Who Am I?

Four Hundred Texts on Love 1

Posted: April 7th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: St. Maximos the Confessor | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on Four Hundred Texts on Love 1

The first work in the philokalia by St. Maximos the Confessor is his Four Hundred Texts on Love, probably written fairly early in his life. In this series, I plan to reflect on some of those texts. I don’t really have a specific set in mind, though I don’t plan to comment on every single text. Mostly I plan to let the series develop as it seems like it should. So without further ado, let’s dive in.

1.  Love is a holy state of the soul, disposing it to value knowledge of God above all created things. We cannot
attain lasting possession of such love while we are still attached to anything worldly.

The concept of knowledge of God comes up frequently in ancient writings in various forms. When we think of knowledge, we tend to think first of a collection of facts about a topic. As such, we are apt to misinterpret such texts when we first read them. However, that is not the only way we use knowledge. For instance, when I say that I know my wife, I’m saying a lot more than that I know her name, birth date, social security number, eye color, hair color, or any of a long list of facts about her. Rather, I am saying that I have experienced life alongside her. We have shared the good and the bad. We have laughed together and we have experienced pain together. It is more that sort of knowledge writers like St. Maximos have in mind.

Once you understand that, then the above makes much more sense. If we are attached to created things, if we highly value anything but God, then we will experience difficulty opening ourselves to God. As Jesus said, we cannot have two masters, for we will love one and hate the other. We cannot love both God and Mammon. St. Maximos also equates in some sense, love to knowing God. And again, this makes sense. If God is love, then as we grow in communion with him — that is as we grow in knowledge of him — we must necessarily grow in love.