Plato Christianus – Christian Platonists and Neoplatonists

Christian Platonism and Neoplatonism (Part 1)
This shows a list of Christian Platonist or Neoplatonist philosophers through the Middle Ages (Part 2 will consider those of the Renaissance and later).
A fuller list, with hyperlinks and showing important writings of each person listed can be found on the web page:
Christian Platonists and Neoplatonists
The reader would be [...]

The Trinity as Communion

This book is highly recommended: Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church, by John D. Zizioulas, Eastern Orthodox metropolitan of Pergamon and modern theologian. Among other things, the book discusses a valuable new perspective on the nature of God, and, in particular on the Trinity.
This new perspective depends on an important [...]

Apostolic Constitutions – Of Religion and Wisdom

Apostolic Constitutions 1.1 – Of Religion and Wisdom
Therefore, leaving the authors of this earthly philosophy, who bring forward nothing certain. let us approach the right path; for if I considered these to be sufficiently suitable guides to a good life, I would both follow them myself, and exhort others to follow them. But since they [...]

Intentions and the Higher Self

[Here are some notes I made previously on the subject of intentions and the Higher Self. They need to be developed more fully and perhaps integrated with other material.  But I think the idea here is important -- the main reason I'm posting these notes to the blog is so that I don't I don't [...]

Know Thyself: St Hippolytus

The treatise of St Hippolytus On the Refutation of All Heresies
The saying Know yourself means therefore that we should recognise and acknowledge in ourselves the God who made us in his own image..
via Universalis: Office of Readings.

The Gnosis of St Thérèse de Lisieux

The Gnosis of St Thérèse de Lisieux
For October 1 2008
Summary: One can view St Thérèse de Lisieux as a gnostic — and, in a manner of speaking, an ‘alchemist’. A true alchemist seeks not gold, but happiness, and love is the key to true happiness.
Today the Roman Catholic Church is privileged to commemorate the [...]

Patristic Psychology

The ancients were far better psychologists than we give them credit for. It is a supreme folly of modern men to think we are vastly intellectually superior to the ancients. True, we are technologically more sophisticated, but there is no evidence that we are fundamentally better and deeper thinkers than they.
Indeed, there is good reason [...]

A Trip to Aalst

This weekend I took a day trip to the city of Aalst, Belgium — just a few miles west of Brussels.
I took the trip because someone suggested there was a dance festival in Aalst that day.  But when I arrived no festival was to be seen; so instead I headed on lto the town center [...]

Countering Political Evil

At the Watchblog Third Party Website, Joel S. Hirschhorn wrote an good article titled The Evolution of Evil. He identifies as an essential problem the current two-party system. To quote Joel:
Most corrupt and legally sanctioned forms of tyranny hide in plain sight as democracies with free elections….  Nothing conceals tyranny better than elections. [...]

Politics: Inner and Outer

A fairly little-known fact is that Plato’s Republic, a work often taught in government and political science classes, is really about psychology. If you read the Republic closely, you see that Plato (through the character of Socrates) introduces the ideal State as a metaphor for the human soul. The idea is to, using [...]