The testimony of the Philokalia and the new spiritualities

This article by Daniel Vigne, drawn from a lecture given at the Institut catholique de Toulouse in 1997, examines the relevance of the *Philokalia* — an anthology of Byzantine spirituality from the fourth to the fifteenth century, translated in its entirety into French in 1995 — in light of the questions raised by "new spiritualities" and the New Age movement. Adopting a comparative and pastoral approach, the author analyses the points of convergence and divergence between the hesychast tradition and contemporary spiritual seekings along three axes: the relationship with oneself, the relationship with God, and the relationship with others. The article shows that the *Philokalia* offers original theological resources — *penthos*, the prayer of the heart, Palamas's theology of divine energies, the dignity of the body — capable of illuminating and discerning current spiritual quests, while affirming the irreducibly distinctive character of Christian experience in the face of contemporary gnosticisms.