“Palamism and Thomism,” by Charles Journet
Translator’s Introduction
This1 translation was originally drafted years ago for a course that I taught at the Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Pittsburgh, PA. It was a course on St. Gregory Palamas’s2 theology of grace, in which we read a number of primary sources from St. Gregory, various historical sources, and then contemporary Palamite and non-Palamite theologians. This Journet text was presented as one relatively moderate Thomist voice which remains, however, non-syncretistic between positions which retain important differences. I would like to thank Fr. Philippe-Marie Margelidon, O.P. of the Revue Thomiste for permitting me to post this translation on To Be a Thomist.
Journet’s Article
The text, L’introduction à l’étude de Grégoire Palamas,3 which recently appeared in the collection “Patristica Sorbonensia,” directed by Henri-Irénée Marrou, provides us with a new occasion for comparing the theology of the Byzantine Doctor, Gregory Palamas, with that of St. Thomas Aquinas. Such a comparison necessarily remains provisional in character, given that, among other factors, Palamas’s writings are not all in an edited form at this time. In any case, too, our comparison of their thought cannot fail to be but a mere first foray. Nonetheless, this task remains possible, for the essential lines of Palamism, such as they have been presented to us by Fr. Meyendorff, are not expressed here in an attenuated form but, rather, receive a quite vigorous presentation.
I.—The Personality of Palamas
The first part of this text studies the personality of Gregory Palamas. It presents an overview of his masters, his youth, his conflict with Barlaam of Calabria, his conduct during the civil war of 1341-1347, his nomination to be the Archbishop of Thessaloniki, and his final years. Such as he is presented to us in this text, Palamas is a truly great man. His monastic and contemplative formation is profound. If he set himself in opposition to humanism and cultivated life according to hesychastic piety, this was only to the degree that Byzantine humanism ceased to be theocentric so as to become anthropocentric. During the great political crises of his era, he knew how to discern where the Empire’s true common good was to be found, a common good which, to his eyes, always remained subordinate to the spiritual common good of Christianity—even if the Empire’s common good needed to be sought out on the side of the usurper. He knew how to take the side of Kantakouzenos and the great when public welfare required it and that of the poor when they were being exploited. During his captivity among the Turks, he managed to enter into conversation with them concerning religious subjects and did not believe that their victory needed to mark an end point in the history of Christianity. (He lived a century before the fall of Constantinople.) His contacts with the Genoese and the people of Rhodes “proves that Palamas and his disciples never had a systematic aversion to Latin [thought] and that they were not lacking in good will for engaging with them in theological dialogue.”4 Rather, the adversaries of Palamism are the ones who, with regard to the Filioque, as on other points, were “the proponents of a formalistic scholasticism, resistant to every attempt to elucidate the misunderstandings standing between Greek and Latin thinkers.”5 From this perspective, the Orthodox Church’s canonization of Palamas is understandable. Indeed, consider this first part’s closing sentence: “If it is true that Palamas’s theology did not promote any dogmatic compromises and, indeed, for this very reason was opposed to the method that was too often employed in the negotiations involved in possible union between East and West, it is fitting today, after the obvious failure of these attempts, to see whether the Christian West was not wrong in avoiding a true dialogue with the best of what Byzantine theology and spirituality had produced.”6
II.—POINTS OF AGREEMENT BETWEEN PALAMAS AND THOMAS AQUINAS
There are countless points of profound agreement between Palamite theology, such as it is presented by the author, and Thomist theology. Indeed, it is impossible to address all of them here. Let us note the following theses, doing so by way of example and almost at random.
1. Knowledge of God
In Palamas, we find the distinction between three kinds of knowledge of God: reason’s natural knowledge of Him, revealed knowledge through faith, and the apophatic knowledge had through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Concerning natural knowledge of God, Palmas believes that “through such knowledge, nearly all of the inhabited universe today has a God who is none other than the Creator of this universe.”7 However, “this does not involve supernatural union with the light who is the more-than-resplendent light which is the sole origin of a sure theology […] This does not involve the knowledge of beings and wisdom that God directly bestowed upon the prophets and apostles.”8 And, above all, “that which is true in the wisdom attained on the outside is not necessary and does not lead to salvation.”9
Concerning the knowledge had through faith, he writes: “Our holy faith is… a vision that our heart has, surpassing all sensation and intellection, for it transcends all our soul’s intellectual faculties… Faith is a firm assurance of things that are hoped in. This is why the Apostle added: a demonstration of things that are not seen… What is this faith? Is it a natural ability or a supernatural one? Certainly, it is supernatural. This is why nobody can approach the Father except through the Son, who has placed us above ourselves, who has given us the Deifying simplicity, and brought us back to unity with the Father.”10 (Quite clearly, it is only in broad sense that faith is said to be a vision of what is not seen.)
Texts like the following one seem to be related to apophatic knowledge: “Theology is as distant from the vision of God in the light and as distinct from holding intimate converse with God as knowledge differs from possession. To say something about God is not the same as having an encounter with God.”11 And here, just like St. Thomas, Palamas refers to [Ps.-]Dionysius: “There is a form of ignorance, though it is something more than knowledge; there is a cloud, though it is something more than brilliant light. And in this supra-brilliant cloud, according to the Great Dionysius, divine things are given to the saints. Thus, the most perfect contemplation of God and of things divine is not a simple examination but is, beyond such an examination, a participation in things divine. It is a gift and a possession more than an examination…12 How could he who has become Spirit and sees in the Spirit not contemplate that which is like to his mode of contemplation?... Nonetheless, in the spiritual vision itself, the transcendent light of God appears only more completely hidden from him.13 Those who have obtained spiritual and supernatural grace… will likewise know spiritually, beyond the senses and the intellect, that God is Spirit, for they entirely become God and know God in God.”14
Here, it is fitting to recall that the whole of theology which makes use of concepts (i.e., cataphatic theology), whether it be that which is founded upon reason (natural theology) or upon faith (Christian theology), can only speak of God by following a threefold path: the via positiva (God is good), the via negativa (His goodness is not limited, as is the case in Creatures), the via eminentiae (God is good in way that holds for nothing else). However, apophatic knowledge, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, is negative in a completely different manner. It no longer makes use of concepts, either for the sake of affirming or denying: “God,” says St. Thomas, “is thus known as unknown.” Palamas finds himself in agreement with Aquinas when he writes, “The excellence of Him who exceeds all things is not only above every affirmation but is also above every negation. It surpasses every excellence which we could ever think of.”15
2. The Natural and Supernatural Orders
Even before holding on the level of knowledge, the distinction between nature and supernature holds on the level of being and reality. According to Palamas, the human soul is immortal by its nature: “The soul, separated from its Spiritual Spouse… indulges in pleasures and lives upon delights. It is dead all the while being living, for by its essence, it is immortal.”16 Free creature are fallible by nature: “What need would we have for this rational character if it did not include the faculty of choice and free will? And how can one be free and possess the faculty of choice without being able to freely choose evil?”17 Adam is created in the image of God through his soul and is made in the likeness of God through the gift of grace. His fall leads him to lose His likeness with God, but he retains in his soul the image of God: “At the start man was not only God’s creature but was also His son in the Spirit. This grace was thus bestowed upon him at the same time as the soul by the vivifying breath…”18 The angels themselves stand in need of grace. It is through grace, not by their essential nature, that they can contemplate God.19
This utterly clear distinction between nature and grace enables Palamas to set himself in opposition to the Platonist orientation of his adversaries, in particular, that of Barlaam of Calabria. Because they confused that which is spiritual in nature (the soul and the angels) with that which is spiritual in the order of grace, which is a pure gift coming from God, they were led to hold that Christian holiness is found in the separation of the soul and the body, likewise misunderstanding the Christian dignity of the bodily creature. In this way, they unduly substituted a Platonist spiritualism, holding that matter and spirit are separate, for Christian spiritualism, which olds that matter is transfigured by spirit. As Palamas states, “There are blessed passions, activities that are common to the soul and the body which do not lead the Spirit to be attached to the flesh but, rather, draw the flesh to a dignity that is close to that of the Spirit and require it too to turn toward the heights.20 This body, which is united to us, was connected to us by God so that it might be our collaborator or, rather, it was placed in dependence upon us. Therefore, we will repel it if it rises up in revolt, and we will accept it if it conducts itself as it should.”21 Recent works by historians of spirituality enable the author to set two anthropologies in opposition to each other: one, biblical and in the line of Macarius the Great and, the other, Platonizing, in the line of Evagrius of Ponticus. As Meyendorff shows, Palamas reacts spontaneously in support of the Macarian anthropology.22 Likewise, as Aquinas himself did as well, Palamas corrects the error committed by [Ps.-]Dionysius and taken up by Barlaam, holding that God could only communicate with us through the intermediacy of angels.23 Consider this sentence, one that provides a characteristic expression of his anthropology: “The hypostasis of the spiritual man is composed of three parts: the grace of the Heavenly Spirit, the rational soul, and the earthly body.”24
3. The Person of Christ and the Eucharist
For Palamas, who simultaneously opposes the Nestorians and Monophysites, divinity and humanity are united hypostatically in Christ. The Son of God has made human nature His own, but this human nature remains created and “has become heavenly not by nature but, rather, by dignity and on account of its hypostatic union with the Word of God.”25 Here, we have the profound doctrine concerning the communication of idioms (or properties): in Jesus, human properties belong to God and the divine properties belong to man. Thus: “The Son of God is one with the humanity which He took on Himself, for in His hypostasis, He is united to the first fruits of men. Indeed, it is for this reason that one applies to him the terms that come from humanity, and He Himself bestows upon humanity the terms that belong to Him. Nonetheless, He is one with each man who receives grace in the same way as He is one with His own humanity. He is united with each (Christian) through [His] activity-energy and grace, not hypostatically. This is why there is only one Christ, for there is only one, indivisible hypostasis of the Word of God.”26 Christ’s body is “God’s body,”27 and, “Inasmuch as He is a man, the Lord possessed, as something received, the divine energy and grace.”28
By receiving Christ’s body in the Eucharist, we introduce within ourselves the source of light, Him who, on the day of the Transfiguration, illuminated His disciples externally. Thus, we become incorporated into Christ: “Since the Son of God, in His unparalleled love for men, did not limit Himself to uniting His Divine Hypostasis to our nature, by taking upon an animated body and a soul endowed with intelligence…, but since He unites Himself… to human hypostases themselves, by mingling Himself with each believer through communion in His Holy Body (since He becomes one body with us and makes us into a temple of the entire Divinity—for the entire plenitude of the Divinity dwells in the very Body of Christ), how could He fail to illuminate those who worthily commune in the divine ray of His Body, which is in us, by illuminating their soul, as He illuminated the very bodies of His disciples on Tabor? For thus, on the day of the Transfiguration, this Body, the source of the light of grace, was not yet united to our bodies. It externally illuminated those who worthily approached it and sent illumination to the soul though the intermediacy of sensate eyes. However, today, since He mingles with us and exists in us, He illuminates the soul from within.”29
4. The Church
Thus, the Church is gathered around Christ: “Christ became our brother, having shared in flesh and blood like unto our own, thus being made like unto us… As a husband is bound to his wife, so too has He bound us fast to Him… through communion in this blood, having become one flesh with us.30 Before the Incarnation of the Word of God, the Kingdom of Heaven was far from us, as the heavens are distant from the earth. However, when the King of Heaven came to dwell among us, when he indeed willed to unite Himself to us, then the Kingdom of Heaven drew closer to all of us… On the day of Transfiguration, the Kingdom came in power, according to the Word of the Lord.31 There is only one and the same divine light… that which purified souls contemplate henceforth, that which is the very reality of the eternal goods to come.”32 The Church is, already now, the Kingdom of God. She includes within herself the angels and the righteous of all eras.33
5. The Virgin Mary
The Virgin Mary is “she who begot God.”34 Through the divine maternity, “She opened the way to greater and more perfect things.”35 Alone being placed between God and the whole human race, she made God a son of man and transformed men into sons of God.36” “Nobody can come to God except through her..., since it was only through her that He came to us, thus appearing upon earth and dwelling among men.”37 Quite surely, inasmuch as she is the Mother of the Son of God, she is “the cause of the events prior to her, she who stands at the head of the events after her, and she who distributes eternal goods. She is the thought of the prophets, the leader of the apostles, the support of the martyrs, the foundation of the doctors… the summit and fulfillment of everything that is holy… All of divinely inspired Scripture was written on account of the Virgin who begot God.”38 And the assumption of the Virgin is clearly confessed: “How could the body which received into itself the eternal and unique Son of God, the inexhaustible source of Grace, and even gave birth to Him, fail to be raised from the earth to Heaven.”39
6. The Saints
“The saints participate in God. Not only do they participate in Him but, indeed, they communicate in Him… Not only do they live. They are life-giving, one that does not belong to a created faculty.”40 This is the foundation for devotion [culte] to relics: “Glorify the holy tombs of the saints, and the remains of their bones if they do indeed exist, for the grace of God has not abandoned them, just as the Divinity did not, upon His life-giving death, abandon Christ’s body, which is ever-worthy of praise.”41 According to Palamas, grace manifests itself even in images of them, as in images of Christ.
III.—Ways Toward a Solution to Disagreements
Having noted the principal points of agreement between Palamism and Thomism, we must now note the points that raise difficulties. We do so not out a desire to engage in disputation but, rather, do so in the hope that we may be able to open up ways toward solutions to these differences.
1. A Way toward the Notion of Original Sin
Quite clearly, we did not participate in Adam’s act of sin, since we did not yet exist when he committed it. However, through this act, Adam destroyed in himself the freely-given divine gifts connected to human nature to be transmitted to us by way of generation. The sin which was actual and personal in Adam is, in us, original and a sin of nature.42 Henceforth, we are deprived of our participation in the divine life, of our “likeness” with this God, whose “image” we nonetheless retain.43 Whence, too, we suffer mortality. This privation of likeness with God is precisely what formally constitutes, to our eyes, original sin: sin because there is a privation of the divine life; original, that is, sin in a wholly unique sense, not one committed by us but, rather, one transmitted to us. Therefore, Palamas is correct to speak, in this sense,44 of “our original disobedience to God,” “of our ancestral sin in paradise.” Likewise, he is correct to think that, through human generation, man “no longer lives in accord with God, that is, no longer possesses God’s likeness and cannot beget beings like unto God, but rather, ones that are like unto him, like the old man and subject to corruption.” Likewise, he is correct to think that, “Even if through God’s grace marriage is blameless, nature forever bears within itself the signs of condemnation,” and that man “is conceived in iniquity, born into sin…, and heir to the fault.” Summarizing Palamas, Meyendorff himself speaks of an ontological catastrophe that struck Adam after sin,45 of a death of the soul corresponding to the resurrection of the soul through baptism,46 an anticipation of the resurrection of the future age.47 Therefore, it will be true, for the Palamites and for the Thomists, to say that the Son of God became incarnate in order to bring us the resurrection of the soul as well as the resurrection of the body which is its corollary. Having made all of this clear, was it useful to set Palamas in opposition to the West, to add, with Meyendorff, that “what we received from Adam is therefore death and not culpability,” and that, “According to Palamas, the Son became incarnate in order to deliver us from our ancestral mortality and not on account of Adam’s sin; where a Westerner would have said, ‘Felix Adae culpa,’ Gregory proclaims, ‘felix mors’48”?
2. A way toward the notion of Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary
On the one hand, one can hold that the Virgin is all-holy. Thus, it is impossible to hold that she would have known this privation of likeness with God which is the consequence of Adam’s sin, this death of the soul to which corresponds resurrection through baptism. However, by what divine gift, by what grace, was she preserved from this death of the soul which is common to all of Adam’s descendants, if not through an anticipation of the grace of this Christ whose Mother she had to be? And behold: the very doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary.
Or, on the other hand, one will hold that the Virgin, according to the expressions used by Meyendorff,49 did not depart, before her Maternity, out of the framework of the Old Law, that she was submitted, like other men, to the Adamic inheritance and, consequently, not only to the necessity of dying but, even to the death of soul inherited by all of Adam’s descendants. Thus, it is no longer clear how she can be the Panhagia celebrated by all of the devotion exercised by the Orthodox Church.
Now, on what side shall we place Palamas? He knows that, in order to play her role in the economy of salvation, Mary was the object of a unique election: “Before the ages, God chose her for Himself…, and judged her worthy of a grace that is more abundant than that which was bestowed upon all other men. He made her holy among the holy, even before her extraordinary childbirth…. It was necessary that she who would give birth to the most beautiful of the children of men would herself be incomparable in all things and prepared to receive such beauty: an admirable beauty since it arose from Her Son who was exactly like unto her [lui] in all things… Thus, we see the only thing that would have been impossible for God: to unite Himself to something impure before she is purified in view of this union. Thus, it was necessary that a virgin who knew no defilement, perfectly pure, be she who bore and begot Him who loves and bestows purity.”50 A virgin who knew no defilement, receiving her beauty from Him whom she must bear: such expressions seem to leave no room for doubt. Meyendorff himself writes that passages of this sort could be multiplied, “having led… a number of authors to think that Palamas held the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.”51
However, in his opinion, “With regard to Adam’s sin and its transmission, Palamas held views that are irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, properly so called.”52 He believes proof for this claim can be found by undertaking a comparison between what Palamas says concerning the death of John the Baptist and what he says concerning the death of the Virgin Mary. According to Palamas, John the Baptist, sanctified from the beginning in his mother’s womb, did not fall under our death sentence and should not have to die. Moreover, he died a violent death, not a natural one and gave his life as the Lord Himself had to give His own. Such is, according to Meyendorff,53 “The original and unexpected hypothesis of the immaculate conception of St. John the Baptist.” In Palamas, by contrast, always here according to Meyendorff’s thought, the death of the Virgin is natural. It is a result of post-Adamic corruption, a consequence of the inheritance coming from Adam, and this suffices to undermine the notion of a preservation of the Virgin and to eliminate “all possibility of interpreting the thought of the hesychastic doctor in line with the western doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.”54
Should we truly attribute to Palamas this odd position, claiming to have accorded to John the Baptist an origin and death more precious than those of the Virgin Mary? We would here prefer to come to his defense. We too hold that the Virgin died. However, in our opinion, her death was not a necessary effect coming from Adam’s fault. Rather, it is an effect coming from a providential dispensation bestowing upon her life an itinerary like that experienced by her Son. With St. Francis de Sales, we even think that she died a violent death, with such violence as ends in separating the soul from its body, a death which he calls the death of love.
3. A Way toward a better understanding the relations between the Son and the Spirit
Meyendorff recalls that Gregory of Cyprus, the patriarch of Constantinople, presided over the Council of Blachernae in 1285, where the Byzantine Latinophrones were condemned. He adds, “However, Gregory was the only theologian who, after this triumph of the Orthodox reaction, sought a real conclusion to the intractable dialogue which, in the 13th century, circled about the controversy between Greek and Latin thinkers concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit. Instead of simply repeating the formulas of Photius concerning the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father alone, in distinction from His temporal mission through the Son, Gregory recognized the need to express the permanent relation that exists between the Son and the Spirit inasmuch as they are divine hypostases and spoke of an internal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son.”55 The Tome of 1285, having Gregory of Cyprus as its author, states: “It is acknowledged that the Paraclete Himself shines forth and is manifested eternally through the Son, as light shines forth through the ray…; but this does not mean that He possesses His existence through the Son or from the Son.”56
What is it that Gregory of Cyprus means here? When the Fathers say that the Spirit proceeds through the Son or exists through the Son, this does not mean, according to him, that the Spirit holds His existence from the Son but, rather, only His eternal splendor. The Spirit, He says, holds His existence from the Father alone and does not pass through the Son in order to shine forth through Him. To say with the Fathers that the Spirit exists through the Son does not mean, in any way, he writes, that the Spirit holds his existence from the Son.57 Where St. John Damascene writes that the Father, through the Word, produces the Spirit who manifests the divine depths, Gregory of Cyprus hears simply that the Father, through the Word, manifests the Spirit: “Exactly, he specifies in his Confession of Faith, in the way that light comes from the sun through its ray. The sun is the cause of the light’s being and its natural principle, although it is through the ray that it passes, goes forth, and shines with radiance, without receiving from the ray its existence or its subsistence.”58 Such is true too for the Spirit, who would pass through the Son by receiving splendor from Him while, in no way, however, receiving His existence. (The other way to understand the metaphor is, we believe, to think that the entire being of the light is nothing other than its splendor, which depends on the ray, which itself depends entirely on the sun.)
It is true that, in his desire to connect back to the Greek Fathers, Gregory of Cyprus partially distanced himself from Photius. He feels the need to attribute some role to the Son, one that is difficult to specify, however, in relation to the very hypostasis of the Spirit, who would nonetheless hold his existence solely from the Father. In any case, we can now see clearly the parameters afoot in relation to the various possible interpretations we can make today concerning the Greek Fathers’ thought concerning this matter.59
The outlook that we hold to be traditional distinguishes between two sorts of processions coming forth from God: on the one hand, the processions within God (ad intra) which are natural and necessary; on the other hand, the processions outside of God (ad extra), which are free and gratuitous. The Father (principium quod), through His nature (principium quo) begets the Son. He begets Him naturally and necessarily. What is thus begotten is not a created gift. It is the Son Himself. Similarly, we say, the Father through the Son (principium quod), by means of the divine nature (principium quo) produces or spirates the Spirit. He spirates Him naturally and necessarily. And what is thus spirated is not a created gift. It is indeed the Spirit Himself.
This doctrine is rejected by Palamas. Therefore, see the sense that he proposes to give to the [relevant] patristic passages, in particular, to those drawn from St. Cyril of Alexandria, where it is affirmed that the Spirit comes forth from the two, or from the Son, or again, through the Son: “When you hear tell that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the two because He comes forth essentially from the Father, through the Son, you must understand his teaching as follows: what is poured forth are the essential powers and energies of God, not the divine hypostasis of the Spirit.”60
Following the same line of thought, we say that the Father, by means of the divine nature, begets the Son who is consubstantial with Him. And, likewise, we say that the Son, by means of the divine nature, produces and spirates with the Father the Spirit who is consubstantial to them. However, for Palamas, the Father begets the Son without doing so by means of the divine nature, from which the only thing that can pass forth is an energy, not a hypostasis. The patristic passages where it is said that the Son is God since He gives the Holy Spirit only intend, he says, to affirm the Son’s consubstantiality with the Father. Now, the only thing that can come forth from this consubstantiality which is common to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is an energy, not a hypostasis. As Meyendorff explains to us, in his interpretation of Palamas, only an energy, not a divine hypostasis can go forth from this common substance, for the hypostasis of the Spirit itself participates in the common substance and cannot go forth from Himself.61
As is clear, Palamas does not accept the doctrine holding that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from a single principle. In his opinion, if the Latins accept the claim that the Father and the Son constitute but a single origin of the Spirit, they must equally hold that the Son is homohypostatic to the Father.62 If the doctrine of the procession ab utroque is admitted, “the name of the Father is stripped and made meaningless; the property which characterizes him no longer belongs exclusively to Him, and two divine hypostases are mixed together into a single person. Thus, Sabellius is reborn—or, rather, another sort of semi-Seballian monster.”63 Is this truly what the Latins think? Judge for yourself based on the following. The Father who begets, they say, can in no manner be mixed together with the Son who is begotten. However, the Father possesses, in addition to the Fatherhood (which is that which is hypostatically proper to Him, the property that constitutes Him as a hypostasis), another property, one that is not hypostatic, namely, that of producing or of spirating the Spirit. Indeed, it is not inasmuch as He is the Father that He acts when He spirates the Spirit, for thus the Spirit would be His Son. Now, the Father, through generation, communicates to the Son absolutely everything that He is, with the sole exception of His paternity. Therefore, He communicates to Him His power of spirating the Spirit. The Father and the Son, the Father through the Son, the Father as principal source [principiant] (Fons, Principium sine principio) and the Son as that which is principiated (Principium de principio), unable to be identified with each other inasmuch as they are Father and Son, that is, on account of what is hypostatically proper to them each, communicate together in that which does not oppose them to each other, that is, in spirating the Spirit. Therefore, they are not two parallel principles but, rather, are one, single principle, one single spirating power—coming forth from the Father as from the principal source and communicated to the Son as to the principiated—of the Spirit.64 Therefore, do we have a doctrine that is all that difficult to understand? Just as in the case of creation (a contingent procession ad extra) the three Persons create by one single nature and one single creative power, meaning that one can say that there Three Who Create but only one, single creative principle, one single Creator (tres Creantes, unus Creator), so too in the case of the procession ab utroque (a necessary procession ad intra), one will say that there are two Spirators, though only one single spirative principle, one single Producer (duo Spirantes, unus Spirator).
Still here upon the same point, we say: the Father, who proceeds from none, cannot be sent. Because He proceeds from the Father, the Son can be sent by Him. Likewise, it is because He proceeds from the Son as well that the Spirit can likewise be sent by Him. This represents the great, traditional principle: the order of the divine processions ad extra (that is, of the divine missions) manifests the order of the divine processions ad intra.
Thus, we can see the source underlying the full meaning of the great texts in Scripture: “Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev. 22:1, RSV). “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name” (Jn. 14:26, RSV). “When the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me” (Jn. 15:26, RSV). “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak… He will glorify me, for HE WILL TAKE WHAT IS MINE and declare it to you.” (Jn. 16:13-14, RSV). Thus, too, do we see clearly what is meant in texts drawn from the Fathers: “The Father gives to the Son, and the Son communicates to the Holy Spirit. These are not my words. Jesus Himself is the one who says, ‘When He comes, the Spirit of Truth, He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you’” (Cyril of Jerusalem). “‘He will not speak on his own authority’: that is, he will not speak without the Father’s and my consent. He cannot be separated from the Father’s and my will, for He comes from the Father and from me, not from Himself. Indeed, it is from the Father and from me that He holds that He subsists and speaks” (Didymus of Alexandria). “‘He will take what is mine and declare it to you.’ If, touching upon the relationship and the nature, the Spirit is to the son what the Son is to the Father, why, I ask, do those who claim that the Spirit is a created reality not say the same thing about the Son?” (Athanasius).65
Finally, we believe that, by means of God’s love poured out into our hearts, the Holy Spirit Himself is given, and not only His grace (Rom. 5:5), that the Spirit of God dwells in us, that He speaks on our behalf with ineffable groanings (Rom. 5:26), that we are temples of God (Rom. 3:16), temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in us (I Cor. 6:19), that, when we love Jesus, the Spirit comes to us, with the Father and the Son, to make His dwelling in us (Jn. 14:23). In the very gift of sanctifying grace, what the soul comes to possess is the Spirit, the Uncreated Gift, the three divine persons.
It seems that on these points, which are of such importance, we can stand in agreement with Palamas. Like us, he declares that the Holy Spirit is given to us: “The New Spirit and the new heart are creatures; that is what the Apostle calls a new creature, for it was recreated and renewed by the coming in the flesh of Him who created it in the beginning. As for the Spirit of God given to the new heart, it is the Holy Spirit.”66 But, pay heed! The Uncreated Holy Spirit who is given to us is not, according to Palamas, the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity. The first designates the divine energy; the second, the divine hypostasis. And between the two—here we have the central knot in Palamism, properly so called—there is a real distinction, an eternally unbridgeable abyss. The Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, we are told, was not communicated upon Pentecost, nor in the spiritual gifts recounted to us in the New Testament.67 He will never be communicated, no more than will be the Father and the Son.
In such a discussion, what is called into question? Is it scholasticism? Is it Byzantinism? Clearly more is at stake than this. What is at stake is nothing less than the profound meaning belonging to the texts of the Fathers and to those of Scripture itself from the perspective (which has ever been that of the Church, whether in the East or the West) concerning our knowledge of being, concerning a revelation concerned with the very being and reality of the mystery of God.
4. A Way Toward Understanding the Light of Tabor
Things would be clarified in the discussions surrounding the light that shone on mount Tabor if one were to distinguish between, on the one hand, that which was present to the Apostles and, on the other hand, the means of knowledge they had at their disposal. All this can be called “light,” though in different senses.
What, in itself, was the light of the Transfiguration?
1˚ First of all, considered in its source, it was the uncreated light and glory of the Word’s divinity. In taking on flesh, He retained the glory that he possessed forever next to the Father (St. John Damascene).68
2˚ Next, it was the irradiation or effect of this glory, first into Christ’s soul, then into His frail flesh: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (Jn. 1:14, RSV). “The divinity triumphs,” says St. John Damascene, “and, remaining impassible in the midst of passions, it enabled the body to participate in Its brightness and glory.” St. Andrew of Crete had written, “Given how they could not withstand the brilliance of this immaculate flesh, radiating forth from the divinity of the Word to which it was hypostatically united, indeed miraculously traversing it, they fell face-first to the earth.” On account of the Hypostatic Union, Christ’s entire humanity is deserving of adoration, whether it was plunged into the painful suffering of the Crucifixion or into the Glory of the Transfiguration.
3˚ Finally, it was the imprint of the divine glory upon external things, upon Christ’s clothes and upon the luminous cloud which enshrouded the Apostles.
What were, now, the means of knowledge which the Apostles had at their disposal at the Transfiguration?
1˚ Not yet the light that will enable us to see God “Such as He is” (1 Jn. 3:2); that is, not yet the light of face-to-face vision (I Cor. 13:12).
2˚ But, quite surely, the light of supernatural faith by which the mind adheres to the whole mystery of divine revelation.69
Upon Tabor, the Apostles found themselves in a condition akin to that of the Apostle Thomas who, at the moment when the Resurrected Christ appeared to him, cried out: “My Lord and my God.” As St. Gregory the Great wrote concerning this encounter: Hominem vidit; Deum credidit. He saw the man but believed in God.
3˚ It is true to say, with St. John Damascene, that, in the future life, “The Lord will be seen by His perfect servants, as He was seen by His apostles on Tabor.” Without a doubt, faith will give way to the beatific vision; however, with their eyes of flesh, the resurrected elect will see the resurrected Word Made Flesh. Moreover, they will in some way read in the glory of the new heavens and of the new earth the presence of the Creator.70
We recall that, in the Gospel, the narrative of the Transfiguration immediately follows the passage wherein the Savior proclaims that “there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Mt. 16:28, RSV). Hence, it was not difficult to give a commonsensical reading of texts from Palamas like the one cited by Meyendorff: “Is it not evident that there is only one and the same divine light: that which the Apostles saw upon Tabor, that which purified souls contemplate even now, and that which is the very reality of the eternal goods to come? This is why Basil the Great said, for his part, that the light which shone forth at Tabor at the Lord’s Transfiguration, was the prelude to Christ’s glory at His second coming.”71 Meyendorff adds that, when Palamas thus disputed against Barlaam of Calabria, his concern was with knowing whether the Kingdom of God was already present in the Church and whether the New Covenant was indeed the Reign of Christ, a Reign hidden under sacramental veils. Now, we hold the latter points as being beyond dispute.
Therefore, Palamas was right to wish to adore the light of Tabor. And Barlaam was right, too, to consider it as being a material and transitory phenomenon. It is quite possible that if the necessary distinctions had thus been made, the discussion would have taken a different turn.72
As regards the methods deployed in hesychastic prayer, Meyendorff approves of them only to the degree which, in contrast to yoga and dhikr—here referring to the work of Mircea Eliade and Louis Gardet—it is presented not as a technique that is capable of infallibly procuring union with God but, rather, as a technique that properly favors the conditions for true prayer.73
The entire controversy is described to us by Meyendorff as being an opposition not between East and West but, rather, being one between the two powerful and contrary currents of monasticism and humanism.
Therefore, the controversy concerning the light of Tabor could in this way, it seems, find a solution. Nonetheless, faced with this controversy and looking to emerge from it, Palamas embarked on a path which he judged to be traditional, one that others saw as representing something new, declaring the theory that will be placed at the very heart of his system. On account of the hesychastic prayer practices, his humanist adversaries accused him of falling into the error of the Messalians who thought that they could attain the vision of the divine essence through their bodily eyes. Faced with this accusation, Palamas could have defended himself easily enough by saying that those who saw Jesus during His mortal life truly saw with their eyes of flesh God inasmuch as He was incarnate, though not His divinity, which was inaccessible to their bodily eyes, something that here-below is the object of faith and the object of vision in heaven. However, he chose a different path. It consisted in making a real distinction in God between His uncreated essence, which is forever inaccessible and imparticipable, and His uncreated energy (operation / activity), which alone is accessible and participable. God’s essence can be called a superior divinity and the energy[ies] an inferior divinity. Both are inseparable, like the sun’s disk and the rays of light coming forth from it. This distinction will come to be ratified conciliarly and in the Synodal Tome from August 1351.74 Here, we find ourselves at the very central knot of Palamism and its opposition to the doctrine that we ourselves consider to be traditional.
5. A Way toward understanding the vision and inaccessibility of God
One set of scriptural texts seems to say that God is inaccessible to His creatures’ knowledge. He is, “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6:15-16, RSV). “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (Jn. 1:18, RSV).
On the other hand, another set of texts say that God will be seen by His creatures: “I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 18:10, RSV). “We know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:2, RSV). “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood” (1 Cor. 13:12, RSV).
The same opposition is found in the Greek Fathers. Sometimes, in order to refute more strongly the heresy of Eunomius, who said that we can know God, “As well as He knows Himself,” they declare that God is invisible even to the eyes of the angels (Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom) who perceive only a reflection of His glory (Theodoret of Cyrus). Sometimes, they affirm that God, seen first in the Spirit of prophecy, then in the grace of filial adoption, will be seen inasmuch as He is the Father (paternaliter) in the Kingdom of Heaven, the Father giving eternal life, which for each person will consist in seeing God.75 They likewise state that God will be seen by the angels, though in accord with their own abilities.76
How are we to simultaneously retain the texts drawn from Scripture and the Fathers? There are two possible ways.
The first gives full force to the texts that promise the vision of God such as He is, face to face. At the same time, however, it affirms that the mystery of God remains strictly inaccessible from two perspectives. First of all, it is held to be thus inaccessible because it cannot become evident either for the light of faith, nor for that of prophecy, nor a fortiori for the light of reason. Then, it is also held to be inaccessible because even the light of glory in patria will never be able to make Him known to the full degree that He is knowable. The blessed will see Him in accord with the capacity of their gaze, though this capacity, even when deepened by the light of glory, will never be comparable to the infinite capacity of God’s own gaze. Only God can know Himself to the full degree that He is knowable. Only God can, in the etymological sense of the word, comprehend God.
By contrast, the second approach to these texts attenuates those which promise face-to-face vision of God. It distinguishes God’s essence from his operation / activity / energy. His essence remains invisible to the angels and the elect. His energy alone is visible to them. Therefore, they are really distinct from each other, just as in man being and his activity are distinct and, in the sun, its disc and the radiation that goes forth from it. Both [the essence and the energies] are infinite and eternal, the one as the substantial source (the superior divinity) and the other as its operative emanation (the inferior divinity). Their real distinction would not undermine the divine simplicity, for they are inseparable. Such is Palamas’s solution. As is clear, it raises the question concerning how we are to understand Gods’ simplicity.
6. A way toward understanding the absolute divine simplicity
According to Palamas, “Three elements belong to God: [His] essence, energ[ies], and the threefold divine hypostases.”77 The divine persons are not identical with the divine essence: neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Spirit are the divinity; however, together they possess the same divinity and, for this reason, are one God.
Moreover, the divine essence, the divinity, is not identical with the divine energ[ies], to the eternal and uncreated divine perfections, to the divine life, goodness, wisdom, and power. Rather, it is their source. It acts through them and, consequently, is one with them. “Neither the uncreated goodness, nor the eternal glory, nor life and things together are simply speaking the superessential essence of God, for God transcends them as Cause.”78
Thus, according to Palamas, God’s being is not identical with His essence. It is vaster than it. Formally, Palamas refuses to identify every being [être] with essence: “Essence,” he writes, “is necessarily being, but being is not necessarily essence.”79
According to Palamas, these real distinctions between the persons and the essence and between the essence and the uncreated energies do not undermine the divine simplicity. The hypostasis of the Father is, in fact, at the origin not only of the other two hypostases (which we regard as being correct) but also, he adds, at the origin of the divine essence itself (which requires, it seems, one to conceive of the paternity as being prior, by nature, to His own divinity)80 as well as at the origin of the uncreated energies. The divine simplicity, represented by the tri-hypostatic, personal nature of the Divine Being [Être]81 manifests itself not, it is insisted, in the identity of the entire Divine Being with the [Divine] essence, that which, it is said, would not go beyond [what we can know through] philosophy but, rather, in the fact that there is only one God, living and active, in the imparticipable essence and the participable uncreated energies. The Fathers, writes Palamas, “Do not say that all of this (essence and energies) is one thing but, rather, that they belong only to One God.”82 God is the sole Actor in all His energies. “Neither the uncreated goodness, nor the eternal glory, nor life and things together are simply speaking the superessential essence of God, for God transcends them as Cause. However, we say that He is Life, Goodness, and other such things… As God is entirely present in each of the divine energies; each one names Him… What is manifested, what is rendered accessible to intellection or to participation is not a part of God, so that God does not undergo division on account of us: He manifests Himself wholly and does not manifest Himself; He is wholly conceived and is inconceivable by the intellect; He is wholly participated and imparticipable.”83
Since “Three elements belong to God: [His] essence, energ[ies], and the threefold divine hypostases,”84 and since “God can manifest Himself in His very being (in His energies), all the while remaining imparticipable in His essence,”85 we would be tempted to say that a unity of composition can be found in God. However, Palamas holds that, on account of the fact that God gives His energies their existence, one can say, on the one hand, that “each power, each energy is God Himself,” but not, on the other hand, that the energies enter into composition with “God’s being.”86
One text from Palamas himself will enable us to understand His thought.87 Palamas reserves the term “composition” for the union of two substances (e.g., the soul and the body); however, the real distinction between man’s nature and his activities does not, according to him, imply any composition. The same holds true, according to him, when it comes to God and His energies.
What now is the other way toward understanding the mystery of the divine simplicity? And first of all, how are we to understand the relationship of the hypostases to the divine essence?
How will the Greek Fathers come to respond to the Arians, who did not cease to object that if the Son himself was also God there would be two Gods? “O men of such great learning,” responds Gregory of Nazianzen, “The name of the Father is not, as you believe, a name attributed to the Divine Essence.” Thus, you could say, in fact, that given that the Father is distinct from the Son, His essence is distinct from that of the Son! “The name of the Father designates a relation, the relation of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the Father.”88 Therefore, the Father and the Son are really distinct from one another. However, pay heed, they have, they are, identically one and the same essence. The Father is God. He is the very essence of God. The Son likewise is God. He is the very essence of God. It is even Gregory, whom the Greeks call “the Theologian,” who says, in a celebrated text: “There is nothing lacking in the Son for Him to be the Father, for filiation is not a deficiency; and, nonetheless, He is not the Father… The Son is the Father, since He only has a Father. However, He is what the Father is.” And again: “In the Trinity, we must say that one (alius) is the Father, another the Son, and another the Spirit, for fear of confusing the persons with one another. And yet, we must not say that one thing (aliud) is the Father, another thing the Son, and another thing the Spirit, for the Three are one and the same thing as regards their divinity.” The persons are really distinct from each other, and each of them is identical with the reality by which they exist, for nothing is lacking in the one in order for Him to be what the other is. Thus, we have here the notion of subsistent relations. It is a teaching held in the East as well as in the West. Therefore, when Palamas establishes a real distinction between the divine hypostases and the divinity, it is indeed quite difficult to avoid thinking that he here expresses an innovation and does not run down a blind alley.
And how are we to understand the other relationship, namely, that of the divine essence with the divine attributes? For the Fathers, God is “simple and uncomposed.” As St. John Damascene says, following the [Pseudo-]Areopagite, God is not only the Author of being and of life but, moreover, is Being through Himself, Life through Himself. By taking up this line, one will say that absolute perfections (i.e., ones whose concept implies no imperfection) like being, unity, life, wisdom, goodness, love, and so forth, when pushed to their supreme degree of intensity, are truly found in God, not as juxtaposed and distinct from each other but, rather, as fused and identical with each other in the mystery of His super-eminent simplicity. They are in Him as the colors of the spectrum are in white light, formally and eminently, as the theologians say. God not only has being, wisdom, and goodness; He is at once everything that these names can signify when carried to the absolute. Even more, He is that in which—the reality in which—these names, carried to the absolute, find themselves to be identical with each other. Being, wisdom, goodness, and so forth, are, whether on the mere level of metaphysics, or likewise on the level of the cataphatic knowledge involved in revelation and faith, views (ones that are distinct from each other) that we take up concerning the mystery of the unity and sovereign simplicity of God. These concepts are distinct from each other but, as we know, are concerned with an ineffability wherein no distinction is possible. Behold what God is. Behold what the Father is, what the Son is, what the Spirit is.
An eminent Palamite theologian, Vladimir Lossky, who believes that it is traditional to speak of there being a real distinction between the divine essence and energies,89 while nonetheless informing us, with Mark of Ephesus, that we will not find “in the ancients, the clear and sharp distinction between God’s essence and His operation / activity,”90 declares that he is “ready to hold that God cannot be called a simple essence without thereby denying His absolutely unknowable nature.”91 It seems that a position like this is undergirded by the conviction that affirmations like, “God is,” “He is one,” “He is simple,” “He is light,” “He is love,” “He is one who rewards justly,” can involve two kinds of depths. They can designate a philosophical mystery, the mystery of God such as He can be known on the basis of [our knowledge of] creatures. In this way, He is known only by the fringe of His garments. However, they can also designate a revealed mystery, a mystery of faith, the mystery of the being, simplicity, wisdom, and love…, the mystery of this God whose intimate life pours forth in the Trinity of Persons, who so loved the world that He gave His only Son, the mystery of God such as He is in Himself, wholly inaccessible to reason, unattainable here-below, except in the impenetrable night of divine revelation and faith.
According to E. von Ivanka, modern orthodox theologians supposedly hold that the distinction between God’s substance and energies—which for Palamas was metaphysical and prior to every consideration undertaken by our mind—is, instead, logical and subsequent to our mind’s own consideration, overcome by the ineffability of the divine simplicity. Therefore, this would mean that there was some kind of agreement between these theologians and us. However, Meyendorff pushes back against such agreement and maintains Palamas’s own interpretation. The reason He gives is “the irreconcilable character of essentialist metaphysics, coming from Greek philosophy, in comparison with the personalist and existential metaphysics that Palamas inherited from the Bible and the Fathers.”92 One could ask, however, whether Biblical revelation and the theology of the Fathers are reconcilable with Palamas’s metaphysics.
7. A way toward understanding the notion of participation
We do not say that the divine persons participate in the divine nature, for each of them is, wholly, the divine nature. However, we will indeed say that the divine nature, through which and in which they subsist, is communicated to the Son by the Father and to the Spirit by the latter two.
Creatures have been given a participation in the Divine riches. In the order of nature, which can be contemplated by the philosopher, what is communicated to creatures is not the divine essence but, rather its likeness. In the order of grace, which is manifested through revelation, what is communicated and participated in is the divine essence itself, along with the infinite mode in which [its] perfections are found in it. Let us specify, however, two sorts of participation.
Natural participation in the Divine riches is above all that which the [Ps.-]Areopagite sets out to define in his treatise On the Divine Names.93 From this perspective, the divine essence, along with the infinite mode to which the absolute perfections are borne therein, is inaccessible, incommunicable, imparticipable. The same will be said concerning those divine attributes which designate not only an absolute perfection (being, goodness, life, wisdom, love, power, etc.) but, at the same time, the infinite mode in which this absolute perfection is realized in the divine essence: like the divine essence itself, aseity and omnipotence are inaccessible, incommunicable, and imparticipable.
However, making abstraction from the infinite mode in which they are realized in God alone, the divine perfections can be participated in and, therefore, can be known. Through them, God communicates Himself, obviously, not by giving over His own essence but, rather, by giving likenesses of it, which are, in Dionysius’s own words, so many manifestations of Him. “God,” comments St. Thomas, “is manifested by the effects that go forth from Him. Indeed, the Deity itself is what goes forth to some degree in Its effects it pours forth a likeness of itself into things in accord with their capacities. Nonetheless, this is so in such a way that its excellence and singularity remain intact within it, uncommunicated to things and hidden from our eyes.”94 Therefore, there is no real distinction between the divine essence and the absolute perfections such as they are realized in God. However, there is a real and infinite distinction between the divine essence and the absolute perfections such as they are realized in the likenesses of it that God places in things. This is the doctrine of [Ps.-]Dionysius, St. Maximus, and St. Thomas.
The same theme is taken up in chapter 11, pt. 6 of On the Divine Names.95 [Ps.-]Dionysius’s disciple, Timothy, is astonished that one can name God sometimes as being through itself, life through itself, wisdom through itself, and sometimes the Author of being through itself, of life through itself, of wisdom through itself. To this, the master responds that there is no difficulty here, for each of these holds true in different senses. When applied to God, the qualifications Being through itself, Life through itself, and Divinity through itself all signify the one principle, the one super-substantial cause of all things. What, now, according to [Ps.-]Dionysius is the second sense of these qualifications? Let us try to translate His very text: “They are concerned with participations, that is, the providential energies that the imparticipable God has extended to us; they are productive-of-substance-through-themselves, vivifying-through-themselves, divinizing-through-themselves. For things which are and are called existent, living, and divine participate in them in accord with their own capacities.”96 The text is sufficiently clear: in the first case, being through itself, life through itself, and divinity through itself all designate the Supersubstantial Cause of all things. In the second case, these perfections, these energies, designate the first and most fundamental gifts extended to creatures. Yes, indeed, we can truly say that we here do find the notion of two divinities. However, only the first is uncreated. The second designates a created gift.
Here is St. Thomas’s commentary on this text from [Ps.-]Dionysius: “In the second sense, one can call being through itself and life through itself the powers (energies) or perfections that, according to His providence, the imparticipable God has given in participation to creatures. In fact, even though God, the principle of these powers, is imparticipable and unparticipated in Himself, nonetheless, His gifts are divided among the creatures who receive them in a partial manner, and this is what is meant when it is said that they are participated. Things are existing, living, and divine to the degree that these participations in being, life, and divinity are received.”97 And, according to St. Maximus, the same passage can be explained thus: “This is the penetrating response given by Dionysius to the question: how are we to understand that God is sometimes called life in itself, etc., and sometimes the Author of these things or He who has created them? On the one hand, God is designated as the Cause of life in itself, of being in itself, of divinity in itself, and the principle above every principle; and, on the other hand, it is by participating in life in itself, in being in itself, in divinity in itself that things are called living, existing, and divine. The power to give life and being was therefore founded (created) by God before (or for) particular things… In a manner that is sovereignly unified and lacking in any composition, God forever possesses in Himself everything that pertains to salvation. On account of the superabundance of His Goodness, He is the Principle and Source. While remaining wholly in Himself, He, as it were, sends rays forth to the beings that He made through His creative power, so that He may communicate to each one, according to its own capacities, the splendors of His riches. The irradiations issuing from the communicable goods that are found in Him are first of all, being through itself, vivification through itself, divinization through itself, and all these things which imitate the principles, that is, the perfections which exist in Him, Divinity through itself, Goodness through itself, and Life through itself.”98
One can adopt or dispute the vocabulary that [Ps.-]Dionysius borrows from the Neo-Platonists. The important thing, however, is that either [Ps.-]Dionysius or his commentators hold, on the one hand, that the divine energies or perfections are participated in by creatures and, on the other hand, that the divine essence remains imparticipable. And in order to maintain these two truths, we do not need to introduce into God a real distinction between His uncreated essence and His uncreated energies. However, these remarks suffice for our discussion of the problem of the natural participation in the divine riches.
The second problem, which is much more mysterious, is that concerning the supernatural participation, through grace, in the divine nature itself, the problem concerning how, through grace and indeed from here-below, we are ordered to the indwelling of the three divine persons in us and, in the here-after, to the immediate vision of God such as He is, face-to-face. The scriptural texts related to this are well-known. Let us only recall that of 2 Pet. 1:3-4 (RSV): “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.”
All these texts are interpreted by Palamas as pertaining to our union with God’s energies, not His very essence: “God leaves himself be seen straight-on and not through enigmas… He unites Himself to them to the point of coming to entirely dwell in them fully, so much so that, for their part, they dwell wholly in Him, so that, through the Son, the Spirit is spread forth in abundance upon us… Nonetheless, you do not consider the fact that God does not let Himself be seen in His super-essential essence but, rather, does so according to the deifying gift and according to His energy, in accord with the grace of adoption, the uncreated deification, the direct hypostasized radiance.”99 He continues by stating that the words “divine nature” in the text of Second Peter do not refer to the very essence of God but, rather, only to sanctifying and deifying grace: “Theologians have the custom of using the term ‘nature’ and ‘essence’ not only for the nameless superessentiality which surpasses every name, but also for the productive power of the essence and all the natural properties of God.”100 Palamas’s position is clear: we participate in the uncreated divine perfection through an uncreated divine perfection called Grace, a perfection that is really distinct from the uncreated divine essence; however, we do not thereby participate in the uncreated divine essence. Consequently, we must: 1˚ hold that the term “uncreated” designates, in fact, the entire domain of the “supernatural”;101 2˚ eliminate every notion of a created supernatural [reality],102 that of a created grace, which could represent only an intermediate nature which is neither divine nor human.103
Here, now, we can see where the true difficulty lies. We can conceive of participation in a solely entitative manner. A body participates in heat; inorganic beings, plants, and animals, participate in the divine perfections depending on how they receive into themselves likenesses [of God] and how they possess them in a transposed, degraded, and analogical manner. However, we likewise can conceive of participation in an intentional manner. Affected by a light ray, the eye can open itself to that which surrounds it. In itself, it is finite, and the luminous impression that it receives is finite as well. However, it proportions its gaze to the full horizon before it.
Palamas conceives of participation only in the first manner. Hence, it is impossible to participate in the infinite and the uncreated without becoming entitatively and ontologically infinite and uncreated oneself: man who, by his nature, is created, becomes, entitatively and ontologically uncreated by grace. Consequently, one will come to distinguish two forms of uncreated [realities]: the imparticipable uncreated [reality] of the divine essence, and the participable uncreated [reality] of the divine perfections.
There is another manner of conceiving of man’s divinization through grace as well as his immediate ordination, here-below, to the indwelling of the divine persons themselves, and in the here-after to the vision of them. In touching man with a ray of His uncreated divine grace, of His uncreated divine goodness, God impresses within him a created supernatural quality, a created supernatural light, received more or less intensely and opening his soul up to the full horizon of the divine life, known and loved, here-below in faith and in the here-after in vision. Such is divine grace inasmuch as it is received into the creature. Entitatively, ontologically, it is created. Intentionally, spiritually, what it opens out upon is nothing less than the entire life of the divine persons, God seen “as He is,” “face to face.” It is a “participation in the divine nature,” for it is, in us, a permanent principle of activity, a power to be able to know and love God, no longer only through our own natural resources, but rather, through a ray of the light and love with which He knows and loves Himself, such as He subsists in the three divine persons.
IV. Conclusion
This rapid comparison of Palamism and Thomism, as rendered possible by John Meyendorff’s engaging book, has enabled us to mark out the common fundamental points shared by Palamism and Thomism, followed by the points where they do not agree with each other.104 In noting the points of disagreement, our end was, above all, to discover the precise moment where, setting forth from the same revelation and advancing at first along the same path, the two theologies begin diverge from one another and, on the basis of which, consequently, it would be profitable to take up an examination of the reasons for their divergence.
Some of the points of disagreement are regarded on the Catholic side as being consecrated through magisterial definition and, therefore, coming under an assent of faith (e.g., God’s absolute simplicity, procession ab utroque, the immediate vision of the divine essence by the blessed, etc.). Others are considered, if not by all orthodox theologians, then at least by Palamites, as being consecrated by the synod of 1351 (the real distinction between the uncreated divine essence and the uncreated divine energ[ies]). Finally, others are held on both sides as being mere theologoumena.
Clearly, doctrinal unity can exist on the level of faith between Christians who diverge concerning theological matters. The Church will forever accept in her life the fact of theological pluralism. This does not mean, in any way, that a number of theologies can be simultaneously true and intrinsically justified or, on the contrary, that none of them can be true, properly speaking. Rather, it merely means that the only true theology has not yet been fully nor sufficiently made manifest. And when it is, the Church nonetheless cannot impose it. She can only recommend it to her children’s attention. The only thing that can impose a theology upon someone’s mind is the intrinsic strength of its truth, as well as the permanence of the illumination that it provides for resolving the new problems which come to be posed in each era of history.
Journet’s original text is Charles Journet, “Palamisme et Thomisme: A propos d’un livre récent,” Revue Thomiste 60 (1960): 429–452.↩︎
Although I am aware of those in the Latin Church who contest St. Gregory’s canonized status, as things stand, several sui iuris Catholic Churches recognize him as such in the liturgy, including the Ruthenian Catholic Metropolia of Pittsburgh.↩︎
John Meyendorff, Introduction à l’étude de Grégoire Palamas, “Patristica Sorbonensia” (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1959). [In English, see John Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, trans. George Lawrence (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998)↩︎
ibid., 122.↩︎
ibid., 313.↩︎
ibid., 170.↩︎
ibid., 177.↩︎
ibid., 177, 187.↩︎
ibid., 187.↩︎
ibid., 221, 239.↩︎
ibid., 236.↩︎
ibid., 286.↩︎
ibid., 287.↩︎
ibid., 241.↩︎
ibid., 285.↩︎
ibid., 181.↩︎
ibid., 182.↩︎
ibid., 179.↩︎
Cf. ibid., 288.↩︎
ibid., 206.↩︎
ibid., 207.↩︎
Cf. ibid., 195ff.↩︎
ibid., 265.↩︎
ibid., 246.↩︎
ibid., 255.↩︎
ibid., 254.↩︎
ibid., 255, 270.↩︎
ibid., 255.↩︎
ibid., 216.↩︎
ibid., 215.↩︎
ibid., 259.↩︎
ibid., 268.↩︎
See ibid., 268, 251.↩︎
ibid., 317.↩︎
ibid., 214.↩︎
ibid., 317.↩︎
ibid., 318.↩︎
ibid.↩︎
ibid., 321.↩︎
ibid., 321.↩︎
ibid.↩︎
In writing upon Rm. 5:19 (RSV), “many were made sinners,” Cyril of Alexandria writes in In Ep. Ad Rom. Comment. 5:19, PG 74, col. 789: “They fell under the law of sin not because they fell with Adam (since they did not yet exist) but, rather, because they have the same nature as him.”↩︎
See op. rec., 180.↩︎
See ibid., 184-185.↩︎
See ibid., 182.↩︎
See ibid., 182, 217, 220.↩︎
See ibid., 267.↩︎
ibid., 184 (the emphasis is our own). “Death reigned from Adam to Moses,” Rm. 5:14 (RSV), even over those who did not sin by personally transgressing, as did Adam, a precept given on pain of death. Therefore, it is the consequence first of the loss of our “likeness” with God, that is, of original culpability.↩︎
See op. rec., 321.↩︎
ibid., 319.↩︎
ibid.↩︎
ibid.↩︎
ibid., 321.↩︎
ibid., 322.—According to this argument, it seems that if death is the consequence of what has been inherited from Adam, immunity from death is the consequence of immunity from what has been inherited from Adam: this is the privilege that we recognize as belonging to the Virgin Mary alone.↩︎
ibid., 25↩︎
ibid., 26.↩︎
See the texts, with their reference in Martin Jugie, Theologia dogmatica christianorum orientalium (Paris: 1933), vol. 2, 358-366.↩︎
See ibid., 364.↩︎
The distinction made by Gregory of Cyprus will be taken up, though in a different context, by Palamas himself. See op. rec., 26.↩︎
ibid., 314.↩︎
See ibid., 315.↩︎
See ibid., 314.↩︎
ibid., 312.↩︎
Palams (cf. ibid., 313 and 314) registers the following reproach against the “Latins”: either they “introduce two principles of the Spirit” or they identify the Father as such with the Son as such, mixing them together into one single hypostasis.↩︎
One will find references and other texts in Martin Jugie, De processione Spiritus sancti, ex fontibus revelationis et secundum Orientales dissidentes (Rome: 1936), 81ff.↩︎
Op. rec., 232.↩︎
See ibid., 315.↩︎
On this text and the following, see our own Introduction à la théologie (Paris: 1947), 57ff.↩︎
[Tr. note: Though, it is important to remember that the event of the Transfiguration on Thabor is, according to Thomas, the “claritas gloriae” overflowing onto His body, as was natural to him, though this overflow was suspended prior to the resurrection for reasons of the economy of salvation. See ST III, q. 45, a. 2.]↩︎
See St. Thomas, Super ev. S. Matthaei, lect. 5:8: “Dicemur videre Deum quasi oculis corporalibus.” We will be said to see God, as it were, with bodily eyes.↩︎
Op. rec., 268.↩︎
Curiously, in Theologia dogmatica, vol. 2, 145, Jugie notes, as a specifically Palamite expression, a beautiful commentary on the Transfiguration drawn from Dom Marmion’s Le Christ dans ses mystères (Paris: 1930), 270, one that we do not hesitate to make our own.↩︎
See op. rec., 201-202.↩︎
See ibid., 85, 147.↩︎
See St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer, 4.20.5 (PG 7, col. 1035).↩︎
See St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses, 6.6 (PG 33, col. 545).↩︎
Op. rec., 302.↩︎
ibid., 293.↩︎
ibid., 292.↩︎
See ibid., 292, 295.↩︎
See ibid., 302.↩︎
See ibid., 295.↩︎
ibid., 293ff.↩︎
ibid., 302.↩︎
ibid., 292.↩︎
ibid., 294.↩︎
See M. Jugie, Theologia dogmatica, vol. 2, 97.↩︎
For this text and the following ones, see the references that we list in our Introduction à la théologie, 94ff.↩︎
V. Lossky, Essai sur la théologie mystique de l’église d’Orient (Paris: 1944), 68.↩︎
ibid., 76.↩︎
V. Lossky, “La théologie de la lumière chez saint Grégoire de Thessalonique,” Dieu vivant (1945), no. 1: 101.↩︎
Op. rec., 310.↩︎
Above all, see De divinis nominius, 2.4-7 and 11.6, along with St. Thomas’s commentary In Lib. De Divinis Nom. Expos., Turin edition, nos. 136, 158, 178, 257, and 926.↩︎
ibid., no. 136 (p. 46).↩︎
In St. Thomas’s commentary, nos. 925ff (p. 345).↩︎
De divinis nominibus, PG 3, 11.6 (col. 956). This is the translation provided by Maurice Gandillac in Oeuvres completes du Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite (Paris: Aubier, 1943), p. 169: “Considered from the perspective of participation, [when speaking of being in itself, life in itself, and of deity in itself] it is thus a question of providential powers, gifts of the imparticipable God, Essentiality in itself, Vitality in itself, Deification in itself. And it is by participating in these powers that each being, in accord with its own nature, receives (on the level of language as well as that of reality) existence, life, deification, etc.”↩︎
In lib. De Div. Nom., no. 934 (p. 346).↩︎
St. Maximus, Scholia in lib. De Divinis Nom. PG 4, 11.6 (col. 401).↩︎
Op. rec., 293.↩︎
ibid., 248.↩︎
See ibid., 248.↩︎
See ibid., 231.↩︎
See, ibid., 298.↩︎
We must note another text by the same author, John Meyendorff, Saint Grégoire Palamas et la mystique orthodoxe, “Maîtres spirituels” 20 (Paris: Ed. du Seuil, 1959).—The same theses are summarized in that text: no “created supernatural”; given that the real distinction between the uncreated divine essence and the uncreated divine energy is not a distinction between two substances but, rather, between the uncreated substance and the uncreated activity through which God acts and to which He is present, this does not break up the absolute divine simplicity. This is what the Author calls “a Christian existentialism” (pp. 123ff).↩︎
