St. Pachomius Library

Evagrius Ponticus

IV Century
Born into a Christian family at Ibora, Pontus, Evagrius Ponticus (c. 346- 399) was a friend of Basil the Great and a student of Gregory the Theologian. The latter ordained Evagrius deacon in Constantinople where his preaching was famous. His defense of Christianity against Arianism at the first Council of Constantinople (381) added to his fame. Evagrius became a copyist in the monastery on the Mount of Olives, which had been established by Melania the Elder, but c. 383, he left Jerusalem to become a monk in the Nitrian desert, where he became a disciple of St. Macarius the Great. Influenced by Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius taught that the goal of man is reunion with God, which man effects through asceticism and contemplation. However, Evagrius also believed that the original unity of God and His rational beings was broken by a fault of the beings, who became souls and were later joined to bodies. Conquering the flesh allows the souls to return to their primordial oneness with God. Evagrius taught that Christ was the only one of the rational beings to stay with God when the others lapsed and took a body to lead other souls to a similar unity with God. Gnostic Centuries, which propounds these ideas, was condemned in 553 at the Second Council of Constantinople, and the Praktikos, his work on prayer, has often been attributed to St. Nilus of Ancyra.
Karen Rae Keck

WORKS:
- Works attributed to Evagrius by most XX Century scholars: Certain writings of Evagrius were condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council as Origenist. Scholars of the XX Century argued that many of his more conventional, less speculative, works were preserved under the names of other authors to evade condemnation. The acceptance of this theory has probably increased the modern awareness of these particular writings; perhaps Church authorities should should hope that scholars attribute many more patristic texts to "condemned heretics" ... At any rate, we have listed these works under both Evagrius and the author whose name appears on the manuscripts, since people may be looking for them under either.
  - Basil the Great, (author according to manuscripts): Eighth Epistle Ostensibly a justification of Basil's withdrawing into the country to meditate, this is is one of the finest Orthodox expositions of the Trinity to emerge from the Arian crisis. Jackson translation. --- SPL
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