scholarly journals The synthesis of ancient philosophical doctrines on movement in the thought of St Maximus the confessor

2016 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-176
Author(s):  
Vladimir Cvetkovic
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
The Third ◽  
Indirect Influence ◽  
Theological Thought ◽  
Maximus The Confessor

The paper aims to explore St Maximus the Confessor? teaching on movement in the light of his ancient philosophical sources. Maximus? employment of Neoplathonic terminology for the purpose of exposing his theological thought implies a direct or indirect influence of ancient thinkers on his work. In examining the themes of ancient philosophical heritage in Maximus, the paper proposes a fourfold division of his sources. The first source is pagan authors, such as Aristotle, Plotinus and Proclus, whom Maximus might know directly. The second source are ancient philosophical doctrines that through Christian authors such as Origen, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Nemesius of Emesa or Dionysius Areopagite already entered the Christian tradition, and which are transformed to a certain extent. The third source are the Christian Neo-Platonists of Alexandria Academy, like John Philoponus, Elias, David and Stephen of Alexandria who attempted to interprete previous philosophical tradition in conformity with certain Christian principles, and the fourth source are the Christian authors, who independently of previous philosophical traditions shaped their metaphysical views. The focus of the paper is on the first three sources.

scholarly journals Eastern Church Fathers on Being Human—Dichotomy in Essence and Wholeness in Deification

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 575
Author(s):  
Olga Chistyakova
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Anthropology ◽  
Church Father ◽  
Byzantine Church ◽  
God's Image ◽  
Maximus The Confessor

The article traces the formation of Eastern Christian anthropology as a new religious and philosophical tradition within the Early Byzantine culture. The notion “Patristics” is reasoned as a corpus of ideas of the Church Fathers, both Eastern and Western. The term “Eastern Patristics” means the works by Greek-Byzantine Church Fathers, who in the theological disputes with the Western Church Fathers elaborated the Christian creed. Based on an analysis of the texts of Greek-Byzantine Church Fathers, the most important provisions of Eastern Patristics are deduced and discussed, which determined the specificity of Christian anthropology. In this context, different approaches of the Eastern Fathers to the explanation of the Old Testament thesis on the creation of man in God’s image and likeness and the justification of the duality of human essence are shown. Particular attention is paid to considering the idea of deification as overcoming the human dualism and the entire created universe, the doctrine of the Divine Logoi as God’s energies, and the potential elimination of the antinomianism of the earthly and Divine worlds. The article reflects the anthropological ideas of the pre-Nicene Church Father Irenaeus, the non-canonical early Christian work The Shepherd of Hermas, and the teachings on the man of the classical Eastern Patristics period by Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor.

Presence and absence of προαίρεσις in Christ and saints according to Maximus the Confessor and parallels in Neoplatonism

2018 ◽  
Vol 111 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-54
Author(s):  
Grigory Benevich
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Presence And Absence ◽  
Natural Will ◽  
Maximus The Confessor

Abstract The article shows that prior to the debate with the Monothelites, Maximus the Confessor followed the Christian tradition going back to Gregory of Nyssa in recognizing the presence of προαίρεσις in Christ and the saints. Later during the debate, Maximus declined to apply προαίρεσις to Christ and started to speak about the deactivation of προαίρεσις in the saints in the state of deification. Maximus was the first Orthodox author who distinguished deliberate choice (προαίρεσις) and natural will (θέλημα), and defended the presence of natural will in Christ according to His humanity. At the same time, the opposition of desire (βούλησις) and deliberate choice (προαίρεσις) can be found in some Neoplatonists, such as Iamblichus, Proclus, and Philoponus. Iamblichus and Proclus rejected the presence of προαίρεσις in the gods and god-like humans, admitting only the presence of βούλησις - the desire for the Good. Thus, the evolution of the doctrine of Maximus the Confessor, regarding the application of προαίρε- σις to Christ and the saints, finds a parallel doctrine (and even possibly a source) in Neoplatonism.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Phenomenological Tradition ◽  
The Third ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
The Subject ◽  
To Come

The Introduction outlines the various chapters. It then situates the question of ‘body’ in the modern Western philosophical tradition following Descartes, and argues that this leaves subsequent responses to come under one of three options: metaphysical dualism of body and subject; any anti-dualist reductionism; or the overcoming of the divide. Describing the Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty as a potent example of the third strategy, the Introduction then suggests his philosophy will function as foil to the ecological phenomenology developed and presented in the book. Moreover, one approach within the Western Phenomenological tradition, of treating phenomenology as a methodology for the clarification of experience (rather than the means to the determination of an ontology of the subject) is compared to the approach in this book. Since classical India, while understanding dualism, did not confront the challenge of Descartes (for better or for worse), its treatment of body follows a different trajectory.

After Chalcedon

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian E. Daley, SJ
Keyword(s):  
Eighth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
John Of Damascus ◽  
Perceived Impact ◽  
Orthodox Theology ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Maximus The Confessor ◽  
Severus Of Antioch

The Council of Chalcedon’s definition of the terms in which Nicene orthodoxy should conceive of Christ’s person remained controversial. Leontius of Byzantium argued for the correctness of the Council’s formulation, especially against the arguments of Severus of Antioch, but suggested that more than academic issues were at stake: the debate concerned the lived, permanently dialectical unity between God and humanity. In the mid-seventh century, imperially sponsored efforts to lessen the perceived impact of Chalcedonian language by stressing that Christ’s two natures were activated by “a single, theandric energy,” also remained without effect: largely because of the monk Maximus “the Confessor”, who argued that two complete spheres of activity and two wills remained evident in Christ’s life. Maximus’s position was ratified at the Lateran Synod and at the Third Council of Constantinople. The eighth-century Palestinian monk John of Damascus incorporated these arguments into his own influential synthesis of orthodox theology.

scholarly journals God’s Love in the Teaching of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-47
Author(s):  
Sylwester Jaśkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
The Third ◽  
God's Love ◽  
Triune God ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Theological Thought

The article presents the subject of God’s love in Cardinal Wyszyński’s teaching. Primate Wyszyński puts God’s love at the very center of his theological thought. The theme of God’s love is discussed in seven sections: the first of them refers to the most famous words of Saint John’s “Deus Caritas est” (1 Jn 4:8,16), which are a short and brief definition of God; the second section develops Cardinal Wyszyński’s statement that there was a “time” in which only Love existed; the third section concerns the impartation of God’s love; fourth section describes the love of the Father; fifth section speaks of the greatest Love, which is the Incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ; section six focuses on the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Love; the last section speaks of Mary, Mother of Beautiful Love. The whole ends with the summary. In his teachings on the love of God, Cardinal Wyszyński started with the inner life of the Triune God, with the Person of the Father, and then focuses on the salvific mission of the Son of God and the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit. In this way, he appreciates both the category of God the Father and God as a Father full of love.

scholarly journals St Maximus the confessor’s teaching on movement

2013 ◽  
pp. 33-48
Author(s):  
Vladimir Cvetkovic
Keyword(s):  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Christian Philosophy ◽  
Dionysius The Areopagite ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Cappadocian Fathers ◽  
Maximus The Confessor ◽  
Supreme Being

The article aims to present how the Byzantine scholar St Maximus the Confessor perceived the notion of movement (kinesis). St Maximus exposed his teaching on movement in the course of his refutation of Origenism, which regarded the movement of created beings away from God as the cause of breaking the original unity that existed between the Creation and the Creator. By reversing Origen?s triad ?rest? - ?movement? - ?becoming? into the triad ?becoming? - ?movement? - ?rest?, St Maximus viewed the movement toward God as the sole goal of created beings, finding in the supreme being the repose of their own movement. In addition to the cosmological view of the movement, St Maximus developed a psychological and an ontological view on movement, relying on previous Christian tradition. By transforming and adapting Aristotelian and Neoplatonic notions to the basic principles of Christian metaphysics, St Maximus creates a new Christian philosophy of movement which he supported primarily with the views of the Cappadocian Fathers and Dionysius the Areopagite.

Revelation and The Political

2021 ◽  
pp. 551-567
Author(s):  
Matthew John Paul Tan
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Third ◽  
Heaven And Earth ◽  
Mode A ◽  
Do So

This chapter will explore the varieties of political thought informed by divine revelation as understood in the Christian tradition. It will do so with reference to the metaphysical assumptions of what happens when transcendence meets history, and accordingly divide the inquiry into three archetypes. The first are the monists, for whom transcendence collapses into the temporal. The second are the dialecticians, for whom the uncrossable distinction between heaven and earth results in a struggle between the two. The third are the participationists, for whom the transcendent and the historical can harmoniously cohere through a ‘mediating third’ plane. For each mode, a brief sketch will be given of the writings of exemplary thinkers, and of the promises and pitfalls. In highlighting this variety, the aim of charting this map is to nuance the discussion currently taking place concerning the motivations and modus operandi of religiously informed political actors.

Sound and Unsound Teachings in the Ad Evagrium (CPG 3222/1774): Problems of Authenticity and Doctrinal Context of a Pseudo-Gregorian Work

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-478
Author(s):  
Francesco Celia
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
The Third ◽  
Degree Of Certainty

Abstract Among the works ascribed to Gregory Thaumaturgus, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa there is one entitled, in Greek, Ad Evagrium monachum, de deitate, and, in Syriac, Ad Philagrium, de consubstantiali, which deals with the issue of whether the nature of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is simple or composite. While the attributions to the Cappadocians have been ruled out on the basis of its Monarchian contents, current scholarship is still completely divided in dating it to the third or to the fourth century, so that the mutually exclusive hypotheses that the Thaumaturgus was its author and that Evagrius of Pontus was its addressee have continued to coexist. This study accounts for the investigations of previous scholars and focuses on those doctrinal contents which are attacked and endorsed in the work and which allow us to date it with some degree of certainty. It is argued that the main polemical focus of the Ad Evagrium was Eunomius’ theory of names and that it was written by an exponent of the Marcellian party in the late 370 s.

‘The catechumenate for adults is to be restored’: Patristic Adaptation in the Rite for the Christian Initiation of Adults

1999 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 478-497
Author(s):  
Edward Yarnold
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Christian Initiation ◽  
The Third ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Rites Of Initiation

At the end of the third session of the Second Vatican Council in 1963, the bishops were able to make a beginning to their legislative work by promulgating two documents which they fondly hoped would be uncontroversial: the unremarkable Decree on Mass Media, and the much more consequential Constitution on the Liturgy. Among the principles for the revision of the Roman Catholic Church’s sacraments contained in the second of these documents, instructions are given for the revision of the rites of initiation, including the following: The catechumenate for adults is to be restored [instauretur] and broken up into several steps [gradibus], and put into practice at the discretion of the local ordinary. In this way the time of the catechumenate, which is intended for appropriate formation, can be sanctified through liturgical rites to be celebrated successively at different times. In mission territories, in addition to what is available in the Christian tradition, it should also be permitted to incorporate ceremonies [elementa] of initiation which are found to be customary in each society, provided they can be adapted to the Christian rite.

scholarly journals Fulfilment of righteousness: Historical and ontological perspective of Matthew 3:15

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. McCuistion ◽  
Colin Warner ◽  
Francois P. Viljoen
Keyword(s):  
Historical Event ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
The Third ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
The Law ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

This article maintained that the historicity of Jesus’ baptism was intended to flesh out the righteousness of God that was well-documented in the Hebrew Scriptures. Furthermore, the historical event initiated the ontological emphasis on the relationship of baptism to righteousness. To support this proposal, this article focused on Matthew’s fulfilment statement in Matthew 3:15. Looking specifically at this verse within its context, the article examines what Matthew may have intended for his community to grasp regarding the Christian tradition of righteousness. The article is divided into four sections that are intended to examine Matthew’s intentions. Firstly, the immediate context is examined, showing the influences and setting for the fulfilment statement. The following section explores the fulfilment statement within this context. The third section uncovers some of the theological traditions in Paul and the church fathers. Finally, the baptismal statement of Matthew 3:15 will be tied directly to the relationship of the law and righteousness in Matthew’s ἦλθον statement of Matthew 5:17. Hierdie artikel betoog dat die historiese waarheid van Jesus se doop bedoel was om die geregtigheid van God, wat volledig uiteengesit is in die Hebreeuse Bybel, te versterk. Verder het die historiese gebeurtenis die ontologiese klem op die verhouding van die doop tot geregtigheid geïnisieer. Om hierdie voorstel te ondersteun, fokus hierdie artikel op Matteus se verklaring van verwesenliking (Mat 3:15). Deur spesifiek na hierdie vers binne sy konteks te kyk, ondersoek die artikel wat Matteus moontlik beplan het sodat sy gemeenskap die Christelike tradisie van geregtigheid kon begryp. Die artikel is in vier afdelings verdeel om sodoende Matteus se bedoelings te ondersoek. Eerstens word die onmiddellike konteks ondersoek wat die invloede en agtergrond van die verklaring van die verwesenliking uitwys. In die volgende afdeling word die verklaring van die verwesenliking in hierdie konteks verken. In die derde afdeling word ’n paar van die teologiese tradisies van Paulus en die kerkvaders aan die lig gebring. Ten slotte is die doopverklaring van Matteus 3:15 regstreeks aan die verhouding van reg en geregtigheid in Mattheus se ἦλθον verklaring van Matteus 5:17 gekoppel.

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