That Creation is Incarnation in Maximus Confessor Jordan Daniel Wood A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the department of Theology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Boston College Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Graduate School September 2018 ©Copyright 2018 Jordan Daniel Wood That Creation is Incarnation in Maximus Confessor Jordan Daniel Wood Advisor: Boyd Taylor Coolman, PhD Abstract This dissertation argues that Maximus conceives the logic of creation from nothing as the logic of the divine Word’s historical Incarnation. It first studies the peculiar features of Maximus’s Neochalcedonian christology in order to understand what he means by “Incarnation” (Chapter 1). It then discovers this same logic operative in Maximus’s protology (Chapter 2) and eschatology (Chapter 3). I therefore conclude that Maximus’s declaration, “The Word of God, very God, wills that the mystery of his Incarnation be actualized always and in all things” (Amb 7.22), ought to be interpreted literally.
Nicht jedwedem ist gegeben, das Ende zu wissen, wenigen, die Uranfänge des Lebens zu sehen, noch wenigeren, das Ganze vom Ersten bis zum Letzten der Dinge zu durchdenken. von Schelling, Die Weltalter In hac autem consideratione est perfectio illuminationis mentis, dum quasi in sexta die videt hominem factum ad imaginem Dei. Si enim imago est similitudo expressiva, dum mens nostra contemplatur in Christo Filio Dei, qui est imago Dei invisibilis per naturam, humanitatem nostram tam mirabiliter exaltatem, tam ineffabiliter unitam, videndo simul in unum primum et ultimum, summum et imum, circumferentiam et centrum, alpha et omega, causatum et causam, Creatorem et creaturam, librum sciliet scriptum intus et extra; iam pervenit ad quandam rem perfectam, ut cum Deo ad perfectionem suarum illuminationum in sexto gradu quasi in sexta die perveniat, nec aliquid iam amplius restet nisi dies requiei, in qua per mentis excessum requiescat humanae mentis perspicacitas ab omni opere, quod patrarat. ~ St Bonaventure, Itinerarium mentis in Deum VI.
~ Maximus Confessor, Ambigua ad Iohanem 7.22 Table of Contents Acknowledgments vi Abbreviations viii Introduction 1 1. The Middle: Christo-logic 33 1.2 Neochalcedonianism and its discontents 34 1.3 Maximus’s fine point: hypostatic identity 46 1.4 Hypostatic identity generates natural difference 67 1.5 Perichoresis in christology: a new mode of unifying natures in act 74 1.6 Incarnation: event discloses logic, logic applies solely to fact 84 1. The Beginning: Logoi, pt. 1 – Word Becomes World 90 2.2 Unqualified descriptions of creation as Incarnation 93 2.3 First qualification: no natural mediation between God and world 107 2.4 Second qualification: the Logos becomes logoi, not ideas (the participated) 115 2.5 Third qualification: the logoi of created hypostases (the participants) 125 2.6 The Word proceeds: one act, two modes of activity 131 2.
The End: Logoi, pt. 2 – World Becomes Trinity 144 3.2 Human vocation: hypostatic identity of created and uncreated natures 151 3.3 God by grace: an innate and supra-natural process 178 3.4 Perichoresis, the logic of deified creation 206 3.5 Christ’s Body and analogy 222 3.6 Conclusion 236 Conclusion 238 An Analytic Appendix 248 Bibliography 259 v Acknowledgments Incredible how something so mean as a dissertation can reveal so much about weighty matters like divine munificence. That’s evident enough when I try to recall all those who have instructed, chided, and cheered me throughout my theological formation—all to my gain. Their mostly unsung succor is for that very reason more the Lord’s.
Here I acknowledge those more or less directly linked to this project and leave the rest to their reward. Thanks first to my committee. John Betz, one of those rare interlocutors in academic theology whose generosity and intelligence actually allows iron to sharpen iron. Paul Blowers, whose expert and cautious guidance bears a most amazing attribute— joviality.
Brian Dunkle, SJ, the most meticulous, exacting, and wildly indulgent reader I’ve known. And especially to Boyd Taylor Coolman: his intellectual and personal hospitality to me and to my family has made this work a true labor of love, a thing of joy. That ability, I suspect, must be the mark of a truly good man. Several professors have given much and selflessly to my formation at Boston College.
Brian Robinette, an encourager, a capacious mind, a truly great theologian, a Catholic mystic, and most importantly a constant friend. Brown, that giant we stand on. Andrew Prevot, a fearless Catholic thinker. Gary Gurtler, SJ, master of Plotinus’s thought and a philosopher himself.
Maximos Constas, my introduction to Maximus, the best English translator of Greek patristic texts, and involuntary catalyst for exploring Maximus’s speculative genius. John Behr and Aristotle Papanikolaou have read parts or versions of this project and offered timely encouragement for which I’m grateful. vi I’ve incured many debts to my doctoral peers. Katie Wrisley-Shelby, John Kern, Christopher McLaughlin, Fr.
Ryan Duns, SJ—all lended their ears and cheers indulgently. To Thomas Tatterfield, a long-time fellow wayfarer and ever sharp mind. Ty Monroe, a lover of truth. These latter two have influenced me deeply.
Christopher Iacovetti and Taylor Ross, remote but unfailing encouragers along the way. And above all to Justin Coyle, who more than anyone has suffered my mind and strived to instruct it. I could never repay that debt. To my parents, who first incarnated love for me.
My brothers, Justin and Shane, whose friendship I covet. To Shane for reading and discussing the entire dissertation. To their families, for solace. To my daughters, Rayna, Edith, and Magdalena.
In you I’ve experienced the truth of God’s goodness, the infinite mystery of personhood, and the love God is. To my wife and greatest friend, Alexis. With you I’ve experienced the truth of that mystery between Christ and the Church of which Paul spoke. And it’s to the Church, my Mother, that I give this meager offering.
You’ve taught me to behold the Incarnate God, to gaze upon “the beautiful exchange” between Creator and creature in the face of Jesus Christ (Amb 7. vii Abbreviations Maximus’s works Lib. Liber asceticus Quest. Quaestiones et dubia CC Capita de charitate CT Capita theologiae et oeconomiae Ep Epistula 1-45 Opusc Opuscula theologica et polemica Amb Ambigua ad Thomam et Iohanem QThal Quaestiones ad Thalassium Exp.
Expositio orationis dominicae In psalm 59 Expositio in psalmum 59 Myst Mystagogia Pyr Disputatio cum Pyrrho On Maximus MC Actes du symposium sur Maxime le Confesseur TOHMC The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor ACMC The Architecture of the Cosmos Others ACO Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum PG Patrologia graeca SC Sources chrétiennes CCSG Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca LSJ A Greek-English Lexicon Lampe A Patristic Greek Lexicon viii Introduction Topic & Thesis John Scotus Eriugena attributes many insights to Maximus Confessor, above all insight into the riddle of the world’s procession from God. So Eriugena writes in the preface to his versio Latina of Maximus’s Ambigua ad Johannem: to mention a few of many points, [Maximus most lucidly explains] in what way the Cause of all things, who is God, be both a simple and manifold One: what sort of procession there be—and here I mean the multiplication of divine Goodness through all things that are—which descends from the summit all the way down, first through the general essence of all things, then through the most general genera, then through less general genera, still further through more specific species right into the most specific species, even into differentia and properties. And again, concerning the same divinity, we see what sort of reversion of Goodness there be—I mean the gathering together, through those same grades, from the things that exist in infinite diversity and multiplicity right up to that simplest unity of all things, which is in God and which God is. So [we see] that God is all things and all things are God.1 Maximus taught Eriugena how the sheen of God’s ineffable transcendence most glisters when we see that and how God and world are “one and the same.”2 And to see this you need the crucial lens Maximus cuts: the “primordial reasons” of all things not only find 1 Eriugena, JOANNIS SCOTI VERSIO AMBIGUORUM S., my translation; CCSG 18, 3-4, ll.25-37: “Exempli gratia, ut pauca de pluribus dicam, quomodo causa omnium, quae Deus est, una sit simplex et multiplex; qualis sit processio, id est multiplicatio divinae bonitatis per omnia quae sunt, a summo usque deorsum, per generalem omnium essentiam primo, deinceps per genera generalissima, deinde per genera generaliora, inde per species specialiores usque ad species specialissimas per differentias proprietatesque descendens; et iterum ejusdem divinae videlicet, bonitatis qualis sit reversio, id est congregatio, per eosdem gradus ab infinita eorum quae sunt variaque multiplicatione usque ad simplicissimam omnium unitatem, quae in Deo est et Deus est, ita ut et Deus omnia sit et omnia Deus sint.
Et quomodo praedicta quidem divina in omnia processio ΑΝΑΛΥΤΙΚΗ dicitur, hoc est resolutio, reversio vero ΘΕΩΣΙΣ, hoc est deificatio.” 2 Eriugena, Periphyseon, III.17, O’Meara 161-3: “Proinde non duo a se ipsis distantia debemus intelligere deum et creaturam sed unum et id ipsum.” 1 their eternal ground in the Word of God, they “are the very [Word] Himself.”3 God and world are identical because the one Word is both. I share Eriugena’s conviction that with Maximus dawned what may be the profoundest insight of the patristic tradition into the peculiar role the Word plays in God’s creative act, the Word who remains consubstantial with Father and Spirit even as he descends into and as the generation of all things. I stand with Eriugena too when he says of the God-world relation—more exactly, how God and world are identical and distinct in the Word—that “there is no more profound question than this that seekers after the truth should investigate.”4 I sympathize still more when Eriugena, dumb before “the manner and reason of the establishment of all things in the Word,” finally sighs, “let the one speak who can; myself, I confess I do not know.”5 In yet a final way I follow Eriugena: just here, where the trail runs cold, I look to Maximus. A broad and systematic question animates my study: does the historical Incarnation of the Word disclose anything about the fundamental God-world relation, and if yes, what? I pose this question to Maximus, who, if the genre of ἐρωταπόκρισεις much of his oeuvre assumes offers any indication, would not glibly eschew this ζήτημα.6 That this question motivates the study does not mean the study can resolve it, of course.
But it might make a start. I take up another of Maximus’s practices, though without his ingenuity, in hunt of his answer: I comment texts in Maximus which are, I think, misread, 3 Eriugena, Periphyseon, III.7, O’Meara 76-7: “omnia in verbo dei non solum aeterna verum etiam ipsum {verbum} esse.” Surely significant, Eriugena overtly credits this precise insight to Maximus’s Ambiguum 7. 4 Eriugena, Periphyseon, III. 5 Eriugena, Periphyseon, III.
6 On this genre in Maximus, see Paul M. Blowers, Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy in Maximus the Confessor: An Investigation of the Questiones ad Thalassium (Notre Dame: UNDP, 1991) and Peter Van Deun, “Maximus the Confessor’s Use of Literary Genres,” in The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor (hereafter TOHMC), eds. Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil (Oxford: OUP, 2015), 275f. 2 or at least read shallow.
So the systematic question becomes an exegetical one too. I ask it thus: what is the relation between creation and Incarnation in Maximus? I argue that Maximus conceives creation as divine Incarnation. More precisely, creation and Incarnation are identified in Maximus because they bear the same logic. To those familiar with Maximus or his modern commentators, this may appear a prosaic thesis.
Many have spoken of the intimate link in Maximus’s theology between his Neochalcedonian christology and his conception of the world.7 Who among those who’ve read it could forget that breathtaking declaration, this dissertation’s epigraph: “The Word of God, very God, wills that the mystery of his Incarnation be actualized always and in all things”?