Paul M. Blowers
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199673940
- eISBN:
- 9780191815829
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673940.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies, Philosophy of Religion
While scholarship on Maximus the Confessor has burgeoned in recent decades, there has not always been sufficient attention to the context of his writings, particularly his earlier writings before his ...
More
While scholarship on Maximus the Confessor has burgeoned in recent decades, there has not always been sufficient attention to the context of his writings, particularly his earlier writings before his deep involvement in the monothelete controversy. Save for his Letters and some of his christological Opuscula, Maximus leaves little in his theological works in the way of explicitly addressing the cultural, ecclesiastical, and political situation in which he is writing. An example is his engagement of the legacy of Origen and Evagrius, where we long for him to say more both of the “Origenism” which he criticizes and the “Origenism” he appropriates. Blowers broaches the need to prevent Maximus’ thought from being disembodied from concrete circumstances, and proposes how this book will focus on his “cosmo-politeian” vision of the world, and his “theo-dramatic” reading of creation and sacred history, as critically and constructively engaging the stormy seventh century in Byzantium.Less
While scholarship on Maximus the Confessor has burgeoned in recent decades, there has not always been sufficient attention to the context of his writings, particularly his earlier writings before his deep involvement in the monothelete controversy. Save for his Letters and some of his christological Opuscula, Maximus leaves little in his theological works in the way of explicitly addressing the cultural, ecclesiastical, and political situation in which he is writing. An example is his engagement of the legacy of Origen and Evagrius, where we long for him to say more both of the “Origenism” which he criticizes and the “Origenism” he appropriates. Blowers broaches the need to prevent Maximus’ thought from being disembodied from concrete circumstances, and proposes how this book will focus on his “cosmo-politeian” vision of the world, and his “theo-dramatic” reading of creation and sacred history, as critically and constructively engaging the stormy seventh century in Byzantium.
Paul M. Blowers
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199673940
- eISBN:
- 9780191815829
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673940.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies, Philosophy of Religion
This book contextualizes the achievement of a strategically crucial figure in Byzantium’s turbulent seventh century, the monk and theologian Maximus the Confessor (580–662). Building on newer ...
More
This book contextualizes the achievement of a strategically crucial figure in Byzantium’s turbulent seventh century, the monk and theologian Maximus the Confessor (580–662). Building on newer research and international scholarship, as well as on fresh examination of its literary corpus, the book develops a profile integrating Maximus’s two principal initiatives: his reinterpretation of the christocentric economy of creation and salvation as a framework for expounding the spiritual and ascetical life of monastic and non-monastic Christians; and his involvement in the last phase of the ancient christological debates, the monothelete controversy, wherein Maximus helped lead an East–West coalition against Byzantine imperial attempts doctrinally to limit Christ to a single (divine) activity and will devoid of properly human volition. The book identifies what it terms Maximus’s “cosmo-politeian” worldview, a contemplative and ascetical vision of the participation of all created beings in the novel politeia, or reordered existence, inaugurated by Christ’s “new theandric energy.” Maximus ultimately insinuated his teaching on the christoformity and cruciformity of the human vocation with his rigorous explication of the precise constitution of Christ’s own composite person. In outlining this cosmo-politeian theory, the book sets forth a “theo-dramatic” reading of Maximus, inspired by Hans Urs von Balthasar, which depicts the motion of creation and history according to the christocentric “plot” or interplay of divine and creaturely freedoms. The book also amplifies how Maximus’s cumulative achievement challenged imperial ideology in the seventh century—the repercussions of which cost him his life—and how it generated multiple recontextualizations in the later history of theology.Less
This book contextualizes the achievement of a strategically crucial figure in Byzantium’s turbulent seventh century, the monk and theologian Maximus the Confessor (580–662). Building on newer research and international scholarship, as well as on fresh examination of its literary corpus, the book develops a profile integrating Maximus’s two principal initiatives: his reinterpretation of the christocentric economy of creation and salvation as a framework for expounding the spiritual and ascetical life of monastic and non-monastic Christians; and his involvement in the last phase of the ancient christological debates, the monothelete controversy, wherein Maximus helped lead an East–West coalition against Byzantine imperial attempts doctrinally to limit Christ to a single (divine) activity and will devoid of properly human volition. The book identifies what it terms Maximus’s “cosmo-politeian” worldview, a contemplative and ascetical vision of the participation of all created beings in the novel politeia, or reordered existence, inaugurated by Christ’s “new theandric energy.” Maximus ultimately insinuated his teaching on the christoformity and cruciformity of the human vocation with his rigorous explication of the precise constitution of Christ’s own composite person. In outlining this cosmo-politeian theory, the book sets forth a “theo-dramatic” reading of Maximus, inspired by Hans Urs von Balthasar, which depicts the motion of creation and history according to the christocentric “plot” or interplay of divine and creaturely freedoms. The book also amplifies how Maximus’s cumulative achievement challenged imperial ideology in the seventh century—the repercussions of which cost him his life—and how it generated multiple recontextualizations in the later history of theology.
