Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

THE SOURCES OF MAXIMUS’ THEOLOGY 21
collection of Fifty), Maximus’ Ascetic Life falls into this category. Some
of Maximus’ most important works show clearly their double heritage.
They are like scholia in that they consist of comments on passages
from the Scriptures (in the case of the Questions to Thalassius), or
from the Fathers—principally St Gregory of Nazianzus—(the Books of
Difficulties), or from both (Quaestiones et dubia, as its first editor
called it, though it should probably be called ‘Questions and
Answers’), but that they fit into the pattern of monastic catechesis (or
relate to it) is evident from the individuals to whom they are
addressed, and the apparent occasions that prompted them: the first
Book of Difficulties (Amb. 6–71), for instance, is addressed to John,
Bishop of Cyzicus, and grew out of discussions that had taken place
between the two men while Maximus was a monk at the monastery of
St George in Cyzicus, as is clear from the prefatory letter. 4 Most of his
other theological works are also in the form of responses to questions
put to him: that applies to those of his letters that discuss theological
or spiritual issues (the majority) and to his ‘theological and polemic
opuscula’, that often take the form of letters. The few writings of
Maximus that do not adopt these forms take the even more
traditional form of commentary: his commentaries on Psalm 59 and
the Lord’s Prayer, and his commentary on the Eucharistic liturgy, his
Mystagogia.
The form is important, for it makes clear that although Maximus
the Confessor is a speculative theologian of genius, he does not see
himself, as would some later theologians, as constructing a theological
system. He sees himself as interpreting a tradition that has come
down to him, and interpreting it for the sake of others. It is also
striking, and I think significant, that broadly speaking he began by
helping people (mainly monks, but not entirely: his second letter, a
profound discussion of the nature of love, was addressed to a courtier,
John the Cubicularius) to live a Christian life, it is only later that he
concerns himself with speculative theological matters (though these
are never detached from living a Christian life, apart from which they
make no sense), and later still, and apparently with some reluctance,
that he involved himself in theological controversy. Theological
controversy was forced on him because theological error threatened the
authenticity of a Christian life of love in response to God’s love for us
in the Incarnation: for that reason it mattered, and mattered to the
point of death.
TRADITION
For Maximus the tradition that he sees himself as interpreting has
several manifestations. One might sum it up as: Scripture, Fathers,