"Lucifer is on a non-linear trajectory, revolving its readers through the profane and the pious swinging door of heaven and earth. Memmer's collection, with a few pitches and an unexpected saint we can all root for, has the power to provoke, enlighten, and unsettle. The paradox remains the same--so much is at stake in these poems, and so little--but Memmer has managed to give us an original and remarkable passageway."--M. L. Smoker
"If, as Chesterton claimed, the devil's greatest triumph was convincing the modern world that he does not exist, Jeffrey Burton Russell means to rob him of his victory. Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages is both a scholarly assessment of the development of diabology in the Middle Ages and an impassioned plea to the 20th century to recognize and acknowledge the existence of real, objective evil. The third in a series of works tracing the history of the devil from his Judeo-Christian roots, it represents a formidable undertaking: the devil's history is integrally related to the problem of evil, which is in turn at the heart of Western religious thought. Each of the volumes on Satan comprises, in essence, a judicious and able tour of Christian theology from the villain's point of view... Book jacket.
The ubiquitous conflict between saint and demon constitutes an ontological study of the boundaries between the holy and the unholy, rather than a psychological study of temptation and sin."--BOOK JACKET.
If we are to believe sensationalist media coverage, Satanism is, at its most benign, the purview of people who dress in black, adorn themselves with skull and pentagram paraphernalia, and listen to heavy metal. At its most sinister, its adherents are worshippers of evil incarnate and engage in violent and perverse secret rituals, the details of which mainstream society imagines with a fascination verging on the obscene. Children of Lucifer debunks these facile characterizations by exploring the historical origins of modern Satanism. Ruben van Luijk traces the movement's development from a concept invented by a Christian church eager to demonize its internal and external competitors to a positive (anti-)religious identity embraced by various groups in the modern West. Van Luijk offers a comprehensive intellectual history of this long and unpredictable trajectory. This story involves Romantic poets, radical anarchists, eccentric esotericists, Decadent writers, and schismatic exorcists, among others, and culminates in the establishment of the Church of Satan by carnival entertainer Anton Szandor LaVey. Yet it is more than a collection of colorful characters and unlikely historical episodes. The emergence of new attitudes toward Satan proves to be intimately linked to the ideological struggle for emancipation that transformed the West and is epitomized by the American and French Revolutions. It is also closely connected to secularization, that other exceptional historical process which saw Western culture spontaneously renounce its traditional gods and enter into a self-imposed state of religious indecision. Children of Lucifer makes the case that the emergence of Satanism presents a shadow history of the evolution of modern civilization as we know it. Offering the most comprehensive account of this history yet written, van Luijk proves that, in the case of Satanism, the facts are much more interesting than the fiction.
The book is an important contribution to the current debate about the usefulness of Egyptian hagiography as a historical source for late antique Egypt and to the study of the reception of the desert fathers in the medieval West.
This volume brings together major scholars in medieval Franciscan history, hagiography and art to commemorate Dr Rosalind B. Brooke’s (1925-2014) life and scholarly achievement, especially in the study of St Francis of Assisi and his followers.
A conference was called for April 1997 in Cork, Ireland, to commemorate the 1400th anniversary of the death of Saint Colum Cille. Scholars from 13 countries document the gathering with 22 papers, four in French, on the Columban tradition, traditions of other Irish saints, Irish saints and Brittany,
