To start, I want to share a bit of the history behind Palamas' writing of The Triads, focusing on the controversy that prompted him to articulate his famous contrast between God's essence versus God's energies.
The controversy started in the 1330s when Barlaam of Calabria, a monk and scholastic theologian, visited Mount Athos. There, Barlaam encountered the hesychasts. Inspired by the desert fathers, the hesychasts were monks devoted to stillness and continual prayer. The name hesychast comes from the Greek hesychia, meaning “quiet.” By the 14th century, the hesychasts had brought their ascetic practices to Mount Athos.
The hesychasts shared with Barlaam mystical experiences in which they beheld the "Uncreated Light" emanating from God's very Being. This was the "Light of Tabor" that flashed out during Christ's transfiguration.
These claims startled Barlaam. Barlaam felt that no human could gaze upon God directly. The Bible seems clear on this point: as God said to Moses, "For no one may see me and live" (Exodus 33:20). 1 Timothy 6:16 and John 1:18 also clearly state that no one has ever seen God. Consequently, whatever the hesychasts were seeing, it couldn't be God. Barlaam contended that the light the hesychasts were reporting was a created light, something generated by their own imaginations, perhaps symbolic of the Uncreated Light, but not the actual Uncreated Light. In claiming to see God directly, the hesychasts were skirting blasphemy.
In response to Barlaam’s criticism of the hesychasts, Palamas set out to defend their mystical experiences. In his For the Defense of Those Who Practice Sacred Quietude, Palamas argued that the hesychasts were having a real and direct experience of God. The light they beheld wasn't imagined or symbolic but was, rather, a genuine encounter with divine reality.
At the heart of Palamas' defense was a distinction he made between God's essence versus God's energies.
The controversy between Barlaam and Palamas eventually made its way into the broader church, culminating in the series of councils held in Constantinople between 1341 and 1368. These councils officially affirmed Palamas' teaching and formally recognized the experiences of the hesychasts as authentic. As a result, Palamas' defense of hesychasm, with its contrast between essence and energies, became a cornerstone of Eastern Orthodox theology, spirituality, and liturgical practice. Hesychasm continued to thrive on Mount Athos, shaping Orthodox spirituality to this very day.
With this history now in front of us, in the next post we'll turn to Palamas' The Triads and his essence versus energies distinction.
