The world did not arise by chance, but in accordance with the Divine plan. And logic forces us to admit that this plan is eternal, since the idea of the creation of the world could not arise suddenly in God.
Eternal Council of the Holy Trinity- beginningless, timeless (occurring before the age, before the time - "before" the age, "before" the time) God's plan for the world He created.
The pre-eternal council of the Holy Trinity is called pre-eternal, since it is carried out outside the time inherent in our created world. The eternal council of the Holy Trinity is carried out in Divine eternity, preceding the existence of all created things and events. At the eternal council of the Holy Trinity, the Divine conception of each creature that is to receive life from God is determined. The eternal council is called council, for all Persons participate in it. Holy Trinity.
The eternal advice is special advice. The Persons of the Holy Trinity participating in it exist inseparably and possess a single Divine will. The ideas and plans of the eternal council are the ideas and plans of a single omnipotent Being, which are always fulfilled and put into practice. Therefore, the word "advice" in this case is closer to the concept of volitional predecision, will, understood as a thought, plan or idea, which will certainly and immutably come true.
According to St. John of Damascus, God "contemplated everything before his being, but each thing receives its being at a certain time, according to His eternal willing thought, which is predestination, and image, and plan." Divine thoughts, plans and images are God's "eternal and unchanging council", in which "everything is inscribed, predetermined by God and unswervingly accomplished, before his being." Divine advice is immutable, eternal and immutable, for God Himself is eternal and immutable. At the eternal Divine Council of the Holy Trinity, a decision was made on the creation of man, which is reflected in the words of Scripture: “Let us make man in Our image and after Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). At the eternal Divine Council of the Holy Trinity, a decision was made on the Incarnation of the Son of God and the salvation of mankind.
The pre-eternal advice on the salvation of the human race is the idea of the Incarnation as the union of the Divine and human nature in the God-man Jesus Christ, of the salvation and redemption of the human race through His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. This plan is the most important part of God's general plan for the entire created world.
The divine plan for the salvation of the human race is an eternal plan, like all the plans of God. anticipating human fall before the creation of the world, God in eternity determined the salvation of mankind.
The First Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Father, acted as the Planner of this decision.
The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, for the sake of the salvation of mankind, expressed his consent to the Incarnation, which is reflected in the words of Scripture: “You did not desire sacrifices and offerings, but prepared a body for Me. Burnt offerings and sin offerings are not pleasing to You. Then I said, Behold, I am coming, as it is written of me at the beginning of the book” (Heb. 10:7-10), and also in the words “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
The Third Person of the Holy Trinity The Holy Spirit prepared Himself to be sent down by the Father in the name of the Son, in order to spiritually transform those who believe in the Son of God by His grace-filled action, to assimilate to them the fruits of His sacrifice, to communicate to them the priceless gift of the knowledge of God, to make them "partakers of God's nature" (2 Pet. 1:4).
Question 24. Where did evil come from in the created world? What is evil?
From the Book of Genesis (ch. 1) it is known that all creation is very good. This is a transtemporal characteristic of the whole creation: the creation came out of the hands of God, and therefore it is good. In this case, the question arises: where does evil come from in the world?
Evil first appeared in the world of angels, long before the creation of man.
The problem of evil itself can be seriously posed and solved only in the context of the Christian worldview. From the point of view of Christian teaching, evil cannot take place among created beings. According to St. fathers, evil spirits were also created good. Rev. John of Damascus teaches that the devil "was not created evil by nature, but was good and created for good and did not receive in himself from the Creator even a trace of evil." holy Cyril of Jerusalem also says that he was "created good."
However, the spiritual experience of mankind, especially the Christian experience, unequivocally testifies that evil is not just some shortcoming, imperfection of nature. Evil has its own activity.
The answer to the question about the nature of evil is given by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The Lord's Prayer ("Our Father") ends with the petition "deliver us from the evil one." The Evil One is not something, some entity, but someone, some personality. Therefore, from a Christian point of view, evil is not nature, but a state of nature, or rather, the state of the will of a rational being, falsely directed towards God. V. N. Lossky gives the following definition of evil: “Evil is the state in which the nature of personal beings who have turned away from God resides.”
Based Holy Scripture it is possible to give the following definition of evil spirits, or fallen angels: these are personal, i.e., free-reasoning, incorporeal beings, who of their own free will fell away from God, became evil and formed a special world hostile to God and goodness, but dependent on God.
The Scriptures leave us no doubt that evil spirits do exist. These are not just images in which impersonal evil is personified. Chapter 3 of Genesis tells of the temptation of the first parents; in the Book of Leviticus (ch. 16) it is said (according to the reading of the Masoretic text) that the evil spirit Azazel; in Deut. 32 pagan sacrifices are spoken of as offerings to demons. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself in His teachings speaks of demons as real beings, casts them out and commands them.
The world, which was formed by the spirits that fell away from God, is not chaotic, it has a clear organization. Holy Scripture speaks of the world of evil spirits as a kingdom (see Matt. 12:26). The sole head of this kingdom is a certain spirit, which in the Holy Scriptures has several names: Satan (see: Matt. 12) (Heb. šāv6; āv0; - resisting), the devil (Greek διάβολος, - slanderer), Beelzebub (historically Baal-zebub is the name of one of the Canaanite deities, which mentioned in 2 Kings 1:2). It is also called the ancient serpent (Rev. 12:9), the dragon (Rev. 12:3–4). The Lord Jesus Christ calls him the prince of this world (John 12:31). This name indicates that our fallen world, due to the sinful captivity of people, is largely in the power of this spirit. Ap. For the same reason, Paul calls him the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4) and the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2). The extreme hostility of the world of fallen spirits and its head towards God is expressed in the words of Christ, Who directly calls the head of this kingdom an enemy (Matthew 13:24-25).
Among the disembodied spirits, one stood out with holiness and spiritual greatness - Dennitsa, or Lucifer (which means Light-bearer). In his closeness to God, he surpassed all other angels.
You remember that angelic nature, like human nature, needs constant improvement and affirmation of itself in goodness. Angels, like people, have the only source of their holiness and spiritual strength in God. And the angel, just like each of us, has free will, which is capable of not only following the will of God, but also deviating from it.
Now tell me, in what case do people become far from each other, even though they lived in the same apartment? - When they lose mutual love. So the one who loses love for God becomes far from Him. This is the greatest fall.
Dennitsa, the highest angel, admired his created, angelic beauty. He rejected the love of God and desired to take the place of God himself.
This is called pride, or self-love (selfishness). The essence of such a sin is a selfish turn of attention to oneself. The fallen angel showed such interest in himself that his own "I" became for him at the center of the universe. Dennitsa became an idol for himself, and considered everything else as a means to his glorification.
Evil does not have an independent existence, its own nature. This is the voluntary desire of rational beings to live without God. Evil appeared as a conscious deviation from good, resistance to it. It is a protest against God and all that is of God. Therefore, evil is a deviation from being to non-being, from life to death.
Evil is rooted in misunderstood freedom and misdirected will. It seeks independence in everything, isolation from the Creator, and therefore in itself is a completely imaginary value, in reality equal to round zero.
This is a state of rebellion and rebellion. And as a force directed against the Creator, it is always destructive.
The very essence of evil is in the constant distortion, damage to what exists. Those who do evil cause harm and great suffering, first of all to themselves, because they go against their own nature, created in the image of God.
From the editors of "RN": Icon of the Holy Trinity— the highest expression of this Spiritual Reality in the world culture— created prp. Andrei Rublev as a spiritual response to the Battle of Kulikovo and "praise" to St. Sergius of Radonezh. The article by A. Saltykov tells about Who and what is depicted on this Icon.
Author Alexander Saltykov —
now an archpriest, dean of the faculty of church arts of the PSTGU, a well-known art critic, one of the first researchers at the Andrey Rublev Central Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art, a member of the Union of Artists of Russia.
This article "Iconography of the "Trinity" by Andrey Rublev"published (in abbreviations)in the publication of the Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi at the State Tretyakov Gallery"Tolmachevsky sheet" №30 for 2009.
The image of the "Trinity" in the form of three angels is based on the text of the 18th chapter of the book of Genesis: "And the Lord appeared to Abraham at the oak forest of Mamre, when he was sitting at the entrance to his tent, during the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood against him. Seeing, he ran towards them from the entrance to the tent and bowed to the ground, and said: Master! with thy servant, do not pass by thy servant; and they will bring some water, and wash your feet; and rest under this tree, and I will bring bread, and you will refresh your hearts; then go on your way; as you are going past your servant. They said: do as you say. and unleavened bread. And Abraham ran to the flock, and took a tender and good calf, and gave it to the boy, and he hastened to cook it. And he took butter and milk and the calf cooked, and set it before them, and he himself stood by them under a tree. And they ate. And they said to him: Where is Sarah your wife? He answered: here, in the tent. And one of them said: I will be with you again at the same time in next year and Sarah your wife will have a son. ... And those men got up and went from there to Sodom and Gomorrah; Abraham went with them to see them off."
The "Old Testament Trinity" is the only dogmatic story in Eastern Christian art that is presented in the form of a biblical scene. Therefore, it must be taken into account that in each image of the "Trinity" two levels of content are combined: narrative and dogmatic. Different ratios of these two levels determine the variety of compositions.
The icon of the "Trinity" is written by St. Andrei Rublev in the first third of the 15th century. for the Trinity Church in Sergius Lavra. Rev. Nikon of Radonezh [*] instructs the icon painter to paint a temple icon with a memorial purpose: "in praise of his father Sergius the Wonderworker."
[*] Rev. Nikon of Radonezh - favorite student of St. Sergius of Radonezh, who before his death appointed him as his successor. Rev. Nikon was abbot of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in 1392-1426.
Rev. Sergius of Radonezh was glorified as having a special "boldness towards the Holy Trinity". The creators of hymns in his honor called him the "Trinity of the universe." The image in his "praise" was supposed to be purely speculative, philosophical in nature, in contrast to the previous images of the "Trinity", at least without forefathers (before St. Andrei Rublev, there were several types of images of the Trinity, differing in the composition of angels and forefathers, including without forefathers at all (Abraham and Sarah). However, there were few of the latter and, mainly, these were images on works of small plastic and miniatures).
The Old Testament Trinity. Icon of the Novgorod school. XV century. (Rublev's coloristic thought becomes especially clear when comparing the Rublev icon with the Pskov Trinity "from the Moscow Assumption Obor and the Novgorod" Trinity "from the collection of the State Russian Museum. There, the cinnabar-red dominant in the robes of angels speaks not of reconciliation, not of bright sadness. She is a fiery principle, scorching with the greatness of a deity that has appeared to man).
Beginning with Rublev's "Trinity", an abstract type of "Trinity" appears in Rus'. The later very numerous images of this type no longer have any other content than the image of the Trinity Itself.
The low prevalence of images of the Trinity without forefathers in the pre-Rublev time is apparently explained by the fact that iconography only gradually and in parallel with the development of dogmatics revealed ideas about the revealed Deity. Created by Rev. Andrei Rublev's version had a huge impact on further Russian iconography. If the "Trinity" with the forefathers is a biblical-historical image, then the "Trinity" without them already before Andrei Rublev was a revelation of the trinity itself - so essential for Christian dogma.
Apparently, before writing the "Trinity" St. Andrei Rublev in the monastery, the main temple image was the icon of the "Trinity" with the forefathers. Rublev undoubtedly knew her and, according to Nikon's plan, had to surpass her.
The first Lavra "Trinity" was the usual five-figure image - three angels appeared to Abraham and Sarah. Rublev needed to express that pure idea of trinity, which, under the influence of Sergius, became the highest expression of the ideals of the era.
In the “pre-Rublev” Trinity, Abraham and Sarah are depicted as approaching the divine meal, which emphasizes the Eucharistic [*] and at the same time “house-building” meaning of the event.
[*] The meal of the angels is a prototype of the greatest sacrament of the New Testament Church - the Eucharist (Greek thanksgiving), in which believers partake of communion under the guise of bread and wine True Body and the blood of Christ.
The Eucharistic content of Rublev's "Trinity" is a further development of earlier ideas. It should be said that the Lavra predecessor of Rublev was an experienced and thoughtful master, he was aware of modern both artistic and theological ideas and quests. It was not easy to surpass him.
However, Rublev found new opportunities for expressing his ideas and created a worthy "praise" for Sergius.
COMPOSITION "TRINITY"
The composition of the "Trinity" has a special perfection. There is a huge literature on the composition of Rublev's "Trinity", many subtle observations have been made. It also lists those necessary features that are not repeated in the monuments "without forefathers" and determine the essence of the "temporary" development of the event depicted in the icon.
Trinity. 1427 (A. Rublev)
The most significant, from our point of view, compositional technique of St. Andrei Rublev is that the angels are brought to the fore as far as possible. Compared with his "Trinity" in other compositions of the same name, the figures are usually somewhat pushed back. In Rublev's icon, the desire to push the figures to the limit led to a feature already noted in the literature: it seems that the middle angel is in the foreground. [V.I. Lazarev. Andrei Rublev and his school. M., 1969, p. 39.].
At one time, M.V. Alpatov noted that angels are inscribed in a circle. It can be assumed that Rublev used the rhythm characteristic of images on panagia, but the mechanical transfer of a circular composition to a rectangular plane is, of course, completely insufficient to create a work of art. As L.A. Uspensky noted, in panagias the arrangement of figures in a circle is determined by the shape of the object, and not by dogmatic thought. Andrey Rublev took the old elements from the well-known iconographic versions of the "Trinity", but "harmonized" them in a new way, subordinating them to the main idea of the image.
The protrusion of the angels "at the viewer", the reduction in the scale of landscape elements, the cut of the wings of the right and left angels, the convergence of the foot at an acute angle - all this contributes not only to the introduction of various rhythms into the composition, but also serves to clearly define the position of the viewer, always oriented towards the direct presence of the middle angel.
Once again, attention should be paid to the choice of the "temporary" moment. The angels, as it were, passed Abraham's booth and make a covenant again, but not only with the forefather of Israel, but with the viewer, who, standing in front of the bowl, "closes" the circle underlying the composition from the fourth side.
WHO DO THE ANGELS SYMBOLIZE?
Let's move on to the main thing - the image of the angels themselves. In art history literature, it has become a stable tradition to talk about the amazing sophistication of the lines of the silhouettes of angels, so corresponding to the quiet harmony of their images. The geometric correctness of sinusoids and parabolas of contours is often noted, which was first mentioned with enthusiasm by Yu.A. Olsufiev. The idea is often held that "each of the angels is silently immersed in himself. They are not connected by their views either with each other or with the viewer"[*].
[*] See: Yu.A. Olsufiev. Icon-painting forms as synthesis formulas. Sergiev, 1926, p. 10-12.; "History of Russian Art", vol. III. M., 1955, p. 152.
However, such observations, for all their fidelity and subtlety, do not answer the question: what is the hidden thought that shows through in the barely noticeable actions of angels? To try to answer it, let us first turn to the image of the middle angel.
The middle angel symbolizes God the Son
The compositional position - in the center - and the face, unlike others, turn, make his image the main one for direct perception. This position of the angel is determined by the fact that it depicts the second Person of the Trinity - the Son of God. This is quite consistent with the tradition [*].
[*] The issue of the relationship of angels with hypostases, which caused a lot of controversy in the literature, is easily resolved if you carefully read the iconography, in which, as a rule, the middle angel has the attributes of the Son of God - primarily a cross halo, as well as some others. Exceptions like the "Zyryanskaya Trinity" are apparently so unconventional that they required inscriptions over angels denoting the Persons of the Trinity. It would be completely unhistorical to imagine that Andrei Rublev would arbitrarily change the canonical arrangement of hypostases, which he, as a monk and leading Moscow icon painter, had to consider unshakable.
The middle angel bows his head to the right, i.e. towards the first angel. Obviously, this expresses attention to the first angel, right hand which is represented in a gesture of blessing. The answer of the second angel to the blessing of the first is not limited, however, to the bow of the head. M.V. Alpatov noted the elevation of the left knee of the middle angel. The right knee remains in place. Obviously, the angel gets up, listening to the first angel. This essential feature has been overlooked by researchers. Smooth, harmonious lines only "mask" the swiftness of his movement. To see this, let's take a closer look at his silhouette, at the contours of his shoulders. They are almost symmetrical. But this symmetry is achieved by the fact that the shoulders are given in a complex turn: the left shoulder goes deep into the image, which is emphasized by the folds of the himation (himation - outerwear) vertically extending back; the right shoulder moves forward along with the arm.
The tension of the action, the hidden movement is conveyed by the peculiarities of clothing - the shape of the sleeve, the position of the draperies, the peculiarities of the cutout of the tunic of the middle angel.
The combination of calm and turbulent movement, conveyed with such skill by Rublev, creates a sense of harmony. The degree of tension of the middle angel is maximized by the combination of opposing movements, although the artist hides the nakedness of the action with amazing perfection and thereby enhances its effect.
In building the figure of St. Andrei Rublev seems to deviate quite a bit from the traditional image of the middle angel, for example, in the first Lavra Trinity, where we see the same triangular layout of the figure. But there are no marked elements of dynamics. These elements are present in a similar combination in the Byzantine and Balkan images of angels of a different type - in the scenes of "The Myrrh-Bearing Woman at the Holy Sepulcher", where we see a number of the same details - the turn of the shoulders, in which the folds of the himation "leave" vertically along the far shoulder, the cutout on the shoulder that comes forward, the sleeve, rounding from the movement of the hand.
The image created by Rublev combines elements of different iconographic types of angels. The spreads he uses go back to ancient plastic, but more deeply transformed than that of the Byzantines - the form is subordinated to a much greater extent to the line, which, in turn, is characterized by a calm rhythm of geometrized forms.
Where is the middle angel hurrying to? What task of the first angel is he in a hurry to fulfill? Before answering this, let us turn to the image of the first and third angels.
The first angel symbolizes God the Father
The angel sits more upright than the rest; in addition to the blessing gesture, we also note the direct setting of the rod ("measurement"), which is put forward at the same time, in contrast to the bowed rods of the second and third angels. Hands are shifted almost close, such a gesture expresses composure and purposefulness. Like the second angel, his leg is slightly raised. We will dwell on the meaning of this movement below.
The signs of authority symbolize God the Father. His blessing applies not only to the second, but also to the third angel.
The third angel symbolizes God the Holy Spirit
The latter personifies the greatest peace, it has a peaceful concentration, even some relaxation and softening. The position of the rod of the third angel is characteristic; it lies on the shoulder, and in the lower part is located comfortably and steadily between the slightly spread knees and the crossed legs of the angel. This position corresponds to the posture of thoughtful, unhurried reflection.
Contrasting to the general rest of the figure of the third angel is the position of his wings. If the wings of the first and second angels are generally calm and even, then the third ones are inclined in varying degrees, which indicates movement. The rise of the left wing moves the viewer's gaze to the mountain, which achieves vertical unity of all elements of the image.
The movements of the wings express spiritual uplift, complementing the image of spiritual peace. As in other angels, in the third angel the states of movement and rest are combined, and the movement is expressed mainly in symbols,
while in the middle angel their combination is expressed through the "discreteness" of the forms of the figure itself, and in the first - their opposition is almost smoothed out, at the same time the second and third angels are opposed to each other as the primary carriers of both movement and rest.
However, according to one of the classical formulations contained in the works of Basil the Great, "The Son is the image of the Father, and the Spirit is the image of the Son." This definition is generally very important for medieval art, since it occupies a prominent place in the Byzantine theory of the image, as the general basis of artistic creativity, which was formed especially during the struggle against iconoclasm. In Rublev's "Trinity" it finds a broad and complete expression primarily through the likeness of angels. This similarity has a certain artistic complexity. Some features bring together the first and second angels, others - the second and third.
As is constantly noted in publications, the heads of the second and third angels tend to the first. If we mentally reconstruct the "real" position of all three angels around the table, then this declination will be a sign of symmetry. Other similar signs will be the positions of the hands. In the second and third, they are somewhat apart, the right one is on the table, the left one is on the knee, and in the first one, the arms are raised and brought together. The position of the bowed wands is also symmetrical. The pattern of the angels' clothes has a mirror symmetry. In the second, the himation is thrown from left to right, and in the third, from right to left. However, the blue spots of the clothes correspond to the "repeated" symmetry. The discrepancy between the symmetry of form and the symmetry of color is one of the methods of ancient Russian art that complicates the image. In the first angel, the clothes on both shoulders are the same, that is, symmetrically with respect to the second and third angels in the reconstruction of the "real" position.
The above observations on symmetry allow us to say the following. If in the usual - planar - perception the second angel is a natural center, in relation to which the first and third are symmetrical, then in the spatial perception, any angel becomes central, and the other two form a symmetrical figure in relation to it. Thus, the ideal ratio of angels can be conditionally likened to the equality of angles in a triangle.
The same transformation occurs with the elements of the landscape, as they are inseparably linked to the space of each figure. Moved in mental reconstruction after the figures, these elements form an outer circle behind the Trinity. Thus, the Trinity is, as it were, in the center of the cosmos, while the cup is the center of the Trinity.
As a result of the spatial comprehension of the composition, it is possible to answer the previously posed question about the meaning of the movement of the middle angel: the Father sends the Son into the world, and the motive of love for the world is especially important [*]. The artist remains within the framework of biblical historicism, but the depiction of the forefathers becomes optional.
[*] This is indicated, in particular, by N. Demina (see N. Demina. Andrey Rublev and the artists of his circle. M., 1963, p. 48) on the basis of the text: "For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son ... that the world might be saved through Him" (John 3, 16-17).
Rublev depicts the moment before one of the angels sent the other two to Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:21-22). The son instantly agrees to fulfill the task ("the word was flesh"),
therefore, the turbulence of his movement expresses love and obedience. The rise of the angel depicts his descent into the world and his readiness for a redemptive sacrifice. The symbols of his sacrifice, as you know, in the icon are considered a tree and a bowl; compositionally, the angel is presented among them. The historical and supra-historical meanings in both symbols intersect, and the intensity of the angel's movement is substantiated in the semantic tension that is revealed through the symbols.
ETERNAL COUNCIL OF THE HOLY TRINITY
Rublev's work is a complete artistic reflection of the Eastern Christian doctrine of the Trinity. It should be noted that in this work the artist depicted, of course, not the hypostases themselves, but angels, in the actions and attributes of which they (hypostases) are manifested.
Created by Rev. Andrei Rublev can call the iconographic type the image of the "Trinity - the Eternal Council"[*].
[*] The Eternal Council is the mysterious decision of the Divine Persons, which preceded the creation of man: "And God said: Let us make man in Our image and after Our likeness" (Gen. 1, 26). The Slavic word "council" means "expression of the will" and not "conference", because "meeting" in its meaning means the coordination of several wills, while in God the will is one.
God created man as a free being who is capable of abusing his freedom, turning his back on his Creator. God foresaw that man would misuse his freedom and sin. And having sinned, he will need redemption. Therefore, God determined to save man and preselected the necessary means for this. These means are the incarnation of the Son of God, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, and His atoning sacrifice.
The essence of the Council is the voluntary consent of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity to offer Himself as a redemptive sacrifice for the salvation of man and the whole world.
The Holy Spirit assimilates to the redeemed sinners the fruits of Christ's sacrifice and by His assistance accomplishes the work of salvation in the hearts of men: "God from the beginning, through the sanctification of the Spirit and faith in the truth, chose you unto salvation" (2 Thess. 2:13).
In this case, it is understandable why the middle angel is depicted in the icon without the usual cross-shaped nimbus.
All of the above does not exclude the active social significance of the Trinity. We must agree with those researchers who see in the "Trinity" a symbolic response to the Battle of Kulikovo.
In his work, Rev. Andrei contrasted the "hateful strife of this world" with the ideal of harmony and love, he managed to tell his contemporaries something completely new both in the form and in the content of the "Trinity", while completely remaining within the traditional elements of both form and content. This is how the brilliant artist and great thinker ancient Rus' Andrei Rublev.
PAOLA VOLKOVA: BRIDGE OVER THE DEEP. ANDREY RUBLEV "TRINITY"
In the Eastern Christian theological and liturgical tradition, it is asserted that the creation of man is preceded by the "Eternal Council" about the creation of man and his future fate, about what God's response will be to man's possible deviation from the will of God. Rev. John of Damascus calls it "the eternal and always unchangeable Council" of God (Words against those who condemn holy icons. 1. 10).
On the sixth day, God creates man, but he creates differently than everything else. The creation of man is preceded by the Pre-Eternal Council of God: if, in order to create new types of life (plants, fish, birds, animals), God, commanding the elements, earth and water, produces one or another type (Genesis 1.11, 20, 24), then during the creation of man, He, as it were, consults with Himself: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.(Gen 1:26).
Commenting on the biblical account of the creation of man, the Fathers of the Church draw attention to the fact that "when the foundation was laid ... for the world ... creation was accomplished as if hastily ... by a collectively pronounced command." But the creation of man “is preceded by advice, and the Artist, according to the outline of the word, prefigures the future creation, and what it should be like and what kind of prototype to wear likeness; and for what it will be, and what it will produce after creation, and over what it will rule - all this is provided by the Word, so that a person would take on a dignity that is higher than his being, acquire power over creatures before he himself came into being. Only the Creator of everything proceeds to the creation of man with discretion, in order to prepare the substance for its composition, and to liken its image in beauty to the prototype, and determine the purpose of its existence, and create a nature corresponding to it ( Gregory of Nyssa, St. About the constitution of man. 3).
In a mysterious phrase where God, referring to Himself, uses the verb in the plural - Let's create(Gen 1:26), the holy fathers of the Church saw an indication of the meeting of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. Rev. Maximus the Confessor speaks of the “Great Council of God and the Father” as “surrounded by silence and an unknown mystery of dispensation. The Only Begotten Son revealed and fulfilled it through the incarnation, becoming the Herald of the Great and Eternal Council of God the Father” (Chapters on theology and economy of the incarnation of the Son of God. 2. 23).
One of the stichera of the feast of the Annunciation Holy Mother of God begins with the words: “The Council of the Eternal, revealing to You, Otrokovitsa, Gabriel appeared ...”. The message that the Mother of God received from the angel was the result of the Divine decision made at the Pre-eternal Council of the Holy Trinity - the decision that for the salvation and deification of man, God would become incarnate and Himself become a man.
A person is created free, and his freedom is so unlimited that he, if he wants, can separate himself from God and oppose his desire to live as he wants, to oppose the will of God and the Providence of God. The Eternal Council means the consent of all the Persons of the Holy Trinity to take responsibility for the fate of man.
According to Tertullian, when creating human flesh, God created it not only for man, but also for his own Son, meaning His future incarnation (On the Resurrection of the Flesh. 6). “For He would not really have the flesh and blood, through which He redeemed us, if He had not reunited in Himself the ancient creation of Adam” (Against Heresies. V 1.2), says Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyon. According to St. Anastasius of Sinai, “the combination of soul and body in us is [created] in the likeness of the incarnation of the Word” (Three Words on the constitution of man in the image and likeness of God. Word 1. 1). The Son of God, having become incarnate, that is, having united in Himself the divine nature and the human, deified the latter, thus creating the possibility for the realization of that special goal for the sake of which man, this exceptional creation, received existence. “God adorned our nature to such an extent,” says St. Gregory Palamas, “as if it were His future clothes ... in which He was to put on ...” (Conversation 26).
2. Man is the crown of creation. The royal status of man in the world
Man was created last on the sixth, concluding day of creation; he was created last in order to enter the universe as a ruler (cf. Gen 1:26).
Man is the highest creation of God. According to St. Irenaeus of Lyons, "the glory of God is a living person" (Against heresies. IV 20.7).
The visible world was formed before man and for man. These were the sky, earth, sea, sun, moon, stars, animals, plants. From the very beginning of his existence, man was destined to become a king: God places him on earth as an overseer over the visible creature, initiated into the mysteries of this creature and responsible for it, as a king over what is on earth, answerable to the kingdom that is above, says St. Gregory the Theologian (Word 38).
Having created man, God gives him the right to give names: He brings all animals and birds to man in order to see how he will call them, and that such should be their name. And the man gave names to all cattle and birds and to all beasts (Genesis 2:19-20). Having given man the right to give names to creatures, God placed man over them, made him their master. The right to give names, moreover, indicates a person's ability to see through the essence of things, thereby becoming like God and participating in Divine creativity. According to Basil of Seleucia, giving a person the right to give names to animals, God, as it were, says to Adam: “Be the creator of names, since you cannot be the creator of the creatures themselves ... We share with you the glory of creative wisdom ... Give names to those to whom I gave life "( Vasily Selevkiysky. Word 2. About Adam).
The first man was created to "cultivate the land" (cf. Gen 2:5). This can also be seen as an indication of the call of man to creativity in the image of the Creator.
By nature, man is a unique being among other creatures, he combines the corporeal and spiritual. The Monk John of Damascus speaks about it this way: “God created a spiritual essence, i.e. angels and all heavenly ranks, for angels, without any doubt, have a spiritual and incorporeal nature ... In addition, God also created a sensual essence, that is, heaven, earth and what is between them. Further in your discussion Reverend John conveys the words of St. Gregory the Theologian: “But there has not yet been a mixture of mind and feeling, a combination of opposites - this experience of the highest Wisdom, this generosity in relation to both natures ... Having desired to show this, the Artistic Word creates a living being, in which both are brought into unity, that is, invisible and visible nature "(John of Damascus, St. Exact presentation Orthodox faith. II 12(56); Gregory the Theologian, St. Word 38).
Man, the microcosm, that is, the “small world,” as it is called in the Christian tradition, became such a unity, for it bears the image of the whole great world.
Man, as the image of God, is placed as an intermediary between God and all His creation. From the very beginning of his existence, man is destined to become king over the visible creature, he is initiated into the mysteries of this creature and is responsible for it before the “kingdom of heaven,” says St. Gregory the Theologian.
The royal dignity of man determines the enormous measure of man's responsibility for the world that God has entrusted to him.
God created the world harmonious and beautiful. At the same time, a person has the power to influence the fate of the world, so the realization of a good creative plan for the world depends not only on God, but also on people, including their moral perfection.
SECTION II. ORTHODOX DOCTRINE ABOUT MAN
Chapter 1. The Creation of Man
1.1. Creation of man by God
;;;St. the fathers draw attention to the fact that during the creation of the angelic world, the material world, and, finally, during the creation of man, God acted in a different way. The world is angelic, says Rev. Isaac the Syrian, was created by God "in silence"670. The material world is called from non-existence to being creative Divine: “Let it be!” And only before the creation of man does God, as it were, stop.
;;; The Holy Scripture says that the creation of man was preceded by a certain “conference” of Divine Persons: Let us make man in Our image and according to Our likeness (Gen. 1:26). In Orthodox theology, this "meeting" was called the Pre-eternal Council. Of course, the word "advice" is an anthropomorphism, since the will and action of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity are one. However, this emphasizes the special place of man in God's plan for the world.
;;; “Only the Creator of everything proceeds prudently to the dispensation of man, in order to prepare the substance for its composition, and to liken its form with beauty to a well-known prototype, and to suggest the purpose for which it will be created,” says the saint. Gregory of Nyssa671. These words indicate three components of the Orthodox doctrine of man: the doctrine of the composition of human nature, the doctrine of the image and likeness of God in man, the doctrine of the appointment of man.
;;; The creation of man is mentioned in the second chapter of the Book of Genesis: first, God took dust from the earth and formed a body out of it - a kind of soulless "statue". Then the breath of life (;;;;; ;;;;) is blown into this initial creation, and man becomes a living soul.
;;;In connection with the interpretation of Genesis 2, two questions arise:
1. Do the soul and the body come into being at the same time, or does one of the components of the human composition chronologically precede the other?672
;;; In the history of theological thought, there were three points of view on this issue.
;;;a) The soul was created before the body.
;;; The most famous representative of this line of thought was Origen, who believed that a pre-existing soul was breathed into the body673. This view was rejected by the Church. The condemnation of the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls is contained in the acts of the V Ecumenical Council674.
;;; b) The body was created before the soul.
;;; This opinion is found in the II century. in Tertullian675. In the IV-VII centuries. it was shared by some Greek-speaking representatives of the Antiochian theological school (Blessed Theodoret of Cyrrhus, St. John Chrysostom) and such Syriac-speaking writers as Ephraim the Syrian and Isaac the Syrian676. In the 6th century, such views are also found among some prominent Monophysite theologians, both Syrian (Philoxen of Mabbugsky677) and Egyptian (John Philopon678).
;;; On the one hand, the spread of this opinion could be due to the influence of the psychology of Aristotle679. On the other hand, this view has some basis in the Old Testament. The Book of Exodus (Ex. 21:22-24) says that if someone injures a pregnant woman and as a result of this a miscarriage occurs, then the guilty person must be punished. At the same time, the measure of punishment depends on whether the fetus has a human appearance or not yet680. These words are sometimes interpreted in the sense that before a certain period (the fortieth day) this crime is not yet homicide, since the soul has not yet appeared in a person681.
;;;In Orthodox theology, the idea of the spiritualization of the embryo on the fortieth day was rejected. In the context of the controversy with the Monophysites, his inconsistency was especially clearly shown by St. Maxim the Confessor682.
;;;c) The soul and the body are created simultaneously, and the sequence of creation mentioned in Genesis 2:7 should be understood logically, not chronologically.
;;;This opinion has become predominant in the Tradition of the Church. It was shared by such Sts. fathers, like Rev. Maxim the Confessor683, Rev. John of Damascus 684 and others. This point of view was also confirmed by conciliar decisions: “The Church, taught by the Divine Scriptures, asserts that the soul was created together with the body, and not so that one before and the other after, as it seemed to the folly of Origen” 685.
;;;St. The Fathers noted that in the strict sense of the word, the very name "man" is not applied either to the body or to the soul separately, but only to a complex being made up of both.
2. How should one understand the breath of life (;;;;; ;;;;)?
;;;a) The breath of life is a divine emanation originating from the essence of God. This opinion was shared mainly by the Gnostics and Manichaeans. Uncharacteristic for Orthodox authors, it was rejected by the Church687.
;;;Sometimes, thoughts reminiscent of emanatic ideas about the origin of the soul can also be found among Orthodox authors when they talk about the creation of the soul in a non-dogmatic context. For example, holy. Gregory the Theologian, probably wishing to emphasize the highest dignity of the human soul, calls it "a jet of an invisible deity" and "a particle of the Divine"688.
;;;b) The breath of life is actually the soul. This opinion is found in Clement of Alexandria689, St. Gregory the Theologian690 and others.
;;;c) The breath of life is not actually the soul, but a creative Divine action, the result of which is the creation of the soul. Bliss. Augustine taught that "this inspiration (insufflatio) means the very action of God, by which God created the soul in man by the Spirit of His Power"691. In the treatise "On Definitions", attributed to St. Anastasius of Sinai, it is said that “no one should assume that the Spirit that God breathed into a man became his soul ... but this Spirit created the soul”692.
;;;d) The breath of life is not a soul, but Divine grace communicated by God to man along with creation. Yes, Rev. Anastasius of Sinai believed that “having created Adam... God, by inspiration, sent grace, enlightenment and the radiance of the All-Holy Spirit into his face”693. The saint also spoke about the simultaneity of the creation of man and the communication of the Holy Spirit to him. Gregory Palamas694.
;;;This point of view is also reflected in the Russian tradition. holy Theophan the Recluse, for example, wrote: “When God created man, he first formed a body from dust. What was this body? Clay grouse or living body? It was a living body - it was an animal in the form of a man, with an animal soul. Then God breathed His spirit into him, and a man became a beast.”695 Earlier, St. Theophan similar thoughts were expressed by St. Seraphim of Sarov 696.
;;;The last three opinions obviously do not contradict each other, but are rather complementary. If we synthesize these three points of view, then the understanding of the “breath of life” of Sts. Fathers can be formulated as follows: By His creative action, God creates from nothing a human soul, different from Him in essence, and at the same time imparts His grace to it.
;;;At Sts. Fathers, one can find a lot of evidence that God, creating a person, at the same time communicates to him His deifying grace. For example, holy. Athanasius of Alexandria believed that "God not only created us out of nothing, but, by the grace of the Word, gave us life according to God"697. holy Gregory Palamas, speaking about the creation of man, wrote that God “by Divine grace put Himself” (;;;;;; ;;; ;;;;; ;;;;;;;; ;;;;;;) in His creation698. In other words, a person comes into being, being initially involved in God. According to Rev. John of Damascus, "God created man ... turning into God through communion with divine illumination, but not passing into the Divine essence"699. V. N. Lossky believes that, according to the understanding of the Eastern Fathers, “uncreated grace is included in the very creative act, and the soul receives life and grace at the same time, for grace is the breath of God, the “Divine stream”, the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit”700.
;;;Some modern Orthodox theologians see "in the teaching of the Greek Fathers about the original participation of man in Divine life»701 Keys to Understanding Patristic Anthropology. According to Protopresv. John Meyendorff, “in the East, the concept of grace was identified with the concept of participation, grace was never perceived as a creaturely gift, but as participation in the Divine life”702. Therefore, “in Greek patristics, nature and grace are not opposed, but presuppose one another. Nature ceases to be completely natural if it abandons its purpose, that is, communion with God and constant growth in the knowledge of the Unknowable. Thus, although grace is not a part of human nature and is not included in its definition, nevertheless, it is precisely the state of participation in God that can be called natural for a person.
;;;IN. V. Petrov, considering the anthropological teaching of St. Maximus the Confessor704 notes that there are only two alternative possibilities for a person to realize his life: “The human person has the opportunity to freely define himself in relation to the logos of his essence. It depends on the disposition of the will and free choice whether it will exist in accordance with its nature or contrary to it (i.e., whether it will move towards God or away from Him)”705.
;;; An important soteriological consequence follows from this: a person's state, in principle, cannot be morally neutral in relation to God, but always has a "plus" or "minus" sign. In the first case, a person is in a state of nature (“according to his nature”), being a partaker of Divine grace, which opens up for him the possibility of spiritual growth and the achievement of supernatural deification. In the second case, falling away from the Source of life, a person falls into an unnatural state (“against it”).
1.2. Marriage
God-given method of human reproduction
;;;The Holy Scripture says that with the creation of Adam, and in his face and human nature as such, the creative action of God in relation to man does not end. The Book of Genesis emphasizes: And God created man... male and female he created them (Gen. 1:27). In the first part of the phrase, the word man is used in the singular, and in the second part the plural appears: he created them.
;;;According to the 1st chapter of the Book of Genesis, a person represents two human hypostases existing in the unity of nature. Chapter 2 expands on this idea in more detail. However, it should not be assumed that the writer of everyday life tried to explain the appearance of the wife in the biological sense in the 2nd chapter of Genesis. This is, first of all, a symbolic narrative, which in a visual form expresses the idea of the dual unity of man.
;;; In connection with this biblical narrative, a very important question for the Orthodox teaching about man is connected - about marriage and the God-established method of reproduction of people. In patristic literature, there is sometimes an opinion that after the fall there is a change in the very method of reproduction of people. Yes, holy. Gregory of Nyssa writes: “[After the fall, God] arranges in nature such a method of reproduction, which corresponds to those who have crawled into sin, instead of the angelic nobility of that, planting in humanity a bestial and wordless way of mutual succession”706. True, holy. Gregory of Nyssa stipulates that this is his personal opinion and conjecture. According to the assumption of St. John Chrysostom, if it were not for the fall, people would have multiplied in a certain spiritual way, but the saint does not specify how he thinks this for himself707. This opinion was also shared by the Blessed. Theodoret of Kirrsky708, teacher John of Damascus709 and some other Byzantine theologians.
;;; Certainly, after the fall, the way of being of human nature changed. This applies to both mental and biological life of a person. In this sense, one can speak of a change in the mode of reproduction, but only to the extent that the mode of human existence in general has changed. The idea that, as a punishment, God condemns a person to a special, “bestial” way of reproduction instead of the one that was before, would mean that human nature as such has changed, and not just its condition, which does not agree well with other aspects of Orthodox anthropology and soteriology. This is probably why this opinion is not widely accepted.
;;; Did marriage exist before the fall, in paradise? The answer to this question depends on how exactly the concept of "marriage" is defined. If we consider marriage in the categories of Roman law, as a contract, as a utilitarian child-producing institution, then we can say that there was no place for such a marriage in paradise. holy John Chrysostom says: “The Primordial lived in paradise, but there was no talk of marriage. He needed an assistant - and he appeared; and yet marriage was not yet necessary.
;;;All of God's creation is "very good." But after God, completing the creation of the world, creates the highest being, the crown of creation - man, He states the insufficiency for him of existence outside of communion with another person and says: it is not good for man to be alone, let us make him a helper corresponding to him (Gen. 2:18). Therefore, we can say that the opinion of some of the fathers of the Church, in particular St. Gregory of Nyssa, that the division of people into two sexes was effected by God solely in anticipation of the fall711, has no sufficient basis in Holy Scripture. The division of a person into two sexes is made, first of all, in order to satisfy the human need for communication. God brings a wife to Adam, and he says: Behold, this is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh (Gen. 2:23). These words speak of the unity of the nature of man and woman and most of all encourage mutual love and care for each other. According to X. Yannaras, “the difference between the sexes is due to the need to express the way of life of the uncreated within the framework of created nature”712. And the life of the Most Holy Trinity is not simply unity on the level of nature, but the union in love of original and distinct Hypostases.
;;;In synodal translation Old Testament, as in the Septuagint, the wife is spoken of as a "helper" (Greek ;;;;;;) who was created for the husband. However, this word does not fully convey the meaning of the Hebrew word;;ze;4; (ezer). Prof. S. V. Troitsky in the book “The Christian Philosophy of Marriage” writes: “Here we are talking not about replenishment in labor, but about replenishment in being itself, so that help in labor can only be thought of as a consequence of replenishment in being. First of all, a husband needs a wife as his "alterego" [second "I"]713. Thus, the biblical narrative reveals the truth about the dual unity of man, realized in the marriage union united by the love of a husband and wife.
;;;Why does the Bible say that the wife was created exactly “from the rib” of Adam? Perhaps this is due to the fact that the Hebrew word;;l;; (whole), in addition to the meaning "edge", it can also have the meaning "side, side". Thus, this image helps to reveal the idea that human nature is divided into two complementary parts.
;;; From the Holy Scriptures it follows that the essence of marriage after the fall does not change. A man shall leave his father and his mother, and cling to his wife; and [two] shall be one flesh (Gen. 2:24). In the Book of Genesis these words are spoken by Adam. However, there is no doubt that they were uttered by Adam not from himself, but by inspiration from above, because otherwise the Lord Jesus Christ would not have brought them during His earthly life: ... and two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh (Matt. 19: 5-6). Thus, before and after the fall, Scripture speaks of marriage in the same terms.
;;;It should be noted that the Greek word used in these fragments;;;;; (flesh) and the corresponding Hebrew b;;;;4; (basar) means “flesh, body, meat”, and the expression k;1;l-b;;;;4; - “the whole human race” or “every living thing” (Gen.6:3; Ps.55:5). Thus, the above words do not refer to the temporary bodily unity of the parties, but to the permanent unity of all aspects of the life of the spouses.
;;; The true attitude of the Church towards marriage was expressed in the decrees of the Council of Gangra (4th century), which prescribes the defrocking of clergy and excommunication from the Church of the laity who abhor marriage, that is, those who refuse marriage not for the sake of achievement, but because they consider marriage to be something unworthy of a Christian (rules 1, 4, 13)714. Indeed, if marriage in itself presupposed something sinful, then in this case the words of ap. Paul, who likened the unity of Christ and the Church to a marriage union, would sound blasphemous. Among the saints canonized by the Church, there are many people who were married.
;;; The Church raised marriage to the level of a church sacrament, putting marriage on a par with such sacred rites as baptism, chrismation, priesthood, etc.
;;; Holy. Gregory the Theologian, the greatest ascetic and mystic, in the poem “Praise to Virginity”, where he aims to prove the advantage of a virgin way of life over marriage, nevertheless writes about marriage with great reverence: “Look what prudent marriage has brought people. Who taught the coveted wisdom? Who discovered the depths that the earth, and the sea, and the sky closed in themselves? Who gave laws to cities, and before that, who raised cities and invented the arts? Who filled the marketplaces, houses and stadiums?.. Who gathered the singing face in the fragrant temple? Who else but marriage? Who, besides him, has joined together the most remote? .. Making one flesh, the spouses have both one soul and mutual love equally excite in each other zeal for piety. Marriage does not move away from God, but on the contrary, it binds more to Him.
;;; In these words, it is especially emphasized that the ennoblement of relations between the sexes in marriage determines all the positive achievements of culture. And, most importantly, marriage, according to St. Gregory, is not separation from God, but the sacrament of His love.
;;; Tertullian in a work called "To the Wife" writes: "How pleasant it must be to unite two hearts in the same hope, service and faith! Verily, they are two in one flesh: where there is one flesh, there is one spirit. They pray together, kneel together, fast together, mutually approve and support each other. They are equal in the Church of God and at the table of God, they share persecution and rest equally, they do not hide anything from each other, they are not burdened by each other ... The Lord rejoices, seeing their unanimity, sends peace to their home and abides with them together”716. In the Holy Scriptures, God's relationship with Israel is very often expressed through the image of the relationship between husband and wife, groom and bride. And for Christian ascetic literature, for example, for such authors as Rev. John of the Ladder717, Rev. Nil of Sinai718, it is characteristic to speak of man's love for God through images and analogies borrowed from the relationship between the sexes.
;;;The main goal of a person's life is to hear the call of God addressed to him, and to answer it. But in order to answer this call, a person must be able to commit an act of self-denial, to reject his own "I", his egoism. Christian marriage serves this purpose, and that is why Christian marriage does not move a person away from God, but brings him closer to Him. Marriage is viewed in Christianity as a joint path of spouses to the Kingdom of God. X. Yannaras reveals this idea as follows: “Only when eros directed at a person of the other sex leads to love, to a person forgetting himself, his individualism ... only then does a person have the opportunity to respond to the call of God addressed to him ... That is why the image of conjugal love is an image of the cross love of Christ and the Church, the voluntary death of natural limitations, individuality so that life can be realized as love and self-giving”719.
;;;But Christianity, which highly values marriage, at the same time liberates a person from the necessity of married life. From a Christian point of view, marriage is not strictly necessary in order to fulfill one's life as love and fellowship. There is an alternative way to the Kingdom of God - virginity, monasticism. This is a rejection of the natural self-denial in love, which is marriage, and the choice of a more radical path of self-denial through obedience and asceticism, in which the only source of existence for a person becomes the call of God addressed to him. Both of these paths in Christianity are equally recognized and revered as leading to a common goal.
;;;In the Christian doctrine of man, the ontological dignity of a woman is restored and substantiated, which was not in pagan religions and which was only declared even in the Old Testament. Clement of Alexandria writes: “Virtue ... should be the work of both husbands and wives in equal measure. Because if they both have the same God, it means that both of them ... have one church; it means that the same law of measure exists for them, the same natural shame, the same food, the same marriage relations ... the same reasoning, hope, Christian love ... But if all the conditions of life are common to them, then they participate equally ... and in grace, the same path of salvation for them, Christian love is equally valuable to them; therefore, they are subject to the same upbringing by the Logos... The reward for a holy, sympathetic life here on earth is promised not to a husband or wife, but to a person in general...”720 From the point of view of soteriology, the difference on the basis of sex has no essential significance. As Procopius of Gazsky writes, “... neither a husband without a wife, nor a wife without a husband in the Lord. If they differ in the body, then in the soul, which is both immortal and reasonable, the female nature is in no way different from the male. According to St. Basil the Great: “A wife, along with her husband, has the honor of being created in the image of God. The nature of both is equal.
1.3. Origin from Adam and Eve of the entire human race. Pre-Adamism and polygenism
;;; It is dogmatically important to show the origin of the whole human race from Adam and Eve, because thereby the consubstantiality of all people is affirmed among themselves. And on this truth, in turn, the doctrine of original sin and redemption is based: Therefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned (Rom. 5:12); Therefore, just as through one transgression there is condemnation to all men, so through one righteousness there is justification for all men to life (Rom. 5:18).
;;;In Christian theology, the truth of the origin of the entire human race from Adam and Eve was first questioned in the 17th century. A Calvinist from Bordeaux named Isaac Peer proposed a doctrine that was called "pre-Adamism." The essence of this teaching is that the 1st and 2nd chapters of the Book of Genesis speak of two different acts of creation that are not connected with each other723.
;;;According to Peer, the Gentiles were created on the sixth day. The Gentiles sinned through the transgression of natural law and were also under sin. Chapter 2 tells about the creation of the eighth day, when Adam and Eve were created by a special act as the founders of the Old Testament Church. Then they were settled in paradise, where they violated the commandment and were expelled from paradise.
;;;What are Peer's arguments? First, Cain, before fleeing after killing Abel, fears that he might be killed. Secondly, it is known that Cain married. Thirdly, Cain built a city in the land of Nod. All this, according to Peer, means that other people existed along with Adam and Eve and their immediate offspring. However, Christian exegesis does not claim that Holy Scripture mentions all, without exception, the children that certain biblical characters had. Usually, only those are mentioned whose image carries a certain semantic load in the Holy Scriptures. Therefore, it cannot be argued that Adam and Eve, apart from Cain, Abel and Seth, had no other children. As you know, Cain was born in the 30th year from the creation of Adam, and Seth - in the 230th year. Over a period of 200 years, so many people could be born that they could populate more than one city. Moreover, the very word "city" does not necessarily have to mean a certain metropolis: the city could be a fenced village, and fenced not for the purpose of protection from armed enemies, but, for example, for protection from wild animals.
;;;If we consider the texts of Holy Scripture not selectively, but as a whole, it becomes obvious that Peer's hypothesis is in complete contradiction with Scripture. The Book of Genesis says: The Lord God did not rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the earth (Gen. 2:5), and then immediately goes the story of the creation of Adam. Obviously, there were no people on earth before Adam.
;;; But for man, there was no helper like him (Gen. 2:20) - a remark in the Book of Genesis before the story of the creation of the wife.
;;; And Adam called his wife's name: Eve, for she became the mother of all living (Gen. 3:20).
;;; Words from the prayer of Tobias: You created Adam, and gave him Eve as a helper, at times his wife. From them came the human race (Tov. 8:6).
;;; From one blood He made the whole human race to dwell on all the face of the earth... (Acts 17:26).
;;; Subsequently, in the 18th century, during the Enlightenment, pre-Adamism was transformed into a non-theological doctrine, which is called polygenism. Its essence is as follows: on earth there are several different human species that are different from each other in the same way that animal species are different from each other, having different origins and different ancestors. Supporters of such views were Rousseau, Voltaire, Helvetius and others.724.
;;; They tried to substantiate this hypothesis with the help of natural science, referring to the difference in anatomical features (hair color, skin color, etc.), data from comparative linguistics, paleontology, etc. However, there are no convincing arguments in favor of this doctrine. Science shows that mental capacity people of all races and nationalities under the same living conditions practically do not differ. Anatomy and physiology are also the same in all people. Representatives of all races and nationalities are able to enter into mixed marriages and have offspring.
;;;Psychology also does not find significant differences between representatives of different races. For example, the gift of speech, learning ability, basic moral concepts, the similarity of religious traditions do not give grounds to speak of different nationalities as different species. The data of comparative linguistics do not confirm the truth of polygenism either.
;;; The polemic with polygenism has not only scientific, but also moral significance, since anti-human teachings of racism, national socialism, etc. are built on the basis of polygenism.
Chapter 2
2.1. The Composition of Human Nature: Dichotomy and Trichotomy
;;;The human hypostasis is complex, it contains various natures. All theologians agree with this. But how many of these natures? On this issue, theologians are divided into two camps - dichotomists and trichotomists. Dichotomists recognize in man two natures: soul and body. Trichotomists recognize, respectively, three: spirit, soul and body. They believe that the spirit differs from the soul no less radically than the soul differs from the body.
;;; Pre-Nicene theology was characterized by a diversity of opinions on the question of the composition of human nature. About the tri-composition of man spoke, for example, St. Theophilus of Antioch, who distinguished between the soul of man and a certain “spirit of God”, which animates the whole creation725. However, it remains unclear whether St. Theophilus this spirit as a component of human nature. Origen726 and Clement of Alexandria spoke more specifically about the tri-composition. The latter distinguished in man the rational soul, which he called the “dominating spirit” (;;;;;;;;;;), and the corporeal soul, called the “carnal spirit” (;; ;;;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;;), the “unreasonable spirit” (;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;;); ) and “life force” (;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;)727.
;;;Tertullian taught about the dual nature of man, identifying spirit and soul728. Some Sts. The fathers of this period spoke of the body, soul and spirit, but they understood by the spirit not a part of the human composition, but the Spirit of God living in a person. In the treatise "On the Resurrection", attributed to St. Justin the Philosopher says: “The body is the dwelling of the soul, and the soul is the dwelling of the spirit, and these three are preserved in those who have hope and faith in God”729. However, the same work states that “man is an animal, a rational being, consisting of a soul and a body”730. Shmch. Irenaeus of Lyon noted: “The perfect man ... consists of three - flesh, soul and spirit: of which one, i.e. the spirit, saves and forms, the other, i.e. the flesh, unites and forms, and the middle one between these two, i.e. the soul, sometimes, when it follows the spirit, rises to it, sometimes, pleasing the flesh, falls into earthly lusts”731. From other statements, schmch. It is clear to Irenaeus that by spirit he understands the Holy Spirit.
;;; Among the authors of the post-Nicene period, only the well-known heretic Apollinaris of Laodicea733 and Didymus of Alexandria734 adhered to the Trichotomist scheme. The vast majority of St. fathers, from the 4th century onwards, were dichotomists. Speaking about the spirit, some of them could have in mind the highest ability of the human soul – the mind (;;;;)736, others – a special state of the mind (soul), striving for spiritual deeds and becoming “the dwelling place of God in the Spirit”737, and still others – both of them738.
;;;Thus, it can be argued that in the doctrine of man, the patristic tradition clearly leans towards dichotomism. However, this teaching was not dogmatized, just as the Trichotomist scheme did not become the subject of condemnation. Both points of view belong to the field of theological opinions.
;;; In favor of the trichotomist hypothesis, the following evidence from the Holy Scriptures can be cited:
;;; ... The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword: it penetrates to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb. 4:12).
;;; ...and your spirit, and soul, and body, in all its integrity, be preserved without blemish (1 Thess.5:23).
;;; However, none of them can be convincing enough. At ap. Paul, the word "natural" is often synonymous with "carnal" and in this sense is contrasted with "spiritual" (see: 1 Cor. 2:13-3:1). Therefore, the opposition of the soul and spirit in St. Paul (cf. Heb. 4:12) has a moral, not an ontological meaning, i.e. it indicates the different orientation of the thoughts and intentions of the heart: whether they are directed towards God and agree with His will (“spiritual”) or aimed at serving sinful passions (i.e. they are “carnal”)739.
2.2. The value of the body in the composition of human nature
;;;The Christian view of the meaning of the bodily component of human nature is essentially different from how corporality was understood in antiquity. IN ancient philosophy the value of a person, his dignity has always been associated with his soul, and the salvation of a person has always been conceived as the salvation of only the soul. The body has always been regarded as hostile to the spirit. Attitude ancient man to corporality is captured in Plato's famous comparison “;;;; – ;;;;”, which can be translated as “the body is a dungeon” or “the body is a coffin”. According to Plato, “the body is like a tombstone, hiding the soul buried under it in this life”740.
;;; The famous Stoic philosopher Seneca also had a similar attitude to corporality: “I am a high being and was born for more than being a slave of my body, which I look at only as shackles put on my freedom. In such a loathsome dwelling dwells the soul.”741 Such statements can be found in many pagan philosophers of antiquity. Some of them, such as Plotinus, confessed that they were ashamed of having a body.
;;; For Christianity, the adoption of such a view was initially impossible due to the fact of the Incarnation. Although Christianity has always taught about the superiority of the spiritual, eternal, incorruptible over the material, corruptible and mortal, nevertheless, the assertion of this hierarchical principle in Christianity has never resulted in the identification of corporeality with something evil and unworthy of a person. In their controversy with pagans, Christian authors remarked that if the flesh is truly useless, why did Christ heal it?743
;;;In addition, the Church adopted the biblical view, according to which only a being consisting of a body and a soul can be called a person in the full sense of the word. The soul itself does not constitute a person. Shmch. Irenaeus of Lyon says: “Only the union of soul and flesh, receiving the Spirit of God, constitutes ... a person”744.
;;; The Christian tradition of a later time, associated with the emergence of monasticism, despite the widespread practice of the so-called mortification of the flesh, never considered asceticism as a struggle with corporeality, as a desire to free oneself from the shackles of the body, etc. On the contrary, asceticism has as its goal the liberation of the body through the achievement of dispassion, through the liberation of the whole person from passions, including both soul and body. As an example of how highly Christian ascetics valued the dignity of the human body, we can cite the words of St. John of the Ladder, one of the most severe Christian ascetics: “Someone, having seen an extraordinary feminine beauty, greatly glorified the Creator about her, and from this one vision he burned with love for God and shed springs of tears ... If such a person always has the same feeling and action in such cases, then he ... has risen, is incorruptible before the general resurrection. Even in a fallen state, the human body is so beautiful that it can elevate a person to the glorification of the Creator.
;;;How does Christian theology understand the purpose of the body in human nature? What are its functions?
;;;First of all, the body is the home of the soul, its material carrier, through which the immaterial principle lives and acts in the material world. The prayer of the Jewish king Hezekiah about the body says: My dwelling is removed from its place and carried away from me, like a shepherd's hut (Is.38:12).
;;;Besides, the body is an instrument, an instrument of the soul, without which the soul by itself cannot do anything in this world. However, this does not mean that the body should be regarded as something purely utilitarian, auxiliary and accidental. The body is not just an addition to the soul, but one of the levels of the human personality. The personality also expresses itself through the body. We can say that the body is the spatial boundary of the personality.
;;; It was said above that the creative abilities of a person are connected with corporality (see: p. 3.1.7). Due to the fact that a person has a body, he occupies a very special place in the universe - he binds together the visible and the invisible and thanks to this enriches his experience with participation both in the life of the sensual world and the intelligible world. Angels, being purely incorporeal spirits, lack this ability. Holy Pavel Florensky says: “Man is connected by his body with all the flesh of the world, and this connection is so close that the fate of man and the fate of all creation are inseparable”746.
2.3. Origin of human souls
;;; The question of the origin of the human soul in dogmatic theology is not exactly resolved, it belongs to the field of theological opinions. There are three hypotheses in the history of Christian theology.
2.3.1. Opinion on the preexistence of human souls
;;;This opinion was characteristic of ancient philosophy. In one form or another, it was shared by Pythagoras, Plato, the Neoplatonists, Philo of Alexandria, and others.747 On Christian soil, this opinion was reproduced by the Christian Gnostics (Valentinus, Saturninus, Basilides, Marcion), in whom it was often supplemented by the doctrine of emanation748. The supporter of the opinion about the pre-existence of souls was also Nemesius of Emesa749.
;;; The doctrine of pre-existence occupies a central place in the dogmatic system of Origen. From Origen's point of view, God, as a perfect, just Being, is capable of creating only creatures that are identical and equal in dignity to each other. All human souls were created by God at the same time and were completely equal in dignity. Initially, these souls, being pure minds, devoid of any materiality and corporality, were completely immersed in the contemplation of the Divine. But then, for some reason, the souls got bored with contemplating their Creator, and they deviated from this contemplation for the worse: they fell away from God and, as a punishment for this, were sent to various bodies. Some souls who sinned less took on subtle, ethereal bodies and became angels. Souls that sinned more seriously received material and gross bodies, that is, human bodies. Finally, the most sinful souls received especially vile bodies, demonic750.
;;; Why is this hypothesis attractive? With its help, it is convenient to explain the variability of the external conditions of life of people in this world. What various Eastern teachings try to explain by means of the teaching of karma, etc., Origen explains by the original fall, which in his teaching is identified with the concept of original sin.
;;; It is not difficult to see the disagreement of this teaching with the Holy Scriptures, with the basic principles of Christian dogma. First, it contradicts the testimony of Holy Scripture, according to which sin entered the world through Adam's transgression (cf. Rom. 5:12). In fact, there is no room for the fall of the progenitors in Origen's system. Secondly, this teaching is not capable of satisfactorily explaining the fact of the Incarnation. If corporeality is a punishment, why was the Lord Jesus Christ, being sinless, nevertheless incarnated? In addition, Origen's hypothesis is connected with the doctrine of universal restoration (Greek: ;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;; ;;;;;;;), according to which all souls will eventually return to their original state751. Thus, the teaching of Origen belittles the redemptive feat of the Savior, devaluing the significance of His sacrifice on the Cross.
;;; In the middle of the VI century. Origen's teaching was condemned by the Church. The reason for this was the Origenist disputes that began among Palestinian monasticism, where clashes between the two parties took place. On the one hand, these were monks who adhered to strictly Orthodox teachings - the followers of St. Savvas of the Sanctified, on the other hand, their opponents, the Origenists, who were led by Abba Nonn. Among the latter were the Protoctist and Isochrist groups. "Protoctists" (literally "created from the beginning") believed that the souls of all people were created from the beginning, all at once and in the same state. The "Isochrists" (literally, "equals of Christ") were of the opinion that, as a result of being restored to their original state, each soul would become completely like Christ, become equal in dignity with Him, and would possess almost Divine abilities.
;;;St. emperor Justinian the Great in 551 wrote a work known as the "Message to Mina" (Mina - Patriarch of Constantinople), in which he outlined a critique of Origenist cosmology and anthropology and formulated a number of anathematisms, in particular the following: “If anyone says or thinks that human souls pre-existed, that they were previously minds and holy powers, enjoyed the fullness of Divine contemplation, and then turned to the worst and through this cooled off in love for God ... and sent into the body as punishment, let him be anathema”753. Two years later, in 553, V Ecumenical Council approved the "Message to Mina". The council confessed Orthodox teaching about the origin of the human soul, formulated by Justinian: “The Church, taught by the Divine Scriptures, asserts that the soul came into being together with the body, and not so that one before and the other after, as it seemed to the folly of Origen”754. Thus, the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls was unambiguously condemned Orthodox Church like heresy.
;;; With the exception of a few authors who shared the opinion of the pre-existence of souls, Christian writers from ancient times agreed that the soul of Adam was created by God from nothing at the time of the creation of the first man755. Differences between them manifested themselves on the issue of the origin of the individual souls of the descendants of Adam.
2.3.2. Opinion on the creation of human souls
;;; The opinion that each human soul is individually created by God out of nothing is called "creationism" (from Latin creatio - creation, creation).
;;; In the Christian tradition, the first to strongly support this hypothesis was the Western apologist Lactantius756.
;;; Starting from the 4th century, the opinion about the creation of each human soul by God becomes dominant in patristic literature; in particular, it was shared by St. Hilarius of Pictavisky757, blessed. Jerome Stridonsky758, teacher Maximus the Confessor759 and many others.760 As regards the very method of the creation of souls, Sts. the fathers believed that it was incomprehensible to man.
;;;What are the grounds in the Holy Scriptures in favor of the opinion about the creation of souls?
1. The most convincing is the description of the creation of Adam (see: Gen. 2:7). Adam is a model for all people, and in him the soul and body were created separately.
2. The Book of Ecclesiastes says: And the dust will return to the earth, as it was; and the spirit will return to God who gave it (Eccl. 12:7). These words cannot be unequivocally interpreted in the sense of the creation of the human soul out of nothing. The words will return to God, Who gave it can be understood in a broader sense, that God is the Source of all that exists. For example, the Lord's Prayer says: "Give us our daily bread today." When we say that God gives us our daily bread, we do not mean that God creates this bread out of nothing. And the words of Ecclesiastes that God gives man a spirit do not have to be understood in the sense that every time God creates this spirit or life out of nothing.
3. The Lord, who stretched out the sky, founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within it... (Zech. 12:1). The “formation” of the spirit is also not necessarily understood as creation from nothing, since the Old Testament repeatedly speaks of the “formation” of the human body by God in the womb762.
4. Sometimes reference is made to Heb. 12:9, where God is called the Father of spirits as opposed to carnal parents. But this can be understood in the sense of a person's spiritual birth in the baptismal font.
;;;The same can be said about the words: What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6). The context of these words of the Savior is also mysterious (cf. John 3:3-5, 7), and not properly anthropological.
;;; In the Roman Catholic Church, the opinion about the creation of souls was actually dogmatized as a result of the adoption in 1854 of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. Since this dogma presupposes the doctrine of the direct creation of the human soul by God, this doctrine itself automatically became official among Catholics.
;;;What are the strengths of the opinion about the creation of the human soul by God? First of all, in this way it is possible to substantiate the high dignity of the human soul, its immateriality, indivisibility, simplicity, and most importantly, it is easy to explain the qualitative diversity of souls, that is, the difference in talents and abilities that God endows people at His discretion. But at the same time, there are certain difficulties associated with the acceptance of this teaching.
;;; First of all, it does not agree with the Holy Scriptures in everything. The Book of Genesis says that God rested on the seventh day... from all His work that He did (Gen.2:2)763. After the end of the sixth day, God only provides for the world, and this opinion assumes that God creates souls from nothing. Some of the Fathers of the Church, who shared this opinion, tried to get out of the difficulty, saying that God had rested in the sense that He no longer creates any new kinds and types of creatures, and He can “replicate” existing ones, and in this they referred to the words of the Lord: My Father does until now, and I do (John 5:17)764.
;;;Secondly, this teaching creates certain difficulties in explaining the way the sinful damage from Adam passed on to the entire human race. If the soul is created every time by God from nothing, then where does sin come from in it, because the source of sin is not in the human body, but precisely in the soul, in free will? And if the soul is created by God, naturally, sinless, then why, being the highest principle, does it obey the body that is lower in nature, and does not subordinate it to itself?
;;; Thirdly, this point of view does not allow explaining the undoubted fact that children inherit from their parents various mental properties and abilities.
;;;There is another point that makes it difficult to accept this hypothesis. From a Christian point of view, childbearing is a divine blessing. Acceptance of the hypothesis under consideration makes the creative action of God dependent on human passions, as if subordinating God to natural necessity. In addition, as you know, children are born not only in legal marriage, but also from extramarital sinful relationships. In this case, one can come to the ridiculous conclusion that God blesses illegal relationships.
2.3.3. Opinion on the birth of human souls
;;;Along with the opinion about the creation of human souls, there is another opinion - about the birth of human souls, called "traditionism"765.
;;; This opinion is first found in Tertullian, who taught about a certain spiritual seed: just as there is a bodily seed, so in the soul there are special seeds that are separated from the soul and give rise to a new spiritual substance766. This opinion about soul seeds was not accepted by subsequent Church Fathers, and the opinion about the birth of human souls from the souls of parents gained some popularity, although in terms of the number of adherents it was noticeably inferior to the creationist hypothesis. Among the adherents of traditionalism were, for example, such authoritative fathers of the Church as St. Gregory of Nyssa767, teacher Anastasius of Sinai768 and others.769 Blessed. Jerome, although he himself held a different view, nevertheless noted that the idea of the birth of souls is widespread both in the East and in the West.
;;; Among the authors, both Eastern and Western, who adhered to the Trichotomist scheme, there is a point of view according to which the unreasonable animal soul is transmitted from the parents, while the rational soul is given from God. Such was, for example, the position of Apollinaris of Laodicea771 and Maria Victorina (281291 - after 363)772.
;;;Some very authoritative Fathers of the Church did not unambiguously speak in favor of one or another hypothesis, believing that the Holy Scripture does not provide sufficient grounds to make a choice in favor of creationism or traditionalism773.
;;;What passages of Scripture are cited in support of this hypothesis? The Book of Genesis says that Adam begat Seth in his own likeness and in his own image (Gen. 5:3). The words "likeness" and "image" should probably indicate the completeness of the human composition, that is, both the soul and the body.
;;;The opinion about the birth of souls in some cases is in good agreement with the data of religious experience. For example, with its help it is convenient to explain the way the consequences of the fall from ancestors to descendants spread. However, this hypothesis also has weaknesses. For example, there are cases of striking dissimilarity between parents and children in terms of their spiritual organization (although the same dissimilarity is often expressed in bodily composition). Also, this opinion is in conflict with the concept of "simplicity" of the soul, its indivisibility and indestructibility774. In addition, it is impossible to determine from whom exactly the soul is born: does it come from the soul of the father, from the soul of the mother, or from both parents? The laws of the spiritual world are unknown to us, and we cannot determine the image of the origin of one soul from another.
;;;Perhaps, the two hypotheses under consideration do not contradict each other, but, on the contrary, complement one another. It can be assumed that the soul - the very spiritual nature - a person receives from his parents, just like the body; but a person, inimitable and unique, a person becomes as a result of a special Divine influence. This determines the uniqueness of the qualitative combination of spiritual forces and abilities of a person, because a person is not just a repetition of his parents or a mechanical combination of properties and qualities that were found in his ancestors. Each person is a unique personality, a new form of the image of God, the novelty of which is due to the direct influence of God.
2.4. Properties of the human soul
;;; The general definition of the human soul is given by St. John of Damascus: “The soul is a living entity, simple and incorporeal; invisible by nature to bodily eyes; immortal, endowed with reason and intelligence, without a definite figure; it acts with the help of the organic body and gives it life, growth, feeling and the power of birth. The mind belongs to the soul not as something else that is different from it, but as the purest part of itself ... The soul ... is a free being, possessing the ability to want and act. It is subject to change... from the side of the will...”775
Spirituality
;;;The Holy Scripture speaks of the spirituality of the soul. The words "spirit" and "soul" in relation to the human soul in Holy Scripture are interchangeable: the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Mark 14:38). As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead (James 2:26).
;;;St. the fathers, speaking of the spirituality of the soul, have in mind its immateriality and its radical difference from everything bodily. According to the blessed Augustine, the soul is “incorporeal, that is, not a body, but a spirit”776. Rev. Anastasius of Sinai teaches that the soul "is a subtle, immaterial, formless essence..."777. Many other Church Fathers spoke in the same vein.
;;; At the same time, Sts. The Fathers noted that the spirituality of the soul is created, i.e., the soul can be called incorporeal only in comparison with gross material bodies, but in comparison with God, it, like the angels, is corporeal779.
Independence
;;; The independence of the soul is closely connected with spirituality, with a difference from the body. The property of independence means that the soul is a special substance that is different from the body, and is not just a certain phenomenon or a set of phenomena that are the product of a person's higher nervous activity. It is not necessary to think that the opinion about the soul as a form of highly organized matter appeared with the advent of dialectical materialism. Such teachings were known in antiquity, and the Fathers of the Church argued with them.
;;; A detailed review and criticism of ancient concepts, in which the soul is not considered as a substance independent of the body, is given by Nemesius of Emesa780.
;;; Arguing with ancient doctors (among whom materialistic views were widespread, in particular the opinion that the human soul is not substantial, but is something derivative, secondary to the life of the body), bliss. Theodoret Kirrsky writes: “It would be reasonable to judge that even a player who plays the lyre, if the lyre is not tuned well, will not show his art on it, because strings that are too stretched or weakened violate the harmony of sounds; if others are interrupted, then the musician is brought to complete inactivity through this... Thus, a leaky or clumsily arranged boat turns the art of the helmsman into nothing... If the disease touches the meninges and harmful vapors or juices damage the brain, then, being filled with them, it is not able to receive spiritual activity, but is likened to drowning in water and uselessly waving his arms, legs and all parts of the body. Thus, the well-being of the body does not constitute the essence of the soul, but in the well-being of the body, the being of the soul reveals its own wisdom.
Intelligence and Consciousness
;;; The independence of the soul is manifested primarily in the ability of self-consciousness, that is, in the ability to distinguish oneself from one's body, from the surrounding world and from the content of one's own life. It is thanks to this ability of the human soul that such an action as repentance is possible for a person, because repentance is based on a person's awareness of the non-identity of himself and his actions. It is on this ability of self-consciousness in the Holy Scriptures that repeated calls to examine oneself are based: Let a man examine himself (1 Cor. 11:28); Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5).
;;; Reasonableness is expressed in the abilities of intuitive and discursive thinking, knowledge and religious knowledge782, as well as in the gift of the word, the ability of articulate speech. According to Rev. Anastasia Sinaita, the soul is a thinking and rational entity.
Immortality
;;; The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is closely connected with the idea of its simplicity784. According to the philosophical thesis, assimilated by the patristic tradition, that which is not composed of various elements cannot be destroyed, disintegrated into constituent parts. In the New Testament, the belief in the immortality of the human soul is expressed quite clearly.
;;;As for the Old Testament, there is no such clarity. Therefore, in secular biblical studies, it is widely believed that the Old Testament and the Pentateuch of Moses, in particular, did not know the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Indeed, in the early Old Testament era there was no "positive" doctrine of the immortality of the soul. In the Old Testament, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul did not have the same significance as in the New Testament, it did not form the center religious life, the main religious experiences of the Old Testament man were not connected with him. Immortality was conceived as the stay of the soul in Sheol (Heb. se;ol), some kind of Greek kingdom of shadows, where the soul drags out a sad existence on the verge between being and non-being. Nevertheless, the idea of immortality is expressed in the Old Testament, and quite clearly. For example, in the Pentateuch of Moses, the death of a person is repeatedly spoken of as an addition to his people (Gen. 25:8-9, 35, etc.). Thus, it is implied that there is a place where the souls of people belonging to this people reside. Old Testament patriarchs called themselves wanderers or strangers on earth, thereby, as it were, indicating that human existence is not limited to the limits of earthly life.
;;; Finally, in the Old Testament, including Moses, God is called the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and is called after all these patriarchs died. The words of the Savior: God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. 22:32) - mean that the patriarchs did not disappear without a trace and with God they continue to exist. The belief in the immortality of the soul in the Pentateuch is most clearly expressed in the words of Patriarch Jacob, which he said after he learned of the death of Joseph: I will go down with sorrow to my son in hell (Gen. 37:35)785. The following Old Testament authors believe in immortality, in the preservation of the existence of the human soul after death, is also undeniable. King Saul wants to summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 28); the Book of Proverbs says: A man who has gone astray from the path of reason will dwell in the assembly of the dead (Prov. 21:16). Other passages can be cited, such as Is. 38 or Ps. 89:48-49. In some words of the Old Testament, one can catch hints of the unevenness of posthumous retribution, for example, Ps.48:11-16.
Liberty
;;;We can talk about freedom in two senses: on the one hand, about formal or psychological freedom, and on the other hand, about moral or spiritual freedom. The first type of freedom can be called "freedom of choice", it is associated with the selective (gnomic)786 will of a person (the ability to self-determine in relation to the desires of one's nature, that is, to choose some desires and reject others)787. Formal, or psychological, freedom is the ability to direct one's will, activity to one or another object, to give preference to one or another motivation for activity. Many commandments of Holy Scripture are based on this human ability. Behold, today I have offered you life and good, death and evil (Deut. 30:15). The prophet Isaiah speaks of the need to make a choice between these proposed beginnings. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the earth. But if you deny and persist, the sword will devour you (Isaiah 1:19-20). This formal freedom remains with man even after the fall.
;;;However, contrary to popular belief, formal freedom is not at all a sign of perfection. On the contrary, it indicates some imperfection. For example, God, being an absolutely free Being, does not have a selective will, because he does not have the need to choose from various possibilities. Any choice is always associated with some imperfection: ignorance, doubt, hesitation, and God always perfectly knows His goals and means to achieve them. Therefore God is free in the sense that he is always what he wants to be, and always acts in the way he wants; nothing hinders Him, no necessity weighs on Him. Such freedom is called moral or spiritual freedom.
;;; The ability to choose by itself does not yet make a person free, because a person's desires and his capabilities do not always coincide. A person often desires what he cannot achieve, and, conversely, is often forced to do what he does not want to do. This idea is most clearly expressed in Holy Scripture in Romans 7:19: The good that I want, I do not, but the evil that I do not want, I do. Therefore, the path to true freedom lies through liberation from sin and from the power of natural limitations. The Lord speaks about the need to strive for such freedom in the New Testament: If you continue in My word, then you are truly My disciples. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:31-32); Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin... If the Son sets you free, you will be truly free (John 8:34, 36). Ap. Paul says: The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2) - and exclaims: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom! (2 Cor. 3:17). In other words, through communion with the Divine, through union with God, a person partakes in the freedom that God possesses, and he himself acquires true freedom.
2.5. The difference between the human soul and the souls of animals
;;;The main difference between the human soul and the souls of animals is that the human soul is able to exist without a body. Being united with the body into a single hypostasis, it nevertheless has freedom in relation to its own body, has its own special life, different from the life of the body. At the same time, in animals, the life of the soul is reduced primarily to the life of the body, to its animation and control. And although some rudiments of emotional and rational life can be observed in higher animals, nevertheless, none of them possesses such properties essential for the human soul as the ability of self-consciousness and freedom. In other words, in animals, unlike humans, the mode of existence is not personal.
;;;The Holy Scripture does not directly speak about either mortality or the immortality of the souls of animals. The opinion that the souls of animals are mortal is based on the patristic teaching, on the agreement of the fathers on this issue. None of the St. Fathers did not affirm the immortality of the souls of animals, and some spoke directly about their mortality. holy Gregory Palamas, for example, wrote: “The soul of each of the unintelligent living beings is the life of the body, animated by it, and having this life not in essence, but in action, as life in relation to another, but not in itself. This soul can see nothing but the action of the body; therefore, when the body decomposes, of necessity, it also disintegrates along with the body. She is no less a mortal soul of her body, and therefore everything that it is is turned towards a mortal and is considered mortal; therefore the soul also dies with the mortal body.
Chapter 3
3.1. General concept about the image of God in man
;;;Ancient philosophers called a person the term "microcosm", that is, a small world, a small cosmos, which contains all the elements of the universe. St. after them. Gregory of Nyssa also said that a person is a kind of small world (;;;;;; ;;;;;;) containing the same elements that fill the universe and uniting every kind of life790.
;;;At the same time, Sts. The attitude of the Fathers towards the very term "microcosm" was different from that which took place in antiquity. For the ancient authors, this is a proud name, in which they see the guarantee of the greatness of man, while the Church Fathers often have an ironic attitude towards this term. holy Gregory of Nyssa notes: “Those who thought to elevate human nature with this eloquent name did not notice that they simultaneously awarded a person with the differences (idioms) of a mosquito and a mouse”791. For the Fathers of the Church, in their view of man, the opposite perspective is characteristic in comparison with that which is observed among the pagan sages. If for the latter the greatness of a person lies in what makes him related to the universe, since the cosmos itself is thought of as a divine principle, then the Church Fathers see the greatness of a person in what distinguishes a person from the world, distinguishes him from him. And allocates it, according to the teachings of Sts. fathers, the image of creation: man was created in the image of God.
;;; The creation of man in the image of God is spoken of in the Holy Scriptures (see: Gen. 1:26-27, 9:6). There is a wide range of opinions in the patristic texts about how to understand the image of God.
;;;St. The Fathers agree that, in general, the image of God is the ability of man to reflect Divine perfections. For example, God is absolute reason – man is also a rational being793. God is a spiritual being – man also has a spiritual component in himself – a soul794. God is eternal - the reflection of eternity in man is immortality795. God is the Creator – man also has creative abilities796, although, unlike God, he creates not from nothing, but from the material at hand. God reigns over the whole world - and man is also endowed with royal dignity, called to rule over the universe797.
;;;Some of Sts. The Fathers saw the divine image of man in the fact that he reflects in his spiritual structure the intra-trinitarian life of God798.
;;; In addition, the ancient Christian writers did not always limit the god-likeness of a person only to his soul, extending this concept to the bodily composition of a person799.
3.2. The likeness of God, the relationship between image and likeness
;;; The Holy Scripture says that man was created not only in the image, but also in the likeness of God (see: Gen.1:26; James 3:9).
;;;Some Sts. the fathers did not distinguish between image and likeness. In particular, Saints Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria insisted on the identity of these terms. In the Russian theological tradition, this opinion was held by St. Filaret of Moscow, who, referring to the Hebrew text of the Bible, showed that the concepts of image and likeness are often interchangeable in Holy Scripture.
;;; Most of the ancient Christian writers since the time of Origen and modern Orthodox theologians make a fairly clear distinction between the concepts of image and likeness. For example, holy. Basil the Great draws attention to the fact that in Genesis 1 it is said about the intention of God to create man in Our image and after Our likeness, and in the next verse it says: And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, i.e., verse 27 is silent about the likeness802.
;;; The concepts of "image" and "likeness" are closely related to each other, they cannot be considered as some separate, external to each other, values, since one inevitably implies the other and cannot be understood in isolation from it.
;;; One can say that the image of God is a gift of God to every person, which can be defined as the ability to be a partaker of Divine life, to participate in Divine perfections. Similarity is the manifestation of this gift in a person's life and the extent to which this ability is realized. According to Rev. John of Damascus, “the expression “in the image” indicates the ability of the mind and freedom, while the expression “according to the likeness” means likeness to God in virtue, as far as it is possible for a person”803.
;;; The same idea is clearly stated by Rev. Maximus the Confessor: “God, bringing into being a spiritual rational essence, in His highest goodness, imparted to it four Divine properties: being, everlasting, goodness and wisdom. The first two properties God gave to the essence, and the other two to the faculties of the will; that is, He gave being and ever-being to essence, and goodness and wisdom to the faculties of the will, so that through communion the creature would become what He is in essence. Therefore, it is said that man was created "in the image and likeness of God." "According to the image" - as the existing image of the Existent and as the everlasting image of the Eternal: although it is not without beginning, it is infinite. "According to the likeness" - as good, the likeness of the Good and, as the wise, the likeness of the Wise, being by grace what God is by nature. Every rational being is in the image of God, but only the good and wise are in His likeness. In other words, man, as a godlike being, can by grace become everything that God is by nature.
;;; From the above reasoning, Rev. Maximus the Confessor, we can conclude that "image" and "likeness" are inextricably linked aspects of a dual concept. The image of God is what is given to man: every person who comes into the world has the image of God. Similarity, on the contrary, is a certain task, a task that a person faces and which he must solve throughout his life. The features of the image of God relate to the essence of man, these are the essential properties of human nature, while the features of the likeness of God are revealed as a result of the direction of the human will for good. Almost all people have the features of the image of God, while the features of the likeness of God reveal far from everything. The image of God in man is indestructible, while man can completely lose the likeness. According to St. Gregory Palamas, “after the ancestral sin... having lost life in the divine likeness, we have not lost life in His image”805.
;;; However, despite these differences, one can speak of image and likeness as a dual concept. After all, the imagery of God potentially contains the likeness of God, and the likeness of God is nothing but the revelation of the image of God in the life of a particular person. That is why in the Holy Scriptures and in the works of Sts. Fathers, these terms can sometimes be interchanged without prejudice to their meaning.
3.3. Personalistic understanding of the image of God in modern Orthodox theology
;;; As Protopresv. John Meyendorff, “in the interpretation of Genesis 1:26-27 there is no “consensus patrum””806. Indeed, for many centuries the patristic tradition has not developed a generally accepted formal definition of the image of God in man. Prot. Vasily Zenkovsky states with some surprise that “with the exception of a few generally accepted interpretations, the patristic teaching about the image of God is so contradictory that one is surprised that unanimity of thought has not been achieved in the Church’s consciousness on such an essential point”807.
;;;Moreover, some Fathers directly speak of the impossibility of such a definition at all. Yes, holy. Epiphanius of Cyprus (IV century) wrote: “We do not deny that all people are created in the image of God; but how it is according to the image, we do not investigate. For neither the body is conceivable created in the image, nor the soul, nor the mind, nor virtue; because many things hinder me from saying it; but we also do not say that the body was not created in the image or the soul ... So, the creation according to the image belongs to man, but only God himself knows how. Thus, holy. Epiphanius recognizes that man is created in the image of God, but at the same time he considers it impossible to define this concept. There is nothing surprising in such a position: apophatic anthropology is a natural consequence of apophatic theology. According to Rev. Georgy Florovsky, "the image of God in man is ontologically indefinable - it cannot be otherwise, due to the incomprehensibility of the nature of the Displayed..."809.
;;; In the same vein as the Cypriot saint, the saint also argues. Gregory of Nyssa: “God, by His nature, is all that Good that is encompassed by thought, which only exists in general ... The perfect form of goodness is to bring a person from non-existence into existence and make him rich in blessings. And since the detailed list of goods is large, it is not easy to cover it in numbers. Therefore, the Word, with its voice, collectively denoted all this, saying that man was created in the image of God. It's like saying that man was created by nature to share in every good thing. If God is the fullness of good things, and that one is His image, then the image in that is like the Archetype, so that it can be full of every good.
;;; Commenting on these words, St. Gregory, V. N. Lossky writes: “The Image of God in man, since he is a perfect image, insofar as he, according to St. Gregory of Nyssa, is an unknowable image, for, reflecting the fullness of his Prototype, he must also possess His unknowability. Therefore, we cannot determine what the image of God is in man. We cannot comprehend this otherwise than by resorting to the idea of participation in the infinite goodness of God.
;;; Based on the idea of the indefinability of the image of God, modern Orthodox theologians insist on the impossibility of defining the image of God through certain characteristics of human nature. According to V. N. Lossky, “conformity with God does not refer to any one element of the human composition, but to all human nature as a whole”812, “an image cannot be objectified, so to speak “naturalized”, turned into an attribute of any one part of a human being”813. “It is impossible to reduce the god-likeness of a person to one specific feature,” remarks Fr. Georgy Florovsky814.
;;; According to St. Vladimir Shmaliy, “the transcendence of the image of God in man in relation to nature implies that the image of God cannot be a part of nature or an element of natural composition. The selection of individual elements of human nature or aspects of human existence as the most appropriate to the image, whether it be the mind, spirit, freedom, immortality, royal dignity, the ability of self-determination, creative possibilities, is conditional. All these components, as the holy fathers testify, reflect the image of God in man, but do not exhaust it.
;;; When the Fathers of the Church say that man is created in the image of God, they mean his ability in some way to reflect the perfection of the Creator. But doesn't the world as a whole reflect the perfection of the Creator, are these perfections reflected only in human nature? The question is rhetorical. However, it is obvious that man still reflects Divine perfection in a special way. This difference is indicated, for example, by St. Philaret of Moscow, when he notices that the whole creation shows us the traces of the Creator, but this is only, as it were, the back of God, and the image of the face of God is found only in man816. This feature of human existence is also noted by Protopresv. John Meyendorff: “Everything exists, participating in the One Existing One, but man has a special way of participating in God, different from the path of all other creatures: he freely participates in God, because he bears in himself the image of the Creator.” 817.
;;;Thinking about the human imagery of God, some modern Orthodox theologians pay attention to the fact that a person is not identical with his own nature. Just as in God the Divine Persons (Hypostases) are not a part of nature, are not reduced to it, but contain it in themselves, so every person is not only nature (what), but also a personality (who) that is not reducible to its nature.
;;; “The distinction between personality and nature,” says St. Vladimir Shmaliy reproduces in humanity the structure of the Divine life, expressed by the Trinity dogma. The human person, created in the image of the Divine person, is not a part of the human being, just as the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity are not part of the Divine Essence.
;;; Thus, in modern Orthodox theology, an attempt is made to connect the image of God with the concept of the human person820, and not with certain properties of human nature, through which the image of God is manifested, but at the same time it is not exhausted by them.
;;; According to V. N. Lossky, “man, like God, is a personal being, and not a blind nature. This is the character of the Divine image in him”821, “what corresponds in us to the image of God is not a part of our nature, but our personality, which contains nature”822. A similar reasoning is found in X. Yannaras: “In the written tradition of Divine Revelation, in the Holy Scriptures of the Church, the personal existence of God is affirmed, as well as the creation of man in the image of God. In other words, man also exists as a person, although he has a created nature. This primary connection between God and man, which establishes the very mode of human existence, is reflected on the first pages of the Old Testament...”823
;;;IN. N. Lossky especially emphasizes the idea that the image of God is unthinkable without a personal relationship between God and man: “As an image of God, man is a personal being standing before God. God addresses him as a person, and man answers him”824, “it can be said that conformity is a Divine seal that marks nature, which creates a personal relationship to God, a “unique” relationship for each human being”825.
;;; According to modern Orthodox theologians, it is precisely the irreducibility of man as a person to his own nature and, consequently, freedom in relation to it, that makes it possible for a person to achieve godlikeness: “As created in the image of God, man is a personal being. He is a person who should not be determined by his nature, but can himself determine nature, likening it to his Divine Archetype. According to St. Vladimir Shmaliy, “the image of God is fulfilled in a person in an unceasing ascent to the Prototype, in deification, on the path of union with God, the path on which a person transcends his natural conditionality, revealing the transcendence of the image of God inherent in him in relation to his own nature”827.
;;;Thus, modern theologians want to show that man in his being is fundamentally different from all other creatures, such as dumb animals. The latter are completely determined by their nature and are unable to change the way of its existence, they cannot become either higher or lower than their nature. But man, being irreducible to his nature and therefore free in relation to it, can change the mode of its existence. On the one hand, he is able to achieve god-likeness, and on the other hand, he can impose an unnatural way of existence on his nature, up to becoming like demons.
;;;Despite the fact that modern theologians often bring together the concepts of "image of God" and "personality", nevertheless they do not talk about their identity. Indeed, the image of God is not man himself, is not itself irreducible to nature. human personality. The image of God is what makes a person a personality, i.e. a special, unique way of being in this world, which is the highest gift of God to man, without which the manifestation of features of godlikeness and godlikeness in human nature is impossible. Thus, there is a causal relationship between the concepts under consideration: a person is a god-like personality, due to the fact that he is the bearer of the image of God.
;;; The personalistic understanding of man and his god-likeness opens up interesting prospects for the study of the human phenomenon not only in theology, but also in other humanities828.
Chapter 4
;;; Methodologically, three aspects can be distinguished in this issue: the appointment of man in relation to God, the appointment of man in relation to himself, and the appointment of man in relation to the whole creation.
4.1. The appointment of man in relation to God
;;; St. Apostle Paul: From one blood He [God] made the whole human race to dwell on all the face of the earth ... so that they would seek God, if they would feel Him and find Him, although He is not far from each of us (Acts 17:26-27). holy John Chrysostom comments on this verse as follows: “This means that God not only gave us life and breath and everything, but, most importantly, opened the way to the knowledge of Him, granted that through which we can find and reach Him”829.
;;; Thus, the purpose of man in relation to God is the knowledge of God, union with God, serving Him. The purpose of man in relation to God differs little from the purpose of the world of incorporeal spirits in relation to God.
4.2. Appointment of a person in relation to himself
;;; The purpose in relation to oneself lies in the fact that through the disclosure of forces and abilities, through active striving and approaching the Prototype, to achieve the full, possible for a finite being, measure of godlikeness, that is, the closest union with God, communion with the Divine nature, and at the same time the possibility of participating in Divine bliss. In practice, the appointment of man in relation to God and in relation to himself largely coincide. The difference is in the accents.
;;; When it is said about the appointment of a person in relation to God, then the goal itself is meant human life expressed in the knowledge of God and union with Him. And when we talk about the appointment of a person in relation to himself, then we mean the feat of faith, to which a person is called, in order to achieve this goal. Holy Scripture speaks of the goal of human life as achieving perfection in God and glorifying Him: Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16); Therefore, be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).
;;; In other places of the Holy Scriptures, the appointment of a person in relation to himself is spoken of as an increase in love, through which a person is united with God and gains eternal bliss. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him (1 John 4:16). No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no one has entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:9). This growth in love is impossible without people's love for one another, without love for one's neighbor. According to the Apostle John the Theologian, whoever says: “I love God,” but hates his brother, is a liar: for he who does not love his brother, whom he sees, how can he love God, whom he does not see? And we have such a commandment from Him, that he who loves God love his brother also (1 John 4:20-21).
4.3. The appointment of man in relation to the rest of creation
;;; It is known from Divine Revelation that man, created after other creatures, was introduced by God into the world in order to rule over everything created (see: Gen. 1:28), as well as to cultivate and keep it (see: Gen. 2:15). Thus, in relation to the world, a person is destined, first of all, to be a caring master and steward in it. However, the appointment of a person is not limited to such "economic" functions.
;;;God's plan for the world implies the salvation of not only man, but of all creation. Ap. Paul says that at the end of time there will be God all in all (1 Cor. 15:28). Since God is the fullness of life, He desires that all creation partake of this fullness and become an expression of Divine life, a union in love, which is the mode of God's being. But the communion of created nature with the life of the Divine cannot be the result of necessity; it is accomplished freely. Man is the only created being in the visible world who is capable of realizing his life as freedom.
;;;X. Yannaras notes that “between what the world is actual and what it is called to be, there is human freedom which alone can bridge the gap between the existence of the world and the purpose of this existence. “On the path of his union with God,” says V. N. Lossky, “man does not remove the created from himself, but gathers the whole cosmos in his love ... so that in the end he will be transfigured by grace”831.
;;; In order for a person to be able to fulfill this mission, according to the Creator’s plan, he is a “mixture of ... mental and sensual”832 and is thereby “a link between visible and invisible nature”833.
;;; Holy Scripture and St. The Fathers see man as a mediator capable of bringing the entire world created by God to the realization of its ultimate goal. Man occupies such a place in the Universe that only through him is the entire material world able to perceive and assimilate Divine grace, only through man can the deification of all creation be accomplished.
;;; Ap. Paul says that the creation waits with hope for the revelation of the sons of God: because the creation was subjected to futility, not voluntarily, but by the will of him who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself will be freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails together until now (Rom. 8:19-22).
;;;According to the word of St. Gregory of Nyssa, man was created two-part for this, “so that the earthly would be exalted with the Divine and, through the dissolution of the earthly nature with the supermundane nature, a single kind of grace equally passed through all creation”834.
;;; The most detailed question of the relationship of man to the rest of creation is considered by St. Maximus the Confessor, who sees five main divisions in the universe: the division between the created and the uncreated, the division of created being into sensual and supersensible, the division of sensual nature into heaven and earth, the division of the earth into paradise and other areas, the division of man into male and female.
;;; According to prep. Maximus, man was called first to reunite in himself the totality of created being: through a passionless life to overcome the division into two sexes, by virtue of constant communion with God to turn the whole earth into paradise, to unite heaven and earth, sensual and supersensible. Then man, having become completely united with God, had to impart deification to all creation. Rev. Maximus wrote: “Let many things come together that are separated from each other by nature, gravitating towards each other around the single nature of man, and God Himself will be all in all (1 Cor.
;;;IN. N. Lossky, reflecting on the words of St. Maximus, writes: “Having nothing outside of himself, except for one God, a man would have no choice but to give himself completely to Him in a fit of love and hand over to Him the whole Universe, united in his human being. Then God Himself, on His part, would give Himself to a man who, by this gift, that is, by grace, would have everything that God has by nature. In this way, the deification of man and the whole created world would have been accomplished.
;;; However, Adam failed to fulfill his destiny, and therefore God's plan for man and all creation was fulfilled in Christ839. The incarnated Son of God, according to His humanity, overcame in Himself all five basic divisions, and in His Hypostasis the union of the created and the uncreated took place. In the eschatological perspective, the deification of human nature, already accomplished in Christ, will be realized “perfectly in the worthy” and in all creation.
Chapter 5
5.1. The Perfection of Human Nature Before the Fall
;;;Eastern fathers are alien to the idea of human nature as something static and self-sufficient. On the contrary, they are characterized by a dynamic idea of a person. Being created by God, man is not some kind of constant value, he is called to perfection: Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).
;;;Thus, even if it is said that man was created perfect, it does not yet follow that the original state of man coincided with his final destination. According to Rev. John of Damascus, God "created him (man) ... turning into God through communion with Divine illumination ..."842, i.e. striving for unity with God. Thus, primitive man was not wholly deified.
;;; How, then, to understand the word "perfect"? What was the perfection of human nature, if man did not yet correspond to the purpose for which he was created, if he had not yet reached the goal of his being?
;;;The Holy Scripture says: ...and I found that God created man upright... (Eccl. 7:29), i.e. man with all the forces and abilities of his nature fully corresponded to the purpose that was destined for him by the Creator. There were no signs of resistance to goodness in him. Most of all, the perfection of his nature was expressed in the ability to commune with God, to participate in the Divine life.
;;; Nature and grace in Orthodox theology are not opposed, but presuppose one another843. Grace, or, in the language of the Bible, the breath of life, was originally present in a person and imparted to him the ability to further assimilate the deifying Divine energy. Both in soul and in body the person was in a state of grace. All his powers: mind, will, and heart were at a high degree of perfection, which is incommensurable with the state of these abilities after the fall.
;;; Holy. John Chrysostom wrote that Adam "was gifted with great wisdom", he saw the manifestation of this wisdom in Adam's naming of animals, which, according to the saint, presupposed a deep knowledge of the very nature of the named living beings.
;;; The will of man was characterized by moral freedom. The moral freedom of primitive man means not only the absence of sinful dispositions in him, but also the possession of a positively good direction of will. Man loved the good and strove for it, not knowing the internal fluctuations between good and evil. According to St. Basil the Great, in paradise, a person did not need any clothes, since they would only distract him from striving for God846.
;;; According to St. Gregory of Nyssa, man before the fall led an angelic life and was equal with angels847. From this it follows that the attitude of man to God before the fall was similar to the attitude of angels towards Him, i.e., it was an attitude of complete and joyful obedience, which was based on man's love for his Creator.
;;; The human heart did not know vicious movements, feelings and was not agitated by the action of passions. The Holy Scripture says that they were both naked, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed (Gen. 2:25). Commenting on these words, Rev. John of Damascus says that "this is the pinnacle of dispassion"848.
;;;The human body was a perfect instrument, obedient to the spirit. It was free from infirmities, diseases849 and the destructive influence of external elements, it was clothed with strength (Is.51:9). The dispensation of human nature was strictly hierarchical: the body was in obedience to the soul, the soul to the spirit, and the spirit was completely turned to God.
5.2. God's care for man before the fall
;;; The perfection of the primordial man was not the fullness of spiritual and moral perfection. Man had to develop and improve through his own activity. In a godlike and sinless nature, he was given the ability for gradual and unending perfection. In other words, man was created deified, capable of receiving more and more grace, which implies cooperation, synergy between God and man. Since the attainment by a person of the goal of his existence depends not only on his own efforts, but also on Divine grace, a person initially needed Divine assistance, or providence, so that the god-like inclinations of his nature could be revealed. What exactly was God's plan for the first people?
1. First of all, as the Bible says, the Lord God took a man... and put him in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:15). Man was originally isolated from the surrounding world, on earth a “special place of residence” was created for him - the Garden of Eden. At Sts. fathers there are different opinions about what constituted paradise. Some fathers understood it in a sensual-corporeal way, others believed that paradise is, first of all, the state of the soul (spirit) of a person. Rev. John of Damascus tries to combine both understandings: “Some imagined paradise as sensual850, others as spiritual851. But it seems to me that just as man was created sensual and at the same time spiritual, so his most sacred destiny was both sensual and spiritual. With his body, a person settled in a divine and beautiful country, but with his soul he lived in an incomparably higher and most beautiful place and had God as his home and bright robe. In addition to the fact that God created paradise and placed a person there, He planted in paradise every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. Thus, the paradise vegetation served man to satisfy his need for food, as well as his aesthetic needs (see: Gen. 2:8-9).
2. To strengthen the strength of the soul and body, God commanded Adam to cultivate and keep paradise (Gen. 2:15). This is the commandment of labor.
3. According to Genesis 2:19, God brought all the animals to Adam and watched how Adam would name them. This action can be considered as having as its goal the development of self-consciousness and mental abilities, the gift of speech, and also to affirm in man the consciousness of royal superiority over all earthly beings. Having created the animals, God allows man, His most perfect creation, to give them names and thereby, as it were, complete their creation.
4. Man was given a special tree of life (cf. Gen. 2:9).
;;; The "Large Catechism" says that "eating the fruits of it (the tree of life), a person would be painless and immortal in body"853. Holy Scripture does not specifically say what kind of tree it was, but it mysteriously gave life to a person.
;;; Rev. John of Damascus wrote: “As for the tree of life, it was either a tree that had the power to give life, or a tree from which only those worthy of life and not subject to death could eat ... The tree of life can also be understood as the greatest knowledge that we draw from the consideration of everything sensible, and the path by which we ascend through this knowledge to the Ancestor, Creator and Cause of everything that exists”854.
;;; Through eating the fruits from this tree, the fullness of man's communion with God was realized, in other words, the communion of Divine life was carried out. Through the tree of life, man tasted “the sweetness of divine communion” and thus had in himself “life uninterrupted by death”855.
;;;Some of Sts. The Fathers believed that the tree of life in Paradise was a prototype of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
5. The prohibition to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (see: Gen. 2:17) is the commandment of fasting and obedience. This commandment was necessary to strengthen the will and moral development person. It was necessary to establish a person in conscious obedience to the will of God, without which his very perfection was impossible. This commandment was aimed at testing moral freedom in order to decisively affirm it in goodness. According to Rev. John of Damascus, "the tree of knowledge was supposed to serve as a kind of test and temptation for a person and an exercise in his obedience and disobedience"857.
;;;In patristic exegesis there are various interpretations this biblical image. Representatives of the Antioch school, striving for a literal understanding of the biblical text, were inclined to believe that it was an ordinary tree, so named not because it had some kind of special power communicate knowledge about good and evil, but because through their relationship to this tree, the first people experienced by experience the difference between good and evil, which is a violation of the will of God. Speaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, blessed. Theodoret of Cyrrhus notes that this is an ordinary plant, and is so named only because it served as an instrument for the knowledge of sin858.
;;;Supporters of allegorical exegesis offered several interpretations. For the holy Gregory the Theologian, the tree of knowledge means the contemplation of divine mysteries. It “was good for those who use it in good time (because this tree ... was contemplation, which only those who have perfected experience can safely proceed to), but not good for the simple ones and for those who are immoderate in their desire; likewise, perfect food is not good for the weak and those who require milk”859.
;;; Some interpreters believed that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil should be understood as the ability of self-knowledge. According to Nemesius of Emesa, since “a person should not have known his nature before a certain degree of perfection, then God forbade him to eat from the tree of knowledge ... the fruit, the eating of which informed the knowledge of one’s own (one’s) nature. God did not want man, before a certain degree of perfection, to know his own nature...”860. Also according to Rev. John of Damascus, “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is ... the knowledge of one's own nature. This knowledge, revealing from itself the greatness of the Creator, is beautiful for the perfect... But it is not good for those who are still inexperienced and subject to voluptuous inclinations.”861
;;; Rev. Maximus the Confessor believed that the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are two sides of a single image that can be correctly understood only in unity: “The tree of life, as wisdom, has the greatest difference from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is not wisdom ... Wisdom is characterized by mind and reason, and the state opposite to wisdom is characterized by unreason and feeling ... since a person was brought into being consisting of an intelligent soul and a sensual body ... there will be a tree of life ... the mind of the soul where wisdom resides. Accordingly, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil [then will be] the feeling of the body, in which ... the movement of unreason takes place. And the person who accepted the Divine commandment - not to touch this tree in an experienced and effective way, did not keep it.
;;;Some of Sts. Fathers took an extreme apophatic position on this issue. For example, Rev. Anastasius of Sinai believed that "the true nature of the two trees of paradise is completely unknown and its knowledge is not necessary for the Church"863.
;;;Forbidding eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God warns the first people about the death that will befall a person if he violates the commandment of obedience. This commandment can be conditionally called the first covenant (alliance, contract) between God and man, where God and man assume certain mutual obligations.
6. Direct communion with God, which man was honored in Paradise, should also be attributed to God's care for the primordial man. The Book of Genesis says that already after the fall, Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise... (Genesis 3:8). From this it is appropriate to conclude that even before the fall, God repeatedly appeared to the first people and honored them with His fellowship, which was necessary for them.
5.3. Was Adam immortal before the fall?
;;; On the basis of Holy Scripture, it can be argued that man was not created mortal, for God did not create death and does not rejoice in the death of the living (Wisdom 1:13). However, it does not yet follow from this that the primordial man was immortal. holy Theophilus of Antioch expounds the doctrine of the relation of primitive man to mortality as follows: “He (man) was created by nature neither mortal nor immortal. For if God had made him immortal at the beginning, he would have made him God. If, on the contrary, he created him mortal, then he himself would be the culprit of his death. So, He created him neither mortal nor immortal, but capable of both, so that if he aspires to that which leads to immortality, fulfilling the commandment of God, he would receive immortality from Him as a reward for this and would become God. If, on the other hand, he shied away to the deeds of death, disobeying God, then he himself would be the cause of his own death. For God created man free and self-ruled.
;;; According to the explanation of Nemesius of Emesa, “if from the beginning God had created man mortal, he would not have condemned him to death after the fall, because it is impossible to punish a mortal with mortality ...” 865. However, a person was not mortal solely because of his involvement with God, and “his body, which needed food and drink ... through the tree of life was not allowed to the necessity of death and remained in blooming youth ...” 866.
;;; Thus, man “was created immortal in potentia (;;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;;;)”867, i.e. God created man for incorruption (Wisdom 2:23) and, accordingly, immortality, but did not create him actually immortal. It can be said that, as a creature created by nature, "man was created mortal, but - gradually improving - he could achieve immortality"868.
;;; Consequently, man was neither necessarily mortal nor necessarily immortal, but, depending on the direction of his free will, he was capable of both. The purpose of human life was to rise from the state of the possibility of not dying to the state of the impossibility of dying. In other words, mortality for a person was not unconditional, but depended on the direction of his free will.
;;;This circumstance has very important dogmatic and anthropological consequences. Death, not being created by God, is not a property of human nature and, therefore, is unnatural for a person. The Carthaginian Council of 419, against Pelagianism, by its canon 109, decided: “If anyone says that Adam, the primordial man, was created mortal, so that, even though he sinned, even though he did not sin, he would die in his body ... not as a punishment for sin, but out of the necessity of nature: let him be anathema”870. Bliss. Augustine teaches: “As Christians who adhere to the truly catholic faith know, even bodily death itself is not imposed on us by the law of nature, according to which God did not create any death for man, but as a punishment for sin ...” 871
5.4. Did Adam distinguish between good and evil before the fall?
;;; If a person did not completely distinguish between good and evil before the fall, he would be irresponsible, like animals, and sin itself as disobedience to the will of God could not be imputed to him. Before the fall, man aspired to the good without hesitating in the choice between good and evil, but this does not mean that he was in a state of blissful infantile ignorance. holy John Chrysostom: “From here already see ... the freedom of will and the superiority of his mind (Adam) and do not say that he did not know what was good and what was bad”872. Rev. Macarius of Egypt notes: “Man ... was the master of everything, from heaven to earth, knew how to distinguish between passions, was alien to demons, pure from sin, or from vices, - he was likeness of God” 873.
;;;Thus, Sts. The Fathers did not believe that before the fall man did not know what evil is. Why, then, was the tree from which man was forbidden to eat called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? In the Hebrew text of the Bible, the verb y;da; is used in this place, which means not only theoretical, intellectual knowledge, but experienced communion. Indeed, the primordial man had no personal experience of entering into evil before the fall. However, the ability to distinguish between what brings us closer to God and what moves away from Him, what is pleasing to God and what is not, the ancestors had before the fall. God Himself taught the first people to distinguish between good and evil. In particular, before the creation of the woman, the Lord said: It is not good for a man to be alone (Gen. 2:18). These words represent a deep definition of what evil is - loneliness, self-isolation, self-isolation, lack of communication.
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D about the creation of man, the Pre-Eternal Council of the Holy Trinity took place, at which it was decided by God whether or not to be mankind.
"IN The Law of God says that the creation of man was preceded by the council of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. - writes Archpriest Oleg Stenyaev. - It is said: “And God said, Let us make man in Our image [and] in Our likeness…” (Gen. 1:26). The Holy Fathers teach that this meeting of the Persons of the Holy Trinity took into account everything that could happen to humanity.
Since God is not limited in time and in Him there is no past and future, but only the present, He knows everything that was, everything that is, and everything that will be. The future and the past (in our understanding) for the Creator are always the present.
So, before the creation of mankind, everything that could subsequently happen to people was taken into account.
The very word "council" or "meeting" can only conditionally be used in relation to the Persons of the Holy Trinity, here it is more appropriate to use the word "will". For the word of God - it has creative power; and when the Lord says “let it be,” then everything comes true at once.
The Council of the Persons of the Holy Trinity took into account, when creating a person endowed with free will, that other free beings - angels - misused this gift, and a third of them fell away from God.
Mankind was created, according to the teachings of the Fathers, to make up for the number of fallen angels. And what happened to their third should not have happened again. But God's foresight showed what was to happen to the whole human race; and then the divine will was manifested that if people incorrectly use the gift of free will, then the Son of God (the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity) will accomplish the work of the Redemption of the human race.
The main means in the cause of our redemption was to be the incarnation of the Son of God, who, according to Divinity, must be consubstantial with God the Father, and according to His Humanity, consubstantial with all mankind. The Son of God in Himself had to heal the damaged nature of the human race. What happened in the appearance of the Son of God into this world “for us for the sake of man, and for ours for the sake of salvation” and what was especially revealed in the sufferings of the Son of God on the Calvary Cross.
More righteous Job exclaimed about the judgments of God: “For He is not a man like me, so that I can answer Him and go with Him to judgment! There is no mediator between us who would put his hand on both of us. (Job 9:32-33). Such a mediator, about whom Job the Long-suffering called, turned out to be our Lord Jesus Christ, about whom it is said: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5).
According to Divinity, having entered this world, according to Humanity, having left it, the Son of God performed the service of reconciliation between God the Father and fallen humanity. By His Blood, He not only atoned for our sins and crimes, but also healed us from sinful death.
His blood has great power to burn away sin, not only as an accomplished fact of our lives, but also as an inclination to sin, as the law of sin working in us.
In this sense, the salvation of man is a Eucharistic act. To be saved in Orthodoxy means precisely to be transubstantiated. What is the Son calling us to? God's words: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My Flesh is truly food, and My Blood is truly drink. Whoever eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live by the Father, so he who eats me will live by me.” (John 6:54-57).
In the Rule of Thanksgiving according to St. In communion we find these words: “... go into my heart, into all the compositions, into the womb, into the heart. The thorns of all my sins fell. Purify the soul, sanctify the thoughts. Approve the compositions with the bones together. Enlighten the feelings of a simple five ".
In other words, salvation accomplished by the power of the redeeming Blood of the Son of God is the total healing of our nature. That is why in the Orthodox understanding, in contrast to the Protestant belief, the term "justification" is identical to the term "sanctification".
It is said: “Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” (Rom. 6:4).
Renewed life is a changed nature, a different, new being. All this is accomplished only in Christ and with Christ.
For Catholics, with their "legal" theory, the Atonement is a ransom that was paid to God by God Himself; it turns out that God the Son paid the price of Blood to God the Father. This theory does not withstand biblical criticism. For Protestants, the Atonement is an amnesty that changes little in the very soul of man; he remains the same sinner, but God forgives him. This approach also does not stand up to biblical criticism. We, the Orthodox, do not need a ransom, not an amnesty, but healing.
The Greek word itself, translated by us as “salvation”, at its root contains a word that means healthy in translation from Greek. Therefore, it means recovery, healing from damage, a deadly disease, a chronic illness. Christ, by His incarnation and subsequent suffering on the Cross, heals us from the leprosy of sin, heals us, that is, informs us of a new healthy way of life. This essential difference in the Orthodox understanding of the term "salvation" must be paid attention to.
It is said about the Mystery of the Incarnation: “revealing to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He had previously placed in Him, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, in order that all things heavenly and earthly be united under the head of Christ” (Eph. 1:9-10).
"First laid in Him" - and means that before the creation of man in the Son of God, it was God's good pleasure to make Him the Redeemer of the whole human race.
Therefore, the very preparation of the faithful for salvation took place before the foundation of the world. It is said: “... He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love, predestinating us to adopt us as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:4-5).
The fact that the Son of God was to become a Blood Sacrifice for the sin of mankind was also decided at the Pre-Eternal Council of the Persons of the Trinity, before the creation of the world. It is said that we are saved: "... the precious blood of Christ, as a spotless and pure Lamb, foreordained even before the foundation of the world, but appeared in the last times ..." (1 Peter 1:19-20).
The entire Holy Trinity participates in the work of our Dispensation (Salvation):
God the Father deigned to save people through His Only Begotten Son. It is said: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16).
The Son of God deigned to fulfill this Will of His Father. It is said: “The works that the Father gave Me to do, these very works that I do, testify of Me that the Father has sent Me.” (John 5:36).
The Holy Spirit deigned to appropriate to the redeemed sinners the gift of new Life in Christ and with Christ. It is said: “God from the beginning, through the sanctification of the Spirit and faith in the truth, chose you to salvation” (2 Thess. 2:13).
Also at the Pre-Eternal Council of the Holy Trinity, it was decided that the Son of God would make the final redemption of mankind by ascending into the heavenly sanctuary of the Kingdom of unspeakable light. It is said: “But Christ, the High Priest of the good things to come, having come with a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of such a dispensation, and not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, once entered the sanctuary and obtained eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:11-12); and further: “For Christ entered not into a sanctuary made with hands, in the image of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear before God for us.” (Heb. 9:24).
So, we see that the plan of our salvation was adopted at the Pre-eternal Council of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, even before the creation of the world. And it is carried out with the participation of the goodwill of all the Persons of the Holy Trinity, such goodwill is called the Divine Dispensation, the beginning of which was laid even before the existence of this world.
