Top 15 Evagrius Ponticus Quotes

Once there was a meeting at The Cells about some matter and Abba Evagrius spoke. The priest said to him: “Abba Evagrius, we know that if you were in your homeland you would probably have been a bishop and the head of many [clergy]; but now you are living here as an alien.”
He was pricked in his conscience but not disturbed. Nodding his head, he said to him: “It is true, father; nevertheless, ‘I have spoken once; I will add nothing the second time’” (Job 40:5).

Blessed is the one who has reached the knowledge that cannot be abolished (beyond what cannot be, it cannot be gone).

There was a time when evilness did not exist, and there will be a time when it will no more exist, whereas there was no time when virtue did not exist, and there will be no time when it will not exist. For the germs of virtue are impossible to destroy.

The main contemplations are five, under which all contemplation is comprised. And they say that the first is the contemplation of the adorable and holy Trinity, and that the second and the third are the contemplation of the incorporeal and the corporeal realities, and that the fourth and the fifth are the contemplation of the Judgment and of Providence.

34. The mind is the temple of the Holy Trinity.

27. Prayer is a state of the mind that arises under the influence of the unique light of the Holy Trinity.

26. Prayer is a state of the mind destructive of every earthly mental representation.

23. The mind cannot see the place of God within itself, unless it has transcended all the mental representations associated with objects. Nor will it transcend them, if it has not put off the passions that bind it to sensible objects through mental representations. And it will lay aside the passions through the virtues, and simple thoughts through spiritual contemplation; and this in turn it will lay aside when there appears to it the light.

6. The pure mind is an incense burner at the time of prayer when it touches upon no sensible object. According to virtue we will be one on the eighth day; according to knowledge, on the last day.

4. The state of the mind is an intelligible height resembling the colour of heaven, to which the light of the Holy Trinity comes in the time of prayer.

2. If someone should want to behold the state of his mind, let him deprive himself of all mental representations, and then he shall behold himself resembling sapphire or the colour of heaven. It is impossible to accomplish this without impassibility, for he will need God to collaborate with him and breathe into him the connatural light.

153. When you give yourself to prayer, rise above every other joy — then you will find true prayer.

150. Just as sight is the most worthy of the sense, so also is prayer the most divine of the virtues.

125. A monk is a man who considers himself one with all men because he seems constantly to see himself in every man.

124. A monk is a man who is separated from all and who is in harmony with all.