Diakrisis—Discretion. As we have seen from St. Anthony, discretion is the most important virtue in the monastic life because without it all the others go astray. This is also the teaching of St. Thomas [Aquinas] on Prudence.
Amerimnia—The absence of all cares, especially material ones. This was sometimes an impossible ideal (cf. John the Dwarf).
Hesychia—As we have seen above, “quies” or sweet repose in contemplation is the crown of the desert life, the reward of all the hermit’s strivings and the foretaste of heaven. But the Fathers were very simple and retiring about this also; they did not seek to be known or admired for their prayer but to keep it hidden and consequently they have little to say about it. However, there were great speculative theologians in the desert, notably Macarius and especially Evagrius. It is time to consider these theologians of contemplation.
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1 What Ought I to Do? Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. Thomas Merton (Lexington, KY: Stamperia del Santuccio, 1959). “This limited edition of 100 sayings from the Verba Seniorum was later published in an expanded edition of 150 sayings as The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century (New York: New Directions, 1960).” –Patrick O’Connell
LECTURE 11
St. Macarius and Pseudo-Macarius
St. Macarius
There were two saints by this name in the desert, contemporaries and friends. The first was a monk of Nitria, Macarius of Alexandria, called “politikos,” the “city man.” He left no writings. (A third, Macarius of Magnesia, is sometimes confused with these two.) Macarius the Great, the one who concerns us, was practically the founder of Scete and was the master of Evagrius of Pontus. Hence he is really the fountainhead of the desert school of mystical theology.
He was born about 300–310. He lived to be ninety years old. He came to Scete when he was 30 and became famous for miracles and prophecies—was ordained priest on this account at the age of 41. In Migne there are many works ascribed to Macarius, but most of them are almost certainly by someone else. For example, there are some fifty homilies, which seem to have been written for cenobites, and are said to have Messalian tendencies, belong to a later date, some monk of Asia Minor or Syria. There are also treatises (which are just selections from the homilies) and letters. The Epistola ad Monachos was long thought to be genuine, but even this is almost certainly not by Macarius. In Greek manuscripts the author is called Macarius, but now the same letter in Arabic is ascribed to one Symeon. Who was he? A shorter version of the same letter was also ascribed to St. Ephrem. The Epistola ad Monachos, ascribed to Macarius, deals with the ideal of the monastic life, the “conversion” to that true good which man desires by his very nature and which God makes accessible to him by grace. He considers the way of perfection in the spiritual life, especially apatheia and the need for humility. Prayer he says is the leader of all the choir of virtues.
[This] is the proper spirituality of monks and contemplatives, although rather limited in its views. It is an early psychology of the contemplative life. But we must realize that there are other very important perspectives which are omitted.
Messalianism
In addition to the letters ascribed to Macarius the Great, which are few in number, there remain a large number of homilies ascribed to him. For a long time it was thought that the letters were really by Macarius and the homilies by some unknown Messalian. Werner Jaeger has shown that both are by the same person, an admirer and copier of Gregory of Nyssa, probably some Syrian cenobite of the fifth century. Now these Macarian homilies are important for the history of Oriental spirituality because of the great influence they had on the development of the Hesychast movement. Hence it is necessary here to consider the teachings on prayer of the homilies of Pseudo-Macarius. But since these homilies are full of Messalian tendencies, we have to stop first of all to consider the meaning of the Messalian heresy.
Messalianism [is] a heresy which gave exaggerated emphasis to prayer and to the sensible experiences that occur during prayer. For the Messalians, contemplation and the quasi-physical experience of “divine things” was all-important, and the sign of true spiritual perfection. Without such “experiences” no real perfection was possible. Such subjective experiences outweighed in importance the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church. By experiences of prayer one was sanctified and made perfect. It was condemned in a general way at the Council of Ephesus (431). The heretical doctrines of the Messalians were summarized and condemned by St. John Damascene, Theodoret, and others.
Briefly, the main errors of the Messalians were these:
1) Original sin gave the devil possession of man’s inmost heart, so that everyone is born possessed by the devil. Baptism itself is powerless to deliver man from this state of possession. But perpetual prayer is able to get the devil out of man’s heart and leads eventually to complete possession by the Holy Spirit. Hence it is a perpetual spiritual prayer which is the main sanctifying force in man’s life.
2) In order to practice perpetual prayer, they neglect work and remain in a state of silence and inertia for long periods (i.e., overemphasis on a quietistic type of contemplation); in this contemplation they claim to see God with the eyes of the body at certain times—at other times they are moved to sudden impulsive actions, dancing, “shaking,” etc. and “shooting imaginary arrows” at the devils.
3) By the practice of perpetual prayer one arrived at apatheia, complete immunity to all passion. One also arrived at mystical marriage with the Divine Spouse, which was in some way physically experienced. Not only that but the soul and body are completely transformed into God so as to become really divine, having a divine nature. They claimed full sensible awareness of the indwelling Spirit, also of sin and of grace.
4) There were also several dogmatic errors, concerning the Trinity, Incarnation, etc. They allowed women to be “priests” among them, if they were “spiritual” or enlightened. They neglected the Eucharist, and also taught, as some quietists, that the “perfect” could sin bodily without being affected spiritually.
Traces and tendencies of this kind of teaching are found in the Pseudo-Macarian homilies, and also recur in later Oriental mystical writings. For instance Symeon the New Theologian places great emphasis on the sensible experience of divine light. However, the errors thus presented in a crude form must not mislead us when we read the Orthodox mystics: words must be carefully weighed, and the Hesychasts (those who experienced sweetness and rest) are not all to be treated automatically as Messalians. But the fact remains that the hesychast aspiration to experience in full the divine light can be misleading, especially when this experience is described as quasi-physical.
Pseudo-Macarius
It is still hotly disputed whether the writer of the homilies by “Macarius” was really a Messalian or not. However, it has been shown that the Homilies of Pseudo-Macarius, while sounding Messalian, are really not so. (Problem of establishing what is really Messalian—no original Messalian documents exist, and one has to judge by what those who condemned it alleged that it was.)
Recently, the spirituality and the heritage of Pseudo-Macarius have been defended by [John] Meyendorff (authority on Gregory Palamas) who contrasts two trends in Oriental Christian mysticism:
1) Platonist, intellectualist and pagan, stemming from Evagrius Ponticus.
2) Biblical, stemming from Pseudo-Macarius. This distinction is based on two different views of man. In the former it is the mind, nous, that is the seat of spirituality and of prayer. In the latter it is the “heart” which stands for the whole man, body and soul spiritualised by grace.
This follows the Biblical terminology in which the “heart” is regarded as the psycho-physiological center of man, and the seat of his deepest, most spiritual powers. The first kind of spirituality regards man as a mind imprisoned in matter. The second takes man as a whole, and is entirely sanctified by grace.
Two ways of prayer follow from this. The Evagrian line leads t
o highly intellectual contemplation, in which the body has no part. The Macarian line leads to the “Prayer of the Heart,” familiar at Mount Athos, the “Prayer of Jesus” in which the body has a place in prayer. This is sometimes compared to yoga, and condemned, as “Christian Yoga.”1 But it must be studied carefully before it can be condemned. We have not yet reached the point where we can give final judgement in this matter. It is of great contemporary interest in spiritual theology.
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1 “Meyendorff stresses that despite a similarity in technique, the Christian ‘prayer of the breath’ places strong emphasis on the necessity of grace and on a sacramental context.” –Patrick O’Connell
LECTURE 12
Evagrius Ponticus on Prayer
One of the great masters at Scete in the time of Cassian was Evagrius of Pontus. He was generally considered as the greatest theologian of the desert, and was a follower of Origen.
He is indeed one of the fathers of Christian mystical theology. He came from Asia Minor (Pontus) and was a friend of St. Basil and a disciple of St. Gregory Nazianzen. He lived in the “desert of cells.” He died on the feast of the Epiphany, 399. After his death the great Origenist conflict broke out, leading to the departure of the Origenists from Scete. The memory of Evagrius was blackened and he then fell into oblivion.
In the earlier works on Desert Monasticism, Evagrius has a good name and is regarded as a holy and learned father. In the later works, after the fifth century, he has a very bad reputation. Moschus, [in his] Spiritual Meadow, records a story that his cell was said to be haunted or inhabited by a devil. He also said that he was in hell among the heretics. St. John Climacus condemns him. In general this is due to the fact that he was a noted Origenist and he fell with the Origenist party, thereafter stigmatised as a “deviationist.” Yet his work not only survived, but strongly influenced even those who despised his memory. St. Maximus the Confessor, one of the great mystics among the Fathers, while twice condemning Evagrius by name, nevertheless is not only full of Evagrian doctrines, but can even be said to base his whole doctrine on Evagrius.
There are some works of Evagrius in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca: the Practicos, the Mirror of Monks, the Letter to Anatolios. But more works of his are preserved in Syrian and Armenian and are more recently studied. Another mystic influenced by him is Isaac of Nineveh, a Nestorian bishop and theologian who is also beginning to interest students in the West. Isaac calls Evagrius “the Blessed Mar Evagrios,” “the wise one among the saints,” “prince of gnostics.” Note: Isaac of Nineveh, full of Evagrius, was translated into Greek and much influenced Byzantine tradition; the translators, where Isaac praised Evagrius, simply inserted some other name, like Gregory of Nazianz.
Importance of Evagrius
His systematic presentation of the great theology of the first Fathers, especially Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, [was] in a form that became definitive in the East. He is really the cornerstone of Oriental mystical theology, a cornerstone that was rejected. We have seen that St. Maximus is based on Evagrius. So is the Pseudo-Denys (6th cent.). Even John Climacus is largely based on Evagrius.
The chief work of Evagrius, the De Oratione, [“On Prayer”] survived and was very popular—but it was ascribed to St. Nilus. It exercised very considerable influence. The teaching of Cassian on prayer is very similar to that of Evagrius; indeed it is a kind of digest of the more profound and complete treatise of the Master. It will greatly aid us to understand the monastic tradition on prayer if we acquaint ourselves a little with Evagrius. The treatise is perfectly free from suspect “Origenism” and is one of the great Christian texts on interior prayer.
On Prayer consists of a Prologue and 153 short capitula. Earlier than the works of Pseudo-Denys, this treatise of Evagrius definitively set the course for the mysticism of the Oriental Church. “It is through Evagrius that the great ideas of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa came down from their inaccessible heights to the level of the average intelligence,” says Father Hausherr.
What Does Evagrius Mean by Prayer?
He is talking of what we would call mental prayer. He distinguishes prayer and psalmody. These are necessarily distinct and complementary, according to Evagrius. They are the two wings of the eagle, by which we ascend into the heights (Oratione 82—all the numbers given in brackets, unless otherwise stated, refer to capitula of the De Oratione). Psalmody belongs more to the active life; it “appeases the passions and lulls the intemperance of the body” (83). It is a more active and exterior form of devotion, and quantity is more important than in “oratio,” which is interior, contemplative, and depends more on quality. In particular, the function of psalmody is to calm the passions, and especially anger. Prayer (oratio) is the exercise of the intelligence in a purely interior and spiritual contact with God (Oratione 3). Psalmody belongs more properly to the lower degrees of the spiritual life, prayer to the higher (85). Evagrius speaks of both prayer and psalmody less as practices than as charisms, which are to be prayed for as special gifts from God (87).
We must not however think of prayer as purely spiritual and always without words or concepts or acts. On the contrary, in time of temptation especially, prayer is to be “short and intense”—acts (with or without words) having the character of ejaculations (98). Although prayer is higher than psalmody, Evagrius does not mean that one leaves psalmody behind altogether and ascends to a life of “pure prayer” that is continuous and without any exterior practices. However, when on occasion one has arrived at a deep interior contact with God, one should not abandon it merely because one has previously determined to recite psalms. One should not let go of what is better in order to revert to a mechanical practice. So he says: “If a profitable thought comes to thee, let it take the place of psalmody. Do not reject the gift of God merely in order to cling to the traditions of men,” etc.
Prayer defined: Mental and contemplative prayer is for Evagrius primarily an activity of the intellect, and is the highest activity of this faculty. In this intellectualist emphasis Evagrius is later corrected by St. Maximus who gives more place to charity in contemplation; but note that Evagrius’s contemplation is not exclusively intellectual. However the chief characteristic of Evagrius is that for him the monk is one who seeks above all a continuous state of intellectual contemplation. Everything else in Evagrius is ordered to this supreme end. Intellectual contemplation is the fruit and the expression of perfect charity and it is what love seeks exclusively and above all. It is pure prayer that makes man “equal to the angels” and one must leave all else, he says, in order to seek this blessed angelic state. Angels are pure intelligence and the contemplative also tends to be “all eyes” (in contemplation) or “all fire.” Such also is the true “theologian.” In contemplation man also returns to his first, pure, paradisiacal state.
Oratione 3—“Prayer is a conversation of the intellect with God . . . without intermediary.” The word “conversation” must not lead us into error here: he is not thinking of words, nor even of thoughts, for the highest prayer is an intellectual contact with God, in a direct intuition (not however clear vision), that is beyond words and thoughts. This definition however covers various degrees of prayer, including a lower degree of supplication which takes the form of ejaculatory acts in time of struggle, as we have already seen above. The lower kind of pure prayer is merely disinterested petition. The higher kind is prayer without concept or image. Pure prayer, prayer without intermediary, means not a pure intuition in the sense of the beatific vision, but an intuition of God that does not require the mediation of a created object, angel, or even the sacred humanity of Jesus. The degrees of purity in prayer are degrees of immediacy. The highest prayer is intellectual intuition of the Holy Trinity. Other degrees, as we shall see, involve the intuition of spiritual beings, such as angels.
The first degrees of prayer demand purification from passionate thought. The highest degree demands perfect “nudity” of the intellect clothed in no thought at all. The lower d
egrees of “pure prayer” are compatible with suffering and sorrow. In the higher degrees there is only peace, tranquillity, and joy. But no pure prayer is compatible with inordinate passion or with any vice. In another place he says the highest perfection of the intellect is prayer without distraction (34a): “Prayer without distraction is the highest operation of the intelligence.”
The object of the life of prayer is to ascend from the valley of shadows, attachment to passionate thoughts, to the summit of the mountain of contemplation of the Holy Trinity. In the lower degrees of prayer we are more engaged in “supplicating” to be purified. After first renouncing things themselves we begin by begging to be purified of passions. Then, in the intermediate stage, we ask to be purified of ignorance. Finally, in order to reach the summit, we need to be purified of all darkness and dereliction. In other words, the spiritual life is an ascent to greater and greater spiritual purity and intellectual clarity (37).
However, Evagrius and his followers agree that those who reach the heights of contemplation are very rare and even fervent monks spend their whole lives trying (vainly) to completely conquer “passionate thoughts”—few ever get to the degree where they struggle directly with ignorance or darkness. When he reaches the summit the contemplative has reached the highest dignity for which the intelligence was created—for God made the mind of man in order that we might contemplate the Most Holy Trinity. This highest act of the intelligence, contemplation of the Holy Trinity, leads to pure love (118).
A Course in Desert Spirituality Page 9
