Mystics of the Christian Tradition

ISBN-13: 9780415224680 / Angielski / Miękka / 2001 / 304 str.

Steven Fanning

Opis

From divine visions to self-tortures, some strange mystical experiences have shaped the Christian tradition as we know it. Full of colourful detail, Mystics of the Christian Tradition examines the mystical experiences that have determined the history of Christianity over two thousand years, and reveals the often sexual nature of these encounters with the divine.
In this fascinating account, Fanning reveals how God's direct revelation to St Francis of Assisi led to his living with lepers and kissing their sores, and describes the mystical life of Margery Kempe who 'took weeping to new decibel levels'. Through presenting the lives of almost a hundred mystics, this broad survey invites us to consider what it means to be a mystic and to explore how people such as Joan of Arc had their lives determined by divine visions.
Mystics of the Christian Tradition is a comprehensive guide to discovering what mysticism means and who the mystics of the Christian tradition actually were.

Spis treści

List of plates and timelines, Acknowledgements, Plates, Prologue, I Origins, II The Eastern Church, III The Western Church in the Middle Ages, IV Mystics in Early Modern Europe: the Reformation, the efflorescence, V Post-Reformation mystics in England and America: the twentieth-century revival of mysticism, Epilogue, Notes, Glossary, Timelines, Bibliography, Index

O autorze

Steven Fanning