Глава 3. Учение Григория Паламы об обожении

3.1 Palamism as a symbol of theological polemic with the West Orthodox authors such as Vladimir Lossky and Philip Sherrard define deification as the final goal of man, the completeness of mystical union with God through participation in divine uncreated energies, which begins already in this life. They declare a sharp contrast between, on the one hand, the dynamism of Eastern Christian theology, represented by the Church Fathers and Gregory Palamas, and, on the other hand, the staticism of Western theology, especially evident in the works of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. 134 At the same time, some prominent Catholic authors, such as Martin Jugis, who wrote several historical articles for the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, often spoke of Palamism in a dismissive and hostile tone. Jugi questioned the orthodoxy of Palamism, and declared it to have already disappeared from the scene - not long before a new upsurge of interest in the theology of Gregory Palamas began among Orthodox scholars, especially such as John Meyendorff, Vladimir Lossky, Vasily Krivoshein and Cyprian Kern. 135 John Meyendorff in one of his works notes that the suspicious attitude towards Gregory Palamas in the West, in addition to his continuity with the ancient tradition of the Church Fathers that is not obvious to Western theologians, is largely determined by Palamas’ rejection of the Augustinian and Thomistic traditions (The Holy Trinity in Palamite Theology, in Trinitarian Theology East and West, p. 26.) 136. Many Western theologians still adhere to the traditional opinion that Palamism and Thomism are incompatible. For example, Katerina La Cunha is confident that the Palamite ontology of creation's participation in divine life through participation through uncreated energies fundamentally contradicts scholastic theology, which denies the possibility of a real relationship between God and creation. 137 It is noteworthy that, despite the heated debates regarding the Filioque and the primacy of the Pope, it was the question of deification that increasingly came to the fore as the main and irreconcilable contradiction between East and West, and more specifically, between the theologies of Thomas Aquinas and Gregory Palamas. 138 Stephen Runciman writes about the reaction of fourteenth-century Latin theologians to Palamas's teaching: “To Western theologians it seemed pure heresy. It could not be reconciled with Thomism." 139 He also claims that “the concept of the difference between nature and grace, characteristic of Latin theology, as well as the categories and language used in it, are alien to Greek theology” 140. Gerry Russo in Rahner and Palamas writes: “The question of grace most clearly expresses the differences between Orthodox East and West, affecting every element of Christian life: from Trinitarian dogma to the Eucharistic liturgy.” 141 Other researchers, although they do not believe that the question of deification is the main point of division, nevertheless recognize that it is extremely important. Andre de Halleux sees the main contradiction in “the opposition of the Platonic-Palamite East to the Aristotelian-Scholastic West.” Fahey, in Trinitarian Theology in Thomas Aquinas, writes that where the East speaks of deification, the West focuses on the theme of beatitude. 142 3.2 Theological basis for theosis 3.2.1 Historical circumstances of the hesychast dispute The works of Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) on deification cannot be correctly understood outside their historical context: in isolation from the theological debates that took place in Byzantium in the 14th century. The Athonite hesychast monk (ἠσυχαστής) Palamas, in a dispute with the Calabrian Greek, humanist philosopher Barlaam, defended the methods of silent prayer, common among the Athonite monks. The dispute grew into a major theological crisis, centered on issues of deification, man's knowledge of God, and theological method. A number of Constantinople synods resolved these issues in a difficult political situation, when the warring parties enjoyed the support of influential persons in the state, which had a very direct influence on the outcome of the debate. What was later called the "hesychast controversy" began in 1337, when Gregory Palamas, who had read several of Barlaam's anti-Latin works, considered some of the Calabrian's theses to be incorrect, and wrote his objections. Varlaam responded to Palamas, and the ensuing controversy subsequently became a factor that determined the further development of Byzantine theology. Palamas criticized Barlaam for his respect for the Greek philosophers and for his extreme apophatism, which did not allow the use of evidence in cases where God was involved. Varlaam considered possible in theology not “apodictic” (proving), but only “dialectical” syllogisms, based on the test of Scripture and giving probabilistic, but not strict, conclusions. He attacked hesychast prayer practices, and in his treatise Against the Messalians he accused them of pretending to see God with bodily eyes. Palamas, in his answer, reproached Varlaam for agnosticism and defended the value of mystical experience for theology. The central point of the discussion turned out to be “divine energies” and the question of the nature of the “Tabor Light”, which Varlaam considered a “symbol” and not a real manifestation of the presence of God, while Palamas considered uncreated and divine. In general, the dispute was about key theological issues: the knowability of God and the reality of deification. 143 Palamas argued that physical modes of prayer were based on the Incarnation of Christ, and that the human body in itself was not “bad,” and also developed a theology of the distinctness of the divine essence and “energies.” This distinction made it possible to preserve the transcendence of the divine essence and the reality of deification due to participation in “energies.” Thus, a theological doctrine arose, later called “Palamism.” In the polemical treatise of the Triad in Defense of the Sacred and Silent, Palamas gives the first detailed theological presentation of his teaching. 144 In section III.2.24–25 we find it in a concentrated form: 24 ... if there is something that partakes of God, and the super-existent essence of God is completely non-participating, then it means that there is something between the non-participating essence and the participating, through which they partake of God... We need to look for God as somehow participating, so that each in our own way communing with Him to the extent of our communion, we exist, live and are deified. 25. Thus, there is something between what has arisen and that non-participating Superessentiality, and not just one, but many, precisely equal in number to those who partake. But it, I mean that average, does not exist in itself: these are the forces of the Super-essence, which in a unique and unifying way has anticipated and embraced the entire innumerable multitude of the participating, in which it multiplies at the origin and, participated by everyone, non-originally holds on to its non-community and unity. For if the center of the circle, which contains within itself the power to emit from itself all the radii of the circle, does not consist of two or many points, then all the more does God, who predominates in Himself with the forces and prototypes of what arises, reject all duality. These forces and prototypes exist and pre-exist, but not as essences and not as self-hypostatic ones; They do not together constitute the existence of God: He is their creator, and does not Himself consist of them; for what exists with God is not His essence, but He Himself is the essence of everything that is with Him. On the one hand, He is a super-existent essence, ineffable and inconceivable, elusive and inaccessible; on the other hand, the essence of being, the life of the living, the wisdom of the wise, in general, the essentiality and good-beneficial power of everything that exists in any way, which the created one thinks, speaks and to which the created one participates. … Therefore, God himself will be non-participating, non-participating as the Superexistent, we will be sharing as having existential power and all-transforming and all-perfecting energy. 145 Varlaam, objecting to Palamas, proceeded from the fact that grace transcendent to the world should not be distinguished from the divine essence itself. He believed that the doctrine of the difference between grace and the one divine essence inevitably leads to the emergence of the thesis about a “second God.” Palamas in Triads III, 1, 24 responded to this by saying that “essence cannot be seen without energy,” that is, in the Aristotelian spirit of energy as the revelation of essence. 146 During the same period, Palamas wrote the so-called “Svyatogorsk Tomos”, signed by the most authoritative monks of Athos. In 1341, a Synod was held in Constantinople to make a decision on the dispute between Gregory Palamas and Varlaam, at which the theologian of hesychasm won. Varlaam emigrated to Italy, where he joined the Catholic Church and was subsequently ordained bishop. 147 After the death of Emperor Andronikos III, the political situation changed, the alliance of megadux Alexius Apokavkos and Patriarch John Kalecki came to power in the country, as a result of which Palamas, who supported the regent John Cantacuzenus, was imprisoned in 1343. During this period, Gregory's main theological opponent became the monk Akindinus, against whom Palamas wrote seven treatises. At the Synod of 1344, Palamas was excommunicated from the church. But a few years later, Patriarch John was deposed, and the Synod of 1347 excommunicated him and Akindinos, and Palamas became Archbishop of Thessalonica. After this, Palamas’ opponents were led by the famous Byzantine scholar and historian Nikephoros Gregoras, and after some time the Kydonis brothers, Prochorus and Demetrius, the only participants in the controversy who can be called Greek Thomists, joined the dispute. In medieval Byzantium, those Orthodox Christians who sought Union with the Catholic Church or expressed sympathy for the ideas of Latin theologians were called “Latinofrones.” John Meyendorff believes that the dispute between the Palamites and the Latinofronts was not about church unity, but about theological method and priorities. 148 The Byzantine atmosphere of that time was characterized by a certain Greek nationalism. Even Prochorus Kydonis, when accused of departing from the Greek patristic tradition in favor of the philosophy of Aquinas, objected that Thomas was based on the philosophy of Aristotle, “and this is one of us Greeks.” 149 However, the philosophy of Aristotle, for several centuries more popular in Byzantium than Platonism, 150 at that time had already begun to be perceived as the intellectual tool of Latin theologians. As Philip Sherrard writes, “Anti-Latin sentiment in the Byzantine intellectual world saw Platonism, already associated with the ideas of non-Christian Greek society, as an ideological weapon to counter Christian Aristotelianism in the West.” 151 How fair is it to call the Greek opponents of Palamas “Latinophrones”? It should be noted here that many of them rejected scholastic approaches no less harshly than the Palamists. Thus, Nicephorus Gregoras ridiculed the use of syllogisms in theology, arguing that they were unsuitable for the search for divine truth, and called those who used them people of mediocre intelligence. 152 Also, in his dispute with Palamas, Barlaam showed no less hostility towards Thomas Aquinas than towards Gregory. Meyendorff, in Byzantine Theology, notes that Prochorus Kydonis was the first among Palamas' opponents to use Thomist arguments. The excommunication of Prochorus, announced by Patriarch Philotheus, is interpreted by some scholars as a condemnation of Thomistic teaching in the Greek Church, and the Synod of 1368 condemned a number of theses that can be found in the Summa against the Gentiles: in particular, the identification of such attributes of God as wisdom, strength and will with the divine essence. The decisive moment of the hesychast dispute was the Synod of 1351, which was convened by John Cantacuzene, who became Emperor John V Palaiologos. At this Synod the theology of Gregory Palamas was solemnly approved. In 1368, Gregory Palamas was canonized by the Greek Church. 153 During the Ferraro-Florence Council, the Byzantine emperor forbade his theologians to raise the question of divine energies, since the Palamist position seemed to him unsuitable for Greco-Latin dialogue. 154 However, as Anna Williams points out, there is not enough historical evidence to support the insurmountability of the schism between Western and Eastern theology, since there are no official doctrinal documents on either side that directly condemn the theology of Thomism or Palamism. 155 3.2.2 Man as the image of God The basis of Palamas' anthropology is the conviction that man in the hierarchical order (τάξις) stands in second place, immediately after God - above the angels and the entire created world. This doctrine, which Palamas arrived at after a careful study of the works of Pseudo-Dionysius, is set forth in Palamas' mature work of 150 chapters. Such a significant revision of the positions of the author of the Corpus Areopagiticum was carried out by Gregory during the dispute with Varlaam. Pseudo-Dionysius argued that divine outpourings (πρόοδοι) spread to people through the heavenly hierarchy of angelic orders, which stand closer to God due to their incorporeal nature. Good angels also surpass people in moral and spiritual perfection. Accepting this, Palamas nevertheless insisted that man occupies the highest position in the hierarchy of all created things, surpassing even the angels; the rest of the world was created for the sake of man, and the Kingdom of Heaven was prepared for him from the very beginning, but Adam’s sin radically changed man’s place in the cosmic hierarchy: his falling away from God placed him under the power of lower creatures. But unlike the rest of creation, man is Capax Dei: only his nature could be united with God in the hypostatic union of the Incarnation. The basis of human dignity is that he is created in the image of God. Palamas understood the Imago Dei as a reflection of the Persons of the Trinity. 156 In his reflection (chapters 35 and 36) he used the well-known scheme proposed by the Stoics and transferred to the sphere of theology by Philo of Alexandria, and then developed by Theophilus of Antioch, Origen, Athanasius of Alexandria and Maximus the Confessor. In it, the structures of human speech are projected onto relationships in God. Corresponding to the Father-Mind is λόγος ἐνδιάϑετος - subjective mind, ideal word, or the inner conversation of the soul with itself. The Son-Word among the authors preceding Gregory Palamas corresponded to λόγος προφορικός - outwardly spoken and revealed in the word reason, or the spoken word. 157 Palamas largely reworked this scheme, defining the Son as a “clever word” ἐν διάνοία λόγος, and thinking through the role of the Holy Spirit: “The Spirit of the Highest Word is, as it were, some kind of ineffable Love of the Parent for the Inexpressibly born Word Himself. This same Love is used by the Beloved Son Himself and the Word of the Father, having It in relation to the Parent, as having come with Him from the Father and resting unitedly in Him.” 158 As Robert Sinkevich shows in his work, this Trinitarian model, contrary to the opinion of Martin Jugy, was not the result of the direct influence of Augustine, since Palamas did not know Latin and had a generally negative attitude towards Latin theological concepts. It is more likely that Palamas was influenced by the treatise on the Transfiguration of Gregory of Sinai (1255–1346), and most likely by the works of Theoleptus of Philadelphia (1250–1322). 159 Be that as it may, this Trinitarian concept allowed Palamas to develop the theological anthropology of the Imago Dei. Palamas considers man to be the image of God because, firstly, the human soul relates to the body, guiding it and giving it life in the same way that God gives life to incorporeal creatures (angels and souls). Secondly, he points out that it is man, and not angels, who is entrusted by God with power over the material world. After the Fall, Satan seized power over the world, but this power does not belong to him by right. And thirdly, he notes that, unlike angels, man also has the ability to feel. 160 Due to the corporeality of man, the concept of Imago Dei in the theology of Gregory Palamas acquires a Christological as well as a pneumatological character. The image of God in man reflects not only the inner life of God (the immanent Trinity), but also the economic communication of the Word and the Spirit. 161 3.2.3 Christology of theosis Many Church Fathers: Irenaeus of Lyons, Athanasius the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus - adhered to the so-called “natural” point of view on deification, according to which the deification of human nature is the result of its hypostatic union with the incarnate Word. 162 Maximus the Confessor supplemented this teaching by speaking of “perichoresis” (interpenetration of the properties of two natures, or communicatio idiomatum). George Mandzaridis writes: The “natural” point of view on deification, which Gregory Palamas adhered to along with other Church Fathers, does not presuppose a mechanical change in human nature, as Harnack believed, but its ontological rebirth in the hypostasis of the incarnate Word, available to every person who personally and freely participates in the life of Christ. 163 John Meyendorff comments on the teaching of Palamas: “by making the old Adam die on the cross and communicating his own life to man in Jesus, God restores his legitimate power... The Trinity again becomes accessible to man directly and immediately... The doctrine of deification is for St. Gregory is a consequence of the historical work of Christ: outside of Him, Divine life remains inaccessible to man.” 164 The theology of the sacraments and ecclesiology contain the rationale for the doctrine of deification. 165 Through baptism and the Eucharist, our body is united to the Body of Christ, which “allows the divine light to shine within our body.” 166 However, it should be noted that a feature of Palamas' theology is that in his main works (Triads and 150 chapters) he says relatively little about the Sacraments, preferring the topic to the sanctifying role of Scripture and the fulfillment of the commandments. 167 Varlaam, in a dispute with Palamas, condemned the monks and sychasts for the fact that they strive to enclose the mind inside the body, and not distract it from the body. 168 Palamas considered ecstasy, which requires the rejection of the body, to be a diabolical invention and a consequence of ancient Greek errors. He sought to combine the idea of ​​Gregory of Nyssa about the incorporeality of the mind with the opinion of St. Macarius about the heart as a rational carnal organ. According to Palamas, the mind is connected to the body and uses the heart as the most important carnal organ. 169 According to Meyendorff, Palamas's thought follows the path of anti-Platonic reaction in the name of biblical anthropology, based on the unity of spirit and matter in man. 170 Just as Palamas revised the teaching of Pseudo-Dionysius about the heavenly hierarchies, he made a Christological amendment to the Areopagite’s teaching about the apophatic knowledge of God (see chapter 1). Meyendorff points out the absence of Christology in the Corpus Areopagiticum, which gives the latter an ambiguous character. 171 Speaking about the knowledge of God, Palamas argued that the apophatic path “is insufficient, for it is limited to the comparison of beings with God, leading only to the recognition of the unknowability of God, and therefore, is only the knowledge of beings.” 172 The awareness of the presence of Jesus in us was the factor that prompted Palamas to disagree with the agnosticism of his opponent Barlaam, who relied on the apophatics of Pseudo-Dionysius. 173 3.2.4 Theology of hesychasm When Palamas writes about union with God, he often resorts to antinomies, trying, on the one hand, to speak about the reality of theosis, and on the other, to emphasize the transcendence of God. Therefore, he avoids clear categories and speaks of the insufficiency of both apophatic and cataphatic theology. 174 In the second chapter we looked at Aquinas's doctrine of three-stage likeness to God: natural, through grace and in glory. It reflects the connection between nature and grace, expressed in the well-known formula gratia perficit naturam (ST Iª q. 62 a. 5 resp.). Palamas in the Triads (III.1,26) vigorously objects to the idea that deification represents the perfection of nature. However, an analysis of the context shows that Palamas’s goal here was to deny a certain natural evolutionary dynamics of man in the direction of God, that is, to affirm the transcendence of God, and not at all to deny the well-known maxim of Irenaeus of Lyons and many subsequent Church Fathers that man is capax Dei, and therefore his very nature contains a certain potential for deification. 175 The initial conviction of Gregory Palamas was that already in this life a person can actually experience deification (he uses not only the term ϑέωσις, but also the words ἐκϑέωσις, ϑεοποιός, ϑεουργός, ϑεούμενος). Gregory associated this experience with the practice of the unceasing Jesus Prayer (invoking the name of Jesus Christ). Prayer is a virtue, and it makes a person capable of receiving deification, which is not the result of his activity, but a gift of divine grace. 176 Prayer, like the fulfillment of the commandments, is a necessary and free synergy (co-operation) of man and the redemptive action of God. 177 The main thing in hesychast prayer, according to Palamas, is concentration and “gathering” of the mind. 178 The purpose of prayer is constant communication with God and the vision of the uncreated light, which is the uncreated natural energy emanating from the essence of God, which serves as true evidence of the deification of man and the highest form of knowledge of God. 179 According to Palamas, this is precisely the light that the disciples of Jesus saw on Mount Tabor, and which was the natural radiance of the deity of Jesus at the moment of the Transfiguration. In Triads III.1.33, Gregory Palamas gives an explanation of this radiance: ... some of the saints, after the coming of God in the flesh, saw this light like an endless sea, strangely pouring out from the one Sun, that is, from the worshiped body, like the apostles on the mountain. Thus the firstborn (1 Cor. 15:20; 23) of our human mixture is deified. The deification of deified angels and men is not the super-existent essence of God, but the energy of the super-existent divine essence, and this energy resides in the deified not like art in the creation of art - so in the works of the Creator there is a productive force, appearing or expressing itself in everything - but “like art in the one who owns it,” according to the great Basil... 180 Regarding the “Taborian light,” the discussion arose not because Varlaam excluded the phenomenon itself, but because of the theological explanation given by Palamas. According to Barlaam, who rejected the distinction in God between essence and energy, intelligent light can be either God himself, or an angel, or a purified human mind. In the dispute that arose about whether the Tabor light was a “symbol,” Palamas and Varlaam used this term in different senses. 181 From the text of the Triads it is clear that Palamas understands it in the Aristotelian sense, as having no essential relation to the symbolized, while in Platonism and Neoplatonism the “symbol” elevates from one level of reality to another - which, apparently, is consistent with the position of Varlaam. 182 Gregory Palamas insisted on the uncreatedness of light, since only in this case is direct and personal communication between God and man possible, arguing that immaterial light “deifies the gift of the Spirit ... the very radiance of the divine nature, through which God communicates with the worthy.” 183 Vladimir Lossky writes: “In the “Svyatogorsk Tomos” a clear distinction is revealed between the sensual light, the intelligible light and the Divine light: the latter surpasses the other two, equally belonging to the realm of the created.” 184 In general, the theme of the uncreated light is constantly at the center of Gregory’s theological research: for him it is the most important image that describes deification, demonstrating God’s power and grace. 185 The knowledge of God arises from the positive gift of God and is a positive experience: renunciation of beings is followed by "ignorance which is greater than any knowledge" and is greater than renunciation. A person achieves such “true knowledge” when he “unites with God and through God sees God” 186. ... in the abundance of His mercy to us, God emerges with His inalienable supernatural power from transcendence, incomprehensibility and mystery, becoming involved in the mind and invisibly visible. 187 It is important to note that for Gregory Palamas, as for Thomas Aquinas, the contemplation of God is identical to deification; but if Palamas more often calls it “union” and “deification” (ϑέωσις), then Thomas prefers to talk about beatitude (beatitudo). In both cases, contemplation represents the highest level of man's encounter with God. When speaking of contemplation, Palamas often uses the term ϑεωρία, which was widely used in the previous spiritual and mystical tradition, and denotes both prayer and theology. For both theologians, this process of participation in the divine life has no end due to the infinity of God. The difference from the thought of Thomas Aquinas is that in Palamas contemplation is not identified with knowledge, although in a dispute with Barlaam Gregory points to mystical experience as a source of theological knowledge. Nevertheless, as for Thomas Aquinas, contemplation for him is a gift of grace and unattainable by the forces of human nature in itself. 188 It should also be noted that Gregory, unlike Thomas, does not talk about the purely intellectual nature of contemplation, since nowhere does he make a clear distinction between the different abilities of the mind and soul: this kind of analysis would be uncharacteristic of the ascetic tradition. 189 Another feature of the Palamist doctrine of deification is its atemporal nature: Palamas rarely distinguishes between mystical experience in this life and the fullness of the divine presence in the coming age. 190 3.2.5 Distinguishing between the essence and energies of God As we saw above, the posing of the question of the difference between energies and the divine essence was caused by the desire to point out that deification does not occur by created means, but also not by the essence of God. In a dispute with Barlaam, who argued that the Spirit sent to the saints is not energy, but the very hypostasis of the Spirit, Palamas accused his opponent of “pleasing his relatives the Latins” 191. According to Palamas, the Holy Spirit is present everywhere both in essence and energy, but His essence remains inaccessible to communion and indivisible, and His energy is distributed to angels and saints. 192 George Manzaridis formulates Palamas’ thesis as follows: “If people partook not of God’s grace, but of God’s essence, this would lead to the fact that people would become gods by nature.” 193 Thus, the theological reason that prompted Gregory Palamas to formulate the doctrine of the difference between the essence of God and his energies was rooted in the need for an ontological distinction between the Creator and the creation. In a sense, a similar motivation led Thomas Aquinas to coin the term “created grace” in the 13th century. Despite the apparent contradiction in terms, theological thought in both cases was guided by similar goals. Palamas interpreted the doctrine of his opponents about the impossibility of finding distinctions in God (besides the distinction between essence and Hypostases): if the essence of God is identical to energies (manifestations outside), then the number of divine hypostases multiplies to infinity, and if energies represent a created mediator, then deification is impossible. George Manzaridis comments: The teaching of the opponents of hesychasm and the Latins about the salvation of man by created grace contradicted the most important patristic dogma, according to which the rebirth and deification of man occurs through uncreated means. Gregory Palamas opposes this. He says that the Spirit of God deifies man with His inherent energy and grace, and not with created means and not with His essence. 194 Based on the fact that the grace of the Holy Spirit is His inherent energy, and as the middle member of his syllogism, using the statement of his opponents about the createdness of grace, Gregory Palamas comes to the conclusion that they consider the Spirit Himself to be created: “The natural energy of the Holy Spirit could be created only if the Spirit itself were created” 195 This division gave the Byzantine opponents of Gregory Palamas a reason to call him a ditheist, recognizing the existence of a higher and lower deity. In subsequent years, Catholic theologians often condemned the teaching of Gregory Palamas for the fact that the distinction between essence and energies contradicts the thesis of divine simplicity. In 150 Chapters, Palamas writes: “In God [one can distinguish] three real [things]: essence, energy and the Trinity of Divine Hypostases.” 196 Jugy, von Ivanka, Journet, Wendeburg understand this Palamist distinction as “real” (that is, located in re, “in the thing,” independent of the activity of the mind). 197 Some Orthodox authors, such as Vladimir Lossky, argue that this is a real difference, but do not believe that it introduces complexity into God (just as the difference between essence and Hypostases, or the difference between Hypostases, does not). 198 On the other hand, Phillips believes that this is only a nominal difference. 199 The problem is presented, first of all, by the transfer of Palamas’ theological vocabulary into the terminology of Latin theology, where the very concept of distinctio realis (real difference) is not unambiguous and obvious for understanding. Etienne Gilson, in Being and Essence, points out that the “natural substantialist tendency of our minds” tends to interpret aliud (other) as “another thing,” “something else,” and can thus lead us into error. 200 Anna Williams draws attention to the differences among Orthodox scholars in interpreting the nature of the Palamist distinction between divine energies and essence. Although Lossky is confident that this distinction is not a purely intellectual distinction, not an abstract concept, but a concrete reality, Meyendorff uses less straightforward language, and his approach allows for the possibility that in this case one can speak of a conceptual distinction. Thus, in Byzantine theology, Meyendorff writes: “The threefold distinction - essence, hypostasis, energy - is not a division of the being of God; it reflects the mysterious life of “He-Who-Is” – transcendental, three-personal and present in His creation.” 201 The definition of energies as a manifestation of nature ad extra, given by Meyendorff in the work Life and Works of St. Gregory Palamas 202, in itself does not bring any novelty in comparison with the classical concept of energy, that is, it does not imply two different realities. After all, ἐνέργεια, according to the philosophy of Aristotle, is not something other than essence, but represents its external sign, its external manifestation. Thus, Gilson, commenting on Aristotle, writes: Substances manifest... their effectiveness, precisely because each of them is itself effectiveness (ἐνέργεια); they serve as sources of diverse activity precisely because each of them is itself an act. This is the basis of being in the proper sense: being is the act by virtue of which every substance is that it is what it is, and exists as an independent being. 203 According to Anna Williams, Lossky and Meyendorff differ in their assessments because Palamas himself, while periodically speaking in favor of a real distinction, does not seem to attach much importance to it. She notes that Palamas has very few passages where he speaks of a "threefold distinction" in God, which probably indicates that Gregory himself did not attach as much importance to this distinction as many commentators believe. 204 The distinction between essence and energies is a theological tool rather than a rule of faith. After all, the only purpose of this teaching is to avoid heretical consequences from the theology of deification. Thanks to him, it is possible to present the doctrine of deification, avoiding the corollary of the multiplication of divine hypostases. 205 In 150 chapters, Palamas makes an attempt to substantiate the impossibility of participation in the essence of God not only from theological but also from a philosophical point of view: 110. When we talk about communion, it [means that the participant] has a part of the participle, for if [he] participates not in a part, but in the whole, then [we can talk] not about communion, but about possession. But what is communed is divisible, and therefore what partakes necessarily partakes of the part. However, the essence of God is completely indivisible, and therefore completely inaccessible to communion. On the contrary, Father Chrysostom repeatedly speaks in his writings about the fact that Divine energy is divided. It is what those who are worthy of deifying grace participate in... 206 From this text it is clear that Palamas believed that the communicant “has a part of the communicant.” How to understand this? Various attempts to understand the involvement of the plural in the one were considered by Plato in the dialogue “Parmenides”, in particular: how is it possible, “while remaining one and identical, at the same time to be in everything”? 207 In the case of Palamas, the premise that one cannot participate in the indivisible (fundamentally contrary to the Platonic approach) gives rise to the assumption that one can participate in the divided. But when the communion turns out to be divided according to the number of participants (so that there is no indivisible part in which different participants participate), each of the parts of this divided will be “in possession”, and again it will be impossible to talk about communion. To avoid this conclusion, Palamas, speaking about energy, uses an oxymoron in the same 110th chapter, calling it “inseparably divided.” Authors such as Dorothea Wendeburg and Catherine La Cunha, interpreting Palamas’ teaching on the difference between essence and energies, reproach Palamas for the fact that his theological concept breaks the connection between the economic and immanent Trinity and contradicts the Gründaxiom about the identity of economics and theology. To this it must be said that Gründaxiom does not seem obvious to those theologians who do not agree with the axiomatic identity of economy and theology, postulated by K. Rahner and K. Barth. 208 Wendeburg and La Cunha also criticize the Byzantine theologian for “excluding the divine Persons from the living experience of man.” One gets the impression that Gregory interprets the divine Persons as a certain intermediate level between essence and energies. This, according to D. Wendebourg, is perhaps the main weakness of Palamist theology: the creature cannot have a direct connection with the divine hypostasis: it has it only with the hypostasis expressed in energy. By enclosing the Divine Persons in an impregnable Divine essence in which it is impossible to become a participant, Gregory actually excluded the Trinity from our salvation. 209 … What then is the soteriological function of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Can Hypostases have any real relation to this world if they belong to the realm of essence that is uniquely defined as lying beyond the boundaries of all soteriological contact? The lack of connection between the Divine Persons and the “economy” of salvation, as a result of the strict distinction between “theology” and “economy,” ultimately leads to the recognition of the soteriological ineffectiveness of the Holy Trinity. 210 E. Timidis writes: “God who does not want to be with us, God who sends us his strength and energies as an alternative, contradicts the entire plan of Christ’s incarnation.” 211 However, according to John Meyendorff, the doctrine of energies does not lead to depersonalization of communication with God: although the energies of God are common to all three Hypostases, these energies (actions of God) remain personal actions due to the “perichoresis” (interpenetration) of the Hypostases. Gregory Palamas himself wrote in his work On Divine Unity and Distinction that the three Divine Hypostases “possess each other naturally, entirely, eternally and without origin, but also without confusion and unmerged, and interpenetrate one into the other.” 212 Andre von Ivanka is convinced that the real distinction between the Divine essence and energies contradicts the entire theological thought of the Greek Fathers of the Church. According to him, any strict distinction between the Divine essence and the energies of the Palamite model in the works of the Cappadocian fathers is excluded for the reason that very often the energies are also spoken of as incomprehensible and inaccessible to humans. 213 Rowan Williams in The Theology of Lossky believes that, philosophically, Palamism represents a rather unfortunate combination of Neoplatonic and Aristotelian systems, a mixture of extreme realism of Neoplatonic metaphysics and Aristotelian logic. 214 Modern Russian researcher Evgeniy Zaitsev states: “Palama transforms the essential-energy distinction used by the Cappadocian fathers in a purely epistemological sense into an ontological distinction at the level of God himself, using philosophical terminology that carries different semantic loads.” 215 Although some Orthodox commentators insist that the decision of the 1351 synod has the character of dogma, others (for example, Callistos Ware) believe that, despite the almost dogmatic confidence in the truth of the Palamist distinction, new dogmas can only be adopted by ecumenical councils. Florovsky, although he affirms the central importance of Palamas' theology for the Orthodox Church, does not believe that it has a dogmatic status. Sergius Bulgakov takes an even more flexible position, saying that only the Ecumenical Council can expand the Depositum Fidei. John Meyendorff limits himself to asserting: the foundations of the teachings of Gregory Palamas are found in the decrees of the VI Ecumenical Council. Thus, he admits that the Palamist teaching is a later theological development. Alexander Schmemann offers a restrained assessment, close to the conciliatory VIa media: the teaching of Palamas is a creative development of the basic tendencies of the Orthodox approach to Christianity. 216 It is also impossible not to pay attention to the fact that among Orthodox theologians in the period from the 15th to the 20th centuries, attention to the doctrine of the difference between essence and energies was rather episodic. Callistos Ware believes this is due to Western influence on Orthodoxy during this period of history. However, even if we consider the 20th century to be more authentic to the Eastern tradition, it cannot be called a completely determined influence of Palamism, since, for example, such an authoritative Greek theologian as Trembelas pays very little attention to the difference between essence and energies. Also, Karmiris (who believes that the decisions of the Palamist synods of the 14th century have only auxiliary significance) and Pomazansky - well-known authors of textbooks for Orthodox seminarians - do not mention him. The outstanding Romanian theologian Dumitru Staniloie very rarely uses the term “energies”, and in general rather interprets their difference from essence as a difference “according to understanding”. 217 More details about the influence of Palamas on Orthodox theologians of the 20th century will be discussed in Chapter 4. Orthodox authors see in Gregory Palamas a saint who collected and comprehended the elements of the Orthodox tradition, completed and finally formalized the long development of Tradition, starting from Irenaeus of Lyons. Western theologians often see him as a dubious innovator, who in the 14th century introduced new concepts into the Depositum Fidei, and these innovations concerned the very heart of Christian theology - the doctrine of God. When researching Palamas' theology and reading commentaries on his works, it can sometimes be difficult to separate his thoughts from the interpretations of neo-Palamite theologians of the 20th century. 218 Anna Williams notes that it was in the 14th century that some Byzantine theologians came to the conclusion that Catholics were mistaken not in some individual points, but in their very theological approach and methods of argumentation. Callistos Ware believes that the intellectual development of Western Christianity in the 11th-12th centuries led to the fact that Latin theologians changed their methodological approach, which had not previously differed from the Eastern in any fundamental way. 219 Christos Yannaras considers the constant use of syllogistic and ratio in relation to revealed truths to be the root of the errors of scholasticism, as a result of which the boundary between human and divine natures was erased; in his opinion, the scholastic tradition did not strive for knowledge of the logos of things, but for individualistic-intellectual domination over the physical world. 220 However, one should not assume that the philosophical approach is typical only of Latin theology. It is enough to point to John of Damascus, who widely uses the concepts of being, substance, accident, species and gender in his theological works. Patriarch Photius made extensive use of philosophical argumentation in his 9th-century debates over the Filioque. The position of Byzantine authors regarding philosophy remained quite ambivalent. 221 Comparing the works of Gregory Palamas with the works of Thomas Aquinas, one cannot help but pay attention to the non-linear development of Palamas’ theological thought and his lack of a clear structure of presentation, which is customary for Western theology. To Western researchers, this feature of Palamas’ style, coupled with the use of antinomies (although not as frequent as it seems to V. Lossky, who stated that antinomy is the most important part of Palamas’ theological method), often seemed to be the irrationality of his theological approach as a whole. Such assessments are based on the idea that if the logical structure of a theological treatise does not strike the reader, then it means that there is no logical basis in principle. Anna Williams notes in this regard that if one examines Palamas's texts, paying attention to those elements of his theology that he himself considered the most important, one can find a fairly high degree of consistency in his writings. 222 Palamas does not so much use a systematic progression from one section to another as rely on images, none of which in themselves exhausts his doctrine of deification or his theological anthropology. He presents the many perspectives from which we can look at God and humanity, while also pointing out the limitations of each of these perspectives. Palamas does not provide an explicit synthesis, but, nevertheless, his images form a coherent theological system. 223 cfr. N. Russell, Doctrine, 4 S. Runciman, The Great Church in Captivity, St. Petersburg 2006, p. 114. Ecclesiological Awareness in the East and in the West from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century in Unity of the Churches of God, 129–30; Quoted in A. Williams, Deification in Thomas Aquinas and Gregory Palamas, 9 Joost van Rossum, Palamism and Church Tradition: Palamism, its Use of Patristic Tradition, and its Relationship with Thomistic Thought, New York 1985, 56. Gregory Palamas, Triads in Defense of the Sacred-Silent, Moscow 1995, 326–27 J. van Rossum, Palamism, 89 cfr. A. Williams, Deification, 37 cfr. Philip Sherrard, Greek East and Latin West, Moscow 2006, 172 A. Williams, Deification, 47 J. van Rossum, Palamism, 10–11 A. Williams, Deification, 17 Robert Sinkewicz, St. Gregory Palamas and the Doctrine of God's Image in Man according to the Capita 150, Athens 1986, 8–10 cfr. Gregory Palama, One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, Krasnodar 2006, 64, approx. 100 R. Sinkewicz, God's Image, 18–29 One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, 116–121 R. Sinkewicz, God's Image, 15 Cfr. George Manzaridis, The Deification of Man, Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius 2003, 22 John Meyendorff, Life and Works of St. Gregory Palamas. Introduction to the study, St. Petersburg 1997, 221 A. Williams, Deification, 422 G. Manzaridis, Deification, 81 I. Meyendorff, Life and Works, 218 cfr. A. Williams, Deification, 438 G. Manzaridis, Deification, 84 I. Meyendorff, Life and Works, 228 cfr. I. Meyendorff, Life and Works, 267–68 Quoted in G. Mantzaridis, Deification, 96 Vladimir Lossky, Theology and vision of God, Moscow 2000, 265 A. Williams, Deification, 407 A. Williams, Deification in Thomas Aquinas and Gregory Palamas, 40–45 G. Manzaridis, Deification, 30 A. Williams, Deification, 350 Etienne Gilson, Being and Essence in Selected: Christian Philosophy, Moscow 2004, 391–392 John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes, Minsk 2001, 179 I. Meyendorff, Life and Works, 285 E. Gilson, Being and Essence, 355 A. Williams, Deification, 368 Plato, Parmenides in Collected Works in Four Volumes, Volume 2, Moscow 1993, 349–357 A. Williams, Deification, 355 Evgeny Zaitsev, V. Lossky's teaching on theosis, Moscow 2007, 97 Quoted from E. Zaitsev, Teaching, 227 Quoted in I. Meyendorff, Life and Works, 292 cfr. A. Williams, Deification, 373–74 cfr. A. Williams, Deification, 37–38