Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

214 NOTES
13 This is a good definition of what has been called the doctrine of
enhypostasia, but I do not think that Maximus uses enhypostatos in this
way. See Amb. 1, n. 5, above.
14 Here, and elsewhere in this section, Maximus uses (or sometimes
alludes to) the four adverbs used in the Chalcedonian Definition to
express the integrity and genuine union of the two natures of Christ:
without confusion, without change, without division, without separation
(asynchytôs, atreptôs, adiairetôs, achôristôs).
15 Denys the Areopagite, Divine Names, 8.5 (893A).
16 Maximus is fond of this formulation of the relationship of the natures to
the person of the Incarnate Word. Although the Council of Chalcedon
said that Christ is recognized ‘in two natures’, the original version,
followed by many Greek manuscripts, was ‘out of two natures’. Maximus
combines them, and adds an assertion of direct identity. See Piret
(1983), 203–39.
17 Theotokos: literally, one who gave birth to God.
18 ‘Intention’, here and later in the sentence, is gnômê, the intention, or
inclination, that lies behind our voluntary acts.
19 ‘Theandric’: an adjective, not invented by Denys, but popularized by his
use of it in Ep.4, formed from the words for God (Theos) and [male] man
(anêr, root: andr-) to characterize the person and indivisible activity of
Jesus, God made man.
20 The supporters of Severus of Antioch (‘Monophysites’) quoted the
last few words of Denys’ Ep. 4 in support of their Christology at the
council called by Justinian at Constantinople in 532. But they quoted it
in the form ‘one theandric energy’, rather than ‘a certain new theandric
energy’. It is this that Maximus is attacking here.
21 The Greek is actually ‘goat-stag’: I have substituted our more familiar
‘eagle-lion’, the griffin.
22 The analogy of the iron in the fire for the union of the natures in the
Incarnation is traditional in Christian theology: see, e.g., Origen, On
First Principles II.6.6.
23 Amb. 5 is the last of the later Ambigua, and this conclusion, addressed
to Thomas, to whom the work is dedicated, and his other readers, is the
conclusion of the whole work.
24 Isa. 9:5 (LXX, according to the Alexandrine text, which is the one used
in the Eastern Church).
OPUSCULE 7
1 On the question of whether the various pieces addressed to Marinus are
addressed to the same person, see Sherwood (1952), 34.
2 Possibly an allusion to the words said by the priest in the Byzantine
liturgy as the warm water (the zeon) is added to the consecrated wine in
the chalice before communion: see Brightman (1896), 394. This custom
was probably introduced in the sixth century, and this may be the
earliest evidence for it: see Wybrew (1989), 87–8.