Teacher A Jia: The Guided Reading Class of Love God Collection (Part 1) will start from 19:30-21:00 on June 6, 2022

"Eros Collection", also known as "Music Collection" or "Love Beauty Collection", the original Greek is: φιλοκαλία, φιλο has the meaning of mutual love, καλία literally means good, beautiful, in Greek philosophy, it refers to the One, that is, the supreme God, in the Christian context, means God. Therefore, the author translated it as "Love God Collection".

Eros Anthology is a classic collection of Orthodox spiritual traditions, especially Inner Prayer, covering the writings of spiritual masters from the fourth to fifteenth centuries. At the end of the 18th century, two monks of the Holy Mountain of Athos, St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain of Athos (1749-1809) and St. Macario of Corinth (St. . Makarios of Corinth 1731-1805) edited a collection of Eros, first published in Venice in 1782. In 1893, the collection was republished in Athens, with the addition of something not found in the first edition: Bishop Callisto (Καλλίστος) "On Prayer". The third edition, divided into five volumes, was published in Athens by the Astir Publishing Company from 1957 to 1963. Our translation of this introductory version is based on this version. For the editor of Eros, editorial policies, reasons for publication, main content, etc., please refer to the author's translation of Kallistos Ware's article: Saint Nicodemus and Eros .

There is no trial class for this course. All trial content can be found under the column of "Eros Collection Guide". See the above article, the lecture on the Eastern Church's inner prayer , the biblical basis of the inner prayer tradition , and the Christian spiritual practice and Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Essential differences in spiritual practice, etc.

Why open the Eros Collection Guided Class?

First of all, this course is not a teacher-student course, but an academic course, that is, to understand the Eastern Church's prayer tradition by reading first and second-hand materials. Of course, in order to deepen the understanding of this tradition, I encourage students to practice the Jesus Prayer, see my article: Advice for Protestants to practice the Jesus Prayer .

Secondly, the opening of this course, on the one hand, is the field that the author has been focusing on, and on the other hand, in accordance with the spirit of the author’s academic road to open the way for the road of contemplation, the way of opening the course firstly opens up a space for the road of contemplation in terms of ideology. Academic translation and reading, the formation of an atmosphere of mutual discussion, the road of contemplation is like cooking without rice, and it is difficult to really establish it.

The course poster is as follows: