Bonaventure, the Body, and the Aesthetics of Salvation

Rachel Davies is a research fellow at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne. She is co-editor of Suffering and the Christian Life (forthcoming).

• Introduction; 1. Bonaventure's aesthetic vision; 2. Beauty and the soul's ascent in the Collations on the Six Days; 3. The journey of the body to God; 4. Transfiguration in the Tree of Life; 5. Corporeality reclaimed in the Major Life of Francis; 6. Paschal bodies.

'Rachel Davies's highly original reading of Bonaventure's understanding of the suffering human body and its meanings not only questions established presumptions about Bonaventure's 'Platonism', but also provides a fresh fulcrum for contemporary theological assessments of bodily suffering and its transformations. The result is not merely a fine monograph in historical theology, but a study of great suggestive importance for contemporary systematic thinking. Davies writes with exegetical acuity, spiritual sensitivity, and theological insight.' Sarah Coakley, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity Emerita, University of Cambridge