literary form

This essay focusses on Evagrius Ponticus’ Kephalaia Gnostika and its reception. It will offer some results of novel research into the literary structure of this work, including the issue of its so-called ‘silent chapters,’ as well as into its rhetorical strategies and philosophical theology, in particular its anthropology and conception of bodies, Christology, with a proposal for a new reading of one of the Kephalaia Gnostika, and eschatology, especially Evagrius’ doctrine of apokatastasis. Evagrius inherited the last theory from Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, and integrated it in its own further. The influence of Gregory of Nyssa on Evagrius is an aspect of recent research that has been offered as a contribution to scholarship and should now be taken into account. Finally, a brief look will be given at the literary, and partially theological, legacy of the Kephalaia Gnostika.