A History of Christian Spirituality: An Analytical Introduction

by Urban T. Holmes III

Overview

This modern classic explores the key concepts and people who have shaped our Christian spiritual heritage.

Concise and readable Holmes begins this introduction to Christian spirituality with the Jewish antecedents, and proceeds through the New Testament period, monasticism, the Middle Ages, Byzantine spirituality, and the modern period. Holmes ends his overview with key contemporary figures such as Simone Weil, Thomas Merton, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Brief bibliographies of the books written by each notable figure are included for those who wish to read more extensively.

A History of Christian Spirituality is the perfect book for introductory classes at the M. Div. level, for diaconate programs, lay people or parish study classes of all Christian denominations, and for any reference collection. This is a unique and invaluable learning tool and reference for readers, students, or teachers who want a quick explanation of the significance of a person or idea, or who are interested in a broad overview of the entire field.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780819225511
Publisher:	Morehouse Publishing
Publication date:	02/01/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	386 KB

About the Author

Urban T. Holmes III (1930–1981) was an Episcopal priest, and served as Dean of the School of Theology at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. He was a prolific writer whose books include What is Anglicanism?, a bestselling introduction to the faith, and A History of Christian Spirituality, also available in the Library of Episcopalian Classics.

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A HISTORY of CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY

An Analytical Introduction

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By Urban T. Holmes III

Church Publishing, Inc.

Copyright © 2002 Jane Holmes
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8192-2551-1

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CHAPTER 1

The Early Church

Jewish Antecedents

The spirituality of Judaism in the centuries prior to Christ was largely kataphatic and speculative. It was grounded in synagogal worship, which consisted principally of the reading and interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament) and the reciting of the prayers nourished by those Scriptures, particularly the blessing/thanksgiving (called the Berakah).

These images dominate: d'ath or knowledge (hokmah or wisdom), the Shekinah of Jewish mysticism, and poverty.

1. D'ath is the kind of knowing that is not just about something, but that takes possession of the person known. It is the knowledge which gives birth to confidence. It is to accept mystery, not deny it. It is to discern the designs of God. The Jewish sage—as in Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus, the Wisdom of Solomon, etc.—is one who possess d'ath or hokmah. It comes from a lifetime of reading the Hebrew Scriptures, praying them, and reflecting upon them.

2. Shekinah means the dwelling of God with his people perceived, not in idols but as one would see the sun's rays coming from behind a dark cloud. It is the manifestation of God. It is the provisional presence of God, not the God present in the Day of Yahweh or at the consummation of all things. It is the presence of God in the Holy of Holies of the Temple or where two or three meet to meditate upon the Torah, or where a righteous judge makes a decision. (The Torah at this time meant more than the first five books of the Old Testament. It also meant interpretation and tradition.) As the psalmist writes, "In thy light do we see light" (36:9). The notion of the Shekinah and d'ath is a theme that will recur in Christian mysticism as mystery and gnosis.

The Shekinah is the presence of the holy in the midst of the profane. But the metaphor is that the Shekinah is like the sun; it is everywhere. Yahweh is present in the totality of his creation. He can appear in a burning bush as much as in the Holy of Holies. The Shekinah is particularly present in the charismatic person. While protecting the strict monotheism of Judaism, a parallel had to be noted between the Christian notion of the Holy Spirit and the "spirit of the Shekinah."

It is interesting that in the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Kabbalah, a Jewish mystical sect, the Shekinah becomes the feminine principle in the ten emanations of God, known as the Sefiret. This form of Judaism was directly influenced by Neo-Platonism, which shall be discussed later.

The idea of mystery in Judaism has its roots in the Persian and Greek influences upon the Jews during the intertestamental period. There is a fringe of rabbinical Judaism, known as the haaminim, who were concerned for mystery. The Essenes, a sect within Palestinian Judaism before and after the time of Jesus, were influenced by these Persian and Greek speculations. From the second century B.C., there were closed mystical sects within Judaism. There also was an inner dynamic within the Pharisees toward mysticism. It has been argued that within the Diaspora there was a symbolic understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures, more like that of the Christians of the third century than of the Palestinian and Babylonian rabbinic tradition.

3. In the days of the patriarchs wealth was a sign of God's pleasure. This is not true of later Judaism. When there seems to be no reasonable hope in this world, an intentionally religious people may develop an apocalypticism: the belief that God is breaking into the world to bring everything to a conclusion. It is often associated with the anticipation of Messiah and/or millennialism (i.e., the end of a thousand years). Apocalypticism is characteristic of oppressed people, the "have nots." Their expectations are not cluttered with the things of this world. The Jews under the Chaldeans, the Persians, the Seleucids, the Ptolomies, and the Romans—all before the time of Christ—were such an oppressed people. Poverty became an ascetical virtue. The psalmist says, "I know that the Lord maintains the cause of the afflicted, and executes justice for the needy" (140:12). The notion of poverty, sometimes in an exaggerated form, was to occur in Christianity as well.

One concluding note needs to be made. A Jewish Hellenistic philosopher, Philo (c. 20 B.C.–C. A. D. 50) will influence the Christian ascetical tradition particularly in two ways: First, he may well have been the father of both pagan and Christian mysticism in his theory that the Spirit of God takes the place in humanity of our spirit, as finds expression in the mind, or nous; Second, in his teaching that the allegorical method of biblical interpretation gives access to the hidden, true meaning of the Scriptures.

There will be frequent references to Philo as this study unfolds. His methods, as well as his categories, become a bridge, not only between the Hebrew Scriptures and the Hellenistic culture but also between Greek Christians and their Jewish roots. This is a time of apology, translation, and syncretism. There is no "pure strain" of any culture—Jewish, Greek, Persian, Roman—and the intellectual of the age sought to express his experience of God in such a way that he could identify, clarify, and share it so that it was understandable to the greatest number of people. Philo was a skillful and imaginative thinker and did just this preeminently.

Instrumental Images

Poverty

Allegorical method of interpretation

Terminal Images

Shekinah

Wisdom

New Testament

The people of the New Testament are, in the main, Jewish. The spirituality of the New Testament, particularly the Synoptics, is Jewish. It is kataphatic. Since it is not the religion of the Jewish intelligentsia, it is more affective than speculative.

In the Synoptics three images are introduced: metanoia, the desert, and purity of heart. Christian spirituality, building upon its Jewish roots—including gnosis or wisdom, the Shekinah, and poverty—will develop these synoptic images.

Metanoia is translated as "repentance." "John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance (metanoia) for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1:4). Metanoia means literally to change one's mind. It is related to gnosis and will later be appropriated in a new way as the church builds on Philo's Hellenistic notion of the Spirit of God in the mind of humanity. Even here it does not mean just being sorry for your sins. It is to welcome the judgment of God and his transforming power into whatever we are—and fundamentally we are what we think!

The desert or wilderness, in both John the Baptist and Jesus as in the Old Testament, is a place of encounter. It is there that we wrestle with the demons and the angels, because that is where they are found—more so than in the city. This image has to do with poverty, not only poverty of material wealth but poverty as nakedness of spirit. "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:3).

Another image of poverty, which is related to the Shekinah, is purity of heart. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8). Sören Kierkegaard defined purity of heart as the ability to will one thing. This relates it to gnosis and metanoia, but also to a willingness to see in the light of God. Purity of heart and its promise of seeing God provide an archetypical image for Christian spirituality in all ages.

Paul is less affective than the Synoptics. The Middle Platonic notion that humankind is tripartite—composed of body, soul, and spirit—appears to be a commonplace assumption for him. It is presumptuous to compress Paul's spirituality into one or two images, but one or two such images can be suggestive of the complexity of his thought. Such a consideration can begin with the verse: "But we have the mind {nous} of Christ" (I Cor. 2:16). To this we can add verses such as "And do not be conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind {nous}" (Rom. 12:2); and "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind {nous}" (Eph. 4:23). Perhaps the best known statement by St. Paul of this kind is: "Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5). The difference from the other verses lies in the use of the verb phroneite literally: "Think this {thing} in yourselves, which {thing} is in Christ Jesus."

In the Synoptics, thinking as Christ thinks is the same thing as repenting. The call to transformation by the renewal of our minds is what metanoia means. Like Philo, Paul holds that the union with God comes about as the Spirit of God—which sometimes appears to be confused with Christ—possesses the person. As one would expect in the first century, this is explained in terms of the mind. With this before us we can understand how Paul deals with the problem of humanity's fundamental sinfulness, as in Rom. 7:21–8:5. In this passage Paul tells us that the law of sin wars against the law of the mind, but that when we have the mind of Christ we can overcome the lower self, where the law of sin rules. For those who say there is no mysticism, save possibly some eschatological expectation, in Paul this passage from Romans appears to be a clear refutation.

Let us not try to avoid as well the fact that there is a call to ascetical practice in Paul, which has inspired the church down through the centuries. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12). This is not a Pelagian admonition, but neither is it a testimony to the total depravity of man. For Paul the Christian is like an athlete—another image we need to remember—who constantly trains that he might win the prize: the appropriation of God's gift of himself revealed in Christ.

For Paul the image of the Cross is what opens the mind to the Spirit. "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Cor. 1:18). The Cross is the imaginative shock that blows the filters of humanity's awareness and opens us to the grace—i.e., the power and presence of God—that bestows upon us the mind of Christ.

What is it we have when we have the mind of Christ: "the mystery {to musteoion} hidden for ages and generations and now made manifest to his saints" (Col. 1:26). This mystery is the great secret of God's plan for humanity, revealed in Jesus Christ. It is interesting that Paul has ambivalent feelings about gnosis, knowledge, but occasionally it creeps in as a positive virtue. For example, in Colossians 2:3 he tells us that the love (agape) of God will unite us in the knowledge (epignosis and gnosis) of the mystery.

For the fourth gospel is kataphatic, but perhaps a bit more affective than Paul, yet not as much as the Synoptics. The predominant image here is light versus darkness. The glory (doxa), which is the Shekinah, the veiled evidence of God's presence, is the light. Light is life. "In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.... We have beheld his glory, glory as the only Son from the Father" (John 1:4–5, 14).

As in Paul, the Cross is an important image, but not so much an imaginative shock as it is an image of glory. The Evangelist plays on the Greek word airein, by which he obviously implies both lifting up on the Cross and lifting up to exalt. There is not so much scandal here as in Paul.

Furthermore, the goal of the spiritual life is not gnosis but agape (love). It is not an affective, emotional love, however. It is the love exemplified in the Cross, the washing of feet, and the caring for the unlovable. One thing we will discover is the way in which knowledge and love vary in importance as the manifestation of the presence of God in the person open to his grace. In the third, fourth, and fifth centuries knowledge will prevail, in the eleventh through the fourteenth love will take over.

The centrality of the image of love in the forth gospel is perhaps surprising, since the Evangelist begins with a discussion of logos, clearly evoking thoughts of the Stoic principle of the unifying reason (i.e., Logos), which pervades the cosmos. Logos (reason) and sophia (wisdom) are both related to gnosis. In the Stoic anthropology every person has a seed of reason, Logos spermatikos, which image both describes humanity as possessing a potentiality for union with the divine—i.e., humanity as spirit—and suggesting the purpose of an ascetical discipline: the cultivation of that seed. The Evangelist does not follow this line of argument, but subsequent spiritual masters shall.

Instrumental Images Terminal Images

Metanoia
Mind of Christ
Christian athlete
Light
Cross
Love (agape)
Purity of heart Logos

The Apostolic Fathers

The writings of the post-New Testament authors tend to be naïve until the sophisticated discourse of Irenaeus of Lyon. They have a kataphatic yet moderately speculative bent.

The gift of gnosis is a dominating image, although the second century struggled with the heretical Gnostics. Therefore it is necessary to define carefully what is meant by knowledge. We have to keep in mind that this period lives in the disappointment of the apocalyptic expectations of both the Jews, as in the insurrection against Rome of A.D. 70 and A.D. 135, and the Christians, who expected the Parousia and got the church. Gnosticism as an heretical doctrine was an ahistorical dualism, based upon a metaphysic in which the world was divided among spirit, soul, and matter, exemplified in three distinct kinds of people. The eventual evolution of Christian gnosticism is an historical dualism, in which the victory of God—creator, redeemer, and sanctifier—over the powers of evil is resolved in the possibility of the knowledge of God for all humankind.

The Epistle of Barnabas, the author tells us, is written that our knowledge may be perfected. Such knowledge is, however, a gift of God. If someone has it, the unforgivable sin is to turn away into darkness. Knowledge and light are synonymous. "The way of light is this: if someone is willing to journey on the way to the appointed place, let him make haste with his works. Therefore the knowledge {gnosis} that has been given to us {is} to walk about in this sort of way" (Barnabas 19:1). Then follows a series of commandments, which includes a demand that one be simple in heart and full of the Spirit.

Simplicity of heart, aplotes, is the same thing as purity of heart, which is a great concern of the Apostolic Fathers. This biblical image should be kept clearly in mind, and we need to recall its relation to poverty. The opposite of purity of heart is double-mindedness (dipsychia). Double-mindedness particularly horrifies the Shepherd of Hermas. "Consider this double-mindedness: for it is wicked and foolish, and uproots many from faith; yes, even those who are very faithful and strong." Double-mindedness is to serve both God and mammon. In a world where martyrdom was a distinct possibility, one can understand how important it was only to live to be given the gift of the knowledge of God.

Encratism comes out of a pursuit of poverty carried to a logical absurdity, a kind of "quietism with a vengeance." Excessive zeal for purity of heart leads to encratism. The word is Greek, meaning self-controlled or disciplined. Polycarp, in his letter to the Philippians, for example, says that deacons are to be "temperate {enkrateis} in all things" (Phil. 5:1). But temperance is "in the eye of the beholder." Tatian, claimed by some to be the "father" of encratism, a gnostic heresy, despised all Greek culture, rejected matrimony as a form of adultery, and condemned both the use of meat in any form and the drinking of wine. One of the practices of the encratites was self-castration, celebrated corporately on occasion by running through the city streets holding one's testicles aloft. A Puritanism untempered by reason and suspicious of positive feelings is always in danger of encratism.

Of course, the most extreme expression of encratism was martyrdom. The word literally means to witness, and came to identify witness by death. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH (Feast day: October 17) wrote to the Romans, living in the city to which he was being brought to suffer death, "Suffer me to be eaten by the beasts, through whom I can attain to God" (Rom. 4:1). This is as clear an expression of ascetical practice as one can find! A whole theology of martyrdom developed around this experience. While it has roots in Judaism (cf. 2 Maccabees 6:7–7:41), martyrdom was related to baptism and the Eucharist, and the church was very ambivalent about those who openly sought martyrdom.

The imitation of Christ relates most directly to the wish to be assimilated to Christ. IRENAEUS (Feast day: June 28) countered the gnostic heresies by arguing for an understanding of Christ grounded in Paul's speculations of Christ as the "second Adam" (1. Cor. 15:45) and the Logos Christology of the fourth gospel. This is called recapitulation. What we lost by the sin of the first Adam we have regained and then some by our identification with the Christ, centering in his Passion. The true gnosis is the Logos of Christ, which illumines the free will of humanity, enabling it to conquer sin and death and become like God.
(Continues...)

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Excerpted from A HISTORY of CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY by Urban T. Holmes III. Copyright © 2002 Jane Holmes. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing, Inc..
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Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword by O. C. Edwards, Jr.          

Preface          

Introduction          

I. The Early Church          

II. The Middle Ages          

III. Byzantine Spirituality          

IV. The Modern Period          

Index of Names          

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

". . . this 150 page survey manages to accomplish the kinds of things we expect from much more substantial works. Holmes includes virtually every major figure in the history of Christian spirituality, and locates each major trend within its larger historical context. He attempts a systematic categorization of the varieties of spirituality: a typography. And most striking of all, he evinces an understanding, a sense of wisdom, throughout . . . anyone interested in spirituality will find it a helpful introduction and overview. But those who have devoted years to the practice and the study of spirituality will welcome this reprint. They will find much to argue with Holmes definitely challenges a number of common assumptions, and his system seems almost calculated to provoke fellow pilgrims on the journey."
—The Episcopal New Yorker

"Part of Morehouse's Library of Episcopalian Classics, by the late well-respected teacher and writer Urban Holmes, still our church's best apologist for main stream Anglicanism. This book is an excellent introduction to and overview of the history and field of Christian spirituality. A must-have." —The Living Church

"This modern classic explores the key concepts and people who have shaped our Christian spiritual heritage."
—Cokesbury Good Books catalog

Editorial Reviews

". . . this 150 page survey manages to accomplish the kinds of things we expect from much more substantial works. Holmes includes virtually every major figure in the history of Christian spirituality, and locates each major trend within its larger historical context. He attempts a systematic categorization of the varieties of spirituality: a typography. And most striking of all, he evinces an understanding, a sense of wisdom, throughout . . . anyone interested in spirituality will find it a helpful introduction and overview. But those who have devoted years to the practice and the study of spirituality will welcome this reprint. They will find much to argue with Holmes definitely challenges a number of common assumptions, and his system seems almost calculated to provoke fellow pilgrims on the journey."
—The Episcopal New Yorker

"Part of Morehouse's Library of Episcopalian Classics, by the late well-respected teacher and writer Urban Holmes, still our church's best apologist for main stream Anglicanism. This book is an excellent introduction to and overview of the history and field of Christian spirituality. A must-have." —The Living Church

"This modern classic explores the key concepts and people who have shaped our Christian spiritual heritage."
—Cokesbury Good Books catalog

From the Publisher