Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

216 NOTES
20 Gregory is here referring to the Son, who has come down to do the will
of the One who sent him (John 6:38).
21 Maximus omits the word ‘to God’ in his citation of Gregory, in context
taking it for granted.
22 Gregory Nazianzen, Sermon 30.12, cited at the 10th session of the sixth
Ecumenical Council (Riedinger [1990], 330). It is discussed again,
below, in Opusc. 3.
23 This is not at all what Gregory had in mind: he was arguing against
Arians (or more precisely Eunomians), who argued that the distinction
between the will of the Son and the will of the Father contradicted the
doctrine of their consubstantiality.
24 Christ’s human will is natural, but does not (like fallen human wills)
work through an intention arrived at after deliberation, that is through
a gnômê: so I have translated gnômikon here as ‘deliberative’.
25 Probably a reference to the Monophysite reading ‘one theandric energy’
for ‘a certain new theandric energy’ in Denys’ Ep. 4 (see Amb. 5, above).
26 The quotations in this paragraph are from Cyril of Alexandria’s
discussion of the raising of Jaïrus’ daughter (Luke 8:49–56) and the
widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:11–15) in his Commentary on St John’s
Gospel, book 4, c. 2, on John 6:53 (Pusey [1872], I. 530). This passage is
also included in the late-seventh-century florilegium, the Doctrina
Patrum (Diekamp [1981], 131).
27 Maximus often refers his teaching to a ‘wise man’. Here, however, he
seems to be referring to St Cyril of Alexandria; elsewhere, it seems to be
rather a question of someone he knew, perhaps, it has been suggested,
Sophronius.
28 Cf. Prov. 22:28 (‘You shall not alter the eternal boundaries, that your
fathers set up’), also quoted by St John of Damascus at the end of the
first chapter of his Expositio fidei.
29 Frequently used by Cyril of Alexandria and a watch-word for those of
his followers who rejected the Christological Definition of Chalcedon: see
Wickham (1983), 62, n. 3.
30 From Denys the Areopagite, Ep. 4, discussed above, 84D–85B (pp. 188–
9).
31 From Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on St. John’s Gospel, discussed
above, 85C–88A (p.189).
OPUSCULE 3
1 This opuscule is a chapter from a work On Energies and Wills, like
Opuscule 2, which is chapter 50. The complete work no longer survives.
2 A characteristically Maximian allusion to two of the ‘Chalcedonian’
adverbs.
3 A definition of will, ascribed by Maximus to Clement of Alexandria in
Opusc. 26 (276C).
4 Gregory Nazianzen, Sermon 30.12, commented on above, Opusc. 7
(81C).