Kolo, that is, of course, true. I made a sweeping generalization that should have been qualified with "when taken out of context." If one is to quote their works out of context, as is often done with the Bible, one could easily be fooled into believing that hesychastic fathers indeed taught what some Protestants teach.
Thus, for instance, St. Symeon the New Theologian 1 says that the "only defence against" devil's power to derange our minds "is the ceaseless mindfulness of God", which must be stamped on our hearts "through the power of the cross" which "will render our thought steadfast and unshakable." [p. 203]
Thus, he is unambiguously saying the only way to resist the evil one is by the power of the cross and not on our own free will.
St. Gregory Palamas says that man's "perfection of the divine likeness is accomplished by means of the divine illumination that issues from God." [p. 376]
St. Nikitas Stitathos states that those "who pursue the carnal mode of life, and in whom the will of the flesh is imperious ... are not able to conform to God's will [cf Rom 8:8]...they are totally impervious to the rays of divine light."
The souls' senses of such people are are "maimed" and they "cannot aspire to God's spiritual beauty...and transcend the lowliness of visible things. It is as if they had become beasts conscious only of this world..." [p.108]
1The Philokalia, Vol. Four, Faber and Faber 1995
From these quotes, it can be inferred that man indeed has no free will and annot cooperate with God if his heart must be stamped, if his will must be animated, enabled, charged, etc. by the power of the cross or directly from God. What is missing is the firm belief of the hesychastic fathers that our will is washed free with baptism which exorcises the evil one that would otherwise control us completely.
One can also see how the hesychastic fathers, taken out of context, can be understood to support the filioque. Gregory Palamas, for example, echoes the Latin argument that the Holy Spirit is the longing after (i.e. eroV ) or love experienced by the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father.
Taken out of context of the totality of their teaching, such a misconception is easily formed. Hecyhastic fathers, of course, never taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds and from the Son.
St. Gregory Palamas makes that perfectly clear when he says "The pre-eternal rejoicing of the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit who, as I said, is common to both, which explains why He is sent from both to those who are worthy. Yet the Spirit has His existence from the Father alone, and hence He proceeds as regards His existence only from the Father." [p. 362]
"From these quotes, it can be inferred that man indeed has no free will and annot cooperate with God if his heart must be stamped, if his will must be animated, enabled, charged, etc. by the power of the cross or directly from God. What is missing is the firm belief of the hesychastic fathers that our will is washed free with baptism which exorcises the evil one that would otherwise control us completely."
Precisely!!!!!
"The dispensation of our God and Saviour concerning man is a recall from the fall, and a return from the alienation caused by disobedience to close communion with God. This is the reason for the sojourn of Christ in the flesh, the pattern of life described in the Gospels, the sufferings, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection; so that the man who is being saved through imitation of Christ receives the old adoption. For perfection of life the imitation of Christ is necessary, not only in the example of gentleness, lowliness, and long suffering set us in His life, but also of His actual death. So Paul, the imitator of Christ, says, `being made conformable unto His death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.' How then are we made in the likeness of His death? In that we were buried with Him by baptism." +John Chrysostomos, "On the Holy Spirit"