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ORTHODOX AND WESLEYAN SPIRITUAL

Edited by S. T. Kimbrough
(Assoc. Gen. Sec of Gen. Board of Global
Ministries of the United Methodist Church)

Chapter: Charles Wesley and the Orthodox Hesychast Tradition,
pages 238-240

Eighteenth-Century England

Now we can turn to another epoch and another Christian culture. The British Empire of the eighteenth century represents a clear antithesis to dying Byzantium. In the fourteenth century there were only small remains of Byzantium but in the eighteenth century the British Empire was ascending. Its possessions grew in Africa and Asia. In America the significant part of French and Spanish colonies became a part of the British Empire. The scientific and industrial potential of England grew, and it became the leading economic Empire of the world. The level of its culture, especially of philosophy and literature, was very high, and it was an antithesis to Byzantium. An attentive look cannot miss, however, the similar deep processes at work. The same feature, which was the strongest and most characteristic of the English culture, namely, rationalism, slowly but truly ruined it. The providence of God, faith, and morality were moved to the periphery of life. Hobbes, Adam Smith, and Darwin did not stress the love bequeathed to us by Christ, rather the battle—the battle of all against all. This relates to politics, competition in economics, and the battle of species in the world of animals. The morals of society were in decline, as well as the level of religion in people. In British Parliament only five to six members of the House of Commons attended the Sunday liturgy. Nobody paid attention to the lower classes, and rebellion grew, especially among the industrial workers. Considering the number of the English working class, there could have been more terrible consequences than those of the French revolution.

In England the voice of the Wesley brothers was raised against rationalism and a passionate call was made for unity with God. In his Journal John Wesley described the feelings which he experienced on that great day. May 24,1738, when he felt that special warmth in his heart during the meeting of the Society in Aldersgate Street in London and realized not in his mind but in his heart, with all of his being, the gift of the divine grace. Such a phenomenon cannot transpire merely through abstract thoughts and philosophical speculations. It may be only the result of a true religious experience, which was a goal of the Athonite monks. They were finding in the glory of the light of Tabor the higher happiness and the higher meaning of life. So, it was very natural for Wesley to comprehend the possibility of salvation not only through the grace of the Holy Spirit but also as a result of a direct personal encounter with God. Such comprehension, naturally, meant the exclusion of the idea of predestination and, thus, entry of humankind into the Kingdom of freedom and immersion into a depth of religious life.

Charles Wesley, who had a similar religious experience three days before his brother John, described its enlightenment in his multiple hymns in a very penetrating form. These hymns are surprisingly close in their content and spirit to the poetry of Symeon the New Theologian, who is the forerunner of the hesychast tradition in the East. For the Wesley brothers and for St Symeon the New Theologian, (and also for the succeeding representatives of the hesychast tradition) the relationships with the church hierarchy were not easy. The statements of Symeon the New Theologian, on this matter are well known. The relationships ofSt Gregory Palamas and the influential hesychast party with the patriarch, John Calekas, were also very complicated.

The quick and impressive social-political resonance of the Westeys' preaching was similar to one of the hesychast teachings in the East. Gelyan Prokhorov argues that we may speak of "political" hesychasm, and one may agree with him. The Wesleys' preaching found a living response in the lower classes of a society, changed the moral atmosphere and social situation in England, and we can say that it saved England from terrible social tribulations.

Hesychasm did not stop the fall and decline of Byzantium, if we mean Constantinople and the Southern part of Peloponnesus under it. But the leaders of hesychasm were thinking in broader terms. They thought not only about conservation of important pieces of Byzantium, but about the whole Byzantium commonwealth which included Greece, the Near East, Slavic and Balkan countries, Caucasus, and Russia, particularly the young, dynamic, and great Moscow principality.

It is characteristic that during the siege of Constantinople in the fourteenth century by Genoa the Emperor and Patriarch were busy with the problems of the Moscow metropolis. From this point of view, the activity of hesychast teachers was in the same way as effective and successful as the activity of the Wesley brothers.

Sometimes one hears that the Puritanism of the Wesley brothers had a negative influence on English, and somewhat later, on American art. The critical comments of John Wesley about theater are well known. But theater, in this instance, is a private matter. The appeal of John Wesley to divine grace, the source of the creative inspiration, however, seems to stimulate the development of real art. We do not speak of its surrogate, which is made for consumption by corrupted interests and evil passions. The glowing example of such art is the poetry of Charles Wesley illustrated here by two stanzas of his poem, "Jesus, Lover of my soul," originally published in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1740):

Jesus, Lover of my soul,
let me to thy bosom fly, while
the nearer waters roll,
while the tempest still is high.
Hide me, 0 my Savior, hide
till the storm of life is passed.
Safe into the haven guide,
0 receive my soul at last.
Other refuge have I none,
hangs my helpless soul on thee;
leave, ah, leave me not alone,
still support and comfort me.
All my hope on thee is stayed,
all my help from thee I bring;
cover my defenseless head
with the shadow of thy wing.

We should not forget this specific kind of creativity, which was also characteristic of ascetic hesychasts: one seeks human perfection in the image of God.

Returning to the present, one should stress the great importance of the Wesley phenomenon as a spiritual bridge between the two related Christian cultures of the East and West. There is no necessity to speak about the importance of a dialogue and mutual understanding between them. The twentieth century came to its end, full of dramatic events and tribulations. Nothing gives us an opportunity to assume that the twenty-first century will be less tragic. Secularization grows. The old and new anti-God teachings challenge Christianity and the fundamentals of society. That is why it is so important to recognize the zooo-year-path traveled by Christianity, and to recognize the religious experience of the East and West, which, as the Wesley phenomenon shows us, have important common features.

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He asked, "How do we know that God is not supremely evil?" I said because He says that he is good, and Christ's sacrifice proves his love.

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