Friday, July 5, 2024

Maximus the Confessor on the Symbolic Meaning of “Simon of Cyrene”

  

From Saint Gregory’s same oration On Pascha:

 

If you are a Simon of Cyrene, take up the cross and follow.

 

Simon means “obedience,” while Cyrene, they [1372C] say, means “readiness.” Thus anyone who is ready for obedience to the Gospel, and who, through the mortification of his earthly members, eagerly endures the affliction of practical philosophy for the sake of virtue, has become Simon of Cyrene; voluntarily practicing virtue, bearing the cross on his shoulders, and following Christ, he shows that his way of life according to God is completely removed from the earth. (Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua to John: Ambiguum 52, in On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, 2 vols. [trans. Nicholas Constas; Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014], 2:235)