The Hesychast method of prayer: its anthropological and symbolic significance

摘要

Hesychasm is an Eastern Christian method of prayer based on the invocation of the Name of Jesus and on the 'descent of the nos ('intellect', 'mind' or 'spirit') into the heart'. This spiritual path, the method of which emerged in its most explicit form between the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries on Mount Athos, is the core of Christianity, since it consists in the inner practice of the fervent and continuous repetition of the holy Name and aims to achieve metnoia ('change of the nos') for the entire human being; and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through an incessant militia super terram comparable to the Muslim jihd al-akbar ('great holy war'). A meditated analysis of some forms of symbolism which characterize the method in question plus a few comparisons between some central components of Hesychasm, Sufism and other traditional spiritual paths may be an adequate starting-point to understand more deeply the symbolic and anthropological aspects of this eminently 'paradoxical' ascetic discipline.