Prayer and the Transformation of the Self in Early Christian Mystagogy

Hans van Loon (Editor), Giselle de Nie (Editor), Michiel Op de Coul (Editor), Peter van Egmond (Editor)

    Research output: Book/ReportBook editingScientificpeer-review

    Abstract

    This book is the second in a series on the mystagogy of the Church Fathers produced by the Netherlands Centre for Patristic Research. The first volume, Seeing through the Eyes of Faith: New Approaches to the Mystagogy of the Church Fathers (LAHR, 11), initiated the study of the Church Fathers as mystagogues, since this approach does more justice to the Fathers' own intention in writing a work or a sermon than does regarding them as theologians avant la lettre. Early Christian writers did not primarily seek to offer rational reflection on the faith as an objective in its own right, but their works were rather aimed at an existential transformation in their audience. The third volume (in preparation) will discuss early Christian mystagogy and the body. The present volume focuses on how the Church Fathers conceived prayer as an aspect of such a process of progressive transformation, and as a means to achieve an awareness of God as Mystery, with whom one could, paradoxically, communicate in prayer. In the essays collected here many aspects and dimensions of the mystagogy of early Christian prayer are examined: different kinds of prayer, their antecedents and their development over time; their historical, theoretical, and ritual contexts and meanings; and their noetic, imaginative, and physical strategies.
    Original languageEnglish
    Place of PublicationLouvain
    PublisherPeeters
    Number of pages510
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2018

    Publication series

    NameLate Antique History and Religion
    Volume18
    NameThe Mystagogy of the Church Fathers
    Volume5

    Keywords

    • patristics
    • church fathers
    • mystagogy

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