La relación járis-phýsis en Evagrio Póntico a la luz de la tradición clásica: un camino epistemológicamente válido para dilucidar las proyecciones psicoterapéuticas de su obra

Abstract

En los últimos años, un número creciente de estudios ha presentado, de una u otra manera, diversas proyecciones psicoterapéuticas de determinadas prácticas espirituales del primer monacato cristiano. Ahora bien, creemos que en tales estudios puede existir el peligro de extrapolar términos, preguntas y discusiones anacrónicas y ajenas al contexto original de los Padres. En orden a salvar esta dificultad trataremos de dilucidar el modelo de integración psicoespiritual de Evagrio Póntico a través de su particular compresión de las relaciones efectivas entre gracia y naturaleza. Esta particular comprensión será alcanzada a partir del análisis de las nociones de magia y phýsis en las dos tradiciones clásicas que más impactaron en la obra evagriana: la platónica y la hipocrática. Enfocar de este modo el modelo evagriano nos permitirá traducir el actual interés por su modelo psicoespiritual, en los mismos términos en los que es formulado por nuestro autor monástico.

In recent years, a growing number of studies have presented, in one way or another, various psychotherapeutic projections of certain spiritual practices of the first Christian monasticism. Now, we believe that in such studies there may be a danger of extrapolating anachronistic terms, questions, and discussions that are unfamiliar to the original context of the Fathers. In order to overcome this difficulty, we will try to elucidate Evagrius Pontic’s model of psychospiritual integration through his particular understanding of the effective relationships between grace and nature. This understanding will be reached from the analysis of the notions of magic and phýsis in the two classical traditions that most impacted his work: the Platonic and the Hippocratic. Approaching the Evagrian model in this way will allow us to translate and understand the current interest in its psychospiritual model, in the same terms in which it is formulated by our monastic author. The Evagrian work renews and repeats the Hippocratic and Platonic rejection of magic. The Pontus monk shares with that profane tradition his understanding of magic as an act of impiety towards the divine order inscribed in the phýsis. This rejection of sorcery and magic is integrated by our author into a new Christian synthesis, which strives to avoid any magical or miraculous attribution to grace. Now, to the extent that Evagrius moves away from a magical conception of grace, one can find in his writings a baggage of theoretical-practical knowledge related to psychic-spiritual health. Our author is particularly interested in specifying how the grace operates in the cognitive-emotional dynamics that intervene in the soul healing processes, without magically contradicting or suspending the immanent laws of the phýsis.