I've finished the chapter by evagrius: i dislike his anti-human and very demeaning attitude, he talks about gods love, yet praises a monk who refused to give him water while thirsty, he also criticized family men for being "caught up in the material world", meanwhile he was a monk who lived off the alms of those same hardworking families that he scolded for their "materialistic nature" -- but everything else I found good, he's clearly very experienced, and his ascetic knowledge is genuine.However, I'm looking for a church father that better explains the topics I'm interested in: directing ascetic practices towards practical spiritual gifts and knowledge of god: faith, theosis, gnosiology and especially spiritual discernment and cardiognosis are very dear to me.Any recommends?
John Climacus? I'm sure you've already read the Desert Fathers.
>>23322119Nope, just started the philokalia, I've heard that the desert fathers write extensively on spiritual discernment though; any recommendations?
>>23322143Start with the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Move on to the Anonymous Collection if it intrigues you. They're the springhead, start with them and move down-stream to Climacus, the Philokalia, and so forth. If you'd like a primer and something a bit more systematic, check out the chapter on the Desert Fathers in Brown's The Body and Society. Brown has the best formula on discernment I've ever read. I can only paraphrase, but he says something like it is the capacity to discern which of your thoughts are not yours.
>>23322162>he says something like it is the capacity to discern which of your thoughts are not yours.I'm no scholar, but spiritual discernment is much bigger than that, early saints used to read people just by looking at them, they used to talk to people in a way that changed their whole personality, they could read a room like a book and could give expression to things in the most precise manner possible
>>23322162Btw, since we're having a conversation as is, what do you think about the writings of evagrius?
>>23322181Yes, there are stories of elders in the Sayings who lack discernment and the monks under them pay for it, but primarily discernment is the ability to distinguish logismoi that originate in God from logismoi that originate from the demons. You can only get good at this by getting good at monitoring your intentions. When you can discern the activity of sin within yourself, you can discern it in others. You don't have to peer into a person's mind to see the correlates and visible signs of his inner state
>>23322185The closer to the springhead, the more I'm committed to respecting them regardless of who they are, even if some of these early monastic fathers were a bit coarse, like you say. I am not a particularly big fan of Shenoute, for example. Evagrian demonology is on the money, if you ask me. If you'd like to skip right to the big systematic spiritual treatises on the subject, just skip to Climacus' Divine Ladder of Ascent. By about that time, monasticism has had time to settle and congeal into the system you see partially represented in the Ladder.
>>23322189>the springheadWhat's the springhead?>>23322187Is there maybe a term more suited for denoting one's consciousness of the logos? I feel like self-awareness and social-awareness are both a type of discernment for me, but as you put it, another term might be better suited for this, what do you think?
>>23322207The Desert Fathers, the first Christian monastics. Before Anthony you had only a scattering of Christian ascetics living on the outskirts of villages, unless there really did exist a Paul of Thebes.Vigilance. I can't watch the sense gates without being conscious of God
>>23322023He's not judging other people, he's aware of the snares involved in those activities and how dangerous they are.A monk gets attacked by pride all the time. They must be we watchful against delusion in ways a layperson in the throes of life might not understand or recognize. Not commonly anyway.
>>23322222checked and true
>>23322222I didn't say he was judging people; nice digits btw
Bump
