Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus

Name: Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus
Author: Robert E. Sinkewicz

Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus is a work by Robert E. Sinkewicz (2003).

Core claims

Evagrius’ definition of prayer as “the rejection of mental images” (ἀπόθεσις νοημάτων) is not an anti-intellectual move but a radicalization of Aristotelian epistemology that converges functionally with the Desert Fathers’ “cutting off the will” — collapsing the supposed divide between “intellectual” and “voluntary” spiritualities.
The Platonic slogan μελέτη τοῦ θανάτου (“practice of death”) underwent a decisive metamorphosis in Evagrius and Clement of Alexandria: detached from its metaphysical scaffolding, it became a portable ascetic technology whose Christian users could simultaneously condemn Plato and enact his program.
Sinkewicz’s translation of Evagrius’ Greek Ascetic Corpus is the indispensable substrate for understanding how John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent operates — not as a synthesis of Evagrian and Macarian “schools” but as an existential stitching-together of the human person that ascetic analysis had dissected.

How does Evagrius’ phenomenology of the eight λογισμοί as cognitive-affective processes compare to Gabor Maté’s account of addiction as the displacement of authentic need in In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts?
In what ways does Evagrius’ concept of ἀπάθεια as the “beginning of love” challenge or complement James Hillman’s critique of the ego’s drive toward emotional control in Re-Visioning Psychology?
How does the Evagrian definition of prayer as ἀπόθεσις νοημάτων (“rejection of mental images”) relate to Jung’s account of the transcendent function, where the suspension of directed thinking enables the emergence of symbolic meaning in The Transcendent Function?