the thirteenth century. Pieper does justice to both. His account of the rivalry between Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux is masterful, nor does he fail to give John of Salisbury the space he deserves. The account is broken by the gradual replacement of the synthesis of faith and reason that had been achieved in the early Middle Ages by a new one that made use of Aristotle. Pieper gives a thorough and lively account of the struggle between Aristotelians and anti-Aristotelians, and the famous condemnations that put the effort of Saint Thomas Aquinas at risk. But the Summa theologiae is regarded by Pieper as the unique achievement of the period. If the early centuries, the medieval period, can be seen as moving toward the thirteenth and Thomas's unique achievement, subsequent centuries saw the decline of scholasticism and the appearance of harbingers of modern philosophy. The book closes with Pieper's thoughts on the permanent philosophical and theological significance of scholasticism and the Middle Ages. Once again, wearing his learning lightly, writing with a clarity that delights, Josef Pieper has taken the field from stuffier and more extended accounts.

In this stimulating and still-timely study, Josef Pieper takes up a theme of paramount importance to his thinking -- that festivals belong by rights among the great topics of philosophical discussion.

As he develops his theory of festivity, the modern age comes under close and painful scrutiny. It is obvious that we no longer know what festivity is, namely, the celebration of existence under various symbols.

Pieper exposes the pseudo-festivals, in their harmless and their sinister forms: traditional feasts contaminated by commercialism; artificial holidays created in the interest of merchandisers; holidays by coercion, decreed by dictators the world over; festivals as military demonstrations; holidays empty of significance. And lastly we are given the apocalyptic vision of a nihilistic world which would seek its release not in festivities but in destruction.

Formulated with Pieper's customary clarity and elegance, enhanced by brilliantly chosen quotations, this is an illuminating contribution to the understanding of traditional and contemporary experience.

1 Vorlesungen iiber die Geschichte der Phi osophie. Erster Band. Hrsg. Joh. Hoffmeister. Leipzig 1940. S.101. Confessiones 11, 14. 3 Aufzeichnungen aus den Jahren 1875/79. Gesammelte Werke. Musarion-Ausgabe (Miin chen 1922 ff.), Bd. 9, S. 480. 4 Kurt Eisner, Feste der Festlosen. Dresden 1906. S. 10. S Gerhard Nebel, Die Kultischen Olympien. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung vom 20.8. 1960. 8 Martin P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste von religioser Bedeutung, mit AusschluB der atti schen. Leipzig 1906. S. III und S. 160. 7 Richard Alewyn, Karl Salzle, Das groBe Welttheater. Die Epoche der hofischen Feste in Dokument und Deutung. Rowohlts Deutsche Enzyklopadie. Hamburg 1959. S. 16. 8 J. Pinsk, Die sakramentale Welt. 2. Auf ., Freiburg i. Br. 1941. S. 163. 9 Alewyn-Salzle, Welttheater S. 13. 10 Karl Kerenyi, Yom Wesen des Festes. Paideuma, Bd. I. Leipzig 1938-40. S. 73. - ders., Die antike Religion. Amsterdam 1940. S. 67. 11 Dictionnaire des Antiquites Grecques et Romaines. Ed. Ch. Daremberg und E. Saglio. Paris 1896. Artikel "Feriae." Bd.lI, S. 1044. 12 Georg Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Romer. 2. Aufl., Miinchen 1912. S.432. 13 Theorie de la Fete. Nouvelle Revue Fran aise, Bd. 53 (1939). - Spater aufgenommen in L'homme et Ie sacre. 3. Auf ., Paris 1950. S. 128; 165 f. 14 Phaidros 276 b 5. 16 Phi osophie der Weltgeschichte. Samtliche Werke. Jubilaumsausgabe. Hrsg. H. Glo- ner. Stuttgart 1927-1940. Bd. 11, S. 318. 18 Adolf Ellegard Jensen, Mythos und Kult bei Naturvolkern. Wiesbaden 1951. S.77."

This is a new release of the original 1948 edition.

This is a new release of the original 1948 edition.

"The ultimate of human happiness is to be found in contemplation".

In offering this proposition of Thomas Aquinas to our thought, Josef Pieper uses traditional wisdom in order to throw light on present-day reality and present-day psychological problems. What, in fact, does one pursue in pursuing happiness? What, in the consensus of the wisdom of the early Greeks, of Plato and Aristotle, of the New Testament, of Augustine and Aquinas, is that condition of perfect bliss toward which all life and effort tend by nature?

In this profound and illuminating inquiry, Pieper considers the nature of contemplation, and the meaning and goal of life.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!