Johannes Maxentius

Steven Avery

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Joannes Maxentius, or John Maxentius, was the Byzantine leader of the so-called Scythian monks, a christological minority.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joannes_Maxentius

He appears in history at Constantinople in 519 and 520. The Scythian monks adapted the formula: "One of the Trinity suffered in the flesh" to exclude Nestorianism and Monophysitism, and they sought to have the works of Faustus of Riez condemned as being tainted with Pelagianism. On both these points they met with opposition. John Maxentius presented an appeal to the papal legates then at Constantinople.[1]

Theological works (1873)
William Beveridge
https://archive.org/details/theologicalwor07beve/page/182/mode/2up
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RGA p. 24
Johannes Maxentius (Responsio contra Acephalos 5).

Johannes, Maxentius, ca. 520: Responsio contra Acephalos [Latin]
https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/work_7134

Dionysii Petavii,... Opus de theologicis dogmatibus... In hac novissima editione apparatu Historico-critico aucta... (1767)
Denis Petau
https://books.google.com/books?id=Cwu9HdhTHq0C&pg=PA63 - 1865
https://books.google.com/books?id=rf4G29TqqggC&pg=PA585 - 1866
https://books.google.com/books?id=2PYFPwDLtNUC&pg=PA224 - 1745
https://books.google.com/books?id=CZjWvoyhKO8C&pg=PA224 - 1757
https://books.google.com/books?id=IvxEAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA202 - 1680 - Louis Thomassin

Reception, Interpretation and Doctrine in the Sixth Century:
John Maxentius and the Scythian Monks
Matthew Joseph Pereira
https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D81C1VS5
 

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Steven Avery

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TWOGIG

Joannes Maxentius (circa 520 AD)
Joannes Maxentius, or John Maxentius, was the Byzantine leader of the so-called Scythian monks, a christological minority. He appears in history at Constantinople in 519 and 520. The Scythian monks adapted the formula: ”One of the Trinity suffered in the flesh” to exclude Nestorianism and Monophysitism, and they sought to have the works of Faustus of Riez condemned as being tainted with Pelagianism. On both these points they met with opposition. John Maxentius presented an appeal to the papal legates then at Constantinople.[1] When it failed to bring forth a favourable decision, some of the monks (not Maxentius, however) proceeded to Rome to lay the case before Pope Hormisdas. As the latter delayed his decision, they addressed themselves to some African bishops banished to Sardinia, and St. Fulgentius, answering in the name of these prelates, warmly endorsed their cause.[2] Early in August, 520, the monks left Rome. On 13 August, 520, Hormisdas addressed a letter to an African bishop, Possessor, then at Constantinople, in which he severely condemned the conduct of the Scythian monks, also declaring that the writings of Faustus were not received among the authoritative works of the Church Fathers and that the sound doctrine on grace was contained in the works of St. Augustine (Hormisdae ep., cxxiv in Thiel, p. 926). Maxentius assailed this letter in the strongest language as a document written by heretics and circulated under the pope's name.[3] This is the last trace of the Scythian monks and their leader in history.
(Joannes Maxentius. Wikipedia. <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joannes_Maxentius>)

HITS:
 Then, if those [things] which according to some [criterion] are distinguished and numbered cannot, by any means, exist in unity, ask: [if we consider] the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – which not in themselves, but only for [our] knowledge, are distinguished one from the other – how do [they] exist not in division, but in unity of nature? Wherefore, if these three are one, and keep the peculiarities of their persons not confusedly undiminished and perfect, and do not exist in division but in unity, [what it] is confirmed now [is] that, [referring to] all the things that [we] distinguish for the purpose of knowledge numbering [them], [we] should not also separate impiously the same things in themselves;
(John Maxentius, Response Against the Ones without a Head)

o Latin: Deinde, inquit, si nullatenus ea, quae secundum aliquid discernuntur, et numerantur,
possunt in unitate subsistere, quaero, et Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus sanctus, qui non reipsa, sed
cognitione tantum ab invicem discernuntur, quomondo non in divisione, sed in naturae unitate
subsistant. Quod si hi tres unum sunt, et personarum suarum proprietates integras, et
perfectas inconfuse custodiunt, nec in divisone, sed in unitate subsistunt, restat, ut jam
non omnia, quae secundum cognitionem numerantes discernimus, etiam rebus ipsis
nefarie dividamus.
(John Maxentius, Responsio contra acephalos qui ”post adunationem: stulte ”unam” profitentur” in Christo naturam.”; CCL 85A: 43-47).

 There is God the Father, the Son, and also the Holy Spirit: these are not three, but one God. God has
one substance, or nature; one wisdom, one virtue, one dominion, one kingdom, one omnipotence, one
glory. But God has three co-substances, or persons, with each person forever in possession of
their own and proper unchangeable properties, so that neither the Father is the Son or the Holy
Spirit, nor the Son is the Father or the Holy Spirit, nor the Holy Spirit is the Father or the Son.
(John Maxentius, A Brief Confession of the Catholic Faith)

o Latin: Est Deus Pater, Filius, Deus etiam Spiritus Sanctus, non tres sed unus Deus, una
substantia sive natura, una sapientia, una virtus, una dominatio, unum regnum, una
omnipotentia, una gloria, tres tamen subsistentiae sive personae. Unaquaeque persona
incommutabiliter semper obtinens quod proprium est, ita ut nec Pater sit Filius aut
Spiritus sanctus, nec Filius sit Pater aut Spiritus sanctus, nec Spiritus sanctus Pater sit
aut Filius.
(John Maxentius, Item eiusdem professio brevissima catholicae fidei; CCL 85A: 33- 36)
 
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