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Rating: 
Summary: Essential reading
Review: John Bamberger's translation of the Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer by Evagrius Ponticus should be required reading for anyone interested in the ascetic theology of ancient Christianity. Not only does he render the challenging, often elliptical, Greek of Evagrius into approachable English, but he prefaces the two works with an invaluable introduction. This century has been one of enormous progress in the study of Evagrius, and any reader of the Chapters on Prayer and the Praktikos will appreciate why such effort has been expended. Evagrius still has much to teach us.
Rating:
Summary: A Renewal of Ascetic Life and Prayer
Review: The Evagrian Quadruplet
Fr. Bamberger not only translated Evagrius twin essays, but wrote an elaborate introduction that earns him the title: Coptologist, a peritus on coptic monasticism.
He invited Fr. Leclercq, the enlightened abbot of Clairvaux to write a master piece preface to supplement the triplet study and manuscripts. After thirty years, this classic proved instrumental in Evagrian cognition, as much or even more than "the Kephalaia Gnostica", adding his name to the Pontic master's club of Guillaumont et al.Evagrius , the living link
Evagrius was an able disciple of Alexandrine theological school, and Desert Fathers monastic tradition. He creatively transmitted the essence of Coptic spirituality that deeply influenced Oriental and Western Christian thinkers from Cassian to the new theologian, and his influence is still felt today between R. Catholics through Jerome and Rufinus but above all Benedictines and Cisterians. Thus spake fr. Leclercq in his preface. Evagrius Life and writings
In an eloquent and scholarly essay, Fr. Bamberger instructs us on the recovery of Evagrian writings, his life, and theology. Taking on this task he conducts it in a captivating style recounting stories of early Alexandrian masters Origen, Didymus and the Macariis in a tour escourted by Palladius, Bousset, Guillaumont, Chadwick, and Von Balthassar. He does not fail to include the Capadocians, Melania Rufinus and Epiphanus, etc. The Praktikos: On Ascetic Life Evagrius elleptical thought is rendered in plain English.The hundred chapters , demonic thoughts, the eight passions, takes forty of them. Instructions, Apatheia, its signs, takes the rest concluded with sayings of the holy monks. 153 chapters on Prayer
Following master Origen, Evagrius identifies contemplation with monastic life, and prayer to spiritual life , martyrdum being the sign of perfection. written possibly to Rufinus, the 153 here correspond to the large fish in John 21:11. His expressions are typically of the desert: the gift of tears, striving for a deaf mind,and flower of meekness, and fruit of joy and thanksgiving. He supports his writings with quotations from John the short, Theodore of Tabennisi, sealing it with benedictions, definitions, and promises.
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