The Hesychast Controversy with special reference to the Byzantina Historia of Nicephorus Gregoras and the Historia of John Cantacuzenus

Abstract

The Hesychast Controversy originated with the attacks of a Greco-Italian monk from Calabria on the traditional monastic way of life which he found at Byzantium and thos. Out of his quarrel with this man, Gregory Palamas began to produce his famous theological system, and developed it in the course of further debate with other opponents. The struggle sometimes took the form of a quarrel between Aristotelianism and Platonism, at others of one between conservatism and progress. Palamas was resisted by those like Barlaam and Cydones who had been influenced by scholasticism, and also by men like Gregoras and Acindynus who were critical of his terminology. The revival of interest in theology, producing a synthesis almost comparable in importance to the great developments of the early Christian centuries, is typical of this last renaissance of Byzantine thought. It is also closely connected with politics. The imperial government took a decisive part in these theological discussions, and since for fifteen of the years during which the Hesychast disputes went on, the state was divided into factions, and often even at open war, the success of Palaraas or his opponents depended on the triumph of one or other party. The death of Andronicus III in 1341 made a regency necessary, for his son John was a minor. The former grand domestic John Cantacuzenus stood out among the ravel of intrigues that surrounded the regent, the Latin widow of Andronicus, Anne of Savoy Declaring himself emperor in October 1341, Gantacuzenus took up arms in support of his claims to the tutorship of the young princes, and was finally successful in 1347. In 1354 he was forced to abdicate in favour of his ward, John y Palaelogus, but by that time hesvchasm was securely established in its central position in orthodox belief. For Cantacuzenus was closely associated with Palamas, and in the August of 1341, even before his coronation, he had held a council to pronounce in favour of the Palamites. In 1347, the year of his triumph, the trend of political events restored Palamas to the place he had lost since his excommunication by the patriarch, Cantacuzenus enemy, in 1344. After the great council of 1351, in which Nicephoros Gregorys led the opposition to the Hesychasts, the acceptance of Palamas's doctrines was assured, and the overthrow of Cantacuzenus in 1354 did not lead to any reversal of former decisions even by a sovereign of Latin sympathies. In 1355 Palamas and Gregoras debated before a papal legate, and in 1368Gydones, who was influenced by scholasticism and was responsible with his brother for translations into Greek of the works of Aquinas, was condemned by the patriarch Philotheus for his opposition to the teachings of Palamas. The interesting later developments only confirmed existing conditions, and show the resistance of the now further-articulated eastern tradition to the impact of western ideas.