CHAPTER TWENTY
WRITING FOR THE HEART

The spiritual literature of Byzantium

Joseph Munitiz

One of the most remarkable features that distinguishes the spiritual literature of Byzantium is that at regular intervals the need was felt to gather extracts or even whole texts together into anthologies. From the collection of “sayings” of the Desert Fathers in the sixth century, one passes to the vast collection, the Sacra parallela of John of Damascus in the eighth century (or to the even earlier Pandektes of Antiochos of St Sabas in the seventh century), then on to various other anthologies, like the great Synagoge of Paul of Evergetis in the eleventh century, the collections put together by John of Oxeia in the twelfth and, eventually, as late as the eighteenth century, to the influential Philokalia, an attempt to bring together the key spiritual texts of the Byzantine world.

Fortunately much work has been done on these collections. One pioneer scholar was a French abbé, Marcel Richard, when in charge of the Greek Section of the Institut de recherche et d’histoire de textes in Paris. Gifted with an unrivalled knowledge of Greek manuscripts, when asked to contribute the entry on Greek florilegia in the multi-volume Dictionnaire de spiritualité (in course of publication at the time), he undertook an investigation of the Greek manuscript catalogues. He discovered many such works: ten belonging to the family of the Hiera or Sacra parallela, organized under the name of John of Damascus; at least ten more characterized by their combination of profane (pre-Christian) with religious texts, loci communes dealing with ethical and religious points (like “friendship”); and another dozen that can be loosely described as “monastic,” the most outstanding being the works of Paul of Evergetis, Nikon of the Black Mountain and John of Oxeia.¹ More needs to be said in particular about some of these collections, but it is as well to point out from the beginning that much of the material remains in manuscript form. Extensive work remains to be done on unpublished sources before one can form an authentic picture of the extent and influence of spiritual writings in the thousand-year span of Byzantine culture.

However, words can be slippery objects, and the word “spiritual” is a good example. It is unlikely that inhabitants of the Byzantine world would have used the word πνευματικóς in relation to specific writings in the same way that we do today; for them Scripture was certainly “spiritual,” as were monks, especially confessors, 248 the sacraments and even objects (like the altar). The writings that we tend to classify as “spiritual” are more often entitled “ascetic,” or “mystic,” or even “gnostic” (as happens with the works of Diadochos of Photike: κεφáλαια γνωστικá). A favourite adjective to describe such writings is νηπτικóς, with its emphasis on “sobriety.” We can be easily confused by the Byzantine tendency to extend “philosophy” to cover works of piety and devotion. For them “gnosis” and “theoria,” and of course “theologia,” came naturally to mind when we would use the word “spirituality.” It is through the practice of the virtues, as Byzantine spiritual writings constantly remind us, that one comes to the knowledge of God: “If you wish to be granted a mental vision of the divine you must first embrace a peaceful and quiet way of life, and devote your efforts to acquiring a knowledge of both yourself and God.”²

For anyone first approaching this type of writing, and wishing to catch something of its attraction and depth, the Sayings of the Desert Fathers provide an unrivalled gateway. However, some help may be needed to cross the threshold. There are various types of collections: the so-called “Alphabetical-Anonymous” series and the “Systematic.” Still valuable is the work done on these by the German scholar Wilhelm Bousset (1923), but a French Jesuit, Jean-Claude Guy, was the first to establish reliable guidelines to these collections, and provided a complete edition and translation of the “Systematic Collection.”³ Clearly, the “Anonymous” section also follows roughly a systematic order,⁴ dealing with topics such as the need for stillness and self-control, endurance, discernment, avoiding judgement of others and ostentation, vigilance, mercy, obedience, humility, endurance and charity: however, as the English translator remarks, “The essence of the spirituality of the desert is that it was not taught but caught; it was a whole way of life” and also, “It is in some ways a vain exercise to select Sayings … It is even more dangerous to try to explain the desert tradition, for it is a tradition which is best understood from experience.”⁵

Similar to the collections of “sayings” of the Desert Fathers are a number of collections devoted to describing their lives: the so-called Lausiac History of Palladios (fifth century) and the anonymous Lives of the Desert Fathers.⁶ These prolong a tradition of hagiographical writing that may have begun with the most influential of all “lives” of the Desert Fathers, the Life of St Antony the Great, traditionally attributed to St Athanasios (fourth century).⁷ Outstanding in this category is the Λειμν / Λειμωνáριον (Spiritual Meadow⁸) of John Moschos (early seventh century), extremely popular, but still awaiting a competent critical edition (and given the extreme complexity of the manuscript tradition likely to wait still longer). Between “sayings” and “lives” one should interpolate “stories,” the “pious tales” (“beneficial to the soul”, ψυχωφελεîς, as the Byzantines liked to call them), which fill the Spiritual Meadow. Many such collections exist, such as those that appear under the name of Anastasios of Sinai,⁹ the healing miracles collected under the names of Cyrus and John,¹⁰ and at a later date (tenth century) those attributed to Paul of Monemvasia.¹¹

Of course the lives of other saints, not just of the “Desert Fathers,” form a distinctive and very large section of Byzantine spiritual literature. Here again a collection of major importance is to be found. In the tenth century Symeon, commonly known as Metaphrastes (the “Translator”), attempted to rephrase all known saints’ lives in a style which he thought more appropriate to the culture of his age, characterized by Paul Lemerle as “Byzantine humanism.”¹² Originally these would have formed a

ten-volume Menologion, containing some 150 texts.¹³ Many are available in the volumes of the Acta sanctorum published over many centuries by the Bollandists,¹⁴ where it is possible to compare some with the earlier texts. Other “menologia” (characterized by the classification of saints’ lives according to the months of the year) existed, along with “synaxaria” that gave brief lives of the saints.¹⁵ One of the most important synaxaria was published by Hippolyte Delehaye, a twentiethcentury Bollandist, who contributed several key works to our knowledge of Byzantine hagiography (e.g. his work on the stylite saints, and that on legends in hagiography).¹⁶ To find one’s way through the largely unexplored jungle of hagiographical collections – along with the homiletic tradition that was regularly combined with saints’ lives – the most important work is by the German scholar Albert Ehrhard (1937–52).¹⁷

Although in the case of some outstanding preachers¹⁸ their sermons and homilies would be gathered under their own names – John Chrysostom in the fourth century and Andrew of Crete in the eighth century are the most obvious examples – the survival of many such works has to be attributed to the liturgical collections in which they were placed, usually to celebrate a feast: these could be panegyrics of saints (πανηγυρικá), with sermons on the Virgin forming a special category, or comments on biblical texts, and would have been intercalated between Scriptural readings. A ninth-century example is a manuscript from Thessalonika which contains sixty sermons drawn from the leading Church Fathers: “c’est tout un défilé de patristique orientale qui était introduit dans le cycle des lectures liturgiques non-bibliques.”¹⁹ It is worth noting that although many sermons and homilies passed into the monastic domain (and are preserved largely in monastic liturgical texts), many saw the light of day addressed to lay audiences and helped to stimulate lay spirituality: the very word retains a link with its root meaning of “conversation” or “talk,” a bishop conversing with his congregation. The same holds for the sermons entitled κατηχητικá, “religious instructions,” which also found their way into the later collections.

Undoubtedly it is the Synagoge, put together by Paul of Evergetis around the year 1050, which best represents the medieval phenomenon of collected spiritual texts. This large work, which divides into four books, has survived, at least partially, in more than eighty manuscripts, an indication of its popularity over many centuries. It was printed by Nikodemos Hagiorites in Venice (late eighteenth century), and is now easily available in five volumes thanks to various Athenian reprints.²⁰ An analysis of the sources quoted provides a reliable list of the authors who dominated the spiritual reading of medieval monastic communities.²¹ The Gerontikon (or “Sayings of the Fathers”) easily tops the list, and along with that source, and similar to it, are the works of Antiochos, himself the author of an important collection (the Pandektes, mentioned earlier),²² Palladios, the letters of Barsanouphios and John, and the treatises attributed to Mark the Monk/Hermit. All can be grouped together as representing the “desert” tradition stemming from Egypt and Palestine. With them stands the Vita of the Egyptian St Synkletike, quoted quite frequently in the Synagoge, especially as this life “represents almost the total sum of female contributions to the work.”²³

But the second most frequently quoted author (after the Gerontikon) is Ephrem the Syrian (fourth century); many questions still surround the authenticity of the works in Greek attributed to this very influential writer,²⁴ but some remarks are justified. His works are proof of the debt owed by Byzantine spirituality to earlier non-Greek sources, in particular the Syriac writers. The presence in some of his texts of Scripture references drawn from the Diatesseron confirms this, and should not surprise any reader who has admired the liturgical hymns of Romanos the Melode (sixth century). Ephrem’s Greek works, whether authentic or not, lay great stress on self-denial, on compunction (e.g. “how the soul should pray to God with tears” and “on the dangers of laughter”), on temptations, on the Final Judgement, on the passions and virtues, but also on the Theotokos. Many of the sermons are written in a rhythmic prose, while a great number of his works take the form of liturgical hymns. Another writer represented in the Synagoge, Isaiah of Skete, a monk in Palestine, resembles Ephrem in giving a subtle analysis of evil thoughts (λογισμοí) along with discernment (διáκρισις).

The Synagoge draws on a second very popular spiritual writer hailing from areas outside the narrowed limits of the medieval Byzantine empire: Isaac the Syrian, bishop of Nineveh (seventh century). He provides a link with much earlier writers. These texts make vividly present the Christ-centred aspect of much Byzantine spiritual writing and its stress on the Passion as a remedy for human sinfulness. It is fascinating to find that the well-known Latin Anima Christi prayer had its forerunners, as the following makes clear:

Have mercy, Lord! Have mercy, Lord! Have mercy, Lord, my Jesus! My sinful heart you know full well; I pray you to forgive me. Accept the cry that from within, despite sin’s bitter venom, To you my soul with heart-felt pleas would raise in deep contrition. By all the passion that you bore, lance clean my soul’s foul passions; By all your wounds salve now the wounds that my mind has self-inflicted. By our own blood with art divine make pure the blood in my veins And graft my members to your frame united to the Godhead.

This is a very free version of a twelfth-century prayer found in the life of St Cyril of Philea (d. 1110) by his disciple, Nicolas.²⁵ But this prayer is simply a rhythmic version of a prayer in prose to be found among the works of Isaac, who in his turn was drawing on John of Dalyatha, another Syriac writer active in Iraq in the eighth century. Isaac’s devotion to the cross is evident:

The cross is the gate of mysteries; here takes place the entrance of the mind into the knowledge of the heavenly mysteries. The knowledge of the cross is hidden within the sufferings of the cross … The greater place the sufferings of Christ take in us, the greater becomes our consolation in Christ. Consolation means contemplation which is psychic sight. Sight gives birth to consolation.²⁶

The hint at some higher “sight” of the soul²⁷ reminds one that behind many of these writers, both Syriac and Greek, stand the imposing figures of both Evagrius Pontikos and Origen, both condemned in 553 at the ecumenical council of Constantinople and therefore not to be mentioned explicitly by so orthodox a compiler as Paul of Evergetis. In the case of Evagrius, the most directly influential of these two writers,

diverse strands are distinguishable in his teaching: first, an emphasis on the “practical” (τá πρακτικá) the way and the need to purify the soul; and alongside this ascetical teaching, another set of instructions aimed at instructing the soul in true knowledge (τá γνωστικá),²⁸ which can have reference either to the “natural” or to the “theological.” Where Evagrius appeared dangerous to the Council Fathers was in his metaphysical teaching, both with regard to human souls (which he suggests have some pre-existence) and with reference to the nature of Jesus Christ (presented as an “intellect” or λογικóς). However, his teaching on prayer, solidly founded on mystical experience, opened up the possibility of the soul being granted the “light,” which he defines as the “contemplation of the Trinity,” .²⁹ However, the key authors insisting on “light” mysticism are missing from the Synagoge, as will be discussed below.

Two writers, both undoubtedly Greek-speakers by birth, are worth introducing at this point as both were used extensively by Paul of Evergetis and both depend massively on Evagrius.³⁰ The earlier of the two, Diadochos (fifth century), was bishop in Photike in Epiros (northern Greece), the other, Maximos (seventh century) the Confessor (so-called because he “confessed” to the true faith despite torture), is said to have been born in Constantinople.³¹ In the Synagoge they are both represented by their “Centuries,” a literary genre much favoured by Byzantine spiritual writers: 100 relatively short sentences are strung together, occasionally linked by subject matter, each sentence being suitable for meditation/reflection and often enigmatic or allusive in tone so that the reader is required to reread and labour to get at the meaning: “We have hidden certain things, and camouflaged others, so as to avoid throwing to the dogs what is holy,” as Evagrius remarks.³²

Diadochos is reacting to some extent against Messalianism, with its excessive emphasis on human unworthiness coupled with teaching on the need for emotional and sensual experience in prayer. This heretical movement, probably introduced from Syria, had infected at least one version of the Makarian homilies (a collection very popular in monastic circles). But Diadochos was seeking “a precise theory of both the state of the fallen human intellect and the nature of God’s saving intervention.” ³³ There are attitudes that may strike the modern reader as quaint (such as his suspicions about bathing³⁴), but his robust good sense is joined to a real feel for the deeper levels of prayer:

Whenever the soul is in the abundance of its natural fruits, it makes its psalmody louder and wants to pray aloud more. But when it is activated by the Holy Spirit, it sings and prays with all relaxation and gladness alone in a private place in the heart.

(my italics)³⁵

He is alive to the need for discernment in prayer, and for a spiritual life rooted in the love of Jesus Christ.

Drawing on Diadochos,³⁶ Maximos, justly regarded as the greatest of Byzantine spiritual writers, devotes four Centuries³⁷ to (poorly translated as “Charity”), included (at least in part) in the Synagoge. But equally important are his Liber asceticus, his Mystagogia and his Commentary on the Our Father. Yet even his dogmatic works, like his Quaestiones ad Thalassium, are deeply “spiritual,” or ψυχωφελες, as the Greeks say. His humility³⁸ combines with a human tenderness, as Irénée Hausherr showed, with his customary perspicacity, when he entitled his book on Maximos De la tendresse pour soi à la charité.³⁹ Maximos acknowledges the fallen human state but is convinced of its innate goodness and openness to regeneration with Christ. The “deification” (θωσις) by the goodness of God of what is born human is the highlight of the optimistic teaching of Maximos:

One can say that the divine and the human serve one another as models (παραδεγματα): the divine out of pure benevolence becomes human for the sake of the human in so far as the human, strengthened by love, becomes divine (); and the human is lifted up in spirit by the divine towards the unknown ( [var. reading γνωστóν]), in so far as the human displays with virtuous living the divine that is, by nature, invisible.⁴⁰

With such packed sentences as these Maximos opens new vistas for the soul. Such teaching provides a pointer also to the assiduity with which Maximos had read the works circulating under the name of Dionysios the Areopagite. In this he broadened the horizon, because writers like John Klimakos seem to have studiously avoided these brilliant, but intoxicating, works. Going beyond the “intellectualism” of Evagrius, Maximos “introduces a theme from Denys the Areopagite: that in its final union the intellect is taken out of itself - its love is ‘ecstatic’ (the Greek means ‘standing outside oneself’).”⁴¹ As he notes in one of his chapters:

God who is beyond fullness did not bring creatures into being out of any need of His,

but that He might enjoy their proportionate participation in Him, and that He might delight in His works

seeing them delighted and ever insatiably satisfied with the one who is inexhaustible.⁴²

(my italics and spacing)

While insisting that God cannot be “grasped” (), Maximos maintains that a “proportionate participation” is possible for the human in the divine, even calling it “identity by grace” ().⁴³

Among other works used by Paul of Evergetis, the Dialogues that circulated under the name of Pope Gregory the Great deserve special mention as they illustrate the breadth, cultural and geographical, of his sources. As with so many of the works mentioned so far, considerable problems of authenticity⁴⁴ surround this famous and very popular work: supposedly a translation from the (sixth-century) Latin by the last of the Greek popes, Zacharias (eighth century), the Dialogues recount the life of St Benedict along with many other Italian saints.⁴⁵

Before passing on to the Philokalia, a reflection on the authors not mentioned so far will help to complete the picture of middle Byzantine spirituality. Some of these omissions from the Synagoge become more intelligible when one recognizes that this florilegium is far from being a random collection of texts, and is also not the only work for which Paul of Evergetis was responsible. The four books (probably echoing, like the Centuries on Love of Maximos, the number “four” of the Gospels) each contain fifty themes (); they are constructed with the training of a monk in mind. Book One concentrates on general principles of monastic asceticism, Book Two on monastic customs and requirements, Book Three deals with the interior dispositions, while Book Four outlines the way of perfection along with the duties of priests, pastors and teachers. One of his principles of omission leaps out at once: most of the “great” patristic writers are not there – Basil of Caesarea, the Cappadocians, John Chrystostom, Dionysios the Areopagite, John Klimakos, John Moschos, Dorotheos of Gaza⁴⁶ – but presumably because Paul assumed that these works were so well known that they would be available in any case. Also missing are any extracts from the Studite corpus, the great collection of monastic instructions pronounced by Theodore for his monks in the early ninth century. In this case one should note that Paul produced not only the Synagoge but also a liturgical homiliary, known as the Katechetikon, which still awaits publication.⁴⁷ It contains liturgical readings for the morning office for each day of the year; texts are selected from Maximos, Pseudo-Makarios, Dorotheos of Gaza, Ephrem, Mark the Monk, Neilos (= Evagrios), John of Karpathos, Diadochos of Photike and above all Theodore the Studite. In the latter case Paul exercises subtle editorial techniques to adapt the sermons to the perennial needs of a monastic community – with such success that numerous copies of the Katechetikon survive, one adapted to the needs of a female community.⁴⁸

Perhaps more significant is a further omission (noted many years ago by Irenée Hausherr) of any extracts from Paul’s contemporary, the very influential spiritual author Symeon the New Theologian (d. 1022).⁴⁹ Certainly an outstanding writer, his lyrical religious poems cannot fail to attract, while his Chapters (Κεφλαια) contain catecheses for his monks that display great originality. Dominant in his teaching is the importance of “light,”⁵⁰ since God reveals himself as light, a light that Symeon claims to have seen (perhaps encouraged by the writings of the Pseudo-Makarios). It is such autobiographical assertions that make his writings so lively,⁵¹ but also aroused the suspicions of his hearers. Thus it seems that Paul deliberately refrained from associating himself with an individualism that could not be reconciled with the anonymity of his own approach, with its constant putting forward of tradition.⁵²

Although the great collection the Philokalia was published so late (1782), it provides a ready means of access to the whole of medieval Byzantine spiritual writing, including in its scope authors from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. Its influence has been enormous, partly because of the numerous Slavonic, Russian and Romanian versions that soon appeared.⁵³ Of the thirty-eight authors or texts represented⁵⁴ less than half of them are to be found in the Synagoge. The reason is not hard to find: the fourteenth century saw the appearance of a major new contribution to Byzantine spiritual writing – the phenomenon of Palamism. The two compilers of the Philokalia, Bishop Makarios of Corinth and Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain (or “Hagiorites”), were working with a set purpose in mind: they wanted to propagate the “prayer of the heart” (the well-known method of prayer known as the “Jesus Prayer”⁵⁵) and the hesychast approach to prayer associated with Palamism.⁵⁶

Gregory Palamas (born in 1296) spent some thirty years as a monk, mainly on Athos, until appointed metropolitan of Thessalonika (1347). Gifted with a ready pen he composed first a saint’s life (1334), then numerous apologetic and expository works, some more directly on prayer, others on theological topics, where he developed his theory – in particular that of the vision of uncreated divine light – that provoked so much controversy. It is perhaps ironic⁵⁷ that the major exponent of Palamite teaching has presented his theological and dogmatic speculations, where serious questions can be raised, as his major contribution, while playing down his mystical gifts: “Esprit éminemment dogmatique …, [Palamas] sut traduire en concepts doctrinaux la tradition spirituelle du monachisme byzantin”;⁵⁸ and earlier, “Palamas … ne fut aucunement un mystique personnel, comme Syméon le Nouveau Théologien, et encore moins un visionnaire, mais un spéculative et un dogmaticien.”⁵⁹ However, his more directly spiritual works, even if they are not openly autobiographical (like those of Symeon), testify to the experience and depth of his inner life.

Grouped around Palamas in the Philokalia, either as predecessors or as followers, are a number of important spiritual writers. Symeon the New Theologian has already been mentioned, and has an important place, denied him in the Synagoge. Similarly Niketas Stethatos, the disciple of Symeon who composed the biography of his master, is included with his Centuries … Practical, Gnostic and Theological, each dedicated to a different stage in the spiritual life. Also there is a thirteenthcentury monk, Nikephoros, surnamed the Hesychast or the Hagiorite; he was the first to write explicitly of the breathing technique to be used with the Jesus prayer:

Sit, recollect your spirit, introduce it – I mean your spirit – into your nostrils; this is the path that the breath takes to reach the heart. Push it down, force it to descend into your heart along with the air that you have breathed in. When it is there, you will see the joy that will follow.⁶⁰

A similar text, printed under the name of Symeon the New Theologian but probably also by Nikephoros, adds details about the body posture:

Then, pressing your chin against your breast, direct the corporeal eye but also all your spirit to the centre of your stomach, that is on your navel, compress the air that passes through your nose so that you hold your breath, and mentally search within yourself the place of your heart, there where all your soul’s powers congregate. At first you will find only darkness and a stubborn lack of transparency, but if you persevere, and if you practise this exercise night and day, you will find – what wonder! – a limitless happiness.⁶¹

Less dramatic are the acrostic chapters (one is quoted above⁶²) that come under the name of Theognostos (c. 1254) and give no hint of later Palamitic tendencies:

While still in the flesh, do not try to plumb the inner depths of intelligible realities, even if the noetic power of your soul is drawn towards them by its purity. For unless the bodiless part of man, now mingled with breath and blood, is released from the grossness of materiality and enters the realm of the intelligible realities, it cannot grasp these realities properly. You should therefore prepare yourself to issue from this material world as though from some dark second maternal womb, and to enter that immaterial and radiant realm, joyfully glorifying our Benefactor who carries us through death towards the fulfilment of our hopes.⁶³

A disciple of Nikephoros the Hesychast, Theoleptos of Philadelphia (d. 1326) is important as the first spiritual father of Princess Irene Eulogia Choumnaina, and thus a link with the many women who devoted themselves to the spiritual life.⁶⁴ This young widow of the despot John Palaeologos, abbess of a convent in Constantinople, was a noted anti-Palamite; she befriended Akindynos, who became her second spiritual father.⁶⁵ If nothing else this fact indicates that hesychastic prayer was not a preserve of the Palamites.

However, strongly in the line of Palamas is a key figure, the venerable old man Gregory of Sinai (1255–1346); he is said to have brought to Athos from his travels in Palestine, Sinai and Cyprus the teaching of a new form of prayer: for him, the spiritual life consisted in rediscovering, experimentally, one’s baptismal “force” or “energy” and seeing the “light.” This is done through the repetition of the Jesus Prayer along with holding one’s breath. Of course Gregory is well aware of the illusions and errors that such techniques can provoke, and carefully warns his disciples against them. Nevertheless one can understand that some critics reacted strongly against such teaching. To complicate matters further, it is known that on Mt Athos at this time (c. 1340) there were condemnations for Bogomilism and Messalianism,⁶⁶ even if the majority of the monks there were “God-loving men, the naturally pious, the simple Christians, those who own no property, who are not meddlesome, who think that heaven is for their souls what the earth is for their bodies.”⁶⁷

Later fourteenth-century figures included in the Philokalia are the brothers Kallistos and Ignatius Xanthopoulos, and two other monks named “Kallistos,” all strongly in the Palamite line, for example repeating the teaching that in prayer one can attain vision of the light of Mt Tabor which provides direct contact with the divine “energy.” An even later supporter of Palamas is Symeon of Thessalonike (d. 1429); his commentary on the liturgy is important as both a historical and a devotional work, but the extract chosen for the Philokalia is from a treatise on prayer.

The collection closes with seven short texts translated into modern Greek, an indication that by the nineteenth century some Greek readers of the Philokalia would have had difficulty in coping with the more classical Greek of the medieval period. But this linguistic update may also indicate that the two compilers intended their collection to be available for a wider public, not just the monastic communities of Mt Athos. This preoccupation with a lay readership is evident elsewhere in the collection.⁶⁸ However, one important lay figure not included in the Philokalia, but remarkable as an exemplar of the devout layman, is Nicolas Cabasilas: his treatise, On Life in Christ, is in many ways typical of the best spiritual writing in the Byzantine empire, and it makes plain some constants in the Byzantine way of thinking about the spiritual: “the compenetration of the present world with that to come; the existence in us of spiritual powers of feeling; the close relationship between the Christian and Jesus Christ; the human contribution needed to this union with Christ; a love that is pure.”⁶⁹

The advantage of turning to these collections as a way of providing a path through the rich expanse of Byzantine spiritual writings is that the choice of authors is made for us; the maps have been drawn up over the centuries and the contours have been checked and double checked. Occasionally on referring to the main features of these maps some hints have been dropped, and some directions indicated, but the option was made to avoid any ambitious plan of synthesis. Such syntheses do exist, some of them associated with great names,⁷⁰ and these have their uses. A problem they tend to raise is that of contrasting East and West. How helpful such an approach can be seems to the present writer very doubtful. Undoubtedly spiritual writings in Greek and Latin provoke distinctive sensations, just as do the contrasting styles of Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila writing in English and Spanish. It is equally certain that different authors will appeal to different readers.⁷¹ The astonishing fact remains that if one is prepared to listen, the voice of God can be heard coming through these different accents – and that alone is what makes them so wonderful, and also justifies their being called “writings for the heart.”

NOTES

1 Richard 1962: 475–512.

2 Theognostos 1981: 360.

3 Guy 1962 for a summary of his research; see Guy 1993, 2003, 2005 for his posthumous edition of the Greek text with a French translation.

4 A partial translation: Ward 1975.

5 Ward 1975: xii and xviii.

6 Full details available in CPG 5620 (Historia monachorum), and CPG 6036 (Historia Lausiaca).

7 CPG 2101; note that the Supplementum gives the reference to the critical edition by G. J. M. Bartelink in the Sources Chrétiennes series, no. 400, Paris, 1994.

8 It is worth noting that the Greek title feels no need to add the word “spiritual.”

9 They formed the subject of a doctoral thesis in Paris by André Binggeli in 2001, and it is hoped that they will be published soon.

10 Published in Spain by N. Fernández Marcos 1975.

11 Wortley 1996; the same translator has published the Spiritual Meadow 1992.

12 Lemerle 1986: 337–9.

13 Ševenko 1990.

14 So-called after their Jesuit founder, Jan van Bolland (1596–1665); over the centuries this group of scholars has published critical editions of lives of saints, beginning with the series known as the Acta sanctorum; they also publish the journal Analecta Bollandiana, and supplementary volumes (Subsidia hagiographica) dedicated to hagiography.

15 Noret 1968: 21–3.

16 Listed in the References under his name.

17 A useful index to the manuscripts mentioned by Ehrhard has been published by Perria 1979.

18 Cunningham and Allen 1998 is a very useful guide for outstanding preaching activity in Byzantium during the first millennium.

19 Grégoire 1969: 609.

20 Solignac 1984, and for a brief overview, Citterio 2002: 921–2; the Belfast Evergetis Project is making available detailed information in volumes published in the Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations Series (see vols 6.1 and 6.2).

21 Wortley 1994: 314.

22 Antiochos witnessed the Arab invasion of Palestine, and his collection was intended to be a portable library for the monks fleeing from their monasteries.

23 Wortley 1994: 316.

24 For proof of this, see Geerard 1983–7: II, 366–8 (CPG 3905). The only major editions of his works are still those of the eighteenth-century scholars E. Thwaites (Oxford, 1709) and J. S. Assemani (Rome, 1732). At least one volume of the EPΓA π has been republished (using the text of Assemani, but with an accompanying translation into modern Greek), in Athens (1988, 1995).

25 Sargologos 1964: 71–2. A complete translation appeared in Munitiz 1974: 171–2.

26 Wensinck 1923: 365.

27 A treatise, called “Nestorian” by its editor (who also provides a Latin translation), may also be by Isaac and stresses even more strongly the mystic aspects: “And when we approach and gaze on the cross, we rise up mystically by our intellect to heaven, as though we had some incorporeal vision, independent of sight,” ed. Ploeg 1943: 125.

28 Guillaumont 1960:1738.

29 Hausherr 1953: 1776, 1781; this masterly exposition of contemplative prayer “chez les Grecs et autres Orientaux chrétiens” has not been surpassed.

30 Somewhat different is the case of Evagrian works that passed under the name of Neilos of Ankyra: Guérard 1982: 356.

31 Dalmais 1980: 847; unfortunately information on his early life is unreliable; on his later trials, see Allen and Neil 1999.

32 Quoted by Guillaumont 1960: 1738; cf. PG 40: 1221C.

33 Rutherford 2000: 4. Valuable information available in des Places 1955, who gives a summary of the polemical purpose and spiritual teaching of Diadochos.

34 Rutherford 2000: 64–6 ( §52).

35 Rutherford 2000: 96–8 ( §73).

36 des Places 1982: 30–5.

37 Available in English: see Berthold 1985: 35–87.

38 Excusing himself from further writing he closes his Mystagogia with the words: “Still tossed, as if by a savage sea, by the great tempest of my passions, and still far from the divine haven of apatheia, being uncertain of the end that awaits me, I do not want to have as my accusers not only my deeds but also my written words” (PG 91: 717C).

39 Hausherr 1952.

40 Ambigua 10, PG 91: 1113B10–C2; Dalmais 1980: 846 referring to this passage reads “vers l’inconnu,” and this is supported by the Latin, “rapi ad incognitum”; however, the Migne edition gives only the variant reading which is clearly a copyist’s error. Incidentally, the Ambigua were written to help friends understand “ambiguous” passages of Gregory of Nazianzus. To explore further the theme of “deification,” see Russell 2004.

41 Louth 1996: 43.

42 Berthold 1985: 67, Third Century on Love, ch. 46.

43 See Hausherr 1953: 1836, quoting Quaestiones ad Thalassium, qu. 25 (PG 90: 333A); the phrase reappears in Scholion 11 to this text. Many of Maximos’ works are now available in critical editions in the CCSG, among them this work edited by Laga and Steel 1980: 163, 171.

44 Clark 1987 calls in question the overall authenticity of the work, arguing that some ingenious writer has interwoven genuine fragments of Gregory with many legendary elements.

45 For an English translation, see Zimmerman 1959.

46 Wortley 1994: 323, has drawn up this list.

47 Crostini 1998 gives the most up-to-date study of the Katechetikon, and there are hopes that the sections deriving from Paul himself will eventually be published.

48 See Crostini 2002b.

49 See Hausherr 1957.

50 Hausherr 1953: 1851–3.

51 Very indicative is the title of Maloney 1975, The Mystic of Fire and Life.

52 See Crostini 2002a: 126–8.

53 A handy summary is given in Citterio 2002: 919, and for those wishing to see the relationship between the different versions, see Conticello and Citterio 2002.

54 A full analysis of the first edition is available in Ware 1984: 1339–43.

55 A succinct definition is to be found in ODCC: 875.

56 The “pocket-book” version of the Philokalia, put together by the distinguished French scholar Jean Gouillard, is faithful to this same purpose: Gouillard 1953. For a wider version of the purpose of the Philokalia see Ware 1984: 1348–52; Spanish readers will find helpful the synthesis of spirituality based on the Philokalia in Melloni 1995.

57 This has been pointed out by the editor of Akindynos, a major critic of Palamas’ theology: see Nadal 2006: 136, from where the quotations of Meyendorff are taken.

58 Meyendorff 1959: 172; Meyendorff contributed the Dictionnaire de spiritualité entry on Palamas, vol. 12, 1984: 81-107, an excellent introduction to Palamas’ work.

59 Meyendorff 1953: 119.

60 Gouillard 1953: 151. In his Introductory remarks (p. 154) Gouillard emphasizes that such teaching is quite foreign to the genuine mysticism of Symeon.

61 Gouillard 1953: 161. This passage is the key to the abusive name _μφαλ_ψυχοι (“having souls in their navels”) given by Barlaam to the hesychasts: Nadal 2006: 132.

62 See n. 2.

63 Theognostos 1981: 374.

64 See Laurent 1930.

65 Nadal 2006: 28-83.

66 Bogomilism: for a general definition, see ODCC: 219-20, but the pejorative adjective “Bogomil” was used to cover a wide variety of deviations; for Athos at this time, see Rigo 1989.

67 Quoted by Nadal 2006: 143. These words were written by Akindynos in a letter to Barlaam urging him to stop his campaign against the Athonite hesychasts (Hero 1983: 24-5).

68 As pointed out by Bishop Kallistos in his Dictionnaire de spiritualité article: Ware 1984: 1348-9.

69 Salaville 1953: 6, where he is quoting from a study of Cabasilas by Gabriel Horn published in 1922.

70 Some examples: Vladimir Lossky 1944 (Russian), Giorgios Mantzarides 1994 (Greek), Dumitru Staniloae 2002 (Romanian), Tomaš Špidlik 1978, 1988 (Czech Roman Catholic cardinal), all classic authorities. For a recent attempt see McGuckin 2001.

71 For an interesting attempt to facilitate the “encounter” between different religious attitudes see Cheetham 2007. A similar eirenic approach is to be found in Louth and Casaday 2006.