{"id":497,"date":"2010-05-25T22:32:09","date_gmt":"2010-05-26T02:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=497"},"modified":"2020-05-25T03:04:06","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T07:04:06","slug":"philokalia-and-the-recovery-of-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=497","title":{"rendered":"Philokalia and the Recovery of Tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\nThe Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. (Matthew 11:12)\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There is a new edition of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibmgs.org\/patristic.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Volume I of the Philokalia<\/a> translated by Constantine Cavarnos and published by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibmgs.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies<\/a>. <em>Philokalia<\/em> means \u201cLove of the Beautiful\u201d (not \u201cbeautiful things\u201d) and serves as a guidebook for early Christian spiritual practices. Besides the Bible, the works included in the Philokalia are heavily influenced by Platonic notions; it would even be reasonable to speculate that, as such, it includes spiritual practices that were part of the training at Plato\u2019s Academy. This work is recommended as essential to the recovery of the <a href=\"?p=488\">\u201cmetaphysical view prior to the scholastic age<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The differences between the Philokalia and contemporary manifestations of Christianity are striking.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Salvation<\/strong>. Salvation is the process of <em>theosis<\/em>, or divinization, that is, becoming like God. This differs from both from\n<ul>\n<li>the Roman notion that salvation comes from following a set of moral norms and seeking reconciliation after sinning, and<\/li>\n<li>the Protestant notion of imputed righteousness devoid of any real, actual, and effective change.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>Effort<\/strong>. <em>Theosis <\/em>requires conscious efforts, both physical and spiritual. Some of the latter include concentration, meditation, inner attention, and mental prayer. All these involve control of <a href=\"?p=451\">thought so the mind doesn\u2019t wander aimlessly<\/a>.\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>Rational<\/strong>. The necessary first step is to be \u201crational\u201d, that is, in harmony with the <em>Logos<\/em>. Hence, irrationality, ungrounded exuberance, and blind faith are obstacles on the path.\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>Transformation<\/strong>. The end result is the <a href=\"?p=478\">transformation of one\u2019s level of being<\/a>. Every man is in the image of God, but few are in the likeness of God. According to St Antony, the former are barely human and should be avoided.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Although these writings are geared to the contemplative life (Guenon), we agree with Evola that the way of action is a valid path for certain personalities. Hence, some adaptations need to be made in the latter case. In more contemporary terms, we may call one path the Way of the Monk, and the other, the Way of the Man in the World.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:small\"><br \/>\n<strong>NOTE<\/strong>: The first essay in the Philokalia is attributed to St Antony and concerns the attributes and qualities of a rational man. In the first English edition translated by Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware, this essay is removed from its prime position and relegated to a mere appendix on the grounds it is insufficiently &#8220;Christian&#8221;. I&#8217;ll not bother with their reasons, since all this demonstrates is the incomprehensibility of early Christianity to our contemporaries, who even claim to be Christian leaders. Let this serve as a warning to anyone seeking authentic Christian doctrine and spirituality. What the first translators have done is to split the Western tradition in two, and detach the Christian religion from the Primordial Tradition.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. (Matthew 11:12) There is a new edition of Volume I of the Philokalia translated by Constantine Cavarnos and published by the Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. Philokalia means \u201cLove of the Beautiful\u201d (not \u201cbeautiful things\u201d) &hellip; <span class=\"continue-reading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=497\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-tradition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12193,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions\/12193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}