Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

137 Cf. Denys the Areopagite, Divine Names II.11; IV.7, 10, 14; X.1.
138 Cf. the teaching in Ep. 2, above, esp. 396A (p.86).
DIFFICULTY 41
1 There is a translation of most of this Difficulty (all apart from the final
contemplation) in Hausherr (1952), 164–70, which I have found helpful.
2 From St Gregory Nazianzen’s Sermon 39.13, on the Feast of Lights (i.e.,
the Theophany, or Epiphany) (PG 36.348D).
3 For these divisions, cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium I.270–2, III.
6.62–7 (Jaeger [1960], 1.105–6, 2.66–7), and elsewhere, and the
discussion above, Introduction, chapter 5. Amb. 10.26, above, also
develops the notion of the divisions of being and alludes to similar texts
in Gregory of Nyssa.
4 See Gregory of Nyssa, On human creation 2 (PG 44:133A).
5 Syndesmos: a key term in Maximus’ theology, used by Nemesius, On
human nature 1 (Morani [1987], 5).
6 Diastêma: another key term of Maximus’.
7 Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, On human creation 16 (PG 44:181 AB).
8 It sounds odd to refer to the human person as ‘it’, but Maximus is
talking about a human person transcending sexual differentiation,
which would be obscured by the use of ‘he’ or ‘she’.
9 Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, On human creation 17 (PG 44:189A and D), and
frequently elsewhere.
10 Perichôrêsas: used also in the Greek tradition to express the
interpenetration of the natures of Christ, and the Persons of the Trinity
(cf. Latin: circumincessio).
11 Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, On human creation 17, 22 (PG 44:189AB, 205A).
12 Reading timiôtata, not atimiôtata. See Hausherr (1952), 169n.
13 Denys the Areopagite, Divine Names 13.2 (980A).
DIFFICULTY 71
NOTES 211
1 Last lines of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ sonnet, ‘As kingfishers catch fire’.
2 From the poems of St Gregory of Nazianzus, To the Virgins 2(PG 37:
624). There is a critical text neither of Maximus nor of Gregory’s poems:
I have translated what seems to me the most plausible reading.
3 ‘Prudence’: phronêsis, which I have usually translated ‘sagacity’, but
here the opposition with play suggests prudence (the usual Latin
translation of phronêsis being prudentia).
4 Maximus here is using the technical language of apophatic and
cataphatic theology, first found among Christians in Denys the
Areopagite: ‘negation’ translates apophasis and ‘affirmation’ kataphasis.
5 Maximus underlines here and several times later the conjectural quality
of his reflections here (the word he uses is stochastikôs).
6 See the previous note.