Maximos the Confessor as a Letter Writer: Genre Etiquette in the Letters of the Seventh-century Byzantine Theologian

Abstract

So far, the collection of letters of Maximos the Confessor (580–662) has not been studied from the point of view of philology. The purpose of this article is to analyse Maximos’ letters as examples of epistolary prose and to find out the extent to which the author follows the etiquette norms of letter writing developed in the Early Byzantine Period. The attention is focused on three motifs related to the theme of friendship: the illusion of friend’s presence; unity of souls; reproach for the lack of letters. It has been shown that Maximos was aware of the letter etiquette norms, and that his letters contained a number of motifs and formulae belonging to the Early Byzantine tradition, but at the same time, Maximos rethought and transformed some already established commonplaces, sometimes entering into a dispute with the previous tradition. In addition, it has been demonstrated that Maximos’ letters contain motifs and clichés correlating with not the Early Byzantine tradition, but rather the letters of later authors, such as Michael Psellos, Theodore Prodromos, and others. It has been supposed that Maximos’ letters influenced later authors, thus forming a link between the Early and Middle Byzantine epistolography.