Maximus the Confessor

[Silvia]

I am helping a friend who is translating a work of St Maximus. My task was to copy the Bible's quotations and give them to him. Unfortunately, some of them I could not find, it must be a typo in the references. Could someone in this forum volunteer to help me, giving the right reference of the quotations(about six), please? (I'll give the details further).

[Thomas Davidson]

If I can help, I will.

If not, I am sure others will come to your assistance.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Silvia,

Regarding the quotations from Maximus and Scripture, do feel free to post your references here, and we shall see what we can do to be of assistance.

INXC, Matthew

[Silvia]

Thank you very much for the good will. I was able to solve the question myself. The first quotation I have found just a few lines ahead of the text. The other one I have checked in the site above and the answer came immediately.

http://bible.gospelcom.net/
“Welcome to BibleGateway.com, a free service for reading and researching scripture online-- all in the language or translation of your choice.”

Anyway, I’ll keep visiting this forum. I will post in the proper topic (Conversation).
Silvia

[Gregory Erickson]

Everyone,

I've read in various books that St. Maximus (as well as St. Isaac the Syrian) says that even if Adam did not fall, the Incarnation still would have taken place because even in man's unfallen state, he would not be able to achieve theosis without help from the God-man.

I can't find a quote. Can someone help me with this?

Many thanks ahead of time! http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Gregory,

St Maximos the Confessor writes in his To Thalassius that the Incarnation is the "ineffeable and incomprehensible hypostatic union of the Divine and humanity. This is the great and hidden mystery. This is the blessed destiny for which all things have been constituted. This is the premeditated divine plan in which all things have their beginning and which we speak of as the prescient purpose. It is the cause of all things and caused by none of them. With this purpose in view, God brought into being the substances of all things. This is the primary object of the prescience and forethoughts according to which all things made by God are recapitulated in Him. This mystery encloses all the ages, showing forth the infinite great counsel of God that surpasses infinity and preexists the ages eternally. The great counsel's Angel, the Word consubstantial with the Father, became a man. And He made the innermost depths of the Father's goodness apparent and showed in Himself the purpose for which indeed all creatures received their existence. Therefore, for Christ and in the mystery of Christ, all the ages and all things in them received their being and purpose. The union of limitation and limitlessness, of measure and measurelessness, of finiteness and infinity, of the creator and creation, of stillness and motion was deliberated prior to the ages. And in the last days, this [union] was revealed in Christ, in itself giving fulfillment to the foreknowledge of God."

This quote is actually taken from the book Mary the Untrodden Portal of God, by George S. Gabriel (Zephyr Publishing, 2000).

In Christ- Fr Raphael

PS:This quote also addresses the questions we have had recently about the Father, the Theotokos and the Last Days also.

[matt]

Gabriel is also the author of "The Ancestral Sin" which is an excellent book that may be of interest in relation to some other posts.

[Gregory Erickson]

Thank you, Fr. Raphael and Matt!

(Now I have something of substance to put in my first paper for Late Vocations class!)

http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif

[Justin]

If you have (or can get ahold of) Deification in Christ: The Nature of the Human Person by Panayiotis Nellas, pp. 81-82, 109-114, and especially 34-39 might be of some interest.

[Russell Tisdale]

Why, O! Why!? aren't there online versions of his writings? I see him referenced countless times, but I have yet to find electronic texts . . . so I'm coming to you, my friends at Monachos, to recommend actual books (shock!) that contain his writings.

Thanks,

Rusty

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Russell,

Try "Maximus the Confessor" by Andrew Louth, published by Routledge.

In Christ
Byron

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Books in English of writings of St Maximos the Confessor.

i)Philokalia Vol. 2- there are over 300 pages of his writings here
ii)The Ascetic Life & Four Centuries on Charity (the latter is in the Philokalia also) in Ancient Christian Writers series
iii)The Disputation with Pyrrhus of our Father Among the Saints Maximus the Confessor- J.P. Farrell
iv)On the Cosmic Mystery of Christ- SVS Press Popular Patristic Series
v)The Church, the Liturgy, and the Soul of Man- St Bede's Press

about St Maximos- Man and the Cosmos by Lars Thunberg (SVS Press) is very good.

In Christ- Fr Raphael