Maximus the Confessor

MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR St Maximus the Confessor, the greatest of Byzantine theologians, lived through the most catastrophic period the Byzantine Empire was to experience before the Crusades. This book introduces the reader to the times and upheavals during which Maximus lived. It discusses his cosmic vision of humanity and his Christology. The study makes available several of Maximus’ theological treatises, many of them translated for the first time. The translations are accompanied by lucid and informed introductions. Andrew Louth, until recently Professor of Cultural History at Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, is now Reader in Patristics at the University of Durham. He is the author of many works on the Christian tradition, among them Eusebius: The History of the Church (1989) and Denys the Areopagite (1989). THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS Edited by Carol Harrison University of Durham The Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church are central to the creation of Christian doctrine, yet often unapproachable because of the sheer volume of their writings and the relative paucity of accessible translations. This series makes available translations of key selected texts by the major Fathers to all students of the early church. Further books in this series will be on Saint Ambrose, Gregory of Nyssa, Irenaeus and Origen. MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR Andrew Louth London and New York First published 1996 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1996 Andrew Louth All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Louth, Andrew. Maximus the Confessor/Andrew Louth. p. cm.—(The early church fathers) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBM 0-415-11845-X (hb).—ISBN 0-415-11846-8 (pb) 1. Maximus, Confessor, Saint, ca. 580–662. 2. Theology, Doctrinal-Byzantine Empire. 3. Theology, Doctrinal-Early church, ca. 30–600. I. Title. II. Series. BR65.M416L68 1996 270.2ಾ092–dc20 [B] 95–20531 CIP ISBN 0-203-99127-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-11845-X (hbk) ISBN 0-415-11846-8 (pbk) CONTENTS Preface vi Abbreviations viii Introduction 1 LIFE AND TIMES 3 2 THE SOURCES OF MAXIMUS’ THEOLOGY 19 3 MAXIMUS’ SPIRITUAL THEOLOGY 33 4 THE DOCTRINE OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 47 5 COSMIC THEOLOGY 61 Texts GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE TEXTS 77 LETTER 2: ON LOVE 81 DIFFICULTY 10 91 DIFFICULTY 41 153 DIFFICULTY 71 161 DIFFICULTY 1 167 DIFFICULTY 5 169 OPUSCULE 7 179 OPUSCULE 3 191 Notes 197 Bibliography 219 Index 227 PREFACE This volume is intended to provide an introduction to the theological thinking of Saint Maximus the Confessor. I stress ‘thinking’, rather than just ‘thought’, as there is already a host of introductions to his thought. Maximus himself provided such introductions—notably his Centuries on Love and his Centuries on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God. In these works Maximus presents his thoughts in pithy form as a series of propositions, or at best brief paragraphs. They have been very popular, and both of them are available in two different English translations. More recently others have provided introductions to Maximus’ thought, or aspects of it: most famously and influentially, the great Swiss Catholic theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar (Balthasar 1961, originally published in 1941). There is even an introduction to other people’s thinking about Maximus (Nichols 1993). But what has been lacking so far has been an introduction to Maximus’ thinking: and it is my hope that this book will help fill that gap. If it does, it will do that by providing, for the first time in English (or in many cases for any Western language save Latin and Romanian), translations of some of Maximus’ major theological treatises, drawn especially from his two collections of Ambigua, or Difficulties, in which Maximus does not simply present his conclusions, but displays a theological mind, drawing on Scripture and all that is meant in Orthodox Christianity by Tradition—the Fathers, the Councils, spiritual experience—and bringing this to bear on our understanding of God’s engagement with humankind, an engagement summed up in his assuming humanity itself in the Incarnation and overcoming the brokenness of fallen humankind in his death and resurrection. But the contrast between Maximus in his major treatises and in his condensed summaries is not at all that between ‘theology’ and ‘spirituality’ (despite the fact that the condensed summaries found a place in that great compendium of Orthodox spirituality, the Philokalia of St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St Makarios of Corinth), for, as we shall see, even in vii the densest of his theological treatises, Maximus’ concern for the life of prayer and engagement with God is still uppermost. The purpose of theology is to safeguard against misunderstandings that frustrate a Christian life of prayer. Many people have helped me, either directly or indirectly, in putting this book together. I would like to acknowledge the help and advice and ideas (whether I have paid heed or not) of Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia, Mother Thekla, Catherine Osborne, Maurice Wiles and Fr Huw Chiplin. My greatest debt is, however, to Carol Harrison, who might be expected to have endured something as General Editor of this series, but as my wife has made this possible in more ways than I could say. Andrew Louth Feast of our holy father and confessor, Michael, Bishop of Synnada, 1995 ABBREVIATIONS AL On the Ascetic Life Amb. Ambigua (Books of Difficulties) CC Centuries on Love CCSG Corpus Christianorum. Series Graeca CT Centuries on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God Ep. Epistula LP On the Lord’s Prayer Myst. Mystagogia Opusc. Opuscula theologica et polemica QT Questions to Thalassius PG Patrologia Graeca Introduction 2 1 LIFE AND TIMES St Maximus the Confessor was born in AD 580 in the Byzantine Empire, or the Roman Empire, as he and its inhabitants would have called it. Fifteen years earlier the great Emperor Justinian had died, at the end of a long reign (527–65) in which he had sought to restore the Roman Empire to its former glory. To a considerable degree he had succeeded. When his uncle, Justin I, died, the sway of the Emperor in Constantinople had shrunk to the Eastern end of the Mediterranean—the Balkan peninsula (including Greece), Asia Minor (and on the other side of the Black Sea Cherson—in the Crimea), Syria, Palestine and Egypt. The Western part of the Mediterranean world was ruled by the leaders of various barbarian tribes, even if several of these claimed to rule on behalf of the Emperor in Constantinople. By 565 the Roman Empire was more like the Empire the first Emperor, Augustus, had created: a union of the lands surrounding the Mediterranean—mare nostrum, our lake, as the Romans called it. North Africa had been reconquered in 533; Italy was restored to direct Byzantine control after a long drawn-out war that lasted from 535 to 554; and the Byzantines established themselves in the south-east corner of Spain, with their capital in Cordova, in 554. Much of Constantinople had been rebuilt during Justinian’s reign, including the ‘Great Church’, the church dedicated to the Holy Wisdom —Hagia Sophia. But already there were signs of impending collapse. Plague struck Constantinople with devastating effect in 542, and continued to strike the Near East during the sixth and the seventh centuries, seriously diminishing the population of the Empire. Even as Justinian’s armies were achieving costly victories in the West, Slavs were crossing the Danube and settling in the Balkan peninsula; within a few years of Maximus’ birth the Avars had crossed the Danube, assumed leadership of the Slavs, had established themselves in a number of important Balkan cities, including Sirmium (modern Sremska Mitrovica: in 582) and at least for a time Singidunum (modern 4 INTRODUCTION Belgrade: in 584), and laid siege to Thessalonika in 584 and 586. And to the East there was Persia—the Sasanid Empire—with which Justinian had bought peace by paying tribute. Justinian’s successors refused this tribute and and embarked on war that lasted for twenty years. The struggle with Persia was to lead to invasion and counter- invasion in the early decades of the seventh century that impinged directly—in more ways than one—on the course of Maximus’ life, and left the two great empires vulnerable to attack from the Arab tribes. In twenty years—between 630 and 650—the Persian Empire fell to the Arabs and the Byzantine Empire lost its Eastern Provinces, and in 661 the first of the Umayyad caliphs, Mu’awiya, made the Byzantine provincial capital, Damascus, the capital of a huge empire that stretched from Egypt and Libya in the West to the valley of the Oxus in the East. By the time Maximus died in 662 the Roman dream had faded, and the Empire shrunk to part of Italy, the cities of the Adriatic and Aegean coast-line and around the Sea of Marmara (including Constantinople), and a much-ravaged Asia Minor (and Cherson).

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