Seeing the Form of God:

The Mystery of the Transfiguration in Origen of Alexandria and Maximus

the Confessor

J. Columcille Dever

Seeing the Form of God

1 Introduction: Fountains in the World

Origen of Alexandria (ca. 185-254) was almost universally recognized
as one the fountains in the early Christian world, though his memory has
been poisoned. Henri de Lubacs monograph on Origens understanding of
Scripture, Histoire et spirit: LIntelligence de lcriture daprs Origne
(1950),1 begins with a lengthy overview of modern scholarly anathemas
against the Alexandrian exegete as well as the old quarrels that Origens
memory excited amongst subsequent Christian theologians. His modern
biographer Henri Crouzel claims that Origen has been the most
astonishing signs of contradiction in the history of Christian thought.2 In
the third and fourth centuries his works provoked the harsh criticisms of
Methodius of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and later Epiphanius of
Salamis while attracting with an almost magical fascination the attention
of the great Cappadocian doctors, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and
Gregory of Nazianzus.3 In the West, Origens works had quite explicitly
informed the Scriptural commentaries of Jerome, before his enthusiasm for
the Alexandrian waned and gradually was changed into vitriol in his fierce
war of words with Rufinus of Aquileia. As Origens teachings began to
disseminate among certain monastic circles in Egypt and Palestine they
1 De Lubac, Henri, History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture According to Origen
(=HS), trans. Anne E. Nash, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007)
2 Crouzel, Henri, Origen, trans. A.S. Worrall, (San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1989),
p. ix
3 See, von Balthasar, Hans Urs, Origen: Spirit and Fire, trans. Robert J. Daly, S.J. (Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1984), p. 1
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often ossified into what the sixth century controversialists would name
Origenism.4 The Emperor Justinian attempted to curb the fervor of the
debate at a domestic synod in 543, and his condemnation of Origen and his
alleged teachings carried over into the second Council of Constantinople in
553.5 These condemnations resulted in Origens classification as a heretic6
and he remained a marked man in the subsequent history of theology.7
Maximus the Confessor (580-662) lived nearly four hundred years after
Origen, some three hundred years after the Cappadocians, and perhaps less
than century after Pseudo-Dionysius. He came of age in the years following
the Trinitarian controversies decided at the Council of Ephesus (431) and
the Christological controversies decided at the Council of Chalcedon (451).
The Second Council of Constantinople (553), an explicatory annex to
Chalcedon,8 put an end to the Three Chapters controversy and issued
condemnation of several Antiochene theologians, primarily Theodore of

4 See, Clark, Elizabeth A. The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early
Christian Debate. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992); Daley, Brian E. What did
Origenism Mean in the Sixth Century? in Origeniana Sexta: Origne et la Bible: Actes du
Colloquium Origenianum Sextum, Chantilly, 30 aot-3 septembre 1993, eds. G. Dorival and A.
Le Boulluec, (Louvain: Peters, 1995), pp. 627-38.
5 See, Denzinger, Heinrich, and Peter Schunermann, eds. Enchiridion Symbolorum (=ES).
46th ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), nos. 403-411, p. 144; Crouzel, op. cit. 8, p.
xii writes: The historical value of the [Council of Constantinople, 553] is virtually nil as
regards Origen, for it was really aimed at the Origenists of the day, called Isochristes, and
the anathemas that express it, drawn in part from Evagrius [of Pontuss] work, do not
appear in the official Minutes of the Council.

6 See, Nicephorus of Constantinople, Refutation (Antirrheticus), 1.23, quoted in Pelikan,

Jaroslav The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700), Vol. 2 of The History of the
Development of Doctrine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), p. 15, who describes a
heretic as a discoverer of these novel dogmas.
7 Von Balthasar, op. cit. 3, p. 3
8 Von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor, trans.
Brian E. Daley, S.J. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), pp. 32-33
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Mopsuestia (ca. 350-438).9 It was near this time that a Syrian monk, who
styled himself as the Dionysius converted by St. Paul on the Aeropagus (see,
Acts 17:34), entered the theological landscape. His writings gradually
entered the stream of the great tradition, thanks in part to Maximuss own
work in the seventh century. Maximus read widely across Greek
philosophical and theological traditions, while simultaneous being formed in
monastic spirituality and ascetical discipline. He wove together these
seemingly disparate threads into theological synthesis unparalleled in
seventh century Christian thought.10 His work is at once philosophical,
theological, and spiritual; focused with logical precision and theological
depth upon the person of Jesus Christ, the Word () of God, whom
Maximus encountered in the course of his monastic life in the liturgy and
Scripture of the Church.11
The Scriptures are an ideal place to stage a conversation between
these two great fountains in the world in order to see what emerges from
a comparison of their respective hermeneutic attention to the Word of

9 See, Denzinger, ES, nos. 421-438, pp. 147-153; Theodore, it is worth noting, suffered the same
fate as Origen in the Greek East and Latin West, though his teachings became foundational for
the Assyrian (Syriac) Church of the East, where he is known as the Interpreter.
10 See, Meyendorff, John. Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimirs
Seminary Press, 1975), pp. 131-132 and Pelikan, Spirit, p. 8, who both consider Maximus the
most significant theologian of the Byzantine era.
11 See, von Balthasar, CL, p. 57: [Maximus] was a biblical theologian, a philosopher of
Aristotelian training, a mystic in the great Neoplatonic tradition of Gregory of Nyssa and
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, an enthusiastic theologian of the Word alongside Origen, a
strict monk of the Evagrian tradition, and finally and before all else a man of the Church,
who fought and who gave his life in witness for the orthodox Christology of Chalcedon and for a
Church centered in Rome.
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God.12 Andrew Louth has pointed out the centrality of the mystery of the
transfiguration for the Eastern theological tradition and I will focus on this
key Scriptural narrative in order to discern the extent to which Maximuss
work can be understood as a critique of Origenist thought.13 In this essay I
will argue that while Maximus works against the spiritualizing tendency
in Origens thought, his contemplation of the transfiguration owes a great
deal to the Alexandrian exegete, so much so that his criticism might
alternatively be considered as a subtle rehabilitation of Origens thought. I
will attempt to reveal this aspect of the Maximian synthesis as follows.
First, I will address two different accounts of the transfiguration spread
throughout Origens oeuvre. He treats this singular moment in the
Scriptural narrative of Christs life in his mature works: the apologetic
treatise Against Celsus and his Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew.
In these texts, he offers both a literal and a spiritual exegesis of the
Scriptural narrative that emphasizes paradox at the heart of the
Incarnation, viz. the apparent inscription of the infinite Logos of God in a
fleshly human body. I will then turn to several key texts in the Confessors
12 See, von Balthasar, CL, who chose as an dedication to Louis Bouyer includes quotation
from the English Romantic Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who, in his preface to Christabel
(1797), objected to: [A] set of critics who, seem to hold, that every possible thought and
image is traditional; who have no notion that there are such things as fountains in the
world, small as well as great; and who would therefore charitably derive every rill they
behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank. For von Balthasar,
Origen, and especially Maximus, were indeed two fountains. See, ORegan, Cyril, Von
Balthasar and Thick Retrieval: Post-Chalcedonian Symphonic Theology, Gregorianum, Vol.
77, No. 2 (1996), pp. 227-260

13 Louth, Andrew, From Doctrine of Christ to Icon of Christ: St. Maximus the Confessor on the
Transfiguration of Christ, in In the Shadow of the Incarnation: Essays on Jesus Christ in the
Early Church in Honor of Brian E. Daley, S.J. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
2008), pp. 260-275
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work in order to show how his modification of Origens rather ambiguous

Christology develops several of Origens key insights into the Scriptural
account of the transfiguration. Maximuss exegesis of the mystery in his
early monastic work, the Centuries on Knowledge, evidences an obvious
debt to an Origenist hermeneutic framework. In the Ambigua to John,
however, Maximus pushes beyond his earlier account by attending to the
diverse modes of theology to which the transfiguration points. I hope to
show that both the way of affirmation (kataphasis) and the way of
negation (apophasis) coalesce in the person of Jesus Christ, who is always
simultaneously concealed and revealed on this side of the eschaton. Finally,
I hope to draw my observations about the respective Origenist and
Maximian understanding of the transfiguration together and apply them to
the manner in which the Church came to understanding the significance of
Christ as image of the invisible God during the so-called iconoclastic
controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries.
2 Different Forms of the Word
Origen, along with Irenaeus of Lyons and Clement of Alexandria,14
understood the mystery of the transfiguration as a theophany that
paradoxically revealed the hiddenness of the Lord in a spiritual vision (see,
Is. 45:15).15 Origens most sustained treatment of the transfiguration is
14 McGuckin, John Anthony. The Transfiguration of Christ in Scripture and Tradition, Studies
in the Bible and Early Christianity, Vol. 9, (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1986) for an
introduction to various patristic interpretations of the transfiguration.
15 Isaiah 45:15 reads in the LXX: I[For you are God
and we did not know it, God of Israel, Savior], which the Vulgate renders: Vere tu es Deus
absconditus, Deus Israel, salvator [Truly, you are a hidden God, God of Israel, Savior].
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found in his Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew (=Comm.

in Matt.).16 From the outset, Origen affirms that the account of the
transfiguration took place long ago and according to the letter (
).17 This is his common exegetical practice.18 The spiritual meaning of

the text is only available through the letters on the page and their sense
must be understood before attending to the spiritual sense. He dwells here
on the phrase after six days (Mt. 17:1), which he interprets in light of the
creation account in Genesis. Six is the perfect () number and it marks
the creation of the cosmos as a perfect work of art (...),
which must be transcended in order for one to gain access to the vision of
eternal things ().19 This Platonic model is broadside throughout
Origens works: the created, temporal world is a certain image of eternity,
accessible by means of mystical ascent that will reach its consummation in
beatitude when the saints will experience immediate union-in-love with the
Lord.20 Asceticism prepares the way for this mystical ascent, represented by
the high mountain. Ascetic practices perfect ones detachment from the
things which are seen ( ) in order to hone ones spiritual vision of
eternal things.21 On the top of the mountain, this vision is granted to Peter,
16 I have consulted the Greek-Latin edition of Baehrens, W. A., ed. Die griechischen
christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte (= GCS), Ser. 33, Vol. 10 (Leipzig,
Germany: J.C. Hinrichssche Buchhandlung, 1925) throughout. Citations reflect the page and
line number.
17 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.36; GCS 10, 150.26-27
18 See, de Lubac, HS, pp. 103-158; Crouzel, Origen, pp. 61-84
19 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.36; GCS 10, 150.31-151.3
20 See, Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom, 13; cf. Daley, Brian E. The Hope of the Early
Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic Group,
2010), pp. 44-64
21 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.36; GCS 10, 151.26-27
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James, and John, who receive a foretaste of the new Sabbath beholding
the transfigured Christ.22 Origen concludes this section: For the Word has
different forms, appearing to each one as befitting the beholder, and not
appearing beyond the beholders grasp.23
Origen picks up this theme in several key passages in his treatise Against
Celsus.24 Although Jesus was one, he writes, he had several aspects; and
to those who saw him he did not appear alike to all.25 Origens emphasizes
that the Lord manifests his glory only to those whom he elects and that this
election has to do with the capacity of the beholder. On the mountain He
elected only the most spiritually mature disciples, Peter, James, and John to
witness his transfigured glory as well as the appearance of Moses and Elijah
in glory alongside him. This applies to hearing as much as to sight: the
voice out of the cloud on the very high mountain was heard only by the men
who went up with him. For the divine voice is such that it is heard only by
those whom the speaker wishes to hear it.26 It is not heard by the physical
ear as vibrating air, but by a superior, more divine sense.27 As it applies to
22 Ibid, GCS 10, 152.5-6
23 Ibid, GCS, 10, 152.9-13
24 Origen, Contra Celsum (=CC), trans. Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1953)
25 Ibid, CC, 2.64-65
26 Ibid, CC, 2.72; cf. Origen, Homilies on Genesis (=Gn. Hom.), 1.7 in Origen: Homilies on
Genesis and Exodus trans. Ronald E. Heine, The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 71 (Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989), where Origen writes, But if in addition
someone should be such as can also ascend to the mountain with him, as Peter, James, and John,
he will be enlightened not only by the light of Christ, but also by the voice of the Father
himself.
27 See, Rahner, Karl, The Spiritual Senses According to Origen, in Theological
Investigations, Vol. 16 Experience of the Spirit: Source of Theology, trans. David Morland,
O.S.B. (London: Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1979), pp. 81-134; cf. McInroy, Mark J. Origen of
Alexandria, in The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity, eds. Paul L.
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Christ, Origen contends that the Word of God is one, but able to manifest
himself in different forms (), on a spectrum approaching the
immediate union with God promised to the saints. Origen rejects Celsuss
claim that this means that the Word of God suffered some essential change.
Celsus failed to understand the changes () (to use the word
common in ordinary literature) or transfigurations () of Jesus, and
the fact that he had both immortal and mortal nature.28 The union of mortal
and immortal natures in Christ means that he can call to himself those who
are flesh that he may make them first to be formed like the Word who
became flesh, and after that lead them up to see him as he was before he
became flesh; so that they might be helped and may advance29 On this
view, Christs flesh might be thought of as a kind of pedagogical
adaptation that enables those who attend to it to rise to higher levels of
contemplation until they attain to union with the naked Word in
beatitude.30 According to Origen, Christ is the image of the invisible God
not with regard to his fleshly presence on earth, but only as the invisible
Word in union with the Father. Human creatures have access to this vision
of the Word only by means of divine grace, or a sort of inspiration

Gavrilyuk and Sarah Coakley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 20-35
28 Origen, CC, 4.16
29 Ibid, 6.68; cf. Origen, On First Principles (=de Princ.), trans. G.W. Butterworth (Notre
Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2013), 1, 2.7: This brightness [of the Word] falls softly and gently
on the tender and weak eyes of mortal man and little by little trains and accustoms them, as it
were, to bear the light in its clearness[until they become] capable of enduring the glory of the
light, [Christ] becoming in this respect even a kind of mediator between man and the light.
30 See, Besanon, Alain, The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm, trans.
Jane Marie Todd. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 94
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productive of the spiritual vision necessary to ascend beyond the world of

sense into the eternal realm.31
Returning to the Commentary, Origen focuses the next portion of his
exegesis on the words before them ( ).32 This again
emphasizes that the disciples with Jesus on the mountain were given a
vision of him in the form of God whereas those below only encountered
him in the form of a servant (see, Phil. 2:6-8).

33

Origen associates the

form of a servant with those who know him only according to his flesh
( ) and hence only from a human point of view. The Word, who
discloses his divinity to those on top of the mountain, gives the divine point
of view as his face shines like the sun ( ).34 Not
only Christs face, but also his garments became white as light. Origen
moves from interpreting the Incarnate Word in the flesh of Christ to the
Incarnate Word in Scripture. The glimmering garments, according to
Origen, are the words and letters of the Scripture, which he had put on.35
Moses and Elijah also appear with Jesus, the first representing the spiritual
law and the latter representing all of the prophets. These are glorified only
in the light of Christ, who is the hermeneutic key for understanding the
story of Gods relationship with Israel. Prior to the revelation of Jesus in the
31 See, Origen, CC, 7.43-44
32 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.37; GCS 10, 152.30-153.1
33 Cf. Origen, CC, 2.16; See also, von Balthasar, Origen, p. 174 n.1, who claims [this] theory
has nothing to do with Docetism, which is sharply rejected by Origen. The whole passage is
the clearest expression of a theologia gloriae (theology of glory) over against a theologia crucis
(theology of the cross).
34 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.37; GCS 10, 12.153.23-154.11
35 Ibid, GCS 10, 12.154.19-21
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flesh, the law and prophets were shrouded in mystery (see, 1 Cor. 2:7), but
seeing these in a discourse in harmony with Jesus ( ),
enables one to rightly understand and interpret the spiritual meaning of the
law and prophets.36
Origen reads Peters response to the theophany (It is good for us to
be here see, Mt. 17:4; Mk. 9:5-6; Lk. 9:33) as a twofold temptation
wrought by an evil spirit (cf. Mt. 16:23). In terms of the mission of the
Incarnate Word, Peters ignorant remark might have persuaded Jesus to
remain on the high mountain with Moses and Elijah and thus no longer to
condescend to men, and come to them, and undergo death for them,37 and
thus fail to redeem them from the enemy and purchase them with his own
precious blood.38 In terms of the Scriptural Word, Peter, like the Jews and
the Gnostics,39 wants to separate Jesus from Moses (the law) and Elijah (the
prophets) and by so doing remove that principle () which illuminates the
Old Testament and imbues its letter with spiritual meaning.40 Origen
ultimately exculpates Peter from any wrongdoing since he was under an
evil inspiration according to the letter. Applying a spiritual hermeneutic to
the same passage yields a different teaching.41 Spiritually, Peter spoke as
36 See, de Lubac, HS, pp. 190-204
37 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.40; GSC 10, 159.30-160.15
38 Ibid, GSC 10, 158.20-28
39 See, de Lubac, HS, pp. 51-60; Here, Gnostics names the men of the heresy against whom
Origen constantly engaged in controversy. These include primarily Valentinus, Basilides,
Marcion and their respective students.
40 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.40; GSC 10,
41 Ibid, Comm. in Matt. 12.41; GSC 10, where Origen claims [We] have not yet spent out
energy in interpreting the things in the place figuratively ( ), but have said
these things by way of searching the mere letter ( ).
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one loving the contemplative life, whose zeal for contemplating Christ in
the form of God momentarily overcame his love for the simple beneath the
mountain, who still had need of the veil of Jesuss flesh. Jesus, who
incarnates the love which seeks not its own (1 Cor. 13:5), did not follow
Peters request because he came to earth in order to bring himself under
bondage to all those below that he might gain more of them (see, 1 Cor.
9:19).42 Applying the spiritual exegesis to the temptation against the
Scriptural Word, Origen understands Jesus as the unitive principle of the
Scriptures who draws the law and prophets to himself in such a way that
the three become one ( ).43 Jesus as Word of God thus
enables the exegete to transcend the letter of Scripture and glimpse the
Triune God, who imbues the written word with a deeper meaning. A
Trinitarian reading of the Transfiguration is almost unique to Origen,44 who
sees in the cloud the image of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
tabernacled together as a pattern of the resurrection to come.45 In the
resurrection, the saints will be restored in the unitive love of the Trinity,
who will draw all things to himself (see, Jn. 12:32).46 The reason, according
to Origen, why Christ does not allow his disciples to speak of the
transfiguration is to avoid scandalizing those below the mountain, who
42 Ibid, GSC 10, 164.6-12
43 Ibid, Comm. in Matt. 12.43; GSC 10,
44 See, McGuckin, Transfiguration, pp. 113-114, who cites Andrew of Crete as sharing a
similar Trinitarian reading.

45 Origen, Comm. in Matt. 12.42; GSC 10, 165.20-24

46 See, Daley, Handbook, pp. 168-204; cf. Ibid, Apokatastasis and Honorable Silence in the
Eschatology of Maximus the Confessor, in Actes du Symposium sur Maxime le Confesseur,
Fribourg, 2-5 septembre, 1980, pp. 309-339
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would soon see him crucified (see, Mt. 17:9). After his resurrection,
however, their witness to his glory manifest on the mountain would confirm
their preaching of Christ risen from the dead.
There are thus three mutually informing levels of Origens treatment
of the transfiguration account. First, Christs flesh is presented as a veil that
the Word elects to momentarily remove on the mountain to his chosen
disciples, but which ordinarily conceals his divine nature to those without
spiritual vision. Second, Scripture is here treated as another incarnation of
the Word. The letter is analogous to the flesh of Christ, whereas the
spiritual meaning is analogous to the Word revealed in the letter. The Word
is incarnate in both the Old and the New Testament; the law and the
prophets appear in glory because of the radiance of the Word in whom the
testimony of the law, prophets, and gospel become one. There is no mention
made in his account of the relevance of the phenomenal world as such. As it
pertains to the Christian life, this vision is a gift given to those who are
chosen by the Word to follow him up the high mountain by means of their
ascetical virtue and contemplative prayer. Those who receive spiritual
insight receive a foretaste of the resurrection glory where the Word reigns
in glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, embraced and loved by the
saints reconstituted with spiritual flesh.47
3 Word as Type and Symbol of Himself

47 See, Ibid, p. 21; cf. Chadwick, Henry, Origen, Celsus, and the
Resurrection of the Body, Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 41, No. 2
(1948), pp. 83-102
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Maximus first treats the mystery of the transfiguration in his Centuries on

Knowledge: Two Hundered Chapters on Theology and the Economy in the
Flesh of the Son of God.48 In the second of the two centuries, Maximus
offers an account of the transfiguration remarkably similar to that of
Origen. Addressing the one who seeks after knowledge Maximus argues
that the Lord manifests himself in the form of a servant to beginners in
the way of knowledge, but appears in glory to those who follow him in
climbing the lofty mountain of his transfiguration before the creation of the
world.49 The Lord appears differently to those who are more or less capable
of contemplating his divinity or, in Maximuss own words, according to the
measure of faith in each one. In an earlier century, Maximus claimed that
the Word appears in two forms to those who apply themselves with the
utmost zeal to the divine Scriptures.50 The first is the Lord appears in a
general and public sight prefigured by Isaiah, We have seen him, he had
neither form nor beauty (Is. 53:2). This is general vision is for beginners,
who behold the image of the first coming of the Lord as it is found in the
letter of the Gospel. This mode of reading purifies the soul of the
contemplative who is still striving for perfection. There is a second vision of
the Lord, however, for the true gnostics, who have become as Peter,
James, and John and behold the Lord as beautiful in appearance before
the sons of men in glory as the Word (Ps.45:2). This vision, insofar as it is
48 Berthold, George, ed. and trans., Maximus the Confessor: Selected Writings. New York:
Paulist Press, 1985, pp. 129-180

49 Maximus, Centuries on Knowledge, 2.13, p. 150; cf. Mystagogia, 24, in Selected Writings, pp.
206-213
50 Ibid, 1.97, p. 146
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attainable, prefigures the parousia, when the Lord will be seen by all in
glory by the mind free from passion and decay in an angelic state.51
Maximus then invites his reader to enter into his own contemplation
of the mystery. The Word does not only become bright and shining on the
mountain, but is capable of becoming so in us. When this inner
transfiguration takes place, the Scriptures will be no longer veiled, and
their spiritual meanings will become clear and distinct.52 Maximus
interprets the personal figures of Moses and Elijah, like Origen, as the
more spiritual meanings of the law and the prophets. These will be made
fully manifest at the time of the parousia, when the Word comes with his
angels and the glory of the Father.53 The one significant divergence from
Origens interpretation pertains to Maximuss account of Peters judgment
concerning the three tabernacles. For Maximus, this judgment is in fact
good in that these three tabernacles represent the three ways of salvation:
virtue, knowledge, and theology.54 For Maximus, the way of virtue requires
the practice of courage and chastity and is typified by the figure of Elijah.
The way of knowledge requires natural contemplation, figured by Moses.
The third way, theology, is the pure perfection of wisdom, which the Lord

51 Ibid 1.97, 98, p. 146

52 Ibid, 2.14, p. 150
53 Ibid, 2.15, pp. 150-151
54 Ibid, 2.16, p. 151; Cf. von Balthasar, CL, pp. 301-303, who describes Evagrius Ponticus
theory of steps, in which every spiritual ascent was seen as achieved in three stages of practik
(, the cleansing of the soul by the active development of virtue), theria physik (
, the enlightenment of the soul by looking through nature towards its divine foundation),
and theologik (, the unification of the soul with God in prayer and ecstasy).
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reveals on the mountain to those capable of ascending.55 Maximus claims

that Peter spoke of tents because our spiritual way on earth seeks
consummation in the world to come.56In these centuries, Maximus is clearly
working within the Origenist tradition of spiritual exegesis. In nearly every
detail his account of the transfiguration is identical to that of his
Alexandrian predecessor. In his later theological treatise the Ambigua,57
Maximus takes a new tack on his interpretation of the transfiguration with
implications for how we might better understand Maximuss relationship to
Origen and his intellectual progeny.58
In the tenth Ambigua (or, the fifth Ambigua ad Johannem) Maximus
attempts to arrive at a deeper understanding of what Gregory of Nazianzus
means by passing through matter and this fleshly cloud or veil through
an exegesis of various Scriptural texts that discuss passing over ().59
Maximus eventually arrives at the transfiguration and returns to his initial
55 Ibid
56 See, von Balthasar, Origen, no. 1, pp. 25-26; Berthold makes no note of it, but it seems to me
that there is a faint echo of Origens Homilies on Numbers (17.4), where Origen describes tents
as befitting those who are always on the road, always moving, and who have not yet come to
the end of their wandering.
57 Constas, Nicholas, ed. and trans. Maximos the Confessor: On Difficulties in the Church
Fathers, 2 Vols. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, No. 28 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2014)
58 See, Sherwood, O.S.B. Polycarp, The Earlier Ambiugua, Studia Anselminia 36. (Rome: Orbis
Catholicus,1955), especially pp. 73-102 on Maximus and Origenism. Sherwood primarily
engages Ambigua, no. 7 and no. 15 in this important chapter. Cf. von Balthasar, CL, 23-26, who,
in the second edition of CL (1961) responds to Sherwoods criticism of the first edition of
Cosmic Liturgy (1941).
59 Maximus, Amb. 10.1; PG, 91.1105C-D; see, Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration, 21.2; SC 270,
112-114; cf. Blowers, Paul M. Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy in Maximus the Confessor: An
Investigation of the Quaestiones ad Thalassium. (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press,
1991), pp. 95-183 for an analysis of this theme in Maximuss Quaestiones ad Thalassium that
refers to the tenth Ambigua as a locus classicus for this theme in Maximus.
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contemplation of it with increasing theological originality. In his initial

assessment of the Scriptural narrative, as in the Centuries on Knowledge,
he evidences his debt to the Origenist reading by focusing on the ascent up
the high mountain by means of diligence in virtue and the passage from
the flesh to the spirit.60 Maximus dwells here on the radiant face (
) of Christ, which simultaneously reveals and conceals Christs

divinity. The dazzling rays of light emitting from the Lords face indicate his
divine nature. These rays, however, completely overwhelm the eyes of the
disciples and temporarily blind them by their brilliance. According to
Maximus, the blinding light of the Word of God indicates that his divinity
transcends intellect, sensation, being, and knowledge.61 This movement
from beholding Christ in the form of a servant, having neither form nor
beauty (Ps. 53:2), to beholding him in the form of God, more beautiful
than the sons of men (Ps. 45:2),62 takes place by means of the theological
negation ( ) that extols him as being beyond all human
comprehension.63 Maximus puts his finger on a paradox that he will
develop in greater detail in his subsequent analyses of the transfiguration,
viz. how the human face of Jesus Christ can at once reveal and conceal his
divine nature.

60 Ibid, Amb. 10.17; PG 91, 1125D

61 Ibid; PG 91, 1128A
62 Cf. Origen, CC, 6.77
63 Ibid; PG 91, 1128B; cf. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Divine Names, 13.1; PG 3, 977BC; See also, Louth, Andrew, op. cit. 15, pp. 264-268, who engages another text in which
Maximus treats the transfiguration in these Dionysian terms, the Quaestiones et Dubia (nos.
191-192).
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Maximus continues his exegesis by turning to Christs garments, which

represent both the words of Holy Scripture and the creation itself.64
Both the written law of Scripture and the natural law of creation declare
the power of the Creator Word, who discloses the meaning ()
concealed in them.65 For Maximus it is the bodily presence ( ) of
Christ, who imbues both Scripture and creation with equal dignity. The
created world, constituted by the marvelous phenomena we see, is
intricately stitched together by the Creator Word like the various elements
in a book.66 For their part, the Scriptures are composed of letters and
syllables that are akin to the physical bodies in the created world. Both
indicate to those who possess the requisite attention the presence of the
Word of God, who has wisely inscribed them and is himself ineffably
inscribed within them.67 The Word is the principle of unity that gives each
law its equal place in the Lords economic interaction with his creation. This
economy is one of pure gift: God alone gives and receivessince every
good thing originates from him and reaches its end in him.68 Human
creatures endowed with reason are capable of reading the natural law of
creation as a bible whose multiple impressions lead to a unitary idea of
the truth.69 We are also capable of inhabiting the cosmos of Scripture
through the practice of studious attention whereby we catch glimpses of the
64 Ibid
65 Ibid; PG 91, 1128C
66 Ibid, Amb. 18; PG 91, 1128D
67 Ibid; PG 91, 1129A
68 Ibid, Amb. 10.14; PG 91, 1125A
69 Ibid, Amb. 10.18; PG 91, 1129A
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ineffable power of the One who has spoken through it.70 The world and
the Scriptural word share the same underlying symbolic structure. The
world is made up of differentiated principles () and the Scriptures are
composed of a manifold of written words (), as such both laws
simultaneously reveal and conceal the same Word ().71 Their revelation
of the Word will be perfected in the parousia, when Christ returns in glory
to roll up the devastated world like a scroll.
Until the Lords return in glory, we are left with two general modes of
theological discourse that Maximus claims are revealed to us in the divine
transfiguration.72 When the disciples first encounter the brilliant rays of
light emitting from the face of Christ they are struck dumb and adore in
silence. This indicates the way of complete denial, wherein one honors the
manifestation of the divinity simply by the act of beholding. Apophatic
theology thus reveals the essential truth that the Lord is indeed beyond all
being and infinity, ineffable and unknowable in his divine essence.73
Maximus suggests that the negative mode properly manifests the divinity of
Christ by denying every capacity to picture the truth by means of figures
and signs, being lifted up in silence by the power of the Spirit from the

70 Ibid; PG 91, 1129A-B

71 Ibid; PG 91, 1129B; the reciprocity between the bible of creation and the cosmos of
Scripture is highlighted in Maximuss Mystagogia, 1-7; See also, Thunburg, Lars Macrocosm
and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Open
Court Publishing Co., 1995), pp. 72-79 and Ibid, Man and the Cosmos: The Vision of St.
Maximus the Confessor, (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1985), pp. 132-143
72 Ibid, Amb. 10.31b; PG 91, 1165B
73 See, Ibid, Amb. 10.3; PG 91, 1113A, D; this theme is broadside throughout the Ambigua and
clearly indebted to the tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius.
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written words and visible things to the Word himself.74 The second mode,
the way of affirmation, is that by which the written words of Scripture and
the magnificent objects of sense in the cosmos are understood as
analogous to their Creator. Kataphatic theology thus articulates by positive
names and attributes the Lords effects as these are revealed in the written
and natural law. In the Scriptural account, the radiant face of Christ
indicates the apophatic mode, while his garments indicate the kataphatic
mode. In the same way that garments make known the dignity of the one
who wears them, so too does kataphatic theology gesture toward the truth
of the fullness of the divine mystery in many and various ways (Heb. 1:1).
Nevertheless, the garments inevitably conceal the full radiance of the Word,
which is accessible only in the silent, rapt attention found by way of
negation.
Maximuss contemplation of the transfiguration in the Ambigua thus recasts
Origens insight into the different forms under which the Word appears to
his creatures. Origens exegesis had emphasized the many and various
ways in which the Word manifested his presence to his disciples. Maximus
affirms that this is indeed the case, but situates this line of thinking within
the realm of kataphatic theology. Jesuss mention in the Gospels of his
various names: the way, the truth, and the life, and I am the bread, and
I am the door, and countless other such sayings,75 are among those things

74 Ibid, Amb. 10.18; PG 91, 1129C

75 Origen, CC, 2.64; see, Jn. 14:6, 6:35, and 10:9
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that conceal the fleshes ()of the Word beneath them.76 The
phenomenal world as well as the Scriptural word of Christ equally gesture
towards the divine fullness that is manifest to his disciples at the summit of
the lofty mountain. There Maximus discerns the infinite fullness of the Word
as shining in and through the human flesh of Christ, which was not assumed
as a mere instrument, but rather assumed in order that Christ might
become for us a type and symbol of himself, presenting himself
symbolically by means of his own self and by so doing providing us with
the visible and divine actions of his flesh as signs of his invisible infinity.77
Christ as Word of God wholly united to the Father is thus both the archetype
and the image of the invisible infinity of God. In this revelation of the
negative mode of mystical theology,78 there is no longer a need to
transcend Christs flesh in order to encounter the naked Word to which
Origens spiritual tendency inclined. Rather, Maximus understands that in
the transfiguration Christ as Word of God symbolizes precisely himself and
directs the gaze of those who aspire to loving union with him to his
theandric countenance, at once invisible and revealed.
4 Conclusion: The Christ Icon
In his seminal essay from 1950, Orthodox theologian George Florovsky
traced the intellectual roots of the iconoclasts of the eighth and ninth
centuries back to the poisoned well of Origenism.79 He identified two main
76 Maximus, Amb., 10.18; PG 91.1129B
77 Ibid, Amb. 10.31c; PG 91.1165D
78 Ibid, Amb. 10.31d; PG 91.1168A
79 George Florovsky, Origen, Eusebius, and the Iconoclast Controversy, Church History,
Volume 19, No. 2 (Jun. 1950), pp. 77-96; cf. Freedberg, David. The Power of Images:

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patristic sources for the Iconoclasts, Eusebius of Caesarea and Epiphanius

of Salamis, but primarily addresses the theology of the former.80 He sees
Eusebius letter to Constantia Augusta as containing the key argument in
the whole system of Iconoclastic reasoning. In that letter Eusebius argued
that at best an image of Christ could only represent the image [the Son]
had assumed when he took upon himself, for our sake, the form of a
servant, but could never represent Christ in the form of God because
Christs fleshly presence on earth has, following the ascension, been
amalgamated with his divinity.81 This fully deified and intelligible form
had been revealed to the disciples in the transfiguration, but was now
reigning in the ineffable glory of the Father. For Eusebius it was precisely
this form that could never be depicted in a sacred image. Florovsky
discerned in this line of reasoning a subtle Origenist tendency to turn
historical realities into symbols for transcendent ones. This, in Florovskys
view, denigrated the historical reality of the Incarnation and, ipso facto, the
status of sacred images. He thus understands the Iconoclastic controversy
as a new act in the Origenistic controversies.82
Origens account of the transfiguration bears out this general iconoclastic
tendency, wherein the Word of God points beyond the mere flesh of the
Studies in the History and Theory of Response, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1989), pp. 378-428 and Brown, Peter, A Dark-Age Crisis: Aspects of the Iconoclastic
Controversy, The English Historical Review, Vol. 88, No. 346 (1973), pp. 1-34

80 Ibid, p. 84, n.20; Cf. von Balthasar, Origen, p. 1, who notes that if you remove the Origenian
brilliance from Eusebius, there is nothing left but a semi-Arian theologian of dubious merit and
an industrious historian.
81 Ibid, p. 85
82 Ibid, p. 87
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humanity of Jesus towards the eschatological reality of the naked Word in

glory. Jesus is the chosen instrument of the ineffable Word, who manifests
his indwelling presence to those whom he wills through the man Jesus.83
After his ascension, the Word is reunited with the Father and restored from
being made flesh to what he was in the beginning with God.84 The
transfiguration enabled a brief glimpse into this ineffable divine reality. As it
pertains to Scripture, Origen believed that contemplation () of the
historical reality of the text leads to a deeper, spiritual contemplation of the
Word. The literal word of Scripture is the foundation of a process wherein
the contemplative soul is led beyond the letter to the spiritual meaning of
the text. This view does not eradicate the literal sense, but it certainly
relegates its importance to a secondary order. Like the flesh of Jesus, the
physical letters and words of Scriptures are vessels of the Word, who points
beyond them to a higher realm. On this view, any pictorial representation of
Christ, therefore, would serve as a thrice removed image: an image
(pictorial representation) of the image (Jesus Christ) of the image (Word) of
the invisible God. As with the flesh of Christ and the literal meaning of the
Scriptural word, Origens spiritualizing tendency does not necessarily entail
a rejection of images, but does diminish their importance in the spiritual
life. Rather than venerating images, Origen thinks Christians should be

83 See, Origen, CC, 2.9

84 Origen, Commentary on the Gospel According to John: Books 1-10, trans. Ronald E. Heine,
The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 80 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1989), 1.43
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more focused on cultivating the spiritual virtues formed by the Word.85

These virtues will allow the soul to climb the mountain of the
transfiguration in order to gaze upon the pure Word, apart from his fleshly
appearance.
Maximuss account of the transfiguration in the Ambigua, by contrast, is
wholly focused on the one person of Jesus Christ, possessing a human and a
divine nature, as well as a human and a divine will. The Word of God, in his
measureless love for humanity, assumed the human form without changing
his divine form. At the summit of the mountain, the Lord manifests the
fullness of his divine form and all of its transcendent radiance through the
transfigured flesh of his human form, cloaked by his dazzling white
garments. For Maximus, this representation of the Word does not point
beyond person of Christ, but rather the transcendent Word is wholly and
beautifully present in the fleshly human nature of Christ, which he assumed
for us and for our salvation. In the transfiguration the Lord presents
himself symbolically by means of his own self.86 According to his assumed
human nature, Christ is a visible image of God, but in his divine nature he is
the very archetype of that image, the uncreated image of the invisible
God. The fact of this hypostatic union entails that images of Christ
represent his visible (and hence, capable of being depicted) nature in such a
way that his invisible nature is also made present. These two forms inhere

85 See, Origen, CC, 8.17; cf. 7.64, the latter quoted in Pelikan, Jaroslav, Imago Dei: The
Byzantine Apologia for Icons (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 1-2
86 Maximus, Amb. 10.31c; PG 91.1165D
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in the same person and are beheld in the same countenance. Through this
manifestation of himself the Creator Word draws his handiwork to himself,
as both its beginning and its end. The Word of God is incarnate in the
natural world as the principles of the beings that find their true meaning in
him. Likewise is he to be found in the words of Scripture, every iota of
which declares his name and makes known his indwelling presence. The
flesh of Christ manifests the divine activity as so many signs of his invisible
infinity. For Maximus, these many and various signs are the portion of
kataphatic theology, whereby those places where the Word has shown
himself are named and loved through reasoned discourse. In the
transfigured face, beheld in silent adoration by the disciples on the
mountain, Maximus discerns the apophatic mode of theology at play. The
beholders gaze is fixed on the divine infinity beautifully arrayed before her
eyes. In her silent contemplation there is no place wherein she herself
remains unseen in her iconic adoration of the Word in all his fullness.

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