Neither Diffuse nor Prolix The whole Logos of God is neither diffuse nor prolix but is a unity embracing

a diversity of principles, each of which is an aspect of the Logos. Thus he who speaks about the truth, however fully he deals with his subject, speaks always about the one Logos of God. -St Maximos the Confessor

All particular truths are an aspect of the one Truth. When we speak of the Truth we can ultimately only speak of the one Logos of God. When St Maximos writes that the Logos is neither diffuse nor prolix he is teaching us that there is no diminution of the Logos, that he is fully present in all things. The Truth is a unity, that is the Truth is one; it is not divided nor lessened, and it is not made weaker like a drop of wine placed in a glass of water. It is not stretched out to become thin and thus lacking in any of its fullness. The Logos is the source and content of Truth. The diverse principles of all reality are thus contained within the One Logos of God. This diversity is not made less real or actual by its unity in the Logos, nor is the Unity broken or diminished by the fact that there is a diversity of principles. The One and the Many are rooted in the Logos, the source of all things and the source and content of their unity. Because there is only one Truth and all things are rooted in it and flow from it, whoever speaks about the truth is of necessity speaking about the one Logos of God. When we say even basic, self-evident truths, even simple arithmetic equations, we are speaking of the One Who is Truth, and thus we are speaking of an aspect of the Logos, who is the God-Man Jesus Christ. Whoever speaks the Truth under whatever circumstances he speaks it, whether he is aware of it or not, speaks about Christ. This principle, communicated to us by St Maximos, has profound ramifications. It means that throughout the history of mankind whenever philosophers or prophets or tyrants spoke the truth, they were speaking of the Truth of Christ. They may have spoken well or poorly. They may have confused and mixed the truth with error and falsehood. Nevertheless, St. Maximos teaches us that in as much as they were speaking Truth, they were speaking of the Truth of the one Logos; they were speaking of the One Good, which is the God-Man. St. Dionysios the Areopagite further tells us that the Good by Its very existence sends to all things that be, the rays of Its whole goodness, according to their capacity (Divine Names

IV.1). Thus all things participate in the Good according to their capacity. All created things have a logos that inheres in the Divine Logos. As St Maximos tells us: From all eternity, He contained within Himself the pre-existing logoi of created beings. When, in His good will, He formed out of nothing the substance of the visible and invisible worlds, He did so on the basis of these logoi. By His word (logos) and His wisdom He created and continues to create all thingsuniversals as well as particularsat the appropriate time. (Ambiguum 7.16) The core of each being is its logos, the root of its reality the Truth, the core of its being the Logos. The logos of a being precedes its creation and all particular beings are called to conform to their logos, to actualize the fullness of the truth of their being. Because of this St Maximos can so confidently assert that all speakers of the Truth are speaking about the one Logos of God, since all truth and all true things have their source in the one Logos. These individual logoi have no other source but the Source of All Things. We can speak of no other thing, because falsehood does not have an independent reality. Error can only be a corruption of the Truth, a corruption of the logoi that inhere in the One Logos. To the degree that the speaker speaks well or fully of his subject he conforms to or reveals accurately the logos of a thing. To the degree he fails to do so he slips down, to use St. Gregory the Theologian's language, and away from God. St Maximos further explains: We also believe that this same One is manifested and multiplied in all the things that have their origin in Him, in a manner appropriate to the being of each, as befits His goodness. And He recapitulates all things in Himself, for it is owing to Him that all things exist and remain in existence, and it is from Him that all things came to be in a certain way, and for a certain reason, and (whether they are stationary or in motion) participate in God. For by virtue of the fact that all things have their being from God, they participate in God in a manner appropriate and proportionate to each, whether by intellect, by reason, by sensation, by vital motion, or by some essential faculty or habitual fitness, according to the great theologian, Dionysios the Areopagite (Ambiguum 7.16) All things that have being are thus called to conform to their particular logos which inheres in the One Logos from which they receive their being. To move away from our logos is to move away from the true purpose of our being, a movement towards nothingness or nonbeing. This movement away from our logos is what we call evil. Evil has no being of its own. Evil has no substantial reality. It has no essence. It has no logos to conform to. It is a movement away from reality. Evil is a corruption of the good, just as falsehood is a corruption of the truth. We are called away from evil, to being in a way that transcends being. We are called to become

God, to conform to our logos by purifying our nous and thus manifesting in our being the One Logos of God.

It follows, then, that each of the intellective and rational beings, whether angels or men, insofar as it has been created in accordance with the logos that exists in and with God, is and is called a portion of God, precisely because of that logos, which, as we said, pre-exists in God. [1080C] If such a being moves according to its logos, it comes to be in Godin whom its logos of being preexistsas its Origin and Cause. - St. Maximos the Confessor, Ambigua 7.17