Sunday, June 30, 2024

Maximus the Confessor on "Forerunner" in Ambigua 49

  

From Saint Gregory’s same oration On Pascha:

 

Having put to death the members that are on the earth, and imitating the cincture of John, the desert-dweller and forerunner and great herald of the truth.

 

The one who imitates the “cincture” of John is he who by the power of reason tightly binds the fecundity of his soul in actual practice informed by knowledge, thereby preserving it from diffusion in matter. A “desert-dweller” is he [1365D] whose habit of mind is purified of the passions. A “forerunner” [GK: Προδορομος]is he who through his genuine repentance herald the righteousness that follows it, and through his outward virtue herald the knowledge that eventually will descend upon both. A “great herald of the truth” is the man whose own life confirms the word of teaching spoken by his mouth. [1368A] (Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua to John: Ambiguum 49, in On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, 2 vols. [trans. Nicholas Constas; Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014], 2:223)

 

Further Reading:


Maximus the Confessor (d. 662) on John the Baptist being compared to "Elijah" and there being many "forerunners" (προδομος)