Saint Maximus transmitted wisdom that is “simple, radiant and complete,” embracing unity without confusion and difference without division as turning, seeing and ever-well-being. (Philokalia Vol II p 255) This principial and primordial wisdom knows that nothing can ever divide wisdom from God because there is no underlying confusion between wisdom and God. The desert transmits this primordial wisdom in the arche of the Logos, in whom God became man so that man may become God. Desert elders point to the glory of the Name in us, to awaken us to the glory of the Name in God, unveiling Christ in us, through whose holy wisdom all our spiritual ills are cured. Elders In Christ transmit him as wisdom so that saints by his grace may abide in his glory. Maximus inspired the desert to turn and see with Christ’s own theoria, his ‘single eye’ of glory, unveiling God to God, through God, in God-centred, God-encircling, spiralling ways. Christ in glory unites unity and difference in countless healing ways so that human divisions are overcome without destroying wholesome difference. Paradise weds earth in heaven as a restoration of the angelic estate so that the Spirit can awaken wisdom in visible as in invisible worlds. Wisdom discerns glory infusing created realms with uncreated light so that glory may shine forth here below manifesting creative theophanies descending from above.
Wisdom is ‘simple’ when she turns light into light from light, ‘radiant’ when she sees light through light and ‘complete’ when she beholds theophanies of glory everywhere as the radiance of ‘dazzling darkness.’ The desert receives this wisdom when profound metanoia turns and awakens to the Name as God’s self-revelation in the midst. It abides in the wisdom of theoria when it sees things as theophanies of glory in the Name. Elders guide saints into glory when theosis opens them to ‘dazzling darkness,’ where ineffable unknowing is not shallow ignorance but overwhelming glory overflowing into heart-piercing prophecy and pure prayer. Prophecy sustains pure prayer that is undistracted as the fruit of metanoia, or ecstatic as the fruit of theoria, but the mutual, reciprocal co-inherence of metanoia and theoria is intrinsic to healthy tension at the heart of integrated theosis. Glory in all, embraces all in glory. The logos of our humanity remains what it has always been, but the tropos or mode of our personal existence in God is transformed from glory to glory. Wisdom is complete when radiance of glory simplifies body, soul and spirit in the uncreated Logos and we see with his pure ‘single eye,’ which soundly beholds glory in all.
From Maximus, the desert learned that metanoia in Christ resurrected imparts awakened ‘BEING’ in God, whilst theoria in Christ ascended sustains enlightened ‘WELL-BEING’ in God but theosis through Christ glorified is the life of timeless ‘EVER-WELL-BEING’ in God, which the Apostle calls glorification in heavenly realms. Maximus taught that Christ’s birth and death cure anger and desire, unveiling divine-human wholeness in the common Logos of male and female. Christ’s resurrection transforms the heavenly earth of paradise and earth is wed with hallowing heavens when the sensible world returns into its spiritual ground. Christ’s ascension renews creation in the hallowing Name, transforming warring opinions into transfiguring theophanies. Christ’s glorification unveils uncreated energies as ‘I AM’ with predicates in the uncreated ground of ‘I AM’ beyond predicates. In his glory, Godhead grounds God in his names, but his Name of names grounds God beyond God. Christ makes peace in all these ways as the Logos of the Son of God, then blesses peace-makers through their radiant logoi as sons of God by grace when they partake of his five healing theophanies of cosmic liturgy.
Maximus taught the desert that body, soul and spirit rise as one with the ascending Christ into realms of wisdom and glory, where the nameless Name ‘I AM’ is unveiled as anarchic glory to Christ’s heart’s ‘eye’ of paradoxical wisdom. Paradox cures opinionated parody so that, in wisdom, resurrected seers may ascend to paradise. At Pentecost, the Spirit of whole Truth descends as wisdom to impart glory to the glorified. Cosmic expansion contracts to ‘I AM’ at the heart of all worlds only to expand as ‘I AM’ in the radiance of glory. Wisdom is already complete in purified simplicity of radiant vision yet endlessly completes her vision with infinite visions of ‘I AM’ in the light of radiant glory. The ‘eye’ of Christ in us is single yet its simplicity is radiant when his glory, as cosmic liturgy, descends to glorify us all. ‘I AM’ is complete as ‘no-thing’ created, grounding uncreated energies in ‘no-thing’ divine, creating ‘no-thing’ separate as ‘no-thing’ unconfused. Undiluted paradox holds true in simple vision as radiant Logos, which gathers what opinion scatters. Wisdom sees God beyond God in the paradoxical completeness of her simple radiance.