Maximus the Confessor and His Companions: Documents from Exile (review)

This volume contains a valuable collection of seven documents pertaining to the seven years between 655, when Maximus arrived in Constantinople for his first trial, and 662, the year of his death in exile in Lazica on 13 August. The first two documents are accounts of his trials: the "Record of the Trial," an eyewitness account of the first trial of Maximus and his disciple Anastasius, consisting largely of reported dialogue between Maximus and his accusers; and the "Dispute between Maximus and Theodosius, Bishop of Caesarea in Bythinia," a verbatim report written within a year of the debate held in Bizya in August 656 that resulted in Theodosius' being convinced by Maximus. There follows three letters: that of Maximus to his disciple, Anastasius the Monk, dated to 19 April 658, while both were in exile in Perberis; a letter of Anastasius (either the disciple or the Apocrisiarius) to the monks of Cagliari seeking their help in Rome; and finally the letter of Anastasius the Apocrisiarius to Theodosius of Gangra written shortly before his death on 11 October 666 together with testimonia and syllogisms (neither of which are included here). The two final documents were both written after the death of the main protagonists by their supporters: a "Commemoration," written in 668/9 by Theodore Spoudaeus recording the tribulations of Pope Martin I, Maximus the Confessor, Anastasius the Disciple, Anastasius the Apocrisiarius, Theodore and Euprepius; and a brief piece of colorful invective, "Against the People of Constantinople," which, as Allen describes it, is "short on facts but long on rhetoric," written by an anonymous monk against the imperial monothelite party.

The text of these documents as established by Allen and Neil (Scripta saeculi VII vitam Maximi Confessoris illustrantia, CCSG 39 [Turnhout and Leuven: Brepols, 1999]) though without the critical apparatus, are presented with a facing translation. Together they provide a very vivid and illuminating insight into the events of these years, the personalities involved, and the issues at stake. These latter concern not only abstract theology (with Maximus in response to questions offering clear explanations of why it is necessary to attribute to Christ two natural wills and energies) but also the relationship between Church and state. The translations convey the liveliness associated with these matters, preserving both accuracy and clarity with only few editorial or typographical errors (e.g., 61, n.32, informs us that thronos will be translated as "see," yet here at least it is given as "throne"; in 87, line 11, read "attacked" not "attached").

The documents are prefaced by forty-four pages of introduction surveying the contemporary political climate with both external threats from enemies to the North and the East and internal tensions as the earlier decentralized provincial system of government was reformed into a more hierarchical power structure centered upon the emperor in Constantinople. The introduction also deals with the theological background, in particular the history of monenergism and monothelitism and their opposition, the various statements of faith and councils and the florilegia that were produced. There follows a full analysis of the events described in these seven documents and their textual tradition. The texts are accompanied by useful endnotes, and the volume concludes with a short bibliography and four indices.

It is the gradual collapse of the empire combined with Maximus' obstinacy in matters theological that results in the rather wild charge against him that he has "single-handedly betrayed Egypt, Alexandria, Pentapolis, Tripolis and Africa to the Saracens" (48-49). Maximus' adamant refusal of the pretensions of the emperor to govern ecclesial affairs is well known (and shine out clearly from these documents; cf. 56ff.) as is also the complexity of his theology. It is clearly the theological concerns that motivated Maximus, and the editors have given them their due by presenting a lucid account of his theology, even providing a succinct description of his distinction between the gnomic or deliberative will and the natural will (16...