Introduction

The person and theology of St Gregory Palamas (ca. 1296–1357) achieved remarkable popularity in the twentieth century.1 A once esoteric name in a neglected period of ecclesiastical history, Gregory Palamas has today become a central figure of academic and ecumenical theology.2 Famed for his defense of hesychasm and his doctrine of deification and the uncreated light, Gregory’s reception has been linked especially to his distinction between God’s essence and energies. This distinction, in its broadest terms, states that God is not only an ineffable ousia, essence, or substance but also the plenitude of attributes, names, powers, and activities that human beings predicate of God. These latter, called energeiai, activities, or operations, are not only divine but also uncreated and eternal without, at the same time, being reducible to or confused with the divine essence. Although God, in his essence, remains transcendent, unknowable, indefinable, and incommunicable, the properties that characterize God can be known and participated in, so that human beings can share in the divine powers, names, and activities to the extent that these are imparted to creatures.

The merits and orthodoxy of the distinction between God’s essence and energies were the cause of vehement controversy in Gregory’s own time, sparking bitter polemics and mingling with the animosities of a civil war to produce a protracted theological controversy that would span three decades.3 Beginning in 1337, Gregory had appealed, in his response to Barlaam the Calabrian’s anti-Latin treatises, to the category of ‘things around God’ (τὰ περὶ θεόν) to show that, although God was indeed inconceivable in his essence, there was nevertheless a category of divine realities that could be known and demonstrated.4 This same distinction would be invoked again when Barlaam attacked the hesychasts of Thessalonica and Mount Athos, and their method of prayer, in his treatise Against the Messalians in 1339–1340.5 In defending the hesychasts’ vision of God, Palamas would again draw a distinction between God’s unknowable essence and the communicable energeia ‘around the essence,’ focusing this time on the uncreated light that was seen by the apostles on Mount Thabor and experienced by the saints as the deifying grace and energy of the Spirit.6 In 1341, Barlaam would be condemned by a council in Constantinople for accusing those who distinguished between the divine essence and an eternal, uncreated grace of preaching two Gods.7 Yet, at this time, ‘another Barlaam’8 would raise his head to criticize the Palamite doctrine of grace, the former friend of Palamas, Gregory Akindynos, who continued to argue that only the divine essence and the divine hypostases were uncreated.9 Akindynos was particularly opposed to the idea that there was in God anything subordinate and actualized in addition to the active, transcendent divine essence in three Persons. Any energeia that was not simply God’s essence or one of the three divine Persons could only be a creature.

Between 1341 and 1347, Akindynos would write copious treatises against Palamas, acquiring numerous allies at the highest levels of ecclesiastical power, including the Patriarch of Constantinople, John Kalekas (who had initially participated in the condemnation of Barlaam) and the Patriarch of Antioch, Ignatios. These ‘successors of Barlaam,’10 as Palamas called them, would hold sway in the Church until 1347, during which time Palamas and his supporters, including the future patriarch Isidore Boucheiras, suffered imprisonment and persecution.11 Yet it is also during this time that Palamas wrote some of his most important treatises (more than fifteen) on the distinction between God’s essence and energies. The changing of the political tide in 1347 would bring Palamas and his party back to the ascendency in Constantinople, resulting in another council, which this time condemned Akindynos and his patron Kalekas. At this time, Isidore was installed as Patriarch of Constantinople, and numerous Palamite bishops, including Palamas himself, were elevated to episcopal sees around the empire.

With the supporters of Palamas firmly in power, the theology of the uncreated light and the distinction between God’s essence and energies would continue to be attacked but without any further changes in the fortunes of the Palamite party. The leader of the anti-Palamite movement after Akindynos was the philosopher and polymath Nikephoros Gregoras, against whom Palamas, now Metropolitan of Thessalonica, continued to write antirrhetic treatises. Gregoras and his associates were condemned by another council in Constantinople in 1351, although both Gregoras and Palamas continued their polemic afterward. With the forced abdication of Kantakouzenos in 1354, Gregoras attained an even greater freedom, appearing in a public debate with Palamas in 1355 and going on to write two important Antirrhetics against the essence–energies distinction.12 Over the following decade, important figures of the late Byzantine intelligentsia would continue to resist the official Palamite theology of the Church. But in 1368, some eleven years after his death, Palamas and his theology would be definitively canonized by his friend and ally, the Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos, as integral parts of Orthodox Christian piety and doctrine.13

The Scope of the Essence–Energies Distinction

In modern scholarship, it has sometimes been argued that the work of St Gregory Palamas seeks rather to defend the foundations and principles of spiritual experience than to expound an exhaustive and systematic metaphysics of divine being.14 Clement Lialine summarizes this widespread feeling by saying that “all his theology tends towards one end, the explanation and justification of a mystical experience.”15 As an insight into Gregory’s theological project, this point has the merit of reflecting the specific origins of the phase in the controversy that begins with Barlaam’s accusations against the hesychasts. It also has the merit of reflecting Gregory’s own narrative about the motivations behind his polemical project. Although the debates between Palamas and Barlaam had begun, as Marcus Plested notes, “not over techniques of prayer or the vision of divine light but over the correct application of Aristotle,”16 still, Palamas himself roots the controversy over essence and energies not in their earlier epistemological disagreements but in the debate over the light of Thabor.17 As we hear in the debate with Nikephoros Gregoras,

The bishop of Thessalonica explained that, when others were ruling the Church and raging, he was called forth on this account, out of necessity, to speak with boldness. This was the beginning of his discourses concerning the divine light of the Lord’s Transfiguration. For Barlaam, and those after him who think like him up until today, said that this light is created, while the bishop of Thessalonica demonstrated that it is uncreated.18

The nature of the light of the Transfiguration would remain at the center of the debate through every stage of the controversy.19 Indeed, Palamas himself identifies the uncreated light of Thabor as the underlying concern of his apologetics:

It is necessary to see that our aim and struggle is neither over divinity, simply, nor divine energy, but over the divine and ineffable light, according to which the Savior, shining on the mountain, revealed the brilliance of the divine nature, according to which he communes with the saints. For Barlaam dared to say that this is created, circumscribed, and sensible in the strict sense, coming into existence and then ceasing to exist; and he most necessarily compelled us towards the defense of our common hope, the light of the age to come and of the present age.20

Clearly, for Palamas, the purpose of his theological enterprise was to defend the principle of human communion with God and the content of eschatological beatitude, a reality that has its beginning already in the present life. At one point in his refutation of Akindynos, he will even interrupt a lengthy exploration of essence and energies to remind the reader that, “still, our discussion with Akindynos is not about the creative energy, but about the brilliance of God, according to which Christ flashed like lightning around the disciples upon the mountain.”21 In this way, even though Palamas’s apologetics involve broad discussion of other, related topics, he always retains the reality of the light of Thabor as his ultimate focus.22 This is seen even in his polemic with Gregoras, where the controversy, having reached the height of its philosophical and speculative dimensions, continues to return to the problem of Christ’s splendor on Mount Thabor. For this reason, the final two books of the antirrhetics Against Gregoras are devoted to “a refutation of the manifold blasphemy of Gregoras against the divine light of the Lord’s Transfiguration, and an affirmation, by way of opposition, that it is truly uncreated and eternal.”23 As we have just seen, this is important for Palamas not only as a piece of abstract exegesis but also because the light of Thabor is identified with the deifying light that is the inheritance of the saints, both in this life and in the age to come.24

Still, it must be recognized that Palamas’s distinction between essence and energies does not limit itself only to practical considerations. To speak of the essence–energies distinction as “entirely auxiliary” to other doctrinal concerns, even that of deification, as Anna Williams has done, risks minimizing the place of the distinction within Gregory’s theological vision in a way that is entirely alien to his discourse.25 Even if Palamas roots his apologetic concerns in the defense of the light of Thabor, he does not subordinate the essence–energies distinction to this point as a matter of principle. Indeed, for Palamas, the uncreated and eternal character of the light of Thabor is, logically, a consequence and byproduct of the more general distinction between essence and energies in God.26 As such, deification, even as its most important outworking, is still only part of a theological doctrine with more far-reaching, if relatively less immediate, implications. This is already obvious in the earliest discussions between Palamas and Barlaam, where the distinction between essence and energies arises not in the context of deification proper but as it relates to epistemology and human knowledge of God.27 Indeed, the universal import of the essence–energies distinction is frequently on display in Gregory’s writings, and Palamas will occasionally make it explicit. In his letter to Dionysios, he avers that, “indeed, our struggle with the gainsayers is not only about deifying grace, but about every divine power and energy. For they denigrate all of them to creatures.”28

Regardless of the actual starting point of the controversies with Barlaam, then, or the ultimate scope of the debate with Akindynos, the consequences of Palamas’s theology extend far beyond one or two components of the essence–energies distinction and touch on numerous related questions. These include the problem of divine simplicity, infinity, causality, relation, predication, actuality, change, and many others. This is especially true in the controversy with Gregoras, where the dispute, not unexpectedly, becomes more philosophical in tenor.29 Often in Palamas’s writings, pragmatic ramifications are far from view, and Palamas is clear that what we say about God and how we conceive of him is, in itself, of vital importance.30 The essence–energies distinction, therefore, cannot be seen simply as subservient to Gregory’s more pragmatic concerns. Rather, it constitutes for him a foundational principle of Christian theology that is, in many ways, an end in itself. Indeed, for Palamas, the rejection of the essence–energies distinction is the “conglomeration of every wicked heresy” and has ramifications not only for hesychast experience but for all theology as well.31

The Scope, Outline, and Structure of this Study

In attempting to explicate the essence–energies distinction in St Gregory Palamas, this study focuses on the distinction itself and leaves aside many directly related problems and themes. These include, among other things, the sensibility and experience of the light of Thabor, the relationship of the uncreated light to gnosis and theoria, the nature of theophany generally, the dynamics of deification and human participation in the divine, as well as hesychast prayer and eschatology. Indeed, to the extent that Palamas has much to say about the divine energies themselves beyond their distinction from the divine essence, this book does not seek to present an exhaustive summary of the theology of divine energies per se. It leaves aside, for example, a comprehensive account of divine grace and the doctrine of creation, which are otherwise understood by Palamas in terms of the divine and uncreated energies. However, the thought of St Gregory Palamas, which was elaborated in an occasional and prosaic manner over many treatises and letters, does not lend itself to fragmentation and compartmentalization. The focus on one specific theme, therefore, at the expense of others naturally risks distorting the overall portrait of Palamas as a theologian.32 Yet the present study is not intended as a full synopsis of the voluminous and intricate writings of Palamas himself, where the personality and integral theological vision of the saint can be encountered in full. Instead, it seeks to offer a synthetic account of a specific doctrine that has hitherto remained beyond the reach of many precisely because it is developed across a wide range of untranslated texts and embedded in a complex network of related ideas and themes.33 It is therefore the purpose of this study to draw out this doctrine and bring its constituent parts clearly into view without pretending to offer a complete overview of Palamas and his theological system. One of the things that this book avoids, therefore, is litigating the fidelity of Palamas to earlier patristic tradition. While the relationship between Palamas and his patristic sources is important, a rigorous comparison would require both a comprehensive analysis of Palamas himself and a competent contextual analysis of each patristic author with whom he is being compared. The present study seeks to fill a long-standing gap in the study of St Gregory Palamas by attempting only the former.34 In doing so, it sets out, for the first time, to give a comprehensive overview of the essence–energies distinction across Gregory’s entire corpus by looking closely and carefully at what Palamas himself has to say on this subject.

In seeking, then, to give a new, more complete account of the essence–energies distinction in Palamas, Chapter 1 of this book begins with an exposition of the interpretive paradigms that have dominated the reception of the essence–energies distinction in modernity. This entails a discussion of some of the major figures and secondary literature that have shaped how scholarly and popular audiences alike have understood the idea and the language of uncreated, divine energies (and their relationship to the divine essence) from the early modern period until today. Chapter 1 moves on to explain why a new, more exhaustive and far-reaching account of the essence–energies distinction in Palamas is necessary, in spite of all the ink that continues to be spilled on this topic. Specifically, this focuses on the pressing and long-overdue need to study Palamas’s writings in their entirety.

With the second chapter, the book begins an analysis of essence and energies proper, asking specifically what Palamas’s writings reveal to us about the ways that he understands the terms ousia and energeia. Going beyond the lexical and etymological dimensions of these two Greek terms, it examines the full scope of what Palamas has in mind when he talks about ‘essence’ and ‘energies’ across his many treatises and letters on the subject. In addition to outlining the parameters of ousia and the precise referents of energeia, this chapter looks at the broad range of synonyms and equivalents that Palamas uses for these terms in order to expand our conception, and the semantic range, of the technical terms essence and energies.

The third chapter extends the conversation about energeia and looks at the ways that ‘energy,’ as God’s activity, operation, or actualization, functions in the theology of St Gregory Palamas. It is particularly concerned with the question of whether the divine energies can be conceived as ‘acts’ or things that God ‘does,’ either in eternity or in time. This question is especially relevant for the metaphysical problems of potency, motion, and change in God, issues with which Palamas had to wrestle in the course of his disputes with Barlaam, Akindynos, and Gregoras.

After these attempts to penetrate and understand the language of essence and energies, and their metaphysical implications, the book turns in its fourth chapter to the actual arguments used by Palamas to defend and justify the distinction per se between God’s transcendent ousia and his communicable energies. It seeks, for the first time, to organize and catalog the many syllogisms, proofs, and arguments for why God’s eternal, uncreated energies cannot simply be identified with his essence. In doing so, it looks especially at the issue of ‘antinomy’ and the vision of God, as well as the problems of participation, deification, and creaturely communion with the uncreated.

The fifth chapter turns next to the problem of unity and divine simplicity. If essence and energy are distinct, in what sense do they constitute one single God? And how can a God whose energies are distinct from his essence be simple? Historically, the problem of divine simplicity as it relates to Palamas has often been bound up with the question of whether the essence–energies distinction is a ‘real distinction.’ This chapter seeks to answer precisely how Palamas himself conceived of God’s unity and the simplicity of God on the basis of his lengthy writings on the subject. Although Palamas himself never uses the term real distinction, this chapter also attempts to answer how metaphysics and epistemology are ultimately related in Palamas’s understanding of God, probing Palamas’s corpus for details of his theology that have seldom been uncovered in secondary studies to date.

Finally, the sixth chapter of this book brings together the questions of unity and distinction and examines how Palamas relates his doctrine of essence and energies to Trinitarian theology. Going beyond the simple analogy between the distinction of Persons and the distinction between essence and energies, this chapter looks at how Palamas roots the very distinction between essence and energies in the theology of the Trinity and relates the problems of his own theological system to traditional questions of Trinitarian theology. This includes, specifically, the problem of the divine names, the particularity of the hypostatic idioms, as well as the simultaneity of unity and distinction in the Divine. For Palamas, it is not simply that the essence–energies distinction is comparable to the doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine of essence and energies is itself a feature of Trinitarian theology, without which God could not be who he is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a single, indivisible essence.

In the Conclusion, the overall findings of our study are brought together to offer the reader a new understanding of the essence–energies distinction, based not on philosophical or theological reflection but on the words of Palamas himself. Here we gesture, also, to some of the work that remains to be done, especially regarding the study of the wider Palamite school and those figures who not only collaborated with St Gregory in his articulation of the essence–energies distinction but also canonized it and transmitted it for future generations in the Church.35

Notes

1. For a reasonably up-to-date overview of the life and times of St Gregory Palamas, with an extensive bibliography, see Robert Sinkewicz, “Gregory Palamas,” in G. and V. Conticello (eds.), La théologie byzantine et sa tradition 2, 131–188. For an even more comprehensive bibliography, see Mikonja Knežević, Gregory Palamas (1296–1357): Bibliography. See, also, Stiernon’s annotated bibliography, “Bulletin sur le palamisme,” REB 30 (1972): 231–341, which retains its value as an introduction to the growth of Palamas studies.

2. For the popularization of St Gregory Palamas in modern theology, especially in relation to the Nouvelle theologie, see Norman Russell, “The Reception of Palamas in the West Today,” Θεολογία 3 (2012): 7–21; and id., Gregory Palamas and the Making of Palamism in the Modern Age. For a sense of the wider ecumenical reception of Palamas, see Ivana Noble, “The Reception of Palamas in the West Today: A Response to Norman Russell,” Θεολογία 3 (2012): 55–62. Cf. O. Raquez et al., “Sur la ‘réintroduction’ de la fête de Grégoire Palamas dans la liturgie Melkite,” Istina 19 (1976): 55–64.

3. On the Civil War (1341–1347) between John VI Kantakouzenos and the house of John V Palaiologos, see Donald Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453, 191–216; id., The Reluctant Emperor: A Biography of John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, c. 1295–1383, 45–83.

4. This is discussed in Gregory’s two Letters to Barlaam (PS 1:203–295), on the demonstrability of divine things. On ‘the things around God,’ associated especially with the theology of the Cappadocians, see Chapter 2, pp. 63–66.

5. On Barlaam and his theology, see the invaluable work of Antonis Fyrigos, Dalla controversia palamitica alla polemica esicasta (con un’edizione critica delle Epistole greche di Barlaam); id., Opere contro i latini: Introduzione storica dei testi, edizione critica, traduzione e indici.

6. Beginning especially at Tr. 3.1.3 (ed. Meyendorff, 561).

7. See the Tomos of 1341, 3 (ed. Karmires, 299).

8. See Energ. 50 (PS 2:135.11).

9. On Akindynos in general, see the work of Juan Nadal Cañellas, “Gregorio Akíndinos,” in G. and V. Conticello (eds.), La théologie byzantine 2, 189–237; id., La résistance d’Akindynos à Grégoire Palamas. Enquête historique, avec traduction et commentaire de quatres traités édités récemment, vol. 2.

10. Energ. 47 (PS 2:132.16).

11. See the critical study of this transitional period by Antonio Rigo, 1347: Isidoro patriarca di Constantinopoli e il breve sogno dell’inizio di una nuova epoca.

12. See Hans-Veit Beyer, ed. Nikephoros Gregoras Antirrhetika I. Einleitung, Textausgabe, Übersetzunge und Anmerkungen. Cf. Maurizio Paparozzi, “Gli Antirrhetici posteriores de Niceforo Gregoras.” On the debate between Palamas and Gregoras, see Chapter 1, p. 33.

13. On the canonization of Palamas and its significance, see Antonio Rigo, “La canonizzazione di Gregorio Palama (1368) ed alcune altre questioni,” Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici 30 (1993): 155–202.

14. See Jugie, “Palamas,” 1742; Lossky, Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 71; id., The Vision of God, 156; Florovksy, “Grégoire Palamas et la patristique,” Istina 8 (1960–1961): 123; Meyendorff, Introduction, 279–280; Torrance, “Precedents,” 48; Tanev, Energy in Orthodox Theology and Physics, 6; Yannaras, “The Distinction between Essence and Energies and Its Importance for Theology,” SVTQ 19 (1975): 234; P. Miquel, “Grégoire Palamas, docteur de l’expérience,” Irénikon 37 (1964): 227–237. John McGuckin asserts that late Byzantine writers generally “shifted the field of battle away from metaphysical matters to the more intimate scenario of the proper manner of mystical meditation” (“The Formation of the Patristic Tradition,” in A. Kaldellis and N. Siniossoglou [eds.], The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium, 311).

15. Lialine, “The Theological Teaching of Gregory Palamas on Divine Simplicity,” ECQ 2 (1946): 269.

16. See Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, 53. Specifically, the original debate concerned the value of syllogisms for resolving the vexed problem of the Filioque, even if it already involved the philosophical question of whether there was in God anything distinct from ousia. See R. Sinkewicz, “A New Interpretation for the First Episode in the Controversy between Barlaam the Calabrian and Gregory Palamas,” Journal of Theological Studies 31 (1980): 488–500; id., “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God in the Early Writings of Barlaam the Calabrian,” Medieval Studies 44 (1982): 181–242.

17. The reasons that Palamas excludes the earlier encounters with Barlaam from his hermeneutic framing of their dispute are open to interpretation and debate. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the disagreements between Palamas and Barlaam did not rise to the level of a full-fledged ecclesiastical controversy until the hesychast problem came into view.

18. George Phakrases, Debate 2 (ed. Candal, 328.26–31).

19. This remains true even after the death of Palamas: see, for example, the Tomos of 1368 (ed. Rigo, 107.245 – 108.252), to say nothing of the numerous treatises on the subject by subsequent Palamite and anti-Palamite authors. See, for example, Philotheos Kokkinos, On the Light of Thabor, ed. T. Boyadchiev, G. Kapriev, K. Yanakiev, Philotheus Kokkinos. De Domini Luce Sermones Duo. Editio princeps, 26–142; Theophanes of Nicaea, On the Light of Thabor, ed. Ch. Soteropoulos, Θεοφάνους Γʹ ἐπισκόπου Νικαίας περὶ Θαβωρίου φωτός, λόγοι πέντε, 79–206; Prochoros Kydones, On the Light of Thabor, ed. J. Polemis, Theologica varia inedita saeculi XIV, 327–379.

20. Dan. 18 (PS 2:390.14–23).

21. Akind. 6.22.49 (PS 3:446.17–19).

22. A similar remark is made earlier in the work: “But this is the aim of all our words … to show clearly that the brilliance of the divine nature, which is uncreated, and which is called divinity, neither prevents nor destroys the unity and simplicity of the divinity” (Akind. 2.5.13; PS 3:94.10–17). Cf. Akind. 7.4.6–7 (PS 3:465.4–32), which classes as “the whole struggle and intention of our words” the reality of divinizing grace, “which is called light, Spirit, divinity, and deification,” and its distinction from the divine essence.

23. PS 4:321, 341.

24. A full exploration of this particular aspect of Palamas’s theology exceeds the scope of the present study, but see Dam. 9; Sym. 12, 15; Athan. 8, 19; Conf. 9; Ref. Ig. 24, 27; Disc. 4; Phil. 9–10; Akind. 1.7.36, 3.7.19, 6.7.15, 6.9.21; Greg. 3.12, 3.21–22, 3.27–32, 4.16, 4.35, 4.43–44, 4.66; Reply 7; Cap. 66–67, 147.

25. Williams, Ground of Union, 156. It is also factually incorrect to claim, as Williams does, that “Gregory expends far greater attention on other matters” (ibid.). Such an unsubstantiated claim merely represents Williams’ exclusive reliance on the Triads, in which the essence-energies distinction is introduced relatively late, and the Chapters, which uniquely attempt to contextualize the refutation of Akindynos in a wider theological context.

26. For a good example of how the one is enfolded in the other, see Triads 3.1.34 (ed. Meyendorff, 625.1–13).

27. See, especially, Ep. Barl. 2.31–32 (PS 1:278.1 – 279.2). Cf. the remarks of Sinkewicz, “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” 221.

28. Dion. 11 (PS 2:489.19–22). Cf. Akind. 1.11.58–59 (PS 3:80.6–26), where the interrelationship and connection between essence–energies, hesychasm, nepsis, and prayer are outlined in relation to the synodal condemnation of Barlaam. Indeed, Palamas asserts that Barlaam himself denied that every energy was uncreated, not only the light of Thabor; see Sym. 12 (PS 2:406.28 – 407.1).

29. A good example of this can be seen in Debate 17–18, where Palamas is asked to parse the distinction between essence and existence (ed. Candal, 346–347).

30. See, especially, Akind. 7.3.5 (PS 3:464.6–29). I believe Papadakis is correct when he states, “The philosophical and theological principles of hesychast doctrine were actually the core of the controversy…. At all events, the more immediate question of the ascetical practices of the monks of Athos was soon relegated to the background” (“Gregory Palamas at the Council of Blachernae, 1351,” 334). Kiprian Kern, “Les éléments de la théologie,” 26, notes that the controversy, while initially dealing with “questions of mysticism and ascesis,” at the same time involved profound dogmatic issues.

31. Akind. 6.23.86 (PS 3:452.14–17). Cf. the remarks of Georges Florovsky, “Grégoire Palamas et la patristique,” 125; and Chapter 6, pp. 177–184, which deal with the Trinitarian dimensions of the essence-energies distinction. This is not to say that Palamas will not return to the problem of syllogisms and profane learning even after his first two Triads; see, for example, Akind. 3.1.3 (PS 3:162.17–18).

32. Cf. Sinkewicz, The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, 55, who notes the inseparability of “the natural, the theological, the moral and the ascetical” in Palamas.

33. The fact that Palamas does not develop his theology in a systematic way is often noted by commentators; see, for example, Grumel, “Grégoire Palamas, Duns Scot et George Scholarios devant le problème de la simplicité divine,” EO 34 (1935): 89; Alexis Torrance, “Precedents for Palamas’ Essence-Energies Theology in the Cappadocian Fathers,” Vigiliae Christianae 63 (2009): 48.

34. For the many assessments of this question, both pro and contra, see the numerous titles listed in the bibliography. This is not to say that more work does not also remain to be done in explicating Palamas’s actual use of patristic sources, but a thorough study of this topic exceeds the space available here.

35. All translations throughout this book, except where otherwise noted, are my own.

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