|
Product Description
How did the monks of the Egyptian desert fight against the demons that attacked them with tempting thoughts? How could Christians resist the thoughts of gluttony, fornication, or pride that assailed them and obstructed their contemplation of God? According to Evagrius of Pontus (345 '399), one of the greatest spiritual directors of ancient monasticism, the monk should talk back to demons with relevant passages from the Bible. His book Talking Back (Antirrhaªtikos) lists over 500 thoughts or circumstances in which the demon-fighting monk might find himself, along with the biblical passages with which the monk should respond. It became one of the most popular books among the ascetics of Late Antiquity and the Byzantine East, but until now the entire text had not been translated into English. From Talking Back we gain a better understanding of Evagrius's eight primary demons: gluttony, fornication, love of money, sadness, anger, listlessness, vainglory, and pride. We can explore a central aspect of early monastic spirituality, and we get a glimpse of the temptations and anxieties that the first desert monks faced.
David Brakke is professor and chair of the Department of Religious Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences of Indiana University. He studied ancient Christianity at Harvard Divinity School and Yale University. Brakke is the author of Athanasius and Asceticism and Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity, and he edits the Journal of Early Christian Studies.
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
- The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times (French Edition)
- Dragon's Wine and Angel's Bread: The Teaching of Evagrius Ponticus on Anger and Meekness
- Time and Despondency: Regaining the Present in Faith and Life
- A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life
- The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection
- Spiritual Warfare and The Discernment of Spirits
- From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church
- Despondency: The Spiritual Teaching of Evagrius of Pontus
- Evagrius Ponticus: The Praktikos. Chapters on Prayer (Cistercian Studies)
- Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age
*If this is not the "Talking Back: A Monastic Handbook for Combating Demons (Cistercian Studies)" product you were looking for, you can check the other results by clicking this link. Details were last updated on Oct 22, 2024 12:54 +08.