Ask of Old Paths - by Grace Hamman (Hardcover)

About the Book

The virtues and vices of medieval literature can sound historically complicated or dried out. But perhaps the saints and mystics had found the wholeness we long for now. Exploring vibrant, strange, and essential teaching for ordinary people through medieval words and artwork, Ask of Old Paths whets our longing for a life of love and wholeness.

Book Synopsis

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 fortitude, 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.

Review Quotes

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.--Kaitlyn Schiess, author of The Ballot and the Bible and cohost of the Holy Post

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.--Sarah Clarkson, author of Reclaiming Quiet and This Beautiful Truth

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.--Rev. Claude Atcho, pastor of Church of the Resurrection (Charlottesville, VA) and author of Rhythms of Faith and Reading Black Books

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.--Dr. Carolyn Weber, professor at New College Franklin and award-winning author of Sex and the City of God, and Surprised by Oxford, now a feature film

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!--Brian Zahnd, author of The Wood Between the Worlds

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.--Dr. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt, author of Redeeming Vision and professor at Covenant College