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Counsels on the Spiritual Life: Mark the Monk (Popular Patristics)
by: Tim Casiday, Augustine, Mark The Monk, Mark The Ascetic Vivian
Product Information
Condition: New
Binding: Paper Back
Author: Tim Casiday, Augustine, Mark The Monk, Mark The Ascetic Vivian
Publisher: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press (November 2009)
ISBN: 0881410632
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The spiritual counsels of Mark, a fifth century monk in Asia Minor, are equally rich in theological insight and historical interest. His writings were deeply valued by Byzantine ascetics, were circulated during the Reformation, and were read by Lutheran divines and Roman theologians. The general level of interest in his works during the first half of the second millennium is eloquently reported in a fourteenth century manuscript, as a slogan often repeated by monastics and ascetics: Sell everything and buy Mark. His words on taking responsibility for one another out of love, his practical advice on the need for repentance, and his strident emphasis on the kind of unity evident in Christ directly relate to modern Christians and may provide a useful point of departure for ecumenical dialogue. This is the 37th book in the Popular Patristic series from St Vladimir's Seminary Press. This book contains two volumes bound in one book.
'Sell everything and buy Mark,' the old men of the desert used to say. It's a dictum in alignment with the all-or-nothing approach that makes the desert ascetics so difficult and appealing. Temperance is advised here, and patience. While most of us are unable (and possibly incapable) of living the sort of extreme physical existence these desert solitudes practiced, there's no doubt the same quandaries of soul beset modern man-many of whom would do well to trade in a session or two with his therapist for a page or two of Mark. Take his insights on anger: Anger, on account of some pathetic and wretched pretext, causes you both to inflict and to suffer pain, and has you storing up reminders of wicked thoughts about your neighbor, shutting you off from pure prayer...It also hands you over for a while to evil spirits to whom you submit yourself for punishment, until the mind...begins again and sets out once more, with great humility taking the first steps on the road to salvation. Mark's Byzantine contemporaries weren't the only ones to hold him in high esteem. Early Irish monks, the pioneering Reformation Lutherans, and Roman Catholic theologians found him to be an important resource, especially in terms of his emphasis on grace and his highly developed understanding of sin. As always, the St. Vladimir's Popular Patristics Series delivers with a fine historical and theological introduction as well as germane notes on the text.
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