What happens when theology works exactly as intended-and someone notices?Sent to Paris to study under Thomas Aquinas, the earnest Agnello degli Cipolle believes he has come in search of truth. What he finds instead is a system: polished, procedural, and exquisitely capable of absorbing doubt without ever acknowledging it. As Agnello struggles to reconcile holiness with gluttony, abstraction, and evasive brilliance, his companions-two gifted cynics with a taste for opportunity - discover that belief matters less than performance.
Out of boredom and audacity, they compose a set of satirical "proofs" and refutations so perfectly scholastic that no one can quite decide whether they are jokes or heresy. What follows is an ecclesiastical farce of inspections, interrogations, negotiations, and sentences delivered in many pages and no punishments. No martyrs are made. No doctrines are overturned. Everything is handled.
What happens when theology works exactly as intended-and someone notices?Sent to Paris to study under Thomas Aquinas, the earnest Agnello degli Cipolle believes he has come in search of truth. What he finds instead is a system: polished, procedural, and exquisitely capable of absorbing doubt without ever acknowledging it. As Agnello struggles to reconcile holiness with gluttony, abstraction, and evasive brilliance, his companions-two gifted cynics with a taste for opportunity - discover that belief matters less than performance.
Out of boredom and audacity, they compose a set of satirical "proofs" and refutations so perfectly scholastic that no one can quite decide whether they are jokes or heresy. What follows is an ecclesiastical farce of inspections, interrogations, negotiations, and sentences delivered in many pages and no punishments. No martyrs are made. No doctrines are overturned. Everything is handled.