Dedication Letter

THE WORKS OF SAINT MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR, THEOLOGIAN OF THE GREEKS AND EMINENT PHILOSOPHER. ALL WORKS. EXTRACTED FROM THE MOST APPROVED MANUSCRIPT CODICES: THE ROYAL, CARDINAL MAZARIN, SÉGUIER, VATICAN, BARBERINI, GRAND DUKE OF FLORENCE, VENETIAN, ETC., SUBMITTED TO A NEW TRANSLATION, AND ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES. BY THE WORK AND STUDY OF THE REVEREND FATHER FRANÇOIS COMBEFIS, OF THE ORDER OF PREACHING FRIARS. Paris, at André Cramoisy’s, Rue de la Huchette, at the sign of the Sacrifice of Abraham, 1675. With the privilege of the Most Christian King. TO THE MOST SERENE PRINCE, EMMANUEL THEODOSIUS DE LA TOUR D'AUVERGNE, CARDINAL DE BOUILLON, GRAND ALMONER OF FRANCE, ETC.

Maximus, long-awaited in his printing, now refined in the Roman tongue, surely does not doubt that the most ample order of the Gallican clergy will open its bosom to him, nor that he might court their favor; yet with greater impetus and more ready alacrity, he flies, as he must, Most Serene Prince, to that bosom of yours, so full of graces. He acknowledges as his own and domestic whatever he merits from the Gallican clergy; and because this Greek theologian rises and emerges for the Latins (perhaps not himself despicable or immature, despite the many years of his gestation under my hand, however slight my talent, and not sufficiently matched to so great an undertaking), he owes it—from the moment he was committed to my charge—to no one who has not, or would not, adorn his honors, whether in the first or second rank. For not all who were living have survived through these many past years; but by the providence of God, many, through those very delays which He cast upon the matter, have migrated to the supreme shepherd of souls, and to Him whose delegated powers they held on earth, following Him with whatever obedience. Thus, assuredly, all have competed to reach this consensus, and have striven earnestly that needed subsidies should not be lacking, and that the unkind malice of the times against the monuments of the Greeks might be overcome. The Vitré family’s private press was designated, and orders were given once and again, but with frustrated result; only the illustrious Henri de Valois’s *Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius* and the rest (a work certainly of eternal memory, by its own fame and the singular erudition of its publisher) were able to suffice. It was left to my own care to see that I should endeavor to hasten the edition of Maximus destined for the printer of my choosing.

While I was lingering in these anxieties and cares through the complexity of the matter, there occurred that singular kindness of yours, Most Eminent Prince, invoked by its very self. That benefit derived from you regarding my gestation of Maximus is not for my sake alone, but serves a sacred and literary cause, by which you have obliged the Roman Church, the Gauls, and the Christian world itself with a gift worthy of immortal memory. Indeed, there comes to mind my encroaching age, the sliding away of time, and the uncertainty of life; now set...

to work, lest all those things perish through the absence of the press; and lest Greece, after such great effort, should fail to provide the theologian to Latin ears, nor should Latin ears and minds receive him—(unless, in a few parts, buried in an indigestible mass, and for the most part laboring under the ignorance of the common translators, or even under a faith that is unsteady and profane in mind, being outside the camp of the Church, and thus entirely alien to her august and mystical matters). ^A Rome might long for her defender, and the supreme authority of the Vicar of Christ, the rule of faith asserted for her by such great judgments—might not Gallican piety, daughter to the mother, provide him in his fullness and majesty: lest she should delay and be lulled by vain hope, as happened with the Damascene, with such a loss of monuments, by fall, theft, and plagiarism, and in no repairable way, through the passing of him who, himself of the order of the clergy, was about to bring them to light: and indeed, since the times were not yet so evil, it could have been achieved with the help of any printers in the city. I have already searched every shelf of the Vatican, by the supreme indulgence of the Pontiff, to see if anything of Maximus existed anywhere in them or in other libraries throughout Italy, and to have it copied most accurately, if anything could be found, so that it might be added here to our many fine Royal, Mazarin, and Seguierian collections, and others. ^B With such great apparatus and everything arranged, it grieved you, Most Serene Prince, that my press was inactive. These were your thoughts, your pastime of soul and

idle chatter

certainty

teacher adding to Christ

“Superior to the lights of the firmament, holding the word of life; whose wick never falls, nor is the lamp shattered, the torch is never extinguished,”

so you bear, so you pour forth, with a nation that has no fear. Do you marvel, therefore, Most Serene Prince, if Maximus, of such great import, stirs within himself for your sake? If, in your bosom, this cold old man of such advanced age (lest my own labor might in any way wear him out, or he might not have risen to those lofty spirits of his) seeks for warmth? Does he seek to test the rays of your wisdom? To be proven by your sharp judgment? That through you he might not reject the court, but pervade the very sacred chambers themselves, from which neither erudition is absent, nor piety an exile. Naturally, there is being instituted to the realm a noble offspring of a greatest king, who is both king and philosopher, the greatest of kings and the pillar of the Christian name, after the years of Nestor-like, best and most invincible parenting, and a blessed recompense; and a truly happy kingdom and State of the whole Gallic nation and of the Christian world is expected through him, and is rightfully sought. This court does not displease Maximus, in which you yourself are a most sparkling star, even if the Heraclian [era] was once displeasing, and a cherished solitude and silence were preferred to it—which on high, among the blessed, no business, no distress, no spent solaces and subsidies for pious clients warring for Christ anywhere at all, shall ever disturb. Safe now, Most Serene Prince, under your auspices, he is about to dwell in the assembly of all wise men. He will fill the stages and halls of the learned, the schools and the pulpits: our ascetics, and those who apply themselves diligently to piety and sweat in the wrestling-school of virtue (among whom you have a name that is greatest, and among whom there is in you great reverence and cultivation), will turn over Maximus daily and nightly with their own hands. Whatever there is of logic, whatever of life, they will find in him, with equal covenant, the sum of sacred doctrine, the norm of virtue; and for those to whom he may truly be called a Theologian, after one or another of the theologians of Greece and the Church, John and Gregory.

From our study and ascetic cell in the most holy Annunciation of the Friars Preachers of the province of St. Louis of stricter observance, the fourth day before the Ides of October, in the year 1674.

To Your Eminence, Your devoted servant and client, Fr. FRANCISCUS COMBEFIS.

TO THE READER

God, best and greatest, has granted that I should bring to an end a long-desired work, and that I should bring to completion two volumes of the works of Maximus the Confessor, both of them thick and stuffed with all manner of learning (especially of both theologies), and that I should offer them to you, Reader, as one and the same combined gift; for some, when it was once finished, were persuading me to divide it and to put out the first part, and argued that the printer would be relieved thereby. But it seemed to me more conducive to your interests if, without the Polemics and the Epistles and the other principal works of Maximus, I did not let him slip away from myself: for I could not otherwise agree about a third volume, since I knew it would be tedious to drag it out longer, and all the learned at Rome, at Paris, and in the whole Christian world would bear a greater delay with difficulty; a delay caused especially by the fact that the edition of his work, because of its difficulty, would take longer; and because I am about to present both Gregory and Dionysius (for so he arranges it, even though he holds Dionysius to be an apostolic man and a disciple of the great Paul) of Maximus; both of them, of course, illustrated with the observations, notes, and scholia of so great a man: especially Dionysius, to whom those continuous, most erudite scholia—to which it seems Pachymeres' Paraphrase added nothing else save a greater circuit and apparatus of words—are attached; which I judge it will not be a grave burden for you to lack, once you have received the scholia composed for the text and the whole work with my new version, after such great *sphálmata* and oversights of various men in them, which first moved my pen to undertake a commitment, as a young man, in my first endeavor offered to the holy clergy of France, along with Chrysostom's excellent treatise *On the discipline and manner of holding penitence* (Περὶ πολιτείας), a duty which, as an old man, God willing, with life as my companion, you can now expect from me, Reader, more maturely. Dionysius Petavius, a learned man, S.J. and religious, also published a more lucid Paschalion: although there may not appear to be much labor in it, it is now arranged by a more certain and easier method, by the art of our mathematicians and astrologers, by which anyone can have the day of the Paschal feast, and of the other movable feasts that follow, according to the decree of the holy Council of Nicaea, either chronologically (*chronikôs*) or according to the civic custom (*politikôs*).

^A Thus, Reader, do not attribute this arrangement of the edition so much to my own fault or the malice of the times, as to the providence of God, who disposes all things rightly. By His nod it was that the work should come forth complete and, as far as is permitted, finished in its own parts; and by this means I might satisfy the wishes of the Gallican clergy and of that most ample order, and not disappoint the expectation of the learned. Aubert, Provost of the College of Laon, had attempted this edition, having offered to the Vitré press some portion of my translation from the *Questions to Thalassius*. But, good God, what kind of Maximus was then about to emerge! That man, while deserving of the clergy and endowed by them, provided only this: that he would diligently collect what was permitted; if he encountered anything already rendered, he would present it just as it existed; he would see to it that other things were rendered by those learned in Greek; and as for notes, he would neither apply any of his own nor tolerate those of others, if any were being produced. Those manuscripts were readily available in fragments—mutilated at the beginning, end, and middle—and they were copies of the Royal codex, unillustrated by any scholia, which was the only one available to him. ^B The excellent man Peter Séguier, Chancellor of France, had absolutely refused his own codices for this purpose—for one or two of them—whether because he distrusted the man’s genius, or because he desired that Maximus should be produced by himself and his own men. And in truth, he had thought to produce him through me at the press of Sébastien Cramoisy, having advanced a just sum of money. But a learned man, now of blessed memory (*ho makaritês*), intervened, and did not enough suggest me for such a task, for whose words he had an anticipated opinion as if they were oracles. Whether he did this with a good or evil mind, I do not inquire: rather, I would prefer the good, moved by the man’s piety and candor; even though it has been proven by many arguments that several of my associates could scarcely bear my freedom of speech, when I truly observe and respect them as most learned men. Be that as it may, I attribute even this to Providence. Nothing was lacking to me from the Séguier codices, since the illustrious and most reverend Dominique Séguier, brother of the Chancellor and most deserving Bishop of Meaux, intervened—primarily in the name of the clergy; and truly, since my labor and talent in Maximus seemed to have matured with age, so that I, being a bit of an old man, might offer, illustrate, and refine what I, as a younger man, had not sluggishly handled. That praise should have been for the whole choir of priests, not for one man, a soldier in the secular—however august and sacred—Themis. ^C Furthermore, those great Vatican manuscripts remained, as well as others—Venetian, Roman, Florentine; and what is greatest, that magnificent codex of Raphael Trichet du Fresne, my fellow-countryman from Bordeaux, which—nearly by my acting as the author of it—was brought into France, most kindly granted to me, and recently placed in the Royal treasury; I do not think any codex of the works of Maximus anywhere ever equals its bulk, goodness, or abundance. Relying on these great resources, he appears, arranged by abundance of copies, corrected, in my own entirely new translation, cleansed of the blemishes of former interpreters (if those who have tasted a few bits of him ever did edit him), and illustrated with notes; in these, Reader, I ask that you favor me—that you do not dissimulate my own faults, but rather, warned by charity and the zeal for truth and for purer theology, you correct me if you encounter anything rendered obscurely, and excuse me humanely, especially in an author who causes trouble for his own Greeks themselves, and among them for men of refined nose and erudite, and men of much reading, such as Photius, etc., by his entangled genre of speaking, his hyperbatons, his mystical senses sought in remote places, and other things of this kind; although there is no lack of many things in his sentiments, in his epistles, in his polemical and theological treatises that are themselves most limpid, and truly accessible and exposed to the theologian, in which I think nothing will cause a stumble to one who, not entirely unlearned (*amathês*), has approached my Maximus, thus made submissive to me by my own cares, long labor, and the familiarity of many years. The work which I attempted in Maximus was also solicited in the *Damascene* by the illustrious and most reverend Charles de Monchal, Archbishop of Toulouse, a learned man and patron of letters, the care of which was delegated to him by the clergy; but it was not permitted to obtain from the aforementioned Aubert what he had received from Leo Allatius in Rome, and what he had prepared for the purpose of his edition, lest he should already appear almost useless to the clergy, where he had labored—not quite unsuccessfully, but in his own method, and in the way he was attacking Maximus—in Cyril. ^D Would that he had, however, by some means or other, at length granted us a respite, and given us another theologian from Maximus—even if, in all things (in age, senses, and majesty), he were inferior to the monuments by which he was supported—and enriched the commonwealth of letters with them, and not, by his own setting, made a public loss of all! If only he had at least bequeathed them to those who would not be about to destroy them by the evil theft of moths and bookworms, but who, at the wish of that most ample order, would prefer to produce them by his collected money and expenses! Nor were there lacking industrious booksellers who, in times not yet so evil, offered me a ready press, of their own accord, for the *Damascene*—thus augmented, and thus, I know not if sufficiently corrected, offered to be produced, and would be grateful.

^A To write a preface about Maximus is almost useless, after so much has been said of him in the Prolegomena, and after the *Life* has been sufficiently and more than sufficiently corrected, which does not accord well with the Acts of Maximus nor with other contemporary writers, or even with his own epistles. The Acts are most sincere, written with every trustworthiness by those who were present; the *Life*, or *Encomium*, was written long after his death, and without sufficiently keen judgment, or based on proven monuments. Anastasius the Librarian had already rendered those Acts, along with other items pertaining to Pope Honorius and Pope Martin; I, however, had the Greek text from the Seguier manuscript, which was complete and sound, and I present it here rendered according to my own vein. To read the testimonies of the ancients regarding Maximus would be tedious and superfluous. Let this one thing suffice: that no Greek who wrote on theology, polemics, or even ethics after him, has refrained from citing the testimony of Maximus with the highest praise; and this may be seen in our Manuel Calecas, and in that great forest of authors which Leo Allatius provided in his *Graecia Orthodoxa* and other books, and which he was going to provide in Metochites, if he had issued the third volume of the same, and had published in it, as I accepted from him, a most approved author and great confessor in five books. The greatest thing of all may seem to be that both Churches, in the Council of Florence, desired one Maximus to be the arbiter of the cause—that most vexatious cause concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit and from the Son; whatever good men may have slept through, they have made the whole of the sentiment and opinion of the schismatic Greeks into that of Maximus: whom I wish had fallen asleep more happily in Christ, just as I myself hope to fall asleep, and shortly, so that no such mist may creep upon us, but rather the clear ray of the true Sun, and [nothing] that might turn to the injury of God and His saints. Farewell.

I cannot, friendly Reader, without a great stain of ingratitude and lack of appreciation, fail to exhibit here the letter sent to me by the most reverend abbot Gerasimos Blachos of Crete, from the year 1657, when he was teaching his letters at Venice, and I myself, from the order of the most illustrious and reverend Gallican clergy, was not sluggishly applying myself to those things which were being prepared for the edition of the works of Maximus. To whom no mortal offered help with greater spirit than the most reverend Blachos himself: insomuch that not only did he take care to have transcribed from his own manuscripts the polemical works of Maximus which I required, and seriously correct them with his own hand if anything had slipped past in the copying; but he even sent me at Venice a thick volume of miscellaneous works of the same Maximus, of his own accord, that no delay might be caused to the work; expecting no other reward or payment than that he should receive a copy of the ones edited by me. I truly wish that it were permitted for me to give, and for him to receive; and may he still enjoy the use of this life, nor let it be hidden where he has wandered among the nations, and may that bright light of Greece shine from afar, in piety, erudition, and faith. I heard not long ago that he was staying in Corfu and was safe, and he greeted me most officiously; but whether the man, worthy of heaven, has paid his debt to nature by some human fate, it would not be easy for me to know. I truly wish he might live for us forever, along with his books—which he wanted brought into the royal treasury, and was urging the matter through me—by some voluntary gift of royal munificence! I shall render his letter with all fidelity, as far as it is permitted, for the sake of those who do not know Greek, so that the man’s spirit might not be hidden; although I would willingly wish for another interpreter, that I might not appear to flatter myself. Nevertheless, I shall not play with the epigrams of the same most reverend abbot Blachos, nor with those of the most religious and most erudite Arsenios Caludi, priest-monk and herald of the holy Gospel; but I will permit, if it sits well with anyone’s mind, to render them either in bound or unbound speech. I would wish, however, friendly Reader, that you receive my praises, along with those of our most Christian King and the most illustrious and reverend Gallican clergy, in such a way that you understand nothing in them other than an almost insane love, and one not sufficiently in its own control; yet certainly excusable in such great men, with what ardor those truly Greek men have congratulated themselves again and again—as the most learned clergy competed in minds and vows—that their theologian, a truly [page 60] μέγιστον [greatest] Maximus, was to be awakened for us, for their own Greece, and for the Christian world, and they have endeavored to make known their own gratitude, as if in the name of the nation itself, to the most ample order, and to myself, the servant, who perhaps brushed off many things through my own lack of skill, and did not arise to such great spirits as those of Maximus. Otherwise, I myself know my own measure, which I ask you to indulge, if at any time I have not fully satisfied you through it, as much as you desire, and as much as I myself desire.

FR. COMBEFIS’S PREFACE

To the most reverend and wisest lord Father Francis Combefis, of the order of Preaching Friars, theologian, and most eloquent interpreter of the Greek Fathers: Gerasimus Blachus, a Cretan, abbot of the Great St. George of Scaloto, herald of the holy Gospel, and teacher of the sciences in both languages to the Greeks in Venice, wishes prosperity.

^A Nothing on earth renders a reigning man so blessed and remarkable as fortitude when wisdom is its companion. For this reason, also, our ancestors—men remarkable for their wisdom—described Minerva as armed for the Greeks, presiding over both wisdom and the spirit of command; and Mars as strong in might, to whom he ministers boldness to the barbarians. And that prince of poets, by way of excellence, celebrated Agamemnon as both a good king and a mighty warrior, attributing to him the praise of both wisdom and fortitude. Apollo himself, too, for this very reason, declared the Laconian Lycurgus by oracle to be both god and man; and hence has proceeded that divine maxim of Plato: Then will a city be happy when either philosophers shall rule, or kings shall study philosophy; as if, truly, by fortitude joined with ^B prudence, governance is afforded to the city, so that by the cares of kings it might be ordered happily and auspiciously.

And if the matter is thus, as it truly is, and as experience makes known, I myself rightly revere and highly regard the invincible and ever-great ruler and king of Celtic Gaul, who is so brilliantly adorned with wisdom and fortitude. Witnesses beyond any exception, and most true, are indeed of his fortitude—the many trophies erected against his enemies and the triumphs that arise every day; and of his wisdom—the many arch-gymnasia established by royal solicitude, the academies of teachers in every idiom, the ocean-like flood of books of every discipline and science, the exuding output of types, the continuous diligence and care in gathering ancient writers from every corner of the world, and the production of the ^C holy Greek Fathers in both languages.

And since such as the king is, such also are his subjects, just as of old the Queen of the South was under Solomon, I praise again and again the noble Gallic people and subjects, most famous throughout the whole world for the praise of wisdom and fortitude. But in a singular way, through all things and with all people, the most illustrious and wisest Gallic clergy fills my mind with wonder—whose virtue is greater, as are their honor and their vital spirit: their divine zeal for divine things; the alacrity of their spirit in cultivating the philosophy of the Greeks; their utmost diligence in unearthing and bringing to light ancient books; and especially that great study and labor, in stirring up by the office of the press,

^A a resurrection—that is to say, toward the divine selection of those men, by which you, most wise and in all things most dearly beloved Francis Combefis, have been worthily chosen as the clear and illustrious interpreter of the Greek Fathers.

I hold in admiration, therefore, your perfect erudition in all things, and the supreme skill which you show in rendering authors. For you yourself, most wise man, through immense labor—in converting word for word the monuments of the Greeks from a foreign tongue into your own—pervert nothing, but like a certain Prometheus, by your own sagacity and skill, you have made the Greek graces to be a Latin Muse, so that even Jupiter himself (who, in the name of wisdom, holds admiration ^B) feels that he is being imposed upon; and they remain in doubt as to how they might distinguish the flesh from the bones, the language of the writer from that of the interpreter; and they seek whether these things came forth originally in Greek or in Latin, unable to perceive it sufficiently. As even recently, observing the Confessor Maximus, rendered by your most erudite pen and style, we renew the old proverb, saying: *Either Maximus is Combefis, or Combefis is Maximus*; just as it was once said, on account of the similarity of diction, meaning, and thought: *Either Philo Platonizes, or Plato Philonizes*.

Wherefore, as great as the Confessor Maximus existed, and as a certain Jupiter who thrust the Monothelite Giants into Tartarus—but who had been bound in the ^C Tartarus of forgetfulness in antiquity, from the heavy battle-line of the Titans, he whose mind and sense is not—by your holy diligence and work, he has dawned like a bright star into the light of the holy Church; and because he is great, he has obtained you as a greatest holy interpreter. I proclaim as blessed your purpose, which is pleasing to God; I revere the work; I celebrate the labors; I honor the toils; I emulate the zeal; I cherish the spirit; I praise the virtue; and I desire with every ardor of soul that the work may be seen to be unceasing and perfect in all things. I have your exact inquiry in my mouth, reflecting in my mind upon your dignity, in having published the index of the works of the divine Maximus, to seek from all what may be missing in his books, and what more might occur in the ^D shelves of others. I conspire with equal spirit in your divine zeal; what you thus urge and provoke, I follow; and what you require, as far as my ability allows, I facilitate.

For behold, also for the sake of the most Christian Louis XIV, King of Gaul, and of the most illustrious Gallican clergy, by whose studies Greece is warmed as if new and rejuvenated—and also for the desire of your reverence—for the sake of the common utility, with a prompt, placid, and willing spirit, I send to your erudition from my own library (in which, among many others, there exist also the works of Maximus which are desired in your index, but occur in mine). They are copied just as they lie in the exemplar, with nothing whatsoever taken away or even added, in the manner in which the writer himself composed them, as it is permitted to see from the age of the long-standing book. It is

indeed to be numbered among the most ancient of codices, written on bebrina—that is, cotton—paper in a most minute hand; and it fell to me by good fortune from the most holy throne of Constantinople. Wherefore, from the very character of the script its authenticity is diagnosed, and the truth of the writer is confirmed by its antiquity. By which same logic, I also, in sending these copies to your Excellency, declare and affirm before God that I have taken the greatest care to ensure that they are complete and in every respect identical to the book in my possession.

Know therefore, most reverend and amiable Father, that the writings of the divine Maximus, and those of the other divine Fathers, which are in my census and at my disposal, are preserved for the praise and honor of our invincible king, in accordance with the commands of the most illustrious Gallican clergy, and in response to the petitions of your own learning. And indeed, by the same sequence of reason, I proclaim the glorious city of Paris to be the most blessed among other cities, its king thrice and four times happy, its clergy blessed, and your own dignity worthy of eternal remembrance, seeing that by your efforts all things that are immortal and blessed are without end provided and performed. Farewell, and again farewell, and may God grant you happiness. Done in the glorious city of Venice, in the year of our salvation 1658, the 13th of June. ^B

EPIGRAM BY THE SAME UPON THE BOOK OF THE DIVINE MAXIMUS

The God-bearing voice, the sacred gifts of wisdom, once cried out that the words of the laurel-eaters—the words of others—were of great value. And from the land of the Greeks, it was said that the Sibyl would bring her wisdom to the Italians—a small spoken word. But now, experiment shows with better speech that it is fitting to plant that wisdom for the Celts. Hence, the most opulent king is both wise and a glory in war, in both great gifts. The clergy of the great-hearted Gauls holds fast to the wisdom of the sages, and is crowned with wisdom, exchanging [them] for books of divine wisdom. He who laid out the holy labors of the Great Herald by divine act, has set forth the triumphant Maximus in types of bronze. Through the toils of Francis, the herald of God, whom Pallas Athena loves, and the speech of the Pierians. Blessed is he who, bringing the most excellent gifts of the Danaans, adorns all with his double tongue. Thus, the impression of Maximus declares the scepter-bearer among the kings of Gaul, he who sings the meditations of the holy Fathers of the Greek land to the people of the divinely-pleased clergy, and brings them forth with benevolence into the light of day. ^C

EPIGRAM

To the most learned and illustrious among the Fathers, the lord, Lord Francis Combefis, a man most eloquent, from the choir of heralds.

The inhabitants of the Olympian halls bestowed upon men a great work, a gift of Pan-dora—a deception of the mind. But the Muses bestowed upon the world, with goodwill, Francis—a great boast of prudence and wisdom, a destroyer of grievous foolishness, and one who quenches that fire, subverting all deceit from its roots. For he alone conveys away all the airy vanities of the words of the pious Fathers from the holy floors; he, whose mouth speaks with sound words and beautiful melody, in the Latin tongue, the wisdom of Greece. He who also waters the meditations of the Gallican clergy, providing Maximus for all because he [Maximus] is [the] greatest.

Arsenius, Hieromonk of Crete, herald of the holy Gospel. ^D

ON THE LIFE AND CONTEST OF OUR HOLY FATHER AND CONFESSOR MAXIMUS

^A Ⅰ. The excellent gifts of Maximus. — While the life of all those who have ever shone with religious piety is useful and profitable (since it is, indeed, an exhortation to virtue and whets the mind with an emulation of the good and honorable), it is so to the highest degree in the case of the divine man and confessor Maximus. By how much more he is greater and more illustrious than all, by so much the more does he possess the power to win over souls to strength and to be superior in assisting everyone. For Maximus was not only adorned with an excellent conduct of life, but he was also pleasing and ready in his speech, strenuous in the glory of his contest, and surpassing all comparison; for it is known that even the mere memory of him brings great pleasure, and it inspires in religious souls no small love and attraction for virtue. ^B Wherefore, the present discourse which we have undertaken for the time being, which is to recount his deeds and virtues, would indeed desire, and would value more, to bring forth and present each of his acts into the public view, so that the memory of these things might be rendered sweeter, and that it might store up great grace for the listeners; but it is not possible either to encompass everything at once, or even to pay the due praise to those things which it does encompass; for even the least of the works and deeds of this admirable man are greater than can be attained by any power of speech. Since, therefore, it is neither easy nor simple to adorn and recount all things in speech, I myself would seem to be doing a worthwhile task if I were to omit a great deal, and not draw upon myself any stain on account of such an omission; for it is the case that no one among those before us, as far as we have been able to understand, has set his labor and study to relate everything concerning the man, for the reason that they understood the undertaking of the matter to be arduous and not easily overcome. ^C Yet, lest we should seem to flee entirely from the subject of such a great task, and because we might simply omit the whole because we are not permitted to attain the whole—which I consider to be of no use at all, nor free from blame—it is clearly necessary for my work that I should set forth this discourse, although I know it to be extremely meager, and although it falls far short of the majesty of the events. For thus, both the duty at hand will be fulfilled, and we will discharge the debt to you, who, again and again, having removed all excuse, have demanded this from us. But if, in the meantime, the discourse should happen to recall a few other things that were done at that time, it is not at all outside the scope of the discourse, nor is it apart from the reasonable expectation, given that the circumstances of those times set many things in motion, as you know, ^D

against the truth; but indeed from above, as far as it is possible, the matters concerning the holy man must be related for the time being, for whose sake we have already instituted the discourse.

II. Maximus's homeland, parents, and early education.

III. Maximus's diligence in studies. Cultivation of philosophy, and his choice within it.

methods of teaching, approved and adopted them. For what false proposition, what weaving of syllogisms, or what conclusion of that sort, or what other thing of this kind had ever been of concern to him, or had he ever held worthy to be held, so as to incline his mind for a moment, if anything not rightly labored or less sound fell from others? Certainly, he was an object of admiration for all, as much for the science with which he shone as for the light of virtue; and he heaped this with greater modesty and humility: ^B whom neither worldly success could carry off, nor lead to thinking thoughts of high position, neither the brilliance of lineage, nor the excellence of doctrine, in which he surpassed everyone, nor the sublimity of virtue, or anything else at all: but he was so addicted to modesty that he held this alone as the ornament and glory of life: and it was more pleasing to him than if one were to bestow upon him, all at once, whatever there is of glory and brilliance in human things.

IV. Maximus, the foremost of the secretaries of Heraclius. — ^C However, it could not be that so admirable a man should remain hidden in such splendor of life, nor that he should fail to shine forth to others for the sake of the common utility; although he strove every day to avoid vain glory, and never to be devoted to the business and cares of the age, which he thought, even to touch upon, would greatly hinder virtue. And although he thought so, and directed his reasons to this, yet he was subjected to the power that held sway at that time (and this was Heraclius), by the necessity of the one who summoned him with every goodwill to the court, and commanded that he be the chief of those who were the emperor's secretaries. Thus, as a man of such great worth, and of such noble lineage, he was willingly employed in all matters that were at hand, and was used as a minister and assistant in those things that were of the greatest moment and importance. For he was most wise in foreseeing those things which were required by his office, most clever in constructing counsel, and most ready in speaking ex tempore and in writing; the emperor, the rest of the court, and the nobles were all ^D extremely delighted by his association and conversation, and were held in constant amazement at the wonders of his virtue.

V. He begins the life of a monk, out of zeal for a more perfect life, and weariness of the heresy grassing in the court. Being chosen superior, he reluctantly acquiesces. — But to him these were small things in comparison to philosophy, and honor, and riches, and reputation, and all else that was superfluous, and he considered the faith then being innovated, seeing the dogma of the Monothelites arising, and bringing much harm to the Church, he abandoned all, thinking it a kind of defilement of the soul to be involved in such mire, and he eagerly embraced the monastic institution, being long since inflamed with the desire for the solitary life; he gave himself up to a monastery which is situated on the opposite shore and is called Chrysopolis, which flourished so much in the studies of the religious life; and there, both putting on the cowl and the garments of cilice and the hair shirt, he lived, not only using others with a harsh life, but also

^A wearing it out; and from that time on the blessed man, constantly mortifying the body, not only by fastings and the remainder of his bodily affliction, but also spending the nights in a standing vigil, and with intent prayers leading his soul, and by the very law of standing on his feet, directing and raising his mind toward God in a straight path, and tearing it away from earthly things; and even before death occurred, as it were, he was loosening the bonds. For he who, before having even taken up the custom of a stricter discipline, had accustomed himself to struggles and toils, and had instituted his life according to the principles of philosophy; such a man, having once taken this up, could scarcely introduce into his mind or do anything else. Finally, since he had many who were practicing wrestling with him, he surpassed them all and miraculously carried off the honors above everyone: such, indeed, was the preeminence of his virtue over the rest of his companions that they even, by a common embassy to him, with ardent desires requested that he should preside over them and enter upon the prefectship, since they had been bereaved of their own prefect and leader a little while before. But he, ^B pushing aside this prefectship like a bundle of a heavy load, was of an inflexible and obdurate mind toward the vows of the petitioners, so that he would neither yield to their speeches, nor make himself easily accessible to the entreaties of the suppliants. But when he saw them pressing more strongly, and even using a certain amount of force, he yields with difficulty, and accepts the oversight; considering it not so much a position of authority as a vulnerable service of ministry.

VI. The concern of that superior.

VII. Another cause of Maximus' retirement to Africa. The fear of the Persians.

and daily worsening in a grievous manner through the supporters of that impiety; he groaned, and was held fast in deepest sorrow, feeling pity especially for those who were the authors of those lawless deeds. He had no idea what he himself could do, the evil having poured out so boundlessly and having almost overtaken the entire East and the Western parts. Whence, even in the midst of such terrors, he found this alone to be profitable for himself and for the situation. For since he knew that Elder Rome was clean of such pollution, and likewise as much of Africa and other places and those surrounding islands as he had ascertained were free from that contagion, he left his seat here and traveled thither, intending to provide defense for the Word and to join himself to the orthodox living in those parts. This he did not accomplish without labor, nor without overcoming hardships and toils, having completed such a long journey; yet he considered all things secondary to his noble zeal, ^B having perhaps also used as counselors those monks who served under him during his arrival. Although he found their separation grievous and unbearable, he had nothing else to do but follow what had been decided, since the occasion forced him into such a strait and utterly urged his departure. But because my discourse has run ahead, it has omitted what came in between, and whence this wicked and abominable opinion took its beginning, which so troubled the Church and dragged many into the same slippery fall. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss a little about this, and then to add to the account whatever follows from the nature of the subject.

VIII. Athanasius the patriarch of the Jacobites; Heraclius the author of the innovation; Cyrus and Sergius the patrons.

^C When Heraclius had taken up the scepter of the empire, and Sergius was governing the throne of Constantinople, at first Heraclius himself, and all those around the palace and those in power and dignity, were in harmony in the orthodox faith, both professing and preaching two natures and as many operations and wills in my Christ, who is both God and man. But after this, alas, after many trophies against the enemies and that glorious feat of arms against the Persians, because of the alteration of the correct dogma, the affairs of the Churches began likewise to worsen and fall to ruin, with no small portion of the people being led astray to the contrary. The cause of the change for the emperor was that Athanasius, the so-called patriarch of the Jacobites, a man who was an impostor and most skilled in confusing the truth ^D of all things. For he, approaching Heraclius while he was staying in Hierapolis of Syria, and having suborned him deceitfully and maliciously, and having lured him with promises that he would even accept the synod of Chalcedon—which preached the two natures united according to hypostasis (for Heraclius had a consuming desire, as the facts showed, both for Athanasius himself, to whom he had promised the see of Antioch, and for all others whom he saw were not in agreement, to force them into the sense of that synod and to unite them to it; though, through simple-mindedness and lightness of intellect, beyond what [he intended])—tried, as has been said, in various ways to...

arts and wiles, rendered vacillating and dubious concerning the two operations and wills of the two natures—which are indeed double—and was thus the author of his referring to Sergius, the bishop of the city of Constantinople, concerning what seemed good to them. Nay, he even ordered him to summon Cyrus, the bishop of Phasis, so that he might inquire of him what his own sentiments on the matter were; whatever they thought, he would also approve with his own support. For that most wicked and malicious man knew that both were of the opinion that they should foster one operation and one will. When Heraclius had summoned one (Cyrus) to himself and consulted the other (the patriarch) by letter, he found that both likewise cherished the dogma of a single will and were in no doubt that they held the same view as he himself did; then indeed he gave himself over entirely to the contrary side, so that he might be considered an advocate not so much of no will as of one will.

^B IX. Moreover, he immediately reported to the prelate of Rome what had been decreed; for he thought he was almost suffering an injury if he did not fill those scattered throughout the world with that leaven of his, and impart to them the contagion of the heresy. But that divine man, considering the error he was suggesting to be manifest, and being moved with hatred for the iniquity of such a depraved opinion, not only refuted and overturned what had been proposed by means of letters and valid rebuttals, but even subjected those who held and fostered such things to anathemas. Yet this benefited Heraclius nothing, ^C as he had not just lightly or superficially been tainted, but had inhaled the depravity into the very depths of his soul. In a short time, therefore, he busied himself with filling Alexandria also with that stain, by sending thither as bishop Cyrus, who felt the same as he did; so that, miraculously, Alexandria also, being imbued with the same sense, might be ruined in the same way and perish in a shipwreck of the faith. Finally, Cyrus held a discussion with Theodore, the bishop of Pharan, who himself was also a sharp defender of the error of the Monothelites, and together with him made what they call an "hydrobaphic" (or waterish) union. I believe this term signifies a fading and watery dye, as it were, which is ^D confused and not clearly distinguished, and in which neither of the colors exists or remains purely and truly intact; for this reason, of course, it was permitted to mix and confuse, at will, the operation they teach, which is neither single nor double, nor—to speak more truly—can it be understood or described as either one or the other.

X. But these men were the authors, both for themselves and for the people they seduced, of the meaning they had usurped; establishing one operation and one natural will, they gave to the Jacobites and the Theodosians an opportunity to glory against our faith and to hold the holy Synod of Chalcedon in laughter and contempt, and to have a straying mind.

^A And this is evident from the fact that he [the opponent] also maintains one operation, which, as they say, he would not have otherwise carried out had he not grasped the true doctrine, and attained a more perfect understanding.

XI. The labors of Sophronius, and the suppression of the new heresy of the Monothelites.

XII. The new and softer heresy of Heraclius, so as to maintain neither one nor two operations. The irony of the Severians.

Since the high priests, instead of other decrees and laws, were enacting impiety and forcing everyone to submit, and were tearing into many pieces the seamless tunic of the Church, while giving occasion for rejoicing to those who mock and disparage our affairs?

^B XIII. But not long after, Sergius, the sower of the bad doctrine, that many-headed hydra, departed from this life, having stored up for himself in that place the dregs of divine judgment. Heraclius then installed Pyrrhus into his throne, a man who was of the opposing party and opinion, and holding the same views as his predecessor. But since Heraclius himself shortly thereafter shuffled off this life, his son Constantine took the scepter. Pyrrhus, with his characteristic depravity of manner, along with that Martina—a base woman, most opportune for doing evil—put him out of the way with poison, contrary to expectation, and replaced him on the throne with her son, who was named Heraclonas; a feat truly worthy of a chief priest, and one befitting his own gentleness! But the Senate, filled with loathing for Heraclonas, quickly removed him from power, and at the same time drove out the impious Pyrrhus, along with his like-minded companion, the queen Martina, from the royal city. For the time being, that noble fellow paid this penalty, being cast out of the throne and the city for the unjust murder he had heartlessly perpetrated. Then Constans, the son of the deceased Constantine, began to reign. He appointed Paul as Bishop of Byzantium, who himself, shrinking from all reason, fostered in his soul the thoughtless doctrine of the single will. But we must return again to the affairs of the divine Maximus, whom this discourse has set as its subject, even though it turned the narrative to other matters, of which it had promised at the beginning to make mention as being necessary.

^D XIV. As this holy man had chosen, therefore, to travel to Rome because of the heresy rampant in Constantinople, as I have indicated above, he first met with the bishops in Africa while passing through. To them he set forth his own arguments, and letting loose a tongue flowing with divine doctrines, he made them firmer in the matter of the faith, and taught and instructed them how they might escape the snares of their opponents and elude their sophistical arguments. For the prudent man knew that we have need of much experience and dialectic if we are to strike down those arrayed against us and tear down every lofty obstacle rising up against the true knowledge. For this reason he prepared them in every way; he gathered them, invigorated them with his words toward boldness, and filled them with a more noble courage.

^A Although they excelled in the prerogative of their see, they were far and away inferior in wisdom and intelligence—not to mention the rest of the man's virtue and the renown of his name, which was illustrious in all respects. Therefore, they willingly deferred to his discourses, and they were obedient, without contradiction, to his other warnings and counsels, the utility of which was so great. For they saw in him a life far removed from the customs of the world and truly exceptional, and an abundance and wealth of speech; from his mouth, not merely certain drops, but almost rivers themselves flowed, and at last, a prudence and the rest of his character and frame of mind, to which nothing at all was equal. Wherefore, not only those who filled the clerical order and all the bishops, but also the people and all the leaders and magistrates, depended entirely upon him, and were as if suspended by a magnet; they were affected toward the blessed man just as they say fragments of iron are affected toward the stone I mentioned, or as those who were captivated by the melodies of those Sirens of whom there is mention in fables. Since, however, the report had then spread that the Roman pontiff had assembled a gathering of bishops so that, in a common council with them, he might subject the absurd dogma to curses, they too were led by the divine Maximus—their exhorter, leader, and teacher—to do the same; and not only they, and those who look toward Africa, but also as many as inhabited the islands situated in those regions, all were incited to the work, and they performed the noble task with every diligence, since they all had him as their master and teacher, and as a companion and helper in acting vigorously.

XV. Theodorus, Successor of John, Roman Pontiff. Pyrrhus's retreat to Africa. Dispute with Maximus.

and it will be found, according to your view, that of the super-essential, supremely good, and pre-eminent Godhead, by reason of its one will, there is one person, according to Sabellius; but by reason of the three persons, there are three wills too; and because of this, three natures, according to Arius. Indeed, according to the Patristic definitions and canons, the difference of wills introduces a difference of natures. ^B

XVI. Pyrrhus, having been defeated by Maximus, recanted his heresy and was received back. But he returned, like a dog to its own vomit, and, being utterly detestable, he regained his see. What need is there to pursue the individual things said at that time, which, even if taken alone as part of the argument, no speech would suffice to explain to the end? So prolix, varied, and composed with such clever ingenuity was the account of that disputation. Those, therefore, who have read that work itself, labored over by the holy man, may from it learn more accurately both his questions and responses, joined in everything with prudence and most solid reasonings, and discern the incongruous and self-contradicting propositions of Pyrrhus (or rather, his own imprudence and madness); for, being desperate in all things, he set, as the proverb says, an ox upon his tongue, and acknowledged the weakness of his own speech and reasoning. For although he fashioned it in many and varied ways and turned it on every side, he achieved nothing from it that might be to his advantage and purpose. In the end, he was even driven to the point of asking forgiveness for what he had said, and immediately recanted his own dogma and the error of the one will in writing, giving also libelli to the Roman pontiff, by whom he was received most humanely, more than can be expressed. But that foolish and exceedingly senseless man, as if nothing new had happened, once settled in Ravenna, returned like a dog to his vomit. And when this reached the ears of the divine Maximus and the aforementioned prelate, in a common assembly they passed sentence against him, and as a rotten and altogether incurable member, they completely cut off and cast aside the wretch. Yet he, even after suffering this, did not cease from his impudence nor from being more arrogant; but with greater stubbornness, he leaped again into the throne at Constantinople, and, as a reward for his impiety, received the episcopate a second time. ^C

XVII. Since he did not ignore who the culprit was (and how could he, who was shining clearly to all and, as it were, holding up the lamp of the word of truth in the open?), he ordered the holy man with all haste to be brought to the royal palace, thinking that if he could master him, he would easily master all the others as well. Along with him, he also brought his disciple Anastasius, and another of the same name who was of the same character and who was called the *apocrisiarius* of the Church in Rome; and indeed, he also brought the most divine Martin with a number of western bishops more quickly to Byzantium. To these, as was to be expected, ^D

he was more grievously exasperated because of their adverse opinion. But regarding the things which concern the pontiff Martin, and how greatly that impious man raged against him, overwhelming the man with six hundred reproaches of words and dishonoring him with injuries of blows—O impious hands!—subjecting the innocent one to torments, and finally sentencing him to a most distant exile (now the place of his exile was Cherson), and likewise perpetrating similar things against his bishops; these things, I say, it is not permitted for me to discuss here at length, while I am in haste to reach the heart of the matter concerning Maximus and this argument. Many, indeed, perhaps will tell of those things, or some, I think, have already done so, honoring the man and celebrating his life and deeds. But our speech, such as it is, must pursue the things which were ordained.

XVIII. The harsh reception of Maximus at Byzantium, and his imprisonment, etc.

Jam therefore, let us see how the most sacred man was treated in the hands of the most wicked of men, once he was seized by them and all eyes were turned upon him. Let us see with what initial encounters they received him, and with what manner of judgment these illustrious censors and administrators of the law conducted his business. For scarcely had he finished greeting Byzantium after being led off the ship, when those whom the emperor had destined for this task came to him—men who showed a great bitterness of soul by their very appearance. These, indeed, seizing the holy man with a more forward boldness, while he was barefoot and without [xv] a cloak, dragged and led him away by force in public, with his disciple following likewise and bewailing the atrocity of the deed. Moreover, when they had led him in a shameful procession, they locked him in a certain gloomy little room—a prison—not even allowing him the faculty of living with his fellow monk and disciple.

After a few days, they led the righteous man into the palace, with the entire Senate presiding, all of them looking toward him with ferocious and fury-filled eyes; and for the time being, they entrusted the trial of his case to the Sacellarius, who surpassed all in rank—a man certainly swift of tongue and easy of speech, and one who could fabricate stories with little effort; a man to whom, finally, regarding the putting of a cloak over the truth, no one was second in cleverness and ingenuity. What evil, then, was omitted? What of wickedness was not attempted, and what crime was not performed? Respecting in no way the venerable old age of the man (for he was at that time approaching his eightieth year), nor the grace flourishing upon his countenance, nor his bearing and habit composed with gravity, nor finally his heart, established in honesty and modesty; and when the most wicked man could offer no just charge or reason for such severity of judgment—he displayed nothing, if I may so speak, other than his own ferocity and the impropriety and sullenness of his own ways—so that although he appeared as one attacking with such great impudence, he nevertheless disturbed everything in vain, being detected as possessing only ill-will, and being marked by his degenerate malignity and impropriety. But indeed, the individual things said and done then, and the sort of slanders ^{A B C D} of those who thought they would be shielded by falsehood against the innocent one, the good disciple of the holy man himself sets forth in detail in his own record; from whom it will be possible for anyone who wishes to go through everything word for word, and to learn it more accurately. Yet it is not wide of the mark and

seems fitting that even we should glean a few things from them and insert them into this present discourse, so that we might not appear to have forgotten any of these things entirely; and, intending to do this, we shall go through the deeds, not by way of a continuous narrative, but as one might say, running through them cursorily.

XIX. The crime of treason maliciously imputed to Maximus.

XX. The inquiry held regarding dreams, and the blowing away of that calumny.

(for a heavier curse than this I cannot invoke upon myself), if I either saw, or imagined in my mind, or recounted to any person the fabricated dream; for obviously, I should have delighted in it as an unexpected gain. ^B

XXI. Then they bring against him a third accusation, where they saw the second had been refuted: one that I did not think worthy of being included in my discourse, both because it wholly bereft itself of credibility by its own nature, and because it is puerile and ridiculous. But, because those noble judges did not think they should abstain from a fourth accusation and imposture, they introduce a certain Gregory, who would affirm that the holy disciple had said in Rome: "It is unlawful and contrary to reason for the emperor to be called priest"—as if, forsooth, he had learned this from his master. But the holy man was not lacking in a defense even against these matters: he stood face to face with Gregory ^C and clearly proved that what was said at that time was one thing, and that which is now alleged is another. "For," he says, "when that man was arriving at Rome, there was a discussion about the Union, and this was the business at hand: that we should receive the Type, through which that notorious dogma was being defined or inscribed. Toward which, to be sure, our own words and our responses were directed, as we debated what might be profitable and what we deemed useful to ourselves. For this reason, then, I know that what is now brought forward is neither mine, nor that of the disciple who is accused; for with him, God as my witness, I never conversed about anything of the sort. However, I am conscious and mindful that I did say this one thing—not to the disciple, but to Gregory himself (which not even he would altogether deny, unless he were to deny his own self entirely)—that it belongs more to priests than to kings and emperors to define dogmas ^D and to raise questions concerning them; since it is permitted to those [priests] to anoint, and to perform the laying on of hands, that is to ordain, and to offer the bread, and to stand at the altar, and to perform whatever other rites and duties are more divine and sacred, as instituted by Christ the Divine. These things I spoke at that time, and these I speak now. In the name of these things, let anyone who wishes either absolve or condemn me. For a man, however grave the things he may suffer from all, cannot be unjustly harmed by men."

XXII. Of Anastasius, the disciple of Maximus. — Then, when they were stuck and had nothing they could do, those who placed their hope in a lie, they lead the righteous man out of the courtroom, but they bring in his disciple, Anastasius. They attack him with words, threats, and terrors, and compel him to speak against his master. They press him to say that he had caused Pyrrhus some annoyance, and had injured the man when he came to converse with him; nor do I know what those liars were contriving and plotting with this inquiry. But when he answered in a way altogether unlike what they were expecting, and, far from there having been anything so severe, [maintained] that he was treated with every...

honor and regard, and as one who appeared to be well-disposed towards him, had received him with the greatest humanity, while he was struck with fists and blows upon his head and cheeks—the truth being suppressed by that violence—they ordered him again to be cast into prison. ^B

XXIII. The repeated hearing of Maximus. The refutation of the Origenist calumny. The question of the Type. They summon the holy man again for a second hearing, as if the business had turned out less to their desire in the previous ones; and they attack his soul, which is impenetrable to all engines of war, with yet another engine. They accuse him, therefore, of following the dogmas of Origen, and of being of the same mind with him in all things. And when he had immediately refuted that feeble charge, which was so easy to dissolve, plainly asserting that he who holds the views of Origen and accepts his delirious discourses is separated from God and is an alien from Christ and the company of Christians; they inquire a second time about Pyrrhus and the things said at that time, having put on a mask of mildness rather than being truly knowledgeable or holding it in their hearts. Then they ask: In what manner did he break off from the communion of the patriarch? Meanwhile, some here and some there, with inquiries and proposed answers, and asserting that the "Type" which they brought forward—and which they claimed ought to be venerated and held as holy—he himself so greatly execrated, despised, and defamed, and mixing in altogether whatever seemed to them to be inextricable arguments and accusations to which a reply could scarcely be found, and not refraining from threats against him or insults; at length, when they saw that they were unequal to him in all things, and were caught in their own snares (as the saying goes), having dissolved the assembly, they went in haste to the emperor, announcing the man's resistance and the invincibility of his words and reasoning. "No one," they say, "will ever persuade Maximus, or satisfy him enough to give his assent to our position, even if one were to try every form of torture upon him." ^C

XXIV. No long time had passed [xix] when others come to visit him, he being already kept in custody: perhaps thinking that by frequently meeting him and terrifying him with words, they might make him more amenable. The men who came said that they had been sent by the patriarch; and they immediately put these things to the holy man: "Of whose Church are you," they say, "O you man?"—for I will use their very words—"Of that which is at Byzantium, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, or Jerusalem? See, all these, together with the provinces subject to them, are united. If, therefore, you are also of the Catholic Church, join the union, lest by perchance innovating a strange path in your life, you suffer things you do not expect." To whom the blessed man replies with such timeliness and sagacity: "The Lord, when he called the Church the right and saving confession of faith, for that very reason also declared Peter blessed for having made a noble confession; and upon this, the God of all declared that He would build such a Church. However, I wish to know the confession upon which the union of all the Churches has been made. And if the business has been conducted rightly, I shall by no means shrink from it." ^D

^A

XXV. *One and two operations of Maximus confuted.* To whom those who had been sent said: "Though we have no commission on this matter, we shall nevertheless speak, so that you may have no excuse. We speak of two operations by reason of distinction, and of one by reason of union." The holy man said to them: "Do you say that the two have been made one because of the union, or some other one besides these?" "No," they say, "but the two are one because of the union." He replied: "We are delivered from the matter, since we have fastened our faith upon no substance, and upon a God who does not truly exist. For if we confuse the two into one because of the union, and again divide the one into two because of the distinction, there will be no unity nor duality of operations; but they will be constantly destroying one another, and will render that to which they are naturally attached ^B devoid of operation, and entirely non-existent. For that which possesses no motion by nature, inalienable and not changed or shifted by any mode of alteration, and which is transferred into another thing, is deprived of all substance and true entity, according to the Fathers; since it lacks the operation which is its substantial and proper mark and true characteristic. This, therefore, I am unable to bring my mind to say, nor have I learned from the holy Fathers to confess it. Do therefore what seems good to you, in whose hands the sum and power of this matter lies."

XXVI. *Sentence pronounced against Maximus. Exile of Maximus and his companions.* But when they had nothing to answer against these things, they bring forward what had been decided by the masters of affairs; and they say: "It is fitting that he who refuses to be brought to the custom should be subjected to anathema, and abundantly pay with death, which has been decreed for him." To which Maximus replied with a mild voice and modestly: "May that which has been ^C defined and predestined by God concerning me, now receive its end, that it may turn to His glory, which was known before all ages." But for the time being, they defer the execution of the sentence that had been passed upon them; yet having taken counsel, the emperor and the patriarch (not otherwise than Pilate and the Jews, while the cause of my Jesus was being conducted), condemn the just man to exile: carrying him off very quickly to a certain little town called Bizya; and at the same time they deport his disciple Anastasius to a place that is unutterably horrible, arid, and poor, at the extreme border of the Roman empire, alone (the place is called Perberis, named thus in the barbarian tongue); acting therein the same as they did to his namesake, I mean the apocrisiarius of the Church of Rome. Nor was the other Anastasius, the apocrisiarius ^D of the Roman Church, treated with a milder lot, for he was relegated to Mesembria.

XXVII. And indeed, many days having passed, they send to the holy man placed in exile that Theodosius, the bishop of Caesarea, and Paul, and another Theodosius, both shining with consular dignity. These also set forth many and various discourses to the blessed man: partly acting with flatteries, partly using threats; and partly also questioning him with the desire of hearing; which the memoir itself, which the illustrious Anastasius composed on that matter, declares in detail, as I have said above. Nor perhaps will it seem importune for us also to recount a few things from them,

^A in such a way that here too we may finish our discourse, as it were, by leaping from point to point. For thus we shall better perceive the invincible spirit of the man in all things; because, while many were jostling him and attempting in various ways to shake his constancy, he nonetheless remained unbending, entirely robust, and immovable in his purpose and the inclination of his mind.

^B XXVII. But let us see what sort of suggestions these men, who have been mentioned, brought to the holy man. First of all, they inquired how his affairs stood, adopting, as it were, a friendly—or rather, to speak more truly, a flattering—approach in their questioning. When he said that his life’s end had been foreseen and predetermined by the providence of God, just as he actually found it to be, they asked him again in a second question [xxj]: “What does it mean to foresee, and what to predestinate, and what is the difference between the two?” To which he replied that the term “foreknowledge” refers to things within our power, namely thoughts, words, and deeds, from which virtues and vices come to us; but that the term “predestination” or “pre-definition” refers to things not in our power but to those which befall us from without against our will—namely, adversities of every kind and other penal dispensations. And when the man, who was thoroughly filled with the Divine Spirit, had discoursed in detail on each of these things, and had explained what sufferings are brought upon us justly and—as no one could deny—usefully, either for the expiation of sins or for the sake of trial or by some higher providence, they for the time being left these matters aside and introduced the topics for the sake of which they had come; namely, inciting him to join in communion with them and to assent to what they had done.

However, when Maximus objected that the innovation which had been introduced into the Church was a confusion of the faith, then Theodosius of Caesarea also girded himself to dispute with him. He maintained with a highly combative spirit that there was nothing in their position contrary to ancient doctrine, nor anything monstrous or alien to the right logos, as he championed and defended that energy and the so-called “single will.”

^C XXIX. But the holy man, having refuted the absurdity contained in such notions, argued and proved that if one were to say there is a single energy in the Deity and humanity, the logos of both theology and the dispensation would be utterly confounded; and—what is far more absurd—the Trinity would become a Quaternity because the flesh would have become of the same nature as the Word, whereas, according to the Fathers, where there is one substance, there is also one energy. Furthermore, he showed that the marks which distinguish and constitute both the Deity and humanity would be removed, or that both would vanish into total non-existence, since, according to your arguments and your new-fangled dogma, it is impossible to conceive or speak of either one or two energies or wills. And after he had added many other things to this discourse, Theodosius, as if at a loss, said: “But that which has happened by way of economy (oikonomia) should not be taken as a sovereign dogma, just as…”

the ^A type which we are currently putting forward was produced by way of economy, and not as a dogma.” But the holy man, having replied that it is neither reasonable nor just to comply with such innovations, and that such things are the work of false teachers and impostors—who ought not to be obeyed at all, but rather shirked and stood aloof from, as much as possible, so that we might not appear to take a share in the evil of their company—these men, as if struck dumb by what had been said, were silent for a long time, their heads bowed toward the ground, stunned by what they had heard.

XXX. But Theodosius, having regained his courage, and having brought forward other questions one by one, slowly gathered like certain towers and firm ramparts which he thought would remain for him unshaken—having set forth these arguments, and having composed the acceptance of certain simple words, whose meaning had been unexamined and not carefully distinguished by any discernment of the mind, and asserting that Maximus should accept them; and furthermore having brought up other questions concerning hypostatic operation and concerning a certain natural and relative will, about which a discourse longer than the limits of the present account would be required—well, when Theodosius had constructed these things, and the holy man had very easily overturned the entire force and structure of his words and reasoning, he at last grew weary, and having nothing else to say in response to the present matter, he attempts to draw the saint in through another way: by offering a conversation that was more friendly, expressing as if he himself also wished for the scandals and stumbling blocks to be removed from the midst, and for the former peace of the Church to be restored. ^B “Which indeed,” he said, “could not happen in any other way than if we were to travel to those in Rome and call them to terms and reconciliation, in order that we might breathe and think as one with them.” Upon which the holy man, having become all the more cheerful, one might say, at what had been said—how could one describe the joy with which he was filled, or with what praises he was ready to reward the man who had said this? And although he was so poorly in body, having been exhausted by monastic labors and worn out by old age, he was nevertheless ready in spirit to travel to Rome again, and together with them to fully transact the business of the faith as far as things were concerned. “Provided only,” he said, “that it should be a matter of action, and not a word spent idly on the winds and the air.”

XXXI. Theodosius the bishop (whether sincerely or in pretense) assented to Maximus. However, although Theodosius confirmed what had been said with an oath, and even applied his hands to the immaculate Gospels for their attestation (although the senseless man, mindless of the faith he had given, kept none of them, as someone swayed by the will and nod of the emperors), the most religious man was all the more cheerful and ready, setting his whole self toward the journey, and planning in his mind those things which would be beneficial for both—for those who were in the East and for those who were at Rome. Then, therefore, as he was about to depart ^C and as he intended to communicate these things to those in the imperial city, having again greeted the holy man with a kiss, and having given him a shirt and a brown cloak, in this way he...

…” ^A Theodosius, intending to take counsel with those who were in the royal city and to deliberate the matter with them, kissed the holy man again and embraced him, and having given him a tunic and a dark-colored cloak as a small gift, he thus entered Byzantium, together with the two consuls who had come as his companions.

^B XXXII. *Maximus's great authority and name.* — Eight days after that had passed, Paul, who was himself also distinguished by consular dignity, went out to the holy man; for he had received instructions from the emperor to receive him at Bizya with reverence and more devoted respect, as if he were a friend and acquaintance of his own ancestors, and furthermore to hold him in honor, and to transfer him to a certain monastery located at Rhegium, which is called Saint Theodore's. Then, on the following day, Epiphanius and Troilus, both celebrated for their patrician dignity, came to him, along with their associate Theodosius, bishop of Caesarea, whom the holy man was also expecting to confirm the things he had said—not having sufficiently detected, in his guileless spirit, the hidden malice of a man who was himself most removed from all deceit. ^C And with a longer circuit of words to him, and the emperor's promise offered—that he would surely establish him as a father to himself and make him higher than all others, provided only that it came to pass that he be united and come to agreement with him, and decide to approve and accept what had been decreed in common with them. For, they said, because he was causing dissent and tumult, almost the whole East and West were likewise being thrown into tumult and dissent; and having brought forward and spoken many other things to this end in their opinion, and having produced that uncanonical *typos*, and having kept bringing it up to him—one way and another—in everything they said, when they knew at last that the holy man was not in the least moved by their words, he shouted out, before all else, this great declaration: "Not even all the powers of heaven will persuade me to do what you ask. For what defense," he said, "shall I offer, I do not say to God, but even to my own conscience, if for the sake of human glory, which has no existence or truth, I should for the present perjure the faith in which my salvation is stored up?"

^D XXXIII. *The tumultuous abuse of Saint Maximus.* — When, therefore, they perceived that he was so disposed, and especially because he scolded Theodosius for having so rashly and to his own destruction pledged his faith, and had confirmed those statements with an oath: then those men, rising up quickly, did what men of that sort were to do. For some were striking him with their fists—O, foul hands!—urging on their own menial servants and footmen to dare the same injury against him; others were striking him with blows, others were attacking him with kicks, and others still were spitting in his face (no differently than the soldiers and the wicked crowd once did to my Jesus). And those truly detestable men—those true experts at spitting—did not cease their spitting upon him until they had filled his entire face with spittle, and covered the very rags with which he was clothed with that foul mucus, in such a great quantity of filth, indeed, that an intolerable stench was exhaled from it; to which they alone were worthy, it not being clear whether he was Maximus the priest: nor does that…

…”

^A those most shameless men, had not Theodosius, bishop of Caesarea, checked their impulses and persuaded them to turn their minds to other things. And these men, as if they had done nothing—being, how shall I say it, even more impudent than dogs—after a short time raised questions again, demanded answers, and proposed other nonsense to the holy man. But when they saw that they were laboring in vain, that whatever they attempted was fruitless, and that they were wasting their effort—for they were not even able to speak—they, most churlish men, took what little he had of necessary use, and after the atrocity of the injuries he had received, they departed from there.

^B XXXIV. The terrible scourging of Maximus. After some time had passed [XXV], they brought him into Constantinople, and along with him they also brought his disciple Anastasius; and to these they added the other Anastasius, whom we have called the apocrisiarius. And these infamous and cursed men, after using curses against them and subjecting them to anathema (not only them, but all the orthodox, both those still living and those who had already departed), handed them over to those then in charge of tortures, so that they might carry out the sentences passed upon them by the judges. While they did not entirely take away their life—so that there might seem to be some semblance of humanity in their inhumanity—they tortured them with punishments more bitter than death itself. For the city prefect took them and led them into the praetorium, and first he ordered the divine Maximus to be stretched out on four posts and beaten with very hard ox-tendons. The wretch felt no pity for his old age, nor for the limbs shriveled by squalor and wrinkles, nor for that body consumed by fasting and labors; but he beat him with such savage cruelty that the entire ground beneath him was bloodied with the abundance of blood flowing down, and he tore all his flesh to pieces, leaving not even a small part of his limbs sound and whole.

^C XXXV. Likewise, the scourging of both Anastasiuses. Then that beast and terrible monster of cruelty transferred his attack to his disciple; and subsequently to the other, who was also named Anastasius, inflicting many blows on both of them and filling their bodies with welts. He set heralds over them, who, while they were being scourged, cried out: “Those who do not obey the royal sanctions, and who persist in their contumacy, are worthy to suffer these things.” And these, barely drawing breath, they threw into prison.

XXXVI. The cutting out of Maximus’s tongue; the divinely preserved power of speech. Thereafter, they once again brought the holy man together with his disciple before them, all tattooed with welts, all swollen with tumors, all burned with blows. And although he was consumed by so many pains, they did not refrain from devising worse things for him, having put aside their human nature entirely. For that tongue of his, which was eloquent in divine oracles ^D and which had poured forth discourses like rivers, from deep within his throat and from the epiglottis that brushes against it,

^A they cut off most wickedly from the root, so that with the organ of voice removed, speech and doctrine might also fail him, and he might subsequently fall silent, and be mute [xxvi] in silence. But, O illustrious Maximus, not even then, with your tongue cut out, were you going to be silent, or to cease from modulating those sweetest discourses: but He who perfects the tongue of infants, and who gave speech to the deaf and mute, He Himself nevertheless caused you to speak beyond expectation, and to have discourses more eloquently and more articulately than before.

37. The same to Anastasius, disciple of Maximus. The right hand of both cut off. The final exile of Maximus and his companions.

But when they did the same also to Anastasius, the disciple of the saint, and likewise cut out his tongue from within; the same grace strengthened him, granting him speech, and that in a certain unheard-of manner (since he was lacking the organ of voice) ^B far copious and abundant. Wherefore, also moved by greater envy, the wicked men apply another new and more unusual punishment to the most brave athletes; as if they did not think they were injuring them, nor harming them sufficiently justly, unless they experienced every bitterness against them: whom it would have been much better to have removed by death (and they themselves did not think otherwise) than to subject them to such torments. Therefore, wrapping the blessed man with thin cords, and applying torments on all sides, driving the edge of the knife with a hammer, they cut off his right hand, ^C and throw it to the ground: and without delay, passing to his companion in the contest, Anastasius, so that he might altogether enjoy the fruit of equal glory, they exact the same punishment from him. To these things, having cast out those truncated of tongue and hand from the praetorium, they drag and lead them around the whole forum, having the putrid limbs thus for a show, and attacking them with unrefined shouts and taunts and witticisms and mockeries. Then after that shameful leading around, they relegate them far into exile, together with Anastasius the apocrisiarius: the most wicked of men, deserving well of the saints only in this, that they sent them far away from themselves.

XXXVIII. On divine vengeance against the impious prince.

For divine vengeance did not indeed overlook, ^D although it often acts with long patience: but a little later it exacted from the wicked and scoundrel prince the punishments that were worthy. For far away, having changed the soil, in Syracuse in Sicily, it extinguished him by a miserable fate. For since the man, most worthy of hatred, had stirred up the hatred of the Byzantines against himself because of the things that had been perpetrated, and there was fear that something even more serious might happen to him from them, he set out there together with his wife and children. To whom, even as he entered the bath for the sake of washing, one of the domestics, having struck a lethal wound to his head, [xxvii] crushed his whole skull, and took life from the unhappy man. But Constantine his son, taking up the empire with Heraclius and Tiberius, recognized it was worth the effort not to proceed by the same path as his father, so that he himself might not summon the same punishments and losses upon himself. Wherefore, also having gathered the Fathers from everywhere, and having convened a most ample synod, which is also heard as the sixth ecumenical, then many other things worthy of memory in it

^A eprazato, and he declared more clearly the two wills and operations of Christ, corresponding to his two natures, and he subjected to curse and anathema those who introduced and preached that doctrine of a single will. Previously, Agatho, the prelate of Rome, who sat on the throne there after Martin, had done this, moved by the divine Spirit, also decreeing those who had committed these wicked things to be cursed and execrable to the Church. But these things were done later. [AΘ] Now since, as the account has said, they had carried the divine Maximus away into exile, it happened that he suffered many things along the way, and endured many sorrows, being afflicted with pains, since he could not sit on a beast of burden or even in a litter, being completely worn out by his labors and crushed by a thousand agonies. ^B Therefore, they placed him in a wicker-work conveyance, and carrying him with difficulty, they took him on that long journey, and shut him away in a certain fort in the territory of Alania, called Schimaris, leaving him destitute of all consolation in life. His illustrious disciple, who shared his name, was taken on the same journey—both of them, that is, named Anastasius—and they were separated from their teacher and from each other, being exchanged from one place to another, and dragged far away to the region of the Abasgi. Exhausted by these hardships and fatigues, one of them yielded up his spirit, which was the only thing remaining to him; and the day of his passing is not sufficiently known, as the one of the same name (I mean Anastasius the apocrisiarius) has reported. [M] For when the divine Maximus was already imprisoned in the fort in Alania, a divine vision appeared to him from above, signifying to him the day of his departure and calling him to the tabernacles above. ^C When that day arrived—which was the thirteenth of the month of August—he cast aside earthly things and ran up to the heavens, truly worthy of the heavens and of that habitation on high. In the place where his holy body was laid, three bright torches have since that time shone upon his tomb at night, shedding a marvelous radiance, and, as is to be expected, causing even more marvelous astonishment to those who see it, and showing the very rich grace of the munificent God toward his own servant. [MA] But for you, O most holy father, there is great glory and splendor in the things present, since the Lord has showered honor upon you even here; ^D and far greater and most excellent is the lot allotted to you there, for you have attained heavenly honors. Standing before the great Light, you receive into yourself the splendor of the blessed and primordial Trinity, and you gaze upon God—a thing most paradoxical—you who have, namely, become one with God through that union, and having been entirely deified by participation, you undergo an ineffable deification. Therefore, you who have attained such glory, grant much help from yourself to those who still

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to us as we swim through these present times and traverse this long and most dangerous life; so that beneath you as helmsman and guide, having lightly sailed across this unstable sea, we may be anchored in the tranquil and eternal harbors, where there is blessed conduct and the most serene repose.

^B XLII. This address of ours to you, O best and most loving of fathers, is indeed, as I myself know, entirely unequal to the events themselves, yet in its longing, I believe it yields to none. The cause and leader of this discourse is, in any case, the hierarch who is attached to you, who has become rich in the name and the manner of the chief shepherd who was in Myra, and who is ever deeply enamored of your marvels, and who yearns for you with distinction, making your honeyed name the delight of his tongue. May you grant him the favor of dwelling and tenting with you, for as you see, he too struggles for the sake of the good and the noble, exerting himself vigorously and solicitously, and not unwillingly laying down his own soul, if only it might come to pass that he attain some better fruit in these matters, in Christ our Lord himself, to whom be glory and power, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE PROCEEDINGS

^C 1. The first bringing of Maximus to Constantinople, and the hearing. The charge of high treason and the refutation. On the day when they were brought to this royal city, both the lord Maximus and his companion, near the setting of the sun, two mandatories together with ten guards took them from the ship naked and barefoot; and separating them from one another, they kept them in different guard-posts. And after some days, they brought them into the palace, and led the old man into the place where the senate and a great crowd of others had assembled; and when they had placed him in the midst of the seated princes, the sacellarius said to him with much anger and fury: "Are you a Christian?" And he said, "By the grace of Christ, the God of all, I am a Christian." And he said to him, "It is not true." The servant of God answered, "You say so. I am not; but God knows that I am a Christian, and that I persevere as one." And how, says he, if...

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you are a Christian, do you hate the Emperor? ^A The servant of God answering, said, "And whence is this evident? For hatred is a hidden disposition of the mind, just as love is." And he says to him, "From what you have done, it has become manifest to all that you hate the Emperor and his government; for you alone have delivered Egypt and Alexandria and the Pentapolis and Tripoli and Africa to the Saracens." And what, he says, is the proof of these things? And they bring forward John, who was the sacellarius of Peter, formerly the praetor of the province of Africa, saying: "For twenty-two years ago, the grandfather of the sovereign commanded the blessed Peter to take an army and go into Egypt against the Saracens; and he wrote to you as one speaking with a servant of God, since he had an opinion in his mind of you as a holy man, [asking] whether you would advise him to undertake the expedition. And you wrote back to him, saying: 'Do no such thing, for it does not please God that, with the Emperor Heraclius and his descendants, the government of the Romans should prosper'." ^B The servant of God says: "If he speaks the truth, then you surely have both Peter's letter to me and my letter to him; let these be produced, and I am subject to the penalties established by law." And he says: "I do not have the letter, nor do I even know if he wrote to you at all. But these things were spoken of by everyone in the camp throughout that time." And the servant of God says to him: "If the whole army was talking about this from popular rumor, why do you alone fabricate this calumny against me? Did you ever see me, or I you?" And he says: "Never." Then the servant of God, turning to the senate, said: "If it is just to employ such calumniators or witnesses in a trial, judge for yourselves; for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged; and with what measure you measure, it shall be measured to you, says the Lord of all." ^C

II. Another charge of treason likewise.

^A These things had to be said while Gregory was still alive, and in that same declaration of devotion and benevolence toward the emperor. It would be just, however, if it appears so to you also, that he who first accused me through calumny should be compelled to go and bring the patrician Peter, and he the abbot Thomas, and he the blessed Pope Theodore; and then, in the presence of all, I should say to the patrician Peter: "Tell me, lord patrician: did you ever write to me about those things which your sacellarius mentioned, or did I to you?" And if he should agree, I would be liable to punishment. Similarly, also to the blessed Pope: "Tell me, master, did I ever relate a dream to you?" And if he were to convict me, the crime would be his, not mine, the one who had seen it. For a dream is not a thing of such a nature that it is free and subject to the will. And this [law] punishes only those things that occur contrary to it. Then Trollus said to him: "You are joking, abba; do you not know where you are?" He, answering, said: "I am not joking, but I am mourning my life preserved until now, that I have had the trial of such phantasms." The patrician Epiphanius says: "God knows; he does well to treat these things as a joke, and to laugh, if they are not true." After him, the sacellarius again said to him with anger: "Do you mean that everyone is lying, and you alone are telling the truth?" And the servant of God, answering, having wept at the word, said: "You have the power, with God permitting, to both let me live and to bring death upon me. ^B Nevertheless, if these men speak the truth, then Satan is by nature God. But if he is not—as indeed he is not—then neither have these men spoken the truth. For may I not be counted worthy to see the coming of God among Christians—He who is greater than all substance, the author and founder and creator of all things, the governor by providence, the judge and savior—if I have ever related such a dream, or heard it related by another, except at this very hour from the lord Sergius, a man devotedly committed to the emperor’s interest."

^C III. They bring forth a third calumniator, Theodorus, the son of John the candidatus, as he was called, surnamed Chila, now the son-in-law of the lord Plato the patrician, saying: "That during a conversation between us in Rome regarding the emperor, he mocked what was being said, behaving like an owl and treating it with ridicule." To whom the servant of God said: "I never discussed anything with you, except once with the most holy presbyter, the lord Theocharistus, the brother of the eparch, because of the primicerius, when I was ordered to do so by letter concerning this matter. And if I am found to be lying, I shall accept the penalty."

^D IV. And after him, they bring a fourth, Gregory, the son of Photeinos, saying that: "I went to the cell of the abbot Maximus in Rome; and when I said that the emperor is also a priest, the abbot Anastasius, his disciple, said: 'May he not be worthy to be a priest.'" To whom the servant of God immediately said: "Fear God, lord Gregory; my fellow servant has spoken absolutely nothing in that discussion concerning these matters. And"

^A he cast himself upon the ground, saying to the senate: "Bear with your servant, and I will tell you everything just as it was spoken; and let him refute me if I have lied. My master, lord Gregory, coming to Rome, deigned to come to the cell of your servant. Having seen him, as is my custom, I cast myself upon the ground, and I did him obeisance and kissed him; and I said to him, after we had sat down: 'What is the cause of the desired arrival of my master?' And he said: 'Our good and God-supported ruler, being concerned for the peace of the holy Churches of God, has issued a command to the divinely-honored Pope, having also sent an offering to Saint Peter, exhorting him to enter into union with the prelate of the city of Constantinople; which things his pious imperial majesty deigned to send through my mediocrity.' And I said: 'Glory to God, who has made you worthy of such a ministry. ^B Yet, in what manner and way did his God-crowned serenity command the union to be made?' And he said again: 'By the Typos.' And I said: 'This procedure, I think, is impossible. For the Romans do not endure that the luminous voices of the holy Fathers be taken away along with the impure voices of the heretics, or that the truth be extinguished along with lies, or that the light be likewise dissipated along with darkness. For there will be no Divinity of ours left, if the words which we have been taught by God are destroyed.' And you said: 'The Typos does not destroy the sacred voices, but produces silence, so that we may dispense the peace.' And I said: 'According to Divine Scripture, silence itself is destruction. For God said through David: "There are no speeches nor words, whose voices are not heard." Therefore, if the words concerning God are not spoken and heard, they do not exist at all, according to Scripture.' And you said: 'Do not ^C drive me into the forest; I am content with the holy Symbol.' And I said: 'And how can you be content with the holy Symbol, while accepting the Typos?' And you said: 'And why does it harm to accept the Typos and to say the Symbol?' I say: 'Because the Typos clearly destroys the Symbol.' And you said: 'For the Lord’s sake, how?' 'Tell me,' I said, 'the Symbol, and know how it is destroyed by the Typos.' And you began to say: 'I believe in one God, Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.' 'Stop,' I said, 'a little, and learn how the faith of the Fathers who gathered at Nicaea is denied. For God would not be a maker, if He lacked ^D natural will and operation; since He made heaven and earth by will, not compelled by any necessity: in accordance with the truth of David’s saying: "Everything whatsoever the Lord willed, He did, in heaven and on earth: in the seas, and in all the deeps." But if the saving faith is taken away and destroyed along with a depraved faith for the sake of an accommodation, this sort of so-called accommodation is a complete separation from God, not a union with God. For tomorrow the ill-named Jews will say: "Let us make peace among ourselves by a certain accommodation, and let us be united; and as for us">

let us remove circumcision, and you remove baptism, and let us no longer fight one another." ^A This the Arians once proposed in writing to the great Constantine, saying: "Let us remove the 'consubstantial' and the 'of-different-substance,' and let the Churches be united." But our God-bearing Fathers did not accept it; rather, they chose to be persecuted and put to death, rather than to silence the voice that clearly established the one supersubstantial divinity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And this, even while the great Constantine was favoring those who proposed such things, as is recorded by many who diligently wrote of the events of that time. And no emperor was able, by equivocal words, to persuade the God-speaking Fathers to compromise with the heretics of their time; but they used clear and proper words, appropriate to the doctrine in question, openly professing that it is for priests to inquire and to define the saving dogmas of the Catholic Church.

And you said: "What then? Is not every Christian emperor a priest?" And I said: "He is not; for he does not stand at the altar, and after the sanctification of the bread, lift it up, saying, 'The holy things for the holy.' He neither baptizes, nor performs the rite of chrism, nor does he perform the laying on of hands, nor does he make bishops and priests and deacons; ^B nor does he anoint and consecrate churches, nor does he wear the insignia of the priesthood, namely the omophorion and the Gospel, just as he wears the insignia of the empire, the crown and the purple."

And you said: "And how does Scripture say that Melchisedech was both king and priest?" And I said: "Melchisedech was a figure of the One who is by nature the King of all, God, who became by nature the High Priest for the sake of our salvation. But if you say that there is another king and priest 'according to the order of Melchisedech,' then venture to say the rest: that is, 'without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.' ^C And observe the evil that arises from this: for another such God will be found as having become incarnate according to the order of Melchisedech, and not according to the order of Aaron, who works our salvation."

V. But why do we wish to go through many things? In the holy offering upon the holy table, after the high priests and deacons, and every sacerdotal order, the emperors are commemorated along with the laity, as the deacon says: "And of those who have fallen asleep in the faith, the laity, Constantine, Constans, and the rest." And likewise, he also makes mention of the living emperors after all the ordained.

As he was saying these things, Menas cried out: "By saying these things, you have rent the Church." And he said to him: "If he who speaks the things that are of the holy Scriptures and of the holy Fathers rents the Church, then what shall be said of him who destroys the dogmas of the saints—the one without whom it is not even possible for there to be a Church at all?" And the sakellarios turned and said to the men

with a shout, "Tell the exarch: 'Was it necessary for you to let such a man live where you rule?'" And taking him outside, they brought in his disciple, and demanding that he speak against his master—as one who had badly mistreated Pyrrhus—he replied with a calm voice, speaking the things of the truth, that no one had honored Pyrrhus as he had honored him; and he was ordered to shout. And seeing that he did not yield, he ordered him to be beaten by those standing by; and having struck him with their fists, they left him half-dead. And when they had been sent off to their respective prisons, Menas came to the elder, saying in the presence of the officials, "God has cast you down and brought you here, that you might receive back all you have done to others, leading everyone astray toward the dogmas of Origen." To whom the servant of God said in the presence of all, "Anathema to Origen and his dogmas, and to everyone who thinks the same as he does." And the patrician Epiphanius said, "The complaint which you, Lord Abba Menas, brought against him is dissolved; for even if he were an Origenist, once he has said 'Anathema,' he has freed himself from such a charge. Therefore, I will no longer allow such a charge to be brought against him." And each of them was led away to the place where he was being kept under guard. ^B

VI. The dogma of Maximus is that of the Church itself, not his own. The ancient faith overturned by the Monothelites: the inconstancy of their doctrine.

And on that same day toward evening, Troilus the patrician and Sergius Eucrates, who was over the imperial table, came to the servant of God, the elder, and sitting down, they ordered him also to sit, and said to him, "Tell us, Lord Abba, of the movement of dogmas that took place between you and Pyrrhus in Africa and Rome, and with what words you persuaded him to anathematize his own dogma and to agree to yours." And he related everything to them in order, as much as his memory could recall. He added this also, saying, "I have no dogma of my own, but only that of the Catholic Church. For I have not stirred up any opinion of any kind so that it might be called a 'dogma' of mine." And after he had recounted everything that had been said and done, they said to him, "Do you not communicate with the throne of Constantinople?" And he said, "I do not." They said, "For what reason do you not communicate?" He replied, "Because they have cast out the four holy councils through those nine chapters which were enacted at Alexandria, and through the Ecthesis, which was published in this city at the instigation of Sergius, and through the ^C Type which was recently—that is, in the sixth indiction—promulgated; and because the things they dogmatized through the chapters, they condemned in the Ecthesis; and the things they dogmatized in the Ecthesis, they abrogated through the Type; and thus they have deposed themselves so many times over. Those, therefore, who have been condemned by their own judgment, and have been deposed and stripped of their priesthood by the Romans and also by the Synod which was held after this in the eighth indiction, what holy mystery, I ask, are they to perform? Or what Spirit descends upon the things performed by such men?" And they said to him, "Are you alone to be saved, and everyone else to perish?" And he said— ^D

^A The three youths did not condemn anyone by not worshipping the statue, even though all people were worshipping it. For they were not looking at the affairs of others, but were looking at how they themselves might not fall away from true piety. Thus also Daniel, having been thrown into the lions' den, did not condemn any of those who did not pray to God according to the decree of Darius, but he looked to his own affairs; and he chose to die rather than to fall away from God and be scourged by his own conscience for the transgression of those things that are by nature lawful. May God therefore not grant me to condemn anyone, or to say that I alone am being saved. But I choose to die rather than have turmoil in my conscience, that I swerved in any way regarding the faith toward God.

^B VII. They say to him: "And what do you have to do, since the Romans are being united with the Byzantines? For behold, yesterday the apocrisiarii of Rome arrived, and tomorrow, on the Lord’s day, they will communicate with the patriarch; and it becomes clear to all that you were subverting the Romans. Finally, now that you have been removed from there, they have soon agreed with those here." And he said to them, "Those who have arrived, whatever judgment [they bring] to the See of Rome, even if they communicate, since they did not bring a letter to the patriarch, they do not [thereby] act. And I cannot be persuaded at all that the Romans are being united with those here, unless they confess our Lord and God, according to both [natures] of which, in which, and which He is, to be by nature endowed with will and operation for our salvation." And they say, "But if the Romans should be reconciled with those here, what will you do?" And he said, "The Holy Spirit, through the Apostle, anathematizes even angels if they preach anything beyond what has been proclaimed."

^C VIII. And they say: "Is it then absolutely necessary that wills and operations be spoken of in Christ?" He answered: "It is absolutely necessary, if we wish to think piously according to the truth. For nothing in existence subsists without a natural operation. For the holy Fathers openly say that no nature whatsoever ^D either exists or is known without its substantial operation. If, then, no nature is either or is known without the operation that substantially characterizes it, how is it possible for Christ to be, or to be known, truly by nature God and man, if the divine and human operation is lacking? For, according to the Fathers, the lion, having lost the faculty of roaring, is no longer a lion; likewise the dog, having lost the faculty of barking, is no longer a dog; and anything else that has lost the property naturally constituting it is no longer what it was." And they say to him: "We know truly that it was so; however, do not grieve the Emperor, who for the sake of peace and for no other cause made the Typos—not that he wishes to abolish anything of what is understood in Christ, but for the sake of peace—the

^A silencing of the words that cause discord.

IX. Then the servant of God, casting himself upon the ground with tears, said: The good and pious lord ought not to be grieved at my humility. For I cannot grieve God by keeping silent, when He Himself has commanded that these things be spoken and confessed. For if, as the divine Apostle is the author, it is He who placed in the Church *first apostles, second prophets, third teachers*, it is manifest that it is He who has spoken through them. Therefore, through all the holy Scripture, of both the Old and New Testaments, and by the voices of holy doctors and councils, we are taught that God incarnate is endowed with the power of will and operation according to both His divinity and His humanity. For He is not found wanting in any of those things by which He is known as God, and by which He is known by nature as man, save only sin. But if He is perfect in both, so that in neither respect is anything lacking in Him, it is manifest that he who does not confess Him to be what He is, with all the natural properties belonging to each of the two natures in which and as which He is, adulterates His whole mystery. ^B

X. When silence had been kept for a while, they signaled to one another and said: Whence can you show that those who are of the see of Constantinople reject the holy synods? He says to them: It has already been shown in part through the things I said in Rome to the lord Gregory, the *a secretis*. Now, too, if it pleases the master that this be shown, let him order that permission be given to your unworthy servant, and I will identify the books, because mine were taken away; and I will make the matter manifest to all, with no sinuous ambiguity or twisting of words or expressions. And having already discussed not a few other things, they turned to arguments and contemplations of Scripture, nature, and art: being pleased and becoming more cheerful by these, they began to say: The Lord knows, the discussion has proceeded profitably, and henceforth we will not trouble you at all.

XI. Maximus's piety toward the Emperor, even though he was raging.—Furthermore, the lord Sergius said to him: I have often come to your cell in Bebbas, and heard you teaching; may God assist you; do not be anxious in your soul. There is one thing wherein you grieve everyone, namely that you are the cause that many are separated from the communion of this Church. Is there anyone, said the servant of God, who says that I said to him: "Do not communicate with the Church of the Byzantines"? The lord Sergius replied: This very thing, that you do not communicate, is a voice of a great thunder, by which you frighten everyone away from her communion. And the servant of God said: There is nothing more violent than a conscience that accuses, and nothing greater for confidence than one that defends. But when the lord Troilus heard that the Typos is anathematized throughout all the West, he says to the servant of God: Is it right that the reputation of our pious master is insulted?

^A The servant of God answered: "May God forgive those who counseled the master to create the Typos, and those who permitted it." And he says: "Who are they who counseled, and who are they who permitted?" He answered: "Those of the Church induced it, and the lords [the senate] permitted it. And behold, the filth from the guilty has been cast upon the innocent and pure from every heresy. But give counsel that he may do what his grandfather, of pious memory, did. For he, sensing that some were casting reproach upon him in the West, through an order made himself free from the censure concerning the Church, writing that: 'The Ecthesis is not mine. For neither did I dictate it, nor did I command it to be created; but Sergius the patriarch, having composed it five years before I returned from the East, begged me, after my arrival in this most blessed city, that it should be published in my name with my subscription; and I yielded to his request.' Now, however, since I have perceived that some are contending over it, I make it clear to all that it is not mine. This order he made to blessed Pope John, who was condemning the Ecthesis, in those things which he then wrote to Pyrrhus. And from that time on, the Ecthesis is everywhere said to be Sergius's. May he who now piously rules over us do this, and the reputation of his name will remain entirely unblemished by any reproach." Then, shaking their heads, they were silent, saying only this: "Everything is difficult and perplexing."

XII. The hearing of Anastasius, the disciple of Maximus, and the constancy of his answer.

Having spoken these and various other things, after they had exchanged bows and greetings, they departed in good spirits. And again on another Saturday, they brought them into the palace; and they lead in first the disciple of the elder, with the two patriarchs also meeting together; and they bring in Constantine and Menas, accusers of the elder, and demand that the disciple agree to the things spoken against them. But ^C with all boldness the disciple said fearlessly to the senate: "Do you bring Constantine into the secretarium of the palace? This man is neither a presbyter, nor a monk, but a tribunus thymelicus. It is known to the Africans and the Romans what sort of women he was shepherding when he came here." For everyone knew the cunning tricks he used to remain hidden: at one time saying that they were his sisters, at another that he had taken them so that they would not communicate with the Church of Constantinople, lest they be defiled by heretical communion. But again, if his feasting ends, and he finds a place where he is not so well known, he does the same things for the sake of shameful gain and sordid pleasure. And it is a great disgrace, even to meet with him, for those who wish to live respectably and religiously. Then, after this, being asked if he had anathematized the Typos, he ^D fearlessly said: "Not only did I anathematize it, but I also wrote a document." "What then? Do you not confess that you have done wrong?" the lords say to him. And he says: "God forbid that I should say that what I did well, according to ecclesiastical law,

was wrong." And having been questioned about many other things, and having replied just as God had provided him the means, he is led out of the secretarium. ^B

XIII. *The hearing and constancy of Maximus.*—And they bring in the elder, and the lord Troilus says to him: "Speak, Abba, look, speak the truth, and the master will take pity on you. For if we come to a legal inquiry, and he finds even one thing true from those things of which you are accused, the law will put you to death." And I said: "I have already said, and I say it again: if even one thing out of what you say is true, then Satan is God. But if he is not God, but a deserter, then the crimes laid against me are false and baseless. Nevertheless, whatever you wish to do, do it. Serving God, I am not harmed by any injustice." And he says to him: "Did you not anathematize the *Typos*?" He answered: "I have said many times that I did anathematize it." He says to him: "You anathematized the *Typos*? You anathematized the Emperor." The servant of God answered: "I have not anathematized the Emperor, but a document alien to the orthodox and ecclesiastical faith." And he says to him: "Where was it anathematized?" "By the synod of Rome," he answered, "in the Church of the Savior and in [the Church of] the Theotokos." Then the prefect says to him: "Are you in communion with the local Church, or not?" He answered and said: "I am not in communion." He says to him: "Why?" He answered: "Because he has cast out the synods." And he said: "If he has cast out and sent away the synods, how are they mentioned in the diptychs?" And he says: "And what is the use of the names, when the dogmas have been cast out?" "And are you able," he said, "to show this?" And he said: "If I receive permission and you so command, this will be shown very easily." ^C And while they were silent, the sakellarios says to him: "Why do you love the Romans, but hate the Greeks?" The servant of God answered and said: "We have a command not to hate anyone. I love the Romans as having the same faith as I, and the Greeks as speaking the same language." And again the sakellarios says to him: "How many years old do you say you are?" He answered: "Seventy-five." And he says to him: "How many years has your disciple been with you?" He answered: "Thirty-seven." Then one of the clerics shouted: "May the Lord repay you for what you did to blessed Pyrrhus." To whom he replied nothing at all.

XIV. *The expulsion of Martin, by violence of the prince, is not a true and canonical deposition.*—But although so much was said in the secretarium, not one of the patriarchs spoke a word. And when the discussion turned to the Roman synod, Demosthenes shouts: "The synod is not ratified, since the one who convened it has been deposed." And the servant of God says: "He was not deposed, but expelled. What synodical and canonical proceeding has taken place concerning the acts that securely contains his deposition? But even if he were canonically deposed, this would not create a prejudice against those things which have been confirmed orthodoxly according to the prescription of divine canons: with which even the things written by the pope of holy memory, Theodore, agree." Hearing these things, Troilus the patrician says: "You do not know what you are saying, Abba; what is done, is done."

^A XV. The exile of Maximus and his disciple Anastasius. The council of the holy men and their miserable life. — These are, as much as memory retains, all the things that were set in motion and said; and this is the end to which the whole machination against them led, having dismissed the holy elder from the secretum into prison. On the morrow, which was the Lord’s day, those who earned their living in the ecclesiastical service held a council and persuaded the Emperor that these men should be condemned to this bitter and inhumane exile, divided from one another: the holy elder to Bizye, a fortress of the province of Thrace, and his disciple to Perberis, where the Roman empire does not even have a step of ground beyond, [leaving them] without provision, naked, unfed, and deprived of every means of living; not even approaching the sea, so that they might not have a visitation from those who show mercy. And thus they are naked and unfed, holding only the hope of God, beseeching all Christians and crying out this: "Pray through the Lord, that God may perfect His mercy with our lowliness, and teach us, [as] those who sail with Him, that they who experience an exasperated sea, with the vessel being shaken by winds and waves, yet remain unshaken. For He permits them to be caught by a great storm, testing their disposition toward Him, so that they may cry out with a great voice: 'Lord, save us, we are perishing!' ^B and that they may learn to attribute all things that concern their salvation to Him alone, and not be confident in themselves, and [thus] attain great tranquility, when the wind and the waves have been calmed. And He delivers them into the midst of wolves, and commands them to enter through the narrow gate, ^C and to walk through the constricted path; and He sets before them hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and bonds, and prisons, and exiles, and scourges, and the cross, and nails, and vinegar, and gall, and spittings, and slaps, and blows, and mockeries; and suffering, and deaths of various kinds: the end of which is the all-radiant resurrection, bringing with itself peace to those who have been persecuted for His sake, and joy to those who have struggled in hardship and evils for His sake; and the reception into the heavens, and that they may be admitted to the paternal and supersubstantial throne, and gain the blessed seats above every principality and power and virtue and dominion, and every name that is named, ^D whether in this age or in the age to come. May we all attain to this, through the prayers and intercessions of the all-praised and all-venerable and super-glorious [nature] truly the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, and of the holy apostles, prophets, and martyrs. Amen.

TO THE ABBOTT MAXIMUS, AMONG THE SAINTS, TO ANASTASIUS THE MONK.

^A Yesterday, the eighteenth day of the month, which was the holy feast of Mid-Pentecost, the patriarch signified to me, saying: "To which Church do you belong? To that of Constantinople, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, or Jerusalem? Behold, all these, with the provinces subject to them, have been joined in unity. If, therefore, you belong to the Catholic Church, be united, lest by innovating a strange path for your life, which is not hoped for, you should suffer what you are not expecting." To them I said: "God proclaimed the Catholic Church to be the right and saving confession of faith in Him, calling Peter blessed for having confessed Him well. But let me discern the confession upon which the unity of all the Churches has been established, and I will shrink from nothing that has been well done." And they say: "Although we have no command concerning this, we will speak, so that no excuse at all may remain for you. We declare two operations on account of the distinction, and one on account of the union." ^B "Do you assert that the two have become one on account of the union, or some other besides these?" I asked. "No," they say, "but the two are one on account of the union." "Then," said I, "the realities are taken away from us, who fashion for ourselves a faith without substance and a God that does not truly exist. For if we confound the two into one on account of the union, and again divide them into two on account of the distinction, there will be neither a singularity nor a duality of operations, but they will always be mutually destructive, and will render the nature in which they inhere devoid of all operation and utterly non-existent. For that which has no motion inalienable from its nature, and which is not altered or changed by any manner of variation, is, according to the true opinion of the Fathers, ^C devoid of all substance and truth, since it lacks the operation and power that substantially characterize it. This, indeed, I cannot say, nor have I learned from the holy Fathers to confess such a rule. Do what pleases you, since the power is with you." "Listen, therefore," they said. "It has been determined by the sovereign and the patriarch, by a mandate of the Pope of Rome, that you be anathematized if you do not obey, and suffer the death that they have decreed for you." "May that which was determined for me by God before every age receive its end, bringing glory to Him known before every age," I answered them, having heard this. And in order that you may know, and by way of adding prayer and supplication to God, I have made public to you what was declared, beseeching the Lord God, and those who are there with him

for the same cause, to make it known. ANASTASIUS.

These things he commanded me to transcribe and make known to your most holy selves, so that, having learned of the movement from these things, you may all offer up prayer to the Lord for our common mother (the Catholic Church, that is) and for us, your unworthy servants, for the strengthening of all, and of us also who persevere in her with you, according to the orthodox faith preached in her by the holy Fathers. For great is the fear held in the whole world, since she suffers persecution harmoniously from all; unless He who always provides aid should customarily grant His aid by His grace, leaving a seed of piety at least for elder Rome, and confirming His promise, which does not lie, delivered to the prince of the apostles.

Of the same holy Anastasius, disciple of the holy abbot Maximus, to the common college of monks established at Calaris.

^A Much writing, even beyond what was desired, the time has prohibited. But we make known to your most holy selves all things in one word. Those who are of the other party, by an immovable definition, as it is, and one most properly of their own profession, have decided not to maintain the paternal doctrine: but they are driven by alternating opinions, which it is laborious to list besides. Therefore, they have now been moved from "in-existence" to absurdity—that is, from the fact that they do not say "one" or "two," they have been led astray to proclaim "two and one," that is, three, in one and the same Christ, wills and operations: which neither patristic, nor synodical, nor physical discourse has decreed; nor has the madness of the ancients, and subsequently of the heretics, reached so far; knowing the opinion to be empty, as though corrupted by its own vice. For if diverse properties, derived from diverse substances, naturally characterize the composite, as though the diversity of natures were in no way taken away on account of their union, but rather with the property of each nature preserved, and converging into one person and one subsistence, just as the holy Synod of Chalcedon says, and he, the same God from God the Father, and man from man of the ever-Virgin Mother, is known to be born according to his nature, although incorporeally and without cause; while corporally for this cause, namely our salvation; how is it possible, for one and the same person—that is, for one and the same Christ our Lord and God—to be naturally figured above two, and [above] another property according to their own view, for the certainty of those out of whom, and in whom, and ^B what they are? For if the same things are believed to exist also through another, that is, through a third, which is also through duality, his wills and operations, which are according to nature, it is necessary that their indivisibility be recognized by the identity of their manifestation of existence, and that there be one and the same thing in two, that is, three in each other, whether natural or substantial. But not natural, according to them, but subsistential: and on this account they gather either that he is now against himself, or that there are three substances, or as many subsistences, and according to him properties of equal number, namely uncreated and created, and neutral, that is, in-existent. For it is in-existent which is shared by neither by nature, so that even by identity, which belongs to it—that is, it is third—according to them, there may be both two natures, and his natural wills and operations. But if it is not the same, but another, except for those things out of which he is to be believed, they say that therein, through a third, they again bring forward the same in-existence, as one who stands in the middle between the two, and exists as neither of them; of course, an uncreated substance and power, and a created one. For they either wish this to be subsistential, or composite, or God-manly, or unitary on account of the uniting. For not only, as we have said, do they introduce this as not existing, which characterizes him according to none of those things out of which [his] nature is, but they also render him an outsider to the natural kinship which he has with God and the Father. For it is less to be said, because they maintain that he is also alien to the connatural property which he has towards the undefiled Mother and Virgin, as if he had it according to neither of these. ^D

^A composite or subsistential, or deific, or unitorial, his own will and operation. For he possesses the Father’s as uncompounded, beginningless, substantial, and divine; but the Mother’s as created and human. Furthermore, they infer the divided natures from which he himself is; and these, by operation and not by subsistence united to themselves—if they dogmatize one operation on account of the union—become known. Those who are corrupted in [their understanding of] the division say this, fabulously feigning that this operation is affective. Yet by thus giving place to confusion, and wrongly interpreting the deific operation according to Severus, they contend that it signifies one, and not two, according to the union—the divine and the human nature—and by this they introduce to themselves a certain nature of a God-man, but not a man made God. ^B Especially since even the truly divinely-manifesting Dionysius, foreseeing this, did not call it one, but said that he [Christ] conversed with us by a certain new deific operation: showing that the one is not separated from the other, but that both are connaturalized through each other and in each other, bringing forth certitude in those from whom he is, and in whom he is, and what he was. And, to speak paternally, with the communion of the other of these, [he possesses] each. So that [(b)] the marvelous sufferings are indeed recognized, and the miraculous deeds are beyond doubt recognized as passible, through the entire adaptation of those things which were naturally performed by him. For all things are double, and all things are united, in him who is of double nature—these things which are according to nature, [declare] the preachers ^C of God and our Fathers. To whom, as has been said, being unwilling to correct their own discourse, they further compelled [us] to consent to the proper sect of elder Rome.

Volume II

Of our Holy Father Maximus the Confessor:

I. ^D That which has been moved concerning our immaculate Christian faith, and the novelty of contrary things surreptitiously introduced, between the abbot Maximus and Theodosius, bishop of Caesarea in Bithynia, I have deemed necessary to make known to you all who hold to the sense of the right faith, that when you have come to know these things more certainly, you may glorify more and more the most benign God, who gives the word in the opening of the mouth to those who fear him: 17

17 Ephes. vi, 19.

^A lest, according to their custom, the enemies of the truth, disseminating things contrary to it, trouble your hearts.

II. Therefore, on the twenty-fourth of the month of August of the current fourteenth indiction, the aforementioned Bishop Theodosius came to him in the exile where he was being kept—namely, in the castle of Bizye—having been sent, as he said, on behalf of the prelate of Constantinople; as also the consuls Paul and Theodosius, having themselves been sent, as they also said, on behalf of the Emperor. Arriving at the aforementioned Abbot Maximus, in the place where he was confined, they sat down and permitted him also to sit, the Bishop of Bizye being, as is evident, present with them. And Bishop Theodosius says to him: "How are you, Lord Abbot?" MAX. "As God preordained my providential course of life before all ages, so I am." THEOD. "What then? Did God preordain before every age what would happen to each of us?" MAX. "If he foreknew, he altogether preordained." ^B THEOD. "What does this 'he foreknew and preordained' signify?" MAX. "Prescience concerns the thoughts, words, and works that are within our power; but predestination concerns the things that happen to us, which are not in our power." THEOD. "Which things are those in our power, and which are not?" MAX. "As it seems, my lord knows all things, yet he discourses with his servant by way of testing." THEOD. "By the truth of God, I asked in ignorance, and with the desire to learn the difference between what is and what is not in our power, and how some things fall under God's prescience, while others fall under his predestination." MAX. "In our power are all voluntary things, that is, virtues and vices; but not in our power are the incursions of things that happen to us, or their opposites. For ^C neither is the disease that afflicts us in our power, nor the health that gladdens us, nor the qualities and causes of these. For cause of disease is disorder, just as health's cause is order; and the cause of the kingdom of heaven is the keeping of the commandments, just as the transgression of them is the cause of eternal fire." THEOD. "What then? Is it for this reason that you are afflicted in this exile, because you did something worthy of this affliction?" MAX. "I pray that God may limit by this affliction the punishments of what I have failed in against Him through the transgression of His just commandments." THEOD. "Is not affliction brought upon many for the sake of probation?" MAX. "The probation of the saints is so that, through the affliction and the evils brought upon them, their disposition toward that which is naturally good might become known to the life of mortals, and with it, virtues unknown to all might shine forth together, as happened in the case of Job and Joseph. For the former was tested for a manifestation of his hidden fortitude; the latter was tested for the proclamation of his sanctifying temperance; and every one of the saints, being involuntarily ^D afflicted in this present age, was afflicted for such dispensations as these, so that through the weakness allowed to be imposed upon them, they might tread underfoot the proud and apostate dragon, that is, the devil. [xlvi] For one was tempted so that his hidden fortitude might shine—

as an example of holiness, and another was proved so that he might bring back the celebrated praise of chastity. And whoever among the saints in this life has been liable to those evils which are not of the will, there was some dispensation for the cause that he should be liable to them; so that, through the infirmity which God allowed to happen to them, or even of which He Himself was the author to them, they might tread underfoot the proud and apostate dragon; namely, the devil. For patience is the work of testing in every one of the saints. ^A THEOD. By the truth of God, you have spoken well; and I confess that I am well disposed, and I was always seeking to confer with you in such matters. But because it is for another matter that I and my lords, the future patricians, have come to you, and have traversed such distances, we ask you to receive what is to be proposed by us, and to make joy for the whole world. MAX. What is this, master? And who am I, and whence am I, that if I give my assent to what is proposed to me, I should make joy for the whole world? THEOD. By the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ, what I am about to tell you, I and my lords, the future patricians, have heard from the mouth of our master, the patriarch, and of the pious Ruler of the world. MAX. I entreat you, my lords, say what you wish, and what you have heard. ^B

III. THEOD. The emperor and the patriarch ask through us to know from you for what reason you do not communicate with the throne of Constantinople. MAX. Do you have a written mandate for this from the most pious emperor or from the patriarch? THEOD. You should not have, master, withheld your trust from us. For although I am humble and lowly, yet I am called a bishop, and these my lords are part of the senate; and we did not come to test you—God forbid! MAX. In whatever manner and for whatever reason you have come to your servant, I, without any shilly-shallying, will reveal the reason for which I do not communicate with the throne of Constantinople. But although it was for others to ask me the reason for this matter, it is certainly not for you, who know the reason more surely than I do.

IV. You know what novelties were made from the sixth indiction of the past cycle, ^C begun at Alexandria through the nine chapters promulgated by Cyrus, who I know not by what means became the prelate of that place, which were confirmed by the throne of Constantinople; and the other alterations, additions, and subtractions made synodically by those who have presided over the Church of the Byzantines, I mean Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paul; which novelties the whole world knows well. This is the reason why I, your servant, do not communicate with the Church of Constantinople. Let the stumbling blocks placed by the men of whom I spoke be removed, together with those very men who placed them, just as God says: "Remove the stones from the way," and let the path of the Gospel be plain and beaten, and free from all the thorny perversity of heresy, just as I found it, ^D and I will walk in it, without any human urging. But so long as the prelates of Constantinople glory in these very stumbling blocks that have been placed, and in those who placed them, there can be no

with the stumbling blocks placed, and the officials of Constantinople are glorified by those who have placed them, there is no argument or method that convinces me to share communion with them. ^A

V. THEOD. What evil indeed do we confess, such that you would separate yourself from our communion? MAX. Because, by declaring one operation of the deity and humanity of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, you confuse the doctrine of theology and the economy (that is, of the triune God and the incarnate Christ). For if one must believe the holy Fathers, they say, "Of whom the operation is one, of them the essence is also one"; you make the holy Trinity a quaternity, by [claiming] that which is of the same nature as the Word has become his flesh, and has departed from the identity of nature that is cognate to us and to his Mother who bore him. ^B

VI. And again: You who abolish the operations and confirm one will of the deity and the humanity of the same [Christ], you take away from him the distribution of good things. For if he has no operation, according to those who have ordained this, it is clear that even if he wishes to show mercy, he cannot, since the operation of good things has been taken away from him, given that without such an operation, nothing that exists is framed to work or act.

VII. Furthermore, you make the flesh, along with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, a co-creator of all the ages and of the things that are in them; yet you posit it as created by nature, or (what is more truthful to say) as devoid of a beginning by the will—since the divine will is devoid of a beginning, as it pertains to the deity, which has no beginning—and yet recent by nature; which transcends not merely all folly, but all impiety. ^C For you do not say there is just one will simply, but that this [will] is also divine. But no one can conceive of a temporal beginning or end for a divine will, since it is not even [conceived] for the divine nature, whose essential will it is. But no sane mind would ascribe this end to the divine nature.

VIII. But again you introduce another novelty: namely, you take away all the signs that distinguish and constitute, or exhibit and represent, the deity and humanity of Christ, ordaining by laws and types that neither one nor two wills or operations should be spoken of regarding him; which is [characteristic] of a thing that has no real existence. For nothing of those things that exist, whether it be intelligent, is devoid of the power of will and operation; or whether it be sentient, [devoid] of the operation of sensing; or ^D vegetative, of the operation of growing and nourishing; or entirely inanimate and devoid of all life, of what is called operation by habit and aptitude. And all things that are thus demonstrate that they are susceptible to being perceived by the senses of those that live by sense. For the operation of such things consists in being subjected to actions: to sight, through external appearance; to hearing, through sound; to smell, through a certain appropriate exhalation and vapor; to taste, through certain flavors; and to touch, through the qualities [of matter] that create a certain resistance. For just as we call the act of seeing an operation of vision, so also we call the being seen an operation of the things seen. And all other things we observe occurring in the same manner. If, therefore, nothing of those things that exist is completely devoid of every natural operation.

But our Lord and God (may You be propitious, O Lord) ^A possesses no natural will or operation according to either of those things from which, in which, and as which He is; how can you be, or be called, religious, saying that He whom we worship possesses in no way any faculty of willing or acting? For we are clearly instructed by the holy Fathers, who say: "For that which has no power, neither is, nor is anything, nor is there any affirmation of it whatsoever."

^B IX. THEOD. Do not take what was done for the sake of dispensation as a fixed dogma. MAX. If it is not a fixed dogma for those who accept it, why did you, by the type and law that were laid down—ordaining that no will or operation of the Lord be spoken of, the removal of which implies the non-existence of Him from whom these are removed—hand me over without honor to barbarian and godless nations? For what reason was I condemned to dwell in Bizya, and my fellow servants, one in Perberis and the other in Mesembria? THEOD. By the God who is to judge me, both when it was made I said, and now I say the same thing, that the Type was poorly fashioned and to the detriment of many. The pretext for its being published was the contention among the Orthodox themselves concerning wills and operations; and in order that all might be at peace with one another, some deemed it worthwhile that such expressions be silenced. MAX. And what believer accepts a "dispensation" that silences expressions which the God of all ^C ordained to be spoken through apostles, prophets, and teachers? And let us consider, great Lord, into what evil this matter we are discussing falls. For if God set in the Church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, having said in the Gospel to the apostles, and through them also to those who are their successors: "What I say to you, I say to all," and again, "He who receives you, receives me; and he who rejects you, rejects me," it is manifest and plain that he who does not receive the apostles, prophets, and teachers, but rejects their voices, rejects Christ Himself.

^D X. Let us also consider another point. God, having chosen, raised up apostles, prophets, and teachers for the perfecting of the saints; but the devil, having chosen, raised up false apostles, false prophets, and false teachers against piety, so that he might attack both the old law and the evangelical. Now by false apostles, false prophets, and false teachers, I mean only the heretics, whose doctrines, discourses, and reasonings are perverse. Just as, therefore, he who receives the true apostles and prophets,

and teachers, receives God; so also he who receives the pseudo-apostles, and pseudo-prophets, and pseudo-teachers, receives the devil. He, therefore, who casts out the saints along with the ^A wicked and impure heretics (receive me, for I speak the truth), has clearly condemned God together with the devil.

XI. Since, therefore, in examining the innovations which have occurred in our own times, we find that they have reached this ultimate evil, see to it that, under the pretext of peace, we may not be found suffering from the apostasy, and preaching what the divine Apostle said would precede the coming of the Antichrist. I have said these things to you with confidence, that you might be like us and spare both yourselves and us. Do you order that I, having these things written in the book of my heart, should come to communicate in the Church in which these things are ^B preached; and should I become a participant of those who, while they profess to cast out the devil along with God, in truth cast out God? May it not happen to me by the grace of God, who for my sake became, except for sin, what I am. And bending his knee [to pray], he said: "Whatever it pleases you to do to your servant, do it; as for me, I will never be a communicant with those who accept these things."

XII. They grew rigid at this firmness of his words, and, with faces bowed down, they remained silent for a considerable time. Then raising his head and fixing his eyes upon the abbot Maximus, ^C Theodosius the bishop said: "We affirm before our lord the Emperor that, if you communicate, the Typus will be removed." MAX. We are still very far from one another; it matters little to us. What shall we do regarding the declaration confirmed synodically by Sergius and Pyrrhus, of one will, for the purpose of eliminating every operation? THEOD. That chart has been taken down and rejected. MAX. It has been taken down from the stone walls, but not from souls and minds. Let them accept the condemnation of these things which was set forth synodically at Rome through pious dogmas and canons, and the dividing wall is removed, and we shall have no need of exhortation. THEOD. That synod which was held at Rome ^D had no authority, as it was held without the order of the Emperor. MAX. If the orders of emperors confirm the synods that have been held, and not the pious faith, then let them also accept the synods held against the consubstantial [doctrine], since they were held by the order of emperors, namely, that at Tyre, that at Antioch, that at Seleucia, that at Constantinople under Eudoxius the Arian, that at Nicaea in Thrace, and that at Sirmium; and after these, many years later, that at Ephesus, in the second instance, over which Dioscorus presided. For the order of emperors gathered all these, and yet all were condemned because they impiously confirmed wicked dogmas. Why, then, do you not cast out that [synod] which deposed Paul of Samosata in the time of the holy and blessed...

^A Fathers, Dionysius, Pope of Rome, and Dionysius of Alexandria, and Gregory the Wonderworker, who presided over that same synod, since it did not happen by the order of an emperor? And what canon declares that only those synods are to be approved which were gathered by the order of an emperor, or that all synods must be gathered by the order of an emperor? The pious rule of the Church knows those to be holy and approved synods which the correctness of their dogmas has judged to be so. But, as my lord knows and teaches others, the canon decrees that a synod be held twice a year throughout every province, with no mention of imperial order, for the protection of our saving faith and for the correction of all matters that do not conform to the divine law of the Church.

XIII. THEOD. It is as you say; the correctness of dogmas approves the synods and lends them strength. Nevertheless, do you not receive the libellus of Menas, in which he taught one will and one operation of Christ? MAX. May the Lord God forbid! You do not receive, but rather cast out, all the teachers who, after the holy council at Chalcedon, contended against the detestable heresy of Severus; and am I to receive the libellus of Menas, which was produced after that council, by which he openly patronizes Severus, and Apollinarius, and Macedonius, and Arius, and every heresy, and disparages the synod; or rather, completely rejects it through the things he dogmatized? THEOD. What then? Do you in no way admit one operation? MAX. And who of the approved Fathers speaks of one operation? And Theodosius brought forward the things that are circulated as spurious in their name—the testimonies of the holy Julius of Rome, Gregory the Wonderworker, and Athanasius—and read them. MAX. Let us fear God, I pray, and not wish to provoke Him to anger by the production of heretical testimonies. For there is no one who does not know that these belong to the impious Apollinarius. Therefore, if perhaps you have others, show them; for by bringing these forward, you convince everyone all the more that you are truly suffering from the error and wicked opinion of the impious Apollinarius and his associates. ^B And the same Bishop Theodosius brought forward two testimonies in the name of Chrysostom; when they had been read, the abbot Maximus said: These belong to Nestorius, who insanely dogmatized two persons in Christ. And immediately boiling with rage, Theodosius the bishop said: O monk, Satan has spoken through your unbridled mouth. MAX. Let not my lord be saddened against his servant. And taking them, he immediately showed him that these same words belonged to Nestorius, and in which of his books they were situated. THEOD. God knows, brother, that the patriarch gave these testimonies to me; but look, you have said that some of these belong to Apollinarius, and others to Nestorius. And having brought forward the testimony of Saint Cyril, which says: "One and kindred," demonstrating the operation through both; he said: What to

these things do you say? MAX. There are some ^A who show that it was in truth placed there by addition by Timothy Aelurus, in the exposition of the Gospel, which was compiled from this holy Father. But let it be, as you suppose, that this is truly his opinion. Let us then examine the sense of the paternal utterances, and we shall know the truth. THEOD. I do not allow this to happen; for you must of necessity receive the words simply. MAX. Tell me, I pray you, what is the difference between simple words and those that are complex? THEOD. So that you may receive the word as it is, and not investigate its sense. MAX. You are obviously introducing new laws, foreign to the Church, even regarding the words themselves. If, as you authorize, we ought not to search the words of the Scriptures and of the Fathers, we must reject all the Scripture of both the Old and the New Testament. For we heard David saying: *Blessed are they that search out his testimonies, and with their whole heart shall seek him* (Ps. cxviii, 2); as if no one can seek out God without searching. And again: *Give me understanding, and I will search out thy law, and I will keep it with my ^B whole heart* (Ps. cxviii, 34); as if the searching leads to the knowledge of the law, and the knowledge, thereupon persuading the worthy, leads them to keep it in their heart through the fulfillment of the holy commandments laid down therein. And again: *Thy testimonies are wonderful, therefore hath my soul searched them out* (Ps. cxviii, 129). And why does the proverbial saying command us to search out parables and riddles and dark sayings? (Prov. i, 6). And why does the Lord, speaking in parables, wish his disciples to understand, teaching them the sense of the parables? (Matt. xiii, 18; Luc. viii, 10). And why does He command, *Search the Scriptures* (John v, 39), as they are those which bear witness of Him? And what does the chief of the apostles, Peter, wish to teach, saying: *Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently* (1 Pet. i, 10)? And what of Paul, the divine apostle, saying: *If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them* (2 Cor. iv, 3)? As it seems, you wish us to be like the Jews, who, with simple words, as you call them—that is to say, with the letter alone—having, as it were, buried the mind in some heap of refuse, have fallen away from the truth, having a veil over their hearts so as not to understand the Lord the Spirit, who is hidden in the letter, of whom He says: *The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life* (2 Cor. iii, 6). Let my master be assured that I will never suffer ^C myself to receive a word without the sense contained within it, that I may not appear a manifest Jew.

XIV. The Question of the One Personal Will

XIV. Having heard this, Theodosius said: We ought to say that there is one personal will of Christ. MAX. Let us consider the evil that arises from this, and let us flee this strange word; for it belongs only to heretics who introduce many gods. For if we say that the one operation of Christ is personal, ^D

^A and happens to the Son according to his hypostasis in relation to the Father and the Spirit, it is clear that it does not do so according to hypostatic operation; rather, we are compelled, just as to the Son, so also to the Father and the Spirit, to assign hypostatic operations. And according to your view, the blessed Godhead will have four operations: three distinguishing the persons in whom it exists, and one common, signifying the natural commonality of the three hypostases; and according to the Fathers, if we accept their teaching, we shall succumb to the disease of quaternity. For they declare that every operation is natural, and not hypostatic. And if this is true, as indeed it is, we shall be shown to be saying that there are four natures and four gods, differing from one another in hypostasis and nature. ^B But who has ever seen or conceived of an individual operation belonging to any of those things which are brought under a species and arranged by nature under the common definition of the species? For what is common by nature never becomes the property of one single individual. For hypostatic marks—such as a hooked nose or a snub nose, or eyes of a certain color, or baldness, and whatever things of this kind there are—are distinguishing accidents, which are distinguished from one another by number. For every man, as a "what" by nature, not as a "who" by hypostasis, is naturally capable of operating according to the categorical definition that is most specifically and commonly understood and spoken of—such as animal, rational, mortal—which is our human universal and generic definition. For we all partake of the same life, the same rationality, and the same flux and reflux, and the sitting and standing, and the speaking and the being silent, and the seeing and the hearing and the touching: which are things of the common definition understood in us. Therefore, one must not introduce new terms which have no strength from Scripture, or from the Fathers, or from nature, but are something foreign and invented by the perverse pursuits of men. ^C But show me this term existing in any Father, and we shall again inquire into the meaning of him who said it.

XV. THEOD. What then? Should one not say at all that there is one operation in Christ? MAX. From holy Scripture and the holy Fathers, we have not received to say any such thing; but just as we have been commanded to believe and confess two natures in Christ, from which he is, so also his natural wills and operations, in accordance with the reason of him who is simultaneously by nature God and man in one and the same person. THEOD. Certainly, master, we also confess both the natures and the distinct operations, that is to say, the divine and the human; and his deity endowed with the faculty of will, and likewise his humanity endowed with will; since his soul was not without will. ^D Yet we do not say "two" [wills], so that we may not introduce him as fighting against himself. MAX. What then? By saying "two natures," do you introduce them as fighting against one another because they are counted by number? THEOD. No. MAX. What then? Does the number, when predicated of natures, not divide; but when spoken of wills and operations, does it have the power of division? THEOD. Certainly the Fathers, in the case of wills and

operations have not spoken of division, but have said "one and another," both divine and human, and dual and twofold: and as they have said, I say; and thus I speak as they have spoken.

^A XVI. MAX. By the Lord, if someone were to say to you, "One and another," how many do you understand? Or, "divine and human," how many do you understand? Or, "dual and twofold," how many do you understand? THEOD. I know how I understand them, but I do not say "two." Then Abbot Maximus, turning to the judges, said: By the Lord, when you hear "one and one," or "one and another," or "twice two," or "twice five," what do you understand when you answer those who speak? And they said: Because you have adjured us, by "one and one" we understand two; and by "one and another" we understand two; and by "twice two" we understand four; and likewise by "twice five" we understand ten. And Theodosius, as if shamed by their answer, said: What has not been said by the Fathers, I do not say. And Abbot Maximus immediately took the book of the acts of the holy apostolic synod and showed that the holy Fathers explicitly stated the two wills and operations of our Saviour and God, Jesus Christ. And Theodosius the consul, taking the book of the Acts from him, read all the authorities of the Fathers himself; and then ^B Theodosius the bishop, responding, said: God knows, if this synod had not personally uttered the anathema, I would have received it with more eagerness than any man; but that we may not waste time here, whatever the Fathers have said, I say, and I will immediately commit it to writing: two natures, two wills, and two operations. Only come in and communicate with us, and let there be union.

XVII. MAX. Lord, I do not dare, being a mere monk, to receive consent from you in writing on a matter of this kind. But if God has moved you to repentance, so that you accept the voices of the holy Fathers, as the ecclesiastical rule requires, send a suggestion in writing regarding this to the Roman pontiff; that is to say, the emperor, and the patriarch, and the synod under him. For, even if these things are done, I will not communicate ^C as long as those who have been struck by anathema are commemorated during the holy offering of the faithful. For I fear the condemnation of the anathema. THEOD. God knows, I do not blame you for fearing, nor does any other person. But give us counsel, by the Lord, if it is possible for this to be done. MAX. What counsel can I give you on this? Go, examine whether such a thing has ever happened, and whether after death anyone has been absolved of a charge relating to the faith, and of the condemnation brought against him; and may it please the emperor and the patriarch to imitate ^D the divine condescension toward our situation; and let them perform, the one a supplicatory mandate, and the other a synodical entreaty to the Pope of Rome; and surely, if an ecclesiastical way can be found, this will be for you concerning the correct confession of the faith, and will be reconciled for you together.

XVIII. THEOD. It shall certainly be done as you say: but pledge your faith to me that you will come with me if it should happen that I am sent. MAX. Lord, it is better for you to take my fellow servant, who is from Mesembria, with you instead of me; for he knows the language, and they will justly revere him, as he has endured hardships and evils for so many years for the sake of God and the correct faith which flourishes in Rome. THEOD. We have various disputes between us, and therefore I am not willing to undertake a journey with him. MAX. Lord, since it has seemed good ^B that this should happen, let what has been determined reach its conclusion; and I will follow you wherever you order. And with these words, they all arose with joy and tears, and having bent their knees, they prostrated themselves in prayer; and each of them kissed the holy Gospels, and the precious cross, and the image of God and our Savior Jesus Christ, and of our most holy Lady who gave birth to him, the Mother of God, having also placed their own hands to confirm the things that had been spoken.

XIX. Then, when they had conversed little among themselves about the life to be led piously and religiously, and had discussed the keeping of the divine commandments, Theodosius the bishop turned to Maximus the abbot and said: Behold, all scandals are resolved and removed, and peace has been made under the auspices of God; but by God, do not hide from me, do you finally say in any manner that there is one will and one operation in Christ? MAX. It is not possible for me to say this ever. And I say the reason: because the expression is unheard of to the holy Fathers and foreign to them, to speak of one will and operation of two natures. Furthermore, whoever says this directly encounters the absurdity that opposes him. For if I say it is natural, I fear confusion. Second, if I call it personal, I divide the Son from the Father and the Spirit, and I will appear to be introducing three wills that do not agree with one another, just as the persons do; ^C if I call it the one will and operation as of one, I am forced, whether I like it or not, to call it the will and operation as of one Father, and as of one Spirit, and the doctrine will be found to be departing so far as to impiously posit several gods. But if I call it habitual and placed in the affect, I introduce the personal division of Nestorius; but if finally I call it unnatural and contrary to nature, I destroy the existence and substance of the one willing. For the destruction and corruption of that which is according to nature is that which is contrary to nature, just as the Fathers have said.

XX. THEOD. We ought clearly and entirely to speak of one will because of the union of our Savior, just as Sergius and Pyrrhus, I think, having understood well, have written. MAX. If you allow it, Lord, receive two words from me regarding this. If because of the union one will of God and our Savior has come to be, as Sergius, and Pyrrhus, and Paul have written, the Son will be, according to their opinion, of a different will from the Father; for if it is one because of the nature, but not because of the union, one according to the

nature, but not according to the union, just as the Son possesses a ^A will; for union and nature are not the same thing. Second, if, because of the union, one will of our Savior has been produced, as those authors hold, it will certainly have the union as its cause, and not either of the natures from which it exists; and their opinion is manifest, that the will is one of affection or of love and relationship, and not at all of nature. For the word of truth recognizes the union as an affection and a relation or habitude, not as a nature. Third, if, because of the union, as they confessed, one will of our Savior has been produced, by what will, pray tell, do they say the union itself was brought about? For they cannot say that it was brought about by the very thing which was produced through it, if they are at all concerned for the truth and wish to avoid what is absurd. Fourth, if, because of the union, one will of the Savior has been produced, it is clearly evident that before the union He was either endowed with a multiple will, or was entirely devoid of will. And if indeed He was endowed with a multiple will, through being contracted into one will, He suffered the loss of wills; and clearly He incurred the stain of change, by the loss of the multiple will that was inherent by nature. But if He was entirely devoid of will, then He shows that the union was superior to nature, since from it He procured the will, which nature had failed to provide; and again, He showed Himself to be mutable, having acquired through a relation that which was not present to Him by nature. If, because of the union, one will of our Savior has been produced in respect of one of the ^B natures from which He is, then God became a recent being in His will, while the same Being remains eternal by nature because of the union, and man without beginning in His will, remaining recent by nature—which is impossible, not to say impious. Sixth, if, because of the union, one will of the natures has been produced, what reason is there why, for the same cause, one nature of the natures has not been produced?

XXI. Among these things, Theodosius the bishop, having interrupted the course of the discourse and broken it off, said: What, therefore, has been brought about because of the union, if none of these things has been brought about because of it? MAX. It manifested that the One who is by nature God, being devoid of meat, truly became incarnate; and the Creator and Maker of all things it clearly presented as having become man by nature, not by a mutation of nature or the diminution of anything natural, but by the true assumption of flesh enlivened by an intellect—that is, entire humanity, clean from every ancestral and natural fault. And through this rationale of perichoresis and reciprocation (a thing truly wondrous and astonishing to all!), God is entirely ^C in human things, while He remains the same, entirely and integrally, in His own; and man is entirely in divine things, while He Himself remains the same, integrally, with no loss of those things that are His own. For the perichoresis of the natures and of the natural properties inherent in them, according to the teaching of our divinely-speaking Fathers, was brought about through the union, but not a migration or diminution caused by the union—which is peculiar to those who wickedly make confusion of the union, and because of this, in many ways, become entangled in innovations, and because of the lack of stability in their own logic, persecute the pious. ^D

^A XXII. Upon hearing this, Bishop Theodosius, together with the others who had come with him, seemed to accept what had been said. And again the same bishop said to Abbot Maximus: "I beseech you, tell me, what is this that you have said to us, that no one acts as a 'who' in terms of person, but as a 'what' in terms of nature?" For the significance of his statement occurred to me as I pondered it. MAXIMUS: "No one acts as a 'who' in terms of person, but as a 'what' in terms of nature. For example: Peter and Paul act, but not by the logic of Peter or Paul, but by the logic of man (for both are men by nature, in accordance with the common and definitional logic of their nature), and not by a personal difference and its quality. Likewise, Michael and Gabriel act, but not by the logic of Michael or Gabriel, but by that of an angel; for both are angels. And thus, in regard to every nature that is predicated of a multitude in number, we observe a common, and not a private, activity. Therefore, he who speaks of a personal activity introduces the nature itself, which is one, as having infinite activities, and as being divided from itself according to the multitude of individuals that are brought under it. If we admit that this holds true, we destroy the mode of existence proper to every nature."

^C XXIII. And with these things said, as they gave one another greetings and said farewell, Theodosius the consul said: "Behold, all things have gone well; do you think the emperor will consent to issue a supplicatory command?" MAXIMUS: "He will certainly do so, if he wishes to be an imitator of God and to be humbled together with Him for the sake of the common salvation of us all; reflecting in his mind that if God, ^D who is Saviour by nature, did not bring salvation until He was voluntarily humbled, how shall man, who by nature is in need of salvation, either attain salvation or provide it to others, unless he is humbled?" And Theodosius the consul said: "I hope, with God preserving the memory for me, that I shall say this very reasoning to him, and induce him to acquiesce and act accordingly." With these things, they embraced one another and departed in peace, the bishop having given to Abbot Maximus a small amount of money and a stipend that had been sent to him, as well as a tunic and a shirt. The Bishop of Bizya took the tunic immediately at that very hour; but in Rhegium, they took away not only the sum of money given to him, but also whatever else he happened to have from the beneficence of some, along with the rest of his wretched belongings and clothes.

XXIV. But after the aforementioned men had departed, on the eighth of the month of September of the current fifteenth indiction, Paul the consul went out again to Bizya to Abbot Maximus, carrying a command of about this tenor: "We command your excellency to go to Bizya, and to bring Maximus the monk with great honor and flattery, both on account of his old age and failing strength, and because he seemed to be a friend, along with the rest of his wretched belongings.

And that he should place him in the venerable monastery of Saint Theodore, which is situated near Rhegium; and that he should come and inform us. And we shall send from our presence two patricians who are to discuss with him those matters which they have received from us in their instructions; men, that is to say, who love us from the heart, and are most dear to us: and that you should come and announce to us his arrival. The consul, therefore, having taken him and placed him in the aforementioned monastery, departed to give his report.

^B XXV. On the following day, the patricians Epiphanius and Troilus came to him with much pomp and display, and along with them the bishop Theodosius; and they went up to him in the catechumenium of the church of that same monastery. After the customary salutation had taken place, they sat down, compelling him also to sit. Troilus began the discourse toward him, saying: "Our Master has ordered us to come to you and to speak to you of those things which have seemed good to his God-protected majesty. But tell us first: will you carry out the emperor's command, or will you not?" ^C Maximus said: "My lord, I shall hear what his pious majesty has ordered, and I shall answer in accordance with my duty and as is fitting. For to that which is unknown, what kind of answer can I give?" Troilus insisted, saying: "It is impossible for us to speak of anything unless you first say whether or not you will do what the emperor has commanded." When he saw them persisting, and that they were looking at him more bitterly because of his hesitation, and answering more harshly in the presence of all those with them—men who were illustrious in secular service and adorned with dignities—Abbot Maximus, responding, said: ^D "Since you cannot endure to tell your servant what has seemed good to our Master and Emperor, behold, I say, with God and the holy angels and all of you as witnesses, that whatever he commands me concerning any matter whatsoever that is to be destroyed and perish with this world, I shall promptly and sincerely do." And Troilus immediately rising, said: "Pray for me; I am leaving—for this man is going to do nothing." A great and intense clamor having arisen, with much disturbance and confusion, the bishop Theodosius said to them: "Tell him the answer, and know what he is going to say. For to depart in this way, with no word having been given or received, is not sufficiently fitting or reasonable." Then the patrician Epiphanius said: "The emperor signifies this to you through us, saying: 'Since all the West, and those who are perverted in the East, look to you, and all are stirred by factions on your account, not wishing to come to an agreement with us regarding the matter of the faith, may God move you to communicate with us upon the 'Typos' which has been set forth by us. And we shall go forth ourselves to the Chalcê, and we will give you our greetings, and we will lay our hand upon you, and with all honor and glory we shall lead you into the great Church, and we shall place you with us where the emperors are accustomed to stand, and we shall perform the synaxis together, and we shall communicate together of the spotless and

mysteries of the life-giving body and blood of Christ; and we shall proclaim you our Father, and joy will come not only to our Christ-loving and imperial city, but also to the whole world. For we know certainly that when you have communion with the holy see here, all who because of you and your teaching have severed themselves from our communion will be united with us.

XXVI. And, turning to the bishop, the abbot Maximus said to him with tears: Great Lord, we are all expecting the day of judgment. You know those things which were decreed and agreed upon before the holy Gospels and the life-giving Cross, and the image of God and our Savior, and of His most holy ever-virgin Mother who bore Him. And the bishop, casting his face down to the ground, says to him in a sadder ^B voice: And what can I do, since it has pleased the most pious emperor otherwise? To whom abbot Maximus replied: What reason was there, then, that you yourself, along with those who were with you, should touch the holy Gospels, when you did not have in your power the means to ensure that what had been stated would be ratified and the agreements would have their effect? Truly, not even all the Virtues of the heavens could persuade me to do this. For what sort of account shall I give, I do not say to God, but to my own conscience, if, for the sake of human glory—a thing, naturally, which has no power of being, [but] is an empty thing and of no use—I renounce the faith by which its worshipers obtain salvation?

XXVII. At this speech they arose; and all, driven by fury, by pulling, striking, and blows with their elbows and ^C fists, they broke his strength, covering him from head to toe with spittle; and until the garments he was wearing were washed of their filth, the stench exhaled from them for a long distance. And the bishop, rising, said: This should not have been done; but rather his answer should only have been heard, and then one should have gone and reported it to our most benign sovereign. For canonical matters are managed in a different way. And the bishop, having with difficulty persuaded them to be quiet, they sat down again, and after mocking him with many insults and terrible curses, Epiphanius said with fury and harshness: Tell us, you most wicked glutton, as if you consider us and our city, and the emperor, to be in the number of heretics, did you speak these words? We are truly better Christians and orthodox ^D than you are; and we confess that our Lord and God possesses both a divine and a human will, and an intelligent soul; and that every intelligent nature has from its nature the ability to will and to act, since movement is a property of life, and will is a property of the mind. And we know Him to be endowed with will, not by divinity only, but also by humanity. But we do not deny His two wills and operations. Nay, we do not deny his two wills and operations.

^A And the Abbot Maximus, answering, said: "If you believe as the angelic natures and the Church of God believe, why do you compel me to communicate in the Type, which has been set forth solely to destroy these?" ^B Epiphanius said: "This was done by way of dispensation, that the people might not be harmed by such overly subtle expressions." And Abbot Maximus, answering, said: "On the contrary, every man is sanctified by the accurate confession of the faith, not by the removal of the expressions, as is contained in the Type." And Troilus said: "Even in the palace I told you that the Type did not abolish the expressions, but commanded that they be silenced, so that we might all enjoy peace." And Abbot Maximus, answering, said: "To silence expressions, or to suppress them, is to destroy and remove them. For the Holy Spirit says through the Prophet: *There are no speeches nor words, whose voices are not heard* (Ps. XVII, 3). Therefore, a word that is not uttered by voice is not even a word." And Troilus said: "Keep it in your heart as you wish; no one hinders you." Abbot Maximus said: "But God has not confined all salvation to the heart, saying: *Whoever shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven* (Matt. X, 32). And the divine Apostle teaches, saying: *With the heart we believe unto justice; but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation* (Rom. X, 10). Since, therefore, God and the prophets of God and the apostles command that the great and fearful mystery, and one which is saving to the whole world, be confessed with the voices of the saints, there is no need in any way for the voice proclaiming this to be silenced, lest the salvation of those who are silent be diminished."

^C XXVIII. And Epiphanius, answering in a very harsh tone, said: "Did you subscribe to the document?" And the Abbot Maximus said: "Yes, I subscribed." "And how," he said, "did you dare to subscribe and to anathematize those who confess and believe as the angelic natures and the Catholic Church do? In truth, I shall use my judgment to bring you into the city, and we shall summon the mimes and the mimic actresses and the common harlots and all the people, so that each one, man and woman, may slap you and spit in your face." To this the Abbot Maximus, answering, said: "As you have said, let it be fulfilled, if indeed we have anathematized those who confess the two natures from which the Lord is, and the two natural wills and operations corresponding to Him, who is truly by nature God and man. Read, master, the series of the Acts and the document, and if, as you have said, you find that, do what you wish. For I, and my fellow-servants who signed, have anathematized those who, according to the opinion of Arius and Apollinarius, speak of one will and one operation; but not those who confess our Lord and God in both natures from which He is, and in which and what He is, as distinct by nature; and therefore, by reason of both, endowed with the faculty of will and operation for our salvation." And they say: "If we allowed ourselves to be drawn along, and followed the customs of those who give the words, we would neither eat nor drink. But let us rise, and break our fast, and let us depart." Let us say...

that which we have heard. For he has sold himself to Satan. And rising, they broke their fast; and they entered with anger on the vigil of the Exaltation of the precious and life-giving Cross.

^A XXX. But on the morrow, early in the morning, Theodosius the consul went out to the aforementioned Abbot Maximus, and took away all that he had, saying to him in the name of the Emperor: "Since you did not want honor, honor shall also flee far from you. Depart, therefore, to where you considered yourself worthy to be, having the judgment of your disciples, both the one who is in Mesembria, and the one in Perberis, who was a notary to our grandmother of blessed memory." The patricians, namely Troilus and Epiphanius, also said: "We shall certainly bring your two disciples, both the one in Mesembria and the one in Perberis, and we shall examine them also, and see with what outcome their case is to be settled. But know, lord abba, that if we obtain even a little respite from the confusion of the nations, we shall, through the Holy Trinity, unite the Pope, who is now being exalted and acts insolently, with you, and all those in Rome who speak, and all your disciples, ^B and all of you, placing each one in a place convenient to him, just as Martin was fused." And the aforementioned consul Theodosius, taking him, delivered him to soldiers, and they led him as far as Salembria.

XXXI. And they remained there for two days, until one of the soldiers departed to the camp and spread the rumor throughout the entire army that a monk was present and coming who blasphemed the holy Mother of God; by which words and rumor they stirred up the whole army against the aforementioned Abbot Maximus, as though he blasphemed the holy Mother of God. And after two days, the soldier returned and brought him to the camp; and the commander—or rather, the lieutenant of the commander—being moved by the power of God, sent those who were advanced in military rank to approach him, ^C as well as presbyters and deacons, and the reverend standard-bearers. When the aforementioned Abbot Maximus saw that they had arrived, he rose and made a prostration to the ground; and they prostrated themselves in return, and sat down, commanding him also to sit. And a certain very venerable old man said to him with much reverence: "Father, since some have caused us to stumble regarding your holiness, as though you do not call the Lady, our most holy Virgin, the Mother of God, I adjure you by the holy and consubstantial and life-giving Trinity to tell us the truth, and to wipe away this scandal from our hearts, so that we may not, being unjustly scandalized, suffer any harm." ^D And prostrating himself, he arose, and extending his hands to heaven with tears, he said: "Whoever does not say that our Lady, the all-laudable and most holy and immaculate, and by every intellectual nature venerable, truly and naturally became the Mother of God—of Him who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all things that are in them—let him be anathema and cursed by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, of the consubstantial and adorable Trinity, and of every heavenly Power; and of the choir of the holy

apostles and prophets and of the infinite multitude of martyrs; and of every spirit perfected in righteousness, now and always and unto the endless ages of ages. Amen. And weeping, they prayed for him, saying: "God will strengthen you, Father, and will deign to grant you to finish this course without stumbling." When these things had been said, a huge crowd of soldiers assembled, listening to many excellent words that were being spoken meanwhile. And when one of the commander’s domestics saw a great troop, as it were sixty-five soldiers, gathering and standing together, and moreover judging the actions being carried out against Maximus (into which suspicion he was brought, God knows), he ordered him to be seized and removed two miles from the camp, until those who were to lead him to Perbera should arrive and take him away. The clergy, however, overcome by divine love, traversed those two miles on foot, and having reached him, they greeted him and prayed for him; and carrying him with their own hands, they placed him onto a beast of burden and returned in peace to their own places, and he was carried off to Perbera, into the custody in which he was held.

^B XXXII. Know also this, that at Rhegium, when Troilus was declaiming against Maximus, he said that John the Consiliarius had written to him regarding the union and concord proposed to them; and that this had meanwhile been prevented by the disorderliness and unbridled manners of his disciples. I believe, however, that the aforementioned John the Consiliarius did not write to Troilus, but to Menas the monk, and that he subsequently told those of the palace.

^C XXXIII. Thereafter, having brought them to Constantinople and held a trial against them, and after they had anathematized and denounced the holy Maximus, and his disciple the blessed Anastasius, and also the most holy Pope Martin, and the holy Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and all the orthodox and those of the same mind as they; they brought in the other blessed Anastasius as well, and using the same curses and insults against him, they delivered him to the judges, speaking thus: "Come now, Anastasius, having put on the dark garment of the public curse and malediction of all people, be released from canonical hearing and be cast out from it, and be carried off to that station and seat of Gehenna which you have chosen; for the most noble and sacred senate, which is with us and which rules all things by the same counsel, is about to take up the judgment in our stead, and to perform just retribution upon you, according to what has seemed established by civil laws, for such great blasphemies of yours and your rebellious designs of mind. For the present synod has passed this sentence against these things; and since it, by the aid of the omnipotent Christ our true God, has canonically decreed what was fitting against you, Maximus, Anastasius, and Anastasius, as the remainder is to be directed toward those things which have been impiously spoken and done by you, so that..."

^A that no punishment exists capable of appearing worthy of your misdeeds and blasphemies, we leave you to the just Judge, who is about to inflict greater things. In the present life, however, effectively vacating the precision and severity of the laws—as it were, by way of gain, and as an extension of life granted to you—by this very leniency, we decree that the most illustrious prefect, who is here with us, shall forthwith take you into his own most ample praetorium, and that he shall strike the backs of Maximus and both Anastasii with scourges; and that he shall cut out from the root your organ of impudence, Maximus and both Anastasii—namely, your blasphemous tongue; and then, that he shall sever with iron the right hand which ministered to your blasphemous reason and mind. And when, having made them thus mutilated in their execrable limbs, he has paraded them through all twelve regions of the Imperial City, he shall consign them to eternal exile and perpetual custody, so that henceforth, for as long as life remains, you may lament your errors full of blasphemy, when the curse and dread things which you devised against us have turned back upon your own heads. ^B Therefore, the prefect took them and, having inflicted the punishment, cut off their limbs; and, leading them in a shameful procession through the whole city, he banished them to Lazica.

(α) Glory to you, only-begotten God, Word of the Father and of the consubstantial Trinity, who comfort in word and deed those who are persecuted and suffer for your sake, and make them wise in the Holy Spirit. But those who are your enemies—and in truth, the enemies of your own ever-Virgin Mother—and calumniators of the truth, do you always confound. Glory to you, holy, uncreated, sempiternal, beginningless, infinite, immutable, supersubstantial, and impartible Trinity, our God. Glory to you, glory to you, glory to you, O same and only blessed Trinity, hope and salvation of all who, in the orthodox faith, adore you and serve you in truth unto the end. O only undefiled and most holy nature, in truth and without falsehood, Mother of God, and after birth again truly a chaste Virgin, help us.

(α) By Anastasius, whether he himself added it, or only rendered it into Latin from the Greek of another.

ANASTASIUS THE PRESBYTER

AND APOCRISIARIUS OF ROME,

Epistle to Theodosius the presbyter of Gangra (a).

A copy of the writing of the epistle of our holy father and doctor, Anastasius, presbyter and apocrisiarius of the great and elder Rome, a new confessor, or (what must rather be confessed) a great struggler and martyr of the truth, which was written—together with the accompanying sacred testimonies and syllogisms—by his holy right hand, now severed, with truly admirable ingenuity; nay, rather, by divine virtue and grace, after he himself and the Fathers who were with him suffered in wretched Byzantium, solely on account of the word of truth, and because they were unwilling—or ^C (to speak more truly) could not—communicate with them in such public perfidy and manifest impiety, according to the great Gregory in his theology; who, in his discourse which he composed against the Arians, addresses them: "What manner of beasts have they let loose upon the bodies of the saints, so that some have made their inhumanity public, accusing one thing only, lest they should yield to impiety and be defiled by communion," which they fled as the venom of a serpent, not because it injures the body, but because it darkens all the depths of the soul. Moreover, he was sent from his third exile, that is, from Lazica,

to Theodosius the presbyter of Gangra and monk, established in the holy city of our Christ.

SUPERSCRIPTION

I. The Proverb orders us to make the memory of the just with praises, divinely inspired. I, therefore, being humble, wishing to perform in my discourse at the present time the memory of those just men, and especially of Maximus, who was truly very great (for the name Maximus implies this), and being by no means able to praise worthily their virtue and knowledge, as well as the martyrdom endured by him for Christ God, I have considered it right to signify only this much to you, who are honorable to God, through this letter, which you yourselves have most desired to know, as I have learned: that is, when those blessed men fell asleep in the Lord.

II. I make known to you, therefore, that I pass over in silence many of the evils that have been inflicted upon us here, on account of their great number and the weariness of speech, and also because the time is inappropriate; for when we had come to the region of the friends of Christ, the Lazi, on the sixth day before the Ides of July, of the fifth indiction, they immediately separated us from one another by the command of him who at that time had deservedly come to rule over those who were there; plundering everything, even down to the last needle and thread, of whatever we had acquired for our necessary uses, as much from you as from other friends of Christ. And that most sacred man (I speak of the lord abbot Maximus), being unable to sit in a carriage or in a wagon, for the reason that he was in a state of infirmity, when they had woven a sort of bed out of pliant rods, they carried him—slaves that they were—and shut him up in the castle called Schemari, next to the people who are called Alani; but the lord abbot Anastasius and me, the sinner, they took and placed upon horses and shut us up: him, indeed, in the castle called Scotoni in Apsilia, which is near Abasgia; me, however, in another castle, whose name was Buculus, in the region that was called Mesimiana, on the borders of the aforementioned Alani: which castle, it is known, the same Alani still hold as a captured prize.

III. Then, after a few days, having taken both me and the blessed Anastasius from the aforementioned castles, they sent him to the castle called Sunias, although he was already half-dead, as much from the multitude of tortures and lashes which we endured in Byzantium as from the necessities and hardships which have been inflicted upon us here. Whence also, on the way, as some say—but as others assert, as soon as he was thrust into the castle of Suania, to which he had been destined—he died. I argue, therefore, that he slept in the Lord around the eleventh or ninth day before the Kalends of August. For from the Kalends of August we were both led by the command of the prince at that time into that which was called Mucurisin, to be presented in the midst of the army of the friends of Christ; although he, as we have mentioned, was already half-dead, and thereafter I did not see him again. For they had immediately destined him, as has been said, to the castle of Suania; me, however, to the castle which is called Thacyria, near Iberia. From this, therefore, I surmise that he fell asleep in the Lord, as has been said, around the eleventh or ninth day before the Kalends of August, of the fifth indiction.

IV. Furthermore, the martyr of Christ God, namely the lord abbot Maximus, when he was put into custody in the above-mentioned castle, by a divine vision granted to him, called aside certain of those who were in the castle and said to them: "On the thirteenth day of this current month of August, of the fifth indiction, on the seventh day of the week, the Lord will take me," which was indeed done. Therefore, on the thirteenth day of the aforementioned month of August of the past fifth indiction, according to his divine prophecy, on the seventh day of the week, those present having been left behind, he departed to the Lord.

V. Furthermore, there is another miracle, which is wrought divinely at his holy monument, and which, up to the present, those who inhabit that castle and the region around it observe and proclaim; and it has reached even to certain of the princes and magnates, and it is right that it be made manifest by letter to you also, most holy ones, and through you to all the saints who are there, for the glory and praise of God, who works miracles in His saints and is glorified. That is, three light-bearing lamps illuminate the holy tomb of that saintly martyr every night. These things concerning this memorable man and blessed Anastasius, I have briefly noted for you, who are honorable to God, and through you to all the holy Church of God which lives there in the true faith: so that you, having learned these things, may glorify God, who is marvelous in His saints.

VI. Meanwhile, I shall also manifest, in the same way, the things which have befallen me, a sinner and humble man, after these events, and in what state I am. For when I had spent two months in the aforementioned castle of Thacyria, lying in infirmity, and had obtained a very little bit of rest, the prince then sent me again to the parts of Apsilia and Misimiania, to be put in custody in the castle of Phustas. And that I may speak absolutely, he led me and drove me for seven months through all the aforementioned regions, naked and barefoot and on foot, oppressed by cold and hunger and thirst, wishing indeed to cleanse me also from this life. But I know not what God, who foresees all things and brings them about by His wholesome providence, has foreseen concerning me, humble as I am, in that He has preserved me even until now in this life of many tribulations and misery.

VII. Therefore, after a few days, the aforementioned prince is driven out. And then another succeeds him who seemed to feel compassion. Among other things, he led me near his own house.

and after a year, moved by diabolical operation, he ordered me to be taken to the aforementioned fort. ^A But God, who requites those who requite others, on the same day that he drove me out, was himself driven out, and became a fugitive in the region of the Abasgii, who love Christ. And having taken counsel from the friends of Christ who were there—princes, who were more inclined to show compassion than to persecute me, a lowly man, and to receive prayers from me rather than groans (for these friends of Christ, the princes of the Abasgii, indeed felt compassion for my humble self, even though they did not know me)—he promised them that if he should go out from there and be restored to his princedom, he would perform everything that was for my comfort and refreshment. Then, after a few days, aided from I know not where, he did indeed go out again and receive the princedom; however, he brought nothing of those things he had promised to God and to the friends of God, the aforementioned princes, to fruition. On the contrary, led by the hands of wicked men, he forgot his promises: he ordered me to be taken from the fort of Phustuensium ^B and sent more quickly to the fort of Schemareos.

VIII. In the meantime, it happened while they were leading me to the already mentioned fort, that he was again driven out and was a fugitive where he had been at the first. But God stirred up His Spirit in a man who was a lover of good, a man who has in himself the fear and love of God, and who possesses, in truth, a mind that is vigilant according to God; a man who now rules over the region with God and, moved by a condescension or compassion that imitates God, brought me back from the road to the often-mentioned fort of Schemareos and settled me about five miles away from his own dwelling, in a place truly suitable for monks, which was to be guarded under God, providing me most abundantly with the necessary comforts of the body. For all these things, may Christ the true God, through the intercession of the All-Holy Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary, who gave birth to Him according to the flesh, and of all the saints, protect him together with his beloved children and their honorable and altogether laudable mother, from every band of evildoers and from the multitude of those who work iniquity, granting them a refreshment of good things, so that, always having every sufficiency, they may abound in every good work; and may He make them worthy to stand on the right hand, and to hear that divine and gentle voice ^C which will say: Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was a stranger, and ye took me in (Matt. xxv, 34-36), etc. Amen. I beseech you, most holy ones, that you ask the same for them in your holy prayers, and especially when you pray in the holy and venerable places. For they are worthy of these things which you might grant them. For they are truly the genuine children of the holy Resurrection of our Lord Christ.

IX. Finally, Stephanus, who is among the saints, namely the son of the blessed presbyter John, who was the ^D liarch of that most holy Church, came into this region, as he asserted, at the request of my humility; they received and honored him with all zeal and joy, and granted every subvention for my request, as being truly a man of the holy Resurrection of Christ our God. From where, also having his support, that holy Stephanus found me, to whom may the Lord God render mercy on that day, for He is the just Judge; but also to those who sent him, since he truly performed the work of an evangelist (II Tim. iv, 5). For just as a spiritual horse having its rider (namely God, according to the Scripture which says: Riding upon His horses, and Thy riding is salvation) (Habac. iii, 8), running through the whole of Lazica and Apsilia and Abasgia, announced without fear both the truth and the novelties that had been surreptitiously introduced; and the presence of the man has been the cause of much profit and health, and of my own quiet and consolation. And the wicked name, which the true apostates of the truth had imposed upon us, was then dissipated, and the truth became evident to many. Therefore, after these good things were corrected [and provided] by his own arrival, that noble man fell asleep in the Lord on the Kalends of January of the VIIIth indiction, which has now just passed, in the presence of the Christ-loving prince of the Abasgii. For whom all who knew him desired rest, as for a saint.

X. Wherefore it was necessary for some of the lovers of God among you, who have zeal for God according to knowledge, to come here and to testify to what is true and in accordance with the truth, so that orthodoxy might more gain ground and the introduced novelty might be more extensively refuted. But that I, a lowly man, might enjoy consolation and refreshment, and that those coming might receive a good reward from Christ God, for whose sake the cause is, especially since—as I have learned—they do not come there as far as Iberia; for the sake of which thing do they not come here at all?

XI. I beseech you, therefore, most holy ones, if it be possible, to transmit to me by some faithful man, from among those who come to Iberia, a codex of those things which were canonically performed by the holy and apostolic synod, which was celebrated in senior Rome by the sacramental precept of the holy martyr and apostolic and supreme Pope Martin, so that the dogmas of the holy Fathers, and the abominations of the heretics which once arose and which have newly arisen, may be rendered more evident to those established here. For those who unjustly persecute God and us do good even unwillingly and against their will; because by exiling us to diverse places and regions, they act so that both the orthodoxy of the holy Fathers, which we also preach, is more extensively manifested, and their own cacodoxy is publicized and refuted in every place and region, according to that statement of the truth of the holy Dionysius, bishop of Athens and martyr (a), who says: God knows evil as good, that is...

as something that is good properly and truly; and yet, in his eyes, beneficent virtues are the causes of evils. For the good is truly this: to manifest and confirm paternal orthodoxy, as I have said, and to make public and refute heretical cacodoxia, even though this is brought about through exiles and other tribulations. For thus, from the beginning, the word of truth was extended; again, the murmuring of impiety disappeared, with both the holy prophets and the apostles and other teachers suffering persecutions and exiles or other dire things for its sake, ^A for the glory of His most supreme mercy and our salvation. And I greet you, venerable in God, and all the holy ones who are with you, and through you the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of God which is there; requesting that a remembrance of me, a sinner and a prisoner, be made in your prayers directed to God in the holy and venerated places; and by strengthening me with your precious letters, which I so greatly desire, and by comforting me—the least of all—and by praying that I be made worthy of the sight of your countenance, although it is bold to say so, before I myself depart from this wretched life of many tribulations.

XII. Therefore, if, as I have entreated, you send the sacred codex—provided those who are to carry it are willing to come hither—let them of their own accord meet the most famous and God-guarded patrician and Master Gregory, who is with God, receiving for him the letter which is openly from the praiseworthy Patrician and the Praetor of Iberia, ^B who ought to send it to our aforementioned master and most ample patrician and Master Gregory, who is with God; so that by doing this, you may receive, from the things that shall proceed from him, a good reward from Christ our God.

XIII. Furthermore, for the present, I have sent with this letter of mine to you, most honorable in God, and through you to the most holy and orthodox Church that is there, a scroll containing testimonies from the sayings of the holy Hippolytus, bishop of Portus Romanus and martyr of Christ our God, so that through them you may know how concordantly he preaches, with all the other holy Fathers, and defends the two natures and operations of our Saviour Jesus Christ; and that he may refute those who dogmatize one operation and one nature of His divinity and humanity, ^C as they announce the convertibility, commixture, confusion, and even division of each of His natures. Search diligently, surely, for such a book of that Father, according to the superscription which surpasses the testimonies. If you find it, you will be able to read many necessary testimonies from it concerning these same natures and operations of our Saviour. Indeed, we would have liked to transcribe this entire book, which had been brought to us from Byzantium before we had suffered our trials, but our adversaries, following their custom and pressing in, suddenly snatched it away; and we were unable to extract more than these eight testimonies from it.

XIV. What I have omitted, however, in the midst of the things stated, I shall not be ashamed to speak of. It is clearly this: when I had been evangelized by the lord Stephen of holy memory concerning the unity and concord which has been effected there, through the orthodox confession, among all men with each other and with God, I was filled with joy, as I say before God, and I returned thanks—sinner though I am—for such and so great a good to the mercy of God, and I will not cease to refer it, praying that this be preserved until the end, immovable, for the ^D glory of His most supreme mercy and our salvation.

SCHOLION (a)

Prologue to the sacred testimonies lying below

XV. Sacred and divinely inspired testimonies, through which we learn more clearly that there are two—according to the union, both confused and undivided, just as the natures, so also the two wills and the two operations, fitting and appropriate to the natures—that is, the divine and the human, unoriginated and originated, as of the one and the same Lord our God and man Jesus Christ, to believe with the heart unto righteousness, to confess with the mouth unto salvation. But not like the bastards who, now teaching and disturbing the Churches, dogmatize one and neither one, nor two, and again one and two wills and operations in the same. For this, concerning the instability and absurdity of the mind of those who set forth such dogmas, consists of what is altogether impious and alien to our immaculate faith of the Christians. For those who dogmatize one will and operation, or even one nature of His divinity and humanity, are rejected and detested by our famous teachers and preceptors. For such dogmas belong to heretics, who wander in confusion and phantasy and division; do they not, with them and according to them, subvert and deny the supersubstantial mystery of theology and of the dispensation made in the flesh, asserting a quaternary of persons, but of the one same, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ the true God, according to which he was made man for our sake, subscribing to him as simultaneously inanimate, irrational, and without intellect, and introducing both conjecture and phantasy, and the confusion and division of each nature? But these, who refuse to confess either will or operation in Him, declare Him to be inessential and non-subsistent according to both of His natures; and these, by their own dogmas, show themselves to be even more impious than the already-mentioned heretics.

for they introduce him as having three wills and three operations, and likewise by necessity the same number of natures, that is essences, since it is impossible for a nature to exist without an operation, or, conversely, for an operation to exist without a nature. For these mentioned testimonies are as follows:

OF SAINT HIPPOLYTUS, Bishop of Portus, that is, of the harbor of Rome, and martyr of the truth.

From the discourse which is through the elements concerning theology and incarnation against the heretics Bero and Helicon, the beginning of which is: "The Lord of Sabaoth, the Seraphim crying out with an incessant voice, glorify God."

^B XVII. For by the infinitely powerful will of God all things were both made and are preserved, according to their own reasons by which each was aptly saved, for Him who is by nature God of infinite power and maker of all things; since the divine will, by which He both made and moves all things, according to the natural laws by which each was produced, remains immovable. For that which is infinite accepts motion in no manner or reason, having nowhere and nothing around which to be moved. For the change of Him who is infinite by nature, who is not by nature susceptible to motion, is motion. ^C Wherefore also the Word of God, having truly become man according to us without sin, and having acted and suffered humanly whatever belongs to the nature without sin, and having endured out of regard for us the circumscription of natural flesh, underwent no change; nor did He who is the same as the Father in any way become the same as the flesh through the emptying. But just as He was without flesh, He remained entirely free from circumscription; and through the flesh He worked divinely those things which are of the deity; showing Himself to be both, in that through both—divinely, that is, and humanly—He acted according to that very truly real and natural ^D existence, both being God infinite and being understood as circumscribed man; possessing perfectly the perfect essence of each, with its own operation, that is, natural property; from which we know their difference, remaining forever according to nature without convertibility; but not as some say, by comparison, lest we call the same being greater or smaller than himself according to the same thing, beyond what is fitting. For comparisons exist of things co-natural, and not of those which are of a diverse and other nature. For the creature is in no way compared to God the maker of all, nor the finite to the infinite, nor the end to infinity, since they always and in all things naturally differ from one another, yet not by way of comparison, although an ineffable and indivisible union of both has been made into one subsistence, escaping entirely all knowledge of every created thing. For the Divinity, as it was before the incarnation, is also after the incarnation, by nature infinite, unattached, impassible, incomparable, unchangeable, immutable, self-powerful, and to say it all, subsisting essentially, the only infinitely powerful Good.

^B XVIII. For it truly came to pass, according to the Scriptures, that God, the God of all, without being changed, became man without sin—as He alone knows, existing as the natural Artificer of those things that are above understanding. At the time of this very same saving incarnation, He imparted operation to the flesh from His own Godhead, which was not circumscribed for His sake because of the emptying, nor did it spring forth naturally as His own Godhead did; but in whatever things He, having been incarnate, worked divinity, it was manifested through it. For the flesh did not become, by nature of the Divinity, the nature of the Divinity changed into it; rather, it remained what it was while yet being joined to Divinity—that is to say, flesh, weak and subject to suffering in its nature and operation, just as the Savior said: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. xxvi, 42). In this, having worked and suffered what belonged to sinless flesh, He made certain the emptying of the Godhead for our sake, being confirmed naturally by miracles and the sufferings of the flesh. For this reason, the God of all became man; so that, by suffering in the passible flesh, He might redeem our entire race which had been delivered to death; and by the impassible Godhead, working wonders through the flesh, He might lead it back to that immortal and blessed life from which it had fallen by obeying the devil; and that He might embolden the holy orders of the intelligent substances in heaven toward immutability by the mystery of His incarnation, the work of which is the recapitulation of all things (Ephes. I, 10). He remained, therefore, even after having been incarnate, God exceeding all measurement by nature, having an operation akin and suitable to Himself, flowing substantially from the Godhead, but manifested through His all-holy flesh in miracles in a providential manner, so that He might be believed to be God, working the salvation of all things through flesh that was weak by nature.

^C [lxxiii] The same, from the same sermon 3.

XIX. And for me, too—that I might explain using the paradigm that was stated concerning the Savior—my natural word is akin and suitable, since I am a rational and intelligent soul; of which, according to its nature, the self-moving operation and first ever-moving power is the word, naturally flowing from it. This [word], expressed in speech and beautifully inscribed in letters, I produce artificially by the tongue when I must, and by letters, showing that it is heard even though it exists through things that are unlike [it], and does not—through those things that are unlike it—admit of change. For my natural word is not one of tongue and letters, although I bring it forth through them; but it is of my mind, which speaks according to nature, and through both I declare it as my own: truly flowing naturally at all times from my intelligent soul, but, as I said, being brought forth when necessary through my bodily tongue as an instrument. Just as, therefore, as much of our...

we can estimate it, that which is in every way inestimable is exerted by means of our bodily tongue without undergoing change, according to the rational power of the soul which is such by nature; so also in the glorious incarnation of God, through His most holy flesh, in those things in which He worked divinely, the operation of the whole Godhead, which is omnipotent and the creator of all things, is shown ^B to be without change, remaining beyond all circumference according to nature, even though it shone through flesh that is by nature finite. For it is not natural for that which is born to circumscribe that which is by nature unbegotten—even if it is united with it in a conception that circumscribes all thought—nor is it possible for the nature and natural operation of the one to ever be carried over into the other so long as each remains within its own natural immutability. For it is only the movement of those that are of the same nature, or that have the same operative power, that declares the essence whose natural power it is; whereas a thing of a different nature ^C cannot by any logic be, or become, that of another essence without a change.

Of the Same, from the same discourse 4.

XX. For the mystery of the divine incarnation has been discovered by the apostles, prophets, and teachers to have a double and distinct natural consideration in all respects; for it has the power to manifest the perfect Godhead and the complete humanity. As long as the Word is not known to be one in essence with one operation, there is no way for the movement of both to be known. For He who was always God by nature, having become man ^D without any stain of sin by a super-infinite power, as He willed, is what He was, with all that by which God is conceived; and He is also what He has become, with all that by which man is naturally known. He remains ever unchanged in both respects, keeping the perfect reason of His own nature immutable in both, by which He worked at once divinely and humanly.

Of the Same, from the same discourse 5.

XXI. For a certain Bero, recently, with some others, having abandoned the phantasy of Valentinus, have been ensnared by a worse wickedness, saying that the flesh assumed by the Word has been made of the same operation and power as the Godhead, on account of the assumption; and that the Godhead, conversely, has been made of the same passions and affections as the flesh, on account of the emptying; thus dogmatizing a change, and a commingling, and a confusion, and the mutation of both into the other. For if the assumed flesh has become of the same operation as the Godhead, it is evident that it is also God by nature, with all that by which God is naturally understood. And if the Godhead has been made of the same passions and affections as the flesh, it is evident that it is also flesh by nature, with all that by which flesh is naturally known. For those things which are of the same power and operation with one another, and are of the same nature and entirely subject to the same passions, do not admit of a distinction of nature; and if their natures are confused, Christ will be a duality [of natures], and a tetrad of divided persons, [which is] the most detestable thing possible. And how can there be for them one and the same God, together by nature and...

^A a human being—Christ? And what manner of existence will He have according to them, having become a human being through a change of divinity, and God through a transformation of flesh? For the change of these into one another is the complete destruction of both. But let us again view the argument from a different perspective.

From the same, from the same sermon 6.

XXII. A pious and fixed dogma has been established for Christians: that as concerns His very nature, power, and operation, and everything else that is natural and appertains to Him, God is equal and identical to Himself, possessing nothing at all that is unequal to Himself or inconsistent with Himself. If, therefore, according to Bero, the flesh assumed by Him has become of the same natural operation, clearly it has also become of the same nature as Him, along with all those properties which the theological discourse contemplates as existing in the Godhead in a transcendent manner—namely, being without beginning, unbegotten, infinite, eternal, incomprehensible, and whatever else of this kind ^B exists by way of preeminence. And both have undergone change, with neither retaining the essential rationale of their nature. For he who asserts an identical operation for things of different natures introduces at once a natural confusion and a personal division of them; by the interchange of their properties, their natural existence and subsistence are rendered entirely unrecognizable and obscured.

From the same, from the same sermon 7.

XXIII. But if the flesh has not become of the same nature as Him, it will never be of the same natural operation; so that it may not be shown to have an operation unequal and inconsistent with His nature, and ^C as having departed from all His natural equality and identity: which is impious.

From the same, from the same sermon 8.

XXIV. For they fell into this error by wrongly believing that the divine operation, which was manifested through the flesh in the miracles—by which Christ, as He is understood to be God, holds and preserves the whole of the created universe—was made the special property of the flesh. For they did not know that it is impossible for an operation of the divine nature to become a property of another, diverse nature without conversion; nor did they understand that it is not at all the property of the flesh, that which is indeed manifested through it, yet does not naturally spring from it; although the proof of this is clear and manifest to them. ^D For when I speak with my tongue and write with my hand, I put forth one and the same thought of my rational soul through both—which is its natural operation—without showing by any logic that it proceeds naturally from the tongue or the hand, nor that the thought has become theirs or is called theirs, on account of its manifestation through both. For no wise man knows the tongue or the hand to be endowed with the power of thought; just as one does not consider the most holy flesh of God, because it was assumed and because the divine operation was manifested through it, to have become by nature a creator according to itself; but he piously confesses and believes that, for the sake of our salvation, and to bind unto unchangeableness

in order to bind the universe in inconvertibility, the Creator of all things, from the most holy ever-virgin Mary, by an immaculate conception, without any change, having formed for Himself an intelligent soul with a body that similarly feels, became a man by nature alien to malice; the same one being whole God ^B and whole man; the same one being whole God by nature and whole man; working divine things through his most holy flesh, not being by nature of the flesh; but human things through the humanity, not being by nature of the divinity, suffering by the endurance of the divinity. He wrought nothing divine naked of the body, nor did he do anything human bereft of the divinity. Maintaining for Himself, and in one manner, he performed both in a novel way, that which is in both respects naturally immutable; for the proof of his perfect human-becoming, which is truly real and possesses no vice or stain. Bero, therefore, being such as I was saying, by a monad of operation confounding the divinity of Christ and the humanity, ^C and dividing them both naturally and personally, destroys the life; for he does not know that the same operation signifies only the identity of persons who are of the same nature, declaring that he, having established for us a certain new operation.

Syllogisms concerning the suppositions, from divinely wise testimonies, and others, of the same holy Anastasius.

XXV. Behold now, this most sacred and great doctor and faithful witness of the truth, concordantly with all the other holy founders of the catholic and apostolic Church of God, confesses and proclaims with a loud voice two operations according to the unconfused and impartible union, even as the natures, and likewise two wills and operations congruent and suitable to the natures—the divine, as has been said, and the human, uncreated and created, unoriginate and originate, as of God simultaneously and one and the same Lord of ours, Jesus Christ—and he commands us to confess them without tergiversation. Moreover, he defines it as most difficult and in every way impossible for those who wish to live piously to confess one will and operation, or one nature of his divinity and humanity. On account of which he rejects and condemns as impious, and aliens to our immaculate Christian faith, those who dogmatize such a thing, and calls upon us to do the same. For concerning the two ^D natures and operations of our Savior Christ, that I may briefly set forth a few things from his sacred utterances, he clearly declares: Showing both, in that it has operated doubly (that is, divinely and humanly), according to the same—being truly and naturally—he is that substance which is God, immense and simultaneously circumscribed to be understood as man; having the perfect essence of both, with the operation of each, that is, with the natural property. And again: For the flesh did not become divinity by nature, transferred [to] its nature—that is, having become flesh according to the nature of the divinity—but what it was, it also remained conjoined to the divinity, that is, flesh weak and passible by nature and operation, as the Savior says: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. XXVI, 41). And again: "What has been operated and suffered, which were of the flesh, being immune from all sin, he proved by the miracles and the natural passions of the flesh to be the kenosis of the divinity for our sake." And again: "The mystery of the divine incarnation, to the apostles and prophets and doctors, has been found to have a twofold and diverse natural consideration in all things; since it has the power of perfect divinity and of full humanity to be manifested." And again: "By which he operated both divinely and humanly, perfectly preserving the reason of his own nature in both, immutable." And again: "He wrought nothing divine naked of the body, nor did he perform anything human bereft of the divinity: by which very new and decent reason he operated both, maintaining himself immune from change in the reason of both, to establish the faith of his perfect human-becoming, which is plainly true and admits of no vice or stain."

XXVI. Concerning those, however, who dogmatize one operation and one nature of his divinity and humanity, he says: For generated nature is not compared to be circumscribed, because that which is unbegotten by nature, even though it has united to it, by the conception which circumscribes all power of the mind, and never at any time into the same natural nature and natural virtue or opera-

operation turn, until each remains within its own natural inconvertibility. And again: For the motions of those things only which are of the same nature are of the same virtue and efficacy, designating the substance whose natural virtue it is; whereas it is impossible by any reason for it to be or to become, without convertibility, with a substance of different nature. And again: For those things which are of the same virtue and operation among themselves, and of the same origin and the same passions, do not admit a distinction of nature; and if the natures are confused together, Christ will be a duality, and in the divine persons there will be a quaternity: which is most of all to be avoided. And again: If, therefore, as the author Bero ^B says, the flesh assumed by Him was made of the same virtue and operation as He Himself, then clearly it was also made of the same nature with all those things whose nature is without beginning, unbegotten, infinite, eternal, incomprehensible, and whatever else of this kind relates to the deity in a theological discourse of excellence; and both have suffered alteration, neither one preserving the substantial account of its own nature any longer intact. And again: For whoever senses the same operation in those things which are of different nature, introduces both a natural confusion and a natural division of them; the natural substance and existence of them being entirely unknown and obscured by the commutation of idioms. And again: If indeed it was not made of the same nature as He is, it is never of the same operation. And again: But they have fallen into this error, ill-believing that the divine operation is properly made of the flesh, which by it is manifested in miracles; by which Christ, as God is understood, holds and preserves this universe which was founded by Him. And again: For they did not know that it is impossible that the operation of the divine nature should become the property of another and different substance, without convertibility. And again: As long as the Word is known as one according to the essence of one operation, it cannot by any reason happen that the motion of both should be known. And again: Therefore Bero, who says as I was saying, that the divinity and humanity are confounded by one operation of Christ, and divided by the persons, dissolves life; for he does not know that the same operation merely designates the identity of persons that are of the same nature.

XXVII. Let those who wish, therefore, and especially those who communicate with those who have now wrought these novelties, diligently attend to what has been said more clearly by this most sacred and great doctor and martyr of the truth (or rather, if we say, by the most holy Spirit who speaks in him ^C); and let them know most certainly that those who deny and reject the two natural wills and operations of our Saviour Christ, and call such a sacred and orthodox confession—one that is pious and alien to the Christian name—impious, and who dogmatize one will and operation of His deity and humanity, and anathematize those who do not confess the same in concert with them, are clearly and without any covering veil anathematizing the holy prophets and apostles and teachers; or even, to speak more truly, the most holy Spirit who has spoken in them, nay rather, who still speaks; and they deny and cast away the confession handed down to us by Him through them, and assert that it is impious and alien to Christian dogma, and they are essentially the same as the aforesaid heretic; nay, rather, as all the profane heretics together, who are deceived by confusion, phantasy, and division, they do not merely deny and subvert the mystery of supersubstantial theology and the incarnate dispensation. For while they confess a holy Trinity of persons; yet by introducing one of this, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, as inanimate and without intellect ^D and without reason, according to that which He was made man for our sake; and by proclaiming the convertibility at the same time and the commixtion and mutability, and the confusion and phantasy and division of each nature of His; and by writing of the holy and ever-Virgin and Theotokos Mary as being the mother of a mere man, or of some prodigy.

XXVIII. But then, those who reject this one will and one operation—which is what is clearly dogmatized by them in Him—and who wish to confess neither one nor two, that is, the divine and human will or operation, or some one from all, show themselves, not only as unstable and tergiversators, but as more impious than the heretics who erred in confusion and phantasy and division, by their own words and dogmas. For those people indeed [confess] one; but these, however, do not wish Him to have even one will or operation; and by this they proclaim Him insubstantial and inessential (for it is less to say without will and impotent) according to both natures; whereas according to sacred definitions and reasons, corruption, that is to say, the destruction and non-existence of a nature, exists as the infirmity and defect of natural habits and operations and virtues, and that which is universally deprived of a natural will and substantial operation, neither is, nor is it anything, nor is its essence anything.

XXIX. And not Him only, but they also prove the Father and the Holy Spirit to be insubstantial and non-existent. For the Saviour exists as the same to both of them in substance, that is, of deity and of will and of operation, according to which He is also called by nature God, so that consequently they also do not describe our Lady, the truly most holy, over all the saints, the to-be-venerated and praised, as properly and not fallaciously, but truthfully the Theotokos and ever-Virgin, nor properly and truthfully as the Mother of God, but [the Mother] of Him who in no way exists according to them. And these truly, having been caught by such and so great impieties, are propagated by their own dogmas. But those who, together with the two wills and operations, which have been piously [handed down] by the holy founders of the Catholic Church in our Saviour Christ...

are not content, but, I know not whence, invent another single [will and operation] to confess; and they anathematize those who do not harmoniously confess with them one and two, that is, three wills and operations in Him. Nevertheless, these men also anathematize the holy prophets and apostles and teachers, and even more than these, the most holy Spirit who has spoken in them, and who even now speaks through them; and by adulterating with new inventions the holy and immaculate faith handed down to us by Him, they deny it, and invent another nature in the Saviour Christ besides the divine and human, a certain alien [nature], and one foreign to all things that exist; to which they wish the single will and operation they have invented in Him to belong. Since every natural and substantial operation, [as well as will], is truly a property of the nature that wills and operates. And every natural operation indicates the substance from which it proceeds and in which it exists. For the natural operation of each nature is its index and is known as such; and every nature is recognized by the essential principle of its own operation; and every nature has an operation fitting to it and designating it, distinguishing it from others; and true reason knows the definitions of substances by their natural operations. And to speak concisely, it is impossible that either nature should exist without the operation that characterizes it substantially, or, on the other hand, that a will or operation should exist without some substance, as the divine oracles declare, and as the very nature of things proclaims.

[XXX] Therefore, by inventing one will and operation, besides the two, concerning the Saviour Christ, they are under the necessity of also inventing another nature besides the divine, as has been said, and the human, fabricating a certain alien one, a stranger to all things that exist, and attributing it to Him—to which they wish to belong the single will already mentioned by them; this is an empty figment of fictitious thought, a sprout that differs not at all from idolatry. For God and man, being the Saviour, has only two natures, wills, and operations congruent with Him, that is, the divine and the human, as our illustrious teachers and doctors affirm, not one and two, that is, three, as the adversaries dogmatize. By which they evidently carry out what was long ago said by God through the prophet Isaiah as a reproach, namely: *Thy vintners mix wine with water* (Isa. I, 22). For as it appears, even these men, by adulterating the word of truth like vintners, compel both sects to confess the natural duality of the wills and operations of our Saviour Christ as one will and operation, which has been impiously dogmatized in Him by the heretics who, deceived by confusion and division or fantasy, are like those mixing wine with water. This is truly impious and alien to our immaculate Christian faith, for they, diametrically like their predecessors, fall from the truth even by this means.

[XXXI] For it is an evil, equal and similar from the opposite direction to the heretical opinion, to reject and condemn patristic orthodoxy, and, on the other hand, to confess and approve both it and that [heresy] alike. *For what participation has justice with iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has the faithful with the unbeliever? And what consensus has the temple of God with idols?* (II Cor. VI, 14–16), says the divine Apostle. And I also say, what participation or communication, or concord, or part, or consensus has the ancestral orthodoxy with the wicked opinion of the heretics, that one should be proclaimed with the other, or even accepted?

[XXXII] And let them also diligently attend to this, that if, as the Great one named for immortality (or rather, the whole chorus of saints) affirms, the faith of our Saviour hardly admits of change—since this would be something unstable according to its own principle. But if it has suffered this, it will undoubtedly suffer what is contrary to it, namely, an accretion. And how will the faith remain thereafter immutable by defects and additions? Let them tell us, he says, who create faiths daily, or rather, who invent for themselves various gods; for with the word of faith, that which is believed is changed and multiplied by such people. Therefore, the adversaries, also creating for themselves different faiths, without any contradiction according to the quality and quantity and mutation of their dogmas, simultaneously change and multiply that which is believed; and they are shown to have thereby fabricated five Christs. This one having one operation, that one no operation; another one will, yet another no will; and a fifth having one and two, and one and two, that is, three operations and three wills, as they say. And let those very people who expose such dogmas, and who communicate with them, say, in which of such and so many Christs, believed by them to be coming, they have been or are being baptized: or whose body and blood they consume and distribute: that of the one who has one operation, or the one who has no operation; the one who has one will, or the one who has one and two, and one and two, that is, three operations and wills; and because of this, by necessity, does he also have three natures? But there was no voice, nor was there any hearing, as the great prophet Elijah says (III Reg. XVIII, 26), refuting the wicked priests and pseudo-prophets of confusion.

[XXXIII] For whatever of these they say, from that source their discourse will draw upon itself, along with impiety, also refutation; since they do not believe in and are not baptized into the true and truly existing Christ; nor do they receive and distribute His body and blood. For our illustrious masters and teachers, knowing that the One, true and truly existing Christ, is simultaneously God and man, [knew] two and

two natures, and as many wills and operations congruent to Him—that is to say, the divine, as has already been stated and proven, and the human, uncreated and created, without beginning and with beginning—they confess in Him, and charge us to confess. They do not, however, as these men have now innovated, acknowledge Him to have one, and once again not one, nor two, and again one and two—that is to say, three wills and operations.

^B XXXIV. Over and above all these things that have been said, let them know also most certainly that those who dogma-tize one—not one, nor two, and again one and two—wills and operations, and all things with anathemas, depositions, and excommunication, are proven to be openly contradicting themselves and one another. And they subvert and destroy their own and one another's words and dogmas, and they anathematize themselves and one another, and those who communicate with them, and they drive them away and depose them from every sacred dignity and ministry. Furthermore, they also seclude them from the reception of the immaculate communion of the life-giving body and blood of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

XXXV. And we, seeing and knowing these things clearly and with no veil obstructing us, not only because of the mutability and absurdity and reciprocity of such men and dogmas, keep ourselves with all guard from their impiety and communion, as many of us as wish to be and to be called Christians in truth. It is, indeed, alien to Christians to accept impiety alongside orthodoxy; or, while confessing the orthodox faith, to communicate in truth with those who deny and adulterate it through new inventions. For which reason the divine and apostolic law commands us to turn away from and to anathematize those who attempt to teach and introduce anything other than what we have received from those who bear Christ, not only if they be men, but even if they were angels descending from heaven [50†]. And if we shall have done this, and shall have fulfilled the divine command without prevarication, and shall have possessed and confessed the holy and orthodox faith without adulteration and novelty, we shall be saved for eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom with God and the Father, together with the most holy and good and life-giving Spirit, be glory, honor, dominion, and adoration, now and always, and unto all ages of ages that never end. Amen.

SCHOLIUM, or HYPOMNESTICON

I. It behooves those who have read copies of this present holy epistle, obeying God, who searches kidneys and hearts [51†], to believe most firmly that in it—God witnessing the truth from this very epistle, which was written by his own hand, or rather, that we may speak with the sign of a miracle, by the finger of God—the things have been transcribed which were written by the holy father and our master, the lord Abbot Anastasius, presbyter and apocrisarius of the senior and most celebrated city of Rome, and a great struggler and truly new martyr of the truth. Written by him (after he had suffered, as has been said, in Byzantium, together with his fellow-struggler and true philosopher, or rather God-wise one, and great co-martyr of Christ our true God and Savior, Maximus; that is, when the precious and holy tongues and hands, truly mobile by divine power, had been cut out from within, with most bitter stripes and torments, from which they suffered the flow and torrent of blood throughout the entire city, which no one in truth truly endured in life) and if only God alone, who brought all things from nothing into being and raises the dead, had not, from such crudity of theirs and such a flood of blood, preserved them—with the imposition, according to custom, of some remedy for the stopping of the blood upon the cutting of the hands and tongues, to the shame of their adversaries—they would have from that time surrendered their souls, truly holy and blessed beyond doubt, to the God they desired. And they did all these things to them for no other reason, being truly the most profane and miserable apostates of the truth, except for the most base and truly singular envy, which the ancient foe, the demon, sowed in them, just as in his likes, the Jews, when they could not even a little bit resist the wisdom which had been worthily given to them by God, for the sake of true knowledge, and for that alone that they would not want to communicate with them, in this their public and godless impiety. Along with this very present holy epistle, with his own holy right hand—which had been cut off, of which only the trunk remained (that is, without the palm and fingers)—by an unexpected argument; when, namely, he had collected two very small and thin pieces of wood for himself; or rather, that I may speak more truly, by divine virtue and grace, just as also the truly divine [tongue], he wrote, with invisible ease and without any prohibition...

although it was cut from the very root from within, just as Lebarnicius, a patrician of Lazica, narrated to us with terrible oaths, having become an inspector of this very thing through the dispensation of God, disbelieving in this glorious and great miracle. Moreover, Theodore, the protosecretary of the praetorian prefect of Constantinople, narrated it to me before him, and he himself [spoke] with horrible oaths, since he had been a witness to their holy passions, as a lord and master of such matters, glorifying and praising and giving thanks to God for such a miracle and for their such confident virtue. For since, like a dog or a deer [exhausted] by much running or by thirst or heat, they had thus loosened and surrendered their tongues, [and] so also their hands—although the saint was of a very short stature and was weak in body, as is manifest to all. Wherefore, the adversaries, wounding their own senses all the more over such and so great alacrity of the saints—being inwardly most wicked and truly inhuman, as wild beasts in truth—were cutting them off.

II. Not only was this epistle thus written by him, but also many other books and volumes of his studies, of which we have been made inspectors not only by divine providence, but we have also merited, in part, to receive them by the grace of God through his command; and with a similar argument and hand [they were written] by them too; nay, as it has been more truly said [LXXXI], by the finger of God—just as it is read to have happened in the time of Moses by the providence, that is, and cooperation of the only omnipotent God, who, since he is a lover of goodness and of mankind, does great wonders in his saints and glorifies those who truly glorify him, as much by an unswerving work as by word and in truth. While he was still dwelling in his last, that is, his third exile of Lazica, in the castle named Thusumes, situated above the village of Mochoes, at the border of the Apsilian climate, at the east of the Pontic Sea, at the very foot of the Caucasian mountains, near the region of the Abasgi and the nation of the Alani, friends of Christ, about five signs away from the estate of Zichachorio—which is the first house of Gregory, a true friend of Christ, a patrician and magistrate of that same region of the Alani, whose excellent memory he rightfully honors in such an epistle—being transferred by the force and command of the wretched princes who held authority there before him and up to him, he fell asleep in the Lord in the same third exile, seven times [transferred] to more difficult places and with much tribulation, in the aforementioned castle of Thusumes. When he had fought the good fight and had truly kept the orthodox faith and had finished the course of his martyrdom, on the eleventh day of October, the first day of the week, at the third hour, when "Holy things to the holy" was being said amidst the holy Offices, in the tenth indiction, having himself foretold the day of his holy deposition to certain ones who were with him three months prior; and [having performed] many other miracles through the cooperation of the most holy and all-effecting Spirit, both there and in his two exiles at Trapezunt, ^A and at those accomplished near Mezembria, having brought many to the faith and enlightened them.

III. Who, when they had lived and endured in this holy and most blessed struggle of many labors—that is, in the confession and testimony that bears a crown—the aforementioned holy Anastasius, presbyter and Roman apocrisiarius, from the sixth indiction of the past cycle until the tenth indiction, in all three of his aforementioned exiles, having been subjected to diverse afflictions and tribulations and needs and anguish that were not moderate or small, persevered for twenty years. But his disciples, Theodore and Euprepius, the noble and holy brothers, the sons of Plutimus ^B—a most blessed emperor of the Pistors, that is, who is above all public bakers, those, namely, who pay the stipends of all schools, which is called the "tetransiton," and are adorned with precious riches and diverse dignities and divine virtues and virginity, which is greater than all these, through which, I believe, they too have merited to be honored with holy struggles and crowns for Christ, as being chaste and pure in heart, for they shall see God [*]. After the first exile of their master and our own at Trapezunt, many alms and offerings having been made, when they wished to flee to Rome, being immediately captured in the same persecution near Abydus, for the selfsame and only cause, and because they had not wished to be contaminated with them in such manifest impiety in the profane and utterly godless imperial type, ^C which through submission was made of those who were of the Church of Constantinople, and being made public, that is, stripped of all the substance that was in them and of the dignities which they had, and receiving mortal scourges from the prefect and being sent into exile to Cherson, and there being often forcibly separated from one another, and being assigned to the camps of the nations adjoining there: the younger brother, who as he is truly and famously named in all things, was called Euprepius, after completing the ninth year in such a struggle of a friend of God, departed to the Lord in the month of October, on the twentieth day, in the fourteenth indiction. But the other, who was the prior brother and who was rightfully called by the Lord "God's gift," enduring from that same sixth indiction until the now aforementioned tenth indiction of the current cycle, that is, ^D until the [time of the] most holy father and master of them and of us, Anastasius the presbyter (who [is] truly most wretched and orphaned because of such a rarity and lack of the word of truth and of all spiritual food, so that now also that which is said by the Lord concerning the evils of the last times is fulfilled, "Not a famine of bread shall be sent nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord," as it is said [**]), his holy rest in the Lord, he is passing his twentieth year, still persevering in athletic labors and struggles in the same exile of Cherson, the aforementioned, namely, brother Theodore, who also by his own hand has deigned to exhibit to us many of the saints' works.

^A And he related to us the numerous miracles which were performed there for him, along with the unbearable tribulations which were also brought upon him. He also presented a piece of the holy *orarium*, that is, a face-cloth, which had been sent to him by him, and one of his *compagines*, that is, a sandal (a): which no other man among humans wears, save the holy Roman Pope, seeing that he too had been relegated to exile there, after having suffered all the dreadful things [lxxxii] before being taken away from the city of Rome; he who had surrendered himself, yearning and greatly desiring to undergo martyrdom for Christ, as an imitator and successor of the holy Prince of the Apostles, Peter—as much on the ship as in Byzantium itself—to the point that he was openly struck with slaps by the enemies of God.

IV. But as to the work the devil was performing against him through his father, they stripped him of his own vestments, and imposed the burdens of iron shackles and chains upon his holy neck and precious remaining limbs. Then, parading about with these same iron shackles, they dragged him through the whole square, from the palace to the prefect's praetorium, bound together with the commander of the guard, that is, the chief of the executioners; and a certain man went before him with a sword, in order to cut him limb from limb, by the deliberation and order of Bucoleon, the detestable chamberlain, and rightly named after the blood-devouring beast (as one who possessed works filled with bestial fury, by the knowledge and counsel of the Emperor Constans, who also established the aforementioned obscene and basest type (b) for Gregory, the eunuch and prefect of that miserable city). And this would surely have already come to pass, as far as his reckless eagerness and intent were concerned, had not the protection of the most merciful and most benign God restrained them, and had the enemies themselves not blushed at his most robust fortitude. For tyrants, even the fierce and inhuman ones, though they be too unmerciful and cruel, know that to suffer this—according to his glorious Church of our God, which he had synodically enlightened with most holy and true dogmas, and which he had strengthened with the sacred and most pious dogmas of the five holy and universal synods—namely, the Nicene, the Constantinopolitan, the Ephesian (the first), the Chalcedonian, and again the Constantinopolitan under the Emperor Julian, as well as those of all the divinely wise and approved Fathers our masters—is a thing they could not withstand. As those who desire to read with pious love will find in the sacred acts of the holy, apostolic, and most pious synod which was celebrated by him at Rome, they have been transmitted to every place and every region, and he had arduously manifested and preached the truth: ^B contending in a good and, to him, most lovable struggle, and having departed with great joy to the desired Lord, for whom he also poured out his own blood, as much as was in him to do, on the sixteenth day of September, in the fourteenth indiction, on which day the honorable memory of the keeper of piety and abundantly struggling chaste virgin and martyr Euphemia is celebrated every year—he was buried among the tombs of the holy ones in an admirable house of our most holy, undefiled, and ever-to-be-praised, gracious, and truly ever-glorious Lady, who in her own nature and without falsehood is truly the Theotokos and ever-Virgin Mary, which is called Blachernae, one stadium outside the walls of the same blessed city of Cherson. In which holy house the aforementioned holy Euprepius also rests, beside that same accomplished and true master, who fulfilled in deed the evangelical voice, which says: *The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep* (John x, 11).

VI. Furthermore, the holy and memorable and excellent and, in all things, wise—nay, divinely wise—and great defender of the truth and fellow-martyr of the martyrs, ^C *Maximus*—who is also Maximus (for this, as we indicated before, the Latin language insinuates to be the name of Maximus)—whose holy monument also displays lamps every night from the day he is known to have fallen asleep until the present, and for all time shines forth and reveals his confidence, which he obtains before God, just as the aforementioned epistle commends, and we ourselves, as auditors, have effectively become through many of the leaders and inhabitants of that place who, with oaths of this kind, were truly preaching the miracle with confidence. But of those who saw these things with their own eyes, one also is a companion of the same, named Mistrianus, of the castrum, who, while keeping watch with the soldiers, contemplated these things not once or twice, but many times, and was the first to openly preach about all these things to us, we not being able to go there on account of the ascent of that mountain—that is, the summit of the Caucasians—[lxxxiii] which is higher than Constans his father.

There resulted for us from the blessing of our parents, as if in the Lord; but, to speak more truly, by the gift of God, and not from others. But we were no less concerned for the other fellow-combatants and co-martyrs, that we might become viewers of their stigmata and sufferings, which they bore for Christ our true God. Moreover, having been made hearers through us, we might be established as partakers of their divinely wise and saving doctrine, and might enjoy their prayers, which are persuasive to God and well-accepted; and that we might bring away, taken by our own hands from them, some of those garments which were torn from them in their passion, together with the sanctified cloths, dyed red with their precious blood, which had been wrapped around their holy, severed hands for the sake of stopping the blood medicinally. We reckon, as I believe, that to embrace and [to] be mindful of both is not without consideration, because they are recognized as having been made one and the same in the struggle of the truly holy and orthodox faith, and in the bond of peace and charity. ^D

VII. Therefore, there has been sent to us this most sacred epistle, written by their own hand—or rather, divinely inspired—together with the god-speaking testimonies and syllogisms laid out for you, from that very place of their exile, that is, Lazica, which we both have and preserve, with that same thing which he writes, [and] the argument divinely handed to him—that is, the aforesaid two sticks from their exile, and other blessings and gifts of his, and holy and venerable things, and indeed all things good after God, namely, studies of his books, and items composed by his own hand, as if they were truly most sacred praises and the rest. It was given to us, who are truly most base—that is, to Theodosius and Theodore, brothers according to the flesh, simple, humble and sinful monks—through Gregory, monk and abbot of the monastery of Saint John the Baptist in the region of the Alans, which is called Batararu, on the twentieth day of the month of August, of the eleventh indiction, during the time when he passed by us as we were returning from the region of the oft-mentioned Lazi. For we had gone there, although we were very weak and poor and unworthy, according to custom, for their visitation, not only because of the burden of the writing already entrusted to us, that is, the precept of the oft-mentioned holy and supreme apostolic Roman Pope Martin, when we were arriving personally to him in that city of great name, and [to receive] the assurance in his own hand regarding those things which were confirmed by him synodically, from the Pope himself as we took and heard them, and from another of those who were present at the same time. But also because he had commanded us with his own mouth regarding this, after they had suffered, when they were still in Byzantium in the custody of the praetorian prefect, which is called Diomedis, from which we also sent them on to their already oft-mentioned third exile in Lazica: mourning for them, and [sharing] in the rest of their exiles and custodies, toils and anxieties, and no small straits, according to what was possible for us through their prayers acceptable to God, as He assisted us, He who has snatched us more often from the wicked hands of the impious, and from dangers of the sea and diverse tempests, to minister from our own meager [means], which [is]...

VIII. For the rest, an infinite multitude of those who, in the aforementioned unbearable and intolerable persecution, were inflicting martyrdom—publicly and secretly—via diverse scourgings and tribulations, by an astute and cunning artifice, were suggesting these [sufferings] of his in one way or another, as if not for the sake of the faith, but under the pretext of other occasions and losses: so much so that these things were hidden from the simpler sorts, who are easily deceived, and from those who were more studious, [when we were] reporting these things, and without doubt [reporting] why they suffered, ^C to God alone, who is the knower of hidden things. For all of whom, you who pursue the truth in what is truly true, as if present and falling [before them], being bowed with the knee of the heart as well as bodily knees, and inclined with the sense of the heart with tears, and falling prone before the footprints of all of you, we entreat and implore that you first grant pardon in all things to our insignificance and indiscipline, we who, as truly faithful, accept such things faithfully, and [we pray] that oblivion [lxxxiv] might not veil such great and such holy struggles, for the reason that these things are known with diligence by very few and rare men. As for us, as has been said, ^D because we had been made conscious by their very sight of these things with the pleasure of God, and we feared the danger which is generated from sloth, and for no other reason, as I say before God, except for this, we had presumed to write these things in whatever way, and we could in no way bring forth the life or praises of such and so many truly admirable and great struggles and toils for piety of those most sacred men in the Lord—because, of course, of our collateral and rough rusticity and our total indiscipline, through which there is in us a poverty of speech above all men.

IX. We think it sufficient for the acts and proclamations of [their] great life, if those who want to read their divine things out of love of truth and learning, and true...

^A zeal, should, without weariness, in opposition to impiety and for the sake of piety, labor much over the writings, which, with all diligence and care—along with those things which are from the execrable writings of the adversaries—we have compiled in various books and volumes, though we ourselves be humble and truly vile above all in all things. Yet, according to the virtue that is in us, we have delivered these to the lovers of truth, unto the glory and unceasing praise and thanksgiving of Almighty God, who is truly wondrous in His saints, and for the zeal and alacrity of those who are willing to struggle for piety, and for the confusion and inevitable disgrace of the enemies of truth and of God Himself, and [to answer] the urgent arguments and counter-claims of the false calumnies brought against them, and of the empty and unstable decrees—and, absolutely, all their most holy and pious struggles and labors, which were brought about in various ways by those who were in opposition, that is, by the newly introduced and heretical invention that accepts all things: Heraclian, Cyrus, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and the Petritae and the involuntary inoperatists, or, to speak more truly, the new Epicureans, that is, those utterly devoid of God, as the writings themselves concerning these affairs and concerning these contradictions demonstrate to those who know how to discern such things. Insofar as those who, after us, shall be studious and powerful in the word, and have received an opportunity from these findings, may render the due thanksgiving to God and His saints, for it says: "Give an opportunity to a wise man, and he will become wiser ^B still."

X. Secondly, through unceasing prayers and supplications, with good works and tears, beseech the most benign by nature and most merciful God, that He may have compassion on our weaknesses; and that He may put an end to and finish the present, treacherous, and deceitful, and thoroughly argumentative persecution—a persecution more grievous than all pagan and heretical ones—namely, of those who shed the precious blood of the innocent, just as occurred under the impious and God-forsaken Arians, with respect to the rose-colored blood of the holy Peter, patriarch and martyr of Alexandria. For this reason our aforementioned holy Fathers and true teachers of piety, and especially our apostolic and supreme Pope Martin, similarly delivered himself as a sacrifice for the faithful people, having in all things imitated and followed Christ our God, the Agonothetes, and Peter, the head of the apostles, whose successor he was, as he was truly worthy, that He may bestow firm peace and indissoluble unity everywhere upon His holy Churches, and not permit any heresy whatsoever to be stirred up until the end, as much on account of the multitude of His mercies as on account of the infirmity and instability of our nature, which has grown beyond all past generations.

XI. Thirdly, that we may be preserved immovable until the end, not only we, but all the pious, in our truly holy and orthodox and immaculate and sole Catholic and true faith of the Christians, and that we may receive the remission of sins and salvation, who are truly sinners and the servants of all, who are truly orthodox and the own worshippers of Christ our true God and Savior, who in truth glorifies those who glorify Him magnificently, and to whom all glory, honor, empire, majesty in heaven and on earth, adoration and thanksgiving are fitting in the sense of the heart ^C and in truth, and in fear and trembling, likewise with exultation, according to the prophetic utterance, together with the immortal and lover of mercy, the most compassionate and most merciful beyond nature, the Father, and the most holy and consubstantial, life-giving and omnipotent divine Spirit, now and always, and for all and infinite ages of ages. Amen.

AGAINST THE CONSTANTINOPOLITANS, For our holy Father Maximus, an invective written by a certain monk, out of bitterness of heart.

[LXXXV] AGAINST THE CONSTANTINOPOLITANS, For our holy Father Maximus, an invective by a certain monk, written with an embittered heart concerning the execration of a dire crime.

Those who do not understand the truth as is fitting, they, ^D forsooth, embrace a lie in place of the aforementioned truth. For when a soul is unworthy of the illumination of God due to its own sloth, it is filled with ignorance and darkness.

^A And it sees light as darkness, and darkness as light. And just as an archer who has no target, even if he draws the string back easily, lets fly his arrow without aim and without skill, so too does this man, putting forth his own words and deeds, bring forward things that are twisted, crooked, and incoherent, especially to those who have been deemed worthy of receiving the heavenly drop. This was indeed experienced by the most irrational and most impious emperor, and those around Epiphanius—or rather, Apophanius, the burner indeed of sparks, but no patrician—and Theodosius, the sub-bishop, not a bishop (for he looks to earthly things, and is not a true guardian or watchman)—those who doomed the holy Maximus, that third light among the theologians, to have his tongue and right hand cut off, and who voted for the same sentence against the two Anastasiuses, those twin disciples of his from long ago.

For I ask you, O you men (if I may for a little while discuss this with the sorrow and heavy anxiety of my soul), what did you find in his approved and theological works, and in those decrees and doctrines of his that are so useful for the benefit of souls, and in his moral, contemplative, and God-befitting thoughts that is contrary to Scripture, that you concluded that such a righteous man should be punished with such inhumanity, as if he were an evildoer who thought evil of Christ? ^B You, I say—wicked seed, imperfect abortions, nocturnal birds, the entrails of the earth (that is, earthworms), lazy bellies, powerful gluttons, hawks lusting after the lechery of women, and rapers of their modesty! Behold in your hands his book, which every race of men has admired and continues to admire, and which will be held in admiration in future ages as well. Behold his four hundred and more chapters—I do not say for you, who are unworthy, but even for those who are highly approved and excellent—which, on account of their excellence, have been seen as matters of great value. Furthermore, let his book of aphorisms, or decrees, be honored in silence. For [those 480], as things which surpass the power and capacity of nature, even when they are praised, contain an element of injury and are almost worn away. Your right hand, rather, deserved to be cut off, acting as it does with touch, and raging with crime—nay, to use an expression, as to say it was totally polluted, the ready and open instrument of a second and new idolatry. Your eyes deserved to be gouged out, as the most ready instrument of the devil, as a herald of lechery, as the signals of rabid lust. Your tongue should have been torn out from the roots, as it was raised up to heaven and then cast down from there, a tongue that nourished labor and sorrow, that pushed pleasure to the throat and conceived blasphemy, bringing forth idle and soul-killing arguments. Your back should have been torn to pieces, and that chest filled with rage—being as it was a vehicle for demons, a lurking-hole trodden by a serpent, a shelter for demons, a registry of impiety. ^C Such is your boasting, O Babylon, proud of your seven hills; such are the unholy and world-consuming offspring you suckle. You exalt yourself with the slaughters of the saints, you revel in the blood of the righteous. You have poured out all righteous blood with lavish injury, and are you not at all afraid? Is there any righteous man against whom you have not raged in persecution, nor feel shame? You are proud, and do you not recognize it? You limp, and do you not tremble? You weave snares, and you play the rhetorician; ^D you slaughter, and you play the philosopher; you cut out tongues, and yet you share in the communion?

your right hand—I mean, the truth of God—are you cutting it off, and do you shamelessly cry out, "Holy things for the holy ones"? But as for you and your own, God’s ^A inescapable retribution will teach you; while the eternal kingdom of Christ will receive the holy confessors—one might even say, the martyrs—whose lot may we also, though it be a somewhat bold prayer, be granted to share through their peaceful and God-pleasing intercessions. Amen.

THE OFFICE OF SAINT MAXIMUS

^BOFFICE I

Versicles for Saint Maximus, Anastasius, and Anastasius. Tones oblique 4. Similar. Martyrs, supplicate the Lord.

Holy Fathers, there is no city you have not sanctified, and you have illuminated every place; and now we beseech you, intercede that the illumination of Christ may dwell in our souls.

Holy Fathers, there is no heresy you have not execrated; you have preached piety: therefore intercede, we beseech you, that the illumination of Christ may dwell in our souls.

Holy Fathers, after your members were cut off, you worked as though no injury had been inflicted upon your bodies, speaking with tongueless mouths and writing divine dogmas with your hands.

^CCANON

Tone oblique 4. Ode 1. Israel from slavery.

Having acquired the treasures of supernal wisdom in your heart, O saint, by it you have enriched the world with your dogmas.

You showed an angelic manner of life while dwelling on earth, and you became the bridal chamber of God, O holy herald of Christ; and thus you were united to Him.

With your flame-bearing tongue you burned up the prurient utterances of the heretics, O blessed one, preaching the Savior, the one Son, in two natures.

To the Theotokos

Rejoice, pure Theotokos, who bore the Word of God, who existed before the ages, in these last times in the flesh; rejoice, the wall of all of us and the protection of those who venerate you.

Ode 3. Is not the Lord holy?

Streams of blood drip from your precious right hand, and doctrines flow from your chaste tongue, which, even after it had been cut out, clearly and distinctly proclaimed Christ in two natures.

Your hand did not cease to cry out with letters, and your tongue resounds with the trumpet blast of your faith ^D through your doctrines.

^A O thrice-blessed one, skilled in divine vision; for it was God who moved both and provided the effective power of speech. Having spiritually transferred your way of life from earth to the heavens, O holy ones, you dwell there in eternal light; wherefore you have also received the heavenly crown.

*In Deip* [To the Mother of God] Women indeed give birth, O chaste Virgin Mother, yet they do not remain virgins as you do. For none of them bore God in her womb, except you alone, O chaste Theotokos.

*Ode 4. From the overshadowed mountain.* Emulating Moses, O divinely-minded one, you received the mental tablets of the dogmas. For having entered into the cloud ^B of intellectual contemplation, you drank deeply of the light of knowledge. Emulating Abraham, O divinely-inspired one, you offered another Isaac to the Lord, sacrificing your own heart, Father, with the fire of conscience. The Trinity has worthily glorified these; God has joined them together in faith, confessing one to another in the piety of our unerring confession.

*In Deip* You gave birth in time to the Son who is beyond all time; you remained incorrupt and chaste, O Mother of God and ever-virgin, even after His birth, He who for our sake assumed flesh in your womb.

*Ode 5. Rising early we cry out.* The sword, Father, did not prune your freedom of speech; exile, O holy one, did not extinguish your faith. Rome proclaims your zeal, O divinely-inspired one, and the Church, O holy one, sounds forth your words as with a trumpet. You guarded your faith unshaken in your heart ^C and raised your mind toward heaven, O man of great name.

*In Deip* We praise you as the fountain of immortality, O Theotokos; for you have caused the perennial life to spring forth for the world.

*Ode 6. Out of the belly of Hades you heard my cry.* ^D You heard my voice, and you delivered my life from corruption, as one who is supremely merciful and kind. He who spoke in you, Jesus, who was your companion in the struggle, made your confession miraculous, O thrice-blessed one. You did not fear, O holy one, the pride of officials, nor the sword, nor the threatening fire, for you were firm in the faith. After the end of your life, O Fathers, you perform miracles, providing invincible proofs of your wonders.

*In Deip* Beyond mind and reason, O Virgin, [you nurse] the Nourisher...

Him who provides food for all, but Whom no mother could sustain.

Cathisma. Tone 5. Of Divine Faith.

Synaxarion.

(a) They say that after the cutting, again by God

^A a miracle was granted, that his tongue was restored, and that he spoke clearly as long as he lived. Of his two disciples, the elder, Anastasius, having been mutilated in tongue and hand like his master, was exiled far away, while the younger one, sent to a certain fortress in Thrace, ended his life there.

Ode 7: Thou who in the beginning

To the Theotokos

Ode 8: Thou who on the holy mount

To the Theotokos

Ode 9: Thou who wast manifested

To the Theotokos

^A long ago, O Mother of God and Virgin, as one receiving into your womb the fire of immortality, which you accepted, foreshadowing it with a figure.

Exapostilarion. Unchanging Light.

You were shown to be a trumpet of wisdom, with your resonant tongue striking the bands of your adversaries, O Maximus, light of monks; wherefore, delighting in your writings, we perceive the knowledge of those things which exist.

OFFICE II

AT VESPERS

Versicles. Tone 4. Prosomia. As one valiant among martyrs.

You, O holy Maximus, preached Him who, out of compassion, as He willed, became man, and is understood in two wills and operations, thereby stopping the unbridled mouths of the wicked who, by the malice of the devil, the artificer of evil, glorified and taught a single will and a single operation.

With the chords of your doctrines, O Father Maximus, you strangled Pyrrhus, that man of perverted mind (a vain and trifling fellow); and you endured persecutions and afflictions, O glorious one, being sorely scourged and having your tongue cut out, as well as your divine ^B right hand, which you always raised to God, and with which you labored to write down the most lofty dogmas.

Your holy tongue, O blessed one, became like the reed of a scribe writing swiftly, sharpened by the Spirit, beautifully writing in the Spirit upon the tablets of our hearts the law of divine virtues and the exact knowledge of dogmas, and the incarnation of Him who willed to appear to men in two essences and one hypostasis.

Glory. Tone plagal 4.

The multitudes of monks honor you as their guide, O our Father Maximus; for through you we have learned to walk the path that is truly straight. Blessed are you, for you served Christ and triumphed over the power of the enemy; you are a companion of the angels, and a fellow-partaker with the holy and the just, with whom intercede ^C with the Lord that He may have mercy on our souls.

O holy Father, the sound of your righteous deeds has gone out into all the earth; therefore you have found in the heavens the reward for your labors. You routed the hosts of demons; you reached the orders of angels, whose life you emulated without reproach. Having boldness in your memory, ask for peace for our souls.

Apolytikion of the feast and of the saint. Tone plagal 4.

Guide of Orthodoxy, teacher of piety and propriety, light of the world, divinely-inspired adornment of monks, O wise Maximus, ^D harp of the Spirit, Father

holy, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Canon, of which the acrostic is: The most great Maximus is praised.

Ode 1. Tone plagal 4. Let us sing to the Lord. By John the monk.

Distil into me, O divine Maximus, the grace of the Spirit that breathes God into me, from your sweet, honey-flowing tongue. ^A You appeared as a burning fire against the heresies, O blessed man; for just like stubble you consumed them with the zeal of the Spirit. An irrational dogma of one will was promulgated by an ungodly inclination, but by your teachings, Father, it has been refuted and confounded.

Towards the Theotokos.

Undefiled Mother of God, who gave birth beyond the laws of nature to the eternal and trans-substantial Word, we praise you.

Ode 3. Hirmos: You are the firmament of those who attend to you, O Lord; you are the light of those blinded by darkness, and my spirit praises you.

Maximus, you have truly shown yourself to be the most true herald ^B and martyr for the pious faith of Christ by your blood. Blessed Maximus, through asceticism you have become a God-befitting and temperate dwelling-place of philosophy. Your tongue surged forth like a river with the most pious dogmas of Christ, O all-blessed Maximus, for you are a foster-son of wisdom.

Towards the Theotokos.

As Christians, we all possess you as our refuge and our wall. With a ceaseless voice we praise you, all-praised one.

Kontakion of the feast and of the holy man. Tone plagal 2. For us.

The tri-luminous light that dwelt in your soul made you a chosen vessel, O all-blessed one. For you clarify divine things to the ends of the earth, and you interpret ^C the declarations of profound thoughts, O blessed one, clearly proclaiming to all, O Maximus, the superessential and beginningless Trinity.

Oikos.

The foundation of priests, the basis of dogmas, the trumpet of wisdom, the highest summit of martyrs, and the support of the faithful, the admirable Maximus rises before the world today through his divine memory. Therefore, all of you, arise to his radiance, praising the boldness and the zeal which he showed in defending piety; for he truly struggled as a shepherd for his flock against the wolves, and, having struck them down and routed them, he received the palm and crown of victory, while he openly proclaimed to all the superessential, beginningless Trinity. ^D

^A Glory. Tone 3. The beauty. The upright deeds of your conduct illuminate the steps of all, Maximus, true father of those who imitate you in faith; wherefore, save from all distress those who out of desire always call you blessed, by your intercessions, supplicating the good Christ, O blessed one worthy of all admiration.

Ode 4. I have heard, O Lord. Earth-born ones honor you, and the orders of the heavenly ones marvel; for through your love of wisdom you were revealed, Father, as though devoid of flesh. The tyrant was fierce, but your endurance was unshaken; wherefore you, Father, have attained the praise of blessedness, but he has been cast away. The all-blessed pair of your disciples contend alongside you, Maximus, having shared in your labors; therefore they also attained equal rewards. Irrigated by the streams of your blood, the Church of Christ blossoms forth, O saint, with the dogma of your divine seed, which you received by paternal tradition.

In Deip. You who as an untilled field brought forth the life-giving ear of corn, which provides life to the world, Theotokos, save those who hymn you.

Ode 5. Rising early, we cry to you. He who gathered knowledge of earthly and heavenly things is rightly called a philosopher, Maximus. Through love of the better wisdom, you appeared as a most perfect imitator of your Christ, O renowned Maximus. You became a sufferer of the tyrant’s insane exile; but you found Jesus, O blessed one, as your consolation.

In Deip. Calm the unstable surge of my passions, you who gave birth to God, the pilot and Lord.

Ode 6. The Hirmos. Grant me a lustrous tunic, ^B you who are clothed with light as with a garment, O Christ our God, who are of many mercies. Offering an unceasing prayer to God, O God-bearer, deliver us from the passions and corruption of soul and body. Any fountain of muddy heresy is dried up, renowned Maximus, being blocked by the sweetness of your tongue. Be propitious to me, O only Good One, and pour into my heart the fountain of grace, O Christ, through the prayers of your saint.

In Deip. You who alone gave birth to the Word in the flesh by a word, deliver our souls, we beseech, from the snares of the enemy. ^{C D}

Ode 7. Those who were in Judea. You proclaimed one nature of the Trinity, one will, one ener-

- ^A gies: but of God incarnate, you proclaimed two natures, wills, and operations. Blessed are you, the God of our fathers.

You proclaimed ^B that there are not two wills divided by contrariety of mind, but rather distinct by natural quality, Father, crying out, "Blessed are you, the God of our fathers."

That we may hold your divine discourses, Father, as a mark of the right faith, we worship the One of the Trinity in two substances and wills. Blessed are you, the God of our fathers.

Knowing, Father, the two operations of God, who in mercy put on flesh, and taught by you, we sing of the two free wills. Blessed are you, the God of our fathers.

*Theotokos.* Having been incarnate from a virginal womb, you appeared for our salvation; wherefore, knowing your mother to be Theotokos, we gratefully cry out: Blessed are you, the God of our fathers.

Ode 8. *Hirmos.* Having become victors over the tyrant and the flame by your grace, the children, who were most diligent in observing your commandments, cried out: "Bless the Lord, all you works, and highly exalt him unto all ages."

Desiring him with your whole soul, who pursued the human race with excessive fervor and love, you bore your cross and, O blessed one, were crucified with him. Bless the Lord, all you works.

Having become a stranger to all lethal pleasure, O blessed one, you presented yourself as a whole, divine, and unspotted mirror, singing: Bless the Lord, all you works. ^C

You did not fear the cruelty of the savage, impious tyrant; but as a column of orthodoxy, you stood immovable and unshaken, singing: Bless the Lord, all you works.

Having been admitted to perceive the vital splendor from the one three-subsistent God, you appeared as a sun to those who are in darkness and error, singing: Bless the Lord, all you works.

*Theotokos.* O Virgin, you were seen to be daughter of Adam, of him who fell, but mother of God, who restored my substance, whom all you works praise as Lord. ^D

Ode 9. *Hirmos.* The birth of the Ever-Virgin, which was once foreshadowed to the lawgiver in the mountain in the fire and the bush, we magnify with unceasing hymns for the salvation of us, the faithful.

Even now, like the blood of Abel, your divinely-inspired dogmas exist throughout the ages, and the Church of Christ proclaims them with a clear voice, O Maximus, all-blessed and all-great.

Your hand has been cut off; yet it writes with a divine finger, as if with pen and ink, with your tongue also cut off for your holy love, O all-blessed one, the orthodox faith in the hearts of men.

^A Celebrated in praise throughout the world is your divine liberty, and the fire of divine charity conceived in your bowels, with which, O holy man Maximus, you endured to shed your blood with the utmost alacrity. You stand before the divine tribunal with the martyrs, to whom you were a companion in the emulation of the faith, O Father, that you might reconcile us to the Master, and make us your imitators.

*To the Mother of God.* You are, O Theotokos, our armor and wall: you are the refuge and defense of those who run to you. We entreat you now also to intercede, that we may be delivered from our enemies.

*Exapostilarion.* O women, hear with your ears. The depths of your judgments are known to the searching Spirit; but the deep things of the Spirit, O Savior, Maximus has searched out in spirit and power, as a justly named Philosopher, proclaiming your two wills and operations. Wherefore he is now splendidly honored and glorified.

August 13th. The translation of the body of our holy Father Maximus the confessor. The faithful move your ashes, Maximus, clearly showing that you are changing places from one to another. About the thirteenth, he departed from human affairs.

[XCVII] AD SANCTI MAXIMI VITAM. The life of Saint Maximus, after its fragments ^B had been produced by the most illustrious Father of the Annals, in the year of Christ 640 and the following years, from the version of Peter Marinus and the Vatican codices, I deemed it worthwhile to represent in its entirety from the Royal codex, if I should annotate certain small matters for a fuller and more certain knowledge of the affairs of Maximus; except for those which, pertaining to it, have been briefly noted in the margin to his two Collationes or Auditiones, or even discussed more fully in the notes to them. For not all things in it are sufficiently exact, nor to be worthy of complete faith upon no further examination, as is clearer than light from the said Collationes or public Acts. There is great liberty everywhere in the biographers; especially in those who, under the guise of praise, not altogether as his equals or peers, usurp this task for themselves, not that they may describe the deeds and words of the saints with precision, but that they may please with praise, and thence, by an artfully composed narrative and rhetorical adornments, increase their veneration.

As for what the author says regarding his fatherland, birth, upbringing, studies, work in the court, and primary office as secretary, or notary, under the Emperor Heraclius, these things appear to be above all exception, having been accepted by the author either in writing or by certain tradition, as long as nothing contrary should occur to these, the faith in which would be greater. The diligence of his adolescence, and the keenness of his genius for literary studies, are evidence of this, as is the erudition and omnigena knowledge he acquired, which the very large crop of his writings reveals, except for those which the injury of time has stolen from us, or which even now are hidden by those who keep them stored away, exposed to moths and book-worms, ^C preserved in codices. That he served in the court of Heraclius, his grandson Constans openly asserts, when he orders him to be brought from Bizya to Constantinople, saying that he was from our ancestors, and had been honorable to them. Which I render more clearly: that he was a friend and intimate of my ancestors, and was held dear by them. Which truly fits well with the post of notary and chief secretary, whose duty it was not to be pulled away from the side of the emperor, and to be always present with him. There exist most beautiful letters of Michael Psellus, both to other leading men of every rank, and especially to the notaries acting with the emperor in the court, when he was traveling through the provinces, or was even leading an army around, and was altogether acting outside the royal city: as when he writes thus gently to the notaries of Comnenus, as though they were his followers and attached to him, and companions in his counsels and labors and in the expedition: to the leaders and the mystagogues. We have almost the same respect in the court for those who are in the secret and intimate counsels of the king himself, and are, as it were, ministers of the state to be governed, whom we call secretaries. The holy patriarch Nicephorus performed this very duty under the Emperor Nicephorus, and before he was set over that see, from which familiarity with the court came such sweetness and elegance of style as we admire in his Antirrhetics, with which it was permitted to greet [him], joined with equal erudition and knowledge of ecclesiastical affairs; and we grieve that it is not produced for the common use of the Church, and as its shield, especially when clear codices exist in the Royal, Séguier, and Colbert libraries, celebrated in Paris. ^D

^A A hydra of new heresy had meanwhile been murmuring among the clergy, and, as they awaited the arrival of the Emperor from Syria (whence began its origin and starts), under whom it might publicly erupt in the city; it is not very likely that it had already progressed in the court, and that Maximus, wearied by it, had cast it off and committed himself to the monastery, from the vicinity of which his greater storms were to be feared, from the vicinity of the Constantinopolitan clergy and the innovator Patriarch Sergius.

Maximus in his *Dialogue with Pyrrhus* professes that the versatile genius and inconstancy of Sergius had always been hateful to him; although he lay so hidden and acted with such cunning that, as long as he lived, he was esteemed among the Catholic bishops: he was called a Patriarch of "reverend memory" by John IV himself, while he was still alive; where he excuses him for Honorius, his predecessor, with Pyrrhus already his successor.

That he was supported by such favor in the prince’s court, and increased by the office of his dignity, may have been some cause for him to have renounced the world, weary of the innovations which Heraclius was championing and which were already invading the court: ^B for in this way indeed the author of the *Life* also places it in the appendix: "Visible faith at that time was being stained by new decrees." And it could have been that in his monastery, although near the city (for it was situated on the opposite shore; in the opposite coast at Chrysopolis in Bithynia, near Chalcedon: they call it Scutari, as Gillius testifies), he could seek a haven safe from the sea and the tide, and from the companionship and society of the courtiers, as the author calls it ("the contagion and pollution of the soul"), hide himself away: for he had attained this above all else, that he would not be compelled to favor the secret counsels of Heraclius by the duty of his office. But I judge this to be merely a conjecture of the one writing his *Life*. For Heraclius was not so openly favoring the innovation, nor had the dogma of the Monothelites already permeated the court when Maximus put on the habit of a monk; nor was this the chief faction of Heraclius and the court, but rather of the clergy and the bishops—Athanasius the Jacobite, Theodore of Pharan, Cyrus, Sergius, etc.—from which, in order to keep himself safe, Maximus needed to depart not only from the court and the city, which the innovator bishop ruled, but from his entire diocese, or at least to seek hiding places somewhat further away.

It is uncertain at what time he exchanged the courtier’s toga for the monk’s cloak and hairshirt: however, that he exchanged it long before the death of Sergius and the final days of Heraclius, when this flame had so erupted in the court and city, is evidenced by his letter to Pyrrhus the Igumen, when he had already invited the monk to agree with his novelty, which he had received through Sergius’s authorship and had undertaken to confirm in writing; Maximus defending himself, not by the apprenticeship of the position he had assumed nor by newly greeted theology, after he had emerged from the world and the court, but then by the consciousness of his own inadequacy (or more truly, supreme modesty, for the sake of the position itself), and then by the rashness of the deed, lest he should judge hastily: "I am," he says, "in truth, with my affections and vices still raging, tossed about." He said this nowhere else but here; so deeply indeed did he feel about himself, even when he had occupied the supreme height ^C of *apatheia* and contemplation, truly as a third theologian, a most great man. Wherefore he even, much as he excuses other, lighter judgments of Pyrrhus, who knew the man’s excellent ornaments and divine knowledge, he most gravely castigates that one last thing, namely the rashness of presuming, for the condition of a monk. "Who is so daring and rash," he says, "as to attempt to impose upon those things which have been decreed hierarchically according to the divine vote?" Who is so bold as to usurp the divine judgment of the bishops, sanctioned by judicial decree, to be surreptitiously set above it? Maximus is more effusive in that letter in praises of Pyrrhus, to whom he even commends the monks who had set out for Byzantium with the license of a friend: whence the Sicilian monks were offended at Maximus, themselves being tenacious of the true faith with almost the entire West and Africa: for which reason he excuses himself to them in his most eloquent letter, which I present here with others.

Since, therefore, long before the *Ekthesis* of Byzantium was published, the crime of which Maximus attributes to Sergius and the senate and repels from the head of Heraclius, who, overcome by the prayers of Sergius and the Constantinopolitan clergy, and likewise inclined by the indulgence of the senate, permitted it to be published in his own name; which perhaps had not even been issued at the time when he gave these letters to Pyrrhus, while he was still the prefect of the monks, he himself being a monk for some time already; since these letters offered by Pyrrhus to Maximus seem to have been preludes and as it were a forerunner, ^D I might think therefore that there was one reason for Maximus to leave the court and so renounce the clear office in it, so that he might enjoy solitude, and, freed from the disturbances of the world and those of the court, devote himself entirely to God and divine contemplation (to which monastic struggle most greatly promotes, and to the training and discipline of the institute). This love of wisdom and *hesychia* took him to the Nile, having functioned as if at Byzantium as the most noble prefect of that city, together with his son Theodulus, to the solitude of Egypt and Mount Sinai, where he was a spectator of the slaughter of the holy monks, in no way deterred from his purpose: whose struggle he also recorded in elegant letters.

The author describes Maximus’s journey to Rome and to Africa as if the whole of the East and West were already infected with the new heresy, and as if true doctrine and the ancient faith were flourishing nowhere but at Rome and in Africa, or even in the neighboring islands, or even wavering in them, and, as there was danger that this flame might shortly consume all things, he came to their aid. Thus indeed God, by a singular providence and counsel, destined him to go: yet he himself had thought only of Africa, because he left the regions of Asia and Bithynia and Constantinople itself, and not out of that zeal for the faith which the author invents, but out of fear of the barbarians (of the Persians, namely, thus ravaging that whole area, and so that not even the August city itself seemed safe from them), of which Maximus himself in more than one place is a most grave witness. In another letter to Jordan the presbyter, where he praised his spiritual doctrine in many ways, and declared most clearly how much he was held by the desire for him, he showed clearly that he desired most of all to return to his fatherland, and to his customary instruction, while, that mist of the barbarians having been dispersed for a while, some tranquility and security might shine upon those parts. "Call me to yourself," he says, "and under your wings, if indeed all fear of the perceptible barbarians has truly departed, for whose sake, as I am more fond of life, I have covered such distances of the sea." He asks that the entire state of affairs there be diligently exposed. "For I am weak in my mind," he says, "and very shaky, and barely able, even in peace, to be soberly mindful, and I wish to gather my mind, which is scattered about many things by cowardice, so that I may make the voyage with safety; as I am imperfect in understanding, and not able to walk in the words of that Providence which most wisely handles all things." For since I am infirm and very weak in mind, and even in deep peace barely able to be wise for even a moment, and to collect my soul scattered about many things, I desire to undertake the navigation, as I am truly more imperfect in the senses and genius of my soul than to be able to grasp enough of the reasons of Providence, which most wisely administers this universe of things. This Maximus and other things in his modesty. The letter which precedes this one to the same Jordan is written at the end of the first indiction, namely on the second day of the month of August, in the year

642, in which the holy man seriously agitates and deplores not the Monothelites, but another error concerning the soul and the resurrection that was spreading in Constantinople. It is not sufficiently clear which preceded the other. Yet that one also expresses his longing for him and for his homeland. ^A “And I am even more distressed by the separation from you, having no longer the episcopal inspection which, from close by, guarded and protected me—all-powerful in [its] defense against harmful things—and which, by its frequent word, would more often strengthen my many failings.” Consequently, I grieve all the more for being separated from you, for I lack the most powerful inspection of your paternal holiness, which protects me from close by and delivers me from harmful things, and which, through more frequent teaching and admonition, would more often raise up a faltering step. ^B In the letter [xcix] to the bishop of Cyrisicius (if it is not rather Cyzicenus), he exhorts him to call back his own, “if indeed,” he says, “it has fled, and the expectation of the enemies, for which they were so much alienated from the active person, has completely vanished.” And in another to the same person, he deplores his own solitude, because, with him left behind in Africa, others, among whom were George the presbyter and Hegumen, had already returned. ^C Therefore, the biography’s stories are mere inventions, as if, at a time when the matter of the faith had already been proclaimed throughout Constantinople and the whole East (and indeed the West), Maximus, thinking of Rome, had come to Africa from Byzantium. “Thus, the evil having spread into an immeasurable flood, and having all but seized the whole Orient and the Occident.” The Vatican codices either lacked this final utterance, or it escaped Morinus, or perhaps Baronius removed it, lest the author appear more clearly to be undermining his own credit, while he thus casts upon the Westerners, who it is clear very much abhorred that heresy, and very few of whom had submitted to it, an unmerited stain. That he had thought only of Africa, and had sought a refuge therein so that he might be safe from the rampant soldiery and the inundation of the Persians, what has been said sufficiently shows, nor is it necessary to amass more on this matter. ^D It is most certain that Maximus championed the cause of the faith in Africa, and that he resisted vigorously the heresy of the Monothelites, which Pyrrhus, already patriarch, was sowing everywhere by means of libelli distributed and devoted heads seduced to his cause (except for those who, fleeing like Maximus, were themselves voluntarily imbued with that heresy, and by that opportunity, warping the straight paths of the Lord, increased the conflagration, producing, with an invited gathering in Africa, a flame). He most especially encouraged the Africans, through the emulation of the Roman prelate John, to proscribe it. John himself, in his Apology to the Emperor Constantine, successor of Heraclius, when he was flattering Honorius as his patron, clearly declares these machinations of Pyrrhus, while he says thus: “For as much as we have learned from diverse suggestions that have come to us in droves (and indeed even from hearsay itself), all the Western regions are being disturbed and scandalized, with our brother Pyrrhus the patriarch, through his letters transmitted here and there, preaching certain novelties contrary to the rule of the faith, and hastening to draw to his own improper sense, as it were, Honorius the pope of holy memory, our predecessor, which was entirely alien to the mind of the Catholic Father.” ^A It seems that for a time the heresy, suppressed, had fallen silent, with Heraclius excusing to John the Roman pontiff that the Ecthesis was not his own; nor did Sergius defend it more brazenly, so that even in this way the crafty man might retain the Catholic name and communion. But with him removed, and shortly thereafter Heraclius, it seems that Pyrrhus acted more hotly, and such as John signifies in the words of the quoted Apology; having gained, namely, from the supreme dignity of the see the license to promote the dogma, for the drafting and wide spreading of which, while still in minor stations, he had stood as the greatest helper to Sergius. But when, with Constantine shortly removed, Pyrrhus himself, with Martina, the stepmother of the deceased, had fallen under suspicion of having offered him poison, and the senate, moved by the indignity of the matter, had cast the one from the see and the other from the palace, he had been sent away as if to a place of exile, or he had himself voluntarily chosen that province for himself, in which he thought it would be safer for him, the tyranny of the prefect Gregory not yet revealed, which broke out afterward. Pyrrhus recognized, when he had come to Africa, how great a role Maximus had played in Africa against him and Sergius his predecessor, and how much he had detracted and was detracting from the error of a single will: for which name he complains, as if by the ancient right of friendship, at the very beginning of the dialogue or disputation held with him: “What evil have we done, Lord Maximus, etc.” By that disputation, the holy man compelled Pyrrhus to a recantation and induced him to undertake a journey to Rome, where, by a delivered libellus, he might be reconciled to the prelate of the supreme see: for which matter he had desired Maximus as his companion; ^B not otherwise than later Theodosius, bishop of Caesarea in Bithynia, when Maximus, having convinced him with a like reason of his error, had persuaded him that this was the one remedy, that he should set out for Rome, suppliant and libellaticus, to have them sent there by the patriarch and the emperor, each in his own name and that of his own people. Pyrrhus knew how great was the renown of Maximus at Rome, from his defense of the faith; trusting in which, he hoped that everything would turn out successfully, and that he would not only merit the communion of the Roman prelate, but—with him as the author—also recover his see: since the invasion of Paul had not yet been sufficiently judged at Rome, and because he had ascended the throne of a living man, and not one canonically deposed. But truly, that Pyrrhus went to Rome out of a zeal for the faith, and to profess himself truly Catholic, the recantation of the faith that soon followed at Ravenna scarcely allows one to believe. Where, namely, he learned from the heretical exarch Olympius that the command of the Roman prelate would not avail as much to recover the see as would the submitted libellus, now that the new heresy was already flourishing at Constantinople, and in it, by the custom of heretics, the authority of the see of Peter was voided, and with no obscure defection, especially with the emperor himself (he was Constans) laboring under the heresy, being indignant that it had been done in that way, and Pope Theodorus having exerted himself. Whatever may be the case, Maximus indeed entered Rome as a victor after this spoil; nor could any cause for his journey have been stronger or more pressing. Unless perhaps also the most holy Pope Theodorus, who was himself a Greek, moved by the fame of such learning and immaculate faith, along with a like holiness of life, had invited him to Rome, so that by the force of his arguments and reasoning he might strike at the throat of the budding hydra: in which Martin was also greatly helped, at that most celebrated Lateran synod, by which the Monothelites were fully proscribed and excised, since the preceding Roman pontiffs had seemed for some time ^C to practice economy and to attempt milder things: or at least to pursue and condemn only individual and private persons, like Theodorus Pyrrhus, not the heads of the heresy universally, and indeed to condemn the Ecthesis, and to decree under anathema that it should be deposed, having rebuked Pyrrhus who studied it, and who had not observed the admonitions of John concerning its abolition, but not with such a solemn investigation and that pomp of judgment with which the whole West sat with its prelate, as was done by Martin. ^D The letter of Maximus to John the cubicularius, consigned in the fifteenth indiction, in the month of November, in which the common mistress, the patrician (as he himself speaks), would order that the nuns of the sect of Severus act freely—[and] that those whom the Aquæans had reduced to order and [c] coerced, from which a great offense arose among the Africans—seems to look to that brief period of a few months of Martina with Heracleon the son, the empire: so that if the Church suffered any graver things then, they seem to look not so much to the beginnings of Constans, grandson of Heraclius, as the most illustrious Father of the Annals decides, than to Martina. It is certainly more probable that the woman, most devoted as she was to the heretic Pyrrhus—having obtained power—wished to foster the heresy to which she knew her husband had been devoted, and to give power to the said nuns in Africa, rather than that Constans, then first entering upon the empire, with Paul already in

^A substituted in Pyrrhus's place—who, though a heretic, was initially favored by Catholics—brought his initiators to the Roman prelate Theodore, and thought that the cause of Pyrrhus, whose heresy was notorious and his pertinacity in it confirmed, should be committed to a synod of bishops gathered by him, while obtaining the admonitions of John the Roman pontiff regarding the deposition of the Ecthesis. Namely, that by that same means, he being deposed by canonical examination, he himself might sit as the true prelate: the see being already widowed, not by Pyrrhus's death, but by his abdication. Nor did anything else drive Paul, so that he might be the first himself to rage against the orthodox, but the opposition of the Roman prelate, so that that true bishop might not sit, the Pyrrhus affair not yet having been canonically examined, and him truly being still the bishop of the city of Constantinople, and having held honor at Rome, where he had specifically presented a booklet; concerning which Anastasius [writes]: "The pontiff made him distribute gifts among the people, and [ordered] the throne to be placed for him near the altar, honoring him as a priest of the royal city." And Martin, more clearly, when the business of substituting Paul for him was again being dealt with, says that he had been accepted as bishop by Theodore: nor is that to be wondered at, since in his own letters to Paul, he had already openly professed him to be an intruder and a usurper. To these beginnings of Theodore, Martin put the finishing touch by the sentence of the Lateran synod: to which the reprobation of the Type itself, and the condemnation of Paul himself, had been preceded by Theodore. ^B How well the most illustrious writer of the *Annals* places the coming of Maximus into the city and his audience in secret or in the hall of the palace, following the *Biographer*, in the very year in which Martin was captured and led away to Byzantium, namely the year 650; although Martin, fatigued by a longer journey and detained for a year on the island of Naxos (as he himself confesses in a letter to Theodore), did not arrive until the following year, nearly at its end; yet he inconsistently refers the same to the year 657, and from the *Acts*, by a bad arrangement of the antiquary and confused by that *biographer*, repeats it there, and makes the beginnings of his struggles the ends of them. Theophanes records the affairs of Maximus in the previous year. Of Martin, he [writes] thus soberly there: "In the same year, the most holy Pope Martin of Rome was exiled, having struggled bravely for the truth, and having become a confessor, he died in the regions of the East." In the same year, the most holy Pope Martin was driven into exile. Here, struggling strenuously and having become a confessor, he departed this life in the parts of the East. He seems sober in this, because he touches upon Martin’s affairs with the brevity of a chronicler, consistent entirely with those things which were written by Martin himself, and with the report concerning his exile, nor does he mingle with it—as he had done above—the persecution of the Western bishops, which is hardly inferior to his own. For already in the year of Christ 621, when he recites in summary the tragedy of the whole almost of the Monothelite heresy (from which he derived most of his own [material], except for those things which are in the *Acts*, the *biographer* having borrowed, that is, according to Baronius, the man who had heard from those who were adhering to the side of Maximus) he had written thus: "He subdued even many of the Western bishops with torments." The author of the *Life*, having described the most atrocious outrages of Martin, the licentiousness of words, and the cruelty of lashes and blows, and also his exile to Cherson, that is, to the harshest place: "The same, namely, even in his own deeds..." adding a like brutality to his use of bishops. And a little above, "having arranged the most holy Martin with more of the Western bishops, he quickly stations him in Byzantium." But Martin says that only he himself was brought, even though he had requested companion bishops, presbyters, and deacons, and Calliopas had not refused: "Let those from the clergy who are necessary to me come with me: namely, bishops, presbyters, and deacons; and absolutely those who I think [should come]." Calliopas answered: "As many as wish to come, let them come with good intent: we make necessity for no one." Indeed, the most holy priest was requesting ^C the imperial letters, in which his *kathairesis*, [that is] deposition, was contained (for that is what that somewhat harsh word of Anastasius, "abjection," would mean), [demanding that] they be presented to the presbyters and deacons, and that he be cast out from the see, not [to have] companions for the pomp of the journey, but strenuous fellow-soldiers, with whom, with equal effort and common counsel, he might defend the orthodox faith recently confirmed at the Lateran. For this reason, also, when he was pleading his case before the tribunal, and had begun to stir up speech concerning the Type: "When the Type was made and directed to Rome by the emperor (referring to himself, because he was thus vexed and cast from the see) nothing else was permitted to be said." To whom Troilus immediately: "Do not bring up the faith here: we too are Christians and orthodox." And so the holy man understood that those evils were being brought upon himself, because, along with the Type, he had condemned Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paul as heretics: however, Constans was pretending something else, who was thus bringing upon him a brand of heresy—not the one he had assumed for himself, but one to be added—on account of the faith being brought in (namely, by substituting the first who filled Pyrrhus’s place, who albeit a heretic, yet initially preferred the Catholic [faith]), and because of the see of all [bishops] and the mistress of all being polluted [by him]. Therefore he intends the crime of majesty, and of conspiracy with Olympius, so that by his pretense, he himself being removed and a successor given, he might more easily obtain that which Martin seemed to have sanctioned with sterner discipline. Whence also a new faith was issued, or a method of concord entered into, concerning which Maximus [wrote] to Anastasius, and Anastasius himself to the monks of Cagliari, to which they themselves had consented, the apocrisiarii of the Roman see, to Eugenius, Martin's vicar in Rome; but [done] with the sense and will of Constans, even while he was still on a journey on behalf of Martin, but now indeed [as] the Roman bishop. For thus Martin himself says that the tyrant had ordered that while he himself was being sent to the royal city, another bishop should be constituted in his place; which the pontiff deservedly asserts had neither ever been done, nor could ever be done. Regarding Liberius and Felix, the ratio is different; and the fact that Felix was received as a true Roman pontiff [is] as if Liberius, polluted by the communion of the Arians, had already ceased to be the Roman pontiff, not [as in the case of] Martin, whose constancy in the end ^D had endured [cruel] afflictions to the very last. To this, if there was such great persecution of the Western bishops for the cause of the faith, why is there no account of any betrayals, no record inscribed in the ecclesiastical registers at Rome or other places? Certainly, he who wrote about Martin's exile, and was present for all his labors, reports only this, that while he was staying on the island of Naxos, those who were the priests and remaining faithful through the regions, because they would send small gifts to him; [the guards], moving aside those who were bringing [them], and having plundered the gifts, would dismiss them having been affected by injuries and blows, calling everyone who loved him enemies of the republic and rebels: which is the very thing the author signifies was most troublesome to Martin, who would not have kept silent about things that were far more troublesome, [namely] the equal exiles and persecutions of the bishops and clergy of the Roman diocese [inflicted] for the sake of the faith, if indeed he had known of this note. Finally, at the end of the Collation of Maximus, or his last *Acts*, two patricians, Troilus and Epiphanius, do indeed threaten that they would frame the Pope also—who was then sitting at Rome—and the remaining faithful of the West, just as they did Martin, [with whatever charge] was convenient for them, provided that some remission might be had from the confusion of the barbarians. This was Vitalianus, who was in the third year of his priesthood, unless he had already entered the fourth; and he is so far from having suffered anything worse from Constans that he was even endowed with his gifts; and when he had departed this life, [he was] inscribed in the Byzantine Church in the ecclesiastical registers through the zeal of Constantine himself, the son [of the Emperor]; [this was] truly while there were sitting in that Church [those] who were from Peter the heretic himself, whom the VI synod judged to be orthodox. Although patriarch Theodore did not think the matter should be endured until the business of the Churches had been settled; who, perhaps acknowledging himself unequal to it, departed for a while, and left the see to George. Finally Ouen, a diligent [chronicler] of his

^A age, the author, who speaks of Martin, and of the bishops or clerics who suffered the same things as he did—not saying even a word of those who denied it, which is an argument of no small authority, given the ease of the matter—is almost alone in stating that the men of Martin were treated in no other way than Martin himself; men whom I would wish were his household staff, upon whom they might have vented the rage conceived against Martin. The same author also mourns that persecution as dire, worse than any pagan or heretical one, by which, under various pretexts of arguments and crimes, the faithful were summoned to penalties, so that it usually escaped the common folk that it was the faith itself that was being attacked in them, almost as if under the Emperor Julian, and that they lacked the glory of confession who, firm in these matters, did not wish to be defiled by the communion of heretics; and the heretics themselves and the Constantinopolitan clerics, the instigators of all this, would ward off the name of persecutors from themselves. But this happened most of all throughout the East, and in places subject to the Constantinopolitan throne; for whom to think of Rome was almost a crime of high treason, as happened in the case of Theodore and Euprepius, who were reported there, and who, seizing upon that occasion, were condemned to harsh exile.

Perhaps the beginnings of Vitalian were also murky, with Constans being hostile to the Roman see, on account of the zeal for the novelty recently introduced at Constantinople, and to which he was devoted; and thus the patricians could speak according to the mind of the prince, that a universal persecution had been destined, if time had allowed: but God warded it off through the massive ravages of the barbarians, and through Vitalian earning for himself the favor of the emperor, because of his inclination toward him and the affairs of the empire, as Constantine, the son of Constans, testifies in the Acts of the Sixth Synod, where he refused to have his [Vitalian's] name removed from the diptychs, with Theodore striving for this until the union of the Churches had been achieved. And just as Constans bore with Vitalian, the most holy pontiff, at Rome and wished him to be a friend, so he could bear with Thomas at Constantinople as a Catholic: even if his faith was perhaps not so well known to him, nor sufficiently revealed, during the short time he was patriarch, nor was it permitted for him to send the synodical letters to the Roman pontiff, or to receive them from him: things which, had he been confident, he might have done. It was no longer a matter of ^B *oikonomia* through the power of the prince, but of openly defending the faith, with the novelty that the predecessors of the patriarch had introduced being proscribed: nor could Maximus, even if he had lived until his times and had been a great Catholic, communicate with him otherwise than with the Church of Constantinople after so many struggles, until the union of the Churches had been publicly achieved. From these things, it is clear that it is not sufficiently to the point for the most illustrious father of the Annals to argue and hence to disparage the Acts of the Sixth Synod. Anastasius the Apocrisiarius himself speaks of that divine letter of his to Theodosius the presbyter of Gangra concerning the union of the Churches which had been made for them (it is uncertain whether at Constantinople), which he desires and hopes will remain valid and endure, while he himself was living in exile, and was being treated either more mildly or more harshly, according to the temper and character of the ethnarchs to whom he had been entrusted: this happened perhaps when Constans, either already a Catholic or acting as one, had set out for the West, and came to Rome, where he was received by Vitalian with every honor.

The author of the *Hypomnesticon*; indeed, undoubtedly, Theodosius the presbyter of Gangra himself, along with his brother Theodore, when he had that excellent letter of Anastasius the Apocrisiarius directed to him, with the authorities of Hippolytus and the syllogisms, he himself is the author of that work; which was obscure in the *Biographos* (unless he himself remained ignorant of it), he makes it clear: that is to say, clearly ^C as if to Maximus and his disciple, the other Anastasius, the right hand was amputated, and once amputated, with thin pieces of wood fitted to the stump, with wonderful skill he wrote that very letter. Nor is the invective of the author from the Seguier codex any different, and the very last judgment brought forth to us against Maximus and both Anastasiuses, collectively and with the same sentence, and begun by Anastasius the Apocrisiarius himself, with the honor of the presbyterate with which he was shining, as a form of degradation. Baronius deserves pardon, that those monuments and the Anastasian collection were unknown to him; but the divination that the savage beasts had spared his right hand, out of reverence for the apostolic see, and because he had acted as its apocrisiarius, is itself frivolous. For what reverence for that see was there in them, who had thus railed against Martin, its supreme prelate, and held this Anastasius in the greatest hatred—a man, to be sure, who was energetic, skilled in both languages, and a most fierce defender of the Roman faith, so that even Theodosius, bishop of Caesarea in Bithynia, a man otherwise more humane, refused to set out for Rome with him as his leader and companion, because of many previous contentions and quarrels with him, and preferred to have Maximus as his travel companion and assistant in business?

He had been famous in the palace, a notary under the Emperor Heraclius, ^D when he perhaps became joined in friendship with Maximus, who was serving in an equal capacity under Heraclius himself; and, just as in secular matters, so also in the religious and Christian militia they were like comrades, not one the disciple of the other. Maximus was greater in the light of knowledge, and a master of the world in that regard, although a genuine monk, as he calls himself in the *Collation* with Theodosius, when Anastasius was a presbyter, and, if he was a monk, a hieromonk: for this is not sufficiently known from the monuments, and apart from them, to invent whatever one pleases is not sufficiently honorable or cautious in accordance with historical faith. However, the author of the invective writes *anothen* [from above/from of old] that he was a disciple of Maximus, just as he does the other Anastasius, as if he himself had long since adhered to him; yet Maximus himself never calls him a disciple, as he does the other Anastasius, but by a more honorific name, "my lord," or something similar. Indeed, he was a Roman, which is why he was so skilled in the Latin language, of which Maximus confesses himself ignorant; and having long been involved in the East and in that very palace, he had rendered the Greek language familiar to himself: in which dual capacity he was a companion to Maximus, and in the role of apocrisiarius of the Roman Church, perhaps as a presbyter of that very same [Church], he strenuously defended the faith; in the constancy of defending which he stoked such great envy of the Monothelites against himself.

The *Biographos*, because he was silent about the severed right hand of Anastasius the Apocrisiarius, may well have been so because his speech was aimed at praising not the Anastasiuses, especially the apocrisiarius, but Maximus. Thus also the author of the *Hypomnesticon*, who deals chiefly with Anastasius the Apocrisiarius and his letter—written with industry close to a miracle, that is, with the arm as a stump, and with very thin pieces of wood and splinters fitted to it, in order to write the letters—does not relate that the other Anastasius underwent that punishment, but makes mention only of Maximus and Anastasius the Apocrisiarius. Theophanes the chronicler, in his brevity, mentions only Maximus, as if he were a matter more remarkable and more worthy of the Annals. Perhaps the same *Biographos* might have chanced upon Acts in which the repeated name of Anastasius was missing, as in those which I represent from the Seguier codex, in which the whole series suggests that it must be supplied, as well as [that of] Maximus, which was missing once: and it is not religious devotion for me, but sheer folly, to be so blindly and without any judgment negligent, through the laziness of a researcher.

CONCERNING THE ACTS AND COLLATIONS OF SAINT MAXIMUS

Saint Maximus's double *Collation* was rendered by Anastasius the Librarian for the sake of John the deacon, when he was pondering history. This version of Anastasius, and other things pertaining to Martin and Maximus...

certainly far removed from the calculations of Baronius, which are confused with Roman codices. He preserved both Collationes from the unique codex of the Works of Maximus in the Seguier library, distinct and in their own order, just as Anastasius has them, from which it was permitted to transcribe them. The famous Lucas Holstenius noted that what he had written exists in codex Vat. n. 1646, which perhaps made the Vatican library richer after Baronius, who—having interwoven these Collationes into the Life of Maximus without properly arranging them—scarcely stumbled upon them at last, and inserted them into his Annals—with the interpreter Petrus Morinus—quite confusedly. The “biographer” whom I produce from the royal [collection] himself culls certain things from them and reports them concisely, in the manner of a eulogy, keeping even the order of the texts; not like that Vatican [codex] of Baronius, which is disordered. Whoever that author may be, he is certainly not very accurate; and once the Collationes themselves have been examined more attentively, no fraud could be perpetrated upon a learned man by his fragments—of which one reports and looks back to things said and done in the first [collatio]. For instance, what Troilus says, that he had already spoken in the palace (that is, of course, in the Collatio in secret) that he had not lifted the voices [of the decree], but had ordered them to be silenced in order to compose the peace of all—so indeed it is there: “Not for the removal of any of the things understood in Christ, but for the sake of peace,” etc.

Therefore, the senseless fragment that is prefixed to that Vatican collation—whether from it, from Morinus, or from Baronius—is [to be rejected] for these words: “But after much time had passed, and the saint was in exile, the emperor sent again and summoned him.” For it is clear that before the [exile to] Bizya, no exile of Maximus preceded [this], which is a decree issued after that Collatio, or Hearing, which took place in the palace immediately after Maximus and his disciples were brought to Constantinople; they were not returning from exile, but were brought to where they were captured for the purpose of investigating their case, just as was done in the case of Martin. Thus says the author of the *Hypomnesticon*. Thus says our codex and that of Anastasius, when they begin so absolutely: “On this day they arrived at this royal city, both the lord Maximus and those with him.” From there, therefore, he was relegated to Bizya as if by a milder punishment, by which, however, his constancy was expected to be broken. In order to test this, after that long space of some years, Theodosius, bishop of Caesarea in Bithynia, was sent to Bizya, along with the consuls and candidates of patrician dignity, as often happens in such matters. And that is the second Collatio of Maximus; in which Theodosius himself, overcome by the force of Maximus’s arguments, promised on oath that he would make amends, even though he was a slave of human favor and the court, for with the emperor resisting, and the emperor becoming all the more angry at Maximus for this reason, he not only did not emerge, but even sat as judge against Maximus, who had been recalled to the city a second time: a man, that is, not entirely lacking humanity and a sense of what is right, but without any constancy and too ^B *anthroparastos* [men-pleaser]. The disputes he had with Maximus prove him to be almost entirely unskilled and untaught; and I do not see by what truth a learned man could have pronounced him the most learned of his sect, and thought that he should be honored with such a eulogy.

Father Sirmond’s conjecture pleases me, which other things besides what has been said confirm: that this first Collatio was held in the palace while Martin was still surviving, and while Eugenius was administering the Roman Church, whose legates are signifyed in the *Acts* [to be present], and not his successor Vitalian. Therefore, not in the year of Christ 657 according to Baronius, but 654. Or certainly 655, unless perhaps somewhat earlier. Nor does it signify that Cardinal Baronius reports regarding the Saracen invasion of Egypt in the 26th year of Heraclius, from which, when the 22 years that are signified in the *Acts* are added, one arrives at the year of Christ 657. For long before that, the Saracens had made Egypt tributary, with Cyrus the patriarch entering into a pact with them... ^C It is a lighter conjecture that Maximus, as a simple monk, was captured and led away wherever it pleased his adversaries, rather than the supreme prelate Martin himself, so that he [Maximus] was captured before him, or was addicted to a longer exile before him. The persecutor could have sought to capture the head first, so that with him removed, it would be easy to invade the others—even by open force: since, with him leading the way, the plots would be almost useless in the case of Martin, whose cause was equal. Thus, with greater appearance of probability, Theophanes and our own biographer say that many bishops of the West experienced the tyranny of Constans with him; as if, indeed, it were a kind of appendix to the persecution brought upon the same [Martin], for which—because of the first dignity of the [Apostolic] see—the stronger parts had stood forth in the Roman synod. Although this persecution of the Western bishops seems to rely more on conjecture than on any certain documents of contemporaries, as we have proven and handled more extensively in the *Life*. As for Maximus, the reason he was captured sooner, and at once alongside Martin or before him, is that peculiar reason: that he, a foreign monk and Constantinopolitan, was thought to have moved and to be moving the whole West, and Martin himself, into his own Constantinopolitan [circle]; and to have been in the greatest degree the cause of the note of heresy brought against them by the decree of the Lateran synod. For which reason they boasted that, with him removed, the Romans immediately appeared to them to consent; seeing, indeed, that Eugenius was acting a little more softly (against whom, for this reason, the Romans at one time became incensed, as the author Anastasius says), and as those who, at that time, were sent as *apocrisiarii* to Constantinople (though without the *communicatoria*), and whose mention is in the *Acts*.

Regarding Peter and what follows—namely, the mission of Theodosius to Bizya, the calling back of Maximus to the city, and then all the things done against him and the disciples—let these things point to Paul: the first bringing to the city, the collation or hearing in the palace, and the decreed exile to Bizya, which is to say, close to the disposition of Paul, which was so handled in the case of Maximus that he was punished with exile only, and that a somewhat milder one. For so it is in the case of Martin; he complained that he was treated more harshly by Constans, and he deterred [Constans] from inflicting death and other tortures of his own accord. These are the words of the author, who wrote gravely to the orthodox of the West and Africa concerning his exile: “The following day, the emperor going to the patriarchium for the sake of seeing the patriarch (for he was near to death), told him what had been consummated against the most holy man. But Paul, groaning and turning to the wall, said: ‘Woe is me! And this has been done to the abundance of my judgments.’ But having been asked by the emperor why he said this, he replied: ‘Is it not wonderful, Lord, that such things are done to the pontiffs?’ Then he earnestly adjured the emperor that what he had suffered was enough for him, and that he should sustain nothing further.” These are some points toward the conjecture that that first hearing of Maximus is believed to have been held while Paul was still patriarch, and therefore before Martin’s exile, since before that time Paul was already laboring unto death; whether before or after Martin, into the city...

he was brought; not, however, with firm proof, since it is clear ^A that Paul earlier raged openly against the orthodox. Nor was he distressed by the atrocious punishments inflicted upon him—out of a desire for leniency, rather than for the sake of warding off the infamy resulting from the persecution he had initiated, by which so great a prelate had been so unworthily treated—and he pleaded that the subsequent death to be inflicted be set aside.

But that which follows on the next Saturday, with the examination repeated in the palace, concerning the two patriarchs, as inserted once and again by the author, is firm, if my conjecture does not deceive me; for those who were present, under the semblance of ecclesiastical gravity, allowed themselves no indulgence to speak. For by this very fact, that with nothing added they are called “the two patriarchs,” it is clearly signified that both were patriarchs and bishops of the place; and this is especially clear from the addition of the article, *συνελθόντων καὶ τῶν δύο Πατριαρχῶν*. In our tongue, which in the use of articles is mostly akin to the Greek, *Les deux patriarches s’y étant aussi trouvés*, as if he wished to imply specific ones, and it is very crude, which the rest do not at all prefer, if he noted down that form of speaking with the patriarch of the city and the patriarch of another see, for example of Alexandria or Antioch. Nor did Morinus sufficiently express the Greek phrase when he rendered it: “When two patriarchs were then present.” For you might say that even if no Constantinopolitan was there, but some other two patriarchs were. I seem to myself to have rendered it a little more precisely: “When both patriarchs were also present”; for that word signifies specific two. But Byzantium saw no such patriarchs at that age, except Paul and Pyrrhus; of whom one held the see, the other had lost it not quite canonically, and had been excluded from the honor of patriarch by Pope Theodore; since to them and other Roman pontiffs, Paul was heard of rather as an occupant of another’s see than as its true prelate. Pyrrhus, however, maintained, so that at least with Paul dead, besides the dignity he had retained, like others ejected by force, such as Germanus, Nicephorus, Ignatius, etc., he might recover the see and the exercise of power; which came to pass thus, when Paul had departed this life shortly thereafter.

Baronius is not sufficiently apt: “Of whom one was the Constantinopolitan bishop Thomas, who at this time presided over that Church.” But he presided long after, even if we were to concede that this final examination of Maximus was held on the fifteenth indiction, granted by the extension of the Petrine see, by the testimony of all approved authors, to twelve years, as I have more accurately deduced, silently, and in my own *Syntagma of the Monothelite Heresy*; except for the absurdity already cleared up, that no patriarch of Constantinople could be assigned as a colleague to Thomas, because he seeks two texts thus. That outcry of a certain cleric against Maximus, *Ἀπέδωκέ σοι Κύριος, ὅσα ἐποίησας τῷ μακαρίῳ Πύρρῳ*, with the observation added shortly after, *Τοσούτων δὲ λαληθέντων ἐν τῷ ὑπομνήματι*, “The Lord repaid you for all that you did to the blessed Pyrrhus.” And when so many things had been spoken in secret (or in the hall of the palace), neither patriarch spoke anything; let it be no slight indication that Pyrrhus was sitting there, to whom the cleric uttered these words in order to flatter him, and to whose modesty, and as it were ^B to a mask of *ἀπάθεια*, the author wished to insinuate this by the notation of silence. One of the chief heads of the accusation against Maximus was certainly that supposed vexation of Pyrrhus, concerning which Maximus’s disciple Anastasius was himself questioned, and was indeed treated more harshly on that account, because, in keeping with the monastic usage, he had acted as a witness of his master’s observance and duties toward Pyrrhus, not out of the injury which the sycophants were seeking from him against Maximus. Truly, like a dog returned to its vomit, he cast back upon Maximus the wine that had been poured out, for the reason that he had gone to Rome and presented a petition to Pope Theodore. Thus the author, by the examination which had preceded a few days earlier; and so nothing here is said inconsistently, since in the guise of one wondering, it is reported that the patriarch said something.

Finally, those words of the patrician Troilus (who himself was one of the chief judges of Maximus, not only in this first secret examination of his, but also in the second, when he had been led back to the city to Bizye; and who, in the matter of Martin, had been scarcely anything less than a chamberlain, and from that could know more certainly than anyone all that was done at Rome regarding the condemnation of the Type, *Ποῦ ἀνεθεματίσθη;* “In what place was the Type subjected to anathema?” and from the subsequent answer of Martin, *Ὑπὸ τῆς συνόδου Ρώμης, εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Σωτῆρος καὶ τῆς Θεοτόκου*, “By the Roman synod, in the church of the Savior and the holy Mother of God,”) are no light evidence that Martin’s trial had preceded this examination; as also what exists a little earlier in the collation of the previous days, *Ἄκουσον ὦ κύριε Τρώιλε, ὅτι ὁ Τύπος ἀναθεματίζεται εἰς πᾶσαν δύσιν*, “Hear, O lord Troilus, that the Type is subjected to anathema in the whole West.” For this clearly indicates a new examination, and that Martin’s case was not fully discussed at Constantinople, nor spread abroad even among the judges themselves; although he had already been snatched away from Rome, *καθαίρεσις*, as Maximus well says, not *καθαίρεσις*. Anastasius renders it: “Expelled, not deposed,” that is, oppressed by force and tyranny and driven from his see, not legitimately removed according to the rite of the canons.

From these words of Troilus to Maximus, “You do not know, Abba, what you are saying,” etc., the antiquarian of Baronius, not sufficiently aptly, subjoins, to the punishment of unbridled speech, Maximus’s truly final or utmost trial, and the sentence of mutilation and supreme exile passed upon them; if indeed he himself held it thus, and imposed it upon a learned man. Our Biographer, adhering to the Acts, properly preserved the order; and he inserts the very letter of Maximus to Anastasius concerning the novelty which was then done, which the Seguier codex also had. And he continues likewise in the correct order, *Καὶ δὴ ἡμερῶν συχνῶν διαγενομένων*, which explains that exile to Bizye, and the sentence by which Maximus was adjudged, which the Baronius codex, basely, with nothing preceding, begins to pursue the narration thus in the year 656: “But after many days had passed,” etc., as Morin. rendered it. The Acts themselves most excellently, in which that indiction itself is recorded, namely the fourteenth ending, and the twenty-third day of the month of August. And since many days of exile had passed from that first secret examination to this term, it is necessary to confess, not only that it did not happen in 657, as the Baronians compute, but that it also preceded that fourteenth indiction and the year of Christ 656 by a number of years, nor did it pass long after the time when Martin and Maximus were captured and led away to Rome. And surely the words of the Acts not obscurely indicate that first transport to Constantinople; which, however, did not necessarily follow immediately upon Maximus’s abduction from Rome. Baronius records all these things in the year 650, from our very Biographer, whom he wishes to have received it from those very people who clung to Maximus’s side. Not so I, who—from their writings or even from common report—have discovered and indeed proven, by certain indications, one far removed from Maximus, or even somewhat more remote. Nor should these things be vexed with many words, lest it seem like an insult, so clear is the series of events and deeds.

What in the Baronius or Morinus version seemed to need correction, with much omitted so as not to exceed the measure of the page, and because that new version itself, and the few things indicated as if by a finger in the marginal notes, might almost suffice to a sagacious reader; such as that he confuses *ἐξαντλήσας* and *ἐξέστη*; that he omitted that, *καὶ κλίναντες μετάνοιαν, καὶ εὐχή ἐγένετο*: which he rendered, “And they bowed themselves to one another with reverence,” with the circumstance of prayer added, it does not please; which indicates that that reverence there is referred to God, and does not relate to an office of civility; and Anastasius expressed it well, “with knees placed on the ground,” *τὸ προσκύνημα*, indicates the kiss of honor upon the cross and sacred Books and images, and pious veneration, Gre...

^A Likewise, the matter stood thus: all approached in prayer; they kissed and venerated the Gospels, the crosses, and the holy images of the Mother of God, having a reverence indeed equal for holy images and for the rest of the sacred relics; as Deacon John, the legate of the Eastern sees, says. Finally, to the faith of the stated things, they set their hands. Nor is the *metanoia* during the Passion on Friday any different, which is bound to us by a *kiss* in the adoration of the venerable cross, for to us all honor toward it is relative—relative, namely, to Him who was fixed to the cross and who for our salvation on that day worked out our salvation upon it. Rite, therefore, Constantine, bishop of Cyprus, relates that he received from the Father (the author of the Collation, clearly) the *kissing* *at the time of worship*, which the purity of the Calvinists, nor indeed the Eucharist, nor in their own sense (and because for them it is not the truth, but the image of Christ) can deny. Nor because the bishop of Corinth ^B thus explained in a linen cloth the divine portion, *thrice bowing the knee* (which is *proskynesis*), does Luke the Thaumaturge command [it], or [command that it be held] with such veneration that one might not even dare to touch it with the hand; for that is a rite of the very ancient Latins, and it should not seem to have insinuated any worship of the most divine sacrament—because the true body of Christ is, in the Latin and Greek tradition, something he himself, of Roman rule in Greece, did not ignore. But these things belong to others, and to another occasion.

Paul seems rather harsh in what Petrus Morinus reports, in Baronio, concerning Christ: "Cleansing all from the contract of the sin of the first parents according to nature," and as if Christ had removed that sin as it was contracted in its nature—a sense which would be false. The words of Maximus are: *ἀπὸ παντὸς προπατορικοῦ καθάρας κατὰ φύσιν ἐγκλήματος*, "Having assumed humanity, which He cleansed from every crime of the first parents according to nature." This was so due [to humanity] by nature, because it was the flesh of Adam; except that, by the very fact that it is Christ’s, it is clean and cleansing and a new creature, new flesh ^C of Adam, because the guilt of the flesh of the old Adam is wiped away—in whom vice grew by nature, as Augustine is the author. Anastasius, for *καθάρας* ("having cleansed"), read *καθαριστικὸν* ("cleansing"), as he renders it: "cleansed from every progeny [of] crime according to nature," but he himself also wrote "cleansing," because it is so depraved in him: otherwise it would have to be "cleansed." But I do not wish to waste time on these trifles. Praise belongs to the studious and learned man, to whom Mabre Cramoisy publishes and represents, as our treasures at the house of St. Honoratus of the Preachers, his Epistles and other Opuscula and relics.

At the final hearing in Rhegium, where it is said the Patricians ascended to Maximus *in the catechumenum of the Church of the same monastery*, Morin does not interpret "ecclesiastically" enough. "In the catechumenum of that mansion." Thus, throughout, the Calvinists, who seem to themselves to understand Greek little, if they render it by common voice *kaτὰ τὸ πρόχειρον* ("according to what is at hand"), when all ecclesiastical antiquity back to that time consecrated [it], so that ^D *monē* (monastery), in the sense in which it is used there, would mean a special monastery. And that *monē* there, a little above *the venerable monastery* in whose Church was that catechumenum, was not well understood by the illustrious Father of the Annals, when he glosses: "Namely, where the catechumens used to be instructed." There were no catechumens among the monks who were to be instructed, whose care did not pertain to the monks, but to the Churches that were common (i.e., parochial) to the priests and the prelates. Whose place, too, was not those catechumena, but the narthex and the *pronaos*, or the lower part of the temple, outside the partition of the common faithful and the laity, where they used to listen to the divine readings until they were dismissed before the Mass of the faithful. Therefore, the *catechumeneia* or *catechumena* were wrongly taken to be certain galleries, as it were, surrounding the vast bosom of the church, and having from all sides a view into it through windows and latticework, to which women would flock and wish to hear the divine things more quietly from there, or to discuss other things more secretly, much like in the diaconicon and other places adjacent to the church, which had their own sanctity, though not as much as the church itself; so that some even turned them to the use of common rooms—which was nonetheless forbidden, and especially marital congress, as is evident from the cited Novel of Leo. John, bishop of Citri, in his *Responses*, "Punishes also those who permit habitation in the catechumeneia." Meursius is likewise mistaken because he thought the place was so called because the catechumens stood there, and because catechetical tables were kept there: although it cannot be denied that in extreme times, that ancient discipline of the churches having been changed and almost abolished, those catechumena themselves were held in place of the narthex. Thus Leo Allatius reports concerning the narthex of the ancient church from Symeon of Thessalonica, *Opuscula against heresies*: "The catechumens are led out, but also those who have fallen after baptism. Those who have fallen into the denial of God, or have been stained by sororal blood, or have committed human homicide, or have done other things that bar one from communion—all these were formerly thrust out, as the catechumens were departing. But now, because of persecutions and constant disturbances, the Fathers having judged it good that way, the catechumens and [those who have] denied [the faith] and [those who have] committed murder are thrust out; but the rest, who possess only baptism, are permitted [to remain], their *metanoia* being worked out by the Spiritual Fathers. These, therefore, who are thrust out stand about the nartheces, or even in the catechumena, while the awesome mysteries are being performed. Nartheces are called, namely, the beginnings of the temples and the catechumeneia, or the house of the catechumens. Which were also invented for this reason, that even they, through hearing and sight alone, might partake of the divine things; and through their lips and tongue might confess the faith, and sing the steps of piety; they do not, however, share in the standing with the faithful, nor in the prayer; for they are incommunicable and separated still. If, therefore, they are unworthy of the standing and prayer in the liturgy, much more so are they of the most awesome communion." The catechumens are therefore led out; but also those who have fallen after baptism, who indeed have renounced the divine faith, or who are guilty of fratricidal slaughter, of homicide, are ungodly, or even those who have committed certain other things, of whom many who are of the Church are restrained from communion. These, clearly, all were previously cast out, with the catechumens departing; but now, on account of persecutions and frequent turmoils of events, it has been judged by the Fathers to be convenient that the catechumens, apostates, and assassins be expelled; the rest, however, having obtained only the hand of baptism, are dismissed, their Spiritual Fathers providing for their penance separately. Therefore, those who are expelled stand in the nartheces or even in the catechumena, while the tremendous mysteries are being enacted. Nartheces, moreover, are called either the entrances to temples and the catechumeneia,

^A or houses of the catechumens. This is also devised so that they may become participants in things divine by hearing and seeing only; but they may also confess the faith with their lips and tongue, and join in songs of piety; yet they do not stand together with the faithful nor have prayer with them, since they still exist as removed and separated from communion. Therefore, those who are unworthy to stand at the holy rite and pray, are for a much stronger reason unworthy to receive the most tremendous communion. But all these things are a new discipline, and a distraction of names: "Thus have all things yielded to the mockery of time," says Allatius gravely.

*Τούς προβεβηκότας τῶν βάνδων. Anast.* "The leaders of the *banda*," which Morinus—I do not agree with him—equally obscures. "The leaders of the clergy." For *banda*, as Suidas testifies, are military standards, and the military ranks themselves under them. Therefore, the praetor or legate sent those men advanced in military service, and those who were first in rank and centurions, with presbyters and deacons added, and the religious guardians of the standards, *σημειοφύλακας*, who themselves seem to belong to the ecclesiastical order. Perhaps they had unfolded the standards and gone to him with the solemn pomp of the Church. For although he was bound and oppressed by the power of the emperor, the clarity of his name was yet very great; ^B nor was the matter of less importance, the refutation of the crime of blasphemy against the holy Mother of God, which, unless it were refuted, would bring about in Maximus not only a present danger of life, but a grave offense and corruption of the minds of the common people of the faithful.

That these clerics were Catholics is proved by those duties of theirs toward Maximus the Confessor, where they detected his sound faith toward the most holy Mother of God; and those words with which they prayed well for him, and that God might grant strength in the struggle, and allow his course to pass without offense. Moreover, it exposes the Catholic legate, that embassy of his to Maximus, a man condemned again to exile and detested by the palace, sent with such pomp and appearance of honor; whose name and merits, as is fitting, could not have been hidden from him: and perhaps because of the envy of this, that domestic [servant] of the praetor ordered Maximus to be snatched away far from the camps, not only for fear that some gathering of soldiers might occur on his account, to whom they would willingly lend their mind and ears. These very men were orthodox, who wrote of Martin's affairs, who wrote of Maximus, who wrote of Anastasius the Apocrisiarius; not to mention Euprepium, Theodosius, and Theodore, even consecrated by martyrdom: nor also the bishops and monks, to whom Maximus and the Anastasiuses were writing from prison (and even from extreme exile); and whose faith and ^C labor they praised, so that I cannot easily agree with the author of the *Annales Patri*, when, from the silence of the rest or unknown persecution, he surmises that this one seed, Maximus and both Anastasiuses, was left to the East; to whom alone, and not to others (so far as is known), the faith then seemed to shine. I do not deny that they were masters and leaders of all, to whom especially all the faithful throughout the East looked, and by whose constancy they were strengthened; whom Epiphanius the patrician a little before called *διαστρέφοντας* [perverters]; not because they were led by perversity, or because they perverted and corrupted, but because they were what the palace and the Constantinopolitan clergy had made a new faith with a heretical spirit; that is, they were tenacious of the ancestral orthodox faith; whom he did not consider to be so few (or rather none, as Baronius thought), but a part of the Oriental and Greek Church not to be despised: whom the Constantinopolitan Church, by the example of Maximus alone yielding, hoped to unite with the whole Occident. Nor did the tyrants move differently, with a slightly milder use and frequent persecution of the gentiles, attempting to remove one or another of the faithful from the constancy of the faith by every kind of torture, when there were countless faithful; by no Baronius's calculation; think of Milan, when Gervasius and Protasius suffered there, and long before, the Church of Milan founded by Barnabas ^D the apostle; by no Aginni and my Nitiobriges, when either Vincentius, or Capralius, or Fides, a virgin, waged a noble struggle in the very times of Diocletian. Nor did they act differently at Valencia, Emerita, Barcelona, when Vincentius (even with life spared for the old bishop Valerius of the city) suffered martyrdom with one or another Eulalia under the president Dacianus. Therefore, let the skillful historian, with a keen mind, infer from this that they are the highest men and, as it were, the rams of the flock, whom the tyrannical fury attacks as singular, or at any rate few; with them gone, all masters and leaders seem to be taken away, however many more of their rivals may survive, not to be compared with them in such clarity. To this also points that grief of the author of the *Hypomnesticon*, with Anastasius the Apocrisiarius finally taken away, as if all masters were already removed; who, of course, with such freedom or even force, would defend the orthodox faith throughout the East. Whose clarity was also such that, with his tongue cut out, speaking readily, he scattered the light of faith far and wide from the end where he lived as an exile, and cherished its spark in the remnants of the faithful throughout the East.

TO MAXIMUS ON THE EULOGY

The Eulogies of Saint Maximus should have been collected in this place, or even prefaced to other notes, if those were things that a few and some certain number of authors had followed. But indeed, as for the men subsequently praised by Maximus (especially the Greeks) who wrote about Christ, or God, or also about ascetics, and by whom hearts are formed for piety, or also by whom the mind is spread through the heights of speculations, and is united most closely to God and divine things, and had either explicitly praised Maximus or claimed him as a patron, and enriched and strengthened their own [works] with his divine senses and opinions, and held him as the one and greatest measure of dogmas; and not private persons only, but they themselves were assemblies of the universal Church; it would seem almost superfluous and troublesome to present the case for him here. Whereas in others, who are of less clarity and not of such authority, it exists as a necessary and easy insinuating for the reader. Nor perhaps did that antiquarian, the very learned Cl. V. Emericus Bigotius, recently seen in Italy, intend anything else, while he is investigating with keen inquiry whatever of the wealth of books exists in the city and other places of Italy, in the course of his institution, which is for the most part literary; to whom he thus [index: entries preserved] speaks: "This is, of course, what Maximus is to the Greeks in theological matters, which Thomas Aquinas is to the Latins." I will add, without any prejudice, something greater, because he is also older by some centuries (and not so few), and has suffered fewer rivals within the very folds of the Church and domestic men of the faith; for heretics and aliens sought to have both cast down or reconciled to themselves. For as Bucer says: "Take away Thomas, and I will dissipate the Church"; so the judges in the [cvij] Acts of Maximus, which I present, so established the entire strength of the Catholics in the one Maximus, that they seriously professed and predicted for themselves that, with him communicating with the Constantinopolitan throne (namely, the Monothelite heretics), there would be no one who would not communicate with him; and not only in Greece and the diocese subject to the Byzantine throne, but also in Rome, and in the whole Christian world. But neither do I wish to omit what another antiquarian plays with in the Royal codex, n. 2962. A copy of this was provided by the man likewise learned and most famous for his writings, D. Du Cange, Royal Quaestor of Amiens. It is a Greek Lexicon ms., where it is thus: *Φιλαυτία, ἡ τοῦ σώματος ἄλογος φιλία. τὸ φίλαυτος καὶ ἡ φιλαυτία, παρ' οὐδενὶ τῶν ἐλλογίμων. Οὐκ οἶδας τί λέγεις, ἄνθρωπε. Τις γὰρ ἐλλογί* [original-script column: see facsimile]

μεγάλου Βασιλείου, ἢ τοῦ ἁγίου Μαξίμου;* ^A *Philautia*, the irrational love for the body. The terms *philautos* and *philautia* are not found in any of the learned writers. You do not know what you are saying, man. For who is more learned than the great Basil or Saint Maximus? The explanation of the term belongs entirely to Maximus, and is frequent in him—he concerning whom I was recently jesting with the Reverend Father Nicolai, who accused me of this vice, that is, of being *philautos*, because I preferred what was in the exemplar of St. Thomas to that which was in the published text of Hilary; I asked whether [he meant it] in the sense of Maximus, or rather of Suidas, to whom *philautos* is (*perh. ὑπερηφανία*); which readily inclines toward pride, as in Basil's *Regula brevior*, interr. 54, where *philautos* is one who loves himself so much, in soul or body, that he fails in his duties to a neighbor in need: from which passage Maximus may have received it, and applied it more specifically to another member (which is better known), as if to intend a "pecuniary" love. He who thus criticizes the lexicographer could also have brought forward Aristotle, who himself uses both words in his *Rhetoric*, I, 1, and *Ethics*, IX. But what truly contributes to the praise of Maximus is that he joins himself to the great Basil, and with an equal degree of authority summons his suffrage to lend weight to the Greek term. Moreover, Basil and Gregory were themselves admired by the sophists, and by those who were first in the glory of secular eloquence. ^B For she strove not so much after natural speculations as after the dogmas, wishing to reap true wisdom; and it often occurred to me to wonder, and in wonder I once said to her: "How did you look toward such a height from there? I myself tremble, and do not dare even with the tips of my ears to listen to these things." For the deeply contemplative and intellectual nature of the man, as they say, provides a dizziness to those who read him. She, however, smiling, said: "I know this fear to be praiseworthy; and I myself do not approach these books with calm; but nevertheless, I am unable to be torn away from them. But you, wait for me a little, and having pored over other books first, you shall taste of the sweetness of these too." The memory of what was said pierced my heart, and I have fallen into yet another sea of narratives. But the law of history holds me back. I remember the mother and Augusta, when she would often sit with the table set, holding a book in her hands, carefully sifting through the dogmatic treatises of the holy Fathers, and especially those monuments and writings of Maximus the philosopher and martyr which exist for us. For she studied, not so much to attain an understanding of natural questions, as to cultivate her soul toward the dogmas, determined as she was to reap the fruit of true wisdom. And it often occurred to me to wonder; and in wondering, I once said to her: "How could you have raised your eyes with such talent to such a height?" Truly, I said, as far as I am concerned, I am affected with trembling, and I do not dare even with the tips of my ears to hear these things. For the immense power and subtlety of the contemplations and senses of Maximus, as they say, bring a certain vertigo to those who read. To this, she [replied] with a gentle smile: "I recognize this fear of his as not being devoid of praise; and I myself, though not shaken by any such fear, do not approach these books in a level-headed way, yet I cannot bear to be torn away from them either. But do you wait for me a little, and when you have labored over other books first, you too shall taste their sweetness." The memory of what was said struck my heart, and I fell as if into another sea of things to be told. But the law of history restrains and recalls me. These things I myself was playing with, [drawing] from Anna, my vein; from whom, and from the mother, I would wish that those to learn who have long panted with desire for Maximus, and who, having been delayed so long, complain of the time lost, lest they approach him "off the path," as they say, and with sordid ears, [finding] that they cannot bear his lights, or rise to them, and are given over not so much to his radiance, or the mist that obscures the interpreter, as to the sight of their own mental faculty, which is not sufficiently disciplined, purified, and exercised in divine things. ^C Maximus himself, at times, makes even the works of others his own, and inserts them into his own. Thus some chapters of Mark the Hermit are inserted into his theological works, as are those of Diadochus. The *Scholia* on Dionysius are also not his alone; but sometimes one or another of those authors [is the source], because others had also contributed their labor (such as Dionysius, the Alexandrian rhetorician), or had even followed him: yet such is the glory of Maximus in that work, that it has been inscribed in all ancient codices and books under his name alone. Thus, however, does Maximus, in those things which he sets forth, rely on the ancients, so that, full of their spirit, he does not create "centones" from them, as the schoolmen almost do, and relate things as if they were excerpts, but truly shows himself to be an author and master, and brings forth his sentences like oracles, with all the most certain truth and the highest subtlety of his own craft; where his style also seems clearer, and having nothing of perplexity, nor of arduous thought: as he himself also warns in the *Proemium* to the *Chapters on Charity* to Elpidius, which are considered by Photius to be the purest of all his works; and to which are clearly twin those which I represent, others [taken] from the Vatican library, in which there is likewise nothing of allegories (which sometimes render Maximus not rarely rather cumbersome), no tangled windings of words or hyperbata, but a pure and simple style with very high meaning. Thus everywhere the reading of Maximus demands a most purified and attentive and sagacious mind: and as it is in itself, it clearly also [demands] an interpreter; and if anyone cannot approach his Greek by himself: in which [task] I do not find it burdensome to have grown old, and I ascribe it to Providence, that the fruit might mature for me little by little, and could not be seen as premature or unripe: which it certainly would have been, had my first vows favored either me, or the most illustrious clergy of Gaul, and the Archbishop of Toulouse, Carolus de Monchal, of blessed memory. Now, under God's guidance, they will favor it, so enlarged, so accumulated, that no rank of the most ample order, no dignity is lacking, and let them favor it excellently, so that the theologian of the Greeks may be prosperously enough enriched for the Roman and Latin [audiences], whom Maximus, human as he was a Greek, admits he loves in the *Collatio* here with the princes *ὡς ὁμοπίστοις* (as like-believers). In the same sense regarding the most high wisdom of Maximus, Anna Comnena in her *Alexiad*, I. v, discourses thus, and extols his most studious mother, Irene; by whom, and by the husband, the letters of Byzantium thus reflourished: "I remember my mother and empress, often holding in her hands a book of the best, and searching into the discourses of the dogmatic holy Fathers, and especially those of the philosopher Maximus and ^D the martyr." Whoever has approached Maximus with a more successful effort, and has flown more happily and deeply through the contemplation of things, under his guidance and auspices, I know of no one [who has done so better] than John Cyparissiota (who from that time took the name "The Wise"). His *Decades* exist, in the translation of Francisco Turrianus S. I., although published only in Latin: in which most divinely, according to Maximus, he elucidates the doctrine of Dionysius, in the book *On the Divine Names*, and opens up the chasms, into which the affected and almost Platonic majesty of his words—which chiefly drove Gregory Palamas—and [the error] that God is composite within Himself, in whom there is one thing in substance and nature, and another in *ἐνεργείαις*, which our [authors] call "Operation" and "Attributes": which very error the same [author] refuted in another excellent and dense treatise: and it is extant in the Royal Library: of which same [work] I present one or another *logos*, as he calls them, and [the parts] into which he divides what he calls *biblia* (that is, books), in the second volume of my *Auctarium*, as if [providing] aid for my Caleca against the most impure heresy of the Palamites, by which the reader may in any way meanwhile soothe his desire, while for whomsoever the opportunity and the will may at some time exist, [he may] enrich the literary and Christian [world] with all that lucubration (which would fill one large volume).

MONITUM ON THE QUESTIONS TO THALASSIUS

As soon as I undertook to include this portion of Maximus's works—these Questions for Thalassius on Holy Scripture—their very majesty, a work upon which Maximus labored so intensely that he was not satisfied to have completed the matter once, but thought it necessary to illustrate his own dictations with a long and almost continuous series of scholia, compelled me. The holy man seriously advises and adjures in his Preface to these very scholia—which I have provided after the long preface to Thalassius on p. 13—that these scholia be joined everywhere and placed side-by-side with the passages they serve to illustrate, so that both may be read at once. I partly satisfy his wish by not dragging these scholia out further, but by appending them to the end of each question, with numerical notes added in the margins (in parentheses) so the reader may immediately notice to what each scholium refers, and what specifically of the text’s rationale it explains.

The frequency and prolixity of these scholia have made me almost conclude that I should dispense with my own notes, lest I appear to be piling scholia upon scholia in vain, and thus doing what is already done; for Maximus’s method here does not demand longer notes, since he hardly ever explains Scripture according to the letter, but rather in the mystical and spiritual sense that is proper to Maximus himself, usually elegant in its own right, joined to a piety equal to the subtlety of his genius—the very descriptor with which Photius praises him while accurately listing the titles of all these Questions. But it has gone well for us, in that many approved codices have preserved this work for us in its entirety, except for the Royal codex, which is sufficiently accurate itself, though it is written in minute, often abbreviated, and almost evanescent letters. The first version that Aubert had copied was mutilated in many of its most important parts and was illustrated with no scholia; he was ashamed to publish even that, although he had intended the matter in his mind, and was being urged on by the most illustrious and reverend Archbishop of Toulouse, Charles de Mouchal, himself a learned man and a pious patron and Maecenas of learned men. Through him, there first came into my hands the things he had taken care to have copied from the Royal codices of Maximus (of which he had possessed at least a copy). By a certain prophecy concerning my own life—so long to be drawn out by the gift of God—and by an industry chosen for this end alone, I, as one guilty of testifying to this desire of his, offer this work willingly, as a monument (and, I would hope, one more lasting than bronze).

Therefore, there is no need here for more extensive notes from me, but rather for the text of Maximus himself and his scholia to be turned over with diligent labor; one must read them not once, but again and again, if one wishes to grasp his deep meanings and take delight in the genius of the man. For if one who, in his own person, exhausts the most subtle minds of the Greeks themselves, as well as those who are crammed with multiple erudition, by his hyperbata and complex speech (as Photius is the most copious witness in his critique), what might he not do to an interpreter, if only he were to have greater regard for the interpreter’s duty than for a standard of faith, or for a clarity that is sought after—only for the clarity not to be found, as the author’s sense slips away, replaced by an alien and extraneous meaning that bears no fruit, while senseless men divide the single period of the great theologian into many, or indulge themselves in it as if they were explaining it? There is everywhere great *ἀκρίβεια* and exactitude in Maximus, whether he is handing down dogmas or pursuing his own spiritual senses, and the *θεωρίαι* which he calls by that name, in which he does not allegorize so as to seek only this one meaning of Scripture and abandon its very letter (a charge on which Origen was often reproached for *ἀλληγορῶν*), but rather as most approved Greek and Latin Fathers do: they play happily within the Scriptures while keeping the letter and its native sense intact, and, as Augustine is the author, they extract honey from the honeycombs. One should consult Severianus, *On the Creation of the World*, where he elegantly expounds what pertains to both kinds of allegory, pushing one away from himself, while with the other he enriches his own discourses, showing the use of it from the pulpit with no unsuccessful effort. The reader will notice this better himself if he reads those discourses of Severianus, which I have already translated into Latin and pressed in the press, along with other treatises of the Fathers of this kind in the volume or two of my new second Appendix, which is almost complete, and will be made public before Maximus.

[PREFATORY NOTE]

...it should be permitted to read. These works of Maximus will not be useless to those who are engaged in a more religious exercise, or even to those spiritual men who soothe the exile of this life with pious meditations—those whom the Greeks call *gnostikoi*, for whom Maximus will certainly be a great teacher, as he will be to other theologians in matters of dogma. The difficulty for the translator of Maximus is increased by the fact that theological terms do not possess the same ease and abundance in Latin as they do in Greek, and in these terms Maximus—who is a master of their *akribeia* (precision), a great theologian both in the eyes of the Greeks and *kat’ exochen* (by eminence)—is heard in both theologies. Maximus will be of great value to one who is not entirely a stranger to the Greeks, and who will be able to compare the terms I have seen fit to use in translating with Maximus’s own; but to one who is not permitted such comparison by ignorance of the Greek language, even if he remains content with our own, he may read Maximus in them, and perhaps, through my work and long familiarity and intimacy with Maximus and other Greek theologians, he will not regret having read him.

Maximus, therefore, renders what Thalassius the presbyter, who is also hegumen—let us call him the superior of the monks, or in a stricter sense, abbot—a spiritual man himself (to whom Maximus wrote several learned letters on various topics), had requested: this work of *anagogical* exposition of the difficult passages of Scripture, in which, consequently, nothing else should be sought, for nothing else was intended for it; in this, its *akribeis* (accuracy) consists, exceeding nothing, and keeping within the limits he gladly set for himself according to the wish of Thalassius. The work of Hesychius, *Questions and Solutions on Scripture*, is somewhat similar, which I would gladly have presented, so that theologian might be called theologian by theologian: for Hesychius is also a *theologos* to the Greeks, in the way he is perhaps a *zetetikos* (inquisitive), as I remember I represented from a Greek codex in Volume I of my *Auctarium*, where he strives to reconcile the *evangelical discrepancy* regarding the resurrection of Christ in many ways, in a discourse which is also erroneously attributed to Gregory of Nyssa, though it has none of his brilliance or characteristics.

OF MAXIMUS THE HUMBLE MONK TO THALASSIUS THE MOST HOLY PRESBYTER AND HEGUMEN ON VARIOUS DIFFICULTIES OF DIVINE SCRIPTURE

To the most holy servant of God, Lord Thalassius, presbyter and superior, Maximus the humble monk, greeting.

You who, O man of God, have separated your soul from the affection of the flesh by reason, and have altogether withdrawn your mind from the senses through the Spirit: you have made the one—that is, the flesh—a brilliant mother of virtues; and you have rendered the other—namely, the senses—an ever-flowing fountain of divine knowledge, which hitherto has held communion of mind with flesh...