[HALSALL: Introduction]
Hesychasm can be a complex issue to understand, but it is easier when one realizes it has three distinct but interrelated meanings.
(The word itself derives from "hesychia" which means stillness,
quiet, cf 1 Thess 4:1, 2 Thess 3:12, 1 Tim 2:2, 1 Pet 3:4)
1. A Method of Prayer
A psychosomatic method of prayer, probably dating back a long way in
Byzantine monasticism [to St. Symeon the New Theologian in the 11th century, and
earlier]. There is a possible, and speculative link to Buddhist methods [as with
the rosary]. The method involved control of breathing, posture [perhaps
including navel-gazing - hence the charge that the monks were
"omphalapsychoi" - men (and it seems only to have involved men) with
souls in their navels]. The intended effect of this prayer was the vision of
light, often compared with the light seen at the Transfiguration at Mt.
Tabor.
These methods, and in a sense monastic power, were attacked by Barlaam of
Calabria [later in life Petrarch's Greek teacher] in the early 13th
century.
2. A Theological System: Palamism
In response a distinct theological response, also known as Hesychasm, but also as Palamism, was evolved by St. Gregory Palamas (d. 1359), an Athonite monk and later Archbishop of Thessalonica.
The essential point is that Palamas defended the reality of the monks' prayer experience. He did this by establishing a theological distinction analogous to that between Unity/Trinity with respect to God and nature/person with respect to Christ. Palamas said the God can be considered as, by nature, having an unknowable essence [a position required by the Neoplatonic Paradigm of an infinite and perfect being, by definition ineffable to finite beings] and [this is new, although Palamas would have denied it] knowable "energies".
One way of thinking about this is to say that for Palamas, in some sense, God's grace was part of God. These energies were knowable, and were what the monks were seeing during their prayer..
[In contrast Roman Catholic theologies of mystical experience, some of which is quite apophatic, have a real problem. Catholic theology also insists on God's ineffability, so how can mystical experience be understood? The one pope who insisted that the beatific vision was available on earth was castigated as being in error! Catholic writers vary between theories of some special grace, or are willing to assert that mystics do not experience God at all, but that God's grace give them a simulacrum of the experience - at least that was the argument of my Dominican friend, Fr. Aidan Nichols OP].
Although Palamas method was to use language of negation, I would not get too carried away with that, or modern mystagogy by some Orthodox writers. His project was in a sense related to that of Aquinas, who also faced the problem of the denial of possibility of saying anything about God. Aquinas answer was to develop [even if textbook theology took this too far] the notion of "analogy of being..
Palamite writers specifically call the process of reception of grace ["sanctification" to Catholics, impossible according to classical Protestantism] "theosis" which means "divinization" in reference to the words of Athanasios of Alexandria that "God became man that man might become God".
Palamas' theology represents intellectual footwork of a high order -
completely analogous to that of the fourth and fifth century theological and
Christological debate. The eventual adoption of Palamite theology and its
significance is not always realized. One sometimes finds, for instance, Orthodox
writers who accuse the Latins of altering the faith by adding the "filioque",
but who do not recognize that the Orthodox also "developed" their theology just
as much, perhaps more. [The whole issue was avoided at the Council of Florence,
but by the late 19th and 20th centuries, this had become an area of dispute
between Orthodox and Catholics, see for instance the very well informed, but
incredibly hostile, writings of Martin Jugie, handily available in French in the
Dictionaire de theologie Catholique.]
3. A Byzantine Political Grouping
Palamas theology, which brought about a huge conflict, got involved in Byzantine internal politics, which are particularly complex in the 14th century. There ended up being a Hesychast party, whose members might be neither monks nor theologians, and anti-Hesychasts who were extremely pious and even monastically inclined. eventually in series of councils in the mid-fourteenth century Palamite theology was adopted as the official position of the Orthodox Church.
This represented a victory both for the particular theology of Palamas, and for the monastic, especially Athonite, party in general. The result was a veritable monastic takeover of the Church - all later patriarchs, and many later bishops.
In effect this made the church stronger: and this same monastic, or Hesychast, party was responsible, at least if you take John Meyendorff's position, for pushing the spread of Orthodoxy in the Slavic world, along with its particular theology of prayer, and prayer directed at mystical experience. [This theme remained strong in Russia.]
The Hesychasts were not, in fact, hostile to the general population: the stress in its prayer methods on didactic repetition, and on physical approaches to grace, along with a new stress on the liturgy, stood the Orthodox church well under Turkish and Tsarist domination when preaching, as seen in Protestantism, was not possible due both to low education levels and state prohibition.
So in the widest perspective "Hesychasm" can be seen as the mystical aesthetic of the Orthodox church in its later Byzantine and post-Byzantine periods.
In sum, there is not one definition of "Hesychasm", rather a variety of
meanings related to mystical prayer, Palamite theology, Byzantine politics and
later Orthodox and monastic aesthetics.
The texts which follow are from http://www.digiserve.com/mystic/Christian/Orthodox/kunda.html,
A website on mystical experience in many different religions. They represent the
prayer tradition of Orthodoxy.
The Quotations
St. Symeon in Practical & Theological Discourses, 1.1:
When
men search for God with their bodily eyes they find Him nowhere, for He is
invisible. But for those who ponder in the Spirit He is present everywhere. He
is in all, yet beyond all.
It is recorded somewhere of Amma Sarah that once as she was going along the
road with some nuns a groups of monks came from the other direction. As they
came near the monks discreetly crossed to the other side so as not to confront
the nuns. Amma Sarah observed, "If you were true monks you would not have
noticed that we are women."
"On Guarding the Intellect", taken from the
Philokalia:
Abba Isaiah the Solitary:
7. Shut all the gates of your soul, that is the
senses, so as to not be lured astray. When the intellect sees that it is not
dominated by anything, it prepares itself for immortality, gathering its senses
together and forming them into one body.
8-9. If your intellect is freed from
all hope in things visible, this is a sign that sin has died in you. If your
intellect is freed, the breach between it and God is eliminated.
St. Isaiah the Solitary:
25. The first virtue is detachment, that is,
death in relation to every person or thing. This produces desire for God, and
this in turn gives rise to the anger that is in accordance with nature, and that
flares up against all the tricks of the enemy. Then the fear of God will
establish itself within us, and through this fear love will be made
manifest.
Saying of the Desert Fathers, The Alphabetical Collection, translated
by Sr. Benedicta Ward:
Amma Syncletica:
19. Amma Syncletica said, "There are many who live in the
mountains and behave as if they were in the town, and they are wasting their
time. It is possible to be a solitary in one's mind while living in a crowd, and
it is possible for one who is a solitary to live in the crowd of his own
thoughts."
Amma Sarah:
8. Some monks of Scetis (an area of many hermits in the
Egyptian desert) came one day to visit Amma Sarah. She offered them a small
basket of fruit. They left the good fruit and ate e bad. So she said to them,
"You are truemonks of Scetis."
Evagrios the Solitary, On Prayer, in the Philokalia
23 If you
patiently accept what comes, you will always pray with joy.
Evagrios Ponticus, "On Prayer 61," in the Philokalia
Prayer is the
laying aside of thoughts.
St. Isaac the Syrian in the Sebastian Brock translation of Homily
64
True wisdom is gazing at God. Gazing at God is silence of the
thoughts. Stillness of mind is tranquillity which comes from discernment.
John the Solitary in On Prayer:
For God is silence, and in silence
is he sung by means of that psalmody which is worthy of Him. I am not speaking
of the silence of the tongue, for if someone merely keeps his tongue silent,
without knowing how to sing in mind and spirit, then he is simply unoccupied and
becomes filled with evil thoughts: ...There is a silence of the tongue, there is
a silence of the whole body, there is a silence of the soul, there is the
silence of the mind, and there is the silence of the spirit.
St. Isaac the Syrian writes that we pray with words until the words are cut
off and we are left is a state of wonder.
Evagrios the Solitary, "On Prayer," in the Philokalia
If, then,
you wish to behold and commune with Him who is beyond sense-perception and
beyond concept, you must free yourself from every impassioned thought. Persevere
with patience in your prayer, and repulse the cares and doubts that arise within
you. Try to make your intellect deaf and dumb during prayer, you will then be
able to pray.
Dionysius the Areopagite in Mystical Theology, Chapter 1:
In
diligent exercise of mystical contemplation, leave behind the senses and the
operations of the intellect, and all things sensible and intellectual, and all
things in the world of being and non-being, that you may arise by unknowing
towards the union, as far as is attainable, with Him who transcends all being
and all knowledge. For by the unceasing and absolute renunciation of yourself
and of all things you may be borne on high, through pure and entire
self-abnegation, into the superessential Radiance of the Divine Darkness.
Abbot Vasilios of Iveron Monastery in Hymn of Entry, p. 92:
by
receiving a new sense of taste and a new form of knowledge in "stillness" and in
giving himself over to God totally. Be still and know. Be still: remain in a
state of spiritual wakefulness, with your prospects and your senses open, to
hear what God's will is at each moment.
Abbot Vasilios of Iveron Monastery in Hymn of Entry, p. 103
Those
who have been cleansed through following the path of stillness (hesychis) are
counted worthy to see things invisible..., undergoing, as it were, the way of
negation and not forming ideas about it. (citing St Gregory Palamas)
St. Antony the Great once was living in the desert. The demons were giving
him a hard time, beat him up, left him in a coma. Eventually folks found the
body and carried him to the church, planning a funeral in the morning. In the
middle of the night he got up and went back to his cave. And immediately the
mean and nasties were at him again. Finally he called out in desperation, "Lord,
help me!" and immediately Christ appeared and the demons scattered. "Lord, where
were you when I needed you?" "I was always here, but I wanted to see what you
were made of. As soon as you called (rather than relying on your own struggle) I
am present."
Evagrios the Solitary, "On Prayer," in the Philokalia
The state of
prayer is one of dispassion, which by virtue of the most intense love transports
to the noetic realm the intellect that longs for wisdom.
HUMILITY
Saying of the Desert Fathers, The Alphabetical Collection, translated
by Sr. Benedicta Ward:
Amma Syncletica:
11....She also said, Choose the meekness of Moses and you
will find your heart which is a rock changed into a spring of water.
21. She
also said, "Just as a treasure that is exposed loses its value, so a virtue
which is known vanishes; just as wax melts when it is near fire, so the soul is
destroyed by praise and loses all the results of its labor."
26. She also
said, "Just as one cannot build a ship unless one has some nails, so it is
impossible to be saved without humility."
Amma Theodora:
The same Amma said that a teacher ought to be a stranger to
the desire for domination, vain-glory, and pride; one should not be able to fool
him by flattery, nor blind him by gifts, nor conquer him by the stomach, nor
dominate him by anger; but he should be patient, gentle and humble as far as
possible; he must be tested and without partisanship, full of concern and a
lover of souls.
She also said that neither asceticism, nor vigils nor any
kind of suffering are able to save, only true humility can do that.
There was an anchorite (hermit) who was able to banish demons; and he asked
them:
Hermit: What make you go away? Is it fasting?
The
demons: We do not eat or drink.
Hermit: Is it vigils?
The
demons: We do not sleep.
Hermit: Is it separation from the world?
The demons: We live in the deserts.
Hermit: What power
sends you away then?
The demons: Nothing can overcome us, but only
humility. Do you see how humility is victorious over the demons.?
Invoke the Name of God, that's all we can do on our side, until God responds
and leaves us wondering in silence. But that moment of silence changes all the
sounds. The moment of divine light-filled darkness changes our perception of all
colors.
Abbot George of Gregoriou Monastery on Mt. Athos in Eros of
Repentance, pp. 18-19
The holy elders instruct the younger men not by
calling them to imitate their virtues, but by showing them how much they feel
thenselves to be sinners and unworthy. Athonites do not pretend to be good..A
characteristic of the monk who lives in repentance is his attribution of every
good thing to God...Those who possess the spirit of repentance and humility will
normally withdraw from giving advice.
Saying of the Desert Fathers, The Alphbetical Collection, translated
by Sr. Benedicta Ward:
Amma Syncletica:
12. She also said, "It is dangerous for anyone to teach
who has not first been trained in the practical life. For if someone who owns a
ruined house receives guests there, he does them harm because of the
dilapidation of his dwelling. It is the same in the case of someone who has not
first built an interior dwelling; he causes loss tothose who come. By words one
may convert them to salvation, but by evil behaviour, one injures them."
Amma Theodora:
The same amma said that a teacher ought to be a stranger to
the desire for domination, vain-glory, and pride; one should not be able to fool
him by flattery, nor blind him by gifts, nor conquer him by the stomach, nor
dominate him by anger; but he should be patient, gentle and humble as far as
possible; he must be tested and without partisanship, full of concern and a
lover of souls.
St. Symeon the New Theologian in The Catechetical Discourses XXII
During the day he managed a patrician's household and daily went to the
palace, engaged in worldly affairs, so that no one was aware of his pursuits.
One day, as he stood and recited, "God, have mercy upon me, a sinner" Lk.
18:13), uttering it with his mind rather than his mouth, suddenly a flood of
divine radiance appeared from above and filled all the room. As this happened
the young man lost all awareness [of his surroundings]and forgot that he was in
a house or that he was under a roof. He saw nothing but light all around him and
did not know if he was standing on the ground. He was not afraid of falling: he
was not concerned with the world nor did anything pertaining to men and
corporeal beings enter his mind. Instead, he seemed to himself to have turned
into light. Oblivious of all the world he was filled with tears and with
ineffable joy and gladness. His mind then ascended to heaven and beheld yet
another light, which was clearer than that which was close at hand. In a
wonderful manner there appeared to him standing close to that light, the saint
of whom we have spoken, the old man equal to angels, who had given him the
commandment and the book. ...
St. Symeon the New Theologian in Catechetical Discourse XVI
So I
entered the place where I usual prayed and mindful of the words of the holy man
I began to say, "Holy God". At once I was so greatly moved to tears and loving
desire for God that I would be unable to describe in words the joy and the
delight I then felt. I fell prostrate on the ground, and at once I saw,and
behold, a great light was immaterially shining on me and seized hold of my whole
mind and soul, so that I was struck with amazement at the unexpected marvel and
I was, as it were, in ecstasy. Moreover I forgot the place where I stood, who I
and where and could only cry out, 'Lord, have mercy,' so that when I came to
myself I discovered I was reciting this. But who it was that was speaking, and
who moved my tongue, I do not know - only God knows.
St. Gregory Palamas in The Triads in Defence of the Hesychasts, Book3,
Chapter 1, Paragraphs 29:
Deification is an enhypostatic and direct
illumination which has no beginning, but appears in those worthy as something
exceeding their comprehension. It is indeed mystical union with God, beyond
intellect and reason, in the age when creatures will no longer know corruption.
St. Gregory Palamas in The Triads in Defence of the Hesychasts, Book
3, Chapter 1, Paragraphs 15:
Moreover, the transformation of our human
nature, its deification and transfiguration - were these not accomplished in
Christ from the start, from the moment in which He assumedour nature? Thus He
was divine before, but He bestowed at thetime of His Transfiguration a divine
power upon the eyes of the apostles and enabled them to look up and see for
themselves.
This light, then was not a hallucination but will remain for
eternity, and has existed from the beginning.
Abbot Vasilios of Iveron Monastery in Hymn of Entry, p. 102:
The
soul can attain to the secrecy which is in God, where the mystery of unity
beyond understanding and speech is celebrated, only when it has gone not only
beyond the categories of vice and ignorance and of falsehood and wickedness -
the vices which are opposite to virtue and knowledge and truth and goodness -
but even, if one may say this, beyond the categories of virtue itself and of
knowledge and truth and goodness as they are known to us. In the Kingdom of the
Spirit of God, which lies beyond our senses and intellectual concepts and
virtues, everything exists in a different way. It exists truly. (citing St.
Maximos the Confessor)
This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history.
Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use.
Paul Halsall June 1997
halsall@murray.fordham.edu