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Kephalaia Gnostica
The ''Kephalaia Gnostika'' ( el, Γνωστικὰ Κεφάλαια, meaning ''Chapters on Knowledge'', or ''Propositions on Knowledge'') is a 4th-century work by Evagrius Ponticus. It is philosophical in nature, containing many themes on cosmology and metaphysics, and resembles the Neoplatonic ''Enneads'' in many ways. Structure The ''Kephalia Gnostika'' has 6 books, each with 90 propositions (or "chapters"). Manuscripts Although most, but not all, of the original Greek text has been lost, there is a Syriac manuscript in the British Museum that contains many clear Origenist theories which had been denounced at the Council of Constantinople in 553. This version is typically referred to as the Syriac S2 version and was thought to be the only Syriac version until Antoine Guillaumont discovered another more complete and original Syriac version in the mid-1900s. The other Syriac version, known as the Syriac S1 version, had been expurgated, with the more obvious Origenist content cen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evagrius Ponticus
Evagrius Ponticus ( grc-gre, Εὐάγριος ὁ Ποντικός, Georgian: ევაგრე ქართველი), also called Evagrius the Solitary (345–399 AD), was a Christian monk and ascetic from Heraclea, a city on the coast of Bithynia in Asia Minor. One of the most influential theologians in the late fourth-century church, he was well known as a thinker, polished speaker, and gifted writer. He left a promising ecclesiastical career in Constantinople and traveled to Jerusalem, where in 383 AD he became a monk at the monastery of Rufinus and Melania the Elder. He then went to Egypt and spent the remaining years of his life in Nitria and Kellia, marked by years of asceticism and writing. He was a disciple of several influential contemporary church leaders, including Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Macarius of Egypt. He was a teacher of others, including John Cassian and Palladius of Galatia. Life There are five main sources of information on Evag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religious Cosmology
Religious cosmology is an explanation of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe from a religious perspective. This may include beliefs on origin in the form of a creation myth, subsequent evolution, current organizational form and nature, and eventual fate or destiny. There are various traditions in religion or religious mythology asserting how and why everything is the way it is and the significance of it all. Religious cosmologies describe the spatial lay-out of the universe in terms of the world in which people typically dwell as well as other dimensions, such as the seven dimensions of religion; these are ritual, experiential and emotional, narrative and mythical, doctrinal, ethical, social, and material. Religious mythologies may include descriptions of an act or process of creation by a creator deity or a larger pantheon of deities, explanations of the transformation of chaos into order, or the assertion that existence is a matter of endless cyclical tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Philosophy
Christian philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Christians, or in relation to the religion of Christianity. Christian philosophy emerged with the aim of reconciling science and faith, starting from natural rational explanations with the help of Christian revelation. Several thinkers such as Augustine believed that there was a harmonious relationship between science and faith, others such as Tertullian claimed that there was contradiction and others tried to differentiate them. There are scholars who question the existence of a Christian philosophy itself. These claim that there is no originality in Christian thought and its concepts and ideas are inherited from Greek philosophy. Thus, Christian philosophy would protect philosophical thought, which would already be definitively elaborated by Greek philosophy. However, Boehner and Gilson claim that Christian philosophy is not a simple repetition of ancient philosophy, although they owe to Greek science the knowledge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphysics Literature
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality. The word "metaphysics" comes from two Greek words that, together, literally mean "after or behind or among he study ofthe natural". It has been suggested that the term might have been coined by a first century CE editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle's works into the treatise we now know by the name ''Metaphysics'' (μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, ''meta ta physika'', 'after the ''Physics'' ', another of Aristotle's works). Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist and what types of existence there are. Metaphysics seeks to answer, in an abstract and f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
4th-century Books
The 4th century (per the Julian calendar and Anno Domini/Common era Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the ...) was the time period which lasted from 301 (Roman numerals, CCCI) through 400 (Roman numerals, CD). In the West, the early part of the century was shaped by Constantine the Great, who became the Constantine the Great and Christianity, first Roman emperor to adopt Christianity. Gaining sole reign of the empire, he is also noted for re-establishing a single imperial capital, choosing the site of ancient Byzantium in 330 (over the current capitals, which had effectively been changed by Diocletian's reforms to Milan in the West, and Nicomedia, Nicomedeia in the East) to build the city soon called Nova Roma (New Rome); it was later renamed Constantinople in his honor. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hesychasm
Hesychasm (; Greek: Ησυχασμός) is a contemplative monastic tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church in which stillness (''hēsychia'') is sought through uninterrupted Jesus prayer. While rooted in early Christian monasticism, it took its definitive form in the 14th century at Mount Athos. Etymology Hesychasm ( el, , Modern ) derives from the word '' hesychia'' (, ), meaning "stillness, rest, quiet, silence" and ''hesychazo'' ( ) "to keep stillness". Origins and development Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, a scholar of Eastern Orthodox theology, distinguishes five distinct usages of the term "hesychasm": # "solitary life", a sense, equivalent to " eremitical life", in which the term is used since the 4th century; # "the practice of inner prayer, aiming at union with God on a level beyond images, concepts and language"; # "the quest for such union through the Jesus Prayer"; # "a particular psychosomatic technique in combination with the Jesus Prayer", use of which tec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plato's Theory Of Soul
Plato's theory of soul, which was inspired by the teachings of Socrates, considered the psyche ( ψυχή) to be the essence of a person, being that which decides how people behave. Plato considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of a person's being. Plato said that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. He believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn ( metempsychosis) in subsequent bodies. Plato divided the soul into three parts: the ''logistikon'' (reason), the ''thymoeides'' (spirit), and the ''epithymetikon'' (appetite). The conception of the soul Plato was the first person in the history of philosophy to believe that the soul was both the source of life and the mind. In Plato's dialogues, we find the soul playing many disparate roles. Among other things, Plato believes that the soul is what gives life to the body (which was articulated most of all in the ''Laws'' and ''Phaedrus'') in terms of self-motion: to be alive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thymos
''Thumos'' (also commonly spelled 'thymos'; grc-gre, θυμός) is the Ancient Greek concept of "spiritedness" (as in "a spirited stallion" or "spirited debate"). The word indicates a physical association with breath or blood and is also used to express the human desire for recognition. It is not a somatic feeling, as nausea and giddiness are. History In Homer's works, ''thumos'' was used to denote emotions, desire, or an internal urge. ''Thumos'' was a permanent possession of living man, to which his thinking and feeling belonged. When a Homeric hero is under emotional stress, he may externalize his ''thumos'' and converse with or scold it.Long, A. A. Psychological Ideas in Antiquity. In: ''Dictionary of the History of Ideas''. 1973-74 003br>link Plato's ''Phaedrus'' and his later work '' The Republic'' discuss ''thumos'' as one of the three constituent parts of the human psyche. In the ''Phaedrus'', Plato depicts ''logos'' as a charioteer driving the two horses ''eros'' an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nous
''Nous'', or Greek νοῦς (, ), sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, is a concept from classical philosophy for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real. Alternative English terms used in philosophy include "understanding" and "mind"; or sometimes " thought" or "reason" (in the sense of that which reasons, not the activity of reasoning). It is also often described as something equivalent to perception except that it works within the mind ("the mind's eye"). It has been suggested that the basic meaning is something like "awareness". In colloquial British English, ''nous'' also denotes " good sense", which is close to one everyday meaning it had in Ancient Greece. The nous performed a role comparable to the modern concept of intuition. In Aristotle's influential works, which are the main source of later philosophical meanings, nous was carefully distinguished from sense perception, imagination, and reason, although thes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melania The Elder
Melania the Elder, Latin Melania Maior (born in Spain, ca. 350–died in Jerusalem before 410 or in ca. 417) was a Desert Mother who was an influential figure in the Christian ascetic movement (the Desert Fathers and Mothers) that sprang up in the generation after the Emperor Constantine made Christianity a legal religion of the Roman Empire. She was a contemporary of, and well known to, Abba Macarius and other Desert Fathers in Egypt, Jerome, Augustine of Hippo, Paulinus of Nola (her cousin or cousin-in-law; he gives a colorful description of her visit to Nola in his Letters), and Evagrius of Pontus, and she founded two religious communities on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. She stands out for the convent she founded for herself and the monastery she established in honour of Rufinus of Aquileia, which belong to the earliest Christian communities, and because she promoted the asceticism which she, as a follower of Origen, considered indispensable for salvation. Life Melania ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter, between Substance theory, substance and Property (philosophy), attribute, and between potentiality and actuality. The word "metaphysics" comes from two Greek words that, together, literally mean "after or behind or among [the study of] the natural". It has been suggested that the term might have been coined by a first century CE editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle's works into the treatise we now know by the name Metaphysics (Aristotle), ''Metaphysics'' (μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, ''meta ta physika'', 'after the Physics (Aristotle), ''Physics'' ', another of Aristotle's works). Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
