Lund University

Research Assistant, Centre for Theology and Religious Studies

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MPhil at University of Wales Lampeter.

Thesis title: "On the Texture of an Invisible God: Biblical Exegesis and Imageless Prayer in Evagrius Ponticus."

Abstract: Abstract: Evagrius Ponticus (345-399) has been described as the teacher of prayer par excellence for the Greek Christian tradition. Central to his understanding of prayer is his recurring emphasis on the rejection of mental “images” of God during prayer. Evagrius wants the person at prayer to meet God without mediators in a vision of formless light. In modern accounts of his theology this tendency has often been described as a philosophical theology which devalues the body and the created order. Around the time of Evagrius’ life, a controversy flared up in Egypt regarding the question whether one should conceive of God as having an anthropomorphic bodily form. Many modern scholars have seen Evagrius’ focus on “imageless” prayer as a cause of, or response to, this debate. The “anthropomorphite” monks have been described as rustic biblical literalists in stark contrast to the spiritualising tradition represented by monks like Evagrius. In this project we show that Evagrius placed great emphasis on meditation and commentary on the Bible in his understanding of the spiritual life of monks. Evagrius expected that a monk who was growing in ascetic purity and wisdom should devote his time to spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures, through which he could contemplate the spiritual “reasons” (logoi) of the created world, a process he referred to as theōria phusikē, natural contemplation. Evagrius thus wanted the monk to both contemplate God’s creation and seek intimate knowledge of God’s self. In this project we show how Evagrius used biblical motifs to elaborate his understanding of the contemplative life. One of the biblical images that Evagrius is most fond of is the theophany on Mount Sinai as described in the book of Exodus; language from this episode often appears in his description of the most elevated forms of prayer. We show that for Evagrius, the Exodus narrative as a whole functions as a central organising metaphor for how he understands the process leading from vice to virtue and deepened knowledge of the world and its Creator. We also show that his emphasis on “imageless” prayer should be understood against the background of the prominent place that theōria phusikē had in his understanding of the monastic life. We suggest that Evagrius perceived a danger in moving too quickly from Scripture-based phusikē to “imageless” prayer before one was sufficiently prepared for this form of prayer. But we also show that he stressed that even the monk who had reached “imageless” prayer should seek out the logoi of creation that reveal to him the “face of God,” especially through meditation on the words of Scripture. We argue that this close relationship between phusikē and “imageless” prayer in Evagrius’ theology should serve as a corrective of descriptions of his understanding of prayer that emphasise only the “iconoclastic” language found in his treatises.

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