Do we know how it originated? Could it have been introduced through Eastern influence?
Hi Madhuri,
Contemplative approaches to scripture and the Christian life first developed, in a form that we would now recognise as such, in the second century AD. However they ultimately derive from the Sacred Apostolic Tradition of the Church: the second century era Catholic authorities on the contemplative life firmly maintain that they are merely transmitting earlier traditions from the Apostles that had been handed down via the teaching authority of the bishops and in the life of the Church.
An example would be the early church father St. Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-216) who in Chapter 10 of his
Stromata refers to "
some things delivered unwritten" from the apostles concerning:
"....mystic contemplation (he epoptike theoria); for this is the flesh and the blood of the Word, that is, the comprehension of the divine power and essence...For the knowledge of the divine essence is the meat and drink of the divine Word...Now the sacrifice which is acceptable to God is unswerving abstraction from the body and its passions...For he who neither employs his eyes in the exercise of thought, nor draws aught from his senses, but with pure mind itself applies to objects, [this man] practises the true philosophy...[Christ] Himself taught the apostles during His presence; then it follows that the knowledge...which is sure and reliable, as being imparted and revealed by the Son of God, is wisdom. And if, too, the end of the wise man is contemplation, that of those who are still philosophers aims at it, but never attains it....And the knowledge itself is that which has descended by transmission to a few, having been imparted unwritten by the apostles. Hence, then, knowledge or wisdom ought to be exercised up to the eternal and unchangeable habit of contemplation..."
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_...ents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html
9. Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.
Contemplation then takes on its first 'systematic' manifestation in the third century AD with the 'Desert Fathers' and 'Desert Mothers':
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers
The Desert Fathers Orthodox Christian hermits, ascetics, and monks who lived mainly in the Scetes desert of Egypt beginning around the third century AD. The Apophthegmata Patrum is a collection of the writings of some of the early desert monks and nuns, representing the Divine Wisdom they received,[1] still in print as Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The most well known was Anthony the Great, who moved to the desert in 270–271 and became known as both the father and founder of desert monasticism. By the time Anthony died in 356, thousands of monks and nuns had been drawn to living in the desert following Anthony's example — his biographer, Athanasius of Alexandria, wrote that "the desert had become a city."[2] The Desert Fathers had a major influence on the development of Christianity.
The desert monastic communities that grew out of the informal gathering of hermit monks became the model for Christian monasticism. The eastern monastic tradition at Mt. Athos and the western Rule of St. Benedict both were strongly influenced by the traditions that began in the desert. All of the monastic revivals of the Middle Ages looked to the desert for inspiration and guidance. Much of Eastern Christian spirituality, including the Hesychast movement, had its roots in the practices of the Desert Fathers. Even religious renewals such as the German evangelicals and Pietists in Pennsylvania, the Devotio Moderna movement, and the Methodist Revival in England are seen by modern scholars as being influenced by the Desert Fathers.[3]
The Desert Fathers and Mothers were the 'pioneers' of the 'structured', monastic model of the contemplative life that would later come to predominate in the Catholic and Orthodox worlds. They are sort of like the Christian equivalent to the Hindu sages who took to the forests of India in the 7th - 5th centuries BC and authored the Upanishads. They were respectively given the honorific titles of 'Abba' (father) and 'Amma' (mother) for their profound wisdom and holiness.
One of the later Desert Fathers named Abba Evagrius Ponticus (345-399) systematized and harmonized the disparate teachings, sayings and practices of his predecessors into a clear 'system' that became highly influential with later contemplatives. His disciple St. John Cassian was instrumental in the foundation of Western monasticism through his book
The Conferences.
Abba Evagrius' structure of the contemplative life as beginning with the "
purgative", proceeding to the "
illuminative" stage and then concluding with the "
contemplative" proper is the same basic tripartite structure that has been employed by all subsequent contemplatives till the present day:
http://timiosprodromos2.blogspot.co.uk/2006/01/tpl-commentary-2.html
What Evagrius is saying is that the mystical ascent has three stages: the practical, the natural and the theological stages. Moreover, he is implying that this mystical ascent is not something apart from Christian dogma but an integral part of it. This is what we mean when we say that Evagrius places his mystical doctrine in a soteriological framework: the mystical ascent is how we work out our salvation; it is not something apart from our program of working out our salvation.
This tripartite division of the mystical life will become forever standard even in the West. There it is known as the purgative, the illuminative and the unitive stages. This terminology corresponds exactly to Evagrius’ basic meaning and can provide us with an interpretation of his terms.The practical life—of the monk—is the purgative stage, and the Treatise on the Practical Life[1] is devoted to it. We shall see as we go on just how Evagrius intends the term.
The natural part is the stage of the natural contemplation of existent things, subdivided into the natural contemplation of such existent things as do not possess mind (nous) and into the natural contemplation of such existent things as do possess mind (nous). The first are rocks and trees and animals; the second are the angels. By the time we have finished, this will have become clear.
The third stage, Theology, is the contemplation of God himself.
What must be understood is that Evagrius is enunciating a detailed program for the accomplishment of the ascetical goal.
