Showing posts with label Philokalia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philokalia. Show all posts
Friday, April 1, 2011
Readings: The Virtue of Wisdom
Philokalia: St Mark the Ascetic, “On the Spiritual Law”
79. I have seen unlearned men who were truly humble, and they became wiser than the wise.
80. Another unlearned man, upon hearing them praised, instead of imitating their humility, prided himself on being unlearned and so fell into arrogance.
St Mark the Ascetic; early fifth century (?); a desert hermit, probably in Egypt or Palestine.
The wisdom of this ancient monk has outlived his biography; a state of immortality to which we should all aspire.
It occurs to me that the corrosive anti-intellectualism so rampant today in our conservative political class might find its antidote in the wisdom of item "79" above...
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Sunday, March 20, 2011
Reflections: Fighting the Blues
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Looking at the date on my last blog post, I realize that I’ve been neglecting it for some time. There are multiple reasons for this. One reason is Facebook. Tending to the attentions of one’s Facebook friends becomes a time-consuming activity. It is pleasant, but it is a distraction from reading and writing. The site becomes a low and friendly fence over which one pleasantly wastes time gabbing with the neighbors. These things need to be consciously balanced, or things get out of hand.
Secondly, I’ve been spending a good portion of my free time reading the books of some newly discovered poets, Charles Simic in particular—as has been obvious both to my FB friends and to any other readers of this blog. But, in addition to Simic, I’ve been reading Mark Strand and Bill Knott. A Facebook friend also recently turned me on to Mary Oliver and I’ve been checking her work out online.
In addition to reading poetry, I’ve been writing a lot of it. I’ve posted at least one new piece every day of the week for several weeks straight. It has been an almost unprecedented burst of creativity for me—and I am grateful for it. Here’s a little exemplary tidbit:
xxxxxxxxxxNightmare
xxxxxxxxxxHe awoke
xxxxxxxxxxfrom a dream
xxxxxxxxxxin which
xxxxxxxxxxhe had been
xxxxxxxxxxtrying
xxxxxxxxxxdesperately
xxxxxxxxxxto smother
xxxxxxxxxxEve's apple
xxxxxxxxxxwith
xxxxxxxxxxa pillow.
Finally, however, for a complex of reasons which I’m not going to go into, I’ve also been battling depression for a couple of weeks. Some of the afore-mentioned Facebook friends have noted hints of this in the poetry I’ve been posting recently.
As so often happens with intensely directed reading, the reader will pick up a book and open the pages to find there exactly what his intellect, or his spirit, needs to find at that very moment. This happened to (or, more accurately, for me) recently, at the depths of my depression.
I previously wrote about my readings in The Philokalia (follow the link, if you want more information on that.) Feeling very blue one morning, I picked that book up for the first time in a long time, and on the very page I opened to, I found the excerpts which follow. I think it will be immediately apparent how appropriate they were (and are) to understanding the nature of my psychic affliction. That which Evagiros refers to as “demons,” we now have a variety of psychological terms for; but the psychic mechanisms are described by this 4th century Christian monk with truly mind-boggling accuracy:
Evagrios the Solitary (b. 345 or 346)
11. All the demons teach the soul to love pleasure; only the demon of dejection refrains from doing this, since he corrupts the thought of those he enters by cutting off every pleasure of the soul and drying it up through dejection, for ‘the bones of the dejected are dried up’ (Prov. 17:22 LXX). Now if this demon attacks only to a moderate degree, he makes the anchorite more resolute; for he encourages him to seek nothing worldly and to shun all pleasures. But when the demon remains for longer, he encourages the soul to give up, for forces it to run away. Even Job was tormented by this demon, and it was because of this that he said: ‘O that I might lay hands upon myself, or at least ask someone else to this for me’ (Job 30:24. LXX)
The symbol of this demon is the viper. When used in moderation for man’s good, its poison is an antidote against that of other venomous creatures, but when taken in excess it kills whoever takes it. It was to this demon that Paul delivered the man at Corinth who had fallen into sin. That is why he quickly wrote again to the Corinthians saying: ‘Confirm you love towards him…lest perhaps he should be swallowed up with too great dejection’ (2 Cor. 2:7-8). He knew that this spirit, in troubling men, can also bring about true repentance. It was for this reason that St John the Baptist gave the name ‘progeny of vipers’ to those who were goaded by the spirit to seek refuge in God, saying: ‘Who has warned you to flee from the anger to come? Bring forth fruits, then, that testify to your repentance; and do not think that you can just say within yourselves, We have Abraham as our father’ (Matt. 3:7-9). But if a man imitates Abraham and leaves his country and kindred (cf. Gen.12:1), he thereby becomes stronger than this demon.
These two paragraphs represent only those passages of the teachings of Evagiros on “dejection” which I chose at the time to copy out for the use to which they have now been put. I urge any person who values the contemplation of things psycho-spiritual to investigate the Philokalia and any other writings of the Desert Fathers.
Looking at the date on my last blog post, I realize that I’ve been neglecting it for some time. There are multiple reasons for this. One reason is Facebook. Tending to the attentions of one’s Facebook friends becomes a time-consuming activity. It is pleasant, but it is a distraction from reading and writing. The site becomes a low and friendly fence over which one pleasantly wastes time gabbing with the neighbors. These things need to be consciously balanced, or things get out of hand.
Secondly, I’ve been spending a good portion of my free time reading the books of some newly discovered poets, Charles Simic in particular—as has been obvious both to my FB friends and to any other readers of this blog. But, in addition to Simic, I’ve been reading Mark Strand and Bill Knott. A Facebook friend also recently turned me on to Mary Oliver and I’ve been checking her work out online.
In addition to reading poetry, I’ve been writing a lot of it. I’ve posted at least one new piece every day of the week for several weeks straight. It has been an almost unprecedented burst of creativity for me—and I am grateful for it. Here’s a little exemplary tidbit:
xxxxxxxxxxNightmare
xxxxxxxxxxHe awoke
xxxxxxxxxxfrom a dream
xxxxxxxxxxin which
xxxxxxxxxxhe had been
xxxxxxxxxxtrying
xxxxxxxxxxdesperately
xxxxxxxxxxto smother
xxxxxxxxxxEve's apple
xxxxxxxxxxwith
xxxxxxxxxxa pillow.
Finally, however, for a complex of reasons which I’m not going to go into, I’ve also been battling depression for a couple of weeks. Some of the afore-mentioned Facebook friends have noted hints of this in the poetry I’ve been posting recently.
As so often happens with intensely directed reading, the reader will pick up a book and open the pages to find there exactly what his intellect, or his spirit, needs to find at that very moment. This happened to (or, more accurately, for me) recently, at the depths of my depression.
I previously wrote about my readings in The Philokalia (follow the link, if you want more information on that.) Feeling very blue one morning, I picked that book up for the first time in a long time, and on the very page I opened to, I found the excerpts which follow. I think it will be immediately apparent how appropriate they were (and are) to understanding the nature of my psychic affliction. That which Evagiros refers to as “demons,” we now have a variety of psychological terms for; but the psychic mechanisms are described by this 4th century Christian monk with truly mind-boggling accuracy:
Evagrios the Solitary (b. 345 or 346)
11. All the demons teach the soul to love pleasure; only the demon of dejection refrains from doing this, since he corrupts the thought of those he enters by cutting off every pleasure of the soul and drying it up through dejection, for ‘the bones of the dejected are dried up’ (Prov. 17:22 LXX). Now if this demon attacks only to a moderate degree, he makes the anchorite more resolute; for he encourages him to seek nothing worldly and to shun all pleasures. But when the demon remains for longer, he encourages the soul to give up, for forces it to run away. Even Job was tormented by this demon, and it was because of this that he said: ‘O that I might lay hands upon myself, or at least ask someone else to this for me’ (Job 30:24. LXX)
The symbol of this demon is the viper. When used in moderation for man’s good, its poison is an antidote against that of other venomous creatures, but when taken in excess it kills whoever takes it. It was to this demon that Paul delivered the man at Corinth who had fallen into sin. That is why he quickly wrote again to the Corinthians saying: ‘Confirm you love towards him…lest perhaps he should be swallowed up with too great dejection’ (2 Cor. 2:7-8). He knew that this spirit, in troubling men, can also bring about true repentance. It was for this reason that St John the Baptist gave the name ‘progeny of vipers’ to those who were goaded by the spirit to seek refuge in God, saying: ‘Who has warned you to flee from the anger to come? Bring forth fruits, then, that testify to your repentance; and do not think that you can just say within yourselves, We have Abraham as our father’ (Matt. 3:7-9). But if a man imitates Abraham and leaves his country and kindred (cf. Gen.12:1), he thereby becomes stronger than this demon.
These two paragraphs represent only those passages of the teachings of Evagiros on “dejection” which I chose at the time to copy out for the use to which they have now been put. I urge any person who values the contemplation of things psycho-spiritual to investigate the Philokalia and any other writings of the Desert Fathers.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Readings: Timeless Wisdom
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I have recently begun reading The Philokalia in this edition. As its introduction states: "The Philokalia is a collection of texts written between the fourth and the fifteenth centuries by spiritual masters of the Orthodox Christian tradition. It was compiled in the eighteenth century by two Greek monks, St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain of Athos (1749-1809) and St Makarios of Corinth (1731-1805), and was first published in Venice in 1782."
The first section of Volume 1 of this three-volume edition is attributed to St. Isaiah the Solitary, who lived in Egypt in the late fourth or fifth century, A.D. His writings are said by the editor to “[reflect] the authentic spirituality of the Desert Fathers of Egypt and Palestine…”
As I frequently visit and comment at several Roman Catholic sites, I was interested, in planning this post, to see what the Catholic take on The Philokalia, and the Desert Fathers might be. As is my wont, in order to do this, I visited the New Advent online Catholic Encyclopedia. I was surprised to find that there was no article there on The Philokalia. I next tried “Desert Fathers” and again came up empty. Finally, I looked in New Advent for an article on “hesychasm,” a word related to the practices of a life of contemplation and inner work – “the cleansing of ‘the inside of the cup and plate so that their outside may also be clean’ (Matt. 23:26).” This time I scored a hit. It seems that hesychasm, having been condemned because
“Latin theology on the whole was too deeply impregnated with the Aristotelean Scholastic system to tolerate a theory that opposed its very foundation.”
warranted a mention so that the devout might be warned against its wickedness. Well, I don’t think so. (Aristotle! P-tui!) On the contrary, it seems to me that the teachings of the solitaries and monks to be found in The Philokalia conform to the wisdom practiced by saints of all cultures since time immemorial. Here, for example, is a brief excerpt from that first section, which I mentioned above:
St. Isaiah the Solitary:
So long as the contest continues, a man is full of fear and trembling, wondering whether he will win today or be defeated, whether he will win tomorrow or be defeated: the struggle and stress constrict his heart. But when he has attained dispassion, the contest comes to an end; he receives the prize of victory and has no further anxiety about the three that were divided, for now through God they have made peace with one another. These three are the soul, the body and the spirit. When they become one through the energy of the Holy Spirit, they cannot again be separated. Do not think, then, that you have died to sin, so long as you suffer violence, whether waking or sleeping, at the hands of your opponents, For while a man is still competing in the arena, he cannot be sure of victory.
If you’re channeling Vince Lombardi, you’re in for a world of grief. What they don’t want you to know is that all the players are losers. Complexity is the enemy of enlightenment. The devil is in the details. Don’t lose your-self through fruitless interaction with the ten-thousand things (cf. Tao Te Ching).
X
I have recently begun reading The Philokalia in this edition. As its introduction states: "The Philokalia is a collection of texts written between the fourth and the fifteenth centuries by spiritual masters of the Orthodox Christian tradition. It was compiled in the eighteenth century by two Greek monks, St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain of Athos (1749-1809) and St Makarios of Corinth (1731-1805), and was first published in Venice in 1782."
The first section of Volume 1 of this three-volume edition is attributed to St. Isaiah the Solitary, who lived in Egypt in the late fourth or fifth century, A.D. His writings are said by the editor to “[reflect] the authentic spirituality of the Desert Fathers of Egypt and Palestine…”
As I frequently visit and comment at several Roman Catholic sites, I was interested, in planning this post, to see what the Catholic take on The Philokalia, and the Desert Fathers might be. As is my wont, in order to do this, I visited the New Advent online Catholic Encyclopedia. I was surprised to find that there was no article there on The Philokalia. I next tried “Desert Fathers” and again came up empty. Finally, I looked in New Advent for an article on “hesychasm,” a word related to the practices of a life of contemplation and inner work – “the cleansing of ‘the inside of the cup and plate so that their outside may also be clean’ (Matt. 23:26).” This time I scored a hit. It seems that hesychasm, having been condemned because
“Latin theology on the whole was too deeply impregnated with the Aristotelean Scholastic system to tolerate a theory that opposed its very foundation.”
warranted a mention so that the devout might be warned against its wickedness. Well, I don’t think so. (Aristotle! P-tui!) On the contrary, it seems to me that the teachings of the solitaries and monks to be found in The Philokalia conform to the wisdom practiced by saints of all cultures since time immemorial. Here, for example, is a brief excerpt from that first section, which I mentioned above:
St. Isaiah the Solitary:
So long as the contest continues, a man is full of fear and trembling, wondering whether he will win today or be defeated, whether he will win tomorrow or be defeated: the struggle and stress constrict his heart. But when he has attained dispassion, the contest comes to an end; he receives the prize of victory and has no further anxiety about the three that were divided, for now through God they have made peace with one another. These three are the soul, the body and the spirit. When they become one through the energy of the Holy Spirit, they cannot again be separated. Do not think, then, that you have died to sin, so long as you suffer violence, whether waking or sleeping, at the hands of your opponents, For while a man is still competing in the arena, he cannot be sure of victory.
If you’re channeling Vince Lombardi, you’re in for a world of grief. What they don’t want you to know is that all the players are losers. Complexity is the enemy of enlightenment. The devil is in the details. Don’t lose your-self through fruitless interaction with the ten-thousand things (cf. Tao Te Ching).
X
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