We¹ do not hear much of Proclus during the fourteenth-century Hesychast controversy, but we do hear mention of Pseudo-Dionysius, so I suppose the spirit of Proclus haunts this episode.²

This is what Ken Parry wrote in a brief overview of Proclean studies in Byzantium published a few years ago. Parry’s supposition is undoubtedly correct. The interpretation of Ps.-Dionysian apophaticism lay at the very heart of the controversy, since it appeared to define the possible modes and methods of human participation in God. And behind Ps.-Dionysius loomed Proclus.

To what extent the main protagonists of the controversy were also under the direct influence of the Platonic Successor is a question as thorny as it is intriguing. They were obviously familiar with his name. It crops up a couple of times in the correspondence between Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Calabria.³ Both times the reference is to a couple of anecdotes reported by Marinus about phenomena observed in the vicinity of Proclus’ head: the light that surrounded it during a public lecture and the Aesculapian serpent that visited it shortly before the death of its possessor.⁴ Palamas connects the two anecdotes (obviously reinterpreting the serpent in a Christian sense) and suggests that they reveal the true provenance of pagan “enlightenment”, for which Barlaam had expressed his admiration. In his reply, Barlaam sarcastically hints that the “uncreated” light experienced by the Hesychasts may be a similar phenomenon. These passages only illustrate the fact that in fourteenth-century Byzantium Proclus’ name was indeed a byword for all the dazzling and dangerous temptations of pagan philosophy.

To what extent Barlaam made actual use of Proclus’ works in the context of the controversy is not so easy to determine, since most of his writings from this part of his career (notably, Against the Messalians) were destroyed in 1341.⁵ Still, Michele Trizio has not only discovered tacit borrowings from the Platonic Successor’s commentaries on Plato’s Alcibiades and Parmenides in Barlaam’s letters to Ignatius (Ep. 4–5); he has also identified a number of probable Proclean sources for the Calabrian’s lost works, on the basis of reports in Palamas’ works.⁶ Moreover, John Demetracopoulos has suggested that the notion of the universal usefulness of dialectic (also in theology) expressed in Barlaam’s earlier (mid-1330s) treatises Against the Latins (1, 1.3 and 2, 1.9) is “inherited” from Proclus’ description of Socratic dialectic.⁷ Demetracopoulos also suspects Proclean influence (from the Platonic Theology) on some of Barlaam’s terminology in the first treatise Against the Latins.⁸ As for Barlaam’s only surviving work in Greek with a more narrowly philosophical content, The Solutions to George Lapithes (mid-1330s), Robert Sinkewicz pointed out in a seminal paper that it features some distinctly Proclean terminology and occasional word-to-word correspondence to passages in Syrianus, Proclus’ revered teacher (In Metaph.).⁹

If, however, we limit ourselves to extant and printed texts related to the controversy, there is really only one author who makes explicit reference to Proclus’ doctrines. This is Nikephoros Gregoras, in two passages of his Roman History (Logos 23.2 and Logos 35.15–17). And these are the passages on which this paper will focus.¹⁰

Gregoras, it seems, harboured no doubts that Proclus exerted a direct influence over his main adversary, Palamas. In fact, he claims that the latter’s doctrines are partly copied from the former’s works. To ascertain the truth of this claim would require a more extensive study than I have been able to carry out for this occasion, but I will at least try to describe with some precision what it is in Palamas’ doctrines that Gregoras accuses him of having lifted from Proclus. The claim is made explicitly in Logos 23.2 and recurs implicitly in Logos 35.15–17.¹¹ Both times it refers specifically to Palamas’ doctrine of participation, at which, Gregoras suggests, his adversary has arrived by adopting some of the least palatable views of Proclus, although his error has been compounded by additions of his own, of which the Platonists would never have approved.¹²

These passages in the Roman History were written from the vantage-point of an already defeated man, in the summer of 1352 and later.¹³ The final act of the Hesychast controversy had been played out in the early summer of 1351, when emperor John VI Kantakouzenos summoned all the bishops to a council in the palace of Blachernai, an event that Gregoras described as a Robber Council (λῃστρικὸν συνέδριον),¹⁴ in allusion to the council of Ephesus in 449.¹⁵ The outcome of the council was a foregone conclusion. Kantakouzenos was a long-standing champion of Hesychasm. His intention was to restore peace to the divided church by having all its leading members ratify the decisions already made by two preceding councils, in 1341 and 1347. Since then, two successive Palamite patriarchs had worked indefatigably to fill the episcopal sees with dependable supporters. Palamas himself had been made archbishop of Thessaloniki. Most serious opponents had been put out of action. Barlaam of Calabria was chased into exile already in 1341. Patriarch John XIV Kalekas was deposed in 1347, the year of the plague, and died a few months later. Gregory Akindynos, too, shuffled off this mortal coil in 1348. It was left to Gregoras to speak on behalf of the anti-Palamites at Blachernai, although recurrent bouts of headache occasionally forced him to hand over the word to his students and other associates. In the end, he was excommunicated and placed under house arrest in the Chora monastery.

At the last session of the council, the triumphant Palamites made their first serious effort to codify their doctrines in the name of the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church. The results of their labours, published in the Synodal Tome,¹⁶ were summarized in six paragraphs by one prominent 20th-century orthodox theologian and Palamite scholar as follows:¹⁷

1. There is a distinction between Divine Essence (οὐσία) and Divine Energy (ἐνέργεια). They differ from each other in that the Divine Energy is participated (μετέχεται) and divided indivisibly, and is named and somehow comprehended, albeit dimly, from its effects, whereas the Divine Essence is unparticipated (ἀμέθεκτος), undivided and nameless, that is, completely above names and incomprehensible.¹⁸

2. The Divine Energy is uncreated (ἄκτιστος).¹⁹

3. This does not give rise to any complexity in God.²⁰

4. The Divine and uncreated Energy is called “Divinity” (θειότης) by the Saints.²¹

5. We know that the Divine Essence and the Divine Natural Energy are inseparable. For no energy can exist separately from the essence to which it belongs.²²

6. The Light of the Lord’s Transfiguration is uncreated.²³

According to his own account, Gregoras responded directly to the Synodal Tome with his Sixth Dogmatic Oration, which forms part of the third volume of his Roman History (Logos 35.3–46). This is where the claim that Palamas’ doctrine of participation is dependent on that of Proclus occurs for the second time in the Roman History.²⁴ Most of the Sixth Dogmatic Oration, including the passage asserting Palamas’ dependence on Proclus, is a reproduction with minor changes of one of the Orations included in Gregoras’ unedited Antirrhetica posteriora, or Confutations of the Palamite Tome (?1356).²⁵ Since Gregoras states in both Orations that he has demonstrated Palamas’ agreement with Proclus on many other points in his previous polemics (ἐν ταῖς προτέραις ἡμῶν ἀντιρρήσεσιν),²⁶ one would expect also to find some sort of comparison of their views in the Antirrhetica priora, or Confutations of Those Who Introduce Newfangled and Unlawful Doctrines Into the Church of God (?1347).

Any such expectations, however, are futile.²⁷ It is possible, in view of the fact that Gregoras in the same sentence equates Proclus’ views with Plato’s,²⁸ that the reference is to the comparison of Palamas’ and Plato’s views in Antirrhetica priora 1.10.6.²⁹ This would allow us, at any rate, to take the phrase “on many other points” literally, for the only comparison of Palamas’ and Proclus’ views in Gregoras’ extant works concerns their doctrines of participation. And true as it is that the Antirrhetica priora contain a discussion about participation (Logos 2, cf. Logos 3.4), it is entirely based on patristic sources. Accordingly, the only way to take the statement that he has previously demonstrated Palamas’ agreement with Proclus literally is to surmise that Gregoras really has in mind the passage in the Roman History in which the claim that Palamas’ doctrine of participation is lifted from Proclus first occurs (i.e. Logos 23).

Anyway, to proceed in order, let us first look at the last-mentioned passage. It belongs to the lengthy report, in the second volume of the Roman History, of a discussion between Gregoras and his former friend, the renegade Demetrios Kabasilas, which is supposed to have taken place in the aftermath of the Council of Blachernai, in the autumn of 1351, at the Chora Monastery (Logos 22.4–23.3). In the following I will summarize and paraphrase Gregoras’ texts rather extensively. My excuse is that these texts seem to be little known, in part, no doubt, because there are no other translations than the Latin ones accompanying Schopen’s and Bekker’s editions,³⁰ plus van Dieten’s and Tinnefeld’s German summaries, which are sometimes exceedingly brief.³¹

The part of the discussion leading up to the passage in which Palamas is said to have copied Proclus contains some illuminating remarks on the relevance of pagan philosophy to theology. Gregoras’ approach to this question is a classic example of what has traditionally been known as “Byzantine humanism”. The world, he explains to Kabasilas, is the same for everyone, Christian or infidel, and so are the arts and the sciences. It is no wonder, then, if pagan and patristic authors, in spite of their religious differences, agree even on many points of theological significance.³² In his debates with the Palamites, he says, he had first expected to be assailed precisely for having recourse, on occasion, to the arguments of pagan authors; however, Palamas has saved him the trouble of defending this practice by himself invoking the agreement of the Holy Fathers and the philosophers.³³ Consequently, Gregoras proceeds to examine the Palamite doctrines in the light of both pagan and Christian authorities.

He begins by laying out his opponents’ theses: there is a difference between essence and energy in the simple and incorporeal nature that is God, such that God’s essence is completely unparticipated by created beings, whereas His energy is participated (cf. the first paragraph of Chrestou’s summary of the Synodal Tome quoted above). Both essence and energy are uncreated, but the essence is causally prior to the energy. The energy divides into various forms (εἴδη), such as Wisdom, Power, Life, Truth, Will, Sanctity.³⁴ As far as I can judge, this is basically a fair summary of Palamas’ position, although I am not aware of any such use of the word “forms” for the different manifestations of divine energy in his works.³⁵ Perhaps the word was chosen by Gregoras in order to suggest affinity with Plato’s theory of Forms. Such an affinity is definitely suggested in the Antirrhetica priora, in a passage for which the editor, Beyer, has not found any Palamite source either.³⁶ The thesis that God’s essence and His energy are related as cause and effect is not mentioned in Chrestou’s summary of the Synodal Tome quoted above, but is in fact emphatically argued in the latter work (secs 27–28; for the hierarchical implications, cf. sec. 38).

Next Gregoras adduces passages from Plotinus and Aristotle to show that the pagan philosophers, contrary to what Palamas maintains, agree with the Fathers—he mentions Athanasius, Basil, Cyril and Theodore (Graptos) but quotes only Maximus the Confessor and Ps.-Dionysius—that there can be no such difference, either in God or in Intellect (which the Fathers alternately identified with God and His image). The same is obviously true of the One: Plotinus and Proclus, he says, testify to this.³⁷

Clearly, then, Gregoras has no objection in principle to seeking guidance from pagan philosophers in general or Proclus in particular, even in theological matters. On the contrary, he first provides a rationale for seeking it and then acts accordingly. But he goes on to point out that it is all-important, in dealing with pagan material, to make sure that one does not, out of ignorance if not malevolence, adopt views that are in conflict with the traditional holy doctrines of the church. This, he explains, is what is so clearly illustrated by the case of the uneducated Palamites, who believe that there are no less than three natures involved in the transfiguration of the Saviour, one consisting in His humanity, and two in His two “divinities” (θεότητες), one of which is imperceptible and absolutely unparticipated by anything, and one of which is a second uncreated divinity, which is participated and which has been, in the phrase of Gregory of Nazianzus (Oratio 40.6), “shown forth” (παραδειχθείση θεότης).³⁸

At the root of the Palamite error, Gregoras says, is Proclus’ doctrine of participation. Whereas most of Proclus’ theological doctrines steer clear of heresy, Palamas in his ignorance chose to cleave to this particular one, which is particularly unsound.³⁹ To prove his case, Gregoras quotes (both here and in the Sixth Dogmatic Oration) Prop. 24 of the Elements of Theology.⁴⁰ Not only does he quote the full text of the proposition with its proof, he also provides his own critical commentary.

On Gregoras’ reading of Elements of Theology, Prop. 24, Proclus distinguishes three ranks (τάξεις): one to which he assigns the unparticipated and superordinate God, a second to which he assigns the participated class of things, and a third to which he assigns the participating things. What is unparticipated is as much superior to the participated things as the latter are to the participating things. Thus far we have a relatively straightforward paraphrase of Proclus’ words. All this, however, Gregoras continues, is in contradiction to what Proclus has previously tried to demonstrate, namely, that the One as the principle of all things (Elements of Theology, Prop. 21) is in every way participated by every manifold entity (Elements of Theology, Prop. 1 and 5), that is, by all things.⁴¹ Gregoras suggests that the reason why Proclus inserted a second rank between God and the participating things is that he feared lest God would be partitioned by His participants, as though He were a corporeal thing. For he had not yet understood that God, being simple, is present as a whole everywhere and nowhere, and is participated by everything, but unparticipatedly, and is divided, although undividedly.⁴²

It is tempting to read the last statement as a concession that Proclus had not read the works of Dionysius the Areopagite.⁴³ If this is what Gregoras means, he has a different opinion from that of Nicholas of Methone, who adhered, in his Refutation of Proclus’ Elements of Theology, to the thesis, proposed already in the Suda, that Proclus plagiarized Dionysius.⁴⁴ Apparently, then, Gregoras must have explained the similarity of Proclus’ and Ps.-Dionysius’ views in some other way, probably by assuming that they drew on the same Platonic tradition (he shows elsewhere that he has no qualms about assuming the dependence of the Fathers on pagan philosophers).⁴⁵

Yet there can be no doubt that Gregoras’ remark about Proclus’ inconsistency is based on his reading of Nicholas. The resemblances are too close to be coincidental, not only as regards the general drift, but even down to some details of phrasing (see below). The charge of inconsistency between the Elements of Theology, Prop. 24 on the one hand and Prop. 1 and 5 on the other is made by Nicholas already in his proem (p. 4.3–15 Angelou) and repeated in his comment on Prop. 24 (p. 32.20–33.7 Angelou). And in his comment on Prop. 23 (p. 31.15–32.5 Angelou), Nicholas offers the same explanation as Gregoras does of Proclus’ reluctance to allow participation in the One, namely, that the philosopher lapsed into thinking in corporeal terms about incorporeal things and thus feared that the One if participated might suffer something like corporeal division and lose its unity. This fear, Nicholas implies, is unwarranted, since, he says, there are even corporeal things, like vocal sounds, as well as intelligible things of the lowest order, such as the individual thoughts of a teacher, which are shared by many (listeners), and to that extent divided, without losing their essential unity. There is all the more reason, then, he concludes, to think that incorporeal things of a higher order can be participated while preserving their unity.

Gregoras comes to the same conclusion, but uses a different counterexample to block the inference from participation to partition: after all, the soul is participated (albeit unparticipatedly) by all the body parts and yet exists as a whole in each of them. There are no special souls for special organs; rather, each body part is activated by the whole soul in accordance with its nature and position: if the hand were constructed like a mouth, it would presumably also be able to speak.⁴⁶

Dependence is also suggested by the verbal correspondences between the following three passages (Gregoras on the left):

On the other hand, Gregoras’ two quotations of Proclus, Elements of Theology, Prop. 24, as transmitted in MS Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 1095, f. 82^v and f. 245^v, provide no firm evidence for his dependence on any particular textual source. There is one notable variant in each of them.⁵³ In Logos 23.2.6, p. 1101.1–2 Schopen (the first quotation), Gregoras writes (a) ἀτελὲς μὲν ὂν πρὸ τῆς μεθέξεως instead of Dodds’ πρὸ τῆς μεθέξεως ἀτελὲς ὄν (Elements of Theology, Prop. 24, p. 28.10); in Logos 35.14, p. 481.15–16 Bekker (the second quotation), he writes (b) κατὰ τοῦτο (…) instead of Dodds’ ταύτῃ (…) (Elements of Theology, Prop. 24, p. 28.12).⁵⁴ Since the second quotation has Proclus’ text instead of (a) and the first quotation has Proclus’ text instead of (b), it seems prima facie likely that these two variants were introduced by Gregoras himself. The alternative, of course, is to assume that he used a different exemplar for each quotation. Now, in the case of (a), the prima facie likelihood is strengthened by the fact that Gregoras’ variant is not represented in the direct tradition of the Elements of Theology (including Nicholas’ Refutation); in the case of (b), however, the matter is complicated by the fact that M exhibits κατὰ τοῦτο added by a second hand above the line in the Elements of Theology, Prop. 24, p. 28.12, which has then been interpolated before ταύτῃ in its descendant O (dated 1358). It is possible that this variant in M has its origin in Gregoras’ quotations.⁵⁵

In his quotation of the Elements of Theology, Prop. 3 (cf. n. 37 above),⁵⁶ finally, Gregoras is closer to the MSS of Nicholas (and B, which belongs to the same family) than to any other MS, but there are also a couple of deviations from their text: p. 4.2 αὐτὸ μὲν γὰρ οὐχ ἕν ἐστι Dodds B C D E Greg.: om. M P Q; p. 4.8 ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ἑνὸς Dodds M P Q: ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ἓν εἶναι B C D E: τῷ μὴ ἓν εἶναι Greg.; p. 4.8bis αὐτοῖς Dodds M P Q Greg.: αὐτῷ B C D E.

In sum, Gregoras may well have drawn on more than one MS of the Elements of Theology, but at least one of them also contained Nicholas’ refutation.

When Nicholas and Gregoras criticize Proclus for inconsistency, this may seem slightly disingenuous. After all, they both themselves affirm that God is both participated as a whole and unparticipated as a whole.⁵⁷ What they really cannot accept, of course, is Proclus’ resolution of this apparent contradiction, that is, the introduction of a second rank consisting of participated things, whose function is to bridge the gap between divine immanence and divine transcendence.⁵⁸ Now, what Palamas has done, according to Gregoras, is to follow Proclus both in positing an unparticipated and superordinate God and in positing a second rank consisting of participated and subordinate divinities (his θεότητες) as well as a third rank consisting of human beings and other virtuous things in the sensible realm. The only difference in this regard that Gregoras notes between Proclus and Palamas is that Proclus does not qualify the entities in the second and third ranks as uncreated (ἄκτιστα) and unoriginated (ἄναρχα), whereas Palamas gratuitously makes this addition.⁵⁹

Gregoras later argues in much the same way concerning the relation between Plato and Palamas: Palamas follows Plato, except that he calls his secondary divinities “uncreated”, which neither Plato nor Pythagoras nor any other Greek philosopher would ever do.⁶⁰ There is a complication here, in that Gregoras begins by comparing Palamas’ divinities to the created gods in Timaeus 41a–b, but then makes it clear that he in fact equates them with Platonic Forms, which he describes as “co-unoriginated and co-eternal [sc. with the creator], but other-natured”,⁶¹ and yet apparently denies that Plato (or any other Greek philosopher) would ever have called “uncreated”.⁶²

In short, then, Gregoras in the second volume of the Roman History accuses Palamas of following Proclus in positing secondary and participated divinities and for departing from Proclus (and everybody else) in calling these divinities “uncreated” and “unoriginated”.

Turning now to the Sixth Dogmatic Oration (Logos 35.3–46), we will find that Gregoras has altered his interpretation of the Elements of Theology, Prop. 24, but still maintains that Palamas’ three-ranks theory is identical with that of Proclus, except in ascribing uncreatedness to the second-rank entities. The alteration consists in understanding Proclus’ second rank as being filled by entities both participating and participated, something which seems to throw the Platonic Successor’s entire system into confusion.⁶³ Why has Gregoras altered his interpretation of Proclus in this peculiar way? One possibility is that he has adapted it to fit his interpretation of Palamas, whose uncreated light is also described in the same passage as both participating and participated.⁶⁴ Whether—and if so, why—Gregoras’ interpretation of Palamas changed between the composition of Logos 23 and that of Logos 35, I cannot say, but Palamas does in fact seem to identify the divine energies with the participations-in-themselves (αὐτομετοχαί) mentioned by Ps.-Dionysius in two passages,⁶⁵ which are said, in one of these passages (Div. nom. 5.5), to participate in being.⁶⁶ Palamas frequently cites the other passage (Div. nom. 12.4) in support of the view that there can be priority and posteriority within God,⁶⁷ and so does the Synodal Tome of 1351 (sec. 39). It is true that Palamas, in his most extensive discussion of this aspect of the divine energies,⁶⁸ takes pains to explain that the participations in question are not themselves in any way participating in anything in their capacity of participations and first principles, but only participate in being-in-itself in their capacity of being, but this was evidently enough for Gregory Akindynos to infer that they cannot possibly be unoriginated, but must be created.⁶⁹

The same conclusion is also reached by Gregoras, but via a different trajectory, in which the divine energies’ participation in being plays no part. At the end of his discussion of Palamas’ doctrine of participation,⁷⁰ he attempts to prove his saintly adversary’s mistake with the help of a hypothetical syllogism. The phrasing is a bit messy, but the argument, I think, is this: If God surpasses all things, those participated as well as those participating, infinitely many times infinitely, as Maximus says and Palamas agrees,⁷¹ and if, as Basil the Great said,⁷² those things are equal which are in equal measure surpassed, it follows that the participated light must be equal to all participating things. Hence, since everything is either created or uncreated, and created and uncreated things cannot be equal, either the participated light is created or all participating things are uncreated.⁷³ Since the latter disjunct is impossible, then, the former must be true.

If we turn back to Gregoras’ discussion of the identity of Palamas’ and Proclus’ doctrines in Logos 35.14–16, it is worth noting that it is immediately preceded by a passage (Logos 35.11–13) in which he attempts to show that the Council of Blachernai has distorted the sense of a patristic text that it adduced in support of a real distinction between two uncreated divinities (Synodal Tome of 1351, sec. 46). This text is a snippet from Maximus the Confessor’s Diversa capita ad theologiam et oeconomiam spectantia (1.7),⁷⁴ according to which God, “in whose essence created beings do not participate (…) wills that those capable of so doing shall participate in Him according to some other mode.”⁷⁵ Gregoras points out that the subsequent lines, not quoted in the Synodal Tome of 1351, state that “even that mode (ὁ τρόπος) according to which He wills to be participated in remains perpetually concealed (ἀνέκφαντος) from all men”,⁷⁶ and thus, he concludes, is not “manifest” (φαινομένην [sc. ἐνέργειαν]), let alone “visible”.⁷⁷

This appears not to be such an efficient argument against the visibility of the uncreated light, since the Palamites may reasonably reply that the visibility of the means or medium of participation in no way precludes the concealedness of the mode of participation (in other words, it may be possible to participate in God through uncreated light regardless of whether it is possible to understand how this could work). On the other hand, the quotation may be seen to support a general argument against any sort of attempt to explain how it is that human beings can participate in God, so that is probably how it is intended. After all, what is offered by the theory of the uncreated light is an explanation as to how it is that God can be participated in spite of being essentially unparticipated.

Gregoras’ own doctrine of participation is traditional but hardly intellectually satisfying. As Ps.-Dionysius said (quoted, as always, from the paraphrase in Euthymios Zigabenos’ Panoplia dogmatica),⁷⁸ God is participated by everything, according to his essence no less than according to his “energies”, although, of course, unparticipatedly. And that is all there is to the matter.⁷⁹ The upshot seems to be that Gregoras’ criticism of Palamas for having introduced a second rank of uncreated divinities is fundamentally motivated by his rejection of the applicability of the categories of the human intellect to the mysterious realm of the divine.

At the end of the day, I suppose the really interesting question is the one that I have evaded in this paper, namely whether Gregoras was right. Regardless of the dubious accuracy of Gregoras’ interpretations of Palamas’ and Proclus’ doctrines of participation, is there any reason to suspect that Palamas—who was not by any standards a “Byzantine humanist”—was indeed drawing directly on Proclus, or is all the Proclean influence on Palamism mediated by Ps.-Dionysius and his followers? Well, as I said at the outset, this is a question for a more extensive study. But in order to end on an encouraging note—and with another quotation—some scholars who have discussed the question seem to be inclined to think that Gregoras was right, for instance John Demetracopoulos, who argues in a recent paper that “Palamas consciously and directly integrated some of Syrianus’ and Proclus’ metaphysical tenets (…) in his description of the structure of divine reality.”⁸⁰