Francis of Assisi: The Life of a Restless Saint

Yale theology professor Leppin (Martin Luther) paints a granular portrait of a saint who remains a remarkably resonant symbol for Christians. Peeling back the “interpretative layers” of medieval hagiography, he reveals Francis to be both strikingly contemporary and firmly of his time. On the one hand, he was a “restless” young man driven by feelings of “dislocation” to abandon an affluent upbringing to minister to the poor, and whose closeness to nature have led some to characterize him as an early “representative of the ecological movement.” On the other, he believed in the mysterious power of relics and may have practiced self-flagellation to drive the devil from his flesh. Placing his subject within the context of church history, Leppin makes illuminating points about how Francis’s “idiosyncratic path” was not entirely “a reflexive function of his own personal experience,” but instead fit within the church’s aims of spreading Christianity to Muslims (Francis preached to Muslims and possibly aimed to convert the Sultan of Egypt to Christianity during the Fifth Crusade). Scholars of Catholicism will want this on their bookshelves. (Jan.)