The Byzantine Christ: Person, Nature, and Will in the Christology of Saint Maximus the Confessor

por Demetrios Bathrellos

Editorial:

Oxford University Press

, 2004

Overview

St. Maximus the Confessor is one of the giants of Christian theology. His doctrine of two wills gave the final shape to ancient Christology and was ratified by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in AD 681. This study throws new light upon one of the most interesting periods of historical and systematic theology. Its focus is the seventh century, the 100 years that saw the rapid expansion of Islam, and the Empire’s failed attempt to retain many of its south-eastern provinces by inventing and promoting the heresy of Monothelitism (only one will in Christ) as a bridge between the Byzantine Church and the anti-Chalcedonian Churches which prevailed in some of these areas.

Contents

Top Highlights

“Maximus integrates successfully the asymmetry on the level of ‘personal’ hypostasis (which is divine) with the symmetry on the level of the two (divine and human) natures, whose unity constitutes the ‘material’ hypostasis.” (Page 106)

“His constant and fervent attacks on the composite nature of Severus bear witness to his concern to defend the ‘without confusion’ of Chalcedon.⁹⁵ His concern to allow no room whatsoever for any pantheistic confusion that would jeopardize the aseity of the divine nature and the integrity of the human nature is also expressed by his insistence that the natures of Christ must be numbered.” (Page 114)

“He argues that ‘hypostasis is necessarily nature … but nature is not necessarily hypostasis’.” (Page 111)

“Maximus follows the Cappadocian tradition, according to which nature is related to what is common, and hypostasis to the particular.” (Page 102)

“The mode of willing is the particular way in which the will is actualized vis-à-vis its objects and differs among persons.” (Page 120)