[Asceticism and Mystical Theology.doc]

 

 

6. EXEGESIS of  the SCRIPTURES
 and of
the SOUL: SPIRITUAL EXERCISE
 

 

 

6.1 Nepsis

In the Christian ascetical tradition there is an interrelationship between biblical exegesis and the exercise of nepsis, “watchfulness over thoughts.”  The practice of reciting and meditating Sacred Scripture as a means purifying the soul and shielding it from temptation is common to many religious traditions.  Attentive observation of emotional reactions and subjective psychological states had long been a part of the Middle Platonic and Stoic philosophical traditions, whose texts were familiar to successive generations of Christian authors beginning with the philosopher Justin Martyr (d. 165).  Ethical treatises and collections of sayings attributed to ancient philosophers served as handbooks for moral progress.  Christian authors, however, preferred to find models of virtuous life and solutions to moral dilemmas in the texts of sacred scripture.  At the most basic practical level biblical texts were recommended as therapeutic aids to be deployed in circumstances of moral struggle, often experienced as temptations to sin.  Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373) recommended particular psalms to be recited during specific affective and ethical trials (Letter to Marcellinus 15-26; Gregg 1980: 114-123; see Kolbet 2006).  The monk Evagrius Ponticus (d.399) wrote detailed spiritual and psychological analyses of this practice in Praktikos and On Thoughts; and in the treatise Antirrhetikos he collected 498 therapeutic bible verses to be used in the struggle against the eight principal logosmoi¸or tempting-thoughts of gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, despondency, acedia, vainglory, and pride.


6.2. Biblical Exegesis

The inner purity effected by biblical meditation and other ascetical practices was considered a prerequisite to contemplation of the deeper, mystical meanings of the sacred text.  Biblical meditation and exegesis were considered both a necessary ascetical practice and a potential opportunity for contemplation, since the bible came to be regarded as both an inspired record of encounters with God and a privileged locus of mystical experience for those who meditated on the text. Christianity had inherited from Middle Platonism, especially Philo of Alexandria (d.c. 50), a conviction that biblical texts contain deeper meanings, logoi¸ concealed beneath the literal or historical sense of the text.  The principal early Christian exponents of this approach were Clement of Alexandria (d. 215) and Origen (d. 254) who believed that beneath the historical “letter” of the text there can be discerned at least three spiritual levels.  First is a moral or “tropological” sense that invites inner ethical renewal and external acts of compassion.  At a deeper level the mystical or allegorical sense presents Christian doctrine in veiled, symbolic metaphors (see Smalley 1964: 6-13). John Cassian (d. 430) added a fourth heavenly or eschatological level that he called “anagogical”, at which the biblical text mysteriously transcends time and affords a glimpse of the eternal world to come (Conference 14, 6.1-11.1; Ramsey 1997: 505-517).


6.3. Diakrisis

In the ascetical practice of diakrisis, “discernment,” the skills acquired through biblical meditation and exegesis are focused inward on the soul.  As Peter Brown has written, “The monk’s own heart was the new book. What required infinitely skilled exegesis and long spiritual experience were the ‘movements of the heart,’ and the strategies and snares that the Devil laid within it.” (Brown 1988: 229).  Athanasius, Evagrius, and John Cassian all wrote extensively on this subject. At its most fundamental level diakrisis/discernment is the ascetical project of determining the origin and significance of thoughts and dreams, distinguishing between harmful and helpful subjective experiences.  This exercise of differentiating thoughts is not simply an initial rung on a ladder of spiritual progress, but rather a skill that must be practiced daily throughout life, since temptation endures until the moment of death. (Evagrius, Praktikos 36; Sinkewicz 2003: 104)  In a process analogous to the exercise of biblical exegesis the ascetic develops prosochē, attentiveness to the inner world of thoughts, desires, and fantasies, and then learn through paratērēsis, thoughtful observation, to distinguish the origins of these experiences. Evagrius Ponticus repeated and developed the insights of Antony and Athanasius, employing a threefold approach that distinguishes between: (1) angelic noēmata that educate and console the mind, leading it to God; (2) neutral thoughts that arise from memory and sense-perception; and (3) demonic logismoi, tempting thoughts and fantasies that pervert the natural powers of the mind and lead it into error. Angelic noēmata are characterized by feelings of peace and “are concerned with the inner nature of things and with searching out their spiritual principles.” Human thoughts are characterized by simple images, unclouded by passion. Demonic logismoi, in contrast, are disturbing or terrifying and incline the soul towards passion and vice.  (Evagrius, Praktikos 80, On Thoughts 8; Sinkewicz 2003: 110, 158).


6.4. Spiritual Exercise

Closely related to the disciplines of discernment and biblical meditation is the practice of “spiritual exercise.”  Its antecedents lie in the classical genres of ethical treatises and moral-philosophical wisdom sayings or gnomai, such as the Stoic Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the Neo-Pythagorean chreia of Clitarchus and the Pythagorean Sentences.  These collections served as handbooks for the acquisition of virtue and were sometimes arranged in intriguing thematic clusters intended to stimulate intellectual reflection and guide moral improvement. (Cribiore 2005: 167, 201-204; Cribiore 1996: 316).  Such texts were evidently of interest to early Christians who rearranged and expanded them, adding Christian proverbs and succinct exegetical reflections to the pagan gnomai, creating treatises intended to lead the reader to specifically Christian insights or affective experiences.  The second-century Sentences of Sextus and the third-century Stromata of Clement of Alexandria are among the earliest Christian collections of this type, although similar chains of ethical and exegetical gnomai may be found in earlier catechetical texts such as the Didache and the Letter of Barnabas.  Evagrius Ponticus produced numerous collections of pedagogically-arranged chains of proverbs and exegetical sentences intended to sequentially lead the reader from ethical improvement to contemplation of God in creation and history, and finally to contemplation of the divine nature.  Maximus Confessor (d. 662) developed the genre further in his Centuries, compilations of one hundred carefully-structured, brief meditations that guide the reader and reinterpret earlier Christian collections

        These early forms of spiritual exercise had as their goal both moral improvement and contemplative experience.  In the Christian East the rituals and texts of the eucharistic celebration came to be regarded as a constantly-repeated spiritual exercise that was explained in guides and commentaries that remain popular today, as will be described.  In the medieval West spiritual exercises increasingly focused on the life of Christ, particularly his passion and death; and guided meditations by Bernard (d. 1153), Aelred (d. 1167), and Bonaventure (d. 1274) popularized this approach.  A more personal element was introduced by Gertrude of Helfta (d.c. 1302) who wrote the first treatise to bear the title Spiritual Exercises, in which she invited her readers to prayerfully reflect on solemn religious events in their own past, such as baptism and monastic profession, in order discover new meanings in them.  The Spiritual Exercises of Abbot García de Cisneros of Montserrat (d.1510) anticipated and inspired the more famous Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola (d. 1556) who was briefly a retreatant at Montserrat.  Cisneros’ exercises invite the ascetic practitioner to punctuate the monastic timetable with specific prayers and meditations intended to raise the soul over a four-week period from ethical purification to the contemplation of God in creation, and finally to a sense of mystical union.  Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercise, in contrast, are guidelines for the director of a retreat wholly oriented towards discernment.  For Ignatius the discernment of spirits described above is not the principal goal, but is rather the means to a higher end: namely, the discovery of clear direction in the form of God’s will with regard to an important vocational choice.  Ignatius’ month-long Exercises are intended to enable the soul to discern “Christ’s banner” hovering over an important life choice, and then to form a clear resolution to follow it. (Spiritual Exercises, Week 2, Day 4; Mullan 1914: 73-76)

 

 

 

 


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