Luke Steven, Imitation, Knowledge, and the Task of Christology in Maximus the Confessor (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2020), pp. x + 217. $28.00.

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-298
Author(s):  
Demetrios Bathrellos
2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk

The article deals with the problem of the divine light in the mystical works of St Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) in the context of the Eastern Christian ascetical tradition. The author focuses on the passages referring to the divine light in the works of Evagrios Pontikos, St Isaac the Syrian, St Maximus the Confessor, and in the Makarian corpus. As is shown in the present contribution, none of these authors created a fully-developed theory of the vision of the divine light. Being close to these writers in many ideas, St Symeon was generally independent of any of them in his treatment of the theme of vision of light, always basing himself primarily upon his own experience.


Author(s):  
Григорий Исаакович Беневич ◽  
Дмитрий Александрович Черноглазов

В статье рассматриваются толкования прп. Максимом Исповедником события Преображения Господня, которые сопоставляются с его учением о мистическом богословии. Доказывается, что Преображение созерцается прп. Максимом как своего рода «эйдос» или парадигма мистического богословия. Проводится сравнение некоторых ключевых понятий мистического богословия прп. Максима, с одной стороны, с «Ареопагитиками», а с другой - с учением свт. Григория Паламы. Сохраняя верность основным моментам учения «Ареопагитик», прп. Максим придаёт ему более отчетливое христологическое и опытно-антропологическое истолкование. Что касается учения свт. Григория Паламы, то, несмотря на некоторые отличия в терминологии (особенно понимания апофатики), экзегеза Преображения прп. Максима и его учение о мистическом богословии в целом могут быть согласованы с основными положениями Паламы. При этом необходимо помнить, что прп. Максим отвечал на иные вопросы, природа и характер восприятия Фаворского света не были в центре его внимания. The article discusses Maximus the Confessor’s interpretations of the Transfiguration of the Lord, which are compared to his doctrine of mystical theology. It proves that Transfiguration was contemplated by Maximus to be a kind of paradigm of mystical theology. A comparison of some key concepts of Maximus’s mystical theology is made, on the one hand, with that of the Corpus Areopagiticum, and on the other - with the teachings of St. Gregory Palamas. Remaining loyal to the main points of the teachings of the Areopagite, Maxim gave them a clearer Christological and experimental anthropological interpretation. As for the teachings of St. Gregory Palamas, despite some differences in terminology, (especially the understanding of apophaticism), Maximus’s exegesis of the Transfiguration and his doctrine of mystical theology as a whole can be reconciled with the main provisions of Palamas. At the same time, it is necessary to remember that Maximus answered other questions, the nature and character of the perception of the light of Thabor was not at the centre of his discussion.


Author(s):  
Brian E. Daley, SJ

The Council of Chalcedon’s definition of the terms in which Nicene orthodoxy should conceive of Christ’s person remained controversial. Leontius of Byzantium argued for the correctness of the Council’s formulation, especially against the arguments of Severus of Antioch, but suggested that more than academic issues were at stake: the debate concerned the lived, permanently dialectical unity between God and humanity. In the mid-seventh century, imperially sponsored efforts to lessen the perceived impact of Chalcedonian language by stressing that Christ’s two natures were activated by “a single, theandric energy,” also remained without effect: largely because of the monk Maximus “the Confessor”, who argued that two complete spheres of activity and two wills remained evident in Christ’s life. Maximus’s position was ratified at the Lateran Synod and at the Third Council of Constantinople. The eighth-century Palestinian monk John of Damascus incorporated these arguments into his own influential synthesis of orthodox theology.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 575
Author(s):  
Olga Chistyakova

The article traces the formation of Eastern Christian anthropology as a new religious and philosophical tradition within the Early Byzantine culture. The notion “Patristics” is reasoned as a corpus of ideas of the Church Fathers, both Eastern and Western. The term “Eastern Patristics” means the works by Greek-Byzantine Church Fathers, who in the theological disputes with the Western Church Fathers elaborated the Christian creed. Based on an analysis of the texts of Greek-Byzantine Church Fathers, the most important provisions of Eastern Patristics are deduced and discussed, which determined the specificity of Christian anthropology. In this context, different approaches of the Eastern Fathers to the explanation of the Old Testament thesis on the creation of man in God’s image and likeness and the justification of the duality of human essence are shown. Particular attention is paid to considering the idea of deification as overcoming the human dualism and the entire created universe, the doctrine of the Divine Logoi as God’s energies, and the potential elimination of the antinomianism of the earthly and Divine worlds. The article reflects the anthropological ideas of the pre-Nicene Church Father Irenaeus, the non-canonical early Christian work The Shepherd of Hermas, and the teachings on the man of the classical Eastern Patristics period by Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor.


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