The words “My hour has not yet come” (Jn 2:4) mean this. Teaching through signs comes first, because on account of unbelievers doctrine requires instruction by signs. There Jesus had not yet taught, perceiving their unbelief, and therefore He said, “My hour has not yet come.” The servants signify the prophets, who through their teaching [...] the nature emptied by apostasy. But the Lord, when He came, turned it into spiritual knowledge and, by faith, raised what is natural to what is beyond nature. For the Theotokos represents faith. The Theotokos was created by the Lord and by Her own Son, and according to the flesh She Herself gave birth to Him. So also faith came forth from the Word, yet faith itself leads the Word into actuality through the practice of good works. The water jars, since they are six, signify the creative power of doing good works. For the Lord also created the visible world in six days. The ruler of the feast is the discerning law. Therefore he says, “Every man serves the good wine first, and then the inferior” (Jn 2:10). For the pure discerning law, in making discernment, says this: the intellect in the process of knowledge ought first to have ascended to the Cause, and only then turned to what comes after Him. Adam did not do this. Or again: the teaching of the Lord ought to have been received before the Law and the teaching of the prophets.
The place-name Qanä is akin to the verb qäna, “to buy,” and in the passive, “to be bought.” A similar interpretation appears in Epiph., Panarion 2.303.6, ed. Holl. The place-name Gälil is akin to the word gälil, “that which turns,” and also to the verb gäla, “to reveal.” A noun from this verb meaning “revelation” is not attested in Scripture. In the Talmud, that is, already in Aramaic, the words gataya and gallayyä have this meaning. The phrase is νοῦς ἕζιν ἀποκαλυπτικὴν ἔχων. The expression occurs in Maximus in qu. Theop., PG 90, 1400D. This may refer to human reason, λόγος, which Maximus often understands as practical reason mediating between the intellect and the vital power, as in Mystagogy, chapter V. Thus, evidently, Maximus interprets the changing of water into wine.
Compare Thal. 40, where Maximus again turns to the interpretation of the wedding at Cana of Galilee: “The mother of the Word is true and undefiled faith. For as the Word, as God, is by nature the Creator of the Mother who bore Him according to the flesh, and made Her such through His love for mankind by receiving birth from Her as man, so also in us the Word first creates faith. Then He becomes the Son of our faith, being incarnate from it in the virtues according to spiritual practice. Through this faith we also accomplish every good thing, receiving from the Word the gifts of grace for our salvation. For without faith, of which the Word is God by nature and Son by grace, it is altogether impossible to have boldness to approach Him with petitions” (PG 90, 400B-C). Some of these thoughts first occur in Maximus in qu. dub. 35. Or it may mean “a Godlike disposition,” θεοειδῆ ἕζιν.
There is a lacuna in the manuscripts. The point is evidently what the prophets accomplished through their instruction for our nature after the fall, preparing us for the coming of the Word. This action of the prophets is compared with the servants filling the vessels with water at the feast (cf. Jn 2:5-8). Compare Thal. 40: “Those who draw water are the servants of the Old and New Testaments. I mean the holy patriarchs, lawgivers, judges, kings, prophets, evangelists, and apostles, by whom the water of knowledge is drawn and returned again to nature. The Word, as the good Creator of nature, changes this water of knowledge into the grace of deification, deifying nature by grace through His love for mankind. If someone says that the servants are knowing and pious thoughts, drawing the water of knowledge from the good order of existing things at the command of the Word, I think he will not depart from the truth” (PG 90, 400A). As this comparison shows, in Thal. 40 Maximus somewhat shifted the interpretation. He included among those drawing water not only the prophets, but also the evangelists and apostles. That is, he included all who prepare human beings for what only God Himself can accomplish, namely deification.
Compare cap. theol. 1.55: “The sixth day is the perfect fulfillment of virtuous deeds according to nature.” Compare the interpretation of the water jars in Thal. 40: “Scripture speaks of water jars holding two or three measures (Jn 2:6), because, according to the nature of the active power, they contain by natural contemplation, as though by two measures, the whole knowledge of created things. Or they contain knowledge embracing bodily and bodiless things, that is, bodily natures composed of matter and form, and intelligible beings composed of essence and accidental property” (PG 90, 396C). The term may also be rendered “discriminating law,” διακριτικός νόμος. Literally, άκραιφνής means “unmixed,” or “untouched,” “unharmed.”
Maximus later expresses a similar thought from a somewhat different perspective in Thal. 40. There he first calls reason the principal power of our nature, which builds up the virtue of love, for he is interpreting the mystery of marriage. He then continues: “Coming into being according to this power, nature receives its chief law, the unerring judge of truth, whom Scripture calls the ruler of the feast. He clearly discerns that the good wine which the Word prepared at the end through His coming ought to have been drunk from the beginning, and ought to have intoxicated human nature (Jn 2:10). I mean that one should first be initiated into the best and highest logos concerning God. Then, as though tasting the inferior wine, one should be initiated into the logoi of created things, which are inferior to the first logos. For it is most just and fitting to be initiated first into the logos that is the cause of nature’s coming into being. Only then may one investigate the logoi of the things that came into being as the effects of this nature” (PG 90, 397B-400A).
Above, Maximus describes the order of divine economy that took place because of the fall, namely the gradual preparation of humanity for the coming of Christ. In this economic order, the prophetic word preceded the Gospel word. Yet the discerning law corresponds to the reverse perspective. It affirms the primacy of the Gospel in relation to the Law and the Prophets, and the primacy of the knowledge of God in relation to the knowledge of creation. Maximus evidently regards this reverse perspective as true, while also acknowledging the necessity of the economic and historical sequence. Historically, human beings come from the Law and the Prophets to the Gospel. Yet the Gospel is primary. In the end, it is from the Gospel that the Law and the Prophets must be understood, as he does in his interpretations. Likewise, after the fall human beings ascend to knowledge of the Creator through knowledge of creation. Yet knowledge of the Creator is primary. In the end, the right approach to creation must also proceed from knowledge of God as its Creator. Compare this theme in the Prologue to the Questions and Answers to Thalassius. In qu. dub. 64, Maximus establishes the right perspective of the spiritual life on the basis of what was accomplished with our nature in Christ. He says that we should “first ascend to God, strengthening the soul and directing all its loving desire toward Him. Then we should descend for the study of beings, examining what the nature of each thing is. And again, through these created things, we should ascend by contemplative knowledge to their Creator.”
THEOSIS