Evagrius Ponticus' rejection of a magical understanding of grace

DR. SANTIAGO VAZQUEZ; GARGIULO MARÍA TERESA

Biblica et Patristica Thoruniensia

Facultad de Teología de la Universidad Nicolaus Copernicus

Lugar: Torún; Año: 2023 vol. 16 p. 133 - 148

1689-5150

Abstract: In recent years, a growing number of studies have presented, in one way or another, various psychotherapeutic projections of a set of spiritual practices of early Christian monasticism. In the attempt to establish a dialogue between late antiquity doctrines with contemporary psychotherapy, it could be risky to extrapolate anachronistic terms, questions and discussions that are foreign to the original context of the Early Church Fathers. In order to overcome this difficulty, we will try to elucidate the model of psychospiritual integration of Evagrius Ponticus through his particular understanding of the effective relations between grace and nature. This will possibly allow us to translate and understand the current interest in his psycho-spiritual model, in the same terms in which it is formulated by Evagrius. In his effort to think about how the process of complete healing of man takes place, Evagrius takes up intuitions and ideas from Hippocratic and Platonic traditions. These traditions disapprove of magic as an act of impiety towards the divine order inscribed in the θύσις. Evagrius follows this fundamental intuition of rejection of magic and sorcery to integrate it into a new Christian synthesis, which strives to move away from a magical understanding of the action of grace. Now, as Evagrius moves away from a magical conception of grace, a theoretical-practical knowledge related to psychic-spiritual health can be found in his writings. Evagrius is particularly interested in specifying how grace operates in the cognitive-emotional dynamics that intervene in the healing processes of the soul, without contradicting or magically suspending the immanent laws of the θύσις.