The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (64 page)

(1109–67).
Cistercian
monk of Rievaulx; author, as novice-master, of
Speculum Caritatis
(The Mirror of Love), emphasizing God's love as restoring fallen humans into their true image. He was
abbot
of Revesby in 1143 and of Rievaulx in 1147. He wrote a major work on Christian friendship, based on Cicero's
De Amicitia
, but showing how friendship is transformed and spiritualized in relation to Christ (hence the title,
De Spirituali Amicitia
). He has, consequently, been adopted as the equivalent of a
patron saint
by some gay (
homosexual
) Christians.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Aeon
:

(Gk.,
aion
, ‘age, time’). A period of time, usually lengthy. As ‘time without end’, it became synonymous with eternity. For the Hindu
manvantara
, see
MANU
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Aetiology
(account of causes or origins)
:

see
MYTH
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(Gk.). In Greek Orthodoxy, the inset in the choir floor which marked the position of the emperor's throne. From this it became a decorated mat on which
bishops
stand at their consecration in order to recite the
Creed
and their profession of faith.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Affective prayer
.

A way of prayer which makes use of the emotions or feelings or the will, as opposed to prayer of the intellect.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Affirmative way
.

The approach to God which affirms that something can be discerned of his being and nature through reason and from the created order. It is therefore in contrast to the
via negativa
. A classic expression occurs in Christianity in the five arguments advanced by St
Thomas Aquinas
(
Quinque Viae
) from which he concluded that ‘the existence of God can be demonstrated from those of his effects which are known to us’ (
Summ. Theol
. 1, qu. 2, art. 2): it can be known
that
God is, but not, without revelation,
what
God is. The affirmative way is even stronger in some other religions, especially in Islam, where creation offers demonstrations of God subsumed under the same word (
ay
) as that which is used for the verses of the
Qur’
n
; and in Hinduism, where the cosmic appearance may be the body of God (see e.g.
R
m
nuja
), and where in any case the true reality underlies all appearance. The affirmative way is the foundation of kataphatic theology in contrast to
apophatic
, though the two are necessarily linked, since even the ultimate kataphatic claim of Jesus, that ‘he who has seen me has seen the Father’ (John 14. 9) does not produce God as an object among objects.