| The Fourth Ecumenical Council had condemned the Monophysite heresy, which falsely taught that in the Lord Jesus Christ there was only one nature (the divine). Influenced by this erroneous opinion, the Monothelite heretics said that in Christ there was only one divine will (“thelema”) and only one divine energy (“energia”). Adherents of Monothelitism sought to return by another path to the repudiated Monophysite heresy. Monothelitism found numerous adherents in Armenia, Syria, Egypt. The heresy, fanned also by nationalistic animosities, became a serious threat to Church unity in the East. The struggle of Orthodoxy with heresy was particularly difficult because in the year 630, three of the patriarchal thrones in the Orthodox East were occupied by Monothelites: Constantinople by Sergius, Antioch by Athanasius, and Alexandria by Cyrus. Saint Maximus traveled from Alexandria to Crete, where he began his preaching activity. He clashed there with a bishop, who adhered to the heretical opinions of Severus and Nestorius. The saint spent six years in Alexandria and the surrounding area. Patriarch Sergius died at the end of 638, and the emperor Heraclius also died in 641. The imperial throne was eventually occupied by his grandson Constans II (642-668), an open adherent of the Monothelite heresy. The assaults of the heretics against Orthodoxy intensified. Saint Maximus went to Carthage and he preached there for about five years. When the Monothelite Pyrrhus, the successor of Patriarch Sergius, arrived there after fleeing from Constantinople because of court intrigues, he and Saint Maximus spent many hours in debate. As a result, Pyrrhus publicly acknowledged his error, and was permitted to retain the title of “Patriarch.” He even wrote a book confessing the Orthodox Faith. Saint Maximus and Pyrrhus traveled to Rome to visit Pope Theodore, who received Pyrrhus as the Patriarch of Constantinople. In the year 647 Saint Maximus returned to Africa. There, at a council of bishops Monotheletism was condemned as a heresy. In 648, a new edict was issued, commissioned by Constans and compiled by Patriarch Paul of Constantinople: the “Typos” (“Typos tes pisteos” or “Pattern of the Faith”), which forbade any further disputes about one will or two wills in the Lord Jesus Christ. Saint Maximus then asked Saint Martin the Confessor (April 14), the successor of Pope Theodore, to examine the question of Monothelitism at a Church Council. The Lateran Council was convened in October of 649. One hundred and fifty Western bishops and thirty-seven representatives from the Orthodox East were present, among them Saint Maximus the Confessor. The Council condemned Monothelitism, and the Typos. The false teachings of Patriarchs Sergius, Paul and Pyrrhus of Constantinople, were also anathematized. |
| Theology of St Maximus has become a subject for vivid scientific analysis. Already traditional seminars on the heritage of St Maximus under the auspices of the International Patrological Conference in Oxford have marked growing interest towards the theology of St Maximus. Although much attention was paid to different aspects of Maximus’ anthropology, no complete and comprehensive overview of his doctrine of human nature within the hierarchical order of the world existence has been produced so far. I. Hierarchical principle of creation in general The principle of hierarchy according to St Maximus is one of the basic principles of the created world, inherent to it from the very beginning. Maximus’ theology having borrowed many elements from the works of St Gregory the Theologian and form the Areopagite corpus, continued developing the issue of hierarchy, especially with respect to the doctrine on human being 3 . Insisting on the dogma that the world was created from nothing St Maximus underlines the limitless (πειρον) difference between the created and uncreated nature 4 . It is important to point out that, refuting the teachings of origenists, St Maximus outlines the border between God and the whole of creation very distinctively. Both the invisible world of angels and the material world are positioned together behind this border. According to St Maximus God is totally not cognizable and lies beyond understanding of both visible and invisible creatures: “For it is beyond the understanding of both visible and invisible creatures to comprehend what He is” 5 . At the same time, one should realize that the doctrine of the qualitative distinction of all small and large parts of the Universe as well as material and nonmaterial world from God is not at all negative in ontological sense. The teaching of St. Maximus is free from any type of echoing neoplatonic understanding of the world as a hierarchical ladder leading to God. On the contrary, the world which is ontologically separated from God is supposed to reach integrality in itself so that within its integrality (not in its separate, “most noble parts”) it could become a place of fulfillment of the Creator’s providence, of “praise and service to the Unlimited One” 6 . |
| Baptism, and the catechising that prepares candidates for it, was another context for theology, All the earliest creeds originated in baptism, and the first Council of Nicaea used the baptismal creeds of the local churches as the basis of its creed. Another context was given by the need to respond to the rival alternative accounts of the faith that were offered by other teachers outside the Church. This form promoted the development from baptismal confessions to a broader range of creeds, in order to confront Gnosticism, Arianism and other deviations from the faith of the Church. This was the background of theological writers such as Irenaeus, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria and Maximus the Confessor who wrote because they were asked to respond to opposing views of the gospel, rather than because they set out to compose comprehensive statements of the faith. Origen in the third century was the first to offer a comprehensive presentation of the Christian faith, setting out a systematic arrangement of the doctrine of the Church in his ‘On Principles’. Saint John of Damascus did the same, five centuries later, in ‘The Exposition of the Orthodox Faith’, while the ‘Summa Theologica’ of Thomas Aquinas represents the high point of the subject’s development in the mediaeval period. Nonetheless, there is no particular reason why Christian theology should be presented as a system. Theology also originated in the councils of the Church. Councils were called in order to respond to deviations from the faith of the Church, and as one council followed another, faith was expressed by increasingly detailed statements given in creeds and canons. Theology also had its origin in the reflection of Christians on their own lives, and particularly reflection on the lives of the monks. These are expressed in the sayings of the Desert Fathers recorded, for example, in the works of Saint John Climacus (sixth century), Maximus the Confessor (seventh century), Simeon the New Theologian (tenth century) Gregory Palamas (fourteenth century) and those spiritual Fathers we know as the Hesychasts. |
| This type of radical Monophysitism lives on today, as we will see, in the Coptic Church. It is not shared by the Syrians who are loyal to the most important Monophysite figure in history, Severus of Antioch. Severus of Antioch: Monophysitism with Nestorian Elements A violent man who led militias and spread horror among his opponents and backed by Emperor Anastasius who embraced Monophysitism, Severus became the patriarch of Antioch around the year 512. He wrote some interesting polemics explaining his rejection of Orthodoxy. Severus believes that Christ is one composite hypostasis out of two hypostases, not merely two natures. These hypostases contain their own persons. Surprisingly, we find the two discordant Christologies i.e. Nesotrianism and Monophysitism are combined together to give the Severian Christology. V.C. Samuel, the Indian Monophysite scholar, says: " The Divinity and the Humanity, then, combined into one. The moment that divinity came to union in God the Son, the Humanity came to union in an individuated state. As Severus says the two natures which came together in union were hypostases … in uniting humanity to Himself, does God the Word assume it only as an abstract reality, without being in a hypostatic or personal condition? If the humanity of Christ doesn " t have the features which make it a person, can it function in anyway in the incarnation? Saint Maximus the Confessor detected this strange combination and ascribed the Nestorian understanding of the union of natures to Severus. These are the main streams of Monophysitism. Because of that, Dioscorus and Severus are highly regarded as the greatest teachers in Christianity for Monophysites and that " s why the Coptic liturgy mentions their names before all the patriarchs and saints. The later Monophysite classics contain a mixture of these streams. In Egypt, there were famous medieval Coptic scholars who wrote in that trend. Ibn al-Makin wrote the most important theological voluminous work in 13 th century Egypt. He asserts that Christ " s human nature is not completely like ours, and the reason, which is the same one Dioscorus used to be the point of departure for his Christology, is that His body is united with Divinity and this makes it impossible to think of Christ " s consubstantiality with us in his manhood. According to al-Makin, " Whilst the fathers confessed His complete humanity, they didn " t state that every aspect in our humanity should be in Christ " s or vice versa " . He explains the difference between our nature and His humanity asking how Christ’s human essence Jawhar is like ours while he has a virginal birth, is free from Original Sin, united with Divinity and is incorruptible, while our nature is corruptible and lacks the previously mentioned unique features. He considers that the union made one essence, unlike “the hypostatic union” and, interestingly, he attributes it to the “Melkites " , meaning, the Chalcedonians. |
| Historically speaking, whilst the argument of “terminological misunderstanding” is a recent innovation, there were some implicit references to the post-Chalcedonian controversies. Great scholars like Leontius of Jerusalem in his Aporiae and Saint John of Damascus in his treatises against heretics referred to such tricky approaches that aim to overlook the existing dogmatic differences. Saint Maximus the Confessor, who is one of the greatest theologians in the history of Christendom, faced the attempts of Severus of Antioch, a Monophysite heretic, to manipulate the words “nature” and “hypostasis”. He considered this to be a sort of wickedness, while John of Damascus asks, “Why should one equate these terms in the domain of economy!?” But I will come back to this question in the next article. Lack of the academic scholarship This situation leads us to the following problem. The reader of the papers presented in the joint commissions will not find – whether in the unofficial or the official dialogues – a single study on Christology by any of the Fathers of the Church. On the Contrary, John Romanides criticized Saint Leo of Rome for giving Theodoret a chance to speak. He referred to Leo as the supporter of a heretic and said that, “Leo followed Theodoret like a pet on a leash” while Dioscorus by supporting Eutiches was less mistaken! I was in the Coptic Church when I read his paper. This means that his words could have been taken by me as a victory and source of credibility for my Coptic faith. However, with humble unbiased search we can discover how his Anti-Papal motive, as he implicitly described it later in the same paper, led him to launch this harsh attack against one of the greatest doctors of the whole Christendom and how his approach lacks historical support if we carried out a fair historical investigation. From such a careful investigation emerges a critical question; do we have a Christological and historical study by St. Leo the Great presented to the Monophysites? Romanides failed to produce such an academic approach when he criticized Leo without reading him within the historical and doctrinal context let alone his mistake in claiming that he knows what Dioscorus meant by one nature , an orthodox meaning according to Romanides, while we have almost nothing survived from his writings! At the same time, how can it help the Monophysites when we overlook academic methodology? This is accurately described by Prof. |
| This type of radical Monophysitism lives on today, as we will see, in the Coptic Church. It is not shared by the Syrians who are loyal to the most important Monophysite figure in history, Severus of Antioch. Severus of Antioch: Monophysitism with Nestorian Elements A violent man who led militias and spread horror among his opponents and backed by Emperor Anastasius who embraced Monophysitism, Severus became the patriarch of Antioch around the year 512. He wrote some interesting polemics explaining his rejection of Orthodoxy. Severus believes that Christ is one composite hypostasis out of two hypostases, not merely two natures. These hypostases contain their own persons. Surprisingly, we find the two discordant Christologies i.e. Nesotrianism and Monophysitism are combined together to give the Severian Christology. V.C. Samuel, the Indian Monophysite scholar, says: “The Divinity and the Humanity, then, combined into one. The moment that divinity came to union in God the Son, the Humanity came to union in an individuated state. As Severus says the two natures which came together in union were hypostases … in uniting humanity to Himself, does God the Word assume it only as an abstract reality, without being in a hypostatic or personal condition? If the humanity of Christ doesn’t have the features which make it a person, can it function in anyway in the incarnation? Saint Maximus the Confessor detected this strange combination and ascribed the Nestorian understanding of the union of natures to Severus. These are the main streams of Monophysitism. Because of that, Dioscorus and Severus are highly regarded as the greatest teachers in Christianity for Monophysites and that’s why the Coptic liturgy mentions their names before all the patriarchs and saints. The later Monophysite classics contain a mixture of these streams. In Egypt, there were famous medieval Coptic scholars who wrote in that trend. Ibn al-Makin wrote the most important theological voluminous work in 13 th century Egypt. He asserts that Christ’s human nature is not completely like ours, and the reason, which is the same one Dioscorus used to be the point of departure for his Christology, is that His body is united with Divinity and this makes it impossible to think of Christ’s consubstantiality with us in his manhood. According to al-Makin, “Whilst the fathers confessed His complete humanity, they didn’t state that every aspect in our humanity should be in Christ’s or vice versa”. He explains the difference between our nature and His humanity asking how Christ’s human essence Jawhar is like ours while he has a virginal birth, is free from Original Sin, united with Divinity and is incorruptible, while our nature is corruptible and lacks the previously mentioned unique features. He considers that the union made one essence, unlike “the hypostatic union” and, interestingly, he attributes it to the “Melkites”, meaning, the Chalcedonians. |
| Miller’s elegant theory on memory-based feeling states is not without parallel in the teachings of the Church fathers. In fact, Saint Maximus the Confessor understanding of impassioned conceptual images contains the very components of Miller’s memory-based feeling states. In particular, the Saint writes, “The nous receives the impassioned conceptual images in three ways: through the senses, through the body’s condition and through the memory. It receives them through the senses when the senses themselves receive impressions from things in relation to which we have acquired passion, and when these things stir up impassioned thoughts in the nous; through the body’s condition when, as a result either of an undisciplined way of life, or of the activity of demons, or of some illness, the balance of elements in the body is disturbed and again the nous is stirred in impassioned thoughts or to thoughts contrary to providence; through the memory when the memory recalls the conceptual images of things in relation to which we were once made passionate, and so stirs up impassioned thoughts in a similar way” ( Second Century on Love, 74). In other words, memories of what we’ve seen and heard as well as what our bodies have felt can coalesce into psychosomatic thoughts to which we are subject and that we suffer with (in other words, impassioned), thoughts that push us in directions away from gratitude to God and love for Him. That is the spiritual and theological significance of impulsive thoughts. Instead of having the memory of God warm us, illumine us, and fill us with love, these impassioned memories send us on a search for a thousand idols to replace the God of our heart. Thus, Saint Gregory of Sinai wrote, “The source and ground of our distractive thoughts is the fragmented state of our memory. The memory was originally simple and one-pointed, but as a result of the fall its natural powers have been perverted: it has lost its recollectedness in God and has become compound instead of simple, diversified instead of one-pointed. |
| Дионисий Ареопагит . Сочинения. Максим Исповедник . Толкования/Пер. Г. М. Прохорова. СПб., 2002. Преподобный Максим Исповедник . Диспут с Пирром Пер. Д. Е. Афиногенова//Диспут с Пирром: преподобный Максим Исповедник и христо-логические споры VII столетия/Отв. ред. Д. А. Поспелов. М., 2004. С. 145–237. Преподобный Максим Исповедник . О различных недоумениях у святых Григория Дионисия (Амбигвы)/Пер. арх. Нектария (Яшунского). М., 2006. Преподобный Максим Исповедник . Четыреста глав о любви//Доброто-любие в русском переводе. Т. 3. М., 1903. С. 163–228. [Пер. еп. Феофана] Преподобный Максим Исповедник . Творения/Пер. С. Л. Епифановича , А. И. Сидорова . Вст. статья и прим. А. И. Сидорова. Кн. I., И. М., 1993. Massimo il Confessore. Ambiguä problemi metafisici e teologici su testi di Gregorio di Nazianzo, Dionisi Areopagita/Introd., trad., note e apparati di Claudio Moreschini. Milano, 2003. P. 212–243. Saint Maxime le Confesseur. Ambigua Introd. par J.-C. Larchet; avant-pro-pos, trad, et not. par E. Ponsoye; comm. par D. Staniloae. Paris, 1994. P. 127–150. Saint Maxime le Confesseur. Lettres Introd. par J.-C. Larchet. Paris, 1998. Saint Maxime le Confesseur. Opuscules theologiques et polemiques/Introd. par J.-C. Larchet. Paris, 1998. St. Maximus the Confessor. On the Beginning and End of Rational Creatures//On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings from St. Maximus the Confessor/Transl. by P. Blowers and R. Wilken. Crestwood; N.-Y., 2003. P. 45–74. IV. Переводы других древних авторов Аристотель. Соч.: В 4 т. М., 1975–1983. Правила VI Вселенского собора//Древности Восточные. Труды восточной комиссии Императорского Московского Археологического Общества. Т. 2. Вып. III. М., 1903. Греческое житие преподобного Максима von. Das Scholienwerk des Johannes von Skythopolis//Scho-lastik. 15,1940. P. 16–38. Balthasar H., von. Die «Gnostischen Centuries» des Maximus Confessor. Freiburg im Br., 1941. Balthasar H., von. Kosmische Liturgie. Maximus der Bekenner: Hohe und Krise des griechischen Weltbilds. Freiburg im Br., 1941. [Франц. изд.: Liturgie Cosmique. Paris, 1947.] |
| The Very Revd Dr John A. Jillions is Assistant Professor of Theology at the Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, Canada, and Dean of Annunciation Orthodox Cathedral in Ottawa. He was founding Principal of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, England, and has served as a priest in the USA, Australia, Greece and England. He contributed chapters to Orthodox and Wesleyan Spirituality (2007) and Evangelicalism and the Orthodox Church (2001). The Very Revd Leonid Kishkovsky is Director of External Affairs for the Orthodox Church in America and Editor of its Church-wide publication, The Orthodox Church. He has written and lectured widely on Orthodoxy in America and the Church in Eastern Europe. His published writings include «Reflections on American Orthodoxy» in Orthodox Christians in North America: 1794–1994 (1995) and »Patriarch Tikhon: a vision of Orthodox mission in the New World» in The Legacy of St. Vladimir: Byzantium-Russia-America (1990). His addresses and editorials are available on www.oca.org. The Very Revd Archimandrite Ephrem Lash lectured in theology at the University of Newcastle (1979–85) and is widely known as a translator, with a particular interest in liturgical and scriptural translation. Much of his work is available on his web-site, www.anastasis.org.uk. His writings include Kontakia: On the Life of Christ. St Romanos the Melodist (1995). He was also the principal translator of The Divine Liturgy of our Father among the Saints John Chrysostom (1995). The Revd Andrew Louth is Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies at the University of Durham, having previously taught patristics at the University of Oxford and Byzantine history at the University of London (Goldsmith " s College). His writings include Maximus the Confessor (1996), St John Damascene. Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (2002) and The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition from Plato to Denys (1981). |
| When Constans II received the decisions of the Council, he gave orders to arrest both Pope Martin and Saint Maximus. The emperor’s order was fulfilled only in the year 654.Saint Maximus was accused of treason and locked up in prison. In 656 he was sent to Thrace, and was later brought back to a Constantinople prison. The saint and two of his disciples were subjected to the cruelest torments. Each one’s tongue was cut out, and his right hand was cut off. Then they were exiled to Skemarum in Scythia, enduring many sufferings and difficulties on the journey. After three years, the Lord revaled to Saint Maximus the time of his death (August 13, 662). Three candles appeared over the grave of Saint Maximus and burned miraculously. This was a sign that Saint Maximus was a beacon of Orthodoxy during his lifetime, and continues to shine forth as an example of virtue for all. Many healings occurred at his tomb. In the Greek Prologue, August 13 commemorates the Transfer of the Relics of Saint Maximus to Constantinople, but it could also be the date of the saint’s death. It may be that his memory is celebrated on January 21 because August 13 is the Leavetaking of the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Saint Maximus has left to the Church a great theological legacy. His exegetical works contain explanations of difficult passages of Holy Scripture, and include a Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer and on Psalm 59, various “scholia” or “marginalia” (commentaries written in the margin of manuscripts), on treatises of the Hieromartyr Dionysius the Areopagite (October 3) and Saint Gregory the Theologian (January 25). Among the exegetical works of Saint Maximus are his explanation of divine services, entitled “Mystagogia” (“Introduction Concerning the Mystery”). The dogmatic works of Saint Maximus include the Exposition of his dispute with Pyrrhus, and several tracts and letters to various people. In them are contained explanations of the Orthodox teaching on the Divine Essence and the Persons of the Holy Trinity, on the Incarnation of the Word of God, and on “theosis” (“deification”) of human nature. |
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