Resumen de Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the Transfiguration of the World by Paul M. Blowers (review)
Several as-yet unpublished works, such as Marek Jankowiak’s 2009 PhD thesis, have also been taken into account in this overview of Maximus’s dyothelite Christology and how that played out in his commentaries on the liturgy, scripture, the monastic life, and on difficult texts by earlier church fathers. Blowers states in the Introduction that his goal is to provide for students of Maximus “a fuller account of the complexities in his thought as a theologian” (5), and this goal has been amply fulfilled in the nine chapters that follow. The author’s style is a little uneven, ranging from the very casual (e.g. “Athanasius remained dead-set against reconciliation” [18]) to antiquarian (“betwixt and between” [9, 54]), verging at times on overblown (e.g. “on the unfolding drama commencing when the preconceived, simultaneous, potential creation became actualized” [200]) or at least purple: “the indwelling of Christ is the inner mystery of the realization of emotional virtuosity” (279).
