Download or read book St Maximus the Confessor s Questions and Doubts written by Saint Maximus the Confessor and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-15 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despina D. Prassas's translation of the Quaestiones et Dubia presents for the first time in English one of the Confessor's most significant contributions to early Christian biblical interpretation. Maximus the Confessor (580–662) was a monk whose writings focused on ascetical interpretations of biblical and patristic works. For his refusal to accept the Monothelite position supported by Emperor Constans II, he was tried as a heretic, his right hand was cut off, and his tongue was cut out. In his work, Maximus the Confessor brings together the patristic exegetical aporiai tradition and the spiritual-pedagogical tradition of monastic questions and responses. The overarching theme is the importance of the ascetical life. For Maximus, askesis is a lifelong endeavor that consists of the struggle and discipline to maintain control over the passions. One engages in the ascetical life by taking part in both theoria (contemplation) and praxis (action). To convey this teaching, Maximus uses a number of pedagogical tools including allegory, etymology, number symbolism, and military terminology. Prassas provides a rich historical and contextual background in her introduction to help ground and familiarize the reader with this work.
Download or read book St Maximus the Confessor s Questions and Doubts written by Saint Maximus the Confessor and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-15 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despina D. Prassas's translation of the Quaestiones et Dubia presents for the first time in English one of the Confessor's most significant contributions to early Christian biblical interpretation. Maximus the Confessor (580–662) was a monk whose writings focused on ascetical interpretations of biblical and patristic works. For his refusal to accept the Monothelite position supported by Emperor Constans II, he was tried as a heretic, his right hand was cut off, and his tongue was cut out. In his work, Maximus the Confessor brings together the patristic exegetical aporiai tradition and the spiritual-pedagogical tradition of monastic questions and responses. The overarching theme is the importance of the ascetical life. For Maximus, askesis is a lifelong endeavor that consists of the struggle and discipline to maintain control over the passions. One engages in the ascetical life by taking part in both theoria (contemplation) and praxis (action). To convey this teaching, Maximus uses a number of pedagogical tools including allegory, etymology, number symbolism, and military terminology. Prassas provides a rich historical and contextual background in her introduction to help ground and familiarize the reader with this work.
Download or read book Re Envisioning Transformation written by David C. Scott and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-09-14 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In today's church, use of the term transformation has become commonplace. Various perspectives are offered on what a Christian view of transformation is--and on how it may be achieved. These often-conflicting views suggest an ecclesial landscape characterized by pluralism, division, fragmentation, confusion, relativism, individualism, pragmatism, and subjectivism. Despite the current interest in transformational theology, the absence of a common, coherent, and integrated vision (and the lack of transformation) is often accepted and affirmed. Re-Envisioning Transformation looks at the possibility of moving toward a vision of transformational theology that is cohesive, unified, broad, effectual, and distinctly Christian. In this book, the contributions of two radically different"theologians of the Christian life" are examined. This provides the basis from which to develop a comprehensive and integrated framework of transformational theology--pointing God's people toward the need to express and live out a distinctly Christian vision.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor written by Pauline Allen and published by Oxford Handbooks. This book was released on 2015 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maximus the Confessor (c.580-662) has become one of the most discussed figures in contemporary patristic studies. This is partly due to the relatively recent discovery and critical edition of his works in various genres, including On the Ascetic Life, Four Centuries on Charity, Two Centuries on Theology and the Incarnation, On the 'Our Father', two separate Books of Difficulties, addressed to John and to Thomas, Questions and Doubts, Questions to Thalassius, Mystagogy and the Short Theological and Polemical Works. The impact of these works reached far beyond the Greek East, with his involvement in the western resistance to imperial heresy, notably at the Lateran Synod in 649. Together with Pope Martin I (649-53 CE), Maximus the Confessor and his circle were the most vocal opponents of Constantinople's introduction of the doctrine of monothelitism. This dispute over the number of wills in Christ became a contest between the imperial government and church of Constantinople on the one hand, and the bishop of Rome in concert with eastern monks such as Maximus, John Moschus, and Sophronius, on the other, over the right to define orthodoxy. An understanding of the difficult relations between church and state in this troubled period at the close of Late Antiquity is necessary for a full appreciation of Maximus' contribution to this controversy. The editors of this volume provide the political and historical background to Maximus' activities, as well as a summary of his achievements in the spheres of theology and philosophy, especially neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism.
Download or read book Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher written by Sotiris Mitralexis and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-09-18 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of Maximus the Confessor’s thought has flourished in recent years: international conferences, publications and articles, new critical editions and translations mark a torrent of interest in the work and influence of perhaps the most sublime of the Byzantine Church Fathers. It has been repeatedly stated that the Confessor’s thought is of eminently philosophical interest. However, no dedicated collective scholarly engagement with Maximus the Confessor as a philosopher has taken place—and this volume attempts to start such a discussion. Apart from Maximus’ relevance and importance for philosophy in general, a second question arises: should towering figures of Byzantine philosophy like Maximus the Confessor be included in an overview of the European history of philosophy, or rather excluded from it—as is the case today with most histories of European philosophy? Maximus’ philosophy challenges our understanding of what European philosophy is. In this volume, we begin to address these issues and examine numerous aspects of Maximus’ philosophy—thereby also stressing the interdisciplinary character of Maximian studies. Contributors include: Fr. Maximos Constas, Justin Shaun Coyle, Vladimir Cvetković, Natalie Depraz, Demetrios Harper, Michael Harrington, Georgi Kapriev, Karolina Kochańczyk-Bonińska, Nicholas Loudovikos, Andrew Louth, John Panteleimon Manoussakis, Michail Mantzanas, Smilen Markov, Sotiris Mitralexis, Marcin Podbielski, Dionysios Skliris, Georgios Steiris, Stoyan Tanev, Torstein Theodor Tollefsen, Jordan Daniel Wood
Download or read book Ludwig Wittgenstein between Analytic Philosophy and Apophaticism written by Sotiris Mitralexis and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume initiates an inquiry into the relationship between Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “analytic stance” towards philosophy and the inherently apophatic nature of his epistemology, a subject that has been repeatedly hinted at, but hitherto never thoroughly researched through this particular hermeneutical lens. In using the term “apophaticism,” the book is not merely referring to the theological “via negativa” or to tendencies towards mysticism, but rather to a comprehensive epistemological stance that “refuses to identify truth with its formulation and to identify the understanding of the signifier with the knowledge of its signified reality,” to use Christos Yannaras’ definition. The question of whether Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work can be approached as a particularly efflorescent case of the implementation of an implicitly (and at times explicitly) apophatic epistemology is herewith addressed. As such, this volume contends that such an approach would not merely provide elucidations on apophatic epistemologies, but rather shed potentially valuable hermeneutical light on Wittgenstein’s work, functioning as an epistemological thread running through it. Consequently, the focal points here consist of questions concerning knowledge and its disclosure, ineffability, non-discursivity, the function of language, the limits of one’s language as the limits of one’s world, and the language of religion, among others. In addition, the volume’s contribution to shedding more light on the apophatic aspects of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy is enhanced by its inclusion of a broad spectrum of different approaches, with contributors ranging from Wittgenstein scholars to Patristics scholars—and beyond.
Download or read book Ever Moving Repose written by Sotiris Mitralexis and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-04-14 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sotiris Mitralexis offers a contemporary look at Maximus the Confessor's (580-662 CE) understanding of temporality, logoi, and deification, through the perspective of contemporary philosopher and theologian Christos Yannaras, as well as John Zizioulas and Nicholas Loudovikos. Mitralexis argues that Maximus possesses both a unique theological ontology and a unique threefold theory of temporality: time, the Aeon, and the radical transformation of temporality and motion in an ever-moving repose. With these three distinct modes of temporality, a Maximian theory of time can be reconstructed, which can be approached via his teaching on the logoi and deification. In this theory, time is not merely measuring ontological motion, but is more particularly measuring a relationship, the consummation of which effects the transformation of time into a dimensionless present devoid of temporal, spatial, and generally ontological distance--thereby manifesting a perfect communion-in-otherness. In examining Maximian temporality, the book is not focusing on only one aspect of Maximus' comprehensive Weltanschauung, but looks at the Maximian vision as a whole through the lens of temporality and motion.
Download or read book Maximus Confessor written by Saint Maximus (Confessor) and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume includes a translation of four spiritual treatises of Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662), plus an account of his trial. Included are The Four Hundred Chapters of Love, Commentary on the Lord's Prayer, Chapters on Knowledge, The Church's Mystagogy, and Trial of Maximus.
Download or read book The Disputation with Pyrrhus of Our Father Among the Saints Maximus the Confessor written by Saint Maximus (Confessor) and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book When the Son of Man Didn t Come written by Christopher M. Hays and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2016-06-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The delay of the Parousia—the second coming of Christ—has vexed Christians since the final decades of the first century. This volume offers a critical, constructive, and interdisciplinary solution to that dilemma. The argument is grounded in Christian tradition while remaining fully engaged with the critical insights and methodological approaches of twenty-first-century scholars. The authors argue that the deferral of Christ’s prophesied return follows logically from the conditional nature of ancient predictive prophecy: Jesus has not come again because God’s people have not yet responded sufficiently to Christ’s call for holy and godly action. God, in patient mercy, remains committed to cooperating with humans to bring about the consummation of history with Jesus’ return. Collaboratively written by an interdisciplinary and ecumenical team of scholars, the argument draws on expertise in biblical studies, systematics, and historical theology to fuse critical biblical exegesis with a powerful theological paradigm that generates an apophatic and constructive Christian eschatology. The authors, however, have done more than tackle a daunting theological problem: as the group traverses issues from higher criticism through doctrine and into liturgy and ethics, they present an innovative approach for how to do Christian theology in the twenty-first-century academy.
Download or read book The Promise of Robert W Jenson s Theology written by Stephen John Wright and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2017-09-01 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: North America has rarely produced a theologian as creative and productive as Robert W. Jenson. A truly ecumenical thinker, Jenson consistently demonstrates the way that the church’s confession of the triune God of scripture restructures Christian thinking. Jenson’s work on the nature of theology has focused on the category of “promise”: a way with language that opens up new possibilities. At the heart of Jenson’s theology of the gospel is the conviction that, in Christ, God discloses a word of pure promise to us, enabling new patterns of life. Just as the gospel opens up new ways of living, good theology unfolds into new interpretations and articulations. Engaging Jenson’s work across vital areas, this volume lays out the contours and key contributions of Jenson’s thought for modern Christology, theological interpretation of Scripture, the doctrine of the Trinity in light of the recent Trinitarian revival, and ecumenical theological relations. This volume gathers together essays by some of contemporary theology’s most capable thinkers, such as Oliver Crisp, Stephen Holmes, Joseph Mangina, Peter Leithart, Telford Work, Eugene Rogers, R. Kendall Soulen, and Peter Ochs, to examine the ways in which Jenson’s own theology functions as “promise,” enabling further theological visions and articulations.
Download or read book The Christocentric Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor written by Torstein Tollefsen and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-08-07 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662), was a major Byzantine thinker, a theologian and philosopher. He developed a philosophical theology in which the doctrine of God, creation, the cosmic order, and salvation is integrated in a unified conception of reality. Christ, the divine Logos, is the centre of the principles (the logoi ) according to which the cosmos is created, and in accordance with which it shall convert to its divine source. Torstein Tollefsen treats Maximus' thought from a philosophical point of view, and discusses similar thought patterns in pagan Neoplatonism. The study focuses on Maximus' doctrine of creation, in which he denies the possibility of eternal coexistence of uncreated divinity and created and limited being. Tollefsen shows that by the logoi God institutes an ordered cosmos in which separate entities of different species are ontologically interrelated, with man as the centre of the created world. The book also investigates Maximus' teaching of God's activities or energies, and shows how participation in these energies is conceived according to the divine principles of the logoi. An extensive discussion of the complex topic of participation is provided.
Download or read book Imitation Knowledge and the Task of Christology in Maximus the Confessor written by Luke Steven and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2021-01-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maximus the Confessor's combustive historical era, committed doctrinal reflection, and loud and influential voice took him on a turbulent career of traveling and writing around the Mediterranean. Maximus was a spiritual teacher, an ascetic and a contemplative, but he was also a polemicist, a crafter of dogma, an embattled Christologian, a premeditating rhetorician. In this study, Luke Steven binds together these two disparate sides of the man and his writings by showing that throughout his oeuvre the Confessor positions imitation as the key to knowledge. This lasting epistemology characterizes his earlier ascetic and spiritual works, and in his later works it prominently defines his dogmatic Christological method – that is, the means by which he communicates and persuades and brings people to understand and encounter Jesus Christ, the one with two natures, divine and human. This multifaceted study offers a deep assessment of Maximus’s forebears, new insight on the animating assumptions of his thought, and an unprecedented focus on the rhetoric and method of his christological writings.
Download or read book The Filioque written by A. Edward Siecienski and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ed Siecinski examines how the Church has viewed the procession of the Holy Spirit throughout its history, beginning with the Trinitarian controversies of the early Christian centuries. The first comprehensive study of the key controversy separating the Eastern and Western churches.
Download or read book St Maximus the Confessor written by St Maximus the Confessor and published by . This book was released on 2023-10-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: St. Maximus the Confessor (1955) is a collection of theological works by the 1st-century monk St. Maximus, as well as interpretation by Polycarp Sherwood, an American Benedictine scholar from the 20th century. Including both The Ascetic Life and The Four Centuries on Charity by St. Maximus, as well as detailed research into the life and beliefs of the monk by Sherwood, this work includes both source material and commentary. The work begins with Life by Sherwood, a deep exploration into the life and theistic beliefs of St. Maximus. Born in 580 CE, Maximus enjoyed an education that prepared him for imperial service. He fulfilled this goal early in his career, serving as first secretary to the Byzantine emperor Heraclius. But he soon withdrew to monastic asceticism at Chrysopolis, seeking a routine of solitude and thought. Throughout his life, he traveled across the Byzantine Empire, including present-day Turkey, Crete, and parts of Africa, clarifying his position on important theological issues and writing his many works. Eventually, he was drawn into one of the great Christian controversies of the day-the nature of Christ's will. Maximus supported the Chalcedonian interpretation, which stated that Christ had both a human and a divine will. This was in contrast to the Monothelite position, accepted as canon at the time, which held that Christ had both a divine and human nature, but only a divine will. For this belief, Maximus was persecuted. Eventually, his tongue was cut out and his right hand cut off, so he could no longer speak or write his "heresy." He was then exiled to modern-day Georgia, where he died after just a few weeks. He was soon after vindicated and his position was upheld by the Third Council of Constantinople just 18 years after his death. It wasn't long before he was venerated as a saint. The next section, Doctrine, is also by Sherwood, and it explores St. Maximus' views on the nature of God as "goodness itself," the nature of man as a composite of body and soul, and on the salvation and deification of man through the works of Christ and asceticism. Next, we reach the works of St. Maximus himself. The first, The Ascetic Life, is a question-and-answer book in which a young brother asks an old wise man about the Christian life and the nature of Christ. In the old man's simple words, "...the purpose of the Lord's becoming man was our salvation." The old man answers the young brother's questions about the nature of Christian love, forsaking attachment to the worldly, and how to devote oneself entirely to God. Finally, the book concludes with The Four Centuries on Charity, also by St. Maximus. This collection of aphorisms is organized into four separate "centuries," or collections of one hundred. Kept short to aid in memorization and providing subjects for prayer, these sayings were presented to a Father Elpidius for his reading and benefit. The sayings range from the simple ("Happy is the man who is able to love all men equally") to the more complex ("Of the passions, it happens that some belong to the irascible, some to the concupiscible part of the soul. But both are moved by means of the senses.") Through study and prayer, St. Maximus hoped that these aphorisms would help the reader to live a Christ-like charity and grow closer to God. A work for study and reflection, this collection of St. Maximus' writings and Polycarp Sherwood's research and interpretation illuminates the beauty of God's love and the peace of a life of charity and forgiveness.
Download or read book Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher written by Sotiris Mitralexis and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-09-18 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of Maximus the Confessor's thought has flourished in recent years: international conferences, publications and articles, new critical editions and translations mark a torrent of interest in the work and influence of perhaps the most sublime of the Byzantine Church Fathers. It has been repeatedly stated that the Confessor's thought is of eminently philosophical interest. However, no dedicated collective scholarly engagement with Maximus the Confessor as a philosopher has taken place--and this volume attempts to start such a discussion. Apart from Maximus' relevance and importance for philosophy in general, a second question arises: should towering figures of Byzantine philosophy like Maximus the Confessor be included in an overview of the European history of philosophy, or rather excluded from it--as is the case today with most histories of European philosophy? Maximus' philosophy challenges our understanding of what European philosophy is. In this volume, we begin to address these issues and examine numerous aspects of Maximus' philosophy--thereby also stressing the interdisciplinary character of Maximian studies.
Download or read book A Course in Christian Mysticism written by Thomas Merton and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Merton's lectures to the young monastics at the Abbey of Gethsemani provide a good look at Merton the scholar. A Course in Christian Mysticism gathers together, for the first time, the best of these talks into a spiritual, historical, and theological survey of Christian mysticism--from St. John's gospel to St. John of the Cross. Sixteen centuries are covered over thirteen lectures. A general introduction sets the scene for when and how the talks were prepared and for the perennial themes one finds in them, making them relevant for spiritual seekers today. This compact volume allows anyone to learn from one of the twentieth century's greatest Catholic spiritual teachers. The study materials at the back of the book, including additional primary source readings and thoughtful questions for reflection and discussion, make this an essential text for any student of Christian mysticism.
