A Larger Hope 1

by Ilaria L E Ramelli

  What is clear is that from the mid-sixth century onwards it became widely believed that apokatastasis was off limits (and an investigation into the causes of the rejection of apokatastasis in late antiquity is underway), even though only a specific version of it had been condemned, and this had a significant impact on the tradition. From now on theologians with such leanings had to find subtle and indirect ways of expressing them for fear of being branded as heretics.

  Maximus the Confessor: Criticizing Origenistic Views and Embracing Origen’s True Thought

  Maximus the Confessor (580–662), after being an assistant of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, was abbot of the monastery of Philippicus in Chrysopolis, across the water from Constantinople, before moving to Carthage in Egypt. He is best known for his defense of the Chalcedonian idea that Christ had both a divine and a human will, a belief for which he was exiled, tortured, imprisoned, and eventually died. But while he was convicted as a “heretic,” his reputation was quickly revitalized after his death and he was sainted; indeed, the controversial view that he suffered for the faith became accepted by the whole church at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 680–81. Today Maximus is highly esteemed as a theologian in both East and West, and is the object of increasing scholarship.

  Maximus had read Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius, all supporters of universal restoration. However, he lived after Justinian’s anathemas, which created a new and hostile context for those engaging Origen’s thought. Maximus himself was charged with Origenism and in a trial in 665 he had to respond to such accusations (Life of Maximus, BHG 1234.23A;93A). Mor Michael Rabo, or Michael the Syrian, based on a polemical treatise by a priest, Simon of Qeneshre, in his Chronicle, 423–25, depicts Maximus as an Origenian, committed to the doctrine of apokatastasis. The same is repeated in the anonymous Chronicle to the year 1234, 130.

  That Maximus supported the doctrine of restoration in the form of universal salvation is debated in modern scholarship. E. Michaud in 1902,355 V. Grumel in 1928,356 and then Hans Urs von Balthasar357 thought that Maximus did adhere to the doctrine of universal salvation, albeit prudently and without professing it overtly. This idea has been rejected by Brian Daley, but picked up again by Torstein Tollefsen.358 What are we to make of this?

  It is certainly true that Maximus criticized Origenism, but Maximus’ criticism of Origenism does not involve Origen’s own doctrines,359 and even less that of apokatastasis. The latter is notable for its absence from Maximus’ criticisms of some Origenistic tenets. According to Michaud, Maximus embraced the doctrine of universal salvation with no hesitations; if in some passages he seems less willing to admit of it, it is because the tone of those passages is moral and not theological. What is clear is that Maximus never states the eternity of hell. Grumel thought that Maximus was inspired by Gregory of Nyssa on this score, albeit expressing himself with caution after the Justinian business.

  Hans Urs von Balthasar,360 followed by Polycarp Sherwood,361 observed that in Q. ad Thal. prologue and 43, Maximus interprets the two trees of the garden of Eden—that of life and that of the knowledge of Good and evil—in a moral and anthropological sense, but he states that the spiritual exegesis of that passage is better. However, he does not expound it, in order to “honor with silence” the “depth” of this meaning. Maximus uses the same reticence in reference to Christ’s victory over evil. The mystical doctrine to be covered in silence is Origen’s doctrine of universal salvation. Maximus did not profess it overtly not only due to the Justinian incident, but also because of his pastoral concerns—which Origen himself shared—that the preaching of this doctrine before spiritually immature people might lead to moral relaxation. I remark that at the end of Q. 43 Maximus observes that those who are endowed with wisdom, which is a gift of grace, know that what is bad can be so in one respect and not in another, and likewise what is good and noble can be so in one respect and not in another. In the prologue, Maximus exalts again the “most blessed silence, superior to human thought.” He connects this with the telos, the eschatological discourse, and the ultimate participation in the divine, ineffable goods, and it may well be related again to the doctrine of apokatastasis. I would also add Amb. 45:1356C, where Maximus decides to keep his silence on the “more sublime” interpretation of the beginning, namely the creation of the first human being free from any passion or sin. The beginning is reflected in the end, with the restoration of humanity to a condition without passions or sin. The similarity between the beginning and the end is indeed declared by Maximus, e.g., in Amb. 71:1412D: “The first and the last things are similar to one another and are truly, while . . . all that comes between them passes away,” according to the principle of similarity between beginning and end that was defended by Origen (and by Plotinus, as will be shown in a future, systematic comparison between the two), and was already suggested in the Letter of Barnabas 6:13: “Behold, I make the last things [ta eskhata] the first.” Now, according to Maximus, at the beginning, “sin did not belong to human nature” (Amb. 5:1048B), therefore it will not in the end. In Amb. 48:1361D Maximus applies again silence to the ultimate end, beyond both the present and the future aeon, the supreme culmination of all goods.

  In Q. et dub. 19, Maximus takes over the notion of apokatastasis of Gregory of Nyssa and comments that the church knows three kinds of apokatastasis:

  1) the restoration of an individual to its original condition thanks to virtue;

  2) the restoration of human nature thanks to the resurrection, which makes it incorruptible and immortal;

  3) the eschatological restoration of the faculties of the soul, “decayed due to sin,” to their pre-lapsarian state, for which Maximus expressly refers to Gregory of Nyssa.

  The equation between resurrection and restoration also derives from Gregory. The restoration of the faculties of the soul will be an ontological restoration that will annul the effects of sin and therefore evil. This restoration too will be universal: “For as the whole of human nature in the resurrection must recover the incorruptibility of the flesh in the time we hope for, so also the subverted faculties of the soul, in the long sequence of aeons, will have to lose the memories of evilness that are still found in itself. Then the soul, after crossing all the aeons without finding rest, will arrive at God, who has no limit.” The souls will eventually know God. Maximus is reminiscent of 1 Timothy 2:4: “God wants all human beings to be saved and to reach the knowledge of the truth.” All will attain the knowledge of God, albeit not all will immediately attain participation in them (Q. et dub. 99). This participation, however, can well come later.

  This proposal is strongly suggested by a parallel passage in which Maximus treats again the eventual restoration. He states that the transformation of humans will shall take place “thanks to the change and general renovation that will come to pass in the future, at the end of all aeons, by the work of God our Savior: a universal renovation of the whole human nature, natural and yet by grace.”362 If human will is transformed in this way, no one will be able to obstinately remain in evil forever. Indeed, the purified and renewed souls will reorient themselves toward God. In Q. ad Thal. 59 Maximus similarly states that due to sin human noetic faculties had shrunk, but they will be restored (the verb is precisely the corradical of apokatastasis). In this same passage, Maximus also develops the Origenian and Gregorian theme of anastasis (resurrection) as apokatastasis (restoration) and of the latter as the restoration to virtue, thus displaying the three meanings of apokatastasis that he delineates in Q. et dub. 19.

  In Q. ad Thal. 60 the aim of God from before the foundation of the world is individuated in Christ’s inhumanation (i.e., the union of divinity with humanity) and in the “recapitulation of all creatures into God.” This is the goal of God’s providence and “the mystery that manifests God’s great intention” which existed before all the aeons. Christ-Logos announces and manifests this intention (in Isa 9:5 he is called “the announcer of the great intention”), showing
“the abysmal depth of the Father’s goodness.” This converges with Amb. 41. The end (telos) will take place when every movement of creatures will cease and they will know the One in whom they will have been made worthy of dwelling, in the “fruition offered to them—inalterable and always the same—of the One who will be known by them.” In this way, “we shall receive the deification unceasingly operated beyond nature” thanks to the Son, who, “by means of his inhumanation, personally accomplishes the mystery of our salvation. . . . For the Creator of the substance of beings according to nature had also to be the author of the deification, according to grace, of the creatures brought to existence, that the Giver of being might also appear as Giver, by grace, of ‘always being well.’”363

  Maximus seems to have inherited from Clement his discourse about living, living well, and living always: the Logos Creator, in the beginning, has given us “living” (τὸ ζῆν/to zēn), then, as teacher, he has taught us “living well” (τὸ εὖ ζῆν/to eu zēn), so as to offer us, in the end, “living always” (τὸ ἀεὶ ζῆν/to aei zēn, Protrepticus 7.3). The distinction between living and living well was already established by Aristotle (Pol. 1252b29: frs 5 and 9 Walzer), but Clement added the third element, “living always,” or “eternally” (τὸ ἀίδιον ζῆν/to aidion zēn, Protr. 7.1).

  In Car. 1:71, Maximus states that God will unite to all humans, those who are worthy of this and those who are unworthy. This would not seem to imply for Maximus the deification of all humans.364 Nevertheless, this is God’s aim, from before creation to now. In Amb. 42:1329B (cf. 65:1392B) Maximus remarks that those who cannot participate in the Good who is God will suffer, but he does not state that this exclusion will be eternal. In Q. ad Thal. 59, it is said that those who are worthy of God will enjoy being united to God, while the unworthy will suffer in that union. Again, it is not stated that this suffering will be eternal; only for beatitude does Maximus state that it is eternal and beyond all aeons. In Amb. 21:1252B, Maximus observes that those who have sinned following their passions, in the future world will remain far from the relation with God; this will be their punishment even for many aeons, but Maximus does not say that this state will endure after the end of all aeons. Passages that some scholars have interpreted as references to eternal damnation365 in fact cannot support this hypothesis, because Maximus here uses the adjective αἰώνιος/aiōnios in reference to the future judgment or punishment, and we have already shown that this does not mean eternal, except when applied to God.

  The hypothesis of an eternal permanence of evil, which the existence of everlasting hell requires, contradicts Maximus’ theory of the ontological non-subsistence of evil, which he shares with Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Evagrius, and which he expresses in many places.366 In Q. et dub. 10, Maximus interprets the eschatological Sabbath in a mystical way, as a renunciation of evil and the disappearance of evil. Maximus can thus conceive of an αἰώνιος/aiōnios (“otherworldly”) permanence in evil, but not of an ἀΐδιος/aidios (“eternal”) permanence in evil. The mystical “eighth day,” the day after the Sabbath rest, corresponds to this absolute eternity. Maximus, indeed, admits of spiritual progress also in the world to come, after the resurrection (Amb. 63). For the latter coincides with the first mystical Sunday, but after this there comes the New Sunday and many other feasts, which bring about a progressive participation in the divine goods and are called “mysteries.” The same succession of present aeon > death > future aeon (with the resurrection) > further feasts and purifications is found in Amb. 50:1368D. In Amb. 59, in the framework of Christ’s descent to hell, Maximus is clear that one can come to adhere to God even after death, by means of conversion and faith.

  The second coming of Christ at the end of the world will determine “the transformation of the universe and the salvation of our souls and bodies” (Amb. 42:1332D), because Christ “leads and invites all to his glory, insofar as possible, with the power of his inhumanation, being the initiator of the salvation of all, and purifies the stains of sin in all” (1333A).367 In Amb. 7:1097AD Maximus, after introducing the Adam–Christ parallel, highlights the recapitulation of all in Christ, realized through “the mystery of God’s most holy coming into the human being, made necessary by transgression.” In Amb. ad Thom. 5:1049A, Maximus describes Christ’s inhumanation in the following terms: “when he became a human being he lifted up human nature together with himself, making it into a mystery.” In 4:1044AD and 1045B, he articulates this concept:

  Christ destroyed our worse element, that is, the law of sin that comes from transgression. . . . He saved the human beings who were kept prisoners by sin, paying in himself the price of our ransom, and even had them participate in divine power. . . . He realized the complete salvation of all humanity, making his own all that our humanity is. . . . He wanted to make me the lord of the devil, who, by means of deception, lorded it over all like a tyrant. . . . [T]hrough passible flesh he deifies the whole humanity, which had become earth by effect of corruption, . . . with a view to the perfect submission by which he will bring us to the Father after saving us and making us like himself by grace. . . . This is the mystery of our salvation.

  Maximus too, like Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, seems to envisage the ultimate salvation and deification of all humanity. Due to circumspection, Maximus strategically ascribes these clearly universalistic statements to “a man, holy in thought and life,” whom he asked for illumination. In this way he presents the idea of universal salvation as a “holy thought.”

  In Amb. 42 Maximus himself is adamant that the aim of divine providence is the restoration of humanity: “Look for the main reason [logos] of the birth of the human being, a reason that keeps its stability and never abandons it. Also, consider what is the way of its education due to sin, in accord with God’s educative economy, whose end is the correction of those who are educated and the perfect return to the logos of their birth, that is, their restoration [apokatastasis].” Christ is the main agent of divine providence, and in Amb. 31:1280A Maximus consistently declares that “Christ-God has filled the supernal world, divinely realizing in himself the salvation of all” (1280D). In Christ, human nature is restored to its perfection, freedom from passions, and incorruptibility. Christ thus performs the restoration (apokatastasis) of human nature (Q. ad Thal. 42), on which Maximus insists also in Q. ad Thal. 61. In Amb. 3:1276AB, too, Maximus comments that Jesus’ birth from a virgin was necessary to the restoration of human nature, which also entails its deification.368

  In Q. ad Thal. 65 the mystical Sabbath that is to come must be honored with silence, which reinforces the impression that Maximus is referring to universal restoration. It will subsume all mystical feasts and will see the cessation of all movements and the passage of all into God. After that there will be no dimension or extension any more. In Amb. 10, likewise, the eighth day of apokatastasis is indicated as truly eternal (ἀΐδιος/aïdios), as “a day without sunset and with no end.”

  Maximus insists on the universal and meticulous action of divine providence, which he, like Origen, does not consider to be in conflict with our freedom of will.369 Maximus, like Origen, makes much of free will370 and excludes any automatic salvation: “The mystery of salvation belongs to people who want it, and not to people who are forced to submit to it.”371 In Q. ad Thal. 61 Maximus remarks that God gave to humanity an absolutely eternal (ἀΐδιος/aïdios) life and will restore it again (the verb is again the corradical of apokatastasis). In In Or. Dom. 82, Maximus describes absolutely eternal (ἀΐδιος/aïdios) life as the restoration (apokatastasis) of humanity liberated from sin and the law of sin.

  Like Origen, Maximus also describes the telos using 1 Corinthians 15:28:

  The Godhead will really be all in all, embracing all and giving substance to all in itself, in that no being will have any movement separate from it and nobody will be deprived of its presence. Thanks to this presence we will be, and will be called, gods and children,
body and limbs, because we will be restored to the perfection of God’s project.” (Amb. 7:1092Cff.)

  Humanity alienated itself from this project with the fall; this is why God introduced physical death, but—as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Methodius also thought—in this God was at work “administering our salvation, that, by loving non-being [i.e., evil], instructed then by suffering, we might learn to reorient our intellective faculty toward the Being.” It is not accidental that, in this connection, Maximus describes Jesus Christ as “the restorer” (ἀποκαθιστάμενος/apokathistamenos) of all (PG 91.1400ΒC). The action of restoration will be performed through the reorienting of the free wills of rational creatures towards the Good: “God, as he alone knew, completed the primary principles [λόγοι/logoi] of creatures and the universal essences of beings once for all. Yet he is still at work, not only preserving these creatures in their very existence, but effecting the formation, progress, and sustenance of the individual parts that are potential within them. Even now in his providence he is bringing about the assimilation of particulars to universals, until he might unite creatures’ own voluntary inclination to the more universal natural principle of rational being through the movement of these particular creatures toward well-being, and make them harmonious and self-moving in relation to one another and to the whole universe” (Q. ad Thal. 2).372