At this time, the strongest opponent of Monothelitism was Maximus the Confessor. Maximus the Confessor turns out to be the central figure in the history of the question of wills in Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, there is no accurate information about his life. His existing Greek biographies are positively bad, since they were written in later times by compilers. What was in the sources of facts, they changed to their own eloquence. Even the facts that they proclaim as positive are distrustful. Thus, for example, the assertion that Maximus the Confessor retired to a monastery in view of the flourishing of the Monothelite heresy turns out to be so chronologically untenable that it shows a complete lack of understanding of the matter. [It is also reported] that Maximus was a monk of the Chrysopolis monastery or even its abbot. He was hardly an abbot anywhere, but he was really a monk of a monastery in Asia Minor. In 615 or 626 he had to flee from Persian persecution. Perhaps he was also in the monasteries of Constantinople, and his cell was in [Βέσσαι] [116] but it is difficult to determine what these places are. In general, the first years of monasticism of Maximus the Confessor thus remain poorly illuminated.

The most valuable is his own testimony at the trial, when he was a 75-year-old man (he was born in 580). At that time, one could see in him a man who had gone through more than one theological school. In this case, he turned out to be a practical lawyer: he showed a practical understanding of cases during legal proceedings. When he seemed to be in danger, he felt calm and safe, for he felt legally right, and his premonitions were justified. As soon as he began to worry, then things turned out to be unfavorable for him. Nothing is more natural than to suppose that during his legal education he occupied an eminent social position; But he was not the leader of political affairs. They call him the first secretary of the emperor. In general, he was in the service of the emperor Heraclius and was in close relations with his family. Maybe it was a home service. At the trial, the Emperor Constans treated him with restraint, seeing in him an old servant of his house.

The first years of Maximus the Confessor were not marked by anything on the Monothelite question. The invasion of the Persians forced him to retire to Africa; there he could establish relations with the Latin West. It is difficult to determine how long he has been here. At the time of the declaration of the union of Cyrus, he was not in Alexandria, and only Co{p. 479} Phronius opposed the union. After that, he appears near Constantinople and represents a venerable theological force. Even Sergius had previously sent him a draft of the ekthesis for consideration. Whether it was monastic humility or something else that guided Maximus, he did not treat the ekthesis with such disapproval as he did the typos. He calls Sergius [in a letter to Pyrrhus, who was then presbyter and abbot] the second Moses, the visible organ of divine revelation, humbly declares his unworthiness and incompetence. But in the end he spoke in such a way that Sergius could well understand that the essential point (μία ενέργεια) presented many difficulties. Sergius, however, did not foresee in Maximus a future fighter.

When. Heraclius and Sergius left the scene, Maximus had no relations with Pyrrhus until 645, when he met and had a dispute with him in Africa. Here Maximus is a defender of the Diphelite doctrine. This dispute between the ex-Patriarch of Constantinople Pyrrhus and St. Maximus took place in the presence of the imperial governor Gregory, a man of full Orthodoxy, who at that time was preparing to leave the Constantinople government. The expectation of this political change must have influenced Pyrrhus, in the sense that he decided to draw closer to Orthodoxy and surrender, after a rather weak defense, to his in all respects strongest opponent.

The dispute revolved around the following points. 1) Both opponents recognized the qualitative difference of desires in Christ (as ιδιότητες, as particular discoveries). But Pyrrhus did not want to admit two wills, for fear that this duality would dissolve the unity of divinity and humanity in Christ. Maximus replied that if the two natures cannot dissolve the unity in Christ, then neither can the two wills.

(2) Pyrrhus asserted that two wills must presuppose two volitional wills, i.e., two hypostases. Maximus objected that if two wills presuppose two wills, then vice versa – two wills must presuppose two wills. But such logic, applied consistently, leads either to Sabellianism or to Arianism. In the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the Spirit, according to the teaching of the Church, there is only one will. If we conclude from this that there is one volitionist in them, then we get Sabellianism. Or: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Spirit, according to the teaching of the Church, is three hypostases. Should we conclude from this that in the Trinity there are both three wills and three wills? That would be Arianism.

3) Pyrrhus believed that the two wills cast doubt even on the moral unity of the Person of Christ and could contradict each other. Maximus remarked that there could be no contradiction in the Person of Christ: if human nature inevitably led to this, then it would have to be attributed to the Creator of human nature himself, God; and God cannot contradict Himself. If this contradiction (as it happens in us) depends on sin, then in Christ, as sinless by nature, this contradiction is inadmissible.

4) Pyrrhus then began to dispute the theoretical basis of Diothelitism: the will follows nature, and not hypostasis. This, in his opinion, is impossible, since a) the will is essentially subject to change, and nature is unchangeable; b) if the will follows nature, then from the unity of the will it must also be inferred to the unity of nature, and in this case the saints must also be recognized as consubstantial with God, since their will is one with the will of God. Maximus remarked that Pyrrhus confused the object of will with the will itself, or will, as an inalienable property of the human soul, of human nature. The saints agree with God in the object of will, but do not have one will with God. Desires, in the sense of individual manifestations, are of course varied and changeable; but these are only different applications (modi) of one and the same faculty of will, as an inalienable (and therefore unchangeable) property of human nature. Pyrrhus continued to object: c) what is inherent in nature is necessary; but if the will in Christ follows His nature, it will not be free, and Christ will thus be subject to the law of necessity. Maximus remarked that this is an old song: even the Arians said that if God did not beget the Son of His own free will, then He is subject to necessity. But it is known that they answered this sophism: He is good by nature; but does this mean that He is subject to the law of necessity?

(5) Pyrrhus then made a proposal: instead of two wills, to recognize in Christ a single complex will (έν τό {p. 481} σύνθετον), just as the Church confesses in Christ one complex Person, the God-man. Maximus objected that a complex will is metaphysically inadmissible. There are three categories of objects: some have existence for themselves (υποστάσεις); others, being in hypostasis ('ενυπόστατα, as, for example, nature); still others are being in nature (έμφυτα), to which category the will belongs. Maximus admits the possibility of addition only between hypostases, but not between ενυπόστατα and έμφυτα; otherwise it would be necessary to combine infinity with finiteness, the mortal with the immortal, which is a metaphysical confusion. If, however, the Fathers spoke of the communion of divine and human determinations (hence of the communion of εμφύτων), as, for example, of glory and humiliation, they admitted this only "per antidosin": these are two determinations, and what they have in common is that both belong to one: and if Pyrrhus wishes to recognize the two as something common, κοινόν, in this sense, then he must first recognize the two wills in Christ as two.

(6) Against the recognition of the special human will in Christ, Pyrrhus pointed out that the humanity of Christ was subject to the command of the divinity. Maximus pointed out that David and Moses were subject to the command of the Godhead; that to take this point of view would mean to divide Christ in two. The Orthodox teaching is that Christ, as God, willed the divine, and as man, desired the human: that just as all things have their own δύναμις, so in humanity there is όρμή and αφορμή (natural attraction and natural striving for self-preservation), which were also manifested in Christ (fear of death).

(7) Pyrrhus' suggestion: In the interests of ecclesiastical peace, to be content with acknowledging that Christ is true God and true man, and to mention nothing else, Maximus rejected by pointing to the dogmatic term: "κατ' άλλο καί άλλο," which requires a detailed explanation, and —

(8) the reference to the fact that the councils do not speak of two wills by the remark that (a) the councils do not speak of "μία φύσις του Θεου Λόγου σεσαρκωμένη," and (b) that the doctrine of the two wills is implicit in the doctrine of the preservation of the real properties of both natures, because the will φυσικώς έμπέφυκε is to mankind. As a plant grows, so does the rational will (θέλει).

{p. 482}

(9) Pyrrhus proposed to admit in Christ a single will, the will of γνωμικήν; Maximus replied that the term was unclear, because the word γνώμη had 28 meanings, and that if by γνώμη we meant τρόπος ζωής, then the way of life presupposes choice, and choice presupposes will. —