NICEPHORUS GREGORAS. — Called “the Philosopher,” he was born in 1296 at Heraclea Pontica in Bithynia. From a very young age he began to produce writings on theological problems, scientific-mathematical subjects, hagiography, and asceticism. A layman and celibate, he never wished to accept ecclesiastical office or the dignities offered him. Deeply attached to the Palaeologi, he was on familiar terms with them and followed the varying fortunes of their house.
After the flight of Barlaam, N. G. maintained intellectual leadership in Constantinople through his intervention in the question of the reform of the calendar (which came to nothing thanks to Andronicus II) and in that of the Union of the Churches, always taking a stand against Rome, whose primacy and authority in matters of faith he never acknowledged. His greatest fame, however, rests on his tenacious and learned opposition to Palamism, in the public disputes of which he always carried the day from 1347 to 1351 over the innovator Palamas himself, until the publication of the Tome of anathema against him and his partisans by the Emperor Cantacuzenus. Exiled to his own home, he continued the struggle through his writings until his death at the beginning of 1360.
Of his very numerous works (not a few still unpublished), the Byzantine History and his Correspondence are valuable for appreciating the turbulent state of his age. Yet one must not look in N.’s works for a defined doctrinal system: to refute Palamas it sufficed him to entrench himself in the traditional theology of the simplicity of God.