Origins of the Enneagram center construct
I believe that the origins of the Enneagram center construct can be found in the work of Evagrius, a Christian philosopher who lived outside of Alexandria in the 4th century.
Evagrius integrated traditional Greek theory and spiritual development practices with even older Egyptian Hermeneutic theory and practice to devise a startlingly innovative and completely new philosophy of human spiritual development. A major part of his work involved re-imagining two key concepts - the tripartite soul and the logisimoi (eight forms of “dangerous reasoning”) - that Evagrius and other Christian philosophers inherited from earlier Greek philosophical traditions and incorporated into their newly evolving Christian theology.
Wiltse and Palmer (2011) note, “In recent years, the work of Evagrius has attracted the attention of the Enneagram community as it became clear that his map of eight thoughts that act as impediments to prayer match eight of the nine cognitive/emotional habits associated with the Enneagram personality styles… the parallels between the eight logisimoi of Evagrius and the passions of eight of the nine Enneagram types are unmistakable”(p 7).1
Evagrius’s model of the human structure did not involve a typology of personality – he did not appear to think in terms of categorical differences among people. Instead, Evagrius’s model consisted of two interacting constructs2: a tripartite human soul made up of thumos, epithumos, and nous; and eight (or nine)34 logisimoi, (generic, disordered, irrational thoughts that were thought to upset and distract humans). In other words, rather than categorizing types of people, Evagrius categorized the logisimoi in terms of which parts of the tripartite soul each logisimoi specialized in afflicting.
Stewart (2005)5 notes, “Although many earlier Christian writers mention the Platonic model of the soul and occasionally make use of its terminology, Evagrius is the first to make the model ofnous,epithumia, andthumoscentral to his teaching on the Christian life”(p 19).
Stewart goes on to explain that, “… the tripartite model of the soul is far more evident than the schema of ‘eight generic thoughts’, suggesting that it is more fundamental to his ascetic pedagogy than the schema of eightlogisimoiand the latter may even be derived from it” (p 19).
Placing Evagrius’s model on the Enneagram symbol
I think that Evagrius’s conceptualization of the human structure as consisting of these three partsthumos,epithumia, andnous- is the precursor of the Enneagram centers construct.In very broad terms, for Evagrius and other Christian philosophers, thumos was associated with anger, epithumos was associated with desire, and nous was associated with thinking.
To be very clear: I am not aware of any research showing that Evagrius ever represented his tripartite model in terms of a triangle with placement of thumos at the top, epithumos on the right and nous on the left. This diagram is my own depiction of how I think Evagrius’s model of the soul would look when placed on the inner triangle of the traditional Enneagram symbol.
A final thought (for now)
I think one of the most important aspects of Evagrius’s model was the depiction of human suffering being understood in terms of what is internal to a human (the tripartite soul) and what is external to a human (the logisimoi).
As Gravier (2018) explains, “The Aristotelian and Stoic traditions in particular emphasize the receptivity of the soul or mind in perception and thought. On this view, the world continually acts upon the mind, thereby providing it with specific content; perception and affect are thus not purely mental items, but start linking the perceive with the world.
The permeability of the boundary between the self and the world is the main characteristic of pre-modern modes of self-constitution…. Greek doctors saw the human body as a system of channels that enable both external material and psychic matter to enter the body and pervade it… [there was an assumption] that the self is part of its surroundings, and that the dynamics that are at work in the cosmos are reflected in the human body… The conception of the human body as a small version of the universe blurs the boundary between internal and external causation.” 6
1
Wiltse, V and Palmer, H. (2011). “Hidden in plain sight: Observations on the origins of the Enneagram”. In The Enneagram Journal, Vol. Iv, Issue 1, pp 4 - 37.
2
Stewart, C. (2011). “Evagrius Ponticus and the Eastern monastic tradition on the intellect and the passions”. In Modern Theology, 27:2, pp 263 - 275.
3
Stewart (2005) notes, “Though these thoughts are mentioned frequently in all of Evagrius’s writings, the schema of eight logisimoi as such appears in only a few works; in one text he works with a list of nine.” (p 18). From “Evagrius Ponticus and the ‘Eight Generic Logisimoi’” in R. Newhauser, ed. In the garden of evil: The vices and culture in the Middle Ages. Toronto:PIMS, pp 3 -34.
4
Harmless and Fitzgerald (2001) provide a translation in which Evagrius writes, “The first thought of all is love of self (philautia); after [come] the eight” (p 511). They go on to note: “This assertion, that there is a ninth ‘thought’ prior to the others, is, to the best our knowledge, not found anywhere else in Evagrius’s writings” (p 511). From “The Sapphire Light of the Mind: The Skemmata of Evagrius Ponticus” in Theological Studies, 62, pp 498 - 529.
5
Stewart, C. (2005). See footnote 3.
6
Gravier, I. (2018), Asceticism of the mind: Forms of attention and self-transformation in Late Antique monasticism. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, pp 60 - 61.
