Evagrius the Cappadocian: Redating the Kephalaia gnostika
The three works Praktikos, Gnostikos, and Kephalaia gnostika (KG) are traditionally dated to the late 380s, when Evagrius Ponticus was a monk in Egypt. The trilogy is commonly seen as a unified, gradated curriculum for monks. In this article, I argue that this paradigm is deficient. Evagrius wrote t...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Johns Hopkins Univ. Press
2023
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| In: |
Journal of early Christian studies
Year: 2023, Volume: 31, Issue: 4, Pages: 523-541 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Evagrius, Ponticus 345-399, Kephalaia gnostika
/ Dating
/ Evagrius, Ponticus 345-399, Practicus
/ Evagrius, Ponticus 345-399, Gnosticus
/ Evagrius, Ponticus 345-399, Epistula fidei
/ Monasticism
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| IxTheo Classification: | KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity KCA Monasticism; religious orders |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The three works Praktikos, Gnostikos, and Kephalaia gnostika (KG) are traditionally dated to the late 380s, when Evagrius Ponticus was a monk in Egypt. The trilogy is commonly seen as a unified, gradated curriculum for monks. In this article, I argue that this paradigm is deficient. Evagrius wrote the KG largely in the 370s, before he ever became a monk, and well before he even started the Praktikos and Gnostikos, which were written later, as a pair of companion pieces, to attempt to repackage the KG as part of a monastic trilogy., Redating the KG to the middle years of Evagrius's life significantly changes our interpretation of his entire corpus. It reveals a layer of his writings that originally had nothing to do with monks and monasticism, but were turned to that purpose late in life. An early KG opens up an important and poorly documented part of Evagrius's writing career, when, in company with the Cappadocians, he had already developed a sophisticated exegesis and metaphysics, long before he became a monk. |
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| ISSN: | 1086-3184 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of early Christian studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/earl.2023.a915033 |