Ascent to the Kingdom: The Eucharistic Ethics of Maximos Confessor

The main thesis of my postdoctoral project, entitled Ascent to the Kingdom: The Eucharistic Ethics of Maximos Confessor, is that Maximos subscribes to a kind of eucharistic ethics in which the human is called to offer back the gift of being in the form of gratitude (eucharistia) culminating in the perfection of being, the unificatory state of deification. I argue that Maximos’ ethics is fundamentally an ethics of Oneness, of the progressive realization – on a personal and cosmic level – of the fundamental unity at the heart of reality. This unitary ethics is summed up in the inseparability of virtue & contemplation. Together, these practices work to overcome the inner fragmentation of the self and the outer divisions of the world introduced by ignorance and sin. All the virtues – be it humility, forbearance, detachment, charity, love, fasting, contemplative prayer, vigils, worship – represent means of overcoming the instability of a life centred upon the finite self (the ego), leading to a more grounded God-centred life. The ethical life, in essence, represents the overcoming of divisions and the progressive (re)unification of self and world culminating in union with Christ and the Trihypostatic God who alone is One. The inherently unificatory practice of the virtues (as manifold expressions of love) is corroborated by contemplative insight into the oneness of God, nature, and the human person. Virtue and contemplation culminate in the unity of divine-human love (agapē).