Introduction - Part 2
Passage A is difficult to summarize, but essentially depends on the notion that the Kingdom of the Christ is natural contemplation (‘knowledge (gnosis) that is implicated in material [objects]’) and the Kingdom of the Father the immaterial contemplation (‘as one might say, the contemplation of the very Divinity’), coupled with the notion that Jesus’ ignorance is ontological because ontologically his Kingdom has to do only with natural contemplation, whereas ontologically the immaterial contemplation pertains to the Kingdom of the Father.
That is the import of this excerpt from Passage A:
… ‘But neither the angels know,’ [Jesus] said—that is, neither the contemplation which is in them nor the reasons (logoi) of their ministries are the final object of desire. For the knowledge (gnosis) of these things is gross in comparison with the ‘person to person’. The Father alone knows, he says, because he [i.e. the Father] is indeed the end and the final blessedness. For when we know God no longer in mirrors, neither by means of alien things, but we come forth to him as to ‘only’ and ‘one’, then we will see the final end. For they say that the Kingdom of Christ is all the knowledge (gnosis) that is implicated in material [objects] and that the Kingdom of the God and Father is the immaterial contemplation, and, as one might say, the contemplation of the very Divinity. (¶7 [22].)
Passage A ends as follows:
And I have thus approached the text in accordance with the second argument. If someone, then, might be able to speak in a better way or to correct our own [words], let him both speak and correct, and the Lord will repay [him] on our behalf. For no envy lodges with us; for we have commenced this examination of the texts for the sake of neither argumentativeness or vainglory but for the benefit of the brothers, in order that the earthenware vessels that have the treasure of God might not seem to be deceived by the stone-hearted and uncircumcised men, those armed with the foolish wisdom. (¶7 [26].)
Section 2 then continues without a break:
Again, by means of the wise Solomon in Proverbs he is created. For he says: ‘The Lord created me.’ And the beginning of the evangelical ways he is called, leading us towards the Kingdom of the Heavens—not a creation according to substance, but having become a way according to dispensation. For ‘to have become’ and ‘to be created’ make known the same thing. (¶8 [27].)
This transition is a very abrupt return to the train of thought that ended with the beginning of Passage A. However if Passage A is elided, along with the sentence just before it, then the text reads much more naturally.
The sentence just before Passage A is this:
And further, in the Gospels [Jesus] numbers himself together with those who are ignorant, on account of the infirmity, as I said, of the many; however, in the Acts of the Apostles, as discoursing separately with the perfect, he says, excluding himself: ‘It is not yours to know times and seasons which the Father has set by his own authority.’ (¶6 [20].)
We will discuss this sentence in a note to it in the translation.
After the elision, the text of the letter reads as follows:
For you he is even ignorant of the hour and the day of the Judgement; and further, nothing escapes the notice of true Wisdom; all things came to be through it. Neither, then, has any man ever been ignorant of what he has done. But this he manages for the sake of your infirmity, so that neither might sinners fall into despondency at the shortness of the delay, there not remaining a time of repentance; nor again might those desert who for a long time are giving battle with the opposed power, on account of the length of time. He therefore manages both by means of the feigned ignorance; for the one, cutting short the time on account of the good struggle; for the other, storing up a season of repentance on account of the sins. (¶6 [19].) …
8 [27] Again, by means of the wise Solomon in Proverbs he is created. For he says: ‘The Lord created me.’ And the beginning of the evangelical ways he is called, leading us towards the Kingdom of the Heavens—not a creation according to substance, but having become a way according to dispensation. For ‘to have become’ and ‘to be created’ make known the same thing. (¶8 [27].)
This is a much more natural flow of the text. The tone is consistent and the chain of scriptural texts continues in a natural progression.
As one can see by comparing this constructed passage with the material quoted above from Passage A, there is a great difference in tone, sophistication and content between the constructed passage and Passage A.
The constructed passage is a straightforward, pedestrian commentary on Scripture defending the divinity of Christ; Passage A, however, is a very sophisticated presentation of mature Evagrian doctrine. Moreover, in the constructed passage Jesus’ ignorance is feigned, whereas in the second passage it is ontological.
Given this difference in tone and content between the two passages, and given the unnatural transitions into Passage A and out of Passage A, we would like to treat Passage A as an interpolation into the original text of Section 2. That would give us at least two layers of text in Section 2: the original commentary on Scripture and Passage A, the interpolated presentation of mature Evagrian doctrine.
We do not know how the text came to be in the state it is in. Did Evagrius do a poor job of stitching in Passage A in a revision in
We do not know. There is no reference to the letter in ancient authors giving fragments of it the way we have ancient fragments attesting to the content of the Kephalaia Gnostica. So while the letter entered into the Syriac manuscript tradition quite early under the name of Evagrius, we have no idea what happened before that—from the time of the composition of the letter to its entry into the Greek and Syriac manuscript traditions.
In general, we can hypothesize three different layers to the letter, with distinct differences in tone.
Layer 1 is Section 1, a brief apologia for someone’s absence to study with Gregory.
Layer 2 comprises those parts of Section 2 that are a straightforward commentary on a chain of scripture passages along the lines of the Nicene school that, honestly, could have been written by anyone other than St Basil.
Layer 3 comprises a series of interpolations into Section 2 that present mature Evagrian doctrine, including additional, more Evagrian, interpretations of the Scripture passages that form the backbone of Layer 1. Layer 3 would include, as a major part, Passage A above. Layer 3 would also include the conclusion to the letter at the end of Section 2.
In general, the reader can spot passages in the letter which belong to Layer 3 in two ways: First, passages which begin with a phrase, clause or sentence that indicate that the author is adding another or higher interpretation should be examined for the possibility that they are providing a second, more Evagrian interpretation of the scriptural passage under consideration.
Second, passages, even without such introductory phrases, which are written in a more dense, Evagrian style and introduce ideas associated with Evagrius’ mature thought. In this category would fit the rather long conclusion of the letter.
Let us return to Passage A. To our ear it sounds like Evagrius wrote it, but with several reservations: First, the author of the passage uses the Greek word epinoia repeatedly throughout Passage A, but with different meanings, so that for each instance of the word the reader or translator has to find the right sense in context. This is not like Evagrius: we do not recall him using the word epinoia in the works we have studied; moreover, he is far more careful of his diction: in a single passage he never uses the same word with different meanings, but always uses different words for different meanings, and with great precision. Indeed, the word epinoia is not to be found in the index to Greek words in the critical editions of Logos Praktikos,[1] Peri Logismon,[2] Gnostic[3] (saved Greek fragments) and Scholia on Ecclesiastes,[4] although the related verb epinoein is once used in Peri Logismon.[5] Epinoia is used once in Scholia on Proverbs.[6] However, in the comparatively short Passage A, epinoia is used four times.
Second, the author of passage A emphasizes the recognition of God in second natural contemplation through God’s ‘operations (energeies)’ and ‘results (apotelesmata)’ in Creation.[7] In the other works of Evagrius that we have studied, Evagrius does not discuss the role in second natural contemplation of the ‘operations (energeies)’ and ‘results (apotelesmata)’ of God in Creation. Rather, he discusses the ‘reasons (logoi)’ of created objects. These reasons (logoi) can be taken to be the essences of created objects originally and archetypally in the mind of God but now embedded in the material created object and accessible to the mystic in second natural contemplation through the mystic’s contemplation of the material object itself. The concepts of ‘results (apotelesmata)’ and ‘reasons (logoi)’ are clearly related, but, here, if we identify them, then the author appears to be distinguishing ‘results (apotelesmata)’ or ‘reasons (logoi)’ from ‘operations (energeies)’, a concept that Evagrius does not otherwise use in this sense. Of course it may be that we are to identify ‘operations (energeies)’ with ‘reasons (logoi)’ and to distinguish them from ‘results (apotelesmata)’. But in that case, the author would be distinguishing between ‘reasons (logoi)’ and ‘results (apotelesmata)’. There is clearly a difference in Passage A from the way that Evagrius normally writes.
Finally, more generally the passages that constitute Layer 3 of the letter are somewhat imprecise as concerns the stages of Evagrian contemplation. For example, in the conclusion of the letter we see this:
…and by means of the bee hints at natural contemplation, in which also is mixed the reason (logos) concerning the Holy Trinity, if indeed from the beauty of creatures the generator is proportionately seen. (¶12 [37].)
In Evagrius’ other writings, there is no concept of the intermixture of the ‘reason concerning the Holy Trinity (o peri tes hagias triados … logos)’ with the material creation and there is no use of the notion that the ‘generator is proportionately seen’. The ‘reason concerning the Holy Trinity’, if there is such a concept in Evagrius, refers to the mystic’s experience of union with God. On this, see, for example, Peri Logismon 41, where the experience of union is spoken of as the ‘mental representation (noema) of God’.[8]
Moreover, a little earlier, the author of the conclusion has just spoken this way:
And concerning the Trinity Holy and Worthy of Worship, for the present let so much be said to us. For it is not now possible to examine more extensively the reason (logos) concerning it. (12 [36].)
Here, the ‘reason concerning the Holy Trinity’ really has the nature of a discursive argument or contemplation. But this usage is a little different than the one we have just been discussing, which usage occurs just a little later in the text of the letter. This imprecision of diction is again not typical of Evagrius.
However, even more importantly, there seems to be some confusion in the author’s mind here about the nature of the presence of the Holy Trinity in Creation. The author has begun by referring to the ‘reason concerning the Holy Trinity’ in a discursive sense and has very soon proceeded to discuss how that reason is perceived ‘proportionately’ in natural contemplation.
There is a concept in the Kephalaia Gnostica of the presence of God in Creation the way that the artist is present in his work of art but Evagrius is explicit that this does not entail the substantial presence of God in Creation, and, as far as we know, he never describes that presence of God in Creation as the ‘word concerning the Holy Trinity’.
Of course, we ourselves do not think that the author of the conclusion of the letter is teaching that the ‘reason concerning the Holy Trinity’ that is mixed into Creation is God’s substantial presence. However, Evagrius teaches in the Kephalaia Gnostica that God is ‘essential gnosis’. That would seem to preclude the notion that the ‘reason concerning the Holy Trinity’ is something that might be cognized by the mystic about God, or even that it could be an argument concerning the nature of the Holy Trinity that might be formulated by him.
Consider for example:
It is not that which is his nature that he knows who sees the Creator after the harmony of beings, but he knows his wisdom, with which he has made everything; and I wish to say not the essential wisdom [= essential gnosis], but that which appears in the beings, that which those who are experts in these things are wont to call natural contemplation. And if that is so, what folly is it that those have who say that they know the nature of God! (KG V, 51.)[9]
This wisdom in the harmony of beings is the reason (logos) of each created being that the mystic contemplates in natural contemplation.
Layer 3 thus seems to have a somewhat imprecise presentation of the stages of contemplation as compared to genuine works of Evagrius.
It might be wondered if these are immature foreshadowings of a later mature mystical doctrine. It seems to us no: the presentation in Layer 3 of the letter is quite sophisticated and definite, as if the author knows the system quite well, not as if he is yet to think it through. It is just that he understands it a little differently from Evagrius in the genuine works that we know of Evagrius, and perhaps in a somewhat less mystically accomplished way.
[1] SC 171 p. 752.
[2] SC 438 p. 330.
[3] SC 356 p. 198.
[4] SC 397 p. 191.
[5] Loc. cit.
[6] SC 340 p. 508.
[7] ¶7 [23]. See below for the full excerpt.
[8] Peri Logismon 41,
[9] Kephalaia Gnostica V, 51, Constantine Vol. II, p. 402.
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