HESYCHASTS(ησυχασταi or ησυχaζοvτcς, also called ομφαλόψυχοι, Umbilicanimi, and sometimes referred to as Euchites, Massalians, or Palamites), a quietistic sect which arose among the monks of the Greek Church, and especially of Mount Athos, during the later period of the Byzantine empire, and owing to various adventitious circumstances came into great prominence politically and ecclesiastically for a few years about the middle of the 14th century. Their opinion and practice will be best represented in the words of one of their early teachers (quoted by Gibbon, Decline and Fall, c. 63) :—“When thou art alone in thy cell shut thy door, and seat thyself in a corner; raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thine eyes and thy thought towards the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel; and search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first all will be dark and comfortless; but if thou persevere day and night, thou wilt feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light.” About the year 1337 this Hesychasm, the affinity of which with certain well-known forms of Oriental mysticism is obvious, attracted the attention of the learned and versatile Barlaam, a Calabrian monk, who at that time held the office of abbot in the Basilian monastery of St Saviour’s in Constantinople, and who had visited the fraternities of Mount Athos on a tour of inspection. Amid much that he disapproved, what he specially took exception to as heretical and blasphemous was the doctrine entertained as to the nature of this divine light, the fruition of which was the supposed reward of Hesychastic contemplation. It ...