Читать книгу The World's Christians - Douglas Jacobsen - Страница 23

In a certain sense all theology is mystical, inasmuch as it shows forth the divine mystery … On the other hand, mysticism is frequently opposed to theology as a realm inaccessible to understanding … If we adopted this conception unreservedly, resolutely opposing mysticism to theology, we would be led in the last resort to the thesis of [western Christianity which] distinguishes … the “static religion” of the Churches from the “dynamic religion” of the mystics, the former social and conservative in nature, the latter personal and creative … The eastern tradition has never made a sharp distinction between mysticism and theology; between personal experience of the divine mysteries and the dogma affirmed by the Church … Far from being mutually opposed, theology and mysticism support and complete each other. One is impossible without the other …

The mystical experience which is inseparable from the way towards union [with God] can only be gained in prayer and by prayer. In the most general sense, every presence of [a person] before the face of God is a prayer; but this presence must become a constant and conscious attitude – prayer must become perpetual, as uninterrupted as breathing or the beating of the heart. For this a special mastery is needed, a technique of prayer which … is known by the name of “hesychasm” … [Hesychasm] has only one object in view: that of assisting concentration. The whole of the attention must be given to the words of the short prayer: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” This prayer, continually repeated at each drawing of breath, becomes to a monk as it were a second nature … This is what all those who seek the fire of grace must do; as to words or positions of the body during prayer, these have only a secondary importance. God is concerned with the heart.

Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), pp. 7–9, 209–11.