Izvorni znanstveni članak

Marulić: Man of Prayer, Teacher of Prayer

Mladen Parlov orcid.org/0000-0002-7248-3959 ; Teološki fakultet, Split

Sažetak

The reality of prayer lies at the centre of Christian living. The whole of the Christian religious tradition, in its various branches and currents, is in large part a doctrine about prayer. Through his works, Marulić is classified among religious teachers of no small significance. His works, as is well known, educated generations of religious and of pious laymen. It can in fact be said that Marulić represents himself in his works not only as a man of prayer, but as a teacher of prayer.
The article is primarily interested in the theology of prayer in Marulić’s discourse, that is, it endeavours to delve into the profundities of Marulić’s doctrine of prayer, as well as of his personal supplication. Marulić’s works reveal that his personal prayers were influenced by the sources that he used (the Scriptures and the fathers), as well as by the time in which he lived. On the other hand, his doctrine of prayer also reveals his personal experience, and at once endeavours to be grounded in the Bible and in Patristic sources, which gives both weight and currency to his work, in his time and today. On the basis of his profoundly lived experience of the closeness and presence of God, as well as of his own sinfulness, which had a deep effect on his life, Marulić can, without doubt, be included among the Christian mystics. His mystic experience is most probably devoid of any extra-sensory phenomena (levitation, visions and the like), and yet nonetheless mystical for that.
It is not surprising then that Silvano Razzi, translator of Marulić’s Evangelistarum into Italian, in the accompanying dedicatory epistle, writes that he had been told by »many learned and educated persons that of all that they had read in their life no work had more incited them to the spiritual life… than they had felt that this work had done«. In other words, throughout the 16th century, Marulić’s works were recognised as writings that served for the development of the Christian spiritual life, as spiritual manuals, as it were. In them, the chapters about prayer are certainly not among those of lesser importance.

Ključne riječi

Hrčak ID:

23922

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/23922

Datum izdavanja:

22.4.2008.

Podaci na drugim jezicima: hrvatski

Posjeta: 2.743 *