The Concept of the Essence-Energy Distinction in Old Russian Translated Literature

Abstract

The author examines the Old Russian reception of the Byzantine translated works that contain the famous doctrine of the essence-energy distinction in God including some aspects of participation to God. I divide works considered in the study into two main groups according to the chronology of translations (pre-Palamite translations (X–XIII centuries) and translations of the Palamite era (XIV century)). The selected and examined texts include the Catechetical Lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem, «Theology» and «Dialectic» of John of Damascus, «On the Free Will» of Methodius of Olympus, the sholia of Nicetas of Heraclea on Gregory Nanzianzus’s 45 Oration, Corpus Areopagiticum with sholia, «On how not to fall into the Heresy of Barlaam and Akindynos» of David Dishypatos. The author shows that the Old Russian readers could be acquainted with the almost complete doctrine of essence-energy distinction in God in such aspects as Divine unity and distinction, the participated and unparticipated sides of God, the creating the Divine names through the contemplating of His energies, the hierarchy of being and its participation in Good, and etc. Damascene’s «Dialectic» introduced the reader to the technical philosophical notion and definitions of action/energy as the one of the nine accidents of essence, following Aristotle and his commentators. The author notices that the most of examined works in this paper were clearly influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius. This fact together with the substantial influence of the Slavonic translation of Dionysius allows me to conclude on the prevalence of Dionysius’s neoplatonic version of essence-energy dsictinction in the Medieval Russia. The Palamite version of considered teaching (except for the writings of David Dishypatos) was very little known in Medieval Russia and could not be fully understood.