The Complex Garment of Words

"It is by means of the more lofty conceptual images that the inner principle of Holy Scripture can be stripped gradually of the complex garment of words with which it is physically draped.  Then to the visionary intellect - the intellect which through the total abandonment of its natural activities is able to attain a glimpse of the simplicity that in some measure discloses this principle - it reveals itself as though in the sound of a delicate breeze."


St. Maximos the Confessor (580-662), First Century on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God

The Word vs. The Logos

"Hence a person who seeks God with true devotion should not be dominated by the literal text, lest he unwittingly receive not God but things appertaining to God; that is, lest he feel a dangerous affection for the words of Scripture instead of for the Logos."

St. Maximos the Confessor (580-662), First Century on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God

Through A Glass Darkly

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

1 Corinthians 13:12

The Perfect vs. The Partial

"But when what is perfect appears, what is partial is superseded: all mirrors and indistinct images pass away when truth is encountered  face to face."

St. Maximos the Confessor (580-662), First Century on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God

The Cross and the Burial

"All visible realities need the cross, that is, the state in which they are cut off from things acting upon them through the senses.  All intelligible realities need burial, that is, the total quiescence of the things which act upon them through the intellect. When all relationship with such things is severed, and their natural activity and stimulus is cut off, then the Logos, who exists alone in Himself, appears as if raised from the dead. He encompasses all that comes from Him, but nothing enjoys kinship with Him by virtue of natural relationship. For the salvation of the saved is by grace and not by nature."

St. Maximos the Confessor (580-662), First Century on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God

Blue, Purple, Scarlet, Gold, White

"Heavens Royal Blood Purchases Purity"

James Strong, The Tabernacle of Israel in the Desert

"The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson;"

2 Chronicles 2:13

The Mystery of the Cross

"He who apprehends the mystery of the cross and the burial apprehends the inward essences of created things, while he who is initiated into the inexpressible power of the resurrection apprehends the purpose for which God first established everything."

St. Maximos the Confessor (580-662), First Century on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God

The key to arcane symbolism

"The mystery of the incarnation of the Logos is the key to all the arcane symbolism and typology in the Scripture, and in addition gives us knowledge of created things, both visible and intelligible."

St. Maximos the Confessor (580-662), First Century on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God

Cathedral Mechanics