ST MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR’S TEACHING ON MOVEMENT Cover Image

УЧЕЊЕ О КРЕТАЊУ СВЕТОГ МАКСИМА ИСПОВЕДНИКА
ST MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR’S TEACHING ON MOVEMENT

Author(s): Vladimir Cvetković
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Philosophy of Religion, 6th to 12th Centuries
Published by: Матица српска
Keywords: St Maximus the Confessor; movement; rest; creation; soul;

Summary/Abstract: The article aims to present how the Byzantine scholar St Maximus the Confessor perceived the notion of movement (kinesis). St Maximus exposed his teaching on movement in the course of his refutation of Origenism, which regarded the movement of created beings away from God as the cause of breaking the original unity that existed between the Creation and the Creator. By reversing Origen’s triad ‘rest’ – ‘movement’ – ‘becoming’ into the triad ‘becoming’ – ‘movement’ – ‘rest’, St Maximus viewed the movement toward God as the sole goal of created beings, finding in the supreme being the repose of their own movement. In addition to the cosmological view of the movement, St Maximus developed a psychological and an ontological view on movement, relying on previous Christian tradition. By transforming and adapting Aristotelian and Neoplatonic notions to the basic principles of Christian metaphysics, St Maximus creates a new Christian philosophy of movement which he supported primarily with the views of the Cappadocian Fathers and Dionysius the Areopagite.

  • Issue Year: 2013
  • Issue No: 142
  • Page Range: 33-48
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Serbian