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and
Margaret who is working on the Fathers
Preface
The following study makes no claim to originality. It is essen tially
asynthesis ofthe European scholarshipwhich has accumulated
around the figure of Maxirnus the Confessor in the course of
the last twenty-five years. Both Orthodox and Catholic theology,
in Con tinen tal Europe, make ever greater use of the insigh ts of
this early Byzantine theologian. He is increasingly regarded as
the giant of the Greek tradition, to be compared, as the author
of its classical statement, only with Thomas Aquinas in the
Latin West. Although one outstanding student of Maximus,
Lars Thunberg, is Swedish, his work was published in English,
thanks to the good offices of Canon A. M. Allchin, now Warden
of St Theosevia I-Iouse, Oxford. Otherwise, all the major
monographs are in languages other than English - though
the first large-scale American study appeared from the Notre
Dame University Press in 1991.i\1y aim has been to provide the
English-speaking reader with a reliable guide to a selection of
these 'major monographs', chosen - and commented onin such a way that they provide a cornprehensive overview of
Maximus' theology: a 'Byzantine Gospel'. At the same time,
sufficient primary texts have been included to give the reader
a sense of Maximus' powers both as a summariser of the
previous tradition, and as an original theologian in his own
right. In both capacities he deserves to be remembered, and
better known.
Blackfriars
Cambridge
Contents
.Preface
1.
IX
on Maximus'
24
64
4.
Mariology
111
5.
120
158
196
6.
Conclusion'
216
221
Bibliography
253
Index of Names
261
1]. M. Hussey. The Orthodox Church in the B)'7.tlJ1ti ne Empire (Oxford 1986), p. 9.
2Ibid" p. 10.
Byzantine Gospel
Byzantine Gospel
Byzantine Gospel
at
"The whole story has never been better told than by \Ai. H. C. Frend in his The
Rise oj tilt' 1\1ollo-ph)'sitf Movement (Cambridge 1972).
Byzantine Gospel
such activity.
Background, I-Jije,
\tVor}~
1'01Sophronius and his leaching, see C. von Schouborn. Sophrone df.lh11sa Inn.
Vie monastique et Confession dogmatiqu (Paris 1972).
I:'F.X. ~1 urphy, C. Ss. R.. -- P. Sherwood. O.S. B.. Con-sum tinople II rt Cot/stu11ti noplr
/11, op. cit., pp. 151-152.
10
Byzantine Gospel
11
"Ibid.. 5408; see P. Caltier, 'La premiere lcttre du pape Honorius', Grl'gorianulll
29 (1948), pp. 42-61. and G. Kreuzer. Dif Homniusjrage im A1iutdallr.,. urul in der
Neuzeit (Stuttgart 1975), pp. 17-57, for studies.
~oF. X. Murphy C. Ss. R. - P. Sherwood, ().S. B.. Constanti nople II el Constanti nO/J!tJ
Ill. op. CiL. pp. 161-162.
:!'Manxi XI, 993E996C.
12
Byzaruine Gospel
adhesion to it, making play, not least, with the name of pope
Honorius.
Honorius was already dead. His short-lived successor,
Severinus, despatched his apocrisaries to Constantinople but
they felt unable to give any assurance about the pope's possible
support for the Ekthesis, news of which they brought back with
them to the West. Pope john IV,a curial official consecrated in
December 640, had, by the tirne of Heraclius' death in February
641, condernned the Ekthesis syuodically and written to the
new elnperor, Co nstan tine IIl~ at once COIn plaining ofPyrrhus'
letter on the 'Exposition', gi\!ing an orthodox interpretation of
Horiorius' notorious slip) and asking the eInperor t.owithdraw
all copies of the offending edict. Constantine was probably
orthodox)" arid docile, but his death in May and the ensuring
dynastic struggle preven ted any coherent imperial action un til
the accession of Heraclius' grandson, Constans II, in Septem bert
Meanwhile Pyrrhus defended Monoenergism zealously, but
"Constans replaced him with the patriarch Paul, while at Rome
John IV himself died, and was succeeded by a Palestinian
Greek, pope Theodore.In 645 or 646) as we shall see in the next
section, Maxirnus arrived in Rome, bringing with him the
13
:" One n1ay say that, in a sense, the distinctive rnark of the
,'council of the Lateran was to efface itself behind the Sixth
:HF. X. Murphy.C. Ss.lt --Po Sherwood, a.S.B., Constantinople /I etConstantinople
'/II, op. cit., pp. 178-179.
. ~::J. M. Sansterre, Les moines grtC.5 et orientaux (l Rome (lUX ipooues lramnine et
carolingienne; milieu du VIe. siecle -./in du IXf.sierle'(Bruss(~ls 1983).
:!t.if.. Casper. 'Die Latcransynode von 649'. Zeitsclin]t [iir Kirclieugeschichte 51
(1932). p. 123.
~7F. X. Murphy, C. Ss.'R. ~ P. Sherwood, C).S.B. ConstantinopleII etConstantinople
JII. op. cit., p. 182.
J
14
Byzantine Gospel
~Klbid.,
:'~l
p. 181.
15
Life
For information about the life of Maximus we are mainly
dependent on successive versions of the official Vita. 31
However, an important addition to our materials is furnished
by the Syriac Life, published in 1973, which appears to be
contemporary with the saint's own life and death." Its
anonynl0us Monothelite author, hostile to Maximus, presents
a quite discrepant account of his early upbringing from that
of the Greek hagiographical tradition. While admitting that
the question is by no means a closed one, in what follows the
early portions of the Syriac Vita will be .igriored, and their
picture of a Palestinian (indeed, half-Persian) Maximus,
trained in the Origenistic-t.ending monasteries ofJudaea, will
be passed over in favour of its main rival, which locates his
~ origins and education in the capital, and in humanist circles
"-at that.
On this version: Maximus was born, in c. 580, to a
Constantinopolitan family. From the extent of his familiarity
not only with Scripture and such Christian theologians as
Origen and the Cappadocians but also with philosophical
writers, and notably Aristotle, Plato, Iarnblichus and Proclus,
he would appear to have enjoyed the kind of broad humanist
education for which. the great city was renowned. While still
relatively young, he became . ' protosecretary' at the court of the
eluperor Heraclius, who began to reign in 610 - though the
date and significance of Maximus' appointment are still
16
Byzantine Gospel
:n\.\, , Lac kn cr. 'DcI' Am ts t i rcl Maxi m o s des Bckcuncrs", [ahrlnirli drr
Oesirnrichischrn Bvzantinistik 20 (197'1), pp. ()cl-GS.
:\4111 his Ar(a, his signature to the Lateran council and his inscription to most of
his works, he appears as simply "mou k': V. Crumel, 'NOleS d'hisloire ct de
chronologie sur l.i vic de Saint Maxirne le Coufesscur'. Eclios d'Orient 2G (1927), p.
~V2.
17
"T'. Sherwood, An Annotated Dale-List (1- the \Vorks of Maximus the Confessor. op.
cit., pr. 49-~)2.
. '!IV. Croce, Tradizioneericerca. ll metodo teologicodisan jHasJimoilC()nji:\Sore(~'1il(l11
1974), p. 11.
-l'.![)isputatio cum Pinho (PC 91. 287A-354B).
18
Byzantine Gospel
19
20
Byzantine Gospel
These Christologicalcomrnitrnents and debates imply a
concept of the relationship between God and man, a
theology of 'participation" which would, through the
creative synthesis of Maximus the Confessor, serve as a
framework for t.he en tire developmen tofByzan tine Christian
thought until the fall of Constantinople to the Turks."
Work
Maximus' literary acuvuy app"ears to have begun with his
t.ransfer to Cyzicus in 624-5. From this period there dales
Epistle 1, addressed to the chamberlain John, a letter which
has been described as a 'magnificent hymn to charity' /)'2 as well
as the predominantly ascetic discussions in Epistles 2,3 and 4.
But, above all, Maximus is beginriing work on his first major
treatise, entitled 'On Various Difficult Passages in the I-Ioly
Fathers Denys and Gregory', which will pass into history under
the name of the Liber Ambiguum-s- the 'Book ofAmbiguities'v'"
As the Ambigua (to give it its shorter title) testifies, the problem
pre-occupying Maxim us in this period is not yet Monotheli tism
bu t rather Origenism, especially as found in a quasi-popularised
forrn through the activities of Evagrius of Pontus, not least in
rnonastic circles. Indeed, Maxim us is capable of using at this
date turns of phrase which, in the later polemic against
Monothelitisrn, he would take care to render more precise."
Maxirnus' principal aim was to confute the Origenist notion of
the henas ton logikim, or aboriginal unity of all minds, in which
he divined the root fault of the Origenist system. Since, "in the
wake of the Fifth Ecumenical Councilj ustiniaus Council of
Constantinople of 553, Origens name was not officially to be
:I1J. Meveudorff,
B),zan-tilli!
York 19i~)~), p. S.
:,:.'V. Croce. Tuulizione e rurrca. II mrtodo t(J%gic() di san Massimo ii Conjessorr, op.
cit., P: 8. The 'gra:nd ch'amberlain ' was the senior official in the direct service of the
21
Eriugennelatinam interpietruionem (=
19HH).
;}liPG
COljm.~ Clrnstumonun,
so, 912-9[)ll.
22
Byzantine Gospel
90,1393-1400.
ti:\Ibid.t 785-856;.J. H. Dcclcrk (ed.) , Maximi Confessoris Qua('.~tioneJ et dubia (=
em/JUS Christianorum, Snit's Graeca. 10. Turuhout 1982).
b.JCf. G. Bard)', 'La liucraturc pairistique des 'Quaestiones ct rcspousioncs' sur
l'Ecriture sainte', Rruue Ribliqlle41 (1933), pr. 205-212; 332-3~39.
ti:lpG 91,657-717: C. C. Sotiropoulos, fIe A"lystag6gia tou hagiou Maximou tou
Homologitou: eisagogf - keimenon - kritikon hJpomnihna (Athens 1978). For the
difficult problem of the authorship of the fragmentary Scholia on the Dionysian
corpus. ascribed to Maxirnus, see ~L L. Galli, Massimo il Conjessorr..){[ggio di
hibliogr(~/ia generate ragionuta e (on/rib/IIi per una riconstruzione scicntijica del .\110
pensirro metafisico e religioso (Milan 1987). pp. 83-86.
23
production."
Maximus' Roman activities, initiated in 646, reached their
culmination in the Lateran synod of649. The formulations of
that synod, which have passed into the magisterial doctrine of
Catholicism, reflect his theological thinking.?? The synod's
anathematisations of Monothelitism and Monoeriergisrn
provoked Maximus' arrest by the imperial authorities, his two
trials and penal exile, all of which succeeded in bringing to an
end his theological writing, though the records of his trials,
especially the first, described in the Relaiio motionis inter Maximurn
et principes, as well as the debate held at Bizia with the court
bishop Theodosius, preserved as the Dispuiatio byzica in his
Acta, are also important sources for his doctrine. It is to the
content of MaxilTIUS' theological vision, and first of all to his
understanding of the foundations of Christian theology, that
we 111uSt now turn.
lihPG 91, 92R6; for the Opuscula; Migne reproduces Combclis collection of
forty-five letters at PC 9 1. 364-649; they are analysed in 1\1. L. Gatti, Massimo if
Confessore. op. cit., pp. 48-60. She also notes four other authentic letters, ibid., pp.
()O-G~1.
PC
'2;\.
4~l,
1R!")A.
Crlllmeier , Christ
III
25
proposes to':
:~J. Van nest c, 1.1' niyslhl' lit' Diru. Essai .\11,./0 vt ru c! II n: raiionrllr til' ln dortnnr lJI.r,>Ii(/IIf'
tlu F5. f)CIJY.\ I' ArPbjmgi((' (Louvaiu 1~F)q) .
.ISceA. Nich o ls. O.P., 'l'1/f'.)/Ifl/)IJ(~/C({(h(j/i,. Thl'u/(I,!!.)'. :\/1 !/I trodu ction In its S(/III'(I'S,
/-),.iJiojJltJs and 11i.~/(H)' (Edinburgh I~)~)l). pp. ~7l-277.
J)(//{,I.i.\( ".
op. rit., p.
~~).
26
Byzantine Gospel
demonstrate with natural arguments, without biblical or
patristic testimonies, that the soul isan incorporeal creature."
iPC 91,425:\.
(PC ~)} 43~CD). There Illay be .m indebtedness of Maximus here to
Ncmcsius ofEmesas Dr natura homil/is2 (PC to, 536B-5R9D, and especially 5R9B).
~Ibid.
:~44A).
27
II
I~Ambigll(l.
28
. \,Vhat. of Max irnus' method in his sjJirilua{\vritings ,,'here-. gi\'en the subject matter - these approaches characteristic of
~ dogmatic theology are scarcely serviceable? Though there can
. be no question ofa con tracliction between properly theological
effort and works of an ascetical or mystical kind, the 'dynamic'
'of the ascetical and mystical treatises belongs with a 'scheme of
sp ir i tu al progress' Ia mi liar fro 111 the literature of early
'lnonast icism."
And here t h rcc st.ages can be ide n tificd. [VIall's firsttask must
be the overcoming of his disordered passions, not abolishing
the rn so rn U c has dis c i P 1i 11i n g the In, S II bj e c till g the
29
IHO-l~}~>.
Byzantine Gospel
30
~)O, ()~OC).
31
'lIte v\loTd
of(Joel
32
33
.:00
For this
God carne as incarnate - to fulfil spiritually
the law, emptying out the letter, to stabilise and manifest
the life-giving pcnver of the 1<.1\-\') e limi nati ng Irorn it the
po\\'er oldeath. Now that wh ich, according 10 the apostle.
has the pcnver of death in the law is the letter, just as, on
the other hand, what has intrinsic life-g"i\'ing po\ver in the
law is the spirit. For he says: "The writteu code kills, but the
spirit gives life.' Clearly then they have chosen the part
opposed to Christ and have neglected the whole 111)'stcry
of his .1 n earnation, not 0 n Iy b u ryi 11 g i 11 th e 1e t tc r the i r
capacity for understanding, and not wish iug to be in
Cocl's irnage and likeness, but, more th..a n that) \vishing to
be earth, according to the decree of co ndcmuatiou, and
to return to the earth t.hro"tlgh their relation with the
letter as with the earth .... They do grievous harm, since
they offer many occasions for confirrning the incredulity
of the Je\vs. But we let them be as they will and return to
ourselves and to the Scripture, beginning our spiritual
research with the interpretation of the names in the text
proposed."
Maximus' idea of the "spiritual' contemplation of t.he Bible
belongs, however. to the wider con text.
his clocui IH~. In
or
'!
'Lbid. r)() (PC 90. ,1(,!jl)-,I(lHC): lhe in l('rll~\1 t'ilat ion oll'uul is from II COJ"il1l11 i;lIlS
:1. fl.
34
35
thanks to its assistance, one gathers the spirit, (to pneuma) , the
meaning (to shnainomen, he dianoiai . what is intended by God
(la
noethenta, ho logos) .
36
'!"()11
Tlialass! II til
:)~)
this, sec R, C~()gkr. Ill,. 'J },('()/ogir dl'.\ bibtisrhrn \ \'orin h{'i ()'igfl/('S (I )\'1sse lrlr H{
I ~)():-) ) ,
:111(;([/)i((I
.\/({IIIU[f'/(/li, jiO,!.!,llIfJlI([
'\1\'.
(CCS 11.
1. p, 1~), 1 1)",
:\".:P(;~)(),
<:1'.
?J 7
i!
Byzaniine Gospel
38
as insufficient."
i~IIbid.,
52 (PC 90,
4~)7A).
'1'..\7.
39
habit."
But if Maxirnus underlines, in these ways, the varied
comprehension that Scripture makes possible, he does not
hesitate to draw out fro 111 his basic interpretative principles the
equally necessary truth of the unity ofScripture, and, especially,
its lack of all internal discordance.
The word of Gad is, as an entire whole, neither poly logos
nor polylogia but one single reality, formed out of n1any
considerations (tcoremata), each of which is a part of the
word."?
This is not so on the level of the letter, but on that of the spirit.
Where difficulties of internal coherence raised by the biblical
HQuaestiones ad Thalassnnn 65 (PC 90. 737A).
ilAmbigua 10 (PC 91, 1128D, 112HD).
o':IQu(wstiones ad Thalasiuin 48 (PC 90, -1:33B) .
."Ibid .. 47 (PC 90, 429B) .
.Iii
cr. Origcn,
Coinmcntarium injoannrm
40
text are concerned:
divine ariel spi ri ural good thi ngs of the Gospel. The
Gospel in its turn made man ifest to us the tru th i tse If
through words, that. truth adumbrated in the law, prefigured in the prophets."
But since the Gospel truth is invested in words, which belong
to the sensuous world, Maxirnus can also say that 'the law has
1. he shad O\V 0 the Cos pe 1", a 11d the Cospel is th c i In age [0111 Y1
(P(~ :.~(),
53:\).
41
Here the triad 'shadow, ilnagc, uut.h ' covers the entire span of,
the econon1Y of salvation .;1:\ So r11 uch so is main tai ncrl by
Maximus himself in virtually those vcry worrls:
1~'11n~124!)A),
Ej)/'stol"([(' ~!').
42
Byzantine CosjJel
43
Church, Scripture,
5~1.
Byzanti ne Gospel
44
Ambigua 37 (PC
"Tbid .. 1296D.
(>I
h:\~1.
Cauevet,
~)l,
1~9:)AB).
45
46
Bvzantine Gospel
the universal relationship and union of all things with the
Church. It is through' her that absolutely no one at all is
in himself separated from the community since everyone
converges with all the rest andjoins together with them by
the one simple and indivisible grace and po\ver of Iaith.F'
'13:~C-n):
Ihic.
:)~
47
Lord himself freely saved her by his O\VI1 life-giving blood, and
brought her into existence by his Passion, she can be herself
the mediatrix of salvation. As Maximus writes in the f\,lystagogy:
We do not therefore abandon the holy Church of God,
who possesses such mysteries for our salvation in the
sacred ordering of the celebration of the divine symbols,
By means of them she, in an au tstanding way, creates each
of us according to Christ, forming us as is appropriate,
manifesting the grace ofsons hip through holy Baptism in
the Holy Spirit. .. ti1:\
1"'he Christian is then always teknon: a child born of the Church.?"
though Maxim us does not, as \ve migh t expect, go on to call the
Church our 'Mother"."
Byzantine Gospel
48
49
iI,
l~j)iSll/~
XliI
bid.,
13 (PC 91 r
l~)
(PC,
~,1,
:)3~l~).
549A).
K:!Ibid.,-p. B2.
Byzantine Gospel
50
~~o.
I\-t
~:'IFor
51
declarations."
52
13yzantine Gospel
Pietro 11e1 [mmo milleiuo. Rirrrclie e tcstimonuin:r. A/ti ilt! S)'1Ilf)osium storico-trologiro.
noma, 9-13 Ottobr I 98() (Varicau City 1~)91), pp. 3()~-4g 1.
u \, . Croce, Trtuliuonr e iirrrca. up. cit., p. 107,
t
53
'l5tvlaxillHls echoes here the position 01" Crq;ory Nazianzcu. who regarded the
doctrine of the Spirit's divin itv as earlier "indic.ucd. but later proclaimed, when
the Nice ne confession of the Godhead of' the Son made this appropriate:
Thf%Ki(al Ora/ions V. ~5 (PC ::H), 1611f.).
IlliO/luscH/a tlw(}logira ct polemitu 20 (PC ~)l, ~~8B-~'E). 215D).
54
Byzantine Gospel
p. 2~G.
55
the apostolic see, which from the ... Word Incarnate and
from all the holy-Councils, according to the sacred canons
and definitions, receives and holds, in all, for all and
above all the holy churches of Cod throughout the world,
the command, the authority and the po\ver to bind and
loose."
Here Maxirnus goes far beyond the idea of an appellate
jurisdiction lodged in the Roman see to the notion that the
local ch urch of Rome carries the persona of the whole Church
- a theme which Croce conlpares, illuminatingly, to Maxirnus'
willingness, already touched on, to regard t.he voice of a
Council as the voice of the Church likewise."
Two years later MaxilTIUS turned to the question of other
doctrinal differences between West and East, and notably the
Filioquel'" Since the doctrinal content ofl;is comments on that
much-debated theme will be described in the next chapterwhen we shall be examining Maxirnus' Triadology and
Christologywith the aid of the BelgianJesuit, Pierre Piret, it will
suffice to not.e here the implications of his remarks for his view
of the Western church and especially of Rome. In line with his
primary concern for the unitary quality of the faith, in East and
West alike, he defends the acceptability of the Latin accoun t of
the Spirit's procession, while maintaining that the Greek is the
more precise. Croce C01l11nen ts on how this letter reveals a
~IM()jJUSClila
~1!V.
Byzantine Gospel
56
11I1\,.
11I'.![)is/JIl!{/!io rum
57
105
58
Byzantine Gospel
59
IIOIbid., p. 136.
III Capita theologica et economira II. 41 (PC ~)O. 1144 f\).
II~V. Croce, Trtulizione e ricnca. op. cit., p. 1:37.
11:1Q.lIllt'StioJlfS ad Thalassiuin Ii 1 (PC 90, 476CD).
'14Alllbiguu 10 (PC
11H~)C).
-n.
60
Byzantine Guspel
Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature,
namely, his eternal pc)\\,er and deity, has been clearly
perceived in the things that have been made (Romans 1,20)
11~'R()ln~H1S
61
11'tl.()jJu.S(ltla
I~:llbid.,
62
Byzantine Gospel
':!:~Ibid.,
p. 16:t
''.!-Ilbid., pp. 164-165: for example, the ascription of the trinitarian activit)' and
will to the divine nature cannot be contradicted by a subsequent (Monoencrgist
and Moriothclite ) allotment of Christ's activit)' and will to his person.
I:!"'lhid., p. 167.
63
!'.!fIA mbib"'u a 5 (PG91, 105?>B); cf. ~L Wallace, 'Affirmation and Negation in the
Theology of St Maxirnus the Confessor' (Thesis, Pontifical Athenaeum or St.
Anselm, Rome 1960).
'1'0
C'hrisl()lop~):
in Maximus' Though!
GS
Son and the creation of the cosmos as both due to the will .
of the Father.'
It \\1(1S Arius' implacable entre, Athanasius the Great, who
found in the homoousion Cof-oue-being ') clause of the Nicene
synod the key to the consubstantial relations within the Trinity
of Father, Son and Spirit, and so to the consubstantiality of the
Holv Trinity as a whole. God is Trini ty in Uni ty, Unity in Trinity.
Moreover, Athanasius pressed in to prominence th e idea of the
fully inter-penetrating, or co-indwe lling, quality of Father, Son
and Spirit. - eventually to achieve celebrity as the doctrine of
divine co-inherence (jJerichoresis). 1\5 a result, the concept of
ousia. being, was transformed: henceforth, ousia would refer
f,l(?t simply to that which is, but to what it is is in terms of its own
in ternal reali ty. Similarly, liyjJostasis (I person') will now inc1icate
being not just in its independent subsistence, but also in its
objective otherness as well,
.....
The Cappadocian Fathers, in the course-of their defence of
the Nicene faith, placed more stress on the distinguishing
properties of the three divine hypostases - this was especially
true of Basil of Caesarea. The latter's attempt to preserve the
-r. F. Torrance,
66
Byzantine Gospel
these mysteries -
67
God, and see his activity as taking place at once 'through the
Spirit' and 'through the flesh', directed simultaneously as it is
'to the Father' and 'to human beings'."
The LordJesus, by his own flesh, 'manifests' to men the
Father whom they do not know. The unique, self-iden tical
LordJesus 'leads' to the Father, by the Spirit, the men he
has 'reconciled' in himself In his affirmation of the
mediator between the Father and human beings, Maximus
indicates the relation between the Incarnation and the
paschal mystery,"
The San,Jesus, can show, in himself, the Father and the Holy
Spirit, for they are essentially and perfectly immanent in him
according to t.heir Godhead, simply C0111H1011 to them as this is.
Because Father and Holy Spirit are wholly in the Son, they are
equally present with him in the Incarnation which he, the
Word, brings about. The Father projects his loving design onto
the Son, and the Spirit cooperates wi th the Son in its realisation.
Thus the one God presides, through his philan thropy, over the
Incarnation as a whole. As the living Word of God, the Son is
only known and attained, in what he immutably is, by the
Father and the Spirit. Only Father and Spirit know his
Incarnation in terms of the being of the hypostasis of the Son.
And so, in his flesh, the Son rnakes manifest the 'Theology'
which remains invisible to men: the Father with the Spirit in
the Son, the one God. The hypostasis of the Son, in other
words, is cornmunion with the Father and the Spirit."
5PG 90, 872D-909A; the importance of this text had already been pointed out
by I.-H. Dalrnais, 'Un Traite de thcologic contemplative: le cornrncruaire du Pater
noster par saint Maxime le Confcsseur ', Revue d 'ascetique rt de mvstiqu 29 (1953) ~
pp. 123-159.
lip, Piret, Le CJU1st et fa triniti selon Maxim le Confesseur (Paris 1983), P: 60.
ilbid .. P: 61. Cf. the reasons given hy Karl Barth for accepting Aquinas' doctrine
of appropriation: [or Barth. 'While only the Son beeline a man, the fact that the
Father and Spirit are also subjects ofreconciliation and redemption means that we
do not grasp the deity of the Logos in abstraction Irorn thc Father and Spirit; this
excludes both abstract independent Logos-Incarnation speculation and Jesus
worship and allY IAJgoJ asarkos which would imply a God behind the God art u all
revealed in Christ', Thus P. D. Molnar, 'The Function of the Immanent Trinity in
68
13yzanLine Gospel
(~/Th('()lo\L,l)' 4~
69
892C-H9~A.
70
Byzantine Gospel
Pircr. Le Christ et la Trinite srlon Maxime le Confcssrur, op. cit, pro 70-71.
':\J)isroll rse 29, 2 (PC :~6, 76B).
1111 A.mhigua 2~ (PC 91, 1257C-I~61A).
"For dating, sec P. Sherwood, An Annotated Date-list vf the \l'ork..\' ojMaximus the
Confessor (Rome 1952), pro :H-3~. :)~L
I:!P.
71
72
Bvzantine Gospel
p.
19~.
The trinitarian rhyt hm, beginning ill t lu: unfathomable abyss of the Father.
passes through the Word and has completion ill the Spirit; then returns Irnm
the Spirit through the SOil to the abyss of the Father. \\'c arc seized b)' tlu- last
Person who is, so to say, on the 'border ofthe Trinity. He leads and configures
us to Christ. who in his turn leads us into the abyss of the Father.
Ibid., p. 1fi5. Cr..J. Mouchanin , 'Thcologic ct mystique du Saint-Esprit', IJi(J/l
Vivant G (195:1), pp. 72ff.
~IlCongre~ation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Leuer to the nis!LojJs oftt, Catholic
73
or hill}
who is
Byzantine C;osjJel
74
1G (PC
~G,
95D-96B).
75
~'P. Pirct, Le Christet fa Trinite selon Maxime le Confesseur, op. CiL, p. 94.
'.!HZechariah 4,2-3, in Quaestiones ad Thalassium 6:, (PC 90, 665:\-688B).
~'9p. Piret, Le Christ et [a Trinite seton Maxune te Confesseur, op. CiL, p. 97.
~QuaesLiones ad Thalassium 63 (PC 90. 672C).
Byzantine Gospel
76
Opusrula tlieologica l't polemicu I0 (PC 91. 1~H)AB); P. Pin~t, Le Christ ei la TrinillJ
srlon Maxime le CO"1~/i~S.H~l1", op. cit., pp. 9~)-1 02.
:\:J -M. Garrigues. I. 'Esprit1'1.11 dit 'Pire (Paris 19l)1); sec also for a sll1l11naryolthc
argll1nent A. Nichols, C).P., Rome and the Eustrrn CIIllU:hfS. A Stiul in Schism
(Edinburgh 1991), pp. 22.:1-227.
3\
77
:np. Pirct. Le Christ et la Trirute Sl'!01l Maxim h' COIlP~.5Jf!ll1~ op. cit., p. 105.
:~"T Lebon, I.e nWl1OjJhysi.\1I1fSI.;'vh-iI'JI (Louvain 19(9). pp. 242-283.
78
Byzantine Gospel
Pierre Piret
79
the divine ousia of Christ is the trini tarian ousia. The ex-stasis'
": of one of the Trini ty towards the divine hornoousia' is his own
; divine ousia itself. By the same token, his 'ex-stasis' towards
human ousia is that of the divine ousia while the union of his
assumed human ousia with himself is the 'ex-stasis' of human
ousia towards the ousiaofGod. Moreover, since the individuality
of human ousia is at one and the same time the union and the
differentiation of species and hypostasis, Piret rejects likewise
Lossky's proposal that there is a tension between the human
jH((SOn in his or heropenness and a human nature composed of
""individualsclosed in on themselves. Lossky, to Pirets eyes, risks
confounding the individuality of Christ's human ousia in the
hypostasis of One of the Trinity. It is better to say, then, that:
I
80
Byzantine Gospel
human hypostases, and becomes the human ousia of that.
divine hypostasis itself."
One of the Trinity is his own union with the divine ousia,
which is the union of the trinitarian hypostases in the
difference of their hypostatic properties. I-Ie is his own
union with human ousia which is itself the union and
difference, according to their nature and individuality, of
human hypostases The divine ousia and the human are
I" not united naturally; their nature is their own self-identity.
: But t.heir identity with the unique t.rinitarian hypostasis is
': t.heir union, hypostatically.41
As Maximus himself expresses this - a good deal rnore pi t.hily!
- in l.. etter 15: 'I-Io1l10-o11sia is hetero hypostasia', The divine
homoousion,
the being common to the hypostases in their
communion, is the direct and immediate expression of those
Persons in their otherness."
Pire t's reflections on this dialectic of identity and difference
in the holy Trinity undoubtedly owe something to a fascination
with this topic in nineteenth and twentieth century European
philosophy, seen rnost clearly, perhaps, in I-Iegel's thoughts on
the matter in the section of his l/\!issenschaji dcrLogik tievciec) to
'essence' as a 'reflection t of being. u Yet they also illuminate
Maxiruus' own less systematic concern with the same interrelation as revelation discloses it in t.he t.riune Cod.
as
lOlhid., p. 1:\1.).
-1IIbid.. p. 138.
-I'.!.l::pislle 15 (PC 91. 54~)B) .
F. 'vV. Hegel, \VissolSr.Ju~f{ der l.ogih I I. 1. ii, == Siinutidu. \Vrrke IX (Leipzig
1970). pp. 26-62; for all account
the varieties, and importance 01" this theme,
From Hegel to.J. Deriida and E. Levin.is. and an original resolution of the issues
it raises. see \V. Desmond, Desire, Dialectic arul Otherness:An l~ss(lJ on Origins (New
Haven 1~)87).
.-1:\(;.
or
81
82
Byzantine Gospei
83
4iSec on t.his]. Danielou, The Thl'ology a/Jewish Christianity (Et London 1964).
4~John
1 14.
t
84
patristic thinking about the christological problem: for the
violent contrast of the twin poles of that formula raise that
problem in its most acute form, whereas the Pauline equivale n t
- 'according to the flesh, according to the Spirit"? -leaves it
simply tacit.
Twentieth century patristic scholars are accustomed to
categorise the succeeding Christologics of the age of the
Fathers in to t\VO kin ds,. 'Logos-sarx' and ~ Logos-anthropos': both,
as their names (Word-flesh, Word-man) imply, take their rise
from Stjohn's epoch-making gloss on the apostolic preaching.
The first scheme, Logos-sarx, does justice to the unit)' of Christ
as the Cod-man but at the price of underplaying his full
humanity. 'Flesh' in the can text ofJohn 's Prologue means t.he
whole 111cu1 in his 1110ral condition, and not the body only. The
second scheme, Logos-anthropos, renders well enough the duali ty
of divinity and humanity in Christ, but obscures the unity of his
personhood, insinuating that the union of divine and human
factors in his life and destiny differs only qualitatively from the
experience of prophets and saints.
The Log-os concept of Greek culture at large could not in any
"Romans 1. 3.
85
86
Byzantine Gospel
Cospe1tradi tion knew t\VO sons - the Son ofDavid and th e Son
of Gad, and the scorn poured on the instinct of the faithful to
address Mary as Theotokos, the Godbearer, revealed these defects
in christological thinking.
Once the full reality of human ensoulment in Jesus was
recognised, the question was how to maintain the unity of this
divine-human person. Chalcedon profited from the debates
between Cyrillians and Ant.iochenes. It also drew upon the
concepts of phusis, nature, and hyjJoslasis or prosopon, person,
introduced into the conciliar tradition by the Apollinarian
controversy, as well as the idea of ousia already familiar frorn
the trinitarian crisis associated with Arius, in order to underline
that Jesus Christ is indeed one and the same, one single
hypostasis or prosopon, while by its famous quartet of adverts'without confusion', 'without change', 'without division',
'without separation '-presenting the union of physeis, 'natures',
whereby he is homoousios both with the Father and with us, in
such a way that no false inferences could be drawn about some
supposed annihilation of the humanity by the divinity.
It is this foundational Chalcedonian conviction which
Maxirnus inherits. Piret opens his account of Maxi m us '
exposition of the mystery of Jesus by pointing out, helpfully
enough, that Christ's hypostasis can be referred to in a variety
of ways, all faithful to the teaching of Chalcedon. 'One of the
: 'Trinity' expresses the hypostatic identity of the two different
ousiai in relation to the remaining avo trinitarian hypostases.
'The Logos' expresses the numerical identity of the hypostasis
and its divine ousia in relation to human ousia. 'The Son'
expresses hypostatic identity in the mode of generation - by
the Father according to the divine o1ls1:aand hy blessed Mar)' for
the human, 'The. Lord Jesus Christ' expresses the identity of
the hypostasis in his two ousiai, divine and human. The peculiar
genills of the expression 'The Logos Incarnate' in Piret's eyes
is that it has the virtue of bringing out the relation between the
human ousiaofChristand his hypostasisin its divine ousia. After
all, in the face of Arianism, Athanasius had favoured this title
ofLogos, Word, as accentuating the numerical identity ofthe Son
unt): the Father, while Cyril, in the different circumstances of
Nestorianism, had espoused the name of the Logos Incarnate
87
perfection."
In the first of these two statements, as Piret understands them,
there is nor only confession of the Nicene faith that the Father
is the origin of the hypostasis and ousia of the Son. Further,
filiation designates here the 'fact of existing by relation to the
Father, in an originated way'. The Son, the Originated One, is,
then, at the personal origin of his relation to Father and to the
Spirit. And the significance of this is that it prepares the \vay for
Maxirnus' second statement by showing that the Son is of
himself, in person, at "the origin of his oum Incarnation. In that
second statement, Maximus proposes that the Incarnation of
the divine Logos is the union of his human ousia with his
hypostasis in its divine ousia by means of the Spirit who is
91,5530.
or. cit.,
p. 157.
88
Byzantine Gospel
89
90
Byzantine Gospel
:,I;P.
91
92
Byzaruine Gospel
7/re
'J~lL)()
Natures
57;_~A).
~-H), 11~B),
itself
93
till
94
Byzantine Gospel
li~lp. Pirct, Le Christ et La Trinite seton Maxime le Confesseur, op. cit., p. 214, with
reference to Epistle 15 (PC 91, 573AC).
95
96
Byzantine Gospel
ilThc Psiphosis found in Mansi XI, 53:~C-536A for the proposal that the Agony
scene: lies behind the Pseplios at this point, see P. Pirct, Le Christ rt la Tnnitr seton
Maxime le Conjesseur, op. cit., p. 243.
';~lbid., p. 245.
':~~lall.hew 26.39. ci ted in Opuscula tlirologica et /Jo[emicu6 (PC 91, G5A-6HD).
97
JOU
98
Byzantine Gospel
2~~6A-237C).
99
77
77Ibid., at PC 237AB.
100
Byzantine Gospel
nature towards God and unites the human nature thus restored
to the divine nature."
But does t.his account, happy as it. is in terms of saving the
Chalcedonian Christologv, really dojustice to the drama - the
clements of struggle and conflict - which the Gospels so
graphically convey? It 111a)' be goon doctrine; but is it convincing
exegesis? In the Disputation untli Pvrrhus, Maximus has more t.o
say about. what in the Opusrula theologica et polemica he had
called the 'appearance of repulsion', emphasis tis sustoles, given
by Christ in the Garden when confront.ed with the imminent
prospect of his Passion Max i III tIS })rop{)ses, not without su pport.
from such earlier Fathers as Cyri 1 of Alexandria and J oh n
C:hI)'SOSlOlll,
Cod, fears death, should be the means through which 111an 's
salvation is achieved. On this second view, right from the
beginning of his two-stage prayer, the Saviour in the Carden
willed our redemption in and t.hrough his vcry human fear
7Hp. Pirct. lr Clinst rt fa Tri nit srlon Maxinu: lr Conjrsscuv, op. cit., p. '271.
:~tJ)isj)7l1(Jtio (lim Pyrrhu (PC q 1. 2~)7A<~UOA).
10 1
itself." His tendency to conserve his own being, and his fear of
dying were different in their mode, their tropes, from ours,
though the same in their root, their logos. Vie corrupt our
tendency to being by a selfish egoisnl, philautia, which turns us
Irorn God and our neighbour, and our fear of death beC0111eS,
by the same sinful tropes, a reprehensible fear. In his opening
prayer, the Redeemer willed to safeguard the human nature
which is his and ours, but he also willed to save it from the sinful
trojJos\vhich turns it fro In God. At the conclusion of the prayer
in the Carden, therefore, he willed his Passion in order to
destroy utterly the sinful ITO/JOS which our death sanctions. I Ic
did so, incorporat.ing us definitively in Cod, in his iropos of
union \,vi th the Father, into whose hands he committed his
human life and work, so that. we might be forgiven and
redeemed. Hilaire Belloc, the English Catholic man of letters,
put it well in a letter. Speaking ofdeaths domain as '(1 curtain
of Iron, a gulf impassable, an impenetrable darkness, and a
distance as it were limitless, infini te', Belloc remarks of the
Agony in the Carden:
The miracle whereby such an enormity corning upon
immortal souls does not breed despair, is the chief miracle
of the Incarnation
and to work that miracle, the
Incarnate ~,\'ith what a suprenle energy- accepted our
pain, almost refused it, but accepted it; and it was greater
than any pain of ours: physically beyond endurance and
in the spirit a descent into Hell.
-v-,-
'Olivet.', for Belloc, is the holiest place on earth for those who
'know the significance of Christendom', since there Cod
himself feared death.
Not that Cod himself can suffer, but that God was so
intensely, so intimately Man in the Incarnation, that the
rnernories and experience of Divinity and Hurnan iry are
united therein: and through it, the worst pain of the
HOp. Piret, Le Chris! ella Triniti selon A'1(LXimf' lc Conjesseur. op. cit., p. :!81.
102
Byzantine Gospel
7'llJO
Operations
:~H~)-:~~)9.
103
1972).
104
Byzantine Gospel
311<~ 12.
105
\IOlbid., pp.
3~ 1-325.
Quaestiolles ad Tlutlassium 42 (PC 91, 405C-408B).
~1'.!O/HO(ul(l theologica et polemica 1 (PC 91, 29D).
9:iP. Pirct, Le Christet fa Tnniti selon Maxime le Cou'[csseur, op, CiL , p. 325.
~f!
106
Byzantine Gospel
9~II
108
Byzantine Gospel
IlllIbid. as lOS7B.
II)'.!. Dispuiatio cum Pvnlio (PC 91, 341 C) .
Imp. Pirct, IAf Christ l'l la Triniti srlon Maxime le C01~/l)5Je/lr, np. cit., pp. ~)45-3L1G.
:i4[)C-:~48A).
L15D-348A.
110
Byzantine Gospel
P. Pirct, Le Christ et La Trinitr selon Maxime if Confesseur, op. CiL, pp. 358-359.
II:!Paradiso canto XXXIII. 1: for Knox's translation, see The Divine Office. The
I.ilur!0' of the HOIU"s according to the Roman Ril(~ (El London 1~)74), I., p. 561 *.
III
Byzantine Gospel
112
:!PG~)1 ) 221 B;
113
"Maxirne le Confcsscur, Viede La Vielg('~ cditce par M]. van Esbrocck (Louvain
1986. == COJlnLS Scriptorum Christianorum Olit:ntalium478. Scriptores lbenci '21). pp. vi-
xi.
!>CSCO 479. p. 2.
Byzantine Gospel
114
~J.
115
116
Byzantine Gospel
117
demonstrates,
As to the Passion itself, the author is careful to situate Mary's
role within a re-creation of the Passion narratives as a whole, In
his own name, the author begins a threnody on the Passion,
118
Byzantine Gospel
just as Mary
eluded the pains of the Nativity by an inexpressible birth,
so the pains of death did not touch her at the last, for the
sovereign and Lord of natures was then as now the
changer of natures."
The laying to rest did not go off, however, without incident,
thanks to an impious Jew manhandling her bier, only to be
struck down but then cured at Peter's prayer to Mary. Though
she was laid in a tomb, three days later, on the arrival of a
belated apostle, the tomb was found empty, The body gone,
her tunic and belt survived, re-discovered in ajewish household
by two princes converted from Arianism at the time of the
emperor Leo I in the mid fifth century: these were the relics
119
13Ibid., p. 117.
1 '1 Corinthians 15, 51-52; cr. ~lJugie, A. A., La Mort et l'Assomption de La sainte
Vinge. Etude historico-doctnnale (Vatican City 1~)44). p. 47.
0
Cosmology
The Swedish Maximian scholar Lars Thunberg, in his study
Microcosm and Mediator, devoted principally to Maximus'
theological anthropology as this is, introduces the topic of
cosmology, as we have done here, in the immediate aftermath
of a treatment of Christology. I-Ie gives as reason for this
arrangement that:
the Christological combination of inseparable unity and
prese rvecl icle n t.i ty is, in Max i m us' view, eq u al l y
characteristic both of the rclationshi p of God to crea tion
and of the different entities of creation in relation to one
another ... 1
As these words I11ay already indicate, we are dealing, in Max imus,
with an austerely conceptual cosmologist, one who attelnpts to
.identify the fundamental structures and inner relationships of
'L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator. The Theological A '11 thro/Jolob'J ojMaxiinus
the Confessor (Lund 1964), p. 51.
LAlJ"S 'Thunberg
121
the things that constitute the world -l~ather than, for instance,
a close observer of the world about us - which is how others
of the Creek Fathers, in their jJhysihe theima, or contemplation
of nature, have struck modern scholars."
Maximus would have been, in one sense, 1110re at horne with
t w e 11 tie the e n t u r y sci e n t i fie cos n 1 () log i s t s , w i t h the
mathematically expressed conceptual speculations of physics,
both astro- and sub-atomic, than with the natural historians,
the observers and recorders, of the eighteen th century. And
yet in another sense, his spiritual affinities are with that second
group. For his metaphysical theology, born, as we have seen, of
the marriage between Hellenism and the Gospel, gave him a
confidence in the purposiveness of things, and the ultimate
beneficence of their design, which is closer t.o Gilhert White of
Selborne, further removed Ir o m St.ephen Hawk i ng of
Cambridge. This adjudication depends crucially on Maximus'
acceptance of the doctrine of creation.
Thunberg prcsen ts Maximus' accoun t of creation under
.eigh theads,
'" : First, the creation takes place. as patristic tradition universally
confesses, 'out of notbing' , in which context Maximus stresses
the aspects (J[ distance and difference that distinguish Creator
:!D.S. \-\'al1ace-I-Lldrill, 'flu) Clerk !)(l(r;"'lic Fiew (~IA'(l(/lrf (Manchester E)()t'); hut
cf. pp. (){)-79.
:\Ambig/l(l7 (PC~) r. lOSOA).
"L. Thunberg, Microcosm find Mediator, op. cit., p. :)~, in r onruxion Willi AmlJlgl/o
7 at PC 91, l072C-107:Ht
122
Byzanti ne Gospel
ti(>pusru{a
t asunchutoni"
Less prominent in Maximus' work is the difference of mind
and will, diaphora gnomi}le, largely indicative, it would seem, of
a breakdown of harmony. Yet insofar as Providence wisely
allows a difference between individuals in terms of their 'lives
and behaviour, minds and decisions, desires, understanding,
needs, habits and ideas', here too there is a positive aspect:
unity in diversity."
A second crucial term is diairesis, 'division', with this time a
distinctly negative charge to i t.J list as in Christology the second
Council ofConstantinople (553) rejected diairesis in the person
of the Redeemer, so in Maximus' cosmological use division is
something to be abolished through man's restoration and
deification in Christ. In his own Christology, Maximus follows
the anti-Arian tradition of Gregory Nazianzen, for whom
diairesis in "Christ does not imply estrangernen t, allotriosis, and
the anti-Nestorian tradition of Cyril, who rejected a 'division of
nature', phusike diairesis, in the Incarnate Word. Nevertheless,
Maxirnus can also speak of divisions in the creation which
include what he wo u ld n o r m a l l y regard as simple
differentiations: the solution seems to be that, to his way of
thinking, man is called t.o annul divisions in the world morally
not on tologically."
(Even) more ambiguous in this same context are the concepts
of diastasis, 'distance' and diastema, 'separation'. Very likely in
~L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator. op. cii., pp. 56-57, with reference to
Ambigu a 7 at PC 91, l077C.
0Ibid., p. 57, with an internal citation of Ambigua 10 (PC 91, 1192D-1193A).
IUlbicl., pp. 59-60.
124
Bvzantine Gospel
dilleren tiatcd, and in this sense more expanded than that which
is Blade particular by the Creator: similarly, nothing is more
universal, more general, and in this sense more contracted, than
the fact that all is created.':' And here too a christological
\I
I:?L.
125
unifying factor', but also a 'divine purpose"." The PseudoDenys had already spoken of the 'intentional) character of the
logoi of creation, 16 but Maximus goes further in asserting that
these reveal a divine skopos, purpose') pertaining chiefly to
human beings: in all things Cod wills to effect the mystery ofhis
I
Incarnation."
A third dimension to Max irn us' cosmology to which
'thunberg draws attention is the notion of creation by divine
. benevolence. In'effect, this phrase acts in Thunberg's study as'
a peg on which to hang the ideas of pronoia, providence, and
hrisis,jndgnlent. Apart from the general currency attained by
t.hese terms through exegetical and (at. any rate for the first of
them) philosophical debate. they were peculiarly prominent
in Evagrius' Origenising scheme, where krisis denoted the
judgnlent of fallen minds entailed in the second, material
creation, and pronoia the divine restoration of a primordial
spiritual unity. Terrnin ologica lly. Maxirnus' remarks are
reminiscent of Origenism, for instance in the trio monas,
pronoia, krisis" But, as 1)0111 Polycarp Sherwood showed, in
Maxirnus' view Origen and Evagrius had confused .rnoral
considerations, in matters of providence and judgrnen t, with
strictly ontological ones. 'Preserving) (su.nteretihe) providence
concerns being itself, while 'convertive' (ejJislreptiki) and
'educative.' or 'punitive' (jJaideuLihi) providence are concerned
rather with the moral order." Moreover, Maximus places the
monas, pronoia, krisis triad within an imaginative christ.ological
context all his own. On the Mount of theTransfiguration, the
divine simplicity t.monas; is disclosed for human understanding
(lheologia) by Christ as Gods Word. Its witnesses are Moses,
\Vh001 Maximus links to providence and conternplative insight
(p;nosis)) and Elijah, \Vh0I11 he connect.s withjudgrnent and the
l:'lbid., p. ()8.
llil._l-1. Dalmais, (J.P., 'La theoric des logoi des creatures chez s. Maxime le
Coulesseur', Revue des Sciences Philosophiques e! Theologiques 36 (1952), pp. 244-249.
ssn.
Sherwood, The Earlier 'Amlngua' ofSt Maximus the Confrssor (Rome 1~)5[-) , pp.
Byzantine Gospel
126
~OSee
note
1~
~I QUOf.\fiolles
above.
127
their own logos, which represents God's will not only for some
particular being but for the entire created order to which it
makes a contribution.
Thus beings n1ay be in or out of harmony with their logos,
but at least if they are in harmony with it, they will also
move according to a fixed purpose of God (prothesis) .'25
, Maximus' approach rules out a naturalistic mysticism of the
kind offered (in part) by Evagrius. In this world, the everlasting
being of the Logos is to be perceived in the logoi only by faith,
and in the light ofChristology: it will not, in any case, be fully
realised until the end of tirne. The logoi of creation are, as
Thunberg puts it, 'intimately connected with' the logoi of the
saving Economy, ordered as that is to the Incarnation of the
Word and its consequences for the world." With Croce's help)
we have already seen how, in Maximus' fundamental theology,
the Word holds together creation, revelation (or illumination)
and salvation. Through the logoi, those whom the Spiri t hallows
gain spiritual contemplation of the divine Logos in his world.
The same living Lord is also found in the logoi of Scripture,
where he must illuminate the deepest sense of the biblical
word, as once he did the words of the Hebrew Bible for the
disciples on the road to Emmaus, And this Lord Christ is,
finally, the substance of all the virtues; for jhose who partake of
the virtues, on the way to salvation, share in the life of God
himself." As Thunberg concludes:
'Creation by the, Word thus implies to Maximus not only
a positive evaluation of creation but the inclusion of the
latter in a purpose of universal unification, on the basis of
:?:'Ibid. p. 79.
:!(ilhid., p. 81.
:!i Ambif.,'llfl33 (PC 91. 1285C~128HA);cl. H. U. \'011 Balthasar. Kosmischr Liturgie,
op. cit., pp. 289ff. For the close in tcr-corm exion of the logoi and conduct according
to the virtues. see QuaeJ!ionej ad Thalassiu m 22 (PC 90, 321B);!-1. U. von Balthasar,
Kosmischr Liturgie, op. cit., p. 638.
128
Byz.antine Gospel
H5-H8.
:\'Ambigu(l l (PC 90, 1081A): with debts
to
129
Byzantine Gospel
130
Mystery'
Owing to his acceptance of the doctrine of creation, Maximus
is able to present the cosmos and its structures as linked to God
by its vel)' contingency and dependence, and so open to fresh
influxes of the divine action. The world Inay become, by God's
.grace, a transfigured world - and as such its name is the
C.'hutch. Pere Alain Riou, in his study Le monde et l'liglise selon
.Maxime le Confesseur, begins his account of the difference that
:\.1[.. Thunberg,
:I~Ibid.,
pp.
96-9~).
131
:\('1\. Riou, Le monde et l'Eglise seton Maxirue lc Confesseur (Paris 1973) pp. 7:>-77.
:\i Oration 38, 2 (PG 36, ~11 ~1B).
:\IIAmbiglla31 (PC 9 1276B, 128()C).
VJ
: A mbigua 36 (PC 90 1289BD).
I
Byzantine Gospel
132
pp.
82-H~~.
1'1 t'1.'gli.\f
srlon
:HflXilllf
Ii' Confesseur.
IJ11'S
133
Byzantine Gospel
134
"Ibid.. with reference to Capita 200 Ihfologica et occonomira 19-20 (PC 9, 220n2:~7BC) .
~7Ihjd.,
pp. 88-89.
~liAmbigua
I.LlTS
135
And later in this text we find, Riou reports, that the theory of
the logoi is no longer constructed in terms of the problem of the
One and the Many, even in a version consciously corrected
from the bold but defective sketch left by Origen, but in terms,
rather, of the Pauline themes of the divine plan, prothesis, and
the divine counsel, boulesis/"
For Maximus, starting from such NewTestament texts as the
prologue to the Letter to the Ephesians, the order of creation
and nature is theologically preceded by that of the saving
design of the HolyTrinity. The object, skopos, envisaged by this
design is for him the Incarnation, the perichoresis in Christ of
the divine and human natures. In chapter 60 of the Quaestiones
ad Thalassium, Maximus offers his most celebrated statement
of the hypostatic union as foundation of the goal of the COSInos
itself. There he writes, in an often cited passage:
Byzantine Cos/Jel
136
is shown forth the purpose for which all creatures were given
being." RiOH., sensitive to the criticisms of the traditional
I-Iellenic-Christian ontology in the French philosophical rnilieu
01' the later twentieth century, glosses Maximus' text here by
speaking of a Christian "n ih ilism ' emerging fr o m the
apophaticism Chalcedou, a nihilism of a strange sort, for in
Maxirnus' vision it is 'nothing but' charity which founds the
universe. Or as Riou puts it even IT10re daringly in a lengthy
footnote: 'the eschatological statute of creation is founded on
the nothingness (neant) ofcharity'."? Be this as it lTIay (and it is
difficult to suppose that the classical ontology can be so
summarily disposed of), what is clear is that for Maximus the
Incarnation prefigures in the Head, Christ, the completion of
the whole divine plan: the recapitulation of all things in God
by the union and jJerichi5resisofthe created and the Uncreated.
According to Riou, this 'structure' also provides the basis for
110\V Maxirnus understands hurnan awareness of the mystery,
and the standing of'theologywhich is its intellectual exploration.
Maxirnus proposes in this same text two distinct paths in the
knowledge afGod. The first is laborious, requires the mediation
of intelligence,'and leads to God by ,vay of contemplation of
natural realities according to their logoi - even though this
cannot be merely natural, since, owing to the insertion of all
creatures into the trinitarian plan, this kind of knowledge
presupposes faith in the triune Creator. 'The second differs
from the first in being owed rathertoasupernatural perception
of an experiential kind - and Riou feelsjust.ified in explaining
this further by re-in troducing those t\VO key Maxim ian terms,
tropes and hypost.asis. This is, he writes, a 'union according to
the hypostasis, by "tropic" divin isation ' .53 It is not so 11111Ch a
knowledge of the provident Cod, active in his creation, as of
the perichiiresis of the divine hypostases and their economic
of
;>IIhict., at 621AC.
:',:!;\. Riou, l.e monile el I'l:.glis(J sidon Maxime II' (:()njf.~s('u'r. Opt cii., p. ~)7. The
background debate allusively referred to here can be consulted in J-L. Marion.
[)jf"U sans Etre (Paris 198~). and D. Dubarlc, Dieu avec nare. t Pannenide a S. Thomas.
Essni d 'ontologiethrologal (Paris 1~)D()).
:,:IIbid., p. 99.
1.a1:~
~lm-ld
behalf."
However, Riou finds it disappoiruing that Maximus does not.,
in this same chapter of the Ambigua. connect the two modes of
the knowledge of God to that vital distinction between nature
and hypostasis in any very explicit fashion. He is consoled by
finding a happier text in this regard, the little studied Ambigua
10, con cern e d as t his is wi r. h the e pis 0 de 0 [ C h r is t ' s
Transfiguration. This is a text. we have already encoun tered,
with Croce's help, in the context. of Maximus' theological
method." I-Ierc, in the context of the difference Christ makes
to the cosmos, it will detain us longer.
The drama of the Transfiguration event suggest.s to Maximus'
the two modes of 'theology'. The first, which he describes as
'simple and without cause', is content to confess the divine
truth by \vay of apophasis, and to celebrate its excellence in a
song without words (ajJhasia). Th e second, which Maximus
',., Quaestionesad Thalassiu m GO (PC
:).') See above, pp. 57-5"8.
~.}
1. ()21BC).
Byzantine Gospel
138
.">1>:\. Riou, Le monde et l'/~glise selon Maxime le Confesseui. op. cit., p. 106.
5/Ibid.,
p. 107.
139
:)HA. Riou, Le inonde et l'Eglise selon Maxime le Confesseur, op. CiL, p. 108.
6tlA. Riou, Lr. mondeet l'Eglise seton Maxime Ie Confesseur, op. CiL, p. }09.
140
divine light of his face and the glory of his Person, since in his
loving-kindness towardsmen he has assumed creaturely being
into his own hypostasis, thereby founding the possibility of
cataphatic theology. As Maximus puts it:
The cataphatic mode concerns him who determines
according to operation bot.h providence and judgment.
This moduli ty according to activity, indicating and
manifesting from the beauty and grandeur of creatures
t hat Codis C re a to r o fall t 11 i 11gs, is sh 0 \N 11 in the Lo r d'S
shining garnlents which the Word, taking them up in
advance, has presented in the visible creatures."
The hidden and the visible are united in the "himself", the
single face and Person of the Lord in his two natures.
no.
hi
t>:!;\. Riou.
141
the Cross.
From this difficult text and also frorn others - notably
Maximus' commentary on the ()-UT rather and /vmbigua 60~
Riou draws the following conclusions about transformation of
the world in Christ, according to Maximian thought. First, the
Cross ofChrist, recapitulating as i tdoes the length and breadth,
height and depth of the divine love, proclaims that all creation
- all the logoi of providence and judgment -.- is summed up
and taken up, in a filial tropos or \vay, in the Person of the
beloved Son. In his saving Passion Christ has opened II p a
A. Riou, 1.(' nunule rt 11.:~liS'1 Sf/Oil Maxi m 1(1 Conji'S5f11f, op. cit., p. II:>.
Sec above, pp. 12~)126.
flhAmbigua 10 (PC 91 , 1168D-IIG9A).
Iji
(;;1
142
Byzantine Gospel
Cosmos and the Spin t: The Economy as 'Reneuial ofthe M'orld in the
Easter of the Church'
In his Easter gift of the Spirit, Christ as new Adam restores to
humanity the sonship, symbolised by the divine inbreathing of
the Spirit, offered to the first Adam at the beginning. But
Christ is not only the Alpha, the primordial archetype of this
configuration of human beings to God the Son's 'form' and
'mode' of being. He is also the Omega, the Last Adam
inaugurating the recapitulation of the whole creation in the
bosom of his Father.
According to Maximus, the divine Son, in willing to restore
the filiation we lost by Adam's sin, did not simply take on our
nature, wh e n the Spirit over-shadowed Mary at the
Annunciation. Additionally, at his Baptism in the Jordan he
took on the filial tTOPOS which at the beginning had been
bestowed on the first Adam, so as both to restore that way of
being human and to carry it to its completion. As Maximus
writes in Ambigua 42:
Ii;
A. Riou, Le monde rt {'Lj.;liJf Sf Ion Maxi nil' le COnfl~SS(1l1", op. ci t., pp. 1 19-.1 21.
143
13yzanline Gospel
144
divine likeness COJl1CS about in us." Here Riou can invoke the
C2uesliones ad Thalassium:
For the Spirit does not engender a po\ver of free choice
devoid of will but in shaping it he gives it will with a view
to clivinisation ... And so, if we carry the Spirit offiliation,
as a seed giving to those who are engendered a form like
that of what has seeded them, we do not for all that. offer
him a povver of free choice unaffected by attraction and
disposition towards S0111e other thing: while nevertheless
engendered by water and the Spirit, we sin voluntarily.
But ifwe prepare the pO\\Tcr of free choice to receive with
underst.anding their energy - I mean that ofwater and
the Spirit - then by the practical life the mystic water will
purify our conscience, and the Spirit, life-giving in this
experiential awareness, will work in us the unchangeable
perfection of the goOd.7~
The image of the new Adam, given us in nuce with Baptism. can
be Blade manifest in the novel mode of likeness.
This re-creation is not offered, however, to individuals
atomistically and alone. It is ecclesial: as the Mystagogia makes
clear, we are re-created via the new creation of the Church
born from the water and blood issuing from Christ's pierced
side, the Church which gives us entry to the theanclric mystery
of sonship in Christ. The Church gives to the diversity of
human persons a profound unity in the Son ann in t.his '.vay
shows forth the source of this gift of sonship as the Spirit in
person. Riou draws attention here to the relevance to Maximus'
thought of a line of speculation in contclllporary Eastern
Orthodox dogmatics, which descends from Sergei Bulgakov,
through Vla d im ir Loxsky 1.0 Olivier Clement.just as the Person
of the Son, stripped of his divine form in the kenosis of the
Incarnation, was man ifcstcd in the form of a servan t, so the
Person of the Holy Spirit, by a kenosis all his O\\'Il, remains
71;\.
or.
reference
(2 IU [{ 's t i 0 l1{'S ad
7'1
Tlialassiu Jll
()
(PC
~)(Jt
281 B).
~1!oild
145
':iA. Riou. l.e Mende et l'l~gli,H' srlon Maxime If' Conjessrur. op. cir., p. 127.
i'j\ly.\(llgog-ifl 1 (PC 91, G()[)C-6l>HB).
'\'-\. Riou, Le uioiule r! l'l~gliw St'l()11 Alax;11Il' ll~ COl/P'SSI'Uf, up. cit., p. 141.
i'lIbid., pp. 1-1~-143.
146
Byzantine G05pel
as
;'Ibid., p. 11l).
AJyslagogia 2 (P(; 91, 6l>9A).
'iH
147
and causes."
While in itself comparing man to the world is an unoriginal
'procedure, for this is a commonplace of ancient thought,
.Maximus takes the innovatory step of basing this comparison
.on the unifying and synthesising vocation of the new humanity
~in Christ. As he presents matters, so Riou concludes:
Man is destined, not to lose himself in a sacral nature at
large, or to de-personalise himself in an impersonal
divine realm - as the gnosticisms of every period and
provenance have proposed, but on the contrary by love to
bring the universe to that consummation foreknown in
the trinitarian Counsel, by becoming, in the Church, the
iconic, loving presence of God in the world."
Byzantine Gospel
148
~l AJ)'stagogi a 7
~~A
149
entered the world to carry out his saving work, until his
Ascension to the Father's right hand. The people, en tering the
church in the bishop's wake, symbolise the great mass of
believers called to" conversion "and configuration to Christ.
En tran ce in to the ch urch sign ifies not on ly the conversion
ofinfidels to the true and only Cod bu t also the arnendmen t
of each one of us who believe but yet violate the Lord's
commandments ~ .. When sorneone is en tangled in any
vice but ceases voluntarily to be held by its attention and
deliberately to act according to it and changes his life for
the better by preferring virtue to vice, such a person can
be properly and truly considered and spoken ofas ell tering
with Christ our God and High Priest into virtue, which is
understood" as the Church according to the t-r()l)os.H:~
The highway of this entry into the Church by the mode ofvirtue
is sign posted in the biblical readings of the Liturgy of the
''''ard. 'T'hese lections
reveal the divine and blessed desires and intentions of
Goel most holy. 'Through thern each one of us receives in
proportion to the capacity which is in hirn the counsels by
which he should act, and we learn the laws of the divine
and blessed struggles in which by consistent fighting \VC
will be judged worthy of the victorious crowns of Christ's
kingdom."
Meanwhile the liturgical chants symbolise in their beauty the
fruits of such ascetic configuration t.o the Redeemer, the 'vivid
delights of the divine" blessings', while the wishes of peace
before the readings (' Peace be with you all! ') represent the
grace of cletachrnent which God gives the saints in return for
their efforts at virtue. And so we come to the proclamation of
the Gospel itself. Maximus understands this in two ways. In its
individual signification, taken idikos, that is, as applied to the
~:"\!vI)lJtag()gia 9
150
Byzantine Gospel
riGA.
K~ A1)'slagogia 16
l.LlTS
152
Byzantine Gospel
prayers of the celebrant in, at any rate, the sixth century." RiOH
therefore offers a more recondite, if theologically profound,
explanation of Maxirnus' surprising omission:
Lars Thunberg and Alain Riou on \VarU and Church. in Maximus 153
The clear proof of this grace is the voluntary disposition
ofgood will towards those akin to us whereby the 111an who
needs our help in any way becomes as much as possible
our friend as God is and \ve do not leave him abandoned
and forsaken but rather with fitting zeal show him in
action the disposition which is alive in us with respect to
God and our neigh bour. For a work is proofofa disposi tion.
Now nothing is either so fitting forjustification or so apt
for divinisation , if I can speak thus, and nearness to God
as 111Crcy offered with pleasure and joy from the soul to
those who stand in need. For if the Word has shown that
the one who is in need of having good done to him is Cod
- for as long, he tells us, as you did it for one oft.hese least
ones, you did it for 111e (Matthew 24, 40-41) - on Cod' s
very Word, then, he will much more show that the one
who can do good and who does it is truly Cod by grace and
participation because he has taken on in happy imitation
the energy and the characteristic feature of his 0\\'11 doing
good. And if the poor man is 'God', it is because of Cods
condescension in becoming poor for us, in taking upon
himself by his own suffering the sufferings of each one
which
~H~L-H.
154
Byzantine Gospel
Riou, Le monde t'! l'l~glisp selou Maxime if Confesseur. op. cit., p. 173.
theologica et eamomica I. r>1 (PC 91. 110lC).
III I Capita theologica et economica I. G6 (PC 91, 1108AB).
1)':IA.
IO/lea/Jila
155
156
Byzantine Gospel
'IJ-lA. Riou, Le mondr et l'l:~glisf seton Muxime If Cor~/I~Hl'7.tJ~ op. cit., P: 177, with an
allusion lO Colossians 2, 15.
IWI Capita tlieologica et economica 11. 28-29 (PC 91, 113iBD).
157
J4j
A. RicHl,
Ceneral A nthropology
The relation of the hurnan body to the human soul, and both
to the being of the human person, is the central topic of
anthropology at large. In his study of Maxirnus' doctrine of
man, Lars Thunberg places first and foremost his account of
the 'co-existence in principle of body and soul' - a position
taken up, eviden tly, in conscious contrast to that ofOrige nism,
where the postulate of the soul's pre-existence is frequently
encountered - in Nernesius ofEmesa and Evagrius, as well as
159
of comments in /vmbigua 42, and, more sketchily, Ambigua 7that it is impossible for the visible world, which reveals God, to
have its cause in evil. Everything that exists has been created
according to the divine foreknowledge, and the logoiofall things
pre-exist in him." And moreover body and soul are always bound
'.byrelationship, schists: they cannot exist in'absolute separation.'
Man has a phusis sunthetos, a 'composite nature"."
IL. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator. The Theological Anthropulog/ of Maxiinus
the Confessor (Lund 1965), p. 100.
2H. Crouzel, Theologie de l'image de Dieu chez Origene (Paris 1956), pp. 148'f.
3A. Guillaumont, Les 'Kephalaia gnostica' d'Euagre le Pontique et l'histoire de
I'Origenisme chez. les Creeset chez les Syriens (Paris 1962), pp. 103-113.
"Cregory of Nyssa, De hominis opijuio 218 (PG 44, 229C-233C). See for a
comparison of Gregory's doctrine with that of Maxirnus, E. Stephanou, 'La
coexistence initiale du corps et de l'arne d'apres saint Gregoire de Nysse et saint
Maxirne l'Homologetc', Echos d'Orient 31 (1932). pp. 304-315.
5L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator. op. CiL, p. 102.
UAmbigua 42 (PC 91, 1328A-1329D).
l Ambigua '] (PC 110lC).
"Letter 12 (PC 91, 488D).
160
Byzantine Gospel
Whereas the more rigorous Chalcedonian and NeoChalcedonian divines had restricted themselves to talk of a
composite hypostasis in Christ, as a way of speaking of the unity
of divine and human in the God-man, their Monophysite rivals
had not hesitated to affirm a composite nature in Christ.. ~ In this
Maximus does not follow them, but, by taking that. idea in to his
anthropology, he underlines both the reciprocal independence
of body and soul and their unbreakable union. Though the
logos and tropes of body and soul differ, the creative will of the
Maker makes them one through the principle of a common,
composite nature: itself pre-existent, following the usual
~ Maximian theological ontology, in its 0\\111 logos in God. I-Jere
Maximus appears to part con1pany fro m so rue of his
predecessors an10ng the Greek Christian philosophers, insisting
as he does that the unity of body and soul is not only hypostatic
(a question of rooting in the single personhood), as conceded
by, say, Leontius of Byzantium, but also fully natural. Maxirnus
is concerned both to stress the distinction between body and
soul, so as to protect the immortality and predominance of the
soul, and to emphasise the natural unity of bod)' and soul with
a view to affirming the body's resurrection and abiding share
in humanity." And by an ironic twist of linguistic history,
Maxim us speaks ofsoul and body as ceaselessly' transmigrating'
into> each other i metenstimatousth.ai, metempsychousthai), thus
using a favoured turn of phrase of Origen 's in the service of a
very different anthropology, related at this point to how
Maximus understands perichoresis in the Incarnate Word.!'
However, this is not the whole story. The individual hU111an
being, the person, cannot be seen aright unless it is recognised
that human nature has a hypostasis of its own, related to the
Logos of God. Consequently, for Max irn us , personal
~l Lebon, 'La christologic du monophysisme severieu', in A. Crillmeicr and H.
Baeht (eds.) t Das Konzil von Clialkrdon. Geschichte und Gegenioart (\"'ilrzburg 1951
1954) ,I. p. 488. C. Moeller, 'Le chalcedouisrne et Ie neo-chalcedouisrne', ibid., pp.
680,602.
IOFora discussion, and attempted resolution, of the problem that Maximus, like
Leontius, also cOlupares the union of body and soul in man to that of the two
natures in Christ, see L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator. op. cit., pp. lOG-II n.
llIbid., p. 109.
161
162
Byzantine Gospel
163
164
Byzantine Cos/Jel
li
:!
'l"iCe1lluriaf
'2~Oraliones23.
165
pp. 140-145.
:~'1Ambigua 10
166
Bvzantine Gospel
42
(PC~
9], 13160) .
'Olbid.
167
168
Byzantine Gospel
0/Man
169
170
Byzantine Gospel
171
~(jQ/l(lestione ad
44~)B).
172
Byzantine Gospel
ti~E.g.
173
174
Byzantine Gospel
gnome
coincides with 'natural will', and hence, when the term gnome is used by wa), of
con trast to tlielhna ph)~ikon it.is. in the later works, denied of Christ, on the grounds
of its uncertainty and ambivalence: ibid., p. 228, with particular reference to the
Disputatio cum Pvrrho at. PC 91, 308D-30<J:\.
71L. Thunberg, Mirrocosin and !\ lediu lor, op. CiL, p. 225-226.
175
176
Byzantine Gospel
M~L. Thunberg, Microcosmand Mediator, op. CiL , p. 241 (emphasis original), with
reference to Epistle2 (PC 91, 396D) and Orationis dominicaeexpositioe: PC so. 893B.
H:~Centu.,.iae de Caritate II. 8; II. 59; III. 57.
~4Ibid., III. 8.
8;,!. Hausherr. S.J., Philautie. De la teiulresse P01LT sui ti la cliariti SI'IOll saint Maxhne
Ie Confesseui (Rorne 1~)52), pp. 11-42.
177
former's North Africa sojourn - for Augustine stresses that selflove must, crucially, have a right direction if it is not to become
perversely deformed into its own opposite, an evil self-love which
expresses the very essence of sinfulness itself."
In both East and West, sinful self-love is at once a matter of
sensuali tyand ofpride - though the Eastern tradition, nowhere
clearer than in Evagrius, is to placesensuality first; the Western,
exemplified classically in Augustine. to give priority to pride.
Here Maxirnus is typically Oriental. Self-love shows itself first
and foremost in an "inner affection of an irrational and thus
disordered kind for bodily sensations and the sensuous world:
this in turn generates all the other vices, the culmination of
which is pride.f However, it must be carefully noted here - so
"as to save Maximus from any charge of Manic hac an distaste for
the bodily realm ~ that self-love can be thus defined not
because the body is itself evil, but. because 'attachment to the
body prevents mans entireattachment to his divine end'.88
'The point about good i noera, 'spiritual') self-love is that, by
contrast with its vicious count.erpart, itorders the whole ofrnan
towards a transcenden tend, enabli ng the ordered microcosm
to act as universal mediator.
W11at are, then, for Maximus the vices that branch out frorn
the COITIman root of distorted self-love? In the Centuries on
Charity, Maximus speaks first of the eigh t vices iden tified by
Evagrius of Pontus, and then adds four rnore to the list.
Though indebted to the classification of human action rnade
by Evagrius, who was the single rnost important source for his
ascetic doctrine, Maximus lived at a time when, in the Eastern
church, the monastic tradition was still adding - and very
occasionally subtracting - itemised vices to --- or from - the
catalogue inherited from Evagrius.just as in the West, Gregory
the Creat established a system of seven deadly sins, by
HliR. Holte, Beaiitiuleet sagesse. Saint A.ugustin et leproblrme de lafin de l'homme dans
fa philosophie ancienne (Paris 19(2), pp. 238[f. For the possible debt of Maxirnus to
Augustine, see L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, Ope cit., pp. 250252. and G.
C. Berthold, Did Maxirnus the Confessor Know Augustine?', Studia PatristicaXVII,
I (Oxford 1982), pp. 14-17.
Mil... Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, op. cit., pp. 2t>7-2Gl.
~I:lIbid.,
p. 262.
Byzantine Gospel
178
tl~lhid"
~XlSee
p. 273.
179
de Cantute 1.r>2.
Ibid., 1. 67.
"Tbid., 46; Qual'stiOllfS et duma 23 (PC 90, K04A).
l)',lQuafstionesfldThalflssiumG4 (PG90,916B);ibid.,54 (PG90,513B); Crnturiae
<It' Caritate III. 87.
1()/)Qflflestiones et dubia35 (PC 90. 813D-816A).
%Ce1lturiaf
97
180
Byzantine Gospel
101
Ill:!
181
Byzantine Gospel
182
IO')L.
III,
Centunae de Can/ale I. 1.
IOHQuaestionesad Thalassium 54 (PC 90, 5121\.), where the habi tus ofdctac hmcn t
is also a state in which the 'face' of the soul, lifted up towards God in praise. is said
to be 'formed by luany and varying virtues'.
(09l.. Thunberg. Microcosm and Mediator. op. cit., p. 327. For Evagrius, with his
sharply dualistic anthropology. the virtues conquer the vices and so establish in the
soul an cquilibriu m which enables the mind to devote all its intellectual attention
in love to God.
183
function of mediation.'!"
In the second place, Maximus, in the context of the virtues,
both differentiates love of God and love of neighbour and
unites thern, regarding love of neighbour as included in the
love of God. As he puts it in the first of the Centuries on Charity:
The one who loves God cannot help but love also every
man as himself even though he is displeased by the
passions of those who are not yet purified. Thus when he
1lOIbid.
"If-pistle2 (PC 91. 393C-396B).
Il~As noted by J. Pegon in Maxime le Conjesseur, Centuries sur La Chanti (ParisLyons 1945), p. 54.
II~Cf. P. Sherwood, O.S.B., St Maximus the Confessor, The AsceticLife, and The Four
Centuries on Charity (London 1955), p. 83.
4
11 L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, op. cit., p. 330.
184
Byzantine Gospel
on Charily I. 13.
116Ibid., II. 15-16.
117Jbid., II. 9.
III1Ibid .. III. 37.
lIlJL. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator,
120 E/Jistle 2 (PC 91 3971\).
I'll Centuriae de caritate i, 40; IV. 55.
,nlbid., IV. 15.
'?:~Ibid., 1. 81-82.
II:, Centuries
185
1:?"'Ibid., II. 7.
1'2~ lH)'Slagogia 1; 24 (PC 91. 6GRA: 705B).
12bCal)itula tlieologica et economica I. 9 (PC 90, 1085D).
I:!:J. Heintjcs, 'Ecn onbckcndc lccraar van ascesc en rnysuek: Sint Maximus
Confessor', Studia Catholica 11 (1935), pp. rsorr.
':!tiEjJislLe2 (PC 91, :193D-:195B).
186
Byz.antine Gospel
I~U.
IJIl
I:ulbid.
187
291T.
1:\t:J.
Uti
139L.
188
Byzantine Gospel
),11
:~4H.
~~[)2.
189
~~60.
190
Byzantine Gospel
191
1:i3Fo[ Maxirnus' debt to Evagr ius here, sec R. M. Viller, IAllX sources de la
spiritualiie de saint Maxime '. Rruue d'Ascctique et de l'vl)'stiljuf 11 (1930), pp. 213fT.
1~-1L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, op. cit., pp. 368-371.
'5~)lbid.t
p. 3i2.
Byzantine Gospel
192
1.,>7
I~)\'lbid.,
p. 377.
193
Ill. 99.
194
Byzantine GOJpel
195
Il;HS.
lOP.
cit., p. 212.
'recapitulation.
Just as all 111en were somehow present in Adam, so they
are, or can be, presen t in the second Adarn, the man Irorn
heaven.Just. as they were involved in the former's sin, wi th
all its appalling consequences, so they can participate in
197
I.J.
~J.
1~.l7()) pp.
7~)-80.
:~ Letter to Diognetus V.
4
4.
LiberAsceticus, PC 90, col. 920D.
5Ibicl.,917C.
198
Byzantine Gospel
199
200
Byzantine Gospel
201
1~IIbid.,
p. 87.
202
Byzantine Gospel
It'C('nIUr7.fS 012
I~J.-~L
203
of
~OIbid., p. 92.
'.?)Ambigua 7 (PC 91, I077C).
:!'.!Ibid., 23 (PC 91, 1257D).
Byzantine Gospel
204
repose."
Convincing as this synthetic scheme of Maxirnus' is, and
'remarkable for its anticipation of the structure of Thomas
Aquinas' theological vision, Garrigues finds himself obliged at
this point to enter a caveat. Does not personal freedom enter
in here simply so as to join together two moments in natural
causality: nature's origin and nature's goal? To go to Cod, all
the person has to do, it would seem, is to make his or her own
the natural aspirat.ion towards the Cood. As Garrigues put.s it,
with particular reference to Ambigua 7, a classic statement of
the doctrine of divinisation by ecstasy:
In his anxiety to correct the Origcnist personalism which
maintains free will even in the blessed condition of the
saints, , .. Maximus managed to fall in to a natural mysticisrn
of desire, in which freedom appears only as a stage,
quickly passed, in the assent to the contingent being's
irresistible need for plenitude."
:l:~Ibid"
2~J.-r\'1. Garrigues,
205
~lilbid.,
pp. 102-103.
207
Byzantine Gospel
208
01a11
209
210
Byzantine Gospel
.j'tl)istll~
211
4-lIbid., p. 151.
-l5Ibid.,
p. 155.
cr. II Ambigua 60
212
Byzantine Gospel
4i
213
.Hier.
214
Byzantine Gospel
:ll!CleITI.,
~:?!bid.,
pr. 180-181;
215
505B).
at PC 91, 401C.
Garrigues, Maxime le Confesseur,
cit., pp. 189-190. Rich materials 011
this theme lie inJ. Saward, Pnfect Fools. Folly/or Christ'ssake in Catholicand Orthodox
Spirituality (Oxford 1980).
'~Ibid., p. 199. With this we can cOlnpare Dorn Basil Sluder's cognate comment:
'not only was it ever his heart's desire to anchor the entire Christian life in the
Incarnation of the eternal Word and (0 seck the ground of all unity in the Logos
become man, but also he had to experience in his own body what it means (0 step
out in the footsteps of the God who was crucified for us.'
'Zur Soteriologie des Maxirnus Confessor', in F. Heinzer - C. Schonborn
(eds.), Maximus Confessor. ArIes du SymjJosium sur Maxime le Conjessrur. Fribourg, 2-5
September 1980 (Fribourg 1982), p. 241.
ft4Ibici. 2
3~.-M.
or.
Conclusion
The Bavarian Byzantinist Hans-Georg Beck, in his monumental
Conclusion
217
~ VersiaMaximi (PI.. 122 t 1195a). See on th is ~1. Cappuynst}ean Scot Erigf11('. S(Iviet
son oeuvre, sa pensee (Paris-Louvain 1933) p. 1G2~ idern., 'La V,:rsio Ambig-lloruIII
t
pp.324-329.
:ipL 122.1027-1028.
'D. .J. Geanakoplos, 'Some Aspects of the Influence of the Byzantine Maxirnos
the Confessor on the Theology of East. and VVest'. Church History 38 (1969). pp. 1501G3. For a fuller account, see E.Jeauneall, '[r-an Scot Erig(~ne et lc Cree' Archiuiurn
l.atinitatis Medii Aevi 41 (1~)79), pp. 5-50.
t
218
Byzantine Gospel
Conclusion
219
I.
220
Confessor in the history of Christian thought is to see him
in his role 0 fall i 11tc r pre te r 0 f I) e n ys the Are ()p (.~g i te, as
the one who turned apophatic theology around, from the
speculativenihilism that was its potential outcome back to
a concen tration on the person ofJesus Christ. 11
Maximus' was, in the full sense of the word, a Byzantine
Gospel. .
'Though until the nineteenth century Maximus' greatness was
largely lost to view, and he became, as in the cover-illustration of
this book, just one more tiny Byzantine saint on the je\vclled
surface of a manuscript, his reputationtoday has never stood
>higher since his own lifetime. The explanation must be sought
in the richness of his nlessage. The themes of his Gospel, as
expressed in the main monographs studied in this book, explain
his attractiveness to (especially) Orthodox and Catholic
theologians today. For here we have not only a profoundly
trinitarian reading of the Gospel story) corresponding to the
desire of the best twentieth century dogmatics that theology be
triune reflection through and through. We find also a cosmology
which presents man as the priest of nature, unifying, through
the Word Incarnate, its myriad [orals and po\vers. That all of this
finds its issue in the liturgical cultus of the Church, seen as
anticipatory participation in the unity of the Age to Corne, only
adds to its attractiveness: for the Great Church can neglect
neither the order of creation, highlight.ed today as ecological
awareness, nor creation's I110re wonderful re-making in the
sacramental mysteries of the Cod-Man and their final outcome
in gIOt)'. If Hans Urs von Balthasar, the pre-eminent Catholic
theologian of the twentieth century's second half, could laud
Maximus as the transcriber ofthe 'Cosmic Liturgy' ,John Zizioulas,
the most acute Orthodox theologian of the same period, found
f inspiration at the same source for his ideas of 'cosmological
.' prophecy' and' eucharistic cosmology' .l~ Here, once t he sense
:.. "of strangeness at a far-off world is overcome, lies a feast. for
.thinking and devotion, for mind arid heart,
!llbid" p. 39H.
I]. Ziziolllas, 'Preserving God's Creation (1), ThfU/Ogy in Gn'en!1 (1993), pp. 1~)-~G,
A.ppendix
222
Byzantine Gospel
223
and
ROllle
1867),
~Vfltl<~
~H. Wester,
224
Byzantine C;ospel
Tne Rediscovery
225
~r Maximus
226
Byzantine Gospel
liE. Mon tmasson, 'La doctrine de l'apathcia daprcs saint Maxime '. Ethos
d'Onrnt 14 (J911), pp. :16-41.
ItlJ. Chapman, 'Max imus of Constantino pic, Saint'. TILl' Catholic Encyclopaedia.
An lntrrn ational H'ork of Rrfrrmce on the Constitution, Doctrine. Discipline and Historyof
the Catholic Church, Edited by C. G. Herberrnann. E. A. Place. C. B. Pallen, T . .J.
Shahan . .J. J. Wynne. Assisted by Numerous Collaborators, Fifteen Volumes and
Index. Volume X (New York 1913). pp. 78-81.
19S. L. Epifanovich , PrepodobnyiMaksim lspollfllnik i uizantiiskoe bogoslovie (Kiev
1915).
227
1917).
'lIW. ~1. Peitz, 'Martin I, und Maximus Confessor. Bcitrage zur Geschichte des.
Monotheletenstreites in dcnJahren 645-668', Historisches jahrbucli 38 (1917), pp.
213-236; 429-458; A. Saudrcau, 'Saint Maxirne ', t.. Yiespirituelle1 (1919-1920), pp.
255-264.
'lZV. Grurnel, 'Notes dhistoire et de chronologie sur la vie de saint Maxime le
Confesseur ', Echosd'Orient 26 (1927), pp. 24-32; R. Devreesse, La vic de s. Maxirne
lc Confesseur et ses recensions', Analecta Bollaruliana 46 (1928), pp. 549.
2:iV. Crumel, 'Maxime de Chrysopolis au Maxime le Confesscur (Saint)',
Dictiomuure de Thiologie Catholique, contenant l'expos des doctrines de La Thrologie
Catholique, leur preuoes et leur histoire, commencesous La direction de A. \'acant, et I~.
Mangenot, continue SOUJ selledeE. Amann, tome X, partie 1 (Paris 1928), eels. 448-459.
~4M. Garbas, Des lieiligen Maximus Confessor Buell vom geistlichen Leben (Librt
asceticus) aus dem Gnechischen ins Deutscheiibertragenunci mit einer Einleitung uersehen
(Breslau 1925).
'l5V. Crumcl. 'L'union hypostarique et la comparaison de l'ame ct du corps chez
Leonce de Byzance etsaint Maxirnc le Confcsseur'. Eclios d 'Orient 25 (1926), pp. 393-406.
Byzantine Gospel
228
I,
229
'of
2M!.
~~51-362.
2<JE, Gilson, 'Maximc, Erigene, S, Bernard", in i\us der Geistesioelt des Miuelalteis.
Studien und Texte M, Crabmann zur Vollrndllng des 60. Lebensjahres VOrl Freunden u nd
Scliiilern gewidmet, herausgegeben von A. Lang, J. Lechner, A1. Schmaus, Halbbarul I
(Munster 1935), pp. 188-195.
30.\'. Massimo Confessore, La Mistagogia ed altri scriui, a C1Jra eli R. Cantarella
(Florence 1~tn) ~ tv!. Lot-Borodine, 'Mystagogic de Saint Maximc ', Irenikon 13
(l936), pp. 466-172;595-597~ 717-72014 (1937), pp. ()()-69; lR2-19:>; 282-~H4; 411'148. ]5 (1938), pp. 71-74' 185-1RG; 276-278; 3~)O<,91; 488-492.
:HG. V, Florovskii, Viumtiiski Ous)' \'- VIII [ov] (Paris 1933), pro 195-227; Et. The
Byz.anlil1f Fathers of theSixth fa Eighth Cenl1n)' (Vaduz, Liechtenstein 1987), pp. 20H253.
230
Byzantine Gospel
231
(Munster 1941); D.]. Unger, 'Christ.jesus Centre and Final Scope of all Creation
according to St Maximus Confessor', Franciscan Studies 9 (1949), pp. 50-62.
9
3 I.-H . Dalrnais, 'L'couvre spirituelle de saint Maxime le Confesseur. Notes sur
son developpernen t et sa signification', SU/J/Jlrnwnt d [a Vie spirituelle is (1952), pr.
216-226.
232
Byzantine Gospel
ascetirus' lirnikon 26
233
both exterior - philadelphia - and interior, authentic selflove, turned as this is to ethical perfection." Hausherr went on
to write the brief but informative ent.ry on Maximus in the
Enciclopedia Cattolica. :10
Among other pieces of the jigsaw of Maxirnus studies, three
more Ina)' be singled out for the 1950s. R, A. Gauthier's 'Saint
Maxime le Confesseur et la psychologic de l'acte hurnaiue '
points out that, via Burguridius of Pisa's translation of John
"'Idem., 'Maxirnus and Origcnlsm. Arche kai trios', Berichtezuin Xl. lntrrnutionalrn
Byzanlinis(pn-Kol1gress) Mi! nchen 1958 (Munich 1958), pp. 1-'27.
."Idern., 'Exposition and Usc of Scripture in St Maximus as Manifest in the
Quacsti01wS ad Thalassium' Onentalia Christiana Penodica 24 (1 ~)58), pp. 202-207.
"Ldem., Saint Maximus the Confessor, The Ascetic Li]c, Thr Four Centurieson Clutrit,
Translated and Annotated by P. Sherwood (Westminster and London 1955).
VJl. llaushcrr, Philautie. De la tnulressr pour SOL (l La charite selon saint Maximr II'
Confesseur (Rome 1nS2).
"!lldenL 'Massimo il Confessorc, san to', Enciclopediarauolica VIII (Rome 1952),
cols. 307<H)8.
t
234
Byzantine Gospel
Thomas Aquinas -
235
SSIbid., p. 57.
:'1) I.-l-1. Dalrnais, 'L'anthropologie spirituelle de saint Muxime Ie Confcsseur'.
Recherches et Debutsdu CentreCatholique des Intellectuels Francais 36 (1961), pp. 202211.
:17Idenl., 'Saint Maximo le Confesscur et la crise de l'Origenisme monastique '.
in Theologiede fa Vie monastique. Etudes sur La Tradition patristique (Paris 1961), pp,
41 ] -421.
236
Byzantine Gospel
237
Church."
Sherwood produced a 'SurveyofRecen t Work on St Maximus
the Confessor' which, unlike t.he present catalogue, was a good
deal more ambitious than sirnply telling a stOI),.6:) Sherwood
brings out the sharp con trast in approach between himse If and
Balthasar. While the author of the survey had started reading
Maximus under the stimulusof teachers who presented him as
the locus classicus for Byzan tine theolog-y, an d had always tried
to present him in his own context (ifalso with reference to the
Latin theological tradition), Balthasar's perspective was
markedly different. The ratio [ormalis of Balthasar's patristic
trilogy was given by de Lubac: the relation of the mystery of
Christ to modern man.This explains those features of Kosinische
Liturgic tnost offputting to specialists: the desire to incorporate
Maxirnus' bold synthesis within a coherent vision of reality
including all the values ofa post-Cartesian epoch, such as those
of German Idealism and modern science. For Balthasar,
Maximus had made the Chalccdonian definition into a key
unlocking all reality - hence the otherwise inexplicable
references to Hegel. Sherwood found this unhelpful: the
centre ofMaximus' work is notso much the conciliar Christology
as the Pauline uniting of all t.hings in Christ. I-Ie also called for
a study of the participation theme in Byzantine theology. from
Denys to Palamas, which might clarify the finite-Infinite, createdUncreated relationship.
But as well as old favourites, some new names must also he
signalled. Beginning Irorn a background in "Dionysian studies.?"
f."IV. Crurnel, 'Un Cen te nario, San Massimo Confcssore (G62-19G2f. Unitas 18
pp. 1-23.
1;;lp. Sherwood, 'Survey of Recent Work OIl St Maximus the Confessor'. Traditio
(l96~~),
238
Byz.antine Gospel
239
240
paraphrases as improved by Anastasius the Librarian, and this
C01PUS Anastosianum, Ceanakoplos believed, affected Bernard,
I-Iugh ofSt Victor, Albert the Great, Tho111aS, and Crossetcste,
and possibly also Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa and Peter Balbus,
and also in the East - notably through the fifteenth century
John Cyparissiotes, who, though a Byzantine, lived for a while
also at Avignon and at ROlllC. 7:)
Finally, new translations also appeared. I-I ugo Rah ner presen ted
SOIne ofthe documen ts ofMaximus' trial." PereAdalbert Hamman
attempted a new translation of the A1ystagvgia int.o French." A.
Argyriou did the same for a nurnber of the Quaestiones ad
Thalassium." In 1964 P. Canart published, with a translation, the
rnissing second letter of Maximus to Tho111aS, mentioned by
Photius, discovered byThomas Gale ofTrinity (~ollege, Cambridge,
in 1681 but subsequently lost to view.?" Lastly, the Centuriae de
Caritate were done into Italian by A. Ceresa-Castaldo, in a version
which included his O\V11 exhaustive investigation ofthe manuscript
tradition of this, perhaps the most readily accessible, to the
general reader, of Maximus' works."
In the 1970s the pattern, inevitable for a transient homo
studiens, of old names gradually supplanted by new is again
visible. Dalmais returned to the topic of the Mystagogia, which
he described as at once one of Maximus' best-planned yet
enigmatic works - enigmatic because it does not, in fact, treat
of Chr istian initiation, but, by and large develops t.he
241
242
Byzantine Gospel
452.
9/lIdenL, 'Le sense de la primaure romaine chez saint Maxime le Coufcsseur,
9~Idem..
~l:\A.
pp.130-157
~ ..V. Croce, Tradizione e ncerca. 1l mrtoilo teologico di San Massimo it Confessore
(~'1 ilan 1974). See above, pp. 24-63.
243
244
Byzanti ne Gospel
245
IO~' Maximi
Confessoris
latina interpretationejolum nis Scotti Eriugenae iuxta posita, etlulrru nt Carl Laga et Carlos
Sind (Turnhollt 1990).
lioN!. van Eshrocck (crl.), Maximr IeConfrsseur, Vie de fa Vil"rge (Louvain 19H6, =
COl/JUS .)('17/)/oru111 Christianonim Orientalium 47H. Scrip/ores ibenri 21): Idem. (tr.):
Maxime le Confesseur, Vif de La \'iergt,l,oulIain 1986, = C011n/S Scriptorum Christianorum
Oricutaliu m 479. Scnptores Ibrrici 22). See above, pro 111-119.
IIIP. Allen, 'Blueprint for the Edition off)o(uml'n/aad vitam Maximi Confessoris
spectantia " i 11 .~rtl'r Chalcedon. Studies i 11 ThfologJ and Chitrcl, History OJ(t.>Jf(/ to PruJl~s.50r
A. Vall Rory jor his Sruentirtl: Birlluia)' (Leuvcn 19H5). pp. 11-21.
II~F.. Dekkcrs, 'Maximo le Confcsseur dans la tradition latine. in ibid .. pp. H:)97.
246
Byzantine Gospel
:~'-13-:-~64.
247
"tlL. Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos. The Vi.5ion ofSt Maximus the Confessor, with
a Foreword by A. M. Allchin (New York 1983).
11~' Massimo Confessore, Il Dio-Uomo. Duecento pensien sulla conosrenza di Dio e
sull'incarnazione di Cristo, introduzione, traduzione e note di A. Ceresa-Gastaldo (Milan
1980): Massimo it Confessore, Mrditazioni sull' agonia di Cesu, traduzione, introduzione
et note a cura di A. Ccresa-Gastaldo (Rome 1985).
120]. Stead, The Church, the Liturgy and the Soul of Man, The 'Alystagogia' of SI
Maximus the Confessor, translated, with historical note and commentaries (Still
River. Massachusetts 1982).
I'll Maximus Confessor. Selected H'ritings. translation and notes by George C.
Berthold (New York 1985).
InF. Heinzer, Goues Solin als Mensch. Die Struktur des Mensthseins Christi bei
Maxtmus Confessor (Fribourg 1980).
248
Byzantine Gospel
I:np. Pirct, Le Chiist et la Tnnite Sidon Maxime le Conjl'ssl'ur(Paris 19S3). See above,
pp.64-110.
124[. Bellini, 'Maxirne interprete de Pseudo-Denys l'Areopagitc. Analyse de
I'Ambiguu11l ad Thomam 5, Maximus Confesso]", Opt cit., pp. 37-49.
I~;JG. C. Berthold, 'The Cappadocian Roots of Maximus the Confessor', ibid.,
pp.51-59.
J~ljR. B. Bracke, 'Some Aspects of the Manuscript Tradition of the Ambigua of
Maxirnus the Confessor'. ibid., pp. 97-109.
''2/A. Ceresa-Castaldo. 'Tradition ct innovation linguistique chez Muximc le
confesseur', ibid., pp. 12~~-137.
l:!~P. Christon. 'Maxirnos Confessor on the Infinity of Man ', ibid., pp. 2() 1-~71.
249
247-259.
I:\UE. E. Daley, 'Apokatastasis and "Honourable Silence" in the Eschatology of
Maximus the Confessor', ibirl., pp. 309-:~39.
1
'3 I._I I. Dalrnais, 'La manifestation du Logos dans I'hornme et dans l'Eglise.
Typologie anthropologiquc ct typologie ecclesiale dapres Qu. That. 60 et la
250
Byzantine Gospel
251
252
Byzantine Gospel
Patristica, Volume XVII. ill Three Parts, Edited by E. A. Livingstone. Pan One
(Oxford 1982), pp. 14-17.
15;'P. Plass,
Moving RCSl" in Maxim us the Confessor', Classica n Mediaroulia 35
(1984), pp. 177-190.
1St> Maximi Confessoris Opuscula exegetica duo (Expositio in Psalmu in LIX; Expositio
Orationis tlominicae), cdidit Peter van Duen (Turnhout 1991, = Corpus Cluistianonnn,
III
PJvL Blowers, Exegesis and Spiritual Pn[agogy in Maximus the Confessor (Notre
Dame, Indiana 1991).
Bibliography
A."rrexts
I
F. Combefis and F. Oehler, Patrologia Graeca, vols. 90-91 (Paris 1960),
with Latin translation.
II C. Laga - C. Steel, Questiones ad Thalassium I, Corpus Christianorum,
Series Graeca 7 (Louvain 1980); Ii, ibid. 22 (Louvain 1990) .
.I. I-l. Declerck, Questiones et dubia, ibid. 10 (Louvain 1982).
E. .Jeauneau (ed.), /vmbigua ad joannem, ibid. 16 (Louvain 1988).
M. van Esbroeck (ed.), Maximele Confesseur, Viedela Vlerge(Lou\'ain 1986,
= CorpusScriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 478, Scriptores iberia ~ I ).
Idem. (tr.), Maxime le Confesseur, \/ie de La Vierge (Louvain 1986, =
Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 479, Scriptores Iberici
2"2).
III R. Canart, 'La deuxierne lettre a Thomas de saint Maxirne le
Confesseur', Byzantion. 34 (1964), pp. 415-445.
R. Devreesse, 'La fin inedite cl'une lettre de saint Maxime ', Reoue des
Sciences Religieuses 17 (1937). pp. 23-35.
C. Soteropoulos, IIi cM)ISlagogia "tou hagiou Maximou tou homologitou
(Athens 1978).
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The Acta: for the Relatio motionis and Disputatio byzica: 1-1. Rahner, Kirche
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[Selections.]
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G. C. Berthold, Maximus Confessor. Selected vFriLings (New York 1985), pp.
3~)-98.
253
Byzantine Gospel
254
c\. Riou,
NI),stagogia
H. U. von Balthasar, Kosmische Liturgie (Einsiedeln 1961~), pp. 363-407.
R. Cantarella, Massimo Confessore, La Mistagogia ed altri scritti (Florence
1931).
Varia
E. von Ivanka, Maximos der Bekenner. All-Eins in Christus, Ausioahl,
Uebertragung, Einleitung (Einsiedeln 1961).
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deleoensbeschrijoingen betreffende J\,Jaxi 111 us Conjessor(Louvain 1980).
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Orientalia Christiana Periodica (1961), pp. 131-149.
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(Milan 1974).
I.-H. Dalmais, 'So Maxirne Ie Confesseur, Docteur de la Charite, Vie
Spirituelle (1948-2), pp. 296-303.
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Revue des Sciences Philosophiques el Theologiques 36 (1952), pp. 244249.
Idern., 'L'oeuvre spirituelle de saint Maxirne le Confesseur', Supplement
de fa Vie spirituelle 21 (1952) pp. 216-226.
Idem., 'La doctrine ascetique de saint Maxime le Confesseur dapres Ie
Liber asceticus', Irenikon 26 (153), pp. 17-39.
Idem., 'Un traite de theologie contemplative: Ie cornrnentaire du Paler
noster de saint Maxime le Confesseur', Revue d'Asdtique et de
Mystique 29 (1953), pp. 123-159.
Idern., L'Anthropologie spirituelle de saint Maxime le Confeseur,
Recherches et debats 36 (1961) pp. 202-211.
Idern., 'Saint Maxime leConfesseuret Iacrisede l'origenisme monastique ',
Theologie de La Vie monastique (Paris 1961), pp. 411-421.
Idern., 'La fonction unificatrice du Verbe incarne dans les oeuvres
spirituelles de saint Maxirne le Confesseur', Sciences Ecclesiastiques
14 (1962), pp. 445-459.
t
Byzantine Gospel
256
Bibliography
~1.
257
F. Heinzer, Gottes Solin als Mensch. Die Struktur des Menschseins Christi bei
Maximus Confessor (Fribourg 1980).
Idern., with C. von Schonborn (eds.), Maximus Cozyessor. Actesdu Symposiuln
258
Byzantine
Gosp(~l
Bibliography
259
260
Byzantine Gospel
(~.
1959).
R. Bornert, Les commentaires byzaritins de La divine luurgie, du. VIle au )(IVe
siecle (Paris 1966).
ldem., 'L'anaphore dans la spiritualite liturgique de Byzan ce , le
temoignage des comrnentaires mystagogiques au VIle au Xve
siecle ', in Eucharisties d 'Orient et d 'Occident (Paris 1970), II. pp. 241263.
E. Brehier - R. Aigrain, Gregoire le Grand, Les Etats barbareset la conquete
arabe, 590-757 (= A. Fliche - V. Martin (eels.) Histone de rEglise.
Depuis les origines jusqu 'd nos jours 5, Paris 193-8).
E. Caspar, 'Die Lateransynode von 649', Zeitsdni]t fill" Kirrhengrschichte 5.1
(1932), pp. 75-1 ~)7.
\V. Elert, Der Ausgtmg der althirchlichen Christologie (Berlin 19[)7).
M, Erbetta, Gli apocrifi del nuouo testamento. Vangeli 1/2. Infamia e passione
del Cristo. Assuruione di Maria (Turin 1981).
V. Grurnel, 'Recherches sur l'histoire du monothelitisme '. Echos d'Orient
27 (1928), pp. 6-16; 157-177; 28 (1929), pp. 19-34; 272-282; 29
(1930), pp. 1G-28.
J. F. Haldan, Byzantium in Ihe Seventh CenIU1)J. Tne Transformation of a
J.
J.
Index of Names
Adam, 142, 1"66, 19G, 208, 235
Albert, 218, 239
Allchin, A. M., ix
Allen, P., 245
Amphilochius, 130
Anastasius Apozygares, 6
Anastasius the Apocrisarius, 225
Anasiasius the Librarian, 216, 217
Anastasius the Morik, 14,225
Anna, 115
Apollinaris, 85
Aquinas, seeThomas Aquinas
Arcadius, {j
Argyriou, A., 240
Aristotle, ] 5. 128, 181, 203, 238
Caspar, E., 13
Cerbanus, 218
Ceresa-Castaldo, A., 240, 241. 246,
248
Chaprnan,J., 226
Charles the Bald, 2] 6
Chosroes }I, 4
Christou, P., 24'8
Clement, pope, 31, 176
194
Athanasius Gamrnala, 6
Athanasius, priest, 53
Augustine, 174, 176, 177,234,252
easel, 0., 50
Clelnent,"O.,144
Combefis, F., 221, 245
Constans II, 12, 14, 18
Constantine III, 12
Constan tine of Apamea, 7
Croce, V., 24-63, 127,242,248
Bernard,218,229.239
Berthold, G., 247, 248, 252
Blonclel, ~'L. 103
Blowers, P. ~/1., 34, 252
Bonaventure, 231
Bornert, R" 151, 239, 241
262
Byzantine Gospel
234,237,238,245
Devreesse, R., 227, 232
Diadochus, 167,209,249
Didyrnus, 163
Diognetus, 197
Disdier, M. T., 228
Dorotheus, 176
Dostoevsky,215
Doucet. M., 244
Draseke,j.,225
Eckhart, 218,240
Elert. \A/., 7
Elijah, 43, 125,"141
Ephrem, 176
Epiphanius of Salamis, 65
Epifanovich, S. L., 226,240
Eriugena, seeJohn Scotus Eriugena
Esbroeck, M. van, 111-119,245
Eunomius, 44
Hezekiah, 170
Eusebius, 120
Euthymius the Hagiorite, 113
Eutyches, 51
Evagrius, 20,21,29,125, 158, 161,
176,177,178,179,181,184,
187,189,190,191,192,193,
199,201.208,228,236
Ezras, 8
Hilduin, 216
Honorius, 11, 12,53,54,56
Huber,j., 222, 223
Hugh of St Victor, 218, 239
Hussey, J. M., 1,2
215,241-243,248,249
Gauthier. R. A., 233
Geanakoplos, D. J., 217, 218, 219,
239
George, prefect of Africa, 17
George Aras, 6
Gilson, E., 229
Gregory the Great, 177
Iamblichus, 15
Ignatius, 63, 214
Irenaeus, 83, 114, 161, 163, 208
Isaac Sebastokrator, 251
lvanka, E. v.n , 234, 236
James, "115, 116
jeaneau, E., 245,248
Joachirn, 115
John, evangelist, 83,84,117, 189
John the Baptist, 40, 171
john IV, pope, 12
John. bishop, 25
John Chrysostom,
John Climacus, 178
ioo
Index of Names
John
John
John
John
Damascene, 233-234
Moschus, 9, 17
of Cyzicus, 198,200
of Scythopolis, 216, 218, 221,
230,234,235
John Scotus Eriugena, 21, 216, 217,
225,229,239,244
John the Almsgiver, 9
John the Chamberlain, 20
John the Grammarian, 90
Josephus, 120
Justin Martyr, 114
.Justinian, 3, 4, 16; 20
Kant, I., 34
Kelly,]_ N, D., 114, 196
Knox, R., 110
Knopf1er, 223
Laga, C., 244,245,248
Le Guillou, M.:J., 249
Le 0 1. pope, 6, 10, 11, 93
Leo I, emperor, 118
Leoutius of Byzantium, 89,91, 138,
160
Leontius ofjerusalem, 89
Lethel, F.-Nt, 97, 243,249
Loosen, J-, 231
Lossky, V., 79,143,144,161,214
Lubac, H. de, 237
Luke, evangelist, 116
Macarius of Antioch, 7
Macarius the Great, 209
Macedonius, 65
Madden,J. D., 250
Madden, N., 250
Mallarrne, S., 191
Marinus, 76
Marion,J.-L., 243
Maritain,J., 214
Martin, I., 13, 14,52,250
Mary, the Blessed Virgin, 8, 15, 83,
86,110,111-119,131, 142,
Mary Magdalen, 92
Maurice. 4
Melito of Sardis, 117
Mcnas.Ti
263
Meyenclorff, J., 72
Michal, 178
Michard, M., 224
Migne,J. P" 164,223
Miguel, r 239
Modestus, 10
Mohammed, L 10
fvtonchanin,J.,72
Montrnasson, E., 225,226
Moses, 43, 116, 125, 111
Murphy, F. X., 7,13,241
Negri, L., 244
Nellas, P. ~44
Nemesius, 158, 165
Ncstorius, 80, 85
Niceras.fi
Nicholas I, pope, 216
Nicholas of Cusa, 54, 218, 240
Oehler, F., 222, 223
Origcn, 15,20,27, 3L :s2, :~6, 57,64,
124, 126, I :~5, 159, 160. 162,
IG3, 167, 187, 188,199,200,
230,232,232,238,249
Palamas, G., 237
Paul, apostle, I, 38, 46, 59, 60, 83.
132. 135, 161
Paul, patriarch of Constanitnople.
12
Paul of Samosata, 84
Paul the One-Eyed, 6
264
13),zanline Gospel
Plotinus, 161
Poscidonius, 1()I
Prado . .J. J., 242-243
Prestige. c. L., 109
Preuss, F. A., 223
Proclus, 15.
~51
247;251
Uthemann, K. IL,
107, 108,222
VaicH tc, B.,
Vigilius, 6, 5()
Viller, tvl., 228
V6lker, \V., 238
Vona, C.,
2~~~)
~24
Symeon, 116
Syrneon of Mesopotamia, 209
Thalassius. 32. 170, 17G
Zechariah, 75
Zello,2
ZiziolllaS,.J., 220
~[) 1