The Development of Doctrine in Palamite Theology (section of a longer article) (original) (raw)

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  1. 525A). Even here the Damascene eschews originality, since the disclaimer itself appears borrowed from Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy 4.1 (200C), ed. G. Heil and A.M. Ritter, Corpus Dionysiacum, vol. 2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991), 26 (an insight I owe to John Demetracopoulos).
  2. Tomos of 1341, 6 (ed. Karmires, Τὰ δογματικὰ καὶ συμβολικὰ μνήμεια τῆς Ὀρθοδόξης Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, vol. 1 [Αθήνα, 1952], 301). Cf. G.A. Rhalles and M. Potles, Σύνταγμα τῶν θείων καὶ ἱερῶν κανόνων, vol. 2 (Αθήνα: Γ. Χαρτοφύλακος, 1852), 346. 87 The Confession of Faith pronounced by a bishop at his ordination had been expanded after the Synod of February 1347 to include a repudiation of Barlaam, Akindynos, and Patriarch John Kalekas; see J. Darrouzès, Les regestes des actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople 1.5 (Paris: Institut Francais d'Etudes Byzantines, 1977), 224; H. Hunger et al., Das Register des Patriarchates von Konstantinopel 2 (Wien: Öster- reichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1995): 444-46. 88 Testament 117-27, ed. Hunger et al., Das Register des Patriarchates von Konstantinopel 2:434-36. As regards Isidore's hymnography, both Isidore and Gregoras (History 16.5.10) seem to suggest that it centered especially on the Triadika, but the identity of the texts in question is no longer known; cf. J. Darrouzès, Les regestes des actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople 1.5:239.
  3. See, for example, Andreas de Santacroce, Acta Latina, Sessiones Ferrariensis, Collatio III (16 Oc- tober 1438), VIII (8 November 1438), XIII (13 December 1438), ed. G. Hofmann, Concilium Florentinum Documenta et Scriptores B6 (Rome: Pontificum Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1955), 30, ll.23-25; 44, ll.15-17; 58, l.30; 121, ll.12-14; 128, l.36-129, l.11.
  4. 150 Chapters 80, in The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, ed. and trans. R. E. Sinkewicz (Toronto: Pont. Inst. Of Med. Studies, 1988), 176-77 [modified].
  5. De Halleux, 'Palamisme et Scolastique' , 433.
  6. Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, 188. Meyendorff develops this claim in his 'L'Iconographie de la Sagesse divine dans la tradition byzantine' , Cahiers archéologiques 10 (1959): 259-77. 28 Ibid., 188. 29 Ibid., 194. 30 Ibid., 195. 31 Ibid., 205. 32 Ibid., 195.
  7. 'Humanisme nominaliste et mystique chrétienne' , Nouvelle Revue Théologie 79 (1957): 905-14, at 913; cf. L. Bouyer, Du Protestantisme à l'Église (Paris: Cerf, 1954).
  8. 'Die Bedeutung des Palamismus in der russischen Theologie der Gegenwart' , Scholastik 26 (1951):
  9. On the Slavophiles and the question of Russian national identity, see S. Rabow-Edling, Slavophile Thought and the Politics of Cultural Nationalism (Albany: SUNY, 2006). putting to the sword of Christological Correctives the last remnants of Greek Patristic Platonic Apophat- icism and its supposed linear descendants, the Byzantine Platonic-nominalistic humanists' ('Notes on the Palamite Controversy' , 264, 250).
  10. Among many other examples, see the work of H. F. Müller, Dionysios, Proklos, Plotinos: Ein his- torischer Beitrag zur neuplatonischen Philosophie (Münster: Aschendorff, 19262);
  11. A. Nygren, Eros och Agape (Stockholm: Svenska Kyrkans Diakonistyrelses Bokförlag, 1930-1936);
  12. J.M. Hornus, 'Quelques ré- flexions à propos du Pseudo-Denys l' Aréopagite et la mystique chrétienne en general', Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religeuse 27 (1947): 37-63;
  13. J. Vanneste, Le mystère de Dieu (Brussels: Desclée de Brouwer, 1959). 55 See his 'Dionysius Areopagites in the Works of St. Gregory Palamas: On the Question of a "Christo- logical Corrective" and Related Matters' , St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 46.2-3 (2002): 164-90. Cf. E. Perl, Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite (Albany: SUNY, 2007).
  14. See, also, his Saint Grégoire et la mystique orthodoxe (Paris: Seuil, 1959), 18-24; Byzantine Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 1979), 83-86.
  15. Antonio Rigo, 'La spiritualità bizantina e le sue scuole nell' opera di Irénée Hausherr' , OCP 70 (2004): 197-216 (211-12). See Ι. Hausherr, 'Les grands courants de la spiritualité orientale' , Orientalia Christiana Periodica 1 (1935): 114-38 ; at 132-37. Hans Urs von Balthasar also opposed the 'incarnational' theology of Maximus the Confessor to the 'intellectualism' of Evagrius; see his 'Die Metaphysik und Mystik des Evagrius Ponticus' , Zeitschrift für Aszese und Mystik 14 (1939): 31-47.
  16. On Evagrius, see the work of G. Bunge, 'Evagre le Pontique et les deux Macaire' , Irénikon 56 (1983): 215-28, 323-60; id., 'The "Spiritual Prayer": On the Trinitarian Mysticism of Evagrius of Pontus' , Monastic Studies 17 (1986): 191-208. On Macarius, see C. Stewart, Working the Earth of the Heart: The Messalian Controversy in History, Texts, and Language to AD 431 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991);
  17. M. Plested, The Macar- ian Legacy: The Place of Macarius-Symeon in the Eastern Christian Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Plested discusses Meyendorff 's dichotomy on pp. 60-61. 59 All the more reason the reductive dichotomy should have been abandoned in the much more recent study of J.N. Cañellas, La résistance d'Akindynos à Grégoire Palamas (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 21 n. 74. Cf. the remarks of Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, 55-56 n. 89; and the review of Cañellas by Fr An- drew Louth in Journal of Theological Studies 58 (2007): 346-48.
  18. Hausherr, 'Les grands courants', 124-126; id., 'La contemplation chez les Grecs et les autres Orien- teux chrétiens' , Revue d'Ascétique et Mystique 26 (1950): 121-72, at 130; see Rigo, 'La spirirtualità bizantina' , 212-13. For other places in which Meyendorff treats Dionysius, see his Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (Washington, DC: SPCK, 1969), 75-84; id., Byzantine Theology, 37-39. On the place of Dionysius in Byz- antine spirituality, see A. Rigo, 'La spiritualità monastica bizantina e lo Pseudo-Dionigi l' Areopagita' , in eds.
  19. M. Sheridan and M. Bielawski, Classics Texts and Themes of the Christian Monastic Tradition (Rome: Lipa, 2002);
  20. id., 'Il Corpus Pseudo-dionisiano negli scritti di Gregorio Palamas (e di Barlaam) del 1336-1341' , in ed. Y. de Andia, Denys l'Aréopagite et sa postérité en Orient et en Occident, Acts du Colloque international (Paris, 21-24 Sep. 1994) (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997), 519-34.
  21. See, e.g., L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Con- fessor (Lund: Open Court, 1965), 244-460;
  22. M. Plested, 'The Ascetic Tradition' , in eds. P. Allen and B. Neil, The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 164-76;
  23. M. Constas, '"Nothing is Greater than Divine Love": Evagrios of Pontos, St Maximus the Confessor, and the Philokalia', in eds. A. Andreopoulos and G. Speake, Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth (Oxford: Peter Lang 2017), 57-74; id., 'Maximus the Confessor, Dionysius the Areopagite, and the Transformation of Christian Neoplatonism' , Analogia: The Pemptousia Journal for Theological Studies 2, no. 1 (2017): 1-12.
  24. Martin Jugie, 'Palamas, Grégoire' , Dictionnaire de théologie Catholique, 11.2 (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1931), 1761. In a slightly less polemical spirit, Endre Von Ivánka examines the Platonic themes in Palamas in a series of articles collected in Plato Christianus, 389-445. 63 Historia 35.13-15, ed. I. Bekker, Nicephori Gregorae historiae Byzantinae, vol. 3 (Bonn: Weber, 1855), 481, l.5-482, l.12.
  25. See G. Podskalsky, 'Gottesschau und Inkarnation' , Orientalia Christiana Periodica 35 (1969): 5-44;
  26. and the entire issue of Istina 19.3 (1974). Cf. H.G. Beck, Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte 3.2 (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1968), 606. The popular essay by Rowan Williams, 'The Philosophical Structures of Pala- mism' , Eastern Churches Quarterly 9 (1977): 27-44, is thus derivative in its accusations, a fact alluded to by Kallistos Ware in the same issue of Eastern Churches Quarterly 9 (1977): 46. Nor does Williams offer a very probing treatment of historical Neoplatonism, to say nothing of its relationship with Palamism. 65 'Christianity and Platonism in East and West' , in eds. C. Athanasopoulos and Ch. Schneider, Divine Essence and Divine Energies: Ecumenical Reflections on the Presence of God in Eastern Orthodoxy (Cam- bridge: James Clarke, 2013), 158-209. Milbank's handling of historical Neoplatonism is not much deeper than that of Williams, though he recognizes that Williams's 'strictures on Neoplatonism now appear dat- ed' (ibid. 158, n. 1). Milbank also seems unaware of the article by Eric Perl, which appeared in the time between his own essay and that of Williams: 'St. Gregory Palamas and the Metaphysics of Creation' , in Dionysius 14 (1990): 105-30; nor does he much engage David Bradshaw's genealogy of energeia and par- ticipation in Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
  27. See, e.g., Akindynos, Letter 34.18 (ed. Hero, 124). Cf. Jugie, 'Palamas, Grégoire' , Dictionnaire de théol- ogie Catholique 11.2:1759, 1762; 'Palamite (Controverse)' , Dictionnaire de théologie Catholique 11.2:1777, 1784. 72 Akindynos, Letter 66.46-50 (ed. Hero, 276). Cf. ibid. 424. 73 This was, in part, motivated by criticism from a long line of modern Roman Catholic scholars, who renewed Akindynos's accusation that Palamas was an 'innovator' . Cf. Ware, 'The Debate about Palamism' , 61. To name just one example of early twentieth-century anti-Palamism on the part of Roman Catholic scholars, in addition to those already mentioned, see, M. Candal, 'Innovaciones palamíticas en la doctrina de la gracia' , in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, vol. 3 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1946), 65-103. 74
  28. Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, 6. 75 Ibid., 6. 76 Ibid., 231. 77 Ibid., 232. 78 Ibid., 56.
  29. 'St Mark of Ephesus and the Theological Conflicts in Byzantium' , St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 1 (1957): 11-24; at 18. 81 Ibid., 20, 21. 82 Ibid., 23 (emphasis in the original).
  30. Florovsky, 'St Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers' , in id., Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View (Belmont, MA.: Nordland, 1972), 111, 114; reprinted from Sobornost 4 (1961): 165-76.
  31. For Florovsky, as for Meyendorff and Schmemann, the 'theology of repetition' is 'a peculiar form of imitative "scholasticism'" (110).
  32. J. Payton, 'Toward a Russian Orthodox Worldview' , in eds. J. Sutton and W. Van den Bercken, Ortho- dox Christianity and Contemporary Europe (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 304. According to Paul Gavrilyuk, ' A "theology of repetition" … still paralyzes Orthodox efforts in the area of biblical studies, political theology, moral theology, as well as science and religion, to name only a few examples' ('Florovsky's Neopatristic Synethesis and the Future Ways of Orthodox Theology' , in eds. G. Demacopoulos and A. Papanikolaou, Orthodox Constructions of the West [New York: Fordham University Press, 2013], 122). 525A). Even here the Damascene eschews originality, since the disclaimer itself appears borrowed from Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy 4.1 (200C), ed. G. Heil and A.M. Ritter, Corpus Dionysiacum, vol. 2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991), 26 (an insight I owe to John Demetracopoulos).
  33. Tomos of 1341, 6 (ed. Karmires, Τὰ δογματικὰ καὶ συμβολικὰ μνήμεια τῆς Ὀρθοδόξης Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, vol. 1 [Αθήνα, 1952], 301). Cf. G.A. Rhalles and M. Potles, Σύνταγμα τῶν θείων καὶ ἱερῶν κανόνων, vol. 2 (Αθήνα: Γ. Χαρτοφύλακος, 1852), 346. 87 The Confession of Faith pronounced by a bishop at his ordination had been expanded after the Synod of February 1347 to include a repudiation of Barlaam, Akindynos, and Patriarch John Kalekas; see J. Darrouzès, Les regestes des actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople 1.5 (Paris: Institut Francais d'Etudes Byzantines, 1977), 224; H. Hunger et al., Das Register des Patriarchates von Konstantinopel 2 (Wien: Öster- reichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1995): 444-46. 88 Testament 117-27, ed. Hunger et al., Das Register des Patriarchates von Konstantinopel 2:434-36. As regards Isidore's hymnography, both Isidore and Gregoras (History 16.5.10) seem to suggest that it centered especially on the Triadika, but the identity of the texts in question is no longer known; cf. J. Darrouzès, Les regestes des actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople 1.5:239.
  34. See, for example, Andreas de Santacroce, Acta Latina, Sessiones Ferrariensis, Collatio III (16 Oc- tober 1438), VIII (8 November 1438), XIII (13 December 1438), ed. G. Hofmann, Concilium Florentinum Documenta et Scriptores B6 (Rome: Pontificum Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1955), 30, ll.23-25; 44, ll.15-17; 58, l.30; 121, ll.12-14; 128, l.36-129, l.11.
  35. See, e.g., Kavasilas, Letter 15 (ed. Enepekidēs, 42), and Kydonēs, Letter 213 (ed. R.-J. Loenertz, Démétrius Cydonès, Correspondance, vol. 2 [Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1956-1960], 92), written between 1379 and 1382. Kavasilas is hardly the only Palamite, or anti-Latin, to maintain his friend- ship with Kydones. In addition to the well-known example of the emperors John VI Kantakouzēnos and Manuel II Palaiologos, see Joseph Bryennios, Letter 4: To Demetrios Kydones (ed. Voulgaris 3:140-142). ' Apostasy' is the word used by Bryennios. 111 For his spiritual relationship with Vlates, see Kavasilas, Letter 5.22-24 (ed. Enepekidis, 33). Vlates was a companion of Palamas, with whom he was imprisoned (see E. Trapp, ed., Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologienzeit [Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1976-1994], no. 2817);
  36. see A. Rigo, 'Le Mont Athos entre le patriarche Jean XIV Calécas et Grégoire Palamas (1344-1346)' , in eds. B. Miljković and D. Dželebdžić, ΠΕΡΙΒΟΛΟΣ: Књига I Зборник у част Мирјане Живојиновић (Београд: Византолошки институт Српска академија наука и уметности, 2015), 280. Together with his broth- er Markos Vlates (PLP 2818), Dorotheos founded the Vlatadōn Monastery in Thessalonica, an important center for the propagation of Palamas's legacy; see Ch. Mavropoulou-Tsioumi, Vlatadon Monastery (Thes- saloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1987); ead., 'Ὁι πρώτες απεικονίσεις του Γρηγορίου του Παλαμά στη Θεσσαλονίκη', in Πρακτικὰ θεολογικοῦ συνεδρίου εἰς τιμὴν καὶ μνήμην τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις πατρὸς ἡμῶν Γρηγορίου ἀρχιεπισκόπου Θεσσαλονίκης τοῦ Παλαμᾶ (12-14 Νοεμβρίου 1984) (Θεσσαλονίκη: Ἱερὰ Μεγίστη Μονὴ Βατοπαιδίου, 1986), 247-57.
  37. Against Gregoras 18-19, 13-14, ed. A. Garzya, 'Un opuscule inédit de Nicolas Cabasilas' , Byzantion 24 (1954): 521-32; at 524, ll. 18-19, 13-14.
  38. Congourdeau, 'Nicolas Cabasilas et le Palamisme' , 206, n. 64.
  39. Ibid. 52-55, 59-61 (ed. Garzya, 'Un opuscule inédit' , 526).
  40. Verse for the Canon of St. Gregory Palamas of Thessalonica, ed. A. Garzya, 'Versi inediti di Nicola Cabasila' , Bollettino della Badia Greca di Grottaferrata 10 (1956): 52-50; at 58. The contribution of Kavasilas to a cause as theologically charged as the veneration of Gregory Palamas is itself a testament to his doctri- nal sympathies with Palamism. On the canonization of Palamas, see A. Rigo, 'La canonizzazione di Gre- gorio Palama (1368) ed alcune altre questioni' , Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici 30 (1993): 155-202.
  41. Congourdeau, 'Nicolas Cabasilas et le Palamisme' , 206. The question of the compatibility between the theology of Palamas and Kavasilas is actually more complex than these two issues. In addition to (1) the relationship between faith and reason and (2) Kavasilas' support for the essence-energies distinction, it extends to (3) Kavasilas' emphasis on the accessibility of hesychast spirituality to the laity, (4) his un-real- ized eschatology, and (5) his appropriation of Latin theology. Plested's Orthodox Readings of Aquinas (pp. 29-60) includes a discussion of the supposed tension between Palamism and Latin theology. As to the lay spirituality associated with Kavasilas, it suffices to point out that this spirituality itself derives from the circle and activity of the Palamite Isidore Boucheiras at Thessalonica (see Congourdeau, 'Nicolas Cabasilas et le Palamisme' , 203; cf. Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, 34-35). Furthermore, it is not at all clear that Palamas leaves no room in his theology for the non-monastic emphases found in Kavasilas, an issue that requires further exploration. Lastly, that 'la contemplation parfaite n' existe pas dans le monde pres- of the reality. For a defense of Palamas himself as an essentially neutral party, and for some discussion of the complicated alliances and loyalties of the period, see Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, 64-85. For an overview of the two decades of upheaval in ecclesiastical life, see Darrouzès, Les regestes des actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople 1.5:162-389. Cf. Rigo's detailed historical reconstructions of the events of 1346-1347: 'Il Prostagma di Giovanni VI Cantacuzeno del Marzo 1347' , Зборник радова Византолошког института 50 (2013):741-762; 'Il Rapporto dei metropoliti ad Anna Paleologa e altri eventi del 1346' , Byzantion 85 (2015): 285-339; and the collection of essays on the period from 1351-1368: A. Rigo (ed.), Gregorio Palamas e oltre: Studi e documenti sulle controversie teologiche del XIV secolo bizantino (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2004).
  42. Cf. Sinkewicz, 'Gregory Palamas' , 171: ' As more and more of the very large dossier of hesychast, Pal- amite, and anti-Palamite texts is now becoming available, it will be possible for Byzantinists to explore the different historical dimensions of this period of Byzantine religious culture with the hermeneutic methods of modern scholarship' .
  43. Eastern European scholars in particular have begun to make fuller use of the corpus of Palamite authors and their writings in order to widen the discussion of Palamite theology as such. In addition to authors already cited, see, e.g., C. Chivu, et al, 'Un veac de isihasm: de la Grigorie Palama la Marcu Evghe- nicul' , in eds. id., Sfântul Marcu Evghenicul 2:7-52; D. Biriukov, 'Hierarchies of Beings in Patristic Thought: Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, and the Palamites' , Scrinium 10 (2014): 275-300; id. et al., Монах Давид Дисипат: Полемические сочинения (Moscow: Smaragdos Philocalias, 2012);
  44. D. Makarov, Мариология Феофана Никейского в контексте византийской богословской традиции VII-XIV вв. (Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2012);
  45. B. Lourie, 'L'attitude de S. Marc d'Ephèse aux débats sur la procession du Saint-Esprit à Florence: Ses fondements dans la théologie post-palamite' , Annuarium Historica Conciliorum 21 (1989): 317-333.