The Poverty of Riches: St. Francis of Assisi Reconsidered

Wolf, Kenneth Baxter

ISBN 10: 0195158083 / ISBN 13: 9780195158083

Published by Oxford University Press, 2003

About this Item

Cloth, no dj. Minor shelf wear. Else a bright, clean copy.

Seller Inventory # 2008984

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Poverty of Riches: St. Francis of Assisi Reconsidered
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195158083
• ISBN 13: 9780195158083
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Used-Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Theology

About this title

Synopsis

Saint Francis of Assisi is arguably the most attractive saint ever produced by the Catholic Church. The unusually high regard with which he is held has served to insulate him from any real criticism of the kind of sanctity that he embodied: sanctity based first and foremost on his deliberate pursuit of poverty. In this book, Kenneth Baxter Wolf takes a fresh look at Francis and the idea of voluntary poverty as a basis for Christian perfection. Wolf's point of departure is a series of simple but hitherto unasked questions about the precise nature of Francis's poverty: How did he go about transforming himself from a rich man to a poor one? How successful was this transformation? How did his self-imposed poverty compare to the involuntary poverty of those he met in and around Assisi? What did poor people of this type get out of their contact with Francis? What did Francis get out of his contact with them? Wolf finds that while Francis's conception of poverty as a spiritual discipline may have opened the door to salvation for wealthy Christians like himself, it effectively precluded the idea that the poor could use their own involuntary poverty as a path to heaven. Based on a thorough reconsideration of the earliest biographies of the saint, as well as Francis's own writings, Wolf's work sheds important new light on the inherent ironies of poverty as a spiritual discipline and its relationship to poverty as a socio-economic affliction.

About the Author

Kenneth Baxter Wolf is at Pomona College.