To the Caesareans...

Preface

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 28 May 2009 10:31:00 +0000

To the Caesareans, apologia concerning his departure is a letter historically ascribed to St Basil the Great as Letter 8 of his collected correspondence. Recent scholarly opinion has ascribed it to Evagrius Ponticus.

The letter has been recently brought forward as evidence for Evagrius' orthodoxy in the face of his condemnation by the Fifth Ecumenical Synod, as reiterated by the Sixth and Seventh Ecumenical Synods.

The Introduction analyzes the text of the letter from the point of view of authorship, homogeneity of style and content, discussing whether the letter is the 'gold standard of Evagrius' orthodoxy'. Finally, the Introduction discusses what would be required for a full study of this issue.

A new translation into English of the original Greek text of the letter then follows.

The argument is further developed in footnotes to the translation of the text of the letter.

There is a brief bibliography.

To read the Introduction, Letter or Bibliography, simply click on the appropriate link in the right-hand margin. You will always have the Table of Contents in the right-hand margin so as to be able to go to another part of the work.

Author's Note: This is Revision 1 of a work in progress. There will be subsequent revisions.

For a related paper by Fr Theophanes (Constantine) delivered to the 2008 Conference of the North American Patristics Society (NAPS) in Chicago on May 24, 2008, go here or to the last link in the right hand margin.

Preface

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:46:00 +0000

To the Caesareans, apologia concerning his departure is a letter historically ascribed to St Basil the Great as Letter 8 of his collected correspondence. Recent scholarly opinion has ascribed it to Evagrius Ponticus.

The letter has been recently brought forward as evidence for Evagrius' orthodoxy in the face of his condemation by the Fifth Ecumenical Synod, as reiterated by the Sixth and Seventh Ecumenical Synods.

The Introduction analyzes the text of the letter from the point of view of authorship, homogeneity of style and content, discussing whether the letter is the 'gold standard of Evagrius' orthodoxy'. Finally, the Introduction discusses what would be required for a full study of this issue.

A new translation into English of the original Greek text of the letter then follows.

The argument is further developed in footnotes to the text.

There is a brief bibliography.

To read the Introduction, Letter or Bibliography, simply click on the appropriate link in the right-hand margin. You will always have the Table of Contents in the right-hand margin so as to be able to go to another part of the work.

Author's Note: This is Revision 1 of a work in progress. There will be subsequent revisions.

Introduction - Part 2b

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 16:08:00 +0000

Let us now look at the usages of epinoia in Passage A, the remaining 4 usages.

The holy disciples of our Saviour, coming beyond contemplation as it is possible to men, and having been purified by the word, seek the end, and desire to know the final blessedness, of which very thing our Lord declared both the angels and himself to be ignorant. On the one hand, he called ‘day’ the exact apprehension of the conceptions (epinoiai) of God; on the other hand, ‘hour’ the contemplation of the Monad and Unity, the notification of which things he granted only to the Father.[1]

Here we see a completely different use of epinoiai. Here epinoiai seems to have the sense of the reasons or essences (logoi) which God has implanted in Creation as the essences of created objects. We have come to this conclusion about the meaning of epinoiai in this passage on account of the analogy between the exact apprehension of the epinoiai of God, and natural contemplation, which is defined by Evagrius precisely as the contemplation of the reasons or essences (logoi) of created things, just as Passage A itself develops a little further on. This analogy is so strong that we wonder if there is perhaps not a copyist’s error here. To suggest that what the author means here is that the preliminary stage of contemplation is the exact apprehension of the conceptions of God in his contingent relationships with his creatures both rational and otherwise is to advance an interpretation that is not otherwise to be found in the works of Evagrius that we are aware of. Neither is it to be found in the Theological Orations.

Let us take the next use:

If, therefore, whatever God is, is said to be known by God of himself and that which he is not, not to be known—then our Lord, according to the notion (kata ten … epinoian) of the Incarnation and the grosser teaching, is not the final object of desire; and therefore our Saviour did not know the end and the final blessedness.[2]

Here, it is clear that we cannot impose on epinoia the model of the ‘title’ of Christ or God; or the mode of relationship of God with his rational creature perhaps through Christ or through a concrete or abstract concept. Here, the proper interpretation of epinoia is the basic meaning given in Liddell-Scott: ‘notion’. What the author here seems to mean is that ‘from the point of view’ of the ‘Incarnation and the grosser teaching’, our Lord—i.e. the Christ as understood by the author—is not the final object of desire. Before we continue, let us introduce the corresponding passage, a little further on in Passage A:

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. [23] Our Lord, however, is himself the end and final blessedness according to the notion (kata ten epinoian) of the Word.[3]

First of all, here we see the analogous passage which led us to interpret the ‘the exact apprehension of the conceptions (epinoiai) of God’ as natural contemplation: this is ‘all the knowledge (gnosis) implicated in material objects’, the Kingdom of Christ.

To continue with the matter at hand, we see that just as the author has earlier written ‘according to the notion of the Incarnation and the grosser teaching’, here he has written ‘according to the notion of the Word’. What he seems to be saying is this: When the Christ is considered from the point of view of the Incarnation and the ‘grosser teaching’, then he is not the final object of desire. When, however, the Christ is considered from the point of view of the Word, then he is the final object of desire.

Let us take the next passage:

…it understands the operations (energeies) of the Creator, and in the beginning it understands these from the results (apotelesmata), so that, thus having increased little by little, it might have the strength at some time to advance even to the naked Divinity itself. [24] I think that the following has been said according to this conception (kata tauten … ten epinoian): ‘My Father is greater than I’, and ‘It is not mine to give but to those for whom it is prepared by the Father.’[4]

The author is here saying something like this: ‘The Kingdom of Christ is natural contemplation. The Kingdom of God is the contemplation of God. In the sense that natural contemplation is less than the contemplation of God, the Christ says: “My Father is greater than I.”’

It is clear that the author is here using epinoia in its classical sense of ‘notion’.

We can see that in Passage A, the author does not use epinoia in the sense that we started with, the sense taken from Origen: the titles of Christ in the economy of salvation. Although he does use epinoia to refer to the Christ as seen from the point of view of the Incarnation and the grosser teaching, and from the point of view of the Word, there is a subtle difference in the use of epinoia. Moreover, the author of Passage A does not use the word in any of Evagrius’ other late senses, of the modes of relation of God to his creature. But immediately after Passage A, the author does use the word in a clearly Origenist sense used by the late Evagrius.

What are we to make of this—given that five of the approximately 12 uses of the word epinoia in the works ascribed to Evagrius are to be found in To the Caesareans…?

The first remark is that M. Géhin’s analysis of the Evagrian meaning of epinoia is incomplete.

Next, epinoia is used five times in To the Caesareans…. By contrast, St Gregory uses the word three times in the much longer Theological Orations.

Next, epinoia is not used again in Evagrius until two very late works, his Scholia on Proverbs and Scholia on Psalms. This gives a very unusual distribution of the word in his works, even with some allowance being given for those works for which we do not have all of the original Greek.

To continue with this philological analysis of Passage A, the author of passage A emphasizes the recognition of God in second natural contemplation through God’s ‘operations (energeies)’ and ‘results (apotelesmata)’ in Creation.[5] 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. In the indices to Greek words in the critical editions that we referenced above for epinoia, this is confirmed: these words are not used. If they are used they are used in a completely ordinary way. Unfortunately, we do not have a critical edition of Evagrius’ Scholia on Psalms, and since those who have been working on the critical edition have not written anything that we are aware of on the use of the words ‘operations (energeies)’ and ‘results (apotelesmata)’ in the Scholia on Psalms, our analysis is necessarily incomplete.

St Gregory the Theologian does not use this language in the Theological Orations, although it might be argued that he does use related concepts.

When discussing second natural contemplation in his other works Evagrius discusses the ‘reasons (logoi)’ of created objects. These reasons (logoi) are the essences of created objects embedded in the material created object and accessible to the mystic through the mystic’s contemplation of the material object itself in second natural contemplation. As we have pointed out elsewhere, this is not a discursive meditation on the ‘meaning’ of the object, but a direct encounter by the intuitive spiritual eye of the mind (nous) with the reason or essence (logos) embedded in the object—to the extent that this is possible to a created mind (nous) and to the degree of the spiritual purity of the contemplator.[6]

The concepts of ‘results (apotelesmata)’ and ‘reasons (logoi)’ are clearly related, but if we identify them here, then the author appears to be distinguishing ‘results (apotelesmata)’ or ‘reasons (logoi)’ from ‘operations (energeies)’. 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)’, unless we were to assume that he was engaging in pleonasm.

The obvious remark to be made is that a case can be made that the author of passage A is not Evagrius: he is not using words as the late Evagrius used them. There is an inconsistency in the diction of To the Caesareans…. 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. St Gregory also does not use this language in the Theological Orations. 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’.[7]

As concerns the expression ‘from the beauty of creatures the Generator is proportionately seen’, a quotation from Wisdom,[8] there is no use of this concept in other works of Evagrius that we are aware of. St Gregory does use a similar expression in the Theological Orations, although not so highly developed.

The one reference in the Kephalaia Gnostica to God the Father as Generator is this:

VI, 28 The Father is the generator of essential gnosis.

But ‘essential gnosis’ is the mystic’s intuitive apprehension or sight of the Holy Trinity without discursive reason. Moreover, in the Kephalaia Gnostica it is the Christ who is the creator of the material world, not the Father. That is, second natural contemplation, in which we contemplate the essences (logoi) of material objects, is the province of the Christ. Even To the Caesareans…clearly teaches this. Moreover, that is the sense of scholium 4 on Psalm 135, 23, which we quoted earlier.

A little earlier in the conclusion to To the Caesareans…, the author 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 discursive contemplation. But this usage is just a little different than the one we have just been discussing, which usage occurs just a little further on in the text of the letter. This imprecision of diction is again not typical of Evagrius.

There are at least two passages in the Kephalaia Gnostica which seem to warrant this use of ‘the reason concerning the Holy Trinity’:

I, 10 Among the demons, some are opposed to the practice of the commandments, others are opposed to the mental representations of nature, and others are opposed to the logoi which concern the Divinity, because the gnosis of our salvation also is composed of these things.[9]

IV, 40 The ‘key of the Kingdom of the Heavens’ [Matt. 16, 19] is the spiritual gift which partially reveals the mental representations of praktiki and of nature, and those of the logoi which concern God.[10]

However, in other parts of the Evagrian corpus, including the Kephalaia Gnostica, we see that the ‘logoi which concern the divinity’ that constitute a part of the gnosis that is our salvation are not discursive in nature. While an interpretation of the ‘logoi which concern the divinity’ or ‘God’ as sound Trinitarian doctrine seems plausible, that is not the nature of Evagrian mysticism: the gnosis of the Trinity that Evagrius foresees in the Kephalaia Gnostica is direct intuitive intellectual union with the Trinity:

I, 19 The gnosis which is in the four is the gnosis of the mental representations of creatures, and the gnosis of the One is the gnosis of him who alone is.[11]

The problematical part of the ‘logoi which concern the divinity’ is here:

V, 55 The Holy Trinity is not a thing which might be mixed with the contemplation; that, indeed, does not occur except with created beings. The former will also be named, in a holy way, essential gnosis.

This passage depends on the notion in Evagrius that the knowledge (gnosis) of the Holy Trinity is not like the knowledge (gnosis) of a created object. Hence, it is impossible to know the Holy Trinity in the same way that a creature is known.[12]

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 very soon proceeded to discuss how the ‘reason (logos) concerning the Holy Trinity’ is mixed into natural contemplation, ‘if indeed from the beauty of creatures the Generator is proportionately seen’. Moreover, he emphasizes the ‘beauty’ of creatures, whereas Evagrius emphasizes as a part of second natural contemplation the reason or essence (logos) of creatures.

There is a doctrine in the Kephalaia Gnostica of the presence of God in Creation the way that an artist is present in his work of art. Evagrius is explicit that this does not entail the actual presence of God in Creation, and, as far as we know, he never describes that presence of God in Creation as the ‘reason (logos) concerning the Holy Trinity’. Moreover, he never states in the Kephalaia Gnostica—or anywhere else that we are aware of—that the presence of God in his creation the way an artist is present in his work of art allows the contemplator to perceive the reason (logos) concerning the Holy Trinity in natural contemplation—or even God proportionately.

The difference seems to be this: On the one hand, the late Evagrius wants us to engage in second natural contemplation because the spiritual knowledge (gnosis) that we receive from it nourishes our soul and purifies our mind (nous). On the other hand, he is adamant that we do not know God himself in second natural contemplation. At most, it would appear, in second natural contemplation we know God the way we know an artist by viewing a sculpture that the artist has done. And moreover, in his later thought at least, Evagrius is clear that once we have progressed beyond second natural contemplation, especially to the stage of union with God, then second natural contemplation is seen to be nothing. This doctrine seems far from the notion that in natural contemplation we perceive the ‘reason (logos) concerning the Holy Trinity’ or the Generator proportionately:

II, 21 All that has been produced proclaims ‘the most various wisdom of God’ [Eph. 3, 10], but there is nothing among all the beings which teaches us concerning his nature.

Or again:

VI, 82 It is said that God is in the corporeal nature as the architect is in the things which have been made by him, and it is said that, like the architect, God is as in the statue, if he should happen to make for himself a statue of wood.

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:

V, 51 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, that with which he has made everything; and I wish to say not the essential wisdom [= essential gnosis, the godhead], 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![13]

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 other known works of Evagrius. However, when compared to the Theological Orations, the presentation in To the Caesareans… of the stages of contemplation is far more articulated and definite than we would expect from a student of St Gregory writing within a year of the Orations. For the letter delineates a progression from second natural contemplation as the contemplation which is ‘implicated in objects’ to first natural contemplation as the contemplation both of the angels and of their reasons—an explanation of first natural contemplation is developed at great length in On the Thoughts—to the contemplation of the Godhead expressed as contemplation of the Monad and Unity, terms used in the Kephalaia Gnostica, although certainly not in the Theological Orations.

It might be wondered if the letter’s problems with diction constitute 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. We will see this when we discuss the content of the letter, especially Layer 3, in comparison with the Theological Orations. It is just that the author of Layer 3 understands the Evagrian system a little differently from Evagrius in the genuine works that we know of Evagrius, and perhaps in a somewhat less mystically accomplished way.

[1] Migne 32 col. 256C (Letter 8, ¶ 7, l. 7). Οί ἅγιοι μαθηταὶ τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν ἐπένεικα θεωρίας, ὡς ἔνι ἀνθρώπους, ἐλθόντες, καὶ καθαρθέντες ἀπὸ τοῦ λόγου, τὸ τέλος ἐπιζητοῦσι, καὶ τὴν ἐσχὰτην μακαριότητα γνῶναι ποθοῦσιν, ὃπερ ἀγνοεῖν καὶ τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ καὶ αὐτόν ὅ Κύριος ἡμῶν ἀπεφήνατο· ἡμέραν μὲν λέγων πᾶσαν τὴν ἀκριβῆ κατάληψιν τῶν ἐπινοιῶν τοῦ Θεοῦ· ὥραν δὲ τὴν ἑνάδος καὶ μονάδος θεωρίαν, ὧν τὴν εἴδησιν μόνῳ προσένεμε τῷ Πατρί.

[2] Migne 32 col. 256C Col. 257A (¶ 7, l. 16). Εἰ τοίνυν ἐκεῖνο λέγεται περὶ ἑαυτοῦ εἰδέναι ὁ Θεός ὅπερ ἐστί, κἀκεῖνο μὴ ἐιδέναι ὅπερ οὐκ ἔστιν, οὐκ ἔστι δὲ ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν κατὰ τὴν τῆς ἐνανθρωπήσεως ἐπίνοιαν, καὶ παχυτέραν διδασκαλίαν, τὸ ἔσχατον ὀρεκτόν· οὐκ ἄρα οἶδεν ὁ Σωτὴρ ἡμῶν τὸ τέλος καὶ τὴν ἐσχάτην μακάριοτητα.

[3] Migne 32 col. 256C Col. 257B (¶ 7, l. 30). Χριστοῦ γὰρ βασιλείαν φασὶν εἶναι πᾶσαν τὴν ἔνυλον γνῶσιν· τοῦ δὲ Θεοῦ και Πατρός τὴν ἄϋλον, καὶ ὡς ἄν εἴποι τίς, αὐτῆς τῆς θεότητος θεωρίαν. Ἔστι δὲ καὶ ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν καὶ αὐτός τὸ τέλος, καὶ ἡ ἐσχάτη μακαριότης, κατὰ τὴν τοῦ Λόγου ἐπίνοιαν.

[4] Migne 32 Col. 257C (¶ 7, l. 44). …τὰς ἐνεργείες τοῦ κτίστου κατανοεῖ, καὶ ταῦτα ἐκ τῶν αποτελεσμάτων τέως ἐπιγινώσκει, ἵν’ οὕτω κατὰ μικρὸν αὐξηθεὶς ἰσχύσῃ ποτὲ καὶ αὐτῇ γυμνῇ προσελθεῖν τῇ θεότητι. Κατὰ ταύτην δὲ οἴμαι τὴν ἐπίνοιαν εἰρῆσθαι καὶ τὸ Ὁ Πατήρ μου μείζων μου ἐστί, καὶ τὸ Ὀυκ ἔστιν ἐμὸν δοῦναι ἀλλ’ οἷς ἡτοίμασται ὑπὸ τοῦ Πατρός.

[5] ¶7 [23]. See below for the full excerpt.

[6] Cf. Gnostic 40, quoted above.

[7] Peri Logismon 41, Constantine Vol. II p. 176.

[8] Wisdom 13, 5. Thanks to Dr Kalvesmaki for pointing this out.

[9] Constantine Vol II p. 367.

[10] Constantine Vol II p. 394.

[11] Op cit. p. 368. Cf. KG I, 38, loc. cit. p. 369.

[12] This is the basis of Skemmata 18, On the Thoughts 41, and these two passages of the Kephalaia Gnostica:

V, 62 The nature of the Trinity is not known with ascents and descents; there are not there, indeed, any underlying objects, and its nature does not admit of analysis, because he who resolves the nature of bodies makes it consist absolutely in matter and form; and if one resolves the incorporeal nature, one brings it to the common contemplation and to the substance susceptible of an opposition. But it is not thus that it is possible to know the nature of the Holy Trinity.

V, 63 The analysis makes us re-ascend to the commencement of the objects, and the gnosis which is according to measure makes seen the wisdom of the Creator; but it is not according to these signs that we see the Holy Trinity. It has not, indeed, commencement, and we do not say to any further extent that the wisdom which is in these objects is God, if the commencements agree, in the theory of nature, with the things of which they are the commencements. Indeed, such a wisdom is a gnosis without substance, which appears only in the objects.

[13] Kephalaia Gnostica V, 51, Constantine Vol. II, p. 402.

Section 2 — ¶12 [36] – 12 [40]

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:55:00 +0000

12 [36][1] 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. You, then, taking seeds from our lowliness, cultivate mature wheat since we will also demand interest on these things, as you know.[2] I believe in God that you will bear fruit both thirty-fold and sixty-fold and one-hundred-fold on account of the purity of your lives.[3] For: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.’ [37] And do not think that the Kingdom of the Heavens is anything other than the true comprehension of beings (onton), which the divine Scriptures also call ‘blessedness’. For if ‘the Kingdom of the Heavens is within you,’ and concerning the man within there is nothing but what is constituted from contemplation, then contemplation would be the Kingdom of the Heavens.[4] Of the things we now see the shadows as in a mirror, later being freed from this earthy body and being clothed with the incorruptible and immortal, of these things we shall clearly see the archetypes. We shall see [them], however, if we indeed pilot our own way of life towards the straight way and make provision for an upright faith, without which things no one will see the Lord. For he says: ‘For wisdom will not enter into a soul that uses evil arts, neither will it dwell in a body involved in sin.’ [38] And let no one protest saying: ‘You who are ignorant of what is underfoot are philosophizing to us concerning the bodiless and completely immaterial substance.’ For I judge it to be an absurdity that the senses might be filled with their own materials while the mind (nous) alone is restrained from its own native operations (energeies). For as the senses [are skilled] in sensible things, so the mind (nous) is skilled in intelligible things. At the same time, this must also be said, that God who created us has made the natural criteria [to be] untaught.[5] For no one teaches the eyes to comprehend colours or shapes; neither the hearing, sounds and voices; neither the sense of smell, fragrant and malodorous odours; neither the sense of taste, flavours and juices; neither the sense of touch, the soft and the hard or the warm and the cold. Neither could one teach the mind (nous) [how] to apply itself to the intelligible things.[6] And just as, if the [organs of sense] should suffer something, they require only assiduousness and they easily discharge the native operation (energeia), thus also the mind (nous), since it has been joined to flesh and has been filled with the fantasies which are from the flesh, requires faith and a right conduct of life, which things train its feet as if it were a deer and place it[7] on the heights. [39] This the wise Solomon also recommends, mark you; and at one time he offers to us the worker that has no cause for shame, the ant, and by means of him portrays for us the way of praktiki[8]; at another time, the wax-making organ of the wise bee 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. [40] But giving thanks to Father and Son and Holy Spirit let us put a limit to the letter, since even the proverb says that all moderation is excellent.[9]

[1] We take this passage from here to the end of the letter clearly to be a part of Layer 3.

[2] Note the contrast of the very authoritative tone here not only to the pleading tone of Section 1, but even to the less authoritative teaching tone of Layer 2 of Section 2.

[3] Consider KG IV, 42: ‘The promise of the ‘hundredfold’ [Matt. 19, 29] is the contemplation of beings, and the ‘eternal life’ [Matt. 19, 29] is the gnosis of the Holy Trinity: ‘And this is eternal life, that they know thee, the only true God.’ [John 17, 3.]’

[4] According to Evagrian doctrine in other works, this is natural contemplation, not contemplation of the Divinity, which is the Kingdom of God (cf. Logos Praktikos 2 and 3).

[5] This is an argument for the intuitive nature of the comprehension of intelligible things by the mind (nous).

[6] This is interesting and important for its statement of the power of the mind for the intuitive apprehension of intelligible things. Natural contemplation is not discursive meditation (‘thinking about’) but the intuitive cognition of the reasons (logoi) of created things, first material created things (second natural contemplation) and then immaterial created things, including the angels and their reasons (logoi) (first natural contemplation).

[7] I.e. the mind (nous).

[8] See fn. 32 above.

[9] Note the rather abrupt closing with no reference at all to Section 1, the plea for more time with Gregory.

Bibliography

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:46:00 +0000

ACO 4, 1 Acta Conciliorvm Oecvmenicorvm. Ivssv atqve mandato Societatis Scientiarvm Argentoratensis. Edenda intitvit Edvardvs Schwartz. Continvavit Johannes Straub. Tomvs Qvartvs. Volvmen Primvm. MDCCCLXXI. In Aedibvs Walter de Gruyter & C^o. Berolini. (Tome 4, Volume 1. 1971. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & C^o.)

Basil 1 Basil the Great. Collected Works. Volume 1. Under the direction of Stylianos G. Pappadopoulos. Editor of Volume I: Nikodimos (Mpilales), Monk of New Skete, Mount Athos. Text: Y. Courtonne (edition of Budé). In the series: Bibliothiki ton Ellenon, Apanta ton Hagion Pateron. No date. No place: Ellenikos Ekdotikos Oikos.

Casiday Casiday, A. M. Evagrius Ponticus. 2006. In the series: The Early Church Fathers, edited by Carol Harrison. London and New York: Routledge (Taylor and Francis Group).

Constantine (Constantine), Fr Theophanes. The Psychological Basis of Mental Prayer in the Heart. Volume I: The Orthodox Doctrine of the Person. Volume II: The Evagrian Ascetical System. (Volume III: Hesychian Sobriety). 2006. Mount Athos, Greece: Timios Prodromos. http://timiosprodromos4.blogspot.com/ et seq.

Pitra Origenes in Psalmos. Pitra, éditeur. Analecta Sacra Vol. 2, pp. 444 – 483 and Analecta Sacra Vol.3 pp. 1 – 364.

Rondeau Rondeau, Marie-Josephe. Le Commentaire sur les Psaumes d’ Évagre Le Pontique. Orientalia Christiana Periodica 1960 pp. 307 – 348.

SC 170 Évagre Le Pontique. Traité pratique ou Le moine (Practical Treatise or The Monk). Tome I. Introduction. Antoine Guillaumont et Claire Guillaumont. 1971. In Sources chrétiennes, N^o 170. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

SC 171 Évagre Le Pontique. Traité pratique ou Le moine (Practical Treatise or The Monk). Tome II. Édition critique du texte grec… Antoine Guillaumont et Claire Guillaumont. 1971. In Sources chrétiennes, N^o 171. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

SC 250 Grégoire de Nazianze. Discours 27 – 31 (Discours Théologiques). (Orations 27 – 31 (Theological Orations)). Introduction, texte critique … par Paul Gallay avec … Maurice Jourjon. 1978. In Sources chrétiennes, N^o 250. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

SC 340 Évagre Le Pontique. Scholies aux Proverbes (Scholia on Proverbs). Paul Géhin. 1987. In Sources chrétiennes, N^o 340. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

SC 356 Évagre Le Pontique. Le Gnostique ou A celui qui est devenu digne de la science (The Gnostic or To Him who has Become Worthy of Gnosis). Antoine Guillaumont et Claire Guillaumont. 1989. In Sources chrétiennes, N^o 356. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

SC 397 Évagre Le Pontique. Scholies a L’Ecclésiaste (Scholia on Ecclesiastes). Paul Géhin. 1993. In Sources chrétiennes, N^o 397. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

Section 2 — ¶11 [33] – 11 [35]

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:44:00 +0000

11 [33] If, then, it is obligatory to approach in argument and consider the greater things, from this let us contemplate the divine power of the Holy Spirit. We have found three creations to be named in Scripture. One, and the first, is the production from non-existence to existence. The second is the alteration from the worse to the good. The third is the Resurrection of the Dead. In these you will find the Holy Spirit to be a fellow worker with the Father and the Son. The substantiation of the Heavens. And what does David say? ‘By the Word the Lord founded the Heavens and by the Spirit of his mouth is all of their strength.’ Again, man is created through baptism: ‘For if one is in Christ he is a new creation.’ And what does the Saviour say to the disciples: ‘Going out, make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ Do you see even here the Holy Spirit present together with the Father and the Son? What then might you also say concerning the Resurrection of the Dead, when we shall depart and return to our dust? For we are earth and we will depart to the earth, and he will send forth the Holy Spirit and he will create us and renew the face of the earth. For what the holy Paul called ‘resurrection’, this same thing David called ‘renewal’. [34] Again, let us hear him who was ravished up to the Third Heaven. What does he say? ‘For you are the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you.’ Every temple is a temple of God. If we are a temple of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is God. He also says ‘the Temple of Solomon’, but as of him who built [it]. If we are in that sense temples of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is God—‘God who has made all things’—; if, however, in the sense [of the Holy Spirit] as worthy of worship and abiding in us, let us confess that it is God: ‘You will bow down to the Lord your God and to him only will you offer worship.’ [35] If, then, they reject the use of the expression ‘God’, let them learn of what this name is significant. For he is named ‘God’ from ‘to have placed or to see all things’.[1] If, then, he is called ‘God’ from ‘to have placed or to see all things’; and [if], on the other hand, the Spirit knows all things of God, as the spirit which is in us [knows] all the things which pertain to us; then the Holy Spirit is God. And, again, if the sword of the Spirit is the word (rema) of God, the Holy Spirit is God. For of that one is the sword, of whom it is also called the word (rema).[2] And if he [sc. the Son] is called ‘the Right Hand’[3] of the Father—for ‘The Right Hand of the Lord did [acts of] strength;’ and ‘Your Right Hand, Lord, has broken enemies;’ and the Holy Spirit on the other hand is the finger of God according to the saying ‘If I cast out the demons in the finger of God,’ (which very thing has been written in another Gospel ‘If I cast out the demons in the Spirit of God;’) then the Holy Spirit is of the same nature as the Father and the Son.

[1] The author is providing an etymology of ‘Theos (God)’ from ‘tetheikenai (to have placed) or theasthai (to see) all things’.

[2] This rather elliptical passage seems to mean this: The Holy Spirit is God because the property of being the ‘sword of the Spirit’ is transferred to being the ‘sword of God’ through the identification by the scriptural text of ‘sword of the Spirit’ with the ‘word (rema) of God’. Hence, the Holy Spirit is of the same substance (homoousios) as God.

[3] Cf.: KG II, 12: ‘The right of the Lord is also called hand, but his hand is not also called right. And his hand receives increase and decrease, but that does not also occur to the right.’ KG II, 89: ‘He who alone is seated ‘at the right’ [Mark 16, 19] of the Father, alone has the gnosis of the right of the Father.’ KG IV, 21: ‘The unction either indicates the gnosis of the Unity or designates the contemplation of beings. And if more than the others Christ is anointed, it is evident that he is anointed with the gnosis of the Unity. On account of that, he alone is said ‘to be seated at the right’ [Mark 16, 19] of his Father, the right which here, according to the rule of the gnostics, indicates the Monad and the Unity.’ It should be clear that many of the concepts of Layer 3 have direct connections to the doctrines of the Kephalaia Gnostica, and that a presumption of orthodoxy is unwarranted for To the Caesareans….

Section 2 — ¶10 [30] – 10 [32]

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:43:00 +0000

10 [30] And this examination, according to our own strength, of the texts which have been set is sufficient for us. Well then, let us immediately advance in argument towards those who resist the Holy Spirit, demolishing every elevation of the intellect (dianoia) raised up against the knowledge (gnosis) of God. You say that the Holy Spirit is a creature. Every creature is a servant of him who created it. For he says: ‘All things whatsoever are your servants.’ If then it is a servant, then it has its holiness [as something] acquired. But everything which has its holiness acquired is not unreceptive of evil. But the Holy Spirit, being holy according to substance, is called ‘fountain of sanctification’. Therefore the Holy Spirit is not a creature. If, then, it is not a creature, it is of the same substance (homoousios) as God[1]. Tell me, how do you call ‘servant’ him who through baptism has freed you from servitude? For he says: ‘The Law of the Spirit of Life has freed me from the Law of sin.’ [31] But you will not at any time dare to say that its substance is mutable, having in view the nature of the opposed power, which has fallen from Heaven as a bolt of lightning and which has fallen from real life because it had its holiness [as something] acquired, change following on the bad intention. Therefore, falling from the Monad and throwing off the angelic rank, from the manner[2] it was called Devil (diabolos[3]), its prior and blessed habit being extinguished and this opposed power being ignited. [32] Next, if one says that the Holy Spirit is a creature, then he introduces the idea that its nature is finite. How then will this stand: ‘The Spirit of the Lord filled the world (oikoumene);’ and ‘Where will I go from your Spirit?’[4] But he does not even confess that its nature is simple, as it seems. For he calls him ‘one’ in number. Everything which is one in number is not simple, as I said. If, then, the Holy Spirit is not simple, it was constituted from substance plus sanctification. But such a thing is composite. But who is so mindless as to say that the Holy Spirit is composite and not simple and, according to the reason (logos) of simplicity, of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father and the Son?

[1] It should be recalled here that in the usage of the author, and most Orthodox writers, ‘God’ refers in the first instance to the Father rather than to the substance of the Godhead. Cf. the Nicene Creed: ‘I believe in one God, the Father…’

[2] I.e. from its behaviour.

[3] The original meaning of diabolos is ‘slanderer’. From there the word took on the meaning of ‘enemy’. From there it took on the meaning of ‘Satan’ or ‘Devil’.

[4] Up to here, this presentation of argumentation for the divinity of the Holy Spirit clearly belongs to Layer 1. From here to the end of ¶10 [32], we have a passage whose classification depends on our understanding the level of philosophical development Evagrius had before he left Constantinople. The next paragraphs, ¶11 [33] to ¶11 [35], however, seem clearly to belong to Layer 3, although not so clearly as other Layer 3 passages that we have seen.

Section 2 — ¶8 [27] – 9 [29]

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:41:00 +0000

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.[1] For he has become ‘way’ and ‘door’ and ‘shepherd’ and ‘messenger (aggelos)’ and ‘sheep’ and again ‘high priest’ and ‘apostle’, other things according to other notions (kat’ allen epinoian) of the names laid down.[2] [28] What could the heretic say, again, concerning the ‘unruly’[3] God and concerning him who for our sakes has become sin? For it has been written: ‘When all things have been subjected to him, then also he the very Son will be subjected to him who has subjected all things to him.’ Do you not fear, O man, the God who is called ‘unruly’ for your sake? For your own subjection he makes his own, and in your resisting virtue he calls himself ‘unruly’. Thus, at one time he even called himself ‘persecuted’. For he says, ‘Saul, Saul why do you persecute me?’ at the time that Saul was running to Damascus wishing to bind the disciples of Christ. And again he calls himself ‘naked’ when one of the brothers is living in nakedness. For he says: ‘I was naked to you and you clothed me.’ And elsewhere, being in prison, he called himself ‘prisoner’. For he took up our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. One of our infirmities is also ‘unruliness’ and he bore this. Wherefore the Lord makes his own even those [difficult] situations which occur to us, accepting our passions (pathos) out of communion with us.[4]

9 [29] But the battlers with God also take up ‘The Son is not able to do anything by himself,’ to the destruction of those who hear. But, to me, even this saying proclaims the Son to be of the same nature as the Father. For if each one of the rational creatures is able to do something, having free will (autexousion) and the equal tendency towards the better or worse; and the Son is not able to do anything of himself; then the Son is not a creature. If he is not a creature, then he is of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father. And, again, none of the creatures is able to do as much as he wishes. But the Son, in Heaven and on earth, did all things, as many as he wanted. Therefore, the Son is not a creature. And, again, all the creatures either were constituted from opposites or are receptive of opposites.[5] But the Son is self-justice and immaterial.[6] Therefore the Son is not a creature. If then he is not this, then he is of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father.

[1] Since this identification of ‘to have become and ‘to be created’ is quite important to the understanding of Evagrius’ later works, it would be important to determine whether he learned this from Gregory or another Cappadocian before he left for Egypt. Although the paragraph has started off clearly as part of Layer 2, some of the sentences here possibly belong to Layer 3.

[2] Cf. KG VI, 20, loc. cit.: ‘Before the Movement, God was good, powerful, wise, Creator of incorporeals, Father of the logikoi, and omnipotent; after the Movement, he became Creator of bodies, Judge, Governor, Doctor, Pastor, Merciful and Long-Suffering, and even Door, Way, Lamb, High Priest, along with the other names which are said by modes. And he is Father and Principle even before the genesis of incorporeals: Father of Christ and Principle of the Holy Spirit.’ Again, it is important to know if Evagrius learned this doctrine from the Cappadocian Fathers, or whether it is something he developed after he went to Egypt.’

[3] The author is depending on the relation between ‘anhypotaktos’ (‘unruly’) and ‘hypotasso’ (‘subject [someone] to [someone else]’) in connection with the Christ, based on the passage in Hebrews.

[4] The paragraph is important for its witness to an interpretation of the subjection of Christ to the Father that is ‘non-Evagrian’. It is clearly part of Layer 2, with the possible exception of the two sentences that we remarked above where it is uncertain whether or not Evagrius learned the doctrine that he is espousing in them from the Cappadocians before he went to Egypt. We have already seen an interpretation in Passage A which indicates that Christ is ontologically subordinate to the Father on account of the ontological subordination of the Kingdom of Christ (or, of the Heavens) to the Kingdom of the Father, the former being natural contemplation and the latter being the immaterial contemplation of the Divinity. The question that would arise here: Is this evidence of two layers of discourse, separated in time, what we have called Layer 2 and Layer 3? Or is it a matter of the simultaneous presentation of an exoteric and an esoteric doctrine? But normally, someone who is presenting an exoteric and esoteric doctrine doesn’t mix the two doctrines from paragraph to paragraph in a work. Hence, we think that someone has added the more ‘advanced Evagrian’ material to a straightforward scriptural exegesis written at another time, as we discussed in the Introduction.

[5] This sentence appears to introduce a short Level 3 passage, which ends at the end of the paragraph.

[6] This is a very concise expression of the author’s ontology. Material creatures are either constituted of opposites or receptive of opposites. But the Son is self-justice, so he is neither constituted of opposites—there being no evil in him—nor receptive of opposites—since he can do no evil. Moreover, he is immaterial. Therefore he is of the same substance with the Father. The question that arises here is, what about the immaterial creature, the angel?

Section 2 — ¶6 [19] – 7 [26]

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:41:00 +0000

6 [19] 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 who for a long time are giving battle with the opposed power desert 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.[1] [20] And further, in the Gospels he 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.’[2] And let these things be said in a grosser way according to the previous introduction.[3] Already it is necessary to examine the meaning of the text in a higher way and it is necessary to knock on the door of knowledge (gnosis), if indeed I should be able to awaken the Master of the House, him who gives the spiritual loaves to those who ask him, since they are friends and brothers whom we endeavour to feast.

7 [21] The holy disciples of our Saviour, coming beyond contemplation[4] as it is possible to men, and having been purified by the word, seek the end, and desire to know the final blessedness, of which very thing our Lord declared both the angels and himself to be ignorant. On the one hand, he called ‘day’ the exact apprehension of the conceptions (epinoiai) of God; on the other hand, ‘hour’ the contemplation of the Monad and Unity, the notification of which things he granted only to the Father. I mean, then, that that which God is, is said to be known by God concerning himself; and that that which he is not, not to be known. For justice and wisdom are said to be known by God, who is ‘self-justice’ and ‘self-wisdom’; and injustice and wickedness not to be known—for the God who made us is not injustice and wickedness. [22] If, therefore, whatever God is, is said to be known by God of himself and that which he is not, not to be known—then our Lord, according to the notion of the Incarnation and the grosser teaching, is not the final object of desire; and therefore our Saviour did not know the end and the final blessedness. ‘But neither the angels know,’ he 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. [23] Our Lord, however, is himself the end and final blessedness according to the notion of the Word. For what does it say in the Gospel? ‘And I will resurrect him in the last day,’ calling the ‘Resurrection’ the transition from the knowledge (gnosis) which is implicated in material [objects] to the immaterial contemplation, and calling ‘the last day’ this knowledge (gnosis) after which there is no other. For our mind (nous) is resurrected and raised up towards the blessed height at that time when it might contemplate the Unity and Monad of the Word.[5] But because our mind (nous), having being made gross, has been joined to the dust and is mixed up with the clay and is unable to gaze in bare contemplation, therefore, being guided by means of the adornments which are related to the body,[6] it understands the operations (energeies) of the Creator, and in the beginning it understands these from the results (apotelesmata), so that, thus having increased little by little, it might have the strength at some time to advance even to the naked Divinity itself. [24] I think that the following has been said according to this conception: ‘My Father is greater than I’, and ‘It is not mine to give but to those for whom it is prepared by the Father.’ For this is also Christ’s surrendering of the Kingdom to the God and Father, Christ being the beginning and not the end, according to the grosser, as I said, teaching, which is seen as towards us and not towards the Son Himself.[7]

Because this is so, again, in the Acts of the Apostles, to his disciples who are asking, ‘When will you restore the Kingdom to Israel,’ he says ‘It is not yours to know times and seasons which the Father has set in his own authority.’ That is, this sort of knowledge (gnosis) of the Kingdom is not for those who are joined to flesh and blood. This contemplation the Father has placed in his own authority, calling ‘authority’ those who are subjected to his authority, ‘his own’ those who do not participate in ignorance of the lower things. [25] Do not understand sensible ‘times’ and ‘seasons’ for me, but certain dimensions of knowledge (gnosis) occurring under the intelligible sun. For it is necessary that that prayer of our Master be brought to its end. For Jesus is he who prays: ‘Give them that they may be one in us just as you and I are one, Father.’ For being one, God, coming to be in each, makes all one and number is destroyed in the sojourn in the Monad.[8] [26] 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 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.

[1] This paragraph, with its rather straightforward interpretation of the ignorance of Christ, belongs, in our opinion, to Layer 2.

[2] In the Introduction, when we elided this sentence in our presentation of the notion of the interpolation of the following passage, we did not explain why we elided it. The reason is that although the words introductory, in our opinion, of Layer 3 start in the next sentence, the doctrine in this sentence may be ‘mature Evagrian’. It would be as if the author has put down this ‘mature Evagrian’ thought and then realized that he wants to give a very long, advanced explanation which requires a definite introduction. However, much depends on how one takes the distinction that the author is drawing between Jesus’ statement to the many and his statement to the Apostles: is this something that a pedestrian scriptural commentary would present to explain Jesus’ feigned ignorance, or is it an allusion to an esoteric doctrine for the perfect? In the former case, it could easily belong to Layer 2; in the latter case, it would belong to Layer 3.

[3] This is the beginning of what in the Introduction we called Passage A.

[4] In context, the author seems to mean natural contemplation.

[5] In view of the issue in Evagrius’ mature thought of the relationship between the Christ and the Word, this sentence needs to be studied. The relationship between the Christ, the Monad and Unity, and the Word are addressed in various chapters of the Kephalaia Gnostica.

[6] Evidently, these ‘adornments which are related to the body’ are the beauties of the material world which manifest the operations of the Creator.

[7] This sentence also requires study. It is important to realize that when Evagrius uses ‘as (ὡς)’, he is normally not being counterfactual. He is normally expressing intention or purpose on the part of the agent. ‘As (ὡς)’ is not the same as ‘as if (ὡς ἅν or ὡς εἰ)’, or ‘so to say’ and so on.

[8] Literally, ‘of the Monad’.

Section 2 — ¶5 [16] – 5 [18]

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:40:00 +0000

5 [16] And again: ‘My Father is greater than I.’ For the ungrateful creatures, the brood of the Evil One, also make use of this saying. I, then, even from this expression have believed the Son to be shown to be of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father. For I have known comparisons properly to be made in reference to the same nature. For we say that one angel is greater than another and that one man is more just than another and that one bird is faster than another. If, then, comparisons occur in reference to things of the same kind, and the Father is said to be greater than the Son, then the Son is of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father.[1] [17] There is also another meaning embedded in the saying. For why is it strange if he confessed the Father to be greater than himself, being the Word and having become flesh, at which time he was seen to be lesser than the angels in glory and [lesser] than men in comeliness? For he says: ‘He lowered him somewhat lower than the angels.’ And again: ‘Him who was lowered somewhat lower than the angels.’ And: ‘We saw him and he did not have comeliness or beauty, but his comeliness was wanting more than all men.’ [18] He bore with these things on account of his great love for mankind concerning his creature, so that he recover the lost sheep, and so that he combine that which was saved; and so that he lead healthy again to his familiar homeland him who descended from Jerusalem to Jericho and for that reason fell into the hands of robbers. Or does the heretic also despise the manger, by means of which he[2], being irrational, was nourished by the Word; or hold out the poverty, since the son of the carpenter could not afford a cradle? On account of this the Son is less than the Father, because for you he has become dead, so that he might set you free from death and make you a participant in heavenly life. Just as one might make a charge against the doctor that, stooping over the wounds so that he might heal the affected, he also enjoys the foul smell.[3]

[1] To here, this paragraph belongs, in our opinion, to Layer 2.

[2] I.e. the heretic, although not so much because he is heretical as because before he was baptized, he was irrational.

[3] ¶5 [17] – [18] seem to belong to Layer 3, although the doctrine at first sight does not seem to be terribly advanced. However, we have discussed in the Introduction, there are echoes of the doctrine of the Kephalaia Gnostica in this passage.

Section 2 — ¶4 [14] – 4 [15]

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:38:00 +0000

4 [14] Let us thus examine the words of Divine Scripture, as far it is possible for us, developing the meaning of them—those very words which those who are opposed offer to us, taking them and twisting them towards their own understanding for the overthrow of the glory of the Only-Begotten. And let there first be set before us: ‘I live on account of the Father.’ For this passage is one of the arrows which have been shot into Heaven by those who use it impiously. Here, then, the text, as I think, names not the life before time (for nothing which lives on account of another is able to be ‘self-living’, just as neither is that which is heated by another ‘self-heat’; but our Lord said: ‘I am the Life;’) but this life in the flesh and in time which has occurred to him, which he lived ‘on account of the Father’. For by the will of the Father, he has sojourned in the way of life of men; and he did not say ‘I lived on account of the Father,’ but ‘I live on account of the Father,’ clearly foretelling the present time.[1] [15] It is also possible to call ‘life’ that which Christ lives having the Word of God in himself.[2] And that this is what is made known we shall see from the conclusion. And he says: ‘He who eats me will live on account of me.’ For we eat his flesh and drink his blood when we become communicants by means of the Incarnation and of the sensible life of the Word and of Wisdom. For ‘flesh and blood’ he called his whole mystical sojourn; and he made known the teaching constituted from praktiki, physiki and theologiki,[3] by means of which the soul is nourished and in the meantime prepared for the contemplation of beings[4]. And perhaps this is what is made known by the text.

[1] To here, the passage (i.e. all of 4 [14]) is characteristic of Layer 2. However, the next paragraph (4 [15]) is characteristic of Layer 3. It is introduced by a phrase, ‘It is also possible to call “life”…’, characteristic of the introduction of a second interpretation of the passage of Scripture under consideration, which interpretation is indeed more sophisticated and Evagrian than the first. Indeed, if we are to take this passage to be part of Layer 2, or insist that it was written in Constantinople, we have to explain how it is that Evagrius has come to use the three stages of the spiritual life—praktiki, physiki and theologiki—characteristic of his mature thought (see for example Logos Praktikos 1, loc. cit.), to indicate that our goal is the contemplation of beings (onton), and to give an allegorical explanation of the body and blood of Our Saviour (cf. Gnostic 14, Constantine Vol. II, p. 360). This seems far too sophisticated a presentation of his mature doctrine to be thought an immature foreshadowing of his later thought.

[2] This sentence wants further study. One of the issues in Evagrius’ mature thought is the relation between the Christ and the Word of God. See Anathema 8, loc. cit.

[3] Praktiki, physiki and theologiki are the three stages of the Evagrian spiritual life. In a few words praktiki (‘the practical’) is the stage of overcoming the passions by means of keeping the commandments; this stage results in dispassion (apatheia). Physiki (‘the natural’) is the stage of natural contemplation, the contemplation of the reasons or essences (logoi) of created beings. Theologiki (‘the theological’) is the stage of union with God in contemplation. The stages are traversed by the mystic in the order given. See Logos Praktikos, Constantine Vol. II, Treatise on the Practical Life, Text, p. 15 ff.

[4] Created beings. The author is referring the natural contemplation.

Section 2 — ¶2 [4] – 3 [13]

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:37:00 +0000

2 [4] You, then, O divine and most beloved friends to me, guard yourselves from the shepherds of the Philistines, lest such a one unawares block your wells and make turbid the purity of the knowledge (gnosis) which concerns the faith. For this is ever their business: not to teach the more guileless souls from the Holy Scriptures but to pervert the truth by fallacies, from the wisdom which is outside [our Faith]. For he who introduces ‘unbegotten’ and ‘begotten’ into our Faith and proclaims him who always has been not to have existed at one time; and the Father [who is Father] ever and by nature to have become [the Father at some time] and the Holy Spirit not to be eternal—is he not openly a Philistine, envying the sheep of our Patriarch so that they not drink from the water which is pure and springs up to eternal life? But they draw the saying of the Prophet to themselves: ‘They abandoned me, the spring of living water, and hewed for themselves broken cisterns which will not be able to hold water.’ It is obligatory to confess God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, as the divine words and those who have comprehended them in a higher way have taught. [5] To those who insolently allege that we teach that ‘three-god’ [doctrine], let it be said that we confess one God not in number but in nature. For everything which is said to be one in number—this is not one in reality, neither is it simple in nature. But God is confessed by all to be simple and incomposite. Therefore God is not one in number. [6] What I am saying is of this sort: We say that the world is one in number but not one in nature; neither is it a simple object. For we divide it into the elements from which it has been constituted, into fire and water and air and earth. Again, man is called one in number. For we often say ‘one man’. But he is not a simple being since he is constituted of body and soul. Similarly, then, we say that the angel is also one in number but not one in nature, neither simple. For we understand the hypostasis of the angel to be substance plus sanctification. [7] If, then, every thing which is one in number is not one in nature; and that which is one in nature and simple is not one in number; and we, however, say that God is one in nature: how do they bring in number to us who have exiled it completely from that blessed and intelligible[1] nature? For number is of quantity; quantity, however, is yoked to the bodily nature; but we have believed that our Lord is the creator of bodies. For which reason every number refers to those things that have chanced to have their nature implicated in material and to be circumscribed, but ‘Monad’ and ‘Unity’ are significant of the simple and uncirumscribed substance. [8] Accordingly, he who confesses the Son of God or the Holy Spirit to be number or creature introduces unawares a nature which is implicated in material and circumscribed. I call ‘circumscribed’ not only the nature which is contained in place, but also that very nature that he who was going to produce it from non-being to being grasped with his foreknowledge, which nature it is also possible to grasp with science[2]. Every holy thing which has a circumscribed nature and which has its holiness acquired is not unreceptive of evil. But the Son and the Holy Spirit are a fountain of sanctification, from which the whole rational nature is sanctified in proportion to its virtue.

3 [9] And further, according to the true reasoning we say that the Son is neither similar nor dissimilar to the Father. For each of these is equally impossible. ‘Similar’ and ‘dissimilar’ are spoken of in reference to qualities; the divine, however, is free of quality. Confessing, then, identity of nature we both accept the ‘same in substance (homoousios)’ and avoid the composite, the God and Father according to substance having begotten the God and Son according to substance. For from this the ‘same in substance (homoousios)’ is shown. For the God according to nature is the same in substance (homoousios) as the God according to nature, since man is also called ‘god’, as: ‘I said that you are gods.’ And the demon is a god, as: ‘The gods of the nations are demons.’ But the former are called so by Grace; the latter falsely. Only God, then, is God according to substance. [10] When I say ‘only’, I make known the holy and uncreated substance of God. For ‘only’ is also said in reference to some man; and simply in reference to universal nature. In reference to some man, for example, as in reference to Paul, for only he was ravished to the Third Heaven and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for man to utter. In reference to universal nature, then, as when David says: ‘Man, as the grass are his days.’ For here he makes known not some one man, but the universal [human] nature. For every man is temporal and mortal. Thus we understand in reference to the [divine] nature these sayings also: ‘the only one having immortality,’ and ‘by the only wise God,’ and ‘No one is good except one, God.’ For here he declares ‘one’ to be identical to ‘only’. And: ‘he who only[3] has stretched out the Heavens’. And again: ‘You will bow down to the Lord your God and to him only will you offer worship.’ And: ‘There is no God except me.’ [11] For in Holy Scripture, ‘one’ and ‘only’ are said in reference to God [sc. the Father] not in contrast to the Son or to the Holy Spirit, but in reference to those who are not Gods but falsely so called. As: ‘The Lord only led them and there was not a strange god with them.’ And: ‘The sons of Israel destroyed the Baalim and the sacred groves of Astaroth and served the Lord only.’ And again Paul: ‘Just as there are many gods and many lords, but for us one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.’ [12] But here we seek how, having said ‘one God’, he was not satisfied with that phrase (for we said that in reference to God ‘only’ and ‘one’ make known the nature) but added ‘Father’ and made reference to ‘Christ’. I suppose, accordingly, that Paul, the vessel of election, did not think that it was enough to proclaim the Son and the Holy Spirit to be God only, which very thing he had made known by means of the phrase ‘one God,’ if he did not also make known by means of the addition of ‘Father’, him ‘from whom are all things’, and refer by means of the memorial of ‘Lord’, to the Word, him ‘through whom are all things’, and, again, by also taking up ‘Jesus Christ’ proclaim the Incarnation and portray the Passion and bring to light the Resurrection. For ‘Jesus Christ’ brings to light concepts such as these. [13] Wherefore before the Passion the Lord forswears to be proclaimed Jesus Christ and restrains his disciples so that they say to no one that he is Jesus the Christ. It lies before him who is completing the Dispensation, to permit them, after the Resurrection from the dead and the Ascension into Heaven, to proclaim him to be Jesus the Christ. Of this sort also is ‘So that they know you the only true God and him who you have sent, Jesus Christ,’ and ‘Believe in God and believe in me,’ the Holy Spirit everywhere securing our concept, lest advancing to both[4] we fall from both; and paying attention to the Theology[5], we despise the Dispensation; and there occur to us impiety on account of deficiency.[6]

[1] The author is contrasting the intelligible nature of God with the material nature of created objects. The polarity ‘intelligible’ and ‘in material’ is a basic feature of the philosophy being used here.

[2] This clause is difficult to construe because of its grammar, which may be corrupt. We have changed the gender of the relative pronoun from ὅ to ἥν so as to give the reading. What the author seems to be saying here is that he means by ‘circumscribed’ not only the material nature which is contained in place, but also the created intelligible nature which was known by God in his foreknowledge before he created it, which intelligible nature it is also possible for us men to comprehend by ‘science’—reasoning as opposed to the senses (since an intelligible nature is neither in a place nor comprehensible by the senses). This seems much more in accord with Cappadocian ontology than what the reading of the text would give—that the author’s statement can be comprehended by ‘science’. The author then goes on to speak of the intelligible object that is holy and to point out that because such an object is created, it is subject to change and in particular it is receptive of evil. It is not by nature holy as are the Son and the Holy Spirit, which are a fountain of holiness for all of the rational creation (the angels and men) in proportion to the virtue of each rational creature. What the author seems to mean is that the angels, which he has already described as substance plus sanctification, are not by nature holy but can fall into evil; and that the Son and Holy Spirit are a fountain of holiness for all the rational creation (angels and men) in proportion to each rational creature’s free exercise of virtue. This is a very strong doctrine of the free-will of the rational creature leading to that creature’s degree of sanctification through its own free exercise of virtue.

[3] Occasionally in the following citations, English style requires ‘alone’ instead of ‘only’ but we have used ‘only’ to maintain consistency with what the author is saying.

[4] I.e. the divinity of both the Father and the Son.

[5] ‘Theology’ here means the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in contrast to the doctrine of the Incarnation, here called the ‘Dispensation (oikonomia)’. The divinity of both the Father and the Son is a matter of Theology. The author is saying that to advance to the divinity of both the Father and the Son, in distinction to the divinity just of the Father, might cause us to lose both the Father and the Son—i.e. to lose our faith—because we attend to those things before we are ready; it might cause us to spend more time on the nature of the Holy Trinity than is warranted, to the detriment of our understanding of the Incarnation; and it might cause us to fall into impiety—i.e. wrong faith—on account of a defect in our understanding.

[6] We take this whole passage from the beginning of Section 2 to here (2 [4] to 3 [13]) to be in need of analysis of the extent to which it can be treated as part of Layer 2, or must be assigned to Layer 3. Although this passage does ostensibly have the form of commentary on passages of Scripture, it is in reality a far more sophisticated philosophical analysis of the oneness of God than we find in the simpler scriptural exegesis to follow. Moreover, many of the concepts concerning the relation of number to the Godhead are echoed in the Kephalaia Gnostica, including the references to the ‘Monad’ and ‘Unity’. See for example KG VI, 10 – 13. Finally, immediately after this passage, we seem to have the actual beginning of Layer 2: ‘Let us thus examine the words of Divine Scripture…’. We discuss this issue somewhat at the end of the Introduction.

Section 1 — ¶1 [1] – 1 [3]

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:35:00 +0000

1 [1] [1] I have many times wondered why you have at some time been affected towards us and whence you have been so much defeated by our small and little insignificance which perhaps has nothing lovable; and you encourage us with words and remind us of friendship and of the fatherland, attempting with paternal compassions to return us to yourselves just as some fugitives. I confess, then, that I have become a fugitive, and I do not deny it; and since you already desire to, you might learn the reason. [2] Certainly, having been wounded by the unforeseen, just as those who are terrified by sudden sounds I did not contain my thoughts but I left in flight and sojourned for some time away from you; and then, however, a certain desire for the divine dogmas and the philosophy which concerns them took hold of me. For I said: ‘How would I be able to rule the vice which dwells within us? Who then would become for me Laban, freeing me from Esau and teaching me the highest philosophy?’ [3] But since, with God, we reached the goal according to our strength, finding the vessel of election and the deep well, I say, the mouth of Christ, Gregory, allow us a bit of time, a bit, I ask: for we request, not embracing the way of life in the cities—neither has the Evil One escaped our notice, he who contrives by means of such things the deception for men—but judging that concourse to be most beneficial which is with the saints. For in saying something concerning the divine dogmas, and in more often hearing, we receive the habit of contemplations, difficult to put off. And those things which concern us are in this wise.

[1] The numbers without square brackets refer to the paragraph numbers in the edition of Courtonne, as provided in Basil 1 (see Bibliography). The numbers in square brackets refer to the paragraph numbers of Bunge as provided in Casiday.

Introduction - Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:33:00 +0000

Jerusalem is taken to be symbolic of the Restoration (apokatastasis), or, more precisely put, of the contemplation of the angels which is just prior to the sojourn in the Monad, which itself is identified by Evagrius with the Mount of Zion. Moreover, the expression ‘familiar homeland’, which is a literal translation of the text of the letter, then alludes to the doctrine that the Restoration (apokatastasis) is a return to the original state that the minds had before their fall from the Monad—as is clearly indicated by KG V, 6, above. The verb ‘descended’ in the passage of the letter under consideration would then refer to the descent of the fallen minds into bodies. Finally, the thieves that fall upon the traveller who has descended from Jerusalem to Jericho[1] are the demons. Elsewhere in the letter, as we have already pointed out, the author has spoken thus: ‘But because our mind (nous), having been made gross, has been joined to the dust and is mixed up with the clay and is unable to gaze in bare contemplation…’.

Given that there are, apart from the initial apologia, at least two layers in To the Caesareans…, a layer of straightforward scriptural exegesis that defends the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit (Layer 2) and a layer of more advanced Evagrian interpretation that has echoes of doctrines condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Synod (Layer 3), it cannot be argued that To the Caesareans… is the gold standard of Evagrius’ orthodoxy. Once one is permitted to use the Kephalaia Gnostica to assess To the Caesareans…, one detects passages in the letter that are not at all orthodox in any clear way. These passages need to be discussed. Moreover, given the existence of these passages, one can no longer assert that To the Caesareans… is an unequivocally orthodox work written under the nose of St Gregory in Constantinople. There is more to it, especially when the letter is compared to the Theological Orations. For some of the passages of Layer 3 under consideration have connections to the Anathemas of the Fifth Ecumenical Synod[2] whereas they find no echo in St Gregory’s Theological Orations.

One can see that a key element in the establishment of the School of Bunge’s interpretation of Evagrius is precisely to remove the possibility of interpreting Evagrius on the basis of the Kephalaia Gnostica—‘it is too difficult a work’—while simultaneously establishing that To the Caesareans… is an unequivocally orthodox work written under the watchful eye of St Gregory the Theologian and to be used as an orthodox template to re-interpret Evagrius. We have not done as much work comparing the Theological Orations to To the Caesareans… as we might, yet it is clear that here is the ‘sleight of hand that beguiles the audience’.

But as we said, we have no way of knowing when these interpolations, if that is what they are, were put into the text of the letter, and precisely by whom.

A full study of this problem would require a study of the writings of St Gregory the Theologian and St Basil the Great, so as to determine which elements of Section 2 Evagrius could have learned from either of these two Fathers. For example, in a philosophical discussion in Section 2 we find this:

If, then, everything which is one in number is not one in nature; and that which is one in nature and simple is not one in number; and we, however, say that God is one in nature: how do they bring in number to us who have exiled it completely from that blessed and intelligible nature? For number is of quantity; quantity, however, is yoked to the bodily nature; but we have believed that our Lord is the creator of bodies. For which reason every number refers to those things that have chanced to have their nature implicated in material and circumscribed, but ‘Monad’ and ‘Unity’ are significant of the simple and uncircumscribed substance. (¶2 [7].)

We find these concepts discussed in the Kephalaia Gnostica. What is not certain, however, is whether this passage of To the Caesareans… is to be assigned to Layer 2 or Layer 3. For it is conceivable that Evagrius might have learned such concepts from St Gregory and then used them in the original draft of the letter, retaining them throughout his whole literary life. It is also conceivable, on the other hand, that at least some of the elements of this particular passage pertain to his more mature thought and were not derived from St Gregory. It would require a study of St Gregory’s own writings to clarify the possibilities of interpretation of such passages as this in To the Caesareans…. In this regard, it should be remembered that St Maximos the Confessor was obliged in the Ambigua to clarify certain of St Gregory’s writings to give them a completely Orthodox and not Origenist interpretation.

However, in fact St Gregory does discuss number in relation to the Trinity in the Theological Orations. He does not use the above argument of To the Caesareans… that number pertains only to the created nature and not to the uncreated nature. He does not assign number only to the material or even intelligible created nature, reserving ‘Monad’ and ‘Unity’ for the godhead:

When, then, we should look towards the divine nature (theoteta), both the first cause and the monarchy are that which in us is imagined. But when we look towards those things in which the divine nature is, and those things from the first cause and existing from there timelessly and with equal glory, those things which are venerated are three.[3]

It would seem odd for St Gregory’s student to advance arguments of the sort that To the Caesareans… is advancing while St Gregory himself in the Theological Orations would ignore such arguments.

Given that before he came to Constantinople, Evagrius was in the circle of St Basil the Great, a complete study of the matter would also require study of similar elements in St Basil’s own writings. But then that would lead us to study the writings of St Basil’s brother, St Gregory of Nyssa.

A complete analysis of To the Caesareans… would be much work. In the footnotes to the translation, however, we will point out what we think are elements of Layer 3.

[1] Here taken by the author to be praktiki, although Jericho is treated in Peri Logismon 20 as a symbol of second natural contemplation

[2] In particular, see Anathemas 1, 2, 11, 14, and 15, loc. cit.

[3] SC 250 Oration 31 (= Theological Oration 5) 14, ll. 9 – 13, pp. 302 – 304.

Introduction - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:24:00 +0000

Let us now look at the actual content of Passage A, comparing it to the Theological Orations.

Let us consider this passage from Theological Orations 2:

How did I come to be in this state, O friends and initiates and fellow-lovers of the truth? I ran, then, as one who was going to see (katalepsomenos) God and thus I ascended the Mount and penetrated the cloud, going within material and material things and having turned to myself as much as is possible. When I looked on, then, I barely saw the hind parts of God, and this having been covered by the Rock, by the Word which was incarnated for us. And having stooped and peeked a little, I saw not the first and unmixed nature and that known in itself (in the Trinity, I say), and as much as remains within the first veil and is covered by the Cherubim—but as much as at the end arrives even to us. And this is, as far as I know, the grandeur which is in the creatures and in those things which are produced and managed by him, which the divine David calls ‘magnificence’. For these things are the hind parts of God, as many things as are, in the search for him, his identifying marks, just as the shadows and images of the sun on the water show the sun to feeble visions, it not being possible to look on the sun directly, the purity of the light defeating the sense. Thus you will do theology, then, even if you should be Moses and ‘the God of Pharaoh’, even if you should reach the Third Heaven in the manner of Paul and hear ‘unspeakable words’, even if you should come to be above Paul, of some angelic or archangelic order and place. For even if something is any celestial or supracelestial thing and by nature higher than us and closer to God, it is further from God and perfect intuitive comprehension (teleias katalepseos) than as much as it exceeds our composite and lowly and weighed-down mixture.[1]

First of all, let us note the critical editor’s remark that in this passage, St Gregory the Theologian is very close to St Gregory of Nyssa in the Life of Moses.[2]

Let us consider the structure of the mystical ascent as presented here by St Gregory the Theologian. The seeker ascends Mount Sinai and penetrates the cloud which covers the mountain. He goes beyond material and material things, turning into himself as much as is possible. He then looks on and sees the hind parts of God, having been covered by the Rock which is the Incarnate Word. But in this he sees not the actual nature of God (the Trinity) but the little that arrives even to Man. This little that arrives even to Man is the magnificence that is present in God’s creatures. This little is the identifying marks of the God who cannot directly be seen, just as we who have weak vision must be content with the reflections of the sun on the water since we cannot look directly on the sun. And this is the way we must do theology, of whatever spiritual height or attainment we might be—for every celestial or supracelestial being is further from the true knowledge of God than it is above us

Let us now see how the author of Passage A handles the same theme. Let us bear in mind that these two passages, if Passage A is genuinely of Evagrius in Constantinople, were written within a year or so of each other, the first passage by the teacher and the second by his student.

7 [21] The holy disciples of our Saviour, coming beyond contemplation[3] as it is possible to men, and having been purified by the word, seek the end, and desire to know the final blessedness, of which very thing our Lord declared both the angels and himself to be ignorant. On the one hand, he called ‘day’ the exact apprehension of the conceptions (epinoiai) of God; on the other hand, ‘hour’ the contemplation of the Monad and Unity, the notification of which things he granted only to the Father. … [22] If, therefore, whatever God is, is said to be known by God of himself and that which he is not, not to be known—then our Lord, according to the notion (kat’ epinoian) of the Incarnation and the grosser teaching, is not the final object of desire; and therefore our Saviour did not know the end and the final blessedness. ‘But neither the angels know,’ he 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.

Let us briefly mention the similarities. There is first of all the notion that the person must turn away from material things. That is a very strong feature of this school of mysticism.

The most obvious difference is the treatment of the nature of God who is the goal by St Gregory the Theologian as the Trinity. The author of Passage A, on the other hand, has a somewhat more Neoplatonic view that treats the Monad and Unity, identified with the Father, as the goal. The words we have translated ‘Monad’ and ‘Unity’ are technical terms in Neoplatonic philosophy used by Proclus for the highest aspect of the Godhead, here identified with the Father. A little later the author of Passage A uses related words which we have translated ‘only’ and ‘one’.

In Passage A, the Kingdom of Christ is the contemplation implicated in material things. It is to be surpassed so as to attain to the Kingdom of the Father, which is the final goal and blessedness. The Kingdom of the Father is the contemplation of the very Divinity, the contemplation of the ‘Monad’ and ‘Unity’.

St Gregory makes no such distinction in the passage quoted here or anywhere else in the Theological Orations. However, such distinctions are to be found in the Kephalaia Gnostica and in Evagrius’ other late works.

Moreover, St Gregory speaks of seeing the hind parts of God, that which the divine David calls the ‘magnificence’ which is to be found in the creatures, just as we see the reflections of the sun upon the waters. The author of Passage A on the other hand is explicit that when we proceed beyond seeing God in mirrors, or by means of alien things, ‘but we come forth to him as to ‘only’ and ‘one’, then we will see the final end’.

St Gregory is very diffident about the possibility of Man’s knowing the nature of God, whereas the author of Passage A is quite explicit that the contemplation of the very Divinity is the goal, a goal which is attainable.

It is as if the author of Passage A is relegating St Gregory the Theologian to the rank of beginner. That is hardly consistent with his being a student of St Gregory writing a year before St Gregory spoke the Theological Orations and expecting St Gregory to review his letter before he sends it to the brethren back home.

To continue, St Gregory teaches that he saw the hind parts of God while covered by the Rock which is the Incarnate Word.

The author of Passage A states that seen from the point of view of the Incarnation and the grosser teaching, ‘our Lord’—Jesus Christ—is not the end and the goal of the mystical ascent, but seen from the point of view of the Word, he is.

What could Passage A mean here? It might be thought that what the author means is that the human nature of the Christ is not our goal but his divine nature is. Even if we ignore the Kephalaia Gnostica which explicitly states that the Christ was not God in the beginning but is called so on account of his union with the Word,[4] still, the formulation of the author of Passage A is quite unusual from an Orthodox point of view. For from an Orthodox point of view, the person who is Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh: there was never a time when the human nature of Christ was a person apart from the person of the Word. Hence, there would be no reason for the mystic to seek in the mystical ascent the humanity of Christ apart from his Divinity: we want to meet Jesus Christ the person, and that person was always and only the Word of God.

So we have a situation in Passage A in which the humanity of Christ is not our goal but his Divinity is; and in which the Kingdom of Christ is the contemplation implicated in material things, to be surpassed so as to attain to the Kingdom of the Father, which is the contemplation of the Divinity, the contemplation of the ‘Monad’ and ‘Unity’.

If we identify the Kingdom of Christ, the contemplation implicated in material things, with the humanity of Christ, then it is distinguished from the Kingdom of the Father, the contemplation of the bare Divinity, identified with the Father, yes, but also with the Word, the Divinity of Christ. This is odd. Why would the Kingdom of Christ, the contemplation of the material creation, be identified with the humanity of Christ in contradistinction to the Kingdom of the Father, the contemplation of the Divinity, identified with the Father but also with the Word, the Divinity of Christ?

St Gregory makes no such elaborate distinctions.

The question then arises: well, if Evagrius wrote this a year before St Gregory wrote the Theological Orations, then how is it that he is making these distinctions? How is it that St Gregory accepted these distinctions as being genuinely Orthodox without adopting them in his own Orations?

The more natural explanation is that the author of Passage A is advancing a different Christology here, one developed at great length in Evagrius’ late works, especially the Kephalaia Gnostica.

In other words, a detailed reflection on the Theological Orations of St Gregory in comparison with Passage A indicates that Passage A was not written under the watchful eye of St Gregory: if the passage is by Evagrius it was written much later, when he was working on works such as the Kephalaia Gnostica.

And here we have a modest theory what happened. Evagrius learned the mysticism of St Gregory from St Gregory and then went to Egypt. There he was initiated into a ‘higher mystical doctrine’, validated by experience, which surpassed the mysticism of St Gregory: he realized that St Gregory had only reached a lower level and not the direct contemplation of the ‘Monad’ and ‘Unity’, as he himself had. So he surpassed St Gregory’s doctrine with his own additions. This seems to have entailed a re-interpretation of the Christ. Our personal view, for what it is worth, is that in this his teacher was Didymus the Blind. The result? Evagrius was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Synod. St Gregory is the Theologian.

Let us look again at these two passages in Passage A concerning points of view of the Christ:

If, therefore, whatever God is, is said to be known by God of himself and that which he is not, not to be known—then our Lord, according to the notion (kata ten … epinoian) of the Incarnation and the grosser teaching, is not the final object of desire; and therefore our Saviour did not know the end and the final blessedness.

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. [23] Our Lord, however, is himself the end and final blessedness according to the notion (kata ten epinoian) of the Word.

Just what does the author of Passage A mean from a Christological point of view? If we take into consideration KG IV, 18, quoted earlier, then one interpretation is that the author is saying the same thing here: the Christ as seen from the point of view of the created mind (nous) which, united to the Word of God, took on human flesh for the salvation of men is not the final object of desire; but the Word to which that mind (nous) called the Christ is united is the final object of desire. Consider the following passages of the Kephalaia Gnostica:

III, 72 The heritage of Christ is the gnosis of the Unity; and, if all should become coheirs of Christ, all will know the Holy Unity. But it is not possible that they should become his coheirs if they have not previously become his heirs.[5]

IV, 21 The unction either indicates the gnosis of the Unity or designates the contemplation of beings. And if more than the others Christ is anointed, it is evident that he is anointed with the gnosis of the Unity. On account of that, he alone is said ‘to be seated at the right’ [Mark 16, 19] of his Father, the right which here, according to the rule of the gnostics, indicates the Monad and the Unity.[6]

These passages create a serious caution for the student of the To the Caesareans…. Although the letter is adamant that the Word of God, the Son, is God, it does not automatically follow that the author believes that the Christ is that Word of God incarnated into human flesh. That is a different doctrine, one which the author might or might not hold.

Fr Gabriel Bunge takes the position that since To the Caesareans… was written under the eye of St Gregory the Theologian in Constantinople, all the concepts expressed in it are orthodox.[7] In his view, we cannot use an interpretation of the Kephalaia Gnostica which yields a heterodox Evagrius to interpret this letter: on the contrary we must use the fact that To the Caesareans… is orthodox to interpret the Kephalaia Gnostica in an orthodox way. This is what Dr Casiday calls ‘the presumption of Evagrius’ orthodoxy’.[8]

However, what we are saying is that since we have no documentary evidence that St Gregory approved of the letter in the form we now have it, we can use the doctrines found in the Kephalaia Gnostica—much more clearly than either Fr Gabriel or Dr Casiday care to admit—to shed light on the meaning of passages in the letter, and even to raise the possibility that some passages of the letter, expressive of mature Evagrian doctrine as found in the Kephalaia Gnostica, are in fact late interpolations into the letter, perhaps by Evagrius, perhaps by one of his circle. In any event, it cannot blithely be asserted that the author’s reasoning is inherently orthodox both in the letter and throughout his life, and must be presumed to be orthodox, because of Evagrius’ early association with St Basil the Great and St Gregory the Theologian. At the very least the matter has to be thoroughly revealed through research.

Let us continue to look at the content of Passage A.

The passage contains a succinct description of first natural contemplation, the contemplation of the angels themselves and of their reasons (logoi):

‘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.

In the Evagrian system, first natural contemplation is a very advanced stage of contemplation, just prior to the mystic’s entry into the contemplation of the Divinity.[9] The two parts of first natural contemplation are the intuitive sight of the actual angels themselves[10] and the intuitive apprehension of the reasons (logoi) of the angels’ ministry,[11] what the angels are all about.

This brief reference in Passage A to first natural contemplation is far more than an immature foreshadowing of a later mystical system; it is a very sophisticated, concise description of a major part of that system. Moreover, there is no such doctrine of first natural contemplation in the Theological Orations. Hence, the assertion that Evagrius wrote the whole text of To the Caesareans… in Constantinople at the age of 35 before he went to Egypt is problematical.

Next is this part of Passage A:

…But because our mind (nous), having being made gross, has been joined to the dust and is mixed up with the clay and is unable to gaze in bare contemplation, therefore being guided by means of the adornments which are related to the body[12] it understands the operations (energeies) of the Creator, and in the beginning it understands these from the results (apotelesmata), so that, thus having increased little by little, it might have the strength at some time to advance even to the naked Divinity itself. (¶7 [23].)

Consider the first part of this sentence: ‘our mind (nous), having been made gross’. The text has the aorist participle pachyntheis. The author of the text is introducing a temporal sequence of events in a very concise way. Given this temporal sequence, we can see this passage as an allusion to the doctrine of the pre-existence of the minds (noes) and their descent into bodies. This doctrine was condemned in Anathema 1 of the Fifth Ecumenical Synod.[13]

In other respects, this excerpt from Passage A is a very concise presentation of the Evagrian doctrine of the mystical ascent to God through second natural contemplation, apart from our reservations about terminology that we discussed earlier.

These concepts are not to be found in the Theological Orations of Evagrius’ teacher.

The preceding discussion of passages of To the Caesareans… raises the issue of the status of the Kephalaia Gnostica in the interpretation of To the Caesareans…, or more generally put, the issue of what works are most representative of Evagrius the thinker. Some scholars emphasize both the orthodoxy of To the Caesareans…, as written under the watchful eye of St Gregory the Theologian in Constantinople, and its normative role in the orthodox interpretation of Evagrius’ later works, especially the Kephalaia Gnostica. However, once we view To the Caesareans… as a more heterogeneous work which may contain much later elements of Evagrius’ thought than what he would have espoused in Constantinople as a student of the author of the Theological Orations, then we can raise the question of whether we should not be using the Kephalaia Gnostica to interpret To the Caesareans….

For it is from a familiarity with Evagrius’ later works that the reader can spot elements of Layer 3 of the letter that might reflect Evagrius’ later heterodox views on cosmology—or indeed even his later orthodox views on contemplation.

Let us give another example:

…For it is necessary that that prayer of our Master be brought to its end. For Jesus is he who prays: ‘Give them that they may be one in us just as you and I are one, Father.’ For being one, God, coming to be in each, makes all one and number is destroyed in the sojourn in the Monad.[14] (¶7 [25].)

The last sentence of this excerpt is a clear allusion to the doctrine of the Restoration (apokatastasis), when all the minds (noes) will become one in such a way that there will a loss of number—i.e. a loss of individual characteristics—among the individual minds. Now one might suppose that the sentence should be taken as a statement that when a person has a mystical experience, then he subjectively feels the unity of all Creation and all men. However, such a subjectivism would be completely foreign to the philosophical and spiritual tradition of which Evagrius was a part, from Plato through Aristotle through the Cappadocians. Admittedly, the author’s construction ‘epidemia tes monados’, which we have rendered ‘sojourn in the Monad’, is grammatically difficult to render, but a familiarity with the Kephalaia Gnostica immediately raises the question whether the author is not alluding to the Restoration (apokatastasis).

The issue here is this: Should we assume, on the basis of his association with St Gregory and St Basil, that Evagrius is orthodox and give him the benefit of the doubt in interpreting such passages as these of To the Caesareans…, and then continue with that orthodox interpretation into the Kephalaia Gnostica, denying the a posteriori template that the Anathemas of the Fifth Ecumenical Synod supposedly put on the Kephalaia Gnostica?

We ourselves think that when one has a familiarity with the Kephalaia Gnostica, even in the French of Guillaumont, then when he is reading To the Caesareans…, he can easily spot allusions to the system of the Kephalaia Gnostica. It does not seem to us methodologically sound to impose on Evagrius the a priori template of orthodoxy. We must confront the issue that the Kephalaia Gnostica, taken on its own terms, can tell us something about what Evagrius thought, even in To the Caesareans….

Let us illustrate what we are saying with another passage from To the Caesareans…, this time not from Passage A but from another part of the letter:

He bore with these things on account of his great love for mankind concerning his creature, so that he recover the lost sheep, and so that he combine that which was saved; and so that he lead healthy again to his familiar homeland him who descended from Jerusalem to Jericho and for that reason fell into the hands of robbers. … (¶5 [18].)

The author of this passage uses an unusual word in context, katamixei (καταμίξῃ), for what he expects Jesus to do with the lost sheep that Jesus has recovered. We have rendered that word ‘combine’. A person familiar with the Kephalaia Gnostica can immediately detect an allusion here to the Restoration (apokatastasis), when all the minds will enter without individual characteristics into the henad of naked minds, just as we have discussed above.

Moreover, the author immediately goes on to use another Gospel image, that of the traveller who descended from Jerusalem to Jericho. In the Kephalaia Gnostica we find this:

VI, 49 Egypt signifies vice; the desert, praktiki; the land of Judah, the contemplation of bodies; Jerusalem, [the contemplation] of incorporeals; and Zion is the symbol of the Trinity[15].

V, 88 Zion is the sign of the first gnosis[16], and Egypt is the indication of all vice; but the symbol of the [first] natural contemplation is Jerusalem, where is the Mount of Zion, the summit of the city.

V, 6 The contemplation of angels is named the celestial Jerusalem and the Mount of Zion, for if those who have believed in Christ draw near to the Mount of Zion and to the City of the Living God, then it is in the contemplation of angels that those who have believed in Christ have been and will be, that contemplation from which their fathers have gone out and descended into Egypt.

As can be seen, the image of the descent from Jerusalem to Jericho is pregnant with meaning in Evagrius’ mature system.

[1] SC 250 Oration 28 (= Theological Oration 2) 3, 1 – 26, pp. 104 – 106.

[2] Ibid. fn. 2, pp. 106 – 107.

[3] In context, the author seems to mean natural contemplation.

[4] IV 18 The intelligible unction is the spiritual gnosis of the Holy Unity, and the Christ is he who is united to this gnosis. And if that is so, the Christ is not the Word in the beginning, so that he who has been anointed is not God in the beginning, but that one on account of this one is the Christ, and this one on account of that one is God.

[5] Constantine Volume II, p. 387.

[6] Ibid. p. 392.

[7] Personal Communication. We are summarizing our understanding of what Fr Gabriel wrote to us. But this point of view is also to be found in Casiday, which is dedicated to Fr Gabriel. See Casiday p. 30: ‘In the light of how trenchantly orthodox Evagrius is shown to have been by his letter On the Faith [= To the Caesareans…] … it seems far more sensible to begin our attempts to understand his admittedly obscure writings from the presumption of his Cappadocian orthodoxy than to work backward from the presumption of Origenist heresy.’

[8] Loc. cit.

[9] For a discussion of the cognitive psychology of these stages of contemplation, see Peri Logismon 41. Discussions of this stage of contemplation can be found in the Kephalaia Gnostica. For a discussion of specific chapters of the Kephalaia Gnostica which pertain to the stages of contemplation, see our ‘Digression’ in the Evagrian Ascetical System (Constantine Vol. II).

[10] This is the intelligible intuitive apprehension of a created intelligible being with mind. ‘Intuitive’ is meant in the philosophical sense, precisely in the way the conclusion of the letter asserts that the mind (nous) has been created by God to grasp its own materials without being taught. This is not a matter of discursive meditation on the angels or of seeing them in fantasy.

[11] The intuitive apprehension of the reasons (logoi) of the ministry of the angels is by analogy with the intuitive apprehension of the reason (logos) of a material object in second natural contemplation. For a full discussion, see Peri Logismon 41.

[12] Evidently, these ‘adornments which are related to the body’ are the beauties of the material world which manifest the operations (energeies) of the Creator.

[13] See Constantine Vol. I, Chap. 3, Section 11, ‘Anathemas of the Fifth Ecumenical Synod’, p. 243 ff.

[14] Literally, ‘of the Monad’.

[15] I.e. the contemplation of the Trinity.

[16] I.e. Theology, mystical union with God.

Introduction - Part 2c

noreply@blogger.com (Timios Prodromos) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:21:00 +0000

In regard to this question of whether Layer 3 constitutes immature foreshadowings of Evagrius’ later mystical doctrine, let us consider the following excerpt from Passage A:

Because this is so, again, in the Acts of the Apostles, to his disciples who are asking, ‘When will you restore the Kingdom to Israel,’ he says ‘It is not yours to know times and seasons which the Father has set in his own authority.’ That is, this sort of knowledge (gnosis) of the Kingdom is not for those who are joined to flesh and blood. This contemplation the Father has placed in his own authority, calling ‘authority’ those who are subjected to his authority, ‘his own’ those who do not participate in ignorance of the lower things. [25] Do not understand sensible ‘times’ and ‘seasons’ for me, but certain dimensions of knowledge (gnosis) occurring under the intelligible sun.

Consider this passage of the Kephalaia Gnostica:

III, 44 The intelligible sun is the reasonable nature which contains in itself the first and blessed light.

Here we have a passage of the Kephalaia Gnostica which explains terminology used in To the Caesareans…. Are we to take this to mean that Evagrius wrote Passage A in a groping way in Constantinople and throughout the remainder of his life kept the notion of ‘intelligible sun’, returning near the end of his life to provide a definition in the Kephalaia Gnostica? Or that Passage A was written by Evagrius near the end of his life? Or that someone else who had read the Kephalaia Gnostica wrote Passage A?

This excerpt from Passage A contains a succinct description of the mature Evagrian doctrine that the spiritual knowledge (gnosis) of God that is the seeker’s goal depends not on the Christ but on the Father. That is the significance of the ‘authority of the Father’; the ‘ignorance of the lower things’ seems to refer either to those who are accomplished in natural contemplation or to those who have surpassed it. Moreover, in the doctrine of the Kephalaia Gnostica, the only intelligible sun (and even in Evagrius there is only one sun, not a plethora) is the Christ.

Can this excerpt from Passage A legitimately be called a mystical groping brought to fruition in Egypt under the tutelage of the Desert Fathers?