On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ

On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ
Author: Saint Maximus (Confessor)
Publisher: RSM Press
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2003
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780881412499

This volume provides translations from St. Maximus' two main collections of theological reflections - his Ambigua (or Difficulties) and his Questions to Thalassius - plus one of his Christological opuscula, previously unavailable in English. The translations are accompanied by notes. --from back cover.

Maximus Confessor

Maximus Confessor
Author: Saint Maximus (Confessor)
Publisher: Paulist Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1985
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780809126590

This volume includes a translation of four spiritual treatises of Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662), plus an account of his trial. Included are The Four Hundred Chapters of Love, Commentary on the Lord's Prayer, Chapters on Knowledge, The Church's Mystagogy, and Trial of Maximus.

The Christocentric Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor

The Christocentric Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor
Author: Torstein Tollefsen
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2008-08-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191608068

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.

The Whole Mystery of Christ

The Whole Mystery of Christ
Author: Jordan Daniel Wood
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 495
Release: 2022-10-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268203466

A thoroughgoing examination of Maximus Confessor’s singular theological vision through the prism of Christ’s cosmic and historical Incarnation. Jordan Daniel Wood changes the trajectory of patristic scholarship with this comprehensive historical and systematic study of one of the most creative and profound thinkers of the patristic era: Maximus Confessor (560–662 CE). Wood's panoramic vantage on Maximus’s thought emulates the theological depth of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Cosmic Liturgy while also serving as a corrective to that classic text. Maximus's theological vision may be summed up in his enigmatic assertion that “the Word of God, very God, wills always and in all things to actualize the mystery of his Incarnation.” The Whole Mystery of Christ sets out to explicate this claim. Attentive to the various contexts in which Maximus thought and wrote—including the wisdom of earlier church fathers, conciliar developments in Christological and Trinitarian doctrine, monastic and ascetic ways of life, and prominent contemporary philosophical traditions—the book explores the relations between God’s act of creation and the Word’s historical Incarnation, between the analogy of being and Christology, and between history and the Fall, in addition to treating such topics as grace, deification, theological predication, and the ontology of nature versus personhood. Perhaps uniquely among Christian thinkers, Wood argues, Maximus envisions creatio ex nihilo as creatio ex Deo in the event of the Word’s kenosis: the mystery of Christ is the revealed identity of the Word’s historical and cosmic Incarnation. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of patristics, historical theology, systematic theology, and Byzantine studies.

St. Maximus the Confessor's "Questions and Doubts"

St. Maximus the Confessor's
Author: Saint Maximus the Confessor
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2021-08-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1501755358

Despina D. Prassas's translation of the Quaestiones et Dubia presents for the first time in English one of the Confessor's most significant contributions to early Christian biblical interpretation. Maximus the Confessor (580–662) was a monk whose writings focused on ascetical interpretations of biblical and patristic works. For his refusal to accept the Monothelite position supported by Emperor Constans II, he was tried as a heretic, his right hand was cut off, and his tongue was cut out. In his work, Maximus the Confessor brings together the patristic exegetical aporiai tradition and the spiritual-pedagogical tradition of monastic questions and responses. The overarching theme is the importance of the ascetical life. For Maximus, askesis is a lifelong endeavor that consists of the struggle and discipline to maintain control over the passions. One engages in the ascetical life by taking part in both theoria (contemplation) and praxis (action). To convey this teaching, Maximus uses a number of pedagogical tools including allegory, etymology, number symbolism, and military terminology. Prassas provides a rich historical and contextual background in her introduction to help ground and familiarize the reader with this work.

Chronicle of the Living Christ

Chronicle of the Living Christ
Author: Robert A. Powell
Publisher: SteinerBooks
Total Pages: 502
Release: 1996
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 9780880104074

This pioneering, monumental work utilizes the visionary legacy of Anne Catherine Emmerich and the spiritual scientific discoveries of Rudolf Steiner concerning various hidden facts of Christ's incarnation. Powell has established the dates and daily events of Jesus Christ on Earth. Further, he indicates their significance for our future. In part one, Powell gives a historical overview. Then, using esoteric sources and his own knowledge of sidereal astrology, he offers startling insights into the circumstances of the Christmas event and the incarnation. In part two, Powell offers a daily chronicle of the three-and-a-half-year ministry of Jesus Christ on Earth, dating the events with an unprecedented accuracy. Also, Powell correlates significant events in Christ's life with upcoming dates in the history of humankind and indicates that the living presence of the Christ is increasingly accessible to us.

The Universal Christ

The Universal Christ
Author: Richard Rohr
Publisher: Convergent Books
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2019-03-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1524762105

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From one of the world’s most influential spiritual thinkers, a long-awaited book exploring what it means that Jesus was called “Christ,” and how this forgotten truth can restore hope and meaning to our lives. “Anyone who strives to put their faith into action will find encouragement and inspiration in the pages of this book.”—Melinda Gates In his decades as a globally recognized teacher, Richard Rohr has helped millions realize what is at stake in matters of faith and spirituality. Yet Rohr has never written on the most perennially talked about topic in Christianity: Jesus. Most know who Jesus was, but who was Christ? Is the word simply Jesus’s last name? Too often, Rohr writes, our understandings have been limited by culture, religious debate, and the human tendency to put ourselves at the center. Drawing on scripture, history, and spiritual practice, Rohr articulates a transformative view of Jesus Christ as a portrait of God’s constant, unfolding work in the world. “God loves things by becoming them,” he writes, and Jesus’s life was meant to declare that humanity has never been separate from God—except by its own negative choice. When we recover this fundamental truth, faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognize the Creator’s presence all around us, and in everyone we meet. Thought-provoking, practical, and full of deep hope and vision, The Universal Christ is a landmark book from one of our most beloved spiritual writers, and an invitation to contemplate how God liberates and loves all that is.

The Mystery of Christ

The Mystery of Christ
Author: Thales of Argos
Publisher: Radiant Books
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2021-07-19
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1639940022

The life of Christ… …still holds mysteries. Would you like a deeper understanding? He was an Initiate. Thales of Argos’ journey is fascinating, for he takes us along his path through the tests of wisdom. With the Great Initiate, who was present for Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection, we witness the true mission of the Son of God. How many answers await? What are the innermost secrets of Mary? Eye-opening and heart-touching, The Mystery of Christ brings a fresh perspective, an uncommon insight, and spiritual depth to these dramatic events which occurred two thousand years ago. With the feel of a Hans Christian Anderson tome… …this book will leave you spellbound. You’ll love this fresh look at Christ because the numerous spiritual revelations will give you the depth of knowledge you’ve always wanted. “Few books have shaken me to the core as much as The Mystery of Christ. The descriptive language used is so powerful, so evocative, and so moving as to take it into the realms of pure poetry in literature. I cannot stress enough how powerful this book is.” — Grant Leishman, Readers' Favorite “The wise observations of Thales of Argos and his reflections on spiritual mysteries, past lives, and Christian connections to some of the greatest questions of the times creates a powerful account that should be considered a mainstay of any Christian literature, history, or spirituality collection.” — Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review Get it now.

Maximus the Confessor

Maximus the Confessor
Author: Paul M. Blowers
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2016
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0199673942

This study contextualizes the achievement of a strategically crucial figure in Byzantium's turbulent seventh century, the monk and theologian Maximus the Confessor (580-662). Building on newer biographical research and a growing international body of scholarship, as well as on fresh examination of his diverse literary corpus, Paul Blowers develops a profile integrating the two principal initiatives of Maximus's career: first, his reinterpretation of the christocentric economy of creation and salvation as a framework for expounding the spiritual and ascetical life of monastic and non-monastic Christians; and second, his intensifying public involvement in the last phase of the ancient christological debates, the monothelete controversy, wherein Maximus helped lead an East-West coalition against Byzantine imperial attempts doctrinally to limit Jesus Christ to a single (divine) activity and will devoid of properly human volition. Blowers identifies what he terms Maximus's "cosmo-politeian" worldview, a contemplative and ascetical vision of the participation of all created beings in the novel politeia, or reordered existence, inaugurated by Christ's "new theandric energy". Maximus ultimately insinuated his teaching on the christoformity and cruciformity of the human vocation with his rigorous explication of the precise constitution of Christ's own composite person. In outlining this cosmo-politeian theory, Blowers additionally sets forth a "theo-dramatic" reading of Maximus, inspired by Hans Urs von Balthasar, which depicts the motion of creation and history according to the christocentric "plot" or interplay of divine and creaturely freedoms. Blowers also amplifies how Maximus's cumulative achievement challenged imperial ideology in the seventh century--the repercussions of which cost him his life-and how it generated multiple recontextualizations in the later history of theology.