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

This short volume represents an important contribution to the history of seventh-century Byzantium and to the history of Christian theology during a crucial period of its development. Seven key documents are edited, translated, and provided with useful commentaries, and together make up a dossier reflecting the activities of the monk and theologian Maximus the Confessor as reflected in the accounts written down during and after his lifetime by some of his closest followers and adherents. At the heart of the texts is the imperially-sponsored policy of, first, monoenergism, the doctrine of the single energy espoused by the patriarch Sergios in the 620's and supported by the emperor Heraclius in an effort to bring together the dyophysite and monophysite tendencies within the imperial church; and second, that of monotheletism, which evolved out of the former and was eventually adopted by the government of Constans II in the mid-640's. The seven texts include an eyewitness account of Maximus' first trial, a disputation between Maximos and the bishop Theodosius at Maximos' place of imprisonment at Bizye in Thrace, letters written by both Maximus and his follower Anastasius, a commemorative piece compiled after the Confessor's death, and a short polemical attack on the population of Constantinople by another Maximus supporter, an anonymous monk.

The textual tradition behind the documents is complex, and the editors present a very clear analysis of the process by which the texts in question were transmitted. Most of the manuscripts were copied in southern Italy in the period from the tenth to thirteenth centuries, but by far the most important is an early Latin manuscript dating to ca. 895, which includes a copy of a translation of the documents in question made by Anastasius Bibliothecarius, the papal librarian. Since this predates all the extant Greek manuscripts, it represents the unique witness of several key passages. The translation is presented on facing pages to the edition and apparatus.

Historically these documents are crucial to our knowledge of the course of the monoenergite/monothelite controversy, although incidentally they also provide valuable documentary evidence for a variety of other aspects of seventh-century history, including the way in which the central imperial administration and judicial system operated. Maximos' trials were "show trials" to a large extent, and many of the charges brought against him were clearly fraudulent or, at the very least, based on actions and utterances taken out of context, although it is quite clear that the imperial view that he had betrayed the empire militarily and politically was not without foundation when considered in the light of certain actions which Maximos himself admitted. Yet the political struggle was not just one of belief and church dogma; it was also about imperial authority and credibility and church-state relations, and prefigures later struggles between secular and spiritual powers. In this respect, therefore, and although there is no doubt that the 'eyewitness' aspect of the material is significant, the bias of the narrators of, for example, the first trial and of the disputation at Bizye, needs to be borne in mind, and this collection of texts should be interpreted very carefully in the context of the remaining—substantial—documentation for the period and for the role played by Maximos both in Africa and in Italy.¹

The editors are to be congratulated on an excellent translation and a helpful commentary.