Evagrius Hayden, O.S.B. | Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception (original) (raw)

Licentiate Thesis by Evagrius Hayden, O.S.B.

Licentiate Thesis, 2019

In this Licentiate thesis I examine the doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas on coming-forth of all t... more In this Licentiate thesis I examine the doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas on coming-forth of all things from God according to the exemplarity of divine Wisdom, both as pertaining to the person of the Son as well as to the “divine ideas” that God has of every creature from eternity. My goal is to consider the internal relationship between the Word and the divine ideas expressed within God from eternity together with the coming-forth of all things from God in the economy of creation. I show not only how the Word and the divine ideas are related in God, but also how all creatures imitate them as their cause, reason, and exemplar. I seek to demonstrate that the doctrine of the exemplarity of the divine ideas gathered through natural reason both upholds and expands the doctrine of the exemplarity of the Word known by faith.

Master's Thesis by Evagrius Hayden, O.S.B.

Masters Thesis, 2015

My primary purpose in this thesis is to come to understand Evagrius' teaching regarding the wisdo... more My primary purpose in this thesis is to come to understand Evagrius' teaching regarding the wisdom of creation. But before we come to see that, we will first need to understand who he was and how his life influenced his theology of wisdom.
In the First Part of this thesis, we will try to understand who Evagrius was by first focusing on his life, his works, and their modern reception. In Chapter One of this First Part we will focus on recounting the life of Evagrius, taking as our primary sources the Vita Copta and the Historia Lausiaca, both of them written by Palladius. In Chapter Two we will turn our attention to the modern reception of Evagrius' patrimony and the different schools of thought that have formed around his teachings. In presenting an overview of the modern status quaestionis, we will rely primarily on the work of Fr.'s Gabriel Bunge, Izsák Baán, Jeremy Driscoll, and Luke Dysinger, all of them Benedictine monks, as well as on the work of Augustine Casiday. These scholars together represent the 'Benedictine school' of interpretation, that is, a particular hermeneutic that seeks to understand Evagrius in an orthodox light and thus to receive his patrimony as an organic whole, coming as it does from the scriptural and monastic milieu of Cappadocia and the Egyptian desert.
We will examine in the Second Part of our thesis the role of the wisdom of creation in the theology of Evagrius and how it draws the mind towards God. If we wish to come to knowledge about something, the first and most fundamental question that must be answered is, “what is it?” But, the first step in understanding the nature of a thing is to seek for its causes, for these are the principles of its being. Once one has the cause, then they know why it is and, to some extent, what it is. Therefore, in trying to understand what wisdom is and how it operates in the theology of Evagrius, we will focus primarily on its various causes. In the First Chapter of this Second Part, we will discuss the final cause of wisdom, that is its ultimate purpose or final goal. In the Second Chapter of this part we will discuss the content of created wisdom, namely its material and formal aspects. Finally, in the Third Chapter we will discuss the divine author and agent cause of created wisdom, that is, the Word and Wisdom itself.

Articles by Evagrius Hayden, O.S.B.

Studia Gilsoniana 9:1, 2020

The author compares the views of Étienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, and Thomas Aquinas on the orde... more The author compares the views of Étienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, and Thomas Aquinas on the order in our knowledge of being. While Gilson and Maritain maintain that esse and the actus essendi are what are first known, Aquinas maintains consistently that it is the existent thing or the ens itself that is first known. The paper proceeds by first laying out the positions of Gilson and Maritain as evidenced in their respective works Being and Some Philosophers and Existence and the Existent. Then, it manifests what in their positions is correct and in what they err. And finally, it argues that ens is the first thing known by appealing to the proper object of the intellect, the order between the acts of the intellect, and the intellect’s mode of procedure. In the course of these arguments, the primary authoritative sources used are the works of Aquinas.

Conference Presentations by Evagrius Hayden, O.S.B.

A Lecture Delivered at the Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies Summer School, 2016

In this paper I try to unfold the nature and definition of faith, and seek to understand why it i... more In this paper I try to unfold the nature and definition of faith, and seek to understand why it is so necessary for us in order to be saved and attain to eternal life.
In my examination of the nature and necessity of faith, I use as my sources several works of St. Thomas Aquinas, the primary ones being his treatise on faith in the De Veritate, his treatise on the same in the Secunda Secundae of the Summa Theologica, and his commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius.

Papers by Evagrius Hayden, O.S.B.

In this paper I give a detailed investigation into the nature of religion as a virtue as well as ... more In this paper I give a detailed investigation into the nature of religion as a virtue as well as the acts that flow from it, according to the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He states that this virtue is called by four different names, namely, latria, religion, cultus, and piety. For, “by each of these names, one and the same virtue is named according to the diverse things which come together in it.” And so, in the first part of this paper I investigate Aquinas’s teaching on each of these names to see what they contribute to our understanding of the virtue of religion, while also seeking to trace the development and trajectory of his position as manifested throughout his works. In the second part of this paper I look at the nature and relationship of the interior and exterior acts that pertain to this virtue.

Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent where two central thinkers of the 13th century who each held ve... more Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent where two central thinkers of the 13th century who each held very different views on the role of divine influence in human knowledge. Following St. Augustine, each of them ascribed to a theory of “divine illumination” according to which the ideas in God’s mind make a sort of impression upon our concepts, and the light of God’s intellect acts upon our thinking. However, they differed greatly in describing to what extent man needs a new divine light for every act of natural thought, or else if he is sufficient unto himself to know natural things with certainty. In this paper, I intend to investigate how these two authors compare regarding the doctrine of divine illumination. In examining the teaching of Aquinas, first I will ask to what extent God can be said to be the cause of human knowledge, and then I will ask whether, because of this influence, man can have knowledge of the divine ideas in this life. The same two questions will be posed with regard to Henry of Ghent. After I have expounded their views, then, in the last part, I will compare their positions, noting what are their agreements, and in what they differ from each other.

My intention in this paper is to expound the exegetical method of St. Thomas Aquinas by looking a... more My intention in this paper is to expound the exegetical method of St. Thomas Aquinas by looking at one particular passage in the book of Isaiah upon which he commented at length throughout his writing career. Aquinas’s remarks on the prophetic vision of Isaiah are worthy of study both for the variety of exegetical methods and sources that he brings to bear upon the text, as well as for the wealth of literal and spiritual meanings that he is able to draw forth from the passage. By looking at the different emphases that Aquinas gives in his various expositions on the vision of Isaiah, it will become clear how much his method developed and deepened over time. In order to see how Aquinas’s exegesis of Isaiah 6:1-4 evolved, it will be necessary to look first at one of his earliest works, his commentary on the book of Isaiah which he began while still a student under Albert the Great and continued at the university of Paris. After that, I will look at Aquinas’s closing remarks at the end of his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, written not long after, wherein he gives a brief comment on the prophet’s vision. Then, I will examine the 12th sermon of Aquinas in which he gives a detailed Trinitarian exposition of the text. This will lead into a discussion of his two works on the gospel of John, namely the Catena Aurea and then his own commentary in which he gives a thoroughly Christological interpretation of the prophet’s vision. I will end my historical examination of Aquinas’s texts by looking at the Prima Secundae of the Summa Theologiae wherein he gives some final comments on Isaiah 6:1, and correlates it to the layout and structure of the temple of Jerusalem. Before closing, I will attempt to draw some common themes found in Aquinas’s various writings and summarize his use of sources and methods of interpretation.

All men desire to know the causes of things and seek to understand the ground for what they do no... more All men desire to know the causes of things and seek to understand the ground for what they do not fully grasp in their knowledge. And yet, due to the limitations and weakness of our finite corporeal nature, no one is capable all alone to know the deepest causes and foundations of reality without relying in some way upon the help and guidance of other men. And so, all must rely to some extent upon others so as to gather the information and knowledge necessary for a fullness of life. Not being present in all times or places and not grasping all possible conclusions in our knowledge, we must rely upon the testimony of others for what is beyond our comprehension. This is what it means to believe and, in the context of religion, that in which one believes is called “revelation.” Faith, then, is “a believing response to God’s revealing word” which is based on a “prior act of revelation on God’s part.” Without such revelation, faith would have no basis and no object. Thus, “revelation is seen as foundational to the religious life of the individual, to the mission of the Church, and to the method of theology.” And it is by an act of supernatural faith in God’s revelation that the Christian achieves a true fullness of life and ultimate consummation in the life to come. In contrast to this supernatural view of revelation lies the thesis of David Tracy who sees the truly “‘authentic’ person” not as one who achieves fullness in the life to come through faith in God’s revealing word, but as one who is
committed above all else to the full affirmation of the ultimate significance of our lives in this world. Such a fundamental commitment can be described as a faith, i.e., as a basic orientation or attitude which determines one’s cognitive beliefs and one’s individual ethical actions. The most basic expression of such faith, moreover, is probably best described as the faith of secularity: that fundamental attitude which affirms the ultimate significance and final worth of our lives, our thoughts, and actions, here and now, in nature and in history.”
The belief, then, and faith of the theologian is limited to the temporal secular realm for Tracy while for Dulles and the first Vatican council, it is a supernatural virtue whereby we believe in the things that God reveals, not because it accords with natural reason, “but because of the authority of God himself who reveals them.” For Tracy, however, faith excludes the supernatural, and thus is something that can be shared by both secularists and Christians: "The modern theologian . . . finds that his basic faith, his fundamental attitude towards reality, is the same faith shared implicitly or explicitly by his secular contemporaries. No more than they, can he allow belief in a ‘supernatural’ realm of ultimate significance or in a supernatural God who seems, in the end, indifferent to the ultimate significance of our actions." Faith, then, for Tracy, is a fundamentally natural phenomenon, committed as it is to finding man’s ultimate purpose and meaning in this life, here and now. So, even though the theologian might have faith in God, that faith is only one that is in complete accordance with what can be known through nature and common experience. My purpose in this paper is to lay out the consequences of Tracy’s understanding of faith, and in particular how it affects his position on the nature and method of theology. Since Dulles is one of the more critical reviewers of Tracy’s work, I have found it helpful to include him in the conversation and to use him as a foil in contrast to the views of the professor from Chicago.8 In my exposition I will first look at Tracy’s views on the sources of theology, then, how this affects his understanding of the nature and method of theology, and finally I will examine what he sees is the relation of theology to the Church and modern science.

In this paper I manifest how St. Thomas’s understanding of the imago Dei developed over his caree... more In this paper I manifest how St. Thomas’s understanding of the imago Dei developed over his career, how he had a more static understanding of the image of God early on that focused on the threefold powers of memory, intellect, and will as being the subject of the image by which man imitates the Trinity, but that later on he held to a more dynamic understanding of the imago Dei, seeing it as pertaining properly to the actions themselves of the mind, namely remembering, knowing, and loving, according to which knowledge, word, and love are produced in the soul. My mode of procedure is that of exposition, commenting on the main texts of St. Thomas in chronological order, making comparisons between them with regard to developments, changes, or regressions, as well analyzing his authoritative sources.

“Goodness comes from a single and whole cause, while evil comes from numerous partial deficiencie... more “Goodness comes from a single and whole cause, while evil comes from numerous partial deficiencies.”
This brief saying from Pseudo-Dionysius is one of the crowning principles of chapter 4 “on good and evil” in his work On The Divine Names. It is a crown because it is the final conclusion that follows logically from all that comes before in the chapter on the nature of goodness, but it is likewise a principle for two of his faithful commentators, St. Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas, who use it in their moral theology to manifest why all the elements of an act must be good in order for the act itself to be good. In this paper I will seek to clarify how Dionysius arrives at this principle of the integrity of goodness, showing that it flows from his understanding of the nature of good and evil, then, I will examine how this principle was interpreted and developed by Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas and used by them as a source for the rest of their moral theology.

In this paper I examine the doctrine on the coming-forth of all things from God and their return ... more In this paper I examine the doctrine on the coming-forth of all things from God and their return to him, commonly called exitus-reditus. I rely primarily on the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and then on one of his primary influences, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. However, in order to understand the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius on this theme, it is necessary to first examine his sources, namely the two Neoplatonist philosophers that most of all influenced his thought on exitus-reditus, Proclus and Plotinus. This paper is thus be divided into four parts, first I look at the positions of these two philosophers, then I examine that of Pseudo-Dionysius, third I compare these three among themselves and show what Dionysius takes from them and what he leaves behind, and finally I examine the position of Aquinas and bring the views of the other three authors to bear upon his teaching.

Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches that the proper cause of love in creatures is goodness that is confo... more Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches that the proper cause of love in creatures is goodness that is conformable to the appetite insofar as it is known and apprehended, but he teaches elsewhere that the goodness of creatures is in turn caused by God’s love. My purpose in this paper is to manifest more precisely the cause of love according to the mind of the Angelic Doctor and to ask whether it is goodness or else God’s love that is the cause of our love. Thus, in the first part I will show how the goodness of things is the cause of our love, and then in the second part how God’s love is the cause of the goodness of things, so as to conclude that ultimately God’s love is the cause of our love. I will rely on various texts of Aquinas, most notably his treatises on love and goodness in his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, his questions on the same in his Summa Theologiae, Summa Contra Gentiles and Disputed Questions, as well as texts from his commentary on the Divine Names of Dionysius.

In his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas states that “at last our soul... more In his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas states that “at last our soul is united to God, by ascending through negations.” The reason we must use negations in order to be united to God is because, as he adds in the Summa Contra Gentiles, “the divine substance exceeds by its immensity every form that our intellect attains. And thus we are not able to apprehend Him by knowing what he is.” In this paper I try to unpack these statements and seek to understand why it is necessary, if we are to attain to God and be united with him, that we do so through negations. In order to see this, first I examine how it is that God exceeds all created being and thus all created knowledge. Then I try to see how negating all things of God nevertheless allows us to know something about him. Finally, I examine how negating all things of God actually helps us to be united to him in love. In my exposition I rely on various texts from throughout the corpus of Aquinas, most notably the Commentary on the Divine Names, the Commentary on the Sentences, the Summa Theologiae, and the Summa Contra Gentiles, among others.

St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, having received the paradoxical teaching of... more St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, having received the paradoxical teaching of St. Augustine on the divine ideas, seek to give a developed account for their multiplicity that is nonetheless reconcilable with the unity of God’s being, and also with God’s eternal knowledge of creatures. In this paper I examine both of their accounts to see if they succeed in that enterprise, and which of their arguments is the more potent. My argument takes the form of a disputed question where in the first part I give objections for the fittingness of both Bonaventure’s and Aquinas’s account of the divine ideas. After that, in the second part I give my main response in which I attempt to lay out and to apply the principles for determining which is the better position. Finally, in the third part I make a detailed comparison of the objections and try to account for and resolve their differences as far as possible. For the position of Bonaventure, I have chosen to focus primarily on his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard and his Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ, while also looking at his Breviloquium, and his Collationes In Hexaemeron. For Aquinas, I have used for the most part his commentary on the Sentences, his Summa Theologica, and his Summa Contra Gentiles.

Studia Gilsoniana, 2020

This paper compares the views of Étienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, and Thomas Aqui- nas on the o... more This paper compares the views of Étienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, and Thomas Aqui-
nas on the order in our knowledge of being. While Gilson and Maritain maintain that
esse and the actus essendi are what are first known, Aquinas maintains consistently that
it is the existent thing or the ens itself that is first known. The paper proceeds by first
laying out the positions of Gilson and Maritain as evidenced in their respective works
Being and Some Philosophers and Existence and the Existent. Then, it manifests what
in their positions is correct and in what they err. And finally, it argues that ens is the
first thing known by appealing to the proper object of the intellect, the order between
the acts of the intellect, and the intellect’s mode of procedure. In the course of these
arguments, the primary authoritative sources used are the works of Aquinas.

In order to understand how God knows his own being and through himself to know all creation, it i... more In order to understand how God knows his own being and through himself to know all creation, it is first necessary to lay out how the intellect knows. After that we will examine the proper object of the intellect's knowing, namely intelligible being. Finally we will examine how God knows creation. In our investigation of how the intellect knows, first let us examine how the intellect in act and the thing understood are identical, then we will look at how this identity relates to the three descriptions of truth found in De Veritate 1.1. Finally we will look at how this relates to God's self understanding and divine truth. 1. The intellect and the intelligible 1.1. The distinction between intellect and intelligible. How then are the intellect and the intelligible distinct? Every operation involves a power which is in act and an object which is the term of the operation. The more imperfect and material are the power and its object, the more are they distinguished from each other. For matter is the principle of individuation in imperfect beings, and upon individuation, or being undivided in oneself, follows being divided from all other things. Thus, in material operations, the object is wholly extrinsic to the agent and so the term of its motion will be extrinsic as well. " Et secundum hoc tantum sensus vel intellectus aliud est a sensibili vel intelligibili, quia utrumque est in potentia. " 1 But in operations that are immaterial and which involve an immaterial power and object the term of the operation will be intrinsic to the agent, since there will not be matter to distinguish them. " In operationibus quae sunt in operante, obiectum quod significatur ut terminus operationis, est in ipso operante; et secundum quod est in eo, sic est operatio in actu. " 2 How does knowledge or the union of intellect and intelligible take place? The way that the object of the intellect is able to be within the intellect itself is because the agent intellect " denudes " the intelligible species of its matter making what was only a potentially intelligible object actually intelligible so that the object which is intelligible in act is able to perfect the intellect which was understanding potentially. 3 And how does this " perfection " of the intellect take place? As Aquinas says in the De Veritate, " Omnis autem cognitio perficitur per assimilationem cognoscentis ad rem cognitam, ita quod assimilatio dicta est causa cognitionis: sicut visus per hoc quod disponitur secundum speciem coloris, cognoscit colorem. " 4 It is thus through the assimilatio or likeness of the knower to the thing known that knowledge occurs. In being made similar to the intelligible species, the intellect is " informed in act " by the species. " Ex hoc enim aliquid in actu sentimus vel intelligimus, quod intellectus noster vel sensus informatur in actu per speciem sensibilis vel intelligibilis. " 5 And through being informed in act, the

New Liturgical Movement, 2015

In this paper I would like to examine the question of whether the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass ough... more In this paper I would like to examine the question of whether the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass ought to be celebrated facing towards the East, commonly referred to as ad orientem. Since the liturgical reforms that began in the 1950’s and reached their climax in the 60’s and 70’s, celebrating the Mass with the priest facing towards the people, versus populum, has become the norm in the New Order of the Mass. And yet,
strong archaeological and historical evidence suggests that facing towards the orient was the common tradition of the Church beginning from apostolic times. What has caused such a dramatic change in how the Church worships in the Holy Liturgy? In most churches, the apse was where the cross was placed and where the blessed Sacrament was reposed, and it was traditionally built facing the orient. Eastward was from time immemorial symbolic of the risen Lord. Facing eastward was thus equivalent to facing towards the Lord. If the worship of the liturgy has Christ as its focal point, then it is quite natural to face eastwards and towards the cross during the sacred rites of the liturgy. But if, on the other hand, the liturgy is not so much about celebrating Christ’s coming to us, but instead about celebrating the community, then to have everyone facing the same direction, towards the rising sun, makes little sense. If we, the community, are what is most important, then we should be the center of the liturgy. And thus it would seem to make more sense that the priest and the people face each other in the liturgy, celebrating each other. In order to answer the question of whether the priest and the people ought to face each other or else together face eastward, we must look closely at the nature of the Mass and the principles of worship in order to see what is the best and most fitting way to adore our Lord. So as to make the truth of our conclusion more evident, we will first examine a number of objections that argue against Mass being celebrated ad orientem. By first building up the opposing position as much as possible, we hope that then our response will become even more apparent when contrasted to these arguments. Following our main response, we will answer each of the objections individually.

Monastic Musicians, 2015

What makes sacred music to be a fitting expression of man's worship and devotion for God? Are the... more What makes sacred music to be a fitting expression of man's worship and devotion for God? Are there principles interior to the science of music by which it can judge its own sacredness, or does it depend upon something external, such as the theology of liturgy, by which it is determined? Joseph Swain argues that a theology of the liturgy is insufficient to ground a theory of liturgical music. On the other hand, Benedict the XVI, in consonance with the Magisterial tradition of the Church, states that liturgical music must be subservient to and grounded in the liturgy and that liturgical theology is more than sufficient to ground liturgical music. Which of these two positions is correct? In this essay I would like to argue that sacred music, if it is going to retain its nature as leading man from the mundane to his final goal of union with God, must be subservient to and determined by the liturgy. In order to see this we must investigate what are the liturgical principles that determine and guide liturgical music. By understanding the root of the problem that has infected liturgy and liturgical music, we will be better able to understand on what principles a new theory of liturgical music must be based. Swain argues that one of the root causes of the post-conciliar depression in liturgical music is the surfeit of liturgical principles that are nevertheless hopelessly integrated. It is apparent that this is indeed a problem. However, it seems perhaps more correct to say that this is rather the symptom of a deeper underlying problem. The present confusion in liturgical principles seems to stem from relying too heavily on the council document Sacrosanctum Concilium as the only source for the first principles of liturgy. This document gives some very salutary indications regarding the general nature of liturgical music and yet, because of the great ambiguities that it and other of the documents from Vatican II contain, they do not serve very well as a unique source for clearly defined principles. On the one hand, Sacrosanctum Concilium suggests that sacred music needs to be closely connected to the liturgical action, that it should foster unity of minds and confer greater solemnity upon the sacred rites, also that Gregorian chant in particular should be given pride of place in the liturgy as being proper to it. But this same document also states that new compositions should have 'the qualities proper to genuine sacred music… providing also for the needs of small choirs and for the active participation of the entire assembly of the faithful.' If one takes 'active participation' in a physically external manner, thus meaning that the laity should be able to sing out all the parts of the mass, then it would seem to contradict the earlier principle of making Gregorian chant the centerpiece of the liturgy. Certain aspects of plain chant are simply too difficult to be sung

Licentiate Thesis, 2019

Masters Thesis, 2015

Studia Gilsoniana 9:1, 2020

A Lecture Delivered at the Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies Summer School, 2016

Studia Gilsoniana, 2020

New Liturgical Movement, 2015

Monastic Musicians, 2015