Tag: Evagrius
Thoughts to remember
Abba Evagrius said, ‘Sit in your cell, collecting your thoughts. Remember the day of your death. See then what the death of your body will be; let your spirit be heavy, take pains, condemn the vanity of the world, so as to be able to live always in the peace you have in view without… Read More ›
The Noonday Demon
The demon of accedia–also called the noonday demon–is the one that causes the most serious trouble of all. He presses his attack upon the monk about the fourth hour and besieges the soul until the eighth hour. First of all he makes it seem that the sun barely moves, if at all, and that the… Read More ›
Evagrius Ponticus and His Accounts of Demons
Reading the ancient ascetical writer, Evagrius Ponticus, is a rather wild experience. An immensely influential figure within Christian monasticism, especially in the East, Evagrius wrote works on theology, the monastic life, and other spiritual writings. In the pages of his works on prayer and the ascetical life, one is immediately presented with a world populated… Read More ›
What Do You Weep For?
Evagrius of Ponticus, one of the early desert monastics, counseled young monastics: “First pray for the gift of tears, to soften by compunction the inherent hardness of your soul.” And fifteen centuries later, George Eliot wrote, too, “The beginning of compunction is the beginning of new life.” The point is clear: Weeping is a very… Read More ›