A Monk's Alphabet
A Monk's Alphabet

Author: Jeremy Driscoll

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2007-12-11

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 0834826429

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From the time of the desert fathers to our own "post-Christian" age, the literature of monastic wisdom has provided inspiration for those of us who lead ordinary lives in the world. Father Jeremy Driscoll, a poet and theologian who is also a Benedictine monk, brings the genre into the twenty-first century with this exquisitely written collection of reflections on life from a monastic perspective. Whether reflecting on the details of the cloistered life, or observing the weirdness of American culture, explaining a fine point of Catholic theology to a child, or meditating on the flight of a seagull over the glittering ocean at sunrise, Fr. Jeremy’s voice both enchants and provokes us to further contemplation. The 189 meditations are arranged by short titles in alphabetical order to emphasize that the reader should approach them in random fashion, without preconceived ideas, in order to be open to where they lead the heart and mind.

The Alphabet Not Unlike the World
The Alphabet Not Unlike the World

Author: Katrina Vandenberg

Publisher: Milkweed Editions

Published: 2012-07-03

Total Pages: 105

ISBN-13: 1571318631

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In her highly ambitious second collection of poems, Katrina Vandenberg takes her inspiration from the alphabet. A meditation on the hump of a camel, and what it hides. A reminder that tomatoes belong to the nightshade family, and a vision of the plant as Adam’s downfall. The Book of Kells, gold-leafed and extravagantly decorated by monks. Titled for letters of the Phoenician alphabet, and employing such innovative forms as the ancient ghazal, these poems are richly grounded in objects both humble and exotic. Vandenberg explores the intersection of power and forgiveness, and deciphers the seemingly indecipherable in emotionally poignant ways. “What will protect us?” one poem asks. “The words will be our weapons. In the end.” Moving between the physical and the abstract, the individual and the collective, The Alphabet Not Unlike the World unearths meaning—with astonishing beauty—from the pain of loss and separation.

The Illuminated Alphabet
The Illuminated Alphabet

Author: Timothy Noad

Publisher: Chartwell Books

Published: 2017-12-12

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 0785835679

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An inspirational introduction to creating decorative calligraphy.

The Monks of the Nag Hammadi Codices
The Monks of the Nag Hammadi Codices

Author: Paula Tutty

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2024-10-02

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 9004699082

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This work tells the story of a community of fourth-century monks living in Egypt. The letters they wrote and received were found within the covers of works that changed our understanding of early religious thought - the Nag Hammadi Codices. This book seeks to contextualise the letters and answer questions about monastic life. Significantly, new evidence is presented that links the letters directly to the authors and creators of the codices in which they were discovered.

The Ciphers of the Monks
The Ciphers of the Monks

Author: David A. King

Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 9783515076401

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This is the first comprehensive study of an ingenious number-notation from the Middle Ages that was devised by monks and mainly used in monasteries. A simple notation for representing any number up to 99 by a single cipher, somehow related to an ancient Greek shorthand, first appeared in early-13th-century England, brought from Athens by an English monk. A second, more useful version, due to Cistercian monks, is first attested in the late 13th century in what is today the border country between Belgium and France: with this any number up to 9999 can be represented by a single cipher. The ciphers were used in scriptoria - for the foliation of manuscripts, for writing year-numbers, preparing indexes and concordances, numbering sermons and the like, and outside the scriptoria - for marking the scales on an astronomical instrument, writing year-numbers in astronomical tables, and for incising volumes on wine-barrels. Related notations were used in medieval and Renaissance shorthands and coded scripts. This richly-illustrated book surveys the medieval manuscripts and Renaissance books in which the ciphers occur, and takes a close look at an intriguing astrolabe from 14th-century Picardy marked with ciphers. With Indices. "Mit Kings luzider Beschreibung und Bewertung der einzelnen Funde und ihrer Beziehungen wird zugleich die Forschungsgeschichte - die bis dato durch Widerspruechlichkeit und Diskontinuit�t gepr�gt ist - umfassend aufgearbeitet." Zeitschrift fuer Germanistik.

The Monastic Way
The Monastic Way

Author: Hannah Ward

Publisher: Canterbury Press

Published: 2013-01-25

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1848254148

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A book of daily readings drawn from the writings of those who have lived the monastic life in all the major spiritual traditions of the Eastern and Western Churches: Benedictine, Franciscan, Orthodox, Carmelite, and others. For each month there is a specific theme: Starting Out, Seeking Guidance, Living With Others, Balancing Life and so on, through the year. Each theme is introduced by quotations from one of the great monastic Rules, and for each day of the year there is an excerpt from the writings of a huge variety of men and women stretching across the centuries, from 5th century Desert Mothers to Basil Hume, Joan Chittister, Thomas Merton and many more familiar and new names. This is a book for all who are looking to an ancient, rooted wisdom for practical guidance on living in the world today.

The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome
The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome

Author: Julia Verkholantsev

Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press

Published: 2014-09-30

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 150175792X

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The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome is the first book-length study of the medieval legend that Church Father and biblical translator St. Jerome was a Slav who invented the Slavic (Glagolitic) alphabet and Roman Slavonic rite. Julia Verkholantsev locates the roots of this belief among the Latin clergy in Dalmatia in the 13th century and describes in fascinating detail how Slavic leaders subsequently appropriated it to further their own political agendas. The Slavic language, written in Jerome's alphabet and endorsed by his authority, gained the unique privilege in the Western Church of being the only language other than Latin, Greek, and Hebrew acceptable for use in the liturgy. Such privilege, confirmed repeatedly by the popes, resulted in the creation of narratives about the distinguished historical mission of the Slavs and became a possible means for bridging the divide between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches in the Slavic-speaking lands. In the fourteenth century the legend spread from Dalmatia to Bohemia and Poland, where Glagolitic monasteries were established to honor the Apostle of the Slavs Jerome and the rite and letters he created. The myth of Jerome's apostolate among the Slavs gained many supporters among the learned and spread far and wide, reaching Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and England. Grounded in extensive archival research, Verkholantsev examines the sources and trajectory of the legend of Jerome's Slavic fellowship within a wider context of European historical and theological thought. This unique volume will appeal to medievalists, Slavicists, scholars of religion, those interested in saints' cults, and specialists of philology.