Your Love for All Saints
St Maximus and St Paul on the synonymity, reciprocity, and loveliness of the saints
Today, of course, is All Saints’, so I thought I’d share a trio of mind-boggling and eye-opening passages from St Maximus.
The first is from Amb. 10:
Anyone of us who so wishes can transfer all the saints to himself, spiritually forming himself after the example of each, based on what has been figuratively written about each one, for the divine apostle says that these things happened to them figuratively, and they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come.
The second is from Amb. 47:
Each person, then, as I have said—according to his own power, and according to the grace of the Spirit that is granted to him in respect of his worthiness—has Christ present in him, and in proportion to him, leading him through increasing mortification to ever more sublime ascents. Thus it happens that each of us in his own rank—as if in a kind of house, built on the level of virtue that is appropriate to him—sacrifices the Divine Lamb, partakes of its flesh, and takes his fill of Jesus. For to each person Christ Jesus becomes his own proper lamb, to the extent that each is able to contain and consume Him. He becomes some thing proper to Paul, the great preacher of the truth, and, again, something distinctively proper to Peter, the leader of the apostles, and something distinctively proper for each of the saints, according to the measure of each one’s faith, and the grace granted to him by the Spirit, to one in this way, and to another in that, so that Christ is found to be wholly present throughout the whole of each, becoming all things to everyone.
The last, and by far the longest and most demanding passage is from Amb. 21:
For in accordance with true teaching, all the saints from the beginning were “forerunners” of the mystery, which they proclaimed in advance and prefigured through their sufferings, deeds, and words. Therefore, the saints can justifiably stand in the place of each other: all can stand in place of all, and each in place of each. Moreover, the saints can be named in place of the books written by them, just as the books can be named in place of the saints, which is why the books are called by their names, as is the habit of Scripture. And the Lord Himself clearly demonstrates this when he calls John the Baptist by the name of “Elijah,” either because the two were equal in the habit of virtue (as the teachers say), in the purity of their intellect in all things, and in the austerity of their way of life; or because of their identical power of grace; or because of some other, hidden reason, which is known to God (who identified the two figures) and to those whom He enlightens about these mysteries. And, again, when He told the story in which Abraham spoke to the man who was rich on earth, but tormented in Gehenna, He called the law “Moses,” and the prophetic books “prophets,” saying: They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen tot hem, using the names of Moses and the prophets in place of the divine books written by them. And this is nothing to be marveled at. For if He who is proclaimed through them is one, then all those who proclaim Him may also be understood as one, and one can serve in the place of all, and all may reverently serve in the place of all the others, both those who ministered to the mystery of the Old Testament, and all those who were entrusted with the preaching of the grace of the Gospel.1
Now, think about how all that illuminates and is illuminated by this passage from Paul (today’s Epistle):
I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Your love toward all the saints.
Your love toward all the saints.
Goodness.
Jenson is right, no question: “the saints are not our way to God; he is our way to them.” But we have to say even more: God makes the saints our way to God, and precisely so makes us saints so we can be for others their way to God.2
Not an easy word to hear. But a good, life-giving one, nonetheless.
Amb. 21 is dedicated to the clarification of what seems to have been a mistake in one of Gregory the Theologian’s homilies: “John, the forerunner of the Word and great voice of the Truth, affirmed that the lower world itself would not he able to contain them.” Has the wise teacher confused John the Baptist with John the Evangelist? No, Maximus says. He has discerned a far deeper truth, one “contrary to the literal sense,” one that can be found only by those who have had mystical knowledge gifted to them.
That “precisely” is just for you, friend; you know who you are.
Thank you.
I was reflecting this morning on the way in which the mystery of epigenetics may play a role in not only making trauma heritable, but also the inheritance of the saints. At any rate, may it be so!