The Heart in the Hesychastic Treatises of St Gregory Palamas
By Monk Vartholomaeos
Excellent reading.
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How does Palamas understand the process of cleansing one’s heart? It is commonplace in the ascetic
tradition that the passions pollute man and obstruct him from drawing near to God. Palamas tells us that, ‘the
mind while still passion-dominated cannot be united to God’. Along with prayer and ascetic struggle, man
needs to reach ἀπάθεια in order to cleanse his heart. Ἀπάθεια literarily translates passionlessness, which can
be misleading. A monk does try to mortify his passions. However, apart from harmful passions there are also
positive ones which are necessary in the ascetics effort to reach ἀπάθεια, such as anger, when used against sin
and evil, and love of neighbour and God. Therefore, the ἀπάθεια Palamas speaks about must not be confused
with a Stoic-like killing of all the passions. Palamas did not subscribe at all to the idea that man must
completely mortify the passionate part of his soul, as his adversaries believed. He says:
We have not been taught that the killing of the passionate power of the soul is passionlessness, but
its transformation from the lower to the higher…having turned away completely from the wicked and turned
towards the good.
Palamas believes that the passionate part of man’s soul must be presented to God ‘alive’ as a
sacrifice, in the same way that the apostle Paul exhorts the Christians to offer their bodies to God as a living
sacrifice. With ἀπάθεια the soul becomes sufficiently detached from earthly attraction to be able to
contemplate and pray with undisrupted mind. From very early on, the ‘pure of heart’ have been identified in
Christian spirituality with those who have obtained the gift of ἀπάθεια. Overlooking its etymological meaning,
ἀπάθεια constitutes a divine passion. Ἀπάθεια is a state of self-mastery and attention, which brings to mind
the νήψις we spoke about. Its best rendering would be ‘freedom from the domination by the passions’.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. |