However, this uncreated Divine Light, for all its immaterial and supersensual nature, does not always remain only an inner "Divine illumination, mysteriously and ineffably arising." It may be thought that in some cases, although it does not change in its nature, as it is "manifested outwardly," it becomes an objective phenomenon from inner experience, and even acquires certain properties of visible light. We notice something similar already in Blazh. Theodorite in his description of the "Light not made by hands", when he says that a certain ascetic saw it, "looking out of the window" (see above). We can conclude the same on the basis of some examples cited by St. Gregory Palamas. Thus, he speaks of "the Divine radiance and brightness, of which Adam was a partaker before the transgression, and was not naked as clothed in the true garment of glory... being much more beautiful... now clothed in gold and adorned with crowns of transparent stones." This Light, which is "the good of the age to come," shone on the face of Moses, whose glory the children of Israel could not behold. The radiance of this Light on the face of the First Martyr Stephen was not able to bear the Jews who looked at him. This same uncreated Light shone upon the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, and its action, despite its immateriality, was reflected in his bodily eyes, and some of those present saw it. The cave of the Holy Sepulchre was filled with this Light, the "Light of the Resurrection", when Mary Magdalene came there after the Resurrection and "divinely saw" this Light. "It is necessary to consider," writes St. Gregory Palamas, "... how, when there was still darkness, she saw everything accurately and in detail, and when it was outside, she saw what was inside the cave. It was evident that there was darkness outside, for the sensual day had not yet fully dawned, but this cave was filled with the Light of the Resurrection; divinely visible by Mary, it aroused greater love for Christ and gave strength to her eyes to perceive the angelic vision and to be able not only to see, but also to speak with the angels. That's the Light." It is interesting that in this case its double action was especially clearly manifested: on the one hand, it was purely spiritual, internal, which enlightened Mary, aroused in her love for the Lord and made her able to see the angels and enter into conversation with them, on the other hand, it so illuminated, like material light, the interior of the cave that in it it was possible to see "exactly" everything in it, despite the fact that it was still dark outside and "the sensual day has not yet dawned". In short, the "sensual day" emphasizes the "supersensuality" of Light inside the cave. Finally, the most striking example of the uncreated Divine Light is the Light that shone upon the Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration and was seen there by His disciples. This "Light of Tabor," as one of the main objects of the "hesychastic disputes," has become, as it were, a "classic example" of the uncreated Light, so that in the imagination of very many the manifestation of the uncreated Light is identified and limited to the Light of Transfiguration. But, as we have seen, the Divine Light, in addition to the Light of Transfiguration, has many and varied forms of its manifestation in the world.

St. Gregory Palamas talks a lot about the Light of Tabor in his works. He describes it, however, mainly in apophatic terms. This is understandable, since the Light of Transfiguration surpasses, as we have seen, all reason and all feeling... Thus, he calls it "ineffable, uncreated, everlasting, ageless, unapproachable... infinite, unlimited", etc. On the positive side, it is characterized primarily as beauty and as the glory of God, "... the original and unchangeable beauty, the glory of God, the glory of Christ, the glory of the Spirit, the ray of Divinity." It is also important to note that this Light, according to the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, is not something more subjective, arising in our consciousness as some kind of dream and idea in general, or something that arose at a certain moment (the Transfiguration) and soon disappeared. This Light is eternally inherent in God, and on Tabor it was only revealed to the apostles, and even then only partially, (from this we can conclude that this Light exists as an objective reality, that is, independently of our consciousness). In itself it is unchangeable, with the only difference that, being eternally extra-spatial, like the Divinity Itself, from the moment of the Incarnation it was concentrated in the body of Christ, in Whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead. And in general, it is not the Light itself that changes (it is unchangeable), but our ability to perceive it in greater or lesser power, the degree of our participation in the Divine. It is even more important to note how St. Gregory Palamas taught about the way of seeing this Light, for in the misunderstanding of this aspect of his teaching lies one of the main causes of misunderstandings that arise in general in connection with the teaching about the uncreated Light. For, as is well known, even Barlaam and his supporters set out in their attacks on St. Gregory Palamas from the assertion attributed to him that the Light of Tabor was seen by the Apostles with bodily eyes, and, consequently (Barlaam concluded) is a sensual, material light, and, as such, created, and not a Divine kind of atmospheric phenomenon, as can be inferred from some of Barlaam's words. In fact, however, St. Gregory Palamas, though not fully rejecting the opinion about the vision of the Light of Tabor with the bodily eyes, explains that the eyes of the Apostles were transfigured by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the vision of the Light itself was not an ordinary process of natural vision, but a supernatural, grace-filled one. In accordance with the whole spirit of the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, corporeality is not rejected here as something incapable of participating in the Divine life (such a view would have appeared to St. Gregory Palamas as a Manichaean desecration of the flesh), but is transformed here on earth by the power of the Holy Spirit and lives the life of the age to come... Here are some texts from the works of St. Gregory Palamas that confirm the above: having refuted the opinions of the heretics that the Light of Tabor is "a ghost, a symbol that arises and disappears, but does not possess true existence," St. Gregory Palamas asserts that "the Light of the Lord's Transfiguration does not arise or disappear, is not described or perceived by the sensual power, although it was visible with bodily eyes... but thanks to the change of feelings, then the mysteries of the Lord passed from the flesh to the Spirit." "Neither this Light is sensual, nor those who have seen it have seen it simply with sensual eyes, but changed by the power of the Divine Spirit." "And thus [Christ] is transfigured, but does not perceive what He was not, or changing into what He was not [before the Transfiguration], but making manifest to His disciples what He was." "They saw, indeed they saw this uncreated and divine illumination, but God remained invisible in His secret superessence."

This Divine illumination, seen by the Apostles on Mount Tabor, is available to people cleansed by the Spirit while still here on earth, although the full revelation of the Divine Light will be given only in the future life, when we see God face to face. That is why St. Gregory Palamas (following St. John of Damascus here) likes to call "the great spectacle of the Light of the Lord's Transfiguration," the "Divine and Ineffable Light," "the mystery of the eighth day," that is, "the age to come," "the vision and delight of the saints in the incomprehensible age." In this sense, the uncreated Light is often called the Kingdom of God, which is fully revealed at the end of time, but is already partially manifested to spirit-bearing people in accordance with their inner perfection and ability to perceive the Divine. "This Divine experience," writes St. Gregory Palamas, "is given in measure and is capable of being greater and smaller, indivisibly divisible in accordance with the dignity of those who perceive it." But even in the age to come, however complete the revelation of the glory of God and its direct contemplation "face to face" in the vision of the uncreated Light may be, the "secret Divine super-essence" will still remain forever invisible and inaccessible to creation, as surpassing in its greatness all created capacity for perception. For this reason, the Council of 1352 emphasized in its decrees that the Light of the Transfiguration is not the "super-essential essence of God" itself, for it remains completely invisible and uninvolved: for no one has ever seen God, that is, as He is in essence, but rather... the natural power of the super-essential essence, inseparably proceeding from it and manifesting itself through God's love for mankind to persons purified by the mind." In his "Homily on the Transfiguration," St. Gregory Palamas rebels against those who "do not call the Light that shone forth at that time" "Divine glory, the Kingdom of God, beauty, grace, brightness," but assert that this is the essence of God, and declares that "it is characteristic of the accursed Messalians to think that they see the essence of God." St. Gregory Palamas sees a certain figurative similarity of this impossibility of seeing the essence of God in the circumstance that, while the disciples of Christ could contemplate the Light of Transfiguration emanating from His face, they fell face down on the ground when a bright cloud overshadowed them. "What kind of light cloud is this? asks St. Gregory Palamas, and how, being bright, did he overshadow them? Is he not that unapproachable Light in which God dwells?.. One and the same thing is here both Light and darkness, overshadowing because of its [all] surpassing light." And although the Light of the Lord's Face was also unapproachable "and unlimited", "but then, shining more palely, it made it possible to see; and later shining much stronger, he became invisible to them because of the superiority of light." In this sense, St. Gregory Palamas interprets the expressions "darkness" and "darkness" found in Holy Scripture and patristic writings to symbolically designate the place of God's dwelling. At the same time, the radiance of Divine glory, His uncreated Light, is not, in accordance with the whole meaning of St. Gregory Palamas' teaching on "essence and energy," something separate from God Himself, but is God Himself in His indivisible and undiminished revelation. Therefore, it would be a mistake to think that St. Gregory Palamas held the opinion that the saints in the future life, instead of seeing God, will confine themselves to the contemplation of some separately existing Light. The inaccessibility of God's essence does not prevent us from contemplating God "face to face" in the coming age.

The teaching of St. Gregory Palamas about the uncreated Divine Light is closely related to his teaching about grace. Such a connection is self-evident, since St. Gregory Palamas always thinks of Divine illumination and vision of Light not as some kind of natural achievement of man, but as a direct action of God's power, internally assimilated by man. This direct action of God, insofar as it manifests itself in man and enlightens him inwardly, is identified by St. Gregory Palamas with Divine grace. He teaches about it as an uncreated and unlimited power of God (energy), which transcends both the mind and the senses, and all created things, truly uniting its owners with God and adoring them (without, however, losing the created character of their nature). "This Divine brightness and divinely created energy," writes St. Gregory Palamas, "those who partake of it are adored, is a kind of Divine grace, but not the nature of God; not because it was absent... for everywhere [is] the nature of God, but as inaccessible to anyone, for there is no one created... who is able to partake of it; The divine energy and grace of the Spirit, being everywhere present and inseparable from Him, is not participatory, as if absent [to persons] who are incapable of communion because of impurity." "Divine and divinely created illumination and grace," writes Gregory Palamas in another place, "are not the essence, but the energy of God." St. Gregory Palamas writes a lot about the uncreated nature of grace in his works, refuting the opinions of his opponents, who saw in his teaching something heretical and considered heretics those who "call God's God's grace uncreated, unborn, and hypostatic." In accordance with this, self-deification is understood by him not as a natural process of imitation of God and union with Him through the accomplishment of individual virtues or as something inherent in the rational nature of man (in which case man would become God by nature), but as His ineffable gift, as the fruit of the action of His grace (although prepared by virtues). "Thus," writes St. Gregory Palamas, "the grace of deification is higher than nature and virtue; all this is infinitely inferior to her. For all virtue, and our imitation of God as far as possible, makes him who possesses [virtue] capable of Divine unity; grace mysteriously accomplishes the ineffable union itself." "By means of it [grace] all God is contained in the worthy, and the saints are wholly contained in all God." "God's gift is deification," "deification takes the adored out of its nature." For this reason, the partakers of Divine grace can be called by it beginningless and infinite, as St. Gregory Palamas writes in his third "Discourse against Akindinus," which has the subtitle: "The testimonies of the saints, showing that those who have become partakers of Divine grace become by it [grace] beginningless and infinite." Defining more precisely the relationship between uncreated Light and grace in the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, we can say that for him uncreated Light and grace are essentially identical. Rather, both are the actions of God. St. Gregory Palamas speaks of this directly when he calls the Light of Tabor "uncreated and natural grace," writes about the "Light of Divine Grace" and refutes the opinion of those who call "the idolizing grace of God a property of the intellectual nature, arising from a single imitation, and not a supernatural and ineffable radiance and Divine action, invisibly visible and incomprehensibly comprehended by the worthy." It seems to us, therefore, that the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas would most accurately express the thought that the uncreated Light and its vision are not so much the consequence of the action of God's grace upon us, as the revelation of this grace. And this uncreated Light, which is identical with grace, has, as we have already seen, in St. Gregory Palamas many forms of its manifestation, from a purely inner illumination, mysteriously experienced by the heart, to a radiance that seems to be outside of us, partly similar in its actions to earthly light, but at the same time inwardly enlightening and contemplating it. One can even think that in the highest spiritual states, the grace of God, while still remaining invisible and "super-intelligent," is at the same time revealed as an ineffable "supersensible" Light, incomprehensibly contemplated in oneself or externally by those who have been vouchsafed such a state. Nowhere, however, in the works of St. Gregory Palamas do we find an indication that such a "supersensible luminosity" is necessarily inherent in grace at its highest stages, and that, remaining only "super-intelligent," it is thereby still defective and incomplete. It can be thought that, in accordance with the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, the types of God's grace-filled action are manifold and diverse, and that there can be no universally binding law here.

Such, in general terms, is the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas about the uncreated Divine Light. This teaching has always been a "stumbling block" for rationalist theological thought, which rejected it as allegedly inconsistent with the concept of God as a pure and simple Spirit and ascribed to Him a certain materiality. It seems to us that such an assessment of the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas is explained by the difficulty of thinking (especially for persons brought up in the spirit of Catholic mysticism) of the existence of immaterial Light and its involuntary replacement by material light. But if we succeed in overcoming this difficulty, the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas will be revealed to us in its deepest mystical and theological sense. Mystically, its significance lies in the fact that it affirms and substantiates the authenticity of our spiritual experience, in which the Divine and the uncreated are directly given to us. We do not contemplate some created product of a Divine cause inaccessible to us, not some light different from the Light of the uncreated, but the Divine itself in Its original. In this possibility of direct contemplation of the Divine and union with it, in the possibility of our grace-filled overcoming of our created limitations and going beyond the limits of natural being, is the meaning and justification of man's mystical path. On the other hand, in the manifestation of the uncreated Light, God reveals Himself to the world in the form of imperishable and immaterial beauty, the pale reflection of which is our earthly light and the created beauty of the created world. God, according to the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, is not something comprehended by man's rational faculty alone, as the representatives of one-sided theological intellectualism would wish, He is the source and prototype of true beauty, and as such He reveals Himself to the world in the imperishable radiance of His Divine glory. "The unapproachable Light, the incomprehensible outpouring of Divine radiance" is what the Council of 1352 calls the Light of Tabor, "the ineffable glory and the super-perfect and pre-eternal glory of the Godhead, the ageless glory of the Son and the Kingdom of God, the true and longed-for beauty around the Divine and blessed nature, the natural glory of God, the Divinity of the Father and the Spirit, reflected in the Only-begotten Son." This contemplation of the uncreated Divine Light as "true and desired beauty" seems to us to be one of the most profound and valuable insights of St. Gregory Palamas into the mystery of the Divine life of the Triune Divinity, in His relation to the created world.

Chapter IV: Conclusion. The Significance of St. Gregory Palamas in Orthodox Theology

In the preceding chapters we have tried to set forth in a systematic manner, confirming our conclusions with appropriate quotations, the basic ascetic and theological convictions of St. Gregory Palamas. In conclusion, we would like to say a few more words about the significance of his teaching in the general course of the development of theological thought in the Orthodox East. It seems to us very important for a correct understanding of him to clarify the question to what extent St. Gregory Palamas can be regarded as a traditional church theologian, to which currents of ascetic and theological thought of the Orthodox Church he belongs, and what new things he has introduced into the treasury of her ecclesiastical theology. Unfortunately, in this matter, the polemical or, on the contrary, apologetic approach to the subject has hitherto greatly hampered its objective study. In accordance with their confessional views, some sought to prove the complete tradition of St. Gregory Palamas, while others, on the contrary, saw in him an innovator who abruptly broke with all previous church theological tradition and "invented" a completely "unheard-of" theological system. It is unlikely, however, that both of these opinions, which, as it seems to us, can be scientifically substantiated on facts. And first of all, the opinion that the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas was completely unrelated to the ascetic and theological traditions that preceded it and that it arose for purely accidental reasons (out of the need to find arguments to repel Barlaam's attacks on the monks) seems to us to be especially wrong historically. Apart from the fact that we almost never encounter such examples of "creativity" in the history of human thought, the possibility of such "pure innovation" is especially improbable in the field of Byzantine theology, which has always been extremely conservative, traditional, and turned to the past. To limit the connection of St. Gregory Palamas with the past to his mysticism alone, denying it to his dogmatics, seems to us erroneous in view of the undoubted close and indissoluble connection and interdependence of the dogmatic and ascetic teaching of the Orthodox Church (in the concepts of God, the world, man, soul and body, good and evil, the Fall and redemption, etc.). In general, this connection is so close and indissoluble that any attempt to artificially isolate the ascetic and dogmatic elements of patristic teaching cannot be carried out without violence to their content. In particular, this is especially true of St. Gregory Palamas, whose organic character of his worldview, where everything is so interconnected internally, makes such a division especially erroneous. But apart from all this, the mere fact that St. Gregory Palamas and his followers so willingly resorted in their polemics to the testimonies of the ancient patristic and ascetic ecclesiastical writings, where they easily found numerous confirmations of their teaching, while their opponents, with all their desire to appear traditionalists, were forced to use mainly arguments of an abstract nature, This fact alone testifies to the fact that St. Gregory Palamas felt himself to be in the mainstream of the ancient church tradition and, undoubtedly, was in it. In fact, his ascetic teaching in its essence is nothing other than the ancient teaching on the paths of contemplative solitary life, dating back to Evagrius of Pontus and St. Macarius of Egypt, known in the history of Orthodox monasticism under the name of silence, or hesychasm. In particular, the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas on mental prayer, its methods and on the higher spiritual states is very close to the teaching of St. John of the Ladder, Hesychius and Philotheus of Sinai, St. Symeon the New Theologian, and St. Gregory the Sinaite. As we have seen above, the beginnings of the teaching about the uncreated Divine Light are found already in the writings of St. Macarius of Egypt, Bl. Theodoret, and especially in St. Symeon the New Theologian. The Light of Tabor as a manifestation of the Divinity was taught by St. Gregory the Theologian, and in the works of St. Gregory of Crete and St. John of Damascus there is contained, in the main, the entire teaching of St. Gregory Palamas about the uncreated Light of the Lord's Transfiguration. In the teaching on grace, St. Macarius of Egypt is closest to him. Finally, the doctrine of the "essence and energy of the Godhead" goes back in its basic propositions and even terminology to St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. John of Damascus. An even greater inner resemblance to this teaching, with some differences in the mode of expression, is found in the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, where he writes symbolically about the "appearance of God," about His sleep and wakefulness, and about abiding in His incomprehensible "secret superessence." In spite of the undoubted traditionalism of all the basic ascetic and theological views of St. Gregory Palamas, however, we cannot regard him as merely repeating what had already been said before him, or as a compiler devoid of any originality. He was not a compiler because the starting point of his theology was his personal spiritual experience, and not a simple study of the books of the Holy Fathers. His teaching is not a collection of various elements outwardly connected with each other, but forms a kind of harmonious whole, imbued with a single basic idea. All the traditional ascetic and theological problems were relived by him and posed anew. Much that had previously been insufficiently formulated or developed received from St. Gregory Palamas a further, more systematic development and theological-philosophical substantiation. Thus, in the field of asceticism, he developed and philosophically and theologically substantiated the traditional church teaching on the meaning of the body in spiritual life and on the methods of "artistic" mental prayer. Adhering to the ancient patristic view of man as a microcosm and of the connection between the two worlds, the visible and the invisible, St. Gregory Palamas supplemented this teaching with an indication of the mutual relationship between the human and angelic worlds, emphasizing that man, as an active being capable of creativity, is to a greater extent created in the image of God than an angel. The fragmentary mystical utterances of his predecessors about the uncreated Divine Light for the first time acquire the character of a systematic theological teaching. The doctrine of grace as the power of God was also developed by him in more detail than before him, and, most importantly, it was connected with the general teaching of the Divinity (the same can be said of the uncreated Light). The doctrine of God in His "secret superessence" and "revealed energy," although it does not belong to St. Gregory Palamas, nevertheless first received its theological and philosophical foundation in connection with the problem of Divine simplicity. And, in order to briefly summarize the significance of St. Gregory Palamas in the development of Orthodox thought, we can say that the traditional asceticistic teaching of the Orthodox East not only finds its final and systematic expression in his works, but also its theological-philosophical justification. With his teaching about the uncreated Light and Divine energies, St. Gregory Palamas provided an indestructible theological basis for the traditional mystical teaching of the Orthodox Church, for only on the basis of this teaching is it possible to consistently affirm the reality of man's communion with God and the reality of deification, without falling into the pantheistic fusion of creation with the Divine, which inevitably arises from the identification of essence and energy in God. Therefore, it would hardly be an exaggeration to compare the theology and struggles of St. Gregory Palamas with the theological feats and struggle for Orthodoxy of St. Athanasius of Alexandria. This comparison seems to us to be true because just as St. Athanasius the Great, having introduced into church usage, in spite of the protests of the pseudo-traditionalists of his time (we have in mind Eusebius of Caesarea and other semi-Arians), the theological term "homousios" (consubstantial), which had not been used before him in the Church, expressed by him the primordial (although not precisely formulated before him) church teaching on the Second Hypostasis, so St. Gregory Palamas with a bold development and theological clarification of the teaching that already existed before him about the uncreated Light and the energies of God, expressed and substantiated the truly traditional teaching of the Church about the authenticity and validity of the revelation in the created world of the uncreated Divinity, about the reality of the mystical communion of man with God and about the possibility of man's grace-filled overcoming of his created limitations without pantheistic merging and absorption of him by the Divine Being. In this matter of theological substantiation of the data of ecclesiastical mystical experience in its ultimate depths and limits lies the enduring great significance of St. Gregory Palamas. That is why the Orthodox Church so solemnly and with such love celebrates his holy memory every year, honoring in him not only a man fragrant with the holiness of his personal life, but also one of the pillars of her "divinely written" theology, a glorious preacher of the "piety of the great mystery."