Abstract
This contribution investigates late antique ascetic writings for a phenomenological analysis of the heart. The ancient Christian desert ascetics made it their goal to become intensely familiar with the movements of their hearts so as to gain control over their thoughts and passions and to purify the heart from anything distracting them from their pursuit of holiness. They developed an extensive and cohesive tradition of advice and models for such self-understanding and for guidance of the movements of the heart that may well be called proto-phenomenological in character. Although they had no philosophical goals in the contemporary sense of the term, their practices of careful analysis of the phenomena appearing to them and their advice about how to handle them display definite phenomenological characteristics. The contribution examines the language about the heart in this literature, especially its focus on thought and affect, and draws out its implications for phenomenological analysis today.
He who stays in the desert in hēsychia is released from fighting on three fronts: hearing, speaking, and seeing. He has only one to contend with: the heart.
Sayings of the Desert Fathers
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Notes
- 1.
Cited in William Harmless, Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 468, 469. See also Alexander Ryrie, The Desert Movement: Fresh Perspectives on the Spirituality of the Desert (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2011); Richard Finn, Asceticism in the Graeco-Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978). There is also a very helpful introduction in Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), xvii-xi. All references to Evagrius are from this work, cited first by his own title and section number, then providing the page number to the English translation. (Similar conventions will be followed for other patristic sources that compile several ancient texts.)
- 2.
These were called coenobia —what later became monasteries, thus the distinction between anchorite and cenobitic monasticism; I use “ascetic” here to refer primarily to the anchorite version in lower/northern Egypt. For cenobitic monasticism, see Philip Rousseau, Pachomius: The Making of a Community in Fourth-Century Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) and Harmless, Desert Christians, 115–163. For the main primary sources, consult Pachomian Koinonia, 3 vols., trans. Armand Veilleux (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications Inc., 1980, 1981, 1982).
- 3.
On the role of women in asceticism, see Harmless, Desert Christians, 24, 440–45; Ryrie, Desert Movement, 99–117; Verna Harrison, “Women in the Philokalia?” in The Philokalia , ed. Brock Bingaman and Bradley Nassif (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 252–61. There are several interesting stories about transvestite ascetics. Two representative stories (of Athanasia and Anastasia) are included in the accounts of Daniel of Scetis. See Witness to Holiness: Abba Daniel of Scetis, ed. Tim Vivian (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2008), which collects the various accounts about him in Greek, Coptic, Ethiopic, Syriac, Armenian, Latin, Old Church Slavonic, and Arabic sources.
- 4.
“Give me a word” is the phrase often employed for the advice sought from the ascetic guides. See Harmless, Desert Christians, 171–73.
- 5.
The monastic communities in Sketis, Kellia, and Nitria (all in lower/northern Egypt) are the most famous and most well-known, but there were desert ascetics (both anchorite and coenobitic) in other areas as well (such as upper Egypt, Gaza, Judea, and Syria). See Ryrie, Desert Movement, for discussion of some of these less known versions. See also Journeying into God: Seven Early Monastic Lives, trans. Tim Vivian (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), which includes both Egyptian and Palestinian lives, including that of one woman: Syncletia of Palestine.
- 6.
The Lives of the Desert Fathers: The Historia Monachorum in Aegypto, trans. Norman Russell (Mowbray: Cistercian Publications, 1980). See also John Moschus, The Spiritual Meadow, trans. John Wortley (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1992); the Greek text can be found in SC 12.
- 7.
Palladius of Aspuna, The Lausiac History, trans. John Wortley (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2015).
- 8.
The Book of the Elders: Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Systematic Collection, trans. John Wortley (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2012). This is an English translation of the Greek in the three volumes (SC 387, 474, 498) of the Sources chrétiennes series of the Apophthegmata patrum. A slightly different collection was translated by Benedicta Ward as The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Mowbray: Cistercian Publications, 1975). [The Wortley translation will be used in this paper.] For a critique of the “lure of Egypt,” see Andrew Louth, “On Being a Christian in Late Antiquity: St Basil the Great between the Desert and the City,” in Christians Shaping Identity from the Roman Empire to Byzantium, ed. Geoffrey D. Dunn and Wendy Mayer (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 85–89.
- 9.
John Cassian, The Conferences, trans. Boniface Ramsey (New York: Paulist Press, 1997) and idem, The Institutes, trans. Boniface Ramsey (New York: Newman Press, 2000). The Latin texts can be found in SC 109, 42, 54, and 64.
- 10.
Abba Isaiah of Scetis, Ascetic Discourses, trans. John Chryssavgis and Robert Penkett (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2002).
- 11.
Mark the Monk, Counsels on the Spiritual Life, trans. Tim Vivian (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009). For the Greek texts, see SC 445 and 455.
- 12.
Barsanuphius and John: Letters, trans. John Chryssavgis, 2 vols. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006, 2007). A shorter selection was published earlier as Letters from the Desert. Barsanuphius and John: A Selection of Questions and Responses, trans. John Chryssavgis (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003). For the Greek texts, see SC 426, 427, 450, 451, and 468. For a study of the letters that focuses especially on the structure of monastic authority, see Jennifer L. Hevelone-Harper, Disciples of the Desert: Monks, Laity, and Spiritual Authority in Sixth-Century Gaza (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).
- 13.
Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses and Sayings, trans. Eric P. Wheeler (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1977). For the Greek text, see SC 92.
- 14.
John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1978).
- 15.
The Philokalia: The Complete Text, 4 vols., trans. G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber & Faber, 1979, 1981, 1984, 1995). (The first volume of the Philokalia includes texts by or selections from Evagrius, Cassian, Mark the Monk, and Isaiah the Solitary, thus duplicating some of the texts already mentioned.) There is also extensive Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and Georgian literature, but for the sake of coherence I will focus here primarily on the Greek sources, with some supplementary references to Cassian.
- 16.
On the Origenist controversy, see Harmless, Desert Christians, 359–63. Cassian gives a personal account at the start of his Tenth Conference.
- 17.
Biblical passages are indeed important inspirations for use of heart language. The most crucial and most often cited verse is Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Purity of heart is thus seen as what makes possible the divine vision, which is the singular goal of the ascetic life. This is often paired with the psalmist’s prayer for a pure heart (Ps. 51) and may be one of the reasons why the heart appears most frequently in discussions of contrition or repentance. Other important passages include those that counsel vigilance in regard to the heart: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Prov. 4:23) and “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life” (Lk. 21:34). Such guarding is possible through constant prayer: “Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart” (Lk. 18:1). A link is implied by several passages between the thoughts inside the heart and the actions outside it: “The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of the evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks” (Lk. 6:45). Similar passages can be found in Matt. 12:34–35 and Matt. 15:17–20: “Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile” (Matt. 15:17–20). Matt. 9:4 asks: “Why do you think evil in your heart?” while Matt. 6:21 emphasizes that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” There is also the repeated suggestion that things might happen in the heart before they are manifested in action: “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28). Writers also often appeal to the prophetic promise of a new heart: “I will give them a new heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them” (Ez. 11:19–20). In general, both the Hebrew tradition and early Christian texts, such as the Gospels, think of the heart as the center of the person and use such language with far more frequency than Greek language of soul or mind, yet the ascetic literature is also deeply shaped by Greek psychological and cosmological assumptions that are adjusted only when they are in explicit contradiction with theological convictions. Otherwise, the biblical language is simply inserted into the more technical Greek discussion, which accounts partly for the interchangeability of the language of heart and mind/intellect. On the broader role of Scripture in ascetic discourse, see Elizabeth A. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).
- 18.
The essays in Purity of Heart in Early Ascetic and Monastic Literature, ed. Harriet A. Luckman and Linda Kulzer (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1999) already challenge this stereotype, especially the essay on Evagrius (141–59).
- 19.
This is the reason why this literature is quite different; the language of the heart is far more frequently used in Syriac because it employs it like the Hebrew or Aramaic does, to which it is closely related.
- 20.
Nemesius of Emesa, On the Nature of Man, trans. R. W. Sharples and P. J. van der Eijk (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008), Sections 2 (p. 56), 16 (pp. 129–31), 20 (pp. 141–42), 23 (p. 146) and 24 (p. 150).
- 21.
That is, he speaks of the harmful thoughts of the heart, describes the heart as the locus of thoughts and imaginations, sees affects as arising from the heart, and counsels purity of heart as the stillness of apatheia. One must watch over the heart, judge the thoughts of the heart, and not hand the heart over to the consideration of material things or other distracting reflections. He says all of these things also about the mind. The terminology of the heart is almost entirely absent from his most famous text, The Praktikos, which is what may have given rise to the facile claim that he does not use terminology of the heart. It is far more prominent in To Eulogios and in On Thoughts, and is mentioned in other texts as well.
- 22.
Climacus, Step 38.61 of Ladder of Divine Ascent, 220.
- 23.
“On Watchfulness and Holiness,” Philokalia I, 177.
- 24.
“Twenty-Four Discourses, Book II,” Philokalia III, 269; emphasis added. Language of the heart in the Byzantine tradition explodes after the Palamite controversy, which is therefore deliberately set aside here.
- 25.
Cassian compares the workings of the mind to the turning of a water mill: “In the same way [as is the case for a water wheel] the mind cannot be free from agitating thoughts during the trials of the present life, since it is spinning around in the torrents of the trials that overwhelm it from all sides. But whether these will be either refused or admitted into itself will be the result of its own zeal and diligence.” Cassian, Conferences I.XVIII.2; 57.
- 26.
Especially in the early stages, the ascetics are told repeatedly to refrain from reactions, to let things be, to withdraw into their cells, and to remain there; “your cell will teach you everything” is a common phrase. It is first attributed to Abba Moses who is reported to have said: “Go and stay in a cell; your cell will teach you everything.” Book of the Elders, 19. To focus their minds and hearts, they deliberately set aside their participation in regular life in the most radical manner, but also their involvement in the very thoughts themselves. The goal is to be able to contemplate a thought or emotion or imagination that might arrive without jumping into it or participating in it, to consider and evaluate it without immediately being “within” it. It is clear, however, that despite all their warfare against the passions, the ascetics do not counsel a total disregard for the body. Already the Apophthegmata counsel: “Our body is like a garment: if you take care of it, it holds up; but if you neglect it, it wastes away” (Book of the Elders, 79). Such sage advice is often reiterated by other thinkers. Isaiah of Scetis, for example, says: “Adorning the body is the destruction of the soul, but caring for it with godly fear is good.” Discourse 16; Ascetic Discourses, 123. On the topic of the body, see also Patricia Cox Miller, The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009) and Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).
- 27.
Natalie Depraz has actually argued for several “reductions” in the ascetic and philokalic literature, corresponding to Husserl’s various reductions. She contends that the practice of the prayer of the heart, especially in its bodily techniques, constitutes a kind of reduction, a gesture of epochē or of placing false habits and prejudices into parentheses. The ascetic stages of vigilance, stillness, and attention, she suggests, map onto Husserl’s insistence on the turn of the gaze or psychological reduction, the Heideggerian notion of Gelassenheit, and the maintaining grasp of the phenomenological epochē. See her Le corps glorieux. Phénoménologie pratique de la Philocalie des pères du désert et des pères de l’église (Louvain: Peeters, 2008), 32–37. While I’m not sure that exact equivalences can be established here, the overall thrust and impetus of the practice of suspension does seem parallel to phenomenological bracketing or setting aside of distractions. Although hēsychia is clearly not identical to the Husserlian phenomenological and transcendental reductions, I think it is considerably closer than various questionable applications of the terminology of epochē in current phenomenology. In the case of the desert ascetics, the bracketing does actually entail a turning away from a natural attitude, without doubting the existence of the world, but suspending its relevance for the ascetic’s new focus. Interestingly, they actually often interpret this new attitude as ultimately more “natural,” because it returns the heart to its original condition. In either case, it involves a detachment from the normal lifeworld and its occupations for a singular, rigorous, deliberate attention to the movements of consciousness, an examination of one’s awareness and experience. In that respect, it is considerably closer to the thrust of Husserl’s initial formulations than are Marion’s, Kearney’s, or Falque’s more recent versions.
- 28.
This is vividly illustrated by the many depictions of stages or patterns, of which probably the most well-known is Climacus’ “Ladder of Divine Ascent,” often pictured on the outside (or sometimes inside) walls of monasteries. Climacus’ famous text, drawing on the imagery of Jacob’s dream of a ladder reaching to heaven, depicts the spiritual life as a ladder with 30 rungs or steps, one for each year of Christ’s purported life on earth. For Climacus the process begins with renunciation, detachment, repentance, and contrition, then moves to the combatting of vices like slander, lying, despondency, gluttony, and avarice, culminating in discernment, stillness, prayer, and love. This is a manual for climbing the ladder, for pursuing the different steps, replete with warnings about falling off or stumbling, vividly illustrated in many icons and paintings by the demons trying to pull or push the climbing ascetic off the ladder in various ways. Climacus’ text begins with a prologue, presumably added by a later editor, that claims that the book serves as a guide for pursuing this path safely. It ends with an exhortation to ascend the ladder and work diligently toward its goal.
- 29.
See the helpful description of this in Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor (London: Routledge, 1996), 35–38, where he explains the stages in Evagrius and their alteration by Maximus. See also Blowers’ and Aquino’s essays in Bingaman & Nassif, The Philokalia, 216–29, 240–51.
- 30.
Andrew Louth says of Evagrius: “The point of this analysis is diagnostic: if one understands what kind of passion one is suffering from, then one can begin to learn how to deal with it.” He contends that this analysis “manifests considerable psychological subtlety.” Louth, Maximus, 36–37.
- 31.
Husserl himself described the epochē at times as a kind of metanoia or radical turning around and urged a fundamental transformation of the self: “Perhaps it will even become manifest that the total phenomenological attitude and the epochē belonging to it are initially essentially called to a complete personal transformation, which might at first be compared to a religious turn-around [Umkehrung], but which beyond this harbors within it the significance of the greatest existential transformation assigned to humanity as humanity.” Husserl, Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, §35; Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 8 (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1992), 140. Many of his students did, in fact, develop strong religious commitments of various sorts and there are reports of Husserl likening the phenomenological pursuit to a kind of quasi-religious commitment of search for ultimate truth. I’m not sure what to make of these reports, nor do I wish to claim that the ascetics have the same goals in mind as phenomenologists do, but I do think there are intriguing parallels in methodology. More broadly (and at the same time more narrowly), I would suggest that the careful and penetrating “look” at emotions and affects in a “stilled” heart, as undertaken by the ascetic literature, provides us with much insight into the movements of human consciousness, including the phenomenality of affect and corporeality. I would want to distinguish this claim, however, from the sort of assertions made by Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, or Emmanuel Falque. I do not think that the ascetics are doing phenomenology before Husserl and can serve as some sort of correction for it. Rather, the ascetic examination of the movements of the heart and mind that are undertaken for their own, quite different, purposes, are sufficiently rigorous and disciplined to provide us with insight into certain states of consciousness associated with religious experience, but also with broader human experience as it is either exposed to such thoughts and emotions in other contexts or tries to discipline heart and mind in similar ways but for other reasons. Ascetic practices are not characteristic only of religious traditions, although they are maybe more deliberately practiced there and thus can make these particular movements of consciousness more transparent than is true of other forms of asceticism, as for example of athleticism, although these broader claims cannot be pursued in this context.
- 32.
The Sayings of the Desert Fathers often refer to the thoughts of the heart in neutral fashion; the heart is simply the locus where thinking happens (e.g. Book of the Elders, 308).
- 33.
Letters from the Desert, 63. The translators of the Philokalia indicate in their glossary that logismos refers to thought provoked either by the demons or inspired by God, but can also mean conceptual image “intermediate between fantasy and an abstract concept” (Philokalia I, 367). Sinkewicz argues that Evagrius often uses “thought,” “demon,” and “evil spirit” interchangeably (Ascetic Corpus, xxv). Louth says that logismos in Evagrius means something “like a train of thoughts set in motion by one or more of the passions” (Maximus, 36). See also Harmless, Desert Christians, 229–32, 263–64.
- 34.
“He who has made his heart pure will not only know the inner logoi of what is sequent to God and dependent on Him, but, after passing through all of them, he will in some measure see God Himself, which is the supreme consummation of all blessings.” Maximos the Confessor, “Second Century on Theology,” Philokalia II, 158.
- 35.
Diadochus speaks of the “outward organs of perception” of the heart. “On Spiritual Knowledge,” Philokalia I, 285.
- 36.
Book of the Elders, 157, 167.
- 37.
Book of the Elders, 174.
- 38.
Mark the Monk, On the Spiritual Law 141–42; Counsels on the Spiritual Life, 105.
- 39.
Evagrius, On Thoughts 23; Ascetic Corpus, 169. For more on mental representations (noēmata), see Sect. 41 in the same treatise (ibid., 180–81).
- 40.
Book of the Elders, 222.
- 41.
“Texts on Watchfulness,” Philokalia III, 29. This description of the stages, including the affirmation that the mere arising of a thought or temptation is without sin because it comes without our doing, is fairly uniform throughout the ascetic tradition. A more detailed account, traditionally attributed to John of Damascus, but of undetermined authorship, summarizes the matter as follows: “You should also learn to distinguish the impassioned thoughts that promote every sin. The thoughts that encompass all evil are eight in number: those of gluttony, unchastity, avarice, anger, dejection, listlessness, self-esteem and pride. It does not lie within our power to decide whether or not these eight thoughts are going to arise and disturb us. But to dwell on them or not to dwell on them, to excite the passions or not to excite them, does lie within our power. In this connection, we should distinguish between seven different terms: provocation, coupling, wrestling, passion, assent (which comes very close to performance), actualization and captivity. Provocation is simply a suggestion coming from the enemy, like ‘do this’ or ‘do that’, such as our Lord Himself experienced when He heard the words ‘Command that these stones become bread’ (Matt. 4:3). As we have already said, it is not within our power to prevent provocations. Coupling is the acceptance of the thought suggested by the enemy. It means dwelling on the thought and choosing deliberately to dally with it in a pleasurable manner. Passion is the state resulting from coupling with the thought provoked by the enemy; it means letting the imagination brood on the thought continually. Wrestling is the resistance offered to the impassioned thought. It may result either in our destroying the passion in the thought—that is to say, the impassioned thought—or in our assenting to it. ... Captivity is the forcible and compulsive abduction of the heart already dominated by prepossession and long habit. Assent is giving approval to the passion inherent in the thought. Actualization is putting the impassioned thought into effect once it has received our assent. If we can confront the first of these things, the provocation, in a dispassionate way, or firmly rebut it at the outset, we thereby cut off everything that comes after.” “On the Virtues and the Vices,” Philokalia II: 337–38. The English translators of the Philokalia summarize the overall insight into six stages of temptation (peirasmos): beginning with provocation (prosbolē), then momentary disturbance (pararripismos), followed by communion or coupling (homilia), assent (synkatathesis), and prepossession (prolēpsis), ultimately leading to full-blown passion (pathos). “Glossary,” Philokalia I, 366–67.
- 42.
For relevant discussions of this in Stoicism, see Margaret R. Graver, Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007); James A. Francis, Subversive Virtue: Asceticism and Authority in the Second-Century Pagan World (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995); Margaret E. Reesor, The Nature of Man in Early Stoic Philosophy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989); Albrecht Dihle, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); André-Jean Voelke, L’idée de volonté dans le Stoïcisme (Paris: PUF, 1973).
- 43.
Theodoros, “Century of Spiritual Texts” 35, Philokalia II, 20.
- 44.
Mark the Monk, On the Spiritual Law 184; Counsels on the Spiritual Life, 109.
- 45.
Diadochus of Photike, “On Spiritual Knowledge,” Philokalia I, 284.
- 46.
Ibid. Philotheus of Sinai negotiates the biblical passage in similar ways: “Texts on Watchfulness” 16, Philokalia III, 22.
- 47.
Mark the Monk, On the Spiritual Law 178; Counsels on the Spiritual Life, 109.
- 48.
The Aristotelian language of cultivating virtues or succumbing to vices by repeated action that becomes habitual is especially prominent in Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses and Sayings, 89, 131, 154, 164, 168, 174, 179–80, 188. Dorotheos also provides particularly colorful imagery for the progression from initial thought to established habit: on the one hand comparing a careless remark to a spark that is easily put out or can be fanned into a flame through successive stages of adding fuel to the fire (ibid., 150); on the other hand to a series of saplings or trees with increasing sizes that initially are easily uprooted, but if they grow large cannot be removed even by force and the involvement of several people (ibid., 174).
- 49.
Evagrius, Eulogios 15.16; Ascetic Corpus, 42.
- 50.
Evagrius, Eulogios 13.12; Ascetic Corpus, 38–39.
- 51.
“In this way, the double-tongued serpents of the thoughts hiss within the troubled workplace of the heart.” Evagrius, Eulogios 21.23; Ascetic Corpus, 49. Maximos uses the same imagery. “First Century of Various Texts” 73, Philokalia II, 181.
- 52.
Book of the Elders, 217.
- 53.
Evagrius, Foundations 7; Ascetic Corpus, 8.
- 54.
Evagrius, Exhortation to a Virgin 38; Ascetic Corpus, 134.
- 55.
Evagrius, Eulogios 9.9; Ascetic Corpus, 35; Eulogios 5.5; Ascetic Corpus, 33. The imagery of warfare is actually quite frequent: “A brother was harassed by porneia, and the warfare in his heart was like a fire burning day and night. ... [thanks to his patient endurance] repose came into his heart” (Book of the Elders, 64). For Evagrius, the heart must undergo warfare to achieve virtue (Eulogios 3.3). The demons attack the heart and try to invade it (Eulogios 7.6, 21).
- 56.
Evagrius, Eulogios 14.14; Ascetic Corpus, 41.
- 57.
Mark the Monk, Those Who Imagine That They are Justified by Works 77; Counsels on the Spiritual Life, 122. Evagrius says: “One who prays without ceasing escapes temptations; but thoughts trouble the heart of the negligent.” To Monks 37; Ascetic Corpus, 124.
- 58.
Evagrius, Eulogios 30; Ascetic Corpus, 37; To Monks 24, 27, 31; Ascetic Corpus, 124.
- 59.
Book of the Elders, 217.
- 60.
Book of the Elders, 19.
- 61.
Evagrius, On Thoughts 37; Ascetic Corpus, 179.
- 62.
Book of the Elders, 194.
- 63.
Book of the Elders, 210.
- 64.
For example, Maximos the Confessor, Fourth Century on Love 70–71, Philokalia II, 109. Maximos here also uses passages from Paul about the treasures of wisdom hidden in Christ.
- 65.
E.g. a brother asks: “If a passionate thought enters my heart, in what way should I reject it?” Letters from the Desert, 117.
- 66.
Evagrius, Eulogios 7.7; Ascetic Corpus, 34.
- 67.
Book of the Elders, 27.
- 68.
Book of the Elders, 28.
- 69.
Book of the Elders, 32.
- 70.
Book of the Elders, 34. “Just as we carry our own shadow around everywhere, so we must have weeping and sorrow for sin with us wherever we are.” Book of the Elders, 34.
- 71.
Letters from the Desert, 65, 71, 157, 185. See also Mark the Monk, Those Who Imagine That They are Justified by Works 196; Counsels on the Spiritual Life, 136.
- 72.
Letters from the Desert, 76, 110. See, similarly, Theodoros, “Century of Spiritual Texts,” Philokalia II, 29 and Isaiah of Scetis, Discourse 6; Ascetic Discourses, 78; Discourse 8; Ascetic Discourses, 94; Discourse 9; Ascetic Discourses, 96; Discourse 26; Ascetic Discourses, 218.
- 73.
Climacus, Step 7.1 of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 70.
- 74.
Climacus, Step 7.15 of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 72.
- 75.
Climacus, Step 7.32 of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 74.
- 76.
“Compunction is a perennial trial of the conscience, which brings about the cooling of the fire of the heart through mental confession.” Climacus, Step 7.2 of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 70.
- 77.
Letters from the Desert, 113.
- 78.
Letters from the Desert, 84, 109, 112, 136.
- 79.
Climacus, Step 7.65 of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 79. One should remember, however, that this is step 7 of 30!
- 80.
Mark the Monk, Those Who Imagine That They are Justified by Works 197; Counsels on the Spiritual Life, 136. Indeed, contrition is a frequent theme in his work, as it the case for countless other eastern writers, including later ones. Symeon the New Theologian especially stressed the importance of tears. See especially Discourses IV and V, although it is a theme that pervades his writings. Symeon the New Theologian, The Discourses, trans. C. J. deCatanzaro (New York: Paulist Press, 1980).
- 81.
Nemesius of Emesa, On the Nature of Man, Section 20, 141. Maximos the Confessor and John of Damascus draw on him extensively for “philosophical” topics.
- 82.
This is also characteristic of Dorotheos of Gaza who probably had medical training, is certainly familiar with Galen, was head of the infirmary at the monastery of Thavatha, and frequently employs medical imagery in his discourses. For example, he refers to the “movement of anger or resentment” as experienced in the heart: Sayings and Discourses, 115. See also especially the discourse “On Rancor or Animosity,” where he repeatedly links anger to its origin in the heart. Ibid., 149–55. Isiah of Scetis also associates anger and the heart in Discourse 8; Ascetic Discourses, 90; Discourse 10; Ascetic Discourses, 99.
- 83.
Evagrius, Eulogios 20.21; Ascetic Corpus, 47.
- 84.
Letters from the Desert, 159.
- 85.
Evagrius, On the Eight Thoughts 4.10, 4.13–16; Ascetic Corpus, 80–81.
- 86.
Book of the Elders, 322.
- 87.
Letters from the Desert, 61.
- 88.
Letters from the Desert, 199.
- 89.
Mark the Monk, Those Who Imagine That They are Justified by Works 68; Counsels on the Spiritual Life, 121.
- 90.
Cassian, Conferences I.VII.4; 46.
- 91.
Interestingly, Max Scheler links compassion to our limited ability to know another’s heart: “The consciousness that we finite humans cannot look into each other’s ‘hearts’—cannot even ascertain our own ‘heart’ fully and adequately, much less the ‘heart’ of another—is an essential element accompanying the phenomenon of any experience of compassion (and even of all spontaneous ‘love’).” Max Scheler, Wesen und Formen der Sympathie (Bern: Francke Verlag, 1973), 77. The ascetics, by contrast, did seem to think that looking into the heart of another might be possible to those especially trained in guiding other people’s hearts through much wisdom. This is why the heart must be exposed as fully as possible to the gaze of the spiritual elder or guide: “For the sake of obedience, I speak that which I have in my heart.” Letters from the Desert, 104; 106. On the heart in Scheler, see Peter H. Spader, “The Primacy of the Heart: Scheler’s Challenge to Phenomenology,” Philosophy Today 29.3–4 (1985): 223–229.
- 92.
Mark the Monk, On the Spiritual Law 27; Counsels on the Spiritual Life, 95.
- 93.
Mark the Monk, The Mind’s Advice to Its Own Soul 4; Counsels on the Spiritual Life, 181.
- 94.
Evagrius, To Monks 87; Ascetic Corpus, 128.
- 95.
Letters from the Desert, 64, 119.
- 96.
E.g. Cassian, Conferences I.VII.4; 46.
- 97.
Climacus, Step 7.43 of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 75.
- 98.
E.g. Book of the Elders, 288, 303. Dorotheos gives the imagery of a circle where God is at the center and people’s lives at the periphery; the closer to we draw to each other in love, the closer we also come to God and the reverse: “The closer they are to God, the closer they become to one another; and the closer they are to one another, the closer they become to God. ... the more we are united to our neighbor the more we are united to God.” Discourses and Sayings, 139.
- 99.
Evagrius, Eulogios 18.19; Ascetic Corpus, 44; To Monks 44–45, 58–60; Ascetic Corpus, 125, 126.
- 100.
For example: Philokalia I, 171, 195, 269, 180, 24–27, 76; II, 38; III, 16, 25, 286, 313, 338–39. The term “heart” is employed in almost every other sentence in the English translation of the discourses of Isaiah of Scetis. [Unfortunately, I was unable to confirm that this is also the case in the original language.] It is often employed as a short-hand for the person as a whole or for one’s inner intentionality.
- 101.
Cassian, Conferences I.XXII.1; 62–63.
- 102.
“A Discourse on Abba Philimon,” Philokalia II, 351.
- 103.
“On Watchfulness and Holiness,” Philokalia I, 162–63.
- 104.
Book of the Elders, 202.
- 105.
“On Watchfulness and Holiness,” Philokalia I, 163.
- 106.
“Texts on Watchfulness,” Philokalia III, 26.
- 107.
“On Guarding the Intellect,” Philokalia I, 24. The fuller edition has many such statements. To cite just one further representative one: “Examine yourself, therefore, brother, in observing your heart every day.” Discourse 24; Ascetic Discourses, 196.
- 108.
“So whatever you observe your soul wishing to do for God, do it—and watch over your heart” (Book of the Elders, 11).
- 109.
Book of the Elders, 191, 192–93, 201, 205. The whole chapter (of the English translation) is entitled “Being Ever Watchful” (189–215).
- 110.
“Discourse on Abba Philimon,” Philokalia II, 351, 348. The discourse is full of similar exhortations.
- 111.
St Hesychios the Priest, “On Watchfulness and Holiness,” Philokalia I, 182.
- 112.
Philotheos combines watchfulness and prayer: “Combine prayer with inner watchfulness, for watchfulness purifies prayer, while prayer purifies watchfulness. It is through unceasing watchfulness that we can perceive what is entering into us and can to some extent close the door against it, calling upon our Lord Jesus Christ to repel our malevolent adversaries. Attentiveness obstructs the demons by rebutting them; and Jesus, when invoked, disperses them together with all their fantasies.” “Forty Texts on Watchfulness,” Philokalia III, 26. He continues: “Be extremely strict in guarding your intellect. When you perceive an evil thought, rebut it and immediately call upon Christ to defend you” (ibid., III, 26).
- 113.
“On Watchfulness and Holiness,” Philokalia I, 171.
- 114.
Letters from the Desert, 157.
- 115.
Book of the Elders, 205.
- 116.
“On Watchfulness and Holiness,” Philokalia I, 166. This is obviously the proximate, not the ultimate goal, i.e. it is a tool for the examination of consciousness and the focusing of attention.
- 117.
“After a brief silence, he poured water into a bowl and said to them, ‘Look carefully at the water,’ for it was disturbed. Then, after a little while, he said to them again, ‘Now look carefully [and see] how the water is stilled,’ and as they looked at the water, they saw their faces as in a mirror. Then he said to them, ‘It is like that too for somebody amidst people; he cannot see his own sins for the tumult; but when he practices hēsychia, especially in the desert, then he sees his own shortcomings.” Book of the Elders, 21–22.
- 118.
Book of the Elders, 203.
- 119.
Letters from the Desert, 132.
- 120.
Evagrius, Eulogios 18.19, Ascetic Corpus, 45.
- 121.
Book of the Elders, 128. Indeed, “whoever says one thing and wickedly has another in his heart, the worship of such a person is worthless” (Book of the Elders, 150).
- 122.
Cassian, Conferences XVIII.XII; 644.
- 123.
Letters from the Desert, 118.
- 124.
Hesychios, “On Watchfulness,” Philokalia I, 163, 166, 171.
- 125.
Chrétien reminds us that for the biblical and ascetic tradition: “Far from being merely a bodily organ, the heart is the very place of our identity, of our ipseity; it is what we are most properly [le plus en propre], and thus also the place where we can strip down to who we most fully are [le plus en propre].” Jean-Louis Chrétien, Symbolique du corps (Paris: PUF, 2005), 16. The early phenomenological thinker Hedwig Conrad-Martius similarly often refers to the heart as middle or center of the person, where everything is connected and from which everything is poured out. Personhood is rooted in this core of the self. In the Metaphysical Conversations she says: “Does it not seem to you as if it would be an absurdity to speak of humans ‘without heart’? In that case, they would be without this middle into which their entire being is taken and placed, as it births, unfolds and pours itself into soul, body, and spirit. They are, as it were, centrally knotted and fastened into this center. All the ‘blood streams,’ all the paths of personal life run together in it, in order to go out again from there. The human can say, desire, and do nothing as a whole, wholly personally, that does not stem from this middle of the self, in which alone one’s whole being is posited in one. Everything else is empty, unsubstantial and in a personal sense without being.” Metaphysische Gespräche (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1921), 240 [translation forthcoming]. In her text The Human Spirit-Soul, she speaks again of the heart as the middle and core of life. Referring to Pascal, she notes that “the heart [is] the deepest source of intuitive ‘evidences’.” Geistseele des Menschen (Munich: Kösel Verlag, 1960), 76. In a different sense, in his final lectures and texts Michel Foucault suggested that early Christian asceticism (Cassian is his prime example) develops a new “technology of the self” that makes self-interpretation central: “I think that in Christianity we see the development of a much more complex technology of the self. This technology of the self maintains the difference between knowledge of being, knowledge of word, knowledge of nature, and knowledge of the self, and this knowledge of the self takes shape in the constitution of thought as a field of subjective data which are to be interpreted. And, the role of interpreter is assumed by the work of a continuous verbalization of the most imperceptible movements of the thought—that’s the reason we could say that the Christian self which is correlated to this technique is a gnosiologic self.” Foucault, “About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self: Two Lectures at Dartmouth,” Political Theory 21.2 (1993): 198–227. See the fuller account in Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France. 1981–1982, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Picador: 2005). He is probably right about practices of confession, although the analysis of self and the desire for self-understanding goes far beyond this and is more positive and more productive than Foucault acknowledges.
- 126.
Letters from the Desert, 87.
- 127.
Ibid., 132, see also 180.
- 128.
Ibid., 100.
- 129.
Book of the Elders, 270; Evagrius, To Monks 104; Ascetic Corpus, 129; Exhortation to a Virigin 33; Ascetic Corpus, 133.
- 130.
Evagrius, Exhortations 2.19; Ascetic Corpus, 221.
- 131.
Cassian, Conferences IX.II.1; 329.
- 132.
“Discourse on Abba Philimon,” Philokalia II, 353.
- 133.
Ibid., 354.
- 134.
“On Spiritual Knowledge,” Philokalia I, 280.
- 135.
“On Spiritual Knowledge,” Philokalia I, 287.
- 136.
Book of the Elders, 28. Interestingly, the presence of demons is often associated with stench. In one colorful story, a burning lamp exits the chest of the disciple with the smell of burning sulphur. Book of the Elders, 44. On the issue of smell in ascetic literature see Harvey, Scenting Salvation, especially the chapter on “stench” (201–21).
- 137.
Book of the Elders, 323. Harmless concludes his magisterial study of asceticism with a quote from Abba Agueras: “I went one day to Abba Poemen and said to him: ‘I have gone everywhere to [find somewhere to] live, but I have not found any peace. Where do you wish me to live?’ The old man had responded to him: ‘There is no longer hardly any desert in our days. Go, look for a good-sized crowd. Go live among them and conduct yourself like someone who does not exist. Say to yourself: “I’ve got no worries.” Then you will taste a royal peace.’” Desert Christians, 473.
- 138.
Book of the Elders, 329; trans. lightly modified.
- 139.
In this respect, Dorotheos of Gaza’s insight is astute, here focusing on suspicions one monk might have about another: “Suspicions are falsehoods and blind your mind. ... Nothing is more serious than suspicion, nothing brings the mind so much blindness, because if we entertain them for a while they begin to persuade us, until we are convinced that we have seen things which do not exist and never could exist.” He goes on to tell the story of a monk who “was repeatedly misled by his own suspicions; he was indeed completely convinced that each of his conjectures was a fact and that everything was always exactly as he thought and could not possibly be otherwise” even when profoundly mistaken. Discourses and Sayings, 158.
- 140.
Philokalia I, 261 (“shrine”), II, 181, 252 (workshop), III, 334 (church), III, 335 (altar), III, 337 (tomb).
- 141.
Philotheos of Sinai, “Texts on Watchfulness,” Philokalia III, 17, see also 25, 26.
- 142.
Maximos the Confessor, “Second Century on Theology,” Philokalia II, 158.
- 143.
Mark the Monk, “Concerning Holy Baptism,” Counsels on the Spiritual Life, 317.
- 144.
Chrétien has explored this beautifully for the Western tradition in his L’espace intérieur (Paris: Minuit, 2014), where he focuses on the idea of the “chamber of the heart” in Augustine and other thinkers. For other phenomenological discussions of the heart, see E. Kohak, “An Understanding Heart: Rationality, Value and Transcendental Phenomenology,” Filosoficky Casopis 49.4 (2001): 559–576; Andrew Tallon, “The Concept of the Heart in Strasser’s Phenomenology of Feeling,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 66.3 (1992): 341–360; Robert E. Wood, “The Heart in Heidegger’s Thought,” Continental Philosophy Review 48.4 (2015): 445–462.
- 145.
See also Depraz, Corps glorieux, 37–97.
- 146.
Conrad-Martius explores this in great detail in her Metaphysical Conversations.
- 147.
This is what Conrad-Martius claims in the Metaphysical Conversations: “According to the prevailing view the soul or even the spirit (or ‘consciousness’) always seems to collapse into the I as such, while the body only seems attached to the I in some external fashion, so that it seems to require a sort of transposition to see body, soul and spirit as belonging equally to the I or to see them as particular areas of configuration of the one and only I.”
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Gschwandtner, C.M. (2022). Guarding the Heart: The Phenomenality of the Heart in Early Christian Asceticism. In: Steinbock, A.J. (eds) Phenomenology and Perspectives on the Heart. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 117. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91928-3_2
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