Matz Thesis_Final (3)

Let Him Deny Himself:
Dionysian Apophaticism in Maximus the Confessor
By
Drew R. Matz
M.A. Essay
Submitted to the Faculty of
Concordia Theological Seminary
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Arts
Dr. James G. Bushur, Advisor
Dr. William C. Weinrich, Reader
Fort Wayne, Indiana
March 27, 2015

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

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Contents
Introduction
Part I. The More Perfect Way: Affirmation and Negation
The Mystical Theology
Cataphatic and Apophatic Theology
The Divine Darkness
Theosis
Part II. Maximus’ Christolgical Synthesis
Christology
The Transfiguration
The Natural and Written Law
Part III. Apophasis and Kenosis: The Ascetic Struggle
The Passions and the Will
Man’s Kenotic Response
Part IV. The Church: the Agent of Apophasis
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
Maximus and the Microcosmic Liturgy
Dead to the World, Alive to Christ
Conclusion
Bibliography
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1
Introduction
In June, 654, an elderly abbot lies in a Constantinople jail cell. Having the previous day
contended for a Christological position contrary to the Monophysitism of the emperor and
patriarch, the officials placed him in prison while they deliberated the fate of the steadfast man.
Finding him defiant of the church’s position, the clergy persuaded the emperor to condemn the
elderly monk and his disciple to “that cruel and inhumane exile and to separate them from each
other, the holy old man to Bizya, a city of Thrace, and his disciple to Perberis, at the outer limit
of the Roman Empire, unprovided for, naked, without nourishment, lacking every resource of
life.”1
This holy man is known to the world as St. Maximus the Confessor. A second trial in 662
would result in Maximus having his tongue torn out and his right hand being cut off in order that
he could no longer propagate the Dyophysitism which he had so passionately advocated.
Following this mangling, he was exiled once again, this time to Lazica, which is modern-day
Georgia. This fact has earned him his more popular title, “Confessor,” when his position was
vindicated and recognized as orthodox just twenty years later at the Sixth Ecumenical Council.2
According to the Greek Life of Maximus, Maximus was born in 580 in Constantinople,
Byzantine Empire, to a wealthy Christian family.3 It can be reasonably inferred from the
Confessor’s extant familiarity with the Scriptures, the church fathers, and even the prominent
Neoplatonic philosophers, his education received at the Christian university at Constantinople
would have been first-class. It is this impeccable education and heir to nobility that likely led to
1Maximus, Maximus Confessor: Selected Writings, trans.George C. Berthold (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press,
1985), 27.
2 Maximus and Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor (New York, NY: Routledge, 1996), 18.
3 Maximus, Maximus Confessor, 3.

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his attaining of the position of protosecretary to the emperor Heraclius while he was still a young
man.4`
This tenure in the imperial court did not last long, as he resigned his position after only
three years to take up a monastic vocation in Chrysopolis where he became an abbot. After
transferring to St. George monastery shortly thereafter, he was forced to Northern Africa because
of foreign military encroachments which threatened Constantinople. It is in this quarter-century
tenure in Africa that we see the seeds of a major dispute begin to be planted. During this time a
bitter controversy had arisen regarding whether Jesus of Nazareth possessed one will or two. It is
here he began to articulate his Dyophysite Christological position; “since ‘will’ and ‘activity’
pertained to a nature rather than to a person, Christ must have had both a human will and a divine
will, since he was one person but, as the Council of Chalcedon had said, ‘in two natures.’”5
To many, including the political and ecclesiastical elites at the time, this quarrelling over
such mysterious and abstract matters was a useless waste of time. Maximus, however,
understood the implications related to such a dispute. Because his position within dogmatic
history is neo-Chalcedonian,6 the dangers of Monophysitism were stark from his perspective. If
the Cappadocian formula “that which is not assumed is not redeemed” was true, then it was vital
that Christ truly possessed all that is human, including the human will, in order to redeem it. For
him, it was not merely having the correct philosophical position regarding a useless abstract
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid, 4.
6 Joseph P. Farrell, Free Choice in St. Maximus the Confessor (South Canan, PA: St. Tikhon's Seminary
Press, 1989), 23.

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speculation, but the very salvation of mankind was at stake.7 It was this primary concern that
would get Maximus in deep trouble with the imperial court.
Maximus’ theology owes just as much to the theological atmosphere he inherited as to his
own intellectual ability. The Neoplatonic schema of Origen did much to shape the nature of the
debate by the time Maximus arrived on the scene. The pinnacle of this influence could be said to
be found in a collection of writings which were widely thought to have been attributed to
Dionysius the Areopagite, the first century convert and disciple of St. Paul mentioned in the 17th
chapter of Acts. The writings, contemporarily known as the Corpus Areopagiticum, first surfaced
in the early sixth century when they had begun to be authoritatively appealed to by Syrian
monophysite theologians in support of certain Christological positions, such as Monenergism.8
The themes which are so pivotal to the Corpus Areopagiticum are philosophically dense and are
certainly warrant deep exploration.9 Thus, an in-depth investigation of the Corpus is worthy of
further study elsewhere.
The idea of Dionysian themes in Maximus the Confessor is widely acknowledged but
under-explored. Opinions on this topic range from a wholesale import of Dionysius into
Maximian thought, to Maximus’ rejection aside from a reluctant corrective to some theological
nomenclature. This type of scholarly incongruence cries out for a better analysis of certain
7 Ibid, 24.
8 Vladimir Lossky, The Vision of God (Clayton, WI: The Faith Press, 1963), 90.
9
The collection of writings attributed to Dionysius, known as the Corpus Areopagiticum, has been widely
considered by modern scholars not to have been written by Dionysius the Areopagite, but rather a Christian in the
fifth century who was heavily influenced by Proclus. The work consists of10 epistles, each addressed to certain
prominent figures in the early Church. The Corpus also contains four theological treatises: The Divine Names, The
Celestial Hierarchy, The Mystical Theology, and The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Each of these treatises addresses
different aspects relative to theological ontology and epistemology, incorporating much Neoplatonic language and
framework. For an exhaustive treatment of the Corpus, see Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius A Commentary on the
Texts and an Introduction to TheirInfluence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

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instances where the Dionysian influence is perhaps most evident. For example, Maximus very
clearly regards the Dionysian writings as authentic and authoritative in relation to doctrine and
practice, and has none other than the highest esteem for his theological ideas. In the introduction
to The Church’s Mystagogy, he writes,
But since the symbols of the sacred celebration of the holy synaxis have also been
considered by the most holy and truly divine interpreter Dionysius the Areopagite in a
manner which is worthy of his great mind in his treatise Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, it
should be known that the present work will not repeat these same things nor will it
proceed in the same manner. It would in fact be foolhardy and presumptuous and near
madness for those who are not yet able to grasp or understand what he experienced to
treat of the same subject, or to bring forward as their own the mysteries that were
revealed by the spirit to him alone. Instead, my subject will be those things which God in
his goodness wanted him to leave for others for the interpretation and exercise of the
habit of these things in accordance with their desire for divine things.10
With this sort of endorsement of Dionysius as reliable and authoritative, it could be reasonably
asserted that Maximus utilizes Dionysius’ apophatic and cataphatic methods in a Christological
way. In order to explore this proposition further one must evaluate Maximus’ theology in light of
Dionysian categories.

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The More Perfect Way: Affirmation and Negation
Here, renouncing all that the mind may conceive, wrapped entirely in the intangible and
the invisible, he belongs completely to him who is beyond everything. Here, being neither
oneself nor someone else, one is supremely united to the completely unknown by an
inactivity of all knowledge, and knows beyond the mind by knowing nothing.
-Pseudo-Dionysius, The Mystical Theology
Perhaps the greatest endeavor of the human imagination is to come to know God. The
centuries testify to the efforts wrought by theologians to inquire of God’s essence and nature,
often ending in completely contradictory conclusions depending on one’s theological tradition.
Although elusive, this was a task made front-and-center for Dionysius, especially in his short
treatise, The Mystical Theology, which is primarily concerned with spiritual epistemology and
theological method.
The Mystical Theology
The Mystical Theology is the shortest treatise within the Corpus Areopagiticum, weighing
in at only five short chapters, some of which only a few paragraphs in length. The brevity of the
treatise is somewhat deceptive in that it may be tempting to attribute to it an unwarranted
simplicity.11 Despite the brevity Dionysius has much to say here, and he will certainly be heard
out as this little treatise will prove to be immensely influential.
The treatise serves as a glimpse into the foundation of Dionysius’ train of thought. For
him, theology is less about an intellectual endeavor to achieve enlightenment as it is about a
direct union with the perceived object of knowledge, who ironically cannot be known. Andrew
Louth notes: “The soul flees from everything created and is united with the Unknowable God in
11 Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, 183.

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darkness. His Mystical Theology is a brief and pregnant exposition of this theme, and has been
enormously influential.”12 Hence, the overall goal is not so much knowledge but union.
This union requires a vehicle, and much of Dionysius’ affinity for Neoplatonic thought13
is expressed in what seems to be a preoccupation with the idea of mediation, which manifests
itself in systems of triads. As Paul Rorem notes:
It probably derives not from any Trinitarian model but from the Neoplatonic fascination
for the way an intermediary, or mean (or middle) term between extremes, creates a triad.
For example, the Platonic ideals form a mean term between the one and the many, and
thus attempt to provide some linkage between them. Dionysius borrowed this idea of
middle terms to form triads and thus to create a continuum of hierarchy.14
Rorem raises another important theme for Dionysius, as the triadic structure of being gives way
to the idea of hierarchy (ἱεραρχία), a term that seems to have been invented by Dionysius
himself.15 Hierarchy then becomes for Dionysius the shuttle which allows this union to come to
fruition, for without this structure, his ideas would not function. Directly related to his ideas of
hierarchy are his triadic themes of rest, procession, and return as well as purification,
illumination, and perfection. All of this is only possible within the economy of the divine
hierarchies.
Cataphatic and Apophatic Theology
12 Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition from Plato to Denys, (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1981), 159.
13 For a discussion on the relationship between Neoplatonism and Pseudo-Dionysius,see Paul
Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence (New York: Oxford
University Press,1993); and Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition from Plato to Denys,
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981).
15 Pseudo-Dionysius,Pseudo-dionysius:The Complete Works, trans.Colm Luibheid and Paul Rorem
(Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1987), 1.

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Although union seems to be the overall goal, one must understand a context wherein
union, for Dionysius, becomes possible. Dionysius posits a certain axiom that will serve as an
underpinning for his entire theology: the utter unknowability of the essence of God:
What has actually to be said about the cause of everything is this. Since it is the cause of
beings, we should posit and ascribe to it all the affirmations we make in regard to beings,
and, more appropriately, we should negate all these affirmations, since it surpasses all
being. Now we should not conclude that the negations are simply the opposites of the
affirmations, rather that the cause of all is significantly prior to this, beyond privations,
beyond every denial, beyond every assertion.16
Thus, there are in essence two ways of ascending to knowledge of God. The first is through
privation, or affirmative predication. This notion, called cataphasis (κατάφασις), is somewhat
useful for Dionysius, as it is able to give an approximation and therefore some knowledge of
what God is perhaps like. For example, one must indeed say that God is a fortress, but at the
same time one must deny that God is material. The notion of fortress may convey an idea about
God but it cannot capture what God really is. The problem with this is that as we conceptualize
God and come closer to describing the way he really is, our language begins to break down as
human beings cannot conceptualize such transcendence:
The fact is that the more we take the flight upward, the more our words are confined to
the ideas we are capable of forming; so that now as we plunge into that darkness which is
beyond intellect, we shall find ourselves not simply running short of words but actually
speechless and unknowing.17
In other words, the creature’s immanence necessarily implies an incapability to predicate upon
that which is ipso facto unknowable. God’s essence is alien to human predication so that any
affirmation is at best just “theological groping.”
16 Pseudo-Dionysius,The Comple Works, 136.
17 Ibid, 139.

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The second theological way that serves as a paradoxical complement to affirmation is the
way of negation, otherwise known as ἀπόφασις. In this way of negation, the theologian is to
“praise the Transcendent One in a transcending way, namely through the denial of all beings”.
Dionysius continues to elaborate through an analogy: “We would be like sculptors who set out to
carve a statue. They remove every obstacle to the pure view of the hidden image, and simply by
this act of clearing aside they show up the beauty which is hidden.”18
Thus, denying things about God is more efficient in several ways, not least of which is
that it helps to eliminate confusion. One is less likely to be misled by claiming that God is
“immutable” or “unchanging” rather than to say God is “wisdom” or “power” or a “fortress.”
Because all affirmations about God require indefinite qualification, it would seem negation could
avoid the sort of inductive problems associated with predication. Recognizing this and knowing
words cannot capture the essence, Dionysius ceases to try. This idea will later be mirrored in
Maximus’ ascetic theology. Whereas for Dionysius, negation of predicated ideas reveals a
hidden epistemological God, Maximus’ negation of the entire self reveals the true hidden human
nature, which is naturally inclined toward God.
The Divine Darkness
For Dionysius, theology is to be done on a plane which passes beyond the paradoxical
scheme of affirmation and negation. Indeed, it is to move beyond words and intellect all
together.19 Largely similar to the “One” of Plotinus, God resides in a “darkness” which can only
be beheld after an extensive “purification,” a moving beyond all created categories of being and
18 Ibid, 138.

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contemplation.20 It is only after achieving true ignorance, or ἀγνωσία, can one approach God’s
dwelling place. Vladimir Lossky endorsed this Dionysian idea,
All knowledge has as its object that which is. Now God is beyond all that exists. In order
to approach him it is necessary to deny all that is inferior to him, that is to say, all that
which is. If in seeing God one can know what one sees, then one has not seen God in
himself but something intelligible, something which is inferior to him. It is by unknowing
(ἀγνωσία) that one may know Him who is above every possible object of knowledge.
Proceeding by negations one ascends from the inferior degrees of being to the highest, by
progressively setting aside all that can be known, in order to draw near to the Unknown
in the darkness of absolute ignorance.21
Dionysius perhaps best demonstrates this contention in his illustration of Moses’ ascent to the
top of Mount Sinai:
It is not for nothing that the blessed Moses is commanded to submit first to purification
and then to depart from those who have not undergone this. When every purification is
complete he hears the many-voiced trumpets. He sees the many lights, pure and with rays
streaming abundantly. Then, standing apart from the crowds and accompanied by chosen
priests, he pushes ahead to the summit of the divine ascents. And yet he does not meet
God himself, but contemplates not him who is invisible, but rather where he dwells. This
means, I presume, that the holiest and highest of the things perceived with the eye of the
body or the mind are but the rationale which presupposes all that lies below the
Transcendent One. Through them, however, his unimaginable presence is shown,
walking the heights of those holy places to which the mind at least can rise. But then he
[Moses] breaks free of them, away from what he sees and is seen, and he plunges into the
truly mysterious darkness of unknowing. Here, renouncing all that the mind may
conceive, wrapped entirely in the intangible and the invisible, he belongs completely to
him who is beyond everything. Here, being neither oneself nor someone else, one is
supremely united to the completely unknown by an inactivity of all knowledge, and
knows beyond the mind by knowing nothing.22
Here we certainly see that Dionysius has an affinity and familiarity with Gregory of Nyssa’s Life
of Moses. In spite of all the similarities, there are some key differences. For Gregory, the ascent
to God is progressive and limitless, because God himself is without limit, and so there is an
20 Farrell, Free Choice, 39.
21 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's
Seminary Press, 1976), 25.
22 Pseudo-Dionysius,The Comple Works, 136-37.

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infinite ascent to higher and higher levels of being but never a definite end or rest. For
Dionysius, God transcends being, and so one is paradoxically united to that which is beyond
being through absolute negation. It is complete, and one finds his final rest ending up united to
that which surpasses all of his intellect.23
Thus, for Dionysius and Lossky, the only way to draw nigh to God through
contemplation is to somehow end up where he dwells. It is only incidentally that one approaches
God, through a correlation of one’s ignorant state to the darkness where God makes his dwelling
place. However, correlation is not union. Included in this shortcoming are both affirmative and
negative contemplation, as God’s transcendence eludes the particularity of predication and the
darkness of negation as well.24 Therefore, one must shake off the ideas of method and intellect
all together and embrace a sort of mystical experience, an abandonment of mind in total.25 Here
we are introduced to the Dionysian idea of ecstasy (ἔκστασις), a mutual “going out of oneself”
between God and man.26 In God it is expressed in the emanation of the divine rays down through
the hierarchic orders,27 in man it is expressed in the abandonment of all intellect (νοῦς).28
Theosis
23 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition,(Oxford: Oxford
University Press,2004), 260.
24 Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe According to Maximus Confessor, 3rd ed. (San
Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2003), 89.
.
26 Lossky, Mystical Theology,208.
27 Andrew Louth, Denys the Areopagite (Wilton, CT: Morehouse-Barlow, 1989), 84-86. It should be noted
here that there are differences between the Neoplatonic concept of emanation and Dionysius’hierarchy, despite the
superficial similarities. For Dionysius, beings do not receive their being kinetically from the most immediate higher
being, but rather God creates the entire order at once, ex nihilo.
28 “But the human being surpasses allknowledge and transcends the νοῦς in a union which is an impulsive
movement toward the unknowable nature, toward the darkness of the divine ἠσυχία.” Lossky, Vision of God, 104.

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Dionysius seeks a transcendent union of man and God which is possible through the
spiritual tools of affirmation and negation, and eventual abandonment of these tools, in order to
become one with the unknown. For this to be possible, one must submit to be purified, to be
illuminated, and perfected. This happens through contemplation as well as participation in the
hierarchic order where God is present in his divine rays. The consequences of this union is what
is referred to as deification, or θέωσίς. Dionysius describes this deification as “the attaining of
likeness to God and union with him as far as possible” (ἡ δὲ θέωσίς ἐστιν ἡ πρὸς θεὸν ὡς
ἐφικτὸν ἀφομοίωσις τε και ἕνωσις).29 It is worth noting that although Dionysius speaks of θέωσίς
in Cappadocian terms, he never actually appeals to the most common biblical reference where
διὰ τούτων γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως (2 Peter 4:1).30 This may lend justification to the
contention that for Dionysius, deification is a participation in the attribute or “energy” of deity,
and not the divine φύσις itself, since the φύσις is too transcendent to be truly participated in
without becoming God by nature.
The Mystical Theology of Dionysius, where θέωσίς is achieved in the absolute negation
of all things does not leave itself confined to the Corpus Areopagiticum. This Mystical Theology
trickles down into the thinking of arguably the last great defender of Chalcedon, St. Maximus
Confessor. Through a careful study of some key Maxamian texts, with a focus on Dionysian
apophatic and cataphatic methods, one will be able to clearly connect the many dots between
Dionysius and Maximus.
29 Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 248.
30 Ibid.

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Maximus’ Christological Synthesis
For I think that the divinely-fitting events that took place on the mount at the
Transfiguration secretly indicate the two universal modes of theology: that is, that which
is pre-eminent and simple and uncaused, and through sole and complete denial truly
affirms the divine, and fittingly and solemnly exalts its transcendence through
speechlessness and then that which follows this and is composite, and from what has
been caused magnificently sketches out [the divine] through affirmation.
-Maximus Confessor, Ambigua
As was previously mentioned, the scholarly outlook regarding the Dionysian influence in
Maximus the Confessor paints a complicated picture. There does not seem to be any consensus
within Dionysian studies as to how far the Dionysian thread is weaved into the tapestry of
Maximus the Confessor. What is generally not disputed is that there certainly was influence. For
example, Jaroslav Pelikan has written that “it had been the historic accomplishment of Maximus
Confessor to purge Dionysian spirituality of the interpretations that would have connected it to
one or another heresy...the spirituality of this ‘Maximized’ Dionysius had been purged of any
lingering suspicions about his orthodoxy.”31 Hans Urs Von Balthasar and Paul Rorem have
stated similar positions.32 Furthermore, Andrew Louth writes:
Initially many scholars tended to play down the influence of Dionysius, and this mood of
scholarship came to serve the notion of Meyendorff that Maximus fundamentally
disagreed with Dionysius and only accepted his ideas after subjecting them to a
“Christological correction”. The influence of Dionysius on Maximus is, however,
manifest even if we discount the few scholia that may still belong to Maximus.33
There could be several possibilities for Maximus’ devotion and loyalty to Dionysian ideas. With
the two natures of Christ now defined and confessed at the council of Chalcedon, it is not
31 Jaroslav Pelikan, introduction to Pseudo-Dionysius:The Comple Works, by Pseudo-Dionysius,trans.
Colm Luibhéid and Paul Rorem, (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 23.
32 See Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 95; and Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, 15.
33 Andrew Louth, “The Reception of Dionysius in the Byzantine World: Maximus to Palamas,” Modern
Theology 24, no. 4 (October 2008): 590.

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surprising to see how an opinion on this wildly popular collection of works would be warranted.
With the highly conversant nature of monastic communities, and their penchant for debating the
cutting-edge of theological ideas, it is not hard to imagine a countless number of monks
pressuring Maximus to weigh-in. Thus, the fundamental question to be explored will not be
whether Dionysius influenced Maximus but how he was influential. .
Christology
One point of focus has been the explicit use of apophatic and cataphatic theology within
Maximus’ cosmic Christological scheme. Certainly, he adopts the Cappadocian and Dionysian
idea that the essence of God is unknowable, so utterly transcendent as to be beyond predication.
For him as well, God’s essence eludes human reason, as he exhorts, “When you intend to know
God, do not seek the reasons about his being, for the human mind and that of any other being
after God cannot discover this.”34
In fact, for Maximus, it is taken even further than substantial agnosticism. It is even
improper to ascribe essence at all to God. He writes:
God is not essence, understood as either general or particular, even if he is principle; nor
is he potency understood as general or particular…But he is a principle of being who is
creative of essence and beyond essence, a ground who is creative power but beyond
power, the active and eternal condition of every act, and to speak briefly the creator of
every essence, power, and act, as well as every beginning, middle, and end.35
Here, Byzantine theology blossoms in full array. One of the great hallmarks of Maximus is his
ability to connect theological dots, as he does with Dionysius, allowing previously hidden logical
conclusions to come to fruition. For Dionysius and Maximus, God’s nature is beyond essence, or
“superessential.” Lossky expounds on this idea by pointing out that, at least in the Byzantine
tradition, “God is more than essence.” This is the premise on which the Byzantine distinction
35 Maximus and Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 129.

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between the unknowable essence of God and the communicable attributes, or energies, which
can more or less be known by rational human faculties.36
This balance between the knowable and unknowable in relation to God is expressed in
the scales of apophatic and cataphatic theology. Maximus endorses this dialectic between the two
modes made so famous in Dionysius, but adds more to it. In his brilliance, he sees this delicate
balance perfectly personified in the incarnation of the divine logos. This balance is expressed by
Maximus as “play,” a keeping of balance between two extreme poles:
We dare to take the word before us and say that the play of God spoken of by the great
teacher is a kind of keeping to the middle, staying equidistant from the extremes by
weaving about and quickly changing one’s position, or, to put it better, by a flowing that
remains still.37
This paradoxical idea that something can be both in motion and completely still simultaneously
is similar to the balance expressed in apophatic and cataphatic theology. Andrew Louth notes
Maximus’ embrace and expansion of Dionysius when he says:
This paradox, that escapes the capacity of human understanding, he expresses in another
way: by drawing on the language of apophatic and cataphatic theology (theology of
denial and affirmation), with which he is familiar from the works of Denys the
Areopagite. But whereas for the Areopagite, language of apophatic and cataphatic
theology is a way of classifying our knowledge of God, for Maximus it is used in relation
to the incarnation.38
Louth touches upon an important point. Maximus utilizes Dionysius in an entirely Christocentric
way. This sets into motion the vehicle that Dionysius has built, connecting the dots from a lofty,
seemingly impersonal concept of God to God-made-flesh in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Maximus’ incarnational motif is expressed most profoundly in his treatment and commentary
upon the transfiguration atop Mount Tabor.
36 Lossky, Mystical Theology, 72-73.
38 Ibid, 52-53.

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The Transfiguration
For Maximus, the transfiguration event represents a “crossing over,” a departure from the
fleshly activity of the body and intellect into the divine realm. This “crossing over” is a sort of
purification which must take place in order to comprehend the spiritual purpose (logoi) of the
event. He writes,
They were taught hiddenly that the all-blessed radiance that shone resplendently from his
face, as it overpowered the sight of the eyes, was a symbol of his divinity that transcends
mind and sense and being and knowledge. He had neither form nor beauty, but they knew
him as the word become flesh, and thus were led to regard him as fair with beauty beyond
the sons of men, and to understand that he is the One who was in the beginning, and was
with God and was God. And through a theological denial that praises him as being
completely uncontained, they were led contemplatively to the glory as of the Only-
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.39
Maximus here begins to illustrate the correlation of apophatic theology to some of the aspects of
the transfiguration event. In this case, the correlation is between the hidden radiant face of the
Lord only being able to be apprehended in a negation, uncontained: “The light of the face of the
Lord, therefore, conquers the human blessedness of the apostles by a hidden apophatic
theology.”40
Thus, there exists a parallel between the senses of the apostles, which were completely
transcended by the overwhelming light, and the transcendence of the divine essence, which
cannot be apprehended except by the denial of fallen earthly senses, and the idolatry in which
they are fixated upon as they behold the divinity before them.41 In the transfiguration the divine
person (πρόσωπον) is the aspect that conveys the apophatic mode. The cataphatic is also
expressed in Maximus’ meditation, as it is observed that the Lord’s garments are also significant:
39 Ibid,109.
40 Ibid, 132.
41 Louth, Influence of Dionysius, 591.

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The whitened garments conveyed a symbol of the words of Holy Scripture, which in this
case became shining and clear and limpid to them, and were grasped by the mind without
any riddling puzzle or symbolic shadow, revealing the meaning that lay hidden within
them. Thus, they arrived at a clear and correct understanding concerning God, and were
set free from every attachment to the world and the flesh.42
And again,
The affirmative mode [of theology] can be differentiated into those concerned with
activity, with providence, and with judgment. The mode [concerned with activity]
starting from the beauty and magnitude of creatures, introduces the explanation that the
God of all is the fashioner, this shown through the radiant garments of the Lord, which
the Word shows to be the manifestation of Creatures.43
The garments are inhabited and illuminated with the divinity they clothe and which will
eventually be entirely transcended and left behind in the tomb. Thus, the garments become a
symbol grasped by the mind, an exercise in the cataphatic that illuminated by the uncontained
one who wears them. As Von Balthasar writes:
In giving an allegorical interpretation of the Lord’s transfiguration on Tabor, he calls the
radiance of his face a metaphor for apophatic theology, while that of his robes - along
with the appearance of Moses- (as “providence”) and Elijah (as “judgment”) – represents
cataphatic theology.44
The Dionysian theological method therefore becomes incarnate in an entirely Christocentric way
and brought to life through Maximus. The balance again between affirmation and negation in
regards to God is achieved in this revelatory event and its significance is observed by Aidan
Nicols:
Such compenetration of the positive and negative approaches to knowledge of God
Maximus finds disclosed in the transfiguration, revealing as that episode does the
mystery of the hypostatic union and the perichoresis of the two natures. In this light,
apophasis is not just a negative moment in theology but relates, -in a supremely positive
43 Ibid, 133.
44 Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 99.

17
way- to the reality intended by the key adverbs, at once privative and plenary, of the
Chalcedonian definition.45
And so, we see here another instance of Maximus’ connecting of the dots. Theology as
affirmation and negation can be seen as another example of following Chalcedonian logic, but
this is not as far as it can be taken.
The Natural and Written Law
For Maximus, this apophatic and cataphatic event also correlates to the two modes
revelation: The natural law and the written law. However, in the transfiguration we see them
both coming together as one. He writes:
The written law is potentially the natural and the natural law is habitually the written, so
the same meaning is indicated and revealed, in one case through the writing and what is
manifest, and the other case by what is understood and concealed. So the words of Holy
Scripture are said to be garments, and the concepts understood to be the flesh of the
Word, in one case we reveal and the other we conceal.46
Again, the balance that Maximus achieves is expressed as he connects the Dionysian dots which
begin to form a marvelous picture of the incarnate Word. In western theology, special revelation
is often seen as alien or antithetical to natural revelation, added to what is natural. For Maximus,
the natural state of man is to be in communion with God. Thus, both natural and special
revelation are not antithetical and in competition but are both equally complementary. Indeed,
they interpenetrate one another. The act of the transfiguration is both natural in the event itself
and a part of written revelation recorded in Holy Scripture. Thus by extension, just as the finite
and infinite interpenetrate in the person of Christ, so to do the apophatic and cataphatic within
Maximus’ thought.
45 Aidan Nichols, Byzantine Gospel: Maximus the Confessor in Modern Scholarship (Edinburgh: T & T
Clark, 1993), 139.
46 Maximus and Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 110
.

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Apophasis and Kenosis: The Ascetic Struggle
The one who has his mind fixed on the love of God disdains all visible things and even his
own body as alien.
-Maximus Confessor, The Four Hundred Chapters on Love
For Maximus, the idea of denial (άποφάσις) goes even further than finding perfect
expression in the incarnate word. The Dionysian idea of denial is not limited to contemplation
but is imminently lived out in practice of the Christian life. Indeed the entire narrative of the
incarnation itself is a stunning example of divine self-denial. As Philippians 2:7 denotes, in the
mystery of the divine kenosis (κένωσις), the Logos denies himself to the point of becoming a
slave (ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δούλου λαβών).47 This act of divine self-denial is an invitation
to his people to respond out of thanksgiving and gratitude with their own free-willed kenosis, in
order to become united to him through their own ascetic struggle in their earthly life and pouring
their lives into the life of Christ:
He gives adoption by giving through the spirit a supernatural birth from on high in grace,
of which divine birth the guardian and preserver is the free will of those who are thus
born. By a sincere disposition, it cherishes the grace bestowed and by a careful
observance of the commandments it adorns the beauty given by grace. By the humbling
of the passions it takes on divinity in the same measure that the word of God willed to
empty himself in the incarnation of his own unmixed glory in becoming genuinely
human.48
It is here in the mutual self emptying that we see Dionysius’ idea of denial removed from its
lofty philosophical fixture and permeated through Christian faith and practice by way of
Maximus. In the self-denying initiation of the Logos, the divine is brought low so that man,
47 “By condescension and kenosis,not of divine nature but of the Word’s divine Person, God has brought
about the renewal of his image in man.” Nichols, Byzantine Gospel, 133.

20
through imitating the Logos in observing the commandments, may be lifted up to God.49 As
Norman Russell explains, “Maximus expresses the fruits of this by a variation on the exchange
formula, man’s kenosis with regard to the passions responding to God’s kenosis with regard to
divine power, thus drawing the human and divine towards each other on convergent courses.”50
In order to understand how this is possible, one must understand what exactly it is that must be
denied and the manner in which this is achieved in the life of the Christian.
The Passions and the Will
It is clear that Maximus embraces ἀπόφασις as a necessary attribute of the Christian life.
But if denial is intrinsic to Christian living, what exactly is it that must be negated? For
Maximus, the answer to this question lies in the fallen human nature, which possesses a defective
will which is plagued by passions, or an irrational movement toward material things. Passions
are not evil in and of themselves, as movement toward the divine is wholly natural for mankind.
Indeed, it is the passionate faculty which ultimately surpasses reason in the ecstatic union
between God and man. It is only in the gnomic misdirection of the passions that they become
evil.51 They, along with the fallen senses, become like a cloud and veil which disorient and
confuse the mind and soul:
Every human mind has gone astray and lost its natural motion, so that its motion is
determined by passion and sense and things perceived by the senses, and it cannot be
moved anywhere else as its natural motion towards God has completely atrophied…For
the cloud is the fleshly passion darkening the pilot of the soul, and the veil is the deceit of
the senses, causing the soul to be overcome by the appearance of things perceived by the
senses, and blocking the passage to intelligible reality, through which it is overcome by
49 “As God stoops down in the Person of his Son by philanthropy,loving-kindness towards men , so man
rises to him in divinization as the son of God by charity.” Nichols, Byzantine Gospel, 211.
50 Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 268.

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forgetfulness of natural goodness and turns all its energy to sensible things and discovers
in this way angry passions, desires and unseemly pleasures.52
One can see the originality in Maximus’ contemplation of the human will. For Maximus, the
natural human movement toward God has grown weak and helpless, referred to as atrophy
because of the fallen faculties which parasitically hijack the human nature’s movement. This
usurping orients the will toward material things, toward the darkness and death of idolatry and
worldly concerns. This hijacked will is described by Maximus as the gnomic or choosing will.53
The gnomic will is an invented, separate entity at odds with the natural will but not in
such a way that implies that humans possess two natural wills, as Christ does. Rather, the gnomic
will is the way in which the natural will is expressed. Thus, it can be called the mode in which
the person (ὑπόστασις) actualizes the nature (οὐσία). The person, because of sin, is now unsure
of what is fulfilling or good and now must deliberate or “choose” between a myriad of choices
because the person is ignorant of the divine trajectory of his natural movement.
Here, the deceptive senses compound the problem, as one’s choices are always
determined by a fallen sense perception which distorts the true perception of reality. Because of
this, the person seeks his fulfillment in all the wrong places, attempting to fulfill his natural
movement with what is sinful, finite, and perishable. It is for this reason that humanity is in need
of a new hypostatic subsistence accomplished in the incarnation of Jesus. This divine act
liberates the fallen in Adam from their passions through his participation in human nature. The
incarnation ensures the natural will can be fulfilled and once again move toward God and divine
things.54 Maximus illustrates the gravity and necessity of the incarnation here, as humanity is
52 Ibid, 99.
53 Ibid, 61.
54 Farrell, Free Choice, 120.

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enslaved to sin in Adam which is manifested in the fallen passions and senses without any way of
recapitulating itself.
Man’s Kenotic Response
Thus far, we have seen that for Maximus, mankind suffers from passions and other
obstacles which manifest as sin and which usurp the natural will and distort its mode of
expression, ultimately leading the person into a movement away from God and toward material
idolatry and eventual self-destruction as a result of the fall of Adam. It is from this movement
toward sin and death that mankind must become free, and Maximus has a grand vision for how
this is to be done, and will utilize Dionysian apophasis in a new way, as kenosis, or the
outpouring and denial of the entire self in a holistic way:
Therefore, he who wants to be his disciple and to be found worthy of him, and to receive
power from his against the spirits of wickedness, will separate himself from every fleshly
attachment and strip himself of every worldly passion. And thus he contends with the
visible enemies in behalf of his commandments, just as the Lord himself set an example
in being tried both in the desert by their chief and, returned to civilization, by the
demoniacs.55
The goal for Maximus within this train of thought is to return the person to a state of apathy. This
state may be mistakenly thought of by modern hearers as disregard for anything outside of
oneself. In reality, the state described is ἀπάθεια, literally “passionlessness.” This is not an
unconcerned disengagement with the world, but a state of peace that one achieves. It is in fact
beyond a state of peace, it is a restoration of the natural state and a redeeming of the created
order. This apatheia, therefore, is a state where the passions are resisted, revealing the natural
expression of the human will.56
55 Maximus, Ancient Christian Writers, trans.Polycarp Sherwood, vol. 21, The Ascetic Life : the Four
CenturiesOn Charity (Westminster, MD: Newman Press,1955), 106.

23
In this state, what might be called the apophatic, the soul is liberated from the turmoil of
the passions. But for Maximus, there is a correllary to this negative aspect. A positive, or
cataphatic, element comes to fruition once apatheia is realized. Thus, in some sense the
Christian, like Christ, is a synthesis of the positive and the negative, the apophatic and
cataphatic. In cruciform manner, there is the negative aspect of self-denial which is inseparably
linked to the cross- bearing of following Christ (Mk 8:34).57 In fact, one may call the self-denial
a participation of the crucifixion of Christ:
There is a spiritual crucifixion in the practical life, through a dying to the temptations of
the sensuous world. For Maximus, this imitates the crucifixion of the flesh of Christ.
There is also a spiritual crucifixion, secondly, in the life of natural contemplation, by way
of abandonment of the mind’s symbolic contemplation of natural realities, and its entry
on a simple, unified path to the mysteries of God.58
Christ’s obedience unto death illustrates that true human nature is reconstituted in the cross.
Christ’s recapitulation of humanity demonstrates that true human nature is displayed in the
suffering on Golgotha. Incorporated into the crucified, the Christian begins to contemplate his
natural logoi and observes things as they truly are as opposed to being clouded by the distortions
of the passions.59 This realization of the natural logoi finds its expression as love,60
demonstrating in the kenosis of Christ the crucifixion of the desires of the flesh. This allows
natural movement to re-orient itself from inward to outward, from self fulfillment to true
fulfillment:
Love for every man must be preferred above all visible things, even the body…Do you
see that this love for one another makes firm the love of God, which is the fulfilling of
57 Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator:The Theological Anthropology ofMaximus the Confessor,
2nd ed. (Chicago: Open court Publishing Company, 1995), 305.
58 Nichols, Byzantine Gospel, 192.
60 Ibid, 40.

24
every commandment of God? Then this is the reason that he commands every one that is
really desirous of being his disciple not to cling to these things, rather to renounce all his
possessions.61
The soul in the fallen state and attached to worldly things is in a mode of self-love, which
Maximus refers to as the “Mother of Passions,”62 from which all other passions in some sense
find their origin. This self-love is at its first point expressed in an irrational love for one’s body.
Lars Thunberg writes, “We are thus bound to conclude that self-love in its primary manifestation
are, in fact, regarded as synonymous expressions of human sinfulness. Self-love in a more
restricted sense summarizes a sinful use of the concupiscible faculty.”63
For this reason, the soul must be cleansed of that which covers the natural state which lies
beneath, so that the natural might once again shine with its entire refined splendor, just as
precious metals must be cleansed of all rust and other impurities which hinder its natural beauty.
Thus, the impurities are burned away in the suffering of the ascetic life, and the shining forth is
an “active assimilation to Christ through positive virtues.”64 The assimilation is a freedom that is
given in union with Christ to imitate him. This point stands in tension with much of modern
western theological conceptions, which speak of taking away one aspect (sin), and replacing it
with another (righteousness). For Maximus, the righteousness is already present as our natural
state, that is, intrinsic to human nature according to its logoi. Once the corruption is removed, the
righteousness is able to naturally express itself as it was originally intended.
61 Maximus and Sherwood, Ascetic Life, 107.
62 “For by plucking out self-love, which is, as they say, the mother and beginning of all evils, everything
that comes from it and after it is plucked out as well.” Maximus and Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 88.
63 Thunberg,, Microcosm, 244.
64 Ibid, 230.

25
Maximus expresses this idea in several ways in his writings. For example, in his
contemplation of the crossing of the Red Sea, he notes:
Thus, that great man, Moses, by a blow of all-powerful reason, symbolized doubtless by
the rod, drove through the deceit of the senses, symbolized by the sea-, or perhaps better-,
circumvented it- and provided for the people, who were eagerly perusing the divine
promises, a firm and unshakable land under their feet. In this way he showed, I think, that
the nature that is beneath the senses can be contemplated and easily described by right
reason, and, to the life that is adorned by the virtues, is accessible and is easy to cross and
presents no danger to those who cross it thus from the seething impulses of the divided
waters on either side, and their obscuring effect.65
Thunberg states a similar observation when he says,
In the first case man flees from the tyranny of the passions through the Red Sea into the
desert of freedom from the passions, i.e. negative ἀπάθεια, but arrives also at a final
crossing of Jordan into the promised land of positive virtues; in the second case even the
very first movement of sin is killed in complete detachment, which leads to the fact that
impassioned thoughts and even naked imaginations are effaced, a higher passage through
the red sea into the desert of perfect ἀπάθεια, by which man is allowed by grace to enter
the promised land of divine knowledge and to become himself a temple of the Holy
Spirit.66
Here we see that the true nature of humanity can be accessed once the passions are stifled, and
then expressed in living a life full of love and virtue.
It is evident that for Dionysius and Maximus, deification is the chief end of mankind. In
Maximus, the mystical Dionysian categories of apophatic and cataphatic theology find their full
and ultimate expression in a mutual self-denial, or κένωσις. This mutual κένωσις has as its end
the deification of mankind as union with the divine attributes or energies. However, man cannot
achieve this union without the assistance of divine grace. This grace finds its agency in the
divinely instituted symbols and hierarchical orders found in the Body of Christ, the church. It is
within a cosmic liturgy that Maximus continues to expand on Dionysius.
65 Thunberg,, Microcosm, 305
.

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The Church: The Agent of Apophasis
Then the word of Gnostic contemplation comes to them from heaven as High Priest to
constrict their fleshly understanding as a sort of sensible world by restraining the
reasoning still inclining to earth, and in driving them away from there it leads them, by
the closing of the doors and the entrance into the holy mysteries, to the vision of spiritual
principles and realities. And after having shut their senses and having become outside of
the flesh and the world, he teaches them unspeakable things as they are reconciled first
with each other and with him through the kiss of peace…
-Maximus Confessor, The Church’s Mystagogy
We have seen thus far that Dionysian apophaticism is a central theme in the greater
theology of Maximus the Confessor. It has been demonstrated that for Maximus, apophaticism
progresses from the contemplative to the practical and climaxed within the reciprocal κένωσις
between God and man. However, the picture is still incomplete, as halting the investigation at
this point would render superfluous what is at the very center of Maximus’ cosmic Christology,
the church. In order to understand Maximus’ use of apophaticism in the Church, one must
understand Dionysius’ Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, which Maximus takes for granted in the
formulation of his ecclesial ideas.
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
Dionysius is an innovative thinker on many levels, and his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
contains no shortage of creativity. It may be that this work launched a new theological genre in
and of itself, a genre which seems to be all but absent before the advent of Dionysius, that of
liturgical commentary. Paul Rorem has elaborated on this, saying,
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy is the oldest extant work of its kind -a full and systematic
exposition of liturgical rites- in all Christian literature. Some earlier expositions of parts
of liturgical texts survive, such as The Mystagogical Lectures ascribed to Cyril of
Jerusalem, but nothing as systematic as this treatise by Pseudo-Dionysius. It is thus

27
considered first in a long line of liturgical commentaries that influenced Christian
worship, East and West, for centuries.67
Thus, any student of Dionysius is forced to consider the creative capacity of such an author, and
his ability to introduce novel ways of thinking about Christian worship, and his skilled synthesis
of Neoplatonic categories and methods into his thinking. It is within this liturgical commentary
that Dionysius exposits his hierarchical vehicle of salvation, which brings about θέωσίς, the
deification of man and the ecstatic union with God, with God himself as the sole creator of this
means of salvation:
The source of this hierarchy is the font of life, the being of goodness, the one cause of
everything, namely, the Trinity which in goodness bestows being and well-being on
everything. Now this blessed Deity which transcends everything and which is one and
also triune, has resolved, for reasons unclear to us but obvious to itself, to ensure the
salvation of rational beings, both ourselves and those beings who are our superiors. This
can only happen with the divinization of the saved. And divinization consists of beings as
much as possible like and in union with God.68
Dionysius’ ideas of the church are intimately related to his ideas about hierarchy. Moreover, his
hierarchies are heavily influenced by Procline triadic formulas.69 This system of triads is very
evident in his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, where the Dionysian paradigm of purification,
illumination, and perfection is set into motion and in which “the purpose of the whole
arrangement is to draw rational beings up to union with God and deify them.”70
One point of concern which occupied much of Neoplatonic thought was in relation to the
movement, or emanation, of the One to the many. This is generally reconciled by the positing of
incremental mediators in hierarchical order. For Dionysius, it is by this motif that the Deity
69 Louth, Origins, 163.
70 Louth, Denys, 52.

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processes down in its divine rays within the hierarchical order so as to bring the rational entities
that perceive him back to himself. In some sense God separates in order that he can bring things
back to himself. This common Neoplatonic idea is often referred to as rest, procession, and
return. Dionysius explains the movement of the Godhead in The Celestial Hierarchy,
Even though it works itself outward to multiplicity and proceeds outside of itself as befits
its generosity, doing so to lift upward and to unify those beings for which it has
providential responsibility, nevertheless it remains inherently stable and it is forever one
with its own unchanging identity. And it grants to creatures the power to rise up, so far as
they may, toward itself and it unifies them by way of its own simplified unity. However,
this divine ray can enlighten us only by being upliftingly concealed in a variety of sacred
veils which the Providence of the Father adapts to our nature as human beings.71
It is here that we see the Neoplatonic train of thought expressed undeniably. The divine ray
provides the uplifting, but needs to be modulated so as to be perceived and utilized by human
beings. This modulation is concealed in the divine symbols, such as the scriptures and
sacraments, so that they may be meditated upon and thus lifted back to unity with the divine.
In relation to other Dionysian hierarchies, such as those in The Celestial Hierarchy, The
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy stands unique. Whereas the ranks within The Celestial Hierarchy are
concerned with the incorporeal, heavenly reality and consist of a triad of personified, angelic
beings, the ranks within The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy contain a triad of both persons and
sacraments.72 It also differs from The Celestial Hierarchy in that it is concerned with the
corporeal realm, rather than the incorporeal:
Of course, as I have said already, those beings and those orders which are superior to us
are also incorporeal. Their hierarchy belongs to the domain of the conceptual and is
something out of this world. We see our human hierarchy, on the other hand, as our
nature allows, pluralized in a great variety of perceptible symbols lifting us upward
hierarchically until we are brought as far as we can into the unity of divinization. The
heavenly beings, because of their intelligence, have their own permitted conceptions of

29
God. For us, on the other hand, it is by way of the perceptible images that we are uplifted
as far as we can be to the contemplation of what is divine.73
The treatise provides seven chapters, each one dedicated to respective ranks in descending order,
with the final chapter concerning the rite of Christian funerals. The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
begins with a description of the ontology of the hierarchy itself.
There are three triads within The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Each triad consists of three
ranks each, which totals to nine ranks all together. The highest triad is the sacramental triad and
is constituted in descending order: baptism, synaxis, and the consecration of myron ointment.
The middle triad is the clerical triad which is made up of the hierarchs, priests, and deacons.
Lastly, the lowest triad is a lay triad, which constitutes the monks, communicants, and the
demon-possessed. The hierarchy, in its entirety and in the way they correspond, is as follows:
Perfection Baptism Illumination/Purification
Synaxis (Eucharist) Perfection
Myron Consecration Perfection
Illumination Hierarchs (Bishops) Perfection
Priests Illumination
Deacons Purification
Purification Monks Perfection
Communicants Illumination
The Posessed Purification

30
Within this hierarchic structure, Dionysius provides an arena for much to take place, one
that Maximus will more or less embrace. Practically, the hierarchy provides a rationally sensible
method of salvation, where each triad corresponds to another, according to its purpose. For
instance, each within the clerical triad has a function which corresponds to those in the triad of
the laity. The interest of the deacons is concerned with the ministry to the posessed and
catechumens, those who are in the process of being purified. The priests are charged with the
care of the communicants, those “lay people,” who having been purified in their baptism are
being taught and illumined. The hierarchs are fixated upon the monks and other ascetics, who are
being perfected. While there is harmony between the clerics and the laity in regards to their
function, the sacraments do not seem to follow the same scheme, as the sacrament of Baptism
purifies and illumines, while the Eucharist and the consecration both perfect.74
The sacramental aspect of the hierarchy must begin with Baptism, which is for Dionysius
a blessed rebirth.75 For Dionysius, it is the love of God that first initiates the deification process:
It is the love of God which first of all moves us toward the divine; indeed the very first
procession of this love toward the sacred enactment of the divine commands brings about
in unspeakable fashion our divine existence. And divinization is to have divine birth. No
one could understand, let alone put into practice, the truths received from God if he did
not have a divine beginning. Is it not the case that at the human level we must first begin
to exist and then do what is appropriate to us?76
It is in these ideas that it is shown that one needs a new birth in order to experience the love of
God. However, there are two parts to this story, for in order to experience any rebirth, the
Christian must also die .On this point, Dionysius is largely silent, and it is here where we find
Maximus comfortable enough to accept the torch and expand on Dionysius’ thoughts.
75 Ibid, 58.

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Maximus and the Microcosmic Liturgy
Dionysius’ liturgical commentary introduces one to the Neoplatonic and triadic
interpretation of the ecclesiastical life, but the role of ascetic apophaticism is not entirely fleshed
out until Maximus’ elaboration in The Church’s Mystagogy. This work should be "regarded not
so much an ecclesiological treatise as an unfolding, symbolic application of the mysteries
unveiled in the Eucharistic liturgy to the ascetic life."77 The church for Maximus is more of a
place of relational efficacious activity instituted for the purpose of the gathering of all things into
the body of Jesus and redeeming them, as opposed to a purely abstract notion. This is especially
seen in Maximus' vision of the church as microcosm of man, but also of all creation. But even
more central in Maximus' view of the liturgy is the theme of divisions becoming one in Christ.
For example, he says in chapter one,
Maintaining about himself as cause, beginning, and end, all being which are by nature
distant from one another, he makes them converge in each other, by their singular force
of their relationship to him as origin. Through this force he leads all beings to a common
and unconfused identity of movement and existence, no one being originally in revolt
against any other or separated from him by a difference of nature or of movement but all
things combine with all others in an unconfused way by the singular indissoluble relation
to and protection of the one principle and cause.78
Regarding this idea of convergence, Andrew Louth notes,
What these divisions do is, it seems to me, to set up a set of echoing correspondences.
Sanctuary/nave is reflected in invisible/visible, heaven/earth, soul/body, mind/reason,
New Testament/Old Testament, meaning/ text. So the movement between sanctuary and
nave interprets and is interpreted by movements between other divisions. There is still the
circular movement- from sanctuary to nave and nave to sanctuary- that Denys celebrated,
but it is suborduinated to the movement from nave to sanctuary, from earth to heaven,
towards our final rest in God, that undergirds Maximus' vision.79
77 Adam G. Cooper, The Body in St.Maximus Confessor: Holy Flesh, Wholly Deified (Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press,2005), 165.

32
It may be more properly stated that the church is the very body of Christ where divisions
between beings are healed, not by being done away with, but by being changed in the way the
divisions relate to one another. Instead of the divisions causing strife in the world, they are now
brought into harmony and complement each other in the liturgy. The liturgy is then the setting
for the ecstatic union, the mutual kenosis between God and man. The liturgy therefore functions
to assist mankind in both dying as well as living, and for Maximus, the liturgy itself illustrates
this.
Dead to the World, Alive to Christ
We have seen that Maximus incorporates Dionysius into his understanding of the liturgy,
but also is sure to place a Christological emphasis onto the nature of the litugy itself. For
Dionysius, much of the liturgy seems to be symbolic and contemplative, more concerned with
the soul and intellect rather than the entire self, body included. For Maximus, the apophasis of all
things is present in the movement of the liturgy itself, particularly in the rite of Synaxis, or the
Eucharistic celebration.80 This is described in chapters 23 and 24 of the Mystagogia.
The description of this mutual kenotic union begins with Maximus describing the church
as a place of refuge for the soul from the destructive perils of the world. In Chapter 23, the
Confessor writes:
And consider how the soul in fleeing them headlong comes as into a church to an
inviolable shelter of peace in the natural contemplation in the spirit, and how free of any
fighting or disorder it enters it together with reason and before the Word and our great
and true High Priest of God. There it learns, by symbols of the divine readings which take
80 “The remedy for man’s fallen condition is on two levels – the work of Christ and asceticism; and that
moreover the two levels compenetrate in the individual. Now this compenetration takes place not in isolation of the
individuals but in the community of the Church, in the sacraments from whence the eternal, supernatural worth and
power of the ascetical struggle is drawn.” Maximus and Sherwood, Ascetic Life, 71.

33
place, the principles of beings and the marvelous and grand mystery of divine providence
revealed in the Law and the Prophets...81
There are a couple of things to notice here. Maximus describes the contemplation of the soul
upon entering the church as natural. This is significant in the totality of Maximus' thought in that
in Christ, the Father is correcting creation and returning it to its natural state. Thus, in the church,
Maximus sees the true natural expression of creation being expressed in Christ. This is important
in understanding again that for Maximus, the natural is essentially the good. It is the fallen world
which is unnatural and which is being transformed and set right within the liturgical movement
of the church in which the Christian now subsists. Through asceticism, the apophatic denial of
the self and all worldly things, the natural can once again come to expression in the church,
where Christ is making all things new.
There are aspects of the liturgy which assist the Christian in his apophasis of all things
worldly. Maximus describes the role of the priest during the Eucharist,
It is permitted for those who love God to see by a divine perception with the undaunted
eyes of the mind the Word of God come to it from heaven and symbolized by the bishop's
descent from his priestly throne... And thence again it leaves the world of the senses as
suggested by the closing of the doors of God's Holy Church, and leads it to the
understanding of immaterial things signified by the entrance into the unutterable
mysteries, and understanding which is immaterial, simple, immutable, divine, free of all
form and shape, and by which the soul gathers to itself the proper powers and comes face
to face with the Word.82
The apophasis of all things worldly is signified in the liturgy through the literal locking of the
church doors. This locking of the Christian within the sanctuary ensures the death of the
Christian to all things outside of Christ, and within the doors of the church the soul then has a
true and perfect encounter with Christ who is active through the words of the Bishop and the
mysteries, and is transformed so that it may behold the divine and begin the process of being
82 Ibid, 205.

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perfected. As Maximus himself says, the shutting off from the outside world signify "the passing
away of sensible things and the appearance of spiritual realities and the new teaching of the
divine mystery involving us and the future concord, unanimity, love, and identity of everyone
with each other and with God, as well as the thanksgiving for the manner of our salvation."83
The Dionysian influence is seen here in that the soul must undergo a purification through
the "locking out" of all sensible and worldly things before one can be illuminated and perfected
by way of the divine mysteries. This locking out of the outside world is another example of
man's kenosis, but it is an emptying of oneself by way of what St. Paul views as "'putting to
death our members which are rooted in earth: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire and
covetousness which is idolatry, from which comes God's wrath on the sons of disobedience...'"84
The implication here is that the sinful gnomic will is rooted in earth, or the fallen world
and the sin and idolatry in which it entails. This is more indication that for Maximus, the fallen
world, and all that it implies, must be subjected to apophasis, so that the Christian outpours
himself right into the kenotic life of Christ who is the perfect natural expression of what it means
to be human. Aidan Nichols beautifully demonstrates this idea:
Rediscovering in Christ’s Church-body, their filial adoption, human beings are drawn
into that same kenotic movement, which marks out the philanthropy of the divine Son.
Charity as the hypostatic seal of filial adoption, can thus divinize man, rendering him in
God’s likeness, not suppressing distinctively human activity but adapting the latter to
God in a free-personal sunergia, ‘co-acting.’85
Within the liturgy of the church, man’s nature again becomes free of all outside influence and
now has the ability to express itself according to its created intent through its participation in the
very caritas of God. Thus, in Maximus we find Dionysius' Neoplatonic theme applied in a way
83 Ibid, 209.
84 Ibid, 211.
85 Nichols, Byzantine Gospel, 215.

35
that is quite profound, which is full participation in the love of the very life of God. This is true
theosis.

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Conclusion
This brief study has shown that the apophaticism introduced in Dionysius is a vital theme
in the greater theology of Maximus the Confessor. Maximus’ creative ability serves to transform
Neoplatonic Dionysian themes into the service of the Chalcedonian Christ. Moreover, the
seemingly painstaking and tedious labor Maximus employs in his use of Dionysius suggests that
Maximus understood the gravity of the Dionysian Corpus. As an abbot, it was likely imperative
to opine on the matter within in his monastic context.
In Dionysius we find the tools of affirmation and negation pulled from the philosophical
toolbox of the Neoplatonic tradition. Maximus then applies these tools using Chalcedonian logic
to several aspects of Christology, Ecclesiology, and the Christian life. Through this application
of Dionysian tools to Christological questions, Maximus defends, clarifies, and preserves the
explanation of the two natures of Jesus Christ as without change, without confusion, without
division, and without separation. This definition assures that the saving work of God embraces
all of humanity, not just aspects of it.
For Maximus, denial is a necessary attribute of union with Christ and is seen in his
contemplative and devotional ideas, but also in his practical and liturgical ideas. Thus,
apophaticism is another mode of asceticism. In Christ, ascetic detachment from material things is
accomplished on the cross where he offers himself completely to the Father. It is in this
sacrificial act that human nature functions according to its true logoi.
In both Maximus and Dionysius, apophaticism is demonstrated in an asceticism that is
constituted in a participation of one’s true nature. This true nature has been concealed by the fall
and corruption of the senses. True human nature begins to be experienced within the body of the
church, where the reality of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection is made truly present and

37
efficacious to the world, a reality which is expressed in St. Paul’s statement: “If anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”86 It is in
Maximus’ contributions that these words are given their full Christological meaning.
86 2 Cor. 5:17 ESV

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Thunberg, Lars. Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the
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