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31 - Maximus the Confessor, Opusculum 7

from Part II - Christological Perspectives after Constantinople II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2022

Mark DelCogliano
Affiliation:
University of St Thomas, Minnesota
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Summary

Opusculum 7 is another work of Maximus that stems from his involvement in the monoenergist and monothelite controversies discussed in the introduction to Ambiguum 31 to Thomas. Opusculum 7 dates to 641, and so is the latest of the texts included here. Unlike Opusculum 6, this is a lengthy and highly developed “dogmatic book,” which Maximus sent to one Marinus, a deacon. We know little about Marinus’s identity, but Maximus wrote several letters and texts to him. In Opusculum 7 Maximus defends both a fully dyothelite position and a hermeneutic for reading authoritative theological texts. As is clear from his fondness for expositing Gregory of Nazianzus, the latter argument is central. Opusculum 7 responds to the Ekthesis (638), which was the definitive statement of monothelitism, holding that in Christ there are two natures but one activity (energeia) and one will (thelēma). Against this Maximus holds that will is a capacity and process irremovable from activity, and that activity, in turn, is nature (physis) in action. Put differently, human beings share a common human nature, of which things like rational thought, deliberative choice, and self-determination constitute the activity. One of those things is will.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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