Download or read book The Ladder of Prayer and the Ship of Stirrings written by Bruria Bitton-Ashkelony and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Doubts about sacrifices, prayers, fate, and providence in the second- to fifth-century Mediterranean world produced new concepts of individual prayer for Christians and non-Christians alike. The Ladder of Prayer and the Ship of Stirrings explores the discourse on the praying self as an ascetic way of life, as an aspect of interiority, and as a path to the divine in Late Antique Eastern Christianity. It deals with the transposition of Greek ascetic literature -- mainly the writings of Evagrius Ponticus, Abba Isaiah, Mark the Monk, and the Apophthegmata patrum -- into East Syrian thought, and its assimilation with indigenous features. Specifically, the book probes the emergence of different sorts of prayer as a pivotal part of the profound religious shifts and cultural developments that unfolded in Late Antique Eastern Christianities. The chronological scope of this study ranges from the second- to fifth-century cultural world of sophists and philosophers, Iamblicus, Porphyry and Proclus, up to the East Syrian mystical authors in the fifth-eighth centuries, among them John of Apamea, Isaac of Nineveh, Dadisho' Qatraya, Shem'on d-Taybutheh, John of Dalyatha, and Joseph Hazzaya. The book presents how these figures incorporated this literary legacy into their teachings and melded it with indigenous Syriac spirituality.
Download or read book The Third Lung New Trajectories in Syriac Studies written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-08-21 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No one mentions Syriac, – a dialect of the Aramaic language Jesus spoke –, without referring to Sebastian P. Brock, the Oxford scholar and teacher who has written and taught about everything Syriac, even reorienting the field as The Third Lung of early Christianity (along with Greek and Latin). In 2018, Syriac scholars world-wide gathered in Sigtuna, Sweden, to celebrate with Sebastian his accomplishments and share new directions. Through essays showing what Syriac studies have attained, where they are going, as well as some arenas and connections previously not imagined, flavors of the fruits of laboring in the field are offered. Contributors to this volume are: Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Shraga Bick, Briouria Bitton-Ashkelony, Alberto Camplani, Thomas A. Carlson, Jeff W. Childers, Muriel Debié, Terry Falla, George A. Kiraz, Sergey Minov, Craig E. Morrison, István Perczel, Anton Pritula, Ilaria Ramelli, Christine Shepardson, Stephen J. Shoemaker, Herman G.B. Teule, Kathleen E. McVey.
Download or read book The Library of Paradise written by David A. Michelson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-13 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemplative reading is a spiritual practice developed by Christian monks in sixth- and seventh-century Mesopotamia. Mystics belonging to the Church of the East pursued a form of contemplation which moved from reading, to meditation, to prayer, to the ecstasy of divine vision. The Library of Paradise tells the story of this Syriac tradition in three phases: its establishment as an ascetic practice, the articulation of its theology, and its maturation and spread. The sixth-century monastic reform of Abraham of Kashkar codified the essential place of reading in East Syrian ascetic life. Once established, the practice of contemplative reading received extensive theological commentary. Abraham's successor Babai the Great drew upon the ascetic system of Evagrius of Pontus to explain the relationship of reading to the monk's pursuit of God. Syriac monastic handbooks of the seventh century built on this Evagrian framework. 'Enanisho' of Adiabene composed an anthology called Paradise that would stand for centuries as essential reading matter for Syriac monks. Dadisho' of Qatar wrote a widely copied commentary on the Paradise. Together, these works circulated as a one-volume library which offered readers a door to "Paradise" through contemplation. The Library of Paradise is the first book-length study of East Syrian contemplative reading. It adapts methodological insights from prior scholarship on reading, including studies on Latin lectio divina. By tracing the origins of East Syrian contemplative reading, this study opens the possibility for future investigation into its legacies, including the tradition's long reception history in Sogdian, Arabic, and Ethiopic monastic libraries.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Deification written by and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-18 with total page 1307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern theological engagements on deification have undergone two major paradigm shifts. First, the study of deification shifted from the periphery of theological discourse to its center. For Adolf von Harnack, deification was a pagan import that fatally corrupted and distorted the Gospel message of salvation. In response, the positive retrieval of the concept of deification belongs to the early years of the twentieth century. By the 1910s in Russian religious thought and by the 1930s in much Roman Catholic theology, deification had become a magnet concept attracting attention from many different viewpoints. The second important shift relates to how deification is characterized. Recent studies question the exclusively 'Eastern' character of deification and draw attention to the engagements of this theme in Latin patristic and later Western Christian sources. Reassessing the evidence for these two major shifts, The Oxford Handbook of Deification comprehensively explores the points of convergence and difference on the constitutive elements of deification in different traditions, and offers a foundation for ecumenical and interreligious dialogues. The Handbook's first part analyzes the cultural and scriptural roots of deification; the second part explores the most significant historical contributions to the understanding of deification in the early, medieval, and modern periods; the third part develops systematic connections. Readers will discover a surprizing breadth, depth, and diversity of theologies of deification in Christian traditions. Throughout the Handbook, leading scholars in the field of Deification Studies propose vital new insights from a variety of perspectives for this central mystery at the heart of the Christian faith.
Download or read book The Wandering Mind What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction written by Jamie Kreiner and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2023-01-03 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revelatory account of how Christian monks identified distraction as a fundamental challenge—and how their efforts to defeat it can inform ours, more than a millennium later. The digital era is beset by distraction, and it feels like things are only getting worse. At times like these, the distant past beckons as a golden age of attention. We fantasize about escaping our screens. We dream of recapturing the quiet of a world with less noise. We imagine retreating into solitude and singlemindedness, almost like latter-day monks. But although we think of early monks as master concentrators, a life of mindfulness did not, in fact, come to them easily. As historian Jamie Kreiner demonstrates in The Wandering Mind, their attempts to stretch the mind out to God—to continuously contemplate the divine order and its ethical requirements—were all-consuming, and their battles against distraction were never-ending. Delving into the experiences of early Christian monks living in the Middle East, around the Mediterranean, and throughout Europe from 300 to 900 CE, Kreiner shows that these men and women were obsessed with distraction in ways that seem remarkably modern. At the same time, she suggests that our own obsession is remarkably medieval. Ancient Greek and Roman intellectuals had sometimes complained about distraction, but it was early Christian monks who waged an all-out war against it. The stakes could not have been higher: they saw distraction as a matter of life and death. Even though the world today is vastly different from the world of the early Middle Ages, we can still learn something about our own distractedness by looking closely at monks’ strenuous efforts to concentrate. Drawing on a trove of sources that the monks left behind, Kreiner reconstructs the techniques they devised in their lifelong quest to master their minds—from regimented work schedules and elaborative metacognitive exercises to physical regimens for hygiene, sleep, sex, and diet. She captures the fleeting moments of pure attentiveness that some monks managed to grasp, and the many times when monks struggled and failed and went back to the drawing board. Blending history and psychology, The Wandering Mind is a witty, illuminating account of human fallibility and ingenuity that bridges a distant era and our own.
Download or read book Knowing God in Light written by Nichifor Tănase, Marius Portaru, Daniel Lemeni and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fall of Communism in Eastern Europe opened up a new future—for theology, too, not least in Romania, perhaps of all Orthodox nations the most open to the West. Young Romanian Orthodox theologians seized the opportunity to study and research in the West, availing themselves of mentors and resources hitherto denied them; some have settled in the West, others returned home. This welcome volume displays a theological revival as young Romanian theologians draw on tradition and address new problems. We can discern here a welcome confidence in the Orthodox tradition, no longer on the defensive nor concerned to mark itself off from the theology of the ‘West’. It is a ‘generous Orthodoxy’ (a term that has been used of the theological approach of the late Metropolitan Kallistos), ready to share its treasures with other Christians and eager to learn from them and engage with them.
Download or read book Longing for Perfection in Late Antiquity written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-11-20 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How on earth can humans be perfect? The striving for perfection has always occupied a central place in ancient Greek culture. This dynamics urged the Greeks on to surpass themselves in different fields, from sculpture and architecture over athletics to philosophy. In this volume, an international group of scholars examines how the ideal of perfection was conceived and pursued in Late Antiquity, both within philosophical circles and Christianity. Their studies yield a fascinating panorama of various attempts to bridge the unbridgeable and assimilate our frail, imperfect human nature as far as possible to divine perfection.
Download or read book Shem on the Graceful written by Mary Hansbury and published by SLG Press. This book was released on 2020-01-01 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The late seventh century in the Syrian Church saw the flourishing of several noted monastic writers, amongst them Shem`on, a monk of an abbey in south-west Iran. Few of his writings remain, but this homily has been preserved as a model of instruction on the solitary life. Preached at the consecration of the cell of a monk embarking on the hermit life, it clearly states the disciplines required to live this form of asceticism, as well as the difficulties and dangers that will be encountered. Through this life of stillness (hesychia), the whole person lives centred on life in the resurrected Christ and in the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in the Church and in the world.
Download or read book From Idols to Icons written by Robin M. Jensen and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-09-20 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even the briefest glance at an art museum’s holdings or an introductory history textbook demonstrates the profound influence of Christian images and art. From Idols to Icons tells the fascinating history of the dramatic shift in Christian attitudes toward sacred images from the third through the early seventh century. From attacks on the cult images of polytheism to the emergence of Christian narrative iconography to the appearance of portrait-type representations of holy figures, this book examines the primary theological critiques and defenses of holy images in light of the surviving material evidence for early Christian visual art. Against the previous assumption that fourth- and fifth-century Christians simply forgot or ignored their predecessors’ censure and reverted to more alluring pagan practices, Robin M. Jensen contends that each stage of this profound change was uniquely Christian. Through a careful consideration of the cults of saints’ remains, devotional portraits, and pilgrimages to sacred sites, Jensen shows how the Christian devotion to holy images came to be rooted in their evolving conviction that the divine was accessible in and through visible objects.
Download or read book Shaman and Sage written by Michael Horton and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2024-05-28 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first volume of Michael Horton’s magisterial intellectual history of “spiritual but not religious” as a phenomenon in Western culture Discussions of the rapidly increasing number of people identifying as “spiritual but not religious” tend to focus on the past century. But the SBNR phenomenon and the values that underlie it may be older than Christianity itself. Michael Horton reveals that the hallmarks of modern spirituality—autonomy, individualism, utopianism, and more—have their foundations in Greek philosophical religion. Horton makes the case that the development of the shaman figure in the Axial Age—particularly its iteration among Orphists—represented a “divine self.” One must realize the divinity within the self to break free from physicality and become one with a panentheistic unity. Time and time again, this tradition of divinity hiding in nature has arisen as an alternative to monotheistic submission to a god who intervenes in creation. This first volume traces the development of a utopian view of the human individual: a divine soul longing to break free from all limits of body, history, and the social and natural world. When the second and third volumes are complete, students and scholars will consult The Divine Self as the authoritative guide to the “spiritual but not religious” tendency as a recurring theme in Western culture from antiquity to the present.
Download or read book Invitation to Syriac Christianity written by Michael Philip Penn and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction -- Origin stories -- Poetry -- Doctrine and disputation -- Liturgy -- Asceticism -- Mysticism and prayer -- Biblical interpretation -- Hagiography -- Books, knowledge, and translation -- Judaism -- Islam -- Religions of the Silk Road -- Appendix 1 : translations and editions -- Appendix 2 : biographies of named authors -- Appendix 3 : glossary.
Download or read book A Little Ladder of Prayer Etc written by George Russell Bullock WEBSTER and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Scale or Ladder of Perfection written by Walter Hilton and published by . This book was released on 1869 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Scale of Perfection written by Walter Hilton and published by Medieval Institute Publications. This book was released on 2001-02-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walter Hilton's The Scale of Perfection maintains a secure place among the major religious treatises composed in fourteenth-century England. This guide to the contemplative life, written in two books of more than 40,000 words each, is notable for its careful explorations of its religious themes and also as a monument of Middle English prose. Its popularity is attested by the fact that some forty-two manuscripts containing one or both of the books survive, with a relatively large number of manuscipts with Book I alone, which suggests it may have been the more popular of the two. Hilton (born c. 1343) was a member of the religious order known as the Augustinian Canons. There is reason to believe that be was trained in canon law and studied at the University of Cambridge. He was the author of a number of works in English and Latin, all much shorter than The Scale. He died at the Augustinian Priory of Thurgarton in Nottinghamshire in 1396. On the basis of the content of certain of his works it can be safely inferred that he was actively involved in some of the religious controversies current in England in the 1380s and 1390s, and his principal concern, evident in The Scale , is to defend orthodox belief, especially in the conduct of the contemplative life.
Download or read book The Machine Stops Illustrated written by E M Forster and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2022-02-25 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Machine Stops" is a science fiction short story (12,300 words) by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in The Oxford and Cambridge Review (November 1909), the story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928. After being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965, it was included that same year in the populist anthology Modern Short Stories.[1] In 1973 it was also included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two. The story, set in a world where humanity lives underground and relies on a giant machine to provide its needs, predicted technologies such as instant messaging and the Internet.
Download or read book On Religion written by Friedrich Schleiermacher and published by CCEL. This book was released on 1893 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Abandonment to Divine Providence written by Jean-Pierre De Caussade and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God is to be found in the simplest of our daily activities and especially through total surrender to whatever is His will for each of us. That is the message of this 18th-century inspirational classic by Jean-Pierre de Caussade. Its encouragement to ""live in the present moment,"" accepting everyday obstacles with faith, humility and love, has guided generations of believers to holiness and spiritual peace. This special volume of the famous spiritual treatise also includes the many insightful letters of Father de Caussade on the practice of self-abandonment. These numerous letters provide a great additional source of wisdom and practical guidance for how to grow in abandonment and to deepen our union with God in our daily lives. De Caussade shows that this practice of self-abandonment to God's will is the key to attaining true peace and virtue, and that it is readily available to all people - from beginners to those well advanced in the spiritual life. He also shows how to determine what God's will is for us. He reveals that it is not extraordinary feats that God expects for our growth in holiness, but rather heroic attention to every detail in our lives and humble acceptance of our daily lot in life as coming from His hand. The rich spiritual lessons in this book have stood the test of time, offering real and practical assistance to all people because its message is simple and clear, one that the reader will find to be a rare treasure of inspiration and direction to be referred to again and again.
