Maximus the Confessor

“Indeed being in himself the universal union of all, [Christ] has started with our [sexual] division and become the perfect human being, having from us, on our account and in accordance with our nature, everything that we are and lacking nothing, "apart from sin," and having no need of the natural intercourse of marriage. In this way he showed, I think, that there was perhaps another way, foreknown to God, for human beings to increase, if the first human being had kept the commandment and not cast himself down to an animal state by abusing his own proper powers. Thus God-made-man has done away with the difference and division of nature into male and female, which human nature in no way needed for generation, as some hold, and without which it would perhaps have been possible.”

“He destroys the tyranny of the evil one who dominated us by deceit. By casting at him as a weapon the flesh that was vanquished in Adam, he overcame him. Thus what was previously captured for death conquers the conqueror and destroys his life by a natural death. It became poison to him in order that he might vomit up all those whom he had swallowed when he held sway by having the power of death. But it became life to the human race by impelling the whole of nature to rise like dough to resurrection of life. It was for this especially that the Logos, who is God, became human—something truly unheard of—and voluntarily accepted the death of the flesh.”

“There are two ways in which the prayer of a righteous man is effective. The first is when the person praying does so by offering to God his works done according to his commands. Then the prayer is not just a matter of words, blurted out meaninglessly with the empty echo of the tongue, but powerful and living and inspired with the spirit of the commandments. For the true basis of prayer and supplication is the fulfillment of the commandments by virtue. This makes the prayer of a righteous person strong and full of power. The second way is when the person who asks for the prayers of a righteous man fulfills the works of prayer, above all by putting his life right. Then he makes the prayer of the righteous man strong, because it is reinforced by his own wonderful conversion. For there is nothing to be profited by a person who makes use of the prayer of a righteous man if he is himself already more inclined to virtue than to vice.”

“Is there any connection between what John says here and what Paul says when he writes: "God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the deep things of God"? What then shall we be like? The answer is that here John says that he does not know what form the coming deification through the virtues of faith will take for those who are children of God here on earth now. The independently existing nature of the good things to come has not yet been revealed in detail. Here on earth we walk by faith, not by sight. Paul on the other hand says that through revelation we have received the divine promise concerning the good things which are to come but does not claim to know what these are in any detail. Thus he says quite clearly that he examines himself and pursues the higher calling as far as he understands what it is. Any contradiction between the two apostles is merely apparent, not real, because they are both inspired by the same Spirit.”

“If someone who is born of God does not sin, how is it that we who have been born of water and the Spirit, and thus of God, do in fact commit sins? The answer is that the phrase "born of God" has two different meanings. According to the first of these, God has given the grace of sonship with all power to those who have been born again. According to the second, the God who has thus given birth is working in us to bring us to perfection. By faith we are born again in principle, but God still has to get to work on us in order to refashion us according to his likeness.”

“What is meant by "a cloak stained by corrupted flesh"? This is said of those who have a life stained by the lusts of the flesh. We all have clothes which bear the marks of our life, whether we are righteous or not. The person who has a clean cloak is one who leads a pure life, whereas the one who has a soiled one has got mixed up with evil deeds. Or a cloak may be soiled by the flesh if the latter is formed in its conscience by the memory of those evil deeds which spring from the flesh and which still work on the soul. Just as the Spirit can make a cloak for the soul out of the virtues which come from the principle of incorruptibility, so by analogy the flesh can produce an unclean and soiled cloak from the lusts which belong to it.”