Who Am I?

St. Maximos the Confessor

Posted: April 6th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: St. Maximos the Confessor | Tags: , , , , , | Comments Off on St. Maximos the Confessor

If you study Church history, you can’t help but encounter St. Maximos the Confessor. He stood faithfully against the monothelite heresy, even when it meant standing against both the Patriarch and the Emperor. This heresy held that even though Christ had both a human and a divine nature, he had only a divine will. Such a man could not have strayed from the divine will, thus could not have been truly tempted. A Christ like that could never relate to us as one of us, nor we to him. St. Maximos held faithfully to the teaching that in Christ’s fully human nature, he also had a human will. Despite all temptation and suffering, Jesus kept his human will faithfully aligned with the divine will.

St. Maximos not only faithfully held to the faith, he confessed it widely and effectively in person and in writing. He was so effective that in his last exile, his tongue was removed to keep him from speaking and his hand was cut off to keep him from writing. His faithful assistant continued writing and St. Maximos’ works continued to be widely circulated and read. In 680, eighteen years after his death, he was vindicated in the 6th ecumenical council, which affirmed the two wills of Christ.

Once he was accused of esteeming himself the only Orthodox and the only one who would be saved and of believing all others were heretics would be condemned. His response has stayed in my mind.

When all the people in Babylon were worshiping the golden idol, the Three Holy Youths did not condemn anyone to perdition. They did not concern themselves with what others were doing, but took care only for themselves, so as not to fall away from true piety. In precisely the same way, Daniel also, when cast into the den, did not condemn any of those who, in fulfilling the law of Darius, did not want to pray to God; but he bore in mind his duty, and desired rather to die than to sin and be tormented by his conscience for transgressing God’s Law. God forbid that I, too, should condemn anyone, or say that I alone am being saved. However, I would sooner agree to die than, having apostatized in any way from the right faith, endure the torments of my conscience.

Though I have but a fraction of the great saint’s faith, I understand and share his response above. My scribblings here and elsewhere, such as they are, represent my effort to understand and express my faith in Christ. I do not intend to condemn anyone. I do not have that right and do not desire that responsibility.

St. Maximos has long held a special place in my heart and I’ve decided to blog through some of his works preserved in the philokalia. I’ll start tomorrow with his Four Hundred Texts on Love.


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