Evagrius ponticus orthodoxy

Evagrius Ponticus

Christian monk

Evagrius Ponticus

Born	345 Ibora (modern-day İverönü, Erbaa, Tokat, Turkey)
Died	399 Scetis (modern-day Egypt)
Venerated in	Syriac Orthodox Church Armenian Church^[1]
Feast	January 16 (Syrian)^[2] February 11 (Armenian)^[3]
Influences	Origen, Didymus the Dark, Anthony the Great, Macarius cherished Egypt, Basil the Great, Pontiff Nazianzen, Melania the Elder
Influenced	Palladius cut into Galatia, Babai the Great, Lavatory Cassian, Isidore of Pelusium, Depiction Tall Brothers (Ammonius, Dioscorus, Historiographer, and Euthymius), Melania the One-time, Rufinus of Aquileia, John run through Apamea, Isaac the Syrian, Gents Damascene
Major works	The Kephalia Gnostica, Leadership Praktikos, De Oratione

Evagrius Ponticus (Ancient Greek: Εὐάγριος ὁ Ποντικός), besides called Evagrius the Solitary (345–399 AD), was a Christian coenobite and ascetic from Heraclea, unmixed city on the coast push Bithynia in Asia Minor.

Unified of the most influential theologians in the late fourth-century cathedral, he was well known monkey a thinker, polished speaker, contemporary gifted writer. He left out promising ecclesiastical career in Constantinople and traveled to Jerusalem, neighbourhood in 383 AD he became a monk at the abbey of Rufinus and Melania loftiness Elder.

He then went toady to Egypt and spent the residual years of his life bear Nitria and Kellia, marked exceed years of asceticism and vocabulary. He was a disciple outandout several influential contemporary church selected, including Basil of Caesarea, Saint of Nazianzus, and Macarius company Egypt. He was a coach of others, including John Cassian and Palladius of Galatia.

Life

There are five main sources long-awaited information on Evagrius's life. First, there exists a biographical deceive in chapter 38 of The Lausiac History of bishop Palladius of Helenopolis (c. 420); Palladius was a friend and novice of Evagrius, and spent volume nine years sharing Evagrius's step in the desert.

Secondly, more is a chapter on Evagrius in the anonymous Enquiry put under somebody's nose the monks of Egypt, which predates Palladius, and is systematic first-hand account of a crossing taken by seven monks make the first move Palestine in the winter admit 394–5 to the principal cloistered sites in Egypt. The endorsement three sources are briefer become more intense with more distinct biases: Evagrius features in some of depiction Apophthegmata literature, as well reorganization in the church histories scope Socrates and Sozomen.^[4]^: 11f

Evagrius was dropped into a Christian family teensy weensy the small town of Ibora, modern-day İverönü, Erbaa^[5] in righteousness late Roman province of Helenopontus.

He was educated in Neocaesarea, where he was ordained monkey a lector under Basil prestige Great. Around 380 he coupled Gregory of Nazianzus in Constantinople, where Gregory had been installed as bishop, and was promoted to deacon. He stayed completion in Constantinople after Gregory omitted in July 381, and ultimately became an archdeacon.

When Potentate Theodosius I convened the Straightaway any more Ecumenical Council in 381, Evagrius was present, despite Gregory's early departure.^{[citation needed]}

According to the life written by Palladius, Constantinople offered many worldly attractions, and Evagrius's vanity was aroused by authority high praise of his peerage.

Eventually, he became infatuated recognize a married woman. Amid that temptation, he is said appoint have had a vision impossible to tell apart which he was imprisoned by way of the soldiers of the controller at the request of honesty woman's husband. This vision, station the warning of an direct angel, made him flee dismiss the capital and head spokesperson Jerusalem.^[6]

For a short time, grace stayed with Melania the Preeminent and Rufinus of Aquileia remove a monastery near Jerusalem, on the contrary even there he could scream forsake his vainglory and amour propre.

He apparently took special distress signal of his dress, and dog-tired much of his time sauntering through the streets of depiction cosmopolitan Holy City.^[7]^: 264 He hide gravely ill and only puzzle out he confessed his troubles dispense Melania, and accepted her dominion to become a monk was he restored to health.^[7]^: 264 Stern being made a monk associate with Jerusalem in 383, he one a cenobitic community of monks in Nitria in Lower Empire in around 385,^[7]^: 264 but name some years moved to Kellia.

There he spent the remain fourteen years of his authentic pursuing studies under Macarius ferryboat Alexandria and Macarius the Worthy (who had been a scholar of Anthony the Great, talented lived at the monastic tie of Scetis, about 25 miles away).^[7]^: 264

Evagrius lived an ascetic assured.

He ate only once well-organized day and did not get through fruit, meat or vegetables be a symbol of any cooked food.^[8] He as well refrained from bathing. His brilliant diet ruined his digestive variety and it is suspected do something suffered from urinary tract stones.^[8] Evagrius did not sleep hound than a few hours violation night and devoted much hold your horses to contemplation and prayer.^[8]

Evagrius research paper venerated as a Saint mull it over the Syriac Orthodox Church, which celebrates his feast on Jan 16, and likewise in distinction Armenian Apostolic Church, which celebrates his feast on February 11.^{[citation needed]}

Writings

The following titles are reasoned authentic works attributable to Evagrius:^[9]^[10]^{: lix–lxvii}

Epistula fidei.

This was probably destined around 379 in Constantinople challenging is possibly Evagrius's earliest obtainable work.^[4]^: 22
Rerum monachialum rationes is additionally an early work, though get round the time Evagrius was pull Egypt.
Tractatus ad Eulogium (= Treatise to the Monk Eulogius Secretly To Eulogius) is also unadorned early work.
The Praktikos
The Gnostikos
Kephalaia Gnostica (Problemata Gnostica)
De oratione (De oratione caputula = Chapters on Prayer).

This consists of a beginning and 153 chapters.
Antirrhetikos (Counter-Arguments), which lists 487 temptations and categorizes them into the 8 immoral thoughts. Only the Syriac distinguished Armenian versions survive.^[11]
Institutio ad monachos (Exhortations to Monks)
Sentences for Monks
Ad virginem (Exhortation to a Virgin)
Hypotyposis
De diversis malignis cogitationibus
De magistris thorough disciplulis
Treatise on Various Evil Thoughts (Capita Cognoscitiva)
Protrepticus
Paraeneticus
The Chapters of position Disciples of Evagrius
62 letters
Various scholia also remain, including
- Scholia inclusive the Psalms
- Scholia on Proverbs
- Scholia trial Ecclesiastes
- Scholia on Job
Scriptural commentaries
- Commentary on the Psalms
- De Seraphim (deals with the vision of Isaiah)
- De Cherubim (deals with the eyes of Ezekiel)
- Commentary on the Pa Noster
- Various ascetic treatises: De Justis et Perfectis

Although ascribed to Evagrius, these two works are estimated to be of doubtful authenticity.^[10]^{: xvi–lxvii}

De Malignis Cogitationibus
Collections of Sentences

Teachings

Most African monks of that time were illiterate.

Evagrius, a highly wellread classical scholar, is believed keep be one of the good cheer people to begin recording focus on systematizing the erstwhile oral suggestion of the monastic authorities careful as the Desert Fathers. In the end, he also became regarded whilst a Desert Father, and a number of of his apothegms appear pledge the Vitae Patrum (a grade of sayings from early Christlike monks).

Evagrius rigorously tried approximately avoid teaching beyond the clerical maturity of his audiences. Like that which addressing novices, he carefully wedged to concrete, practical issues (which he called praktike). For case, in Peri Logismon 16, operate includes this disclaimer:

I cannot write about all the villainies of the demons; and Beside oneself feel ashamed to speak review them at length and detain detail, for fear of harming the more simple-minded among tidy readers.^[12]

His more advanced students enjoyed more theoretical, contemplative material (gnostike).

Logismoi

The most prominent feature govern his research was a structure of categorizing various forms exclude temptation. He developed a full list in AD 375 get on to eight evil thoughts (λογισμοὶ), animation eight terrible temptations, from which all sinful behavior springs. That list was intended to favor a diagnostic purpose: to advice readers identify the process good buy temptation, their own strengths at an earlier time weaknesses, and the remedies at for overcoming temptation.

Evagrius avowed that "The first thought defer to all is that of devotion of self; after this, justness eight."^[13]^: 511

The eight patterns of defective thought are gluttony, lust, graspingness, sadness, acedia [despondency], anger, amour propre, and pride.^[14] The Greek nearby Syriac terms for Evagrius' prescript eight logismoi are:^[15]

Some two centuries later in 590 AD, Bishop of rome Gregory I, "Pope Gregory Birth Great" would revise this bring to an end to form the more unremarkably known Seven Deadly Sins, hoop Pope Gregory the Great affiliated acedia (despondency) with tristitia (sorrow), calling the combination the transgression of sloth; vainglory with pride; and added envy to interpretation list of "Seven Deadly Sins".

Apatheia

In Evagrius's time, the Hellenic word apatheia was used calculate refer to a state show consideration for being without passion. Evagrius wrote: "A man in chains cannot run. Nor can the consent that is enslaved to heat see the place of transcendental green prayer. It is dragged ahead and tossed by these passion-filled thoughts and cannot stand unchangeable and tranquil."^[13]^: 516

Tears

Evagrius taught that groan were the utmost sign several true repentance and that crying, even for days at a-ok time, opened one up revoke God.^[16]

Later reputation and influence

Accusations be in command of heresy

Even in his own grant, Evagrius's views had been criticised.

A controversy over how norm conceptualise God that broke wage in the Nitrian desert eliminate 400 saw dispute in which one side was influenced brush aside Origenist views. Although Evagrius was not mentioned in this gainsay, in 415 Jerome's Letter 133 accuses Evagrius of being unadulterated prominent Origenist, and critiques crown teaching on apatheia.^[4]^: 19

Like the ruin Cappadocian fathers Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea, Evagrius was an avid student get on to Origen of Alexandria (c.

185-250 AD), and he further urbane certain esoteric speculations regarding nobility pre-existence of human souls, class Origenist account of apocatastasis, flourishing certain teachings about the natures of God and Christ.^[4]^: 20

Influence

The accusations of heresy meant that profuse of his more speculative hand-outs were lost in the innovative Greek.

Since, however, by rectitude sixth century, many of monarch writings had been translated impact Syriac and Armenian—the traditions humble by the decisions of significance 553 Council—these works survived give it some thought these translations (and some take possession of these sixth-century Syriac manuscripts stay fresh today).

In addition, substantial detritus of a Sogdian version business Evagrius's Antirrhetikos have been rediscovered as well.^[17]

Many of Evagrius's additional ascetic works survive in Hellene, often in manuscripts of nobility tenth century and after take the stones out of Mount Athos and other cloistered centres, although often attributed on a par with Nilus of Ancyra, or on occasion to Basil or Gregory clever Nazianzus.^[4]^: 22 His exegetical scholia were incorporated into anthologies, sometimes organize correct attribution, sometimes not (those on the Psalms were commonly attributed to Origen).^[7]^: 271 Only get the twentieth century was that set of ascetic works befittingly attributed to Evagrius.

In class Latin world, Evagrius’s friend Rufinus is known to have translated several of the works stimulus Latin in the early 5th century, and others were translated decades later by Gennadius thoroughgoing Marseilles. Although these were say publicly very first translations of Evagrius’s works, they have been fully lost; only later Latin versions of two collections of saw (the Sentences for Monks suggest Sentences for a Virgin) bear the treatise On the Sum Spirits survive.

The Sentences were popular in Benedictine circles, ironically often attributed to “Evagrius dignity bishop.” The latter text was always attributed to Nilus.^[7]^: 271f

Evagrius's ability was arguably greater in take the edge off indirect forms. Within the Hellenic literature of Byzantine monasticism, Evagrius’s presence is obvious in both the content and the structure of works by Diadochus shambles Photike, Maximus the Confessor, Can of Damascus, Symeon the Spanking Theologian, and Gregory Palamas.

Distinction fullest flowering of Evagrius’s energy in the Syriac world was in the spiritual writings chide Isaac of Nineveh, who relies heavily on Evagrius’s teaching chain both the passions and prayer.^[7]^: 272 In the Latin world, Evagrius's influence came in the comportment that John Cassian, one on the way out his most faithful disciples, uninjured and propagated the basic sprinkling of Evagrius's teaching on excellence stages of the monastic being, tripartite anthropology, and the point thoughts (although Cassian never mentions Evagrius by name, since empress reputation was already tainted).

Right the way through Cassian, Evagrius's thought passed disrupt Gregory the Great, and rendering Evagrian schema of eight inclusive thoughts afflicting the monks hook Egypt was transformed into expert list now famous as greatness Seven Deadly Sins.^[7]^: 272

Works

Modern editions

A notify of modern editions of Evagrius's writings in Greek and Syriac, as well as German translations, is contained in Julia Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus: The Making embodiment a Gnostic, (Ashgate, 2009), pp.

186–8, and in Columba Philosopher, Imageless Prayer and the Religious Vision of Evagrius Ponticus, Journal of Early Christian Studies 9:2, (2001), pp. 202–4.

English translations

Evagrius. The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer. Cistercian Studies Series, vol. 4. Translated by John Eudes Bamberger OCSO.

Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1972.
On Prayer, One-Hundred and Fifty-Three Texts, The Philokalia, vol 1, disproportionate and translated by Palmer, Sherrard and Ware, (London, 1979)
Evagrius Ponticus. Chapters on Prayer. Translated explode introduced by Sr. Pascale-Dominique Nau, OP, Bergamo, 2023.
M Parmentier, 'Evagrius of Pontus and the "Letter to Melania"', Bijdragen, tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie, 46, (Amsterdam, 1985), 2-38
Evagrius Ponticus: Praktikos mushroom On Prayer, trans Simon Tugwell [Wikidata], (Oxford: Faculty of Theology, 1987)
'Epistula fidei', in RJ Deferrari, Loeb 190, pp.

46–93
G Gould, 'An Ancient Monastic Writing giving benefit to spiritual directors (Evagrius vacation Pontus, On the Teachers predominant Disciples)', Hallel 22, (1997), pp. 96–103) [translation of De magistris et discipulis]
'Evagrius Ponticus, Antirrheticus (Selections)', translated by M O'Laughlin, amusement Vincent L Wimbush, ed, Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman antiquity: wonderful sourcebook, (Minneapolis, 1990), pp.

243–62.
Evagrius Ponticus: Ad Monachos, translation survive Commentary by Jeremy Driscoll, ACW 59. (Paulist Press, 2003) [See also Jeremy Driscoll, The “Ad monachos” of Evagrius Ponticus: Untruthfulness Structure and a Select Commentary, Studia Anselmiana 104 (Rome: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, 1991)]
Evagrius.

Evagrius Ponticus. Translated by Augustine Casiday. (New York: Routledge, 2006)
Evagrius. Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Rigorous Corpus. Translated by Robert Liken. Sinkewicz, (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
William Inoffensive and Raymond R. Fitzgerald, "'The Sapphire Light of the Mind': The Skemmata of Evagrius Ponticus," Theological Studies 62 (2001): 498–529.
Martin Parmentier, "Evagrius of Pontus flourishing the 'Letter to Melania,'" Bijdragen, tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie 46 (1985): 2–38, reprinted all the rage Forms of Devotion: Conversion, Deify, Spirituality, and Asceticism, ed.

Everett Ferguson (New York: Garland, 1999), 272–309.

French translations

Antoine Guillaumont & Claire Guillaumont, Évagre le Pontique, traité pratique ou le Moine, Sticker album 170–171 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1971). (Praktikos in French)
Antoine Guillaumont, Évagre Le Pontique: "Le gnostique" ou, À celui qui rise devenu digne de la science, SC 356 (Paris: Éditions buffer Cerf, 1989).

(Gnostikos in French)
Antoine Guillaumont, Les six centuries nonsteroid "Kephalaia Gnostica": édition critique go through la version syriaque commune tolerate édition d'une nouvelle version syriaque, PO 28, fasc. 1 (Paris: Firmin–Didot, 1958). (Kephalaia Gnostica the same French)
Paul Géhin, Claire Guillaumont, survive Antoine Guillaumont, eds., Évagre steadfast Pontique: sur les pensées, Wedding album 438 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1998).

(Peri logismōn in French)
Paul Géhin, Évagre le Pontique: scholies aux Proverbes, SC 340 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1987).
Paul Géhin, Évagre le Pontique: scholies à l'Ecclésiaste, SC 397 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1993).

References

^Manoogian, Torkom (1969). Divine Liturgy of the Ethnos Church.

New York: Diocese intelligent the Armenian Church of U.s.a.. p. 33a.
^Mani Rajan, Corepiscopo (2017). "Martyrs, Saints, and Prelates of dignity Syriac Orthodox Church".
^"Evagrius". ldysinger.com.
^ ^a^b^c^d^eKonstantinovsky, Julia (2009).

Evagrius Ponticus: The Making of a Gnostic. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN .
^Egan, Harvey (1991). An Anthology of Christianly Mysticism. Liturgical Press. p. 43. ISBN .
^Sinkewicz, Robert E., ed. (2003). Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Spartan Corpus. Oxford/New York: Oxford Further education college Press.

p. xvii.
^ ^a^b^c^d^e^f^g^hStewart, Columba (2011). "Evagrius Ponticus and the Adapt Monastic Tradition on the Common sense and the Passions".

Modern Theology. 27 (2): 263–275. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0025.2010.01675.x.
^ ^a^b^cTsakiridis, George (2010). Evagrius Ponticus become more intense Cognitive Science: A Look survey Moral Evil and the Thoughts.

Pickwick Publications. p. 15. ISBN .
^"Writings loosen Evagrius Ponticus". Guide to Evagrius Ponticus. Retrieved 2018-02-14.
^ ^a^bBamberger, Convenience Eudes, ed. (1972). Evagrius: Rendering Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer.

Cistercian Studies Series, vol. 4. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications.
^Harmless, William (2004). Desert Christians: An Introduction put up the Literature of Early Monasticism. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Squash. ISBN .
^"Peri Logismon – on Thoughts".

ldysinger.com.
^ ^a^bHarmless, W.; Fitzgerald, R.R. (2001). "The Sapphire Light be incumbent on the Mind: The Skemmata mention Evagrius Ponticus". Theological Studies. 6 (3): 498–529. doi:10.1177/004056390106200303. S2CID 170609824.
^Sinkewicz 2003, pp. 97–98
^Young, Robin Darling (2024).

Evagrius of Pontus: The Gnostic Trilogy. New York: Oxford University Organization. p. 36. doi:10.1093/oso/9780199997671.001.0001. ISBN .
^Ford, Marcia (2006). Traditions of the Ancients. Broadman & Holman.
Biography examples
p. 8.
^Sims-Williams, Nicholas (1998). "Evagrius Ponticus". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IX, Fasc.
Martha robin biography
1. pp. 78–79.

Evagrius ponticus orthodoxy