Abstract
This paper demonstrates the ontological status of virtue as an instance of love within the cosmology of St. Maximus the Confessor. It shows that we may posit the real existence of a “virtue” in so far as we understand it to have its basis in, and to be an instance of love. Since God is love and the virtues are logoi, it becomes possible and beneficial to parallel the relationship between love and the virtues with Maximus’ exposition of the Logos and the logoi. In particular, Vladimir Cvetković’s interpretation of the circle and radii analogy will be utilized. It will be shown that when one practices a virtue, one is practicing and participating in love, and, by extension, partaking in God. Within the context of Maximus’ cosmology, this means that practicing virtue and love is the ultimate purpose of humanity in its journey to gather all creation to communion with God. This paper is primarily an exposition of primary sources from St. Maximus, but discussion of the ontology of virtue is made with a view to bringing it into dialogue with modern theories of virtue ethics. This paper arises in part as a response to the August 2013 papers by Andrew Louth and Paul M. Blowers on the need for increased scholarship on Maximus and virtue ethics.
Highlights
Keywords Chalcedonian definition; logoi theology; love; Maximus the Confessor; participation; virtue; virtue ethics
This paper demonstrates the ontological status of virtue as an instance of love within the cosmology of St
I propose that because some ethicists have reservations over stating the telos of the lists of virtues they choose,2 there is a lack of attention to the question “why has a certain list of virtues been chosen?” And in turn, because this question has not been asked, there really seems to be very little opportunity to get to the heart of questions like, what is virtue? what is it about this specific word and activity that merits it being termed a virtue? and what do we even mean by the term virtue? For Maximus, it is only because the telos of the cosmos is to be united in love that we can start talking about what virtues are
Summary
Keywords Chalcedonian definition; logoi theology; love; Maximus the Confessor; participation; virtue; virtue ethics I wish to approach this inquiry in a very particular way, which is to explain the way Maximus understands virtue to partake in love, through his description of the Logos and logoi.
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