Tiso, Francis, Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abidhamma

Evagrius of Pontus and
Buddhist Abhidharma
Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso
I.
vagrius of Pontus (345399) was ordained to the diaconate in

Constantinople during the great period of debate on the two fundamental dogmas of orthodox Christianity, the Trinity and the
Incarnation. He assisted St. Gregory of Nazianzus at the First Council of
Constantinople (381), at which the Nicene Creed received its final form. A
disciple of the Cappadocian Fathers, Evagrius had studied the doctrines of
Origen of Alexandria in considerable depth. He continued these studies in
the company of Melania the Elder and Rufinus of Aquileia on the Mount
of Olives in Jerusalem. He received the monastic habit from Melania and
proceeded to the Egyptian desert south of Alexandria to lead the life of an
anchorite. He was in touch with both Coptic and Greek-speaking monks
of the period, and became one of the leading figures because of his unusual
learning and spiritual gifts.1
Evagrius penned (he was a noted calligrapher) a number of important
works on training candidates for the monastic life. Among the surviving
works are the Praktikos, the Gnostikos, and the Kephalaia Gnostika, which
are considered to constitute a trilogy of texts on spiritual training.2 The
Praktikos is a basic introduction to the inner practice of the monk, focusing
on conversion of heart, the rejection of sinful thoughts, and the cultivation
of the virtues. 3 Evagrius called this aspect of ascetic training praktike. The
Gnostikos is a short description of the characteristics of a qualified spiritual
guide. 4 This is given in order that the guide may know how to regulate his
or her own life, and how a monk may know how to recognize someone who
will be capable of guiding him or her to the higher and deeper dimensions
of the Christian monastic life. Finally, the Kephalaia Gnostika provides 540
paragraphs or verses (organized into six chapters of ninety verses) on which
the proficient monk is to meditate sequentially as a method of maturing
his already established practice of the inner life. 5
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The Praktikos offers those meditation topics which nurture spiritual

progress in seven stages:
1. Conversion of heart;
2. Nurturance of the virtues in the direction of acquiring apatheia;
3. Apatheia, or purity of heart (Latin: puritas cordis 6), which entails
freedom from the irascible and desire-driven aspects of the passions.
These three praktike stages are preparatory to the contemplative life, theoria,
because in the habitual condition of purity of heart, it becomes possible
for the spiritual life to unfold in the next three:
4. Charity (agape);
5. Intuitive knowledge of the created order (gnosis tou kosmou);
6. Inner communion with God (theologia) in this life.
These stages of spiritual progress culminate in:
7. Perfect blessedness (makariotes) in eternal life.7
In his trilogy, Evagrius demonstrated a mastery of the key elements
of the Origenistic and Cappadocian theological speculations. His unique
contribution, based on his rich philosophical and Christian training, was
to make the theological program into a psychologically, spiritually and
existentially coherent path of spiritual development. Evagriuss vision of
the monastic life was adopted and adapted throughout the entire Christian monastic movement, spreading to Latin and Celtic monasticism
with Evagriuss disciple John Cassian. It was the cornerstone of Byzantine
monasticism thanks to the work of Maximus the Confessor and Peter of
Damaskos; the Athonite tradition embraces it in the anthology known as
the Philokalia. The Syriac Churches took up the same system by preserving
translations of Evagriuss works, commenting on them, and transmitting
them to monastic communities in Central Asia and China with the spread
of Nestorian Christianity. The importance of the system of Evagrius, even
after its partial condemnation in the middle of the sixth century, 8 cannot
be underestimated. Elements of this system even turn up in the Sufi writings such as those of Ibn Arabi.9
Among the verses in the Kephalaia Gnostika, there are many that address
topics that are similarly handled in the Buddhist Abhidharma literature.
In some cases, the text of Evagrius treats topics such as the structure of the
body, the operation of the sensory mechanism, distinctions among mental
phenomena, the nature of the cosmos, material and non-material elements
of nature, states of being, and other concerns in ways that are startlingly
convergent with Buddhist Abhidharma works from the period 1 to 400 C.E.10
Did Evagrius simply borrow these themes from the Stoics, as he certainly
did in some instances, or did he have a Buddhist philosophical source from
which he was quoting? Or did some of the Stoic material have a Buddhist
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Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma
provenance, which only emerges with clarity in the contemplative milieu of

the Desert Fathers of late fourth century Egypt? Evagrius does not usually
cite his sources other than the Bible, but in some cases it is possible to detect
a philosophical voice behind his practice instructions to disciples.
Had Evagrius been able to engage in dialogue with the Buddhists of
northwest India in his own day, he would have found among them contemplative scholar-practitioners like himself with many interests in common
with his own. If we could verify that Evagriuss teachings made use of an
Indian Buddhist source, we would have evidence, for the first time, of an
accurate and detailed transmission of philosophical teachings from India
to the Hellenistic world. However, even should it be demonstrated that
Evagriuss teachings derive exclusively from sources within the Hellenistic
world and early Christianity, his writings would remain a source, as yet
untapped, for a deeper contemporary dialogue between Buddhist and
Christian contemplatives.
II.
Evagrius understood our human condition as a falling away from the pure
contemplation of the Holy Trinity on the part of spiritual beings who are
endowed with freedom from their primordial origin.11 Their return to
contemplation is made possible by means of a process of divine pedagogy,
itself of a spiraling character. Thus, a work like the Kephalaia Gnostika is not
a linear description of the stages of the fall nor of a linear return. Rather,
across the six chapters, the means of return are proposed over and over again
to the contemplative practitioner so that he or she may not only glimpse
the way of return, but may be perfectly stabilized in that return in the form
of an entire way of life, i.e., monasticism. This model was elaborated fully
in Conferences and the Monastic Institutes, the works of Evagriuss disciple
John Cassian, who was born in Dacia and went on to found monasteries
in the south of France.
Unlike speculative theologians who describe a generalized overall pattern to the history of salvation and the process of sanctification in divine
grace, Evagriuss approach was to propose a series of topics of meditation
that would transform the day-to-day thought patterns of disciples. We may
contrast this approach to that of Origen, for example, who describes to his
readers the coming forth of all things from God, their redemption in the
Christ-event, and their return (apokatastasis) to God at the end of history.
Origens pattern, a kind of great parabola coming from infinity, turning
at the Christ-event, and returning to infinity provides a useful catechetical model, a grand narrative of the fall, the redemption and the eschaton.
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However, it does not show how the grand narrative can be applied in the
daily struggle of the ascetic Christian.
Evagrius, on the other hand, writes exclusively for those who have
committed themselves to the ascetic process in the monastic life. These are
people who have become aware of the subtleties of mental falls from and
returns to the contemplative states accessible in Christian practice. Thus,
Evagrius provides his disciples not so much with a systematic description
of a theology of the spiritual life,12 but rather an actual workbook of
spiritual exercises that are to be followed assiduously and in sequence. In
fact, the entire six kephalaia represent a spiraling method of teaching in
which spiritual progress takes place through periodic repetition of key
themes. Also, in some sections, simpler verses alternate with more difficult
ones. The method seems to have been that certain verses were assigned for
meditation for a given period of time. The most likely pattern would have
been based on the way of life of the Egyptian anchorites.
Evagrius provides
The monks lived in solitude for the entire week, following a rigorous rule of prayer, restricted diet and manual
labor.13 On Saturday evening, they gathered together for
a workbook of
common prayer and spiritual conversation in the course
of a nocturnal vigil that ended with the Eucharistic synaxis
spiritual exercises.
at dawn. Evagrius would have assigned one or more verses
to individual monks during the vigil; the following Saturday, the insights
gained during a week of meditation would have been discussed during the
time of spiritual conversation.14 Evagrius himself followed this practice in
his own daily monastic observance.
The exercises and their results in the mind of the contemplative are
to be checked regularly by the spiritual director (the gnostic of the second
volume of the trilogy). The goal of this practice is to attain the highest
degree of sanctity humanly possible under grace in this life. This is in fact
the numerological importance of the number six, which the author associates with the six days of creation. The world and this human life constitute
a place providentially created (Kephalaia
Kephalaia Gnostika III.36) where rescue
and pedagogy would be provided for rational beings (logikoi), but eternal
blessedness (the seventh day, i.e., the Sabbath) lies beyond the scope of
spiritual practice in this life. Thus, there are six chapters in the Kephalaia
Gnostika, but none of the chapters is dedicated to a single topic in the
spiritual life. Rather, across the six chapters there are 540 meditations that
are to be done in sequential order to bring about complete transformation
in a mature and balanced way.15
The seventh day, the rest of Hebrews 4, is not discussed here within
the sphere of spiritual method, but is hinted at in such sections as I.1; I.2;
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I.49; VI.10,13; III.70; IV.9, 16, etc. In the plan of the Kephalaia Gnostika,
we are still within the world-system wherein, by pure conceptual processes,
a rational being can be lifted up to pure contemplation by means of the
active life of conversion and growth in virtue, and in the contemplative
life of purity of heart, charity, knowledge of the cosmos, and theological
communion. We only look into the dimension of blessedness, the promised
land of rest (hesychia), as Moses looked into the Promised Land from
Mount Pisgah (Deut. 34:1), for as long as we continue to struggle in this
embodied life.
In all these meditations, Evagrius takes the Bible as his guidebook,
which he reads in a relentlessly mystical way, constantly drawing our attention to allegory and anagogy in the great and well-known texts of scripture
as well as in obscure references to minor events that only an assiduous reader
of the biblical text might notice. Evagrius sees the Bible as an inspired work
for teaching the subtle doctrines of both theological speculation (especially
Eph. 1) and the more directly crucial concerns of guidance on the path to
spiritual freedom. Evagrius frequently imitates the style of Greek that he
knew from the LXX (Greek Septuagint) text, in particular the verses of the
book of Proverbs,16 but he does not confine himself to that style of writing.
His use of the LXX does not circumscribe him exclusively within the world
of Jewish and early Christian Biblical interpretation from the Greek text.
Rather, Evagrius makes it abundantly clear that he supports his Biblical
reading with supplemental considerations derived from Hellenistic medical, cosmological, psychological and even mathematical research. The final
goal of human perfection for Evagrius is thus anything but a renunciation
of the world. Instead, the human consciousness, purified of the passions,
is disclosed as the most perfect instrument for a faith-enlightened understanding of all phenomenamaterial, energetic, cosmic and divine.
III.
It is relatively easy to establish the Hellenistic background of most of Evagriuss philosophical anthropology and psychology. He is clearly influenced
by Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Porphyry and such Stoics as Zeno, Diogenes
Laertius and Sextus Empiricus.17 In such works as the Gnostikos and in
the tractate On Thoughts, his Christian sourcesamong them Gregory
of Nazianzus, Clement of Alexandria and Origenare harmonized with
their Hellenistic colleagues, predecessors or contemporaries. All this is in
the tradition of the Christian as the philosopher par excellence. Moreover,
Evagrius is writing in a monastic milieu in which study and discussion
were given the added dimension of rigorous ascetic practice. The themes
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treated in the works of the philosophers were experienced soteriologically

and existentially in the daily meditations, temptations and prayers of this
learned circle of monastics. For example, the notion that it is impossible
for the mind to receive two thoughts simultaneously (Ch. 24, On Thoughts)
could have been debated speculatively by any of the authors cited, but in the
setting of the desert, among anchorites, the topic has crucial importance in
the battle against evil thoughts.18 Ghin and the Guillaumonts tell us19 that
this assertion arises from the Stoic notion that compares a mental image
of its object to the imprint of a seal in wax. But notice how Evagrius treats
this analogy in On Thoughts:
No impure thought arises in us without a sensory object. If our mind,
because of its great rapidity of movement, ties one thought to others
in series, one should not for that reason believe that the thoughts are
formed all at the exact same time.20
This insight into the rapidity with which mental images can succeed
one another corresponds to the experiences of yogins and meditation
practitioners. The Buddhist sage Vasubandhu discusses the apparent continuity of the mind-stream and distinguishes the instants of thought in his
Abhidharmakosa, where he analyzes the distinct natures that constitute
phenomena (dharmah)21 and the flux of existence of beings (dravya).22
This observation, for Evagrius and for Vasubandhu, is not a mere matter of
psychological empiricism. The discussion of thoughts is concerned with the
repulsion of evil thoughts. Only one evil thought can present itself in a single
moment of mental attention. Thus, to rid oneself of such thoughts,
One must, in the moment of temptation, try to cause the mind to
move from an impure thought to a second mental image, and from
that one to a third, thus escaping the wicked taskmaster. If the mind
does not displace itself and does not untie itself from its object, it is
submerged in passions and runs the risk of moving in the direction
of actually committing a sinful act. Such a mind really does need a
great deal of purification, of vigils, and prayer.23
We are clearly in a world of spiritual practitioners here, and at some remove
from the style and approach of speculative philosophers.
IV.
When we observe the extraordinary convergences between Buddhist Abhidharma 24 and the teachings of Evagrius, we find ourselves drawn to one or
more hypotheses to explain the connection. Is there a literary connection?
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Is there any possibility that a work of the Sarvastivada school of Kashmir

such as the Abhidharmahr.daya was translated into Greek and entered into
the thought world of Middle and Neo-Platonism?25 The Greek-Aramaic
inscription of Ashoka gives an indication of the linguistic and cultural setting at the interface of Hellenistic and Indic civilizations.26 A Pali text, the
Milinda-paha, shows a dialogue between a Greek prince and a Buddhist
monk over topics extensively treated in Abhidharma. Much later, we have
a Sogdian text, ms. C2,27 which reproduces the Syriac versions of several
Christian ascetical works, including the Antirrheticus
of Evagrius. Sogdian of this type is heavily influenced Can a work of the
by Aramaic (i.e., Syriac), but is a Central Asian IndoEuropean language, bridging the Hellenistic and Indic Sarvastivada school have
worlds. The manuscript in question is latedating perhaps from the seventh or even eighth centurybut it is been translated into Greek?
important because it indicates a rare instance in which a
Greco-Aramaic Christian document undergoes retroversion into a Central
Asian language linked to Indian Buddhist transmissions. The suggestion is
that the Sogdian Christian community was interested in the same literature
of asceticism that arose in Syria, Palestine and Egypt in the fourth century,
and that it made use, in some cases, of terminology borrowed from Buddhist
Sanskrit/Prakrit milieux. The inscription of Ashoka in the third century
B.C.E. was not the last instance of linguistic and cultural exchange between
the Indic and Hellenistic worlds.
Of course, we might also consider the possibility that contemplative
teachers discovered these insights independently, as a result of long hours
of meditation practice. Even should this be true, what particularly attracts
our attention is the compatibility of the language in which the experience
was embodied in the form of written teachings on the contemplative life.
V.
Beyond these more general speculations, we can detect specific instances
of a confluence of Buddhist ideas in the Kephalaia Gnostika by attempting
to understand the teachings given there in cryptic, sutra-like form. There
are many places in the Kephalaia Gnostika in which the full meaning of the
text is made clear only by comparison with Indic texts on spiritual practice.
Stoicism is not enough, and even Alexandrian Judeo-Christian allegorical
hermeneutics does not fully open the door of meaning. Knowledge of Indic, primarily yogic and Buddhist Abhidharma, texts is helpful, along with
experience of contemplative practice and spiritual guidance.
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1. Two Syriac Versions of the Kephalaia Gnostika

In order to demonstrate that some of Evagriuss verses have an Indic, or
even Abhidharma Buddhist referents, we need to summarize the nature of
the sources we are using. We have already discussed Evagriuss work On
Thoughts, available in the Sources Chrtiennes series, as an example of a work
clearly manifesting the influence of Stoic and other Hellenistic philosophical ideas. When we come to the Kephalaia Gnostika, the third work in his
trilogy on monastic training, we have a source that has come down to us in
a number of versions.28 For our purposes, the two Syriac versions translated
by Guillaumont are crucial, as are the large number of Greek fragments
collected by Irenaeus Hausherr, S.J.,29 and by related scholarship. The two
Syriac versions, S1 and S2, are significantly different in many of the verses.
S2 was made literally from the Greek original of Evagrius, while S1 seems
to be a simplification of S2 designed to remove most of the teachings that
were condemned in Constantinople in the synod of 543.30 In some cases,
however, S1 may have simplified S2 for pedagogical purposes, and not
merely to expunge heretical views from an otherwise valuable work of a
Desert Father. Thus, the fact that S1 tones down the mythic content31 of S2
suggests two possibilities: first, that the producers of S1 wanted to preserve
Evagriuss teaching for younger monks in a doctrinally safe and digestible
form so that they would know early on in their training about the road map
to spiritual perfection; and, second, that the producers of S1 were aware of
Justinians condemnation of Evagriuss ideas in the sixth century, and they
were making an expurgated version that would be safe from ecclesiastical
and state censorship. If S1 was S2 adapted for beginners, it is still likely that
Syriac-speaking gnostic monks (gnostic in the sense of being spiritual
masters, not in the sense of membership in an early Gnostic sect) would
have known and used both versions. S1 may have been for the novices, while
S2 served as the teachers guide which was not to be openly divulged.32
It is clear that S2 shows a better grasp of the more advanced contemplative practices advocated by Evagrius in Kephalaia Gnostika. The translator of
S2 was a fine scholar and undoubtedly an experienced contemplative who
was concerned about the guidance of others. While I do not think that S1
and S2 were produced by the same translator, it is possible that they were
in some way related to one another. S2 was the manual for the advanced
spiritual teacher and S1 was for the advancing scholar-monk. Evagrius
himself advocated a pedagogy that takes into careful consideration the
intellectual capacity and spiritual state of progress of the disciple.
As we examine some of the verses in the Kephalaia Gnostika, we find
recurring themes and resonances with a variety of sources. For example,
the existence of a plurality of worlds:
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VI.45 (S2): Not one of the worlds was superior to the primordial
world; it is said, in effect, that that [primordial] one was made from
the original quality and in it all the worlds will be perfected; an
athlete, a gnostic, taught us this.33
VI.45 (S1): Thus Mankind was made in the image of God, is posited without restriction and the ones who are diligent arrive at this,
according to the word of the Fathers.
First of all, note S2s reference to the myth of the cosmic fall and to the
relationship between the primordial world and the subsequent worlds; this
resonates with the Buddhist Aggaa-Sutta story of the origin of embodied
beings34 in a series of descents from subtler to coarser states of existence.
The athlete-gnostic who taught this would have been a spiritual master
who had perfected the paths of praktike and gnosis; he could have been
Macarius or Didymus the Blind, who were the two principal Egyptian
teachers of Evagrius.35
2. The Great Origenistic Parabola
The Kephalaia Gnostika has a vision of the human condition based on a
descent from a higher spiritual state to a lower, coarser state. Conscious
beings were once rational and absorbed in the contemplation of the Holy
Trinity:
VI.75 (S2): The first-order knowledge that is in the logikoi is that of
the Holy Trinity. Following that, there was the movement of liberty,
the providence that gives help, and the catching up [of the logikoi]
not letting them dissipate completely, and then the judgment, and
again the movement of freedom, providence, judgment and so on up
to the Holy Trinity. In this way, a judgment is interposed between the
movement of freedom and the providence of God.
This is a neat summary of the parabola of rational beings as discussed
in Origens On First Principles. Abiding primordially in the pure knowledge
of the Holy Trinity, rational beings experience a movement of freedom
that entails their separation from that primordial state.36 Providence is
Gods help extended to these beings who have separated themselves from
primordial knowledge so as to rescue them by offering them the material
creation and the three kinds of embodiment (without which they would
have fallen indefinitely) and a way by which to return; then comes judgment which might be a term for the Christ-event itself as the offer of grace
so that beings may return to God, followed by a free response to the offer
of grace, the providential experience of life in the Church as the way of
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return through ascetic discipline (praktike) and growth in contemplative

awareness (theoria or gnosis). The final judgment is to be the apokatastasis,
and final return to unity within the Trinitarian life of God. The pattern of
spiritual growth is a pedagogical-gnostic one.37
Evagrius made use of the terminology first order knowledge and
second order knowledge to describe the two phases of creation. First
order refers to the primordial state of pure contemplation; second order
refers to the return to contemplation by means of an ascetic ascent in and
through the created order of nature. S1 at VI.75 tries cautiously to sum
this up as follows:
The first order knowledge that was in the rational nature is contemplation of the Holy Trinity; there followed the movement of freedom,
and after that the help of the providence of God, [in the form of] the
chastisement that causes a return to life, or by the teaching that causes
an approach to first-order contemplation.
3. Nonduality
The Kephalaia Gnostika opens with the following daring assertions:
I.1. (S2 and S1): There is nothing over against the Primal Good because it is in its essence that it is Good, and nothing could be contrary
to that essence.
I.2 (S2 and S1): Contrariety is to be found in the characteristics, and
characteristics are typical of embodiments; therefore, it is among created things that opposition is found.
The primordial state is oneness in the Good; as we have seen, the
primordial rational beings abide in this oneness, contemplating the Holy
Trinity. With their fall into negligence and the establishment of the various forms of the embodied state, there is the arising of contrasts, opinions
and preferences. This same insight is found in Daoism and Buddhism:
the first movement from the primordial nature or ground is a movement
into multiplicity that necessarily creates opposing characteristics. Hence
in the Vajracchedika Sutra, the primordial Buddha nature is without characteristics. The same view of the absolute is taught in a late work from the
Tibetan tradition, the Mahamudra
Maha-mudra Clarification by Milarepa; this work is
relevant despite its lateness in that it summarizes centuries of Buddhist
contemplative experience:
Now, in this teaching, understand that the essence of mind is the
natural state and this is Mahamudra.
Maha. . . The first topic: The mode
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of abiding of phenomena in their natural state. . . . The intentions

of the Buddhas and the nature of the mind of sentient beings are
not established as shape or color, or margins or center; these are free
from partiality and extremes. They neither engage in existence nor
nonexistence; they do not err, nor are they free from error; they do
not arise from any cause, nor do they change in relation to conditions. They are not contrived by a skillful (i.e., knowing) Buddha,
nor corrupted by dull sentient beings; nor do they improve through
38
Realization nor worsen by error. This is Ground Mahamudra.
MahaAlthough the Gospel of John 17:213 has statements suggestive of a
nondual view of reality, the notion of oneness without contrariety is alien
to nearly all Christian theological discourse, with the telling exception of a
theological poem attributed to Evagriuss bishop, St. Gregory of Nazianzus
(Hymn to God, in PG 37, 507).
Evagrius works with two terms to describe the original state of beings.
We have already encountered logikoi; there is also the even more characteristic term nous, which refers to the cognitive capacity of mind beyond
dependence on concepts and sense data. Evagrius even refers to the naked
nous.39
I.49 (S2 and S1): This is not the Unity which, on its own, puts itself in
motion, but it is put in motion by the receptivity of the nous, which,
because of negligence, turned its face away and, being deprived of
[Unity] engendered ignorance.
This could have been said by Origen of Alexandria (e.g., in On First
Principles, book 1, ch. 4), but has obvious affinities with the Buddhist cosmogenesis depicted in the Aggaa Sutta.
III.70 (S2 and S1): It belongs to the naked nous to say that which is
its nature; and there is now no reply to that question, but at the end
there will not even be a question.
The section previous to the one just quoted, III.69 in S1, pointed out that
among all things that have been produced, only the nous is capable of the
knowledge of the Holy Trinity. III.69.S2 puts it more subtly: It is not possible
that the nous be constituted of anything other than contemplationthat is,
unless even that should prove incapable of [rising to] the Trinity.
IV.8 (S2 and S1): The co-heir with Christ is the one who arrives in
the Unity and delights in contemplation with Christ.
VI.10 (S2 and S1): The Holy Trinity is not like a tetrad, a pentad, etc.;
these are, in effect, numbers but the Holy Trinity is a single essence.
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Evagrius is not worried about failing in monotheism (since this is

settled in the creedal formula homoousios), he is expressing a distinction
in Being. He is also articulating a contemplative manner of knowing that
goes beyond such oppositions as singular and plural; this contemplative
cognitive capacity is characteristic of the nous. But the nous, having fallen
from contemplation, and being enveloped in a soul (psyche) and a body
(Origen, On First Principles, book 3, ch. 6, no. 9), has to undergo healing
and transformation in order to recover its natural condition.
4. The Therapeutic Nature of the Stages of the Spiritual Life
The stages of the spiritual life are sequentially therapeutic; to become what
we are meant to be, a condition of illness must be cured. This is the basic
principle animating the entire project of the Buddhist teachings on the
Four Truths of the Noble Ones (catur-arya-satya), which is diagnostic and
therapeutic. As we have shown elsewhere in a discussion of the history of
Buddhist systematic philosophy,40 the Abhidharma scholars organized their
therapeutic research into categories based on the classic Four Truths.41 The
three poisons in Buddhism are desire (cf. epithumia), anger (cf. thumos),
and ignorance (cf. agno-sia)just as they are in the Kephalaia Gnostika.
III.35 (S2): Knowledge cures the nous, love the state of anger (thumos), and chastity the state of desire (epithumia). And the cause of
the former is the latter, and the cause of the latter is the third.
Further:
IV.81 (S2): All contemplation is immaterial and incorporeal according
to the sign of ones understanding. But whether material or immaterial, it is said that it [contemplation] is that which grasps or does
not grasp the objects that fall under its attention. (Translating from
Greek: All contemplation by the sign of its intellection is immaterial
and incorporeal; but material or immaterial, it is said to be that which
possesses or that does not possess objects which fall beneath it.)
Evagrius seems here to be making a subtle critique of ordinary speech
in order to clarify the higher, noetic definition of contemplation that he
would prefer his disciples to use. Notice again the language, so close to
Abhidharma, of grasping and apprehending, coming from the notion
of the senses (including the mental activity, caitta) as extending themselves outward to their objects, a topic that will be repeated in Evagriuss
discussion of the senses.42
Further therapeutic analysis relates to the influence of other kinds of
beings over the human soul:
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IV.85 (S2 and S1): The demons prevail over the soul when the passions
multiply, leaving a man without good sense, extinguishing the powers
of his organs of sense, for fear that, should he perceive a nearby [saving] object, he might cause the nous to rise as if from a deep well.
The organs of sense are understood to be powers, corresponding to
the Sanskrit term indriya.. Combat with tempters (cf. Buddhist Mara)
Ma- is
unavoidable in this world system.
The health of the soul is primordial and needs to be restored:
II.8 (S2 and S1): The wealth of the soul is knowledge, its poverty
is ignorance. But if ignorance is the lack of knowledge, then wealth
precedes poverty and the health of the soul comes before its state of
illness.43
Having undergone spiritual healing, the nous ascends to its primordial
state:
III.42 (S2 and S1): Contemplation is spiritual knowledge of the things
that have been and which will be, which causes the nous to ascend
to its first rank.
III.4 (S1): The spiritual renewal of the just is the ascent from one
virtue to another and from one knowledge to a superior knowledge.
The world-system itself was established to provide a situation in which
this transformation can occur:
III.3 (S2): The world is the natural system that comprehends the different and varied bodies of the logikoi, for [the purpose of bringing
about] the knowledge of God.
Rational beings have a primordial capacity to undergo transformation
and to ascend:
II.19 (S2 and S1): The knowledge concerning the logikoi is older than
duality, and the cognitive nature is older than all natures.
The body itself will become subtle:
II.62 (S2): When the noes [plural of nous] shall have received the
contemplation that concerns them, then too shall the nature of bodies
be taken away, and thus shall the contemplation [of the nature of
bodies] become immaterial.
II.6 (S1): When the noes of the saints shall have received the contemplation of themselves, then too shall the density of bodies be taken
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away from their midst, and at last the vision will become spiritual
(cf. Origen, On First Principles, book 2, ch. 3).
S1 makes it clear that the body is not taken away, but rather it is the
density of the body that is removed by the process of ascent. Thus, it is not
a question of eliminating the body from eschatology, but of transforming
all that is material from density into subtlety by means of contemplation;
nothing is actually lost or eliminated, but all becomes the soma pneumatikos
of I Cor. 15:44. A familiarity with the reversal doctrine of Asanga involving the return to a body mind-made, feeding on delight, self-luminous,
moving through the air, glorious (Aggaa
Aggaa Sutta 10) would support the
view given in I Cor. 15 on the spiritual body. Instead, condemning Evagrius
and Origen, Epiphanius of Salamis and Jerome opted for the more material
interpretation of the resurrection of the body.44
5. The Experience of Perception Made Progressively Subtle
One of the aspects of the Kephalaia Gnostika that most closely resembles the
Abhidharma literature is in the theory of perception, based on an analysis
of the senses and the perceiving subject/mind.
I.34 (S2 and S1): A sense is naturally made to perceive by itself those
things which are its objects; but the nous at all times prepares itself and
waits to see that spiritual contemplation that comes to it in vision.
This verse make clearer sense when we keep in mind the classic Abhidharma notion of active sense organs. This notion also distinguishes
between the senses which are active, reaching out to their objects, and
the deeper level of consciousness which is purely receptive. A distinct
consciousness can be distinguished corresponding to each of the five
senses; a sixth corresponds to mind itself. For the Abhidharma masters, the
senses operate through, first, six external bases of sensory consciousness:
-pa-a
-yatana), audible objects (sabda-a
visible objects (ru
(rupa-a
pa-ayatana),
abda-ayatana),
olfactory objects (gandha-a
(gandha-ayatana),
gustatory objects (rasa-a
(rasa-ayatana),
tangible
objects (sprast
(spras.tavya-a
t.avya-ayatana),
avya-a-yatana), and nonsensory (mental) objects (dharma-ayatana);
ayatana); second, six internal bases of conscious perception (faculties): eye
(caks.u indriya aayatana),
(caksu
ear (srotra indriya aayatana),
nose (ghrana
(ghra- indriya
a-yatana), tongue (jihva indriya aayatana),
ayatana),
skin (kaya
(ka-ya indriya aayatana),
45
and mind (mana indriya aayatana)
yatana) ; and third, six consciousnessess
linked to the faculties (indriyas): sight-consciousness (caksu-vija
(caks.u-vijana),
u-vijahearing-consciousness (srotra-vijana),
rotra-vija
olfactory consciousness (ghrana(ghravijavijana),
gustatory consciousness (jihva-vija
(jihva--vijana),
-vijatactile consciousness
(kaya-vijana), and mind-consciousness (mano-vijana).
(kaya-vija
(mano-vija-
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In this system, perception is the active, momentary and usually karmadriven connection of external objects with internal faculties. Mind and
mental states (citta
citta and caittas) are classed as faculties; citta or mana is the
fundamental and ultimate factor that is treated by the Abhidharma masters
as a governing indriya, which predominates over the entire process of perception.46 The image of the body as a house where the senses lodge and
where perception occurs suggests yogic practice, especially in the practice
of cutting off the senses47 with the bhandhas (pratyahara):
IV.68 (S2 and S1): This body of the soul is the sign of the house, and
the sense organs are the sign of the windows, through which the nous
looks out and sees sensory things.
More evidence that Evagrius had some knowledge of systems of yogic
practice may be found in his distinction between the senses and sense
organs:
I.36. (S2 and S1): The senses and the organs of sense are not the same
thing, nor is that which senses and that which is sensed. The senses
(1), in effect, are those powers with which we customarily perceive
materials; the organs (2) of sense are those members in which the
senses reside; that which senses (3) is the living subject who possesses
sense organs, and that which is sensed (4) is that which falls under
the purview of the senses. But it is not thus with the nous, because it
is without one [three?] of these four.
We could not be in closer harmony with the way of thinking on the
topic of sense perception as expounded in the Abhidharma literature, summarized above.
II.28 (S2 and S1): The sensory eye, when it sees something visible,
does not see its totality; but the intelligible eye, in either not seeing or
even in seeing, surrounds on all sides that which it sees.
This is a yogic phenomenon and refers to the experience of seeing
without use of the material sense organ: a hint at the divyam caksus,
caks. the
divine eye in Bhagavad Gita 11:8. It ties in to seeing with the light of God
in I.35 (S2 and S1):
Just as the light, as long as it makes it possible for us to see, has no
need of a light with which it can be seen, so also God, insofar as he
makes all see, has no need of a light with which he will be known; in
effect, in his essence, he is light.48
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55
We have already seen in Chaudhuris comments on the Abhidharmakosa

that citta is the ultimate faculty; here Evagrius uses nous as a precise synonym for citta:
II.45 (S2): The organs of the senses and the nous share things accessible to the senses; but only the nous has understanding of intelligible
things; it [alone] perceives [both] objects and of understandings
(logoi).
This could be applied to empirical knowledge, since the meaning
of things understood empirically can only be determined by the noetic
capacity of the mind. As Yasomitra points out in his commentary on the
Abhidharmakosa, The world is led by the mind, is entirely subjugated by
the mind. All phenomena are subject to this one Dharma: the mind.49
As one makes progress in spiritual practice, sense perception is left
behind and immaterial contemplation becomes possible:
III.17 (S2): Those who have arrived within immaterial contemplation are also in the same order; but it is not those who are in the
same order who are from now on in immaterial contemplation. In
effect, it is possible that they are in the contemplation that concerns
intelligible things, which also needs a naked nous, if it is seen again
another time nakedly. [The Greek has: Those who have attained to
immaterial contemplation are also in the [same] state; but they are
not those who are in the same state who are from now on also in immaterial contemplation. Indeed, it is possible that they are again in
the contemplation that concerns the intelligibles, which also requires
a naked nous, if it previously has also seen it nakedly.]
Direct noetic cognition is superior to sense data. The previous two
sayings indicate the character of the state of perfection:
III.15 (S2): If the perfection of the nous is immaterial knowledge, as it
is said, and being that the immaterial knowledge is the Trinity alone,
it is evident that in that perfection nothing material will remain. And
if that is so, once naked the nous will become a seer of the Trinity.
III.14 (S2 and S1): The deficient soul is that whose power subject to
passion inclines towards vain [things].
III.16 (S2 and S1): The perfect soul is one whose passible power acts
according to nature.
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The difficult text at III.17 refers to a form of subtle knowledge of intelligible things that is not quite the knowledge of the Trinity, but is at the same
time not the knowledge of material sense objects either. It is the knowledge
of the meaning of things that are created: gnosis tou kosmou, but it is not
theologia. This distinction suggests that Evagrius has combined teachings
on higher perception from Indic sources with the teachings he received
from the Cappadocian Fathers on knowledge of the Holy Trinity:
IV.77 (S2): Objects are outside the nous, and the contemplation of
them is constituted within it. But when the [contemplation] is of
the Holy Trinity, it is not like that, because it is exclusively essential
gnosis.
This is a key text on nondualistic consciousness. First, normal sense
data are with reference to the second-order creation (Providence) and have
a within and a without appearance. Second, the nous is the perceiver. Third,
contemplation of the Trinity, which is gnosis, is not the same as sense-data
perception. It is essential gnosis, i.e., first order, of the primordial nature
of nous in itself.
At this level of spiritual development, Evagrius is discussing visionary,
charismatic forms of perception:
III.48 (S2): The change of the just is the passage of bodiesboth
praktike and seeing, to seeing bodies or to increasingly seeing bodies. (Greek: The change of the just is the passing from bodies which
are praktike and seeing, into bodies which are seeing or very clearly
seeing.)
It is significant that to translate this passage, the Syriac translation uses
hzhy, i.e., visionary seeing, rather than a word based on the sense organs. S1
hzhy
tries to be helpful to the beginner: The spiritual renewal of the just is the
ascent from one virtue to another and from one knowledge to a superior
knowledge. Again we can see the pattern of a pedagogical process based
on successive stages of refinement. One undergoes this refinement by undertaking rigorous spiritual discipline (praktike) and gradually opening up
the faculties to their true, natural state of higher perception.
IV.67 (S1): The objects that, through the senses, come to the souls
attention shape it to make it receive in itself their forms, because this
is the work of the nous in knowing, just as the animals that breathe
from outside, and it (the nous) falls into danger if it does not work,
according to the saying of Solomon the sage: The light of the Lord is
the breath of men (Prov. XX, 27).
,
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57
The theory linking sense phenomena with mind and with breath
sounds very Indian. The impression of an object shapes the perceptive
capacity of the soul, replicating itself therein; perception nourishes the soul
as air nourishes the body; light is prana. Yogic theory, both Buddhist and
non-Buddhist, has mind riding upon breath; breath and internal energetic currents work together in the yogins body, under his or her control.
Ultimately, breath, energy, mind and light are dimensions of the one basic
reality. Those who are on the spiritual journey begin to notice these matters
intuitively and with greater and greater clarity as they go along:
V.57 (S2): Just as we now approach sensory objects via the senses,
and at the end, when we have been purified, we will also know the
ways of understanding them, so when at first we see objects, and
more so when we shall be purified, we will know the contemplation
that concerns them, after which it will be possible to know evermore
also the Holy Trinity.
V.58 (S2): The nous discerns sensation not so much as sensory but
as so much sensation; and sensation discerns sensory things not so
much as objects, but in as much as they are sensory objects.
Here we can see how subtle Evagriuss thinking on sense perception
really was, and how close to Abhidharma teachings. Here the nous would
correspond to the principle of consciousness, vijana,
vija- as the base of perception; the act of perception in which the nous receives data from the sense
organs is a grasping of a set of sensations from which an object is inferred.
All objects are therefore conceptualized as having suchness but are in
reality an inference derived from a complex set of sense data assembled by
the base of consciousness. S2 goes on to say in V.59 that sensation does not
discern sensation, but it discerns only the sense organs, not as sense organs,
but as entities capable of sense perceptions. The nous discerns sensation as
a set of sensory perceptions, and the sense organs as a set of sense organs.
More on pedagogy:
III.57 (S2 and S1): Just as those who teach letters to children trace
them on tablets, so also Christ, in teaching his wisdom to the logikoi,
traced it in the corporeal nature;
III.58 (S2): The one who wants to see things that are written needs
light; and the one who wants to learn the wisdom of beings needs
spiritual love.
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The humanity of Christ serves as a model of conduct for humans, especially when they are beginners in the spiritual life. The light is the text
of the Scriptures, given a mystical interpretation (Psalm 35: In your light
we see light), and spiritual love prepares one for the stage of the knowledge
of created things in Evagriuss sevenfold scheme.
6. The Theme of Nourishment
Eating as a spiritual problem is theologically connected with the Fall (Gen.
3) and the eating of the forbidden fruit, and also with the Buddhist myth
of the decline of primordial beings in the Aggaa Sutta. In fact, Evagriuss
understanding of the Fall arises from the esoteric tradition of Biblical interpretation, in which, for example, the garments of skin are understood
to be the body of flesh given to Adam and Eve only after their sin.50 The
original condition of the human person was to be immortal and nonfleshly.
These views were condemned in the anti-Origenist canons of 543 and 553,
linked to the decrees of the Second Council of Constantinople.51 Evagrius,
however, returns frequently to the theme of nourishment, both bodily and
mental. Without a knowledge of Buddhist cosmological speculation, it is
difficult to interpret his teachings:
I.23 (S2): Understandings of things of the Earth are the good things of
the Earth. But if the holy angels know these, according to the word
of the Tekoite [a wise woman from Tekoah who told David: Your
majesty is as wise as the angel of God and knows all that goes on in
the land 2 Sam. 14:20], the angels of God eat the good things of the
Earth. But it is said that man ate the bread of angels [Ps. 77(78):
25]; it is thus apparent that also a few among men have known the
understanding of that which is on Earth.
It is interesting to see how Evagrius cites an obscure Old Testament passage to discuss the question of bread as knowledge, and knowledge as linking
things of Heaven to things of Earth. At first glance, the reference to the bread
of angels in Psalm 77(78) seems to be to the manna story in Exodus, to which
the Psalm alludes. But the relationship between noetic understanding and
eating something good (i.e., sweet) on the Earth puts us very close to the
Buddhist Genesis story of Digha Nikaya XXVII, 10ff, the Aggaa Sutta (cf.
Abhidharmakosa III, 98 a/b). Not only that allusion, but also the discussion
of King David as having unusual knowledge in order to protect the land
from the insidious plots of his son Absalom, suggests the Aggaa Sutta. In
the sutta, the origin of the warrior (ksatriya)
(ks. atriya) caste is depicted in the need
to protect the people from thieves who would steal crops from the field.
In the case of Absalom, to get Joabs attention, he has Joabs field of barley
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59
burned (2 Sam. 14:3032). David is a true kksatriya,

s. atriya, knowing and protecting
the fields (ksetra);
(ksetra);
s. etra); Absalom is a criminal plotting against the king, his father,
and destroying the fields; he is therefore unworthy of kingship.
Another reference to the Buddhist cosmological sutta is found in I.26.
(S2 and S1):
If the human body is a part of this world and if the form of this
world is passing [I Cor. 8:31], it is apparent that the form of the
body is also passing.
This passage takes Evagrius on the road to denying the resurrection
of the body in a literal sense. We are tempted to find here a resonance
with the notion in the Aggaa Sutta, in which the primordial form of
the body is pure mind and luminous, only to become gross and material
as a consequence of karmic negativity, which began with the act of gluttony in consuming the sweet substance on the surface of the Earth. From
the Evagrian point of view, the return to pure contemplation will require
a reversal of the density of embodied existence and a purification of the
operation of the senses. A similar idea of reversal can be found in the
.
writings of Evagriuss Indian Buddhist contemporary, Asanga
Asan 52, in the Bodhisattvabhudhisattvabhumi.
That this is about spiritual transformation is clear from
the following passage:
III.7 (S2): Each change has been established to nourish the rational
beings (logikoi); and those who so nourish themselves arrive at the
excellent change, but those who do not so nourish themselves arrive
at an evil change [cf. III.4 on the nourishment of angels, humans,
and demons].
This is a key passage for understanding Evagriuss pedagogical theory,
itself inseparable from the sevenfold scheme of growth in holiness (cited
in the first chapter of the Praktikos; see above). First of all, here we have the
dimension of choice: one can choose to progress in virtue; the choices are
programmed and established; the character of learning is a cognitive process (noesis) described as nourishment that leads to transformation. The
Kephalaia themselves constitute this program of spiritual nourishment. Not
to follow them leads one to a bad end, just as the student who does not study
fails. Thus, we can identify the imperfect nous and the perfect nous:
III.10 (S2): The imperfect nous is the one who still needs that contemplation known through corporeal nature.
III.11 (S2 and S1): The perfect nous is that one which can receive
easily the essential knowledge.
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The nature of this perfection corresponds to the luminosity that characterized the primordial beings in Buddhist cosmology. Bodies of light,
which at first seem to refer to stars but which are really the luminous clothing
of the noes, are mentioned in III.5 (S2 and S1). The theory of the body of
light is the basis for later Syriac speculation53 on the mystical experience
of light: The noes of the heavenly powers are pure and full of knowledge,
and their bodies are the luminaries that are resplendent upon those who
come near to them. This may be compared to V.15 (S2 and S1):
The nous that has despoiled itself of passions becomes entirely like
light, because it is lit up by the contemplation of beings.
7. The Theory That Beings Correspond to Their Proper Sphere or Abode
(comparable to the Sanskrit term loka)54
Evagrius shows some familiarity with the idea of multiple worlds (something also present in Origen), and he has clear ideas about the nature of
beings in those worlds:
I.65 (S2 and S1): Those whose genesis is second-order are established
by their own knowledge within various worlds wherein they pursue
indescribable combats. But in the Unity, none of this occurs; there
there is an ineffable peace and there are only naked noes who forever
satiate themselves of its abundance, if, according to the word of our
Savior: The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to
Christ.
In Evagriuss understanding of cosmogenesis, the second-order creation
was Gods providential offer of a material world within which beings could
be held and eventually recovered and restored to first-order contemplation.
But the way of life that beings (angels, demons and humans) follow in their
respective worlds or abodes is full of violence. Salvation will consist of an
ineffable peace in which the noetic beings return to the primordial Unity,
having purified both the primordial fall and the subsequent combats of
the world of the senses.
The worlds of beings have a variety of nourishments:
II.82 (S2): The spiritual powers do not have bodies, but only [beings
that have] souls [have bodies], which are naturally made to nourish
themselves from the world to which they belong.
In the Aggaa Sutta, the primordial food of all beings was sama-dhi, but
they fell into the habit of indulging in the sweet Earth, which transformed
itself according to the karmic level of successive appearances of beings. The
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61
spiritual powers mentioned here are the primordial noes before their fall
and the appearance of embodied existence composed of various proportions
of the prime elements. Spiritual powers correspond to the bodies made
of mind, luminous, and undifferentiated as to sex in the early Buddhist
account. As beings decline under the influence of negative karma, their
consciousness principle (nous or vijana)
vijaare enveloped by the soul, or
subtle body, and are gradually distinguished by sex and the material body.
The soul (psyche) (III.28) consists of the nous which, because of negligence,
has fallen from the Unity and which, as a consequence of its nonvigilance,
has fallen to the level of praktike. The nature of embodied existence in the
Kephalaia Gnostikos strangely resembles Buddhist teaching:
III.29 (S2 and S1): The sign of the human order is the human body,
and the sign of each of the orders is greatness, forms, colors, qualities,
natural forces, weakness, time, place, parents, growth, modes, life,
death and that which latches on to things.
This list corresponds in several points to the twelvefold chain of
prat-tyasamutpada:
tyasamutpaignorance, karmic formation, consciousness, name
and form, six involvements, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, existence,
birth, old age and death.
This is also the theme of the categories of beings in V.11 (S2 and S1):
From the order of angels come the order of archangels and that of
psychics; from that of psychics [will come that] of demons and of men;
and from that of men will come anew that of angels and demons, if
a demon is that which, because of an abundance of rage (thumos),
has fallen from praktike and has been joined to a darkened and
extensive body.
The text has strong affinities with the notion of metempsychosis, even
if it could be interpreted to refer to the spiritual state of a monk who has
failed momentarily in his ascetic practice (praktike). It is also clear that
there is some affinity with the notion of distinct realms or destinies (Sanskrit: gati) corresponding to karmic fruition. This later became the basis
for the Tibetan Bardo Thodol (instructions to be heard after death in the
intermediate statethe Book of the Dead).
Another text with affinities with this thought-world is V.42 (S2), which
hints at experiences encountered in Tibetan-style dark retreat:
The world built up out of thought is considered hard to see by day,
because the nous is attracted by the senses and by the sensory light
that shines, but it is possible to see it by night, when it is imprinted
luminously at the time of prayer.
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Here, S2 is speaking of the world or body made of pure luminous consciousness, the state of the primordial beings in the Aggaa Sutta; being
involved with materiality and sense perception draws us away from that
kind of interior universe. Dark retreat, or nocturnal contemplation, opens
it up for us and teaches us about the spiritual world. (S1 occupies himself
here with a discussion relevant to dealing with distractions at prayer.) VI.87
should dispel any doubt about this interpretation:
According to the word of Solomon, the nous is joined to the heart;
and the light that appears [to the nous] seems to arise in the physical head.
This is a very esoteric insight that could only be based on experience
with meditation practice. Endless controversies about the nature of this
light ensued in Eastern Christian monastic circles. Simeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas articulated the hesychastic doctrine on the
inner luminosity. In the Buddhist Vajrayana, vijana
vija- is in the heart chakra,
accompanied by the seed syllable hung, which means indigo blue in color;
the white light is experienced in the head (forehead) accompanied by the
white seed syllable Om; at the throat chakra, the red seed syllable Ah is
visualized to give access to communication in the dream state. By working
with this light, the contemplative initiates a process that will consume both
soul and body to leave the nous naked and free:
II.29 (S2 and S1): Just as fire has the power to consume the body of
its fuel, so too will the nous have the power to consume the soul when
it will be entirely blended with the Light of the Holy Trinity.
VI. The Method of Retroversion
Retroversions of Evagriuss Greek text into Sanskrit can give us some
indication of the extreme closeness in worldview and approach between
the Kephalaia Gnostika and Buddhist Abhidharma texts. I can justify this
procedure on the basis of the translations from Prakrit into Greek and
Aramaic that were done in the Ashokan inscriptions in the third century
B.C.E. I am borrowing the Buddhist Sanskrit terminology from such works
as the Abhidharmakosa of Vasubandhu, a contemporary of Evagrius whose
writings accurately reflect the evolution of Buddhist cosmology and psychology during the first eight centuries of the spread of the Dharma.
My method will be as follows: I will give the Greek text of the Kephalaia
Gnostika, recovered from surviving Greek fragments of Evagrius, and my
English translation of the Greek. The translation from the Greek is refined by
,
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63
comparison with A. Guillaumonts French translation of Syriac manuscript

S2. Then I will suggest corresponding Buddhist Sanskrit terms for a retroversion into a hypothetical Sanskrit source that came into the Hellenistic world
some time before the composition of the Kephalaia Gnostika.
1. II.45 (S2)
Greek original: Asthesis
the-sis men kai nous merizontai ta astheta;
sthe- nous de monos
echei ta noeta
noe-ta kai gar ton
to- pragmato-n kai ton
to-n logon
logo-n ho autos ginetai theates.
theateEnglish translation: The organs of the senses and the mind share things
accessible to the senses, but only the mind has understanding of intelligible
things; it [alone] can perceive [both] objects and understandings.
Retroversion:
English: Sense organs
Greek:
Asthesis
the- men
Sanskrit: indriyah
indriya- .
and the mind

kai nous
ca cittah.
English: things accessible to the senses

Greek:
ta astheta
stheSanskrit: indriyartha
indriya-rthan
rtha- . i
share
merizontai
vibhajanti
but only the mind
nous de monos
cittah. eva hi
English: has understanding of intelligible things. It alone

Greek:
echei
ta noe-ta.
Kai gar
Sanskrit: upalabhate
citta-rthan
cittartha
rtha- . i.
Eva hi
English: can perceive
Greek:
ginetai theates
theateSanskrit: pasyan
both objects and understandings.

to-n pragmato-n kai ton
to-n logon
logo- ho au
utos
arthabuddhivisayau
saya
2. II.19.
The Greek corresponds to the Syriac text: Gnosis
Gno-sis dioti ton
to-n logikon
logiko- presbutera
deutereian kai gar ho nous presbutera pason
paso ton logikon.
logiko
English translation: The knowledge concerning all the logikoi is older than
duality, and the cognitive nature is older than all natures.
Retroversion:
English: The knowledge
Greek:
gno-sis
Sanskrit: janah
ja- .
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concerning
dioti
prati
the rational natures

logikologikon
sarva-cetana-ni
sarva-cetanani
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English: (is) older than

Greek:
presbutera
Sanskrit: vars. - yah.
duality and
deutereian kai gar
- ca api
dvaitat
dvaita
English:
Greek:
Sanskrit
all natures.
paso-n to-n logikon
logikosarvadharmabhyah.
(is) older than

presbutera
vars. - yah.
the cognitive nature

ho nous
buddhih.
3. IV.68
Greek fragment from Hr-nfg 231: Okou
Okou men eikona to soma
so-ma to tte-s psuche-s,
hai de aistheseis thuridon
thuridon epechousi logon, di hon
hon parakupton
parakupto- ho nous blepei
ta aisthe-ta.
English translation: This body of the soul is the sign of the house, and the
sense organs are the sign of the windows, through which the mind looks
out and sees sensory things.
Retroversion:
English: This body
Greek:
to so-ma
Sanskrit: tat sarra
sar
-
of the soul
to te-s psuches
psuchedehinas
(is) the image

eikona
ru-pah.
rupah
of the house
okou
gr.
grhasya
English: and
Greek:
hai de
Sanskrit: ca eva
the sense organs correspond to

aistheaistheseis
epechousi
indriya- .
indriyah
gr. . ati
grhn
a-ti
the function
logon
laks.anam
English:
Greek:
Sanskrit
of the windows out of which

thuridothuridon
di hon
hoja
jalasya
yena
English: and
Greek:
kai
Sanskrit: api
sees
blepei
pasyati
the mind
ho nous
buddhih.
looks out
parakuptoparakupton
pasya
syan
objects of the senses.

ta aistheta.
aistheindriya-rthan
indriyartha
rtha- . i.
VII: Conclusions
It is obvious that this article is meant to raise more questions than it resolves. Since there are no known Greek texts that make any claim to be
direct translations of an Indic original (with the precious exception of the
Khandahar inscription of Ashoka), it is particularly difficult to establish a
line of transmission for philosophical ideas from northwest India to the
,
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65
centers of Hellenistic learning. However, it is possible to establish lines of

communication going the other way at various periods. We know that trade
certainly went both ways. An Indian ivory figurine at Pompeii is matched by
numerous examples of Roman wares dispersed in the archeological remains
identified across India. There was an entire Roman trading town south of
what is now Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu. Examples of Greco-Roman influence on Gandharan sculpture are numerous, and not irrelevant to our study
of Abhidharma transmission to the West (in fact, so numerous that they merit
a more careful chronology, since many of the pieces date from the third and
fourth centuries C.E.the period most relevant to our study, and not from
the post-Ashokan period, three centuries before the birth of Christ).
All the more valuable, therefore, is it to find a text like the Kephalaia
Gnostika of Evagrius containing remarkable passages that lend themselves to
retroversion into Buddhist Sanskrit. Such passagesand those that contain
typical early Christian and Stoic themes, but which are brought into full relief
only in the light of yogic and Buddhist terminology and practicesuggest a
much stronger exchange of ideas than has heretofore been demonstrable. We
have heard of the parable of the prodigal son in the Lotus Sutra or the entry
of the child Buddha into the temple and the astonishment of the elders in the
Lalitavistara (comparable to Luke 3, the child Jesus in the temple), but these
tales have many characteristics in common with orally
We are tempted to imagine transmitted folklore.55 With the Sogdian Christian manuscript C2, we have a late example of a Greco-Aramaic
palm-leaf manuscripts in
text translated into an Indic-related language (Sogdian).
Only in texts from the pen of Evagrius at Wadi Natrun
and Sketis in Egypt do we have anything that looks even
the library at Alexandria.
remotely like an author of Hellenistic culture fully making use of teachings that have strong affinities with specific Buddhist and yogic
teachings (as distinguished from oral folk tales, proverbial material and the
like). Even where Clement of Alexandria mentions Buda in the Stromateis,
we are not given an extensive account of any distinctly Buddhist teachings.
And in the Manichean Kephalaia that have come down to us,56 the extent of
Buddhist content is reduced to an extreme minimum.
How then do we find teachings on the mind, on the operation of the
senses, on cosmology and so many other topics in a Christian scholar who
was a disciple of the Cappadocian Fathers? We are tempted to imagine palm
leaf manuscripts in the Library of Alexandria57 read by a disciple to Didimus
the Blind and handed on to Macarius and Evagrius! Did Melania and Rufinus have Buddhist texts translated into Greek in their Origenistic collection
in Jerusalem? We have certainly stumbled upon one of the most intriguing
mysteries of ancient Christianity, one that has implications for our present-
66
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day dialogue with and study of Buddhism. In fact, this research embraces
the entire drama of religious relations in virtually all of Eurasia.
The very topics that interest us were among those condemned in 543
and 553 at Constantinople. One can only wonder if a proper understanding of the yogic basis of these teachings might have rescued them from the
condemnation. Were these teachings about a cosmic vision of the human
person, or were they about the spiritual processes of interior transformation? Were they ontological/cosmological, or mystical/psychological? The
same question bewilders students of Nagarjunas negations in the Mulama
Mu-lamalamadhyamikakarika: are these a description of the ontological openness of being
itself, or are they instructions for meditators to remain in the freshness of
the stream of mental processes so as to be free from impurities and attachments? In the Kephalaia Gnostika, there are many teachings that do not fall
under the condemnation of Constantinople II, but which have strong affinities with Abhidharma, such as the teachings on perception and the senses.
Again, these are too close in their Indic affinities to be easily explainable as
typical Hellenistic descriptions of psychological phenomena.
We need to revisit the history of the evolution of Buddhist systematics58 for the chronology and character of the Buddhist works which predate
Evagrius and which therefore might have been the literary sources for the
topics that Evagrius worked into his system of mental training for advanced
anchorites. Certainly the Abhidharmahr.daya would be a prime candidate.
Unfortunately, it seems to exist only in a Chinese translation, a precious
witness to the abundant writings of the Vaibhashikas and Sarvastivadins
of Kashmir in the first three centuries of the C.E.
Further research will want to investigate the key moments in our chronology from Ashoka to the Sogdian manuscript C2 to establish the likely
paths of transmission for intellectual properties across the trade routes of
south and southwest Asia.
We will also want to accomplish more precise translation from Greek
back into Sanskrit, and to evaluate carefully the vocabulary and the metrics of the possible retroversions. This will require a careful examination
of the existing Evagrian Greek fragments. Evagrian studies have become
something of a cottage industry, and we can hope that scholars will answer
our questions sooner or later. In the meantime, I hope this essay will spur
them on their task, and that it will be a ray of hope to those of us who are
committed to perseverance in interreligious dialogue, considering that what
we are doing today was done with extraordinary fecundity in the remote
past. We are picking up the scattered threads of ancient sutras, allowing
them to question us after so many centuries on the life and death concerns
that are at the heart of the unicum necessarium.
,
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67
Notes
1. Robert T. Meyer, trans., Palladius: The Lausiac History (Westminster, MD: The
Newman Press; London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1965), Evagrius #38, 1104;
Melania the Elder #46, 1235.
2. Jeremy Driscoll, O.S.B., and Mark Sheridan, O.S.B., eds., Spiritual Progress: Studies in
the Spirituality of Late Antiquity and Early Monasticism (Roma: Studia Anselmiana
115, 1994), 63.
3. Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos: Chapters on Prayer
Prayer, trans. John Eudes Bamberger,
O.C.S.O. (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1978).
4. vagre le Pontique, Le Gnostique ou Celui qui est Devenu Digne de la Science, trans.
Antoine Guillaumont and Claire Guillaumont, Sources Chrtiennes no. 356 (Paris:
Les ditions du Cerf, 1989).
5. Les Six Centuries des Kephalaia Gnostica Dvagre le Pontique, trans. Antoine
Guillaumont, Patrologia Orientalis XXVIII, Fasc. 1 (Paris: Firmin-Didot et Cie,
1958).
6. This is the term used by Evagriuss disciple John Cassian. See Bruno Barnhart and
Joseph Wong, eds., Purity of Heart and Contemplation: A Monastic Dialogue Between
Christian and Asian Traditions (New York: Continuum, 2001), 46.
7. Evagrius, Praktikos, 14, which sums up the sevenfold scheme of the spiritual life
according to Evagrius.
8. See Augustine Casiday, Gabriel Bunge and the Study of Evagrius Ponticus, St.
Vladimirs Theological Quarterly 48, nos. 23 (2004): 24998, for a recent detailed
discussion of the much-debated topic of Evagriuss condemnation at the Second
Council of Constantinople (553).
9. Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi (11651240?), Journey to the Lord of Power: A Sufi Manual on
Retreat, trans. Rabia Terri Harris (New York: Inner Traditions International Ltd.,
1981).
10. Jos Pereira and Francis Tiso, The History of Buddhist Systematics from Buddha
to Vasubandhu, Philosophy East and West 38, no. 2 (April 1988): 17286.
11. M. Parmentier, Evagrius of Pontus Letter to Melania I, 272310, in Everett
Ferguson, ed., Forms of Devotion: Conversion, Worship, Spirituality, and Asceticism
(New York and London: Garland, 1999), is the best original source for Evagriuss
system. See also Columba Stewart, Imageless Prayer and the Theological Vision of
Evagrius Ponticus, Journal of Early Christian Studies 9, 2 (2001): 173204.
12. This was given in the Letter to Melania where the speculative framework is
accompanied by due warnings of caution about divulging it to those who have not
practiced the ascetic disciplines that are the indispensable transformative preparation
for such knowledge.
13. Stewart, Imageless Prayer, 1845.
14. Jeremy Driscoll, O.S.B., The Ad Monachos of Evagrius Ponticus: Its Structure and
A Select Commentary (Roma: Studia Anselmiana 104, 1991), 33845
15. See Driscoll, Spiritual Progress, 77, for an attempt to see areas of focus in the six
chapters of the Kephalaia Gnostika.
16. See Driscoll, Ad Monachos, 31222.
17. vagre le Pontique, Sur les Penses [Greek title: Peri Logismon (see 129)], trans. Paul
Ghin, Claire Guillaumont and Antoine Guillaumont (Paris: Les ditions du Cerf,
1998), Sources Chrtiennes No. 438, 246. This treatise may be closely linked to the
Praktikos because both works discuss topics related to the threefold stage of praktike.
68
25-98 final.aid
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18. See Stewart, Imageless Prayer, 18691.
19. Le Pontique, Penses, 236 n. 2.
20. Cf. Kephalaia Gnostika I.76; II.19, 63. The citation is from Penses, 23739;
all translations from the French are my own. Compare Points of Controversy
(Kathavatthu) (Pali Text Society, 1993), Applications of mindfulness, 1048, and
The Path of Discrimination (Patisambhidamagga) (Pali Text Society, 1991), On
breathing, Treatise III.
21. See the Abhidharmakosa I, 2b, for the definition of Dharma and Abhidharma.
22. Abhidharmakosa on dravya: I, 16-19; II, 147, 260; III, 142.
23. Le Pontique, Penses, 239.
24. The literature of Buddhist Abhidharma is vast. Vasubandhu calls Abhidharma
envisioning that nature which is the object of supreme cognition, ultimately,
nirvana. Dharma is that which bears distinctive and/or collective characteristics.
(ADK I, 2b). The Pali Canon includes seven works in the Abhidhamma Pitaka:
Dhammasangani, Vibhanga,
Vibha-nga, Kathavatthu, Puggalapaatti, Dhatukatha,
DhaYamaka,
and Pattana. However, later commentaries and original compendia are important to
our work, since any of the works (especially those taught in NW India) might have
migrated west to the Hellenistic libraries. See Hajime Nakamura, Indian Buddhism: A
Survey with Bibliographical Notes (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989), 10429.
25. For example, in the Letter to Melania the senses are listed in the same order as
that given below in our discussion of indriyas, with specific significance, in the
Abhidharmakosa.
26. A Bilingual Graeco-Aramaic Edict by Asoka: The First Greek Inscription Discovered in
Afghanistan, trans. G. Pugliese Carratelli and G. Garbini (Roma: IsMEO , 1964). See
also Romila Thapar, Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryas (Oxford and New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1997), especially the afterword, 271321, which discusses
the Greek-Aramaic inscription, archeological evidence and textual evidence for
contact between India and the Hellenistic world. Naresh Prasad Rastogi, Inscriptions
of Ashoka (Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1990), gives a Prakrit
rendering of Greek and Aramaic originals, 33344, demonstrating the method of
retroversion.
27. Nicolas Sims-Williams, The Christian Sogdian Manuscript C2 (Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 1985).
28. See Guillaumont, Les Six Centuries des Kephalaia Gnostica, 713, for a discussion
of manuscript sources.
29. Ir. Hausherr, Nouveaux fragments grecs dvagre le Pontique, Orientalia Christiana
Periodica V (Rome, 1939), and J. Muyldermans, Evagriana, Extrait de la revue Le
Muson 44, augment de: Nouveaux fragments grecs indits (Paris: Paul Geuthner,
1931).
30. The condemnations of this synod were appended to the decrees of the Fifth
Ecumenical Council in 553, as reported in Grillmeiers work, Christ in Christian
Tradition (vol. II, pt. 2, ch. 3, 385410), but are not included among the decrees of
the ecumenical councils in recent editions. See Norman P. Tanner, S.J., ed., Decrees
of the Ecumenical Councils, Volume I Nicaea I to Lateran V
V. (London: Sheed & Ward;
Georgetown: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 10522, taking particular note
of 1056, which explains that the condemnations of Origen cannot be attributed
to this Council.
31. I.e., the unusual teaching on the Fall, the notion of creation as a providential
25-98 final.aid
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69
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
70
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catchment for falling rational beings, and the ambiguity between this mythic
structure as the overall pattern of creation, over against the insight that the pattern
is relived by the contemplative in the daily battle with thoughts.
See Parmentier, Letter to Melania, 278, 281, in which Evagrius expresses his
unwillingness to put everything into written form because there are secrets which
should not be learnt by everyone (I.4).
Origen, On First Principles (Gloucester: Peter Smith Publishers, 1973), book 2, ch.
3, no. 1, 88f.
The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Digha Nikaya, ed. Maurice
Walshe (Boston: Wisdom Publications,1995), 27: 40715.
Driscoll, Ad Monachos, 348, 350.
Origen, On First Principles, book 1, ch. 4. The cause of the Fall was negligence.
Compare any of the satti-patthana (mindfulness) treatises of Buddhism.
Origen, On First Principles, book 3, ch. 6, no. 9, and book 1, ch. 6, cf. lviii and 25 n.
10.
The text is my own translation from the Tibetan text found in the gDams ngag
mdzod, comp. Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye, vol. 5, 667 and 1201.
The term logikoi describes the plurality of noes (nous) before the Fall; nous is the
core reality of rational beings that has been sheathed in the psyche. See Origen, On
First Principles, book 1, ch. 4 and 5. One can compare the use of the terms cittam,
manas, and vijana
vija-na in the Dhamma samgani, sections 6, 63, and 65, taking note
of the fact that there is no permanent substratum in the Abhidharma analysis of
mental phenomena, an insight that does not appear in Evagrius or Origen.
Jos Pereira and Francis Tiso, op. cit.
Two of which, by the way, are not noble; rya refers to those who know the truths,
the noble ones, the saints who have attained realizationin other words, the gnostics
of Evagriuss second volume.
This action of the senses extending themselves toward their objects is also referred to
as the contact theory of perception. See Dhamma samgani, section 597f. Discussion
of this topic by Caroline A. F. Rhys Davids is quite in line with our research; see
lixlxiii (theory of perception) lxv, lxxii, lxix, etc.
Similarly II.29 and V.15 also III.46, ailments of the soul.
Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 2001336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 8694.
P. Pradhan. Abhidharmakosabhasyam
bhasyam of Vasubandhu (Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research
Institute, 1975), 334.
Sukomal Chaudhuri, Analytical Study of the Abhidharmakosa (Calcutta: Sanskrit
College, 1976), 104f.
Hatha Yoga Pradipika, chap. 3, verses 19f, 54f, 59f, 69f.
Siva Samhita 22: The yogin . . . sees his soul in the shape of light (atmanam joti
rupan sa pasyati//).
Cittena niyate lokas cittena parikrsyate/eka-dharmasya cittasya sarva-dharma
vasanugah//
James L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It Was at the Start of
the Common Era (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 1325.
Aloys Grillmeier, S.J., with Theresia Hainthaler, Christ in Christian Tradition: From
the Council of Chalcedon (451) to Gregory the Great (590 604), Part Two: The Church
of Constantinople in the Sixth Century, trans. John Cawte and Pauline Allen (Atlanta:
John Knox Press, 1995), 4049, and ch. 3, discussing canons I, II, IV, X, XI, XIV, XV
46
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of the Second Council of Constantinople.
52. Alex Wayman, Asangas Ideas on Food, in Buddhist Insight: Essays by Alex Wayman,
ed. George Elder (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1990).
53. Robert Beulay, La Lumire Sans Forme: Introduction ltude de la mystique chrtienne
syro-orientale (Namur, Belgium: ditions de Chevetogne, 1987).
54. See Abhidharmakosa III for the thorough discussion of loka.
55. The classic example of which is St. John Damascene, Barlaam and Ioasaph, trans.
G. R. Woodward and H. Mattingly (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983).
56. Iain Gardner, The Kephalaia of the Teacher: The Edited Coptic Manichaean Texts in
Translation with Commentary (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995).
57. Ptolemey gave the orders to seek out books from India, Persia, Georgia, and Armenia
. . . for the library in Alexandria. The Greeks wanted everything translated into their
language. See Guy G. Stroumsa, Alexandria and the Myth of Multiculturalism, in
L. Perrone, ed., Origeniana Octava: Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition, Papers
of the 8th International Origen Congress (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003),
I: 239.
58. Jos Pereira and Francis Tiso, op. cit.
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Evagrius of Pontus and

vagrius of Pontus (345399) was ordained to the diaconate in

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

The Praktikos offers those meditation topics which nurture spiritual

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

provenance, which only emerges with clarity in the contemplative milieu of

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

treated in the works of the philosophers were experienced soteriologically

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

Is there any possibility that a work of the Sarvastivada school of Kashmir

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

1. Two Syriac Versions of the Kephalaia Gnostika

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

return through ascetic discipline (praktike) and growth in contemplative

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

of abiding of phenomena in their natural state. . . . The intentions

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

Evagrius is not worried about failing in monotheism (since this is

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

We have already seen in Chaudhuris comments on the Abhidharmakosa

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

burned (2 Sam. 14:3032). David is a true kksatriya,

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

comparison with A. Guillaumonts French translation of Syriac manuscript

and the mind

English: things accessible to the senses

English: has understanding of intelligible things. It alone

both objects and understandings.

the rational natures

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

English: (is) older than

(is) older than

the cognitive nature

(is) the image

the sense organs correspond to

of the windows out of which

objects of the senses.

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

centers of Hellenistic learning. However, it is possible to establish lines of

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

Rev. Canon Francis V. Tiso

Evagrius of Pontus and Buddhist Abhidharma

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