Imago Dei--The Anthropomorphite Controversy & St Gregory the Great

In large part because of my great devotion to St John Cassian and his writings, I have long taken a keen interest in the 4^th- to 5^th-century ‘Anthropomorphite-Origenist’ controversy in Egypt, and for the same reason I have for the most part tended to identify heavily with the ‘Origenist’ side of the controversy. St Cassian’s points in Conference 10 in fact seem fairly uncontroversial, and the ‘anthropomorphite’ position seems fairly indefensible from an Orthodox perspective.

This view was beautifully complicated for me by Bishop Alexander’s contribution to the festschrift for Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware)—‘The Vision of God & the Form of Glory: More Reflections on the Anthropomorphite Controversy of AD 399’ (see an earlier contribution by His Grace to the subject here). While I definitely appreciated His Grace’s ‘final word’ attempting to ‘make up a little for the injustices I may have done a Cassian, an Origen, or an Evagrius in the course of making my argument’ [1], I also appreciated in a different sense his main argument that the simplistic ‘Serapion’ of Conference 10 may not be entirely representative of the anthropomorphites themselves or of their position.

Well, today I was finally getting round to reading Tim Vivian’s introduction to his little volume for the SVS Popular Patristic Series—Four Desert Fathers: Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt & Macarius of Alexandria. Vivian—in his discussion of Evagrius’s emphasis on imageless prayer and its possible role in the controversy—seems to hold a nuanced understanding of the controversy very similar to that of Bishop Alexander and informed by some of the same sources. Among others, he also refers to an essay by Fr Georges Florovsky that I don’t believe I have yet read myself entitled ‘Theophilus of Alexandria and Apa Aphou of Pemdje’. Vivian quotes Fr Georges’s explanation of the position of one of the ‘anthropomorphites’:

The sting of his argument was directed against the denial of God’s image in man, and there was no word whatever about any ‘human form’ in God. Aphou only contended that man, even in his present condition and in spite of all his misery and destitution, had to be regarded still as being created in the image of God, and must be, for that reason, respected. Aphou was primarily concerned with man’s dignity and honor. Theophilus, on the other hand, was embarrassed by man’s misery and depravity. [2]

I found this connection between the anthropomorphites’ emphasis on the imago Dei in man and the Origenists’ rejection of an imago hominis in God particularly interesting in light of something I had just read this morning in an author rather far removed in time and place from the controversy: St Gregory the Great. In his Homilies on Ezekiel, St Gregory links the human soul and God Himself in the process of mystical ascent, describing a kind of likeness between the two, but specifically rejecting the conception of not only the latter but of the former in terms of images. I shall quote this passage at length:

For we often wish to ponder the invisible nature of Almighty God but by no means avail, and the soul, wearied by the very difficulties, withdraws into herself and makes for herself and from herself the steps of her ascent, so that she first considers herself, if she can, and then examines insofar as she can that nature which is above her. But our mind, if spread out in carnal images, by no means suffices to consider itself or the nature of the soul because it is led by as many thoughts as it is, so to speak, blinded by obstacles. [3]

It is then that St Gregory begins to discuss precisely how God and the soul are connected and why they must both be approached without images. In the next passage the ellipses indicate where I have attempted to shorten the quote without, I hope, obscuring the argument.

9. Then the first step is to compose oneself, the second to see the like of this composure, the third to rise above oneself and by intention submit to the contemplation of the invisible Creator. But one by no means composes himself unless he has first learned to curb the apparitions of earthly and heavenly images from his mind’s eye and cast out and tread down whatever of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste occurs to his bodily thought, in order that he may inwardly seek such as is free thereof….Then all things are to be driven away by the hand of discernment from the mind’s eye so that the soul may regard herself as she was created, above the body but below God, so that being quickened by her superior she may quicken the inferior which she administers….And when she performs such different actions through the senses she arranges them not by a diversity, but by that one reason in which she was created. When therefore the soul thinks of herself without bodily images she has already entered the first door. But this door leads on to the other in order that something from the nature of Almighty God may be contemplated. So the soul in the body is the life of the flesh, but God Who quickens all is the life of souls. Then if the quickened life is of such magnitude that it cannot be comprehended, who avails to comprehend with his understanding how great is the majesty of the Life which quickens? But the very consideration and discernment thereof is already to enter to some extent, because from her appraisement the soul gathers what she perceives of the uncircumscribed Spirit which incomprehensibly rules those things which He incomprehensibly created. [4]

Now, this is a very difficult passage, in part because St Gregory seems to be speaking of a lofty mystical experience which most of us have not shared. But I note that even in speaking of what one might call the contemplation of one’s own soul, he teaches that images must be driven out. The necessity of imageless contemplation of God, then, is even greater, for if the creature is incomprehensible, how much more the Creator?

What’s interesting to me about this is that it clearly appears to belong to the Origenists’ tradition (I’d be interested to see research on what St Gregory knew of Origen and Evagrius), and yet it does not—as one might expect from the quoted passage from Fr Georges’s essay—deny the imago Dei in man. Indeed, St Gregory seems to make much indeed of the divine image in the human soul—ascribing to it the very incomprehensibility that for the Origenists required the cultivation of total imagelessness in prayer to its divine Prototype.

[1] Bishop Alexander (Golitzin), ‘The Vision of God & the Form of Glory: More Reflections on the Anthropomorphite Controversy of AD 399’, Abba—The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West: Festschrift for Bishop Kallistos Ware, ed. Fr John Behr, Fr Andrew Louth, & Dimitri Conomos (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 2003), p. 295.

[2] Fr Georges Florovsky, ‘Theophilus of Alexandria and Apa Aphou of Pemdje’, Aspects of Church History, Vol. 4 of Collected Works (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1975), p. 119; qtd. in Tim Vivian, Introduction, Four Desert Fathers: Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt & Macarius of Alexandria (Crestwood, NY: 2004), p. 45.

[3] St Gregory the Great, The Homilies of St Gregory the Great On the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, tr. Theodosia Gray, ed. Presbytera Juliana Cownie (Etna, CA: CTOS, 1990), p. 209.

[4] Ibid., pp. 209-10.

Comparing the Fathers on the Cœlestial Hierarchy

In his classic paper, ‘Dionysius Areopagites in the Works of St Gregory Palamas: On the Question of a “Christological Corrective” & Related Matters’ (here), Bishop Alexander (Golitzin) of Toledo first called my attention to a passage in Palladius’s Lausiac History when he played the ultimate trump card against those who say St Dionysius derived his teaching on the cœlestial hierarchy from the 4^th-c. Platonists. First, Bishop Alexander quotes the Areopagite, Cœlestial Hierarchy 8.2 (240D): ‘The divine source of all order has established the all-embracing principle that beings of the second rank receive enlightenment from the Godhead through the beings of the first rank. This has been asserted frequently by the scripture writers, as you may discover.’ [1]

Then His Grace quotes the ‘Letter to Lausus’ appended to the beginning of Palladius’s monastic history: ‘The first order of beings have their learning from the most high Trinity, the second learns from the first, the third from the second, and so on down to the least. Those who are higher in knowledge and virtue teach the lower.’ [2] Finally, having set these two side by side, Bishop Alexander observes:

Given this passage, might we not say that the lines which I quoted above from Celestial Hierarchy 13, [3] and which both Professor Ritter and I cited from Celestial Hierarchy 8.2, are no more obviously a paraphrase of the pagan Neoplatonism of, for example, Iamblichus than they are of the Christian monk and predecessor of Dionysius, Palladius? The passages are so close as to argue for a match, down to and including an even more explicit expression of the triadic form, so dear to Dionysius, than we found in the latter's texts cited above, together with the language of ‘firsts’ (prota), ‘seconds’ (deutera), and, here, ‘thirds’ (trita).

But Robert Meyer’s translation of Palladius has an endnote to this passage—remarking the similarity to St Dionysius—that I found puzzling. He writes, ‘Palladius’ angelology is similar to that given in St John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa 2 f., and John Damascene (De cael. hier. 8.1) attributes a like opinion to Dionysius the Areopagite; but apparently there is no literary connection between the three writers.’ [4] First of all, why wouldn’t the first comment concern the similarity to St Dionysius, by most accounts a near-contemporary of Palladius, rather than to St John Damascene, who lived hundreds of years later? Second, if St John ‘attributes a like opinion’ to St Dionysius, then doesn’t it seem as though there is at least a literary connection between the latter two?

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I had some difficulty finding this passage in St John, or even making sense of the citation of ‘De fide orthodox 2 f.’ in comparison with Frederic Chase’s translation of this text. My first thought was that the ‘2’ signified ‘Book 2’, a fairly large portion of text, but nothing at the beginning of Book 2 resembles this idea of hierarchy. I noticed in the table of contents, however, that each chapter number is followed by a chapter number in parentheses. The first number begins again at one at the beginning of each ‘Book’, but the numbers in parentheses are continuous throughout the Books, suggesting to me that these are an older system. At any rate, Chapter (2) also happens to be Chapter 2 of Book 1, but I saw nothing in this chapter that corresponds to St Dionysius or to Palladius.

Of course, it occurred to me that the likely place to look for the ‘angelology...given in St John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa’ would be the chapter ‘On Angels’—Chapter 3 (17) of Book 2. And there indeed, is the closest thing I can find to the other two Fathers: ‘They [the angels] illuminate one another by the excellence of their rank or nature. Moreover, it is evident that the more excellent communicate their brightness and their knowledge to them that are inferior.’ [5] So, Meyer’s citation is just very nonspecific, but furthermore, I do not find St John exactly attributing ‘a like opinion to Dionysius the Areopagite’. There is indeed a reference to St Dionysius in this chapter, but it is not directly connected to the passage just quoted at all. Here is what St John writes about the Areopagite:

As the most holy and sacred Dionysius the Areopagite, who is very well versed in theology, says, all theology, that is to say, sacred Scripture, has given the heavenly substances as nine in number. The divine initiator divides these into three orders of three. He says that the first of these is ever round about God and that to it has it been given to be united directly and immediately to Him. This is the order of the six-winged Seraphim and the many-eyed Cherubim and the most holy Thrones. The second order is that of the Dominations and the Virtues and the Powers. The third is that of the Principalities and the Archangels and the Angels. [6]

The closest this passage comes to attributing a ‘like opinion’ on the cœlestial hierarchy to St Dionysius is the comment that to the first order ‘has it been given to be united directly and immediately to Him’. But there is nothing about passing on the light to those below. Of cource, Chase has given us a couple of citations of St Dionysius in the footnotes. Footnoting St John’s ‘hierarchy’ passage, he has ‘Cf. Pseudo-Dionysius. Celestial Hierarchy 3 (PG 3.164ff.).’ [7] Footnoting St John’s reference to St Dionysius, he has ‘Pseudo-Dionysius, op. cit. 6.2 (PG 3.200D-201A).’ [8]

So the first footnote gives us all of chapter 3 of CH—slightly more than two pages in Luibheid’s translation—in which the closest comment to St John’s ‘hierarchy’ passage is ‘It [hierarchy] ensures that when its members have received this full and divine splendor they can then pass on this light generously and in accordance with God’s will to beings further down the scale.’ [9] As for the second citation, St John has essentially just paraphrased CH 6.2 (I would simply compare the Greek of the two passages to see if it is actually more a quotation than a paraphrase, but unfortunately, while I have the Greek text of the rest of the Fount of Knowledge, I am missing De fide orthodoxa).

At any rate, there is certainly a connection here between these three texts, but Meyer has rather dropped the ball in more ways than one in his footnote referring to this connection. Still, one wonders if that footnote wasn’t enough to give Bishop Alexander the idea of the monastic tradition behind St Dionysius’s notion of hierarchy. His Grace at least cites Meyer’s translation in his footnote (n. 35) to the quotation from Palladius. For more on this issue of hierarchy, with reference not only to Bishop Alexander, but to Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, and St Augustine, see this post from two years ago.

[1] St Dionysius the Areopagite, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, tr. Colm Luibheid & Paul Rorem (NY: Paulist, 1987), p. 168.

[2] Palladius, The Lausiac History, tr. Robert T. Meyer, No. 34 in Ancient Christian Writers (NY: Paulist, 1964), p. 21.

[3] This passage is in CH 13.3, 301C—p. 178 of Luibheid’s translation.

[4] Palladius, pp. 168-9, n. 11.

[5] St John Damascene, Writings, tr. Frederic H. Chase, Jr., Vol. 37 of The Fathers of the Church series (Washington, DC: Catholic U of America, 1999), p. 207.

[6] Ibid., p. 208.

[7] Ibid., p. 207, n. 3.

[8] Ibid., p. 208, n. 7.

[9] St Dionysius, p. 154; translating CH 3.2.

Tolstoy, Lewis, Fr Alexander, & St Augustine on Cœlestial Hierarchy

I was recently looking back at Tolstoy’s famous diatribe, What is Art?, and came across the following passage, typical not only of Tolstoy but of a whole strain of post-Reformation thinking about the ‘hierarchies’ of mediaeval Christianity:

And this ecclesiastic Christianity which is quite distinct from the other, began, on the basis of its doctrine, to change the apprication of men’s sentiments and the productions of the arts which conveyed them. This ecclesiastic Christianity not only did not recognize the fundamental and essential propositions of true Christianity,—the immediate relation of each man to the Father, and the brotherhood and equality of all men, resulting from it, and the substitution of humility and love for all kinds of violence,—but, on the contrary, by establishing a celestial hierarchy, similar to the pagan mythology, and a worship of this hierarchy, of Christ, the Holy Virgin, the angels, apostles, saints, martyrs, and not only of these divinities, but also of their representations, established as the essence of its teaching blind faith in the church and its decrees. [1]

The use of the word ‘hierarchy’ of course, and particularly with the modifier ‘celestial’, reminds us quite naturally of the inventor of the word himself, St Dionysius the Areopagite. Thus, while it is disappointing, it is not surprising to find C.S. Lewis describing Dionysian teaching in terms less stringent but hardly more approving than Tolstoy:

. . . [P]seudo-Dionysius is as certain as Plato or Apuleius that God encounters Man only through a ‘mean’, and reads his own philosophy into scripture as freely as Chalcidius had read his into the Timaeus. He cannot deny that Theophanies, direct appearances of God Himself to patriarchs and prophets, seem to occur in the Old Testament. But he is quite sure that this never really happens. These visions were in reality mediated through celestial, but created, beings ‘as though the order of the divine law laid it down that creatures of a lower order should be moved God-ward by those of a higher’ (iv). That the order of the divine law does so enjoin is one of his key-conceptions. His God does nothing directly that can be done through an intermediary; perhaps prefers the longest possible chain of intermediaries; devolution or delegation, a finely graded descent of power and goodness, is the universle principle. The Divine splendour (illustratio) comes to us filtered, as it were, through the Hierarchies. [2]

While I can’t say I was ever seriously troubled by the Dionysian hierarchies, it’s true that at one point they appeared to me to differ from what I took to be St Gregory Palamas’s emphasis on the direct experience of God’s uncreated energies. Any questions I had on that score, though, were more than answered by a brilliant article from the pen of Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin)—‘Dionysius Areopagites in the Works of St Gregory Palamas: On the Question of a “Christological Corrective” and Related Matters’ (available here). I urge all to read the article in full, but the turning point for me was the following statement:

As Romanides pointed out some years ago, neither Palamas nor Dionysius believed that the great theophanies of either the past (to the saints of Israel), or of the present (to the saints of the New Covenant) took or take place through angelic mediation, but rather that the angels served both then and now to explain and interpret the visio dei luminis.

The point was made even more vivid and convincing to me, however, when Fr Alexander went on to compare the angelic mediators to monastic elders:

More specifically, however, as the vocabulary which Dionysius deploys for the angels’ mediatory function should suggest to us—mystagogues, teachers, guides and directors (hêgoumenoi—in short, abbots!)—his own presumption is clearly of a monastic setting. We are reminded in fact, and not accidentally, of the spiritual fathers and elders who appear so prominently in our earliest monastic texts, as in, for example, the Vitae of Anthony and Pachomius, the Gerontikon, the Historia monachorum in Aegypto, the works of Evagrius Ponticus, and others. Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere [here, that is], the geron or spiritual father is to a striking degree assimilated to the figure and role of the angelus interpres of the ancient apocalypses in both this earliest monastic literature, and thereafter to the present day.

But when I finally started reading St Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana for the first time the other day, I was surprised to find a response to a similar problem. In the Preface, the Bishop of Hippo is dealing with those who object to his producing a book on techniques for exegesis on the grounds that God Himself illuminates the exegete. They are particularly troubled at the notion of being instructed by a human being, and St Augustine seems to assume that they would not be as troubled as Lewis at the mediation of angels. Nevertheless, his arguments are very much relevant to the issues raised by Tolstoy. Responding to these objectors, St Augustine writes:

Let us beware of such arrogant and dangerous temptations, and rather reflect that the apostle Paul, no less, though cast to the ground and then enlightened by a divine voice from heaven, was sent to a human being to receive the sacrament of baptism and be joined to the church (Acts 9:3-8). And Cornelius the centurion, although an angel announced to him that his prayers had been heard and his acts of charity remembered, was nevertheless put under the tuition of Peter not only to receive the sacrament but also to learn what should be the objects of his faith, hope, and love. All this could certainly have been done through an angel [or through God Himself, I would add], but the human condition would be wretched indeed if God appeared unwilling to minister his word to human beings through human agency. It has been said, ‘For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are’ (I Cor. 3:17): how could that be true if God did not make divine utterances from his human temple but broadcast direct from heaven or through angels the learning that he wished to be passed on to mankind? Moreover, there would be no way for love, which ties people together in the bonds of unity, to make souls overflow and as it were intermingle with each other, if human beings learned nothing from other humans. [3]

Already this last statement, which almost seems to anticipate Charles Williams, ought to overturn the Russian novelist's whole take on things. But the final clincher for Tolstoy comes a bit further down. Recall that he essentially made himself the guru of a new religion, accepting disciples and so on. Furthermore, the 2008-2009 Annotated Bibliography in the Tolstoy Studies Journal, Vol. XXI (2009), lists an article by one Pål Kolstø I’d very much like to obtain called ‘The Elder at Iasnaia Poliana: Lev Tolstoi & the Orthodox Starets Tradition’. [4] Consider the synopsis of Kolstø’s argument in light of Fr Alexander’s thesis:

Tolstoy was familiar with and fascinated by the institution of starchestvo, a peculiar Orthodox form of piety. He trasnferred the principles into his own practice of spiritual guidance while at the same time changing the foundation to serve his own purposes. Tolstoy acted as a heterodox starets, the rôle into whichc he was at first forced by his adherents and which he considered a natural burden. The article gives an account of starchestvo in Orthodox theology and practice, discussing Tolstoy’s attitude toward this institution as reflected in his life and works. [5]

Thus, St Augustine’s words very much apply to the ‘elder at Iasnaia Poliana’: ‘But if he reads and understands without any human expositor, why does he then aspire to expound it to others and not simply refer them to God so that they too may understand it by God’s inner teaching rather than through a human intermediary?’ [6] The answer was aptly given by St Ambrose of Optina after his 1890 visit with the writer: ‘He is very proud’. [7]


[1] Count Lev N. Tolstoy, Resurrection, Vols. I-II, What is Art?, The Christian Teaching, tr. Leo Wiener (Boston: Dana Estes & Co., 1904), pp. 188-9.

[2] C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval & Renaissance Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge U, 2002), pp. 72-3.

[3] St Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Teaching, tr. R.P.H. Green (Oxford: Oxford U, 1999), pp. 5-6.

[4] Pål Kolstø, ‘The Elder at Iasnaia Poliana: Lev Tolstoi & the Orthodox Starets Tradition’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian & Eurasian History 9:3 (2008), pp. 533-554.

[5] Joseph Schlegel, Olha Tytarenko, & Irina Sizova, ‘Annotated Bibliography for 2008-2009’, Tolstoy Studies Journal, Vol. XXI (2009), p. 76.

[6] St Augustine, p. 6.

[7] Qtd. in Leonard Stanton, The Optina Pustyn Monastery in the Russian Literary Imagination: Iconic Vision in Works by Dostoevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy, & Others (NY: Peter Lang, 1995), p. 206.

'Thou Wast a True Theologian of the Holy Trinity'—St Symeon the New Theologian

Today, 12 March on the Church’s calendar, we celebrate the memory of our Holy Father Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022).* Along with St John (the Evangelist) and St Gregory, inaccurately called ‘Nazianzen’, St Symeon is one of only three Fathers that the Church has ever named ‘Theologian’. In his case, Archbishop Basil (Krivocheine) observes:

The term ‘theologian’ is to be understood here, as with most of the Greek Fathers, not in the sense of a theologian working out new dogmas, but as one who has reached the heights of contemplation. The adjective ‘New’ would mean a renewer of the apostolic life which had been in large part forgotten, as Symeon himself states. [1]

St Gregory Palamas writes concerning him, ‘You know the life of Symeon the New Theologian, and how it was all virtually a miracle, glorified by God through supranatural miracles. You know also his writings, which without exaggeration one can call writings of life.’ [2] Archbishop Basil calls him ‘the greatest of the Byzantine mystical writers’, [3] and Archimandrite Placide (Deseille) says that he ‘became the greatest mystic of the Byzantine Church’. [4] In the opinion of Fr Seraphim (Rose), St Symeon is one of ‘the most beloved Holy Fathers today among Orthodox Christians’. [5] Here is the account of his life in the Prologue:

This great and godly Father of the Church was born in Galatai in Paphlagonia and educated in Constantinople, where he entered the imperial service. He left all for Christ and took himself off to a monastery, living in asceticism under the guidance of an elder, Simeon, then becoming abbot of the monastery of St Mamas and finally a hermit. He was the greatest theologian since St Gregory the Theologian. His writings, illumined with the grace he carried in his heart, are a true theological revelation. He entered into rest in 1022, leaving wonder-working relics. [6]

In the interests of supplementing the Prologue a bit on the details of St Symeon’s politeia, or way of life, here is an account of his early struggles by his great disciple, St Nicetas Stethatos, from the condensed Life by St Theophan the Recluse:

He gave himself entirely over to solitude, to reading, to prayer and thoughts of God. The whole week he would eat only vegetables and grains, and only on Sundays would he go to the table of the brethren. He slept little, and that on the floor, only laying a sheepskin over the rug. On Sundays and feast days he performed all-night vigils, standing at prayer from evening until morning, and for the whole day thereafter he would give himself no rest. Never did he utter an idle word, but he preserved always an extreme heedfulness and a sober self-concentration. He sat all close up in his cell, and if he would got out to sit on a bench, it seemed as if he were drenched with tears and bore on his face the reflection of the flame of prayer. He read most of all the lives of saints, and after reading would sit down at his handicraft, which was calligraphy; he would copy something for the monastery and the elders or for himself. From the first sound of the semantron (announcing the morning service), he would stand up and hasten to church, where, with all prayerful heedfulness, he would listen to the order of Divine services. Whenever there was Liturgy, he would each time receive communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and all that day he would remain in prayer and thoughts of God. He would usually keep vigil until midnight, and then, after sleeping a little, would go to church to pray together with the brethren. During Great Lent he spent the five week days without food; on Saturday and Sunday he would go to the table of the brethren and eat whatever was given to everyone. He did not lie down to sleep, but merely leaned with his head on his arms and thus dozed off for an hour or so. [7]

St Symeon’s authority as a ‘theologian’, of course, derives from his own direct experience of God. As Fr Seraphim writes: ‘St Symeon speaks from divine revelation. First, his basis is always scriptural—but we are astonished to see a depth of meaning in his use of scriptural quotations which we would never have seen by ourselves. And this is because, second, he speaks from personal experience.’ The Holy Fathers ‘can speak at first hand of the mysteries of our Faith which they have beheld in divine vision’. [8] Fr Alexander (Golitzin) notes the same thing but puts it another way:

Symeon, in short, is laying claim to nothing less than the authority of a biblical prophet. . . . Such a claim is not new in the history of Eastern monastic literature, but Symeon . . . emphasizes it, [he] is . . . stark in his insistence on the necessity of first experiencing God in order to talk about Him—‘Why do I trouble to explain and interpret?’ he cries at one point, ‘when you will not be able to understand these things unless you have comprehended them by experience’ . . . .’ [9]

Unfortunately, many modern readers have misunderstood St Symeon’s writings, reading into them their own idiosyncratic ideas and preoccupations. Thus, Fr John Meyendorff claims that it is ‘easy to find him at variance with any established tradition’, and that St Symeon is ‘an important witness of the inevitable tension in Christianity between all forms of “establishment” and the freedom of the Spirit.’ [10] One unfortunate priest of the Greek Archdiocese in America even went so far as to use St Symeon as justification for his enthusiasm for the ‘charismatic movement’. But as Archbishop Basil has observed, ‘Symeon does not easily fit into this or that category: he was not a religious extremist, nor some type of proto-Reformer rebelling against the Church hierarchy, nor a forerunner of the Pentecostal movement. He was certainly not an “unconscious Messalian”.’ [11] Fr Alexander wryly observes, even throwing the accusation some have made of ‘Donatism’ into the mix, ‘He may appear occasionally to be “almost” anyone of these . . . , but, to recall Mark Twain’s distinction between the lightning and the lightning bug, there is a very great difference between “almost” and “actual”.’ [12] St Symeon ‘never doubts that the hierarchical and sacramental structures of the Church are true and established by God.’ [13]

In fact, St Symeon is fully in line with the stream of Holy Tradition before him, and has been recognised to have been so in line by the entire stream after him—in the words of my own dear professor, Anestis Keselopoulos, ‘[I]n St Symeon the Orthodox Tradition has always seen a great teacher and theologian of Christian faith and life.’ [14] As Fr Alexander notes, ‘The main themes of Symeon’s thought may be summed up under two headings: deification (theosis) as “tears and light”, and the spiritual father. In neither case is he anything other than a uniquely personal witness to long-established elements in the Greek patristic tradition.’ [15] Concerning St Symeon’s writings, Fr Alexander writes:

His writing is powerful, the prose of a man fully at home in written speech, indeed, of a master writer. He is thoroughly capable of expressing himself clearly and convincingly, and often with great beauty and originality. If he was not well read in the philosophers, nor interested in doing so, he was on the other hand steeped in the culture of the Church: the scriptures, the liturgy, the lives of the saints, and the works of the Church fathers. . . . Moreover, the tradition of the Greek Church is so much St Symeon’s bone and fiber, so at home is he within it, that in him it takes on a very special freshness and immediacy. . . . He speaks to us directly, confidently, and unspoiled by any of the longing to reproduce ancient literary models which so afflicted the prose of his learned contemporaries. [16]

While Archbishop Basil laments that St Theophan the Recluse, when he translated St Symeon into Russian, omitted the Hymns, ‘finding them too daring for the simple reader, and therefore dangerous’, [17] Fr Seraphim for one has respected this decision, noting that the Hymns, ‘as recent Fathers have warned us, are better left untouched by us Christians of the latter times who are too immersed in our own passions and filth of this most debased and evil of epochs.’ [18] Furthermore, Archbishop Philaret of Chernigov reminds us that ‘the states of which St Symeon speaks are ones for which great preparatory struggles are required.’ [19] But fortunately, St Symeon himself is not silent about such struggles. As Prof. Keselopoulos notes, although St Symeon ‘is often presented as a mystic who spoke exclusively about exalted spiritual states’, the ‘ascetic struggle [too] holds a significant and fundamental place in his works . . . . The particular hallmark of his teaching is his insistent effort not to separate the ascetic struggle from the mystical life.’ [20]

I shall present a few passages from St Symeon’s writings, letting the Holy Father speak for himself. But first, I would like to quote a confession from Prof. Keselopoulos’s introduction to his book on St Symeon, a confession that I second: ‘Having read the works of St Symeon, one feels embarrassed and inadequate trying to speak or write about matters which require a knowledge and perception of the divine, when one has not experienced divine illumination. . . .’ [21] If I have finally overcome my own hesitation, it is merely out of a desire to honour the Saint on his Feast. Nevertheless, I begin with a passage from St Symeon’s ‘One Hundred & Fifty-Three Practical & Theological Texts’ which condemns me first of all:

104. Anyone who thinks himself intelligent because of his scholarly or scientific learning will never be granted insight into divine mysteries unless he first humbles himself and becomes a fool (cf. I Cor. 3:18), discarding both his presumption and the knowledge that he has acquired. But if he does this and with unhesitating faith allows himself to be led by those wise in divine matters, he will enter with them into the city of the living God. Guided and illumined by the divine Spirit, he will see and learn what others cannot ever see or learn. He will then be taught by God (cf. John 6:45). [22]

. . .

106. Even now, living in our midst, there are people who are dispassionate and saintly, filled with divine light, who have so mortified whatever in them pertains to the earth (cf. Col. 3:5), freeing it from all impurity and impassioned desire, that not only do they themselves not think or act maliciously, but even when drawn in this direction by another they are unwavering in their dispassion. Those who accuse these saints of folly, and who do not believe them when in the wisdom of the Spirit they teach about divine matters, would have recognized them had they understood the sacred writings of that are read and sung daily. For if they possessed a mature knowledge of the Holy Scriptures they would have believed in the blessings spoken of and bestowed on us by God. But because out of self-conceit and negligence they do not share in these blessings, in their unbelief they slander those who do share in them and who teach others about them. [23]

Here is St Symeon’s (and Orthodoxy’s) answer to a problem which has long vexed the Christians of the West, taken from his ‘Second Ethical Discourse’:

I have heard many people people say: ‘Because the Apostle says; “Those whom God foreknew, the same He also predestined; and those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, the same also glorified” [Rom 8:29-30] what good is it to me if I throw myself into many labors, if I give proof of repentance and conversion, when I am neither foreknown nor predestined by God to be saved and conformed to the glory of God His Son?’ We are naturally obliged to state our opinion clearly to such people, and to reply: O, you! Why do you reason to your own perdition rather than your salvation? And why do you pick out for yourselves the obscure passages of inspired Scripture and then tear them out of context and twist them in order to accomplish your own destruction? Do you not hear the Savior crying out every day: ‘As I live . . . I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live’ [Ezek 33:11]? Do you not hear Him Who says: ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand’ [Mt 3:2]; and again: ‘Just so, I tell you, there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents’ [Lk 15:7, adapted]? Did He ever say to some: ‘Do not repent for I will not accept you,’ while to others who were predestined: ‘But you, repent! because I knew you beforehand’? Of course not! Instead, throughout the world and in every church He shouts: ‘Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ [Mt 11:28]. Come, He says, all you who are burdened with many sins, to the One Who takes away the sin of the world; come, all who thirst, to the fountain which flows forever and never dies.

. . .

For God knows all things beforehand, both past and present at once, and everything which is going to happen in the future up to the end of the world. He sees them as already present, because in and through Him all things hold together. . . . When He endowed us with free will, giving commandments to teach us instead how we must oppose our adversaries, He left it to the free choice of each either to oppose and vanquish the enemy, or to relax and be miserably defeated by Him. Nor does He leave us entirely to ourselves—for He knows the weakness of human nature—but rather is present Himself with us and, indeed, allies Himself with those who choose to struggle, and mysteriously imbues us with strength, and Himself, not we accomplishes the victory over the adversary. . . .

God, . . . Who is mighty and invincible, becomes, as we just said, an ally of those who willingly choose to do battle with the enemy, and He establishes them as victors over the cunning of the devil. He does not, however, compel any who do not so choose to this war, in order that He not destroy the power of choice which is proper to our reasoning nature, made according to His own image, and bring us down to the level of unreasoning brutes. . . . [He] knows from before the ages exactly who the victors and vanquished are going to be. . . .

This is therefore what Paul himself also knew [in Rom 8:29-30] . . . . It is not God’s foreknowledge of those who, by their free choice and zeal, will prevail which is the cause of their victory, just as, again, it is not His knowing beforehand who will fall and be vanquished which is responsible for their defeat. Instead, it is the zeal, deliberate choice, and courage of each of us which effects the victory. Our faithlessness and sloth, our irresolution and indolence, on the other hand, comprise our defeat and perdition. So, while reclining on our bed of worldly affection and love of pleasure, let us not say: ‘Those whom God fore-knew, them also He predestined’, without perceiving just what it is we are saying. Yes, indeed, He truly knew you beforehand as inattentive and disobedient and lazy, but this is certainly not because He ordered or foreordained it that you should have no power to repent yourself nor, if you will it, to get up and obey. [24]

Finally, here is an illuminating passage from St Symeon’s ‘Fourth Ethical Discourse’, which Fr Alexander has used to illustrate the theme of macrocosm and microcosm that St Symeon has in common with St Dionysius the Areopagite, and which his disciple St Nicetas received from both of them: [25]

Come, though, all of you who want to be instructed about the glory of those men who are truly holy and dispassionate. Come, that is, you who desire it, who ardently long to possess it, and I will draw you a picture which shows the extent of their weaponry, and you will know their brilliance. Each of you, comparing himself with these saints, will know where he stands, and how far away all of us are from their courage, their worthiness and their power.

So then, picture with me the sky as it is on a clear and cloudless night. See, there is the moon’s disk, full of limpid and purest light, and around it the halo which often appears. Now, with this in mind, turn your thought to what I am about to say. Each one of the saints, while yet in the body, is like that evening sky, and the heart of each like the moon’s disk. Holy love is the all-efficacious and all-powerful light, far and incomparably greater than the light of our sun, which touches their hearts and, waxing in accordance with the capacity of each, fills them perfectly. Neither does it ever wane, like the light of the moon, but is always kept all light through the zeal and good works of the saints. And holy dispassion, like an aureole and a tabernacle, surrounds and cares for them, covers them wholly, and preserves them unwounded by any evil thought, let alone by sins, and sets them up as unhurt and free from all their foes. And, not only this, but it even renders them unapproachable for their enemies.

Do you see the glory which you truly desire? Do you understand the grandeur of this image and how much each of us lacks the glory and brilliance of the saints? For this image is a type of what is actually being perfected in us—let it not be thought by our own efforts, God forbid!—but God established it beforehand and now brings it into being. In creating, the divine artisan and Word of God drew beforehand as on a tablet what would happen in the future for our salvation in order that, on seeing the type appear in perceptible things, we should not doubt that the real truth would be completed and perfected spiritually in our own inward being. Rather, knowing that each one of us is created by God as a second world, a great world in this small and visible one—as one of the theologians bears me witness—we ought to want to appear in no wise worse than the unreasoning or soulless animals which the God Who loves mankind has created for our instruction, but instead be zealous for everything which is good in them while fleeing as much as we can the imitation of their defects. [26]

Today is the nameday of my koumbaros, and I wish him many years. I hope he is persevering manfully, though I know how powerful the city is, and I pray it does not get the better of both of us. In conclusion, here are the troparion and kontakion of the Saint, taken from the Great Horologion:

Dismissal Hymn of St Symeon the New Theologian
Third Tone. Thy confession

Since thou hadst received within thy pure soul * God’s enlightenment, O righteous Father, * thou wast shown to the world as a blazing light * which drave away its thick darkness and moved all men * to seek the grace of the Spirit which they had lost. * O all-holy Father Symeon, intercede with Him * to grant great mercy unto us who honour thee.

Kontakion of St Symeon the New Theologian
Third Tone. On this day the Virgin

Shining with the Three-Sun Light, * thou wast a true theologian * of the Holy Trinity, * the Lord divinely-transcendent; * from on high, thou wast made rich with * wisdom of discourse * and didst pour forth the divine streams of godly wisdom; * whereof having drunk, we cry out: * Rejoice, thrice-blessed * Symeon, taught from above. [27]

[1] Archbishop Basil (Krivocheine), In the Light of Christ: St Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022)—Life, Spirituality, Doctrine, tr. Anthony P. Gythiel (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 1986), pp. 62-3. I noted with interest that the translator of this book is the same man who more recently translated Fr Placide’s Orthodox Spirituality & the Philokalia.

I was pleased to see as well that while Archbishop Basil refers to our Saint merely as ‘Symeon’ throughout his study, His Eminence at least notes that he is doing it only ‘For the sake of brevity, . . . without in any way questioning either his theology or his saintliness’ (p. 9, n. 1). Of course, I think that in our day and age maintaining the custom of using such titles is worth the extra ink or memory it requires.

[2] St Gregory Palamas, ‘In Defence of Those who Devoutly Practise a Life of Stillness’, The Philokalia, Vol. 4, tr. G.E.H. Palmer, et al. (London: Faber, 1998), p. 341.

[3] Archbishop Basil, p. 9.

[4] Archimandrite Placide (Deseille), Orthodox Spirituality & the Philokalia, tr. Anthony P. Gythiel (Wichita, KS: Eighth Day, 2008), p. 29. Having quoted these comments, however, I should point out that I am aware of the problems with and history of the term ‘mysticism’ and its derivatives, and I share Fr Andrew Louth’s concerns about them as expressed in the Afterward to the 2007 edition of Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford U, 2007), pp. 200-14. But I think the views of Archbishop Basil and Fr Placide on St Symeon’s unique quality and importance are still worthwhile. That said, it will be noticed that I myself entirely avoid the use of such terminology throughout this post.

[5] Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose), ‘Introduction: The Teaching of St Symeon the New Theologian’, The First-Created Man, rev. ed., by St Symeon the New Theologian, tr. Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) (Platina, CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1994), p. 11.

[6] St Nicholas (Velimirović), The Prologue from Ochrid, Vol. 1, trans. Mother Maria (Birmingham: Lazarica, 1986), pp. 276-7.

[7] St Nicetas Stethatos, ‘The Life of St Symeon the New Theologian’, First-Created Man, pp. 27-8.

[8] Fr Seraphim, p. 13.

[9] Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin), ‘Introduction’, On the Mystical Life—The Ethical Discourses, Vol. 3: Life, Times, & Theology, by St Symeon the New Theologian, tr. & ed. Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin) (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 1997), p. 9.

[10] Fr John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends & Doctrinal Themes, 2nd ed. (NY: Fordham U, 1979), p. 74.

[11] Archbishop Basil, p. 10.

[12] Fr Alexander, p. 49.

[13] Ibid., p. 40.

[14] Anestis G. Keselopoulos, Man & the Environment: A Study of St Symeon the New Theologian, tr. Elizabeth Theokritoff (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 2001), p. 6.

[15] Fr Alexander, p. 11.

[16] Fr Alexander, ‘The Ethical Discourses: Date, Type, & Content’, On the Mystical Life—The Ethical Discourses, Vol. 1: The Church & the Last Things, by St Symeon the New Theologian, tr. Fr Alexander (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 1995), pp. 10-1.

[17] Archbishop Basil, p. 9.

[18] Fr Seraphim, p. 12.

[19] St Nicetas, p. 40.

[20] Keselopoulos, pp. 7-8.

[21] Ibid., p. 11. Prof. Keselopoulos goes on to say:

This was the greatest impediment for the author before writing this study, since he and his generation live in the consumerist, affluent society brought to us by the kingdom of money, which brings with it an immense social ferment and has many negative ramifications. For when we speak of a kingdom of money, we mean first and foremost the lack of purpose in money, the wealth which is made into an absolute, a god which incites unbridled production. This applies to the production even of religious articles, which end up becoming consumer goods, products manufactured for a certain kind of beauty. ‘The kingdom of money’ also refers to the attitude which stems from human voracity and greed, and to the tragic way in which man is trapped by his limitless material ‘needs’. (p. 11)

[22] St Symeon, ‘One Hundred & Fifty-Three Practical & Theological Texts’, Philokalia, Vol. 4, pp. 46-7.

[23] Ibid., p. 47.

[24] St Symeon, On the Mystical Life, Vol. 1, pp. 83-4, 86-8.

[25] See the brilliant article, Fr Alexander (Golitzin), ‘Hierarchy vs. Anarchy? Dionysius Areopagita, Symeon the New Theologian, Nicetas Stethatos, & Their Common Roots in Ascetical Tradition’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 38,2 (1994), pp. 143, 146. Available here at the Marquette University site.

[26] St Symeon, On the Mystical Life—The Ethical Discourses, Vol. 2: On Virtue & Christian Life, tr. Fr Alexander (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 1996), pp. 36-7.

[27] The Great Horologion, tr. HTM (Boston: HTM, 1997), pp. 276-7.

* As always, there is more than one Saint celebrated today, and on this day last year I chose one of the others—St Gregory the Dialogist (or ‘the Great’). On some calendars, one can also find the Prophet Aaron the High Priest listed for today. But as I celebrate my nameday on the same day as the Feast of the Prophet Moses, I will plan to post on St Aaron in September (for some reason I was hindered in this last year). I have, however, posted a bit about St Aaron previously here, here, and here.

On the Teachings of Evagrius

While acknowledging that the Church has not recognised him as a Saint, in a previous post (here) I cautiously honoured the life of the 4th-c. ascetic theologian, Evagrius Ponticus. I also expressed my hope to revisit some of the controversial issues surrounding his teaching and influence, and that is what I intend to do in this post. This was initially prompted by a comment I received on a post back in January (here):

St Basil is ‘sidelined’ as the father of monasticism because he is the father of that monasticism that finally condemned Origen, Evagrius, Didimus [sic], that the ‘West’ annointed as the fathers of ‘Christian mysticism and ascetics’. [1]

Now, we all know that the speculative teachings of these three writers were anathematised at the Fifth Œcumenical Council, some of the most obvious problems in them being the preexistence of souls and universalism. But it is also clear that the Orthodox Tradition has not dismissed them entirely. Ss Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian themselves compiled a collection of passages from Origen’s works called the Philokalia, both were early mentors of Evagrius, and the latter’s influential ascetic works were much later incorporated into the more well-known Philokalia compiled by Ss Macarius of Corinth and Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (though some of Evagrius’s writing was passed down under the name of St Nilus the Ascetic). (Most of Didymus’s works were apparently lost and as far as I can tell seem to have had little subsequent influence.)

But these observations hardly do justice, on the one hand, to the simple diligence of countless Orthodox scribes, monks, and even Saints in copying the words of these writers, without which none of their work would have survived, and on the other, to the well-documented influence they exercised on subsequent Orthodox Fathers throughout the centuries in their terminology, patterns of thought, and even their exegetical and spiritual teaching. All of this suggests that, while we accept the discernment of our Fathers in condemning the heretical teachings of these writers, there is yet something worthwhile in them from which we can profit. While I personally can’t say much about Origen, I have read quite a bit of Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345-399), and I would like to respond to what reads like a sneering dismissal of his writings in the above comment. As St John the Prophet of Gaza writes in response to the question, ‘Should we not, then, read even the works of Evagrius?’, in Letter 602:

Do not accept such doctrines [e.g., apokatastasis] from his works; but go ahead and read, if you like, those works that are beneficial for the soul, according to the parable about the net in the Gospel. For it has been written: ‘They placed the good into baskets, but threw out the bad’ (Mt 13.48). You, too, should do the same. [2]

Thus, Jean Leclerq, OSB, notes, ‘The writings left by Evagrius have contributed to the building of the spiritual tradition from which we all draw’, [3] and according to Fr Placide (Deseille), ‘The Greek hesychast tradition follows entirely in its wake.’ [4] Similarly, Fr Andrew Louth observes that Evagrius’s ‘mystical theology’, which ‘clearly arose out of his own participation in the lived tradition of the Desert Fathers, out of his own experience of the eremitical life’,

was gratefully accepted by Eastern monasticism and his most important works on the monastic way of prayer (as opposed to speculation about the metaphysical presuppositions of that way)—the Praktikos and On Prayer—were preserved in Greek, and exercised an enormous influence on Eastern Orthodox spiritual and mystical theology. [5]

Of course, this influence was not absolute. The editors of the Faber edition of the Philokalia note that St John Cassian, ‘transmitted the “practical” aspect of Evagrios’ teachings to the Latin West’, but abandoned ‘the suspect theories that Evagrios derived from Origen’. [6] Fr Andrew Louth sketches ‘the Evagrian pattern’ as it influenced St Maximus the Confessor, then observes:

But it is not present in Maximus’ writings unchanged. To begin with, behind Evagrius’ teaching on prayer and ascetic struggle there lay his ‘Origenist’ metaphysic, with which Maximus profoundly disagreed, and of which he was its greatest critic. But he was a critic with great sympathy for what he criticized, and extremely anxious not to throw out the baby with the bath-water. At the level of ascetic theology, Maximus is able to preserve most of what Evagrius taught, and he does. But he thinks it through again, and though many of the concepts and terms he uses are clearly Evagrian, what is expressed is no less distinctively Maximian. [7]

But both of these comments assume an absolutely Origenist reading of Evagrius’s Kephalaia Gnostika, a reading which also calls the framework of the Pontian’s other writings into question. This reading has, however, itself been called into question. Fr Placide observes:

Nowhere has Evagrius given a systematic exposition of this cosmology, nor of the Christology integral to it. Rather than accepting it as a literal doctrine, he undoubtedly understood it as a ‘myth’ in the Platonic sense, refracting it through the thousand facets of his Gnostic Chapters. Reduced to a system by later agitated disciples of Evagrius in the first half of the sixth century, the doctrine was first condemned in 543, then in 553, at the Fifth Ecumenical Council. [8]

Augustine Casiday has gone even further in discussing the lineaments of this Origenist reading of Evagrius. He notes that the contention of Antoine Guillaumont that the more Origenist of the two texts of the Kephalaia Gnostika was the original and, furthermore,

was directly responsible for the Christological controversies that resulted in the anathemas promulgated against Origen in 553 . . . relies on configuring Evagrius’ disconnected utterances in a specific way and (perhaps more troublingly) claiming that hostile statements resolving the Second Origenist Controversy provide the correct template for this reconfiguration. What justification have we for thinking that the later crisis provides us with the best pattern for Evagrius’ beliefs? [9]

Casiday notes that there are, in fact, ‘multiple traditions—some in direct competition with each other—that look back to Evagrius for inspiration’, thus contradicting ‘the idea that a privileged insight into his thinking was preserved by a single school of thought.’ Confronted with the task of interpreting Evagrius’s work as a whole, Casiday argues that ‘it is surely better to rely on the core of undisputedly authentic texts’. [10] He concludes:

In the light of how trenchantly orthodox Evagrius is shown to have been by his letter On the faith [Epistula fidei]—in which, incidentally, he has already begun to use the categories for the mystical contemplations that are found in his Great letter [Ad Melaniam] and Gnostic chapters [Kephalaia Gnostika]—it seems more sensible to begin our attempts to understand his admittedly obscure writings from the presumption of Cappadocian orthodoxy rather than to work backword from the presumption of Origenist heresy. This is not to cast doubt on the claim that Evagrius himself drew inspiration from Origen, which is beyond dispute. It simply means that we are now able to work forward from Origen (via the Cappadocians and Egyptians) to Evagrius and reconstruct Evagrius’ thinking with reference to a reasonably large corpus, without having to rely upon subsequent interpretations or evaluations of Evagrius’ writings. [11]

The ‘presumption of Cappadocian orthodoxy’ is greatly helped of course by the letter ‘On the faith’. Indeed, William Harmless recalls Palladius’s comment that Evagrius was ‘most skillful in confuting all the heresies’, noting: ‘The accuracy of this assessment has become clear with the discovery that a famous letter probing subtle aspects of Trinitarian doctrine, a letter long attributed to Basil, was in fact composed by Evagrius.’ [12] In other words, if Evagrius was capable of writing such a letter, was he capable at the same time of teaching that Christ is ‘different to all other rational beings only insofar as the human soul of Christ is further along the spectrum of spiritual progress that all rational beings must inevitably make’? [13]

I do not offer the opinions of Fr Placide and Casiday to say that I accept them whole-heartedly, but merely to call attention to the fact that there is another approach to be considered. To tell the truth, I have rather avoided looking into the Kephalaia Gnostika precisely because of its ‘suspect’ nature. What little I have seen confirms Harmless’s evaluation:

Unlike most literature of the desert, Evagrius’s works are not easy reading. . . . We know that he consciously cultivated a certain obscurity, at least on some matters. . . . This studied obscurity poses a real challenge for contemporary commentators. One has to decode Evagrius. [14]

One point that I do feel I can pronounce to be right on target, however, is that made by Marcus Plested in the chapter on ‘Macarius & Evagrius’ in his study of the Macarian Homilies. Plested notes the tendency, apparently initiated by Irenee Hausherr in a 1935 article, to bifurcate the entire history of Eastern spirituality into ‘Evagrian’ and ‘Macarian’ traditions. Thus, Fr John Meyendorff claims ‘writers can rightly be classified as disciples of Evagrius or of Macarius’. [15] Plested points out that Fr Alexander (Golitzin) has been one of the few ‘to seriously detract from what we might call the “dichotomist viewpoint”’. [16] Fr Alexander sees the Evagrian/Macarian dichotomy as perpetuating a false dichotomy between Hellenistic and Semitic traditions in Christianity—a dichotomy he has eloquently dismissed in the note I have quoted here, as well as in the following passage quoted by Plested:

The contradistinction of ‘mind’ and ‘heart’ reflects the Medieval Western opposition between ‘intellective’ and ‘affective’ mysticisms a little too much for my comfort. Evagrius is not an Eckhardt, nor is Macarius a Bernard of Clairvaux […]. Then too, the contrast implicit in this definition between a ‘biblical’ and a ‘platonizing’ Christianity strikes me as very questionable. Plato and company were quite as much involved in first-century Palestine as they were anywhere else in the Graeco-Roman world, and the ‘Greeks’ thus had a say in the formation of both Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. I do not, in short, believe that Evagrius’ nous and Macarius’ kardia are all that different from each other. [17]

But Plested finds Fr Alexander’s closing statement ‘too simple’. He agrees, ‘It is debatable whether either of the authors with whom we are dealing perceived any opposition between “head” and “heart”, between “intellective” and “affective” mysticisms.’ But then Plested adds, ‘In fact, Evagrius’ nous is contained within Macarius’ kardia—as we shall see.’ [18] Having considered the ‘intellectual-immaterial element in Macarius’, including the statement in Collection 1, 3.6.1 ‘the soul has been overpowered by material and unclean thoughts’ and that it must ‘rise out of such materiality’, [19] Plested writes:

It is misleading to depict Evagrius’ nous as straining to be released from the material creation—the body and soul are there to help the intellect and not to hinder it. Evagrius insists that to denigrate the body is to blaspheme the Creator and to deny the workings of providence. Evagrius has, in his own way, a unified understanding of the human person. Intellect, soul, and body form a whole: the intellect is directly linked to the rational part of the soul, the body to the irascible and desiring parts of the soul. Thus the soul constitutes the bond uniting the human person, taking a comparable role to that of the heart in Macarius. Furthermore, the quest for apatheia does not ential the quenching but rather the harnessing of the passionate parts of the soul—a Platonic insight—so that the soul desires knowledge and virtue and is angry and fights against the thoughts. . . . The spiritual life is not a struggle to transcend but to transform body and soul. This process is fulfilled in the eschaton. [20]

As promised, Plested has a number of things to say about Evagrius’s use of the words nous and kardia. He notes that in the Kephalaia Gnostika, Evagrius writes, ‘According to the word of Solomon, the nous is joined with the heart.’ [21] But Columba Stewart, OSB, believes that Evagrius ‘read “heart” as the biblical equivalent to “mind”’, [22] citing a comment from the Commentary on the Psalms: ‘it is customary in Scripture to have kardia instead of nous’. [23]

But at any rate, Plested’s conclusions are quite enlightening. He argues that ‘both may be seen as groping towards the expression of the same spiritual reality’, and notes: ‘In this light the Byzantine reading of Macarius and Evagrius (often under the guise of Nilus) becomes more readily comprehensible. Far from distinguishing ‘currents of spirituality’ the classical Byzantine approach was one of synthesis.’ [24] Finally, Plested concludes:

This interaction [between the Evagrian and Macarian teachings] was not one of opposing—or even sharply contrasting—spiritual currents, but rather the interplay of distinctive yet complementary insights into the nature of the Christian life. Despite coming from very different angles, the teachings of our authors—both of whom have nourished many generations of Christians . . . –are far from incompatible. [25]

I wish Plested’s approach was more common among patristic scholars, particularly those who claim to be working within the Orthodox Tradition. Alas, it seems so many are more interested in finding, first, handy but oversimplified classification schemas that cater to modern intellectual fashions, and second, the ‘originality’ and ‘uniqueness’ of the various patristic authors, that they are completely blind to that truth noted by St Ignatius (Brianchaninov):

When on a clear autumn night I gaze at the clear sky, sown with numberless stars, so diverse in size yet shedding a single light, then I say to myself: such are the writings of the Fathers! When on a summer day I gaze at the vast sea, covered with a multitude of diverse vessels with their unfurled sails like white swans’ wings, vessels racing under a single wind to a single goal, to a single harbor, I say to myself: such are the writings of the Fathers! When I hear a harmonious, many-voiced choir, in which diverse voices in elegant harmony sing a single Divine song, then I say to myself: such are the writings of the Fathers! [26]

[1] Of course, attributing this ‘sidelining’ to Western scholars is an over-generalisation, and was not meant to be pressed too far in my initial post. John Eudes Bamberger, OCSO, even in the middle of his ‘Introduction’ to Evagrius, uses a footnote to discuss the monasticism of St Basil in some detail (see The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer, by Evagrius Ponticus, tr. John Eudes Bamberger, OCSO (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1981), p. xxxvii, n. 56). Furthermore, it is by no means clear that he in any way prefers Evagrius's to St Basil's.

[2] Ss Barsanuphius & John, Letters, Vol. 2, tr. Fr John Chryssavgis (Washington, DC: Catholic U of America, 2007), p. 183; see Fr Louth on St Maximus, p. 38

[3] Jean Leclerq, OSB, ‘Preface’, The Praktikos, p. vii.

[4] Archimandrite Placide (Deseille), Orthodox Spirituality & the Philokalia, tr. Anthony P. Gythiel (Wichita, KS: Eighth Day, 2008), p. 18.

[5] Fr Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor, Early Church Fathers Series (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 113.

[6] G.E.H. Palmer, et al., tr. & ed., The Philokalia, Vol. 1 (London: Faber, 1983), p. 30.

[7] Fr Louth, pp. 37-8.

[8] Fr Placide, p. 18.

[9] Augustine M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus Early Church Fathers Series (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 28.

[10] Ibid., p. 29.

[11] Ibid., p. 30.

[12] William Harmless, SJ, Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism (NY: Oxford U, 2004), p. 313.

[13] Casiday, p. 28.

[14] Harmless, pp. 321-2.

[15] Qtd. in Marcus Plested, The Macarian Legacy: The Placeof Macarius-Symeon in the Eastern Christian Tradition (Oxford: Oxford U, 2004), p. 60.

[16] Ibid., p. 61.

[17] Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin), ‘Hierarchy vs. Anarchy? Dionysius Areopagita, Symeon the New Theologian, Nicetas Stethatos, & Their Common Roots in Ascetical Tradition’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 38,2 (1994), p. 153; qtd. in Plested, pp. 61-2.

[18] Ibid., p. 62.

[19] Ibid., p. 65.

[20] Ibid., p. 66.

[21] Qtd. in ibid, p. 67.

[22] Columba Stewart, OSB, Cassian the Monk (Oxford: Oxford U, 1998), p. 42.

[23] Ibid., p. 166, n. 13.

[24] Plested, p. 70.

[25] Ibid., p. 71.

[26] Qtd. in Hieromonk Damascene (Christensen), Father Seraphim Rose: His Life & Works (Platina, CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2003), p. 464.