Formația clasicistă a unui autor patristic: Evagrie Ponticul

Abstract

This study traces the scholarly context in which one of the great pa­tristic figures of Christian antiquity was formed: Evagrius Ponticus. Bio­gra­phical data on this author are extremely scarce and, therefore, in re­con­structing the picture of Evagrius’ intellectual formation, information from a wide variety of sources is used. In this way, the study succeeds in placing Evagrius in the general context of classical Greek paideia, showing how his many connections with pagan teachers of rhetoric and philosophy, as well as with the great theologians of the time, succeeded in imprinting on Evagrius’ thought the characteristic stamp of a classical education impregnated with the Christian ethos. It was with this education that Evagrius left, in the last part of his life, for the Egyptian desert, where he used all his intellectual endowment to create a system that has become a classic in Eastern monastic theology.