The Macarian Homilies and Maximus the Confessor as Sources of al-Firdaws al-ʿaqlī (The Noetic Paradise)

Abstract

Al-Firdaws al-ʿaqlī (The Noetic Paradise) is an anonymous patristic treatise on spiritual life, which, as far as currently known, is lost in the original Greek and preserved only in Arabic. The purpose of the present contribution is to explore two of the principal sources of the Firdaws: the Macarian Homilies and the writings of St. Maximus the Confessor. This source-critical examination is a crucial preliminary step towards contextualizing the Firdaws and determining more precisely the location and time of its composition.