Evagrius Ponticus

Casiday, Augustine

doi:10.4324/9780203356975

Cited by 30 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Condemned by tradition as the great synthesizer of Origenism, Evagrius (c. 345-99) was a prolific author but subsequent to the condemnations many of his writings were lost. 5 A substantial number were recovered in the course of the twentieth century and this new material has supported extensive research. Undoubtedly the most spectacular recovery was a second Syriac translation of Evagrius' Gnostic Chapters (Kephalaia Gnostika, hereafter KG) by Antoine Guillaumont, which he identified and studied, then edited along with the first Syriac translation (hereafter, KG-S 1 ) and supported with French translations of both, in a series of publications from 1952 to 1962.…”

Section: The Contemporary Study Of Evagrius Ponticusmentioning

confidence: 92%

On Heresy in Modern Patristic Scholarship: The Case of Evagrius Ponticus

Casiday

2012

The Heythrop Journal

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Patristics is a lively scholarly domain in which theologians and historians contribute to the study of Christian antiquity. But modern trends in patristic study (especially the application of contemporary critical theory to ancient sources) are not always conducive to theological research. This paper identifies the preoccupation in modern patristic study with heresy as a major source of problems. The modern study of Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345-99) provides an exemplary case in which some of these problems can be identified and explored. The initial presentation of modern scholarship will bring into focus the way that Evagrius' relationship to the sixth-century condemnations of Origenism is interpreted by most scholars. Next, the paper identifies and evaluates recent indications that Evagrius is prized precisely because he is considered a heretic. In the final section of the paper, attention is paid to the problem of presuming that subsequent events disclose the theological meaning of earlier writings and to the problem of foreclosing independent theological assessment in order to preserve ancient condemnations. The conclusions suggest that preoccupations with alleged heresy can be every bit as detrimental to understanding of theological writings as preoccupations with orthodoxy.Scholars have in recent years noted -occasionally, with something like a sigh of reliefthat the study of the fathers of the church or, more broadly, the era in which they lived (patristic scholarship) is increasingly separated from theology. 1 Some of the impetus driving this separation comes from the great strides made in the revisionist study of what was formerly called 'the Dark Ages' (roughly, from the third to the eighth centuries): research methods from classical philology have been fruitfully applied to material from the post-classical Mediterranean, with the result that 'Late Antiquity' is a vibrant field of study. 2 Another engine driving the development is the adoption of contemporary literary theory by scholars of early Christian literature. Conversations between social historians, literary theorists and historical theologians have eroded the distinction between ancient Christian theology on the one hand and Christianity in late ancient society on the other, both of which are subsumed under the general title of patristic study -as the scope of activity at the quadrennial International Conference on Patristic Study in Oxford makes abundantly clear. The proliferation of scholarly monographs and articles, conferences and symposia, attests to the fruitfulness of collaboration across traditional academic disciplines.Despite the productivity of this interaction, however, it should not be assumed that all these approaches to the subject matter are straightforwardly compatible. Modern approaches to heresy provide excellent specimens of some of the problems that inadequately integrated, multi-disciplinary modes of scholarship can create and compound. A few of these problems have already been identified in a brief but thoughtprovoking essay...

show abstract

Section: The Contemporary Study Of Evagrius Ponticusmentioning

confidence: 92%

On Heresy in Modern Patristic Scholarship: The Case of Evagrius Ponticus

Casiday

2012

The Heythrop Journal

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…On the contrary, the conceptual schemes within which these traditions understand spontaneous thought are interesting precisely because they differ from modern ways of thinking. For instance, both the fourthcentury Christian contemplative Evagrius Ponticus and the sixth-century Buddhist monk Tiāntāi Zhìyǐ 天台智顗 tend to see uninvited thoughts during prayer or meditation as representing demons, thus highlighting the human tendency to externalize spontaneous thought (Casiday, 2006;Gundersen, 2017). In general, Chinese Buddhism uses one and the same term, niàn 念, to refer to both mindfulness, which is seen as an ideal, and spontaneous thoughts, which are often seen as disturbances, while some contemplatives use this ambiguity to argue for accepting the spontaneous coming and going of thoughts.…”

Section: Cognitive Science and Contemplative Traditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spontaneous thought and early Chinese ideas of ‘non-action’ and ‘emotion’

Eifring

2019

Asian Philosophy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The early Chinese idea of non-action refers not to spontaneity, as has been argued, but to a relation between agency and spontaneity. Non-action needs to be seen in connection with the idea of emotion, which refers to the spontaneity involved. The debates surrounding non-action and emotion can be profitably compared to discussions of spontaneous thought in modern cognitive science. Early Chinese approaches supplement modern ideas by focusing on feelings rather than thought and by being more relational and ecological, seeing agency and spontaneity as parallel processes in constant interaction rather than mutually exclusive categories. Furthermore, emotions represent an inner counterpart to the external changes in our physical and social environment, pointing to a close connection between the nature within us and outside us. On a larger scale, therefore, non-action denotes a relation between deliberate action and the given internal and external situation within which such action takes place.

show abstract

Origen and His Followers

Casiday¹

2012

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Evagrius Ponticus

Cited by 30 publications

References 0 publications

On Heresy in Modern Patristic Scholarship: The Case of Evagrius Ponticus

On Heresy in Modern Patristic Scholarship: The Case of Evagrius Ponticus

Spontaneous thought and early Chinese ideas of ‘non-action’ and ‘emotion’

Origen and His Followers

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About