International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Bogna Kosmulska
University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland; 
[e-mail]
Was There a Place for 
Parrhesia
in the 7
th
Century Byzantium?
The figure of Saint Maximus the Confessor, who dominates the dogmatic debate of the 7
th
century Graeco-Roman world, incites a discussion on the persistence of parrhesia as a political, 
moral and theological value. A traditional approach to this kind of discussion tends to consider 
that Maximus’s Christological engagement, especially his resistance to the emperor, is a distinctive 
example of freedom of speech in its classical political sense. However, recently, some scholars 
have come to opposite conclusions. According to their views, Maximus was not a parrhesiast, but 
an exponent of institutional ecclesiastic power over the secular one. In my paper, I would like to 
analyze the roots of the Confessor’s thought from the perspective of possible influences on his own 
Christian notion of freedom of speech. The title question regarding the existence (or non-existence) 
of parrhesia will perhaps transform into a question of the main, and to some extent new, kinds of 
parrhesia in the 7
th
century Byzantium.

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388
Jesús Hernández Lobato
University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain; 
[e-mail]
“Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit, for Theirs Is the Kingdom of Heaven”. 
Evagrius Ponticus on Mystical Knowledge
At the beginning of his Praktikos, the 4
th
century mystic and thinker Evagrius Ponticus makes 
a subtle and somehow misleading distinction between “the kingdom of heaven” and “the kingdom 
of God”, two expressions apparently interchangeable in the Synoptic Gospels. Whereas the former is 
defined as “impassibility (apátheia) of the soul accompanied by true knowledge of beings” (Praktikos 
2), the latter is identified with the “knowledge of the Holy Trinity co-extensive with the substance 
of the mind and surpassing its incorruptibility” (Praktikos 3). This distinction probably entails 
different levels of contemplation and enlightenment, as suggested in Evagrius’ Kephalaia Gnostica. 
This paper aims to analyse the meaning, use and philosophical implications of such definitions and 
their alleged parallels in other contemporary authors. To this end, it will attempt to trace the roots 
of this gnoseological/mystical interpretation of the concept of kingship of God back to the Gospels 
(e.g. Luke 17.21: “For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you”) and to Plotinian Neoplatonism, 
while relating it to the ascetic practice of first Hesychasm, as advocated by Evagrius himself. It will 
finally reflect on the possible link of this audacious vindication of a non-discursive knowledge of 
both the material and the spiritual with Gregory of Nyssa’s controversial philosophy of language, 
which questioned the ability of words and concepts to convey reality.