The absence of sexual difference in the theology of Maximus the Confessor

Abstract

There has been much attention devoted in the last decade and especially in the last few years to Maximus the Confessor’s beliefs concerning sexual difference and its removal. The most important text on this topic is Ambiguum 41. There has been mixed reception of this text, with some scholars advocating that Maximus believes that sexual difference was absent from original human nature and will return to such a state in the eschaton; and other scholars believing that this should be read as a metaphorical absence. This article re-evaluates the text in question and argues that the former position should be maintained. It goes some way to bring together current scholarship on the text and to answers questions that arise from the opposing reading.

Keywords

• ambiguum 41
• body
• byzantine theology
• byzantine philosophy
• eschatology
• gender
• maximus the confessor
• protology
• sex