" Wisdom Has Built Herself a Home " Evagrius Ponticus and The Wisdom of Creation

Internationales Theologisches Institut Hochschule für Katholische Theologie “Wisdom Has Built Herself a Home” Evagrius Ponticus and The Wisdom of Creation A THESIS Submitted to the Faculty of The International Theological Institute in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in Sacred Theology by Br. Evagrius Hayden, O.S.B. Trumau, Austria 2015 This thesis by Br. Evagrius Hayden O.S.B., approved by Rev. Dr. Yosyp Veresh as Advisor, fulfills the thesis requirement for the degree of Master in Sacred Theology. ______________________________ Rev. Dr. Yosyp Veresh, Advisor For my dear brothers of Norcia. Brothers are those who possess The charism of filial adoption And are under the same Father, Christ, Whom the 'witness of iniquity' seeks to divide By throwing in troubles and discord. Evagrius Ponticus: Scholia on Proverbs, 78 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction........................................................................................................1 Part I – An Icon of a Desert Father...................................................................6 Chapter 1 – The Life of Evagrius.................................................................................6 1. Sources for the Vita of Evagrius..........................................................................7 1.1. Primary Sources............................................................................................7 1.2. Secondary Sources........................................................................................9 2. The Makings of a Desert Father.........................................................................10 2.1. Pontus and Cappadocia: 345-379...............................................................10 2.2. Constantinople: 379-382.............................................................................11 2.3. Jerusalem: 382............................................................................................13 2.4. Egypt: 383-399...........................................................................................14 2.5. Literary Patrimony......................................................................................17 3. The After-life of Evagrius: The Origenist Controversies...................................20 Chapter 2 – Modern Perceptions and Schools of Thought.........................................25 1. The “Heresiological School” of Interpretation...................................................25 2. The “Benedictine School” of Interpretation.......................................................26 Part II – The Wisdom of Creation...................................................................31 Chapter 1 – The Purpose of Creation: The Wisdom of Love......................................31 1. Created for Union...............................................................................................31 2. Renewed After the Image of Christ....................................................................35 Chapter 2 – The Content of Creation: The Wisdom of Letters...................................39 1. A Letter of Love, A Letter of Wisdom................................................................39 2. The Corporeals and Incorporeals.......................................................................42 2.1. Corporeal Beings as Letters of Wisdom.....................................................42 2.2. Incorporeal Beings as Letters of Wisdom..................................................46 Chapter 3 – The Author of Creation: The Wisdom of The Anointed One..................48 1. The Word as Wisdom.........................................................................................48 2. Christ as the Wisdom of the Unity.....................................................................50 3. Christ as Manifold Wisdom...............................................................................54 4. The Kingdom of Christ......................................................................................57 Conclusion.........................................................................................................61 Bibliography.....................................................................................................64 ABBREVIATIONS Works by Evagrius Ponticus: 8 Th. “On the Eight Thoughts.” AM “Ad Monachos.” Ant. “Antirrhetikos.” Aph. “Aphorisms.” Ep. “Selected Letters.” Ep. Fid. “Epistula Fidei.” Eul. “To Eulogios, On the Confession of Thoughts and Counsel in Their Regard.” GL “The Great Letter.” Gn. “Gnostikos.” KG “Kephalaia Gnostika.” Pr. “Chapters on Prayer.” Refl. “Reflections.” Schol. in Eccl. “Notes On Ecclesiastes.” Schol. in Prov. “Scholies Aux Proverbes.” Schol. in Ps. “Selected Scholia on Psalms.” Th. “On Thoughts.” TP “The Monk: A Treatise on the Practical Life (The Praktikos).” S1 “Kephalaia Gnostika.” 1st Syriac recension (Text by Frankenberg) S2 “Kephalaia Gnostika.” 2nd Syriac recension (Text by Guillaumont) Vic. “On the Vices Opposed to the Virtues” Works by other authors: HE Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomenus. “Historia Ecclesiastica,” LH Palladius. “The Lausiac History of Palladius.” VC Palladius. “Vita Copta of Evagrius Ponticus.” For more detailed information, please refer to the bibliography. INTRODUCTION “The wisdom of the Lord shall rest in the heart of the wise.”1 The writings of Evagrius Ponticus draw our attention because he has traced out in a beautifully poetic and deeply scriptural way the path of wisdom. In his writings he represents a masterfully insightful interplay of the various traditions and spiritual fathers by whom he was formed, both Coptic-Egyptian and Cappadocian-Greek, and is thus an important witness to their thought. He is a true desert father to the core having learned from the best of them and transmitting their ascetical tradition with his own dedication and fervor for contemplative prayer. At the same time, he is a faithful disciple of the Cappadocian fathers, integrating their deep appreciation for the spiritual understanding of Scripture into his teachings. His division of the spiritual life into its three stages and also his teaching on the eight tempting thoughts has decisively influenced all the following traditions of both east and west, from St. John Cassian, St. Gregory the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John of the Cross, or else St. John Climacus, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. John Damascene, and St. Isaac of Ninevah, as well as many others. In modern times there has been a growing interest in his thought with the discovery of many new texts written by him that had been lost for centuries, or else passed on under pseudonymous authors. This growth of interest though is not without some controversy. Evagrius has been better known throughout the centuries as a discredited Origenist philosopher, too taken up with his own adventurous speculation. It is only in recent times that his works have begun to be reviewed in a different light, not as the works 1 Evagrius Ponticus, Scholies Aux Proverbes, ed. Paul Géhin, Sources Chrétiennes 340 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1987), 228 (Géhin, 324); For sources of Evagrius in the Patrologia Greca, see Evagrius Ponticus, “Scholia on the Psalms: 12:1054-1686, Passim; 27:60-545, Passim; Epistula Fidei: 32:245–68 (attributed to Basil, 360), 1383 (corrections); Ad Virginem (Latin): 40:1185-88; Practicus et Epistlua Ad Anatolium: 40:1220c–1236c; De Malignis Cogationibus 40:1240a-44b (completes the Text Found in PG 79, Below); Hypotyposis: 40:1252d-64c; Capitulae Xxxiii: 40:1264d-68b; Spiritales Sententiae per Alphabeticum Dispositae: 40:1268c-69b; Aliae Sententiae 40:1269b-D; Sententiae Ad Monachos (Latin): 40:1277-82; Apophthegmata: 65:173-76; Tractatus Ad Eulogium: 79:1093d-1140a [attr. Nilus]; De Vitiis Quae Opposita Sunt Virtutibus: 79:1140b-44d [attr. Nilus]; De Octo Spiritibus Malitiae: 79:1145-64 [attr. Nilus]; De Oratione: 79:1165a-1200c [attr. Nilus]; De Malignis Cogationibus: 79:1200d-33a [attr. Nilus; Partial; Completed by PG 40, Above]; Institutio Seu Paraenesis Ad Monachos: 79:1235-40 [attr. Nilus],” in Patrologiae Cursus Completus..., vol. 12, 27, 32, 40, 65, 79, Series Graeca (Paris: apud Garnier fratres, editores et JP Migne successores, 1857). 1 of a brash and clever philosopher infatuated with platonic ideas, but of a mild and gentle theologian, imbued with the scriptures, a monk who lived and breathed what he believed and sought with all his heart to draw close to God. The image of Evagrius has not yet been fully redeemed from the dustbin of history. Many modern scholars, relying too heavily on outdated research, are still taken up with the old way of seeing Evagrius as a defunct Origenist who only draws one's interest insofar as he is ingeniously heretical. There is still very much work that needs to be done in order to restore somewhat his image as a respectful and orthodox desert father of the fourth century. Research into every aspect of his life and works continues to proceed gradually with scholars from all over the world contributing to the discussion. This thesis is our own small attempt at a contribution to the debate.2 That Evagrius is fully orthodox might never be demonstratively proven. Too many controversies have swept over his works making it difficult to discern what in fact are his truly authentic teachings. Nonetheless, despite whatever inaccuracies one might try to discern in his thought, there is something of eminent value to be derived from it. In order to drink from his 'spring' of knowledge and to draw from his 'deep well' of wisdom the great spiritual profit that is hidden there,3 we will have to think like he did, and to step into his time, as it were. We wish to approach Evagrius not as an overly critical analyst, accusing him at every possible turn, but rather as a humble disciple, to take a more positive approach by examining what words of wisdom he has to offer that we can take away with us and store up in our heart. 4 This means that at times we will have to reserve judgment on Evagrius' intention, leaving many questions unresolved. His writings as they have been passed on to us are not always clear, or perhaps we are not up to understanding them properly. Since Evagrius was imbued with the Scriptures, the best key for understanding him is the Scriptures themselves. Our method of interpretation will thus follow, wherever possible, this 2 3 4 Cf. Augustine Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus: Beyond Heresy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 4; For a complete list of modern and ancient scholarship on the writings of Evagrius, see Joel Kalvesmaki, “Guide to Evagrius Ponticus,” accessed May 12, 2015, http://evagriusponticus.net/. Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov., 63 (Géhin, 154). Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Ad Monachos,” in Evagrius Ponticus: Ad Monachos, trans. Jeremy Driscoll, Ancient Christian Writers 59 (New York: Newman Press, 2003), 73 (Driscoll, 54). 2 classical patristic method of interpreting Scripture, that is using the more clear parts of the text to understand the less clear, in sum using Evagrius to understand Evagrius. Thus, when trying to understand a particular theme or text of Evagrius, we will bring other texts from his corpus to bear on our interpretation, hoping in that way to shed some light on Evagrius' intention. A master's thesis is not expansive enough to give a full account of the richness and depth of Evagrian theology. The vast amount of scholarly work that has been done so far, whether in the fields of philology, anthropology, philosophy, or theology, bears witness to the broad gamma of subject matter that there is to treat in his writings. Our intention is to give no more than a small taste into the thought and a mere introduction to the person of Evagrius; the length of our work will not allow more. But we also wish to leave our reader with a substantial, holistic, and integral view of who Evagrius was as a monk, and what was his view on the world and on God. Our primary purpose in this thesis is to come to understand Evagrius' teaching regarding the wisdom of creation. But before we come to see that, we will first need to understand who he was and how his life influenced his theology of wisdom.5 In the First Part of this thesis, we will try to understand who Evagrius was by first focusing on his life, his works, and their modern reception. In Chapter One of this First Part we will focus on recounting the life of Evagrius, taking as our primary sources the Vita Copta and the Historia Lausiaca, both of them written by Palladius. In Chapter Two we will turn our attention to the modern reception of Evagrius' patrimony and the different schools of thought that have formed 5 Regarding whether Evagrius was a saint, Butler’s lives states that “Evagrius Ponticus makes a first appearance as a saint in the West in the new Roman Martyrology. He had featured earlier in the synaxaries of Constantinople and Alexandria, but he is not recognized as a saint in the Orthodox East on account of the condemnation of some of his writings.” Alban Butler, Butler’s Lives Of The Saints:February, Revised edition (Tunbridge Wells: Continuum, 1998), 111 In Butler’s Lives, it is indicated that Evagrius’ feast of February 11 should be celebrated as an optional memorial in the Roman Church. Pietro Bartocchi gives a slightly different appraisal stating, “In the indexes of the ‘Analecta Bollandiana’ Evagrius is marked with an asterisk which one usually places on the names of saints who do not have an ecclesiastical cult. It is certain, nevertheless, that he had received the title of saint from someone and, as such, it was retained (eg. in Greek manuscripts mentioned by Tillemont); Zöckler on his part cites a Syriac manuscript in which a ‘Vita’ of Evagrius is inserted into a collection of lives of the Saints; also in the ‘Magnum Legendarium Austriacum’, Evagrius is called a saint, confessor, and is celebrated on the 13th of June, while the Armenians commemorate him on the 5th of ‘mehek’, that is the 11th of February, and by the Copts on the 5th Sunday of Lent.” Pietro Bertocchi, “Evagrio Pontico,” Bibliotheca Sanctorum (Roma: Città Nuova Editrice, 1983), 362 Translation: Evagrius Hayden. 3 around his teachings. In presenting an overview of the modern status quaestionis, we will rely primarily on the work of Fr.'s Gabriel Bunge, Izsák Baán, Jeremy Driscoll, and Luke Dysinger, all of them Benedictine monks, as well as on the work of Augustine Casiday. These scholars together represent the 'Benedictine school' of interpretation, that is, a particular hermeneutic that seeks to understand Evagrius in an orthodox light and thus to receive his patrimony as an organic whole, coming as it does from the scriptural and monastic milieu of Cappadocia and the Egyptian desert. 6 We will examine in the Second Part of our thesis the role of the wisdom of creation in the theology of Evagrius and how it draws the mind towards God. If we wish to come to knowledge about something, the first and most fundamental question that must be answered is, “what is it?” But, the first step in understanding the nature of a thing is to seek for its causes, for these are the principles of its being. Once one has the cause, then they know why it is and, to some extent, what it is. Therefore, in trying to understand what wisdom is and how it operates in the theology of Evagrius, we will focus primarily on its various causes. In the First Chapter of this Second Part, we will discuss the final cause of wisdom, that is its ultimate purpose or final goal. In the Second Chapter of this part we will discuss the content of created wisdom, namely its material and formal aspects. Finally, in the Third Chapter we will discuss the divine author and agent cause of created wisdom, that is, the Word and Wisdom itself. Since Evagrius does not give a comprehensive and systematic treatment of the theology of wisdom in any one particular work, our primary sources for understanding his teaching on wisdom will be many and varied, covering the whole gamma of the Evagrian corpus. And yet, among the works in which he treats of the nature of wisdom, those will occur more frequently which either pertain to the interpretation of Scripture and its wisdom-literature, or else to those levels of the spiritual life in which one begins to focus more intensely on how to attain wisdom. Thus, besides making use of his many ascetical works, such as his treatise On Thoughts or his Praktikos, we will focus primarily on Evagrius' Scriptural scholia, particularly his commentaries on Psalms, 6 Cf. Augustine Casiday, “Gabriel Bunge and the Study of Evagrius Ponticus: A Review Article,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 48, no. 2 (2004): 251. 4 Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. In addition, we will frequently cite his Great Letter and his Epistula Fidei as well as the Kephalaia Gnostica and the Ad Monachos on account of the very broad and picturesque vision that these works trace of the wisdom of creation and the journey one must make in order to attain it.7 7 Please refer to the bibliography for a complete list of the works of Evagrius cited in this thesis. 5 PART I – AN ICON OF A DESERT FATHER All that is true and good draws the mind to itself like a spring that draws the deer that thirsts for running waters (cf. Ps. 41:2). It is the connatural drawing of truth upon the mind that makes it possible to recognize truth for what it is. Our love for it makes us want to know it more, and this knowledge of truth in turn gives birth to greater love. When we experience the truth of someone's words, especially if they are words that come from a pure heart, then we catch a glimpse of the beauty of that person's soul. That beauty draws us towards them and makes us want to follow in their footsteps, to become that person's disciple and to learn from the sanctity of their life. We wish to understand who Evagrius was and, seeing the signs of sanctity in his life, to be edified and inspired by his example. Part of knowing who someone is necessitates seeing also how they are thought of by others. Thus, besides looking at the life of Evagrius himself, we will also examine how his works and his Vita were received by those who came after him, both in the centuries immediately following upon his death as well by scholars of the modern era. By proceeding in this way, we will be able to see how the upheavals of the centuries following Evagrius' death served to shape their contemporary reception and interpretation. Once we know how he was perceived both by his devoted disciples who loved him and admired his writings on the one hand, as well as by his enemies who were suspicious and hostile on the other, only then can we appreciate the struggles and spiritual growth that he endured as a monk and how that formed his approach to the theology of wisdom. Knowing more about Evagrius, we will then be in a better position to understand his pedagogy and the theology of wisdom that flows from it. Chapter 1 – The Life of Evagrius Before looking at the life of Evagrius and then the cultural controversies that followed his death, we will first examine the different sources which have come down to us that tell us something of the life of Evagrius. 6 1. Sources for the Vita of Evagrius 1.1. Primary Sources Among the various sources that narrate the life of Evagrius, the two most important ones are the Lausiac History of Palladius and the Vita Copta of Evagrius, both seeming to have been originally written by Palladius himself.8 These works are generally believed to be eyewitness accounts of the life of Evagrius since Palladius himself maintains that Evagrius was his teacher, saying that “it was he who taught me the way of life in Christ and he who helped me understand Holy Scripture spiritually.”9 When queried about his companions in the desert of Egypt by John of Lycopolis, one of Evagrius' spiritual fathers, Palladius tells us that he “confessed” to have belonged to Evagrius' society.10 We can be reasonably sure then that Palladius's account of the Vita is accurate based upon his testimony as a primary witness. Although the Vita Copta and Lausiac History are both held to be eyewitness accounts, yet there is some disagreement as to whether the VC depends upon the HL or vice versa. While Izsak Baan believes that the VC has a “clear dependence on the HL” and that it was thus a redactor's expansion of a much shorter Greek text, G. Bunge and A. De Vogué both take the opposite view arguing that The VC “made up part of a collection of lives of monks written by Palladius himself during his stay in Nitria and that was successively used by him as a source for his work dedicated to Lausus, excluding episodes that were not able to interest an imperial official.”11 More along the lines of Bunge's and De Vogué's view is that of Tim Vivian who maintains that the much shorter and drier HL was an expurgated version of the more thorough and colorful VC.12 The first reason for 8 Cf. Palladius, The Lausiac History of Palladius, trans. W.K. Lowther Clarke, Translations of Christian Literature 1 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1918) Hereafter refered to as “LH” when convenient. Cf. Palladius, “Vita Copta of Evagrius Ponticus,” in Four Desert Fathers: Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt, and Macarius of Alexandria: Coptic Texts Relating to the Lausiac History of Palladius, ed. Tim Vivian and Rowan A. Greer, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press “Popular Patristics” Series (Crestwood, N.Y: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004), 69–92 Hereafter referred to as “VC” when convenient. 9 Palladius, “VC,” sec. 2. 10 Cf. Palladius, LH, sec. 35.5. 11 Izsák Zsolt Baán, I “due occhi dell’anima”: L’uso, l’interpretazione e il ruolo della Sacra Scrittura nell’insegnamento di Evagrio Pontico, Studia Anselmiana. Analecta monastica 11 (Roma: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, 2011), 19. 12 Cf. Tim Vivian and Rowan A. Greer, eds., Four Desert Fathers: Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt, and Macarius of Alexandria: Coptic Texts Relating to the Lausiac History of Palladius, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press “Popular Patristics” Series (Crestwood, N.Y: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004), 46– 7 maintaining the primacy of the VC is that one Greek text of this manuscript has survived that was then clearly translated into Coptic, according to Vivian. The existence of this Greek text, the studious American reasons, forces us to accept that either Palladius or a redactor would have had to shorten that longer version to make the HL. Another reason for the primacy of the long version of the Vita is that it is theologically accurate. The heretics with whom Evagrius debates represented in the VC authentically reflect the heresies which were predominant at the time, i.e. Arianism, Eunomianism and Apollinarianism. Finally, and most importantly, the sections in the longer VC that are missing in the HL faithfully represent Evagrius' own theological opinions as found in his Gnosticos and Kephalaia Gnostica.13 These reasons taken together move us to believe that the Lausiac History is in fact an expurgated version of the longer Vita Copta. Once we see that the HL is likely an expurgated version of the VC, then we might ask the question, but why would someone want to cut out nearly half of the account of Evagrius' life, and some of the most interesting parts at that, from the eyewitness account passed down by Palladius? The reason for this, simply put, is that any hagiographer or subsequent redactor is shaped by the preoccupations, tensions, biases and prejudices of their times, and those of the fifth and sixth centuries were no exception. Palladius wrote the life of Evagrius as his devoted disciple and also as a disciple of many of his friends, all of whom were in some degree sympathetic to the spiritual theology of Origen, and also opposed to the anthropomorphism that had been gaining ground in the Egyptian desert.14 Vivian, after examining the historical climate surrounding the writing and distribution of the Vita of Evagrius as well as comparing the different redactions in circulation at the time, suggests that the most plausible reason for the expurgation of the VC is the strong antiOrigenistic tendencies that were prevalent in Palestine and northern Egypt at the beginning of the 5th century.15 Nearly every reference to Origen or even to monks who happened to share his name 52. 13 Cf. Ibid., 48; for Evagrius’ arguments against these heretics, and particularly against the Eunomians see Evagrius Ponticus, “Gnostikos,” trans. Luke Dysinger, 27, accessed August 22, 2014, http://www.ldysinger.com/Evagrius/02_Gno-Keph/00a_start.htm; and also Evagrius Ponticus, “Kephalaia Gnostica,” trans. Luke Dysinger, V.51, accessed August 22, 2014, http://www.ldysinger.com/Evagrius/02_Gno-Keph/02_keph_1.htm. 14 For a thorough account of the controversy see Vivian and Greer, Four Desert Fathers, 25–28. 15 Cf. Ibid., 51–52 The question as to how Evagrius’ writings came to be associated with those of Origen 8 that are found in the VC were systematically purged from it, leaving very few traces in the HL. Comments in the VC regarding the companions of Evagrius who were caught up in the anthropomorphite controversy or else in the later condemnation of Origen also suffered a certain amount of expurgation. Overall, one is drawn to conclude that, although Palladius on the one hand had a very devoted view of Evagrius and his fellow desert companions, the anti-Origenist monks on the other who received his Vita and copied it down, did not. 1.2. Secondary Sources There are other texts as well which relate events from the life of Evagrius, but all of which seem to depend upon the account of Palladius. In this list we find the Historia Ecclesiastica of Socrates Scholasticus as well as that of Sozomen from 440 A.D. and the mid 5 th century respectively.16 Later on we find the account of Gennadius in his De viris illustribus as well as the anonymous alphabetical collection of the Apopthegmata Patrum, both of these from the late 5 th century.17 What is common to these histories and collections is the reverence with which they recount the life of Evagrius. As Sozomon relates, Evagrius was a wise man, powerful in thought and in word, and skillful in discerning the arguments which led to virtue and to vice, and capable in urging others to imitate the one, and to eschew the other. His eloquence is fully attested by the works he has left behind him.18 Emphasizing the virtues that Evagrius learned from the Desert Fathers, Socrates Scholasticus remarks that after becoming their disciple, he “acquired from them the philosophy of deeds, whereas he had previously known that which consisted in words only.” 19 Although no longer eyewitnesses of Evagrius' life, nonetheless the authors of these histories are a valuable testimony to will be discussed in greater detail in a later section on “The After-Life of Evagrius.” 16 Cf. Socrates Scholasticus, “Historia Ecclesiastica,” in Patrologiae Cursus Completus..., vol. 67, Series Graeca (Paris: apud Garnier fratres, editores et JP Migne successores, 1857), 28–842; Cf. Sozomenus, “Historia Ecclesiastica,” in Patrologiae Cursus Completus..., vol. 67, Series Graeca (Paris: apud Garnier fratres, editores et JP Migne successores, 1857), 843–1630. 17 Cf. Theodoret et al., Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, Letters, Illustrious Men, Life of Rufinus, trans. Ernest C. Richardson, vol. III, Anti-Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Church 2 (New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1895), 387–389; Cf. Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, Revised, Cistercian Studies Series 59 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1984); For a list of the sources relating the life of Evagrius see Kalvesmaki, “Guide to Evagrius Ponticus.” 18 Sozomenus, “HE,” chap. 6.30. 19 Socrates Scholasticus, “HE,” chap. 4.23. 9 the fact that the tradition of the following century still regarded Evagrius with reverence and saw his works as worthy of reading and imitation. We can see then that the life of Evagrius has been related and passed on through very different hands, some who were very favorable to Evagrius and to the milieu in which he lived and breathed and yet others who were not so favorable. 2. The Makings of a Desert Father One does not become a true desert father nourished on spiritual contemplation and thus able to pass that nourishment on to one's disciples until one has first weathered the storms of the passions that seek to cover the soul in its shifting sands. Evagrius was no exception to this rule. He struggled through the storm of his searching life with its many twist and turns but finally, breaking through to the calm night air, he saw the stars above. The account of his life has also weathered many desert storms, sometimes being disfigured by them, and at other times being completely covered with the sands of contention. Gently brushing away this debris that has blown across the portrait of our desert father, let us seek again to trace the icon of his life as it has been passed down to us by those who were devoted to him. 2.1. Pontus and Cappadocia: 345-379 Evagrius was born in 345 in Ibora, Pontus, a town not far from Annisa where St. Basil the Great and his sister St. Macrina had their monastery refuge. Evagrius' father was a chorepiskopos, or 'country biship' ordained at the hand of St. Basil. This title meant that his father was a priest who was in charge of many churches. 20 It is likely that Evagrius was named after his father who seemed to have been a wealthy nobleman. 21 Given the erudition that Evagrius shows in his writings, it is evident that he received a very well rounded education in the liberal arts, including philosophy and rhetoric, mathematics, medicine and astronomy. It is also entirely likely that he received this training under the tutelage of St. Basil himself. 22 At some point during or at the 20 Cf. Palladius, LH, sec. 38.2. 21 Cf. Augustine Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus (London; New York: Routledge, 2006), 203–204; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Selected Letters,” trans. Luke Dysinger, 57, accessed August 22, 2014, http://www.ldysinger.com/Evagrius/11_Letters/01_sel-lets.htm This letter was most likely adressed to one of Evagrius’ siblings regarding the death of his father and the division of the wealth. 22 Cf. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus, 6 This would have probably taken place in Neo-Cesarea in the years 352-353, and maybe even up to 373. 10 completion of his studies in Neo-Cesarea Evagrius was ordained by St. Basil as a Lector, a sign of the confidence that St. Basil had in his capabilities. It is also very likely that St. Basil clothed Evagrius in the monastic habit while he was staying with him in Neo-Caesarea. 23 Through his close ties with St. Basil, Evagrius also might have become acquainted with St. Gregory of Nazianzen while still in Neo-Cesarea and it is very probable that he also came into close contact with St. Gregory of Nyssa.24 St. Gregory Nazianzen would have been staying with St. Basil for some time during the 370's while they were working on their anthology of sayings from Origen, the Philokalia. It was possibly this early connection with St. Gregory Nazianzen that moved Evagrius to seek him out later on as a spiritual father under whom he could “be led to the highest philosophy.”25 After the death of St. Basil in 379, Evagrius left Cappadocia and “fled far away.” 26 The foremost reason for his sudden flight was that he was struck by an unexpected event that disturbed him very much, as he relates, possibly the death of his dear spiritual father St. Basil the Great. Whatever the reason might have been for Evagrius' disturbance, nonetheless he was in great need of spiritual guidance and thus, drawn by his deep longing for “godly teaching” and a desire to imitate his instructor, St. Basil, he left his home and country far behind and journeyed to the great city of Constantinople and to the side of St. Gregory Nazianzen.27 2.2. Constantinople: 379-382 Shortly after his arrival in Constantinople Evagrius wrote his great Epistula Fidei, a masterwork of Trinitarian Theology which begins quite simply as an appeal to his friends in Pontus, most probably his monastic confreres whom he had left behind, asking them to grant him a little more time in the great city so that he could benefit from the society of the holy men whom he had found 23 For arguments pro and con see ibid., 204. 24 For a discussion of the influence of Gregory of Nyssa on Evagrius, see L.E. Ramelli Ilaria, “Evagrius and Gregory: Nazianzen or Nyssen? Cappadocian (and Origenian) Influence on Evagrius,” Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 53, no. 1 (2013): 117–37. 25 Evagrius Ponticus, “Epistula Fidei,” in Evagrius Ponticus, trans. Augustine Casiday (London; New York: Routledge, 2006), 2 (Casiday, 46). 26 Ibid. 27 Cf. Palladius, “VC,” 4 (Vivian, 74). 11 there.28 He most likely wrote this long treatise to show his brothers how much he was learning so that they would allow him to remain. As he tells them, “in speaking a bit about godly teachings, and more frequently in listening, we are acquiring a habit of contemplation that is not easily lost.”29 Continuing as a disciple of St. Gregory, Evagrius was very soon ordained a Deacon by him30 and, because of his steadfast character and his honed skills as a dialectician, was given the difficult task of debating with the many heretics, particularly the Arians, against whom Gregory was waging a bitter combat. It is likely that in this time Evagrius helped Gregory to draft his five “Theological Orations.”31 Thanks to Evagrius' influence at the side of St. Gregory, emperor Theodosius finally made orthodoxy to prevail over the Arian heretics in 380.32 Evagrius had an important role at the second ecumenical council of Constantinople in 381 over which St. Gregory presided in part. However, halfway through the council, St. Gregory was deposed. Before leaving for Nazianzen he entrusted Evagrius, his favorite archdeacon, to his new successor Nectarius.33 Because of Evagrius' great wisdom and knowledge of the scriptures as well as his forceful and eloquent language, he was able to gain victory over all the heretics. 34 His fame spread through all the city and he was admired and praised by all. But his pride and arrogance grew as well, and from pride he fell into lust. 35 His intelligence and handsome figure drew the attentions of a senator's wife. The attentions became mutual and Evagrius found himself enmeshed in an illicit romance. Although he did not consummate with the woman, being afraid of the retribution as well as the shame he would feel before all the heretics whom he had humiliated, yet he found himself completely unable to break off the relationship, being subject to the woman's 28 Cf. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus, n. 21 (Casiday, 204). 29 Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep. Fid.,” 3 (Casiday, 47). 30 Cf. Palladius, “VC,” 4 (Vivian, 74); Cf. Sozomenus, “HE,” bk. VI.30; Cf. Ramelli Ilaria, “Evagrius and Gregory: Nazianzen or Nyssen? Cappadocian (and Origenian) Influence on Evagrius,” 124–126 Ramelli argues that it was Gregory of Nyssa who ordained Evagrius a deacon and not Nazianzen. . 31 Baán, I “due occhi dell’anima,” 22. 32 Cf. Ibid. 33 Cf. Palladius, LH, chap. 38.2. 34 Cf. Palladius, “VC,” 4 (Vivian, 75). 35 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “The Monk: A Treatise on the Practical Life (The Praktikos),” in Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 13 (Sinkewicz, 100) For Evagrius’ thoughts on how pride leads to lust see: . 12 continual advances and the public spectacle of her affections toward him. 36 Wishing to flee the woman, he begged God to release him from the snarls of the passions which he had become subject to. God answered him in a dream in which an angel appeared to him and cast him in jail. The angel then took on the appearance of one of Evagrius' friends and told him that it was not good for him to be in Constantinople and promised him that if he would look after the salvation of his soul, then he would save him from his predicament. Evagrius swore on the Gospel that he would leave Constantinople as soon as he could. When he awoke the next day, he packed his bags and set sail for Jerusalem.37 2.3. Jerusalem: 382 When Evagrius arrived in Jerusalem he was given a warm welcome by Melania and Rufinus at their dual monastery on the mount of olives. Their mutual affection was grounded in their common interest in the theology of Origen, Evagrius having learned it from St. Basil and St. Gregory, while Melania and Rufinus having acquired it most likely from their contact with the Origenian culture already present in the deserts of Egypt. 38 But, while Evagrius was in Jerusalem, his pride and vanity began to return on account of “his boiling youthfullness and very learned speech, and because of his large and splendid wardrobe (he would change clothes twice a day), he fell into vain habits and bodily pleasure.” 39 But then, falling ill by an inexplicable sickness, he was constrained to his bed until “his flesh became as thin as bread.” When Evagrius finally confessed his vain thoughts to Melania, she promised him that she would pray for his health if he resolved to 36 Cf. Palladius, “VC,” 5 (Vivian, 75–76); For Evagrius’ keen insights in retrospect on how illicit romance progresses to completely entrap the soul, see: Evagrius Ponticus, “On the Eight Thoughts,” in Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 2.8 (Sinkewicz, 76). 37 Cf. Palladius, “VC,” sec. 7 (Vivian, 77–78); Cf. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus, 8 Most likely, Evagrius did not wish return to his home monastery in Cappadocia either out of shame or from a spirit of repentance that urged him to become a pilgrim to the Holy Land. . 38 Cf. Vivian and Greer, Four Desert Fathers, 34–36 Melania and Rufinus met Abba’s Pambo, Dioscorus, and Isidore the Confessor, all of them favorable towards Origen, while they were in Nitria. She fled to Palestine during the persecution of Nicene Christians by the emperor Valens together with Ammonius, Paphnutius, Pambo and Isidore. Rufinus joined them in the 370s. 39 Palladius, “VC,” 8 (Vivian, 78); Casiday regards this as Evagrius’ decisive abandonment of the monastic life which he had gradually begun to neglect since his time in Constantinople. Thus his reception of the habit at the hands of Melania would have been a “reentry” into the monastic way of life. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus, 205. 13 embark unfeignedly upon the monastic life. He promised and was fully restored to his previous well-being a few days later. Having received the monastic habit at her hands, he set his face towards Egypt and came finally to the monastic settlement of Nitria.40 2.4. Egypt: 383-399 When Evagrius arrived in Egypt, he entered one of the monasteries in Nitria under the auspices of an 'abba' from whom was to learn the basics of monastic discipline. There he lived a semi-anchoretic life working and praying in his 'monastery' together with his abba during the week and then on Sundays coming to the central church to pray the 'synaxes' with the rest of the brethren.41 After a novitiate of two or three years in Nitria, Evagrius retired to the more remote 'Kellia'.42 There he became the spiritual disciple of St. Macarius the Great as well as of St. Macarius of Alexandria. From St. Macarius the Great, Evagrius learned the meaning and purpose of anger, how one is not to use it against the brethren, but rather against the demon's tempting thoughts43 as well as how one is to oppose the demon of fornication, by fasting and abstinence.44 From St. Macarius of Alexandria, he learned asceticism and how to keep nightly vigil in prayer.45 Although the monks of Kellia generally lived a life of enclosure and stability in their cells, still this did not preclude the possibility of traveling great distances to visit other monks from whom to gain spiritual insights. Evagrius himself would occasionally visit other abbas to ask them questions regarding the spiritual life, or to be edified by their observance. For example, he went to visit abbas Paphnutius and Cronius to ask why some monks fall into sin and are 'abandoned' by God,46 or to visit the ailing abbas Stephen and Benjamin to comfort them and in 40 Cf. Palladius, “VC,” 9 (Vivian, 79). 41 Cf. Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Apophthegmata 7 of Evagrius likely comes from this period, when he was still a novice. . 42 Cf. Palladius, “VC,” 10 (Vivian, 79). 43 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “TP,” 93 (Sinkewicz, 112); For commentary on this passage of Evagrius and parallels in the sayings of St. Macarius, see Gabriel Bunge and Evagrius Ponticus, Trattato pratico. Cento capitoli sulla vita spirituale, trans. V. Lazzari and V. Lanzarini (Magnano: Qiqajon, 2008), 280. 44 Cf. Palladius, “VC,” sec. 11. 45 Cf. Ibid., 14 (Vivian, 81–82); Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “TP,” 94 (Sinkewicz, 112); For commentary on this passage and on Evagrius’ close relation with both the Macarii, see: Bunge and Evagrius Ponticus, Trattato pratico. Cento capitoli sulla vita spirituale, 280; Cf. Gabriel Bunge, “Évagre Le Pontique et Les Deux Macaire,” Irénikon 56 (1983): 215–27; 323–60. 46 Cf. Palladius, LH, chap. 47.4. 14 turn be edified by their patience,47 or to visit the wise abba John of Lycopolis to ask him about the cause of the spiritual light that illumines the mind at the time of prayer. 48 When he was in Alexandria on business, probably on his way to pay a visit to abba Didymus the blind, he found Stephen, a wayward monk who had grown very proud and, falling into lust, had left the brethren to go live among the prostitutes. Evagrius pleaded with him to return to Kellia and the monastic way of life, embracing him and weeping over him, but to no avail. 49 Besides paying visit to other monks in the desert of Egypt, Evagrius was also very hospitable in his own cell, receiving five or six guests a day who came to seek his advice or deliver letters from those who could not come themselves. 50 As Evagrius' reputation for being a master of the spiritual life grew, he became revered throughout Kellia for his keen insights. The brothers would come to his cell on weekends to listen to his spiritual teaching. Palladius tells us a little about how Evagrius would receive the brothers who where in search of spiritual direction. This was his practice: The brothers would gather around him on Saturday and Sunday, discussing their thoughts with him throughout the night, listening to his words of encouragement until sunrise. And thus they would leave rejoicing and glorifying God, for Evagrius' teaching was very sweet.51 Afterwards, if a brother wished to speak about a very personal thought or temptation, he would remain until the others had departed and then open his thoughts before Evagrius. After the brethren had left Evagrius alone in his cell again, he would return to his routine of reciting the daily office, transcribing manuscripts of the Scriptures as his small means of income, and pacing back and forth in his courtyard while meditating on Holy writ. It was on one of these evenings of solitary prayer and meditation on Holy Scripture that Evagrius had a vision where he was gathered up to the clouds and saw the whole universe in an instant. The beauty of Palladius' recounting of this miraculous event merits a full citation. A few days later he told us about the revelations he had seen. He never hid anything from his disciples. “It happened,” he said, “while I was sitting in my cell at night with the lamp burning beside me, meditatively reading one of the prophets. In the middle of 47 Cf. Ibid., chap. 24.2; Cf. Ibid., chap. 22.1. 48 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Antirrhetikos,” in Talking Back: A Monastic Handbook for Combating Demons, trans. David Brakke, Cistercian Studies Series 229 (Collegeville, Minn.: Cistercian Publications, 2009), 6.16 (Brakke, 137). 49 Cf. Vivian and Greer, Four Desert Fathers, 169 . 50 Cf. Palladius, “VC,” 18 (Vivian, 84). 51 Ibid., 17 (Vivian, 83). 15 the night I became enraptured and I found myself as though I were in a dream in sleep and I saw myself as though I were suspended in the air up to the clouds and I looked down on the whole inhabited world. And the one who suspended me said to me, 'Do you see all these things?' He raised me to the clouds and I saw the whole universe at the same time. I said to him, 'Yes.' He said to me, 'I am going to give a commandment. If you keep it, you will be the ruler of all these things that you see.' He spoke to me again, 'Go, be compassionate, humble, and keep your thoughts pointed straight to God. You will rule over all these things.' When he had finished saying these things to me, I saw myself holding the book once again with the wick burning and I did not know how I had been taken up to the clouds. Whether I was in the flesh, I do not know” (2 Cor 12:2). And so he contended with these two virtues [of compassion and humility] as though he possessed all the virtues.52 There are several parallels to Evagrius' mystical ascent and his vision of the universe being gathered together into one, from St. Paul being “caught up” to the third heaven and “hearing secret words which it is not granted to men to utter” (2Cor. 12:4), or the visions of St. Benedict and St. Columban where they saw the whole world gathered together before their eyes like a single ray of sun light.53 That Evagrius was deemed worthy to participate for a moment in God's instantaneous vision of the universe tells us something about his holiness and the heights of purity to which he had attained, and at the same time the depths of humility and gentleness to which he was still called. 54 But more significantly, at least regarding our main topic of investigation which will be discussed below, his vision gives us an experiential foundation in Evagrius' own life on which he based his understanding of the relationship between wisdom and unity. It was Evagrius' meditation on the manifold wisdom of Christ, as contained in Holy Scripture, that was the occasion for his mystical vision of a unified cosmos in which all the manifold wisdom contained in creatures was gathered together before him in a single instant. 55 The final years of his life Evagrius spent in Kellia among his disciples, dedicating himself chiefly to asceticism, prayer, and hospitality towards those who came to seek his counsel. Not the least way of showing this hospitality where the numerous epistles and tractates that he 52 Ibid., 24 (Vivian, 86). 53 Cf. Pope St. Gregory the Great, Life and Miracles of St. Benedict, trans. Odo J. Zimmermann and Benedict R. Avery (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1949), chap. 35 “The whole world was led before his eyes, as if drawn up under a single ray of the sun.” ; Cf. Adamnan, Life of St. Columba, ed. William Reeves (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1874), chap. 35 “He saw the whole compass of the world, and … the utmost limits of the heavens and the earth at the same moment, as if all were illumined by a single ray of the sun.” . 54 For Bunge’s comments on how fundamental was this vision for Evagrius, especially regarding gentleness, see: Gabriel Bunge, Dragon’s Wine and Angel’s Bread: The Teaching of Evagrius Ponticus on Anger and Meekness (Crestwood, N.Y: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 124–125. 55 The manifold or multiform wisdom of creatures is the wisdom by which all things were created and which exists in all creatures, both corporeal and incorporeal. 16 would send to his friends and followers. As Casiday comments, “the level of Evagrius' productivity during his years in Egypt is unmatched by an other desert father of that age, which makes him an invaluable primary source for the theology of the desert.” 56 After a life full of giving himself to spiritual guidance, intense prayer, and harsh asceticism in the desert, Evagrius was considered in his last years to have attained a very high degree of holiness such that Palladius states, “having purified his mind to the utmost he was counted worthy of the gift of knowledge and wisdom and the discerning of spirits.”57 And yet, because of the coarse diet and penance which he inflicted upon his body, he began to fall ill until finally he was confined to bed. Having received Holy Communion on the feast of the Epiphany and surrounded by his faithful disciples, he died in the year 399 at the age of 54 years.58 2.5. Literary Patrimony The various works of Evagrius can be distinguished and ordered according to different schemes, either according to their literary form or genre in which they were written, or else regarding their subject matter insofar as they relate to different degrees of spiritual progress. With regard to the first mode of distinguishing Evagrius' writings, namely according to literary genre,59 the greater part of his works are written in the form of short aphorisms that, interconnected between themselves, form chains based on a certain theme. These chains are sometimes formed into longer groups called centuries, such as in his Kephalaia Gnostica which contains six centuries each containing ninety to a hundred short “chapters”. Evagrius also wrote series of glosses on Holy Scripture called scholia. These are, as the name suggests, brief 56 Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus, 12; For a complete bibliography of Evagrius’ writings, see Baán, I “due occhi dell’anima,” 271. 57 Palladius, LH, sec. 38.10. 58 A mark of the perfection to which he had attained while still alive is the complete and filial trust that he had in God as his Father, even on his deathbed. “He was told of the death of his father, and said to his informant: ‘Cease blaspheming, for my father is immortal.’” Ibid., sec. 38.13; For Evagrius’ reflections on the fatherhood of Christ, see Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov., 78 (Géhin, 177); For his thoughts on God as father of the monk see Evagrius Ponticus, “Chapters on Prayer,” in Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), para. 55, 113 (Sinkewicz, 198, 205); For a detailed account of Evagrius teaching on spiritual fatherhood in general, see Gabriel Bunge, La paternità spirituale: il vero “gnostico” nel pensiero di Evagrio (Magnano (BI): Edizioni Qiqajon, 2009). 59 For an account of this mode of dividing Evagrius works, see Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus, 28–45. 17 comments on individual verses of Scripture in which Evagrius predominantly seeks to interpret the text with metaphors relating to one of the three levels of the spiritual life. Evagrius' most notable scholia are those written on the Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. 60 He is also believed to have written a commentary on the Song of Songs, although unfortunately nothing remains of it.61 The full number of scriptural commentaries that Evagrius wrote is not fully known since many of his works were either destroyed or else passed on under pseudonymous authors, such as Origen for example, or in catenae of patristic glosses on various books of the bible. However, enough of his scholia and comments have been salvaged from these diverse sources to reconstruct a commentary on the book of Job, one on the book of Luke, and also on the 'Our Father'.62 Although not in the genre of scholia in the traditional sense, Evagrius also wrote a work entitled Antihretikos consisting of various texts of scripture accompanied by his own brief practical comments and arranged under the headings of the eight tempting thoughts or logismoi.63 The purpose of this work, as described by Evagrius, is to supply monks with an armory of scriptural passages which, when memorized, can be used as javelins to hurl against the various tempting thoughts or demons that seek to draw the mind away. Besides the short pithy sayings that seemed to be Evagrius' preferred form of composition, we also find longer tractates that, although formed out of shorter apothegms, nevertheless follow a definite and unified theme. Such works as the Praktikos, Gnosticos, or On Prayer all pertain to this category. Some of his letters could also be considered as tractates on account of their length, for example the Great Letter, the Tractate to Eulogios, or the Epistula Fidei. Regarding the second mode of distinguishing Evagrius works, namely according to the levels of spiritual progress, Evagrius lays out three different stages of progress, the first being in 60 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov.; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, Scholies À l’Ecclésiaste, ed. Paul Géhin, Sources Chrétiennes 397 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1993); Cf. Evagrius Ponticus and Marie-Josèphe Rondeau, “Le Commentaire Sur Les Psaumes d’Évagre Le Pontique,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 26 (1960): 307–48. 61 Cf. Jeremy Driscoll, Steps to Spiritual Perfection: Studies on Spiritual Progress in Evagrius Ponticus (New York: Newman Press, 2005), 14. 62 For an english translation of these works, see: Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus, 121–164. 63 For an italian translation and preface by Gabriel Bunge, see: Gabriel Bunge and Evagrius Ponticus, Contro i pensieri malvagi. Antirrhetikos, trans. V. Lezzeri (Magnano: Qiqajon, 2005); For an english translation, see Evagrius Ponticus and David Brakke, Talking Back: A Monastic Handbook for Combating Demons, Cistercian Studies Series 229 (Collegeville, Minn.: Cistercian Publications, 2009). 18 the area of the passions, also called praktiké. The second kind of progress is that according to knowledge, called theoretiké or gnosis.64 Progress in knowledge is further divided into knowledge of creatures, physiké, and knowledge of the Holy Trinity, theologiké. Evagrius' works can be roughly aligned along any of these three stages of the spiritual life, while leaving some works which encompass all three stages. One of Evagrius' most popular set of works that partially follows this division of the spiritual life is the trilogy composed of the Praktikos, Gnostikos, and the Kephalaia Gnostika. The Praktikos, as its name suggests, treats primarily of how one is to combat sinful passions or logismoi, that is, tempting thoughts, that arising from the passionate part of the soul seek to cloud the intellect and prevent it from attaining to contemplation. Praktiké has as its goal apatheia or passionlessness, the necessary requirement if one is to engage in contemplation with serenity and to finally gain spiritual love, agápe pneumatiké.65 The Kephalaia Gnostika, while not leaving behind the exhortations and advice on how to combat the passions, adds to this a broad and profound meditation on the “natural contemplation” of creatures and how that contemplation is unified in the knowledge of Christ. Fr. Jeremy Driscoll, commenting on the theme of this work says that its six centuries portray in their vastness “both an image and an experience for the meditator of the 'manifold wisdom' with which Christ created the worlds.” 66 The work entitled Gnostikos serves in turn as a kind of bridge between the two other works, advising the monk who wishes to become a “knower” or a gnostikos of Christ's manifold wisdom which vices he needs to combat in particular so that he might become a messenger or angelos who gives to others what he receives in natural contemplation. 67 Some of the biblical scholia that Evagrius wrote and their corresponding books of Scripture align as well with his tripartite division of the spiritual life. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs pertain in the thought of Evagrius to the three different levels of spiritual progress. The book of Proverbs corresponds to the Praktiké, Ecclesiastes to the Physiké, and the Song of 64 For a detailed explanation and defence of this scheme in Evagrius’ writings, see Driscoll, Steps to Spiritual Perfection, 11–37. 65 For the definition of spiritual love, see footnote 134 66 Driscoll, Steps to Spiritual Perfection, 31–32. 67 Ibid. 19 Songs corresponds to Theologiké.68 Individual passages as well from different books of Scripture can be interpreted to bear on one of these three levels. 69 Evagrius' works that pertain primarily to the praktiké would include On Thoughts and On the Eight Spirits of Wickedness. We also find in this group his Tractate to Eulogios, the Foundations of the Monastic Life and On the Vices opposed to the Virtues.70 Although Evagrius' works can be aligned roughly with one or another of the stages of the spiritual life, nevertheless this strict categorization is not absolute. There are some works that span all three levels. For example, in his tractate to Monks, commonly referred to as Ad Monachos, Evagrius traces an ordered and intricate map in the space of 137 short sayings that leads from the beginnings of faith on to passionlessness, love, and contemplation, and finally concludes with the mind presented before the Holy Trinity.71 3. The After-life of Evagrius: The Origenist Controversies It was not long after the death of Evagrius that his peaceful resting ground became a battlefield, torn by polemic and controversy. The literary patrimony of Evagrius which had hitherto held the highest respect among the desert milieu began to fall under a dark cloud with the condemnation of Origen by Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria, in 399, just months after the death of Evagrius. Often referred to as the first Origenist crisis, the beginning of this period saw the opposition of 68 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov., 247 (Géhin, 342)“The one who has widened his heart through purity will understand the logoi of God - those connected with praktike, physike, and theologike. For all matters which concern the Scriptures, are divided into three parts: ethics, physics, and theology. And to the first correspond the Proverbs, to the second Ecclesiastes, and to the third the Song of Songs.”; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Selected Scholia on Proverbs,” trans. Luke Dysinger, para. 247, accessed August 22, 2014, http://www.ldysinger.com/Evagrius/09_Prov/00a_start.htm. 69 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, Le Gnostique, Ou, A Celui Qui Est Devenu Digne de La Science, trans. Antoine Guillaumont and Claire Guillaumont, Sources Chrétiennes 356 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1989), 18 (Géhin, 117)“It is necessary to search, therefore, concerning allegorical and literal passages relevant to the praktiké, physiké, and theologiké. If it is relevant to the praktike it is necessary to examine whether it treats of irrascibility and what comes from it, or rather of desire and what follows it, or again of the intellect and its movements. If it is pertains to the physike, it is necessary to note whether it makes known one of the doctrines concerning nature, and which one. And if it is an allegorical passage concerning theologike it is necessary to examine as far as possible whether it provides information on the Trinity and whether it is seen in its simplicity or seen as The Unity. But if it is none of these, then it is a simple contemplation or perhaps makes known a prophecy.”; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Gn.,” 18. 70 For a very good english translation for these works, see Robert E. Sinkewicz and Evagrius Ponticus, Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). 71 For a brief summary and outline to this work, see Driscoll, Steps to Spiritual Perfection, 35; For a beautiful and detailed commentary on general themes and individual passages, see Jeremy Driscoll, Evagrius Ponticus: Ad Monachos, Ancient Christian Writers 59 (New York: Newman Press, 2003). 20 two groups, the anthropomorphites on the one hand who sought to ascribe a human form to the divine being, and on the other hand those who were sympathetic to the teachings of Origen and his doctrine of the incorporeality of the God-head. 72 The “tall brothers” and other desert fathers who were learned in the writings of Origen argued against the anthropomorphites using his texts to bolster their position. When it became known to the anthropomorphite monks that Theophilus favored the Origenist position, they retaliated by storming his palace in Alexandria and threatened to kill him if he refused to cede to their views and condemn the writings of Origen. He duly condemned Origen and sent a letter to all the monasteries forbidding him to be read by anyone. 73 To enforce this new policy, Theophilus gathered a group of 'anthropomophite' monks about him and stormed Nitria, driving out all those who had any deference for the writings of Origen. 74 The Origenist monks fled, some going to Palestine and others on to Constantinople. Theophilus followed up this attack on the followers of Origen by writing to Pope Anastasius asking him to condemn Origen officially.75 In the entire retelling of the first Origenist controversy by the historians and by Theophilus, the name of Evagrius is not mentioned once. Granting their amiable stance toward Evagrius, then the evidence as given by these contemporary witnesses would indicate that they failed to mention Evagrius not because they wished to consign him to a damnatio memoriae, Elizabeth Clark 72 Cf. Socrates Scholasticus, “HE,” bk. 6.7; Cf. Vivian and Greer, Four Desert Fathers, 45 There is evidence that the anthropomorphite position was more nuanced than Socrates attests, focusing not so much on God being anthropomorphic, but that man was simply created in the image of God. 73 Cf. Vivian and Greer, Four Desert Fathers, 39 From the side of Socrates, Sozomon, and Palladius, the condemnation of the Origensts was clearly driven by political ambition and greed, yet from the side of Theophilus, the condemnation was simply about his concern for the apparent heresies contained in Origen’s writings. Vivian agrees with the historians that the condemnation was politically driven and that Theophilus’ claim to “orthodoxy” was simply a cover for his greedy passion. Clark, on the other hand, agrees with Theophilus that the condemnation was theologically driven. Cf. Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), 45 Whether Theophilus was driven by jealousy or genuine concern for orthodoxy, is not for us determine here. But, it is important to note that in the first Origenist controversy, the polemic of Theophilus was completely against Origen and did not include Evagrius in any way. 74 Vivian and Greer, Four Desert Fathers, 39. 75 See in particular the Letter of Pope St Anastasius to John the Bishop of Jerusalem written in 401 where the Pope had, at the request of Theophilus, formally condemned Origenism. Philip Schaff, Theodoret, Jerome, Gennadius, & Rufinus: Historical Writings (CCEL, n.d.), para. 5“every one who serves God is warned against the reading of Origen, and all who are convicted of reading his impious works are condemned by the imperial judgment.” ; See also Jeromes Sixteenth Festal Letter (401) Norman Russell, Theophilus of Alexandria (Routledge, 2006), 104. 21 assumes,76 but simply that Evagrius' theology was not central to the crisis, and thus hardly representing the mainstream Origenist views of the time to which Theophilus and his allies were so opposed. Although hostile towards the four Tall Brothers, Theophilus did not show any of this animosity towards Evagrius. Rather, he trusted him enough to try and make him bishop of the city of Thmuis.77 And if Evagrius was not under attack, but rather held in esteem, then there was no reason to defend him by those who were still his admirers.78 During the interim period between the first Origenist controversy and the second which resulted in the anathemas of 553, we find various references to Evagrius and his writings which are all marked with some amount of respect and acceptance. 79 It is not until the emperor Justinian's condemnation of Origen in 543 and again in 553 that we see a definitive change in Evagrius 76 Clark, Origenist Controversy, 44. 77 Cf. Palladius, “VC,” para. 19 (Vivian, 84); Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Briefe,” in Evagrios Pontikos: Briefe aus der Wüste, trans. Gabriel Bunge (Beuron: Beuroner Kunstverl., 2013), (Letter 13) 191. 78 In support of this position, see Baán, I “due occhi dell’anima,” 29–32; Cf. Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus, 50–56; Clark argues on the other hand that the absence of Evagrius from the public record is greater evidence for the centrality of his thought in the controversy. However she too easily dismisses the contemporary evidence of the historians and chooses instead to interpret this silence only only in light of the subsequent condemnations from the sixth century. Clark, Origenist Controversy, 44. 79 An exception to this rule would be St. Jerome who lists Evagrius as a heretic because of his teaching on “apatheia” and also his association with the “Tall Brothers.” It seems though that Jerome seriously misunderstood what Evagrius meant by “apatheia” when he defines it as when “the mind ceases to be agitated and - to speak simply - becomes either a stone or a God.” Jerome, The Principal Works of St. Jerome, trans. W.H. Fremantle, vol. VI, Anti-Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Church 2 (Buffalo, NY: The Christian Literature Company, 1892), (Letter 133.3) 274 To incriminate Evagrius based on his personal association’s, as Jerome does, is ultimately a fallacy of “ad hominem” and finally irrelevant to the question at hand. Regardless of Jerome’s polemic against Evagrius, Baan concludes that “from the fact that other authors from the period, for example Gennadius, would have had a positive view on Ponticus leaves us to conclude that his works in the century successive to his death were considered to be controversial, yes, but in no case were they held as being heterodox on the part of the ecclesiastical authority.” Baán, I “due occhi dell’anima,” 32. 22 regard.80 From then on, the historians label him simply as heretical without further argument. 81 Evagrius' writings are cast under suspicion as being at best “outstandingly foolish” 82 or at the worst “impious and abominable and unclean and pagan.”83 But even despite the hostility in Evagrius' regard, the tradition still prized certain aspects of Evagrius' writings while distinguishing them from that which they deemed harmful. 84 Even after the anathemas of 553, there were still some Fathers who held Evagrius' works in very high regard, without any explicit distinction between 80 Casiday remarks that “it is not not entirely clear how precisely the meeting of 553 was related to Constantinople II. That session might have been assembled to make preparations for the Fifth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople II), though it is also possible that the meeting was independent and its actions were subsequently inserted into the records...” Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus, 57; For the text itself of the 15 anathemas against Origen, probably framed in 553 in the meeting prior to Constantinople II, see H.R. Percival, trans., The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church, vol. XIV, Anti-Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Church 2 (Buffalo, NY: The Christian Literature Company, 1892), 318–319; The sixth ecumenical council, based on those extraconciliar texts, somehow ended up adding Evagrius’ name to the list of condemned. Cf. Ibid., XIV:344 From the Acta: “the Fifth holy Synod assembled in this place, against Theodore of Mopsuestia, Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius, ... renewing in all things the ancient decrees of religion, and chasing away the impious doctrines of irreligion.”; The council of Trullo as well as the seventh ecumenical council simply repeated the earlier condemnation without adding comment. Cf. Ibid., XIV:360, 550, 572 Decree: “Moreover, with these we anathematize the fables of Origen, Evagrius, and Didymus, in accordance with the decision of the Fifth Council held at Constantinople.” Letter to the Emperor and Empress: “We have also anathematised the idle tales of Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius.”; Kalvesmaki, “Guide to Evagrius Ponticus”“ The condemnation of Evagrius was intertwined with that of Origen (ca. 185–ca. 251) and Didymus the Blind (ca. 313–ca. 398). In the twentieth century the argument was advanced that the strain of Origenism the Church condemned in the sixth was that of Evagrius, not Origen. In modern ecclesiastical circles this has moved some shadows of suspicion from the latter to the former. Not all scholars accept that Evagrius’s role in the sixth-century controversies can be categorized so easily. First, it is unclear what role if any he played in the Origenistic controversy of his own day, the late 390s. Second, Evagrius’s use of Origen is no more remarkable than the use made by less controversial figures such as Gregory Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea. The Fifteen Anathemas of the 530s or 540s (when the third Origenist controversy reached its apex)—a formulation accepted as part of the Fifth Ecumenical Council by the Sixth and Seventh—show that one of Evagrius’s major works, the Kephalaia Gnostica, or an adaptation of it, was the target of Orthodox polemic against Origenism.” 81 For Example, Cyril of Scythopolis in his monastic biographies exclaims regarding what he thinks to be Evagrius’ teachings, “What hell blurted out these doctrines?” He also claims that a “universal anathema” was directed against Evagrius at Constantinople II. Cf. Cyril of Scythopolis, Cyril of Scythopolis: The Lives of the Monks of Palestine, trans. R.M. Price (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1991), 133–134, 253, 208; But Hombergen has shown that Cyril cannot be trusted with regard to his reporting of the fifth ecumenical council at Constantinople. Therefore we should regard Cyril’s statements relating the events of the Council as highly suspect and indicative more of how he wanted things to happen rather than what actually took place. Cf. Daniël Hombergen, The Second Origenist Controversy: A New Perspective on Cyril of Scythopolis’ Monastic Biographies as Historical Sources for Sixth-Century Origenism, Studia Anselmiana 132 (Rome: Centro studi S. Anselmo, 2001); For an excellent article that gives a critical reexamination of the evidence for Evagrius’ condemnation, see Luke Dysinger, “The Condemnation of Evagrius Reconsidered” (Oxford Patristics Conference, Oxford, 2003). 82 John Climacus is contradictory in his harsh treatment of Evagrius on the one hand, and his heavy dependence on Evagrius’ writings on the other. Cf. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Harper & Brothers, 1959), sec. 14.12. 83 Cf. Chronicon Paschale, “Paschale 284-628 AD,” Edited by Michael Whitby and Mary Whitby, Translated Texts for Historians 7 (1989): 132–133. 84 John of Gaza remarks regarding Evagrius’ assumed heresies, “Do not accept such doctrines from his 23 what they deemed to be harmful and what beneficial. 85 St. Maximus the Confessor (ca. 580 – 662), although rarely mentioning him by name, nevertheless relied heavily on many of his works when compiling his own kephalaia, especially for those on Love.86 Likewise, Babai the Great (ca. 551 – 628), abbot of the monastery of Mt. Izla in Aremenia, was one who had very high regard for Evagrius as a mystical writer. He wrote extensive commentaries on the Kephalaia Gnostica and several other of Evagrius' works. 87 It is important to note that Babai used as his text of the Kephalaia Gnostica the unambiguously orthodox and non-controversial textus receptus in Syriac, commonly referred to as S1. He claimed that there were in circulation at that time other versions of the text that had been edited by heretics to suit their positions. It is possible that he is referring to the second Syriac version found later on by Guillaumont, commonly referred to as S2, however this is not certain. We will discuss more in detail these different texts in our next section and how in modern times the divergent ways of understanding the Kephalaia Gnostica has come to form two different schools of thought and approaches in interpreting Evagrius, the so called “Heresiological School” that assumes Evagrius' heresy based on the content of S2 of the Kephalaia Gnostica and interpreting it only in light of the anathemas of 553, and then the “Benedictine School” that looks more to Evagrius' scriptural scholia and the greater unity of the Evagrian corpus as its hermeneutic key and either seeks to interpret S2 in that light, or else argues simply for S1 as being more authentically Evagrian.88 85 86 87 88 works; but go ahead and read, if you like, those works that are beneficial for the soul, according to the parable about the net in the Gospel. For it has been written: ‘They placed the good into baskets, but throw out the bad.’” Barsanuphius, John, and John Chryssavgis, Barsanuphius and John: Letters (Catholic University of America Press, 2006), 179–183. In the Syrian tradition which was not so affected by the polemic of the Origenist controversy, Evagrius was held in such high regard that often authors would attribute their works to him to help them gain popularity. For further discussion on Evagrius’ reception in the Syriac world, see Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus, 62–64. Cf. Gerald Eustace Howell Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware, The Philokalia, Volume 2: The Complete Text; Compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain & St. Markarios of Corinth, vol. 2 (Macmillan, 1982). Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Kephalaia Gnostika,” in Euagrius Ponticus, ed. W Frankenberg, Abhandlungen Der Königlichen Gesellschaft Der Wissenschaften Zu Göttingen. Philologisch-Historische Klasse, n.F., 13, no. 2 (Berlin: Weidmannsche buchhandlung, 1912). Not all the members of the “Benedictine school” as outlined by Baan would hold to the authenticity of S1. Yet even those who do not, argue for a less controversial interpretation of S2 than the heresiologues would maintain. Cf. Baán, I “due occhi dell’anima,” 39–55; Casiday was the first to coin the terms “Heresiological” and “Benedictine” schools as referring to the different modes of interpreting Evagrius. Cf. Casiday, “Gabriel Bunge and the Study of Evagrius Ponticus: A Review Article.” 24 Chapter 2 – Modern Perceptions and Schools of Thought Evagrius' theology of wisdom is based firmly on the scriptures and, as such, we find much of what he says regarding it within his scriptural commentaries. But before finally turning our gaze to these important texts with the goal of understanding Evagrius' teaching on wisdom, it is necessary first to say a few words regarding his most controversial work, the Kephalaia Gnostica. This work, in itself, is not the most important work of Evagrius. Far from being central, it is more like a bridge between the two realms of “praktiké and theologiké, between the active practice of the evangelical virtues which lead to perfect charity and the purity of heart which alone makes the intellect into a 'seer of God.'”89 Yet now we must give it particular attention, not only because of what it tells us about the thought of Evagrius, but more insofar as it is a flash-point between the different schools of thought. Thus, the Kephalaia Gnostica tells us much about the different modes of procedure and interpretation that are followed by the different sides. 1. The “Heresiological School” of Interpretation In his very influential study on the Kephalaia Gnostica, Guillaumont has sought to show that the “Origenist theses condemned in 533 reflect the ideas of Evagrius not only on a literal level, but also doctrinal. Thus he [Evagrius], justly judged heretical, ought to be held responsible for the condemnation of Origenism.”90 His thesis is based on the discovery of a second Syriac text S2 of Evagrius' work that is decidedly more Origenist than the textus receptus, S1 edited by Frankenburg, already mentioned before. Since S2 bears a very strong likeness to the anathemas of 533, Guillaumont concluded that the common version, S1, was more recent than S2 and that it had been expurgated of all heretical and Origenist elements during the course of the controversies. The question then of which of these two texts is prior and which on the other hand is the contaminated version is paramount in helping us to determine how we should understand the teachings of 89 Bunge, “Évagre Le Pontique et Les Deux Macaire,” 359; Quoted by Mark DelCogliano, “The Quest for Evagrius Ponticus: A Historiographical Essay,” American Benedictine Review 62 (2011): 396. 90 Antoine Guillaumont, Les “Képhalaia gnostica” d’Évagre le Pontique et l’histoire de l’origénisme chez les Grecs et chez les Syriens, Publications de la Sorbonne série patristica Sorbonensia 5 (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1962); For Baan’s critique of Guillaumont’s conclusion and faulty argument, see Baán, I “due occhi dell’anima,” 37. 25 Evagrius, either in line with the Origenist and somewhat problematic theses of S2 or else with the more anodyne S1. Guillamont and his modern disciples, referred to by Casiday and Baan as the 'heresiological' school of interpretation,91 take as their first presupposition that S2 was written before S1 and therefore is authentically Evagrian. This presupposition is based on the idea that the anathemas of 553 seem to be pointing directly to the text of S2, and that Cyril of Scythopolis' recounting of the council and its “common and universal anathema directed against … the teachings of Evagrius” is an accurate one.92 In their mind, since the name of Evagrius and the witness of S2 are implicated together in the acts of the council, therefore those condemnations are an accurate representation of his teaching. The second assumption that they make is that Evagrius' Kephalaia Gnostica is his central work where he speaks openly and reveals his true mind as a neo-platonic and stoic philosopher. Following from this assumption, they hold that every other work or passage of his that is either implicit or vague must be interpreted with respect to Evagrius' assumed neo-platonic mindset. Therefore, their hermeneutic method is to impose an external and explicit system of thought (the isochristism of the VI century or else neo-platonic, stoic and plotinian philosophy) upon the works of Evagrius to draw out what is vague or implicit in his text. And, as a final assumption, they hold, as was discussed before, that the role and influence of his writing in the first Origenist controversy was absolutely central. In sum, they depict Evagrius not so much as a monk-theologian enraptured with the scriptures, but more as a “philosopher in the desert” obsessed with his own extravagant speculations on the philosophies of Origen, Plato, and Plotinus. 2. The “Benedictine School” of Interpretation Led primarily by Benedictine monks,93 this school of interpretation begins from one basic principle: Evagrius was a monk-theologian of the desert, faithful to Nicaean Orthodoxy and to his 91 Besides A. Guillaumont, this group also includes F. Refoulé, P.Géhin, M. O’Laughlin, E. Clark., and H. U. Balthazar: all of them either laymen or Jesuits. Cf. Casiday, “Gabriel Bunge and the Study of Evagrius Ponticus: A Review Article,” 277; Cf. Baán, I “due occhi dell’anima,” 53. 92 Cf. Cyril of Scythopolis, Cyril of Scythopolis: The Lives of the Monks of Palestine, para. 90. 93 At the head of this “school” we find Gabriel Bunge followed by its principle representatives, J. Driscoll, D. Hombergen, L. Dysinger, C. Stewart, and I. Baan: all of them monks in the order of St. Benedict. Although not himself a monk, A. Casiday should also be considered as an essential member of this group for his important contributions to their cause. Cf. Baán, I “due occhi dell’anima,” 53. 26 monastic vocation of progress in the spiritual life enacted by asceticism and by a careful meditation on Holy Scripture. Gabriel Bunge, Benedictine monk turned hermit, was the pioneer of the movement begun in the early 80's to restore Evagrius' name to orthodoxy. With his boldness to challenge the popular myth of Evagrius as a heretic touted by Guillaumont, he nonetheless engages the question with an irenic spirit typical of a monk. His method of interpretation, followed by all members of the “Benedictine School”, is to interpret the more difficult texts of Evagrius by other texts within the Evagrian corpus that are correlated and preferably less difficult.94 Proceeding in this 'scriptural mode', the members of the Benedictine school follow Bunge's example by using primarily the scriptural scholia as their fall-back text to explain the more difficult and enigmatic passages such as those found in the Kephalaia Gnostica. The advantages of such an approach are many and obvious, giving a system that is more cohesive and coherent as a whole, while at the same time being based on a solid foundation in Holy Scripture. It makes far more sense to 'read Evagrius with Evagrius' rather than impose a foreign system upon his writings that has no real basis in them. Also, the very milieu in which Evagrius lived and breathed his monastic life was the Scripture. So an approach that gives due weight and attention to his scriptural writings is much preferable to one that simply ignores this foundation, as the heresiological approach seems to do. Before moving on finally to examine Evagrius' teaching itself, it is helpful to examine, at least in a cursory way, whether the problematic recension of the Kephalaia Gnostica S2 is in fact the work of Evagrius himself or else whether the textus receptus S1 is more likely to have been his. Casiday offers several arguments as to why one ought to prefer the original Syriac text of the Kephalaia Gnostica to Guillaumont's more recently discovered S2 recension.95 First, there are no contemporary sources implicating Evagrius in the debates of the first Origenist controversy. And since the conclusions of the second controversy were based on the first, thus it seems apparent that the evidence is lacking to implicate Evagrius as the 'intellectual architect' whose works were at the 94 Interpreting the less know by the more known, a classical approach in epistemology, is also mirrored in the method of Augustine in interpreting Scripture. Cf. On Christian Doctrine Augustine of Hippo, Augustine of Hippo, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. James Shaw, vol. II, Anti-Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Church 2 (Buffalo, NY: The Christian Literature Company, 1887). 95 Cf. Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus, 64–71. 27 core of the controversy, both in the 400's as well as the 500's. Second, since there is no evidence to incriminate Evagrius' writings in the first Origenist debates, then, as Casiday concludes, there is no reason to assume that a campaign against the teachings of Evagrius motivated someone to 'sanitise' the Kephalaia Gnostica of all its Origenist flare, as Guillaumont maintains happened regarding S1.96 Thirdly, the Armenian translations of the Kephalaia Gnostica, which themselves derive from S1, offer us a terminus ante quem of 50 years following the death of Evagrius. Given the time needed for circulation and translation from the original S1, Casiday concludes that it must have been in circulation within a generation of Evagrius' death. Fourthly and finally, even though the Kephalaia Gnostica must have been circulating broadly within the first generation after Evagrius' death, there is no evidence that it was causing any trouble or controversy until, in the 540's, we hear of the correspondence with Barsanuphius and John. Looking then for a more plausible Sitz im Leben of the text, Casiday argues that the “debates that were occuring in Palestine … provide what had been lacking until this point: a meaningful context in which to situate S2.” Thus he concludes that “S1 was available before 450, whereas S2 fits historically into the events that provoked the series of condemnation of Origenism roughly a century later.” 97 Based on these arguments, one is driven to conclude that there is no necessary or even likely argument that the problematic S2 is the original work of Evagrius. It seems more to be the hand of other interested parties who, although admiring Evagrius, nonetheless used his work as a base and then changed it to try and promote their own views. The evidence seems to lie rather on the side of S1 being the authentic work of the monk from Pontus. Besides arguing from external evidence for the priority of S1 and thus its authenticity, one might also argue from the internal evidence, namely from the relation of its content to the other uncontested works of Evagrius. If Evagrius was an integrated man whose whole life was moving towards one unified goal, namely the vision of God, as seems clear from our biographical examination, then it would make complete sense that his literary works would also manifest a 96 Cf. Ibid., 66. 97 Ibid., 69–70. 28 certain unity of thought and intention. If, on the other hand, the S2 version is so different from the rest of Evagrius' works that one is forced to posit a kind of 'split-personality' disorder in Evagrius in order to ascribe it to him as author, then it seems more reasonable to assume that either he did not write S2 or else that in so writing it, he used terms which ought to be interpreted and understood only in light of and in continuity with his other works of certain authorship and less controversial in nature. However, most adherents of the heresiological school, already assuming that Evagrius is heterodox regarding his theoretical speculations, seek to explain how he could hold onto straightforwardly orthodox and down-to-earth teachings regarding the practical life by maintaining that he was the victim of a certain level of disunity in his character, a kind of 'split personality' disorder. A more charitable critic of Evagrius in this regard is Bamberger. “While Evagrius achieved an uncommon degree of integration and balance and gave the impression of a man fully at one with himself and his world at the end of his life, he made no successful attempt to integrate into a single whole the various traditions by which he was formed.” 98 This encapsulates the approach of the heresiologues: to see Evagrius as an excessively complex, radical, and extreme character, who at one time goes bounding off into wild theological speculations, and at another gives supposedly sage and concrete advice on the monastic way of life. For them, he is a philosopher in the desert torn in two by the conflicting Hellenistic formation of his youth and the Coptic formation of his later years. But is this an honest depiction of Evagrius' character, given what we know regarding his life and writings. In contrast to the heresiological hermeneutic, it seems more level-minded to approach the question of Evagrius' character in harmony with the Benedictine school of interpretation. Thus, in our examination of Evagrius, we will approach him from the basic assumption that he was a monk-theologian who lived what he taught and sought to unify his life both in theory and in praxis. In the teaching of Evagrius, a true monk is one who is both interiorly united with himself, while at the same time he is united in a spiritual way with all men.99 In his compassion, humility, and love, Evagrius manifested his unity with all men, and this 98 John Eudes Bamberger and Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos: Chapters on Prayer, Cistercian Studies Series 4 (Spencer, Mass.: Cistercian Publications, 1970), lxxii. 99 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Pr.,” 124, 125 (Sinkewicz, 206)“A monk is one who is separated from all and 29 in turn bore witness to the inner unity of his own soul which he ever sought to conform to that unity of peace and the knowledge of God to which he yearned so longingly to be joined. And since he was truly a monk, unified and purified in the harmony of his soul, so also was he able to ascend to the heights of pure prayer, to be lifted even above the heavens in spiritual contemplation,100 and thus to become a true theologian of the desert. As he teaches in his Chapters on Prayer, “If you are a theologian, you will pray truly; and if you pray truly, you will be a theologian.”101 Based then upon the unity of Evagrius' character as a monk-theologian, I will seek to manifest in the second half of this paper the unity of Evagrius' thought, and to show that it ought to be taken as an organic whole. Taking as my point of departure his teaching on the wisdom of God in creation, I will seek to show how this wisdom that is scattered throughout all created being manifests God as Wisdom itself. And this wisdom of creation draws us into unity with Christ, and through Christ, finally to the Unity of God in himself. united with all.” ... “A monk is one who esteems himself as one with all people because he ever believes he sees himself in each person.” 100 Cf. Palladius, “VC,” 24 (Vivian, 86). 101 Evagrius Ponticus, “Pr.,” 60 (Sinkewicz, 199). 30 PART II – THE WISDOM OF CREATION A full study on the theology of wisdom in the thought of Evagrius with all of its effects, implications, and relations would require far more pages than the scope of this thesis will allow. So, to place a limit on our intention, we will focus our treatment to simply trying to understand the nature of the wisdom of creation and thus to look in particular at the causes of wisdom. We will begin by looking first at the end or final cause of the wisdom of creation, namely its purpose, then at the material and formal aspects of the wisdom of creation, that is, its content, and finally we will look at the agent cause of wisdom, that is, the Author and Creator of wisdom.102 Chapter 1 – The Purpose of Creation: The Wisdom of Love In order to understand how creation is the manifestation of God's wisdom, we must first examine what is the purpose of creation for Evagrius and how the coming of Christ renews and recreates man again for that original purpose. 1. Created for Union Creation has as its main purpose for Evagrius the manifestation of God's love. Evagrius also believes that there is a second purpose to creation, namely to bring back souls to union with God who, by their disobedience “have created a rift between themselves and their Maker.” 103 Evagrius 102 In our treatment we examine the wisdom of creation primarily regarding its causes, that is how and what it is in itself, but we have had to pass over the important aspect of wisdom as pertaining to God’s governance of creation, namely the wisdom of “providence” and “judgment”. A broader exposition of wisdom in the thought of Evagrius would need to include such a consideration. Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov., 3 (Géhin, 92)“And wisdom is the knowledge of corporeals and incorporeals, and also of the judgment and providence which are observed in them.” 103 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “The Great Letter,” in Evagrius Ponticus, trans. Augustine Casiday (London; New York: Routledge, 2006), 5 (Casiday, 65) Evagrius’ understanding of creation as being for the purpose of bringing back fallen man can be taken in one of two ways: either there is a kind of primordial sin such that the intellect was created apart from the body, but then it turned from God and consequently fell into a body. This would be the classical Origenist view which one finds especially in the S2 version of the Kephalaia Gnostica. On the other hand, one could take this passage that, given the fall of man, creation now has a secondary added purpose in addition to its original purpose of divine manifestation. This new purpose would be the bringing back of fallen humanity. If that is true, then the first purpose would pertain to the economy of creation, while the second would pertain to the economy of salvation. Which one of these is the authentic Evagrian position is a question that would need further inquiry. 31 explains these two intentions when he says that all of creation is like a letter, and it is by the contemplation of this great letter that all intellectual creatures see God's love and are drawn towards Him. Now God in his love has fashioned creation as an intermediary. It exists like a letter: through his power and his wisdom (that is, by his Son and his Spirit), he made known abroad his love for them so that they might be aware of it and draw near.104 The purpose of creation, according to this text, is to manifest God's love, and through that manifestation, to draw his creatures back to union himself. Let us examine how this love and final union with God are the purposes of creation for Evagrius. God communicates his love to others who are thus made to be in his likeness and image.105 And, for Evagrius, it is the intellect itself that is this 'image' or 'icon' of God, for the rational intellect alone of all creatures has the power to receive God's spiritual presence in this life and, in the next, to contemplate and be united with the Holy Trinity. 106 This knowledge of the Holy Trinity to which the intellect is joined is greater and more noble than any other created knowledge. It is by its incredible dignity and exaltation in this regard that Evagrius teaches that the intellect has a certain 'priority' over all other corporeal created being. And so, in creating the incorporeal intellect, Evagrius speaks of it as being 'prior' to all corporeal nature. 107 This 104 Ibid. 105 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” III.32 (S1) “That is not the image of God, in which is able to be imprinted his wisdom, because this is also possible in those things constituted from the four elements; but this is the image of God: that which is receptive of the knowledge of of the Holy Trinity” Our citations come from the S1 version of the Kephalaia Gnostica. 106 Evagrius calls this eschatological vision of God as the “knowledge of the unity”. This term, “unity”, refers to the oneness of God as undivided Trinity. Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep.,” 56.2 “ The vision of God is true knowledge of the unity in being of the Blessed Trinity, which those will see who fulfill their journey here and have purified their souls through the commandments.” ; On how this knowledge of God as undivided Trinity is a gift of grace, see Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” V.79 (S1) “To perceive the contemplation of the natures appertains to the power of the nous; but to look at the holy Trinity does not appertain to its powers alone; but that is a superior gift of grace” ; For a further discussion on the meaning of the term “unity”, see Gabriel Bunge, “Hénade Ou Monade? Au Sujet de Deux Notions Centrales de La Terminologie Évagrienne,” Le Muséon 102 (1989): 69–91. 107 To take “priority” strictly in a temporal sense results in Evagrius’ thought in this regard as being heretical. Most of the members of the “benedictine” school of interpretation believe that Evagrius is thinking of “prior” in an ontological sense. Evagrius’ use of the word “prior”, if understood together with the proper distinctions, would indicate the priority of dignity and also of the reciprocation of being. But whether or not Evagrius held and understood these distinction would need further study. Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” I.87 (S1); Cf. Ibid., I.50 (S1); Cf. Driscoll, Ad Monachos, 5–6; Cf. Gabriel Bunge and Evagrius Ponticus, Briefe Aus Der Wüste, Sophia 24 (Trier: Paulinus-Verlag, 1986), 97; Cf. Baán, I “due occhi dell’anima,” 57–58 “The Evagrian expression of ‘first creation,’ does not mean temporality, but only the metaphysical priority of the created intellect in the image of the immaterial God. Not by chance does Evagrius never speak of a ‘secondary creation,’ unlike Origen. The Evagrian 32 ontological priority seems to be based, in the thought of Evagrius, on the fact that these two levels of creation, corporeal and incorporeal, have a different proximity to God. For, only the intellectual nature is capable of both manifesting the knowledge of the Trinity, and at the same time of being receptive to it, that is of being able to see God in the beatific vision and to become, as it were, a dwelling place of the Holy Trinity, whereas corporeal nature is not receptive of the vision of God but only manifests the 'manifold wisdom' that is found in all creatures.108 By the mediation of these degrees of manifestation, expressed in Evagrius' analogy, the Father teaches the created intellect the nature of his “essential knowledge”. 109 And yet the Father does not teach this knowledge directly, but through the mediation of the Son and Spirit in their missions ad extra. And the body itself is also brought to participate in this knowledge of God insofar as the intellect “teaches” and guides the soul to behave virtuously and wisely, and the soul in turn “teaches” virtues to the body. 110 We see then that in the economy of creation for Evagrius, there is a certain didactic as well as a revelatory purpose. By these various degrees of teaching and manifestation of divine knowledge, there is an ordered 'falling away' in a cascade of signs such that the first, unified, and “essential knowledge”111 of God is dispersed and participated throughout all the levels of creation. As Evagrius explains in a text from the Great Letter, all of this great dispersal of wisdom throughout creation is for the sake of revealing and pointing back towards the essential Wisdom of God. It is, as it were, a cascade of symbolism and manifestation: Just as the wisdom and power (that is, the Son and the Spirit) are signs by which the Father's love is known, in the same way rational beings are signs (as we have said) in which the Father's power and wisdom are known. The Son and the Spirit are signs of the Father by which he is known, and rational creation is a sign by which the Son and Spirit are known (in keeping with the verse, 'in our image' [Gen 1.26]).112 As Evagrius relates here, the very content of this revelation and manifestation of the Father by the expression ‘secondary being’ refers only to the fact that the actual state of man, composed from and subject to further fragmentations, does not correspond to the original intention of God, and it is therefore secondary.”; For the different senses of “prior” used here, see Aristotle, The Categories, 2nd ed. (Oxford: OCT, 1956), chap. 12. 108 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” III.32 (S1). 109 Cf. Ibid., I.89 (S1)“All reasoning nature was naturally made to understand true knowledge, and God is essential knowledge.” 110 Cf. Ibid., II.56 (S1)“The intellect teaches the soul, and the soul the body. And only the ‘man of God’ is able to know the ‘man of knowledge.’” 111 Cf. Ibid., I.89 (S1). 112 Evagrius Ponticus, “GL,” 12 (Casiday, 67). 33 Son and the Spirit is the Father's love itself, a love in which the Son and the Spirit impel and lead others towards him. Rational creatures in turn reciprocate this revelation of God's love through the Son and Spirit and also through visible creation by seeking to advance in wisdom and love so as finally to attain the invisible God. This is because, as Evagrius continues, “we are joined to this visible creation; so, with respect to visible things, we must eagerly advance by them toward, and come to understand, the things invisible.”113 Because man has a body and, in Evagrius' thought, is joined to all corporeal nature through the body, thus must man make his return back to God by peering through corporeal creation beyond to the immaterial natures and the Creator's mark of love contained within them, and by the contemplation of that love, to finally return to the knowledge of the Creator himself. In reading a letter, one becomes aware through its beauty of the power and intelligence of the hand and finger that wrote it, as well as of the intention of the writer; likewise, one who contemplates creation with understanding becomes aware of the Creator's hand and finger, as well as of his intention – that is, his love.114 We can see then that the communication and the manifestation of God's love for man, in Evagrius' scheme, is the final purpose of the creation of all things. Creation therefore is, as it were, a love letter from God written to all those who have the care to attend to the secrets hidden within it. And for those who are not attentive, this letter will remain hidden. As he says further along, Just as the affairs written in letters are hidden from those who do not know how to read, likewise one who fails to understand the visible creation also fails to be aware of the intelligible creation which is deposited and hidden in it, even as he stares at it.115 But when someone cares to understand the meaning of God's letter of creation and peers deeply into its secrets, if they persevere they will begin, as Evagrius says, “to perceive the Power and Wisdom and to proclaim unceasingly the meaning of the incomprehensible love that is administered by them [the Power and Wisdom].”116 Let us gather together then our findings in this section. From our study of these various texts, taken primarily from Evagrius' Great Letter and some from the S1 version of the Kephalaia 113 Ibid., 13 (Casiday, 67). 114 Ibid., 5 (Casiday, 65). 115 Ibid., 14 (Casiday, 67). 116 Ibid. 34 Gnostica, we can see that for Evagrius all of creation is like a letter. It has as its purpose the manifestation of God, and in particular of God's nature as love. And of all creatures, the intellectual nature is especially suited to manifesting God's wisdom and love on account of the intellect's nearness to God, its being made in his image, and its being able to contemplate the knowledge of God. And, for Evagrius, the intellect returns to God, from whom it fell by disobedience, by first contemplating God's marks and signs that he has left in creation. The idea that the purpose of creation is simply to communicate and manifest God's love, and that all of creation is one big letter, while all the individual creatures are the words within that letter, is a very unusual image to use. But if God is both Wisdom and Love in his very essence, then it might be more clear how this Wisdom and Love tends to be manifested, revealed, and known to others. If creation is an epistle sent by God to man where each individual letter, that is every creature, points back to God as its source and first exemplar, then there are several difficulties that one might encounter when trying to understand this text. One of the main difficulties with this analogy is the purpose of creation which it implies, namely as being made for the sake of bringing back fallen man. If one takes this in a purely temporal way, then man would have sinned primordially and thus fallen before the creation of bodies. If one understands Evagrius in this way, then he would certainly seem to believe in the preexistence of the soul and, consequently, in the Origenian idea of a first creation of intellects alone followed by a second creation of bodies. These are problems and ambiguities which we cannot resolve in this short master's thesis, but which would be very important fields of further study, especially regarding the content of the S1 version of the Kephalaia Gnostica. 2. Renewed After the Image of Christ In Evagrius' thought, man has been created for love and union with God, and yet, because of his falling into sin, he has frustrated God's original plan for creation. Thus, man is in need of being renewed and recreated. In his love and wisdom, God has created man, composed from body, soul, and spirit (1Th. 5:23).117 However, the disintegration between these parts, brought on by vice and 117 Man is primarily constituted of body and soul, for Evagrius. But the soul is further divided into the 35 ignorance, keeps them from becoming united by “the bond of peace” and thus to form a “tripartite cord” or else “a triple-walled city fortified by the towers of the virtues.” 118 For Evagrius, the intellect only finally reaches its goal of unified peace, and thus 'sonship' with God, when the intellect attains impassibility with regards to its disordered passions and is “filled with all spiritual knowledge.”119 Once the body and soul are bound together not only by a bond of nature, but also by a “bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3), only then can it truly be said to be “unified by the commandment of the divine Trinity: … 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God' (Mt. 5:9).”120 Man's nature itself is “trinitarian”, and it is by the harmonious union of man's threefold cord of intellect, soul, and body that he is able to make a threefold return to God. Evagrius, basing himself on man's “trinitarian” nature, makes numerous divisions into three throughout his theology. 121 The very purpose of Christianity, as detailed by Evagrius, is to return to God by the triple path of praktiké, physiké, and theologiké.122 The communication of this threefold path of return is in fact the essential purpose of the entire mission of Christ as the Savior of mankind. Each one of these parts of man's return has its own individual purpose. The purpose of the praktiké, as explained by Evagrius, is to “purify the intellect and to render it free of passions,” the goal of the physiké “is to reveal the truth hidden in all beings,” and finally the role of theologiké is to turn the intellect in contemplation towards the First Cause.123 When a man follows the teachings of Christ in these three ways, he “build the house” and “watches over the city” of his soul so as to make a fitting rational part, namely the intellect or the “nous”, and then also the irrational part of the soul. The irrational part is further divided into the concupiscible and the irascible parts. Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “TP,” para. 24, 35, 74, 75, 89 The terms “intellect,” “mind,” and “spirit,” are all used in our text as referring to the one reality which Evagrius refers to as the νους, namely the intellectual part of man. 118 Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Eccl., 1993, 31 (Géhin, 110); Evagrius Ponticus, “To Eulogios, On the Confession of Thoughts and Counsel in Their Regard,” in Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 6 (Sinkewicz, 33); ibid., 11 (Sinkewicz, 37). 119 Evagrius Ponticus, “Eul.,” 6 (Sinkewicz, 33); Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov., 163 (Géhin, 260). 120 Evagrius Ponticus, “Eul.,” 6 (Sinkewicz, 33). 121 E.g. Evagrius Ponticus, “Pr.,” Prologue (Sinkewicz, 192) “The triangle might indicate to you the knowledge of the Holy Trinity, ... the practical life, natural contemplation, and theological contemplation, or faith, hope and charity, or gold, silver, and precious stones.” 122 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “TP,” 1 (Sinkewicz, 97). 123 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Gn.,” 49. 36 dwelling place for Christ (cf. Ps. 126:2). Evagrius applies the imagery of 'house' and 'city' found in Psalm 126 to the relation of the soul to Christ. As the soul progresses in the three ways of praktiké, physiké, and theologiké, Christ comes to dwell within the soul with ever increasing intensity. Applying this figurative interpretation of the Psalm, Evagrius teaches that Christ dwells in the soul first as 'the housemaster dwells in his house', then as a 'king in his city', and finally as 'God in his temple'.124 Christ comes to dwell within the purified soul in an ever increasing way, making it more and more like unto himself. And by this transformation, the soul in turn begins finally to abide “in” Christ. Evagrius, glossing on the term 'creation' found in Psalm 32, and using a text from Corinthians as his hermeneutic key, says that “Creation refers to the change from better to worse: for if anyone is in Christ, 'he is a new creation' (cf. II Cor. 5:17); he is being renewed.” 125 Evagrius understands this “creation” spoken of in Psalm 32, as a renewal or a recreation of the soul “in” Christ. As Evagrius continues, Christ, the Divine Physician, renews man and brings him to health by applying to man's tripartite wounded soul a three-fold medicine, namely fasting, almsgiving, and prayer.126 And by the application of these three medicines, the soul is renewed and reformed in the image of Christ. In this way the new self is formed, renewed 'according to the image of its Creator' (cf. Col. 3:10), in whom, on account of holy impassibility, 'there is no male and female'; in whom, on account of the one faith and love, there is 'neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, slave nor freeman, but Christ is all in all” (Col. 3:11; Gal. 3:28).127 By fasting and almsgiving, one is perfected in the praktiké and brought to spiritual love, while by prayer, one is led towards knowledge and contemplation, and finally to theologiké when Christ 'renews' all by 'dwelling' in all. By living one's life in the discipline of the praktiké, and in 124 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Selected Scholia on Psalms,” trans. Luke Dysinger, Monastic Spirituality SelfStudy, 126.2, accessed August 31, 2010, http://www.ldysinger.com/Evagrius/08_Psalms/00a_start.htm “For it is through the praktiké that it acquires him as housemaster, through natural contemplation as king; and finally through theology as God.” 125 Ibid., 32.8. 126 Evagrius Ponticus, “On Thoughts,” in Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 3 (Sinkewicz, 154); For Evagrius trifold distinction of the soul into the rational, irascible, and concupiscible, see Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “TP,” 15 (Sinkewicz, 100). 127 Evagrius Ponticus, “Th.,” 3 (Sinkewicz, 155). 37 contemplation, the soul comes to know “instruction and wisdom” which, as Evagrius understands, is to know Christ himself: If “the fear of the Lord is life for a man,” but “the fear of the Lord is instruction and wisdom” (Pr. 15:33), then the life of a man is instruction and wisdom. But Christ says, “I am The life” (Jn. 11:25). Therefore Christ is instruction and wisdom. Thus, “to know instruction and wisdom” (Pr. 1:2) is to know Christ himself.128 And by engaging in the practical life and in knowledge, the intellect is separated gradually from the objects of this world, from attachment to vice, and from the darkness of ignorance. The soul engages in this three-fold renunciation as it first sets out into the desert, leaving behind the secular objects of this world, and then continues this exodus by its passage from vice to virtue, and then finally completes it in a transformation from ignorance to knowledge, embarking on an 'exodus' of the soul towards the promised land of the knowledge of the Holy Trinity. 129 By this triple withdrawal, or anachoresis as Evagrius calls it, from the world, vice, and ignorance, the soul prepares for death and already begins, in a certain way, to separate itself from its fallen flesh. 130 In so 'dying to the flesh', the soul comes to imitate Christ's own death. “If you imitate Christ, you will become blessed. Your soul will die his death, and it will not derive evil from its flesh.” 131 In being separated from vice and ignorance, and through this separation, dying with Christ, the 'exodus' of the soul or its 'going out from' vice and ignorance becomes finally a 'resurrection' into the knowledge of the Holy Trinity. As Evagrius continues, “ … your exodus will be like the exodus of 128 Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov., 202 (Géhin, 292). 129 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” I.78–80 (S1)“The first renunciation of the world, which is done in the soul, is such: that with good will one abandons the things of this world for the knowledge of God. The second renunciation is distancing oneself from evil, which is produced by the application of man and by the grace of God. The third renunciation is the separation from ignorance, which usually appears to men as certain fantasies in combat, according to the degree of their growth.”; For a detailed discussion on the deep significance of the “exodus” in the theology of Evagrius, see Benjamin Ekman, “On the Texture of an Invisible God: Biblical Exegesis and Imageless Prayer in Evagrius Ponticus” (MPhil, University of Wales, 2011), 34–56; and see also Driscoll, Ad Monachos, 241; Evagrius speaks frequently of “exodus” as referring to the “conversion” of the soul and its progress in the spiritual life. Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov., 12 (Géhin, 102). 130 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “TP,” 52 (Sinkewicz, 107)“Separating body from soul belongs solely to the one who joined them together; but separating soul from body belongs also to one who longs for virtue; Our fathers call anachoresis a meditation on death and a flight from the body.” Taken strictly, such a passage would indicate a belief in the pre-existence of intellects, of the descent of the intellect to ensoulment in a soul and of the further descent of that soul to embodiment in a human body. But one could also take it positively as simply referring to the separation of the soul from the concupiscence of the flesh, namely from fallen “sarx”. Cf. Sinkewicz and Evagrius Ponticus, Greek Ascetic Corpus, n. 59 (Sinkewicz, 256). 131 Evagrius Ponticus, “AM,” 21 (Driscoll, 44). 38 a star, and your resurrection will glow like the sun.”132 For, it is in one's dying to the flesh that one is assimilated to Christ, and thus made capable of sharing in his resurrection into the 'unity' with the Holy Trinity. From the foregoing then, we can see that it is by the exercise of the virtues in the praktiké, by contemplation of the true natures of creatures in the physiké, and finally by the knowledge of the Holy Trinity in the gift of theologiké that the intellect is separated from all creatures and is, as it were, “crucified” with Christ, so that it can participate in Christ's resurrection and thus be modeled after him and renewed in his image in the peace and eschatological vision of the Holy Trinity. The emphasis in Evagrius' theology of creation and recreation, as we can see up to this point, is heavily Soteriological and Trinitarian. The basic themes which we see recurring again and again are the cross, death, and resurrection of Christ on the one hand, and on the other a continual emphasis on the centrality of the Holy Trinity as the source and goal of all creation and the economy of salvation. It is by engaging in the spiritual life that the soul is conformed to Christ, and, through him, finally brought into conformity with the Holy Trinity. Chapter 2 – The Content of Creation: The Wisdom of Letters After having laid out what is the purpose of creation for Evagrius, namely the manifestation of God's love, and how that love is fulfilled in us by modeling ourselves after Christ in the threefold return of the spiritual life, now let us turn our focus to the content of creation itself and try to understand what it means to say that all these things are created with wisdom. 1. A Letter of Love, A Letter of Wisdom In the thought of Evagrius, the wisdom that is sketched into the book of creation is a letter written by God whose most immediate purpose is, first of all, to manifest God's love and his wisdom.133 Since, the manifestation of God's love is the primary end of creation for Evagrius, then 132 Ibid.; For a profound and thorough commentary on this passage, see Driscoll, Ad Monachos, 237–249; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Th.,” 38 (Sinkewicz, 180)“The rational nature that was put to death by evil, Christ raises up through the contemplation of all the ages; the soul that has died the death of Christ, his Father raises up through the knowledge of himself. And this is what was said by the Apostle: ‘If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him’ (Rm. 6:8).” 133 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “GL,” 5 (Casiday, 65)“God in his love has fashioned creation as an intermediary. 39 all things are created under this aspect. God's love is thus, as it were, the formal aspect under which all things are brought into being. Because of this, if one wishes to understand creation and to see the wisdom of the love contained within it, Evagrius teaches that one must first of all possess within themselves that same spiritual love, so that by love they might see love. 134 As he says, “the one about to bind up documents needs light so as to see them, and the one about to study the wisdom in things [needs] spiritual love so as to see the light of knowledge in them.” 135 Insofar as one has spiritual love in oneself, the letters of wisdom which have been written into creation are made manifest to the one who has that love. For, “love is the door to knowledge, which is followed by theology and ultimate blessedness.”136 One cannot enter into knowledge without first entering through the door of spiritual love, for one must have a gentle heart, free from disordered passions, if one is to look serenely upon the wisdom contained in creatures. It is true that one must know something before one is able to love it. But in order for that knowledge to go deep, there must be spiritual love. As Evagrius says, without love, one is left just as incapable of reading God's letters of wisdom written in creation as birds who “fly in the form of letters although they do not know the meaning [of letters].” 137 It is only the “love for wisdom” and the desire to attain it which enables the soul to persevere through all the trials and sufferings of the praktiké and to achieve a true state of prayer.138 It is this same state of prayer which allows the seeking soul to attain to the logoi of beings that are hidden in things, 139 and through these logoi to come at last to It exists like a letter: through his power and his wisdom (that is, by his Son and his Spirit), he made known abroad his love for them [the disobedient] so that they might be aware of it and draw near.” . 134 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “AM,” 122 (Driscoll, 62)“Spiritual love” in the thought of Evagrius seems to be the same as infused charity, or grace. “He who has acquired love has acquired a treasure; he has received grace from the Lord.” . 135 Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” III.58 (S1). 136 Evagrius Ponticus, “Pr.,” Prol. 8 (Sinkewicz, 96); See also ibid., 3, 67 (Sinkewicz, 122, 126)“Love” here is the same as “gentleness”, or ἀγάπη πνευματική. 137 Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” VI.37 (S1). 138 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Pr.,” 18, 19 (Sinkewicz, 194) “If you want your prayer to be worthy of praise deny yourself at every instant, and when you suffer all sorts of troubles for the sake of prayer, practise love for wisdom.” “Whatever difficulty you endure out of love for wisdom, you will find the fruit of this in the time of prayer.” 139 “By ‘logoi’ Evagrius means the ‘inner meanings’ the ‘divine purposes’ which the Christian contemplative learns to perceive beneath the surface of external appearances.” Luke Dysinger, “The Logoi of Providence and Judgement in the Exegetical Writings of Evagrius Ponticus,” Studia Patristica 37 (2001): 2. 40 the knowledge of the subsisting Logos himself and font of wisdom who created them. 140 And it is this supreme love of wisdom which establishes the soul in this state of prayer and “carries off to the intelligible height the spiritual mind beloved of wisdom.”141 If the soul is not 'carried on high', then it will not see spiritual knowledge, and if it does not have love, then it will not be carried on high.142 Therefore, for Evagrius the mind draws near to God and is made capable of seeing his wisdom written into the love-letter of creation by means of spiritual love. The letter of creation, while communicating God's love as its purpose, also communicates his wisdom and power. For, as Evagrius says, the hand and the finger with which he writes his letter is his very own Wisdom and his Power, that is the Son and the Spirit through whom he brings all things into being and gives them form. 143 Because of this, all things bear the mark of wisdom within themselves. Thus, the wisdom of God will also be an essential formal aspect within all creatures. This is because just as a self-portrait reflects the ingenuity and skill of the artist and is also said to be 'in his image and likeness,' so also does creation reflect the ingenuity and image of the divine artist. “In all works of art, you see the one who made it. But in the contemplation of true knowledge, you will discover in all of these things why the Lord 'created everything in wisdom' (Ps. 103:24).”144 The wisdom of the Creator is reflected in the wisdom of the creature, just as the artifact imitates the artist who made it. The more universal and penetrating is the effect of the artisan upon his artifact, the more apparent will it be that the work belongs to him. And thus, Evagrius calls creation a 'mirror of the goodness of God' which reflects the mark of the Creator.145 Therefore, everything that shares in being no matter what, bears in some way the luminous mark of wisdom and, as Evagrius says, it will reflect the light of wisdom as a mirror 140 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Pr.,” 50, 51 (Sinkewicz, 198) “...when the passions of the irrational part have arisen, they do not allow it to be moved in a rational manner and to seek the Word of God. We pursue the virtues for the sake of the reasons [logoi] of created beings, and these we pursue for the sake of the Word [Logos] who gave them being, and he usually manifests himself in the state of prayer.” . 141 Ibid., 52 (Sinkewicz, 198). 142 If “love is the door to knowledge”, but “without knowledge, the heart will not be placed on high,” therefore without love, the soul will not be “raised on high” to be “presented before the Holy Trinity.” Cf. Ibid., Prol. 8 (Sinkewicz, 98); Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “AM,” 117, 136 (Driscoll, 62, 66). 143 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “GL,” 7 (Casiday, 66). 144 Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” I.14 (S1). 145 Cf. Ibid., II.1 (S1)“The mirror of the goodness of God, of his power, and of his wisdom, is creation that became something from nothing.” 41 might reflect the light of a lamp set upon a lamp-stand.146 2. The Corporeals and Incorporeals Let us now focus our gaze and look in particular at what is the material aspect of creation, that is, what can we see in creation that is a kind of passive principle which is receptive to the wisdom of God. Both corporeal and incorporeal beings are receptive of the wisdom of God, but each in different ways and degrees. 2.1. Corporeal Beings as Letters of Wisdom Let us examine now in particular each of these different 'letters' of God's wisdom, namely corporeal and incorporeal being, in order to see how they bear wisdom within themselves and also communicate it. In what way then are corporeal beings individual letters or words of wisdom within the one great letter of creation? Wisdom is in all things, and all things are in wisdom, for Evagrius, and yet wisdom is in all things according to various degrees depending on how much they draw near to the source of all wisdom. In non-intellectual corporeal natures, Evagrius says that God is present simply as an architect or a builder might be present in his work, insofar as that work in some way bears his likeness. 147 Corporeal beings therefore are able to become letters of God's wisdom by bearing it within themselves, albeit in a somewhat accidental way, just as a house bears the mark of the builder and the architect who constructed it. In a way, one can say that an artist is in his artifact insofar as his mark and his agency have been impressed upon the artifact. Another example: an author or someone who writes an epistle is in the letters that he writes insofar as it is the same intention that he has in his will and that is communicated on the written page. It seems that this is what Evagrius means when he says that God is present in all things through the medium of his created wisdom. Corporeal nature contains the wisdom of God, for Evagrius, and since God is in corporeal nature as created wisdom, therefore God can be said to be in every place. 148 Thus, God is 146 Ibid., II.70 (S1)“If everything that God has made, he created in wisdom (Ps. 103:24), there are no created things which are not established according to the pattern of the ‘lamp’.” 147 Ibid., VI.82 (S1). 148 Ibid., I.43 (S1)“God is in every place, and he is not in every place. He is in every place as being in every creature according to multiform wisdom (Eph. 3:10), but he is not in a place as not being one of the 42 omnipresent. It is on account of God's omnipresence as wisdom in bodily creation that all bodies are capable of teaching the soul about wisdom and raising it to contemplation, and it is Christ himself who is the master-guide and who traces these marks upon creation and teaches their meaning to his pupils, rational souls.149 We have examined how bodies are a means for contemplation and thus the passive and, as it were, material principle of the wisdom of Creation. Let us now briefly look at what other importance the body has in the thought of Evagrius. Besides their essential role of leading the mind to contemplation through the wisdom contained in them, sensible bodies also act as a defense against the attacks of the tempting demons.150 For example, the monk engaged in the ascetical life of praktiké and yet who withdraws into solitude prematurely, thus cutting himself off from sensible contact with other people, without having yet mastered the virtues of gentleness and humility, risks becoming a plaything of the demons and being cast down by the vices of pride and vainglory.151 For, it is by making contact with others and by caring for their bodily needs of the flesh that one learns compunction and compassion, and it is by being cared for them in turn, whether spiritually or physically, that one learns humility.152 Despite their intrinsic good effect on the intellect as a protection and a means to contemplation, nevertheless for Evagrius, sensible bodies draw the intellect to themselves and thus 'distract' it, as it were, on account of the impression that they leave on the reasoning faculty. 153 However, this sensible 'distraction' or 'busying' can be beneficial in a certain respect insofar as by it the soul is drawn away from the temptations of the demons.154 And yet, since the senses, being material, do creatures.” 149 Cf. Ibid., III.57 (S1) “Just as those teaching letters to children at the end trace them by means of a tablet, so also does Christ trace letters, teaching the rational souls his wisdom in the natures of bodies.” 150 Ibid., IV.85 (S1). 151 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Th.,” 23 (Sinkewicz, 23); Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “TP,” 22 (Sinkewicz, 101). 152 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Th.,” 11 (Sinkewicz, 160–161) As Evagrius teaches, it is by these virtues in particular that the “demon of insensitivity” is destroyed. This is the demon who oppresses the soul with spiritual blindness and tries to “deaden” the senses with acedia and insensitivity so that the monk is made incapable of rising to contemplation through the senses and through corporeal beings. 153 Cf. Ibid., 41 (Sinkewicz, 180). 154 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Notes On Ecclesiastes,” in Evagrius Ponticus, trans. Augustine Casiday (London; New York: Routledge, 2006), 15 (Casiday, 135) “God, in his providential care for the impassioned soul, gave it perceptions and perceptible things so that, by busying itself with them and considering them, it might flee the thoughts that would be inspired in it by the enemies.” 43 not attain knowledge, thus, the contemplation of wisdom in corporeal beings through sense is superior to the act of sensation itself. It follows then, for Evagrius, that one must move beyond sensation in order to gain any spiritual and lasting profit. Desirable are things that are known through the organs of sense, but most desirable is the contemplation of true knowledge. But because sensation cannot attain knowledge due to its infirmity, it regards as superior what is closer, rather than that which is distant and [truly] superior to it.155 On account of the fallenness and the infirmity of human nature, the senses are easily distracted by that which is closest to them. And thus, sensation of bodies can become an impediment to prayer and contemplation and can ultimately hold the soul back and distract it from rising to a higher level of contemplation, namely to perceiving the world of contemplative concepts that God has constituted in the heart.156 Besides simply acting as an impediment to the soul's progress in contemplation, images acquired through the senses can also, much worse, become instruments of deceit in the hands of the demons.157 To the extent then that the senses and corporeal being either hold the soul back from advancing in knowledge or else lead to its deception, so also, for Evagrius, should the soul seek to separate itself from them and to “approach the immaterial immaterially,” 158 that is to come to contemplate the immaterial God in an immaterial way. Trying to contemplate God's manifold wisdom implanted in bodies will always be difficult, so long as the soul is impure and bound by passions. And yet, to the extent that the soul is purified, so much easier is it to see the contemplation of wisdom hidden within the corporeal natures and from thence to climb higher to immaterial contemplations, and finally to knowledge of the Trinity. Thus, as Evagrius says, 155 Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” II.10 (S1). 156 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Th.,” 17 (Sinkewicz, 164) “The Lord has confided to the human person the mental representations of this age, like sheep to a good shepherd (cf. Jn. 10:1-18). For scripture says, ‘This age he has placed in his heart’ (Ecl. 3:11).” 157 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Pr.,” 72 (Sinkewicz, 200) “When the mind finally achieves the practice of pure prayer free from the passions, then the demons no longer attack it on the left, but on the right. They suggest to it a notion of God along with some form associated with the senses so that it thinks it has perfectly attained the goal of prayer. A man experienced in the gnostic life said that this happens under the influence of the passion of vainglory...”; For a discussion on how the demons can distract or tempt the mind either through the senses, the memory, or through the passions, see Evagrius Ponticus, “Th.,” 4 (Sinkewicz, 155). 158 Evagrius Ponticus, “Pr.,” 66 (Sinkewicz, 199). 44 Just as we now see natures by means of the senses, and, having been purified, we see their contemplations, so also, further purified, do we enter into the contemplation of incorporeals, but having been purified threefold, we shall be deemed fit also for the vision of the Holy Trinity.159 Purity of heart is the goal, without which no one will see God (Mt. 5:8). Thus, the more a soul is purified, the more does corporeal creation become for it a letter through which it can read God's intentions of wisdom.160 And by this purification, the intellect is no longer distracted or drawn by sensible things.161 Instead, the intellect is drawn by a new incorporeal world of contemplation. This attraction for the world of incorporeal being becomes as it were a new 'distraction' given to the mind from God which removes the intellect from the world of sense while at the same time allowing it to see through bodies to their hidden principles or reasons. Thus, as Evagrius says, “Godly business [Περισπασμὸς θεοῦ] is true knowledge that separates the purified soul from perceptible things.”162 Purity of heart, therefore, brought about by an immersion in the virtues of the praktiké, is what makes contemplation of incorporeal being by means of corporeal beings possible at all. That is why Evagrius says that the virtues are, as it were, the 'perception' by which the soul perceives intelligible realities. Piety towards God is the beginning of sense-perception (Prv. 1:7). Just as it is through sense-perceptions that the intellect attends to the sensible, so through the virtues does it contemplate the intelligible. This is why the wise Solomon teaches us that virtues play the role of sense-perception.163 Purity of heart, then, and being filled with the virtues are what is necessary if one wishes to contemplate the higher things and finally come to the knowledge of God. Gathering then together what we have concluded in this section, Evagrius says that God is in all things as an artist is in his artifact, and that he is thus present everywhere as wisdom. On account of this, all bodies are an aid towards ascending in contemplation, and yet they can also be a 159 Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” V.57 (S1). 160 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Eccl.,” 2006, 15 (Casiday, 134–35) “...after purification, the pure person no longer regards perceptible things as merely busying his mind, but as having been placed in him for spiritual contemplation. For it is one thing for sensible things to make an impression on the mind as it perceives them sensibly through its sense, and another for the mind to arrange the meanings that are in sensible things by contemplating them. But this knowledge only follows for the pure, whilst thinking about perceptible things follows for the impure as well as for the pure.” 161 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” V.12 (S1). 162 Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Eccl.,” 2006, 45 (Casiday, 143); See also ibid., 42, 44 (Casiday, 143). 163 Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov., 5 (Géhin, 94). 45 distraction, or even a source of demonic deception. In the end, it is only be being purified from its vices that the intellect will be able ascend by means of bodies to true contemplation. 2.2. Incorporeal Beings as Letters of Wisdom All creatures, both corporeal and incorporeal, are receptive of the 'manifold wisdom'. This, for Evagrius, is the wisdom by which all things were made in the beginning. And yet, not all creatures are receptive of the indwelling of Christ himself. Corporeal nature, although it has the imprint of the manifold wisdom of God, cannot be said to be 'in the image of God'.164 Incorporeal nature alone is in the 'image of God', not however on account of being incorporeal, even though it is true that both God and the intellect are incorporeal. By being 'in the image,' Evagrius means precisely the capacity to receive God and to become the 'place of God' when the intellect receives the knowledge of the Holy Trinity.165 Because of the soul's receptivity to Christ and of being capable of the vision of the Trinity, that is union with God, thus the intellectual nature can be said to possess a capax Dei within itself that sets it far above all corporeal natures. Since incorporeal natures are in the image of God on account of their capability to receive God within themselves and thus be united with him, they can be said to be letters of God's wisdom in a much more eminent way than any other creature. Just as corporeal nature contains and communicates God's manifold wisdom as a provident Creator who guides all things to their end, so does incorporeal nature, in the thought of Evagrius, contain the capacity for the knowledge of the Holy Trinity, and through that capacity, the intellect manifests God's love and wisdom, first as a loving Father who cares for mankind, and then as a wise ruler who gives man a 'spiritual law' by which he can return to God by a sure and steady path. As Evagrius states, “We have known the wisdom of the Holy Trinity through its descent towards the intellectual nature, and in it we have 164 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” III.32 (S1)“That is not the image of God, in which is able to be imprinted his wisdom, because this is also possible in those things constituted from the four elements; but this is the image of God: that which is receptive of the knowledge of of the Holy Trinity.” 165 Cf. Ibid., VI.73 (S1)“It is not in being incorporeal that the intellect is in the image of God, but in being fit to recieve the Holy Trinity.”; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Reflections,” in Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 25 (Sinkewicz, 213) “From the holy David we have learned clearly what the place of God is; for he says, ‘His place has been established in peace and his dwelling on Sion (Ps. 75:3).’ Therefore, the place of God is the rational soul, and his dwelling the luminous mind that has renounced worldly desires and has been taught to observe the reasons of (that which is on) the earth.” 46 received the hidden revelation of the Father, and also the final spiritual law.”166 Although all intellectual creatures have this capax Dei, this ability to be united to God in the vision of the Holy Trinity, yet not all are actually united to God or are even drawing close to him on account of the impurity of their souls. 167 Just as all corporeal natures are potentially letters of wisdom, but not actually so until they are contemplated by a purified intellect, so also are all intellectual natures potentially letters of wisdom, but not actually so until they have been made “so receptive because of their purity and good deeds...” that they are able to “give form to their Creator's wisdom and power as clearly as mighty and ancient signs.”168 How is it then that the pure intellect becomes a 'sign' of God's wisdom? Evagrius tells us: Just as the Wisdom and Power (that is, the Son and the Spirit) are signs by which the Father's love is known, in the same way rational beings are signs (as we have said) in which the Father's power and wisdom are known. The Son and the Spirit are signs of the Father by which he is known, and rational creation is a sign by which the Son and the Spirit are known (in keeping with the verse, 'in our image' [Gen 1:26]). The sign of intelligible and immaterial creation is visible and material creation, just as visible things are the types of invisible things.169 In this passage Evagrius spreads before our eyes the economy of creation and its final purpose. The form he uses to describe it is, as it were, a 'cascade of glorification' where each cataract glorifies and manifests the one above it. In this epiphany of signs, the love of the Father is poured out upon his Image,170 namely the Son and the Spirit, and from thence it is poured out again upon their image, rational creation, and finally it is poured out upon the material and visible creation, which reveals immaterial creation. In this whole dispensation and economy, the glory of the Father is revealed to all insofar as he acts in all and is signified by all. And, because God acts most of all in the intellectual natures by his teaching and guiding them, and he teaches the holy and purified mind most of all, thus he is said to be most present in a mind that is made holy, more than in any other creature.171 Because of this supereminent presence of God within the holy, incorporeal, and 166 Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” III.13 (S1) Of course, this “descent” should be understood as the missions of the divine persons “ad extra” in ministering to mankind. ; On the “knowledge of God” as friendship with God, see Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov., 69, 189 (Géhin, 163, 282). 167 On how the knowledge of the Trinity is a gift of grace, see footnote 106. 168 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “GL,” 8,11 (Casiday, 66). 169 Ibid., 12 (Casiday, 67). 170 Evagrius uses the word 'image' or 'sign' (in Greek it is εικόνα) more loosly than say, Aquinas. For Evagrius, it simply means 'that which reveals another'. 171 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” I.42 (S1) “It is said that God is where he acts; and where he acts most, 47 intellectual natures, we can say that they most of all are able to be letters of God's wisdom, to be 'in his image', and being so, to communicate his love and intelligence to all creation. And it is through the contemplation of these holy and incorporeal letters of God's wisdom that the heart is enlarged, raised on high, and finally placed before the Holy Trinity where it flourishes by drinking deeply from the river of God's essential Wisdom.172 From the foregoing, we can conclude then that, for Evagrius, the incorporeal and intellectual beings are receptive of the knowledge of the Holy Trinity both on account their great proximity to God as being incorpreal, but also as being able to contemplate God himself. It is on account of their being able to receive the knowledge of the Holy Trinity and as being incorporeal that intellectual natures are able to become letters of God's wisdom in a most preeminent way. Chapter 3 – The Author of Creation: The Wisdom of The Anointed One In the previous chapter we examined the formal and material aspects, as it were, of the wisdom of creation, namely the love and wisdom by which all things were created on the one hand, and on the other, we spoke about the very things which were created and which contain the wisdom of creation, namely the corporeal and incorporeal realities. Now that we understand a little more the nature of this great letter of creation in the thought of Evagrius, let us turn our focus to the author of the letter himself, Christ the Incarnate Word, and try to understand who he is in the theology of Evagrius and in what way he is Wisdom itself and the archetype of all created wisdom. 1. The Word as Wisdom Before entering into the Christology of Evagrius and examining how Christ is the Incarnate Word and is thus Wisdom itself, we must first lay out the fundamentals of his Trinitarian Theology, and in particular seek to show how the second person of the Holy Trinity is Word and there he is present most: but he acts most in the intellectual powers, therefore he is most present in them.” 172 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “AM,” 135 (Driscoll, 66) “Contemplations of worlds enlarge the heart; reasons of providence and judgement lift it up.”; Cf. Ibid., 131 (Driscoll, 65) “The wisdom of the Lord raises up the heart; his prudence purifies it.”; Cf. Ibid., 136 (Driscoll, 66) “Knowledge of incorporeals raises the mind and presents it before the Holy Trinity.”; Cf. Ibid., 117 (Driscoll, 62) “Without knowledge, the heart will not be placed on high; and a tree will not flourish without a drink.” 48 Wisdom. Based on that, we will then be able to see how he is ὁ Χρίστος, that is the one 'anointed' with the essential knowledge of God in his 'Oneness'. Evagrius affirms that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one in essence, not as a number is said to be one, but “as designating a simple and uncircumscribed essence.”173 It is because of this unity of nature that God is said to be 'One' or Μόνος, the same unity of divine nature that is contemplated by the rational soul in the eschatological vision.174 While being one in essence (Μόνος), yet at the same time, Father, Son, and Spirit are three, but not according to number which is an accident of substance, which is constituted from the addition of other numbers, and upon which other numbers precede and follow.175 Rather, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three as being 'simple substance' with no addition, no priority nor posteriority, and nothing of a qualitative and accidental nature.176 The Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, generated from the Father before all ages, is the Logos, that is essential and true Wisdom itself. 177 Insofar as he is the Son of God who is one in essence with the Father, he is generated “in the Unity” of God's essence and, as such, He is consubstantial with the very 'Oneness' of God, giving perfect expression to the essence of the God-head.178 Because of this, the Word is himself of divine nature, or as Evagrius says, he is the 'One and Only'.179 173 Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep. Fid.,” 5,7 (Casiday, 47, 48); Cf. Ibid., 9 (Casiday, 48)“The Father, who is God by his essence, has begotten the Son, who is God by his essence. Thus the identity of their essence is shown: for one who is God by essence has the same essence as another who is God by essence.” 174 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep. Fid.,” 22 (Casiday, 52) “’Only the Father knows’ (Cf. Mt. 24:36; Mk. 13:32), he says - since the Father himself is the end and ultimate blessedness. For when we know God no longer in mirrors (cf. 1 Cor. 13:12) or through any of the other intermediaries, but approach him as the One and Only [μόνος καὶ μονάδος] (Cf. 1Tm. 1:17), then we shall also see the final end.” 175 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” VI.12,13 (S1) “The numerical triad is preceded by a numerical diad, but the Blessed Trinity is not preceded by a numerical diad; indeed, it is not a numerical triad. The numerical triad is constituted by the addition of one to one; but the Holy Trinity is not constituted by the addition of numbers, on account of the Trinity not being a number.” 176 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep. Fid.,” 9 (Casiday, 48) “...the divine is free from ‘quality’.”; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” IV.10 (S1)“The Holy Trinity is not like a tetrad, nor a pentad, nor a hexad, for these are numbers, but the Holy Trinity is simple substance.” 177 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep. Fid.,” 19 (Casiday, 51). 178 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” III.1 (S1) “The Father alone knows the Christ, and the Son alone knows the Father, the latter as only begotten in the Unity, and the former as Monad and Unity.” Here “Unity” refers to the divine essence. Cf. Ibid., VI.79 (S1)“The body of Christ is connatural with our body; his soul also is of the nature of our souls; in the same way also his divinity is coessential with the Father.” 179 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep. Fid.,” 23 (Casiday, 52) “Our mind has been resurrected and roused to the height of blessedness only when it shall contemplate the Word’s being One and Only [Μόνος καὶ Μονάδος].” 49 Besides being essential divine Wisdom, For Evagrius, the Word is also the source of God's created wisdom insofar as he is the Creator of all things. As the Word of God, the Λόγος Θεοῦ, he has left the imprint of his wisdom in all creatures which imprint takes the form, as it were, of little 'words of created things', λόγοι τῶν γεγονότων, that accurately reflect the nature of the one subsisting Word who made them.180 It is in these two aspects then that, for Evagrius, the Word is said to be essential Wisdom, first, insofar as he is joined substantially to the Unity of the Godhead itself, and second insofar as he is the Creator of beings who impresses within creatures the created logoi which constitute the 'manifold wisdom of Christ'. And, it is precisely within these two aspects of the Word that Evagrian Christology begins. In our next two sections we will explain these principles of Evagrian Christology and how they relate to wisdom. 2. Christ as the Wisdom of the Unity The Christology of Evagrius circles around the fundamental principle that Christ is himself the bridge and point of contact between heaven and earth, between God and man. This union of God and man in Christ is, for Evagrius, fundamentally a mystery. 181 And yet, Evagrius tries to understand or at least express in some way the mystery of how Christ is both the Word and, at the same time, man. In order to do this, he has to rely on paradoxical language, saying that Christ is both himself subsisting Wisdom that reveals itself, as for example the sun shining in the heavens, and also that Christ is revealed Wisdom insofar as it is proceeding out into creation, like light from the sun, which reveals the subsisting Wisdom of God.182 Thus, he is both the subsisting Wisdom of the Word, and also that Wisdom as revealed in a human nature composed of “a corporeal and 180 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Pr.,” 51 (Sinkewicz, 198) “We pursue the virtues for the sake of the reasons [logoi] of created beings, and these we puruse for the sake of the Word who gave them being, and he usually manifests himself in the state of prayer.” 181 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Ps.,” Psalm: 9.1 “’Unto the end, concerning the hidden things of the son, a psalm for David’ (Ps. 9:1). Hidden is the ineffable knowledge of the mysteries concerning Christ, (cf. Col 2:2-3 ) the true God.” 182 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” VI.16 (S1) “Christ is he who has been revealed from substantial knowledge and from an incorporeal and bodily nature. The one saying ‘two Christs’ and ‘two Sons’ is like the one calling the wise man and his wisdom two wise men and two wisdoms.” As Evagrius says here, Christ is revealed as “substantial knowledge”, that is as being the Word of God, and he is also revealed as having a “corporeal and incorporeal nature”, namely a human body and a soul. Thus, Christ has both divine nature (subsisting knowledge) and also a complete human nature with all its elements, namely body, soul, will, intellect, etc., what he refers to as “an incorporeal and bodily nature”. 50 incorporeal nature.”183 In another image, Evagrius says that Christ is a throne in which God sits, 184 and who “has God the Word within himself.”185 If one takes this metaphor simply at face value, then it would seem that 'Christ' is in some way distinct from the Word who dwells within him, and that there would be thus two persons in Christ. And yet, lest one be led to fall into that extreme, Evagrius balances this metaphor of the indwelling of the Word by emphasizing in the same place that the very flesh of Christ is the flesh of the Word, thus indicating a communication of idioms and therefore a unity in the person of Christ with the Word.186 Evagrius also underlines the distinction of natures in Christ when he says in another place that Christ is at once not the final object of desire, nor the final end, and ultimate blessedness, insofar as he is man, while at the same time he says that Christ is the final end and ultimate blessedness insofar as he is the Word of God. 187 Here again we see that the one Christ is, for Evagrius, both man and at the same time God, yet considered from different aspects. Considered “in himself”, that is, insofar as he is the person of the Word, then he is divine and thus the final end and the ultimate blessedness. But considered “with respect to us,” he is man and thus not the final end, but rather the 'way' to that end. Regarding again the distinction in Christ between his human and divine natures, Evagrius says that Christ is both “from a human nature,” while at the same time he is “God above all” (Eph. 4:6, Phil. 2:9) whose divinity is co-essential with the Father. 188 Evagrius then, without attempting to 183 Cf. Ibid. 184 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Ps.,” Psalm 9:5 “’You have sat on the throne, who judge justice (Ps. 9:1).’ ”For the throne of God is Christ; but the throne of Christ is the incorporeal nature.". 185 Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep. Fid.,” 14,15 (Casiday, 50)“Our Lord has said, ‘I am the life’ (Jn. 11:25) … He can also mean by ‘life’ that life which Christ lives in that he has God the Word within himself.” 186 Ibid., 15 (Casiday, 50). 187 Cf. Ibid., 22, 24, 23 (Casiday, 52, 53, 52) “...and our Lord [Christ], is not the final object of desire, in keeping with the purpose of the Incarnation and rudimentary doctrine;” “For Christ is the first-fruit and not the end, according, as I have said, to rudimentary teaching, which contemplates Christ not in himself but, as it were, for us.” “But Our Lord [Christ], too, is the end and the ultimate blessedness in consideration of the Word.” 188 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” VI.14, 79 (S1)“The body of Christ is from a human nature, in which there has deigned to dwell all the fullness of a godly body. But Christ is ‘God above all’ (Eph. 1:21; 4:6,10), according to the apostolic word.” It seems that Christ’s body is said here by Evagrius to be “godly” insofar as the fullness of the Word dwells, as it were, in it. It is the body and flesh of the Word, and in that sense it is filled with “godliness”. 51 solve the mystery, simply restates the principles of faith: Christ has both a divine nature by which he is consubstantial with the Father, and he also has a human nature by which he is fully man. Thus, in the one person of Christ, the distinction of human and divine natures is united in an “ineffable mystery”189 such that Christ becomes a bridge-point and a mediator where creature and Creator meet. Now that we see that Christ is a mediator insofar as he is both human and divine, let us try then to understand more deeply this role of Christ as the bridge between God and man, and in particular what implications this has on Christ's role as Wisdom. Evagrius seeks to explain the role of Christ as mediator between God and all other creatures using various images. In the first place Evagrius uses the image of 'anointing' to describe this relationship. Christ is called 'anointed' [Χριστός] insofar as he contemplates the substantial knowledge of God, that is, the knowledge of God as Unity and Trinity. 190 By Christ's anointing with this knowledge of the Trinity, he 'participates' as it were in the Father, and the rational soul in turn comes to participate in Christ insofar as it too is 'anointed' in a certain way by becoming not anointed [Χριστός] as Christ is, but according to Evagrius' play on words, it becomes χρηστός, that is kind hearted, 191 when the rational soul contemplate the “knowledge of the Holy Unity” which knowledge is only given to them by Christ himself. 192 All rational souls then are capable of participating in Christ's anointing, that is in Christ's knowledge of God as Unity, and Christ as man in turn participates in the Father by his unmediated vision of the Holy Trinity. 193 189 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Ps.,” 9:1. 190 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep.,” 56.2“ The vision of God is true knowledge of the unity in being of the Blessed Trinity,...”; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” IV.21 (S1)“The ‘anointing’ is the sign of the knowledge of the Unity or else the goal of the knowledge of beings.”; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Ps.,” 44:8 (7)“Every celestial power has been provided with the contemplation of creatures, but the Christ has been provided beyond all his fellows: that is, he has been anointed with the knowledge of the Unity [Μονάδος]. This is why he alone is said to sit at the right of the Father (cf. Eph 1:20, Col 3:1, Heb. 10:12).” 191 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Ps.,” Psalm 104:10 “Do not touch my anointed ones (Ps. 104.10).” “Because those who are χρηστός [kind-hearted] partake of Christ they are called kind-hearted; whereas the Christ who partakes of the Father is called Χριστός [anointed].” Insofar as Christ contemplates the Unity of God and participates in the Father, it is clear that Evagrius is using the term “Christ” not as referring to Christ insofar as he is of a divine nature, but rather as Christ in his human nature, as the Word Incarnate. 192 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” IV.18 (S1)“The anointing of the intellect is the knowledge of the Holy Unity. But, the teacher of this for the intellectual natures is Christ the Lord.” “Unity” here refers to the beatific vision of God’s essence. 193 We will discus this more below. 52 Christ then is the only mediator between God and man by whom all other intellectual natures attain to this 'anointing' with the knowledge of God's Unity.194 In another image depicting Christ's role as mediator, Evagrius explains that Christ himself is both food and drink for all rational minds when they contemplate him, while Christ in turn eats and drinks from the table of the Father. Christ receives nourishment from his immediate contemplation of the Holy Trinity and he shares this nourishment with all those who eat of his flesh. Just as Christ eats and drinks from the table of divine knowledge, so also, in Evagrius' image, does the rational soul eat and drink, as it were, from Christ himself. 195 Under this aspect then of nourishment, Christ, in his human nature, receives knowledge from the Father and again, in his human nature, he shares that knowledge with all rational natures. In a similar metaphor, Evagrius says that Christ is the “tree of life” which drinks from the river of knowledge of the Holy Trinity that is “flowing out from the throne of God (cf. Gn. 2:9; Rv. 22:2).”196 And the rational minds who have attained purity of heart drink from Christ, in the same way as the Israelites drank from the rock that followed them in the desert, the Rock that was Christ (cf. Jn. 7:38; 1Cor. 10:4).197 Here again, Christ in his human nature contemplates and drinks directly, as it were, from the knowledge of the Holy Trinity, while the created rational mind does not participate directly in that knowledge participates in it only insofar as it first drinks from Christ and contemplates the knowledge of the Trinity through Christ's mediation. Evagrius says that it is through the mediation of first belonging to Christ and having Christ dwell in the soul, and then through this indwelling of Christ and belonging to him that the mind is 194 Once again, 'Unity' refers to God's essence. 195 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” II.60 (S1) “The table of Christ is God the Father, ...”; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Aphorisms,” in Evagrius Ponticus, trans. Augustine Casiday (London; New York: Routledge, 2006), 17–19 (Casiday, 182) “Jesus Christ is the tree of life (Rev. 2:7). Make use of him as necessary, and you will not perish forever. Do good to the truly poor, and you eat Christ. The body’s true strength: to eat the body of Christ.”; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “AM,” 118–119 (Driscoll, 62) “Flesh of Christ: virtuesof praktiké; he who eats it, passionless shall he be. Blood of Christ: contemplation of things; he who drinks it, by it becomes wise.” 196 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” V.69 (S1) “The Holy Trinity is the Holy Water from which the Tree of Life drinks.” 197 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “AM,” 64 (Driscoll, 52) “From the spiritual rock, a river flows; a soul accompished in praktike drinks from it.” 53 able to finally belong in some way to God and to be his 'throne'. 198 Because they are not the same nature as God, it is impossible for the intellectual natures to understand without mediation the knowledge of God as undivided Trinity and thus, by that knowledge, to become 'ardent in spirit'. 199 Christ alone has it within his own power to contemplate the Unity of God, 200 and thus only he is truly said to be 'anointed' by this knowledge, and only he is able to mediate that knowledge to men.201 The contemplation of beings, which men engage in naturally on their own power, nevertheless has as its final supernatural goal a participation in Christ's unified knowledge which, in the end, can only come from him as a gift of grace. 202 We can see then that, for Evagrius, the knowledge of God can only known by man through the mediation of Christ's humanity. It is only by sharing in the anointing of Christ in his human nature, of the Word Incarnate, that the created intellect is able to participate in some way in Christ's beatific knowledge of the Unity of God and the vision of the Holy Trinity. 3. Christ as Manifold Wisdom Because Christ is the Word himself, he can thus be considered as the Creator of all things. 203 And Christ, since he is the Creator as the Word, is also the prime knower of all created and 'manifold wisdom'. For, the divine Logos, the creative Wisdom by whom all things are made, has complete and utterly penetrating knowledge of all being. As Evagrius says regarding Christ's knowledge of creation as the Word, “nothing is unknown to the true Wisdom, through whom 'all 198 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov., 287b (Géhin, 380) “... For everything is ours, but we are Christ’s, through whom all things were made, and Christ is God’s.”; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Ps.,” Psalm 9:2 “You have sat on the throne, who judge justice (Ps. 9:2).” “For the throne of God is Christ; but the throne of Christ is the incorporeal nature.” 199 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Eccl.,” 2006, 29 (Casiday, 138) “Without the Lord there is no one who can become ardent in spirit, ‘for the Lord is spirit’ (2Cor. 3:17).”; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” II.11 (S1). 200 Once again, 'Unity' is the divine essence. 201 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” III.2, 3 (S1) “Christ is he in whom is all unity, and who has received the lowness of an intellectual nature. The unity is right now only known by Christ, ...” Once again, “unity” is used here as referring to the beatific vision of the Holy Trinity. 202 Cf. Ibid., IV.21 (S1) “The anointing is the sign of unified knowledge, the goal of the knowledge of beings.”; Cf. Ibid., V.79 (S1) “To perceive the contemplation of the natures appertains to the power of the nous; but to look at the holy Trinity does not appertain to its powers alone; but that is a superior gift of grace.” 203 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep.,” 6.4 “...the Scriptures, ... not only testify that he [Christ] is the Redeemer of the world, but also, that he is the creator of the Ages and of the judgment and providence in them.”; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” IV.57 (S1) “Christ has appeared as creator by the multiplication of loaves, by the wine at the marriage, and by the eyes of the man born blind.” 54 things were made' (Jn. 1.3); and no one at all is ever ignorant of what he has made.” 204 Thus, for Evagrius, it is on account of him being the Creator that Christ has this most profound knowledge of all creatures, even in his human intellect, for “he understands how everything was created.” 205 And it is in turn his role as the archetype of rational nature that Christ “possesses the reasons [logoi] of incorporeal beings.”206 And, since Christ as man mediates his divine knowledge to rational natures, thus, by this mediation, the created rational natures share in Christ's creative knowledge insofar as Christ himself is the Creator. 207 Christ is then the Creator of all things insofar as he is the Word, but he is also, as it were, the prime knower and contemplator of all creation insofar as he is man. For, in his human intellect, Christ has an unmediated vision of all creatures through the creative knowledge of the Word. On account of this, Christ's knowledge of creation is the very manifold wisdom with which he, as Word, created all things. Not only does Christ know all manifold wisdom insofar as he is the Word, but also by this very union is he in some way the manifold wisdom itself of creation. Let us explain this more in depth. As Evagrius says, “to know instruction and wisdom (Prv. 1:2)”, that is to have knowledge of the praktiké as well as of the theoretiké, “is to know Christ himself.”208 But this knowledge of praktiké, 204 Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep. Fid.,” 19 (Casiday, 51). 205 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Ps.,” Psalm 88:7 “And who will be like the Lord among the sons of God (Ps. 88:7)?” “No reasoning nature is like the Christ: for while reasoning nature knows the contemplation of beings, he understands how everything was created. For I call ‘Christ’ the lord who, with the divine Word has come to dwell among us.” If by the name “Christ” Evagrius simply means the divine person who assumes a human nature, then when he adds the phrase “the lord who, with the divine Word...” he would seem to be introducing a duality of persons into Christ. But if on the other hand by “Christ” Evagrius means the one divine person, yet considered insofar as he has a human nature, whereas by “the divine Word” he means simply the divine nature of Christ, then such a formulation, although imprecise, could still be taken in an orthodox way. In that sense, what Evagrius is saying is that Christ in his human intellect, like all other intellectual natures, has knowledge of beings, but in addition to this, he has a certain creative knowledge as well. And he has this additional knowledge insofar as he has come “with the divine Word” that is with the divine nature of the Word. This is supported by the fact that in this quotation, Evagrius is distinguishing Christ from all other intellectual natures, a distinction that would only be necessary if he were using the name “Christ” primarily as referring to the one divine person in a human nature. 206 “Christ, in that he is Christ, possesses substantial knowledge; in that he is creator, he possesses the reasons of the ages; in that he is incorporeal, he possesses the reasons of incorporeal beings.” Evagrius Ponticus, “Refl.,” 1 (Sinkewicz, 211). 207 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” II.2 (S1) “In second natural contemplation we see ”the manifold wisdom“ (Eph. 3:10) of Christ, he who served in the creation of the worlds.” 208 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov., 202 (Géhin, 298)“If ‘the fear of the Lord is life for a man,’ but ‘the fear of the Lord is instruction and wisdom,’ then the life of a man is instruction and wisdom. But Christ says, ‘I am The life.’ Therefore Christ is instruction and wisdom. Thus, ‘to know instruction and wisdom’ is to know Christ himself. The fearless one therefore shall be in wickedness and ignorance in 55 insofar as it concerns the passions, and also the knowledge of theoretiké, with respect to the contemplation of created natures, all pertain to 'manifold wisdom'. And thus Christ, as being 'the way' and as containing within himself the individual 'ways' back to God, namely the praktiké and the theoretiké, is himself the manifold wisdom of creation. 209 And, being subsisting Wisdom itself, thus, as Evagrius says, Christ is “the ‘beginning of the ways’ of the Lord - for this wisdom is Christ (cf. Prv. 8:22).”210 As being the manifold wisdom, Christ is in a special way, for Evagrius, the exemplar as man of all intellectual natures. All Creation is made in God's resemblance, but rational nature most of all is modeled after Christ's image. Christ, in his human nature, being the “first born of creation, (Col.1:15)” is as it were at the peak of all created nature, at that point were the face of God is turned towards creation, where God and creation meet. 211 The human intellect of Christ is that point where God touches creation when the rational nature has been united to him in the knowledge of the undivided Trinity. But Christ is the head and, as it were, mind par excellence of all creation. For he of all is most closely united to God in his contemplation of the Holy Trinity. 212 Christ is exemplar of all creatures insofar as he made them, but in a very particular way he is the archetype of the rational nature. As archetype, Christ watches out and cares for all creatures, giving particular guidance to the rational creatures by moving them towards their proper supernatural end of the knowledge of the Trinity. 213 Since Christ is the archetype of the rational which Christ is not.”; Cf. Ibid., 3 (Géhin, 92) “To know wisdom and instruction (Prv. 1:2).” “This means that he became a king in Israel in order to know instruction and wisdom. And wisdom is knowledge of corporeal and incorporeal beings, as well as the judgements and providence contemplated in them; Instruction is moderation of the passions, contemplated with regard to the passionate or irrational part of the soul.” 209 It seems that one could interpret Christ as being the manifold wisdom of creation in two ways, first if we 'manifold wisdom of Christ' subjectively such that Christ contains all the perfections of wisdom in himself that are found scattered throughout creation. As containing in himself the perfections of all created wisdom, he would thus be said to possess in himself that wisdom in a super-eminent way. One could also take 'manifold wisdom of Christ' objectively such that Evagrius would seem to mean the wisdom that any intellectual nature might have in contemplating the person of Christ, insofar as Christ contains within himself all wisdom. 210 Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Ps.,” Psalm 118:3. 211 Cf. Ibid., Psalm 79:8 “Let Your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved (Ps. 79:8).” “Christ is named face here because he is ‘the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation (Col. 1:15).’” 212 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” I.77 (S1) “The ‘intellect’ of all the rational natures which are imprinted with the resemblance of their Creator is Christ our Savior; And it is he who perfects them in the knowledge of the Holy Trinity.” 213 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Eccl.,” 2006, 38 (Casiday, 142) “God watches over all things through 56 nature and he is the provident Lord who cares for all and guides them back to him, thus he is also the 'way' by which the mind, in contemplating Christ as wisdom, makes its returns to God.214 Since Christ is all of these things for Evagrius, Word, Archetype, Way, and Wisdom, thus the rational mind in returning to God must come to imitate Christ, its exemplar, and, in so doing, be conformed fully to him. It must be born like Christ, live like Christ, die like Christ, and also rise and ascend like him.215 While being conformed exteriorly to Christ in the threefold return of the spiritual life, so also, for Evagrius is the soul conformed interiorly to Christ insofar as Christ himself is formed within the soul (Gal. 4:19), and finally comes to dwell within it as wisdom enthroned.216 4. The Kingdom of Christ Let us now look at one final aspect of the manifold wisdom of Christ, the eschatological aspect, and seek to understand how created wisdom is transformed in the eschatological vision into the knowledge of the undivided Trinity. To describe how this transformation takes place, Evagrius takes the image of the kingdom of Christ which, “in the days of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1Cor. 1:8), that is “at the last trumpet” (1Cor. 15:52), shall be delivered up to God and to Christ and he for his part, knowing everything upon the earth, exercises providence for them through the mediation of the holy angels. For God is king over the universe which he made.”; For a detailed account of how God’s providence guides and cares for all creatures, see Dysinger, “The Logoi of Providence and Judgement in the Exegetical Writings of Evagrius Ponticus,” 4. 214 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Ps.,” Psalm 118:3 "...the ways of the Lord are the contemplations of what has come into being, “in which we shall walk, accomplishing justice” (cf. Ps. 14:2). But if our justice is the Christ “for he has become our wisdom from God, our justice and sanctification and redemption (1Cor 1:30),’ Solomon says well in Proverbs that wisdom is the ‘beginning of the ways” (Prv. 8:22) of the Lord - for this wisdom is the Christ. And I call “Christ” the Lord who, with God the Word, has come among us.". 215 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” VI.39 (S1); Cf. Ibid., VI.40 (S1); For a discussion on how the soul must radically imitate Christ in its own spiritual growth by following symbollically his birth, life, death, ressurection, and ascension, see Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep.,” 25.5; or also Evagrius Ponticus, “GL,” 57 (Casiday, 75); For a very good overview of these texts and their application to the souls growth in the spiritual life, see Luke Dysinger, “An Exegetical Way of Seeing: Contemplation and Spiritual Guidance in Evagrius Ponticus,” Studia Patristica 57 (2013): 13. 216 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, Schol. in Prov., 300 (Géhin, 392) “The one who, upholding his own intellect in justice, kills with a spiritual word the ‘old man’ corrupted according to the desires of deceit, such a one is said to be a throne of God. Indeed, nowhere else is it put forth that wisdom, knowledge, and justice sit, except in the rational nature. But Christ is all of these.” As Evagrius argues in this text, Christ is wisdom, but wisdom is enthroned in the heart, thus Christ is enthroned in the heart. Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “AM,” 31 (Driscoll, 46) “In the gentle heart wisdom will rest; a throne of passionlessness: a soul accomplished in praktiké.”; For a commentary on this passage and a discussion on wisdom resting in the heart as signifying Christ, see Driscoll, Ad Monachos, 249–259. 57 the Father (Cf. 1Cor. 15:24-28). Using this image of the kingdom, Evagrius says that the kingdom of Christ is the realm of all created knowledge, whereas the kingdom of God is the unmediated knowledge of the Holy Trinity.217 Insofar as the kingdom of Christ is delivered up to the kingdom of the Father, thus, as Evagrius understands, shall the knowledge of created things be delivered and, in a certain sense, be transformed into the knowledge of the Holy Trinity. 218 Thus, for Evagrius, the created manifold wisdom of Christ is, as it were, a first stage in the development of contemplation that finally achieves its culmination and consummation in the vision of the Trinity. The natural contemplation of the corporeals and incorporeals unfold revealing at long last the core within, that is, the unmediated knowledge of the Creator himself. For example, as a tree comes forth from the seed, a man from the child, or a flower from its bud, revealing at last the hidden nature within, so also, as it seems in Evagrius' scheme, does the knowledge of the Holy Trinity come forth from created knowledge. Material knowledge is transformed from within so as to become immaterial knowledge, and the kingdom of Christ, containing all of created knowledge, is transformed from within to become the “Kingdom of God” and the knowledge of the Holy Trinity.219 How does this interior transformation from multiform knowledge to the unified knowledge of God happen? Evagrius, basing himself on the Gospel of John, says that it happens by God's coming to dwell within the soul 'in his Oneness'. As he says, For that prayer of Our Master's must be brought to pass, since it was Jesus who prayed, 'Grant them that they may be one in Us, even as I and You are one, Father (Jn. 17:21).' For as God is one, he unifies all when he comes into each; and number is done away with by the presence of the Unity.220 217 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep. Fid.,” 22 (Casiday, 52) “For they say that Christ’s kingdom is the whole of material knowledge: but the kingdom of our God and Father is contemplation that is immaterial and, if one may say so, contemplation of unconcealed divinity itself.”; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “TP,” 3 (Sinkewicz, 97) “The Kingdom of God is knowledge of the Holy Trinity co-extensive with the substance of the mind and surpassing its incorruptibility.” 218 For Evagrius’ teaching on the kingdom of Christ being “handed over” to the kingdom of God, see Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep. Fid.,” 23, 24 (Casiday, 52–53); and also Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” VI.33 (S1); For a general overview on the Kingdom of Christ and of God in the theology of Evagrius, see Casiday, Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus, 210–213. 219 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “TP,” 97 (Sinkewicz, 3); This word “transformation”is not used by Evagrius in this context, nevertheless, I have found it helpful in expressing the continuous nature of this transition from created knowledge to the knowledge of the “Unity.” Cf. Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus, 210. 220 Evagrius Ponticus, “Ep. Fid.,” 25 (Casiday, 53) By “Unity” here, Evagrius means the presence of the 58 And by this Oneness of the Trinity dwelling within the rational soul, thus does the 'manifold wisdom of Christ' in which Christ himself sits enthroned, is transformed and becomes the wisdom of God in his Unity. For thus at last is God joined to the rational soul and now sits there enthroned in his 'Oneness'.221 Let us gather together then what we have discovered in this chapter. Our purpose here was to discuss the author of wisdom and how through him we come to contemplate created wisdom and thus finally come to knowledge of the Holy Trinity. In doing this we first looked at how, in the thought of Evagrius, the Word is Wisdom, then how Christ, the Incarnate Word, has complete knowledge of God in his Unity and as undivided Trinity, and also how Christ has complete knowledge of the manifold wisdom of creation insofar as he is the Creator. And finally we discussed how Christ's kingdom of the manifold wisdom of creatures is transformed in the eschaton into the knowledge of the Holy Trinity. In the first section we saw that Evagrius affirms that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are wholly equal and one in essence, and yet at the same time they are three, but not according to number. We saw in the second section that, because of the unity of nature, the Son, who is the Word and Logos, is joined substantially to the Unity of the Godhead. We also saw here what seemed to be Evagrius' understanding of the distinction of natures in Christ, that is, Christ is both human and divine, and at the same time that there is only one person in Christ.222 Because of this union of human and divine in the one person of Christ, he is thus a bridge point between God and man. Christ then takes on a particular role as mediator of the contemplation of the Holy Trinity which he receives immediately, and yet which knowledge he shares with men in a mediated fashion. As the mediator of the knowledge of the Trinity, Christ is the 'anointed one' who shares that anointing with rational natures. In the third section we saw that, beatific knowledge of the Holy Trinity within the created intellect. When Evagrius says that number will be taken away, he does not mean that all souls in the beatific vision will become indifferentiated. Each will maintain their distinguishing characteristics, but what will be lacking is the opposition of wills. Cf. Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus, 232–236. 221 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Schol. in Ps.,” 131:112, (11) “While the throne of God is the reasoning nature, the throne of Christ is the contemplation of the ages which have been and are yet to be.”; Although very much could be added to this cursory explanation, yet the scope of this thesis does not allow for deeper discussion into how this unity takes place. But, for further reading and for a very insightful treatment of the topic, see Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus, 224–240. 222 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “KG,” VI.14,16. 59 for Evagrius, the Word is the Creator of all things and the source of all created wisdom. But, since Christ is the Creator, thus he has an intimate knowledge of all things, which knowledge of creation is shared then to rational creatures. We saw also here that Christ is, in the thought of Evagrius, the exemplar of all rational creatures insofar as they are made in his image, and also insofar as they are moved by his providence towards their final end. In the last section we looked at how the knowledge of creatures, that is the kingdom of Christ, is transformed in the eschaton into the knowledge of the Holy Trinity. This transformation takes place by the indwelling of God within the rational nature in his 'Oneness', so that they become one as God is himself One (cf. Jn. 17:21). We encountered some difficulties in the course of this chapter. It was not always clear in what sense Evagrius is using the name Christ, whether as referring to the person of the Word in his human nature or else in his divine nature. It seems nevertheless that most of the time 'Christ' refers to the Incarnate Word, that is, to Christ in his human nature. Given that Evagrius' concern is to explain Christ's role as mediator, it makes sense that he focus on how Christ is with respect to us in the economy of salvation, that is, as Incarnate. And yet, this emphasis on Christ as referring to the Incarnate Word does not prevent Evagrius from using the name to refer also to the Word as he is in himself, and in particular as being the Creator. Such a formulation lacks precision and can lead one into thinking that their is a duality of persons in the Word. That is why it is particularly important to read these texts in their context, that is, of Evagrius' goal in explaining how Christ, in his human nature, has knowledge of all creation and is the mediator of that knowledge, for he is at the same time the Incarnate Word and Creator. 60 CONCLUSION I have sought in this thesis to understand Evagrius' theology of wisdom. In order to do that, I focused in the first part of my thesis on the life and patrimony of Evagrius himself and how his works have been received. Thus, I examined in the first chapter his life and works, and then in chapter two I looked at how his patrimony has been received in the modern era and what schools of thought have formed around it. The extensive literary corpus of Evagrius, unmatched by any other father of the desert, allows us to enter into his thought and to see him as a mild and gentle theologian, imbued with the scriptures, a monk who lived and breathed what he believed and who sought with all his heart to understand God's Wisdom and Spirit filling creation, and by the light of that Wisdom and the wings of that Holy Dove, to take flight and finally find rest in the knowledge of the Holy Trinity.223 In the second part of this thesis I sought to understand the role of the wisdom of creation in the thought of Evagrius, and how it leads the soul to God. According to Evagrius, man is incapable on his own of making a return to God from whom he has fallen by his disobedience. Thus God has, in his providence, given man a letter of creation in which are written all the words, the created logoi, that draw the contemplative mind by their beauty to ascend finally to the knowledge of God and the uncreated Logos himself. These letters of wisdom are imprinted upon corporeal and incorporeal nature so that together they form a ladder, wide and manifold at its base, which draws ever closer to unity at its peak until finally, in Christ the anointed one, this union reaches its utmost, when God is joined to man by an inseparable union. In trying to understand the wisdom of creation, I focused on its causes, hoping that by doing so I would come to a better grasp of its nature. I began by looking in chapter one at the end or final cause of the wisdom of creation, namely the manifestation of God's own essential Wisdom and 223 Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “Th.,” 29 (Sinkewicz, 174) “For the soul that with God’s help is accomplished in the practical life and is released from the body abides in those regions of knowledge where the wings of impassibility gives it rest; it will then receive also the wings of that holy Dove and will take flight through the contemplation of all the ages and will find rest in the knowledge of the worshipful Trinity.” 61 Love, and how that pours over into his love for mankind. After that I looked in chapter two at the formal and material causes of the wisdom of creation. I argued that since the formal cause is to some extent determined by the final cause, therefore the form of God's wisdom in creatures is the very love and wisdom imprinted into them and which continue to inhere in them, making them to be letters of God's wisdom. The material cause of the wisdom of creation I argued to be the very creatures themselves who receive this imprint of God's wisdom, both corporeal beings who become letters of the 'manifold wisdom of Christ' and then incorporeal beings who likewise become letters that manifest God insofar as they are capable of receiving the knowledge of the Trinity. Finally, in the third chapter I sought to manifest who is the agent cause of created wisdom, namely its author and Creator who is Christ himself, Incarnate Word and Wisdom, the Font of all created wisdom, the Archetype, the Way, the Savior of mankind who has come to dwell among us. In the course of this examination of wisdom in the thought of Evagrius, we came across several problems and questions, difficult to unravel. First of all, Evagrius' use of gnomic sayings makes his thought difficult to understand, especially for one not acquainted with his vocabulary or with the general Evagrius corpus. Beyond that, it is also possible that Evagrius believed in a kind of temporal preexistence and priority of the intellect with respect to the body, and also a primordial sin by which the intellect fell, as it were, into this body which had been created subsequently. In addition, Evagrius' great emphasis on the returning to unity with God of rational nature, if not taken with the proper qualifications, would seem to indicate a belief in the final restoration or apokatastasis of all rational natures in God. Whether or not he held these views materially is a matter for further inquiry and would require a more intense study of the sources, however, we can be certain that Evagrius was a staunch supporter of Nicaean orthodoxy and an abhorrent of heresies, new and old.224 There is no denying nevertheless that Evagrius was greatly influenced by 224 Cf. Vivian and Greer, Four Desert Fathers, 48; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “On the Vices Opposed to the Virtues,” in Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 7 (Sinkewicz, 64) “Vainglory [is] ... an author of heresies. ... the mean of vainglory is entwined with pride and jealousy, ... the threefold tongue of heretics.” ; Cf. Evagrius Ponticus, “AM,” 125, (Sinkewicz, 130) “Words of heretics, angels of death; one who welcome them will lose his own soul.” 62 Origen and his neo-platonic world view. But there is also no denying that Evagrius was immersed in the Holy Scriptures, as only a desert father should be, and that he found in them his true source of inspiration and guidance. 63 BIBLIOGRAPHY Adamnan. Life of St. Columba. Edited by William Reeves. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1874. Aristotle. The Categories. 2nd ed. Oxford: OCT, 1956. Augustine of Hippo. Augustine of Hippo. Edited by Philip Schaff. Translated by James Shaw. Vol. II. 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