Introductory lecture

» Andrew Louth: The Origins of Christian Mystical Tradition. From Plato to Denys Oxford 2007

˃ not only Christian writers but also pagan philosophers

˃ a lot of fragments of source works

˃ clear and distinct language

˃ lacking of theurgical aspect of late Neoplatonism

˃ Iamblichus and Proclus only mentioned without wider presentation

» Norman Russell The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, Oxford 2004

˃ In Patristic tradition Deification had played a key role in understanding a mystical path

˃ Denys the Areopagite: deification is the union with God

» Gregory Shaw entitled: Theurgy and the soul. Neoplatonism of Iamlichus, Pennsylvania 1995

˃ Iamblichus view on philosophy which is understood as a platonization

of popular Greek religion

˃ this form of philosophy can be seen as a Cosmical Liturgy

˃ role of the material world and the signs (synthemata) in the way to God

» mysticism started to be a subject of regular study from the time of Plato

» writings of Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite are natural breaking point because his treatises are known in the East and West both

» formative period of Christian mystical theology

» formative period of mystical theology is bound up to the formative period of dogmatic theology

» today we experience separation between dogmatic and mystical theology

» today we think that contemplation is purely religious activity, that it is a kind of prayer

» theoretical means, that given problem has almost nothing in common with daily life

» in Ancient period there was no mystics without true knowledge of God and there was no knowledge of God without contemplation of Him and his works

» which works are known and proper

» in a 1899 W.R. Inge compared twenty five definitions

» today we there are two main definitions ˃ essentialistic

˃ epiristic

» focus on identity of human mystical experience

» human nature is more or less the same regardless of culture, religion, and historical period

» and the man is always experiencing the same supreme being

» mystical experience in all religions are basically the same

» mystical experience depends on culture, religion, period in history etc.

» Hans H. Penner: that there is no pure mystical experience which happens without the medium of language or culture

» there is almost nothing in common between mysticism in different religions

» D.L.Carmody and J.T.Carmody (Mysticism. Holiness East and West): „mysticism is immediate experience of final reality”

» obvious conclusion: in mystical experience there is something which is in common with all others and something unique

» Christian thinkers who red Pagan authors treated the contents of those works as their own experience (St Augustine)

» Christian mysticism although it is in its basics the same with Pagan tradition, brings something new and unique – nonexistent in earlier Greek heritage.

» The phenomenon which characterizes the whole of the first millennium of Christian theological thought ... is the use of Platonism as the form for [its] philosophical expression and the framework of the world-picture in terms of which the proclamation of revealed truths was made — in other words, Christian Platonism. (Ivanka, Plato Christianus)

» We must remember that Neoplatonism was composed of many philosophies.

» Platonism was indeed the strongest, but there was also Aristotelism in it, and of course elements of Stoicism.

» The key term in whole course is: nous.

» Every scholar has a problem of how to translate it. ˃ A. J. Festuriere – „...faculty called nous by the ancients, the ‘fine point

of the soul’ by St Francis de Sales, and the ‘heart’ by Pascal.”

˃ Stephen MacKenna; Andrew Smith - intelect

˃ Andrew Louth – mind, intelect, soul

Term „intellect” is the best because: - Marius Victorinus constantly translated nous as intellect - this term underlines passive vision of intellectual reality (contemplation)