See also: Evagre

Évagre Pontique , monk of the 4th century in the deserted of Egypt, first systematician of the Christian ascetic thought.

(346-399)

Biography

Originating in Ibora, in the area of the Bridge (current Turkey), Evagre was ordered reader by Basile de Césarée.

The bishop Gregoire de Nazianze having ordered it deacon, it accompanied it with Constantinople, where its preaching was a great success.

In 382, Évagre left this capital and was withdrawn initially with Jerusalem, then in Egypt, where he became disciple of Macaire of Alexandria.

It carried out until its death the monastic life in the desert of Nitrie, and earned its living by copying manuscripts.

Works

Évagre seems to be the first monk who left an important literary work, of which a part reached us under names of loans. Modern criticism made already much and has to make still much to reconstitute the literary heritage of Évagre, which one knows:

Antirrheticos (Refutation), collection of sentences to be opposed to temptations of the demon, divided into eight books, against each of the eight capital sins

Monachicos (the Book of the monk), collection of sentences in two parts: Practicos (Working life, i.e. asceticism), intended for starting (two editions, into sixty and eleven and hundred chapters), and Gnosticos (contemplative Life), for the trained monk

Problemata gnostica (Problems on the gnosis, i.e. contemplation), six groups of one hundred sentences (Centuries), dogmatic and ascetic lesson whose apparent disorder hiding place very firm spiritual doctrines

Two opuscules allotted to the Nile d' Ancyre are to be restored in Évagre: the Prayer , invaluable lesson in hundred fifty-three sentences (like hundred fifty-three fish of miraculous fishing)

the Impure thoughts (the description which is given there " acédie " , dislike of the spiritual things, remained famous). One preserved into syriaque sixty-seven Lettres of Évagre, for which it is necessary to join Letter VIII of Basile saint, that one must to also restore him.

Évagre had still composed of the Commentaires on the Psalms and of the Commentaires on the Proverbs , whose important fragments were preserved in Selecta in Psalmos d' Origène or in the fragments of its comment on the Proverbs.

The collection Christian Sources presents several of these works.

The teaching of Evagre

Évagre theorized the spiritual experiment of the monks of the desert in a language inspired by the teaching of Origène.

No matter what its name has be included in judgments which have struck certain teaching of Origène at the time of controversies of Life and VIIe centuries with councils of Constantinople of 553 and of 680 (what explains why some of its works were transmitted under names of loans), the influence of the writings of Evagre on the spirituality of the Byzantine East was considerable. By the " Conférences" of Jean Cassien, but also the translations of Rufin d' Aquilée, this influence was spread as far as Occident. It is of him that comes the systematic formulation from certain broad topics of Eastern spirituality: division of the spiritual life in working life and contemplative life; need for the examination of any image and any form to arrive at contemplation; identification of the prayer and the theology, which is knowledge (gnosis) of the Trinity; notion of the apathy, which is anything else that stoical impassibility - peace and softness of a heart entirely purified by the renouncement and charity…

He undoubtedly invented the system of the capital sins which he enumerated 8: greediness, impurity, avarice, melancholy (= acédie), anger, idleness, vainglory and pride. It is Gregoire Large the which imposes figure 7.

In spite of its undeniable merits for the monastic life, this mystic " intellectualiste" do not fail to cause certain reserves because same of its gaps: Evagre builds an ascetic system and mystic which is sufficed almost for itself between " passions" , " contemplations" , " ascèse" , but one can wonder which place is made there with human reality, historical of Jesus Christ.

External bonds

Some texts of Evagre in French translation

The works of Evagre published (or in preparation) in the Christian Sources

Sources

The Practical Treated, Christian Sources n° 170

The History Lausiaque de Pallade

Universalis encyclopedia

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