This is the second article in a series of articles about Saint Gregory Palamas and the hesychast controversies. 

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The hesychast controversies might have been inaugurated by Barlaam the Calabrian’s rejection of apodictic arguments in establishing a doctrine of God – an opinion which later revealed a lackluster apophaticism – but it certainly did not end there. Indeed, this first phase of the dispute, wherein Barlaam appears to agree with Arius’ neoplatonic notion that God is ultimately unknowable by his creation, was simply an entry point for a theological altercation that would carry on for well over a decade (c. 1336–1351 A.D.). Barlaam is “hard to pin down,” to use the words of Robert Sinkewicz, because his gnoseology appears to shift between two distinct stages: 1. A theological agnosticism decrying apodictic certainty while relying on a God-given illumination achieved through ascetic purification (the early years: c. 1336–1339); 2. An emphasis of philosophical inquiry and rational understanding as necessary intermediaries to God, illumination, and deification (c. 1339–onward). [1]

This second stage emerged rather early in the doctrinal parley – prior to the Council of Constantinople in 1341, the year some scholars pinpoint as the beginning of the Hesychast controversies, proper – marking a shift away from the initial contention and on toward what would become a key disagreement: how human beings, who were created ex nihilo, can have an intimate knowledge of and relationship with the uncreated God. It was Barlaam’s observation of the hesychast method of prayer – and his mistaken conviction that hesychasm was a resurrection of the absurdities of Messalianism – that initiated this shift. [2]

Incensed by this experience – and by a public exchange with an athonite monastic leader – “Barlaam published a new treatise, entitled ‘Against the Messalians,’ openly accusing his opponents of preaching the doctrine of a formally condemned sect.” [3] This 4th-century Mesopotamian sect, considered neo-Manichaeans by some patristic authorities, [4] was named after the Syriac mṣallyane meaning praying people. Also called Euchitites or Bogomils or Cathars, [5] the Messalians were subdivided into two groups by St. Epiphanius: one heathen and one Christian.[6] The latter did not have a “fixed faith” or leader. Rather, it united around a few central tenets: a denial of the salvific power of the sacramental mysteries, the belief that every human being is born with a demon attached to them, and the insistence that the only way to disperse the demon was through ceaseless prayer. [7] For our purposes, we will pass by in silence the majority of these distinguishing features of the sect, in favor of discussing one particular – yet superficial – similarity between the Messalians and the Hesyachasts which occasioned Barlaam’s indictment.

THE UNCREATED LIGHT ACCORDING TO THE MESSALIANS AND HESYCHASTS

This is the second article in a series of articles about Saint Gregory Palamas and the hesychast controversies. 

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The hesychast controversies might have been inaugurated by Barlaam the Calabrian’s rejection of apodictic arguments in establishing a doctrine of God – an opinion which later revealed a lackluster apophaticism – but it certainly did not end there. Indeed, this first phase of the dispute, wherein Barlaam appears to agree with Arius’ neoplatonic notion that God is ultimately unknowable by his creation, was simply an entry point for a theological altercation that would carry on for well over a decade (c. 1336–1351 A.D.). Barlaam is “hard to pin down,” to use the words of Robert Sinkewicz, because his gnoseology appears to shift between two distinct stages: 1. A theological agnosticism decrying apodictic certainty while relying on a God-given illumination achieved through ascetic purification (the early years: c. 1336–1339); 2. An emphasis of philosophical inquiry and rational understanding as necessary intermediaries to God, illumination, and deification (c. 1339–onward). [1]

This second stage emerged rather early in the doctrinal parley – prior to the Council of Constantinople in 1341, the year some scholars pinpoint as the beginning of the Hesychast controversies, proper – marking a shift away from the initial contention and on toward what would become a key disagreement: how human beings, who were created ex nihilo, can have an intimate knowledge of and relationship with the uncreated God. It was Barlaam’s observation of the hesychast method of prayer – and his mistaken conviction that hesychasm was a resurrection of the absurdities of Messalianism – that initiated this shift. [2]

Incensed by this experience – and by a public exchange with an athonite monastic leader – “Barlaam published a new treatise, entitled ‘Against the Messalians,’ openly accusing his opponents of preaching the doctrine of a formally condemned sect.” [3] This 4th-century Mesopotamian sect, considered neo-Manichaeans by some patristic authorities, [4] was named after the Syriac mṣallyane meaning praying people. Also called Euchitites or Bogomils or Cathars, [5] the Messalians were subdivided into two groups by St. Epiphanius: one heathen and one Christian.[6] The latter did not have a “fixed faith” or leader. Rather, it united around a few central tenets: a denial of the salvific power of the sacramental mysteries, the belief that every human being is born with a demon attached to them, and the insistence that the only way to disperse the demon was through ceaseless prayer. [7] For our purposes, we will pass by in silence the majority of these distinguishing features of the sect, in favor of discussing one particular – yet superficial – similarity between the Messalians and the Hesyachasts which occasioned Barlaam’s indictment.

THE UNCREATED LIGHT ACCORDING TO THE MESSALIANS AND HESYCHASTS

Today we begin a new series of articles for paid subscribers on the hesychast controversies. There are a lot of details about the debate between Barlaam and Palamas that are often missed. For this reason, we will be dedicating a significant (and as yet undetermined) amount of time to the topic. 

The hesychast controversies of the fourteenth century were occasioned by the collision of two irreconcilable approaches to the knowledge of God:1 the philosophical and the theological. The former would rely upon the analogia entis and analogia fidei2 to provide a theoretical experience of God as a rationally comprehensible, simple substance. First espoused by the neo-Arians of the fourth century, this perspective would read Aristotle’s Metaphysics back into the Christian principle of Divine Simplicity,3 making it difficult for its adherents to adequately uphold the distinction of Hypostases in God.4 The theological approach, on the other hand, would emphasize the direct experience of God through prayer.5 Assessing these two different epistemic methods, Abp. Basil Krivocheine (1900–1985 A.D.) would note that “the two parties in conflict took their stand on positions which differed notably as regards their principles in constructing a theology of God.”6 As such, the different methodologies produced a discrepancy in theological vision – specifically as regards the use of apophatic theology – which, in turn, affected the finer points of the hesychast debates.7 The failure to fully appreciate the disparity between these approaches has extended the dispute to our day. 

The original contention revolved around whether or not apodictic arguments were appropriate in theological discussions to refute the Latins. Provoked around 1335 A.D. by a series of Anti-Latin Treatises written by Barlaam the Calabrian (c. 1290–1350 A.D.) who, According to Saint Gregory Palamas (c. 1296–1359 A.D.), professed a dangerous “theological agnosticism”8 and an overdependence on “Aristotelian logic in theological discourse.”9 Although there is some evidence that Palamas initially misunderstood Barlaam’s theology – on account of which he wrote his first Triad10 – he would rightfully point out that Barlaam’s belief that “there is no demonstration for any of the divine realities”11 reveals a lackluster apophaticism. Indeed, as Metropolitan Kallistos Ware once remarked, “‘apophaticism’ can be used to denote two profoundly different things.”12