The Hesychast movement.

        In the first half of the fourteenth century the interesting Hesychast movement, mystical and religious, made its appearance in Byzantium and gave rise to eager controversies and vigorous polemic. Hesychasts (ησυχασται), i.e. “those who live in quiet,” or quietists, was the name given to the men whose goal was indivisible and full unity with God, and who chose as the only way to its attainment complete seclusion from the world, hesychia (ησυχια) which meant “silence, speechlessness.”

        The quarrel of the Hesychasts, which greatly disturbed the inner life of the state, originated in the troubled and complicated period when the Empire was struggling for its existence, first against invasion by the Turks and later the Serbs, and second, against severe internal troubles arising from the stubborn conflict of the two Andronicoi, grandfather and grandson, and of John Palaeologus and John Cantacuzene. Only a short time had elapsed since the schism of the Arsenites, which had greatly disturbed church and state affairs.

        A Greek monk, Barlaam, who arrived from south Italy (Calabria), began the quarrel. He distorted and ridiculed the Hesychast doctrine prevalent chiefly in the Athenian monasteries, which was communicated erroneously to him by an uneducated Byzantine monk. A report presented to the patriarch contains these lines: “Until the most recent time we had lived in peace and stillness, receiving the word of faith and piety with confidence and cordial simplicity, when, through the envy of the devil and insolence of his own mind a certain Barlaam was raised against the Hesychasts who, in the simplicity of their heart, live a life pure and near to God.”[268] Athos, which had always been the guardian of the purity of Eastern Orthodoxy and monastic ideals, was painfully affected by this quarrel and, of course, took a leading part in its development and solution.

        Scholars consider this quarrel a very important event of the fourteenth century. The German Byzantinist Gelzer rather exaggerated when he said this ecclesiastical struggle “belongs to the most remarkable and, in its cultural and historical aspect, the most interesting phenomena of all times.”[269] Another scholar, the more recent investigator of the problem, a Greek who received his education in Russia, Papamichael, considered the Hesychast movement the most important cultural phenomenon of the epoch, deserving attentive study.[270] Scholars vary greatly concerning the inner conception of the Hesychast movement. Troizky saw in this movement the continuation of the struggle between the zealots and the politicians,[271] or, in other words, the monks and the secular clergy, a struggle which, during the Hesychast quarrel, ended in complete triumph for the monks. Th. Uspensky came to the conclusion that the Hesychast quarrel was a conflict between two philosophical schools, the Aristotelian, whose doctrines had been adopted by the Eastern church, and the Platonic, whose followers were anathematized by the Church. Later the conflict was transferred into the theological sphere. The historical significance of the chief spokesmen for the Hesychast doctrine comes from the fact that they were not only the spokesmen for the Greek national ideas in the struggle with the West, but, still more important, stood at the head of the monastic movement and had the support of Athos and the monasteries in the Balkan peninsula which depended upon the Holy Mountain.[272] A more recent investigator of this problem, Papamichael, whose book came out in 1911, did not deny that the struggle of the monks (the party of the zealots) with the politicians, and some philosophical speculation, were secondary factors in the movement: but he believed that the correct interpretation of the Hesychast quarrel lies primarily in the purely religious domain. On the one hand it is found in that intense mysticism prevalent at that time, not only in the West but also in the East, especially in Athos; on the other hand, in the attempt of the western Greek monk Barlaam to Latinize the Orthodox Byzantine East, by rationalistic and sarcastic attacks, which shook monastic authority in Byzantium.[273]

        Barlaam’s Latin proselyting is not yet satisfactorily proved. Putting that aside, the Hesychast movement, though primarily religious, became still more interesting in connection with the prevailing mysticism in western and eastern Europe, and with some cultural phenomena of the epoch of the Italian renaissance. The study of this aspect of the Hesychast movement belongs to the future.

        The most prominent of the Hesychasts in the fourteenth century and the man who best reduced to a system the doctrine of hesychia was the archbishop of Thessalonica, Gregorius Palamas, a well-educated man and an able writer, a sworn adversary of Barlaam and the head of the party of the Palamites, named from him. At the same time many other Hesychasts were explaining and interpreting the doctrine of hesychia, especially a Byzantine mystic, unfortunately very little known, Nicholas Cabasilas, whose ideas and works deserve careful study.

        According to the above-mentioned work of Papamichael and its exposition by J. Sokolov, the Hesychasts devote themselves entirely to the knowledge and contemplation of God, and the attainment of unity with Him, and concentrate all their strength for this purpose. They retire “from the whole world and all that reminds them of the world,” and isolate themselves “by means of the concentration and gathering of the mind in themselves.” To attain this concentration the Hesychast has to detach himself from all imagination, all conceptions, all thoughts, and free his mind from all knowledge, in order to be able freely, by an absolute independent flight, to merge easily into the truly mystic darkness of ignorance. The highest, most sincere, and most perfect prayer of the perfect Hesychasts is an immediate intercourse with God, in which there exist no thoughts, ideas, images of the present or recollection of the past. This is the highest contemplation—the contemplation of God one and alone, the perfect ecstasy of mind and withdrawal from matter. No thought is more perfect or higher than such a prayer. It is a state of ecstasy, a mystic unity with God, deification (apotheosis; η θεοσις). In this state the mind wholly transcends the limits of matter, frees itself from all thought, requires a complete insensibility to outward impressions and becomes deaf and mute. Not only is the Hesychast entirely cut off from outward impressions, but he also transcends his individuality and loses consciousness of himself, being wholly absorbed in the contemplation of God. Therefore he who has reached ecstasy no longer lives a personal and individual life; his spiritual and corporeal life stops, his mind remains immovable, attached to the object of contemplation. Thus, the basis and center of hesychia is the love of God from soul, heart, and mind, and the desire for divine contemplation through the abnegation of everything, however small and remote, which might recall the world and its contents. The goal of the Hesychasts is attained by absolute isolation and silence, by “the care of the heart” and mortification of the mind, continuous penitence, abundant tears, the memory of God and death, and the constant repetition of an “inner” prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me; oh, Son of God, help me.” The consequence of this prayerful spirit is a blissful humility. Later the doctrine of the sacred hesychia was more systematized, especially among the Athenian monks, where the way to attaining the more perfect “hesychia” was divided into several categories and composed of definite “schemes” and “ladders,” in one of which, for example, are “the four deeds of the speechless:” the beginners, progressives, successful, and perfect. Very few became perfect, i.e. attained the highest degree of hesychia, “contemplation.” The majority of ascetics reached only the first degrees.[274]

        The leader of the Hesychast movement was the archbishop of Thessalonica Gregorius Palamas. Under the protection of Andronicus II, he had received a broad and many-sided education at Constantinople, and he had been inclined from his youth to the study of the problems of monastic life. At twenty he took the monastic habit on Mount Athos. Then, dwelling in Athos, Thessalonica, and some isolated places in Macedonia, he excelled all his fellows on the Holy Mountain in ascetism and devoted all his strength to endeavoring to reach “contemplation.” He worked out a definition of his own of the so-called “contemplation” (θεορια), and proceeded to devote his literary talents to the interpretation of his ascetic ideas. His intention to withdraw into complete solitude in order to devote himself wholly to the “inner” prayer was defeated by the outbreak on Athos of the troubles aroused by Barlaam.

        The plans with which Barlaam came to Byzantium have not yet been satisfactorily elucidated. He inspired there such confidence that he was appointed igumen (abbot) of a monastery at Constantinople. Defeated in a discussion with an eminent Byzantine scholar, Nicephorus Gregoras, Barlaam fled to Thessalonica and thence to Athos. There through an ignorant monk he became acquainted with the doctrine of hesychia. He accused the Hesychasts who attained the highest degree of perfection “of seeing with their corporeal eyes, the divine and uncreated light shining around them”; thus, the monks destroy the dogmas of the church, if they affirm that they see the divine light with their corporeal eyes, for thereby they declare the divine blessing created and the divine being apprehensible.

        The literary dispute which arose on this point between Palamas and Barlaam and created the parties of the Palamites and Barlaamites, had no definite result. The matter was transferred to Constantinople, where it was decided to convoke a council. The council was to deal with the problem of the nature of the light of Thabor, that is to say, of the light which had shone on Christ and which His disciples had seen on the mountain of Thabor during the Transfiguration. Was that light created or uncreated? In the doctrine of Palamas, the light or shining which the perfect Hesychasts were deemed worthy to attain was in truth a light identical with the light of Thabor; the divine light was uncreated, and the light of Thabor was also uncreated.

        At the council summoned in the church of St. Sophia, Palamas gained the upper hand of Barlaam, who was forced publicly to express repentance for his error. However, the sources on that council are rather contradictory, and Th. Uspensky, for example, was inclined to be doubtful about whether, as a result of the council, Barlaam was condemned or pardoned. In any case, Palamas was dissatisfied with the decision of the council.[275]

        Church troubles continued, debatable questions were discussed at other councils, and the representatives of the church were entangled in the political complications of the strife between John Palaeologus and John Cantacuzene. Palamas lived an agitated life; for a time he was even confined in prison by the patriarch for his religious ideas. At this time he met with an active opponent in Nicephorus Gregoras, who had formerly acted with such energy against Barlaam and then gone over to the side of the reconciliation with Rome. Finally Palamas’ cause triumphed, and his doctrine was recognized by the council as the true doctrine of the whole Orthodox church. The decree of the council listing “Barlaam’s blasphemies” proclaimed that “he has been cut off from intercourse with Christians as much for his numerous faults as for the fact that he called the light of the Transfiguration of the Lord, which appeared to His blessed disciples, who ascended the mountain with Him created and describable and differing in nothing from the light perceived by the sense.”[276] But the struggle and many misfortunes of Palamas had undermined his strength, and after a severe illness he died in 1360. On a beautiful miniature in a manuscript containing John Cantacuzene’s works in the National Library of Paris, John Cantacuzene is portrayed seated upon the throne at the council solving the problem of the nature of the light of Thabor.

        The Hesychast quarrel of the middle of the fourteenth century resulted in a decisive victory for strict Orthodoxy in general and for the monastic ideals of Athos in particular. The monks dominated both the church and the state. The dead body of Palamas’ chief opponent, Nicephorus Gregoras, was exposed to insults and dragged along the streets of the city, according to another opponent, John Cyparissiotes surnamed “the Wise.”[277] At this moment, according to L. Bréhier, a dark future was beginning for the Empire.[278] But the German Byzantinist Gelzer drew a rather idyllic picture of the life of the Athenian monks of the period. He wrote:

The Holy Mountain proved to be the Zion of the true faith. In the horrible crisis of the death of the whole nation, when the Ottomans were mercilessly treading down the Roman people, Athos became a refuge, whose stillness was sought by broken souls, and many strong hearts, which had been led astray in their earthly life, preferred in isolation from the world to live through their moral strife in union with God. In those sad times monastic life offered the unfortunate nation the only permanent and real consolation.[279]

The role of the Hesychasts in the political struggle of their epoch has not yet been clearly determined, but the leaders of the political parties, such as Palaeologus and Cantacuzene, realized plainly the significance and strength of the Hesychasts and turned to them more than once for help in purely secular problems. But the threatening political situation, such as the ever present Turkish danger, for instance, compelled the Emperors — even those who sought for the support of the Hesychasts — to deviate from the strict Orthodoxy of the triumphant Palamas and his partisans, and seek for reconciliation with the Roman church, which, in the opinion of the Eastern emperors, alone could rouse western Europe to defend Christianity. This leaning to the West grew particularly strong, when, after Cantacuzene’s deposition, there established himself on the throne John V Palaeologus, half-Latin on his mother’s side, who himself became Catholic.