In the Mirror of the Prodigal Son

With this book, Pietro Delcorno continues his quest of studying preaching on the New Testament parables. His last book dealt with the parable of the rich man and Lazarus – Lazzaro e il ricco epulone: Metamorfosi di una parabola fra Quattro e Cinquecento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2014), and this one, as the name reveals, is centred around the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:19–32). While the book includes its fair share of theology, it is first and foremost a study of intellectual and social history. All the sermons and other late medieval texts are presented and analysed strictly in their historical context. The aim of the book is to demonstrate how this parable became an essential part of catechetic teaching in sermons, and how its interpretation changed over a period of three and half centuries stretching over the Lutheran reformation. In fact, Delcorno demonstrates how the prodigal son found his way right into the middle of religious debates on penance between Martin Luther and Johannes Eck in 1519

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