Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues and Vices for a Whole and Holy Life

Traditional 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. Yet 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. Ask of Old Paths 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 perseverance, gluttony and abstinence, lust and chastity. In 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.

About the Author :
Grace Hamman, Ph.D. (Duke University) is the author of Jesus through Medieval Eyes. She is an independent scholar of late medieval poetry and contemplative writing. Her work has been published by popular and academic outlets, including Plough Quarterly and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She lives in Colorado with her husband and three young children. Read more of her medieval musings at gracehamman.substack.com.

Review :
and lt;emand gt;Ask of Old Pathsand lt;/emand gt; retrieves more than the language of virtue and vice--it turns to Christian history to recover a robust theology of a whole and holy human life. Grace Hamman offers us a rare treasure--rich theology and history presented in an engaging and accessible manner for the sake of actual human lives. This is a book that will not only teach you about the virtues and vices but also inspire you to deeper thought and greater faithfulness. A wise and beautiful work of scholarship and devotion. Grace Hamman brings her immense knowledge of the medieval world to her exploration of the virtues and has created a work that both grips the imagination and stirs the heart. This book will be a resource and inspiration for years to come. In and lt;emand gt;Ask of Old Pathsand lt;/emand gt;, Grace Hamman offers readers a bountiful gift, retrieving ancient wisdom for modern-day believers and seekers. Equipped with the insights of a scholar and the humility of a fellow pilgrim, Hamman guides readers on the path of virtue toward a flourishing life in and with Christ. Readers willing to take this journey will be challenged, relieved, and ultimately transformed. In our current age, talking about vices and virtues may seem out of place, even weird. But Grace Hamman notes how the omnipresent vibrancy of a value-imbued medieval vocabulary challenges the modern reader to consider how deadened our language, and so our identity, has become by the emptiness of communication void of moral power. Hamman harkens back to the wisdom of a time in which the values of language reflected real habits and dispositions. In doing so, she calls for the rehabilitation of our own current language of the virtues so that we may pay more careful attention to our humanity made in the image of God. With her timely, beautiful, and compelling book, Hamman reminds us of a tried and telling truth: 'Virtues are the fruit of well-ordered love.' Indeed. In this thoroughly researched and wonderfully written gem of a book, Grace Hamman recovers wisdom from a time before modernity's assault on the garden of the soul. In and lt;emand gt;Ask of Old Pathsand lt;/emand gt;, we really do find 'something a little wild and beautiful.' I love this book! With obvious delight and exquisite clarity, Grace Hamman guides us through the medieval garden of the soul, identifying both the strangling weeds of the seven capital vices and the fragrant, lush virtues we can cultivate as remedies. Under her tutelage, medieval Christianity becomes a rich resource instead of an intimidating pile of dusty manuscripts or bizarre images. Hamman gently reintroduces us to the language of virtues, helping us recognize the wisdom that remains present in words and ideas that may seem old-fashioned or even oppressive. The book is an invitation to wholeness, walking old paths to meet the challenges of our present lives.