Maximus the Confessor: Logos and Logoi DOC

Title	Maximus the Confessor: Logos and Logoi
Author	Stephen Clark
Pages	18
File Size	86 KB
File Type	DOC
Total Downloads	405
Total Views	914

Summary

“Christ plays in ten thousand places” The relationship of logoi and Logos in Plotinus, Maximus and Beyond Abstract A brief exploration of the relationship between the ‘ideas’ or principles of all existing things as they are held in the divine intellect, and the Logos itself. I shall be pointing out ...

Description

"Christ plays in ten thousand places" The relationship of logoi and Logos in Plotinus, Maximus and Beyond Abstract A brief exploration of the relationship between the 'ideas' or principles of all existing things as they are held in the divine intellect, and the Logos itself. I shall be pointing out that Balthasar's assumption that pagan Neo-Platonism is pantheistic is misleading, and that Plotinus's system is closer to Maximus than has been recognized by recent commentators. Issues about 'Creation', 'the Fall' and 'the Incarnation' make some difficulties for this proposal, which I acknowledge and attempt to deconstruct. A Preliminary Rant My own acquaintance with Maximus is tangential at best. Berthold's selection of his writings1 has sat on my shelves for many years, and I have had occasion to quote from them, but without investigating Maximus's own philosophy at any length. I have read most of Lars Thunberg's study2 , and Balthasar's3 , and Andrew Louth's introduction to selected texts of Maximus4 . I have learnt a lot from Tollefsen's study of Maximus's Christocentric Cosmology5 , and from Toronen6 , but I have not read Polycarp Sherwood's examination of the Ambigua7 , nor Cooper's account of The Body in St.Maximus the Confessor8 . Such articles that I have located through JSTOR have not, so far, proved profitable9 . So I came to the colloquium from which this volume issues very poorly prepared. My only excuse was that I 1 Maximus Confessor, Selected Writings, tr. George C.Berthold SPCK: London 1985 2 Lars Thunberg Microcosm and Mediator: the theological anthropology of Maximus the Confessor, tr. Lars Thunberg & A.M.Allchin (C.W.K.Gleerup: Lund 1965). 3 Hans Urs von Balthasar Cosmic Liturgy: the Universe according to Maximus the Confessor, tr. Brian E.Daley S.J. (Ignatius Press: San Francisco 2003; 1st published 1988 3rd ed). 4 Andrew Louth Maximus the Confessor (Routledge: London 1996). 5 T.T.Tollefsen The Christocentric Cosmology of St.Maximus the Confessor (Oxford University Press: New York 2008). 6 Melchisedec Törönen Union and Distinction in the Thought of St Maximus the Confessor (Clarendon Press: Oxford 2007) 7 Polycarp Sherwood The Early Ambigua (Herder: Rome 1955). 8 Adam G.Cooper The Body in St.Maximus the Confessor (Oxford University Press: New York 2005). 9 Except perhaps Christopher C.Knight 'Divine Action: a Neo-Byzantine Model' in International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 58.2005, pp.181–199....