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Harvey Egan argues that the apostle Paul was Christianity's earliest mystic, and the world's greatest missionary, one whom scholars estimate walked over fifteen hundred miles--not to mention his dangerous sea journeys--to plant the flag of Lord Jesus in Roman colonies where Caesar was supposedly lord. This book stresses Paul's mystical consciousness and mystical life--the explicit and direct consciousness of the immediate and direct presence of the Trinity and/or Jesus-Messiah. It underscores mystical experience not only as discrete, individual experiences but also as experience in the sense that an experienced musician instinctively knows and loves music. From the light issuing from the risen Jesus-Messiah, whom he encountered on the Damascus road, Paul mystically read the Jewish Scriptures and comprehended that God consummated Israel's history through the sending of Jesus-Messiah and the Holy Spirit. Paul's letters are paradigmatic of the earliest use of the word "mystical," that is, how the Jewish Scriptures disclose Jesus-Messiah. Thus, Paul, the zealous Jewish Pharisee, grew to understand Christianity as Judaism perfected.
Harvey Egan argues that the apostle Paul was Christianity’s earliest mystic, and the world’s greatest missionary, one whom scholars estimate walked over fifteen hundred miles—not to mention his dangerous sea journeys—to plant the flag of Lord Jesus in Roman colonies where Caesar was supposedly lord. This book stresses Paul’s mystical consciousness and mystical life—the explicit and direct consciousness of the immediate and direct presence of the Trinity and/or Jesus-Messiah. It underscores mystical experience not only as discrete, individual experiences but also as experience in the sense that an experienced musician instinctively knows and loves music. From the light issuing from the risen Jesus-Messiah, whom he encountered on the Damascus road, Paul mystically read the Jewish Scriptures and comprehended that God consummated Israel’s history through the sending of Jesus-Messiah and the Holy Spirit. Paul’s letters are paradigmatic of the earliest use of the word “mystical,” that is, how the Jewish Scriptures disclose Jesus-Messiah. Thus, Paul, the zealous Jewish Pharisee, grew to understand Christianity as Judaism perfected.
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. THE MESSAGE OF PAUL THE MYSTIC TO THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY. IN using the expression "according to my gospel," Paul felt that he had a message to give which was peculiarly his own, minted in his own mind, and stamped with his own individuality. It was a message which expressed what he had come to know and experience of Christ and of His religion. The fundamental facts which lay at the heart of it being historical, were fixed and unchangeable; but the message itself took shape from his own personality, as water takes the shape of the vessel into which it is poured. What Paul gives us is not a bare record of outward fact, but an interpretation of outward fact in the light of personal experience. The personal equation which enters into his message, and which makes it unlike any other, is that which gives to it its special value. It does not contain the whole truth, but it gives a distinct note, which is needed to make up the symphony of truth. The most personal and distinctive thing in Paul's message is undoubtedly the mystical element which underlies his juridical doctrine of justification by faith. Nor is this grafted on to it, but grows naturally out of it, inasmuch as the relationships involved in the soul's adjustment are spiritual and personal. Breaking up Paul's mystical message into its component parts, we find that it includes the following declarations: 1. That the formative thing in Christian experience is the personal contact of the soul of man with the living Redeemer.--In that supreme moment when Christ was revealed to him, and entered with saving power into his life, the mystical message of Paul was born. The mystical, transcendental Christ was henceforth the only Christ he knew, the only Christ he sought to make...
Rethinking Catholic Theology: From The Mystery of Existence to the New Creation provides readers with an intelligent, informed, critical grasp of at least the central truths of the Catholic/Christian tradition. It aims to help readers to rethink more deeply these essential truths, and moreover, in what specific ways the understanding of the Catholic faith has changed and/or remained the same since Vatican II. The first part centers on Jesus Messiah and the mystery of existence. It delineates how his life, death, resurrection as “transformed physicality,” and ascension usher in the kingdom of God and best answer the questions: Who am I? Who are we? Where did we come from and where are we ultimately headed? What is the meaning of it all? The second part focuses on how Pentecost, the Trinity, the Church, the Scriptures, the Sacraments, Christian life itself, Mariology, the Communion of Saints, and Christian mysticism shed light on the mystery of existence. It demonstrates how the church flows intrinsically and naturally from the person of Jesus Christ and how the Scriptures and the sacraments likewise arise intrinsically and naturally from the church. Part three stresses considers various views of afterlife mainly from the Judeo-Christian tradition. It raises difficult after-death questions, such as individual and general judgment, the intermediate state, the nature of the soul after death, Limbo, and Purgatory. Finally, it outlines the idea of Jesus’s Second Coming and considers such concepts as Deep Incarnation, and the New Creation.
Paul makes the singular claim to have been the "last but not the least" of the Apostles of Jesus. Paul never met Jesus, but he makes high claims for his experiences of mystical revelations that include his ascent to heaven and his claim to not only have "seen" Jesus in his glory, but to have regularly communicated with the one he calls the Risen Christ. Early Christianity, as it unfolds, stands or falls on the claims of this single man whose Message and Mission are distinct from that of James, Peter, and John. In this book Paul's Ascent to Paradise becomes an entrée into his whole world of Hellenistic mystical religious experience. This "history of religions" approach to Paul supersedes the dogmatic approaches of Christian theology and dogma. It is refreshing, gripping, dramatic, bold and fascinating. For Paul the "appointed time of the end had grown very short," to use his words. Everything has to be viewed through that apocalyptic lens and one is transported back to Paul's social world, the "battles of the apostles," and either his triumph or his failure--depending on the judgment of history.
These homilies on special liturgical feasts, on Jesus Christ, on spiritual topics, on the feasts of celebrated saints, and on special family occasions rethink—creatively but in an orthodox way—significant aspects of Christianity. They resulted, in part, from over sixty years of Jesuit spirituality, philosophical-theological study, graduate and undergraduate university teaching, scholarly research and publishing, and pastoral experience as well. They reflect years of prayerfully contemplating and thinking deeply about the great Christian heritage in the context of the Second Vatican Council, the recent biblical, historical, and theological scholarship, and contemporary issues arising in American culture. More specifically, behind these homilies, there stand, unobtrusively, the philosophical-theological thinking of Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, the historical work of Bernard McGinn on the Christian mystical tradition, and the outstanding biblical scholarship of N. T. Wright. And yet my homilies attempt to remain faithful to the Mass readings and to the catechism of the hearts of those worshiping and prayerfully drinking in God’s word addressed to them. Those who have heard them claim they are “deep,” “existential,” “exceptional,” and “timely.”
These homilies on special liturgical feasts, on Jesus Christ, on spiritual topics, on the feasts of celebrated saints, and on special family occasions rethink--creatively but in an orthodox way--significant aspects of Christianity. They resulted, in part, from over sixty years of Jesuit spirituality, philosophical-theological study, graduate and undergraduate university teaching, scholarly research and publishing, and pastoral experience as well. They reflect years of prayerfully contemplating and thinking deeply about the great Christian heritage in the context of the Second Vatican Council, the recent biblical, historical, and theological scholarship, and contemporary issues arising in American culture. More specifically, behind these homilies, there stand, unobtrusively, the philosophical-theological thinking of Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, the historical work of Bernard McGinn on the Christian mystical tradition, and the outstanding biblical scholarship of N. T. Wright. And yet my homilies attempt to remain faithful to the Mass readings and to the catechism of the hearts of those worshiping and prayerfully drinking in God's word addressed to them. Those who have heard them claim they are "deep," "existential," "exceptional," and "timely."
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This book examines the writings of an early sixth-century Christian mystical theologian who wrote under the name of a convert of the apostle Paul, Dionysius the Areopagite. This 'Pseudo'-Dionysius is famous for articulating a mystical theology in two parts: a sacramental and liturgical mysticism embedded in the context of celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchies, and an austere, contemplative regimen in which one progressively negates the divine names in hopes of soliciting union with the 'unknown God' or 'God beyond being.' Charles M. Stang argues that the pseudonym and the influence of Paul together constitute the best interpretive lens for understanding the Corpus Dionysiacum [CD]. Stang demonstrates how Paul animates the entire corpus, and shows that the influence of Paul illuminates such central themes of the CD as hierarchy, theurgy, deification, Christology, affirmation (kataphasis) and negation (apophasis), dissimilar similarities, and unknowing. Most importantly, Paul serves as a fulcrum for the expression of a new theological anthropology, an 'apophatic anthropology.' Dionysius figures Paul as the premier apostolic witness to this apophatic anthropology, as the ecstatic lover of the divine who confesses to the rupture of his self and the indwelling of the divine in Gal 2:20: 'it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.' Building on this notion of apophatic anthropology, the book forwards an explanation for why this sixth-century author chose to write under an apostolic pseudonym. Stang argues that the very practice of pseudonymous writing itself serves as an ecstatic devotional exercise whereby the writer becomes split in two and thereby open to the indwelling of the divine. Pseudonymity is on this interpretation integral and internal to the aims of the wider mystical enterprise. Thus this book aims to question the distinction between 'theory' and 'practice' by demonstrating that negative theology-often figured as a speculative and rarefied theory regarding the transcendence of God-is in fact best understood as a kind of asceticism, a devotional practice aiming for the total transformation of the Christian subject.