Maximos the Confessor

[CaDan]

Is Maximos the Confessor still considered "good theology"?

[ProCommunioneFacior]

I would think so.

[Theophorus]

I've read his The Ascetic Life and The Four Centuries on Charity and saw nothing wrong with it. Is there something specific you were wondering about?

[ephraimanesti]

BROTHERS/SISTERS IN CHRIST,

i have always loved Saint Maximos and experienced much Spiritual growth as a result of reading what he wrote for us. His "Four Centuries on Love" is, i think my favorite. i hope to be able someday (should our Lord deign to perform a Miracle :sorry: !) i can live up to the ideal of Love in his statement: "For him who is perfect in love and has reached the summit of dispassion there is no difference between his own or another's, or between Christians and unbelievers, or between slave and free, or even between male and female. But because he has risen above the tyranny of the passions and has fixed his attention on the single nature of man, he looks on all in the same way and shows the same disposition to all." Lord have Mercy that it may become so! :amen:
i'm not clear what the question on this Thread is?

GOD'S GRACE TO YOU ALL!
ephraimanesti

[CaDan]

I've read his The Ascetic Life and The Four Centuries on Charity and saw nothing wrong with it. Is there something specific you were wondering about?

I ran across him in Pelikan's "History of the Development of Doctrine" and his writings look very interesting.

I ask because Pelikan also devotes a great deal of time to discussing Theodore of Mopsuestia, whose work also looked interesting. Turns out he was condemned as heretical by the Council of Ephesus. Oops. . . . :)

[Lotar]

Yes. He is one of the great Saints of the Church. :)

[Akathist]

I ran across him in Pelikan's "History of the Development of Doctrine" and his writings look very interesting.

I ask because Pelikan also devotes a great deal of time to discussing Theodore of Mopsuestia, whose work also looked interesting. Turns out he was condemned as heretical by the Council of Ephesus. Oops. . . . :)

I don't know the particulars here, but there have been times when someone was "condemned as heretical" as you put it for a certain theology but whose other writings are still very good and still utilized.

[Theophorus]

Well, he was exiled, he had his tounge cut out and his right hand cut off for heresy. He was prolific and had influence though he was never a priest. He was embroiled in defending the faith against a couple of fronts. But he is recognized as a Saint.
I have not read his Ambigua, but I doubt I would find any subtlety that would even give me pause.

[icxn]

Well, he was exiled, he had his tounge cut out and his right hand cut off for heresy. He was prolific and had influence though he was never a priest. He was embroiled in defending the faith against a couple of fronts. But he is recognized as a Saint.
I have not read his Ambigua, but I doubt I would find any subtlety that would even give me pause.
The heretics (monotheletists) were the ones that cut his tounge because he taught Orthodoxy and refused to comply with their decrees.


The life of Saint Maximus is also instructive for us. Saint Maximus, though only a simple monk, resisted and cut off communion with every patriarch, metropolitan, archbishop and bishop in the East because of their having been infected with the heresy of Monothelitism. During the first imprisonment of the Saint, the messengers from the Ecumenical Patriarch asked him, "To which church do you belong? To that of Byzantium, of Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, or Jerusalem? For all these churches, together with the provinces in subjection to them, are in unity. Therefore, if you also belong to the Catholic Church, enter into communion with us at once, lest fashioning for yourself some new and strange pathway, you fall into that which you do not even expect!"

To this the righteous man wisely replied, "Christ the Lord called that Church the Catholic Church which maintains the true and saving confession of the Faith. It was for this confession that He called Peter blessed, and He declared that He would found His Church upon this confession. However, I wish to know the contents of your confession, on the basis of which all churches, as you say, have entered into communion. If it is not opposed to the truth, then neither will I be separated from it." The confession which they were proposing to the Saint was not Orthodox, of course, and so he refused to comply with their coercions. Furthermore, they were lying about the See of Rome which, in fact, had remained Orthodox. Some time later, at his last interrogation by the Byzantine authorities, the following dialogue took place:

The Saint said, "They [the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria and all the other heretical bishops of the East] have been deposed and deprived of the priesthood at the local synod which took place recently in Rome. What Mysteries, then, can they perform? Or what spirit will descend upon those who are ordained by them?"

"Then you alone will be saved, and all others will perish?" they objected.

To this the Saint replied, "When all the people in Babylon were worshipping the golden idol, the Three Holy Children did not condemn anyone to perdition. They did not concern themselves with the doings of others, but took care only for themselves, lest they should fall away from true piety. In precisely the same way, when Daniel was cast into the lion's den, he did not condemn any of those who, fulfilling the law of Darius, did not wish to pray to God, but he kept in mind his own duty, and desired rather to die than to sin against his conscience by transgressing the Law of God. God forbid that I should condemn anyone or say that I alone am being saved! However, I shall sooner agree to die than to apostatize in any way from the true Faith and thereby suffer torments of conscience."

"But what will you do," inquired the envoys, "when the Romans are united to the Byzantines? Yesterday, indeed, two delegates arrived from Rome and tomorrow, the Lord's day, they will communicate the Holy Mysteries with the Patriarch. "

The Saint replied, "Even if the whole universe holds communion with the Patriarch, I will not communicate with him. For I know from the writings of the holy Apostle Paul: the Holy Spirit declares that even the angels would be anathema if they should begin to preach another Gospel, introducing some new teaching."

As history has demonstrated, Saint Maximus—who was only a simple monk and not even ordained—and his two disciples were the ones who were Orthodox, and all those illustrious, famous and influential Patriarchs and Metropolitans whom the Saint had written against were the ones who were in heresy. When the Sixth Ecumenical Synod was finally convened, among those condemned for heresy were four Patriarchs of Constantinople, one Pope of Rome, one Patriarch of Alexandria, two Patriarchs of Antioch and a multitude of other Metropolitans, Archbishops and Bishops. During all those years, that one simple monk was right, and all those notable bishops were wrong. From The Life of Our Holy Father St. Maximus the Confessor (Boston: Holy Transfiguration, 1982), pp. 60-62

[icxn]

Is Maximos the Confessor still considered "good theology"?
The Catholic Encyclopedia: (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10078b.htm)

Known as the Theologian and as Maximus Confessor, born at Constantinople about 580; died in exile 13 August, 662. He is one of the chief names in the Monothelite (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10502a.htm) controversy one of the chief doctors of the theology of the Incarnation and of ascetic mysticism, and remarkable as a witness to the respect for the papacy held by the Greek Church in his day. This great man was of a noble family of Constantinople.
(...)
Thus St. Maximus died for orthodoxy and obedience to Rome. He has always been considered one of the chief theological writers of the Greek Church, and has obtained the honourable title of the Theologian. (...)

[Matrona]

Thus St. Maximus died for orthodoxy and obedience to Rome.

:doh: This is why I don't think it's a good idea to use the "Catholic" Encyclopedia.

He... has obtained the honourable title of the Theologian. (...)

Not in the Orthodox Church. There are only three Saints with the title of Theologian and St. Maximos, no matter how beloved he is, is not one of them. Those saints are St. John, St. Gregory, and St. Symeon.

[icxn]

:doh: This is why I don't think it's a good idea to use the "Catholic" Encyclopedia.
Yes I know, but at the time Rome was still Orthodox (more than the East for that matter). Also Cadan is a Roman Catholic, that is why I quoted what his church says about the particular Saint.
Not in the Orthodox Church. There are only three Saints with the title of Theologian and St. Maximos, no matter how beloved he is, is not one of them. Those saints are St. John, St. Gregory, and St. Symeon.
True in the East he is a theologian with a small t.

[Maximus]

On that note, it is important to remember that St. Maximus' greatest supporter (besides God) was Pope St. Martin I, who was also martyred in the Monothelite controversy, which began as another ill-advised attempt to placate the Monophysites and bring them back into the Church.

Pope St. Martin I is one of my favorite people. :thumbsup:

[ProCommunioneFacior]

On that note, it is important to remember that St. Maximus' greatest supporter (besides God)

:D

[Maximus]

I ran across him in Pelikan's "History of the Development of Doctrine" and his writings look very interesting.

I ask because Pelikan also devotes a great deal of time to discussing Theodore of Mopsuestia, whose work also looked interesting. Turns out he was condemned as heretical by the Council of Ephesus. Oops. . . . :)

I don't believe Theodore of Mopsuestia - revered as a saint and father by the Nestorians - was condemned at Ephesus in 431.

He was condemned posthumously at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, at Constantinople, in 553.

[CaDan]

I don't believe Theodore of Mopsuestia - revered as a saint and father by the Nestorians - was condemned at Ephesus in 431.

He was condemned posthumously at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, at Constantinople, in 553.

I stand corrected.