PHILOKALIA

PHILOKALIA. Meaning “love of the good” or “of the beautiful,” the term has been given as a title to two collections of Christian writings in the history of Orthodox thought. Around 360 the Cappadocian Fathers (q.v.) compiled a selection from the works of Origen (q.v.) under this title, highlighting in particular the great Alexandrian’s thought on important theological questions, Scriptural exegesis, and the spiritual life. In the 18th c. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain and Paisii Velichkovsky (qq.v.) assembled anthologies, differing slightly in content, of writings on prayer by Byzantine authors from the 4th to 14th c. Much larger than the Cappadocians’ selections from Origen, the second Philokalia runs to five heavy volumes. The Greek version was published in Venice (1782) and Paisii’s Church Slavic translation in Petersburg (1793), and the impact of each one has been enormous. Paisii also oversaw a later translation into Romanian. In the 19th c. and 20th c., the translations were updated. Paisii’s Church Slavic was rendered into Russian by Theophan the Recluse in the mid-19th c. Fr. Dumitru Staniloae (q.v.) has been working on an expanded Philokalia in modern Romanian, accompanied by notes and commentary, since the 1930s. Bishop Kallistos Ware, with the late P. Sherrard (q.v.) and G. Palmer, have put out four of five volumes of St. Nicodemus’s version.