Evagrius Ponticus sees monastic spiritual life as having two stages: praktike (the struggle with the eight logismoi) and gnostike (the knowledge of God). The knowledge of God is impossible if human soul is previously not purified from all the passionate thougts. According to him there are two ways to know God: theological knowledge using our reason and the direct contemplation of God. In Evagrius' opinion either theological heresis or illusions in God's contemplation are not caused by only intelectual errors or incapacities of thinkers but mostly by their passions. So moral prerequisites which in his mind is basically the purification of the soul is a necessary condition for the true knowledge of God in those both cases.
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