Publications

Publication details [#19534]

Eire, Carlos M. N. 2007. Early modern Catholic piety in translation. In Burke, Peter and R. Po-chia Hsia, eds. Cultural translation in early modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 83–100.
Publication type
Chapter in book
Publication language
English

Abstract

History would have taken a very different turn if the convalescing Iñigo had not been confined to a room with nothing else to read but two devotional texts in translation: the Legenda aurea of Jacob Voragine and the Life of Christ of Ludolph of Saxony. Later in life, as Ignatius and others around him reconstructed the sequence of events that led to his religious conversion, these two translations would be given the credit – along with God Himself – for having changed the wounded soldier into a saint. Those texts, and many other like them (some written or translated by Jesuits), would also be given credit for animating a wholesale renewal of the Catholic faith. Is such an assessment of the power of translated texts and exaggeration? Can one ascribe too much influence to a pair of translated texts?
Source : Based on abstract in book