24 September 656 A.D. Maximus the Confessor Faces His Accusers
24 September 656 A.D. Maximus
the Confessor Faces His Accusers
Graves, Dan. “Maximus the Confessor Faced Heretics.” Christianity.com. Jun 2007.
http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/601-900/maximus-the-confessor-faced-heretics-11629730.html. Accessed 23 May
2014.
You
are full of pride. You think that you are the only Orthodox theologian, the
only person being saved, and that everyone else is a heretic and
perishing!" Troilus and Sergius, agents of the emperor in Constantinople,
leveled their accusation against Maximus, the abbot of Chrysopolis Monastery
whom they were interrogating.
"When
all the people in Babylon were worshipping the golden idol, the Three Holy
Youths* did not condemn anyone to hell," retorted Maximus. "They did
not concern themselves with what others were doing, but took care only for
themselves, so as not to fall away from true piety."
He
added, "God forbid that I should condemn anyone, or say that I alone am
being saved. However, I would sooner agree to die than, having fallen away in
any way from the right faith, endure the torments of my conscience."
Maximus
was a man of great ability. Born in Constantinople around 580, he was well
educated and served as secretary to Emperor Heraclius. But in 626, Maximus
became a monk. At that time a heresy known as Monothelitism raged in the
eastern half of the Roman Empire. Monothelites taught that Christ's divine will
had swallowed up and destroyed his human will so that in effect he had only one
will. Maximus stoutly denied this.
Christ's
incarnation was the whole point of human history, Maximus argued, because it
was intended to restore the equilibrium lost when Adam fell into sin. If Christ
was not fully God and fully man, he said, then salvation was void.
Insisting
on religious unity among their subjects, emperors tried to force compromise
teachings on them. Many eastern bishops accepted these faulty doctrines,
published in the Ecthesis and the Typos. Maximus rejected both.
At
the end of 655, when he was about seventy-five years old, Maximus was sent to
Constantinople for trial. Accused of conspiracy and the absurd charge of
causing the loss of the emperor's North African holdings, Maximus was sent into
exile in Thrace, where he suffered cold and hunger.
At
the emperor's command, one of the traitor bishops, Theodosius of Caesarea in
Bithynia, went to see the old abbot. With him were two officials, Theodosius
and Paul. They met on this day, September 24, 656.
Maximus shredded their arguments so thoroughly that the bishop promised to
submit. Maximus said it was not to him, but to Rome that he must submit.
Maximus was a strong advocate of the primacy of the Pope--a fact that the Roman
Church cites in backing up its claim to authority over all Christians.
Theodosius argued that the Lateran Council of 649 was invalid because the
emperor never authorized it. Maximus replied that if emperors made councils
valid, rather than pious faith, then several rigged councils held by wicked
emperors must be accepted even though what they taught was contrary to Orthodox
faith. The old abbot could not be moved from his staunch defense of true
doctrine.
Six
years after this meeting, Maximus, then in his eighties, was again dragged in
for questioning. When he refused to buckle to Sergius and Troilus, they cut out
his tongue, lopped off his right hand and sent him into exile again. His tough
old body had taken all the punishment it could bear: he died that August,
unbroken in his confession of the Christ he loved. Because of this, he is
called Maximus the Confessor.
[*Maximus
was referring to Shadrack, Mesheck and Abednego, who refused to bow to an image
that Nebuchadnezzar had erected. The story is told in Daniel, a book of the
Bible.]
Bibliography:
Berthold,
George C., translator. Maximus Confessor: selected writings
Translation and notes by George C. Berthold. New York: Paulist Press, c1985.
Chapman,
John. "St. Maximus of Constantinople" in The Catholic Encyclopedia.
"Maximus
the Confessor." Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church for a summary of
Maximus' life.
Various
internet articles.
Last
updated June, 2007
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