Evagrius and His Legacy eds. by Joel Kalvesmaki and Robin Darling Young (review)

In recent decades, scholars have grown increasingly interested in the writings of Evagrius of Pontus and in his influence on subsequent Christian thought in east and west. The originality and complexity of his teaching continually challenge academics to understand correctly his spirituality and theology as well his manifold legacy and the reasons for his condemnation after his death. This volume is the fruit of a recent, two-year workshop organized by Dumbarton Oaks and the University of Notre Dame, and it collects studies of excellent scholars from very different areas of patristic and medieval studies, all of whom investigate Evagrian thought and its history.

The indisputable merit of this book is that it presents, with impressive thoroughness, Evagrius' reception in different ages of church history and in various geographical and linguistic environments. It contains studies that fill gaps by integrating the discoveries and results of research in the last decades. The authors lead the reader along the paths of Evagrian influence in different periods of Latin, Syriac, and Byzantine theological and spiritual literature.

Although the volume introduces very well various streams and tributaries of Evagrian thought that permeated the history of Christian spirituality, nevertheless the headwaters themselves are less explored. The person of Evagrius and his theology are given less attention or at least appear in a unilateral light.

The valuable contribution of Robin Darling Young does approach the person of Evagrius through his letters as the "workshop of his thought," offering the first deepened study of his letters in English. Other articles in the first half of the book place a great emphasis on offering a clearer view of that theological and philosophical context in which Evagrian thought can be situated: Cappadocian theology, Platonic philosophy, and fourth-century Origenism. At the same time, with the exception of the fine exegetical study of L. Dysinger, there is almost no word as well about that monastic milieu and tradition in which his writings were born. To claim that Evagrius "reflects not a later monastic setting but the setting of an ascetic Christian philosophical circle" (Introduction, p. 5) and further to claim that "the greater part of his life was spent in the company of scholars, theologians, and urbanites, and that consequently his work can be seen as part of a chain of philosophical commentary from ancient Athens and Alexandria to the fourth century" (Introduction, p. 12)—well, this not only contradicts the way Evagrius presented himself in his writings, but it also leaves out of account a whole contemporary school of interpretation of his teaching. At the round table of Evagrian studies, as presented by the editors of the book, in fact, there is missing the voice of those like G. Bunge, J. Driscoll, or A. Casiday, who see in Evagrius not primarily and simply an intellectual or a "Christian thinker," but a great monastic theologian, a disciple of the first generation of desert fathers.

How this lack can limit the research can be seen, for instance, in the very original study of B. Stefaniw on Evagrian authority. The review offers a new perspective concerning the condemnation of Evagrius when it analyzes how the spiritual master and writer uses the concept of authority and how it leads to conflict with other kinds of authorities. However, this development could be much better founded if it took account of how authority was exercised in monastic communities by focusing on Scripture and spiritual progress.

In the book Evagrius and His Legacy. Evagrius is presented by great scholars mainly as a great scholar: "the intellectual of the desert." But from the same book it results that when his legacy was judged in terms of speculative theology, he was found wanting, while where his thought survived was always in a monastic context. This suggestive contradiction in part calls into question the image of Evagrius that emerges in this...