Introductory Note

The fifth and final volume of the English translation of The Philokalia is almost entirely devoted to authors bearing the name of Kallistos. In all probability three distinct persons are involved: Kallistos Xanthopoulos [Patriarch Kallistos II]; Patriarch Kallistos I; and Kallistos Angelikoudis, also known as Kallistos Tilikoudis or Kallistos Kataphygiotis.1 All three lived in the second half of the fourteenth century, and all three belonged to the hesychast tradition, as upheld by St Gregory of Sinai and St Gregory Palamas.

It is possible that the authors of The Exact Method and Rule, Kallistos and Ignatios, were brothers, with Xanthopoulos as their family name; but St Symeon of Thessaloniki, who knew them personally and who is the main source of information concerning them, does not say that they were related, which we would surely expect him to do, had this in fact been the case.2 Whether brothers or not, they both seem to have been natives of Constantinople, and together they settled in a small kellion or hermitage, situated in the city or its immediate environs. They may well have been the founders of this kellion, although this is not certain. Kallistos became Ecumenical Patriarch in May 1397, but died shortly after his appointment.3 At the time of his election he was no more than a simple monk, not as yet ordained to the priesthood. Ignatios survived for a further quarter of a century, dying between 1423 and 1429. Sometimes Kallistos and Ignatios are said to have dwelt on Mount Athos, but this is almost certainly incorrect.

The Exact Method and Rule of the Xanthopouloi was probably written during the years 1380–95. It was composed, so we are told, in answer to a request from a ‘brother’ who was pursuing the hesychast way of life and who had asked for a ‘written rule’ (§ 4). It is thus intended for a hermit or solitary – not for a monk living in a fully organized cenobitic community but for a recluse, who except on special occasions would have been praying on his own and who would have taken his meals by himself. None the less the Exact Method has proved to be of great spiritual value to many who are cenobites or, indeed, who are living as lay persons in the ‘world’.

A striking feature of the Exact Method is the way in which it is full of quotations from Scripture and, more particularly, from previous Patristic authors.4 The writers who appear most frequently are St John Klimakos and St Isaac the Syrian (Isaac of Nineveh), each of whom is cited more than fifty times. The Evagrian-Maximian ‘current’ is well represented, with some twenty testimonia from ‘Neilos’ (i.e. usually Evagrios, who is cited only once under his own name) and over twenty-five from St Maximos the Confessor. There are some thirty passages attributed to St John Chrysostom, a number of them taken from a spurious work dealing with the Jesus Prayer entitled Letter to Monks (P.G. lx, 751–6). St Basil of Caesarea and St Diadochos of Photiki are each quoted on some fifteen occasions, and St Mark the Monk (Marcus Eremita) nine times. Three authorities that somewhat unexpectedly are only quoted infrequently are the Apophthegmata or ‘Sayings of the Desert Fathers’ (seven or eight citations), the Macarian Homilies (six citations), and the writings attributed to Dionysios the Areopagite (four citations).

What is more surprising is the almost complete absence of any writers later than St John of Damaskos (eighth century). Ilias the Presbyter, alias ‘the Ekdikos’ (? twelfth century), appears seven times, and there is one quotation each from the Vita of St Paul of Latros (tenth century), from Symeon Metaphrastes (tenth–eleventh century), and from Peter of Damaskos (? eleventh–twelfth century). But there is nothing at all from St Symeon the New Theologian (tenth–eleventh century). The only fourteenth-century text represented in the Exact Method is the treatise On Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart by Nikiphoros the Monk, which is quoted on one occasion, a long passage dealing with the ‘physical technique’, to be used in combination with the Jesus Prayer. St Gregory of Sinai and St Gregory Palamas, however, are never once mentioned by name at any point in the Exact Method. What are we to make of this strange silence, in a treatise generally so full of quotations? The omission of the two Gregories cannot be other than deliberate.

In a broad sense, the Exact Method of the Xanthopouloi is undoubtedly a work conceived and executed in a Palamite spirit. The statements about the divine light of Tabor conform exactly to the teaching of Palamas, and the phrase ‘uncreated grace’ is typically Palamite (§ 50). Yet the Xanthopouloi nowhere allude directly to the Hesychast Controversy of 1337–51, and there is likewise no explicit reference in the Exact Method to the Palamite distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies. It would seem that the Xanthopouloi have intentionally distanced themselves from the impassioned confrontation that dominated the middle years of the fourteenth century in Byzantium. Writing, as they are, a generation after the end of this dispute, in a work that has no polemical purpose but is intended as guidance for a recluse, they prefer to speak in a serene and eirenic spirit, avoiding controversy and partisan invective. That is doubtless the reason why they appeal almost exclusively to ancient rather than to recent authorities. This absence of controversial animus certainly enhances the appeal of the Exact Method to the modern reader.

While relying for the most part on previous writers, Kallistos and Ignatios do not underestimate the importance of living oral tradition and of personal experience. Thus in their analysis of the difference between true and false visions they observe (speaking in the singular, contrary to their usual practice): ‘Since, however, I heard about the matters mentioned above from a living voice, you too will hear about them in the same way at the right time. But now is not the right time’ (§ 63). In particular, according to Symeon of Thessaloniki, when they speak of the vision of divine light, they are referring to something that they had themselves experienced:

This description of the bodily transfiguration of the Xanthopouloi calls to mind the account by Nicolas Motovilov, over four hundred years later, of the transformation by uncreated light experienced by St Seraphim of Sarov as he and Motovilov talked together in the winter forest.

Despite the abundance of quotations, the Exact Method of Kallistos and Ignatios is not merely an anthology, but it presents a distinctive and specific understanding of the spiritual journey. It is noteworthy that the practical teaching about prayer and the daily programme of the hesychast, which occupies the greater part of the Exact Method, is set within a firmly sacramental framework. The Xanthopouloi begin their treatise by speaking about baptism. The fundamental aim of the ascetic and mystical life, they state, is nothing else than the rediscovery and activation of the grace of the Holy Spirit that was conferred upon us initially as a free gift in the sacrament of baptism (§§ 3–7); in our beginning is our end. Then at the conclusion of the Exact Method they speak about the eucharist: the reception of Holy Communion by the hesychast, they insist, should be nothing less than ‘continual’, and by this they evidently mean daily communion (§§ 91–92). In this way, for the Xanthopouloi as for their contemporary St Nicolas Kavasilas, life in Christ signifies precisely life in the sacraments. They are firmly convinced that there can be no genuinely Christian spirituality that is not founded upon the sacramental mysteries.

Along with the sacraments, a central place in the teaching of the Xanthopouloi is occupied by the Jesus Prayer. ‘The beginning of every work acceptable to God’, they affirm, ‘is the invocation with faith of the saving name of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (§ 8). They envisage that this ‘invocation’ will normally take the form ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’. They do not propose the expanded version that was coming into use in the fourteenth century,...