To his contemporaries, Odo of Tournai—master of the cathedral school of Tournai, first abbot of the restored monastery of St. Martin of Tournai, and, later, Bishop of Cambrai—was one of the most illustrious teachers and philosophers in Christendom. Yet only one of his works, a treatise on the Mass, has heretofore been translated into English. Irven M. Resnick here provides the first English-language translation of two of Odo's other works. The first, On Original Sin, is at once an exposition of Christian doctrine and a philosophical investigation into the origin of the soul, the character of the sin that all human beings inherit from Adam, and the relationship of the individual to the species. The second translated text, A Disputation with the Jew, Leo, Concerning the Advent of Christ, the Son of God, continues the discussion, in dialogue form, of original sin and its effects.

"Well, clearly, and articulately written, Living Letters of the Law is among the most important books in medieval European history generally, as well as in its particular field."—Edward Peters, author of The First Crusade

This volume explores the work of Anselm of Canterbury, theologian and archbishop, in light of the communities in which he participated.

"Against the Inveterate Obduracy of the Jews represents a turning point in medieval anti-Jewish polemics. On the one hand, the polemic's intention--to bring about the conversion of the Jews--is predicated on an assumption that Jews are rational agents who may be persuaded of Christian truths by philosophical argument, empirical evidence, and proper biblical exegesis. On the other hand, Peter also introduced the notion that the Jews' enduring "blindness" stems from a persistent strain of bestial irrationality, for which they themselves are responsible. Peter traces this irrationality to the medieval Jews' commitment to the Talmud. Peter is the first medieval Christian author to name the Talmud explicitly. The Jewish convert to Christianity, Petrus Alfonsi, had ridiculed Talmudic folklore in his Dialogue Against the Jews. Peter the Venerable borrowed from but also surpassed Alfonsi's critique, as even his use of the name Talmud indicates. By emphasizing the irrationality of the Jews, Peter cast doubt upon their essential humanity and paved the way toward an increasingly violent treatment of the Jewish minority in medieval Christendom. Perhaps for this reason, Peter's Against the Inveterate Obduracy of the Jews has been popular among modern anti-Semites as well."--Publisher description.

Drawing on Aquinas, Houck proposes a groundbreaking theory of original sin that is theologically robust and consonant with evolutionary theory.

The history of relations between Jews and Christians has been a long, complex and often unsettled one; yet histories of medieval Christendom have traditionally paid only passing attention to the role played by Jews in a predominantly Christian society. This book provides an original survey of medieval Christian-Jewish relations encompassing England, Spain, France and Germany, and sheds light in the process on the major developments in medieval history between 1000 and 1300. Anna Sapir Abulafia's balanced yet humane account offers a new perspective on Christian-Jewish relations by analysing the theological, socio-economic and political services Jews were required to render to medieval Christendom. The nature of Jewish service varied greatly as Christian rulers struggled to reconcile the desire to profit from the presence of Jewish men and women in their lands with conflicting theological notions about Judaism. Jews meanwhile had to deal with the many competing authorities and interests in the localities in which they lived; their continued presence hinged on a fine balance between theology and pragmatism. The book examines the impact of the Crusades on Christian-Jewish relations and analyses how anti-Jewish libels were used to define relations. Making adept use of both Latin and Hebrew sources, Abulafia draws on liturgical and exegetical material, and narrative, polemical and legal sources, to give a vivid and accurate sense of how Christians interacted with Jews and Jews with Christians.

Oliver Crisp examines the doctrine of the incarnation as one of the central and defining dogmas of the Christian faith.

This edited collection explores the importance of the Jews in the English Christian imagination of the 14th and 15th centuries - long after their expulsion from Britain in 1290.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is one of the most powerful, influential and complex of all religious figures. The focus for women, the inspiration of faith, the subject of innumerable paintings, sculptures, pieces of music and churches, Mary is so entangled in our world that it is impossible to conceive of the history of Western culture and religion without her. Miri Rubin's Mother of God is a major work of cultural imagination. Mary's role in the Gospels is a relatively minor one, and yet in the centuries during which Christianity established itself she emerged as a powerful, strange and ungovernable force, endlessly remade and reimagined by wave after wave of devotees, ultimately becoming 'a sort of God', in ways that have always made some Christians uneasy. Whether talking about the vast public festivals celebrating Mary that sweep up entire communities or the intense private agony of individual devotion, Rubin's book is a triumph of sympathy and intelligence. Throughout Christianity's journey from mysterious origins to global religion, the Mother of God has been a profound presence in countless lives - Mother of God is the story of that presence and a book that raises profound questions about the human experience.

The articles brought together here use anti-Jewish disputational literature to shed light on the rise of anti-Judaism in the West. Christian theologians at this time were particularly interested to work out the relationship between Christianity and Judaism because they were in the process of clarifying their own doctrines under the influence of classical material which had not been fully utilised since late Antiquity. In this context a response to the continued and vociferous Jewish rejection of Christianity seemed all the more urgent. It is not for nothing that the output of anti-Jewish polemics rose sharply towards the end of the 11th century and simultaneously became more and more sophisticated. Many of the anti-Jewish ideas of later centuries go back to what was formulated in the 11th and 12th centuries.