Review: The Philokalia: Exploring the Classic Text of Orthodox Spirituality

We are grateful to Fr Deacon Richard Downer, who writes:

The Philokalia: Exploring the Classic Text of Orthodox Spirituality (eds. Brick Bingaman & Bradley Nassif) appears to be a commentary by various theologians (Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant) on particular aspects of the Philokalia. If one goes to Amazon, one can see inside the book and look at its Contents. Hopefully, it will prove to be a useful supplement to the 4 volumes of the Philokalia in English (when will we get vol. 5?), Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart (from the ‘Dobrotolubiye’), etc

In an article on Myriobiblos entitled "The inner unity of the Philokalia and its influence in East and West", Metropolitan Kallistos notes that on the final page of the original edition of the Philokalia published in Venice in 1782 there is an Imprimatur issued by the University of Padua, that reads:

”What kind of a book is the Philokalia? In the original edition of 1782, there is a final page in Italian: this is a licenza, a permission to publish, issued by the Roman Catholic censors at the University of Padua. In this they state that the volume contains nothing 'contrary to the Holy Catholic Faith' (contro la Santa Fede Cattolica), and nothing 'contrary to good principles and practices' (contro principi, e buoni costumi). But, though bearing a Roman Catholic imprimatur, the Philokalia is in fact entirely an Orthodox book. Of the thirty-six different authors whose writings it contains - dating from the fourth to the fifteenth century - all are Greek, apart from one, who wrote in Latin, St John Cassian (d. circa 430) or 'Cassian the Roman' as he is styled in the Philokalia; and this exception is more apparent than real, for Cassian grew up in the Christian East and received his teaching from Evagrios of Pontus, the disciple of the Cappadocian Fathers.”

Moreover, it would appear that Metropolitan Kallistos has incorporated certain aspects of The inner unity of the Philokalia and its influence in East and West into the first chapter entitled ‘St Nikodimos and the Philokalia’ of the above book. In that chapter, as in the article, he draws the reader’s attention to the monastic/Philokalic nature of Byzantine theology, a point that Andrew Louth makes elsewhere (pg 57 of ‘The Reception of Dionysius in the Byzantine World’ in ‘Re-Thinking Dionysius the Areopagite’......................).