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So thoroughly did his thought come to influence the Byzantine theological tradition that it is impossible to trace the subsequent history of Orthodox Christianity without knowledge of his work. The Ambigua (or “Book of Difficulties”) is Maximos’s greatest philosophical and doctrinal work, in which his daring originality, prodigious talent for speculative thinking, and analytical acumen are on lavish display. In the Ambigua , a broad range of theological topics—cosmology, anthropology, the philosophy of mind and language, allegory, asceticism, and metaphysics—are transformed in a synthesis of Aristotelian logic, Platonic metaphysics, Stoic psychology, and the arithmetical philosophy of a revived Pythagoreanism. The result is a labyrinthine map of the mind’s journey to God that figured prominently in the Neoplatonic revival of the Komnenian Renaissance and the Hesychast Controversies of the Late Byzantine period. This remarkable work has never before been available in a critically-based edition or English translation.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780674726666","publication_date":"20140428","publisher":"WW Norton","slug":"on-difficulties-in-the-church-fathers-the-ambigua","subtitle":"","title":"On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: the Ambigua"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"REL067080","confidence_band":"medium","label":"History of Christian Thought","score":0.7011,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"REL067020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"The Christian Soul","score":0.7005,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS037010","confidence_band":"low","label":"Medieval History","score":0.6934,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"REL067080","confidence_band":"medium","label":"History of Christian Thought","score":0.7011,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"REL067020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"The Christian Soul","score":0.7005,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS037010","confidence_band":"low","label":"Medieval History","score":0.6934,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"HIS037010","confidence_band":"high","label":"Medieval History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"REL033000","confidence_band":"high","label":"History of Religion","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"REL102000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Theology","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"History of Christian Thought","score":0.7011,"slug":"history-of-christian-thought"},{"label":"The Christian Soul","score":0.7005,"slug":"the-christian-soul"},{"label":"Medieval History","score":0.6934,"slug":"medieval-history"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers who enjoy History of Christian Thought","Good for readers interested in history","Good for fans of Theology"],"related_lists":[{"intro":"","slug":"shelf-his037010-medieval-history","title":"Medieval History Books","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/lists/shelf-his037010-medieval-history"}],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Susan Wise Bauer"],"book_id":"9780393059755","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780393059755.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":15.168,"title":"The History of the Medieval World","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780393059755"},{"authors":["Dan Jones"],"book_id":"9781984880895","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781984880895.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":15.0576,"title":"Powers and Thrones","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781984880895"},{"authors":["Tore Skeie","Alison McCullough"],"book_id":"9781782278351","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781782278351.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":14.9431,"title":"The Wolf Age","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781782278351"},{"authors":["Michael Haag"],"book_id":"9780061775932","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780061775932.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":13.8275,"title":"The Templars","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780061775932"},{"authors":["Jeffrey Burton Russell"],"book_id":"9780801494291","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780801494291.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":13.8056,"title":"Lucifer","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780801494291"},{"authors":["Martin Dougherty","Martin J. 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