CABASILAS, NILOS. - Greek theologian, a dissident of the 14th century. Born in Thessalonica at the end of the 13th century, of a noble family, and he flourished chiefly under the emperors Cantacuzenus and John V Palaeologus, who were generous to him with favors and dignities, especially when, on account of the persecution of the zealots against the nobles (year 1345), C. settled permanently in Constantinople. At the end of his life he was elected archbishop of Thessalonica, as successor of the famous innovator Gregory Palamas, but two years later (1363) he died without having yet reached his see. In the Synodicon of Thessalonica he is celebrated every year as a saint, on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, and as such he seems also to be recognized by the whole Byzantine Church.
His scholarly work is noteworthy. For he was not only a master of rhetoric (his most devoted pupil is undoubtedly Demetrius Cydones), but also and above all a distinguished theologian, versed in the positive study of the Fathers and in the dialectical reasonings of Aristotelian metaphysics.
In favor of Palamism, in whose ranks he ranged himself from the beginning, he left the legacy of not a few of his works, and he had that famous encounter with its bitter opponent Nicephorus Gregoras (PG 148, 1328-1435), and together with Philotheus Kokkinos he drew up the decisive Synodal Tome of the Palamite Council in 1351, in which the way was opened to the official proclamation of the new doctrine as the only true one of the "orthodox" Church.
But the most singular fact about C. is that he was one of the first Byzantines who knew St. Thomas, thanks to the version of several works of the Saint owed to his disciple Demetrius and to the latter's brother Prochorus Cydones. Not only that, but he was also the first to combat him strenuously, after having once felt all his fascination. C. composed his voluminous treatise - his most prized work - on the Holy Spirit, especially against the Aquinate. The last 15 questions of the last part, furnished with an analytical study and with the Latin version, have recently been sent to press in vol. 116 of Studi e Testi; all the rest still remains unpublished.
C. also wrote other interesting works of a historical and canonical character against the Roman Church, and in defense of Palamism, whose number and doctrinal value have been established in the most recent study on C., indicated below in the bibliography.