The Persistence of Purgatory

ISBN-13: 9780521550390 / Angielski / Twarda / 1996 / 220 str.

Professor Richard K. Fenn

Opis

Why does Western civilization take time so seriously? While various scholars have traced the intensification of time in the West either to the Enlightenment or to the Protestant Ethic, the author traces Western attitudes toward time back to the doctrine and myth of Purgatory. As popular and theological understandings of Purgatory became increasingly secularized, the lifespan of the individual became correspondingly purgatorial. No time could be wasted. The author demonstrates the impact of Purgatory on the preaching of Richard Baxter and William Channing, but he also argues that John Locke's views can only be understood when placed within the context of a belief in Purgatory and the life everlasting. For observers such as Charles Dickens, America itself seemed to be a purgatorial wasteland full of lost and melancholy souls: a place where time is always of the essence.

Recenzje

'Fenn bores into strata of the history of purgatory from its origins as a specific place in the twelfth century to its manifestation as a secularized 'purgatorial complex' profoundly affecting the lives of many contemporary Americans.' Stephen Pattison, Heythrop Journal

Spis treści

Introduction: Testing claims to grace: the intensification of time; 1. Silent anguish: distinguishing the cure for soul-loss from the disease; 2. Purgatory as a way of life: time as the essence of the soul; 3. The modern self emerges: Baxter, Locke and the prospect of heaven; 4. Locke, reason and the soul; 5. The American purgatory and the state; 6. Protestants and Catholics in the American purgatory; 7. Charles Dickens in the American purgatory: the eternal foreground; Epilogue.