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Вестник ПСТГУ
III: Филология
2007. Вып. 1 (7). С. 123-137
Evagrius Ponticus: Natural contemplation versus
KNOWLEDGE OF THE DIVINE ESSENCE -
a Cappadocian Solution?*
Sr. Seraphima (Konstantinovsky)
(Oriel College Oxford)
The paper will address only one part of Evagrius’s unions and distinctions: the question of how God bridges the gap between himself and the world by revealing himself in the universe and teaching the soul natural contemplation. Natural contemplation will be then compared and contrasted with what Evagrius terms the knowledge of God’s essence.
Throughout the discussion the role of Christ will be revealed. It will become apparent how Christ is the key that unlocks the mystery of natural contemplation but plays no apparent role in the knowledge of God’s essence.
In the second part of the paper attention will be given to the problem of Cappadocian influence. Scholars have suggested that Evagrius’s teaching on this matter has its roots in the thought of the Cappadocians. This paper will investigate this claim. If it succeeds in its attempt to show that Evagrius’s dependence in this matter is not so much «Cappadocian» as eclectic, it will be possible to present a more accurate picture than hitherto of Evagrius as a theologian and philosopher.
(i) Oewpta fvsixh: the devtepa and the ppWth
Natural contemplation in Evagrius consists in the spiritual contemplation of the created order, both material and immaterial, as distinguished from its purely sensory perception. As in all spiritual knowledge, natural contemplation leads to the knowledge of the Holy Trinity. Evagrius divides natural contemplation into the lower and secondary contemplation, the Semfepa, and the higher and primary contemplation, the ppWnx|.
* Данный текст представляет собой доклад, подготовленный автором для выступления на Ежегодной Богословской конференции ПСТГУ в 2005 г., и печатается в авторском варианте.
The secondary natural contemplation comprises the logoi of material creation, while the primary natural contemplation has as its object the logoi of the incorporeal beings. A. Guillaumont offers the following systematisation: secondary natural contemplation has as its object «the bodies formed of the four elements», while primary natural contemplation, operating by the five spiritual senses of the intellect, focuses upon «the immaterial natures»1.
(ii) The lógoi as the inner identities of created things
The knowledge acquired from the logoi immanent in the created things is that profound knowledge which reveals the very natures of the things whose logoi they are. Thus we read in Practicus 92 that Abba Anthony considered the contemplation of creation (evidently in its logoi an exercise in learning the very «nature of beings» (h fUaij twv yeyovótmv)2.
The origins of Evagrius’s doctrine of the logoi are eclectic and difficult to trace back to definite sources or specific authors. However, one can find ideas about the logoi of things in Clement, Philo, and in Stoic milieu, which fertilised both the thought of Philo and that of Christian Apologists.
In particular, the background for the idea of the logoi as expressive of the identities of things has a precedent in Stoic theories3 of the logos as physis. In Stoic terminology, the terms logos and physis often are synonymous and expressive of the inner identity of a thing4. In Stoic writings (e.g. in Cleanthes)5 one comes across the principle that one must live according to one’s inner logos6. This is the same as to live in accordance with one’s nature.
1 Les ‘Képhalaia Gnostica’ d’Évagre le Pontique, et l’histoire de l’origénisme chez les Grecs et chez les Syriens. Paris, 1962. P. 22. Also. Guillaumont A. Un philosophe au désert; Evagre le Pontique. Paris, 2004. P. 285.
2 That there are closer affinities between Abba Anthony and Evagrius than hitherto assumed see: Rubenson S. Evagrios Pontikos und die Theologie der Wüste // Logos. Festshrift für Luise Abramowski. B.; N. Y., 1993. P. 384—401; O’Laughlin M. Closing the Gap between Anthony and Evagrius // Origeniana Septima / Ed. Bien-ert W.A., Kühneweg U. Louvain, 1999. P. 345—354
3 On the Stoic background to Evagrius doctrine see: Stewart C. Imageless Prayer and the Theological Vision of Evagrius Ponticus.
4 Spanneut M. Le Stoïcisme des Pères de l’Église. Paris, 1995. P. 241.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
In Clement one finds the expression about acting «h0hK Wj te kai fuaik&ç kai logik Wj»7. Sin is both the soul’s «passion against nature»8 and disobedience to its logos9. Thus Evagrius theory of the knowledge of the logoi of things amounts to a very strong epistemological claim. The knowledge of the logoi is an in-depth knowledge of what things are in themselves.
(iii) The ôevtépa
Bearing all this in mind we can assess Evagrius’s teaching about second natural contemplation. It contemplation stems from the right use of sensory perception and begins from the external observation of the bodies.
Natural contemplation has as its object not the things viewed as crudely material but what the things are as their immaterial logoi reveal them. The contemplation of the logoi of things is the knowledge of their hidden spiritual principles, their raison-d-être, their spiritual essence, their cause, and their destiny in God. Their knowledge is also the knowledge of God’s imprint upon them10. The knowledge of the logoi of things, therefore, constitutes at once the knowledge of inner identities of these things and some kind of knowledge of divine action.
This Evagrian principle that the invisible divine action is discernible through visible material things is rooted in a tradition that goes back to Scripture. Thus the «invisible things of [God] », which are «clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead» (Rom. 1. 19—20) is what the logoi of creation reveal and what in some respect they are.
(iv) The ppWth
The second natural contemplation is a necessary stage in order for the soul to ascend to the first natural contemplation. The object of this latter kind of contemplation is the bodiless creation (toe asWmata) or the intelligible creation (toe vortO). Just as it is the case with secondary natural contemplation, in the first natural contemplation too it is not the created beings as they appear to an unskilled observer that are the object of contemplation, but their immaterial logoi 11. Thus KG V. 57:
7 Strom. IV. 163. 3.
8 Paed. I. 6. 1.
9 Ibid., I. 101. 1-2; 102. 1.
10 Cf. Larchet J.-Cl. Thérapeutique des Maladies Spirituelles. Paris, 2000. P. 768.
11 Cf. GuillaumontA. Un philosophe au désert... P. 290.
«As now by the means of the senses we perceive the sensible objects and then, having been purified, we also know their logoi, so we shall first see the things (ppOymata) themselves and, having been more purified, we shall know also the contemplation concerning them, after which it is possible to know the Holy Trinity itself»12.
The «things», then, are the incorporeal natures and the contemplation concerning them is the contemplation of their logoi.
There is an important Christological angle to the subject of the two natural contemplations. KG III. 24 and III. 26 draw a clear distinction between, on the one hand, primary and secondary contemplations, and, on the other, the creative activities of God and Christ. KG III. 24 asserts that the first natural contemplation is the activity in which God was engaged when creating the immaterial beings:
«The knowledge of primary nature is the spiritual contemplation which the Creator [here meaning God] made use of in making the intellects».
By contrast, KG III. 26 tells us, «the knowledge that concerns secondary nature is the spiritual contemplation Christ made use of in creating the nature of bodies and the worlds»13.
(v) Providence and judgement
Beside second and first contemplation, Evagrius also envisages a third kind of natural contemplation: that of the logoi of God’s providence and judgement.
Gnosticus 48gives a definition of these:
«Exercise yourself within yourself at all times (kata aautov Oei gUmnaZe) the logoi about providence and judgement (tou j pepi ppovoiaj kai kpiaeœj... logouj)... And you will find the logoi about judgement in the diversity of the bodies and the worlds, while those about providence, in the dispositions (tpopoij) that lead us up from evil and ignorance toward virtue or knowledge».
It is difficult to define precisely the ideas of Evagrius concerning providence and judgement in terms of conventional loci of theology. However, it appears that these are the logoi that concern both the material and immaterial creation, inasmuch as the entire creation is fallen and is
12 For the Greek text see: Hausherr I. Nouveaux fragments grecs d’ Evagre le Pontique // OCP 1939. 5. P. 229-233.
13 Emphasis mine in both.
need of God’s restoration. Their particular emphasis is upon the divine plan of creation, nurture, and restoration of the fallen creation.
Evagrius approaches the broader theme of God’s providence and judgement as encoded within material creation as within God’s sacred book.
(a) Creation as God’s book
The celebrated Scholion 8 on Ps. 138. 16 uses a potent image of creation as a source of spiritual knowledge on a par with Scripture.
«The contemplation of the bodies and of the incorporeal [beings] is the book of God, in which the pure intellect (voUj ka0apo j) comes to be written through knowledge. And in this book both the logoi of providence and of judgement are written (oi pepi ppovoiaj kai kpiaewj logoi), through which book God is known as creator (Srmioupyoj) and wise (aofoj) and provident (ppovorth j) and judge (kpithj). [He is] creator on account of the things that have come from non-being into being; wise through the logoi hidden in them (Sia toUj apokeimevouj logouj ev aUto ij); provident through the things contributing toward our virtue and knowledge (Sia ta auvtelo uvta ppoj apethv rmiv kai gnwaiv); and moreover judge through differing bodies of reasonable beings and through the diversified worlds, and the ages that comprise them (Sia ta Sifopa aWmata tWv logik Wv kai toUj poikilouj koamouj kai toUj pepiexovtaj toUtouj a’iWvaj)»14.
This very dense passage expresses Evagrius’s entire theology of natural contemplation. The focal idea is that the entire creation, visible and invisible, exists for the sake of being contemplated by the purified intellect. The purpose of this contemplation is to be able to «read» within creation the divine principles encoded in it. These are the logoi of divine providence and judgement concerning creation. These principles reveal both the hidden realities beneath all created beings and some of God’s properties and names discernible in his activity with regard to creation.
(vi) The Creative Wisdom of God and Christ
The theme of creation as God’s book is inextricably linked with that of the creative wisdom of God as manifested in creatures. God’s creative wisdom manifests itself in the material creation, because God made all things «in wisdom» (Ps 103. 24). The wisdom that is seen in creation is the « manifold wisdom» of Eph. 3.10. Thus we read: « He is
14 Sch. Ps. 138. 16 (8).
everywhere.. .because in all that he has made he is present by [his] manifold wisdom...» (KG I. 43).
However, I. 43 needs elucidation as here one is presented with an important technical distinction that appears to be original to Evagrius. The «manifold wisdom» refers to Christ rather than God. Evagrius distinguishes technically between the creative wisdom of God, which is a unifying wisdom and is informed by first natural contemplation, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the manifold wisdom of Christ, which is responsible for the diversity, multiformity, variety, and beauty of material creation as formed by second natural contemplation. The manifold wisdom is the property of Christ and thus it is inextricable from the theme of Christ’s revelation of himself.
(vii) Direct and Unmediated Knowledge of God
Having said all this, it is important to note that Evagrius forcefully asserts the possibility of a knowledge of God that is different and higher than natural contemplation. This kind of knowledge is obtainable through pure prayer alone. As Evagrius puts it, in pure prayer the mind communicates with God «without any intermediary» (mhSevOj mesiteUovTOj)15.
(viii) God’s Essence versus God’s Wisdom
To designate this unmediated knowledge of God Evagrius uses the term «the essence» or «nature» of God, as opposed to God’s creative wisdom, or God’s operations.
A number of striking passages in the Kephalaia Gnostica express this distinction.
Thus II. 21 declares that, while providing an insight into God’s operation known as wisdom, creatures cannot be the source for revealing God himself. Evagrius specifically designates the idea of encountering «God himself» as seeing or knowing God’s «nature». Thus we have:
II. 21: «Everything that is, proclaims the manifold wisdom of God16. Yet of all beings there is none that teaches about his nature».
15 On Prayer, 3. Cited in: Ware K. Nous and Noesis in Plato, Aristotle and Evagrius of Pontus // Diotima. Vol. 13. P. 158—163.
16 Cf. Eph. 3. 10.
Likewise, III. 81:
«The one who knows God knows either his nature or his wisdom, which he used when he created all things».
(ix) The Meaning of the Unmediated Knowledge of God
What does Evagrius mean by the «unmediated knowledge of God»?
This is not a complete grasp of God’s entire being, because the apophatic safeguarding mechanism is always present in his system. What Evagrius means is not the knowledge of God’s entire being but the knowledge of God’s action upon the soul, perceived, however, not through any created being but directly. This is what a passage from «On the Seraphim» says: «For the rule of spiritual contemplation is not only that we admire but also that we dare not search out everything.».
(x) Summary
To sum up, Evagrius distinguishes two different kinds of the knowledge of God. The first kind is the knowledge that the intellect attains through contemplating the spiritual identities of created things. These include both the material and immaterial creation. The totality of all creation that becomes transparent to the eye of the intellect is encoded in the cosmos as God’s sacred book. These three are all revelatory of God’s creative and economic power, and by induction, of God himself. This way of knowing God involves bodily sense perception, which in the process undergoes refinement and transforms into spiritual perception. Far from reviling materiality, then, Evagrius sees it as God-filled and transfigured.
The second way of knowing God, however, involves a much stronger experience of God, with the process of induction much curtailed. Evagrius calls this the knowledge of «God’s essence» and an «unmediated» experience. Such language means that this strong experience is not obtained through the mind’s focussing upon any created thing but through pure prayer alone. We shall see below that «pure» or «immaterial» prayer is performed during the hours of night, when ordinary sense perception is reduced to a minimum and the mind is not stamped by any concepts whatsoever.
The role of Christ is fundamental in natural contemplation, in which
he performs the mediating role between God and the soul. His role in the acquisition of knowledge of God’s essence, however, is veiled.
Part 2: Evagrius’s Context The Cappadocians
It has been suggested over the past few decades that Evagrius’s distinction between God’s wisdom manifested in nature and God’s essence is directly indebted to the essence/energies distinction worked out by the three Cappadocian theologians in the course of the anti-Arian polemic. In 1985 Gendle claimed that Evagrius’s ideas and terminology about the knowledge of God is based on the Cappadocian distinction between God’s unknowable essence or nature and God’s energies18. In 1994 Golitsin followed Gendle claiming that Evagrius indeed uses the Cappadocian distinction between the essence and energies, «which he chooses to call the Divine Wisdom (aofia)»19. In view of these claims, exactly how much Evagrius is indebted to the Cappadocians in this question is worth investigating in some detail.
While theologians of many different strands in the fourth century distinguished between God’s essence, his potentiality, and his actuality, the particular way of distinguishing between these concepts that was formulated by Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa took shape in the context of their anti-Anomeian polemic. Let us therefore take a quick glance at the context of the debate.
(a) The Anomeian polemic
The Anomeian polemic of Aetius and Eunomius was an exercise in the logics of theology. Theirs was a theologising that lay hold of a syllogistic style of rhetoric20.
At least in the eyes of his shocked enemies, Eunomius claimed to know the essence of God as fully as God knows it itself21. All that there was to it was to know that God was an unbegotten substance, simple and eternal22. This simple statement was accessible to anyone. Anyone could
18 Gendle N. Cappadocian Elements in the Mystical Theology of Evagrius Pon-ticus // Studia Patristica. Vol. 16:2. Berlin, 1985. P. 373-384.
19 Golitsin A. Et Introibo. Ad Altare Dei: the Mystagogy of Dionysius Areopagi-ta. S. l., 1994. P. 323.
20 Cf. Kopecek Th. A. A History of Neo-Arianism. 2 Vol. Philadelphia, 1979. P. 313 ff.
21 Eunomius. Fragment 2. 3—6, found in Socrates, HE IV. 7 (PG67. 473 b-c).
22 Cf. Vaggione R.P. Eunomius: The Extant Works. Oxford, 1987 xiii.
have a complete knowledge of God’s essence. That the essences of things are known appears to be Eunomius’s premise that requires no demonstration23. Therein he was a follower of Asterius the Sophist, who claimed to possess the knowledge of essences. The tool that Eunomius uses to allow anyone to know the essences is their names. For him the terms used in scripture fully and completely convey the realities they stand for. The Father is alone the Unoriginate. The Son by contrast has an origin, as Scripture testified. The difference in names shows the difference in essence between them24. The difference is the most radical: the Son is unlike the Father with respect to the essence, although he is like the Father with regard to the Father’s activity25. The Father alone is God, while the Son is a creature (KTiaBeij)26. Nothing that has an origin of some sort is God. The Son is unlike God’s essence, although he is like God’s potential and energy.
These formulations are born in the context of a coup of propaganda and as such may not be expressive of all the complexity of the Anomeian position. Nevertheless it can with reasonable confidence be asserted that their tactics was governed by logical assessment of scriptural texts. The sources of the Anomeians were probably Plato’s Cratylus2, the Middle Platonic theory of language, especially that of Alcinous on the knowledge of essences28, Aristotle’s theory of the syllogism, and his theory of predication as expounded in the Categories29. Besides this, Eunomius, like Basil and the other Cappadocians, displays signs of operating within Aristotle’s conceptual framework of essences (oUalai), powers/potentialities (Suvameij), and energies (evfepyeiai). As in Basil, however, the Aristotelian distinction between the potentiality and actuality is often obliterated, so that power is often used synonymously with «energy»30.
23 Cf. Vaggione R.P. Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution. Oxford, 2000. P. 252.
24 Eunomius. Liber Apologeticus, 12. 3—4.
25 Ibid. 22. Epiphanius declares about Aetius: «He dared to say that the Son is un-like (avOmOiOj) the Father and that he is not identical to the Father according to divinity» (Panarion, L. III. 1. 76).
26 Liber Apologeticus, 15.
27 Vaggione R. P. Op. cit. P. 239. № 260.
28 Kopecek Th. A. Op. cit. P. 321.
29 For Eunomius’s use of the Categories see: Zachhuber J. Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa: Philosophical Background and Theological Significance. Brill, Leiden, 2000. P. 46-48.
30 Cf. Vaggione R. P. Eunomius of Cyzicus. P. 250-251.
(b) Basil of Caesarea
In response to Eunomius, Basil argues31 that all human knowledge is based on epinoia. This is not at all a process of invention but that of reflection. Through it we come to know that God is ungenerated. Yet epinoia does not allow the knowledge of essences of things. Therefore the term «ungenerated» is not indicative of God’s essence. God’s essence is incomprehensible32. Epinoia operates by seizing upon the manifestations of things and discovering that they are varied rather than simple and unified.
In his theory about the essences as distinct from their potentialities/ energies and in his idea of «energetic» or contextualised knowledge Basil appears to be dependent on Aristotle’s theory of secondary essences and his distinction of potentiality and actuality (On the Soul, Categories, Nikomachean Ethics)33.
Basil’s theory of knowledge is «energetic». It is Basil’s fundamental tenet is that to know an object, one can only know its external manifestations, properties, and energies. One comes to know a material object by forming a concept of its manifestations to the organs of senses. The manifestations provide an insight into the identity of the thing whose manifestations they were. Nonetheless, what the thing is in itself, its essence, remains inaccessible to senses and therefore unknowable. Therefore, far from being fully expressive of an object’s essence, its manifestations fall short of even approximating it. At the same time, the knowledge that the manifestations and energies provide is a true knowledge. Basil thus follows Aristotle in proclaiming an «energetic» theory of knowledge, that is, knowledge on the level of manifestations and operations rather than knowledge on the level of «what a thing is in itself», which in Basil is termed «essence». Basil, however, departs from Aristotle in laying an especial emphasis upon the incompleteness and mystery of the «energetic» knowledge. His key point is that all knowledge is «energetic» and incomplete.
Evagrius differs from Basil’s epistemology even with regard to the knowledge at the level of natural contemplation. In his teaching about the knowledge of the logoi of things, which he identifies with the natures of things, Evagrius is not very far from claiming knowledge of what things
31 Against Eunomius. I. 6-7.
32 Kopecek Th. A. Op. cit. P. 376.
33 For Aristotle’s First Essence and Secondary Essence see: Stead G.C. The Concept of Divine Substance // Vigiliae chistianae. Vol. 29. № 1. 1975. P. 1-14.
are in themselves rather than what they are in their manifestations. The knowledge of what things are in themselves appears to be finite, as is any ignorance regarding creation. By contrast, Basil, who proclaims only partial knowledge with regard to both creation and God, makes no use of the conception of knowledge through the logoi.
To illustrate his epistemological theory, Basil cites Gen. 1. 1-2 and declares that what would be knowable about the newly created earth would be its sensible manifestations: colour, volume, lightness, heaviness, and density. None of these, however, Basil insists, qualifies the earth with respect to its substance. Whoever wrote down the account of creation «refused to examine by curiosity the question of the substance of the earth»34.
On the analogy with sensible knowledge, Against Eunomius I.14 asserts that God revealed himself to the spiritual senses of the intellect. As with created things, it is God’s manifestations and powers in the created world that are known. How God is in himself, however, his essence (oUala) remains utterly beyond scrutiny. In Letter 235 Basil says that in God there is that which is knowable (to yvwatov tou ©sou) as well as that which is unknowable. The unknowable about God is «beyond examination of any kind» (apeplaptov pavtl)35. This is also totally ineffable and is not be subject of human discourse.
Thus Basil professes an «energetic» theory of knowledge, both with regard to the natural and the supernatural. This he is able to do in virtue of his unified concept of knowledge: provided, human nature is cleansed and restored, there is a bridge between natural sense perception and spiritual experiencing of the divine. This is what enables him to draw with such ease parallels between the created and the divine.
Evagrius’s divergence from Basil becomes very noticeable at the level of the knowledge of the divine. Here Evagrius is interested in asserting the reality of contact with God himself, which he expresses in terms of knowing «God’s essence».
(c) Gregory of Nazianzus
Gregory of Nazianzus’s conception of the ineffability and the knowledge of God is formulated in his Five Theological Orations, composed in Constantinople in 380-81. Guillaumont goes as far as to
34 Against Eunomius. I. 13.
35 Ibid. I.14.
suggest that Evagrius may have assisted Gregory in writing them down36. As Basil in Against Eunomius, Gregory asserts the fundamental principle of the knowability of the external manifestations of a thing and of the total transcendence and therefore ineffability of its essence/nature.
In Oration 27.3 and citing Ps. 46.10, Gregory continues Basil’s line by suggesting that while some things about God are knowable, others are best left out of theological investigation37. In matters of God’s revelation, oiconomia, there is scope for scrutiny, but in matters of God’s inner life, theologia, there is none. Reason cannot comprehend that for which revelation is not given38.
As is the case with Basil, Gregory can afford to be radically negative in his theological method, because of the cataphatic potency of his unified Christology. His Christ is the Logos incarnate. Christ’s humanity, therefore, both shields God from and reveals him to the mind to the extent that Evagrius’s system does not.
(d) Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory of Nyssa elaborates his brother Basil’s metaphysics, epi-stemology, and the theory of theological language. Like Basil, Gregory is Aristotelian in that he professes the theory ofknowledge that is «energetic» and thus experiential. The fundamental principle remains that we recognise - and therefore define - the essences by their energies or inseparable accidents (talj evepyelai j taj oUaia j yvwpiZomev)39. Yet the essences and their energies do not have the same meaning and are distinct40. This is the case with God too. God is one but is known in a multiplicity of energies. The action of these upon the mind forms the basis for the multiplicity of the divine names. God is simultaneously named by the differences of the energies. He thus has not just one but many appellations, for «he takes the name according to each concept that is born in us from [the action of his] energy»41. The very name Qedj comes from a divine energy that has to do with seeing, «for we have belived that the divine is everywhere present and gazes (0eaa0ai) at all things»42.Using
36 GuillaumontA. Un philosophe au désert... P. 338.
37 Or. 27.4.
38 Or. 27. 10 (PG 36. 24-25).
39 Gregory of Nyssa. Against Eunomius. I. 420. 12.
40 Ibid. I. 420. 3-4.
41 Against Eunomius. II. 353. 8-12.
42 Ibid. 585. 8-11.
SUvamij as a synonym of evepyeia (though these are distinct in Aristotle), Gregory likens the divine power/energy that is visible «through the logoi of foreknowledge and the wonders that are in creation», to «some ray and warmth flowing from the nature of the Sun», which allows one to worship its source43. Yet the nature of God remains inconceivable (apepivor|tov tou 0eo u fUaiv)44. What is the most potent theophany through which the divine salvific powers reach down to men? The Incarnation, Gregory emphatically answers. It is this event that enables men even to touch that which is beyond apprehension: the divine nature45. The last statement, clearly, is intended to cause amazement and is, in effect, a trope. Everywhere else in his writings Gregory is overwhelmingly apophatic when it comes to the divine nature46. Nonetheless, the emphasis of Gregory’s theological epistemology is undoubtedly upon the Christ-event as the source par excellence of divine knowledge.
There are undoubtedly similarities between Evagrius and the Nyssen in what concerns the knowledge of God through God’s operations in nature. Their conceptions, both of which make use of the terms «essence» (oUaia) and «wisdom» (aofia) are overlapping. Both men are very clear that this kind of theophany is that of God’s operations and not of God directly.
Moreover, both theologians have a strong Christological dimension to their conception of the knowledge of God’s operations through nature and in the soul. Evagrius and Gregory agree that the knowledge of the divine operations through creation is fostered by and focussed around Christ.
At the same time, Evagrius considerably differs from Gregory in a number of respects. Gregory does not distinguish between the lower and higher creative wisdoms or lower and higher natural contemplations. Consequently, he does not ascribe merely the lower wisdom and contemplation to Christ. In Gregory Christ is responsible not for lower stages of spiritual knowledge only but for the whole fullness of God’s revelation to man, inasmuch as this revelation is available. Moreover, it is Christ, God incarnate, who is at the heart of the divine revelation in the soul. Thus in Gregory the knowledge of God in the purified soul is overtly Christological. As has been seen, in Evagrius the revelation of Christ’s
43 Ibid. 81. 17-23.
44 Ibid. 82. 30.
45 Ibid. 419. 27-420. 32.
46 See The Life of Moses for the imagery of divine darkness within which God conceals himself, as well as for the theme of the infinity of the knowledge of God.
manifold wisdom through natural contemplation is qualitatively different from and lower than the knowledge of God.
e) Summary of the comparison between Evagrius and the Cappadocians
To sum up. There are both similarities and dissimilarities between Evagrius and the Cappadocians. Evagrius’s terminology and ideas in some respects overlap with those of the Cappadocians. Similarly to the Cappadocians Evagrius uses the term «God’s essence» to denote God’s very being, contrasting it with the term «wisdom», which stands for God’s manifestations in the created universe.
With regard to the knowledge of God through natural contemplation, Evagrius contrasts God’s creative wisdom, which is knowable through creation, and God’s essence, which is not knowable in this way. This distinction partially corresponds to the Cappadocian contrast between God’s operations, which are known through creation, and God’s essence, which is unknowable through creation or through any other means.
Regarding the knowledge of created beings themselves, however, Evagrius differs from the Cappadocians. Evagrius envisages the knowledge of beings in their logoi, which he claims fully reveal the inner identities of the things whose logoi they are. Evagrius thus postulates knowledge of beings, which is at once both spiritual and finite. By contrast, the Cappadocians envisage a knowledge of beings that is based not on the apprehension of their inner-most identities but on their external manifestations, the «energies». This «energetic» knowledge is never complete and in this sense is infinite. Evagrius, then, has a different conception of creation, which is not «energetic» and is more optimistic than that of the Cappadocians in terms of what man can actually know.
If with regard to the Qernpia fvsikh comparing Evagrius with the Cappadocians was a complex task, with regard to the knowledge of God’s essence, comparison of their two respective lines of thought becomes a near impossibility. Here the divergence between Evagrius and the Cappadocians is, at first glance, glaring. Evagrius affirms that which the Cappadocians abjure: that God’s essence is in some sense knowable. Nonetheless, rather than maintaining that Evagrius’s thought represents a complete (and possibly rebellious) inversion of that of the Cappadocians, it would be a more economical way of assessing the evidence to suggest that Evagrius is simply different.
The semantics of his «God’s essence» concept merely overlaps with that of the corresponding Cappadocian concept. In Evagrius, while «the essence of God» means God’s true being or how God is in himself, it does not mean the entirety of God’s being. It is in virtue of this that Evagrius is able to maintain the contrast between the created mind engaged in the knowledge of God’s essence — and God’s essence itself.
The co-incidence of terms and ideas in Evagrius and the Cappado-cians stems from the fact that he and they shared the same intellectual universe and were nourished by broadly the same intellectual roots. Nonetheless, the shape that their respective systems eventually took reveals a large degree of independence from one another. Such a diagnosis, while undermining the scholarly stereotypes that tend to reduce the diversity of theological thinking in the fourth century to Cappadocian influence, makes Evagrius much more interesting in that it clears space for asserting his own creativity and originality. It also opens up avenues for a more complex and nuanced vision of his possible sources. In any case it is no longer tenable that the Cappadocian distinctions served as the parent system for those of Evagrius.
Евагрий Понтийский:
ЕСТЕСТВЕННОЕ СОЗЕРЦАНИЕ VS ЗНАНИЕ БОЖЕСТВЕННОЙ СУЩНОСТИ — КАППАДОКИЙСКОЕ РЕШЕНИЕ ВОПРОСА?
Сестра Серафима (Константиновская)
Статья затрагивает лишь один аспект проблемы единства и различия в трактовке Евагрия: как Бог через откровение Себя миру и научение души естественному созерцанию преодолевает пропасть между Собой и миром. Естественное созерцание противопоставляется тому, что Евагрий определяет как знание Божественной сущности.
