Introduction
Ancient monasticism has been the source of many interesting and original figures. The most famous of them is, of course, Anthony of the Desert. Evagrius of Pontus, whom we take as our spiritual master here, occupies a special place among these Desert Fathers of the 4th century.
The classic ideas of Evagrius are difficult to attribute, whether originally to Evagrius or whether the Desert Fathers further developed them. But they are certainly coming from the ascetic Christian tradition.
To begin with: in what way does Evagrius explain human thought. In Greek thought is logismos and it is important to understand the double meaning of this idea. For us, thought is elusive: a thought came to me, I think about myself, this thought keeps coming back, I have thoughts to do this or that. They have a sort of woolly consistency. They are nondescript and so may not seem to belong to us. We talk of philosophy and other systems of thought to express reality. For Evagrius it is the other aspect of thought, which is: that the word logismos comes from the word logos, which you may know has very many meanings. It can mean an ordinary ‘word,’ it can also mean a ‘system’, a ‘structure’, ‘law’ or ‘orderliness’, but also a certain ‘teaching’ or ‘doctrine’, and a way of looking at reality. And so, in a certain sense you can say that Evagrius understood thought as special way of perceiving reality, thought is a specific way of looking at reality, thought is a key by which we solve problems in our daily lives.
Evagrius talks of eight evil thoughts, i.e. eight wrong ways of life. Of eight wrong ways to solve our serious problems. Eight evil thoughts mean eight wrong ways of approaching reality and life. Evagrius does not say that what evil thoughts do is irrelevant, he does say that how these thoughts solve a problem is wrong. Let me say immediately that Evagrius is not talking about sins. This is not a teaching about eight principal sins; they are eight types of evil thoughts. Sin in a certain sense is the fruit that expresses evil thought. Thought is like the root. Evagrius isn’t so much interested just in sins, specific acts which occur in our lives, but he is interested in destroying the root from which the sin has grown. Evagrius concentrates his teaching not on fighting the act committed but to consider what is its cause. Evagrius says: why do we sin, we sin because of a wrong take on life, we sin due to how we look at the created world, we sin because we have a bad key, the wrong model, to solving our major problems.
And now we’ll look at how these thoughts pester us, then we will know how to fight our sins.
What are the eight types of wrong thoughts?
So, now let’s look at the list of eight wrong thoughts, these eight evil spirits, about which Evagrius writes.
- Gluttony
- Lust
- Greed
- Sadness
- Anger
- Acedia
- Vainglory
- Pride
He says that it all begins with the evil spirit – thoughts – of gluttony. Another evil thought which attacks a person is lust (impurity). The demon that follows lust is greed. The consequence of greed is sadness, and it is always the root from which anger grows. After anger follows acedia – in the whole catalogue of thoughts this is the only word which doesn’t have an equivalent in English and is de facto kept as the original; we will yet reflect on its meaning. Next appears the demon of vainglory and the whole of this demonic host closes with the evil of thoughts of pride. Ending here, it is very important to note: the order of the thoughts is not accidental. In what way they are connected we will see later.
1. Gluttony
Evagrius shows us a person dominated by the thought of gluttony as someone comatose, who can’t see the consequences of his decisions: gluttony brings lethargy and foolishness – and the consequent disaster. For a better understanding of what the nature of gluttony is it’s worth recalling our author’s experience of resisting it, which he calls “the imitation of the resurrection” and “vigilant eyes which know no sleep.”
Evagrius calls gluttony “unbridled madness” and “a leaky fortified wall”, which “inextricably linked to impurity, makes the mind unclean, weakens the body, brings languid sleep and a sad death”.
Those who succumb to thoughts of gluttony, perceive the world they live in as a great dish for consumption. For them the world is not a help on the road to salvation, a sign of the Lord’s existence, but rather a thing, that must be consumed, something belonging to them and can rightly be “eaten” by them; in short, these are people who are always unsatisfied, never having enough.
There also exists emotional gluttony, when we expect only appreciation and applause from other people, when there is never enough praise about how great and special we are. It is a predatory approach to reality; it is an attitude which tells us to only seek ways to satisfy sick desires originating from our complexes and wounds. This concludes in danger – such gluttony leads to a devastated life at all levels. A person, succumbing to the evil thought of gluttony, is incapable of giving up anything, a person deprived of the capacity for self-denial.
Ways of fighting gluttony
As an instrument to fight it, Evagrius proposes setting appropriate goals for fasting and self-denial, not rebelling from them under any circumstances, to put a limit on sleep time, and to use a method preventing knee-jerk reactions – i.e. oppose emotional thoughts that arouse fear with pertinent scripture passages you’ve learned.
2. Lust
As a result of becoming entangled in this thought, a person ceases to look at the other person as someone who can be endowed with love, trust, friendship, and increasingly begins see them and treat them as an object. Increasingly seeing them as an object to be conquered and subdued.
Therefore, lust is not necessarily associated with the erotic sphere and with sex, although the sexual dimension is of course one aspect of lust; however, it is much more about a person bringing another person to the level of a thing.
The growth of dissatisfaction, because of unrealistic desires towards other people – is the essence of lust. Lust tempts us with memories of the past, lust wants to show us possible sensations, which are at your fingertips, often based on benefits in the past, – it’s enough for a person to just step out of their home. No wonder it leads straight to frustration and sadness.
Lust, contrary to appearances, is not the primarily a danger for young people, but above all, for those who begin to feel their lives are ever more pouring away between their fingers – so, now is the last moment to experience something. Perhaps you can imagine lust as a loudly ticking clock. And all this leads to a rapid loss of prudence and to decision-making based on impulses – biological drives.
The greedy person does not believe: his needs cannot be satisfied in this world – because that’s an attribute of the Christian – rather he behaves as if his hunger had to be satisfied here and now – and at all costs, even if he has to “walk over corpses”. This is the moment when a person begins to lose control of himself and can’t set boundaries for himself. It’s not about the subsequent desires of the greedy, of not being satisfied. Rather, the point is that every lustful desire fulfilled is like the doorman who opens the door to the next, even stronger desire, that in turn leads to the next, and so on.
Ways of fighting lust
When a person is overwhelmed by the temptation to seek the praise of people or to boast of his virtue, he shouldn’t be unwise enough to waken in his imagination new erotic ideas, but instead, Evagrius encourages recalling his earlier sins of lust. Remembering earlier downfalls tempers vanity and indirectly protects against subsequent attacks of the demon of lust.
When, on the other hand, the demon of lust attacks the person, trying to arouse in him anxiety and fear, Evagrius encourages him to remember the moments of victory and his perseverance in virtue. This method of battling with passionate thoughts is based on the principle of opposing demons against each other, in this case vanity and lust.
3. Greed
In a certain sense you can say that thoughts of greed are the synthesis of the two which preceded: gluttony and lust. The person treats the world as an object, of which he must take possession, and under the disastrous influence of the demon of lust relate to people in a similar way, ultimately being mastered by insatiable need to have: becoming a bottomless well, that is, someone who has endless need, who is never satisfied, who is constantly jerked about by restlessness. The greedy person doesn’t consider that his needs cannot be satisfied in this world, because that is a Christian characteristic, but he behaves as though his hunger must be satiated here and now – and at any price, even over your dead body! This is the moment when a person begins to lose control over himself and isn’t able to set limits. Here, it’s not about the desires of a greedy person not being satisfied. Rather it’s about every fulfilled desire being like the butler opening the door to the next, even stronger desire, and this to the next, and so on. Evagrius recognises that greed redirects the person’s energy:
The monk greedy for money works hard,
the poor, on the other hand, give themselves to prayer and reading.
You can’t have everything – this banal statement can also be rephrased as follows: the time spent on an activity will not work to the contrary. If I utilise time solely for work, I will not have time for matters important to me.
Greed is associated as a question of money and material goods, but also it might be applied to a more spiritual dimension, just as to the more spiritual plane we can take covetousness. In a certain sense such greedy people in the spiritual sphere were the Pharisees, who as Jesus said, like to take the first places in the synagogue and the places of honour at feasts, and wanted people to call them “rabbi.” Just as today there is no lack of people, who seek recognition from others, wanting to be considered specialists in various areas.
As before we see the demon of greed possess many faces and we are led directly to it from the demon of lust, however this game of ours with evil thoughts, with the wrong way of looking at the world, doesn’t end with the demon of greed, because straight after it follows the demon of anger.
Ways of fighting greed
The best remedy for an attack of the demon of greed is unity of the will combined with the practice of poverty, almsgiving, as well the desire to know and love God.
Another method of fighting the passionate thought of greed, according to Evagrius, is dissection into four elements: the mind, which allowed it in, the image of gold, gold itself and greedy passion. Then it’s up to asking yourself the question, which of these things is a sin. It’s not a disembodied mind created in the image of God nor gold itself, which exists according to its being or image, but the pleasure is a person’s enemy, born of the free will and compelling the mind to misuse God’s creation.
4. Anger
Here we come to thoughts which are a completely new chapter to consider.
As we recall, the first three demons, i.e. gluttony, lust and greed, displayed to us a world, other people, material things, sometimes also spiritual things, as something that has to satisfy our insatiability here and now, that is, to bring creation, and maybe even God, to the level of pure utility. The person looking at reality through these first three ways of thinking have an egoistic (selfish) approach to the world: it belongs to me! In principle this vision is optimistic, since it assumes that calming such disordered desires is possible. However, a person mastered by the demon of greed concludes that what they hunger for is not in sight. First, that they cannot get it, and second – they realise, that after devouring one thing there immediately comes the next hunger; bad thoughts are like a cancer that spreads, which leads them to the edge of insanity. It is in exactly such moments the demon of greed forwards the demon of anger. There begins to gather in us an unwillingness to relate to other people, since they don’t want to submit to our anger at the world, in which we live, that it isn’t the way it should be, anger wells up in us at God, that He doesn’t give us what we need, anger at ourselves, that we’re in no state to cope with our lives.
Evagrius writes that, among all evil thought, anger makes us most like the demons. Is it surprising? – we judge that hatred and lust are more demonic but not anger. Evagrius says, that the one who surrenders to the demon of anger, is like one who does not want to see, who pokes out his own eyes with an iron spike. This evil thought blinds, prevents an objective evaluation of reality and pushes us to the most irrational acts, which are to lead to obtain what we most hunger for or to destroy what we can’t possess. According to the “philosophy of the desert” people acting under the influence of anger are reminiscent of those drunk on wine, only the wine of demons.
It is such a type of inebriation that leads to insanity, to perdition and finally to the fall into the very opening of hell itself.
It now befits doing a very important clarification. In the common understanding of anger we associate with “being infuriated with someone” or “irritation.” However, it’s a much more subtle question. Anger is not an emotional state – that you’re frustrated with a child, who has yet again misbehaved in school, is not anger in this meaning of thought Evagrius gives. Giving in to angry thought means consciously cultivating in yourself the desire for revenge for a hurt experienced, refusing reconciliation with someone, who has hurt us, stubbornly mulling over all the evil done by others. Anger is united with scorn for others and an unwillingness to deal with other’s issues.
From the demon of anger, however, progresses a no less terrible demon and no less threatening, that is, sadness.
Ways of fighting anger
The demon of anger often mastered by gentleness departs for a time, leaving the soul free to act. And if there’s no opportunity for frustration with important matters, which could re-awaken irritation, any trivial pretext can be used for this purpose.
Therefore, Evagrius encourages that even in situations experiencing insults keep calm and don’t listen to the prompts of those, who, even rightly, defend us. The pity of others fuels anger even more, while calmly bearing insults contributes to the growth of those, who measure themselves the smallest measure. Silence in the face of insults allows the spiral of mutual accusations of wrongdoing to be avoided.
Anger and hatred increase irascibility in a person, while gentleness and mercy reduce even that which has been aroused.
The proper reaction to anger coming out of sadness is the offering of the hand of forgiveness, only if it will really drive out the feeling of hurt and bitter sadness. Every person experiences adversity in their lives and it is precisely from it that sadness usually arises, and from it anger. Therefore, help in coping with anger is, firstly, knowing your own desires and giving up those which are impossible to attain; secondly, practicing keeping calm in the face of various adversities in life; thirdly, if we have already experienced actual or alleged offence, muster up a gesture of forgiveness; fourthly, finally, “sing the psalm” of patience and mercy.
For burning resentment and anger the extinguisher is the gift and attitude of kindness not only toward those, who have annoyed us, but also toward people in need. Therefore, a good remedy is all the care shown to the poor . . .
5. Sadness
Evagrius writes like this about sadness:
Sometimes it comes from unsatisfied desires, and sometimes it is the consequence of anger. As for unfulfilled desires it goes like this: certain thoughts come along and bring to mind the spirit of the home, parents and life back then, but when it is seen it has no basis and remains and dissolves into those pleasures which exist only in the imagination, then it takes hold and plunges into sadness, for the previous things now no longer exist and cannot even exist on account of the present way of life. And the more easily the hapless soul gives into the first thoughts, the more overwhelmed and immersed they are by the next.
In this passage it is worth noticing the two roots, from which this demon of sadness grows, the faces, which it possesses. Namely, that on the one hand it is like a child of anger, and on the other hand it is a child of our own bygone, more or less defined, unfulfilled desires against a background of frustration that grows out of this condition. It’s just been mentioned that anger is based on the driven part of a person’s soul and takes its beginning from the person suddenly starting to discover that all the desires of their heart are not being fulfilled, and people do give in to them, the world is not going to be as they wish. And it is this moment angry thoughts start to well up, which ultimately explode. However, the person finally sees that impetus of the clenched fist, the strength of their anger, resistance and that anger toward others who frustrate their expectations, sooner or later ends. The fuel and energy which the person had burns out, when the anger at someone exploded – and this turns into sadness, or slowly growing and deepening frustration and resignation. As Evagrius describes, every demon shows something pleasant, but the only demon which does not give pleasure and joy is this demon of sadness, which shows the world as a form of hopelessness, as a thing which generally only brings being let down, people who don’t give joy but rather use and encourage absolute withdrawal, submission, look down and stop fighting, because this world is full of immorality and now has no hope.
On the other hand, Evagrius says:
Whoever defeats lust, overcomes the passions;
and will not be mastered by sadness,
The restrained will not grieve a lack of food,
nor the temperate, if he does not achieve useless pleasure,
nor the gentle, if the opportunity for revenge slips away,
nor the humble, if deprived of human honours,
nor the unconcerned about money, if he suffers a loss.
For they have decisively turned away from desire for those things.
As the armoured man is not overtaken by a bullet,
as the impassionate are not wounded by sadness.
Do we think about this at all; that sadness can be the cause of moral faults, that sadness can also bring desolation in life, not just ours but to other people’s?
Coming behind this demon is an especially cruel demon, namely the demon of acedia.
Ways of fighting sadness
As a remedy for sadness of the soul Evagrius proposes, that you defend yourself at all costs against falling into the trap of total isolation from other people and closing in on yourself. Any thoughts or desire to go into the wilderness in a state of sadness or to choose some lone occupation that requires no co-operation with others, is the temptation of the demon of sadness, as it’s necessary for it to keep a person in such a state.
Liberation from sadness comes from the practice of the virtue that opposes it, that is, love of neighbour and joy, and this is possible only thanks to being among people. Generosity and understanding destroys anger, and love and joy undermine sadness.
6. Acedia
The demon of acedia, which Evagrius and other authors call the noon-day devil, effects the whole soul and darkens the mind.
Among all the thoughts only this one has kept its original Greek name. It is difficult to express it exactly in one English word. One of the greatest experts on Evagrius, now living as a hermit in Switzerland, Gabriel Bunge, wrote a whole book on the subject of acedia, giving it the title: Acedia: spiritual depression. However, it would be wrong to only see acedia as a psychological phenomenon. Acedia in fact has many faces, but you could say, it is the escape demon: the person mastered by this thought answers the problems and troubles which they have in their lives, with other people, with their work, by seeing the solution in escaping. Earlier the demon of sadness tormented them, which said life was senseless, effort, work and trying are meaningless (let’s also think about the sadness, which can be evoked, for example, by frustration caused by not being able to correct some sin, that I constantly confess the same things, that I don’t see progress in my prayer), and this ultimately leads to acedia, which above all urges a person to escape this place of pain. The demon shows the life of the person as a failure: “life hasn’t worked out for you! Because life hasn’t worked out, and you want to be happy, so run away quick, escape as fast as you can, as far as you can and best into some activity you don’t know and haven’t done before.” People faced with such a temptation make dire decisions: very often wanting divorce, leave the priesthood or religious life . . . The whole of their previous life seems to them as meaningless, wasted. And so are people formed, who can’t remain in one place long enough to warm it up, individuals who really are fifty and don’t see anything they want to do in life; people who do everything and nothing, who don’t have something in them that we could pin down as stability.
For Evagrius a certain type of remedy is an ideal quietening. Although we associate this word with a lack of fight, however, for Evagrius it means above all iron resolve in the face of persistent adversity. A quietened person is a persevering, strong, tough person who defiant to everything stays in one place. Acedia itself leads a long string of changes: everything becomes foggy, everything can be contradicted, everything can change; this demon offers man a life simpler, easier, lighter, demanding less effort from their life. It’s easy to see that acedia is a kind of fantasy and not surprisingly a person who succumbs to it ultimately feels that they find themselves in a trap – before a wall that cannot be scaled.
Ways of fighting acedia
How can this story end? Evagrius gives two alternative solutions: the first says that perseverance can lead a person to the land of peace, that at a certain time the “new spirit” enters, they conclude that all is not lost and that it still has something to offer . . . In a word, tormented by acedia he falls back into the snare of gluttony. The second is more optimistic: through perseverance a person manages to dodge the trap and to be freed from the conviction that the whole world is at risk of extinction. This is not easy, and it is why Evagrius explains that, after the demon of acedia has been, the soul is overwhelmed by an ineffable peace.
One remedy for the attack of acedia, which pushes on one hand to embrace laziness, and on the other destructive maximalism, is to establish a proper measure for oneself. Keeping to the designated standards and don’t deviate from them either one way or the other – this allows internal serenity and a state of hesychia. As with other symptoms of acedia, so also in this case, the remedy par excellence is perseverance in the decisions taken.
7. Vainglory
We have already discussed how a person falls into the snare of acedia, ultimately, however, led by devilish temptation we return to the embrace of the demon of gluttony. Nevertheless, Evagrius warns us that above these six demons we talked about up to now reign two others, no less dangerous, which make a person have a false image of himself and a wrong image of God. For, in fact, these two last evil thoughts often characterise pious people; they are the demon of vainglory and the demon of pride.
The demon of vainglory has two faces.
On the one hand, this thought leads a person to such actions the aims of which are solely for one’s own benefit. For Evagrius vainglory has a shade of self-interest and self-focus. This touches on all aspects of human activity – as well as interpersonal relationships and relationships with God too. Someone acting under the prompting of the demon of vanity (because it can thus be called) has in his sights his own interests, ignoring the proper purpose of every action but is guided by a particular advantage. Such egoism is, of course, disastrous. Evagrius writes:
A stone thrown will not reach heaven,
and the prayer of those, who want to
please people,
does not reach God.
Here it’s not about prayer – renouncing defects, uprooting evil, being like God; the aim is to create your own image. Who knows whether today the demon of vainglory doesn’t encourage the creation of virtual personalities on the internet and social media portals. The person not accepting themselves creates their better version, collecting more “likes;” however, this is the road to nowhere, when existence is only on the net. It’s important to see this aspect of submitting to thought of pride is living on the verge of collapse and despair, because on the one hand a person does accept himself, and on the other doesn’t know how to make use of the talents he has.
With its second face, vanity tempts a person into the worship of success: it may seem that someone achieves a certain progress in the spiritual or family life, or in whatever area. Such a person begins to pose to themselves the question: who did this? And replies to themselves under the influence of a lust for splendour: it was me; it’s my success. The demon of vanity tempts the person to begin to see the source of their strength and success in themselves, until they reach a state in which they boast of successes which never were. Infested with vanity they stop seeing how much it is thanks to others and the Lord God Himself, because they concentrate too much on themselves. In other words, how much the previous six demons, mentioned at the start, tried to present the world as a treasure which was there to be possessed, so the demon of vainglory wants to build a false image of the person, deluding himself in the image of a spiritual superman. And being someone who is a specialist in spiritual matters, and can keep himself in order, but also knows how to do this for other people in the spiritual battle. In other words, the demon of vainglory is a seducer, the kind that doesn’t allow us to stand in humility (humility is to have a true image of yourself, speaking the truth about yourself), but rather forcing us to build castles in the air. The demon of false glory is so dangerous when it makes an undercover attack, it is so poisonous when inside good fruit, like the rocks below the water over which the ship peacefully sails.
Thinking about vainglory can frighten us. All the more carefully we need to turn to the wise words of abba Poemen.
A certain brother said to abba Poemen: “If I give a brother a little bread or whatever, Satan makes this deed unclean, suggesting my intention is to be liked by people.” The old man replied: “Although it be so, for the approbation of people, we still give to our brother what he needs.” And he told him a tale like this: “In one region there were two farmers: one of them sowed his field with seed and harvested a miserable and contaminated crop, the other farmer neglected to sow and so had nothing at all. When a famine came, which of them survived?” The brother said: “The one whose harvest was small and contaminated.” The old man told him: “yes, and we sow our inadequate and impure seeds, so that in time of famine we will not be lost.”
Toward the final disaster of the one, who succumbs to the demon of vanity, who believes he is a champion of the spiritual life, there appears the most terrifying – the demon of pride.
Ways of fighting vainglory
As a remedy for such manifestations of vanity, Evagrius recommends humility, the patient bearing of insults, and hospitality. Humility, caution about exaltation and the tendency to laud it over others, being more hospitable and awareness of one’s own smallness helps the liberation from the continuous comparison of oneself with others.
Any attitude that counters the search for vainglory has its beginning in humility which doesn’t seek adulation and neither does it turn the attention to accolades and praise. It also opposes the attitude of a world where paying attention to oneself and running after fame dominate.
8. Pride
Pride is a different lie: a person forgets that God is the source of everything, that God is the giver of good gifts, and gradually thinks that he himself is the cause of all his success, his happiness, and that it lies in his hands how his life will unfold. Evagrius believes that as result of this a person quickly succumbs to the fear that his magnificent starry state is threatened. In this way a whole parade of illusions passes through human life which over time becomes increasingly more gruesome.
The spirit of pride not only threatens educators, who seem to think that the fate of their pupils depends solely on their strategies, or fulfilling a managerial position. It is a threat for each of us: it leaves us alone on the stage of this world and causes a person to forget about God, in the sense that it seems to him that his fate is only in his own hands. Pride ultimately leads to despair, to joylessness, because sooner or later it finally comes to a person that he can’t cope with his own weakness or the weaknesses of others. Sometimes such a person begins to drive themselves to even work yet more, but the more he works the more he sees that he’s not able to solve many things. This is why the spirit of pride leads a person to the worst state of demise: practical atheism; it happens when a person only lives their own life and also forgets that there is something on the other side. A growing cynicism accompanies this, a mercenary use of their position and disrespect the young who seek support from an authority figure for the difficulties at the start of life. This form of pride causes a person to become the glaring opposite of a father or mother – instead of giving life, encouraging perseverance, instead of guiding in daily complexities, the proud laugh at everything since nothing has any authority or is sacrosanct for them.
And so, we come full circle and reach for the text of Saint Paul:
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So, I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Ways of fighting pride
The elementary remedy for vanity and pride is humility as well as patiently bearing all indignities or adversities.
Humility, or the truth about the state of every person as a created being, not capable by our own strength to free ourselves from any passions, and to stop pretending to be almighty God, liberates a person from the shackles of pride.
