Every image is the revelation and indication of the hidden.

John of Damascus. De image. III.17

At the heart of Christian patristic iconology, as noted by V. V. Bychkov, is the conviction that the whole structure of the universe is permeated with the idea of ​​the image and what knowledge, especially higher (i.e. knowledge of God) is revealed to a person not in concepts, but in images and symbols. Conceptual thinking is very limited and shallow. The author of the Areopagitic, in particular, speaks of these two ways of knowing the world and the methods of theology corresponding to them: "... the theological teaching is twofold: one," he writes, " unspeakable and mysterious, other - obvious and comprehensible; one -- symbolic and leading to the sacraments, other philosophical and apodictic...One convinces and makes the truth of what is spoken coherent, while the other works and establishes in God unscientific tanology".

In the most complete and systematized form, the theory of the image is presented in John of Damascus in his famous work "Three defensive words against those who condemn holy icons or images" . It was this saint who, during the period of iconoclastic disputes, wrote the first detailed apology for religious images. It consists of three main sections:

1) the theory of the image in its ontological and epistemological aspects;

2) the theory of representation, primarily visual, but also partly verbal;

3) the theory of the icon.

Image in the transmission of St. John of Damascus "is likeness and model, and an impression of something, showing itself what is depicted"(III. XVI). The essential characteristic of the image is similarity to the archetype in terms of its main parameters, with a mandatory mismatch with it: "according to the Orthodox apologists for holy icons, in the very concept of the word icon (actually an image. - L. L.) is the essential difference between the image and the archetype", "for another is an image, another is what is depicted," writes John of Damascus - ... An image is a similarity with the distinctive properties of the prototype, at the same time having some in relation to it difference, because the image is not in everything like the prototype "(I. IX). "The son, being the natural image of his father, however, has something different in comparison with him, for he is a son, not a father" (III. XIV) "The icon is the likeness of the prototype ... or the imitation of the prototype and its reflection," explains St. patriarch Nicephorus, - in its essence, however, it is different from the archetype; the icon is similar to the archetype due to the perfection of the art of imitation, but in essence it is different from the prototype. And if it did not differ in anything from the prototype, then it would not be an icon, but nothing more than the archetype itself. "In other words, the image is not and cannot be an exact and complete copy of the original. More precisely, it seems , this position is explained by the reflection of Gregory of Nyssa on man as the image of God. In a letter to his sister ("Macrinia"), the saint wrote, in particular: "Created in the image in everything, of course, has likeness to the Archetype: ... but by the property of nature there is something different with it, because not it would be an image if everything were the same with the prototype".

But despite this obligatory difference between the image and the prototype, the main function of the image is cognitive, it is an important means of man's knowledge of himself, the world, and through this - God. John of Damascus notes: To point to knowledge of the path, and explaining and discovering the hidden invented image; in general- for profit and beneficence and salvation..."(III. XVII). Moreover, this hidden can be revealed only through real revelation, the theophany to the artist. Interpreting the 1st chapter of the book "On the Church Hierarchy" by Dionysius the Areopagite, John of Damascus, in particular, notes: "... according to our ability to understand, we are raised to divine and immaterial contemplation through sensible images "(III. II) and, thus, outlines the theological justification symbolic images.

In general, Damaskin distinguishes 6 types of images:

1. Natural- which is the "non-different mark of His eternity" created by God - the Son;

2. divine design, or the eternal Council of God about the world, representing a set of images and examples (paradigms, "seed logos"), scheduled for incarnation-sale in world history and the economy of salvation;

3. Person- as an image of God incarnated in the eternal plan, created "by imitation";

4. Symbolic- "sensual image" of "divine and immaterial contemplation"; developed in detail by the author of "Areopagitic" and is, perhaps, the main one for works of Christian art;

5. Iconic, prophetic, prophetic;

6. Didactic(instructive) or mnemonic(reminder), uniting primarily mimetic, images. John of Damascus also includes all religious images (verbal and visual) among them.

The first three belong to the sphere of ontology and explain the structure of the universe; the latter - to the sphere of epistemology and help to learn its laws.

Some of these images, John of Damascus notes, are given to us by "divine providence", while the rest are created by people to receive, preserve and transmit knowledge about the prototypes.

Describing the types of images, John of Damascus lists their main functions:

1) didactic-informative;

2) commemorative(commemoratio -- reminder);

4) anagogical(¢an-?gw -- lead up, build up);

5) charismatic: (c?risma - gift) thanks to the images, believers join the saints, participate in sacred events and are thereby sanctified;

6) worship: thanks to the images, believers have the opportunity to worship the archetype manifested by these images, that is, which has become sensually perceived.

The VII Ecumenical Council defined two more functions of religious images:

7) psychological: the image can cause heartfelt contrition and tears of compassion and tenderness, without which, according to the fathers of the Council, the life of a true Christian is unthinkable, and which is a kind of education of spiritual feelings of believers;

8) dogmatic: the image serves as proof of the truth of the divine incarnation, because if there is an image, then there was an original.

Let us now dwell in more detail on the images-symbols as fundamental for Christian culture in general and bookishness in particular. As already noted, the most complete theory of the image-symbol was developed Dionysius the Areopagite , moreover, it is focused specifically on verbal, and not pictorial images. An idea about it can be obtained from "Letters to Titus" , which is a summary of the lost treatise Symbolic Theology.

According to the Areopagite, a philosophical (conceptual-categorical) judgment contains a formal-logical truth; a symbolic image - supramental, incomprehensible. The purpose of the symbolic image dual and antinomic simultaneously reveal and hide the truth. In other words, the symbol, on the one hand, serves to depict the incomprehensible, inexpressible and infinite in the finite and sensually perceived (“he who has ears, let him hear”), and on the other hand, it serves as a reliable cover and protection from the idle curiosity of the unworthy (unprepared) to join Truth (again: “He who has ears, let him hear”, and “to the rest - in parables, since seeing they do not see and hearing they do not understand”, Lk. 8.10). In the interpretation of the Slavic translation of the "Epistle to Titus the Hierarch" we read, for example: "He (the Areopagite. - L. L.) explains the inexpressible, difficult to comprehend and secret tradition contained in Scripture, calling it figurative, because it is expressed through images in prophecies; but also because it ... this inexpressible and symbolic is intertwined with the expressible in the word ... the symbol is entrusted with the inexpressible, or the mysterious. For in image is hidden true and not intended for public use...".

The superintelligent content of the symbol is perceived by those who have merited its understanding not in conceptual and logical categories, but in the images of "light" and "beauty hidden inside" it and leading to the comprehension of the superessential spiritual light. The vision of a symbol must be taught, since its inner beauty is revealed only to those who "seeing see and hearing understand."

St. Dionysius distinguishes two types of image-symbols, corresponding to two methods of depicting spiritual entities. These are "similar" and "dissimilar" images.

Similar images represent ideal limits of the conceivable perfection of the world as separate signs of the archetype. For example, P. Florensky discusses the diversity of the Mother of God icons in the following way: " Each legal icon of the Mother of God- "revealed", that is, marked by miracles and, so to speak, received approval and approval from the Virgin Mother Herself, witnessed in her spiritual truthfulness by the Virgin Mother Herself, there is an imprint one only sides, a bright spot on the ground from one only a ray of grace, one from her picturesque names. Hence the existence of many "revealed" icons; hence - the search to bow to different (my italics. - L. L.) icons. The names of some of them partly express their spiritual essence, for example, "Unexpected Joy", "Tenderness", "All Who Sorrow", "Searching for the Lost", "Soon a novice", "Indestructible Wall", etc. ("Pillar and affirmation of the truth").

Unsimilar images, or "unlike likenesses", as the Areopagite calls them, are valued by him much higher and represent apophatic designations of the Deity, which, according to the theologian, are more suitable for revealing the invisible and inexpressible. It is this kind of images that Dionysius calls symbolic images, that is, images in which appearance (appearance) does not coincide with the meaning, or more precisely, it has several meanings of different spiritual depth(such, for example, are the images and events of the Song of Songs, the Theophany of Mamre, the Lord's parables, etc.).

Non-conceptual information of a symbol can be contained in it, according to the teachings of St. Dionysius, in three forms:

a) iconic- then its meaning is available only to the initiated (for example, the image of a fish as a sign of Christ in the ancient Christian catacombs);

b) figurative- in principle accessible to all people of a given culture; this form is realized mainly in art;

v) directly, when the symbol not only designates, but also represents the signified (for example, bread and wine in the Eucharistic sacrifice, which both designate and reveal the Body and Blood of Christ). This aspect, only hinted at by Dionysius, was developed by later theologians in connection with liturgical symbolism.

In general, the author of the Areopagitic developed the theory of the so-called " symbolic realism", through which only "genuine transmission of Divine Revelation in historical reality" is possible. This theory determined the main directions of development of the medieval (primarily, of course, Byzantine) worldview and the general character of Eastern Christian (and in particular East Slavic) art.

We find a further deepening of the theory of the image in the work of the largest theologian of the 8th - 9th centuries. Theodora Studita . He bases his iconology on the notion of " similarities" (par?gwgon), which means the manifested idea of ​​the archetype: "The appearance, as far as it takes place in the prototype, is called its likeness (par? gwgon) and, as a result, one is not separated from the other, except only for the difference in essence" (III 3, 10). At the same time, "similarity," insists Theodore the Studite, "remains outside of matter." This immaterial similarity appears to Theodore as a kind of ideal seal, translating significant features and properties of the transcendental archetype into historical reality. Existing separately from matter, it can be embodied in a variety of materials. It is clear that in any material incarnation, the likeness (this ideal visible image) remains the same: "The seal, of course, will be the same and unchanged on all substances, as having nothing in common with materials, but separated from them by thought.. .". The embodiment of similarity in the material receives from Theodore the name of "character" (Greek carakt?r - imprint, brand). "The image (carakt?r), inscribed in likeness on various substances, remains the same ... it is only mentally connected with those substances on which it is located" (III 3, 14).

Wherein prototype, emphasizes Studit, is in the image not in essence, but in likeness(See, for example, the above words of St. Gregory of Nyssa about man as an image of the Creator). Image and depicted have the same similarity("in relation to similarity, the image with the prototype is identical"), but different entities, in the sense of nature, material ("it does not bow to the essence of the image, but to the inscribed on it").

Based on the foregoing, we can clarify the meaning of the concept of canon in Christian art: the canon is exactly what allows you to bring the image as close as possible to the ideal likeness (and through likeness to the archetype) of the depicted.

Theodore Studite believes and proves that in the image the visible image of the depicted is revealed to the audience better than in the likeness, and than in the prototype itself. Of course, after all, it is much more difficult to see with "intelligent eyes" than with bodily ones. But then - it is logical to continue the theologian's thought - and Actual reality is revealed in the images of Christian culture more accurately than in direct empiricism: the artistic image makes it possible to see what it depicts not as it exists in reality (“in a slave’s mind”), but as it is in essence and according to the Creator’s intention; that is, starting from the iconology of Theodore the Studite, it can be argued that the image embodies in all its specific details the initially given, "ontological portrait" of reality, and not its momentary "random" state. This property of the Christian image just contributes to the knowledge of God and the deification of the "reading" image.

So Rev. Theodore the Studite substantiates the highest realism of the Christian artistic image, pointing to the spiritual reality. That is why, I think, the image acquires such a high significance from Theodore the Studite, in Byzantine, and after that, in East Slavic Christian culture. So, D.S. Likhachev’s famous remark that “without the fine arts of ancient Russia in its general cultural aspect, any complete understanding of ancient Russian literature is impossible”, especially since icon painting and literature interacted so closely that “it is difficult establish in all cases the fundamental principle: whether the word precedes the image or the image precedes the word.

Patriarch of Constantinople Nikifor (d. 829), revealing the essence of the image, focused on the category of relationship. Following the already established iconological tradition, Nicephorus noted that the image belongs to the category of objects "correlative", that is, those whose main feature is correlation with another object, and not a self-sufficient being. The approval and justification of this category meant that image(especially the image is symbolic!) could have significance and value - and in general could be as such - only if it was an image of a real(moreover, it is in the spiritual reality) existing original(prototype). In other words, what Patr. Nicephorus, artistic depiction of something that did not exist(fantasies and inventions of the writer) impossible for Christian art, which confirms, on the one hand, the specific realism of medieval Christian art, and on the other hand, the boundless trust in the depicted (even it would seem the most fantastic) on the part of the medieval reader and viewer. The tradition of realism thus understood at one time formed the basis of East Slavic Christian culture; and it was this tradition that allowed P. Florensky centuries later to return to the thought of John of Damascus and say: “Of all the proofs of the existence of God, the most convincing one is the one that is not even mentioned in the textbooks; it can be constructed by the conclusion: " There is a Trinity of Rublev, therefore, there is a God!" This closest ontological connection of each "character" of Christian art with its ideal prototype ("similarity") and through it - the prototype (archetype) is the very force that determines and protects the unity of the artistic canon in the unlimited variety of forms of its embodiment.

Thus, for an adequate understanding of the method of creativity in Christian culture and, in particular, East Slavic medieval literacy, the following provisions of patristic iconology are significant:

· knowledge of God as the first and most important function of the image;

· The priority of a symbolic ("unsimilar") image in the transfer of knowledge about the Truth in comparison with a mimetic ("similar");

· Ontological and genetic correlation of the artistic image with the prototype through similarity;

· The idea of ​​an artistic image as an "ontological portrait" of reality;

· The property of an artistic image to reveal what is depicted more accurately than it is represented in its ideal archetype and empirical reality.

Interpolation of the provisions of patristic iconology listed above on the culture of the word allows us to assert that verbal images of church literature also is not, or, in any case, should not be, according to the Christian doctrine of artistic creation and image, an arbitrary and subjective description of individual empirical states of an object/event, but are a feasible image of ideal similarities of objects / events(their "ontological portraits"), i.e. not how it was, but how should be to match the "thought of God" -- the logos of the given object/event. That is why the verbal descriptions of medieval literature, as well as iconographic images, are deeply canonical, which has been repeatedly noted by researchers. And the more canonical, the more ontological, that is, the more accurately they reproduce the idea, logos or archetype depicted.

At the same time, apparently, it is necessary to understand that the highest realism of Christian art does not reflect and does not even set before the artist such a task - to reflect empirical reality such as it "seems" to the "corporeal eyes" of the observer. What is depicted by a Christian artist is, first of all, the fruit of his personal (to the extent) mastery conciliar spiritual experience, and not the result of the observations of a curious witness or participant in the events (although such a scribe could and often was). In a specific historical image, a Christian artist, according to patristic iconology, must first of all strive to "reveal another reality - a spiritual and prophetic reality", which is similar to the empirical one, just as the "King of the Jews" is similar to the "son of the carpenter from Nazareth" and like Jesus of the Transfiguration of Tabor looks like Jesus crucified. Moreover, in the case when the spiritual reality contradicts the empirical reality - and this happens often! - The "writer", working in the canon of Christian art, will depict precisely the spiritual reality, without regret sacrificing the empirical detail as insignificant from the point of view of the economy of salvation - that which "will not stand in the fire" of the Lord's Day (see: 1 Cor. 3. 10 - 15). Proceeding from this creative attitude, it is incorrect to "catch" a Christian artist on the fact that in one case or another he deviates from concrete historical reality; it's obvious what to use canonical works of Christian artistic culture as adequate historical sources it would be extremely reckless; in any case, this can be done only with a great deal of caution and understanding of the specifics of Christian creativity...

This specific realism of Christian literature is demonstrated, in particular, by one of the translated parables. " Tales of Barlaam and Joasaph " - according to the figurative expression of L. A. Chernaya, the true "necklace of Eastern Christian wisdom." A certain king, in front of the eyes of the courtiers, bowed to the ground to two Christian martyrs dressed in tatters, torturing his body with chains and fasting, after which he hugged and kissed them, which inexpressibly shocked his nobles and princes, who were "indignant about this", proposing that by doing so he dropped "the height of the royal crown." In response to the reproach of his brother, sent by the nobles, the king not only did not repent of his deed, but found a way to prove his case: he ordered two gilded arks to be filled with stinking bones of the dead and the lids to be hammered with golden nails. Two other arks, by order of the king, were smeared with pitch and tar, but filled with jewels and incense. The arks were offered to the nobles to choose from, and they preferred golden caskets with stinking bones inside... The essence of the parable is expressed in the words of the pious king, which at the same time express basic principle of christian art : "... you understand the sensual image of the sensual image, but it is not yet appropriate to do so, n internal eye inside lying befits to see".

In full accordance with this principle, East Slavic medieval art developed along the path of developing, mainly, "unlike" artistic symbols. Let us recall at least a fragment about the "ratai of the word" from the sermon of Cyril of Turov.

However, as is known, the predominantly symbolic nature of the East Slavic medieval literature in various works manifested itself to varying degrees: from all-pervading symbolism in hymnography, prayers, solemn sermons to simple everyday signs and omens of some annalistic stories and church teachings, which confirms the very insightful observation of the blessed. Augustine: "What is grasped by the mind in a single form can be expressed verbally in many, and what is comprehended by the mind in different forms is expressed in a single verbal formula."

Such a “scatter” within one integral system of worldview, thinking and artistic practice makes the researcher think about what each specific artistic “character” created by the scribe (that is, the “imprint” of the ideal and unchanging “likeness” of the archetype) can depend on, and ultimately - - the actual creative method of canonical literacy?

Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople, in particular, asked the same question, answering it quite in the spirit of his era. The reason for these differences, in his opinion, is that different materials are used for images; images are made by people who have different skills in the art of image; technical capabilities are different and, finally, the talents of artists are different. Moreover, in the concept of "talent" Nikifor definitely puts some kind of creative talent, developed and nurtured by experience, without directly linking the ability to create with the spiritual image of the artist.

However, according to the patristic theory of the image, the accuracy of the transfer of the archetype, that is, the essential characteristics of the depicted (through its likeness), in the image and the nature of this image should depend primarily on the "character" of the creator himself, on how much he himself in his bodily and spiritual organization is close to its own "likeness" ("ontological portrait"), - from the degree of its own spirituality: "what is contained, such is enclosed." Or, to put it metaphorically, how capable his "inner eyes" are of seeing the "inside" of historical reality. It is not for nothing that in all Christian homiletic and iconographic "manuals" great attention is paid to the moral purity of the artist. To illustrate, I will cite a fragment from the 43rd chapter of "Stoglav", where icon painting is regulated: "... it is fitting for a painter to be humble, meek, reverent, not an idle talker, not a laugher, not quarrelsome, not envious, not a drunkard, not a robber, not a murderer; especially keep the purity of soul and body with all fear ... often come to the spiritual fathers ... live in fasting, prayer and abstinence, with humility, without any backlash and debauchery ... ". It is appropriate here, I think, to recall the seventh canon of the Council of 869/870, which reads: “The construction of holy honest icons and the teaching of neighbors in the teachings of Divine and human wisdom is very useful. It is not good for this to be done by the unworthy. anathematized in the holy churches, just as, for the same reason, teach the same until they turn from their deception. a cleric will be expelled from his rank, but if a layman, he will be excluded and deprived of the Divine sacraments.

Thus, patristic iconology interacts naturally with Christian anthropology.

1.5 Christian anthropology and the problem of artistic "character"

The soul forgets itself
and stop thinking
about how she is
how God creates it.

And the body, while alive,
remember, on the other hand,
about what it is
how he perceives himself...

Leopold Epstein

Briefly outline the doctrine of the Church fathers about man . It is known that human existence is thought of as two-part, bearing the features of bodily-animal and rational life (which reflects the harmony of the worlds of the sensual, i.e. material, and mental, i.e. spiritual), in accordance with which the human being itself is thought consisting of a mortal body with its five senses and an immortal soul using the body as an instrument or instrument of its transformation-deification; so that the body, "helping" the soul, is transformed along with it and to the same extent (this dichotomous point of view is reflected, in particular, in the Parable of the Human Soul and Body (the Blind Man and the Lame Man) by St. Cyril of Turov). In turn, it is recognized that the dispensation of the soul is not easy. Different fathers distinguish in the soul a different number of forces, properties or components, but, simplifying, we can name three main ones: feeling, instinctive-impulsive feelings, emotions in the proper sense of the word; reason, the ability to philosophical and discursive analysis of the surrounding world and their own feelings; and mind or actually spirit, the ability to superintelligent contemplation of God's structure and through this - participation by grace in divine being.

Feelings the external (material, phenomenal) side of the universe is perceived and cognized, which in itself does not have independent existence, but receives it from the Creator, therefore, feelings (in the sense of the known 5 senses) do not so much contribute to understanding the world, but mislead a person when they depict to him "seeming" being as independent, self-existent: "sensation in all cases is, in its origin, only a ghost." In fact, under the external sensually perceived appearance and appearance (jainomena) in the world, the true intelligible being is hidden, constituting the spiritual essence of the world (nooumena) and connecting it with the actual cause (or, as the ancient Russians used to say, "guilt") of all being - the Creator, separation from Which, according to Christian teaching, is tantamount to a transition into non-existence.

Rational Being, in contrast to the sensual, is impossible without a certain detachment of emotions and feelings; this is the level of "scientific" abstraction, where each element of the material world as a model (in the sense of an empirical analogue) of another reality provides the basis for subsequent rational analysis. As a result of this analysis, its spiritual essence is revealed under the external forms of being, but, investigated only by means of inferences, it remains incomprehensible and inexplicable for human thought.

spiritual being, which in Christian culture is actually deification, union with the Creator in personal communion with God, considers all rational explanations of the root causes of being completely superfluous and highlights their mystical comprehension as complete and only true. Here there is a "complete halt in the further development of formal-logical thinking in terms of comprehending the root cause", which implies "switching almost all the mental energy of the cognitive function of the human mind into the sphere of emotional-aesthetic and artistic" contemplation, to contemplation in images.

There are enough examples of such a transition in medieval East Slavic literature. Often they are referred to as "miracles", and this is generally true, if we remember that "miracle" (from "chut" = to know, know) is the highest knowledge in Christian culture. For example, in the Lives of Theodosius of the Caves, Abraham of Smolensk, "the presbyter ... seeing the offspring with the eyes of the heart and the grace of God sees through him, as if he wants God to go from hell" at baptism gives the baby a name, which clearly means Theodore (as options, Theodosius, Theodotus, Theodorite, which can be interpreted as "given to God") The author of the above-mentioned "Life of St. Euphrosynus of Pskov" "learned" the secret of the truth of the "pure hallelujah" from the Mother of God herself. Appearing to him in a dream, the Blessed Virgin told him that the "dark hallelujah" contained the mystery of Christ's resurrection: "This is the mystery: Risen, Risen in divinity and humanity, and glory to Him...". St. Paphnutius Borovsky possessed the ability to miraculously "catch" the essence of what was happening: "All-seeing God is not just reasoning for nothing by mail and," his hagiobiographer writes in the Life of the saint, "but also from a part of the treasures of the Spirit, hedgehog from the image of some, to know the passion of the soul, but in a dream it represents that, not like a dream from hostility to someone carnal thinking, but essentially more worthy of sight ... "and cites numerous cases of such" knowledge ". Etc.

Thus, a human being, created "in the image and likeness" of God the Trinity, appears to be three-hypostatic. It is easy to see that way of being each of these incarnations corresponds to its own level of perception of the world.

The bodily hypostasis is content with the perception of the world at the level of sensations, instincts, physiological needs, etc. "Corporeality" is socially passive; her reaction to the surrounding world is limited to instinctive-reflexive reactions. The prevalence of this way of being gives us the human type, which we will denote by the term " sensory"(from lat. sensus - feeling, sensation).

The hypostasis of the soul, rising above sensations and instinctive actions, turns to the analysis of being and oneself in it, including the analysis of one's own sensations and the reasons that induce one or another action. The results of such an analysis allow us to act not spontaneously and impulsively, but in accordance with one or another decision; "soulfulness" is socially, and consciously, active. The prevalence of this way of being in a person gives a type that we will designate as " practitioner"(from the Greek praktikos - active, active).

The hypostasis of the spirit, starting from the analysis of being, strives for the knowledge of the root causes of things - for intelligent non-conceptual, figurative (and in its limit and without o figurative) contemplation of the ideal logoi of the world created by God: “The spiritual gaze also sees the spiritual meaning, the true root of a given object and phenomenon,” taught St. Theophan the Recluse, “the material gaze does not rise from the surface of the earth and does not penetrate into the essence of this phenomenon. .. The Logos in man seeks the logos in nature... the spirit seeks the spiritual; wisdom seeks the sophianic." The prevalence of spirituality in a person gives us a type that we will designate as " gnostic"(from the Greek. gnosis - knowledge, teaching).

It is on these levels of perception and in e world (sensus, praxis, gnosis) and there is a gradual O human existence, which, in fact, is, according to Christian teaching, the meaning of earthly human existence.

For example, even Origen distinguished three stages of deification: faith, perfect knowledge and deification of the mind. Origen characterizes them as follows: "beginners," who are like slaves toiling for fear of punishment; "prosperous" like mercenaries who work in the hope of a reward; "perfect" who fulfill the commandments out of pure filial love.

St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-394) describes this process in his Life of Moses. At the first stage, during the transition of a person from only sensual desires to philosophical knowledge of the world, catharsis occurs - purification, liberation from earthly attachments and addictions. The main passion remains the thirst for knowledge of the world marvelously arranged by God. At the second stage, when ascending from rational analysis to intelligent contemplation of the secrets of the universe, a person receives a "natural vision" that opens the way for a deep knowledge of the world as it is. That is, the rational, dismembering the integrity of the universe, the analysis gives way to a clever synthesis and vision of the harmony of the world. The world, creation, is now presented not as a collection of disparate changing phenomena, but as one organic whole with a clearly expressed interconnection and interdependence of its constituent parts. At the third stage of ascent to God, a person learns the overmind knowledge of God and vision of God, and thereby approaches God-likeness (deification).

"Areopagitics" give us the same three stages of human spiritual development: k?jarsiV - purification from sensual being, jwtismoV - enlightenment by abstract insights, resulting in the detachment of the mind from all sensual representations, tel?iwsiV - mystical knowledge of God, ecstasy the mind entering into the darkness of divine silence and into a state of complete thoughtlessness.

A similar trichotomy (despite terminological differences) is found, for example, in the asceticism of Maximus the Confessor (7th century), which includes: practical philosophy, natural contemplation and mysterious theology, or in other words: doing, contemplation and theology, where the first purifies a person from passions; the second enlightens the mind with true knowledge in contemplation; the third crowns it with the highest mystical states. These doing, contemplation and the ecstasy prepared by them represent, according to St. Maxim, the most important moments on the path of man's salvation, on the path of his ascent to God and the final merging with Him in deification.

The three types of people corresponding to the named stages of spiritual ascent are also distinguished by the representative of the Catholic tradition Nicholas of Cusa. “The first,” he writes in the treatise “On the Assumption,” are the sages, “like the brightest and purest lights, bearing in themselves the image (effigies) of the spiritual imperishable world; the last, sensual, are like animals, following lust and voluptuousness; the middle ones are involved in the light pouring to them from the higher ones, and stand at the head of the lower ones "(II. 15.146), they correspond to three types of perception and reflection of reality: "A certain multitude of people join ... to ... contemplation. .. with loftiness and nobility above all reason and feeling, others pull it into some kind of rational concreteness, and lower ones into sensuality "(II. 15.147).

This trichotomy ("sensorics", "practitioners", "gnostics") is also reflected in the traditional distinction between the ranks of those who are saved in the Church - "beginners", "successful", "perfect" - and three sections of typical readings appointed to assist their deification: for "beginners" in the faith of "sensorics" - the education of bodily feelings on the example of hagiography (minions, patericons, physiologists, etc.); for "successful" / "practitioners" - education of the soul / mind with catechetical and exegetical works ("Golden Jet", "Chrysostom", "Golden Chain", "Golden Beads", "Izmaragd", "Golden Mother", "Teaching Gospel" etc); for the "perfect" / "gnostics" - education / communion with God of the spirit / mind in panegyric ("The Solemn", "Prologue", etc.). However, one must not forget that a person is real, as a mediastinum between God and the world and as an image of the Triune God, exists simultaneously in all three of its hypostases, being in one of them at each given period or even moment of its existence according to par excellence. Therefore, - which is very significant - during the transition to each next level of perception of the world, the previous ones are not denied and do not disappear (because, for example, the body of a living person cannot disappear), but are preserved in, so to speak, removed or subordinate form and therefore, firstly, everyone also needs the appropriate specificity of their perception of spiritual education; secondly, they can always cause a recurrence of seemingly outdated phenomena (there are many examples of this in ascetic literature). Therefore, it is obvious that the sections of the readings of the Typicon are intended for everyone together, and not only for the corresponding ranks of those who are being saved, however, the depth and completeness of perception of one and the same text correspond precisely to the way of being and the level of perception of the reader.

Each of the aforementioned hypostases of a human being and their inherent ways of being forms its own type of reality and realism, and hence its own type of artistry of "characters" (imprints of "similarity" on matter), and its own understanding of creativity in Christian culture.

It is very tempting to identify ways of knowing (see: 1.2.2) and ways of being, as is done in the fourth system of the Typicon, based on patristic anthropology. Indeed, isn't it logical to assume that the predominant way of knowing the "sesoric", living by sensations and reacting to reality instinctively, is empiricism based on sensory experience ("beginners" in the Church); a "practitioner" who seeks relationships and regularities in being, uses, as a rule, the gnomic method of cognition ("successful"); and the "gnostic", striving for the knowledge of the true foundations of being, can achieve the desired only in mysticism ("perfect"). But in fact, the relationship between the modes of being and gnosis is much more complex, as evidenced, for example, by the variety of known types of mysticism: it is one thing, say, the mysticism of St. Hesychia, the other is the mysticism of Jacob Boehme, and completely different from both the one and the other, but also the mysticism of St. Teresa of Avila. This diversity, as one might think, is explained by the differences in the way of being of different "mystics" with the unity of the way of cognition. If Rev. Hesychius is a "mystic" - "gnostic", then Jacob Boehme is a "mystic" - "dwarf", and St. Teresa - "mystic" - "sensor"; hence the difference in the ways of "experiencing", the degree of awareness and the form of depicting the Divine revelation.

The same applies to representatives of the "gnomic" and "empirical" way of knowing, among whom one should distinguish between "gnostics", "practitioners" and "sesorics" according to the way of being.

However, it is impossible not to notice that the classification of scribes into "sensors", "practitioners" and "gnostics" (according to the way of being), as well as "empiricists", "gnomes" and "mystics" (according to the way of cognition) makes it possible to explain the diversity of artistic forms and methods of Christian art, but are not sufficient to answer the question of how a non-Christian and even non-religious culture is born within Christian culture and even according to the laws of Christian culture. Obviously, we have not taken into account some important factor that cannot be extracted from the law of Christian art, reflected in the system of typical readings. And it is impossible, apparently, because the sought-for factor is outside this system. In other words, he not defined Christian doctrine and worldview a defines themselves. It seems that the nature of the worldview is determined primarily type of axiology, more precisely the axiological hierarchy, and first of all by the fact that O taken as the basis of values.

1.6 Axiology and iconology

The spiritual person does not accept what is from the Spirit of God, because he considers it foolishness... But the spiritual person judges everything.

1 Cor. 2. 14-15.

The type of axiological hierarchical system is apparently determined by the fact that O N. O. Lossky described as " absolute self-worth containing the coincidence of being and value" or the absolute "fullness of being" (II.5).

According to the proposed basis, three main axiological types can be distinguished: 1) one in which the "fullness of being" is achieved through the performance personal "business of life" as it is understood by the performer, moreover, by those means and methods that the performer himself considers appropriate, regardless of anyone else's and whatever their assessment from the outside; 2) one in which the "fullness of being" is conceived as the fulfillment of one's public duty in the ways and methods that society defines(or a social corporation as part of a complex society); 3) one in which the "fullness of being" is understood as achieving communion with the Higher Mind and activities under His guidance. We will designate these types as "egocentric", "sociocentric" ("anthropocentric") and "theocentric" respectively (see Table 1).

Table 1.

In an egocentric hierarchy values, artist's ego is "alpha and omega", the basis, measure and criterion of the truth of all things and phenomena. The world in this axiological system "exists" to the extent that the artist "sees" it, that is, to the extent that reality is able to contribute to his creative work. self expression, fulfillment of his "work of life". What is not consistent with the "life work" of the "egocentric", and even more so - prevents its implementation, causes a rejection reaction as a "negative" value

If we talk about the purpose of creativity in this axiological hierarchy, then the "egocentric" artist seeks primarily to fix one's impression, one's vision of this world, "as I am imagine" it - or rather, create your own world seed logos and similarities of which exist only in the mind of a particular artist and therefore are not substantial. However, this non-substantial world for the "egocentric" is not only the only true, but also the only one possible for existence. Any attempt on this invented world order is perceived by the "egocentric" as an attempt on his life.

In the anthropo- or sociocentric axiological system(one of its most striking creations is the so-called Renaissance humanism) the basis, the criterion of truth and the "measure of all things" is "social man". However, extolling the mental and creative-productive abilities of a person as the most important distinguishing feature (from the animal and plant world), sociocentric axiology at the same time puts the value of the individual pretty tough dependence on his artistic(as it is understood in this value system) talent: creativity is conceived here first of all as a criterion for social evaluation one individual or another, Creative skills there is a means to prove one's chosenness (in extreme cases, human usefulness) and thereby "force oneself to be respected." And if the "fullness of being" of a "sociocentric" consists in all-round service to society, then the "fullness of being" of society in sociocentric axiology consists in achieving sustainable social harmony. Hence the striving of "sociocentrics" by all means to rebuild, correct, harmonize the world, even contrary to the desires of the world. "Sociocentric" culture is incredibly rich in various social utopias, whether it be Plato's "State", Campanella's "City of the Sun", the story about Rahmans added to "Alexandria" by Evfrosin Belozersky, "The Tale of Dracula Voivode" by Fyodor Kuritsyn, "Quincunx, or the image of the Crown Polish” by Stanislav Ozhechovsky, nostalgic memories of the reign of Vitovt in the “Song of the Bison” by Nikolai Gusovian, advice on state reform by Ivan Peresvetov, etc.

In the theocentric (in our case, Christocentric) axiological system the highest irrelevant value, criterion, goal of creativity-gnosis, etc. God is thought. It is this focus on the Creator that gives reason to think of artistic creativity as a task and as co-creation, "art"; to see in each image of this creativity evidence of the existence of the original, understanding "imitation" in a logos, not a mimetic sense, etc. In such a value system cosmology becomes anthropocentric, and anthropology becomes theocentric: the human-creator, as the image and likeness of the true Creator, creates, imitating Him, on earth according to His patterns and under His guidance.

Note that the same "theoretical" type of axiology appears in the value systems of "mystics", "gnomes", "empiricists"; "gnostics", "practitioners", "sensorics" in their various modifications, which we have yet to identify and consider.

1.7 "Mode of being" in the genesis and structure of the artistic image

Our most strenuous efforts are devoted to knowing how truth is understood in ourselves....

Nicholas of Cusa

Now we can answer why, within Christian culture, and even according to the laws of Christian culture, a non-Christian and even non-religious culture is born; why, within the church canon and according to the laws of the church canon, a tradition of non-canonical images arises (which, however, are perceived by their authors as corresponding to the canon).

The point, as it seems, is that the artistic "character" or image - the "imprint" on the matter of the ideal "likeness" of a thing/phenomenon - is influenced by the totality of the factors we have identified, namely: the type of axiological system, belonging to which (or not even aware of) the artist; a way of knowing the world, available to a given artist, and a way of being a creator.

Let us define the set of factors influencing the type of "similarity" imprinting as mode perception of reality , or more precisely -- mode of being of a thing in the view of the artist contemplating and depicting her . The "mode of being" found between the "likeness" and the "character" of Theodore Studit just determines the set of "characters" peculiar only to him. This was also noticed by D.S. Likhachev. "Artist," he wrote, creates his work, subordinating it... a single artistic "module" subordinating both form and content general artistic "dimensions", uniting the external and internal, the idea and its embodiment, by certain repetitive or similar techniques. "The researcher did not explain what kind of "single artistic module" and "general artistic dimensions" are, where they come from and how they are determined, but from the context of his work it is clear that they are quite comparable with the concept of the "mode of being" introduced here, to which the "idea and its embodiment" in a work of art really obey. This modus is a kind of colored glass that sets the main tone and "boundaries" of the image, as well as the limits of the image depicted in creativity of each specific author.To put it more precisely, "the mode of being of a thing in the artist's view" defines the boundaries or limits in and denia and, accordingly, in e the artist’s visions, within which he is free in his work, but which he objectively cannot cross, as, for example, a person who puts on red glasses cannot distinguish other colors of the spectrum until he takes off his glasses or replaces them with others ...

The East Slavic medieval culture of the bookish word arose and developed in the Christian "theocentric", within which, "denying" it, but not breaking with it, as we will see, not theocentric, but nonetheless religious foundations of values ​​matured: religious anthropocentrism and religious egocentrism , forming not theocentric, but still religious in nature "modes of being", which can be considered as transitional from theocentric religiosity to atheistic "religiosity". "A holy place is never empty," therefore, the place of Christian values ​​is occupied by their non-Christian "modules." For example, the Kingdom of God is replaced by an earthly paradise created by man without God; responsibility before God ("fear of God") - responsibility before "the mind, honor and conscience of our era", etc.

But let us return to the category of "mode": if the "mode of being of a thing" determines limits v and Denia and in e the artist's denia, which he cannot cross, but within which he free in his work, it is necessary to explain how this creative freedom is expressed. First of all, in the fact that, regarding the basis of values, which is common for all representatives of a given mode, axiological hierarchies, under the influence of two other factors (the type of gnosis and the type of being), can be built in different ways.

For example, in the "theocentric" very different "modes" of being are possible. Kliment Smolyatich identifies "torturing the Divine Scriptures with a slew", that is, a subjective purposeful discursive-rational analysis of the Scriptures, with the service of God. Poorly concealed proud categoricalness and humiliating irony towards Thomas, who did not receive a systematic "classical" education, betrays in Clement a "gnome" - "gnostic", who accepts the conclusions of his discourses as the true laws of being. That is, in the person of Kliment Smolyatich we see, as one might think, a "gnome" who considers himself a "mystic". But what the "mystic" perceives by the reader as revealed Truth appears in Clement as a subjective, controversial, authoritarianly imposed opinion.

Euphrosynus of Belozersky demonstrates his "theocentric" axiology, the "fullness of being" in which is the "gathering of wisdom" and its "propaganda". Euphrosynus is the first of the famous East Slavic "encyclopedist"-educators (in the humanistic, and not the Christian understanding of enlightenment); he patiently and scrupulously collects and classifies knowledge about the world into branches. Moreover, knowledge for him is of absolute value, even those that contradict orthodoxy. He does not neglect these latter at all, but only warns his reader: "this is in the collection (in public. - L. L.) do not honor, nor show to many," in which, by the way, one can already see the humanistic corporatism of educated "creators" who oppose themselves to "simple" - "neveglas".

Metropolitan Daniel, in which Met. Macarius (Bulgakov) noted "a sound mind, but discontentedly strong by nature and insufficiently developed; a mind little accustomed to self-activity and not accustomed to strict, distinct, logical thinking", "the fullness of its being" for the glory of God considered the harmonization of the "church community" and carried out this harmonization through simple and, in general, easily implemented (if desired!) Recommendations derived from everyday everyday experience, which gives out in Daniel "theocentrics" - "empiricism" - "practice".

Fyodor Kuritsyn, the transcendence (since the limits of the modus are insurmountable) of the perception of the ideal "similitudes" of God's universe quite naturally led to the fundamental denial of not only all Christian mysticism, but also Christian pedagogy (in particular, the Christological pedagogy of typical readings). Kuritsyn was carried away by the teachings of the Judaizers, which, apparently, he identified with service to the glory of God. The "Laodicean Epistle" attributed to Fyodor Vasilyevich gives reason to correlate Kuritsyn's worldview with the ideas of the "gnomes" about the "autocratic mind"; it organically enters the circle of works popular among the Jews, such as "Logic" by Moses Maimonides, "Aristotelian Gates" (or "Secret of the Secret"), "Six-winged" by Immanuel ben Jacob, etc.

Occupying the responsible posts of the Duma clerk and the head of the Ambassadorial order, Kuritsyn treated writing as a kind of public service, the purpose of which is to arrange human society on earth as best as possible (that is, more reasonable, which at the same time meant more fair) guided by " fear of God", which is the "beginning of virtue", but both "fear of God" and virtue are understood by Kuritsyn in general already humanistically, allowing for such "pedagogical" means as, for example, indicated in "The Tale of Dracula Voivode". The cruel wit and cruel "justice" of Dracula, destroying (in the literal sense) the "simple" opponents, seem to cause Kuritsyn, if not admiration, then at least quite "humanistic" satisfaction that the more savvy takes precedence over the less savvy and "criminal" is always punishable by death. All this is presented as a kind of example of an ideal state order, when you can safely leave a golden drinking cup at the well and no one will dare to steal it. Kuritsyn sharply condemns only Dracula's acceptance of the "Latin faith": "Dracula, love sweetness more than temporary light than eternal and infinite, and fall away from Orthodoxy, and depart from the truth, and leave the light, and accept the darkness ... and so died in that deception", although Dracula's principles of putting things in order and understanding of the "fear of God" are quite in the spirit of his contemporary "Latin" sacred inquisition, and in this sense, the transition to "Latinism" seems rather natural. But the already mentioned mosaic image of the world in the "gnome" does not allow "to make ends meet."

Kuritsyn's axiological hierarchy, as we see, combines, as it were, two foundations of equal, more precisely, equally unpreferable values ​​- "theocentric" and "anthropocentric". But if Kuritsyn himself cannot or does not want to prefer one of the values, then the Tradition unequivocally evaluates the one who tries to "serve two masters" (Luke 16:13)...

The mismatch of axiological systems built on the same value foundation, and at the same time the similarity of axiologies built on different value foundations, as well as the possibility of combining two foundations in one axiology, that is, axiology of a "transitional type", with which most often one has to deal in practice, since the "pure type" is a theoretical abstraction - all this significantly complicates the work of the researcher. However, in many O figurative "theocentric" of the East Slavic medieval culture, you can find a criterion that levels the nuances of axiological modifications and allows you to clearly distinguish different ways creating artistic meaning and content.

Russian State University for the Humanities Russian State University for the Humanities RSUH/RGGU BULLETiN No. 5 (148) Academic Journal Series: Philosophy. social studies. Art Studies Moscow 2015 RGGU BULLETIN № 5 (148) Scientific journal Philosophy. Sociology. Art Criticism” Moscow 2015 Brewer, Corresponding Member RAS, Dr. ist. n., prof. (Chairman) N.I. Arkhipova, Doctor of Economics n., prof. (RGGU), A.B. Bezborodov, Dr. ist. n., prof. (RGGU), J. Vargas (University of Cali, Colombia), A.D. Voskresensky, Dr. polit. n., prof. (MGIMO (University) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia), E. Vyatr (Warsaw University, Poland), J. Debardeleben (Carlton University, Canada), V.A. Dybo, acad. RAS, Dr. Philol. n. (RGGU), V.I. Zabotkina, Dr. Philol. n., prof. (RGGU), V.V. Ivanov, acad. RAS, Dr. Philol. n., prof. (RSUH; University of California, Los Angeles, USA), E. Kamiya (Tachibana University, Kyoto, Japan), S. Karner (L. Boltzmann Institute for the Study of the Consequences of Wars, Austria), S .M. Kashtanov, Corresponding Member RAS, Dr. ist. n., prof. (IVI RAS), V. Keidan (University of Carlo Bo, Italy), S. Ketchkemeti (National School of Charters, Sorbonne, France), I. Klyukanov (Eastern Washington University, USA), V.P. . Kozlov, Corresponding Member RAS, Dr. ist. n., prof. (VNIIDAD), M. Cole (University of California, San Diego, USA), E.E. Kravtsova, Dr. of Psychology. n., prof. (RGGU), M. Kramer (Harvard University, USA), A.P. Logunov, Dr. ist. n., prof. (RGGU), D. Lomar (University of Cologne, Germany), B. Luayer (Institute of Geopolitics, Paris-VIII, France), S. Masamichi (University of Chuo, Japan), V.I. Molchanov, Doctor of Philosophy. n., prof. (RGGU), V.N. Nezamaikin, Doctor of Economics n., prof. (Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation), P. Novak (University of Bialystok, Poland), Yu.S. Pivovarov, acad. RAS, Dr. polit. n., prof. (INION RAS), E. van Povedskaya (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain), S. Rapich (University of Wuppertal, Germany), M. Sasaki (University of Chuo, Japan), I.S. Smirnov, Ph.D. philol. n. (RGGU), V.A. Tishkov, acad. RAS, Dr. ist. n., prof. (IEA RAS), Zh.T. Toshchenko, Corresponding Member RAS, Dr. Phil. n., prof. (RSUH), D. Foglesong (University of Rutgers, USA), I. Foltys (Polytechnic Institute of Opole, Poland), T.I. Khorhordina, Dr. ist. n., prof. (RGGU), A.O. Chubaryan, acad. RAS, Dr. ist. n., prof. (IVI RAS), T.A. Shakleina, Dr. polit. n., prof. (MGIMO (U) MFA of Russia), P.P. Shkarenkov, Dr. ist. n., prof. (RSUH) Series “Philosophy. Sociology. Art Criticism” Editorial Board of the Zh.T. Toshchenko, Ch. ed., corr. RAS, Dr. Phil. n., prof. (RGGU), L.N. Vdovichenko, Deputy ch. ed., doctor of sociology. n., prof. (RGGU), V.A. Kolotaev, Deputy ch. ed., Dr. philol. n., prof. (RGGU), A.I. Reznichenko, Deputy ch. ed., Dr. Phil. n. (RGGU), O.V. Kitaitsev, responsible secretary, cand. sociological n. (RGGU), J. Vargas (University of Cali, Colombia), N.M. Velikaya, Dr. polit. n., prof. (RGGU), E. Vyatr (Warsaw University, Poland), V.D. Gubin, Doctor of Philosophy. n., prof. (RGGU), J. Debardeleben (Carlton University, Canada), E.N. Ivakhnenko, Doctor of Philosophy. n., prof. (RGGU), V. Keidan (University Carlo Bo, Italy), S.A. Konacheva, Doctor of Philosophy. n. (RGGU), L.Yu. Limanskaya, Doctor of Arts, prof. (RGGU), D. Lomar (University of Cologne, Germany), A.V. Markov, Dr. Philol. n., Assoc. (RSUH), S. Masamichi (Un-t Chuo, Japan), V.I. Molchanov, Doctor of Philosophy. n., prof. (RGGU), P. Nowak (University of Bialystok, Poland), S. Rapich (University of Wuppertal, Germany) Responsible for issue: A.I. Reznichenko, Doctor of Philosophy. n. (RGGU) © Russian State University iSSN 2073-6401 for the Humanities, 2015 The issue of the journal is dedicated to the blessed memory of Professor Albert Ivanovich Alyoshin Before his death in the Apocalypse of Our Time, Vasily Vasilyevich Rozanov wrote: “Sadness is not in death. “A person dies not when he is ripe, but when he is ripe.” Sadness is rather in oblivion, in the lack of love and memory. On July 24, 2014, the permanent editor of the philosophical issues of the Vestnik of the Russian State Humanitarian University, the organizer of the annual faculty philosophical conferences, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Russian State Humanitarian University, a teacher who raised dozens of students, a wonderful person Albert Ivanovich Alyoshin, suddenly died. This issue of the RGGU Bulletin is in his honor and memory. Issue editor A.I. Reznichenko Editorial board of the journal Faculty of Philosophy RSUH Authors of articles CONTENTS Philosophy. History of Philosophy. Articles and research by V.I. Molchanov Space and its shadow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 I.A. Protopopova Plato, Vl. Solovyov, J. Lacan: From "Androgyne" to "Agalma" (Transformations of Platonic "Erotology"). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 D.S. Biryukov Cosmological representations of John of Damascus and their ancient context. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 A.P. Solovyov Platonism in the Philosophical System of Archbishop Nikanor (Brovkovich). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 I.S. Kurilovich Interpretations of the “Experience of Consciousness” in French Neo-Hegelianism. Article two. Alexander Kozhev and Jean Hyppolite. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 E.A. Shestova The Problem of Transcendental Language in Vi Cartesian Meditation O. Fink. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 E.N. Ivakhnenko Autopoiesis of "epistemic things" as a new horizon for the construction of social theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 A.S. Bobrova Pierce and Luhmann: Diagrammatic Logic in the Social Sciences. . . . . . . . 92 Ya.G. Brazhnikova Philosophical idiom: from reconstruction to invention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 D.E. Gasparyan Practices of the ontologization of the negative in modern philosophy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Publications N.A. Dmitrieva Biographical and Philosophical Landscapes of Yakov Gordin. Part one. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Chronicles and reviews by I.A. Krainova, A.A. Shiyan Interventions in Philosophy (Review of the International Conference "National Identity in Philosophy", December 10–11, 2014, RSUH). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 G.K. Konovalov Nephilosophy and Technology (Reading the eighteenth edition of The Blue Sofa). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Abstracts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Information about the authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 CONTENTS Philosophy. History of philosophy V. Molchanov Space and its shadow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 I. Protopopova Plato, Vl. Soloviev, J. Lacan: from “androgyne” to “agalma” (the transformations of Plato’s “erotology”) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 D. Biryukov The Cosmology of John of Damascus and its ancient background . . . . . . . . . . . 34 A. Solovyev Platonism in the philosophical system of Archbishop Nicanor (Brovkovich) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 I. Kurilovich interpretations of the “Experience of Consciousness” in the French Neo-Hegelianism. Part ii. Alexandre Kojève and Jean Hyppolite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 E. Shestova The problem of transcendental language in the Vi Cartesian meditation by Eugen Fink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 E. Ivakhnenko Autopoiesis of “epistemic things” as the new horizon of creation of the social theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 A. Bobrova Peirce and Luhmann. Diagrammatical logic in social studies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Ya. Brazhnikova The philosophical idiom: from reconstruction to invention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 D. Gasparyan Practice of ontological views on the negativity in contemporary philosophy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Publications N. Dmitrieva Biographical and philosophical landscapes of Jacob Gordin. Part i. . . . . . . . . . 125 Chronicles and reviews I. Kraynova, A. Shiyan interventions in philosophy (for a review of the international Conference “National originality in philosophy”, 10–11 December 2014, Russian State University for the Humanities) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 G. Konovalov Non-philosophy and technology (review of eighteen edition of the “Siniy divan” journal) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Abstracts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 General data about the authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 D.S. Biryukov COSMOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS IN JOHN OF DAMASCINE AND THEIR ANCIENT CONTEXT * The article is devoted to the cosmological concepts of John of Damascus. An overview of the relevant provisions of the ancient geocentric natural-philosophical-cosmological teachings is given and it is analyzed in what respect the views presented by Damascus are close to one or another teaching. It is concluded that the cosmology presented by Damascus incorporates elements of Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic teachings, with the Aristotelian line prevailing. A controversy is given against the statement about the presence in the cosmology of John of Damascus of a line associated with Ptolemaic cosmology. Key words: cosmology, John of Damascus, ether, elements, geocentrism. 1. In this article, I will discuss the cosmological views presented by John of Damascus in the context of the ancient natural-philosophical-cosmological tradition1. John of Damascus is perhaps the most famous Christian writer who wrote in the tradition of orthodox Byzantine scholasticism; author of one of the most famous Byzantine codes of Christian dogma; connoisseur and translator of the tradition of school knowledge of the Byzantine and late antique era. The exact date of Damascene's birth is unknown. The time of his birth refers to the middle or, more likely, to the second half of the 7th c. Probably, by origin Mansur ibn Sarjun (such is the Arabic name of John of Damascus) was a Syrian. The grandfather and father of Damascus held important positions under the Umayyad Caliphate. According to the Arab life of Damaskin, he received his education in Damascus under the guidance of the monk Cosmas from Calabria, who © Biryukov D.S., 2015 * The work was supported by the Russian Humanitarian Foundation, project No. 13-33-01299. Cosmological concepts... 35 John's father, who wanted to educate his sons, ransomed them from pirates. According to life, the education received by John and his half-brother Cosmas was as follows:<…>When they are happy, i.e. blessed abilities, they learned in a short time<…> all the sciences and reached in them to the limit [of knowledge]; these sciences are grammar, philosophy, astronomy and geometry”2. Thus, astronomy (in the broadest sense) was included in the range of subjects of study of John of Damascus. Coming out of adolescence, Damaskin followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. In the second half of the 700s, or in the 710s, he went to Palestine, where he became a monk with the name John. The date of his death is unknown; it can be argued that this happened at the beginning of the 2nd half of the 8th c. 2. So, as we shall see, John's erudition really found its expression in his cosmological views. John of Damascus expounds his cosmological doctrine mainly in chapters Vi–Vii (19–20) of the second book of the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Damaskin proceeds from the idea of ​​the sky as that which limits the intelligent and sensual created world. He distinguishes two senses of "heaven" in Scripture: one sense (found in Ps 113:23, 24; 148:4; 2 Cor 12:2) indicates "heaven" in its more ordinary what the "outer sages" call the starless sphere. Another meaning of the sky, mentioned by Damaskinus after Basil of Caesarea, is the "firmament", the nature of which is thin as smoke; this view of the sky is mentioned in Genesis 1:6–83. Speaking of the sky, Damascene refers to "some" and cites their teaching as authoritative for understanding the nature of the sky; Obviously, Damaskinus shared this teaching himself. So, according to "some", the sky is spherical and is the highest for everything on earth. Damascene connects the doctrine of the sky with the doctrine of the four elements - earth, air, fire and water, borrowed by him from ancient and patristic natural philosophy. Namely, according to Damascus, when creating the world, God first created the four elements, as well as the sky, and then from these elements he created the rest of existence4. The sky is spatially the highest region of the universe. Fire - the lightest element - is located immediately after the sky. Damascene says that fire can also be called ether. Under the fire is the air; under it is water, and under it is earth. Water and earth are in the middle of the space encompassed by sky and air. The sky moves in a circular manner and, as it were, pulls together what is embraced by it. 36 D.S. The Biryukov Sky contains seven belts (ζώνη)7 of the “subtlest nature” (λεπτοτάτης φύσεως), which can also be called the seven heavens. These belts are arranged in a hierarchical order. Each belt corresponds to a certain planet (πλάνης). Damascene lists these seven planets in the following order, from top to bottom in terms of distance from the Earth: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon8. Damascene mentions that some planets are wandering: sometimes they move in the opposite direction to the movement of other celestial bodies – i.e. from west to east9. At the same time, Damaskino pronounces the notion according to which the sky, rotating, carries away the planets and stars, which causes their rotation10. According to Damascus, all celestial bodies are inanimate, complex and subject to destruction. Like Basil of Caesarea,11 Damascene rejects the notion that the luminaries are light itself; according to him they are only receptacles of light. He speaks of the twelve signs of the zodiac formed from the stars. Seven planets pass through these signs. Of these, the Sun spends a month in each sign; The Moon, however, being below the Sun, passes through the twelve constellations of the zodiac each month. Here Damascene also mentions the days of the equinoxes and the length of the seasons14. The thinker, it seems, mentions with a disapproving tone15 the competing cosmological picture of the world in relation to the one described, according to which the sky is a hemisphere16. This cosmology was shared, in particular, by John Chrysostom17. 3. Next, I will try to point out the context of the cosmological ideas found in John of Damascus, within the framework of the ancient natural-philosophical-cosmological tradition. To do this, I will make a concise review of those provisions of ancient geocentric cosmologies that may be relevant or that are mentioned in the context of Damascene cosmology. I'll start with Plato. So, Plato developed the geocentric cosmological doctrine. According to Plato, the seven luminaries are placed on seven spheres (circles). In Timaeus and in the 10th book of the Republic, following the Pythagorean principle, Plato assigns a certain number to each sphere, so that they form a harmonic structure of existence18. With regard to the order of the luminaries, Plato follows the tradition attested by Anaxagoras and the Pythagoreans19: according to him, the luminaries are arranged in the following order in relation to their distance from the Earth: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Moon20. It is important that the number of spheres in Plato corresponds to the number of planets, that is, each planet has its own and unique sphere. Cosmological concepts... 37 Following the program of "saving phenomena", perhaps set by Plato and suggesting the need to explain the apparent uneven movements celestial bodies (loops)21, contradicting the axiom of the necessary perfect circular uniform motion of the luminaries in space, Eudoxus of Cnidus in his treatise “On Velocities”, the content of which is partly known to us from the 12th book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and partly from comments on aristotle - Telev's treatise "On the Sky" by Simplicius22 (in turn, quoting Sosigenes), developed a doctrine that suggests 26 spheres in space, which should describe the features of the movements of the planets in the sky. In the system of Eudoxus, the center of such spheres coincides with the center of the globe. These spheres are placed one inside the other; they rotate around different axes at different speeds. The motion of each of the planets is decomposed within this system into a set of motions along the orbit of the contacting spheres. For the Sun and the Moon, Eudoxus introduced three spheres each; for other planets – four. Just like Plato's system, Eudoxus' system is geocentric. The order of the luminaries listed by Eudoxus is the same as that of Plato. Aristotle in his doctrine of the seven luminaries followed the principles of the system of Eudoxus. While Eudoxus did not say anything about the status of the spheres corresponding to the planets - his model was precisely mathematical - Aristotle endowed these spheres with an ontological status. In addition, Stagirite inscribed cosmological ideas in a holistic philosophical context. I will not touch here on the foundations of Aristotle's cosmological and natural-philosophical teachings - his teachings about the immobile prime mover and prime movers that act on stars and planets; I will touch only on what is important in the context of the cosmological teaching of Damascus. So, here it is necessary to mention the theme of the four elements borrowed by Aristotle from Empedocles - earth, water, air and fire. Earth and water are the heavy elements, and they are below, making up our Earth; respectively, air and fire are light elements, and they are located at the top. The natural motions for all these elements are rectilinear motions towards the center of the universe; the ultimate goal of natural movements is their natural positions. Thus, the sublunar world, according to Aristotle, is a central sphere corresponding to the natural position of the earth element. Around this sphere are three spheres corresponding to the other three elements, respectively water, air and fire. 38 D.S. Biryukov In the heavenly world, the natural movement is a circular movement. This movement cannot be associated with any of the four elements, since the natural movements of these elements are rectilinear. In Aristotle's system, this circular motion is associated with the fifth element - ether; it is he who has a natural rotational movement. Unlike the natural movements of the other four elements, which have as their goal the achievement of natural positions, the natural movement of the ether has no end and is infinite23. Thus, according to Aristotle, the region from the sphere of the fixed stars to the Moon is the region of the ether. Fire adjoins it, more precisely, hot and dry fiery evaporation. Carried away by the sky, it creates warmth. Fire is followed by air, water and earth. It is from ether, says Aristotle25, that the stars are composed, and not from fire, as some assert, on the ground that they consider the very upper body in the universe by fire. Note that Aristotle's doctrine of the ether was revised by the Stoics27. The Stoics also considered the substance of the stars to be ethereal and attributed a circular motion to the ether. At the same time, the Stoics refused to consider ether as some special element and identified it with creative fire, contrasting this fire with ordinary fire28. Also, Proclus, developing his cosmological teaching, had in mind the teaching of Aristotle; only the place of the Aristotelian ether in Proclus, as well as in the Stoics, was taken by fire. Following Plato,29 Proclus taught that the sky is composed of fire. Following Aristotle, Proclus understood the element corresponding to the celestial sphere as a simple element, which naturally has a natural circular motion, which is eternal30 – i.e. Proclus understood this fire like Aristotelian ether31. Returning to Aristotle, we point out that, developing the system of Eudoxus, Aristotle focuses on the problem of the interaction of spheres. This problem is connected, obviously, with the mentioned fact of Aristotle's ontologization of the spheres that determine the motions of the planets. Proceeding from the position on the real existence of spheres and not allowing the existence of emptiness, Aristotle accepts that each sphere must influence the next one and entrain it, and in order to preserve the independence of the rotational motion of the planets, Aristotle introduces spheres in each system of spheres that rotate in in the opposite direction and compensating for the rotation of the former. Thus, the total number of spheres corresponding to the planets in Aristotle turns out to be 5532. In terms of the arrangement of the luminaries, Aristotle follows the established scheme used by Plato and Eudoxus. Cosmological ideas... 39 However, the systems of Eudoxus and Aristotle did not explain some astronomical phenomena, such as the change in the brightness of the planets as they move across the sky, and did not explain the loop-like motion of the planets well enough. For this reason, Ptolemy in his treatise “Syntax” (in Arabic translation “Almagest”), focusing on astronomical observations and the astronomical and cosmological program of Hipparchus, developed a fundamental cosmological system, significantly modifying the existing systems, introducing three additional principles . These are the principles of equant, eccentric and epicycle. The equant and eccentric principles assume that the Earth is located not in the center of the orbits, but in a displaced (eccentric) position. The eccentric principle aims to explain changes in the brightness of stars; equant principle - to explain the change in the angular velocity of the planets during the year. According to the principle of epicycles, it is assumed that the trajectory of the planet is made up of the trajectories of various circles, i.e., that each planet rotates along a circle (epicycle), the center of which rotates along another circle (the deferent), while the center of the deferent can rotate along another circle, etc. The principle of epicycles is intended to help explain the looping motions of the planets. Finally, it is worth noting that in the Hellenistic era, starting at least with Cicero and Plutarch, the traditional understanding of the order of the planets was changed: Mercury and Venus began to be placed between the Moon and the Sun, i.e., the following order of the planets according to as far as their distance from the Earth, in descending order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. This may be due to Stoic influence; at least Cicero33 mentions Diogenes of Babylon in this context. The Stoics may have borrowed this order from Babylonia. This order of the planets was eventually adopted by Ptolemy, Cleomedes, Pliny, Pseudo-Vitruvius, Emperor Julian and other authors. 4. So, returning to the cosmology of Damascus and bearing in mind the above, we can note the following. It seems to me that in the cosmological doctrine, which Damaskinus speaks about in his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, traces of the Aristotelian, Platonic and Stoic lines can be found, with the former prevailing. Before pointing out in what respect to which line Damascene seems to be following, it is worth noting the basic fact that 40 D.S. Biryukov's cosmology of Damascus is geocentric, in relation to which Damascus follows both the most famous cosmological teachings of antiquity (from Plato to Ptolemy) and previous patristic authors. The innovative cosmological ideas of Heraclides of Pontus and Aristarchus of Samos, suggesting a heliocentric cosmological system of the world, were actually unknown in patristics, and John of Damascus in particular. Further. The Aristotelian line finds its manifestation in Damascus, firstly, in the respect in which his cosmological discourse is connected with the doctrine of the elements. Just as in the teachings of Aristotle, Damascene has a hierarchy of regions in space according to the order of the elements: the earth is at the very bottom, above it is water, above it is air, and above the air is fire. In Damascus, in comparison with the system of Aristotle, there is still a certain celestial region above the fire. This region in terms of its location (as being above the fire) corresponds to the Aristotelian region of the ether. Although Damascene does not mention a special element corresponding to the celestial region, it seems that one can say that something similar is implied in his system, since he puts the celestial region on a par with the regions corresponding to the elements of fire, water and land; like the Aristotelian ether, the element corresponding to the sky in Damascus would be the "fifth element" - that is, an element different from the traditional elements of fire, air, water and earth. At the same time, unlike Aristotle, Damaskin does not single out ether as a separate element, but he claims that the element of ether is the same as the element of fire, and in this respect Damaskin shows a stoic line. However, unlike the Stoics and Proclus, Damascene does not believe that the heavenly bodies are composed of a fiery substance. With regard to the doctrine of the planets and the spheres corresponding to them, Damaskinus rather follows the Platonic - archaic for that time - line. This is manifested in the fact that although Damaskinos is aware of the uneven loop-like movement of celestial bodies across the sky, in the cosmological system he describes, each planet corresponds to one belt (sphere) - just like in Plato's system, and not several belts (spheres), which in the systems of Eudoxus and Aristotle were called upon to explain this unevenness in the movement of celestial bodies. However, despite the fact that Damaskinus used some important lines of Platonic and Aristotelian cosmologies, regarding the Hellenism (and is found in Ptolemy, Cleomedes, Pliny, Pseudo-Vitruvius, Emperor Julian, etc.), i.e. he listed the following order of the planets (according to the degree of remoteness from the Earth): Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus , Mercury, Moon. In terms of the relationship between Ptolemaic cosmological innovations and the teachings of Damascus, I do not see any traces of the Ptolemaic line in cosmology in Damascus. The principles of the equant and the eccentric, which assume a shift in the position of the Earth in relation to the center of the orbits of the planets, do not seem to find their manifestation in Damascus. On the contrary, Damascene mentions that earth and water are in the middle, that is, in the center of the universe, which Aristotle emphasized. In this regard, it seems unfounded to us that the cosmological system expounded by Damascus contains elements of Ptolemaic cosmology. A similar statement is made, for example, by the translator of Damaskin's Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith into Russian, A. A. Bronzov in his comments on the treatise,35 obviously relying on the first publisher of this treatise, M. Lekuen,36 and V.V. Melkov and S.M. Polyansky in the comments on the translation into Russian of the Slavic translation of the cosmological part of the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith37. The adherence of John of Damascus in his cosmology to the Ptolemaic cosmological system is also mentioned by Fr. Andrew Lauth38, referring to the order of the planets referred to by Damascene. As I mentioned, indeed, the order of the planets in John of Damascus is the same as that of Ptolemy; however, this does not mean that one can say that Damascene follows the Ptolemaic cosmological system in this respect, since this order was common among many Hellenistic authors, and it does not represent the specificity of the Ptolemaic teaching. Finally, if one asks about the ontological status of the belts (spheres) corresponding to the planets in John of Damascus, then, as Damascene talks about this, in my opinion, there is no reason to doubt that he understood these belts like Aristotle, in the ontological sense, and not in the sense of only a mathematical model for describing the motion of planets. Thus, it can be noted that the cosmological ideas of John of Damascus absorbed the lines of various an-42 D.S. Biryukov's teachings. In his presentation of cosmological issues, one can single out the Aristotelian, Platonic and Stoic lines, which gives an idea of ​​the range of school knowledge regarding natural science and natural-philosophical issues, characteristic of the era to which John of Damascus belonged. Notes 1 I am not aware of publications that explored the ancient context of the cosmological teachings of John of Damascus. However, one can point to works in which, as a rule, briefly, certain aspects are touched upon, or an outline of Damascene's cosmology is given: Tihon A. L'astronomie à Byzance à l'époque iconoclaste // Science in Western and Eastern Civilization in Carolingian Times /Ed. by P.L. Butzer, D. Lohrmann. Basel: Birkhauser, 1993; Louth A. St John Dama-scene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. pp. 126–129; Nicolaidis E. Science and Eastern Orthodoxy. From the Greek Fathers to the Age of Globalization / Transl. by S. Emanuel. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011. pp. 46–47. 2 Arabic Life of John of Damascus: 14 (Bacha) / Per. A. Vasilyeva, op. by ed.: Arabic Life of St. John of Damascus // Complete Works of St. John of Damascus. T. 1. St. Petersburg: Ed. Imp. St. Petersburg Theological Academy, 1913. S. 11–12. 3 See: Basil of Caesarea. Homilies on Shestodnev, 120 (Giet). 4 John of Damascus. Accurate statement of the Orthodox faith 2, V (19). Here and below, with references, the pagination of passages from John of Damascus' Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith is given according to B. Kotter's edition: Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos. Vol. 2. Expositio idei / Ed. B. Kotter. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973. (Patristische Texte und Studien 12). 5 Ibid. 2, Vi (20): 25. 6 Ibid. 2, Vi (20): 31–32. 7 Ibid. 2, Vi (20): 33. 8 Ibid. 2, Vii (21): 45–51. 9 Ibid. 2, Vi (20): 37–41; Vii(21): 37–41. 10 Ibid. 2, Vi (20): 47–48; Vii(21): 41–42. 11 Basil of Caesarea. Homilies for Six Days, 334–336 (Giet). 12 John of Damascus. Accurate Statement of the Orthodox Faith 2, Vii (21): 34–36. 13 Ibid. 2, Vii(21). 14 At the same time, in the dates given by him there is an error of several days when indicating the vernal equinox and the length of the seasons (Tihon A. Op. cit. P. 182–183). 15 "Ἕτεροι δὲ ἡμισφαίριον τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐφαντάσθησαν ἐκ τοῦ τὸν θεηγόρον ΔαυὭγ…". 16 John of Damascus. An Exact Statement of the Orthodox Faith 2, Vi (20): 51–52. Cosmological ideas... 43 17 John Chrysostom. Homilies 14, 17. 18 Plato. Timaeus 35s-36a. 19 See: Dreyer J. History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler. N. Y.: Dover Publications, 1953. P. 44–45, 168. 20 The development of natural science in the era of antiquity. Moscow, 1979, p. 252 orbit and begin to move in the opposite direction, after which they change the direction of movement again, etc. 22 See: Aristotle. Metaphysics Xii, 8, 1073b–1074a; Symplicius. Commentary on "On Heaven" 493-506. 23 Aristotle. About the sky i, 2–5. 24 Aristotle. Meteorology i, 3. 25 Aristotle. About the sky ii. 7.289a13f. 26 For example: Plato. Timaeus 40a. 27 See: SVF ii 527, 555, 571, 579, 580, 593, 596, 601, 619, 642 etc. 28 See: SVF ii 596, 664, 1050 etc. 29 See note. 28. 30 Prokl. Commentary on Timaeus iii, 114; On the eternity of the world: in Philopon, On the eternity of the world against Proclus, 523. 31 See: Month S. Discussions about the ether in Antiquity // Cosmos and Soul. Teachings about the universe and man in antiquity and in the Middle Ages (research and translations) / Ed. P.P. Gaidenko and V.V. Petrov. Moscow, 2005, pp. 95–101. 32 See: Aristotle. Metaphysics Xii, 8. 33 Cicero. On devination ii, 43. 34 See: Dreyer J. Op. cit. P. 168–169. 35 See: Exact presentation of the Orthodox faith of St. John of Damascus / Per. from Greek and note. A. Bronzova. SPb., 1894. S. 408; as well as in the reprint of this translation, edited by D.E. Afinogenov: Works of St. John of Damascus. Source of knowledge / Per. and note. A.A. Bronzova, D.E. Afinogenova, A.I. Sagardy, N.I. Sagardy. M.: Indrik, 2002. S. 364. 36 St. Joannis Damasceni. Opera omnia quae extant... / Ed. M. Lequien. Delespine, 1712. 37 Cosmological works in the bookishness of Ancient Russia: In 2 hours. Part 1. Texts of the geocentric tradition / Ed. preparation V.V. Milkov, S.M. Polyansky. SPb., 2008. P. 106. 38 Louth A. Op. cit. P. 128. Abstracts * D. Biryukov THE COSMOLOGY OF JOHN OF DAMASCUS AND iTS ANCiENT BACKGROUND The article is dedicated to the cosmological views of John Damascene. The relevant points of Ancient geocentric natural-philosophical and cosmologic teachings are surveyed and analyzed in what relation the Damascene’s views are familiar with the teachings. it is concluded that Damascene's cosmology incorporates elements of Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic doctrines, with a predominance of the Aristotelian line. it is argued against a claim on a line connected with Ptolemaic cosmology in Damascene. Key words: cosmology, John of Damascus, ether, elements, geocentricism. A. Bobrova PEiRCE AND LUHMANN. DiagrammatiCAL LOGiC iN SOCiAL STUDiES Luhmann’s systems theory (as societal or communicative) gives rise to many problems in practice. The paper argues that their number will be reduced if some points of Luhmann's logic of distinctions are clariied. The question can be solved by means of Peirce's theory of existential graphs. The appeal to this theory is explained with its similarity to Spenser Braun's theory, which can be called a prototype of the logic of distinctions. Key words: Peirce, Luhmann, Spenser Braun, existential graphs, logic of distinctions, “Laws of Form”. * The editors of the journal express their sincere gratitude for editing the English texts by S.M. Volkov (New York) and E.E. Chugunova-Polson (Cambridge). Head of editorial office I.V. Lebedeva Artist V.V. Surkov Artist of the room V.N. Khoteev Proofreader O.K. Yuryev Computer layout E. B. Raguzina Format 60×90 1/16 Conv. oven l. 10.5. Uch.-ed. l. 11.0. Circulation 1050 copies. Order No. 38 Publishing Center of the Russian State University for the Humanities 6 Miusskaya Square, Moscow, 125993 www.rggu.ru www.knigirggu.ru

Gnostic cosmology and the teaching of the Church about the creation of the world "out of nothing".
Archpriest Alexy Shevchuk

From the very beginning of its existence, from the time of the apostles, the Church was protected from false knowledge by the dogmas of faith. The dogma about the creation of the world “out of nothing” is one of those dogmas that constitute the doctrinal foundation of the Church.

The pagan world of late antiquity, which was undergoing a deep spiritual crisis, differently perceived the light of the Holy Gospel that shone from Palestine. But, at the same time, the Hellenistic Late Antique philosophy was ready to accept a new “teaching”, namely, representatives of the Judeo-pagan environment considered Christianity to be nothing more than a “teaching”, from the depths of which a whole direction arose, uniting early Jewish Kabbalistics in many different sects, pagan Neoplatonism, and elements of Christianity.

This direction took the name "gnosticism" by the name of its representatives, the Gnostics - "knowing" or "possessing knowledge" (from the Greek. ?????? - knowledge) and occurs, according to the statement of the holy. Irenaeus of Lyon, from the Samaritan Simon the sorcerer, whom the holy apostle and evangelist Luke mentions (Acts 8; 9-23).

Of the innumerable series of heretical delusions of the Gnostics, one must be singled out, connected with their views on the origin of the world. Despite the great number of Gnostic sects, which interpreted their beliefs in different ways, they were united by a cosmology that carried a single meaning that the world is not the result of the creative will of God the Creator, but the “disease” of some eons (from the Greek. ????) - emanations of the Divine. “It is a great blessing to know what creation is and who is the Creator” (4). A very significant question for Christians about the creation of the world by God, in Gnosticism does not make sense, because. for them, creation is not manifestation free will The Creator, who created the world "out of nothing", but a mistake, a disease of divinity, its obscuration, "ignorance". It is in the spirit of Neoplatonic emanationism that the Gnostics resolve this issue.

Representatives of various Gnostic sects, defining the origin of "eons", their number and properties in different ways, agreed on one thing - that the Holy Scriptures are an allegorical narrative, for the interpretation of which some kind of "secret knowledge" is necessary. Such "knowledge", according to St. Irenaeus of Lyons, the Gnostics found in their heads, from which they “threw their brains” (5), as well as in “apocryphal and false writings that they themselves compiled in order to strike people who are senseless and do not know the true Scriptures” (5) . As a direct example of the cosmological inventions of the Gnostics, one can cite the so-called. "The Apocrypha of John" from the collections of the Gnostic library of Nag Hammadi, which lists a long string of "eons", one of which, Ialtabaoth, born of Wisdom, the first archon, who created "for himself other eons in the flame of bright fire. ... And he appointed seven kings .… And he separated them from his fire, but did not give them from the power of light, which he took from his mother, for he is the darkness of ignorance. And when the light mixed with the darkness, he caused the darkness to shine. And when the darkness mixed with the light, it darkened the light and became neither light nor darkness, but became sick ... ”(7). And all this thoughtful idle talk is “a way in which they deceive their minds, violating the scriptures and attempting to confirm their fiction with them” (5), for they “... became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened, calling themselves wise - they became foolish” (Rome .1; 21-22).

Unlike the Gnostics, the Church has the foundation of the doctrine of the creation of the world in Holy Scripture and in patristic Tradition. “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” (Gen. 1; 1), “through Him everything began to be, and without Him nothing began to be that began to be” (John 1; 3), “God created everything from nothing ... "(2 Macc. 17; 28). Thus, “stopping the mouths of the foolish, the blessed prophet at the very beginning of the book said this: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” When you hear: "created," you do not invent anything else, but humbly believe what is said" (4) - says the saint. John Chrysostom. And prp. John of Damascus, as it were, continues: “... out of excess of goodness, he wanted something to happen that in the future would use His blessings and be involved in His goodness, He brings from non-existent into being and creates everything without exception, both invisible and visible ... "(3).

For heretics, the Holy Scripture is not an inspired verb, but a field of activity of their own imagination, because. they have no faith either in God or in the Holy Scriptures. “Does he not believe the Scriptures?” exclaims the saint. John Chrysostom. - So turn away from him, as from the frantic and insane. But we will hold on to the indestructible foundation and turn again to the beginning: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This one saying can overthrow all the supports of opponents and destroy to the very foundations all human reasoning ... "(4).

The followers of Gnosticism perceived the idea of ​​the creation of the world as a matter of philosophical order, and not as a dogma of faith. Therefore, creation for them is not such, but is a self-unfolding, self-distribution of the Divine, a direct, natural action of internal energies that produce the existing by virtue of the Divine nature itself. Moreover, they argue that the existing happened not only without the participation of the Will, but even against the Will of the Creator. Against this fallacy, St. Irenaeus of Lyon, saying: “Those who say that the world was created against the Will of the Most High Father by angels or some other creator are mistaken, ... for this is the superiority of God, that He does not need other tools for the work of the created, but His own Word capable and sufficient to create everything” (5).

The birth of one aeon from another (even before 365, as some say), as the result of which the world appeared is impossible, as affirmed by the Gnostics, “since birth,” says St. John of Damascus is a natural action and proceeds from the very essence of God, it must be beginningless and eternal, otherwise birth would cause change, there would be God “before” and God “after” birth, God would multiply, As for creation, then it is the work of the divine Will, and therefore God is not co-eternal. The creation of the world is not a necessity. God might not have created it” (quoted from 8). However, “he willed and created from nothing” (6).

holy Basil the Great remarks: “to invent a beginning for a beginning is very ridiculous” (2), therefore, in contrast to the “matryoshka” idea of ​​self-unfolding worlds - eons (perhaps now they would say “dimensions”) nested in each other, the only beginning of the world is opposed, everything at once , the entire space-time continuum, because “before creation” nothing could exist. And when Scripture and the Holy Fathers say “out of nothing,” they mean not only matter, in the sense of matter, but space itself and time itself, which a priori do not exist outside of each other. “For this reason, the one who wisely explains the existence of the world to us, when discussing the world, very opportunely added: “in the beginning he created”, that is, in this beginning, in the beginning of time, ... that is, suddenly and instantly” (2).

All "emanations of the aeons", if they existed, should be extended in time, because they “occur”, but since there is time, then there is space, there is a world that already exists, created, and there is no place for “eons” in it, in the world created by God “out of nothing”.

“Therefore, the wise Moses, wishing to show that the world is a work of art, subject to contemplation by everyone, so that through it the wisdom of its Creator is known, he used no other word about the world, but said: “in the beginning he created”, did not, did not produce, but created” (2).

List of used literature:

1. Bible.

2. St. Basil the Great. Conversations on the Six Days.

3. Rev. John of Damascus. Exact presentation of the Orthodox faith.

4. St. John Chrysostom. Selected creations.

5. Holy martyr. Irenaeus of Lyons. Creations.

6. Rev. Macarius the Great, Egyptian. Spiritual conversations, messages, words.

7. Apocrypha of ancient Christians.

8. Lossky V.N. dogmatic theology.

INTRODUCTION

Essay on the development of anthropological ideas

Modern theology is characterized by increased attention to anthropological issues. In relation to Catholic thought, it is customary to speak of the "anthropological turn" that occurred in the second half of the 20th century, when man became the center of theological research. This shift in emphasis allowed Hans Urs von Balthasar, one of the leading contemporary Catholic theologians, to say that in Christian anthropology it is possible to find "a starting point for building a new philosophy." The same tendencies are clearly present in Orthodox thought: “Now it has become commonplace to assert,” writes Archpriest John Meyendorff, “that in our time, theology should become anthropology.” Anthropological issues occupy a key place in the work of the most prominent Orthodox theologians of our time: Archbishop Vasily (Krivoshein), V.N. Lossky, Archpriest Georgy Florovsky, Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern), Archpriest John Meyendorff, Bishop Callistus (Ware), H. Yannaras, Metropolitan John (Zizioulas). They are also given great attention by Orthodox philosophers working at the intersection of philosophy and religion, such as S. Khoruzhy, V. Shokhin and P. Gaidenko.

Similar processes in theology actually develop in the opposite direction of modern philosophy, in which, according to the precepts of Michel Foucault, there is a de-anthropologization of thinking. It must always be remembered that philosophical anthropology, like cultural anthropology, are completely different disciplines from theological anthropology. Of course, anthropological problems are also present in the philosophy of modern times and modern thought, but anthropology here has an impersonalistic character. In the philosophy of modern times, anthropology was included in the objectivity of "special metaphysics", which followed the "general metaphysics" or ontology. The subject of the study of ontology was the generic features of beings. The spirit and soul of a person were introduced into the “coordinate system of the“ psychological ”and“ pneumatological ”varieties of existence ... without any way out to the problems of his (human) existence” . The “body” of a person was simply put out of brackets.

In the 20th century, philosophy went to the other extreme. In the 60s - 70s. 19th century the term "anthropology" itself referred to the science that studied the origin of man and the development of primitive society. It "has its origins in the Darwinian movement, and early exponents such as Tylor, Lewis Morgan, and Bastian were inspired by the idea of ​​applying Darwin's evolutionary theory to the history of human development." It was a child of its age, with its belief in natural science and "positive" philosophy. It is no coincidence that her ideas had a decisive influence on the historical thinking of Fr. Engels. K ser. 20th century philosophical anthropology was formed, which “began to openly claim the status of an autonomous and at the same time “generalizing” philosophical discipline” . Its program manifesto was the work of M. Scheler "The position of man in space" (1928), in which he stated that a person can raise the question of his essence without any binding to any theological tradition. But most clearly, the essence of philosophical anthropology can be expressed in the words of H. Plesner, the leading representative of this school: “It is precisely those ways of life that connect a person with animals and plants, and are carriers of his special mode of existence, that are indifferent to spiritual self-positing.” Thus, the soul and spirit were taken out of the brackets as obsolete metaphysical concepts. The final result of the development of this trend was the classic formula of postmodernism: "man is a sexual form of the movement of matter."

Thus, only in theological anthropology can we find adequate answers to the fundamental questions of human existence: what is the essence of "human", what is a person and what is the purpose of a person? In many ways, it was the modern crisis of philosophy that led theologians to anthropological problems. Philosophy raised questions, but could not answer them.

In the works of the Holy Fathers we will not find a detailed teaching about man. Of course, this question was not completely avoided by them, but its analysis cannot be compared with the development of the trinitarian and Christological dogmas. In fact, it is modernity with its socio-political tension that has created an increased interest in the human person. However, this does not mean that we cannot solve anthropological problems within the framework of patristic thought. Our thoughts must move in line with those dogmatic premises that have been formed by Orthodox tradition.

The fundamental tenets of Orthodox anthropology are the truths expressed with particular force in the first chapters of the book of Genesis: man is a creation of God, created in His image and likeness, but in his free self-determination fell away from the original blessedness. The doctrine of man of the holy fathers and modern Christian theologians is based on these provisions. We should note that, despite the unity of the premises, one can clearly trace those features that distinguish Orthodox anthropology from the anthropology of other confessions.

• I. Dogmatic premises of the Orthodox teaching about man

Man was created in the image of God. This fundamental provision of Christian doctrine needs more specification. We are created in the image of God, who is the Trinity. Therefore, Orthodox anthropology must begin with reflection on the dogma of the Trinity. It is obvious that all our possible cataphatic statements about intra-trinic life will reveal to us many secrets of the structure of the human being. This position, based on the tradition of the thought of the Eastern Fathers, is a commonplace in modern Orthodox theology. "Image" as a way of knowing offers two possible methods: ascending and descending. When Blessed Augustine explores the human soul and ascends from the image that is imprinted in it to the knowledge of God, ... then he creates ... an anthropology of God. St. Gregory of Nyssa ... proceeds from God as a prototype in order to understand the type and determine the essence of man as an image of Being. With the help of the Divine, he "recreates the structure" of man. Thus the Eastern Fathers create the theology of man.

The great fathers of the 4th century developed the terminology that we now use to explain the Trinitarian dogma. Christians believe in God, one in Essence, but trinity in Persons. Important here is the distinction between "nature" or "essence" (????) and "face" or personality: "hypostasis" is not reducible to "ousia", personality is not reducible to essence. Divine superexistence is not the existence of an abstract, qualityless nature, which only descending into the lower eons of being acquires personal characteristics. The Personality of God "is not only a dispensational mode of manifestation of the impersonal Monad Itself, but the primary and absolute presence of God the Trinity in His transcendence" . That is why the Greek Fathers insisted on the "monarchy" of the Father, as opposed to the tendency of Western theology to see the constitutive moment of unity in the one Divine nature. Personal being in God is ontologically primary in relation to His nature. Personality is not a manifestation of nature, but nature is the content of personality. Therefore, the Son and the Holy Spirit derive their being from the hypostasis of the Father, and not from His nature. Only in this case does freedom acquire an ontological status. It is inextricably linked with the personal character of intra-trinic life. “The Personality of God the Father,” writes Christos Yannaras, “precedes and determines His essence, and is not predetermined by it. This means that God is not forced by His Essence to be God. Its existence is not subject to any necessity. God exists because He is the Father, He is the one who freely gives his will to exist, bringing forth the Son and bringing out the Holy Spirit. Freely… The Father hypostasizes His being in the Trinity of Persons, affirming the image of His existence as the communion of personal freedoms, the communion of love.” Thus, the distinction between nature and hypostasis in God is the first fundamental anthropological premise. “Man, like God, is a personal being, and not a blind nature. This is the nature of the Divine image in him.

On the other hand, the Lord creates not just a person, as a separate person, in which He alone imprints His image. The biblical story reflects another moment of creation: "male and female he created them." In its entirety, the image belongs only to them together. The Holy Fathers reveal another mystery of this biblical story. In Adam, God created all mankind. “For the name is Adam,” says St. Gregory of Nyssa, - is not given now to a created subject, as in the last narratives. But the created man does not have a special name, he is an all-man, that is, he contains all of humanity. Thus, by this designation of the universality of Adam's nature, we are invited to understand that Divine Providence and Power embrace the entire human race in the primordial. Thus, the image of God is imprinted not only in each individual person, but in all of humanity as a whole. It assumes the existence of many human hypostases. Here we find the second essential prerequisite for the construction of Orthodox anthropology. Just as God, possessing a single Nature, exists in three Persons, so the unity of human nature does not exclude its poly-hypostatic nature.

Ousia and hypostasis are distinct, but not separable. It is no coincidence that in the Greek philosophical language these concepts were synonymous. In Trinitarian theology, the concept of "hypostasis" does not correspond to the concept of "individual", three hypostases do not divide a single nature into equal parts, numerically different from each other. Each Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity extends to the whole of Nature, and does not crush It. In other words, the Son and the Spirit have the same Nature as the Father. Consequently, it is through the “inviolable communion” between the Persons of the Holy Trinity that its unity is expressed. Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, one of the most prominent modern theologians, remarks that we must place special emphasis on the relationship between community and otherness that exists in God. These two points are not in a causal relationship, but presuppose one another, since God is at the same time both the One and the Trinity. "Otherness" is a constitutive moment of unity, and does not follow it. Vladimir Nikolaevich Lossky, developing the same idea, writes that the existence of the Absolute Personality is fundamentally not self-sufficient. Hypostasis "possesses nature in common with others and exists as a person in actual connection with other persons." Personality (otherness) and communication (community), thus, are essentially interconnected concepts: "No Person can be different if It is not in relation with Others."

This position is the next fundamental anthropological premise, which has a social connotation. "The relationship between 'community' and 'otherness' that exists in God is a model for both ecclesiology and anthropology" . Differences between separate human personalities do not exclude the possibility of achieving unity. Moreover, both the uniqueness of the human personality and its commonality with other personalities is realized only in openness, in dialogue with them. This is, in fact, an exit to the social plane of being.

V.N. Lossky also points out the importance of the Christological dogma for the construction of Orthodox anthropology. It points with particular force to the irreducibility of the human personality or hypostasis to individuality, i.e. to those characteristics that the nature of this or that individual possesses. In the incarnate Christ there is one Hypostasis and two natures - Divine and human. But Christ is a perfect man, consisting of a rational soul and body, that is, an individual (“an individual substance of a rational nature,” according to Boethius). “Here the human essence of Christ is the same as the essence of other substances, or individual human natures, which are also called “hypostases” and “persons.” Therefore, "and in human beings we must also distinguish between personality, or hypostasis, and nature, or individual substance."

These are the main dogmatic premises of the Orthodox teaching about man. Based on them, modern theology is looking for answers to the questions, what is the image of God in man and how it manifests itself, what is human freedom, its basis and manifestations, what is the purpose of man, and finally, what happened to our nature after the fall, as far as applicable patristic "anthropology of the image of God" to a person in his current state, is it possible to put it at the basis of Orthodox socio-political thought, or is it necessary to create a fundamentally different anthropology - the "anthropology of sin"?

• II. The image of God in man

The creation of man in the image of God is a fundamental tenet of Orthodox anthropology, it is the defining principle of the human being. However, it is precisely on this point that the main Christian confessions diverge. The image of God penetrated into the structure of the primordial man, but is there any point in talking about it in relation to the anthropology of existing existence, distorted by sin. Orthodox consciousness has always maintained the conviction of the indestructibility of the image of God in man, its reality and reality even in fallen human nature. “The anthropological kerygma (sermon) of the Church Fathers says that the image is not at all a regulating or instrumental idea, but a defining principle of a human being.”

In patristic and theological literature there is no single idea of ​​how the image of God was manifested. Its content is so rich that it made it possible to associate the image with the various abilities of our spirit, which do not exhaust it. “Indeed,” writes V.N. Lossky, - our conformity to God is seen either in the royal dignity of man, in his superiority over the sensual cosmos, or in his spiritual nature, in the soul or in the dominant part that controls his being, in the mind (????), his highest abilities. - in the intellect, reason (?????), or in the freedom inherent in man ... Sometimes the image of God is likened to some quality of the soul, its simplicity, its immortality, or it is identified with the ability of the soul to know God, to live in communion with Him… Finally, as with Saints Irenaeus of Lyons, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory Palamas, not only the soul, but also the human body, as created in His image, participates in this conformity to God.”

Summarizing these numerous definitions, we can single out the main points of the patristic teaching about the image of God. “Creation in the image and likeness of God presupposes participation in the Divine essence, communion with God, which means that it presupposes grace.” St. Athanasius the Great insists on the ontological nature of communion with the Divine. In creation itself, man's communion with God is expressed. The action of the image is expressed "in the illumination of the human mind, ... giving it the ability to know God." St. Gregory the Theologian writes that the act of creation in the image presupposes the indestructible presence of grace inherent in human nature. A man from the divine race, as the apostle Paul speaks of this (Acts 17, 29). St. Gregory of Nyssa calls man a friend of God, living according to the conditions of Divine life. The image of God is not only in the abilities and powers of a person, it reaches that level of depth where a person is a mystery to himself. As God in His essence is unknowable, so man, "reflecting the fullness of his prototype, ... must also possess His unknowability" . Finally, for St. Gregory of Nyssa, the image is the ability of a person to freely determine himself, to make any decision, based on himself. Man rules not only over the rest of creation, but also over his own nature.

The variety of theological definitions of the concept of the image of God also does not allow us to associate it with only one or even many separate parts or abilities of a human being. All man is entirely created in the image of God. An image is a certain principle that permeates all human nature, making it conformable to God. All those qualities and abilities that the holy fathers spoke about are manifestations of the image of God, therefore these statements do not contradict each other. This image is not a part of a human being, it is given to the whole person. This is something that is not reduced to human nature, which is higher than nature, but penetrates it, giving it unity, integrity and conformity. It is simply impossible to give him an exhaustive definition, since he is essentially unknowable and indefinable.

For the Orthodox consciousness, the doctrine of the complete deprivation of the image of God by man, to which Western theology has come, is unacceptable. In this case, human nature in its pure form is opposed to an image that is superimposed on it from the outside and erased after the fall, leaving behind nature in its original natural state. In this regard, the question becomes relevant: what constitutes the nature of humanitas - specifically human? For Emil Brunner, who expresses here the Western spirit of thought, humanitas is a "formal structure" not associated in itself with the image of God. It contains certain specific qualities that make a person a man and distinguish him from an animal, but do not imply the presence of divine grace. Western theologians speak in this connection of pure human nature, natura pura, independent of its state, primeval or sinful.

For Orthodox theology, these ideas are unacceptable. Human nature does not exist outside of grace, apart from the image of God. That which is "specifically human" is permeated with currents of grace, participating in the energies of the Divine. “In its essence,” writes P. Evdokimov, “man is imprinted in the image of God, and this ontological god-likeness explains that grace is “co-nature” with nature, just as nature corresponds to grace. They complement each other and mutually penetrate each other: in participation, one exists in the other, “one in the other, in the perfect Dove” (St. Gregory of Nyssa). A person deprived of the image of God is theological nonsense, as well as absolute evil. “The absence of grace is impossible even to conceive, because this would be a perversion that destroys nature, equal to the second death, according to the Apocalypse. The most important anthropological conclusion from this situation is the assertion of Orthodox theology that the image of God is not destroyed in fallen man. It is weakened, perverted, but still determines the nature of human existence. “Indeed, the fathers always have the original fate, the heavenly state determines the human being; even after the fall, it presses with all its weight on his earthly destiny.

It is necessary to highlight one more important point in the doctrine of the image of God. Its disclosure would remain incomplete without Him Who is the Perfect Image of the Father. Human Godlikeness is, par excellence, Christlikeness, since it is in Christ that the image is revealed in absolute purity. “We cannot be ‘in the image of God’… without restoring in ourselves the archetype of the Father, who is nothing else than the incarnate Son of God.” The Orthodox consciousness here follows the following intuition: in the Council of the Trinity, Christ has been ordained from time immemorial for incarnation. Whether this was due to the foreknowledge of the Fall, it is impossible to say with certainty, however, when creating man, the Lord already had “before his eyes” the image of the incarnate Son of God, therefore, it is precisely according to this image that man is created. “The statement “man is like God” is answered by its “heavenly” definition: “God is like man” (Clement of Alexandria). Thus, God is embodied in His living icon; God does not fall into a world alien to Him, since man is the human face of God.

• III. human personality

In discussions about the image of God in man, we have come to the next fundamental problem of Orthodox anthropology. If the image of God is the principle that determines all human existence, permeates the entire composition of human nature, but remains unknowable and indefinite, then can we not identify the image of God with a person? A similar trend can be clearly seen in modern theology. However, here it is necessary to specify this provision somewhat. These concepts are not completely identical, however, it is in the person of Orthodox theology that he sees the highest manifestation of the image of God in man. “The image of God bestows on the human being the beginning of personality, ... bestows the ability of self-knowledge, self-vision and self-assertion, which creates the gift of freedom.” This idea, in essence, is a logical conclusion from the patristic teaching. So, for example, “St. Gregory of Nyssa sees what is characteristic of man, as created in the image of God, first of all in the fact that “man is freed from necessity and is not subject to the dominion of nature, but can freely self-determine at his own discretion.” This is precisely what predominantly characterizes the Divine Hypostases.

V.N. Lossky, reflecting on the problem of personality, writes that this concept is difficult to define: firstly, it is not easy to distinguish between nature and personality in a person, and secondly, within the framework of existing existence, personality is mixed with individuality. However, he insists that in theology these two concepts must be clearly separated. “Individual means the eternal mixture of personality with elements belonging to the general nature, while personality, on the contrary, means that which is different from nature” . In European philosophy, the person and the individual were the first to identify Boethius. He came to a definition that became the basis for Western European thinking: "personality is an individual substance (?????????) of a rational nature." He relied on the Aristotelian understanding of hypostasis as the second nature, which is the concrete existence of the first nature, existing only in abstraction. Based on this definition, we cannot admit the existence of a common human nature, a similarity to the nature of the Holy Trinity. There are only certain, numerically different from each other, specific human natures, individual substances, that is, parts of a "fragmented general nature." In absolute terms, we cannot dwell on this definition of personality, since it does not correspond to the Christological and trinitarian foundations of anthropology. Otherwise, it is impossible to find real, ontological prerequisites for the commonality, unity of mankind. It breaks up into separate opposing "selves". It is in this that the fatal vice of Western culture is rooted, which is basically built on the principle of "otherness", individualism, at the same time affirming the priorities of the common nature in the doctrine of the Trinity and the world created by God. But such a state is affirmed only after the fall. If we proceed from the conformity of a person to the Holy Trinity, then a person is not something that shares a common nature and opposes itself to other personalities. Personality is the beginning, embracing the whole of nature and possessing it together with other personalities. “The individual who owns a part of nature and preserves it for himself, a person who defines himself by opposing himself to everything that is “not me” is really not a person or hypostasis that possesses nature in combination with others and exists as a person in actual connection with other persons” .

In this regard, modern Orthodox theology emphasizes the dialogic nature of personality. It rises above natural, individual differences, including social and national ones. It basically aims to embrace all other individual existences. “Personality,” according to Metropolitan John (Zizioulas), “is the authenticity that is revealed in relationships, ... this is the “I”, which exists insofar as it is associated with a certain “You” ... “I” simply cannot exist without the other. This "other" is every human being, but par exellent the "other" for the human "I" is God. "Hypostasis reflects the aspect of being, open and striving beyond its limits to God". This is the answer to Heidegger and to all atheistic existentialism, which defined human existence as being towards death. Man is indeed determined by striving beyond his own limits, but this is being towards another, being towards God.

Personality is not reducible to its nature. She rises, "enhypostasizes" her. V.N. Lossky emphasizes that it is impossible to associate the concept of personality with the highest spiritual abilities of a person. In the trichotomous anthropology of the holy fathers, these abilities are associated with the third part of the human being - the mind. Indeed, a number of Fathers and theologians tend to identify reason with the hypostatic principle. However, according to Lossky, this does not correspond to the Christological dogma. On the other hand, if the mind is a personal principle, which, as we have defined, is not a separate part, but that which permeates all human nature and imparts unity to it, then it means that human nature is no different from animal nature. Therefore, both the body and the soul and the spirit are the constituent parts of human nature, incarnated in the personality.

What, then, is personality? She began the unknowable and the indefinable, as we have indicated above. V.N. Lossky notes that all our definitions of personality, in essence, refer to nature. “... We will not find a single defining property, nothing inherent in it, which would be alien to nature and would belong exclusively to the individual as such. From which it follows that we cannot form the concept of a person's personality and must be satisfied with the following: "personality is the inability to reduce a person to nature."

This is Lossky's main definition of personality. He goes on to say that it is about “someone who is different from his own nature, someone who, containing his own nature, transcends nature, who by this superiority gives existence to it as human nature, and yet does not exists on its own, outside of its nature, which it “enhypostatizes” and over which it constantly ascends, “raptures” it. According to the definition of P. Evdokimov, personality is “a concept of an irreducible and incomparable singularity ... It is a subject and a carrier to which this creature belongs and lives ... Personality is the principle of unification, creating the unity of all plans for communicating properties » .

In the light of this understanding of personality, a number of Orthodox theologians insist that in theology it is necessary to abandon the understanding of personality that has developed in modern European and modern philosophy and psychology. Beginning with German classical idealism, the individual is identified with self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is directed inside a person, at the content of nature in its separateness. “Self-consciousness has as its object ... the depth and inexhaustibility of life inside a person, and therefore self-consciousness is at the same time the consciousness of its unity, its “I”, its originality, separateness” . In ascetic literature, such a focus on oneself is called "selfhood." P. Evdokimov draws attention to the difference between two similar terms: hypostasis and prosopon. Denoting the human personality, they point to its different aspects. “Prosopon is the psychological aspect of being turned to its own inner world, to self-consciousness. Hypostasis reflects the aspect of being, open and striving beyond its limits - to God. Prosopon, therefore, is the category that characterizes a person only in the present, fallen state. For P. Evdokimov, it coincides with the understanding of individuality, which is characteristic of V. Lossky. This given must surpass itself, "bloom" into hypostasis. “It is the transition from being natural to being in Christ, which takes place in a great initiation through the mysteries, in which the human structure is completely rebuilt ... according to its Archetype, the Christ.” Only by uniting with God does a person become a person in the true sense. If this is so, then, as V. Lossky insists, the human personality can by no means be defined through self-consciousness. In this connection, it is interesting to recall the critique of self-consciousness given by B. Pasternak, who is well acquainted with European philosophy, in his Doctor Zhivago. Consciousness, - says one of his heroes, - is like a light that sanctifies the path, directed inside the personality, it destroys it. The consciousness of a person is directed not to its inner content, but to that one truth for all, which appears in the Tradition of the Church and becomes the content of numerous human hypostatic consciousnesses. Personality, therefore, in its highest expression ceases to be self-conscious and to oppose itself to that which is not itself. In the highest, ecclesiological reality, “there are many personal consciousnesses, but the only content of consciousness, a single “self-knowledge” is the Church” .

• IV. Freedom of the individual

Human freedom is another fundamental position of Orthodox anthropology. It is in his freedom that the mystery of the fall is rooted, but freedom is also a condition for the deification of man, his conscious striving for God. The Lord created man free "because he wanted to call him to the highest gift ...". If a person is not free, then the guilt for sin entirely passes to the Creator, but only personal existence can be free, it is in the personality of a person that the beginning of his independence from all external definitions lies. "Freedom belongs to us because we are personal". Like a person, it is the highest gift of the Creator.

But our everyday and even philosophical and psychological conception in many ways did not coincide with the freedom that the holy fathers speak of. The legal concept of numerous "freedoms" is especially far from it. The non-church consciousness rises, at best, to free will. However, the source of true freedom lies precisely in the individual, while the will, as follows from the Christological dogma, is a function of nature. “However, the concept of personality presupposes freedom in relation to nature, personality is free from its nature, it is not determined by its nature.” Even the holy fathers outlined this distinction. Rev. Maximus the Confessor distinguishes "natural will" as the desire for good, to which every rational nature strives, from the "choosing will" inherent in the individual. Rev. John of Damascus introduces a distinction between "freedom of the will," which refers to nature, and "freedom of choice," a function of the individual. Nature desires and acts, she reveals herself in innumerable needs, perverted after the fall. Personality is a controlling, electing authority that evaluates natural aspirations and chooses the most true ones. Any confusion between the psychological concept of "will" and the metaphysical concept of "freedom" should be avoided. Freedom is the metaphysical foundation of the will. The will is still connected with nature, it is subject to various needs and immediate goals. Freedom comes from the spirit, from the individual.

But since it is natural for nature to wish good, then freedom of choice is a consequence of the imperfection of human nature. "St. Maximus sees imperfections precisely in the need to choose, free choice is rather need than independence, it is an inevitable consequence of the fall; from the intuitive will becomes discursive, the perfect, on the contrary, follows the good immediately, it is out of choice. Grace is inalienable from nature, and personality is that principle that exists only through communion with God. Therefore, to do evil, to go against God is unnatural for a person. This is possible only under conditions when the image of God is obscured and nature is perverted. Then human nature rushes to the wrong, and the person is not able to make a true choice. “Knowing and willing by its imperfect nature, the person is practically blind and powerless; she no longer knows how to choose and too often succumbs to the impulses of nature, which has become a slave to sin. In this case, we have the right to talk about the loss of true freedom by a person. The truly free act is the following of God's will and law, which coincides with the aspirations and actions of restored human nature. “When she ... reaches her peak, she freely desires only truth and goodness. In the future fullness, in the image of Divine freedom, truth and love will correspond to what freedom wills.

As an example of this true freedom, P. Evdokimov cites the free “let there be,” said by the Mother of God to the angel, who announced to Her that it was She who would become the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. Her “let there be” is not submission to the external Divine will. Here this will completely coincides with the desire of the Mother of God herself. All her life she aspired to this action, although out of humility she wished to be only a servant of the One Who would become the Mother of God. This is an eternal example for all Christians, this is a call to make God's will your own will.

In theology and religious philosophy, one often encounters the assertion that a person has freedom of choice only so long as this choice is not made. After that, freedom loses its meaning. P. Evdokimov considers such ideas limited. If a person has made a choice, this does not mean that he is no longer free: “Just as the Son is born and is eternally born, so the person who has chosen the truth is born from it, eternally chooses it and each time experiences it anew.”

Man's freedom cannot be freedom in itself or freedom for itself. Personality is inseparable from the freedom for the “other”, the freedom to be different. Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) sees such freedom as a synonym for love. A person is truly free only when he loves, when he identifies himself with the "other", not only with God, but also with every person he meets on his way. “The personality of the “other” will appear in the image of God to those who manage to renounce their individual limitations in order to regain a common nature and thereby “realize” their own personality. Only such freedom can be put at the foundation of social existence, only it can reconcile community and "otherness", that is, save society from sliding into totalitarianism or corrupting individualism. Freedom for another, according to K.B. Sigov, a researcher of the work of Metropolitan John (Zizioulas), should become the main concept not only for ecclesiology, but also for ethics. We should not wait for the arrival of a transformed reality, but already here and now, within the framework of existing existence, we should put this concept at the basis of social and legal reality.

• V. The Fall and Its Consequences

In the freedom of man lies the possibility of the fall, the possibility of free choice of what is not good and true. Man is created perfect, but not absolute. The cosmology and anthropology of the Eastern Church are dynamic. Man has his own task, which also contains the direction in which the whole creation develops. Our being strives for a certain goal, which in patristic literature is characterized as "deification". "Before the fall, Adam was neither a 'pure nature' nor a deified man." According to the bold words of Basil the Great, "God created man as an animal that received the command to become God." In his free striving, he had to come to the measure of perfection and unite with God through his nature the rest of the world. "Adam had to ... combine in himself the totality of the created cosmos and together with him achieve deification." In this position lies the key to the differences between image and likeness, which are already found in the Bible. These are different moments of a dual reality. An image is something that is given to a person that creates the potential possibility of deification, likeness is the ultimate goal, something that is achieved “through virtue” (St. John of Damascus).

The ultimate goal - an exit to the Absolute - is possible only in God. “All perfections and virtues belong to God… God is the fullness that satisfies itself; Absolute Good, Truth, Beauty…; local being is a lack of being and a diminished, detrimental presence of all higher values. Only with the help of divine grace could a person fulfill his destiny, without it he can only die. At the very beginning of his history, a person makes a fatal choice - he leaves God, refuses his grace, breaks away from the Source of all blessings. Despite the fact that the evil was "prompted" to the man, he freely agreed to this step.

In theology, it is customary to talk about the internal and external moments of the fall into sin. The external side consisted in the violation of the specific commandment of God not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17). According to the inner essence, it was the whole complex of sinful actions. But among these actions, one can determine the first and defining moment of the fall, in relation to which everything else is only a consequence.

Adam, committing sin, did not give up the goals that were given to him by God. “You will be like Gods,” in these words the serpent perversely represents what the Lord has prepared for man. But Adam refuses God, he accepts Satan's offer to become an absolute without God, to turn into a self-sufficient being. "Self" is the source of everything sinful, the repetition of the devil's fall into sin. "The root of sin is the desire for self-deification, the hatred of grace." Human being is transformed from being-towards-God into being-for-itself. By definition, St. Pavel Florensky, “the sin is in the unwillingness to enter from the state of self-identity, from the identity “I = I”, or, more precisely, “I”! The affirmation of oneself as oneself, without one's relation to another, that is, to God and to all creation, ... is the fundamental sin or the root of all sins. All private sins are only modifications, only a manifestation of the self-stubbornness of the self. From that moment on, God becomes an external and incomprehensible force for a person, before which he feels fear and shame. He is seized by an irresistible desire to hide from the face of God, to get away from Him. According to Metropolitan John (Zizioulas), fear of God determines a person's attitude towards any "other", be it another person or the outside world. “This fear comes from the refusal of the first man, Adam, and before him, the satanic forces that rebelled against God, from that “Other” par excellence who is our Creator. The essence of sin is the fear of the "Other", the fear that comes from this rejection. Elsewhere, Metropolitan John writes: “Through the rejection of the ‘other’, we turn difference into division and die. Hell, the eternity of death is nothing but isolation, alienation from the other, as the fathers teach.

An interesting idea was proposed by P. Evdokimov. He points out that, according to the holy fathers, the original man was predominantly spiritual, bodily life before the fall was external to man. Man had only to gradually sink into this life, spiritualizing and humanizing it. But man plunged into this element ahead of time, even before the time when he could come to the power and domination of the spiritual over the material. “Good in itself, animal nature, due to the perversion of the hierarchy of values, will now become perverted for man.” It is no coincidence that some Holy Fathers, for example, St. Clement of Alexandria and St. Gregory of Nyssa see original sin in the fact that Adam and Eve prematurely indulged in reproduction. But, apparently, this confusion took place already after the initial falling away from God, after the striving for one's own "I". “Having become like gods, man first of all felt himself naked, helpless, embarrassed and hastened to “hide between the trees” from the face of the Lord, trying to plunge into the elements of world life and lock himself in it.”

The result of everything is bodily death, which reduces to absurdity all aspirations of a person to be arranged without God. The Holy Fathers said that, despite the fact that man was created, that is, not without beginning, he was not created mortal. Mortality or immortality depended on his free choice. “Initially, man was not created for death,” writes Archpriest Sergei Bulgakov, “the possibility of immortality was invested in him. A person had to affirm this possibility in himself by a spiritual and creative feat, but he could abolish it, which happened in original sin. But death itself cannot be perceived by us as an unambiguous evil. Yes, Christ came to abolish death. First of all, by defeating its source. But in this case, bodily death is what saves a person from final death.

The Orthodox teaching on the consequences of the Fall differs from the Catholic and Protestant ones. First, as we have already noted, Orthodoxy insists that the image of God was not lost by man after falling away from God. Consequently, he retained his spiritual abilities, but in an extremely weakened form. "No evil can ever erase the original mystery of man, since there is nothing that can destroy the indelible seal of God in him." Secondly, Orthodox theology rejects the idea of ​​original guilt put forward by Blessed Augustine. "Human beings ... automatic inherit Adam's perishability and mortality, but not his fault: they are only guilty of imitating Adam by their own choice." The Apostle Paul speaks of a certain mystical consubstantiality that exists between all people. “Each of us is guilty for everyone,” said F.M. Dostoevsky. That is why all human nature was damaged in Adam and we, by the very fact of belonging to his descendants, inherit the consequences of our ancestral sin. But each of us is responsible only for our own sins.

Conclusion

The Orthodox teaching about man defines two essential points that influence his fate. Firstly, this is the creation of man in the image and likeness of God, and, secondly, his fallen state. This is the main difference between Orthodox anthropology and Catholic and Protestant anthropology. Both the Holy Fathers and our modern theologians always begin their story about man with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the God-Man Jesus Christ. It is the conformity of a person to his Prototype that is the main determining principle of his existence. The Fall is only a principle of distortion, there is too much evidence here, which is not worth focusing on. The image of God is a sign of the indestructible presence of grace, co-natural to man, which determines his "humanity", his difference from the rest of creation. A person does not exist without the grace of the image of God, which contains his being, which determines the uniqueness of each person, which transcends his nature, incarnates it, but is not reduced to it. It is in the image of God that we must seek the mystery of the human person. That is why man in his ultimate foundation is almost absolutely free. He is able to go beyond all external definitions for his personality, including his own nature. He is so free that he can even go against God, but he can also freely return to Him, having reached the highest state - deification. The man has sinned. And we must not forget about it. In the social teaching of Orthodoxy there should be no place for any Solovyovian optimism. We are not yet with God, there is a lot of sin in us, which still determines the spread of evil throughout the world. But the way has already been shown to us, and in our reverse movement we are not alone. The Lord Himself came to meet us. And He is not just a testament to us from an unknown distance. He knocks at our door, reminding us that we are not strangers to Him. We have His image. And this image only needs to be raised, cleaned, and it will sparkle with primordial purity, unthinkable for our fallen state.

During the meeting, the results of the first semester of the 2018/2019 academic year were summed up and a resolution was adopted to support the position of the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church in connection with the encroachment of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the canonical territory of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.