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The mutual corruption of volition and nature? A closer reading of Ad Thalassium 42


Sebastian Moldovan

Abstract

This article closely examines the content of an important passage in Maximos the Confessor’s Ad Thalassium 42, in which we can identify a ternary  soteriological structure (Adam-Christ-us) recurring in the work of the Byzantine theologian. The main focus of the article is to highlight and analyse the  relationship that he evokes, but does not detail, between human nature and the exercise of will – in the case of Adam, as the protological and lapsarian  exemplar of humanity; in the case of Christ, as its teleological and soteriological exemplar; and in the case of us, as natural descendants of the former  and possible spiritual followers of the latter.


Contribution: This article highlights a general soteriological structure and the circular dynamics between nature and will as the central anthropological  mechanism of this structure, both of which are relevant to Maximos the Confessor’s entire work in general and to his moral psychology, including his  concept of the passions, in particular.