Epistle to John Cubicularius on love

“Epistle to John Cubicularius on Love” written by St. Maximus the Confessor, probably in North Africa until 626. This is one of the most important works of St. Maximus, in which he explores the concept of love as a fundamental virtue in the Christian life. The letter was written before the start of the controversy with the Monothelites. It speaks of the one will of God and the saints (expressions close to Monothelite ones are used). If in this letter Rev. Maxim spoke about overcoming the sinful “gnomic” division of people with each other and with God (and in this context - about one intention and one will), then later, in the context of polemics with the Monothelites, the monk insisted on the persisting difference between people and God, as well as between different saints. The message begins with the definition of love. The author views it as a Divine force that unites people. He argues that true love is love that comes from God and is directed towards His creation. It is an integral part of human nature and is designed to elevate the soul. True love is manifested in fulfilling God's commandments. St. Maxim emphasizes that all Christian virtues flow from love. Without it, all other virtues lose their value. This is the foundation on which the life of a believer is built. Love stops the process of the Fall; it becomes the main instrument of salvation, ascent to God, and the deification of man. The monk calls for unity, mutual assistance and the maintenance of brotherly love in the Church, which is especially important in conditions of internal struggle and conflict. Love for God and love for neighbor are completely inseparable. Through love for one's neighbor it is manifested, as St. Petersburg says. Maxim, “the grace of love that leads to God.” I know you, lovers of God, who by grace steadfastly adhere to the holy love of God and neighbor, about which you care in the proper ways; I know [from the experience of communicating with you] when I was with you, and to no less (if not more) degree [I know now] when I am absent, that you have known what the essence of the properties of Divine love are and what they are called, and therefore you possess, by virtue, this divine gift, indescribable and limitless, which not only pours out blessings on those present, but also kindles zeal in those absent, separated [from you] by great space. Every time I am convinced through those who come here and through your precious messages, which, as in a mirror, reflect the image of divine grace that is due to you, of your success in this love, I naturally rejoice and am glad. And I offer thanks for you to God, the Giver of all good things, never ceasing to exclaim with the holy Apostle: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Eph. 1:3). I know and am absolutely sure that your holy soul is inextricably linked with love in the spirit with my pitiful soul, having bonds of friendship with the law of grace, thanks to which you are invisibly united with me and force me to rejoice with you, smoothing out my shame, born of sin, with the gift given from your kindnesses. For truly there is nothing more God-like, more mysterious, more elevating people to deification than Divine love. It contains and gathers together all the good things which the word of truth speaks of as [many] kinds of virtue, and it is in no way bound by all kinds of evil and is removed from them, being the fulfillment of the law and the prophets 1 . Being the heir of the law and the prophets. the mystery of love makes us gods from people; concentrating in itself the universal meaning of individual commandments, it, by [God’s] good will, uniformly embraces these commandments and, according to [God’s] Economy, distributes them in many different ways. What is the image of these blessings that love has acquired? Isn’t it faith - the first foundation of all piety, which certifies the one who possesses it both in the existence of God and in the existence of divine [things]; giving to those who behold these things a fuller and greater idea of ​​them than the eye riveted on the visible forms of sensible things? Isn’t it hope, which in itself creates as a basis the truly existing Good and holds it stronger and more fully than a hand that has taken possession of any dense material object accessible to touch? Is it not she who gives spiritual pleasure to believers and those filled with hope, possessing future [benefits] as if they were present by her inner disposition? Isn't it humility, the first foundation of virtues, thanks to which we can gain knowledge about ourselves and throw away the vain excitement of pride? Isn’t it meekness, with which we overcome both blasphemy and praise, distancing ourselves from the opposite evils - harassment, glory and dishonor? Isn’t it spiritual nobility 2, as a result of which we, even while suffering, remain unchanged in our attitude towards those who act badly, without experiencing any enmity towards them? Isn’t it mercy, thanks to which we voluntarily assimilate the misfortunes of others and which does not allow us to forget about our relatives and compatriots? Isn’t it temperance and perseverance, long-suffering and kindness, peace and joy, with which we easily calm the burning boiling and kindling of rage and lust? Or, to put it briefly, love is the accomplishment of all good things; being faithful, unwavering and always abiding, it leads and leads those living in it to God, the Highest Good and the Cause of all good. For faith, which firmly builds the truth, is the basis of what follows it - I mean hope and love. Hope, being the force that [holds together] love and faith, reveals what one should believe in and what one should love, and teaches how one should make the path to this through it 4 . And love is their fulfillment: embracing with all of itself the entire ultimate object of desire and stopping their movement towards it, instead of faith in its existence and hope for its future fulfillment, it grants itself the taste of it in the present. Strictly speaking, it alone represents man as existing in the image of the Creator, wisely subordinating to reason what is in our power, but not bending reason to it. It persuades the will to move according to nature and not to rebel against the logos of nature. For thanks to this logos we can all have one nature, and one will and one desire, being [consonant] with God and with each other and not moving away from God and from each other, if, of course, we choose as the fundamental idea the law of grace, through which we voluntarily renew the law of nature 5 . Since at the beginning the devil, who deceived man, through selfishness maliciously [lured] him into a skillfully invented trap, deceiving him with the attack of pleasure, he separated our will from God and from each other 6 . Having diverted [man, the evil one] from the straight path, he divided the way of being of his nature, dividing it into many opinions and ideas; over time, he established as a law the search and discovery of all kinds of evil, using for this the strength of our [soul], and for the constant presence of evil in all [people] he laid an evil foundation - the intransigence of the will. Thanks to her, [the devil] immediately convinced a person to turn away from the movement corresponding to nature and direct his desire from the permitted to the forbidden. Thus, three greatest and primary vices arose in man, which are, to put it simply, the parents of all vice: ignorance, selfishness and tyranny, 7 dependent on each other and arising through each other. For out of ignorance of God selfishness [is born]; out of selfishness - tyranny over relatives (this cannot be objected to); their underlying basis is the way we have acquired of abusing our own powers, that is, reason, desire and violent principles. And one must, with reason, instead of ignorance, through knowledge, strive in search of the most unique God; a desire, pure from the passion of selfishness, to be aroused in loving longing for God alone; with a fierce beginning, separated from tyranny, to fight for one God. And from these [the aspirations of the soul] divine and blessed love arises (and they through it), uniting the lover of God with God and revealing him [himself] as God. And when evil happened to a person, by his own will and as a result of the seduction of the devil, then God - the Creator of [human] nature and the wise Healer of it, [already] exhausted by vice - for the sake of love for us, he humbled Himself, taking on the form of a servant (Phil. 2:7), immutably uniting [human] nature with Himself in hypostasis, and all for our sake, from us and through us he became so human that unbelievers did not even consider Him to be God 8 . But He was so God that He placed in the believers the ineffable and true word of piety in order to dissolve the works of the devil, returning to [human] nature the purity of the powers [of the soul], and in order to renew the power of love - the enemy of self-love, which is and is known as the first sin, the first generation of the devil and the mother of all passions that follow. And the one who destroys selfishness with love proves himself worthy of God. Together with self-love, he destroys the entire accumulation of vice, which has no other basis or reason for its existence besides this self-love. Such a person does not know exaltation, which serves as a sign of pride opposing God - a complex and monstrous evil; he does not know the passing glory, which, falling [into oblivion], carries with it those who boast of it; he dries up envy, which itself, in justice, first dries up those possessed by it, through voluntary goodwill, winning over people related to him; together with these [vices], he uproots rage, anger, bloodshed, deceit, hypocrisy, pretense, malice, greed and everything that divides a single person. After all, when selfishness breaks out, which, as I said, is the beginning and mother of evils, then all [the vices] that flow from it and follow it usually break out along with it: when it does not exist, then any kind of vice or traces of it cannot exist at all. Instead of them, all kinds of virtues are introduced [into the soul], complementing the power of love, combining man in the unity of the logos [his nature] and the image [of existence], equalizing and making equal all inequality and difference [arising] in everyone as a result of the [sinful] will 9. [The same power of love] properly leads to a commendable inequality, thanks to which everyone consciously attracts his neighbor to himself and prefers him to himself as much as he previously repelled him and was inclined to rise above him. Through this power of love, [man] voluntarily frees himself from himself 11, separating himself from the ideas and properties that he [was inclined] to think related to himself according to the [sinful] will. He collects himself into a single simplicity and identity, according to which no one in any way separates his own from the general, but everyone is for everyone and everything is for everyone, and, moreover, for God rather than for each other they have a single existence, revealing with themselves (both in nature and in will) the most unique logos of being and God, conceivable in this logos. After all, together with God, the logos of the being of beings must be contemplated and to Him, as the Cause and Creator, which tends to be preserved in us unharmed and unsullied through constant attention 12 and purified from the passions that rebel against it through a reasonable zeal for virtues and through the labors resulting from them. Perhaps the great Abraham accomplished this, both by restoring himself in the logos of nature, and by restoring this logos in himself, and therefore returning to God and himself receiving God back - for one can say both ways, since both seem to be true. He was honored to see God as a man and to receive Him at home [as a guest], due to the perfection of the logos of nature, [which he achieved] through [his] love for mankind. He was ascended to God, rejecting the property of being divided and separating and no longer considering another person as something other than himself, but knowing that the one is, as it were, everything, and everything is, as it were, one 13. For [Abraham] looked with his spiritual eye not at the logos of the [sinful] will, which is (as long as it remains unreconciled with nature) the basis of discord and division, but at the most unique logos of nature, always unchanging, with which, as we know, God is certainly revealed and through which He manifests himself as Good, appropriating to Himself His own creations, since the creature cannot know God as He is in Himself. After all, it is incredible that one could unite with the Simple and the Same, who in himself did not become simple and the same, but remained, as a result of the [sinful] will, divided into many parts relative to the [single] nature. [To do this, he must] first, through love for mankind, combine will with nature and show that in both [there is the same] peace-loving and not prone to rebellion logos, the movement of which is never directed towards anything other than God. According to this logos, those who have accepted this gift always have their [human] nature indivisible and undivided, not torn apart by the multitude of [kinds of] otherness arising from the [sinful] will 14 . For they no longer divide nature this way or that way, becoming now one thing, now another, but in relation to the same things they remain the same, not paying attention to the uniqueness of each, which arises as a result of the [sinful] will and by virtue of which those divided are separated. On the contrary, they direct their gaze to the general and indivisible, [existing] in all according to nature, due to which the separated are united, without introducing with them anything dividing. Through this, in those who possess [such a gift], God manifests Himself, Who, in His love for mankind, takes shape according to the peculiarity of each person’s virtue, and from it He receives the name. For the perfect work of love and the limit of its activity is the preparation so that, through correlative mutual giving, 15 the properties of those combined by it (and their names) are appropriate to each other, and thereby make God a man, and manifest man as God and proclaim him as such through a single and unchangeable intention and impulse of both by will. This is what we find in Abraham and the rest of the saints, and it is equal to what was said on behalf of God: And in the hands of the prophets we became like (Hos. 12:10), [to show] how God, due to His great love for mankind, is likened to everyone, depending on his active implementation of virtue, which unites [all]. For “the hand of every righteous man” is his virtuous work, in which and through which God perceives human likeness. So, love is a great good, the first and exclusive of [all] goods; it combines God and the people who possess it, allowing the Creator of men to appear as a person through complete likeness in good, [which is achieved] by the deified, to the extent that it is accessible to man. This similarity is realized, I think, when they love the Lord God with all their heart, soul and strength, and when they [love] their neighbor as themselves 16 . This is, if you try to grasp [love] by definition, a complete internal connection with the First Good and with the universal Providence about the nature of the entire [human] race. A lover of God who has gone through all the forms of piety cannot rise above this. We know this connection as love and call it love, not considering love for God and love for neighbor as something separate, but recognizing it entirely as one and the same, for we owe it to God, and it unites people with each other. For the fulfillment and clear proof of perfect love for God is sincere affection for one's neighbor, [achieved] through voluntary good will. After all, the divine Apostle John says: For he who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? (1 John 4:20). Love is the way of truth (John 14:6) 17, and the Word of God calls itself by it, which represents to God and the Father those who walk this path pure from all passions. She is a door (John 10:9), and whoever enters through it enters the Holy of Holies, becoming a worthy contemplator of the inaccessible beauty of the Royal and Holy Trinity. She is the true Vine (John 15:1), and by being tightly grafted to her root she is worthy to become a partaker of the Divine quality. Through her, every teaching of the law, the prophets and the Gospel exists and is transmitted, so that we, desiring unspeakable blessings, entrust our ardent desire to the images [of the implementation of virtues], through love for the Creator, honoring the creation as much as it serves Him and as required by the logos of nature, which establishes equality as a law and excludes from nature any inequality that appears as a result of prejudice towards any person, since this the logos contains everyone within itself with the single power of identity 18. For the sake of love, the Creator of nature Himself (an unheard-of and awe-inspiring thing!) clothed ourselves in our nature, immutably uniting it with Himself according to hypostasis, in order to stop the scattering 19 of this nature and collect it in Himself, already united and not possessing any differences [generated by sinful] will, either in relation to Him or in relation to itself. He clearly indicated the all-glorious path of love, truly divine and deifying, leading to God and, as they say, being God. This path, which at the beginning of the 20th century was covered with thorns of selfishness, [the Lord] pre-imprinted in Himself with His passions for our sake and presented it to everyone, [already] clean from [all] obstacles. He swept away the stones on this path with the help of His disciples, as He Himself foretold in the prophets: And place the stones that are in the way (Is. 62:10). He duly convinced us to adhere to Him and to each other as much as He Himself, anticipating this, showed by suffering for our sake. For the sake of this love, all the saints resisted sin to the end, did not care about this life and steadfastly resisted the many forms of death, so that, [leaving] from the world, they could be united with themselves and with God, uniting in themselves the torn parts of [human] nature. Love is the true and impeccable wisdom of the faithful, the end of which is Good and Truth. For love of mankind and love of God by faith are good and true; they are the distinctive signs of love, which combines people with God and with each other, and therefore has the strict constancy of goods. And you, blessed ones, have loved this divine and blissful path with all your soul, so that, laboring in good deeds, you may reach the end [of it]. And therefore, you unshakably adhere to that through which the limit of this path is reached, I mean philanthropy, brotherly love, hospitableness, love of poverty, sympathy, compassion, humility, meekness, spiritual nobility, patience, gentleness, long-suffering, perseverance, kindness, calmness, goodwill and peacefulness towards everyone. From them and through them the grace of love will be created, which leads the deified to God, the Creator of man. For the divine Apostle, or rather, Christ speaking through him, says: Love is long-suffering, is merciful, love does not envy, love does not exalt itself, is not proud, does not act rudely, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything. Love never ceases (1 Cor. 13:4-8), because it has God, the only One who never ceases and who does not change. And love makes the person who lives in accordance with it the same, as the prophet Jeremiah shows us when he says: This is the way of my 21 commandments, and this is the law forever. All who hold on to it will enter into the stomach; those who leave will die. Have her, My child, go straight to the radiance of her light. Your glory will not rain on others, nor on a foreign tongue that is useful to you. Blessed is ecu, for the essence of what is pleasing to God is reasonable (Bar.4:1-4). Learn where there is understanding, where there is strength, where there is wisdom, where there is longevity and life, where there is light and peace (Bar.3:14). Therefore, I loved you with eternal love, and for this reason I drew you into bounties. For I will reward you, and you will be rewarded (Jer.31:3–4). Moan on the paths, and see, and ask about the eternal paths of the Lord; and you see which is the good way, and walk in it, and you will find sanctification for your souls (Jer. 6:16). And again it is spoken through Isaiah; I am the Lord thy God, who taught thee that thou mayest find the path of righteousness, and thou shalt follow it, having obeyed My commandments. Therefore your peace would be like a river, and your righteousness like a wave of the sea (Isaiah 48:17-18). And I, rejoicing in your blessings, dare to speak with God, receiving the [verbs] from the great Jeremiah: blessed are you, who has put off the garments of mourning and your bitterness 22 - that is, [you have put off] the old man, which is corrupted in deceitful lusts; and put on the splendor of the glory of God forever - that is, [put on] the new man created in the Spirit according to Christ and in the image of the Creator; put on the robe of righteousness, which is from God, put a crown on your head of eternal glory - that is, adorned with a clear image of virtues and an unerring word of wisdom, therefore God will show your lordship to all the heavens and your name will be called from God forever, the world of righteousness, and the glory of piety. Apart from these words, I have nothing that [could] show the invisible disposition of [my] soul, for I have nothing equal to your blessings in order to present it to God and you. I can only, as far as it is in my power, be amazed at you, perceive [the extent of] your [spiritual] achievements, rejoice with you who have appeased God with good deeds, through you praise virtue, and through the virtue that united you with God, glorify God [Himself]. After all, as it seems to me, it is one and the same thing to praise your virtue and to glorify God, who has given you the radiance of this virtue, which by grace deifies you in God, erasing the signs characteristic of humans, and humanizes you by condescension. God in you, thanks to [your] assimilation, as far as is accessible to man, of divine properties 23. Rev. Maxim speaks of love as πλήρωμα νόμου καὶ προφητῶν, that is, fulfilling and replenishing the Old Testament, which does not possess this fullness of the Gospel of Christ. An expression similar in meaning is also found in Origen (PG 11, 420): This qualitative difference between the two Testaments (naturally, given their continuity) is also emphasized by the scholia: “Because love is given instead of the law and the prophets; from her come all the commandments (οἱ λόγοι τῶν ἐντολῶν), and they are uniformly encompassed by her.” In the text of the reverend himself. The maxim emphasizes the moment of continuity more strongly than in the scholium: the “sacrament of love” is the “heir” (διαδέχεται) of the law and the prophets. The concept of πραϋπαθεία almost coincides in meaning with “meekness” (πραότης), emphasizing more the moment of noble restraint, spiritual generosity and gentleness, inseparable from genuine meekness. That is why Rev. Maxim, in his essay to “Theopemptus the Scholastic,” speaks about the “skill of spiritual nobility.” It is characteristic that Rev. Macarius of Egypt also claims that as the soul advances along the path of virtues, sin and passions in it decrease, and it begins to feel in itself “a feeling of heartfelt lightness and spiritual nobility” (ἡ αἴσθησις ἐλαφρότητος καὶ πραϋπαθείας) (Makarios/ Symeon. Reden und Briefe. Bd. I. S. 213). Lit. “does not allow us to remain ignorant of what is akin to us and common to us” (τὸ συγγενὲς καὶ ὁμόφυλον). Hope is like a midpoint between two “edges” - faith and love. Therefore, the path from faith to love (and vice versa) always occurs through it. Blazh. The Diadochos of Photiki also considers faith, hope and love to be “guides in all spiritual contemplation, but in love he sees the basis of faith, hope and all virtues in general,” following here St. Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom. (See: Popov K. Op. cit., p. 490.) At Rev. Maxim’s emphasis is placed somewhat differently: the “basis” of βάσις) hope and love is faith. However, such a rearrangement of emphasis does not change the essential image of the general patristic teaching about the close union of these three basic Christian virtues. Their inextricable unity, for example, is clearly emphasized by St. John Climacus. (See: Ladder, pp. 246–251.) According to the interpretation of this place by Zh.M. Garrigues, only love can transform our free will, which, through passionate self-love (i.e., through “selfishness,” “philautia,” or sinful “self”) encloses us in the narrow framework of individual existence, and revives us, turning us to our “hypostatic vocation.” For only individuals can “hypostatize” a single human nature without tearing it into separate individual characteristics. Hypostasis, as a “life of love,” presupposes close and intimate communication between people, like the communication of the consubstantial Persons of the Holy Trinity. Therefore, love “renews” our free will, transforming it into “glorious freedom”, capable of “hypostatizing” the united human nature in living communication of individuals and avoiding the sinful absolutization of one’s “I”. See: Garrigues J. M. Maxime 1e Confesseur. La charité, avenir divin de l'homme. R, 1976, p. 180–181. Lit. “separated us according to his will (κατὰ τὴν γνώμην).” In other words, the Fall perverted and distorted, first of all, γνώμη - not just the free will of man (liberum arbitrium), inherent in his nature, or rather, the “logos of nature,” but the will corresponding to the hypostatic existence of man. See: Lethel F.-M.Op. cit., p. 128. The concept of “tyranny” in patristic vocabulary was often associated with the devil and his dominion over the world. (See: Lampe G. W. Η. Op. cit., p. 1421.) From here it is clear why a person who obeys the “law of sin” also falls into the vice of “tyranny,” i.e., unbridledness, uncontrollable lust for power, etc. In “Questions and Perplexities,” Rev. Maxim develops this topic in a slightly different way (albeit in a similar vein). It says here that there are three images (“tropos”) of involuntary sins: 1) “according to the practice of tyranny”, 2) due to deception andˆ3) due to ignorance. Therefore, the one who sins “due to tyranny” should flee to the “city of abstinence”; the one who commits a sin as a result of deception [on the part of someone] is to retire to the “city of experience,” and the sinner out of ignorance is to rush to the “city of learning.” See: Maximi Confessoris Quaestoines et dubia. Edit J.H. Declerck (Corpus Christianorum. Series Graeca, vol. 10). Brepols; Turnhout, 1982, p. 24. The theme is “kenosis”, “humiliation” or “exhaustion”. God's Word, resounding in many patristic works, is central to the theology of St. Sophronius of Jerusalem. Rev. In this case, Maxim reveals himself to be a faithful student of his mentor. See: Shönborn Ch. Sophrone de Jerusalem, p. 181. Frequently encountered by Rev. Maxim's expression κατὰ τὴν γνώμην here again points to the perversion of the “tropos of being” of the natural will that happened after the Fall, when it submitted to personal desires, crushing and subordinating the demands of nature and making man a slave of passions. Therefore, it takes on the character of personal arbitrariness (St. Maxim also sometimes calls it γνωμικὸν θέλημα). (See: Orlov I. Works of St. Maximus the Confessor on the disclosure of the dogmatic teaching about two wills in Christ. St. Petersburg, p. 123.) The term γνώμη by the Rev. Maxima designates, among other things, not the act of will itself, but the disposition (or habitus) of the will of man as an individual being. It therefore represents the personal and actualized aspect of the human capacity for self-determination. See: Thunberg L. Microcosm and Mediator, p. 226–232. Usual and characteristic of the teacher. Maxima dialectic. Both selfishness and inequality can be not only sinful and vicious, but also virtuous (ἐπαινετὴν ἀνισότητα). In this second aspect, “inequality” is inextricably linked with humility and appears when a person puts his neighbor above himself, following the commandment of the Lord: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). This transformation of sinful inequality into praiseworthy inequality is carried out by a conscious effort of the human will, which is here designated as κατὰ πρόθεσιν, i.e. carried out “by intention”, “sincerely”, and as such is the antithesis of κατὰ γνώμην. What is meant, naturally, is the sinful self of a person, based on selfishness. Lit. “through all attention” (διὰ πάσης προσοχῆς); this expression indicates the ascetic practice of constant sobriety of the mind, its vigilance and observation of thoughts. (See: Zarin S. Op. cit., pp. 434, 584.) It should be noted that by the time of Rev. Maxim, in Orthodox monasticism (especially in Sinai), a fairly stable hesychast tradition has already developed, reflected in ascetic writing (St. Nile of Sinai, St. John Climacus), where the concept of προσοχή, keeping the heart and thoughts, was associated with προσευχή - mental prayer. See: Hausherr I. La méthode d’oraison hésychaste // Orientalia Christiana, 1927, vol. IX, p. 119–120. We are talking about the appearance of God to Abraham in the form of three strangers (see Gen. 18). Abraham introduces himself to Rev. Maximus as a type (or prototype) of the perfect Christian. In “Questions to Thalassius” he says: “God, appearing to Abraham, who was perfect in knowledge, taught him, having a mind already completely separated from the matter of material impressions, that the word about the Unit contains the immaterial word about the Trinity, and therefore [God] appeared to Abraham as three people, and spoke as one.” (Maximi Confessoris Quaestiones ad Thalassium, p. 203.) But if in the “Questions and Answers” ​​acceptance is made of Abraham’s knowledge, then in this epistle this emphasis is placed on his philanthropy, the perfection of love and the “kenosis” of passions, which allowed him to restore in himself the unity of the logos of human nature, and thereby restore the connection with God. Lit. “not separated by the gnomic alterities of many” συνδιατεμνομένη). This phrase most likely has the following meaning: for a person who has achieved spiritual perfection, the single and indivisible human nature comes to the fore; it forces the individual characteristics of his character and temperament, which are closely related to the whims and fluctuations generated by the will in the sense of “gnome,” to recede into the shadows. It is characteristic that Rev. Maxim above casually mentions the “logos” of this very “gnome”. It can be assumed that this “logos” is a kind of “logos in potency”, which is actualized only in complete consonance and perfect harmony with the “logos of nature”. Without such consonance, it seems to lose its “logos” and turns into a kind of “anti-logos”. In this case, Rev. Maxim uses the expression (δι’ ἀντιδόσεως σχετικῆς), which in a Christological context (including that of the monk himself) means the intercommunication of natures in Christ. (See: Lampe G. W. N. Or. cit., p. 153.) Using this expression, Rev. Maxim seems to emphasize that love unites people just as inextricably as the two natures of the Lord were inseparably united. Moral life, the pinnacle of which is love, serves as the basis of deification - this idea was later developed by St. Gregory Palamas, who relied largely on St. Maxima. See: Mantzaridis G. 1. The Deification of Man. St. Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition. N.Y., 1984, p. 61. Rev. Maxim somewhat changes the meaning of this passage in the Gospel (“I am the way and the truth”). The concept of “identity” (ταυτότης) played a large role in the worldview of St. Maxim, denoting one of the manifestations of the general law of the unity of created being, since this law is based on the constant striving and movement of the creature towards Divine identity. See: Balthasar N.U. Kosmische Liturgie (2 Aufl.), pp. 231–232. Rev. Maxim uses the verb φέρεσθαι (lit. “to be carried away”), which in this case denotes the centrifugal forces of individual people drawn by the sinful will (“gnome”) - these forces force people to move further and further from the single core of the “logos of nature.” This implies, naturally, the fall of the first people. In the text of the Septuagint there is the word “Book” (ἡ βίβλος), which Rev. Maxim replaces it with ἡ ὁδός. Further, “God’s commandments” are replaced by “My commandments.” There are a number of other discrepancies. Whenever possible, we try to maintain the style of quoting Rev. Maxim, although this is not always possible. It is characteristic that he attributes excerpts from the “Book of the Prophet Baruch” to the prophet Jeremiah. Here, excerpts from Bar.5:1–4 are interspersed with quotations from Eph.4:22–25 (also quite freely quoted), which reflects the general Christian approach to Holy Scripture: the Old Testament can be perceived and understood only in the light of the New Testament. Therefore, one of the main principles of exegesis by St. The maxim is the thesis that Christ is the main key to all the mysteries of Holy Scripture. See: Croce V. Tradizione e recerca. Il metodo teologico di san Massimo il Confessore. Milano, 1974, p. 52. The conclusion of the message, as it were, summarizes the entire teaching of St. Maxima about love. It is that virtue that seems to “focus” in itself the entire process of deification (Venerable Maxim denotes it with the verb θεουργέω), for in it the “synergy” of God and man is most clearly manifested, since, deifying man, love at the same time “humanizes” (ἀνθρωπίζουσαν) God. Thus, love, as it were, builds a bridge across the “ontological abyss” separating the Creator from the creature. At the same time, we should not forget that Rev. Maxim naturally shared the conviction of all the holy fathers about the fact of the Incarnation as a necessary basis for deification (in love, this Incarnation continues all the time and does not stop), i.e., he shared the basic position of all patristic soteriology. See: Popov I.V. The religious ideal of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria. Sergiev Posad, 1904, p. 42–62; Meyendorff J. New Life in Christ: Salvation in Orthodox Theology // Theological Studies, 1989, vol. 50, p. 489–490. You might be interested in: