Evagrius of Pontus on Exodus and the Virtues

In On Prayer 1-4, Evagrius of Pontus reads the incense described in Exodus 30:34-37 as an allegorical type of the four cardinal virtues. This essay explains the logic of Evagrius's interpretation, situating his argument in a longstanding philosophical debate about the interrelationship of the...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: White, Devin L. 1986- (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Brill [2019]
Dans: Vigiliae Christianae
Année: 2019, Volume: 73, Numéro: 5, Pages: 516-530
Classifications IxTheo:HB Ancien Testament
KAB Christianisme primitif
NCA Éthique
VA Philosophie
Sujets non-standardisés:B mixture theory
B Virtue
B Exodus 30:34-37
B Hexapla
B Evagrius of Pontus
Accès en ligne: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Résumé:In On Prayer 1-4, Evagrius of Pontus reads the incense described in Exodus 30:34-37 as an allegorical type of the four cardinal virtues. This essay explains the logic of Evagrius's interpretation, situating his argument in a longstanding philosophical debate about the interrelationship of the virtues. By reading the incense as virtue, Evagrius joins both Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa in interpreting Exodus as a source for virtue theory, as well as several ancient philosophers who explained the virtues and their interrelation by comparing them to physical substances combined in a mixture. Central to Evagrius's argument is the compound ancient philosophers called a "juxtaposition" (σύνθεσις), the use of which term shows Evagrius's knowledge of a well-attested hexaplaric variant in Exod 30:35. In sum, authorized by his text of Exodus, Evagrius suggests the virtues relate to each other in the same fashion that the ingredients of a σύνθεσις relate to each other.
ISSN:1570-0720
Contient:Enthalten in: Vigiliae Christianae
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15700720-12341416