Maximus the Confessor

The pull of a religious and contemplative life drew many men and women to it from many spheres. Maximus (c.580 - 662), for instance, was a civil servant and aide to the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (610 - 641) before deciding to embrace the monastic life. Educated in theology and philosophy—especially the works of commentators on Plato and Aristotle—his many writings influenced later writers like John Scotus Eriugena who were drawn to Neoplatonism.

By the age of 30 he had been promoted to the office of the Protoasekretis, a "first secretary" or head of the imperial notaries. His status and level of education suggests someone of noble birth. He chose, however, to leave what must have been a comfortable and lucrative life to join the monastery in Chrysopolis, across the Bosphorus from Constantinople. Eventually he became its abbot.

There was a major change in his life when the Persians invaded Anatolia. He fled to Carthage where he met Saint Sophronius and was introduced to the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. It was while here that a debate about the human versus divine nature of Jesus became intense. Maximus opposed the idea of Monothelitism. 

Monothelitism ("one will") had come up in the 600s in opposition to dyothelitism ("dual wills"), the doctrine that Jesus had two "wills": a divine aspect and a human aspect. Monothelitism was the opinion that he had one will, a single "energy." Maximus had a public debate in Carthage with a friend, Pyrrhus of Constantinople, who had been deposed as patriarch and supported Monothelitism. Maximus convinced his friend that Monothelitism was erroneous. He wrote a transcript of the debate.

Heraclius liked Monothelitism, but wrote to the pope in Rome to create a synod that would settle the matter. The disagreements over the exact nature—dual or otherwise—of Jesus raged for centuries. The turmoil caused by the debates caused Maximus to leave his monastery. He preached in Alexandria for six years, then Crete where he clashed with a bishop who was a proponent of Nestorianism, which said Jesus had two natures.

A Lateran Council in October 649 in Rome (attended by Maximus) condemned Monothelitism. Emperor Constans II—who tried to stop the controversy by simply declaring Monothelitism as the truth and forbade anyone from discussing it further—ordered Maximus and Pope Martin I arrested in 653. Martin died before he could be brought to Constantinople. Maximus was tried as a heretic in Constantinople in 658 because he refused to accept Monothelitism; he was exiled to North Africa. In 662 he was tried, again, convicted of heresy, and had his tongue cut out and his right hand cut off. Sent to Georgia, he was thrown into prison where he died on 13 August 662. The details of his trials were handed down to us by Anastasius Bibliothecarius. The Sixth Ecumenical Council of 680-81 declared Monothelitism heresy, and Maximus was posthumously exonerated.

If Nestorianism said Jesus had two natures, and Maximus was against Monothelitism which believed Jesus had one nature, why did Maximus argue with a Nestorian? Wouldn't they believe the same thing? Not necessarily. Tomorrow let's see what made Nestorianism also heresy.

The Division of Nature

John Scotus Eriugena (c.815 - c.877) was a philosopher, theologian, poet, and master of the palace school of Aachen under the Carolingians. Of his various works, the most impressive was an attempt to reconcile and synthesize all known philosophy up to his time.

De divisione naturae ("On the division of nature") is written in five books as a dialogue between a teacher and student. The title was put to it years later; John called it Periphyseon, from the Greek for "on natures." The intent is to lay out how the Creator is connected to his creation of man and the rest of Creation.

The master explains to the student that "Authority is the source of knowledge, but the reason of mankind is the norm by which all authority is judged." Their socratic dialogue aims to explain all of nature, which is his term for the whole of creation and all its divisions. The "divisions" of nature are:

1. Creating and not created.
2. Created and creating.
3. Created and not creating.
4. Not creating and not created.

Number one is God, who creates but was not created, being eternal. Second are the Platonic forms which are the templates for the objects we perceive. Third is the corporeal world of things that do not themselves create anything but come from the Platonic forms. Finally we have God again, into which all created things ultimately return. He derives this four-fold plan from Augustine's City of God.

Note that numbers one and four are both about God. We'll look at the reason for this division in a translation of his own words:

Let us then make an “analytical” or regressive collection of each of the two pairs of the four forms we have mentioned so as to bring them into a unity. The first, then, [and] fourth are one since they are understood of God [alone]. For He is the Principle of all things which have been created by Him, and the end of all things which seek Him so that in Him they may find their eternal and immutable rest. [link]

This enormous work influenced many theologians in the future. The Divisione and Eriugena's translation of a biography of St. Maximus the Confessor (also one of Eriugena's influences) influenced Bernard of Clairvaux. Hildegard of Bingen shows Eriugena's influence in her Ordo Virtutum ("Order of the Virtues") and the Scivias about her visions. Some see his influence on Nicholas of Cusa.

Bertrand Russell called him "the most astonishing person of the ninth century." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [link] states he "is the most significant Irish intellectual of the early monastic period. He is generally recognized to be both the outstanding philosopher (in terms of originality) of the Carolingian era and of the whole period of Latin philosophy stretching from Boethius to Anselm."

A late anecdote (with no support) by William of Malmesbury says that Eriugena later in life went to teach at Oxford and angered his students to the point where he was stabbed to death by their styluses. William, who edited some of Eriugena's works, also thought he was a heretic because he showed too much Greek influence rather than Latin.

I think we should go back a few centuries and meet Maximus the Confessor, who influenced Eriugena. See you tomorrow.