St. Maximos the Confessor
St. Maximos (580-662) was a Christian ascetic who believed that avoiding self-indulgence is the most obvious and proper approach to serving God. His watchword: “Do not love the world.” He insisted that sensory attachment to the things of this world prevents us from raising our minds to God and understanding His Word. As true as that core conviction is, Maximos uses it to find ascetic practice in every Biblical text he looks at, even when it’s not there. Yet in our current culture where self-denial is virtually unthinkable, a judicious evaluation of patristic arguments for it might be useful to Christians. —C.N.
