Anti-Palamism in Hans-Georg Beck’s Earlier Works: The Russian Origins and Some Catholic Parallels. Part II

Hans-Georg Beck (1910–1999), the most outstanding 20th-century German Byzantinist, has gone a long way from a Benedictine monk to professor in Munich, a creator of a comprehensive conception of Byzantine general and cultural history. The problems of ecclesiastical history and theology were in the center of his scientific activity from its first steps on. As a student of Martin Grabmann, a prominent historian of Western scholasticism, Beck appropriated the Thomist view of theology. That is why he denied the real distinction between essence and energies in God, which had been disclosed and analyzed by Gregory Palamas. If in his first 1935 article, The Struggle for the Thomist Concept of Theology in Byzantium, Beck criticized Palamism «from outside», i. e., from the neoscholastic viewpoint, it was later then, in his secular thesis of 1952, that the German scholar tried to censure the Palamite doctrine «from inside» by making the case of its incompatibility with the Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. Besides some general considerations about a putative barrenness of the Byzantine folk spirit (Volksgeist), in the question of Chalcedonian Orthodoxy and its survival in the Late Byzantium Beck leaned on Vladimir Solov’ev’s (1853–1900) idea of Byzantine monasticism as being infected from the early stage on with the Monophysitism. Making no clear-cut distinction between Hesychasm in general and Palamism as its most elaborated form, Beck saw in this Monophysite infection the very reason of the Palamite hesychasm being tolerated, accepted and officially stated by the Byzantine Orthodoxy, although it had been a very ‘strange’ and ‘anthropomorphite’ teaching.

1. Beck H. (1935) “Der Kampf um den thomistischen Theologiebegriff in Byzanz”. Divus Thomas, vol. 13, pp. 3–22.

2. Beck H.‑G. (1952) Theodoros Metochites. Die Krise des byzantinischen Weltbildes im 14. Jahrhundert. München: C. H. Beck.

3. Bergson A. (1994) Dva istochnika morali i religii [Two Sources of Morality and Religion], in A. B. Gofman (ed.). Moscow: Kanon+ (Istorija filosofii v pamjatnikah i dokumentah) (in Russian).

4. Chernjakov A. (2007) “Hajdeger i personalizm russkogo bogoslovija” [“Heidegger and Personalism of Russian Theology”], in N. S. Plotnikov, A. Haardt, V. I. Molchanov (eds.) Personal’nost’. Jazyk filosofii v russko-nemeckom dialoge [Personality. The Language of Philosophy in Russian-German Dialogue]. Moscow: Modest Kolerov, pp. 139–148 (in Russian).

5. Chernoglazov D. A., Shufrin A. M., Benevich G. I. (eds.) (2019) Maksim Ispovednik, prp. Trudnosti k Fome (Ambigua ad Thomam); Trudnosti k Ioannu (Ambigua ad Iohannem) [St. Maxim the Confessor. Difficulties for Thomas (Ambigua ad Thomam); Difficulties for John (Ambigua ad Iohannem)]. Moscow: Eksmo (Vizantijskaja filosofija; 18. Smaragdos Philocalias) (in Russian).

6. Énard M. (2018) Kompas [Compass], I. Ja. Volevich, E. V. Morozova (eds.). Moscow: Inostranka (Bol’shaja kniga) (in Russian).

7. Guran P. (2007) “Eschatology and Political Theology in the Last Centuries of Byzantium”. Revue des études sud-est européennes, vol. 45, pp. 73–85.

8. Hegel G. W. F. (1968) Estetika. V 4 t. [Aesthetics. In 4 Volumes], in M. Lifshic (ed.). Moscow: Iskusstvo, vol. 1 (in Russian).

9. Horuzhij S. S. (2016) Socium i sinergija: kolonizacija interfejsa [Society and Synergy: Colonizing the Interface]. Kazan: Kazanskij innovacionnyj universitet im. V. G. Timirjasova (IEUP) (in Russian).

10. Hunger H. (1953) “Besprechung von: Beck H.-G. Theodoros Metochites: Die Krise des byzantinischen Weltbildes im 14. Jahrhundert”. Byzantinische Zeitschrift, vol. 46, pp. 123–127.

11. Kushch T. V. (2015) “‘Chtoby ne rassypalas’ nasha sverdlovskaja semejka vizantinistov’: pis’ma

12. Ja. Sjuzjumova k I. P. Medvedevu” [“‘So That Our Sverdlovsk Family of Byzantinists Does Not Fall Apart’: Letters from M. Ya. Syuzumov to I. P. Medvedev”]. Antiquity and the Middle Ages, issue 43, pp. 10–39 (in Russian).

13. Larchet J.‑C. (2001) “Isihazam i Shesti Vaseljenski Sabor. Ima li Palomistichko Bogoslovlje o Bozhanskim energijama osnovu v VI Vaseljenskom Saboru?” [“Hesychasm and the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Does Palamistic Theology on Divine Energies Have a Basis in the VI Ecumenical Council?”]. Sveti Grigorije Palama v istoriji i sadashnjosti [Saint Gregory of Palamas in History and the Present]. Vrnjačka Banja: Duhovna akademija svetoga Vasilija Ostroshkog v Srbinju, pp. 67–81 (in Serbian).

14. Makarov D. (2010) “The Holy Spirit as Life and Energy. The Treatment of Athanasius’ Ad Serapionem I, 20–21 in the Late Thirteenth Century and Its Implications for the Hesychast Controversy”. Byzantion, vol. 80, pp. 197–246.

15. Makarov D. I. (2017) “Lekcii po pozdnevizantijskoj patrologii XIII–XIV vv. Lekcija 1. Vvedenie” [“Lectures on the Late Byzantine Patrology of the XIII–XIV Centuries. Lecture 1. Introduction”]. Bulletin of the Yekaterinburg Theological Seminary, issue 3 (19), pp. 233–255 (in Russian).

16. Makarov D. I. (2020) “Feodor Metohit: mezhdu zolotym runom antichnosti i Itakoj moderna” [“Theodore Metohit: Between the Golden Fleece of Antiquity and Ithaca Modern”], in D. I. Makarov, Ja. Polemis (eds.) Feodor Metohit. Slovo o nravstvennyh problemah, ili Ob obrazovannosti [Theodore Metohit. A Word About Moral Problems, or About Education]. Saint‑Petersburg: Dmitrij Bulanin (Paradeigmata byzantina; 1), pp. 7–26 (in Russian).

17. Mathews Th. F. (1998) The Art of Byzantium: Between Antiquity and the Renaissance. London: George Weidenfeld and Nicholson (Everyman Art Library).

18. Mejendorf I. (1997) Zhizn’ i trudy sv. Grigorija Palamy. Vvedenie v izuchenie [The Life and Works of St. Gregory Palamas. Introduction to Learning], in G. N. Nachinkin, I. P. Medvedev,

19. V. M. Lur’e (eds.). Saint‑Petersburg: Vizantinorossika (Subsidia Byzantinorossica; 2) (in Russian).

20. Milosh Ch. (2018) Zemlja Ul’ro [Land of Ulro], in N. Kuznecov (ed.). Saint‑Petersburg: Izd. Ivana Limbaha (in Russian).

21. Ševčenko I. (1961) “The Decline of Byzantium Seen Through the Eyes of Its Intellectuals”.

22. Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vol. 15, pp. 169–186.

23. Shawcross Th. (2017) “Theories of Decline from Metochites to Ibn Khaldūn”, in A. Kaldellis,

24. Siniossoglou (eds.) The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 615–632.

25. Schreiner P. (2019) “Vizantija segodnja: opredelenie mesta ushedshego mira” [“Byzantium Today: Determining the Place of a Bygone World”]. Antiquity and the Middle Ages, issue 47, pp. 248–256 (in Russian).

26. Unamuno M., de (1981) “Istorija bumazhnyh ptichek” [“The History of Paper Birds”], in V. Mihajlov (ed.) Unamuno M. de. Izbrannoe v dvuh tomah [Unamuno M. de. Selected in Two Volumes]. Leningrad: Hudozhestvennaja literatura, vol. 2, pp. 194–201 (in Russian).