We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2023
This chapter explores Evagrius of Pontus’ contribution to a uniquely Christian construction of the human being as knowing subject and known object. Evagrius includes distress (λύπη) among the ‘Eight Evil Thoughts’. Evagrius, following Paul, distinguishes between ‘worldly’ or ‘demonic’ λύπη and godly λύπη. This chapter probes this distinction in context of ancient passion-lists, which create affective lexica and cultural scripts for the articulation and management of emotions. In them λύπη is a deleterious emotion and an impediment to proper cognition. Evagrius emulates these lists but modifies their logic: he replaces classical with biblical exemplars, and he inserts the Pauline distinction between godly and worldly λύπη. Evagrius thus differentiates between positive and negative emotion on the basis of cause or intentional object. This results in λύπη becoming a valid dimension of human knowing, while creating a new need for a hermeneutic of λύπη and organisation of human emotion and knowledge.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
