This paper will examine the following issues: First, and broadly, the philological, philosophical and theological roots of the notion of contemplation—theoria in Greek—and also its scriptural resonances; Second, the more specific resonances to be found in Aristotle, Clement, Origen, Plotinus and Evagrius; And third, Evagrius’ specific use of the term, especially its relation to what appears to be a rather fluid notion of a “self” that ranges from the most enclosed ego-focus of consciousness to the potential infinity of an opened up being with an infinite longing for the divine and an immeasurable zeal for work.
. One can see something of this in Evagrius suggestive treatment of two “peaceful states of the soul” in Praktikos 57: “There are two peaceful states of the soul, one arising from natural seeds, the other resulting from the retreat of the demons. Accompanying the first (peaceful state) you have humility and compunction, tears, an infinite longing for the divine and an immeasurable zeal for work; and accompanying the second you have vainglory and pride at the destruction of the other demons, and this in turn drags the monk down. Therefore, one who observes the limits of the former state will more quickly recognize the incursions of the demons”. The positive peaceful state is the condition of imperturbality (apatheia) intrinsically connected with theoria in its two principal manifestations: second natural and first natural contemplation.
What I want to do in this paper is to explore the significance and the successive articulations or calibrations of this potential infinity that seems to be an intrinsic character of all contemplation from the beginning, caught in between the suffocation of nous as an ego full of illusions, on the one hand, and a germinating nous—in the “natural seeds” of the virtues—receiving or “being filled” (Praktikos 53; 76) with active contemplation, on the other.
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