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The person who loves God cannot help loving every man as himself, even though he is grieved by the passions of those who are not yet purified. But when they amend their lives, his delight is indescribable and knows no bounds.
Maximus the Confessor
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Maximus the Confessor
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Maximus of Constantinople
Maximus the Theologian
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More quotes by Maximus the Confessor
If you expound the teaching of the Logos from the standpoint of the moral life, using materialistic words and examples which correspond to the capacity of your hearers, you make the Logos flesh. Conversely, if you elucidate mystical theology by means of the higher forms of contemplation you make the Logos spirit.
Maximus the Confessor
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.
Maximus the Confessor
In all our actions, God considers the intention: whether we act for Him or for some other motive.
Maximus the Confessor
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.
Maximus the Confessor
The Logos came down out of love for us. Let us not keep Him down permanently, but let us go up with Him to the Father, leaving the earth and earthly things behind, lest He say to us what He said to the Jews because of their stubbornness: 'I go where you cannot come (Jn. 8:21).
Maximus the Confessor
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.
Maximus the Confessor
Food is not evil, but gluttony is. Childbearing is not evil, but fornication is. Money is not evil, but avarice is. Glory is not evil, but vainglory is. Indeed, there is no evil in existing things, but only in their misuse.
Maximus the Confessor
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.
Maximus the Confessor
You will be able to check envy if you rejoice with the man whom you envy whenever he rejoices, and grieve whenever he grieves.
Maximus the Confessor
Humility and suffering free a man from all sin for the first cuts out spiritual passions, and the latter bodily.
Maximus the Confessor
Just as the light of the sun attracts a healthy eye, so through love knowledge of God naturally draws to itself a pure intellect.
Maximus the Confessor
In the beginning, passion and pain were not created together with the body nor forgetfulness and ignorance together with the soul nor the ever-changing impressions in the shape of events with the mind. All these things were brought about in man by his disobedience.
Maximus the Confessor
In conformity with the philosophy of Christ, let us make of our life a training for death.
Maximus the Confessor
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
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).
Maximus the Confessor
When what has been created in time according to the temporal order has reached maturity, it ceases from natural growth. But when what has been brought about by the knowledge of God through the practice of the virtues has reached maturity, it starts to grow anew. For the end of one stage constitutes the starting point of the next.
Maximus the Confessor
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.
Maximus the Confessor
Every genuine confession humbles the soul. When it takes the form of thanksgiving, it teaches the soul that it has been delivered by the grace of God.
Maximus the Confessor
Temptations come on some people for the cleansing of previous sins, on other for the beautification of their current perfection, and on yet others, as preparation for things to come, except temptations, which are for the increase of a man's faith and virtue, as it was with Job.
Maximus the Confessor
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.
Maximus the Confessor
