Kippenberg/9/11 Handbook, 3. THE INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN IN THE SPIRITUAL MANUAL

As a first step, I will determine which types of instructions are given in the text and how much space is devoted to each of them. The distinction between non-religious and religious elements allows us to determine the extent to which we are entitled to speak of the text as a Spiritual Manual. Another distinction, namely that between external and internal behaviour, will help us to understand better the specific character of the religious instructions. In practice, a sorting of the various instructions into the four categories resulting from the combinations of these features will always involve a certain degree of arbitrariness, but the overall result is unlikely to change dramatically even if single cases were categorized differently.