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Through the use of several illustrations from illuminated manuscripts and other media, Resnick engages readers in a discussion of the later medieval notion of Jewish difference.

The first comprehensive English-language biography of Albert the Great in a century. As well as being an important medieval theologian, Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great) also made significant contributions to the study of astronomy, geography, and natural philosophy, and his studies of the natural world led Pope Pius XII to declare Albert the patron saint of the natural sciences. Dante Alighieri acknowledged a substantial debt to Albert’s work, and in the Divine Comedy placed him equal with his celebrated student and brother Dominican, Thomas Aquinas. In this book, the first full, scholarly biography in English for nearly a century, Irven M. Resnick and Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr. narrate Albert’s key contributions to natural philosophy and the history of science, while also revealing the insights into medieval life and customs that his writings provide.

Through the use of several illustrations from illuminated manuscripts and other media, Resnick engages readers in a discussion of the later medieval notion of Jewish difference.

Contemporary critics have argued that medieval philosophers have transmitted a concept of divine omnipotence that is unintelligible and self-contradictory: one which defines omnipotence as a power capable of producing any effect whatsoever. This study, concentrating upon the first Latin treatise explicitly devoted to omnipotence, places the concept of divine power in its patristic and early medieval context in order to demonstrate that this "traditional" concept of omnipotence was quite unknown among pre-scholastic figures. This work illuminates the patristic and early medieval background to Damian's seminal text and its theological and philosophical concerns. It explores Damian's central argument that God can, if He wills, even annul the past. This conclusion stems from Damian's insistence that divinity's primary attribute is Goodness and not Being. As such, God's power remains constrained only by divine goodness and is able to do anything whatsoever, even effect a logical contradiction, if it is good to do so.

The first comprehensive English-language biography of Albert the Great in a century. As well as being an important medieval theologian, Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great) also made significant contributions to the study of astronomy, geography, and natural philosophy, and his studies of the natural world led Pope Pius XII to declare Albert the patron saint of the natural sciences. Dante Alighieri acknowledged a substantial debt to Albert’s work, and in the Divine Comedy placed him equal with his celebrated student and brother Dominican, Thomas Aquinas. In this book, the first full, scholarly biography in English for nearly a century, Irven M. Resnick and Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr. narrate Albert’s key contributions to natural philosophy and the history of science, while also revealing the insights into medieval life and customs that his writings provide.

Traces the attempt by Christians to find a "motive" for alleged Jewish ritual murders of Christians from the 12th century, when there were more Christian polemical treatises against Jews than in all previous centuries. The search for an explanation of ritual murder led to a fusion of theological and natural scientific notions. Jewish males were believed to have a flux of blood via hemorrhoids, both due to theological considerations (see Mathew 27:25, "His blood is on us and on our children, " and interpretations of Samuel 5:6-12 and Ps. 77:66) and contemporary medical ideas (that a defective diet and life-style, including melancholy, fear, and idleness, caused bleeding). These were combined in de Vitry's "History of Jerusalem" (ca. 1221), which was apparently the first literary source to state that, like women, Jewish men had monthly flows of blood. The conclusion drawn by Christians was that Jews believed that this ill and others could be cured by using Christian blood, rather than by conversion to Christianity where they might be saved by the blood of Christ. This "explanation" of the Jews' alleged need for Christian blood was actually cited at trials for ritual murder.

Contemporary critics have argued that medieval philosophers have transmitted a concept of divine omnipotence that is unintelligible and self-contradictory: one which defines omnipotence as a power capable of producing any effect whatsoever. This study, concentrating upon the first Latin treatise explicitly devoted to omnipotence, places the concept of divine power in its patristic and early medieval context in order to demonstrate that this "traditional" concept of omnipotence was quite unknown among pre-scholastic figures. This work illuminates the patristic and early medieval background to Damian's seminal text and its theological and philosophical concerns. It explores Damian's central argument that God can, if He wills, even annul the past. This conclusion stems from Damian's insistence that divinity's primary attribute is Goodness and not Being. As such, God's power remains constrained only by divine goodness and is able to do anything whatsoever, even effect a logical contradiction, if it is good to do so.

Peter Damian (1007-1072), an 11th-century monk and man of letters, left a large and significant body of correspondence. This third volume of The Letters of Peter Damian is an annotated translation of Letters 61-90. These letters reveal the author's concern with the contemporary need for reforms, centering on clerical, especially episcopal, celibacy and on the heresy of simony which involved the purchase of ecclesiastical offices. Because Damian's Latin was a living language that surpasses the ability of classical Latin lexicography to cope with it, all disciplines that make use of medieval thought will welcome this English translation. Owen J. Blum's notes to each letter indicate the vocabulary problems he encountered and how they were resolved. This third volume, like its companions, uses Damian's thought to understand an important and gripping period in the history of church and state.