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Four Hundred Chapters on Love

St Maximus the Confessor, tr. Sherwood, 1955

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Maximus, a disciple at the same time of two great diverse spiritual tendencies, that associated with the Pseudo-Denis and that stemming from Origen, endeavored to compose them in his own thought and life. To him is due at once the transmission of the Origenist spirituality and the first serious reasoned criticism of the Origenist myth;¹ to him is due a further and definitive diffusion among the orthodox of the Corpus Dionysiacum and the refutation of Monenergism sheltered by a famous text of Denis; a Neoplatonic mystic, he did not hesitate to use Aristotelian concepts and logic in the refutation of Monothelite errors. As a monk, then, nurtured on the same spiritual fare as the Monophysites—Denis and Origen —he had the acumen while retaining the fulness of this spirituality not only to reject the Monophysite position but to elaborate the orthodox doctrine of two natures in its ulterior consequences of two wills and operations.²

Yet it is not only in the speculative and doctrinal realms that Maximus fixes our attention.

A simple monk (for he was neither priest nor superior), Maximus was the inspirer of several anti-Monothelite councils in Africa and played a great part in the Lateran Council of 649;³ thoroughly a subject of the emperor, he knew how to maintain the Church’s liberty in the face of the imperial ecclesiasticism; a thorough Byzantine by cultural formation and attachment, he consistently placed unity of faith, even though it be with the less-cultured Latins, above the narrower unity of language and rite.

It is the one man of God and of His Church underlying this series of contrasts that I would try to sketch in the following pages. Previous writers have treated Maximus under one or the other of these aspects—as polemic theologian, as ascetic author, as champion of the Holy See, as exegete, as philosopher; even von Balthasar in his Kosmische Liturgie considers only the structure of Maximus’ thought. It is then the whole Maximus that I would endeavor to present.

In two passages of his earlier works Saint Maximus himself gives a key to his whole life and activity, which it will be well to set at the head of this sketch of his life and doctrine. First he speaks in his introduction to the Difficulties from Denis and Gregory⁴ of their sanctity, of their God-given wisdom, so much so that they ‘possess the living Christ above all, or better, Christ has become the soul of their souls, manifest in all their deeds and words and thoughts.’ Such is the basis of his adherence and reproduction of the doctrine of the Fathers. Again in the second part of the same work, dealing with the relations of body and soul at conception, he writes:

The holy Fathers and teachers clearly proclaim, rather the truth that speaks and is spoken through them, that together with the descent of God the Word at conception instantaneously by means of a rational soul the Lord Himself, God the Word, was united to the flesh. . . .⁵

Here Maximus alleges not only the authority of the Fathers but that of the very fact itself: the truth that speaks. These passages indicate, I think, the cardinal attitudes of his life and thought: fidelity to the Spirit-animated tradition and to the revealed fact—the mystery of the God-man.

If then Maximus is called theologian, as sometimes he has been, it is rather in the sense that St. John the Evangelist is called theologian than that in which St. Thomas Aquinas receives the title. For the coherence of Maximus’ thought, which not all would allow,⁶ does not derive from the systematization of the Church’s teaching in function of some humanly-posited principle or philosophy,⁷ but from a vision of the divine things in the light of the Incarnation of the Son of God, in the light therefore of that mystery by which alone we know the Father and our salvation. Having thus grasped the significance of Gospel and Tradition, in a word, of Christ, it is not essential that the conceptual furniture for expressing this understanding of Christ be everywhere the same—so long as it be apt for its function and pressed to fulfil it.

Maximus has in fact used extensively the writings of Evagrius of Pontus, of Denis the Mystic, of Origen; how much he is indebted to the Cappadocians, especially Gregory of Nyssa, and to Cyril of Alexandria, has not been studied; nor yet the imprint left on the turn of his doctrine not only by his constant opposition to Monophysite errors but by his profound sympathy with the innate trend of their thought, the emphasis on, and the exaltation of, the one Christ our God. It was in fact to defend this unity of Christ that he unceasingly maintained the distinction of the natures, human and divine, alike after as before the union.

The Life and Combat of St. Maximus was written some twenty years after his death, at the time of the sixth ecumenical council (680–81).⁸ It gives us little precise information in addition to the six contemporary documents which have come down to us. These documents have all been studied, completed, and analyzed by Devreesse.⁹ The other source of our knowledge of Maximus are his writings.¹⁰ The letters especially and some of the other occasional pieces give valuable information. Grumel has made some use of them in his notes on the life of St. Maximus.¹¹

I. Life

Born in 580, Maximus received his formation and schooling during the years of Gregory the Great’s pontificate. The education thus received was common to all the youths who looked forward to the imperial service, the Church, or simply to affairs. It comprised the usual grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy. Under philosophy was included the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy) and philosophy itself. This philosophical instruction was based chiefly on the works of Plato and Aristotle, along with the commentators.¹²

It would have been therefore in the impressionable years of youth that Maximus made his first acquaintance alike with Aristotle and the Neoplatonists. For it was the commentaries of Proclus, Iamblichus, and the like that accompanied the texts of the masters.

It is worth noting this first contact with Neoplatonic thought; for it would seem that the love of the supernal world there first imparted flowered not only in Maximus’ monastic vocation but in the whole of his theological activity as defender and interpreter of Denis the Mystic and of Gregory the Theologian.

Before, however, he was to start out on the monastic life, Maximus was to attain one of the highest positions at the imperial court—namely that of first secretary to Heraclius, who came to power in 610. It was doubtless during the years of his schooling and imperial service that he formed those close friendships with men of the court that his later correspondence permits us to appreciate.

His time of service with the emperor was not long. Probably about the year 613–14 Maximus withdrew to a monastery, that of Chrysopolis (now Scutari) on the Asiatic shore across from Constantinople. His biographer is probably right in saying that his love for the life of solitude (the hesychastic life) prompted him to leave the court.

In this life too he made quick progress. By the year 618 he already had a disciple, the monk Anastasius, who was to be with him to the end.

Theological Position at the Outset

Only some six or seven years (624–25) after Anastasius had become his disciple, Maximus must have left his first monastery at Chrysopolis for that of St. George at Cyzicus (now Erdek).¹³ His earlier writings, with but one possible exception (Ep 6), are to be assigned to this stay. It was from here that he wrote the first surviving letters to John the Chamberlain, among which is that magnificent encomium on charity, of which Combefis says: vere maximum agit Maximus. Surely this little treatise is worthy of the highest praise, yet it betrays a point of view in the spiritual life and a terminology which could only be favorable to the Monenergistic and Monothelite heresies. Thus in eulogy of our union with God he writes:

As we all have one nature, so we are able to have with God and with one another but one mind (γνώμη) and one will, being in no way at odds either with God or with one another.¹⁴

This illustrates, as well as any one passage can, how apt for confusion such terminology was, and indicates equally well a spirituality which places the summit of holiness in the unity of wills. I have been brought to think that this spirituality was in large measure common property not only among the Byzantines but also among the Monophysites. This being true, it will not be difficult to understand the caution with which Maximus proceeded in taking up a clear-cut opposition to Sergius and Pyrrhus in their feelers for compromise with the Monophysites.

In any case it was also at Cyzicus and in discussion with Bishop John that the Ambigua were conceived. In these he makes a similar statement about one will of God and the saints, which afterwards he felt bound to retract.¹⁵

Though, then, this larger group of Ambigua were written down only after Maximus had arrived in Africa, yet they were thought out in his talks with the bishop.¹⁶ It is clear even from a cursory reading that it is not the Monophysites or Monenergists which gave them anxiety, but the Origenists. This is a refutation of Origenism, especially of the doctrine of the henad, with a full understanding and will to retain what is good in the Alexandrian master’s doctrine—a refutation, perhaps, unique in Greek patristic literature.¹⁷

A careful and full analysis of this whole block of questions is necessary for establishing or disproving the homogeneity of Maximus’ thought. Given a self-consistent thought-structure in these Ambigua, one would be justified in understanding the two Gnostic Centuries,¹⁸ so predominantly Origenistic, in the light of this structure. In fact this Origenistic influence is so strong¹⁹ that von Balthasar speaks of a real Origenistic crisis in the Confessor’s thought and conjectures his supposed stay at Alexandria in 633 as the occasion of this crisis.²⁰

Now the texture of Maximus’ refutation of Origen in the Ambigua seems to me sufficiently coherent. We may then point out some of the relations that obtain between the two Centuries in question and the other works of Maximus.

First of all, the two Centuries seem to be a literary unity, not the work of a compiler.²¹ Von Balthasar has drawn attention to the many similarities between the Centuries and the Questions to Thalassius and to Theopemptus. I for my part would draw particular attention to the intimate relations which bind the contrary motifs of the Centuries with the Ambigua. Of the contrary motifs by far the most noteworthy are the initial group of ten.²² This ten is obviously a unit?’²³ and as clearly a forceful summary of the anti-Origenist doctrine of the Ambigua.

Its position at the beginning of 200 predominantly Origenist chapters is highly significant. Maximus, basing himself on the Ambigua, is giving, as it were, the metaphysical framework in which the Origenist and Evagrian sentences are to be understood. They are to be understood in the context he gives, not that of their original authors.²⁴

If such an interpretation of Maximus be tenable, he then appears not as suffering an Origenist crisis, but as deliberately endeavoring to give the assimilable elements in the Alexandrian master’s thought a secure place in monastic tradition. The success of this effort is another and a quite distinct question.

The Ambigua, then, though composed later in Africa, were conceived and thought out in discussions with the bishop of Cyzicus. Judging from the extent of the Ambigua and the relations of abbot and spiritual son obtaining between the bishop and Maximus, his stay at Cyzicus must have actually been of some duration. I should say at least a year, with the expectation that it should be permanent.²⁵ The advance of the Persians on Constantinople in the spring of 626, as Msgr. Devreesse has pointed out,²⁶ will have occasioned the dispersal of the monastery of St. George at Cyzicus and sent Maximus further on his way to Africa.

Progress to and Establishment in Africa

On this journey there are two possible stopovers—Cyprus and Crete. Maximus himself relates that once he had been in Crete, that the Severian bishops then held a dispute with him.²⁷ This notice tells us two things: the stay in Crete was more than a passing call; Maximus was already known as a theologian and defender of the Chalcedonian faith. Doubtless it was during this stay that he made the acquaintance of the bishop of Cydonia, the third principal town in Crete,²⁸ to whom later he writes at his correspondent’s request.

For a stop in Cyprus we have no similar direct statement of Maximus, but may only infer it from the fact of his correspondence with the Cypriote Marinus²⁹ and from a possible acquaintance with the bishop Arcadius.³⁰

When did Maximus finally arrive in proconsular Africa? The end of Epistle 8, as published by Devreesse,³¹ makes it clear that he was at Carthage at least by Pentecost of 632. I think, however, his actual arrival should be set back a few years before that date. This will depend on Maximus’ relations with Sophronius. Now it is known that Sophronius, at Alexandria in June of 633, was elected patriarch of Jerusalem in 634. Hence the relations which bound the two men together would have to have been formed before that date, 633. Sophronius and Maximus dwelt in the same African monastery while Sergius the patriarch and his fellows (among whom was Pyrrhus) were fabricating Monenergism.³² This monastery was called Eucratas,³³ Sophronius’ surname.³⁴ Of this community Sophronius was apparently the head, for Maximus refers to him as teacher and abbas.³⁵ All seem agreed that Sophronius was largely responsible for awakening Maximus to a sense of danger in the new heresy. What the extent of that influence was, is still to be determined.³⁶ In any case the relations of master and spiritual guide which Maximus gives to Sophronius in his own regard demand some length of time for their formation. Tentatively, then, let us assign Maximus’ arrival in Africa to the years 628–30.

The group of letters to the bishop of Cyzicus, 28–31, 8, all express Maximus’ desire to be restored to the bishop’s community of St. George’s Cyzicus. Perhaps the group of four were written in the first years of his exile and Epistle 8 when the master he had found in Sophronius was already on his way to the east. In any case at the end of Epistle 8 he still prays to be brought back,³⁷ though doubtless with the same readiness to bear the separation with the help of their prayers as he expresses in Letter 31.³⁸

However, about this time—632, 633—I suppose that Maximus came to accept his exile as a permanent thing. In the extant correspondence there is no further mention of returning to the east. From one letter, the 25th, it also appears that he had in Africa a superior to whom he must excuse himself. This Conon, of whom we know nothing further, succeeded perhaps Sophronius in the direction of the exile Byzantine community near Carthage.

It is during the first years of this African stay that Maximus composed the two great works which have come down to us complete—the Questions to Thalassius and the earlier, larger Ambigua.

Relations with Imperial Governors

In the years that follow there are three elements in Maximus’ life: his continuing monastic life, his relations with the imperial governors of Africa, his activity against Monophysitism and the rising heresies, Monenergism and Monothelitism.

Of this first there is little one can say, for it has no external history. Yet it is well to realize that Maximus remained a monk and a contemplative to the very core throughout all the subsequent controversies and polemics. To be convinced of this it is enough to read the remarks with which he prefaces his great polemic work Ad Marinum.³⁹

Of the governors there are two with whom Maximus was intimately connected: Peter the Illustrious and George.

Peter, strategos of Numidia, was ordered in the year 633 to proceed to Egypt.⁴⁰ To this same Peter we find Maximus addressing a little treatise against the doctrine of Severus. Peter has just informed him of the safe conclusion of a sea voyage and of the return to their heresy of some ill-converted Monophysites. Peter must be at Alexandria after the Pact of Union of June, 633. Finally Maximus refers Peter to Sophronius who, he says, is able to supply all the deficiencies of the letter.

The next letter we have to Peter is to recommend to him the newly-converted Alexandrian deacon Cosmas, that he may in case of necessity use his good offices with the ‘God-honored pope.’⁴¹ The reference is doubtless to Cyrus of Alexandria, and Peter is still or again in that town.

Finally we find Peter again in Africa where he had occasion to be concerned over the title accorded there to the ex-patriarch Pyrrhus, most holy. Maximus’ reply is an impassioned review of the whole Monothelite question.⁴²

Maximus’ relations with George were perhaps closer; at least we know more about them because of the disaster in which his term as eparch ended. Only one letter is addressed to George, a letter of encouragement in time of trial.⁴³ The whole affair Maximus reports to his friend at court, John the Chamberlain.⁴⁴ The story briefly is this. George had endeared himself to the whole population by his care of widows and orphans, by his solicitude for the persons displaced by the Mohammedan conquests, by his zeal for the Chalcedonian orthodoxy. Not least was he solicitous for his fellow Byzantines and the exile monks of the Eucratas monastery. In November, 641, a certain Theodore arrived, bearing letters supposedly from the empress-regent Martina, ordering George to set at liberty some Monophysite nuns. When this was noised among the people, there was a great commotion and the empress’ good name for orthodoxy was gravely compromised. Therefore, to preserve her reputation and to quiet the people, George, having consulted Maximus, declared the letters spurious. Shortly after this incident George was recalled to Constantinople.

This recall can scarcely be a result of the Theodore incident; there is not the time for a courier to have gone to Constantinople and to have returned. If such were the case, Martina’s fall from power, in the autumn of 641, would certainly have been known in Africa and reflected itself in the correspondence seeking George’s return; but there is no such indication. It seems therefore much more probable that George and Maximus were right in declaring the Martina letters spurious.

However that may be, the Africans, especially the Byzantines, were left in great uncertainty as to the outcome of this recall for their beloved eparch.

In all his relations with public officials Maximus appears as their counselor and above all as solicitous for their orthodoxy in regard, almost exclusively, to Monophysitism.

Monothelite Controversy: The ‘psephos’

This constant polemic against Monophysitism as such without suggestion of the developing heresies, Monenergism and Monothelitism, brings us face to face with the problem of the rise of Maximus’ opposition to these heresies. Father Grumel gives the impression that Maximus was very slow in entering the lists against Monothelitism. The letter to Peter about Pyrrhus’ title most holy (written 643–44) he terms the first openly anti-Monothelitic document from the Confessor’s hands.⁴⁵

This is rather late, ten years after the Pact of Union of Alexandria; and all the more surprising when Maximus himself in the dispute with Pyrrhus⁴⁶ assigns the first steps of Monenergism to the letter of Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, to George Arsas asking for patristic texts in favor of one energy. This was in the year 617.⁴⁷

There cannot be question here even of sketching the rise of these heresies; the outlining, however, of the genesis of Maximus’ attitude towards them can scarce be omitted. The remarks then that follow must suppose some knowledge of the former.⁴⁸

Without doubt the anonymous biographer throws the hardened position of controversy back many years before its time when he relates that the rising heresy was a chief motive for Maximus in leaving the imperial service.⁴⁹ This certainly was not the case. The first clear indication of his diffidence or rather non-acceptance of Monenergism is found in the later Ambigua, showing the influence of Sophronius’ synodicon of 634,⁵⁰ and in his reply to Pyrrhus (Ep 19) which is subsequent by but a little to Cyrus’ Pact of Union and Sergius’ judgment against the disputed terminology—one operation, two operations in the Lord.

This is the first evidence come down to us; it is amply sufficient.

Of these documents the letter to Pyrrhus is of greater importance.⁵¹ Pyrrhus had written Maximus, relating the action of Sergius in regard to the openly Monenergistic Pact of Alexandria and seeking his support for the Sergian policy.

The judgment (psēphos) of Sergius, to which Maximus refers,⁵² has come down to us. Grumel has given as the text of this psēphos a passage from Sergius’ letter to Honorius.⁵³ He seems, however, to have overlooked a passage a few paragraphs above in the same letter which is textually repeated in the Ecthesis of 638.⁵⁴ Now it is known that the Ecthesis was no more than the psēphos promulgated over the imperial signature.⁵⁵ I believe therefore that we have the very text of the psēphos in the passage just indicated.

The Pact of Union had patently admitted one operation. The psēphos forbade mention either of one or two operations of Christ, it being alone permissible to refer to the only-begotten Son Jesus Christ operating what is divine and human, as proceeding from the one Incarnated Word of God. So far so good; there is nothing in this overtly heterodox. But why this restriction? The psēphos goes on: Some are scandalized because to speak of one operation seems to imply denial of the two natures which Our Lord possesses—an objection scarce worthy of attention. On the other hand many are scandalized, because the phrase ‘two operations’ is not found in the Fathers and implies two contrary wills in Our Lord.

This latter part of the psēphos is clearly tendentious; but as these pros and cons are presented not as a matter of precept but only as a matter of accessory opinion, one could let them pass.

What, then, is Maximus’ attitude toward this document? Sophronius in his synodicon had avoided the proscribed terminology, while forcefully combatting the underlying doctrinal tendency. Maximus similarly accepts the psēphos, but according to his own doctrinal interpretation. The reason for his great praise of Sergius is precisely this, Sergius’ rejection of the Alexandrian novelty, that is, the Monenergistic Pact of Union. This psēphos maintains the right doctrine in the face of this error.⁵⁶ He then proceeds to state what is this right doctrine. When he comes to speak of the Incarnation, he is most explicit. Sergius in writing to Honorius, and later, Pyrrhus in his dispute with Maximus,⁵⁷ assign all suffering and passion to the humanity of Christ alone and then correspondingly all operation to the Godhead. Maximus seems to have such a thought in mind when in this letter he stresses with exceptional vigor the exchange of properties (communicatio idiomatum), writing: ‘He works humanly what is divine . . . and divinely what is human.’⁵⁸ It is only a few lines further on that he enunciates the principle governing the whole question:

That which is made up of diverse things without mixing them, by a natural bond of union, both preserves their component natures unchanged and conserves undiminished their (several) component powers for the completion of a single work.⁵⁹

Here we find not only the distinction of two natures maintained, but likewise that of the consequent powers. Unity is found in the work done, not in the doing. The distinction of operations is not here explicitly affirmed (it is necessarily implied); perhaps because there was a real confusion of terminology, which gave specious justification to the tendentiousness of the psēphos and about which Maximus is careful to seek further explanations.⁶⁰

Maximus then with great dexterity affirms the orthodox doctrine in this question, while still observing the psēphos, an authoritative document; he avoids offending the official party while making it clear that the favored Monenergism is scarcely acceptable unless the term operation is explained.

This is precisely the weak point. It was above all Sergius’ tergiversations on the meaning of the will that chiefly turned Maximus against him.⁶¹ This testimony of Maximus on the progress of his opposition to Sergius is trustworthy, for he gave it in the presence of Pyrrhus who was in a position to object to any misstatement or exaggeration. Now the death of Sergius (December 9, 638) followed but a couple of months on the publication of the Ecthesis. Maximus therefore must have taken his stand, but not thereby inaugurating an active polemic, against Sergius’ doctrine quite apart from the open controversy precipitated by the publication of this document.

This is more than mere surmise. We have still a letter of Maximus written after Honorius’ death (October 12, 638) but before news of the Ecthesis reached him, that is, before the spring of 640.⁶² In this tome to Marinus of Cyprus⁶³ after a consideration of two passages from the Fathers, seeming to favor Monenergism or Monothelitism, Maximus treats of Honorius’ letter to Sergius. Here he corroborates his own interpretation of Honorius in a perfectly orthodox and dyothelite sense with the reports of the affair that his friend Anastasius had secured for him in Rome.⁶⁴

There can be no doubt whatsoever that a letter such as this was intended for a more numerous audience than its immediate recipient. Nor can there be any doubt, in view of the final reference to Marinus’ bishop⁶⁵ as a defender of the ‘one spotless, orthodox faith,’ that Maximus was quite aware he was taking sides in a controverted question.

In the east therefore, and consequently also for Maximus, the issue was well joined before the Ecthesis. Between Rome and Constantinople, however, it was the Ecthesis that brought the question to a head.

Monothelite Controversy: The ‘ecthesis’

The Ecthesis was in substance but the psēphos of 634 republished, but this time over the emperor’s signature. In substance, for the accompanying matter manifests a clear development in the sense of Monothelitism. The very speaking of two wills is represented as beyond the daring of Nestorius; he spoke of two sons, but also of identity of will. Therefore, the document goes on, ‘let us confess one will of Our Lord and true God Jesus Christ,’ that there be no chance of conflict between the human nature and the divine Word.⁶⁶

This document came to the knowledge of the Roman authorities on the return of Severinus’ apocrisaries sent to Constantinople to obtain the imperial approval of his election to the Roman See. These apocrisaries were sufficiently astute to obtain imperial approval for Severinus without committing him to the Ecthesis. This took time. It was not till the spring of 640 that they returned to Rome with the Ecthesis; for Severinus was consecrated only May 28, 640.⁶⁷ That Severinus condemned the Ecthesis before his death a few months later (August 2, 640) is not certain.⁶⁸

Maximus received knowledge of the Ecthesis about the same time as Severinus. His friends at Constantinople informed him of all the attempted bargaining with the pope’s apocrisaries and sent him a copy of the document only after these same ambassadors had left Constantinople. We learn of this only from Maximus’ letter to Thalassius. Unfortunately, there remains only the first part of the letter; Maximus’ comments on the Ecthesis did not serve Anastasius’ purposes, he did not therefore preserve them for us.⁶⁹ Maximus’ first reaction to the Ecthesis then we can only infer from the approving way in which he recounts the apocrisaries’ accomplishment of their mission.

The next, surely dated group of letters that we have are those pertaining to the recall of George, belonging to the fall of 641 and early 642.⁷⁰ The 12th letter only need detain us here. Why does this letter enter into detail about the Monophysitism of Severus while giving no indication of the Monothelite controversy? One cannot suppose, as we have just seen, that Maximus was unaware of the controversy or failed to see its importance. The explanations must be sought elsewhere, in the peculiar circumstances which called forth this letter.

The Ecthesis had anathematized Severus.⁷¹ But now the whole tenor of the letter brought by Theodore manifested a decided favoring of the Severians. Even supposing Theodore to be an impostor, the suspicion necessarily hangs on that the danger at Constantinople was not from the defenders of the Ecthesis, whose then chief, Pyrrhus, Maximus may have already known to have been deposed (September 29, 641), but from Severian Monophysitism. In a word, this was definitely not the occasion for speaking of the Ecthesis and its doctrine.

Crisis: The Affair of Pyrrhus

The year following Heraclius’ death (February 11, 641) was one of change at Constantinople. At Rome John IV took definite action against the Ecthesis;⁷² yet it was not he but his successor Theodore who was to bring the matter finally to a head.

There have come down to us three documents⁷³ of Theodore which inform us of this affair at the outset of his pontificate (consecrated November 24, 642). It was not so much the rejection of the Ecthesis that is noteworthy, but its being reckoned as a work of Pyrrhus (Sergius is not mentioned). Further, Pyrrhus is considered personally. Theodore is frankly perturbed that this author of Monothelitism has been deposed, not for his heresy but merely on account of the people’s dislike for him. Theodore therefore insists that he be canonically deposed for his heresy.⁷⁴ Two special points are made: (1) that the emperor should see to it that Pyrrhus be sent to Rome; and (2) that it is entirely out of place to call one in Pyrrhus’ position of a deposed patriarch by the patriarchal epithet, most holy.⁷⁵

Here it is that the papal exhortations and request find a faithful echo in Saint Maximus. He had been asked by Peter the Illustrious about the title to give Pyrrhus who had come there after his fall. Maximus replies at length, reviewing the whole history of the heresy. In direct answer to Peter’s question he declares such a title wholly inapplicable so long as Pyrrhus remains separated from the Church, that is, equivalently, from the Roman See. He is therefore urged to make his peace with the pope of Rome and thus with the whole Church.⁷⁶

This being the case, it is reasonable to suppose that Maximus was in touch with the Roman court, whose lead in the attitude to be taken to Pyrrhus he followed to the letter. There remains, however, an explanation to be found for the agitated tone of the whole letter and the vehemence with which he speaks of Pyrrhus. For this latter business it is enough to recall how Pyrrhus had been Martina’s adviser at the time of the affair of George, a great schemer for the new theology, and how finally he had come to that Africa where Maximus was himself the great defender of orthodoxy. For Maximus, Pyrrhus must have been a most undesirable refugee; yet there he was, and in addition expecting the patriarchal style—quite enough to try Maximus’ patience.

If then we have read the evidence aright, this vehement letter to Peter is not the first openly anti-Monothelite document from Maximus’ pen, as Grumel supposes;⁷⁷ but the first time when he passes from a purely theological consideration of the question to the concrete arena of ecclesiastical life and personalities. The first datable (640) anti-Monothelite writing is Maximus’ defense of Honorius in TP 20, which we have discussed above.⁷⁸ There are in addition a number of patently dyothelite opuscula which may only be dated from the fact that they expressly defend two wills in Christ.⁷⁹

From the time of Maximus’ letter to Peter about Pyrrhus (643) to the great dispute of July, 645, between the monk and the ex-patriarch, we have no surely dated document. The dispute, however, has come down to us in its entirety as it was noted down at the time of the discussion and later copied at Rome before Pyrrhus had gone back on his profession of faith.⁸⁰ The sessions were carried on in the presence of the patrician Gregory and of numerous bishops.

The impression this victory made on the African bishops and the impulse it gave to anti-Monothelite controversy is not small. The following year three councils were held in Africa to treat of the Monothelite question. Letters were written to Pope Theodore, to the emperor, and to the patriarch Paul.⁸¹

Maximus could scarcely have had anything directly to do with these councils as it was in that year that he reached Rome, as did Pyrrhus.⁸²

About the time of this conference Maximus composed his chief controversial work, addressed to his friend the priest Marinus. It is a remarkable piece of writing⁸³ from several points of view. The fragments that have been preserved contain some of the finest analyses of the acts of the will that have come down to us. This and the careful exposition of the relation of the wills of saints to the divine would fully justify von Balthasar’s dating: ‘certainly not before the Roman stay,’⁸⁴ if he had meant: certainly not before the fully developed controversy, that is, before 645 and the dispute at Carthage. Such a date could not well be questioned. The inference, however, that it was written in Rome is far less sure. In fact it can reasonably be argued that it was written in Africa (at Carthage?) about the time of the dispute.

The reason is the apparent reference to this polemic opus in a datable and placeable letter addressed to the same Marinus, priest of Cyprus. I refer to the epistle on the procession of the Holy Spirit and the orthodoxy of Honorius, excerpted by Anastasius.⁸⁵ Here Maximus refers to the ‘notebooks I have sent . . . about the soul and other chapters.’⁸⁶ This reference can easily enough be understood of the first polemic work. There in fact we find first of all the careful analysis of the acts of the soul, after which come various chapters on topics related to the controversy.⁸⁷

This opuscule, TP 10, may be dated between the years 642–46, with greater probability for the later years.⁸⁸ If this be so, the great work to Marinus will necessarily be of about the same time.

Of this latter work perhaps the most remarkable trait is the introduction. In this close-packed paragraph Maximus manages to condense the whole of his ascetic and mystical doctrine. The very terminology recalls his early ascetical and anti-Origenist works.⁸⁹ The mainspring of all spiritual seeking is in full evidence—the insatiate desire of God;⁹⁰ likewise the insistence on the union of theoria and praxis. This summary, then, he places at the head of his chief anti-Monothelite treatise, without his feeling or without there, in fact, being any discrepancy or discord between the introduction and the body of the treatise. This is as much as to say that Maximus felt his doctrine, ascetic and dogmatic, to be a coherent whole. This connection of the two aspects of doctrine Maximus himself indicates in the second paragraph in which he outlines the questions to be dealt with.

After the dispute of July, 645, or early the following year Maximus left Africa for the center of Christianity. It may be that he travelled thither with or about the same time as Pyrrhus. We may only gather from the Relatio motionis⁹¹ that Maximus was in Rome in the year 646 along with Pyrrhus.

It was not long, however, that Pyrrhus remained in Rome or faithful to Rome. His reversion to Monothelitism, whatever may have been its motives,⁹² was occasion of not a little bitterness. Shortly after this relapse Maximus reviews and refutes the Monothelite heresy in a letter to the Sicilian monks, apparently during a sojourn there. He felt it necessary to defend the orthodoxy of his former correspondence with the ex-patriarch.⁹³

Roman Activity

From this time on till his imprisonment Maximus remained in Rome or its vicinity. The biographer mentions this period as that of Maximus’ most intense activity⁹⁴ in defense of orthodoxy, whether by conversations, by treatises, or by letters. Some of the incidents of this Roman stay have been preserved for us in the acts: thus his conversation with a certain Gregory, sent by the emperor, on the emperor’s alleged sacerdotal prerogatives.⁹⁵

Among the literary works is to be noted the tome to Stephen of Dora. This was written in Rome against the Ecthesis. It must then be of the year 646/7, before the edict of 647, the Typos.⁹⁶ The tome is evidence of Maximus’ activity. It contains 29 citations from the Fathers and heretics relative to the disputed question. When was this florilegium gathered together? Was it Maximus’ own personal work? What relations does it have with the later and fuller florilegium of the Lateran Council?⁹⁷

These questions do not concern us directly, yet the few references to florilegia in the writings of Maximus and of Sergius are indicative of the slowness with which the orthodox reaction to the imperial heresy developed. In the early approaches with dissident Christians Sergius was ready with a florilegium, aside from the forged ‘libellus Menae.’ Thus in 619 he sent a florilegium to George of Arsas.⁹⁸ In 633 Maximus was unable to send Peter anti-Monophysite citations. He excuses himself by lack of books. But if a florilegium were then extant, reference to it might here be expected along with, at least, the recommendation to use Sophronius’ learning.⁹⁹ Sergius, in his letter to Honorius (634), states quite plainly that Sophronius was unable to produce patristic passages of a clearly dyenergistic sense, though Cyrus had shown him some in a monenergistic sense at Alexandria.¹⁰⁰ This fact is reflected in the language of the psēphos. Does it still obtain at the time of the Ecthesis, which repeats the earlier document?¹⁰¹

Though a certain answer to this question cannot be given due to lack of evidence, it would seem that the orthodox florilegium in this controversy took shape only after the dispute at Carthage. If there had been one in circulation, it would scarcely have been necessary for Maximus to send one to Stephen of Dora from Rome.

But Maximus’ activity at Rome was not merely concerned with florilegia. These after all were gathered in support of a doctrine. His great work was in the formulation of doctrine in regard to the two wills and operations. Now the canons of the Lateran Council, those that deal directly with the two wills and operations, employ terminology first found in this connection in Maximus. The inference is very well founded, then, that these canons, 10 and 11, were redacted if not by the Confessor himself, at least by one who knew Maximus’ thought very well. The critical phrase indicating at least a community of inspiration, is: Christ ‘is such in either of His natures that He naturally wills and effects our salvation.’¹⁰²

This is not the place to discuss the balance of this formula nor the Christological questions involved therein. Yet one should note that it is not an abstruse question of relations here considered, but one touching most closely each and every man—salvation. Consequent upon the natures, the distinction of wills and operations is preserved within the uniqueness of the person willing and operating the one work—man’s salvation. The pre-eminence thus conserved to the divine, the operator in Christ, in view of man’s salvation, is thoroughly characteristic not only of St. Cyril but of the Monophysites who claimed him as their great authority.

Arrest and Trials

Maximus’ creative work was done. Nearly seventy when he assisted¹⁰³ at the Lateran Council, there remained another twelve years in which he was to confess his faith alike in the two wills and operations of Christ as in the unity of the Church.

The emperor, Constans, was at once attentive to the development of affairs at Rome. In the first instance he sent Olympius, the exarch of Ravenna, to force the acceptance of the Type. Due to the defection of Olympius, effective action could only be taken at the death of the same (652). On June 17, 653, Pope Martin was arrested. Maximus was arrested doubtless at this same time.¹⁰⁴ In his trial, which came only in May, 655,¹⁰⁵ every effort was made to fix political crimes¹⁰⁶ upon him. This failing, they had necessarily to come to the real crime in their eyes, that is, his refusal to communicate with the see of Constantinople so long as she acknowledged the Type of Constans. The efforts fail, though the conversation with the two patricians makes it clear enough that the one great obstacle is the emperor’s obstinacy.¹⁰⁷

The upshot is a decree of temporary exile, to Bizya in Thrace; for they still hope to bring him around to their view.

This effort is made the next year. A court bishop comes to interrogate him; Maximus prevails in the discussion which ends in hopeful anticipation. The emperor, however, is willing to show Maximus all honor on the sole condition of his adhering to the Type. With this second failure, Maximus was left in the hands of the soldiery, some of whom maligned him as being impious towards the Mother of God. Yet here again the Confessor won the people and the clerics to him so that they accompanied him so far as they might on the road of his exile.

The place of this second exile was at Perberis, like the first at Bizya, also in Thrace. Here Maximus remained six years.

For the emperor the chief culprit in the whole affair was Pope Martin. He had died September 16, 655, shortly after Maximus’ first trial. But so long as other opponents of his religious policy were recalcitrant, the emperor would not remain content. Thus in 662 Maximus and the two Anastasius, the disciple and the apocrisary, were recalled to Constantinople for a further, definitive trial and punishment. This time the accusation no longer had any political tinge. The three remaining most notable exponents of the orthodox doctrine in the east were summoned before a Monothelite council, where, together with Martin and Sophronius, they were anathematized and then turned over to the civil officer there present for the execution of the sentence—the mutilation of those members by which they had propounded the dyothelite doctrine. Their tongues and right hands amputated, therefore, they were taken about the city, exposed to the scorn of the populace, before being shipped off to their exile in Lazica, on the south-east shore of the Black Sea.¹⁰⁸

Arrived there the 8th of June, 662, they were at once separated, each dispatched to his individual place of exile.

Maximus, already broken with age and abusive treatment, died the 13th of August, 662;¹⁰⁹ in spirit he was still and yet remains a strong, pure light of faith and charity, of orthodoxy and contemplation.

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