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OF OUR FATHER AMONG THE SAINTS MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR

TO THE MOST HOLY PRESBYTER MARINUS

Having set for yourself the goal to direct the all-hymned friendship toward God, God-honored Father, you travel the road toward it in an orderly way. With reason, indeed, toward the generation of virtue, describing the nature of beings(a); but with the mind, toward the constitution of an unerring union (knowledge), defining the motion of every age and time; with which a more fervent longing for God enters; co-extending with infinity the motion of you who long; and by the incomprehensibility of the one longed for, making your desire for him incomprehensible; of which God Himself is the end; becoming the fulfillment of longing for the worthy, as a self-subsistent enjoyment of good things; of which reason knows only the experience as comprehension, being clearly beyond understanding, a union, as falling under no intellectual type whatsoever. For this reason, your life has become the personification (2) of reason; and reason, the nature (b)(10) of your life; truly sketching the new man according to Christ; bearing in a well-imitated way the image and likeness of God the creator; which one must now understand as truth and goodness; the one being the end of contemplation, the other, of practice; and the one, the adversary of falsehood, the other, of wickedness.

From this, for you, with the successful practice of the virtues, the comprehension of the divine dogmas has been joined; being held together by both the abundance of knowledge and the power of demonstration; by which, having discerned and rejected that which was inaccurately proposed by some concerning wills, who say that will, and volition, and counsel, and choice, and judgment, and power, and opinion, and thought are the same as one another, differing from each other only in their names; and that the will of God and of the saints will become one; and because of this, of those who affirm and maintain that Christ has one volitional will; you were not content with yourself for the confirmation of what was well judged, on account of your innate poverty of spirit; but you have deigned to take me also, who was raised in ignorance, as a fellow-voter for the things well-known to you. Which I have come to do, even if it be rash, having been conquered by the reward of obedience. And of each of these I will make a brief and, as it were, definitive writing in order, not inscribing my own words—for how could I, being poor in these things?—but collecting those labored over by others concerning these matters, so that we may know how these things differ from each other in both respects: I mean, in name and in reality.

Concerning the natural will, that is, volition. For the natural will, that is volition, is a power appetitive of what is according to nature

and cohesive of all the properties essentially present in a nature. For held together naturally by this, the substance desires to be and to live and to move according to both sense and mind, longing for its own natural and full existence. For nature is established as willing itself and all such things as are naturally constituted for its subsistence, being appetitively dependent on the principle of its being, according to which it both is and has come to be. (13) Wherefore others defining this natural [will] say that the will is a rational and vital appetite, while choice is a deliberative appetite for things in our power. Therefore, volition is not choice, since volition is a certain simple appetite, both rational and vital, whereas

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ΤΟΥ ΕΝ ΑΓΙΟΙΣ ΠΑΤΡΟΣ ΗMΩΝ MΑΞΙMΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΟMΟΛΟΓΗΤΟΥ

ΠΡΟΣ MΑΡΙΝΟΝ ΤΟΝ ΟΣΙΩΤΑΤΟΝ ΠΡΕΣΒΥΤΕΡΟΝ

Σκοπόν θέμενος σαυτῷ τήν πανύμνητον πρός τήν Θεόν στείλασθαι φιλίαν, θεοτίμητε Πάτερ, εὐτάκτως πρός αὐτήν διανύεις τόν δρόμον. Λόγῳ μέν πρός ἀρετῆς γένεσιν τήν τῶν ὄντων φύσιν περιγράφων(α) νῷ δέ, πρός ἀπλανοῦς ἑνώσεως (γνώσεως) σύστασιν, παντός αἰῶνος καί χρόνου περιορίζων τήν κίνησιν· αἷς θερμότερος ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ συνεισέρχεται πόθος· τῇ τε ἀπειρίᾳ συμπαρεκτείνων σου τοῦ ποθοῦντος τήν κίνησιν· καί τῷ ἀκαταλήπτῳ τοῦ ποθουμένου, τήν ἔφεσίν σοι ποιῶν ἀκατάληπτον· ἧς τέλος αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ Θεός· πόθου τοῖς ἀξίοις γινόμενος πλήρωσις, ὡς ἀπόλαυσις ἀγαθῶν αὐθυπόστατος· ἧς μόνην τήν πεῖραν οἶδε κατάληψιν ὁ λόγος, οἷα σαφῶς ὑπέρ νόησιν τυγχάνουσαν, ἕνωσιν, ὡς μηδενί τύπῳ νοερῷ καθοτιοῦν ὑποπιπτούσης. ∆ιά τοῦτο, τοῦ μέν λόγου σοι γέγονε πρόσωπον (2) ὁ βίος· τοῦ δέ βίου φύσις (β)(10), ὁ λόγος· τόν καινόν ἀληθῶς κατά Χριστόν ὑπογράφοντες ἄνθρωπον· εὐμιμήτως φέροντα τοῦ κτίσαντος Θεοῦ τήν εἰκόνα καί τήν ὁμοίωσιν· ἅστινας ὑποληπτέον νῦν τήν ἀλήθειαν καί τήν ἀγαθότητα· τήν μέν θεωρίας · τήν δέ, πράξεως τέλος ὑπάρχουσαν· καί τήν μέν, ψεύδους· τήν δέ, πονηρίας ἀντίπαλον.

Ἐντεῦθεν σοι τῇ κατορθώσει τῶν ἀρετῶν, ἡ τῶν θείων συνήφθη δογμάτων κατάληψις· τῷ τε πλήθει τῆς γνώσεως, καί τῇ δυνάμει συνεχομένη τῆς ἀποδείξεως· καθ᾿ ἥν, τό πρός τινων οὐκ ἠκριβωμένως περί θελημάτων προταθέν διαγνούς, καί παρωσάμενος, ταυτόν ἀλλήλοις εἶναι φαμένων θέλημα καί βούλησιν, καί βουλήν, καί προαίρεσιν καί γνώμην· ἐξουσίαν τε καί δόξαν καί φρόνησιν, μόνοις ἀλλήλων, διαφέροντα τοῖς ὀνόμᾳσι· τοῦ τε Θεοῦ καί τῶν ἁγίων ἕν θέλημα γενήσεσθαι· καί διά τοῦτο βεβαιουμένων τόν Χριστόν ἕν θέλημα προαιρετικόν ἔχειν καί διατεινομένων· οὐκ ἠρκέσθης σαυτῷ πρός τήν τοῦ καλῶς κριθέντος βεβαίωσιν, διά τήν σύντροφον πτωχείαν τοῦ πνεύματος· ἀλλά κἀμέ τόν ἰδιωτείᾳ συντεθραμμένον σύμψηφον λαβεῖν τῶν ἐγνωσμένων σοι καλῶς κατηξίωσας. Ὅπερ ποιήσων ἥκω· κἄν προπετές· τῷ τῆς εὐπειθείας μισθῷ νενικημένος. Ἑκάστου δέ τούτων καθ᾿ εἱρμόν τήν γραφήν ποιήσομαι σύντομον, καί οἷον ὁριστικήν· οὐκ ἐμούς ἐγχαράττων λόγους· πῶς γάρ, ὁ τούτων πενόμενος, ἀλλά τούς περί τούτων ἄλλοις πονηθέντας ἐρανισάμενος· ἴνα γνῶμεν ὡς ἀμφοῖν· διαφέρουσιν ἀλλήτων ταῦτα· λέγω δέ κλήσει καί πράγματι.

Περί φυσικοῦ θελήματος, ἤγουν θελήσεως. Θέλημα γάρ εἶνα φυσικόν, ἤγουν θέλησιν, δύναμιν τοῦ κατά φύσιν ὄντος

ὀρεκτικήν· καί τῶν οὐσιωδῶς τῇ φύσει προσόντων συνεκτικήν πάντων ἰδιωμάτων. Τούτῳ γάρ συνεχομένη φυσικῶς ἡ οὐσία, τοῦ τε εἶναι καί ζῇν καί κινεῖσθαι κατ᾿ αἴσθησίν τε καί νοῦν ὀρέγεται, τῆς οἰκείας ἐφιεμένη φυσικῆς καί πλήρους ὀντότητος. Θελητική γάρ ἑαυτῆς, καί τῶν ὅσα σύστασιν αὐτῆς ποιεῖσθαι πέφυκε, καθέστηκεν ἡ φύσις· τῷ τοῦ εἶναι αὐτῆς λόγῳ, καθ᾿ ὅν ἔστι τε καί γέγονεν ὀρεκτικῶς ἐπηρτημένη. (13) ∆ιόπερ ἕτεροι τοῦτο τό φυσικόν ὁριζόμενοι· θέλημά φασιν εἶναι, ὄρεξιν λογικήν τε καί ζωτικήν· τήν δέ προαίρεσιν, ὄρεξιν βουλευτικήν τῶν ἐφ᾿ ἡμῖν. Οὐκ ἔστιν οὖν προαίρεσις ἡ θέλησις· εἴπερ ἡ μέν θέλησις ἁπλῆ τις ὄρεξίς ἐστι, λογική τε καί ζωτική· ἡ δέ