The Wayfarer's Way and Two Texts for the Journey: The Summa Theologiae and Piers Plowman

Abstract

This dissertation draws on the virtue ethics tradition in moral theology and moral philosophy for inquiries regarding the acquired and infused virtues, virtue's increase and remission, and virtue's relation to sacramental practice. I rely on two medieval texts to ask and answer these questions: the Summa Theologiae by Thomas Aquinas and Piers Plowman by William Langland. My arguments are primarily inter- and intra-textual with some attention to the texts' history of interpretation and the socio-historical Catholic culture in which they were written. I conclude that the texts share pedagogical features that teach their readers in what the perfection of virtue consists and show readers how to increase in that perfection.This thesis follows from the work of David Aers, Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Josef Pieper, and Eberhard Schockenhoff.