Julia Konstantinovsky - Evagrius Ponticus: contemplation as infinite creation

The contemplation of the inner essences of created beings (the logoi), theoria physike, is foundational to the ethical, spiritual and systemic thought of Evagrius Ponticus. A key message of his paideia is his exhortation to abandon every distraction of life for the exclusive privilege to have leisure to contemplate the world of beings.    The perfection of the art of contemplation is a self-building activity, whereby a new state of self-awareness arises, so that a new ‘Adam’, the perfect gnostikos, the knower is revealed.

The building up of the self in contemplation is effected through the experience of adoration.  The observer begins by entering into inner silence. In this silence one then meditates on the world and beings in it. The eureka moment comes about when the ordinary suddenly reveals itself as light-filled and super-natural. The luminosity present in the ordinary things is reflections of the eternal creative luminous principles of beings (logoi), eternally present in the mind of the Logos. The following antinomy then presents itself to the contemplating human mind: on the one hand, the world of beings is temporary and contingent and on the other, it reveals itself as a replica of an eternal pattern within the eternal God.  Contemplation, then, produces the realisation that the world is in a sense simultaneously temporal and eternal, physical and spiritual, material and immaterial. This revelation transforms its recipient: through it the contemplating self ascends to a superior stage of the true knowledge of beings, God and oneself.  

More paradoxically still, we are told (see Evagrius’ Gnostic Chapters) that man’s contemplation of beings is precisely what God himself did when he created the world.   It is true that even prior to the creative act God, who is the superabundance of vitality and activity, is not devoid of the activity of contemplation. The Logos eternally contemplates the eternal logoi everlastingly contained in him. Yet, Evagrius seems to postulate a logical moment when God’s eternal contemplation enters a new mode turning specifically to fashioning contingent beings. Now Evagrius is very clear that this divine generative act is God’s variation of the theoria physike. There is therefore a close parallel between the contemplation that men do and God’s activity of creative contemplation.   There is a sense in which the two are identical.