Luke 18.9-14 10 October 2021
Sue Hanna
This week we are going to look at the noxious thought of vainglory. To do so, I thought I’d venture into the thought world of Evagrius himself, to take a behind the scenes look at how and why he formed these thoughts. One feature of Evagrius’s writings is he mention demons quite frequently, particularly when it comes to vainglory and pride, so I thought it might be helpful to explore Evagrius’s understanding of demons and how they fit in with these thoughts. Ann Munro gave an excellent introduction to the life of Evagrius earlier this year. You’ll recall Evagrius was a 4th century theologian who in his latter years lived as a hermit in the Egyptian desert. Part of his life’s work was to capture the wisdom of the Desert Fathers, the spiritual sayings and insights of these monks, which he integrated into a written source of spiritual wisdom that has survived through the centuries.
The Desert Fathers, (and also Desert Mothers), were seeking to live an authentically Christian life. The fourth century was a time when hundreds of thousands of men and women pursued the monastic life in the desert in the belief God had called them to live this way. But why? To help us understand, lets talk a look at the way Evagrius conceptualised God and the Christian life, which was quite different to the way we would understand it today. It will give us a look at the context in which the Eight Thoughts were developed.
Evagrius’ theology was profoundly influenced by Origen, a theologian who lived in the 3rd century, whose understanding of the Christian gospel developed out of Hellenistic or Greek, thought. The final form of the Bible that included the Old Testament scriptures was not settled until after Evagrius’s death in 400AD. Without the Jewish creation story, Origen applied the Christian gospel to the Hellenistic story of creation. The result was a Christian faith that was a little different from the one we now know. This world view understood God as a supreme intelligence who had created and ruled over a single undivided rational universe. Earthly life was first separated from God due to an original negligence, this negligence meant bodiless spirits multiplied and fell away from this original state of equality with God. In response, God created Earth, the second creation, in which the bodiless spirits took a material form, and became humans.
In part, this story explains the popularity and purpose of the monastic spiritual life, the whole point was to be reunited with God, the original intelligence, though contemplative prayer. The monastic prayer life had three stages, the pinnacle of which was the state of pure prayer, or apatheia, where the soul attained mastery over the passions and could exist in a state of pure peace. While in this state, the monk was said to see a sapphire light – the pure light of God, which indicated fulfilment, that is, direct contemplation of God.
This state of pure prayer took years of training and practice to attain in three distinct stages. The first stage of training for novice monks was a purification process. The monk might spend years training their mind and soul to overcome distracting thoughts, before progressing to the second stage. Evagrius wrote The Praktikos in which he detailed the eight distracting thoughts, the logismoi, as a training manual for the novice monk to help with this first stage of the spiritual journey.
Evagrius had a robust belief in angels and demons, who were also considered to be fallen intelligences. I thought making a few points about his view of demons might be of interest. In our world, knowledge of demons is subject to the distortions of popular culture and are commonly rationalised as mental illness. But demons are referenced in scripture and were taken quite seriously in early church times. For Evagrius, a demon was a real being with a life of its own. Like humans, Evagrius understood demons to be an intelligence that had fallen away from God. But demons bore a greater guilt in the original negligence, they existed on a lower rung in the created order and were of lesser intelligence. In Evagrius’s world view, demons were only a problem if you listened to them, similar to taking advice from an ill informed person that might land you in trouble. (like anti vaxxers). He did not consider demons to have the power to posses a human heart as the church taught in later generations. For Evagrius, only Christ had the power to know the human heart, not the Devil.
For the monk at prayer, not all of the logismoi, or distracting thoughts were considered to be demonic. But the thoughts of vainglory and pride, were demonic because they had the capacity to lead the monk away from their reliance on Christ. Evagrius taught the chief defence of the monk in this situation therefore was to know what to say in response with a rational thought. He even wrote a book, “Anti-rhetikos” which literally means – “talking back”, the book contains scriptural references the monk can draw on to rebut these demonic thoughts while he is at prayer. The monk’s antidote to pride for example was to acknowledge that Christ had made his existence, his peace and his life in the desert possible, and to give thanks for that.
For the monk at prayer, vainglory might creep into his thoughts as a temptation to think of himself as a spiritual giant. He might be tempted to imagine the spiritual gifts and powers he might offer to meet the desperate needs of the sick, offering spiritual direction or advice to those who came asking. Or, in a further extension of this fantasy, the monk might indulge in a scenario where because of these extraordinary gifts, he might be asked to be ordained to the priesthood, and, naturally, the monk would modestly refuse, but ultimately he would be forcibly led away and pushed into ordination!
It’s such a typically human fantasy! I have an innocent version of this drama, a few years ago while preparing meat and three veg for dinner, I would pretend I was in fact a Masterchef! I’ve never watched Masterchef, I’ve only seen the ads. But there was something fun about pretending to be an elite cook who could turn a mundane meal into to a culinary masterpiece! The dream naturally also included a TV deal and book, on the basis of my belief I could transform a lamb chop and a potato into a sensation!
Evagrius recognised the root of vainglory as a hunger for recognition. Vainglory is an old word that is rarely used today, but we recognise it when we see it, and we see it everywhere! Vainglory is a literal translation into English of the Greek word, kenodoxia, which means empty opinion, fame or reputation. The most ready translation is conceit, an excessive appraisal of ones own abilities. Vanity bears a close relationship to pride, the final and most toxic noxious thought that I’ll explore next week. Pride stems from the belief in self reliance, a turning away from and belief we no longer need God. Vainglory is closely related to pride, when we appraise ourselves to be something other than we actually are, then seek external approval to validate our self opinion. We are ultimately left unsatisfied, because we seek love from a fleeting source that does not last, hence the emptiness of vanity. The real peace, the real source of satisfaction, comes only from the love of God. (refer to painting in pew sheet).
Today’s gospel reading clearly illustrates this thought pattern – through the story of the self proclaimed perfect pharisee and the humble tax collector. The pharisee exalts himself before God, believing though his pious actions that he has earned his worth. In doing so, the Pharisee has locked into his self a belief that it is through his own efforts, not God working though him, that he is worthy. He has turned away from reliance of God. In truth however, the justified person in God’s eyes was the tax collector – who presented his whole self to God, proclaimed his flaws, and sought mercy on his imperfection. It was the tax collector’s unconditional reliance on God, not his own efforts, that saves him.
When we look at popular culture in the western world, vainglory is more than a virtue, it’s an industry, placing pressure particularly on the young to buy to be beautiful in to this world. Social media thrives on perfect people exhorting a perfect life. The quest for physical perfection in the Western World drives entire industries, the fitness industry, health, beauty and plastic surgery. While wanting to live a healthy life and present as our best selves is a positive attribute, when life choices lead away from honest self appraisal and becomes obsessive or escapist we realise there is a problem. We’ve all seen the photos of overdone plastic surgery, may know an exercise addict or fashion tragic. When life begins to narrow in on “the thing”, that we lose perspective of the broader picture, that we loose touch with that deeper connection with the living God that is the only thing that will ultimately satisfy or bring peace in our lives.
Evagrius was no stranger to vainglory, in his younger days he reputedly loved to wear the latest fashion and seek admiration. It took a deep illness to tear him away from that life before he finally said yes to joining the peasants in the desert to pursue a life of prayer and ultimately contemplative knowledge of God. But it was only by taking that path, that at first seemed so hard, that Evagrius found the path to real and lasting peace – in seeking God’s mercy and relying on God’s grace. May we too follow the call on our lives to listen honestly and humbly to Gods call, to place our gaze not on how we want others to see us, but to listen deeply to our hearts and respond to God’s will for our lives for this time and place. Amen
References
Tilby A (2009) The Seven Deadly Sins: Their Origin in the Spiritual Teaching of Evagrius the Hermit, SPCK, London.
Bamberger, J. E. The Praktikos: Chapters on Prayer. Kalamazoo, Cistercian Publications, 1981, lxxx
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