St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Introduction
Review: This book is an excellent introduction to St. Gregory Palamas and Hesychasm. It explains to the reader why this Christian belief and practice is so important to us today. Also recommended is The Moutain of Silence by Kyriacos C. Markides.

Rating:
Summary: Good but Limited Introduction
Review: This short introduction by John Meyendorff surveys the development of Eastern Orthodox spirituality, which culminates in the work of St. Gregory Palamas (14th century). It contains a number of illustrations: icons, photographs (black and white), and manuscript artwork. The basic thesis is that Eastern Othorodox spirituality - what some would call "mysticism" - begins with primitive monasticism and culminates with Palamas in the 14th century (although there are a few slight developments in Russia, such as St. Seraphim of Sarov). The basic practice that culminates with Palamas has come to be known as "Hesychasm", which means "inner stillness" or "inner peace".

Meyendorff's writing is easy to read and comprehend; it is nice that he pretty much gets to the heart of each thinker he discusses (Evagrius, the pseudo-Macarian homilies, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Maximus the Confessor, and others) rather than discussing superfluous detail (the point of the book, afterall, is the *spirituality* of the Eastern Orthodox church). The bigger picture of doctrines like true prayer and deification/theosis (union with God, a concept largely abandoned in the West) are touched upon along with their developments in the thoughts of the above thinkers. It is a wonderful touch that Meyendorff includes a fair number of quotes from the primary sources.

The focus of the book is St. Gregory Palamas and Meyendorff offers a good synopsis of his life and times before going into the controversy surrounding Palamas and a monk named Barlaam. In short, Palamas' great victory was teaching that because God has become human, humans can experience God in a living way (this recalls the teachings of St. Athanasius who, oddly enough, is not touched upon in this book). It is interesting to note that although this book is almost 45 years old, Meyendorff touches upon the tolerance of the Turkish Muslims that captured a ship Palamas was on and the dialogue that went on between the Muslims and Hesychasts in the 14th century.

The book is clearly biased in Palamas' favor, and Meyendorff does seem to have the motive of showing how the traditions of the Eastern Orthodox church have remained faithful to their original heritage, a common claim made by Eastern Orthodox thinkers and writers as a way of distinguishing them from what they perceive to be distortions in the West. (I, for one, am staying out of the debate.) Although Meyendorff's bias isn't too terrible of a thing, the reader should know this going into the book; those that read carefully will probably pick this up pretty quickly.

The book seriously suffers, however, from the absence of any type of bibliography (which is always nice to have, so that the reader can do some of his or her own research). Although the book is an introduction, topics are often touched upon so lightly that the reader wants more. It's hard to get more without a bibliography! The book also suffers from its print and binding jobs, which are rather poor.

It would be great if someone would take this book and look up the original sources that Meyendorff used and repackage it without typos and with a better binding. The material itself is great - and for this I recommend the book - but for more serious students it is of limited use.