Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

COSMIC THEOLOGY 67
emptying love in the Incarnation: apart from that it is nothing, ascetic
struggle can achieve nothing on its own. Maximus brings out these
points in Amb. 10 by the structural significance that the metaphor of
the ‘cloud’ plays in it. In the passage from Gregory’s sermon with
which this Difficulty engages there is mention of the ‘fleshly’ being
called ‘cloud or veil’. It is by overlooking this that the Origenists find
support from Gregory for their ignoring (or rapidly passing over) ascetic
struggle. For Maximus, on the contrary, it is the imagery of the cloud
that makes clear the crucial significance of ascetic struggle, for both
the reasons outlined above. The first three sections of this Difficulty
discuss how the soul operates in conjunction with the body. The
fleshly, that is the disordered lower part of the soul, obscures and
obstructs the soul’s natural movement towards God (which is fulfilled
in contemplation): it is fittingly called the cloud, therefore, and
engagement with the cloud is precisely ascetic struggle, and is seen to
be not so much preliminary as fundamental.
But as Maximus discusses the significance of the cloud, his mind
moves laterally—to the biblical imagery of the cloud. (It is important
to be open to the lateral movement of Maximus’ reflections: otherwise
it is difficult to discern any train of thought at all.) Section 4 begins a
series of meditations (or contemplations: theôriai) ofpassagesfrom
the Old Testament. It is the cloud, that led the people of Israel in the
desert, that introduces these considerations, but because this cloud is
first mentioned at the crossing of the Red Sea (Exod. 14. 15–29; cloud
mentioned at verse 19), Maximus’ mind moves—again laterally—to the
notion of crossing (diabasis) that is the general subject of the passage
from Gregory that he is expounding.
THE TRANSFIGURATION
These examples from the Old Testament culminate in the meditation
on the Transfiguration that they all prefigure. In the Transfiguration,
the themes of crossing over and the cloud are once again brought
together, but this time in conjunction with the Incarnation. The
Incarnation reveals the mutually-encountering crossings-over—of God
to humankind and of humankind to God. In the Transfiguration the
glory of God Incarnate is revealed; in the Transfiguration the disciples
pass over ‘from flesh to spirit’ and behold ‘the glory as of the Onlybegotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth’. But Maximus draws
our attention to the fact that in the Transfiguration it is not only the
face of the Incarnate One that is transfigured with light, but also his
clothes, and he suggests that the radiant garments have a double
significance. The radiant garments can be understood as a ‘symbol of
the words of Holy Scripture, which in this case became shining and