Agapé as an Expression of Apatheia: Contextualizing the Texts of Evagrius Ponticus and John Cassian in the 21st Century

Presented at LEST VIII Leuven, Belgium

The 21st Century immersion in individualism can be transformed by a transfiguration of reality through renunciation of the intrinsic motivation of fear and replaced with the intrinsic motivation of agapé through contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer is the motivating force behind the process of theosis. In the later fourth century CE an Egyptian desert monastic, Evagrius of Ponticus, systematized a way of thinking, feeling and living so the soul of one’s existence could ascend to the Divine. Evagrius taught purity of heart, purity of intention, a way of loving the Divine and others that was the access to natural science, theology and final happiness. His Christological contribution created a school of the praktikos, a student of the inner life, to teach a process for conversion of heart, a daily conversation with the Divine that sought to purify humanity of its intrinsic link to fear and show the desert monastics a way to overcome fear with love with eyes opened to the deifying light. This process of temporal renunciation termed theosis strove to attain the metaphysical state of apatheia, a freedom from compulsions, obsessions and addictions to that which exists outside of us. The goal of apatheia was to strip the praktikos of extrinsic interference, rendering one receptive to Divine grace to mediate a life of agapé, an incommutable responsibility to the other in our midst. John Cassian, expanding on Evagrius, wrote The Institutes and The Conferences which contain an ethos of transfigurative methods to purify one's “outward appearance” (exteriorem ornatum) to heal “inner worship” (interiorem cultum). The monastic praktikos was to liberate individualism by cultivating humility through praxis and theoria to inculcate the intrinsic motivation of agapé through mysterical prayerfulness, the primary locus of theology.