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Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library #28
On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The <i>Ambigua</i>, Volume I (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library) by Maximos the Confessor (2014) Hardcover
Maximos the Confessor (580–662) occupies a unique position in the history of Byzantine philosophy, theology, and spirituality. His profound spiritual experiences and penetrating theological vision found complex and often astonishing expression in his unparalleled command of Greek philosophy, making him one of the most challenging and original Christian thinkers of all time. So thoroughly did his thought come to influence the Byzantine theological tradition that it is impossible to trace the subsequent history of Orthodox Christianity without knowledge of his work. The Ambigua (or “Book of Difficulties”) is Maximos’s greatest philosophical and doctrinal work, in which his daring originality, prodigious talent for speculative thinking, and analytical acumen are on lavish display. In the Ambigua, a broad range of theological topics—cosmology, anthropology, the philosophy of mind and language, allegory, asceticism, and metaphysics—are transformed in a synthesis of Aristotelian logic, Platonic metaphysics, Stoic psychology, and the arithmetical philosophy of a revived Pythagoreanism. The result is a labyrinthine map of the mind’s journey to God that figured prominently in the Neoplatonic revival of the Komnenian Renaissance and the Hesychast Controversies of the Late Byzantine period.
This remarkable work has never before been available in a critically-based edition or English translation.
This remarkable work has never before been available in a critically-based edition or English translation.
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About the author
Maximus the Confessor
36 books83 followersMaximus the Confessor (Greek: Μάξιμος ὁ Ὁμολογητής) also known as Maximus the Theologian and Maximus of Constantinople (c. 580 – 13 August 662) was a Christian monk, theologian, and scholar.
In his early life, Maximus was a civil servant, and an aide to the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius. However, he gave up this life in the political sphere to enter into the monastic life. Maximus had studied diverse schools of philosophy, and certainly what was common for his time, the Platonic dialogues, the works of Aristotle, and numerous later Platonic commentators on Aristotle and Plato, like Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus. When one of his friends began espousing the Christological position known as Monothelitism, Maximus was drawn into the controversy, in which he supported an interpretation of the Chalcedonian formula on the basis of which it was asserted that Jesus had both a human and a divine will. Maximus is venerated in both Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity. His Christological positions eventually resulted in the mutilation of his tongue and right hand, after which he was exiled and died on August 13, 662 in Tsageri, Georgia. However, his theology was upheld by the Third Council of Constantinople and he was venerated as a saint soon after his death. He is almost unique among saints in that he has two feast days: the 13th of August and the 21st of January. His title of Confessor means that he suffered for the Christian faith, but was not directly martyred. The Life of the Virgin is commonly, albeit mistakenly, attributed to him, and is considered to be one of the earliest complete biographies of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
In his early life, Maximus was a civil servant, and an aide to the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius. However, he gave up this life in the political sphere to enter into the monastic life. Maximus had studied diverse schools of philosophy, and certainly what was common for his time, the Platonic dialogues, the works of Aristotle, and numerous later Platonic commentators on Aristotle and Plato, like Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus. When one of his friends began espousing the Christological position known as Monothelitism, Maximus was drawn into the controversy, in which he supported an interpretation of the Chalcedonian formula on the basis of which it was asserted that Jesus had both a human and a divine will. Maximus is venerated in both Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity. His Christological positions eventually resulted in the mutilation of his tongue and right hand, after which he was exiled and died on August 13, 662 in Tsageri, Georgia. However, his theology was upheld by the Third Council of Constantinople and he was venerated as a saint soon after his death. He is almost unique among saints in that he has two feast days: the 13th of August and the 21st of January. His title of Confessor means that he suffered for the Christian faith, but was not directly martyred. The Life of the Virgin is commonly, albeit mistakenly, attributed to him, and is considered to be one of the earliest complete biographies of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 27, 2019
Over a decade ago, a local church did an inter-religious dialogue between Muslims and Christians. I distinctly recall the Muslim speaker noting that the 600s, the time when Islam arose, was a lowpoint for Christianity. He even asked, "Do you know of any influential Christian theologians during that time?" I was pretty educated in Christian history but I came up blank. "Early Church" history courses tend to end around the year 500, with Augustine as kind of the pinnacle of the early church who left little to be said. Sure, there were people like John of Damascus or Benedict, but they were early medieval.
Well, I'm not sure if its me or the benefits of cross-cultural scholarship, but the 600s did give us one of the best Christian theologians ever: Maximus the Confessor!
When I first came across Maximus I went back to my class notes and saw he had been mentioned. But we hadn't gotten too deeply into him, other than nothing he had taken part in something called the "monothelite" controversy. This controversy was mostly in the East and we were more interested in learning about barbarian invasions and Charlemagne.
All that to say, WOW. Maximus the Confessor is amazing. Earlier this year I read his "200 Chapters on Love" which is included in the Philokalia. Then I felt moved to pick up this newly released book which includes the Greek on one page and English on the other (which is good for scholars...for me it just made me feel like I was reading faster). It has been a pleasure to read a few pages a day for the last month or so. Maximus certainly deserves a place, as so many Eastern Christians do, in theological learning today.
Ambigua 7 is worth the price of the book. I think there is a book (On the Cosmic Mystery of Christ) which is just Ambigua 7. The depth of the work, the reflections on the Incarnation and salvation and all the rest. Well, its the sort of book that makes me fall in love with Jesus all over again.
Well, I'm not sure if its me or the benefits of cross-cultural scholarship, but the 600s did give us one of the best Christian theologians ever: Maximus the Confessor!
When I first came across Maximus I went back to my class notes and saw he had been mentioned. But we hadn't gotten too deeply into him, other than nothing he had taken part in something called the "monothelite" controversy. This controversy was mostly in the East and we were more interested in learning about barbarian invasions and Charlemagne.
All that to say, WOW. Maximus the Confessor is amazing. Earlier this year I read his "200 Chapters on Love" which is included in the Philokalia. Then I felt moved to pick up this newly released book which includes the Greek on one page and English on the other (which is good for scholars...for me it just made me feel like I was reading faster). It has been a pleasure to read a few pages a day for the last month or so. Maximus certainly deserves a place, as so many Eastern Christians do, in theological learning today.
Ambigua 7 is worth the price of the book. I think there is a book (On the Cosmic Mystery of Christ) which is just Ambigua 7. The depth of the work, the reflections on the Incarnation and salvation and all the rest. Well, its the sort of book that makes me fall in love with Jesus all over again.
June 20, 2022
The Ambigua is a series of commentaries by St. Maximus on other patristic writings—mostly those of St. Gregory the Theologian—in which Maximus purports to explain the meaning of certain ambiguous (hence the title) passages, but usually ends up riffing off of them to draw out and elaborate his own theology. Here is a sample of some choice quotations.
On the union of the divine and human natures of Christ, without division or confusion, in the one hypostasis of the Logos:
“As God, [Christ] was the motivating principle of His own humanity, and as man He was the revelatory principle of His own divinity. One could say, then, that He experienced suffering in a divine way, since it was voluntary (and He was not mere man); and that He worked miracles in a human way, since they were accomplished through the flesh (for He was not naked God). Therefore His sufferings are wondrous, for they have been renewed by the natural divine power of the one who suffered. So too are His wonders wedded to passibility, for they were completed by the naturally passible power of the flesh of the one who worked them. . . . as God having become man, He lived His life among us according to a certain new theandric energy.” – Ambiguum 5
“[This theandric energy] is not the natural manifestation of either divinity or humanity alone, nor is it that of a composite nature occupying some kind of borderland between the two extremes. Instead it is the energy that belongs most naturally to ‘God made man,’ to Him who became perfectly incarnate.” —Ambiguum 5
A wonderfully terse distillation of Christ’s meaning and identity, which Maximus delivers at the end of Ambiguum 5 almost as a throwaway line:
“[Christ] is the Father of the age to come, who begets in the Spirit through love and knowledge ‘those who fill the world above.’”
Maximus on the logoi, the eternal reasons or purposes, eternally contained in God, that constitute the origin and end (for the two are one and the same) of each created being:
“From all eternity, [the Logos] contained within Himself the preexisting logoi of created beings. When, in His goodwill, He formed out of nothing the substance of the visible and invisible worlds, He did so on the basis of these logoi. By his word (logos) and His wisdom He created and continues to create all things—universals as well as particulars—at the appropriate time.” —Ambiguum 7
The logos of rational beings like humans is a movement “from their natural beginning in being, toward a voluntary end in well-being. For the end of the motion of things that are moved is to rest within the eternal well-being itself, just as their beginning was being itself, which is God, who is the giver of being and the bestower of the grace of well-being.”
Maximus brilliantly articulating the logos of each human being, which is to become divinized by voluntarily adopting a likeness, through virtue, to the uncreated Word from which it derives its being and from which it naturally bears its image:
“The essence in every virtue is the one Logos of God—and this can hardly be doubted since the essence of all the virtues is our Lord, Jesus Christ, as it is written: God made Him our wisdom, our righteousness, our holiness, and our redemption. These things are of course said about Him in an absolute sense, for He is Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification itself, and not in some limited sense, as is the case with human beings . . . Which is to say that anyone who through fixed habits participates in virtue, unquestionably participates in God, who is the substance of the virtues. For such a person freely and unfeignedly chooses to cultivate the natural seed of the Good, and has shown the end to be the same as the beginning, and the beginning to be the same as the end, or rather that the beginning and the end are one and the same. In this he is a genuine advocate of God, since the goal of each thing is believed to be its beginning and end, for it is from the beginning that he received being and participation in what is naturally good, and it is by conforming to this beginning through the inclination of his will and by free choice, that he hastens to the end, diligently adhering to the praiseworthy course that conducts him unerringly to his point of origin. Having completed his course, such a person becomes God, receiving from God to be God, for to the beautiful nature inherent in the fact that he is God’s image, he freely chooses to add the likeness to God by means of the virtues, in a natural movement of ascent through which he grows in conformity to his own beginning.” —Ambiguum 7
On the union of the divine and human natures of Christ, without division or confusion, in the one hypostasis of the Logos:
“As God, [Christ] was the motivating principle of His own humanity, and as man He was the revelatory principle of His own divinity. One could say, then, that He experienced suffering in a divine way, since it was voluntary (and He was not mere man); and that He worked miracles in a human way, since they were accomplished through the flesh (for He was not naked God). Therefore His sufferings are wondrous, for they have been renewed by the natural divine power of the one who suffered. So too are His wonders wedded to passibility, for they were completed by the naturally passible power of the flesh of the one who worked them. . . . as God having become man, He lived His life among us according to a certain new theandric energy.” – Ambiguum 5
“[This theandric energy] is not the natural manifestation of either divinity or humanity alone, nor is it that of a composite nature occupying some kind of borderland between the two extremes. Instead it is the energy that belongs most naturally to ‘God made man,’ to Him who became perfectly incarnate.” —Ambiguum 5
A wonderfully terse distillation of Christ’s meaning and identity, which Maximus delivers at the end of Ambiguum 5 almost as a throwaway line:
“[Christ] is the Father of the age to come, who begets in the Spirit through love and knowledge ‘those who fill the world above.’”
Maximus on the logoi, the eternal reasons or purposes, eternally contained in God, that constitute the origin and end (for the two are one and the same) of each created being:
“From all eternity, [the Logos] contained within Himself the preexisting logoi of created beings. When, in His goodwill, He formed out of nothing the substance of the visible and invisible worlds, He did so on the basis of these logoi. By his word (logos) and His wisdom He created and continues to create all things—universals as well as particulars—at the appropriate time.” —Ambiguum 7
The logos of rational beings like humans is a movement “from their natural beginning in being, toward a voluntary end in well-being. For the end of the motion of things that are moved is to rest within the eternal well-being itself, just as their beginning was being itself, which is God, who is the giver of being and the bestower of the grace of well-being.”
Maximus brilliantly articulating the logos of each human being, which is to become divinized by voluntarily adopting a likeness, through virtue, to the uncreated Word from which it derives its being and from which it naturally bears its image:
“The essence in every virtue is the one Logos of God—and this can hardly be doubted since the essence of all the virtues is our Lord, Jesus Christ, as it is written: God made Him our wisdom, our righteousness, our holiness, and our redemption. These things are of course said about Him in an absolute sense, for He is Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification itself, and not in some limited sense, as is the case with human beings . . . Which is to say that anyone who through fixed habits participates in virtue, unquestionably participates in God, who is the substance of the virtues. For such a person freely and unfeignedly chooses to cultivate the natural seed of the Good, and has shown the end to be the same as the beginning, and the beginning to be the same as the end, or rather that the beginning and the end are one and the same. In this he is a genuine advocate of God, since the goal of each thing is believed to be its beginning and end, for it is from the beginning that he received being and participation in what is naturally good, and it is by conforming to this beginning through the inclination of his will and by free choice, that he hastens to the end, diligently adhering to the praiseworthy course that conducts him unerringly to his point of origin. Having completed his course, such a person becomes God, receiving from God to be God, for to the beautiful nature inherent in the fact that he is God’s image, he freely chooses to add the likeness to God by means of the virtues, in a natural movement of ascent through which he grows in conformity to his own beginning.” —Ambiguum 7
November 20, 2025
Maximus the Confessor was of course a great religious and intellectual figure. However, his major works are collections of reflections instead of systematic treatises, and thus it will be difficult to draw a holistic ontology from his books. This may also contribute to his relative obscurity until recent times. To some extent he was similar to Aristotle: neither of the thinkers leaves a definite statement of their thoughts or has ideas that will strike you as innovative, but that happens because they are shapers of the basic grammar by which later generations approach to everything. One can even say that just as Aristotle was the synthesiser of the first exceptional moment of Greek thought, Maximus the Confessor was the synthesiser of the second one in late antiquity and early Middle Ages.
I cannot help but consider that this book needs an Ambigua for itself, since there are insights that seem to be in tension within the book here and there. For instance in Ambigua 7 Maximus seems to be more "pantheistic" in suggesting that it is in the nature of every created thing to desire God, but in Ambigua 20 he is closer to an Augustinian distinction between nature and grace. Again in Ambigua 7 he shares with Gregory of Nyssa that created things are to move eternally, but in Ambigua 10 he says that motion shall come to rest at God who is the "limitless limit" (I am paraphrasing). When he emphasized God’s transcendence he says that the saints’ minds will encompass everything below God. But when he encourages humility he seems to suggest that even created individuals have an infinity that is not possible for humans’ to penetrate. These things are like texts of Aristotle that inspire various interpretations but unfortunately, Maximus does not have so many commentators available to westerners. I hope that my Greek will be good enough to read the original ancient and modern texts one day.
I will continue to read other collections of Maximus and then stop reading philosophy and theology for a while.
I cannot help but consider that this book needs an Ambigua for itself, since there are insights that seem to be in tension within the book here and there. For instance in Ambigua 7 Maximus seems to be more "pantheistic" in suggesting that it is in the nature of every created thing to desire God, but in Ambigua 20 he is closer to an Augustinian distinction between nature and grace. Again in Ambigua 7 he shares with Gregory of Nyssa that created things are to move eternally, but in Ambigua 10 he says that motion shall come to rest at God who is the "limitless limit" (I am paraphrasing). When he emphasized God’s transcendence he says that the saints’ minds will encompass everything below God. But when he encourages humility he seems to suggest that even created individuals have an infinity that is not possible for humans’ to penetrate. These things are like texts of Aristotle that inspire various interpretations but unfortunately, Maximus does not have so many commentators available to westerners. I hope that my Greek will be good enough to read the original ancient and modern texts one day.
I will continue to read other collections of Maximus and then stop reading philosophy and theology for a while.
December 20, 2023
Now THIS is podracing.
Good Read.
Good Read.
February 21, 2025
A fascinating insight into the post-Chalcedonian, late patristic era. The resonance between Maximus and Augustine were astounding, and his insights into the dual will of the Incarnate Christ make this a must read!
October 2, 2018
Maximus the Confessor’s project is to defend orthodoxy while protecting the reputation of the early Church Fathers. He wants to hate sin and love sinners. He wants to condemn monophysitism and not Gregory. He wants to destroy Origenisms but not Origen. This effort puts him in the delicate position where he will not criticize or acknowledge any mistake on the part of the early Fathers. His texts are always treated as difficult but never flawed. At first I questioned Maximus’s motives but as I continued to read him I was struck by his deep love and admiration for the Christians who came before him. Maximus is not trying to trick his readers but rather push them to the truth and redeem the words of those who came before him. His humility and charity are genuine and not a guise.
Admittedly, Maximus often resolves the difficulties in a way which reveals far more about what Maximus believes rather than the Fathers he is defending. But this is precisely where the brilliance of his work is on display. His subtlety and command of Greek philosophy is stupefying. Reading through On Difficulties is an arduous, inspiring, captivating, offensive, and strange experience. Maximus’s mind is a vast wilderness of thought. It’s for that reason that I loved this work, although, I would recommend going through it with a guide and with charity.
Admittedly, Maximus often resolves the difficulties in a way which reveals far more about what Maximus believes rather than the Fathers he is defending. But this is precisely where the brilliance of his work is on display. His subtlety and command of Greek philosophy is stupefying. Reading through On Difficulties is an arduous, inspiring, captivating, offensive, and strange experience. Maximus’s mind is a vast wilderness of thought. It’s for that reason that I loved this work, although, I would recommend going through it with a guide and with charity.
October 23, 2025
This is an excellent, smooth, and VERY readable translation of Maximus’s magnum opus. Constas has divided his translation into two parts. This first volume contains Ambigua 1-22. Ambiguum 7 and Ambiguum 10 are easily the most famous sections of this book, and as Andrew Louth has pointed out in another work, these two sections are easily the most summative or “systematic” treatments of Maximus’s philosophical thoughts. However, I personally found that Ambiguum 13 was my favorite section. In this book, Maximus is writes a response to a fellow Christian explaining difficulties, apparent contradictions, or seeming inconsistencies in the writing of Gregory of Nazianzus (as well as Dionysius the Areopagite in two different sections). Ambigua 1-5 is a separate writing to another believer, but these first five are added on to the rest of the Ambigua to comprise a unified work. The first five are rich as they capture well Maximus’s Christology.
Throughout these responses, as Maximus desires to humbly explain the “inspired” thought of Gregory, we see Maximus engage in both literal and spiritual exegesis of this patristic writer. Maximus esteems him very highly. As Maximus does so, we see Maximus’s ascetic, mystical, philosophical, thought as he is someone very well ready in the church fathers and the philosophers. He is also attempting to refute an Origenist cosmology while constructing his own cosmology based on his logos/logoi doctrine. I love this work, and I love the thought of Maximus! He provides such robust philosophical groundwork for a Christocentric outlook on reality. Below are some favorite passages, but there were too many great passages to be able to share here:
Amb. 10:77: “For in His measureless love for mankind, there was need for Him to be created in human form (without undergoing any change), and to become a type and symbol of Himself, presenting Himself symbolically by means of His own self, and, through the manifestation of Himself, to lead all creation to Himself (though He is hidden and totally beyond all manifestation), and to provide human beings, in a human-loving fashion, with the visible divine actions of His flesh as signs of His invisible infinity, which is totally transcendent, and secretly hidden, which no being, in absolutely any way whatsoever, can capture in thought or language.”
Amb. 15:7: “Thus the beginning and end of every origin and motion of beings is God, for it is from Him that they have come into being, and by Him that they are moved, and it is in Him that they will achieve rest.”
Amb. 15:9: “For God is not an object of knowledge or predication, so that He might be intellectually grasped by the soul according to a certain condition, but rather (is grasped) according to simple union, unconditioned and beyond all thought, on the basis of a certain unutterable and indefinable principle, which is known only to the One who grants this ineffable grace to the worthy, that is, it is known only to God, and to those who in the future will come to experience it, when all things will be free from all change and alteration, when the endless, multiform movement of beings around particular objects will come to an end in the infinity that is around God, in which all things that are in motion will come to rest. For infinity is around God, but it is not God Himself, for He incomparably transcends even this.”
Maximus’s theological reasoning is both apophatic and dialectical in nature. As Malcolm Yarnell has well said, “There is more theology in a sentence of Maximus than there are in many contemporary theology books!”
Throughout these responses, as Maximus desires to humbly explain the “inspired” thought of Gregory, we see Maximus engage in both literal and spiritual exegesis of this patristic writer. Maximus esteems him very highly. As Maximus does so, we see Maximus’s ascetic, mystical, philosophical, thought as he is someone very well ready in the church fathers and the philosophers. He is also attempting to refute an Origenist cosmology while constructing his own cosmology based on his logos/logoi doctrine. I love this work, and I love the thought of Maximus! He provides such robust philosophical groundwork for a Christocentric outlook on reality. Below are some favorite passages, but there were too many great passages to be able to share here:
Amb. 10:77: “For in His measureless love for mankind, there was need for Him to be created in human form (without undergoing any change), and to become a type and symbol of Himself, presenting Himself symbolically by means of His own self, and, through the manifestation of Himself, to lead all creation to Himself (though He is hidden and totally beyond all manifestation), and to provide human beings, in a human-loving fashion, with the visible divine actions of His flesh as signs of His invisible infinity, which is totally transcendent, and secretly hidden, which no being, in absolutely any way whatsoever, can capture in thought or language.”
Amb. 15:7: “Thus the beginning and end of every origin and motion of beings is God, for it is from Him that they have come into being, and by Him that they are moved, and it is in Him that they will achieve rest.”
Amb. 15:9: “For God is not an object of knowledge or predication, so that He might be intellectually grasped by the soul according to a certain condition, but rather (is grasped) according to simple union, unconditioned and beyond all thought, on the basis of a certain unutterable and indefinable principle, which is known only to the One who grants this ineffable grace to the worthy, that is, it is known only to God, and to those who in the future will come to experience it, when all things will be free from all change and alteration, when the endless, multiform movement of beings around particular objects will come to an end in the infinity that is around God, in which all things that are in motion will come to rest. For infinity is around God, but it is not God Himself, for He incomparably transcends even this.”
Maximus’s theological reasoning is both apophatic and dialectical in nature. As Malcolm Yarnell has well said, “There is more theology in a sentence of Maximus than there are in many contemporary theology books!”
August 19, 2025
Really loved this book. Maximus is a master of language. Deep thoughts about deep realities. Fed my soul often. This edition is wonderful. The Greek text is beautifully written and well included. I include my own translation of one of the shorter Ambigua, Ambiguum 1, here.
1 This is from Saint Gregory the Theologian’s first sermon concerning the Son:
“From the beginning the Monad was moved through a Dyad before standing firm in a Triad.”
Saint Gregory also says something similar in his second Sermon on Peace:
“The Monad was moved through its abundance and a Dyad was passed through (for it is beyond matter and form which are what make up all material bodies), eventually moving into completion, being fixed in a Triad.”
2 O Slave of God, perhaps, while considering these passages, you found it difficult to recognize their harmony since they seem to be in contradiction. Yet, it is not unreasonable to think that these statements cannot be more unified. For, saying that “the Dyad was passed through” is the same as saying that “it did not stand firm at a Dyad.” So too, saying that “it was fixed in a Triad” is the same as saying that “the movement of the Monad stood firm in a Triad.” Since we are honoring a monarchy who is not lacking generosity (as in being limited to one person) nor are we honoring a monarchy who is disordered (as in a being who multiplies infinitely). Rather, the same honor fills the Triad, the Father, the Son and the Spirit, they each demonstrate the Holy, “their wealth being a unity of nature and a single explosion of splendor.” So too, “under these things the Godhead is not multiplying infinitely, lest we be multiplying gods, nor is the Godhead fixed in place from these things, lest we be condemned for an impoverished Godhead.”
3 This is not, then, a causal explanation of the being above all beings who is the cause of all other beings. Rather, it is a pious demonstration about their shared glory, if indeed the Godhead is a Monad which is not a Dyad and also a Triad which is not a multitude, since the Godhead is without beginning, without a body and also without internal factions. For the Monad is truly a Monad since it is not the beginning of the ones that come after it, constricting and dilating accordingly, as if it has a natural inclination towards infinitely multiplying. Rather, in reality, the Trinity has the same essential existence. So too, the Triad is truly a Triad. The Triad is not completed by adding numbers together since it is not a combination of Monads who might experience division. Rather, the Monad is really subsisting of three-Persons. For, the Triad is truly a Monad because it exists in this manner. So too, the Monad is truly a Triad because it has subsisted in this manner. There is one Godhead which in its essence is like a Monad and in its subsisting is like a Trinity.
4 And if, after hearing the word “movement,” you wondered how the Godhead who is beyond the infinite might “be moved,” understand that the change happens to us, not to the Godhead. Its Logos first illuminates us to its being. So too, in this manner, its Logos enlightens us to the manner of its subsisting. Therefore, “movement” of the Godhead is the knowledge, through illumination, concerning the way in which the Godhead exists and in what manner it subsists. This knowledge has been given to the ones able to receive it.
1 This is from Saint Gregory the Theologian’s first sermon concerning the Son:
“From the beginning the Monad was moved through a Dyad before standing firm in a Triad.”
Saint Gregory also says something similar in his second Sermon on Peace:
“The Monad was moved through its abundance and a Dyad was passed through (for it is beyond matter and form which are what make up all material bodies), eventually moving into completion, being fixed in a Triad.”
2 O Slave of God, perhaps, while considering these passages, you found it difficult to recognize their harmony since they seem to be in contradiction. Yet, it is not unreasonable to think that these statements cannot be more unified. For, saying that “the Dyad was passed through” is the same as saying that “it did not stand firm at a Dyad.” So too, saying that “it was fixed in a Triad” is the same as saying that “the movement of the Monad stood firm in a Triad.” Since we are honoring a monarchy who is not lacking generosity (as in being limited to one person) nor are we honoring a monarchy who is disordered (as in a being who multiplies infinitely). Rather, the same honor fills the Triad, the Father, the Son and the Spirit, they each demonstrate the Holy, “their wealth being a unity of nature and a single explosion of splendor.” So too, “under these things the Godhead is not multiplying infinitely, lest we be multiplying gods, nor is the Godhead fixed in place from these things, lest we be condemned for an impoverished Godhead.”
3 This is not, then, a causal explanation of the being above all beings who is the cause of all other beings. Rather, it is a pious demonstration about their shared glory, if indeed the Godhead is a Monad which is not a Dyad and also a Triad which is not a multitude, since the Godhead is without beginning, without a body and also without internal factions. For the Monad is truly a Monad since it is not the beginning of the ones that come after it, constricting and dilating accordingly, as if it has a natural inclination towards infinitely multiplying. Rather, in reality, the Trinity has the same essential existence. So too, the Triad is truly a Triad. The Triad is not completed by adding numbers together since it is not a combination of Monads who might experience division. Rather, the Monad is really subsisting of three-Persons. For, the Triad is truly a Monad because it exists in this manner. So too, the Monad is truly a Triad because it has subsisted in this manner. There is one Godhead which in its essence is like a Monad and in its subsisting is like a Trinity.
4 And if, after hearing the word “movement,” you wondered how the Godhead who is beyond the infinite might “be moved,” understand that the change happens to us, not to the Godhead. Its Logos first illuminates us to its being. So too, in this manner, its Logos enlightens us to the manner of its subsisting. Therefore, “movement” of the Godhead is the knowledge, through illumination, concerning the way in which the Godhead exists and in what manner it subsists. This knowledge has been given to the ones able to receive it.
October 27, 2019
Incredible; towering. Who else can do theology like St Maximus? It's the most impressive Philosophical and Theological combination I've ever sampled. St Maximus' popularity is going to grow and grow this century.
August 8, 2020
An excellent view of the expansive thought of this church father, who seems to not only to resolve disputes but to expand our knowledge after resolution.
February 10, 2024
I don't think I'm smart enough to really rate this. But I'm giving myself four stars for slogging through.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews