ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the connections between Porphyry of Tyre’s (d.305 CE) philosophical ethics and the ascetic theology of Evagrius Ponticus (d.399 CE). The main foci of this comparison are Porphyry’s and Evagrius’ theories of the soul’s passions (pathē) and the attempt of the two authors to trace back the origins of passions to the interaction between embodied souls and the realm of sensibles. Through a close reading of several key passages in their writings, Pirtea argues that both Porphyry and Evagrius reconstruct a similar “causal chain” in order to explain the emergence of human passions. On the basis of Plato’s and Aristotle’s psychology, Porphyry and Evagrius link the appearance of passions to the pleasure and pain experienced in the act of sense-perception and to the memories, desires, and opinions arising from those experiences. Pirtea further argues that Evagrius’ ideal of reaching a state of “freedom from passion” (apatheia) - long believed to be a token of Stoic influence - is in many respects a reflection of the discussions concerning apatheia in Plotinus’ Enneads and in Porphyry’s Sententiae and De abstinentia. Moreover, in describing the aim of the ascetic as a life “according to the intellect,” Evagrius even adopts Porphyry’s phraseology. The close parallels between Porphyry and Evagrius discussed in this chapter therefore challenge the prevalent theory of an alleged Stoic background for Evagrius’ teachings and provide a new perspective on the relationship between Late Antique Platonism and Early Christian asceticism.
