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1. Readers of The Way of a Pilgrim quickly discover two levels of narration in this simple and unassuming nineteenth-century religious classic. The first level presents a heartfelt apologia for silent prayer in the Orthodox Christian tradition, namely, the "ceaseless" prayer or the so-called Jesus prayer. Cited as the authority for the Jesus prayer is the Philokalia, a literary collection of writings of the Greek-speaking Church Fathers supporting the tradition of hesychasm. Yet The Way of a Pilgrim does not pursue theological argument. It is imminently practical in its advice to simply start praying. But if this level of presentation were the only one, The Way of a Pilgrim would not be of interest as more than a classic of spirituality. The second level of narration, which underlies the entire work and arguably is the main reason for the work's simplicity and attraction, is the literal but subtle presentation of the hermit life. The narrator is a solitary and a wanderer calling himself a pilgrim. The wandering hermit's example is presented as the model existence for those who would truly lead a spiritual life. The interplay of these two levels of presentation, always overlapping and concurrent, makes The Way of a Pilgrim a wonderful book: simple, edifying, and of universal spiritual appeal. |
2. The Philokalia (Gk. φιλοκαλία "love of the beautiful/good") is a collection of texts by masters of the Eastern Orthodox, hesychast tradition, writing from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries on the disciplines of Christian prayer and a life dedicated to God. The work was compiled by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth. 3. The Bible is a collection of writings which the Church of God has solemnly recognized as inspired. The name is derived from the Greek expression biblia (the books), which came into use in the early centuries of Christianity to designate the whole sacred volume. In the Latin of the Middle Ages, the neuter plural for Biblia (gen. bibliorum) gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun (biblia, gen. bibliae, in which singular form the word has passed into the languages of the Western world. It means "The Book", by way of eminence, and therefore well sets forth the sacred character of our inspired literature. Its most important equivalents are: "The Divine Library" (Bibliotheca Divina), which was employed by St. Jerome in the fourth century; "the Scriptures", "the Holy Scripture" -- terms which are derived from expressions found in the Bible itself; and "the Old and New Testament", in which collective title, "the Old Testament" designates the sacred books written before the coming of Our Lord, and "the New Testament" denotes the inspired writings composed since the coming of Christ To publically acknowledge your own personal Christian
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