This post first appeared on Phylax Blog:
One of the debates often reflected on Phylax, is the conflict between Hellenism and Orthodoxy. I see a synergy between the two, others, see Orthodoxy as inimical to Hellenism and vice versa. This debate in fact mirrors to some degree the debate which took place during the 14th century Byzantine Empire. The relationship between Greek philosophy and Orthodox theology has not always been harmonious. Some like Tertullian, an early Christian writer, disparaged Greek Philosophy seeing it as dangerous and useless for the faithful. Others such as St. Justin Martyr were struck by the similarities between the two. St. Clement of Alexandria emphasized the role of philosophy as a preparatory science for Christianity. He wrote: "Perhaps philosophy was a direct gift of God to the Greeks before the Lord extended his appeal to the Greeks. For philosophy was to the Greek World what the Law was to the Hebrews, a tutor escorting them to Christ. So philosophy is a preparatory process; it opens the road for the person whom Christ brings to his final goal." The Cappadocian Fathers, especially St. Gregory of Nyssa, were well versed in classical literature and regularly used philosophical argumentation and the resources of antiquity to defend the doctrines of Christianity. St. Basil of Caesarea addressed young people, in particular, and encouraged them to read the classics of Greek literature, albeit with discernment. Despite all this, there remained two opposing political factions through much of Byzantine history, one opposed to compromises with the State and the rise of secular humanism (often represented by monks) and the other supporting a synthesis of ancient Greek thought and Christianity (often represented by the clergy).
During the 14th century, Byzantium was faced by fierce enemies on all its borders. It had been weakened by the destruction inflicted on Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, whose Western European armies conquered and sacked it in the 13th century. Interestingly as its temporal power began to wane, a Byzantine cultural renaissance flourished. Byzantium's "humanists" had launched the ancient Greek Classics toward the West where they had a major impact on Western "scholasticism," particularly in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. In so doing they discovered in the Latin West, the last refuge of Hellenism. Many converted to Catholicism. In the midst of this renaissance, a spiritual resurgence championed by the monks reinvigorated the Church, even as the State began to crumble. This Hesychast movement represented a mystical form of meditation and prayer and it too was also a vital part of the Byzantine Renaissance.
The leader and spokesman of the Hesychasts was St Gregory Palamas, and he was firmly opposed to the legalistic and rationalistic outlook of Barlaam and his cohorts. St Gregory, a monk who was very well versed in the writings of Aristotle from which secular education of the time, drew heavily, was initially asked by his fellow monks on Mount Athos to defend them from the charges made against them by Barlaam of Calabria. Barlaam, was a Greek from southern Italy, thoroughly versed in the classics, an astronomer, a mathematician, a philosopher and theologian with a caustic and arrogant manner. Barlaam brought charges of heresy against the monks of Mt. Athos for their Hesychastic practices. Two fundamentally different views of knowledge were involved in this bitter, public dispute. Barlaam believed that philosophers had better knowledge of God than did the Prophets, and valued education and learning more than contemplative prayer. He argued that knowledge of God might be gained by the use of discursive reason, dialectic and rational investigation. At the heart of this argument is that God cannot be perceived or wholly known by Man. St. Gregory, on the other hand, said that the Prophets, in fact, had greater knowledge of God, because they had actually seen or heard God Himself. Addressing the question of how it is possible for humans to have knowledge of a transcendent and unknowable God, he drew a distinction between knowing about God and actually knowing Him. Gregory saw philosophy and knowledge as a perfectly reasonable set of aids for the Christian. It was only when philosophy, whose goal is the furtherance of knowledge of God, was misused by some and turned, in effect, into God, that he opposed it fervently.The dispute came before three councils of bishops or "synods" held at Constantinople and presided over by the Emperor. Each time they ruled against Barlaam, who eventually recanted and returned to Calabria, afterwords becoming a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church.
The rift between the pagan Greek and Christian Greek traditions, a fault-line that ran the entire length of Byzantine history, contributed, in part, to the civil wars of the 14th century that destroyed the unity that was so badly needed in order to overcome the external threats facing the shrinking Empire. The Humanists, like Barlaam, were willing to compromise with Catholicism to avoid destruction at the hands of the Turks. In his book, Sailing From Byzantium, Colin Wells, sums up why they were out of step with the Byzantine mainstream: "A devout people with its back toward the wall can be pushed deeper and deeper into hardening religious nativism, in the end even preferring national suicide to religious compromise. This is what happened to the Byzantines. In that sense, Byzantium chose its fate. Military conquest by the Turks was less of an evil than spiritual submission to the hated Catholics. Without strict adherence to Orthodoxy there could be no hope of spiritual salvation, and spiritual salvation came before political survival."