Published in War and Disease in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Keywords: Keywords: Ecclesiastes, Evagrius Ponticus, Exegesis, Natural Contemplation.

In the context of current studies on the thought of Evagrius Ponticus we are interested in deepening the exegetical projections that –following a well– identified classical–Christian tradition– possesses the evagrian conception of Christianity as an itinerary of salvation. These projections extend to Sacred Scripture in general and, in a way, to the book of Ecclesiastes. Thus, after developing the sense of the evagrian itinerary and its general exegetical projections, our work will focus on the evagrian commentary entitled “Scholia on Ecclesiastes” and its place within the framework of the thought of the philosopher of Ponto. This work has been little studied but it constitutes a unique exegetical piece within the evagrian corpus. Through this work we access a deeper understanding of what Evagrius wanted to designate with the concept of “natural contemplation”. In this sense, deepening this work allows –in our view– a renewed understanding of the spiritual itinerary that constitutes, for Evagrius, the essence of Christianity. Similarly, Scholia on Ecclesiastes allow us to understand more fully the particularities of the exegetical evagrian method.