{"product_id":"ask-of-old-paths-medieval-virtues-and-vices-for-a-whole-and-holy-life-hardcover","title":"Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues and Vices for a Whole and Holy Life - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eGrace Hamman\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTraditional Christian virtue and vices like abstinence, gluttony, and sloth make many of us bored or uncomfortable. At their best, these words sound dead or confusing, like incomplete fossils that belong to a distant past awkwardly enshrined in a museum. At worst, they signify a prejudiced past, when these words were wielded like weapons.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet in medieval writing, the language of the virtues and vices was powerful, lively, and delightfully weird. Patience is described as a peppercorn. Unicorns preach chastity. Knightly virtues fend off devious vices by throwing roses at them. In medieval books, words like avarice and meekness meant different things and carried different weight than they do today. And great medieval preachers and poets taught the virtues as crucial to what it meant to live a life of holiness, right alongside the Lord's Prayer and the Creed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAsk of Old Paths\u003c\/em\u003e by Grace Hamman meditates upon those strange and wonderful word-pictures and explanations of virtues and vices found in medieval traditions of poetry, sermons, and treatises long confined to dusty corners of the library. It focuses on the ancient tradition of virtue language called the Seven Capital Virtue Remedies: pride and humility, envy and love, wrath and meekness, avarice and mercy, sloth and fortitude, gluttony and abstinence, lust and chastity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn accessible and thoughtful chapters, scholar and writer Grace Hamman shows how learning about these pairs of medieval virtues and vices can help us reevaluate our own washed out and insipid moral vocabulary in modernity. Our imaginations for the good life are expanded; our longing for sanctification sharpens. Old ideas can give us new fire in our practice of the virtue--and in that practice, we imitate Jesus and become more human.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 224\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.87 x 8.49 x 5.8 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e September 09, 2025\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51966604017965,"sku":"9780310167204","price":28.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0938\/3185\/6429\/files\/XUAMNXACU19780310167204.webp?v=1775534811","url":"https:\/\/ishookbooks.com\/products\/ask-of-old-paths-medieval-virtues-and-vices-for-a-whole-and-holy-life-hardcover","provider":"iShook Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}