Lewis’s own description of his conversion, according to which an unknown urge—a desire for “Joy”—tugging, anonymously and namelessly within, turned out to be a loving person. This is an autobiographical recapitulation of what he believed had taken place on the general level of human history. In other words, Lewis’s own conversion is a microcosmic reflection of the slow historical preparation of the human race, the praeparatio evangelica. Over the course of centuries, an indefinable and indefatigable longing found its expression first in myths, legends, and religious rituals, but eventually
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