4 ms·
There's not a good deal of solid literature on it in English that I've found, but contemplative Christian prayer evolved later on. I want to say circa 500 or so
by pnathan 6y ago
There's not a good deal of solid literature on it in English that I've found, but contemplative Christian prayer evolved later on. I want to say circa 500 or so. I think today it's primarily found in the Eastern Orthodox churches.
- froh 6y agohere is a random paper from 1994, back when peer review was still a thing: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3270411?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3270411?seq=1 it connects silent prayer to Philo, a contemporary of Jesus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo and it connects silent prayer to early desert fathers, like Clement of Alexandria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_of_Alexandria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_of_Alexandria
- pnathan 6y agoUnfortunately I don't have access to that paper, and the timeline isn't in the abstract. The abstract mentions it took a long time to be accepted. Also. For clarity (you may know this, but others may not) I want to distinguish very clearly the difference between a silent prayer and meditation. A silent prayer is verbalized intention within your head, sometimes mouthed. If you were to look up Judaism's silent prayer, it is repeating a ritual sequence of words - the meanings of which you should know. As traditionally conceived, it is addressing the Eternal as a Person. The different meditation approaches I've encountered - conventional "Western mindfulness" and a more intense secular Hindu system - are focused on detaching awareness. Sometimes mantras are used/repeated. It is exceptionally variant from the early silent prayer approach, or even the nominal silent prayer approach of today. Contemplative prayer did start with the desert fathers, I think.