Theosis and Gregory Palamas
Theosis and Gregory Palamas
Theosis and Gregory Palamas
Norman Russell1
Theosis did not mean much to most Byzantines in the early four-
teenth century. Some writers referred to it in passing. Anyone who
was at all familiar with the Orations of Gregory of Nazianzus, or
had dipped into the erudite discussions of Maximus the Confessor,
could not have failed to have come across the term. But it was not
widely used by later Byzantine writers. In patristic literature where
theosis, or deification, was mentioned it was usually a metaphor for
baptismal adoption by grace, or for the final consummation of the
resurrected life. What it did not imply, except perhaps among
some of the pioneers of hesychasm, was a personal experience
attainable in this life through a programme of contemplative
prayer.3
1 An early version of this paper was delivered as the 2006 Fr Georges Florovsky
Lecture.
2 On the patristic approaches to theosis see N. Russell, The Doctrine ofDeification in
the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
3 For examples of how Palamas's older hesychast contemporaries regarded deification
see Theoleptos of Philadelphia: "And as Adam, moulded by God's hand from dust,
became through divine inspiration a living soul, so the intellect moulded by the vir-
tues and repeatedly invoking the Lord with a pure mind and an ardent spirit, is di-
vinely transformed, quickened and deified through knowing and loving God"
(Theoleptos Texts 2; Philokalia, trans. G. E. H. Palmer, P. Sherrard and K. Ware,
vol. iv [London: Faber and Faber, 1995], 189); Gregory of Sinai: the resurrected
"through incorruption and deification will become intellects, that is to say, equal to
the angels" (Gregory of Sinai, On Commandments and Doctrines, 53; Philokalia,
trans. Palmer, Sherrard and Ware, vol. iv, p. 222). The Lord will stand in the midst
of gods and kings and will illuminât and deify each according to his merit (Gregory
of Sinai Discourse on the Transfiguration 28, ed. D. Balfour [Athens 1982], 56). In-
terestingly, Gregory of Sinai's biographer, Kallistos I, (the Palamite patriarch of the
Synod of 1351), has Gregory as a young monk practising a conventional ascetic life
on Mount Athos until an old man called Arsenios came and taught him how
357
358 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
through contemplation the mind can become illuminated and wholly transformed
with light (holosphôtoëidës). According to Kallistos, when Gregory put this teaching
into practice, he experienced a strange transformation and his hermitage was "filled
with light from the effulgence of grace" (Balfour, Gregory the Sinaite, Discourse on
the Transfiguration, 64,67-68, quoting Kallistos of Constantinople, Life ofGregory
the Sinaite 8, ed. Ν. Pomialovskii [Moscow, 1896]).
4 For synoptic accounts of Palamas's approach to theosis see J. Lison, "La divinisation
selon Grégoire Palamas. Un sommet de la théologie orthodoxe," Irénikon 67
(1994): 59-70; Russell, Deification, 304-9. There are several major studies of
theosis in Palamas, which while containing much of value treat the earlier patristic
evidence very sketchily, ifat all, with the result that they present Palamas's version of
theosis as normative for the Eastern tradition as a whole: J. MeyendorfF, Introduc-
tion à l'étude de Grégoire Palamas, Patristica Sorbonensia 3 (Paris: Editions du Seuil,
1959), pan 2, chapter 3: 'Le Christ et l'humanité déifiée: rédemption, déification et
ecclésiologie' (abbreviated Eng. trans. G. Lawrence, A Study of Gregory Palamas,
[Leighton Buzzard: Faith Press, 1964]); G. Mantzaridis, È pen theöseös tou
anthröpou didaskalia Grégoriou tou Palama (Thessalonica, 1963, reprinted in his
Pahmika (Thessalonica: Pournara, 1973), 147-268 (Eng. trans. L. Sherrard, The
Deification ofMan: St Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition [Crestwood,
NY: SVS Press, 1984]); R. Flogaus, Theosis bei Palamas und Luther: ein Beitragzum
ökumenischen Gespräch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 77-284; A.
N. Williams, The Ground ofUnion: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (New York
& Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 102-56. Studies which take cognizance
of Palamas's particularity include T. L. Anastos, "Gregory Palamas' Radicalization
of the Essence, Energies, and Hypostasis Model of God," GOTR 38 (1993): 335-
49; Y. Spiteris, Palamas: h grazia e Vesperìenza. Gregorio Palamas nella discussion
teologica, Pubblicazioni del centro Aletti 17 (Rome, 1996); K. Sawidis, Die Lehre
von der Vergöttlichung des Menschen bei Máximos dem Bekkenner und ihre Rezeptio
durch Gregor Pakmas (St Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 1997).
Theosis and Gregory Pakmas 359
probably in 1357, and for many years afterwards.5 The last synod
concerning Palamas, held in 1368, resulted in his canonization.
But even then the controversy continued until overtaken by the
catastrophic events of the fifteenth century.
Why did Palamas' teaching provoke such hostility? And why did
successive councils fail to provide a solution? Personalities and poli-
tics certainly played a part, but the fundamental reasons were theo-
logical. Educated people took theology seriously. Many were
attracted by Palamas's vision of union with the divine but uneasy
about his explanation of the mechanics of it. Was his teaching tra-
ditional or innovative? Was it orthodox or heretical? Persuasive
arguments were advanced by either side. It was not easy to decide
between them.
Personalities
Hesychast doctrinefirstbecame a matter of public debate as a result
of the clash between two powerful and disputatious personalities,
Gregory Palamas and Barlaam the Calabrian. Palamas's austere
countenance gazes out at us from his near-contemporary portraits
withfiercelyintellectual intensity. Of aristocratic background, he
had become a monk at the age of twenty after an excellent educa-
tion in Constantinople. In 1340, when the charge of heresy was
first laid against him, he was in his early forties, competent in
5 For die history of die hesychast controversy to the death of Palamas, see J.
Meyendorff, Introduction, Part 1; D. N. Moschos, Platonismos ë Christianismos? Oi
philosophikes prohypotheseis tou Antihësychasmou tou Nikèphorou Grigora (1293-
1361) (Athens: Parousia, 1998). On the later history of the conflict see G. Mercati,
Notizie di Procoro e Demetrio Odone, Manuele Caleca e Teodoro Melitiniota ed altri
apprenti per h storia delh teologia e della letteratura bizantina del secolo XIV, Studi e
Testi 56 (Vatican City, 1931); N. Russell, "Palamism and the Circle of Demetrius
Cydones," in Ch. Dendrinos et al. eds., Porphyrogenita: Essays on the History and Lit-
erature of Byzantism and the Latin East in Honour of Julian Chrysostomides
(Aldershot: Ashgate 2003), 153-74; id., "Prochoros Cydones and the Fourteenth-
Century Understanding of Orthodoxy," in ed. A. Louth and A. Casiday, Byzantine
Orthodoxies. Papersfromthe thirty-sixth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Uni-
versity of Durham, 23-25 March 2002 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 75-91.
6 For an illustration and discussion of an early panel portrait see L. Ouspensky and V.
Lossky, The Meaning of Icons (Crestwood: SVS Press, 1999), 118-19.
360 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
formal logic, well read in the Fathers and deeply experienced in the
life of solitude and prayer.7
His opponent and accuser, Barlaam the Calabrian, was a clever
Greek from Southern Italy who had made a reputation for himself
as a philosopher in Constantinople. He was of a type not unknown
in academe. Combative, self-assured and acerbic, he was consid-
ered arrogant even by his friends. But he was an excellent dialecti-
cian and, like a modern positivist, refused to tolerate nonsense.
When in Thessalonica in 1336 he heard some hesychasts talking
about their experience of psychosomatic prayer and vision of
divine light, he knew it was nonsense and said so.8
Gregory Akindynos, a friend initially of both Barlaam and
Palamas, tried to dissuade Barlaam from aiming his arrows at some-
9 Gregory Akindynos Letter 10.32-33 (ed. Hero, Letters of Gregory Akindynos [Wash-
ington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1983], 38).
10 See R. E. Sinkewicz, "The Doctrine of the knowledge of God in the Early Writings
of Barlaam the Calabrian," Mediaeval Studies 44 (1982): 181-242.
11 Akindynos Letter 10.34.
12 PG 150.691D.
13 Akindynos Letters 40.138-39,44.48 and 70(ed. Hero, pp. 156,190, and 192). On
Akindynos see Juan Nadal Ca Zellas, "Gregorio Akindinos," in Conticello, La
théologie byzantine, 189-314.
14 On Gregoras R. Guilland, Essai sur Nicéphore Gregoras (Paris, 1926), is still ofvalue.
For a masterly summary of his philosophical position see B. N. Tatakis, La
philosophie byzantine (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2nd ed, 1959; Greek
trans. E. Kalpourtzi, Ê Byzantine Philosophia, Athens, 1977; Eng. trans. N. J.
Moutafakis, Byzantine Philosophy, Indianapolis, 2003), 238-43 (page references are
to the Greek trans, which was made under the supervision of L. Benakis). Moschos,
Pktönismos, is now indispensable on Gregoras's religious thought.
362 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
Politics
These personal animosities fuelled the debate. But politics, both
ecclesiastical and imperial, also came into it. When Barlaam pub-
lished his attack on hesychasm in 1340, under the title Against the
MessalianSy he touched on a raw nerve. "Messalian" was the
Byzantine codeword for "Bogomil," and although Palamas himself
was not a Bogomil he was in contact with people who were, or were
thought to be. Only four years later, in 1344, an internal investiga-
tion conducted by the Protos and Council of the Holy Mountain
unmasked a group of heretical monks centred on the Lavra
(Palamas's monastery) and Iviron. The ringleader was the
Lavriote, Joseph of Crete, who with twenty-six other monks was
expelled from the Mountain.18 This was a major episode, reported
to the patriarchate in a HagLoretikon Gramma^ although it is never
15 See Meyendorff, Introduction, l64r-66 (Eng. trans. 108-10). Gregoras's account of
the debate is in his Roman History 30 and 31. There is an independent account by
the Protostrator George Phakrases (ed. M. Candal, in OCP 16 [1950]: 328-56).
16 John Kyparissiotes Pakmicarum Transgressionum 4.10 (PG 152.734D-736A).
17 On the affair of 1344 see Rigo, Monad esicasti, 135-220.
18 Joseph and his associates were condemned for disparaging icons, depreciating the
sacraments, refuting the incarnation of the Word and the resurrection of the dead,
and engaging in homosexual acts. They were subjected to beatings and other pun-
ishments before expulsion, Joseph's closest disciple, George of Larissa, being
branded with a cross on his face (Akindynos Letters 52.67-69). The official report
(the Hagioretikon Gramma) defines these men as "Bogomils," but Rigo is doubtful
whether they were formally members of the sect. He suggests they were spiritual en-
thusiasts somewhat on the lines of the "fools for Christ's sake" {Monaci esicasti, 216).
What we seem to have here is not so much the infiltration of Mount Athos by
Bogomils as overlapping circles of enthusiasts gathered round teachers such as Greg-
ory of Sinai (by this time, however, at Paroria, on the Bulgarian border), Gregory
Palamas, and Joseph of Crete, who though rivals in some degree, shared certain
characteristics (cf. Rigo, Monad esicasti, 257-71). Joseph's group strayed into her-
esy. But there were borderline monks and even some like one Raptes, who while be-
longing to the Skete of Magoula (Gregory of Sinai's centre on Mount Athos) was
condemned as a follower of Joseph of Crete.
Theosis and Gregory Pakmas 363
21 The Hagioretikon Gramma, preserved in a single copy in Vat. Gr. 604, has not been
edited. For a description see Rigo, Monad esicasti, 137-48.
22 Mentioned by Akindynos in his speech to Kalekas, 4 (ed. Nadal, in Conticello, La
théologie byzantine, 260).
21 Ed. with French trans. J. Meyendorff, Défense des saints hésychastes, Spicilegium Sa-
crum Lovaniense 30-1 (Louvain, 1959; partial Eng. trans. N. Gendle, Gregory
Pakmas, The Triads, Classics of Western Spirituality [London: SPCK, 1983]).
There is a convenient reprint with Italian translation in E. Perrella, ed., Gregorio
Pakmas, Atto e luce divina (Milan: Bompiani, 2003).
22 Ed. Pakma Syngrammata 2, pp. 567-78. Eng. trans. Palmer, Sherrard and Ware,
Philokalia, voi. iv, pp. 418-25; Sinkewicz in Conticello, La théologie byzantine,
183-88. The Hagioretic Tome is mentioned in the last treatise of the Triads (3.3.4),
showing that work on the Tome and the third Triad was undertaken concurrently.
The bishop of Hierissos was the ordinary of the Holy Mountain.
364 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
Philosophical Method
From the beginning philosophical issues were at the forefront. The
central problem concerned the nature of divine knowledge.
Palamas opens the First Triad with the question: cHow can one
demonstrate by rational argument (logöi) the good that is beyond
reason (hyper hgon)V He was replying to a questioner who had
asked him about the value of secular studies (he exö paideid) and
had reported the argument that by studying phenomena one can
arrive at their inner principles, their logpi> which can be traced back
to the mind of the Creator. Hence intellectual work—"the meth-
ods of distinction, syllogistic reasoning and analysis"—can raise us
up to the mind of God and conform us to his likeness—a kind of
do-it-yourself theosis.2 This caricatured somewhat the views of
Barlaam, who though confident that by sheer intellectual effort
23 No mention is made of the affair on Mount Athos in 1344 as a reason for Palamas's
excommunication. He was convicted on disciplinary charges for allegedly present-
ing a false interpretation of the Tome of 1341.
24 See further Russell, "Palamism and the Circle of Demetrius Cydones." It was not
until 1396, under Manuel II Palaiologos, that repressive measures were taken
against opponents of Palamism collectively.
25 Palamas Triads 1.1.1 (ed. Perella, 274).
26 Palamas Triads 1,firstquestion (ed. Perella, 272).
Theosis and Gregory Pakmas 365
tial and natural glory of God, being different as he says from his
essence and nature."31 Philosophical critics objected to Palamas's
assigning ontological status to divine attributes which in fact could
only be distinguished conceptually32 Gregoras felt that Palamas
was actually reviving the Platonic theory of Forms as intermediate
realities between God and the created world.33
As Haakon Gunnarsson has recently argued in a thoughtful
study on Palamas's mystical realism, his attempt to argue his case
within a contemporary philosophical framework was a bold under-
taking.34 Palamas had strong reservations about the apophatic
approach to divine reality. He tries to make sense of mystical expe-
rience in the scientific and philosophical language of his day. Yet
paradoxically, "almost every attempt arrives at establishing that the
spiritual cannot be grasped by man's natural intellectual capacity,
nor expressed in philosophical language."35 Gunnarsson concludes
that on the philosophical level "it is difficult to see that [Palamas's
approach] meets the standards for a cogent epistemology of mysti-
cal experience."36 In the fourteenth century, too, not many trained
in the "outer learning" were convinced if they were not already
friends of the hesychasts.
Theological Issues
The theological issues debated by Palamas during the sixteen years
from his Third Triad in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts ( 1341 ) to his
last treatise Against Gregoras (1357) all revolved around the correct
exegesis of the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor. In the
Third Triadsfirsttreatise, which is on the nature of illumination,
Palamas concedes that the Taboric light was symbolic. But that did
not mean that it did not exist in reality. Symbols can work on sev-
eral levels simultaneously. The Taboric light was not simply an
external phenomenon, but an "enhypostatic" symbol (enhypostaton
symbofon), meaning that the light was real even if it did not have an
independent existence, or hypostasis, of its own.38 If it had been
independent, it would have added a third nature to Christ's existing
two, the human and the divine. Building on a definition going
back to Leontius of Byzantium, Palamas contrasts enhypostaton
("enhypostatic") with authypostaton ("self-subsistent") and
anhypostaton ("without independent existence").39 Enhypostatic
reality occupies a place in between the self-subsistent and the acci-
dental. In the case of the Taboric light, it both symbolizes and is
divinity. It is accessible to perception yet transcends it. As
"enhypostatic" symbol it enables the beholder to participate in the
divine.
For Barlaam a symbol could only be something other than the
reality it represented, a dichotomy that was to be taken even further
by Gregoras. In the latter s view a symbol is a humble thing indeed.
It can be any sensory stimulus that leads the mind to knowledge of
itself, which is ultimately an intellective grasp of the divine. A
37 On the patristic exegesis of the Transfiguration see J. McGuckin, The Transfigura-
tion of Christ in Scripture and Tradition (Lewiston and Queenston: Edwin Mellen
Press, 1986).
38 Palamas Triads 3.1.13-14 (ed. Perrella, 792-96). Cf. Triads 3.1.9 (ed. Perrella,
784-86). On the meaning ofsymbols in Palamas see Gunnarsson, Mystical Realism,
235-46.
39 Palamas Triads 3.1.18 (ed. Perrella, p. 802). On the use of the terms by Leontius of
Byzantium, see A. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 2, part 2, The
Church of Constantinople in the Sixth Century(London: Mowbray, 1995), 193-97.
368 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
Theophanes, states that theosis is the purpose for which we were cre-
ated, God intending to make us partakers of his own divinity.
Those deified are in God and God is in them. They participate in
the divine energy but not in the essence of God. With patristic sup-
port, we are entitled to call this energy "divinity."66
Perhaps no other theological dispute in the Greek world gener-
ated so much literature. In a rapid survey I have counted 83 trea-
tises for Palamism and 57 against from the outbreak of the contro-
versy to the death of the Patriarch Philotheos in 1376.67
Contemporary letters reveal how people sometimes changed sides
on being convinced by the arguments of the opposing party.68
Others simply sat on the fence, unable to make up their minds.69
Both sides invoked Tradition, marshalled appropriate patristic
texts, and presented cogent rational arguments. What prevented
them from reaching agreement?
Personal and political factors, as I have already suggested, were of
secondary importance. The main reason was that although the
controversial terms used by Palamas—essence and energy, divini-
ties, participation - were subjected to searching analysis, the fun-
damental assumptions of either side were not examined. Jaroslav
Pelikan has said: "To understand a culture, it is essential to identify
those presuppositions in its thought and language that are so obvi-
ous to all that they are only rarely raised to the level of formal state-
ment."70 Palamas's presuppositions are three:first,that the experi-
ence of the hesychasts is real—the light they see is a real light which
brings about intimate communion with the divine; secondly, that
66 Ibid., 105 (ed. Sinkewicz, 200).
67 See the bibliographical appendices in MeyendorfF, Introduction, 340-415. Since
1959 many more of these have been published.
68 Cf. Akindynos Letters 39,40,42,50,73; Palamas Letter 2 to Gabras (Sinkewicz, no.
27 in Conticello, Théologie byzantine, 147).
69 Cf. Akindynos Letters 30,62; Palamas Letter to Daniel of Ainos and Letter to Symeon
the nomophylax (Sinkewicz, nos. 29 and 30 in Conticello, Théologie byzantine, 147-
48).
70 J. Pelikan, Historical Theology: Continuity and Change in Christian Doctrine (Lon-
don: Hutchinson, 1971), 80, with reference to A. N. Whitehead's Science and the
Modern World (New York, 1952).
Theosis and Gregory Pakmas 375
75 D. Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Bradshaw says that Palamas
"draws together under the single concept oienergem a number of themes that previ-
ously had existed more or less in isolation" (p. 238). Anastos argues, righdy I think,
that it was Palamas's notion of deification, conceptualized as immediate experience
of God by created being, that provoked his radical theological restatement of God's
transcendence over created being ("Gregory Palamas' Radicalization," 335).
Theosis and Gregory Pakmas 377
84
night vigils we are "renewed and deified" in our inner being. This
transformation of our human nature, first in the representative
humanity of Christ and then in our own persons through the life of
faith, is thoroughly traditional and patristic, complementing the
more technical version of theosis elaborated in a monastic context
and in a specific philosophical idiom.
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