Does an earthquake produce a sound when there is no one around to hear it? This timeworn essay topic for first-year students of philosophy might well get an infusion of relevance from M. Plested's Orthodox Readings of Aquinas. Given the present intellectual situation of the Orthodox tradition, the note that this work strikes is so original and so thought-provoking that many will probably be tempted to pretend that they never heard it. Actually, nothing could be easier: who would think that taking a closer look at the way a number of Orthodox theologians have read Aquinas – from Demetrios Cydones's translations to C. Yannaras's latest cry of philosophical outrage – could have an impact on the core of Orthodox self-awareness? If this is nonetheless the case, it is because the works of Aquinas have in the course of history been used to question the major authority of modern Orthodoxy, namely that of St. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359). Accordingly, twentieth century Neo-Palamism, the dominant Orthodox school of which V. Lossky is the foremost representative, has put forward this Aquinas-inspired rejection of the Palamian reading of the Fathers as the very evidence of the forever-insuperable gap between the Eastern-Byzantine and Western-Latin understandings of Christianity. Plested's book dares to confront this alleged evidence head-on. Is a truly Orthodox reception of Aquinas de facto impossible? Is that what an objective inquiry into the ways Orthodox theologians of past centuries have read Aquinas tells us? Indeed, if this general attitude towards Aquinas is shown as having been much more open than currently argued, what then about the hackneyed antagonism with Latin theology currently presented as consubstantial to Orthodox identity?
The sound of this earthquake would not have a chance of reaching inhabited lands, had the author not been a highly-respected Orthodox scholar and his book a brilliantly reasoned piece of academic writing. Naturally one could hardly expect acquaintance with all primary sources from a study aiming at covering a period of more than 600 years in less than 250 pages. Nonetheless Plested often manages to take a fresh look at the authors and their works. The fact that he unambiguously identifies himself as an Orthodox theologian contributes not a little to shedding new light on materials that have long been left to the quasi-sole attention of Catholic scholars. Plested does not hide his debt to them – G. Podskalsky especially – which does not prevent him from taking into full account a number of recent critical studies originating from the Orthodox world.
As a result, Plested is able to list a series of hardly disputable facts. First, Palamas was just as little prejudiced against the Latin tradition (St. Augustine in particular) and the theological use of syllogistics as Aquinas had been against the Greek Fathers. Both theologians sincerely looked for ways to overcome the Filioque issue (ch. 1 and 2). The first Byzantine opponents of Palamas were either fierce enemies of Aquinas (Barlaam) or completely foreign to the Latin tradition (Akyndinos, Gregoras). Of course, the staunch anti-Palamian stance adopted by the first Byzantine adepts of Thomism (Demetrios Cydones, his brother Prochoros and his immediate disciples) was a game-changer. However, Plested pointedly shows how this anti-Palamian interpretation of Thomism was a far cry from the original content of Aquinas's writings. More surprisingly still, theologians who took the defence of Palamas against the Byzantine Thomists, such as the former basileus J. Kantakuzenos, N. Kabasilas or Theophanes of Nicaea were able to distinguish between the original Aquinas and the ‘Thomism’ of his Byzantine followers. They did not shy away from making use of Aquinas's type of argumentation to confute his Byzantine devotees (ch. 3). In the aftermath of the quarrel, former disciples of Demetrios such as M. Calecas and M. Chrysoberges, who had joined the Dominican Order, never ceased to proclaim their faithfulness to the genuine Byzantine heritage. Meanwhile the greatest ever Aquinas scholar born in Constantinople, G. Scholarios, who was to become, sadly enough, the first Patriarch of Stambul, assumed the leadership of the anti-unionist, pro-Palamite party after the death of M. Eugenikos. The fall of Constantinople did not put an end to dissensions between pro- and anti-unionists, thus prompting the diffusion of a literature that was often hostile to the ideas of Aquinas (M.A. Panaretos, K. Angelikoudes, J. Bryennos, et al.), but also sometimes ready to engage in dialogue with them (G. Severos, M. Margougnios).
What Plested consistently shows, however, is that, no matter to which party they belonged, the authors concerned never failed to apply Aquinas's theology to their purpose, whether explicitly or implicitly (ch. 4). The gradual rise of ‘textbook Orthodox theology’ in Russia, mainly under the influence of the Kievan school of Peter Moghila, did little to change this state of affairs. True, a Protestant-inspired rejection of scholasticism (C. Lukaris, S. Prokopovitch) did sometimes question this Latin ascendancy. However, due to the need to keep Reformation at a distance, an Aquinas-inspired type of apologetics (S. Javorsky) became a lasting part of the Russian Orthodox intellectual tradition (ch. 5). Accordingly, if the 19th century witnesses a radical turn, it is because the issue regarding the ‘orthodoxy’ of Aquinas shifts from the level of theology proper to that of cultural identity. Slavophile thinkers (K. Kireevski, A. Khomiakov especially) reverse the critical attitude of modern European philosophy towards medieval scholastics in a way that brings to mind Byzantine theologians making use of Aquinas's arguments against Aquinas himself. They are the first to ascribe the erring ways of modern European thinking to the rationalistic turn operated by Aquinas. Obviously, the dialogue of the deaf between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, as we know it today, did not start before the middle of the 19th century. Russian philosophical heirs to V. Soloviev such as P. Florensky and S. Bulgakov showed much less lenience towards Aquinas than their mentor as they sought an antidote to the Western, Thomistic type of theological ratiocination in their own brand of ‘Sophiology’. However it is in Lossky's Palamism, Sophiology-free and rooted in a mystical reading of the Greek Fathers, that contemporary Orthodoxy finally found the desired counteragent. In fine, Plested is able to point out several contemporary Russian and Greek theologians who seem to portend a shift to a more positive assessment of Aquinas's legacy. Among them, the remarkable figure of G. Florovsky stands out (ch. 6). It is under his patronage that Plested pleads the cause of a new ‘constructive integration’ of Thomism into the framework of an Orthodoxy faithful to its roots, albeit released from its besieged mind-set (ch. 7).
It would be unfair to dwell upon the various shortcomings of Plested's book (still, what a perfunctory treatment of Scholarios's theological views!). The essay is a manifesto, though a learned one. Accordingly, the main motive for concern is what could serve as an additional excuse for not paying attention to its message. Indeed, if it true that there is no substantial obstacle to an Orthodox re-appropriation of Aquinas, what ultimately motivates the proclamations of anti-Thomism, no matter how formal, on the part of an overwhelming number of post-Palamian Orthodox theologians? Is it fair to assume that Palamas simply adds an element to the dogmatic tradition; namely, the distinction between the uncreated energy (ies) and essence in God, an element which simply did not cross Aquinas's mind (pp. 60, 80–84)? Plested's somehow embarrassed argument that Aquinas is as ‘Greek’ as Palamas is ‘Latin’ seems to rest on a deliberate avoidance of the theological core of the conflict. The truth is that the line of division between Byzantine Palamites and Byzantine Thomists – even as the former, such as Scholarios, were dedicated admirers of Aquinas and the latter, like M. Chrysoberges, firmly clung to the tradition of the Greek Fathers – did not fade away for a second.
If, accordingly, the border between Eastern and Western theology has endured throughout modern history, it is not because no theologian on either side was sufficiently open-minded to envisage a synthesis, but because no one – including Scholarios – found that a synthesis was possible, or at least at hand. There simply seems to be no place for Palamas's distinction in the universe of Aquinas. From this point of view, Plested misses the core issue at stake in the dispute between Prochoros and Cantakuzenos on the light of the transfiguration (pp. 73–90). It is not the divine origin of this light which comes under discussion, but the mode according to which the few disciples gathered on the Mount perceived it. Whether transient or eternal, as in the case of the vision of the elect, Aquinas's ‘lumen gloriae’ is created (ST Ia, q. 12, a.5, c.; cf. IIIa, q.2, a.8 c). Assessing whether Prochoros is right to interpret this created character in line with the natural order, as an analogical ‘symbol’, or whether the hesychasts’ experience of the uncreated light is incompatible with Aquinas's ‘lumen gloriae’, are considerations which have regrettably been left beyond the scope of Plested's work. They would have required an inquiry into the ways in which the interaction between God and the world is conceived by Palamas and Aquinas respectively. For want of such inquiry, Plested draws a misleading analogy between what Aquinas conceives the ‘being-in-potency’ of the created order and what Theophanes of Nicea calls the ‘created energy’ or ‘energy in-relationship’ (skhetike) of God (pp. 92–93). If the divine energy can somehow be called ‘created’ (Palamas speaks likewise of the ‘temporarily sanctifying energy’ in the Triads), it is because it is envisaged relatively to the created, skhetikws. Accordingly, Aquinas's ‘created potency’ cannot be equated with Theophanes's ‘created energy’ – this created potency of Aquinas is precisely what is actuated by the divine energy. The whole problem comes from the fact that while Aquinas's anthropological perspective allows him to identify the divine energy (the actio ad extra stemming from a pure act, actus purus) with God's essence, the cosmological perspective of the Palamites sees the divine energy as ‘emanating’ from the divine essence ‘in the direction’ of the created order, so as to imply a distinction between the emanation and its source. In the first chapter, Plested draws on Florensky's idea of the reversed perspective, as the principle which allows us to grasp the difference between the Western and the Eastern interpretations of revelation. Unfortunately, Plested does not come back to this illuminating insight in the course of the book.
This being said, the absence of a substantial consideration of the theological realities involved in the conflict between Palamism and Thomism should not undermine the significance of Plested's brilliant manifesto, as long as one keeps in mind that it makes the most serious case for such a re-consideration. Indeed how could this impressive number of Orthodox theologians have shown in the past such explicit or factual appreciation for Aquinas's ideas if these ideas were simply inconsistent with the most precious teaching conveyed by the tradition of the Orthodox Church? That is the question. Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.
