Maximus the Confessor’s Neo-Irenaean Theology of History, Thickly Described

Paul M. Blowers argues that Maximus the Confessor’s theology of history interweaves cosmology, Christology, and eschatology. Cosmologically, it portrays creaturely motion and divine providence as guiding human beings from chaos toward order. Christologically, history is recast through Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection, with divine and human freedom intertwined. Eschatologically, history does not return to prelapsarian origins but moves toward unprecedented glory, where creation participates in God’s infinite energies. Through this dialectic of motion and rest, Maximus envisions history as a theodrama of transformation and divine renewal.