“It is said that the highest state of prayer is reached when the intellect goes beyond the flesh and the world, and while praying is utterly free from matter and form. He who maintains this state has truly attained unceasing prayer.” – St. Maximos The Confessor
Maximus the Confessor (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, he 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 the Confessor by: Steve Schrader
If you are familiar with the “Philokalia”, then you have probably come across the writings of St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662). Though not well known in the West, his innovative theological treatises, Christological doctrine and suggestions for living the spiritual life loom large in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and he is venerated as a Saint in that tradition.
Maximus exemplifies the integration of sophisticated philosophical thought and theological doctrine with his own unique experience and insight, inspired by his understanding of Biblical revelation and mystical theology. He was scholar, monk, mystic and mentor, and it was within this framework, from which he approached the great mysteries of Christianity.
He is believed to have come from a noble family in Constantinople. He was well educated and because of his intellectual abilities, affable nature, and no doubt some family connections, he secured a position in the imperial court of the Byzantine Empire as secretary to the Emperor Heraclius. He also seems to have had a contemplative disposition and he later resigned his post to become a simple monk in an obscure monastic order.
As a monk and a man of unflinching faith, Maximus became troubled by the rise of Monothelitism within the empire, and he feared that political expediency would cause this to become official Church doctrine. Maximus considered this to be heresy and held to the proposition that Christ had two natures (human and divine), combined in “hypostatic union”, as well as two distinct “wills”, which had been the common Christological doctrine prior to Monothelitism. As the heresy spread, Maximus and his brother monks left for Northern Africa. There he remained, spending much of his time writing complex philosophical and theological arguments directed against Monothelitism. He alternately succeeded and failed in his attempts. Eventually he returned to Constantinople where he was formally charged with theological error, and publicly mutilated by having his tongue cut out and his right hand severed. He was exiled a final time and was never again able to speak or write. Clearly, for Maximus, this must have been worse than death! Ironically, after he died, his Christological doctrine was upheld some years later at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople.
Forgive me for this biographical departure, I merely wish to point out the considerable obstacles Maximus encountered in dealing with the shifting political and ecclesiastical winds of his time, and the depth of his convictions. For Maximus, the Truth could never be sacrificed for personal or political gain and it is hard not to admire him for his conviction.
Besides his obviously strong personal convictions and dedication to truth, Maximus seems to have been a man who sought to expand Christianity well beyond strict doctrinal boundaries. If philosophical reasoning and theological doctrine were the descriptive tools used to give a rational voice to truth, love was the essential ingredient for bringing the truth of Christianity to life. His “400 Chapters on Love” is a spiritual classic in the Eastern Church. For Maximus, all of Biblical revelation and theological doctrine was to be understood in the context of love and in service to one’s neighbor. I quote from “On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ – Selected Writings from St. Maximus the Confessor” (Paul M. Blowers and Robert L. Wilken, trans.): “It is, moreover, the final victory of love, the cosmic virtue that both reorients the passions and disposes the Christian in a perfect relation with God, with neighbor, and indeed with all creation. As Maximus writes in an early letter to John the Cubicularius, dating around 626, ‘Love gives faith the reality of what it believes and hope the presence of what it hopes for, and the enjoyment of what is present. Love alone, properly speaking, proves that the human person is in the image of the Creator, by making his self-determination submit to reason, not bending reason under it..’” (Page 43)
Maximus has been called a “cosmic” theologian. His thinking was broad and inclusive, integrative and ecumenical. For him, nothing was ever lost and everything was to be transformed. Again, quoting from “On the Cosmic Mystery”… “For Maximus the Confessor, the world – the natural world and the “world” of the scriptural revelation – is the broad and complex theater in which God’s incarnational mission is playing itself out to full completion. Both the cosmos and the Bible tell the same glorious story, as it were: the story of the Logos who, in his historical incarnation and in his gradual eschatological epiphany in all things, discloses through the logoi, the providential “principles” of creation and Scripture, the magnificent intricacy and beauty of the transfigured cosmos.” (Page 17)
I am not a philosopher or a theologian, so I must admit to some difficulty when reading Maximus’s advanced philosophical and theological positions. It is rather the beauty of his vision and his approach to Christian mystery that captures me. But it was his attempt to integrate both that has made him memorable.
God’s Peace
Steve