Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts

Triads — In Defence of the Holy Hesychasts

Gregory Palamas (1296–1359), Archbishop of Thessalonica, was the principal defender of hesychasm — the tradition of contemplative prayer practiced by the monks of Athos. Against the philosopher Barlaam of Calabria, who argued that the monks' claim to perceive divine light was either sensory delusion or heresy, Palamas developed and defended the theological distinction between God's essence (which remains utterly unknowable and uncommunicable) and God's energies (His uncreated operations and self-revelations, which can truly be participated in by purified human persons). The Council of Constantinople (1351) declared this teaching Orthodox.

Triad I — In Defence of Those Who Practise Sacred Stillness

On the Knowledge of God and the Limits of Philosophy

Our God is not the god of the philosophers. The philosophers sought to know God through reasoning from created things — ascending by argument from the visible to the invisible. This is not wrong in itself: "the invisible things of God, even His eternal power and Godhead," says the Apostle, "are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" (Rom. 1:20). But this knowledge remains exterior and partial. It is like knowing a man only by what he has built — you may learn something true about him, but you have not met him.

The saints, by contrast, know God not merely by reasoning but by participation and union. They know Him as light, because they have been illumined by the uncreated light of His presence. They know Him as life, because they have been made partakers of His divine life (2 Pet. 1:4). They know Him as love, because His love has been poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). This knowledge surpasses all philosophy, for it is not about God; it is God Himself sharing Himself with His creatures.

Barlaam says the monks are mistaken to claim a vision of the divine light, for God is simple and without parts, and if the light they see were truly divine it would be the divine essence — which is unapproachable. I say: Barlaam has missed the entire tradition of the Church. The divine light is not the divine essence, but neither is it a created thing. It is the divine energy — the uncreated self-giving of God — which is truly God, though not God in His incomprehensible and imparticipable essence.

On the Light of Tabor

The light which the disciples saw on Mount Tabor was not a sensory light that came from outside. It was the uncreated light of the divine nature, revealed through the veil of Christ's flesh. This light was always there in Christ, hidden beneath His humanity; on Tabor it was revealed to the disciples as much as they could bear. The disciples fell on their faces, not because the light was blinding their physical eyes, but because their whole being was overwhelmed by the presence of the divine beauty beyond all created beauty.

This is the light which Moses saw in the bush that burned but was not consumed (Exod. 3:2); the light in which Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up (Isa. 6:1); the light in which Ezekiel saw the likeness of the glory of the LORD (Ezek. 1:28). It is the light which Paul saw on the Damascus road that was brighter than the midday sun (Acts 26:13). It is the light which the pure in heart shall see forever in the Kingdom of God (Matt. 5:8; Rev. 22:5). It is not a symbol. It is the divine glory itself, made participable to those who are purified.

Triads — On Divine Essence and Energies

Triad II — On the Distinction Between Essence and Energies

The central theological question raised by the hesychast controversy is this: if God is absolutely simple and without composition, how can the saints truly participate in God and yet not participate in His essence? This question is not new. The Cappadocian Fathers, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Maximus the Confessor all pointed to the answer, though they did not state it as fully as the controversy now requires.

The answer is this: in God there is a real distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies — between what God is in Himself and what God communicates of Himself to His creation. The essence of God is absolutely imparticipable and unknowable. No creature can ever become God in His essence; that would abolish the distinction between Creator and creature. But the energies of God — His life, His light, His goodness, His wisdom, His love — are truly God, not created intermediaries, and they can be participated in by purified creatures.

The Apostle Peter wrote that God has given us "precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). What is this divine nature in which we participate? Not the divine essence — that remains inaccessible. We participate in the divine energies: in God's life, in God's light, in God's goodness. This is true deification — not absorption into the divine substance, but the creature's real participation in what God really is, through the energies He freely shares.

Triad III — On Hesychast Prayer and the Body

Barlaam mocks the monks for bringing the mind into the body during prayer, holding the breath, and attending to the beating of the heart. He calls this superstition, even heresy. I say it is neither. The body is not the soul's prison; it is the soul's partner. We were not created as pure spirits; we were created as ensouled bodies. The Resurrection of Christ confirms this: the body will rise. The body too is destined for glory.

Therefore, it is entirely fitting that the whole person — body and soul — should be engaged in prayer. When the hesychast monks bring the mind down from the head into the heart, they are not doing anything strange. The heart is the center of the human person; the Scriptures repeatedly speak of the heart as the seat of thought, will, and prayer: "Out of the heart come evil thoughts" (Matt. 15:19); "with the heart one believes" (Rom. 10:10); "God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts" (Gal. 4:6). The monks are simply learning to pray where prayer was always meant to happen.

When the whole person — not just the lips or the intellect but the whole enfleshed person — is gathered in stillness (hesychia) and directed toward God, the divine light can illumine even the body. This is what happened to Moses when his face shone (Exod. 34:29), to Christ on Tabor, and to all the saints who have been deified. The body shares in the glory that begins in the soul, because the body is not foreign to grace but its destined temple (1 Cor. 6:19).

The Tomos of the Holy Mountain — Excerpts

The following is from the Hagioritic Tomos of 1340-41, signed by Palamas and the monks of Athos in support of hesychasm.

We know the divine energy, but not the divine essence. God's essence remains completely beyond all beings; His energy descends to all beings. Therefore God has two aspects: one which cannot be communicated and one which can be communicated. What can be communicated is His energy, not His essence. This is not a division in God; God is perfectly simple. But simplicity does not exclude the real distinction between what God is and what He does and gives — for what He gives is truly Himself, given in a manner that preserves both the incomprehensibility of His essence and the reality of our participation in His life.

Let no one say that deification is impossible, or that those who speak of it are mistaken. The entire purpose of the Incarnation was our deification. God became man so that man might become god — not in essence, but by grace and participation. This is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, and the promise of the Gospel: that we shall see God face to face (1 Cor. 13:12), that we shall be like Him (1 John 3:2), that we shall be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19).