Volume 98, Issue 3, Summer 2024
Fabien Muller
Pages 267-292
https://doi.org/10.5840/acpq2024117296
The Metaphysics of Evagrius Ponticus
Scholars in recent decades have downplayed or completely denied that Evagrius Ponticus has a metaphysical system, instead suggesting that he merely borrows from various philosophies, particularly Stoicism, without a coherent system. In this paper, I propose a different perspective, arguing for a metaphysical and Platonic interpretation. I reconstruct Evagrius¡¯s metaphysics systematically, relate its fundamentals to the environment of the late antique Medio- and Neoplatonic tradition, and show that by establishing the principles and structures of being, Evagrius indeed reveals himself to be a metaphysician.