The Chapters of Kallistos Angelikoudes: The Relationship of the Separate Series and their Main Theological Themes, in: Byzantine Theology and its Theological Background, edited by Antonio Rigo, Studies in Byzantine History and Civilization, 4 (Turnhout, 2011), p. 141–159 (original) (raw)
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Potency of God. Hypostaticity and living being in Gregory Palamas
Starting from the 24th chapter of Gregory Palamas’ The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, the paper shows how God’s act of creation places a genetic ontological difference inside of the human being. The rational soul (λογικὴ ψυχή) is by nature hyper-cosmic, while the body is from the cosmos and constitutes the animality of the human hypostasis. A real ontological speech on the human being is therefore possible only at the level of his corporeity. On the other hand, the rational soul constitutes the κατ'εἰκόνα Θεοῦ, the centre of human hypostaticity, which is the hyper-ontological foundation of every human person, his being-hypostasis in the likeness of the Holy Trinity, what roots anthropology in Triadology. Moreover, in the paper the Theo-anthropology of Gregory Palamas is studied in relation with Aristotle’s anthropology and psychology.
This dissertation -- soon to be reworked into a monograph -- offers the first systematic historical contextualization and literary analysis of the five saints’ lives composed by Philotheos Kokkinos (ca. 1300–1378) for his contemporaries Nikodemos the Younger, Sabas the Younger, Isidore Boucheir, Germanos Maroules, and Gregory Palamas. Notwithstanding Kokkinos’ prominent role in the political and ecclesiastical scene of fourteenth-century Byzantium, as well as the size and significance of his hagiographic oeuvre, both the hagiographer and his saints’ lives have received surprisingly little scholarly attention. My dissertation fills this gap and shows Kokkinos as a gifted hagiographer who played a leading role, both through his ecclesiastical authority and hagiographic discourse, in orchestrating the societal breakthrough of hesychast theology that has remained at the core of Christian Orthodoxy up to this day. The dissertation is structured in three parts. The first, Philotheos Kokkinos and His OEuvre, offers an extensive biographical portrait of Kokkinos, introduces his literary oeuvre, and discusses its manuscript tradition. A thorough palaeographical investigation of fourteenth-century codices carrying his writings reveals Kokkinos’ active involvement in the process of copying, reviewing, and publishing his own works. This section includes an analysis of the “author’s edition” manuscript Marcianus graecus 582, and presents its unusual fate. Moreover, Part I establishes the chronology of Kokkinos’ vitae of contemporary saints and offers biographical sketches of his heroes, highlighting their relationship to their hagiographer. The second part, Narratological Analysis of Kokkinos’ Vitae of Contemporary Saints, constitutes the first comprehensive analysis of Kokkinos’ narrative technique. It first discusses the types of hagiographic composition (‘hagiographic genre’) Kokkinos employed for his saints’ lives (hypomnema, bios kai politeia, and logos), and then it offers a detailed investigation that sheds light on the organization of the narrative in Kokkinos’ vitae and his use of specific narrative devices. This includes a discussion of hesychastic elements couched in the narrative. Part II concludes with considerations on Kokkinos’ style and intended audience. The third part, Saints and Society, begins with a detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of the miracle accounts Kokkinos wove in his saints’ lives. This considers the miracle typology, types of afflictions, methods of healing, and the demographic characteristics of the beneficiaries (such as age, gender, and social status), revealing that Kokkinos shows a predilection for including miracles for members of the aristocracy. Second, it presents Kokkinos’ view on the relationship between the imperial office and ecclesiastical authority by analysing how he portrays the emperor(s) in his vitae. Moreover, this part addresses the saints’ encounters with the “other” (Muslims and Latins), revealing Kokkinos’ nuanced understanding of the threats and opportunities raised by these interactions. Finally, it makes the claim that through his saints’ lives Kokkinos offers models of identification and refuge in the troubled social and political context of fourteenth-century Byzantium, promoting a spiritual revival of society. As my dissertation shows, Kokkinos’ vitae of contemporary saints sought to shape and were shaped by the political and theological disputes of fourteenth-century Byzantium, especially those surrounding hesychasm. Their analysis offers insights into the thought-world of their author and sheds more light on the late-Byzantine religious and cultural context of their production. The dissertation is equipped with six technical appendices presenting the chronology of Kokkinos’ life and works, the narrative structure of his vitae of contemporary saints, a critical edition of the preface of his hitherto unedited Logos on All Saints (BHG 1617g), a transcription of two hitherto unedited prayers Kokkinos addressed to the emperors, the content of Marc. gr. 582 and Kokkinos’ autograph interventions, and manuscript plates.
The Corpus of Kallistos Angelikoudes’ Writings: a Reconsideration (in Russian)
The Journal of Education and Science “ISTORIYA” (“History”). Vol. 10: Byzantium — Christian East — Russia: Problems of History and Culture. 3 (77) (2019), 2019
The article deals with the little studied and partially unpublished corpus of works composed by Kallistos Angelikoudes, one of the most interesting authors of late Byzantine hesychasm. It addresses some of the problems associated with the manuscript tradition of Kallistos’ writings. Among other things, the article introduces the manuscript Vatop. 610 from Athos, which until now has been virtually unknown to scholars studying the manuscript tradition of Kallistos Angelikoudes. The article also offers a new approach to the systematization of Kallistos' works. In conclusion, it traces the origins of the unique text possibly composed at the end of the fourteenth century and known as the Canon of Compunction. The text is attributed in manuscripts to Makarios Kataphygiotes, believed to be one of Kallistos Angelikoudes’ disciples.
Discourses of Science and Philosophy in the Letters of Nikephoros Gregoras
The principal objective of the present dissertation is to reconstruct and analyze the discourses of science and philosophy in the letters of the Constantinopolitan scholar Nikephoros Gregoras (d. ca. 1360), a prominent figure on the fourteenth-century Byzantine intellectual scene, well-known to modern scholars as the author of a major work on Byzantine history for the period from 1204 until ca. 1359. The inquiry explores Gregoras’ views on mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy expressed in his letters and, consequently, it reevaluates the existing scholarly perspectives on Gregoras’ intellectual legacy. By means of contextualization, Part I: Nikephoros Gregoras’ Epistolary Collection offers a survey of Gregoras’ biography and works, as well as a detailed reconstruction of his ‘library,’ that is, a survey of the manuscripts (in particular, of those codices which transmit scientific and philosophical content) he, in all likelihood, possessed, annotated, compiled, and copied. Part I concludes with a discussion of the manuscript tradition of Gregoras’ letters and the context of their preservation and circulation accompanied by a critical commentary of their modern editions. The main analytical body of the dissertation consists of two large sections dedicated respectively to astronomy (Part II: Justifications of Astronomy) and to philosophy and letters (Part III: Letters and Philosophy). The principal conceptual motivation behind Parts II and III is the exploration of the dialectical relationship informing Gregoras’ intellectual epistolary discourse, namely the relationship between knowledge (mathematical sciences and philosophy), on the one hand, and rhetoric (letters), on the other. Part II examines the status of the astronomical studies in the early Palaiologan period and discusses various strategies Gregoras employed in order to justify the value of this mathematical science. Gregoras’ programmatic effort to defend astronomy’s worthiness is analyzed in the context of the revival of Ptolemaic astronomy in Palaiologan Byzantium, a scholarly “project” that involved erudites from the two preceding generations, notably Maximos Planoudes and Gregoras’ mentor Theodore Metochites. Importantly, Part II: Justifications of Astronomy discusses for the first time after its edition in 1936 Gregoras’ arithmological treatise On the Number Seven which, among other things, is an important evidence for Gregoras’ readership of Philo and Macrobius. Part III: Letters and Philosophy offers a discussion of philosophical letter-writing in Byzantium as well as an analysis of the philosophical premises of Byzantine epistolography. Importantly, its principal discussion problematizes the question of certainty with respect to the human condition through analysis of three case studies which illustrate Gregoras’ strategies for constructing epistolary friendship. Thus, Part III addresses two of the main problems of the dissertation, namely what are, in Gregoras’ view, the possibilities and limitations of human knowledge and, correspondingly, what is the status of science and philosophy as the acquisition of knowledge is at their core qua disciplines. The dissertation concludes that in his letters Gregoras maintains that while there are limits of mankind’s ability to attain knowledge of the perceptible world, due both to the nature of the studied objects and to the faculties of the inquiring intellect, nevertheless, with the help of the divine providence, it is possible to achieve certainty and comprehension. One such example is the study of the heavenly bodies and their movements. Not only are the planets and the stars created by God as signs for mankind to understand, according to Gregoras, but also the regularity of their motion and its mathematical principles facilitate the use of the astronomical science for the attainment of knowledge. Similarly, the ideal friendship, one that manifests itself in the discursive unity of the correspondents, brings certainty and knowledge of oneself and of the other.
The article revisits the use of certain Augustinian expressions and passages in the works of St Gregory Palamas, mainly regarding the Trinitarian reflections in man, the imago Dei, and the notion of eros (love). First, we present Palamas’ theology regarding the eros of the nous (intellect) for its logos. Second, we provide a brief review of the literature regarding the Augustinian presence in Palamas, and then continue with our assessment of this presence. We demonstrate that Gregory does indeed borrow phrases from Augustine, but he does not always use or incorporate the latter’s ideas; sometimes (e.g., in the case of the Filioque) he even comes to the opposite conclusion. In other words, despite similarities, one also finds crucial differences between Augustine’s and Palamas’ relevant approaches. Finally, four possible reasons—not often stressed in scholarship; the third probably mentioned for the first time—are proposed to explain why Palamas takes up the notion of eros from the Bishop of Hippo: a) the ‘eternal rest’ (ἀίδιος ἐπανάπαυσις) of the Holy Spirit on the Son; b) his willingness to oppose the Filioque; c) the appeal to a major notion in Palamas’ anthropology, namely the ‘vivifying power’ (ζωοποιὸς δύναμις) of the human soul; and d) the Holy Spirit’s ‘eternal resplendence’ (ἀίδιος ἔκλαμψις/ἔκφανσις). In conclusion, it is argued that this endeavour of Palamas could nowadays also inspire Orthodox theology in its effort to engage in dialogue with Western thought and in its attempt to articulate a genuine and persuasive voice in our era.