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MAXIMUS CONFESSOR

I. His Life.
Early Life and Success (§ 1).
Later Life. Trials, and Death (§ 2).
II. His Writings.
Exegetical Works on Scripture and the Fathers (§ 1).
Dogmatic and Polemical Writings (§ 2).
Ethical, Ascetic, and other works (§ 3).
III. His Theology.
The Component Elements (§ 1).
His Christology (§ 2).
His Mysticism (§ 3).

I. His Life

Maximus, usually known as the Confessor, was the leading representative of the orthodox doctrine against the Monothelites of the seventh century. He was born in Constantinople about 580; d. at Shemari, on the shore of the Black Sea, Aug. 13, 662. He came of a distinguished family, and received an excellent 1. Early education after the ideals of the time. Life and Of delicate constitution and quiet Success. loving temperament, he seems at first, to have been inclined to a life of contemplation and study, but was called away from it for a time to a political career. The Emperor Heraclius (610-641) summoned him to court and made him his first secretary. When he exchanged this position for the monastic state is uncertain. He entered the monastery of Chrysopolis at what is now Scutari, and before long became abbot. Soon after the beginning of the Monothelite controversy, when the monk Sophronius stood forth as the champion of orthodoxy against Cyrus, patriarch of Alexandria, Maximus was in that city and received the stimulus which led him to devote himself to combating Monothelitism. In a series of treatises and letters he defended the Chalcedonian orthodoxy as to the two natures and the two wills of Christ against both Monophysites and Monothelites, as well as against the imperial efforts at compromise. It was through his influence that North Africa became the headquarters of the orthodox party after the death of Heraclius. On the accession of Conatans II. (642-668), the patriarch of Constantinople, Pyrrhus, was forced to flee on account of participation in the intrigues of Martins, the widow of Heraclius, and took refuge in North Africa, where the prefect, Gregory, was a strong supporter of Maximus; and there took place, probably at Carthage in 645, the disputation between Pyrrhus and Maximus which is one of the most remarkable documents in the history of the controversy. Maximus was victorious, and followed up his triumph energetically. The bishops of North Africa and the adjacent islands held a synod in 646 to condemn Monothelitism, and requested Pope Theodore to confirm their decision. Maaimus went to Rome with Pyrrhus, who abjured his errors before the pope, and was recognized as rightful patriarch of Constantinople. Maximus was the soul of this apparently formidable coalition, which, however, soon fell to pieces. Gregory fell the neat year in battle with the Mohammedans; Pyrrhus retracted his recantation, and made his peace with the emperor. In 648 appeared the Typos, a decree of Constans forbidding under heavy penalties any discussion of the question of one or two wills. Man imus, still in Rome, was again the most active spirit in opposition to this, denying the emperor's right to interfere in dogmatic questions and declaring the language of the document irreconcilable with the creeds of the Church. He determined the new pope, Martin I., to call the Lateran synod of 649, and inspired its decision unhesitatingly condemning Monothelitism and the imperial decree.

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