4.13. Those who have
participated in flesh and blood are babies. Now, whoever is an infant is
neither good nor evil. Therefore, it is well said that human beings are
intermediaries between angels and demons. (Evagrius’s Kephalaia Gnostika:
A New Translation of the Unreformed Text from the Syriac [trans. Ilaria
L. E. Ramelli; Writings from the Greco-Roman World 38; Atlanta: SBL Press,
2015], 204)
This kephalaion is closely
connected with KG 3.76, in which Evagrius has traced the development of the
human soul from a vegetative level in the womb to an animal level in babyhood
(which in the present kephalaion is represented by Heb 2:14), to the
rational level in adulthood. There, he warned that the gift of the logos can be
used by human beings in two opposite ways, either for the Good, if one follows
virtue, or for evil, if one follows evilness. The former conduct elevates the
human being to the rank of angels, and the latter degrades it to that of
demons, an idea that here is repeated. Here, human beings are assimilated to
babies, who are neither good nor evil, in the sense that they are neither
completely good, as angels are, nor so evil as demons are. If humans were
completely good, they would be angels, and if they were much worse than they
are, they would be demons (I do not say, “if they were completely evil,”
because demons themselves are not completely evil, since they are creatures of
God—if they were completely evil, they would cease to exist). At other times,
indeed, Evagrius speaks of an assimilation of humans to angels or to demons
over the aeons, depending on their moral choices. (Ibid., 204)