strictly an anthropological one.”4 For this reason we cannot speak of the ontology of the passions, but only of their phenomenology. All the Church Fathers share the view that the proper order has been perverted and deformed by the desire of the senses (i. e., passions).5 The Fall plunges man into the depths of the passions and sin, thus cutting him off from divine communion. The more the passions dominate man, the more he separates himself from God. The teaching of St. Gregory Palamas is in line