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Some Aspects of the Influence of the Byzantine Maximos the Confessor on the Theology of East and West

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Deno J. Geanakoplos
Deno J. Geanakoplos
Affiliation:
Professor of History, Yale University
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Extract

That the seventh century Byzantine theologian Maximos the Confessor had an influence on the development of Western as well as Eastern theology is well known through the work of such scholars as Sherwood, Cappuyns, Dräseke, Gilson, and Altaner, for example, for the West, and of von Balthasar, von Ivanka, Grümel, Beck, Brilliantoff, Epifanovic, Hausherr, and Dalmais for the East. But although Maximos' works were apparently known throughout the entire period of Byzantine history, there remains a surprisingly great deal of research to be done to delineate the extent of his influence on specific Byzantine scholars and theologians such as Anastasius of the ninth century, Euthemius Zigabenos and Symeon the “New Theologian” of the eleventh, Nicetas Choniates in the twelfth, Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus and Pachymeres in the thirteenth, the Hesychasts Gregory Palamas and Nicholas Kabasilas and their opponents Nicephorus Gregoras and the Byzantine “Scholastic” John Cyparissiotes of the fourteenth, and, last of all, on the sixteenth century, post-Byzantine Bishop who lived in Venice, Maximos Margounios.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , June 1969 , pp. 150 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1969

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References

1. Sherwood, P., St. Maximus the Confessor. The Ascetic life. The Four Centuries on Charity (London, 1955)Google Scholar; his “Survey of Recent Work on St. Maximus the Confessor,” Traditio, XX (1964), 428–437Google Scholar; Dräseke, J., “Maximus Confessor und Johannes Scotus Erigena,” Theologische Studien und Kritiken, LXXXIV (1911), 20–60,Google Scholar esp. 20; see Cappuyus, M., Jean Scot Erigène (Louvain-Paris, 1933)Google Scholar; Altaner, B., “Die Kenntnis des Griechischen in den Missionsorden während des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts: Ein Beitrag zur vorgeshichte des Humanismus,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, LIII (1934), 436–493Google Scholar; Gilson, E., The Mystical Theology of St. Bernard, trans. Downes, A. H. C. (New York, London, 1940), esp. pp. 25–28.Google Scholar

2. (Ivanka, E. von, Maximus der Bekenner: All-eins in Christus) (Einsiedeln, 1961),Google Scholar (with excerpts from the earlier Ambigua and Ad Thallasium); Grümel, V., “Notes d'histoire et de chronologie sur la vie de S. Maxime,” Echos d'Orient, XXVI (1927), 24–32Google Scholar and his “Maxime de Chrysopolis,” Diet. Theol. Cath., X, 448–59Google Scholar; Beck, H. G., Kirche und Theologisohe Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich, 1959), pp. 330, 353, 357,Google Scholaret passim; Brilliantoff, A., The Influence of Eastern Theology on Western as Evidenced by the Works of John Scotus Erigena (in Russian) (St. Petersburg, 1898)Google Scholar; Epifanovic, S., Materials tp Serve in the Study of the Life and Works of St. Maximus the Confessor (in Russian) (Kiev, 1917)Google Scholar; Hausherr, I., Philautie, de la tendresse pour soi à la charité, selon S. Maxime le Confesseur (Rome, 1952)Google Scholar; also “Massimo il Confessore,” in Enciclopedia Cattoliva, VIII (1952), 307Google Scholar; I. H. Dalmais at the Oxford Patristic Congress (1963) established a relationship between Maximos and Erigena. See also Dalmais, H., “Place de la mystagogie de St. Maximus le Confessor dans la théologie liturgique byzantine,” Studia Patristica, V (1963), 277–83Google Scholar; I. D. Zizoulias, Ph.D. thesis at Harvard (1964) on Christology of Maximos; Candal, M., “La gracia increada del ‘Liber Ambiguorum’ de San Maximo,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica, XXVII (1961), 38–45.Google Scholar

3. Anna Comnena says the court of her father Alexius read Maximos: Dawes, E. transl. of Alexiad (New York, 1967), p. 135.Google Scholar On Symeon, , “the New Theologian,” see Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (London, 1958), p. 1256.Google Scholar Pachymeres is, after Maximos, the most important Byzantine paraphraser and commentator on Dionysius. He wrote a paraphrasis on Dionysius' epistles: MPG, IV, cols. 433ff. The Oxford Dictionary of Christian Church (London, 1958), p. 403Google Scholar says Pachymeres and Andrew of Crete wrote commentaries on Dionysius. For other influences, see Sherwood, P., “Survey of Recent Work on Maximos the Confessor,” Traditio, XX (1964), 435ff.Google Scholar On Nicholas Cabasilas see his Explication de la divine liturgie, trans. and notes by S. Salaville (Paris, 1967),Google Scholar (Sources ehrétiennes no. 4). On Cyparissiotes, see below.

4. He wrote scholia to the four great works of Dionysius, and to his epistles plus a prologue and glossary of terms used by Dionysius, MPG, vol. 4. It should be noted that the scholia on Dionysius attributed by western scholars to Maximos Confessor, were in part the work of Maximos' near-contemporary John of Scythopolis (see especially Balthasar, H. U. von), “Das Scholien Werk des Johannes von Skythopolis,” Scholatik, XV (1940), 16ff.Google Scholar

5. The New Catholic Encyclopedia, under John Scotus Erigena, Vol. VII, p. 1073,Google Scholar by L. Lynch, says Erigena's translation of the Ambigua of Maximos consisted of a preface, two poems and sixty-seven chapters of which only the first five and the beginning of six have been printed. On the Earlier Ambigua see Sherwood, , “The Earlier Ambigua of Maximos,” Studia Anselmiana, XXXVI (1935), 1–22Google Scholar; Cappuyns, M., “La ‘Versie Ambiguorum Maximi,’ de Jean Scot Erigena,” Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médievale, XXX (1963), 324–329,Google Scholar and his “Gloss inédite de Jean Scot sur un passage de Maximi,” Recherches de Théologie ancienne et medievale XXXI (1964) 320–324.Google Scholar

6. Erigena translated into Latin the four great mystical works of Dionysius. At the Oxford Congress (1963) Meyvaert, Dom announced (see Sacris Erudiri, XIV [1963], 130–148)CrossRefGoogle Scholar the discovery of a translation of Maximos' Ad Thalassium by Scotus Erigena. See more recently, Cappuyns, M., “Jean Scot Erigène et les ‘Scholia’ de Maxime le Confesseur,” Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médievale, XXXI (1964), 122–124.Google Scholar

7. See Dondaine (cited in note 15). Anastasius in fact preserved in Latin a fragment of a letter of Maximos sent to a certain Peter concerning the primacy of the Pope: see MPG, vol. 91, cols. 141–44. Krumbacher, K., Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (Munich, 1897), p. 63,Google Scholar says Maximos is in the West known as “The Interpreter” of Dionysius.

8. In The Mystical Theology of St. Bernard (New York, London, 1940), p. 25,Google Scholar E. Gilson says Bernard was influenced by Dionysius through Maximos in Erigena's translation. Gilson says Bonaventure was also influenced by Maximos, . The Diet. Theol. Cath., VII, pt. 1,Google Scholar col. 246 (under Hughes de Saint-Victor), says Dionysius is mentioned twice in Hughes, who wrote a commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy. See also on the Theologia Mystica, Honecker, M., “Nikolaus von Cues und die griechlische sprache,” Sitz. Heidelb.Akad. Wissen., Phil. Hist. Kl., XXVIII (1938), 26, n. 92.Google Scholar Cerbanus, the twelfth century western monk, knew the Centuries on Charity. See note below, 57.

9. Albert the Great wrote commentaries on Dionysius' Celestial Hierarchy, Ecclestiastical Hierarchy, Mystical Theology, and Epistles. Doubtless he must have read the Anastasian corpus. I can find no record of Albert's use of the Ambigua. But see Bach, J., Des Albertus Magnus Verhältniss zu der Erkenntnisslehre der Griechen Lateiner, Araber und Juden (Vienna, 1881).Google Scholar

10. See Pegis, A., ed., Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. II (New York, 1945),Google Scholar index of authors, p. 1174 under Maximos (esp. concerning angels, their intellectual powers, and their nature, vols. I-Il, 50, 6, Obj. 1 and Obj. 2).

11. Callus, D. A., ed., Robert Grosseteste, Scholar and Bishop (Oxford, 1955), pp. 34, 56–57.Google Scholar See Francheschini, E., “Grosseteste's translation of the Prologos and Scholia of Maximos to the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagita,” Jl. of Eccl. Hist., XXXIV (1933), 355–63, esp. 356–57.Google Scholar Francheschini states that Grosseteste did not know these scholia were by Maximos. Anastasius Bibliothecarius had translated them and sent them with a dedicatory letter to Charles the Bald in 865. No evidence shows that Grosseteste knew this version. Bolgar, R. R., The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries (Cambridge, 1958) p. 243,Google Scholar suggests a strong influence of Dionysius (perhaps of Maximos also) on Pico and Ficino.

12. On Nicholas and Balbus see below. As noted above, Maximos is important to the West as the interpreter of Pseudo-Dionysius.

13. See Sparrow-Simpson, W., in Rolt, C., ed., Dionysius the Arcopagite on the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology (SPCK: New York, 1951), p. 203,Google Scholar who says that the Greek writings of Dionysius were sent to the Gallican church in 757 by Pope Pascal and remained for nearly a century unread in the abbey of St. Denys until Charles the Bald asked Erigena to translate them into Latin (all four principal works). Cf. Dondaine, p. 25, n. 15 who says this is not historically corroborated, and that the first exemplar of Dionysius we can trace is the one sent from Byzantium by Emperor Michael II.

14. Sherwood, P., St. Maximus the Confessor (in Ancient Christian Writers no. 21), pp. 24–28.Google Scholar Also see his article cited in Studia Anselmiana, XXX (1952), 1–22.Google Scholar

15. Dondaine, H., LeCorpus Dionysien de l'aniversité de Paris au XIIIe siécle (Rome, 1953), pp. 25–26Google Scholar says. Hilduin had the Ms of Dionysius (which had lain there unread in its library for a time) probably read by someone who knew Greek and then translated orally by another into Latin, and finally written down by still another. Inevitably, then, many errors occurred, making for a very faulty translation.

16. Maximos probably used Dionysius' thought in order to comment on Gregory of Nazianzus. Erigena, may have also translated Ad Thalassium. See n. 6.Google Scholar

17. See Versio Maximi, MPL, vol. 122, cols. 1193 ff.Google Scholar, esp. 1195A: “nisi viderem, praefatum beatissimum Maximum saepissime in processu sui operis obscurissimas sanctissimi theologi Dionysii Areopagitae aententias, cujus symbolicos theologicosque sensus nuper Vobis similiter jubentibus transtuli.,…quae illuminat abscondita tenebrarum.…” Also see Cappuyns, M., Jean Scot Erigène Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensée (Paris-Louvain, 1933) p. 162.Google Scholar

18. MPL, v. 122, cols. 1027–28; also Bett, H., Johannes Scotus Erigena, (Cambridge, 1925), p. 17.Google Scholar

19. See MPL, vol 122, cols. 1194 D-1195 A: “hoc est intellectu difficilium … de Graeco in Latinum vobis jubentibus edidi, etc.” Cf. Bett, Erigena, p. 17, n. 2.

20. MPL, v. 122, col 1197D (footnote of Latin text no. D), Cf. Bett, Erigena, p. 17, no. 2. J. Dräseke, article cited above, n. 1, commenting on Erigena's Greek, says it was easier for him to read Gregory of Nyssa than Maximos because the latter's style and thoughts are more difficult.

21. From MPG, vol 91, col 1113 B. Cf. Bett, H., Erigena, pp. 24–25.Google Scholar Cf. Erigena's quotation from Maximos (MPL, vol 122, col. 449C), De Divisione Naturae … “ut ait Maximus, humanus intellectus ascendit per caritatem, in tantum divina sapientia descendit per misericordiam.” See Gregory, T., “Note sulla dottrina della ‘teofanie’ in Giovanni Scoto Eriugena,” Studi Medievali, ser. 3, vol 4, part I, pp. 75–91.Google Scholar See also Gilson's, book on Bernard, Mystical Theology of St. Bernard, (cited n. 1), esp. pp. 25–28.Google Scholar

22. Summarized in Bett, , Erigena, p. 25,Google Scholar from MPL, Erigena's, De Divisione Naturae, vol. 122, col 451.Google Scholar

23. Maximos', Ambigua, MPG, vol. 191, cols. 1285–88.Google Scholar

24. See MPL, Erigena, vol. 518A, and MPG, vol. 91,Google Scholar Maximos' Ambigua, col. 1185 B.

25. MPG, vol 90, col. 672C, and MPG, vol 91, col. 136B, where Maximos formulated the term dia tou uiou. Cf. Beck, op. cit., 308ff. On the Council of Florence and views on the (“procession”) see Geanakoplos, D., Byzantine East and Latin West (Oxford, 1966) pp. 99–102,Google Scholar and Gill, J., Council of Florence (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 151–152, 212–213,Google Scholar etc.; and on Margounios and Maximos the Confessor see Geanakoplos, Ibid., esp. 171, and also Dvornik, F., Byzantium and the Roman Primacy (New York, 1966) pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

26. See note preceding, esp. based on Maximos' phrase dia tou uiou. Also Bett, , Erigena, pp. 30, 108Google Scholar and note 5. Unlike Augustine and Tertullian Erigena did not use a patre per filium. (De Trin., XV, 48,Google Scholar and Adversus Praxeam, 4).

27. See Geanakoplos, D., Byzantine East and Latin West, p. 171.Google Scholar Also cf. Fedalto, G., Massimo Margounios e la sua opera per cociliare la sentenza degli orientali e dei latini sulla processione dello Spirito Sancto (Padua, 1961) p. 51.Google Scholar

28. See Mercati, A., “Giovanni Ciparissiota alla corte di Gregerio XI,” Byz. Zeit., XXX (1929/1930), 496–501,Google Scholar and Dentakis, B., John Cyprissiotes, the Wise, and the Philosopher (in Greek) (Athens, 1965).Google Scholar Also on Cyparissiotes, Beck, op. cit., pp. 330, 727, 738, 749ff., 789.

29. Latin title (given by editor) Turrianus is Expositio materiaria eorum quas de Deo a theologis dicuntur, in decem decades partita: MPG, vol 152, cols. 737ff.Google Scholar His earlier work is his “Against the Errors of the Palamites” (for Latin title see MPG, vol. 152, cols. 663 ff., given by ed. Fr. Combefisius, Palamiticorum Transgressionum liber primus).

30. Dentakis, B., John Cyparissiotes, The Wise, and the Philosopher (in Greek) (Athens, 1965), pp. 62ff.Google Scholar, esp. 67. Beck, H., Vorsehung und Vorherbestimmung in der theologischen Literatur der Byzantiner, (Rome, 1937),Google ScholarOrientalia Christiana Analecta, 114, pp. 171–175, demonstrates a doctrinal relationship between Cyparissiotes and the commentators of Dionysius. The ten decades of Cyparissiotes take up the symbolic and negative theology of the East from Clement of Alexandria to Dionysius and his commentators.

31. Dentakis, B., The Nine Hymns to the Logos of God Attributed to John Cyparissiotes (in Greek) (Athens, 1964), p. 13ff.Google Scholar* (asterik is part of page number in Dentakis' book); and MPG, vol. 152, cols. 741–992.

32. MPG, vol. 152, col. 746.

33. See e.g., MPG, vol. 152, col. 751: “Quod symbolicae theologiae quae in specie sub sensum cadente versatur…”

34. MPG, vol. 152, col. 767A, Chap. VI.

35. Cyparissiotes in MPG, vol. 152, col. 767.

36. See MPG, vol. 90, col. 1083, with slightly inverted word order in Latin (“Capita ducenta ad theologiam Deique Filii in carne dispensationem spectantia.”).

37. Beck (see n. 30).

38. MPG, vol. 152, col. 778 (cf. n. 1 of scholia) taken from Maximos' Ambigua.

39. Quoting from Maximus' work in explanation of Gregory Nazianzenus, MPG, vol. 152, col. 778.

40. MPG, vol. 152, col. 887 A-B.

41. MPG, vol. 152, col. 899; passage taken from Maximos' work on Centuries on Theology, chap. 35, col. 1094, with slightly altered wording.

42. From MPG, vol. 152, col 956 C. Taken from Maximos, Centuria IV, cap. I.

43. MPG, 152, col. 959 A.

44. On the originality of Cyparissiotes see in Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascetique, XVIII (Paris, 1964), col. 314.Google Scholar

45. Beck, , Kirche und theologische Literatur, p. 739.Google ScholarDentakis, B., The Nine Hymns to the Logos of God Attributed to John Cyparissiotes (in Greek) (Athens, 1964) p. 13.Google Scholar

46. See Bett, , Erigena, p. 11.Google Scholar

47. MPL, vol. 122, col. 1194 B.

48. Sherwood, P., “Survey of Recent Work on Maximus the Confessor,” Traditio, XX (1964), 438ff.Google Scholar

49. See Bett, , Erigena, p. 192.Google Scholar

50. I find no mention of Nicholas' use of Maximos in Honecker, M., Nikolaus von Cues und die griechische Sprache (cited above) pp. 26–27,Google Scholar though there are many mentions of Dionysius and translations of Dionysius in Hugh of St. Victor, Grossteste, and Thomas Gallo. (It seems that Nicholas brought back from Constantinople a Greek Ms. of Dionysius the Areopagite.)

51. See Bett, , Nicholas of Cusa, 93, n. 4.Google Scholar But this is Bett's only mention of Balbus, who had dedicated to Cusanus his translation of Alcinous, Epitome of Plato.

52. Konstaninos, D., “Krētikē analusis tēs meletēs tou M. Reding: Die Aktualität des N. Cusanus” (Berlin, 1964),Google ScholarTheologia (in Greek) III (1966), 138ff.Google Scholar

53. Gandillac, M. de, Nikolaus von Cues (Düsseldorf, 1953) pp. 250–51.Google Scholar See the Dizionario biog. degli Italiana, vol. V, 379,Google Scholar on the Ms. of Balbas' Latin translations of Maximos. According to an indirect testimony of Ughelli, there should be other Mss. at the Bibliotheca Capitolare of Capua, a not specified sermon of the Maximos and forty chapters of Maximos' De Charitate (instead of the eighteen of the Florence Ms.). Capialbi, V., Memoire per servire alla storia delia santa chiesa tropeana (Naples, 1952), p. 36,Google Scholar cites Ughelli (Italia Sacra) as noting that in the Tesoro of Capua Cathedral are Mss. with Balbus' translation from Greek to Latin including “s. Maximi Sermo per dialogum ad Sixtum IV.” Pietro Balbus studied Greek, incidentally, with the famous Vittorino da Feltre.

54. Van Steenbergh, B., Le Cardinal Nicolas de Cues (Paris, 1920),Google Scholar and de Gandillac, M., Nikolaus von Cues (Düsseldorf, 1953) esp. p. 288,Google Scholar where it is suggested that the words unitas and entitas correspond to the unusual Greek term ontotes to be found in Maximos', Cent. gnost., 1, 48Google Scholar (MPG, vol. 90, 1101B). But Gandillac does not specifically say Nicholas knew Maximos' work.

55. Beck, , Kirche und Theologische Literatur, p. 436.Google Scholar

56. Dentakis, B., John Cyparissiotes, The Wise and the Philosopher (in Greek) (Athens, 1965) p. 69.Google Scholar

57. Cerbanus' translation of De charitate (Cerbanus, a Venetian, lived for a time in Constantinople), is an interesting example of the twelfth century revival of Greek thought in the West (Sherwood, P., St. Maximus the Confesssor, pp. 101–2).Google Scholar Cerbanus also apparently was the first to make even a partial translation of John of Damascus: SAC, N. M. Haring., The First Traces of the So-Called Cerbanus transl. of St. John Damascene ‘De Fide Orthodoxa,’ III, 1–8,Google Scholarin Medieval Studies, XII (1950), pp. 214–16.Google Scholar Cf. Gilson, E., History of Christian Philosophy, p. 600.Google Scholar

58. Ficino's translation of Dionysius was completed in 1492 (Kristeller, P., The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino [New York, 1943] 18.Google Scholar). Thomas Gallus did a paraphrase of Dionysius, not a translation. John Sarazenus' famous translation of Dionysius did not include a new translation of of Maximos' scholia on Dionysius.