The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology argues that the Fourth Gospel and First Epistle of Saint John the Evangelist were so influential during the early modern period in England as to share with Pauline theology pride of place as leading apostolic texts on matters Christological, sacramental, pneumatological, and political. The book argues further that, in several instances, Johannine theology is more central than both Pauline theology and the Synoptic theology of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, particularly with regard to early modern polemicizing on the Trinity, distinctions between agape and eros, and the ideologies of radical dissent, especially the seventeenth-century antinomian challenge of free grace to traditional Puritan Pietism. In particular, early modern religious poetry, including works by Robert Southwell, George Herbert, John Donne, Richard Crashaw, Thomas Traherne, and Anna Trapnel, embraces a distinctive form of Johannine devotion that emphasizes the divine rather than human nature of Christ; the belief that salvation is achieved more through revelation than objective atonement and expiatory sin; a realized eschatology; a robust doctrine of assurance and comfort; and a stylistic and rhetorical approach to representing these theological features that often emulates John's mode of discipleship misunderstanding and dramatic irony. Early modern Johannine devotion assumes that religious lyrics often express a revelatory poetics that aims to clarify, typically through the use of dramatic irony, some of the deepest mysteries of the Fourth Gospel and First Epistle.

About the Author
Paul Cefalu is the Frank Lee and Edna M. Smith Professor in the Department of English at Lafayette College.

Reviews
Aligning the works of devotional writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with crucial extracts from the Fourth Gospel and First Epistle of John, and drawing on a wide corpus of biblical commentary from Augustine to Cranmer, Cefalu's work manages to be weighty, not overwhelming. * Emma Salgard Cunha, Scottish Journal of Theology *
interesting and often illuminating * Gillian Hubbard, Victoria University of Wellington, Parergon *
This book is a momentous accomplishment. I know much more than I did before reading it and my thinking, on macro and micro levels, has been permanently changed by it. It has my highest endorsement. * John E. Curran, Jr., Milton Quarterly *
This brief summary cannot do justice to the subtlety of Cefalu's finely-nuanced theological explorations. He commands not only the biblical, Patristic, and early modern texts, but also modern theologian's understandings of John, and he writes about complicated theological questions with clarity and insight... Anyone could learn something from this book. * Kenneth J.E. Graham, Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Reforme *
Paul Cefalu's magisterial and potentially revolutionizing study invites a fresh perspective on our understanding, not only of early modern literature, but also of post-Reformation theology and devotion. ... This is an important study in its own right, composed by a scholar working at the peak of his powers, inspired by an idea distinguished for its originality, and enriched for the reader by a density of thought that is leavened and decorated by the inclusion of seven handsome illustrations. * Russell M. Hillier, The George Herbert Journal *
In The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology, Paul Cefalu offers a brilliantly conceived, revisionist account of how John's Gospel and First Epistle are used by a wide range of early modern English authors. ... Despite the much-vaunted 'religious turn' of recent years, there are still many areas of current early modern scholarship that would benefit from the kind of immersion in religious debate that Cefalu models so expertly here. * Adrian Streete, English: Journal of the English Association *
In this learned, densely-argued study, Paul Cefalu shows how the writings ascribed to St. John the Evangelist exerted quiet but powerful influence in early modern England... Professor Cefalu explores the Fourth Gospel's imaginative imprint across a broad range of religious discourse... This mode of exploring Johannine influence usefully cross-cuts the confessional binaries that frequently define the consideration of early modern religious writing, disclosing unexpected common ground among Catholic and Protestant authors, as well as deepening connections between the magisterial and radical strains of Reformation thought. * James Ross Macdonald, Seventeenth-Century News *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198808718
Author Paul Cefalu
Format Hardback
Page Count 368
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 242mm * 164mm * 28mm