Original Research - Special Collection: Orthodox Theology
The mutual corruption of volition and nature? A closer reading of Ad Thalassium 42
Submitted: 30 June 2022 | Published: 14 February 2023
About the author(s)
Sebastian Moldovan, Faculty of Orthodox Theology, 'Lucian Blaga' University of Sibiu, Sibiu, Romania; and, Department of Systematic and Historical Theology, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South AfricaAbstract
This article closely examines the content of an important passage in Maximos the Confessor’s Ad Thalassium 42, in which we can identify a ternary soteriological structure (Adam-Christ-us) recurring in the work of the Byzantine theologian. The main focus of the article is to highlight and analyse the relationship that he evokes, but does not detail, between human nature and the exercise of will – in the case of Adam, as the protological and lapsarian exemplar of humanity; in the case of Christ, as its teleological and soteriological exemplar; and in the case of us, as natural descendants of the former and possible spiritual followers of the latter.
Contribution: This article highlights a general soteriological structure and the circular dynamics between nature and will as the central anthropological mechanism of this structure, both of which are relevant to Maximos the Confessor’s entire work in general and to his moral psychology, including his concept of the passions, in particular.
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