PARTICIPATING IN DIVINE SIMPLICITY: APOPHATIC THEOLOGY AND

APATHEIA IN THE THOUGHT OF EVAGRIUS PONTICUS

by

Michael J. Pilato

A Thesis
Submitted to the Faculty of
Eden Theological Seminary
in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Theological Studies

St. Louis, Missouri

May 2014
 APPROVAL PAGE

PARTICIPATING IN DIVINE SIMPLICITY: APOPHATIC THEOLOGY AND

APATHEIA IN THE THOUGHT OF EVAGRIUS PONTICUS

by

Michael J. Pilato

Eden Theological Seminary

Saint Louis, Missouri

Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Adam Ployd

___________________________________ ___________________
Signature Date

Second Reader: Dr. Warren Crews

___________________________________ ___________________
Signature Date
 ABSTRACT

The purpose of this thesis was to explore how Evagrius’ apophatic approach to the knowledge of
God informs his ascetical concept of apatheia, a fusion of doctrinal reflection and spirituality. I
examined Evagrius’ texts using the methods of Gadamer and Kierkegaard – literary and
philosophical analysis. Evagrius constructed his theology by writing axioms meant to be
meditated. I found that Evagrius’ apophatic framework is undergirded by his doctrine of God’s
incomprehensibility/indescribability, monist theory of mind, theory of contemplative prayer, and
spiritual exegesis of scripture. This involves negating multiple disordered thoughts in order to
participate in divine simplicity, in the oneness of God. I concluded that Evagrius’ apophatic,
contemplative approach to theology/doctrine facilitates his teaching of apatheia – the practice of
negating multiple desires to mystically experience divine union. Essentially in doing so,
Evagrius unites mysticism and asceticism, theological construction and spiritual experience. His
apophatic asceticism is a fully integrated theology consisting of spiritualized thought and action.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter

1. INTRODUCTION, METHODOLOGY, AND CONTEXT OF EVAGRIUS’

THOUGHT..................................................................................................................... 1

Methodology………………………………………………………………………… 4

Evagrius’ Theological Context………………………………………………………… 6

2. EVAGRIUS’ APOPHATIC THEOLOGY AND DIVINE SIMPLICITY………… 10

Evagrius’ Reflective Texts………………………………………………………… 12

Apophatic Theology and Evagrius’ Doctrine of God’s Indescribability…………… 13

Apophaticism and Evagrius’ Monist Theory of the Mind…………………………… 19

Apophatic Theology and Evagrius’ Theory of Contemplative Prayer……………….. 29

Apophatic Theology and Evagrius’ Spiritual Exegesis……………………………….. 37

3. APOPHATICISM IN PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE: EVAGRIUS’ ASCETICAL

GOAL OF APATHEIA………………………………………………………………… 45

Apatheia as a Dispositional Discipline………………………………………………… 49

Apatheia as Mystical Experience……………………………………………………… 53

4. CONCLUSION, EVAGRIUS’ MONASTIC INFLUENCE, AND PATRISTIC TO

MODERN RELEVANCE…………………………………………………………….. 59

BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………. 64

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 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION, METHODOLOGY, AND CONTEXT OF EVAGRIUS’ THOUGHT

“If you are a theologian you truly pray, if you truly pray you are a theologian.” 1 This

statement by the fourth century monk and theologian Evagrius Ponticus encapsulates his

ascetical theory that merges theological knowledge with spiritual practice. Evagrius constructed

an expansive apophatic theology2 that consisted of negating complex thought and cultivating the

discipline and experience of apatheia3 in contemplative prayer.4 The mind and the heart are

unified in his theology of exhorting godly desire and godly thought. As a seminal monastic

theologian of the fourth century, Evagrius wrote a variety of meditative texts communicating a

participatory method of theology meant to cultivate spiritual progress. This involves meditating

and contemplating on spiritual axioms or proverbs derived from scripture, philosophy, and the

theological traditions of the early Church. They are then transcended to purely experience God’s

indescribable presence. For Evagrius what is central to his thought is how the human being can

1
Evagrius, “Chapters on Prayer,” in Evagrius Ponticus: The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer,
trans. John Eudes Bamberger (Trappist: Cistercian Publications Inc., 2006), 60.
2
Apophatic Theology: From the Greek, apophemi, meaning “to deny;” via negativa, “the way of
negation” in Latin. This theology centers on negating positive categories and definitions about
God in order to experience the indescribable Divine simplicity. Revelation is conceived in this
theology as a stepping stone to God, an instrument of divine knowledge rather than as absolute
knowledge of God’s actual essence. Evagrius himself never uses this term, but it is a helpful
distinction and tool to understand his thought.
3
Apatheia: Greek word meaning “without” “suffering” or “passion,” typically translated as
“passionlessness.” This does not relate to the modern word, “apathy,” but means a controlling of
the passions and emotions; similar to self-composure. It is a state of mind in which images and
passions do not distract one in prayer.
4
Contemplative Prayer (Contemplatio): In the monastic tradition this is a form of prayer that
entails silent, wordless reflection that takes place after a mental prayer. It is directly related to
Evagrius’ apophatic theology by mentally connecting to God within that casts off external focus.

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attain divine knowledge given that God is incomprehensible. His Christian epistemology5 entails

participating in the sanctified life in which God is apprehended through simplicity of thought and

action - the mind is freed from multiple attachments to know God experientially.

Evagrius Ponticus fused Christian knowledge and practice into a specific theological

system of negating the will’s tendency to categorize and envision God. This is to facilitate

ascetical contemplation in which God is constantly in the mind’s eye for a spirit-centered outer

life of self-detached virtue. It is so that the inner life and outer life are both made spiritual. The

key theological concepts to understand Evagrius’ system are his apophatic approach to the

knowledge of God in contemplative prayer and his corresponding outer ascetical discipline and

inner mystical experience of apatheia. These approaches comprise his ascetic spirituality of

union with the divine simplicity by practicing simplicity. This thesis will establish that

Evagrius’ apophatic theology – the intellectual negation of the divine through contemplation –

informs his ascetical and mystical prescription/description of apatheia, which negates the

passions to attain spiritual singularity. Evagrius fuses the two for the purpose of cultivating a

theology that ascends from the intellect to the heart.

Examining Evagrius’ ascetical system will consist of centering on the heart of the

monastic conception of Christian epistemology in which knowing God is obtained through inner

experience. This is a participatory theology that evolved from the ascetic teachings of the desert

monks: an applied spirituality of knowing God by relinquishing complex thought and self-desire

to participate in God’s presence through contemplation and constant virtuous practice. This

5
Epistemology (theory of knowledge) is a general term I am using to highlight Evagrius’
specific apophatic knowledge of God instead of imposing a preconceived philosophical notion of
the theory of knowledge on his writings.

2
question of how Evagrius developed the first fully constructed apophatic theology matters

because it highlights the mystical character of the early monastic tradition. He communicates the

goal of theology as experiential knowledge: to be in unity with God via prayerful ascetic

disciplines, as is the case in his mode of apatheia. Evagrius’ works provided a

monastic/ascetical framework that enhanced how Christians approached knowing God: a theory-

practice-knowledge process that presents theology as an inner subjective task instead of a

detached objective task.

This particular focus on Evagrius brings to the landscape of monastic thought and

historical theology a consciousness of the ascetical/mystical Christian heritage, grounded in

fusing epistemology and piety, theological insight and holiness. The baggage of the divide

between scholastic and mystical theology in the Medieval Church and the ultra-rationalism and

skepticism of our post-Enlightenment world has since severed doctrine and practice. The type of

apophatic theology fused with ascetic practice Evagrius propounded is an integration of mystical

experience, ascetic discipline, and theological inquiry, of what used to be the norm. Theology in

the modern world is often viewed as solely an intellectual endeavor, while the contemplative,

spiritual life is seen as solely experiential. Evagrius conjoins the two. One of my goals is to add

to the current revival of Evagrian thought in academia and in the Church, bringing monastic and

scholastic theologians together; and fostering further study of the relationship between spiritual

formation and theological construction in the early church. My contribution to Evagrius studies

would place on the table that his fusion of asceticism and mysticism was an essential outgrowth

of his apophatic theology characteristic of early monasticism.

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 Methodology

Two methodologies will be used to aid my concentration on how Evagrius’ ascetically

applied concept and experience of Apatheia is informed by his apophatic theology through

contemplative reflection. The first is the historical hermeneutic method of Hans-Georg

Gadamer, which focuses on how one approaches the meaning of a text by engaging how its’ past

relates to the present apprehension of a text. The second is the epistemology of religion of Soren

Kierkegaard that centers on how human subjectivity and experience are mediums of knowledge

in the Christian faith. These two methods will help my thesis greatly given that the specific

writings of Evagrius of which I am examining display how his apophatic-ascetical conceptual

framework of mental inward receptivity of God’s presence informs his dispositional discipline of

apatheia and how his texts were designed for the reader to “actualize” the concepts within.

The structure of Evagrius’ ascetical writings is intended to inspire the reader to be

contemplative and reflect upon doctrinal insights by ruminating, reciting, and emulating the

passages in the text itself. This pertains to Gadamer’s hermeneutical approach of a text-

interpreter dialectic that relies on experiencing the “speech” of the text rather than critical

analysis. Gadamer’s seminal work on hermeneutics and literary theory propounds that engaging

a text from the past is a dialogue between the past and the present. Gadamer largely focuses on

how one can only extract meaning from a text by creating a new understanding of it, which is

derived from experiencing “an aspect” of its language. Gadamer theorizes that interpretation is

not only understanding the explicit meaning of a text but what it exemplifies; “the idea of the

expression.” In other words, it is the process of going beyond the text to its transference to the

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reader. This is accomplished by reconstructing the “speech of a text” through a dialectic of

question and answer. A central part of Gadamer’s theory is what he calls the “hermeneutical

experience,” which is treats language of the past as an “I-Thou” discourse, as a living person

with whom the interpreter is having a conversation. According to Gadamer, this allows the

interpreter to be open enough to reach what he calls a “historically effected consciousness” – an

understanding of “the past in its otherness.” Gadamer builds upon the concept of the

“hermeneutical circle,” which is a flow of understanding between the text and the interpreter –

the text’s “strangeness” and the interpreter’s “familiarity”- until a central agreement can be

reached. 6 Gadamer’s hermeneutical theory will aid me in uncovering the meaning of Evagrius’

specific ascetical language. In order to get at Evagrius’ intended expression of his thought I will

examine his texts with a text-interpreter approach – familiarizing myself with his historically

distant language and concepts in order to explain his theological framework and to expound upon

it using modern theological terms such as “apophatic theology.”

The content of Evagrius’ ascetical system on which I am focusing deals with the process

of how the knowledge of God is received by the interior spiritual practice of negating mental

images of God. This can be examined through the lens of Kierkegaard’s subjective

epistemology of God. God for Kierkegaard is a subject (a consciousness who communicates)

and therefore knowing God consists of an inner experience between subjects beyond the limits of

the intellect. The text used to examine this thesis is Kierkegaard’s “Concluding Unscientific

Postscript to Philosophical Fragments.” In this work, Kierkegaard notes that Christian

knowledge can only be subjective and not objective because it consists of an exchange between

6
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall 2 nd
rev. ed. (New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1989), 291-490.

5
lovers. It is relational knowledge since it involves passion and devotion to the infinite.

Kierkegaard theorizes that God is a subject, not an object, and therefore lives for subjectivity –

interaction and relationship. Grasping God for Kierkegaard takes place in a dialogue between

“the infinite passion of the individual’s inwardness and objective uncertainty” – a type of

mysticism per se and a theory of truth that is not propositional, but an experiential Subject-

subject interaction. This is the operation of faith for Kierkegaard: a dialectical tension between

interior devotion and embracing the unknowable. Kierkegaard calls this “dying away from the

immediate.” For Kierkegaard in this work, being a Christian is about a persistent inwardness; an

emphasis on the “how” instead of the “what.”7 Truth for Kierkegaard is the process of reaching

for it in itself rather than objective analysis. Kierkegaard’s theory will help me approach how

Evagrius’ apophatic theory of negating categories to connect to God’s unknowable nature is

through an inward subject-Subject interaction between minds and therefore takes place apart

from object-interaction. Kierkegaard’s subjective theory of the knowledge of God will also guide

my analysis of Evagrius’ ascetical concept of apatheia, which entails negating the passions for

divine knowledge that takes place solely in the mind apart from objective reality.

Evagrius’ Theological Context

Evagrius’ environmental background and theological formation is a progressive journey

from doctrinal theology to ascetical theology, and then a merging of the two in his writings. The

main sources used in this thesis to illustrate Evagrius’ theological context that formed his thought

7
Soren Kierkegaard, “Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments,” In A
Kierkegaard Anthology, ed. Robert Bretall (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1946), 210-
240.

6
is Marilyn Dunn’s “The Emergence of Monasticism” and Augustine Casiday’s “Reconstructing

the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus.” Evagrius was born in 345 in Ibora, Pontus (Cappadocia,

modern day Turkey) into a family connected to the great Cappadocian theologians - Basil the

Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nanzianzus, and Macrina the Younger – from and with whom

he received his theological training. Evagrius was educated in a variety of subjects, most of

which were philosophy and oratory. This developed in Evagrius a keen mind for constructing

theology. He and Gregory Nanzianzus worked together to create a compendium of Origen of

Alexandria’s writings. From this experience Evagrius was influenced by Origen’s texts that

illustrated the positive relationship between Christian thought and Greek philosophy (primarily

Platonism), the incorporeal and indefinable nature of God, the difference between matter and

mind, God’s connection to the mind, and the spiritual/allegorical exegesis of scripture. Evagrius’

training influenced him to fuse theological reflection and spirituality – doctrinal commentary and

ascetic practice.

When Evagrius moved to Caesarea he came into contact with Basil the Great, who

brought him into the monastic way of life from which Evagrius began to develop his asceticism

of daily devotion. Evagrius probably was exposed to Basil’s monastic rule and was prescribed

some sort of prayer regimen. After Basil’s death, Evagrius then worked closely with Gregory

Nanzianzus in Constantinople, probably aiding him with his “Theological Orations” defending

the Trinity. This nurtured much of Evagrius’ thought on how the Trinitarian relationship of

oneness between persons relates to the oneness between God and the mind. However, Evagrius

left the city life of Constantinople after being enmeshed in an affair with another man’s wife.

7
Evagrius weathered a period in his life of conflict between vice and virtue and was deeply

changed when he had a visionary dream of an angel urging him to leave the dangerous situation

of his affair. From there Evagrius retreated into monastic life in Palestine and Egypt. It was in

the wisdom of the desert ascetics that Evagrius received a full conversion of life.

Still wrestling with vice, Evagrius had an intense experience once he reached Jerusalem.

He contracted a fever and while under the care of the Blessed Melania of Rome, and in this care

from her confessed that he would center his life on the monastic way. He joined a monastery on

the Mount of Olives under Rufinus where he also increased his skill of text copying. From there

Evagrius settled in Kellia, Egypt where he joined a fellowship of monks and learned from

Marcarius the Great. It was there that Evagrius began a continuous daily routine of

contemplation, quiet vigils, and scriptural exegesis. Evagrius wrote all of his influential works of

ascetical theology there and his days came to an end in Egypt in 399. 8

Evagrius made a name for himself in the monastic environment of Egypt by teaching

theology and ascetic disciplines to the point that Theophilus of Alexandria tried to appoint him

as a bishop. His approach during his most formative years in monastic communities moved him

to construct a theology of prayer in which the mind was brought to a higher mystical state of

union with God. Evagrius’ ideological framework then was more experiential than analytical.

This was due to his love of Origen’s thought that resisted any imaged or material conception of

God. His concepts are intended to produce formless contemplation - an integrated spirituality

that combined theological meditation and ascetic habit. His writings consisted of brief,

proverbial statements meant to be spiritual axioms to be reflected upon rather than systematic

8
Augustine Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus: Beyond Heresy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 9-27.

8
treatises.9 The majority of his writings feature a particular apophatic interpretation of doctrine,

philosophy, scripture, etc., as windows to God. Sacred scripture, doctrine, and philosophy are

instruments that aid human beings to ultimately transcend and negate limiting and multiple

categories or propositions in mental prayer to experience the immaterial presence of God in the

mind. My examination of his texts in this thesis, therefore, will be approached not only by

explicating and extracting the philosophical/theological content therein, but also in uncovering

their devotional character and spiritual applicability for which they were intended.

9
Marilyn Dunn, The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle
Ages (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 22.

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 CHAPTER 2

EVAGRIUS’ APOPHATIC THEOLOGY AND DIVINE SIMPLICITY

Evagrius’ apophatic approach to knowing God, experiencing God through the negation of

imagery, is the cornerstone upon which he builds his ascetical theory. His apophatic practice

disciplines oneself towards simplicity of thought by denying concepts of God in prayer to reflect

on the experience of God’s activity. This is rooted in his doctrine of God’s incomprehensibility

and indescribability, monist10 theory of mind, spiritual exegesis of Scripture, and theory of

contemplative prayer. For Evagrius, the apophatic mode of theology returns us to the oneness

with God for whom we were initially created: a contemplative union in which the mind and God

are in constant communication. Apophasis brings unity with God by negating our fallen

complexity and diversity of focus, restoring humanity to our original relationship with the divine.

Columba Stewart comments on Evagrius’ cosmology and theological anthropology: “The

fundamental element of Evagrius’ cosmic vision is the doctrine of the primordial creation of all

rational creatures, the logikoi. In this creation there was a unity of between God and all logikoi,

and among the logikoi themselves there was a common purpose, the contemplation of the

Trinity, “essential knowledge.” 11 God’s purpose for humanity for Evagrius is oneness of

knowledge and being, an apophatic relationship to God in which the mind and the soul negate

the complexity of desires and embrace simplicity in prayer. This chapter will illustrate how

10
Monism: the philosophical concept that all reality has its being in a single substance, namely
God in Evagrius’ system. This stems from Evagrius’ Platonic and Origenist influenced thought
that mind is the fundamental substance of created reality and is constituted by God as the
Ultimate Mind in which rational beings exist.
11
Columba Stewart, “Imageless Prayer and the Theological Vision of Evagrius Ponticus,”
Journal of Early Christian Studies 9 (2001): 176.

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Evagrius’ apophatic theology is the linchpin that connects contemplative prayer with theological

reflection.

Evagrius’ theology of apophatic asceticism fuses monasticism with mysticism, ascetic

habit and inner experience. His apophatic theology chips away complex categories of God and

emphasizes God’s relationship to the mind and the soul, to seek God in the interior of our mental

world instead of in the outward, fragmented, distant analysis of the external world. In other

words, God’s revelation is meant to facilitate simplicity of knowledge – a knowledge that is

centered and unified in God without variety – to reunite the human person with God so the outer

life is spiritually engaged. For Evagrius, one attains this through ascetic contemplation:

disciplined simple, recurring prayer. Elizabeth A. Clark adds to this notion of the ascetic

negation of various images so as to return to unity with God: “Asceticism, in Evagrius’ theology,

becomes the ultimate iconoclastic device and the ultimate aid that helps human to recover “the

image of God.”12 This chapter will focus on the above theology and specifically will examine

Evagrius’ apophatic theological constructions in his key meditative texts to display the

undergirding framework of his entire ascetical theology and spirituality. This will aid my

analysis of his concept of apatheia as it relates to negating the passions and the resulting inner

purity or virtue that will be examined in the next chapter. Here I will argue that Evagrius’

apophatic theology – expressed in his doctrine of God’s incomprehensibility and indescribability,

theological anthropology, spiritual exegesis, monist theory of mind and corresponding theory of

prayer – is the foundation of practicing divine simplicity by negating complex thought. His

apophatic constructions directly cultivate his perspective of mental negation in contemplative

12
Elizabeth A. Clark, “New Perspectives on the Origenist Controversy: Human Embodiment and
Ascetic Strategies,” Church History 59 (1990): 152.

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prayer. The negation of conceptualizing/imagining God is facilitated by negating the

categorical/propositional meaning of doctrine. Instead Evagrius exhorts absorbing the spiritual

meaning and meditative application of doctrine to participate in divine simplicity.

Evagrius’ Reflective Texts

Evagrius’ Gnostikos, or “The Knower,” is one of his central conceptual texts containing

his apophatic theology, apophatic methods of prayer, and Scriptural interpretation. While this

text is filled with robust, elaborate theology, it was designed to be more of a meditative or

participatory handbook, which was intentionally formulated to fuse ascetic practice and

theological understanding through an integrated reflection of the text. As with most of his texts,

Evagrius wrote the Gnostikos in contemplative prose intended to be read monastically, to

ruminate (mentally absorb through continuous reading) the ascetical concepts in order to practice

inner discipline and lead one towards contemplation (divine simplicity). Kevin Corrigan asserts,

“The Gnostikos is a form of divine reading and writing, whose goal is, in part, to reveal the

reflexive mind to itself as a sacred image mediated through the gnostic13 in his care for the other

and his gaze upon Christ.”14

Evagrius interweaves much of his apophatic theology in his approach to the operation of

grace in prayer and correlates it to Scripture’s calling of the mind to participate with God in

guided introspection. In his Reflections (Skemmata), Evagrius provides 62 verses of rumination

to the reader that contained some of his theological anthropology and his monistic view of God

13
This is not a reference to the early sects associated with “Gnosticism” as a distinct theology
from orthodox Christianity, but indicates the one who is meditating on Scripture for knowledge.
14
Kevin Corrigan, Evagrius and Gregory: Mind, Soul and Body in the 4th Century (Burlington:
Ashgate Publishing, 2009), 162.

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and the mind. In this text he communicates a form of Christian Platonism as a tool to explain his

apophatic theology in which the human being is to engage with God in prayer through a union of

thought by negating the mind’s attachment to material objects given that the uninhibited mind is

the center of human ontology that is purposed by God.

Evagrius’ Kephalia Gnostica (The Knowledge Chapters) contain various ascetical and

apophatic verses – divided into “centuries” of spiritual progression – that mainly concentrate on

God’s oneness and how God operates in the mind so as to bring the Christian to a correct

approach to spiritual discipline in order to attain divine knowledge. Evagrius’ apophatic

epistemology (knowledge through the negation of categories) in this text is expressed by his

conception of God as indescribable and incomprehensible, and correlated to his monist theory of

mind. These two concepts explicate the notion that God’s nature is purely one and everything

that exists is permeated by God, including the mind, which enters into the divine knowledge by

being receptive to God’s oneness by setting aside definitions. In this text Evagrius provides

some of his deepest theological insights of the oneness of the Trinity and how the mind is

awakened to the knowledge of God by being merged with that oneness. This in turn is

manifested in his apophatic theology and contemplative prayer.

Apophatic Theology and Evagrius’ Doctrine of God’s Indescribability

Evagrius formulates an apophatic teaching regarding God’s being. God is wholly beyond

all categories and definitions that human beings must not ascribe to God. The divine nature is

transcendent and is differentiated from created things. “Do not, without [careful] consideration,

13
speak about God [in Himself]; nor should you ever define the Deity: for it is only of [things

which are made or] are composite that there can be definitions.” 15 Evagrius designed this

meditative verse to reflect on the fact that God is beyond definition and incorporeal in order to

call to mind that God is to be prayed to rather than defined. God is not a proposition, not an

object meant to be perceived, but a Subject (ultimate mind) who desires relationship. Evagrius

intimates that defining God would place God on the same level as created things and instead

conveys that God is entirely beyond all conception so as to admonish the reader to avoid an

idolatry of the mind in contemplating this text. God is ontologically different from all created

reality and therefore is the highest reality towards which all lower rational beings should direct

their focus.

Evagrius emphasizes meditation on God’s indescribable nature in order to facilitate

devotional receptivity to God as the One who defines, imparts, and prescribes life to existence.

Here, humility and prayer are connected directly to Evagrius’ apophatic reflection and are

subsumed in the indescribability of God’s being.

Every proposition has a predicate or a genus, or a distinction, or a species, or a

property, or an accident, or that which is composed of these things. But on the
subject of the Blessed Trinity, nothing what has been said [here] is admissible. In
silence let the ineffable be adored!16

Evagrius beckons the reader to understand that God is not a proposition, but the indivisible unity

who can only be known through submission and openness of mind and heart. I infer here that

the knowledge of God according to Evagrius subsists in relational knowledge instead of

intellectual knowledge since God is the Subject of all creation, rather than an object that can be

15
Evagrius Ponticus, Gnostikos, trans. Luke Dysinger,
http://www.ldysinger.com/evagrius/02_Gno-Keph/00a_start.htm, 27.
16
Evagrius, Gnostikos, 41.

14
tested and analyzed. God is not a differentiated thing, but rather the very Being towards which

all love and focus should be directed in contemplation. The admonishment here is to cast off all

preconceptions and connect to God in God’s unknowable mystery of presence. Evagrius

beckons us to admit our human limitations and absorb God’s inconceivable majesty in inner

devotion. The meditative character of this verse is to call to mind the need to devote oneself to

God in simple silence, to be encapsulated by this text and actualize it in recognizing the eternal

presence that cannot be surpassed or fully perceived. Evagrius probably derived this from his

training in Origenism, as we see parallels between this theology that focuses on God’s

impassibility and Origen’s thought. “But God, who is the beginning of all things, must not be

regarded as a composite being, lest perchance we find that the elements, out of which everything

that is called composite has been composed, are prior to the first principle himself.” 17

Elizabeth A. Clark comments on Evagrius’ apophatic conception of God as unknowable:

“For Evagrius, no concepts drawn from the human sphere and expressed in language can

describe the perfection of God. Neither quality nor quantity can define the Divine: it is preferable

to admit that God can in no way be comprehended by the human mind than to introduce the

possibility of ‘failure’ into the notion of God.”18 Since the human mind cannot fully perceive

God’s being on its own in Evagrius’ theology – given that God is the author of mind and exceeds

its limits – the mind therefore only need be in a state of reflection and absorption of God’s voice.

Then from this point one then formulates practical meditations and theological reflections to do

so. This apophatic approach informs an ascetic epistemology that moves from the conceptual to

the experiential and is more reflexive than analytical, since it is an encounter with the ultimate

17
Origen, On First Principles, ed. G.W. Butterworth (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 2.1.6.
18
Clark, 150.

15
Being that exceeds the boundaries of human depictions. The stillness and silence of the mind is

the apex or peak of receiving God in Evagrius’ theory. God is encountered through the

immaterial action of prayer: the state in which God is not defined but experienced as a living,

“speaking” reality.

Evagrius provides a conceptual verse in the Reflections that illustrates his doctrine of

God’s incomprehensible nature and how God’s oneness is distinguished from humanity. It is a

cosmology of existence that emphasizes the oneness of God while pinpointing the disjointedness

of creation. Evagrius implies therefore the necessity of reunion with the divine oneness, which

stems from his Origenist and Platonic influence.

Both consubstantiality and hetero-substantiality occur in bodies, but in

incorporeal beings there is only consubstantiality. But in forms of knowledge
there is hetero-substantiality, for none of the contemplations is the same, except
perhaps contemplation of the stars. In the Trinity there is only consubstantiality,
for there are no distinct underlying objects as in contemplations; nor in turn is the
Trinity constituted by a plurality of substances as is the case with bodies. 19

According to Evagrius, in which he extrapolates from Platonism, Origenism, and the Biblical

texts, God’s being has total unity within God’s own self (consubstantiality). Due to God’s

undivided oneness, Evagrius states that God also has total unity of knowledge. God as

“incorporeal” does not have “forms” or distinguished types of knowledge as do embodied things.

Embodied humanity for Evagrius has both oneness and difference since we are a complex

combination of immaterial minds and material bodies, whereas God has total simple unity within

God’s self. We are complex, God is simple. The theme of divine simplicity comes to the

forefront here as existence branches out from God’s eternal unity to created complexity that is

19
Evagrius, “Reflections,” in Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E.
Sinkewicz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 18.

16
fragmented in diversity. Thus, the Trinity seeks to reunify humanity with itself. Evagrius

focuses on the unity of the Trinitarian Godhead to illustrate the distinction between the Creator

who is total harmony and creation that exists with a susceptibility to disharmony. This relates to

and informs Evagrius' apophatic theology insofar as our “hetero-substantiality,” our plurality of

differentiation, is to be dissolved or negated when we come into contact with God’s unity.

Within the above text is an indication of Evagrius’ interpretation of the doctrine of sin as

alienation from God’s being. Human beings grew to be attached to multiple types of fulfillment

and a variation of thoughts rather than relational oneness in God’s being. This directly relates to

his apophatic theology insofar as Evagrius’ antidote to sin, the multiplicity of desire and

thoughts, negates those fragmenting attachments in the simplicity of prayer. Elizabeth Clark

notes, “More than any of his predecessors, Evagrius was responsible for constructing an

‘internalized’ and ‘mental’ understanding of sin through his elaboration of the logismoi. Indeed,

the medieval notion of the ‘seven deadly sins’ was derived through Cassian, from Evagrius’

teaching on the “eight evil thoughts.”20 In The Praktikos, which I will use as the main text in the

next chapter to examine Evagrius’ ascetic concept of apatheia, Evagrius hints at his view of sin

consisting of variety, while Godliness consists of simplicity and oneness. Evagrius gives an

ascetic admonition that the soul is nurtured when it is hungry for a “morsel of bread” instead of

finding satisfaction in “a variety of foods.”21 The essence of the aforementioned verse is that

God’s being is pure ontological unity, wholly different from the created reality that has become

fragmented in its faithfulness to God. However, created reality is capable of relationship with

God since it has “consubstantiality” and is moving towards unity with God through grace.

20
Clark, 152.
21
Evagrius, Praktikos, 16.

17
 Evagrius reemphasizes the incomprehensibility of God to illustrate that the knowledge

of God is unlike anything else, is above our mind’s capacity to perceive on our own, and

therefore is the pinnacle of knowledge. Here Evagrius gives the foundation for his apophatic

theology by relaying humanity’s inability to perceive God on our own.

With regard to everything composed of the four elements, things near or distant, it
is possible for us to perceive some likeness. But only our nous is
incomprehensible to us, as well as God, its author. Indeed, it is not possible for us
to understand what is a nature susceptible of the Blessed Trinity, nor to
understand the Unity, essential knowledge. 22

For Evagrius humanity is capable of comprehending the nature – “some likeness” – of material

reality, while the mind and God are imperceptible since they are the very medium by which

anything is perceived at all. According to Evagrius the “essential knowledge” – unified, simple

knowledge – that is characteristic of God as the highest impassible being is unable to be fully

comprehended by our minds that are attached to multiple images. Therefore Evagrius implies

that God’s interaction is necessary to be received in order that we may be able to apprehend it.

Evagrius’ affinity for underpinning God as unknowable is the bedrock upon which he builds his

apophatic theology, which necessitates contemplation as the grace-given participation in

communicating with God as the one who grants divine knowledge. Evagrius’ apophaticism

negates interaction with objects that can be perceived and instead opens the mind to God who is

imperceptive intellectually. I characterize this as a receptivity-response relationship rather than

object-perception: i.e. it is an encounter between the person and the divine Subject.

The above verse is directly related to Evagrius’ monism of mind in which the designed

teleology of rational beings entails returning to the oneness with God for which they were made,

22
Evagrius. Kephalaia Gnostika, http://www.ldysinger.com/evagrius/02_Gno
Keph/00a_start.htm, 2.11.

18
which will be discussed more in depth next. Evagrius provides this accompanying verse: “The

knowledge concerning the logikoi is more ancient than duality, and the knowing nature [more

ancient] than all natures.”23 Evagrius writes that the knowledge that created the logikoi – rational

beings – precedes the division that exists in Creation, or “duality,” since God is purely one and

the logikoi presumably before the Fall were in unity with God. Evagrius’ apophatic theology, as

will be explained in more depth later, is largely informed by this monist theory of mind. The

contemplative union between God and rational beings that has been severed by sin is gradually

being restored through grace-enabled contemplation; detached from complexity and moving

towards the simplicity of union. This union however is embodied and attained by sensing the

unseen through the seen.

Apophaticism and Evagrius’ Monist Theory of the Mind

Evagrius begins his monist theory of mind – the mind singularly has its being in God –

by explaining how knowledge of God must dwell in the mind. Since God and the mind are both

immaterial, divine knowledge is attained within the mind. While both internal reality and

external reality live in God, Evagrius theorizes that the mind must move from the physical to the

mental in order to reach the knowledge of God. Although God communicates primarily through

the mental realm for Evagrius, physical reality is inextricably connected to spiritual reality.

The knowledge that reaches us from external [things] tries by means of the logoi
to indirectly teach material [things]. However the knowledge which by God’s
grace is innate [within us] directly presents matters to mind; and in beholding
them, the nous welcomes their logoi.24

23
Evagrius. Kephalaia Gnostika, 2.19.

19
24
Evagrius, Gnostikos, 4.
For Evagrius the “words” (logoi) of God’s grace are implanted within the nous, or mind/intellect

in order that all reality can be perceived. The Platonic theological anthropology and theory of

mind Evagrius gives here undergirds his apophatic theology by establishing the primacy of the

mental realm. For Evagrius material reality has beneath it fundamental mental substances (logoi)

that mediate material knowledge (indirect knowledge) to the mind. God’s grace is revealed to us

and in us by an unmediated impartation of knowledge in the mind that enables human beings to

perceive God’s activity in all things (direct knowledge). According to Evagrius God is

intimately connected to the mind by designing reality with underlying mental properties (logoi)

by which we are able to interact with God who is the ultimate Mind. Therefore, all external

modes of knowledge are meant to be driven by the formless interior knowledge God imparts to

humanity via grace. Knowledge of the interior oneness with God is primary in Evagrius’

ascetical theology. Evagrius’ view communicates that the human mind/soul as an immaterial

substance is the main receiver of God’s disclosure because God is also immaterial. Therefore,

God is known apophatically in this particular sense through the negation of seeing the external

world as solely material. Instead, apophaticism receives God’s immaterial presence that

underlies it. Through embracing the “words” or “principles” of God’s immaterial grace we

apprehend the divine in the mind.

Evagrius’ thought concerning how God interacts with and in the body and mind no doubt

was influenced by Origen’s “On First Principles”: “there is a certain affinity between the mind

and God, of whom the mind is an intellectual image.”25 Since the immaterial mind was created

to reflect God’s being, then for Evagrius spiritual knowledge is obtained through mental focus.

20
25
Origen, On First Principles, 1.1.7.
The way humanity encounters God internally is a very different experience than our external

interactions for Evagrius. However, Evagrius does not go so far as to claim that the body is to be

negated completely, he affirms that it is a created instrument of the mind where God is received.

Evagrius concludes the Gnostikos with an overarching praxis that combines apophatic

knowledge and ascetical practice. In Evagrius’ conception, the mind needs to be freed from

distracting material attachment in order to see God’s presence. The second to last reflection in

the Gnoskikos encapsulates much of Evagrius’ ascetical spirituality. This foreshadows the next

chapter in which I will examine Evagrius’ applied negative (apophatic) theology in his ascetical

goal of reaching apatheia to attain inner purification.

The goal of the praktike is to purify the intellect and to render it free of passions;
that of the gnostike is to reveal the truth hidden in beings; but to distance the
intellect from matter and to turn it towards the First Cause – this is a gift of
theology.26

Here, Evagrius argues that the practical life is meant to purify the intellect from “passions,” but

then the next state is to attain a higher knowledge that he calls “theology.” Theology for

Evagrius is participatory: an “apophatic asceticism” in which the training of the mind to be

uninhibited by desire that leads to negating its attachment to objects and imagery to experience

God is obtained by a contemplative approach to doctrine and scripture. Evagrius’ theology is

something that one does, not something that one conceives apart from practicing it. Practice for

Evagrius cannot be separated from theology since both take place in and flow from the intellect

in which God operates. Evagrius communicates in this reflection as well a particular monist

ontology, or theory of being, in which humanness has its fullness in God as the “First Cause” of

being. Human beings therefore are called by God’s activity in the world to return to our ultimate

26
Evagrius, Gnostikos, 49.

21
destiny of communing with God in the solace of the mind. Evagrius does not imply here that

matter is evil, but that the pinnacle and center of human identity is the mind redeemed by God.

Matter is secondary. Evagrius communicates that the mind is more fundamental to humanness

as the mind is how we are imaged by the ultimate Mind. Theology here for Evagrius is a non-

analytical and experiential understanding of God. It is the reflection that comes from an

ascending grace-enabled participation that moves us from seeing the divine presence in created

reality towards experiencing God in the spiritual realm. This takes place to strip the mind of our

limiting conceptions of God and transcend them in mental receptivity alone.

In verse 34 of the Reflections Evagrius’ gives a summation of how the human mind is to

be perceived and used as a sanctuary for God: “The mind is the temple of the Holy Trinity.” 27

Evagrius is using biblical imagery and symbolism to illustrate how the mind should be totally

receptive to God, opening its doors as a “temple” for God’s indwelling in which all other mental

concentrations and foci are kept out. It is likely that Evagrius derived this from the apostle

Paul’s teaching on how God’s grace remolds the entire self into a “place” where God lives. “Or

do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from

God, and that you are not your own?” 28 This meditation for Evagrius is a recurring monistic

theme in which theology is the return of humanity to the oneness of God in which we live, away

from its mental fragmentation, the return to its original state. Elizabeth Clark asserts, “The

human mind, Evagrius posits, is essentially the same as the divine mind, and when body and soul

are eventually redissolved into mind, minds will flow back to God as rivers to the sea.” 29 This

27
Evagrius, “Reflections,” 34.

22
28
1 Corinthians 6:19 NRSV
29
Clark, 151.
concept is parallel to Origen’s idea of the preexistence of souls, and as a result Evagrius believed

that physical reality, including the body, was a secondary creation of God’s immaterial self that

lead to the disharmony of sin. It must be cautiously clarified that Evagrius did not embrace what

can be labeled generally as “Gnosticism” and did not believe that the body was the result of evil.

Evagrius conceived of the human body as the temporary house of the mind meant to facilitate the

mind’s communion with God. In his framework apophatic theology and its corresponding

ascetical practice of contemplative prayer – the preparation for complete reunion - accomplishes

this, which will be examined in the next section.

Linked directly to the above analysis are three corresponding verses in which Evagrius

connects ascetical training to the spiritual knowledge received by God through the mind. “Just

as each of the arts needs a sharpened sense that conforms to its matter; so also the intellect needs

a sharpened spiritual sense to distinguish spiritual things.” 30 Here Evagrius reflects on the need

of an ascetical habit to gradually progress in differentiating what is spiritual from what is

material (implied). The mind is solely “sharpened” or made better by apprehending the spiritual.

Evagrius states that this corresponds to the mind being a wholly different thing than the bodily

senses since it has the capability to experience what is beyond them. While it would be a stretch

to state that Evagrius here is advocating substance dualism, 31 the basic idea here is that the mind

is primary for spiritual knowledge and exceeds the bodily senses. It would be more accurate to

say that Evagrius’ is positing a monist view of the mind and the body that have their wholeness

30
Evagrius, Kephalaia Gnostica, 2.33.
31
Substance Dualism: the mind and body are two separate substances.

23
and “true sight” in the single spiritual reality of God. “The sense, naturally by itself, senses

sensory things, but the mind [nous] always stands and waits [to ascertain] which spiritual

contemplation gives it vision.”32 Evagrius now shifts to the next logical consequence of the

previous verse in which the mind requires receptivity to know the divine, while the natural

senses engage in activity to know the material world. The mind can only be awakened to its

purpose of spiritual communication through contemplation as I will discuss further in the next

section.

From here Evagrius in the next verse concludes that God, as the inexhaustible, impassible

being, gives this spiritual light to our minds that await illumination. “Just as light, while

enabling us to see everything, [itself] needs no light to be seen; so God, while making all things

visible, needs no light by which to be known, for he, essentially, is light. (1 John 1:5)33 God for

Evagrius grants to the mind a total awakening to knowledge since God is the source of all

knowledge and therefore I argue is known apophatically, apart from sensory experience and

through its negation in contemplation as described in the second of the three verses I examined

here. This is due to Evagrius’ insistence on God’s impassibility and oneness - the starting and

end point of all existence. In other words, in order to know God for Evagrius the mind in

contemplation must simply absorb the divine as one absorbs the sun in a relational manner since

God is the ultimate Mind in whom our minds exist.

Further in his monist theory of mind, Evagrius gives a threefold way in which the mind is

illuminated by God. Evagrius posits a gradation of the knowledge of the immaterial realm that

moves from contemplating “beings” to relationally knowing God’s being. “The light of the nous

32
Evagrius, Kephalaia Gnostica, 1.34.
33
Ibid., 35.

24
is divided into three: knowledge of the adorable and holy Trinity; and the incorporeal nature that

created by it; and the contemplation of beings.” 34 For Evagrius the realm of the mind encounters

God through a mental enterprise by which the material world is newly seen as mental/spiritual at

its root. The Trinity created all reality by the mental realm (nous) or through an immaterial

activity and therefore mind precedes matter as the lens through which human beings understand

the plurality of the material world (the contemplation of beings) having its being in God.

Unification with God then according to Evagrius undergirds his apophatic theory in the sense

that the negation of images for the knowledge of God is not so much the denial of the material

world, but transcends what is on the surface of the material world to focus on God’s immaterial

presence that undergirds it. The inner mind and the outer world are essentially one in God for

Evagrius.

Evagrius moves in this text towards explaining specifically how Christ factors into/

undergirds his apophatic approach to knowledge and how God operates through and in the mind

apart from the external. Evagrius emphasizes Christ’s cosmic, disembodied state as God the Son

rather than His incarnational state to communicate how Christ’s immaterial self connects to the

immaterial mind. Here, Evagrius differentiates between the body and mind, rendering the latter

as the prime vehicle or medium in which Christ gives the knowledge of God that then can be

expressed in the body: “The second nature is the sign of the body, and the first [nature is] the

[sign] of the soul. And the [sign of the] nous is the Christ who is united to the knowledge of the

Unity.”35 Evagrius here pinpoints Christ’s relational oneness with the rest of the Trinity (Unity)

34
Evagrius, Kephalaia Gnostica, 1.74.

35
Evagrius, Kephalaia Gnostica, 1.77.
25
to illustrate how Christ has perfect knowledge of that oneness in being unified in it. Therefore

Christ as the mediator constitutes the mind in which God is encountered and brings the mind the

knowledge of the unity of the Trinity.

Evagrius also is using Logos theology to elucidate that Christ is the mediating person in

which the mind encounters God. Christ pervades and gives life to the mental realm of existence.

The theme of the intimacy of God with the mind recurs here in Evagrius’ writings, however now

Evagrius includes Christ as the bridge of that intimacy, which conjoins the body and the mind to

the “Unity.” The role of the Incarnation then for Evagrius was to reorder the divided body and

mind into one spiritually-focused human unified in God. Christ’s singular unity with the Father

combined with his perfect humanity brings the contemplative who mediates on Him oneness

with God. While Evagrius notes that the soul precedes the body as the “first nature,” the body is

still factored into attaining the knowledge of God as Christ brought the immaterial and material

together in the hypostasis. This informs his apophatic theory in the sense that for Evagrius

Christ communicates with humanity primarily in the mind, essentially making the body and the

mind both spiritual, separated from object-attachment in simplicity. Christ in a manner is the

ground of mind as the “Word” through which embodied mind can receive the unified knowledge

of the Trinity. Hence, Christ fits into Evagrius’ monist schema.

Evagrius elucidates his ascetical theory in which apophatic theology informs spiritual

progress in the mental focus on God. Evagrius does this by returning to his monist view of the

mind: the mind is made whole, free, and one by simple spiritual fulfillment in God rather than

through indulging in a variety of bodily sense desires.

26
Here Evagrius gives this contemplative statement meant for the reader to reflect upon so as to

receive the theological framework for his apophatic theology.

The nous wanders when impassioned, and is uncontrolled when it attains the
elements of epitheumia desire, but ceases from distraction when it becomes
impassible and attains the company of incorporeal [beings] who fulfill all its
spiritual desires. 36

In this verse Evagrius gives an ascetic teaching coupled with his apophatic epistemology of

knowing God through negation. What Evagrius admonishes the reader to negate here

specifically is diverse desire (epithumia) in order that the mind (nous) could be centered on

spiritual things. In order for the human mind to encounter God it must separate itself from a

diversity of desire and instead participate in God’s simplicity in which humanity has its being.

The mind for Evagrius needs focus, and that focus comes when it is “impassible” or unaffected

by a multiplicity of desires. Evagrius implies here that since God is impassible then the mind

needs to be impassible in order to unite with God. An impassible mind also indicates one that is

without emotion, which is the opposite of the “wandering impassioned nous” that is to be

negated in spiritual exercise. In Evagrius’ reflective verse here the mind comes to its fullness

when it “attains the company of incorporeal beings” or angels. Evagrius intimates that an

undistracted mind communicates with the inner spiritual realm in which angels live. This relates

to his earlier temple language in the Reflections in which Evagrius calls the reader to be attentive

to spiritual things in mental contemplation - mind is the space where God dwells. The heart of

this passage exemplifies Evagrius’ apophatic theology of disciplining the self by negating

“diversity” – one could say disunity – of desire in order to be made whole in the divine

simplicity.

36
Evagrius, Kephalia Gnostica, 1.85.

27
 Evagrius more concisely pinpoints his monist view of God and how God relates to the

human mind in terms of the impartation of knowledge. Evagrius in this next verse surmises that

the knowledge of God is the purpose of humanity’s existence and therefore existence is a journey

of ascent towards that knowledge that is the teleology of human existence. “All beings exist for

the knowledge of God, but everything that exists for another is less than that for which exists.

Because of this, the knowledge of God is superior to all.” 37 This indirectly informs Evagrius’

apophatic theology insofar as human existence is purposed towards the mental apprehension and

immaterial relation to God’s self, given that all knowledge takes place in the mind rather than in

the material realm. Knowledge of God, for Evagrius, is the prime reason for human existence.

This knowledge is more relational than intellectual since God intentionally made human beings

to communicate with God. In other words, God’s personal agency of making human beings to

receive the knowledge of God’s being indicates that the type of knowledge described is an

experience between God and the human mind instead an analytical knowledge: “All reasoning

nature was naturally made in order to exist and to know: and God is essential knowledge.”38 For

Evagrius the knowledge of God equals oneness with God, “essential” or unified all-important

knowledge. So for Evagrius to know God is God’s ontological design for humanity, and

consequentially human beings are at their greatest oneness, their highest wholeness, when they

seek the knowledge of God. Evagrius calls the reader in this verse to meditate and contemplate

on this notion that the knowledge of God for which the mind was made is the highest goal.

Mental receptivity to the divine is the peak of human existence. By implication here Evagrius is

relaying that since human beings “exist for another and the knowledge of God is superior to all,”

37
Evagrius, Kephalaia Gnostica, 1.87.
38
Ibid., 89.

28
then there is a constant spiritual progression towards that knowledge by participating in God

through God’s aid. Evagrius’ apophatic theology here is subsumed in the concept that human

beings/minds were made to be in a continual, perpetual, and advancing state in the knowledge of

God. This is an activity of mental simplicity – “superior to all” – instead of a non-rational

material activity entrenched in multiple attachments.

Apophatic Theology and Evagrius’ Theory of Contemplative Prayer

The unknowability of God and the connection between God and the mind for Evagrius is

bridged by his ascetical theory of contemplation. The mind must enter into an ascending

progression towards God in prayer, in simple receptivity rather than in complex activity. When

the mind is receptive it interacts with God who is the giver of the knowledge of things spiritual,

things imperceptible by our own efforts. For Evagrius spiritual knowledge comes through our

openness in contemplation – the apophatic theology of negating external thoughts when one

prayerfully withdraws into the mind. Here, Evagrius writes of contemplation in which the mind

journeys from created things to God. “Such is the contemplation of all that has been made and

will be, that the nature that is receptive of it will be able to receive also the knowledge of the

Trinity.”39 In Evagrius’ participatory theology here he intimates that contemplation of God’s

creation prepares the mind to be “receptive” of the apex of knowledge to which it points: the

Holy Trinity that is incomprehensible apart from its interaction with the mind in prayer.

The remedy for the aforementioned fragmentation of desire and thoughts in human

beings attached to multiplicity is contemplative prayer energized by God’s grace. The simplicity

39
Evagrius, Kephalaia Gnostika, 2.16.

29
for which humanity was made is actualized in contemplation. Evagrius uses the prior conception

of God’s unity to inform his theory concerning contemplative prayer as an act of union that

illumines how all created things have their existence in God for relationship. In this Evagrius’

monist conception of God and the mind shines through, as the divine pervades all reality in order

to bring oneness with itself. For Evagrius, this happens in prayer, and takes the ascetic to a state

that is purely experiential and unable to be described or imagined. Encountering God is an

absorbed interaction rather than a distanced definition.

The mind, while it is engaged in the practical life, is involved with the concepts of
this world; when it is engaged in knowledge, it spends its time in contemplation,
and when it is in prayer, it is in a light without form, which is called the place of
God. Then it shall behold the consubstantiality and the hetero-substantiality in
bodies, that which is found in contemplations, and that which is in God. That
which pertains to God belongs clearly to the realm of the impossible, for
substantial knowledge is obscure and there is no differentiation in substantial
knowledge. 40

The exhortation that contemplative prayer brings the prayerful to a wholly different state than

when a human being engages with external creation recurs. It is here in which Evagrius brings

out his apophatic theology as the structure that informs contemplative prayer. The function of

contemplation for Evagrius is oneness and simplicity. When a person enters “the place of God”

what is revealed is God’s simplicity and being in Creation that moves the one praying towards

“substantial knowledge,” also translated as “essential knowledge.” “Substantial” or “essential”

knowledge is the unified knowledge of God that brings the contemplative seeker to apophatically

approach God (apart from multiple categories and in imageless contemplation) in the space of

the mind that negates differentiated objects to experience union with God. “Substantial

knowledge” is undifferentiated knowledge that can only be experienced rather than examined.

40
Evagrius, “Reflections,” 20.

30
God is not composed of parts, ultimately simple, all-encompassing and one. Therefore God is

purely relational to all being. God is the singular Subject (mind who communicates) who is

received in prayer rather than an individuated, differentiated thing that can be analyzed. Prayer

then, when it reaches its “formless” state, enables the mind to see the “consubstantiality” and

“hetero-substantiality” (oneness and difference) in Creation. Contemplation grants the mind an

understanding of how both the unity and multiplicity in physical reality are both distinct and yet

connected to God. As a consequence of this the mind then sees reality as having its true essence

in God’s oneness. All is actually one since all exists in God. For Evagrius all reality is being

restored to oneness with God. This realization for Evagrius occurs so that “the realm” of God

that is entered in prayer can be reached separate from the plurality of the external realm in order

to receive divine knowledge. God’s immanence persists in the human mind, and it is there where

the relationship between the human being and God occurs.

Evagrius’ apophatic theology is in part based on the Platonic calling towards oneness

with God, to move away from our separateness and our multiple desires and retreat into the mind

where God is seeking unity with the human person. As Columba Stewart surmises, “Evagrius’

emphasis on singularity may be explainable by his Platonic imperative to move from multiplicity

to simplicity in thought and contemplation. It may also relate to his view that, because the mind

fixes on one thought at a time, an experienced ascetic can target that thought precisely, using

another to knock it out.”41 According to Evagrius, asceticism is a form of spiritual progress in

which the mind moves from the “practical life” towards unified thought and knowledge by

participating in the divine simplicity of prayer. In this sense Evagrius connects his monistic view

41
Stewart, 189.

31
of mind – the mind has its true identity in God in which it lives – to his apophatic theology that

responds to God’s grace that restores the oneness with God by contemplative union.

Another key text in Evagrius’ Reflections fuses the ascetical cleansing of impure thoughts

to cultivate virtue together with the mystical divine interaction when one negates imagery in

contemplation. This embodies the core framework of his apophatic theology. This will reinforce

and grant clarification to my analysis of Evagrius’ use of apatheia as an ascetical/mystical state

of mind that is conceptualized and applied from a participatory apophaticism, harmonizing

theological reflection and spiritual practicality. Here, Evagrius invites the reader to absorb this

text in meditation to discipline the self towards ridding the mind of imagery.

The mind cannot see the place of God within itself, unless it has transcended all
the mental representations associated with objects. Nor will it transcend them, if it
has not put off the passions that bind it to sensible objects through mental
representations. And it will lay aside the passions through the virtues, and simple
thoughts through spiritual contemplation; and this in turn it will lay aside when
there appears to it the light.42

Inner purification here is intrinsically linked to the dissolution in the mind of the self-desire for

the physical imagery to which it is attached. Evagrius communicates that the mind’s proclivity

to object-attachment is a distraction from the inner experience of God towards whom all our

desires should be directed. The imperative here is that the intellect requires cleansing from its

existential condition of object-desire for divine union. The intellect’s wholeness requires

looking inward to the Transcendent working in the mind, since God is without form, separate

from objects, and therefore can only be truly approached in the formless act of contemplation.

Evagrius also includes virtue as part of this process. The practical outer life is a part of

his apophasis in which the passions are negated as one exercises moral character. This leads to

42
Evagrius, “Reflections,” 23.

32
the detachment of one’s self for the spiritually engaged life. The undistracted mind is a mind

that is enabled to focus or “listen” to God’s communication to the mind in Evagrius’ view. This

state is reached according to Evagrius in a prescribed ascetical manner characteristic of early

monastic rules that sought to bind the will, derived from Christ’s teaching to deny the self. In

this particular practice, exercising virtue is the first stage, contemplation is the second stage, and

the indescribable experience of God is the final stage.

Elizabeth Clark comments on the link between Evagrius’ apophaticism and ascetic

contemplation, “Thus for Evagrius the Origenist claim that God’s utter incorporeality could not

be ‘imaged’ – either by human minds or in human natures – was inextricably linked to an ascetic

regimen whose aim was to free the mind of all images which, by definition, obscure the vision of

God: an iconoclasm at mental images is here matched by an ascetic assault on the human body

and a literary assault on those who ascribe ‘bodiliness’ to God.”43 What Elizabeth Clark adds

here is that God is so closely and intimately connected to the mind in Evagrius’ thought that to

analyze God would be to go outside God’s relational dwelling place in the intellect. To

conceptualize the divine would reduce God to a physical thing that one treats as a measurable

object. Therefore she intimates that for Evagrius asceticism involves clearing the mind of

imagining God.

Returning briefly to the Gnostikos, Evagrius provided an accompanying verse: “ALL

virtues clear the road before the Knower.”44 Inner purification enables the self to “walk” along a

spiritual path towards knowledge of God. This will be analyzed more in depth in the next

43
Clark, 154.

44
Evagrius, Gnostikos, 5.
33
chapter, but it is noteworthy to explicate here that Evagrius’ apophatic theology organically leads

to a state of mind enabled to encounter “God’s space” uninhibited. The negation of complex

thought and the embracing of simplicity is participation in the sanctification by the Spirit.

Setting aside complexity returns the redeemed mind to God’s image through the imitation of

Christ as a moral reorientation to God’s simple will. Purity of mind and heart is an ascetical

cycle of knowledge and practice for Evagrius.

Relevant to the aforementioned text on negation for contemplation in Reflections,

Columba Stewart translates Evagrius’ word for “representations” – noemata – as “depictions.”45

Stewart uses this to explain Evagrius’ affinity for cultivating a type of prayer that is beyond the

senses by removing “depictions” from the mind and the experience thereof by providing an

analysis of a related text, On Prayer:

We have already seen the epistemological corollary that true prayer means
shucking, however briefly, the concepts and mental depictions that link us to the
world of normal experience. We are reminded to “approach the One who is
immaterial immaterially,” (Prayer 67-68, 74, 116) and that to “locate” or limit
God with a mental image is fruitless and perhaps even demonic. The goal is that
we ourselves go to God in prayer without any notion of form (amorphia),
immaterial and dispossessed, in the surrender of all hope of sensory perception
(Prayer 117-18, 120).46

Stewart’s analysis here suggests that the contemplative prayer Evagrius’ describes stems from an

apophatic epistemology in which true knowledge is received by relinquishing our tendency to

envision God. Inherent here also in the negation of images through prayer is a meditation on

self-emptying. The self, at least the unredeemed self, is captive to object-attachment and

45
Stewart, 187.

46
Stewart, 191-192.

34
therefore must open the self to God’s work in the mind of removing our passion for material

objects rather than seeing God’s presence through them.

Evagrius continues his apophatic asceticism and corresponding contemplative

epistemology in his “Second Century” of the Kephalaia Gnostica in which he delves deeper into

the non-distinction of theology and practice. The verses themselves are to be both conceptual

and contemplative. Here Evagrius beckons the reader to transcend the senses and enter into

contemplation for the sake of actual knowledge.

Desirable are things that approach us through the senses, but [even] more
desirable is their contemplation. But, because the senses do not attain knowledge
due to our infirmity, the latter is considered superior to the former that is not
attained. 47

For Evagrius it is beyond the physical senses where the human being attains knowledge, given

that sensory experience seeks sensory desire due to the effect of sin – “due to our infirmity.” In

Evagrius’ estimation contemplation is greater than sensory experience. The contemplation of the

“things” that are “desirable,” that are able to be known by “approaching us through the senses,”

is the beneath-the-surface divine knowledge that is communicated through the senses meant to

be reflected upon. Contemplation is true knowledge for Evagrius. What is apophatic here is that

the senses act as a secondary instrument meant to impart knowledge through the contemplation

of what is received through them. The senses themselves are then transcended and negated

through contemplation to reflect and receive the spiritual knowledge that undergirds them. This

verse is meant to be meditated upon in order that the ascetic may actualize this conception of

contemplation as the way to knowledge in prayer. It is a singularly mental enterprise. As one

apprehends light through a window, “desirable things” or knowledge, is not “attained” by sense

47
Evagrius, Kephalaia Gnostika, 2.10.

35
perception itself, but through the contemplation of the divine reaching the mind through the

senses. The window is the senses, but the light coming through the window is the divine

knowledge received by its contemplation. The window (the senses) itself is negated. Evagrius’

“apophatic asceticism” here consists of understanding that sensory perception is a vehicle of the

knowledge that is truly desired, spiritual knowledge, which is to be contemplated – apprehended

by suspending the intellect. The senses in and of themselves do not receive knowledge. The

mind receives knowledge through the senses.

Evagrius emphasizes that contemplation is aided by material reality as an instrument

through which God’s immaterial knowledge is revealed. Matter for Evagrius is not useless, but

secondary as it is God’s design through which his immaterial presence is seen and by extension

humanity’s spiritual ontos. “Second natural contemplation was immaterial in the beginning;

[but] in the end, the Creator has revealed the nature of the logikoi by means of matter.”48 The

primary nature of all rational beings is really mental, spiritual, and immaterial for Evagrius. God

designed matter in order that through it the mental realm, spiritual reality, may be contemplated

and manifested given that the logikoi are instantiated. “If God has done everything with Wisdom,

(Ps. 103:24) there is nothing created which does not bear, each in its particular way, the imprint

(‘symbol’) of lights.”49 All of Creation is imbued with spiritual reality. This consciousness is

meant as a stepping stone towards spiritual knowledge in which the divineness in material reality

is contemplated in order to negate attachment to material reality. While this was no doubt

influenced by Origenist and Platonic ideas, Evagrius takes this a step further and applies it to his

48
Evagrius, Kephalaia Gnostika, 1.20.

49
Evagrius, Kephalaia Gnostika, 1.70.

36
apophatic theology in which the solution to humanity’s separation and attachment to multiplicity

is contemplative prayer – the participation in divine simplicity.

Apophatic Theology and Evagrius’ Spiritual Exegesis

Evagrius communicates an apophatic method of biblical exegesis in his Gnostikos that

further reveals his view of God’s oneness, simplicity, and especially indescribability. This is

attained through a spiritual reading of Scripture that relates to his overall ascetic theology of self-

negation. Scripture for Evagrius is a raft upon which the mind is taken to God, a secondary

instrument used to bring one to contemplation, to bring one to the transcendent experience of

God through and beyond the text itself.

And if it is an allegorical passage concerning theologike it is necessary to examine

as far as possible whether it provides information on the Trinity and whether it is
seen [in its] simplicity or seen as The Unity. But if it is none of these, then it is a
simple contemplation or perhaps makes known a prophecy. 50

Evagrius sees the Scriptural witness pointing to the reality of the divine simplicity as its central

focus rather than the multiple images and concepts it evokes. Therefore the apophatic

understanding of scripture and the resulting ascetic contemplation thereof brings one to the living

presence of God. Scriptural reading for Evagrius is contemplative and meditative, looking

through a window through which the mind progressively climbs to God. This echoes St. Paul’s

teaching that in the present life we see God secondarily and are ascending towards a more direct

knowledge of God: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I

know only in part; then I will know fully even as I have been fully known.”51

50
Evagrius, Gnostikos, 18.

37
51
1 Corinthians 13:12 NRSV
 Columba Stewart asserts, “For Evagrius, knowledge is the fruit of contemplation, and the

usual contemplative medium is the Bible. Attentiveness to oneself and to the natural creation are

collateral forms of contemplation, but always in dialogue with biblical texts.”52 Stewart suggests

that Evagrius’ apophatic theology is always in conversation with revelation in scripture as a

progressive instrument moving the reader from examining forms to the formless experience of

God. In other words, the material text of scripture and the images it evokes are meant to bring

the mind to a state beyond the superficial meaning to the divine communication within it.

Evagrius’ apophaticism in relation to Scripture is decisively Origenist, as it emphasizes

ascending to the knowledge of God through the hidden, deeper mystical meaning within

Scripture. Origen here explicated this view adopted by Evagrius.

“What then, when we come to the gospels? Is there not also hidden in them an
inner meaning which is the Lord’s meaning...And as for the apostolic epistles,
which to some appear to be simpler, are they not filled with deep meanings, so
that men who can understand the inner meaning of divine wisdom seen through
them, as if through some narrow opening, to be flooded with the brightness of
immeasurable light?”53

My reference to Origen here is to reinforce and illustrate the background behind Evagrius’

concept of reading scripture in the ascetical apophatic sense (training the self to negate imagery

in prayer). This is to underline that the text for Evagrius is meant to take the reader beyond it

itself to “the inner meaning of divine wisdom,” bringing the one reflecting on it to experience

God – to be absorbed by God’s “voice” that comes through the text.

52
Stewart, 178.
53
Origen, On First Principles, 4.2.3.

38
 Evagrius in verse 2 of the Reflections elucidates one of his core views on “apophatic

contemplation” derived from his spiritual interpretation of scripture in which the inner negation

of imagery is necessary to connect to the divine reality. For Evagrius the nature of prayer is a

mental formless action that unites the mind to the ultimate Mind (God) who has total

formlessness.

If someone should want to behold the state of his mind, let him deprive himself of
all mental representations, and then he shall behold himself resembling sapphire
or the colour of heaven (cf. Exod. 24:9-11). It is impossible to accomplish this
without impassibility, for he will need God to collaborate with him and breathe
into him the connatural light.54

Here Evagrius’ negative theology comes to the forefront by embodying a self-detached

disposition to images in prayer. The display and practice of Evagrius’ mode of spiritual exegesis

emerges here in his meditation on the experience of Moses in the Book of Exodus in which he

mystically encountered God. Evagrius admonishes the reader towards reflective reading of

going beyond the text to the presence of God as transmitted in the narrative of the text itself.

“Impassibility” in prayer for Evagrius is a state unaffected by mental images attained by their

negation and relying on God’s presence in the mind to sustain this state. Kevin Corrigan

expounds on Evagrius’ conception of prayer in relation to scripture, “Prayer/theology lifts the

mind to God in order to receive the created whole from God. In prayer and the mystical life –

just as announced in the beatitudes – we give up sight and sound, images and thoughts, all things,

so that the form-creating images or thoughts of God might allow us to inherit the whole: ‘If you

long to pray, renounce all so that you may inherit the all.’ (Pr. 36)”55

54
Evagrius, “Reflections,” 2.

55
Corrigan, 165.
39
 Evagrius derives much of his apophatic theology from verse 25 of Reflections in which

he posits a figurative understanding of David’s experience of God as an internal state or “place”

of withdrawal from attachment to the physical. The physical descriptions in scripture for

Evagrius are meant to be understood spiritually.

From the holy David we have learned clearly what the place of God is; for he
says, ‘His place has been established in peace and his dwelling on Sion’ (Ps.
75:3). Therefore, the place of God is the rational soul, and his dwelling the
luminous mind that has renounced worldly desires and has been taught to observe
the reasons of (that which is on) the earth. 56

This particular figurative reading of this Psalm for Evagrius transitions the mind from a physical

location to the non-physical world of the mind itself as the “temple” where God enters for

communion. The application of this is embedded in the text itself. By ruminating, reflecting,

and contemplating on this verse, the reader is meant to be immersed firstly in an imaged place

and then brought to an interior state where a veil is placed between the mind and external reality

to spend time with God. Columba Stewart analyzes verse 25 in conjunction with the Exodus

reference by Evagrius in verse 2 and asserts, “Evagrius universalizes the place of God by shifting

it from geographical Sinai to the human mind. The relocation of biblical topography to an inner

landscape, the reinscription of the biblical text on the heart, is a move typical of Alexandrian

exegesis...The place of God is, by definition, ‘unimaged,’ meaning that the mind itself, when it

becomes the place of God, is free of self-created imagery.”57 I argue that Evagrius’ mystical

reading of scripture here is a movement from cataphatic theology – positive

definitions/depictions of God – to the point of apophatic theology – negating categories of the

56
Evagrius, “Reflections,” 25.

57
Stewart, 196-197.

40
divine – in which symbols are no longer needed. Either way, the apophatic approach to Scripture

and theological construction takes primacy for Evagrius and is ultimately necessary as a catalyst

to facilitate ascetic contemplation and experience.

In this verse Evagrius differentiates between natural knowledge and spiritual knowledge,

and presents them in an apophatic progressive manner in which the spiritual sense of knowing is

reached once it transcends or negates what is material and superficial. Here Evagrius

interweaves his spiritual exegesis of scripture and his view of the mental primacy of reality with

his apophatic approach to the knowledge of God.

Those who have seen something of that which is in the natures have seen only
their common appearance; for only the just have received their spiritual
knowledge. But one who disputes this is like him who said, I was acquainted with
Abraham when he traveled with two wives. (Gen 16-17) He spoke the truth but he
did not see the two covenants (Gal 4:22-31) and did not understand those who are
born from them. 58

In the first sentence in the above passage Evagrius states that many people only receive a

superficial, material knowledge of God’s creation due to their lack of virtue. Material knowledge

is meant to be transcended for the real nature of reality, which is spiritual, and therefore scripture

is meant to be interpreted as an allegorical medium by which divine knowledge is unveiled –

“the two covenants”. The “common appearance” in the physical world is like a window through

which “the just” are able to see the rudimentary divine spiritual/mental aspect of reality for

Evagrius. This connects to his apophatic theology in stating that virtue clears the mind to be able

to see the spiritual reality in created things by their negation and instead transcending them to the

next stage of knowledge. This also is a Platonic understanding of reality in which Evagrius sees

material substance as a guide to its more underlying unified spiritual reality in which it has its

58
Evagrius, Kephalaia Gnostika, 1.32.

41
being. Evagrius moves on to give an allegory from scripture indicating that those who cannot

see God in and through created things are akin to those who cannot see the dual covenants in

scripture. All that they perceive is their literal, material sense instead of the spiritual meaning

within the text.

Significant to pinpoint as a foreshadowing of my next chapter is how Evagrius’ apophatic

approach to the knowledge of God and monist theory of mind informs and is related to his

ascetical goal of apatheia for inner purity. Evagrius here describes the manifestation of

experiencing God in the mind once it negates desires. “Spiritual “sensation” is apatheia of the

reasoning soul, produced by the grace of God.”59 Apatheia or “passionlessness” for Evagrius is a

spiritual experience and discipline energized by God’s grace that enables the “reasoning soul”

(mind) to encounter God unhindered by disharmonious desires in the mind. The sign of sensing

God is a state of mind in which the “passions” or desires are put aside. A spiritual elation or

inner sense of oneness with God is subsequently received when unchained from these multiple

attachments in prayer and virtue. Evagrius communicates that apatheia is attained through

participation in spiritual reality apart from material reality. By implication this is to enable the

immaterial soul/mind to “reason” or speak with God unattached from outward desire since God

is ultimately spiritual and immaterial. This fusing of apophatic theology and asceticism here

provides the framework I will use to examine Evagrius’ texts that deal with apatheia more

explicitly in my next chapter.

In conclusion to this chapter I have demonstrated using the above texts that Evagrius’

apophatic theology undergirds his asceticism as an integrated spirituality that entails negating

59
Evagrius, Kephalaia Gnostika, 1.37.

42
variety through contemplation. Endemic to his apophatic theology is his monist conception of

God and cosmology, theological anthropology, spiritual exegesis of scripture, monist theory of

mind, and theory of contemplative prayer. All of existence for Evagrius has its being in God,

and is gradually being returned to unity with God for whom it was designed. Humanity is

complex due to our multiple desires, while God is simple, one, wholly beyond categories,

indefinable, and incomprehensible. However God, and more specifically Christ, as the author of

mind is intimately correlated to the logikoi since the ground of the mental realm is the Logos.

Therefore knowing God occurs through the mental receptivity of God’s presence in prayer and in

all created reality. Evagrius’ contemplative texts beckon the reader to separate the mind from

multiple material foci and enter into oneness with God’s presence in prayer. The negation of

objects, images, and definitions of God is an apophatic theology and ascetical practice that clears

away that which distracts humanity from God’s presence and leads towards purity of mind.

Central to Evagrius’ apophatic theology is the restoration of God’s image, the mind, to be a

sanctuary for God in prayer. This participatory theology by Evagrius encapsulates some of the

emerging ascetical theology of the fourth century. Disciplining the mind to be in constant

communication with God in prayer was characteristic of Evagrius’ life as a monk, and is a

helpful transition into my next chapter delving into the ascetical goal of his apophatic theory:

apatheia. The entire purpose of Evagrius’ complex apophatic theology is to lead one towards

divine simplicity, and that simplicity in turn is to control or negate the passions for inner purity,

for virtuous thought and living centered on God.

43
 CHAPTER 3

APOPHATICISM IN PRACTICE AND MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE: EVAGRIUS’

ASCETICAL GOAL OF APATHEIA

The core aim of Evagrius’ apophatic ascetical theory is to cultivate holiness in prayer,

and specifically to attain a state of mind known as apatheia as the consequence of negating

imagery and definitions of God. Apatheia for Evagrius is both an ascetic discipline and mystical

experience or disposition of “passionlessness” in which the multiplicity of desires and images is

negated and only love for God in contemplative prayer and daily good works is desired. This

ascetical discipline of simplicity and interior focus on God nourishes the prime monastic virtue

of purity of heart. Purity of heart is the self-detachment that is characteristic of early

Monasticism that imitated Christ by withdrawing from the world to renounce the inner

disordered passions. David E. Linge notes, “In the vocabulary of early Christian asceticism

‘purity of heart,’ ‘custody of the mind,’ and ‘singleness of mind’ are terms that regularly denote

assuming responsibility not only for one’s actions but also for one’s inward response to the

mental content that wells up within the self from beyond its control – from beyond the voluntary

personality.”60 For Evagrius the ascetical endeavor is a continuous apophatic meditative and

contemplative discipline. His asceticism participates in God’s grace in prayer to free the mind

from wayward mental distractions and attachment to non-spiritual desires in order to reach the

peak of spiritual progress: Apatheia. Evagrius’ ascetical theology of ascending to apatheia is not

an end but it is the catalyst that enables holy living that must be continually grasped. It is the

relinquishing of the object/desire-attached mind for God’s will as an experienced consciousness

60
David E. Linge, “Leading the Life of Angels: Ascetic Practice and Reflection in the Writings
of Evagrius of Pontus,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 68 (2000): 553.

44
in prayer. In this sense Evagrius united mysticism and asceticism. This demonstrates Evagrius

as the quintessential monastic theologian of the early Church. He constructed a theology that is

centered on spiritual habit, a participatory theology, in which constant ascetical practice,

mystical experience, and theological reflection are part of the same integrated spirituality of

communing with God in the prayer life in order to effectively purify the heart and mind.

This chapter will focus on the heart of Evagrius’ theology: the practical application of

apophatic theology as apatheia that enables virtue and mystical experience to progress in the

spiritual life. As discussed in the previous chapter, for Evagrius apophatic theology expressed in

contemplative prayer is the remedy for attachment to multiplicity, thus bringing about closer

union with the knowledge of God. In his practical writings, that state of oneness with God and

knowledge reached therein is meant for a constancy of interior holiness in which “purity of

heart” is cultivated by placing the will in the hands of God. In these texts Evagrius provides

applicable teachings and pragmatic instructions of how to combat barriers to that holiness, such

as the vices and demonic thoughts. He achieves this by exhorting contemplative prayer and daily

disciplines to continuously maintain apatheia – the spiritual experience and continual discipline

of being singularly whole in God apart from desires.

An important aspect of Evagrius’ ascetical goal of apatheia is that this spiritual growth is

grounded in sanctification, or the continual recognition of God’s grace in specifically prescribed

disciplines as the energizing factor that helps the ascetic negate the passions. In this chapter I

will discuss the connection between Evagrius’ apophatic theology and his spiritual discipline of

apatheia being the center of the contemplative life. I will also analyze the nature and practice of

45
apatheia itself as the mode of being virtuously God-centered. Here I will argue that Evagrius’

ascetical aim of apatheia is the embodied purpose of his theoretical apophatic theology. The

negation of multiplicity and the embracing of simplicity in contemplative prayer for spiritual

knowledge facilitate an ascetical habit and mystical state (direct experience) of dispassion to

perpetually reorient the mind towards holy living. Evagrius merges divine knowledge and

practice in apatheia.

The main texts expounded upon in this chapter to elucidate Evagrius’ ascetical practice

of apatheia as the fruit of his apophatic theology and the peak state of holiness will be his

Praktikos, or “The Practical,” and Chapters On Prayer. Both texts consist of meditations and

monastic instructions for daily habit in the pursuit and sustainment of apatheia. Since apatheia

for Evagrius is both a spiritual discipline and experience that occur and persist in a

corresponding fashion, the two aspects will be distinguished and analyzed together in his

practical verses.

In the Praktikos, Evagrius communicates in two introductory verses the connection

between apatheia as an attitudinal discipline and apatheia as mystical experience. The spiritual

practice of apatheia and its accompanying inner holy attitude are an integrated embodiment of

heavenly reality. “The Kingdom of Heaven is apatheia of the soul along with true knowledge of

existing things. The Kingdom of God is knowledge of the Holy Trinity co-extensive with the

capacity of intelligence and giving it a surpassing incorruptibility.”61 For Evagrius these two

states place the mind in a state of passion-detachment (apatheia) and perfection in purity

(“surpassing incorruptibility”). However Evagrius distinguishes apatheia as the “The Kingdom

61
Evagrius, Praktikos, 2-3.

46
of Heaven” from the “knowledge of the Holy Trinity” as “The Kingdom of God.” Bamberger

the translator and commentator of this edition of the Praktikos states that the distinction is due to

the type of contemplation practiced. 62 I will highlight the connection between these two phrases

to explain how apatheia in Evagrius’ thought bridges knowledge and holiness. These two verses

illustrate that his ascetical concept of apatheia is a heavenly consciousness in the spiritually

applied life. This heavenly consciousness is the companion of the mental apprehension of the

knowledge of God in contemplation for the purpose of living in holiness – “surpassing

incorruptibility.” Apatheia is an experience of heavenly or spiritual reality that consists of a

passionless state that occurs alongside receiving the knowledge of the Holy Trinity - the

relational knowledge that frees the mind from focusing on anything other than God.

Essentially apatheia is the ascetic vehicle and mystical experience that brings virtue.

Evagrius seems to give a summation or a theological commentary on the Beatitudes insofar as

the purity of the heart and mind that is repositioned to God’s will allows one to experience God’s

presence and live in Heaven on earth. In Evagrius’ estimation Heaven is a state of being that is

continually manifested presently in the contemplative life. It has an eschatological dimension.

Evagrius’ spiritual concept of apatheia is therefore anticipatory in the sense that it is the

embodiment and experience of God’s Kingdom on earth that will be brought to perfection in the

future. Apatheia is the separation of the mind from the multiple passions and the commitment to

God’s energizing presence through the interior devotion of fomenting attitudes of simplicity and

humility. Living in “The Kingdom of Heaven” as apatheia, the negation of the passions, is

62
Evagrius, Praktikos, 15-16.

47
interconnected to Evagrius’ apophatic theology of negating the idolatry of multiple thoughts and

categories for oneness with God.

Apatheia as a Dispositional Discipline

In the Praktikos, Evagrius’ exposition of apatheia as an ascetic discipline and attitude

emphasizes the need to reflect on apatheia as dispensed by Christ. The idea is to contemplate on

Christ’s impartation of this gift in order to cultivate the humble attitude that apatheia causes.

Evagrius admonishes an imperative discipline to ruminate, or continually absorb, the dwelling of

God’s infusion of apatheia within. The constant acknowledgement that apatheia is rooted in

sanctification for Evagrius is what largely sustains its virtuous character, since combating vice

and cultivating holy living can only be attained by reliance on and participation in God’s activity.

Remember your former life and your past sins and how, though you were subject
to the passions, you have been brought into apatheia by the mercy of Christ.
Remember too how you have separated yourself from the world which has so
often and in so many matters brought you low. Such thoughts instill humility in us
and afford no entrance to the demon of pride. 63

The spiritual technique Evagrius encourages the reader to engage in here is to repeatedly

recollect Christ as the source of the ascetical/mystical experience of unity with God in the state

of dispassion. This purity requires the emptying of the prideful mind and placing the attainment

of apatheia in God’s activity alone. Apatheia for Evagrius is more attained in a cooperative

sense as Evagrius is avoiding any notion that this ascetically produced spiritual consciousness is

gained through personal achievement. Rather it is cultivated through a responsive participation

to God’s presence – withdrawal from the world and entrance into self-denial. This is the

63
Evagrius, Praktikos, 33.

48
outgrowth of Evagrius’ apophatic theology - the negation of the will and the varied passions for

sanctifying oneness with God. According to Evagrius this response to God’s redemptive activity

within by reflecting on Christ’s merciful action on the Cross fosters an interior stronghold to

defend the mind from spiritual warfare and bring an inward character of humility. The idea here

is that if the ascetic recognizes that the internal passionless experience is derived from the

unmerited resurrected life in Christ, then he or she would be less susceptible to sink back into the

sin of pride that exalts the self above God and cripples divine relationship. Therefore, the inward

state of apatheia that is ascetically reached as the state of mind separated from passions and

centered on loving God must consist of a continual consciousness of Christ as Deliverer. This is

practiced to sustain the child-Parent, redeemed-Redeemer relationship with God that effects

apatheia.

Evagrius communicates to the reader how to progress in driving away ungodly thoughts

so as to see the evidence of being close to and in apatheia. Evagrius states that “the demon of

vainglory” and “the demon of impurity” 64 can be repelled by turning the one against the other,

given that they stand in opposition. He then admonishes the reader to replace these thoughts

with virtuous ones as an ascetical process of gradually overcoming one obstacle with the other

temporarily to then ascend to the point of conquering them all.

Should you then be able, as the saying has it, to drive out a nail with a nail, you
can know for certain that you stand near the confines of apatheia, for your mind is
strong enough to abolish thoughts inspired by the demons with human thoughts.
Beyond any doubt, the ability to drive away the thought of vainglory through
humility, or the power to repel the demon of impurity through temperance is the
most profound proof of apatheia. At the same time learn to recognize by which

64
Evagrius, Praktikos, 58.

49
 emotion you are more inclined to be led astray, and employ your whole strength
in pleading with God to ward off your enemies in this second manner also. 65

While Bamberger notes that this particular teaching is for the advanced ascetic, it does pinpoint

that for Evagrius’ attaining apatheia comes from ascending stages of spiritual discipline that

move from one state of success to another. Essentially practice here is an inner mental race in

which the spiritual athlete is running towards the sanctuary of apatheia, negating and

transcending inhibiting thoughts along the way. Albeit Evagrius does exclaim that the ascetical

casting out of evil thoughts must be extinguished by the presence of holy thoughts and works in

order to experience the consciousness of dispassion. Humility and temperance as evidences of

apatheia in particular are virtues and attitudes that un-center the mind from itself and negates its

attachment to vices to free it for relationship with God. This conjoins with Evagrius’ theology of

apophatic asceticism that comprises negation and contemplation for singleness of mind. Julia

Konstantinovsky adds, “Apatheia presupposes a two-fold work of psychological introspection,

which consists of negations and affirmations. It arises through the agent’s psychological

dissociation of himself from harmful mental attitudes, while cultivating beneficial ones.”66

Evagrius’ emphasis on sanctification resurfaces here to constantly discern one’s spiritual

strengths and weaknesses by calling upon the aid of God throughout spiritual exercise. Apatheia

for Evagrius is the greatest ascetical discipline and disposition – a practice and attitude of

dispassion – in which goodness is embraced simultaneously with casting off vice.

Evagrius then communicates the successive stages of apatheia, how to maintain its

presence, and what this ascetical practice and attitude produces in the life of disciplined holiness.

65
Evagrius, Praktikos, 58.
66
Julia Konstantinovsky, “Evagrius on Being Good in God and Christ,” Studies in Christian
Ethics 26 (2013): 324.

50
While apatheia for Evagrius is the apex of the ascetical life, it is meant as an inner discipline and

mystical experience to enable and sustain the outer life in the imitation of Christ. Apatheia for

Evagrius is not just some holy disposition in the internal world of the mind, but it also has a

necessary outward dimension that is integral to the sanctified life in the Spirit. Interior

spirituality and outward virtue converge in apatheia.

Agape is the progeny of apatheia. Apatheia is the very flower of ascesis. Ascesis
consists in keeping the commandments. The custodian of these commandments is
the fear of God which is in turn the offspring of true faith. Now faith is an interior
good, one which is to be found even in those who do not yet believe in God. 67

Apatheia in Evagrius’ mind gives birth to love. It is a singular love that is for God and by

extension God’s Creation in whom it lives. Love (agape) is an ascetic virtue that is

simultaneously drawn out of the prime ascetical condition for Evagrius – apatheia.

Passionlessness effects in the ascetic a self-detachment that springs forth a central love for God –

correlated to his apophatic theory in which the unified love of God is absorbed at the negation of

the unharmonious, disjointed love of multiple objects. It is the singular centering on God’s

simplicity and the effected simple life of faith that allows the mind to be free to love without the

regard for self-satisfaction. Evagrius then shifts to explain that “keeping the commandments,”

the life of obedience to God’s will, in turn produce apatheia and agape. A constant adherence to

the Decalogue and Jesus’ commands is the way of the ascetic, the training towards spiritual

habit. Evagrius notes that the overseeing factor of the ascetic life that leads to apatheia is “the

fear of God.” Constant mental awareness of trusting and revering God is ultimately what

sustains and effects the following of the commandments that bring apatheia for Evagrius, hence

his emphasis on the primacy of humility in the ascetic life.

67
Evagrius, Praktikos, 81.

51
 While Evagrius does emphasize the need for obedience to God’s commandments in order

to attain apatheia, in a couple verses prior he surmises that following God’s moral law is

insufficient on its own to sustain apatheia. He reiterates the importance of contemplative prayer

to complete apatheia, which is the apophatic vehicle of practiced negation that lifts the mind

beyond its capacity to God and sets aside the passions. “The effects of keeping the

commandments do not suffice to heal the powers of the soul completely. They must be

complemented by a contemplative activity appropriate to these faculties and this activity must

penetrate the spirit.”68 For Evagrius the outer life of right action must be undergirded by the

inner life of practiced contemplation. Evagrius’ apophatic view of contemplative prayer in

which the mind connects to God apart from imagery is the necessary condition for apatheia since

the passions spring from the mind and therefore are controlled by internal watchfulness.

Apatheia as Mystical Experience

Evagrius as a part of his ascetical methods and meditative verses in the Praktikos devotes

a lot of time to teaching awareness of the inner signposts of apatheia, the spiritually edifying

nature of its presence within, and how to recognize and be cognizant of experiencing this state.

In Evagrius’ spiritual framework apatheia gradually progresses from an ascetic habit to an inner

proclivity of yearning for God continuously to a direct experience of the soul’s freedom.

Evagrius explicates the usefulness of apatheia and describes its experiential nature in

contemplative prayer.

We call apatheia the health of the soul. The food of the soul can be said to be
contemplative knowledge since it alone is able to unite us with the holy powers.

68
Evagrius, Praktikos, 79.

52
 This holds true since union between incorporeal beings follows quite naturally
from their sharing in the same deep attitudes.69

Evagrius combines his exposition of the spiritual reality of apatheia with contemplative union to

illustrate that the knowledge that is gained in the receptivity of prayer vitalizes the passionless

state. Apatheia here is explained to be the apex of well-being for the spiritual aspect of the

human person, or the mind, as Evagrius makes little distinction. This relates to the apophatic

character of contemplative prayer that separates the mind from a diversity of thought as

examined in the last chapter. In this passage, the oneness or union produced by “contemplative

knowledge” that sets aside external thoughts and objects for interior unity with God (apophatic

theology) accompanies apatheia – the purified state of the soul-mind in which its proclivity or

orientation is synchronized with God. Evagrius uses the angels as models that exemplify

apatheia as immaterial, purely spiritual beings detached from the inner passions and thereby are

capable of being in harmony with one another and God. Kevin Corrigan comments on this

passage: “Spiritual knowledge, of which prayer is the highest expression, involves a

transformation of being from the human to the angelic. By the (Platonic) principle of like to like,

likeness produces a new synapse in the human being.”70 Such is the mental experience of

apatheia, a continual self-detached and self-giving reciprocity between God and the mind in

contemplative prayer. The mind is molded into spiritual newness. Apatheia as inner spiritual

knowledge sustains and encompasses the ascetical life.

Evagrius moves in his ascetical rhetoric from explicating apatheia as a discipline

towards describing the concurrent mystical feeling or experience of apatheia, and how this inner

69
Evagrius, Praktikos, 56.
70
Corrigan, 58.

53
state equips the outer life towards virtue. An actual received spiritual elation exists in apatheia

that transforms the mind to be whole in the inner mental world as well as interact in the outer

world in a passionless and thus peaceful manner. “The proof of apatheia is had when the spirit

begins to see its own light, when it remains in a state of tranquility in the presence of the images

it has during sleep and when it maintains its calm as it beholds the affairs of life.” 71 Evagrius is

illustrating the experience of apatheia as a direct spiritual awareness of “the spirit” or numinous

quality of the human person (or nous) recognizing itself. This experience is brought about by

God’s operation in the mind during prayer as discussed earlier. In a sense this mystical

awakening is an illumination of the human person to see ourselves as fundamentally immaterial.

The passion-detached mind is able to see what it truly is as the image of God in union with God

when unchained from desires.

While it is unclear whether Evagrius is communicating that the mind in apatheia

experiences a visual sense of the actual light of the spirit or a metaphor to describe a state of

ecstasy, it is clear that a real spiritual experience occurs that empowers spiritual consciousness.

This is related to Evagrius’ verse in his Reflections in which collaboration with God in prayer

brings “connatural light.”72 Apatheia is also present when the spirit or mind is undisturbed by

the uncontrollable images in dreams. For Evagrius it is an inner peace that is unaffected even by

the multiplicity of imagery when sleeping, which implies that it is a form of perfected unity of

mind with God. Apatheia experienced is moreover a stillness of spirit in the face of life’s

challenges. It is the spirit that is wholly one in God, singularly satisfied in God, without the need

to satisfy diverse passions and desires that create conflict in the mind between flesh and spirit

71
Evagrius, Praktikos, 64.
72
Evagrius, “Reflections,” 25.

54
that parallels St. Paul’s teaching in Galatians 5 and Romans 8. Apatheia therefore corresponds to

his theology of apophatic asceticism insofar as it is a heaven-focused affinity that moves from a

discipline to an experience of divine simplicity negating the passions and mental idols. David E.

Linge comments on apatheia: “What begins as a method – a techne – for watching over one’s

inward state reaches perfection by becoming established as a condition or state of being – a

katastasis – in which the ascetic remains calm and alert in all circumstances, even those such as

dreaming which are normally considered to be beyond one’s control.” 73

Concurrently with the above verse, Evagrius follows his detailed description of

experiencing apatheia with a verse to expound upon the capability of the spirit/mind that reaches

it in ascetic practice to be totally detached from external material desires. “The spirit that is

actively leading the ascetic life with God’s help which draws near to contemplative knowledge

ceases to perceive the irrational part of the soul almost completely, perhaps altogether. For this

knowledge bears it aloft and separates it from the senses.” 74 Here Evagrius evokes the concept

of the “irrational part of the soul” – the aspect of the mind that consists of unthinking, instinctual

desire – to illustrate what is negated as the result of experiencing apatheia. This seems to be a

higher stage of the mystical experience of apatheia for Evagrius. The ascetic in this particular

state reaches a point in his spiritual training in which the practice of negating transitions into a

transcendence of irrational desire to receive “contemplative knowledge” – the immaterial

knowledge of communing with God in prayer. This ascetical training leading to this experience

of transcendence is linked to his apophatic theory that involves encountering the knowledge of

God through formless receptivity – listening to God’s voice within and seeing the unified

73
Linge, 557.
74
Evagrius, Praktikos, 66.

55
spiritual or mental reality in all things rather than analyzing differentiated imagery. Apatheia

turns the mind away from the desire for multiple passions to be one with God that parallels

Evagrius’ apophatic theology of negating multiple images in contemplative prayer.

Lastly in Evagrius’ Chapters on Prayer, he provides one verse in which apatheia is

experienced in prayer. Evagrius illustrates how apatheia is a state of being in which interior

virtues are woven into the very fabric of the ascetical life through contemplation and a constant

interior peace of being energized by God in the soul or mind. “The state of prayer can be aptly

described as a habitual state of imperturbable calm (apatheia). It snatches to the heights of

intelligible reality the spirit which loves wisdom and which is truly spiritualized by the most

intense love.”75 In Evagrius’ estimation here apatheia manifests as a constant unaffected state of

mind. It enables the rational faculties to experience the love of God operative in the mind during

prayer to receive peace and spiritually sense the mind’s freedom from the passions for inner

transformation (apophatic theology). Kevin Corrigan adds, “In other words, apatheia is a

developing state of agape, eros, and pothos, a self-dependent, yet dialogical union between the

divine and human, in which the reality of the universe can be more deeply contemplated; and self

and reality contemplated are already permeated or infused by the divine life.” 76 The “heights of

intelligible reality” that is reached in apatheia for Evagrius is the oneness with the divine as

“contemplative knowledge” in the inner mental realm as he states earlier in the Praktikos. Here

Evagrius describes the union of the passionless mind with God in which the intellect and the

heart (the whole mind) are “spiritualized,” made whole in God by casting off externalities in the

inwardness of prayer – that is, communion with God apophatically. Apatheia then is a pure

75
Evagrius, Chapters on Prayer, 52.
76
Corrigan, 63.

56
mental state in which the love of mental or spiritual properties that are of God, such as wisdom,

is absorbed and material focus is negated.

In conclusion to this chapter we have seen how Evagrius’ concept of apatheia as his

central ascetical discipline and mystical experience is directly connected to his apophatic

theology. Evagrius’ exposition of apatheia as divine elation and spiritual progress that consists

of negating the passions stems from his apophatic approach to divine epistemology. The

negation of multiple images in contemplative prayer and spiritual exegesis (apophatic theology)

corresponds to his spiritual discipline that negates the passions (apatheia). Both consist of

participating in divine simplicity. Apatheia is a singleness of mind that is able to commune with

God the ultimate singularity by apophatic means. Apatheia as an ascetic discipline is the outer

expression of passionlessness and apatheia as a mystical experience is the inner expression of

passionlessness. Both are encompassed by Evagrius’ theology of contemplation which is

decisively apophatic. Engaging in the practice of chipping away at the mind’s attachment to

complexity for the interior quiet of prayer enacts the mystical experience of the singular presence

of God and virtuous self-detached outer living. Apatheia essentially is to make the embodied

mind spiritual in its interior encounters and exterior encounters. Evagrius communicates that the

mystical, indescribable knowledge received in apatheia is concomitant with the daily holiness

that is wrought by apatheia to in part formulate his unified theological framework of bridging

knowledge and piety.

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 CHAPTER4

CONCLUSION, EVAGRIUS’ MONASTIC INFLUENCE, AND PATRISTIC

TO MODERN RELEVANCE

Evagrius’ whole theological system is based on the mental negation of multiple objects,

imagery, and desires to unite the immaterial mind with God’s immaterial being. His theology of

“apophatic asceticism” is infused in the very fabric of his reflective texts. They exhort the reader

to meditate on scripture and doctrine for the purpose of contemplating the spiritual reality they

describe, to negate conceptualizing God to see the unified spiritual reality in all things, and to be

watchful over the inner intentions and negate the attachment to variety for divine union.

Defining God for Evagrius removes the “I-Thou” relationship with God in the mind. His

Origenist-Platonic teachings of God’s incomprehensibility and the primacy of the mental realm

facilitate his ascetic imperatives to unbind the mind from material passions in apatheia. This is

co-extensive with his non-propositional reflection on doctrine. The monist theory of mind and

simplicity of God that Evagrius received from Plato, Origen, and the Cappadocians is a type of

cosmology and anthropology that informs his theory. The mind is made whole in contemplation

of God’s unity as the purpose of human existence – divine simplicity. His ascetical theory was a

call to Christians to withdraw from the self-attached world into the detached mind that

contemplates spiritual reality, for that is where God lives most intimately.

The mental or spiritual aspect of the human being is the center of human identity

according to Evagrius. Therefore it is the aspect that comprises the fallen personality, which

requires restoration though God’s grace that enables the mind to negate its attachment to imagery

and various desires in contemplation. For Evagrius, all of reality is fundamentally mental and

58
lives in God, and therefore rational beings as part of God’s salvific plan are being brought back

to this original mental state. However, Evagrius does not shirk the outer life. On the contrary,

his admonition to focus on God’s presence within and ascetical aim of apatheia is to cultivate an

outer life that is made completely spiritual. In apophaticism and apatheia, the passions are

controlled, the divine life is expressed in active virtue through contemplation, and community is

nurtured by a constancy of inner purity for outer holiness. “Happy is the monk who views the

welfare and progress of all men with as much joy as if it was his own.” 77

In his world of multiple ideologies Evagrius was able to bring together a fusion of

Platonic philosophy and Christian doctrinal theology to construct his ascetical theory of daily

spiritual progress and scriptural reflective study. Evagrius was the first theologian to form a

fully developed apophatic mysticism that centered on knowing God through negation rather than

definition for the direct experience of God’s presence in contemplative prayer. He predates

Pseudo-Dionysius who wrote an influential treatise on the subject, and influenced later mystical

thinkers such as Gregory Palamas. Evagrius made an impressive accomplishment by taking the

Cappadocian theological prowess and mystical reflection of the desert to form his theology of

“apophatic asceticism.”

The monastic revolution was a movement in the early Church to create a more authentic

Christian life that was just as theologically vibrant as the theological richness that characterized

the early Councils and apologetic writings of the Fathers. Evagrius brought a fusion of doctrinal

language and ascetical language to form an integrated participatory theology in which the heart

and mind work together in the life of faith. A continual revival of Evagrius’ works is currently

77
Evagrius, Chapters on Prayer, 122.

59
underpinning the diverse stream of theological discourse in monastic studies of the early church.

Often the monastic and ascetic tradition and her proponents are wrongly characterized as more

practically-oriented and less theologically dense. Evagrius is a monumental figure who fixes that

divide and clears away that assumption. Although some of Evagrius’ works were condemned

posthumously at the Fifth Ecumenical Council along with some of Origen’s ideas, the

condemnation was quite suspect and Evagrius was deeply in concord with the Cappadocian

defenders of orthodoxy. In conjunction with Augustine Casiday, it is useful to move beyond that

event to what is germane before it and get at the core of Evagrius’ thought. His thought that

influenced the rise of monastic thought that eventually spread to the West and became codified

and structured into cloistered communities. Evagrius’ theology of apatheia in particular had a

profound impact on the renowned transmitter of Monastic thought, John Cassian, who in turn

influenced the founder of Western Monasticism, St. Benedict. Evagrius’ texts that inspire

constant recitation and rumination of scripture, monastic wisdom, had an important impact on

the developing contemplative traditions, which included the seeds of lectio divina that John

Cassian planted as his successor.

Applying Evagrius’ thought for the modern Church and academia would bring an

emphasis on spiritual formation that is not divorced from deep theological construction. The

modern idea that theology is primarily an intellectual exercise while spirituality is primarily a

mystical enterprise is a dichotomy that Evagrius can reconnect, especially in academic circles. A

more collaborative discourse among systematic theologians, monastic theologians, and church

historians should be sparked by the various reconstructions of early monastic theology that

involved fusing mysticism, asceticism, and doctrinal reflection of which Evagrius is an essential

60
part. For the Church, a firmer exposition of Evagrius’ thought in Christian education – whether

in seminaries, universities, or local churches – would foster a greater appreciation for the

Christian heritage of monasticism and provide a wellspring from which spiritual formation can

be further understood and explained with strong theological foundations.

In our post-Enlightenment world of skepticism, materialism, post-modernism, and

empiricism many preconceive a divide between religious spirituality and reasonable inquiry, the

former being irrational and impractical while latter is considered rational and practical. Evagrian

thought tears down that false dichotomy by presenting spirituality as the process and outgrowth

of reasoned and reflected philosophy and theology. In this way, Evagrius along with the

Thomist legacy of merging faith and reason as part of the same divine discourse provides a

bridge between faith and reason from a different angle – the reconciliation between mystical

experience and theological reflection, between spirituality and doctrine.

Evagrius’ apophatic theology and apatheia produced an experiential theology in which

the mind and inner attitude are united through contemplation. Learning and applying Evagrius’

theory fosters an asceticism that is immersed in the pursuit of spiritual knowledge attained

through the combination of scriptural reflection and clearing the mind of distractions in prayer.

It is a knowledge that inspires humility as it relinquishes/negates the multiplicity of

disharmonious foci for the singularity of mind with God for unity, thus enabling virtue and fuller

unity with other minds who share in the same Imago Dei. Evagrius’ apophatic approach to God

aids in spiritual progress as it wards off rendering God as a proposition to be analyzed and rather

facilitates communion with the living God of all existence with whom we are made to have

relationship. Evagrius reminds us that the center of humanness is mental or spiritual expressed

61
by inner contemplation and the embodied outer life of virtuous dispassion, making both the

mental and material encounters in life purely spiritual. Therefore for Evagrius we are most

fulfilled when we are spiritually energized by the immaterial author of existence: God.

62
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