Commandments
The Temptation of Adam
09/10/2007 Filed in: Martinism
We already know
about the Temptation of Christ, and Jesus’ victory over
the Devil. In his Treatise on the
Reintegration of Beings, Martines de
Pasqually tells us of another
temptation, which is the cause of man’s fall.
Indeed, the Temptation of Adam didn’t
end well, and it took the Repairer,
His Son, to initiate the reconciliation of Adam’s
descendants with their Creator. Read
More...
The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - Sixth Commandment: You shall not be unchaste
20/09/2007 Filed in: Church
Fathers & Mystics
As we progress
through the commandments, we are dealing with ever more
‘mundane’ matters. This one is about our sexual lives
and more generally our contact with the opposite sex.
Gregory Palamas gives a few tips on how to follow this
commandment, in a sufficiently straightforward for me
to post it in full. What is at stake here is a matter
of habit changing: training oneself not to succumb to
excessive attraction to the opposite sex. Note that
there is no mention of the word 'desire', which in our
mundane use has 'degraded' its meaning to something
akin to lust (for a list of posts developing the notion
of true desire, click
here). Here, the commandment
is addressed to a male audience, but I’m sure you
can translate it for better relevance to you.
Read
More...
The Root of All Evil: 2 pillars and 5 consequences
14/09/2007 Filed in: Martinism
Is God responsible for all the suffering and evil in
the world?
Is the world completely evil?
What is evil?
Does free will have anything or everything to do with evil?
Age old questions indeed, used as arguments both for an against the existence of a God. These questions were recently raised during an interesting discussion with some friends, so I decided to give a short summary here of the way in which Martines de Pasqually approached the matter in his Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings. Read More...
Is the world completely evil?
What is evil?
Does free will have anything or everything to do with evil?
Age old questions indeed, used as arguments both for an against the existence of a God. These questions were recently raised during an interesting discussion with some friends, so I decided to give a short summary here of the way in which Martines de Pasqually approached the matter in his Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings. Read More...
The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - Fifth Commandment
06/08/2007 Filed in: Church
Fathers & Mystics
“Honour
your father and your mother” (Ex. 20,12), “for it is
through them that God has brought you into this life,
and they, after God, are the causes of your existence.”
However, Gregory introduces a twist: “thus after God
you should honour them and trust them, provided that
your love for them strengthens your love for God. If it
does not, flee from them, yet without feelings of
hatred”. This reminds me of Matt 19,29
And everyone
who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother,
children or land for the sake of my name will receive a
hundred times as much, and also inherit eternal
life. Read
More...
8 steps from meditation to true contemplation
13/07/2007 Filed in: Personal
Development
The
scholarly approach I usually take on this
website and blog
would be meaningless if it didn’t translate into our
day-to-day lives. It should go without saying that
intellectual endeavour, spirituality, and everyday
life should balance each other out so that they
produce the most harmonious experience of the world
possible. So now that I have set a workable
theoretical background through other posts on this
blog, I will start addressing the more down-to-earth
concerns we may have, whether we are already
advanced in the spiritual career or not.
As I have spent some time describing the importance of desire and contemplation, I thought I would start with a short how-to approach to meditation and prayer that will help us engage in the “art of contemplation”, which is at the root of an infinite progression towards our ideal. Read More...
As I have spent some time describing the importance of desire and contemplation, I thought I would start with a short how-to approach to meditation and prayer that will help us engage in the “art of contemplation”, which is at the root of an infinite progression towards our ideal. Read More...
The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - Third and Fourth Commandments
09/07/2007 Filed in: Church
Fathers & Mystics
For the
first and second parts of this series on Gregory
Palamas please go
here and
here,
respectively.
3. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Exod 20:7), swearing an oath falsely because of some worldly thing, or out of human fear, or shame, or for personal gain. For a false oath is denial of God.
[...]
4. One day of the week you shall ‘keep holy’ (Exod. 20:8). Read More...
3. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Exod 20:7), swearing an oath falsely because of some worldly thing, or out of human fear, or shame, or for personal gain. For a false oath is denial of God.
[...]
4. One day of the week you shall ‘keep holy’ (Exod. 20:8). Read More...
The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - Second Commandment
17/06/2007 Filed in: Church
Fathers & Mystics
This post
is the second in a series examining St Gregory Palamas’
New Testament Decalogue. The first of the series can be
read
here.
2. “You shall not make an image of anything in the heavens above, or in the earth below, or in the sea” to which St Gregory Palamas adds: in such a way that you worship these things and glorify them as gods. In the KJV, Exodus 20:4-5 gives “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them”. I mentioned the iconoclast movement which took this commandment without its qualifier. Read More...
2. “You shall not make an image of anything in the heavens above, or in the earth below, or in the sea” to which St Gregory Palamas adds: in such a way that you worship these things and glorify them as gods. In the KJV, Exodus 20:4-5 gives “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them”. I mentioned the iconoclast movement which took this commandment without its qualifier. Read More...
The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - First Commandment
14/06/2007 Filed in: Church
Fathers & Mystics
This is
the first part of a series of short posts discussing
Gregory Palamas' "New Testament Decalogue". Stay
tuned!
How did the incarnation of Christ transform the Ten Commandments of the Mosaic Law? How does Christianity incorporate the basic moral framework of the Torah? These questions are central to the notions of reconciliation and reintegration that I have presented before (follow the "reintegration" and "reconciliation" tags in the sidebar), because they lay out the most fundamental virtues that one must cultivate in order to live in accordance with the Christian faith. One of the most contemplative and introspective traditions of Christianity, the Orthodox hesychast movement, has given us a profoundly pastoral summary of Christian moral teaching, that weaves together “worldly” codes of conduct and finer theological positions.
Read More...
How did the incarnation of Christ transform the Ten Commandments of the Mosaic Law? How does Christianity incorporate the basic moral framework of the Torah? These questions are central to the notions of reconciliation and reintegration that I have presented before (follow the "reintegration" and "reconciliation" tags in the sidebar), because they lay out the most fundamental virtues that one must cultivate in order to live in accordance with the Christian faith. One of the most contemplative and introspective traditions of Christianity, the Orthodox hesychast movement, has given us a profoundly pastoral summary of Christian moral teaching, that weaves together “worldly” codes of conduct and finer theological positions.
Read More...