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Indlæser... The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianityaf Peter Brown
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In this book, Peter Brown seeks to answer how the relationship between wealth and the striving for salvation that became fundamental in Western Christianity evolved. How, when, and why did Christians come to believe that ‘heaven and earth could be joined by money’ (ix)? How did the nature of this conjunction change over time? And in what ways was it differentiated from earlier or other modes of religious or charitable giving? Brown explores these issues in six substantive chapters. The first lays the scene, looking at the ways in which the dead were remembered in early Christianity. The following two chapters examine Augustine’s conception of the afterlife, and his views on almsgiving in the wake of the Pelagian controversy. The last three chapters are set in Gaul, examining the new penitential monasticism of the fifth century in southern Gaul emanating from Lérins, the afterlife in Gregory of Tours’s writings, and finally the influence of Columbanus on religious life and conceptions of the afterlife. Tilhører Forlagsserien
Marking a departure in our understanding of Christian views of the afterlife from 250 to 650 CE, The Ransom of the Soul explores a revolutionary shift in thinking about the fate of the soul that occurred around the time of Rome's fall. Peter Brown describes how this shift transformed the church's institutional relationship to money and set the stage for its domination of medieval society in the West. Early Christian doctrine held that the living and the dead, as equally sinful beings, needed each other in order to achieve redemption. The devotional intercessions of the living could tip the balance between heaven and hell for the deceased. In the third century, money began to play a decisive role in these practices, as wealthy Christians took ever more elaborate steps to protect their own souls and the souls of their loved ones in the afterlife. They secured privileged burial sites and made lavish donations to churches. By the seventh century, Europe was dotted with richly endowed monasteries and funerary chapels displaying in marble splendor the Christian devotion of the wealthy dead. In response to the growing influence of money, church doctrine concerning the afterlife evolved from speculation to firm reality, and personal wealth in the pursuit of redemption led to extraordinary feats of architecture and acts of generosity. But it also prompted stormy debates about money's proper use -- debates that resonated through the centuries and kept alive the fundamental question of how heaven and earth could be joined by human agency. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Indlæser... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)270.2Religions History, geographic treatment, biography of Christianity History of Christianity Period of ecumenic councils; Centralization (325-787)LC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit:
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