Eckhart Review

ISSN: 0969-3661 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ymmt19

The Nearness yet Otherness of the Eternal in

Meister Eckhart and St Gregory Palamas

Kallistos Ware

To cite this article: Kallistos Ware (2000) The Nearness yet Otherness of the Eternal in Meister
Eckhart and St Gregory Palamas, Eckhart Review, 9:1, 41-53, DOI: 10.1179/eck_2000_9_1_005

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/eck_2000_9_1_005

Published online: 21 Apr 2015.

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 The Nearness yet Otherness of the Eternal
in Meister Eckhart and 8t Gregory Palamas

Kallistos Ware
Bishop of Diokleia

The unfinished project of Vladimir Lossky

Fourteenth-century Christianity produced two outstanding religious thinkers: in
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the west Meister Eckhart (c. 126Q--c. 1328), and in the east St Gregory Palamas
(c. 1296-1359). Both were mystical theologians: while Eckhart represents
medieval German mysticism in its most brilliant and challenging form, Palamas
is the outstanding spokesman, the doctrinal conscience, of the Hesychast tradition
preserved on the Holy Mountain of Athas. Chronologically their lives overlap.
Might it not be illuminating to attempt a comparison between the two?
One of the greatest Russian Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century, an
emigre in Paris, Vladimir Lossky (1903-58), made. it precisely his life's task to
attempt such a comparison. His project can be summed up in terms of thesis,
antithesis and synthesis (not that Lossky was a Hegelian). In his 'thesis' he
examined the Greek mystical tradition, above all in his classic work The Mystical
Theology of the Eastern Church;l This was supplemented by lectures that he gave
at the Sorbonne, which were published posthumously as The Vision of God.2 In
both works a central place is assigned to St Gregory Palamas.
The stage of 'antithesis' is represented by Lossky's massive doctoral
dissertation on negative theology and the knowledge of God according to Meister
Eckhart. He worked on this for many years under the guidance of Etienne Gilson
and Maurice de Gandillac. At the time of Lossky's early death in 1958, aged only
fifty-five, the work was almost but not quite complete. Edited by his teacher de
Gandillac and his disciple Olivier Clement, it appeared in print two years later. 3
Writing in 1981, Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn describe it as la major
book of central importance for Eckhart studies'.4 Today, four decades after its
publication, their judgement still remains valid; Lossky's work has not been
superseded. But it has been read, I suspect, only by a restricted circle of
Eckhartian specialists, and I doubt whether it has been attentively perused by
most of the Orthodox who in general hold Lossky in high esteem.
Closely familiar though Lossky was with the Latin and German works
attributed to Eckhart, whether published or available only in manuscript, and
deeply though he had immersed himself in medieval Scholastic theology, he
never regarded this as the ultimate aim of his scholarly work. On the contrary, he
saw his research upon the Dominican master as no more than the preparation for a
further task, vaster and more demanding: a comparative study of Eckhart and
Palamas. The two are independent on the purely historical level, but Lossky
discerned on the level of spiritual 'problematic' a frequent convergence between
them. Eckhart and his school, Lossky believed, often transcended the limitations
of medieval· Latin Scholasticism, and in their mystical intuition approached near
to the master-themes ofPalamism.
41
 It is tragic that Lossley never lived to undertake this third part of his project,
the stage of comparison and 'synthesis'. In the words of his friend Archbishop
Basil Krivocheine,
Without any exaggeration, one can say that Vladimir Lossky was the only person
capable of accomplishing this task, for no one else, either among Orthodox
theologians or among those of the West, possessed a knowledge as profound and
direct of both these spiritual worlds at the same time: that of Byzantine mystical
theology and that of Westem medieval Scholasticism and mysticism.s

With his characteristic caution as a scholar, Lossky took care to avoid all
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hasty and premature conclusions; and so in his surviving writings-belonging to

the stages of 'thesis' and 'antithesis'-he provides us with virtually no clues
concerning the nature of the comparisons that he might have made at the third and
final stage. In The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church there is no reference
at all to Eckhart, while in The Vision of God he is only mentioned once in
passing.6 For its part, the doctoral dissertation on Eckhart contains no more than a
single passage alluding to St GregoryPalamas; suggestive yet enigmatic, this
section was left incomplete in Lossky's manuscript at the time of his death.7 Thus
we can do no' more than speculate about the form which his comparative study of
Eckhart and Palamas might eventually have taken. In view, however, of the
importance which Lossky attached to the jilioque controversy, it seems not
improbable that the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit would have
occupied a central place in his critique. 8
It must seem presumptuous on my part to attempt in a short talk the
comparison to which Lossky, had he lived, would doubtless have devoted ten or
twenty years of concentrated research. My aim,.however, is limited. I shall merely
seek to indicate, in a summary and provisional fashion, certain areas of possible
rapprochement or divergence between the Thuringian teacher and the Athonite
monk. Eckhart and Palamas have both incurred the disapproval of von Balthasar;9
what else do they share in common? In what follows I shall not discuss the
filioque, but I shall consider how the two of them interpret the basic 'mystical
paradox', summed up by the Anglican writer Evelyn Underhill in the phrase 'the
nearness yet otherness of the Eternal'. 10

Desert and city

There is a difference in age of approximately one generation between Meister
Eckhart and St Gregory Palamas. Palamas was born around 1296, some thirty-six
years after Eckhart, and he died in 1359, thirty-one years later than Eckhart did.
Brought up in Constantinople, Palamas belonged to the Byzantine aristocracy,
and his father was a close friend of the Emperor Andronicus II. There is an
attractive story told concerning the two. Once, at a session of the senate, the
Emperor put a question to Pa1amas pere, but the latter failed to reply. The
EmPeror was on the point of repeating his question in a louder voice, when he
realised that his friend was practising 'noetic prayer' (probably the Jesus Prayer);
and so, without further comment, he turned· to other matters. This provides a
revealing sidelight on the spirit prevailing in the last days of Byzantium. Will the
same atmosphere, I wonder, be evident in the reformed House of Lords?
The life of St Gregory Palamas falls into three periods. First, there is his time
42
 of seclusion. Around 1316, aged perhaps twenty, he went to the Holy Mountain of
Athos where he became a monk. He spent the next two decades mainly on Athos,
living for the most part in remote hermitages. His normal programme was to
remain for the five weekdays in total solitude, joining the other members of the
hennitage for common prayer and meals only on Saturday and Sunday. Palamas
would have been initiated a~ this time into the practice of the Jesus Prayer, the
short invocation 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me' (there are a
number of variant forms), which he would have repeated more or less
continuously except when reciting the Divine Office or celebrating the Holy
Liturgy. On Athos he would have heard about, and doubtless' himself experienced,
the vision of divine light received by many of the monks during praver. This they
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believed to be nothing less than the uncreated glory that shone from Christ at his
Transfiguration on Mount Tabor.
Next comes the second stage in the life of Palamas, the years of controversy,
lasting from 1337 until' 1347. The Hesychast tradition12 of the Athonite monks
was sharply impugned by a learned Greek from South Italy, Barlaam the
Calabrian, who maintained that the light seen by the monks was merely a created
light, a delusion produced (so he believed) by the psychosomatic technique that
they employed while saying the Jesus Prayer. 13 Faced by Barlaam's attack,
Palamas felt it his duty to defend his fellow-Hesychasts and to act as their
spokesman; and so he left the seclusion of Athos, spending three years in
Thessalonica and then moving to Constantinople. Making use of a distinction
drawn by the Cappadocian Fathers and the Dionysian writings between the
essence of God and the divine energies (energeiai) or acts of power (dynameis),
Palamas argued that the light beheld by the Hesychasts was not a created and
physical light but the uncreated energies of the Holy Trinity , although not the
divine essence. His teaching was upheld by three Councils of Constantinople
(1341, 1347, 1351), which for the Orthodox Church possess an authority second
only to that of the seven Ecumenical Councils.
St Gregory Palamas was living at a time when the Greek East and the Latin
West were drifting steadily apart, but he did not develop his teaching concerning
the divine light and the essence-energies distinction in conscious and deliberate
0

opposition to the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, he does not seem to have had
any close knowledge of western theology, although during the 1340s he
maintained contact with a number of the Latins in Constantinople. Very possibly
he met some of the Dominicans resident in the Byzantine capital; did they
perhaps draw his attention to the teachings of Eckhart? 1bere is no evidence to
support such a conjecture, and on the whole it seems unlikely, although not in
itself impossible.
For his part Barlaam, although coming from the west, was fundamentally
Greek in culture and education, and at any rate until his condemnation at
Constantinople in 1341 he regarded himself as a faithful son of the Orthodox
Church. It has sometimes been suggested that he was influenced by Nominalism,
but there is in fact no firm evidence that he had a close knowledge of either
Nominalist or Thomist theology. The controversy between Barlaam and Palamas
was thus not a dispute between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, but
essentially a dispute within the Greek tradition, involving two different
approaches to the Dionysian writings. For Barlaam, the Areopagite was basically
43
 a philosophical theologian, who used negative, apophatic language to indicate, on
the level of reasoned argument, the radical transcendence of.God. For Palam as,
the Areopagite was above all a mystical theologian, who employed negative
language in order to affmn the.possibility, beyond all 'knowing'and 'unknowing',
of a direct, unmediated union with the Divine.
An element of Orthodox-Catholic polemic .only came to the fore at a later
date in the Palamite controversy, from the 1350s onwards, when Byzantine
Thomists such as the brothers, Dimitrios and Prochoros Kydonis attacked the
essence-energies distinction from a western standpoint, claiming that it
undermined the unity and simplicity of God as understood in Thomism. It is
doubtless true that, viewed in AristoteIian- Thomist terms, the Palamite essence-
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energies distinction in untenable. But Palamas was working with different

categories; and if judged in terms. of his Qwn criteria,-as he is surely entitled to
be-he turns out to be a firm .upholder of the divine indivisibility. I am happy to
note that many distinguished Catholics at the. present day no longer regard
Palamas as a heretic; particularly in Eastern Catholic circles, he is widely
commemorated as a saint.
The third and final stage in Palamas's life began in 1347, when he was
elected Archbishop of Thessalonica, the second city of the Byzantine Empire, a
position which he held until his death in 1359. Because of local troubles, he could
not take up residence in his see until 1350. Inheriting a bitterly divided flock, he
proved an effective peacemaker and a keen defender of social justice. An
unexpected interlude in his life occurred in 1354-5, when on a journey from
Thessalonica to Constantinople .Palamas was capture~ by the. Turks, spending
more than a year in captivity. During this time he held doctrinal discussions with
the local Muslims. According to the surviving records, they discussed the nature
of God but not their respective ways of praying.13 There are some striking
similarities between Hesychast and Sufi methods of meditation, but Palamas was
perhaps unaware of the paraIlels.14
First a solitary,then a controversialist,and finally an archbishop, 8t Gregory Palamas
embraces in the course of rus life both desert and city, both Hesychast stillness and an
active pastorate. He is in this sense an outstanding example of the 'mixed life'.
Eckhart and Palamas had both to face misrepresentation and censure. Eckhart
was condemned at Cologne in 1326 and at Avignon in 1329; Palamas, although
initially vindicated in 1341, later spent four years in prison (1343-7), and in
November 1344 was even condemned as a heretic and excommunicated,
although this was for political as well as theological reasons. But the subsequent
fate of the two has been very different. Whereas Eckhart died under a cloud that
has only begun to diSPerse during the recent past, Palamas was fully restored to
favour in his own lifetime and was indeed elevated to high office. What is more,
only nine years after his death he was glorified as a saint. He enjoys a double
commemoration, not only on the day of his death (14 November) but also on the
second Sunday in Lent, immediately following the celebration of Triumph of
Orthodoxy on the previous Sunday. The unusual prominence that he possesses in
the liturgical calendar underlines the respect with which he is regarded in the
Orthodox Church, even, though from the mid-fifteenth until the mid-twentieth
century his theology was largely neglected.

44
 'He is both existent and non-existent'
It is time to return to the 'mystical paradox' of God's otherness yet nearness. In
almost all mystical traditions, western and eastern, Christian and non-Christian,
there is a double emphasis. First, it is affirmed that the Divine is a mystery
beyond all words and all conceptual thinking, transcendent, ineffable,
unknowable. To quote a phrase attributed to St Athanasius, 'A God who is
comprehensible is not God.16 In the words of Evagrius of Pontus, disciple of the
Cappadocians and of the Desert Fathers of Egypt, 'God cannot be grasped by the
mind; if he could be so grasped, he would not be God.' The point is made· yet
more concisely by St Augustine: Si comprehendis, non est Deus ..
Yet this transcendent Reality, utterly beyond our understanding-in Rudolf
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Otto's words, mysterium tremendum et jascinans--enters into direct relationship

with the human person in a union of love that transforms our createdness. Totally
transcendent, the Divine is also totally immanent. While 'beyond being', in Plato's
famous phrase,19 God is also closer to us than our own heart Summing up this
antinomy of God as both unknowable yet 'well-known' (compare 2 Cor. 6:9), both
hidden yet revealed, St Symeon the New Theologian (959-1022), an important
predecessor of Palamas in the Byzantine Hesychast tradition, affmns: 'As a friend
conversing with his friend, man sPeaks with God; and drawing near in confidence
he stands before the face of the One who dwells i.n light unapproachable. '20 God
dwells in a glory which no created being can approach (see 1 TIm. 6:16), yet we
humans can speak with him as friend to friend, after the example of Moses (Exod.
33: 11); we have what the Greek mystical tradition terms parrhesia--confidence
of approach, boldness of speech-in the divine presence.
In his Hymns Symeon spells out this 'mystical paradox' yet more vividly:
I know that the Immovable comes down,
I know that the Invisible is visible to me,
I know that he who is separate from the whole creation
Takes me within himself and hides me in his arms,
And then I find myself outside the whole world.
I, a frail, small mortal in the world,
Behold the Creator of the world, all of hini, within myself:
And I know that I shall not die, because I am within the Life,
I have the whole of Life springing up within me.
He is in my heart, he is in heaven:
Both there and here he shows himself to me with equal glory.21

Elsewhere Symeon expounds the 'paradox' in terms of Christ's Incarnation:

You are wholly unmoved, yet ever moving,
Wholly outside creation, wholly within the whole creation;
Wholly you fill all things, who are wholly outside all things.
You are higher than everything, Master, higher than all dominion,
Higher than all being, than the very nature of nature .....
You are none of the things that exist, but are above them all. ....
Invisible, unapproachable, beyond our understanding and our grasp,
You are incomprehensible and remain unchanged,
You are simple yet altogether varied,

45
 And no mind whatever can comprehend
The variety of your glory and the splendour of your beauty.
You, then, who are nothing of that which is, for you are above all things,
You who as God of all are outside all,
Invisible, unapproachable, beyond our understanding and our grasp,
You have yourself become mortal, you have entered into the world,
By assuming flesh you have revealed yourself and become accessible to all.22

Both Palamas and Eckhart are agreed in affirming, in most emphatic rnaJ1Jler,
this fundamental 'paradox' of otherness yet nearness. Palamas on his side fnmly-
upholds the standpoint of apophatic theology, insisting without compromise upon·
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the ontological gap between Creator and creation:

Every created nature is far removed from and completely foreign to the divine
nature. For if God is nature, all else is not nature; but if every other thing is
nature, he is not a nature, just as he is not a being if all other things are beings.
And if he is a being, then all other things are not beings .... God both is and is
said to be the nture of all things, in so far as all things partake of him and
subsist by means of this participation ..... In this sense he is the Being of all
beings, the Form that is in all forms as the Author of form, the Wisdom of the
wise and, simply, the All of all things. Yet he is not nature, because he
transcends every nature; he is not a being, because he transcends every being;
and he is not nor does Be possess a fonn, because he transcends every fonn ....
Not a single created being has or can have any communiction with or
proximity to the sublime nature.23

God, that is to say, is not a 'nature' or 'being', because he is not to be regarded

as one existent object among a plurality of such existent objects. If we say 'God
exists', then the word 'exists' bears in his case a connotation fundamentally
different from that which it has when applied to created things. God is in this way
hyperousios, 'beyond being', and so Palamas calls him 'the beyond-essence,
nameless and surpassing all names'.24Yet, if God is 'no-thing', in the sense that he
is not one among many existent objects, yet he is also 'All', in the sense that
without his continual indwelling and the uninterrupted exercise of his creative
power no created person or object could exist at all.
This leads Palamas to resort, as the Dionysian writings and many other
authors have also done, to the language of antinomy:
He is both e~stent and non-existent; he is everywhere and nowhere; he has
many names and he cannot be narned; he is ever-moving and he is unmoved;
and, in short, he is everything and nothing.25

In common with St Symeon the New Theologian, he states that God remains
totally within himself, and yet totally indwells created beings:
Those who are counted worthy enjoy union with God the cause of all .... He
remains wholly within himself and yet he dwells wholly within us, causing us
to participate not in his nature but in his glory and radiance.26

To this distinction between God's 'nature' and his 'glory' or 'radiance' we shall

46
 return in a moment. In our relationship with God, then, there is always a polarity,
a lifegiving tension, between mystery and revelation. Concerning those who
become 'one spirit with the Lord' (1 Cor. 6: 17), Palamas states: 'As for the
knowledge which they possess, this they possess in an'incomprehensible manner';
when granted in some small measure the vision of God, 'they experience it
passively in a state of unknowing'. 27
Every reader of Eckhart will easily recall close parallels to these statements
by Palamas. For Eckhart, as for Palamas, God is 'nameless' (unsprechlich,
name/os), 'beyond all names' (iiber allen ~amen); his name is unnameable
(nomen innominabile), and his nature is, hidden (cuius natura est esse
absconditum).21JGod dwells, that is to say, in regione et regno dissimilitudinis
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injinitae, 'in the region and realm of infinite dissimilarity';29 between him and
creation there is a radical gap. God is therefore 'absolutely incomprehensible to
thought',30 'beyond words?l 'above being', 'essence without essence'.32 The only
possible knowledge of God is through passive 'unknowing';33 'the more we seek
thee, the less we find thee.'34
There can thus be no exact descriptions of God. 'Whatever we say God is, he
is not', states Eckhart, appealing to St Augustine;35 'Plato says, "What God is, I do
not know .... But \vhat he is not I know well enough."'36In the divine being 'there
is neither image nor form';37'whoever sees anything in God does not see God.' It
is legitimate to say, 'God is nowhere';39 and by the same token we can speak of
him as 'nothing' (no-thing): 'God is nothing: not in the sense of having no being.
He is neither this nor that that one can speak of: he is being above all being. He is
beingless being.'40So, referring to St Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus,
Eckhart writes: 'When he rose up from the ground he saw Nothing, and the
Nothing was God; for when he saw God, he [Luke] calls that Nothing.141 'You
should love him as he is', urges Eckhart: 'a non-God, a non-spirit, a non-person, a
non-image .... May we eternally sink from nothingness to nothingness.'42
This sounds somewhat bleak, but it is not Eckhart's last word. For him as for
Palamas, the God of transcendent mystery is also everywhere present and fills all
things. He is not only nomen innominabile but equally nomen omninominabile;43
the 'name that is above every name' (Phil. 2:9) is the source from which all other
names proceed. The Divine is in this way at the core of all human personhood:
'God is closer to me than I am to myself;44 'God is nearer the soul than she is to
hersclf.'45God is, in Eckhart's words, totus intra, totus extra,46completely within
all things and completely outside them. 'God is in all things and is more inwardly
in them than they are in themselves', he writes.47'God is in all things. The more he
is in things, the more he is out of things: the more in, the more out, and the more
out, the more in. '48Were it not for this indwelling presence, created things would
immediately lapse into nothingness: 'If God were not in all things, nature would
cease operation',49 for 'God alone is', whereas 'all things are in God and from
him'. 50 Creation is thus a continuing act, an ongoing relationship: 'God is creating
the whole world now this instant.'51While it is true to say that 'God is nowhere', at
the same time it is he who 'gives position and order to all things'.52
Thus far, as regards the otherness yet nearness of God, Palamas and Eckhart turn
out to be in close agreement. While neither is a pantheist, they are both panentheists.
The pantheist says that the world is God, and God is the world. That is certainly not
the view of Palamas; nor is it the considered view of Eckhart, even though in some
47
 ofms bolder paradoxes,he seems to approach dangerously close to pantheism.53 The
panentheist, by contrast, says that the world is in God and·God is in the world; and
that is surely the position of both PaJamas and Eckhart, correctly understood.
That there should be a: significant convergence here between the Athonite and
the Dominican is in no way surprising, for they are both drawing upon a cOIDID()n,
source: the writings attributed to St Dionysius the Areopagite, probably compoSed in
Syria around the year 500. (Incidentally, I refuse to use the derogatory tenn 'pseudo-
Dionysius', suggesting forgery and fraud. After all, we do not,cal1 the Book of
Genesis 'pseudo-Moses', or the Epistle to the Hebrews 'pseudo-PauI'.t' SPeaking~of
the Divine, Dionysius affirms: '1he theologians praise it as nameless yet glorified by
every name'; it is both 'anonymous' and 'polyonymous', 'above the world', yet 'in the
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world', 'everythffig yet nothing';5S'cause of being for all things, yet itself not being,
since it is beyond all being'.S6For Dionysius, then, God is 'all in all' (1 Cor. 15:28),
and yet he is nothing anywhere; he is seen in all ,by all, and·yet he is seen in nothing
by anyone.57 If , then, Palamas and Eckhart are in essential agreement on God's
othemess-yet-nearness, that is because they are both faithful Dionysians.

Essence and energies

Let us ,now consider a possible difference between the two. Seeking, not to
explain the 'mystical paradox'-for that can never be done-but at least in some
measure to explicate it, Palamas draws a distinc"tion-in-unity between the divine
essence and the divine energies.58 The distinction is foreshadowed in the fourth-
century Cappadocian Fathers: 'We claim to know our God from his energies,'
writes St Basil the Great, 'but we do not profess that we can draw near to his
essence. For his energies come 'qown to us, but his essence remains
unapproachable. '59 A similar distinction is made in the Dionysian writings
between, on the one hand, the undifferentiated hiddenness which is beyond all
being, and, on the other' hand, the divine 'processions' (proodoi), energies
(energeial) or acts of power (dynameis), which flow out from this hiddenness for
the purpose of creation and sanctification. CD
Taking up this distinction, Palamas writes:
Three realities pertain to God: essence, energy, and the triad of divine,
hypostases. As we have seen, those privileged to be united to God so as to
become one spirit with him-as 5t Paul said, 'He who cleaves to the Lord is
one spirit with him'. (l Cor. 6: 17)-are not united to God with respect to his
essence, since all the theologianstestify that with respect to his essence God
suffersno participation.Moreover,the hypostaticunion is fulfJ11edonly in the
case of the Logos, the God-man. Thus those privileged to attain union with
God are united to him with respect to his energy.61

Here Palamas envisages three levels of union. First, there is union 'according
to essence', such as exists between the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son
and Holy Spirit. But the mystical union cannot be on this level, for the saints do
not become additional members of the Trinity. Secondly, there is union 'according
to hypostasis', such as occurred at th~ Incarnation, when Godhead and manhood
were united in the. single person of Jesus Christ, the Theanthropos. Once more,
the mystical union cannot be of this. kind, since the hypostatic union brought
about at the Incarnation is altogether unique. It is indeed our vocation to become
48
 'sons in the Son', to use Eckhart's phrase. But this does not mean that we and God
constitute a single person, as in Christ's hypostatic union; for in the mystical
vision face to face the blessed still preserve each their own identity. There
remains only one other possibility: the mystical union is a union 'according to
energy'. The human person in such a union is made one with God yet not
absorbed or annihilated. Each of the saints, although 'deified' or 'divinized'-
filled, that is to say, with the life, glory and power of God-yet continues to be a
distinct personal subject. In the 'I-and- Thou' relationship between God and the
saints, the 'I' still remains an 'I' and the 'Thoui still remains a 'Thou', however close
the two approach in mutual love.
The distinction-in-unity between God's essence and his un created energies
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thus enables Palamas to avoid pantheism, and yet to affmn the possibility of a
true union in love between creature and Creator. More specifically, divine grace is
nothing else than God's energy: 'The divine and deifying illumination and grace is
not the essence but the energy of God.'62The glory seen by the three disciples at
Christ's Transfiguration, and also by the saints during prayer, is likewise to be
understood as a manifestation of divine energy. It is a blasphemy to affirm 'either
that it is created or that it is the essence of God'; 'it is uncreated but is not the
di vine essence'. 63·It should be noted that the divine energies are not an
intermediary between God and humankind, not a created gift, but God the Holy
Trinity in action, operating in a direct and personal way: 'Each power and energy
is God himself.'64Equally, the divine energies are not a part or subdivision of God,
but the whole God present in his undivided entirety: 'God is wholly present in
each of his divine energies'.65
In this way Palamas is enabled to affrrm in their undiminished integrity both
the 'poles' of divine Reality. The essence denotes God as otherness, as
transcendent mystery; the energies denote God as nearness, immanent and
penneating all creation. So God's nature is 'both beyond all participation and yet
in some measure participable; we attain communion in the divine nature and yet
we do not communicate in it in any way. We must affirm both these things
simultaneously and hold fast to them as the criterion of piety.'66Justifying this
antinomic standpoint, Palamas observes: . 'It is the distinguishing mark of every
orthodox theologian to affmn sometimes one thing and sometimes another, when
both affirmations are true. '67
How far is it possible to find a parallel in Eckhart to this Palanute essence-
energies distinction? Eckhart concurs wholeheartedly with Palamas in asserting
both God's beyondess and his omnipresence. 'All things speak God', he says;68we
arc to 'see God in all things'.69But Eckhart's Thomist background--even though at
many points he passes beyond the limitations of Thomism-means that he
excludes any differentiation between God's essence and his energies, at any rate
in the formal and explicit sense that this is asserted by Palamas. 'There is nothing
in God but essence', states Eckhart;70and; when describing the deification of the
human person, he tends to envisage this as a union with the divine essence.71
Is there, none the less, a certain similarity between Palamas's essence-
energies distinction,· and the differentiation that Eckhart makes between God
(Gott) and Godhead (Gottheit)? 'God and Godhead', he maintains, 'are as different
as heaven and earth .... Everything that is in he Godhead is one, and of that there is
nothing to be said. God works,. the Godhead does no work: there is nothing for it
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 to do, there is no activity in it.'72I must confess that I find Eckhart's statements in
this connection somewhat disconcerting. By Gott he seems to mean God in three
persons, the Holy Trinity, whereas Gottheit apparently signifies a more ultimate
abyss of divine unity, 'the silent desert,. into which no distinction ever peeped, of
Father, Son ·or Holy Ghost'.?3 This suggestion that the distinctions between the
persons of the Trinity are somehow less fundamental than the divine unity74is an
idea which Eckhart may have deriveci from the Dionysian writings.75
We are treading here on delicate ground. There· are specialists both in
Dionysian and in Eckhartian studies who vehemently deny that it was the intention
of either author to 'downgrade' the Trinitarian character of the Deity, in such a way
as to imply that there is a depth of Godhead beyond the Trinity, on a level more
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basic than the three persons of Father, Son and Spirit. Vladimir Lossky, as an
Orthodox theologian well read in the Greek Fathers as well as in Eckhart, did not
think that i~ was the J:buringian master's purpose to assert anything of the kind.
Lossky conside.rs $at Eckhart cannot justly be charged with doctrinal error on this
point, arid more particularly he distinguishes Eckhart's teaching from that of Gilbert
de la Porree.76 Significantly, Eckhart's accusers at Cologne and at Avignon passed
over the question of Gatt and Gottheit, and there is no allusion to this matter in the
twenty-eight propositions of John XXII's lnagro dominico.
If Eckh~ did mean to affmn a divine 'abyss' more ultimate than the persons
of the Trinity, then certainly there is no parallel to this in the writings of 8t
Gregory ·Palamas. In his view both the divine essence and the divine energies are
fully Trinitarian. Lossky does, however, see a partial parallel between the two
authors in a somewhat different distinction. made by Eckhart. n Just as Palamas
differentiates between essence and energies, while insisting that both belong to
the single and undivided Trinitarian God, so Eckhart differentiates between (1)
God Ens, God in himself, unknowable in the 'indistinct' essence of the Esse, and
(2) God Quo Est, God present in his creatures. Yet for Eckhart, as for Palamas, it
is always one and the same God, identical with himself, who is affirmed at both
levels. Lossky did not live to develop this point in further detail, but clearly he did
not believe that there was any insuperable opposition in the understanding of God
held respectively by Palamas and Ec~art. I am happy to agree with Lossky.
Enough, I trust, has been said to indicate that St Gregory Palamas and
Meister Eckhart are to be seen as allies rather than opponents. Their
intellectual and spiritual training was very different-Palamas was formed in
the hennit's cell, Eckhart in the debates of the Schools-yet in their basic
intuitions the two agree. Both are maximalists, insisting without compromise
on the life-creating polarity between God's otherness and his nearness.
Pa1amas might well have been disturbed by Eckhart's distinction between Gatt
and Gottheit, and Eckhart would probably have been critical of the Palamite
teaching on essence and energies. But both of them believe, to use Dietrich
Bonhoeffer's phrase, that the 'Beyond' ~s truly 'in our midst',. without thereby
ceasing to remain irreducibly 'Beyond'. Both say with 5t 5ymeon, 'He is in my
heart, he is in heaven'.
John XXII's bill In agro dominico reproves Meister Eckhart because he
'wished to know more than he should'.78Lossley makes the same point in more
positive terms: The thought of Meister Eckhart is always situated on the frontiers
of the imaginable'.79 Pace John XXII, that seems to me a virtue rather than a fault;
50
 and, jf fault it be, it is one that Eckhart shares with other noble but misrepresented
tigures such as Origen. Yet, even if Eckhart did sometimes try to know or say too
much, at the same time-in common with St Gregory Palamas-he fully
recognised the value of silence. As Eckhart puts it (and Palamas would have
agreed), 'That person says the finest things about God who has learned out of the
fullness of his inward riches to keep silence about him.'80 In the words of the
Areopagite, the common teacher of both Palamas and Eckhart: 'Let us honour
things ineffable with sober silence.'St
Essai sur /a Ihe%gie mystique de l'Eglise d'Orienl (Paris: Aubier/Montaigne, 1944);
English translation by 'a small group of members of the Fellowship of 5t Alban and 5t
Sergius', including Peter Hammond and A. M. Allchin (London: James Clarke, 1957).
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2 Vision de Dieu (Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niestle, 1962); English translation by Asheleigh
Moorehouse (London: Faith Press, 1963). Originally delivered as a lecture course at the
.Ecole pratique des Hautes ..Etudes (fifth section) at the Sorbonne in 1945-6.
3 Theologie negative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maitre Eckhart (Paris: J. Vrin, 1960).
4 Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn (tr.), Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons,
Commentaries, Treatises. and Defen'se, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New
YorkIRamseyfforonto: Paulist Press, 1981),351.
5 'A la memoire de Vladimir Lossky', Messager de I'Exarchat du Patriarche Russe en Europe
Occidentale 30-31 (Paris, 1959), 96. This memorial issue of the Messager contains what
remains until now the most detailed published study of Lossky's theology: Olivier Clment,
'Vladimir Lossky, un thologien de la personne et du Saint-Esprit', 137-206. Regrettably the
masterly analysis by Rowan D. Williams (now Archbishop of Wales), The Theology of
Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky: An Exposition and Critique (Oxford D.Phil. thesis, 1975),
has never been published.
6 The Vision of God, 51.
7 Theologie negative, 344.
8 This is Krivocheine's view, 'A la memoire de Vladimir Lossky', lococit.
9 See Raymond Gawronski, Word and Silence: Hans Vrs von Balthasar and the Spiritual
Encounter between East and West (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 56-60,63-7. I am not
qualified to assess how accurate is von Balthasar's interpretation of Eckhart; he has certainly
misunderstood Palamas.
10 Worship (London: Nisbet, 1936), 263.
11 The standard work on Gregory Palamas is still John Meyendorff, Introduciton a l'Etude de
Gregoire Palamas, Patristica Sorbonensia 3. (Paris: Seuil, 1959); English translation by
George Lawrence, A Study of Gregory Palamas (London: Faith Press, 1964). Excellent
though this is, it is now badly in need of updating. See also Meyendorffs more popular
survey, St Gregoire Palamas et la mystique orthodoxe (Paris: Seuil, 1959); English
translation by Adele Fiske, St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality (Crestwood, NY:
St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974). Consult also Meyendorff, Dictionnaire de Spiritualite
12 (1983), 81-107; Jacques Lison, L'Esprit repandu: la pneumatologie de Gregoire
Palamas (Paris: Cerf, 1994).
]2 'Hcsychast', from hesychia, meaning quiet, inner stillness, silence of the heart. A Hesychast
is one who pursues contemplative prayer, whether through the use of the Jesus Prayer or in
other ways.
]3 See Kallistos Ware, 'Praying with the body: the hesychast method and non-Christian
parallels', Sobomost incorporating Eastern Churches Review 14:2 (1992), 6-35. Initially
Barlaam and Palamas entered into controversy over the procession of the Holy Spirit; but
Barlaam quickly enlarged the dispute to include the vision of light and the Hesychast
technique of prayer, and it was these latter topics which then became the real issue in the
conflict.
14 Anna Philippidis-Braat, 'La captivite de Palamas chez les Turcs: dossier et commentaire',
Travaux et Memo;res 7 (1979), 109-222; Daniel J. 5ahas, 'Captivity and Dialogue:

51
 Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) and the Muslims', The Greek Othodox Theological Review
25 (1980), 409-36. .
15 See Louis Gardet, 'Un probleme de mystique comparee: la mention du nom divin (dhikr)
dans La mystique musulmane', Revue Thomiste 52 (1952)~ 642-79; 53 (1953), 197-216;
reprinted in G.-C. Anawati and L. Gardet, Mystique musulmane: aspects et tendances-
experiences et techniques (Paris, 1961), 187-256.
16 ToAntiochus, reply 1 (PG 28:597D).
17 On the eight evil thoughts 9 (PG 40: 1275C).
18 Quoted by Alois M. Haas~ 'The Nothing of God and its Explosive Metaphors', Eckhart
Review 8 (1999), 14~
19 Republic VI (509b). Compare Parmenides (142a): if the One is beyond being, then it must
also be beyond understanding.
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20 Theological, Gnostic and Practical Chapters 2:9, ed. J.Darrouzes, Sources Chretiennes 51
(Paris:Cerf, 1957)~ 73-74.
21 Hymn 13: 71-81, ed. Johannes Koder, Sources Chretiennes 156 (Paris: Cerf, 1969),262
22 Hymn 15: 63-67, 71, 75-84, Sources Chrtiennes 156~ 282-4.
23 One Hundred and Fifty Texts 78~ ed. Robert E.Sinkewicz (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies. 1988), 172-4. I follow (with minor alterations) the English rendering in
G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (tf.), The Philokalia: The Complete
Text. vol. 4 (London: Faber & Faber~ 1995), 382.
24 Against Akyndinos 2: 14: 63.ed. P. Christou and others, Syngrammata 3 (Thessalonica,
1970). 130.
25 On the divine energies and participation in them 2, ed. P. Christou. Syngrammata 2
(Thessalonica, 1966), 97.
26 Triads in defence of the holy Hesychasts 1: 3: 23, ed. J. Meyendorff, Spicilegium Sacrum
Lovaniense 30-31 (Louvain. 1959). 159.
27 Triads 1:3: 17. ed. Meyendorff, 145. 147.
28 Lossky notes the double meaning of this phrase: Theologie negative, 16. Compare Isa.
45:15.
29 Latin sermon 9~ cited in Lossky, Theologie negative, 192; cf. 176.
30 Commentary on John, chapter I, §84, in Colledge and McGinn, Meister Eckhart, 153.
31 Sermon 32(a). in M. O'C. Walshe (tr.), Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises. 3 vols
(Longmead, Shaftesbury: Element Books, 1987). I: 236.
32 Sermon 19~ in Walshe, 1:157, 160.
33 Sermon.,;1.2,4. in Walshe. 1:11, 22~ 4D-41. etc.
34 SermonSl. in Walshe, 2:53.
35 Sermon 32(a). in Walshe. 1:237.
36 Sermon 26~ in Walshe, 1:204; cf. Sermon 3, in Walshe, 1:31.
37 Sermon 6, in Colledge and McGinn. 187.
38 Sermon 55. in Walshe. 2:78.
39 Sermon 33~ in Walshe. 1:247.
40 Sermon 62. in Walshe. 2: 115.
41 Sermon 19, in Walshe, 1:153. Compare 1:159 (citing Augustine): 'When he [Paul] saw
nothing~ he saw God.' On God as 'nothing'. see the excellent paper of Haas (note 18).
42 Sermon 96, in Walshe. 2:335.
43 Lossky. The%gie negative, 142.
44 Sermon 69~ in Walshe, 2:165.
45 Sermon 66, in Walshe, 2:139.
46 Lossky. Theologie negative, 255.
47 Sermon 49. in Walshe, 2:39.
48 Sermon 18, in Walshe. 1:147.
49 Sermon 42. in Walshe. 1: 296-7.
50 Sermon 49. in Walshe, 2:38.
51 Sermon 18. in Walshe, 1: 147.
52 Sermon 39, in Walshe, 1: 278.
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 53 Sec, for example, Eckhart's celebrated dictum, 'The eye with which I see God is the same eye
with which God sees me' (Sennon 57, in Walshe, 2:87). Elsewhere he writes: 'Man is not "like
him" [God], but he is altogether identical with him and the very same as he is' (Semwn 49, in
Walshe, 2:40). But if statements such as these seem to blur the distinction between the Uncreated
and the created, elsewhere Eckhart makes it plain that such is not his true intention. Thus he
writes, 'God is one All without everything', meaning (as Walshe explains), 'God is "everything"
but not "all things'" (Sennon 77, in Walshe, 2:222; cf. Walshe's note 15). The soul is united with
God but not annihilated: 'The soul loses her name and. her power, but not her will and her
existence' (Sermon 94, in Walshe, 2: 323).
54 Hans Urs von Balthasar rightly protests against this method of disparaging the Dionysian corpus.
Alluding to modem (especially Gennan) scholars, he protests: 'After their tank-fonnations have
laid waste his garden, there is for them not a blade of grass left: all that remains is PSEUDO-
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written in bold letters, and underlined with many marks of contempt' (The Glory of the Lord: A
Theological Aesthetics, vol. 2 [San FransiscolNew York: Ignatius Press/Crossroads, 1984], 144).
55 On the divine names 1:6 (596A-C), ed. B. R. Suchla, Patristische Texte und Studien 33
(BerlinINew York: de Gruyter, 1990), 118-19.
56 On the divine names 1:1 (588B), ed. Suchla, 109.
57 I take this paraphrase of Dionysius from Haas, 'The Nothing of God" 6.
58 For an analysis of this distinction and a brief consideration of possible objections, see my article,
'God Hidden and Revealed: The Apophatic Way and the Essence-Energies Distinction', Eastern
Churches Review 7:2 (1975), 125-36; compare the criticisms of llltyd Trethowan and Rowan D.
Williams, with my rejoinder, in Eastern Churches Review 9: 1-2 (1977), 19-63.
59 Letter 234: 1.
60 On the divine names 2:5 (641D-644B),ed. Suchla, 128-9.
61 The One Hundred and Fifty Texts 75, ed. Sinkewicz, 170; tr. Palmer, Sherrard and Ware, 4:380.
62 op. cit., 69, 00. Sinkewicz, 164; tr. Palmer, Sherrard and Ware, 4: 378.
63 op. cit., 65,00. Sinkewicz, 158-60; tr. Palmer, Sherrard and Ware, 4: 376.
64 Letter to Gabras 13, ed. Christou, 2: 340; compare parallel passages in Meyendorff,
Introduction, 294, note 63.
65 Triads 3:2:7,ed. Meyendorff, 657.
66 Theophanes 13, ed. Christou, 2:238.
67 The One Hundred and Fifty Texts 121, ed. Sinkewicz, 222; tr. Palmer, Sherrard and Ware, 4:403.
68 Sermon 22, in Walshe, 1:179.
69 Sermon 18, in Walshe, 1:149.
70 Sermon 46, in Walshe, 2:24.
71 See, for example, Sermons 59, 65 and 85, in Walshe 2:100,134,264.
72 Sermon 56, in Walshe, 2:80-81; cf. Sermon 70, in Walshe, 2:175.
73 Sermon 60, in Walshe, 2:105.
74 See Sermons 66 and 96, in Walshe, 2:145,331.
75 See On the divine names 2:5 (64ID), ed. Suchla, 128-9; compare 2:11 (652A), ed. Suchla, 137:
'In the divine realm unities hold a higher place than differentiations.'
76 Theologie negative, 342-3.
77 Theologie negative, 344.
78 Colledge and McGinn, Meister Eckhart, 77.
79 The%gie negative, 333.
SO Counsels on Discernment 23, in Colledge and McGinn, Meister Eckhart, 280.
81 011 the divine names 1:3 (589B), ed. Suchla, 111.

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