The Christocentric Cosmology of St Maximus The Confessor

Description

St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662), was a major Byzantine thinker, a theologian and philosopher. He developed a philosophical theology in which the doctrine of God, creation, the cosmic order, and salvation is integrated in a unified conception of reality. Christ, the divine Logos, is the centre of the principles (the logoi ) according to which the cosmos is created, and in accordance with which it shall convert to its divine source. Torstein Tollefsen treats Maximus' thought from a philosophical point of view, and discusses similar thought patterns in pagan Neoplatonism. The study focuses on Maximus' doctrine of creation, in which he denies the possibility of eternal coexistence of uncreated divinity and created and limited being. Tollefsen shows that by the logoi God institutes an ordered cosmos in which separate entities of different species are ontologically interrelated, with man as the centre of the created world. The book also investigates Maximus' teaching of God's activities or energies, and shows how participation in these energies is conceived according to the divine principles of the logoi. An extensive discussion of the complex topic of participation is provided. Table of Contents The Christocentric Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor 1 Introduction I. ST MAXIMUS’ WRITINGS AND THEIR INTERPRETATION II. ST MAXIMUS ‘THE PHILOSOPHER’ III. ST MAXIMUS’ PHILOSOPHICAL SOURCES IV. EARLIER RESEARCH RELEVANT TO THE PRESENT TOPIC 2 The Divine Ideas and the Creation of the Cosmos I. ‘EXEMPLARISM’ II. PRECURSORS TO EXEMPLARIST DOCTRINES The Cosmology from Timaeus Aristotle’s Doctrine of Categories, Definitions and Classifications The Stoic Doctrine of Logos/logoi III. EXEMPLARISM IN THE PLATONIC TRADITION IV. PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA AND EARLY CHRISTIAN EXEMPLARISM V. ST MAXIMUS’ DOCTRINE OF CREATION 3 The Logos, the logoi, and Created Beings I. THE LOGOS AS CENTRE OF ALL THE LOGOI II. THE LOGOI AS PRINCIPLES OF A PORPHYRIAN TREE III. THE ORDERING OF ESSENTIAL BEING—EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION Essence Common Nature Particular Nature Universals Expansion and Contraction IV. THE ONTOLOGICAL CONSTITUTION OF CREATED BEINGS 4 The Divine Activity I. GOD’S ESSENCE AND ACTIVITIES ACCORDING TO ST GREGORY PALAMAS II. THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE AND ACTIVITY PRIOR TO ST MAXIMUS III. ESSENCE AND ACTIVITY ACCORDING TO ST MAXIMUS IV. THE ACTIVITIES AND THE LOGOI 5 The Concept of Participation I. INTRODUCTION II. THE PROBLEM OF PARTICIPATION III. THE LOGIC OF PARTICIPATION IV. INCARNATION AND PARTICIPATION ACCORDING TO ST MAXIMUS Concluding Remarks