1 May, 2023
We are deeply honoured to welcome Professor Robin Darling Young, Associate Professor of Church History at Catholic University of America, USA, to lead a session of the International Interfaith Reading Group on Eastern Christianity in Interfaith Contexts.
Here are the details of this fascinating session.
Title: Wrestling with Calculating-Thoughts: Mental Training according to Evagrius of Pontus
Abstract: Evagrius of Pontus (d. 399) is well known for his speculative interpretation of Christian philosophy, particularly in the Gnostic Trilogy. His instructions to praktikoi, those beginning monastic practice, is the most familiar of his works, and has been translated numerous times. Yet Evagrius’ careful diagnosis of mental functioning and prescriptive cures, under the discipline of attention and observation (prosochē, theōria), needs careful exploration — particularly since it overlaps with the work of the earlier Neoplatonist philosopher hostile to Christians, Porphyry of Tyre. I will provide several sections of Evagrius’ Peri Logismōn, which I translate On Calculating Thoughts, in order to consider Evagrius’ understanding, and his remedies. It should be noted that, as a student of Origen and Clement, Evagrius did not distinguish between male and female capacities at the level of observation and prayer.
Speaker: Professor Robin Darling Young, Associate Professor of Church History at Catholic University of America, USA.
Speaker’s biography: Robin Darling Young (BA, Mary Washington College; MA, PhD, University of Chicago) is Associate Professor of Spirituality. She has published and lectured widely on topics in the history of early Christianity and its thought, including the areas of scriptural interpretation, the history of asceticism and monastic thought, and the Christian cultures of ancient Syria and Armenia.
Professor Darling Young is currently preparing an annotated translation of the Letters of Evagrius of Pontus from the surviving Syriac translation for the Fathers of the Church series (CUA Press), and directing a translation team that will produce English translations from the Greek texts and Syriac translations of the same author’s Gnostic Trilogy (Praktikos, Gnostikos, Kephalaia Gnostika) for Oxford University Press.
Chair: Professor Sebastian Brock FBA, University of Oxford, UK
Date: 1 May, 2023
Time: 17:00-18:00 BST | 9:00-10:00 PDT | 12:00-13:00 EDT
Venue: online
After registering, you will receive a Zoom email containing information about joining the meeting. If you do not see the Zoom email in your inbox, please, check your spam folder.
If you would like to join the Eastern Christianity in Interfaith Contexts Reading Group, please sign up here.
Related Sessions
- The Manuscript Project at the Coptic Monastery of St Paul the Hermit at the Red Sea, Egypt
- A Jew Reads the Gospels in Syriac: Azariah de Rossi’s Critique of the Vulgate (1577)
- Setting the Stage: The Rose of Performance in Studying Late Ancient Hymnody
- The Miracle of Pilgrimage: A Coptic Journey to the Holy Land During the Ottoman Period
- Nikos Kazantzakis and Orthodox Christianity
- Ephrem the Syrian and a New Beginning in Syriac Poetry
- Mary’s Ordeal: A Syriac Narrative Poem on Many and Joseph
- Resurrection of the Human Body according to John of Dara’s Mimro I:4
- Returning the Ticket: God and Evil in the Brothers Karamazov
- Signs of Miraculousness: The Inimitability of Jacob of Serugh’s Teaching
- Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God
- Enoch and the Fallen Angels in the Ethiopian Tradition
- Narsai on the Virgin Mary
- ‘Conception by ear’ and Redemption of the Human Sensorium in Ephrem’s Thirty-fifth Madrasha on the Church
- From Edessa to South Arabia and Back: The Syriac Story of Bishop Paul and Priest John and Models of Sanctity in the Medieval Middle East
- Wrestling with Calculating-Thoughts: Mental Training according to Evagrius of Pontus
- An Anonymous Syriac Dialogue between Mary and the Angel
- Dadisho of Qatar: Questioning the Desert Fathers
- George the Athonite on Matters of Faith and Rite, According to the Life of St George the Hagiorite
- Temple, Shekhinah and Prayer in Isaac of Nineveh’s III.VIII
- St. Ephrem’s Commentary on Genesis Ch.3
- 🕯️Alexander Schmemann on Theotokos vis-à-vis Kali a Hindu Mother Goddess
- The Opening Prayers of Saint Gregory of Narek’s Book of Lamentations
- Commemorating the saints at Turfan: Mart Shir and Mar Barshabba
- Jacob of Sarug on the Canaanite Woman (Mt 15:21-28, Mk 7:24-30): Biblical Storytelling and Models of Faith
- The Paterik of the Kyivan Caves Monastery: Monk Polikarp in Discourse 14
- Sarah and the Akedah: a Syriac Narrative Poem on Genesis 22
- Matta el-Meskin/Matthew the Poor: a ‘Contemporary Desert Father’ on Christian Unity
- Epistolary Style in Coptic Letters from the Late Third Century to the Early Fifth Century
- Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras: an Orthodox Dialogue with Islam
