Picking Up Bad Vibes: Demonic Anti-Music and Spiritual Sickness in Evagrius
The importance of the Life of Antony to the development of Christian hagiography is widely attested.[559] [560] [561] [562] How influential, though, was Athanasius’s portrayal of demons as tumultuous entities? Evagrius Ponticus (c.345-399), who, for sixteen years, lived as an ascetic monk in the Egyptian settlements of Nitria and Kellia, was an early reader of the Life of Antony. He seems to have picked up on the suggestion in Athanasius’s text that demonic noise can lead the listener into a state of fear, and bring about spiritual illness. Evagrius wrote extensively about the eight evil thoughts (λογισμοί)—gluttony, lust, avarice, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory and pride—which he believed to be brought on by demons. Evagrius refers to Antony as an authority on demons in his Antirrheticus (translated by Brakke as Talking Back), a collection of quotations from scripture, each of which is intended to rebuff a particular evil thought^3 As noted by Brakke, he cites scriptural passages mentioned in Antony’s speech on demons frequently in Book iv, “Concerning the thoughts of the demon of sadness”.W4 Often overshadowed by acedia, Evagrius’s depiction of sadness has received little scholarly attention. There is an area of overlap between the two in Evagrius’s writings, and later, the sins become integrated.105 Yet, in Talking Back, sadness is associated more with fear than listlessness; a sad soul is vulnerable to fear brought on by demonic apparitions. Evagrius may well be thinking of Antony's claim that when demons see a fearful person, they multiply their apparitions so as to induce further terror. Evagrius indicates that demons achieve this effect by making sudden, intrusive sounds. For example, Evagrius recommends Deuteronomy 2:24-25 for the soul “that has been frightened by the voice of a demon that hissed at it suddenly in the air” and 1 Kingdoms 17:47 “[a]gainst the demons that make a commotion in the air and then make us listen to their voices”.[563] [564] [565] [566] [567] [568] Demonic disturbance can also be vey physical, with one quotation being addressed to the Lord, “concerning the soul that remained undisturbed when suddenly demons fell upon the body with noise and tumult”.io7 As this quotation suggests, the demon of sad thoughts also has the capacity to negatively affect the soul. The picture is further complicated by Evagrius's suggestion that demons can be both a cause of spiritual malady and its effect. They bring about evil thoughts in the first place, and the mind, unhinged by these evil spirits, can conjure up “the vision of a multitude of demons in the air”.n3 A treatise on the practical applications of his teachings, the Praktikos, states that apparitions or visions arise from the disturbance of the Qugtxov, the irascible part of the soul.114 As Christoph Joest explains, sadness (including fear), anger and acedia are vices that attack this irascible part.n5 Are we seeing here a development of an Athanasian idea? Antony's list of the negative states of soul brought about by demonic apparitions include terror, disorder of thoughts, enmity towards ascetics, acedia, grief, memories of relatives and fear of death. These may be grouped into states of sadness (and fear), anger or hostility and acedia. Evagrius distinguishes between prayer, which leads to “immaterial and nonmultiform knowledge” and psalmody, which calms the passions and is a means of attaining qnqQeta, the “health of the soul”.n6 The degree of impassibility attained by the soul can be measured by its production of images. A soul that is unhealthy is affected by passions roused by demons and generates images in dreams and sinful thoughts, whereas a soul that possesses qnqQeta is untroubled by images occurring in sleep.n7 “Pure” prayer refers to contemplation on God that transcends the senses. Evagrius believed that, while most thoughts produce concepts or depictions in the mind (νοήματα), contemplation on God is the perception of a higher, imageless reality.[575] [576] [577] [578] By practising deeply contemplative, imageless prayer, a monk is able to become “equal to angels,”n9 entities who help to restore souls to the order of the cosmos, and who are undisturbed by passions. Little wonder that demons, traditionally envious of humanity’s special place in the scheme of creation, try to distract monks from achieving this sanctified state, and healing the rift caused by the Fall. In his Chapters on Prayer, Evagrius claims that the monk who tries to cultivate pure prayer “will hear noises, crashings, voices, and tormenting screams that come from the demons [ψόφους μέν καί κτύπους καί φωνάς καί αίκισμούς έκ δαιμόνων άκούσεται]; yet he will not suffer collapse or surrender his thoughts if he says to God: ‘I shall fear no evil, for you are with me’ (Ps. 22:4) and words like these”?20 Demonic noise works against the form and function of the prayer. Its capacity to arouse sadness and fear, which give rise to mental representations and apparitions, is a hindrance to achieving a state of contemplation wherein all distractions of thought and of the body are left behind. Demonic noise can act as a temptation for the monk who is working to achieve knowledge of the divine: as well as signalling spiritual sickness, the tumultuous presence of demons is a test of spiritual strength. Demonic cacophony, then, is loaded with meaning. The uproar and chaos of evil spirits contains echoes of classical thought equating passions with disease, and harmony with health. The Life of Antony proved to be an influential hagiographical model. Saints’ Lives of the Middle Ages feature demons causing noise for the purposes of waging war on the soul.121 Antonian ideas, filtered through Evagrius, entered Western ascetic writings. The method of continuous prayer found in the Conferences of Cassian reveals the influence of early desert literature. His recommendation of reciting Psalm 69 (yo):2 when agitated by the horrors of nocturnal devils and the appearances of unclean spirits has a distinctly Antonian and Evagrian ring.[579] The portrayal of demonic anti-music in Life of Antony, therefore, represents a transitional point between concepts of the health and disease of the soul in antiquity, and concepts of holiness and evil in Christian ascetic texts: to be sanctified is to keep in mind the universal harmony of creation; to submit to the ravages of temptation is to lose oneself to the fear brought about by demonic performance of disorder.
More on the topic Picking Up Bad Vibes: Demonic Anti-Music and Spiritual Sickness in Evagrius:
- Demonic Attack
- Bhayro Siam, Rider Catherine (eds.). Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period. Leiden, Boston: Brill,2017. — xiv, 434 p., 2017
- Fear and Harmony in Athanasius’s Against the Heathen