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Four Hundred Chapters on Love
St Maximus the Confessor, tr. Sherwood, 1955
d3
The Ascetic Life (LA): The text used is simply that of F. Combefis, as reproduced in MG 90.912–56. It presents no difficulties. There are the following translations: in German by M. Garbas, Des heiligen Maximus Confessor . . . Liber Asceticus (Breslau 1925), and by F. Murawski, Führer zu Gott (Mainz 1926), a group of Byzantine ascetical writings among which is found the LA; in Italian by R. Cantarella, S. Massimo Confessore La Mistagogia ed altri scritti (Florence 1931) 30–99, with Greek text. Cantarella gives a list of corrections to the Migne reprint, cf. 277–79; the only correction of any importance I have noted in n. 140. There is no previous translation into English.
The form is the familiar one of question and answer (cf. The Earlier Ambigua 5); with this difference, that the interested parties are presented in person, that is, a young novice and an old monk. It remains a dialogue of sorts for the first part (1–26); the second part consists, however, of successive monologues—the first and longest on compunction (27–39), the second an exhortation to hope and trust in God’s mercy (40–45).
The development is simple and springs directly from the nature of Christian life, particularly as the monk seeks to achieve it. It is above all the quest of salvation, that is, the Lord’s purpose is His Incarnation. It is by making this purpose our own and by fulfilling the commandments that we shall be saved, deified.
The commandments are summarized in the two-fold commandment of love for God and neighbor. This Our Lord spent His whole life and death in observing. For us ‘love for one another makes firm the love for God which is the fulfilling of every commandment of God’ (7). This purpose of the Lord is twice explained and illustrated, by the Lord’s own life and by that of the apostles, as exemplars. In this strife the chief opponent is always the devil and those he deceives. The devil’s tactics are always the same—to induce men to prefer creatures to God and so, in seeking them, to hate their fellow men. The Christian’s tactic is the opposite: renunciation of creatures that God may be preferred above all, and love of neighbor. The purpose and foundation of the ascetic life is thus described with sufficient detail and illuminating repetition in the first 16 sections. The intimate connection of this life with that of Christ is evident, as also the close connection of this treatise with the Questions to Thalassius (see Introd. 64). The purpose made clear, the principal means of attaining it are then indicated in more particular (17–26). Three virtues are essential: love, self-mastery, prayer. Love tames anger; self-mastery, desire; prayer joins the mind to God. This is but a brief indication of spiritual doctrine for the more advanced, such as will be developed in the following Centuries. But note the strongly Christological and soteriological context in which it places the Centuries. We shall return to this point as occasion serves.
The second part (27–45) is likewise divided into two sections. At the end of 26 Maximus (that is, the old man) bemoans the fact that we no longer keep the way of our fathers. The brother then abruptly asks why he has no compunction. The response forms the first monologue (27–39). The reason is lack of fear of God, faith without works (34). Finally, the brother, at the end of a long prayer, declares himself touched. The old man then turns to encouragement and exhortation to fraternal charity (40–45).
The dismal picture painted in this section may seem excessive. Surely the times in which Maximus lived were enough to give matter for penance. I have tried to read allusions to these events between the lines, but with no result. The real answer for this great emphasis on compunction is to be found in the keen appreciation of the value of salvation, in the sense of solidarity not alone with Christ and the saints, but also with the sinful mass of mankind. In the face of such a contrast what soul is not touched? See on this question the exquisite essay of Hausherr, Penthos (Rome 1944), esp. 188; also Maximus Ps 59–861C; Thal 10–288 ff. (on the fear of God and love); Ep 4,5,24–416B, 421D, 612A.
The Four Centuries on Charity (Char): The text again is basically that of Combefis, as printed in MG 90.960- 1080. Yet through the courtesy of Mr. Aldo Ceresa-Gastaldo, who is preparing a critical edition and new Italian version of Char, I have been able to note a few variants from the Palatinus graecus 49, a manuscript of the late 9th century. There exists the recent French version of Pegon, indicated in the bibliography. Pegon naturally owes much to Viller’s article (see Introd. n. 356), but comes to a maturer judgment on the homogeneity and originality of Maximus’ doctrine (see his introduction 57 ff.). Only two other versions are known to me: that contained in the Russian Philocalia (cf. LA n. 49) and that made by the monk Cerbanus and dedicated to the archimandrite David of Pannonhalma. This David was abbot in the latter two decades of the first half of the 12th century. The MSS in which this version is contained were noted by de Ghellinck: Le mouvement théologique du xiie siècle (2 ed., Paris (1948) 398 nn. 4,5). The text itself was published in 1944 at Budapest by A. B. Terebessy: Translatio latina s. Maximi Confessoris De Caritate s. xii° in Hungaria confecta; cf. Rev. d’hist. ecclés. 42 (1948) 384. This last version is of interest as an example of the twelfth-century revival of Greek thought in the west. The form is that of the gnomic or sententious literature, first fixed in centuries by Evagrius. Both the number 100 and the number of the centuries are significant; the first as a perfect number, referring directly to the One, God; the other, in our case 4, as representing the four Gospels, whose commandment is that of love. This latter point Maximus himself notes in his preface. He also gives the reason for the sententious form: concision, facilitating the work of memory, that the monk may have a store of pithy sayings on which he may ruminate and develop at leisure (cf. the request of the brother in LA 6). An abuse of the form, namely a willed or perverse obscurity, he likewise recognizes; and, though denying this abuse in his own case, he has to allow that not all his chapters are easy to understand. See Hausherr, ‘Centuries,’ in Dict. de Spiritualité 2 (1938) 416–18.
As to the nature of the notes offered below, my aim will be to mark critical divergences from Evagrius as well as similarities and identities, that Maximus may appear in his own character; and to add such other notes as may be necessary for the understanding of the text. For this a reference to the Introd. may often suffice. It will not be my aim to write an historical commentary on the chapters. The effect would be only to distract the reader from Maximus’ thought, to the hundreds of rivulets from which he drew.