MESSALIANISM

MESSALIANISM. The word comes from the Syriac word for prayer (q.v.); the mesalanye thus are “those who pray.” In Greek the same people were known as “euchites” (euche, prayer). The origins, exact teachings, and individuals who made up this ascetic movement in the late 4th c. and early 5th c. remain matters of scholarly debate. In extreme form, Messalianism appears to have been Syrian in origin and ascetic in orientation, so much the latter that the normal institutions of the church-especially the hierarchy and sacraments (q.v.)-were disdained.

The Macarian Homilies (q.v.) have often been linked with the Messalians. In fact, true Messalian extremists appear to have been rare, and “Macarius” was more anti-Messalian than anything else. The most recent studies indicate that what many Greek bishops of the 4th c. and 5th c. labeled as “heretical” were motifs and idioms native and long traditional to Syriac-speaking Christianity. While it is doubtless true that the Macarian Homilies were for a time caught in the crossfire of this miscommunication, it is also the case that they were quickly and enthusiastically received in ascetic circles in the Greek East and ultimately in the Latin West. No less than Joh n Wesley was one of their devotees. We would add that, if “Macarius” was Messalian, then so were Symeon the New Theologian, Gregory Palamas (qq.v.), and indeed most of the great saints and writers in the continuum of Orthodox spirituality (q.v.).