Purity Of Heart In Early Ascetic And Monastic Literature
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Purity of Heart in Early Ascetic and Monastic Literature by Harriet Luckman,Linda Kulzer Pdf
These essays honor the memory of Juana Raasch, O.S.B. (1927-1974), one of the first Benedictine women in America to consider the subject of early monasticism by returning to the texts and sources of the early ascetical movements. A student of classical languages as well as monasticism, she researched in particular the subject of "purity of heart" in early Christian texts. Her work is a valuable resource for those interested in monastic movements or in patristic studies.
Ascetic Pneumatology from John Cassian to Gregory the Great by Thomas L. Humphries Pdf
A study of how Christians understood the Holy Spirit in the 5th and 6th centuries. Humphries argues that we can see various schools of thought within Christianity in this period, but that many of them are occupied with similar questions about how to understand human life and how to understand divine life.
The Pelagian Controversy (411-431) was one of the most important theological controversies in the history of Christianity. It was a bitter and messy affair in the evening of the Roman Empire that addressed some of the most important questions that we ask about ourselves: Who are we? What does it mean to be a human being? Are we good, or are we evil? Are we burdened by an uncontrollable impulse to sin? Do we have free will? It was comprised by a group of men who were some of the greatest thinkers of Late Antiquity, such as Augustine, Jerome, John Cassian, Pelagius, Caelestius, and Julian of Eclanum. These men were deeply immersed in the rich Roman literary and intellectual traditions of that time, and they, along with many other great minds of this period, tried to create equally rich Christian literary and intellectual traditions. This controversy--which is usually of interest only to historians and theologians of Christianity--should be appreciated by a wide audience because it was the primary event that shaped the way Christians came to understand the human person for the next 1,600 years. It is still relevant today because anthropological questions continue to haunt our public discourse.
A Hermeneutics of Contemplative Silence by Michele Kueter Petersen Pdf
A Hermeneutics of Contemplative Silence: Paul Ricoeur, Edith Stein, and the Heart of Meaning brings together the work of Paul Ricoeur and Edith Stein and locates the role of silence in the creation of meaning. Michele Kueter Petersen argues that human being is language and silence. Contemplative silence manifests a mode of capable human being whereby a shared world of meaning is constituted and created. The analysis culminates with the claim that a hermeneutics of contemplative silence manifests a deeper level of awareness as a poetics of presencing a shared humanity. The term “awareness” refers to five crucial levels of meaning-creating consciousness that are ingredients in the practice of contemplative silence. Contemplative awareness includes self-critique as integral to the experience and the understanding of the virtuous ordering of relational realities. The practice of contemplative silence is a spiritual and ethical activity that aims at transforming reflexive consciousness. Inasmuch as it leads to openness to new motivation and intention for acting in relation to others, contemplative awareness elicits movement through the ongoing exercise of rethinking those relational realities in and for the world. The texts of Ricoeur and Stein reveal a contemplative discourse of praise and beauty for capable human beings whose actions and suffering respond to word and silence.
Soul and Body Diseases, Remedies and Healing in Middle Eastern Religious Cultures and Traditions by Anonim Pdf
Aiming to develop a less studied literary genre, this book provides a well-rounded picture of spiritual and physical diseases and their remedies as they were ingrained in the imagination and practices of Middle Eastern Abrahamic cultures, with a special emphasis of Christian communities (Greeks/Byzantines, Syrians, Armenians, Georgians, Ethiopians). The volume traces traditions dealing with the onset of a disease in the body and soul, the search for remedy, the maintenance of healing, and the engagement of these processes with faith—either through their affirmation in the public sphere or remaining within the personal framework, as in monastic traditions. A recurring presence in religious literature and the history of the intellectual world, the confrontation between disease and healing may well still be current for our modern understanding of the paths to seeking and maintaining the health of one’s body and soul, without excluding the factor of faith as a core principle.
To Live for God Alone by Mark O'Keefe, OSB,María Gonzalo-García, OCSO Pdf
What does it mean to live for God alone? “Prefer nothing to the love of Christ”; “My God and my all”; “God alone suffices”—these statements from the saints express the single desire that unified their hearts and gave direction to their lives. “God alone” was the constant theme of Saint Rafael Arnaiz (1911–1938), the expression of the search for God that informs any monastic vocation. Saint Rafael was profoundly and thoroughly a monk, even though ill health repeatedly forced him to leave the monastery, and he was never formally professed. With his single-hearted love for Christ and for the Blessed Virgin, he faithfully walked a path of trials and suffering that matured his faith, sharpened his longing, taught him to wait and to hope in God, and opened his heart to love. To Live for God Alone invites the reader into the compelling story of Rafael’s personal journey and into his penetrating insight into the cross and the Christian vocation.
In the fourth century, the deserts of Egypt became the nerve center of a radical new movement, what we now call monasticism. Groups of Christians-from illiterate peasants to learned intellectuals-moved out to the wastelands beyond the Nile Valley and, in the famous words of Saint Athanasius, made the desert a city. In so doing, they captured the imagination of the ancient world. They forged techniques of prayer and asceticism, of discipleship and spiritual direction, that have remained central to Christianity ever since. Seeking to map the soul's long journey to God and plot out the subtle vagaries of the human heart, they created and inspired texts that became classics of Western spirituality. These Desert Christians were also brilliant storytellers, some of Christianity's finest. This book introduces the literature of early monasticism. It examines all the best-known works, including Athanasius' Life of Antony, the Lives of Pachomius, and the so-called Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Later chapters focus on two pioneers of monastic theology: Evagrius Ponticus, the first great theoretician of Christian mysticism; and John Cassian, who brought Egyptian monasticism to the Latin West. Along the way, readers are introduced to path-breaking discoveries-to new texts and recent archeological finds-that have revolutionized contemporary scholarship on monastic origins. Included are fascinating snippets from papyri and from little-known Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopic texts. Interspersed in each chapter are illustrations, maps, and diagrams that help readers sort through the key texts and the richly-textured world of early monasticism. Geared to a wide audience and written in clear, jargon-free prose, Desert Christians offers the most comprehensive and accessible introduction to early monasticism.
Teaching on the sanctification of Christians using the difficult word perfection has been part of Christian spirituality through the centuries. The Fathers spoke of it and Augustine particularly contributed his penetrating analysis of human motivation in terms of love. Medieval theologians such as Bernard and Thomas Aquinas developed the tradition and wrote of levels or "degrees" of "perfection" in love. However, the doctrine has not fared so well among Protestants. John Wesley was the one major Protestant leader who tried to blend this ancient tradition of Christian "perfection" with the Reformation proclamation of justification by grace through faith. This book seeks to develop Wesley's synthesis of patristic and Reformation theology in order to consider how Christian "perfection" can be expressed in a more nuanced way in today's culture. Noble examines what basis may be found for Wesley's understanding of sanctification in the central doctrines of the church, particularly the atonement, the doctrine of Christ, and the most comprehensive of all Christian doctrines, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. What he sets out is a fully trinitarian theology of holiness.
New SCM Dictionary of Christian Spirituality by Philip Sheldrake Pdf
This dictionary attempts to give direct access to the development of Christian Spirituality. It is a series of pieces written by experts to provide instant, accurate and thought-provoking information of high scholarship.
Pneumatology and the Christian-Buddhist Dialogue by Amos Yong Pdf
This project at the interface of Buddhist-Christian studies, comparative theology, and Christian systematic theology proceeds by way of exploring questions related to the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit in a 21st century world of many faiths.
To Train His Soul in Books by Robin Darling Young,Monica J. Blanchard Pdf
To Train His Soul in Books explores numerous aspects of this rich religious culture, extending previous lines of scholarly investigation and demonstrating the activity of Syriac-speaking scribes and translators busy assembling books for the training of biblical interpreters, ascetics, and learned clergy.
Inquiry about the Monks in Egypt by Rufinus (of Aquileia),Rufinus of Aquileia Pdf
From September 394 to early January 395, seven monks from Rufinus of Aquileia's monastery on the Mount of Olives made a pilgrimage to Egypt to visit locally renowned monks and monastic communities. Shortly after their return to Jerusalem, one of the party, whose identity remains a mystery, wrote an engaging account of this trip. Although he cast it in the form of a first-person travelogue, it reads more like a book of miracles that depicts the great fourth-century Egyptian monks as prophets and apostles similar to those in the Bible. This work was composed in Greek, yet it is best known today as Historia monachorum in Aegypto (Inquiry about the Monks in Egypt), the title of the Latin translation of this work made by Rufinus, the pilgrim-monks' abbot. The Historia monachorum is one of the most fascinating, fantastical, and enigmatic pieces of literature to survive from the patristic period. In both its Greek original and Rufinus's Latin translation it was one of the most popular and widely disseminated works of monastic hagiography during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Modern scholars value it not only for its intrinsic literary merits but also for its status, alongside Athanasius's Life of Antony, the Pachomian dossier, and other texts of this ilk, as one of the most important primary sources for monasticism in fourth-century Egypt. Rufinus's Historia monachorum is presented here in English translation in its entirety. The introduction and annotations situate the work in its literary, historical, religious, and theological contexts.
Mystics presents a collection of previously unpublished essays by prominent scholars that consider both the idea of mystics and mysticism. The contributors offer detailed discussions of a variety of mystics from history, and on mysticism in the twenty-first century.