Description

In the Ambigua to John, the great early Byzantine monastic theologian and philosopher Maximus the Confessor (580 - 662) is at work in his most creative and expansive mode. Using difficult passages in Gregory Nazianzen as starting points for his thinking, Maximus draws together various strands of the theological and philosophical traditions he inherited and shapes an ever-moving, kaleidoscopic vision of the journey through the world of place, time, and materiality to final dynamic repose in eternity. Throughout the text, Maximus takes his readers along the many paths his own mind traveled to clarify this breathtaking reflection of the teachings of Scripture and the patristic tradition. In this translation of the first fully critical edition of Maximus's text, the streams of the Confessor's divine philosophy are revealed in their own right. This translation will be followed with the first full commentary on the Ambigua to John in English, to appear in Corpus Christianorum in Translation. The source text of this volume will appear in Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca, 84.