2008 NAPS Conference Paper

2009-05-28T08:01:00.000+01:00

Preliminary Remarks on the Analysis of Internal Evidence in Basil Letter 8 for Evagrian Authorship and Dating, with reference to the Theological Orations of St Gregory the Theologian

In the margin at the right you will first find a link to the whole paper as presented at the 2008 NAPS Conference.

Below that link are links to the six parts of the longer form of the paper on which the presented paper was based.

Following those links are links to Fr Theophanes’ translation of Basil Letter 8, called by him To the Caesareans…

2009-05-28T03:41:00.000+01:00

Preliminary Remarks on the Analysis of Internal Evidence in Basil Letter 8 for Evagrian Authorship and Dating, with reference to the Theological Orations of St Gregory the Theologian

In the margin at the right you will find first a link to the whole paper as presented, and then, below that link, links to the six parts of the longer form of the paper on which the presented paper was based.

2008-05-28T04:53:00.000+01:00

Preliminary Remarks on the Analysis of Internal Evidence in Basil Letter 8 for Evagrian Authorship and Dating, with reference to the Theological Orations of St Gregory the Theologian

To continue with this philological analysis of Passage A, the author of passage A emphasizes the recognition of God in second natural contemplation in the ‘operations (energeies) of the Creator, and in the beginning it understands these from the results (apotelesmata)’.[1] In the other works of Evagrius that we have studied, Evagrius does not discuss the role in second natural contemplation of the ‘operations (energeies)’ and ‘results (apotelesmata)’ of God in Creation. In the indices to Greek words in the critical editions that we referenced above for epinoia, this is confirmed: these words are not used. If they are used, they are used in a completely ordinary way. Unfortunately, we do not have a critical edition of Evagrius’ Scholia on Psalms, and since those who have been working on the critical edition have not written anything that we are aware of on the use of the words ‘operations (energeies)’ and ‘results (apotelesmata)’ in the Scholia on Psalms, our analysis is necessarily incomplete.

St Gregory the Theologian does not use this language in the Theological Orations, although it might be argued that he does use related concepts.

When discussing second natural contemplation in his other works Evagrius discusses the ‘reasons (logoi)’ of created objects. These reasons (logoi) are the essences of created objects embedded in the material created object and accessible to the mystic through the mystic’s contemplation of the material object itself in second natural contemplation.

It is clear from the following passage of the Theological Orations that, although he does not dwell on it, St Gregory is familiar with this concept of the reasons (logoi) of created objects:

He is called ‘Wisdom’ as the science (episteme) of divine and human things, for how would he who has made [all things] be ignorant of the reasons (logoi) of the things he has made?[2]

As we have pointed out elsewhere, second natural contemplation is not a discursive meditation on the ‘meaning’ of an object, but a direct encounter by the intuitive spiritual eye of the mind (nous) with the reason or essence (logos) embedded in the object—to the extent that this is possible to a created mind (nous) and according to the degree of the spiritual purity of the contemplator.[3]

A case can be made that the author of passage A is not Evagrius: he is not using words as the late Evagrius used them. There is an inconsistency in the diction of Basil Letter 8. There is clearly a difference in Passage A from the way that Evagrius normally writes.

Finally, more generally, the passages that constitute Layer 3 of the Letter are somewhat imprecise as concerns the stages of Evagrian contemplation. For example, in the conclusion of the Letter we see this:

…and by means of the bee hints at natural contemplation, in which also is mixed the reason (logos) concerning the Holy Trinity, if indeed from the beauty of creatures the Generator is proportionately seen.[4]

In Evagrius’ other writings, there is no concept of the intermixture of the ‘reason concerning the Holy Trinity (o peri tes hagias triados … logos)’ with the material creation. Neither does St Gregory use this language in the Theological Orations. The ‘reason concerning the Holy Trinity’, if there is such a concept in Evagrius, refers to the mystic’s experience of union with God. On this, see, for example, Peri Logismon 41, where the experience of union is spoken of as the ‘mental representation (noema) of God’.[5]

As concerns the expression ‘from the beauty of creatures the Generator is proportionately seen’, a quotation from Wisdom,[6] there is no use of this concept in other works of Evagrius that we are aware of. St Gregory does use a similar expression in the Theological Orations, although not so highly developed.

The one reference in the Kephalaia Gnostica to God the Father as Generator is this:

KG VI, 28 The Father is the generator of essential gnosis.

But ‘essential gnosis’ is the mystic’s direct apprehension of the Holy Trinity without discursive reason. Moreover, in the Kephalaia Gnostica it is the Christ who is the creator of the material world, not the Father. That is, second natural contemplation, in which we contemplate the essences (logoi) of material objects, is the province of the Christ. Even Basil Letter 8 clearly teaches this.

A little earlier in the conclusion to Basil Letter 8, the author has just spoken this way:

And concerning the Trinity Holy and Worthy of Worship, for the present let so much be said to us. For it is not now possible to examine more extensively the reason (logos) concerning it.[7]

Here, the ‘reason concerning the Holy Trinity’ has the nature of a discursive argument or discursive contemplation. But this usage is just a little different than the one we have just been discussing, which usage occurs just a little further on in the text of the Letter. This imprecision of diction is again not typical of Evagrius.

There are at least two passages in the Kephalaia Gnostica which seem to warrant this use of ‘the reason concerning the Holy Trinity’:

KG I, 10 Among the demons, some are opposed to the practice of the commandments, others are opposed to the mental representations of nature, and others are opposed to the logoi which concern the Divinity, because the gnosis of our salvation also is composed of these things.[8]

KG IV, 40 The ‘key of the Kingdom of the Heavens’ [Matt. 16, 19] is the spiritual gift which partially reveals the mental representations of praktiki and of nature, and those of the logoi which concern God.[9]

However, in other parts of the Evagrian corpus, including the Kephalaia Gnostica, we see that the ‘logoi which concern the divinity’ that constitute a part of the gnosis that is our salvation are not discursive in nature. While an interpretation of the ‘logoi which concern the divinity’ or ‘God’ as sound Trinitarian doctrine seems plausible, that is not the nature of Evagrian mysticism: the gnosis of the Trinity that Evagrius foresees in the Kephalaia Gnostica is direct intuitive intellectual union with the Trinity:

KG I, 19 The gnosis which is in the four is the gnosis of the mental representations of creatures, and the gnosis of the One is the gnosis of him who alone is.[10]

The problematical part of the ‘logoi which concern the divinity’ is here:

KG V, 55 The Holy Trinity is not a thing which might be mixed with the contemplation; that, indeed, does not occur except with created beings. The former will also be named, in a holy way, essential gnosis.

This passage depends on the notion in Evagrius that the knowledge (gnosis) of the Holy Trinity is not like the knowledge (gnosis) of a created object. Hence, it is impossible to know the Holy Trinity in the same way that a creature is known.[11]

However, even more importantly, there here seems to be some confusion in the mind of the author of these passages of Letter 8 about the nature of the presence of the Holy Trinity in Creation. The author has begun by referring to the ‘reason concerning the Holy Trinity’ in a discursive sense and very soon proceeded to discuss how the ‘reason (logos) concerning the Holy Trinity’ is mixed into natural contemplation, ‘if indeed from the beauty of creatures the Generator is proportionately seen’. Moreover, he emphasizes the ‘beauty’ of creatures, whereas the late Evagrius emphasizes as a part of second natural contemplation the reason or essence (logos) of creatures.

There is a doctrine in the Kephalaia Gnostica of the presence of God in Creation the way that an artist is present in his work of art. Evagrius is explicit that this does not entail the actual presence of God in Creation, and, as far as we know, he never describes that presence of God in Creation as the ‘reason (logos) concerning the Holy Trinity’. Moreover, he never states in the Kephalaia Gnostica—or anywhere else that we are aware of—that the presence of God in his creation the way an artist is present in his work of art allows the contemplator to perceive in natural contemplation the reason (logos) concerning the Holy Trinity—or even God proportionately.

The difference seems to be this: On the one hand, the late Evagrius wants us to engage in second natural contemplation because the spiritual knowledge (gnosis) that we receive from it nourishes our soul and purifies our mind (nous). On the other hand, he is adamant that we do not know God himself in second natural contemplation. At most, it would appear, in second natural contemplation we know God the way we know an artist by viewing a sculpture that the artist has done. And moreover, in his later thought at least, Evagrius is clear that once we have progressed beyond second natural contemplation, especially to the stage of union with God, then second natural contemplation is seen to be nothing. This doctrine seems far from the notion that in natural contemplation we perceive the ‘reason (logos) concerning the Holy Trinity’ or the Generator proportionately:

KG II, 21 All that has been produced proclaims ‘the most various wisdom of God’ [Eph. 3, 10], but there is nothing among all the beings which teaches us concerning his nature.

Or again:

KG VI, 82 It is said that God is in the corporeal nature as the architect is in the things which have been made by him, and it is said that, like the architect, God is as in the statue, if he should happen to make for himself a statue of wood.

Evagrius teaches in the Kephalaia Gnostica that God is ‘essential gnosis’. That would seem to preclude the notion that the ‘reason concerning the Holy Trinity’ is something that might be cognized by the mystic about God, or even that it could be an argument concerning the nature of the Holy Trinity that might be formulated by him. Consider for example:

KG V, 51 It is not that which is his nature that he knows who sees the Creator after the harmony of beings, but he knows his wisdom, that with which he has made everything; and I wish to say not the essential wisdom [= essential gnosis, the godhead], but that which appears in the beings, that which those who are experts in these things are wont to call natural contemplation. And if that is so, what folly is it that those have who say that they know the nature of God![12]

This wisdom in the harmony of beings is the reason (logos) of each created being that the mystic contemplates in natural contemplation.

Layer 3 thus seems to have a somewhat imprecise presentation of the stages of contemplation as compared to other works of Evagrius.

However, when compared to the Theological Orations, the presentation in Basil Letter 8 of the stages of contemplation is far more articulated and definite than we would expect from a student of St Gregory writing within a year of the Orations. For the Letter delineates a progression from second natural contemplation as the contemplation which is ‘implicated in objects’ to first natural contemplation as the contemplation both of the angels and of their reasons—an explanation of first natural contemplation is developed at great length in On the Thoughts—to the contemplation of the Godhead expressed as contemplation of the Monad and Unity, terms used in the Kephalaia Gnostica, although certainly not in the Theological Orations.

Moreover, this passage of Letter 8 outlines the whole mystical ascent as delineated by the mature Evagrius:

And he says: ‘He who eats me will live on account of me.’ For we eat his flesh and drink his blood when we become communicants by means of the Incarnation and of the sensible life of the Word and of Wisdom. For ‘flesh and blood’ he called his whole mystical sojourn; and he made known the teaching constituted from praktiki, physiki and theologiki, by means of which the soul is nourished and in the meantime prepared for the contemplation of beings.[13]

‘Praktiki, physiki and theologiki’ are the three stages of the mystical ascent delineated by the mature Evagrius. To suggest that this particular passage was written by Evagrius before he had left Constantinople is to suggest that he had developed the lineaments of his mature mystical system, and had them approved by St Gregory when the latter read Letter 8, before he had left Constantinople, become a monk and gone to Egypt. But the Theological Orations do not present such an articulated analysis of the mystical ascent as this. Moreover, as we shall discuss later, what we know of Evagrius’ personal history in this period of his life is just simply not consistent with such advanced mystical rumination on his part—rumination that not even his master manifests in the Theological Orations.

It might be wondered if the Letter’s problems with diction constitute immature foreshadowings of a later mature mystical doctrine. It seems to us no. The presentation in Layer 3 of the Letter is quite sophisticated and definite, as if the author knows the system quite well, not as if he is yet to think it through. We can see this in the immediately preceding example and will further see it when we discuss the content of the Letter, especially Layer 3, in comparison with the Theological Orations. It is just that the author of Layer 3 understands the Evagrian system a little differently from Evagrius in the genuine works that we know of Evagrius, and perhaps in a somewhat less mystically accomplished way.

In regard to this question of whether Layer 3 constitutes immature foreshadowings of Evagrius’ later mystical doctrine, let us consider the following excerpt from Passage A:

Because this is so, again, in the Acts of the Apostles, to his disciples who are asking, ‘When will you restore the Kingdom to Israel,’ he says ‘It is not yours to know times and seasons which the Father has set in his own authority.’ That is, this sort of knowledge (gnosis) of the Kingdom is not for those who are joined to flesh and blood. This contemplation the Father has placed in his own authority, calling ‘authority’ those who are subjected to his authority, ‘his own’ those who do not participate in ignorance of the lower things. [25] Do not understand sensible ‘times’ and ‘seasons’ for me, but certain dimensions of knowledge (gnosis) occurring under the intelligible sun.

Consider this passage of the Kephalaia Gnostica:

KG III, 44 The intelligible sun is the reasonable nature which contains in itself the first and blessed light.

Here we have a passage of the Kephalaia Gnostica which explains terminology used in Basil Letter 8. Are we to take this to mean that Evagrius wrote Passage A in a groping way in Constantinople and throughout the remainder of his life kept the notion of ‘intelligible sun’, returning near the end of his life to provide a definition in the Kephalaia Gnostica? Or that Passage A was written by Evagrius near the end of his life? Or that someone else who had read the Kephalaia Gnostica wrote Passage A?

This excerpt from Passage A contains a succinct description of the mature Evagrian doctrine that the spiritual knowledge (gnosis) of God that is the seeker’s goal depends not on the Christ but on the Father. That is the significance of the ‘authority of the Father’; the ‘ignorance of the lower things’ seems to refer either to those who are accomplished in natural contemplation or to those who have surpassed it. Moreover, in the doctrine of the Kephalaia Gnostica, the only intelligible sun (and even in Evagrius there is only one sun, not a plethora) is the Christ.

Can this excerpt from Passage A legitimately be called a mystical groping brought to fruition in Egypt under the tutelage of the Desert Fathers?

[1] Basil Letter 8 ¶7 [23]. See below for the full excerpt.

[2] SC 250 Oration 28 (= Theological Oration 2) 30, 15 – 16, pp. 268.

[3] Cf. Gnostic 40, quoted above.

[4] Basil Letter 8 ¶12 [37].

[5] Peri Logismon 41, Constantine Vol. II p. 176.

[6] Wisdom 13, 5. Thanks to Dr Kalvesmaki for pointing this out.

[7] Basil Letter 8 (12 [36].)

[8] Constantine Vol. II p. 367.

[9] Constantine Vol. II p. 394.

[10] Op cit. p. 368. Cf. KG I, 38, loc. cit. p. 369.

[11] This is the basis of Skemmata 18, On the Thoughts 41, and these two passages of the Kephalaia Gnostica:

KG V, 62 The nature of the Trinity is not known with ascents and descents; there are not there, indeed, any underlying objects, and its nature does not admit of analysis, because he who resolves the nature of bodies makes it consist absolutely in matter and form; and if one resolves the incorporeal nature, one brings it to the common contemplation and to the substance susceptible of an opposition. But it is not thus that it is possible to know the nature of the Holy Trinity.

KG V, 63 The analysis makes us re-ascend to the commencement of the objects, and the gnosis which is according to measure makes seen the wisdom of the Creator; but it is not according to these signs that we see the Holy Trinity. It has not, indeed, commencement, and we do not say to any further extent that the wisdom which is in these objects is God, if the commencements agree, in the theory of nature, with the things of which they are the commencements. Indeed, such a wisdom is a gnosis without substance, which appears only in the objects.

[12] Kephalaia Gnostica V, 51, Constantine Vol. II, p. 402.

[13] Basil Letter 8 ¶4 [15].

2008-05-28T04:24:00.001+01:00

Preliminary Remarks on the Analysis of Internal Evidence in Basil Letter 8 for Evagrian Authorship and Dating, with reference to the Theological Orations of St Gregory the Theologian

Let us again look at these two passages in Passage A concerning points of view of the Christ:

If, therefore, whatever God is, is said to be known by God of himself and that which he is not, not to be known—then our Lord, according to the notion (kata ten … epinoian) of the Incarnation and the grosser teaching, is not the final object of desire; and therefore our Saviour did not know the end and the final blessedness.

For they say that the Kingdom of Christ is all the knowledge (gnosis) that is implicated in material [objects] and that the Kingdom of the God and Father is the immaterial contemplation, and, as one might say, the contemplation of the very Divinity. [23] Our Lord, however, is himself the end and final blessedness according to the notion (kata ten epinoian) of the Word.

Just what does the author of Passage A mean from a Christological point of view? If we take into consideration KG IV, 18, cited earlier, then one interpretation is that the author is saying the same thing here: the Christ as seen from the point of view of the created mind (nous) which, united to the Word of God, took on human flesh for the salvation of men is not the final object of desire; but the Word to which that mind (nous) called the Christ is united is the final object of desire. Consider the following passages of the Kephalaia Gnostica:

KG III, 72 The heritage of Christ is the gnosis of the Unity; and, if all should become coheirs of Christ, all will know the Holy Unity. But it is not possible that they should become his coheirs if they have not previously become his heirs.[1]

KG IV, 21 The unction either indicates the gnosis of the Unity or designates the contemplation of beings. And if more than the others Christ is anointed, it is evident that he is anointed with the gnosis of the Unity. On account of that, he alone is said ‘to be seated at the right’ [Mark 16, 19] of his Father, the right which here, according to the rule of the gnostics, indicates the Monad and the Unity.[2]

These passages create a serious caution for the student of the Basil Letter 8. Although the Letter is adamant that the Word of God, the Son, is God, it does not automatically follow that the author believes that the Christ is that Word of God incarnated into human flesh in the way that orthodox Christians traditionally understand. That is a different doctrine, one which the author might or might not hold.

Let us continue to look at the content of Passage A.

The passage contains a succinct description of first natural contemplation, the contemplation of the angels themselves and of their reasons (logoi):

‘But neither the angels know,’ [Jesus] said—that is, neither the contemplation which is in them nor the reasons (logoi) of their ministries are the final object of desire.

In the Evagrian system, first natural contemplation is a very advanced stage of contemplation, just prior to the mystic’s entry into the contemplation of the Divinity.[3] The two parts of first natural contemplation are the intuitive sight of the actual angels themselves[4] and the intuitive apprehension of the reasons (logoi) of the angels’ ministry,[5] what the angels are all about.

This brief reference in Passage A to first natural contemplation is far more than an immature foreshadowing of a later mystical system; it is a very sophisticated, concise description of a major part of that system. Moreover, there is no such doctrine of first natural contemplation in the Theological Orations. Hence, the assertion that Evagrius wrote the whole text of Basil Letter 8 in Constantinople before he went to Egypt is problematical.

Next is this part of Passage A:

…But because our mind (nous), having being made gross, has been joined to the dust and is mixed up with the clay and is unable to gaze in bare contemplation, therefore being guided by means of the adornments which are related to the body[6] it understands the operations (energeies) of the Creator, and in the beginning it understands these from the results (apotelesmata), so that, thus having increased little by little, it might have the strength at some time to advance even to the naked Divinity itself.[7]

Consider the first part of this sentence: ‘our mind (nous), having been made gross’. The text has the aorist participle pachyntheis. The author of the text is introducing a temporal sequence of events in a very concise way. Given this temporal sequence, we can see this passage as an allusion to the doctrine of the pre-existence of the minds (noes) and their descent into bodies.[8]

In other respects, this excerpt from Passage A is a very concise presentation of the Evagrian doctrine of the mystical ascent to God through second natural contemplation, apart from our reservations about terminology that we discussed earlier.

These concepts are not to be found in the Theological Orations of Evagrius’ teacher.

Let us give another example:

…For it is necessary that that prayer of our Master be brought to its end. For Jesus is he who prays: ‘Give them that they may be one in us just as you and I are one, Father.’ For being one, God, coming to be in each, makes all one and number is destroyed in the sojourn in the Monad.[9], [10]

The last sentence of this excerpt is a clear allusion to the doctrine of the Restoration (apokatastasis), when all the minds (noes) will become one in such a way that there will a loss of number—i.e. a loss of individual identity—among the individual minds. Now one might suppose that the sentence should be taken as a statement that when a person has a mystical experience, then he subjectively feels the unity of all Creation and all men. However, such a subjectivism would be completely foreign to the philosophical and spiritual tradition of which Evagrius was a part, from Plato through Aristotle through the Cappadocians. Admittedly, the author’s construction ‘epidemia tes monados’, which we have rendered ‘sojourn in the Monad’, is grammatically difficult, but a familiarity with the Kephalaia Gnostica immediately raises the question whether the author is not alluding to the Restoration (apokatastasis).

Let us consider a passage of the Theological Orations that is similar to this doctrine of the mystical ascent as we find it in Passage A:

‘For God will be all things in all persons’ in the time of the Restoration (apokatastasis), not the Father, the Son being dissolved in him completely, just as a torch in a great fire which has for a time been separated and then rejoined—for let not the Sabellians be destroyed by this saying—but all of God, when we will no longer be many things[11] just as now in the movements and the passions, bearing in us, ourselves, nothing of God or very little, but we will all be God-like [theoeideis], capable of containing all of God and him only. For this is the perfection towards which we hasten. Paul himself, certainly, gives the proofs, for here he speaks indeterminately of God, elsewhere he restricts himself clearly to Christ. Saying what? ‘There where there is not Greek, neither Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free,’ but all things and in all persons, Christ.[12]

This passage of the Theological Orations would seem to give support to the assertion that various suspect passages of Letter 8 or even the later Evagrius are to be interpreted in a completely Orthodox way. For St Gregory seems to be hinting at the abolition of number in the Restoration (apokatastasis).

However, let us first look at a salient difference. In this passage of the Theological Orations, St Gregory is clear that it is not merely a matter of being united to the Father, in whom the Son has dissolved, but to all of God, which, it is clear, is for St Gregory the Trinity. Moreover, consistently in the Theological Orations St Gregory is emphatic that there is no end to Christ’s Kingdom.[13] Contrast this to the emphasis in Passage A on the Christian’s encounter with the Monad and Unity, which the mature Evagrius identifies with the Father.

With regard to St Gregory’s assertion that we will no longer be ‘many things’ in the Restoration, his remark is very brief and hard to interpret. St Gregory glosses, it seems, his remark when he quotes the passage of Paul which ends the passage. The impression we have is that St Gregory is not advancing the assertion that number will be abolished in the Restoration (i.e. individual differences of personal identity among souls), but the assertion that ‘accidental’ characteristics will be abolished.

Does Letter 8 mean the same thing as St Gregory when it says:

For Jesus is he who prays: ‘Give them that they may be one in us just as you and I are one, Father.’ For being one, God, coming to be in each, makes all one and number is destroyed in the sojourn in the Monad. For being one, God, coming to be in each, makes all one and number is destroyed in the sojourn in the Monad;[14]

and are we are necessarily to take Letter 8 as perfectly orthodox? This would seem an a priori approach to interpreting texts.

The issue here is this: Should we assume, on the basis of his association with St Gregory and St Basil, that Evagrius is orthodox and give him the benefit of the doubt in interpreting such passages as these of Basil Letter 8, and then continue with that orthodox interpretation into the Kephalaia Gnostica, denying the a posteriori template that the Anathemas of the Fifth Ecumenical Synod supposedly put on the Kephalaia Gnostica?

We ourselves think that when one has a familiarity with the Kephalaia Gnostica, even in the French of Guillaumont, then when he is reading Basil Letter 8, he can easily spot allusions to the system of the Kephalaia Gnostica. It does not seem to us methodologically sound to impose on Evagrius the a priori template of orthodoxy. We must confront the issue that the Kephalaia Gnostica, taken on its own terms, can tell us something about what Evagrius thought, even in Basil Letter 8.

Let us illustrate what we are saying with another passage from Letter 8, this time not from Passage A but from another part of the Letter:

He bore with these things on account of his great love for mankind concerning his creature, so that he recover the lost sheep, and so that he combine that which was saved; and so that he lead healthy again to his familiar homeland him who descended from Jerusalem to Jericho and for that reason fell into the hands of robbers.[15]

The author of this passage uses an unusual word in context, katamixei (καταμίξῃ), for what he expects Jesus to do with the lost sheep that Jesus has recovered. We have rendered that word ‘combine’. A person familiar with the Kephalaia Gnostica can immediately detect an allusion here to Evagrius’ version of the Restoration (apokatastasis), when all the minds will enter without individual characteristics into an henad of naked minds, just as we have discussed above.

Moreover, Letter 8 immediately goes on to use another Gospel image, that of the traveller who descended from Jerusalem to Jericho. In the Kephalaia Gnostica we find this:

KG VI, 49 Egypt signifies vice; the desert, praktiki; the land of Judah, the contemplation of bodies; Jerusalem, [the contemplation] of incorporeals; and Zion is the symbol of the Trinity[16].

KG V, 88 Zion is the sign of the first gnosis[17], and Egypt is the indication of all vice; but the symbol of the [first] natural contemplation is Jerusalem, where is the Mount of Zion, the summit of the city.

KG V, 6 The contemplation of angels is named the celestial Jerusalem and the Mount of Zion, for if those who have believed in Christ draw near to the Mount of Zion and to the City of the Living God, then it is in the contemplation of angels that those who have believed in Christ have been and will be, that contemplation from which their fathers have gone out and descended into Egypt.

As can be seen, the image of the descent from Jerusalem to Jericho is pregnant with meaning in Evagrius’ mature system. Jerusalem is taken to be symbolic of the Restoration (apokatastasis), or, more precisely put, of the contemplation of the angels which is just prior to the sojourn in the Monad, which itself is identified by Evagrius with the Mount of Zion. Moreover, the expression ‘familiar homeland’, which is a literal translation of the text of Basil Letter 8, then alludes to the doctrine that the Restoration (apokatastasis) is a return to the original state that the minds had before their fall from the Monad—as is clearly indicated by KG V, 6, cited above. The verb ‘descended’ in the passage of the letter under consideration would then refer to the descent of the fallen minds into bodies. Finally, the thieves that fall upon the traveller who has descended from Jerusalem to Jericho[18] are the demons. Elsewhere in Letter 8, as we have already pointed out, the author has spoken thus: ‘But because our mind (nous), having been made gross, has been joined to the dust and is mixed up with the clay and is unable to gaze in bare contemplation…’.

It might be thought that the following passage from the Theological Orations gives a completely orthodox interpretation to the descent from Jerusalem to Jericho in Basil Letter 8:

He hears [himself called] ‘Samaritan’ and ‘demoniac’ but he saves him who descended from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers; and he sends demons away and drowns a legion of spirits and ‘sees fallen as lightning’ the ruler of demons.[19]

It is clear, however, that St Gregory’s purpose in referring to the descent from Jerusalem to Jericho is to portray Jesus Christ, pejoratively called a Samaritan, as the Good Samaritan, just has his purpose is to portray Jesus Christ, pejoratively called a demoniac, as him who expels the demons and even sees the Devil fallen like lightning from Heaven. There is nothing in the Orations that corresponds to the use made of the image in either Basil Letter 8 or the Kephalaia Gnostica.

Fr Gabriel Bunge takes the position that since Basil Letter 8 was written under the eye of St Gregory the Theologian in Constantinople, all the concepts expressed in it are orthodox.[20] In his view, we cannot use an interpretation of the Kephalaia Gnostica which yields a heterodox Evagrius to interpret Basil Letter 8: on the contrary we must use the fact that Basil Letter 8 is orthodox to interpret the rest of the Evagrian corpus in an orthodox way.

One can see that a key element in the establishment of the School of Bunge’s interpretation of Evagrius is precisely to remove the possibility of interpreting Evagrius on the basis of the Kephalaia Gnostica—‘it is too difficult a work’—while simultaneously establishing that Basil Letter 8 is an unequivocally orthodox work written by Evagrius under the watchful eye of St Gregory the Theologian, a work that is to be used as an orthodox template to re-interpret Evagrius as an orthodox thinker. We have not done as much work comparing the Theological Orations to Basil Letter 8 as we might, yet it is clear that here is the ‘sleight of hand that beguiles the audience’.

What we ourselves say is that since we have no documentary evidence that St Gregory approved of Basil Letter 8 in the form we now have it, we can use the doctrines found in the Kephalaia Gnostica—much more clearly than either Fr Gabriel or Dr Casiday care to admit—to shed light on the meaning of passages of Letter 8, and even to raise the possibility that some passages of the letter, expressive of mature Evagrian doctrine as found in the Kephalaia Gnostica, are in fact late interpolations in the letter, perhaps by Evagrius, perhaps by one of his circle. For it is from a familiarity with Evagrius’ later works that the reader can spot elements of Layer 3 of the letter that might reflect Evagrius’ later heterodox views on cosmology—or indeed even his later more orthodox views on contemplation.

But as we said, we have no way of knowing when these Layer 3 passages were put into the text of Basil Letter 8 and by whom.

In any event, it cannot blithely be asserted that the author’s reasoning is inherently orthodox both in the Letter and throughout his life, and must be presumed to be orthodox, because of Evagrius’ early association with St Basil the Great and St Gregory the Theologian. People change over the course of their life, for the better or for the worse.

In this regard, it is useful to consider Evagrius the person at the time he was with St Gregory the Theologian in Constantinople and is supposed to have written Basil Letter 8. Evagrius at the time that he was in Constantinople with St Gregory the Theologian was not, from what we know of his personal history, an advanced mystic. He was known in Constantinople for his vainglory. He got involved with a married woman and while the affair was never consummated, as far as the sources tell us, he was in danger of his life and had to leave Constantinople the next morning after experiencing a monitory dream. He went to Jerusalem, where he put off his clerical garb and led a worldly life; he was then sick in bed for six months because he was not living up to his vow to become a monk, the vow that he had made in the dream that had prompted him to leave Constantinople. After a heart-to-heart talk in Jerusalem with Melania the Elder about his condition, he consented to be tonsured a monk and after his tonsure went to Egypt to live as a monk. This biography is just simply not consistent with his having articulated an advanced mystical system before he left Constantinople, a mystical system that on the face of it is more advanced than the doctrine advanced in the same period in the Theological Orations by his teacher in Constantinople, St Gregory the Theologian. Hence, we have to consider whether the passages of Basil Letter 8 expressive of advanced mystical doctrine were not written later than Constantinople, after Evagrius had spent some time in asceticism in Egypt, whether by him or by one of his circle.

Given that before he came to Constantinople, Evagrius was in the circle of St Basil the Great, a complete study of the matter would require study of similar elements in St Basil’s own writings. But then that would lead us to study the writings of St Basil’s brother, St Gregory of Nyssa.

A complete analysis of Basil Letter 8 would be much work. In the footnotes to the translation, however, we will point out what we think are elements of Layer 3.

Bibliography

ACO 4, 1 Acta Conciliorvm Oecvmenicorvm. Ivssv atqve mandato Societatis Scientiarvm Argentoratensis. Edenda intitvit Edvardvs Schwartz. Continvavit Johannes Straub. Tomvs Qvartvs. Volvmen Primvm. MDCCCLXXI. In Aedibvs Walter de Gruyter & Co. Berolini. (Tome 4, Volume 1. 1971. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co.)

Basil 1 Basil the Great. Collected Works. Volume 1. Under the direction of Stylianos G. Pappadopoulos. Editor of Volume I: Nikodimos (Mpilales), Monk of New Skete, Mount Athos. Text: Y. Courtonne (edition of Budé). In the series: Bibliothiki ton Ellenon, Apanta ton Hagion Pateron. No date. No place: Ellenikos Ekdotikos Oikos.

Bousset Bousset, Wilhelm. Apophthegmata: Studien zur Geschichte des Altesten Munchtums. Tubingen: Mohr, 1923.

Casiday Casiday, A. M. Evagrius Ponticus. 2006. In the series: The Early Church Fathers, edited by Carol Harrison. London and New York: Routledge (Taylor and Francis Group).

Constantine (Constantine), Fr Theophanes. The Psychological Basis of Mental Prayer in the Heart. Volume I: The Orthodox Doctrine of the Person. Volume II: The Evagrian Ascetical System. (Volume III: Hesychian Sobriety). 2006. Mount Athos, Greece: Timios Prodromos. http://timiosprodromos4.blogspot.com/ et seq.

Melcher Melcher, Robert. Der achte Brief des hl. Basilius: Ein Werk des Evagrius Pontikus. Münsterische Beiträge zur Theologie 1. Münster i.W: Aschendorff, 1923.

Pitra Origenes in Psalmos. Pitra, éditeur. Analecta Sacra Vol. 2, pp. 444 – 483 and Analecta Sacra Vol. 3 pp. 1 – 364.

Rondeau Rondeau, Marie-Josephe. Le Commentaire sur les Psaumes d’ Évagre Le Pontique. Orientalia Christiana Periodica 1960 pp. 307 – 348.

SC 170 Évagre Le Pontique. Traité pratique ou Le moine (Practical Treatise or The Monk). Tome I. Introduction. Antoine Guillaumont et Claire Guillaumont. 1971. In Sources chrétiennes, No 170. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

SC 171 Évagre Le Pontique. Traité pratique ou Le moine (Practical Treatise or The Monk). Tome II. Édition critique du texte grec… Antoine Guillaumont et Claire Guillaumont. 1971. In Sources chrétiennes, No 171. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

SC 250 Grégoire de Nazianze. Discours 27 – 31 (Discours Théologiques). (Orations 27 – 31 (Theological Orations)). Introduction, texte critique … par Paul Gallay avec … Maurice Jourjon. 1978. In Sources chrétiennes, No 250. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

SC 340 Évagre Le Pontique. Scholies aux Proverbes (Scholia on Proverbs). Paul Géhin. 1987. In Sources chrétiennes, No 340. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

SC 356 Évagre Le Pontique. Le Gnostique ou A celui qui est devenu digne de la science (The Gnostic or To Him who has Become Worthy of Gnosis). Antoine Guillaumont et Claire Guillaumont. 1989. In Sources chrétiennes, No 356. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

SC 397 Évagre Le Pontique. Scholies a L’Ecclésiaste (Scholia on Ecclesiastes). Paul Géhin. 1993. In Sources chrétiennes, No 397. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

[1] Constantine Volume II, p. 387.

[2] Ibid. p. 392.

[3] For a discussion of the cognitive psychology of these stages of contemplation, see Peri Logismon 41. Discussions of this stage of contemplation can be found in the Kephalaia Gnostica. For a discussion of specific chapters of the Kephalaia Gnostica which pertain to the stages of contemplation, see our ‘Digression’ in the Evagrian Ascetical System (Constantine Vol. II).

[4] This is the intelligible intuitive apprehension of a created intelligible being with mind. ‘Intuitive’ is meant in the philosophical sense, precisely in the way the conclusion of the letter asserts that the mind (nous) has been created by God to grasp its own materials without being taught. This is not a matter of discursive meditation on the angels or of seeing them in fantasy.

[5] The intuitive apprehension of the reasons (logoi) of the ministry of the angels is by analogy with the intuitive apprehension of the reason (logos) of a material object in second natural contemplation. For a full discussion, see Peri Logismon 41.

[6] Evidently, these ‘adornments which are related to the body’ are the beauties of the material world which manifest the operations (energeies) of the Creator.

[7] Basil Letter 8 ¶7 [23].

[8] This doctrine was condemned in Anathema 1 of the Fifth Ecumenical Synod. See Constantine Vol. I, Chap. 3, Section 11, ‘Anathemas of the Fifth Ecumenical Synod’, p. 243 ff.

[9] Literally, ‘of the Monad’.

[10] Basil Letter 8 ¶7 [25].

[11] The critical edition of Gallay has polla without alternative readings, which seems odd. We would have expected to see polloi.

[12] SC 250 Oration 30 (= Theological Oration 4) 6, 31 – 44, p. 238.

[13] See, e.g., SC 250 Oration 30 (= Theological Oration 4) 4, pp. 230 - 232.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Basil Letter 8 ¶5 [18].

[16] I.e. the contemplation of the Trinity.

[17] I.e. Theology, mystical union with God.

[18] Here taken by the author to be praktiki, although Jericho is treated in Peri Logismon 20 as a symbol of second natural contemplation

[19] SC 250 Oration 29 (= Theological Oration 3) 20, 12 – 17, p. 220,

[20] Personal Communication. But this point of view is also to be found in Casiday.

2008-05-28T04:16:00.002+01:00

Preliminary Remarks on the Analysis of Internal Evidence in Basil Letter 8 for Evagrian Authorship and Dating, with reference to the Theological Orations of St Gregory the Theologian

Let us now look at the actual content of Passage A, comparing it to the Theological Orations.

Let us consider this passage from Theological Orations 2:

How did I come to be in this state, O friends and initiates and fellow-lovers of the truth? I ran, then, as one who was going to see (katalepsomenos) God and thus I ascended the Mount and penetrated the cloud, going within material and material things and having turned to myself as much as is possible. When I looked on, then, I barely saw the hind parts of God, and this having been covered by the Rock, by the Word which was incarnated for us. And having stooped and peeked a little, I saw not the first and unmixed nature and that known in itself (in the Trinity, I say), and as much as remains within the first veil and is covered by the Cherubim—but as much as at the end arrives even to us. And this is, as far as I know, the grandeur which is in the creatures and in those things which are produced and managed by him, which the divine David calls ‘magnificence’. For these things are the hind parts of God, as many things as are, in the search for him, his identifying marks, just as the shadows and images of the sun on the water show the sun to feeble visions, it not being possible to look on the sun directly, the purity of the light defeating the sense. Thus you will do theology, then, even if you should be Moses and ‘the God of Pharaoh’, even if you should reach the Third Heaven in the manner of Paul and hear ‘unspeakable words’, even if you should come to be above Paul, of some angelic or archangelic order and place. For even if something is any celestial or supracelestial thing and by nature higher than us and closer to God, it is further from God and perfect intuitive comprehension (teleias katalepseos) than as much as it exceeds our composite and lowly and weighed-down mixture.[1]

First of all, let us note the critical editor’s remark that in this passage, St Gregory the Theologian is very close to St Gregory of Nyssa in the Life of Moses.[2]

Let us consider the structure of the mystical ascent as presented here by St Gregory the Theologian. The seeker ascends Mount Sinai and penetrates the cloud which covers the mountain. He goes beyond material and material things, turning into himself as much as is possible. He then looks on and sees the hind parts of God, having been covered by the Rock which is the Incarnate Word. But in this he sees not the actual nature of God (the Trinity) but the little that arrives even to Man. This little that arrives even to Man is the magnificence that is present in God’s creatures. This little is the identifying marks of the God who cannot directly be seen, just as we who have weak vision must be content with the reflections of the sun on the water since we cannot look directly on the sun. And this is the way we must do theology, of whatever spiritual height or attainment we might be—for every celestial or supracelestial being is further from the true knowledge of God than it is above us

Let us now see how the author of Passage A handles the same theme. Let us bear in mind that these two passages, if Passage A is genuinely of Evagrius in Constantinople, were written within a year or so of each other, the first passage by the teacher and the second by his student.

7 [21] The holy disciples of our Saviour, coming beyond contemplation[3] as it is possible to men, and having been purified by the word, seek the end, and desire to know the final blessedness, of which very thing our Lord declared both the angels and himself to be ignorant. On the one hand, he called ‘day’ the exact apprehension of the conceptions (epinoiai) of God; on the other hand, ‘hour’ the contemplation of the Monad and Unity, the notification of which things he granted only to the Father. … [22] If, therefore, whatever God is, is said to be known by God of himself and that which he is not, not to be known—then our Lord, according to the notion (kat’ epinoian) of the Incarnation and the grosser teaching, is not the final object of desire; and therefore our Saviour did not know the end and the final blessedness. ‘But neither the angels know,’ he said—that is, neither the contemplation which is in them nor the reasons (logoi) of their ministries are the final object of desire. For the knowledge (gnosis) of these things is gross in comparison with the ‘person to person’. The Father alone knows, he says, because he [i.e. the Father] is indeed the end and the final blessedness. For when we know God no longer in mirrors, neither by means of alien things, but we come forth to him as to ‘only’ and ‘one’, then we will see the final end. For they say that the Kingdom of Christ is all the knowledge (gnosis) that is implicated in material [objects] and that the Kingdom of the God and Father is the immaterial contemplation, and, as one might say, the contemplation of the very Divinity.

Let us briefly mention the similarities. There is first of all the notion that the person must turn away from material things. That is a very strong feature of this school of mysticism.

The most obvious difference is the treatment by St Gregory of God who is the goal the Theologian as the Trinity. The author of Passage A, on the other hand, has a somewhat more Neoplatonic view that treats the Monad and Unity, identified with the Father, as the goal. The words we have translated ‘Monad’ and ‘Unity’ are technical terms in Neoplatonic philosophy used by Proclus for the highest aspect of the Godhead, here identified with the Father. A little later the author of Passage A uses related words which we have translated ‘only’ and ‘one’.

In Passage A, the Kingdom of Christ is the contemplation implicated in material things. It is to be surpassed so as to attain to the Kingdom of the Father, which is the final goal and blessedness. The Kingdom of the Father is the contemplation of the very Divinity, the contemplation of the ‘Monad’ and ‘Unity’.

St Gregory makes no such distinction in the passage quoted here or anywhere else in the Theological Orations, and indeed rejects the notion that there is an end to the Kingdom of Christ, as we shall see further on. However, these distinctions are to be found in the Kephalaia Gnostica and in Evagrius’ other late works.

Moreover, St Gregory speaks of seeing the hind parts of God, that which the divine David calls the ‘magnificence’ which is to be found in the creatures, just as we see the reflections of the sun upon the waters. The author of Passage A on the other hand is explicit that when we proceed beyond seeing God in mirrors, or by means of alien things, ‘but we come forth to him as to ‘only’ and ‘one’, then we will see the final end’.

St Gregory is very diffident about the possibility of Man’s knowing the nature of God. We can see St Gregory’s diffidence in this passage:

If, then, someone should have comprehended this [i.e. God] at some time and to some extent, what is the proof? Who has thus arrived at the final wisdom? Who has ever been found worthy of such a great charism? Who has thus ‘opened’ the mouth of his intellect (dianoia) and ‘drawn spirit’ so that in the Spirit ‘which searches and knows all things, including the depths of God,’ he comprehend God and no longer be in need of anything further, already having the final desire, to which every intellect (dianoia) and way of life of the elevated make haste?[4]

And in this:

How have you not marvelled first at Manoah the Judge and later at Peter the disciple? The first not even bearing the sight of the God which appeared and for that reason saying ‘O woman, we are lost; we have seen God,’ in the sense that not even a divine apparition is able find place in men, much less the divine nature? And the second not allowing the seen Christ to approach but sending him away? Although Peter was warmer than the others in the knowledge [epignosin] of Christ and for this reason blessed and entrusted with the greatest things?[5]

Here it is clear that St Gregory does not consider that it is reasonable to expect to know the nature of God. While it must be taken into account that he is engaged in polemic, it seems to us that such strong statements cannot be considered rhetorical excess but must constitute a well-thought position of St Gregory.

The author of Passage A, however, is quite explicit that the contemplation of the very Divinity is the goal, a goal which is attainable. It is as if the author of Passage A is relegating St Gregory the Theologian to the rank of beginner. That is hardly consistent with his being a student of St Gregory writing a year before St Gregory spoke the Theological Orations and expecting St Gregory to review his Letter before he sends it to the brethren back home.

Let us now look at an aspect of Passage A that finds its parallel in the Theological Orations. In Passage A, the author refers to the ‘day and hour’ in this way:

On the one hand, he called ‘day’ the exact apprehension of the conceptions (epinoiai) of God; on the other hand, ‘hour’ the contemplation of the Monad and Unity, the notification of which things he granted only to the Father.[6]

It is important to realize that this is the second interpretation in Letter 8 of ‘hour and day’. Just previously, the author has written:

6 [19] For you he is even ignorant of the hour and the day of the Judgement; and further, nothing escapes the notice of true Wisdom; all things came to be through it. Neither, then, has any man ever been ignorant of what he has done. But this he manages for the sake of your infirmity, so that neither might sinners fall into despondency at the shortness of the delay, there not remaining a time of repentance; nor again might those who for a long time are giving battle with the opposed power desert on account of the length of time. He therefore manages both by means of the feigned ignorance; for the one, cutting short the time on account of the good struggle; for the other, storing up a season of repentance on account of the sins.[7] [20] And further, in the Gospels he numbers himself together with those who are ignorant, on account of the infirmity, as I said, of the many; however, in the Acts of the Apostles, as discoursing separately with the perfect, he says, excluding himself: ‘It is not yours to know times and seasons which the Father has set by his own authority.

Here we have two interpretations of ‘hour and day’, the second introduced as a higher interpretation. How does St Gregory the Theologian treats the same theme in the Theological Orations?

15 Tenth is for them the ignorance and the fact that no one knows the last day and hour, not even the Son, only the Father. But how is Wisdom ignorant of anything of those things which exist, or the Maker of the Ages, the Perfecter and Transformer, the Limit of those things which have come to be, He who knows the things of God as the spirit of man knows the things in him? What is more perfect than this knowledge? How then does he know exactly those things which are before the hour, and, so to say, those things which are in the time of the hour, but is ignorant of the very hour? For the thing is similar to a riddle: just as one might say that he knows exactly those things which are before the wall but not the wall itself; or that knowing well the end of the day, he does not know the beginning of night, where the knowledge of the one thing necessarily introduces knowledge of the other at the same time. Or is it not clear to all that on the one hand he knows as God, that on the other hand he says as man that he is ignorant, if one should separate the visible from the intelligible? For the fact that the appellation ‘Son’ is absolute and without relational, it not being a matter of the ‘Son of someone’, gives the real meaning to us, so that considering this we construe the ignorance in a more pious way, as referring to the human and not to the divine.[8]

First, with respect to the first, lower, interpretation of Letter 8, there is a certain commonality between the two treatments: for example both the lower interpretation of Letter 8 and St Gregory refer to Wisdom and allude to the fact that the spirit of a man knows all things in him. However, there is no suggestion in St Gregory’s own treatment of the matter that Jesus Christ is feigning ignorance of the day and hour. In St Gregory it is merely a matter of the difference between the human and divine natures of the Christ. Consistently throughout the Theological Orations, St Gregory adopts this hermeneutical schema: things which refer to the divinity of Christ – things which refer to his humanity.

Next, it can be seen that the second, higher interpretation of Letter 8 concerning Jesus Christ’s ignorance of the day and hour is completely different from anything that St Gregory says on the matter. (It is well worth referring back to the whole of Passage A on this.)

Given this commonality of the Theological Orations with the first, lower interpretation, and the complete divergence of the Orations from the second, higher interpretation, it is reasonable to ask how St Gregory would have reacted if indeed Evagrius, according to hypothesis, presented to him the whole text of Letter 8 as it has come down to us for approval before he sent it to the brethren in Cappadocia, a year before St Gregory spoke the Theological Orations. We do not know how St Gregory would have reacted to the suggestion that Jesus Christ was feigning ignorance to his disciples—it is not a point that he picks up in his own Orations—but it would seem odd to us that he would shrug over the second, higher interpretation and say, ‘Send it out.’

We asserted that Passage A, which contains the second, higher interpretation, is most likely an interpolation. We think that this comparison with the Theological Orations makes this plausible. But let us note that if Passage A is an interpolation, then the place where Letter 8 continues with the original text also contains a passage echoed in the Theological Orations. That is this passage:

8 [27] Again, by means of the wise Solomon in Proverbs he is created. For he says: ‘The Lord created me.’ And the beginning of the evangelical ways he is called, leading us towards the Kingdom of the Heavens—not a creation according to substance, but having become a way according to dispensation. For ‘to have become’ and ‘to be created’ make known the same thing.

Here is how St Gregory handles the same passage of Scripture:

There is then among them [i.e. the Arians] that text which is very convenient: ‘The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for the sake of his works.’ How will we go about answering? We will not condemn Solomon. We will not displace those things which are before on account of a final falling away from the way. Will we not say that this statement (logos) refers to wisdom, the knowledge and constructive reason, so to say, according to which all things have been constituted? For Scripture knows how to personify many things, even among those that are soulless, as: ‘The sea said’ this and that; the Heavens ‘narrate the glory of God;’ and ‘The Abyss said, “It is not in me;”’ and, again, something is commanded by the sword; and the mountains and hills are asked why they leap. But let the statement be taken as concerning our Saviour, true Wisdom. Let us consider the matter a little together. What among those things that exist is without a cause? The Divinity. For no one is able to state the cause of God, or that thing would be more ancient than God. And what is the cause of the humanity to which God submitted for our sake? At all events, our salvation. For what else [might there be]? Therefore, since here [in the Scriptural passage in question] we clearly find both ‘created’ and ‘engenders me’, the logic is simple. On the one hand, what we find with a cause we attribute to the humanity; what, then, on the other hand is simple and without cause we reckon to the Divinity. Therefore, is not ‘created’ said with a cause? For it says: ‘The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for the sake of his works.’ ‘The work of his hands are truth and judgement,’ on account of which things he was anointed with the Divinity. For this unction is of the humanity. But ‘engenders me’ is without cause—or show what is attached to this. What reasoning then will refute that wisdom is said to be a creation according to the lower birth, a child according to the first and fully incomprehensible [birth]?[9]

There is nothing in St Gregory’s analysis that supports the assertion of Letter 8 that ‘created’ and ‘engenders’ mean the same thing. Indeed, his very technical analysis hinges not on their meaning the same thing but on their separate application to the humanity and divinity of Christ respectively.

Moreover, we can again see a very subtle difference between Letter 8 and the Theological Orations in these two passages. St Gregory consistently uses the schema ‘divinity of Christ – humanity of Christ’ whereas the author of Letter 8 consistently refers to the dispensation. We do not think that these are precisely the same thing, as we will discuss immediately below.

We can see that in both these Layer 2 passages which find their parallel in the Theological Orations and which take a similar tack, there are actually significant differences in approach between Letter 8 and the Theological Orations. Would St Gregory the Theologian have accepted the views of these passages of Letter 8 as ‘theologoumena’ well within the pale of sound doctrine, and approved the letter for posting to Cappadocia, or would he have objected that Evagrius did not have it quite right? We frankly do not know. We have no information that would allow us to judge. Indeed, the problem with the hypothesis that St Gregory the Theologian approved or even read Letter 8 is that it is simply not founded on documentary evidence. It is a matter of personal judgement. One possibility is that even though these Layer 1 passages resemble passages of the Theological Orations they were not written by Evagrius in Constantinople but later in life. Indeed, their tone does resemble that of his scholia.

To continue, St Gregory teaches that he saw the hind parts of God while covered by the Rock which is the Incarnate Word.

The author of Passage A states that seen from the point of view of the Incarnation and the grosser teaching, ‘our Lord’—Jesus Christ—is not the end and the goal of the mystical ascent, but seen from the point of view of the Word, he is.

What does Passage A mean here? It might be thought that what the author means is that the human nature of the Christ is not our goal but his divine nature is. Even if we ignore the Kephalaia Gnostica which explicitly states that the Christ was not God in the beginning but is called so on account of his union with the Word,[10] still, the formulation of the author of Passage A is quite unusual from an orthodox point of view. For from an orthodox point of view, the person who is Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh: there was never a time when the human nature of Christ was a person apart from the person of the Word or subsisted apart from its union with the divine nature of Christ in the Person of the Word. Hence, there would be no reason for the mystic to seek in the mystical ascent the humanity of Christ apart from his Divinity: we want to meet Jesus Christ the person, and that person was always and only the Word of God.[11]

If we were to accept this interpretation of Passage A, we would have a situation where the humanity of Christ was not our goal but his Divinity was; and where the Kingdom of Christ is the contemplation implicated in material things, to be surpassed so as to attain to the Kingdom of the Father, which is the contemplation of the Divinity, the contemplation of the ‘Monad’ and ‘Unity’.

If we identify the Kingdom of Christ, the contemplation implicated in material things, with the humanity of Christ, then it is distinguished from the Kingdom of the Father, the contemplation of the bare Divinity, identified with the Father, yes, but also with the Word, the Divinity of Christ. This is odd. Why would the Kingdom of Christ, the contemplation of the material creation, be identified with the humanity of Christ in contradistinction to the Kingdom of the Father, the contemplation of the Divinity, identified with the Father but also with the Word, the Divinity of Christ?

St Gregory makes no such elaborate distinctions.

The question then arises: well, if Evagrius wrote this a year before St Gregory wrote the Theological Orations, how is it that he is making these distinctions? How is it that St Gregory accepted these distinctions as being genuinely orthodox without adopting them in his own Orations?

The more natural explanation is that the author of Passage A is advancing a different Christology here, a Christology developed at great length in Evagrius’ late works, especially the Kephalaia Gnostica.

In other words, a detailed reflection on the Theological Orations of St Gregory in comparison with Passage A indicates that Passage A was not written under the watchful eye of St Gregory: if the passage is by Evagrius it was written much later, when he was working on works such as the Kephalaia Gnostica.

And here we have a modest theory what happened. Evagrius learned the mysticism of St Gregory from St Gregory and went to Egypt. There he was initiated into a ‘higher mystical doctrine’, validated by experience, which surpassed the mysticism of St Gregory: he realized that St Gregory had only reached a lower level and not the direct contemplation of the ‘Monad’ and ‘Unity’, as he himself had. So he surpassed St Gregory’s doctrine with his own additions. This seems to have entailed a re-interpretation of the Christ. Our personal view, for what it is worth, is that in this his teacher was Didymus the Blind. The result? Evagrius was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Synod. St Gregory is the Theologian.

[1] SC 250 Oration 28 (= Theological Oration 2) 3, 1 – 26, pp. 104 – 106.

[2] Ibid. fn. 2, pp. 106 – 107.

[3] In context, the author seems to mean natural contemplation.

[4] SC 250 Oration 28 (= Theological Oration 2) 6, 19 – 26, p. 112.

[5] SC 250 Oration 28 (= Theological Oration 2) 19, 6 – 14, p. 138.

[6] Basil Letter 8 ¶7 [21].

[7] This paragraph, with its rather straightforward interpretation of the ignorance of Christ, belongs, in our opinion, to Layer 2.

[8] SC 250 Oration 30 (= Theological Oration 4) 15, 1 – 20, pp. 256 – 258.

[9] SC 250 Oration 30 (= Theological Oration 4) 2, 1 – 30, pp. 226 – 230.

[10] IV 18 The intelligible unction is the spiritual gnosis of the Holy Unity, and the Christ is he who is united to this gnosis. And if that is so, the Christ is not the Word in the beginning, so that he who has been anointed is not God in the beginning, but that one on account of this one is the Christ, and this one on account of that one is God.

[11] Of course, it might be objected that we are presenting a Chalcedonian view in a pre-Chalcedonian setting.