Francis of Assisi The life of a restless saint

Yale theology professor Leppin (Martin Luther) paints a granular portrait of a saint who remains a remarkably resonant symbol for Christians. Peeling back the "interpretative layers" of medieval hagiography, he reveals Francis to be both strikingly contemporary and firmly of his time. On the one hand, he was a "restless" young man driven by feelings of "dislocation" to abandon an affluent upbringing to minister to the poor, and whose closeness to nature have led some to characterize him as an early "representative of the ecological movement." On the other, he believed in the mysterious power of relics and may have practiced self-flagellation to drive the devil from his flesh. Placing his subject within the context of church history, Leppin makes illuminating points about how Francis's "idiosyncratic path" was not entirely "a reflexive function of his own personal experience," but instead fit within the church's aims of spreading Christianity to Muslims (Francis preached to Muslims and possibly aimed to convert the Sultan of Egypt to Christianity during the Fifth Crusade). Scholars of Catholicism will want this on their bookshelves. (Jan.)

The extended life of the poverello of Assisi. Professor of historical theology at Yale Divinity School, Leppin is translated by Bezzant in a graceful and incisive account of Francis of Assisi. Far from a relic of the past, Francis is a resonant figure in contemporary discourse. Invoked by the present pope both in his chosen name and in his attention to the global poor and climate degradation, the saint's image has a profound implication on our lived experience today, especially in his common depiction as a monk living simply in nature, advocating a physical and spiritual poverty. Leppin delves into the life of the historical man both as it has been told over time and through his comparison and analysis of these sources. Born to a wealthy merchant family in Umbria at a time of economic and social upheaval--the noble classes and bourgeoisie falling, the mercantile classes expanding and being liberated from fiefs, and the social divide between the maiores and minores dawning--Francis rejected his inherited status for a life that would lend him the nickname "poverello [poor little man] of Assisi." Francis founded a brotherhood of mendicants, which attracted young and destitute followers and gained the recognition of the papacy. Leppin relates this cultural and political force to the saint's role as patron to the hippie movement and the 1967 "Summer of Love" in San Francisco. As evocative as these associations are, Leppin's book is an academic work with a careful interpretation of historicity. The hagiographies are weighed against papal histories as well as the biases of our modern desires for a sainted image to calm our social ills. "It is a biography," Leppin acknowledges, "and yet at the same time it is a book about the difficulties of writing a biography, and specifically a biography of Francis of Assisi." What remains is an image of the man whose impact over the ages led to many stories, histories, and hagiographies--and now this careful biographical account of the life of Francis as he may have lived it and of the saint whose influence continues in our modern day. An elegant biography of a medieval man and a much-needed saint for these restless times. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.