Praktikos VII

[7.] THE staff is a tree of life to all who hold it, reliable for those who lean on it as on the Lord (Prov. 3:18).

The ‘Tree of Life’ is Jesus Christ:

The Blessed Trinity is the sign of the blessed water, and the Tree of Life is the Christ who drinks there (KG V, 69).

Jesus Christ is the Tree of Life. Make use of him as is necessary and, and you will not perish forever (Aphorisms, 17).

The imagery from the KG above suggests the close unity of the Christ with the Trinity. By virtue of Jesus Christ being God and man, man (the Christ) is inseparably united to God (the Word/Son – and thus the Trinity itself! ). The Christ is who and what He is by being ‘energized’ by the divine nature of the consubstantial Trinity so that partaking of His flesh and blood is a deifying reality:

For we eat his flesh and drink of his blood, becoming communicants of the Word and Wisdom through his Incarnation and physical life (On the Faith, 4, 15).

Christ being the Tree of Life suggests the eating of that Tree (Rev. 2, 7) which is an image of both the Eucharist and the ascetical or practical life:

For he calls ‘flesh and blood’ everything to do with the holy secret of his dwelling [among us], and disclosed that teaching (consisting of ascetical, physical and theological elements) by which the soul is nourished and prepared for  the contemplation of ultimate realities (On the Faith, 4, 15).

The inseparability of the ascetical life and the Eucharist emphasizes the fact that for Evagrius the Christian life is lived in the communion of the Church – even for a hermit! Christians are not islands but rather a communion so tightly knit together that they are ‘one body’ as indeed the Apostle Paul says.

As for Origen, so for Evagrius, the role of the Spirit is to provide the grace necessary to live ascetically – that is the Spirit is the source of ‘power’ for the spiritual life (both ascetic efforts and the sacraments). The ‘fruits of righteousness’ (Phil. 1, 11) ought to be offered to the Father because from them the ‘Tree of Life grows’ (Prov. 11, 30 LXX) who is Christ (see Epistle 54, 2 in Briefe aus der Wuste). That is the Spirit enables us to live righteously (again reminding us of Origen see my post over at On First Principles) and simultaneously Christ is formed in us – a Tree of Life grows within! Without such rigteousness it is not permitted to us to eat from the Tree of Life nor can it grow in us as Evagrius reminds us in Scholia on Proverbs (3, 18) presenting us the image of Adam (and Eve) being barred from the Tree of Life after their transgression (Gen. 3, 3).

Leaning on the Tree of Life as on a staff is to put our trust in Christ – not ourselves – and we will find ourselves supported, and as long as we use this staff ‘as is necessary’ we will neither trip nor fall.

+ Fr. Gregory Wassen