Pneumatology
Gallaher, BDF
Date: 25 February 2020
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
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Abstract
This chapter seeks to show that mysticism is not about the rarefied experience of certain
spiritual athletes but the Holy Spirit’s ordinary or common call to transformation of every
Christian into a potentially extraordinary ‘second Christ’. The author contends that in
Christian teaching the Spirit hides himself but in this age is ...
This chapter seeks to show that mysticism is not about the rarefied experience of certain
spiritual athletes but the Holy Spirit’s ordinary or common call to transformation of every
Christian into a potentially extraordinary ‘second Christ’. The author contends that in
Christian teaching the Spirit hides himself but in this age is made known in the faces of
transformed Christians—saints and mystics—as little ‘christs’. The Spirit is said to be the
author of the Body of Christ in which Christians are called to put on Christ, living lives
headed by the Spirit, as ‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Pet. 1: 4). Examples are drawn
from the mystical and liturgical tradition in Christian East and West: Symeon the New
Theologian, Seraphim of Sarov, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, as well as in
baptismal and eucharistic theology and especially in the work of Augustine.
Classics, Ancient History, Religion and Theology
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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