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Peace is truly the complete and undisturbed possession of what is desired.

Maximus the Confessor

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Maximus the Confessor
Philosopher
Theologian
Istanbul
Maximus of Constantinople
Maximus the Theologian
Truly
Peace
Christian
Undisturbed
Desired
Orthodox
Possession
Complete

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There is a single energy of God and the saints? they are living icons of Christ, being the same as He is, by grace rather than by assimilation.
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He has as yet no perfect love, whose disposition towards men depends on what they are like, loving one and despising another for this or that, or sometimes loving, sometimes hating one and the same man. Blessed is the man who can love all men equally.
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Unclean spirits increase the passions in us, making use of our negligence, and inciting them. But the angels decrease our passions, inciting us to the perfection of virtue.
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You will be able to check envy if you rejoice with the man whom you envy whenever he rejoices, and grieve whenever he grieves.
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Some passions are bodily, other spiritual. Bodily passions have their sources in the body, while spiritual ones come from external things. But love and temperance cut out both the one and the other: Love cuts out spiritual passions, and temperance bodily ones.
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Just as the light of the sun attracts a healthy eye, so through love knowledge of God naturally draws to itself a pure intellect.
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If an unexpected temptation comes, don't blame the one through whom it came, but seek out the reason. Thus you will find correction for your soul.
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In all our actions, God considers the intention: whether we act for Him or for some other motive.
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Humility and ascetic hardship free a man from all sin, for the one cuts out the passions of the soul, the other those of the body. This is what the blessed David indicates when he prays to God, saying, Look on my humility and my toil, and forgive all my sins (Ps. 25:18).
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He who has realized love for God in his heart is tireless in his pursuit of the Lord his God, and bears every hardship, reproach and insult nobly, never thinking the least evil of anyone.
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We must not only put bodily passions to death but also destroy the soul's impassioned thoughts. Hence the Psalmist says, 'Early in the morning I destroyed all the wicked of the earth, that I might cut off all evil-doers from the city of the Lord' (Ps. 101:8) - that is, the passions of the body and the soul's godless thoughts.
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If everything that exists was made by God and for God, and God is superior to the things made by Him, he who abandons what is superior and devotes Himself to what is inferior shows that he values things made by God more than God Himself.
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To harbor no envy, no anger, no resentment against an offender is still not to have charity for him. It is possible, without any charity, to avoid rendering evil for evil. But to render, spontaneously, good for evil - such belongs to a perfect spiritual love.
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He who busies himself with the sins of others, or judges his brother on suspicion, has not yet even begun to repent or to examine himself so as to discover his own sins.
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Humility and suffering free a man from all sin for the first cuts out spiritual passions, and the latter bodily.
Maximus the Confessor
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Whoever sees in himself the traces of hatred toward any man on account of any kind of sin is completely foreign to the love of God. For love toward God does not at all tolerate hatred for man.
Maximus the Confessor
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Just as the thought of fire does not warm the body, so faith without love does not actualize the light of spiritual knowledge in the soul.
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Love is manifested not only through the distribution of one's possessions, but even moreso through the spreading of the word of God and helpful deeds.
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Trials are sent to some so as to take away past sins, to others so as to eradicate sins now being committed, and to yet others so as to forestall sins which may be committed in the future. These are distinct from the trials that arise in order to test men in the way that Job was tested.
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Those who seek the Lord should not look for Him outside themselves on the contrary, they must seek Him within themselves through faith made manifest in action. For He is near you: 'The word is... in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith' (Rom. 10:8) - Christ being Himself the word that is sought.
Maximus the Confessor