The Contemplation of Nature in Maximus the Confessor

“TO SEE INTO THE LIFE OF THINGS” THE CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE IN MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR’S AMBIGUA TO JOHN VOLUME I

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

by

Joshua Gareth Lollar ______________________________ Brian E. Daley, Director

Graduate Program in Theology Notre Dame, Indiana July 2011

UMI Number: 3480054

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“TO SEE INTO THE LIFE OF THINGS” THE CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE IN MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR’S AMBIGUA TO JOHN

Abstract

by

Joshua Gareth Lollar

This dissertation is a study of the theme of natural contemplation (θεωρία φυσική) in Maximus the Confessor’s Ambigua to John. The Ambigua have not received a synthetic treatment and the dissertation argues that the central concern of the text is to define the philosophical life in terms of the renewal of nature and its contemplation in Christ, the incarnate Word of God. The dissertation is divided into two parts. The first is a study of the contemplation of nature among the ancient Greek philosophers and patristic theologians before Maximus. Chapter 1 is an analysis of the place of the contemplation of nature amongst the ancient Greeks, beginning with the pre-Socratics Parmenides and Heraklitus and then proceeding to Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Plotinus. Chapter 2 then considers the theme in Greek patristic sources before Maximus,

Joshua Gareth Lollar where it shows how Clement and Origen of Alexandria, the Cappadocians Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius of Pontus, and finally Dionysius the Areopagite turn the contemplation of nature to the specifically Christian concerns of creation and the incarnation of the divine Word. In Part II the study of the contemplation of nature in the Ambigua unfolds in four chapters. Chapter 3 analyzes Maximus’ account of the basic human experience of the world in terms of the tension between time and eternity and matter and spirit. This leads to Maximus’ account of the philosophical life in Chapter 4. Here I show how Maximus accounts for the coherence of philosophy, specifically that between praxis and contemplation; I then give an analysis of his understanding of the contemplation of nature itself. Chapter 5 explores the theme of God and the world in the Ambigua and Chapter 6 demonstrates how Maximus reconciles the various aspects of philosophy he has explored throughout the text in his understanding of the renewal of nature in the economy of salvation.

For Kristine, and for Elizabeth, Justus, Constance, and Solomon

ii

CONTENTS

VOLUME I Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................1 I. The Terms of this Study .......................................................................................1  II. Status Quaestionis ...............................................................................................4 i. The Ambigua to John in Modern Scholarship ..........................................4 ii. The Contemplation of Nature in Modern Maximus Scholarship ............7 III. Method .............................................................................................................17 i. Philosophy or Theology? ........................................................................17 ii. The Ambigua to John—Genre ...............................................................20 iii. Gregory the Theologian as Authority ...................................................24 iv. Structure of the Ambigua to John .........................................................25 v. Argument ...............................................................................................27 IV. The Game of Philosophy .................................................................................32 Part I: Maximus' Philosophical and Patristic Foundations ................................................38 Chapter 2: The Contemplation of Nature in Greek Philosophy.........................................39 Introduction ............................................................................................................39 I. Parmenides: Nature and the Guidance of the Soul .............................................42 II. Heraclitus: Nature and Language ......................................................................52 III. Plato: Nature and Love ....................................................................................59 IV. Aristotle: Nature and Virtue ............................................................................78 V. The Stoics: Nature and Life ..............................................................................86 VI. Plotinus: Nature and Contemplation................................................................96 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................115 Chapter 3: The Contemplation of Nature in the Greek Fathers .......................................117 Introduction ..........................................................................................................117 I. The Alexandrians..............................................................................................119 i. Clement of Alexandria ..........................................................................119 a. Philosophy and Christianity .....................................................119 b. Cosmos and Temple.................................................................123 c. Christ the Priest of Creation .....................................................126 iii   

ii. Origen ..................................................................................................132 a. In the Savior God Created ........................................................132 b. The Three-fold Wisdom...........................................................133 c. The Possibility of Knowledge and the Myth of the Cosmic Fall ........................................................................134 II. The Cappadocians ...........................................................................................144 i. Basil of Caesarea—Water is Water ......................................................145 ii. Gregory Nazianzen—Nature and Theological Initiation.....................154 iii. Gregory of Nyssa—The Scope of Natural Contemplation.................160 III. Evagrius of Pontus .........................................................................................168 i. From Asceticism to Nature ...................................................................170 ii. Nature ..................................................................................................176 iii. Christ and Nature ................................................................................187 IV. Dionysius the Areopagite ..............................................................................190 i. The World as the Manifestation of God ...............................................191 ii. The Name Above Every Name ............................................................194 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................197 Conclusion to Part I .............................................................................................198

VOLUME II

Part II: The Contemplation of Nature in the Ambigua to John ........................................206 Introduction ..........................................................................................................207 Chapter 4: Pathos—“What is the Wisdom Concerning Me?” .........................................209 Introduction: Ambigua 6—8 and the Ambiguity of Human Existence ...............209 I. Ambiguum 6 ......................................................................................................212 i. This is my body? ...................................................................................212 ii. Rationalization of Obscurity ................................................................215 iii. The Ascetic and the Contemplative ....................................................218 II. Ambiguum 7 ....................................................................................................220 i. The Question of Origenism ..................................................................220 ii. Nature and Passibility ..........................................................................222 iii. Partaking of God as the Substance of Virtue......................................227 iv. Soul and Body.....................................................................................238 III. Ambiguum 8: Training in Disorder ................................................................245

iv   

Chapter 5: Ethos—Praxis and the Contemplation of Nature Introduction: The Coherence of the Philosophical Life ...............................................................251 I. Ambiguum 10: Virtue and Nature .....................................................................255 i. Praxis and Contemplation .....................................................................255 ii. Rationalizing the Practical Life ...........................................................258 iii. Images of Dispassion ..........................................................................262 II. The Soul ..........................................................................................................267 i. The Soul and Nature in Aristotle and the Commentators .....................267 ii. Maximus on the Motions of the Soul ..................................................271 iii. The Passivity of the Soul ....................................................................278 iv. Soul as Mediator between God and Matter ........................................283 III. Dispassion and Contemplation ......................................................................286 IV. The Contemplation of Nature ........................................................................293 i. “οὐσία is the teacher of theology ..........................................................293 ii. “The Heavens Declare the Glory of God”: Providence and Judgment ............................................................295 iii. Creating the World in the Mind..........................................................301 iv. Nature and Scripture ...........................................................................309 v. Transcending Nature ............................................................................314 Chapter 6: Cosmos—God and the World ........................................................................318 Introduction ..........................................................................................................318 I. God and the World ...........................................................................................320 i. The World as the Self-Multiplication of the One God .........................320 ii. Transfiguration: The Word as Type and Symbol of Himself ..............321 iii. The Burning Bush: The Divine Fire in the Essence of Things...........330 II. The World and Eternity ...................................................................................332 i. Maximus Against the Eternity of the World.........................................332 ii. Philoponus and Proclus on the Eternity of the World .........................342 iii. Love as Divine Motion .......................................................................355 iv. The Univocity of Being Incomprehensible.........................................361 III. God and the Language of the World ..............................................................363 i. The Problem of God and the Language of the World ..........................363 ii. Christ, Concept, Language ..................................................................366 a. Ambiguum 23: Activity and Passivity ......................................367 b. Ambiguum 24: Subject and Action ..........................................370 c. Ambiguum 25: Subject, Predication, and Nature .....................372 d. Ambiguum 26: The Concepts of Essence and Activity ............373 e. Ambiguum 30: Names and the Divine......................................375 Chapter 7: Logos—Christ and the Renewal of Nature ....................................................378 Introduction ..........................................................................................................378 I. The Contemplation of Nature and the Economy of Salvation .........................378 v   

i. The Beginning is Like the End .............................................................379 ii. The Transgression of Adam ................................................................385 iii. The Renewal of Nature .......................................................................390 II. Christ and the Contemplation of Nature .........................................................405 i. The Year of the Lord ............................................................................406 ii. One Christ, Many Participants.............................................................409 iii. “The Word Becomes the Substance in the Entirety of Things? .........410 iv. Knowledge of Nature in the Desert ....................................................411 v. The Passion of Christ and the Knowledge of Nature...........................414 Conclusion to Part II ............................................................................................421    Epilogue ...........................................................................................................................424 Appendix A: Overview of the Structure of the Ambigua to John ...................................426 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................435

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

I. The Terms of this Study The present work is a study of Maximus the Confessor’s Ambigua to John, his collection of speculative chapters of commentary on various difficult passages from Gregory the Theologian, and gives an explanation of the underlying intellectual structure of the work. Its thesis is that the various questions—both philosophical and theological— raised in the Ambigua to John have as their foundational concern the central question of the meaning and nature of what is contained in the phrase “θεωρία φυσική,” or “the contemplation of nature.” Our question, in other words, is, What is the role of human knowledge of the world in Maximus’ vision for the Christian life? The term θεωρία, “contemplation,” as Maximus uses it, refers to a number of different but related phenomena. Ears accustomed to the Aristotelian understanding of philosophy will hear in θεωρία that mode of philosophical endeavor that is other than πρᾶξις, the life of study and reflection as opposed to moral and political action. This understanding is present in Maximus though we shall see how he will attempt to bring contemplation and practical action into unity with one another. With respect to θεωρία itself and not as considered in relation to πρᾶξις, Maximus uses the term to refer to the speculative and somewhat open-ended interpretation of Scripture, the natural world, or

1

the writings of the fathers, in short, to the activity of a philosopher or scholar. It may also take on a narrower meaning still and refer to the intellect’s encounter with true being as the prelude to the ultimate encounter with the God beyond intellect and being. The term φύσις, usually rendered as “nature,” likewise has a polyvalent meaning for Maximus. It may mean the “essence” of a thing and in this case is roughly equivalent to οὐσία. It may also be taken in its more etymological sense (φύω meaning to cause to spring forth or grow, as in a plant—φυτόν) and refer to a thing precisely as something that has “come into being.” Third, and related to this second meaning, φύσις as “nature” may be taken to refer to the cosmos as a whole, as the whole of what has come into being. Taken together, the phrase “θεωρία φυσική”—“natural contemplation”—refers to the systematic study but also to the more devotional, even non-discursive apprehension, of the things of the world and of the world as a whole. It is directed particularly to the world as characterized by generation, growth, change, and movement and seeks to account for the coherence underlying the instability of natural phenomena. Of course, this definition is merely provisional; the entire study before you is devoted to explaining what the contemplation of nature means and it means substantially more than has been said in the first two sentences of this paragraph. Nevertheless, it is necessary to establish a basic starting point. The phrase “knowledge of the world” requires a bit of clarification as well. For Maximus, the “world” as κόσµος refers, as it does for ancient Greeks generally, to the universe as an ordered whole (κοσµέω: “to arrange, set in order, adorn”), but this order, which is the manifestation of the principles and purposes (λόγοι) of the divine mind, has 2

come to manifestation as creation (κτίσις) and so is nearly always thought of by Maximus in terms of its finitude and dependence upon divine reality. Moreover, my analysis of the notion of “world” or “creation” in Maximus will often take one aspect of the world— principally the human being—as a synecdoche for the whole and this is justified by the close affinity Maximus’ understanding of the doctrine of creation has with his vision of the incarnation of Christ. As he says in his interpretation of the Israelite tabernacle (Ex 25.8-9), “the tent of testimony is the mysterious economy of the incarnation of the Word of God,” but it is also “the image of the whole creation, both intellectual and sensual…the image of sensual nature alone…of human nature alone…and also of soul alone,”1 and more famously, “the Word of God and God wishes for the mystery of his embodiment to be actualized always and in everything.”2 Just what Maximus means by this will be explained in detail through the course of this study. Suffice it to say here that world, humanity, and incarnate Christ are inseparably linked in Maximus’ thought and form the nexus of his reflections on the contemplation of nature. With the term “knowledge” in the phrase, “knowledge of the world,” I intend both the carrying out of interpretations and descriptions of phenomena as they appear in the world and the reflection upon the conditions of the possibility and the dynamics of this process. As the present work argues, the dynamics of contemplating nature in Maximus’ thought cannot be understood without a deep consideration of the place of the human being in the world as an embodied creature bounded by space and time, a situation which, for Maximus, entails a practice of spiritual/ascetical life in preparation for, and as 1

Ambiguorum liber 61, Patrologia Graeca Cursus Completus 91.1385C13-1388A6.

2

Amb. 7, 1084C14-D2.

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part of, the apprehension of the truth of the world. Thus, the study is entitled, “To See into the Life of Things”, in reference to a line from Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey.” I do not intend necessarily to imply with this title any profound affinity between Maximus and the poet, though they both exhibit a definite relationship to Platonism; the language of the poem is simply a powerful evocation of the scope of the present work. The poet writes: that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and weary weight Of all this unintelligible world Is lighten’d: —that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on, Until, the breath of this corporeal frame, And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.3 If the world initially gives itself as unintelligible, and Maximus thinks it does, and yet if it contains a quieting power of harmony, and Maximus thinks it does, then the direction of our questioning about the world turns to the eye made blurry by the mystery, and observes it as it is clarified and comes, at the end of a struggle, to the beginning of vision in which it is granted “to see into the life of things.” II. Status Quaestionis i. The Ambigua to John in Modern Scholarship Because there is not yet available a critical edition of the Ambigua to John, this study is based upon the edition of F. Öhler (1857), which was reprinted in 1860 in

3

William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads and Other Poems 1797—1800 ed. James Butler and Karen Green (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 117.

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Migne’s Patrologia Graeca (PG 91.1061-1417). The first and only major study devoted specifically to the Ambigua to John as a whole is Polycarp Sherwood’s The Earlier Ambigua of Saint Maximus the Confessor and His Refutation of Origenism,4 where the title Earlier Ambigua refers to the Ambigua to John. This foundational work gives a brief historical background to the text, brief summaries of each of the individual chapters, and an in-depth analysis of Maximus’ “refutation of Origenism,” focusing especially on Ambiguum 7, though referring to other Ambigua as well. Sherwood himself acknowledges that the refutation of Origenism is by no means the central concern of the Ambigua to John, or even of Ambiguum 7, and his own work is, among other things, a response to the first edition of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Kosmische Liturgie: Höhe und Krise des griechischen Weltbildes (1941), which, Sherwood, asserts, made too much of a so-called “Origenist crisis” in the thought of Maximus. Von Balthasar revised the presentation of his position in light of this criticism in the second edition of Kosmische Liturgie, published in 1961, changing the subtitle to Das Weltbild Maximus’ des Bekenners in accordance with the altered presentation of his position vis-à-vis Origenism. Nevertheless, the Ambigua to John are often incorporated into studies of Maximus precisely in the terms of the refutation of Origenism, and the need of an in-depth analysis of the whole work, which Sherwood noted in his own study, has gone largely unmet, though we shall now note a few works that have taken steps in this direction. Since Sherwood, there have been three major publications in the Western world relating to the whole of the Ambigua to John. First, Eduard Jeauneau published a critical edition of John Scot Eriugena’s Latin translation of the Ambigua to John in 1988, and in 4

Polycarp Sherwood, The Earlier Ambigua of Saint Maximus the Confessor and His Refutation of Origenism (Roma: Herder, 1955).

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addition to providing a helpful critical apparatus, the edition is based upon Latin manuscripts that are older than the earliest Greek manuscripts of the Ambigua, making Eriugena an important early witness to the text, especially in light of the present lack of a published critical edition of the Greek text.5 Second, a complete French translation of the text by Emmanuel Ponsoye was published in 1994 with a topical introduction by JeanClaude Larchet and a French translation of Dumitru Staniloae’s commentary (originally published in Romanian in 1983).6 Finally, Claudio Moreschini published an Italian translation of the Ambigua in 2003 with a thorough introduction to the doctrinal content of the text and erudite notes to the translation.7 We should also note two publications of translations in English relevant to the study of the Ambigua to John. Andrew Louth published translations of Ambigua 10, 41, and 71 in 19968 and Paul Blowers and Robert Wilken published translations of Ambigua 7, 8, and 42 (portions) in 2003.9 The Ambigua to John have, of course, been studied in other contexts than the refutation of Origenism. Pascal Mueller-Jourdan gives an extended exposition of the concepts of space and time in Ambiguum 10 as a grounding for his study of the

5

Eduard Jeauneau, Maximi Confessoris Ambigua ad Iohannem iuxta Iohannis Scotti Eriugenae latinam interpretationem, CCSG 18 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1988). 6

Emmanuel Ponsoye et al., Ambigua. Introduction par Jean-Claude Larchet; avant-propos, traduction et notes par Emmanuel Ponsoye; commentaire par Dumitru Staniloae (Paris: Les Éditions de l’Ancre, 1994). 7

Claudio Moreschini, Ambigua: Problemi Metafisici e Teologici su Testi di Gregorio di Nazianzo e Dionigi Areopagita (Milan: Bompiani, 2003). 8

Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor (London/New York: Routledge, 1996).

9

Paul M. Blowers and Robert Louis Wilken, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings from St. Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, NY: ST. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003).

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Mystagogia.10 Jean-Claude Larchet makes extensive use of a number of the Ambigua in his study of deification.11 The teaching of the five-fold division of reality and their unification in Christ in Ambiguum 41 plays a prominent role in Lars Thunberg’s Microcosm and Mediator, originally his 1965 doctoral dissertation, published in a second edition with revisions in 1995.12 On the whole, studies addressing the Ambigua to John do so selectively and as a part of a wider project of examining a particular theme in Maximus’ thought, though Moreschini has recently given the beginning of a synthetic treatment of the Ambigua to John both in the aforementioned introduction to his translation and in a recent article in which he organizes a brief synthetic account of certain characteristic themes of Maximus’ engagement with Gregory’s theology.13 ii. The Contemplation of Nature in Modern Maximus Scholarship With respect to the topic of the contemplation of nature, scholars have long been aware of the importance of the cosmos in Maximus’ thought. Indeed, ever since the publication of the first edition of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Kosmische Liturgie (and the revised Kosmische Liturgie: Das Weltbild Maximus’ des Bekenners), the cosmic framework for interpreting Maximus has been well established amongst modern scholars. 10

Pascal Mueller-Jourdan, Typologie spatio-temporelle de l’ecclesia byzantine: la Mystagogie de Maxime le Confesseur dans la culture philosophique de l’antiquité tardive (Leiden: Brill, 2005). 11

Jean-Claude Larchet, La divinization de l’homme selon saint Maxime le Confesseur (Paris: Cerf, 1996).

12

Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor (Chicago: Open Court, 1995). 13

Claudio Moreschini, “Massimo il Confessore di fronte a Gregorio Nazianzeno (a proposito degli Ambigua),” L’antico e la sua eredità: atti del Colloquio internazionale di studi in onore di Antonio Garzya, Napoli, 20-21 settembre 2002 (Naples: M. D’Auria, 2004), 135-152.

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The major studies that would follow by Sherwood,14 Völker,15 Thunberg,16 Riou,17 and Heinzer,18 which are devoted, respectively, to Maximus’ relationship to Origensim, his teaching on the spiritual life, his anthropology, his ecclesiology, and his Christology, all include sections on Maximus’ understanding of the created world as it informs their respective topics of enquiry. We should also mention: Louth’s general introduction to his aforementioned translation of a selection of Maximus’ texts in which he describes Maximus’ theology as “cosmic theology;”19 the aforementioned volume of translations with introduction prepared by Blowers and Wilken, entitled On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ, which gives an overview of various approaches to the “cosmic scope of Maximus’ theology”;20 and Adam Cooper’s study of the body in Maximus’ thought, which includes a chapter on the body and the cosmos that, in fact, reads what he acknowledges to be a “cosmological treatise,” Ambiguum 7, as a treatise on the body.21 There have been a few studies devoted more specifically to expounding Maximus’ understanding of the cosmos in philosophical terms. Stephen Gersh’s From Iamblichus to Eriugena folds Maximus into its wider discussion of the development of 14

The Earlier Ambigua. Walther Völker, Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1965). 15

16

Microcosm and Mediator.

17

Alain Riou, Le Monde et L’Église selon Maxime le Confesseur (Paris: Beauchesne, 1973).

18

Felix Heinzer, Gottes Sohn als Mensch: Die Struktur des Menschseins Christi bei Maximus Confessor (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1980). 19

Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 63.

20

Blowers and Wilken, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ, 18-21.

21

Adam Cooper, The Body in St. Maximus the Confessor: Holy Flesh, Wholly Deified (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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certain philosophical themes within the Neoplatonic tradition.22 Eric Perl’s Methexis23 and Torstein Tollefsen’s Christocentric Cosmology24 are both explicitly philosophical treatments of Maximus’ understanding of being and the cosmos, and are concerned to explicate the metaphysical implications of Maximus’ understanding of creation. Perl focuses on the metaphysics of participation, especially in relation to the Neoplatonic tradition, and Tollefsen argues that for Maximus, Christ is the center precisely of created being, insofar as he is the point of communion between created and uncreated. He then goes on to unfold the metaphysical content of this idea. With respect to the contemplation of nature as a specific aspect of the spiritual life (as opposed to the content of Maximus’ cosmology), nearly every major synthetic interpretation of Maximus’ thought has given some form of analysis. Indeed, the concept occurs so frequently in the writings of the Confessor that one would be quite surprised if a synthetic study were to omit it. The basic contours of Maximus’ understanding of natural contemplation have been clear since the writing of one of the earliest modern systematic accounts of Maximus’ thought, Sergei Leontevich Epifanovich’s Prepodobnyi Maksim Ispovednik i vizantiiskoe bogoslovie (The Venerable Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine Theology),

22

Stephen Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Investigation of the Prehistory and Evolution of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1978). 23

Eric Perl, “Methexis Creation, Incarnation, Deification in Saint Maximus the Confessor” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1991). 24

Torstein Tollefsen, The Christocentric Cosmology of St. Maximus the Confessor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

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originally published in 1915.25 According to Epifanovich, contemplation “is not some sort of philosophical exercise; it is a gift of illumination by grace, a gift that is only received after the attainment of dispassion, and that opens itself up, like all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, only in proportion to spiritual perfection.”26 So from the very beginning, Maximus’ contemplation of beings is inseparable from divine grace. This is because, in the words of Epifanovich, “the task of the acts of contemplation, to whatever region they might refer, is one and the same: thoroughly to seek out the divine ideas (λόγοι) of the Logos, to seek everywhere, where He has shown himself in them, i.e. in nature, in humanity, in Scripture, in the Church, for everything—nature, Scripture, the Church— represents in itself the mysterious embodiments of the Logos.”27 To search for the meaning and nature of things is, ultimately, to search for the very Logos of God, and the acquisition of the λόγοι, and therefore of the Logos, comes only as a divine gift. Epifanovich also notes the close link between the level of ascetical practice and that of contemplation, asserting that contemplation “never breaks with” practical philosophy but rather takes support from it and itself helps to “extinguish the passions,” so that both stages of human perfection mutually reinforce one another.28 As contemplation grows stronger it moves from “‘natural contemplation,’ φυσικὴ θεωρία (in the narrow sense) of the world of sense perception” to the intellectual realm and the acquisition of γνῶσις, which pertains first to the moral realm and then to the highest 25

С.Л. Епифанович, Преподобный Максим Исповедник и Византийское Богословие (Москва: Мартис, 1996 [1915]). 26

Епифанович, Преподобный Максим, 128.

27

Епифанович, Преподобный Максим, 131.

28

Епифанович, Преподобный Максим, 128-129.

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stage of “‘unforgettable knowledge’ (ἄληστος γνῶσις)” and “undistracted prayer,” both of which, again, come as gifts and together “prepare for the act of ‘mystical theology’ that transcends thought,” and culminate in “ineffable knowing of the Divinity in unfathomable union with God.”29 In Epifanovich’s brief treatment, we see many familiar Maximian themes, which later scholars would go on to expound in various ways. In the next major comprehensive study of Maximus’ thought, Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Kosmische Liturgie, Von Balthasar places his brief discussion of the contemplation of nature not in the chapter dealing with the cosmos but in the final chapter, which deals with the spiritual practice of Christian life as Maximus understood it. Von Balthasar understands Maximus’ θεωρία φυσική to be the mark of transition from the law of the Old Covenant to the spirit of the New,30 “the midpoint between sign and truth.”31 He places the image of “feeding” on the spiritual contemplation of nature at the center of his exposition of natural contemplation, explaining that, as a being who is immersed “in the natural world that surrounds him,” the human being feeds on the intellectual reality that has been placed within things just as he feeds on the physical reality of the world for bodily nourishment.32 In this way material reality is spiritualized in the act of human contemplation and thus the whole cosmos partakes of the transformative movement of salvation. We may take this as the way in which the truth of the cosmos, which has its fulfillment in the union of created and uncreated in Christ, is

29

Епифанович, Преподобный Максим, 129-131.

30

Von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy trans. Brian Daley (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 302.

31

Von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 300, quoting Ad Thal. 35.

32

Von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 303. See Chapter 6 below, 405ff., for an elaboration of this theme.

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realized in the being of each person who undertakes the contemplation and spiritualization of nature in a “religious act…through which [man] collaborates in achieving his own share in the redemption of all creation.”33 Lars Thunberg likewise includes the contemplation of nature in his discussion of the mediating role of human being in the cosmos. He begins his account with a brief description of natural contemplation in Evagrius—whose influence on Maximus in this regard is well established—in order to discern precisely how Maximus’ own account relates to the Evagrian conception and to what extent Maximus departs from the Evagrian model he inherited. According to Thunberg, the stages of Evagrian contemplation effect a reversal of his Origenist account of the fall, whereby the mind ascends from corporeal and incorporeal reality (the lower stages of contemplation) to “its original state of being” in knowledge of the Trinity.34 Natural contemplation plays an essential role in Evagrius’ understanding of spiritual development. In fact, “Evagrius would hardly accept a union with God without natural contemplation…for which the vita practica is merely a preparation and of which union with God is a natural outcome.”35 This, as is asserted by Epifanovich as well,36 is in sharp contrast to Maximus, who articulates two routes to union with God: the way of the contemplative ascetic who progresses through asceticism and natural contemplation

33

Von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 306.

34

Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 345-346.

35

Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 349.

36

Епифанович, Преподобный Максим, 127: “Such is the way of the ascetic, who, not having the inclination to concentrate upon contemplation, brings rest to himself in the highest mystical states of love when he passes beyond practical philosophy.”

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to the ultimate union with God, and the way of the layman, whose “deification…takes place through love…on the pure basis of the vita practica” alone.37 Maximus is able to articulate two different approaches to perfection because, according to Thunberg, the rational faculties play a major role in the practice of virtue for Maximus38 so that obedience to the commandments of Christ “involves a communication with the Logos through the λόγοι of these commandments and the incarnation of Christ in the virtues.” This participation in the Logos through the λόγοι recapitulates the activity of natural contemplation so that one who is not actively engaged specifically in contemplation nevertheless reaps the same fruit by virtue of the life of praxis.39 On the other side, Maximus makes a “very sharp distinction between contemplation in general and the stage of θεολογία,” so that, in contrast to Evagrius, natural contemplation is not regarded as a very close, and therefore necessary, precursor to theology. It is conceivable for Maximus that a person may draw near to union with God, which is the content of theology, through the acquisition of love in the exercise of the virtues and without passing through the stage of the contemplation of nature. These points, then, set Maximus off from Evagrius. With respect to Maximus’ positive teaching on natural contemplation40 (which, in Thunberg’s analysis, is still largely determined by how it differs from Evagrius), Thunberg notes that it is connected

37

Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 348-349.

38

See the discussion in Chapter 4 below, 255ff.

39

Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 352: “[Maximus] clearly makes the vita practica and the vita contemplativa into parallel phenomena, particularly since he relates them to a ‘theology’ which is above both, and yet is said to keep all together.” 40

The following summary is based on Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 349-352.

13

to the contemplation of Scripture, that it is a “gift of grace to fallen man,” and that it ultimately “takes place in the Spirit.” It leads the human mind to the knowledge of God as Cause of the universe, but “no more than that.” Thunberg discerns Dionysian influence on Maximus’ hierarchical concept of created beings, which are secured in their differentiation by the will of God, a concept that again, he argues, leads Maximus away from the particularly Evagrian mode of contemplation. The mind proceeds through this differentiation of created reality—discerning the λόγοι of created things—towards the unified knowledge of God as the cause of all, who is revealed as “the Logos Creator.” By its revelation of the λόγοι to the mind, the Logos leads it beyond all sensuality to “the intelligible representations of divine things.” This does not, however, imply the disparagement of the material world nor, on the other side, does it minimize the inherent rationality of the stage that comes before contemplation, the stage of ascetical praxis and the exercise of virtue. Thunberg sees this as yet another non-Evagrian element in Maximus. The vita practica is, in fact, bound closely to the life of contemplation, not simply as a preparatory stage, but, in a way reminiscent of the Stoics, as a recapitulation of the principles of creation on the level of praxis, for “the vita practica” represents “the right way to live in accordance with the principles of that [sensible] world.”41 Finally, Thunberg discusses the symbolic nature of Maximus’ understanding of natural contemplation, another point in which Maximus appropriates Dionysius at the expense of Evagrius.42 As opposed to Evagrius’ ontologically focused conception of

41

Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 352. On the providential differentiation of beings vis-à-vis Evagrius, see Chapter 4 below, 295-301. On the Stoics and “living in agreement with nature,” see Chapter 1 below, 86-96. 42

Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 353-354.

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contemplation—i.e. the mind must return to its primordial state of nakedness before the Monad and so leave all natural contemplation behind, implicated as it is in materiality and perception—Maximus understands that the natural world exists in a symbolic, not merely a derivative, relationship to the divine. This has the two-fold result of both limiting the scope of natural contemplation with respect to the practice of virtue, since natural contemplation is the means of discerning through symbols the Cause of all things “and nothing more,” on the one hand, but on the other, solidifies natural contemplation in its own integrity, since “the very limitation of ‘natural contemplation’ has a symbolic function which leads the mind on to the divine realities.”43 The most thorough account of Maximus’ understanding of the contemplation of nature thus far is to be found in Walther Völker’s Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens. Though much of what he says may be found in earlier studies, he synthesizes material from all of Maximus’ major works—the Ambigua, Questions to Thallasius, Two-Hundred Chapters on Knowledge, Four-Hundred Chapters on Love, Mystagogy—and fills in with more concrete detail the basic outlines that were established by earlier scholarship. He shows how Maximus relates to the tradition, and in particular how he often brings the thinking of the early Alexandrians Philo, Clement, and Origen, the Cappadocians (primarily Gregory of Nyssa), and Evagrius into line with Dionysius the Areopagite with respect to the topics of the visible world and its relation to the invisible, the motion of the world and its relation to the cause of motion, the connection between the logoi of beings and the Logos of God, and the multiplicity of the logoi in

43

Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 354.

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relation to the unity of the Logos.44 Völker interprets the concept of “analogy” as playing a leading role in Maximus’ understanding of the contemplation of nature.45 He also discerns the intellectual drive from multiplicity to simplicity as lying at the heart of the contemplation of nature,46 whose fruit is the result both of exacting spiritual labor and freely given divine grace.47 Therefore, though knowledge of beings is not the mechanical result of ascetical labor and thought, it is inseparable from this labor.48 Völker also raises the question, which we have just observed in Thunberg, of the necessity of the pursuit of natural contemplation in the spiritual life. Völker notes that for Von Balthasar natural contemplation “becomes for Maximus a necessary step, a kind of initiation, into the knowledge of God.”49 Epifanovich and Thunberg, as we have seen, take the opposite view.50 For his part, Völker considers φυσική θεωρία as “a necessary stage preliminary to the appearance of God”51 and therefore as playing an essential role in

44

Völker, Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens: visible/invisible: 301; motion: 303; Logos and logoi, 305; multiplicity: 312-314. 45

Völker, Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens, 299, 301, etc.

46

Völker, Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens, 311.

47

Völker, Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens, 309-310.

48

Völker, Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens, 315.

49

Völker, Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens, 314 n.5; Von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 61. 50

Völker gives Sherwood as an example of someone who does not think natural contemplation is required for the attainment of theosis according to Maximus; Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens, 315. See Sherwood, The Ascetic Life, Four Centuries on Charity (New York: The Newman Press, 1955), 88. 51

Völker, Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens, 296.

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Maximus’ understanding of the spiritual life as a whole.52 III. Method i. Philosophy or Theology? All of the works mentioned thus far give thorough—and sometimes competing— descriptions of the content of Maximus’ thought as it relates overtly to the natural world. The outline of the intellectual background and appropriate topics and texts for study are clear. The simple repetition of what has already been said—though perhaps with different examples and a different arrangement of concepts—would most certainly be useless. Now that much of the material for the study of natural contemplation in Maximus has been identified, what remains to be done—and what this study seeks to do—is to get “inside” Maximus’ way of thinking about the world in order to identify not simply what he thought, as that may be determined in the words he wrote, but how he thought. As Eric Voegelin put it in his study of the intellectual history of political order: “What philosophy is need not be ascertained by talking about philosophy discursively; it can, and must, be determined by entering into the speculative process in which the thinker explicates his experience of order (emphasis in the original).”53 This study will have as its aim to enter into Maximus’ speculative process as he determines the process of contemplating the order (and disorder) of the natural world. The question immediately arises, is this philosophy or theology? But it must be understood from the outset that φιλοσοφία as “devotion to wisdom” is, for Maximus,

52

Völker, Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens, 315.

53

Eric Voegelin, Order and History II: The World of Polis (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1957), 170.

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nothing other than φιλοθεΐα; the love of wisdom is the love of the divine, the love of God.54 Thus, on the one hand, the delimitation of a theological from a strictly philosophical methodology is not straight-forwardly applicable to Maximus. For example, a typical way of distinguishing between philosophy and theology would be to assert that theology is founded upon the Church’s tradition of the study of the revelation of Scripture, whereas philosophy is founded upon the exercise of human reason as it reflects upon itself and the world. For Maximus, however, Scripture and the world are two manifestations of the same reality, the wise providence of God that governs the world according to the law of his goodness. The human mind itself, as we shall see at length below, is in its present state bound within the order of the cosmos even as it strains to rise to what it thinks must be beyond that order. This is not to say that theology is not related to meditation upon Scripture for Maximus; far from it. It is to say, however, that theology is also related to meditation upon the world. Likewise, philosophy as the practice of asceticism, the knowledge of beings, and union with the divine is mediated through both the cosmic order and the revelation of Scripture. On the other hand, it is clear in the Ambigua to John that the categories of human thought that obtain in the world do not actually obtain with respect to God, at least when Maximus is speaking within apophatic theology of the divinity “beyond being.” However, he will also say that the essence of the world itself is ineffable and unknowable. Thus, the relationship of kataphatic and apophatic theology is a

54

Amb. 37, PG 91.1296B11-12: φιλοσοφία, ταὐτὸν δέ ἐστιν εἰπεῖν φιλοθεΐα. Jean-Luc Marion’s remarks regarding Augustine are appropriate for Maximus as well: “En bonne logique, aimer la sagesse ne peut vouloir dire pour un Chrétien qu’aimer Dieu: ‘…verus philosophus est amotor Dei (De Civitate Dei VIII.1.34.230).’ Bref, la philosophie ne s’accomplit que dans l’amour de Dieu…”: Au Lieu de Soi: L’approche de Saint Augustin (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2008), 23.

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complex one, and this complexity is indicative of the complexity of the relation between human being and the world of which it is a part, between God and the world, and between God and human being in the world. Maximus’ three well-known stages of spiritual development—the practical or ascetical life, the contemplation of nature, and mystical theology—are mentioned throughout the Ambigua to John as governing specific, if not perfectly discrete, domains of human life so that, while a typically modern division between philosophy and theology is irrelevant to Maximus, there yet remains a distinction between ethics, the contemplation of nature, and mystical theology. But these three are so thoroughly implicated in one another—and we shall indeed devote considerable space to how Maximus articulates their coherence—that any attempt to define what Maximus is doing, and also what our own analysis is doing in answer to Maximus’ thinking, is inevitably frustrated from the start. While there is a clear hierarchy that leads from the ethical through the natural to the theological in Maximus, he tends to give a “mixed transmission (τὴν µικτὴν παράδοσιν)” of the various aspects of philosophy in a way reminiscent of some of the Stoics.55 Maximus is a philosopher in the ancient sense, one who gives instruction in virtue, the knowledge of the world, and the divine. He is also a philosopher in the narrower sense of one who presents rational and conceptual arguments that may be evaluated on strictly logical grounds. He is a theologian as one who discourses about God and interprets Scripture, but the Greek fathers are as likely to call this “philosophy” as “theology,” so again the distinction looses relevance. In light of this, my own approach 55

Cf. Diogenes Laertes VII.39-41, A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 26B.

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will seek to allow Maximus’ way of speaking to guide the formation of categories for interpretation. This demands careful attention to Maximus’ language in the Ambigua. He begins the first chapter of the Ambigua to John with a brief reflection upon how he will proceed in his interpretation of Gregory: “In order that the enigma of what is said may become entirely clear to us, let us examine the words of the blessed one themselves just as they are.”56 The same could be said of our approach here; Maximus’ language is famously difficult, and it is only in paying careful attention to it—and not just to the ideas and concepts that appear to be embedded therein—that we shall be able to gain a clear vision of Maximus’ thought. ii. The Ambigua to John—Genre It should be emphasized that this study of natural contemplation in Maximus is specifically an interpretation of the Ambigua to John. As I have indicated already, nearly all of Maximus’ works are relevant, in general terms, to the topic. However, my research began as a search for some sort of inner coherence in the Ambigua, and I have concluded that the notion of the contemplation of nature provides a way for articulating that coherence. It is important at the outset, however, before coming to their content, to give an account of the literary nature of the Ambigua. Sherwood dates the composition of the Ambigua to John to the years 628-630, when Maximus was residing in North Africa.57 Maximus writes in the prefatory letter to the Ambigua that the text is based upon discussions he had at the monastery of Cyzicus with an Archbishop John and his monks: “Therefore, when I received your honorable 56

Amb. 6, 1065C9-11.

57

Polycarp Sherwood, An Annotated Date-List of the Works of Maximus the Confessor (Roma: Herder, 1952), 31.

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epistle that ordered me to send you a report set down in writing of our discussion concerning each of the chapters of the orations of St. Gregory the Theologian that were perplexing to you, over which we labored when we were together…”58 Generally speaking,59 the Ambigua to John belong, like Maximus’ Questions to Thalassius and Questions and Doubts, to the genre of erotapokriseis, or “Questions and Responses.” A difficulty (ἀπορία) from a traditional text—or simply a traditional difficulty—is posed, and then an answer resolving, or at least clarifying, the question is given. This genre of intellectual discourse, which followed in the mode of the Alexandrian commentators on Aristotle of the 5th and 6th centuries, was well established in Maximus’ day, both in the philosophical schools and amongst Christian theologians, though it appears to have been more popular amongst the Christians.60 The appeal of this mode of posing ἀπορίαι is founded on both philosophical and pedagogical grounds. The notion of ἀπορία—perplexity, difficulty—is a significant part of the Greek philosophical tradition from Socrates onwards: “Do you suppose that he would have tried to seek or to learn that which he ignorantly thought he already knew, 58

Amb. Prol. 1064B6-10.

59

These general remarks on the nature of erotapokriseis are based on the introduction to my translation and study of Maximus’ Ambigua ad Thomam: Joshua Lollar, The Ambigua to Thomas, Second Letter to Thomas (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2010), 17-20; I am grateful to the publishers for their permission to use this material here. 60

For a thorough discussion of the genre, see Heinrich Dörrie and Hermann Dörries, “Erotapokriseis” in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum: Sachwörterbuch zur Auseinandersetzung des Christentums mit der antiken Welt, Band VI ed. T. Klauser (Stuttgarr: Anton Hiersemann, 1966), 342-370 (Maximus at 359-361). See also Brian Daley, “Boethius’ Theological Tracts and Early Byzantine Scholasticism,” Medieval Studies 46 (1984), 158-191, especially 163-176, and Klaus Öhler, “Aristotle in Byzantium,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 5:2 (1964), 133-146. Earlier pagan examples of the genre would be Porphyry’s Homeric Questions (Ὁµηρικὰ ζητήµατα): Quaestionum homericarum Libri I, ed. A.R. Sodano (Napoli: Giannini & Figli, 1970); Aristotle’s own fragmentary Ἀπορήµατα Ὁµηρικά; or Plutarch ’s Platonic Questions (Πλατωνικὰ ζητήµατα): Plutarch’s Moralia XIII, Part I, ed. and trans. Harold Cherniss and William C. Helmbold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976).

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before, having been brought before his lack of knowledge, he fell into perplexity (εἰς ἀπορίαν) and only then desired to know?”61 It is precisely the state of ἀπορία that provokes the quest for understanding. Aristotle also began many of his demonstrations with an ἀπορία as the occasion for his enquiry. As he writes in Metaphysics III at the beginning of his catalogue of opinions concerning the nature of what is: It is necessary first, with a view to the understanding we are seeking, that we lay out the difficulties (ἀπορῆσαι) which must be approached first…For those who wish to find a way forward (τοῖς εὐπορῆσαι βουλοµένοις) it is useful to make one’s way through the difficulties thoroughly. For the subsequent way forward is a release from the previous difficulties: to untie the knot is not possible for those who are ignorant of it. But, the difficulty in our thinking shows that there is a knot in this matter. In its difficulties, our thinking resembles those who are bound, for it is impossible in both cases to make an advance forward. Thus, it is necessary first to have studied all of the difficulties, both because of what has just been said, and because those who enquire without first making their way through the difficulties are like those who are ignorant of the way they should go. In addition, one would not know it if ever that which is sought has been found. To such a one, the end is not clear, but it is clear to one who has already faced the difficulties.62 The way forward is occasioned by what appears to be an obstacle to progress. The ἀπορία provokes the philosophical desire to know and then the dialectical nature of the process of questioning and answering allows for the development of a multifaceted treatment of the difficulty, in which a diversity of issues may be gathered around a central problem. In general, collections of erotapokriseis were arranged in no particular order, and the collections themselves present an artificial sense of unity, since in many cases, 61

Plato, Meno 84c.

62

Metaphysics III.1.995a24-b2. Translation modified from The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard Peter McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941) and Aristotle: The Metaphysics Books I-IX, trans. Hugh Tredennick (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003 [1933]).

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particular questions and answers were conceived and written independently of each other, though there would often be a certain coherence with respect to subject matter. Amongst Christian authors, where the genre was especially common in exercises of Scriptural interpretation, a certain order and coherence of collections of erotapokriseis can be discerned and was due to the dependence of the questions on the structure of the scriptural narrative, but even here we find examples of apparently random collections of questions and answers.63 While Maximus’ collection of erotapokriseis that have come to be called the Ambigua (Ἄπορα) to John do generally fit the description of the genre just given, there are certain features of the Ambigua that cause it to diverge from the typical pattern. Unlike most sets of erotapokriseis—including Maximus’ own Questions to Thalassius and Questions and Doubts—which have an explicitly stated question at the head of each section, the chapters of the Ambigua to John often simply present a quotation from Gregory the Theologian and then proceed with an explanation, though some do point to an initial, usually terminological, question. We could say, then, that one aspect of the teaching of the text is its demand that the reader determine dialectically with Maximus himself what the problems are, though we may assume that the initial recipients of the Ambigua, Archbishop John and his monks at Cyzicus, would have been aware of the issues at play in the quotations, since it appears to have been their own questions, at least in part, that Maximus was addressing. We can be equally sure, however, that the process of rethinking and writing down the various questions and answers led Maximus further in his speculations and afforded him the opportunity to clarify certain aspects of this thought 63

See Gustave Bardy, “La littérature patristique des Quaestiones et responsiones sur l’Écriture sainte,” Revue Biblique 41 (1932), 210-236, 341-369, 515-537; and 42 (1933), 328-352.

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beyond the initial discussions in Cyzicus. More significantly, as I shall show in more detail below, I argue that Maximus’ Ambigua to John exhibit a more precise focus than would have been typical of collections of erotapokriseis since he is using the difficulties in Gregory as an occasion to articulate his own vision of Christian spiritual philosophy and of the role of the contemplation of nature within it. iii. Gregory the Theologian as Authority In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Gregory Nazianzen has been know as “the Theologian” since the Council of Chalcedon (451)64 and is one of only three expounders of the faith to be known by that title, the other two being the Evangelist John the Theologian and the 10th and early 11th century monk and abbot St. Symeon the New Theologian. His views on the possibilities and limits of theological speculation became controversial in the 6th century Origenist crisis, as we shall see below.65 In the later Byzantine world, he was, for some, at least, the supreme exemplar of thought and style66 and the Byzantine hymnographic tradition has incorporated many lines from his orations into its liturgical poetry. By at least the 9th century, complete illuminated editions of Gregory’s orations were in existence, and the reading of his festal orations became a part

64

Paul Gallay, Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 27-31 (Discours Théologique) (Paris: Cerf, 1978), 7n.2.

65

Cf. Caroline Μacé, “Gregory of Nazianzus as authoritative voice of Orthodoxy in the sixth century,” Byzantine Orthodoxies, ed. Andrew Louth and Augustine Casiday (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2006), 27-34. See Chapter 3 below, 220-222; Chapter 4 below, 258. 66

So Michael Psellos (11th c.): “This great father surpasses Demosthenes in political thought, and Plato in philosophy; rather, he surpasses Demosthenes in ideas, and Plato in the power of his verbal expression, and so is superior to them both in these respects,” Opusculum Theologicum 19: Paul Gautier, Michaelis Pselli Theologica I, 75.90-93, cited in Brian Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus (London/New York: Routledge, 2006), 1.

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of the liturgical celebration of the feasts.67 Reading and interpreting Gregory became central to the intellectual life of the Byzantine world, and Maximus’ Ambigua are an early witness to this phenomenon. iv. Structure of the Ambigua to John My analysis of the Ambigua to John does not proceed in a directly linear fashion through the text; the text itself is hardly linear. The Ambigua are a sprawling, repetitive, complicated collection of short and long speculative essays—some of which read like notes for a handbook—that raise nearly as many questions as they answer. It is clear that Maximus has what we might call a “system” upon which his various and manifold interpretations of Gregory, Scripture, and other authorities rests, such that the characterization concerning Plotinus—that his writings present “an extremely unsystematic presentation of a systematic philosophy”68—is equally applicable to Maximus’ Ambigua to John. As such, a reading of the Ambigua cannot simply be a linear analysis of the unfolding of an argument. Maximus presents no such linear argument and any unfolding is ultimately the work of the reader. However, if our task is to enter Maximus’ “speculative process,” then there is no better way to do this than to enter fully into the throws of his most speculative work. The truly philological disposition focuses on what has been said with as much historical, intellectual, and linguistic rigor as it can muster, yet it also seeks to extend the import of what has been well said beyond its original articulation so that the inner spirit and structure of a great thinker’s thought might become apparent. 67

George Galavaris, The Illustrations of the Liturgical Homilies of Gregory Nazianzenus, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 4. 68

A.H. Armstrong, Plotinus I (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), viii.

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Despite the unsystematic presentation of the Ambigua as a whole, there is, I argue, a general, if vague, sense of coherence within the overall architecture of its collection of chapters and the organization of my own analysis of the work does, in fact, follow the basic groupings of chapters we are able to discern in the text.69 We may divide the Ambigua into 5 major sections and a conclusion: 1.) Ambigua 6-870 give an initial account of the relationship between soul and body and a foundational analysis of the passibility of human nature; 2.) Ambigua 9-22 are chapters that deal with theoretical issues concerning the nature of philosophy: the nature of language (Amb. 9, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22), the relationship between praxis and contemplation (Amb. 10), and the nature of the soul (Amb. 10, 15, 19); 3.) Ambigua 23-30 are concerned with questions pertaining to the use of language with respect to the relationship between God and the world (Amb. 23), that of the Father and Son (Amb. 24-28), and the titles that are given to the Son (Amb. 30); 4.) Ambigua 31-44 speak of the various aspects of the economy of salvation as the renewal of nature and the contemplation of nature in Christ; 5.) Ambigua 45-68 give Scriptural examples of responses to the coming of the Word and the renewal of nature in Christ; Conclusion.) Ambiguum 71,71 which I shall discuss at the end of this introduction, serves as a sort of epilogue to the collection of Ambigua and places all of Maximus’ speculation about the cosmos within the domain of “play” in relation to the intellectual reality that lies behind cosmic appearances. It thus returns to a central theme of the first 69

I give a complete overview of the structure of the Ambigua to John in an appendix to this text. It shows in greater detail the relationship of the individual Ambigua and sets of Ambigua to one another. 70

Ambigua 1-5 constitute an independent work, the Ambigua to Thomas.

71

Amb. 69 makes a pedestrian point about the difference between a complete and incomplete sentence, and Amb. 70 makes a general remark about Gregory’s use of rhetoric in his exhortation to virtue. Amb. 70 is not entirely unrelated to Amb. 71 with its emphasis on the Word’s adaptation to the diverse members of his “audience” for their instruction.

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section (Amb. 6-8), the instability of the world as a school for the soul, and in this way completes the cycle of Maximus’ reflections. I would emphasize that this scheme is very general and is intended simply to mark certain basic divisions in the collection of chapters. Maximus circles around many of the same themes through the course of the Ambigua, speaking of human passibility, the nature of praxis and contemplation, the interpretation of Scripture, and the economy of salvation across the divisions of the broad sections I have identified here and there are most definitely a number of chapters that have no significant relationship to the ones around them and could have more naturally been placed elsewhere: they have been placed where they are simply because the quotation they are explaining comes next in the sequence of the oration Maximus happens to be interpreting. Nevertheless, this organization of the chapters into a few large groups does emerge from the study of the Ambigua as a whole and it indicates the basic scope of Maximus’ concerns in the Ambigua, is helpful as a heuristic device, and provides a basic framework for my own argument. v. Argument This study is composed of two parts. Part I gives an analysis of the contemplation of nature in the Greek philosophical and Greek patristic traditions before Maximus and Part II presents my interpretation of natural contemplation in Maximus’ Ambigua to John. The purpose of Part I is to enter into the intellectual realm of the Greek philosophical and patristic understandings of the order and dynamics of nature as these are discernible from Parmenides to Plotinus and from Clement of Alexandria to Dionysius the Areopagite and in so doing to provide a sort of “deep structure” within 27

which to ground my reading of Maximus’ Ambigua to John. Because θεωρία φυσική was a well-established tradition of thought that brought with it a particular set of assumptions, it is essential to set Maximus within the context of the ancient Greek philosophical and patristic traditions. With respect to Greek philosophy, this inquiry into what would come to be called περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία will not result in a summary of the various theories of the nature of the universe for which we have evidence from the ancient Greek world: the cosmogonies and theogonies of Hesiod (and implied in Homer), opinions about what the fundamental substance is (earth, air, fire, water, the boundless), accounts of the combination of contraries, and so on. These all will be mentioned as they arise, for they are the material, as it were, of ancient Greek thinking about nature. My aim, rather, is to give an account of the different ways of thinking about nature that arose in the ancient Greek world and of how these ways reflect the Greek philosophical understanding of the best form of human life. Voegelin’s notion of “entering into the speculative process in which the thinker explicates his experience of order” is here fully in effect. Chapter 1, “The Contemplation of Nature in Greek Philosophy,” studies the ways in which the major early Greek thinkers—Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Plotinus—conceived of the unity of philosophy with particular reference to the place of nature and natural philosophy within it. It must be emphasized from the outset that this is not a straight-forward historical account of natural philosophy in the ancient schools. It is rather specifically oriented towards my reading of Maximus and establishes philosophical issues that are important for understanding the Ambigua, specifically the question of the relationship between praxis and contemplation and of the

28

coherence of philosophy more generally. Throughout the course of the chapter, and particularly in the conclusion to Part I, I indicate precisely how my reading of the ancient philosophical tradition points towards Maximus. I happen to think my reading is a compelling one on its own terms but it is indisputably a reading in anticipation of Maximus and the work it is called upon to do is to make Maximus understandable as representative of one way the ancient philosophical tradition might be interpreted. My reading in general owes not a little of its orientation to the work of Pierre Hadot and to the early Heidegger, primarily the early lectures on Aristotle and Being and Time. From Hadot I take the framework of questioning the ancient tradition with respect to the relationship and tension between forms of discourse and forms of life, or in the language of the present work, between the theoretical and the practical aspects of philosophy. Maximus’ general insistence (I argue) upon the inseparability of praxis and contemplation leads me to give this theme the leading role in my reading of the antecedent tradition and this draws me close to Hadot. Again, this is a compelling reading in my view, but I insist upon it presently only for the sake of Maximus. My relationship to Heidegger is rather similar in the sense that I am intent upon disclosing in a concrete way how Maximus describes the structure of human experience of nature (humanity’s own nature and nature in general as I have defined it in this Introduction) in the world. The practical concern of affectivity will be shown as the ground for Maximus’ thinking about nature and being; this will come out most strongly in Chapter 3, but because this is precisely the foundation of my reading of Maximus, it is essential for the work as a whole. On this basis, I approach the antecedent tradition with the same orientation. My reading is admittedly an eclectic one, as Hellenistic as it is Platonic from the ancient

29

perspective, but this is not inappropriate as background to Maximus (and Greek patristic thought more generally) and, for the purposes of the present work, I justify it on that ground. The second chapter, “Christ and the Contemplation of Nature in the Greek Fathers,” is, on the surface at least, a bit less distant to Maximus’ direct concerns in the Ambigua; he cites many of the figures treated—Clement and Origen of Alexandria, the Cappadocians, Evagrius of Pontus, and Dionysius the Areopagite—either explicitly or implicitly and their Christological orientation of natural philosophy is decisive for what Maximus does in the Ambigua. In particular, I read the earlier fathers as founders of the notion of “Christian philosophy,” the formation of the human being in the image of Christ with particular reference to how this is related to knowledge of the world. In this the Alexandrians give a particular shape to the ancient philosophical tradition in an encounter with Biblical imagery that would be decisive for the later fathers and this shape informs my reading of the philosophers in Chapter 1. With respect to the fathers too, however, I depart from some of the more standard ways of accounting for the development of patristic theology, and Christology in particular. It is often noted that the earlier cosmological focus of Christology in the apologists and other pre-Nicene theologians gave way to a more soteriological emphasis in later fathers, or at least that soteriology became much more prominent later than in the pre-Nicene centuries. So, for example, Grillmeier sees a foregrounding of “cosmological, noetic, and moral aspects” of the “Logos doctrine” in Christianity’s early encounter with Hellenism, but this, while a necessary stage of communication to the intellectual culture of the second and third centuries, also prepared the way for Arian subordinationism and pointed to the need to

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clarify the distinction between “the procession of the Logos and the creation of the world” on the one hand and “the creation and redemption of man,” on the other.72 My reading of Maximus will, in fact, show how he describes the economy of salvation in the terms of the contemplation of nature; in other words, I do not draw a strong distinction between cosmology and soteriology in Maximus, and so my reading of the Greek fathers before him will tend to emphasize the cosmic element of their Christologies—or, I should say, the Christological focus of their contemplation of nature—to the detriment, it may be thought, of soteriological concerns. Again, this is justified in light of how I am reading Maximus and sheds a different shade of light on the categories of early Christian thought in any case. The contemplation of nature is concerned, in the Greek fathers treated here, with the basic question of the relationship between God and the world and so it was quite natural for their contemplation of Christ, in whom the Creator and the created are united, to be articulated as a sort of “natural philosophy.” Part II gives an exegetical analysis of the Ambigua to John that seeks to organize the various aspects of Maximus’ thought in the text around what he says about the contemplation of nature. My interpretation of the Ambigua is organized into four chapters, which draw upon and extend the themes developed in Part I. In particular, I develop the basic themes of human passibility, the coherence of philosophy and the centrality of nature in this coherence, God and the world, and Christ and the renewal of nature and its contemplation. These four chapters correspond roughly to the basic

72

Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition Vol.1, trans. John Bowden (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975), 110. The point is noted in J. Rebecca Lyman, Christology and Cosmology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 6. See also J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), 138-149, 153-161, 165-174, 178-188. In these passages Kelly notes a significant downplaying (from the perspective of some later formulations) of the soteriological aspects of Christology in the apostolic fathers, the apologists, and Clement of Alexandria.

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divisions of the Ambigua I have outlined above. I give a more detailed overview of these chapters as introduction to Part II where, the pre-Maximus material having been established, it will be more useful to the reader. IV. The Game of Philosophy I would like to conclude this introduction with a word on the scope of Maximus’ natural speculations in the Ambigua to John. It should be clear by now that my priority in reading the Ambigua and the ancient sources generally is not to extract a physical or metaphysical system from them but rather to uncover how they conceive of the contemplation of nature within the wider context of the philosophical life. This is not to say that the systems are unimportant; I shall refer to many elements of the various systems through the course of this study. It is to say, however, that the systems are not decisive for the reality of philosophy and I take my lead in this from the concluding chapter of Maximus’ Ambigua to John, which, I think, serves as a sort of epilogue to the collection as a whole. In his oration On the Love of the Poor, which is the first oration of Gregory’s that Maximus interprets in the Ambigua, Gregory speaks of being “played with among visible things (παίζεσθαι ἡµᾶς ἐν τοῖς ὁρωµένοις).”73 As we shall see in Chapter 3, Gregory takes this as an indication that God allows for the disorder of the present world so that the human beings who experience it may be led to seek the changeless realm of divine reality rather than being devoted to the world of change and corruption. Maximus begins the Ambigua to John with a long meditation on human passibility and the experience of the instability of the world. His reflections then carry him into many realms of ascetical, 73

G.Naz., Or. 14.20; quoted by Maximus at Amb. 7, 1093A15.

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natural, and theological inquiry. In Ambiguum 71, the last chapter of his text, however, in a retrospective summary of what he has observed and tried to say, Maximus calls it all a game, a child’s activity in comparison to the realities that will be known in the age to come. Ambiguum 71 takes its beginning from a line from Gregory’s poetry: “For the high Word plays in all kinds of forms, judging his world as he wishes, this way and that.”74 He begins by identifying the “play” of the Word with the incarnation and explains that when words like play, game (παίζειν, παίγνιον), weakness, or foolishness are used of God they should be taken to indicate God’s superlative possession of precisely their opposite as conceived in human terms, since “the foolishness of God is wiser than human beings, and the weakness of God is stronger than human beings” (I Cor 1.25). To attribute foolishness and weakness to God is to “imply an excess of wisdom and power,” so that for Gregory to speak of God as “playing” is really to attribute to God an excess of “mindfulness” or “understanding” (φρόνησις), which are the opposite of play.75 So, the first way we may speak of the “play” of the Word of God is in terms of the incarnation of God as human in which God enters into the world in a way that defies the conventions of natural understanding. This interpretation, Maximus tells us, is “a sort of digression (παρεκβατικῶς)…a way of setting a paradigm for our study of the proposed difficulty (ὡς προθεωρίαν παραδειγµατικὴν τοῦ προτεθέντος ἀπόρου).”76 He devotes the rest of Ambiguum 71 to a consideration of the world itself as the “play” or 74

Carmina Moralia II, Precepts to Virgins 589-590 (PG 37.624A13-625A1).

75

Amb. 71, 1409A8-C9.

76

Amb. 71, 1412A4-5.

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“game” of God but the initial “digression” is significant. We shall be concerned with the relationship between nature and Christ in Maximus’ Ambigua and here Maximus shows that the incarnation of Christ is the paradigm for thinking about the world in general and precisely the world of change: perhaps the screen of intermediary realities, which is an equal distance from the extremes, is called the “play” of God by the great teacher because the intermediaries have a flowing and easily changed state, or, to put it more appropriately, because they possess a stable flow.77 Maximus explains a bit further on that by “intermediary realities (τὰ µέσα)” he means “the multitude of visible things that now encompasses humanity, or in which humanity finds itself,” whereas “the extremes (τὰ ἄκρα)” refer to the substance of what does not appear (ὑπόστασιν τῶν µὴ φαινοµένων; cf. Heb 11.1) and will without fail encompass humanity, which have rightly and truly been made and come into being according to the ineffable and primordial purpose and design of divine goodness.78 Maximus makes a distinction between what is real and enduring in creation, that which is invisible, and that which changes, the visible world with which human beings are concerned in this age. The “play” of God refers to the changing visible reality in contrast to the “real” aspect of creation. Maximus brings forward a text from Dionysius the Areopagite as a contribution to understanding Gregory’s meaning. He quotes a passage from the Divine Names where Dionysius writes, the cause of all himself has gone out of himself through an excess of erotic goodness in his beautiful and benevolent love for all things, which is his provision for everything that exists. It is as though he were charmed by goodness, affection, and love, and were drawn down from his 77

Amb. 71, 1412B7-12.

78

Amb. 71, 1412C7-9.

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transcendence removed from all things and into all things but in accordance with his ecstatic and transcendent power of not being removed from himself.79 The notion of God being “charmed (θέλγεται)” and “going out of himself” corresponds to Gregory’s use of the term “play” in reference to God. But what do these terms mean? Maximus uses the image of parents raising and training children to explain Gregory’s statement: parents who condescend to their children to help them overcome their slowness seem to engage in childish, indulgent play, such as playing with nuts and indulging them with dice, or presenting multi-colored flowers to them, and clothes dyed with many colors that are engaging for the senses. They divert their attention or amaze them since children do not yet have any other work. After a little while, the parents hand the children over to the schools and thereby impart to them a complete education and activities proper to them.80 In a similar way, the God over all brings us as children in his care into a state of amazement or even diversion through the factual aspect of the nature of created phenomena when we see and come to know them. Then he introduces the study of the more spiritual principles that are within them, and finally leads us to a more mystical knowledge of himself through theology, as far as this is possible. This last stage of knowledge is absolutely pure of all multiplicity and synthesis in form, quality, shape, and quantity—which are many and abundant in the preparatory teachings—and thus fulfills the highest level of contemplation. This is what the God-bearing Gregory refers to as “playing,” and what the God-bearing Dionysius calls “being charmed” and “going out of oneself.”81 Maximus’ mention of “the factual aspect of the nature of created phenomena (ἱστοριώδους τῶν φαινοµένων κτισµάτων φύσεως)” recalls the traditional name of

79

Ps.Dion.Areo. De Divinis Nominibus IV.13, 159.9-14; Coprus Dionysiacum I, ed. Beate Regina Suchla (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990). 80

Amb. 71, 1413B9-C7.

81

Amb. 71, 1413C7-D7.

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natural philosophy as περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία so that giving a coherent, fact-based account of nature becomes, in Maximus, a game God allows human beings to play in order to teach them greater things through the principles they learn while experiencing nature. When that which truly exists (τὰ κυρίως καὶ ἀληθῶς ὄντα) comes to manifestation in the age to come, however, the reality of nature as we experience it now will appear as “playthings,” for when the arrangement of present and visible reality is compared with the truth of divine and prototypical reality, it will not be considered really to exist at all by those who are worthy to contain the fullness of the beauty of the divine blossoming (as far as this is possible), just as no one thinks that a toy (παίγνιον) is real when compared to an actual, truly existing thing.82 The disciplined contemplation of nature, then, is a sort of game we play in order to begin to learn the principles of what we shall encounter when we reach the maturity of the future age. It is not disconnected from that reality; it is, after all, the Word himself who “plays” in visible things so that the games are filled with divine wisdom. Indeed, despite the talk of play, Maximus is far from dismissive of the natural order. As we shall see, his various refutations of “Origenist” positions derive their impetus from his deep sense of the integrity of the world and the depth of its beauty as well as his rationally grounded understanding of the nature of being and symbol. The “play of the Word” is not to be taken to imply that the world and our thinking about it do not matter any more than the contemplation of the incarnate Christ himself should be so taken. Indeed, we find this notion of “serious play” before Maximus in Plato’s Laws, where the Athenian stranger tells Clinias,

82

Amb. 71, 1416A3-10.

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we should keep our seriousness for serious things, and not waste it on trifles, and that, while God is the real goal of all beneficent serious endeavor, man, as we said before, has been constructed as a toy (παίγνιον) for God, and this is, in fact, the finest thing about him. All of us, then, men and women alike, must fall in with our role and spend life in making our play as perfect as possible.83 Plotinus also speaks of play and refers to his speculations about nature and contemplation in Ennead III.8, On Nature, Contemplation, and the One, as “playing” (παίζοντες; we shall study this and related Plotinian treatises at the end of the first chapter below). This is the spirit in which we should take Maximus’ notion of play as well. It is a serious matter to consider the nature of the world, which comes to us as an “economy of phenomena (τῆς τῶν φαινοµένων οἰκονοµίας),”84 but what we say as compared to the reality itself is still a game. For Maximus this is a recognition that our accounts of the natural flux of the cosmos are always provisional and intended to lead us beyond themselves and the reality they describe to the λόγοι that give this reality its identity, makes its articulation possible, and constitute its divine origin and destination. Maximus’ Ambigua, with their tangled sentences of speculation—themselves a reflection of the instability and confusion of the world—are intended to drive thought in the direction of the divine stability that is the world’s final end but which it does not here enjoy. Let the present account be taken in the same way, as an εἶκος λόγος of what Maximus may have seen in the life of things.

83

Plato, Laws 7.803c, trans. A.E. Taylor, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961). 84

Amb. 42, 1348D14.

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PART I MAXIMUS' PHILOSOPHICAL AND PATRISTIC FOUNDATIONS

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CHAPTER 2 THE CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY Introduction The Greeks are often credited with “discovering nature” and so being the first in the Western tradition to seek to give a rational account of the universe.85 Socrates refers to the intellectual activity of his youth—the investigation of the causes of what exists, the arising and nourishment of living creatures, the relations between the human senses and the elements, i.e. the modes of inquiry we have come to associate with those Greek thinkers whom we consider to be “pre-Socratic”—as περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία, an organized account of one’s observations and experiences of “nature.”86 Plato refers to the phrase as though it named an established and technical mode of inquiry, and indeed many of the works of the first Greek scientists and philosophers are referred to as Περὶ Φύσεως, though it is unclear just when this title was affixed to the works in question.87 Regardless

85

To give but one example, see Werner Jaeger’s chapter entitled “Philosophical Speculation: The Discovery of the World Order” in Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, trans. Gilbert Highet (Oxford: Oxford University. Press, 1945): “…it was an innovation in the very principles of thought when the Ionians, assimilating and elaborating the empirical knowledge of celestial phenomena which they got from the Orient, used that knowledge independently to help them discover the origin and nature of the universe; and when they subjected the myths dealing with the real and visible world, the myths of creation, to theoretical and causal inquiry. That is the true origin of scientific thought. That is the historical achievement of the Greeks,” 156. 86

Phaedo 96a.6-8 ff.

87

See Gerard Naddaf, The Greek Concept of Nature (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005), 11-35, for a convenient summary.

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of the historical answer to this question, the birth of Greek science and philosophy is marked by the question of accounting for the world and its various phenomena in a way that was not reduced to (though not totally independent from) the imaginative structure of myth. It has long been observed that this desire to give an account of the cosmos as cosmos was bound, in our earliest sources, to questions of the organization of human life and activity, what came to be referred to as πολιτεία or τὰ ἠθικά.88 Indeed, my reading of the sources here will seek to uncover the foundations of this orientation and possibility. We shall see through the course of the analysis that within the diversity and disparity in the early history of Greek thought there is a central intuition that binds it together as a tradition and gives its cosmic speculation its essentially human focus. The intuition simply stated is that the purpose of intellectual activity as the disciplined activity of thought is to draw the thinker into union with What Is, the object of thought, or as Parmenides will say, to come to the realization that “thinking and being are the same.” It has been asserted that this intuition arose from the fact that the “discovery of the order of nature” coincided for the Greeks with the discovery and articulation of the order of the soul89 so that on the final analysis “cosmology” was inseparable from “psychology” (taken as the awareness and articulation of consciousness). The study of the Greek notion

88

By, for example, Léon Robin, Greek Thought and the Origins of the Scientific Spirit, trans. M.R. Dobie (New York: Knopf, 1928), 17-70; Eric Voegelin, Order and History II: The World of the Polis, 165-170; Pierre Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy?, trans. Michael Chase (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2002), 21. 89

Voegelin, The World of the Polis, 168-169.

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of contemplation, therefore, inevitably draws us to the nature of the one who contemplates and reveals this one as inseparable from that which is contemplated. But what is the relationship between the thought of being and the contemplation of nature? As our analysis unfolds, we shall observe how the various thinkers navigate what I shall identify presently as the basic distinction between being and nature in Parmenides, seeing how different notions of the philosophical life developed in response to this basic question. This interpretation of the foundational figures of the Greek philosophical tradition will explore the various ways in which the contemplation of nature manifested itself, showing thereby how the two basic modes of philosophical life—praxis and contemplation—were related to one another. We begin this account not with Hesiod, whose mythical account of the cosmos had clear practical aims,90 and not with the Milesians—Thales, who famously predicted a total eclipse of the sun, and his successors Anaximander and Anaximenes—who are regarded as the first true “natural scientists,” but with Parmenides and Heraclitus, the two figures who truly inaugurate the tradition of reflecting upon the very possibility of knowledge of the cosmos itself.91 They were not, however, or at least have not been universally regarded as, φυσικοί –“natural philosophers”—by the tradition. Because of his denial of motion and change, Parmenides was excluded from the company of φυσικοί by Aristotle, for whom physics was, by definition, the study of that which Parmenides

90

Robin, Greek Thought, 19-20.

91

Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, ed. Hermann Diels and Walther Kranz (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1934).

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claimed to be impossible and unthinkable.92 His work has, nevertheless, come down to us under the title Περὶ φύσεως. Heraclitus’ collection of sayings, which was likewise known among some of the ancients, and is known today in its fragmentary form, as Περὶ φύσεως, was also known in antiquity as Μούσαι (“The Muses”), and even ἀκριβὲς οἰάκισµα πρὸς σταθµὴν βίου (“precise governance for the measuring of life”), for it was claimed by at least one reader that the book is more properly to be understood, not as Περὶ φύσεως, but as Περὶ πολιτείας (“On government;” Plato’s Republic is traditionally referred to as Πολιτεία), a discourse in which the physical concepts serve as examples (ἐν παραδείγµατος εἴδει) of the right ordering of human life.93 Despite the fact that Parmenides and Heraclitus appear to have been the early Greek thinkers least interested in “nature” per se, they were undoubtedly the most attentive to the theoretical concerns underlying the contemplation of nature so that it is precisely they who give us the beginnings of a conceptualization of the θεωρία in θεωρία φυσική, and as I shall show, this theorizing is bound for both of them, in their own ways, to the question of the right ordering of human life. It is on this basis that we begin with them. I. Parmenides: Nature and the Guidance of the Soul According to Hegel, it was Parmenides94 who “began philosophy proper.”95 Hegel grants Parmenides this honorary place because, in his estimation, it is in Parmenides that

92

Aristotle, Physics 184b25: “To investigate if what is (τὸ ὄν) is one and without motion is not to investigate about nature (οὐ περὶ φύσεώς ἐστι σκοπεῖν). 93

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, IX.12, 15.

94

Eric Perl introduces his study of Maximus with a discussion of Parmenides, against whom he sets the Platonic doctrine of participation in relief, asserting that the Parmenidean “eternal, homogeneous” one, in striving for absolute intelligibility and unity ultimately collapses into utter unintelligibility and dualism in

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“an advance into the region of the ideal is observable” for the first time, and so, as the beginning of what he would take as culminating in his own thought, Hegel places Parmenides at the beginning of the history of philosophy as its founding father. An analysis of this trajectory is certainly not our concern here, and while it may be going a bit too far to say that all of Plato is “footnotes to Parmenides of Elea,”96 it is beyond question that of all the early Greek thinkers, Parmenides, in the way he posed the questions of thinking, being, change, and identity, is the most significant and radical. Plato himself acknowledges this in a sort of back-handed way in the Theaetetus, where Socrates says, “Let all the sages be gathered together in a row—with the exception of Parmenides,” referring to the sages who held the thesis that “nothing ever is, but is always only becoming,” for Parmenides stood as a man apart by denying this.97 We begin with Parmenides, then—even though accounts of pre-Platonic philosophy typically consider Heraclitus before Parmenides—because of his radical perspective. The extreme and elusive language of Parmenides’ poem has elicited amongst modern philosophers and scholars many different accounts of what the poem is about. Questions arise, in particular, with respect to the meaning and scope of the entire second part of the poem, the cosmology of the so-called “way of opinion.” Heidegger tried to think the Greek concept of truth (ἀλήθεια) along with Parmenides in a 1942-43 lecture

that a “polar opposition between Being and seeming” necessarily arises as a consequence of Parmenides’ monist account: See Methexis, 13-18. My reading of Parmenides here has an entirely different purpose. 95

G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans. E.S. Haldane (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 254. 96

David Gallop, Parmenides of Elea (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 3.

97

See Theaetetus 152e1-9.

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course.98 With respect to the context of early Greek cosmology, Mourelatos has suggested that Parmenides does not really give a cosmology at all—“still one more guess about the nature or reality of things.” Rather, Parmenides asks, in effect, “What exactly is it for something to be the nature or the reality of things?”99 Others have similarly taken the poem of Parmenides as essentially a methodological text: “Parmenides’ starting point is the possibility, not exactly of rational thought, but of scientific research;”100 “It is in Parmenides that the method of the search for what a thing is itself becomes a philosophical issue as much as the question of the correct understanding of what there is.”101 It is this cluster of ideas that is of primary concern for us. For Parmenides, the discourse περὶ φύσεως as the discourse of coming forth and passing away, of the interaction of contraries, etc. is ultimately a necessary threshold over which one must pass on the way to the singularity of truth. Thus the images (εἰκόνες) of the proem and of the second half of the poem, the Way of Seeming/Opinion (Δόξα), form a foundational “εἰκὸς λόγος” (fr. 8) that must be overcome, but not before it is traversed. The question of method, µέθοδος, as the question of the right path (ὅδος, cf. fr. 2) to take leads Parmenides to give an account of the intellect’s journey to itself as that which thinks being; hence, the focus of this analysis is on the conditions, according to Parmenides, of contemplation. However, Parmenides does use the word φύσις (“nature”

98

As Hans George Gadamer reports, his teacher ultimately acknowledged that “his thesis that Parmenides had to some extent anticipated his own philosophy (with respect to the overcoming of metaphysics) could not be maintained,” The Beginning of Philosophy, trans. Rod Coltman (New York: Continuum, 1998), 111. 99

Alexander Mourelatos, The Route of Parmenides (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), 134.

100

Jonathan Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers (Boston: Routledge, 1982), 163.

101

Patricia Curd, The Legacy of Parmenides: Eleatic Monism and Later Presocratic Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 47.

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and derivatives) in his poem, and before we come to the heart of the matter, it will be instructive to observe how φύσις is at work in Parmenides in order to see to what extent, or in what mode, Parmenides may appropriately stand at the head of our inquiry into the contemplation of nature in Greek thought, not only, as we have seen, on the side of contemplation, but also on the side of the concept of nature as such. Parmenides uses the noun form, φύσις, at 10.1,10.5, and 16.3. He uses a verbal form at 8.10 (φῦν), 10.6, and 19.1 (ἔφυ in both of these latter). Immediately we see the ambiguity of these usages, for all but one occur in the second part of the poem (Δόξα), which the goddess who guides Parmenides has said is not worthy of true commitment (ταῖς οὐκ ἔνι πίστις ἀληθής, Fr. 1.30). In Parmenides’ usage, φύσις belongs to the discourse of generation, mixture, the interplay of opposites, in short, the realm of seeming and ultimately of non-being, which cannot be thought as such. Fragment 10 provides three instances of φύσις, so we shall begin by observing it in full: You will come to know (εἴσηι) the ethereal nature (φύσιν), all of the signs in the air and the invisible works of the pure light of the undefiled sun, and from what place they have come forth into being (ὁππόθεν ἐξεγένοντο), and you will learn the wandering works of the round-eyed moon and its nature (φύσιν). You will see (εἰδήσεις) heaven holding fast on both sides and whence it has arisen (ἔφυ), and that guiding Necessity has bound it to hold the limits of the stars. Accounting for such astronomical phenomena was of primary importance to the first Greek φυσικοί, and Parmenides captures here something of the scope of their inquiry. However, these realities are precisely unreal according to the strictures of the first part of the Poem, Ἀλήθεια, which recounts the only way that thought can progress. φύσις is not, properly speaking, something to be known. Fragment 19 states: 45

Thus, these things have arisen (ἔφυ) for you according to belief and now are, and afterwards they will come to completion from this point by being nourished. Men have established a name for each of them as a distinguishing mark. In this case, the notion of φύσις is used within a context outside of true being (I shall argue a reason for this below) as fr. 19 draws φύσις as “arising” or “growth” into a direct relation to δόξα: “according to belief.” Even the one usage that occurs in the way of truth at 8.10 casts doubt upon the possibility of discerning the nature of things: For what birth would you seek out for [what is]? From what place would it grow, and to what end? I will permit you neither to say nor to think, “from what is not.” For “it is not” can be neither said nor thought. What necessity awakened it, starting from what it is, to come forth (φῦν) either later or earlier? Thus, it must either be entirely or not at all. (fr. 8.6-10) Comparing this to the passages above confirms the intuition that φύσις has no real place in what is, and thus cannot be thought. In its primordial sense of “arising into being,” φύσις does not obtain in the way of truth. In this sense, What Is has no nature, no arising; What Is has being. Thus, the pathway of the way of truth leads not to φύσις but to τὸ ἐόν, that which is. For Parmenides, this journey to ἐόν is the journey of and to νοῦς, “intellect,” “true understanding.” It is often asserted that before Parmenides, and to a certain extent in Parmenides himself, νοῦς and its derivatives refer to the fundamental realization by the mind both of the presence of something (a situation, an object), on the one hand, and of its essential nature, on the other.102 νοῦς refers to perception as understanding. This

102

W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy Vol. II (London: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 17-18: “The verb translated think of (noein) could not, in and before [Parmenides’] time, convey the notion of imaging something non-existent, for it connoted primarily an act of immediate recognition”; Gadamer, The Beginning of Philosophy, p. 103: “We usually render the word ‘noein’ in translation as ‘thinking’; however, we should not forget that the primary meaning of the word is not to become absorbed in oneself, nor reflection, but, on the contrary, pure openness for everything. In regard to nous, it is not, first of all, a question of one asking oneself what is seen to be there in each case but of observing that there is something

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notion persists in Parmenides to a certain extent and is what underlies the famous fragment 3: …τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ εἶναι: “…thinking and being are the same,” as well as the more fully expressed passage in fragment 8: ταὐτὸν δ᾽ εστὶ νοεῖν τε καὶ οὕνεκεν ἔστι νόηµα/ οὐ γὰρ ἄνευ τοῦ ἐόντος…/ εὑρήσεις τὸ νοεῖν: “Thinking and that for the sake of which thought is are the same. For you will not find thinking without what is” (8.34-36). Thinking is bound to reality in a fundamental sense. There is no thinking without what is. However, Parmenides (and, as we shall see, Heraclitus) appears to be the first to assert in a systematic way that human beings can and do try to fix νοῦς on “what is not” and thus can and do fall into absolute error.103 Parmenides is warned to “bar your thinking (νόηµα) from this way of inquiry” (i.e. ascribing being to what is not; 7.2), the implication being that thinking (νόηµα) may indeed seek this way. Similarly, in fragment 6, the goddess denies Parmenides the way of non-being: For I bar you from this first way of inquiry, indeed from the way which two-headed mortals who know nothing make for themselves, for lack of means in their hearts guides their wandering minds (πλακτὸν νόον), the dull and blind who are carried about astonished, a race without discernment, for whom coming to be and non-being are considered to be the same and not the same, whose path turns back on itself. The mind that takes the path of duality is πλακτὸν νόον, a phrase that, to ancient Greek ears, would have sounded paradoxical. And yet, Parmenides clearly wishes to express the desolation of turning the mind away from reality and so falling into error. It is appropriate, then, that Parmenides should have adopted the poetic trope of a journey to the divine realm and the proem (fragment 1) may rightly be seen as “the key to

there.” See also Kurt von Fritz, “ΝΟΥΣ, ΝΟΕΙΝ, and their Derivatives in Pre-Socratic Philosophy (Excluding Anaxagoras): Part I. The Beginnings to Parmenides,” Classical Philology (40:4) 1945, 223-242. 103

See von Fritz, “ΝΟΥΣ, ΝΟΕΙΝ, and their Derivatives in Pre-Socratic Philosophy,” 237 ff.

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the whole.”104 Indeed, the assertion that the proem is incidental to the thought contained in Parmenides’ poem105 misses the specificities of the imagery, for it is these specificities—in the midst of the stock images of maidens, goddesses, pathways to light, and so on—that reveal the coherence of the poem, and therefore of Parmenides’ thought as a whole. The longest fragment we have, fragment 8, begins with a characterization of the “signs” of reality, of what is: There is only still left the account of this way: that it is. On this way there are many signs: what is is ungenerated and indestructible, for it is perfectly sound,106 unmoved, and endless. It never was and never will be, since the all is altogether in the present, one, continuous. For what birth would you seek out for it? From what place would it grow, and to what end? I will permit you neither to say nor to think, “from what is not.” For “it is not” can be neither said nor thought. (8.1-8) That which is proper for thought is “ungenerated, indestructible, unmoved, endless.” It has no chronology—“it never was and never will be, since the all is altogether in the present.” It only is, and only it is. Further on we learn: It is not divided since everything is alike. It is not more in one place and less in another, which would militate against its cohesion, but is entirely full of being. In this way it is entirely coherent, for being draws near to being. (8.22-25) The goal of the journey is the attainment of the intuition of this unitary reality, seen all at once in the present. When νοῦς is truly itself it is aligned with τὸ ἐόν in its utter simplicity and unity. 104

John Burnet, Greek Philosophy Part I: Thales to Plato (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968), 65, though Burnet spells this out differently than I do here. 105

Barnes, for his part, sees the interpretation of the “long allegorical prologue” as “of little philosophical importance,” The Presocratic Philosophers, 156. 106

οὐλοµελές; some ancient sources have οὖλον µουνογενές, or µοῦνον µουνογενές: “a whole of one kind,” “alone of one kind.”

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The beginning of the poem, however, is characterized by duality, by transition, and by motion in ways that evoke what will come in the second part of the poem, which itself gives an orderly but untrustworthy account of reality that is based upon mortal opinion: The mares who carry me as far as spirit would reach were sending me, from the time when the deities were leading me to walk upon the famous way, which carries the knowing man everywhere (unharmed). I was being born along there, for the mares straining to draw the chariot were carrying me there, and the maidens led the way. The axle blazing in the axle-box sent forth a cry like the sound of a pipe from the hole in the axle-box (for it was pressed hard on both sides by both wheels whirling), when the maiden daughters of the Sun were hastening to escort me, leaving behind the habitations of night for the light, pushing back the veils on their heads with their hands. The gates of the paths of Night and Day are there, and there is a lintel on either side, and a stone threshold. They are ethereal, filled with great doors. Much-avenging Justice holds their alternating bolts. The maidens spoke gently, discretely with soft words to persuade Her, that She would swiftly thrust open the fastened lock for them. They made a wide chasm of the doors to fly open, and the brazen hinges fit together with bolts and pins to pivot in their sockets, each in their turn. There indeed the maidens led the chariot and the horses straight through them on the path that was laid there. (1.1-21) From the first line we see that Parmenides’ inquiry is driven by θυµός: “The mares who carry me as far as spirit (θυµός) should reach.” It is θυµός, the affective center of spiritual power for the early Greeks, that impels Parmenides on the journey to the real and this element would remain as a permanent part of intellectual life in Greek thought. Parmenides perceives that it is θυµός that drives him on, yet he also senses himself as being drawn along, as being carried by something that is beyond his own internal drive. The horse-drawn chariot as a symbol for the soul would, of course, become a stock image for later thinkers, but it is the affectivity of the image, the sense of being drawn along by

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a force one’s own but beyond oneself, that would provide the substance of philosophical praxis for the later schools of philosophical therapeutics.107 To come to the specifics of the poetic imagery, the chariot has its “axle blazing in the axle-box,” which “sent forth a cry like the sound of a pipe from the hole in the axlebox (for it was pressed hard on both sides [ἐπείγετο…ἀµφοτέρωθεν] by both wheels whirling).” This passage evokes the image of “heaven holding fast on both sides (ἀµφὶς ἔχοντα)” (10.5), as though the ringing from the friction of the axle and the wheels emanated from the interactions of the “two forms” (8.53) that constitute mortal thinking on supposed cosmic contrarieties. The young man Parmenides is met, as he leaves “behind the habitations of night for the light”—another fundamental duality that will appear later in fragment 9—by young maidens: the κοῦρος and the κοῦραι come together in a confluence of the basic and generative duality of male and female (fragments 12, 17, 18). He comes to “the gates of the paths of Night and Day” with “a lintel on either side” (ἀµφὶς ἔχει, again recalling the ἀµφὶς ἔχοντα of heaven in 10.5). The doors that form the gateway for the paths of night and day are hung on “alternating bolts” (κληῖδας ἀµοιβούς), fastening hinges that “pivot in their sockets, each in their turn (ἀµοιβαδὸν εἰλίξασαι)” in order to open the way to the goddess who will teach him. He passes through alternating dualities, symbolized by the doors and hinges, the inner and the outer, and comes to perhaps the foundational duality of all dualities, the difference between divine and human, immortal and mortal, when he finally comes face to face with the goddess. And as the goddess begins her instruction, she explains that the κοῦρος shall 107

See, for example, the descriptions in Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

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have to learn two ways, “both the peaceful heart of well-turning Truth and the opinions of mortals, to which no true commitment should be given” (1.28-30), where, as I have argued, it is nature and not being that holds sway. The initial reason given for this twofold instruction is contained in one of the more difficult phrases of the poem to understand and translate. Parmenides must be taught the mortal way of thinking ὡς τὰ δοκοῦντα χρῆν δοκίµως εἶναι διὰ παντὸς πάντα περῶντα A literal translation would read “since it was necessary that the things that appear and entirely pervade all things be acceptable.”108 Despite the distinction between being and seeming that forms the heart of the critique of mortal opinions,109 Parmenides will be shown the way of opinion that is based upon seeming since it is necessary that appearances be accepted initially as a preliminary stage to the knowledge of being to come later, knowledge that will entail the total rejection of the conclusions that would follow from investing appearances of duality and change with being. We have in the proem, then, an indication of why Parmenides included a fairly standard natural cosmology, which the rigors of his logic rejects, as a part of the teaching from the goddess. It is necessary to pass through a false but seemingly acceptable account of reality if one is finally to overcome error. As the goddess says at the end of fragment 8, “I declare to you the whole order as something likely (ἐοικότα), so that no mortal way of thinking should ever overtake you” (8.60-61). A plausible—and false—account is given

108

See Jaap Mansfeld, Offenbarung des Parmenides und die menschliche Welt (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1964), 156-162, and Leonardo Tarán, Parmenides (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), 202-216 for different accounts of the possible translations of this passage. 109

See Fragment 7: “neither let conventional wisdom force you along the way of much-experience, to use an unseeing eye and ringing ear and tongue, but judge with reason the much-contested refutation that flows forth from me.”

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and it is the denial of it that moves Parmenides to the unity of νοῦς and τὸ ἐόν and steels him against falling into error and away from reality. It is within this context, then, that we are to understand Parmenides’ notion—to speak in a later idiom—of the “contemplation of nature.” The natural, the realm of arising into being, of the mixture of opposites, of decay, is ultimately the realm of misleading appearances whose dualities must be overcome for the understanding of reality, what is, to be attained. This understanding is itself the awareness that being and νοῦς are bound together so that to see what truly is is to see it as an undifferentiated and timeless unity. The poem of Parmenides, then, is an attempt to situate an account of the natural world, which arises from empirical observations of motion, change, the alternating interactions of opposites—all of which, for Parmenides, are illusory and fundamentally incoherent—within the human quest to encounter reality as νοεῖν τοῦ ἐόντος: the thinking of what is. It is a call to free oneself of the delusions that arise from unthinking reliance upon the senses and to commit oneself to that alone which is worthy of true commitment, the way of truth. II. Heraclitus: Nature and Language If Parmenides’ discourse seeks after νοῦς and τὸ ἐόν, in Heraclitus it is λόγος that forms the center of gravity for thought. It has been claimed that Heraclitus has not necessarily been regarded as, strictly speaking, a φυσικός; we should observe, however, that Aristotle classifies Heraclitus along with other φυσικοί in his rendition of the various theories concerning the substance that underlies all of reality, mentioning that Heraclitus

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considers fire to be the first principle.110 It should also be said that Heraclitus’ phrase, φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ (fr. 123), a phrase which came to be understood as “nature loves to hide itself,” played a role in inscribing the search for the hidden nature of things in the Western intellectual tradition. This idea of the search for the “nature” or meaning of reality, whatever Heraclitus originally meant by the phrase φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ,111 is appropriately addressed to Heraclitus’ use of the word λόγος, so our reflections here will focus on this multivalent term. We shall see that in Heraclitus λόγος as “cosmic principle” and λόγος as speech—specifically Heraclitus’ speech—come to permeate each other as inseparable realities. The meaning of nearly every fragment of Heraclitus is in dispute; his ancient epithet “the Obscure,” “the Dark One” (ὁ σκοτεινός) was not given for nothing. Aristotle famously observed that one often is unsure of whether a certain word of his text goes with the one before it or the one after,112 an indication, perhaps, of an intentional obscurity on the part of Heraclitus. There are, however, certain habits of thought, certain characteristic pathways that mark the sayings of Heraclitus: the co-inherence of opposites, the all-pervasive quality of λόγος, the ultimate unity of all things. Our task, however, is not to identify these and attempt to flesh out a cosmology based upon them. Rather, our task is to discern what it means for Heraclitus to understand the λόγος, how 110

Aristotle, Metaphysica 984a7-8, Aristotle’s Metaphysics Volume I, ed. W.D. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988 [1924]). 111

Pierre Hadot argues that the phrase φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ originally meant something like “what is born (φύσις) tends (φιλεῖ) to disappear (κρύπτεσθαι),” in consonance with the typical dialectic of Heraclitus’ thought, and only later took on the more familiar meaning of “nature loves to hide,” The Veil of Isis: An Essay on the History of the Idea of nature, trans. Michael Chase (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2006) 7-14. The book traces the effect this idea of “nature’s veil” has had on the history of Western thought. 112

Aristotle, Ars Rhetorica 1407b14-18, Aristotelis Ars Rhetorica, ed. W.D. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), referring to Heraklitus fr. 1.

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Heraclitus is looking at the phenomena such that he would say ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω µία καὶ ὡυτή—“the way up and the way down is one and the same” (fr. 60) or εἶµέν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶµεν—“we are and we are not” (fr. 49a); more precisely, what is it for Heraclitus to think and give an account of the world, to be as one awake rather than as one asleep (fr. 1)? What is the form of life of the one who speaks “with understanding” (ξὺν νόωι, fr. 114)? Heraclitus tells us “extreme erudition (πολυµαθίη) does not teach one how to obtain understanding (νόον ἔχειν οὐ διδάσκει, fr. 40).” He is after something more than the learning available to him from “Hesiod, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Hecateus,” men of wide learning, Heraclitus would say, but not of understanding. We have seen how the ancients understood the scope of Heraclitus’ work in different ways: as pertaining to nature, as pertaining to the right conduct of life, as pertaining to the government of the polis—though these certainly are not to be cleanly separated from each other. Amongst modern scholars, Klaus Held has given an account of Heraclites (and Parmenides) from within the discipline of phenomenology in which he argues that the polemic against “the many” and their lack of understanding, which appears in a number of fragments, is of central concern to Heraclitus’ thought as a whole and is his way of marking the transition from pre- or non-philosophical life to properly philosophical thought.113 Earlier, and on a simpler level, the great editor of the Presocratics, Hermann Diels, saw the grounding of Herclitus’ work in his statement, “I searched myself” (fr. 101 ), so that Heraclitus’ thinking, on this view, would have pertained fundamentally to his knowledge of himself. It is this awareness of oneself as possessed of a mind and a speech that are open to the cosmos in a conscious way that will 113

Klaus Held, Heraklit, Parmenides und der Anfang von Philosophie und Wissenschaft: ein phänomenologische Besinnung (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980), 127-132.

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serve as the framework for my reading of Heraclitus. Moreover, the mind will be shown to have the same structure as the world it thinks and thus to be inseparable from it.114 Fragment 1, which our source, Sextus Empiricus, claims is the beginning (ἐναρχόµενος) of Herclitus’ book “On nature,” establishes the framework for our inquiry: Human beings do not comprehend the logos that always is (τοῦ δὲ λόγου τοῦδ᾽ ἐόντος ἀεὶ ἀξύνετοι γίνονται ἄνθρωποι),115 either before they have heard about it or once they have heard about it. For although all things come to be according to this logos, they are like to those who have no experience (of it), even when they experience such words and deeds as I describe by distinguishing each thing according to nature and explaining how it is (κατὰ φύσιν διαιρέων ἕκαστον καὶ φράζων ὅκως ἔχει). But everyone else is unaware of what they do when they are awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep. There are many phrases in this passage that are of importance and have been the subject of intense scrutiny amongst scholars: all things come to be according to the logos (whatever it is); Heraclitus describes his activity as “distinguishing each thing according to nature and explaining how it is,” which sounds like the beginning of a statement of method. However, we begin with the subject of the first clause, the ἄνθρωποι ἀξύνετοι, the “uncomprehending human beings,” who are “like to those who have no experience, even when they experience” and are “unaware of what they do when they are awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep.” 114

Charles Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus: an Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 21: Heraclitus’ “central insight” is the “identity of structure between the inner, personal world of the psyche and the larger natural order of the universe.” 115

See Geoffrey Kirk, Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 34-40, for a discussion of the various ways this phrase has been translated. For his part, Kirk takes the ἀεί (“always”) as modifying ἀξύνετοι (“do not comprehend”) rather than ἐόντος (“is”). Kahn discerns a deliberate and poetic sense of ambiguity in the phrase (and in the fragments generally) and thus translates, “Although this account (logos) holds forever, men ever fail to comprehend, both before hearing it and once they have heard…”: The Art and Thought of Heraclitus, 97.

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The way things are is not understood by human beings, even though that which defines reality, the logos, is ξυνός, “common,” or “accessible to all”: “…it is necessary to follow what is common (τῷ ξυνῷ)”— clearly a play with ἀξύνετοι and ξὺν νόωι, “with understanding.”116 Although the logos is common (τοῦ λόγου δ᾽ ἐόντος ξυνοῦ), the multitude live (ζώουσιν οἱ πόλλοι) as though they have their own private way of thinking (ἰδίαν φρόνησιν)” (fr. 2). The nature of reality is such that it is accessible to human understanding and human understanding is directed towards and open to the structure or arrangement (κόσµος) of reality. Nevertheless, human beings are capable of estranging themselves from what is common to them and the cosmos, and are therefore like those who sleep, unmindful of their present state and forgetful of what they do. “Those who speak with understanding (ξὺν νόωι λέγοντας),” by contrast, who “rely upon what is the common property of all” (fr. 114), are those who, like Heraclitus, can say, “I have searched myself” (ἐδιζησάµην ἐµεωυτόν, fr. 101), have attended to the logos, and understand that “all is one”: “attending…to the λόγος, it is wise (σοφόν) to confess (ὁµολογεῖν) that all is one (ἕν πάντα εἶναι)” (fr. 50). Attention to the λόγος brings the simultaneous understanding of self and cosmos, that is, the confession (ὁµολογεῖν, saying the same thing, being the same as the λόγος) that “all is one,” and in particular that oneself is one with the cosmos. This confession is called “wise” by Heraclitus, which, for him, indicates that it is bound up with the very practical concerns of discerning everything one encounters. “Wisdom is one thing: knowing how to

116

See Kirk, Cosmic Fragments, 57-58, for discussion of the state of the text at this point.

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determine how all things are driven through all things (ἕν τὸ σοφόν· ἐπίστασθαι γνώµην, ὅκη κυβερνᾶται117 πάντα διὰ πάντων)” (fr. 41). Again, this comes through λόγος, which we may now try to translate. Its basic meaning is, of course, “word,” something spoken, and there are those who deny that Heraclitus’ use of it goes much further than this.118 But, to say that logos “only” means word or account, as though this were trivial, is to miss something essential. In fr. 93, Heraclitus sets λέγει (the verbal form of λόγος) against κρύπτει (to hide, obscure, cover over): “The master whose oracle is in Delphi neither speaks directly nor obscures, but rather gives a sign (οὔτε λέγει οὔτε κρύπτει ἀλλὰ σηµαίνει).” Speaking is the opposite of hiding, the word is the opposite of the crypt. λόγος, then, as that according to which all things come to be, and as that which directs all things, can best be understood as the articulated and articulating order of the cosmos. In this way the λόγος that is Heraclitus’ discourse and the λόγος as that according to which all things take place achieve a confluence so that Heraclitus’ speech has its origin in and is reflective of the “λόγος that always is.” If one is to be a σοφός, one must come to this articulation and hear in it the declaration that “all is one.” And yet, the multitude disregard this articulation, which is common and accessible to all, and follow their own private way of thinking, which locks

117

Following Kirk’s emendation, Cosmic Fragments, 386-389. He writes, in relation to wisdom, “The use of the word σοφόν emphasizes once again that the apprehension of the Logos, and the perception that all things are really one, is not a philosophical luxury but a pragmatical necessity for men. They themselves are connected with their surroundings, and their relations with those surroundings are obviously improved if this connexion is understood…in its human application, [the word σοφόν] always seems to apply to an intellectual and practical accord between men and their environment,” Cosmic Fragments, 71. 118

E.g. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers, “Most scholars have found in ‘logos’ a technical term, and they have striven to discover a metaphysical sense for it. These strivings are vain…The noun logos picks up, in an ordinary and metaphysically unexciting way, the verb legei (he says); it is wasted labour to seek Heraclitus’ secret in the sense of logos,” 59, referring to fr. 1. See also Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy Vol. I, 419-424, for a discussion of the use of the word λόγος in ancient Greek in relation to Heraclitus.

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them up in themselves as those who are asleep and closes to them the reality of the world. Just as “thinking is common to all (ξυνόν ἐστι πᾶσι τὸ φρονέειν)” (fr. 113), so the possibility—and the reality for Heraclitus—of a lack of thinking is common to all. It is this duality—apprehension of the ξυνὸς λόγος or adherence to the ἴδια φρόνησις—that underlies Heraclitus’ understanding of what it means to be wise, to know how things hold together. The σοφός perceives unity as grounding all duality, and duality as grounding all unity: “Living and death, waking and sleeping, youth and old age are all the same in us, for when one changes, it becomes the other, and when that other changes it becomes the first again (τάδε γὰρ µεταπεσόντα ἐκεῖνα ἐστι κἀκεῖνα µεταπεσόντα ταῦτα)” (fr. 88). The σοφός knows that the all-pervading flux of the cosmos is its abiding preservation: “in its changing it is at rest” (µεταβάλλον ἀναπαύεται)” (fr. 84a). The σοφός also knows therefore that the flux of his own existence is his stability, since he knows the structure of the universe to be the structure of his own being. This explains the poetics of Heraclitus’ often perplexing sayings. To “speak and perform the truth by understanding reality according to nature (ἀληθέα λέγειν καἰ ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν ἐπαΐοντας)” (fr. 112)119 entails speaking and acting in a way that conforms to the tension and unity of opposites at the heart of the universe’s structure. It is to allow the multiple meanings of words free play in one’s discourse and the ambiguities to generate a proliferated meaning that flows like the cosmos itself. In Heraclitus, then, we also have a call to knowledge of the nature of reality— what he calls λόγος—by way of a quest for oneself as one who thinks and speaks from 119

The authenticity of the fragment is disputed. See Kirk, Cosmic Fragments, 390-391. Kahn accepts it: Art and Thought, 119-120. In any case, even Kirk acknowledges that the fragment does not contain anything Heraclitus does not say elsewhere in one form or another.

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within the natural order that one seeks to understand and articulate. Taken together, Parmenides and Heraclitus introduce a profound awareness of just what is at stake in thinking and giving an account of reality. Though they are often conveniently pitted against each other as representing the poles of early Greek thinking—πάντα ῥεῖ versus the impossibility of change—they are one in their insistence that the human being come to see what is as a unity, and that this understanding lead the human being to a commitment to the truth. III. Plato: Nature and Love Socrates’ account of his conversion away from the περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία tradition, away from the direct investigation of τὰ ὄντα, and toward “concepts,” or “accounts” (λόγοι) for the discernment of “the truth of beings” (τῶν ὄντων τὴν ἀλήθειαν)120 was noted at the beginning of this investigation. While this may constitute a turning away from so-called “presocratic” physics, we can see that Socrates’ awareness of himself as a thinker in a particular relation to beings follows in the general train of Parmenides’ and Heraclitus’ thought. That is, in his intellectualization of the quest for the fundamental and changeless principle[s] of what is, Socrates took a step that was prepared for by Parmenides’ and Heraclitus’ meditations on the nature of human knowledge. Plato’s depiction of Socrates is very much informed by the challenges and possibilities for thought that were put forth by the two earlier masters. Indeed, the dynamics surrounding the coincidence of the search for the order of the universe and the ordering of human life, which we have seen in the deeper structure of the texts of Parmenides and Heraclitus, comes to the surface in Plato’s Timaeus (and elsewhere in the 120

Phaedo 99e.

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dialogues). In many ways, Plato’s thought here may be seen as a response to Parmenides’ expression of his understanding of being. Timaeus’ εἰκὸς λόγος (“likely account”)121 answers to Parmenides’ goddess, who said “I declare to you the whole order as something likely;” Timaeus, too, delivers his λόγος in a poetic, even religious, mode. Awareness of this disposition of the speaker is crucial for our understanding of what Plato thinks of the nature of discourse on nature and, more particularly, how he conceives of the φυσικός. The Timaeus is a sort of anomaly in the Platonic corpus, though, ironically perhaps, it is the single dialogue that asserted the most influence on later thinkers, especially in the Latin middle ages, where it was the only text of Plato readily available in translation. Save for the opening, and very brief, discussion between Socrates, Critias, and Timaeus, and Critias’ own story about Solon in Egypt, the major part of the “dialogue” is not a dialogue at all, but a sustained and impressive speech in which the character of Timaeus synthesizes the bulk of “pre-socratic” cosmological and medical knowledge in response to a request that he explain the origin of the universe and of human beings as the foundation for contemplating the ideal city Socrates had produced by means of his discourse in the Republic. The content of the Timaeus, with its extensive and detailed descriptions of physical processes and their mathematical order, is also unique in Plato’s works, though is presumably related to the kind of intellectual life Socrates sought to lead as a young man. Given its singularity and its focus on natural philosophy and cosmology, a determination of the status of the Timaeus within the thought of Plato as a whole will

121

Timaues 28b

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yield an understanding of Plato’s contribution to, even determination of, the ancient culture of contemplating nature. A number of perspectives might be, and have been, brought to bear on the study of the Timaeus. Amongst ancient philosophers, study of the Timaeus helped shape both Platonists (including Aristotle) and Stoics and this melding of ideas in turn exerted significant influence on the articulation of later forms of Platonism and that of Christianity.122 Indeed, some Christian theologians and thinkers have seen the Timaeus as a reflection of the Biblical account of creation, even as evidence that Plato read Moses.123 As the only text of Plato readily available in translation to the Latin West, it played an important role in the Platonism of the school of Chartes and also gave Dante material for the Commedia. Amongst modern scholars, questions of the nature and scope of the discourse contained in the Timaeus have tended to come to the fore. The question is reminiscent of the questions put to Parmenides: What is the Timaeus—and therefore “Platonic cosmology” in general—about? Cornford represents a classic view, which holds that Plato intends to base his conception of human life, both for the individual and for society, on the inexpugnable foundation of the order of the universe. True morality…is an order and harmony of the soul; and the soul itself is a counterpart, in miniature, of the soul of the world, which has an everlasting order and harmony of its own, instituted by reason. This order was revealed to every soul before its birth (41E); and it is revealed now in the visible architecture of the heavens.124 That which grounds the life of philosophy, both for the individual and for the polis, is reflected in, indeed founded upon, the order of the cosmos. We might say with David 122

See Gretchen Reydams-Schils, Demiurge and Providence: Stoic and Platonist Readings of Plato’s Timaeus (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999). 123

E.g. Justin , Apology I.59-60.

124

Francis Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), 6.

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Sedley then, that “what the Timaeus does is frequently to say the same things which Plato also says elsewhere, but to say them φυσικῶς, i.e. from the point of view of physics.”125 Hadot adds a distinctly religious tone to this: “The realm of phusis is a divine realm that escapes all precise understanding on the part of man. Only the poiêsis of human language can attempt to imitate divine poiêsis.” Timaeus’ account is a “religious offering, which is, at the same time, play in response to divine play.”126 The act of giving the cosmic discourse is a “spiritual exercise” in imitation of the divine fashioner of the cosmos: Timaeus becomes the Demiurge and his discourse is designed to “engender in us the greatness of soul that makes us live with a universal perspective.” It is ultimately a work of ψυχαγωγία, the guidance or leading of the soul to its proper place.127 A serious challenge to the view of the coherence of Socrates’ particular practice of philosophy and the cosmic account of the Timaeus—indeed, of the status of Timaeus’ account of the formation of the cosmos as a grounding for human life in general (cf. Cornford’s comments above)—has been made by Catherine Zuckert. Basing her reading on the dramatic trajectory and coherence of the dialogues rather than on a speculative notion of Plato’s development through early, middle, and late phases, she argues that Timaeus (along with Parmenides, the Eleatic stranger, the Athenian stranger, and Socrates) is being put forth as representative of a possible form of philosophic life, but one which, as compared to Socrates, is unable to give a satisfactory account of the 125

David Sedley, “‘Becoming like god’ in the Timaeus and Aristotle,” in Interpreting the Timaeus-Critias, Proceedings of the IV Symposium Platonicum, ed. T. Calvo and L. Brisson (Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 1997) 337. 126

Pierre Hadot, “Physique et poésie dans le Timée de Platon,” in Études de Philosophie Ancienne (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1998), 277. 127

Hadot, “Physique et poésie dans le Timée de Platon,” p. 293-297.

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fundamental human realities of love and personal/political need. While Timaeus does set out to show how the ordered motion of the cosmos is designed to bring human souls into harmony when they contemplate it, Plato, as author, shows him failing to account for the foundational human experience of love for others.128 On this reading the Timaeus presents no settled account of Plato’s cosmology, but rather functions to throw in relief Socrates’ particular genius, his quest for self-knowledge and the caring—if direct and confrontational—guidance of others to their own self-knowledge. Is the Timaeus a straight-forward account of Plato’s cosmology, which provides the physical foundation for his philosophy as whole? Is it a deliberate exercise in futility designed to show contrasting views of the philosophic life? Or is it a more playful falsehood intended to amuse the soul and celebrate the beauty of the cosmos? What place does the contemplation of the cosmos have in Plato’s vision of philosophy? Is Socrates’ abandonment of the περὶ φύσεως tradition a decisive one for his vision (or Plato’s vision) of the best form of human life? As Zuckert’s analysis indicates, the problematics of these questions revolve around eros, for it is eros that dominates Socratic practice but appears to be a fairly insignificant aspect of the discourse of Timaeus. I have mentioned that the style of the Timaeus—its monologic discourse—is anomalous in the Platonic corpus. This is not entirely accurate, and it is significant that it is precisely the erotic dialogues, Symposium and Phaedrus, that also present long speeches with little or no dialogical interruption

128

“On the basis of its cosmic paradigm, Timaeus is not able to give an adequate account of human desire and thus of the origins of political association. Rather than provide an explanation of the cosmological foundations of Socratic politics or philosophy, in the Timaeus Plato dramatizes the disjunction between the principles on the basis of which Timaeus claims that this is the best possible world and the only things Socrates ever claimed to know—ta erotica”: Catherine Zuckert, Plato’s Philosophers-The Coherence of the Dialogues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 422.

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(though Diotima’s understanding of the nature of love is presented in the Symposium as a dialogue with Socrates). Indeed, despite the apparent minimization of eros in the discourse of Timaeus, I argue that we can observe at the depths of its structure profound affinities with the erotic thought found elsewhere in Plato, and particularly in the Symposium and Phaedrus. The perspective that holds up the Timaeus as the physical foundation for Plato’s vision of the philosophical life would certainly seem to be born out by a sort of “programmatic” reflection by Timaeus near the end of his first account of the generation of the cosmos, that according to νοῦς. To this point Timaeus has distinguished what really is (τὸ ὄν) from what comes to be and passes away (τὸ γιγνόµενον), describing the latter as an image of the former (27d-28b); he has discerned the mystery of temporality in relation to the verb “to be” (37d-38b), in which time, which has come to be along with the rotations of the heavens, is fashioned as a “moving image of eternity,” eternity being the realm of true being; he has described the fashioning of the body and soul of the universe in their well-ordered proportions in imitation of the god who fashions them. Timaeus then pauses to reflect upon the nature of his own contemplation. Referring to the material elements of the formation of the universe that constitute the stuff of perception, he says:129 All of these things are among the accessory causes (τῶν συναιτίων), which the god used in the service of his bringing to completion as far as possible the most excellent form. But these are considered by most people not as the accessory causes of all things but as the very causes themselves, since they make things cool, hot, compressed, dispersed, and produce 129

Plato’s text in Burnet, Platonis Opera. I have referred to and freely adapted the translations of Donald J. Zeyl and Franci Cornford for Timaeus and those of Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff for Symposium and Phaedrus. Cornford’s translation is found in Plato’s Cosmology; The translations of Zeyl, Nehamas, and Woodruff are found in Plato: The Complete Works, ed. John Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997).

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other similar effects. They do not, however, have the capacity for any sort of reason (λόγον) or intelligence (νοῦν) with respect to anything. We must say that soul is the only reality among beings to which the possession of intelligence belongs—it is invisible, whereas fire, water, earth, and air have all come to be as visible bodies—so that it is necessary for the lover of understanding (νοῦ) and knowledge (ἐπιστήµης) to pursue the causes of intelligent nature (τῆς ἔµφρονος φύσεως) as first, and those that are moved by others, as well as those that move others of necessity as second. We must do the same. We must distinguish the two kinds of cause we have mentioned: those with intelligence that are fashioners of beautiful and good things, and those that, bereft of understanding, always produce something random and without order… Timaeus has moved the primary causal considerations away from the material elements that had given the first physicists the foundations for their cosmological thought. It is rather reason, intelligence, and knowledge that are the focus of cosmic explanation in the first part of Timaeus’ account, and as we shall see, it is intellect (νοῦς) that forms the bond between the universe and human being. Timaeus continues: The next topic to be spoken about must be their (the eyes’) greatest beneficial work, on account of which the god has given them to us. According to my account, sight has become the cause of the greatest benefit for us since no word of this present discourse about the universe (τοῦ παντός) could ever have been uttered if we did not see the stars, the sun, and heaven. But now, day and night, months and the cycles of years, equinoxes and solstices have brought forth number and the concept of time, and have provided a way of inquiry into the nature of the universe. From these we have procured a kind of philosophy given by the gods, and there is no greater good that has come, or ever will come, to the mortal race than this. I declare that this is the greatest good that belongs to the eyes...The god invented vision to be given to us so that by beholding the cycles of intellect in heaven we might apply them to the rotations in our own mental processes—for there is a kinship between these two, though one is well-ordered and the other disordered. When we have become thoroughly acquainted with them and have come to participate in the correct articulation of things according to nature by imitating the perfectly unwavering cycles of the god, we shall set aright the wanderings of our own.130 130

Timaeus 46d-47c.

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Here Timaeus gives the clearest statement of the scope of cosmic reflection: we behold and chart the intelligently ordered revolutions and proportions of the universe so as to give our own intellectual motions an ordered pattern to follow, just as the Demiurge itself patterned these motions upon the intelligible and unchanging forms of true being. The “perceptible god” (θεὸς αἰσθητός; 92c) that is the universe is the paradigm for the structuring of human intellectual life (see also 90c-d), for it demonstrates the “persuasion” (πείθειν; 48a) brought to bear upon “necessity” (see the second part of Timaeus’ account)—the natural forces at work in the cosmos—at the beginning of the universe. All of this reflection begins with the perception of the beautiful and it is this that links it with the heart of Plato’s presentation of the practice of Socratic philosophy in its devotion to τὰ ἐρωτικά, “the things of love.” It is precisely the determination of καλόν that allows Timaeus to make the fundamental claim concerning the nature of the paradigm for the realm of becoming: that it always is. When the Demiurge looks to what is eternal and changeless “then everything that is brought to completion is necessarily beautiful.”131 Timaeus reasons that, since the cosmos is “the most beautiful thing that has ever come into existence (κάλλιστος τῶν γεγονότων)” and the Demiurge is “the best of causes” then the changeable cosmos must be founded paradigmatically upon what truly is.132 This notion that the cosmos is ὁ κάλλιστος τῶν γεγονότων reveals that the Platonic (or “Timaean”) φυσικός is indeed ἐραστής, but his beloved is the cosmos itself: “the lover of understanding and knowledge” pursues the causes that give intelligibility to 131

Tim. 28ab.

132

Tim. 29a

.

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the cosmos. And by beginning his account with the “body” of the world—even though the soul is more excellent and venerable than the body—Timaeus recapitulates the erotic ascent of the Symposium, which begins with devotion to beautiful bodies and then proceeds to more excellent things (210a ff.).133 There is also a profound affinity between the discernment, in the description of the cosmos according to “necessity” in the Timaeus, of χώρα, the space that is intermediate between being and becoming, on the one hand, and Diotima’s description in the Symposium of the generation of love as something in between knowledge and ignorance, the beautiful and the ugly, gods and mortals, good and bad, on the other. This is a further indication of the erotic disposition of the φυσικός towards the cosmos. To demonstrate this, we turn briefly to the Symposium’s account of the nature of love. We shall then return to the Timaeus and read it within the erotic horizon established by the Symposium. In the Symposium we find the uncovering of the erotic tertium quid—Love itself—an intermediary between the poles of a conventional duality. Socrates begins the recounting of his dialogue with Diotima by noting that his own refutation of Agathon’s position that Love is a great god and belongs to beautiful things is based upon a similar refutation Diotima gave of Socrates’ own previous position, which was very similar to Agathon’s. By leading Agathon to acknowledge that love is the desire for something one

133

Stanley Rosen draws the eros of the Symposium together with the cosmic thought of the Timaeus in a different mode: “By its denial of immortality to the human psyche, the teaching of the Symposium agrees with the cosmology of the Timaeus”: Plato’s Symposium (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 230. Rosen refers here to a passage in the Symposium where Diotima corrects Socrates’ assumption that Love desires beauty. She says, “‘What Love wants is not beauty, as you think it is.’ ‘Well, what is it then?’ ‘Reproduction (γεννήσεως) and birth in beauty…Now, why reproduction? It’s because reproduction goes on forever; it is what mortals have in place of immortality’” (206e). The birth of Eros, for Rosen, “is the counterpart in the Symposium to Timaeus’ likely myth about the genesis of psyche,” 231, and as he goes on to say more generally, “The cosmos altogether both is and is not. It is erotic, and therefore daimonic…” 253. On this account, because of its transience, the cosmos continually presses toward being, and then releases into non-being, thereby manifesting an “erotic” mode.

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does not have, he brings him to the conclusion that love, by its own nature, lacks beauty and the good, which are its proper objects. From here he picks up the dialogue with Diotima. In response to the realization that love cannot be beautiful, Socrates asks if it is ugly and bad. Here he shows himself to be bound by a binary notion of oppositions, which, as Diotima will show, fails to disclose the nature of love. She introduces him to the notion of τι µεταξύ, “something in between” understanding and ignorance, beautiful and ugly, good and bad, gods and mortals.134 Eros is precisely that which is in between these polar oppositions. Love is a daimon, neither mortal nor immortal, the child of Poros (“Way,” “Means”) and Penia (“Poverty”), conceived on Aphrodite’s birthday. With such parents, continues Diotima, Eros is poor, homeless, shriveled up, but also clever in his pursuit of the beautiful and good, indeed a lover of wisdom, a φιλόσοφος. Likewise, Love is between mortality and immortality, never completely bereft of resources, but never able to possess anything. Love is between wisdom and ignorance, in love with the beauty of wisdom but never in possession of it. So, the nature of love is to be τι µεταξύ, something in between. She goes on in the dialectic to show what and how the lover loves. “The lover of beautiful things loves. What does he love (ἐρᾷ ὁ ἐρῶν τῶν καλῶν · τί ἐρᾷ)?”135 Socrates initially responds that possession is what is desired when the lover loves. However, Diotima pushes him further, asking what the lover will have when he acquires possession of the beautiful things. Socrates cannot answer, so Diotima changes the terms from beautiful things to good things, and Socrates responds that when the lover acquires good things he has happiness 134

Symposium 202a.

135

Sym. 204d.

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(εὐδαιµονία), which, as an end in itself, puts a stop to this line of questioning. Next, the dialectic reveals that, even though the terms of love are only used in a specific instance— presumably in the case of love between people—they actually properly refer to everyone insofar as everyone “desires to have good things forever,”136 and it is precisely the good that everyone loves, with their love consisting in the desire to possess the good forever: ὁ ἔρως τοῦ τὸ ἀγαθὸν αὑτῷ εἶναι ἀεί)137 This, then, is the what of love. Diotima defines the how of love, what lovers do in their pursuit, as τόκος ἐν καλῷ καὶ κατὰ τὸ σῶµα καὶ κατὰ τὴν ψυχήν, “giving birth in beauty, whether in body or in soul.”138 It is this birth-giving, this begetting (γέννησις), that is the true desire of love, and not beauty itself. This is because it is in begetting that mortals are able to overcome their own demise and attain immortality. Only in this way can a mortal, as mortal, possess the good forever. In this discussion, mortality is not primarily referred to death as the separation of the soul from the body. Rather, on Diotima’s account, selfidentity is undermined every day by the flux of our bodies and of our souls in both their affective and epistemological facets. Thus, by reproducing and bringing something into being to replace that which is passing away, “the mortal shares in immortality” (θνητὸν ἀθανασίας µετέχει).”139 The “zeal” (σπουδή) for reproduction, which is the zeal for immortality, is love.

136

Sym. 205e.

137

Sym. 206a.

138

Sym. 206b.

139

Sym. 208b.

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To prove her point to an incredulous Socrates, Diotima adduces examples of those who would go to great lengths, even to the point of death, for the sake of glory and honor. She argues that they did so because they believed the memory of their virtue would endure forever, and this, despite their willingness to die, proves their love of immortality.140 She goes on in her description to mention those who are “pregnant in body,” whose hope for immortality lies in their biological progeny, and those who are “pregnant in soul,” whose hope is in the begetting of wisdom and virtue, whether poetic or political. The progress of rightly ordered erotic ascent, then, is as follows. The one in pursuit begins with attention to beautiful bodies when he is young. He finds one specific beautiful body “where he begets beautiful thoughts” (λόγους καλούς). The lover should not remain with this one particular body, however, and should come to understand that the beauty in all bodies is of the same form, and thus, since his goal is formal beauty (τὸ ἐπ´ εἴδει καλόν), he must transcend his attachment to this individual beautiful body and come to love all beautiful bodies. The lover then must come to realize that the beauty of the soul is more honorable than the beauty of the body, so that he is content to beget beautiful thoughts with a person who is beautiful in soul, even if not in body. The object of contemplation and production here is the beauty of deeds and laws, the vision of which causes the lover to disregard bodily beauty all together. From this point the lover moves further to different types of knowledge (ἐπιστήµη) in which he sees beauty in its unity across the various kinds of knowledge, and here he begets the most beautiful thoughts and concepts (διανοήµατα). At this stage, where the unified beauty of knowledge is perceived, the lover is close to the

140

Sym. 208e: τοῦ γὰρ ἀθανάτου ἐρῶσιν.

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perception of that which is beautiful in its nature (τι τὴν φύσιν καλόν). This natural beauty always is (ἀεὶ ὄν) and does not come to be or pass away (211a). Second, it is absolutely beautiful; its beauty does not waver with changing perceptions or relations. It is not bodily and does not show itself in any one particular thing, but is rather “itself, according to itself, with itself, always one in form (αὐτὸ καθ᾽ αὑτὸ µεθ᾽ αὑτοῦ µονοειδὲς ἀεὶ ὄν).” All other individual beautiful things participate (µετέχοντα) in the form such that when they come to be and pass away, the form itself does not change at all. By progressing in this way, the lover comes to know what the beautiful itself is (γνῷ αὐτὸ τελευτῶν ὅ ἔστι καλόν), and, by transcending all images (εἶδωλα) of beauty, the lover, gazing at beauty itself, gives birth to true immortal virtue and thus attains true immortality. Returning now to the beginning of the Timaeus, Plato’s φυσικός initiates his account of the structuring of the cosmos by making a distinction between that which is (τὸ ὄν) and that which becomes (τὸ γιγνόµενον). τὸ ὄν is changeless and is grasped by understanding with reason (νοήσει µετὰ λόγου), whereas τὸ γιγνόµενον comes to be and passes away and is grasped by opinion with unreasoning sense perception (δόξῃ µετ᾽ αἰσθήσεως ἀλόγου). The notion of image and model follows immediately upon this distinction when Timaeus states that whenever a craftsman (δηµιουργός) looks to what is changeless and reproduces its form (ἰδέαν) and potentiality (δύναµιν), the result is beautiful (καλόν). However, when the model is something that has come to be, then the result is without beauty. This sets the stage for the first question to be asked concerning the cosmos: has it always been or has it come into being, is it τὸ ὄν or τὸ γιγνόµενον? From the sensible nature of the cosmos, Timaeus concludes that it must have come into 71

being, since, as he has just said, sensible reality is grasped by opinion, and opinion pertains to τὸ γιγνόµενον. This gives rise to the next question of whether the cosmos is modeled on changeless or changeable reality. From the fact of the beauty of the cosmos, Timaeus reasons that it must have as its paradigm that which is changeless and is to be understood reasonably by wisdom (λογῷ καὶ φρονήσει), and from these reflections Timaeus concludes that the cosmos is an image (εἰκῶν) of something. Timaeus next addresses the question of causality—αἰτία. Why did the fashioner of the cosmos make it in the first place? The cause is two-fold. First, the fashioner is good, and as good, he is absolutely free of jealousy (φθόνος). Second, this means “he wants all things to become as much like him as possible.”141 Assimilation, approximation to an archetype (γενέσθαι παραπλήσια) lies at the heart of the causality of the cosmos. Indeed, this notion of fashioning the other in the beautiful recalls the erotics of the Phaedrus, where the lover shapes the beloved in the form of their god, and renders here the Demiurge itself as the primordial ἐραστής.142 Timaeus goes on to specify this likeness when he asks what living thing the sensible cosmos resembles. He has already claimed that, because the fashioning god is good, what he does must be the best, and since it is better to be endowed with intelligence than not, he implanted intelligence (νοῦς) in the soul of the cosmos, and put the intelligent soul in the body of the cosmos. Here, Timaeus adduces the proposition that for a likeness to be beautiful—which our cosmos clearly is—it must resemble a whole, not a part of a whole. Therefore, the visible cosmos does not resemble one of the intelligible

141

Tim. 29e.

142

See Phaedrus 252d-e.

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beings residing in the intellectual world, but the intelligible realm as a whole. The intelligible Living Thing contains all intelligible living things within it. Likewise, for the sake of likeness, the fashioning god has made the visible world as one single thing, a unified living being. All visible things within it are akin to it by nature (κατὰ φύσιν συγγενῆ). A corollary to the comprehensiveness of the world is the fact of its uniqueness (µονογενής). A multitude of worlds would imply a multiplicity of archetypal intelligible worlds. A duality in the intelligible realm would lead to the need of a third in which the two would partially cohere. But this would lead to the conclusion that the visible world would have to be in the likeness of this third comprehensive world, since it has been established that the beauty of the image depends upon its resemblance to a whole. Given this premise, likeness between image and archetype cannot include multiplicity. The intelligible world is unique and so is its likeness, the visible world. In the formation of the world’s soul, the demiurge mixed a compound intermediate between changeless being and becoming. Likewise, it made a mixture of the Same (κατὰ ταὐτά) and one of the Other (ἕτερος) “in between” (ἐν µέσῳ|) their respective indivisible and divisible, bodily parts. From these three intermediary mixtures, he made another uniform mixture: of being, sameness, and otherness. It should be noted, however, that this mixture is itself a mixture of mixtures, of concocted entities that are themselves intermediate between the changeless and the changeable, the indivisible and the divisible, the intelligible and the corporeal. The World Soul, then, which is the condition of intelligibility in the cosmos (30b), is presented as a mediating reality. This aspect of the likely account gives a physical framework for understanding the generation

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of true opinion in the realm of sense perception (τὸ αἰσθητόν), and understanding (νοῦς) and knowledge (ἐπιστήµη) in the rational realm (τὸ λογιστικόν), so that soul is able to encounter both those things that come to be (τὰ γιγνόµενα), and those which remain changeless and self-identical (τὰ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἔχοντα ἀεί). In order to bring the generated universe into a complete likeness of the eternal Living Being, the demiurge must endow it with a likeness of eternity. Eternity itself cannot be bestowed upon that which is brought into being, so the demiurge fashions time as “an eternal image, moving according to number, of eternity, which abides in unity (µένοντος αἰῶνος ἐν ἑνὶ κατ᾽ ἀριθµὸν ἰοῦσαν αἰώνιον εἰκόνα).”143 The description of the fashioning of time here is significant. Time is not eternity, since it measures the coming to be and passing away of fluctuating reality. Yet it is “an eternal image of eternity.” How does time achieve its “imitation of the eternal nature (τὴν τῆς διαιωνίας µίµησιν φύσεως)”? Timaeus describes the placement of the celestial bodies in the orbits of the “Different,” which progress through their orbits and culminate in the completion of “one perfect year,” when all of the planets revolving in the circle of the Different have completed their cycles together according to the measure of the circle of the Same. The complete cycle of the diverse movements of the planets is the moving image of eternity. Because the planets return to the their starting points, we can say they are similar to that which “is,” but not fully things that “are,” because they proceed in perpetual motion. The eternal Living Being has being for all eternity (πάντα αἰῶνα ἐστιν ὄν), while its image

143

Tim. 37d.

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“has been, is, and will be throughout all time” (διὰ τέλους τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον γεγονώς τε καὶ ὢν καὶ ἐσόµενος).144 This initial train of thought raises numerous questions. Indeed, each distinction demands further reflection. First, how does one come to the position of discerning the difference between τὸ ὄν and τὸ γιγνόµενον? Second, why should a copy of something changeable lack beauty? Third, and related to the second, how does one determine whether or not something is beautiful so as to determine the quality of its model and cause? Indeed, as Timaeus says later in his discourse, when he has shifted perspective from νοῦς to ἀνάγκη (“necessity”), our typical dream-like state (recall Heraclitus 1) makes us incapable of making the distinction between being and becoming, paradigm and image. We are unable to make the distinction precisely because we fail to recognize the fact that the image is not itself the “thing itself” for which it has come to be (οὐδ᾽ αὐτὸ τοῦτο ἐφ᾽ ᾧ γέγονεν ἑαυτῆς ἐστιν).145 It is within this context that Timaeus introduces a new element to his account of the cosmos to address—from a physical point of view— the questions raised by the need to distinguish between ideal and copy, being and becoming. He begins by observing the inherent instability of the four elements: water condenses and turns into earth, then dissolves and turns into air, which subsequently burns as fire when ignited. The cycle continues in reverse order so that fire eventually becomes water again. The consequence of this is that nothing that becomes should be referred to definitively as “this” (τοῦτο) but only as “such a kind of thing” (τὸ 144

Tim. 38c.

145

Tim. 52c.

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τοιοῦτον, rendered by Cornford as “what is of such and such a quality”).146 The point here is that objects in the sensible world have no changeless substrate to which one can refer; rather, they are a collection of qualities that can be reconfigured as something else, hence, Timaeus’ need for a third kind of thing in his account. The demonstrative “this” properly refers not to an object that comes to be and passes away, but to that in which and from which it comes to be and passes away. He gives as an example the molding of gold into every possible shape. When asked “What is it?,” the correct response would be, “gold,” not the name of whatever shape it happens to have been given at the moment of the asking, since the shapes change continuously. He extends the analogy to the receptacle of becoming and goes further to say that it remains wholly itself, and does not in itself take on any of the characteristics of the “imitations” (µιµήµατα) of eternal beings with the result that it is able to take on any impression of what enters it. The receptacle is a “third kind,” but it is linked to both being and becoming in a way that is difficult to see. On the one hand, it gives support for the appearance of images. On the other, “it partakes of the noetic in a most perplexing way” (µεταλαµβάνον δὲ ἀπορῶτατα πῃ τοῦ νοητοῦ /). Indeed, “space” (χῶρα), as he will name it, is ever-existing, changeless in itself, and apprehended by “bastard reasoning” (λογισµῷ νόθῳ) without the senses. Timaeus compares our perception of it to a dream. Before he makes this final definition, however, Timaeus asks the question of whether or not there are things in themselves: “Is there fire in itself (πῦρ αὐτὸ ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ)?”147 The direction of Timaeus’ answer to this question is significant, and it

146

Tim. 49d. See Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology, 179.

147

Tim. 51b.

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follows the contours of his earlier demonstration concerning whether or not the world came to be or has always been, and further, whether it is a copy of what has come to be or of what has always been. There, he reasoned from the (assumed) fact of the beauty of the world to the conclusion that it is a copy of the eternal. Here again, he reasons up, as it were, from the experienced fact of the difference between understanding and opinion to the conclusion that there must be the corresponding objects of super-sensory things in themselves, and sensible images of them. But even this distinction has a prior foundation. We know that there is a difference between understanding and true opinion because we acquire them differently—the one through teaching, the other through persuasion—and we can have one without the other. Understanding always comes “with a true account” (µεθ᾽ ἀληθοῦς λόγου) and is “unmoved by persuasion” (ἀκίνητον πειθοῖ /). True belief, on the other hand, is without an account (ἄλογον) altogether and is moved by persuasion (µεταπειστόν). So, at the end of this line of reasoning, we come to the fundamental distinction between discourse that is persuasive and discourse that is true. But what kind of discourse pertains to the receptacle, space? It is not known by intellect but by a “bastard reasoning,” yet it partakes of the intellectual realm. It is itself indestructible and unchanging, yet it receives into itself that which comes to be and passes away. As such, it fills the same place as the daemon Eros in the Symposium, or we should say, it is the space that Eros opens to the erotic φυσικός. We see, then, a certain coherence on the deeper level of Plato’s texts between the cosmic reflection contained in the Timaeus and the philosophy of eros as found in the Symposium and Phaedrus. The thought is not the same, and indeed, the initial object of eros—a human being or the cosmos—is decisive for the form of life one encounters in

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these two respective modes of philosophy, i.e. the Socratic and the “pre-Socratic.” Nevertheless, it is my contention that Plato has provided a continuity of eros between the natural philosophy of the Timaeus and the ἐρωτικά of the Symposium and Phaedrus and the general terms of this connection did not go unnoticed by the later philosophical tradition.148 IV. Aristotle: Nature and Virtue In Aristotle we come to a whole new level of systematization, and the worked-out articulation of many of his physical theories would prove to be determinative in setting the range of physical inquiry for the succeeding generations of philosophers, though the subject of his reflection comes to him from the thinkers who preceded him. Indeed, his twenty years as a member of Plato’s academy had a decisive influence on the framework of his own teaching, especially with respect to the more speculative and abstract researches of his physical, metaphysical, and cosmological theorizing, and while the Timaeus in particular seems to come under attack at a number of points in Aristotle’s thought, the debates reflected in Aristotle’s texts do appear to be of the in-house variety.149 Indeed, Aristotle may be taken as representative of one of the styles of

148

For a description of an erotic cosmology in the later Platonic and Stoic traditions, see C.J. de Vogel, “Amor quo caelum regitur,” Vivarium 1 (1963), 2-34. The author focuses on Cleanthes, Proclus, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Boethius. 149

Thus Jaeger, “…his works on physics and cosmology are essentially discussions within the Academy,” Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development, trans. Richard Robinson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), 308, though it was precisely Jaeger who advanced the influential thesis that Aristotle began as a Platonist and ended as an anti-Platonist.

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philosophy (to follow Zuckert) put forth by Plato, that of the natural philosopher, all of whose thought tends to spring from the basic concept of φύσις.150 Therefore, while the famous “concreteness” of Aristotle’s thinking is a significant difference from Plato, at least according to the evidence of their texts, the role of contemplation in general and of the contemplation of nature in particular remains for Aristotle within the world of Platonic thinking.151 As such, my analysis here is closely related to my reading of Plato. This is not to say that Aristotle adds nothing to Plato or that his orientation is simply identical. It is obviously not, and the opinion of Aristotle’s Neoplatonic commentator Simplicius is to the point: In every case [Aristotle] does not wish to cut himself off from nature and so he even speculates on the things above nature according to its relation to nature, just as, conversely, the divine Plato, according to the Pythagorean practice, examines natural things according as they participate in those things above nature.152 We shall observe below how this orientation of Aristotle affects the character of the Aristotelian φυσικός.

150

“Even the concepts of being-in-the-πόλις have their foundation in concepts of nature. Aristotle saw that and shifted the weight of his work primarily onto the examination of φύσις as being. From there, he attained the ground for the study of being as such,” Martin Heidegger, Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy, trans. Robert D. Metcalf and Mark B. Tanzer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 161. 151

Lloyd Gerson argues for the basic soundness and philosophical fruitfulness of the Neoplatonic reading of Aristotle in harmony with Plato: Aristotle and Other Platonists (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), especially, for our purposes, 1-23, 101-120; for contemplation and assimilation to the divine as the final end of human life in both Plato and Aristotle see, again, Sedley, “‘Becoming like god’ in the Timaeus and Aristotle.” 152

Simplicius, In categoria 6, cited in Gerson, Aristotle and Other Platonists, 6.

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In general, as he shows in Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, the life of θεωρία is the highest form of human life according to Aristotle.153 Aristotle has as his object in the lectures of the Nicomachean Ethics the discernment of the τέλος of human life, that towards which all human activity is directed and which is itself not directed towards any further end. This, by the general consensus of both the common and the refined, is εὐδαιµωνία, happiness or blessedness, which is generally identified as “living well” or “doing well”.154 Opinions differ as to what constitutes this living and doing well, but for Aristotle, it is the activity, according to the highest virtue, of the best thing in us. This best thing in us is νοῦς, which is either divine itself, or at least the most divine thing in us, and activity in accordance with the proper virtue of νοῦς—an activity which is θεωρετική—would be the most perfect happiness. Not only is νοῦς the best thing in us, and the objects of νοῦς the best objects, it is also the case that intellectual contemplation is the activity we can maintain with the most consistency. Its pleasures are the most pure and enduring. It is also the most selfsufficient of the virtues, for the brave and just person needs others with whom and for whom to exercise virtue, while the philosopher, the one who exercises contemplation, can do so alone, and is therefore never cut off from this happiness. It, more than the practical virtues, is loved for its own sake, since it only results in contemplation, whereas the other virtues provide something to us in addition to their activity. Also, since “happiness is thought to depend upon leisure,” and the practical virtues are, in general, un-leisurely

153

Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea, ed. I. Bywater (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890). I have referred to and freely adapted the translations found in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941) for all of the texts in this section. 154

Eth. Nic. I.4, 1095a14-20.

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(involving as they do war, city politics, etc.), and are directed towards something other than themselves—namely the securing of happiness for rulers and citizens— contemplation, which has no end but itself and is engaged in leisure, must be regarded as the supreme happiness for the human being.155 In fact, as he goes on to say, this life is beyond human. It is the divine, and not the human, in us that leads us to such a life. To live according to the intellect is to strain beyond our own mortality towards immortality. This best part of a human being, the νοῦς, is, nevertheless, what man most properly is. What is proper for each thing is best and pleasantest for each thing. This is the intellectual life for man, since life according to the intellect is “more than anything else, man.” Paradoxically, then, that which is most human is a divine form of life. The gods, he says, do not conduct business and engage in other actions that require practical virtue, and yet they are the most blessed of all. So, the highest happiness must be an imitation of this intellectual life separate from the other political and practical virtues.156 This definition of happiness in terms of teleology introduces a problem for the overall coherence of Aristotle’s vision of philosophy, namely, are the non-contemplative virtues really goods in themselves?157 According to the strictures of how Aristotle defines the τέλος of human life as that which is chosen for its own sake alone, which he defines as the happiness of contemplation, the question arises as to how the moral virtues fit into the happy life. In other words, can Aristotle give a rigorous account of ethics as a part of 155

Eth. Nic. X.7, 1177a12-1177b26.

156

Eth. Nic. X.7, 1177b26-1178a8.

157

This issue is summarized by Gabriel Richardson-Lear, Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 1-46.

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his understanding of the goal of human life? On the one hand, we must note that Aristotle admitted the limitations of ethical theorizing, acknowledging that it is not capable of the kind of precision that other discourses of philosophy can attain.158 Nevertheless, the question is a real one and while it is not our purpose here to offer a solution on Aristotelian grounds, we should note the question of the coherence between virtuous action (praxis) and contemplation, for it is a crucial theme in Maximus’ Ambigua. For the moment, we grant Aristotle that contemplation is the goal of human existence in that it is constitutive of the highest, most enduring form of pleasure for human being and it is indeed pleasure that “seems most intimately to inhabit our nature” (µαλιστὰ γὰρ δοκεῖ συνῳκειῶσθαι τῷ γένει ἡµῶν).159 It is ultimately this enquiry into pleasure that leads Aristotle to the conclusion that man’s highest potential is to live like a god in contemplation, and it is within this grand ethical scheme whose focus is contemplation that we must enquire into the works in which Aristotle carries out, or describes the carrying-out, of the contemplation of nature. How is the Aristotelian φυσικός oriented toward the nature that is contemplated? On the most basic level, the study of nature, whether as a whole (ἠ ὅλη φύσις),160 or in terms of the nature of individual things (τὰ φύσει ὄντα), refers for Aristotle to the discernment of the principles of motion and rest—i.e. change and stability—immanent to a being, a system, or the universe. That is, something exists “naturally” if, like an animal, a plant, or one of the four elements it contains its own cause of change within itself and 158

Eth. Nic. I.3, 1094b.

159

Eth. Nic. X.1, 1172a19-20.

160

De motu animalium 699a25, Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium: Text with Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays, ed. and trans. Martha Nussbaum (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).

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does not, like a house, receive it from without.161 Because the nature of a thing is twofold (ἡ φύσις διχῶς), encompassing both its form and its matter,162 Aristotle asks whether the φυσικός must come to know both form and matter or only one of the two. He reasons that the φυσικός must know the form “to a certain degree” (µέχρι του), to the point at which he understands the full and complete development of its coming to be, τινὸς ἕνεκα, as λόγος and τέλος.163 This constitutes the basic structure of Aristotle’s natural philosophy. Natural knowledge gives an account of something in terms of its coming to be. Thus, the Aristotelian φυσικός examines realities not in terms of what is eternal in them or of what truly existing forms they reflect or in which they participate. Rather, the things of the world come before the φυσικός as temporal realities conditioned by purposive change and it is the principles of this purposive change that the φυσικός seeks to know. The world of the Aristotelian φυσικός itself, however, is eternal, and Aristotle’s reasons for asserting this are significant for our understanding of his conception of natural philosophy. We begin with the assertion of the eternality of the very principle of nature: motion and its corollary, time.164 In Physics VIII.1, Aristotle addresses first the question of whether or not there was a beginning to motion, concluding that it is impossible for us to think a “first motion” of things that have come into being before

161

Physica B.1, 192b8-32, Aristotle’s Physics: A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary, ed. W.D. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960 [1936]). 162

Phys. B.2, 194a12-13.

163

See Heidegger, Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy, 143.

164

See the brief discussion in Richard Sorabji, Time, Creation, and the Continuum: Theories in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), 276-283.

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which there was only rest because, 1.) motion out of rest requires an antecedent and causative motion, and 2.) the thing at rest itself must have had a cause of its rest, i.e. something that puts a stop to its motion, since rest presupposes the privation of motion.165 Motion is eternal if it exists at all on this account. Next Aristotle considers time, making the basic observation that talk of a “before” or “after” with respect to motion implies time, and that time in its turn, as “the number of motion,” implies the existence of motion. Therefore, if Aristotle can demonstrate the eternal existence of time, then he has demonstrated de facto the eternal existence of motion and thus of the world. Apart from the fact (as Aristotle reports it) that all previous philosophers, with the notable exception of Plato (on, we should note, a literal interpretation of the Timaeus), have denied that time has a beginning, Aristotle asserts the argument that “we cannot grasp time except as an instant (οὐδὲν γὰρ ἔστι λαβεῖν ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ παρὰ τὸ νῦν),” and because the instant, “the now (τὸ νῦν),” can only be thought as the point at which past time ends and future time begins, it follows that time can only be thought as eternally existing. “Since the instant,” he concludes, “is both a beginning (ἀρχή) and an end (τελευτή), it is necessary that there always be time on both sides of it.”166 The Aristotelian φυσικός thinks wholly within the horizon of the present moment, which leads to the conclusion that the motion of the cosmos extends in both directions with neither beginning nor end. Beginning and end concentrate on the “mid-point” (µεσότης) that is “the now,” whereas both sides of the now extend indefinitely forever.

165

Phys. VIII.1, 251a16-27.

166

Phys. VIII.1, 251b10-28.

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We see in this structure of realities and world a powerful fusion of temporality and immediacy on the one hand, and the eternal realm of the ultimate on the other, and this is characteristic of Aristotle’s approach to nature. We can see this fusion clearly in his works on animals. The beginning of the De partibus animalium has been pointed to as particularly indicative of how Aristotle understands the dynamics of natural contemplation.167 “Things constituted by nature” (τῶν οὐσιῶν ὅσαι φύσει συνεστᾶσι), whether “ungenerated, imperishable, and eternal” (heavenly phenomena) or “participating in generation and corruption” (earthly realities), are a source of pleasure for the philosopher in contemplation (κατὰ θεωρίαν) when “the fashioning nature (ἡ δηµιουργήσασα φύσις) provides exceedingly profound pleasures to those who are able to discover causes and are philosophical by nature.”168 He goes on: There is something wonderful in all natural realities. As Heraclitus is supposed to have said to the foreigners who wanted to find him: when they came upon him warming himself at the oven in the kitchen they stopped, but Heraclitus told them to enter in full confidence, for gods were there as well. Thus, we must approach the inquiry of all living things without shame, for there is something natural and beautiful in all of them.169 The contemplation of natural phenomena is directed towards the pleasure the mind takes from observing the beautiful arrangement of things in their causal chains and in their own inner coherence and this discipline of study applies to both the “lower” realm of beings that undergo generation and decay and to the “higher” realm of the divine heavens. In

167

See Heidegger, Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy, 140-161; Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy?, 82-85. 168

De partibus animalium. 645a8-10, Aristotelis De partibus animamlium libri quattor, ed. Immanuel Bekker (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1829). 169

De part. an. 645a16-23.

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fact, as he tells us in De motu animalium, these two realms are ultimately linked by the same dynamic of cosmic motion, so that the animal is both a component of the cosmic action of motion that rests ultimately on the unmoved mover and is also itself a recapitulation, writ small, of this process since its motion presupposes points of motionlessness around which and against which its motion can proceed—Aristotle gives the example of limbs pivoting around a motionless joint.170 In this way Aristotle provides a continuity of natural philosophy that reaches from the lowest components of the cosmos all the way up to the highest realities in the eternal heavens and it is this that draws the intensity of desire and pleasure into every aspect of natural contemplation. V. The Stoics: Nature and Life We observe amongst the Stoics a fusion of the various elements of philosophy which have been moving together so far in our enquiry—nature, politics, ethics, the divine—but which have not so clearly melded into each other. In the Stoic concept of cosmic divine reason, we see theology, cosmology, and ethics speaking at the same time, or at least trying to do so. I noted the “mixed transmission” of the different parts of philosophy amongst some of the Stoics in the Introduction to this work and it is indeed the Stoics who are the most consistent representatives of the theme we have been tracing in this chapter, that is the place of the contemplation of nature within the philosophic life. For the sake of coherence, I shall use the Cleanthean Hymn to Zeus171 as a lodestone for this analysis of the Stoic conception of the contemplation of nature, for it provides us a 170

De motu an. 698a-700a25; see Nussbaum, Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium, 121-142.

171

Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus: Text, Translation, and Commentary, ed. Johan Thom (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2005); Stoic texts other than Cleanthes’ Hymn are taken from Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers.

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tightly expressed précis of Stoic doctrine in a form that expresses the unity of philosophy on the Stoic model. According to Johan Thom, in his edition of Cleanthes’ Hymn, the hymn falls into a traditional 3—part structure for cultic poetry, consisting of 1.) Invocation (lines 1-6); 2.) Argument (lines 7-31); and 3.) Prayer (lines 32-39). Within this structure, he notes that the invocation and prayer sections form an inclusio, wherein themes of praise of Zeus and his governance and the role of human beings mirror one another. In the argument itself, there is a basic chiastic structure if we take the first section, which treats the governance of Zeus, as contrasting the third section, which describes human resistance to the natural order. This leaves the middle section, lines 18-21, where Cleanthes describes Zeus as bringing order out of chaos and harmonizing the evil into one all encompassing good, as the structural and conceptual heart of the hymn. It is also the most problematic from the Stoic philosophical point of view, since the notion of actual human recalcitrance in the face of the fixed universal or common law (κοινὸς νόµος) raises questions as to the nature of Stoic determinism and cosmic coherence, and of natural contemplation more generally. Stoic “theology” was a subset of the general science of physics, since “the object of Stoic theology was the governing principle of the cosmos, insofar as this could also be labeled ‘god.’”172 However, Cleanthes seems to have considered theology as a discrete discipline itself, since, as Diogenes Laertius reports, he, like other successors to Zeno, composed a treatise περὶ θεῶν. Indeed, as we shall see, the address to Zeus in the Hymn

172

Keimpre Algra, “Stoic Theology,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics ed. Brad Inwood (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 153.

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is very theistic in content and raises questions with respect to the technicalities of the Stoic cosmology. The first lines of the invocation address Zeus as “most glorious among the immortals, many named, eternal ruler of all,” as “the founder of nature who governs all things with law.” Most of these names are traditional epithets of Zeus from the poetic tradition, but the notions of Zeus as “founder of nature” (φύσεως ἀρχηγέ), and as the one who “rules all things with law” (νόµου µέτα πάντα κυβερνῶν) certainly establish the Stoic mode under which Zeus will be identified and praised. Even the title “many named” should, in light of the standard Stoic definition of god given by Diogenes Laertius, where he mentions that god “pervades all things” and is “called by many names,” be taken in this particularly Stoic way.173 Cleanthes then affirms the kinship of humanity to the divine, saying “We alone are a race sprung from you” (ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ γένος ἐσµὲν… /µοῦνοι),174 referring to the fact that, compared with all the other mortal creatures on earth, humans are rational. Cleanthes then starts the argument section of the hymn, writing, This whole ordered universe (κόσµος) which spins about the earth Obeys you in whatever way you lead it, and it is willingly ruled by you. Zeus is endowed with his traditional “fiery thunderbolt/ by whose strike all works of nature [are guided].”175 It is with this thunderbolt that Zeus “direct[s] universal reason (κοινὸν λόγον), which permeates (φοιτᾷ) all things, being mingled (µειγνύµενος) with 173

DL VII.147; Long and Sedley, 54A.

174

The text is contested here, but the portion of the line I have quoted, at least its sense, is fairly well established. 175

The bracketed phrase is a conjecture noted by Thom.

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great and small lights.” This is the content of Zeus’ rule and forms the most distinctively Stoic element of the cosmology of the Hymn. In Diogenus Laertius’ report of the Stoic notion of “life in agreement with nature,” he summarizes the Stoic view that this life consists of refraining “from every action forbidden by the law common to all things (ὁ νόµος ὁ κοινός), which is the right reason (ὁ ὀρθὸς λόγος) which pervades all things (διὰ πάντων ἐρχόµενος), and is identical with Zeus.” 176 The governing principle of the cosmos, which in various contexts could be referred to as “fire, governing principle (ἡγεµονικόν), spirit, God, intellect (νοῦς), seed (σπέρµα), ἕξις, or intensifying motion (τονικὴ κίνησις),”177 fills it with rationality. It is a “power which pervades” (πεφοίτηκεν) the universe, giving it form and structure.178 Likewise, on the report of Alexander of Aphrodisias, “they say that god is mixed with matter, pervading all of it and so shaping it, structuring it, and making it into the world.”179 In other passages we see that god and the world itself appear to be co-terminus: “Zeno says that the whole world and heaven are the substance (οὐσίαν) of God, and likewise Chrysippus…and Posidonius.”180 Cicero reports the position of Chryssipus, who says divine power resides in reason and in the mind and intellect of universal nature. He says that god is the world itself, and the universal persuasiveness of its mind; also that he is the world’s own commandingfaculty, since he is located in intellect and reason; that he is the common nature of things, universal and all-embracing; also the force of fate and the 176

DL VII.87ff.; Long and Sedley, 63C.

177

Michael White, “Stoic Natural Philosophy (Physics and Cosmology),” in The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics ed. Brad Inwood (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 136. 178

Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors, 9.75-76; Long and Sedley, 44C.

179

Long and Sedley, 45H.

180

DL VII.148; Long and Sedley, 43A.

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necessity of future events. In addition he is fire; and the ether…also things in a natural state of flux and mobility, like water, air, earth, sun, moon and stars; and the all-embracing whole; and even those men who have attained immortality.181 We observe, then, a range of Stoic expression with respect to god and world. On the one hand, god, or the cosmic principle of rationality, may be taken as filling the world, infusing it “from the outside,” as it were, in a total mixture of bodies. However, the notion of a rational principle separate from the world would seem to run contrary to Stoic teaching of cosmic monism and coherence. Thus, god is simply identified with the world. This dialectic may be attributed to Stoic notions of the cosmic cycle and conflagration. In his Contra Celsum, Origen notes that “the god of the Stoics has the whole of substance as its controlling principle, whenever there is the conflagration.”182 And Plutarch quoting Chryssipus reports, “When the world is fiery through and through, it is directly both its own soul and commanding-faculty.”183 Thus, at the conflagration, everything is consumed by god the fire of rationality and so, on the one hand, everything is identical with god as fire, but on the other, the other elements of the cosmos—water, air, earth— are distinguished from it in that they will come to be precipitated once again at the onset of the new cosmic cycle. When this takes place, god is more appropriately said to “pervade” the cosmos as the infused governing rational principle. To return to the Hymn, Cleanthes continues with the related idea of the providence and determined will of God: “Nothing is done on earth without you, spirit,/ neither in the divine etherial sphere, nor in the sea/ except such things as the wicked do in 181

Cicero, On the nature of the gods; Long and Sedley , 54B.

182

Origen, Contra Celsum IV.14; cited by White , “Stoic Natural Philosophy,” 134.

183

Long and Sedley, 46F.

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their own ignorance” (15-17). Here we have an indication of what has been called “soft determinism,”184 i.e. a notion of the fixedness of cosmic causality that nevertheless makes room for human agency—“what is up to us” (τὸ ἐφ᾽ ἡµῖν)— on the ethical level. Before we approach this question directly, we should attend to the most basic expression of the Stoic conception of the goal of life. Virtue is the only good on the Stoic view and so its acquisition is the goal of life. Underlying this is the notion that the end of life is “living in agreement with nature” (ὁµολογουµένως τῇ φύσει ζῆν). This concept has had a certain history of development with respect to its exact expression. Stobaeus reports that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, originally said simply that the end of life was “to live in agreement” (τὸ ὁµολογουµένως ζῆν), which Stobaeus takes to mean “living in accordance with one concordant reason, since those who live in conflict are unhappy.” Zeno’s successors, however, sought to fill out the statement: Cleanthes added the phrase “with nature,” and Chrysippus augmented it further, saying that the end of life is “living in accordance with experience of what happens by nature” (ζῆν κατ᾽ ἐµπειρίαν τῶν φύσει συµβαινόντων).185 Diogenes Laertius specifies that this living in agreement with nature is “the virtuous life” (VII.87), since “virtue is the goal towards which nature guides us.”186 Diogenes cites the Chrysippian version of the phrase, and then goes on to explain why this is the goal of life: for our individual natures are parts of the nature of the whole universe (µέρη γάρ εἰσιν αἱ ἡµέτεραι φύσεις τῆς τοῦ ὅλου). And this is why the end may be defined as life in accordance with nature, or, in other words, in accordance with our own human nature as well as that of the universe, a 184

White, “Stoic Natural Philosophy,” 144.

185

Long and Sedley, 63B.

186

DL VII.87; Long and Sedley, 63C.

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life in which we refrain from every action forbidden by the law common to all things, that is to say, the right reason (ὁ ὀρθὸς λόγος) which pervades all things, and is identical with Zeus, this lord and ruler of all that is. In these variations on the theme of “living in agreement,” we see the coherence of ethics and natural philosophy (which is also theology) in Stoic thought. The ethical subject, as fully involved in the nature of the cosmos, finds its end in conformity to the rationality inherent in the cosmos, identified with Zeus here. However, it is one thing to assert that human beings are a part of nature and thus are bound by its laws, and quite another to exhort humans to live in accordance with nature. The question immediately arises: if nature and the cosmos are bound by ineluctable laws of causality and fate, is there any moral agency and responsibility to exhort? Or, to put the question in the terms of the Hymn to Zeus, how is it that there are certain things that fall outside of Zeus’ all-encompassing providence, and why supplicate him for help in attaining conformity to his understanding if all things were already directed by him? This would seem to place certain realities outside of the unified horizon of the world. The Stoics attempted to preserve a compatibilist point of view with respect to this question, i.e. a view that rendered notions of human responsibility as compatible with “a general physical and teleological determinism.”187 Though the sources are conflicting (and sometimes hostile) in their accounts, it seems that the basic Stoic strategy for preserving a notion of human moral autonomy within the context of cosmic determinism was to make a distinction in the notion of causality with respect to human action between 187

Dorothea Frede, “Stoic Determinism,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics ed. Brad Inwood (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 192. Much of the following discussion of causality relies upon this essay.

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an “antecedent,” or “external” cause and a “principal,” or “internal cause.” Before explaining the dynamics of this distinction, we must first note that the notion of Stoic causality itself does not describe a straight-forward linear progression of cause and effect. Rather, something is a cause only if it is corporeal and actively involved in the production of a certain state. The effect is an incorporeal predication of the affected body, and thus cannot, in turn, act as a cause on something else. To refer to an example from Sextus Empiricus in explanation of the distinction, fire (a body) acts as a cause on wood (a body) of the predicate, “being burned” (an incorporeal).188 Fate, then, is not a chain of cause and effect, but a collection of causes (bodies) acting upon one another, expressing an interlocking web rather than a chain. It is within this conception of causality that the Stoic distinction between external and internal causes of human behavior seeks to account for human autonomy within a causally determined universe. The Stoics affirmed that human action is a part of the web of causality in the universe, and they maintained that identical inner and outer conditions would produce identical actions, with any variation indicating some difference, however slight, in circumstances. Given the fixity of one’s inner state at any given moment, critics of the Stoics would argue that an external stimulus would elicit an automatic response so that human autonomy would be compromised. In response to this critique, as Cicero reports, the Stoics gave the example of a “rolling cylinder” or “spinning top” to illustrate the workings of external and internal causality: “But then he resorts to his cylinder and his spinning top: these cannot start moving without an impulse; but once this has been 188

Frede, “Stoic Determinism,” 189.

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received, he holds, for the rest it is through their own nature that the cylinder rolls and the top spins around.”189 The goal of the example is to maintain the reality of both the external and the internal cause so that the action, while (pre-)determined, admits of an autonomous status of the object. So, in the case of the cylinder, it requires something external to it to move it (someone or something pushing it, for example), but the subsequent motion is due to the nature of the cylinder itself, i.e. it rolls in virtue of its own shape. Now, if we transpose the principles of this example to the human realm, keeping in mind that the point of the example is to emphasis the determinative status of the inner nature of the object, we see how the Stoics thought themselves able to hold together cosmic determinism and human moral responsibility. In the case of the cylinder, the motivating force, as Cicero explains, does not grant the cylinder the ability to roll; it simply provides it with the necessary energy. An identical push applied to a cube would produce a different result. Roundness and “rollability” are internal to the nature of the cylinder. In the case of human beings, the power of assent is internal to our nature. Thus, as Cicero continues, quoting Chrysippus, “a visible object makes an impression and seals, as it were, its image in the mind, but assent will be in our power.”190 The corollary in human nature to the cylinder’s roundness and ability to perpetuate its own movement for a time once it has received a motivating force is the ability to receive sensory impressions and either assent or withhold assent. Within this model, the Stoics held that given the same external stimuli and the same inner disposition, an individual will always give 189

Cicero, De fato 42; cited in Frede, “Stoic Determinism,” 193.

190

Cicero, On fate 43; cited in Frede, “Stoic Determinism,” 195.

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assent in the same way and yet were able, they thought, to preserve the reality of moral exhortation and striving. Does this preserve human autonomy in a way that makes Cleanthes’ Hymn coherent? Can the deeds of the wicked really be done “without” Zeus? If so, how, and if not, how can they meaningfully be called wicked and be hoped to change? It seems that our actions are determined by our internal makeup—who we are—and this, it seems, is not up to us. To approach this question, Dorothea Frede reminds us that we must bear in mind the nature of the cosmic rational principle, identified with Zeus. This principle is “immersed in nature,” and is nature itself.191 As we noted above, the discourse of theology coincides with natural philosophy. It is thus not an external power directing things from afar, but is rather itself the principle of cosmic activity. Thus, a person’s actions are not “pre-ordained” by a transcendent being who chooses the way things will be. Rather, the divine permeates all things and thus brings things about according to its own principle, which is rational and determined. In light of this, Frede argues that the treatment of humans as autonomous arises out of human ignorance of the complex web of cosmic causality, knowledge of which would make the rationality of the universe transparent to us. As it is, we do not have such knowledge, but through the practice of philosophy and through experience, we can come to a deeper understanding of the ways of nature, and so learn to live “in agreement.” Cleanthes provides a slightly different focus to this, which is a function, in part, of the genre of the Hymn. Zeus is able “to order that which is disordered” and to bring good

191

Frede, “Stoic Determinism,” 201-202.

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and evil into one, “so that there comes to be an ever existing rational order of all things” (εἰς ἕν πάντα συνήρµοκας ἐσθλὰ κακοῖσιν / ὥσθ᾽ ἕνα γίγνεσθαι πάντων λόγον αἰὲν ἐόντα), in confirmation of the general Stoic notion that the universe is unified and must be as it is because, as rationally ordered, it could not be better. Though the wicked fight against this order by their desires and actions, seeking glory or wealth at the expense of conformity to reason, the Hymn’s concluding supplication is motivated by the possibility that these wicked ones may be brought out of their ignorance to a way of thinking (γνώµη) conformable to the universal law. As Cleanthes puts it, “Grant them to obtain/ the understanding (γνώµη) on which you rely when you order all things with justice” (34-35). The goal here is to come to a knowledge of the just order of the cosmos, with the outcome that those who acquire this understanding and obey “God’s universal law” (θεοῦ κοινὸν νόµον; 24) “will have a good life with understanding.” Indeed, to understand the world of nature as the immanent elaboration of God is to live in agreement with it and virtue itself becomes the answer to the problem of how the philosophical life as praxis and contemplation holds together. In the monistic universe of the Stoics, the knowledge of contemplation just is virtue. VI. Plotinus: Nature and Contemplation In Plotinus we observe a decisive synthesis and expression of many of the strands of ancient Greek thinking that we have observed thus far, which culminate in Plotinus’ “playful” expression that “nature possesses contemplation in itself” and in this way produces the world. We thus conclude this survey of Greek philosophical views of nature with the alignment of nature and contemplation in Plotinus, an alignment that will show how Plotinus integrates the contemplation of nature into his philosophy of Intellect and 96

the One. From the opening words of Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus, one might have thought that Plotinus of all men was most uncomfortable in the world: “Plotinus, the philosopher of our times, seemed ashamed of being in the body.” 192 Indeed, if Porphyry’s narrative is true, φύσις was a burden to Plotinus, that which bound him to the weight of materiality. In response to a request that he sit for a portrait, Plotinus replies, “Is it not enough to have to carry the image in which nature (φύσις) has encased us, without your requesting me to agree to leave behind me a longer-lasting image of the image…?” On the other hand, Plotinus was obviously deeply moved by the beauty and order of the cosmos and argued vigorously against the anti-cosmic speculations of the Gnostics in a series of treatises that we shall analyze below. It is this position between world-denying Gnosticism on the one hand and the materialism of Epicurus or the Stoics on the other combined with the intensity of his contemplation of God or the One that sets Plotinus as a crucial philosophical voice alongside or in anticipation of the Christian fathers. His assumption of all practical concerns (πρᾶξις) to the ultimate horizon of contemplation (θεωρία) makes him particularly important as background to how Maximus argues for the unity of the philosophic life. To return to the beginning of our inquiry, the ambivalence, even mistrust, of natural things hangs as a threatening cloud over the thought of Parmenides: When one makes as total a judgment as does Parmenides about the whole of the world, one ceases to be a scientist, an investigator into any of the world’s parts. One’s sympathy toward phenomena atrophies; one even develops a hatred for phenomena including oneself, a hatred for being unable to get rid of the everlasting deceitfulness of sensation. Henceforward truth shall live only in the palest, most abstracted 192

Vita Plotinii I.1-2, Plotini Opera, ed. Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964); I use and freely modify A. H. Armstrong’s translation throughout.

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generalities, in the empty husks of the most indefinite terms, as though in a house of cobwebs.193 This ambivalence is nascent in Plato, basically absent in Aristotle, and incompatible with the monism of the Stoics. In Plotinus, this ambivalence comes forward in the two different aspects under which he views the world. “In contrast to [the Gnostics],” writes Bréhier, “he makes the most of the beauty of the world, of Providence, and to such an extent that one wonders how his praise, which seems to be made without any reservation, is compatible with his description of the world as the land of exile and the habitation of evil.”194 There is the straight-forward, if derivative, beauty of the material world of the treatise On beauty;195 there is also matter as shadow obscuring the beauty of true form.196 “The nature of the all,” writes Plotinus, “is a god if it is reckoned as the soul separated [from the body], whereas the rest is a great daemon, says Plato, and what happens in it is daemonic.”197 The world in its bare materiality is a daemon—like Eros in the Symposium—the object of “a sort of bastard reasoning,” half-way between knowledge and opinion. It can, and often does, lead one away from intellectual truth, but as endowed with soul, it is a god, a divine reality leading one on to the true reality of the forms. The Plotinian φυσικός finds himself within a beautiful and harmonious world but this beauty

193

Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, trans. Marianne Cowan (Washington D.C.: Regnery, 1962), 79. 194

Émile Bréhier The Philosophy of Plotinus, trans. Joseph Thomas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 170. Jonathan Scott Lee is critical of Bréhier’s account of Plotinian physics: “The Practice of Plotinian Physics,” in Neoplatonism and Nature: Studies in Plotinus’ Enneads, ed. Michael F. Wagner (Albany: SUNY Press, 2002), 38ff. 195

I.6.1-3.

196

VI.3.8.

197

II.3.9.

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and harmony is observable in a material substrate that is not “really real” (ὄντως ὄν); φύσις itself, as the lower part of Soul, is what produces material objects and so is immersed in the realm of the not-really-real. Any philosophical account of such a concept is therefore surrounded by difficulties. Despite the apparent uncertainty of Plotinian “physics,” Porphyry discerned in 18 of the 64 treatises of Plotinus doctrines that are largely concerned with what Porphyry considered to be natural philosophy (τὰ φυσικά) and grouped them together as the second and third enneads.198 Plotinus does make a brief, but significant, reference to natural philosophy in the short treatise On dialectic (I.3), which Porphyry placed in the first ennead “on ethical issues” (ἠθικωτέρας ὑποθέσεις). Dialectic, as the “method or practice” (µέθοδος ἢ ἐπιτήδευσις) proper to the philosopher, leads the philosopher up to the Good “to which we must find our way” (ἡµᾶς οἷ δεῖ πορευθῆναι ἀνάγει).199 It is within the way of dialectic that the philosopher is enabled to give an account of each thing in accordance with “knowledge” (ἐπιστήµῃ) and not “opinion” (δόξα), and to attain to silent unity in the realm of intellect beyond that of the senses. It leads to a gaze (βλέπει) that goes beyond “what is called discursive rational activity” (τὴν λεγοµένην λογικὴν πραγµατείαν);200 it is philosophy’s “valuable part.” Plotinus goes on, however, to speak of the other parts of philosophy: “[Philosophy] also engages in the contemplation of nature (περὶ φύσεως θεωρεῖ) with the assistance of dialectic, just as other arts make use of arithmetic, though philosophy stands nearer to dialectic when it contemplates nature” (I.3.6.2-5). The contemplation of nature is related to dialectic in that 198

Vita Plot. 24.37-39.

199

I.3.1.1-2.

200

I.3.4.

99

it makes distinctions concerning earthly phenomena in the realm of generation and corruption in a contemplation that has as its natural consequence the ascent to the contemplation of the forms of true being and ultimately the silent vision of unity. As we shall see, Plotinus will reject any discursiveness in the formation of the world by nature and this will have consequences for how he relates knowledge of the natural world to the non-discursive contemplation of the One. Plotinus gives a meditation on the vital dynamic of the ascent to Intellect and ultimately the One in the treatise On Nature and Contemplation and the One (III.8). This is the first of a series of four treatises that, Porphyry tells us, were written in succession (numbers 30-33 in the chronological order) but which he separated (as III.8, V.8, V.5, and II.9) to fit his organizational scheme for the Enneads. The sequence of texts, which culminates in his critique of Gnosticism, gives a full, if at times only suggestive, picture of how Plotinus regards the material cosmos within the context of his philosophy. This section will treat the thought contained in this series of treatises as constitutive of a single train of thought and although Porphyry did not place the second and third parts (V.8 and V.5) in the books of the Enneads devoted to τὰ φυσικά, their contents obviously pertained to the theme in Plotinus’ own mind. The treatise On Nature and Contemplation and the One (III.8) gives a brief but clear exposition of Plotinus’ vision of the contemplative ascent from nature to soul and finally to intellect. Plotinus has in his mind the all-encompassing reality of contemplation (θεωρία) and gives in III.8 an account of how contemplation is present at the various levels of reality, beginning with “the earth itself, trees, and plants in general,” which are the products of φύσις. What Plotinus wants ultimately to say is that “nature is

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contemplation” in fulfillment of the idea that all things are the result of and for the sake of contemplation. Moreover, his aim is to transcend the structure of a subject regarding an external object to the place where nature and contemplator are one in contemplation itself.201 This is, of course, a summary of what we find in Aristotle, and indeed the whole treatise, as we shall see, in addition to answering the Timaeus, should be read with reference to Aristotle’s Metaphysics Λ, where the apex of being is thought thinking itself. Because nature participates in soul, which in turn derives from intellect, the whole of what exists is thought; it is not so much that nature is an object of contemplation as that it, along with everything, is one in contemplation. It is clear that nature does not possess (οὐκ ἔχει) contemplation in the same way that a being endowed with reason and the ability to form mental images does. Nevertheless, Plotinus will show in what way nature has “contemplation within itself, and makes what it makes by contemplation,”202 and in so doing provides the basis upon which natural contemplation, as the realization of unity out of multiplicity, may be actualized. Plotinus’ mind immediately—and Porphyry has told us that Plotinus wrote his works straight out, with no revisions—excludes the notion of mechanistic shaping or force (ὠθισµός, µοχλεία) from nature’s productivity. Nature’s “craftsmanship” (δηµιουργία), then, is not analogous to the procuring and shaping of materials by “waxworkers” (κηροπλάσται).203 Despite the rejection of the analogy between nature and human craftsmanship, there is nevertheless for Plotinus a fundamental similarity between

201

Cf. III.8.6.

202

III.8.1.22-24.

203

III.8.2.6; this is the term used by Plato in reference to the fashioner of the human body, Timaeus 74c.

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the plastic arts and the productivity of nature on which those who seek to compare the two should concentrate. Just as artisans require some “unmoved” reality within themselves from which to fashion their works—a formal basis for their productivity—so too does nature require an unmoved “producing power” (τὴν δύναµιν τὴν ποιοῦσαν) to give coherence to ever-changing matter. This power of nature is defined by Plotinus as the λόγος, translated by Armstrong here as “forming principle;”204 indeed nature is a form and principle and is not composed of matter but rather makes matter what it is: “For it is not fire that must come forth in order for matter to become fire, but the forming principle.”205 From this Plotinus reasons that it is these principles that produce (τοὺς λόγους εἶναι τοὺς ποιοῦντας) plants and animals, “and nature is a forming principle, which makes another principle as its offspring, thereby giving something to the underlying reality while remaining identical to itself (δόντα µέν τι τῷ ὑποκειµένῳ, µένοντα δ᾽ αὐτόν).”206 This second principle is what exists in reference to the “visible shape” and is itself unable to produce more principles that in turn could confer outward form on matter. This is something of a demythologization of the Timaeus where the Demiurge entrusts the work of material creation to lower deities, and serves to maintain nature in its immateriality and yet provide an explanation for how it confers form on matter. Plotinus goes on, then, to draw nature into the realm of contemplation. He begins by asserting, “if [nature] remains [unmoved] when it produces, remains within itself, and is a forming

204

III.8.2.28-29.

205

III.8.2.25-27.

206

III.8.2.27-29.

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principle, then it must itself be contemplation.”207 Plotinus is thinking within the distinction between activity and contemplation, πρᾶξις καὶ θεωρία, which sees that which remains stable in itself as contemplation, as distinct from that which actively moves. Nature, therefore, produces “natural things” as a result of “contemplation” insofar as it is “not action, but λόγος”:208 “the final aspect (ὁ ἔσχατος) of every λόγος comes from contemplation and is itself contemplation in that it is contemplated.”209 Prior to contemplation in this structure is Soul, which is “above” nature. In this way, nature is, for Plotinus, bound to soul in the λόγος that is in them both in different ways. Plotinus will elaborate this relationship further on in the series of treatises. At this stage Plotinus must still give an account of how (πῶς) nature can be understood to be contemplation. It does not have contemplation in the sense of existing as a reasoning (ἐκ λόγου) or examining (τὸ σκοπεῖσθαι) being. Nature is, however, life (ζωή), λόγος, and productive power (δύναµις ποιοῦσα). It is what it is by making: “it makes by being contemplation, contemplated, and λόγος.”210 Nature’s making, then, is contemplation. It is a productive (ποιεῖ), abiding contemplation (µενούσης θεωρίας) that “does not actively do anything other than make by being contemplation” (οὐκ ἄλλο τι πραξάσης, ἀλλὰ τῷ εἶναι θεωρία ποιησάσης).211 We are still at the level of the expression of Plotinus’ idea. To go further, Plotinus, still in the spirit of “play” with

207

III.8.3.2-3.

208

III.8.3.6.

209

III.8.3.7-8.

210

III.8.3.19-20.

211

III.8.3.22-23.

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which he began the treatise, gives over the discourse to Nature herself, to whom he poses the question of why (τίνος ἕνεκα) she makes anything. The response is significant and turns the discussion in a new direction: You ought not to ask, but to understand in silence, you, too, just as I am silent and not in the habit of talking. Understand what, then? That what comes into being is what I see in my silence, an object of contemplation which comes to be naturally, and that I, originating from this sort of contemplation have a contemplative nature. And my act of contemplation makes what it contemplates, as the geometers draw their figures while they contemplate. But I do not draw, but as I contemplate, the lines which bound bodies come to be as if they fell from my contemplation. What happens to me is what happens to my mother and the beings that generated me, for they, too, derive from contemplation, and it is no action of theirs which brings about my birth; they are greater rational principles, and as they contemplate themselves I come to be.212 Plotinus explains this speech by asserting that nature, as offspring of a higher and stronger soul, maintains itself in vision and repose and does not go out of itself to acquire and produce. It has a kind of “consciousness and self-perception” (τῇ συνέσει καὶ συναισθήσει), which is, however, different from other beings in the way that the perception of someone asleep is different from that of someone who is awake. Nevertheless, “[nature] is at rest in contemplation of the vision of itself, a vision which comes to it from its abiding in and with itself and being itself a vision.”213 Its vision is somewhat unclear, since it is the “image (εἴδωλον) of a different contemplation,” of a contemplation that pertains to the higher realities of the higher soul. The weakness of nature—that is, its status as an image of a higher contemplation—is revealed by the fact that it brings the contents of its contemplation into being by making them, just as “men, too, when their power of contemplation weakens, 212

III.8.4.3-14.

213

III.8.4.25-27.

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make action a shadow of contemplation and reasoning.”214 Their intellect fails to see the vision (τὸ θέαµα) and so they want to produce a visible manifestation of it, for themselves and for others. The result of the production of an object is either due to weakness on the part of the one trying to contemplate (as has just been described) or is simply a natural consequence, if the one who has made something had already seen a superior object of contemplation before producing the lower image. The result of this exercise of playful thinking has been to draw contemplation and nature into unity so that the two terms of “the contemplation of nature” become one. The next stage is for the “wise man” to become one, or be understood as one, with this contemplative nature, and Plotinus goes on to describe this through the sequence of treatises. He writes in III.8.6, The truly dedicated person (ὁ σπουδαῖος) has, therefore, already finished reasoning when he makes manifest to another what he has in himself, while in relation to himself he is vision. For he is already toward what is one and what is silent, not only concerning things outside himself, but also of what relates to himself, and everything is within him.215 This powerful passage comes at the end of a section of the treatise in which Plotinus contrasts the “active man” to the soul in contemplation according to the same dynamic we have just observed with respect to the desire to see physically what one fails to contemplate intellectually. In the course of this discussion, Plotinus asserts the unity of knower and known by the process of the soul’s assimilation to the object of its perception. Because the soul is not “completely full”216 it still regards and makes

214

III.8.4.31-32.

215

III.8.6.37-40.

216

III.8.6.26.

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utterances (προφέρει) about its objects as objects, as other than itself. Its level of contemplation and silence is greater than that of nature because it is fuller than nature, although it has room to progress towards greater unity. In the σπουδαῖος, who is pursuing intellectual vision, the two are directed towards unity and the σπουδαῖος thus begins to realize the Parmenidean insight that “thinking and being are the same.”217 With Plotinus, then, we come again to the beginning of our question of the place of natural contemplation in ancient Greek thought. The fundamental insight that the one who thinks is one with the world of what is thought—or at least, that the attainment of this unity is the purpose of philosophy—has manifested itself in different ways from Parmenides to Plotinus, but the intuition is a thread that binds all of our thinkers together in one way or another, and is the key to understanding how they understand θεωρία φυσική, which is to say, how the world of coming to be and passing away—φύσις—relates to being. To elaborate on this question, Plotinus refers to “this beautiful universe (ὁ καλὸς οὗτος κόσµος)” as the “shadow and image (σκία καὶ εἰκών)”218 of the beautiful intellect, whose content is being. The Plotinian ascent to intellect and the contemplation of the One thus begin with the perception of the beauty of the physical world, which leads one to wonder about its maker. The same disposition of wonder is repeated as contemplation ascends from the world to nature and soul and finally to intellect where intellect is “full (κόρος)” of the One. Plotinus continues with this theme of the cosmos as image of intellect in the next section of the four-part treatise, On Intelligible Beauty (V.8). It should be remembered 217

III.8.8.8.

218

III.8.11.29-30.

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that his thinking here is directed ultimately against the Gnostics, who rejected any participation of the physical world in the Good. Plotinus therefore sought to demonstrate how nature is connected to intellect as an image to its archetype. He begins with our perception of beauty in the world and argues that this beauty derives not from its matter but from its form (εἶδος). It is, after all, the form—and not the matter—that we receive into ourselves in perception.219 The source of the beauty we see in bodies is a “λόγος in nature,” which is “the archetype of bodily beauty (κάλλους ἀρχέτυπος τοῦ ἐν σώµατι).” The λόγος in Nature, which is more beautiful than the beauty of bodies, derives from the λόγος of Soul, and the primary principle of all beauty is Intellect. The sensible world as product of nature thus derives its beauty ultimately from the intelligible. Plotinus introduces the concept of wisdom as the content of the ceaseless contemplation of Intellect. The wisdom of Intellect is “not acquired by reasonings (λογισµοῖς)” but is wisdom itself.220 This wisdom “possesses with it and has made what really is (τὰ ὄντα)” and “is itself what really is, which have come to be along with it so that both are one and substance there [in Intellect] is wisdom.”221 We do not understand this reality of wisdom because “we think that the branches of knowledge (τὰς ἐπιστήµας) are made up of theorems (θεωρήµατα) and a collection of propositions (συµφόρησιν προτάσεων).”222 Being on the level of Intellect, which is to say being in

219

Cf. V.8.2.

220

V.8.4.36-40.

221

V.8.4.45-48.

222

V.8.4.48-50.

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the true sense, is non-discursive and non-deliberative.223 Wisdom, which is its content, is thus not discovered through a train of syllogisms. But then Plotinus goes on to say that knowledge in the material world of nature (ἐν ταῖς ἐνταῦθα ἐπιστήµαις) is not characterized by theorems and propositions either.224 In this sense the natural world “manifests the non-discursiveness (τὴν οὐ διέξοδον)” of the intelligible world, like the hieroglyphs that adorn the Egyptian temples: it communicates without letters, words, and propositions, which are only utilized after the fact.225 Visible beauty, which derives from form and ultimately from the beauty of Intellect, “exists before research and before reasoning (πρὸ ζητήσεως καὶ πρὸ λογισµοῦ).” The universe (τὸ πᾶν) is not the result of deliberation and planning (ἐπίνοια) on the part of the one who made it (ὁ ποιητής). It is not constructed by force with “pulleys” and “levers.” There is rather an immediate—or Soul-mediated—imaging forth of intellectual reality so that even matter “is something of a final form (εἶδός τι ἔσχατον),” so close is the archetypal intellectual reality to its manifestation as the natural world. Because of this, Plotinus can say that “the whole universe is form and all things are forms for the archetype is form.”226 Continuing the theme of the manifestation of non-discursiveness in the natural world, Plotinus argues, You can explain the reason why the earth is in the middle, and round, and why the ecliptic slants as it does; but it is not because you can do this that things are so There [on the level of intelligible reality]; they were not planned like this because it was necessary for them to be like this, but 223

V.8.6.7-9.

224

V.8.4.50-51.

225

V.8.6.1-7.

226

V.8.7.23-24.

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because things There are disposed as they are, the things here are beautifully disposed: as if the conclusion was there before the syllogism which showed the cause, and did not follow from the premises.227 The order of the world, its form in Intellect, exists “before logical sequence (πρὸ ἀκολουθίας) and planning (πρὸ ἐπινοίας)”228 and it is for this reason that Plotinus has asserted that the world makes known its fundamentally non-discursive, non-propositional source: true knowledge, even here below, is not composed of “theorems and a collection of propositions.” Those who behold the beauty of the world may not be aware of this and may not know that the world is beautiful because of its paradigm, the intellectual beauty,229 but this is in fact the case. What is it, then, to think about the world, to “take it in thought (λάβωµεν τῇ διανοίᾳ)”? Plotinus gives a description of a contemplative progression from this natural universe to the intelligible beauty that is its ultimate form in which we gather all of the parts of the cosmos together into one as far as we can, so that when any one part appears first, for instance the outside heavenly sphere, the apparition of the sun and, with it, the other heavenly bodies follows immediately, and the earth and sea and all the living creatures are seen.230 Plotinus gathers all of these things within an imaginary “transparent sphere” so that they may be thought of all at once. He then introduces another imaginary sphere and instructs us to remove “mass (τὸν ὄγκον),” “place (τοὺς τόπους),” and “the mental image of matter (τὸ τῆς ὕλης φάντασµα)” in order to clear the way for the emergence of the

227

V.8.7.36-41.

228

V.8.7.42-43.

229

V.8.8.13-15.

230

V.8.9.2-6.

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divine and unified intellectual reality that defines the cosmos in its beauty.231 It is the bodily element that limits the cosmos; its generative and destructive powers—“fire and other bodies”— are themselves subject to generation and destruction, whereas the power of the intelligible realm is all “being (τὸ εἶναι)” and “being beautiful (τὸ καλὸν εἶναι).”232 Indeed, the substance of intelligible reality is identical with its beauty, whereas the beauty of the natural world is an “acquired image of beauty” (ἐπακτοῦ εἰδώλου καλοῦ) proportional to its participation in the beauty of form. The reality (οὐσία) of the natural world depends upon its (participation in) beauty: “it has more reality insofar as it is beautiful” (µᾶλλον γὰρ οὐσία ᾗ καλή).233 The result of this contemplation is to make the substance (οὐσία) of the cosmos to depend upon intelligible beauty: any reality that may be discerned in the product of nature comes from its participation in intelligible beauty. The second phase of this contemplation proceeds to describe how intelligible beauty comes to reside in/as the one who contemplates. Plotinus follows the account of Plato’s Phaedrus, where human souls have an affinity with certain gods and so, driven by eros, pursue the same ideal visions as they do. One who is a συνεραστής (“co-lover”) of Zeus, the most venerable of the gods who sees the whole of beauty, is able, in a comprehensive vision of beauty itself, to contain beauty within himself, although, as Plotinus says, such a person usually still regards it as something external to himself, “but one must transport what one sees into

231

V.8.9.10-24.

232

V.8.9.36-37.

233

V.8.9.43-47.

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oneself, and look at it as one and look at it as oneself (ὡς ἓν καὶ ὡς αὑτόν).”234 This overcoming of the duality between subject and object results ultimately in the unification of the self, where the individual no longer sees himself as an image of intelligible beauty but rather comes to be “in beauty” by “becoming beauty”: “If he sees [beauty] as something different, he is not yet in beauty, but he is in it most perfectly when he becomes it (γενόµενος δὲ αὐτὸ οὕτω µάλιστα ἐν καλῷ).”235 Thus sense perception must be put aside, for it entails the persistence of duality in the experience of the beauty of the world, which comes from the intelligible beauty, as other than oneself and this duality is a barrier to the philosophical advancement advocated by Plotinus. In this way the ethical question of the self is drawn in to the contemplative concern for the attainment of a unified knowledge of reality. The natural world, in virtue of its participation in intellectual beauty, is thus fully integrated into Plotinus’ system of philosophy, even though it is not “real” in itself in Plotinus’ sense of the word. To return to the context of Plotinus’ thinking here, his polemic against the Gnostics, the natural world is not the result of “the fall of Soul (τὴν ψυχὴν…σφαλεῖσαν),” not the product of Soul’s “declination (νεῦσις)” away from intelligible reality but precisely of its “inclination towards it (νεύει ἐκεῖ),” for it is as images of intelligible reality that Soul (as Nature) fashions material things.236 The mistake of the Gnostics is that they expect the natural world to be the same (τὸν αὐτόν) as the intelligible world rather than what it is, an image of it, indeed the most beautiful

234

V.8.10.40-41.

235

V.8.11.20-21.

236

II.9.4.1-11.

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image possible.237 The Gnostics, according to Plotinus, introduce a profound disjunction between the natural world and its paradigm, saying that they will be released to a “new earth,” which is actually the λόγος of this earth, and that this earth is to be rejected as the product of evil. To Plotinus’ way of thinking about the relationship between image and archetype or paradigm, this notion is incoherent: “why do they feel the need to be there in the archetype of the universe which they hate?”238 In addition to pointing to an inconsistency in the Gnostics, this line of thinking, in combination with the denial that the world is the result of the “declination” of Soul, illustrates the direction in which one should take Plotinus’ notion of the world as image of intelligible reality. It is image precisely as inclining towards the intelligible, not as falling away from the intelligible. Another mistake the Gnostics make, one that is important for our study of Maximus, is that they attribute the dynamics of their own soul—specifically its struggle in relation to the body—to the universal Soul as though the universal Soul were bound by the material world (its body) like our souls are bound to our bodies. On the contrary, the Soul of the universe is not affected by the bodily aspect of the cosmos. Individual things in the universe affect one another when they move; some are destroyed by the natural movement of another thing when they do not exist in accordance with that natural movement, while others that do persist. This constant motion of both harmony and destruction does not apply, however, to universal soul, which supervenes all motion and so does not run into any conflict in the universe.239 The point here is that the conclusions

237

II.9.4.24-32.

238

II.9.5.23-27.

239

II.9.7.27-39.

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one might draw from the observation of individual bodies with respect to conflicting motions and the tension between body and soul cannot be attributed to the universe as a whole, which is fundamentally stable and coherent.240 In this sense, the idea of man as “microcosm” does not exactly apply. The Gnostic stance towards the world—revulsion and hatred—has, according to Plotinus, noxious ethical consequences and we shall conclude our analysis with his warnings about the morality implied by Gnostic cosmology. In general terms, the Gnostic claim to live in accordance with the true meaning (λόγος) of the natural universe while still within it would imply, for Plotinus, that the natural universe must make its foundations in intelligible reality known in some way. Plotinus asks rhetorically, “If this universe is such that it is possible to possess wisdom in it and to live according to [the intelligible reality] there while we are here, then how does it not bear witness to its dependence (ἐξηρτῆσθαι) upon what exists there?”241 This reiterates the point we observed earlier that the derivative status of the natural world draws it towards the intelligible, not away from it so that, in the context of the question of how one is to live, Plotinus would affirm that the very possibility of a wisely conducted life implies a continuity between the natural world and intelligible reality. Plotinus also gives a caution regarding the natural consequences of a worlddenying cosmology such as the Gnostics professed. Their doctrines of the evil origins of the material world as well as their particular teachings about the origins and cure of disease (through evil spirits and incantations) will very naturally lead people not only to 240

II.9.8.10-16.

241

II.9.8.43-46.

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despise the world, its maker, and the providence that attends to it but also to live lives that are not directed towards virtue.242 Contempt for the world and rejection of universal providence leaves only pleasure as the pursuit of human life. On the other hand, belief in the special election of the Gnostics by God and what we might call a fideistc conception of deity—which Plotinus summarizes with the phrase, “Look to God (βλέπε πρὸς θεόν)”—results in complete indifference to ethical praxis, evidenced by the fact that, according to Plotinus, the Gnostics did not produce any treatises on virtue.243 Plotinus is thus very aware of the ethical implications of one’s understanding of the natural world and he adduces the moral implications of Gnosticism as evidence against their doctrines. In this set of treatises we see Plotinus’ concern to explain how it is that our encounter with that which is not really real leads eventually to the realm of intellect and the contemplation of the One, how nature is bound to contemplation and even becomes contemplation in its participation in beauty. We have seen particularly how the human being achieves the unity of transcending the duality of subject and object by moving beyond the perception of beauty outside of himself and becoming beauty himself. Nature for Plotinus is below the level of being but is transparent to the beauty of being in virtue of its order and harmony so that the contemplation of nature, whose formation did not proceed by planning and discursiveness, leads one beyond nature to the intuition of being and to the non-discursiveness of the One beyond being.

242

Cf. II.9.15

243

II.9.15.27-40.

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Conclusion I have elaborated here the primordial orientations in the early history of Greek thinking about nature; later thinkers and scholastics—the Peripatetic Alexander of Aphrodisias (who was active before Plotinus), Iamblichus, Proclus, the Alexandrian commentators (some of whom were Christian)—were extremely important as mediators of the tradition to the world of late antiquity, and indeed as thinkers in their own right. These figures represented the culture of philosophical and intellectual life in the later empire and exerted a certain, if perhaps indirect, influence on the development of Christian thought and practice in general.244 It is not clear what Maximus knew directly, though the content of his texts indicates a very broad knowledge of the philosophical issues of the ancient tradition and while most of these issues can be distilled from the writings of the Greek fathers who were active during the centuries before Maximus, he clearly had some knowledge of at least the philosophical manuals and possibly other texts in use in the Byzantine schools; I shall examine a few of these as they become relevant in subsequent chapters. In any case, my aim in this chapter has not been to trace direct historical influences on Maximus but rather to provide a reading of the philosophical inheritance that Maximus received, a reading designed specifically to clarify what is at stake in my reading of Maximus’ Ambigua. As such, my focus has been on the thinkers whom these later philosophers and scholars studied and commented on since it was they who established the primordial orientations to the question of nature. We turn now to Maximus’ forbearers amongst the Christians to complete our introductory reflections on the role of natural contemplation in ancient thought. In 244

See Ed Watts, City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).

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various ways, these thinkers will direct the inheritance of philosophy, and natural philosophy in particular, to their contemplation of Christ so that patristic Christology may be seen as the discourse in which Christian theologians and philosophers elaborated their philosophies of nature.

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CHAPTER 3 THE CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE IN THE GREEK FATHERS Introduction As heirs of Greek philosophical culture, the fathers of the church inherited a whole world of cosmic reflection from the Greeks, and much of the language and thought of the Greek philosophers remained essentially unchanged amongst the philosophically educated teachers of the church who used them. Within the realm of the contemplation of nature, however, the introduction of two most Christian ideas—1.) the creation of a finite universe and man in the image of God and 2.) the idea of the incarnate Christ—focused Greek philosophy’s approach to the world into a clear vision of the absolute centrality of human nature in the cosmos. As Gregory of Nyssa would indicate in On the Making of Man, human being was brought into the world last of all as both that which gazes upon creation and that which rules it, as knower and as articulator of the power of the Creator.245 Human being, as the meeting place of flesh and spirit, was the summation of creation for the Greek fathers and the incarnate Christ, as the unity of creation and Creator, became for them the center of the contemplation of nature. What is referred to as “patristic Christology” was the fathers’ way of, among other things, addressing the

245

De hominis opificio II, PG 44.132D2-133B17.

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questions that had been a part of the tradition of natural contemplation.246 This chapter will present the founders of the tradition of Christian natural contemplation—Clement and Origen of Alexandria, the Cappadocians, Evagrius of Pontus, and finally Dionysius the Areopagite—and will bring forward what is distinctive in the thought of each. No one figure will be treated exhaustively, though Evagrius will receive a more thorough analysis, for he is the single most important figure standing behind Maximus’ own conception of natural contemplation. Given the synthetic nature of Evagrius’ work and his importance for Maximus’ monastic milieu, this more thorough account is both justified and necessary. Clement and Origen set forth the initial link between cosmos, Scripture, and Christ; the Cappadocians develop the moral and theological implications of this Scriptural contemplation of nature; Evagrius gives a systematic account of the intellect and its intuition of the world; and Dionysius provides Maximus with a way of talking about God and the world in terms of the divine names. This reading indicates the crucial importance of the issues that characterize θεωρία φυσική, which have been articulated in our first chapter, within the articulation of patristic Christology, which is, as I will show, the fathers’ primary articulation of natural philosophy.

246

This indicates, I think, a continuity within the apparent shift in intellectual concerns among Greek theologians following in the tradition of Clement and Origen from the questions of body and cosmos in fourth century (and earlier) speculation to a more technical and specific concentration on doctrinal Christology in the sixth (and later): “if…the theological focus of the fourth-century Origenist controversy was really the body…our sources for the sixth-century controversy suggest that the center of debate had significantly shifted: what was really at stake in the struggle seems to have been Christology”; Brian Daley, “What Did ‘Origenism’ Mean in the Sixth Century?,” in Origeniana Sexta, ed. Gilles Dorival and Alain Le Boulluec (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1995), 629.

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I. The Alexandrians i. Clement of Alexandria a. Philosophy and Christianity The intellectual foundations of Christian philosophies of nature were laid by the great Alexandrians Clement and Origen. Clement is, in fact, the natural figure with whom to make our transition from the Greek non-Christian philosophers to our discussion of the Greek Christian fathers as much of his literary activity was devoted to defining the role of Greek philosophy in the Christian life of gnostic perfection.247 Learning, which includes the standard Greek pedagogy of music, geometry, grammar, etc., as well as philosophy proper—the practice of the virtues, natural contemplation, and dialectic—is for Clement preparatory to the reception of divine knowledge, which he defines as the goal of the Christian life. He cautions in Book I of the Stromateis against those who reject all learning and philosophy, including “the study of nature (τὴν φυσικὴν θεωρίαν),” and demand “bare faith alone (µόνην ψιλὴν τὴν πίστιν).” Such people, writes Clement, are like those who demand the fruit of the vine without allowing for its cultivation. Rather, just as a husbandman makes use of various agricultural tools—“the pruning- knife, the pick-axe, and the other instruments of farming”—so too must one who desires knowledge make use of the learning available to humanity. Similarly, the best doctor makes use of a wide range of learning (ὁ ποικιλωτέρων µαθηµάτων ἁψάµενος) in order to heal in the

247

The question of the positive status of the cosmological and natural reflections in the Stromateis has been raised by Salvatore Lilla, Clement of Alexandria: A Study of Christian Platonism and Gnosticism, (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1971), 189, who argues that Clement intended his full cosmology to be spelled out in another work. This view has been challenged by Andrew Itter, Esoteric Teaching in the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 144ff. The author claims that the unsystematic and allusive presentation of physical theories is a part of Clement’s design, that it is for the gnostic to discern in his presentation the fullness of his teaching.

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best possible way. It is in this way that the wise seeker of wisdom should “bring everything to bear for the sake of attaining the truth (τὸν πάντα ἐπὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἀναφέροντα).”248 In general, then, Clement has a very positive view of the role of learning and philosophy in the Christian life. Philosophy was given to the Greeks by God just as the law was given to Israel, in both cases as nourishment in preparation for Christ,249 and, as Clement never tires of saying, the truth of Greek philosophy is literally dependent upon Scripture.250 Greek philosophy is also true insofar as it follows “the natural order of things (τὴν φυσικὴν ἀκολουθίαν).”251 Just as philosophy was “necessary to teach the Greeks righteousness,” Greek learning continues to play a positive role in the life of the Christian seeking perfection (as we have just seen in the examples of the farmer and physician) since it is “conducive to piety (χρησίµη πρὸς θεοσέβειαν).”252 This theme is commonly noted in the scholarly literature on Clement.253 Within this general affirmation of the role of learning, however, Clement sounds a note of caution to balance the caution 248

Strom. I.9.43.1-4, Clément d’Alexandrie: Les Stromates-Stromate I, ed. Marcel Caster (Paris: Cerf, 1951); translations throughout this section are modified from ANF volume 2. 249

See Strom. VI.11.94.2-5, Clément d’Alexandrie: Les Stromates-Stromate VI, ed. Patrick Descourtieux (Paris: Cerf, 1999), where Clement understands the five loaves and two fish of the feeding of the fivethousand to refer to the five books of the Mosaic law and to the two parts of Greek learning (the cycle of studies and philosophy), respectively. 250

See, for example, Strom. V.14, Clément d’Alexandrie: Les Stromates-Stromate V.1, ed. Alain le Boulluec (Paris: Cerf, 1981). 251

Strom. I.13.57.4.

252

Strom. I.5.28.1.

253

Eugène De Faye, Clément d’Alexandrie: Étude sur les rapports du Christianisme et de la Philosophie Grecque au IIe Siècle (Frankfurt: Miverva, 1967), 174-200; Lilla, Clement of Alexandria, 9-59; Eric Osborn, Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 198-206.

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against dismissing philosophy as unnecessary, for, while philosophy is a necessary cultivation of human powers for the reception of truth, it is not the truth itself and “philosophers are children unless they have been made men by Christ.”254 Philosophy is preparation for the true and “kingly teaching” but cannot itself give the strength to fulfill the commandments of the Lord.255 It is a “co-worker (συνεργόν)” and “joint-cause (συναίτιον)” of true understanding but is not itself its cause and is in need of divine wisdom to produce its effects in the mind. It plays the role of staircase to knowledge’s upper room, the role of grammarian to the wisdom of the true philosopher, the role of the senses to the understanding of the mind. It is even sauce and dessert to the main-course of the truth of faith.256 Clement’s views on this question, like his views on so many other questions, are not expressed systematically. He is holding together, at least on the surface of his Stromateis, the conviction on the one hand that the teaching of Christ is “sufficient unto itself (αὐτοτελής)” and in need of no supplement from Greek learning or from anywhere else257—indeed, the Greeks “know nothing more than this world”258—and on the other, what is to him, at least, the obviously positive role that Greek learning has played on Greek culture and can play in the life of the Christian, both ethically and with respect to knowledge of the world and ultimately of God. The key to understanding the dynamics of

254

Strom. I.11.53.2.

255

Strom. I.16.80.5-6.

256

Strom. I.20.99.1-110.2.

257

Strom. I.20.100.1.

258

Strom. VI.7.56.1.

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this dialectic may be found precisely in our present concern to discern the role of natural contemplation in Greek patristic thought, for it is speculation about the cosmos and its practical consequences that form the link between Greek speculation and Scripture, which are, according to Clement, the two-fold training given to humanity in preparation for the teaching of Christ, though as we’ve noted, they represent two expressions of one revelation. We turn, then, from these general considerations of the role of philosophy in Clement’s ideal for the Christian pursuit of divine wisdom and gnosis and focus specifically on his understanding of the place of θεωρία φυσική in this quest. Clement identifies Greek thinking about nature with the origins of Greek writing, reporting that “Alcmaeon was the first to put together a physical discourse (φυσικὸν λόγον συνέταξεν)…and Anaxagoras was the first to publish a written book (διὰ γραφῆς ἐκδοῦναι βιβλίον).”259 Historical questions aside,260 the point here is that Clement perceives a relationship between the origins of writing in Greece (which came late, as compared to the so-called “barbarians”) and the contemplation of nature, so that Greek philosophy as an exercise in writing is fundamentally directed towards the contemplation of the cosmos, which, according to Clement, is all the Greeks actually know. This connection between φύσις and γραφή, between world and scripture, would come to play a crucial role in the thought of Origen and his intellectual progeny, Maximus, as we shall see, being not least among them. In Clement’s reading of the Christian Scriptures, he finds Solomon to be an exemplar of natural contemplation. After quoting passages from the book of Proverbs 259

Strom. I.16.78.3-4.

260

Alcmaeon’s dates are unclear, but his book is thought to have been written in the decades after 500: Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy Vol. 1, 358. In any case, Clement seems to ignore the primacy of Anaximander.

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that relate to the acquisition and practice of wisdom, Clement quotes from the Wisdom of Solomon, “For he hath given me to unerring knowledge of things that exist, to know the constitution of the world (σύστασιν τοῦ κόσµου)” (Wis 7.17). Clement comments, “this is what [Solomon] means by natural contemplation, which concerns all beings in the world of perception (ἐν τούτοις ἅπασι τὴν φυσικὴν ἐµπεριείληφε θεωρίαν τὴν κατὰ τὸν αἰσθητὸν κόσµον ἁπάντων τῶν γεγονότων).” The goal of Christian philosophy (barbarian philosophy, as Clement calls it) is to make one’s way, “with an upright way of life (µετὰ ὀρθῆς πολιτείας ἀσκηθεῖσα) through wisdom, the artificer of all things (διὰ τῆς πάντων τεχνίτιδος σοφίας), to the ruler of all (ἐπὶ τὸν ἡγεµόνα τοῦ πάντος).”261 This brief passage presents the threefold occupation of the Christian philosopher, whose encounter with God is exercised on the levels of ethics (ὀρθῆς πολιτείας), nature (τῆς πάντων τεχνίτιδος σοφίας), and discourse about the one God over all (τὸν ἡγεµόνα τοῦ πάντος).262 However, while Solomon gives us this succinct outline of Christian philosophy, it is in Moses that Clement finds the truly paradigmatic philosopher, and so it is to Moses that we shall look to find the clearest example of the Clementine φυσικός. b. Cosmos and Temple Moses, we are told, learned astronomy (τὴν τῶν οὐρανίων ἐπιστήµην) in Egypt,263 and much of this learning stands behind his teachings about nature. Clement divides “Mosaic philosophy (ἡ κατὰ Μωυσέα φιλοσοφία)” into four parts and assigns 261

Strom. II.2.5.1-3, Clément d’Alexandrie: Les Stromates-Stromate II, ed. Cl. Mondésert (Paris: Cerf, 1954). 262

The three-fold structure is defined here as ἐθικῶς, φυσικῶς, λογικῶς. On this division, see Pierre Hadot, “Les Divisions des parties de la philosophie dans l’Antiquité,” in Etudes de Philosophie Ancienne (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1998), 125-158. 263

Strom. I.23.153.3.

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them to the three traditional levels of philosophical learning: 1.) history and 2.) law, which he assigns to ethics; 3.) sacred rites (τὸ ἱερουργικόν), which, he says, belong to the contemplation of nature (ὅ ἐστιν ἤδη τῆς φυσικῆς θεωρίας); and 4.) theology, or mystic initiation and vision (ἐποπτεία).264 Our primary interest here is with the identification of τὸ ἱερουργικόν with natural contemplation and it is this identification that provides the key to Clement’s particular genius within the ancient culture of natural speculation. It is as a director of temple rites and sacrifices that Moses teaches about nature and we shall therefore gain insight into Clement’s understanding of the dynamics of natural contemplation by an analysis of his symbolic interpretation of the temple in Stromateis V. The temple, its implements, and the vestments of the priest are all taken by Clement to symbolize the entire cosmos. We should be aware at the outset that this symbolic interpretation comes within the context of a consideration of the obscurity and enigmatic character of the expression of divine realities, both amongst the pagans, and here amongst the Hebrews: Eqyptians, Hebrews, and Greeks had all veiled their sacred mysteries to preserve them from those who had not yet undergone purification.265 Clement chooses the commandments regarding the construction of the tabernacle as the paradigmatic case of a veiled presentation (ἐπίκρυψις) of mysteries, drawn to this, no doubt, by the veils of the tabernacle themselves. In general terms, the tabernacle and its implements represent the cosmos, the nature of whose elements (ἡ τῶν στοιχείων φύσις) contains divine revelation.

264

Strom. I.28.176.1-2.

265

Strom. V.4.19.1-5.31.5.

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He begins with a symbolic justification for his own symbolic interpretation of τὸ ἱερουργικόν. The seven enclosures about the temple and the priest’s robe with its various symbols representing phenomena (τῶν πρὸς τὰ φαινόµενα συµβόλων) “hint at the agreement (συνθήκην) that extends from heaven to earth,” indicating the significance of what appears on earth for the comprehension of heavenly reality. Indeed, the four components of the covering (τὸ κάλυµµα) and the curtain (παραπέτασµα) in the tabernacle—the three colors blue, purple and scarlet, along with the linen material— represent the four elements and indicate that “the nature of the elements contains the revelation of God.”266 The altar of incense, which stood between the covering and the curtain (Ex 30.6), is “the symbol of the earth set in the middle of this universe.” The place between the “inner curtain,” which marked off the holy of holies, and the outer court where all the Hebrews were permitted to be was, according to tradition (as Clement reports it), “the exact mid-point (τὸ µεσαίτατον) between heaven and earth,” though some considered it to be “the symbol of the intellectual and perceptible universe.”267 In this case, the screen that covered the entrance of the tabernacle was hung on the five pillars (Ex 26.36-37) of the senses, and marked the threshold over which one had to pass to approach the knowledge of God.268 So Clement inscribes the contemplation of nature in his account of the structure of the tabernacle as cosmos and thus draws the world and the mind’s intuition of the world into the sacred realm of the rites of worship.

266

Strom. V.6.32.2-3.

267

Strom. V.6.33.1-2.

268

Strom. V.6.33.3-6.

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c. Christ the Priest of Creation It is at this point that Clement introduces the incarnation of the Son of God explicitly. The question of nature for Clement is bound to his understanding of Christ, the Son of God, who is “the teacher of all things that have come into being (ὁ τῶν γενητῶν ἁπάντων διδάσκαλος).”269 Philosophy for Clement is “inquiry concerning truth and the nature of beings (τῆς τῶν ὄντων φύσεως)” and he identifies this truth with Christ, who said, “I am the truth” (Jn 14.6).270 From the very beginning, then, the contemplation of nature for Clement has as its aim the discernment of Christ, the Son and Word of God, as the principle of all generated things; or to put it the other way round, contemplation of Christ is not different from the contemplation of nature, which is its content: The teaching that is consistent (ἀκόλουθος) with Christ considers the Fashioner to be God (τὸν δηµιουργόν ἐκθειάζει), recognizes providence in particular events, knows that the nature of the elements is changeable and generated, and teaches the way of life that is directed to the power that assimilates us to God and teaches us to prefer the economy as the guiding principle (ἡγεµονικόν) of all learning (παιδεία).271 These basic aspects of nature—the fashioning and providence of the world, the nature of the elements—are the content of the teaching of Christ and are bound inseparably to “the way of life that is directed to the power that assimilates us to God (εἰς δύναµιν ἐξοµοιωτικὴν τῷ θεῷ).” Clement here is echoing the ideals of Plato and Aristotle, which we observed in Chapter 1. We are “like the Lord (ὡς ὁ κύριος),” not in “essence” or “nature,” but in coming to partake of infinity and in coming to know beings in

269

Strom. VI.7.58.1.

270

Strom. I.5.32.4.

271

Strom. I.11.52.3.

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contemplation (τὴν τῶν ὄντων θεωρίαν ἐγνωκέναι).272 To return to the imagery of the tabernacle, in response to those who only have access to what their senses reveal to them, who remain on the outside of the curtain hung on five pillars, “The Son is said to be the face (πρόσωπον) of the Father, for by becoming a bearer of flesh (σαρκοφόρος) to the five senses, the Word is the one who discloses the Fatherly character (ὁ τοῦ πατρῴου µηνυτής ἰδιώµατος).”273 The incarnate Word is the outer veil of the tabernacle, which conceals “the priestly service (ἱερατικὴ διακονία)” that goes on within. The world of the senses is one with the flesh of the Word as the liminal place before the knowledge of God, at once a revelation and a screen. The Son and Word also takes on the role of high priest. The veil over the entrance to the holy of holies, wherein the high priest entered alone once a year, is hung on four pillars, which stand for the “four ancient covenants” (of Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses),274 as well as for the sacred tetragrammaton.275 Into this “intellectual world” beyond all sense “the Lord entered alone through his sufferings, and came into the knowledge of the ineffable by withdrawing beyond “every name” (Phil 2.9) that is made known by the sound of the voice.”276 As high priest who enters the holy of holies of

272

Strom. II.17.77.4.

273

Strom. V.6.34.1.

274

Alain Le Boulluec, Clément d’Alexandrie: Les Stromates-Stromate V.2: Commentaire (Paris: Cerf, 2009), 140. 275

Clement notes that the Greek word for “god” (θεός) also has four letters: Strom. V.6.34.6.

276

Strom. V.6.34.7.

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noetic reality, the Word passes through the tabernacle of the physical cosmos with its seven-branched candle stand (the seven planets) to the south of the altar of incense (the earth) and its table of show-bread (the nourishing north wind) to the north. While the holy of holies is the noetic realm, and while the things related about the ark of the covenant “disclose (µηνύει) the realities of the intellectual world,” the cherubim that adorn the lid of the ark and whose name means “much knowledge (ἐπίγνωσιν πολλήν)”277 indicate either “the two bears” (Ursa major and Ursa minor) or the two hemispheres; their total of twelve wings (six belonging to each of the two) stand for the procession of time through the twelve signs of the zodiac, and therefore “indicate the perceptible cosmos” (τὸν αἰσθητὸν κόσµον δηλοῖ).”278 The intelligible cosmos is, therefore, not utterly separate from the perceptible for, according to the images of Clement’s interpretation of the structure of the tabernacle, the center of the holy of holies—the ark of the covenant— contains upon it symbols that point to the world of perception. The stars occupied a privileged place in ancient cosmology as the perfect union of perceptibility and intelligence and Clement here places this union, the συνθηκή of heaven and earth, which is the meaning of τὸ ἱερουργικόν, in the most sacred place of the tabernacle beyond every name. As high priest, the Word takes on the priest’s robe, which is said “to prophecy the incarnation (τὴν κατὰ σάρκα οἰκονοµία) by which [the Word] was seen to be in closer proximity (προσεχέστερον) to the world.”279 This robe is also a “symbol of the

277

Philo uses the same etymology in his Life of Moses II.97: Le Boulluec, Commentaire, 146.

278

Strom. V.6.35.5-7.

279

Strom. V.6.39.2.

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perceptible world.” Its stones represent the seven planets280 and its three hundred and sixty bells represent the days of a year, “the acceptable year of the Lord” (Is 61.2), which “proclaims the great manifestation (ἐπιφάνειαν) of the Savior.”281 The two stones set on the shoulders (Ex 28.12) and the five (as Clement interprets it) set on the breast indicate the spirits of the planets that aided (συνεργοῦντας) in the creation of the world, where the shoulders are the agents of work and the breast, “the seat of the heart and soul,” is the rational authority that governs generation.282 This governance, which ultimately refers to the Savior as “head of the Church” (Eph 5.23), is also symbolized by the gold miter (Ex 28.36-37) placed on the head of the priest. Similarly, the ephod symbolizes the work of creation and its λογίον (the breast-piece for the urim and thumim), which Clement connects to the Λόγος, the principle of creation, is the symbol of heaven, which the Λόγος himself made. The two emeralds of the priest’s ephod represent the sun and moon, which are “nature’s co-workers (τοὺς συνεργοὺς τῆς φύσεως).”283 In all of this, the natural world of creation is bound to the economy of the Incarnation through the creative Word who takes on flesh as the high-priestly robe and enters the cosmos/tabernacle to approach the “knowledge of the ineffable.” However, Clement also makes reference to the “putting off” of holy garments, which the high priest

280

Cf. Ex 28.17-20, though Clement seems to take certain liberties with the text in order to arrive at the number seven: Le Boulluec, Commentaire, 152. 281

Maximus will similarly interpret this passage from Isaiah in terms of the economy of the Incarnation; see Chapter 6 below, 406-409. 282

Strom. V.6.37.1-4. Le Boulluec, Commentaire, 154, points to the Stoic notions at work in this conception of the rational authority of heart and soul. 283

Strom. V.6.38.2-3.

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performs after entering the holy place before the ark of the covenant (Lev 16.4, 23-24). Here, Clement reasons that in order to put on the linen garments to enter the holy of holies, the priest must take off his holy robe, which, as he has shown, is “the universe and that which is created in the universe” and has been declared holy by being called “good” in the beginning.284 This refers, for Clement, first of all to the “Levite and gnostic,” who is able to distinguish perceptible from intelligible reality and has put off lower realities to enter upon “the intellectual passageway” by being purified by the Word, who has himself performed this “putting off” and “putting on” by “descending to the perceptible world (κατιὼν εἰς αἴσθησιν).”285 Clement is here referring to the Word’s κένωσις in becoming human (cf. Phil 2.6-7), an act symbolized by the removal of the linen robe that is proper to the holy of holies and the putting on of the priest’s robe, which is the universe. The gnostic reverses this, in effect, by removing the cosmic robe, purifying the flesh, and putting on the linen garments of the holy of holies. This reciprocal movement recapitulates the teaching of Paul that “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor 8.9). Clement presents us, then, with a mode of symbolism that brings divine truth through two lenses of refraction. The mystery that is enigmatically presented by the Scriptural account of the tabernacle and its sacred rites is, in fact, the mystery of the cosmos and its elements, and these, in turn disclose the divine wisdom, a disclosure that culminates with the Incarnation, in which the Word comes “closer to the world.” The one temple ordered by Moses was meant to represent the oneness of God as well as the 284

Strom. V.6.39.3.

285

Strom. V.6.40.1-3.

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uniqueness of the world (µονογενῆ κόσµον). The “only-begotten world” is, characteristically for Clement, both a reference to the last lines of the Timaeus, where the Demiurge’s creation is referred to as µονογενῆς,286 and to the Gospel of John (1.14, 3.16), which refers to Christ with the same word. By taking on the natural world as a priestly garment, the Word of God, its Creator, becomes the world of contemplation for the gnostic, whose mind has been elevated by the study of the things of this world in music, geometry, and astronomy287 and then passes through and beyond the bodily reality—taking off what the Word has put on—in order “to hear the Word himself, who grants fuller understanding (πλείονα τὸν νοῦν) through Scripture.”288 With this conjunction of Christ/Word, Scripture, and World, we now turn to Origen, Clement’s great successor in Alexandria,289 who drew the enigmatically expressed teachings of Clement into a coherent system and practice of Christian philosophy.

286

Timaeus 92c.

287

Strom. VI.10.80.2-4, 11.90.3-4.

288

Strom. V.6.40.1.

289

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History VI.6, reports the traditional succession of the school of Alexandria from Pantaenus to Clement and then to Origen: Eusebius Ecclesiastical History Books 6-10, trans. J.E.L. Oulton (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932). The status of the catechetical school of Alexandria is quite uncertain. See Osborn, Clement of Alexandria, 19-24 for a brief summary of the debate. See also Watts, City and School, 164n.116: “…the ‘Catechetical School’ was not an institution in any formal sense. Its head was probably a prominent Christian intellectual who, like a poet laureate, was given the title to reward his teaching and missionary work with the expectation that he would continue to serve as the official intellectual voice of the city’s Christian community. If the head of the ‘Catechetical School’ is so understood, it is likely that Eusebius is correct in suggesting that Origen was given this title.”

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ii. Origen a. In the Savior God Created Clement, who had noted Solomon as a teacher of natural contemplation, had presented Moses as the paradigmatic philosopher and had divided the books of Moses into historical, ethical, physical, and mystical categories. Origen, too, looks to Moses’ book of Genesis for knowledge of the natural world and from the very beginning binds the world to Christ: “In the beginning God made heaven and earth” (Gen 1.1). What is the beginning of all things if not our Lord and “Savior of all” (I Tim 4.10), Jesus Christ, “the first born of all creation” (Col 1.15)? For it is in this beginning, that is, in his Word, that “God made heaven and earth, just as the Evangelist John has also said at the beginning of his Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and nothing was made without him” (Jn 1.1-3).290 All thought of the natural world is bound to Christ so that all metaphysical questions are subservient to this fundamental orientation: “It is not speaking here of any sort of temporal beginning; rather it says heaven and earth as well as all things that have been made were made ‘in the beginning,’ that is in the Savior.”291 Origen here places the foundational question of natural philosophy, the origin of the world, already within the context of the economy of salvation—it is precisely the “Savior” who is the “beginning.”

290

Origen, Homilae in Genesim I.1.1-9, Origène: Homélies sur la Genèseed, ed. Louis Doutreleau (Paris: Cerf, 1976). 291

Origen, Hom, in Gen. I.1.9-12. This non-temporal account of the beginning of Genesis is not a specifically Christian interpretation, as it goes back at least to Philo. See the note to Ronald Heine’s translation of the Homelies: Origen: Homelies on Genesis and Exodus (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), 47.n4.

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b. The Three-fold Wisdom So, Origen follows Clement in focusing his attention on Christ the incarnate Word in his reflections upon the natural world and while he looks quite naturally to Moses for knowledge of the world, for Origen, it is actually Solomon who presents the clearest example of the progression of the philosophic life and this progress is captured most fully for him in the Song of Songs. Origen interprets the eroticism of the Song as the process of the mind’s (or Church’s) spiritual ascent and union with the Word (or Christ) and situates this within the same basic threefold scheme of philosophical progress of ethics, physics, and contemplation (or logic) we have been tracing, identifying these three stages with Solomon’s three books of wisdom: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs.292 Origen follows Clement in asserting the temporal primacy of Hebrew wisdom in comparison to Greek philosophy and claims that the threefold division of philosophy amongst the Greeks originally derives from Solomon’s division.293 Proverbs teaches the way of morality, giving aphoristic rules for living. Ecclesiastes teaches the nature of reality and in so doing begins to provoke longing for the eternal by acquainting the soul with the vanity of temporal things. Once the soul has passed through this purification, having its love for the eternal Word of God provoked, it is ready to begin to learn to contemplate the divine in the Song of Songs.

292

For the use of this classification in Origen and other authors, see Sandro Leanza, “La classificazione dei libri salomonici e i suoi riflessi sulla questione dei rapporti tra Bibbia e sceinze profane, da Origene agli scrittori medioevali,” Augustinianum (1974), 651-666. 293

In canticum canticorum. Prol.3.4, Origène: Commentaire sur le Cantique des Cantiques II, ed. Luc Bresard and Henri Crouzel (Paris: Cerf, 1992).

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c. The Possibility of Knowledge and the Myth of the Cosmic Fall Before proceeding to the heart of our analysis, we shall note a few generalities concerning Origen’s understanding of the dynamics of the contemplation of nature, many of which derive from the general philosophical culture of his day. According to Origen, God “created all the species of visible things upon earth…and placed in them some teaching and knowledge of things invisible and heavenly, whereby the human mind might mount to spiritual understanding and seek the grounds of things in heaven.”294 Moreover, “the works of divine providence and the plan of this universe are as it were rays of God’s nature in contrast to his real substance.” The frailty of the human mind must “understand the parent of the universe from the beauty of his works and the comeliness of his creatures.”295 Origen, like Clement before him, discerns the same dynamic to be at work in the study of Scripture: “But this relationship [between the visible and the invisible] does not obtain only with creatures; the Divine Scripture itself is written with wisdom of a rather similar sort.”296 These observations fit within the general framework of the Platonic universe of discourse wherein perceptible realities provide images of intelligible realities, which are the true forms of the images. The task of Christian discipline for Origen, then, is to move from the letter of the world—whether in the form of manifest creatures or words and events of Scripture—to its spirit and ultimately to its Creator, who, though he is not “actually all things in which he is now

294

In cant. 3.13.16, Origen: The Song of Songs-Commentary and Homilies, trans. R.P. Lawson (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1957), 220. 295

De principiis, I.1.6, Origenes Werke V, ed. Paul Koetschau (Leipzig: Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1913), 21.5-9; Origen: On First Principles, trans. G.W. Butterworth (New York: Harper and Row, 1966). 296

In cant. 3.13.28, Lawson, 223.

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present,” will be all things at the consummation of the world (cf. I Cor 15.28).297 Origen also considers the co-inherence of nature and Scripture on the other side of the possibility of knowledge, teaching that just as there are difficulties in understanding passages of Scripture, there are difficulties in discerning the wisdom in certain aspects of the natural world: why, for example, are there poisonous snakes? In the face of such ambiguities, the task of the contemplative is “to ascribe knowledge of these things to God,” trusting that he will reveal the truth of these things later to those of us who consider them in a reverent way now.298 To account for the structure and activity of the present world, Origen constructed the well-known myth of the falling-away of incorporeal souls from contemplation and their subsequent and diverse embodiment by God for instruction and chastisement. The various aspects of this myth—and its peregrinations in the subsequent history of Christian philosophy—are of central importance as background to Maximus’ intellectual formation and to the articulation of his own cosmology. We must therefore give it due attention and ask what, precisely, the myth is addressing. Origen’s translator Rufinus defines the scope of the treatise On First Principles in this way: “in [the books On First Principles] Origen discusses questions on which philosophers, after spending their whole lives in the task, have succeeded in discovering nothing. [He] made it his aim…to turn into a religious direction man’s belief in a Creator and his reasonings about the created world…”299

297

De princ. III.6.2, 283.7-12.

298

See Philocalia II.5, The Philocalia of Origen, ed. Joseph Armitage Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893), 39.28-40.8. 299

De princ. Pref.Ruf.3, p. 5.7-11. Marguerite Harl argues that Origen’s On First Principles, the primary source of this account, is not primarily a systematic theology as we would recognize one, but rather an

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These “reasonings about the created world (creaturarum rationem)” address the question of the world’s beginning, the diversity of the world’s beings, and its relation to its cause. We have treated all of these in one way or another in the preceding chapter and Origen has specific things to say about each of them. Our primary concern here, however, is to discern what specifically Origen is trying to explain with his cosmology. There are three fundamental and interrelated problems that face Origen as he gives his account of the nature of the world: 1.) the limitations of the human mind in relation to its natural desire to know; 2.) the apparent lack of desire for knowledge and virtue and the preference for the body amongst human beings; and 3.) the diversity of the world in relation to the unity of God. It is in light of these three problems that we should understand Origen’s cosmic account. At the end of the third chapter of Book 1 of On First Principles, after he has described the work of the Trinity on behalf of creation—the gift of being from the Father, participation in being in Christ, sanctification and wisdom from the Holy Spirit—Origen reflects upon the potential for an ever increasing desire for the blessed life to grow within us, a theme that has become a central part of modern interpretations of Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus.300 Origen, however, also admits of the possibility of satiety (satietas, κόρος) in those who have attained the highest level of spiritual life and a subsequent decline away from the blessing of life with God, though this decline does not happen all at once. Once a person recognizes the lapse, it is possible to regain one’s previous

attempt at “physics” or “cosmology,” which expounds the relationship between the divine and the world: Origène et la Fonction Révélatrice du Verbe Incarné (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1958), 104-106. 300

For an overview of the issue, see Paul Blowers, “Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Concept of Perpetual Progress,” Vigiliae Christianae 46 (1992), 151-171.

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position in the blessed state.301 Origen describes here a common reality of spiritual life, namely the “growing cold” of the fervor for knowledge that besets those who have been engaged in a disciplined philosophical life for a long time. One grows weary and longs to relax one’s attention for a while. This possibility is a problem for Origen because he takes the natural fervor for knowledge—both knowledge of God and of the natural world—to be inherent to the structure of the human mind: eager longing for the reality of things is natural to us and implanted in our souls…the mind burns with unspeakable longing to learn the design of those things which we perceive to have been made by God…our mind cherishes a natural and appropriate longing to know God’s truth and to learn the causes of things.302 There is in addition a natural progression in the mind from intuition of the world to the idea of God the Father and Creator of all, who is beyond the world: “it is possible to gain some notion of him from our experience of the visible creation (ex occasione visibilium creaturarum) and from the instinctive thoughts of the human mind (ex his, quae humana mens naturaliter sentit).”303 However, despite the natural desire for knowledge in the human mind, the mind finds itself frustrated in its attempts to achieve a settled account of the nature of the world and of God’s providence for it: “in this matter human intelligence is feeble and limited.” “This matter” refers to the question of God’s identity as Creator, Benefactor, and Providence, for these titles seem to imply, for Origen, to God’s need for an eternal 301

De princ. I.3.8, 62.13-63.7. This issue is one of the major interpretive structures for reading Maximus amongst modern scholars and will be addressed in part II of this work. 302

De princ. II.11.4, 186.23-24, p. 187.9-10, 13-15.

303

De princ. I.3.1, 49.12-13.

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creation so that he might always be Creator, always bestow goodness on something other than himself, and always make provision for that other. The alternative would be for God to have become Creator at some point in time, which is absurd for Origen. A sort of Kantian antinomy therefore resides at the heart of the mind’s thinking about the world’s origin and structure: “the soundest arguments on either side oppose and rebut one another, each bending the mind of the thinker into its own direction.”304 Origen settles on a familiar Platonically inspired explanation, that the world has eternally existed as a prefiguration in the eternal wisdom of God. Origen is able, therefore, to affirm both sides of the antinomy, that God is eternally unchanging as Creator and that the world “is not unbegotten and coeternal with [God].”305 Nevertheless, the limits of the mind with respect to its understanding of the world have been shown and these limits are significant. According to Origen, the mind has an affinity with God in that it is not dependent upon space and time to move and operate306 and so is able to acquire, not only sensory impressions, but also the eternal and incorporeal principles (rationes, λόγοι) that underlie all things. Theoretically, the mind does not need the matter of the external world to conduct its natural activity. The nature of intellect is to intuit intellectual realities. However, the mind cannot exist in the world without the matter of the body: “for we men are animals, formed by a union of body and soul, and thus alone did it become possible for us to live on the earth.”307 And yet it is this body that, while enabling earthly

304

De princ. I.4.4, 67.5-6.

305

De princ. I.4.5, 67.17-18.

306

De princ. I.1.6, 21.14-17, 22.4-5.

307

De princ. I.1.6, 22.21-23.

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existence, also renders it dull and unenlightened: “Our mind is shut up within bars of flesh and blood and rendered duller and feebler by reason of its association with such material substance,” this even though it is precisely through the body that the mind works in the world.308 It appears that human beings are left in a predicament in which the mind’s nature leads it to seek knowledge of that which it cannot know—the knowledge of things both divine and of the earth—that the reality which gives the mind access to the world is the very thing that obstructs its vision. Once again we are reminded of Kant, who famously opened the preface to the first edition of his Critique of Pure Reason with these words: “Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature or reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer.”309 Nevertheless, Origen affirms that the desire for knowledge of God and nature has not been given in vain: “we have not received this longing from God on the condition that it should not or could not ever be satisfied.”310 The fulfillment of the longing is a promise for the future, however, so that our studies and contemplation in the present serve as exercises for the reception of true knowledge to come, just as one prepares to paint, says Origen, by first drawing faint outlines on the canvas. The return to Christ will disclose to the one who is prepared “the reasons for all things that happen on earth,” all of the

308

De princ. I.1.5, 20.15-17.

309

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason Avii, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965 [1929]). 310

De princ. II.11.4 , 187.15-16.

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various ordinances of the laws of Moses, the various spiritual powers, “the reason of souls and the meaning of the diversity among animals…and what purpose of the Creator or what indication of his wisdom is concealed in each individual thing.”311 Our current reflection upon these realities, from the grand design of history to the peculiar properties of herbs, is a quest with no immediate results, as is reflected in Origen’s consistent exhortation to his readers to choose for themselves between the various explanations he has given to cosmic phenomena. Plain vision will eventually come, however, to those who are worthy. This theme is related to the second and third problems underlying Origen’s cosmic reflections, the problem of the diversity of beings as manifest in the varying degrees of spiritual aptitude and desire amongst rational creatures; more particularly, the problem of the apparent lack of desire for knowledge and virtue amongst many human beings. If all have been made with a rational soul by the same God and have been given the same desire for knowledge of nature and God, how is it that some fall away? As we have seen, Origen concludes I.3 with the possibility of falling away from the blessed life due to satiety. He goes on in I.4, I.5, and II.9 to give a cosmic explanation of the decline of rational natures from the good that befits them. Because rational natures are created, they have the possibility of change as an inherent part of their nature. God created rational natures with free will, and the degree to which these creatures have moved themselves away from their primordial good state determines the diversity of the present world (II.9.2). Free will is thus the principle of cosmic diversity and because free will lies at the heart of the problem of turning away from the truth of one’s own being, Origen’s

311

Cf. De princ. II.11.5, 188.1-189.8.

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cosmic account of the diversity of creatures has a fundamentally practical, or ascetical, consequence. Against the Gnostics of his day, Origen asserted the freedom of each rational creature, and this affirmation, because “the end is like the beginning,” looks both forward and backward. Origen can exhort his Christian students to exert themselves for knowledge and virtue because they are free to change their current state, progress to a higher state, and ultimately return to Christ, in whom all cosmic mysteries will be disclosed. Origen grounds this exhortation in his account of the fall of souls. One’s station is a consequence of the free movement of one’s soul and so change is also within one’s power. When taken together with the world’s relationship to the intellectual realm, this practical outcome of cosmic reflection reveals that while the contemplation of nature is conceived as the second stage—following upon ethics—of philosophical life, it has consequences that inform both the practical and the theological parts of philosophy. A way of accounting—from the standpoint of Maximus—for Origen’s myth of the fall of intellects into multiplicity through satiety and inattention is to say that Origen confuses the ontological with the moral aspects of divine providence and judgment.312 Origen, on this view, makes a moral issue of the observable diversity of the cosmos; we might also say, conversely, that he grounds his ontology in his experience of the struggle for virtue. Perhaps Hume’s notion of the impossibility of deriving an “ought” from an “is”313 lurks in the background of this interpretation of Origen and from the point of view

312

See Sherwood, Earlier Ambigua, 36-38; Sherwood, The Ascetic Life, 38-39; Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 70-71. Maximus addresses this issue in Amb. 10, 1136A; see Chapter 4 below, 295-301. See also Amb. 71 and my comments in the Introduction above, 32-37. 313

Cf. David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature III.1, “Moral Distinctions not derived from Reason,” The Philosophical Works of David Hume Vol. II (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1854), 231-232.

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that begins with the essential separation of these two realms of consideration, Origen is surely guilty as charged. However, as I have been arguing throughout my interpretation of the ancient Greek tradition and now with the Greek fathers of the Christian church, the early tradition is more comprehensible when precisely this division is not allowed an absolute sway over how we read the sources. For Clement and Origen in particular the “is” of the facts of the world are given to instruct human beings in the “ought” of virtue as elementary instruction in the Christian way of life. It could be replied that ethical formation comes first in the philosophical curriculum, at least conceptually, for Clement and Origen so that it would be disingenuous to say that they could derive their ethical doctrines from the nature of the world without the mediation of Scripture, the Church’s teaching, and personal purification and a strong case could be made for this position. However, I would argue that Origen’s notion of ethics is not a matter of defining the axioms of moral theory but rather of returning to the divine origin of being through the transformation of the passions and as such, his is not a confusion but rather a refusal of an absolute distinction between ontology and praxis. Origen is intent upon accounting for the multiplicity of the universe in a way that refutes Gnosticism314 by preserving the goodness of creation and human moral freedom. His second homily on Jeremiah315 begins with a quotation from the Wisdom of Solomon: “God did not create death, neither does he delight in the destruction of living things. For he created all things in order for them to exist and creatures of the world are preserved (σωτήριοι) and there is no deadly potion in them, neither is the dominion of Hades upon the earth” (Wis 1.13-14). Where 314

Origen mentions Marcion, Valentinus, and Basilides as his adversaries in this context: De Princ. II.9.5.

315

Origenes Werke Vol. III, ed. Erich Klostermann (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1901); Origen: Homilies on Jeremiah, Homily on I Kings 28, trans. John Clark Smith (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998).

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then does death or any other failure of created being come from (Origen is reflecting upon the phrase “How have you turned bitter, foreign vine?,” Jer 2.21)? Origen’s response is that the “sweetness” of the soul has been given it by God, but those of us who have bitterness of soul have created it for ourselves. It is rational agency that brings suffering into the world. This is a provisional response to the question of diversity but it must be kept in mind precisely what it is of diversity that Origen is trying to understand, namely, the fact that some people pursue God with desire while others do not. The homily on Jeremiah to which we have referred speaks of cosmic diversity in terms that are not only “moral” in an abstract sense but speak directly to the diverse ways in which souls are healed of sin: Just as certain wounds are cured by emollients and others by oil and others need a bandage and hence are healed…so there are certain sins which foul the soul, and man needs for such sins the lye of the Word, the soap of the Word (Jer 2.22), yet there are some sins which are not cured in this way, for they are not comparable to filth.316 This very pragmatic observation that different souls in different states require different remedies for the evils that afflict them in order to rekindle the love for God is, I argue, the fundamental import of Origen’s myth of pre-cosmic union and fall. Though it is less artfully rendered, Origen’s myth functions for him in the same way as Plato’s myth in the Phaedrus about gods and souls circling the rim of heaven in contemplation of the forms, or the myth of the cave in the Republic. Whether or not Origen took his own myth literally (and few, I think, would accuse Origen of being excessively devoted to the literal), the work it does for him is to provide a framework for understanding the nature of human spiritual striving: the central phenomenon of the Christian life is the eros of 316

Hom, In Jer. II.2.3, 18.22-29.

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God and the soul so that the great temptation in the spiritual life is to loose one’s fervor for God and thus “fall away” into a state of frigidity. The experience of life in this world is intended to lead us to return to an everdeepening desire for God,317 the desire that characterizes the bride of the Song of Songs. To draw such an ethic of transformative eros into the realm of ontology is to extend, in a more overtly ascetical direction, the erotically charged universe we observed in Plato. Origen’s myth functions for him as an εἶκος λόγος accounting for the dynamics of Christian life. II. The Cappadocians In addition to the monastic milieu, in which Evagrius was to play a leading conceptual role, an environment in which Origen’s legacy remained particularly strong was that of the fourth century Cappadocians: Basil of Caesarea, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzen. The Cappadocians can rightly be called the heirs of Origen’s intellectual legacy. The land of Cappadocia was connected to the master through the missionary efforts of one of his disciples, Gregory the Wonderworker, and it was the compilation of the Philocalia by Basil and Gregory Nazianzen that has preserved many of Origen’s texts in their original Greek. Each of the Cappadocians was shaped by this legacy and, though they shared much the same education and cultural sensibility, their approaches to the contemplation of nature within the tradition of Scriptural philosophy passed down by both Clement and Origen are unique to each of them. Here we shall study Basil’s homilies on the Hexaemeron (six days of creation), Gregory Nazianzen’s second Theological Oration (Oration 28), and Gregory of Nyssa’s On the 317

De Princ. I.III.8.

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Making of Man and his Apology for Basil’s Hexaemeron, all of which provide distinctive appropriations of the contemplation of nature. i. Basil of Caesarea—Water is Water Basil, like Clement, considers Moses to be the great teacher of natural contemplation. When Moses had been banished from Egypt, he spent forty years in Ethiopia “devoted to the contemplation of beings (τῇ θεωρίᾳ τῶν ὄντων ἀποσχολάσας),” on which basis he was found worthy to see God and to give the true account of the nature of the cosmos.318 Basil’s sermons on the Hexaemeron, his homilies on the six days of the Genesis account of creation, present us with a form of natural contemplation that, like Origen’s, focuses on the interpretation of Scripture, but also extends this contemplation to the ecclesial community as a whole.319 The nine homilies320 were given over the course of five days to an audience that appears to have been a mixed group of farmers, artisans, townsfolk, and perhaps a few more highly educated men. Gregory the Theologian remarked that reading the sermons was to experience being placed before the Creator himself and Basil’s brother Gregory devoted a treatise, which we shall examine below, to answer questions regarding some of Basil’s interpretations of the text of Genesis. 318

Hexaemeron I.1, 90, Basile de Césarée-Homélies sur l’Hexaéméron, ed. Stanislas Giet (Paris: Cerf, 1968). I have referred to the English translations in Saint Basil, Exegetic Homilies, trans. Agnes Clare Way (Washington D.C.: CUA Press, 1963) and in NPNF, second series, Vol. 8. 319

For an account of Basil’s Hexaemeron in relation to the Greek philosophical tradition see John F. Callahan, “Greek Philosophy and the Cappadocian Cosmology,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 12 (1959), 2957. 320

The authenticity of the tenth and eleventh homilies ascribed to Basil, which are devoted to the making of man, is contested: Basil de Césarée-Sur l’Origine de l’homme, ed. Alexis Smets and Michel Van Esbroeck (Paris: Cerf, 1970), 13-26.

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Basil most likely gave the sermons when he was bishop of Caesarea,321 and his concerns through the course of the sermons do indeed tend to gather around the moral and ascetical practices of his community. Basil’s aim was not simply “to present a complete cosmology,”322 but to present a cosmology that would edify the practices of the church,323 and Basil, one of the most learned men of his day, had to find the appropriate register of thought and language to communicate to his Cappadocian flock.324 Following one of the tendencies we noted in Origen, Basil employs the contemplation of nature in the service of the practice of Christian life. Most basically, he conceives of the world— again following Origen—as “the school and classroom of divine knowledge for rational souls.”325 His rhetoric, therefore, was directed towards bringing the world before his community in such a way that they could be instructed by it. This communal context for the contemplation of nature leads Basil to a resolute commitment to the concrete experience of the objects of creation as they appear to human perception and a rejection of the search for essences that, he says, had characterized Greek metaphysics before him. Basil begins by drawing a distinction between what he will do in his sermons and what the Greek philosophers were doing in their many treatises περὶ φύσεως, which contradict one another and thus render the whole world of Greek cosmological 321

Giet, Basile de Césarée-Homélies sur l’Hexaéméron, 6-7.

322

Philip Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 320.

323

Cf. Hex. VII.6.

324

Ray Van Dam is right to point to the oral (as opposed to the scholarly, textual) context of the sermons and helpfully indicates the many places where Basil seems to make rhetorical adjustments for the sake of better communication, Becoming Christian-The Conversion of Roman Cappadocia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 106. 325

Hex. 1.6, 110.

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speculation unstable.326 Basil does not make “an inquiry into the essence of each being” because “getting involved in that is not useful for the building-up of the Church.”327 This orientation is grounded in Basil’s concerns for the moral advancement of the members of his congregation—seeking essences of things will not of itself help someone to keep the commandments—but also in a conviction about the nature of the things in the world themselves. The words of Scripture regarding the heavens are sufficient, for in comparing them to “smoke” (Is 51.6) and a “curtain” (Is. 40.22) Scriptural language gives an adequate description of their constitution (σύστασις) and form (σχῆµα), indicating that for Basil, the purpose of the discourse about nature is to describe in simple metaphors how the natural world looks to us. This is supported further by Basil’s “method” of contemplating things on the earth: Similarly, let us resolve, with respect to the things on earth, not to busy ourselves with trying to define the earth’s essence, or to wear out our capacity for thinking by seeking out its underlying substance (τὸ ὑποκείµενον); neither let us seek out any nature devoid of all qualities and existing completely unqualified in its own rational principle (ἄποιον ὑπάρχουσαν τῷ ἑαυτῆς λόγῳ). Rather, let us be well aware that all of the things we see surrounding a particular reality (πάντα τὰ περὶ αὐτὴν θεωρούµενα, αὐτὴν referring to φύσιν) are employed when we give an account of that thing’s being (εἰς τὸν τοῦ εἶναι κατατέτακται λόγον) and complete its essence. If you try to remove with reason each reality from the qualities that are inherent to it you will come up with nothing in the end. For if you should set aside, for example, black, cold, weight, thickness, and its qualities pertaining to taste, or anything else like these that we see to pertain to it, then there will no longer be any underlying substance left.328 Things are what they appear to be for Basil; they are their qualities. Moreover, discerning 326

Hex. I.2, 92.

327

Hex. I.8, 118-120.

328

Hex. I.8, 120-122.

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the nature of something is of little value or concern, for what is important is the effect something has in the world. Whether the heat of the sun comes from its nature (ἐκ φύσεως) or from some effect it undergoes (ἐκ πάθους) makes no difference, for in either case the same results are achieved upon the same matter: things are warmed by the sun.329 Basil has been charged with a certain (at least “official”) fideism with respect to these passages,330 but there is something else at work in his attitude towards the contemplation of the nature of the world. It is not that Basil as a bishop wants his flock simply to accept what Scripture says about the world because it says it. Rather, his attitude is nearer to that of Whitman: When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.331 It is precisely the poetic language of Scripture in its description of the heavens that is most accurate and intellectually satisfying332 for Basil because this language draws us closest to the heart of cosmic reality: 1.) that the universe has been created beautifully by 329

Hex. III.7, 226.

330

Emmanuel Amand de Mendieta, “The Official Attitude of Basil of Caesarea as a Christian Bishop Towards Greek Philosophy and Science,” in The Orthodox Churches and the West, ed. Derek Baker (Oxford: Blackwell, 1976), 41-42. 331

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, ed. Sculley Bradley and Harold William Blodget (New York: Norton, 1973), 271. 332

Amand de Mendieta, “The Official Attitude of Basil,” 41: “[The ordinary descriptions of the prophet Isaiah] are indeed very simple and indeed poetic, but they are quite insufficient at the intellectual level.”

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God, who is himself recognized in its beauty, though infinitely beyond it, and 2.) that the world in its simple observation gives instruction for the conduct of human life. With respect to the first, Basil says at the end of the first homily: For even though we do not know the nature of created beings (τὴν φύσιν ἀγνοοῦµεν τῶν γενοµένων), there is such an amazing reality that so completely floods our faculty of perception (τό γε ὁλοσχερῶς ὑποπῖπτον ἡµῶν τῇ αἰσθήσει τοσοῦτον ἔχει τὸ θαῦµα) that even the most insightful mind can make known only the most insignificant details of the lowest of the beings in the universe, whether in order to be able to give an appropriate account of it or to give the appropriate praise to the Creator.333 The world so overwhelms our perception that the mind is unable to get to the essence or nature of things, to get to the heart of creation. It is rather “the wonder of creation” that “is very readily established” in the mind,334 itself penetrating to the interior of the mind, as it were, rather than the mind penetrating it. The simplest of creatures is able to produce “remembrance of the Creator” in the mind because even “a single bit of grass and herbage suffice to occupy all your thinking with the contemplation of the artistry that has brought them about.”335 The structure of a stalk of grain, which allows it to bear many kernels in a single head, is cause for wonder and adoration of the Creator because of its simple purposiveness and obvious marks of good design. It is not the intricate and supersensory mathematical proportions of the cosmos that provoke wonder as the beginning of philosophy as it is in the Timaeus but rather the bare fact of the utter practicality of the material order, the observable usefulness of the parts of natural things to their own

333

Hex. I.11, 134-136.

334

Hex. V.2, 284.

335

Hex. V.3, 290.

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flourishing, and their usefulness to the life of the cosmos, where human beings occupy an exalted place. This is much more profound for Basil—things in their sheer presence and activity—than any discernment of a thing’s essence ever could be. The simple fact of the usefulness of cattle and grain for the physical needs of humanity, as well as their availability for our use, are sources of great wonder for Basil. He is mindful of the given arrangement of human life in its basic relationship to nature, which is a relationship of mutual benefit. The earth provides for, and is oriented towards the needs of human beings: “The use of seeds is reserved for us”336 and the whole purpose of grain is that human beings might have something to eat. Trees give fruit, wood for shelter and the construction of boats, and provide fuel for fire.337 Yet, despite this thoroughly anthropocentric view of the natural world, Basil insists that human beings are themselves only a portion of creation and must accept their proper place, just like everything else in nature. Seeking to augment one’s own holdings and territories beyond one’s ancestral inheritance, even at the expense of the neighbor is, in fact, a practice unique to human beings.338 Human beings should rather learn from the fish and be content to stay in their own allotted place. This reflection leads us to a consideration of Basil’s moral reading of nature. Human beings, as endowed with reason, are called to exercise authority over all of creation, yet, because of humanity’s proclivity to sin they are also intended to learn from nature. Observation of the fruitfulness of the vine—combined with the 336

Hex. V.1, 282.

337

Hex. V.7, 306-308.

338

Hex. VII.3-4, 408-410.

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remembrance of the parable of the vine in the Gospel—serves to “remind you of your nature” and the fruitfulness of the human soul in its attachment to the Vine who is Christ. Similarly, the rose, which originally had no thorns, now possesses them to teach us that pain and pleasure are bound together as a result of the human corruption of the earth through sin.339 In these cases, and in many others, the natural objects of the world, which are often refracted through the prism of Scripture, are not symbols of other realities, but disclosures of the nature of the cosmos and how human being—especially in its moral facet—is to fit into it. This is obviously a result of Basil’s concerns as a pastor and ascetic to discern the practical import of both Scripture and the natural world, which again, are inseparable. However, Basil’s insistence upon moral meanings and his well-known rejection of more speculative allegory are also based upon his insistence that the things of the natural world have, as we have indicated, their own essential integrity and do not exist for the sake of symbolizing something else. Even as “moral examples,” the things of the world we’ve mentioned—the fish content in their sea, the vine, the rose with its thorns—really do have these qualities in their own natural way and participate in the natural world on their own terms, reflecting the nature of reality in their own being and not pointing away from themselves to something else. This stands in contrast to the style of reading Basil rejects elsewhere in the Hexaemeron, where, for example, he calls into question the allegorical reading of “the waters above the heavens” and “the waters below the heavens” as referring to good and evil spiritual powers. Rather, as he says with a powerful terseness, “Let us understand 339

Hex. V.6, 304, 300.

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that ‘water’ is water (τὸ ὕδωρ, ὕδωρ νοήσωµεν).”340 The contemplation of nature for Basil leads to meditation upon the reality of the very being of the things in the world, with no attempt to leap away from the fact of the world itself as a gift. Basil here anticipates Wittgenstein’s “Not how the world is but that it is, this is the mystical.”341 Things themselves—even the blades of grass—are enough to fill the contemplative gaze of the human mind and eye. To go beyond this is to miss creation itself, and therefore the Creator. This, ultimately, is what Gregory meant by saying that Basil’s Hexaemeron brings one into the presence of the Creator himself, for Basil’s account of the six days brings the world itself and all its creatures before the mind in the fullness of their simple presence to be gazed upon and wondered at as pure gifts of God. I have noted that Basil’s concern in the Hexaemeron was to edify his congregation in an especially moral sense. His thoughts about the world were not, however, divorced from his understanding of theology. In his polemic against Eunomius, Basil asserts the incomprehensibility of the essence of God against the Eunomian claim to know the essence of God the Father to be ἀγέννητος (unbegotten),342 arguing that names (such as ἀγέννητος) name concepts (ἐπίνοιαι), not essences, but that they are not therefore meaningless.343 He then turns, in a move that was characteristic of the Cappadocian polemics against radical Arianism, to a demonstration of the incomprehensibility of the essence of creation, in this case of “the earth beneath our feet.” 340

Hex. III.9, 236.

341

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 6.44, (London: Routledge and Paul/New York: The Humanites Press, 1961). 342

Cf. Contra Eunomium I.12.1-29, 212-214, Basile de Césarée Contre Eunome Tome I, ed. Bernard Sesboüé, Georges-Matthieu de Durand, and Louis Doutreleau (Paris: Cerf, 1982). 343

Cont. Eun. I.5.130-I.6.57, 180-188.

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As he alluded to in the Hexaemeron, no predication based on sense perception (αἴσθησις) that we might apply to the created world captures its essence, for each sense is attuned to a specific aspect of creation—sight to color, touch to hardness and softness, hot and cold, etc.—and not to its οὐσία.344 He also asserts that discourse (λόγος), by which he means the teaching of Scripture, does not disclose the essence of creation but rather identifies its Maker: This is the sort of thing the one who has reasoned (ὁ διαλεχθείς) with us about creation has taught us: ‘In the beginning God made heaven and earth…’ He thought it sufficient to proclaim the one who made and gave order to creation, whereas he declined to conduct a thorough investigation as to its essence since this would have been vain and useless for those who listen.345 Again, knowledge of the οὐσία of a thing would not benefit the knower since by itself it would not instruct us how to live. In any case, the essence of created things is not knowable and this should give us an indication that its maker’s essence is all the more unknowable. This, however, Eunomius fails to acknowledge and so we may say that one aspect of the falsehood of the Eunomian position was, in Basil’s view, the result of a failure to understand the meaning of the contemplation of nature. They were fundamentally inattentive to how the world gives itself—not as a bare essence to be known but as thick manifestations of quality and quantity whose very presence make the Creator present to the mind as well, and this again not as an οὐσία to be grasped but as a presence to be revered.

344

Cont. Eun. I.12.30-46, 214-216.

345

Cont. Eun. I.13.1-6, 216.

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ii. Gregory Nazianzen—Nature and Theological Initiation While Basil extends the practical aspect of Origen’s approach to the contemplation of nature and grounds it upon a vision for the integrity of created things in themselves (though giving indications towards the theological), it is Gregory Nazianzen who extends more obviously the other aspect of Origin’s vision of natural contemplation—the anticipation of theology—in his second Theological Oration (Or. 28). The context for Gregory’s contemplation of nature is, like Basil’s, set by his role as public rhetorician and preacher, though the intellectual register of his Theological Orations is rather higher than in Basil’s Hexaemeron.346 For while Gregory declaims in the mode of a preacher, he takes from Origen the scholarly notion that cosmic speculation can be engaged in without the necessity of coming down on a settled position, that many diverse opinions can be held by Christians without detriment to the dogmatic content of the faith. He tells the Eunomian theologians to philosophize for me about the world or worlds (φιλοσόφει µοι περὶ κόσµου ἢ κόσµων), about matter, the soul, good and evil rational natures, about the resurrection, judgment, retribution, and the sufferings of Christ. Discovering something with respect to these things is not without value, and making mistakes poses no threat.347 These themes are all familiar from On First Principles as is the relatively free spirit of enquiry.348 For Gregory, there is room for a natural contemplation that is not directly determinative for the doctrines of theology (or for moral practice). It plays a crucial role, 346

Gregory does, however, employ the poetic images of Scripture in its description of the world in a way that recalls Basil’s use. See e.g. Or. 28.27.11-15, Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 27-31, ed. Paul Gallay (Paris: Cerf, 1978). 347

Or. 27.10.17-22, 96-98.

348

Gallay, Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 27-31, 96n.7; Frederick Norris, Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning: The Five Theological Orations of Gregory Nazianzen (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 102-103.

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however, in conditioning an orientation towards the mysteries of theology. Gregory does himself “philosophize” about the matters he mentions at the end of Oration 27—in particular about the world, the soul, and rational beings—in his Poemata Arcana, where he appropriates the Greek tradition of rendering cosmology in verse.349 Unsurprisingly, much of what Gregory has to say in these verses operates within the realm established by Origen. By situating himself in this poetic tradition, Gregory lends his cosmic thought the kind of hierophantic disposition towards nature that he assumes in Oration 28.350 Gregory announces that the task of the oration is to “address the concepts of theology (τοῖς τῆς θεολογίας λόγοις),” but more than one-third of it is devoted to contemplation of the natural world and is, in fact, an example of θεωρία φυσική, which, in the mouth of Gregory, serves the interests of his mystical theology. He begins by establishing himself as a new philosophical Moses, evoking the ascent of Mt. Sinai (Ex 19.16 ff) and Moses’ request to see the glory of God (Ex 33.12 ff). The “back of God” (Θεοῦ τὰ ὀπίσθια; Ex 33.23), which is all Moses (and now Gregory) is allowed to see, is “the grandeur in created things, which have been brought forth by God and are governed by him.”351 Created things are “tokens,” or “indications” (γνωρίσµατα) of God; they are all that can be seen of God. Gregory makes the standard confession, against the Eunomians, that human beings cannot know God fully, but like

349

D. A. Sykes, “The ‘Poemata Arcana’ of St. Gregory Nazianzen,” Journal of Theological Studies 21 (1970), 39-40. The author places Gregory’s poems within the tradition of Greek didactic verse, a tradition which, argues Sykes, Gregory revived and of which he was, in the end, the last representative. 350

I have referred to the translations in NPNF series 2 volume 7, and in On God and Christ-The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius, trans. Frederick Williams and Lionel Wickham (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002). 351

Or. 28.3.12-13.

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Basil he extends our lack of knowledge to the created world as well: “Not only does ‘the peace of God surpass all understanding’ (Phil 4.7) and comprehension…so also does a rigorous intellectual grasp of creation.”352 After considering the divine in various ways and according to various images, the upward strain of Gregory’s discourse collapses under its own weight, for “something that belongs to our constitution [as embodied] (τι τῶν ἡµετέρων)” always intervenes between our mental faculties and the ideal realities we would seek to apprehend.353 We try to entertain pure concepts such as “spirit/wind, fire, light, love, wisdom,” etc. but we are unable to think about them without reference to some physical reality. “Our mind, therefore, grows weary of transcending bodily realities and of holding converse with realities that are free of bodily nature while, bound to its own weakness, it stares at what is beyond its power.” The mind’s only recourse is to physical realities, which it uses either as idols or as the means by which “to come to an awareness of God through the beauty and comely arrangement of visible things.”354 Gregory follows the flow of “God-given reason (ὁ ἐκ Θεοῦ λόγος)” in its progress through the perception of visible things to the arrangement of their elements and from there to the one who arranged them. Because λόγος comes from God but is also “co-natural with all things (πᾶσι σύµφυτος)” and “our primary law (πρῶτος ἐν ἡµῖν νόµος),” it “leads us from visible things to God,”355 partaking as it does of both. Reason and intellect, he says, will one day return to God their archetype and will then achieve the 352

Or. 28.5.2-6.

353

Or. 28.12.31-34.

354

Or. 28.13.28-32.

355

Or. 28.16.22-25.

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knowledge of “mixture with its kin (τῷ οἰκείῳ προσµίξῃ).”356 For now, however, “no one has ever found what God is by nature and essence, and no one will.”357 In relation to the world itself, whose elements lead the mind to the recognition of God, the mind is also left in ignorance and mystery. Gregory turns first to the natural constitution of the human being, the “µικρὸς κόσµος,” which is a mixture of mortality and immortality, materiality and immateriality, whose blended identity finds its most poignant mystery in the mind’s connection to the external world through sensuality and speech.358 Gregory’s rhetoric brings these questions before us as questions and does not offer any explanation. He moves to the non-human animals, the plants, the earth itself, the heavenly bodies, and the angelic powers and again poses the question of the source of their diverse forms and activities, of their order and structure.359 Gregory adopts, against his Eunomian adversaries, the voice of God in God’s rebuke of Job for presuming to complain about the arrangement of providence when he could not answer the fundamental cosmic questions of the nature of the natural world all around him. Gregory’s discourse, he says, has as its goal the demonstration that “even the nature of secondary realities is greater than the intellect can grasp,” so how could a human being claim, as did Eunomius, to know the nature of God, who is infinitely beyond what is itself beyond human intellect?360 356

Or. 28.17.6.

357

Or. 28.17.1-2.

358

Or. 28.22.

359

Or. 28.23-31.

360

Or. 28.31.39-42.

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The mystery of theology includes, for Gregory, the mystery of the world itself and is, in fact, utterly inseparable from it, for it is only “the back-side” of God, the tracks left in creation, that we are ever able to see. For all the rhetoric of bodily weightiness and obscurity and the desire of the mind to get beyond corporeality, the fact is that we never do get away from the body on earth. So, an account of God cannot be given without the world. On the other side, an account of the world cannot be considered to be complete without reference to its divine cause. A physical and mathematical account of the stars and planets, for example, and the generalization of these empirical observations into laws of nature or “science (ἐπιστήµη)” do not suffice as “comprehension” of the heavenly spheres “in their being (κατάληψις τῶν ὄντων).”361 Rather, as any philosopher would say, an account of their cause is necessary for true knowledge. But in the case of created things in their created being, the account of causality very quickly begins to elude the human mind, for it is not enough simply to name “God” as the “first cause”362 of all that is. Gregory asks for an account of how the sun produces its effects: producing night and day and the change of seasons. He asks why the moon comes at night and changes the way it does, what holds the constellations in place. Expecting no answer, for there is no response that would answer his questions, Gregory, like Basil, turns his auditors from the how and the why to the that of the world, to its sheer unaccountable reality, its givenness as a creation. By asking simple questions, which demand that one gaze at the things in the world and give an account of them without recourse to mathematical or 361

Or. 28.29.5-14.

362

Or. 28.31.20.

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elemental description, that is, without secondary levels of description, Gregory intends to lead his listeners to an imitation of the highest level of created beings, the angelic powers, who are all assigned to watch over a certain part of the cosmos and who constantly hymn God’s majesty.363 The nature of creation, as we saw with Clement, can only be approached in the priestly activity of worship in the temple. God and the world are connected in the praise of rational creatures and, as Gregory has insisted, we are unable to contemplate one without the other. This coming-together of the divine and the created in natural contemplation is the way of entry to Gregory’s teaching about the incarnate Christ, who is the rock in whom Moses took shelter when God passed by and showed him himself in created things.364 This direction of the contemplation of nature towards the discourse of theology is not without its counter-balance with respect to praxis, however. Gregory, like Basil, keeps all of these elements together and while Basil’s texts are more overtly ethical in their emphasis than Gregory’s, Gregory makes the issues of practical philosophy a central part of his critique of the Eunomians in his oration Against the Eunomians (Or. 27, the First Theological Oration). He criticizes them as being deficient in ethical philosophy: “They delight in the ‘profane and vain babblings and contradictions of the knowledge falsely so-called’ (I Tim 6.20)…would that they would give some attention to their actions as well τι καὶ περὶ τὰς πράξεις ἠσχολοῦντο).”365 Their mode of discourse— 363

Or. 28.31.26-36.

364

Or. 28.3.6-7.

365

Or. 27.1.5-14.

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excessively analytical and showy—destroys “every pious way” so that their discourse is ultimately incompatible with the Christian way of life.366 Whether or not this was true of the Eunomians themselves, Gregory is articulating a vision of “philosophizing about God”367 that integrates praxis, contemplation of nature, and discourse about God. The theologian must be purified by praxis—hospitality, brotherly love, chastity, feeding the poor, psalmody, vigil, prayer, fasting368—before beginning to articulate the mysteries of the faith. Discourse has an effect on those who hear it and cultivates a certain ethos, which, as in the case of the Eunomians, may be foreign to the Christian vision for how to live and this, for Gregory, is the result in part of discourse given by an impure theologian. So Gregory’s contemplation of nature, which leads to the mystery of the ineffable God, is grounded in the practical life of asceticism and virtue, which are the necessary preparation for a true encounter with the world as “the back of God,” an encounter in which the theologian, like Moses, takes refuge in the rock that is Christ, the incarnate Word. iii. Gregory of Nyssa—The Scope of Natural Contemplation Gregory of Nyssa employs Clement’s use of the tabernacle as an image of the relationship between Christ and the world, writing “Moses received preliminary, typological (ἐν τύπῳ) instruction concerning the mystery of the tabernacle that 366

Or. 27.2.

367

Or. 27.3.

368

Cf. Or. 27.7; for the role of purification and its relation to theological contemplation in Gregory Nazianzen, see Jean Plagnieux, Saint Grégoire de Nazianze Théologien (Paris: Éditions Franciscaines, 1952), 81-111, for the relationship of praxis and contemplation more generally, 141-164; see also Christopher A. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God: In Your Light We Shall See Light (Oxford: Oxord University Press, 2008), 65-90.

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encompasses the universe (τὸ πᾶν). This [tabernacle] would be Christ, ‘the power of God and the wisdom of God’” (I Cor 1.24).369 He goes on to say in the same passage that therefore “the same tabernacle,” which he has identified with Christ, is in a sense (τρόπον τινά) both unfashioned (ἀκατάσκευον) and something that has come to be fashioned (κατεσκευασµένην): it is uncreated in its preexistence (τῷ µὲν προϋπάρχειν ἄκτιστον) and has become a creature in accordance with this material order (τῷ δὲ κατἀ τὴν ὑλικὴν ταύτην σύστασιν κτιστὴν γενοµένην.”370 Gregory is here applying the Alexandrian notion of the preexistence of the λόγοι of creatures in the mind of God to Christ so that the incarnation of Christ becomes the archetype for the process of creation. The universe is, in this way, the image of the incarnate Christ. But what is it for Gregory to contemplate this image itself? Its connection to the mysteries of theology, which led Basil and Gregory Nazianzen to a stance of extreme (at least rhetorical) caution with respect to speculations about the world, would appear to lead Gregory of Nyssa in the opposite direction towards a much more open-ended speculation about cosmic processes. We noted at the beginning of this chapter that the human being was created last of all, according to Gregory of Nyssa, as the one who would both contemplate and rule all of the natural world. In anticipation of Maximus’ well-charted notion of man as mediator of creation and divinity, Gregory sees the human being as one who “enjoys God by means of his more divine nature, and the good things of earth by the senses, which are akin to them.”371 The human mind is suited to 369

De Vita Moysis II, 91.13-15, Gregorii Nysseni De Vita Moysis, ed. Herbert Musurillo (Leiden: Brill, 1964). 370

Vita Mo,. II, 91.17-20.

371

De hom. op. II, PG 44.133B15-17.

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knowledge of the diversity of the world because of its diverse sense faculties, but this in no way threatens the unity of human being, who is made in the image of the one God. In this way, the human intellect becomes the place where the world is united in its intuition of the world through the senses. A corollary to this observation pertains to Gregory’s understanding of the relationship between mind and matter. In his argument against the eternity of matter, he reasons that material reality is the coalescence of intelligible attributes such as color, weight, texture, and so on, so that all of reality is finally grounded in the immaterial, there being no need for an eternal material substrate for the production of material things. As we have just seen, Basil used a similar line of thinking to turn his congregation away from the vain search for essences. Gregory extends the notion in a positive direction which, in fact, points more directly precisely to the mind’s suitability to understanding the material world through the senses because of its co-naturalness with what the world truly is: intellectual reality. Unlike Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa does not seem at all bothered by the mind’s use of the senses, at least when he is speculating philosophically. He is quite fond of using elaborate biological examples to make his philosophical and rhetorical points and seems genuinely fascinated by the intricacies of the material world, as is evinced by the last chapter of his On the Making of Man, which considers human composition from a medical perspective as supplementary to the Scriptural witness.372 This comes through quite clearly in his Apology for Basil’s Hexaemeron. In this text Gregory defines and defends his brother’s intentions for his sermons and in so doing 372

De hom. op. XXX, PG 44.240C-256C.

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shows how very different his own approach is. The fact that some have found Basil’s account of the six days lacking—particularly with reference to how there could be the passage of three days before the existence of the sun and stars (which were created on the fourth day) and how the two heavens mentioned in Genesis (Gen 1.1, 8) comport with the three heavens mentioned by St. Paul (II Cor 12.2)—is evidence for Gregory that “there are some people who have not correctly recognized the point (τὸν σκοπόν) of Basil's work on the six days of creation.”373 Basil was speaking to a diverse congregation made up of some who were familiar with advanced intellectual culture but of many who were not. For this reason, Basil did not begin with an elaborately wrought account of the Biblical narrative but rather he gave a simple exegesis of the words so that the speech set before the audience would be useful to them in their simplicity, although he was somehow able to lift his exegesis to the level of his more advanced auditors by bringing in the rich learning of pagan philosophy (τῆς ἔξω φιλοσοφίας). The result was that he could be understood by the multitude and dazzle the more advanced (ὥστε παρὰ µὲν τῶν πολλῶν νοεῖσθαι, παρὰ δὲ τῶν ὑπερεχόντων θαυµάζεσθαι).374 Basil’s genius, according to Gregory, was his ability to speak about the natural world at many different registers at once and thus his discourse takes on an authority for Gregory that is second only to the Scriptural narrative itself.375 Although Gregory begins by affirming that he teaches nothing other than “Basil’s philosophy of the generation of the cosmos,”376 that his own thoughts on the matter are 373

Apologia in Hexaemeron 3, 8.12-9.10, Gregorii Nysseni In Hexaemeron, opera exegetica in Genesim, Pars I, ed. Hubertus R. Drobner (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 374

In Hex. 4, 10.15-11.2.

375

In Hex. 6, 13.15-16.

376

In Hex. 6, 13.11-14.

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simply a branch grafted onto and sustained by the life-filled vine of Basil’s teaching,377 he actually carries out his project—and admittedly so—in a spirit that is quite different. Like others before him, he refers to Moses’ ascent of Mt. Sinai as the symbol of the acquisition of knowledge of nature and he encourages his reader to seek such knowledge in “the grace that is in you and search for the Spirit of revelation who manifests the divine depths to you through your prayers.”378 Gregory’s own contemplation of questions regarding, for example, why the sun had to be made at all if the air was already filled with light, why darkness required no divine command for existence whereas light only came forth by the word of God, how the “waters above the heaven” maintain their position upon the convex surface of heaven’s vault, etc., will be given not, like Basil’s, with the weight of dogmatic authority, but rather, as he says, we freely admit that we are giving only our own views on the ideas that are before us as a sort of exercise (ἐγγυµνάζειν µόνον); we are by no means setting down a fully explanatory teaching (διδασκαλίαν ἐξηγητικήν) in what follows. So when I weave together unconventional ideas (ὅσα δοκεῖ µὴ συµβαίνειν ταῖς κοιναῖς ὑπολήψεσι) with the starting points (τὰς ἐνστάσεις) that are available to us from Ηoly Scripture and from what we learned while sitting at the feet of our teacher, let no one question my discourse, for it is not my task to contrive some sort of justification for the obstacles that seem to be at hand, but let me be granted the authority to scrutinize the meaning (τὴν διάνοιαν) of the words in accordance with their own purpose, if somehow it should be possible for me, with the help of God, to put together a coherent and consistent study of the creation of what has come into being in such a way that my speech remains consistent with how [Scripture’s meaning] appears to us (ἐπὶ τῆς ἰδίας ἐµφάσεως).379

377

In Hex. 2, 7.14-8.11.

378

In Hex. 5, 13.4-6.

379

In Hex. 6, 13.21-14.12.

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This passage is crucial for understanding how Gregory goes about studying the natural world through the mediation of the Genesis narrative. He takes the Scriptural account of creation and Basil’s interpretation of it as his “starting points” but then “weaves together unconventional ideas” with them in order to produce his account. Gregory is taking his lead from the rational problems that are raised by the Genesis account and will introduce somewhat obscure ideas to address the obscure teaching of Scripture. Gregory is obviously much more willing to speculate freely about the created world than was Basil and he justifies himself in this by muting the authoritative status of his interpretations. They are intended as an exercise, as a speculative encounter with the divine teaching of Moses. Because this is his way of keeping his discourse “consistent with how Scripture’s meaning appears,” in accordance with its own purpose (τὸν ἴδιον σκοπόν), the question is, how does Gregory define the purpose of the Scriptural narrative? As is to be expected from what he has just said, Gregory defines this purpose in terms of pedagogy or training. Moses, Gregory tells us, “has composed the book of Genesis as an introduction to divine knowledge and his goal (σκοπός) was to lead those who are enslaved to sense-perception to that which lies above sensible apprehension through what appears (διὰ τῶν φαινοµένων).”380 To illustrate what this means for Gregory’s understanding of the Genesis account of creation, we shall examine how he interprets the very first sentence, “In the beginning (or “in sum,” ἐν κεφαλαίῳ,381 both of which Gregory discusses) God made heaven and earth.” His reading will address the

380

In Hex. 8, 17.3-6. This does not mean that Moses is not concerned for the arrangement of sensible reality on its own terms; cf. In Hex. 14, 24.11ff. 381

This is the reading in the version of Aquila.

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problems that arise with respect to the sequence of creation as well as the question concerning the apparently primordial presence of darkness. The mention of “heaven and earth” refers to the extremes of human perception and thus includes every perceptible thing that resides in heaven, on earth, and in the midst of them. The words ἐν ἀρχῇ (“in the beginning”) or ἐν κεφαλαίῳ (“in sum”) indicate the “suddenness (τὸ ἀθρόον)” of the creation of all things at once: “The collective coming into being of all things is established by the phrase ‘in sum’ whereas the instantaneous and dimensionless generation is shown with the phrase ‘in the beginning.’”382 Because the “first impulse” of God’s will to create results in the “substance (οὐσία)” of each thing being constituted—“heaven, the ether, the stars, fire, air, sea, land, animals, plants”— God sees all things “before their generation” (Sus 35a) and “skillfully fashioning nature,” which “seeks for a sequence in things that have come into being,” arranges the orderly progression of realities from “the essence (τόδε τι) of what is seen in the universe” down through the various qualities that make it manifest.383 It is this dynamic of the sequential and orderly arrangement of things by nature that has led Moses to arrange his account of the instantaneous creation of all things in the form of a narrative after he had “speculated philosophically about natural doctrines (περὶ τῶν φυσικῶν δογµάτων φιλοσοφήσας)…for everything that comes to be according to a certain sequence and wisdom is a direct utterance of God (ἄντικρυς φωνή).”384

382

In Hex. 8, 17.13-17.

383

In Hex. 9, 18.9-19.8.

384

In Hex. 9, 19.9-12.

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Before there was light, all of these things were invisible and the “luminous potentiality” that resides in each thing was obscured by the darkness of materiality. When, however, God gave the sign for the generation of the cosmos, “fire sprang forth from every heavy nature and everything was immediately seen in the light.”385 This dynamic of the sequence of creation ultimately describes the progression of the revelation of the divine Logos as the creative power of God, which defines the essence of each thing, to human minds. Gregory says, “the poverty of our nature looks upon what has come to be and is unable to see and praise the logos according to which it comes into being, for praise is appropriate for what is known, not what is unknown.”386 Thus, the illumination of creation by the Word of God is the disclosure of the essence of the λόγος—the meaning and rational principle—of the cosmos so that human beings may offer praise as the conclusion of the contemplation of nature. In this distillation of the knowledge of the world as praise Gregory anticipates both Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus. The speculative study of nature through the mediation of the teaching of Moses provides for the paideia of the soul and this culminates in a knowledge of creation that is none other than the worship of the Creator. Together, the three Cappadocians may be taken to illustrate three basic tendencies in the contemplation of nature, though as I have indicated, these tendencies are present in all three. Basil, through his focus on the simple presence of created things had his congregation’s moral edification and simple devotion to God as his primary concern. Gregory Nazianzen saw in the cosmos a great mystery that pointed to the even greater

385

In Hex. 10, 20.14-17.

386

In Hex. 12, 14-17.

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mystery of theology, while Gregory of Nyssa, especially in his Apology, gave the freest rein to cosmic speculation itself, mediated, of course, by the account of Scripture. III. Evagrius of Pontus Evagrius of Pontus brings these two traditions, the Alexandrian and Cappadocian, together into a synthesis that was to have a lasting effect on the ascetical tradition. As disciple of both Basil and Gregory Nazianzen and ultimately as disciple and master of the Egyptian desert, Evagrius provided all ascetics and theologians who would come after him a systematic and thoroughly articulated account of the theoretical and practical aspects of the contemplation of nature. As we noted in the Introduction, Lars Thunberg describes Maximus’ understanding of the contemplation of nature largely in terms of how it differs from Evagrius. My orientation here is quite different. The Ambigua to John derive from the intellectual activity of learned monastics and so their orientation towards the necessity of natural contemplation as preparation for theology is much closer to the Evagrian milieu than Thunberg discerns in the thought of Maximus more generally. In any case, when Maximus contemplates the natural world, he is very much a disciple, even if a critical one, of Evagrius, and it is for this reason that I shall give a more thorough account of Evagrius here than I have given for the other patristic figures. In the first chapter of the Praktikos, Evagrius writes, “Christianity is the teaching of Christ our Savior, consisting of the practical, the natural, and the theological,”387 again reiterating the unfolding of the philosophical life that we’ve been tracing. Evagrius goes on to specify the content of the natural and theological stages, identifying them with “the

387

Practicus 1, Traite, Pratique ou Le Moine II, ed. Antoine and Claire Guillaumont (Paris: Cerf, 1971).

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kingdom of the heavens,” and “the kingdom of God,” respectively: “The kingdom of the heavens is dispassion of soul with true knowledge of beings,” and “The kingdom of God is knowledge of the Holy Trinity coextensive with the structure of the intellect (συµπαρεκτεινοµένη τῇ συστάσει τοῦ νοός), and transcending its incorruptibility.”388 Natural contemplation pertains to the knowledge of beings whereas theology pertains to the uncreated Trinity. As they were in the Cappadocians, the three stages of spiritual life are thoroughly united in the thought of Evagrius. He states that natural contemplation is the beginning (ἀρχή) of theology, and that the dispassion and love achieved by the practical life lead into natural knowledge. Indeed, Evagrius’s texts, which initially appear to fall readily into one of the three stages—Foundations and Praktikos for the practical life, Thoughts for natural contemplation, Prayer and Kephalaia Gnostica for the theological life— nevertheless merge into one another. The Praktikos gives indications as to what is beyond the practical life. Thoughts speaks of the place of God and the “mental perception of God” at the time of prayer. Prayer claims, in its prologue, to teach all three stages, and the Kephalaia Gnostica contain a substantial amount of material describing the dynamics of natural contemplation. As the Gnostikos states, not every “ethical text” in scripture necessarily provides an ethical contemplation, and likewise for natural philosophy and theology.389 A text that is overtly about nature may provide an ethical teaching, an ethical text a theological one. This indicates how fluid, on Evagrius’ reading, are the stages of spiritual life as they are described in the language of Scripture, and it is to be expected 388

Pract. 2-3.

389

Gnosticus 20, Le Gnostique, ou À celui qui est devenu digne de la science, ed. Antoine and Claire Guillaumont (Paris: Cerf, 1989).

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that Evagrius’ texts, which are immersed in that language, should exhibit a similar fluidity. There is, of course, a certain rationality to this fluctuation, since each lower stage is given as the ἀρχή of the one above it. For our present purposes, we should note at the outset that natural contemplation implies in itself both the asceticism and dispassion that make it possible, and the theology that makes it complete. Thus, we shall see that natural contemplation implies both: 1.) dispassion and love, the entry to natural contemplation, and 2.) the movement away from the contemplation of the natural world towards theology. To make this clear, I will begin by clarifying the lineaments of the spiritual life as they pertain to the attainment of impassibility in the Praktikos. I will then move to a study of certain chapters of Evagrius’s Scholia on Ecclesiastes that address natural contemplation. Throughout, the analysis will refer to other Evagrian works as well, primarily On Thoughts and On Prayer, where Evagrius makes explicit some of the principles underlying the movement from asceticism and natural contemplation to theology. .

i. From Asceticism to Nature In the prologue to the Practikos, Evagrius writes, Child, the fear of God establishes faith, self-mastery establishes this fear, and endurance and hope make self-mastery unwavering. From these dispassion is born, whose offspring is love. Love is the doorway of natural knowledge (γνώσεως φυσικῆς), which is followed by theology and the final blessedness.390 In this short passage, Evagrius gives a summary of the spiritual life. The life of

390

Pract. Prol.8.

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asceticism, which cultivates endurance (ὑποµονή), hope, self-mastery (ἐγκράτεια), the fear of God, and faith, and which gives birth to dispassion (ἀπάθεια), has as its culmination the production of love (ἀγάπη). It is this love—“the end (πέρας) of the practical life”—born of dispassion that is the precondition of the knowledge of beings. This knowledge of beings, the end of natural contemplation, becomes, in turn, the “beginning” (ἀρχή) of theology.391 The three key issues for our purposes here are, 1.) how dispassion gives birth to love, 2.) how love, as the offspring of dispassion, opens the way to natural knowledge, and 3.) what constitutes the “following” of theology upon natural knowledge. In consonance with our general approach to ancient natural contemplation, I shall focus particularly on the intellect and its perceptions of the world as we address these questions. The scope of the Practikos is devoted to the first stage of philosophy, that is, to the practical life of asceticism whose aim is dispassion. As Evagrius teaches in the Foundations (Rerum monachalium rationes), the life of asceticism in its eremetic manifestation, whose initial goal is dispassion, has the acquisition of stillness as its distinctive mark: How comely and beautiful is the asceticism [that is practiced] in stillness…Do you wish to take up the monastic life as it [really] is, and to run the race for the trophies of stillness? Let thoughts bound to the world go…that is, be free of matter, dispassionate, and free of every passionate desire (ἐπιθυµία).392 The initial move of withdrawal from the cares of the world makes possible, through

391

Pract. 84: “Love is the end of the practical life, theology is the end of knowledge. The beginnings of each are faith and natural contemplation.” 392

Rerum monachalium rationes 2-3, PG 40.1253B12-C7.

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asceticism, the acquisition of dispassion whose characteristic is stillness. Evagrius identifies this stillness as an indication of dispassion when, in the Practikos, he gives indications of the comportment towards the world characteristic of one who has achieved dispassion. In this state, the intellect “remains still (ἥσυχος) in the face of apparitions during sleep, and when it regards realities (πράγµατα) without receiving their impress,”393 having “knowledge which has achieved a separation from sensible reality (τῆς γνώσεως…χωριζούσης τῶν αἰσθητῶν),” and therefore from the irrational part of the soul.394 The dispassionate soul, which still experiences the things of the world (πάσχουσα τὰ πράγµατα), “remains untroubled even by the memories of them.”395 Dispassion is the “mother” of love, which in turn is the doorway to γνῶσις φυσική. When we examine more thoroughly the basic comportment of the dispassionate ascetic traced above, we see that Evagrius describes the migration of spiritual combat to the irascible part of the soul (τὸ θυµικόν) once the mind has begun to pray without distraction.396 As he writes in On Prayer, “Undistracted prayer is the highest intellection of the intellect.”397 Thus, when the intellect begins to function according to its proper mode, the struggle concentrates in the θύµος, the site of anger, where pure prayer can

393

Pract. 64.

394

Pract. 66.

395

Pract. 67.

396

Pract. 63.

397

De oratione 35, The Philokalia-The Complete Text Vol. I, trans. G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1979).

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actually be destroyed.398 The acquisition of love is linked for Evagrius to the control of the θύµος: “love is the bridle of anger, and Moses, that holy man, calls it symbolically ‘serpant-fighter’ in his book of physics.”399 Significantly, Evagrius considers love and anger with reference to natural contemplation (the “book of physics”), for they pertain directly to the acquisition of knowledge of the world. In Pract. 64, quoted in part above, Evagrius continues the description of impassibility: “A proof of impassibility is when the intellect has begun to see its own radiance, when it remains still in the face of apparitions during sleep, and when it regards realities without receiving their impress.” The general mode of mental perception involves the intellect taking on the image of that which it perceives: “one must begin hence from the understanding (τοῦ λόγου) that the mind is wont to receive mental perceptions of all sensible realities, and to be stamped according to them by means of the organ of this body. For whatever might be the shape (µορφή) of the reality, the mind necessarily receives its image (εἰκόνα).”400 The mind, then, assumes the image of that which it contemplates. When the intellect begins to see its own radiance, however, this is an indication that it has achieved a separation from sensible things and their impressions. When the intellect achieves dispassion, it is able to remain “unstamped” by the images of sensible things, and is thus able to behold its own intellectual radiance. The implication is that the stamping of the intellect with the image of sensible reality obscures the intellect’s perception of itself. Here we see a similarity to the obstruction effected by the passions: 398

De malignis cogitationibus 5, Sur les Pense,es, ed. Paul Gehin, Claire Guillaumont, and Antoine Guillaumont (Paris: Cerf, 1998). 399

Pract. 38; cf. Clement, Stromaties I.28, noted above, 124 n.264.

400

Mal. cog. 25.

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“When the irascible faculty is disturbed, it blinds the one who sees, and when the concupiscible faculty is moved irrationally (ἀλόγως), it obscures the things seen.”401 With the migration of spiritual combat to the θύµος at the attainment of dispassion with respect to the sensible world, disturbance in the θύµος becomes an interruption of the intellect’s activity of knowing. Stillness, separation, and imperturbability, in the midst of this combat, characterize the disposition of the one who has approached love, the doorway of natural knowledge, and is prepared to turn the gaze to nature itself. Evagrius describes this phenomenon in Thoughts 39: Whenever the intellect, having put off the old man, shall put on (ἐνδύσηται) the one born of grace, then it will see its own disposition (κατάστασιν) resembling sapphire or a heavenly color at the time of prayer, which scripture calls the place of God, which was seen by the ancients upon Mt Sinai. To note the context of these allusions to Colossians: “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image (ἐπίγνωσιν κατὰ εἰκόνα) of him that created him: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew...but Christ is all and in all ” (Col 3.9-11).. The language of “putting on the one born of grace,” in addition to its allusion to Colossians, also echoes Paul’s language in I Cor 15 of “putting on incorruption” in the resurrection: “Whenever this corruptible shall put on (ἐνδύσηται) incorruption” (I Cor 15.54) and this seems to stand behind Evagrius’ teaching in Thoughts 38, where he writes, “By means of the contemplation of all the ages, Christ raises the rational nature which had been killed by evil.” As we shall see below, the “contemplation of the ages” is a component of natural contemplation for Evagrius. Here we see how it leads to the resurrection of the 401

Kephalaia Gnostika V.27; Greek fragment printed in Irenée Hausherr, “Nouveaux fragments grecs d’Evagre le Pontique,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 5 (1939), 231.

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rational nature. Part of the activity of natural contemplation is the mind’s dispassionate contemplation of created beings and ages, and thus a separation from sensible impressions. If we translate this structure to the next phrase in Thoughts 38, we observe that “the soul which dies the death of Christ” is raised up by the Father “by means of the knowledge of Him.” Knowledge of God is the means and result of dispassion and separation from the sensible realm,402 and this could be called “the death of Christ,” since death is precisely separation from the body.403 In Thoughts 40, Evagrius continues his description of the vision of “the place of God” in a way that relates it to the basic progression of the spiritual life: The intellect will not see the place of God in itself unless it shall become higher than all the mental perceptions among realities (ἐν τοῖς πράγµασιν). It will not become higher unless it has put off the passions, which bind it with the mental perceptions found among sensible realities. The passions will be put off through the virtues, bare thoughts (ψιλοὺς λογισµούς) through spiritual contemplation, and this again [will be put off] when that light which forms (τοῦ φωτὸς τοῦ ἐκτυποῦντος) the place of God appears to the intellect at the time of prayer. Here again we have the three-fold progression of “the doctrine of Christ our Savior”: πρακτική—“the passions will be put off through the virtues; φυσική—“spiritual404 contemplation”; θεολογική—“when that light which forms the place of God at the time of prayer appears to the intellect.” With this basic ascetical foundation in mind, we return

402

Cf. Institutio ad monachos 2.25: “Just as a physician considers medication for the treatment of an illness, so too the knowledge of God, when it is carefully preserved, teaches the one who partakes of it how it might be guarded and progress to greater things,” Evagrius Ponticus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 403

We shall examine Maximus’ use of the theme of the death and resurrection of Christ and the contemplation of nature in Chapter 6 below, 414-420. 404

The adjective “spiritual” here is set in contrast to “bare thoughts” and refers to contemplation as a conscious activity of devoted intellectual attention as opposed to the experience of the uncontrolled provocation of thoughts.

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now to the theme of natural contemplation in Evagrius’ Scholia on Ecclesiastes. ii. Nature As we have seen, Origen had identified Ecclesiastes as the book of Solomon devoted specifically to the contemplation of nature405 and Evagrius’ Scholia on Ecclesiastes are devoted in large part to this theme. In the first scholion, which comments on the title of the Biblical text, Evagrius writes, The church (ἐκκλησία) of pure souls is true knowledge of the ages and worlds and of the judgment and providence in them. The preacher (ἐκκλησιαστής) is Christ the begetter of this knowledge. Or, the preacher is the one who purifies souls through ethical contemplations and leads them to natural contemplation (τῇ φυσικῇ θεωρίᾳ).406 When we combine this description of the components of natural contemplation with the basic definition observed above—“dispassion of soul with true knowledge of beings”— we see that natural contemplation, whose precondition is dispassion giving birth to love, pertains to the ages and worlds, judgment and providence, and created beings. Evagrius identifies Christ specifically as the “begetter” of this knowledge, so our reading of the Scholia on Ecclesiastes will observe Evagrius’ teaching on these elements, particularly as they relate to theology. In scholion 2, Evagrius identifies a central theme in the relationship between natural contemplation and theology, that of the transformation of illness to health. He writes, commenting on the distinctive proclamation of Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities, everything is vanity (τὰ πάντα µαταιότης)”:

405

Evagrius makes the same identification in his Scholia in.Proverbum 247, Scholies au Proverbs, ed. Paul Géhin (Paris: Cerf, 1987). 406

Scholia in Ecclesiasten 1, Scholies à l’Eccle,siaste, ed. Paul Géhin (Paris: Cerf,1993).

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To those who are entering the intellectual church (τὴν νοητὴν ἐκκλησίαν) and who are amazed by the contemplation of things which have come into being (θαυµάζοντας τὴν θεωρίαν τῶν γεγονότων), the Word says, ‘Do not think that this is the final end stored up for you in the promises. For all of these things are vanity of vanities in the face of the knowledge of God Himself. For just as medicines (τὰ φάρµακα) are vain after perfect health, thus also the logoi of the ages and worlds are vain after the knowledge of the Holy Trinity.’ Here Evagrius introduces in a highly compressed form a number of key elements of his understanding of the contemplation of nature, which he will go on to elaborate throughout the scholia. On the fundamental level, we should observe that θεωρία φυσική is precisely θεωρία τῶν γεγονότων, contemplation of things that have come into existence, and thus have change at the very core of their being. From a general Platonic standpoint, there can be no knowledge, properly speaking, of changeable realities due to their inherent fluctuation,407 and this Platonic dynamic is appropriate for Evagrius’ approach to contemplation. One of the results of contemplating changeable reality is the deep awareness of its very instability so that the response to the realm of becoming is inevitably “vanity of vanities.” As he writes elsewhere, “While sitting in your cell, gather your intellect. Remember the day of death; behold there the dying of the body. Consider the calamity, accept the toil, condemn the vanity (µαταιότης) in this world.”408 This comes within the ascetical considerations of the Foundations, and is linked with the acquisition of detachment and dispassion—the aim of the practical life—which is the disposition of the soul which accompanies, even makes possible, true knowledge of 407

Republic VI.508d: “When [the soul] is firmly fixed on the domain where truth and that which is (τὸ ὄν) shine resplendent it apprehends and knows it and appears to be in possession of understanding; but when it is firmly fixed to what is mingled with darkness, that which comes to be (τὸ γιγνόµενον) and is destroyed, it offers opinion and sees dimly, throwing in opinions one after another, and, again, seems not to have possession of understanding.” The Republic, trans. Paul Shorey (New York: Putnam, 1930), modified. 408

Rer. mon. rat. 9, PG 40.1261A-B; cf. Antoine Guillaumont, “Un philosophe au De,sert: E,vagre le Pontique,” Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 181 (1972), 35.

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reality in “the kingdom of the heavens.” The achievement of separation from—in the midst of the perception of—sensible realities (whether discrete beings or existential circumstances), is the beginning of true knowledge, since only then can generated realites be regarded, not as “the final end,” but as passing realities whose purpose is to provide for their own transcendence by driving the intellect beyond themselves to their source. The second element is that of wonder, or amazement (θαυµαζεῖν). The teaching in this scholion, that the appearance of the present reality is not ultimate, is intended for those new initiates who are “amazed by the contemplation” of this created and contingent world. We may take this amazement in at least two ways. It may simply refer to an enthusiastic aesthetic response to the grandeur and beauty of the natural world, one which, in this context, would be seen as passionate and attached and not based on knowledge, at least not final knowledge of the Trinity. Such amazement in response to passing phenomena would only be possible for one who has not attained the Holy Trinity and is unaware of the need to move beyond the φάρµακον, addicted, as it were, to the medication. Amazement may also be taken in another sense, as later in the scholia, where Evagrius writes, “If you see among men both those who are oppressed and those who are treated unjustly in judgment, as well as those who act justly, do not be amazed by what takes place, as though there were no providence.”409 Here amazement pertains to the overwhelming of the soul by what appear to be random and inscrutable circumstances, since there is a failure to perceive the purposes of God in them. Taken in this sense, those who are amazed by the contemplation of things that have come into being, or have come to pass, come undone because they fail to discern the providence of God in the unjust 409

Schl.Eccl. 38.

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realities of life, and regard them as final in themselves. In either case, the intellect remains ensnared by passionate attachment to dazzling or fearsome phenomena, since it grants them an ultimate status that does not properly belong to them. Third, Evagrius folds his understanding of natural contemplation and its place in the spiritual life into what was the dominant model for Hellenistic philosophical praxis, that of medicine, or therapy:410 “For just as medicines (τὰ φάρµακα) are vain after perfect health, thus also are vain the λόγοι of the ages and worlds after the knowledge of the Holy Trinity.” The λόγοι, or structural and providential principles of reality, are given as medicines to the sick soul. The soul is ill in that it does not have the knowledge of the Trinity. As derived from the Logos and thus intimately related to Him, the λόγοι are designed to habituate the unhealthy intellect to this knowledge: “We practice the virtues in order to achieve contemplation of the λόγοι of created things, and from this we pass to contemplation of the Logos who gives them their being.”411 Because they are the λόγοι precisely of created beings, they are accessible to the created intellect. Because they take their structure and being from the Logos of God, they are able to shape the intellect for the reception of the knowledge of God. As we have seen, Evagrius defines “the Kingdom of God” as “knowledge of the Holy Trinity coextensive with the structure of the intellect, and transcending its incorruptibility.” Here we observe the two key elements that pertain to the access to that which is beyond, defined by the words “coextensive” and “transcending.” It is proper to the νοῦς to acquire knowledge of created beings and to attain knowledge of the Trinity. 410

Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire, 13-48; Michel Foucault, The Care of the Self, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), 55. 411

De orat. 52.

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Far removed from the anti-Eunomian polemic, Evagrius here departs from the rhetoric of his teachers Basil and Gregory Nazianzen and affirms a “gnostic” (taken in Clement of Alexandria’s sense) goal of Christian life. Through the progress of the spiritual life from asceticism to natural contemplation and theology, the purified intellect, when it is able to see its own radiance, comes to be seen as appropriately suited to its proper end: the kingdom of God as knowledge of the Trinity. However, this knowledge also transcends the intellect, even in its own “incorruptibility.” The λόγοι, therefore, serve a double function. On the one hand, they constitute the subject of the intellect’s proper activity with respect to the world. On the other, they draw the intellect beyond the world toward the Logos, the source of their being, and ultimately to the Holy Trinity. Evagrius has asserted that created beings are seen as vain when one attains knowledge of the Trinity. The contemplation of created things has been given to the diseased mind as medicine, medicine, which, once health—i.e., knowledge of the Trinity—has been attained, ceases to be necessary. Evagrius gives a more elaborate description of one element of this contemplative remedy in scholion 15 where he comments on Eccl. 3.10-13, “I saw the business which God gave to the sons of men to be busied with. He has made everything beautiful in its time and he has given the age in their heart...” Evagrius comments: I saw, he says, sensible realities busying the mind (τὴν διάνοιαν) of man, which God gave to men before [their] purification, that they might be busied in them. He calls their beauty temporal and not eternal, for after purification the pure one does not still consider sensible realities as merely busying one’s intellect (νοῦν), but as impelling it toward spiritual contemplation.

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Here we see the transcending movement of the contemplation of sensible things. Temporal realities “impel” the intellect to regard them in a spiritual way rather than as merely incidental. Evagrius goes on to explain the distinction: For when the intellect perceives sensibly by means of the senses, it is stamped by sensible realities, and this is a different activity than when the intellect, engaged in contemplation, discerns the coherence of the rational principles stored up in sensible realities. To regard the world in spiritual contemplation is to see the λόγοι according to which it is structured. Evagrius then reiterates the ascetical foundation upon which his reflections are based, that dispassion prepares the way for true knowledge of the world: This knowledge (γνῶσις) only comes to the pure, but the observation of realities by means of the senses comes to the pure and the impure. Therefore, he says it is a temporal business given by God, for since God foreknew the impassioned soul, he gave it senses and sensible realities so that, by both being busied with them and by considering them, it might flee the thoughts from the adversaries waiting to bombard it. He also gave them, he says, the age, that is, the rational principles of the age. For this is the kingdom of the heavens, which the Lord said we have within us, and which is not found by men since it is hidden by the passions. And so I knew, he says, that it is not the realities that are good, but the rational principles of the realities, upon which the rational nature naturally rejoices and achieves good. For nothing nourishes and waters the intellect like virtue and the knowledge of God. To synthesize this scholion, Evagrius teaches here that the realities of the sensible world have been given as a defense against the demonic thoughts that seek to rush into a receptive intellect. The apprehension of created realities serves to keep the intellect occupied with something that is near to God by virtue of its being created by God, whose very “structure” (λόγος) is related to God in His Word (Λόγος). This keeps the intellect from straying further and further away, becoming more and more susceptible to demonic thoughts. This is, however, only a preliminary encounter with the sensible world. It is the 181

level at which the intellect is still passive relative to the world, since it is “stamped” by the impressions of sensible realities. Once the ascetic has achieved purity through the practical life, the intellect is in a state in which it can acquire knowledge by discerning the principles inherent in sensible things. The transition from τυποῦται to διατίθεται, from apprehension (ἐπιβαλλῶν) to contemplation (θεωρῶν), is the movement from passive reception to active comprehension. Here, passivity and passion coincide, since it is only the dispassionate intellect that may actively discern the inner principles of sensible reality and thus acquire the knowledge of God. Evagrius also identifies these contemplations given by God with the “Kingdom of the Heavens,” the realm of “natural knowledge,” which “is within us,”412 and he goes on to link the obscuring of this Kingdom to the passions. The process of the practical life, whose goal is dispassion, then, is the process of penetrating to what has been given within by God: the contemplation of the world is not other than the contemplation of what has been placed within one’s own being. Evagrius refers to the verse we have been considering—“He has given the age in his heart”—elsewhere, in Thoughts 17, where he writes, The Lord has handed over the intellectual perceptions of this age (τὰ νοήµατα τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου) as sheep to a good shepherd, for ‘also,’ he says, ‘he has given the age in his heart,’ having yoked the irascible and appetitive faculties to him as a help, so that by means of the irascible he might put to flight the wolf-like perceptions, and by means of the appetitive that he might love the sheep even when he is thrown about by the rains and winds. He has also given a pasture for them, that he might shepherd the sheep, and he has given a place of verdure, and the water of rest, and a psaltery and lyre, and a rod and a staff, that from this flock he might feed and clothe himself, and that he might gather a mountain pasture. For ‘who,’ he says, ‘shepherds a flock and does not partake of its milk?’ 412

Evagrius conflates the Lukan saying of Jesus, “Behold, the kingdom of God is within you,” with the Matthean expression, “the Kingdom of the Heavens;” cf. Géhin’s comments, Scholies à l’Eccle,siaste, 85.

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Above, we saw impressions of sensible reality given as a means of warding off other, demonic, thoughts. Once purification is attained, they become the means of spiritual contemplation. Here, mental perceptions of the world are given as a productive flock to be guarded and cared for with the utmost diligence, and which ultimately provide food and clothing to the shepherd. The movement from busy occupation to spiritual contemplation, the intellect’s most satisfying food and drink, is given here under the image of the movement from caring for and guarding sheep to taking nourishment and clothing from them. This is crucial to our understanding of the transition from asceticism to natural contemplation, on the one hand, and from natural contemplation to theology, on the other. The ascetical life of the acquisition of dispassion serves to cultivate an orientation towards the sensible world—specifically the mental perceptions of it—in the pursuit of gnosis. The purified intellect is able to discern this place of mental perceptions, the logoi they indicate, and the Logos to which they lead. In this way the intellect takes nourishment and delight from the contemplation of the created world, a world composed of logoi that are given being by the Logos Himself. To return to the Scholia on Ecclesiastes, we have seen how Evagrius clearly envisions the notion of natural contemplation within the framework of the remedial and therapeutic paideia of the soul. When sense impressions become spiritual in contemplation, they become nutritive for the soul. However, the goal of contemplation in Evagrius, as Ecclesiastes scholion 3 indicates, is to move beyond created things and natural contemplation to the uncreated Trinity. He interprets the phrase, “There is no memory of the first things” (Eccl 1.11), as referring to the separation of the intellect from the intellectual perception of things (νοήµατα τῶν πράγµατων) and the corresponding 183

“forgetfulness (ἐπιλανθάνεται)” of all created beings by the intellect when it has received the Trinity (ὑποδεξάµενος τὴν ἁγίαν τριάδα). Evagrius is describing the point when the intellect achieves separation from the realm of the senses and creation, the realm which on the one hand provides the basis for the intellect’s reception of the Trinity and serves as a house of refuge against the demons, but on the other is “a house of bondage.”413 As he writes in scholion 35, “the one who is among sensible things and receives perceptions from them is not able to discourse without stumbling about God who is among intellectual things (ἐν τοῖς νοητοῖς) and who flees every sense perception.” Here, perceptible things, which have been given as medicinal φάρµακα, prove to be narcotics that destabilize the soul through their untimely use. Evagrius refers again to natural contemplation as “the kingdom of the heavens” in scholion 19, which comments on Eccl 3.15: “that which has come to be already is, and whatever is to happen has already happened, and God will seek the one who is pursued (τὸν διωκόµενον).” Evagrius links this verse with Mt 5.10, the beatitude where Jesus promises the kingdom of the heavens to those who are persecuted/pursued (οἱ δεδιωγµένοι) on account of righteousness. He writes, The rational principles of created beings and of the ages to come are the kingdom of the heavens, and blessed are those who are pursued (µακάριοι οἱ δεδιωγµένοι), since they will know the contemplation of created beings. For God is said to seek (ζητεῖν) the one whom he enlightens with knowledge, and he is said not to seek the one whom he does not enlighten with knowledge. ‘I have strayed like a lost sheep,’ says David, ‘Seek (ζήτησον) thy servant, since I have not forgotten thy commandments’ (Ps. 118/119.176). For he himself was pursued (ἦν διωκόµενος): ‘Many are they that pursue (οἱ ἐκδιώκοντες) me and afflict me; I have not turned away from thy testimonies’ (Ps 118/119.157). Evagrius is here exploiting the usage of the word διωκεῖν( which means both “pursue” 413

Schl.Eccl. 33.

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and “persecute,” and uses it as a link between Ecclesiastes, the Gospel, and the Psalms. In this way God can be understood as the one who pursues the one who will attain the kingdom of the heavens in natural contemplation, since it is God who grants knowledge to the purified mind. In Thoughts, Evagrius describes this bestowal of knowledge and the varieties of intellectual perception more precisely. He writes, “Some intellectual perceptions (νοήµατα) stamp (τυποῖ) and shape (σχηµατίζει) our governing faculty (ἡγεµονικόν), and some simply grant knowledge, neither stamping nor shaping the intellect.”414 Evagrius gives John 1.1, “In the beginning was the Word,” as an example of a νόηµα that comes to the heart and does not leave an impression on it, and the verse, “taking bread, he broke it” (Mt 26.26), as one that does. John 1.1 confirms the divinity of the Word (θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος); the last supper reveals the incarnate economy: “this is my body.” The Word, then, comes to the intellect in both ways, stamping it with a form and leaving it unstamped. Evagrius’ next example allows him to sharpen the distinction and fold his understanding of perception into the practice of the ascetical life: The verse, ‘I saw the Lord seated upon a high and exalted throne’ (Is 6.1), stamps the intellect, except for the phrase, I saw the Lord. The statement seems to stamp the intellect, but what is signified does not stamp it, for he has seen with a prophetic eye the rational nature lifted up on high by means of the conduct of the practical life and receiving in itself the knowledge of God. For God is said to be seated where he will be known, and for this reason the pure intellect is called the throne of God…The mental perception of God will not be found among the mental perceptions that stamp the intellect, but among those which do not. Therefore it is necessary for the one who prays to separate oneself completely from the mental perceptions that stamp the intellect. This is the description of the Evagrian understanding of Christianity, “the teaching of

414

Mal. cog. 41.

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Christ our Savior,” as it pertains to perception. It is “the rational nature” that has conducted the practical life that is lifted up to receive the knowledge of God. In between is the process of the intellect’s separation from mental perceptions, which stamp the intellect and, as we have seen, it achieves this by dispassion and love. Contemplation of the natural world becomes “spiritual contemplation” when the intellect maintains itself in stillness before creation, untroubled by its appearances and able to discern the λόγοι within. A more subtle description of natural contemplation follows: And you will seek if it pertains to corporeal realities and their λόγοι as it does for incorporeal realities and their λόγοι, and whether the intellect will be stamped in one way when it sees an intellect and then will be disposed differently when it sees its λόγος. In this way we learn how spiritual knowledge removes the intellect from the mental perceptions that stamp it and present it unstamped (ἀτύπωτον) to God, since the mental perception of God is not among those mental perceptions that stamp the intellect—for God is not a body—but among those that do not. The realities of the world, both bodily and bodiless, along with their λόγοι, serve to instruct the intellect for the achievement of pure perception, perception without mental representation, which is the only kind of perception that pertains to God, whose perception is, in fact, the most proper to the intellect. The journey of the intellect, which began with the quest for dispassion and stillness before the perceptions of the world, passes through the subtle discernment of spiritual realities, including its own nature and radiance, and finally comes before God purified of all mental representation. It is then that it truly becomes “the throne of God,” the place from which God rules in His kingdom.

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iii. Christ and Nature In what we have seen so far, Evagrius describes the exaltation of the intellect through the practical life and its discernment of the inner structure of created things so that it is accustomed to perception without attachment and representation. In such a state it is prepared to receive the knowledge of God, who can neither be grasped nor represented. We conclude now with an articulation of an aspect of Evagrius’s teaching that we have seen indicated but not engaged directly: the place of Christ. Evagrius identifies Christ as the Ecclesiast of Ecclesiastes and as “the begetter” of natural knowledge who purifies the soul and leads it to natural contemplation. It is appropriate then to conclude this analysis of natural contemplation in Evagrius with a summary of his perspective on what I have argued is the central theme of the contemplation of nature for the fathers, the place of Christ in the progress of the spiritual life. Commenting on Eccl 2.14, “The eyes of the wise man are in his head,” Evagrius writes, If ‘Christ is the head of every man’ (I Cor 11.13), and a sage is a man, then Christ is the head of the sage. But Christ is our wisdom, for ‘he was begotten of God as wisdom for us’ (I Cor 1.30). The head, then, is the wisdom of the sage, in which the sage has the eyes of the mind while contemplating the λόγοι of created things in it.415 Here Evagrius brings together Christ, wisdom, and the λόγοι of created things under the consideration of the sage (ὁ σοφός) in contemplation. We referred above to the chapter from Prayer, “We pursue the virtues on account of the λόγοι of created things, and these on account of the Logos who gives being. This one is accustomed to manifest himself in

415

Schl.Eccl. 11.

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the state of prayer.”416 Here it is the Logos whο stands at the height of the three-fold philosophical ascent. The λόγοι of created things, which have taken their being from the Logos, return the intellect to him, and in this way the intellect is initiated into the contemplation of the Trinity in the state of prayer. The next chapter of Prayer specifies the nature of the “state of prayer”: “The state of prayer is the possession of dispassion (ἕξις ἀπαθής), which, with the highest erotic drive (ἔρωτι ἀκροτάτῳ), snatches the wisdom-loving intellect up to the exalted intellectual realm (εἰς ὕψος νοητόν).”417 This recalls the beginning of our analysis of Evagrius: the acquisition of dispassion as the way toward ἀγάπη and the true knowledge of beings in the kingdom of the heavens. Here we should note two things with respect to the state of prayer. First, if we follow the movement of Evagrius’ thought and hear our earlier formulation—the kingdom of the heavens (natural contemplation) is dispassion of soul together with true knowledge of beings—in conjunction with the affirmation here, that dispassion characterizes the state of prayer, we find that ἀγάπη gives the intellect over to ἔρως which draws it upward to contemplation. Second, Evagrius teaches here that the Logos manifests himself in the state of prayer. We may bring this together with the manifestation of “the place of God” observed above: “that light which forms the place of God at the time of prayer [and] appears to the intellect.” Again, the intellect comes to this by the putting off of the passions that connect themselves to it by means of the mental representations of sensible realities. “The place of God,” therefore, is the Word of God, the Logos who gives being 416

De orat. 51 (52 in the Philokalia), PG 79.1177C1-4.

417

De orat. 52 (53 in the Philokalia), PG 79.1177C6-8.

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and “structure” to the λόγοι of created things. Indeed, in his scholion on Psalm 14.1, “Who will dwell in thy holy mountain?” Evagrius writes, “The holy mountain is the knowledge of Christ, which is the contemplation of what has come into being (θεωρία τῶν γεγονότων).”418 The holy mountain as the “place of God” is identified with the knowledge of Christ as natural contemplation. Christ as the Logos is the end of natural contemplation and beginning of theology for Evagrius, the place where “the Kingdom of the Heavens” is delivered up to the “Kingdom of God,” since the Logos is the source of being and definition of the λόγοι of the created world, and it is precisely in the Logos that “the sage has the eyes of the mind while contemplating the λόγοι of created things.” Maximus argues in the Ambigua against a number of Origenist positions that derive from the speculations of Evagrius and so is rightly regarded as an opponent of Origenism. However, Maximus’ monastic milieu was so thoroughly infused with the thought of Evagrius, whether or not he received his formation in an Origenist monastery as is alleged by the Syriac Vita of the Confessor,419 that it has been essential to give a thorough account of Evagrius’ teaching on the contemplation of nature as background to our study of the Ambigua. Evagrius’ understanding of perception and the relation of the created world to Christ are significant elements of his thought that persist in Maximus’ work even as Maximus refutes the shibboleths of 6th century Evagrian Origenism, the primordial henad and fall of intellects and the pre-existence of the soul. 418

PG 12.1208C. Bunge adduces this passage in “La Montagne Intelligible: De la contemplation indirecte a. la connaissance imme,diate de Dieu dans le traite, De Oratione d’E,vagre le Pontique,” Studia Monastica 42 (2000), 9. He consciously does not consider the relation between “knowledge of Christ” and “contemplation of beings,” but rather focuses on the image of the mountain, and emphasizes, against Hausherr, the trinitarian nature of Evagrian theological mysticism. 419

Sebastian Brock, “An Early Syriac Life of Maximus the Confessor,” Analecta Bollandiana 91 (1973), 299-346.

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IV. Dionysius the Areopagite The influence of Dionysius the Areopagite, both verbal and conceptual, pervades the Ambigua to John, and though he cites Gregory Nazianzen much more frequently through the course of the text (the Ambigua are explicitly addressed to the resolution of difficulties in the Theologian’s works after all), the voice of the Areopagite is extremely significant, at times decisive. Sherwood numbers a total of sixteen quotations from Dionysius’ works in the Ambigua,420 but the distinctive shape of his thinking and mode of expression extends well beyond these direct citations. For example, Maximus’ argument against the “utility” of evil for the completion of the cosmos in Ambiguum 7 resonates with a similar discussion in Divine Names IV.18-20; the argument in Ambiguum 10 against the possibility of cosmic duality as a source of being echoes Divine Names IV.21. Moreover, Maximus’ notion of the symbolic nature of the hierarchy of beings, his use of affirmation and denial with respect to divine names in theology, his vision of creation as the outpouring and self-multiplication of the Goodness of God, his use of ὑπερούσιον and other distinctively Dionysian terms, and even his compositional practice—a sort of ecstatic rationalism—draw his Ambigua very much within the thought-world of the Areopagite, though, as he does with the whole of his patristic inheritance, Maximus makes his own way through these issues and often takes a Dionysian theme in a different direction than Dionysius himself may have taken it.421 420

Sherwood, Earlier Ambigua, p. 17.

421

See Ysabel de Andia, Denys l’Aréopagite: Tradition et Métamorphose (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2006), 147-184, for discussion of the differences between Maximus and Dionysius on many of the themes I have mentioned. I think the author draws too sharp of a distinction between the two, particularly with respect to Dionysius’ use of the ὑπερούσιον as opposed to Maximus’ focus on οὐσία in relation to the unknowability of God; at least, it should be born in mind the author is focusing on a narrow range of Maximus’ texts in the Ambigua (principally Amb. 10, 15-17, and 71) and her account would need to be modified in light of the contents of the larger work. See also Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena, for

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My treatment of Dionysius here will be relatively brief, for I shall be discussing him in a number of places in the chapters on Maximus to follow. To anticipate that discussion will be useful, however, as a way of concluding this survey of patristic notions of the contemplation of the world and of making the transition to Maximus. I shall focus in particular on how Dionysius unites the various aspects of his understanding of the motion of the cosmos in the concept of love, thus completing the trajectory we initiated with our reading of the Timaeus. i. The World as the Manifestation of God Dionysius’ understanding of the cosmos is thoroughly theological; indeed, while the focus of our study so far has been on human knowledge of the world, the way in which Dionysius expresses the nature of divine knowledge of the world provides insight into both his understanding of the structure of the cosmos and of what it means to acquire knowledge of it. He writes, God does not have his own specific knowledge of himself and a different knowledge that comprehends all existing things in common, for when the cause of all knows itself it will hardly be ignorant of what derives from itself and of which it is the cause. In this way, God knows beings not by understanding beings but by understanding himself (Οὐκ ἄρα ὁ θεὸς ἰδίαν ἔχει τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γῶσιν, ἑτέραν δὲ τὴν κοινῇ τὰ ὄντα πάντα συλλαµβάνουσαν. Αὐτὴ γὰρ ἑαυτὴν ἡ πάντων αἰτία γινώσκουσα σχολῇ που τὰ ἀφ᾽ αὑτῆς καὶ ὧν ἐστιν αἰτία ἀγνοήσει. Ταύτῃ γοῦν ὁ θεὸς τὰ ὄντα γινώσκει οὐ τῇ ἐπιστήµῃ τῶν ὄντων, αλλὰ τῇ ἑαυτοῦ).422 This passage expresses on the level of epistemology—albeit “divine epistemology,” to follow Dionysius’ own use of ἐπιστήµη—the basic intuition of Dionysius’ understanding Maximus’ relationship to Dionysius and for the place of both of these thinkers within the development of Neoplatonism. 422

Ps. Dion. Areo. Div. nom. VII.2, 197.10-14.

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of the nature of the universe, that it is the hierarchical multiplication of God himself: They say he is in intellects, in souls, in bodies, in heaven, on earth, that in his own self-identity he is at once within the cosmos, the enclosure of the cosmos, beyond the cosmos, beyond heaven and beyond being; he is sun, stars, fire, water, wind, dew, cloud, cornerstone, and rock. He is all things and not one being among other beings (πάντα τὰ ὄντα καὶ οὐδὲν τῶν ὄντων).423 All things are identified with/as God, but God is not identified with any one thing or as one thing among other things. God’s knowledge of the world is his knowledge of himself as the source and diversified content of the world. From the perspective of the creature, God’s self-multiplication as the universe appears as a hierarchy of beings that manifests “the image of divine fecundity (εἰκόνα τῆς θεαρχικῆς ὡραιότητος).”424 Within this hierarchy, material reality is experienced as providing “echoes of intellectual comeliness (ἀπηχήµατα τινα τῆς νοερᾶς εὐπρεπείας),” and Dionysius, in a way reminiscent of the Cappadocians, acknowledges the necessity of material images for the human apprehension of intellectual reality, both of which—material and intellectual reality—are ultimately the manifestation of God. The human mode of being (τὴν καθ᾽ ἡµᾶς ἀναλογίαν) does not allow “an immediate attainment of intellectual contemplation (ἀµέσως ἐπὶ τὰς νοητὰς ἀνατείνεσθαι θεωρίας)” and therefore “needs something proper to it and co-natural with it to lead it upwards (δεοµένην εἰκείων καὶ συµφυῶν ἀναγωγιῶν).”425 These are the “shapes” and “forms” that characterize material reality and we are told that these are, in fact, as

423

Div. nom. I.6, 119.5-9.

424

De coelesti hierarchia III.2, Corpus Dionysiacum II, ed. Gunter Heil and Adolf Ritter (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991), 11.18. 425

Coel. hier. II.2, 11.13-15.

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appropriate to intellectual reality and ultimately to God himself, as the concepts of “Word,” “Intellect,” “Being,” etc., concepts that are studied in the treatise on The Divine Names. In fact, the more dissimilar images may prove to be more useful in the ascent to intellectual reality and to God himself since they are less likely to be taken as perfectly adequate to that reality.426 These two foundational themes, the world as the self-multiplication and manifestation of God and the application of images taken from the world as representative of God, form the foundation of Dionysius’ doctrine of divine names. All things exist insofar as the Divine as cause has brought them into being and is their “source (ἀρχή), substance (οὐσία), and life (ζωή).”427 All things that receive being (τῶν ὄντων ἁπάντων) from God,428 that have been caused (πάντων τῶν αἰτιατῶν) by God,429 lend their names to the discourse of theology so that the universe itself— intelligible and sensible reality—becomes the name of God and God is said to be “all things” as the cause of all.430 These names are not finally descriptive of the nature of God: “thought cannot attain the unthinkable One beyond thought, the Good beyond reason cannot be articulated with any speech (πάσαις διανοίαις ἀδιανόητόν ἐστι τὸ ὑπὲρ διάνοιαν ἕν, ἄῤῥητον τε λόγῳ παντὶ τὸ ὑπὲρ λόγον ἀγαθόν).”431 Rather, the

426

Coel. hier. II.3.

427

Div. nom. I.3, 111.12-13.

428

Div. nom. I.7, 120.7.

429

Div. nom. I.5, 117.13.

430

Div. nom. V.8, 187.9-10.

431

Div. nom. I.1, 109.11-13.

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divine names derived from the world have their meaning within the liturgical context of praise. God (as Cause and Providence) “is harmoniously hymned and named from all existing things,”432 so that praise (ὑµνεῖται) and naming (ὀνοµάζεται) are coextensive linguistic acts intended to carry the human intellect to the divine reality that is the very meaning of the world and is named by the world. ii. The Name Above Every Name Within this context, one name in particular takes on a cosmic significance, the name of Jesus Christ. While Dionysius does not consider this name as analogous to the divine names that come from the effects of the divine cause,433 there is an important sense in which he is able to name the whole phenomenon of the world as manifestation of God with the name of “Jesus” in a culmination of the Christ-centered approach to cosmology we have been tracing, and this naming will be extended and developed by Maximus in the Ambigua to John. It is the “divinity of the Son” that is “the cause that fulfills all things” and is “the being in the totality of existing things (οὐσία ταῖς ὅλαις οὐσιαις.)”434 The divinity of Jesus, which is the same divinity as that of the Holy Trinity, is beyond being and nature and Jesus remains what he is in himself even in the midst of his descent to human nature: Jesus in his simplicity became something complex, the eternal one appeared in time, he who transcends the being of every natural order came to be within our nature with the foundation of what is properly his own 432

Div. nom. I.7, 120.7-8.

433

Cf. Dionysius’ Epistle 4, where he says that Jesus is not called a man as the cause of man but as one who truly became human. Maximus devotes the initial argument of the last chapter of his Ambigua to Thomas (Amb. 5) to precisely this point. 434

Div. nom. II.10, 134.7, 12-13.

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remaining unchanged and unconfused.435 In this way Christ becomes the paradigm of Dionysius’ general understanding of the disclosure of knowledge of intelligible reality to the world. This “most clearly visible aspect of theology (τὸ πάσης θεολογίας ἐκφανέστατον)”436 thus expresses the general process of the generation of beings in which God as divine Peace and Stillness remains in himself and absolutely united to himself even as he “proceeds to all things.”437 We see this dynamic in the Celestial Hierarchies as well, where Dionysius speaks of the light that proceeds from the “Father of lights” (Jas 1.17) as the diversifying and unifying procession and return that defines the existence of all things. He identifies this light with Jesus, the “light of the Father.”438 The final Dionysian theme in which we find a significant anticipation of Maximus’ approach to cosmology and nature is the theme of love as the source of cosmic motion and knowledge. Love (ἔρως, ἀγάπη) “moved” God to create the world which he already loved439 and its ecstatic nature is an image for God’s self-outpouring as the world: Ηe who is the cause of all things comes to be outside of himself in love through the excess of his erotic goodness in his providence for all things and is charmed, as it were, by goodness, charity, and love and is led down from being removed far above and outside of all things towards being in all things in accordance with his ecstatic power beyond-being of precisely 435

Div. nom. I.4, 113.9-12.

436

Div. nom. II.9, 133.5.

437

Div. nom. XI.2, 218.7-13.

438

Coel. hier. I.1-2, 7.3-11.

439

Div. nom. IV.10, 155.17-20.

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not coming to be separated from himself (αὐτὸς ὁ πάντων αἴτιος τῷ καλῷ καὶ ἀγαθῷ τῶν πάντων ἔρωτι δι᾽ ὑπερβολὴν τῆς ἐρωτικῆς ἀγαθότητος ἔξω ἑαυτοῦ γίνεται ταῖς εἰς τὰ ὄντα πάντα προνοίαις καὶ οἷον ἀγαθότητι καὶ ἀγαπήσει καὶ ἔρωτι θέλγεται καὶ ἐκ τοῦ ὑπὲρ πάντα καὶ πάντων ἐξῃρηµένου πρὸς τὸ ἐν πᾶσι κατάγεται κατ᾽ ἐκστατικὴν ὑπερούσιον δύναµιν ἀνεκφοίτητον ἑαυτοῦ).440 Because God has the power to remain within himself he is able to go out of himself as himself and impart himself as the existence of beings. This outpouring love then becomes the motivation for the return of all things to their source. God is named “beloved” as the end towards which all things move and is called “love” itself as “the power that moves and lifts all things up to himself.”441 Maximus gives an interpretation of this very passage from the Divine Names in his Ambiguum 23 and we shall explore this theme in detail in our discussion of God and cosmic motion in Chapter 5. Here we shall conclude by observing that Dionysius once again recapitulates this general notion of the world existing by and as the ecstatic love of God in his understanding of the incarnation of Christ. It is as the one who “loves mankind (ὁ φιλάνθρωπος)” that Jesus who is “beyond being became a being (ὁ ὑπερούσιος οὐσιωµένος).”442 In this way the incarnation of Christ, which is the loving appearance as a being of one who is beyond being, is the clearest expression443 of what the world of

440

Div. nom. IV.13, 159.9-14. We encountered this passage in the discussion of Amb. 71 in the Introduction, where Maximus refers to it and the notion of being “charmed” (θέλγεται) in his consideration of what Gregory the Theologian means by the Word “playing” in the world, Introduction, 32-37. 441

Div. nom. IV.15, 160.5-7.

442

Ep. IV, Heil and Ritter, Corpus Dionysiacum II, 160.8-9.

443

Recall the notion that the incarnation is “the most clearly visible aspect of theology,” Div. nom. II.9, 133.5. Eric Perl concludes his study of the philosophy of Dionysius with these words: “The incarnation…is the coming forth of God into manifestness. But this…is what all reality is. This formula [‘Truly coming into being in a manner above being he is made a being (εἰς οὐσίαν ἀληθῶς ἐλθὼν ὑπὲρ οὐσίαν οὐσιώθη; Ep. IV, p. 160.11)] assimilates the incarnation to Dionysius’ Neoplatonic metaphysics, in which God is manifest in and as each and every being, ‘all things in all things,’ and thus could be said to be made a being

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being is: the appearance of God. This theme will also come to the fore in our discussion of Maximus. Conclusion In the Greek fathers treated here, we see the appropriation of the culture of natural philosophy to the contemplation of Christ the incarnate Divine Logos and this, I argue, was their way of reconciling the various aspects of philosophy they received from the Hellenic tradition. Their understanding of philosophy—and particularly ancient philosophies of nature—took the thread of ancient thought about the cosmos that was primarily concerned with defining the place of humanity in the cosmos and drew it out all the way to the conclusion that “The God-Man,” as it were, “is the measure of all things.” Maximus will remain in constant interaction with the thought of the earlier Greek fathers throughout his Ambigua to John, appropriating, modifying, and at times refuting the various positions he inherited.

in them,” Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite (Albany: SUNY Press, 2007), 109.

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CONCLUSION TO PART I

It will be useful to summarize our analysis to this point. I have proposed an account of the deep structure of ancient Greek thinking about nature that lies beneath the later Christian understanding of nature and world and have given some brief indications of how it relates to Maximus in particular. I argued that Parmenides sees the world of appearances, wherein natures come in and out of being, as a preliminary training for the unified vision of what is, in anticipation of the διάβασις, or transit, through the material world of nature that will be a central aspect of Maximus’ own vision of philosophy. The unified vision of reality and the overcoming of the dualities that seem to constitute the cosmos will also have their place in Maximus’ Ambigua, though he will also maintain that the differentiation of beings in accordance with their own rational principles (λόγοι) of existence is the manifestation of the divine will for creation, which—in defiance of Parmenides’ insistence—has been made out of nothing. Heraclitus, though perhaps from the opposite perspective, also teaches the unity of all apparent dualities and significantly, in anticipation of Maximus, of the duality between motion and rest. The rest of perpetual motion towards and around God will become an important theme in Maximus’ understanding of the relationship between the motion of the cosmos and the stability of God. My reading of Plato’s Timaeus has introduced many of the most important elements of Maximus’ account of the contemplation of nature: the experience of the order 198

and beauty of the cosmos as evidence for the nature of its causation, the cosmos understood as image of an intelligible paradigm, the question of what it means for the universe to come into existence. I have also argued that the Timaeus, when read alongside the erotic dialogues, reveals that love lies at the heart of the contemplation of the cosmos for Plato and this concept of love will prove to be essential to Maximus’ own account. Aristotle’s extension and revision of Platonic themes introduced the theme of the goal (τέλος) of human life in a systematic way and with it the problem of how the life of the exercise of practical virtue relates to the realization of the final good of human life in pure contemplation. Aristotle’s way of conceiving the final human good also brings forward the notion of human self-transcendence, since the life of uninterrupted contemplation is most properly the divine life and more-than-human even as it is the human ideal. This theme of nature transcending nature will become a central aspect of Maximus’ thinking about θεωρία φυσική. Secondly, the rigors of Aristotle’s research into nature along with his conceptual physics reveal a universe that operates according to a continuous mode of motion and causality wherein the highest contemplation of the production of motion by an unmoved mover is recapitulated on the lowest levels of material being, the pivoting of a joint, for example. This general idea will be sharpened by Maximus into a strong notion of the recapitulation of the divine in all things. With the Stoics, the question of the unity of philosophy as a whole concentrated on their notion of virtue, which is life in agreement with nature, as the only good. The immanence of the divine principle in the world of nature drew all of Stoic philosophy into the pursuit of an all-encompassing rationalism wherein living in agreement with nature as the properly virtuous life was understood as living in agreement with the divine

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ordering of the cosmos. Maximus is indebted to the Stoic synthesis of ancient psychology (mediated to him through Nemesius of Emesa) and so his discussions of the soul, praxis, virtue, and apatheia often resonate with Stoic teaching. Of course, the notion of the will and human freedom is central to Maximus’ understanding of practical philosophy and he would obviously reject a Stoic materialist account of causality, whether ethical or physical. However, his actual descriptions of the psychology of action are thoroughly indebted to Stoicism and so it has been important to introduce these issues here. Our reading of the Stoics has also raised the problem of speaking about God and the world as though they were two “things” that relate to one another. While Maximus will certainly insist upon divine transcendence and will reject the Stoic identification of God and nature, he will nevertheless maintain a robust notion of divine immanence in the world, although he works this out in a more Platonic way. Finally, in Plotinus we observed a strong account of how the world of nature is bound to intelligible being and beauty (which are one and the same) so that the contemplation of the beauty of the natural world leads ultimately, through the transcendence of subject-object duality, to the beautification of the human being in union with Beauty itself. Plotinus articulates the Platonic notion of the world as image of intelligible reality and this notion, as transmitted through Dionysius the Areopagite, will be absolutely central to Maximus’ understanding of nature. The very notion of the beauty of the natural world itself, which becomes especially apparent in the Cappadocians, has an important place in Maximus’ arguments against the “Origenists” of his day, and he conducts this argument, as we shall see, in terms that are redolent of Plotinus’ arguments against the Gnostics. The non-discursive experience of the world in Plotinus’ account of

200

ethical and metaphysical unity will come in to Maximus’ account as well. More generally, we see in Plotinus, despite the clear hierarchical priority of contemplation over praxis, a certain unity between them; indeed, his very mode of organizing reality from Nature to Soul, Intellect, and the One entails the presence of the higher in the lower and the dependence of the lower on the higher. Just as nature is not without contemplation, so too is praxis not removed from the higher aspects of philosophy. As his polemic against the Gnostics indicates, the ethical consequences of their metaphysics and doctrines of nature are arguments against these very doctrines, indicating that while the contemplative life and the vision of reality to which it leads go beyond the concerns of the practical life—as they do for Maximus as well—they are never utterly removed from these concerns. Among the Christians, Clement established the positive role of Greek cosmic speculation and learning as preliminary stages of Christian “gnostic” philosophy. He pointed to the basic unity of Scriptural revelation and what philosophy can learn about the world, though he insists that natural knowledge must be enlightened by the Word of Scripture. Nevertheless, Scripture and the Cosmos have the same author and are intended to accomplish the same task amongst human beings: to give preparatory instruction in anticipation of the reception of divine knowledge. Clement also articulates the bond between the created world and the economy of the Incarnation, using the imagery of the temple to show how Christ puts on the “vestments” of worldly reality in order to reveal the Father to the world, anticipating in this way the “cosmic liturgies” of Dionysius and Maximus.

201

Origen reiterated many of the themes we raised first with Clement, in particular the relationship between Scripture and world in the pursuit of wisdom and the grounding of this in the incarnate Christ. Origen also introduced for us in a Christian context the state of human understanding that finds itself caught in a state of desire for knowledge that cannot be satisfied, at least in this present world, and in this way he extends Clement’s notion of nature (and Scripture) as preliminary to divine knowledge in his own distinctive way. Origen’s myth of the fall of intellects into cosmic multiplicity illustrated that for him there is an absolute inseparability of ontological and ethical philosophy, centered on divine eros, and this will become significant for our interpretation of Maximus, particularly—and ironically—with respect to what appears to have been another iteration of Origenist and anti-Origenist controversy over the respective places of asceticism and contemplation in the monastic life. In Basil we observe a sharpening of the practical focus of the contemplation of the natural world and a focus on how the world looks to us in simple terms. Basil cautioned against the search for essences since such knowledge is completely irrelevant to the conduct of the world as it actually is and to the demands of the Christian life. He sought to inscribe humanity’s moral life within the phenomena of nature, not so that nature is seen as symbolic of human morality—the reality of the world is there for its own sake— but so that humanity would find its place within the created order as a part of it. For Basil, the sheer presence of the realities of the cosmos overwhelms our intuition and thereby brings the Creator before us so that to abstract from the world any “inner meaning” or “essence” is to lose the world and its Creator at once. Basil’s approach here

202

goes beyond a mere accommodation to a relatively unlearned audience and is grounded in a profound sense of the importance of how things give themselves simply in the world. While Basil focused on the relationship of natural contemplation to the life of praxis, Gregory Nazianzen looked in the other direction and considered natural contemplation in anticipation of theology. He emphasized the idea that the human mind is limited in its nature to the perception of natural realities and has only a partial knowledge even of these. This notion of the incomprehensibility of both the world and God will be significant for Maximus’ account of nature in the Ambigua. Gregory also continued the Christological context of the contemplation of nature—“the back of God”—by interpreting the rock that sheltered Moses during his vision as the incarnate Christ. Basil’s brother Gregory of Nyssa showed the positive aspect of the mind’s relation to the world, seeing in its formation an organism perfectly fit for perceiving the world while yet maintaining its unity as the image of the one God. He also defined the scope of the Biblical account of creation to be Moses’ guidance to intelligible reality through the perception of phenomena. This accounted for the structure of the Biblical narrative and the unfolding of creation is at the same time the unfolding of human knowledge of the world, which culminates in the praise of God. Gregory also provides a clear precedent for an open-ended, non-dogmatic, approach to the contemplation of nature, an approach that Maximus will take as well. Evagrius provided a thoroughly worked-out theory of intellectual activity as it relates to knowledge of the created world and knowledge of God. His emphasis on the dynamic relationship between the various stages of spiritual life, particularly the close relationship between the acquisition of dispassion through the ascetic life and the

203

knowledge of reality will be picked up by Maximus in his ongoing encounter with Evagrius’ own epigones, among whom we should count Maximus himself. Evagrius also emphasized the educative and especially therapeutic function of natural contemplation in the very specific terms of his theories of cognitive experience and all of this is given by Evagrius as the specific teaching of Christ. Finally, in Dionysius we saw that the world exists as the ecstasy of God and that all existing things without exception lend themselves to the naming of God in praise. It is this activity of praise that may be said to constitute Dionysius’ vision for the contemplation of nature for it is precisely as the name of God, as that which is the manifestation of God, that nature is what it is. To know the world is to know the world as the appearance of God so that God’s knowledge of the world as the knowledge of himself is the paradigm for human knowledge of the world, i.e. the knowledge of the world is the knowledge of God as he appears. This dynamic answers to the dynamic of the world as the outpouring of divine love in which God’s love for the world becomes the love of the world for God and returns the world to God. Secondly, Dionysius understood the name of Jesus in the terms of this same process and thereby made his “Christology” and his “cosmology” one and the same. Finally, at the culmination of human knowledge, when all the symbols from the realm of being have been made manifest, the human being attains the “Christ-like attainment (χριστοειδοῦς λήξεως)” and comes to behold God in the way the disciples beheld him at the Transfiguration.444 Though Dionysius did not elaborate this theme in great detail, the vision of the divine in Christ at the Transfiguration is absolutely central to Maximus’ understanding of the contemplation of

444

Div. nom. I.4, 114.8.

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nature and extends and transforms what lies inchoate here in the thought of Dionysius.

205

“TO SEE INTO THE LIFE OF THINGS” THE CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE IN MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR’S AMBIGUA TO JOHN VOLUME II

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

by

Joshua Gareth Lollar ______________________________ Brian E. Daley, Director

Graduate Program in Theology Notre Dame, Indiana July 2011

CONTENTS

VOLUME II Part II: The Contemplation of Nature in the Ambigua to John ........................................206 Introduction ..........................................................................................................207 Chapter 4: Pathos—“What is the Wisdom Concerning Me?” .........................................209 Introduction: Ambigua 6—8 and the Ambiguity of Human Existence ...............209 I. Ambiguum 6 ......................................................................................................212 i. This is my body? ...................................................................................212 ii. Rationalization of Obscurity ................................................................215 iii. The Ascetic and the Contemplative ....................................................218 II. Ambiguum 7 ....................................................................................................220 i. The Question of Origenism ..................................................................220 ii. Nature and Passibility ..........................................................................222 iii. Partaking of God as the Substance of Virtue......................................227 iv. Soul and Body.....................................................................................238 III. Ambiguum 8: Training in Disorder ................................................................245 Chapter 5: Ethos—Praxis and the Contemplation of Nature Introduction: The Coherence of the Philosophical Life ..............................................................251 I. Ambiguum 10: Virtue and Nature .....................................................................255 i. Praxis and Contemplation .....................................................................255 ii. Rationalizing the Practical Life ...........................................................258 iii. Images of Dispassion ..........................................................................262 II. The Soul ..........................................................................................................267 i. The Soul and Nature in Aristotle and the Commentators .....................267 ii. Maximus on the Motions of the Soul ..................................................271 iii. The Passivity of the Soul ....................................................................278 iv. Soul as Mediator between God and Matter ........................................283 III. Dispassion and Contemplation ......................................................................286 IV. The Contemplation of Nature ........................................................................293 i. “οὐσία is the teacher of theology ..........................................................293 ii. “The Heavens Declare the Glory of God”: vii   

Providence and Judgment ............................................................295 iii. Creating the World in the Mind..........................................................301 iv. Nature and Scripture ...........................................................................309 v. Transcending Nature ............................................................................314 Chapter 6: Cosmos—God and the World ........................................................................318 Introduction ..........................................................................................................318 I. God and the World ...........................................................................................320 i. The World as the Self-Multiplication of the One God .........................320 ii. Transfiguration: The Word as Type and Symbol of Himself ..............321 iii. The Burning Bush: The Divine Fire in the Essence of Things...........330 II. The World and Eternity ...................................................................................332 i. Maximus Against the Eternity of the World.........................................332 ii. Philoponus and Proclus on the Eternity of the World .........................342 iii. Love as Divine Motion .......................................................................355 iv. The Univocity of Being Incomprehensible.........................................361 III. God and the Language of the World ..............................................................363 i. The Problem of God and the Language of the World ..........................363 ii. Christ, Concept, Language ..................................................................366 a. Ambiguum 23: Activity and Passivity ......................................367 b. Ambiguum 24: Subject and Action ..........................................370 c. Ambiguum 25: Subject, Predication, and Nature .....................372 d. Ambiguum 26: The Concepts of Essence and Activity ............373 e. Ambiguum 30: Names and the Divine......................................375 Chapter 7: Logos—Christ and the Renewal of Nature ....................................................378 Introduction ..........................................................................................................378 I. The Contemplation of Nature and the Economy of Salvation .........................378 i. The Beginning is Like the End .............................................................379 ii. The Transgression of Adam ................................................................385 iii. The Renewal of Nature .......................................................................390 II. Christ and the Contemplation of Nature .........................................................405 i. The Year of the Lord ............................................................................406 ii. One Christ, Many Participants.............................................................409 iii. “The Word Becomes the Substance in the Entirety of Things? .........410 iv. Knowledge of Nature in the Desert ....................................................411 v. The Passion of Christ and the Knowledge of Nature...........................414 Conclusion to Part II ............................................................................................421    Epilogue ...........................................................................................................................424 Appendix A: Overview of the Structure of the Ambigua to John ...................................426 viii   

Bibliography ....................................................................................................................435

ix   

PART II THE CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE IN THE AMBIGUA TO JOHN

206

INTRODUCTION

I have proposed a deep structure of ancient approaches to the contemplation of nature in Part I as background to Maximus. We turn now to Maximus’ Ambigua to John, which are in constant and creative interaction with the earlier traditions. This analysis of the contemplation of nature in the Ambigua to John is divided into four chapters. The first (Chapter 3) gives a reading of the first section of the Ambigua, Ambigua 6-8, in terms of Maximus’ analysis of the fundamental experience of human affectivity or πάθος, which I shall typically translate as “passibility.” This initial section of the Ambigua raises all of the major themes that Maximus will treat throughout the rest of the text: the question of the relation of the soul and body, the relation between praxis and contemplation, and the task of achieving simplicity in order to see the world as it is. This section also introduces the fundamental concept of motion and the idea that love is the foundation of cosmic motion and order. All of this reflection comes within the context of Maximus’ analysis of human passibility in which he describes the basic sense of disturbance the human being initially experiences in relation to the world and specifically his own body. Chapter 4 expounds Maximus’ vision for the philosophic life as a response to the passibility he has analyzed in Ambigua 6-8. Maximus presents philosophy as a διάβασις or “transit” through the material world to intellectual reality. I show in this chapter how the contemplation of nature as the path of this διάβασις is related to the practical life of asceticism and virtue and the ascent to God, who transcends nature. Chapter 5 addresses 207

the question of the relation between God and the world and presents the different ways in which Maximus considers this question, which is a central question of Maximus’ theological philosophy of nature. Chapter 6 examines the Christological outcome of Maximus’ philosophy of nature and shows how Maximus envisions the renewal of nature and of the contemplation of nature in Christ. Finally, the Epilogue returns to the shifting appearances of Ambigua 6-8 and recalls what we observed in our Introduction, that for Maximus all philosophical reflection about the world is like the play of children: the Word comes down to the human level to instruct and guide humanity in its immature thinking to the higher and changeless reality of the divine. The Word in various ways truly becomes embodied “in all things” and this “economy of appearances” is the way in which God “uses nature within nature in a manner beyond nature”445 in order to renew nature from within.

445

Amb. 31, 1280C4.

208

CHAPTER 4 PATHOS—“WHAT IS THE WISDOM CONCERNING ME?” Introduction: Ambigua 6—8 and the Ambiguity of Human Existence As we noted in the Introduction, the “cosmic” scope of Maximus’ thinking is apparent in nearly all of his works, so that to read Maximus at all is to read his cosmology. This indicates the thoroughly integrated nature of his vision. We begin our analysis of this integrated vision as it is found in the Ambigua to John with the first three chapters of the text, Ambigua 6-8, and the beginning of the philosophic life as Maximus conceived of it, the question of human passibility. Maximus begins the Ambigua to John with a series of three quotations from Gregory’s oration On the Love of the Poor (Or. 14). All three revolve around the question of the soul and its relation to the body, and through the course of Maximus’ exposition, which is conceptually continuous through these first three chapters, Maximus establishes the nature of human being as a mixture of matter and spirit, which means, initially, that human being finds itself in perplexity. My exposition here will expound this dynamic, but before proceeding to Maximus’ thought we should consider the oration from which he begins.

209

The precise time, place, and situation of the composition and original delivery of the oration On the Love of the Poor is unclear.446 It seems to have been composed as a public fund-raiser and has been connected with Basil’s charitable efforts in Caesarea.447 It may also have been intended as a general statement of Christian thought on the matter of care for the poor448 and on the dynamics of the ethical life more generally. This, at least, is how Maximus reads it, i.e. as a discourse within the context of ethical philosophy. Indeed, the oration begins with a general consideration of different virtues and modes of life and the skopos of the work, though obviously directed towards the practical manifestation of acts of charity for those in need, has as its underlying philosophical structure a reflection upon the experience of instability and the uncertain state of the human composition of soul and body, a situation which Gregory uses to further his aim of encouraging philanthropy and which Maximus interrogates directly for his own philosophical purposes. It will be worthwhile to quote the passage from On the Love of the Poor that immediately precedes the passages upon which Maximus comments in Ambigua 6 and 7 (Ambiguum 8 begins with a quotation from much later in the oration) in order to gain something of the context of Gregory’s thinking at the point where Maximus approaches it:

446

See Susan Holman, The Hungry are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 142-167 for background and discussion of Gregory’s Oration 14. See also the analysis of John McGuckin, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Semianry Press, 2001), 145-155. 447

Brian Daley, “Building a New City: The Cappadocian Fathers and the Rhetoric of Philanthropy,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 7 (1999), 455. 448

McGuckin, Saint Gregory, 147.

210

How I have been yoked together with [the body], how I am both an image of God and am kneaded together with clay, I do not know. That which, when healthy, wages war with me, causes grief when it itself is attacked. That which I love as my fellow servant I also shun as my enemy. That which I avoid as my fellow servant I also pity as my fellow heir. In agony I wish that it would melt away, but I have no other fellow laborer to use for my journey towards what is most beautiful. I know why I have come into being, and that it is necessary for me to ascend to God through actions.449 This consideration of the ambivalence of the body as a yoke-mate, which employs familiar paradoxical juxtapositions and reversals, as well as a typical Hellenic rhetorical disposition towards the recalcitrance of the body, opens up to the fundamental ethical questions: Why do I feel at odds with myself? and What should I do about it? The reflection focuses upon the body as the locus of anxiety, but the anxiety itself, and the grief, love, avoidance, and pity all pertain to Gregory as a conscious being with an affective soul and so the question is the question primarily of the affective disposition of the one who is aware of his body as both companion and stranger: ὢ τῆς συζυγίας καὶ τῆς ἀλλοτριώσεως, “What a coupling! What an alienation!” The section from which Ambigua 6 and 7 derive their preliminary quotations is the following: I treat [the body] gently, as my fellow worker; and then I have no way of escaping its rebellion, no way to avoid falling away from God, weighed down by those bonds that drag me down or keep me held down to the earth. It is a magnanimous enemy and a treacherous friend. What a coupling! What an alienation! That which I fear I treat well, and that for which I have fondness I dread. I am reconciled to it before battle, and I am separated from it before making peace. What is the wisdom concerning me, and what is this great mystery? Does God will that we who are a portion of God and have rolled down from him as in a stream always should look towards him while we are in the midst of a battle and struggle against the body so that we should not despise the creator by exalting and elevating ourselves because of our worthiness? And is this weakness with 449

G. Naz., Or. 14.6, PG 35.865A-B.

211

which we are joined a training for that worthiness? Is it that we might know that we are both the greatest and the lowliest of all, that we are earthly and heavenly, temporary and immortal, heirs of light and fire or of darkness, depending upon our tendency? Such is our mixture, and because of these things, as it appears to me, whenever we exalt ourselves because of the image, we come back down again because of the dust. Therefore, let whoever wishes philosophize about these things; we shall philosophize along with him at a more opportune time.450 Gregory goes on to give his oration over to the persuasion of his audience, in specifically Christian terms, of the necessity of care for the poor; for his part, Maximus takes up the charge to “philosophize about these things” in Ambigua 6—8. I. Ambiguum 6 i. This is my body? Maximus sets the following quotation as the starting point for Ambigua 6: I treat [my body] gently, as my fellow worker; and then I have no way of escaping its rebellion, no way to avoid falling away from God (ἀπὸ Θεοῦ πέσω), weighed down (βαρηθείς) by those bonds that drag (κατασπώσαις) me down or keep me held down (κατεχούσαις) to the earth.451 Maximus first has Gregory present us with the body as something other, something of which one is aware, something that will be treated in a certain way as an object of concern. The body is a question; it is something that must be dealt with. The body is not presented here as an abstraction, however, as an objective thing “out there” in need of definition. Rather, from the very beginning, the body is already folded into one’s anxious experience of it. We are already with it, in its midst, when we start to question it. The body is experienced as something that weighs us down and holds us to the earth. These themes are commonplaces of Greek philosophy, whether pagan or Christian; our question 450

G. Naz., Or. 14.7.

451

G. Naz., Or. 14.7.

212

is, how does Maximus think the relationship between body and soul at this beginning stage of reflection, and what does this mean for his understanding of the contemplation of nature? According to this introductory quotation and what precedes it in Gregory’s oration, the human being thinks about the body as an accompanying reality—συνεζύγην, σύνδουλον, συγκληρονόµον, συνεργόν: a yoke mate, “fellow slave,” “fellow heir,” “fellow worker”452—but it is something that accompanies in an ambiguous way. Gregory “loves” his body as his “fellow slave,” but he also shuns it (φεύγω) as such; it is an enemy from which he turns himself away (ἀποστρέφοµαι), and fellow heir that he pities; it is a “fellow worker,” which, when it receives kind treatment, rebels and leads to the downfall of the one it accompanies. This immediately raises the question of who or what the body accompanies. We have the σύν, but we must ask, σὺν τίνι, with whom? We are, in effect, asking the question that Porphyry set as Plotinus’ first question in his edition of his master’s works: τίνος ἂν εἶεν? “Pleasures and sadnesses, fears and assurances, desires and aversions and pain—whose are they?”453 Plotinus is asking the question of the nature of affectivity and seeking to identify to whom it belongs, whether to the body, the soul, or to something resulting from their combination. Gregory is referring specifically to the body, but as we have seen, the question is broader and reaches out towards affectivity in general. Gregory loves, and also fears, his body. It is his. But what, or who, is this who is with a body in such an uncertain way?

452

G. Naz., Or. 14.6.

453

Plotinus, Enneads 1.1.

213

In a manner typical of the erotapokriseis tradition, Maximus identifies the initial problem with the quoted text as a linguistic one: the potential redundancy of the words κατασπᾶσθαι and κατέχεσθαι. He assures his addressees that these two words do not refer to the same reality, as though Gregory were not defining precise states of being with precisely articulated concepts. On the contrary, as Maximus will explain, “being dragged down” and “being held down” are two different experiences undergone by two different sorts of people. We observe here the centrality of language in ethical philosophy. States of body and soul have precise characters with precise linguistic descriptions. It is Gregory’s purpose “to show the way to what is best and most useful to those who pursue them” by means of his “exalted speech.” 454 According to Maximus, Gregory “is a theologian who speaks in an extremely dense way”455 and the unfolding of his meaning requires the greatest care and attention: “In order that the enigma of what is said may become entirely clear to us, let us examine the words of the blessed one themselves just as they are.”456 As an orator and teacher, Gregory takes on a universalized persona for Maximus: “He does not say these things only about himself, but by speaking from his own perspective (δι᾽ ἑαυτοῦ), he is speaking about what is common to the human condition.”457 Everyone “who desires (ὁ ἐρῶν) salvation” is then characterized either as one who is devoted to asceticism (πράξει) or as one devoted to contemplation (θεωρίᾳ),

454

Amb. 6, 1065C2-4.

455

Amb. Prol., 1065A5.

456

Amb. 6, 1065C9-11.

457

Amb. 6, 1065C14-D1.

214

which, as the ways to virtue and knowledge, are necessary for salvation.458 Maximus understands that Gregory belongs to the second category, and goes on, speaking in the person of Gregory, to describe the disposition of such a devoted contemplative: I am one of those who devote themselves to God through contemplation and luxuriate in blessed beauty, having complete peace and holiness, as I have simplified myself for God (ἑµαυτὸν ἁπλώσας Θεῷ) with an undivided identity in the intention of my will (κατὰ τὴν γνώµην) by fittingly making the irrational powers of the soul rational by leading and assimilating them—I mean the spirited and appetitive faculties—to the intellect through reason, transforming the former into love, and the latter into joy.459 The one devoted to contemplation possesses peace and holiness, which Maximus explains in the terms of simplicity (ἁπλώσας), undivided identity (ἀδιαιρέτῳ ταυτότητι), and assimilation (οἰκειώσασθαι). ii. Rationalization of Obscurity After his initial description of the ambiguity of embodiment, Maximus refracts the human soul into the familiar four Greek aspects: the two irrational powers, θυµός (spiritedness) and ἐπιθυµία (appetitiveness), λόγος (reason), and νοῦς (intellect). He says that the peaceful state of the contemplative is achieved through the assimilation of that which is irrational—the spirited and appetitive faculties of the soul—to that which transcends reason, the intellect (νοῦς), by means of and through reason (λόγος) itself. This assimilation and appropriation of the irrational to the supra-rational by means of the rational is also a transformation in which spiritedness becomes love (ἀγάπη) and the appetite becomes joy (χαρά). 458

Völker, has shown the consistent confluence of the terms πρᾶξις and θεωρία in the texts of Maximus: Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens, 232-235. 459

Amb. 6, 1065D4-1068A5.

215

This dynamic, of course, had long been a part of Greek philosophical culture. In Parmenides it is the strength of θυµός that conditions his journey to the truth: ὅσον τ᾽ ἐπὶ θυµὸς ἱκάνοι (“as far as spirit could reach”).460 Plato continues Parmenides’ image in the Phaedrus, where the soul is figured as a chariot drawn by two horses (θυµός and ἐπιθυµία), which lead it (potentially) towards the beauty of the forms. Indeed, much of Gregory’s language of being “weighed down” and falling to the earth resonates with Socrates’ description of the soul in the Phaedrus.461 As Maximus explains it here, the central dynamic of conscious and affective life is the assimilation of the irrational powers to the intellect, by means of their rationalization, i.e. by means of their coming under the sway of λόγος. By doing so, the human being becomes “simple for God” in peace and holiness, “with an undivided identity in the intention of will.” Maximus presents the self as scattered, and the task for the acquisition of blessed beauty is the simplification of this scattered reality to a unified way of seeing the world (γνώµη). But who, or what, accomplishes this gathering, and therefore, who or what is the human being? When the irrational powers are assimilated to the νοῦς by λόγος, they are transformed into love and joy, which we may take as the rationalized modes of these basic energies of the soul. Maximus then gives a description of the affectivity of these modes, beginning with joy, in which he says Leaping and exultation in a divinely-appropriate manner are characteristic of joy—it is like John, the great forerunner and herald of the truth, who

460

Parmenides, Fr. 1.1.

461

E.g. Plato, Phaedrus 248d.

216

leapt forth in the womb, or like David king of Israel, who did so at the resting of the ark.462 From this image of leaping in the womb, Maximus gives a description of the current mode of human being in the world: For both we and the God-Word, who is the maker and Lord of all, are in the present state of life as in a womb (even if this statement is difficult to take since it is new to many, it is nevertheless true). The God-Word shows through with great difficulty in this sensual world, obscurely as in the womb, and this pertains to those who are like John in spirit, while human beings also see the Word hidden in beings only to a certain degree, out of the womb, as it were, of the material environment. And this they would indeed be, boasting by the gifts of John. For, compared to the ineffable glory and radiance of the age to come and the character of its life, the present life mixed with gloomy darkness is no different than life in an allencompassing womb, in which, because of the childishness of our minds, the God-Word himself, who is both perfect and transcends perfection, became a child because of his love for humanity.463 This passage lays out in compressed and imagistic form the basic mode of human being in the world: to be a human being in the sensual world is to be in a womb and Maximus draws the God-Word and human being together in a definitive way. First, the God-Word is only obscurely seen in the world, as though still in the womb, and it is only those who are like John the Baptist who are able to discern his presence even while both he and the God-Word are still in the womb. Most human beings, however, only see things at all when they have emerged from the womb, and even then, vision is only attained to a certain degree (ποσῶς), for the λόγος has been “hidden in beings (τὸν ἐν τοῖς οὖσιν ἐγκρυπτόµενον… λόγον).” The question of the λόγος of beings has rightly been regarded as a central element of Maximus’ understanding of the nature of reality. Here our concern is not with the ontology of the λόγοι but rather with how knowledge of them 462

Amb. 6, 1068A6-10.

463

Amb. 6, 1068A10-B11.

217

relates to the affective life of human beings. Ambiguum 7 will show them to be the stable aspect within the instability of cosmic flux that make possible the knowledge of the world and the knowledge of God through the world. When we take these two together—the unassimilated being of humanity and its dim vision of beings—we see that Maximus considers the human being to be in a state of obscurity. A human being can hardly see, and what one does see, one sees only darkly and neither loves it nor rejoices in it. Rather, one is filled with irrational spirit and appetite to consume, possess, destroy, but not to see, contemplate, and understand. We may also see in this an inchoate indication of Maximus’ understanding of how beings give themselves to be apprehended and how human beings intend them. The logos/Logos is concealed, hidden in beings. There are those (like John the Baptist) who are able to respond to and rejoice in the invisible in its invisibility, those for whom manifestation is precisely the hidden presence of what has yet to come to light. And it is precisely this one who is the forerunner of what is to come, the emergence into the light of what was hidden. In contrast to this, Maximus describes the normal state of human beings who see only dimly what a being is, even though the being has already emerged from “the womb.” iii. The Ascetic and the Contemplative Maximus continues, in the persona of Gregory, the description of the dynamics of what it means to be a human being in the world: And so, since, as it has been said, I am someone like this [a contemplative] and have mounted up to the divine heights that are accessible for human beings during this present life, I would be negligent of the deiform habit if I were to incline myself voluntarily toward the love of the body; ‘I have been dragged down, having been weighed down by bonds,’ that is, by 218

cares, ‘and I have fallen away from God,’ since I have dedicated the attention and quest intended for the kingdom of the heavens alone to that—I mean the earthly life—to which it was not permitted, preferring for my thinking to be joined to the senses rather than for it to be carried to God.464 The contemplative, as one who has ascended to a certain degree, is in between the “deiform habit” and the body, and so the phrase “being dragged down” would apply insofar as such a person has once ascended and then voluntarily shifted the inclination of the will “toward the love of the body.” One might do this because of a preference for the thought of sensual things to that of divine things. The senses are related to the cares of the earthly life and are thus bonds, but they are also a place of settling rest for the intellect that has grown weary from its ascent to the divine realm, as Gregory says in his Great Theological Oration: “Thus our intellect grows weary of transcending bodily realities;”465 hence its willingness to direct its attention to the body. When Maximus comes to consider the state of the one who is engaged in ascetical practice, he applies the other term, “being held down” (κατέχεσθαι): If I am still arming myself for battle against the passions through the practical life, having not yet cleanly escaped the snares of the enemies who wish to catch me with them, and if I would love the body without proper discernment, clearly I am held down by it, since I preferred relation to it over separation from it through the practice of virtue.466 Again, the submission is willing. The ascetic who is held down prefers relation to the body over separation from it through virtue, and so is held down. In his conclusion of Ambiguum 6, Maximus characterizes the state of the contemplative as one of “neglect”

464

Amb. 6, 1068B11-C6.

465

G. Naz., Or. 28.13.

466

Amb. 6,1068C6-11.

219

and that of the ascetic as one of “surrender.” In both cases, the falling away from God is consensual and is based simply on the preference for the bodily senses. II. Ambiguum 7 i. The Question of Origenism Ambiguum 7 has received the most sustained attention of any of Maximus’ works from modern scholars of theology and philosophy. It is the most densely argued chapter of the whole of the Ambigua to John and has been regarded as an important document within the history of doctrine vis-à-vis the question of Origenism467 and of the development of concepts within the philosophical tradition more generally.468 Polycarp Sherwood, who put the “refutation of Origenism” at the heart of his study of the Ambigua to John, himself sees this refutation as “essentially a digression” within Ambiguum 7,469 however, and a fortiori within the Ambigua as a whole. Ambiguum 7 begins from a passage (quoted above) in which Gregory speaks of being “a portion of God,” which then “rolls down from him as in a stream” and is joined to a body “to battle and struggle” as a training for existing humbly as a portion of God and not “despising the Creator.” Maximus begins with the misreading of those who apparently had used this quotation in support of the myth of the primordial henad of intellects that were gathered in rapt contemplation about God, but then, out of satiety, 467

e.g. Sherwood, Earlier Ambigua, 72-116; Von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 127-120.; Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 81-83. 468

Gersh, From Iablichus to Eriugena, 193ff, especially 218-229, 244-248; Riou, Le Monde et l’église, 4954; Moreschini, Ambigua, 127-140; Philipp Gabriel Renczes, Agir de Dieu et liberté de l’homme: recherches sur l’anthropologie théologique de saint Maxime le confesseur (Paris: Cerf, 2003), 155ff.; Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, 47-51. 469

Sherwood, Earlier Ambigua, 29.

220

turned away and were dispersed, so that God generated “this bodily cosmos for the purpose of binding them to bodies in retribution for sins previously committed.”470 There is indeed evidence that Gregory was used as an authoritative justification for what was often labeled “Origenist” speculation “about the world—or worlds—matter, the soul, the superior and inferior rational natures, the resurrection, the judgment, the retribution, the sufferings of Christ.”471 In the mid-sixth century, Cyril of Scythopolis reports a conversation he had with an Abba Cyriacus concerning monks in Palestine who made precisely this appeal as justification for their speculations about the origin of the cosmos, the soul, Christ’s relation to the Trinity, and the apokatastasis (universal restoration of all things to unity with God). These doctrines are laid at the door of “Pythagoras and Plato…Origen, Evagrius, and Didymus.”472 As Maximus reports in Ambiguum 7, the fallenness of creation is figured by such people as a falling into motion from an originally stable state, and this is the point at which Maximus begins in his response and exposition. Before proceeding to the exposition itself, we should say a word regarding this question of Origenism in the text. As we have observed, Ambiguum 7 is usually read in light of the Origenist controversies of the fourth and sixth centuries, even though, as Sherwood claimed, the refutation of Origenism is by no means the leading concern of the text. Maximus does, of course, set views that would have been called “Origenist” as the initial aporia for his own reflections, and the contours of Maximus’ counter-argument are well known. As Maximus reports it, the typical Origenist scheme of the generation of the 470

Amb. 7, 1069A12-15.

471

G. Naz., Or. 27.10.

472

See The Lives of the Monks of Palestine, trans. R.M. Price (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1991), 252-254.

221

cosmos posited that rational creatures originally existed in a state of stability (στάσις) and then fell through movement (κίνησις) so that God brought about the γένεσις of the corporeal universe “for the purpose of binding them to bodies in retribution for sins previously committed.”473 For Maximus, by contrast, if something is in motion, by definition it has never been in a state of rest, since everything that is in motion is in motion towards the final object of its desire and if it is observed to be in motion now—as all things are—then it cannot have once been in a state of rest with the final object of its desire. The notion of falling away from the highest and most desirable good is simply incoherent for Maximus. How could something from which one could possibly turn away actually be beautiful enough to produce satiety in the beholder, so that a turning away would even be desirable? Moreover, if this could take place even within a state of stability, what would prevent it from happening again, even if one were to re-attain the primordial state of stable unity? Rather, all things are first brought into being (γένεσις), are thus set in motion (κίνησις), and are directed towards stability in their final end (στάσις), who is God.474 The crucial insight of Maximus’ refutation is to assert motion/change as the fundamental reality of generated being; it is this insight that links the refutation of Origenism to the central concern of the text, namely his analysis of the basic experience of human passibility in the world. ii. Nature and Passibility In the first sequence of argument, Maximus raises two essential issues: 1.) The comportment of creation towards the divine (τὸ θείον) as the “unmoved reality that 473

Amb. 7, 1069A8-15.

474

Amb. 7, 1069B4-1072D2.

222

fulfills all things (ἀκίνητον…πάντων πληρωτικόν) and “final object of desire” (ἐσχατὸν ὁρεκτικόν), and 2.) The comportment of creation—specifically intellectual creatures—towards the divine as the beautiful (τὸ καλόν). With respect to the first, Maximus asserts that “nothing that is in motion has yet come to stability, since it has not yet put a stop to the power of motion in its impulse for the final object of desire.”475 The basic claim is that if something is now in motion, then it has been in motion for as long as it has been in existence. The syllogism Maximus gives in support of this conclusion is If the divine, as the reality that fulfills all things, is immoveable, but everything that receives existence out of non-being is moveable—since surely everything is born toward some cause—then nothing that is in motion has yet come to stability…since it has not yet attained the final object of desire, which, since it is not itself one thing among those that revolve around it, has established motion.476 The idea that motion could follow stability is incoherent to Maximus; those who hold it assume “impossible things.” Something moves because it tends towards that which it desires, its cause (αἰτία), and it does not stop until it has reached that goal. Therefore, the undeniable reality of the change we undergo indicates that we have never been in a state of stability. With respect to the second point, Maximus begins by asserting that if intellects were able to despise God and turn away from stability once, then there is no reason to think that this wouldn’t happen in a continuous cycle. He then places an argument in the mouths of his hypothetical opponents: it is not a matter of being unable but of being unwilling to remain steadfast in the beautiful, such that intellects had to experience the opposite of τὸ καλόν—i.e. τὸ κάκον, evil—in order truly to love it. The conclusion of 475

Amb. 7, 1069B7-10.

476

Amb. 7, 1069B4-11.

223

this imagined account would be that evil has served to educate intellects in the good with the result that they become fixed more securely in the beautiful, even giving birth to love, “according to which everything, which comes to be from God, is naturally gathered stably and unchangingly to God.”477 In response, Maximus argues that that which is only loved because of the experience of its opposite is not of itself (δι᾽ ἑαυτό) good or beautiful, and as such, would not be able to “contain the impulse” of those who enjoy it. This initial consideration raises a determinative theme of the whole of the Ambigua, that of the pursuit of a singleness and simplicity of perception that is independent of duality. Maximus leaves the issue in its nascent form here. Maximus then returns to the first point, that of the relationship between motion and generation. Here we shall focus on Maximus’ use of the term πάθος, which he has given as another word for κίνησις. “‘Passibility,’” he writes, is not being used here in the sense of a change or corruption of potency, but as what exists together by nature with beings (τὸ φύσει συνυπάρχον τοῖς οὖσι). For all things that have come into being experience being moved, since nothing is self-moved or self-sufficient with respect to potentiality.”478 There is no primordial nature of beings that then undergoes some sort of change or corruption; πάθος—passibility, undergoing a force from outside oneself—is equiprimordial with the nature of created being itself. A being is passivity as such. This insight is crucial for our understanding of Maximus’ views on being and nature in general, and, within our context here, of the foundation of the philosophic life.

477

Amb. 7, 1072A8-10.

478

Amb. 7, 1073B12-14.

224

Beings are passive in their nature and thus are moved by nature. God in this context is “the bounteous giver of being and well-being, since he is source and end,” and it is towards this source (ἀρχή) and end (τέλος) that beings are moved, even as it is from God that they have come.479 Focusing specifically on human beings, Maximus describes the movement of thought into God as that which circumscribes thought: If the intellectual faculty is intellectually moved in proportion to itself, surely it also thinks. If it thinks, then surely it also loves what is thought. If it loves, surely it also experiences ecstasy towards it as the object of its love. (Εἰ δὲ κινεῖται ἀναλόγως ἑαυτῷ νοερῶς τὸ νοερὸν, καὶ νοεῖ πάντως· εἰ δὲ νοεῖ, καὶ ἐρᾷ πάντως τοῦ νοηθέντος· εἰ δ᾽ ἑρᾷ, καὶ πάσχει πάντως τὴν πρὸς αὐτὸ ὡς ἐραστὸν ἔκστασιν.)480 This ecstasy results in an impulsion (ἐπείγεται) and an extension—a stretching out (ἐπιτείνει)—of the “vehemence of movement” until it is completely absorbed by what it loves. As a result, it willingly renounces its ability “to make itself entirely known from itself” (ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ αὐτὸ ἐκεῖνο ὅλον γνωρίζεσθαι), and is rather shown forth inseparably with the object of its desire, which completely circumscribes it “as when the air is entirely lit up by light, and iron by fire, where one is entirely lit up by the flame of the other.”481 As such, the one who undergoes intellectual (νοερῶς as distinct from αἰσθητικῶς) motion ceases to be “oneself” in that the willing of the will is given over and subordinated to God, so that one becomes like Christ in the garden of Gethsemane and can say, “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matt 26.39), or like St. Paul, saying, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2.20).482 479

Amb. 7, 1073C5-7.

480

Amb. 7, 1073C9-13.

481

Amb. 7, 1076A2-4.

482

Cf. Amb. 7, 1076B4-9.

225

Immediately Maximus anticipates the objection that this amounts to “the destruction of freedom.” Rather than destroying freedom, Maximus asserts that this subordination of the will secures the establishment (θέσις) of freedom according to its nature. Maximus characterizes this establishment of freedom as a “deliberate withdrawal” (ἐκχώρησιν γνωµικήν), which is a desire “to receive the source from which being and motion exist for us, as an image returns to its archetype.”483 In its passibility, which, as we have seen, is at the core of its being and is constitutive of its being, it achieves the ability “not to be able to want to be carried elsewhere”484 than to God. This is what Maximus means by θεώσις in this context: the intellect is victorious because God is the active agent in all things. The intellect—the image of God the archetype—“is fully pleased by the ecstasy of the beings and intelligible things that naturally pertain to it.” The mind is ecstatic as that which is drawn out towards the object of love. The free and “deliberate withdrawal” of the will shows that only God is active, so that there is one single activity through all, of God and of those who are worthy of God, or rather, of God alone, since he has completely interpenetrated in a comely way all of those who are worthy (καὶ µόνον ἔχουσαν ἐνεργοῦντα τὸν θεὸν δείξασαν, ὥστε εἶναι µίαν καὶ µόνην διὰ πάντων ἐνέργειαν, τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τῶν ἀξίων θεοῦ, µᾶλλον δὲ µόνου θεοῦ, ὡν ὅλον ὅλοις τοῖς ἀξίοις ἀγαθοπρεπῶς περιχωρήσαντος).485 We see here, then, that God is that which is active in all things. This is fundamental for understanding Maximus’ notion of the contemplation of nature. God as the end, “outside” of which there would be nothing, is seen here to be in all things. All things that are in

483

Amb. 7, 1076B13-C1.

484

Amb. 7, 1076C2-4.

485

Amb. 7, 1076C9-13.

226

“self-impelled motion” (ἐξουσιαστικῆς κινσήως) around something other (τι ἄλλο) than themselves are stopped with the advent of “the final object of desire,” and they “contain” God, who is “contained uncontainedly” in accordance with the potentiality of each thing. iii. Partaking of God as the Substance of Virtue Maximus’ account of human πάθος is foundational for whatever concepts or arguments might be brought to bear on his metaphysics, including his refutation of Origenism. Maximus places rest (στάσις/µονή) as the goal of motion, not that from which motion departs, and characterizes that goal as “silence and imperturbability.”486 Movement is considered by Maximus here as “straining”: one “becomes God by straining towards him and is called a portion of God by virtue of his suitably partaking of God (τῇ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἀνατάσει θεὸς γίνεται καὶ µοῖρα θεοῦ λέγεται τῷ µετέχειν προσηκόντως θεοῦ).”487 When Maximus gives a specific explanation of human participation in God, he considers it in the context of the virtues (ἀρεταί), which he gives as including wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption (I Cor 1.30). He says that the Logos of God—identified with Jesus Christ—is the οὐσία of the virtues, that is, he “possesses these things…unconditionally since he is wisdom itself, and righteousness, and holiness and not as a specific instance of these virtues, as would be the case with us.”488 Therefore, to partake of virtue is to “partake of God, who is the οὐσία of the virtues.”

486

Amb. 7, 1080D2-9, quoting Basil the Great, Enarratio in prophetam Isaiam I, 30 (PG 30, 177C-D).

487

Amb. 7, 1080C5-7.

488

Amb. 7, 1081D1-7.

227

The possibility of this participation is founded in God’s having “sown the natural seed of the good”489 in human nature so that participation in what transcends humanity is part of the potentiality of human nature, another instance of the grounding of human being beyond human nature. It is in this sense, for Maximus, that the famous phrase “The end is the same as the beginning”490 is true. The beginning and end of human nature come under a unified σκοπός, which is the attainment of “pure agreement with God (ἀνόθευτος θεοῦ τυγχάνων συνήγορος).” The course of human life is run with a community of intention (γνωµή) and purpose (προαίρεσις) between man and God so that from the beginning man receives being and the good as inseparable. Through the exercise of the virtues, a person becomes assimilated to the beautiful (καλῷ) nature and divine purpose because he is in the image of God. Assimilation, is not, however, a product of the exercise of the virtues, as he says later in Ambiguum 10. Rather, the virtues make it manifest; assimilation is manifestation, the making evident of what has been sown in human nature from the beginning: τὸ ἀγαθόν. The attainment of τὸ ἀγαθόν, “the good,” which is the τέλος of being, has been placed in the nature of man from his arising (φύσις as φύεσθαι), so that the principle of his growth is the transcendent good towards which he arises and from which he has come. This gives us an indication of the relationship between the good and the beautiful. Τὸ καλόν is τὸ ἀγαθόν in its manifestation. By “conforming to its own proper source (ἰδίαν ἀρχήν) the human being discloses as τὸ καλόν the good that has been planted in his nature and in this way

489

Amb. 7, 1084A1.

490

Amb. 7, 1084A3-4; cf. Origen De princ. I.6.2.

228

receives “being God” (τὸ θεός εἶναι) from the one God. The manifestation of human being as the visible beauty of the good is what man receives from God. Maximus then uses the phrase “In him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17.28) as a framework for another summary statement of his teaching: [The human being] comes to be in God through diligence when he has not corrupted the rational principle of his being that pre-exists in God. He is also moved in God according to the rational principle of well-being that pre-exists in God, being actualized through the virtues. Finally, he lives in God according to the rational principle of eternal being that pre-exists in God.491 The triad of being (εἶναι), well-being (εὖ εἶναι) and eternal being (ἀεὶ εἶναι) recurs at various points in the Ambigua to John and elsewhere in his works.492 We return here to a passage the first part of which we have already observed but which also contains a reference to the triad of being, well-being, and eternal being: But one must understand the term “passibility” in the correct sense. “Passibility” is not being used here in the sense of a change or corruption of potency, but as what exists together with beings by nature. For all things that have come into being experience being moved, since nothing is self-moved or self-sufficient with respect to potentiality. If, therefore, generated rational beings exist, surely they are also in motion, since from the beginning they are moved according to nature because of being, and are moved in accordance with their inclination toward an end because of well-being. For the end of the movement of things in motion, which is well-being in eternity, is the same as the source of being, and this is God, who is the bounteous giver of both being and well-being, since he is source and end. For we are both simply moved from him, as our source, and somehow we are also moved towards him, since he is the end.493

491

Amb. 7, 1084B2-7.

492

Cf. Sherwood, Earlier Ambigua, 67 n.27. See discussion of this theme in Larchet, Divinisation de l’homme, 165-174; Thunberg, Microcosm, 368-372; Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, 172-174; Renzses, Agir de Dieu, uses the triad as a framework for his study of the concepts of ἐνέργεια and ἕξις in Maximus’ anthropology. 493

Amb. 7, 1073B11-C9.

229

This most general statement of the nature of being comes within the consideration of πάθος, since as we have seen, and as Maximus makes explicit here, πάθος “exists together with beings by nature.” Created things are in motion in virtue of their being and their motion is teleological in that it is directed toward the good (well-being). The achievement of the end, which is a return to the beginning, is the arrival at eternal wellbeing in God. Maximus gives a fuller explanation of this in Ambiguum 65 where he considers Gregory Nazianzen’s reference to “the eighth day” in his Oration on Pentecost. Maximus quotes Gregory: “…there being one day lacking, which we have received in addition from the coming age, being the eighth, which is also itself the first, indeed, one and perpetual. For there [in the coming age] it is necessary to put an end to the keeping of the Sabbath of souls as we do here.”494 The context of this quotation from the Oration on Pentecost finds Gregory reflecting upon various numbers that are held to be sacred by various groups: the ancient Hebrews honored the number seven, the Pythagorians the number four, etc. This is a natural mode of reflection for Gregory since the feast, Pentecost, takes its name from a number: it is the fiftieth day after Pascha/Passover. As such, Gregory is led to consider the mystical content of sacred numbers. He observes that the number seven is particularly honored by the feast of Pentecost, “for seven multiplied by itself produces the number fifty, there being one day lacking, which we have received in addition from the coming age…” at which point Maximus begins his interpretation. He begins his analysis, following Gregory’s lead, with a consideration of the number seven and its relation to the eighth day. The number seven “signifies time, eternity, the ages, 494

G. Naz. Or. 41.2.

230

motion, enclosure, measure, boundary, providence, and many other things…It alone is regarded as rest and so it is invested with great significance with respect to the knowledge of the sacred mysteries.”495 We are still, therefore, within the scope of Maximus’ reflection in Ambiguum 7 with this discussion of the nature of time and motion. Maximus then comes to the point that is most important for our purposes: Those who have an understanding of divine things speak of three modes: they contemplate the all-encompassing rational principle of the common generation of rational beings (ὁ σύµπας τῆς ὅλης τῶν λογικῶν οὐσιῶν γενέσεως) according to the modes of being, well-being, and eternal being. The mode of being has been given to beings first of all as the foundation of their substantiality (κατ᾽ οὐσίαν δεδωρῆσθαι); secondly, the mode of well496-being, which is dependent upon their inclination, has been given them insofar as they are self-moving; and thirdly, the mode of eternal being has been lavished upon them by grace.497 This initial statement differentiates the gift of being and places it under three successive concepts: οὐσία, προαίρεσις and (αὐτο)κίνησις, and χάρις. Sherwood observes that the first and last terms in this series, that is, being and eternal being, “are not within man’s power,” whereas the middle term, well-being, “involves choice.”498 The implication, initially, is that the beginning and end—the ἀρχή and τέλος—of man’s being come from without, whereas the movement between these two is up to him, but more to the point for our present purposes is the fact that those things which “are not within man’s power” are, more deeply, in him precisely κατὰ δύναµιν, though not, with respect to eternal being, in the ontological sense. Sherwood obviously means that a person’s being and the everlasting endurance of that being are not generated by the person himself whereas the 495

Amb. 65, 1389D-1392A.

496

εὖ is lacking in PG; Eriugena has bene esse.

497

Amb. 65, 1392A4-11.

498

Sherwood, Earlier Ambigua, 202.

231

quality of that being—good or evil—does fall under the power of a person’s will and freedom of choice (variously γνώµη, θέλησις, προαίρεσις). However, the true aporia of this thought is that being in its radical temporality and eternal being, which escapes, by definition, the horizon of time, are both given to the human being as potentiality (being) and as the outcome of the potentiality of being (eternal well- or evil-being). As Maximus wonders, “how could eternal being, which has no beginning or end, exist in things that have a beginning to their nature and an end to their motion?”499 And yet these two reside together in the human being so that we are directly in the middle of Gregory’s questions from the Oration on the Love of the Poor that inaugurate Maximus’ Ambigua: “Is it that we might know that we are both the greatest and the lowliest of all, that we are earthly and heavenly, temporary and immortal, heirs of light and fire or of darkness, depending upon our tendency?” It is this mixture that places the human being in question to himself. He is heavenly enough to recognize the earth as earth, and yet is bound to this earth; he has eternity inscribed in him as “the outcome (πέρας) of [his] potentiality”500 so that he recognizes time as temporal, i.e. as a limit and horizon, and yet he is bound to corruption in the passing of time. Human awareness outstrips human power and this places human being in its anxious state so that the beginning of the Christian way of life, faith, is linked to fear (φόβος): “Faith in the Lord gives birth to the fear of God…”501 To address this question, Maximus proceeds to delimit the three modes of being with more conceptual precision: 499

Amb. 65, 1392B9-11.

500

Amb. 65, 1392C12.

501

Capita de caritate I.2, Massimo Confessore Capitoli sulla Carità, ed. Aldo Ceresa-Gestaldo (Roma: Editrice Studium, 1963).

232

The first (i.e. being) determines the realm of potentiality (δυνάµεως), the second (i.e. well-being) that of actualization (ἐνεργείας), the third (i.e. eternal being) that of rest (ἀργίας). That is to say, because the rational principle of being naturally possesses only the potential for actualization, it is not at all able to possess the fullest actualization itself without resolutely inclining towards it (διχὰ τῆς προαιρέσεως). Moreover, because the rational principle of well-being only possesses the natural actualization of that which is potential when it deliberately wills it (γνωµικῶς), it does not at all possess the complete potentiality of nature itself as an independent reality (χωρίς). And finally, because the rational principle of eternal being completely circumscribes both the potentiality and the actualization of these two that precede it, it does not at all exist naturally in the potentiality of beings, nor is it at all a necessary consequence resulting from the resolute inclination of the will (θελήσει προαιρέσεως).502 Being as δύναµις cannot, of itself, come to actualization without the resolution to come to actualization, which leads it, then, into the realm of well-being, which is itself similar to the realm of being in that it only possesses the actualization of the potentiality of being γνωµικῶς, volitionally, as an act of the will, and not χωρίς, as a bare and “natural” phenomenon. Finally, both of these, being and well-being, are contained within eternal being—and not eternal being within them—so that eternity is neither natural nor necessary to being: “For how could eternal being, which has no beginning or end, exist in things that have a beginning to their nature and an end to their motion?” Because the focus of our present chapter is πάθος, our observations will not address the metaphysical relationship between time and eternity. Rather, we shall allow this simultaneously coincidental and disjunctive rapport between finitude and eternity in the consciousness of the human being to elicit the wonder that Gregory expresses in his question, “What is the wisdom concerning me, and what is this great mystery?” Gregory is aware of his inherent limitation and kinship with the finitude of the earth and yet his 502

Amb. 65, 1392A11-B9.

233

undeniable thoughts of eternity and immortality arise and cause him to strain against the downward pull he feels from the earth. We have already referred to Kant’s notion that “Human reason…is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature or reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer” in reference to Origen. As Gregory himself would say, “Our intellect grows weary of transcending bodily realities and of holding converse with bare bodiless realities, while it looks in its own weakness on what transcends its power.”503 The human being grows weary with desire (κάµνουσα τῷ πόθῳ) for what is beyond him— ultimately God as source and cause of his being—and yet strains against his limits in the attempt to get beyond them. It is at this point that Maximus introduces his understanding of the “seventh day,” the day of rest: But there is a limit (ὅρος) that makes steadfast the nature in its potentiality, and the resolute inclination in its actualization. It does not change in any way the rational principle of the existence of either of these, and defines all ages and times for all things. And it is, perhaps, this limiting reality that is (in my opinion at least) the mystically blessed Sabbath—the great day of rest from divine works—which, according to the scriptural account of the generation of the world, appears as having neither beginning, nor end, nor generation. It is the appearance, after the motion of those things that are limited by measure, of those things that are beyond limit and measure; it is the boundless identity, after the quantifiable amount of what is contained and circumscribed, of what is uncontained and uncircumscribed.504 In the midst of the straining of being against its limits, Maximus finds a limit, a horizon, that does not frustrate human nature in its attempt to get beyond itself, but rather stabilizes it in its being as potentiality and its προαίρεσις as actualization. As the limit of 503

G. Naz., Or. 28.13.21-24.

504

Amb. 65, 1392B11-C9.

234

the temporality of the world it itself “appears as having neither beginning, nor end, nor generation.” For Maximus, this eternal limit, which is not identical with God, is what allows the human being to enter eternity and in the end, despite the conceptual distinctions Maximus has made with respect to eternal being and temporal being, inscribes eternity into the structure of the human experience of time: whenever the resolutely inclined actualization realizes—either in accordance with or contrary to nature—the potentiality inherent to nature, it receives the potentiality as having either well- or ill-being as its possible outcome, and this outcome of potentiality is eternal being, in which souls have their Sabbath rest when they have acquired the cessation of all motion.505 Whatever else might be said about the status of “the cessation of all motion,”506 at this stage Maximus envisions the outcome (πέρας) of human being in its potentiality to be eternal being. He has said that this outcome is not achieved without the grace of God, but it is clear that eternal being, whether “well- or ill-being,” is the direction in which being naturally moves and it is precisely this movement of human being between the temporal and the eternal that creates the tension and anxiety of which Gregory speaks. Beyond the eternal rest of the seventh day comes “the eighth and first, or indeed, the one and indivisible day… the unmixed and all-radiant presence of God, which comes after moving things are brought to stability.”507 The quality of this presence, as Maximus has indicated, depends upon the resolution of the one who resides in being, directed 505

Amb. 65, 1392C9-14.

506

The quality of this “cessation of all motion (πάσης παῦλαν κινήσεως)” has provoked study amongst scholars. Paul Blowers gives an adequate summary of the various positions and concludes that “Maximus wants to show that the final ‘rest’ is real, and yet in the overall context of deification relative: the stasis is not an utter cessation or termination, but a stabilization, a ‘Sabbath,’ and a transformation”: “Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Concept of ‘Perpetual Progress,’” 162. 507

Amb. 65, 1392C14-D3.

235

either, in accordance with his nature, towards God, or contrary to his nature, away from God: God is present in those who have realized the rational principle of being according to nature by directing their inclination to him, so that he resides completely and harmoniously in all things, and provides eternal well-being through their participation in him, since he alone actually exists, eternally exists, and exists in goodness. But he is also present in those who have deliberately realized the rational principle of being in a manner contrary to nature, so that God in his fullness fittingly imparts to them eternal illbeing instead of well-being, since they are no longer able to contain wellbeing: they are disposed contrarily towards it, and, after the one who is sought after is made manifest, they no longer have the possibility of motion, which is what enables that which is sought after naturally to appear to those who seek it.508 Maximus here introduces another aspect of the human being’s awareness of his own temporality and mutability. While in this age of flux and corruption, the human being undergoes the process of resolutely inclining potentiality to actualization and is therefore constantly changing. There is coming a time, however, when the possibility for turning and reorienting motion towards the good will no longer be a potentiality. Because it is precisely motion that “enables that which is sought after naturally to appear to those who seek it,” once the one sought for (τὸ ζητητόν), God, appears, there will be no more motion and “those who have deliberately realized the rational principle of being in a manner contrary to nature” will no longer be “able to contain well-being.” This possibility hangs over the human being as he seeks to actualize his being by resolutely choosing the good. The inevitability of change and decay and the struggle against the weight of the body place human being in question; the equally inevitable manifestation of God and final rest of motion, with their consequences for the status of human possibility, induce fear and provoke, at least potentially, the assumption of the 508

Amb. 65, 1392D2-13.

236

ascetic struggle, which is the beginning of the life of Christian practice for both Gregory and Maximus. This, then, is the importance of the triad being/well-being/eternal being for our understanding of what motivates Maximus’ vision of affectivity. To return to Ambiguum 7 and its account of affectivity, the progression from being through well-being to eternal being describes the σκοπός of human existence: that man should exist, exist in the good, and exist in God. Those who do not live according to the λόγος of their own being—“those who have deliberately realized the rational principle of being in a manner contrary to nature” in the language of Ambiguum 65—are said “to roll down as in a stream,” and this is experienced by them as “ceaseless turning and terrible disorder of both soul and body.”509 But this disorder is willfully assumed since the one who has “rolled down” willfully directs himself “towards what is inferior.” This is a fundamental mystery of human existence on Maximus’ account. Man, of all beings, is able to live contrary to his natural motion and λόγος, which reside eternally in God. He is able to live at odds with his own nature and does so willingly, recalling what we observed at the very beginning of our study with the introduction of the possibility of living contrary to nature in Parmenides and Heraclitus, a sort of negative possibility, the avoidance of which motivates the philosophical pursuit of nature. Those who do achieve the progression from being to eternal being come to actualize that which already characterizes their being by coming to participate in God. In this participation, the creature is free from that which characterizes the present life—the inhalation of air and the flowing of blood through the arteries, a mode of life that has

509

Amb. 7, 1084D8-9.

237

corruption as its “constitutive characteristic” (συστατικῆς ἰδιότης).510 It is “life constituted through corruption;” its constitution has its own de-constitution contained within it. In short, it is life that is not truly alive. Its vital processes bring it closer to its own dissolution and bring about its own death. Something that is fundamentally characterized by its own corruption has its own fall into non-being always before it as a possibility and this radical and utter contingency of human life and of the world in general is held together with the conviction that God in the λόγοι of being is the meaning and τέλος of the world. iv. Soul and Body As further confirmation of the essentially affective focus of the question of Origenism in Maximus’ text, Maximus goes on to say of Gregory’s words, “I do not think he intends to relate here the cause of human generation, but of the distress that has come into being after it.”511 Maximus sets aside the question of metaphysical causality as not being Gregory’s concern in the present text in favor of a consideration of ταλαιπωρία, “distress” or “weariness from labor.” Again, the question of the composition of soul and body comes to the fore as the perplexity of my relating to what is mine, what is “me,” in fact, and yet is also a stranger: “What a coupling! What an alienation! That which I fear I handle with honor, and that which I love I fear.” As we saw in Ambiguum 6, a person considers the complex of body and soul as a question. What is the body in relation to me? Is it me? The alienation (ἀλλοτριώσις) is made most acute

510

Amb. 7, 1088B8-C1.

511

Amb. 7, 1089D6-1092A2.

238

by the union (συζυγία). One is “yoked together” with one’s body, a process that binds but also manifests difference. With respect to the question of the cause of ταλαιπωρία, the question is, What is the cause of evils that bind us? Human experience is of being bound in a body that suffers pain and weakness, and with which—or against which—human beings are engaged in a struggle. The problem of evil is posed here in a very specific sense. Maximus does not ask about evil generally, but specifically as a function of the experience of weakness and pain—distress—in the body. This much comes from Gregory. Maximus sharpens the question by saying that man’s composition of soul and body has been brought into being by the goodness of God. Gregory’s perplexity is due, then, to the fact that we do not experience the body—at least potentially, and for the most part—as a result of goodness, but as productive of pain. To speak to this difficulty Maximus begins with the end, with the τέλος and σκοπός of the body and soul. The soul is the εἰκών of the creator because its impulse is held fast by God and is drawn up to deification in its taking on of the likeness of God, and because it is commanded to love the neighbor, the love of humanity being fundamental to what we know of God as φιλάνθρωπος.512 The soul’s task is to assimilate the body to God, making it rational through the exercise of the virtues, even “mediating through itself the creator as an inhabitant of the body.”513 This allows immortality to pass to the body, and “the one Demiurge of all things is shown forth, proportionally inhabiting all beings through human nature and the many different things that are set apart by nature will become one by 512

Amb. 7, 1092B1-14.

513

Amb. 7, 1092B12-15.

239

converging with one another about the one nature of man.”514 This all takes place so that God himself will become “all in all” (I Cor 15.28). This passage expresses in a highly compressed way Maximus’ “cosmic anthropology,” or “anthropological cosmology,” where the human being, as Thunberg has put it, is “microcosm and mediator.” The account is so compelling that one may forget what Maximus says he is explaining: the distress and struggle of human life. The soul “has been given to man” (δοθεῖσαν αὐτῷ) as an image of knowledge and love. Gregory’s question becomes, Why have I been given this? More radically, the rational soul as the core of human existence is the gift of human existence to itself. Man is given, given to himself, so that his entire constitution is a pure gift. The soul as a gift “to man” constitutes man himself as both gift and recipient so that Gregory’s question finally becomes, What is this given that I am? Maximus addresses this question by way of an explanation of Adam’s apostasy in the beginning. Although he had been created with the fundamental purpose (σκοπός) of elaborating the unity of body and soul as the linchpin of the unity of the cosmos as a whole, the forefather “readily (τῷ ἑτοίµῳ) made use of his freedom for what was worse by redirecting his impulse away from that which was entrusted to him to that which was forbidden.”515 The forefather “was free either to be united to the Lord and to become one spirit with him, or to be united to a harlot and become one body with her; but he preferred to be deceived, and he consciously estranged himself from the divine and blessed purpose, for he preferred becoming dust by choice to being God by grace.”516 Because of

514

Amb. 7, 1092C2-6.

515

Amb. 7, 1092C14-D2.

516

Amb. 7, 1092D7.

240

this irrational use of the intellect, God has lovingly chastised the intellectual power with death. The intellect has violated the gift at the core of its existence by using its freedom contrary to the purpose of that gift. Maximus describes this violation as “loving what is not (τοῦ µηδενὸς ἐρῶντες)” and it is only by undergoing the passivity of our being (διἁ τοῦ πάσχειν) that we are able to learn “to enliven this [intellectual] power again to be directed towards that which is.”517 Here we see that the turning away from the divine purpose of creation is a turning “towards” non-being so that the ἔρως of human life is swallowed up in delusion. The experience of the transitoriness and changeability of life (διὰ τοῦ πάσχειν), which we come to see as a game (“we are played with among visible things”518), is intended to lead us toward “what is to come,” but this presupposes a tendency amongst human beings to seek stability: Because of this it seems to me that there is nothing trust-worthy or longlasting for people here, but since there is something else, and this has been put together by the skilled Word and the Wisdom that resides above every intellect, we are played with among visible things, which themselves change and produce change at different times and in different ways, which are born along and turned about up and down and before we are seized by what is passing away and fleeting, we see what is unstable and inconsistent so that we should direct our course toward what is to come. For what stable reality can we produce with our good practice when it does not endure such that we are bound to it, and the pleasure and trickery about this life are able to enslave us to such an extent that we are unable to think of anything better and higher than the realities of this present life, even though we have come to be according to the image of God and hear and believe in this image, which is above and draws us towards itself?519

517

Amb. 7, 1093A8-9.

518

Amb. 7, 1093A15, quoting G. Naz., Or. 14.20.

519

Amb. 7, 1093A10-B12.

241

This long quotation from the Oration on the Love of the Poor confirms that Maximus takes the philosophical scope of the oration to be that of the dynamics of the human situation between instability and stability, present and future. Gregory begins by acknowledging the intention of the economy of change: “that we should direct our course toward what is to come.” And yet he recognizes that our common state is to be “unable to think of anything better and higher than the realities of this present life.” He is in the rhetorical position of trying to convince his auditors to “store up treasures in heaven” and so release their treasures on earth to those in need. Philosophically, Gregory (and Maximus) will say that human existence is naturally directed towards God, as “an image toward its archetype,” yet human beings live as though the opposite is true, as though there is nothing “better than the realities of this present life.” The introduction of πάθος draws human awareness back to itself and to a realization that “we do not exist at all with the true and primordial wisdom.”520 Within this πάθος, this distress and hardship—or as Heidegger insightfully translates Aristotle, this “being-out-of-composure (Aus-der-Fassung-Sein)”521—we see ultimately that the experience of distress does not derive from the mixture of soul and body, which Maximus, quoting Gregory, says is a manifestation of divine magnificence and the wealth of goodness and allows for the praise of God to be made known on earth as it is in heaven.522 Maximus argues for this in the final component of his demonstration. He has employed common notions about the body and soul elsewhere in Ambiguum 7 520

Amb. 7, 1093B13-15, quoting G. Naz., Or. 17.4.

521

Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2002), 184-185; Metcalf and Tanzer, Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy, 125. 522

Amb. 7, 1093D2-1096A12, quoting G. Naz., Or. 38.11 and Or. 39.13.

242

(what the soul is to the body, God is to the soul, etc.), and he concludes the Ambiguum with a consideration of the relationship in itself. On the most basic level, the body is naturally receptive of the soul’s activity, which “imparts life and motion to the whole body, not being partitioned throughout it, but being wholly present to the whole. It is, indeed, the soul that preserves the unity of the body.”523 The body and soul are said to be constitutive of human being, and as such, a mention of one necessarily makes “reference to the relation”: body and soul are “only divided from each conceptually for the discernment of what each is essentially.”524 The content of this conceptual division is the distinction between life and motion, i.e. the soul, and what lives and moves, the body. After this argument from relation, Maximus asserts an argument from form. If the soul and body exist independently from each other, then they exist according to their own respective form. If they were then synthesized, a new form would be produced either by “force” or by a “natural process.” Force would destroy the forms of body and soul so that the synthesis could not be said to possess either. If it were a natural process, then souls would combine and recombine with bodies in an endless cycle. Maximus’ teaching, however, is that “the formal completion of the whole (ἡ τοῦ ὅλου κατ᾽ εἶδος ἐκπλήρωσις)” is constituted by the generation of soul and body together.525 To the objection that the endurance of the soul after death is an indication of the possibility of its preexistence, Maximus responds, “the principles of generation and of

523

Amb. 7, 1100A10-B4.

524

Amb. 7, 1100C12.

525

Amb. 7, 1101D11-A4. Maximus expands upon these arguments in Ambiguum 42.

243

being (οὐσίας) are not the same.”526 The principle of generation pertains to “time, place, and relation,” whereas the principle of being pertains to existence (τὸ εἶναι) and the “purpose and mode of being.” The soul, in light of this, “exists with the condition of time, place, and relation”—it is the soul of a particular human being (τοῦ τινος ἀνθρώπου ψυχή). By its very essence the soul is alive, it is life by definition. According to its generation, it is limited as the soul of someone. With respect to the body, Maximus argues that it is “mortal” by nature and limited because of its generation as the body of a particular human being. Even though bodies dissolve at death, the form of a particular body derives from human nature as a whole and so every body is a particular body of a particular human being. In both cases, soul and body are not ever out of relation to one another: “their condition of relation is unchangeable.”527 Distress is not, therefore, produced by the soul’s union with the body. Rather, the distress we experience derives from the willfulness of the apostasy, the freedom with which the lower was and is chosen. It should be remembered that this orientation away from the final desirable is contrary to nature and tends away from the structure of the universe. As such, it produces distress.

526

Amb. 7, 1101A10-11.

527

Amb. 7, 1101B11-13.

244

III. Ambiguum 8: Training in Disorder Ambiguum 8 continues the thought of Ambiguum 7: “The scope of this present passage,” Gregory’s phrase, “as long as matter bears disorder about with itself, as if in a flowing stream,” “is obtained from the thought of the previous chapter.”528 Gregory, says Maximus, is speaking to those who are “attached to matter and the body (τοὺς φιλύλους τε καὶ φιλοσωµάτους)” in an attempt to dislodge them from this attachment. The question of the Ambiguum is that of ἀταξία, disorder—τὸ ἄτακτον as it is born along by matter. Maximus first recapitulates his narrative of the cause of our current state: When the human being came into existence and had been glorified by God with the beauty of incorruption and immortality, but preferred the shame of the material nature that surrounded him to intellectual beauty, he completely forgot the pre-eminent worthiness of the soul, or rather, of God who adorned it with the beauty of the divine form.529 Man preferred material nature, but precisely material nature as that which was “around him (περὶ αὐτόν).” In preferring what was περὶ αὐτόν he forgot his own life, forgot God himself, because in forgetting the worthiness of the soul, the human being forgets the divine form, which is its worthiness. In light of this, we may give the concrete description of human being in the world: the human being is rapt in attention to what is περὶ αὐτόν, to what surrounds him, and this gives rise to forgetfulness—λήθη; attention leads precisely to distraction. This basic interval περὶ αὐτόν – λήθη introduces the “corruption and death of the body, a movement and disposition prone to every passion, and the instability (τὸ ἄστατον) and irregularity (ἀνώµαλον) of the material essence that is

528

Amb. 8, 1101D1-3, quoting G. Naz., Or. 14.30.

529

Amb. 8, 1104A2-8.

245

both outside (ἔκτος) and around him (περὶ αὐτόν) as well as ease in and tolerance of change.”530 This is man’s inheritance, the fruit of his attention to the περὶ αὐτόν at the expense of intellectual beauty. He is in the world as subject to the world, attacked by the world, and ultimately consumed by the world. Maximus then gives two explanations of how this submission could have come about. First, it could have come about “when God mixed the soul with our body in the course of the transgression (διὰ παραβάσεως) and the possibility of change (τὸ ἀλλοιοῦσθαι) was given to it,”531 a possibility that is realized on the bodily level as “suffering, corruption, and dissolution.”532 From the beginning, we wonder how this comports with the previous statements of Ambiguum 7 that affirm the inseparability of soul and body. It could be taken to imply that the unity of soul and body is a result of transgression but this is one of the points Maximus explicitly rejects in Ambiguum 7. Given this, it is more precise to understand Maximus as saying that the current mode of union—that of the soul with a mortal, corrupt, and unstable material body—is a result of God’s mixing the soul with what is changeable (“the possibility of change was given to it”) as a means of realizing the “hope” of the redemption of creation from its submission to corruption (cf. Rom 8.20: “And creation itself is submitted to corruption, not of its own will, but because of the one who has submitted it in hope,” which Maximus quotes).

530

Amb. 8, 1104A10-13.

531

i.e. the soul.

532

Amb. 8, 1104A14-B4.

246

The second alternative Maximus gives is that “[God] created it this way from the beginning according to his foreknowledge because of the foreseen transgression.”533 The experience of pain and suffering under this mode of thinking serves to instruct the soul and make it aware of itself so that it would come to see its superiority to the body. Maximus attributes this to the fact that “the all-wise administrator of our life often concedes to use natural elements, the things in our own impulses, for the sake of our moderation (πρὸς σωφρονισµὸν ἡµῶν).”534 Moderation is not at all the human experience of impulse in its untrained state. Rather, we frantically make use of them through the confusion and disturbance that surrounds them and comes from them. ὁρµή, impulse in general, and ὁρµεῖς, the particular instances of this drive, are conceived here as those things which pull apart, scatter, and fragment. Confusion and disturbance— σύγχυσις and ταραχή—both surround (περὶ αὐτά) and derive from (ἐξ αὐτῶν) the realities that are the concern of ὁρµή (τὰ πράγµατα ἐν ταῖς οἰκείαις ὁρµαῖς), so that by themselves, they condition our drives and perceptions to confusion and disorder, rather like the account in the Timaeus in which newly established souls that have not become accustomed to the harmonious and ordered revolutions of the cosmos are disturbed by the disordered sensations that come upon them.535 Rather than keeping us from the perception of confusing and disturbing phenomena, God gives these phenomena to us precisely to provoke us to a love of what is “loveable by nature” in place of “what we happen to love right now” (τὰ παρόντα ἔρωτα). Again, this dynamic is based upon the conviction that human being naturally tends towards stability and that when ὁρµή finds 533

Amb. 8, 1104B7-9.

534

Amb. 8, 1104B13-15.

535

Tim. 44a-b.

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itself in pursuit of what is unstable, confused, unsatisfying, it will naturally seek to go beyond it towards what abides. All of this is part of the παιδεία of the passions, a training that results in healing (ἐξιᾶσθαι).536 Maximus says there are three modes of this healing, three ways in which the disorder of matter is applied “according to the principle that is better and beyond us as the cure of the oppressive evil that is produced by the passions in order to fulfill the good purpose known by God.”537 In the first, “we cleanse ourselves from weakness” after we have already succumbed to it. In the second, we take preemptive action and “cast away from ourselves the present evil that is about in the world, learning beforehand to look to the suppression of whatever evils may come in the future.” In the last case, the pious example of another holy person is given for imitation. The ground for such a person’s exemplary status is “exaltation in thought…glory in virtue, and being sufficient through himself, by virtue of his unshakeable engagement with formidable realities (τῇ ἀκλονήτῳ πρὸς τὰ δεινὰ συµπλοκῇ), to make manifest the truth that yet remains hidden (φανερῶσαι τὴν τέως κεκρυµµένην ἀλήθειαν).”538 Maximus concludes the Ambiguum, and the set of three modes of healing we have observed, with these words: Therefore, perhaps the present unevenness of lifestyle has been allowed so that the power of reason in us that prefers virtue to all else might be shown. For the change and alteration of the body and what is outside the body are common to all human beings. They are both actively and

536

Recall the importance of this theme in our analysis of Evagrius, Chapter 2 above, 179ff.

537

Amb. 8, 1104C7-9.

538

Amb. 8, 1104D8-1105A3.

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passively involved in motion, and the only steadiness and stability they possess are unsteadiness and motion.539 He ends with the manifestation of the power of logos, a manifestation that comes forth by means of the instability of material life and the inequities it entails. He thus gives a radically affirmative evaluation of the motion of the cosmos and of the human being within the cosmos. In addition to serving a pedagogical function for man, it serves to bring about the manifestation of the power of reason in its disposition towards virtue. It is perfectly natural that Maximus should raise the passibility of human existence in a consideration of the foundations of ethical philosophy. As the elder says at the beginning of Maximus’ Liber asceticus, the human being in the state of corruption and death is “led along by the manifold passions of the flesh.”540 The life of ascetical practice is precisely a therapy of the passions, and so passibility in its various manifestations is of the essence of ethics for Maximus. Maximus’ thought in Ambigua 68, however, places passibility on the ontological level of human being and thus radicalizes its significance for every aspect of human life. We are in a position now to distill this initial description of human being in the world. The human being finds himself with a body and in a world, both of which present him with ambiguity, anxiety, and distress. The body is with a person as an unstable and rebellious companion that responds to the attention given to it—of whatever kind—with an overweening drive to dominate the soul that obscures the truth of beings like a veil, and yet is, at the same time, the means for discerning this truth of beings. The awareness of time as time and the potential for eternity provoke the human being with his 539

Amb. 8, 1105B6-12.

540

Maximi Confessoris Liber Asceticus, CCSG 40, ed. Peter Van Deun (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), 5.11-

12.

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fundamental questionability and provide the moment for the basic choice of orientation towards either the stability in God or the dissolution of material existence. With this conceptual foundation that has been laid through the course of Ambigua 6-8, we turn now to Maximus’ response to the basic human condition in the world, his vision of the nature of the philosophic life and particularly his understanding of the relationship between the life of praxis and the contemplation of nature.

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CHAPTER 5 ETHOS—PRAXIS AND THE CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE

Introduction: The Coherence of the Philosophical Life We began this study with the question of the place of the contemplation of nature in ancient Greek philosophy and in Greek patristic thought, showing that it has a place in a wider philosophical framework. Now that we have articulated the basic foundation of the meaning of human passibility as Maximus expresses it in Ambigua 6-8, we turn to Maximus’ vision of the philosophic life as a response to this passibility. The first question with which we shall be concerned is the question of the relation between the ethical life, with its concern for the exercise of virtue, and the contemplation of nature, which, as we shall see, leads to the higher contemplation of the divine. All three stages— the ethical, the natural, the theological—imply one another in the Ambigua to John, so our study of Maximus’ understanding of them will address both the specific characteristics of each stage and the ways in which they relate to one another. That these stages exhibit an inseparable mutuality in the Ambigua is clear—Maximus repeatedly refers to φιλοσοφία with the three-fold set of adjectives ἐθική, φυσική, θεολογική in such a way that the true philosopher is understood to manifest all three aspects; the dynamics of their relationship, however, require examination. I argue that the contemplation of nature is the key to this relationship and this chapter will focus on the 251

central place of the contemplation of the created world in Maximus’ consideration of the philosophic life in the Ambigua to John. Indeed, “creation, by virtue of its own rational principle, teaches ethical, natural, and theological philosophy from its composition of heaven, earth, and the things in the midst of them,” so that the “thorough inspection of creation” itself yields insight into philosophy as a whole.541 Hans Urs von Balthasar has claimed that Maximus’ “thinking is dominated by an undiminished optimism with respect to the reasonableness of nature’s motion, to its directedness and consequently to its correctness; this is a trust in the essential goodness of nature, which works toward reducing the difference between ontological (transcendental) and moral goodness”;542 and a bit further, “Since this natural motion…is directed toward a goal, and since that goal cannot be anything else than God, its origin, the underlying orientation of nature must have goodness written into its being; intelligence can only have the task of translating this naturally ingrained goodness into a goodness that is consciously acquired. The borderline between natural and moral goodness thus becomes somewhat fluid.”543 Walther Völker, however, challenged this insistence as zu stark and was particularly concerned to qualify Maximus’ relation to Aristotelian (and, by extension, Thomistic) thought, with which von Balthasar discerns an affinity in Maximus on this point.544

541

Amb. 10, 1136C4-9.

542

Von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 146.

543

Von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 147.

544

Völker, Maximus Confessor als Meister des geistlichen Lebens, 36.

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At times, Maximus gives very clear evidence for von Balthasar’s position. Commenting on the Transfiguration of Christ, which we shall examine in more detail below, Maximus writes, Elijah is the image of nature, not only as the one who preserves undamaged the rational principles that pertain directly to himself and has kept the mentality of his intellectual will free from the passionate mode of engagement with them, but also as the one who, acting as a sort of natural law, trains those who conduct themselves unnaturally in their own nature to be discerning. For this indeed is how nature operates: it corrects those who try to deform it in proportion to how far they pursue living contrary to nature by not yet naturally acquiring the whole power of nature itself. In living contrary to nature, such people have already been diminished from its integrity and are chastised by this fact itself, since they inconsiderately and foolishly confer upon themselves a defective mode of existence through their inclination towards non-being.545 Thus nature is the teacher and corrector in the moral sphere and shows to the human being the properly human mode of life. On the other hand, Maximus will write that virtue wars precisely against nature in the attempt to free the human being from devotion to the corrupt and derivative existence of the natural world so that all thought may fix itself on God alone.546 Indeed, the natural law (and the Scriptural law) are finally overcome when a person becomes God-like in conformity to Christ.547 There appears, then, to be a tension within Maximus’ thinking centering upon the concept of nature. To address this question of the relation between “natural and moral goodness,” and then the relation between these and the contemplation of and union with God, we shall analyze the main aspects of Maximus thought in the Ambigua that relate both to the two-fold distinction of philosophy as πρᾶξις and θεωρία and to the three-fold structure 545

Amb. 10, 1164C3-D2.

546

Amb. 10, 1140B13-15.

547

Amb. 10, 1152C7-D6.

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of ethics, natural philosophy, and mystical theology, focusing especially on the massive Ambiguum 10. As it does throughout the Ambigua, Maximus’ thought in Ambiguum 10 moves from topic to topic in a way that is generally, if vaguely, coherent, but it does not unfold in a clearly linear argument.548 As such, I shall rearrange the presentation of concepts in Ambiguum 10 for the sake of demonstrating the underlying structure of Maximus’ thinking more coherently and we shall also introduce texts from other chapters in the Ambigua to augment and illuminate what Maximus is doing in Ambiguum 10. This chapter will articulate Maximus’ basic concern to define the parameters of the Christian spiritual/philosophic life and in particular to show how Maximus accounts for the coherence and conduct of this life in terms of the contemplation of nature in his reading of Gregory and of Scripture. In response to the initial problem I have raised with respect to the relationship between virtue and nature, we shall see that Maximus’ orientation towards nature changes depending upon whether he is considering it within the context of the ascetical life or in reference to contemplation and theology: the ascetic sets himself against nature with its corrupt and contingent mode of being—nature as generation and corruption— whereas the contemplative strives to know nature, understood as the essence of reality, and live according to nature with the final aim of coming to union with the Creator of nature. Similarly, the structure of spiritual experience, when considered from the perspective of the passions, is two-fold: the task is to free oneself of the passions and achieve devotion to God alone. However, within contemplation, that is, when the mind has achieved a certain freedom from the passions, the philosophical life is seen as three548

Louth characterizes the movement of Maximus’ thought in Amb. 10 as “sideways,” wherein the content of the overall demonstration only gradually begins to appear with the accumulation of ideas: Maximus the Confessor, 94.

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fold, for a distinction is made between the contemplation of nature and the contemplation of the divine. Moreover, a place for the world and the contemplation of the world is rediscovered in the freedom from passionate attachment to the world. I. Ambiguum 10: Virtue and Nature i. Praxis and Contemplation Ambiguum 10 begins with a quotation from Gregory’s oration In Praise of Athanasius (Or. 21). Though his thought moves in many different directions through the course of Ambigua 10, Maximus actually does follow and expound one of the basic themes of the oration from which it takes its initial quotation, which is the coherence of the various aspects of Gregory’s vision for the philosophical life: the acquisition and practice of virtue, the contemplation of the natural world, and the contemplation of and discourse about God. Gregory begins Or. 21 by saying “In praising Athanasius, I shall be praising virtue.”549 Athanasius is in Gregory’s oration completely identified with virtue and also, therefore, with the work of God, for “by praising virtue, I shall be praising God since it is God who grants virtue to human beings.” Later in the oration Gregory holds Athanasius up as one who exemplified the combination of the solitary life of contemplation (τὸν ἐρηµικὸν βίον) with the communal life of practical virtue (τῷ κοινωνικῷ), “showing that there exists a priest who is also a philosopher, and that philosophy is in need of mystical initiation (µυσταγωγίας).”550 Here philosophy refers more directly to the solitary life of withdrawn study and contemplation, but Athanasius is exemplary of one who was able to unite this form of withdrawal to the practical exercise 549

G. Naz., Or. 21.1, p. 110.1.

550

G. Naz., Or. 21.19, p. 150.1-2.

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of the virtues in “action infused with stillness (πρᾶξις ἡσύχιος)” and “a stillness filled with action (ἡσυχία ἔµπρακτος).”551 It is precisely this fusion that Maximus explains in the initial sections of Ambiguum 10. He shows how the disposition of dispassion is translated from the practical level to the contemplative level so that the mind may be freed from its false apprehension of the world and the true nature of the world may be seen clearly. Gregory goes on to define philosophy in the terms of “passing beyond this material and fleshly cloud or veil” to union with God by means of “reason and contemplation” and adduces many figures from the Scriptures—Abraham, Moses, Joshua, etc.—who exemplified in their actions an image of this διάβασις, or journey, through the world to God.552 Maximus himself takes up many of these figures for consideration in his Ambiguum 10 and explores the various aspects of the stages of philosophic life as he finds them inscribed in the texts of Gregory and in Scripture. Ambiguum 10 is by far the longest chapter in the Ambigua to John and is itself composed of numerous subsections. As we have noted, the general theme of Ambiguum 10 is the notion of διάβασις, the passage through the material world to God. More precisely, in Ambiguum 10 Maximus studies the various ways in which the “saints” (Scriptural figures and those who imitate them) interact with the world—in its brute materiality and as an ordered cosmos—on their way to, and as part of, their communion with God. This question puts natural contemplation at the center of Maximus’ 551

G. Naz., Or. 21.20, 150.2. Gregory had a “gentlemanly” vision of the eremitic life, in apparent contrast to certain trends that would develop in Syria and Egypt, and even to the vision of his friend, fellow student, and countryman Basil of Caesarea: McGuckin, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, 87. For Basil’s vision of the philosophic life, see Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, 61-92, in relation to Gregory especially 82-92. 552

Sherwood identifies the διάβασις from lower to higher things, from flesh to spirit, as the underlying theme of Amb. 10, Sherwood, Earlier Ambigua, 33ff.

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consideration of the conduct of the philosophic life in the saints, for it is precisely this “cloud or veil” of natural reality that is the environment of the saints’ journey to intellectual reality. The Ambiguum begins with a passage from Gregory’s oration On Athanasius in which Gregory says, Whoever is granted to pass beyond this material and fleshly cloud or veil (whichever we should call it) by means of reason and contemplation, and is granted to attain kinship with God and to be mixed with the purest light—as far as this is attainable by human nature—is blessed, both on account of the ascent from here below and because of the deification there above, which is given by genuine philosophy and by transcending material duality through the unity that is understood in the Trinity.553 Gregory gives here what Maximus and his correspondents took to be a complete summary of “genuine philosophy,” but, as Maximus’ initial statement indicates, any mention of the practical life of virtue is conspicuously absent: I myself do not think the teacher’s statement here about the virtue of the saints is missing anything, even if there are some, as you have written, who think it is because it speaks of the divine philosophy of those who pursue it with rationality and contemplation alone and makes no reference to practical philosophy…554 This forms the kernel of the difficulty in this passage. Was Gregory advocating as a philosophic ideal a life devoted solely to reason and contemplation, with no place for ascetical discipline and the obedience to the commandments of the Gospel? It has been well documented that in the two Origenist controversies of the latefourth and mid-sixth centuries, one of the consistent criticisms directed against the “intellectualist” monks was that they advocated a life of intellectual speculation with little

553

G. Naz. Or. 21.2.

554

Amb. 10, 1105D7-1108A5.

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concern for the practical life555 and Gregory the Theologian was apparently cited by intellectualist monks as an authority to justify both specific doctrines considered Origenist and their basic speculative orientation more generally556 so that this passage from Gregory might have been used to justify an excessively speculative and intellectualist approach to the Christian philosophic life that would have left little room or justification for a life of ascetic practice. Ambiguum 10 appears to address itself to this issue. In general, Maximus can be read as addressing both Origenists, who may have been regarded as neglecting the life of practical virtue, and those with an excessive antiOrigenist position, who over-emphasized the body in the Christian life in reaction to their fears of an extreme Origenist intellectualism.557 We shall first give Maximus’ basic argument for the coherence of praxis, reason, and contemplation, and then present how Maximus develops this basic argument in various ways to present his vision of philosophy. ii. Rationalizing the Practical Life Maximus addresses the problem of the relationship between the practical life of ascetical discipline and dispassion and the life of rationality and contemplation in the first 555

Daniel Hombergen, The Second Origenist Controversy: A New Perspective on Cyril of Scythopolis’ Monastic Biographies as Historical Sources for Sixth-century Origenism (Roma: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, 2001), 246-248. 556

In Cyril of Scythopolis’ Life of Cyriacus 12, Gregory’s Oration 27.10, which asserts that speculating about “the world or worlds, matter, the soul, higher and lower rational natures, resurrection, judgment, retribution, the sufferings of Christ” is permissible and that coming into error about such things is “not dangerous,” is presented as a text used by Origenists to justify their speculative approach to the monastic life; cf. Hombergen, The Second Origenst Controversy, 161. There is also an episode of appeal to Gregory in support of “Origenist” positions recorded in the correspondence of Barsanuphius and John; cf. Brian Daley, “The Origenism of Leontius of Byzantium,” Journal of Theological Studies 27 (1976), 367. 557

See Grigory Benevich, “Maximus the Confessor’s Polemics Against Anti-Origenism: Epistulae 6 and 7 as a Context for the Ambiguum ad Iohannem,” Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 104:1 (2009), 5-14, for a discussion of this theme.

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section of the Ambiguum in which he presents a conceptual account of the coherence of the different aspects of philosophy that will be developed through the course of the Ambiguum. He begins by arguing that Gregory’s statement is, in fact, complete with respect to the different stages of philosophy because his notions of “reason and contemplation” contain within them the notion of praxis: I myself do not think the teacher’s statement here about the virtue of the saints is missing anything, even if there are some, as you have written, who think it is because it speaks of the divine philosophy of those who pursue it with rationality and contemplation alone and makes no reference to practical philosophy, when on the contrary, their true discernment and activity concerning beings—which I boldly define as the only truly complete philosophy—is defined558 by the exercise of the practical life. I think he is actually saying more than you realize when he shows that philosophy is accomplished by reason and contemplation since praxis, in fact, is always joined to rationality, and philosophical discernment comes as a result of contemplation.559 First, Maximus defines true philosophy as “true discernment and activity concerning beings (τὴν ἀληθῆ περὶ τὰ ὄντα κρίσιν…καὶ ἐνέργειαν)” and asserts that this true philosophy is “defined (διῃρηµένην) by the exercise of the practical life.” In other words, the saints’ insight into the nature of reality and their activity with respect to this insight do not constitute a realm independent of the practical life. As such, when Gregory defines philosophy in terms of reason (λόγος) and contemplation (θεωρία), Maximus takes this definition as including practical philosophy within it, for “praxis is always joined to rationality (τῷ λόγῳ), and philosophical discernment comes as a result of contemplation.”

558

Following the variant reading διῃρηµένην (for διηρµένην) noted in PG.

559

Amb. 10, 1105D7-1108A12.

259

To justify the first part of this claim, that “praxis is always joined to rationality,” Maximus states that it is reason that gives order to the movements of the body so that every virtue that pertains to the body is bound to reason: it belongs to reason to order the movement of the body, skillfully checking it as if with a bit and bridle when it tries to wander off the path, whereas the resolution to grasp intelligible and discernible things in an appropriate and mindful way belongs to contemplation, which, through knowledge, shows forth the truth itself as if it were a most radiant light.560 In naming reason in the context of philosophy, Gregory has also named bodily virtue, which is the result of the rationalization of the body’s movements. Secondly, bodily virtue is also a manifestation—albeit a partial manifestation—of the fruit of reason and contemplation, which Maximus calls “philosophical virtue,” referring both to reason’s ordering of the movements of the body and contemplation’s “resolution to grasp intelligible and discernible things in an appropriate and mindful way (τὸ τὰ καλῶς νοηθέντα τε καὶ κριθέντα ἐµφρόνως αἱρεῖσθαι ψηφίζεσθαι).” Philosophical virtue “is produced by both reason and contemplation, is preserved by them, and is revealed through the body, though not completely.”561 The external life of praxis, then, is essentially a rational activity and is a manifestation of the theoretical understanding of τὰ ὄντα. In this way Maximus shows how Gregory’s definition of true philosophy in terms of rationality and contemplation is, in fact, a complete definition, for rationality and contemplation are inseparable from the life of praxis: philosophical virtue is at once theoretical and practical.

560

Amb. 10, 1108A12-B3.

561

Amb.10, 1108B3-6.

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Maximus expands upon the notion of the body as manifestation of philosophical virtue but qualifies it, saying, “philosophical virtue is not confined to the body, for philosophical virtue is a representation of divine power; rather, the body produces shadows of the things that belong to philosophical virtue.”562 Reason and contemplation, as the instruments of philosophical virtue, are together “a representation of divine power (χαρακτὴρ ὑπάρχουσα θείας δυνάµεως, referring to φιλόσοφος ἀρετή)” and the body provides a “shadow” of this representation. Maximus here recalls Gregory of Nyssa’s notion that the mind is the image of God and that matter is the image of the mind, as Gregory puts it, “the mirror of the mirror.”563 Maximus discerns this process of representation in those who have been purified “by the grace of divine power and come to the imitation of the deiform way of life that belongs to those who love God.”564 And further, “they receive in the depths of their soul the hidden disposition of virtuous people that is made manifest through the body in praxis.”565 These notions of image, imitation, and participation are two-fold. First, there is the imaging and participation of “philosophical virtue” with respect to divine power. Philosophical virtue is the manifestation of the divine in human beings. Secondly, those who manifest “the deiform way of life” themselves become images for others to follow, as we saw in Ambiguum 8. As revealers of virtue they are the manifestation of truth itself. Receiving the saints as exemplars is one aspect of the grace that grants virtue to the soul and body, and it is this second aspect to which much of Ambiguum 10 is devoted as 562

Amb. 10, 1108B6-8.

563

G. Nyss., De hom. op. XII, PG 44.161D1.

564

Amb. 10, 1108B9-11.

565

Amb. 10, 1108BC1-3.

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Maximus will go on to study the lives of numerous Biblical characters for insight into the nature of the philosophic life. Having shown initially how bodily praxis is bound to the intellectual aspects of philosophy—that the contemplative life entails the practical life—Maximus then goes on to relativize the body in a way that would draw him a bit closer to the disposition of the more intellectualist monks. He is perhaps safe to do so now that he has given such a strong account of the role of practical virtue. He writes that it is “not out of place” to speak of reason and contemplation “without proof of the virtues” being brought forth in an external demonstration, for, as he will say near the end of this line of argument, “bodily asceticism…is not productive of virtue, but rather makes it manifest, and is useful for divine contemplations and considerations alone.”566 In other words, while the life of contemplation presupposes the practical life of virtue, it also goes beyond it and the life of practical virtue is lived in the service of contemplation and not as an end in itself, a clear rebuke to any of the ascetically minded who would have disparaged the pursuit of intellectual knowledge. The ethical life, in its activity of mortifying the passions, corresponds to the death of Christ; to achieve the resurrection of Christ, one must press on to contemplation.567 iii. Images of Dispassion Maximus extends this argument in a number of different directions through the course of Ambiguum 10 and throughout subsequent Ambigua as well. We shall begin with

566

Amb. 10, 1109B3-5.

567

Amb. 10, 1145A14-B3; see Chapter 6, 414-420, where I discuss this understanding of the death and resurrection of Christ in greater detail.

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his analysis of dispassion and soul as it relates to his understanding of nature and then consider the contemplation of nature itself. The first stage of the philosophic life for Maximus concerns the passions, where the goal of praxis is the acquisition of the state of dispassion. Maximus uses a number of different figures for the consideration of this, giving concrete examples of those who manifest the truth through virtue. In general, the practice of asceticism is directed towards an estrangement from the world and the senses, and more particularly, from the passionate attachment to the world and the senses: “the affection for and disposition toward the body and this world (ἡ πρὸς τὸ σῶµα καὶ τὸν κόσµον τοῦτον στοργὴ καὶ διάθεσις),” Maximus writes, “is a truly formidable and great chasm between God and human beings,” referring here to the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Lk 16.1931).568 In Lazarus, who sat sick and desolate at the gate of the rich man, Maximus sees the image of estrangement from the world and from the body, for Lazarus had no share of wealth, position, or comfort, and even his flesh was afflicted with disease. But it is this very estrangement that leads Lazarus to rest in Abraham’s bosom. The theme of estrangement is a consistent element of Maximus’ description of the practical life and it answers to the basic experience of alienation we studied in our discussion of πάθος in chapter 3. Ascetical practice “estranges [one] entirely from matter”569 and “separates the body from the world.”570 In this way the ascetic accepts the alienation that besets him in

568

Amb. 10, 1172A10-12.

569

Amb. 10, 1109D3-4.

570

Amb. 10, 1113C8-9.

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his initial experience of the world and follows it into the first stages of philosophical practice. Maximus takes the parting of the Red Sea by Moses as a figure for the “stripping back of the deceit of perceptible things,”571 and Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai to receive the law as his “rising above everything here in this world.” In this way Moses freed his mind from “every relation to anything outside of God.”572 The world of sense perception “abandons” the one who would come to partake of “incorruptible things,” like the mother in the Psalm “my father and mother have left me behind” (Ps 26.10).573 In the character of Hannah, who became the mother of the prophet Samuel in her barrenness, Maximus sees an image of one who gives birth to the Word of God through the denial of the flesh. She teaches that the soul must be “entirely barren of fleshly pleasures by means of the pleasure from God, which is the seeds of the virtues” so that it may conceive and give birth to the Word of God.574 Similarly, the widow of Saraphath (I Ki 17.9-24), who was “widowed with respect to beautiful things and virtue” and was “empty of the knowledge of God,” is an image of one who repents in her emptiness and comes thereby to the exercise of the virtues.575 Maximus will return to this reproductive image of bringing forth the Word in later chapters of the Ambigua to John (see chapter 6). We also see an

571

Amb. 10, 1117A5-6.

572

Amb. 10, 1117B8-12.

573

Amb. 10, 1121B7-9.

574

Amb. 10, 1124D2-1125A11.

575

Amb. 10, 1125C2-15.

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example of the cutting off of the passions for the sake of acquiring knowledge in the migration of Abraham: The one who has broken away from his fleshly disposition, and come out of it by separation from the passions, and has left behind the senses, no longer accepting any error of sin that comes through them, becomes a spiritual Abraham, who went out of his land and kindred and from the house of his father, and came to the land shown him by God (Gen 12.1).576 This separation from the determinacy of one’s natural birth will also become an important theme later in our study (see chapter 6). Maximus extends the notion even further in his contemplation of Melchizedek, who is “without father, mother, or lineage” and has “neither beginning of days of end of life” (Heb 7.3). Maximus here provides another example of moral purification: everyone who has put to death his earthly members, and has entirely extinguished his own fleshly mentality, and has shaken off his fixed relation to it—through which the love that is due to God alone is separated from us—and has denied all the telling marks of the flesh and the world for the sake of divine grace so that he is able to say with the blessed apostle Paul, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom 8.35), etc., such a one has become “without father, without mother, and without lineage” like Melchizedek and there is no way, because of his union with the Spirit, that such a one could ever be conquered by the flesh or nature.577 Melchizedek is, in fact, a crucial figure for Maximus. He exemplifies the sort of person who becomes free of nature through the practice of philosophy and is thus the most compelling image of Christ offered by Scripture. Speaking more generally, Maximus observes that the saints respond to the instability of the present order and intuit that “this life is not the life that was originally

576

Amb. 10, 1145C2-8.

577

Amb. 10, 1144B4-15.

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given by God to human beings.”578 On the contrary, the original state fashioned by God was divine and perfectly stable (ὡσαύτως ἔχουσαν) and for the sake of acquiring this original life, they “put off this present life.” “Putting off life” is, of course, nothing other than death and the death of the present life is conceived of by the saints as “the throwing away of fleshy affection (τῆς κατὰ σάρκα στοργῆς),” and this is, in fact, much more a “death for death” than a death for life since to live in this present condition of corruption is really to “live in death.” Casting this away by the practice of asceticism is to emerge from death into life: For I do not think that the end of this present life is rightly called death, but deliverance from death, and separation from corruption, and freedom from slavery, and rest from trouble, and escape from battles, and a way past confusion, and retreat from darkness, and relaxation from labors, and the silencing of inarticulate noise, and stillness of seething, and the covering of shame, and flight from the passions, and disappearance of sin, in short, the circumscription of all evils.579 So the initial activity of the spiritual life is to depart “through voluntary mortification” from the corrupted state into which all creation has fallen. One therefore becomes a “foreigner” and “sojourner” like Abraham and sets oneself against the world and the body, which are both bound to the deceit of the senses that are “interwoven with sensible things.”580 This theme of dying to this present life will reemerge as well, when Maximus binds these ascetical teachings specifically to the life of Christ (see Chapter 6). Maximus considers this more abstractly near the end of Ambiguum 10, where he considers the “material duality” traversed by the saints. Gregory has said that the saints

578

Amb. 10, 1157B6-7.

579

Amb. 10, 1157C11-D6.

580

Amb. 10, 1157D6-12.

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“attain kinship with God” and come to be “mixed with the purest light” by “transcending material duality through the unity that is understood in the Trinity,” a passage that Maximus will take as an indication of the link between the unity of God and the unification of the human soul. Maximus initially takes “material duality” to be a reference to the duality of “matter and form”581 so that when the saints transcend material duality they are transcending this basic physical conceptual structure. He also offers the possibility that “material duality” refers to “flesh and matter,” where to transcend flesh and matter refers to the soul’s withdrawal from the realm of the senses in order to devote itself fully to the “desire for the divine.”582 In order to clarify this, Maximus gives a number of analyses of the soul. II. The Soul i. The Soul and Nature in Aristotle and the Commentators In his treatise On the Soul, Aristotle observes, “the knowledge of the soul contributes greatly to the advance of truth in general, and, above all, to our understanding of nature (µάλιστα δὲ πρὸς τὴν φύσιν).”583 He goes on to deduce, from the observation that all of the soul’s experiences (πάθη) are in some way related to corporeality, and are therefore “material rational principles (λόγοι ἔνυλοι),” that “the study of the soul belongs to natural philosophy (φυσικοῦ τὸ θεωρῆσαι περὶ ψυχῆς),”584 since, at least in its passions, it undergoes change in the realm of space and time. 581

Amb. 10, 1193C8-9.

582

Amb. 10, 1193D4-5.

583

Aristotle, De anima 402a4-6, The Basic Works of Aristotle, 535.

584

Aristotle, De anima 403a28.

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The later commentators on Aristotle took up this notion of the importance of understanding the soul for the other facets of philosophy. Themistius, a philosopher of 4th century Constantinople, argues in his paraphrase of the De anima that an understanding of the soul, unlike knowledge of other subjects, necessarily leads us on towards knowledge of the truth as a whole: This is because [the soul] offers valuable foundations (ἀξιολόγους) for every part of philosophy: for the practical [part], because we could more easily establish the virtues or perfections of the [soul] if we first knew its essence; and for the investigation of nature (τὴν δὲ περὶ φύσεως θεωρίαν), because the [soul] is the fount and source (πηγὴ καὶ ἀρχή) of all movement, perhaps for all bodies, but primarily for those of animals and plants. So if [the soul] knows itself, it is credible on other [matters] too; but if misled about itself, on what else could it be considered credible?”585 This passage indicates the central role the soul plays in both ethics and in the contemplation of nature. Ethics is concerned with the virtues, which define the excellence of the soul, so that coming to an understanding of the essence of the soul will lay the foundation for a more enlightened practice of the ethical life. With respect to nature, Themistius takes Aristotle’s notion that “soul is, in some sense, the principle of animal life (ἀρχὴ τῶν ζῴων)” to mean that soul is the principle of movement, and it is movement/change that is the central concern of natural philosophy. Simplicius’ 6th century commentary on the De anima comments on the passage we’ve quoted from Aristotle and reiterates the great benefit psychology grants to “the scientific knowledge of beings (τὴν τῶν ὄντων ἐπιστηµονικὴν γνῶσιν).” Simplicius

585

Themistius, In libros aristotelis de anima paraphrases 1.24-2.6. Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca V.3, ed. Richard Heinze (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1899); Themistius on Aristotle’s On the Soul, trans. Robert B. Todd (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 15-16.

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then asserts that, with respect to the attainment of “the knowledge of beings (τῶν ὄντων),” it is impossible to know things intelligible without knowledge of the intellect, so it is impossible to do so without knowledge of our own intellect…Similarly, indeed, sensible things are unknowable without knowledge of the sensitive faculty; but since they are not scientifically knowable, nor beings (οὐκ ἐπιστητὰ οὐδὲ οὐσίαι), but it is reason and intellect that study beings, including those natural (λόγος δὲ καὶ νοῦς ὁ τῶν οὐσιῶν καὶ τῶν φυσικῶν θεωρετικός), knowledge of these sufficiently contributes to the knowledge of natural things qua scientifically knowable.586 Knowledge of the soul is the precondition for knowledge of anything at all. Moreover, because soul is “intermediate between the truly intelligible and things natural (τῶν φυσκιῶς ὄντων),” the study (θεωρία) of the soul contributes both to what is above it, as it were, to the first philosophy of forms and causes, and to what is below it, to natural philosophy, since the soul itself is a sort of cause587 of the movement of the things of nature. Indeed, “it contributes most to knowledge of nature, because knowledge of effects from causes is more perfect than that which ascends from effects to causes.” Beginning with the knowledge of soul as cause of movement confers a greater degree of exactitude than working from natural things up to soul and again from soul to the immaterial forms. It is for this reason, according to Simplicius, that Aristotle has placed the study of the soul in such a central place within the study of nature. Form and intellect constitute the actual principle of change (ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως), but soul, which is “similar” to a cause, is able to contribute to the contemplation of the lower realities of nature: “natural things 586

Simplicius, In libros aristotelis de anima commentaria, 7.32-8.22. Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca XI, ed. Michael Hayduck (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1882); Simplicius on Aristotle’s On the Soul 1.1-2.4, trans. J.O. Urmson (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 21-22, modified. 587

Following Carlos Steel’s proposed emendation of αἰτία (cause) for ἄλλα (others), Urmson and Lautner, Simplicius on Aristotle’s On the Soul 1.1-2.4, 160 n.38.

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(τὰ φυσικά) depend on the soul as on their principle (ὡς ἐξ ἀρχῆς).” Its proximity to the natural makes this inquiry “easier,” according to Simplicius, but also, in virtue of this very similarity to cause, the soul provides a foundation for inquiry into the higher realities of form. Finally, Philoponus, the 6th century Alexandrian philosopher—and a Christian— takes Aristotle’s claim that the study of the soul “contributes” (συµβάλλεσθαι) to the whole of truth to be an indication that the study of the soul actually has its own specific integrity (αὐτόθεν) and is not simply included in the other established parts of philosophy, that is, ethics, physics, and theology. To make sense of Aristotle’s notion of “contribution” generally Philoponus writes, When dealing with theology, it turns in (ἐπιστρέφει) to the intelligible and the divine objects, and it examines the rank of orders there, and when it turns in on the intelligible objects it also turns in on itself and it will deal with its own being and rank; for the soul is the lowest species of the intelligible and divine objects. On the other hand, when it deals with characters and studies the ranks of the virtues, it will also deal with its own faculties, to which the virtues belong. The soul participates in the realities of theological and ethical inquiry so that when it turns to theological or ethical contemplation it necessarily also turns to itself as a divine reality and as the entity that actualizes the virtues. With respect to nature more precisely,588 Philoponus argues that soul is “a productive (ποιητική) and a formative (εἰδική) and a final (τελική) principle, for these are the principles in the proper sense.” The soul is a productive principle as volitional (µόνῃ τῇ βουλήσει) source of motion in a living being that does not require any kind of physical leverage (µοχλεία) to get the 588

The following is a summary of Philoponus, In aristotelis de anima libros commentaria 25.20-26.12. Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca XV, ed. Michael Hayduck (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1897); Philoponus on Aristotle’s “On the Soul 1.1-2,” trans. Philip J. van der Eijk (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 41-42.

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motion started. As formative principle, the soul “defines the form of the living being.” Because soul is the best aspect of an “ensouled being,” and because, according to Aristotle himself, that which is superior “is the form of each object,” it follows that soul is the form of the being that possesses it. Finally, as final principle, soul is “that for the sake of which the body exists (αὐτῆς ἕνεκα τὸ σῶµα).” Differences in bodily composition amongst living things derive from the differences in the nature of soul in each thing. In some the spirited faculty (θυµός) predominates, in others the appetitive (ἐπιθυµία). Philoponus concludes with a reaffirmation of the distinction between nature and soul, asserting that “[Aristotle] has added ‘in a way (οἷον)’, because the most immediate principle (προσεχὴς ἀρχή) of living beings is their nature, not the soul.” It is precisely the nature of a living thing that determines what kind of soul it has, not the converse. We see from these three examples, and indeed from Aristotle himself, the propriety of including, even beginning, a theoretical consideration of the contemplation of nature with an inquiry concerning the soul. While the exact nature of Maximus’ philosophical sources is unclear, his philosophical intuitions and tendencies as evinced by his Ambigua place him squarely within the intellectual realm—if not the concrete literary practice—of this commentary tradition. ii. Maximus on the Motions of the Soul In his own exposition of soul, Maximus defines the three basic motions of the soul as intellect (νοῦς), reason (λόγος), and sense perception (αἴσθησις). From the very beginning, however, Maximus affirms that these three motions “are ultimately reducible

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to one,”589 a further indication of the notion of unity that underlies Maximus’ understanding of philosophy. Maximus has just demonstrated that Gregory’s use of the terms “reason and contemplation” constitutes a complete definition of philosophy since reason implies and contains within itself the practical life of virtue. In his analysis of the soul he affirms that this ennobles the nature of the body itself590 and indeed the purpose of the philosophical life for Maximus is finally to draw the body, through its rationally directed activity, into union with the intellect, and thus into union with God so that every aspect of human existence—and by extension, every aspect of the cosmos itself—might become one with God. This is grounded in the notion that God and the human being are paradigms of each other, and to the degree that God became human because of his love for mankind, so also does the human being, having been empowered, become deified through love for God, and to the degree that the human being is seized intellectually by God in order to attain knowledge, so also does the human being manifest God, who is invisible by nature, through virtues.591 Maximus takes Gregory’s notion that Christ the incarnate Word is “the visible God, or God below”592 and extends it as a general description of the goal of the Christian life: to attain divine knowledge and to make God manifest through the virtues. Within this perspective, the practical life, which we have seen to be concerned with manifesting virtue, has as its end the manifestation of God. The reciprocity of the phrase “God and the human being are paradigms of each other (ἀλλήλων εἶναι παραδείγµατα τὸν θεὸν καὶ 589

Amb. 10, 1112D6.

590

Amb. 10, 1113C5-6.

591

Amb. 10, 1113B10-C2.

592

G. Naz. Or. 29.19; cf. Max. Conf. Amb. 3 (ad Thomam).

272

τὸν ἄνθρωπον)” is typical of Byzantine theological rhetoric and it indicates the importance of the human being—and by extension creation as a whole, material and intellectual—as the manifestation of God. God is the model for man to attain but man is also the model for God to attain presence in the world. We shall show how Maximus works this out in our next chapter. Maximus goes on to give a summary of the three basic movements of the soul in order to lay the foundation for his understanding of the unification of the senses with the intellect. He first considers the soul as νοῦς in relation to God alone, then as λόγος in relation to God as cause of all, and finally as αἴσθησις in relation to the realities of the world, which it receives into itself by perception. The first movement, νοῦς, is simple and inexplicable and in accordance with this simple motion, the soul, being brought near to God without knowing (ἀγνώστως) him recognizes (ἐπιγινώσκει) him by his transcendent superiority in a way that is completely unrelated to existing things.593 At this highest level of the soul’s life, the intellect makes no reference to the realm of beings and nature in its awareness of God; it is to this immediate mode of apprehension that the lower movements are to be joined. The second movement, λόγος, serves to define the unknown as cause and as the soul is naturally moved in this way, it applies to itself, through its active acquisition of understanding (ἐπιστήµην), all the form-conferring natural rational principles—those that pertain to it—of the one who is known only as cause.594

593

Amb. 10, 1112D7-1113A2.

594

Amb. 10, 1113A2-6.

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According to this second, rational movement, the soul is active in its thinking about the world and comes to know God simply as the cause of all that is. It is thus concerned both with the created realm of being and the God who is beyond it—and we should recall also that it is λόγος to which Maximus has joined the life of ethical praxis. Finally, Maximus defines αἴσθησις as a mixed (σύνθετον) motion according to which the soul lays hold of what is outside itself, taking them as symbols of visible things, and receives the impression of the principles unto itself (τῶν ἐκτὸς ἐφαπτοµένη ὡς ἔκ τινων συµβόλων τῶν ὁρατῶν τοὺς λόγους πρὸς ἑαυτὴν ἀναµάσσεται).595 The soul as νοῦς accommodates itself to God in virtue of its independence from the world of beings and nature and it does so not in a relation of knowledge but of “recognition.” We have seen how, from our earliest sources, νοῦς describes the indubitable content of real experience.596 It is the soul insofar as the soul receives true vision. λόγος, though Maximus does not refer to it as “mixed,” does contain a kind of duality in that it comes to define God as the cause of all things, that is, as related to the world. It is, therefore, the link between the lower realm of sense perception and the higher realm of intellect. In sense perception itself, Maximus employs the image of receiving impressions in the soul from outside but he introduces the language of “symbol” to describe the relationship between what the soul in fact takes into itself and the materiality of objects in the world. At the basic level of human experience of the world in perception, the soul functions symbolically, though, as we shall see, this symbolic approach to beings will finally be put aside when the mind moves beyond the contemplation of nature. 595

Amb. 10, 1113A6-8.

596

Chapter 1 above, 46 n.102.

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These “motions of soul” constitute the pathway through which “the saints nobly pass (διέβησαν),”597 and correspond to the three-fold path of philosophy. Within the context of Maximus’ psychology, this philosophical way proceeds from the soul’s experience of the world through the senses to its understanding of the spiritual reality at the heart of sensory objects (τὰ αἰσθητά) and within this to God himself. First the saints “skillfully separate the body and the world” in the sense of freeing the faculties of perception from the determination of the world so that they may “inseparably bind themselves to God…in no way giving in to the allurements of the world and the flesh,” and this, says Maximus, “is the fulfillment of all virtue and knowledge…and is also their perfection.”598 Given this strong notion of separation from the world for the sake of virtue and knowledge, what could the role of the contemplation of nature be for Maximus’ vision? It seems on this account as though the goal is precisely to be free of the world as the realm of sensory deception for the sake of union with God. Maximus anticipates this problem: But even if you would say that the saints concern themselves with the appearances of existing things (περὶ τὰ τῶν ὄντων θεάµατα κεκίνηνται), they are not concerned materially like we are in order principally to see and know those very things, but in order that they might hymn the God who exists and is made manifest in many ways through all and in all and that they might gather to themselves the great power of wonder and the starting-point (ὑπόθεσιν) of praise.599 The contemplation of existing things, as it is for Dionysius the Areopagite, is directed first of all not towards the reception of the world itself but towards the God who appears in and through it. The response to this perception of nature is the praise of God who gives 597

Amb. 10, 1113A11.

598

Amb. 10, 1113C9-D7.

599

Amb. 10, 1113D7-1116A3.

275

nature being. The “starting-point,” the “hypothesis” of concerning oneself with the appearances of beings is praise and it is this that holds together the three motions of the soul—the sensuous perception of the world, the rational intuition of the λόγοι of existing things, and the theological response to the God who is made known through them individually and as a whole. Thus the contemplation of nature as “concerning oneself with the appearances of beings” is really the point upon which Maximus’ vision of the philosophic life of union with God turns. Indeed, it is precisely by means of a “rigorous examination of beings (περὶ τὰ ὄντα ἀκριβοῦς κατανοήσεως)” that the saints discover another related triad of concepts: being, well-being, and eternal being.600 We considered this triad in Chapter 3 within the context of Maximus’ understanding of human passibility. There we saw how the first and third terms, being and eternal being, do not fall within the natural potentiality of created things since they receive being and eternal being from without. It is only wellbeing as a function of will and therefore of the practice of ethics that is “up to us.” Nevertheless, within our present context of Ambiguum 10, we see that the contemplation of reality discloses this three-fold structure of being, whose possibility transcends those who come to understand it. In Maximus’ view, the natural order is able to indicate from itself the power that ultimately transcends it and makes it possible. Maximus gives special emphasis to the middle term of the triad, well-being, in this context, arguing that “when [well-being] is not present, the naming of the extremes is vain, since if they do not have ‘well’ joined to them, the truth in the extremes is not

600

Amb. 10, 1116B1-6.

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otherwise able to come forth in them and be preserved.”601 The truth of being and eternal being is here dependent upon the goodness of being and while we need not consider this goodness in ethical terms alone, Maximus does explicitly link well-being to “our mental inclination (γνώµης) and movement,” the directing of which is a critical aspect of the practice of ethics. Indeed, as Maximus goes on to say, the intuition of the triad being, well-being, eternal being, along with the observation that well-being is bound to the human will, reveals that the natural activities of the soul are to proceed in accordance with the “fitting principle of nature (τὸν πρέποντα λόγον τῆς φύσεως)” and so be “carried to the cause of nature.” In this way, one advances from “mere being (ἁπλῶς τὸ εἶναι)” to “being in the fullest sense (τὸ ὄντως εἶναι),”602 by which Maximus clearly means the triad of being, well-being, and eternal being. In this way we see how nature and the good—and for our purposes nature and the life of virtue—come together in the soul so that both the cultivation of the soul and the theoretical inquiry into the nature of the soul and its activity provide an all-embracing account of philosophy. The natural observation that creatures are not the cause of their own existence leads the saints to direct the movement of their being away from themselves and towards God, who is the cause. The intellect is taught “to think only of God and his virtues,” reason to “interpret and offer praise for intellectual things,” and sense perception “to make known the rational principles of beings that are accessible to the soul by being ennobled in its assimilation to reason and by receiving the impressions of the diverse powers and activities in the

601

Amb. 10, 1116B10-14.

602

Amb. 10, 1116C1-10.

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universe.”603 Here the three-fold structure moves from perception of reality through its interpretation and the offering of praise to the contemplation of God as cause of all. iii. The Passivity of the Soul We began this account of Maximus’ Ambigua to John with his analysis of the basic passibility of human being in Amb. 6-8. In Ambiguum 10 Maximus presents a more technical account of the passible element of the soul. It is a standard and generic account that is based—often verbatim—on Nemesius’ On the Nature of Man, a text that is itself infused with many of the common notions of ancient Greek philosophy and medicine. The sections to which Maximus refers here are particularly Stoic in presentation, though they also, therefore, are indebted to Aristotelian psychology. After distinguishing between the passive part of the soul that is not subject to reason—that which governs growth and the functions of the living body independently of reason—and the part that is potentially “obedient to reason,” Maximus further divides this latter into θυµός and ἐπιθυµία, the familiar dyad of anger (or spiritedness) and appetite. As we’ve observed, the task of the ethical life is to bring these faculties under the control of reason, “to guide anger and appetite in the direction that is appropriate to reason.”604 This process of mastery is situated within the various psychological experiences that constitute the human encounter with the world, the most basic being the experience of a desire (ἐπιθυµία) for something and the subsequent pleasure (ἡδονή) at

603

Amb. 10, 1116D1-10.

604

Amb. 10, 1197D5-6.

278

its attainment or distress (λύπη) at the failure to attain it.605 Maximus goes on to report the various refinements of these categories of experience: they say that when appetite is analyzed, it yields by itself all four of the forms, that is, appetite (ἐπιθυµία), pleasure (ἡδονή), fear (φόβος), and distress (λύπη). And since, among existing things, there are good things and evil things, and these are either present or impending, they call an expected good “appetite,” a present good “pleasure,” and again they call an expected evil “fear,” and a present evil “distress,” since pleasure and appetite pertain, and are observed to pertain, to goods (whether they be true or putative goods), whereas distress and fear pertain, and are observed to pertain, to what is evil.606 This is a standard Stoic account reported by Nemesius.607 Maximus follows Nemesius further in dividing distress into “shock (ἄχος), grief (ἄχθος), envy (φθόνος), and pity (ἔλεος),” a division that is another, if limited, reproduction of Stoic thought.608 Maximus similarly reports the analysis of fear into “hesitation (ὄκνος), embarrassment (αἰδώς), shame (αἰσχύνη), terror (κατάπληξις), panic (ἔκπληξις), and anguish (ἀγωνία).”609 Finally, Maximus gives a division of anger—which Nemesius, following Aristotle, defines as “the boiling of the blood around the heart”—into “wrath (ὀργή), which they call bile (χολή) and gall (χόλον), rage (µῆνις), and rancor (κότος).” Maximus reports this account of the various passions that the human soul undergoes to indicate precisely what it is over which the saint “achieves mastery.” All of 605

Amb. 10, 1196C5-D4.

606

Amb. 10, 1196D4-1197A3.

607

Nemesius, De natura hominis 17, ed Moreno Morani (Leipzig: Teubner, 1987); cf. Stobaeus, Anthology 2.6.166, noted in Nemesius-On the Nature of Man, trans. R.W. Sharples and Philip J. van der Eijk (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008), 132 n.654. 608

Amb. 10, 1197A4-5; Nemesius, De nat. hom. 19; Sharples and van der Eijk, Nemesius-On the Nature of Man, 140 n.698. 609

Amb. 10, 1197B2-3; Nemesius, De nat. hom. 21; Sharples and van der Eijk note the generally Stoic character of this list: Nemesius-On the Nature of Man, 142 n.719.

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these passions make up the “material dyad” of θύµος and ἐπιθυµία for Maximus and so it is the irrational experience of them that is overcome in the διάβασις through the material veil on the way to the attainment of “kinship with God.” It is precisely by “connecting oneself to God,” along with the corresponding estrangement from worldly things, that the person devoted to contemplation (ὁ θεωρετικός) is able to “remain dispassionate” in the midst of circumstances that provoke the passions.610 Maximus follows this theoretical exposition of the basic psychology of the ethical life with exempla from Scripture. This feature of Maximus’ composition recapitulates a theme that we shall examine at some length when we consider the interrelationship of the natural and the written law. Maximus will say that these two modes of divine revelation say exactly the same thing and that neither has precedence over the other. In our present case, Maximus has given a rational account of the passions, one that is derived from the philosophical tradition and is, in a sense, “naturalistic” in that it gives an account derived from careful observation of human psychology. To transcend anger and appetite and drive them away is to be like Abraham, who drove away the slave woman Hagar and her son Ishmael (Gen 21.9-14).611 When Moses removed his sandals near the burning bush (Ex 3.5), he showed the necessity of “skillfully releasing the disposition of the soul from all bodily realities” in order to begin to approach contemplation.612 Moses also teaches that one must remove the passions at their source—at the material dyad of anger and appetite—when he gives instructions for

610

Amb. 10, 1197A14-16.

611

Amb. 10, 1200A5-7.

612

Amb. 10, 1200C2-13.

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removal of the “tallow, the kidneys, the breast, and the lobe of the liver from the sacrificial animals” (cf. Ex. 29.13, 22, 26-27, etc.).613 The different forms of leprosy (Lev 13-14) with their different surface manifestations are an indication of the different aspects of appetite and anger, which Maximus has just analyzed theoretically. Just as the leprous person was required to stay outside the community, so too the person afflicted with the passions “is not in a state to be counted among those who are worthy of divine visitation.”614 The gruesome story of Phineas (Num 25.6-13) is yet another symbolic account of reason’s mastery over the passions: For when he struck down the Midianite woman along with the Israelite man, he mystically indicated with his spear that it is entirely necessary for matter along with form, appetite along with anger, and foreign pleasure along with impassioned thought to be expelled from the soul through the power of high-priestly reason.615 It is precisely the duality that Maximus rejects. He does not privilege form over matter, spiritedness (θυµός) over appetite, or thought (λογισµός)616 over pleasure for, as dualities, they are inseparable from each other and must therefore be overcome as a duality: For form provides a particular manner of being to matter, as spirit does to appetite, giving motion to that which is motionless in itself by drawing near to it. Similarly, [impassioned] thought tends to confer form upon pleasure, which exists as formless and shapeless according to its own principle.617 613

Amb. 10, 1200C15-1201A3.

614

Amb. 10, 1201A6-B7.

615

Amb. 10, 1201B11-C1.

616

This term, when it is a matter of temptation or of attaining the highest levels of prayer, tends to have a negative connotation in Evagrius; cf. De malignis cogitationibus (Περὶ λογισµῶν), Sur les Pensées 1.17, 25, etc. and the editors’ remarks, 27. 617

Amb. 10, 1201C2-6.

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Reason, then, pierces the dyad and expels it from the soul. We shall see below how this becomes manifest on the level of contemplation. Maximus also adduces examples from the Gospel that continue the ethical theme. When Christ instructs his disciples not to “give holy things to dogs” or to “throw pearls before swine” (Matt 7.6) he is indicating that that which is holy in us, the intellect as “image of the divine glory,” must be kept in stillness and not submitted to the “barking” of “angry movements.”618 The “pearls” refer to the intellect’s thoughts (νοήµατα) and must “remain undefiled and free of the impure passions of material appetite.”619 When he commands his disciples to take “neither staff, nor purse, nor sandals for your feet” (Matt 10.10; Lk 9.3, 10.4), Christ teaches that one who has undertaken the exalted journey of knowledge must be free of every material weight and pure of every passionate disposition of appetite and anger as indicated by the purse and the staff, where the purse signifies appetite, and the staff anger. It is especially necessary that such a person be stripped of the malice of hypocrisy, which covers over the footprints of one’s way of life like a sandal, and hides the passionate state of the soul with a fabricated goodness.620 Here we see clearly that putting off the passions of anger and appetite is the condition for moving to the stage of contemplation. It is also significant to note the importance Maximus assigns to the avoidance of false shows of virtue, for he concludes Ambiguum 10 with the observation that the saints “have wisely formed themselves in accordance with [the λόγοι of divine realities], bringing to manifestation the unique quality of the

618

Amb. 10, 1204A4; the word for “movements,” κινηµάτων, is perhaps a play on the word for dog, κύων. Maximus uses similar word play explicitly elsewhere in this section of Amb. 10: 1197C6-9. 619

Amb. 10, 1204A4-9.

620

Amb. 10, 1204A9-B9.

282

hidden and invisible beauty of divine magnificence by means of an accurate imitation through the virtues.”621 The life of praxis is fundamentally a life of manifestation. Virtue is a revelation of the divine glory and the saint is the image of the “glory that will appear in the future.”622 As such the saints are signs in space and time of the presence of God, which transcends space and time, and are examples precisely of the transcendence of space and time who may be looked to for guidance on the path through “this material and fleshly cloud or veil.” iv. Soul as Mediator between God and Matter Maximus concentrates his thinking on soul with respect to this theme because soul is the intermediary reality set between God and matter (µέσην γὰρ κειµένην Θεοῦ καὶ ὕλης τὴν ψυχήν) and has the potential to be united either to the one or to the other (τὰς πρὸς ἄµφω ἑνοποιοὺς δυνάµεις ἔχουσαν). As such, it leads the saint through materiality to the divine. The faculty of sense-perception (αἴσθησις) connects the soul to the material realm and intellect (νοῦς) provides the way for communion with God. Therefore, the saints, who understand the unique position of soul between matter and God, completely cut off the active relation of the faculty of sense-perception in its disposition towards sensible things (τὴν µὲν αἴσθησιν µετὰ τῶν αἰσθητῶν παντελῶς ἀπετινάξαντο, κατὰ τὴν ἐν διαθέσει σχετικὴν ἐνέργειαν), and they ineffably bring sense-perception into communion with God by aligning it with the most single intellect (τὸν νοῦν µονώτατον), so that the whole soul is entirely and unknowingly united with the fullness of God, as an image with the archetype, according to intellect, reason, and spirit.623 621

Amb. 10, 1205A4-7.

622

Amb. 10, 1205C3-5.

623

Amb. 10, 1193D10-1196A3.

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In Maximus’ view, the soul as intermediary draws the duality that characterizes senseperception toward the singular reality of νοῦς, which is directed towards intellectual reality. The saint recognizes the soul as the image of God, and precisely, in this context, as the image of “the unity that is understood in the Trinity.” The soul, as a triad of “intellect, reason, and spirit,” answers in its unity to the unity of the Trinity, and in its process of assimilating the soul’s faculties of sense, it draws the material world into unity with the intellectual and thereby with the divine. Maximus gives a different, though not unrelated, interpretation of “material duality.” Again, he considers duality in terms of soul, but here he focuses on the soul in its passivity, specifically the “spirited (θυµός) and appetitive (ἐπιθυµία) faculties.” These two faculties of the soul may be said to constitute “‘material duality’ because the materially oriented powers (θυµός and ἐπιθυµία) are those that come from the passible part of the soul, are set against reason, and are able to scatter the intellect into multiplicity.”624 Overcoming material duality in this context refers to the intellect’s overpowering of spiritedness and appetite so that it is able to achieve its natural state of unity and withdraw itself from its dispersal amongst material—i.e. non-intellectual— realities. This will have an analogue on the level of the contemplation of nature, where the intellect achieves a unified vision of reality. Here Maximus is directly concerned with the passions and the orientation of desire towards God. The philosophical task at this stage is to overpower these faculties (θυµός and ἐπιθυµία) and…to prevail upon them with the necessity of being born along appropriately by being submitted like a servant to the rule of reason, or even simply to depart by 624

Amb. 10, 1196A6-10.

284

leaving them all behind, and to be captivated only by the unwavering enchantment of knowledge-filled contemplation through reason infused with love (κατ᾽ ἀγάπην), and to be drawn together with the single and unique movement of the most virile power of desire (τῆς κατ᾽ ἔφεσιν ἀῤῥενωτάτης δυνάµεως), which is free of multiplicity and is simple and indivisible, according to which one is led philosophically to stability in the identity of one’s ever-moving desire that moves incessantly around God.625 With respect to the passions, the task of the practical life is to unify desire in the soul’s motion toward and around God. In this way, the first level of philosophy is directly linked to the highest stage of divine union in which one attains both union with God and the unity of God. The one who has unified desire and ordered it singularly towards God has attained not only the true and blessed union with the holy Trinity, but also “the unity that is understood in the Trinity,” for, in terms of potentiality (κατὰ δύναµιν), such a person has become simple and undivided and uniform in relation to (πρός) the Trinity, which is simple and undivided in its essence (κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν).626 The potentiality of becoming for the human being is directed towards the simplicity of the Trinity. What does the phrase κατὰ δύναµιν mean in this context? It is clearly set in contrast to the phrase κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν, which refers to the unity and simplicity of the Trinity. Thus, when the human being acquires simplicity, it is not κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν; the human being does not become simple “in essence,” just as when the human being “becomes God,” Maximus says θέωσις happens κατὰ χάριν (“by grace”) and not κατὰ φύσιν. What this means concretely is related by Maximus at the end of this section. The goal of the ethical life, the true possession (ἕξις) of virtue, is the means by which one “accurately imitates that goodness, which always remains the same (τὴν ὡσαύτως

625

Amb. 10, 1196A11-B6.

626

Amb. 10, 1196B7-11.

285

ἔχουσαν ἀγαθότητα) and by the grace of God with whom one has been united, one puts away the actualized existence (τὴν ἰδιότητα) of the powers that are divisible by nature.”627 Human simplicity in the ethical sphere is thus a simplicity of imitation and this µιµήσις makes God manifest in the world. As the initial aspect of this manifestation, Maximus shows how the body manifests philosophical virtue, which is “a representation of divine power,” and knowledge. III. Dispassion and Contemplation We have seen how Maximus accounts for the unity of praxis and contemplation on a conceptual level. This account has itself been the working-out of a θεωρία. We shall now consider how Maximus draws the aim of praxis, which is dispassion, together with his understanding of contemplation. The goal of the first stage of the spiritual life is the practice of the virtues and the attainment of dispassion, which is the freedom from the determinacy of the world and the passions;628 this would have been assumed by Maximus’ readers in the monastery of Cyzicus and we shall observe how Maximus describes this process in what follows. Of greater importance for our consideration of the coherence of praxis and contemplation, however, is Maximus’ assertion that one “cleanses” one’s “former ways of thinking (τῶν προτέρων λογισµῶν) by the practice

627

Amb. 10, 1196B11-C1.

628

For Maximus’ treatment of this theme in his other works, see, for example, Cap. car. I.2, where dispassion, which engenders love for God, comes as a result of faith, fear of God, self control (ἐγκρατεία), endurance, patience, and hope. The Liber asceticus explains the “purpose” (σκοπός) of the incarnation to be the freeing of fallen humanity from the passions into which it had fallen in Adam through the revelation of a divine way of life (πολιτείαν ἡµῖν θεοειδοῦς ζωῆς ὑποδείξας) that was given in Christ’s commandments, Lib. ascet., 5.2-7.18.

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of the ethical part of philosophy.”629 Indeed, in the initial sections of Ambiguum 10 Maximus speaks of dispassion and virtue in terms of reason and contemplation: the one who has piously come to understand how things really are (ὡς ἔχει τὰ ὄντα), and has come accurately and rightly to define the rational principles of existing things through the rational will, and preserves discernment in himself, or rather, preserves himself steadfast by discernment, possesses the whole of virtue that he has gathered together.630 Here Maximus speaks of “the whole of virtue” in terms of the understanding of beings in their rational principles (λόγοι), that is, according to their divinely ordained inner structure and identity. To acquire this knowledge of creatures is to gather all virtue together with the result that such a person is no longer moved toward anything else after the truth has come to be known; he goes beyond all things with zeal, and thinks of nothing that belongs to the flesh and the world in both name and reality.631 Stability is associated with the mind’s association with the world and the mind’s stability is indicated by the fact that it does not “think,” or “make concepts for itself (λόγον ποιούµενος)” that derive from its sensual experience of the world. The mind remains unmarked by perception and it is in this state that it is open to what Maximus will call the “spiritual knowledge of beings.” In this context, we see that the doctrine of the λόγοι, which accounts for the stable identity of beings in God, serves the description, on the ethical level, of the stabilization of the human intellect in its intuition of the λόγοι.

629

Amb. 10, 1197D6-8.

630

Amb. 10, 1108C10-15.

631

Amb. 10, 1108C15-D4.

287

Again, Maximus has alerted his readers that he is speaking of virtue without making reference to its outward and bodily expression in the actions of the saints. The one who has gathered the true knowledge of beings as virtue already inherently possesses praxis encompassed, with no resistance (ἀµάχως), by reason, such that the intellectual faculty (τοῦ διανοητικοῦ), which depends upon us, conveys by itself all the strongest dispassionate acts of rational thought (τοὺς κρατίστους ἀπαθεῖς λόγους).632 The practical life of bodily virtue is implied in the natural activity of reason such that reason possesses praxis without struggling for it against the body. The dispassion of this state of mind is the foundation of “all virtue and knowledge” since the “dispassionate acts of rational thought,” as “powers of the rational soul,” make virtue and knowledge possible.633 Thus, according to Maximus, Gregory is justified in using the terms λόγος and θεωρία as the constitutive elements of true philosophy, for within them all virtue— and therefore all praxis—is contained. Dispassion, which is the goal of the ascetic life, is fundamentally a description of the mind in the world and therefore has its realization and fulfillment in the life of contemplation. Dispassionate thinking is not, however “entirely without an existential relation to the body (πρὸς µὲν τὸ εἶναι σώµατος οὐδ᾽ ὅλως χρῄζοντας),” nor does it “refuse to use it at the proper time for manifestation [of the virtues].”634 All aspects of knowledge and virtue are governed by the different elements of the faculty of thought (τὸ διανοητικόν): 632

Amb. 10, 1108D4-7.

633

Amb. 10, 1108D7-9.

634

Amb. 10, 1108D9-1109A2.

288

the specific elements of thought are the intellections of intellectual things, the virtues, the different kinds of knowledge, the principles of the arts, the faculty of choice (τὸ προαιρετικόν), and the faculty of will (τὸ βουλευτικόν), whereas judgments (κρίσεις), assents (συγκαταθέσεις), refusals (ἀποφυγάς), and impulses (ὁρµάς) are its general categories.635 The specific forms of thinking (the intellections of intellectual things, the virtues, the different kinds of knowledge, the principles of the arts, the faculty of choice, and the faculty of will) are related to the basic categories of the psychology of ethics and action (judgments, assents, refusals, and impulses). The former belong to thinking ἰδικῶς, as the specific powers and activities of the mind, as those realities that properly pertain to it as an active reality, whereas the latter belong to thinking γενικῶς, as the generic descriptions of its various specific activities. The point for Maximus is that the ethical life, which comes to outward manifestation in the body, is invariably an aspect of the life of rationality and contemplation, and so the contemplative life maintains a relation to the body through the rationality of virtue. As we have seen, Gregory did not consider it to be at all necessary to mention bodily asceticism, for he knew that it is not productive of virtue, but rather makes it manifest, and is useful for divine contemplations and considerations alone. Virtue comes to the human being as a gift of God that is attained through the right understanding of the created world, which, as we shall see below, is directly related to the knowledge of God. Bodily praxis has its place as that which makes virtue known and as an aid to contemplation, and indeed, true philosophy is “defined by praxis” in that any form of intellectual life that does not carry with it the fruits of upright ethical action is a false form of “philosophy.” Nevertheless, bodily asceticism—even the more general notion of practical virtue—is not an end in itself and is ultimately done in the service of 635

Amb. 10, 1109A3-7; cf. Nemesius, Nat. hom. 12.6-9.

289

contemplation, whose highest goal is union with God. Maximus considers this point further in a clarification at the end of this section, where he writes those who have not yet become purified of the communion with matter that results from their relation to it remain concerned with the life of ascetical praxis because the discernment of beings is still of a compound nature (µικτῆς οὔσης τῆς περὶ τὰ ὄντα κρίσεως) for them, and because they are changeable, since they have not yet put off their relation to changeable things. But they say that those who consort with God by relating to him on account of their extreme perfection, and bear the fruit of blessedness by understanding him, are turned toward themselves and God alone by utterly breaking the bonds of the material condition, have estranged themselves entirely from matter through practical asceticism, and have become assimilated to God in contemplation.636 Those who are still bound to matter still find themselves in a state of duality with respect to the world; their consideration of things is “mixed,” not simple. Thus, they continue in the way of life that is intended to purify their perception of the world precisely by “estranging (ἠλλοτριώσθαι)” them from the duality of matter as set over against form or λόγος. Those who have achieved this estrangement “are turned toward themselves and God alone” and are able to achieve communion with God as ones set free from “the bonds of the material condition (τῆς ὑλικῆς σχέσεως).” As an explanation of this material condition, Maximus explores Gregory’s use of the terms “cloud (νέφος)” and “veil (προκάλυµµα)” to describe the flesh. The cloud is an image for “fleshly passion that casts a shadow over the ruling faculty of the soul,” whereas the veil stands for “sensory deceit, which drives against the soul with the

636

Amb. 10, 1109C8-D5; cf. Capita Theologica I.78: “A wealth of virtue [exercised] through practical conduct is always necessary for the one with true knowledge (Ἀναγκαῖος τῷ γνωστικῷ ἐστὶν, ὁ διὰ πράξεως πλοῦτος τῶν ἀρετῶν),” PG 90.1112C1-2. On the other hand, in his exposition On the Lord’s Prayer, Maximus emphasizes the limits of the purely practical life, saying that once the intellect has achieved freedom from the realm of sense perception, it should no longer allow itself to be “burdened with the questions of ethics (οὐκ εὔλογον ἐπιβαρεῖσθαι…τῷ κατ᾽ ἦθος τρόπῳ),” Maximi Confessoris Opuscula Exegetica Duo, CCSG 23, ed. Peter Van Deun (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991), 48.360-361.

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appearances of sensory things” and prevents it from rising up to the realm of thought (τὰ νοητά). These movements of passion and of sensation—to the exclusion of thought—are the result of the mind’s wandering away from its own “natural movement,” which “naturally carries it towards God,” and thus drive the soul into the throws of “anger, appetite, and pleasure through sensual appearances.”637 Focusing on pleasure specifically, Maximus connects the pleasures of the senses to the “irrational appetite,” defining pleasure as “nothing other than either the form (εἶδος) of sensory perception shaped in the sense faculty by some sensory object, or the way sensory activity is constituted in accordance with irrational appetite.”638 Appetite “changes into pleasure” when it supplies sense perception with a form and sense perception itself completes pleasure when the object of desire is finally obtained. This movement towards materiality through the mediation of the flesh is, for Maximus, contrary to the nature of the soul and causes it to put on an “earthly form” by its reception into itself of the impressions of earthly things. “The saints,” by contrast, undertake the opposite movement. Rather than assimilating the soul to matter by means of the flesh, “they set out to assimilate the flesh to God in the proper fashion through the mediation of the soul, which is naturally moved towards God, by beautifying (καλλωπίσαντες) it as far as they are able with divine adornments through the exercise of the virtues.” 639 The beautiful body, which is the starting point for the Platonic ascent, is for Maximus the result of the exercise of the virtues, which themselves manifest the assimilation of the flesh to God and thus make the body into a revelation of the divine. 637

Amb. 10, 1112A8-B13.

638

Amb. 10, 1112C2-7.

639

Amb. 10, 1112C7-D3.

291

To summarize what we have analyzed thus far, Maximus, in response to the concern that Gregory has given an entirely intellectualist vision of philosophy, wants to show how Gregory’s definition of philosophy as “reason and contemplation” includes the idea of practical philosophy within it. To do so, he emphasizes the inseparability of bodily action from reason and places practical philosophy in a necessary, if subservient, relationship to the contemplative aspects of philosophy, or better, he shows how practical philosophy is contained within reason and contemplation in that it is directed by the faculties of the soul, it lends aid to the tasks of contemplation, and it manifests philosophical virtue in and through the body. The analysis of soul in particular is essential for Maximus’ account. In another clarification, Maximus explains that Gregory has given “the name of ‘reason’ to praxis with respect to causality (ἐκ τῆς αἰτίας), but not matter.”640 In other words, reason is the cause of practical philosophy but the “matter” of what concerns them is different. Practical philosophy entails the struggle with the passions and the corruptibility of nature whereas the contemplative remains among true things rationally and on the level of true knowledge, but not with a battle or struggle and, on account of the pleasure that attends these realities, he does not allow himself to behold anything except them.641 Thus, while practical philosophy and contemplation are inseparable and are bound together by the causality of λόγος, the experience of the two phases is very different. Practical philosophy seeks to free the ascetic from subservience to worldly and fleshly pleasures through the cultivation of self-control and estrangement from material reality 640

Amb. 10, 1109B14-C1.

641

Amb. 10, 1109C3-C6.

292

and the senses. It is often spoken of by Maximus as “overcoming nature” and regards the cosmic order of coming-to-be and passing-away as a corruption of the true life that is given by God. The contemplative life, on the other hand, is driven and sustained precisely by pleasure, the natural pleasure one experiences when the mind undertakes its natural activity of the contemplation of intelligible realities.642 This contemplation, in turn, leads through the “material and fleshly cloud or veil” to “kinship with God.” This basic exposition with its emphasis on purification, pure vision of beings, and ultimate union with God will be developed in various ways throughout the rest of Ambiguum 10. Our task for the remainder of this chapter will be to analyze in detail how Maximus develops this vision of philosophy with reference to the contemplation of nature. IV. The Contemplation of Nature We turn more directly now to Maximus’ understanding of the contemplation of nature, though, on Maximus’ own terms we have been considering it all along. Through the acquisition of virtue and the contemplation of nature, which includes the study of Scripture, the human being comes to fashion a “mental cosmos” in which he is recreated as a restored image of God and in this way comes to transcend nature in union with God. i.“οὐσία is the teacher of theology” When we consider Maximus’ presentation of philosophy in the Ambigua to John from the perspective of the contemplation of nature, we see that it is “creation” itself that “teaches ethical, natural, and theological philosophy from its composition of heaven, 642

Recall the discussion of Aristotle, Chapter 1 above, 80ff.

293

earth, and the things in the midst of them.”643 The created order contains within itself the potentiality of the whole of philosophy; the dynamics of the contemplation of nature, then, should yield the clearest insight into Maximus’ overall vision. Maximus shows the centrality of the contemplation of nature in a section in which he divides contemplation into five basic components: substance (οὐσία), motion (κίνησις), distinction (διαφορά), mixture (κράσις), and position (θέσις). The goal of the contemplation of nature is to come “to the highest rational principles (τοὺς λόγους τοὺς τελευταίους),” which define intelligible and sensible things themselves,644 and to these “five modes of contemplation that are joined to them.”645 These five modes of natural contemplation relate outward to the other two levels of philosophy, and this illustrates that, for Maximus, the contemplation of nature has as its telos the fulfillment of the whole of philosophy; there is no independent or selfsufficient contemplation of nature that is not directly related to the life of ethics and the theological recognition of God. So nature is the center of Maximus’ philosophy as the point around which philosophy is organized. To give a pictorial analogy not unlike Stoic analogies for the different parts of philosophy, we may take philosophy as a circle in which nature is the center point, theology is the circumference, and the practices of the ethical life are the radii that emanate from the center and lead to the circumference, but which also pass through and beyond the center. 643

Amb. 10, 1136C7-9.

644

Cf. Amb. 10, 1132D8-10.

645

Amb. 10, 1133A7-B1. Evagrius mentions “five principal contemplations,” which refer to the Trinity, incorporeal and corporeal reality, and judgment and providence: KG I.27, Les Six Centuries des ‘Kephalaia Gnostica” d’ Evagre le Pontique. Édition critique de la version syriaque commune et edition d’une nouvelle version syriaque, intégrale, avec double traduction francaise, ed. Antoine Guillaumont (Paris: Patrologia Orientalis, 1958.)

294

Maximus defines the first three modes of contemplation—substance, motion, and distinction—as directed towards the knowledge of God and as the concepts that serve as guides to this knowledge. In this way, natural philosophy becomes the first step towards theology. οὐσία is the “teacher of theology (θεολογίας διδάσκαλον)”646 and reveals God as the “fashioner (δηµιουργός)” of all things.647 It is through οὐσία, the substance of what exists, that we are taught “that there is a cause, but,” continues Maximus, we do not try to know what it is in its essence, since there is no articulation of its appearance among beings by means of which we might look up as though through what is caused towards its cause, even to a certain degree (ὅτι µηδὲ ἔστιν ἐµφάσεως ἐν τοῖς οὖσι τούτου προβολὴ, δι᾽ ἧς κἂν ποσῶς ὡς δι᾽ αἰτιατοῦ πρὸς τὸ αἴτιον ἀνανεύσωµεν).648 Maximus refers frequently to the distinction between “knowing that” something exists and “knowing what” it is, and here the distinction does the work of showing how the world and the things in it are transparent, in the fact of their existence, to their maker and cause while at the same time preserving God’s unknowability. In this context, causality itself does not provide a way of ascent from the creature to the creator, for there is a fundamental discontinuity between them. ii. “The Heavens Declare the Glory of God”649: Providence and Judgment κίνησις (motion, change) indicates God’s providence (πρόνοια) in that, in the midst of the ceaseless change of the material universe we are (potentially) able to see “the essential identity of each thing that exists according to its unchanging form, like an 646

Amb. 10, 1133C1-2.

647

Amb. 10, 1133B6.

648

Amb. 10, 1133C3-6.

649

Psalm 18(19).1, quoted with reference to providence and judgment at Amb. 10, 1121A3-14.

295

untouchable settlement,” and from this observation of continuity in the midst of change “we receive the thought (ἐννοοῦµεν) of the one who constitutes and guards in their unity each of the rational principles clearly defined from the others according to which all things are endowed with subsistence (ὑπέστησαν).”650 This is quite a compressed deduction but what Maximus seems to be implying is that motion forms the backdrop against which the stability of beings appears so that God’s providence is seen in the endurance of beings in their λόγοι in the midst of an existence that is characterized by motion. Finally, διαφορά (distinction, difference) reveals God as judge (κριτής) in that God wisely distributes the λόγοι in accordance with “the natural potentiality of the essence in each being” and these λόγοι are “appropriate to the underlying subject (τῷ ὑποκειµένῳ).”651 As we saw in our discussion of Evagrius, the pair “providence and judgment” is a central theme of the Evagrian understanding of the contemplation of nature. Relying on Origen’s notion that the material world is a place for the chastisement and training of fallen intellects,652 Evagrius’ γνωστικός is able, through insight into the nature of reality, to determine the nature of God’s providence and judgment in assigning certain intellects to certain bodies. This discernment, much more than simply reflecting the insight of the gnostic, allows the gnostic to teach others in the specificity of their own situation so that they might know how best to make use of their situation for their own healing and

650

Amb. 10, 1133C8-13.

651

Amb. 10, 1133C14-D3.

652

Origen, De princ. I.vi.3.

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education, and for their return through the different levels of being to the primordial unity of intellects before God. Maximus denies these interpretations of the Origenist notion of providence and judgment, for they could be taken to imply that the reality of the cosmos and of the bodies that fill it are relative and qualified in a way that goes beyond the mere contingency of the fact of their creation. This conception could be taken to call into question the integrity of the created order and treat it as though it had no enduring reality or connection to the original purposes of God. Maximus’ understanding of the concepts is quite the opposite to this extreme version of Evagrian/Origenist providence and judgment. Maximus teaches that providence “is constitutive of all that is and preserves the rational principles according to which the universe has been primordially endowed with subsistence.”653 It is providence that preserves beings in their own being; it does not construct an alternate and lower realm for creatures that have fallen away in order to arrest their fall and provide a means for their return and escape from what they now are. Bodies are not “invented for the sake of the retribution of souls on account of evil that had previously been committed by bodiless beings.” This would imply that evil is actually the only cause of the overwhelming magnificence (ἐκπρεποῦς µεγαλουργίας) of visible things, through which God himself, who is proclaimed by them in silence, is known, as though it were evil that forced God to fashion a reality (οὐσίαν) that he had no intention of making.654 Maximus finds it to be simply unbelievable (“these ideas are completely absurd [πολλῆς γὰρ ὄντως ἐστὶ τοῦτο µετὸν ἀτοπίας]), and indeed seems offended by the notion, that the beauty of the world is the result of a post hoc response to evil and is not rather the 653

Amb. 10, 1133D3-8.

654

Amb. 42, 1328A2-9.

297

reflection of the wisdom of the divine mind that is born of the divine goodness. Maximus’ thinking here is related to his argument in Ambiguum 7 against the notion that souls are somehow taught to love the good all the more through their experience of its opposite. On the contrary, nothing has been “recently conceived” by God; everything is fashioned according to the eternal knowledge of God who “endows each existing thing with being (οὐσιοῖ) and gives substantial existence (ὑφίστησι) to each at the fitting and suitable time.”655 Similarly, Maximus asserts that judgment is not pedagogical or some kind of punishment for sinners, but is, rather, the distribution that preserves and defines beings. By means of this distribution the things that have come to be and are unalterably connected to the rational principles according to which they have come to be observe the law of natural identity without fail, just as from the beginning the fashioner has made a judgment concerning existence with respect to what, how, and what quality each thing is, and has granted each thing subsistence.656 Again, Maximus’ conviction is that God has fashioned the existence of all things in accordance with his eternal wisdom not as punishment for primordial acts of sin but as an expression of the very λόγοι of the divine mind. The way things are, in terms of “what, how, and what quality each thing is,” was fashioned from the beginning and not in response to a cosmic fall. This is not to say, however, that providence and judgment are unrelated to the practical life of virtue, for Maximus recognizes that providence and judgment “accompany our purposive impulses (ταῖς ἡµῶν προαιρετικαῖς ὁρπµαῖς

655

Amb. 42, 1328C1, B5-6.

656

Amb. 10, 1133D8-1136A4.

298

παραπεπήγασι)” and direct us toward the beautiful and away from evil.657 Providence and judgment bring the aspects of reality that go beyond human control within the purview of what is within our power (διευθύνειν τὰ οὐκ ἐφ᾽ ἡµῖν ἐναντίως τοῖς ἐφ᾽ ἡµῖν) so that past, present, and future evils are cut off. In this way, providence and judgment do not function within a context of chastisement and eventual return to a fundamentally different form of existence, as in an extreme Evagrianism. Rather, while they do serve the training of the soul in virtue and the resistance of evil, they do so as guarantors of the established order that has been ordained by God in the λόγοι of creation. Moreover, Maximus does preserve an element of the Origenist/Evagrian account of the world as training ground in Ambiguum 42, where he interprets the transgression of Adam as a fall into the mode of birth that characterizes the life of the “pasture,” in which animals are born through seed and their life depends upon the vitality of their blood.658 Christ’s birth without seed reintroduces “the original grace of incorruption” and heals human nature of its fall into corruptible birth. Maximus makes a distinction between the “principle of human generation (λόγος τῆς γενέσεως)” and the “mode of human birth (τρόπος τῆς γεννήσεως)” to explain the meaning of the process of human birth after the transgression. In Maximus’ understanding of the Genesis narrative, the first human being was given life through the “inbreathing” (ἐµφύσηµα, ἔµπνευσις) of God (Gen 2.7) so that the λόγος of human generation reveals the source of human life to be divine. Because the first human being failed to understand this and rather turned to the flux of materiality for life, Maximus argues that God established the τρόπος of human birth as an “educative 657

Amb. 10, 1136A5-7.

658

Amb. 42, 1320D1-4; 1321A9-11.

299

economy (παιδευτικὴ οἰκονοµία)… which has as its goal the rectification of the one being trained and the perfect return to the rational principle of human generation.”659 As we saw in the Introduction, Maximus returns to this pedagogical element of cosmic reality in the final chapter of the Ambigua to John (Ambiguum 71) as well. He qualifies it so that it is not taken to imply that the world is a secondary result of a pre-cosmic fall into evil while maintaining the teaching that human beings are instructed like children by the contingencies of the natural world. The common element between Maximus and Evagrian Origenism in this is in their understanding of paideia, that the human being is fundamentally a being in the process of formation or cultivation; here the German Bildung seems to capture the Greek notion of paideia more accurately. The human being is a disciple, a learner, and the basic human experience of the world is determined by this fact. As we shall in Chapter 5, Maximus (following Gregory) considers Adam’s original state in Eden to be one of contemplation of the world. Where Maximus differs from Evagrius and Origen is in the latters’ construction of a pre-cosmic narrative as a grounding for their understanding of cosmic paideia. For Maximus, then, providence and judgment preserve and direct the world in accordance with the eternal divine will and the experience of nature itself gives an indication of this: Nature itself gives not an insignificant proof that the knowledge of providence has naturally been sown in us, whenever it prepares us without teaching, as if it were pushing us toward God, to seek salvation from him through prayer in our immediate circumstances. For we call upon God when we are in need with immediate apprehension that requires no forethought or examination, as if providence itself were drawing us towards itself independent of our thinking, revealing the swiftness of the 659

Amb. 42, 1319D4-11ff.

300

power that conquers the workings of the intellect in us and the divine help that is stronger than all things.660 Maximus thinks that attentiveness to our immediate, pre-rational, “natural” responses to circumstances in the world reveals the basic intuition regarding the providence of God for the world: that the world has been fashioned precisely and in all its minute aspects by God and is totally dependent upon God for the continuation of its being. The fact that Maximus adduces this as an argument for the existence of providence indicates his basic trust in the order of the world as we experience it. iii. Creating the World in the Mind This trust reaches its highest point in Maximus’ teaching that a person “experiences the divine existence by experiencing beings (τὸ Θεὸς εἶναι παθὼν ἐκ τῶν ὄντων)” and intellectually sees God manifest as goodness in creation. Such a person takes on the form (µορφούµενος) of this goodness rationally (κατὰ λόγον) and, in a version of the doctrine of the identity of intellect with what it thinks—“it becomes that very thing according to habit through virtue;” such a person “becomes God (ὁ ἄνθρωπος Θεος γίνηται).”661 “Deification,” “assimilation to God,” takes place here within the realm of the practical life of virtue, but this life of virtue opens back out onto the cosmic plane as the practical life of virtue gives birth to the creation of a divine world of thought in the mind: The mixture or synthesis of beings is the symbol of our mental inclination (γνώµης σύµβολον). For when it has been mixed with virtues, and has

660

Amb. 10, 1192C2-12.

661

Amb. 10, 1133B9-13.

301

mingled these with itself, it also establishes a world of understanding most fitting to the divine.662 I have translated γνώµη as “mental inclination” here to capture the ethical potential of this aspect of the human mind or will.663 Maximus sees the natural world and the ethical world as images of one another and not simply because both are constituted of laws. He expands upon this theme in Ambiguum 21 where he shows how the elements of the physical cosmos (ὁ κατ᾽ αἴσθησις κόσµος) correspond to the inner, “mental” cosmos (ὁ κόσµος τῆς διανοίας), “the intellectual world that is within us (ὁ ἐν ἡµῖν νοητὸς κόσµος)”: For that which is, as they say, “the ether”—that is, the fiery element in the sensory cosmos—is mindfulness (φρόνησις) in the mental cosmos, since mindfulness is the habit that brings to light and demonstrates the spiritual principles particular to each being, unfailingly makes manifest the cause in all things through them, and attracts the soul’s inclination to the divine. The air in the sensory cosmos corresponds to courage (ἀνδρεία) in the mental cosmos, since courage is the habit that moves, constitutes, and effects the natural life of the spirit. It is also the habit of the soul that invigorates its continual motion about the divine. Water in the sensory cosmos corresponds to moderation (σωφρόσυνη) in the mental cosmos, since moderation is the habit that produces the vital power of generation in the Spirit, and generates the ever-bubbling erotic enchantment of the urge for the divine. The earth in the sensory cosmos corresponds to righteousness (δικαιοσύνη) in the mental cosmos,664 since righteousness is the habit that, 662

Amb. 10, 1136A-B.

663

Maximus would later get involved in the controversy of the will(s) of Christ and would distinguish the human will into “natural” and “gnomic” wills, where Christ is understood to possess the former but not the latter; cf. Opusculum 3. 664

Öhler’s text as printed in the Patrologia Graeca is clearly faulty here: καὶ ὅπερ ἐν τῷ αἰσθητῳ κόσµῳ ἐστὶν ἡ δικαιοσύνη; Sherwood, supplies ἡ γῆ, τοῦτο ἐν τῆς διανοῖας κόσµῳ ἐστίν to follow ἐν τῷ αἰσθητῳ κόσµῳ ἐστὶν: Earlier Ambigua, 46. This is reflected in Eriugena’s Latin translation as well: Et quod est in sensibili mundo terra, hoc est in intellectuali mundo iustitia, Jeauneau, Maximi Confessoris Ambigua ad Iohannem iuxta Iohannis Scotti Eriugenae latinam Interpretatione, 138.72-74.

302

in virtue of its form, gives birth to all the rational principles in beings, and equally distributes the life-giving endowment in the Spirit to each being, and is the unchangeable foundation of its stable position in the beautiful.665 Moreover, the physical world gives “elementary (στοιχειωτικός) instruction” to the senses of the soul through their apprehension of the world, and in the same way the mental cosmos gives the soul “elementary spiritual instruction” about the virtues. The “inner” perception of the soul is directed toward the world of virtue so that the soul begins to form its understanding of this realm in a way analogous to how the senses come to an understanding of the physical world through its perception of physical phenomena.666 Maximus goes further still to explain how the powers of sense perception and the virtues are bound together as images of each other. The senses of the body reveal the nature of the powers of the soul by leading the soul outward among existing things where it observes its own λόγοι through their manifestation in the world. The natural world corresponds to the world of the soul and teaches it about itself by actualizing its bodily senses. To anticipate the final discussion of this chapter, on the knowledge of God in relation to the knowledge of nature, Maximus makes the assertion that It is through these rational principles as though through letters, that the God-Word is read by those who have keen vision for the truth. For this reason they call the senses paradigmatic images of the powers of the soul, since each sense in each power of the soul has been naturally and primordially endowed with its instrument—that is to say, its faculty of sense perception—and refers to a more mystical principle.667

665

Amb. 21, 1245B1-C7.

666

Amb. 21, 1248A4-11.

667

Amb. 21, 1248B2-10.

303

Here Maximus identifies vision with intellect, hearing with reason, smell with irascibility, taste with appetite, and touch with life itself. In this context it is not a matter of transcending are cutting off the senses—whether physical or psychic—but of using them naturally, “in accordance with the law of God.”668 The soul does so by drawing to itself “everything visible, wherein God, who is proclaimed in silence, is hidden” and in this way becomes a sort of demiurge in imitation of God, “who has wisely fashioned all things (τὰ πάντα σοφὼς δηµιουργήσαντος), by fashion[ing] a most beautiful and spiritual world in accordance with the intention of its thinking (κάλλιστον καὶ αὐτὴ (sc. ἡ ψυχή) κατὰ προαίρεσιν ἐν τῇ διανοίᾳ καὶ πνευµατικὸν κόσµον ἐδηµιούργησε). It synthesizes the four kinds of virtue like elements with each other, and this results in the spiritual construction of a cosmos filled intellectually with the virtues.669 The soul’s life in the world, its “knowledge-gathering and scientific activity (γνωστικῆς τε καὶ ἐπιστηµονικῆς ἐνεργείας),” which combines intellect and reason with their corresponding senses (sight and hearing) to produce mindfulness (φρόνησις), along with all its other sensual experiences combined with their corresponding faculties to produce virtue, bring about the formation of an ordered universe of matter and soul, in which the laws of nature correspond to the laws of virtue. Courage is the result of a balanced irascible faculty in its combination with the sense of smell. Moderation comes from the “measured use” of appetite in relation to the sense of taste. Righteousness has its source in the “even, well-ordered, and harmonious distribution of life-giving power in its actualization through the sense of touch within all—and also, I think, around all—

668

Amb. 21, 1248C4-5.

669

Amb. 21, 1248C11-D4.

304

sensory things.”670 In this way the virtues are folded into the fabric of nature and sensory reality as a description of the soul’s life in the world that parallels, or recapitulates, the soul’s experience of its faculties in the sensory realm. Maximus draws these four general virtues into two even larger categories, “wisdom and meekness,” which serve to unite the life of contemplation and the life of action. Wisdom, he writes, perfects knowledge and meekness is the fulfillment of action. Knowledge (γνῶσις) and mindfulness, and science (ἐπιστήµη) and righteousness, are directed towards wisdom, which is their “constitutive cause (συνεκτικὴ αἰτία).”671 On the side of action, the soul brings forth meekness from courage and moderation and Maximus defines meekness here in terms of dispassion: meekness “is nothing other than the complete lack of motion in the irascible and appetitive faculties towards any thing that is contrary to nature—some call this dispassion—and because of this it is the final end (τέλος) of action.”672 Again, Maximus draws the practical life of virtue within the realm of nature and considers the virtuous life to be the life precisely according to nature. This gathering of the four virtues under the concepts of wisdom and meekness, so that knowledge of nature and life according to nature complete human virtue, is yet another way Maximus expresses the essential unity of practice and contemplation. To sum this line of reflection up, then, the soul has access to sensory realities through the senses and “spiritually appropriates (πνευµατικὴ… οἰκειουµένη)” their λόγοι. The senses themselves are the “rational vehicles of the soul’s powers,” and the

670

Amb. 21, 1248D7-1149A6.

671

Amb. 21, 1249A11-15.

672

Amb. 21, 1249A15-B5.

305

soul joins these powers to the virtues and thus gives itself a path to “the more divine rational principles in them.” These more divine λόγοι are then united to “the spiritual intellect that is invisibly hidden in them (τῷ ἐν αὐτοῖς ἀφανῶς κεκρυµµένῳ πνευµατικῷ νῷ),” and the intellect, continuing the journey, finally frees itself “from every natural relation that directs the soul towards present realities, and presents the soul, simple and whole, entirely to God.”673 Thus Maximus introduces the part of philosophy that begins to draw the soul beyond nature. Everything up to this point has followed the progression of nature. Senses have a natural relation to the world and a natural correspondence to the virtues. The powers of the soul have natural functions that bring the soul into harmony with the law of God. However, even these natural movements are transcended when intellect draws the soul beyond the temporality towards which it is naturally inclined and to the immediacy of the presence of God, who “assimilates [the soul and body] proportionately to himself” and is thereby “made entirely manifest without being circumscribed, since his nature is in no way manifested in any being whatsoever.”674 The final goal of the philosophic life, assimilation to and manifestation of God in soul and body, which begins in nature and unfolds naturally, finally transcends nature, which is bound, in this context, to the corruption of sin and death. Maximus sees the resurrection and indeed the very incarnation of Christ as a reversal of the progressive obscuring of the knowledge of the presence of God by the soul and flesh, a reversal that precisely undoes and renews nature: 673

Amb. 21, 1249C4-10.

674

Amb. 21, 1249C10-D1.

306

For since flesh has been swallowed up by corruption because of sin, and the soul, having been found guilty for its deeds (γνωσθεῖσα ταῖς ἐνεργείαις), has been swallowed up by the flesh, and the knowledge of God has been swallowed up by the soul through its complete ignorance— since it did not know if there is a God—then surely the flesh will be swallowed up by the soul in spirit at the time of the resurrection by the symmetrical reversal that will take place (κατὰ τὴν καλῶς γενησοµένην ἀντιστροφήν) in the Holy Spirit by the grace of God who became flesh. The soul, in turn, will be swallowed up by God, who is truly life itself, since it will have him alone entirely showing forth through all things (ὡς αὐτὸν µονώτατον διὰ πάντων ὅλον ὅλη προφαινόµενον ἔχουσα). To put it simply, in terms of the reversal (ἀντιστρόφως) of the present order of things with which our existence and conduct are now concerned, the divine grace of the resurrection will make known everything that will be ours in the age to come, so that, just as death, which had become strong because of sin, gorged itself here below, so too will it justly be swallowed up above, where it will have been weakened by grace.675 This intuition of the reversal, restoration, and renewal of nature will become a central theme in the more Christologically focused chapters of the Ambigua and will prove to be a decisive element of Maximus’ vision of nature and particularly of the contemplation of nature as a discipline of soul. The understanding, and, to a certain degree, achievement, of this reversal and restoration of nature comes to the soul that “uses its powers rightly (καλῶς)…according to the intention of God (κατὰ τὸν σκοπὸν τοῦ θεοῦ), and wisely makes its way through the sensory world by means of the spiritual principles that are contained therein.”676 This, for Maximus, brings the human being into union with God, a union that is considered here within the realm of the contemplation of nature. However, the contemplation of nature can also lead to the opposite: “permanent estrangement from God (τὴν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν σχετικὴν ἀλλοτρίωσιν).” To “misuse (κακῶς χρήσαιτο)” the powers of the soul 675

Amb. 21, 1252A1-B2.

676

Amb. 21, 1252B2-6.

307

in this context is to “examine the present cosmos in a way that is contrary to the dictates of reason (παρὰ τὸν δέοντα λόγον τὸν παρόντα διαθρήσασα κόσµον).”677 Specifically, the disposition (διάθεσις) of the soul in this case would be directed towards “what is not as though it had substantial being (τὴν ὑποστήσασαν τὸ µὴ ὂν διάθεσιν).”678 τὸ µὴ ὂν, “what is not,” refers here to nature’s current condition of coming to be and passing away. Because no created thing is the source of its own being, nothing can be said truly “to be,” for all things undergo a constant process of change with respect to their material existence. It is thus necessary to regard the external manifestation of the cosmos with detachment, without the kind of gaze that invests its appearance with substantial being in and of itself. Only in this way can the λόγοι of created things, the inner principles that define the reality of things, appear. And as we shall see presently, this appearance is inseparable from the appearance of God. Indeed, when they have made a rigorous examination of beings, they are completely persuaded that God alone truly is (µόνον τὸν θεὸν κυρίως εἶναι), and is the being and motion of beings, the clear distinction of different things, the insoluble continuity of things that have been mixed, and an immovable foundation of what has been established.679 The final result of the failure of natural contemplation is that the soul is cast back down into its state before its undertaking of the life of philosophy, into “dishonorable passions,” where it finds itself bound to the continual awareness of the disposition that is directed away from what is and toward what is not. As we shall see in our last chapter,

677

Or, “in a way that is contrary to its rational principle.”

678

Amb. 21, 1252B6-13.

679

Amb. 10, 1137A7-12.

308

Maximus will describe the first transgression of Adam and the economy of salvation in terms of the failure and restoration of the contemplation of nature. iv. Nature and Scripture As a Christian theologian Maximus is obviously concerned with the study of Scripture and as I have indicated he considers this study to be directly parallel to the study of nature; the content is, in fact, the same: “neither possesses more or less than the other.”680 He employs the familiar image of “the book of nature”: the natural law, which progresses steadily in accordance with its innate rationality681 through the spectacles that naturally arise in the world, is like a book that contains the harmonious web of the universe. It has bodies composed by the conjunction of their many qualities as letters and syllables, which are the first things most proximate and accessible to us. It also has statements, more general than these, which are less immediately perceived and more subtle, from which the Word, who wisely dictates and is ineffably inscribed in them, comes precisely into view when he is read there, although he provides only the basic concept that he is, not what he is.682 If the universe is like a book to be read, then Scripture is a book that constitutes another world with its own heaven, earth, and air in between, whose content is precisely ethical, natural, and theological philosophy. This conjunction of world and text shows how the laws of Scripture and nature perfectly fit together: “the Scriptural law is potentially the natural law (κατὰ τὴν δύναµιν)” in that Scripture creates a world of philosophical knowledge that comports itself to the natural world and becomes the world of the person who undergoes the transformation of virtue and knowledge; “and the natural law contains 680

Amb. 10, 1128C11-17.

681

κατὰ λόγον, here in contrast to the next paragraph, where the written law “is established by learning”—µαθήσει κατορθούµενον. 682

Amb. 10, 1128D8-1129A8.

309

the Scriptural law within it (τὸν δὲ φυσικὸν [νόµον] τῷ γραπτῷ κατὰ τὴν ἕξιν)” in that the rigorous examination of reality reveals, within the created order, the content of the teaching of Scripture, which shows the way we are to live, the true nature of reality, and ultimately reveals union with God.683 Moreover, both nature and Scripture exhibit the dynamic relationship between apophatic and kataphatic theology, for they both “reveal and conceal the same Word, revealing by language and what appears, concealing with respect to thought and what is hidden.”684 The words of Scripture and the external appearances (εἴδη τε καὶ σχήµατα) of created things are “garments” that cover the intellectual reality that lies within, what Maximus calls “the flesh” or “body” of the Word: For in this way the garments of the Word, by which I mean the words of Scripture and created phenomena, are a radiant and glorious fabric of teaching round about Him, who can be clearly seen by divine reason in exalted contemplation. And we, by ascending the mountain, will see the divine transfiguration…Then we shall know that the God-Word himself, who is all in all, has in his goodness made everything in the realm of thought a body for himself and all sensible reality his garment.685 To come to such an understanding of the Word in relation to Scripture and created things requires the same freedom from materiality that we have traced in the context of the ethical life. Within the context of the contemplation of nature, as we shall see in our analysis of Maximus’ reading of the Transfiguration of Christ, the Creator appears

683

Amb. 10, 1129B3-6.

684

Amb. 10, 1129B5-7.

685

Amb. 10, 1132C8-D10.

310

together with and through the creation, revealing “the ineffable and supernatural divine fire that exists—as in the [burning] bush—in the essence of things.”686 Ambiguum 37 gives a brief account of Scriptural interpretation and relates it to the three-fold structure of philosophy as well, showing how the different aspects of the content of Scripture, “time, place, genus, character, and position in society,” give instruction on ethics, the nature of reality, and ultimately God.687 The study of Scripture becomes analogous to the study of the cosmos in that the components of Scripture, the characters, the locations, the different kinds of things in the narrative, possess their own substance, potentiality, and actuality, and are either active or are acted upon within the economy of the Scriptural world so that contemplating them is an exact parallel to the contemplation of natural characters, locations, and different kinds of things in the natural world. As such, the study of Scripture “introduces (εἰσηγοῦνται) practical, natural, and theological philosophy to us,” where philosophy as the “love of wisdom” is nothing other than the love of God. This is ultimately the unity of the philosophic life, and therefore of the study of Scripture and nature. All ethical praxis and all natural or theological contemplation are assimilated to the love of God in true philosophy and it is for this reason that Maximus seems to indicate at times that passing through the formal stages of philosophy may not be necessary for every person, that the practice of the virtues, which has love as its final end, may lead a person directly to union with God without the need of devoting himself to the contemplation of nature and cosmic speculation.688 Moreover, 686

Amb. 10, 1148D1-2; see below, Chapter 5, 330-332.

687

Amb. 37, 1293B1-8.

688

See Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 348-349, noted in our Introduction, 12-13, for discussion of this distinction between the two possible ways of ascent to God.

311

each part of philosophy, as ultimately directed towards the love of God, contains the whole within itself, which Maximus argued in Ambiguum 10. Maximus also considers the relationship between nature and Scripture in the terms of the incarnation of the Λόγος of God. In Ambiguum 33, Maximus gives an interpretation of Gregory’s statement, “The Word was made thick (ὁ λόγος παχύνεται),”689 which Maximus takes as a reference to the incarnation of the Word, who is “simple and bodiless and spiritually nourishes all the divine powers in heaven in succession.” In being “made thick,” the Word teaches ineffable and transcendent things through word and deed, speaking in parables—and living as a parable himself—in order to guide his disciples to understanding. To become thick here is to become more readily understandable.690 Maximus also considers the phrase with respect to the presence of the Word in the λόγοι of beings: he has hidden himself ineffably in the rational principles of beings for us and is signified through each visible thing so that they lead the mind to him as though one were reading a text. He is fully in the universe as a whole, and complete in each thing individually, whole and undiminished. He who is without differentiation and always the same is present in the multitude of different beings; the simple and uncompounded in composite realities, the one without beginning in those who are subject to a beginning, the invisible in the visible, the impalpable in the tangible.691 This claim is followed by the parallel claim concerning Scripture: on account of our thick-headedness, he allowed himself to be both embodied and impressed in letters and syllables and words for our sake so

689

Amb. 33, 1285B12-C1; G. Naz., Or. 38.2, 106.16-17.

690

Amb. 33, 1285C3-D1.

691

Amb. 33, 1285D1-10.

312

that from all of these he might slowly gather us to himself to follow him and be made one in the spirit, and that he might lead us to a simple and unqualified conception of him by drawing us together (συστείλας) through himself towards his own unity in a measure corresponding to his expansion (διέστειλεν) of himself for us by the principle of condescension.692 Just as the Word has diversified himself in the λόγοι of created things and yet remained unified in himself, so too has the Word been expanded into the λόγοι of Scripture while yet drawing all those who study them back into the unity that he maintains. Maximus also speaks of the unity of Scripture, nature, and philosophy in relation to the “Word in the beginning.” It is the Word who has made the five modes of Scripture, the three phases of philosophy, and the two aspects of time—present and future, which indicate “type and truth”—into a “single reality (µονάδα)” that “engraves the form of the divine character of the simplicity that naturally belongs to the divine so that [each mode is] able to possess [simplicity] perfectly in grace.”693 So, just as the Word holds together all the λόγοι of creation and thus encompasses all philosophy within himself, so too does the Word unify all of the λόγοι of Scripture and grant them the simplicity that belongs to God by nature. The movements of passion, nature and intellect are all transcended by the unity granted by the Word. As we observe in Ambiguum 10, the saints eventually transcend the Scriptural and natural laws; here not only the movements of passion and nature, but even the movement of intellect is transcended in the gift of divine simplicity. The truth to which we have access now is a “type, a shadow and image of the greater Word (µείζονος λόγου)” to come.694 692

Amb. 33, 1285D10-1288A7.

693

Amb. 37, 1296D3-1297A3.

694

Amb. 37, 1296C4-7.

313

v. Transcending Nature Maximus describes this transcendence as the complete cessation of thought beyond intellect and reason. Thinking itself stabilizes the intellect as it goes out from itself to the object of thought and comes to rest there with it in the actuality of its thinking,695 but when it passes intellectually beyond everything that can be thought about aesthetic and intellectual reality, it takes its leave of all intellectual reality as well as of the whole of intellectual activity and any relation to relative or intellectual things, since it has absolutely nothing left to think after thinking those things that naturally fall within the realm of thought. After this it will be united to God without thought, knowledge, or speech by a simple approach beyond intellect, reason, and knowledge, for it will neither think nor rationalize God in any way. For God is not a certain object of thought (τι τῶν νοουµένων) such that the soul is able to possess the thought of him by relation; rather, this takes place by a union that is simple—because it is unrelated and beyond thought—and according to a certain ineffable and inexplicable principle, which God, who gives this ineffable grace to those who are worthy, alone knows.696 God the final object of thought and desire is not among things that can be thought. Thus, the goal of contemplating nature—all aesthetic and intellectual reality—is precisely to take leave of it in order to be united to God. This simultaneous “natural” and “supernatural” insistence in the thought of nature is precisely the milieu and definition of grace for Maximus. God grants to the human being a potentiality (δὐναµις) that does not spring from human substance (οὐσία) as a created physical and intellectual being, namely, to be united to what it cannot think, know, or relate to. I have mentioned the importance of Melchizedek as an image of the fulfillment of philosophy for Maximus for he is a character who, according to the Scriptural narrative, 695

Amb. 15, 1220A10-B3.

696

Amb. 15, 1220B3-C3.

314

does not seem bound by the purely “natural” condition of humanity and so Maximus takes him as one in whom we may see the fulfillment of this journey through and beyond natural thought to simple union with God by grace. Maximus presents Melchizadek as an example of one who has gone “beyond time and nature” to become “like the Son of God in habit by grace.”697 Maximus follows in the tradition of the epistle to the Hebrews and identifies Melchizedek as a preeminent type of Christ because he is “without father, without mother, without lineage, having neither beginning of days nor end of life” (Heb 7.3). Melchizedek exists “beyond time and nature” in that he has “the knowledge that comprehends the quality of every time and age, and the contemplation that transcends the existence of every material and immaterial substance.” Because he endures in this mode of contemplation—and does not simply briefly attain it and then fall back—he is said to “remain a priest forever.” Such enduring contemplation is made possible by the intellect’s “unchanging habit of the most deiform virtue” and by its “divine attention” being “fixed on God.”698 Having made the assertion that Melchizedek, the paradigmatic saint and image of Christ, is “beyond time and nature,” Maximus goes on to examine the relation between nature and time itself, as though the assertion of transcendence is what allows for the contemplation of that which is transcended. He writes, “virtue naturally fights against nature…so that virtue, as something that is considered to follow after God, should remain unenslaved to other things, and under no one’s authority, since it knows God as its only progenitor.” The “nature” in question here is nature in its generative sense—φύσις as 697

Amb. 10, 1137D1-2.

698

Amb. 10, 1140A.

315

φύειν, “bringing forth” or “engendering.” For Maximus, human birth in Adam is conditioned by passion and passibility so that the human being is considered to be a slave to his corruptible nature, in submission to dissolution and death. In the practice of virtue, however, man overcomes the corruption of his nature and comes to be submitted to God alone, since he has been born of God as his “only progenitor.” Nature, the rising and falling of beings into and out of existence, is not the source of life; virtue leads to a divine and super-natural way of being. Similarly, θεωρία fights against time and this age…so that true contemplation should remain uncircumscribed, for it does not abide in what has a beginning or end, for it is, through itself, the image of God, who defines every beginning and end and draws all intellectual activity of those who exercise the intellect to himself in an ineffable ecstasy.699 The highest contemplation remains “uncircumscribed” by the limitations of the world since it has as its only content God himself, who cannot be thought in the terms of time, space, coming to be, and passing away. Therefore the intellect is drawn beyond the realm of nature and “natural contemplation” leads directly to theological contemplation. The νοῦς as image of God realizes itself as such by transcending the fundamental horizon of created being—time. Thus, while Maximus affirms that all of philosophy is contained in nature itself, that the saints learn ethical, natural, and theological philosophy from the rigorous examination of reality, the actual process of philosophical transformation leads the saint beyond nature by means of virtue and contemplation. Understanding the essence of the contemplation of nature allows for its transcendence.

699

Amb. 10, 1140A.

316

We have seen in this chapter how Maximus articulates the relationship between the practical life of virtue and contemplation. He argues that the practical life is essentially rational and therefore inseparable from reason and contemplation and shows that there is a direct link between the dispassion that is attained through the struggle against the passions and the ability to see beings in their λόγοι, which ultimately lead the mind to union with God beyond nature. We have raised the question of how the contemplation of the world of nature, which is to be transcended, is nevertheless determinative for Maximus’ vision of the soul’s journey to God. In other words, what does it mean to contemplate the changeable on the way to the changeless, the temporal on the way to the eternal? Whereas God is shown, in the burning bush for example, to reside in the essence of things, Maximus also refers to God as “the limit of the universe (πέρας τῶν ὅλων)”700 so that God is within the world and “without,” as it were, and Maximus steadfastly maintains both sides of this paradox. Whether philosophy is concerned with this world or beyond, it is, in fact, concerned with God, yet God is essentially unrelated to the world. Maximus addresses this problem in various ways, both logical and metaphorical, and our next chapter will consider them in detail.

700

Amb. 20, 1240Α10.

317

CHAPTER 6 COSMOS: GOD AND THE WORLD Introduction We have studied Maximus’ vision of philosophy, beginning with the experience of human passivity and progressing through the life of praxis to the contemplation and finally transcendence of nature in union with God. This study has raised the question of how Maximus understands the relationship between God and the world. On the one hand, we might summarize Maximus’ view with his statement that “The Creator and creation are not the same (οὐ ταὐτὸν κτίστης καὶ κτίσις).”701 Moreover, with respect to God as cause of the universe, we do not try to know what [he] is in [his] essence, since there is no articulation of [his] appearance among beings by means of which we might look up as though through what is caused towards its cause, even to a certain degree (ὅτι µηδὲ ἔστιν ἐµφάσεως ἐν τοῖς οὖσι τούτου προβολὴ, δι᾽ ἧς κἂν ποσῶς ὡς δι᾽ αἰτιατοῦ πρὸς τὸ αἴτιον ἀνανεύσωµεν).702 More radically still, Maximus, one of the great students of the apophasis of Dionysius the Areogapite, says that God is ἄσχετος703—absolutely unrelated to anything—so that the very question of the “relation” between God and the world must be explained. As we saw

701

Amb. 15, 1221A6-7.

702

Amb. 10, 1133C3-6.

703

Amb. 23, 1260B7.

318

at the end of the previous chapter, God is not one intelligible thing among others that we might think about; union with God comes about—is precisely given—without thought, knowledge, or relation, i.e. in a manner that has nothing in common with our thinking about the world. And yet, Maximus has much to say in the Ambigua to John about the way in which God and the world do come together in the human mind and, despite the apophatic preamble we have given to this chapter, he is more concerned to speak in positive terms of the “relation” between God and the world. As we saw in the last chapter, when the saints have made a rigorous examination of beings, they are completely persuaded that God alone truly is (µόνον τὸν θεὸν κυρίως εἶναι), and is the being and motion of beings, the clear distinction of different things, the insoluble continuity of things that have been mixed, and an immovable foundation of what has been established.704 God just is every mode of natural contemplation, every way that is used to define the world. The Dionysian notion of divine names is certainly the foundation for this way of thinking and it does indeed presuppose for Maximus the rigors of the way of denial. The relation between affirmative and negative theology in Maximus is, in fact, analogous to the transfer of the notion of dispassion from the ethical to the contemplative sphere, in which detachment from the world allows for the true vision of the world. Here the absolute negation of any commonality between God and the world allows one to see how God is absolutely no less than the very meaning of the world itself. So, this chapter, which will presuppose the work of negation that Maximus demands, will give an account of how Maximus boldly affirms God in/through/as the world.

704

Amb. 10, 1137A7-12.

319

I. God and the World i. The World as the Self-Multiplication of the One God We may take Ambiguum 35, which is thoroughly indebted to Dionysius (whom he cites by name) as foundational for Maximus’ approach to this question. Gregory speaks of the need for goodness to be “poured out and proceed forth” to other beings in order to expand the circle of divine blessing and he accounts in this way for the creation of the intellectual and sensual worlds. The question of the Ambiguum is, What precisely is this “goodness” that is poured out? Maximus, referring to the authority of a “wise old man,” identifies the outpouring of goodness with God himself, “who willed to impart himself proportionately (ἀναλόγως) to the universe (τοῖς ὅλοις), and to impart without defilement (ἀχράντως) the freely given power for existence and abidance to each being individually (τῷ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον).”705 He defines, albeit tentatively (κατὰ τὴν ἐµὴν ἀφροσύνην: “in my ignorance”), the out-pouring of goodness as “the proportional multiplication (πληθύνεσθαι) of the one God by the impartation of goodness to those beings that receive it.”706 Taken in the positive sense, the world is the self-differentiation of the perfectly unified God, which is accomplished with respect to some beings “in an abundant out-pouring of Goodness, for others by mediation, and for others still in their ability to image him forth in some way.”707 We shall unfold this basic intuition in the discussion to follow.

705

Amb. 35, 1289A1-2.

706

Amb. 35, 1289A14-B2.

707

Amb. 35, 1289A11-14.

320

ii. Transfiguration: The Word as Type and Symbol of Himself The Transfiguration is an event that Maximus privileges in the Ambigua as a locus for reflecting upon human knowledge of the world and God, since, according to his understanding, both are present in the Transfiguration at the same time.708 The first thing to notice in his treatment is that while Maximus considers the Transfiguration (µεταµόρφωσις) of Christ to be precisely his “manifestation” (φανερώσις), the emphasis at the beginning of his interpretation is on the disciples and the way in which they come to the manifestation of Christ. First, Maximus describes their passage from flesh to spirit and the removal of “the veil of the passions from the power of their intellectual faculty” so that, with purified perception of both soul and body they were able to see the mysteries and learn “the spiritual rational principles when they were shown to them.”709 This is the basic spiritual program that we observed in the previous chapter: the purification of perception by the removal of the domination of the passions in order to open up the true vision of reality. The disposition of passionate attachment does not allow the human intellect to see things as they are because it over-determines intellectual experience by what is immediately perceptible and does not allow it to see into “what is before it (βλέπειν τὰ ἔµπροσθεν).”710 On the one hand we should say that the Transfiguration, as the manifestation of the Son of God, is unique in that the particular progression of the

708

Maximus gives the event extended treatment elsewhere in his works as well: Maximi Confessoris Questiones et dubia 190, 191, ed. Jose Declerck (Turnhout: Brepols, 1982); Cap. theol. I.97, II.13-16. 709

Amb. 10, 1125D9-1128A7.

710

Amb. 10, 1124D9-10.

321

disciples’ awareness of Christ leads from his lack of “form” and “beauty” (Is 53.2) to the “beauty surpassing the sons of men” (Ps 44.3) of the one who was “in the beginning with God” and “is God” (Jn 1.1) and finally to “the glory as of the Only-Begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1.14).711 The light of the Transfiguration is “the symbol of his divinity that is beyond all intellect and perception and being and knowledge.” However, the vision of this symbol of divinity and therefore the revelation of Christ as the Son of God who is “with God and is God” is inseparable from the transfigured vision of Scripture and of the created world, whose symbol, Maximus teaches, are the radiant garments of Christ. Because of the disciples’ “detachment from the world and the flesh” the Scriptures and creation are clear to them and they see the Word that is hidden obscurely in the language of Scripture and the things of the world. The Transfiguration that takes place is as much in the disciples as it is in the garments of Christ, for it is the removal of “the base way of thinking” bound only to perception that allows creation to disclose the one who created it.712 The whitened garments of Christ at his Transfiguration show that the words of Scripture themselves have become transformed for the disciples and are “understood without any riddling enigmas or symbolic shadows;” rather, in their transfigured state they clearly reveal the Word contained within them. Something similar occurs with creation. The disposition with respect to creation that corresponds to the knowledge of Christ according to the flesh alone or Scripture according to the letter alone is to regard the world according to sense perception (αἴσθησις) alone. In the transfigured state, creation “reveals by means of the manifold wisdom of the diverse forms that fill the 711

Amb. 10, 1128A12-B3.

712

Amb. 10, 1128B14-C5.

322

world the worthiness of the one who has the power to create with his word.”713 In all three of these realms—Christ, Scripture, world—the initial impressions reveal by word and vision but at the same time hide what these mean in the very act of showing them. It is for this reason that the disciple must undergo the purification of ridding himself of passionate attachment to the appearances of the world for such attachment encloses creation (or Scripture, or Christ) within the lowest aspect of its being, that which is immediately grasped but which may thereby arrest one’s advancement to higher understanding. This is not, however, to remove the aesthetic element from the contemplation of the created world. In another consideration of the bright garments of the transfigured Christ, Maximus says that affirmative theology “demonstrates from the beauty and grandeur of created things that God is the fashioner of all things.”714 The world and Scripture are both taken as “books” of revelation and if we take this notion of the beauty of creation and combine it with Origen’s notion that the coarse words of Scripture must be transfigured to reveal the divinity of Christ,715 we may say that the world is actually a more direct and less obscure source of revelation with respect to its beauty: the “general nature of visible things…all but shouts with a clear voice.”716 In both cases—of Scripture and creation—the hiddenness of the Word in the words and of the Creator in creation occurs economically, “on account of us (δι᾽ἡµᾶς),” so that we should not be overbold to approach what cannot be contained. Maximus 713

Amb. 10, 1128C2-5.

714

Amb. 10, 1168B8-10.

715

Cf. Origen, Philokalia 15.19.

716

Amb. 10, 1169B2.

323

explains that anyone who wishes to approach God must first go through Scripture and the contemplation of nature. These two incarnations “are equal in honor and teach the same things as each other,” and, more strikingly still, “neither possesses more or less than the other.”717 The question with respect to nature and revelation is not, What can reason find out on its own and what is revelation needed for? Rather, Scripture and world are equally revelation in that they are equally the clothing of the Word and reveal him in the same way as his flesh. Everything, when seen in its proper light, allows for the manifestation of the divinity of the Son of God and is understood to be his incarnation. Maximus extends his reflection on the Transfiguration and the contemplation of nature by examining the different ways Elijah and Moses, who appear together with the transfigured Christ, may be understood in order to contemplate what it means for creation to appear together with the Creator. After considering Moses and Elijah as types of the law and the prophets, wisdom and goodness, knowledge and paideia, praxis and contemplation, the married and the unmarried states, and as indicating how God is the Lord of life and death, Maximus moves more specifically into the realm of natural contemplation in his consideration of Moses and Elijah as types of time and nature. This interpretation raises the question of the relation between God and “everything that is after God,” by which Maximus means “time and the nature of beings,” for time and nature appear together with God in the persons of Moses and Elijah.718 Moses, on this interpretation, stands for time. He is the one who gave the first account of time and how it is measured in the book of Genesis and also taught ancient Israel how to worship the timeless God in time. Moses also represents time in that he did 717

Amb. 10, 1128C10-D3.

718

Amb. 10, 1164A11-13.

324

not enter the “repose” with those whom he guided through the wilderness before the giving of the Gospel: “this is the nature of time: it does not go before or enter together in its motion with those whom it naturally accompanies toward the divine life of the age to come.”719 The successor to Moses, Joshua/Jesus (both are Ἰησοῦς in Maximus’ version of the Scriptures), receives time and takes it into the promised land where it is brought to rest, for “time is the age [to come] whenever it stops moving, and the age [to come] is time whenever it is measured…by motion (αἰὼν γὰρ ἐστιν ὁ χρόνος, ὅταν στῇ τῆς κινήσεως, καὶ χρόνος ἐστὶν ὁ αἰὼν, ὅταν µετρῆται…κινήσει).”720 This definition draws upon the Platonic notion of time as “a moving image of eternity.”721 The simultaneous distinction and identity of time and the age to come in which it is the concept of motion that makes the difference bears an analogy to how Maximus will speak of the entrance of the Word into the realm of being, time, and motion and “receives” this created reality to take it beyond itself to the presence of the Father.722 Maximus puts forth Elijah as the image of nature, as one who fulfilled the λόγοι of his own being and was also able to serve “as a sort of natural law” that instructs those who live contrary to nature to be more discerning of their nature. Nature itself “corrects those who try to deform it in proportion to how far they pursue living contrary to nature.” The limitations that are introduced by an unnatural mode of life are themselves the

719

Amb. 10, 1164B6-9.

720

Amb. 10, 1164B14-C3.

721

Cf. Plato, Tim. 38a-c.

722

See the discussion of Amb. 41, Chapter 6 below, 390ff.

325

chastisement of life contrary to nature so nature both shows the way and corrects those who do not follow it.723 Maximus also sees Moses and Elijah as symbols for sensory and intellectual creation, which appear together with “the Creator Word.”724 Because the Scriptural narrative recounts his birth and death, showing him to be subject to generation and decay, Moses is taken to stand for sensory creation (αἰσθητὴ κτίσις), which has a clearly defined beginning and end. By contrast, neither Elijah’s birth nor his death are recorded in Scripture and Maximus takes him therefore as “the principle of intellectual reality.” The generation of intellectual reality is not manifest to human beings “even if it has come to be, has a beginning, and has been led from non-existence into being.” However, because it has been endowed with “indestructibility (τὸ ἀνώλεθρον)” it has no defined end.725 Maximus thus interprets the fact that Moses and Elijah appear together with the revelation of the divinity of Christ as an indication that the nature of creation is revealed together with the divine. Nature discloses the divine but is also revealed by the divine. We shall return to this revelation of God and the world in our discussion of Maximus’ arguments against the eternity of the world. Maximus sees the relationship between theology in its apophatic and kataphatic modes and its relationship to creation as symbol in the Transfiguration as well. Intellectual creation provides a symbolic path for theology to come to the knowledge of God and divine things and falls under the discourse of denial, in which God is affirmed by the removal of what is made by him. The reality beyond sense perception is beyond 723

Amb. 10, 1164C3-D2; see Chapter 4 above, 253.

724

Amb. 10, 1164D3-5.

725

Amb. 10, 1164D6-1165A11.

326

the questions of “What? How? What quality? Where? When? (περὶ τοῦ τί καὶ πῶς καὶ ὁποῖαν εἶναι καὶ ποῦ καὶ πότε),” and so the symbolism of intellectual creation is truly a symbolism of negation. In the Areopagite’s thought, the way of denial culminates in the denial of the higher, intellectual realities that are “closer” to the divine, the ideas of life, goodness, thought, and so on.726 Maximus is giving a version of this notion here. On the other side, material, perceptible reality is symbolic in the opposite sense. Sensory objects “indicate (ὑπογράφοντα)” the divine through the process of affirmation, so that “we say…[God] is everything inasmuch as we have recognized him, from his creations, as the cause of created things.”727 It is clear from this that Maximus does not consider “nature” without some reference to the divine source of nature. As such, the contemplation of nature always participates in theology for Maximus just as creatures themselves participate in God. Maximus further explores the imagery of light in the narrative of the Transfiguration to explain this. Both Creator and creature are revealed when the light of Christ’s divinity shines forth from his face and his garments, which are the symbols of creation, are illumined as well: For it is natural and appropriate for the knowledge of things that have come to be by his agency to appear together with him. For as all bodies appear purely together with the perceptible sun when it rises, thus also God the intelligible sun of righteousness rising in the intellect, even as he himself seems to be contained by creation, wants the true rational principles of intellectual and perceptible beings to appear together with him. The radiance of the garments that appeared together with the light of the face of the Lord during his transfiguration on the mountain shows this,

726

Ps. Dion. Areo., De mystica theologia 3-4, Corpus Dionysiacum II.

727

Amb. 10, 1165C13-15.

327

bringing together with God, in my opinion, the knowledge of things that come after him and that knowledge that pertains to him.728 Maximus then employs an idea that Gregory Nazianzen used in the expression of his theology of the Trinity—the phrase, “In Thy light shall we see light” (Ps. 36.9), which Gregory uses to articulate the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit729—and extends it to our knowledge of the world: For the eye is unable to lay hold of perceptible things without light, and the intellect us unable to receive spiritual contemplation without the knowledge of God. For in the perceptible realm, light grants the ability to lay hold of visible things to sight, whereas in the intellectual realm, the knowledge of God gives knowledge of intelligible things to the intellect.730 Not only does the knowledge of God appear together with knowledge of nature, it in fact makes knowledge of the meaning of nature, that which is intelligible within it, possible. This “descending” mode of knowledge of the world coming from God is the other side of the “ascending” notion of the acquisition of the knowledge of God in and through the world. Maximus affirms that the saints come to know God by means of contemplating the world: Thus, the saints, having carefully observed creation—its good order, proportion, and functioning, which are found individually in the whole— and having observed the rational principle according to which everything that has been fashioned has been wisely and providentially fashioned unto completion, and that the things that have come to be are not such that they could exist differently and more beautifully than what they now are—for they require no addition or subtraction in order to be beautiful in some other way—they have been taught about the Fashioner from the things that have been made by him.731 728

Amb. 10, 1156A11-B7.

729

G.Naz. Or. 31.3.280.16-19; Or. 40.34.276.21-23.

730

Amb. 10, 1156A11-B13.

731

Amb. 10, 1176B4-12.

328

However the intellectual knowledge of created things depends ultimately on the illumination of the knowledge of God so that God and world, which are radically distinct as creator and creation, nevertheless appear together—as we see with Elijah, Moses, and the transfigured Christ—and God reveals the world to the same degree that the world reveals God. So every aspect of creation symbolizes God, either negatively or positively, and this symbolic approach to the world is characteristic of Maximus’ notion of natural contemplation in general. The stage of contemplation beyond nature, where the mind begins to approach God without the mediation of created things, is characterized precisely as the stage in which symbolic thinking is transcended. But Maximus’ notion of the symbolic nature of creation runs even deeper than this. Because of the inseparability of flesh—and hence creation—from the divine Word in the incarnation, Maximus affirms “the Lord was created like us without change” and became “the type and symbol of himself (ἑαυτοῦ γενέσθαι τύπον καὶ σύµβολον), and symbolically present[ed] himself from himself, and by being made manifest through himself, led all of creation to himself.”732 This draws the created world very close to God and says more than the simple affirmation that the world is a symbol for God. Rather, when the Word becomes flesh, He becomes the symbol itself, thereby closing the divide between symbol and symbolized. Almost in the same breath, however, Maximus starkly separates the divine from the world in his reflection upon the light that emanated from the Lord’s face in the

732

Amb. 10, 1165D7-11.

329

Transfiguration. This light goes beyond the negations of mystical theology and somehow points to the unknowable essence of God. The essence of God has left absolutely no trace, not even a bare hint, for those who come after it to apprehend it; neither does it vouchsafe to any being, even to a certain degree, a way to conceive of how the monad and triad are the same. For it is natural for that which is uncreated not to be grasped by creation, and for that which is infinite not to be comprehended by bounded beings.733 Maximus is drawing a distinction between knowledge of God as unified Trinity and the recognition of the world—and the flesh of Christ as the center of that world—as the economic embodiment of God, as God himself insofar as he is the cause of the world. This distinction further clarifies my argument that the contemplation of Christ is the way Maximus (and the earlier Greek patristic tradition) follows to contemplate the natural world and its relation to its cause. As a way of immaterial contemplation, the silence of the contemplation of the Trinity finally has no reference to the world in a logical sense. All of Maximus’ thinking about the created world comes under the economy of the incarnation of the Word, which is the entrance of the God beyond being into being. iii. The Burning Bush: The Divine Fire in the Essence of Things Maximus gives another account of the imagery of light in his interpretation of the revelation of God to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3). He gives a particularly significant interpretation of Moses’ response to the burning bush, a Scriptural event that gives him another way of thinking about God and the world. Moses averted his gaze when God announced himself as the “God of your father, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,” turning away his face (ἀπέστρεψεν…τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ; Ex 3.6) in the presence of this revelation. Moses is taken as 733

Amb. 10, 1168A11-16.

330

exemplary of the way of philosophy, and we are told in particular that Moses was “kept safe externally by the ethical ways of life that pertain to the flesh and internally by the divine intellections that pertain to the soul” and was “sustained by natural contemplations to endure under sense perception.”734 Maximus considers all of this to be Moses’ preparation for the vision of the burning bush. One who follows his example and devotes time with much labor to this process by means of natural contemplations in the spirit after the abandonment of the intellectual relation to sensible things (for I think this is the meaning of the forty years of wandering), will be made worthy to become an intellectual seer and hearer of the ineffable and supernatural divine fire that exists—as in the bush—in the essence of things (τῇ οὐσίᾳ τῶν ὄντων ἐνυπάρχοντος θείου πυρός), the God-Word who radiated at the end of time from the bush, that is, the holy Virgin, and has held converse with us through the flesh. This new Moses leads the unshod footstep of thought, entirely free of human ways of thinking as of dead sandals, to such a mystery (cf. Ex 3.5). With respect to questioning, he averts the eye of the mind—like the face of Moses (πρὸς µὲν ζήτησιν, ὥσπερ πρόσωπον, τὸ τῆς διανοίας ὀπτικὸν ἀποστρέφων; cf. Ex 3.6); with faith alone he opens the ready obedience of the soul—like an ear—to the reception of the mystery.735 Natural contemplation leads to the recognition of “the supernatural divine fire that exists in the essence of things,” symbolized by the burning bush, which itself is the image of the Virgin Mary bearing the Word of God. In this way the contemplation of nature and the contemplation of Christ constitute paths that run parallel to one another and can, in a sense, be considered as the same path. Moses’ response in the face of this announcement of divine identity, which is at the same time the revelation of the divine Word at the heart of creation, is to turn away his face and Maximus takes this as an indication that “the questioning (ζήτησις)” of the mind is turned away and “human ways of thinking (λογισµῶν ἀνθρωπίνων)” laid aside like “dead sandals.” The dualism of questioning is 734

Amb. 10, 1148A-B.

735

Amb. 10, 1148C12-D12.

331

itself a turning away from the manifestation of the essence of things for it cannot receive the mystery of the presence of the divine in the world. Thus Moses’ “turning away” is actually a “turning towards”: he turns away from conventional human modes of thought and towards the faith that opens the mind to the divine reality in the essence of the world. II. The World and Eternity i. Maximus Against the Eternity of Matter and the World In the midst of these strong affirmations of the presence of the divine in the world, Maximus is compelled to argue for the ultimate finitude of matter and the cosmos, since, perhaps, one might take the opposite position given how Maximus has interpreted the burning bush. Indeed, most pagan Greek philosophers, with whom he shared so much intellectually, did affirm the eternity of matter so that Maximus’ arguments against it were necessary in order for him to clarify the distinction between the Creator and creation. We shall trace Maximus’ arguments for this position, which has the concept of motion as a decisive element, and also consider Philoponus’ refutation of Proclus’ arguments for the eternity of the world. We shall then consider how Maximus accounts for the motion of the finite world in relation to the infinite and unmoved God, who is the source of its motion. Maximus gives a long, slowly developing argument near the end of Ambiguum 10 against the eternity of the world and matter. Maximus has spoken of the simultaneous appearance of Creator and creation in the Transfiguration; however, he does not take this as an indication that the world is coeternal with God and seeks, in fact, to demonstrate the impossibility of God and matter eternally coexisting “alongside” one another. His line of thinking begins with an invocation of the beauty and order of the cosmos, which, says 332

Maximus, naturally leads to the understanding that the cosmos has an “originator (γενεσιουργός), source (ἀρχή), cause (αἰτία), and maker (ποιητής).”736 He focuses specifically on the motion of things and reasons that everything in motion must have a beginning to its motion, that is, a cause and source.737 Because there is nothing that is without motion except the unmoved first cause, everything must have a source and this conclusion is the foundation upon which the whole series of arguments is built. Maximus proceeds to analyze the notions of substance (οὐσία), quantity (ποσότης), and quality (ποιότης) in order to show in another way that it is impossible for anything to exist without a source. Substance is modified into genera and species “according to the dynamic of expansion and contraction (κατὰ διαστολὴν καὶ συστολήν).” It expands into genera and species but this expansion is limited by “the most specific species (τῶν εἰδικωτάτων εἰδῶν)” so that substance is circumscribed in its “downward” diversification into species. Similarly, as substance contracts and is considered to return to the more general genera, it is bounded in this “upward” motion as well and is thus circumscribed from both below and above. Quantity also undergoes modification in beings in that beings experience increase and diminution as well as relaxation and tension. Quality in beings likewise undergoes change by the expansion and contraction as well as the alteration and scattering that result from the fact of difference.738 Change in relation to what is external to a thing indicates that a thing is limited and thus has a source.

736

Amb. 10, 1176D4-6.

737

Cf. Aristotle, Physics VII.1.241b.

738

Amb. 10, 1177B11-D11.

333

In all three cases, Maximus argues that the process of “scattering” and “gathering” indicates that all things are in motion and thus have a source and come into being through generation (γένεσις). The diversification of substance and the fluctuations of quantity and quality imply motion and therefore a beginning of motion, a source. Nothing, therefore, exists without a source and a source, for Maximus, implies generation. Another way of saying this is that all things that exist are conditioned in certain ways (τὸ πῶς εἶναι ἔχον) and are thus not simple. Existing in a certain way “is the first kind of circumscription” and the fact that substance is conditioned is a proof of its circumscription and thus generation.739 Maximus moves from this general consideration of the conditioned existence of beings to an argument concerning the fundamental conditions of existence: space and time. Again, the ultimate goal of this is to demonstrate the finitude of the world and of matter: the totality of the universe is not beyond the universe itself (for to declare that somehow the universe itself is beyond its own totality is irrational and impossible), but possesses in itself its own self-circumscription, after the all-circumscribing infinite power of the cause of all, as its exterior limit (οὐ γὰρ ὑπὲρ τὸ πᾶν αὐτὸ τὸ πᾶν τοῦ παντὸς [τοῦτο γὰρ πως καὶ ἄλογον καὶ ἀδύνατον αὐτὸ τὸ πᾶν ὑπὲρ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ πᾶν εἶναι θεσπίζειν], ἀλλ᾽ ὑφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὴν περιγραφὴν ἔχον, µετὰ τὴν πάντα περιγράφουσαν τοῦ παναιτίου ἄπειρον δύναµιν, αὐτὸ τὸ πέρας ἑαυτοῦ τὸ ἐξώτερον).740 Maximus understands the universe to be a limited whole, limited precisely because it is a whole; it is a self-circumscribing space. Maximus also argues that conditioned existence

739

Amb. 10, 1180B4-8.

740

Amb. 10, 1180C3-9.

334

implies finite temporal existence, so that anything “that admits the rational principle of existing in a certain way has not always been, even if it exists now.”741 Not only is the universe limited by space and time, it is also limited by the fact that the many things that fill it compose a “quantifiable amount (τἠν ἐν πλήθει ποσότητα),”742 that is, they are not infinite. Maximus takes this to imply that the concrete existence (ὑπόστασις) of each thing is also limited, since the members of the quantifiable multitude of things circumscribe each other. Maximus infers, then, that “a thing is not without source if one can observe something else before it; neither is it uncircumscribed if one can observe something else along with it.” Within the context of this argument, that which is “before” a thing must be the antecedent conditions of existence, which are space and time. That all things are subject to space and time implies for Maximus that all things have a source for their being. Maximus concludes from this universal circumscription and dependence upon a source that there must have been “a time when each existing thing did not exist (ἦν πάντως ποτὲ ὅτε τι τῶν ὄντων οὐκ ἦν).”743 The fact that something did not exist at one time and then does exist at another time implies that it has come into being and therefore has undergone change (τροπή) or alteration (ἀλλοίωσις), change when it has been brought into being through generation and alteration when something has been added to it in order to bring it to completion. This deduction of the change, alteration, or incompleteness of all things provides Maximus with a foundation for a new line of reasoning that leads directly to the 741

Amb. 10, 1180D1-3.

742

Amb. 10, 1181A11-12.

743

Amb. 10, 1181B13-14, an interesting modification of the rallying cry of fourth century Arianism: ἦν ποτὲ ὅτε οὐκ ἦν, “there was a time when he was not,” referring to the Son of God.

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conclusion that nothing possesses existence of itself and therefore nothing exists eternally. So far Maximus has argued for the essential finitude of individual things in the universe, a position that was not controversial. Maximus takes it a step further, however, and argues for the finitude of matter as such, and it is this move that begins to challenge the fundamental position of the eternity of the cosmos. The argument is that anything that requires something to be added to it for its completion also requires something outside itself for its existence: For if, as they say, substance is greater than form, and that which is is able to provide substance for itself or to possess it simply, which is what they want to say, how is it not sufficient to possess simply or provide the lesser reality—I mean form—for itself? If what is is not sufficient to provide the lesser reality for itself or to possess it simply—and those who dare to apply the quality of being without a source to what comes after God and is from him (for we do not make a distinction between coming “after” and coming “from”) want to call this either substance or matter—how is what is unable to possess a lesser reality able to possess either simply or from itself what is superior, I mean existence itself (αὐτὸ τὸ εἶναι)? If matter is completely unable to possess a lesser reality either from itself or simply, all the more will it be unable to possess existence itself either simply or in some way from itself.744 Maximus argues here that because matter is incomplete without form and does not possess form of itself, form must be conferred from outside in order to bring matter to perfection. If matter does not possess form on its own, how can it be said to possess that which is greater than form, existence itself? Maximus’ conclusion is that matter cannot be said to have always existed since it is not capable of possessing existence from itself. If it receives form from outside itself, a fortiori it also receives being from outside itself through generation, and this leads Maximus to God as “creator and fashioner of beings.” Maximus then brings motion into his thinking and argues 744

Amb. 10, 1181C13-1184A2.

336

if matter [has always] existed, as some say, then clearly it has not undergone generation, and if it has not undergone generation, then it is not moved, and if it is not moved, then there is no beginning of its existence (τοῦ εἶναι ἤρξατο), and if there is no beginning of its existence, then it is obviously without a source (ἄναρχον). If it is without a source it is also infinite (ἄπειρον). If it is infinite then obviously it is unmoved (for the infinite is obviously unmoved, since that which is not bounded has no place to be moved).745 This line or reasoning would entail that there is an infinite dyad composed of God and matter. This would be a contradiction for Maximus, “for the dyad is neither infinite, nor without a source, nor unmoved, nor is it able to be the principle source of anything at all, since it is bounded in terms of both unity and division.”746 The dyad is finite by definition. It is composed as “a synthesis of monads” and because it is composed, it is divisible and admits of relation. The infinite, however, cannot be divided, for it has no parts, and it is not in any sort of relation with anything (οὐ γὰρ ἔχει τι κατὰ σχέσιν συνηµµένον παντάπασι). Maximus argues, then, that when the dyad is considered as a unity, it cannot be thought of as infinite because of its inherent limitations, that is, the two members of the dyad limit each other when they are united. From the side of division— the dyad as two separate realities—the dyad is comprised by monads that are counted together to form the duality: “it takes its beginning from number and is comprised by number.” The existence of the dyad is dependent upon the concept of number, which is prior to it; its existence is therefore not infinite. Also, because the dyad of immaterial cause and matter sets two essentially different realities alongside each other it

745

Amb. 10, 1184B6-12.

746

Amb. 10, 1184B14-C2.

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incorporates relation and circumscription into itself and the dyad cannot, therefore, be infinite.747 In light of this, a dyad must have a source and must be moved. It cannot itself be the source of something since it is moved.748 Only the monad is without motion, without source, and infinite: The monad alone is, properly speaking, without motion, since it is neither a number, nor countable, nor counted (for the monad is neither part, nor whole, nor relation), and properly without source, since there is nothing else that is older than it, from which, being moved, the monad would have received existence. Again, it is, properly speaking, infinite, since there is nothing that exists along with it or is counted along with it. And it is properly the source, since it is the cause of every number, and of everything that is counted, and of everything that is countable, since it is free from every relation and every part and whole, and the monad is properly and truly, primarily, uniquely, and simply—and not only in some qualified sense—primary and unique.749 On this account, an infinite dyad of essentially different monads, which is how Maximus has described the notion of the infinity of matter alongside God—is simply a contradiction. The monad is, by definition, not set alongside anything. It is significant, however, that Maximus, again following Dionysius, is using the language of monad to describe the unity and boundlessness of God vis-à-vis the finitude of the world not as a way of “signifying the blessed divinity as it is in itself…not as though the term is perfectly representative of the divine and blessed essence, but because it points to its complete simplicity, which goes beyond every quantity and quality, and any sort of

747

Amb. 10, 1184D1-1185B1.

748

Amb. 10, 1185B7.

749

Amb. 10, 1185B8-C4.

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relation.”750 The concept of unity as the foundation for the plurality of numbers is an image for the unity and simplicity of God as the foundation from which the diversity of the world comes, but the divinity is not “the monad” (or even the “triad”), as Dionysius says in a passage from the Divine Names, which Maximus quotes here in Amb. 10: therefore while both the monad and the triad are hymned, the divinity beyond all things is neither monad nor triad and is known neither by us nor by anything else, but in order that we might truly hymn its transcendent unity and divine fecundity, we name the divinity that transcends every name with a three-fold and unified divine name, and the divinity beyond being by means of beings.751 The unity and plurality that are expressed by numbers provide us a way of speaking, and more properly hymning the divine, but as with all divine names, these names provide us with ways to speak but do not directly name what is beyond them. The notion of an eternal dyad, therefore, is untenable according to Maximus. The “relationship” between God and the world of material reality consists not in the fact that they are coeternal with each other but that we believe in the existence of God from the existence of creatures. Maximus does not consider this an argumentative proof; it is “by faith” that we know the existence of God from creatures.752 On their own terms, certain aspects of this argumentation are less than convincing, or at least are only convincing to someone who already believes that the universe had a beginning. For example, the mere fact of having an ἀρχή does not entail a temporal beginning to existence. The theological tradition speaks of the ἀρχή or µοναρχία of the Father, which the Son and Spirit share, but which derives from the 750

Amb. 10, 1185C4-15.

751

Ps. Dion. Areo., Div. nom., XIII.3.

752

Amb. 10, 1188B1.

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Father, so that the Father may be said to be the ἀρχή of Son and Spirit as the one from whom the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds;753 this most definitely does not imply that the Son and Spirit began to exist. Second, Maximus does not make it entirely clear why the God-beyond-being could not eternally grant the cosmos being. The issue is whether or not the eternity of matter entails its total infinity, as Maximus thinks it does. We observed in a quotation above that Maximus constructs a line of reasoning such that eternal→ungenerated→unmoved→beginningless/without a source (ἄναρχον)→infinite But can something be eternally finite, i.e. the eternally existing finite effect of an eternal cause? Finitude in this sense refers not to temporal duration (the effect would be infinite in this sense), but to the existence of the effect, which depends upon—is limited by—its cause. A dyad of an eternal God eternally giving being to eternal finite material reality may be permissible from the perspective of an infinite duration of time so that material reality would be considered infinite in one sense (temporally) but finite in another, existentially, that is, its being derives from, and is therefore determined (bounded) by, what is outside itself. In response to this, Maximus stipulates that what is infinite must be infinite—i.e. boundless—in every sense (not just temporally): No one who is able to exercise rational thinking at all would call infinite something that admits of something essentially different from it being forever contemplated along with it or at the same time as it, knowing that the entire meaning of infinity completely escapes one who thinks like this. For that which is infinite is infinite according to every rational principle and mode: according to substance (οὐσία), power, activity…source and final end.754

753

Cf., G. Naz., Or. 29.2, and Maximus’ comments, Amb. 1 (ad Thomam); G. Naz., Or. 31.14.

754

Amb. 10, 1184D5-13.

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Is this necessary? Maximus’ point is that the very notion of another (God) set alongside material reality as its “eternal” source renders material reality finite. However, this position, while somewhat intuitive on a linguistic level (α – πειρον), is not absolutely transparent. Aristotle defined the infinite in terms of an infinite extension in which “one thing is always being taken after another”755 so that Aristotle’s infinity, as Richard Sorabji notes, is precisely what “always has something outside it.”756 Moreover, the notion that God and matter constitute an eternally opposed dyad is a rather facile Manichean position to be arguing against, and the resources of Neoplatonism would certainly provide a response to Maximus’ arguments in favor of the eternity of matter, agreeing as such about the incoherence of dualism but precisely as such disagreeing about the eternity of the substrate of the world and therefore the world itself: the world just is the eternal image and manifestation of the eternal Forms. It could, of course, very well be that Maximus has not refined his thinking on these points; these sections of the Ambigua to John are rather unpolished and speculative pieces, not tightly presented logical treatises. Given the specific issues he addresses, however, it is also likely that he was familiar with the contours of the arguments for and against the eternity of the universe amongst the Neoplatonists and is perhaps presupposing the positions of those who argued that the universe had a beginning against the predominant Greek pagan view. Philoponus’ refutations of Aristotle’s and Proclus’ arguments for the eternity of the universe in particular shed some light on what Maximus

755

Aristotle, Phys. III.6, 206a27-28; Basic Works of Aristotle, 265.

756

Sorabji, Time, Creation, and the Continuum, 210.

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is doing in the Ambigua, so we shall turn to them in order to clarify the issues Maximus has raised. ii. Proclus and Philoponus on the Eternity of the World Nearly every witness we have to ancient pagan Greek philosophy denies that there was an absolute beginning to everything that exists. The specific details of this denial are various—Did this current world order have a beginning? Has there been an infinite succession of worlds? Have time and motion always been?—but the fundamental conviction was that the matter of the universe, however it might be described, is without beginning. The philosophers denied creation out of nothing, a position summed up by Proclus: “generation out of nothing is impossible (ἐκ µηδενὸς γίνεσθαι ἀδύνατον).”757 This view had a long history, from Parmenides, who thought the notion of non-being, and therefore the teaching of generation out of nothing, was incoherent, to the various ways in which philosophers tried to interpret the Timaeus.758 I shall focus here on Proclus’ arguments for the eternity of the world and Philoponus’ refutations, since this particular debate crystallizes issues that are important for our understanding of Maximus. I shall give a brief summary of the contours of Proclus’ position and then present Philoponus’ counter-arguments. Proclus gave eighteen arguments for the eternity of the world, which he variously refers to as ὁ κόσµος or τὸ πᾶν. He relies on various aspects of the Platonic and 757

Proclus, De aeternitate mundi, 9, On the Eternity of the World (De Aeternitate Mundi), trans. and ed. Helen S. Lang and A.D. Macro (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). My account of Proclus modifies some of the translations of this edition. 758

Sorabji, Time, Creation, and the Continuum, 268-276; Reydams-Schils, Demiurge and Providence, 77. Much of this section follows Sorabji’s analysis in Time, Creation, and the Continuum, 210-224, 228-229.

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Aristotelian traditions to make his arguments, but the focal point is the account of the formation of the cosmos by the Demiurge in Plato’s Timaeus. Proclus takes the text as the authority on the nature of the universe and seeks to show how it should be interpreted to teach the eternity of the world. In the first Argument, Proclus argues that the Demiurge’s eternal goodness and desire that all things resemble himself entail that he has eternally caused the world to come to be, that its eternal coming into being and temporal progression constitute the way it resembles the eternal being of God. Because the Demiurge is always able to bring his will to actualization, the world has always been. The eternal goodness, will, and power of the divine Demiurge to produce an image of himself is the basic foundation upon which many of the subsequent arguments depend. In Arguments 2 and 3 Proclus argues that God’s eternal identity as paradigm and actualized demiurge entail that the copy and effect of this eternally actual paradigm must also be eternal. He argues in Argument 4 that because the Demiurge is unmoved by nature there has been no change from non-making to making in his being. In Argument 5, he argues from the fact of temporality—ποτε, that there is a “when”—that time always is, i.e. is coextensive with eternity. He argues for the incorruptibility and thus ungenerated and eternal nature of the world from the goodness of the Demiurge, who alone could undo the cosmos he fashioned, but who would not because of his goodness, in Argument 6. In Argument 7 Proclus claims that the world soul (ἡ ψυχὴ τοῦ παντός), which, as soul, is self-moving, is also therefore “ungenerated and incorruptible.” The universal soul is the source of the motion of the universe (τὸ πᾶν), so it follows that the universe, whose soul is ungenerated and incorruptible, is ungenerated and incorruptible

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as well. With respect to the universe in its all-embracing wholeness, Proclus argues in Argument 8 for its incorruptible and ingenerate nature from the fact that there is nothing “outside” it that could introduce corruption into it or bring it into being. On the other hand, in Argument 9 he argues that any corruption of a thing comes from the evil within it, but because the universe is “a blessed god” according to Plato, the universe has no evil and therefore is incorruptible. This implies that the universe is ungenerated as well, since generation implies the corrupting process of destruction in birth by means of active (κρατῆσαν) and passive (κρατηθέν) agents. Argument 10 claims that the existence of “proper” or “natural” places (ὁ οἰκείος or κατὰ φύσιν τόπος) for the elements is a proof of the eternity of the world. If the elements were in their proper place before the universe was put into order then there was no beginning of the order of the universe. If they were not in their own proper place, then something must have moved them from their proper place, since elements, as bodies, are not self-moving. The view that the universe came into being, then, would require that unnatural places precede natural places for the elements. However, the unnatural only exists in relation to the natural so that if there is an unnatural place, there also is a natural one, and as he has shown, a natural place for elements implies the eternity of the universe, though not of the individual things in it. Argument 11 identifies the “receptacle (ὑποδοχή)” of Plato’s Timaeus with matter, arguing that matter “is for the sake of” generation. If matter were brought into being out of nothing, argues Proclus, it would be “for the sake of something by chance (κατὰ τύχην)” and not necessary so that that which has been fashioned would not be stable (οὐδὲ τὴν δηµιουργίαν ἔχειν τὸ βέβαιον). Conversely, if matter does not come 344

from nothing but is eternal, and if matter and generation are understood always to be together as τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα (“cause,” “that for the sake of which”) and τὸ ἕνεκά τοῦ (“what has a cause,” “what is for the sake of something”), then generation is eternal along with matter. From matter’s relation to generation Proclus moves to consider it in relation to form. Matter, he argues, is in an inseparable relation to form. Matter is, in fact, always matter for some form. Assuming that simple (incorporeal) matter is sufficient for all generation, is potentially all things, and is sufficient actually to exist, it follows for Proclus that all forms are in it. Quite simply, if matter exists, it has form (µηδενὸς γὰρ δεοµένη πρὸς τὸ εἶναι ὕλη οὐδενὸς δεῖται πρὸς τὸ εἴδη ἔχειν). If matter is eternal— which Proclus seems to take as demonstrated from his initial claim about the consequences of matter coming from nothing—then form is eternally in matter and thus the cosmos is eternal as well. Matter exists for the sake of order (κόσµος), not disorder (ἀκοσµία) so that if there is matter there is the cosmos. Taken together with the earlier part of the argument, matter exists for the sake of generation, form, and the cosmos; the issue, of course, is whether matter is eternal. Argument 12 points to the problems of positing that the generated cosmos is not eternal. This would be due either to a failing on the part of matter or a limitation on the part of the maker. However, the Demiurge is always the same and sufficient for fashioning the cosmos and matter is unchangeable so that the universe must be eternal. The implication seems to be that the present existence of the cosmos, which is composed of unchangeable matter by an unchanging and always sufficient Demiurge, implies its eternal existence.

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Argument 13 reasons that, in accordance with Plato’s description of the circular motion of the heavens, the heavens must be eternal since their perfectly cyclical motion does not admit of an opposite motion to introduce corruption into it. The heavens as part of the whole cosmos could not be eternal while the cosmos itself was not, so it follows that the cosmos, which is composed of both generated and ungenerated things, is eternal. In Argument 14, Proclus seeks to establish the eternal orderliness (τάξις) of generation in matter, which in turn would establish the eternity of the κόσµος, since “from the moment there is order there is the cosmos.” To do so he distinguishes between “matter” and “the substrate (τὸ ὑποκείµενον)” so that matter is taken to be that which is “well-suited (εὐεργόν)” to being fashioned whereas the substrate does not have matter’s potentiality (δύναµις) for being formed. The question is, does matter preexist the traces (τὰ ἴχνη) of the forms or vice versa? Proclus denies both of these, arguing that matter is always suited to receive the traces of the forms that are always present to it, so that the order of the cosmos as matter endowed with form is eternal. Proclus’ Argument 15 considers how the cosmos is like (ὅµοιον) the eternal (τὸ αἰώνιον). The eternal is non-temporal (it has no “when”: οὐδαµῇ ἔχει τὸ ποτέ), has no extension in time (παράτασιν), or “before” and “after” (πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον). Therefore, for the cosmos to be like it, it must not have a beginning and end but must extend perpetually (τὸ ἀεὶ ἔχει) in both directions, to the future and the past. Only in this way does it resemble the eternal. In Argument 16, Proclus uses the notion of the Demiurge’s will (βούλησις) to demonstrate the eternity of the world. According to the Timaeus, the Demiurge wills that there be no disorderly motion in the cosmos and that what is brought into being be 346

“bound” together so as to be preserved in its existence. Because the Demiurge is eternal and therefore does not will something at one time or another but rather always wills the same thing, it follows that cosmos is eternally free of disorder and is preserved in its existence. Argument 17 begins from two axioms: 1.) “everything generated is corruptible, and 2.) everything ungenerated is incorruptible. Because Plato’s Demiurge has said, “I am the Demiurge of immortal things,” thus indicating that the cosmos is incorruptible, the cosmos must be ungenerated. Finally, Argument 18 reiterates a basic intuition that has appeared throughout Proclus’ arguments, that because the Demiurge, as eternal and most divine, is “uniform and self-identical (κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχειν),” it follows that he is always actively a demiurge and thus always actively produces the world. The world itself must therefore be eternal. Because the Demiurge is always present to the cosmos as the paradigm of its order, the cosmos has always been and always will be in a state of order. The nuances of these arguments, particularly the notion of time in its infinite duration to the past and future as the image of durationless eternity and Proclus’ account of the difference between matter (which is matter for something, i.e. towards formation) and the totally unformed substrate, really go beyond Maximus’ arguments in the Ambigua, and as we have just seen, Maximus employs the notion of time as an image of eternity in his study of the Transfiguration.759 I shall return to Maximus’ account below, but first it will be helpful to observe a few of Philoponus’ central arguments against Proclus.

759

See above, 325.

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Philoponus composed his refutation of Proclus’ arguments in 529. I cannot present an overview of Philoponus’ refutations of all eighteen of Proclus’ arguments here. I shall confine this discussion to how Philoponus deals with the strongest and most determinative aspects of Proclus’ thinking about the eternity of the world, namely his contention that an eternally good and actualized Demiurge, who is the paradigm of the world, necessitates an eternal world as its effect and image, and his account of how matter and (the traces of) form are eternally present to one another. Not only are these interesting arguments, they are of particular relevance to Maximus (or nearly any other Greek patristic thinker) because they begin with premises he would accept, that the Creator is eternally good, unchanging, and the paradigm of the world and that the “forms” (Maximus usually calls them λόγοι) exist eternally in the mind of God. We shall begin with Philoponus’ refutation of the notion that an infinitely powerful, actual, and paradigmatic cause must eternally generate that which it causes. His refutation of this basic argument is relevant to Proclus’ Arguments 1-3, 12, 15-16, and 18, since these all, in one way or another, are related to this basic position. Philoponus demonstrates that it is due to the nature of what has been generated alone—as opposed to the nature of God, who generates in his infinite power—that it is impossible for “more or better things (µήτε πλείονα τῶν ὄντων µήτε κρείττονα)” to have come to be than actually have.760 He then uses this notion as a foothold for advancing the argument that the world is not without beginning “even though God has always been good and always a creator.” Just as the finitude (in magnitude and number) of things is not due to any 760

De aeternitate. mundi contra Proclum, I.3, 7, Ioannes Philoponus de Aeternitate Mundi contra Proclum ed. Hugo Rabe (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1963 [1899]); Philoponus Against Proclus’s ‘On the Eternity of the World 1-5,’ trans. Michael Share (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).

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limitation on the part of God—since, as Philoponus says, everyone admits that an actual and traversable infinity of things is impossible—but inheres in the nature of things, so too, argues Philoponus, would the fact of the world’s not being ungenerated not imply a limitation on the power and goodness of God. If the world had existed from everlasting with God then there would necessarily (on Aristotle’s account) be an actual infinity of things that have filled the world and which has been traversed until the present moment. A finitude of number for created things implies a finite time of the world’s existence. Indeed, Richard Sorabji has written that it was Philoponus who first isolated this basic contradiction in Aristotle’s philosophical account of infinity. Aristotle’s account of infinity describes an extended infinity of finite realities so that, rather than conceiving of infinity as including everything, infinity, as we noted above, is precisely that which does not include everything, because one more thing could always be added. However, he denies that infinity is ever actual or traversable. Philoponus points out that these restrictions pose a problem for Aristotle’s belief that the universe and its motion have no beginning: “If the world had existed from everlasting, it would be absolutely necessary for the number of things that have come into existence in the world from the beginning until now to have become actually infinite as well (ἄπειρον γεγονέναι κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν).”761 Aristotle’s account thus implies an actual and traversable infinity. Now, Philoponus’ statement that “that which consists of finite [parts] is finite” is not logically necessary, but given what Philoponus has just said, he must mean by it “finite in number” so that he is speaking of “a finite number of finite parts.”762 The point of Philoponus’ critique, then, is that the notion of an ungenerated, beginningless universe 761

Philoponus, De aet. mundi contra Proclum, I.3, 9.

762

Share, Philoponus Against Proclus’s ‘On the Eternity of the World 1-5,’ 92 n.32.

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violates commonly accepted limitations to the concept of infinity, namely that it cannot be actual or traversable. If it were actual, as a beginningless universe would seem to imply, then it would be added to as time continues to progress so that infinity would “grow,” which is absurd. Therefore God does not create more or better things than he has created and the world does not exist from everlasting. Because the heart of Proclus’ first argument for the eternity of the world is founded 1.) on the goodness of God, that God’s goodness entails that he has never begrudged existence to the world and has always desired to make the world like himself, and 2.) on the power of God, that he is always able to cause the world, Philoponus addresses the question of why God did not confer on the world his own substance (οὐσία) so that it would be co-eternal with him. Philoponus argues that it would be impossible for the ungenerated cause to produce something identical to it in substance because this would entail God’s creation of himself and the creation of an uncreated substance. Rather, the creature, for Philoponus, is by definition of a different substance than the creator, but this in no way limits the goodness of God or his power. It is simply a consequence of the nature of created reality, that it is not without beginning.763 In his refutation of Proclus’ second argument, which contends that the eternity of the paradigm of the world entails the beginninglessness of the copy, Philoponus discusses the relationship of the Forms, considered as “creative principles or concepts,” to the realities that have been produced “according to” them. The point of the discussion is to demonstrate that those things created in accordance with the principles need not coexist with them; i.e. an eternal paradigm does not imply a beginningless copy. At this point in 763

Philoponus, De aet. mundi contra Proclum, I.4.

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the refutation, Philoponus has already denied that being paradigmatic is constitutive of the essence of the Forms so that their eternal existence does not necessitate the coexistence of copies of them. He then goes on to note that principles of the creation of something very naturally, in fact must, preexist what is created according to them, just as a builder “may be in possession of the principles for [building] a house but not yet be creating [anything] based on them.” The principles of creation, whose “being consists in their being concepts of a certain kind,” become patterns when the Creator creates something according to them. 764 Philoponus extends the dynamics of this argument in the next chapter of his refutation in which he addresses Proclus’ claim that the Creator, as “always an actual creator,” must always actually be bringing the world into being. According to the Aristotelian dynamics of potentiality and actuality (δύναµις and ἐνέργεια) Proclus argues that any move from potentiality to actuality requires an antecedent actuality, so that there must be a foundational actuality that is not brought from potency into actuality and thus eternally actualizes the world. The alternative for Proclus is an infinite regress. In response, Philoponus argues that Proclus has equivocated the notions of potentiality and actuality in that he has failed to distinguish between different kinds of these two concepts. Citing Aristotle,765 Philoponus distinguishes between first and second potentiality and first and second actuality. First potentiality refers to a basic receptivity or fitness for the acquisition of an ability, such as a child’s potentiality for being a grammarian. The child is potentially a grammarian in the sense that the child has the 764

Philoponus, De aet. mundi contra Proclum, II.4-5.

765

Aristotle, De anima 417a21-b2.

351

natural capacity as a human being for acquiring knowledge of the rules and conventions of grammar and literature, but it is not therefore the case that the child could begin to actualize the activity of the grammarian at any given moment. This state would pertain to second potentiality, the state, in this case, in which a person has in fact acquired the knowledge of grammar and therefore could actualize it at any moment, whether or not the person is actually doing so. This is also what Philoponus (following Aristotle) means by “first actuality,” the stage in which—to continue the example—someone has “actually” acquired the knowledge of grammar as opposed simply to being fit potentially to receive it. On this account, second actuality applies to the grammarian in active exercise of his knowledge, whether in teaching or in his own study. Thus, the axiom that would hold that “when a cause is actual, that which is caused will likewise be actual” is only true for Philoponus for the case of “second actuality,” when God is actually creating something.766 Philoponus’ refutation of Proclus’ account of matter, generation, and form (Argument 11) is of particular relevance to Maximus, since, as we saw above, Maximus makes an argument that is premised on the fact that matter must receive form from outside itself and since it is dependent in this way, all the more is it not self-sufficient with respect to its being and is therefore not eternal. Proclus makes precisely the opposite argument within the same framework: since matter lacks nothing in its being matter, it lacks nothing with respect to its possession of form. Philoponus uses the relation of matter and form to argue for the generation of matter out of nothing, i.e. that matter has no need of an ungenerated substrate for it to come into being. As Philoponus writes, 766

Philoponus, De aet. mundi contra Proclum, III.2-3; Share, Philoponus, 44-45.

352

“things that come to be have need of matter because they are invested with form as they come to be,” this because form, as Philoponus acknowledges, needs matter in order to be what it is. With respect to matter itself, however, “it follows that if it comes to be, it does not have need of matter,” since it is form that needs matter, not matter itself.767 The relation of matter and form does not imply their eternity768 and the logic of their relation implies the opposite. Things in relation need their opposites in order to be, so if matter needs anything to come into being, it would not be eternal prime matter, but form, whereas form needs matter. Philoponus notes that Proclus has not shown the necessity that matter be eternal769 and so Philoponus thinks his own arguments establish the possibility of creation out of nothing. At the very least, Philoponus shows that the ancient arguments for the eternity of the cosmos are not unassailable philosophically. Maximus may be presupposing these arguments or arguments like them, though he does not articulate them precisely as does Philoponus. On the other side of this discussion, while Maximus argues that the universe and matter are not eternal, he does preserve the Alexandrian tradition that “the rational principles of all things that exist and will exist substantially according to essence, or have come to be or will come to be, or have been made manifest, or will be made manifest, preexist firmly in God (ἐν τῷ θεῷ προϋπάρχουσι παγίως).”770 The λόγοι answer here

767

Philoponus, De aet. mundi contra Proclum, XI.12, 458

768

Philoponus, De aet. mundi contra Proclum, XI.10, 451

769

Philoponus, De aet. mundi contra Proclum, XI.10, 448; 452.

770

Amb. 42, 1329A1-4.

353

to Philoponus’ point about the eternal Forms, which do not imply the eternity of the realities that instantiate them. We have seen in Maximus’ interpretation of the Transfiguration that God and creatures appear together in the transfigured Christ, but it is precisely the knowledge of God and creatures that appears and this is not an indication of the coeternity of God and world. The unity occurs in the mind of the human being and simultaneously effects and expresses this intellectual unity. Maximus’ critique of the pagan view of the eternity of the world—beyond the logical problems he and Philoponus raise—would be its fundamental inability to separate the world from the mind’s understanding of the world. This is ultimately not an issue of rationality but of faith, since Maximus grants the unknowability of things in their essence or subject (τὸ ὑποκείµενον), just as he does for God. Indeed, the human intuition of the world leads to faith in the existence of the world as a reality independent of the mind just as it leads to faith in the existence of God. Thus, for Maximus the inseparability of God and the world in human understanding does not entail their eternal inseparability, for human understanding is bounded by time and cannot now see beyond it, even as it is compelled to try and transcend it. At the beginning of its contemplation, the mind can only consider God in terms of the world so for all it knows within the bounds of its own nature God and the world have always eternally been together. The act of faith and transcendence of human nature by grace, however, lead to the understanding that this world has a beginning and an end. iii. Love as Divine Motion With the establishment of the finite temporality of the world, a finitude that is indicated by the motion of the world, the question of the source of cosmic motion arises. 354

How does Maximus account for the source of cosmic motion if it has not been eternally motivated by an eternal and changeless first mover? To address this question, we once again return to Maximus’ account of the soul and its contemplation. Maximus has analyzed the powers of the soul into intellect, reason, and sense perception and has shown how they are finally unified by the ascent of sense perception to intellect by means of reason. Maximus makes another reduction of the powers of the soul to the single and “most general virtue of all,” love (ἀγάπη), which invigorates (ἐκστατικήν) what comes from it, motivates (προσαγωγικήν) what exists through it, and unifies (ἑνοποιητικήν) those whose existence is directed towards it, have been moved to it, and have come to rest with it. Finally, it is preeminently what makes all things divine (θεοποιητικήν).771 This parallel unification to intellect and to love places Maximus within the erotic cosmology of Plato for which we argued in our first chapter. 772 Indeed, love forms the milieu in which the whole of the spiritual path that Maximus has been describing takes place. In the opening chapters of the Chapters on Love, Maximus likewise relates love to knowledge and to the practical life but there he is concerned to distinguish knowledge of God and knowledge of creatures: “Love is a good disposition (διάθεσις) of soul in which one prefers no existing thing to the knowledge of God.”773 Moreover, love springs from ἀπάθεια,774 which, as we have seen, is the fulfillment of the practical life of virtue. Here

771

Amb. 21, 1249B6-10.

772

Origen claims that Scripture uses the less intense word ἀγάπη for the sake of the less spiritual when in fact ἔρως and ἀγάπη are equally applicable to God and the conduct of the spiritual life: Comm. Cant. Prol. II.20-23, 30-31, 33-36. 773

Cap. car., I.1.

774

Cap. car., I.2.

355

in the Ambigua to John, Maximus is more concerned to give expression to the unitive dynamic of knowledge of God and the world and the experiences of the body. Love becomes identified with God himself and describes the nature of the divine causation of the motion of the world. On the path of philosophy, the various modes of natural contemplation that we have observed undergo a unification that parallels the unification of the soul and virtue and are progressively reduced to a single vanishing point of thought, where nature falls away and the mind stands before “God alone [who] truly is, and is the being and motion of beings, the clear distinction of different things, the insoluble continuity of things that have been mixed, and an immovable foundation of what has been established.”775 The five modes of natural contemplation are contracted to three, which stand for ethical, natural, and theological philosophy, and which are contained in creation “by virtue of its own rational principle.” These three are then contracted again to two, wisdom and philosophy, where wisdom contains “every expression of true faith” and all of the “mystical and natural statements concerning other matters” within itself, while philosophy “is constitutive of our moral character and way of thinking, of action and contemplation, and of virtue and knowledge, and it is born upwards by an assimilation that relates philosophy to wisdom as its cause.”776 Finally, these two are “enfolded into one” around the unified and unifying Word that holds the universe together. In this way “they have enabled the intellect to make its way to the cause through its simple encounter

775

Amb. 10, 1137A7-12.

776

Amb. 10, 1136C5-D6.

356

with the rational principles in beings.”777 Having arrived at this unified encounter with the Word, the unified intellect is no longer dispersed among the various λόγοι in the cosmos but remains only with the cause of all. In this way, the saints transform their sensory experiences of the world into a likeness of the intellectual world that is infused with virtue: when the saints have gathered these modes of contemplation into one, they impress upon themselves, as much as possible, the perfectly unified rational principle of the different forms of virtue, which entirely constitutes the essence of the intellectual world of thought, having traversed all beings and even the rational principles of the virtues themselves, or better yet, having hastened back unknowingly with these towards the Word beyond being and goodness who is beyond them and who is the source and goal of their existence. And when every individual has been united to the whole as much as is possible in accordance with the natural power existing in them, they take on the Word’s quality, such as they can, so that they can be recognized as coming from God alone, as though the very God-Word himself were gazing into a perfectly clear mirror and beholding his perfectly reflected form appearing by means of his divine qualities. None of his venerable characteristics, which are naturally revealed to human nature and which are stronger than every likeness, is lacking: think of air, which is itself devoid of radiance, being completely infused with light.778 This image of the Word seeing himself in the world—and specifically in the human being—as in a mirror recalls Maximus’ statement that in the incarnation the Lord became “the type and symbol of himself (ἑαυτοῦ γενέσθαι τύπον καὶ σύµβολον)”779 and also that “God and the human being are paradigms of each other (ἀλλήλων εἶναι παραδείγµατα τὸν θεὸν καὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον).”780 By gathering all of nature into the

777

Amb. 10, 1136D6-1137A4.

778

Amb. 10, 1137B2-C6.

779

Amb. 10, 1165D8-9.

780

Amb. 10, 1113B11-12.

357

unity of the Word who has made it and holds it together, the human being makes the world as a whole into the paradigm of God and becomes the place where nature becomes a “type and symbol” of the Lord. To “know” nature is to know the God who creates it, holds it together, and ultimately identifies himself with it: From the symbols of what are sensible, however, we say, as far as we are able—for we have but weakly received the likenesses of the knowledge of God on the conceptual level only—that he is everything inasmuch as we have recognized him, from his creations, as their cause.781 Maximus brings the concept of love explicitly to this notion of identity and causality in his consideration of how God produces the motion of the cosmos. “The divine,” he writes, exists as absolutely immoveable according to essence and nature, since it is boundless, related to nothing, and invisible: it is like a scientific principle (ἐπιστηµονικὸς λόγος) existing in the essences of things, which is said “to be moved” when it providentially sets into motion the rational principle of each being—which is each being’s natural principle of movement—and, without undergoing any change, takes upon itself as cause all of the categories that pertain to what it causes.782 The Dionysian notion of the cause taking on the names of what it causes leads Maximus to bring in the Areopagite in response to the question of how an “absolutely immoveable” God can cause motion in something else. Quoting the Divine Names he writes, “Why is it that theologians sometimes call the divine ‘love’ (ἔρωτα), and sometimes ‘delight’ (ἀγάπην), but at other times they call it ‘the beloved’ (ἐραστόν) and ‘the delightful’ (ἀγαπητόν)?’” He decides the matter in this way: “Because it is both moved to it and it sets it in motion.”783 Maximus explains this as follows: 781

Amb. 10, 1165C11-D1.

782

Amb. 23, 1260B5-12.

783

Amb. 23, 1260B14-C4; Div. Nom. IV.14, 160.1-2, 3-4.

358

The divine is moved in that it produces an innate orientation (σχέσιν ἐνδιάθετον) of love and delight in those capable of receiving them, and it produces motion since it attracts by nature the desire of those who are moved to it. Again, it produces motion and is itself moved: it thirsts to be thirsted after, it loves to be loved, it delights to be delighted in.784 It will be useful here to give the sentence in full from which Maximus has taken his quotation. Dionysius writes, In general, why is it that theologians sometimes want to call [God] ‘love’ and ‘delight,’ but at other times they call him ‘the beloved’ and ‘the delightful’? Because he is the cause—just as he is the sender and begetter—of (love), and is (love) itself. And because he is moved towards (love) and sets (love) in motion, or because he is himself the one who leads forth and motivates the procession from himself and to himself (αὐτὸς ἑαυτοῦ καὶ ἑαυτῷ ἐστι προαγωγικὸς καὶ κινητικός). In this they call him ‘the delightful’ and ‘the beloved’ as beautiful and good, and ‘love’ and ‘delight’ as being the power that at the same time moves and elevates to himself, who alone is the absolutely self-sufficient beauty and good itself, even as he is the manifestation of himself through himself and the good procession and simple erotic motion of the transcending unity, self-moving, self-actualizing, preexisting in the good, gushing forth from the good to existing things and returning again to the good.785 Both Maximus and Dionysius use and extend Aristotle’s conception of the unmoved mover from Metaphysics XII.7, in which the unmoved mover is understood to effect motion in everything else as the object of desire (τὸ ὀρεκτικόν) and thought (τὸ νοητόν). The extension of the idea is precisely that God the cause of all is said not only to be the object of love/desire but also actively to love creation. Or to use the language Maximus is trying to explain, God is moved by his love for creation and this motion is realized in the Dionysian outpouring of goodness to beings and its return, which is the very outpouring and return of God from himself to himself; hence the language of “selfmotion (αὐτοκίνησις).” Everything that exists just is the “motion” of God proceeding 784

Amb. 23, 1260C8-13.

785

Div. Nom. IV.14, 160.1-11.

359

from himself and returning to himself. Maximus is able to use the language of motionlessness for God as a consequence of his notion that God is limit or horizon (ὅρος) of the world. There is nothing “outside” God that moves him. This fact is observed in the words ἀκίνητον and ἀπαθόν: God is not moved passively. All cosmic motion is contained within the cycle of God’s procession and return so that Dionysius’ self-moving God, who is the initiator and object of his own self-outpouring is Maximus’ unmoved God, who undergoes no motivation from anything “outside” himself. Within this grand vision, Maximus focuses particularly on God as the object of desire, understanding, and ultimately praise, arguing that when Gregory refers, in the quotation Maximus has set at the beginning of Ambiguum 23, to the monad “being moved” to dyad and then triad, which would seem to be a rather different issue than that which animates Dionysius’ text, Gregory is referring to the movement of the intellect that is “taught to confess beginning from the Father, continuing to the Son, to confess him together with the Father, and then to receive the Holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son, to worship the perfect Triad together with the perfect monad.”786 Just as the fullness of the Trinity is progressively revealed through the course of Scripture as Gregory says,787 so too does Maximus affirm that its fullness is revealed progressively to the individual mind, like an art that is slowly mastered by a craftsman, and like light that illumines the mind but is also the very goal of the mind’s vision. Love, whether ἔρως or ἀγάπη, is the content of the dynamism between God and the world and this dynamism is recapitulated in the soul of each person. 786

Amb. 23, 1261A4-9; Maximus makes a similar transposition of divine motion to the created mind that comes to an awareness of the Trinity in Ambiguum 1 (to Thomas). 787

Cf. G. Naz., Or. 31.26.

360

We see in this Ambiguum, then, a densely packed account of God and the world on the one and, and of God and the intellect on the other. Maximus first thinks how God may be said to cause movement and even to be moved in general with respect to the cosmos and then applies this notion to the intellect’s knowledge and praise of the Holy Trinity. In this way he unifies the concerns of natural philosophy—the causality of motion and change in the cosmos—and theology in the concept of love. iv. The Univocity of Being Incomprehensible We see in Ambiguum 17 another way in which creation reveals and participates in God. Commenting upon Gregory Nazianzen’s statement that we have “no exact understanding of creation” and that the divine nature “is ungraspable and incomprehensible,”788 Maximus explains, The phrase, “ungraspable and incomprehensible,” must be posited commonly of creation and the nature that is beyond these things and from which these things—clearly creatures—exist.789 An aspect of the relation between God and creation, a way in which creation is able to reveal God, is the fact that neither are knowable in their essence. Maximus gives a more abstract rendition of Gregory’s rhetoric in Oration 28, which itself echoes the Lord’s rhetoric about the created world in the book of Job, when he questions our ability to know the “subject (τὸ ὑποκείµενον)” of the predicates we attribute to a given reality. Within the context of Gregory’s oration, the concern for defining the subject of predication comes within his polemics against the Eunomians, who claimed to know the essence of God as ἀγέννητος, “unbegotten.” Gregory challenges the notion that such a 788

G.Naz., Or. 28.5, 110.10-11

789

Amb. 17, 1229B8-12.

361

predication can give knowledge of who or what God is and then he significantly turns to the created world to make his argument, saying (and this is the quotation from which Maximus begins Ambiguum 17), For since it is not adequate to say ‘it is a body’ or ‘it has been begotten’ if one wants to bring forth and indicate to what these predicates are related and about what they are concerned, it is also necessary to say what the subject of these is, if one would perfectly and adequately bring forth the intellectual reality. For being embodied, begotten, and corruptible pertain to a human being, an ox, and a horse.”790 According to Maximus, Gregory’s rhetorical strategy against the Eunomians was to show them how the understanding of even the lowest, most common aspects of created being goes beyond the power of human reason so that they would refrain all the more from going too far in their definition of God. It is not enough to give a list—even an exhaustive list—of qualities or attributes to have complete knowledge of something. One must know the subject of these predications and this subject is not reducible to its predicates, even to them as a whole: it “does not derive from these things, is not these things themselves, or a certain one of these; neither is it from some of them, or a certain one of these select few; nor is it in them, or in some, or again in a certain one of these few.”791 What a thing is essentially therefore remains ineffable, for anything one might give as an answer to the question, What is this? could only be a certain attribute or collection of attributes that could just as well be attributed of “an ox, a horse, or anything else.”792 But the thing itself, the subject,

790

G. Naz., Or. 28.9; supplying “begotten”—γέννητος in Gregory’s text—from Eriugena’s genitum; Jeauneau, Ambigua ad Iohannem, 123.6. 791

Amb. 17, 1225D6-9.

792

Amb. 17, 1225C2-3.

362

cannot be demonstrated. We believe that it exists because there must be something of which we predicate certain qualities, but that is as far as reason can go, whether it is a matter of created things or of God. We may say then that God and creatures appear together as ineffable.793 III. God and the Language of the World i. The Problem of God and the Language of the World The foregoing considerations have led us to the question of language, a question that for many today constitutes first philosophy. The question is never far from Maximus’ thinking and is of great importance to his understanding of the contemplation of nature insofar as that contemplation is bound up with an account (λόγος) of the cosmos. In the section of the Ambigua that runs from Ambiguum 9 to Ambiguum 22, which I have identified as a loosely coherent set, the first and last chapters form an inclusio of dense statements regarding the possibility of speaking about God, and particularly the aporia of describing the utter unity of God with the words of diverse creation. Thus all of the philosophical reflection contained within Amb. 9-22, much of it concerned with the cosmos, is framed by the question of what it means to speak of God in the language of the world. Maximus follows this section with a section (Amb. 23-30) that is explicitly about the use of theological language but as we shall see, the issue implied in Maximus’ reading of Gregory on these points is precisely the problem of applying language derived from descriptions of the natural world to God. I shall give a summary of the “frame” of Amb. 9-22 and then proceed to Maximus’ account of God and language in Amb. 23-30.

793

This recalls Gregory of Nyssa’s observation that we should not think we can understand the essence of God when we cannot even understand the essence of our own minds: De hom. op. XI, PG 44.153D11-13.

363

Gregory compares God to the sun in Or. 21: just as the sun both illumines that which is seen—thus enabling vision—and is itself what is seen as light, so too does God both enable thought and become himself the highest content for thought. The quotation from which Maximus begins Ambiguum 9 then follows: “For [the most philosophical, piercing, and curious intellect] neither has nor ever will have something more exalted [for thought than God].”794 Maximus comments: With these words, I think that this God-minded teacher sets his student free from all comparative (συγκριτικῆς), contrastive (διακριτικῆς), and indeed any other kind of discursive attitude (σχέσεως) that could be named. For those who are expert in these matters say that such a form of discourse is not qualified by any particular attitude whatsoever (ἄσχετον γὰρ τὸ τοιοῦτον εἶδος τοῦ λόγου), and is able to speak about what exists incomparably beyond all things since it possesses the power of preeminent negation.795 The context in Gregory’s oration indicates that he has been speaking about the contemplative aspect of philosophical life with its concern for the intellect’s journey to the final object of its desire, where it will ultimately find rest.796 Maximus draws this into a consideration of both thinking and language, for the λόγος as human reason and discourse is directed towards the one who is “incomparably beyond all things (ἀσυγκρίτως ὑπὲρ πάντα εἶναι)”797 insofar as it is able to speak what is beyond all things because of its “power of preeminent negation (δύναµιν ἔχον ὑπεροχικῆς ἀποφάσεως).” Because God, who is the mind’s true object of desire, is “incomparably 794

G.Naz., Or. 21.1.

795

Amb. 9, 1105C.

796

G. Naz., Or. 21.1.

797

The whole phrase is καὶ ταὐτὸν δύνασθαι τῷ ἀσυγκρίτως ὑπὲρ πάντα εἶναι λέγειν. The τῷ may be a mistake; Eriugena translates et hanc posse incomparabiliter super omnia esse dicere, Jeauneau, Ambigua ad Iohannem, 44.V.6-7.

364

beyond all things,” that is, does not fall under any sort of discursive procedure to which the human mind has recourse (“comparative,” “contrastive,” etc.), because God is, in fact ἄσχετον, the mind in its activity and discourse must be ἄσχετον as well. This is another extension of the movement to simplicity that holds together the practical and contemplative aspects of philosophy. If Ambiguum 9 indicates the possibility of human discourse reaching beyond its conventions to give an account of the divine, Ambiguum 22 raises the specter of the extreme difficulty of such discourse. Maximus begins Ambiguum 22 with a quotation from Gregory that cautions of the special difficulty of theological language as compared to other kinds of discourse: “Speech about God, inasmuch as it is more perfect, to the same degree is it more difficult to approach. There are both more issues to be apprehended and more difficult solutions.”798 The specific difficulty upon which Maximus focuses this brief Ambiguum has to do with the problem of the unity of God and the multiplicity of the world. Maximus observes that the diversity of the world goes all the way to the core of its being, that the “many things” that have come into existence are truly and utterly different from each other in their λόγοι, in the divinely constituted essence of their being. The question becomes then, how God, the source of the λόγοι and their ultimate referent, relates to them in their diversity: how [is] God, who is truly not one being among beings, but is also, in fact, all things and beyond all things, in each rational principle of each thing according to its own specific identity and in all the rational principles, according to which all things exist, together?799 798

G. Naz., Or. 28.21.

799

Amb. 22, 1257B3-7.

365

Every divine act “signifies God in his fullness through itself in its own particular way without dividing him into parts” so that God is somehow in the λόγος of each individual thing that exists and in everything collectively and yet remains unchanged in his perfect simplicity. Maximus leaves this as a problem and while he has dealt with it in various ways in Ambigua 9-22, he uses this last Ambiguum of the section both to form an inlcusio with the first and as an introduction to the next section of the Ambigua, which addresses the problem of how we are to apply the language of the world to divine reality. These chapters will in turn effect a transition to the more explicitly Christological chapters of the second half of the Ambigua to John (Ambigua 31-71).

ii. Christ, Concept, Language Ambigua 23-30 form a unit that follows the scope of Gregory’s third and fourth Theological Orations (Orations 29 and 30, the First and Second Orations on the Son), focusing primarily on issues of theological language. In what sense do we speak of κίνησις (motion) with respect to God (Amb. 23)? How does the begetting of the Son relate to the will of the Father, and more generally, what is the relation between God as a willing subject and his acts of will (Amb. 24)? How are we to understand the concept of cause and (divine) nature with respect to the relation between Father and Son (Amb. 25)? Is the Father the Father in virtue of his essence or of his ἐνέργεια (Amb. 26)? How is the Father also the “God” of Christ (Amb. 27)? What does it mean to apply attributes to God (Amb. 28)? How are we to comport ourselves to the names we give to the Son (Amb. 30)? As a continuation of the question of God and the language of the world in Ambiguum 22, the difficulty that Maximus addresses in various ways in this series of chapters has to do

366

precisely with how the language we use within the realm of nature—the language of motion, causality, substance and actualization—relates to our discourse about God, and particularly about Christ the Son of the Father. These canonical questions from the Arian controversy are thus as much about the nature of language and the world as they are about the essence of God; indeed, the Cappadocians charged their radical Arian adversaries with the failure to understand precisely this point a. Ambiguum 23: Activity and Passivity Ambiguum 23, composed as a response to Gregory’s statement that “the monad is moved (κινηθεῖσα) from the beginning to dyad, until it comes to stability as triad,”800 deals with a fundamental question of the relationship between God and the world: how is an unmoving, unchanging God related to a world that is defined by motion? Gregory’s quotation, in fact, appears to attribute motion to God himself and thus provides the aporia and the direction of its resolution. Maximus begins with a straight-forward syllogism to demonstrate that the divine is unmoved because it has no cause of its being, but is rather the cause of all things. All motion must have a cause, he says, and all things that are in motion must both have a cause of their motion and a cause of their being, which is its ultimate principle (ἀρχή) of being. This ἀρχή is also its τέλος, the end towards which its motion leads it. Anything, he continues, that moves from an ἀρχή towards its τέλος, which is a return to the ἀρχή, must be something that has come into being (γενητόν) as created by its ἀρχή, which as τέλος is the limit towards which it makes progress. Because God has no anterior cause of

800

G.Naz., Or. 29.2.

367

his being, he is not a moving piece in this cosmic dynamic of generation and teleology. He is rather the cause who defines it as its horizon (ὁρίζει).801 The initial question, provoked by Gregory’s quotation, is why Gregory seems to speak of a “moving divinity,” but Maximus uses this initial confusion to address another question: how does an immovable God produce motion in the world? We have addressed Maximus’ account of love and divine motion above to make a point not directly related to Maximus’ linguistic considerations. Maximus’ initial considerations in Amb. 23 are more to our present concern. Maximus first gives two analogies (παραδείγµατα), from the concept of a craft or art and from the visibility of light, to aid in his interpretation of Gregory. An art or craft is said to be “set in motion” in something that is formed according to that art, but the art itself, in its own “constitutive principle (συνεκτικὸς λόγος)”—what it is in itself as an art—does not actually change in any way. It is simply realized in different ways in different artifacts: “It is shaped according to the form of each thing that is produced by it (καθ᾽ ἕκαστον εἶδος τῶν ὑπὸ τὴν αὐτὴν τέχνην µορφούµενος).” In the case of light, Maximus writes, “when it brings (literally “moves”) something into view light is said ‘to be moved’ (φῶς πρὸς τὸ ὁρᾶν τὴν ὄψιν κινῶν λέγεται κινεῖσθαι), although light itself is really the motivating force (κινητικόν) or moving principle (κινητόν) of every appearance.”802 This is probably an indirect reference to Aristotle’s discussion of vision in the De anima, where he writes, “Without the help of light, color remains invisible. Its being color at all means precisely its having in it the power to set in movement what is already actually transparent, and, as we have 801

Amb. 23, 1257C9-1260A10.

802

Amb. 23, 1260B3-5.

368

seen, the actuality of what is transparent is just light ([διὸ καὶ οὐκ ὁρᾶται (τὸ χρῶµα) ἄνευ φωτός· τοῦτο γὰρ ἦν αὐτῳ τὸ χρώµατι εἶναι, τὸ κινητικῷ εἶναι τοῦ κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν διαφανοῦς], ἡ δὲ ἐντελέχεια τοῦ διαφανοῦς φῶς ἐστιν).”803 This notion of the actually transparent being set in motion by color potentially allows for light, the actualization of the transparent, itself to be loosely spoken of as being moved into visibility. Earlier in the chapter, however, Aristotle regards it from the other side and recognizes that it is light itself that makes objects visible.804 For his own part, Maximus is indicating how language can slip between active and passive in our common—and even philosophical—usage of words, and within this point about language, Maximus has chosen examples that indicate how we might think of God and the world together. The metaphor of an art indicates differences of participation in and manifestation of the divine among creatures. Just as the art of painting is manifest in different ways in different products of that art, and thus we might say that painting is “moved” or “actualized” differently in different paintings, so too is the divine present individually—and therefore differently—in each being, though the divine itself remains unchanged: painting, as an art, does not change its principles depending upon what is painted. The image of light is directed towards the epistemological (ἐπιστηµονικὸς λόγος) aspect of the question. We’ve observed how Maximus uses the phrase “in thy light shall we see light” as an expression of how knowledge of God appears simultaneously with knowledge of the world. Here Maximus uses the image to show that while light appears to undergo modification when something “comes to light,” in fact it is

803

Aristotle, De anima II.7.419a9-11; The Basic Works of Aristotle, 549.

804

Aristotle, De Anima II.7.418b2-3.

369

the light itself that is active in making something else visible. Dionysius’ notion of God loving the world and being loved by the world, which Maximus uses in Ambiguum 23 and which we explored above, is another iteration of this theme. b. Ambiguum 24: Subject and Action In Ambiguum 24, Maximus turns more directly to Trinitarian theology, explaining Gregory’s refutation of the Arians on the point of the relationship between the will of the Father and the Father’s begetting of the Son. The claim Gregory is refuting is that the Son is the son, not of the Father (and therefore of the same essence as the Father) but of the will of the Father insofar as the Father’s begetting of the Son is according to, and not contrary to, the Father’s will.805 Gregory first transposes this line of thinking to the human realm and asks his adversaries if they are the offspring of their fathers or of their fathers’ will, implying that we would never say that we are the children of our fathers’ will, even if we do not deny that being begotten of our fathers is not contrary to our fathers’ will. He then considers creation itself and asks whether God created the world voluntarily or involuntarily. Again, it would be absurd to say he created against his will, but following the Arian line of thought would entail that the world does not have God but only the will of God as its creator. It is at this point that Gregory introduces the argument from which Maximus begins Ambiguum 24: But I think that willing (θέλων) and the will (θέλησις) are different things, as are giving birth (γεννῶν) and birth (γέννησις), speaking (λέγων) and speech (λόγος), unless we have quite lost our wits. The first term of each pair pertains to the one who is moved (κινούµενος), and the second term pertains to the movement itself (ἡ κίνησις), as it were. The thing willed (τὸ θεληθέν) certainly does not belong to the will, neither does that which 805

Cf. G. Naz., Or. 29.6, 186.1-9.

370

is born (τὸ γεννηθέν) belong to birth (for surely this does not follow), nor does that which is heard belong to acclamation; rather, all of these belong respectively to the one who wills, the one who gives birth, and the one who speaks. But the things of God, for whom perhaps the will to give birth (γεννᾷν) is birth itself (γέννησις), are also beyond all these.806 Maximus explains Gregory by arguing that a subject is required for the enactment of any potentiality in a being—will itself is not sufficient, since it depends upon the one willing. Moreover, the act of willing, or any other power of the soul, does not exist without the one who wills and that which is willed, just as “there is no vision without the one who sees and that which is seen, and there is no thinking without the one who thinks and that which is thought; thus there is no giving birth without the one who gives birth and that which is born.”807 Willing is a middle term that is always accompanied by the poles of the subject and the content of the willing. Of more importance for our purposes is what Maximus does with the final clause of Gregory’s statement, that “the things of God, for whom perhaps the will to give birth is birth itself, are also beyond all these.” Gregory is willing to make arguments, for rhetorical purposes, in accordance with the claims of the Arians, but his wider criticism is that their entire frame of reference for theological inquiry is wrong: “the question is absurd (τὴν ἐρώτησίν φηµι τὸ ἄτοπον ἔχειν).”808 These discussions of will, potentialities of soul, subjects and objects of activity, and so on are said “with reference to human paradigms,” but “the begetting of the Son by the Father is even beyond

806

Amb. 24, 1261B1-10; G. Naz., Or. 29.6, 188.26-33.

807

Amb. 24, 1264A2-5.

808

G. Naz., Or. 29.9, 194.16.

371

willing.”809 It is not as though the Father were the willing subject, the Son the object willed, with the act of willing mediating between the two. Neither does the Father begin to will the begetting of the Son at a certain point in time. Rather, the Father and the Son have one will, just as they share the same essence and nature.810 Thus the language of willing, along with the related considerations of the subjects of activity, which pertain to the natural world, are relevant to the divine reality of the Trinity, if at all, only in a qualified sense. c. Ambiguum 25: Subject, Predication, and Nature Ambiguum 25 addresses the question of the relationship between predication and nature: in what respect are qualities attributed to a subject? Gregory reports the Eunomian argument, that because the Father is greater than the Son insofar as he is cause of the Son, and because he is cause by nature, the Father must be greater by nature. Gregory responds by challenging his opponents’ understanding of how syllogisms work, and this is where Maximus picks up the argument: Why then couldn’t I, when I have asserted the proposition that the Father is greater by nature, and then assumed as a minor premise that what is greater is not absolutely so by nature (φύσει δὲ οὐ πάντως µεῖζον), or that what is Father is not absolutely so by nature, conclude that what is greater is not absolutely greater, or the Father absolutely Father?811 Gregory’s criticism is that the Eunomian argument commits a fallacy of arguing from the particular to the general in which the Eunomians unjustifiably attribute a predicate to a subject in an absolute sense. As Maximus explains, they take a predicate (“greater”) that 809

Amb. 24, 1264A15-B5.

810

Amb. 24, 1264B7-13.

811

G. Naz., Or. 29.15, 208.7-11.

372

applies specifically with respect to the fact that the Father is the cause as begetter of the Son and apply it to the Father without qualification. Maximus gives the example of a sage or king, who as sage, for example, is wise, but not simply as a human being, as though we could say, “human nature is wise,” because human being x (the sage) is wise.812 In the case of the Father and the Son, the Father is greater as cause of the Son, but not absolutely. In this case, it is not even a matter of misapplying cosmic categories to the divine but rather of misunderstanding how logic works on the cosmic level itself. d. Ambiguum 26: The Concepts of Essence and Activity Ambiguum 26 addresses another topic from the Eunomian controversy that introduces yet another philosophical concept, activity (ἐνέργεια), into the discourse on the Father and Son. Gregory reports the Eunomian dilemma that either “Father” is the name of an essence (οὐσία) or of an activity (ἐνέργεια). If “Father” names the essence, then the Son must be of a different essence, and if “Father” names an activity, then the Son must be a creature, since activity implies a producer and a product.813 Gregory initially responds by denying the Eunomian dichotomy, saying rather that “Father” names a relation (σχέσις), namely, how the Father is in relation to the Son. However, for the sake of argument, Gregory allows “Father” to name the essence and responds that “Father” brings “Son” along with it. He also allows “Father” to name an activity and argues that the activity is precisely the consubtantiality of the Father and Son, “even if the conception of activity being used in this context is rather strange.”814 812

Amb. 25, 1264D4-10.

813

G. Naz., Or. 29.16, 210.2-9.

814

G. Naz., Or. 29.16, 210.22-212.23.

373

Maximus then raises the difficulty: How does God effect (ἐνεργεῖ) the homoousion (consubstantiality)? To make sense of this, Maximus introduces a distinction between two different kinds of activity. The one that may be tolerated when considering the Father’s begetting of the Son is that one which “brings forth naturally from beings what is homogeneous, consubstantial, and the same in every respect as themselves (τὴν προάγουσαν ἐκ τῶν ὄντων φυσικῶς τὰ ὁµογενῆ καὶ ὁµοούσια καὶ ἑαυτοῖς πάντη ταὐτά).”815 As such, according to Maximus, Gregory says, “let it be of activity also,” for this kind of activity brings forth a “hypostasized and living activity” and “the selfsubstantial (αὐθυπόστατον) only-begotten Word of God and Son of the Father is the living Word and Power and Wisdom.”816 Maximus regards this move as a pedagogical, even a pastoral, one on the part of Gregory, to keep the Eunomians from “blaspheming about a minor point,” so that his attribution of this activity to God yet remains reserved. The second kind of activity, in which different substances act upon each other as from the “outside,” such as a craft in which a craftsman acts upon and shapes a material substance, is not applied to the begetting of the Son by the Father, which clearly transcends this kind of activity.817 We see here, as we saw with respect to the consideration of will, that Maximus is aware of the problems of applying philosophical concepts that obtain in the realm of space and time to God, whether as God relates to the world or in terms of the Trinitarian relations. Given the fact that Gregory and other Christian theologians use these concepts

815

Amb. 26, 1268A1-2.

816

Amb. 26, 1268A10-12.

817

Amb. 26, 1268A13-B11.

374

in their explanations and proclamations of Christian theology, the question is, how does the language of nature actually relate to divine reality? e. Ambiguum 30: Names and the Divine Maximus approaches this question in Ambiguum 30, where he considers the divine names of the Son of God, beginning from Gregory’s conclusion to his second Oration on the Son (Oration 30): You have the titles of the Son; walk through them, divinely in as much as they are exalted, sharing in the experience of them in as much as they are bodily, or rather, walk in a way that is altogether divine, so that you might become god here below, having ascended on account of the one who came down from on high for us.818 Gregory has been discussing the various ways Scripture speaks of God and then specifically of the Son of God. He shows how the titles of the Son—Wisdom, Power, Judge, Man, Christ, etc.—apply to him in both his divinity and in his humanity, concluding with this final exhortation to draw the human, creaturely titles up to the divine for the fulfillment of human divinization. Maximus appropriates this to the vision of philosophical life he has articulated through the course of the Ambigua thus far: The one who has illuminated the intellect through the exalted contemplation of the intention of each of the divine names, having both remade it and led it up to the principle and spiritual meaning of each, and has submitted the mentality of the flesh to the spirit by laboring for virtue, “having become obedient even unto death” (Phil. 2.8), this one truly walks “through the divine names” blamelessly according to both the spirit and the flesh, and travels the divine way that leads to God. One does so in an exalted manner through the mystical contemplation of the exalted names; one does so as “sharing in the experience of them” when one engages in

818

G. Naz., Or. 30.21, 274.32-35.

375

practical philosophy and is urged on by the bodily names to the region above.819 Encountering the Son of God through his names becomes here the content of philosophical life. The practical life of overcoming the passions and “submitting the mentality (φρόνηµα) of the flesh to the spirit” is assimilated to Christ’s passion, in which, as Paul says, Christ became “obedient even unto death.” Gregory exhorts his audience to “walk in a way that is altogether divine,” even as he has just made a distinction between the divine and human names of Christ, and Maximus incorporates this into the perspective for which he argued in Ambiguum 10, that “contemplative life is not without a share of praxis.”820 Practical philosophy guides flesh beyond matter (ὕλη) and contemplation leads the intellect beyond form (εἶδος) so that the whole person, flesh and intellect, comes to transcend “the existence of beings,” which is constituted by matter and form. This state beyond matter and form describes union with the Word, who lives beyond matter and form and yet “for our sake truly came to be in matter and form from us, as we ourselves are.”821 These reflections, then, place the Son of God at the heart of every phase of philosophical life, from the struggle with the passions all the way to the highest mode of spiritual life and insight, and it is precisely the names of the Son, the ways in which he is spoken of, that provide the way. These reflections on God and the language of the world point to the limits of language and rationality in the quest to know God, but they also point in their own way to the transcendence of nature that we addressed in Chapter 4. Maximus’ interpretation of 819

Amb. 30, 1273B1-13.

820

Amb. 30, 1273B13-15.

821

Amb. 30, 1273C3-11.

376

Gregory’s statements concerning the nature of the theology of the Son of God, by showing the limits of language, also indicates what is beyond language as it is conventionally conceived. Ambiguum 30 in particular indicates the possibility of a transformation of language in which the lowly names of the Son are brought up to the divine and are thus given new life. The progress of our inquiry into how Maximus thinks the relation between God and the world, which has addressed the simultaneous appearance of the knowledge of God and of creation, the motion of the finite world in relation to the motionless God, and the application of the language of the world to God, has come to this exhortation to draw the names of the world up to the divine. This exaltation is described by the final major theme of the contemplation of nature in Maximus’ Ambigua to John, the theme of the renewal of nature in Christ, to which we now turn.

377

CHAPTER 6 LOGOS: CHRIST AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE Introduction Maximus’ varied considerations of the philosophical life and the contemplation of nature culminate in his description of the renewal of nature, which carries with it the implication of a renewal of the contemplation of nature as well. This chapter will demonstrate how Maximus thinks of the economy of salvation in the terms of his philosophy of nature. Within the scope of natural philosophy, Maximus defines the economy as God “loosing the laws of nature, using nature beyond nature within the natural order (ὑπὲρ φύσιν ἐν τοῖς κατὰ φύσιν τῇ φύσει χρώµενος),”822 and we may take this statement as a guiding concept for understanding how Maximus draws nature into his teaching on the salvation of the cosmos in Christ. I. The Contemplation of Nature and the Economy of Salvation Maximus describes the original transgression of Adam and the subsequent state of nature to which he was assimilated—procreation through seed, increase and decrease through consumption and decay—in terms of the possibility but ultimate failure of the contemplation of nature. He understands Adam’s transgression as a failure or misappropriation of the contemplation of the world so that the economy of salvation, 822

Amb. 31, 1280C4.

378

which recapitulates and overcomes this failure, is also understood by Maximus as a renewal of nature and its contemplation in Christ. The ultimate end of “praxis,” “knowledge-filled contemplation of nature,” and “theological initiation” is the establishment of “the Christ-like state (ἡ Χριστοειδὴς κατάστασις)”823 or “Christ-like habit of being (τὴν Χριστοειδῆ ἕξιν)”824 in human beings (ἐν ἀνθρώποις), and thus in the world as a whole. This final chapter will trace how Maximus describes the economy in these terms, giving his account of the original human state, the transgression and subsequent condition of humanity, and then show how, by “renewing nature,” Christ himself becomes the object and fulfillment of natural contemplation in that he unites the world to its source in himself and (re)forms the world into his own image. i. The Beginning is Like the End Ambiguum 45 gives a contemplation of human nature in its original state in which the ultimate place of the contemplation of nature as a part of philosophy is articulated; the Ambiguum is itself an expression of natural contemplation, in which the nature of human being is considered. Maximus begins with a quotation from Gregory’s Second Oration on Pascha (Or. 45) in which Gregory gives an account of the creation of the first human being as the combination of the first, intellectual creation, and the second, material creation. The human being is “a second world”825 that partakes fully of material reality and partially of spiritual reality. After giving a brief description of the dynamics of human existence amidst the temporal, changing creation, much of which we observed 823

Amb. 32, 1284D6-1285A5.

824

Amb. 38, 1297D5-1300A6.

825

G. Naz., Or. 45.7.

379

above in Chapter 3, Gregory considers the state in which the first created human being was when God placed him in paradise amongst the various plants, which Gregory takes to be the rational principles of all things, and before the tree of knowledge, which Gregory asserts to be contemplation. In the midst of these considerations, Gregory makes the statement from which Maximus begins Ambiguum 45: the first human being was “naked in simplicity and artless life, having no veil or defense. For it was fitting for [the human being] who was from the beginning to be such.”826 Maximus gives a number of different possible interpretations of this passage. He begins by speculating about the state of the human body in its original constitution (κρᾶσις τοῦ σώµατος). Originally, the human body was not torn apart by qualities (ποιότησιν) that are contrary to and destructive of each other, but was in like manner removed from the process of flowing in and flowing out and free of the continuous alteration that comes from both, depending on the predominance of one quality or another.827 The “nakedness” of the first human being did not mean that he was without flesh or body, but that his body was not coarse and mortal. Rather, the first human being “lived without artifice (ἀτέχνως)” and had no need of clothing or shelter because he was not yet subject to heat and cold. More generally, Maximus observes the stark difference between the human condition now and that condition as it was originally in paradise: For human motion now proceeds around either the irrational fantasies of the passions because of the human love of pleasure and is here characterized by deceit. Or it proceeds around the rational principles of the technical arts in order to provide for the needs of life, in which case the motion is determined by individual circumstances. Or finally, when 826

G. Naz., Or. 45.8.

827

Amb. 45, 1353A4-10.

380

someone has had some education, it proceeds around the rational principles of nature, in accordance with the law of nature.828 None of these forms of motion characterized humanity in its original state, for humanity was not originally subject to the necessity of these things. Rather, the human being was characterized by simplicity and was undistracted “by anything below him or around him or adjacent to him,” being directed instead solely towards God.829 This answers to Maximus description of the περὶ αὐτόν in Amb. 8, where human being was analyzed as being consumed by what surrounds it to the forgetfulness of God. Originally, man was free of the passions and was therefore not deceived by their fantasies. He was not subject to the elements and so was under no compulsion to provide for the necessities of life through “the technical arts (αἱ τέχναι).” Finally, the human being “was wise from the contemplation of nature (τῆς περὶ τὴν φύσιν θεωρίας)” and had come to the place where “there was nothing set between God and the first human being that mediated knowledge to him.”830 The first human being thus offers us a paradigmatic example of the contemplation of nature in its pristine form. Maximus takes the “nakedness” of the first human being as an indication that his contemplation of nature was not characterized by multiplicity (τῆς περὶ φύσιν ποικίλης θεωρίας καὶ γνώσεως) in that he did not need first to think in terms of the phenomena that appear to the senses in order to come to an understanding of divine things (τῆς ἐπ᾽ αἰσθήσεσι τῶν φαινοµένων διανοίας πρὸς κατανόησιν τῶν θείων), but rather possessed only the simple approach of the uniform, simple, and constitutive virtue and knowledge of the things after God.831

828

Amb. 45, 1353C3-6.

829

Amb. 45, 1353C9-13.

830

Amb. 45, 1353D4-6.

831

Amb. 45, 1356A11-B1.

381

It is this form of contemplation that was originally excluded from the human experience of the world. The first human being, in both virtue and contemplation, existed in a state of simplicity and immediate apprehension of reality. He was “outside of the variegated method of asceticism and virtue (τῆς περὶ πρᾶξιν καὶ ἀρετὴν πολυτρόπου µεθοδείας ὑπάρχων ἐκτός), but rather possessed the undefiled rational principles of the virtues as a habit (κατὰ τὴν ἕξιν).”832 This sort of immediacy of knowledge and virtue is reminiscent of the way in which the saints achieve the highest levels of philosophy “without a struggle (ἀµαχῶς)” as Maximus describes it in Ambiguum 10. Indeed, the focus of this Ambiguum is not primarily on a hypothetical state of Adam before the fall; as he says in Ambiguum 42, the first created human being was moved towards evil and emptied out the power of his nature “together with coming into being (ἅµα τῷ γενέσθαι).”833 The pristine state of humanity is conceived by Maximus first of all as a potentiality. The original work of mediation that was placed before the first human being, which Maximus discusses in Ambiguum 41 and which we shall discuss below, is all placed in the subjunctive or the optative in that text: “that he may acquire (λάβῃ) God;” “he would have made (ποιήσειεν) one earth;” “he would have made (ποιήσειεν) one sensible creation;” “he would have made (ποιήσῃ) one creation;” “he would have shown (δείξειε) [the uncreated and the created] to be one.”834 The first human being of course did not fulfill this potentiality; it is in the Word-made-human that we see the fulfillment of the original intention for creation.

832

Amb. 45, 1356A7-9.

833

Amb. 42, 1321B1-3.

834

Amb. 41, 1305C6; 1305D6; 1305D12; 1308A12; 1308B7.

382

As we see in Ambiguum 45, this contemplation of the original state of human nature, which Maximus only considers in speculative terms, is directed towards the present circumstances of those “who want to lift themselves out of our paternal transgression by philosophic reason.”835 Such people begin by completely removing the passions. They then free themselves of their concern with the principles of the technical arts. And finally they look beyond (ὑπερκύψαντες) natural contemplation in order to fix their attention upon immaterial knowledge, which possesses neither form that takes shape in the realm of sense-perception nor notion that can be captured by the spoken word.836 As we saw in Ambiguum 10, the task before humanity is to transcend the passions, traverse the “cloud or veil” of material existence, and come to union with God. Here Maximus presents us with a primordial vision of the first created human being but this vision serves as a τέλος for human existence, that towards which those who seek to overcome the original transgression of Adam move. In this way Maximus continues the project of Origen’s speculations, even as he refuses many of the significant details of Origen’s (and Evagrius’) account. Both Origen and Evagrius are concerned to give an account of the theory of ascetic and contemplative life and they use speculation about the primordial state of creation as a way of defining the goal of created being, so that “the end is like the beginning.” Moreover, this mode of contemplating the original state of nature—in this case human nature—may be extended more broadly to the contemplation of nature in general. Maximus maintains the dynamic sense of φύσις when he considers the nature of beings. φύσις implies growth, direction, teleology, so to contemplate nature is to contemplate that into which nature grows, and 835

Amb. 45, 1356B2-4.

836

Amb. 45, 1356B4-10.

383

ultimately, as we have seen in many ways, nature grows towards God. For this reason Maximus does not contemplate nature without reference to the divine origin and goal of nature. Therefore, while created nature and God are not identical, the contemplation of created nature is absolutely inseparable from the contemplation of God. Whether or not the opposite holds, that is, whether God can be contemplated without creation, is a more difficult question. On the one hand, we have seen how Maximus envisions precisely a διάβασις, a movement through the created world towards God. However, as he says here in Ambiguum 45, the natural, original state of human being is such that the first created man “did not need first to think in terms of the phenomena that appear to the senses in order to come to an understanding of divine things.” This immediacy of knowledge of divine reality, which Maximus here calls τὰ µετὰ θεόν and should be understood as referring to the divine goodness, wisdom, providence, etc., points to the transcendence of natural contemplation, which Maximus has set as the final step in one’s emergence from the “paternal transgression.” So, while Maximus’ speculations about the condition of human nature in its original state provide a paradigm for the contemplation of nature, in terms both of the natural human potential for the contemplation of nature and Maximus’ own approach to contemplating human nature with reference to its origin and goal, the contemplation of nature as such is finally transcended and all thought moves away from the material and changeable world and fixes itself wholly on “immaterial knowledge” of divine things. The contemplation of nature as we know it now, which proceeds “when someone has had some education (διὰ µάθησιν),” and directs the motion of thought “around the rational principles of nature, in accordance with the law of nature (περὶ φυσικοὺς λόγους 384

ἐκ τοῦ νόµου τῆς φύσεως),” is not an original part of human motivation.837 Maximus considers the contemplation of the natural principles of beings alongside the human compulsion towards pleasure and towards providing for its needs through the use of the technical arts (making clothing, building houses, etc.). However, in its natural state, humanity “was in need of only one thing for [its] perfection: an unimpeded movement driven by the full power of his love towards what is above him—and this is God.”838 Because the human being preferred what was below him,839 the created world and his own passions and needs came to intervene between God and humanity whereas the state for which humanity had been created was one of immediacy with God. ii. The Transgression of Adam Maximus interprets the “loss” of this “original state” in Adam’s transgression in terms of his attempt to know the world by sense perception alone and not according to God. In other words, Adam’s transgression—“the fall”—is understood by Maximus in this context to consist of Adam’s choice not to see “the divine fire existing in the essence of things,” not to see the bush as burning, as it were. In failing to contemplate nature accordance to its true nature as sustained by divine reality, Adam “fashioned a living death for himself,” because, as Maximus speculates, he thought life depended upon food and the flux of material bodies so that he took and ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil rather than relying upon “the bread that comes down from heaven” (Jn 6.33-35). In this way, Adam became the forefather of those who fall into the 837

Amb. 45, 1353C6-9.

838

Amb. 45, 1353C11-13.

839

Amb. 42, 1348A7-8.

385

contemplation of “fantasies that have not been created (οὐ ποιητέων), are unnatural (ἀφυσίκων), and non-intellectual (ἀνοήτων).” 840 The tree, which stands for the knowledge of reality, was obviously a natural creation according to the narrative, but in Maximus’ view, Adam’s sin was to think of it in a way that did not comport with its nature. It thus became unnatural for him, something with no intellectual reality (ἀνοήτων), even a non-entity (οὐ ποιητέων). Fantasies incite the passions and draw the mind away from the contemplation of what is and has come to be naturally according to the providence and economy of God. The removal (ἀφαίρεσις) of such false notions about the world causes philosophy to be “secured for the pious.” The corruption and restoration of human nature—the economy of salvation—is thus bound to the question of the contemplation of nature. The very means of the παράβασις (transgression)—natural reality and the possibility of knowledge—become the means for revealing and bringing about the διάβασις (transit) to God.841 In contrast to the fall of Adam’s understanding, in which he mistakenly invested the flux of material existence with an autonomous life-sustaining force, a true contemplation of nature reveals that the mixture and flow of bodies into each other actually demonstrates the finitude and corruptibility of the world: For, by thoroughly inspecting the present world in a systematic way (ἐπιστηµόνως), as much as is possible, and having wisely unfurled the conceptually enfolded intelligible structure (τὸν συνεπτυγµένον κατ᾽ ἔννοιαν σοφῶς ἐξαπλώσαντες λόγον) of the bodies that are variously joined to one another in the world, the saints have discovered the bodies’ sensible, apprehensible, and general qualities, all of which are

840

Amb. 37, 1296B8-11.

841

Amb. 10, 1156C1-1157A13.

386

encompassed by and folded in on each other by the interlocking of the particular existence around each reality.842 This understanding of the qualities of created things leads to the recognition that the generation and continuity of individual things are supported by the process of the combination and decomposition of parts and wholes. Thus, the world is composed through corruption and mutation and this observation leads to the recognition that the world is unstable and does not “persist of necessity in an unbroken sequence.” Adam, however, looked to this process of combination and decomposition for his source of life and so took corruption into himself. In contrast to this self-destructive vision of the world, Maximus sees the world as a harmonious, consistent, ordered whole that maintains its cyclical rhythms and requires no addition or difference to exist “more beautifully” than it does now. The saints have observed the perdurance, the arrangement, and the placement of the things that have come to be, as well as their way of being, according to which everything is established in accordance with each one’s own species, unmixed and free from disorder: the revolution of the stars that progresses in a consistent way, never exchanging one course for another; the cycle of the year that progresses in an orderly manner wherein the stars are restored to the place from which they started; that each year has an equal number of nights and days, each increasing and decreasing along with its portion, with their increase and decrease progressing neither by a greater or lesser measure. From all of these, they know the one who oversees beings to be the one whom they understand is God and Fashioner of all things.843 When the world partakes of God and does not feed on itself, it is able to persist and maintain its unity along with its distinctions. God “distributes himself without division as diverse portions to all those who are worthy of grace in proportion to the quality and 842

Amb. 10, 1169B6-12.

843

Amb. 10, 1176B12-C14.

387

quantity of each one’s virtue,” and this distribution is not a decomposition or division even though “he appears individually when each person partakes of him.”844 This is not, however, the world Adam strove to acquire through his partaking of the fruit; he sought a world independent of divine reality and dependent on its own corruption and alteration for the continuity of its existence. The world as it really is maintains its order and rational progression, exhibiting the cyclic continuity that, for Maximus, leads directly to an awareness of “the Fashioner of all things”: Who, seeing the beauty and grandeur of the creations of God does not immediately understand (οὐκ εὐθὺς ἐννοήσει) that he is the originator of their existence as source, cause, and Maker of being, and does not run in thought toward him alone?845 The immediacy of this understanding is important. While Maximus does make arguments about causality, which construct a chain of reasoning from observable effects to necessary causes, such arguments are analyses after the fact of the fundamental experience of the beauty of creation itself. So, we have the world as “ungovernable (ἀκράτητον)” and in “constant flux,”846 a world that feeds on itself to its own corruption, a world from which the ascetic voluntarily estranges himself; but we also have the world of beauty and grandeur, a universe that revolves with perfectly measured motion, where time unfolds rationally with no fluctuation. These two orientations derive from the two basic elements of philosophy, praxis and contemplation. The notion of the world as “ungovernable” comes from Maximus’ interpretation of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16.19-31) 844

Amb. 10, 1172C1-7.

845

Amb. 10, 1176D3-7.

846

Amb. 10, 1172B6-7.

388

in which he argues that the rich man had possession neither of this life, because of its constant change, nor of the life to come, since his desire was only for this world.847 Lazarus, however, endured estrangement from the world and even his own body for the sake of the world to come. This interpretation comes within a consideration of the need for purification of soul and body and the exercise of virtue. In this context, the world, when taken on its own, becomes the material of ascetical endeavor and thus is regarded as a mass of unstable and corruptible beings that devour one another in order to sustain the process of generation. It is this world as opposed to the age to come. When the saint recognizes the world as unstable and accepts alienation from the world, which, as we showed in Chapter 3, is a fundamental human experience of the world, the saint does not attempt to possess the world and the world therefore gives of itself freely and prolifically. The saint does not attempt to grasp the world and keep it from passing away; the world therefore reveals its inner coherence and endurance, its harmonious cycle of procession and return. The saint has not been ravished by the initial beauty of the world; he “runs” through it, we might even say “into” it, to its inner meaning, which is divine reality itself; the true, final necessity of the world’s beauty is therefore made manifest. Maximus thus reiterates in the context of the transgression of Adam his understanding of the relationship between the practical/ethical life, which has the acquisition of ἀπάθεια as its end, and θεωρία φυσική, whose path traces a way through the world and beyond it (διάβασις ὑπὲρ κόσµον). It is withdrawal and the acquisition of ἀπάθεια that allow the saint to see the world as it is in its harmonious functioning, in contrast to Adam who grasped for a changeability he thought would sustain him.

847

Amb. 10, 1169D13-1172D8.

389

iii. The Renewal of Nature The heart of Maximus’ contemplation of nature is his analysis of the renewal, or transformation of nature. In his Oration on Theophany (Or. 38), Gregory says of Christ’s birth, “The laws of nature are dissolved (νόµοι φύσεως καταλύονται). The world above must be filled. Christ orders it. Let us not resist.”848 The coming of Christ in the economy of salvation inaugurates a new way of considering nature and its laws. But what precisely are these laws of nature and how does their dissolution relate to the contemplation of nature itself? Maximus gives two accounts of the law of nature in Ambiguum 31, which address the question from two different perspectives. First, he takes the laws of nature as referring to “the laws of conception through seed and birth through corruption.”849 Nature in this since has to do precisely with nativity, birth. In the birth of Christ the most basic aspects of natural birth, seed and the suffering of birthing a child, are absent in “a paradox” that “goes outside of every law and rational principle of nature.”850 This miraculous dissolution of nature by “the maker of nature” (ὁ ποιητὴς τῆς φύσεως) was necessary, Maximus tells us, for the sake of the restoration of nature through its maker. Here Maximus regards nature from the perspective of the disobedience of Adam, who introduced irrationality into human succession by his sin. In fact, the “first laws of nature” were dissolved by Adam’s disobedience, so that “the world below” was filled by fleshly birth in corruption and a new law of nature was framed by the introduction of sin and corruption into nature. Christ the new Adam, then, as Word 848

G. Naz., Or. 38.2, 106.9-10.

849

Amb. 31, 1276A3-4.

850

Amb. 31, 1276A11-12.

390

(Λόγος) “dissolves the laws of irrationality (ἀλογίας) that had been brought into nature because of sin” and establishes the law of spiritual generation, which fills “the world above.”851 This first analysis of the laws of nature is given from within the horizon of nature as the process of generation and (after Adam) decay. The second analysis given by Maximus regards the law of nature from the opposite side, from the perspective of beings in “the unwavering and unchangeable constancy of the rational principle[s] according to which [they] exist and have come into being.”852 In this usage, the law of nature “keeps the rational principle of nature unalterable” and “maintains its immutable place as it has been established.”853 Nature here is not colored with the corruption of sin as in the previous analysis. It refers, rather, to what things are concretely, hypostatically, as created beings. What does dissolving the laws of nature mean in this context? Maximus’ response considers the incarnation not in terms of the virginity and incorruption of Christ’s mother but in terms of nature as circumscribed by time, space, and motion. The one who has established beings in nature, who himself exists beyond nature, does not act in accordance with nature even though his actions are on behalf of beings that live under nature. Nevertheless, the one beyond nature really entered nature, though in a way that did not bring any motion, change, of circumscription to his divinity as divinity; neither did his becoming flesh and entering nature “take away anything of our

851

Amb. 31, 1276C2-13.

852

Amb. 31, 1280A5-6.

853

Amb. 31, 1280A9-12.

391

nature in any way.”854 When considered within the perspective of the contemplation of nature, this typically Chalcedonian expression reveals how “God looses the laws of nature, using nature beyond nature in the natural order (ὑπὲρ φύσιν ἐν τοῖς κατὰ φύσιν τῇ φύσει χρώµενος).”855 Specifically, God uses human nature beyond its natural limitations and draws it into communion with the divine. Maximus asserts that this does not change human nature in its nature but that it does “loose” (λύειν) or “dissolve” (καταλύειν) the law of nature. We observe here a distinction in Maximus’ thinking about the nature of things. On the one hand, there is the natural framework in which a thing exists: the conditions of its coming into being and its location in space and time. On the other hand, there is what we often think of as the nature of the thing itself, its λόγος, in Maximus’ terminology. Indeed, it is precisely the λόγος of nature that is kept unchangeable by the law of nature. Thus, Maximus thinks that the nature of something—and here the focus is explicitly on human nature—as its λόγος can be drawn beyond its natural framework of coming to be and passing away, the limitations of matter and form, etc., towards the divine in a union that dissolves nature as limiting structure without changing nature as λόγος. The λόγος establishes something as what it is but also determines the course of a thing’s development; the λόγος is a principle but also a τέλος to be realized. It is the λόγος that remains when a nature is “instituted anew” so that while a thing remains what it is, its

854

Amb. 31, 1280B10-11.

855

Amb. 31, 1280C4-6.

392

“nature is actualized and acts in a way that goes beyond what has been ordained for it (τὴν φύσιν ἐνεργουµένην τε καὶ ἐνεργοῦσαν ὑπὲρ τὸν ἑαυτῆς θεσµόν).”856 Ambiguum 41 continues the theme of the renewal of nature as Maximus interprets Gregory’s famous phrase, “Natures are instituted anew, and God becomes human.”857 He shows through the course of his demonstration how Christ, in becoming human, is placed at the center of the cosmos as the one in whom all of the differences and divisions of the universe are united. Maximus begins his analysis with the articulation of a five-fold division of all of reality into pairs of polar opposites (τὰ ἄκρα): the division between created and uncreated, the division between intellectual and sensory aspects of creation, the division of sensory creation into heaven and earth, the division of earth into paradise and inhabited world (οἰκουµένη), and the division of the human being (i.e. the one who inhabits the inhabited world) into male and female.858 Maximus then places the human being at the center of the natural world and shows how his “mode of being” was “the very reason for why divisions were first brought into being (ὁ κατὰ τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς τῶν διῃρηµένων γενέσεως συµπληρούµενος τρόπος),”859 namely to unify the extremes of reality: male and female, paradise and inhabited world, earth and heaven, sensory and intellectual reality, and ultimately creation and Creator. Maximus tells us that this work of unification was the original purpose of human existence. By “thoroughly expelling the property of male and female from [human] 856

Amb. 42, 1341D1-9.

857

G. Naz., Or. 39.13.

858

Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 331-427, gives an analysis of this five-fold division within the wider context of Maximus’ works and the antecedent tradition. 859

Amb. 41, 1305B6-7.

393

nature by the most dispassionate state of divine virtue” the human being overcomes the division—between male and female—that is closest to him. The λόγος of human being is not divided between male and female and in the basic act of knowledge of the λόγοι of creation, which coincides with self-knowledge in this case, the first division of the cosmos is transcended: because of the perfect knowledge of his own particular rational principle according to which he exists (as I have said), [the human being] is both shown as and becomes simply a human being in accordance with the divine purpose, and is not divided by the names of “male” and “female.”860 Once again, virtue and knowledge are bound together at this first stage of cosmic reunification. The knowledge of the human λόγος comes through virtue. The next two levels of reunification likewise come through a “sanctified” and “virtuous way of life.” Once paradise and the inhabited world are no longer distinguished for a human being, when one has one’s habitation precisely in paradise, then one begins to transcend earthly existence to unite earth to heaven. The state of “heaviness,” in which one is “dragged down or held down to the earth” is transcended by an angelic way of life, so that the human being “mounts up to God…as though sharing a common path with the angels.”861 The fourth step, uniting the sensory and intellectual aspects of creation, reintroduces knowledge: by uniting the intellectual and sensory realities with each other in knowledge equal to that of the angels, the human being makes the whole of creation one creation undivided for himself into what is known and what is unknown, for his knowledge-filled understanding of the rational 860

Amb. 41, 1305C13-D4.

861

Amb. 41, 1308A7-9.

394

principles of beings becomes perfectly equal to the understanding of the angels.862 This level of unity describes the summit of knowledge of the world, where the λόγοι of created things are transparent to the human intellect as they are for the angels. But what does Maximus mean when he says that creation is undivided “into what is known and what is unknown (µὴ διαιρουµένην κατὰ τὴν γνῶσιν καὶ τὴν ἀγνωσίαν)”? According to a Platonic perspective in which only intellectual realities can be known, we may say that Maximus is asserting that the sensory world is no longer confined to the realm of ignorance but rather becomes knowable even as the intellectual is knowable. Within the Evagrian framework, where the four elements and five senses will be transmuted and transcended in the course of the spiritual life,863 we might see this unification of the sensory and the intellectual as the intellectualization of the sensual. This does comport with what Maximus says elsewhere about the ascent through the material to the spiritual and about the assimilation of the bodily senses to the intellect by means of reason, but, as we see in his Christological explanation of the fivefold mediation of the cosmos, the reality of sense perception does not cease to be sensual when brought into union with the intellectual: “[Christ] united the sensible and intellectual realities by traversing in sequence all the divine and intellectual ranks of heaven in soul and body, that is, with our complete nature.”864 The material world, when united with the intellectual, is no longer

862

Amb. 41, 1308A9-15.

863

Evag. Pont., KG I.15: “When the four [elements] will be removed, the five [senses] will also be removed…;” KG I.16: “…the one who has been separated from the four [elements] is also delivered from the five [senses].” 864

Amb. 41, 1309C4-8.

395

the realm of darkness, heaviness, and ignorance. It too comes to be filled with the light of knowledge so that it may be truly affirmed as “the wisdom concerning me.” Finally, the human being is to unite the created to the uncreated in his “complete interpenetration” of God, in which “he receives the fullness of God Himself instead of his own self (ὅλον αὐτὸν ἀντιλαβὼν ἑαυτοῦ τὸν θεόν)” and becomes “everything that God is, without identity of essence.”865 In pursuing creation to its end, the human being comes to God, who is the goal of the motion of moving things, the firm and immovable stability of those that are born towards Him, and is the limit and invisible and infinite boundary of every limit, ordinance, law, rational principle, intellect, and nature.866 This is a strong statement of the identity of the created world as found in God and it raises once again the question of the relationship between God and the world. As we have seen, Maximus is able to speak of the world as the embodiment of God, as the selfmultiplication of God, as symbolic manifestation of divine reality. In the present context, God is precisely the limit of the world, the one who gives definition and direction to cosmic motion. As such the world drives the mind inexorably towards God when the mind seeks the world’s laws, principles, and nature. To address this issue more thoroughly, we shall examine the five-fold division of reality in detail. It has been suggested that the idea of the Porphyrian tree stands behind much of Maximus’ thought on the differentiation and unity of the cosmos, and particularly here in

865

Amb. 41, 1308B9-11.

866

Amb. 41, 1308B13-C3.

396

Ambiguum 41.867 Indeed, we may render Maximus’ description of the divisions of the cosmos schematically in a way reminiscent of the Byzantine handbooks of logic that were in use in Maximus’ own day, some of which were (almost certainly erroneously) attributed to Maximus himself.868 The most general term Maximus gives for reality is ἡ πάντων τῶν γεγονότων ὑπόστασις, “the substance of all things that have come into being.” Rendering Maximus’ cosmic differentiation in the form of a Porphyrian Tree gives the following scheme: ἡ πάντων τῶν γεγονότων ὑπόστασις (the substance of all things that have come into being) τὰ νόητα (intellectual reality)

τὰ αἰσθητά (sensual reality)

τὰ αἰσθητά ὁ οὐρανός (heaven)

ἡ γῆ (earth)

ἡ γῆ ὁ παράδεισος (paradise)

ἡ οἰκουµένη (inhabited world)

ἡ οἰκουµένη τὸ ἄρσεν (male)

τὸ θῆλυ (female)

867

Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, 81ff., where the author uses the Porphyrian Tree as a way of explaining Maximus’ doctrine of the λόγοι of creation; Melchisedek Törönen, Union and Distinction in the Thought of St. Maximus the Confessor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 138-141. 868

Mossman Roueché, “Byzantine Philosophical Texts of the Seventh Century,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 23 (1974), 61-76; Roueché, “A Middle Byzantine Handbook of Logic Terminology,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 29 (1980), 71-98. The handbooks attributed to Maximus are found in manuscripts containing his authentic works and so Roueché suggests that the handbooks in question were most likely found amongst Maximus’ papers after his death and subsequently attributed to him.

397

This tree only represents four of the five divisions that are said to distinguish “the substance of everything that has come into being,” for it is unclear precisely how we should think of the fifth (or first) division, namely that between uncreated and created nature, with respect to the other four. Uncreated nature cannot be said to belong to the substance of everything that has come into being since it has not, as uncreated, come into being. Indeed, Maximus seems to think of the division between created and uncreated as a division that separates created nature from uncreated nature (διαίροῦσαν τῆς ἀκτίστου φύσεως τὴν κτιστὴν καθόλου φύσιν), where the genitive (τῆς ἀκτίστου) is to be understood as a genitive of separation: the first division “divides the whole of created nature from the uncreated nature.”869 In other words, the first division, which does characterize the substance of everything that has come into being, is not internal to that substance. How then should we understand this division, and how was humanity supposed to unify the division if the division is not internal to the substance from which its own nature is derived? The idea of man as σύνδεσµος φυσικός—a natural bond—for all created things is clear: man has both intellect and sense perception, which is the most general distinction amongst generated things, and so he contains all subsequent distinctions within himself. As Maximus says, the human being “exhibits the way of being that is the very reason for why divisions were first brought into being,”870 that is, the way of being that naturally unifies what is divided. What then of the division between created and uncreated? If we cannot place one of the two extreme terms (τὰ ἄκρα)—i.e. uncreated nature—within the substance of all things that have come into being, then how is this division a part of that substance? First, 869

Amb. 41, 1304D7-10; Gersh makes this point, From Iamblichus to Eriugena, 237 n.152.

870

Amb. 41, 1305B6-7.

398

we may say that the division that divides creation from the uncreated itself came into being with creation, insofar as the division requires the second of the two terms for it to act as a division. In this sense, the division itself is internal to, or perhaps better, “on the surface of,” the created substance of all things. Second, we should consider Maximus’ characterization of this division as “ignorance (ἄγνοια):” For they say that God, who has produced the splendid arrangement of all beings by his goodness, is not immediately manifest to creation—either in terms of what he is or his manner of being—and therefore they say that the division in this case, which distinguishes creation from God, is ignorance: because what naturally divides these things from each other has no single unified essence and cannot be given one definition that always holds true, they leave it unexpressed (Φασὶ γὰρ τὸν θεὸν ἀγαθότητι πεποιηκότα τῶν ὄντων ἀπάντων λαµπρὰν διακόσµησιν, µὴ αὐτόθεν αὐτῇ καταφανῆ γενέσθαι τινὰ καὶ ὀποῖον εἶναι, τὴν περὶ τοῦτο τὴν κτίσιν τοῦ θεοῦ διακρίνουσαν ἄγνοιαν διαίρεσιν λέγοντες. Τὴν γὰρ φυσικῶς ἀλλήλων ταῦτα διαιροῦσαν, µηδέποτε δεχοµένην εἰσ µίαν οὐσίαν ἕνωσιν, ὡς τὸν ἕνα καὶ τὸν αὐτὸν µὴ δυναµένην ἐπιδέξασθαι λόγον εἴασαν ἄῤῥητον).871 This notion of ignorance brings us clearly within the realm of the thought of the Areopagite. It is not simply that we do not know the unknowable God, though Maximus does affirm this as well when he says that we leave the nature of the divide between created and uncreated “unexpressed.” As Dionysius teaches, encounter with the God beyond being can only be described as ignorance. Dionysius, like the Cappadocians, uses the image of Moses ascending Mt. Sinai as an image of the ascent to knowledge. When Moses transcends all created things, “what is seen and what sees (τῶν ὁρωµένων καὶ τῶν ὁρώντων),” he enters the “darkness of ignorance (τὸν γνόφον τῆς ἀγνωσίας),” lays aside all active knowledge, and belongs no longer to himself or anything other than

871

Amb. 41, 1304D11-1305A8.

399

the One who is beyond all things (πᾶς ὢν τοῦ πάντων ἐπέκεινα καὶ οὐδενός, οὔτε ἑαυτοῦ οὔτε ἑτέρου).872 Approaching the indefinable limit between created and uncreated reality, which Maximus identifies with ignorance, is precisely to approach the pinnacle of the ascent to God, an ascent that passes through the contemplation of created things. To cross the threshold one must abandon all γνῶσις, or more precisely, abandon the distinction between γνῶσις and ἀγνωσία, since the one towards whom the ascent leads is not only beyond knowledge but beyond ignorance (ὑπεράγνωστον) as well.873 We also see this theme of entering the place of ignorance (τὸ ἄγνωστον), the place “where God is,” in Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses, where Gregory defines the way to this ignorance as leading through “the contemplation of beings (ἐκ τῆς θεωρίας τῶν ὄντων).”874 The human being, even in his capacity for ignorance, is the “natural bond” holding all the extreme terms of the cosmos together. The created world is finally united to the uncreated through love (δι᾽ ἀγάπης) when the human being “shows them to be one and the same in his possession of grace (ἕν καὶ ταὐτὸν δείξειε κατὰ τὴν ἕξιν τῆς χάριτος),”875 and in this way Maximus draws God and the world into unity. It is love, not γνῶσις, or perhaps love as γνῶσις, that unites created and uncreated. The parallel reductions of soul to intellect and to love indicate that the reality transcending knowledge and ignorance is love, which Maximus identifies with God himself. God moves the world 872

Ps. Dion. Areo., Myst. theol. I.3, 144.10-13.

873

Ps. Dion. Areo., Myst. theol. I.1, 141.2.

874

G. Nyss., Vita Mo., II.169, 216.1-9.

875

Amb. 41, 1308B5-8.

400

and is himself “moved” towards the world precisely in terms of love, which Maximus, as we have seen in Ambiguum 23, places at the center of the cosmic process. This process of cosmic—and super-cosmic—reunification was set as the natural destiny of human existence. Because the first created human being failed in this task and actually separated creation rather than uniting it, he “very nearly returned wretchedly to non-being once again” and human nature had to be “instituted anew” for the sake of the original purpose of human existence. Thus Maximus places Christ, the incarnate Word, as the one who gathers all created things to himself, since it was Christ “in whom they were created” (Col 1.16) in the beginning.876 Maximus shows how Christ progressively overcomes the five-fold division in his own life. His birth from a virgin, in which he “united us with ourselves,”877 overcomes the division between male and female; his words to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk 23.43), reunite paradise and the inhabited world; his ascension unites earth and heaven; his traversal of the intellectual powers of heaven in the body unites the intellectual and the sensible; and coming to the presence of God as a human being overcomes the final division between creation and Creator. In this way, Christ shows that “all of creation exists as one, like another human being (καθάπερ ἄνθρωπον ἄλλον);”878 indeed, Christ himself comes before us as the unified world that is itself united to its uncreated cause. Christ becomes the constitutive principle, as well as the external manifestation, of the unity of the cosmos and thus

876

Amb. 41, 1308D2-11.

877

Amb. 41, 1309D8.

878

Amb. 41, 1312A14-15.

401

guarantees the logical unity of all things. Having made this initial demonstration of Christ as the unity of all creation, Maximus gives an account of the logical coherence of all the particular things in creation in which he makes use of the categories of substance, genus, species, difference, property, and accident to show how diverse things partake of unity: For all things that are distinguished from each other by their own individual differences are united as a whole (καθόλου) and generically (γενικῶς) by the identities they have in common (κοιναῖς ταὐτότησιν), and are pressed towards unity and identity with each other by a generic rational principle of nature (γενικῷ τινι λόγῳ φύσεως), such that the genera, in being united to each other in the same substance (κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν), are one, identical, and undivided.879 In sharing a common rational principle of nature, things that fall under the same substance may be said to be “one, identical, and undivided.” Moreover, the universal substance is not divided up among the various particulars, for “every genus exists in unity, as a whole, and without division according to its own rational principle in the individual things that are included in it, and the whole is observed generically in each individual thing.”880 This mode of unity obtains on the level of species and accidents as well: “The individuals of a species, in virtue of their mutual commonality, are entirely one and the same with each other, are indistinguishable because of their identity of nature, and are free from all difference,” and “the accidents predicated of a subject, in being combined with each other, are a unitary reality, not one that is scattered throughout the subject.”881 The unity of the cosmos as a whole, which we are shown in Christ, is recapitulated at each level of reality, from the unified substance of everything that has

879

Amb. 41, 1312C3-11.

880

Amb. 41, 1312C14-D2.

881

Amb. 41, 1312D4-10.

402

come into being to the accidents that attend particular things, so that the recapitulation of all things in Christ is refracted in all of reality and thus all of reality is united to him in partaking of this unity. In support of this, Maximus cites a passage from Dionysius’ Divine Names in which Dionysius affirms the unity of parts as a whole, accidents as a subject, individuals as a species, species as genus, and so on: plurality is not at all without participation in unity. Rather that which is many in parts is one as a whole, that which is many in accidents is one in subject, that which is many in number or in potentialities is one in species, that which is many in species is one in genus, that which is many in processions is one in its source; there is nothing that has no share in unity882 Maximus then reintroduces the language of the λόγοι of individual things and of generic and universal categories, gathering the “λόγοι of the more generic and universal” under “wisdom (σοφία)” and the “λόγοι of particular things (τῶν µερικῶν)” under “mindfulness (φρόνησις).”883 We encountered this pair of wisdom and mindfulness in our consideration of Ambiguum 10 and the relation between practical and theoretical philosophy. There Maximus identified wisdom with contemplation and mindfulness with praxis. In an analogous way, Maximus in this context identifies φρόνησις with the diversity and particularity of individual things and σοφία with the more general and universal and Maximus unites both of these in Christ, who is “the wisdom and mindfulness of the God and Father.” He is “the natural fashioner and provider (δηµιουργός καὶ προνοητής) of all things,” and “holds the universal realities of beings

882

Ps. Dion. Areo., Div. nom. XIII.2, 227.13-17.

883

Amb. 41, 1313A12-15.

403

together by the power of wisdom and encompasses their many parts by the mindfulness of his knowledge.”884 Taken together with Maximus’ use of the terms in Ambiguum 10, this places Christ at the center of nature and of philosophy in its practical and theoretical aspects. In speaking of the common, generic λόγος shared by all things that have come into being, we have thought it in terms of the one substance (ἡ πάντων τῶν γεγονότων ὑπόστασις) analyzed in its various genera and species, which constitute the world. However, the other side of this remains to be considered, for since Maximus defines this precisely as the substance of what has come into being, he defines the “one rational principle” that is “common to all things” in this way: “that the phrase ‘it was not’ is an older description for [creation] than the assertion of its existence (τὸ οὐκ ἦν τοῦ εἶναι πρεσβλυτερον ἔχουσα [ἡ κτίσις]).”885 We recall that at the beginning of Greek philosophy Parmenides denied the possibility of the thought of non-being and of the emergence of reality from non-being to being, and as we saw in the debates regarding the eternality of the world amongst pagan and Christian Neoplatonists, the problem of conceiving of the movement from non-existence into being resides at the heart of Greek philosophical cosmology. Maximus of course argues that the world had a beginning, that it has its origins in non-being. However, there is a sense in which he affirms one aspect of Parmenides point, that non-being cannot be thought. We have seen that Maximus divides the created world from the uncreated Creator with ignorance so that the Creator’s act of creation out of 884

Amb. 41, 1313B4-9.

885

Amb. 41, 1312B6-7.

404

nothing is fundamentally incomprehensible to the created mind. Elsewhere Maximus accuses the pagan Greek philosophers of refusing to acknowledge the power and goodness of God who has created out of nothing simply because they cannot comprehend how something can come from nothing. There are good arguments in favor of there being a beginning to the world, or at least against the eternity of the world, which we observed with Philoponus against Aristotle and Proclus. However, Maximus is also willing to allow the mystery, even the impossibility, of the thought of non-being to stand as a limit to human thought: “Do not say, ‘for what reason has [God] fashioned [the universe] now, if he is always good?’ For I tell you, the inscrutable wisdom of eternal being is not subject to human knowledge.”886 We return here to the ignorance that both separates and unites the creature and Creator. Nature is renewed when all of creation is united in Christ and thus to the uncreated beyond knowledge and ignorance. II. Christ and the Contemplation of Nature Maximus sees the renewal of nature and the renewal of the contemplation of nature in which the world is contemplated together with its cause in Christ as the economy that overcomes and heals the original transgression of Adam. Because this transgression of contemplating the world in a false way is presented by Scripture as an act of eating, Maximus very fittingly considers the economy of salvation in the same terms, terms that are subtly, but definitely Eucharistic. We might say conversely that Maximus understands partaking of Christ in this section in terms of the contemplation of nature. The disciple comes to partake of Christ as the means of partaking of the renewed

886

Cap. car. IV.3. We recall that this question of the beginning (or lack thereof) of the universe is identified by Kant as the first of the irresolvable antinomies of pure reason, cf. “The Antinomy of Pure Reason” in Critique of Pure Reason, bk. 2, chap. 2 of the “Transcendental Dialectic,” A 405/B 432ff.

405

knowledge of the world, and the renewed knowledge of the world is none other than the transfigured cosmos that appears together with the divinity of Christ. In this sequence of thought, Maximus shows how the Word of God plants himself in the world and as the “sun of righteousness” causes himself to grow in the world until he becomes “the substance in the entirety of things (τὸν ἐν τοῖς ὅλοις λόγον τοῖς πράγµασιν οὐσίαν γίνεσθαι).” The disciples then partake of the world as body of Christ and the body of Christ as world. i. The Year of the Lord In Ambiguum 46, Maximus returns to the Dionysian concept of divine names and gives a concrete example of what he calls a natural contemplation of a name of the Lord. Maximus begins from a passage in Gregory’s Second Oration on Pascha in which the Theologian refers to Christ as “the sun of righteousness” (quoting Mal 4.2): “[He is] one year old as the sun of righteousness, beginning from there (ἐκεῖθεν, referring to the Father on Maximus’ interpretation), circumscribed by being seen.”887 Maximus begins: Our savior has many titles and the way of understanding how they refer can lead in many different ways when we contemplate the purpose of each one, for it is possible for the many thoughts that come through natural contemplation when something is taken as a title of the Lord—in the sense that the Lord is the paradigm for that which the title names—to be applied to him (Πολλαὶ τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡµῶν εἰσιν αἱ προσηγορόαι, καὶ, πολύτροπος ὁ ἐφ᾽ ἑκάστῃ κατὰ τὴν αὐτῆς ἐπίνοιαν τῆς κατὰ θεωρίαν ἀναγωγῆς καθέστηκε τρόπος, διὰ τὸ πολλὰς κατὰ τὴν φυσικὴν θεωρίαν τοῦ παραδειγµατικῶς εἰς προσηγορίαν τοῦ κυρίου λαµβανοµένου πράγµατος ἐπιδέχεσθαι δύνασθαι θεωρηµάτων ἐπιβολάς).888

887

G. Naz., Or. 45.13.

888

Amb. 46., 1356C5-11.

406

What follows, then, is an example of natural contemplation in which Maximus shows how the Lord may receive the name of “Sun.” He begins the contemplation with a description of the “uninterrupted motion of time.” Starting from Gregory’s notion that the Lord is “one year old,” Maximus defines one year as “the restoration of the sun to the place in the heavens from which it began (ἡ τοῦ ἡλίου ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτοῦ σηµείου εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ σηµεῖον ἀποκατάστασις).”889 The motion of the duration of a year as divided into hours, days, weeks, months, and seasons proceeds in a consistent and continuous manner. Maximus then applies this cyclical notion of the duration of a year to the Lord, writing that the “acceptable year of the Lord” (Is 62.2), as it is written, is—to take the passage allegorically—the whole duration of the ages. At the beginning of this duration, God thought it good to bring beings into being, and to give existence to what did not exist, and through his providence, like an intellectual sun whose power holds the universe together in stability and which rises up to send forth a ray of light downward, he thought it fitting that he should diversify the ways [he is present in the world] (ποικῖλαι τοῦς τρόπους ἀξιώσας) until the completion of all the ages in order to bring those in whom he had sown his own goodness to full maturation. Then he will gather the fruits of his own seed unmixed with weeds and pure of all chaff-like residue and anything else that might be mixed in and the whole purpose (ὁ σύµπας λόγος) of the motion of moveable things will be completed, for those who are worthy will have received the final blessedness of deification that has been promised.890 The creation of all things is here compared to the sowing of seeds and bringing them to fruition. The concept of the σπερµατικὸς λόγος, the rational principle that is sown like a seed, is a common theme in both the ancient patristic tradition and amongst the pagan philosophers, especially the Stoics. For Maximus, God the Word has sown the seeds of his own goodness in beings and he “shines” upon them like the sun to make them grow. 889

Amb. 46, 1356D7-8.

890

Amb. 46, 1357A9-B9.

407

He has “diversified the ways [he is present in the world]” by sending down his rays upon the seeds of his own goodness, which he as placed within created things. The passage from Gregory goes on to speak of the “return” of the sun of “righteousness to himself,” and though Maximus does not quote this phrase, he concludes this line of interpretation with the same concept: And so, the Lord is called “the sun of righteousness” as the maker and the one who perfects the ages, as the beginning and end of all things, as the fashioner of the wise five-fold order891 of those things foreknown in his providence, and as the one who fills all things with everlasting light by ever bestowing his goodness upon them. It is he who ripens and prepares for the God and Father those who widen their own intellectual pathways for the reception of his blessed ray of light.892 Maximus follows Gregory’s notion of the Word as the sun of righteousness “being born of the Father, light from light, true God from true God,”893 inseminating his goodness in created things so that he is “circumscribed by being seen,” shining upon them to cause them to grow, which in a sense, is to cause himself to grow in them, and then to bring the fruit of that growth, which again is the fruit of is own goodness, to the Father, thus completing the “cycle of the year,” “the acceptable year of the Lord.” Maximus considers this fulfillment of the year of the Lord in terms of the gathering of “spiritual knowledge of intellectual realities through the rigorous natural contemplation of the rational principles of phenomena.”894 Thus the contemplation of nature is precisely the way in which beings come to fulfillment for thought, and as we

891

Probably a reference to the five-fold division of created things in Amb. 41.

892

Amb. 46, 1357B9-C4.

893

Amb. 46, 1357C12-14.

894

Amb. 46, 1357C8-10.

408

saw above, this fulfillment is the blooming of the very Word himself in created things. Here we see a reiteration under a different figure of the cosmic incarnation of which Maximus speaks. It is also an indication of the sacrificial, or better, Eucharistic, imagery that Maximus will bring in to his discussion of the contemplation of nature in the subsequent chapters of the Ambigua. ii. One Christ, Many Participants Because Maximus is drawing quotations from Gregory’s Second Oration on Pascha, it is quite to be expected that the imagery of partaking of the sacrifice should come to the fore. In Ambiguum 47, Maximus transposes the problem of the one and the many to the question of how each person encounters the one, unified Christ individually, in accordance with each person’s faith and level of spiritual life. He begins from a quotation of Gregory in which the Theologian says, “It is no surprise if a sheep is required for each and every house.”895 Maximus poses a question in response: Since there is one Christ who is proclaimed mystically through the law, the prophets, and the magnificence of creation to those who are able to hear and see spiritually, how does the law, which presents a complete type of Christ, order that many sheep be sacrificed at the houses of the patriarchs?896 In response, Maximus shows how different people partake of Christ in different ways and to different degrees in proportion to the measure of grace and power each person has. Specifically, Maximus applies the stages of philosophy to the different levels of Christ’s being. The one engaged in the practical life partakes of Christ’s body; one involved in natural contemplation partakes of his soul; the theologian passes beyond the soul of 895

G. Naz., Or. 45.14.

896

Amb. 47, 1357D7-1360A4.

409

Christ and the “symbolic contemplation of beings” that characterizes natural contemplation and comes to the intellect of Christ; and the one who passes beyond the discourse of theology comes to the divinity of Christ “through an all-encompassing apophasis (δι᾽ ἀποφάσεως παντελοῦς).”897 Maximus follows the sacrificial imagery of Gregory’s oration and places the crucifixion of Christ as the starting point for this journey from the body of Christ all the way to his divinity. Each person “sacrifices the lamb and partakes of its flesh, taking his fill of Jesus”898 in his own way so that the Word who has diversified the manner of his presence in the world maintains his unity even as he “becomes all things for all” (I Cor 9.22; I Cor 15.28; Col 3.11).”899 iii. “The Word Becomes the Substance in the Entirety of Things” Ambiguum 48 continues with the imagery of partaking of Christ and gives a more detailed account of what Gregory has called the “spiritual digestion” of the Word.900 Each part of the Passover lamb, which is a type of Christ, signifies a particular aspect of the spiritual life. The one who possesses the principles of theology in faith eats the head of the Christ; the one who receives these principles with knowledge eats the ears; the one who “considers creation spiritually” and brings the rational principles of both sensual and

897

Amb. 47, 1360C6-D2.

898

Amb. 47, 1360D9-11.

899

Amb. 47, 1361A4.

900

G. Naz., Or. 45.16.

410

intellectual reality into unity partakes of the eyes. The breast is for the one who proclaims his theological knowledge, the hands for the one who keeps the commandments.901 The result of this “spiritual digestion” of the Word is that the Word, by being “eaten” intellectually, nourishes those who partake of him and indeed “becomes the substance in the entirety of things (τὸν ἐν τοῖς ὅλοις λόγον τοῖς πράγµασιν οὐσίαν γίνεσθαι),” even as he is “beyond nature and reason (ὑπὲρ φύσιν καὶ λόγον).”902 Maximus thus takes the metaphysical doctrine of the presence of the Λόγος in all things and transposes it into the Eucharistic imagery of feeding on the Word. This completes the sequence of these three Ambigua (46, 47, 48), which speak of insemination, growth, fruition, and finally offering and partaking. Even though the metaphors shift from the planting and growth of grain (bread for the Eucharist) to the partaking of the Passover lamb this sequence of thought in the Ambigua clearly holds together as a reflection upon partaking of the presence of Christ in all things. In this Christological understanding of natural contemplation the course of the spiritual life leads one to partake of Christ more and more fully until the Word “becomes the substance in the entirety of things.” To partake of the world in natural contemplation, then, is to partake of Christ, and to partake of Christ is to partake of the substance of all things. iv. Knowledge of Nature in the Desert In Ambiguum 50, Maximus considers the Passover under a different figure, though he maintains the three-fold progression of philosophy as his hermeneutical principle. His explanation of natural contemplation, however, gives a slightly different 901

Amb. 48, 1364C1-1365B3.

902

Amb. 48, 1365C4-5.

411

perspective. Rather than being a stage simply to be surpassed in the journey to the intellect and divinity of Christ, in the context of Ambiguum 50 Maximus speaks of natural contemplation as that which “makes the powers of the soul powerful weapons for God for the pulling down of the strongholds and of every high-place that is lifted up against the knowledge of God, and for the contemplation of the spiritual principles in beings.”903 Natural contemplation in this context prepares the way for the reception of the knowledge of God—the conquest of the Promised Land—in that it yields “the rational principles of beings without symbols, enigmas, and the multiplicity of sense perception.”904 This, for Maximus, is what it means to eat the Passover in the desert, on the way from Egypt to the Promised Land, that is, from submission to the passions to the partaking of “the most exalted Word of wisdom without mediation.”905 Thus natural contemplation transforms the world from being an obstacle to God to being the way to God. Ambiguum 67 ties together the foregoing considerations of feeding on the Word and natural contemplation. In it Maximus discusses Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand in the wilderness, which again becomes paradigmatic—like the Passover in the wilderness—of the contemplation of nature. Maximus focuses on the numbers mentioned in the Gospel narrative—the five loaves, the five thousand men, the twelve baskets used to gather what was left—in order to uncover the teaching of the story. In the quotation at the head of the Ambiguum, Gregory affirms that the numbers included in the story are not “without reason,” so Maximus seeks to expound their rationale.

903

Amb. 50, 1369B1-6.

904

Amb. 50, 1368D9-1369A1.

905

Amb. 50, 1369A4-5.

412

He begins by explaining the feeding of the five thousand in terms of the contemplation of nature: the five barley loaves are “the λόγοι that are accessible to natural contemplation” and the five thousand men “represent those who are moved around nature (τοὺς περὶ φύσιν κινουµένους),” that is, those who concern themselves with nature.906 The desert where the feeding took place is “this world, in which the Word of God, by spiritually breaking the rational principles of nature into pieces, completely satisfies with good things those who are moved about the divine through natural contemplation.”907 To expand this initial insight, Maximus gives a number of different interpretations of the twelve baskets that were used to gather up the pieces of bread left over after the five loaves had been multiplied. To do so Maximus assigns symbolic meanings to the numbers that may be combined to produce the number twelve, and in nearly every instance, the meanings assigned draw the twelve baskets within the scope of the three-fold progression of philosophy and particularly the contemplation of nature: 7 (time as the cycle of days of the week) and 5 (nature as the four material elements plus form);908 4 (ethics as the four vitues), 5 (nature as the four material elements plus form), and 3 (theology in the three consubstantial hypostaseis of the Trinity);909 4 (the material elements) times 3 (the three-fold λόγος of a being in terms of οὐσία, δύναµις, and ἐνέργεια);910 10 (as a monadic number containing the complete sequence of numbers

906

Amb. 67, 1396C1-2.

907

Amb. 67, 1396C11-15.

908

Amb. 67, 1396D5-1397A8.

909

Amb. 67, 1397C11-16, D4-7.

910

Amb. 67, 1400A1-10.

413

within itself and thus standing for Christ as cause of all things) and 2 (matter and form);911 3 (hypostaseis of the Holy Trinity), 3 (the three-fold generation of beings in terms of divine activity, providence, and judgment), and 6 (the six days of creation).912 With his interpretation of these narrative details, Maximus establishes the encounter with Christ in the desert as the disclosure of the knowledge of nature. v. The Passion of Christ and the Knowledge of Nature To come to the culmination of the earthly life of Christ, Maximus gives a symbolic interpretation of the passion of Christ and the events immediately following that folds this culmination of the economy into his vision of natural philosophy as well. The cross of Christ is emblematic, for Maximus, of the whole of philosophical life. When Gregory says that Christ “is lifted up together with the cross,” he means that when the rational nature of man is exalted through praxis and the dispassion that is yoked together with it, Christ himself is said to be exalted along with it, that is, the Christ-like state in human beings is exalted in sequence and order, making its way through dispassionate praxis to knowledge-filled contemplation of nature (εἰς θεωρίαν τῆς φύσεως γνωστικήν) and from this to theological initiation (εἰς θεολογικὴν µυσταγωγίαν).913 The cross as a symbol of praxis and the struggle against the passions is fairly straightforward. Maximus, following the Scriptural and patristic tradition, often speaks of the practical life in terms of the “mortification” of the passions, and this is taken as an

911

Amb. 67, 1400C1-16.

912

Amb. 67, 1400D2-1401B15.

913

Amb. 32, 1284D7-1285A5.

414

assimilation to the death of Christ.914 In the context of the present quotation, the “activity” of the cross symbolizes perfect dispassion (ἀπάθεια), the goal of practical philosophy, through “the praxis that puts the passions to death.”915 But how does the passion of Christ signify the “knowledge-filled contemplation of nature,” which ultimately leads to “theological initiation”? As a general observation, Maximus applies the death of Christ to the contemplation of nature when one “puts aside the intellect’s symbolic contemplation of beings and is transposed to the uniform and simple mystical initiation (µυσταγωγίαν) of theological knowledge just as from the soul of Christ to his intellect,” where the soul of Christ represents the contemplation of nature (and his flesh practical philosophy).916 The world as symbolic manifestation of divine reality is transcended as symbol and the mind is initiated into that which is symbolized. This is a death, but it is also a return to the primordial state of Adam as Maximus has described it, in which he did not need first to think in terms of the phenomena that appear to the senses in order to come to an understanding of divine things (τῆς ἐπ᾽ αἰσθήσεσι τῶν φαινοµένων διανοίας πρὸς κατανόησιν τῶν θείων), but rather possessed only the simple approach of the uniform, simple, and constitutive virtue and knowledge of the things after God.917 Because this entails the transcendence of the material manifestation of reality, a separation from the body, as it were, Maximus will call it a death, but just as he says with

914

E.g. Amb. 47, 1360B3-D2. In his commentary on this passage from Ambiguum 32 Dumitru Staniloae focuses almost exclusively on the ascetical aspect: Larchet, Ponsoye, and Staniloae, Ambigua, 480-481 n.315, n.316. 915

Amb. 32, 1284C7-D6.

916

Amb. 47, 1360C8-13.

917

Amb. 45, 1356A11-B1; see above, 381ff.

415

respect to the human death to the world of corruption, this death is rather a death of death, which leads to true life and knowledge. With respect to Maximus’ specific claim about the cross and natural philosophy, he considers the cross according to three different concepts to illustrate how it symbolizes knowledge of the world. First, the shape (σχῆµα) “intimates the power that distinguishes the whole of what is, both things above and things below, in terms of what each thing is in its own definition.”918 Maximus seems to mean that the shape of the cross separates and defines space into a four-fold division of regions and in this way indicates the definition of beings in general. Second, the composition (σὐνθεσις) of the cross, that is, the cross considered as something that is put together, signifies “substance (οὐσία), providence (πρόνοια), and judgment (κρίσις),” three important concepts in the contemplation of nature.919 According to this concept it reveals “the wisdom, knowledge, and virtue of the power that directs the universe.” The vertical beam of the cross indicates “substance and wisdom as the creative power” and the horizontal beam indicates “providence and knowledge as the productive power.” “Judgment and virtue,” which constitute “the power that destroys evil,” are indicated by the cross as a whole.920 Finally, when the parts of the cross are considered individually, the vertical beam symbolizes the unchanging stability of God and the horizontal beam stands for the fact that creation is completely dependent upon God and nothing else for its being, hanging, as it were, on

918

Amb. 32, 1281C12-15.

919

Amb. 10, 1132D8ff.

920

Amb. 32, 1281C15-D9.

416

that single divine beam.921 This may appear to be a bit forced, but that very fact reveals Maximus’ insistence to find a way to incorporate every aspect of the economy into his vision of the philosophic life, and particularly his philosophy of nature. Maximus considers the body of the crucified Christ in Ambiguum 54, in which he explains Gregory’s exhortation that “if you are Joseph of Arimathea, ask for the body from the crucifier.”922 In this section of Gregory’s oration, the Theologian gives various exemples from Scripture as possible responses to the liberation of the Passover/Passion. As Maximus interprets these examples, Simon of Cyrene takes up the cross of practical philosophy (Amb. 52), the penitent thief on the cross suffers willingly for his sins (Amb. 53), Nikodemus, who came to Christ by night, attains true knowledge of Christ but does not manifest it, thus anointing Christ’s body for burial (Amb. 55). Maximus’ discussion of the body of Christ in Ambiguum 54 identifies the body of Christ with the powers of the soul as well as with the kinds of body that correspond to these powers. The body is also the virtues and the commandments.923 Thus the body of Christ stands for all the natural potentialities of this age. To ask for this body and prepare it for burial is to unite the rational principles that pertain to this age to the Word through natural contemplation once the bodily senses have become servants of the soul, wrapping him in them, as with fine linen (Lk 23.53).924

921

Amb. 32, 1281D9-1284A6.

922

G. Naz., Or. 45.24.

923

Amb. 55, 1376C4-9.

924

Amb. 55, 1377A7-10.

417

The myrrh-bearing women who went to the tomb of Christ also present an example of the acquisition of the knowledge of nature from the events surrounding the passion of Christ. Maximus takes their vision of the angels at the tomb as an indication that they have come to a spiritual knowledge of “the natural rational principles of beings, which silently proclaim the Word, the cause of all.”925 The resurrection can also be understood in these terms. Within the context of his interpretation of the passion of Christ in terms of praxis and contemplation, Maximus speaks of “the resurrection of the Word of virtue and knowledge” that takes place “within” the disciple. Referring to Thomas Didymus, who confessed Jesus to be “Lord” and “God” when he saw his resurrected body (Jn 20.28), Maximus states that the two titles refer to praxis and contemplation respectively.926 Moreover, when they come to be known, the λόγοι of beings “piercingly proclaim in a loud voice the modes of virtue [that] rule the disposition of the soul as the resurrection of the divine Word that takes place for the soul in its deification.”927 In this case the very purpose of the contemplation of nature, the contemplation of created things in their λόγοι, makes known the resurrection of the Word. The “words” of creation speak the resurrection of the divine Word in the soul. Finally, in his interpretation of the Ascension, Maximus articulates how the economy of the incarnation truly fashions a world, and truly is the creation itself: the one who is able to ascend from the knowledge of the economy, out of which the world of the flesh of the Word came to be with the Father, and comes to the realization of the glory [that the Word had] “with” the Father 925

Amb. 56, 1380B7-9.

926

Amb. 58, 1381C11-13.

927

Amb. 58, 1381D7-1384A4.

418

“before the world” of the Word’s incarnation “existed” (Jn 17.5), this one truly goes up to the heavens with the God and Word who descended to earth for his sake.928 The world of this age is identified with the incarnation of Christ, confirming and focusing Maximus’ claim in Ambiguum 7 that the Word desires to become incarnate in all things. This present world of nature, motion, time, and law is the flesh of Christ and to ascend from this world, from the flesh of Christ, is to come to the understanding that the Word is with the Father before the world came into being. Here the contemplation of nature and of Christ as the center of nature, leads to the contemplation of the eternal Word who has deified creation through his descent “to the furthest extreme of our nature (πρὸς τὸ ἔσχατον τῆς ἡµετέρας φύσεως).”929 We may recall this coherence in Ambiguum 61 as well, where Maximus interprets the tent of testimony (Ex 25.8-9) as both the economy of the incarnation of the Word and as creation itself.930 All of these reflections on the Passion of Christ are of course mediated by the written Gospels, which are, for Maximus, intended for “those who are still subject to sense perception and corruption,”931 since they are “elementary instruction for those who are being instructed through [them] to Christ the Word in spirit.”932 The four Gospels correspond to the four elements of nature and are folded into Maximus’ vision of the interaction between the sensory and the mental cosmos in which material reality and the

928

Amb. 60, 1385B5-10.

929

Amb. 60, 1385C2-3.

930

Amb. 61, 1385C13-D1, D9-10.

931

Amb. 21, 1245A7-8.

932

Amb. 21, 1244D9-11.

419

virtues mutually symbolize each other.933 As such, all of the narrative details of the Gospels, including the details of the Passion, must have a corresponding reality in the world, since Scripture and nature teach the same thing. The interpretation of the Gospels—and the Passion narratives in particular—in terms of natural philosophy is by no means the final or “real” meaning of the text; it is precisely “elementary,” preparatory instruction. But this elementary instruction very quickly leads from the soul of Christ to his intellect and divinity when “the divine Word” is resurrected in the soul of the disciple who, like Thomas, discerns the Lord of praxis and the God of contemplation in the body of the risen Christ. Thus, Maximus’ understanding of nature and the contemplation of nature culminates in his vision of the renewal of nature in Christ, a renewal that gives new life and possibility to the human contemplation of nature. The unity of the natural world in the Word of God, which is made manifest by the entrance of the Word into the natural world itself, gives meaning to the flux of material reality and opens the way for the contemplation of nature to lead beyond itself to the stability and “Sabbath rest” of eternal being and then to the “eighth day” of the “all-radiant presence of God, which comes after moving things are brought to stability.”934

933

See Chapter 4 above, 301-309.

934

Amb. 65, 1392C1-D3.

420

CONCLUSION TO PART II

This study of Maximus the Confessor’s Ambigua to John has read the text as an exposition of Maximus’ vision for the philosophical life and I have argued that the contemplation of nature is of primary significance in the Ambigua’s philosophy. Ambigua 6-8 provided a foundational analysis of human being in the world for which passibility and the distress of living between time and eternity and matter and spirit, are the basic experiences of the human being. The human being is estranged from the world and his own body and yet finds himself engulfed by what surrounds him (περὶ αὐτόν) so that he is in danger of forgetting his divine source and end. These experiences are given as a means of drawing a person into a desire for what transcends the instability of the world. Philosophy, which Maximus defines as φιλοθεΐα, the love of the divine, is the διάβασις through material reality to spiritual contemplation and ultimately to union with God. Maximus shows in Ambiguum 10 and related chapters how this path progresses through both praxis and contemplation, where the practical body is the manifestation of divine virtue and knowledge—ultimately of God himself—in the world. The dispassion of the ascetic becomes the clear vision of the contemplative whose mind has been freed of the determinations of his corrupted way of intuiting the world. Rather than grasping the world to possess it the one who has achieved dispassionate thought allows the divine fire that resides “in the essence of things” to radiate and disclose the true nature of the world. 421

While Maximus insists upon the radical otherness of God, the Ambigua are, in their analyses of the various aspects of the contemplation of nature, more concerned to speak of God and the world in positive terms and in this way the Ambigua begin to speak more directly of Christ as the center of natural contemplation. In the transfigured Christ God and the world are revealed at one and the same moment as inseparable in Christ. Nevertheless, despite the divine source and end of all things, the world maintains its temporality, though in Christ, time is not the distressing horizon of human passibility but is rather the eternal age to come when it ceases from its motion, just as eternity is time when it is measured by motion. This motion, which joins time to eternity, is defined by the love of God who both motivates the love of creatures in their desire for him and actively pours himself out into and as the world that he himself loves. It is on this basis that all of Maximus’ philosophy—asceticism, cosmic speculation, the logical concerns of language, initiation into the divine mystery—depends. It is love that motivates philosophy and is its content. This entire vision finds its final expression in Maximus’ description of the economy of salvation in terms of the renewal of nature and its contemplation. It was Adam’s failure to contemplate the world as it was given that introduced the mode of generation and corruption that we now experience as “nature,” in which division between matter and spirit, within the material world itself, and ultimately between Creator and creature holds sway. In his accounting of the narrative of the economy of salvation in the latter chapters of the Ambigua, Maximus gathers all the elements he has worked into his analyses of the different aspects of the philosophical life and concentrates them upon the renewal of nature in the incarnation of the Word of God. His life in the flesh, his

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teaching, death, resurrection, and ascension are all a recapitulation of the creation of the world and of the human understanding of that world, which Maximus renders as the believer’s partaking of Christ. I have argued from all this that Maximus’ well-known “cosmic Christology” is his way of rethinking the most basic human experiences of the world, from the pre-philosophical moment of bodily alienation to the life of praxis, the contemplation of nature, and ineffable union with God. Thus, Maximus’ Christology may be seen as a culmination of his natural philosophy and indeed as a vision for the philosophical life that recapitulates and transforms the ancient tradition into a philosophy that is Χριστοειδός, that takes the “form of Christ.”

423

EPILOGUE

This study has interpreted Maximus the Confessor’s Ambigua to John as presenting a vision of Christian divine philosophy that focuses on the coherence of praxis and contemplation in general and gives specific emphasis to the role of the contemplation of nature in the philosophical life. The analysis of the Greek philosophical tradition established the theme of giving an account of nature from within the context of concern for the conduct of human life and showed various ways in which the different schools of thought approached this theme. The study of the Greek patristic authors before Maximus showed how the Christian tradition absorbed much of the philosophical culture that preceded it (or was contemporary with it) but turned it towards the specifically Christian concern of crafting a vision for philosophy in terms of the Incarnation of the Word of God and it is in this way that a “Christian philosophy” took shape and was transmitted to Maximus. I would like to conclude by returning to the notion of the “Game of Philosophy,” which I articulated in the Introduction and with which Maximus in fact concludes his Ambigua to John. I have argued that in Maximus we see a number of different orientations towards the natural world. The world for Maximus is symbolic of divine reality and is identified with the divine as its manifestation, but it is also the scene of human transgression and can be an obstacle on the way to God even as it is itself the way. διάβασις (transit) can be overwhelmed by παράβασις (transgression) and I argued that 424

Maximus understands the transgression of Adam as a failure of his contemplation of nature, as a false vision of the nature of the world. The renewal of nature effected in Christ reestablishes the human being as the one who knows the world simply in its transparency to the divine. Maximus speaks in Ambiguum 71 of the “play” of the Word in the world and sees in human experience in and of the world a sort of divine pedagogy but he also absolutely rejects the notion that the natural world is the result of the fall and is not the good creation of God. To contemplate nature is to experience the “play” of the divine Word in the world but Maximus’ response to the play of the Word is not to reject the world as an inferior reality but to give an account of the world that is fully aware of its status as a discourse about realities that will appear as play-things, a vision in sleep as Heraclitus would say, when compared to the waking reality of the age to come.

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APPENDIX A

Polycarp Sherwood gives a summary description of the individual Ambigua in his Earlier Ambigua, but he gives no indication of how they may be seen to hold together structurally. I am not proposing a rigorous organization here, but there are clear groupings of chapters and a discernible progression of focus that make sense of the collection as a whole. I will begin with a summary of the works of Gregory Nazianzen from which Maximus takes his individual difficulties and then give a brief identification of the basic theme of each of the Ambigua within the sets I have identified. Summary of the Works of Gregory Nazianzen Treated in the Ambigua to John: Ambigua 6-8 (1065B—1105B) on Or. 14, On Love of the Poor 9-12 (1105C—1208C) on Or. 21, On St. Athanasius 13-14 (1208D—1213D) on Or. 27, Theological Oration I (Against the Eunomians) 15-22 (1216A—1257C) on Or. 28, Theological Oration II (Great Theological Oration) 23-26 (1257CD—1268B) on Or. 29, Theological Oraration III (First Oration on the Son) 27-30 (1268C—1273D) on Or. 30, Theological Oration IV (Second Oration on the Son) 31-38 (1273D—1301A) on Or. 38, On the Nativity 39-41 (1301B—1316A) on Or. 39, On the Lights 42-44 (1316B—1352A) on Or. 40, On Baptism 45-60 (1352B—1385C) on Or. 45, On Pascha 426

61-64 (1385CD—1389C) on Or. 44, On the New Lord’s Day 65-68 (1389D—1405C) on Or. 41, On Holy Pentecost 69 (1405C-D) on Or. 25, On Hero the Philosopher 70 (1405D—1408C) on Or. 43, The Funeral Oration for St. Basil 71 (1408CD—1417C) on Carm. II.ii. 589-590, Precepts to Virgins Structure of the Ambigua to John I. Ambigua 6-8: Analysis of Affectivity 6. The ambiguity of embodiment 7. The fundamental reality of motion and passibility in human being 8. The experience of disorder reveals reason’s orientation to virtue II. Ambigua 9-22: The Philosophic Life 9. Theological language and non-discursiveness 10. Philosophy as διάβασις through material reality -praxis and contemplation thoroughly implicated in each other -flesh as cloud and veil -how pleasure comes to be -motions of the soul -Biblical images of διάβασις and virtue -Moses and the crossing of the Red Sea -Moses on the mountain -Keeping flour pure through the wilderness in the Exodus -Joshua and the Jordan; circumcision 427

-Conquest of Jericho -Capture of Tyre -“The heavens declare the glory of God”: natural contemplation -“My father and mother have left me”: transcending the natural law of fleshly birth -Elijah and the still small voice -Elisha seeing the angelic powers around him -Anna and Samuel: birth of the Word through denial of the movements of the flesh -Priest making determinations about unclean houses -Elijah and the widow of Saraphath -Transfiguration—seeing the radiance of Christ after the acquisition of virtue -Coherence of the natural and written law -5 modes of natural contemplation -Continuation of Biblical Images -Melchizedek: transcends matter and form (nature) by virtue -The Lord in light of Melchizedek -Imitating Melchizedek by putting of flesh—becoming “without lineage” -“neither beginning of days…” : letting this present life go for the sake of what is better -“a priest forever” -The migration of Abraham as the movement from the senses to intellect -Moses—preserved by ethics and natural contemplation; burning bush -Moses’ flight from Egypt, endurance of hardships in Egypt

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-Imitation of the saints; identity of natural and written law -Saints of old indicate the coming of what goes beyond the law (David, Hezekiah) -Going beyond natural and written law: receiving true knowledge of beings synecdochically as following Jesus -Beyond law and scripture: stripping of all perception, reason, intellect in silence -Man who fell among thieves—spending beyond 2 denarii indicates separation from beings -Adam’s sin of preferring sense perception is death -Difference between the divine life of the saints and this life -Saints exercised natural contemplation and scriptural interpretation not in a human way -Transfiguration: wisdom and knowledge in creatures and scripture appear together with the knowledge of God -Moses and Elijah Law and Prophecy Wisdom and Goodness Knowledge and Training Praxis and Contemplation Marriage and the Unmarried state The Word as Lord of life and death All things live in God except the one who has mortified himself The Word as the beginning and end of law and prophecy Time and Nature Perceptible and Intellectual Creation -The Transfiguration indicates apophatic and kataphatic theology

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-The Lord a type and symbol of himself in the Incarnation -Sudden illumination of the Lord’s face: the absolute unknowability of the divine -Illumined clothing: creatures -Moses: affirmative theology, providence -Elijah: affirmative theology, judgment -Conversation between Christ, Moses, and Elijah: goal of nature’s present order -The composition and decomposition of the world -Affection for the body and this world is the great chasm between Lazarus and the rich man -Virtues alone are sufficient for blessedness [-Thief on the cross (Amb. 53)] [-New Sunday as deification (Amb. 63)] -The saints learn about God from natural contemplation -Natural contemplation of the beginning of motion; every moving thing has a source -Substance, quality, quantity: the expansion and contraction -Everything exists in space and time; “is” does not properly pertain to God -The universe is not eternal; God gives being and form -The dyad is not infinite: matter is not eternal -Providence is all encompassing, incomprehensible in its parts -Material dyad as thumos and epithumia; aligning of the soul with intellect -The passible element of the soul, various passivities -“privative a” added to Abraham’s name as indication of casting off all worldly things 430

-Moses removing his sandals as estrangement from former life -removing organs from sacrifice as removing passions -leprosy as passions -Pheneas: destroying matter and form, appetite and anger -“Do not give what is holy to dogs”: intellect and passions -The healing of the epileptic as freedom from thumos and epithumia; all the saints traverse this age 11. The difficult acceptance of providence and judgment 12. Correction and spiritual/pastoral care 13. The dynamics of teaching and learning 14. The proper place of rational demonstration 15. The soul, perception, and cosmic motion 16. The relation of negation to knowledge of essences 17. The subject and predication 18. God and place 19. The nature of φαντασία, what the saints see 20. Scriptural use of names and words, Paul’s ascent to the “third heaven” in terms of the philosophical life 21. Gregory’s discourse and Scripture; nature of Scripture and its relation to nature and virtue 22. The difficulty of discourse about God III. Ambigua 23-30: God and the Language of the World 23. Speaking of God and the world, the Divine and cosmic motion

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24. The divine will and the generation of the Son 25. The relationship between nature and predication 26. Substance (οὐσία) and activity (ἐνέργεια) 27. What is properly predicated of the two natures of Christ 28. How Christ receives double predication 29. Grammatical consideration about negations 30. The names attributed to the Son, uniting human names to the divine IV. Ambigua 31-44: The Renewal of Nature and the Economy of Salvation 31. The dissolution of the laws of nature, the transgression of Adam 32. Contemplation of different aspects of the cross: its shape, composition, parts and activity 33. Incarnation of the Word in the world and in Scripture 34. God’s gift of what is “around” his essence to the world for its knowledge of him 35. God’s self-impartation through the outpouring of his goodness 36. Hypostatic union of natures in Christ compared to the first “inbreathing” at the creation of the first human being 37. Responses to the presence of the Word in the flesh; on the interpretation of Scripture 38. Christ’s flight to Egypt as a child, Christ as the model for philosophy 39. Gregory’s description of pagan rites at the beginning of festal homily in the feast of Holy Lights to make the way to orthodoxy easier to walk for the Greeks 40. Trinitarian theology 41. The new institution of natures in Christ, the five-fold division of the cosmos overcome in Christ 42. Christ’s “three births” (physical birth, baptism, ressurection); soul and body created at the same time; explanation of what remains the same in the new institution of nature

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43. The deferral of baptism for the sake of ephemeral pleasure 44. The difficulty of acquiring God for the greater appreciation of his φιλανθρωπἰα V. Ambigua 45-68: Biblical exampla of responses to the renewal of nature in Christ 45. The original state of the first created human being 46. Christ as the “sun of righteousness,” as the yearly cycle, the beginning and end of all things 47. The one Christ partaken of by many 48. The spiritual “digestion” of Christ as the lamb of God 49. The life of praxis, as imitation of John the Baptist, is the forerunner of the knowledge to come 50. The simplicity of the philosophic life of those who proclaim the Kingdom of God, the different ways—ethical, natural, theological—of partaking of the Pascha 51. Leah and Rachel as praxis and contemplation 52. Simon of Cyrene as praxis 53. Good thief on the cross as repentance, evil thief as attachment to the world; good thief as praxis with reason and knowledge, evil thief as hypocrite 54. Joseph of Arimathea as the one who prepares the body of Christ (the soul, senses, body, commandments, virtues, λόγοι of generated things) and receives it “in the heart hewn out of faith” 55. Nikodemus as one who has knowledge of Christ but does not fulfill the practice of the commandments of Christ because of fear of the passions 56. Myrrh-bearing women: Mary Magdalene as praxis, the other Mary as contemplation, Salome (“peace”) as dispassion through virtue and knowledge through contemplation, Joanna (“dove) as dispassion through gentleness and spiritually reproductive through knowledge, angels at the tomb as words of Scripture, pious actions 57. Peter as faith through conversion and praxis, John as wisdom, gnosis, and theology; these two run together 58. Thomas as one who doubts the resurrection of virtue and knowledge within himself, who confesses Christ as Lord (praxis) and God (contemplation)

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59. Following Christ to Hades: the descent signifies faith and fight against the passions, ascent signifies return to virtue and knowledge 60. Ascending with Christ as fulfilling providence, from praxis to contemplation, from knowledge of λόγοι of created things to λόγοι of theology, from the economy of the flesh of Christ to the theology of his divinity 61. Tabernacle as the incarnation of the Word, as creation, sensual nature, human nature, human soul 62. David king of Israel as Christ’s first coming, Christ’s anointing of humanity with his divinity; in the second manifestation, Christ will be proclaimed as king of all creation 63. New Sunday (Sunday after Pascha/Easter) as the greatest feast indicates the need to make continuous progress from the resurrection of the flesh in virtue to deification in knowledge. 64. Ascetical consideration directed to female ascetics to keep them from paying attention to what happens outside their dwellings in order to avoid temptation 65. Christ as the fulfillment of the Sabbath; being, well-being, eternal being as the progression for creaturely potentiality, actualization, and rest 66. Numerology of 7 67. Numerology of the feeding of the 5000 and 4000, also considering the number 12 (baskets), 7 (loaves, baskets), 3 (days) 68. The gifts of prophecy and discernment Ambiguum 69: The difference between complete and incomplete sentences Ambiguum 70: Gregory’s use of rhetoric and the exhortation to virtue Conclusion Ambiguum 71: The Game of Philosophy—the pedagogy of the appearances of the Word in various forms in the world

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