Today we will learn and reflect on the life of St Maximus the Confessor, and his commentary on the Lord’s Prayer and other writings in the Philokalia and other collections of his works.
Why is St Maximus known as the Confessor?
What seven mysteries hidden in the Lord’s Prayer does St Maximus reveal to us?
Why did the Byzantine Emperor Constans II cut St Maximus’ tongue and right hand before exiling him on the shores of the Black Sea?
What does the Lord’s Prayer reveal about the two-fold love of God and neighbor, the nature of the Trinity, and our deification through the grace of Christ? When is the kingdom of God coming?
Why should we be eager to forgive our neighbor? Should we forgive our neighbor when he refuses to apologize? Will God ever lead us into temptation?
The writings of St Maximus in the Philokalia are not systematic, there are a series of maxims for you to read and ponder. St Maximus teaches us that salvation and deification are gifts given by grace by God who loves us. “A soul can never attain the knowledge of God unless God Himself in His goodness takes hold of it and raises it up to Himself.”[1]
YouTube Script with more Book Links:
https://www.slideshare.net/BruceStrom1/st-maximus-the-confessor-commentary-on-the-lords-prayer-roman-catholic-and-orthodox-saint
This YouTube video: https://youtu.be/IvpMoKs72Us
St Maximus the Confessor, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Saint:
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-maximus-the-confessor-blog-1/
St Maximus the Confessor and St Augustine, Discussing Problem of Self Love
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-maximus-the-confessor-blog-3-discussing-problem-of-self-love/
ST MAXIMUS: EXCERPTS FROM CENTURIES OF THEOLOGY
Many Church Fathers view obedience as a virtue, St John Climacus teaches us that obedience is one of the first virtues you master in your spiritual climb. Obedience masters your will and makes you open to spiritual instruction, increasing humility and virtue.[2]
Ladder of Divine Ascent, St John Climacus, Rung 4 on Obedience
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/ladder-of-divine-ascent-st-john-climacus-rung-4-on-obedience/
https://youtu.be/_bjQcNvzb-c
Likewise, St Maximus teaches us that “just as the result of disobedience is sin, so the result of obedience is virtue. And just as disobedience leads to breaking the commandments and to separation from God who gave them, so obedience leads to keeping the commandments and to union with our God who gave them.” [3] Disobedience separates us from God, while obedience unites us with God.
St Maximus teaches us that conquering the passions will never lead to spiritual happiness unless you keep the Commandments. Those who have spiritual knowledge also have a rich store of virtue saved by practicing the virtues. “The subjugation of the passions is not sufficient to ensure spiritual happiness for the soul unless the soul also acquires the virtues by keeping the commandments.” “Whoever possesses spiritual knowledge must always possess a rich store of virtue as well, gained through his conduct.”[4]
St Maximus teaches us, “According to the Gospel, the person who is simply a man of the faith can remove the mountain of his sin through the practice of the virtues.” “If he has the capacity to be a disciple, he received fragments of the loaves of spiritual knowledge from the hands of the Logos who feeds thousands of people, demonstrating by his action how the power of the Logos is increased and multiplied by the practice of the virtues.”[5] The Logos is the Christ who miraculously fed five thousand from a single fish and a loaf of bread.
St Maximus makes it clear that true knowledge of God is not a passive knowledge, you can never understand what Loving God means unless you truly try to live a virtuous life. St Maximus teaches that those “who put on a show of holiness for the sake of self-display not only fail to achieve anything through their false piety, but also are wounded by their conscience.”[6] But “when a man’s intellect is constantly with God, his desire grows beyond all measures into an intense longing for God and his incensiveness and anger is completely transformed into divine love.”[7]
St Maximus teaches us that if we “expound the teaching of the Logos from the standpoint of the moral life, using” simple and plain words all can understand, “you make the Logos flesh. Conversely, if you elucidate mystical theology by means of the higher forms of contemplation, you make the Logos spirit.”[8]
ST MAXIMUS COMMENTARY ON THE LORD’S PRAYER
St Maximus commentary on the Lord’s Prayer is an ideal window through which we can view his theology of Christ’s Incarnation and the economy of our salvation. We seek deification in the Lord’s Prayer, the model prayer, which starts out, “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy Name,”[9] so we are exhorted to Love God, and understand how we stand in His Kingdom, and continues as we pray how we should live our lives. Once we understand how we must repent of all our transgressions, no exceptions, and forgive everyone, no exceptions, so God will forgive us, and not withhold forgiveness from anyone, lest God withholds His forgiveness of us.
As Matthew exhorts us after the end of the Lord’s prayer, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”[10] This prepares us for the teachings of St Maximus on the dangers of selfishness and self-love, the root of all evil. Self-love can delude us to desperately seek the lust that leads to often mere moments of pleasure that can cause years of suffering for us and those around us. This self-love and lust for pleasure to avoid life’s pain instead tyrannizes the lives of those close to us.[11]
What are the seven mysteries St Maximus teaches us are hidden within the Lord’s Prayer?
- “These seven are theology,
- Adoption as sons by grace,
- Equality with the angels,
- Participation in eternal life,
- Restoration of human nature when it is reconciled dispassionately with itself,
- Abolition of the law of sin,
- And the destruction of the tyranny that holds us in its power through the deceit of the evil one.”
To St Maximus, through the Lord’s Prayer we seek deification of our nature and the spiritual bread we need to live a godly life. We pray for the blessings of the Father, through the mediation of Christ or Logos, who bestows adoption by the Father by grace from above through the Holy Spirit. As the Logos makes men equal to the angels, we should strive after the Logos through the practice of the virtues, through godly living in imitation of Christ.
As St Maximus teaches us, “The Lord’s Prayer includes petitions for everything that the divine Logos, or Christ, effected through His self-emptying in the Incarnation, and it teaches us to strive from blessings of” “God the Father alone through the natural mediation of the Son in the Holy Spirit. For the Lord Jesus is mediator between God and men,” “since He makes the unknown Father manifest to men through the flesh and gives those who have been reconciled to Him access to the Father through the Holy Spirit.”[12]
We live theology when we pray, “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy Name; Thy kingdom come.”[13] St Maximus teaches that these words “reveal to us Father, the name of the Father, and the kingdom of our Father, so that from this beginning we may be taught to revere, invoke and worship the Trinity in unity.”
To the Trinity owe our creation and our existence, and our adoption as Sons of God. As St Maximus teaches us, “we are taught to proclaim the grace of our adoption, since we have been found worthy of addressing our Creator by nature as our Father by grace.” Thus, the Love of Christ leads us to seek to live a godly life, “venerating this title of our begetter by grace, we strive to stamp our Creator’s qualities on our lives, sanctifying His name on earth, taking after Him as our Father, showing ourselves to be His children through our actions, and through all that we think or do, glorifying the author of this adoption, who is by nature Son of the Father.”
Desire and corrupting passions breed anger, but anger stops when “desire has been put to death.” When we pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” we pray, “May the Holy Spirit come,” “making us a temple for God by the teaching and practice of gentleness.” Here meekness is translated as gentleness in the Beatitude, “Blessed are the gentle, for they will inherit the earth.” St Maximus speculates that here the “earth signifies the resolution and strength of the inner stability, immovable rooted in goodness, that is possessed by gentle people. This stability” “contains unfailing joy, enables the gentle to attain the kingdom,” and “permits the gentle to inherit the principle of virtue, as if virtue were the earth that occupies a middle place in the universe.”
St Maximus asks, “What man will be so lacking in love and completely without appetite for divine blessings that he will not desire the greatest degree of humility and gentleness so he can take on the stamp of the kingdom, so far as this is possible for men, and to bear in himself by grace an exact spiritual likeness of Christ, who is by nature the truly great King?”[14]
When Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answers, “The kingdom of god is in the midst of you.”[15] St Maximus reflects on this, teaching us that there are “souls that through the grace of God resemble God” “In these souls Christ always desires to be born in a mystical way, becoming incarnate in those who attain salvation, and making the soul that gives birth to Him a Virgin Mother.”[16]
St Maximus continues, “This kingdom is characterized by humility and gentleness of heart.” “The humble does not regard what is painful in the senses as a privation of pleasure: he knows only one pleasure, the marriage of the soul with the Logos,” seeking deification through the grace of Christ.[17]
What is meant by: “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven?”[18] St Maximus teaches us that when we “worship God mystically with our intelligence alone, keeping it free from sensual desire and anger, we fulfill the divine will on earth just as the angels fulfill the divine will in Heaven.” Who will be saved? Who will inherit the kingdom? Those who are humble and gentle, for “all who are humble are invariably gentle, and all who are gentle are invariably humble.[19]
What do we pray when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread?”[20] St Maximus teaches us, “If we live in the way we have promised, we will receive as daily and life-giving bread from the nourishment of our souls” “the Logos Himself; for it was He who said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world.’”[21]
St Maximus believes that “this day refers to the present age,” the spiritual daily bread that grants us immortality. Adam, “the first man, was prevented from partaking of this bread by his transgression of the divine commandment” not to eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. But we can partake of the bread of the Logos Himself, who came down from Heaven to give life to the world.
If we pray that our physical needs are met, St Maximus teaches us that we should pray for today’s bread, we should eat to live, not live to eat, eating enough to stay in good health, and trust in God, and do not worry about where the bread for tomorrow will come. But “let us show that we eat for the sake of living, and not be guilty of living for the sake of eating.”[22]
St Maximus teaches us that “it is not food that is evil but gluttony, not the begetting of children but unchastity, not material things but avarice, not esteem but self-esteem. This being so, it is only the misuse of things that is evil, and such misuse occurs when the intellect fails to cultivate its natural powers.”[23]
St Maximus teaches us that “he who asks to receive his daily bread,” the Bread of Life, “receives it according to his spiritual capacity” to receive this bread. Those who are righteous are given this bread in greater measure, but all are given this Bread out of God’s Love.[24]
After we have sought our daily spiritual bread, we should be eager to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”[25] We should forgive others with joy and without hesitation, for St Maximus teaches we should “beg for God to treat us as we have treated our neighbors!” “Just as God dispassionately forgives us, so we should be dispassionate” towards those who harm us, eagerly forgiving them without anger, without rancor, without hesitation. “We must not allow the memory of our afflictions be stamped on our intellects” lest they separate us from our neighbor. When we are unable to forgive our neighbor, “we cannot receive God’s gift of Himself.”[26]
The Four Centuries of Love by St Maximus provides other useful teachings on repentance and forgiving. St Maximus teaches us we are not capable of truly repenting of our sins if we do not forgive others their sins. St Maximus teaches us, “He who busies himself with the sins of others, or judges his brother on suspicion, has not yet even begun to repent or to examine himself to discover his own sins, which are truly heavier than a great lump of lead.”[27]
St Maximus teaches us that we sin for various reasons. “It is one thing to sin through force of habit, and another thing to sin impulsively.” When you sin impulsively, you do not “deliberately choose the sin before committing it and are often deeply distressed by the sin. But when you sin by habit, you were already sinning in your thoughts, and afterward you are in the same state of mind.”[28]
Should we forgive our brother even when he does not apologize? St Maximus and the other church fathers say little about apologies, though St Maximus says that we should apologize to make peace with our brother. Apologies should never be a prerequisite for forgiveness, for as St Maximus teaches, “if your brother does not want to live peaceably with you, nevertheless guard yourself against hatred, praying for him sincerely, and do not speak ill of him to anyone.”[29]
St Maximus teaches us that the sensible man gladly bears the sufferings of this world, as they are caused by our sins, and does not blame those who bring us trials and sufferings and rejoices in his humility through suffering. In his words, “when a trial comes unexpectedly, do not blame the person who caused it, but try to discover the reason why it came” “As long as you have bad habits, do not reject hardship, so you can be humbled.” “Trials are sent to some so as to take away past sins, to others to eradicate current sins, and yet to others to forestall future sins” But when the “fool, ignorant of God’s wisdom, sins and is corrected, he blames either God or men for the hardships he suffers.”[30]
Next, we ask God to “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”[31] Why would God lead us into temptation? Surely God does not, but we need God’s grace to help us to resist temptation. St Maximus teaches us: “he who has not completely forgiven those who stumble and has not brought his heart to God free from grievance and illuminated with the light of reconciliation with his neighbor, will fail to attain the grace of the blessings he has prayed for. Indeed, he will justly be handed over to temptation and to evil, so that, having retracted his judgements of other people, he may learn to purify himself of his own sins.”
St Maximus teaches us that we should be eager for forgive the sins of our neighbors, “so when saying the Lord’s Prayer, we should receive a double grace: forgiveness of sins already committed, and protection and deliverance from future sins.”[32] Which is why I always describe the two-fold Love of God and love of neighbor with the St Maximus corollary, that we should be eager to forgive our neighbor.
What does St Maximus teach about the aims of prayer? When we pray, we should seek deification, we should remember the depths to which we were dragged by the weight of our sins, and how Christ emptied himself to take on flesh so He could raise us up to the Heavens with his compassionate hand. In his words, “when we pray, let our aim be this mystery of deification, which shows us what we were once like and what the self-emptying of the only-begotten Son through the flesh has now made us; which shows us the depths to which we were dragged down by the weight of sin, and the heights to which we have been raised by His compassionate hand,” “so we can have greater Love for Him who has prepared this salvation for us with such wisdom.”[33] “He who truly Loves God prays without distraction, and he who prays entirely without distraction Loves God truly.”[34]
St Maximus reminds us that “the intellect joined to God for long periods through prayer and love becomes wise, good, powerful, compassionate, merciful and long-suffering; in short, it includes within itself almost all of the divine qualities. But when the intellect withdraws from God and attaches itself to material things, either it becomes self-indulgent like some domestic animal, or like a wild beast it fights with men for the sake of these things.”[35]
DISCUSSING THE SOURCES
St Maximus the Confessor is one of my favorite Eastern saints. As is often true with translations from the Greek, sometimes it is a bit wordy, I did condense many quotations. We chose to concentrate on his essay on the Lord’s Prayer because it is a good introduction to his thought, we scratched the surface of his other works in the Philokalia, they take up most of Volume 2, plus his other works. We discuss the sources more in depth in our introductory video on the Philokalia.
The Philokalia, Classics by the Eastern Church Fathers, the Love of the Beautiful
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/introduction-to-the-philokalia-the-love-of-the-beautiful/
https://youtu.be/rKVBhdHWHGI
We have another collection of his writings in On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ, and a collection of scholarly essays on the Philokalia. We had purchased a tome authored by Lars Thunberg on our saint, it was as dense as bricks, we preferred his shorter book on our saint, Man and the Cosmos. Jaroslav Pelikan’s history of Christian Doctrine is excellent, we elaborate on this series in our Book Reviews of the Early Church Fathers.
Book Review: Early Church Fathers Library – 38 Volumes in 3 Series
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/early-church-fathers-library-38-volumes-in-3-series/
Book Reviews on Apostolic and Early Church Fathers
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/book-reviews-on-apostolic-and-early-church-fathers/
How To Read Ancient Works, and Book Reviews on the Apostolic Church Fathers
https://youtu.be/I_2q4BiRBlU
St Maximus the Confessor was deeply influenced in his depictions of the nature of Christ and his descriptions of the Trinity by Dionysius the Areopagite, a Christian Neoplatonist theologian, and in particular his work on the Divine Names. We began our reflections on Dionysius with his Mystical Theology, we are planning a video on his Divine Names in late 2023. This will include reflections on Hans Urs Balthasar’s book on St Maximus, the Cosmic Liturgy, that explores the influence of Dionysius on the works of St Maximus.
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Influence of Neo-Platonism on Mystical Christianity
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite-influence-of-neo-platonism-on-mystical-christianity/
https://youtu.be/wlr55ddb-lc
Dark Night of the Soul, by St John of the Cross, and Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysus
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/dark-night-of-the-soul-by-st-john-of-the-cross-and-mystical-theology-of-pseudo-dionysus/
https://youtu.be/6VffPIzfT-o
[1] St Maximus, “First Century on Theology,” in the Philokalia, The Complete Text, compiled by St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St Makarios of Corinth, Vol. 2, translated and edited by GEH Palmer, Phillip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1981), chapter 31, p. 120.
[2] St John Climacus, “The Ladder of Divine Ascent,” transl. by Archimandrite Lazarus Moore (Brookline: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1959), Step 4, pp. 20-49.
[3] St Maximus, “Second Century on Theology,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, chapter 7, p. 139.
[4] St Maximus, “First Century on Theology,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, chapters 77-78, pp. 129-130.
[5] St Maximus, “First Century on Theology,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, chapter 33, pp. 120-121, referencing Matthew 17:20.
[6] St Maximus, “First Century on Theology,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, chapter 19, p. 118.
[7] St Maximus, “Second Century on Love (Charity),” The Philokalia, vol. 2, chapter 48, p. 73.
[8] St Maximus, “Second Century on Theology,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, chapter 38, p. 147.
[9] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6%3A9&version=RSVCE
[10] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6%3A14-15&version=RSVCE
[11] Thunberg, “Man and the Cosmos” (New York: St Vladimir’s Press, 1985), pp. 56-57.
[12] St Maximus, “On the Lord’s Prayer,” The Philokalia, The Complete Text, Vol. 2, pp. 286-287.
[13] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6%3A9&version=RSVCE
[14] St Maximus, “On the Lord’s Prayer,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, pp. 291-293.
[15] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+17%3A20-21&version=RSVCE
[16] St Maximus, “On the Lord’s Prayer,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, p. 294.
[17] St Maximus, “On the Lord’s Prayer,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, p. 297.
[18] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6%3A10&version=RSVCE
[19] St Maximus, “On the Lord’s Prayer,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, pp. 297-298.
[20] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+6%3A11&version=RSVCE
[21] St Maximus, “On the Lord’s Prayer,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, p. 298, referring to John 6:33-35.
[22] St Maximus, “On the Lord’s Prayer,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, pp. 299-300.
[23] St Maximus, “Third Century on Love (Charity),” The Philokalia, Vol. 2, chapter 4, p. 83.
[24] St Maximus, “Second Century on Theology,” The Philokalia, vol 2, chapter 56, pp. 150-151.
[25] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+6%3A12&version=RSVCE
[26] St Maximus, “On the Lord’s Prayer,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, p. 301.
[27] St Maximus, “Third Century on Love (Charity),” The Philokalia, vol. 2, chapter 55, p. 92.
[28] St Maximus, “Third Century on Love (Charity),” The Philokalia, vol. 2, chapter 74, p. 95.
[29] St Maximus, “Fourth Century on Love (Charity),” The Philokalia, vol. 2, chapter 35, p. 104.
[30] St Maximus, “Second Century on Love (Charity),” The Philokalia, Vol. 2, chapter 42-46, p. 73.
[31] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+6%3A13&version=RSVCE
[32] St Maximus the Confessor, “On the Lord’s Prayer,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, pp. 302-303.
[33] St Maximus the Confessor, “On the Lord’s Prayer,” The Philokalia, vol. 2, pp. 303-304.
[34] St Maximus, “Second Century on Love (Charity),” The Philokalia, vol. 2, chapter 1, p. 65.
[35] St Maximus, “Second Century on Love (Charity),” The Philokalia, vol. 2, chapter 52, p. 74.
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