Dever Seeing The Form of God
Dever Seeing The Form of God
J. Columcille Dever
often ossified into what the sixth century controversialists would name
Origenism.4 The Emperor Justinian attempted to curb the fervor of the
debate at a domestic synod in 543, and his condemnation of Origen and his
alleged teachings carried over into the second Council of Constantinople in
553.5 These condemnations resulted in Origens classification as a heretic6
and he remained a marked man in the subsequent history of theology.7
Maximus the Confessor (580-662) lived nearly four hundred years after
Origen, some three hundred years after the Cappadocians, and perhaps less
than century after Pseudo-Dionysius. He came of age in the years following
the Trinitarian controversies decided at the Council of Ephesus (431) and
the Christological controversies decided at the Council of Chalcedon (451).
The Second Council of Constantinople (553), an explicatory annex to
Chalcedon,8 put an end to the Three Chapters controversy and issued
condemnation of several Antiochene theologians, primarily Theodore of
4 See, Clark, Elizabeth A. The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early
Christian Debate. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992); Daley, Brian E. What did
Origenism Mean in the Sixth Century? in Origeniana Sexta: Origne et la Bible: Actes du
Colloquium Origenianum Sextum, Chantilly, 30 aot-3 septembre 1993, eds. G. Dorival and A.
Le Boulluec, (Louvain: Peters, 1995), pp. 627-38.
5 See, Denzinger, Heinrich, and Peter Schunermann, eds. Enchiridion Symbolorum (=ES).
46th ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), nos. 403-411, p. 144; Crouzel, op. cit. 8, p.
xii writes: The historical value of the [Council of Constantinople, 553] is virtually nil as
regards Origen, for it was really aimed at the Origenists of the day, called Isochristes, and
the anathemas that express it, drawn in part from Evagrius [of Pontuss] work, do not
appear in the official Minutes of the Council.
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Mopsuestia (ca. 350-438).9 It was near this time that a Syrian monk, who
styled himself as the Dionysius converted by St. Paul on the Aeropagus (see,
Acts 17:34), entered the theological landscape. His writings gradually
entered the stream of the great tradition, thanks in part to Maximuss own
work in the seventh century. Maximus read widely across Greek
philosophical and theological traditions, while simultaneous being formed in
monastic spirituality and ascetical discipline. He wove together these
seemingly disparate threads into theological synthesis unparalleled in
seventh century Christian thought.10 His work is at once philosophical,
theological, and spiritual; focused with logical precision and theological
depth upon the person of Jesus Christ, the Word () of God, whom
Maximus encountered in the course of his monastic life in the liturgy and
Scripture of the Church.11
The Scriptures are an ideal place to stage a conversation between
these two great fountains in the world in order to see what emerges from
a comparison of their respective hermeneutic attention to the Word of
9 See, Denzinger, ES, nos. 421-438, pp. 147-153; Theodore, it is worth noting, suffered the same
fate as Origen in the Greek East and Latin West, though his teachings became foundational for
the Assyrian (Syriac) Church of the East, where he is known as the Interpreter.
10 See, Meyendorff, John. Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimirs
Seminary Press, 1975), pp. 131-132 and Pelikan, Spirit, p. 8, who both consider Maximus the
most significant theologian of the Byzantine era.
11 See, von Balthasar, CL, p. 57: [Maximus] was a biblical theologian, a philosopher of
Aristotelian training, a mystic in the great Neoplatonic tradition of Gregory of Nyssa and
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, an enthusiastic theologian of the Word alongside Origen, a
strict monk of the Evagrian tradition, and finally and before all else a man of the Church,
who fought and who gave his life in witness for the orthodox Christology of Chalcedon and for a
Church centered in Rome.
4
God.12 Andrew Louth has pointed out the centrality of the mystery of the
transfiguration for the Eastern theological tradition and I will focus on this
key Scriptural narrative in order to discern the extent to which Maximuss
work can be understood as a critique of Origenist thought.13 In this essay I
will argue that while Maximus works against the spiritualizing tendency
in Origens thought, his contemplation of the transfiguration owes a great
deal to the Alexandrian exegete, so much so that his criticism might
alternatively be considered as a subtle rehabilitation of Origens thought. I
will attempt to reveal this aspect of the Maximian synthesis as follows.
First, I will address two different accounts of the transfiguration spread
throughout Origens oeuvre. He treats this singular moment in the
Scriptural narrative of Christs life in his mature works: the apologetic
treatise Against Celsus and his Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew.
In these texts, he offers both a literal and a spiritual exegesis of the
Scriptural narrative that emphasizes paradox at the heart of the
Incarnation, viz. the apparent inscription of the infinite Logos of God in a
fleshly human body. I will then turn to several key texts in the Confessors
12 See, von Balthasar, CL, who chose as an dedication to Louis Bouyer includes quotation
from the English Romantic Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who, in his preface to Christabel
(1797), objected to: [A] set of critics who, seem to hold, that every possible thought and
image is traditional; who have no notion that there are such things as fountains in the
world, small as well as great; and who would therefore charitably derive every rill they
behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank. For von Balthasar,
Origen, and especially Maximus, were indeed two fountains. See, ORegan, Cyril, Von
Balthasar and Thick Retrieval: Post-Chalcedonian Symphonic Theology, Gregorianum, Vol.
77, No. 2 (1996), pp. 227-260
13 Louth, Andrew, From Doctrine of Christ to Icon of Christ: St. Maximus the Confessor on the
Transfiguration of Christ, in In the Shadow of the Incarnation: Essays on Jesus Christ in the
Early Church in Honor of Brian E. Daley, S.J. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
2008), pp. 260-275
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the text is only available through the letters on the page and their sense
must be understood before attending to the spiritual sense. He dwells here
on the phrase after six days (Mt. 17:1), which he interprets in light of the
creation account in Genesis. Six is the perfect () number and it marks
the creation of the cosmos as a perfect work of art (...),
which must be transcended in order for one to gain access to the vision of
eternal things ().19 This Platonic model is broadside throughout
Origens works: the created, temporal world is a certain image of eternity,
accessible by means of mystical ascent that will reach its consummation in
beatitude when the saints will experience immediate union-in-love with the
Lord.20 Asceticism prepares the way for this mystical ascent, represented by
the high mountain. Ascetic practices perfect ones detachment from the
things which are seen ( ) in order to hone ones spiritual vision of
eternal things.21 On the top of the mountain, this vision is granted to Peter,
16 I have consulted the Greek-Latin edition of Baehrens, W. A., ed. Die griechischen
christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte (= GCS), Ser. 33, Vol. 10 (Leipzig,
Germany: J.C. Hinrichssche Buchhandlung, 1925) throughout. Citations reflect the page and
line number.
17 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.36; GCS 10, 150.26-27
18 See, de Lubac, HS, pp. 103-158; Crouzel, Origen, pp. 61-84
19 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.36; GCS 10, 150.31-151.3
20 See, Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom, 13; cf. Daley, Brian E. The Hope of the Early
Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic Group,
2010), pp. 44-64
21 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.36; GCS 10, 151.26-27
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James, and John, who receive a foretaste of the new Sabbath beholding
the transfigured Christ.22 Origen concludes this section: For the Word has
different forms, appearing to each one as befitting the beholder, and not
appearing beyond the beholders grasp.23
Origen picks up this theme in several key passages in his treatise Against
Celsus.24 Although Jesus was one, he writes, he had several aspects; and
to those who saw him he did not appear alike to all.25 Origens emphasizes
that the Lord manifests his glory only to those whom he elects and that this
election has to do with the capacity of the beholder. On the mountain He
elected only the most spiritually mature disciples, Peter, James, and John to
witness his transfigured glory as well as the appearance of Moses and Elijah
in glory alongside him. This applies to hearing as much as to sight: the
voice out of the cloud on the very high mountain was heard only by the men
who went up with him. For the divine voice is such that it is heard only by
those whom the speaker wishes to hear it.26 It is not heard by the physical
ear as vibrating air, but by a superior, more divine sense.27 As it applies to
22 Ibid, GCS 10, 152.5-6
23 Ibid, GCS, 10, 152.9-13
24 Origen, Contra Celsum (=CC), trans. Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1953)
25 Ibid, CC, 2.64-65
26 Ibid, CC, 2.72; cf. Origen, Homilies on Genesis (=Gn. Hom.), 1.7 in Origen: Homilies on
Genesis and Exodus trans. Ronald E. Heine, The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 71 (Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989), where Origen writes, But if in addition
someone should be such as can also ascend to the mountain with him, as Peter, James, and John,
he will be enlightened not only by the light of Christ, but also by the voice of the Father
himself.
27 See, Rahner, Karl, The Spiritual Senses According to Origen, in Theological
Investigations, Vol. 16 Experience of the Spirit: Source of Theology, trans. David Morland,
O.S.B. (London: Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1979), pp. 81-134; cf. McInroy, Mark J. Origen of
Alexandria, in The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity, eds. Paul L.
8
Christ, Origen contends that the Word of God is one, but able to manifest
himself in different forms (), on a spectrum approaching the
immediate union with God promised to the saints. Origen rejects Celsuss
claim that this means that the Word of God suffered some essential change.
Celsus failed to understand the changes () (to use the word
common in ordinary literature) or transfigurations () of Jesus, and
the fact that he had both immortal and mortal nature.28 The union of mortal
and immortal natures in Christ means that he can call to himself those who
are flesh that he may make them first to be formed like the Word who
became flesh, and after that lead them up to see him as he was before he
became flesh; so that they might be helped and may advance29 On this
view, Christs flesh might be thought of as a kind of pedagogical
adaptation that enables those who attend to it to rise to higher levels of
contemplation until they attain to union with the naked Word in
beatitude.30 According to Origen, Christ is the image of the invisible God
not with regard to his fleshly presence on earth, but only as the invisible
Word in union with the Father. Human creatures have access to this vision
of the Word only by means of divine grace, or a sort of inspiration
Gavrilyuk and Sarah Coakley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 20-35
28 Origen, CC, 4.16
29 Ibid, 6.68; cf. Origen, On First Principles (=de Princ.), trans. G.W. Butterworth (Notre
Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2013), 1, 2.7: This brightness [of the Word] falls softly and gently
on the tender and weak eyes of mortal man and little by little trains and accustoms them, as it
were, to bear the light in its clearness[until they become] capable of enduring the glory of the
light, [Christ] becoming in this respect even a kind of mediator between man and the light.
30 See, Besanon, Alain, The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm, trans.
Jane Marie Todd. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 94
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33
form of a servant with those who know him only according to his flesh
( ) and hence only from a human point of view. The Word, who
discloses his divinity to those on top of the mountain, gives the divine point
of view as his face shines like the sun ( ).34 Not
only Christs face, but also his garments became white as light. Origen
moves from interpreting the Incarnate Word in the flesh of Christ to the
Incarnate Word in Scripture. The glimmering garments, according to
Origen, are the words and letters of the Scripture, which he had put on.35
Moses and Elijah also appear with Jesus, the first representing the spiritual
law and the latter representing all of the prophets. These are glorified only
in the light of Christ, who is the hermeneutic key for understanding the
story of Gods relationship with Israel. Prior to the revelation of Jesus in the
31 See, Origen, CC, 7.43-44
32 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.37; GCS 10, 152.30-153.1
33 Cf. Origen, CC, 2.16; See also, von Balthasar, Origen, p. 174 n.1, who claims [this] theory
has nothing to do with Docetism, which is sharply rejected by Origen. The whole passage is
the clearest expression of a theologia gloriae (theology of glory) over against a theologia crucis
(theology of the cross).
34 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.37; GCS 10, 12.153.23-154.11
35 Ibid, GCS 10, 12.154.19-21
10
flesh, the law and prophets were shrouded in mystery (see, 1 Cor. 2:7), but
seeing these in a discourse in harmony with Jesus ( ),
enables one to rightly understand and interpret the spiritual meaning of the
law and prophets.36
Origen reads Peters response to the theophany (It is good for us to
be here see, Mt. 17:4; Mk. 9:5-6; Lk. 9:33) as a twofold temptation
wrought by an evil spirit (cf. Mt. 16:23). In terms of the mission of the
Incarnate Word, Peters ignorant remark might have persuaded Jesus to
remain on the high mountain with Moses and Elijah and thus no longer to
condescend to men, and come to them, and undergo death for them,37 and
thus fail to redeem them from the enemy and purchase them with his own
precious blood.38 In terms of the Scriptural Word, Peter, like the Jews and
the Gnostics,39 wants to separate Jesus from Moses (the law) and Elijah (the
prophets) and by so doing remove that principle () which illuminates the
Old Testament and imbues its letter with spiritual meaning.40 Origen
ultimately exculpates Peter from any wrongdoing since he was under an
evil inspiration according to the letter. Applying a spiritual hermeneutic to
the same passage yields a different teaching.41 Spiritually, Peter spoke as
36 See, de Lubac, HS, pp. 190-204
37 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.40; GSC 10, 159.30-160.15
38 Ibid, GSC 10, 158.20-28
39 See, de Lubac, HS, pp. 51-60; Here, Gnostics names the men of the heresy against whom
Origen constantly engaged in controversy. These include primarily Valentinus, Basilides,
Marcion and their respective students.
40 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.40; GSC 10,
41 Ibid, Comm. in Matt. 12.41; GSC 10, where Origen claims [We] have not yet spent out
energy in interpreting the things in the place figuratively ( ), but have said
these things by way of searching the mere letter ( ).
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one loving the contemplative life, whose zeal for contemplating Christ in
the form of God momentarily overcame his love for the simple beneath the
mountain, who still had need of the veil of Jesuss flesh. Jesus, who
incarnates the love which seeks not its own (1 Cor. 13:5), did not follow
Peters request because he came to earth in order to bring himself under
bondage to all those below that he might gain more of them (see, 1 Cor.
9:19).42 Applying the spiritual exegesis to the temptation against the
Scriptural Word, Origen understands Jesus as the unitive principle of the
Scriptures who draws the law and prophets to himself in such a way that
the three become one ( ).43 Jesus as Word of God thus
enables the exegete to transcend the letter of Scripture and glimpse the
Triune God, who imbues the written word with a deeper meaning. A
Trinitarian reading of the Transfiguration is almost unique to Origen,44 who
sees in the cloud the image of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
tabernacled together as a pattern of the resurrection to come.45 In the
resurrection, the saints will be restored in the unitive love of the Trinity,
who will draw all things to himself (see, Jn. 12:32).46 The reason, according
to Origen, why Christ does not allow his disciples to speak of the
transfiguration is to avoid scandalizing those below the mountain, who
42 Ibid, GSC 10, 164.6-12
43 Ibid, Comm. in Matt. 12.43; GSC 10,
44 See, McGuckin, Transfiguration, pp. 113-114, who cites Andrew of Crete as sharing a
similar Trinitarian reading.
would soon see him crucified (see, Mt. 17:9). After his resurrection,
however, their witness to his glory manifest on the mountain would confirm
their preaching of Christ risen from the dead.
There are thus three mutually informing levels of Origens treatment
of the transfiguration account. First, Christs flesh is presented as a veil that
the Word elects to momentarily remove on the mountain to his chosen
disciples, but which ordinarily conceals his divine nature to those without
spiritual vision. Second, Scripture is here treated as another incarnation of
the Word. The letter is analogous to the flesh of Christ, whereas the
spiritual meaning is analogous to the Word revealed in the letter. The Word
is incarnate in both the Old and the New Testament; the law and the
prophets appear in glory because of the radiance of the Word in whom the
testimony of the law, prophets, and gospel become one. There is no mention
made in his account of the relevance of the phenomenal world as such. As it
pertains to the Christian life, this vision is a gift given to those who are
chosen by the Word to follow him up the high mountain by means of their
ascetical virtue and contemplative prayer. Those who receive spiritual
insight receive a foretaste of the resurrection glory where the Word reigns
in glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, embraced and loved by the
saints reconstituted with spiritual flesh.47
3 Word as Type and Symbol of Himself
47 See, Ibid, p. 21; cf. Chadwick, Henry, Origen, Celsus, and the
Resurrection of the Body, Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 41, No. 2
(1948), pp. 83-102
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49 Maximus, Centuries on Knowledge, 2.13, p. 150; cf. Mystagogia, 24, in Selected Writings, pp.
206-213
50 Ibid, 1.97, p. 146
14
attainable, prefigures the parousia, when the Lord will be seen by all in
glory by the mind free from passion and decay in an angelic state.51
Maximus then invites his reader to enter into his own contemplation
of the mystery. The Word does not only become bright and shining on the
mountain, but is capable of becoming so in us. When this inner
transfiguration takes place, the Scriptures will be no longer veiled, and
their spiritual meanings will become clear and distinct.52 Maximus
interprets the personal figures of Moses and Elijah, like Origen, as the
more spiritual meanings of the law and the prophets. These will be made
fully manifest at the time of the parousia, when the Word comes with his
angels and the glory of the Father.53 The one significant divergence from
Origens interpretation pertains to Maximuss account of Peters judgment
concerning the three tabernacles. For Maximus, this judgment is in fact
good in that these three tabernacles represent the three ways of salvation:
virtue, knowledge, and theology.54 For Maximus, the way of virtue requires
the practice of courage and chastity and is typified by the figure of Elijah.
The way of knowledge requires natural contemplation, figured by Moses.
The third way, theology, is the pure perfection of wisdom, which the Lord
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divinity. The dazzling rays of light emitting from the Lords face indicate his
divine nature. These rays, however, completely overwhelm the eyes of the
disciples and temporarily blind them by their brilliance. According to
Maximus, the blinding light of the Word of God indicates that his divinity
transcends intellect, sensation, being, and knowledge.61 This movement
from beholding Christ in the form of a servant, having neither form nor
beauty (Ps. 53:2), to beholding him in the form of God, more beautiful
than the sons of men (Ps. 45:2),62 takes place by means of the theological
negation ( ) that extols him as being beyond all human
comprehension.63 Maximus puts his finger on a paradox that he will
develop in greater detail in his subsequent analyses of the transfiguration,
viz. how the human face of Jesus Christ can at once reveal and conceal his
divine nature.
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ineffable power of the One who has spoken through it.70 The world and
the Scriptural word share the same underlying symbolic structure. The
world is made up of differentiated principles () and the Scriptures are
composed of a manifold of written words (), as such both laws
simultaneously reveal and conceal the same Word ().71 Their revelation
of the Word will be perfected in the parousia, when Christ returns in glory
to roll up the devastated world like a scroll.
Until the Lords return in glory, we are left with two general modes of
theological discourse that Maximus claims are revealed to us in the divine
transfiguration.72 When the disciples first encounter the brilliant rays of
light emitting from the face of Christ they are struck dumb and adore in
silence. This indicates the way of complete denial, wherein one honors the
manifestation of the divinity simply by the act of beholding. Apophatic
theology thus reveals the essential truth that the Lord is indeed beyond all
being and infinity, ineffable and unknowable in his divine essence.73
Maximus suggests that the negative mode properly manifests the divinity of
Christ by denying every capacity to picture the truth by means of figures
and signs, being lifted up in silence by the power of the Spirit from the
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written words and visible things to the Word himself.74 The second mode,
the way of affirmation, is that by which the written words of Scripture and
the magnificent objects of sense in the cosmos are understood as
analogous to their Creator. Kataphatic theology thus articulates by positive
names and attributes the Lords effects as these are revealed in the written
and natural law. In the Scriptural account, the radiant face of Christ
indicates the apophatic mode, while his garments indicate the kataphatic
mode. In the same way that garments make known the dignity of the one
who wears them, so too does kataphatic theology gesture toward the truth
of the fullness of the divine mystery in many and various ways (Heb. 1:1).
Nevertheless, the garments inevitably conceal the full radiance of the Word,
which is accessible only in the silent, rapt attention found by way of
negation.
Maximuss contemplation of the transfiguration in the Ambigua thus recasts
Origens insight into the different forms under which the Word appears to
his creatures. Origens exegesis had emphasized the many and various
ways in which the Word manifested his presence to his disciples. Maximus
affirms that this is indeed the case, but situates this line of thinking within
the realm of kataphatic theology. Jesuss mention in the Gospels of his
various names: the way, the truth, and the life, and I am the bread, and
I am the door, and countless other such sayings,75 are among those things
that conceal the fleshes ()of the Word beneath them.76 The
phenomenal world as well as the Scriptural word of Christ equally gesture
towards the divine fullness that is manifest to his disciples at the summit of
the lofty mountain. There Maximus discerns the infinite fullness of the Word
as shining in and through the human flesh of Christ, which was not assumed
as a mere instrument, but rather assumed in order that Christ might
become for us a type and symbol of himself, presenting himself
symbolically by means of his own self and by so doing providing us with
the visible and divine actions of his flesh as signs of his invisible infinity.77
Christ as Word of God wholly united to the Father is thus both the archetype
and the image of the invisible infinity of God. In this revelation of the
negative mode of mystical theology,78 there is no longer a need to
transcend Christs flesh in order to encounter the naked Word to which
Origens spiritual tendency inclined. Rather, Maximus understands that in
the transfiguration Christ as Word of God symbolizes precisely himself and
directs the gaze of those who aspire to loving union with him to his
theandric countenance, at once invisible and revealed.
4 Conclusion: The Christ Icon
In his seminal essay from 1950, Orthodox theologian George Florovsky
traced the intellectual roots of the iconoclasts of the eighth and ninth
centuries back to the poisoned well of Origenism.79 He identified two main
76 Maximus, Amb., 10.18; PG 91.1129B
77 Ibid, Amb. 10.31c; PG 91.1165D
78 Ibid, Amb. 10.31d; PG 91.1168A
79 George Florovsky, Origen, Eusebius, and the Iconoclast Controversy, Church History,
Volume 19, No. 2 (Jun. 1950), pp. 77-96; cf. Freedberg, David. The Power of Images:
21
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80 Ibid, p. 84, n.20; Cf. von Balthasar, Origen, p. 1, who notes that if you remove the Origenian
brilliance from Eusebius, there is nothing left but a semi-Arian theologian of dubious merit and
an industrious historian.
81 Ibid, p. 85
82 Ibid, p. 87
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85 See, Origen, CC, 8.17; cf. 7.64, the latter quoted in Pelikan, Jaroslav, Imago Dei: The
Byzantine Apologia for Icons (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 1-2
86 Maximus, Amb. 10.31c; PG 91.1165D
24
in the same person and are beheld in the same countenance. Through this
manifestation of himself the Creator Word draws his handiwork to himself,
as both its beginning and its end. The Word of God is incarnate in the
natural world as the principles of the beings that find their true meaning in
him. Likewise is he to be found in the words of Scripture, every iota of
which declares his name and makes known his indwelling presence. The
flesh of Christ manifests the divine activity as so many signs of his invisible
infinity. For Maximus, these many and various signs are the portion of
kataphatic theology, whereby those places where the Word has shown
himself are named and loved through reasoned discourse. In the
transfigured face, beheld in silent adoration by the disciples on the
mountain, Maximus discerns the apophatic mode of theology at play. The
beholders gaze is fixed on the divine infinity beautifully arrayed before her
eyes. In her silent contemplation there is no place wherein she herself
remains unseen in her iconic adoration of the Word in all his fullness.
6 Bibliography
Baehrens, W. A., ed. Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten
drei Jahrhunderte, Ser. 33, Vol. 10 (Leipzig, Germany: J.C.
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28