Eric Leland Saak was born on March 18, 1962, in Porterville, California, to Robert Edward Saak and Dolores Saak. He developed his career as a historian of medieval Christianity and the Reformation, with particular attention to Augustine and the Augustinian religious tradition.
Saak earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Southern California in 1985 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in history from the University of Arizona in 1993. The University of Southern California, founded in Los Angeles in 1880, is a major private research university whose humanities programs developed within the intellectual and cultural environment of Southern California.
His doctoral training at the University of Arizona placed him in a program known for research in late medieval and Reformation studies. He studied under the historian Heiko A. Oberman, whose work helped shape modern scholarship on the transition from the late Middle Ages to the Reformation.
Saak began his academic career in the field of medieval and Reformation history after completing his doctorate at the University of Arizona in 1993. From 1994 to 2000 he was associated with the Netherlands Research School for Medieval Studies, where his work continued the source-based study of medieval religious and intellectual history.
He joined Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis in 2004 as an assistant professor of history and became an associate professor in 2008. IUPUI was an urban public research campus in Indianapolis that combined the academic resources of Indiana University and Purdue University and supported interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship. Saak later became a professor of history at Indiana University Indianapolis, teaching courses on early medieval Europe, the High and Later Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Reformation.
In 2010 he was appointed professor of church history and head of the Department of Theology, Philosophy and Religious Studies at Liverpool Hope University, where he helped establish a Centre for Augustinian Studies. Liverpool Hope developed from teacher-training and church-related educational traditions and maintained programs in theology, philosophy, education, and the humanities. Saak also served as professor of ecclesiastical history at the University of Aberdeen, whose School of Divinity, History and Philosophy has a long tradition of research in Christian theology, church history, and religious studies.
His research has concentrated on the historical reception of Augustine, the formation of Augustinian identity, late medieval catechesis, and the theological setting of Martin Luther's early career. He has combined monographic interpretation with editing and translating medieval Latin texts, making works by authors such as Jordan of Quedlinburg and Giles of Rome accessible to modern readers.
Saak has produced major studies of the late medieval Augustinian tradition, including research on Augustinian identity, the historical reception of Augustine, medieval catechesis, and the theological context of the Reformation.
He edited and translated medieval theological and catechetical texts, including the works of Jordan of Quedlinburg and Giles of Rome, bringing previously difficult Latin sources into accessible scholarly editions.
He has served as an editor, translator, author, and contributor to scholarly projects on Augustine, medieval Christianity, and the Reformation, including the Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine.
(A chapter on the medieval reception of Augustine's Confes...)
2020(An edited and translated study edition of Jordan of Quedl...)
2015(An article examining how Helinand of Froidmont and Robert...)
2015(The first volume of a projected study of Augustinian theo...)
2021(A historical and philological study arguing that late med...)
2012(A reinterpretation of Martin Luther's early religious ide...)
2017(A large-scale study of the political, religious, theologi...)
2002(The first volume of a three-part theological work address...)
2024(The concluding volume of Saak's Confessions of a Heretic ...)
2026Confessions of a Heretic: Volume 2: Theological Considerations
(The second volume of Saak's systematic theological projec...)
2025Saak's scholarship and theological writing examine Christianity, Augustine, the Augustinian tradition, and the historical development of late medieval and Reformation theology. In Confessions of a Heretic, he argues that Christian conceptions of God must be reconsidered in response to suffering, trauma, natural disaster, and war, and he develops an explicitly theological argument for the continuing significance of the Church.
Saak is affiliated with the Democratic Party, one of the two major political parties in the United States. The party has historically combined support for representative government, civil rights, social welfare, labor protections, and public investment, although its positions and internal coalitions have changed substantially across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Saak's historical work treats religious traditions as products of interpretation, institutional identity, textual transmission, and changing historical circumstances. His studies of Augustine and the Augustinian tradition emphasize that later communities created historical images of Augustine that shaped theology, religious identity, and reform.
In Confessions of a Heretic, Saak addresses the problem of how belief in God can remain possible amid suffering and catastrophe. The work argues that established religious traditions must critically examine their conceptions of God and presents the Church as a theological community rather than merely a moral, political, or social institution.
Saak served on the editorial board of Brill's series Studies in the History of Christian Traditions. The series publishes scholarly research on the development of Christian thought, institutions, practices, and traditions across historical periods.
Medieval theology, church history, Augustine, the Augustinian tradition, paleography, and the historical study of Christianity.
Augustine of Hippo is a central thinker in Saak's scholarship and theological writing. His work also engages Martin Luther, Giles of Rome, Jordan of Quedlinburg, Peter Lombard, and other medieval theologians.
Saak is the son of Robert Edward Saak and Dolores Saak. He married Diana Petrakopoulos on July 6, 2002, and has two sons, Jonas and Hugo.
