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ABSTRACT
Maximus the Confessor has been the subject of numerous subsets of the historical, philosophical, and theological disciplines, but the prominent role virtue – and above all else love – plays in his corpus remains vastly underexplored or misunderstood in secondary scholarship. The ascetic thinker’s understanding of virtue is fascinating in its own right since it implies and decodes the enormity of his theological vision by serving as the locus in and through which the created and the uncreated encounter each other. But the distinctive edge of his aretology is all the more peculiar by the way in which he forged it from the remaining shards of the late antique philosophical schools and honed it against the theological touchstones of anchorites, monastics, and Biblical commentators. The result was a multilayered theology of virtue that reimagined the place of love in the Christian life and remained a constitutive aspect of Greek monastic practice and lay piety until the fall of Constantinople and beyond. This chapter situates Maximus within the intellectual horizons wherein he expressed his theology of virtue, analyzes the relationship of love to knowledge and personhood, and examines how the virtues, and especially love, function as the mediating principle between divine condescension and human deification.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. See Brock, “Early Syriac Life of Maximus,” 305, §6.
2. Cooper, Holy Flesh, Wholly Deified, 15.
3. The best overview of the aforementioned sources and their criticism can be found in Larchet, La divinisation de l’homme, 482–8.
4. See Prado, Voluntad y naturaleza; Granados García, “Seréis como dioses a imagen de Cristo”; and Zañartu, “Las naturalezas de las cuales.”
5. See Booth, “Works of Maximus the Confessor.”
6. Ceresa-Gastaldo, Massimo Confessore.
7. The most famous division of virtues of the body and the soul is found in Questions and Doubts 1.1, ll. 1–6 in Declerck, Maximi Confessoris quaestiones et dubia; see also Chapters on Theology, 1.20, 1.58, 1.74, 2.64, 2.65, 2.88, 2.92, 2.100 in Salés, Two Hundred Chapters on Theology; Questions to Thalassios 40, l. 69; 55, l. 483 in Laga and Steel, Maximi Confessoris quaestiones ad Thalassium; and Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, l. 623 in van Deun, Maximi Confessoris opuscula exegetica duo.
8. N.E. 1103a10–11.
9. E.g., N.E. 1103b4, 1103b7, 1103b9, etc.
10. See further Larchet, La divinisation de l’homme, 486, especially notes 247–9.
11. Spira, De anima et resurrectione.
12. See Questions to Thalassios 1, l. 8.
13. For Gregory’s use of Aristotle see Smith, Passion and Paradise; and Zachhuber, Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa.
14. See, e.g., Plato, Phaedros 246A; and Aristotle, On the Soul, 432b5–7.
15. Aristotle, On the Soul, 432b6. Maximos the Confessor, Ambiguum 6.3. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 28, in Constas 28, 70.
16. See Montmasson, “La doctrine de l’apatheia d’après s. Maxime”; Viller, “Aux sources de la spiritualité de saint Maxime”; and Wilken, “Affections in Historical Perspective.”
17. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 191.
18. Ibid., 192.
19. On the Soul and the Resurrection, Gregorii Nysseni Opera 3.3, 39, l. 17–40, l. 3.
20. Ibid., 42, ll. 8–10.
21. Ibid., 42, l. 13–43, l.1.
22. For this connection see Gauthier, “Maxime le Confesseur,”72.
23. See Nikomachean Ethics 1104b21–7.
24. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 192.
25. It should be noted that Maximos appears to attach negative connotations to both faculties in several passages, but Thunberg argues convincingly that they are only negative insofar as they work toward the disintegration from their trichotomous foundational unity – not without qualification. See Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 196–8, especially notes 160–4.
26. Questions to Thalassios 49, ll. 75–6. Compare also to Papanikolaou, “Learning How to Love: Saint Maximus on Virtue” in Vasiljevic, Purpose of Creation through the Resurrection, 239–52.
27. Gregorii Nysseni Opera 6 (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 22, ll. 1–3 and 38, ll. 3–5.
28. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 196.
29. See Questions to Thalassios 16, CCSG 7, 107; and Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 199–200.
30. See Larchet, La divinisation de l’homme, 194.
31. For ignorance see Questions to Thalassios, prologue, CCSG 7, 31 and 16, CCSG 7, 107. For the concupiscible faculty’s involvement in all further vices see Chapters on Love 2.8 and 2.59.
32. DOML 28, viii.
33. See Konstantinovsky, “Evagrius Ponticus on Being Good.”
34. Guillaumont, Les six centuries des “Kephalaia Gnostica”, 56.
35. Perhaps Evagrios means by ‘rational soul’ 
just the human soul most simply, as opposed to the vegetative or sensitive souls of plants and animals, but this is not likely, since Evagrios also shows close attention to the different faculties of the soul like Maximos and it was not unusual to refer to the rational faculty of the soul as the ‘rational soul’.
36. See Ambiguum 10.58; DOML 28, 242. Translation Constas, slightly modified.
37. See Ivanović, “Deification and Knowledge in Dionysius” in Ivanović, Dionysius the Areopagite.
38. For ‘eros’ see On the Celestial Hierarchies, in Heil and Ritter, Corpus Dionysiacum i 14, ll. 12–21, 21, ll. 5–9, 58, ll. 1–2; On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchies, in Heil and Ritter, Corpus Dionysiacum i 74, ll. 15–18, 87, ll. 15–21, 100, ll. 1–5, 116, ll. 1–4; On the Divine Names, in Suchla, Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita 111, ll. 1–2, 155, ll. 14–17, 157, ll. 18–158, ll. 3. For his sense of ‘unknowing’ and related ideas see On the Divine Names, in Suchla, Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita 108, ll. 2–5 and 142, ll. 5–9 in: Suchla, Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita; and Heil and Ritter, Corpus Dionysiacum ii.
39. Perl, “Symbol, Sacrament, and Hierarchy,” 325.
40. For the passivity that humans undergo when they attain the object of their desire see Ambiguum 7.12, DOML 28, 90.
41. Ambiguum 7.22, DOML 28, 106.
42. See Larchet, La divinisation de l’homme, 369; Zañartu, “Las naturalezas de las cuales”; and De Angelis, Natura, persona, libertà, 129 and 184–8.
43. See Letter 15, PG 91.545A and 549B; Opuscule 23, PG 91.265C and 26, PG 91.276A. For these references and discussion see Larchet, La divinisation de l’homme, 369.
44. Leontios of Byzantium, Against Nestorios and Eutyches, PG 86.1280A and Against the Arguments of Severus, PG 86.1945A. See Larchet, La divinisation de l’homme, 331–2; and Daley, “Maximus Confessor, Leontius of Byzantium, and the Late Aristotelian Metaphysics of the Person” in Vasiljevic, Knowing the Purpose of Creation, 55–70.
45. Leontios of Jerusalem, Against Nestorios 1.11, PG 86.1445B and 2.1, PG 86.1532C. See Larchet, La divinisation de l’homme, 331–2.
46. Opuscule 9, PG 91.128D.
47. Ambiguum 7.11, DOML 28, 88, 90. See further Zizioulas, “Person and Nature in the Theology of St Maximus the Confessor” in Vasiljevic, Knowing the Purpose of Creation, 85–114.
48. See Epistles 12, PG 91.488C–489B; 13, PG 91.517C and 525D–529D; and 15, PG 91.553D–556A.
49. See Ambigua 5.12, DOML 28, 42; 27.4, DOML 29, 28; Epistle 15, PG 91.573A; Opuscules 6, PG 91.68A; 9, PG 91.121B; 19, PG 91.224A; Disputation with Pyrrhos, PG 91.289B, Dispute at Byzia 8, PG 90.144A. For further commentary see Larchet, La divinisation de l’homme, 329–32.
50. See Dionysios Skliris, ‘“Hypostasis,” “Person,” “Individual,” “Mode”: A Comparison between the Terms that Denote Concrete Being in St Maximus’ Theology’ in Vasiljevic, Knowing the Purpose of Creation, 437–50.
51. On this topic see Dalmais, “Un traité de théologie contemplative,” 141; de Angelis, Natura, persona, libertà, 129; and Granados García, ‘Seréis como dioses a imagen de Cristo,’ 105–55.
52. ‘En el hombre, el logos de la naturaleza corresponde a su unidad (alma y cuerpo) mientras que el tropos es la configuración específica de su ser dinámico.’ Granados García, ‘Seréis como dioses a imagen de Cristo,’ 110.
53. See Tollefsen, “St Maximus’ Concept of a Human Hypostasis” in Vasiljevic, Knowing the Purpose of Creation, 115–28.
54. Aesop, Fable 7, ver. 1, l. 4; ver. 3, l. 1; 96, ver. 1, ll. 3, 8; ver. 3, l. 4; 147, ver. 1, l. 8, ver. 2, l. 8, ver. 3, l. 7; 180, ver. 1, l. 3, etc.
55. For example, Eudaimean Ethics, 1226a19, 1244b1, 1247a3; Nikomachean Ethics, 1101b13, 1103b34, 1105a31, 1137a31, 1144a18, 1152a35, 1179b28; Analytics, 29b27, 43a17, 66b4, 80a10, 94a18, 99b28.
56. Nikomachean Ethics 1103a18–24.
57. Nikomachean Ethics, 1103a7–11.
58. This sense of ἕξις is considerably different than the direction Thomas Aquinas gives it in Summa Theologiae, I–II, 49, a. 1. Moreover, the Greek tradition made little distinction between ἕξις and διάθεσις that are ascribed to habitus and dispositio in the Thomistic tradition, as set out in ST, I-II, 49, a. 2, ad 3. See further Nederman, “Nature, Ethics, and the Doctrine of ‘Habitus’, 87–100; and Louth, “Virtue Ethics.”
59. For further reference see Blowers, “Gentiles of the Soul”; and “Aligning and Reorienting the Passible Self.”
60. Chapters on Love, 1.35.
61. Ibid., 36.
62. For a comparison of the ascetic tradition on passions to current neurobiological research, refer to Salés, “Maximos and Neurobiology,” 324–31.
63. Nikomachean Ethics, 1104a33–b3.
64. See Chapters on Theology, 2.66–2.68.
65. Epistle 2, PG 90.393BC.
66. Ambiguum 7.21, DOML 28, 102.
67. Ibid.
68. For a modern comparison on this topic, see Ciraulo, “Divinization as Christification in Erich Przywara and John Zizioulas” in Modern Theology (Accessed online 4 May 2016; doi: 10.1111/moth.12262).
69. Ambiguum 7.21, DOML 28, 104.
70. Gauthier, “Maxime le Confesseur,” 53.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Luis Josué Salés
Luis Josué Salés is a PhD student at Fordham University in New York. His work focuses on the doctrine of virtue and Aristotelian ethics in the thought of St. Maximos the Confessor, as well as the reception of the Aristotelian tradition in the Greek, Syriac, Arabic, and Latin traditions.
Aristotle Papanikolaou
Aristotle Papanikolaou is Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture at Fordham University. He studies modern Orthodox thinkers, such as Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas, and his most recent projects investigate the relationship between virtue, violence, and personhood.