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Divine Providence: A History
The Bible, Virgil, Orosius, Augustine, and Dante
Divine Providence: A History
The Bible, Virgil, Orosius, Augustine, and Dante
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Description
Providential History shows that, with Virgil and the Bible as authoritative precursors to late antique views on history, the two most important political thinkers of the late antique Christian world, Orosius and Augustine, produced the theories of Christian politics and history that were carried over into the first and second millennium of Christianity. Likewise, their understanding of how the history of the late Roman Empire connects to God's plan for humankind became the background for understanding Dante's own positions in the Monarchia and the Commedia.
Brenda Deen Schildgen examines Dante's engagement with these authoritative sources, whether in biblical, ancient Roman writers, or the specific legacy of Orosius and Augustine.
Table of Contents
Product details

Published | Jul 26 2012 |
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Format | Ebook (PDF) |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 224 |
ISBN | 9781441146106 |
Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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"It is a seductive but dangerous idea to want to sanctify the machinations of political power with the imprimatur of providence. At the heart of Schildgen's study of the providential ideal is her reading of Dante's shift from an imperialist theology, in the vein of an Orosius, in Monarchia to the subtle Augustinianism of the Commedia, his poetic masterwork. Schildgen sets the stage for Dante with the late antique debate within Christianity over the visibility of providence, mainly a story of two different syntheses of two contrasting legacies: one biblical, the other Roman. She has an extraordinary ability to weave a narrative thread through a thicket of conceptual and historical complexity." -- James Wetzel, Augustinian Endowed Chair, Villanova University, USA

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