The Mysticism Of Saint Augustine

Kenney presents a fresh approach to reading the Confessions - Augustine's most famous book. Emphasising its Christianity rather than focusing on the pagan Neo-Platonism, this book is of significance to students, researchers and teachers alike.

Augustine's vision at Ostia is one of the most influential accounts of mystical experience in the Western tradition, and a subject of persistent interest to Christians, philosophers and historians. This book explores Augustine's account of his experience as set down in the Confessions and considers his mysticism in relation to his classical Platonist philosophy. John Peter Kenney argues that while the Christian contemplative mysticism created by Augustine is in many ways founded on Platonic thought, Platonism ultimately fails Augustine in that it cannot retain the truths that it anticipates. The Confessions offer a response to this impasse by generating two critical ideas in medieval and modern religious thought: firstly, the conception of contemplation as a purely epistemic event, in contrast to classical Platonism; secondly, the tenet that salvation is absolutely distinct from enlightenment.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This collection presents the writings of three of Western Christianity's most revered teachers of mystical theology. In addition to personal accounts by Saint Augustine, Saint Gregory, and Saint Bernard of their religious experiences, Western Mysticism discusses speculative contemplation, defines mysticism and its characteristics, and contrasts contemplative and active lives.

Authored by world-renowned scholar Rev. Agostino Trape, O.S.A., Saint Augustine from Catholic Book Publishing is a comprehensive biography of one of the Church\'s greatest and most quoted Saints. From the Saint\'s youthful wanderings away from the Church to his mother\'s prayers for his conversion and his eventual embrace of Catholicism, Saint Augustine provides a wealth of information. With an illustrated, flexible cover for easy use, this book paints an informative portrait of this extraordinary African Saint who defended and extended the reach of the fourth- and fifth-century Church.

Andrew Louth traces the Christian mystic tradition from Plato, through figures such as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine and explores the diverse and conflicting influences to be found in Christian spirituality.

With: Historical commentary Biographical info Appendix with further readings For nearly 2,000 years, Christian mystics, martyrs, and sages have documented their search for the divine. Their writings have bestowed boundless wisdom upon subsequent generations. But they have also burdened many spiritual seekers. The sheer volume of available material creates a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Enter the Upper Room Spiritual Classics series, a collection of authoritative texts on Christian spirituality curated for the everyday reader. Designed to introduce 15 spiritual giants and the range of their works, these volumes are a first-rate resource for beginner and expert alike. Writings of Augustine compiles some of the most profound and moving writings of the 4th-century African Christian who had a vast influence on the Christian church and Western culture. Included are excerpts from Augustine's Confessions and other writings.

"It is arguably the case," writes William Parsons, "that no two figures have had more influence on the course of Western introspective thought than Freud and Augustine." Yet it is commonly assumed that Freud and Augustine would have nothing to say to each other with regard to spirituality or mysticism, given the former's alleged antipathy to religion and the latter's not usually being considered a mystic. Adopting an interdisciplinary, dialogical, and transformational framework for interpreting Augustine's spiritual journey in his Confessions, Parsons places a "mystical theology" at the heart of Augustine's narrative and argues that his mysticism has been misunderstood partly because of the limited nature of the psychological models applied to it. At the same time, he expands Freud's therapeutic legacy to incorporate the contemporary findings of physiology and neuroscience that have been influenced in part by modern spirituality. Parsons develops a new psychological hermeneutic to account for Augustine's mysticism that will capture the imagination of contemporary readers who are both psychologically informed and interested in spirituality. The author intends this interpretive model not only to engage modern introspective concerns about developmental conflict and the power of the unconscious but also to reach a more nuanced level of insight into the origins and the nature of the self.