Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Maximus the Confessor Predicating θεος in Titus 2:13 to Jesus, not the Father

  

I would therefore declined to take in hand the execution of your directives, fearing the reproach of impetuosity, had I not feared still more the danger [1033C] of disobedience. Being caught between these two, I prefer the reproach of impetuosity, which is more tolerable, to the danger of disobedience, which is unforgivable. By the intercession of the saints, then, and with the help of your own prayers, and with Christ our great God and Savior [GK: Χριστου του μεγαλου Θεου και Σωτηρος ημων] granting me reverent thoughts and suitable speech, I will set forth a response as concise as is possible to teach heading (for my treatise is addressed to a teacher who can infer great things from small). I begin with Gregory of godly mind, since he is rather close to us in time. [1033D] (Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua to Thomas: Prologue, in On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, 2 vols. [trans. Nicholas Constas; Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014], 1:7, italics in original, comment in square brackets added for clarification)