[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

[6.] They wear the sheepskin – those always carrying around in their bodies the death of Jesus (2 Cor. 4:10) and muzzling all the irrational passions of the body, cutting back the wickedness of the soul by their communion in good; and loving poverty but fleeing from avarice as the mother of idolatry (Col. 3:5)

The sheepskin or melote is piece of clothing gained by the slaying of a sheep. It therefore carries the connotation of death. Praktikos 52 and KG VI, 42 lifts the veil to the symbolic meaning of the sheepskin:

52. To separate the body from the soul belongs exclusively to him who united them; but to separate the soul from the body belongs to anyone who desires virtue The life of withdrawal has been called by the fathers a rehearsal for death and flight from the body.

42. The death of Christ is the mysterious operation that restores to eternal life those who have hoped in him in this life.

The sheepskin symbolizes the “beastly passions” (KG VI, 85), which we ought to “slay” in our ascetic efforts by “spiritual love”:

35. The The passions of the soul derive from men; the passions of the body derive from the body. The passions of the body are cut back by self-control; those of the soul are cut back by spiritual love.

The passions are not merely “bodily” as we shall see. There are also definite “spiritual” passions. This means that for Evagrius evil is not a necessary and constitutive part of being embodied. Evil is the perversion of that which is created good:

I,40. There was [a time] when evil did not exist, and there will be [a time] when it no longer exists; but there was never [a time] when virtue did not exist and there will never be [a time] when it does not exist: for the seeds of virtue are indestructible. And I am convinced by the rich man [almost but not completely given over to every evil] who was condemned to hell because of his evil, and who felt compassion for his brothers (Luke 16:19-31). For to have pity is a very beautiful seed of virtue.

All is created good without the presence of evil Evil is a latecomer and does not belong to the essence of things, because whatever is touched by evil can be converted back to the good as is evidenced in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man being completely self-centered by the fires of suffering learns the virtue of compassion and thereby gains a virtue. Evagrius takes a wholly different message from this passage of Scripture than many of us would today!
+ Fr. Gregory Wassen

[5.] The belt tied around their loins repels all impurity and declares, It is good for a man not to touch a woman’ (I Cor. 7:1).

The belt is a symbol of chastity because it wraps around the loins where the sensual desire (symbolically) resides. The freely chosen rejection of marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven is a characteristic property of monasticism. Let us allow Evagrius to interpret and explain himself:

In Jeremiah, it is said, ‘And you shall not take to yourself a wife in this place, for thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters born in this place: “They shall die a foul death” ‘ [Jer. 16. 2-4]. Here is what the word reveals: that (according to the Apostle) ‘the married man is concerned about things of this world, how he may please his wife’, and he is divided; ‘and the married woman is concerned about this world, how she may please her husband’ [1 Cor. 7, 33-34]. It is also clear that ‘they shall die a foul death’ was said by the prophet not just about the sons and daughters who come from a married life. It was also said about those sons and daughters who are begotten in the heart (that is fleshly thoughts and desires) that they shall die in the foul and sickly and enfeebled arrogance of this world and not be prepared for heavenly and eternal life. ‘But the unmarried’, he says, ‘is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord [1 Cor. 7. 32] and will produce the ever blooming and deathless fruits of heavenly life.

Such is the monk, and it is fitting that the monk be thus: abstaining from a wife, having neither son nor daughter in the heart, as mentioned above. Not only that, but he should also be Christ’s soldier not material, not concerned, set apart from business considerations and actions – as the Apostle also said: ‘No soldier embroils himself in the affairs of life, so that he may please the one to whom he signed on’ [2 Tim. 2. 4]. Let the monk make progress in these things, especially as he is one who has given up all the things of this world, and hurries toward the beautiful and good trophies of stillness. How beautiful and opportune! It’s yoke is easy and its burden light’ [Mt 11. 30]: the life is sweet, the struggle delightful.

For those of us who are married (clergy or not) this tells us not to turn our spouses into an idol and not be married to the world – for spiritually we are the ‘Bride of Christ.’

+ Fr. Gregory Wassen

The analabos, which is in the form of a cross and is folded over their shoulders, is a symbol of faith in Christ which upholds the gentle and ever restrains what hinders them and provides them with an activity that is free of obstacles.

The analabos is shaped in the form of a cross and is for that reason a symbol of faith in Christ. Faith – for Evagrius – is in Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor. 2,2) and it upholds (analabos comes from the Greek for “to uphold”) the gentle (Psalm 146, 6). Just as the analabos upholds ones garments to free the hands for unimpeded activity, likewise faith in Jesus Christ the crucified Lord upholds the gentle. By placing this faith in Christ, He will uphold you in your faith. To be upheld is to be brought into intimacy with God – is to achieve knowledge of God. This is the end-goal of the spiritual life.

All genuinely Christian theology and praxis must be cruciform, if it is not it is pseudo-spiritual and pseudo-Christian:

By his most human action, an action which expresses all the weakness and impotence of our created nature, Christ shows himself to be God. The profundity of this puts one at a loss for words. The transforming power of God is demonstrated through the death of Christ: not simply his death, by being put to death, but by his voluntary death, going to the Cross in obedience to his Father. This is “the mystery of the Lord,” as Melito put it, that the angel already beheld in the blood of the lamb slain at the Exodus. This is also, in paul’s words, the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1. 15). It is moreover, in the one who has reconciled all to himself, “making peace by the blood of his Cross,” that “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col. 1. 19-20). As such, we cannot look anywehere else to understand who and what God is; there is no other means to come to know God. Those who stand in this tradition mut follow the apostle Paul in refusing to know anything apart from Christ and him crucified. Theology, as I suggested earlier, begins by reflecting on the Passion of Christ, contemplating there the transforming power of the eternal, timeless God (Fr. John Behr The Mystery of Christ, p. 33).

Fr. Dcn. Gregory Wassen

The nakedness of their hands manifests the absence of hypocrisy in their way of life. Vainglory is [terribly] clever at covering and darkening virtues (Lk. 12, 1-2), always hunting for the esteem [glory] that comes from men and chasing faith away. For how it is possible for you to believe, it says, when you receive glory from one another; and the glory that comes only from God you do not seek? (Jn. 5, 44) For the good ought to be chosen for no other [reason] than itself. Apart from this, anything that moves us to do good will appear far more precious than the good itself: and nothing could be more absurd than to consider and assert that something is better than God!

The kolobion worn by the monks leaves part of their arms (and hands) bare. The hands are symbolic for praktike and this indicates that the ascetic efforts of the monks ought to be free from any and all hypocrisy. Their bear arms express their commitment to honest ascetic striving.

(Eccl. 4, 5) The senseless man crossess his arms and devours his own flesh.

The arms are the symbol of ascetic work, everyone who does not work righteousness folds his arms – and that, he says, is why such a person devours his own flesh, filling himself with the sins that spring from the flesh (Evagrius Ponticus, Scholia in Ecclesiastes, 4, 5).

From the context of Lk. 12 it may be inferred that the hypocrisy of the Pharisees consists in them hiding their true motivations. This means that even of the right works are performed but with an inner motivation which does not correspond to the outer works, we are dealing with hypocrisy and not true ascetic effort. The arms are crossed and covered. An inner state which conflicts with the outer works causes tension, within oneself (obviously) and also with other people. The tension thus created is detrimental to one’s physical and spiritual health – “a person devours his own flesh.” Sin distorts relations of all kinds, those within, those with other people, but also the relation with God.

The “good” does not exist in and for itself, it necessarily refers to the First Good (Kephalaia Gnostica I, 1) which is God (On Prayer 33). By hypocrisy and our longing for human esteem we distort all relations in which we are created to exist. Bear hands – honesty in our actions – can help us on our way back to God, to restoration of the lost relationships. Salvation is not an act of magic, but the result of a living faith – not mere intellectual assent to a doctrinal proposition. Our orientation ought to be toward God (Mathew 6, 33) and all else shall be given to us, so that our actions will be as godly as is our inner state of humble faith in Jesus Christ. Our hands are either crossed or open, covered or naked which are symbols of our life in faith. The intellect – the inner man as Origen would say – is revealed through the actions of the body, so that once again we find an inseparable link between “inner” and “outer”.

Dn. Gregory

The hood (koukoullion) is a symbol of the grace of our Saviour [and] God: it shelters their mind (hegemonikon) and nurses their childlike [relationship] with Christ (1 Cor. 3, 1) in the face of those who are always attempting to beat and wound it (Prov. 7, 26). Anyone who bears this hood on his head is truly chanting [the inner meaning of the psalm], Unless the Lord builds the house and guards the city, in vain do the builder and watchman labor (Ps. 126:1). Words like these produce humility and uproot the primordial vice of pride that cast Lucifer the Day-Star down to the earth (Is. 14:12).

The life in Christ is a life in and by grace (Rom. 16, 4). The hood is a symbol of this grace and it is this grace which protects and nurtures a childlike relationship with Jesus Christ – faith. The faith connected to this grace is the faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and God. It is not any faith – whether it professes to adhere to Jesus Christ or not – but precisely the faith which adheres to Him as Savior and God. The hood also covers the hegemonikon the ruling principle in man, this ruling principle functions according to nature when it is in a state of childlike humility to the Lord Jesus Christ – faith. This hood therefore is the symbolic counter of pride. The hood, though humble, is not to be underestimated for it is the symbol of the antidote for pride – and pride is the vice to which Lucifer succumbed and became satan!

The faith and therefore childlike relationship with Jesus Christ are given in the sacrament of Baptism (in fact Baptism is one of three creations Evagrius knows of according to his On the Faith) in which the baby or convert is Baptized under confession of the Nicene Creed. In this sacrament one comes to Christ as a child, and ought to be nurtured in a faith in Jesus Christ like that of a child. This does not exclude knowledge – far from it – but it merely places the emphasis on faith. The Christian is a Gnostic but not a gnostic (when the word is written with the upper case “G” I refer to the mature Christian, the lower case “g” refers to the heretical sects of the gnostics and Gnosticism).

The hood, as Fr. Gabriel Bunge notes, is borrowed from the dress of children. It is significant, he says, that Evagrius picks the hood as the first item of the monastic garb to comment on. For in the hegemonikon the virtue of humility is supposed to be established and if this is the case this is a major manifestation of that love which characterizes the Christian. This love will be the door for the person practicing it to gnosis – or knowledge of God. Pride blinds and gives false or pseudo – knowledge humility (and love) bring true knowledge. Heresy, in this sense, is manifest in  a  lack of love, pride, and false knowledge. Just like true practice (asceticism) is inseparable from true knowledge, so it is with false knowledge and false practice. In the spiritual life, practice and theory are inseparable – and this knife cuts both ways.

Dn. Gregory

1. Since you recently wrote to me in Scetis from the holy Mountain, dear brother Anatolius, and demanding that I explain to you the symbolic habit of the Egyptian monks – for you believe it to be neither accidental nor superfluous that [the habit] is so different from what other people wear – I will therefore tell you what we have learned concerning this from the holy fathers.

It is questionable whether either Anatolius or Evagrius were indeed particularly interested in the outer garb of the Egyptian monks. Rather, as we shall see shortly, the outer garb of the monks gives utterance to an inner truth. The garb is in fact a “spiritual armor” building on a foundation laid by St. Paul (Eph. 6, 10-20). The monk – about to learn praktike – is putting on a specific kind of “godly armor” to fight the passions and the demons, and to aquire virtue. The outer reality corresponds to the inner reality. It is also interesting to note here that several times in his teaching Evagrius will speak of praktike bodies which “clothe the nous” in this world as it struggles for salvation and purification (theosis). As one’s inner state changes so does one’s outer state which means that one can move from a praktike body to a more spiritual body:

Judgment is for the just the passage from a body for asceticism [praktike body] to angelic things: but for the ungodly it is the change from a body for asceticism to a darkened and gloomy bodies. For the ungodly will not be raised in the first judgment, but rather in the second (Scholia in Psalms, 1, 5, 8).

The path of the praktikos (the ascetic) does not merely transform one’s inner state but also has a transformative inlfuence on one’s outer state. As body and spirit achieve a more balanced and healthy state both evidence their growth. It seems to me that as far as Evagrius is concerned our flesh and blood  ( σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα) which, as St. Paul reminds us (1 Cor. 15, 50) will not inherit the Kingdom, is the clothing received from God in the narrative of Genesis 3: “And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife, garments of skins, and clothed them (vs. 21).” Rather the spiritual body (1 Cor. 15, 44) is what will clothe the heavenly man (1 Cor. 15, 48)-49). Our ascetic effort and God’s grace (judgment or krisis which for Evagrius is more of medical than a legal term) are healing us as we progress on the path of salvation. It seems to me that the outer garb is therefore a point of meditation and manifestation of the doctrine of the fall and salvation.

The outer garb is also an occasion for Evagrius to introduce the basic of his ascetic theory concerning the eight logismoi – since almost all of them are symbolically countered by a particular part of the dress. The dress is a way of enacting St. Paul’s command:

1 I BESEECH you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God (Rom. 12, 1-2 Douay Rheims).

Dn. Gregory