The First-Principle Aporia: From Iamblichus to Maximus the Confessor

The article addresses one of the central issues in Late Antique and Byzantine metaphysics: the relationship between the simple and transcendent First Principle (or God) and the multiple and complex world. A typological comparison is undertaken of four models proposed to resolve this aporia. Two Neoplatonic models are analyzed: the doctrine of the two Ones and the teaching on “henads” (ἑνάδες) in Iamblichus, as well as the systematic development of the theory of henads in the metaphysics of Proclus. Two Christian models are also examined: the doctrine of the “Divine processions” (πρόοδοι) in the corpus of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and the teaching on the “Divine Activities” (ἐνέργειαι) in Maximus the Confessor. The article concludes that while Dionysius and Maximus adopt the structural function of the henads as a way of addressing The First-Principle Aporia, they radically reinterpret it, eliminating from their metaphysical systems any ontologically independent mediating entities between God and the world.