Evagrius of Pontus on corporeal reality: Taking the Stoics to the desert

ABSTRACT

In this article, the issue of corporeal reality in Evagrius is discussed in abstraction – to the extent that this is possible – from its soteriological purpose. An analysis of Evagrius’ statements about corporeal reality reveals a world that cannot be known in itself, but which is established through a hierarchy of qualifications. Evagrius’ account of the elements and their features, of the relationship of qualities to matter, and of the process in which the intellect apprehends bodies, appears to be deeply indebted to the Stoic account of bodily reality. Evagrius differs, however, in that the corporeal reality he describes is inherently unknowable and lifeless. As he develops Stoic intuitions about the commanding faculty into a vision of an intellect holding within itself a model of its bearer’s body, and as he moves the logoi of judgement and providence outside of corporeal reality, the latter turns into a desert from which life and rationality are absent. An intellect, as a soul, is only liminally present in corporeal reality. Focused on itself, it becomes a subjectivity that only interacts with the external bodily world through a model of the latter that it constructs within the boundaries of the soul itself.

KEYWORDS:

• Evagrius of Pontus
• corporeal reality
• intellect
• Stoicism (reception)
• subjectivity

Notes

1 The translation of the Syriac text of the Kephalaia Gnostika (hereafter KG) used here will be that of Ilaria Ramelli (Evagrius Ponticus, Evagrius’s Kephalaia gnostica). The Antoine Guillaumont edition of version S₂ (in Evagrius Ponticus, Les six centuries) will be adopted as a standard point of reference when citing the KG, and his own translation in that edition will also occasionally be referred to.

2 See e.g. Corrigan, Evagrius and Gregory, chapter 3, 37–51; Guillaumont, Un philosophe au désert, chapter 6, 337–404.

3 Such as e.g. Evagrius Ponticus, Chapitres sur la prière; À Euloge, Les vices opposés aux vertus; or Traité pratique; and Le gnostique.

4 This study is based on a collection of altogether 138 fragments of the KG, identified by various scholars. Citations from those sources are shown next to quotations. All translations from Greek are mine.

5 Evagrius, On the Thoughts 40.1–5, cited hereafter as Lg according to the edition Sur les pensées.

6 Evagrius’ On the Faith is hereafter cited as EpFid, and the Skemmata as Sk. Furthermore, due to the very limited textual material in Evagrius, I will not deal here with the issues of vacuity and temporality, which are mentioned only in KG 1.54 and 2.87.

7 See chapters 6 and 7 in the collection of fragments with the title Principium scientiae veritatis in anima (est) motio eius a Spiritu sancto, published by Joseph Muyldermans in “Évagre le Pontique”, 90–1 [18–19 in the article], French translation p. 93 [21]. The chapters correspond to chapters 59 and 60 in the Supplement to Kephalaia gnostika, according to Frankenberg, Euagrius Ponticus, 469–71. They are not included, at the moment, in any collection of fragments enumerated by the Clavis Patrum Graecorum.

8 Deletions are marked with curly brackets, additions with angle brackets.

9 Trans. Ramelli, but with ‘mixture’ replaced by ‘quality’. Guillaumont, “Équivalent du corps est celui qui lui est égal en qualité”.

10 Such a conclusion is supported by a brisk lemmatic chronological search in the TLG database.

11 The earliest instance in works not deemed spuria or dubia is in Niketas David, Laudatio in Gregorium Theologum 6.83.

12 Basing their rendering on the Syriac textual sources, both Ramelli and Guillaumont present the passage as only discussing acts of human speech – i.e. without connecting human logoi with divinely inspired understanding. Both construe it as if the original Greek had kai logos tautēi katallēlos dēloi instead of kai logos sēmainei tautēn katallēlos.

13 I am obliged to disagree here with the opinion of many distinguished scholars. See Ramelli, “Introductory Essay and Commentary”, 86–8; Corrigan, Evagrius and Gregory, 42 n19; Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus, 51–2; Young, “Evagrius the Iconographer”, 60, 66. See also Guillaumont and Guillaumont, “Introduction”, 29–30; Guillaumont, Un philosophe au désert, 289, 292–4.

14 The views of the Stoics will be presented here through citations of fragments in von Arnim and Adler, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (hereafter SVF) and through numbered source citations in Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (hereafter L&S). When (and only when) deemed necessary, those citations will be doubled by standard references to the texts from which a testimony or a fragment has been drawn.

15 See Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus, 37, 105 (ethics), 41–2, 51–2, 54 (logoi); Guillaumont, “Introduction”, 23–7 (cognition); Guillaumont, Un philosophe au désert, 288 (logoi).

16 Lg 2.1–15 vs. e.g. SVF 2.59, 2.61, 2.837, 2.843; however, this needs to be viewed in the light of 2.841 ≈ L&S 53V.

17 Pietras, “L’inizio del mondo”, points to a number of claims in Origen’s account of corporeal creation of the world that, in the light of what has been discussed above, seem clearly to be inspired in many respects by Stoics.

18 See Chadwick, “Origen, Celsus and the Stoa”; Zhyrkova, “The Philosophical Premises”, or SVF 1.244, 1.265, 1.297, 2.21, 2.108, 2.138, 2.304, 2.318, referred to above, 2.600, 2.628, 2.746, 2.747, 2.988–9, 2.1051–4, 2.1157, 2.1174, 3.233, 3.346, to adduce just most pertinent here passages recognized by von Arnim. See also condemnation of Origen by Hieronymus for relying on Stoics in SVF 2.631.

19 See Cyril of Alexandria, Contra Julianum 1.41.1–21, 1.43.13–29 ≈ Corpus Hermeticum, Fr. 1 and 25, 1.48.13–33 ≈ fr. 27–30, 1.48.14–49.17 including fr. 23 and 24, 2.22.19–24 ≈ fr. 22, 2.29.22–31.13 including fr. 31, 32A, 32B, 33, 34, 2.41.25–42.35 ≈ CH XIV, 6.7–7.21, 8.1–10.7, 4.23.11–16 (unassigned fragment), 8.31.17–25 ≈ CH, fr. 35.

20 See Guillaumont, Un philosophe au désert, 59–63 for the history of Theophilus’ support of Evagrius and later rejection of his legacy (which probably occurred only after the latter’s death).