CHRISTIAN
 “SPIRITUALITY”
 

 

The word spiritualitas is used only four times in all the documents of Vatican II.  Why?

At the time of the Council the word “SPIRITUALITY” was relatively uncommon, and the discipline we call “spiritual theology” had a different name:

ASCETICAL - MYSTICAL THEOLOGY

ASCETICAL THEOLOGY:
Spiritual Exercise or Practice

Spiritual practice with the goal of withstanding temptation, avoiding sin, and developing and practicing the virtues.

THE Greek word for asceticism: ἄσκησις, askēsis  originally referred in classical Greek to training, practice, exercise, or discipline.  It was particularly used in regard to the quest for  athletic excellence, but was also applied to training for a profession, an art, or a mode of life.
 LATER the Greek philosophers employed it in reference to moral perfection; it described the exercise and art of refraining from vice and practicing virtue (the word “virtue” aretē, ἀρετή,  means “excellence”, and also originally referred to athletic excellence).

MYSTICAL THEOLOGY:
Spiritual Vision - Contemplation

Mystical theology describes and recommends different states of prayer and modes of experiencing God.  It is especially associated with the notion of “contemplation,” or vision of God.

 

THE Latin word contemplatio is the equivalent of the Greek theoria.  In the writings of Plato theoria often refers to an exalted kind of seeing - an experience of “beholding” the truer world of the Forms which lies beyond the limited, material world.  Theoria is an act of “gazing”, “beholding”, which is also a participation in the reality which is seen.  Theoria connotes communion with “The One” who lies beyond even the realm of the Forms.  The notion of life devoted principally or exclusively to theoria is found also in Aristotle, who extolled the contemplative life (bios theoretikos) as the highest life possible for human beings (Nic.Eth. X, 7-8)

 


ATHANASIUS
of ALEXANDRIA

On the Incarnation

 Bishop Kallistos Ware

St. Athanasius.
  St. Katharines', Sinai,

On the Incarnation of the Word of God (De incarnatione verbi) NPNF2 4, pp. 65-66. Greek text ed.by C Kannengiesser, Sur l'incarnation du verbe, Sources Chrétiennes (Paris: Cerf, 1973) TLG 2035.002: 54.1.1-54.5.5 

2. [...] but rather let [us] be amazed that[:] 54.2  ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον θαυμαζέτω,

by so ordinary a means things divine have been manifested to us, 

ὅτι διὰ τοιούτου πράγματος εὐτελοῦς τὰ θεῖα ἡμῖν πεφανέρωται,

and that by death immortality has reached to all, 

καὶ διὰ τοῦ θανάτου ἡ ἀθανασία εἰς πάντας ἔφθασε,̈

and that by the Word becoming man, the universal providence has been known,

καὶ διὰ τῆς ἐνανθρωπήσεως τοῦ Λόγου ἡ τῶν πάντων ἐγνώσθη πρόνοια,

and its giver and creator the very Word of God.

καὶ ὁ ταύτης χορηγὸς καὶ Δημιουργὸς

3. FOR HE WAS MADE HUMAN

54.3 Αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν͵

SO THAT WE MIGHT BE DIVINIZED

ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν·

   

and He manifested Himself by a body
that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father;

καὶ αὐτὸς ἐφανέρωσεν ἑαυτὸν διὰ σώματος͵
 ἵνα ἡμεῖς τοῦ ἀοράτου Πατρὸς ἔννοιαν λάβωμεν·

 

ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGES

THE practice of Contemplation is central to the Eastern Orthodox spirituality of icons and iconography.

This is particularly well-illustrated in Andre Rubilev's Icon of the Blessed Trinity

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