Versions of Charity and Its Impediments: Aquinas; Langland; Milton

Catalog description

In this course we will explore the theological virtue of Charity. We will study two medieval versions and conclude with a version composed in the Reformation. Our versions are given to us by Thomas Aquinas, William Langland, and John Milton. As the title indicates, the course will consider both the forms this virtue takes, and the specific impediments each writer considers. This means we will be thinking about Charity as a form of life in specific communities (church, polity, society) with their own impediments to the virtue, their own habitual sins. This is therefore a course which involves close engagement with texts by three profound and complex Christian writers, across different genres; it is also an attempt to think diachronically about Christian tradition. As the class will show, we can only engage seriously with tradition and historical change—with continuities and revolutionary discontinuities, with grand narratives—by detailed study of specificities