The Cappadocians, in their stubborn struggle against the Arians, and mainly in that laboratory work to clarify the Trinitarian terminology, contributed to the clarification of the differences between the "essence" and the "hypostasis" and thus laid the foundation for a theological understanding of the human person. Though not in the sense of modern personalism, though not in the sense that subsequent German philosophy pointed out and proved, the fathers of the fourth century had the honor of elaborating the concepts of "person" and "hypostasis." The emphasis may lie not so much on the moment of self-consciousness as on the bearer of responsibility, but the human Hypostasis is given a divine justification. On the other hand, the epoch of Christological controversy brings to the Christian teaching about man, or more precisely, about his composition and nature, a dogmatic or, more correctly, Christological foundation. Leontius of Byzantium, Maximus the Confessor, and Anastasius the Sinaite think of man and speak of him in Christological categories. The same Leontius, in his terminological work, continues the task of his predecessors and introduces anthropological themes into the mainstream of Aristotelianism, in which they will also be developed by the synthesizing mind of two later writers, St. John of Damascus and St. Photius of Constantinople. All this will enter into the theological understanding of man, and in the case of Palamas, whom we are studying, the center of gravity, however, is not in this, or, better, not only in this.

In the 1st chapter of our study, outlining the historical and cultural background of the epoch of St.

This, perhaps, is decisive in the theology of Palamism and, in particular, in its anthropology. In Chapter 1, giving an overview of various points of view on Palamism, we tried to point out a rather variegated characterization of Palamism on the part of learned specialists. None of them can satisfy the researcher of the issue because of its one-sidedness. It would be especially one-sided, we repeat what has been said above, to stylize Palamas and his opponents under the exclusive philosophical schemes of Platonism and Aristotelianism. To some extent, this may be correct, but it is still of secondary importance. It is much more important not to forget the mystical genealogy of Palamas. The mystical perception of the world, more than anything else, determines much in Palamas' teaching about God, about the world and about man. That symbolic realism, as a special perception of the world, which began to penetrate and be assimilated by the writers of the Church, beginning, at first uncertainly, in Clement and Origen, and then more and more deeply and grounded in St. Gregory of Nyssa, and then blossomed especially brightly in the mystical insights of the Areopagiticians and Maximus the Confessor, exerted, we insist, a predominant influence on the anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas. In St. Maximus the Confessor, this worldview was revealed as an absolutely exceptional revelation of the world as a Universal Whole, as a universal harmony united and embraced by divine Love. This divinely beautiful cosmos, permeated by the rays of the Divine, the logoi reflecting the Divine Logos, is reflected in every part of the universe, in every drop of this world, is reflected in its entirety, repeated countless times, is perceived by human logoi, conformed to it and united by the same power of Love. According to Balthazar's correct and figurative expression, a special mysterious and wondrous vision was revealed to St. Maximus, which he characterized as the "cosmic liturgy." In Maximus the Confessor, patristic mysticism reaches its supreme limit, its "acme." This mysticism revealed to him to perfection the symbolic realism that some seers knew before him, but could not grasp in such a holistic worldview. This symbolic perception of the world entered the anthropology of mystics.

If the searching thought has long been accustomed to speak of man as a "microcosm," it is only in the symbolic-realistic perception of man and the world that this word has acquired its true meaning. Peering into man, the mystics saw in him the whole world, the entire world Whole, everything that is pre-worldly, pre-existent, they saw and penetrated into that which is accessible to human speculation in God, that, as Maximus said, is not the very essence of God, but "the surroundings of God." In himself, man has experienced not what has so interested naturalistic psychology of all times, from the ancient philosophers, through their Christian epigones such as Nemesius of Emesa, to the school psychologists of our day. Not what is sometimes called "formal anthropology," i.e., the structure of man that is usually written about in psychology textbooks. Not questions of memory, attention, perception, associations, etc., but the true structure of a person, which can only be perceived symbolically. This is the special language of heavenly revelations, which is perceived not in a school, not theoretically, but as an inner purification, an "ontological catharsis" of the mind and soul. It is a language understandable only to mystics and symbolists, a language that speaks of a different reality, the reflection of which in our soul and nature are the phenomena of school psychology. The symbolically inclined mystic believes and knows that "everything we see is only an echo, only shadows of the invisible with the eyes."

If the naturalistic psychology of Nemesius builds and refines schemes of various forces of the soul, subordinate to reason and not subject to it; if the scholastic approach to man will require an answer whether man is two-part or consists of three parts; then the mystical-symbolic perception of the human soul and nature does not pay attention to this. Speaking of the structure of man, it seeks in him precisely these symbolic reflections of another world; in the spiritual world of man he sees a reflection of the intra-Trinitarian life of the Godhead; in the relationship between the spiritual and bodily natures of man finds Christological parallels, etc. One may ask: what then? What is the pragmatic application of this? Answer: This is applicable in the field of mystical contemplation, and it serves as a means of inner approach to God, this is one of the methods of knowing God. It helps the inner spiritual experience of the symbolically attuned thinker, and for him it will be experimental psychology in the most direct sense of the word, and not in the sense that modern scientific methodology attaches to it.

We need to add one more thing. The most sublime and subtle writers and thinkers, whether they are theologians of a dialectical bent or mystics of a symbolic tendency, have long since (St. Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, and many others) have drawn attention to the complexity of human nature, to its conjugation of two heterogeneous natures, spiritual and corporeal, and to the conflicts and contradictions arising from it. This put the stamp of apophaticism on the patristic perception of man. Man was and remains a cryptogram that is not given to the human mind to decipher.

From all that has been said about man in the history of religious thought in Byzantium, from theological, philosophical, and mystical experiments, the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas about man was formed. Three main themes about man attracted the attention of the head of the Athonite hesychasts. He did not invent anything new in the formulation of these themes; he inherited them from the centuries-old experience of his fathers. These are: 1. the question of the composition of man, i.e., of the relationship between his soul and body, or of the two natures, physical and rational. In the mystical concept of Palamas, it is developed in the categories of symbolic realism. 2. The problem of the image and likeness of God in man, which is especially characteristic of patristicism, is included in Palamas's thinking in his favorite categories of essence and energy, which he distinguishes not only in the divine life, but also in the entire creation of the world and in man himself. It is connected with the theme of the relationship between the two worlds: the human and the angelic, and what is especially important for us, it touches on the topic of creativity, of assimilation to the Creator in this regard, which is acute for religious thought. 3. Finally, the third theme concerns man's ultimate destiny or destiny. This is the theme of theosis, i.e. the deification of our nature in Christ and the deified state of each of us. If in the previous topics Palamas inserted man in the categories of "essence" and "energy", here he considers man in his Hypostasis. This is the path of each of us' personal ascent to God. The path from the conversion of the sinner, from the grace-filled rebirth in the font of baptism, through the narrow gates of podvig to the longed-for Kingdom of Heaven. Here, of course, they will inevitably touch upon, even in the most superficial exposition of ascetic issues.

These three topics will form the content of the last three chapters of this work (VI-VIII). They are preceded by a general and again brief overview of the general theological teaching of St. Gregory Palamas of Thessalonica (Chapter V).

PART TWO SYSTEMATIC

Chapter Five THE THEOLOGICAL TEACHING OF ST. JOHN GREGORY OF PALAMAS

(short essay) "Here is the limit of what the Cherubim cover with their wings." (St. Athanasius the Great. "To Serapion" I, 17)

Passing from the first, historical part of this work, to a systematic exposition of our topic, i.e., to the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas on man, we realize the full necessity, at least briefly, of an outline of his theological views as a whole. This may be a very superficial review of his main theological views, but it is necessary to clarify the anthropology of Palamas in the context of his entire mystical-theological doctrine. We limit the content of this chapter to a simple exposition of the theology of St. Gregory, without going into its critical evaluation. This chapter can and should serve only as an introduction to the anthropology of the writer under study, and in itself it stands outside the scope of our topic.

In the scanty literature on Palamism, this gap has been filled to a certain extent in our time by two serious works on the theological teaching of Palamism: 1. Articles: M. Jugie, "Grégoire Palamas" and "Controverse palamite" in Diction. de Théologie Cathol.", vol. XI, Paris 1932, col. 1735–1818 and the work of Fr. Basil (Krivoshein) "The Ascetic and Theological Teaching of St. Gregory Palamas" in the "Seminarium Kondakovianum", VIII, Prague, 1936,

The articles of the first of these authors are written with all the scientific thoroughness that distinguishes the Dictionary of Catholic Theology, but also with all the Latin confessional bias that characterizes this great specialist in Byzantine theology and Eastern ecclesiastical questions, Fr. M. Jugi. Fr. Krivoshein's work does not cover the entire theological concept of Palamism, paying more attention to the ascetic side of its teaching. Nevertheless, this is almost the only exposition of the teaching of St. Gregory in the Russian language, written from primary sources, with knowledge of literature, theologically substantiated and fully in the spirit of the Orthodox Church. The reader will find earlier works on hesychasm or mentions of Palamas in other books in the bibliographic index.