BENEDICT AND MONASTICISM

BENEDICT AND MONASTICISM

BENEDICT'S MONASTIC THEOLOGY AND PRACTICE

The adjective "monastic" is used here for lack of a better term. It is true Byzantine theology of the period is often associated with "Hesychasm" - a movement traced back to the writings of Nicephorus the Hesychast, and other spiritual authors of the late thirteenth century, who promoted a psychosomatic method of using the "Jesus prayer". However, the theological trend, represented in the fourteenth century by Palamism, was not coextensive, or identical with individual ascetic mysticism, evoked by the term "hesychasm". Palamas himself, when he refers to recent "authorities" for his own theological formulations, mentions ...