An Amazing Discovery, Part Trois.

[Innocent]

Perhaps some of you remember the past discoveries that Providence sent my way:

[url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/99021-an-amazing-discovery/"]An Amazing Discovery[/url]
[url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/106333-an-amazing-discovery-redux/"]An Amazing Discovery, Redux[/url]

Today, I found yet another famous Orthodox book that I had been scouring the net for, unsuccessfully until now. But, from my experiences with the internet, I typicaly don't give up when I fail to find something, but wait for some time and repeat the search at regular intervals, hoping that someone might have posted it online since the last time I searched for it. That is how I found the last two books, and today, Providence has been kind to me again:
[center][url="http://ortodox.felmer.org/documents/Unseen%20Warfare.pdf"][Direct link to PDF:] [i]The Unseen Warfare[/i][/url][/center]
From the [url="http://www.amazon.com/Unseen-Warfare-Spiritual-Paradise-Lorenzo/dp/0913836524"]Amazon.com product description[/url] of this text:

[quote]


This spiritual classic was written by Lorenzo Scupoli, a sixteenth-century Venetian priest. Immensely popular in its own day, it was ranked by Francis de Sales with the Imitation of Christ. In the general rapport between Western and Eastern Christendom, it reached Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, who first recognized its immense spiritual worth, and later, in the nineteenth century, Theophan the Recluse, both of whom edited and translated the work.

Rich in its references to the teachings of the saints and Fathers, Unseen Warfare combines the insights of West and East on that spiritual combat which is the road to perfection and the stripping away of all that militates against it. Staretz Theophan wrote in his foreword, "the arena, the field of battle, the site where the fight actually takes place is our own heart and all our inner man. The time of battle is our whole life."

[i]Unseen Warfare[/i] is a perfect complement to the [i]Philokalia.[/i][/quote]

from[url="http://theophan.net/sttheophan/writings.html"] a website dedicated to St. Theophan[/url]:
[quote]
[b] Unseen Warfare[/b]

[i]Unseen Warfare[/i]'s "first author" is not St. Theophan but a Roman Catholic writer, Lorenzo Scupoli. But St. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain, an Orthodox saint, found Scupoli's book wonderful and adapted it for Orthodox readers, also adding many notes and illustrations from Scripture and the Fathers of the Eastern Church. Then,[indent]
Bishop Theophan the Recluse, a director of souls and an ascetic theologian of note, who was acquainted with Nicodemus' writings, was moved by his admiration of them to translate the [i]Unseen Warfare[/i] from Greek into Russian. Like Nicodemus, and on an even greater scale, he allowed himself in translating it to make various changes and adaptations. The resulting version, supported by the double authority of Nicodemus and Theophan, took an assured place in the spiritual literature of the Russian Church. [From the Introduction to the book.][/indent]The title, in our mostly Protestant culture, is potentially somewhat misleading. It's a wonderful manual on the inner life.[/quote]



Dom Scupoli's book is very easily found on the internet in various formats, through a simple [url="http://www.google.co.in/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=the+spiritual+combat+dom+lorenzo+scupoli&pbx=1&oq=the+spiritual+combat+dom+lorenzo+scupoli&aq=f&aqi=g-v1&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=132l7164l0l7370l40l15l0l2l2l2l1990l8537l7-1.4l5l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=529c6492e93b36ff&biw=1366&bih=602"]google search[/url] and some beautiful scanned etexts are also available [url="http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Lorenzo+Scupoli%22"]on the Internet Archive[/url]. But until now, I had no success in finding the revised version by Ss. Nicodemus and Theophan.

The main page of the website where I found this file is somewhat enigmatic:

[url="http://ortodox.felmer.org/"]http://ortodox.felmer.org/[/url]

and so I am not sure exactly whom to be grateful to for posting this online. ( However, the alt text in the image of the owl at the top of the page says "Gergeti Trinity Church of Kazbegi (Georgia) XIV Century," and so I suppose they are the good people who have uploaded this.)

Edited October 26, 2011 by Innocent

[Byzantine]

Nice.