Dominic White - The Lost Knowledge of Christ: Contemporary Spiritualities, Christian Cosmology, and the Arts

Against a broad sweep of Christian tradition and nonreligious and contemporary spiritualities, Dominic White, warmly and tantalizingly, invites the reader to leave the prison of our heads and join the risen Lord and his community of divinized human beings, cosmic people. Opening up the great lost tradition of cosmology through five sourcesScripture, apocryphal writings, the Church Fathers, the liturgy, and Christian artthis dancing friar passionately explores liturgy and art, the great carriers of Christian cosmology, through different ways of knowing, escaping analysis. This is a book to return to for both information and to reconnect with lost treasure.

Elizabeth Baxter

Priest and Executive Director of Holy Rood House,
Centre for Health and Pastoral Care, and
The Centre for the Study of Theology and Health

So much of Christianity has been deprived of its context. Fr. Dominic White reconstructs this Lost Knowledgethe original cosmologyby leading us from lesser-known writings of the early Christians to the art, customs, and liturgy of later times. These are more familiar but now not fully understood because they too have lost their context. In this book we meet a brilliant mind, a warm heart, and a gentle humor that open up the somehow familiar world of our ancient cosmology and shed new (or old?) light on current disputes and concerns in the church.

Dr. Margaret Barker

Author of Temple Themes in Christian Worship

This is a courageous book. The author dares to venture into forms of spirituality which may sound bizarre and are easily dismissed and there detects a hunger for aspects of our Christian tradition which have been largely forgotten. It is scholarly, daring, and beautifully written, a rare combination.

Timothy Radcliffe, OP

Author of Stations of the Cross

In this brave and engaging book, Fr. Dominic White takes us on a voyage of exploration in search of the lost knowledge of Christ: a lost knowledge of the Cosmic Christ and a spiritual cosmology of angels and the heavens. Exploring hidden (apocryphal) scriptures and the deeper meaning of the Christian liturgy, and drawing on music and the arts, Fr. Dominic helps us discern a renewed and renewing vision of Christ and the cosmos and the place of the human within it.

The Very Reverend Archpriest Andrew Louth, FBA
Professor Emeritus of Patristic and Byzantine Studies

Durham University, UK

Nihil Obstat: Timothy Radcliffe, OP, censor deputatis

A Michael Glazier Book published by Liturgical Press

Cover design by Jodi Hendrickson. Cover image: Wikimedia Commons.

Excerpts from documents of the Second Vatican Council are from the Vatican website.

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

2015 by Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, microfilm, microfiche, mechanical recording, photocopying, translation, or by any other means, known or yet unknown, for any purpose except brief quotations in reviews, without the previous written permission of Liturgical Press, Saint Johns Abbey, PO Box 7500, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321-7500. Printed in the United States of America.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

White, Dominic.

The lost knowledge of Christ : contemporary spiritualities, christian cosmology, and the arts / Dominic White.

pages cm

A Michael Glazier book.

ISBN 978-0-8146-8269-2 ISBN 978-0-8146-8294-4 (ebook)

1. Biblical cosmology. 2. SpiritualityChristianity. 3. Christianity and other religions. I. Title.

BS651.W4248 2015
231.7dc23

2014023485

This book is dedicated to the beloved memory of
three people who cared about truth:

My father, Raymond Gerard White (19422013),
my aunt, Ellen Louise Brush (19522011),
and Stratford Francis Caldecott (19532014).