Blowers’ aim is to reread the work of Maximus the Confessor with a deliberate appreciation for the ‘complexities’ of his theology and historical context (p. 5).
Chapter 1, on ‘Maximus in His Historical Setting’, journeys through the military, political and ecclesiastical dramas of Maximus’ time and catalogues what we know of his life. Whilst offering little that is new, this historical summary's clarity, detail and orderliness will make it invaluable for new or seasoned Maximus students. Helpful in particular is Blowers’ generous, non-partisan summary of the scholarly debate over Maximus’ Constantinopolitan or Palestinian provenance. Along with most scholars today Blowers trusts the latter option, but he nonetheless offers new and serious evidence for the other side. Blowers’ concluding chapter on Maximus’ reception through the centuries will also be a valuable starting place for readers hoping to explore any aspect of Maximus’ diverse legacy.
The body of the book has many virtues. Blowers offers exhaustive discussions of textbook themes – Maximus’ view of the world; creation; salvation; the work of Christ; the church; human nature – some of which come from formerly unreached places of understanding; see, for example, the sections on the Confessor's writing style (pp. 64–73) and his conception of Adam as a ‘proto-ascetic’ (pp. 211–17). Achieving his goal of representing the ‘complexity’ of Maximus’ thought, Blowers frees Maximus from some recurring scholarly characterisations: the ‘anti-Origenist’, the ‘Alexandrian’, the student of Gregory Nazianzen. These characterisations hold truth, but, Blowers points out, they limit our view, which he broadens with novel observations: Maximus is an Origenist in multiple respects; Maximus’ story of creation and salvation mirrors Irenaeus’ more than that of any Alexandrian thinker; Maximus everywhere draws not only from Gregory Nazianzen, but Gregory of Nyssa. These repositionings of the Confessor perhaps make up the book's clearest contribution, and leave plenty of interesting work for readers to continue themselves.
The book has a few downsides. Digesting the work sometimes requires a patience that new or casual readers of Maximus may not possess. From sentence to sentence, vague or undefined terms (e.g. ‘cosmic’) and imprecise ‘-ology’ words can make the written style feel jargonised and obscure. More broadly, Blowers regularly summarises Maximus with a mixture of metaphors, or ‘readings’, which make for a thick and confusing interpretative lens. Blowers’ key metaphors are ‘transfiguration’, ‘drama’ and ‘politeia’. The book's title introduces ‘transfiguration’, the one metaphor drawn from Maximus’ writings; however, the reader waits until p. 76 for its first mention and from then on it emerges decoratively not constructively. ‘Drama’ was a metaphor first brought to Maximus by von Balthasar, and Blowers aims to ‘enhance’ it (p. 5). Dramatic language (‘plot’, ‘theatre’, ‘actor’, etc.) embellishes the book, but Blowers never takes the time to clarify how it works as a metaphor, that is, how this image from a different context brings out more of the truth at hand. It does not do very much. Thirdly, Blowers paints Maximus’ vision of the world's renewed existence through Christ as cosmo-politeian, as involving a ‘citizenship’ of all creation in Christ. It is frustrating that Blowers warps a Greek word, politeia – an uncommon ethical category in Maximus’ works, simply translated ‘way of life’ – instead of saying what he means with an English word or two. Maybe the straightforward option would have been ‘kingdom’, with some promising textual support for what Blowers wants to express in Maximus’ exposition of God's ‘kingdom’ in the Commentary on the Lord's Prayer. But as it stands, Blowers comes up with his idea of politeia not from any texts, but for its ‘political’ overtones: he introduces politeia as Maximus’ theological authority structure, an answer to the question, imposed by the Christian Theology in Context series, of how Maximus’ theology related to his political behaviour (pp. 130–4), namely his defiance of imperial authority. Phil Booth has offered a more grounded and evidenced approach to this question in his recent monograph.
In short, Blowers’ reading of Maximus, rather than Maximus himself, is occasionally the difficult object; it will be sad if students find themselves fretting over, for example, how exactly Maximus’ thought was ‘cosmo-politeian’ as they read through the Confessor or prepare for their exams. My advice is to use the index, not the contents, to navigate this book. Its value – which is great and various – lies not in the sweeping summaries but in the nooks and crannies.
