Saint Maximus The Confessor
HE WHO
brought the whole world into existence, visible and invisible,
according to the sole urge of His will, beyond all the ages and the
very creation of the created, He had ineffably the supreme goodness of
the will towards His creatures. And this will was for Him to be united
without change with the nature of men, through the true union of
existence, and to unite with himself the human nature without change,
so that himself would become a man, accordingly as He knows, and by
the union with Him, He would make man God. Namely, He divided wisely
the ages and He appointed a part of them to the work of Him becoming a
man, and the other part to the work of making man God.
Of the ages that were appointed to the work of Him becoming a man,
the end has come to us, when the divine intention was fulfilled by the
very facts in the incarnation, which is exactly what the divine
apostle studied; in the very incarnation of God and Word he saw the
fulfillment of the divine intention for God to become a man, and he
says that the end of ages has come to us (I
Cor. 10.11), not meaning all the ages
[ended] in us, but obviously the part of them which was appointed to
the work of God becoming a man has had its proper end according to the
intention of God.
Since then the ages appointed to the work of God becoming man have
received their end in us and God worked truly and completed his
perfect incarnation, we should accept the ages to come for the work of
the mystical and ineffable deification of men, when God will reveal
the superabundant wealth of his goodness upon us (Eph.
2.7), having worked
perfectly to the worthy the deification. Because, if himself has ended
the mystical work of the incarnation, in all manners except for sin
having become like us and having descended even to the lowest parts of
the earth, where the tyranny of sin had pushed and exiled man, it is
certain that the mystical work of the deification of man will be
completed too, in all manners whatever, except only for the identity
of the essence with Him, as is obvious, and having made man alike him
and having elevated man above all heavens, where by her nature the
greatness of the grace, the infinity of goodness, invites man who lies
below.
Which exactly the great apostle teaches mystically and says that in
the ages to come the superabundant wealth of God's goodness will be
revealed. Therefore, let us too divide the ages in our mind and
appoint the one part of them to the mystery of the divine incarnation,
and the other part to the grace of the human deification, and we will
find the first part to have been completed accordingly, and the other
part not yet arrived. And to speak shortly, the first part of the ages
belongs to the descent of God to men, and the other part to the
ascent of men to God. (...)
Since the reason of acting is different from the reason of
suffering, mystically and wisely at once the divine apostle divided in
past and future ages the reasons of doing and suffering. That is, the
ages of the flesh, where we now live (...) are proper to acting, while
the future ages of the Spirit, after the present life, are proper to
the alteration that suffering brings. Therefore, while we are here, we
approach as people who act the end of ages, when our power and work
will come to their end according to acting. But in the ages to come,
suffering by grace the deifying alteration, we won't act but we will
suffer and because of this our being worked by God won't come to an
end. Because this passion will be above nature and it won't have any
reason limiting the divine and deifying work, extending to the
infinity upon those who suffer it.
For we act while we have active the spiritual power which by nature
generates the virtues, and the spiritual power of receiving all
knowledge, which incomparably transcends all nature of whatever exists
and is known and leaves behind her all the ages. And then we will
suffer, after we will have passed completely the reasons of all
created out of nothing beings and we will have arrived unknowingly to
the cause of the creatures and we will pause together with all that is
limited by nature our proper powers, becoming that, which is not at
all an accomplishment of the natural power, since nature has not a
power able to comprehend what is above nature. Because by nature
nothing created can act the deification, since neither can it
comprehend God. For only the divine grace proprely has the nature to
grant accordingly to the beings the deification, glorifying nature
with the light that is above nature and bringing her above her proper
limits according to the superabundance of glory.
Therefore, it is not strange that the end of ages has come to us,
who won't receive so far through grace in Christ the gift of the
goods that transcend ages and nature, of which images and sketches
have become the manners of virtues and the reasons of those able by
nature to be known, through which God always wants to become a man in
the worthy men. Therefore blessed is he, who in himself wisely made
God man and completed the generation of such a mystery, and after that
he suffered to become by grace God, because he won't have an end in
becoming eternally this. Because He who works the deification in the
worthy, is indefinite in His nature, He has indefinite and beyond all
indefiniteness the power that works this and never ends together with
those made by her, as it happens with us, but rather always by herself
holds those who by her received being and are not able to exist
without her. Whence he spoke about a wealth of goodness, since the
divine and all-shining disposition towards us in goodness, according to
the alteration which regards our becoming Gods, never stops.
Translated by Elpenor
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