Les facultés cognitives chez Saint Isaac le Syrien, (original) (raw)
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Du desert au paradis. Introduction à la Théologie Ascetique
Du desert au paradis. Introduction à la Théologie Ascetique, 2018
The sketch presented below of fifteen centuries of the ascetical life of eastern Christian monks is designed to give the interested reader a glimpse of their spiritual life and direct access to their writings through the bibliography. Certain of the monasteries of these ascetics are still in open and can be visited by motivated laymen. St. Makarios, St. Catherine’s (Sinai) and St. Sabas (Palestine) would give the reader a deeper sense of the silence that the monks thirsted for. More simply, reading the sentences of the desert fathers leaves a unique impression of Christian wisdom. This introduction to their lives is the fruit of five years of teaching ascetical theology at the Séminaire Orthodoxe Russe near Paris (Epinay-sous-Sénart) opened in 2010 by the Moscow Patriarchate. If there is no original research, I hope I have scrupulously incorporated the standard studies of these figures which are found in the footnotes. My interpretations and understanding are my own and should not be attributed to my sources and their translators. The purpose of these courses was to broaden and deepen the understanding of the Orthodox faith before these seminarians were given pastoral responsibilities. However experience has shown that any Christian or even non-Christian finds these ascetics awe-inspiring and worth reading closely. Hopefully this short book will encourage such perusal. Other approaches to Christian asceticism exist, often studying the leverage of power afforded to the Byzantine empire as it encouraged this discourse. This is a much broader definition of asceticism than the one used here for by studying the literary expression of asceticism along with the discourse of the “ascetic state” one can study the decline and renaissance of humanism both Hellenic and Latin. The main category left out by Avril Cameron, Peter Brown, Robert Markus, etc. when they write in this vein is the quest to experience the light of Christ, His mercy in one’s heart. Thus Nicolas Berdyaev (1873-1948) defined asceticism as “a concentration of inner forces and command of oneself” on which our human dignity reposes, and Father Paul Florensky (1882-1943) said, “Asceticism produces not a good but a beautiful personality.” Asceticism can reveal the beauty of human being by removing fear from our souls wrote Father Raimundo Pannikar. Next, everything depends on one’s determination to remain on the ascetic path, even if it is clear that there are only a few great ascetics who were able to struggle all the way through the desert, that does not change the value of all the others who had seen that the path was an entry into freedom, a gradual transfiguration whereby in killing the flesh one acquired a body, one made of one’s body a “living sacrifice” (Rom 12.1), one purified of the passions such that one could see on the altar of one’s heart in the light of His truth the great God of our Fathers.
L’anthropologie anthropomorphique comme fondement d’une neurothéologie réelle chez Saint Diadoque.
L'anthropologie anthropomorphique comme fondement d'une neurothéologie réelle chez Saint Diadoque. Hieromoine dr. Vasile Bîrzu Faculté de Théologie « Andrei Saguna », Sibiu Je vous demande du commencement la permission de présenter, pour ceux qui ne le connaissent pas, l'écrivain spirituel de l'oeuvre duquel je prends les dates d'anthropologie sur lesquelles je fonde mon discours annoncé. Saint Diadoque a été évêque de Photicée au Ve siècle et il reste dans la conscience patristique moderne comme un « synthétiseur » actif et conscient des deux courants de spiritualité: évagrien et macarien, et par cella un « synthétiseur » de la spiritualité orientale syriaque, transmise vers nous par le corpus des Homélies Macariennes marquées d'un matérialisme mystique et d'une spiritualité piétiste et sensualiste d'origine messalienne, et celle occidentale grecque et latine qui a été influencée massivement par l'intellectualisme des oeuvres d'Evagre le Pontique. Diadoque de Photicée a été considéré comme « le plus occidental des pères du Levant, qui avait des relations étroites avec l'Occident » 1 , ainsi ayant pu connaître les problèmes du Levant aussi bien que ceux de l'Occident. 2 L'anthropologie antique chrétienne, comme elle est exprimée par Evagre le Pontique, a été caractérisée par la division conceptuelle de l'âme en plusieurs parties (intellectuelle, désirante et impulsive), chacune ayant des fonctions spécifiques en exprimant les pouvoirs spirituels cognitives et affectives de l'âme. Les représentants du messalianism ont exprimé leur anthropologie d'une manière anthropomorphique par des métaphores, images, comparaisons et symboles. C'est le mérite de Saint Diadoque qui a corrigé et a donné un contenu réel et concret a ces métaphores et symboles, en fondant par cela l'expérience spirituelle dans une anthropologie plus ouverte à une compréhension holistique de l'homme, de l'âme et du corps, qui maintenant trouve aussi des confirmations dans les domaines de la neurophysiologie et de la neurothéologie. Avant de présenter l'anthropologie et un résumé sur l'expérience spirituelle comme la vraie théologie chez Saint Diadoque, nous devons montrer dans un très bref sommaire les données et les conclusions de la nouvelle neurothéologie, pour souligner ses mérites et ses intuitions et aussi ses faux déductions dues en grand partie aux prémisses culturelles desquelles el part. Ce sont principalement les livres (parus aux Etats-Unis) de Rhawn Joseph, NeuroTheology: Brain, Science, Spirituality, Religious Experience; Andrew Newberg, Why God Won't Go Away : Brain Science and the Biology of Belief; Laurence O. McKinney, Neurotheology: Virtual Religion in the 21st Century; Eugene G. D'Aquili, Andrew B. Newberg, The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience (Theology and the Sciences); Matthew Alper, The "God" Part of the Brain; Joseph Giovannoli, The Biology of Belief: How Our Biology Biases Our Beliefs and Perceptions, qui ont initié cette nouvelle science qui s'inscrit dans un mouvement en pleine croissance depuis une quinzaine d'années : la quête biologique de Dieu. Des chercheurs, pour la plupart formés en neurosciences cognitives, se donnent pour objet de tracer l'origine et les manifestations du divin dans le corps humain, plus précisément dans le cerveau.
The spiritual classic “On the Imitation of Christ” (IC) by Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471) can be seen as one example of “literature without frontiers” that unites Christians of different denominations. The present study examines in detail its reception in the Russian orthodox world from the 17th century until today. Serious questions remain as to the attribution of a Ruthenian adaptation to the young Peter Mohyla (1623), preserved in a unique manuscript of 1661. In turn, the Slavonic translation by Udrişte Năsturel, printed in 1647 in the Wallachian orthodox monastery of Dealu, found easily its way to Russia over Mount Athos and Kiev. It was eagerly read and copied in Russian monasteries. New translations appeared before the end of the century and throughout the whole 18 th and 19 th century. Some of them are studied here in detail: those of A. Belobockij (about 1686), A.F. Khrushchev (1714), Antony Stakhovskij (1726), M.M. Speranskij (1819), S. Sokolov (1834), K.P. Pobedonostsev (1869). For most of the period, the popularity of IC was unanimous and spontaneous, without any catholic propaganda behind it. It was translated, copied, edited, reedited, spread and recommended by a very diverse orthodox readership: by monks and clerics, startsy and bishops, many of them saints (Dimitri of Rostov, Filaret Drozdov, Makarij of Optina, Parfenij of Kiev), nobles and intellectuals, theology professors, orthodox freemasons, poets and writers, from Pushkin to Tolstoy. Some of them even suspected a Greek, and therefore orthodox, origin of IC. Quotes of IC appeared alongside those of Church Fathers and classical authors of Eastern spirituality. In this crowd of readers, though, one big exception must be noted, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, who was ferociously opposed to the book, as to Western spirituality in general, an attitude very different from that of St. Theophan the Recluse. During his lifetime, Brianchaninov must have been almost the only one, but his influence has been growing ever since, in particular since his canonization in 1988. The reasons for his attitude and its risks for Orthodoxy today are examined in conclusion.