But, while Rodotà was writing his book, the "strepito forense" had not yet died out. The Vicar General of the diocese was writing books against the Protopapa.[1]
Near Reggio, at Oppido, the Byzantine rite remained till the fifteenth century. Then the bishop, Jerome di Napoli, an Augustinian friar (1449-1472), introduced that of Rome.[2] After his death Sixtus IV (1471-1482) united the Sees of Oppido and Gerace.
Gerace had the Byzantine rite till the fifteenth century. Here the bishops, too, were of this rite (p. 98). The most famous Bishop of Gerace was Barlaam, the anti-Hesychast. He was a Greek of Calabria. He came to Constantinople in the early fourteenth century, in the reign of Andronikos III (1328-1341); and there, having turned Orthodox, wrote books against the Catholics. Andronikos sent him on an embassy to the Pope at Avignon (Benedict XII, 1334-1342), to try to arrange reunion. Nothing came of this; but already he had distinguished himself as an opponent of the Hesychast movement,[3] then just beginning. As the Orthodox Church accepted Hesychasm, Barlaam was condemned by it in a synod in 1341. Then he came back to Italy, returned to the Catholic Church, and was made Bishop of Gerace. Barlaam had some reputation as a Greek scholar. He taught Greek to Boccaccio, Petrarca, Paolo Perugino. Boccaccio thought much of his learning.[4] Leo Allatius refutes his anti-
- ↑ In 1730 and 1735 (Rodotà, i, 407).
- ↑ Rodotà, i, 413-415; Ughelli, "Italia sacra," ix, 417-421.
- ↑ Hesychasm (ἡσυχαμός), is a very curious system of mysticism, half pantheist, which tore the Orthodox Church by controversy in the fourteenth century, till it was finally recognized, in the sixth Hesychast synod, in 1351. Its founder was Gregory Palamas, first monk at Athos, then Metropolitan of Thessalonica († c. 1360); Barlaam was its chief opponent. The theory is, first, that by following an elaborate system of ascetic training a man may see a mystic light, which is the light that appeared at our Lord's Transfiguration, and is none other than the uncreated light of God. Secondly, this light, and all divine operation (ἐνέργεια), although divine and uncreated, is really distinct from the divine essence (οὐσία). Quietist contemplation of this "Light of Tabor" is the highest and best occupation for man; by it he becomes absorbed in God. See Hesychasm in the "Cath. Encyclopædia."
- ↑ "Barlaam, a monk of Basil of Cæsarea, a Calabrian, small in body but very great in knowledge, so learned in Greek that he has testimonies from Greek emperors and princes and doctors. There has not been in our time, nor for many centuries past, any Greek filled with such famous or such great knowledge." Boccaccio, "Genealogiæ deorum," lib. xv, cap. 6 (ed. Paris 1511, fol. cxii, b.).
