Introduction

Eire’s body of research encompasses heaven and earth, the past, the present, and the future. As such, it is not the easiest to summarize, jumping spatially from Switzerland to Spain to Italy and really all of western Christendom, and including Catholics as well as Protestants. Temporally he has been rooted in the sixteenth century, but has also journeyed back in time to the life of Jesus and forward to the impact of modern physics on contemporary views of time. However, three salient themes have been consistent throughout his research career. The first is that of exploring metaphysical boundaries-between heaven and earth, between the natural and the supernatural, between the living and the dead, and between the rational and the irrational. The second theme would be living one’s faith, be it by mystics and saints among the early modern spiritual elite or “lived theology” among the non-elite. A third and related motif is an instinct to examine the physicality of spirituality, especially the body and religious images.