Envisioning Heaven with faith, imagination, and historical relevance: Selected writings from early and medieval Christianity

Literary descriptions of Heaven constitute a still undervalued collection needing more systematic study. The authors were faith-driven, richly imaginative, and dynamically engaged with the world they viewed from the perspective of their ultimate goal. This dissertation offers new insights into each author's particular religiosity, each one's era, and the development of the corpus of visionary writings. Chapter Two covers the main aspects of the New Testament, and three visions written in its wake: The Ascension of Isaiah; The Passion of Perpetua; and The Apocalypse of Paul. Chapter Three examines The City of God (Augustine) and The Celestial Hierarchy (Pseudo-Dionysius). Ensuing segments focus more extensively on medieval writings: Chapter Four---The Vision of Wetti (Abbot Heito; Walahfrid Strabo) and The Theological Confession (Jean of Fecamp); Chapter Five---On Loving God (Bernard of Clairvaux); Chapter Six---Dante's Paradiso .;The analytical method I designed encompasses theological, literary, and historical perspectives. For each featured text, I examine four aspects: the depiction of God; the ways in which human identity and the environment are eternalized; the most valued rewards; and Heaven's organization, which encompasses hierarchy alongside the issue of who is saved and how many are saved. Each writing intricately configures these various aspects. To exemplify the collective variety: visions oriented to Christ vary compellingly---one sees Perpetua's affectionate shepherd; Wetti's authoritative King; Jean of Fecamp's Savior/Judge; Bernard's romantic Groom; Dante's crucified hero and ineffable Second Person. Each vision's distinctive perception of Heaven's Deity shapes a multi-faceted sense of human experience. That eternalized experience resolves, within afterlife ideality, complex and often contentious issues, including the divine/human relationship; the essence of identity, involving the soul and its resurrected body; the conflict between concepts of union with the divine and rewarding fellowship among the blessed; and the salvation issue, pervaded as that is by doctrinal matters involving predestination, grace, free will, judgment, justice, and mercy. Overall, my study synthesizes synchronic and diachronic perspectives. I demonstrate an enduring tradition that also generated considerable innovation from century to century in the context of changing historical and cultural circumstances.