First published in Great Britain in the Veritas series, by SCM Press.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Exposition -- First movement : inceptions. Divine suspension : perfection in Athens -- God's long journey : perfection in Jerusalem -- First interlude : Yahwistic deification in Philo of Alexandria -- Second movement : emergence. The gift of fire : perfection in the New Testament -- Distinguish to unite : perfection in the church fathers, Part I -- Saving the form : perfection in the church fathers, Part II -- Third movement : distortion. God's lost acreage : the disjunction of perfection in the Middle Ages -- The vanishing grail : the denial of perfection in English literature -- Second interlude : perfection, modernity and John Wesley -- Fourth movement : emergence (reprise). Diagonal advance -- Postlude: Theosis and insurrection : a non-lyrical drama, or Prometheus perfected.

"Diagonal Advance argues for a radical revision of Christian thinking about the purpose of human life. Perfection is neither a vertical drop from the divine, nor a horizontal progression through social and personal development. Rather, it is a diagonal advance into the divine perfections through the perfecting of material culture. This vision is, the author argues, in line with the account of human ends that emerges from the Greek and Hebrew background, in the New Testament and in the classical Christian era. When the late medieval and early modern writers of theology and literature begin to name the problem differently, the classical vision is distorted, so that human perfecting and the divine perfections have little to do with one another. Through a critical engagement with contemporary texts, concluding with a dramatic revision of the Prometheus mythology, the author argues for a renewed diagonalizing of Christian perfection."-- Publisher.