le of ideas that initiation into the
profound mysteries of the liturgy was regarded, together with the
preservation of dogma, as the most exalted function of theology. A
beginning had been made, in the 5th century, by the neo-platonic
Christian who addressed his contemporaries under the mask of Dionysius
the Areopagite. He is the first of a series of theological mystics which
continued through every century of the middle ages. Maximus Confessor,
the heroic defender of Dyotheletism (d. 662), Symeon, the New Theologian
(d. circa 1040), Nicolaus Cabasilas (d. 1371), and Symeon, like
Nicholas, archbishop of Thessalonica (d. 1429), were the most
conspicuous representatives of this Oriental mysticism. They left all
the dogmas and institutions of the Church untouched; aspiring above and
beyond these, their aim was religious experience.

It is this striving after religious experience that gives to the
Oriental monachism of the middle ages its peculiar character. In the 5th
and 6th centuries Egypt and Palestine had been the classic lands of
monks and monasteries. But when, in consequence of the Arab invasion,
the monasticism of those countries was cut off from intercourse with the
rest of Christendom, it decayed. Constantinople and Mount Athos gained
proportionately in importance during the middle ages. At Constantinople
the monastery of Studium, founded about 460, attained to supreme
influence during the controversy about images. On Mount Athos the first
monastery was founded in the year 963, and in 1045 the number of
monastic foundations had reached 180. In Greek monachism the old
Hellenic ideal of the wise man who has no wants ([Greek: autarkeia]) was
from the first fused with the Christian conception of unreserved
self-surrender to God as the highest aim and the highest good. These
ideas governed it in medieval times also, and in this way monastic life
received a decided bent towards mysticism: the monks strove to realize
the heavenly life even upon earth, their highest aim being the
contemplation of God and of His ways. The teachings of Symeon "the New
Theologian" on these matters lived on in the cloisters; it was taken up
by the Hesychasts of the 14th century, and developed into a peculiar
theory as to the perception of the Divine Light. In spite of all
opposition their teaching was finally justified by the Eastern Church
(sixth synod of Constantinople, 1351). And rightly so, for it was the
old Greek piety minted afresh.