Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church

George E. Demacopoulos

Description

In late antiquity the rising number of ascetics who joined the priesthood faced a pastoral dilemma. Should they follow a traditional, demonstrably administrative, approach to pastoral care, emphasizing doctrinal instruction, the care of the poor, and the celebration of the sacraments? Or should they bring to the parish the ascetic models of spiritual direction, characterized by a more personal spiritual father/spiritual disciple relationship? Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church explores the struggles of five clerics (Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Augustine of Hippo, John Cassian, and Pope Gregory I) to reconcile their ascetic idealism with the reality of pastoral responsibility. Through a close reading of Greek and Latin texts, George E. Demacopoulos explores each pastor's criteria for ordination, his supervision of subordinate clergy, and his methods of spiritual direction. He argues that the evolution in spiritual direction that occurred during this period reflected and informed broader developments in religious practices. Demacopoulos describes the way in which these authors shaped the medieval pastoral traditions of the East and the West. Each of the five struggled to balance the tension between his ascetic idealism and the realities of the lay church. Each offered distinct (and at times very different) solutions to that tension. The diversity among their models of spiritual direction demonstrates both the complexity of the problem and the variable nature of early Christianity. Scholars and students of late antiquity, the history of Christianity, and historical theology will find a great deal of interest in Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church. The book will also appeal to those who are actively engaged in Christian ministry.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Philosophie et théologie
• Pope Gregory
• John Cassian
• General officer
• Orthodox
• Gregory of Nazianzus
• Christianity
• Athanasius of Alexandria
• Augustine of Hippo
• General
• History
• Athanase

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268063085
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church
Five Models
of
Spiritual Direction
in the
Early Church

George E. Demacopoulos

University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2007 by University of Notre Dame
Published in the United States of America
Reprinted in 2008, 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Demacopoulos, George E.
Five models of spiritual direction in the early church / George E. Demacopoulos.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN -13: 978-0-268-02590-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN -13: 978-0-268-06307-8 (hardback)
1. Spiritual direction. 2. Asceticism-History-Early church, ca. 30-600. 3. Pastoral theology. I. Title.
BV 5053. D 45 2006
253.5 309015-dc22
2006028979
ISBN 9780268063085
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources .
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
For Katherine, Zoe, Elizabeth, and Eleftherios
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
ONE Athanasius of Alexandria and Ambivalence Regarding Spiritual Direction
TWO Gregory Nazianzen s Struggle for Synthesis
THREE Augustine of Hippo and Resistance to the Ascetic Model of Spiritual Direction
FOUR John Cassian and the Spiritual Direction of the Ascetic Community
FIVE Pope Gregory I and the Asceticizing of Spiritual Direction
Conclusion
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
This book grew out of a dissertation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on the pastoral strategies of Pope Gregory I. The decision to expand the study to its present form was based, in part, upon a casual suggestion by my mentor Peter I. Kaufman, just a few days before I left Chapel Hill for New York. To Peter especially, as well as Elizabeth Clark, Lance Lazar, Bart Ehrman, Carolyn Connor, and Nicholas Constas, I owe a great deal. Collectively, they stimulated my intellectual development and provided exceptional, yet distinct, examples of scholarship and teaching.
The original inspiration to study St. Gregory s Pastoral Rule stems from my many conversations with Fr. Demetrios Carellas, now the chaplain of the Greek Orthodox women s monastery, the Nativity of the Theotokos, in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania. His love for the fathers of the Church is matched only by his devotion to his spiritual children.
Along the way, I have received assistance from a number of colleagues. In North Carolina, I benefited greatly from a dissertation reading group composed of doctoral students at UNC and Duke. I would especially like to thank Catherine Chin, Stephanie Cobb, Andrew Jacobs, Caroline Schroeder, Christine Shephardson, and Edwin Taite, who all read early drafts of sections that appear in this volume. I would also like to thank the Royster family and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, which provided a generous dissertation completion fellowship that enabled me to finish expeditiously.
At Fordham University, I have benefited immeasurably from my conversations and collaboration with Aristotle Papanikolaou. I am also thankful for the insights of Rev. Joseph Lienhard, S.J., as well as the opportunity provided by Maryanne Kowaleski to share my work with the large group of medievalists on campus. And I would be remiss not to acknowledge Rev. Gerald Blaszczak, S.J., who was so encouraging of an Eastern Orthodox perspective when I first arrived. The opportunity to make final revisions to the manuscript was made possible by a Junior Faculty Fellowship from the university. The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Fordham University underwrote the cost of the cover art and indexing for the present volume.
I must also acknowledge the generous assistance of David Brakke, who read and then suggested important revisions to the chapter on Athanasius. Both Claudia Rapp and Maureen Tilley shared many thoughts between sessions at various conferences and graciously shared their work in manuscript form, prior to publication. Similarly, Peter Kaufman and Elizabeth Clark made unpublished works available, for which I am grateful. The anonymous readers of the University of Notre Dame Press made many helpful suggestions. The press s editor, Barbara Hanrahan, has been delightful and encouraging from the start. John Gavras, a close friend and exceptional editor (although a geologist by trade), read much of the manuscript and offered many helpful suggestions. Whatever errors remain are, no doubt, my own.
Finally, I wish to express my thanks to my family: to my parents, who not only paid for much of my education but always encouraged intellectual curiosity; to my in-laws, who sacrificed much of their own time so that I could work; and most especially to my wife, Katherine, and three children, Zoe, Elizabeth, and Eleftherios, to whom this book is dedicated.
Introduction
The origins of monasticism predate Constantine s Edict of Toleration. Nevertheless, most scholars of Christian antiquity agree that there was some connection between Constantine s conversion to Christianity and the subsequent rapid growth of monasticism. By ending the persecutions, Constantine and his successors are thought to have invited into the Church persons with less religious ardor than that which was possessed by Christians of the preceding era. The rise of monasticism is seen as an attempt by a rigorous faction within the religion to return to the challenge that the early Christians faced. As the fifth-century author John Cassian understood it, the spread of monasticism was a revival of the purity of the ancient Church. 1
As a consequence of the widening divide between lay and monastic Christians, a distinction emerged in the patterns of spiritual direction. 2 By spiritual direction , I mean the modus operandi by which religious authorities (in both lay and monastic communities) sought to advance the spiritual condition of those under their care. 3 This involved both the criteria by which they selected their successors and the specific techniques that they used to achieve their pastoral goals. 4 Like many things in early Christianity, there was significant variation in the approaches to spiritual direction.
To present monastic and lay communities as distinct entities is risky. At that time, there were theological, social, and even economic interactions between the two groups. What most distinguished monks from lay Christians in late antiquity was the extent of their askesis -asceticism. 5 In early Christianity, asceticism was a method of self-control developed by individuals to root out desire for those things that brought worldly pleasure (e.g., food, sex, wealth, and fame) and to redirect their energies toward the worship of God. 6 As early as the New Testament, Christian authors had encouraged their readers, married and unmarried alike, to adopt ascetic disciplines (e.g., almsgiving, fasting, and the temporary cessation of sexual activity). By the fourth century, a monk s askesis would have been different from his lay coreligionists in both degree and kind. A monk would be permanently chaste, theoretically poor, and likely to live apart from lay Christians, either by himself or among a group of other professed ascetics. Complicating this distinction is the fact that in the fourth century we also find the first attempts by Christian authorities to standardize and regulate the ascetic practices of lay Christians-further evidence of the close links between the monastery and the parish. 7
These links, however, should not keep us from examining how monastic life at this point differed from parish life, specifically in its charismatic as opposed to institutional conceptions of both authority and spiritual direction. As we will see, there was a plethora of opinions about leadership and pastoral care. One of the more useful ways to understand the diversity of opinion and trace the evolution of the ideals is by conceptualizing along the lines of an ascetic/monastic and a lay paradigm. 8
In recent years, scholars have documented the rise of ascetics to positions of authority in the broader Church. Among other things, these studies have emphasized the emergence of an ascetic discourse that linked the qualifications for leadership to self-denial and have shown how the episcopate eventually came into the hands of former monks. In short, these studies have demonstrated that lay communities either came to adopt or were forced to accept asceticism as a legitimate qualification for authority. 9
One important aspect of the asceticizing of the lay Church that has been neglected by historians is the extent to which the monastic and lay communities had developed distinct conceptions of spiritual direction. The central questions of the present study derive from the encounter of these two pastoral traditions. To what extent did ascetic notions of pastoral care affect the lay Church as monastic leaders gained greater authority? Or, more bluntly, What happened when monks became bishops? Did the new clerics conform to the patterns of pastoral care that were already operating in the lay Church, or did they bring with them the traditions that they had learned in the ascetic community? And if they tried to impose new patterns of supervision on the laity, were their pastoral initiatives met with resistance?
Specifically, this book explores the careers and ideas of five influential Christian authorities: Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Augustine, John Cassian, and Pope Gregory I. Each of the five spent time in an ascetic environment; each was a member of the clergy; each left a literary record of his pastoral