Evagrius the Solitary: Keep Powerful Guard Over Your Memory Monday, Jun 4 2012

If you long to pray, renounce everything at once (cf. Lk 14:33) so that you may inherit all.

Pray [1] first, for purification from the passions;

[2] and second, for deliverance from ignorance and forgetfulness;

[3] and third, for deliverance from all temptation and abandonment.

In your prayer seek only righteousness and the kingdom, namely, virtue and knowledge; and all the rest will be added unto you (Mt 6:33).

It is just to pray not only for your own purification, but also to pray for your own kindred, so as to imitate the angelic way.

[...] Whether you pray with brothers or by yourself, struggle to pray not only in the customary way, but also with perception.

Perception in prayer is concentration (sunnoia), with reverence and compunction and distress of soul, as you confess your failures with silent groans.

If the intellect (nous) is still staring around at the time of prayer, it does not yet know how to pray as a monk; it is still a secular, decorating the exterior tabernacle (cf. Mt 23:27).

When you pray, keep powerful guard over your memory: in this way, instead of placing its own passions before you, it will, instead, move you to the knowledge that you stand before God.

For the nous is easily, naturally disarmed and plundered by the memory at the time of prayer.

When you are praying the memory brings you fantasies of either: [1] ancient issues; [2] or new worries; [3] or the face of one who has distressed you.

The demon is very malignant towards any person who prays, and it employs every means to defeat his purpose.

It does not cease [1] moving thoughts (noemata) of matters through the memory and [2] stirring up all the passions through the flesh, so as to be able to impede his excellent course and his departure to God.

When, despite all his efforts, the malevolent demon is unable to hinder the prayer of one who is earnest, it lets up for a time and then takes its revenge when he finishes praying. It either:

[1] enflames him with anger, thus ruining the excellent state that, through prayer, has been welded together in him;

[2] or it entices him to some irrational pleasure and so commits an outrage on the nous.

Having prayed properly, expect what is improper; and stand courageously to keep guard over your harvest.

Indeed from the beginning you were assigned this: namely, to work and keep guard (Gen. 2:15).  So do not leave your work unguarded after your labor, otherwise you do not receive any benefit from praying.

Evagrius Ponticus (345-399): On Prayer, 37-49, translated by Luke Dysinger OSB.

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Evagrius the Solitary: If You are able to Endure Patiently, You will Always Pray with Joy Tuesday, Oct 11 2011

(NB, in Greek-speaking theology, nous [together with the adjective noetic] refers to understanding, the heart, the eye of the heart, with connotations of vision and contemplation.)

If you desire to pray as you ought, do not sadden any soul, otherwise you are running in vain (cf. Gal 2:2, Phil 2:16).

“Leave your gift,” it says, before the altar, and first go away and be reconciled to your brother; (Mt 5:24) and after that you will be able to pray without disturbance.

For memory of injury blinds the mind of one who prays, and darkens his prayers.

Those who heap up sorrow and memory of injury within themselves, and then expect to pray, are like people who draw water and pour it into a perforated wine-jar.

If you are able to endure patiently, you will always pray with joy.

[...] When on occasion an angel stands for us, then all who stand against us immediately vanish, and the nous is found greatly relieved, praying soundly.

But at other times, when the usual battle is raging against us, the nous lashes out and is not permitted any concessions; for it has been prematurely aroused by the various passions.

Nevertheless, if it goes on seeking, it will find, and if it knocks vigorously, the door will be opened (Mt 7:7).

Do not pray that what you will should be done, because your will is not in full harmony with the will of God. Pray instead as you were taught, saying, Let your will be done in me (cf Mt 6:10, 24:2).

And in all matters ask of him in this way that his will be done.  He wills only what is good and profitable for the soul; but that is not always what you seek.

I have often prayed, requesting that something I thought was good for me be done for me, insisting on my request, and irrationally attempting to force God’s will.

And thus I did not leave it to him who knows what is profitable to arrange (cf 1Cor 10:23).

And when I eventually received what I asked for, I was very sorry I had asked for my own choice; for the matter did not turn out as I had imagined.

[...] Do not become distressed if you do not receive at once from God your request; he wishes to benefit you even more as you continue steadfastly in prayer (Rom 12:12).   For what is higher than enjoying conversation with God and being taken up with conversational intercourse with him?

Undistracted prayer is the highest noetic activity of the nous.

Prayer is the ascent of the nous to God.

Evagrius Ponticus (345-399): On Prayer, 21-36, translated by Luke Dysinger OSB.

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Evagrius the Solitary: Prayer is Intimate Conversation of the “Nous” with God Tuesday, Sep 20 2011

Prayer is intimate conversation of the nous (intellect) with God.

So then, what stable state must the nous possess to be able to stretch out unalterably toward its own Master and converse with him without any intermediary?

If Moses was hindered when he attempted to approach the bush burning on earth, until he had taken off the shoes from his feet (Exod. 3:2-5), do you not think that, if you wish to both see the One who is above every concept and perception and to converse with him, you should cast away from yourself every impassioned mental concept (noema)?

First of all pray that you may receive tears, so that by means of sorrow (penthos) you may be able to calm the wildness within your soul; and by confessing your iniquity to the Lord, obtain forgiveness from him.

Make use of tears to realize every petition, for it delights your Master to receive prayer offered with tears.

Even if you weep rivers of tears at your prayer, on no account be inwardly haughty, as if you were superior to others.

For your prayer has received this help so that you may be able to more easily confess your sins and propitiate the Lord by means of tears.

So do not turn into passion the antidote to passions, lest you anger all the more the One who gave you this grace.

[...] Stand patiently toiling, and pray well-toned, and put to flight the assaults of anxieties an [tempting thoughts: they disturb and trouble you in order to make you relax your tone.

 When the demons see that you are eager to truly pray, they insinuate mental concepts (noemata) of certain affairs that seem to demand attention.

And within a short time they arouse the memory of these things and move the nous to seek them out. And failing to find them, it becomes very sorrowful and disheartened.

Then when the nous stands for prayer, the demons remind it of the matters it had sought and remembered, so as to make it halfheartedly seek knowledge of them and thus lose the fruitfulness of prayer.

Exert your nous to stand at the time of prayer [as if] deaf and dumb, and [then] you will be able to pray.

Whenever you encounter temptation, contradiction, or yearning; or when indignation (thumos) moves you to take revenge on your opponent or to break out yelling.

Remember prayer and the judgment that attends on prayer, and immediately the unruly movement within you will be quieted.

Evagrius the Solitary (345-399): On Prayer, 3-12, translated by Luke Dysinger OSB.

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