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The Praktikos ; Chapters on prayer

door Evagrius Ponticus

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The living link through whom the ascetic principles of hellenistic philosophers passed into monasticism, Evagrius molded Christian asceticism through his own works and through his influcence on John Cassian, Climacus, Pseudo-Denis, and Saint Benedict.
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It’s best not to study condemned heretics.
  photios | Jul 15, 2019 |
“For vainglory has a frightful power to cover over and cast virtues into the shade. Ever searching out praise from men, it banishes faith” (13).

I have finished The Praktikos and am struck again by the lucidity of the Early Christian writing. Like so many of the desert mothers and fathers, Evagrius displays a single-mindedness toward God and relationship with God.

Turning to the book, Evagrius’ demonology, his writing on the eight kinds of evil thought, and the virtue of apatheia represent the three themes that have stuck with me most from this reading.

The eight kinds of evil thoughts involves Evagrius’ demonology. Interestingly, in the Introduction, the editor notes that for Evagrius, “demons represent a source and influence that is distinct from the mere intrinsic psychology of the human soul, a kind of added dimension of the affective life. It also assumes that, though the world of demons is separate from the world of the passions, yet it is in continuity with it, and follows laws analogous to the psychological laws of man’s nature” (9).

The editor cites chapter 50 of The Praktikos, which reads,

“If there is any monk who wishes to take the measure of some of the more fierce demons so as to gain experience in his monastic art, then let him keep careful watch over his thoughts. Let him observe their intensity, their periods of decline and follow them as they rise and fall. Let him note well the complexity of his thoughts, their periodicity, the demons which cause them, with the order of their succession and the nature of their associations. Then let him ask from Christ the explanations of these data he has observed. For the demons become thoroughly infuriated with those who practice active virtue in a manner that is increasingly contemplative” (30).

So from this, the reader learns that the demon interacts with the psyche and inclines it to sin. The demon causes the thought that leads to sin. This, for me, somehow makes the notions of demons more real. Instead of a little guy with a pitchfork running around looking to hop inside of someone, we are presented with a demon, a pervasive evil—for example, gluttony, impurity, avarice, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory, and pride—that hunts us out and seeks to incline our hearts toward their sin.

How does one combat the demons? Well the person “despises not only the demon he conquers, but also these kinds of thoughts [the demon] causes in us” (25). So one hates the demon of impurity, yes, but also the continuing presence of the impure thought within the person for it is both evidence of the demon’s handiwork and of our acquiescence to it.

It is worth noting that the demons are also overcome by praying to Jesus, as mentioned in the extended quote from page 30 above. The editor says that Evagrius “simply assumes that Christ would have an interest in assisting such a monk [i.e., the one who has observed his thoughts] to interpret his findings, for it would obviously be an aid to spiritual growth.” The editor continues,

“Once again there is a profoundly orthodox theology behind such an assumption, a theology that accepts the nature of man in its operations as a sacrament of union with Christ. If this point were better appreciated, perhaps there would be less criticism of the tendency of the Desert Fathers generally, and Evagrius in particular, to employ themselves excessively in the understanding of the passions and the heart of man, and insufficiently with the love of God. For them such understanding assured that their love of God was genuine, not based on self-deception or evasion, but on a courageous and humble encounter with the forces of good and evil that aided or barred the way to their ascent. Once the obstacles are removed through intelligent, ascetic effort, directed where insight leads, the grace of Christ will flower fully into a love of God that is ineffable. This is the unexpressed preconception that underlies [Evagrius’] study of psychology, and his demonology as well” (9–10).

Moving on, the eight kinds of evil thought represent the foundation of all sin. They are listed above—gluttony, impurity, avarice, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory, and pride—and represent the work of the corresponding eight demons.

Evagrius’ words on acedia are important. Acedia, “also called the noonday demon” (cf. Pslam 91:6), “causes the most serious trouble of all,” according to Evagrius. Acedia is the demon that “makes it seem that the sun barely moves, if at all, and that the day is fifty hours long.” Ah, yes, I know that demon, he appears in my cubicle at about 1:30 every day. After inspiring much boredom, acedia “leads [a person] to reflect that charity has departed from among the brethen, that there is no one to give encouragement. . . . This demon drives him along to desire other sites where he can more easily procure life’s necessities, more readily find work and make a real success of himself” (18–19).

Moving on to the notion of apatheia, or a state of peacefulness of the soul, Evagrius counsels his readers on how to combat the demons. First, he says that “[h]unger, toil, and solitude are the means of extinguishing the flames of desire” (20). He then advises, “When you are tempted do not fall immediately to prayer. First utter some angry words against the one who afflicts you. The reason for this is found in the fact that your soul cannot pray purely when it is under the influence of various thoughts. By first speaking out in anger against them you confound and bring to nothing the devices of the enemy. To be sure this is the usual effect of anger even upon more worthy thoughts” (27)—that final sentence represents an important warning against anger in all its forms.

The editor writes in a footnote, “Though this approach has been sharply criticized, yet there is a very real value in it, at least to this extent that sharp identification of the precise nature of our thoughts gives us a decided advantage in our efforts to work with or against them as the case may be” (28n45). Evagrius has another book entitled Antirrheticus—in English, Talking Back—in which he lists certain biblical passages to use against the offending demon.

Concerning the “two peaceful states of the soul,” Evagrius writes,

“The one arises from the natural basic energies of the soul and the other from the withdrawal of the demons. Humility together with compunction and tears, longing for the Infinite God, and a boundless eagerness for toil—all these follow upon the first type. . . . The monk who preserves intact the territory of the first state will perceive with greater sensitivity the raids made upon it by the demons” (32).

This peacefulness of the soul leads to apatheia, which is apparently borrowed from the stoics, but strikes me as being rather akin to Zen. He says that the soul at peace “has no images of the things of this world at the time of prayer” and that “[t]he soul which has apatheia is not simply the one which is not disturbed by changing events but the one which remains unmoved at the memory of them as well” (34).

The book concludes with some saying of the desert mothers and father; I include one here.

“A certain member of what was then considered the circle of the wise once approached the just Anthony and asked him: ‘How do you ever manage to carry on, Father, deprived as you are of the consolation of books?’ His reply: ‘My book, sir philosopher, is the nature of created things, and it is always at hand when I wish to read the words of God’” (39).

Another story from the desert is about a man who affirms his father’s immortality at his father’s funeral. The footnote reads, “We know from elsewhere this refers to Evagrius himself” (40n66). And that’s causes me to stop and think, “Wow, I’m reading one of the Desert Fathers.” What a great gift it is to have preserved and translated and available the writings of the first generations of Christians. Thanks be to God.

* Citations reference page numbers in the Cistercian Publications edition of the text, not paragraph numbers.
___

In Chapters on Prayer, Evagrius continues his themes from The Praktikos: renunciation, purity in prayer, combating distractions and demons, and watchfulness featuring heavily.

The book begins with the claim that “[p]rayer is a continual intercourse of the spirit with God” (3). This language of intimacy prepares one for the single-minded vision that Evagrius has for the life of prayer. He advises first to prayer for compunction, the gift of tears, so that one can be moved to repentance. Once repentance comes, one is to “[s]trive to render your mind deaf and dumb at the time of prayer and then you will be able to pray” (11). What Evagrius envisions in the fourth century is essentially a model for contemplative prayer in which one must sit still in the midst of God’s presence, allowing distractions to fall away without engagement.

“What else is there that is good besides God alone?” (33) One can mull this over for hours, but the upshot is that where there is good (whether the beauty of nature or the fidelity of a spouse, for example), there is an outworking of God’s presence. Returning to the theme of perseverance in the midst of distraction, Evagrius continues, “For what greater thing is there than to converse intimately with God and to be preoccupied with his company? Undistracted prayer is the highest act of the intellect” (34). Thus the intellect is most fully alive when it is without those things that distract if from God. (Which, of course, must cause us to raise questions about our present technocracy in America.) Freedom from distraction comes, for Evagrius, through freedom from the passions (e.g., gluttony, impurity, avarice, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory, and pride), ignorance, and temptation (37). When freed from these things we are free to pray for self and other, thus pursuing justice (38).

In chapter 60, Evagrius offers a simple, yet complex, statement: “If you are a theologian you truly pray. If you truly pray you are a theologian.” The translator includes a footnote that claims this passage is key to understanding Evagrius’ “identification of contemplation with prayer” (n32). For Evagrius, the key to theologianhood is not one’s ability to say things about God but upon one’s ability to renounce all to be in God’s midst.

Chapter 75 mentions “negligence” and the translator included a footnote that points out how “[n]egligence is the source of the first sin and the fall” (n37). Evagrius says time and again (especially in The Praktikos) that we must be on guard against entities that keep us from God, but this footnote makes its importance clear: neglecting watchfulness is the root of all sin for if we were watchful, we would see the temptation coming. So we need to be aware of what’s happening in and around us.

Evagrius talks about stories of various holy people in chapters 106–109. Two were especially of interest:

“108. Doubtless you have also heard of the monks of Tabennisi. It is related that, on one occasion when Abbot Theodore was speaking to the brethren, two vipers crawled up right between his feet. Well, he remained undisturbed and made a kind of arch of his feet to keep them there till he should finish his talk. Only then did he show them to the brethren and told them what had happened.

“109. There was another spiritual man about whom we have read. While he was praying one day a viper crawled up to him and seized his foot. He did not so much as lower his arms until he finished his customary prayer, and he suffered no harm whatever from thus loving God above his own self.”

It is worth asking, with Evagrius, “What are my vipers?” What are the things that seek to harm us that we are able to withstand because of our faith in God? …Incidentally, the Gospel reading on Sunday was the Rejection at Nazareth, where Jesus could not perform signs due to the lack of faith he found in Nazareth, which James Martin identified as a very religious place. This story forces us to ask ourselves how welcoming we are to the power of Jesus in the midst of so much platitude-driven religiousity in America.

Evagrius concludes with the affirmation that if we seek prayer, we will find it, which is comforting, given the degree to which his model seems unattainable. ( )
  katzenmicd | May 23, 2016 |
6
  OberlinSWAP | Aug 1, 2015 |
SERIES: CISTERCIAN STUDIES SERIES: NUMBER FOUR; CHAPTER NOTES; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX OF PERSONS; GENERAL INDEX
  saintmarysaccden | Feb 20, 2013 |
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Evagrius Ponticusprimaire auteuralle editiesberekend
Bamberger, John EudesRedacteurSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd

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The living link through whom the ascetic principles of hellenistic philosophers passed into monasticism, Evagrius molded Christian asceticism through his own works and through his influcence on John Cassian, Climacus, Pseudo-Denis, and Saint Benedict.

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