Thalassius the Libyan

Venerable Thalassius the Libyan was abbot of a monastery in the Libyan desert, in Africa, in the seventh century, a friend and spiritual partner of Saint Maximus the Confessor. He died at an advanced age, about 660 according to one source, in 648 according to our calendar. He is remembered on 20 May. His name is not found at first in the synaxaria, but appears in the canon of Venerable Theodore the Studite for the Saturday of Cheesefare week, where he is counted among the saints.

Life

Of his origin, of the time and place of his birth and death nothing is known. He was a priest and abbot of a monastery in Libya. Saint Maximus kept spiritual communion with him, as the letters of Maximus show and the fact that he dedicated to him a special book, To Thalassius, in which he explains difficult passages of Holy Scripture. Five of Maximus's surviving letters were addressed to him. The letters of Thalassius to Saint Maximus abound in explanations of Holy Scripture, says one source.

His writing

His chief work is the Four Hundred Chapters on Love, Self-⁠control and Life according to the Mind, a collection of sayings and teachings written as acrostics, divided into four hundred chapters, a hundred in each. Reading the initial letters of the sayings, in the original, forms the saying placed at the beginning of each hundred, as its theme. The sayings are short, not exceeding a line or a line and a half, and have no methodical order of arrangement. His language is clear, with a poetic rhythm. According to a Greek source the work was written for a priest, Paul. Besides moral matters, the work touches questions of faith on the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and His redeeming sacrifice. It also teaches of the deification of "all creation". His teaching on the Holy Spirit seems to be an extract from the teaching received from the earlier Holy Fathers. Saint John of Damascus used the ideas of Thalassius when he wrote his Exposition of the Faith.