/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23067568]

how come nobody discusses the greatest philosopher of the medieval era?

[Anonymous No.23067571]

People fear confessors because it reminds them of their misdeeds.

[Anonymous No.23067626]

>>23067568
>Plotinus, but Christian
Wow!

[Anonymous No.23067708]

>>23067626
basically any thinker can be reduced this way if you completely ignore all nuances

[Anonymous No.23067710]

>>23067708
This should probably be a banner for /lit/.

[Anonymous No.23067763]

>>23067568
IMO the greatest medieval philosopher is unequivocally Adi Shankara.

If we are just restricting the topic to western thinkers then Maximus is pretty cool but I don't see how he is significantly better than Eriugena or Aquinas

[Anonymous No.23068491]

For me, it's Thomas à Kempis.

[Anonymous No.23068945]

bump

[Anonymous No.23069150]

>>23067568
Champion of Orthodoxy, teacher of purity and of true worship, enlightener of the universe and adornment of hierarchs: all-wise father Maximus, your teachings have gleamed with light upon all things. Intercede before Christ God to save our souls.

[Anonymous No.23069338]

>>23067568
Pales in comparison to Ibn Sina Avicenna and Al-Farabi.

[γρηγορεύω !!J89a5VVZH9B No.23069428]

>>23067568
What is the wisest thing he ever said or did?

[Anonymous No.23069436]

For me, it's Bonaventure.

[Anonymous No.23070103]

>>23068491
what edition of imitation is this?

[Anonymous No.23070696]

>>23067568
“Maximus is like the Byzantine Böhme. Here we find the idea of apokatastasis paired with some genuine insight into the negation of negation. Ambigua 17, 20, 41, and 42 are most important.”

https://righthegelian.com/reading-list/

[Anonymous No.23070977]

>>23067568
On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ is a work of art. His description of man's asymptotic approach to God is deeply profound

[Anonymous No.23071775]

>>23070103
https://archive.org/details/imitationchrist02thomgoog/
Don't know whether or not this version is still published, but it's where I got the image from.
If you search for that one and cannot find it, then My Imitation of Christ is a nice little pocket edition with good art and formatting and I can wholly recommend since it's what I have and read myself.

[Anonymous No.23071985]

>>23067568
>The Bible is...le true
>Plato was...le proto-Christian
>YHWH is...le real
Woah...

[Anonymous No.23072966]

>>23067568
I am reading him right now. What makes him great is that he is both very intellectual and inside of the philokalia, so for hesychast or mostly prayer-oriented people.
I'm still reading him.

>Aquinas
Is heretic, in regard to christian tradition, he attacks greeks and develops and justify the new heretical triadology based on the innovation of the filioque in the creed. You might say it's a detail (I can't list everything anyway), but if you ignore these things, why compare these thinkers ?

>Eriugena
Knew greek and justify the "greeks" (i.e. orthodox) when at his time they started to be attacked because they didn't accept the filioque (Still his triadology is said to be "filioquist" and doesn't appear orthodox). He was a translator of saint Maximus, and knew greek church fathers. Might be good, the west and him since he knew greek was not to distanced from the east in his time still.

>Adi Shankara
pbh

[Anonymous No.23072972]

>>23072966

Sorry this was meant to >>23067763

>>Aquinas
>Is heretic, in regard to christian tradition, he attacks greeks and develops and justify the new heretical triadology based on the innovation of the filioque in the creed. You might say it's a detail (I can't list everything anyway), but if you ignore these things, why compare these thinkers ?
>>Eriugena
>Knew greek and justify the "greeks" (i.e. orthodox) when at his time they started to be attacked because they didn't accept the filioque (Still his triadology is said to be "filioquist" and doesn't appear orthodox). He was a translator of saint Maximus, and knew greek church fathers. Might be good, the west and him since he knew greek was not to distanced from the east in his time still.
>>Adi Shankara
>pbh

[Anonymous No.23073337]

>>23072966
Why the hell do you guys get so hung up over the filioque? It seems to me that anyone who has a problem with it denies the essential unity of the Trinity. All the elements proceed from and through each other, even as they're distinct persons. So they're one God. I don't see what the big deal is. And I definitely don't think it was worth sperging out about it for a thousand years.

[Anonymous No.23073364]

>>23069338
Both of them are children compared to Maximus.

[Anonymous No.23073420]

>>23073337
>All the elements proceed from and through each other, even as they're distinct persons
It cannot be from and through someone at the same time. You need to think seriously about it. Any type of confusion in matter of theology is an error and thus an heresy. The unity of the trinity is already the fact of their common divine essence, and of the fact there is only one source of the divinity (and of himself), the Father. You don't need to add confusion to know the unity, the fact it is just one God. The Father is the source, the Son is God incarnated, the Spirit is God sanctifying the world, going down in saint and apostles.
Saint maximos, in the OP, says how the filioque in his time could be understood in an orthodox way : by explaining that the Spirit proceeds ultimately from the Father, unique source (thus only one God, not two source of the divinity of another person) but through the Son, who is not another principle within the trinity but who manifest the Spirit (for his mission, to apostles,...). But it was the catholics (technically called papist) who excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople in 1054 saying among other things that the "greeks" erased the filioque from the creed. They then made a triadology who were precisely made to put the filioque as essential. A new triadology centered around it, the other "heretics" who refused this unilateral innovation to the creed being this way proved to be blind to the deep and central meaning of the trinity. Thus they rejected any type of conciliation, as well as propositions of oeucumenical council which would decide, they wanted only submission to their innovations and to the pope.
Historically it's clear it was the latins who estranged themselves from the common tradition.

[Anonymous No.23073447]

>>23069338
I know for a fact that you haven't read St Maximos

[Anonymous No.23073539]

Help me understand why a just and loving God would allow people to go to hell, please. I was doing fine, learning languages, not being morally horrendous (I'm chaste, content, I hold my tongue, etc.), then for the last few months I started flirting with Catholicism again (cradle Catholic, confirmed and catechized), and then I realized the Church's teachings about hell and that it needs to be real for Christian theology to make sense. That threw me right off: I'm now scared shitless, haven't done much else for the past 4 days other than thinking about it, reading acconuts of Saints that had visions of it, and how much Jesus talks about it in the Gospel. How can that be true? Surely if you love your child you will hide away the knives in the drawer instead of laying them on the floor for the kid to do with it as it pleases? Surely you wouldn't put your kids in a situation where he can choose an evil knowing that many will, getting themselves killed in the process? I cannot wrap my head around eternal fire and torment. I don't believe that human nature is to be fully selfish: even the worst of us wouldn't wish eternal suffering on his worst enemy, so how can God say that he wants all to be saved? Why not put people in Heaven and give them the option to leave if they want to? I, for one, know many common people that are not awhare that if you don't go to Church every Sunday, you'll go to hell immediatelly upon your death. That is a mortal sin in the same category of murder, which does not sit right with me in regards to understanding. And yet, most people don't know, and don't really care, even though these people are good and loving, they would go straight to hell. Which brings me to the next point: if mortal sin requires full knowledge of the fact, why would you tell anyone about it? Why evangelize when it will be best for the people to not know anything about Christ? I don't get it bros... God says he wants me to love him, but knowing all of this, I can't be in perfect contrition for my sins because I don't "feel" anything like sincere sorrow for committing a sin like lust in regards to "disappointing God", though I realize that the sin itself is wrong, albeit a one time thing. How do you look at people around you and think "I'm ok with everyone here going to hell"?

Augustine proved that not everyone is going to heaven, then not every Catholic, then not every practicing Catholic, then not every practicing Catholic that does everything right.
Catherine of Siena had visions of hell and she said she would rather go to Rome in a road of fire whlist barefoot than to spend a single minute in hell or something like that.
John Bosco had his hand burned when an angel told him to touch the wall of hell in a dream once, and he woke up with it being burned for real. His visions confirm that of Catherine.
Lots of other cases like this. The Church does not curb on this teaching at all. How do you love God if you're terribly afraid of him?

[Anonymous No.23073734]

Madhusudana Saraswati

[Anonymous No.23074362]

>>23068491
>Just despise yourself worm
Fuck off

[Anonymous No.23074454]

>>23073420
>the fact there is only one source of the divinity (and of himself)
you know, you could avoid all of this by reverting to Judaism or switching to Islam

[Anonymous No.23074488]

>>23074454
That would entail ignoring the theophanies in the Old Testament

[Anonymous No.23075148]

Deconstruction is never easy, but I made my way through it. I grew up in the center of it all and learned the hard way, because while I was the oldest I was not related to anyone in my "family". And they hate me because I know all of them - religion is the opposite of moral, it is an escape from morality. A system based on the idea of human sacrifice and the ability to take no accountability of your actions and instead throw them to a figure (Jesus) who actually NEVER made any of the claims religious people are taught he did, such as being the son of God. He never said that. He also was never crucified. There is not just "evidence" against god as defined in religion, but rather entire LINES of evidence against god. Consider anything against the infinite - how can that god "love" anything but himself? Anything finite is infinitely smaller, shorter, etc. than the infinite. In other words, you are timebound, the infinite is not, ergo...you never exist! There are so many not just inaccuracies but logically the system falls apart very easily. And the worst part is (and I know this my "dad" was a theologian one of my brothers is a pastor and he hates me because I told him the truth: religion is a lie and anyone who sufficiently understands the bible knows this. I explained to him that he was a grifter. Being a pastor was not a ministry, it represented the path of least resistance. I was ostracized from my home, why? Because my mind is capable of reason, so I asked questions. That is forbidden and I would submit any ideology worth it's salt not only accepts questioning, it should INVITE it. I literally (in the beginning) wanted to NOT fail to believe so I had conversations with theologians and to a person, they eventually walked out, hung up, etc. That should tell you everything you need to know. There is massive evidence IN THE BIBLE ITSELF against the entire belief system. Do you know the only evidence FOR that? Personal experience. That...is it.

[Anonymous No.23075197]

>>23074488
Christians ignore lots of the Old Testament anyway. How did you decide which parts were necessary and unnecessary?

[Anonymous No.23076051]

He is one of many featured in the Philokalia ('love of the beautiful') -- a collection of texts written between the 4th and 15th centuries by spiritual masters of the mystical hesychast tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

[Anonymous No.23076145]

>>23074362
>"Continual peace is with the humble; but in the heart of the proud is frequent envy and indignation."
I pray you grow abundantly in humility.

[Anonymous No.23076296]

>>23074454
> you could avoid all of this
>all this
You mean I could avoid the necessity to expose to unfaithfull that God united us to himself through his manifestation in the flesh ? Yeah, that would have been easier if people didn't start to deny this and say things like that Christ was not God (arianism) thus forcing people, with each heresies, to explain and expose more to them. Litteraly because of those who rejected the clear meaning of the gospel (notably all the gospel of saint john. Read it to see how clear the divinity of Christ is confessed) the concil of Constantinople had to make the general principle of faith a rule to believe. All this is for incredulous people like modern man, who don't know God's love is boundless and above any rule he used and created for the world and it's creatures. Or people who lack faith can simply say there is one God and people are his slaves. Then of course sufi will then start recreate theories of emanations, like the kabbalah in judaism. That's just stupid exoterism. The 35iq goy think he is smart thinking he is the first to say God is necessarly one, and human - as humans - are different from Him. Islam is really retarded for retarded people