Maximum the Confessor: Selected Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality)

Maximus Confessor: Selected Writings contains critically selected writings from Maximus the Confessor on love, The Lord's Prayer in addition to his theological and philosophical reflections that would prove critical to the triumph of Orthodoxy during the Monothelite controversy at the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Maximus is called the Confessor because of his sufferings and labors for the true Christian faith. During the seventh century when the monothelite heresy (belief that Christ had only one will–a divine one) plagued the Church, Maximus eloquently demonstrated that Christ had both human and divine natures, as well as both a human and divine will. From the introduction to this volume, Jaroslav Pelikan highlights the relevance of Maximus' writings for today. "It was the genius of Maximus the Confessor that, in a measure that has been granted only to a few, he was fully bilingual, affirming by means of negation and speaking both the language of spirituality and the language of theology with equal fluency."