THE MEDIEVAL MIND OF C.S. LEWIS

A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy

Currently in use in high school and college classrooms, as well as book groups around the country.

Endorsements

"Jason Baxter has written a wonderfully readable introduction to Dante's Divine Comedy. Learned yet lively, it will delight as well as richly instruct first-time readers of the poem. I highly recommend this book as a companion to Dante's text both in the classroom and for the general reader."

David Lyle Jeffrey, distinguished professor of literature and the humanities and senior fellow, Baylor Institute for Studies in Religion, Baylor University

"Most modern readers of Dante are unable to follow the poet's journey except from a great distance, at too great a cultural, historical, and conceptual remove to understand and enjoy his imaginative landscape. Baxter's book provides the inestimable service of conducting the reader safely across that space of separation; it sets one upon the path, right at Dante's side."

David Bentley Hart, contributing editor for First Things

"Dante's Divine Comedy is perhaps the greatest work of literature ever written. It is also one of the most difficult for modern readers to understand. This book is, therefore, a godsend. It takes us through the Comedy step-by-step, illuminating the text with clarity and wisdom. It will prove indispensable to those wishing for a trustworthy guide, like Virgil or Beatrice, to lead them through the Inferno, up Mount Purgatory, and into Paradise. Jason Baxter is just such a guide."

Joseph Pearce, Tolkien and Lewis Chair of Literary Studies, Holy Apostles College and Seminary

An Introduction to Christian Mysticism: Recovering the Wildness of Spiritual Life

Endorsements

"Any undergraduate or general reader who wishes to take his or her first steps in learning about Christian mysticism can do no better than to read Jason Baxter's remarkable, clear, and thorough Introduction to Christian Mysticism."

Kevin Hart, University of Virginia

"In reassuring prose, Jason Baxter gives us Christian mysticism undomesticated--bold, inflamed, insistent, pushing to the very boundaries of speech, and communing with God beyond every merely human mode of communication. He reminds us that lectio divina is not merely pious but wild, and that yearning for God cannot be kept politely fenced in. He does this while showing that the greatest mystics were not anti-intellectual but rather wrote and prayed with a powerfully intelligent faith, grounded firmly in divine revelation in Christ. Baxter is one to watch--will he too be among the mystics? May it be so!"

Matthew Levering, James N. and Mary D. Perry Jr. Chair of Theology, Mundelein Seminary

"Jason Baxter begins his story in the wasteland that is our culture. An Introduction to Christian Mysticism shows how the dark night of the soul has extended across society. For Christians who desire the light, Baxter argues, we must become mystics or die. Yet the light that draws us out of darkness will be blinding, painful, and shocking. Tracing the mystic experiences of God from the pagans to Julian of Norwich and Nicholas of Cusa, Baxter reorients us to the tradition that we lost after the Reformation and the Enlightenment. To ignore this book is to succumb to a weak, domesticated version of our faith. To read this book is to be lit up again by our bright, burning, wild, and unfathomable God."

Jessica Hooten Wilson, Louise Cowan Scholar in Residence for Humanities and Classical Education, Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts, University of Dallas

"A wise man once quipped that mysticism begins in mist and ends in schism. This is true of those mystics who endeavor to divorce faith from reason but not of those profoundly orthodox mystics who have enlightened and enlivened the Christian faith with their mystical encounters with the Divine. In this invaluable volume, Professor Baxter guides us into the realm of ineffable wisdom."

Joseph Pearce, Augustine Institute

"The word 'mysticism' is often loaded with misunderstandings and underlying assumptions that are not clearly understood, so much so that one wonders if the word has lost its currency, specifically in the discipline of Christian theology. It may still have a home in anthropology or comparative religions, but not theology. Jason Baxter, however, competently and convincingly shows in An Introduction to Christian Mysticism that such is not the case. In fact, he shows that mysticism is not only a viable and venerable Christian concept but one that needs to be recovered in the contemporary church. With ease he introduces his readers to the 'greatest hits' of the early and medieval Christian mystical tradition, revealing their own systems of thought while also connecting them thematically to one another. As an introduction to a frequently neglected topic, this book goes a long way in making 'mysticism' part of our daily theological vocabulary."

Greg Peters, Biola University and Nashotah House Theological Seminary

Falling Inward: Humanities in the Age of Technology

“What is the good of studying the humanities? This frequently asked question is usually answered with some variation on the theme of self-improvement. Study the humanities, the formulation goes, and become a more creative individual, with a more well-rounded résumé and a more empathetic outlook. At root, however, such an answer—factual as it may be—is as useless as it is utilitarian. In Falling Inward, Jason Baxter addresses the pressing question of why we should study of humanities with an answer that is philosophically robust and rich with examples of literature and science, weaving an intricate and innovative argument for why we should not only study the humanities, but love the truths that such study brings.”

The Infinite Beauty of the World

This book proposes a radically new interpretation of the Comedy’s encyclopedism by focusing on Dante’s work in light of the medieval imago mundi tradition. The work opens with a discussion of how the Florentine poet transgressed every generic boundary in his effort to gather «into one volume» a vast and varied set of creatures, places, landscapes, historical and mythological persons, weather conditions, and arts. It then goes on to show that this extraordinary encyclopedic breadth should be understood in the terms of Boethian and Augustinian spiritual exercises of envisioning the whole world in the mind’s eye, which themselves became the interpretive framework for the spiritual ends behind medieval encyclopedic texts. By bringing attention to Latin Platonism and twelfth-century authors (such as Alan of Lille, Bernard Silvestris, William of Conches, Hugh of St. Victor, and Thierry of Chatres), this book provides compelling new readings of the De vulgari eloquentia, as well as provocative insights into key figures (such as Brunetto Latini, Pier della Vigna, and Ulysses) and key passages ( Purgatorio 28, Paradiso 26, and Paradiso 33).

Endorsements

«The Infinite Beauty of the World offers a fascinating interpretive journey towards richer appreciation of the Commedia as a cosmological poem. Baxter compellingly invites us to encounter Dante anew as a poet who seeks to show his readers the whole of reality while embracing, in wonder, its divine mystery.» (Vittorio Montemaggi, Senior Lecturer in Religion and the Arts, King’s College London, author of Reading Dante’s Commedia as Theology: Divinity Realized in Human Encounter)

«Jason Baxter’s new book provides the first extensive study of the tradition of the imago mundi and its significance for Dante. Drawing on a wealth of materials – biblical commentaries, glosses on ancient poets, spiritual treatises, and encyclopaedic works of various kinds – Baxter explores how medieval culture developed a rich set of practices of mental visualization so as to ‹see› the cosmos in its totality from above, and he shows how Dante exploited such traditions. Elegantly written and richly documented, Baxter’s book offers an important new approach to Dante’s encyclopedism.» (Simon Gilson, Agnelli-Serena Professor of Italian, University of Oxford)