Brock Bingaman - The Philokalia: A Classic Text of Orthodox Spirituality

The Philokalia

A Classic Text of
Orthodox Spirituality

EDITED BY
Brock Bingaman and Bradley Nassif

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Philokalia : a classic text of orthodox spirituality / edited by Brock Bingaman and Bradley Nassif.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-19-539026-1ISBN 978-0-19-539027-8
1. Philokalia. 2. Spiritual lifeEastern Orthodox Church.
I. Bingaman, Brock. II. Nassif, Bradley.
BX382.P43P55 2012
248.4819dc23 2011024978

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

For
Amanda

Brock

and
Barbara
whose virtues and noble character are more
precious than rubies (Pr. 31:1031)
Brad

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

The Church, wrote the Russian Orthodox theologian Archpriest Georges Florovsky, gives us not a system but a key; not a plan of Gods City, but the means of entering it. Perhaps someone will lose his way because he has no plan. But all that he will see, he will see directly, it will be real for him; while he who has studied only the plan, risks remaining outside and not really finding anything.

What Fr. Florovsky said of the Church is true equally of the Philokalia. It is precisely a book that gives us not a system but a key; not an abstract outline of the spiritual way, but the means of ourselves undertaking the journey. It is in that sense an eminently practical book, a book that invites us to see directly, to explore and discover for ourselves. It provides not information but wisdom. It is not systematic, and it does not attempt to offer a single, all-embracing theory of the life of prayer. Yet, if read attentively and with an open mind, the texts that it containswritten by some thirty-six writers, extending chronologically over more than a millenniumhave the power to alter our inner world, to effect a radical change in our will, and to reveal to us possibilities that previously we never imagined possible. The authors in the Philokalia write, not in an academic or scholastic spirit, but on the basis of their personal experience; and they ask of us that in our turn we will read their words in a personal and experiential manner. In the phrase that Cardinal Newman chose as his motto, Cor ad cor loquitur, Heart speaks to heart.

The Philokalia is not an easy book. We have to make the effort to climb the slopes of the mountain if we are to enjoy the view from the summit. Yet those who persist will find that the basic message of the Philokalia is exceedingly simple. It is summed up in the words of one of the authors close to the end of the work, Kallistos Kataphygiotis: The greatest thing that happens between God and the human soul is to love and to be loved. This basic message of mutual love is worked out in terms of the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, and in terms also of a unified, holistic view of human nature that assigns a positive role to our body. It is this mutual love that gives meaning to the recitation of the Jesus Prayer, about which the Philokalia has much to say; and it is this mutual love that leads ultimately, in the experience of the saints, to the vision of divine and uncreated Light. In the philokalic vision of the truth, love is both our starting-point and our end-point.

The authors in the Philokalia were writing in a world very different from our own, and yet what they have to say is startlingly relevant. Although this is not its immediate aim, the Philokalia has clear and challenging implications for the way in which we confront the major public crises in contemporary society, whether in politics, in international relations, or in the realm of ecology. For it speaks to us not only about inner prayer but also about the transfiguration of the world. It speaks about a God who is totally transcendent yet totally immanent, who is mystery beyond all understanding but who is also directly present in everything that he has made.

Indeed, when the first volume of extracts chosen from the Philokalia was published in 1951, The Catholic Herald commented, This selection is one of the most important spiritual treatises ever to be translated into English. These are bold affirmations; but readers of the present volume, edited by Dr. Brock Bingaman and Dr. Bradley Nassif, will perhaps begin to understand why such claims have been made. The aim of the editors and contributors will be amply fulfilled if this collective work enables our readers to study the actual text of the Philokalia with deeper understanding and with an ever-increasing imaginative sympathy.

Kallistos Ware
Metropolitan of Diokleia

PREFACE

The present volume is the fruit of fine scholars from around the world, from Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant traditions. It has been a joy working with these women and men on a project that will initiate further studies into this great collection of Orthodox spirituality known as the