Prologue On Love by Maximus the Confessor

Prologue

Of Our Father among the Saints

Maximus the Confessor

On Love

To Elpidios, Presbyter

Behold, in addition to the book On Ascetic Life I have also sent the book On Love to your holiness, Father Elpidios, in α number of propositions equal to the four Holy Gospels, counted in hundreds—being in no way equal to the worthiness of your expectation, yet at least not smaller than our strength. However your holiness ought to also know that these are not my cultivated thoughts but those of the Holy Fathers.

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[N.B. — Our translation will be published in bi-weekly installments. At the bottom of this post you will find in bold the sentence translated most recently.]

Philokalia Title Page

This is my own translation of the title page of the Philiokalia, as well as the first official post as a part of my project to translate the eleven centuries of Maximus the Confessor. The project is primarily devotional and meditative in nature, and I plan to take upwards of eleven years to do so. Nevertheless, there is no reason for me not to share my translation with all of you. Let us commence.

Single Human Nature

71. Perfect love does not split up the single human nature, common to all, according to the diverse characteristics of individuals; but, fixing attention always on this single nature, it loves all men equally. It loves the good as friends and the bad as enemies, helping them, exercising forbearance, patiently accepting whatever they do, not taking the evil into account at all but even suffering on their behalf if the opportunity offers, so that, if possible, they too become friends. If it cannot achieve this, it does not change its own attitude; it continues to show the fruits of love to all men alike. It was on account of this that our Lord and God Jesus Christ, showing His love for us, suffered for the whole of mankind and gave to all men an equal hope of resurrection, although each man determines his own fitness for glory or punishment.

~ St Maximus the Confessor, First Century on Love, no. 71

Paradise

Seeing God face to face is what properly and in itself makes Paradise Paradise, or rather is Paradise itself.  So, on the contrary, never seeing God is what properly and in itself makes Hell Hell.

Paradise means the soul to be as directly united with God as heated iron is united with fire, so that God is almost indistinguishable from the soul, and the soul from God; just as the fire is almost indistinguishable from the iron and the iron from the fire.

Paradise means to sit in the throne of the Deity and partake of the Divine feast; that is, to enjoy by participation and grace the happiness that God enjoys by essence.  “To him that overcometh I will grant to sit with me in my throne” (Rev. 3:21).  Hence the divine Maximos has said: “He who has been deified through grace is everything that God is, without the identity in essence.”  Hence, the same good which was able, before the appearance of time, to fill the heart of God shall also fill directly the heart of the blessed one.

~ St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite

Where The Lord May Be Sought

35. Those who seek The Lord should not look for Him outside themselves; on the contrary, they must seek Him within themselves through faith made manifest in action. For He is near you: ‘The word is . . . in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith’ (Rom. 10 : 8) – Christ being Himself the word that is sought.

~ St. Maximus the Confessor

Self-denial

37. Stop pleasing yourself and you will not hate your brother; stop loving yourself and you will love God.

38. Once you have decided to share your life with spiritual brethren, renounce your own wishes from the start. Unless you do this, you will not be able to live peaceably either with God or with your brethren.

~ St. Maximus the Confessor

Human Weakness

Realise your nothingness and constantly keep in your mind the fact that by yourself you can do nothing good which is worthy of the kingdom of heaven. Listen to the words of the wise fathers: Peter of Damascus assures us that ‘nothing is better than to realise one’s weakness and ignorance, and nothing is worse than not to be aware of them’ (Philokalia). St. Maximus the Confessor teaches: ‘The foundation of every virtue is the realisation of human weakness’ (Philokalia). St. John Chrysostom says: ‘He alone knows himself in the best way possible who thinks of himself as being nothing.’

~ from The Unseen Warfare

Fear and Love

For this reason, admiring the greatness of your condescension, I blended my fear with affection, and from these two, fear and affection, I created a single thing, love, made up of modesty and benevolence, in such manner that a fear devoid of affection did not become hatred, nor did an affection not joined to a prudent fear become presumption, but on the contrary that love be shown to be an immanent law of devotedness which harmonizes whatever is related by nature. By benevolence it masters hatred, and by reverence it pushes away presumption. Realizing that it (that is, fear) confirms divine love more than anything else, the blessed David has said, “The fear of the Lord is chaste and remains from age to age.” He well knew that this fear is different from the fear which consists of being afraid of punishments for faults of which we are accused, since for one thing this (fear of punishment) disappears completely in the presence of love, as the great evangelist John shows somewhere in his words, “Love drives out fear.” For another thing, the former (fear of the Lord) naturally characterizes the law of true concern; it is through reverence that the saints keep forever completely uncorrupted the law and mode of life of love toward God and toward each other.

~ St. Maximus the Confessor

Theosis in Mercy

Now nothing is either so fitting for justification or so apt for divinization, if I can speak thus, and nearness to God as mercy offered with pleasure and joy from the soul to those who stand in need. For if the Word has shown that the one who is in need of having good done to him is God–for as long, he tells us, as you did it for one of these least ones, you did it for me–on God’s very word, then he will much more show that the one who can do good and who does it is truly God by grace and participation because he has taken on in happy imitation the energy and characteristic of his own doing good. And if the poor man is God, it is because of God’s condescension in becoming poor for us and in taking upon himself by his own suffering the sufferings of each one and “until the end of time,” always suffering mystically out of goodness in proportion to each one’s suffering. All the more reason, then, will that one be God who by loving men in imitation of God heals by himself in divine fashion the hurts of those who suffer and who shows that he has in his disposition, safeguarding all proportion, the same power of saving Providence that God has.

~ St. Maximus the Confessor

Love of God and Neighbor

15.  The one who sees a trace of hatred in his own heart through any fault at all toward any man whoever he may be makes himself completely foreign to the love for God, because love for God in no way admits of hatred for man.

16.  “The one who loves me,” says the Lord, “will keep my commandments” and “this is my commandment, that you love one another.” Therefore the one who does not love his neighbor is not keeping the commandment, and the one who does not keep the commandment is not able to love the Lord.

17. Blessed is the man who has learnt to love all men equally.

~ St. Maximus the Confessor