3. Ethical, Ascetic, and Other works

Another important class of the writings of Max imua is made up of ethical and ascetic treatises. Under the former head may be classed several of the letters, but especially the LLber ad pietatem exercens, a dialogue between an abbot and a young monk on the principal duties of the spiritual life, remarkable for its fervor and moral earnestness- an example of the beat ascetic literature of the Eastern Church. A sort of supplement to this is the Capita de carltate, a collection of four hundred sentences, principally ethical but partly dogmatic and mystical. In another similar collection, the Capita theologica et aconomica CC, the mystical predominates. There are two other collections of a similar nature, the Capita diversa D theologica et a;conomica and Alia capita of the same ethical-ascetic bearing; and a still larger collection of passages partly from the Scrip tures and partly from all sorts of Christian and pagan authors, known as Capita theologica and also as Sermwnes per excerpts or Loci communes. Among other works which do not fall -under the above classes, the moat interesting are the Mystagogia and the Computus ecclesiasticus. The former con tains thoughts on the symbolio-mystical significance of the Church and its ceremonies, of a kind common in later Greek theological writing. The latter, written in 640, is an introduction to the Christian system of reckoning the ecclesiastical seasons and to sacred and profane chronology in general. Of the letters of Maximus forty-two are given by Combefia, and others are extant elsewhere, both published and unpublished; and Daniel gives three of his hymns in the Thesaurus hymnologicus (iii. 97 sqq.).

Ill. His Theology: The theological position of Maximus is a combination of various elementsPlatonism and Aristotelianism, Scriptural ideas and the orthodoxy of Nicæa and Chalcedon and of the Greek Fathers, and Christian mysticism, especially the mysticism of Dionysius the Areopagite (q.v.). He quotes Dionysius

Component continually, and is responsible for the Elements. effect which that author's writings had upon medieval western as well as eastern theology. But since he did not follow him blindly, it is possible with Baur to designate the teaching of Maximus as an ethical or Christian modification of the Dionysian system, or more exactly still as an ethical-theological recasting and continuation of it. The essential character of the Dionysian system lies in a fusion of Neo-Platonism and Christianity, through which the Christian idea of God, the ethical concepts of sin and redemption, and still more the historic reality and specific meaning in the scheme of salvation attached to the person of Christ suffer from the abstract idealism. of Platonic speculation. With Maximus, on the other hand, Aristotle supplies a salutary counterpoise, and his theology gains a purer, more fully Christian content by his recourse to Scripture and the older Greek Fathers. Dorner (Entuoickelungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi, ii. 283, Stuttgart, 1845-56, Eng. transl., History of the Demlopment of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, Edinburgh, 1861-63) points out the decisive point in which he goes beyond his teacher: "The dialectic element in Maximus seems at strife with the mystical, Areopagitic element, to which he plainly clings with all the fervor of his love. But one gets the impression that it is precisely because he is conscious of the monistic, almost pantheistic strain in his mind that he takes such a strong stand against Monophysitism and Monothelitism. It is the principle of freedom that he strives to incorporate with the Areopagitie system, and through which at least his anthropological teaching is a further development of it."

The historical importance of Maximus for his own day lay above all in his firm defense of Dyothelitism. From the double nature of Christ he deduced the twofold character of energy and of will. He is moved by a vivid interest in the real human life of Christ, who without a human will a. His would not be really man. But he is

Christology. forced to take the same position by his Trinitarian beliefs. If the will of the Savior is a theandrakon thelema, a fused divine. human will, then it would follow that the Father and the Holy Ghost had a similar will, or tritheism would be inevitable. Both wills in Christ are perfectly free, bound together by the same tie which joins the two natures, the union of the single hypostasis. In opposition to Nestorianism, he makes it clear that the human will of Christ was not, like ours, fluctuating between moral opposites, but by union with the Logos attained a permanent direction toward good. This direction it affirmed by a multitude of purely human actions; sin, indeed, was excluded-but sin is not an essential characteristic of human nature. The fact is that Maximus saw more keenly and clearly than any of the older Fathers the real centerpoint of the humanity of Christ.

This alone would be sufficient to make him a notable figure in the history of Christian thought, without the further fact that he furnished the form in which the mysticism of Dionysius exerted its great and far-reaching influence on the later theology of both East and West. How

3. His much John of Damascus owes to him Mysticism. has been rather suspected than proved; but the direction given by him is obvious in the later Greek theology of Euthymius Zygabenus, Nioetas Choniates, Nicholas of Methone,

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and still more in the Greek mysticism of the Hesychasts (q.v.) and of Nicholas Kabasilas. He is yet more important as the connecting link between Dionysius and Scotus Erigena, who depends on him for almost every point of his philosophic system, merely reducing to completer logical form the ideas thrown out as isolated aphorisms by his predecessor. But even more may be said; the " Thomas Aquinas of the Greek Church," as he has been called, may really be considered one of the most important sources and precursors of medieval scholasticism and mysticism in general. Much as he was dependent on those who went before him, and imperfectly as he succeeded in reducing to harmonious unity the rich and many-sided intellectual inheritance he received from them, he is none the less by his intellectual and moral character, by his learning, by his literary and ecclesiastical influence, and by the heroic firmness and patience of his life, entitled to the place of one of the greatest and most venerable of Christian thinkers and confessors.

(R. Seeberg.)

Bibliography: Sources for s life of Maximus are: Ada Mazimi, Latin in Anaataeii bibliothecarii colledanea, ed. J. Sirmond, Paris, 1620, Greek and Latin in the ed. Of Maximus by Combefis named in the text (under 1l.), i., pp. -ix. sqq., and in MPG, xe. 109 sqq.; a Vita by an unknown author, also in Combefis, i., pp. i.-uviii., in MPG, xc. 67 sqq., and in ABB, Aug. iii. 118 sqq.; Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor, ii. 331-332, 347, 351, Leipsic,1885.

On his life and activities consult: C. W. F. Walch, His toris der %stzereien, ix. 60, 499 sqq., 11 vols., Leipsic, 1762-85; Neander, Christian Church, iii. 171 sqq.; Ceillier, Auteurs sacrés, xi. 760-772; Schaff, Christian Church, iv. 496-498, 622 sqq.; DCB, iii. 884; and literature under Monophysites; and Monothelites. Particularly on the literary and theological sides consult: J. Back Die Dogmergeschichte dos Miuelauere, i. 15-49, Viemms, 1873-1875; Fabricius-Hades, Bibliotheca Grafca, ix. 638 owl., Hamburg, 1804; A. Preuss, Ad Maximi Confeesoria de deo hosniuisque dsolcatione doctrinam adnotationes, Bchneeburg, 1894; G. Owsepian, Die Entetehunflapeachiichk des Monothalitismus, pp. 56 sqq., Leipsic. 1897; O. Bardenhewer, Patrologio, pp. 507-511, Freiburg, 1901: Harnack, Dogma, iv. passim, v. 274, vi. 30; Krumbacher, Gsachuhta, pp. 61-64: Hefele, Concilisngeschichte, iii. lag sqq. Eng. transl., v. 73 sqq., 126 sqq.