Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Eastern Orthodox

I just finished reading Eastern Orthodox Christianity this weekend. Don’t bother looking for it on the “What I am reading” sidebar; I’m way behind on that. But, it has been a very good read. I have always had a high regard for the church fathers, but tended to neglect the Eastern fathers after about 500. I find now that this has been to my detriment. I am going to begin repairing that by trying to obtain a copy of the Philokalia, which is a compendium of Orthodox thought from about the 4th century through the 17th. It runs about 5 volumes, of which 4 are available in English. I found them here, but have no idea when the fifth volume will appear.

Anyway, here is a marvelous quote from Maximus the Confessor (580-662):

If anything in these chapters should prove useful to the soul, it will be revealed to the reader by the grace of God, provided that he reads, not out of curiosity, but in the fear and love of God. If a man reads this or any other work not to gain spiritual benefit, but to track down matter with which to abuse the author, so that in his conceit he can show himself to be the more learned, nothing profitable will ever be revealed to him in anything.

<idle musing>
Well put, whatever tradition it comes from!
</idle musing>

3 comments:

Kevin P. Edgecomb said...

I wrote to Faber & Faber asking about the release date of Philokalia, vol. 5. They haven't heard from Bishop Kallistos (Ware) in years, so there may not be a fifth volume. I believe he's the sole surviving translator of the group. If I learn more, I'll let you know. I've heard mention of a copy in private circulation, so perhaps my F&F contact was simply mistaken.

jps said...

Kevin,

Thanks for checking. If you do find out anything further, please let me know.

James

Siobhan said...

Ahoy James!
Bishop Kallistos retired in 2001. He is a much revered Bishop among us Orthodox faithful. He seems to have enjoyed retirement and has led pilgrimages throughout the world, notably to Mt. Athos, Israel and to Iona, Scotland.

The Eastern Orthodox world is pretty small, if you know what I mean. Bishop Kallistos does still travel to Mt. Athos and I have no doubt he is still working on the 5th volume. Much of the work is on monastic life, and it may well end up that he finds that the 5th volume is simply repetitious of the others and so he may deem it to be redundant.

The Philokalia is by nature, a monastic text, and it may be that they've exhausted public interest in it. Much of what was edited out of the other volumes were pretty dry reading even for scholars. Also, it's important to note that the Philokalia was widely available for the last couple centuries in Russia, but western audiences did not seem to "discover it" until the last half of the 20th century.

Anyway, I wish you all the best on your "idle musings". They are beautiful indeed!
And St. Maximos the confessor is one of my favorite Orthodox saints of all time. :)
Best wishes!