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WEB 4 - ARCHIVE
Commentary 26 - Page 9 |
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Darkness of
the psyche The Hermit's Message
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Searching for the answer In searching for an answer to this question, my book investigated the forgotten alternatives implied in the psychological teachings of the early Fathers of the Church and of their direct successors, with particular reference to teachings such as those of Clement of Alexandria and Origen - and of Origen’s pupil Evagrius of Pontus. Clement and Origen were teachers in Saint Paul’s sense of the word - they were both successively heads of the school of Christian knowledge in Alexandria in the second and third centuries. This fact may have underlain a certain lack of compromise in their writings which led to both of them, and even their pupil Evagrius, being often discredited in later centuries. Whether or not this is true, as described in chapter 3, there is little doubt that as early as the second century Clement was teaching a more psychological form of Christian ascesis, which ran through the teachings of the early Fathers like a basic pattern, which has been more and more ignored over the centuries, but which has repeatedly surfaced for brief periods in the historical record.. My investigation of these early psychological teachings, detailed in this book, shows that although they appear monastic, in fact they offer a complete science, one that can also provide alternatives to the classical monastic method. Their methods aim at the same objectives as do Eastern practices such as Yoga, but after detailed study it seems to me that they do so in a way that, once properly understood, are more suited to modern Western man, in practical forms of Christianity that differ widely from that taught in the West today. Here, with their origins in the second century but drawing for descriptive data on other sources, older and younger, may be the solutions, the hope so urgently needed by modern man. |
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