Christian Spirituality I: Origins to the Twelfth Century

by Bernard McGinn, John Meyendorff (Editor), Jean Leclercq (Editor)

Essays in this volume discuss the early history of the church, gnostic spirituality, monasticism, the great fathers, sosteriology, the Trinity, anthropology, grace, Christian art, the sacraments, prayer and spiritual guidance.

Genres: Religion, History, Theology

528 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Bernard McGinn, the Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago Divinity School, is widely regarded as the preeminent scholar of mysticism in the Western Christian tradition. He has also written extensively on Jewish mysticism, the history of apocalyptic thought, and medieval Christianity.

A cum laude graduate of St. Joseph's Seminary and College in Yonkers, NY, he earned a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1963 and a PhD in history from Brandeis University in 1970. After teaching theology for a year at The Catholic University of America, he joined the Chicago faculty in 1969 as an instructor in theology and the history of Christianity and was appointed a full professor nine years later. Dr. McGinn was named to the Donnelley chair in 1992. He retired in 2003.

The recent recipient of a Mellon Foundation Emeritus Grant, he also has held a Fulbright-Hays Research Fellowship, an American Association of Theological Schools research award, two research fellowships for work at the Institute for Advanced Study at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a research fellowship at the Institute for Ecumenical and Culture Research at St. John's University, and a Lily Foundation Senior Research Fellowship.

Dr. McGinn has delivered invited lectures at some one hundred colleges and universities in North America, Europe, and Israel. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Medieval Academy of America.  Past-president of the International Society for the Promotion of Eriugenean Studies, the American Society of Church History, and the American Catholic Historical Association, he is member of the board of The Eckhart Society. He served as editor-in-chief of the Paulist Press series Classics of Western Spirituality and currently serves as a member of the editorial boards of Cistercian Publications, The Encyclopedia of World Spirituality, The Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, and Spiritus.

Reviews

[Marcas]

This is a decent compilation of chosen representatives for the days of the early (ier) Church; which presciently covers both east and west.

Some chapters are, almost inevitably, vastly superior to others and I find much more important. Moreover, I find myself a lot more attracted to a few, such as The Theology of Icons espoused by Ouspensky, than other uninspiring chapters on the neoplatonist speculations of the Pseudo-Areopagite for example. (Whose millstone conjectures should not have a central role in Christian Living, in my view.)

This is a glance but should be one of a collection of resources on the early Church in ones library.

I've found Fr John Behr excellent as just one other source in researching the time and places covered in this book. Pelikan and Florovsky likewise.

[Adam]

Again, McGinn was/is a phenomenally talented academic who studies and publishes within the fields of Christian spirituality, mysticism, and theology. This is book one of what I believe are intended to be five tomes of material covering the unfolding nature and history of Christian spirituality. My brain feels like it's trying to stretch when I even think about reading this book, as it is likely to contain a relatively bottomless fount of ideas and possible new interests for me. It currently sits to the left of my head when I sleep at night, joining about twenty other wonderful 'to-read' books in bringing me creative possibility and Christian history by osmosis.

[Rob Markley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really, this is terribly written. I don't mean the English is particularly poor (although there are chapters translated into English and that may be a contributing factor), but rather that each article is filled with alternatively terse supposedly witty observations or verbose convoluted jargon filled comment. Who is this written for? Well, the only conclusion is that the authors were trying to impress each other with their cleverness. This is typical of academic writing and more the pity because we (the actual readers interested in 'Christian Spirituality) desperately need expertise to draw out and EXPLAIN lost and hidden mysteries.

Nevertheless between the snobbish lines, there are elements of insight and explanation in the topics chosen. Perhaps the editor deserves credit here for choosing topics to be addressed, but certainly not for the content produced under these headings?!? It is possible to get some value from most of the chapters and slightly to grow in knowledge of this period, but it could have been so very much more than it is.

Furthermore not all the articles are even correct, rather there is far too much trying to twist originality out of nothing - in other words making up a story. And a story that is wholly secular rather than actually spiritual!

Naturally (although perversely) also academics struggle to understand the difference between theology and spirituality and too often find themselves falling into theology by mistake. Chapter after chapter there is failure to truly address what spirituality meant for Christians in this era. Just one example, despite the overall heading, there is no attempt to grasp and explore one of the essentials of Christian spirituality being the idea of individual salvation.

Another big criticism is the division into Eastern and Western Christianity - well really this is misleading because both are dealing with exclusively west of Jerusalem. There is no regard given for true Eastern Spirituality - Assyria and elsewhere. Truly if the geographic divide is relevant which the book seems to assume, then why is this exclusively a history of Christianity within the boundaries of the former Roman Empire? Don't then call it 'Christian Spirituality'.

With this type of writing where academics try to prove their own cleverness through the use of jargon and sophistication of phrase, there is a crying need for a glossary of technical terms used. If they are going to write like this then people should at least be able to determine what the are actually talking about! I'm out of my depth quickly with the range of spiritual issue, personalities and ecclesiastical concepts discussed here, but at least I have decent grounding in both history and theology and was looking to be further educated - however this book fails on that count.

[Daniel Mcgregor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tome! It provides an excellent overview of 1200 years of church history and practice when it comes to Christian Spirituality. The writing can be uneven and at times even dull. But that is exactly what you would expect out of a book that seeks to provide rich insight into the spirituality of the Christian faith.