Spiritual Direction As a Medical Art in Early Christian Monasticism

Spiritual Direction As a Medical Art in Early Christian Monasticism PDF Author: JONATHAN L. ZECHER
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198854137
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
What expectations did the women and men living in early monastic communities carry into relationships of obedience and advice? What did they hope to achieve through confession and discipline? To explore these questions, this study shows how several early Christian writers applied the logic, knowledge, and practices of Galenic medicine to develop their own practices of spiritual direction. Evagrius reads dream images as diagnostic indicators of the soul's state. John Cassian crafts a nosology of the soul using lists of passions while diagnosing the causes of wet dreams. Basil of Caesarea pits the spiritual director against the physician in a competition over diagnostic expertise. John Climacus crafts pathologies of passions through demonic family trees, while equipping his spiritual director with a physician's toolkit and imagining the monastic space as a vast clinic. These different appropriations of medical logic and metaphors not only show us the thought-world of late antique monasticism, but they would also have decisive consequences for generations of Christian subjects who would learn to see themselves as sick or well, patients or healers, within monastic communities.

Spiritual Direction As a Medical Art in Early Christian Monasticism

Spiritual Direction As a Medical Art in Early Christian Monasticism PDF Author: JONATHAN L. ZECHER
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198854137
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 394

Get Book

Book Description
What expectations did the women and men living in early monastic communities carry into relationships of obedience and advice? What did they hope to achieve through confession and discipline? To explore these questions, this study shows how several early Christian writers applied the logic, knowledge, and practices of Galenic medicine to develop their own practices of spiritual direction. Evagrius reads dream images as diagnostic indicators of the soul's state. John Cassian crafts a nosology of the soul using lists of passions while diagnosing the causes of wet dreams. Basil of Caesarea pits the spiritual director against the physician in a competition over diagnostic expertise. John Climacus crafts pathologies of passions through demonic family trees, while equipping his spiritual director with a physician's toolkit and imagining the monastic space as a vast clinic. These different appropriations of medical logic and metaphors not only show us the thought-world of late antique monasticism, but they would also have decisive consequences for generations of Christian subjects who would learn to see themselves as sick or well, patients or healers, within monastic communities.

Spiritual Direction in the Early Christian East

Spiritual Direction in the Early Christian East PDF Author: Irénée Hausherr
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 9780879075163
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In a day when psychological counseling sometimes passes as spiritual direction', this book reminds us that early Christians--like Eastern Christians still today--were convinced that only someone with long and deep experience in prayer and discipline can dare to lead others along the way to God.

Awakening the Creative Spirit

Awakening the Creative Spirit PDF Author: Christine Valters Paintner
Publisher: Church Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 0819223719
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
The resource is designed to help spiritual directors and others use expressive arts in the context of spiritual direction. It is the latest book in the unique SDI series, designed for professional spiritual directors, but also useful for clergy, therapists, and Christian formation specialists. The Spiritual Directors International Series – This book is part of a special series produced by Morehouse Publishing in cooperation with Spiritual Directors International (SDI), a global network of some 6,000 spiritual directors and members.

Spiritual Direction

Spiritual Direction PDF Author: Sue Pickering
Publisher: Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd
ISBN: 1853118850
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Spirituality.

Christianity

Christianity PDF Author: Linda Woodhead
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191780943
Category : Christianity
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
This is a short, accessible analysis of Christianity that focuses on its social and cultural diversity as well as its historical dimensions.

Spiritual Direction in Context

Spiritual Direction in Context PDF Author: Nick Wagner
Publisher: Church Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 0819222097
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
"God created us to be lovers," writes Nick Wagner in his introduction to Spiritual Direction in Context. "When we love, we are in right relationship. We are acting for justice. The ministry of every spiritual director, in any context, is to serve as a guide into the depths of that love relationship." Here, in this provocative collection of essays, respected leaders in the field of spiritual direction explore the myriad of contexts in which this relationship takes place and offers practical ways to respond to them. As the popularity of spiritual direction grows, directors are facing situations that monks and nuns - for centuries the exclusive practitioners of this profession - never had to face. The essays in this book, drawn from Presence, the journal of Spiritual Directors International, look deeply at spiritual direction in a number of contexts, including the workplace, with the aging, in hospitals, with women's groups, with youth, with the homeless, and with those in mourning. Spiritual Direction in Context is the third in the SDI series.

Desert Christians

Desert Christians PDF Author: William Harmless
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198036746
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
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.

From Monastery to Hospital

From Monastery to Hospital PDF Author: Andrew Todd Crislip
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472114740
Category : Church history
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Brings to light for the first time the innovative healing practices of monasteries and their role in the development of Western medical tradition

Approach to Monasticism

Approach to Monasticism PDF Author: Hubert Van Zeller
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781258016241
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description


Spiritual Freedom

Spiritual Freedom PDF Author: John J. English
Publisher: Guelph, Ont. : Loyola House
ISBN:
Category : Ignatius, Of Loyola, Saint, 1491-1556
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description