Maximos Constas
All Articles by Maximos Constas
Senior Research Scholar, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Brookline, Mass.
Βook Review, Church in the Making: An Apophatic Ecclesiology of Consubstantiality by N. Loudovikos, Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2016, pp. 296. ISBN 978–0–88141–509–4
Introduction
In an essay originally published in 1948, Fr Georges Florovsky noted that, whereas the Orthodox conciliar tradition produced no formal definition or doctrine of the Church, this was not because of any confusion or obscurity regarding the question, but because the experiential reality of the Church was so overwhelmingly self-evident that it required no explanation.1 Yet, what may have been self-evident in the patristic and Byzantine period no longer seems to be quite so obvious, and theologians now regularly question the nature of the Church, along with its purpose and relevance in the modern world. Despite the proliferation of various ecclesiological models and theories, many questions regarding the nature, identity, unity, structure, orders, and ministries of the Church remain largely open and under discussion, and these are not merely academic questions but to the contrary express a genuine and widespread crisis.
Church in the Making addresses these questions in ways that are exceptionally fresh and creative, and which should insure this book an important place in the large and complex body of ecclesiological literature produced over the last century and a half. The central problem, as Loudovikos sees it, is that hierarchy and institutional structure have come to dominate the vision of the Church, and as a result have become unwitting vectors in a vicious cycle: disproportionate emphasis on the Church as an institution invariably provokes a range of subjective, spiritualizing, charismatic and therapeutic reactions.
Far from being a merely general study of ecclesiology or episcopal primacy, Church in the Making is at once a meticulous and far-reaching exploration of these questions based on often brilliantly perceptive readings of patristic sources, in particular the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor. The author’s reading of these sources brings new categories and concepts into prominence—or rather new understandings of traditional categories—such as ‘imitation’, ‘consubstantiality’, and ‘participation’ (all of which require careful parsing), which aim to move beyond the facile and false dichotomy of so-called ‘therapeutic’ ecclesi-
Georges Florovsky, ‘The Church: Her Nature and Task,’ The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, vol. 1 (Vaduz: Büchervertriebsanstalt, 1989), 57; originally published in The Universal Church in God’s Design: An Ecumenical Study (London: SCM Press, 1948), 43–58; the quotation appears on page 43.
Paul the Hesychast: Gregory Palamas and the Pauline Foundations of Hesychast Theology and Spirituality
The thought of Gregory Palamas is marked by an extraordinary appropriation of Pauline theology that has largely escaped scholarly notice. This paper argues that the Hesychast controversy unfolded around rival interpretations of Paul’s theology and visionary experiences, especially his vision of the divine light (Acts 9:3–9) and his ascent into the ‘third heaven’ (2 Cor 12:1–10), which Palamas and his followers identified with their own understanding of the uncreated light of God and with Hesychast spirituality more generally. Palamas’ rich and complex handling of Paul’s letters is explored through a close reading of the first Triad, along with relevant passages from the other works in the trilogy. The analysis suggests that the Hesychast controversy was in many ways a debate about who was the true follower of Paul.
The last fifty years have witnessed an explosion of Palamite studies, along with growing interest in other theological writers of the period, yet almost no attention has been paid to the Palamite (or Hesychast) use of the Pauline corpus or of Scripture more generally. If we take the standard works of reference as our starting point, we will be told that the Hesychast controversy was a debate about the nature of mystical experience, a clash between ascetic spirituality and scholastic methodology, a chapter in the ongoing quarrel between faith and reason (or between theology and philosophy, or Christianity and Hellenism), or simply an ideological screen for the ambitions of warring feudal magnates set against the background of reviving urban life. As true as these interpretations might be, they do not even remotely suggest that the Hesychast controversy can and probably should be seen as a debate about who was the true follower of Paul.
Maximus the Confessor, Dionysius the Areopagite, and the Transformation of Christian Neoplatonism
Maximus the Confessor and Dionysius the Areopagite are two of the most important representatives of what is often called Christian Neoplatonism, yet each made markedly different use of Neoplatonic categories and concepts. To date, there are no major studies comparing their respective responses to later Greek philosophy, which, this paper argues, are aligned with their respective responses to Origenism. To examine this phenomenon, this paper studies the Confessor’s systematic restructuring of the Neoplatonic cycle of ‘remaining, procession, and return’, which departs significantly from the forms this cycle takes in the corpus Dionysiacum. Maximus’ doctrine of the logoi, including the centrality of the incarnate Logos to his metaphysics, is at once a radical critique of Origenism, a tacit dismissal of Dionysian hierarchies, and a comprehensive rethinking of Christian Neoplatonism.
Introduction
Maximus the Confessor (580–662) was active at a time when Greek patristic theology and Platonic philosophy had reached their greatest maturity, evident from the Confessor’s own writings, in which theology and philosophy are intricately intertwined in a complex and far-reaching Christian metaphysics. A highly synthetic thinker, Maximus drew freely on a diverse body of philosophical and theological sources. His anthropology, for example, was largely inspired by the writings of Gregory of Nyssa (whom he invokes as an authority).1 For his ascetic theology, he owed a tremendous debt to the work of Evagrius of Pontus (whom he never mentions by name).2 His interpretation of Scripture closely followed the hermeneutics of Philo
1.Cf. Ad Thalassium 1.1 (CCSG 7:47); Quaestiones et dubia 19 (CCSG 10:17–18); and I.P. Sheldon-Williams, ‘Maximus’, in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed., A.H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 492: ‘The universe of Maximus is that of Dionysius with a place found in it for the anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa.’ Maximus’ esteem for Nyssa did not prevent him from modifying some of the latter’s signature doctrines, on which see: Paul Blowers, ‘Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa and the concept of “Perpetual Progress”’, Vigiliae Christianae 46 (1992): 151–71; and Maximos Constas, ‘A Greater and More Hidden Word: Maximos the Confessor and the Nature of Language’, in Maximos the Confessor: A European Philosopher, ed. Sotiris Mitralexis (forthcoming).
2.Maximus systematically modified Evagrius’ theology, redefining, for example, the logoi of ‘judgment and providence’ (cf. Ambiguum 10.37 [DOML 1:207]), and introducing the Dionysian notion of ‘ecstasy’…