Remembering the Future: Toward an Eschatological Ontology

by John Zizioulas

Maximus goes on to spell out these three categories by giving examples of the ethical behavior associated with each category. Thus, to the “fleshly (σαρκικὸς)” corresponds doing evil, to the “psychic (ψυχικὸς)” neither doing nor suffering willingly evil, and to the “spiritual (πνευματικὸς)” or “driven by the Spirit of God,” who “cuts himself off from both world and nature,” readiness not only to suffer willingly injustice and evil done to him but also to do good to those who do evil to him, following Christ’s commandment—“if someone wants to sue you for your shirt give him your coat also” (Mt 5:40)—or applying the blessed Apostle’s words, “being reviled we bless, being persecuted we suffer it” (1 Cor 4:12). And all of this is because “the purpose of the giver of the commandments is to free man from world and nature.”97