Трактат третий. Предположения о зависимости «Евангелия» св. Апостола Павла от иудейско – эллинистического богословия
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The assumption of the genetic dependence of the apostolic doctrine on rabbinic Judaism and their inconsistency in explaining the particular points of the first and its antinomian character. – The need to attract new elements to participate in the process of formation of the apostolic system and historical considerations in favor of the actual probability with which the dependence of the gospel of St. Apostle Paul from Judeo-Hellenic theology.
And my word and my sermon are not
convincing human words
wisdom, but in the manifestation of spirit and power.
Activities of historical importance always reflect great men and are essentially determined by their own ideas. From this point of view, it is quite natural that the worldview of St. The Apostle Paul is commensurate with his life, and the contrasts of the first are reduced to the vicissitudes of personal fate. Then a radical change in religious beliefs is inevitably equated with the fact of conversion and explained from it. If the last event is understood as a natural mental transformation, then the gospel of the former Pharisee Zealot will be only a subjective transformation of the early Jewish hopes. This substantiates and protects the rationalistic idea of a genetic interpretation of the apostolic teaching from rabbinic principles 2 . Such a conclusion is all the more obligatory because Saul was entirely brought up in Jewish theology, 3 and this school imposed an indelible sorrow, why the transition to Christianity did not destroy the habitual inclinations of the mind.
4 In this case, the whole difference is exhausted by the fact that an excellent rabbinist 5 becomes a discerning 6 Christian rabbi, 7 and his “Gospel” is commented on from the Pharisaic elements. 8 The Church of Christ is called the daughter of the Jews 9 and is depicted as the offspring of the synagogue, 10 and the Lord Savior Himself is depicted as a disciple of Hillel. 11 However, a closer examination of Pavlov’s theology raises great doubts regarding the internal affinity with the Pharisaic dogmas, therefore, instead of harmonious agreement, a decisive contradiction is often noticed even in cardinal points. 12 This is the name of the need to attract new elements of Jewish sectarianism and apocalypticism with the assimilation of the predominant influence on the structure of Christian dogma. 13 But this attempt will not be crowned with success, deviating the thought from the recognized primary source, since we are shown that the Jewish parties were alien to Palestinian orthodoxy and were formed under other external influences. 14
Under such conditions, genetic interpretation loses its original ground and is deprived of historical right in its convergence with rabbinism. Added to this are observations of a fundamental nature. Post-exile Judaism gradually acquired the typical physiognomy of strict legalism. True, this direction received its theoretical completeness of anti-Christian tendentiousness later, 15 but this refers only to the theoretical formulation. 16 With all kinds of hypotheses, it is assumed with sufficient firmness that in the age of the Redeemer, an astringent nomism reigned, which despotically fettered the soul and normalized all its beats. According to critical premises, it is inevitable that this regulator of all religious and moral practices should have remained the driving factor in the apostolic preaching of St. Pavel. In fact, it turns out to be quite the opposite to the point of absolute exclusivity. The difference in the noted issue borders on categorical denial - without the slightest compromise and with the deliberate removal of everything that could contribute to some kind of unification.
The defenders of the genetic method themselves state that the Hellenic evangelist sharply emphasized the antithetical incompatibility of the law with Gospel 17 and here he was an extreme revolutionary. 18
Hence a dilemma arises: either the Apostle of the Gentiles does not owe the content of his sermon to the Pharisaism, which represented “the Jews as harming the Jews themselves,” 19 and reproduced the pure revelation of the incarnate truth in the Lord the Deliverer (cf. Eph. 4:21) - or criticism must reconcile enemies in an alliance of solidarity and friendly services. It is easy to guess that in order to avoid fatal difficulties, the second path is adopted. At the same time, its dangers, which predetermine the final result, are no less clear. It is said that Paul was and desired to remain a “good Israelite.” The main feature of his renewal was the desire to spiritualize legalism in order to strengthen the attractiveness of Judaism 20 and spread it beyond the borders of one’s nationality. With these intentions, he begins his publicizing career, being in close solidarity with the teachings of the Savior. Soon the inexorable experience led to severe disappointments. Innovations did not meet with sympathy, and this threatened the collapse of all reform projects.
As now, so before, the Jew could not endure the doctrine that the law is the power of sin, 21 which is why Paul himself came to it in the midst of the trials of all missionary adversities. 22 Sometimes he managed to captivate entire synagogues, but this was a sporadic occurrence and was achieved by adapting to the level of the listeners. They were imbued with nomistic conservatism and instinctively protested against any deviations. A boldly conceived plan was crushed into dust if life forced me to return to the tradition of my fathers and forget all my dreams. Such a demand was all the more inexorable because the evangelist was forced to rely on the ready-made soil of Jewish explanation in order to influence the environment. However, events were unfavorable and did not provide the basis for the calculated impact. Judaism was invariably the religion of the race, 23 and Paul, per fas et nefas, wanted to be the Apostle of the Gentiles. 24 Here the law became the enemy of his mission and, in the interests of the latter, was desecrated and rejected. 25 Here the former zealotism of intolerance and proud egoism for the sake of its triumph was reflected.
26 It is clear that the result was something subjective and false. The apostolic image is equated to a malicious caricature, 27 where the gloomy tones regarding the burdensomeness of legalism are entirely borrowed from the abnormal fantasy of a stubborn fanatic. 28 Hence he is a principled opponent of nomism, 29 but this is a dogma of personal self-preservation and has no objective value. 30 St. Paul did not immediately understand his pagan destiny 31 and during his career he forgot his beginnings. They rested on the historical fact of Christ’s ministry, which is why betrayal of them was accompanied by a falling away from the covenants of the Lord. From this side, the antinomian Church is a child of Paul and cannot take refuge under the authority of Jesus. 32 All the evangelism of the great missionary is resolved in mirages without real content and proper justification. With such illusory nature, it, of course, did not possess any transformative vitality in practice. Due to its exceptional negativity, this worldview was least suitable for the revival of Hellenism.
Therefore, they even doubt that Paul would convert even one pure pagan not from among the proselytes, and he is directly deprived of the title of Apostle of the Gentiles. 33 Between them, his preaching was doomed in advance to failure and, not provided with natural talent, did not achieve its goal. 34 The missionary catch was not plentiful, and then - most of the few common ones of this kind disappeared without a trace and without memories in Christian history. 35
Life experience condemned the theory and thereby unhypocritically testified to its objective insignificance. “Peacockism” died precisely because it did not have the reserves for development and prosperity. Being a “bold and radical modification! Judaism, 36 it was exhausted by bare denials, which were materially meager, ethically suspicious and practically dead. Logically, this judgment of criticism is - in appearance - impeccable and its premises are crowned with an inevitable result. But - in its essence - the latter is so incredible that all its preliminaries must be wavered. Regardless of any assessment, it is undeniable that the publicity feat of St. Paul was not a fruitless attempt at reverie. On the contrary, it contains the original beginning of Christian universalism, which emerged from the narrow confines of Palestinian Judaism and gradually gained predominance throughout the world. This would be completely unthinkable given the indicated genesis of the apostolic dogma, therefore mirages are always fleeting and incapable of animating dominance over the cosmos.
They quickly dissipate, and only great ideas of an enduring nature transform the face of the earth. From this side, the authority of as many as nineteen centuries speaks rather in favor of the internal validity of the apostolic gospel and affirms behind it the dignity of independent truth. This is also supported by the closest interpretation of Pavlov’s antinomianism itself. It was not an embittered trampling and therefore in no way equals partisan confrontation. Sympathy for his people invariably filled the heart of the Apostle with a thrill of sympathy and sorrow (Rom. 9:1 f. 10:1), and the Roman prisoner for the word of the cross first of all appeals to the Jews (Acts 28:17 f.) in the conviction that salvation of grace belonged to them first. The covenants of Israel continued to be sacred in their entirety and with all the divine prerogatives of sovereign election. The preaching of Christ was here a call of bright memories and joyful hopes. And if she was not heard, then the reason for this could only be the insensitivity of those announced - according to their persistence, the proclaimed deliverance.
37 It is clear that mutual contrast precedes missionary practice and itself gives it a certain course. In this case, it is historically false that anti-legalism developed gradually as a subjective antinomy to remove an insurmountable obstacle. Missionary disappointments on Jewish soil caused only a deviation in the actual application of the ruling principle and least of all determined its emergence and character. Consequently, all the principles of the apostolic preaching were formulated before the conflicts and cannot be deduced from them by chronological discrepancy.
At this point, the logical and psychological experiments of critical ingenuity are simply inappropriate due to their belatedness. But from here follows the second conclusion that the apostolic “Gospel” was not negative and had its own content - in addition to hostility and polemics, even if theology was formulated in correlation and contrast with legalistic religion. 38 Paul’s very antinonomism is alien to intolerance and rests on the absorption of the higher by the lower, 39 even though it was true that it was he who posed this question in principle - for theological and theoretical resolution. 40 For the Apostle, the Old Testament law was a revelation of the heavenly Father, and in its purpose His verbs are the same in the prophets and in the Son. The role of this divine institution in the saving economy is directly inexhaustible and incommensurable. Even his negative qualities helped the majestic realization of providential plans in the vastness of the universe. True, he led to the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20. 7:7) and was the determining force of crime (1 Cor.
15:56), but this was envisaged by its teleological importance (Gal. 3:19) and directed the world to Christ, where all are children of God and joint heirs with the Lord. It is also true that Israel was broken off from the tree of life and fell from the promise; with all this, it remains unshakable that God shut everyone into rebellion, that He may have mercy on everyone (Rom. 11:32). The economic value of law is truly universal and unlimited. This, first of all, ensures the idea that the Apostle was not in the least motivated in his views by a forced hatred of the glorious institution of his ancestors. If, with descendants immersed in nomic slavery, 41 St. Paul diverged to the point of diametricality, hence it is irresistible that he is not obliged to them in this regard.
Attempts at a reverse interpretation are unsuccessful and only the relief ones highlight the evangelical independence. It is stated that it was Rabbinicism that categorically proclaimed the universal salvation of legalism, 42 therefore the teaching is given to all people, why the advantages of Israel are not built on the carnal nobility of blood. 43 However, there was no fundamental justification here, which was already post factum according to the inexorable demands of inert reality. It did not fit into the fixed framework of nomistic formulas and found itself in opposition to him. For the sake of reconciliation, it was assumed that the words of the Bible are imperatively commented on by life, 44 and the custom that arose serves as a mandatory norm. 45 Its adaptation to the written letter was carried out by the Jewish authorities 46 in the spirit of preserving the second through partial donations, in order to maintain the whole, since the special application does not take away from the general meaning. 47 For this purpose, the biblical law was sometimes directly abolished, 48 for - according to Simon ben Lakish - here its abolition was actually a statement.
49 Rabbinic exegesis strove for the atrophy of unsuitable principles 50 and - due to the fatal difficulty of the task - was resolved by artificial tricks 51 of perverted methods. 52 In this way the legalistic element maintained its dominance, but in it any expansion was not motivated by its inner desires, but was forced upon it by force, 53 when whole mountains (of rules) were hanging by a thread (of biblical allusions). 54 Therefore, theoretical interpretations are distinguished by nomistic astringency with the preaching of merciless submission. The very existence of the world is reduced only to the implementation of the Torah in all its details. 55 Then it is natural that he who violates the law of the Sabbath rest will be an apostate from the whole law, 56 and a proselyte who does not accept one legalistic point turns out to be an apostate. 57 The execution must be no less precise - and the slave, constrained in the performance of all ritual functions, was freed only together with and on an equal basis with the thing.
58 “Peoples” are not only incompetent in such matters: they are unreliable in every possible way, 59 and help to them is absolutely forbidden, 60 even if God himself rejoices at their condemnation. 61 It is not surprising that the mentioned ben – Lak – ish calmly commands to kill the best of them, and Simon ben – Jochai said that all “goyim” are not people. 62 These harshnesses of particularistic fanaticism are justified by the severity of persecution, when the extreme is excusable, although it does not have objective firmness. 63 Others understand the second saying to mean that, amid the horrors of war, it was difficult to avoid contact with pagan corpses, and in the interests of maintaining ritual purity, enemies are likened to animals by factual necessity, and not by principle. 64 Historically, these hypotheses are perhaps permissible, but they do not cover the subject in all its characteristic features. We are not talking about actual cases and are not at all limited to their rationing.
Rabbinic logic illuminates the singular and temporary with dogmatic considerations, and proclaims its opinion with an innocence that gives no room for doubt about its value or actual adaptability. In the particular, the conviction of faith is clearly revealed here, and therefore it does not matter to us that such suggestions did not function in practice and were not consolidated by it. This is again a matter of different circumstances and opportunistic policies. The only thing dear to us is that misanthropy is preached in the name of the law itself and hides behind itself the legalistic inevitability of such behavior in the event of complications encountered. From this point of view, an excellent solution is provided by the rabbinic formula that the good of the pagans is evil 65 and is not available to them in its pure form. Their revival is possible only through an irrevocable renunciation of their originality and unquestioning submission to rabbinic mosaicism.
The ideal of nomistic catholicity rests on the complete depersonalization of humanity and will not be achieved until “all Palestine becomes the same as Jerusalem, and all lands become like Palestine.” 66
Access to the benefits of the promise for the Gentiles is only through joining the chosen race with the loss of all individuality. 67 It is clear that this universality is relative, and any practicing ideas with tendencies of ephemeral absolutism can lay claim to it with equal right. True universality is above cosmic gradations and therefore is not delayed by them. It lies in that spirituality that everywhere finds a corresponding response in human nature, which is why it is naturally perceived by the latter, revitalizes it and contributes to its typical development through the embodiment of the ideal in the real. Nomistic rabbinism rejected all this with the proud arrogance of national arrogance and allowed concessions only for itself and in order to protect its norms and forms. 68
At this point they successfully note that the Pharisees did not understand either the meaning or purpose of the law, 69 and, consequently, St. Paul did not borrow his universal view from them. This is confirmed by his irreconcilable break with the Jewish authorities, but it is indisputable and theoretical. Attributing to the Sinai commandments a great role in the history of divine providence, the Apostle did not consider them the final expression of the supreme will and compared them with the judgment of the goodness of the Heavenly Father. Here the higher, building on the lower, inevitably supplanted it. Therefore, economic importance does not have the properties of dogmatic immutability and even eliminates it. In this case, the law, salutary in its intentions, did not have perfect effectiveness in its sphere and was simply a preparatory instrument. He is least of all eternal, and his role is chronologically closed. On the other hand, in the course of house-building, everything comes together with harmonious gradualism, and in it the new is internally in solidarity with the old.
There is no mutual negation or confrontation here, therefore the very abolition of the former is achieved through its perception and strengthening, even with the cessation of one’s own activity. In this respect, the suppression of legalism was its triumph, crowning nomistic hopes in their actual realization. On this basis, St. Paul could boldly testify that he does not destroy the law, but confirms it (Rom. III, 31), from which follows complete agreement with Christ on this issue. 70
As a result, we find that apostolic antinomianism was not damnosa haereditas of missionary policy 71 and did not arise at all through the rejection of constraining principles. Such a conviction preceded experience and, guiding it, had to be distinguished by a positive content, and this latter does not coincide with the rabbinic one and does not depend on it. It is clear that the wealth of the gospel was not exhausted by the Pharisaic heritage and contained something original, which caused peculiar modifications in the original Jewish dogma.
We are now on the threshold of recognizing the revelation of the divine in the apostolic teaching. But for criticism, the New Testament is a Jewish book, 72 and if not everything in it is derived from the Old, 73 then the additional elements will still be strictly Jewish. And since rabbinic theorems are adhered to, it is necessary to predetermine that all innovations were of the same type. Thus, genetic authors find a happy way out of their helplessness in the idea of merging different Jewish elements with “peacocking”. This interpretation seems all the more fruitful and objectively impeccable because it is not difficult to find historical justifications in indisputable facts. First of all, it is stated that the Apostle himself came from the Hellenic dispersion, 74 and in it the particularism of Palestinian scribes had long been weakened by the inevitability of separation from the Jerusalem shrines and by contact with paganism. This smoothed out isolation and contributed to mutual borrowing.
Outside the borders of the Promised Land, Israel richly compensated for the loss of its own by assimilating what was foreign and bringing it into the service of nomistic beliefs. Such was the property of the Tarsian zealot, and it was then strengthened by the very conditions of the gospel ministry. Already Christ supposedly acted among the Greekized Jews, 75 and for the Apostle this was his own sphere of missionary exploits. Naturally, to ensure success it was necessary to adapt to the mood of the audience and put forward the sides that were familiar to it. Listeners and speakers were united in an equal inclination towards Hellenistic tendencies. St. Paul was forcibly directed towards the preferential development of the latter, which is why the break with the synagogue usually arose only from the extreme enthusiasm of the preacher. They think that the entire early Christian community was composed of Hellenistic members of Judaism, 76 with the involvement of sectarianism, 77 hence the influence of Gnosticism on its progressive formation.
78 But “Paulinism” was the most important engine of this process, which is why we must understand it in the sense of the highest exponent of the principles of Hellenic Judaism. Therefore, the whole key to understanding the apostolic “Gospel” lies in the immediate determination of whether it was Jewish-Palestinian or strictly Hellenistic. 79
We now face a second possibility, however, its acceptance is hampered by fundamental considerations. Jerusalem rabbinism always remained the supreme arbiter and regulator of Jewish theology, and any admixture was permitted with its consent and approval. Saul was a Pharisee schoolboy, and the basis of his teaching will be rabbinic theology. 80 Everything further is permissible here, no more than what was allowed by Palestinian orthodoxy, 81 through which it was actually adopted. 82 On this side, it is said that the Hellenistic spirit, dominant in Catholic dogma, is not yet noticeable in the New Testament writings 83 and had little impact on the formulation of “Paulinism” 84 - due to its independence from these movements. 85 This judgment in turn assumes that Palestinian scribes were alien to Hellenistic influences. 86 But this point is far from indisputable, and we encounter completely contrary opinions. 87 For a long time, the Greek worldview invaded Palestine, 88 and its echoes are heard even in the era of reaction 89 and are felt in literature itself.
90 This facilitated the exchange of rabbinism with Hellenic Judaism. The first continued to be normative and, for example, was reflected in Alexandrian exegesis, 91 as in the LXX. 92 Of course, this is not absolutely reliable and is sometimes commented on quite the contrary. 93 With all this, the ground was ready for mutual communication, and this could not pass without a trace. Naturally, Alexandrian currents penetrated into Jerusalem 94 and entailed corresponding modifications. 95 They guess that the rabbinate itself was formed not without reference to Hellenism, 96 which is also visible in Jewish teachings. 97 This is even stronger for Palestinian midrashim 98 with the characteristic features of Alexandrinism, 99 and if Philo was guided by them, 100 then the development of the dogma of the memra did not occur without his participation 101 and pressure, 102 as is also accepted for the idea of shekinah. 103 This ensures the influence of Alexandria on Palestine 104 in various spheres 105 and to such an extent that philonism is introduced into rabbinism 106 with its special theology.
107 Here, as is customary, the similarities are emphasized with precision, as if the predominance of the Alexandrian elements in Pharisaism is more conceivable than the opposite. 108 The extreme causes no less resistance, 109 and this justifies the theory that Hellenism has always been weak in Palestinian circles, 110 and their Alexandrian elements have not been proven. 111 We must agree that advocates of the latter often fall into excessive exaggeration and go beyond the limits of historical plausibility. It is enough to note at least the question of the Greek translation of the LXX, where sometimes purely philosophical concepts are seen, which in reality do not turn out to be. 112 Nevertheless, the living connection of the children of Israel throughout the world cannot be denied, 113 and this contributed to the spread of Egyptian wisdom in the rabbinic strata. 114 The boundary line between Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism was not stable, 115 and the literary monuments are not strictly distinguished. 116 Rabbinic Judaism was not completely pure and contained a sufficient number of alien germs that allowed free combinations.
Here everything depended on prudent prudence and careful balance. With conservative moderation, there was no shame in rational illumination of cherished hopes, but they were easily realized and lost their typicality in the processing of unrestrained thoughts. And if within Judaism itself sectarian trends were formed and heretical parties emerged, then why couldn’t Gamail’s disciple go further than he should have without being embarrassed in his Jewish conscience? Once this is admitted, we will have no reason to reject the possibility that the Pharisee zealot was naturally transformed into a pagan evangelist. And when they express that his “Gospel” is not at all rabbinic-Jewish in its origin and essence, 117 - criticism responds to this, not without dignity, with a reference to the omission of the most important factor - Hellenistic predominance. 118 The secret of “Paulinism” lies precisely in the extraordinary composition of Pharisaism and Hellenism, 119 as this is the only legitimate way to its objective assessment 120 through the arrangement of irreconcilable combinations.
121 Thus, the Apostle naturally turns into a pagan missionary and his theology is commented on from available materials in compliance with all the requirements of scientific genesis.
The question receives an unexpected solution, and its strength is determined by the true understanding of Paul's theology. It is equated with Hellenistic Judaism, 122 and we are obliged to analyze the latter, starting with its highest expression in the Alexandrian theosophy of Philo.
Chapter one. "Gospel" of St. Apostle Paul and theosophy of Philo of Alexandria
Dependence of the gospel of St. Paul from the theosophy of Philo, affirmed in connection with the disclosure of the historical significance of Hellenistic-Alexandrian Judaism for Christianity, the harbinger of which is called the Egyptian theosophist, who was supposedly the productive prototype for Paul's theology. – The essence of the question is that if the Apostle could not have known directly Philo’s views, as some admit, then Paulinism is a phenomenon of a later era. – The need for dative comparison of compared systems according to the method of justification and the nature of the content. – Philo’s exegetical technique and assumptions about the relationship of St. to it. Paul, who has no corresponding model in rabbinism. – This thought is incorrect, therefore the Apostle does not see a direct reflection of the methodological principles of philonism - in the absence of minor details in the Bible (1 Cor. IX, 9 ꓿ Deut. XXV, 4) and in the special meaning of each of them (Gal. III, 16). – Claims of extreme exaggeration of Philonian allegorism in Gal. IV, 21 ff.
and their fallacy, for here is not an argumentum ad hominem and not a homiletical exhortation, but an objective characteristic of nomism based not on stories, but on biblical facts, which were allegorical by their very nature, why convergences, without violating historical reality, are built on the inherent principle of the unity of all stages in divine providence, meanwhile Philo almost completely destroyed the historical reality of the episodes about Hagar and Sarah, in his commentary everywhere he revealed literalistic logomachy and - contrary to the apostolic freedom from the law - proclaimed strict legalism. – For the entire V.Z., the allegorical-typological understanding of St. Paul rested on recognition consistently and in accordance with the ongoing will of God in actually past events, while the theosophist undermined the historicity of the latter and took away the direct meaning from the Bible, entirely using the Greek translation as an inspired replacement for the original, nomistically distorted and pushed aside the prophets and allowed wide reinterpretations for the sake of attracting Hellenic ideas.
– The difference in methods is accompanied by a disparity of views, and in the Abrahamic faith Philo sees only the initial and transitional stage of intellectualistic contemplation, which resorts to legalistic authority for practical influence, and the Apostle considers it an active force of justification and righteous life (Gal. III, 9. 5 - 7. Rom. IV, 13. 16. 18 - 22) in the Christian spirit deliverance. – Hence the inevitable difference in the Christological problem, where for the pre-existent Son of God the evangelist is called the Philonian concepts of ideal or Arian - created prototypical humanity, but in 1 Cor. XV, 45 pp. an intermediate prototype for the earthly Adam is not allowed, and the second is not verified because of the theosophical understanding of Gen.
I, 26, for this is Christ in the historically human existence of the redemptive feat; for Him, the indications “from heaven” and “heavenly” do not testify to pre-incarnation humanity and, by heavenly origin, determine the life-giving nature of the Risen and Exalted One as the last founder of humanity, the gradations of which are eliminated in the kingdom of grace (Gal. III, 28) not at all according to the androgyny of the chapter. – The divine superiority of Christ and its connection with Philonian logololy, put forward in genetic interpretations. However, the Apostle has the pre-eternal divine pre-existence of the Lord in Col. I, 15 ff., Eph. and Philip. II, 6 ff. is protected by the historical feat of divine deliverance in all its reality and at this point, of course, in accordance with all other data, because in 1 Cor. X, 4. VIII. 6. 2 Cor. VIII, 9 categorically preaches the real pre-worldly existence of the Redeemer, in 1 Cor. XV, 24 – 28 does not note His created subordination, contrary to Col. I, 16 – 17, if the general truth prevails everywhere, that everything is directed to the Father through the Son, as the true “image of God” (2 Cor.
IV, 4), who revealed Himself in this dignity - after the incarnation - in all His historical ministry and imprinted His pre-existentiality so clearly and irresistibly that it is rooted in the Christian faith itself and is drawn from it. In Philo, this idea is constructed and developed differently: its premises are ontological dualism, smoothed out by the involvement of reconciling mediation of the Platonic-Stoic type and with the weak features of Jewish angelology; as the highest expression of these tendencies, the Logos was formulated in the interests of satisfying cosmological needs and in reality was absorbed by the world, and in divinity it was dissolved in the ideality of the mind of God. – Therefore, in the Apostle, Christ, as power, presupposes an eternal divine personality, which Philo rejects either by abolishing the special personality of his intercessor, or by lowering him to created “cosmicity.”
– The theosophical concept of the redemption of the evil through the good is only externally similar to the apostolic doctrine, for everything there is focused on the renunciation of carnality and the original triumph of virtues, where there is neither superhuman deliverance nor a divine Redeemer, which are not needed for the socio-political liberation of Israel. – Denial of the incarnation. – In Philo, metaphysically-dualistic anthropology turns into psychological-ethical dualism, not accepted by the Apostle, hence the contrast between them in amartology and on individual points in the depiction of humanity in a pre-grace-natural state and in the period of Christian renewal, in particular about a truly normal life. – The general character of Philonism is the forced Hellenization of the Bible through artificial exegetical allegorism and its inevitable sterility in Judaism, given the complete independence of Christianity, which would rather be denied by it, just as it did not borrow from it the material and doctrinal justification for the gospel of St.
Apostle Paul.
The Judaism of the Dispersion, living in an environment alien to it, necessarily had to adapt to the surrounding reality. But religion permeated the entire existence of a Jew, and most of all it isolated him from other peoples. Therefore, the smoothing primarily affected theological contemplations. They were almost completely unknown to the pagan world, where completely false ideas circulated, providing food for malicious mockery and justifying stubborn mistrust of instinctive disgust. Judaism needed to dispel these prejudices and reveal all the purity of its religious hopes, and for this it was necessary to illuminate the subject in forms accessible to Hellenic understanding. The latter's methods and ideas were an inevitable prerequisite for such a policy. This means that apologetic tendencies were achieved only through the transfer of philosophical methods and concepts and through their transfer to the entire sum of Jewish dogmas. Along with this, another observation deserves attention.
The descendants of Abraham have always been imbued with an unshakable conviction in the exclusivity of their religious superiority and the only salvation of the kept covenants. It is quite natural on their part to want to prove their superiority and attract all people to their confession. The task was reduced to a compelling statement that Judaism is superior to paganism in religious aspirations. It is easy to see that now both quantities were placed on the same general level, which is why the argumentation was borrowed from the second and applied to the first, so that the result was indisputable for pagan thinking. It is clear that proselytizing goals, fueled by actual successes, in turn inclined to the assimilation of foreign philosophical principles. Thus, a unique religious view gradually formed in Hellenistic Judaism, which reached a particular flowering in Egypt on the banks of the Nile. Alexandria was a worldwide market and served as a focal point for mutual communication for all kinds of influences, and then became the most important center of mental productivity of fading Hellenism.
Here Judaism has long constituted a numerous and imposing class, with extensive privileges, and by the force of things obliged to participate in joint intellectual work. It is not surprising from this that it was on this basis that specifically Jewish religious theosophy of the best type developed. Imbued with the noted properties and embodying them to precision, it was a brilliant defense of national beliefs and disposed the Hellenic mind to them. Her victorious recommendation, sealed with unshakable conviction, was all the more attractive because the pagan encountered familiar schemes, enriched with a new content of bright hopes and the deepest ideas of God's revelation.
In this sense, Jewish Alexandrinism was a fruitful factor in religious progress. He alarmed the pagan apathy of cold indifference and opened happy horizons to skeptical despair, and by inculcating monotheism he taught them to expect and accept further revelations of the saving will of the God of Israel. Sympathy for prophetic verbs was an excellent propaedeutic for attention to the word of the Son. Therefore, they think that outside Palestinian Judaism was a bridge for its unification with the Roman Church already during the period of the spread of Christianity. 123 But Philo, 124 who serves for us as the representative of all Hellenistic Judaism of the early Christian era, is “the glory of the Alexandrian school of the Jews, 125 and if the latter prepared the way for the preaching of redemption, 126 then this is even truer for its head. Philonian theology serves as a transition from the “apocrypha” of the Old Testament and helps the objective comprehension of the apostolic gospel, 127 for it left indelible traces of its influence on it.
128 It then follows naturally that they are mutually related, and in the proclaimed fact of deliverance lies the realization of theosophical ideas. From this side, Philo and Christianity are equated on the same basis - with their mutual correlation, as attraction and fulfillment, hope for the future and confidence in the present. 129 The Alexandrian Jew turns out to be not only a teacher in Christ, 130 but also His direct forerunner, which is why some with trivial rudeness consider Philonism an introduction or overture to the Christian hymn of grace. 131 It contains all future Christianity 132 in its initial emergence and further development of church dogma. 133 Such opinions have long been circulating in critical circles 134 and were not slow to focus on the personality of St. Pavel. A faithful disciple of the Lord, he continued the mission of his Mentor and gave wide scope to the hidden beginnings. The apostle professes the Alexandrian theorems much more decisively than John, 135 and directly or indirectly Philo 136 influenced him more than most of the apocrypha.
137 The theology of the Egyptian mystic will be the prologue to Peacockism 138 and is imprinted on it in all relief. 139 There is an internal intimacy between them, 140 and the evangelist, who has mastered the language of his Alexandrian mentor, 141 owes him all the dogmatic concepts 142 both in the secondary and in the main. Thus, anthropology and soteriology were only the logical result of Philonov’s premises, 143 of them are fully explained and, perhaps, do not require a historical foundation for themselves in the fact of the incarnation and suffering on the cross of the Son of God.
Peacockism dissolves without a trace in Hellenistic Judaism and will simply be its original transformation. The most extreme hypotheses of this kind still find energetic defenders, 144 and even moderate ones admit the undoubted co-presence of Hellenistic elements in the apostolic “Gospel”. 145 But then it is necessary to affirm the historical connection of the creditor with the lender in order to allow the indisputability of the favor. This is the first difficulty for criticism, which, however, is not at all embarrassed and uses all the means of virtuoso ingenuity.
Philo (born around 20-10 BC) was an older contemporary of St. Paul, 146 and the literary works of the Alexandrian philosopher hardly became widely known by the time missionary activity began and before the publication of the letters of the Apostle. 147 Under the conditions of that time, the exchange of books was not so easy, and the rapid distribution of works does not correspond to actual possibilities. Criticism, apparently, finds itself in a hopeless situation, forcing self-denial. Capitulation is all the more inevitable since the authors of the genetic school themselves aggravate the issue by presenting it too harshly. They are not content with general analogies and try to substantiate the idea of a direct correlation, since otherwise all similarities will be explained from the character and spiritual atmosphere of a given period, 148 and in this case the idea of obligation is eliminated by itself. More sober observers are very hesitant on the point under consideration and require clear illustrations.
149 It is necessary to admit and argue for a direct literary dependence, which is actually proclaimed in the interests of the theory. 150 It will further follow that “the writings of Philo were probably familiar to the Apostle, 151 - and this clears the ground for genetic experiments. The whole task now is to find a convenient time for such activities in Pavlova’s life. Its early stages before conversion do not reveal the slightest deviation of Zilotic jealousy, which is again dangerously weakened by the intrusion of liberal trends, without disturbing the natural course of Pharisaic maturation and without contradicting the categorical testimony of the evangelist. His youth was completely captured by nomism, and rabbinic zeal excluded all extraneous influences, just as it contained the whole mystery of revival. Therefore, they guess that the Apostle was engaged in reading and studying Philon’s treatises during his stay in the countries of Syria and Cilicia (Gal. I, 21) after his departure to Arabia.
152 Others attract the participation of the Alexandrian Apollos, who endowed his enlightener with the treasures of the Jewish wisdom of Egypt. 153 Therefore, “the possibility cannot be denied that in the decade between 50 and 60. according to R. Chr., when, according to the accepted view, the main messages arose, some of Philo’s ideas and writings turned out to be accessible to the Apostle,” 154 who used them directly. 155
But already at first glance, the fatal instability of all these interpretations is noticeable. We are not talking about the fact that the Syrian-Cilician ministry coincides with the process of literary creativity of the Alexandrian theosophist, whose works hardly spread far beyond the Egyptian circles with such speed. It is much more significant for us that the inner mood of St. Paul was least inclined to borrow from the reserves of human sophistication. Whatever we come up with about the salutary turning point of the Pharisaic self-conviction, it will always be indisputable that this crisis ended in a complete renewal of the personality. Everything old seems to have disappeared in her, and the spirit of goodness attracts attention to the point of insensibility to everything around her. After his baptism, Saul does not seek the help of the “most famous” authorities and flees to Arabia to withdraw into himself. Moreover, he is not in a hurry to go to Jerusalem to the “foremost”, although for him they were the “pillars” of the Church and the primary exponents of the will of Christ, Who had mercy on the persecutor. Hitherto his gospel has been carried according to man (Gal. I, 11).
The opposite is equally unthinkable later, because it is difficult to find a satisfactory motive for changing the previous tone. Refers to supposed missionary activity among pagans before the era of the great travels. 156 But, firstly, this is not an axiom at all, and then it did not cause such a metamorphosis at all. The announcer himself, through the bitter experience of indelibly painful memories, was convinced that human energy is more likely to be resolved by disastrous results and is fruitful not before the highest sanctification. Here it would be an extreme anomaly to use means that do not correspond to the goal, and to eliminate the only suitable one, personally tested with such gratitude. If there everything was in the grace of salvation, then here we must expect complete concentration on it. And we know that during these fourteen years the Jewish churches heard only about the former zealot’s ardent devotion to the persecuted faith and glorified God for him (Gal. I, 23-24), seeing in his preaching an equivalent testimony to the truth of Christ.
It is obvious from everything that the possibility being analyzed is almost outright impossible. And the difficulty is aggravated by the fact that missionary preaching already presupposes a developed and thoughtful conviction, and there is still no place for philonism to participate in this. But in this case, the influence of Apollos is undermined at its very core. 157 With him St. Paul met quite late, almost towards the end of his evangelistic ministry before his arrest in Jerusalem. In the past we have two journeys, an “apostolic council”, a “clash” with Peter in Antioch and no less than three epistles, of which Galatia is rightfully considered the most typical for understanding the personal characteristics of the writer’s gospel. His views received sharp clarity, not allowing radical transformations. Hence, the impact of Apollos for the future is doubtful. The theoretical conclusion is confirmed in fact with sufficient irresistibility.
The Corinthian stay of the student (and godson?) of Aquila and Priscilla was not entirely successful and was accompanied by the emergence of a special party with a tendency toward schismatic emphasis (1 Cor. I, 12. III, 4). Apollos himself was not guilty of this (cf. I Cor. XVI, 12) no less than Paul, but it is interesting for us to find out the reasons for his preference over the teacher among the Achaeans. The following observations are important in this regard. On his first visit to the Corinthians, the Apostle did not achieve brilliant success among the Jews: at first his preaching was confined within a narrow framework and then extended more to proselytes and Greeks (Acts XVIII, 4-6). On the contrary, the exploits of Apollos were crowned with decisive victories, if they did not attract many admirers (XVIII, 27). And the most remarkable thing is that both defended the same thesis that “Jesus is the Christ” (XVIII, 5 and 28) - only in the first it led to opposition and blasphemy with an irreconcilable gap, while the second strongly refuted his opponents and publicly triumphed over them. The solution to this mystery lies in the properties of the problem itself.
The messiahship of the Sufferer of Calvary had to be confirmed by the written biblical word, where Jewish orthodoxy saw in its deliverer only the dazzling radiance of a glorious hero - a triumphant. To a prejudiced eye this seemed incompatible - and the subtle art of experienced dialectics was required to force a person to see what he does not want. The Apostle limited himself to testimony (XVIII, 5) and interpretation of an event that seemed specifically shameful to the Jews, and it is natural that they acquired external legality for disastrous slander and stubbornness. But Apollos was an eloquent man and knowledgeable in the Scriptures (XVIII, 24). The famous ingenuity of Alexandrian exegesis did him excellent service, and he easily overcame all difficulties, both in polemics and in apologetics. Both his accusation and his justification were equally indestructible. The result was that Apollos surpassed Paul, 158 and Christian novices among the influential members of enlightened proselytism subordinated the dignity of truth to the effect of its argumentation.
Hence the special party trend in Corinth with the coloring of philosophical exaltation. But did this even slightly affect the sympathies of the Apostle? Hopes in this sense suffer absolute disappointment, and the evangelist categorically condemns self-inflicted wisdom: in the past for it the fatal sentence “I will destroy” and “reject”, in the present and future there is a terrible danger, so that the cross of Christ will not be abolished by it, which is why the preaching of grace is not in convincing words, but exclusively in the manifestation of the spirit and power (1 Cor. I, 17 ff.). This mood fundamentally and forever delivered St. Paul from the theosophical seductions of Alexandrinism and did not give Apollos support for philonic influences. 159
Thus, all paths are closed for the penetration of Philonov’s concepts into the sphere of mental and religious contemplation of the Hellenic missionary, and here direct contact is historically incredible. This result, with its indisputability, conquers every reasonable thought, and it is accepted by authors of the most varied shades. They claim that none of the New Testament writers read the works of Philo, although much is explained from him, 160 and for St. Paul this is almost unprovable 161 due to factual impossibility. 162 Criticism is stripped of all justification. However, this is not yet a final defeat, and she herself willingly agrees with the formulated thesis, so all her resources have been exhausted and her genetic intentions are sufficiently secured. A short quotation will suffice to illuminate the issue. It says: “if - presumably - Philo's life ended around the time between 50 - 60 years. according to R.
Chr., then a certain period was required for the dissemination of his ideas and works throughout the Judeo-Greek world, and the nature and method of using them in the New Testament rather testifies that then they had already been in effect for a long time and penetrated into the minds. Therefore, the noted fact will become understandable only if not only the writings of John, the epistles to the Hebrews and the later Pauline, but also the main Pauline documents are commented on as monuments of an era that is very far removed from the historical Paul. 163 This means that - due to the lack of direct connections with Philo among the Apostle of Languages - all of the latter’s literature must be inauthentic in its entirety. The conclusion is logically inevitable, and it finds quite a few strong supporters in the person of Bruno Bauer, Rudolf Steck, Carl Hesedamm. And the Dutch school, at the behest of the father of independent theology, 164 Scholten, applied this principle with all its audacity. The main objection to Hebrews is its (exaggerated) philonic flavor.
165 However, in other New Testament books, the Hellenistic element is supposedly undeniable, 166 and therefore the Dutch dare to completely eliminate the very existence of early Christianity. For them, “Christ and Paul are creations of the 2nd century; the history of Christianity begins at the turn of the first century to the second, when, on the basis of messianic quests, this peculiar phenomenon grows in the buried Judaism. This age produced "Jesus Christ" in the same way that later Greek religious philosophers created their saviors (eg Apollonius); Marcion’s church gave birth to “Paul,” and in the emerging Catholic Church he became a distinct figure.” 167 The success of apologetics turns out to be illusory and turns into outright destruction for its goals. It is necessarily forced to exercise restraint in historical argumentation, so as not to incur great danger and not lose its last asset. Such a victory would be truly an irreparable defeat, because through this the entire field is cleared for genetic convergence - without limitation by space and time.
When freed from factual obstacles and historical criteria, it is not surprising to hear that “in the writings of Paul and Apollos John and in the epistle to the Hebrews there is much more inspiration from Judeo-Alexandrianism than from the Holy Spirit” in relation to theology and even to the Christian religion itself. 168 The new element for the formation of Christianity was borrowed from Philo, 169 and he is the first of the Church Fathers 170 and their head. 171
We see that the whole matter is escaping historical control and with this formulation it takes on a special poignancy. The question now does not concern particulars, but affects the dignity of the entire New Testament canon with an attack on its factual foundation in the accomplishment of redemption by the incarnate Son of God. The interests of real hermeneutics merge with dogmatic ones and are sanctified by them in their deepest life significance. This sets out the task of carefully considering the points noted in every detail.
We see that the whole matter is escaping historical control and with this formulation it takes on a special poignancy. The question now does not concern particulars, but affects the dignity of the entire New Testament canon with an attack on its factual foundation in the accomplishment of redemption by the incarnate Son of God. The interests of real hermeneutics merge with dogmatic ones, and are sanctified by them in their deepest life significance. This sets out the task of carefully considering the points noted in every detail.
The natural remedy for solving this problem is, of course, a detailed confluence, and its course is determined by the essence of Philo's system itself. “A typical Jew is a Hellenist and a typical Alexandrian eclectic,” 172 he sought to unite Old Testament theology with the concepts of Greek thinkers 173 by transferring them into his own sphere. 174 But, it goes without saying that all this was undertaken for the glory of the faith of Israel and for the sake of protecting and promoting its ideals among educated paganism. The support and measure of all theosophical impulses remained the biblical books, the content of which was revealed by the scientific methods of the Greek mind and compared with its best products of centuries-old effort. The Word of God drew closer to human speech and - in all its superiority - embraced it completely, being the highest and most perfect development. This inevitably established their material affinity with the obligation to logically deduce one from the other.
If the basis of philonism was the Bible, then, first of all, it was necessary to give it a Greek appearance and find Hellenic wisdom in it. In turn, the latter was supported by this in its authority and forced to biblical justification. From all sides, Philo was directed towards the ecetic method of construction, and its properties were determined by the qualities of the object. In it, the radical appearance of biblical contemplation from philosophical concepts was immediately striking. The stock of concepts, their content, external formulation and literary embodiment - all this was imbued with a special spirit of an inimitable combination of sublimity and realism, separation from the world and human adaptability. Material dissimilarity was visible everywhere and made any comparisons with Hellenism difficult, yet in them lies the very nerve of Filonov’s tendencies. They were saved no other way than by the conviction that much of the Bible does not say properly and cannot be interpreted literally, but, on the contrary, must be explained in relation to Greek ideas.
The immediate meaning was eliminated to the greatest extent and was transformed into simple imagery of pedagogical accommodation. Hence, in the writings of Philo, continuous allegory reigns without limit, with all its subtle twists and the abolition of almost all history. This was the internal necessity of the task taken, which was carried out only in an allegorical way. 175 For this reason, it is strictly developed and justified in its logical use, therefore all the action was ensured by it. In the long experience of mutual reconciliation, Judaism gradually paved convenient paths and put forward suitable methods of Hellenistic-biblical interpretation. Philo took advantage of the extracted reserves and refined them to the subtlety and precision of an infallible scale, which is why he often mentions the rules of allegory. 176
It is clear that in his religious philosophy the latter was an animating factor and possessed all the fullness of complete maturity. And if we notice similar facts in others, we involuntarily begin to suspect defeat. It is all the more certain when the modern author does not have such a fundamental compulsion in his intentions, and everything is exhausted by the dignity of accidental help. Exaggeration should not count, because unsystematic copying is always accompanied by extremes of perversion and exaggeration. But, as if, this was precisely the attitude of Philo and St. Paul, therefore the second allegorizes sporadically and does not reveal regulated normativity. They think that this loudly demonstrates his actual dependence, which is supported by all other considerations. True, the Apostle was brought up in a rabbinical school, and in it allegorism has long flourished 177 and often achieved amazing virtuosity. Sometimes it was categorically said that the interpreter was literally a liar.
178 We must not only forget that the closest source and criterion of such understanding was life itself. Being a reflection of the progressive growth of the chosen people, steadily moving towards the obligatory commission of the Kingdom of God, this life could not help but imprint revealed truths and was a factual commentary for them. In this sense, all the established principles of religious consciousness and pious practice were considered biblical in advance, even if they did not completely coincide with each other. Naturally, then even different interpretations were declared equally valuable, 179 times they were based on solid custom, rooted in reality. It turns out that the rabbinic-Palestinian allegory actually consolidated what was available and was least of all an instrument for the expansion and development of religious Jewish views. In any case, this was always only a side application of its main role in innovations that had established themselves before and in addition to the exegetical argumentation that gave them theological solidarity.
All such qualities constitute a sharp denial of the very essence of Philo’s exegesis, and if he drew a lot of content from the Pharisaic halakhah 180 and the Palestinian haggadah, he hardly borrowed his method from them, 181 because the latter, being similar to the rabbinic-midrashic one, 182 was his means for the formation of his own and original theosophical system, largely alien to both faith and piety. 183 This service is especially true for St. Paul, therefore his theology is too far from the Pharisees, just as he broke ties with the teachers of Israel. 184 What has been said also outlines another typical feature of rabbinic allegorism. Having its basis and support in developed concepts, it, of course, was supported and sanctified by them, but immediately found an imperative limitation. Its influence was limited to the scope of real requests and did not extend beyond the required response. Therefore, in the Bible, not a single iodine is in vain and contains a certain shade, but the meaning of Scripture should not stand out for the letters, which, first of all, are subject to analysis.
185 Naturally, the allegorical technique of rabbinism is distinguished by simply literal scrupulousness, and in it all the amazing art of hanging entire mountains of laws by a thread does not in the least weaken the impression of mercantile soullessness and deadening pettiness. The energy of the mind is squeezed into the vicious circle of traditional schemes and, fettered by them, undermines itself with rare zeal. Here, the higher the success, the more insignificant the result - and the external effect of dialectical resourcefulness is inevitably accompanied by callous conservatism 186 dazzling fanaticism of adherence to tradition - with furious bitterness for all impulses of the future. With such tendencies, allegory was deprived of its biogenic properties and often descended to the level of a mechanical balancing act. But this was a dogmatic necessity, and any further attempts entailed a severe interdict by Jewish orthodoxy, which saw in them sinful liberalism and anathematized it.
187 It is not surprising that in Palestine they categorically protested against allegorism, 188 and it found shelter only in sectarian parties. There is again not enough scope for its development in Judaism. 189
So we again turn to Philo, therefore only with him the method in question was both a method and an organ of productive thought in its desire to refresh and fertilize the primordial worldview. His rapprochement with the Apostle acquires the force of inevitability, and before it even the trivial conclusion that the evangelist has an allegory loses its strangeness, for it is found in the Alexandrian theosophist, 190 who was the exponent of the prevailing allegorical tendencies - as a son of his time. 191 Here mutual similarity is unthinkable without causal dependence, and - by all accounts - the debtor was St. Paul. Being a “bold allegorist,” 192 he followed the customs of his age, 193 and in the point under analysis philonism reigned. Therefore the apostolic allegorization will be purely Alexandrian. 194 Given the epidemic inclination of the era towards symbolic interpretation, 195 - this need was looking for a satisfactory model 196 and found it precisely in Philo, 197 with whom the Apostle is in internal contact in exegesis.
198 Trying to find the foundations of his faith in the Old Testament, 199 he had to resort to strained argumentation, but in these cases allegory was always an inseparable companion to the development of a new religion from the old, 200 through the transformation of Hellenistic ideas. 201 Rabbinic habits 202 Gamaliel's pupils received rich food in the Alexandrian laboratory, and from it Pavlov's hermeneutics 203 was borrowed in all technical techniques. 204 The Evangelist interprets the Bible like the Alexandrian Jew 205 and is almost equal to Philo in virtuoso ingenuity, and the vagaries of his interpretations make even his admirers regret such a sad fall of genius. 206 The school allegory, 207 polished at Tarsus, 208 achieves the intensity of unnatural violence 209 through a stubborn inattention to the literal meaning, in the spirit of the Jewish writers 210 with their midrashic tricks. 211 Therefore, more moderate authors see in St. Paul's exegetical artificiality 212 and bring him closer to Philo 213 due to the similarity with his technique. 214
The decisiveness of the above sentences rests on the idea of the essential identity of parallel quantities, and this is explained by the dependence of copying. This means that the second must clearly reflect the typical properties of the first, at least with the loss of the vital individuality of the source. According to genetic observations, this was indeed the case. St. Paul allegorizes often, but - as a pneumatician - he was incapable of a consistent system and could not create one, 215 although school rabbinic habits forced him to seek firm rules. 216 However, he notices some regulative norms of allegorical application, and we are obliged to agree that they are not their own, but taken from where there is suitable soil for them. From this side, the philonic echoes are seemingly undeniable, because the spirit of the Alexandrian creator emanates from them. The latter focused on recommending the Bible to the enlightened court of intelligent Hellenism and could not allow anything base for the philosophical mind.
Hence, the fundamental principle of Philo states that in the Old Testament books there are no hints that are intellectually unworthy of God - and the Apostle, no less categorically, emphasizes that in the commandment about the threshing will (Deut. XXV, 4) the Lord is not concerned about the will at all (1 Cor. IX, 9). 217 But for the Egyptian theosophist, such tendencies flowed from the very spirit of his plans and views, while the evangelist did not share them and did not feel such a fatal need for the jealous guarding of the glory of God in the history of Israel and in the nomystical revelation. It is clear that the adaptation was unsuccessful, devoid of both objective value and theoretical justification. 218
This conclusion would be unshakable if it were true, but there is considerable hesitation on this score. We have seen that the evangelist does not take away the command at all and retains its full importance. 219 Of course, according to him, the definition under discussion was written for us, Christians, so that we can learn appropriate lessons from it. In the particular case of Corinthian stinginess, this instills the moral obligation of material assistance to preachers according to the simplest law of mutual retribution, since honest labor is undertaken for the sake of the fruit and is paid for it: “for whoever plows must plow with the hope (of the harvest), and whoever threshes must thresh with the hope of getting what he expects” (1 Kona analogies with the work of the ox and in it he draws his persuasiveness. Like a threshing animal uses the stomach for its reinforcement, so every speaker borrows content from his spiritual children. This logic is based on the general agreement that the fundamentum comparisonis is an indisputable and authoritative fact, allowing wider accommodation of equal irresistibility.
Here the slightest suspicion regarding its historical truth would be contrary to all the hopes of the apology and is only confirmed by it in its true existence and in its internal ideological meaning. It is clear that the Apostle does not deny the latter at all and, rather, states it in all the qualities of a sanctified norm. The reference to the pagan practice of the priesthood (Cor. IX, 13) in turn indicates that there can be no talk of eliminating history, because this would border on a struggle against universal evidence. If so, then we must judge the evangelist's view of a particular prescription by the nature of the moral application in which his own assessment is given. From this point of view, the very question of the factual reliability of the starting point is rather indifferent. Since the whole matter comes down to ideological content, the utmost importance here is to determine the exact relationship of the result with the premises according to the intentions of the commentator.
Here only two possibilities are allowed: either the immediate is directly suppressed by the distant and trampled underfoot in its baseness, or the second is extracted from the first and sanctions its basis. But hesitation in choosing between these potentialities is hardly acceptable. Let the apostolic phrase say that Moses wrote about the threshing will only for us, so that we may learn how to fulfill ethical requirements flawlessly. It inevitably follows from this that the latter are fundamentally rooted in the legalistic formula and are simply extracted from it. Here is the connection between hidden and revealed truth - with its continuity and material integrity, why it is equally worthy and divine everywhere. Therefore, the commentary is resolved by praise and transfers to its beginning all the moral energy of continuation. Coinciding with each other, they are also covered in their meaning, assimilated by the author in the final outcome. From this side the greatness of the allegorical application will extend to all precedents. But St.
Paul categorically declares that “the same is what the law says” (1 Cor. IX, 8) regarding his suggestions, and in them the unshakable command of the Lord is reproduced (1 Cor. IX, 14). Thus, the covenant of Moses is protected by the grace of Christ and is sealed by it in its strength, alien to any shadows of human gloominess (1 Cor. IX, 8). The light of divine radiance in the Son pours its rays into the fog of nomistic sonship and imparts to it its life-giving purity, removing all thoughts of its intellectual wickedness. Therefore, the old is undoubtedly no less than the new, by which it is strengthened in its eternal suitability for the moral ordering of the reborn. There can now be no serious debate about the derogatory nature of the sayings of the Torah. It is only appropriate to doubt the objective strength of the apostolic argumentation. Reproaches are often voiced regarding the arbitrariness and groundlessness of the construction. However, all this has not the slightest relation to your special subject, because for him it is only valuable to understand the true judgment of the writer about the Old Testament word.
And at this point the Apostle’s deep respect for the letter of the Pentateuch is clearly revealed, with the assimilation of Christian obligation to it, since this is the will of God. 220 It seems that there is no need to add that all this is diametrically opposed to the aspirations of Philo, who - before intelligent Hellenism - was fearfully ashamed of the sacred monuments of his faith and tried to artificially obscure imaginary gaps. Under such conditions, addiction will be a vain myth of genetic tension. The foundation and point of departure of both are disparate to the point of negation. Naturally, then the technical development of the taken idea will be original. For the Apostle, everything rests on the conclusion from the lesser to the greater, where often the unshakable is even firmer in its action as a moral factor. This logic is based on the natural properties of the human mind and does not require external aids at all. Therefore, for St. Paul did not need Philo to read the Bible, understand it and explain such simple things to the Corinthians. 221
The trait we noted in the Alexandrian theosophist was inseparable from the very essence of his system, and the stated difference testifies to dogmatic irreconcilability with the evangelist. Therefore, it is natural that other similar details of the exegetical method are illusory. It's not difficult to guess them. If there is nothing in Scripture that is unworthy of God, then every detail in it is not accidental and contains its own deep idea. 222 Thus, in Philo, all the numeric shades of biblical expressions acquire special importance and serve as support for theoretical generalizations. For example, in Gen. XVII, 16 sing. is used, and this says that beauty is not in the variety of forms, but in the power that unites them. 223 Likewise, the Apostle focuses only on number, when (in Gal. III, 16) the promise to Abraham is confined to Christ alone on the basis of form. The philonic character of this argument is all the more striking because it forgets the original text, which is far from being so convenient for such operations, 224 and everything is built on the Greek letter. 225
In fact, this link has all the data of external persuasiveness. It is true to the point of self-evidence that the opponent of Judaism clearly highlights the numerical shade and places all the emphasis on it, that he draws his final conclusion from it and conditions his entire apology on it. But the whole question is how the desired result is obtained: is it a direct exegetical result of the interpretation, or is it only justified and supported by it? Philo has the first, since the last thought of his considerations serves as the natural crown of exegetical experiments. We think that the Apostle does not have this, and he should be ranked in the second category. Let us assume that the testamentary contract is edited in the spirit of strict singularity and eliminates all duality. All goods belong to one person and no one else. It goes without saying that little evangelistic success was achieved by this. Next, it was necessary to define the desired individuality and secure the cherished privileges for it.
At this point, only a general observation was reliable for everyone that this is the divine Messiah, for the possession of the whole earth is associated with the discovery of the saving will of the Most High in the triumph of Israel, and this is impossible without the deliberate assistance of Jehovah with the assistance of an extraordinary intercessor. This outcome is logically legitimate and, perhaps, acceptable even to the Jews themselves. But the evangelist does not stop at this impersonal formula and introduces into it the vital reality of the historical subject. For him, “one” was the Lord the Redeemer according to His saving feat of deliverance and grace. Here in the syllogism there is an undeniable logical leap in the silent identification that the prophesied Messiah was incarnated in Christ, who receives all his benefits. 226 In this identification all the energy of the apostolic conviction is exhausted, yet it is in no way revealed or proven.
This means that the essential subject of speech is not at all substantiated exegetically, and therefore is not created by biblical guidance. It is absolutely undeniable before and apart from any reasoning and is simply illuminated by it. For this reason, the Apostle defends only the rapprochement of two facts, independent of each other in ideological dignity and historical existence. Christ is the divine reconciliator, for He really abolished the oath and revived humanity, therefore everything prescribed about this great sacrament directly and entirely relates to Him. Hence the reverse application is also inviolable, that He exactly corresponds to the Old Testament word and perceives the divine authority of the sacred promise. And we see that the evangelist is limited to just stating the outlined parallelism and does not subordinate its series to the logical connection of cause and effect.
His final thesis expresses that Christ the Savior is such as the Messiah of Israel should be, and coincides with him in all rights as the sole heir and uncontrolled owner of all the promised treasures. It is clear that the most important position of speech is in no way determined by exegetical art and itself rewards it with its content, because truth actually precedes any interpretation. On this score, textual analysis is absolutely guaranteed from the historical side. The Galatian complications were not at all anti-Christian in principle, although they inevitably led to this. The Jewish spies did not outwardly deny the ministry of the Lord and did not eliminate the benefit of grace. They defended only the dogmatic inviolability of the law and wanted to retain their former role as a justifying means. Therefore, in Galatia there was still no complete falling away, and everything was limited by the nomistic inclinations of ritual practice. The evangelist had no need to defend the indisputable, and his task was to abolish legalism.
This is achieved by affirming the thought of the inherent dignity of the Sinai institution in the movement of divine providence, because the individual inheritance has entirely passed on to Christ and now does not need supplementary benefits.
Again we find that the apostolic scale is borrowed from the real personality of the God-man as the historical Redeemer. It is clear that this truth is not secondary: it is not the fruit of interpretation and precedes it. This is a decisive contract for Philo, who usually establishes everything on the formal shades of a phrase and squeezes out this or that idea from them. We find quite the opposite in the apostolic text, where the biblical analogy is in all its dogmatic obligation for reason and will. This adversativity should not be weakened by various tricks. It is indisputable that the Alexandrian theosophist read into the letter what was not in it at all, and drew the embedded content from his imagination. His exegesis boiled down to the allegorical imposition of thoughts alien to it on the Bible, 227 and in this feature it seems somewhat reminiscent of the method of St. Paul, who assimilates through prophecy the real truth of the grace-filled history of the economy of Christianity and the dogmas of his religious contemplation. However, even here the similarity is superficial, and internal disparity is hidden behind the external similarity.
Philo everywhere expresses that the meaning given to him is included in the biblical word itself and is inherent in it from the very beginning. In this case, the grammatical form turned out to be the bearer of philonic theorems as its only content, which is revealed to others by the art of the interpreter. This is not at all the case with the Apostle, and he does not even hint here that the secret of grace-filled deliverance in Christ was revealed to Abraham. St. Paul only states that the word of God to the Jewish forefather was realized in the person of the Lord Savior and finds in Him the fulfillment of its own destiny. Here the biblical remote is applied to what has happened historically, although the latter in its originality can be much richer and wider in scope. This is again contrary to the manner of Philo, for - contrary to him - biblical concepts are embedded in Christian dogma, and not the ideas of the developed theory are confined to the Mosaic writing. There is no exegetical creativity here, which creates and substantiates a known thought.
Everything ends in a simple convergence of two quantities, and the most important of them is considered an axiom and does not need logical support. Then it is permissible to ask further only about how the other is determined and is there a philonic stretch of the expressed arbitrariness not noticeable in this? Genetic criticism in this point, apparently, is right to the point of irresistibility, since the evangelist emphasizes the numeristic property of the covenant and focuses entirely on it, forgetting everything else. However, in reality we see a simple note regarding a grammatically undeniable feature of the biblical edition. It uses a singular form, and it is most closely applicable to an individual subject. This is unshakable for everyone, and the dispute arises about whether this detail corresponds to the true dignity of the entire prediction. With this formulation, we again get a duality with the energy of comparison, which leans towards identification due to the characteristic nature of the quality taken for the entire object.
The truth of this decision is not immediately clear and is achieved by other considerations. For them it is necessary to agree in advance as to what is the real force of the divine promise. It foretells the possession of the land by Abraham in his seed or in the future offspring of the triumphant sons of Israel. When they inherit the earth, then the divine prophecy will actually come true. The real benefit of the latter is designed for historical fulfillment and is associated with the grandiose victory of the entire truth of the Old Testament revelation. This alone requires the living embodiment of the entire filial economy of God before receiving the testamentary treasures, which are a concomitant element. 228 In this form they necessarily presuppose an absolute owner who rewards everyone according to the right of freedom of the owner. Under this one condition, Abraham himself will participate in the joy of his children through his double, who has accepted all his privileges. It turns out that the fulfillment of the vow is forcibly referred to an individual person and extends to others only through him.
The same follows from the properties of the gift, which was the divine promise, because it was not caused by human motives and is an act of the sovereign goodness of Jehovah. For this reason, the actual consolidation must, of course, be the same and presuppose a generous dispenser, equal to the immensity and inexhaustibility of the spoken blessing of God. The antitype of Abraham is now depicted as the deputy of the Most High, and in the eyes of all Jews it was the Messiah, even without the transcendental prerogatives of natural sonship with God.
From all sides it is irrefutable that in his interpretation the Apostle is based solely on the content of the Old Testament promise, which is why the grammatical formula only consolidates it in all its typicality and does not serve as the basis for argumentation. 229 Naturally, it is completely silent about it in the end, which gives immeasurably more. It would only logically follow that there is one Christ and it is the historical Jesus, but St. Paul testifies in him as the absolute heir and authorized administrator. For this, mere singularity is too little, and we know that the apostolic conclusion rests on factual identification, eliminating all further expectations and idle hopes. Here the guess involuntarily arises that the analyzed feature is put forward in the interests of pedagogical accommodation and is conditional in nature. This, in turn, is unshakable in the context of the apostolic speech. It explains that the covenants of God to the forefather of Israel achieve actual effectiveness only through Christ and in Him extend to the pagans along with the Jews.
It would even be more accurate to say that the latter enjoy gifts only because they are available to the former, or after the isolation of national appropriation has been absorbed in the universalism of the grace of universal salvation (Gal. III, 14). In this respect, everyone is indifferent, and the Apostle - as a “brother” by rebirth from the Lord - merges with the readers. Combining with them, he enters into inner solidarity and adapts to the level of dominant concepts in the approving conviction that his thought will be assimilated exactly as an echo of a similar mood. Therefore, the evangelist speaks according to man (Gal. III, 15), similarly to accepted everyday norms. 230 In them, the closest thing to the issue under consideration was the will, which for the Galatians was an institution of undeniable significance. For all that, this is a human institution, and its dignity is even more unshakable for the divine word - of course, with the certainty of sufficient similarity, and this is self-evident.
But according to its legal assertion, any testamentary definition is absolutely irrevocable and does not allow the most minimal additions. It is legal in all its shades, and even grammatical nuances of phraseology are required. From this point of view, singular use in divine prophecy has the legal compulsoryness of an intentional indication, which binds in advance the freedom of egoistically arbitrary interpretations. 231
According to the structure of the entire argument, it is unshakable that the nuance under discussion is introduced for the sake of pedagogical adaptation and all its importance is subordinated to the exhortatory purposes of missionary edification. Therefore, one cannot think that for the Apostle he was the foundation of the theoretical development of the Gospel of Christ. Any inclination in this direction will be false tendentiousness. Further it turns out that the noted property is associated with the analyzed biblical passage accommodatively and does not exhaust its entire depth. It follows from this that, in the eyes of the evangelist, the promise was not completely covered by the written phrase and does not depend on it in its original meaning. In this regard, the concentration of all attention on numerical singularity inevitably threatened to be one-sided and subjected the conclusion itself to fatal fluctuations. Therefore, the numerical feature serves only to reveal that the heir must be an individual person, and not a collective one, but this is already borrowed from the entire essence of God’s promise.
Given such subordination of this feature, it, of course, could not be a logical support for the desired result and does not determine its consistency. And in fact we find that the ultimate truth is simply drawn closer to the exegetical premises and is not in the least derived from them. She herself imparts her light to the latter, because the sun of righteousness, apart from them, shone in the Lord the Redeemer. The Savior embodies in Himself the divine prophecies, and they acquire in Him their true interpretation. In the kingdom of Christ’s gracious deliverance, the real fact is higher, broader and richer than its son’s idea, and the connection between them is objective, which is in no way created by exegetical means of artificial coupling.
A detailed analysis of two examples does not at all confirm genetic hopes. In the first, from a private prescription, the Apostle rises to the general moral law and, with its importance, protects the Mosaic commandment, not in the least considering it derogatory for God. In the second, the method of argumentation is chosen only for the special reasons of the announcement and resembles a biblical illustration of why the thesis being defended does not logically depend on it and is based on the very content of the divine promise, and not on the grammatical connotation of the Old Testament word. In all this one can see rather a living contrast to Philo than a mechanical imitation. But the latter is always inferior to its original and is usually accompanied by unnatural exaggeration. Every method of construction is normalized by productive thought, draws its strength from it, and is limited in its proper use by it.
Transferred to alien soil, it is deprived of its spiritual essence, turns into a dead scheme and degenerates into mechanical copying, where there is neither ideological need nor subjective prudence. Hermeneutic submission to St. Paul, the Alexandrian theosophist could not escape this fate, and her critic sees sad evidence of this in the famous allegory regarding the relationship of the two covenants, commented on the fate of the descendants of Hagar and Sarah (Gal. IV, 21 - 31). The originality of the considerations immediately strikes everyone, and almost all new interpreters, with rare unanimity, agree in the harsh assessment that this is an arbitrary game of dialectical dexterity. 232 The most well-intentioned authors find here a regrettable exception with a betrayal of the sound principle of exegesis 233 and only try to excuse it with more or less plausible guesses. Others directly overhear the echoes of rabbinic education, 234 which is reflected here in purely Kabbalistic twists 235 and aggadic tricks.
236 However, the tendency of this passage is sharply anti-Judaic, and therefore it is considered a perversion of aggadic interpretations. 237 This is “a curious piece of rabbinic allegorization,” 238 and its style is completely arbitrary. 239 But as soon as the application is made contrary to the Jewish prototype, hence the need arises for a secondary aid, which naturally presents itself in philonism. In exegetical traditions, the Apostle seemed to be generally subject to the influence of the synagogues of the dispersion 240 and in the case under consideration showed himself to be a former zealot due to his extreme passion for the manners of Alexandrism. 241 According to some, it is simply a “strange place,” 242 and its exegetical stretches are not of the slightest significance. And when an analogy with philonic techniques is allowed, 243 - this pave the way for criticism, which here is a decisive desecration of history 244 with despotic violence against the biblical text. 245 The adoption of the modern allegorical method of reverse application could not pass with impunity. 246 Abolishing the letter with its pneumatic penetration, 247 St.
Paul falls into subjectivism that lacks even minimal convincing. 248 An allegorical game without any rational motivation and logical dignity rests on empty fantasy and goes against the Old Testament. And if Luther declares her completely weak, now they find attempts at justification almost wild. 249 There is not the slightest hint of apostolic ideas in the original, 250 and all the arguments are, of course, fantastic. 251 Their only explanation is their admiration for the tendencies of the Alexandrian school, 252 because the evangelist was the son of his age and should be rated on a par with Philo from the intellectual mood of the era. 253
Thus, two phenomena come closer in character, and imitation marks their affinity in origin with the primacy of that which is imprinted by the spirit of the entire system. With such a statement, the secondary will be a painful growth that does not resemble a normal product of an organic process. This is the closest support for criticism in favor of the idea of external borrowing, which is why we will start from this point. Regarding him, apologists often agree that the allegory of Hagar and Sarah does not have objective importance for the Apostle. The whole point is supposedly in the random complications of the Galatian unrest. Its perpetrators, in the interests of nomistic propaganda, appealed to the Old Testament scripture and, with its authority, tried to subjugate the Galatian Christians. St. Paul sought to paralyze the Judaistic charm and, in order to weaken it, had to build on common ground.
We are obliged to think that the false brothers utilized the biblical episode in their favor and probably illustrated to them their doctrine of the accessibility of the promise of Abraham only through a natural merger with the forefather in the law, by which all Israel is united into a close family of the direct children of the patriarch. Ishmael's expulsion served as a convenient warning against evading the legal conditions of inheritance. Thus, the evangelist, by the force of things, was forced to operate on ready-made material, which he did not choose voluntarily and commented on despite the suggestions of his opponents. 254 In this regard, the conjecture is renewed, 255 as if the Jewish argumentation was communicated to the Apostle in a special letter 256 and, of course, with the aim of obtaining an appropriate opinion from him. In this form, the entire commandment loses its independent impressiveness of dogmatic value and turns out to be an accommodative illustration of the truth of the Gospel of Christ. 257 This is an argumentum ad hominem 258 and therefore does not cast a shadow on the evangelical identity.
With such a restriction, the freedom of hypothetical attacks on the content of the apostolic sermon is narrowed to its extreme limits - and this is the attractive force of the presented understanding. However, it must be agreed that apologetic success is far from decisive. Here, not only is it not denied, but rather the subjective illusory nature of Pavlova’s allegory is categorically proclaimed, and through this its genetic closeness to philonism is emphasized. Conservative authors give a hand to critical ones and thereby support the latter in further comparisons of the properties they desire. An apology turns into a concession, which guarantees in advance the external probability of any tendentious conclusions. On the other hand, the sufficient historical plausibility of the analyzed explanation in itself does not at all indicate its factual certainty. Let us assume that matter was targeted by enemies, and their abuse determined the direction of apostolic thought. But this does not at all determine the St.’s own view.
Pavel, as if he was looking at the object through someone else’s eyes, although he saw his own. In this regard, the real motives for the allegory and its Jewish antipodes do not at all affect the issue where we need to reveal a personal view of the work of the evangelist himself. What do we find in the text to achieve this task?
The Apostle asks the Galatians (IV, 21) if they “do not listen to the law.” This phrase usually refers to the synagogue readings every Saturday (Acts XV, 21), when - with the help of homiletical edifications - the convenience of assimilating the content of the written Old Testament word was revealed to everyone. In fact, this is perhaps indisputable, and further it is only necessary to clarify the own strength of the apostolic appeal. It is understood in the same sense that it simply draws the attention of Galatian Christians to the biblical story known to them, in order to illuminate it from a new point of view. In this case, the subsequent speech will be a homiletical interpretation, 259 not claiming to be objectively valid. This is a free pedagogical metaphor, and free allegorism of the rabbinic or Alexandrian type is allowed in it. The dignity of the entire department is reduced to the level of an admonishing parabola, for which the true truth of the books of Moses is absolutely indifferent.
Only the immediate intention is dear, and for the sake of it the writer does not care about the letter, partly forgets it and mostly suppresses it in his abstract soarings.
We think that the exegetes themselves are to blame for all this. If you agree with them, then it will turn out to be offensive - a flat remark that hitherto almost all the Galatians were deaf, and St. Paul encourages them to use their ears. Obviously, the importance is not in the external perception of sounds, but in the application of all their content to religious consciousness and moral disposition. 260 And the grammatical connotation of the combination with accus expresses the internal penetration of a meaningful conviction, meanwhile genit. I would be reconciled with simple hearing. 261 However, this is not all. The biblical story about Hagar is so simple that even a child can understand it. Therefore, there was no need to treat this seriously given such critical entanglements that shook the entire apostolic feat. This means that something more than theoretical understanding is required, which is often accompanied by cold indifference. On the contrary, active submission to what has been learned is needed so that it becomes the driving factor in life behavior and regulates human actions with its energy.
This idea is clearly emphasized by the entire tone of the appeal. In it the evangelist speaks to those who “desire to be under the law.” These people were not pure contemplatives; they themselves sought a determining factor for their moral structure and were guided by volitional motives. Naturally, their desire, which was not forced, ends with the meaningful subordination of the found object under the rule - with the provision of supreme command to it. The result was slavish humiliation with the renunciation of any personal initiative. Then it is inevitable and irreducible that the elected ruler, unhampered by protest and inertia, begins to function with exceptional independence and creates all forms himself. Then phenomenal appearance will be an exact imprint of its agent and will be deprived of its own independence. There is no originality here, and all existence is entirely created by the dominant inspirer.
Under these conditions, the religious and moral life of the Galatians takes on the character of a mechanical reflection of nomistic schemes with their scrupulous consolidation in practice. If so, then the elusiveness of the result could only be in the unsuitability of the despotic regulator, since everything flows from it with necessity. In turn, this is based on excessive exaggeration with the definition of an inappropriate role, and natural inability fatally entails painful anomalies. Healing is possible only through correct assessment and appropriate application. The error of the Galatians was rooted in the incorrect understanding of the law, which was revealed to be ugly, contrary to its essence. In this case, it was imperative to clarify this fog of insidious deception and illuminate the object in all its true outlines, so that it could produce its characteristic fruits.
From here it is clear, first of all, that the question is about the practical influence of legalism in the sphere of moral Christian growth and is not addressed according to the theoretical interests of dialectical exegesis. For this reason, one cannot think that the Apostle gives us only a sample of parenetic commentary, which has no objective intentions of true interpretation and in its meaning is limited to a private preaching purpose. Rather, the opposite will be certain, since the contrast between the sound and the false is outlined, with the only significance of the first. 262 By virtue of this, the justification must be principled, based on the most important qualities of the entire institution, and not on the secondary elements of its historical occurrence or human perversion. And we see that St. Paul penetrates into the very depths of the Old Testament nomistic institution in order to find an unshakable support for a normal attitude towards it in the life of grace-filled rebirth.
This predetermines that the evangelist is not concerned with the letter of writing, since everything comes down to the actual action, and it is always caused by the content of the word of the book. And it is easy to see this idea in the very design of apostolic conversion. It compares being under legalistic pressure to obeying it. But it is remarkable that with a new member it occurs only during its secondary mention for the sake of special emphasis. At the same time, the phrase clearly emphasizes that the recommended law is precisely the one whose yoke has already threatened readers with its burden. 263 But it is clear to everyone that practical despotism is not created by bare formulas and is conditioned by the active energy of the culprit who inspires them. In this sense, the Apostle, of course, appeals to objective merits and reveals their real dimensions.
As a result, it now turns out that the evangelist is interpreting the very essence of the law and his speech should not be taken as a free exegetical illustration, where all sorts of artificial manners of homiletical edification are permissible. 264 We are obliged to believe that it has equally serious - dogmatically - exhorting intentions and material resources and hermeneutical means, when the episode under discussion must necessarily correspond to the greatness of the intended goal and contribute to its compelling achievement. But we are talking about the fundamental importance of legalism, why argumentation, in turn, has the persuasiveness of its characteristic definition. The message about Hagar acquires the properties of an unshakable scale for the entire nomism. from this side, all external motives are completely indifferent and are in vain involved in solving the problem. It is possible that the Judaizers were already trying to utilize biblical history and forced St. Paul stop there.
However, the opponent does not simply pick up a ready-made fact in order to turn it his own way and repel a formidable blow. Polemics and self-defense recede into the background, and they are powerfully replaced by a constructive interpretation of the controversial subject. Here the support is positive and objective, which, according to the writer, is rooted in existing existence itself. 265 It must be stated in all real accuracy.
These considerations indicate that in the future the commentary fact will first be presented, which will then be subjected to rigorous analysis. Therefore, the reference (Gal. IV, 22) to what is written down (in Gen. XVI, 15. XXI, 3) notes only the source from which the news is borrowed, and does not in the least say that attention is focused on the biblical story. 266 It is no more valuable than that it serves as an authoritative guarantor of the truth of an event, and beyond that it is completely unimportant. And, indeed, St. Paul only briefly recalls its contents and limits himself to extracting the most important things. Everything is exhausted by a categorical note that Abraham had two sons - one from a slave-concubine, the other from a free or full-fledged wife. Then it gives its own explanation that the first was born “according to the flesh,” and the second “according to promise.” From the physical side, this addition is partly a flat banality, or an incomprehensible strangeness, for in both cases the same carnal act is assumed at all stages of conception, fruiting and resolution.
We cannot accept the absurd denial of universal experience and are inevitably directed towards something special, surpassing the tactile prose of human origin. It is everywhere similar and unchanged in its real flow; the difference is permissible only in relation to the dominant factor that determines this common phenomenon. This is precisely the whole typicality in the fate of Ishmael and Isaac. The forefather's appeal to the slave was motivated solely by the desire of the offspring and was accompanied by success, thanks to physical abilities (Gen. XVI, 1 – 5). Here everything rests on fleshiness, arises from it and is crowned with it. It’s not at all the same in relation to free. Here all the physical potentialities of the bodily organism eliminated all thoughts of children, if Hagar was first attracted. It is obvious that in the example under consideration the flesh did not play an active role and was not the creative force of the natural process. He was called in addition to her and despite all factual obstacles.
Consequently, the effect of fleshiness was secondary and was determined by the determining participation of a higher principle, which makes the deadened loins function and revives their energy with fruitfulness. This was the promise of God, because Isaac was born only for its fulfillment. The physical side completely fades away before this supremacy of the omnipotent invasion, bringing with it all its means, which the spouses did not have. The entire feature of an event lies in the predominance of various factors and their special combination with interested parties. At this point it is extremely significant that the universalism of the carnal principle is associated with natural slavery, and the promise belongs entirely to freedom. This explains the entire historical incident and then all its specificity, which is why she pays all attention.
After all, the center of gravity of the entire incident is indicated in the marked clutch. Then there is no doubt that this feature will be examined in the future, and this observation helps the unmistakable understanding of the apostolic words. They open (in Gal. iv. 23) with a categorical formula with the warning that the factual details are now given a spiritual interpretation. But they highlight in advance a special point that deserves exceptional consideration. This accurately outlines the volume of matter and at the same time brings into relief the commensurate angle of view. The whole speech comes down to the birth of two sons to Abraham in relation to this fleshly slavery and promised freedom. This element alone, and only in this formulation, will be subject to consideration. Here the property of the latter, qualified by the rather broad epithet of “allegory,” is also predetermined. So the Hellenes in Kronos personified time (Plutarch. De Isid. et Osir. § 32, p. 363), and Moses expresses quite a few truths not directly, but through hints and under images (Jos. Fl. Antiqu. proem. 4).
As we see in biblical anthropomorphisms regarding God, 267 in uses of this kind, direct visibility serves as a simple cover for a completely different content, to find which one needs one’s own understanding - and hence “interpret figuratively” in addition to the direct verbal meaning. In this spirit, the therapevts - according to Philo 268 - in the sacred scriptures look for Russian philosophy with allegorical interpretations, understanding literalistic sayings as symbols of the mysterious things hidden in them. The legality of such a method is rooted in the very essence of the fact: it does not possess the qualities assimilated to it and itself turns out to be allegorical, devoid of original dignity, which is why it is allegorized (Ciem. Al. Strom. V, 11. Protrept. 11). On this side it is opposed (in Porphyr. Vit. Pythag., Cantabr. 1655, p. 185).
According to these references, it turns out that the main character of the allegory is the absence of an objectively corresponding reality in the condemned objects according to the intentions of the most commented monument where they are found. When applied to the analyzed passage, this will indicate that St. Paul did not see historical value in the story of the everyday writer and disposes of it freely according to his personal insight. For him, the entire narrative is almost a parable, and allegorical materials converge with simple metaphor. 269 The historical event is resolved into a pure parabola of two covenants, but their comparative significance is revealed by fulfillment and is therefore comprehended only in the light of grace-filled illumination. 270 An allegorical commentary will be an arbitrary introduction of Christian ideas - in parallel with the philonic imposition of alien philosophical concepts on the Bible. According to its logical premises, this conclusion is impeccable, and then the whole question is its suitability for the apostolic text. At this point an insurmountable difficulty emerges before us.
First of all, the evangelist appeals to Scripture as an indisputable authority, and here any guess about its tropical properties was directly inappropriate. Then, everything focuses only on the conditions of the origin of the two sons of Abraham, and speech is permissible only when there is a real basis for it. There is no need to add that otherwise St. Paul doomed himself to merciless mockery, since the existence of Ishmael and Isaac was an axiom for everyone.
For this reason, it is necessary to agree that the episode retains all its historical certainty in all its rigor. 271 The scope of higher knowledge is attached to it, 272 - and we must determine the exegetical support. It is important to note here that if factual truth is allowed, then the dignity of the story that talks about the event is also protected. From this point of view, the Old Testament news is inevitably a chronic record of the present without any side wisdom. They come from the commentator and are not his responsibility. Consequently, this is one’s own addition beyond the given or a subjective reinterpretation. Hence a new hypothesis arises that the Apostle tendentiously exaggerates the energy of biblical words and rapes them to his own advantage. The higher his respect for Moses, the less legitimate his hermeneutic arbitrariness.
This interpretation is based on the assumption that it is all a matter of a special understanding of the narrative, 273 and the formula of the Galatian Epistle states that the biblical letter must be interpreted allegorically 274 or figuratively, 275 transforming it into dogmatic edification. 276
However, there is not the slightest quotation in the entire argument, and it is based on brief factual information necessary to verify the reality of the event. In turn, its main point is not borrowed from the book of Genesis, but is put forward for readers by deliberately emphasizing historical details, that carnal birth is associated with slavery, eliminating the promise that entirely belongs to free origin. There is no hint at all of a written document, and everything is concentrated on the factual detail, which is simply stated in it with the calm objectivism of the observer. Therefore, it is impossible and unfair to think that for the sake of his own goals, the evangelist eliminates his own judgment of his literary source and, with conscious intention, presents a matter differently that is inaccessible to him directly. If, at the same time, a higher meaning is assimilated to the whole incident, then it follows that it itself allowed such an application, containing special omens. Then we have that in reality itself there was something higher.
And this does not at all abolish the actual historical force, since it is precisely on it that the entire structure rests. 277 For these reasons we must agree that - according to the apostolic view - in the real phenomenon of the separated past there was an allegorical element, expressing another truth beyond its ordinary effect. This is not so much a different understanding as a true definition of the essence of undoubted data by the energy embedded in them. Interpretation turns out to be allegorical because it does not focus on prosaic reality and seeks new content in it, but this is only because in this exceptional example something special was associated with it and penetrated it - other than ordinary facts and tactile results. There is no arbitrariness or perversion here, but only a unique assessment of the phenomenon.
Now the only mystery is whether such an application was the exclusive driving cause of the event and the condition of its very existence. If the answer is affirmative, it turns out that what happened did not have an original basis and was caused for the sake of pedagogical edification, for which it serves as a clear illustration. The difference from its own allegory will be small, that the instructive effect is aggravated by the actual inviolability of the symbol, but the latter is completely embraced by it and retains its importance no further than the achievement of the expressed goal. The lesson absorbs history without a trace - similar to the philonic destruction of it in theosophical soarings. The conclusion turns out to be no less unfavorable, that all that happened and passed away due to the illusory nature of the phenomenon itself.
Accurate analysis also rejects this conjecture. St. Paul does not touch on all the details or even recall them. He is not at all interested in factual punctuality, and he immediately takes one ideological side from it. For him the road is a historically discovered combination of carnality and slavery, promise and freedom. This moment of the external act gives it all its specific characteristics and is subject to analysis. Hence the unification of all realistic details under a common sign and through it directs the reader’s attention to the deep meaning of the phenomenon. 278 It is not the event that is allegorical, but the principle attested to by it. since the episode for the Apostle is typical, but not a type devoid of individual stability in its historical existence. 279 It is indisputable and self-sufficient, like any other incident in the life of Israel. Significance concerns its relationship to the embodied norms regarding the acquisition of free possession and submission to slavish despotism. In the descendants of Abraham, these properties were determined by their origin and were naturally received from their mothers.
It is natural that in new cases there will be equal reflexes if there is sufficient similarity with the previous ones.
It is clear that allegorism or typicality extends only to such a rapprochement and does not exceed these dimensions. Therefore, the cavalier (Gal. IV, 25), revealed the allegory, outlines the reason itself, for everything noted is allegorical because - in ideological content - it is accurately reflected in another series and receives independent reinforcement in it. And since wives appeared there, then the parallels here apply specifically to them. And it was not difficult to find the corresponding material, since it suggested itself with necessity and involuntarily attracted thought to itself with prudence. We had two paths to Abraham's inheritance, why should we continue to talk about them. And for this purpose there are two covenants - natural legalism and free adoption by grace. The comparison is given by itself and is noted without reservation by the evangelist. But all its strength lies in ideological kinship and does not require identification. Therefore, Hagar and Sarah are two covenants only insofar as they are allegorical until now - after the cessation of their real existence in our world.
Consequently, this does not in the least indicate that they were simple personifications and even in their time foreshadowed the apostolic truths. The latter are fundamentally similar to them in one essential feature - and the spouses of Abraham depict two covenants no more than that these too are the same in nature. This idea assumes that both contain the same creative principles, which, of course, will be accompanied by identical results. Next we need to make the right grouping, and in the past we will have an actual prediction about the fate of the present.
We see that while St. Paul relies on the real qualities of the taken subject and does not reinterpret at all. He extracts the dominant idea and bases his connections on it. Then the comparisons must rest on a real foundation in the predicates of the second group. The evangelist begins with an objective characterization of the nomystical covenant. He “is from Mount Sinai” and from it he draws his historical existence: at the same time, everything is “born into slavery” for him, which is inseparable from the act itself and is acquired inevitably: every descendant immediately falls into the sphere of enslavement despite his own guilt and against his will. This means that this institution is entirely slave, and this is what Hagar is, like a slave, unable to produce free children. Again, it is irresistible that the concubine is not at all considered a historical prototype of nomism with a connotation, as if she was and is the very covenant in embodying its characteristics. The text says the opposite, that its qualities are imprinted on the Sinai institution and assigned to it.
Therefore, the whole point is to argue for the appropriate similarity between the taken quantities. They state the similarity in the result of slave productivity, but in one it was based on natural properties and requires an adequate motive for itself in the second.
Thus, we find that in the future, a causal explanation of the slavish character of the Old Testament law from its very essence is necessary. This makes it easier in advance to objectively understand the apostolic interpretation. It is usually read in this edition (Gal. IV, 25). All emphasis is concentrated on the name of mother Izmailova, and the commentary of St. Paul hangs by a thread of artificial attachment to a grammatical term. 280 It is clear that this exegetical construction is not natural even for criticism, and then the only justification will be the modern predilection for the letter with the conviction of the high importance of biblical onomatology. This is the purest philonism of a sophisticated clinging to every hook of written expression. But here we are extremely struck by the strangeness of why he treats Hagar, while it was necessary to talk only about the covenant from the side of his genetic proximity to her. This would be a glaring inconsistency, impossible for normal logic. Beyond a lesser degree it is difficult to comprehend.
From patristic antiquity to the present day, the riddle has been resolved by the hypothesis that the evangelist uses philological guidance, and his formula states that “the name Hagar means (by use) in Arabia Mount Sinai,” which is called by this word among the local inhabitants. We are not concerned with the grammatical inconveniences of this attempt; We are also silent about the fact that all this is historically unknown to us and is a later fabrication; We will not emphasize the aimlessness of such suggestion, which is hardly accessible to the direct readers of the message, even if they coincide with the inhabitants of the Pisidian-Lycaonian district and have great knowledge of the Hebrew dialect. Let us assume that the Apostle knew all this and applied it to the case with full confidence in the grammatical accuracy of his interpretation. The actual motivation for him is the guess that Sinai - in view of its exposed rockiness - was nicknamed by the Arabs with a term that sounded like Abraham’s concubine, in our opinion “stone”. But this is complete philological absurdity.
The Arabic equivalent for the latter is “Hajar”, and in the original it is a fugitive, which corresponds to the Arabic “Gijra”, adopted for the initial (622 AD) year of the Muslim era from the moment of the flight of Mohammed - from Mecca to Medina. 281 Instead of the expected harmony, a terrible dissonance is obtained, which could not escape the sophisticated ear of the Semite. 282 We are faced with two incongruities, and a third is added to them. It is easy to understand at first glance, for it is self-evident that the random title of nomads would not deserve high attention in matters of dogmatic principle. For serious things, such trivialities are too dangerous to impose on a person who has gone through a rabbinic school. 283 From all sides, the increase looks out like a wedge, cutting into the logical system completely inappropriately. 284 And textual tradition, without favoring it, helps to penetrate into the genesis of all variations. With such duality, the union turns out to be unnecessary (in Lat. D, E and partly in the pseudo-Hilary), although for natural reasons all shades were later preserved.
From here the textual composition grew. The simplicity and historical probability of such a process are not subject to dispute and serve as objective instances against it. 285 And since it does not correspond to the rational postulates of ideological argumentation, its removal will be inevitable in every possible way. 286
The name disappears, and thought acquires the progressiveness of forward movement. Previously, the similarity of the law and Izmailova’s mother was noted in terms of the actual detection of mutual influence, which predetermined the equality of the conditioning factor in the slavery inherent in both. But according to its actual origin, nomism seems to merge with Sinai, and borrows its quality from it. And there is no doubt about it that this is a mountain located in Arabia. The topographic location is considered characteristic here, and, of course, because the part always bears the characteristics of the whole. At this point, it is unshakable that this was the country of the descendants of Ishmael, where they were both inhabitants and owners. 287 This means that this was a strictly Ishmaelite or specifically slave territory. When applied to the Sinai covenant, this indicates that it originates from the slave sphere and is naturally imbued with its elements, which produce adequate fruit.
It must be admitted that this judgment smacks of some artificiality, but it is fully justified by the convergence itself, previously formulated based on effective analogues. Then, of two quantities, the other must have the same value as the first. Hagar gave birth to a slave according to the flesh, since she herself was a slave. In turn, its derogatory quality was involuntary and was rooted in external submission to the oppressive domination. From this point of view, the nomistic institution is indeed parallel to the mercenary of Abraham, because it stems from the slave environment that permeates the rock of legislation. Here the unusualness of the justification lies in the very essence of the question and does not violate the actual harmony of the subject taken, shading its real features. But it is especially important to remember that the entire argument focuses on the moment when the law originated from the mountain. In this case, their topographic connection is indisputable, and for the phenomenon under consideration it will also be a chronological definition of the first.
If the commandments of Moses come from Sinai, then their actual existence in the world begins only with publication on the Sinai peaks. It is clear that in its origin it turns out to be a temporary phenomenon of the cosmic order, and therefore it is subject to it in its further course. In this form, nomistic formulas are necessarily transitory norms that have no originality and therefore cannot give independence. From here directly and inevitably follows the cosmic convention of legalism, when it is deprived of its own stability and is naturally imbued with the property of slavish subservience.
Considering all the results, we have two similar series. The slave state by nature is now revealed in them. Further, the sameness of detections will follow, which is necessary if the active cause is related. Thus the Apostle directly confirms his formula that the covenant of Sinai is one that gives birth to slavery, since it is slave. In this form, the entire comparison acquires the energy of mathematical persuasiveness, that two identical terms give an identical sum. It is kept silent about it for now, because it is necessary to determine in advance the descendants of the Sinai law. Until now, the evangelist relied on factual details of events, pointing out similar signs in them. Therefore, we expect this tone to remain unchanged. This makes the “application to present-day Jerusalem” more clear. It is often interpreted according to gamatria in two Jewish exegetes, who used the numerical number of names in the interests of the relationship of the objects themselves. Then St. Paul would be a rabbinicist rather than a fan of Alexandrian hermeneutics.
288 For example, the following equation is projected: “the mother of Mount Sinai, giving birth to slavery,” which – according to the digital system – gives (11+16+245+130+450+117=) 999; this number is contained in another saying “Hagar is the mountain of Arabia” = (208+205+574 = 999) and is equivalent to “present Jerusalem” = (586+413 = 999). On the contrary, the phrase “Sarah is our mother” is expressed by a numerical total of (510+97 =)607, which is also obtained by numerical decoding (586+21 = 607) (that future Jerusalem). 289 From here we have that the Sinai covenant is Hagaran-slave and is embodied in the practical nomism of the Jewish Jerusalem type, while free Sarah is reproduced only in the city on high and imparts her privileges only to its members.
We readily appreciate the Talmudic wit of this hypothesis, but we have no right to hide that this is a subjective game of tendentious fantasy. For its sake, textual maxims are arbitrarily composed, where the letter itself is clearly violated. However, it is difficult and rather futile to argue about the possibilities. For us, it is quite important that such a sophisticated technique is fundamentally incredible. 290 In a serious - didactic speech it was extremely difficult to expect it and it would be necessary to remind you of it expressively. This was all the more urgent because it was necessary to guess the Hebrew sounds under the Greek shell, and the Galatians were hardly capable of this. 291 Therefore, in the interests of his own success, the Apostle should rely on the Greek language and highlight its special devices with distinctness. In fact, everything goes against the natural order and seems to be deliberately aimed at confusing readers and obscuring the idea being developed. It is truly distorted on the Procrustean bed of Jewish gamatria.
According to it, we are instructed to think that Mount Sinai comes from Hagar, who will be her mother. There is no need to say that this is simply wild both in the literal and metaphorical sense, for no one has yet decided to defend the historically dramatic absurdity that the divinely revealed law of Sinai originates from Abraham’s servant.
The Evangelist does not hint in a single stroke at complete absurdity. He testifies to something completely different, that the Mosaic covenant stems from Mount Sinai, which, if you like, really stands in a maternal relationship to him. Then the property of slave productivity is assigned to this statement, from which a conclusion is drawn about the analogy with Hagar, who discovered this quality in the carnal sphere. In turn, the similarity in effects postulates the sameness of natural causes, and this is illustrated by the reference to the fact of natural slavery in both sources, because the concubine was a slave, and Sinai was under the slavish influences of its Hagaran environment. There is no identity here and everything is limited to objective convergence on the basis of characteristic predicates in the things themselves. They are mutually close both in nature and in adequacy. Hence it is inevitable that the fate of the prototype will be repeated in the antitype. And the whole task now is to find this successor.
And here it is indisputable in every possible way that Sinai retains its real significance in present-day Jerusalem, which is why they have an internal connection of continuity and congeniality. This is impossible without a special dominant factor that would unite two topographic quantities. But Mount Sinai is not interesting in itself and was put forward above only as a historical point from which the covenant arises. Therefore, it is also thought of in the holy city in relation to the principle under consideration. If so, then the argument here was completely unnecessary. Everyone understood well and unshakably confessed that Jerusalem was the seat of nomism, its actual stronghold, dogmatic guarantee and religiously authoritative disseminator.
Both subjects are united in their legalistic dignity, where the second perceives the full legal role of the first. From this point of view they are strictly consistent. This directly eliminates the incredible patriotic interpretation (of St. I. Chrysostom) in the sense of contiguity, and the verb acquires the characteristic energy of inclusion in a general class, just as soldiers are distributed in ranks, opposite principles (among the Pythagoreans) - according to ethical-natural content, letters of the alphabet - according to the organs of speech or according to indigenous production. 292 Like all this, Sinai and Jerusalem are merged into one category of their characteristic legalistic expression. And since this, undoubtedly, further similarities will follow from here, which can already be easily guessed from the previous one. We had an analogy between Sinai and Hagar in the quality of natural slavery functioning in slave productivity. It is an inevitable product and in parallel conditions it is an inseparable companion everywhere. Therefore, he should be expected in Jerusalem.
From this point of view, the Apostle required not so much a causal justification as an illustrative statement of the present. This is more suitable due to the very essence of the matter. Of course, of course, the outward subordination of the Jewish people to the despotism of Rome. The political humiliation of Israel was a heavy blow to its worldly religious pride, but it was far from being fatally crushing to the rabbinic dialectic. 293 Where state power fell uncontrollably, and all originality dissipated into an artificial fiction - a fleeting ghost - the guardians of a dilapidated theocracy tried to create an unshakable kingdom of the promised rule of law. Under the threat of an imminent catastrophe, Pharisaism is even more inflamed by nomistic complacency and rejects the beneficent call of the Savior with boastful insolence: I am the seed of Abraham, and the work of no one (John VIII, 33). Before this fanatical stubbornness, the exile of St. Paul would have been a vain cry in the wilderness of blinding deception.
Equally, it would turn out to be not convenient enough in terms of logical progression, since Jerusalem appears here as a legalistic stronghold and should be assessed by nomistic discoveries. In this combination, it was especially important to note political slavery, as actual evidence of the enslaving influence of legalism. It necessarily entails slavery by its Hagarian character, since it does not impart freedom of independence from cosmic pressures and, opening up space for them, serve as a real foundation. 294 In this form, actual oppression was only a visual impression and an impressive sign of natural enslavement, certified its existence and illuminated its innate ineradicability. The Judaists were deprived of support for sophistical excuses, because their last refuge became for them a fatal abyss. Jerusalem is enslaved - and this is not accidental, even if it was fleeting.
He submissively submits to the pagan ruler precisely because of his genetic partnership with Sinai and - therefore - will always be so until he renounces this inheritance. He corresponds to Mount Sinai, but for that he is enslaved with the necessity of their common harbinger in a slave - a concubine. Therefore, such a condition fatally extends to all children who are subject to it by their very origin and with chronological continuity from this act. The descendants suffer precisely because they are the product of the nomistic Jerusalem and bear its yoke.
The Old Testament institution has now found its prototypical analogy. Then the second or new one inevitably received what was left, because there were no other contenders for it. Detailed convictions were superfluous because they were unnecessary, and the evangelist briefly emphasizes the logical conclusions in his apodictic formulas. If the present Jerusalem is enslaved, then - by contrast - the one on high will be free (Gal. IV, 26). But the first is taken according to its position in the modern nomistic framework, embodied in the entire Jewish system. Therefore, the Supreme One is viewed from the constructive side, as exceeding these conditions and drawing his strength from other sources of superior dignity. The epithet does not mean at all that it cannot exist in the cosmic environment of our universe. No, this only indicates that the latter does not determine either the beginning or the functions of the supreme city, which is absolutely autonomous and itself creates its own forms in the earthly sphere. Its existence is true no less than the antipode, 295 from which its actual influence is undeniable.
296 There it was built on the implanted principle of Sinaitic legalism, which was established in present-day Jerusalem. This means that the Most High will be the bearer of reverse energy, endowing him with freedom, and this is the faith that gives birth to Christians. It is clear that our mother is not Jerusalem on high, which serves as an ideal model for the actual achievement of free privileges and is actually composed of the totality of their owners. By their very adversativity, they must be outside legalistic enslavement and arise from the opposite elements, which we can only think of in faith. 297 It turned out to be diametrically opposed to nomism and, only, will not be involved in its sorvilism, which is why it is free and gives birth to free ones. In this respect, it internally coincides with the highest Jerusalem, since this one is free in its essential spirit. Faith is exactly like him, reflects all properties and is accompanied by equal results. 298 Indelible evidence of this is found in the present existence of the growing Christian family.
It is obvious that faith unhinderedly enjoys all the material rights of free communication with her husband and displaces her rival. True, its legal powers were hidden for a long time and are now manifested more in rejected paganism, but this is quite normal according to divine providence. Here the majestic prophetic word (Isa. LIV, I) about the rapturous joy of a temporarily abandoned wife was fulfilled, since her many children loudly speaks of the acquisition of all marital differences, showing at the same time that the previous infertility was not an incorrigible flaw (Gal. IV, 27). Then it is indisputable that Christians, being brothers by birth from faith, are the heirs of the qualities of Isaac, for they come from the free. From this side there will be no objection to a reference to the earlier exception, which deprived the pagans of carnal contact with the seed of Abraham. It rather follows from this that they are created by the promise (IV, 28) and are again identified with the son of Sarah. Therefore, their fate should be the same. Of course, Christianity is still outwardly weak and constrained, but we know (Gen.
XXI, 10 ff.), that the “persecuted” Isaac prevailed, and Ishmael was removed from the inheritance even on condition of limited compatibility (Gal. IV, 29 – 30). It is irresistible that the actual humiliation of the children of faith does not in the least shake their advantages, confirms their dignity and inspires them with bright hopes for the future, when the enemies who are now fighting through self-denial will merge with them to achieve the bequeathed benefits. It is again revealed that Christians, like brothers, are related to a free woman and are not the sons of a slave (IV, 31), and - therefore - will enjoy social and political supremacy.
The apostle arrived at his desired goal: he secured Christian freedom and established on it the promised prerogatives of the blessed, overthrowing the claims of Judaistic nomism. The allegory is enhanced by dogma and directs to moral edification regarding the true use of free gifts. The thought further (Gal. V, 1st ff.) develops with no less harmonious correspondence to the previous one and directly follows from it. Hitherto it has been established that carnal rights entail slavery. In this case, it is natural that freedom should have been expressed practically in renunciation of carnality with the suppression of its regulatory influence in the moral sphere. This view is as logically inevitable as it is vitally real. It illuminates everything that was earlier, with a hint of the objective nature of allegorical argumentation. In this regard, we need to evaluate it in relation to all formulated observations in order to determine its theoretical consistency.
We are talking, first of all, about the law. As an institution of Sinai, it is equated with Hagar and acquires the property of natural enslavement. Such a judgment was the greatest offense for Judaism, which can neither forget nor forgive this reproach and, in impotent anger, silences the name of St. Paul either brands him with the shame of enemy renegadeism. 299 And outwardly, such an apostolic sentence involuntarily raises bewilderment about its suitability for the manifestation of the saving pedagogy of divine providence. In this criticism has external support for accusing the evangelist of tendentious stretches, which are close to Philo’s experiments on the biblical text. However, in the Apostle everything is based on the actual similarity of both quantities in their historical existence. The first feature is natural servility, but, undoubted for the mercenary Abraham due to her social status, it is also undeniable for the law due to its origin from Sinai, which was in a slave environment and perceived its elements.
In turn, this fatally determined the servitude of the offspring with the removal from the paternal heritage, and for Hagar it is confirmed by the expulsion of Ishmael, and for nomism it is evidenced by the enslavement of present-day Jerusalem with its children and precisely as a result of legalistic connection. Here there was only a simple imprint of a functioning force and everything rests solely on it. Therefore, the entire center of gravity falls on the clarification of the inner nature with the conviction of its inherent slavish energy. This is achieved by attributing legalism to its historical source in Mount Sinai, when the covenant entered the world and became an active factor in the religious and moral life of the children of Israel. Hence the cardinal thesis will say that the law is a slave principle, since it is Sinaitic or in the strength and form of its historical discovery as the real engine of human progress.
It is characterized only from this side in the analyzed passage, where there is absolutely no hint of a higher justification with its negation, because there was not the slightest talk about this. Everything focuses on the contrast of grace actually operating among people according to the perception of the game. This is the real principle of the existing system, which is why its antipode will be the same. This means that the Apostle does not touch upon the question of the primary culprit at all and in no way admits that he belongs to the sphere of slavish cosmicity. This is not mentioned, and any guesses here will be a subjective reinterpretation if the idea is imposed on the evangelist that the law is an angelic institution 300 and does not come from God. 301 The analogy rather gives the opposite, since the slavery of Hagar in her descendants comes from her union with a free master. This image also better explains the actual servility of nomism in its historical expression. Note that all thoughts are steadily directed towards the latter.
First, the covenant merges with Mount Sinai, as with its mother, and then it is identified with the slave of today's Jerusalem, which is entirely represented in its children - slaves. In this form, the law is exhausted by the way of life of the Jewish theocratic system and is not at all degraded in its essence. Only its actual impact is discussed. But again, this also serves as an exact echo of the qualities of birth itself, where the properties of the source are simply preserved unchanged. We are obliged to think about them by the streams flowing from it, which are always muddy due to the pollution of their spring. Then the historically occurring law will be embodied in the Jewish people, and this law is used by Hagar through Sinai. In this case, nomistic slavery will be parallel to the Hagarian one. But the second was conditioned by the communication between the free man and the slave, adapting to her level. Here the lower carries away the higher and darkens its natural purity. Therefore, in the antitype a different property with the same relationship is necessarily assumed.
So we get that the Sinai covenant in real application turned out to be slavish due to the combination of its supreme principle with a degraded passivity, fettering it with chains of non-original cosmicity. As a result, we have that the law is rooted in the free will of the Heavenly Father, but it is not an adequate radiation of the glory of God, for it is refracted in the perceiving environment and colored by its tones. In this form, the Apostle clearly returns to his previous position that the nomic institution was not the fruit entirely of the activity of the one God (Gal. III, 20) 302 and is distinguished by its accommodative character. 303 To this it is now added that this pet, which evoked pedagogical condescension, was Israel, and its fleshly imperfection led to the slavish spontaneity of the norm itself. She is not guilty of this and is alien to the shadows of weakness or poverty, since the actual character depended not on her, but on another co-agent. Fundamentally, legalism is sublime, because, suffering from contact with the world, it must surpass it naturally. In this St.
Paul agreed with the Judaizers, and his unshakable support was the authoritative word of Scripture. 304 Any reproaches here are written and pointless, or the dogmatic nature of legalism is protected even in its unfavorable consolidation. Therefore, the assessment of the latter will be no less impartially objective. It rests on the essence of nomism, as a contractual covenant, in which two-sidedness necessarily entails a reconciling mediocrity. This is self-explanatory and ensures the strength of the entire apostolic argument on its real basis in the essential dignity of the entire institution.
When considering legalism, the evangelist is always based on genuine data, and the allegorical method only directs the entire course of reasoning along a certain path, without at all influencing its material. There is no tendentious reinterpretation here and no tendentious reinterpretation is required. But the view of faith is predetermined by nomistic premises and is limited to a positive statement of its qualities, which are logically inevitable by the very opposite of what was discussed earlier. For this reason, the same factual disclosure is expected in this analysis. Careful research unshakably confirms this truth. The whole point is that grace rewards with freedom of inheritance, which is why it naturally owns all the rights to the treasured treasure with the privilege of unhindered access and uncontrolled use. Contrary to it, legalism leads to slavery and just as naturally eliminates us from the promised benefits. From this point of view, the Judaizing Nomists will be Hagarites, and the born-again Christians will be like Isaac.
This thesis sounds no less sharp than the gross dissonance in the harmony of filial pedagogy, which closed itself in the seed of Abraham and imparted to it the advantages of natural children of God. It’s as if we have before us a new perversion of the natural order of things, and criticism hastens to use it for its own purposes in order to portray St. Paul is an unrestrained allegorist, far superior to Philo in the artificial tension of exegetical experiments. “The apostle (seemingly) completely ignores how little the entire subsequent history of the two sons of Abraham fits the allegorical interpretation that he assimilates to them. Ishmael is the representative of the law, meanwhile, all Mosaic legislation does not apply to the children of Ishmael at all: they are completely free from the law.
On the contrary, the latter was given solely for the descendants of Isaac, representing the (Christian) covenant of freedom, the promise relating to Isaac, according to which he is depicted as the prototype of Christians, should have been obtained only through circumcision, the law of Moses and everything connected with it, theocratically - the religious structure. Everything that the Apostle wants to exegetically deduce here in an allegorical way from the V.Z. not only does not have an objectively true basis in the V.Z. itself, but is in direct contradiction with it. 305 Then the whole “argument (if it deserves this name) will be fantastic and is undermined by the facts taken, for the father of the Jews was really Isaac, and the law comes from him, and not from the descendants of Ishmael. On the other hand, Ishmael, being the founder of a part of paganism, could very conveniently be revered as a model of the entire mass. 306 For the evangelist, the order is reversed and outwardly does not correspond to the true story. 307 But it is not actually commented on and is simple, used to characterize higher relations.
But these considerations are usually answered that any comparison does not extend beyond general instructions and does not require detailed comparison, which is why in the case under consideration it plays the role of an approximate illustration. However, such a view is not justified by the text, where the entire speech is imbued with the dogmatic seriousness of the actual biblical revelation in the meaning of Scripture itself. Then, the course of the accommodative application is also incomprehensible, resolving a strange inconsistency, although it was easy to avoid it by maintaining the Old Testament narrative in its entirety. For the intentions of the Galatian Epistle, it was enough to confine ourselves to verifying that the Isaacites - nomists are in slavery and therefore cannot be an object of imitation, since everyone strives for freedom. Finally, it is extremely unclear since it is unsuitable for the matter and further obscures it. By all accounts, there is no doubt that the biblical persons in their actual existence did not in any way signify two covenants and were not actual types, as stated above.
308 For this reason, their didactic importance lies not in themselves, but in what they embodied.
With this view, it is no longer difficult to determine the immediate properties that are exclusively interesting in Ishmael and Isaac and are necessary for apostolic purposes. The entire complication of Judaic troublemaker rested on a few fundamental premises. Its leaders did not directly deny the merits of Christian grace and only tried to preserve the law under it in its soteriological influence. Along with this, a motivating conviction was put forward that grace-filled redemption is, first of all, the realization of Abraham’s promise. Let the new be superior to the old and develop the inherited good in a further process of progressive accretion. With all this, this is only a continuation and strengthening, which are impossible without its actual beginning in the cherished justification. Then the whole task will be in the conditions of obtaining the latter, but here it is indisputable that it was the patrimonial property of the patriarch and is acquired by the right of consanguinity.
The legal seal of this connection and its main guarantee was the law, which ensured carnal participation in the seed of Abraham with legal authority over his treasures. Therefore, nomism is necessary for the stability of the existence of Christianity itself and is absolutely obligatory for the pagans if, in their salvation, they wish to be partakers of the heritage of God in Israel. It is clear that Judaism portrays legalism as a necessary and universal means for natural communication with the children of Abraham, and this union is considered the only path to the divine heritage of the great forefather. This is the whole center of gravity of Judaistic logic, defending the continuity of the supreme industry in the old and new dispensations, it categorically asserted that the promise is obtained on the basis of carnal prerogatives granted by the law. From here the question is naturally formulated: is such an inseparable combination of these two moments true to such an extent that each of them is virtually unthinkable without the other, and the absence of one eliminates the real existence of the second?
If the answer is positive, we should expect the presence of the noted linkage in Abraham's own family with the prediction of its action in future generations through the nomistic institution. This again demonstrates that the historical episode occupies the Apostle not for random reasons of polemics or apologetics and is analyzed from the ideological side. In this particular respect, a particular event of the past is prototypically characteristic. It took place in the circle of direct activity of the primary recipient and source guarantor of God's blessing and therefore outlines objective ways to acquire it. Everything comes from Abraham and, therefore, everything is predetermined by him, fulfilled in his spirit and according to his example. What do we see with him? Here, first of all, the flesh appears with the indefatigable autocracy of the dominant factor. It serves as the main impetus for the undertaking and the actual guarantee of ultimate success. Her efforts do not remain fruitless, but the trouble is that this result is not original and bears the properties of its manufacturer. St.
Paul emphasizes with energetic logical emphasis that only he “who is of a slave is born according to the flesh,” with its predominant influence. This means that pure density is indissoluble from slavery and is least capable of creating legal authority in the field of inheritance. On the contrary, Isaac appears in the world by virtue of a promise that revived the decrepit organism, and this son comes from a full-fledged wife and assimilates her prerogatives to her husband’s property. And the Apostle again emphasizes with emphasis that the promised one must also be free. Hence the contradictory thesis that the privileges of free and unhindered inheritance are granted only by promise. Understood in the legal sense (the right to a thing) and the material sense (or the object itself), it combines both in practical discovery, when the conditioning guarantees the achievement of the conditioned.
In this dignity, the promise itself is acquired by the promise, by its legal quality, and it does not depend on the flesh, which is accompanied by slavish incompetence, while free authority is necessarily required. So: enslaving density eliminates the bequeathed goods, and they will be the property of the promised freedom.
It is clear that the Judaic theory is absolutely inapplicable to the source itself and therefore is not confirmed by the continuation. This is precisely what the Old Testament law is considered to be, since it gives rise to and supports legal claims. But here it is important to accurately determine the qualities of the latter according to the found scale. At this point, the evangelist was in agreement with his opponents and did not need subjective ingenuity. They categorically stated that they had nomystical claims due to their blood connection with Abraham. The law was for them the sanctified and indisputable seal of carnal kinship, which fully supports all inheritance. The legal merged with the carnal and was exhausted in it. Therefore, the nomistic subordination of the pagans should actually introduce them into a (fictitious -) natural union with Israel, in order to derive real rights from it. The legal moment is secondary and rests on the fact of carnal advantages.
There is no doubt now that in the eyes of the Jews the law was an institution of carnal provision and was imbued with carnality. Then his resemblance to Hagar was self-evident without any justification. The Apostle had only to illuminate this aspect in accordance with the objectives of the entire argument and according to the requirements of analogy. There are two unshakable features in it, that 1) inconspicuous fleshiness is expressed in slavery and 2) presupposes a natural slave. These considerations directed the consideration of the law on its essence and effect. But in the first respect, everyone recognizes that it takes its historical origin from Mount Sinai and appears with it with the active vitality of a pedagogical conviction corresponding to the level of the cosmic-flesh people of Israel. As given from Sinai or in external discovery as a national institution of the Old Testament economy, the law of Moses in its functions turns out to be weak and, being holy, righteous and good in its divine idea, is actually an enslaving force of sin.
It is characterized from the moment of active performance among people with the dignity of a real factor and for it will be the most accurate qualification. Therefore, they also contain support for comprehending the phenomenal nature of nomism. And here it is certain that Mount Sinai is located in slave Arabia and - in the sense of the nomistic mother - will be a slave. In parallel to Hagar, her fruit should be Ishmael-slave. This is the second predicate, and it is just as immutable. All nomistic energy is concentrated in the current Jerusalem of scribes and legalism. Here the law is fully embodied in its offspring and is completely exhausted. But this Jerusalem is actually enslaved. It is worthy of special attention that this situation is not accidental, even if it was temporary - sporadic. On the contrary, it is fundamentally inevitable, and this is clearly visible in the fate of children. They are slaves by their very origin from nomistic Jerusalem and bear the shameful yoke for their innate title of Jerusalem - Jews. It is clear that this slavery is natural, no less than in Ishmael.
Now the prototypical likeness immediately catches the eye and authorizes a similar conclusion. In the son of a concubine, his fate was created by carnal supremacy, which is why in the image the most important thing will be carnality, degrading the original purity. On this subject it is equally unshakable (Rom. VIII, 3) that the actual weakness of the law was conditioned by the flesh, as an instrument - by the mediating cause. Here the inner basis of nomystical enslavement is revealed to us in harmonious correspondence with the distant foreshadowing in the history of Abraham. As a result, we have a concessive formula that legalism, indeed, creates carnal kinship, but it is Hagarian, because it inevitably entails slavery. For inheritance this is a completely negative authority, and its fatal burden is witnessed by Ishmael, since he was expelled from his home and deprived of any participation in the property of his forefather.
Consequently, blood relationship in no way guarantees the receipt of an inheritance and - despite its exclusivity - decisively eliminates it from it: not all that exist are from Israel, these are Israel; neither are they seed, nor are they all children (Rom. IX, 6-7).
The claims of the Judaizers crumble to dust and turn on themselves. Their carnal pride leads to the Hagarian desecration and they are robbed of what they think they will achieve for their irrevocable use. However, this result is not obtained at all through their identification with the Ishmaelites. The apostle conducts his allegorical speech in a diametrically opposed tone. He firmly admits that the Jews stand in direct carnal connection with Abraham. To this he adds a new carnal strengthening of it in the carnal law, adapted for the sons of Israel and functioning among them. This, one might say, is a doubly or purely carnal relationship, being both a natural quality and a legal privilege. Here, apparently, everything needed for inheritance was contained, if the right of consanguinity was corporatized legally. For all that, the second in its essence simply certifies the first and in the end actually comes down to fleshiness, which it imprints (in circumcision) or creates fictitiously (through proselytism).
Everywhere the dominant element is the flesh, and the question of ways to acquire the promise comes down to determining its role in obtaining the paternal inheritance. In this regard, the story of Ishmael testifies with its mournful warning that carnality is accompanied only by removal from under the parental roof, which is why this is inevitable for carnal nomism. This means that the son of a slave is prototypical for Jewish legalism and for nomystical Judaism only in terms of the legal provision of inheritance. It is not the law in itself and not in its true teleological dignity, but only in the sense of the Jewish-soteriological institution that is destined in Ishmael, with whom it coincides here exactly. Legalism is characterized by its degree of success in delivering the benefits of the promise. The latter is equivalent to inheritance and requires an adequate combination of elements necessary for the validity of legal claims.
In the nomistic sphere, such are Hagarite carnality and Ishmaelite slavery, and it is precisely this combination that is found in the immediate descendants of Abraham in full development. Naturally, both series are getting closer to each other, and in the annals of one we read a true prophecy about the other.
It is clear that the comparison is, of course, natural, and does not in any way violate the real originality of the facts taken. They are genetically related not by material identity, but only to the extent that equal forces dominate in them with a corresponding final effect. Then the law becomes similar simply in its justifying weakness, and this is the bitter experience of the apostolic age and the irresistible evidence of its entire subsequent course to this day. Finding a perversion in this is only permissible due to the Judaistic blindness that often afflicts criticism, which should assume that the Jewish apostasy is normal, and the descendants of Abraham still retain the rights of Isaac. For the Apostle and for every impartial observer, it is undoubtedly, to the point of painful irresistibility, that they have historically lost them and can only regain them through nomistic self-denial. The Israelites, being Isaacites by blood, actually turned out to be Hagarites and, of course, because they imitated not their free ancestor, but his slave rival.
Noble birth has been trampled upon by them and has become their destructive enemy in their very legal advantages. They were guaranteed by law, and it was a sign of free inheritance by descent from Sarah. With him, a detailed assimilation of the ancestral energies of the ancestor was mandatory, where everything rested on a promise. Meanwhile, nomistic Judaism tried to establish everything on pure flesh and degraded the Sinai institution, making it the all-sufficient and exclusive source of the possession of goods. Blood affiliation with the hereditary family was forcibly merged with the legally indisputable receipt of ancestral wealth. This is not at all the same thing as why the Code of Sinai lost its propaedeutic effectiveness and, through artificial exaggeration, acquired the fatal property of eliminating benefits due to its legal unsuitability for awarding all agreed upon prerogatives. Hence the fatal dilemma: if the inheritance is from the law, it is not from the promise; Abraham was given the promise of God (Gal. III, 18).
Consequently, it is the fault of Israel itself that it is deprived of the joy of Israel and, persecuting the law of righteousness, does not comprehend the law of righteousness (Rom. IX, 31). Therefore, nomystical weakness is the result of the incorrect use of tools for inappropriate purposes, where the promised freedom provided by legalistic permission in Christ was needed (Rom. X, 4). Then the law will be of passive magnitude and - contrary to its intention - will be imbued with the Hagarian elements of carnal incapacity. Here he reproduces Ishmael in himself due to his soteriological futility, imposed on him by the Jewish clouding of carnal self-indulgence and bloody exaltation. The perversity of the divinely established order falls entirely on Judaism and not at all on the Apostle. The Evangelist simply states the sad experience of destructive Hagarianism in nomism, but emphasizes that this does not shake the divine plans no less than in the law itself, which appeared by the power of sin due to its intended “application” (Gal. III, 19).
Mainly in that case, Judaism, to its misfortune, only repeated the story of Ishmael, to whom it criminally became like. Such an identity was created by the present and itself asked for an unpleasant kinship in the dark past, although, reflected in the copy, the latter did not at all prepare it by its existence. It was not a type, but is only typically reproduced in the present, for which, of course, it is a pre-indicating model. The Hagarian legalism of the Jerusalem scribes and Pharisees is not invented by St. Paul is not attracted artificially, for it is contained with all reality in the fact of agaric nomism, which accepted the carnality and slavery of Ishmael. The handmaid's son is foreshadowed in the present and therefore foreshadows it, but only in this Judaistic abuse of the Sinai covenant.
It was a teacher to acquire legal competence for the promise of Isaac, and Judaism took away from him naturally - the pedagogical ability - and in fact the terrible anomaly turned out to be undeniable, that in its application the law of Sinai is accompanied by Hagaran rejection. The evangelist states this sad reality, without adding the slightest overtones to the allegorical disclosure. Therefore, he cannot be accused of tendentiously desecrating historical truth if he has evidence of what is before everyone’s eyes, as Israel is demonstrating in its nomystical degeneration.
We now see that the Apostle is drawing closer to a phenomenon that is actually close to the Old Testament episode in its internal dignity, in its fundamental ideological content. Their close relationship is based not on external analogies and not on the historical continuity of the genetic sequence, but on the animating principles of real existence. 309 In this case, Ishmael was also a prototype of legalism and Judaism, not at all in his ordinary personality, but because of the higher factors discovered in him for the dispensation of the promised salvation. In this sense, it, in truth, was and remains allegorical - foreshadowing, since it embodied the unchanging norms of divine providence. It is impossible to doubt this due to the essence of the biblical event. It is enough to recall a few details. Childlessness leads Abraham to the disappointing conviction that the family member will continue the family. The Lord rejects this with decisive adamance, saying that a direct descendant from the loins of the patriarch will be the owner of the earth in his countless seed (Gen. XV, 2 ff.).
Then – on Sarah’s advice – Hagar is taken and she conceives. It would seem that the future baby was supposed to inherit from his father, but something different happened: the slave is removed from the house and accepted again only with special indulgence (Gen. XVI, 6 ff.). This loudly indicated that the mother’s position was far from secure. True, Ishmael is recognized as the son of Abraham (XVI, 15), but God again assures that - contrary to all human calculations - Sarah will bear fruit (XVII, 16 ff.). It was then acceptable that one born of a concubine would at least receive some share along with the firstborn of the lawful wife. Again, complete disappointment: Ishmael is expelled forever with the elimination of minimal participation in the inheritance, because it is the exclusive property of Isaac (XXI, 10. 12). All the details developed here in such a way that the Hagarene seemed to be the closest and indisputable bearer of the promise, even if in a subordinate role. Despite all this, these expectations crumbled into dust, and it necessarily follows that for their implementation there was no necessary data, and the cash did not meet the conditions.
It is clear, therefore, that those who called Ishmael and the principles enshrined in him are indeed not suitable for inheritance. But the latter was associated with the promise and is inevitably characteristic of it. Since all this was arranged by the divine will, it means that this is not a simple everyday accident, and we are obliged to see in this an exact reflection of the unshakable plans of the heavenly leadership, identical to itself in all historical modifications. In them, the early moment necessarily foreshadows all subsequent ones, where an equal combination of previous elements occurs. Since they are noticed in Jewish nomism, this one will be similar to its biblical precedent in Ishmael. Their typical correspondence is rooted in the ideal essence according to its unity in the divine source.
The result we obtained is again confirmed and illuminated from the dogmatic side. We will have a comparison of two phenomena based on the commonality of creative foundations and driving motives. Before them, all variations are only mechanical repetitions. It goes without saying that the reality of secondary copies guarantees such a property in all previous ones, and the original one will be a kind of original. This inevitably makes sure that the story of Ishmael is a genuine event of the past and is important precisely because of its certainty for understanding the ways of God revealed in it. But in his assessment of Jerusalem legalism the Apostle relied on factual observations, and his allegory will be a conclusion from fact to fact. They are, of course, separated both chronologically and according to external individual characteristics, like two strictly defined objects of a certain time in the space they occupy. Therefore, they are united by the strength of internal solidarity according to the essential elements hidden under the outer shell of incompatible tactility.
Behind it we find the same combination of regulating factors and, based on what happened, we are forced to judge what is happening in which it is reflected. The first turns out to be both the actual forerunner and prophetic harbinger of the second. In all this, Ishmael, undoubtedly, was the prototype of the Sinai covenant, embodied in Jerusalem nomism.
The allegorical typicality of the Hagarene henceforth loses its imaginary strangeness and acquires the character of immutability in the immutability of divine providence. This predetermines the corresponding interpretation for Isaac. Here is actually the reverse result of previous observations, and with it it is ensured in advance according to its real merit. Consequently, this episode is no less reliable and is equally imbued with internal significance. And it's easy to guess. Ishmael negatively testified to his unsuitability, that for the promises of legal capacity it is necessary to suppress his qualities by the contrary. The whole question is, were they in Isaac when we consider historical fate? And at this point, the positive answer is in every possible way unshakable without deliberate argumentation, since Abraham’s son Sarrin actually succeeded him. From here we are inevitably directed to consider its advantages for conditional reasons. But it is obvious that Isaac was born contrary to the organic potentialities of the spouses or in addition to the supremacy of the flesh.
If, after all, the act was accomplished, it was solely in fulfillment of the promise and according to its full energy. In turn, this led to the fact that, having become the heir to Abraham’s Property, Isaac also turned out to be the successor of his father’s family. In this respect, he was the creator of the predestined offspring and is the recipient of the promise of the seed. As a result, we have that the promise is given and received only according to the promise, as a gift. All this refers to a free manager who, without being bound in his duties, autonomously rewards with his goods with the same rights of free use and unfettered use. Isaac was, in fact, free by birth from carnality free from the dominant influence. This means that the promise of God is realized from itself, eliminates carnal dependence and functions in the sphere of freedom. This is in direct contrast to Ishmael. But it is imprinted in nomism, which is why we must look for the traits of a rival in the latter’s opponent. This is the covenant of faith in the Christian economy.
Let us think about it carefully, and we will find a sufficient similarity. First of all, there is no absolutism of carnal intimacy, and in its few representatives of the apostolic age it was destroyed by the rejection of legalistic authority due to its fundamental unsuitability in inheritance. This carnal deprivation is inseparable from its inseparable companion in subduing slavery, which is why Christians do not suffer from it. Of course, not all of them were free citizens with socio-political prerogatives and for a long time shared the fate of groaning Judaism, but we are not talking about that at all. The matter concerns the adversativity of nomistic enslavement, and it rested on legalistic carnality, where attachment to the Sinai covenant did not allow reconciliation due to the immensity of proud claims, while the divine norm was belittled in them by human weakness and did not ensure success. As a result, claims are fatally broken, irritate the powerful and lead to submission to them.
From this side, Christianity is free precisely because it is not based on the carnal privileges of legalism and is not limited by them in its relations to everything cosmic, triumphing over it by simple disparity. Christian freedom is not only the negation of nomism and not the desecration of the flesh. All this is secondary and derivative. The fundamental thing in it will always be freedom in Christ or freedom of the law of Christ with the most accurate reflection of the model in copies. 310 St. Paul does not yet touch upon this question, but argues according to the real subject. In him, slavery resulted from carnality, which was sanctioned by legalistic suggestions. According to this connection, it is indisputable for everyone that if there is no cause, there will be no natural echo. But the carnal principle of genetic and nomistic kinship is completely absent in Christianity and therefore it is essentially free, despite any external collisions and everyday difficulties.
What is dear to the Apostle is precisely the negative property that the new covenant is not carnal and, not containing the obstacles of the old, must be an institution of free competence. Next, it was necessary to substantiate in fact this aspect, which was ideally necessary. For this, the evangelist appeals to living experience. In it the growing power of the growing Christian family is clearly outlined before us. Consequently, faith is not a dead potency and functions actively, for it has offspring. She is the mother of an undoubted Christian brotherhood and, apparently, now enjoys full marital powers. However, the carnal moment is rejected in advance, and we are convinced that all this is arranged according to the supreme will and for the sake of discovering its intentions. In this sense, the former incorporeality will be exactly parallel to the childlessness of Sarah and refers to a similar energy that determines a similar productivity. And in Abraham’s wife everything was accomplished according to the promise, which is why this is indisputable for the faith that revives paganism.
This is where the prophetic word is important, which predicts a barren multitude of children for the pagan Church, when it was still “empty”, devoid of effectiveness. And if now we find it in existence with a progressive increase in the joints, then it is clear that everything happened according to the immutability of the word of God. From here the direct conclusion is that Christians are born by faith solely by promise. And this is not a theoretical deduction of abstract reasoning. It is based on the fact of non-nomistic and carnal Christianity; the commentary is given by unshakable biblical authority. The prophetic quotation is not a random illustration of school recollection, but was evoked by the entire course of speech and is integral to it. It categorically reinforces the similarity taken by the unity of the factor that penetrates both phenomena and brings them together in equal dominance over everything external, cosmically superior. Therefore, in Christians, its absolute supremacy is necessary, eliminating everything individually - racial differences and merging it into a continuous mass of identical values.
This is how brothers get their special meaning and name (in Gal. IV, 28), because they are evidenced by the same status of all according to the absolutism of the mother reigning over them. She is alien to carnal contact and gives birth by the power of God. Naturally, her sons will be children of promise in strict accordance with Isaac. As a result, Christians find themselves with two qualities of the latter - uncarnality and promise, which were also essential in the biblical ancestor, from which its prototypicality in this regard cannot be denied. The similarities in other respects are already self-explanatory. In the Old Testament episode, the promise was associated with freedom of birth and inheritance. The first is confirmed by the non-involvement of slavish carnality, and the second - in appearance - seems to be refuted by the unworthiness of the humble and poor children of grace. However, this is rather a categorical justification, because Isaac also achieved unlimitedness only after being constrained by his opponent.
Therefore, even the persecution of Christians convinces that they are the only heirs and - as brothers in the promise of faith - are the children not of slaves, but of a free woman, who legally grants the actual legal capacity for real possession. The end crowns the beginning, since, being similar to Isaac in the conditions of birth, Christians are similar to him in the source of their being in a mother reminiscent of Sarah.
In this concept of the apostolic interpretation the main point of allegorical comparison is clearly distinguished. Thought starts from the present and analyzes according to the main elements. The closest of them is the independence of believers from nomistic carnality, even if they were Jews by blood, for their Christian identity is everywhere and always created apart from the law and without genetic kinship to Abraham or beyond it. This is accepted by everyone and, in turn, requires a special biogenic principle, contrary to the former and alien to carnal stratifications. And here it is obvious to everyone that this is exactly what faith is. Then all the evangelist’s reasoning is concentrated in a brief thesis that members of the Christian family are in the world not according to the flesh of legalistic pretension, but according to the spirit of humble faith. It hardly needs to be said that this is a real fact of Christian reality. And we know that the biblical episode is considered an undoubted historical event - and we will have the result, argued above, that in his allegory St.
Paul goes from factual to factual. This directly protects the real inviolability of both in their entirety. From this side, Isaac is only one of the figures of the majestic Old Testament panorama and occupies his limited place in it, without individually speaking beyond its limits. Due to these properties, he is not at all a type for anyone, ever, being just a ring in a long Israeli chain. Here his presence is as indisputable as every other link. Naturally, the Apostle does not at all deny the actual dignity of Isaac as the successor of Abraham’s seed. He has no hint of the insane absurdity that the Nomist Jews were not related by blood to the son of Sarah. The whole importance is that this communication rests exclusively on carnality, while it was secondary and secondary in Isaac himself. Judaism turned this incidental into a priority and, naturally, does not use the prerogatives of its ancestor, omitting and trampling on everything that ensured its hereditary advantages.
They, of course, go to those who meet the proper requirements embodied in biblical precedent. It depicts before us the suppression of carnality by the incoming invasion of the power of God, and these features are irresistibly found in Christians, since this is literally a “new creation” (2 Cor. V, 17. Gal. VI, 15) of divine grace, creating its existence where there is neither a real basis in blood succession, nor legal rights in the sanctification of the Sinai covenant. In this sense, believers are internally related to Isaac and necessarily assimilate all his privileges. 311 It is clear that here, too, everything is based on factual evidence with the disclosure of its essence. This is rooted in the promise of the Christian birth, which is competent for the inheritance of the forefather because God gave Abraham the promise (Gal. III, 18). By this possession the parallel between the free son and the brothers of the Christian union is completed and virtually guaranteed. The second are similar to the first in equally real inheritance.
Here again the reverse application of the Apostle was justified, that it is not the children of the flesh who are the hell of God, but the children of the promise who are counted among the seed (Rom. IX, 8). Everything is ensured only by the fact of Christian grace with the perception of the treasures of the Abrahamic Covenant. Therefore, this is not a distortion of history, but its unhypocritical and irresistible verdict. And anyone who disputes this truth will be obliged to admit that Christian salvation does not bring the benefits of the revelation of the Old Testament with their confirmation and inexhaustible development. We don’t think that this absurdity is convenient or even suitable for criticism. She, too, must agree that - according to the apostolic understanding - Isaac became the prototype of Christian heirs in their actual reward with all the treasured treasures of unity with God in the Lord the Deliverer. Therefore, it was an omen only for hereditary conditions that bring about property. His typicality is not rooted in his own individuality, but in what is above it and rests in the power of God.
312 Then other moments must be no less real, being in a real connection with each other. This is equally obvious. All steadfastly admit that the covenant of law originates from Sinai and functions entirely in the nomistic Jerusalem, and Christians - in their independence from legalism - are (in Paulinian societies) the children of the opposite principle in faith. Under such conditions of mutual factuality, only a factual relationship based on real data is permissible. In Hagar they are expressed by the slavery of her offspring due to her natural slavery. For the nomistic institution, this is confirmed by the slave position of the historical source or Mount Sinai in Hagaran-slave Arabia and the enslavement of the Jews as sons of Jerusalem due to their legalism, legally demanding and irritating the whole world, but internally weak and carnally elemental.
By contrast, it follows that the new covenant is essentially free, since Christians, being alien to legalistic oppression, are free now and forever - like Sarah and Isaac. Both series are revered and depicted in all their actual inviolability. They are individually separated, and their similarity so far speaks of simple analogy. It requires a corresponding justification of a real nature, if the evangelist does not limit himself to a bare statement of the noted feature and sees in it a special meaning. But already in the rapprochements themselves, the latter is outlined by the dominant factors, which are revealed by the identical results of their activity. In this case, historical continuity is not required here at all, because that is the whole point, and it would in no way explain qualitative reciprocity, just as the direct alternation of day and night does not exclude their complete adversativity. The connecting element is higher than actual realities, and they themselves are united in it, since they embodied it objectively.
Then it remains to examine the question of whether this imprint is genuine in them - and the problem will be solved, no doubt. On this subject, the Bible clearly states that Ishmael was born under the dominion of the flesh and - due to the incompetence of his descent from a slave - did not receive the promises through the inheritance of the property and prerogatives of his carnal father; Isaac turned out to be the successor of the seed and the recipient of the Abrahamic covenant, for he was the promised son of a free wife. But it is equally true that Jewish legalism is reduced to blood nobility and is built on carnal claims, and pagan Christianity is devoid of nomistic differences of genetic kinship with the forefather of Israel and arises apart from carnal agents. This sufficiently ensures the apostolic comparison in its actual strength, as long as its foundations are drawn from real details. For all that, these individual details are not significant in themselves: they are important only because of their significance, the energy revealed in them.
Therefore, all facts presuppose each other according to the unity of their defining principle and outside of it they are separated to the point of incompatibility. From this point of view, Hagar and Ishmael, Sarah and Isaac were not actually figurative types, because of their future events, which again do not appear to reproduce their precedents and even contrary to the natural - physical course of the world movement. From this it follows that the center of fusion will be the creative prime mover, unchanged everywhere and everywhere achieving its goals. When giving the promise itself, he actually expressed the conditions obligatory for him and now rewards their actual fulfillment. So the past itself finds its commentary in the present and from it it is illuminated why both of them are close to each other in terms of the embedded divine content found in them, but without them, since it comes from above and develops according to the supreme will. Of course, in it all stages are solid and mutually confirmed. 313
In this sense, an allegory is, indeed, an allegory, because its speakers suggest something different in comparison with their external clarity, which speaks only to ordinary hearing. 314 They direct our mind to the voice of God speaking in them and are sent to its broadcasts. Biblical figures mark the path of divine providence and already indirectly predict in it all its further successors. Therefore, their connection with the past is possible only in actual implementation according to the same divine command. Here the allegorical explanation equals the factual certification of the saving God. 315 It goes without saying that such exegesis will be both factually objective and dogmatically true. 316 It cannot be considered either artificial or personal if it is given by history itself and subjugates human inquisitiveness in its exact copying. Any side influence here is both unnecessary and not permissible. This interpretation is not even Paul’s own, for the Apostle states, and does not invent. 317 Therefore it is obvious that it can be even less philonic.
In the end, we are presented with the fundamental inadmissibility of borrowing by an evangelist from the Alexandrian theosophist. In this case, it is enough for us to note the judgments of Philo 318 about the biblical episode in question, 319 so that the difference in exegetical technique is revealed in all its sharpness, and the visual illustration will be a negative reinforcement of the positive conclusion. The whole study takes a natural course and should convince with equal firmness that the unthinkable on the part of St. Paul in relation to the leading figure of Egyptian Jewish hermeneutics is equally incredible in the opposite direction. The combination of two impossibilities everywhere and always eliminates any convergence of mutually exclusive quantities.
Philo discusses at length all the details of the biblical narrative. According to him, Sarah’s long sterility testifies that the production and development of virtue requires not passive (female), but active (male) strength of the mind, refined by long exercise. With Abraham's wife there was also a mercenary (Gen. XVI, I). But Hagar means the coming and she is a servant of a more perfect nature, being naturally Egyptian, for the study of encyclical sciences, striving to achieve knowledge in its completeness, still serves as a slave to virtue, because it is useful only when it is subordinated to the latter, just as the body, symbolized by the name Egypt, is subjugated to the soul. From this side, encyclical pedagogy is rightly called Egyptian, since it needs physical assistance and, being sophistry, is something foreign in comparison with native wisdom, which is mediated by foreign wisdom and its mistress. Sarah, citing her childlessness, herself advises her husband to take Hagar (Gen. XVI, 2).
This expresses that people who are not yet capable of bearing the fruit of virtue must first gain experience in childbearing from intermediate and preparatory encyclical studies. With all this, Sarah continues to remain “the wife of Abraham”, convincing that the begun union with wisdom is indissoluble and is only strengthened by auxiliary benefits, which - therefore - are also qualified, in Hagar, by the title of spouse (Gen. XVI, 3): encyclical discipline is like a concubine, but - due to its propaedeutic role - is equated to the legal owner of all conjugal rights. Then - after the conception of the slave - her mistress was reproached before her (Gen. XVI, 4). With this peculiar phrase of St. the writer relieves both women of blame and instills the idea that success in external well-being is often accompanied by contempt for sterility in evil and intangible intellectual productivity.
Encyclical information is valuable only for its educational value and should not go beyond these boundaries; otherwise, the sophistic art of multi-knowledge will seize supremacy and, with its seductiveness, will become dangerous for wisdom. That is why Sarah complains and calls for the judgment of God (Gen. XVI, 5), urging us to separate the probable from the true, the secondary from the primary. Abraham betrays the maid “into the hands” of his wife (Gen. XVI, 6), for external sophistic knowledge lives under the rule of wisdom and is enriched solely by communication with her, and therefore, when deviating, it causes disciplinary “oppression.” But for base souls these “saving and blissful” restrictions are unpleasant, and they then prefer to withdraw into selfish isolation; – Hagar runs away from the face of his mistress. She is found by the Angel of the Lord in the desert and at a spring of water on the road to Sur (Gen. XVI, 7).
Apparently, a mind trained encyclically does not by itself comprehend all the beauty of its mistress, even with all its disposition and efforts; for him, a higher participation is necessary so that, having washed himself from the filth of depravity, he firmly moves towards goodness, to which he now returns, remembering the abandoned superiority. However, this was actually out of fear of his greatness, and such a meaningful inclination serves as a guarantee of humility before wisdom with the inevitable crowning of its productive vitality (Gen. XVI, 8 - 10). However, even now the fruits of secular erudition are imperfect: they do not have completeness, do not have an autonomous identity and are imbued with sophistic tendencies of proud enmity. Therefore, the son of Hagar is Ishmael or secondary “hearing” - of God in comparison with vision, 320 - a wild man and pretentious to his brothers (Gen. XVI, 11 - 12). This is also noticeable because the fugitive mistook the Angel for God - a reflection for the light itself, although she had already known her true source and, having given birth to a son to Abraham, testified that everything comes from wisdom and belongs to it (Gen. XVI, 13-15). 321
This is the general outline of phylonic appliques, and more subtle patterns develop on it. The Writer of Life outlines Abraham's relationship with his wives and their fate along with their offspring. Sarah means "my dominion", i.e. the natural supremacy inherent in virtue. She is childless in evil, abundant in all good things, and available to those perfected in preliminary marriage. Until then, Sarah bore fruit only for herself, and not for me, while virtuous offspring are illegitimate and generated by false opinions. We are the fathers of the fruits of virtue only through union with its handmaiden or after assimilating the entire range of scientific information indicated by Hagar - such as grammar, geometry, astronomy, rhetoric, “music” and other organs of rational contemplation. Naturally, Sarah directs Abraham to Hagar - to the intermediate education of encyclical knowledge in order to enter into a strong union of productive communication with their depositor, in whom we are close through her subordinates.
The relativity of encyclical education is illustrated by both the origin and name of the patriarch's mercenary. She is an Egyptian, and external knowledge needs through the earthly “Egyptian body”, which serves as Egypt or a vessel for the soul. But Hagar means wandering, sojourning. Accordingly, full citizenship belongs only to wisdom and all other disciplines will be intruders, illegal offspring of a concubine, which - in the form of secular erudition - is not completely rejected if a person strives for understanding through learning. For him, many aids are needed, while the valor of true knowledge, personified in Isaac, born of one mistress, is naturally not mixed and does not tolerate slavishly unclean arts next to him. The very appeal to them should be normalized by the authority of virtue, and “Abraham listened to the words of Sarah,” followed the inspiration of wisdom and began to listen to the lessons of teaching. Wisdom continues and must be controlling, for Sarah herself gives her husband her maid and does not lose the dignity of a wife.
This was after ten years of Abraham's stay in the land of Canaan (Gen. XVI, 3); from here we conclude that the mind is capable of fruitful encyclical pedagogy only through sophistication in the fight against passions (=Egypt) and wickedness (=Canaan), becoming hardened and persistent (=10). Encyclical studies are finally fertilized in philosophy, which is higher than the private sciences, although it can easily lead to exaltation; To eliminate this, she needs hesitation about her autonomy through a service adaptation to the punishing ferule of wisdom, which calmly and dispassionately eliminates our ascent to its height. 322
So: the combination of biblical figures in Philo receives the meaning that the virtuous disposition of the soul (=Abraham) only after preliminary exercise (union with Hagar) assimilates virtue itself (=Sarah), and its unprepared admiration turns out to be deceptive, just as Pharaoh mistook the patriarch’s wife for his sister (Gen. XII, 13 ff.). 323 “There are two kinds of marriages that are opposite to each other: in the body the masculine principle is active, and the feminine is passive: but in the union of the soul, virtue, taking the place of the wife, sows good advice, prudent thoughts and vitally useful dogmas, while the mind, equated with the husband, receives these sacred and divine germs. 324 And when a person strives for a second marriage, he involuntarily feels timid due to his intellectual imperfection and becomes like Hagar, who initially ran away out of shame 325 and in her naming of an Angel by God showed that she was not yet able to comprehend the “oldest reason” of everything, being an Egyptian by birth.
326 “Sarah is the ruler of virtue; and wise Abraham listened to her advice about what he should do. For before, when he was not perfect and his name was not changed (from Abram to Abraham: Gen. XVII, 5), the patriarch indulged in astrological speculation. Knowing that at this time Abram could not give birth from perfect virtue, Sarah recommended that he have children from a maidservant, i.e. turn to encyclical teaching, since Hagar means pilgrimage. This is because the one who thinks of settling in perfect virtue - before being enrolled in its citizens - settles in the encyclical sciences, in order through them to settle in perfect virtue as a free member. (And having become perfect and capable of being a father), Abram, although he was imbued with gratitude to the sciences that raised him for virtue, and it was difficult for him to abandon them, now obeys the command of God’s inspiration: “in everything that Sarah tells you, obey her voice” (Gen. XXI, 12).
Let this be a law for each of us in relation to virtue, since by obeying all its admonitions, we will be happy.” 327 From this side, a premature union is illegal and is resolved by complete dissolution. “We can judge about the intermediate education in encyclical knowledge by Hagar, who twice moved away from the commanding virtue - Sarah, but the first time she returned the same way: then she ran away, and was not driven out, met an Angel or the divine Logos and returned to the house of her masters, but the second time she was expelled forever and irrevocably. We must understand the reasons for both the initial flight and the secondary permanent exile. Before changing the names of both (Abram and Sarah), i.e.
before a significant mental transformation for the better, one was Abram, like an exalted father, attached to sublime (astrological) contemplations of what is happening in the air and what happens in heaven, and this is the highest mathematical form of natural philosophy; the other was called Sarah: she is a symbol of my superiors (for it means “my superiors”), an immutable virtue by race ( - since the race is imperishable - ) and comprehended by the particular properties of detection; she was prudence, moderation, courage and justice in herself, (but in their manifestations) these qualities are transitory, like the container or thinking subject that perceives them. Hagar is marked by intermediate and encyclical teaching; although with it a person tries to escape the harsh and strict life of lovers of virtue, he returns to it again, not being able to achieve productive and undying virtues and perceiving only partially - the specific, the average instead of the highest limit (of two opposites - good and evil).
When Abram, from a natural philosopher, became a sage and lover of God and was renamed Abraham, i.e. the chosen father of sound (for the spoken word sounds, the father of which is the mind that has mastered knowledge), Sarah from “my superiors” becomes Sarah - “the commanding calling”, which is equal to the change of species and perishable virtue to generic and incorruptible; then the blessed race will shine forth - Isaac, who gives birth after the cessation of “the usual among women” and after the mortification of sensual lusts and diligently pursues not childish pursuits, but divine ones. Therefore, the propaedeutic knowledge of Hagar and their son, a sophist nicknamed Ishmael, are expelled. And they are doomed to eternal exile, since God sanctions their removal, ordering the wise man to obey the words of Sarah, and she directly says (Gen. XXI, 10): “Cast out this slave woman and her son.”
It is wonderful to obey virtue - especially if it teaches such truths that the most perfect natures are very far from intermediate dispositions and that wisdom, through reflection on the true, brings great benefit to the mind in the knowledge of the right Logos. Is it any wonder that Adam, this inextricable mind infected with an unhealed disease, was completely expelled by God from the realm of virtues, so that he could no longer return there? So He always removes and drives away every sophist and his mother, or propaedeutic teaching, from wisdom and the wise, named by Him Abraham and Sarah. 328
We have exhausted the essential content of Philo’s allegorical interpretation and can now make proper comparisons with the explanation of St. Pavel. For any impartial person, at first glance, such a deep difference is revealed that in this abyss the features of similarity completely disappear, and careful analysis takes away from them the very appearance of similarity. We will not talk about the content of biblical applications and will focus for now on exegetical technique. For both authors, the point of departure is one biblical episode, but for the Apostle it was, first of all, a real event. Is this equally true for Philo? Outwardly, it would seem that one must answer in the affirmative, for he takes into account the most subtle details of the biblical narrative, and every detail is given a special meaning. The whole question will be in relation to these little things. What is especially striking here is the observation that they are all diligently adjusted to their favorite idea and, in their overflows, illuminate it from all sides.
It is like a ray of the sun refracted in a prism, preserving its own typicality everywhere and revealing its natural qualities to us. It goes without saying that such a property has its undoubted support in the unity of the primary source, which always remains identical in its functions. From this point of view, Philo first needed to firmly argue and irresistibly convince that the biblical figures were the complete embodiment of a known truth, which is why they invariably express it in all their modifications and variations. The most careful research shows that this most important point is not touched upon even by a brief mention. For this reason, all philosophical developments are deprived of an objective basis in indisputable historical reality and therefore do not in the least require its recognition. Hence it is natural that the authenticity of the event turns out to be indifferent, and everything will lie in its significance, and this decisively suppresses historical presence.
This result arises with absolute irreducibility, and the Alexandrian commentator admits it categorically. We are right there with him. we read: “When you hear that Hagar was reproached by Sarah (Gen. XVI, 6), do not assume anything out of ordinary female envy, for we are not talking about women, but about the double direction of the mind - practicing in propaedeutic studies and devoting itself to the exploits of virtue. 329
In this case, all material will be limited only to the verbal shades of the story, and - contrary to St. Paul – we get an interpretation of a letter, not a fact. Then the phrase itself will be an independent carrier of ideological wealth, and thought slavishly becomes attached to its external nuances, imparting to all considerations the nature of purely verbal tricks. Along with this, the biblical word, devoid of actual individuality, loses the real coerciveness of its objective dignity and becomes an elastic toy of exegetical wit. It is now obvious that such an interpretation irresistibly tends towards arbitrary logomachy and is expressed in vain elucubration. Philo has a great abundance of illustrative examples on the subject under consideration. Thus, for Mother Isaacova, the reason for her name is energetically noted. The name Sarah, according to the Egyptian theosophist, means “my superiors” 330 and thereby determines the dominance of truth in itself.
This is the moment of its self-sufficiency in the stage of rest, and only with the title Sarah is virtue taken as an actively functioning one, where it passes from the specific to the generic. 331 True, “some fools laugh at the addition of one letter (p), which in Greek is equal to the number one hundred, this simply speaks of their inability to delve into things and follow in the footsteps of the truth. This p is the culprit of all harmony, turning the small into the great, the particular into the general, the mortal into the immortal, for Sarah is interpreted as “my superior”, Sarah is “the mistress”... But wisdom, moderation, justice and courage, while they are in me, have only an approximate dominant force and are mortal, which is why they die with me. However, this wisdom, justice and all the others are dominant not only in me, but also in themselves, as eternal nun and dominion. Hence, is not the greatness of the gift clear? By this slight change God transforms the part into the whole, the species into the species, the corruptible into the incorruptible.
According to Philo, self-contained wisdom is vital only after its fertilization in the enlightened human mind, when the idea of good is realized in intellectual and moral phenomena. Therefore, the prophecy to Abraham about a son is understood proleptically. But the biblical text categorically testifies to the large number of descendants of the poor, and this greatly shakes the outlined view. Here the theosophist comes up with a new twist. “It is extremely strange,” he writes, 333, “that Moses calls her (Sarah, as a type of autocratic virtue) barren and at the same time prolific, promising that from her will come the most numerous of nations. This is because in its essence virtue is barren for everything bad and prolific in everything good, without the participation of the midwife’s art, for it prevents it by birth. Animals and plants, after a longer period of time, produce their characteristic fruits once or, at best, twice a year, in accordance with the laws of their nature and at appropriate times.
But virtue always produces continuously and without interruption—not children, of course, but noble thoughts, impeccable advice and praiseworthy deeds.” “According to the prophecy, barren Sarah will be a mother. The question arises, can a barren woman give birth? To this we must answer that a barren woman usually does not give birth at all, just as a blind man does not see and a deaf man does not hear; one soul, being barren for everything bad and unproductive for immoderate passions and vices, happily gives birth to the most worthy of love, marked by the number seven in the inspired song of Annas (1 Samuel II, 5): barren have given birth to seven, and many in faintness. She (Anna) calls a thought that is overwhelmed by discordant considerations and after many turmoil gives birth to evil; the barren one is the one who does not accept mortal seed into her biogenic process, avoids destructive communication with the evil and is devoted to the pacifying septenary, which is why she is burdened with it and is called mother.” 334
As a result, it turns out that virtue is a self-sufficient and immediate force. She creates from herself and naturally eliminates all sorts of side effects. From this point of view, the biblical episode about Abraham's servant turns out to be a negative instance for philonic concepts and does not find a favorable resolution. The Alexandrian dreamer firmly holds his position that Hagar is a sojourner, 335 something intermediate, fleeting and ghostly. Even if in this role she were a useful auxiliary tool, but in fact she is not even that. The Maid, being an encyclical teaching, 336 invariably remains “the interpretive faculty of sensory perceptions and the mental producer of sophisms. 337 From this side all tensions are in vain. True, having obeyed the Angel’s order to return to Abraham’s house, Hagar discovered “beautiful humility of unreasonable thoughts. (And now it is instilled in her) that you will calmly give birth to a boy named Ishmael, wise by listening to the divine, for Ishmael is interpreted as “the hearing of God.”
(However) hearing is secondary to seeing, which is the inheritance of the legitimate and firstborn son Israel, which means “he who sees God.” It is also common to hear something false as if it were true, since hearing is deceptive, but seeing is not false and gives knowledge of the true essence. The one being born (Angel) is characterized by a wild man (gloriously strong), since his wisdom is rude, which will not achieve divine sophistication in virtue, which moderates morals. Therefore it is said: his hand is against everyone, and the hands of everyone are against him (Gen. XVI, 12 ff.). This is the inner mood of the sophist due to his tendency to exaggerated skepticism and word debate. He drives away all those devoted to science with his intemperate self-praise and is in turn driven away by everyone, since they rightly defend their own offspring, or dogmas, born of souls. A third trait is also noted in the character with the words: he will move in before all his brethren, which with expressive brevity indicates shameless enmity and eternal resistance.
And the soul, burdened with sophistical rationality, responds to the reproof that speaks to it: you are the God who has looked upon me, which equals: you are the creator of my thoughts and creations, and this is true. Free and truly worthy souls have a free and liberating creator, and slaves have slaves. Angels are precisely the servants of God, revered as gods by those who are in painful slavery. For this reason, says (Scripture), I called that treasure trove: the treasure trove where I saw it before me. And you, a soul that has already succeeded in the knowledge of encyclical disciplines, don’t you see the fundamental principle of knowledge only, as it were, through the mirror of education? The location of the well “in the middle between Cadiz and Varad” testifies to this with particular clarity, because Varad means evil, Cadiz is holy: after all, the successful borders on the holy and the evil, runs away from the bad, but is never able to coexist with absolute goods.” 338 So: even the most diligent zeal of intellectual energy and the humble confession of one's weaknesses do not open the way to perfection.
Naturally, it does not work out even later, when there are real fruits of propaedeutic preparation. Here Moses “mentions (Gen. XXI, 19) about Hagar that she filled a skin with water and gave the boy a drink physically. But Hagar, being the handmaiden of Sarah, or perfect virtue, is a mediating education. It follows from this that, having reached the depth of knowledge, called the well, it draws into its soul, as into a certain vessel, dogmatic contemplations corresponding to what it cherished, and feeds them with them to the youth, and the youth is the soul that strives for instruction and - figuratively speaking - is now born to study. Therefore, a mature youth becomes a sophist, which is indicated by the term shooter (XXI, 19), since he makes every serious proposal a target and accurately sends arrows of his objections at it.” 339
It is clear from everything that deep encyclical knowledge is rather harmful, and in this regard it is remarkable that Hagar uses a wineskin for veneration from the source, and Rebekah uses a jug. Here it is revealed that “one who has devoted herself to the encyclical sciences must use the bodily vessels of sensation - the eyes and ears - to perceive contemplations, for for lovers of learning, the benefit of knowledge is acquired by seeing a lot and listening carefully to many: the one who is filled with the highest wisdom does not require leather fur at all: with passion and completely loving the incorporeal, she confidently rejects all fur, i.e. body, and needs only a water carrier, and this is a symbol of a vessel abounding in inexhaustible moisture... And the lover of learning, seeing wisdom filled with knowledge from the divine source, meets along the way and carefully guides how to satisfy the thirst for learning. Then the soul, educated in the truth, unenvious and generous, immediately delivers the moisture of wisdom, invites you to revel in it and calls the servant master” (Gen. XIV, 15 – 18).
340 It is clear that encyclical propaedeutics is actually an obstacle to the best inclinations that develop in relation to the cosmically binding discipline. In this sense, “some virtues are always virginal, others come from wives who have become virgins, as with Sarah “the custom of women ceased” (Gen. XVIII, 11) before the conception of the blessed race - Isaac. The ever-virgin - according to what is said (Gen. XXIV, 16) - cannot be known by a husband, for it is impossible for any mortal to defile the incorruptible nature and clearly know it in its essence. Even if he were capable of knowing, such a person always remains a cantankerous hater. Therefore (Moses) says that Leah was physically hated (Gen. XXIX, 31). The reason is that those who are carried away by sensual pleasures (which are signified by Rachel) cannot stand Leah’s dispassion and, being reproached, hate her. But alienation from created things leads to communion with God, and the soul, having received from Him the seeds of understanding, gives birth to thoughts that are beautiful and worthy of the father who gave birth to them.
So you, the soul - like the hated Leah - will turn away from the mortal, then you will necessarily cleave to the immortal, who will rain down on you the sources of all good things.” 341 It is indisputable that encyclical pedagogy is sensually illusory and hostile to genuine knowledge, which is diametrically opposed to carnal knowledge - cosmic phenomenality and objective being and subjective being and subjective knowledge. There is no transition between them, and the results are imbued with mutual negativity. “In many places in the law we read that adults are called youths, and those who have not grown old, elders - this is not in relation to a short or long life, but - in relation to the powers of the soul - about good and bad. Therefore, almost twenty-year-old Ishmael is called a youth in comparison with Isaac, as perfect in virtues. For (Scripture) says: (Abraham) took the loaves and a bottle of water and gave them to Hagar, and put them on her shoulders, bringing them down from the house; again: I grew up as a child under one tree and: I see the death of my offspring (Gen. XXI. 14 - 16).
And although thirteen years before the birth of Isaac Ishmael was already circumcised (Gen. XVII: 25), but seven years after nursing he was expelled along with his mother, since the illegitimate son turned out to be unworthy of equality in upbringing with the legitimate one. And so, being a youth, he is called a child as a sophist in contrast to the sage, since Isaac inherited wisdom, and Ishmael sophistry, as they must be characterized in precise terms. What is the attitude of a young boy to an adult husband, the same is the attitude of a sophist to a wise man, an encyclical teaching to knowledge of virtue.” 342 The connection is completely interrupted, and we see before us the hopeless collapse of all Philo’s theoretical and exegetical premises. He takes the biblical message that Abraham bears fruit from his wife Sarah only after productive communication with his concubine Hagar. According to the allegorical strains of the Theosophist, this convinces us that the successful acquisition of true wisdom requires systematic preparation through the careful development of one's abilities in the school of all secular sciences.
This demonstrates the relationship of genetic continuity between propaedeutics and its crowning. In fact, it turns out to be just the opposite. Secular knowledge is not just disparate, but decisively adversative to pure contemplation: Hagar and Sarah are irreconcilable antipodes, like sensuality and spirituality.
It is easy to guess that the encyclical exercise irrevocably deviates from the goal, and all attempts to get closer to it through self-abasement are crushed to dust. Ishmael and Isaac are natural enemies and eliminate each other forever, like the sophist 343 and the sage.
Under such conditions, it is inevitable that encyclical education leads fatally away from divine pedagogy. 344 Then there is a grave bewilderment why the lost Abraham did not lose Sarah completely. From this side, the birth of Isaac serves as a stumbling block for Philo, and he cannot move it with his dialectical lever. The prediction of a seed by both spouses is met with laughter. For the patriarch it was joy that bliss or Isaac would come from him, and for Sarah it was the sweetness of faith in the promise, therefore “the fruit is both laughter and joy - according to the interpretation of the name Isaac. Let sensuality grieve and virtue always rejoice - according to the praiseworthy words of the blessed mother: the Lord make me laugh, for if he hears, he will rejoice with me (Gen. XXI, 6). And you, (newly) initiated, open your ears and receive the sacred sacraments: laughter is joy and creation equals begot, from where the whole phrase will read: The Lord begat Isaac, for He is the father of perfect nature, fertilizing souls and giving birth to bliss in them.”
345 In this sense, even hearing that “virtue gave birth to bliss in Isaac, immediately evokes rejoicing.” 346 In accordance with the autonomous mother, the fetus is autodidactic, since the Almighty “formed, created and gave birth to Isaac, who is understood by laughter. But not everyone is capable of even perceiving this rumor, since a lot of evil superstition is widespread among us, and it consumes weak and base souls. Therefore... there are few whose ears are open and adapted to the assimilation of these divine words, and only they are taught that only God alone can cause and produce all that is good.” 347 The person here is actually passive. And Abraham, in his answer (Gen. XVIII, 9), where the tent means the soul, categorically declares: “Behold, I have within me the treasure of virtue and therefore immediately experience bliss (since the use of virtue is happiness, and not mere possession).
However, I could not have used it if you (God) had not sent down seeds from heaven and fertilized this virtue, when it gives birth to blessed offspring in Isaac, and I believe the blessed use of perfect virtue in modern life. In view of this determination of Abraham, God promises that in due time he will fully achieve what he asks.” 348 Everything here comes from the Lord. "He immediately predicts the birth of Isaac, calling his mother Sarah instead of Sarah, saying (Gen. XVII, 16): “I will give you (by her) a son" ... But the one who autocratically distributes what is truly necessary in each particular case gives everything from himself. If this is not false, then Isaac is not a man, but the same name as the best of all pleasures of joy, laughter, the co-existing son of God, who gives it to the peaceful to think as delight and joy. Otherwise it will be absurd that the husband was another, when the real one begat only adulterous offspring."
Philo again directly denies history - and this is natural for him, being inevitable. This result is not at all surprising, although it serves as a clear illustration of the absolute contrast to the exegetical method of St. Pavel. The following observation is much more important. Earlier, the Alexandrian allegorist became entangled in incompatible antinomies. On the one hand, encyclical propaedeutics is considered a necessary preliminary to the achievement of wisdom. But then the second would be a natural stage of the cognitive process and would be deprived of the dignity that is marked by the name of Sa(r)ra. For Philo, this was unthinkable on anthropological principles, and he mercilessly destroys all his cunning constructions so that the divine truth shines brighter. Hence the turn to the other extreme, that virtue does not depend on human-cosmic efforts, which are adversative and hostile to it. 350 All former supports are forgotten and trampled under foot for the triumph of a new idea. 351
This opens up scope for a comparative assessment of the exegetical techniques of the apostolic and philonic ones. For the Egyptian theosophist, there is a sharp inconsistency everywhere between individual points, and they are mutually repressed for further self-sacrifice. In all shades of his comparisons, the evangelist of Christ is strictly in solidarity, and his parallel develops with harmonious harmony, where the end categorically confirms its beginning. In this respect, the difference far exceeds the dimensions of the interpretation of the skillful and the unsuccessful. It would be more correct to think that it reveals the dissimilarity of the most exegetical techniques. And you don’t need much effort to be convinced of this. We already know that the real content of the Bible is completely indifferent to Philo, 352 and he concentrates entirely on the letter and its variations. His commentary is resolved by purely verbal exercises, which, of course, do not help sober comprehension in the least and obscure the real object.
The proper meaning of Scripture is trampled and suppressed, and from here there is a direct path to complete perversion. It is inevitable that the verbal form itself suffers cruel violence. There are plenty of examples of this in our quotes, which do not require explanation. We find only one of them. There is no doubt that the laughter of Abraham and Sarah at the promise of carnal seed to them was a shameful act of human skepticism applying its limited scope to the immensity of divine omnipotence. This is not at all the case with Philo, where this fact is outlined as the best evidence regarding the praiseworthy admiration for the joyful delight of virtue. 353 As a result, Isaac, who was a reprimand for the cowardice of his parents, turns out to be a source of inexhaustible joy. Isn't this blatant barbarism? And is there even a shadow of something similar in St. Pavel?
On the contrary, he penetrates into the depths of the subject, carefully guards its biblical integrity and carefully avoids all literalistic pettiness, while the dreamy Jew deliberately tries to look only at the words, but does not want to see even the letters and indulges in arbitrary logomachiy. It is indisputable that with vandal tenacity he reads his own thought into the Bible, 354 while the Apostle contemplated in it the genuine dictates of the eternally effective providence of God. This clearly reflects the fundamental disparity in exegetical methods, that one is tendentiously subjective and interprets perhaps its inventor, the other is historically objective and comments on the very essence of the events being brought together and discussed. 355
This radical contrast 356 cannot be accompanied by a harmonious unification. Therefore, the conclusions of allegorical applications are completely different. Fortunately, in this matter we have factual material for comparison. The evangelist reveals the vitality of the barren pagan church through the prophecy of Isaiah (LIV, I). By rare coincidence, this saying is also found in Philo. He writes: “A loving mother regrets the lost sons and daughters, although the living are even more painful for the dead than the dead, but then, renewed for fruiting, she produces an undying race - to replace the previous one. For, according to what the prophet said, the empty one is happy with many children. This saying has an allegorical meaning and refers to the soul. Her many offspring are filled with passions and vices. Overwhelmed by such children - in the form of pleasures, passionate inclinations, unchastity, intemperance, untruth - she weakens from illness and almost directly leans toward death.
However, having become barren in all this or having rejected it, she then immediately changes into a pure virgin and, having received the divine seed, conceives and continues the unusual, wondrous and beautiful: prudence, courage, chastity, righteousness, holiness, piety and other virtues of dispassion, and with them not only the birth is happy, but also the very expectation of it, where weakness is overcome by hope. Hope is joy before joy, even if it is insufficient in comparison with perfect joy; nevertheless, even now she is better than the next one for two reasons: 1) she is still unfamiliar with the depressing burden of worries and 2) she is delighted only by the blissful anticipation of complete fulfillment in the future.” 357 In the course of these remarks, it is clear that for Philo sterility is the suppression of shameful productivity and therefore represents a positive property, where the negation of the former is directly associated with inexhaustible productivity of a contrary nature. This is the ethical difference between offspring, and not the adversativity of not having and receiving it.
Therefore, the non-bearing one is at the same time fruitful to the highest degree, being “empty” of evil and abundant in all good. 358 In the Apostle the application is the opposite, with a sharp contrast between two stages, of which the second gives the very thing that was not in the first. Here, of course, is a holistic and unified object from the side of its absence and presence. Therefore - in application to the biblical episode - St. Paul draws us the same woman in different periods of her life: this is Sarah, childless and with her son Isaac. For the Alexandrian theosophist, such an interpretation was unacceptable, and the subject of speech for him is split between the concubine and the wife of Abraham. 359
Naturally, here the inheritance is again fragmented according to objects of perception, which in turn will not be a pure act of receiving, but a guilty or worthy possession. So the dissimilarity continues further and takes on a sharp imprint in its very outward solidarity. Philo considers it the greatest dogma that “only one wise man is free and autocratic, even if he has countless masters over his body. 360 The reason for such exceptional superiority lies in complete independence from everything corporeal and cosmic, when the soul is not constrained by the bonds of fleshiness and phenomenality and hovers dominantly in the kingdom of ideas. But for this, she first needs to renounce everything sensual and go through a difficult school of disciplined self-restraint in order to achieve imperturbable dispassion. In this case, it becomes free not in the sense of uncontrolled disposal of the material, but as a result of absolute separation from it.
This means that what we have before us is not at all the freedom of an unhindered marital relationship with offspring corresponding to such reciprocity between husband and wife. It is – rather – liberation from all connections. The evangelist, on the contrary, states in the abandoned acquisition of all conjugal rights of legitimate childbearing, as a result of which free children are born. It is clear that their inheritance is also the father’s property, while in Philo it least of all resembles the natural assimilation of previous reserves if they are categorically eliminated. The external analogy again ends in internal dissonance. According to the Egyptian allegorist, “Abraham gave to the wisest Isaac everything that he had, leaving none of his possessions to false and deceptively - illegal thoughts, to which - due to their smallness - he bestows little (Gen. XXV, 5. 6).
Possessions are perfect virtues, and they are the property of only a perfect and legitimate son; only the intermediate ones are suitable and are provided to the imperfect pupils of propaedeutic disciplines, which are the lot of Hagar and Keturah, for Hagar is a priest, Keturah is a priest. He who is devoted to encyclical knowledge alone is a denizen of wisdom, but not a dweller who experiences the pleasant fragrance of the sweetness inherent in contemplation. The second needs nutrition for his health, but not the sense of smell, which in nature is a servant and a foretaste of the taste that dominates him, just as knowledge possessed - possessed and native - should always be preferred to newcomers. Hearing this, the mind turns away from pleasure and cleaves to virtue, considering it uncreated, genuine and sacred beauty. Then he becomes the shepherd of the sheep, the driver and ruler of the irrational forces of the soul, not allowing them to run amok without control, so that they do not die orphans. 361 From this point of view, it is logically natural and legally fair that Isaac should inherit everything.
362 However, it is important that Ishmael could not claim this share even by his physical properties, and we are obliged to allow a qualitative difference in the father’s treasures themselves. Hence it is inevitable that the son of Sarrin receives special, and not common property, which was the personal acquisition of the patriarch. 363
For apostolic judgments this is absolute diametricality. First of all, the Hagarites are, of course, excluded from the will and are doomed to servile servitude to the plenipotentiary rulers, who autocratically dispose of the animal herd. To get rid of their humiliating role, the Ishmaelites had to gradually get closer to their despots and, through mechanical identification, mediocrely participate in the benefits as protected stepchildren. This is the essence of philonic tendencies, and it is easy to see that they fatally deviated the thought from the evangelistic aspirations of the Hellenic missionary. According to the theosophical route of the Egyptian Jew, the Apostle would be forced to declare that the pagan Christian church is forever deprived of the promise of Abraham, unfree and incompetent, since it does not have the privileges of Isaac. It then necessarily followed that believers must make up for this deficiency through merging with natural offspring and through the acceptance of legalistic prerogatives.
However, even in this case they would have only a secondary reflection, far from their natural shine. Further, it inevitably followed that those blessed, being adaptive children, would forever remain subordinate members of Abraham’s own family. It seems clearer than the light of the sun that this is the purest nomism of the most extreme Judaists. 364 But such a doctrine was the height of impiety in the eyes of St. Paul, and he inexorably struck her with an irrevocable anathema. 365 If such an outcome was inevitable for philonic allegorism, then we are unshakably convinced that the Apostle in principle could not imitate the methods of Judeo-Alexandrian exegesis.
This conclusion serves as the necessary result and harmonious crown of all our private observations. We outlined both paintings in detail and, through a detailed analysis of all the shades and strokes, showed that they are everywhere imbued with a different spirit in the treatment of individual figures and in their very combination. In one, specific historical figures are depicted to us in all the integrity of their words and actions; in another, elusive fluids with inarticulate speeches and ghostly actions are presented to our gaze. A comprehensive comparison reveals clearly that this technique reveals the features of the opposite schools, where all the little things acquire the character of essential adversativity. It also determines a disparate attitude towards real events. By their individuality, the latter were moments of the past and, along with it, disappeared in the flow of time. Future generations receive from them only memories, to which all our contemplation is limited.
Hence, the Egyptian Hermineutus formulated the cardinal view that all importance is exhausted by the news preserved by a caring tradition. All attention is focused on its modulations, fixed in writing, and the commentary turns into a tedious pursuit of words and letters, where Philo - in truth - was the "Alexandrian Talmudist." 366 The object itself is forgotten and trampled upon, which is why the simplest features of its concrete appearance are shrouded, and everything dark is even more obscured for immediate understanding. 367 It is clear that this literalistic pickiness 368 remains sterile in its exegetical merit, for it does not give us the desired object, straining out mosquitoes and swallowing camels. 369 But then the entire exegetical system loses its support, will be unfounded 370 and entails a complete distortion of Scripture, 371 to which it is attached with indomitable violence.
The subjective ingenuity of the interpreter is deprived of all restraint and despotically disposes of factual data, falsely using one symbol for completely incompatible purposes. 372 It is not surprising that artificial approximations are not borrowed from the material itself and are completely arbitrary. St. takes a different path in his allegory. Apostle of tongues. The basis for all his considerations are historical facts, indisputable in their true existence and typical properties. Therefore, an indisputable criterion reigns everywhere here, guiding the exegetical work and giving it its strength, according to which the interpretation of the Hellenic evangelist rises immensely under the fantastic dream of Philo. 373 Here foreshadowing is not inserted into the event, but is extracted from it. And hesitation at this point may only concern the strength of the assessment of the selected incident, without affecting its further applications.
Therefore, critical authors admit that “true comprehension of the historical connection in divine revelation is especially facilitated by correct exegesis, which provides for the later revelation in the earlier, or, typically, an allegorical explanation, examples of which are also found in Paul.” 374 To understand the fundamental nature of such techniques, it is enough to remember that under the noted premises, parallelism is resolved by comparing the phenomena themselves. They exclude any rapprochement with their chronological and topographical separation. For this reason, their solidarity will be rooted in creative elements that equally permeate both ranks. The center of unity will be outside of tactile phenomenality and transferred to a common primary source, where all the particulars merge harmoniously. This is the integrity of the supreme will, which is invariably equal to itself in its aspirations and discoveries.
And since everything in it is designed to make the supreme plans accessible to man, we now get that in all acts there must be strict compliance with divine providence in its pedagogical influence on the world. From this side, external fragmentation is necessarily absorbed into the identity of moral and educational energy. In the depths of all the apostolic analogies we irresistibly perceive a moral law that functions with steadfastness and binds all the rings in an unbreakable chain. 375 The commentary amounts to a simple testimony. Then it is no less obvious that the key to action can also be actions realized in their entirety. In this case, the subsequent one illuminates all the previous ones with its light, and these ones are outlined in relief against the background of a historical perspective. The motley alternation of individual figures and complex combinations takes on the character of a harmonious realization in the morally developing stages of the great economic process.
Naturally, at its various moments one can see an adequate imprint of the creative will, which produces what is naturally akin and mutually harmonious. In this regard, what has happened is inevitably explained to those who happen, and they both enter into a close community according to the divine meaning they express. 376 This is an interpretation of the historical economy itself; it is not created by our insight, but is only assimilated by it and - in its actual independence - will, of course, be objective. It requires, of course, an objective statement of these details, which forced me to obediently and attentively bow to authoritative documents. Exegetical analysis focuses primarily on the immediate merits of Scripture so as not to violate biblical integrity. The element of literal interpretation turns out to be an integral means of the apostolic allegory, although it is subordinate to its main intentions, since it is directed towards a detailed depiction of the facts under discussion.
After this, they are already combined by themselves in a union of proclamation, in which the second continues, reinforces and illuminates the first. It is easy to guess and certainly agree that from this point of view the true explanation will be the real completion of the entire progressive process. For St. For Paul, his crown was grace-filled redemption, which is why apostolic exegesis is essentially Christian. 377 This means that the evangelist is essentially determined by the content of his justification and reads the Bible in the focus of the rays of the shining sun. From here the main idea is borrowed, and it normalizes the entire argument with typical consistency in all tones. The Apostle comments in the spirit of the salvation of Christ and is entirely motivated by it in his very exegetical technique. 378 It is not difficult to notice that it could not be a philonic heritage, which, with a new application, lost its specific sharpness and was transformed to its absolute opposite. 379
The obtained result, confirming our previous observations, finally confirms the apostolic originality in the understanding of the episode about Hagar and Sarah and irresistibly convinces us of the fantastic nature of any hypotheses regarding Philonian influences. 380 But it is important for us in principle, in addition to its particular meaning. We get that St. Paul exegetically adapted the past of Israel's history of preparation to the present of Christian deliverance only to the extent and strength of actual fulfillment and consolidation. This cardinal truth was the support and criterion of all rapprochements, gave them inviolability and limited their scope. Therefore, allegorization was confined to a narrow objective framework. On the contrary, in the absence of such binding norms, exegetical freedom was deprived of a regulative compass and quietly enslaved the Bible itself. The thesis is involuntarily formulated before us that here it is absolutely unthinkable to have the same attitude towards the biblical word - and this predetermines a comparative review of the two exegetical systems in terms of their general character.
Philo looked for his own concepts everywhere, and with him all Scripture was transformed into a solid symbol. Imitation should have led to the same understanding, and the difference in tendencies would have been limited to the peculiarities of the religious worldview, without in the least affecting its biblical justification. From this side, genetic criticism, remaining true to its logic, inevitably comes to the conclusion that St. The apostle looked at the priest. books through Philonov’s glasses, and his color colored the entire Old Testament revelation. It is said that “Paul learned from his Jewish teachers the typological interpretation with its premises that events and personalities of past times prefigure their repetition in later centuries... Without a doubt, this method was borrowed by the Hellenistic Jews from the Platonic doctrine of idea and type and was widely used by the Alexandrian Hellenist Philo, for whom the entire Old Testament history was full of types and who did not find it difficult to select antitypes.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews - with a more Hellenistic physiognomy than Paul - finds in Melchizedek a type of Christ, and considers the Jewish sacrifices a shadow of heavenly... In a similar way, Paul interprets the history of the Israelites in the wilderness. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, ate spiritual food, drank spiritual drink from the spiritual successor stone, or Christ, and incurred the wrath of God by idolatry and adultery. All this happened to them as images, and was written down for the edification of us who have reached the end of the ages (1 Cor. X, 1 - 11). This interpretation reveals Jewish influences - rabbinic and Hellenistic." 381 The second is usually justified by an allegory with philonism and commented on in the sense of copying it. At the same time, it goes without saying that the Apostle took away all historical content from the Bible, replacing it with the symbolic morality of his strange combinations, 382 and he allegedly never distinguishes between the genuine relationship that lies in the economic structure of Old Testament pedagogy and free allegorization according to the rabbinic model. 383
Given the observations we have obtained, this would be a great surprise, almost incredible in the same subject. Then a suspicion involuntarily creeps in about the tendentious extremeness of this coverage, contrary to the analyzed text. We readily acknowledge the decisiveness of the apostolic phrase, and the whole question lies in its precise energy. And here it is especially important that the indisputable reality of everything that happened to the Jewish people is stated in advance and categorically. Speech concerns only the essence of events, and from this point of view they are attributed a “typical” instructiveness. Now we need to figure out whether it embraced all real existence or was it a natural reflection that does not eliminate, but requires a historical source for itself? On this score it is unshakable that St. Paul first simply lists the relevant facts and emphasizes in them the general idea that, even if all conditions are equal, people do not always experience a similar fate.
It is known that all the Israelites delivered from Egypt enjoyed the abundance of God's favor, and, nevertheless, they were defeated in the wilderness (1 Cor. X, 5). Our mind necessarily tries to unravel the mystery of this sad fate and soon discovers its cause in the moral bitterness of the Jews, who stubbornly rejected divine mercy and turned it to their own evil because of their grave crime against it. From here it directly follows that everyone should avoid such sins, taking the past as a warning image for their moral structure (1 Cor. X, 6). It is clear that in this case the type will only be an ethical lesson, testifying to the inevitable fruits of our religious and moral behavior. In the past, we can see our future in advance and without error in all its tangibility. This categorically states that what awaits us has already received its actual expression there, which is accessible to direct contemplation. From this side, the historical truth of the Old Testament phenomena serves as the indestructible foundation of all apostolic inspirations.
All their persuasiveness rests on the axiom of equality in the final outcome of converging acts. But it is clear that this requires internal solidarity in all governing functions, which everywhere end with the same effect. This firmly assumes that the taken force developed in the fullness of its natural properties and reached its crown. The latter is dear to us only because it is a typical product and characteristic of its producing factors. There is no doubt that they have exhausted all their reserves and have acquired decent interest on them. In this case, we will have a closed circle in front of us, where there are no gaps or shortcomings. For Old Testament events, this says that, despite their historical reality, they also have the originality of the dominant elements, individual goals and particular results. “Typicality” in the Apostle does not at all suppress its own value in the Old Testament and does not at all present it as a pure sign of symbolic foreshadowing.
On the contrary, the inviolability of the “accustomed” turns out to be the closest support for further comparisons that exceed historical reality. Therefore, rapprochement does not suit external objectivity and is not supported by it, since it leads to isolation. Parallelism tends to prevent a result of an identical nature, but it was impossible given the disparity of the operating grounds. In turn, these do not depend on particular individuals if they occur in many and everywhere retain strict distinctness.
In this way we reach that the phenomenal fragmentation is dominated by a supreme unifier, in which all the streams of historical currents merge, since all of them originate from it in being and vitality. Individual episodes are related in terms of the will of God revealed in them, revealing itself with the harmonious agreement of the gradual implementation of unchanging plans. In this sense, the past is instructive precisely because the ends of the ages have reached us. Everything that moved the alternation of times and filled them with special content is concentrated in us, which is why we are the center where all historical moments meet in their teleological dignity. Naturally, they find their actual connection here and are connected in it through a commonwealth of solidarity in promoting the original goal. Natural congeniality must be allowed in them, and allegorical analogies will be objective evidence of these qualities.
But since here one precedes the other and foretells it, then the converse is no less true, that - for its normal integrity - the later draws actual edification from its precedents. At the same time, it is imperative that such a relationship be real and not invented by our imagination. At this point, the historical intersection of world trends irresistibly testifies that they were essentially imbued with the spirit of their Christian fulfillment, for they are reduced to it with ease. Therefore, for St. Paul, it is both logically and factually incontestable that the stone was Christ (1 Cor. X, 4) 384 and that all Israeli history leaned towards Him according to its messianic attractions. 385 This is not accepted by everyone and is sharply denied by many. For us such objections are rather indifferent. The most important thing in the whole matter will forever be immutable, that the Apostle everywhere proceeds from implementation to its actual preparations and is measured against their objectively given scale.
All hesitation must be limited to an assessment of the original conviction, and disagreement with the evangelist will be resolved by dissonance in the Christian views themselves. And even then, only partial adjustments in the tones of lighting are permissible without the slightest shock to the fundamental principle that the old preceded the new and served it. Whoever begins to refute this, the entire sacred writing of Israel will be purely secular literature, in which the events depicted are devoid of the providential adaptation of the educational industry, 386 and this can hardly be argued seriously, since in the end it turns out that world history is a mechanical aggregate of accidents, mutually indifferent and individually meaningless. And as soon as everyone recognizes the laws of the historical process, the Apostle is scientifically protected from reproaches for his teleological interpretations.
He strictly preserves the factual concreteness of phenomena, and their mutual intelligibility is in no way calmed by the symbolic properties of being itself, resting on the unity of its creative elements.
The allegory of the evangelist does not even need a school typology, for it consists in extracting and commenting on the operating factors according to their historical accuracy and economic centripetalness. Then: we have seen many times that St. Paul, the objective content is not torn from the literary-biblical consolidation, which necessarily retains the character of its object. And if the latter was a pre-determining moment of divine care, then it is set forth in biblical speech in the dignity of an edifying testimony. In this capacity, “everything that was previously written was written for our instruction, so that through patience and hope (derived from) the scriptures (imbued with these properties) we might preserve hope” (Rom. XV, 4). Here, moral instructiveness is assimilated to the biblical word according to its original intentions, which prompted the recording of this or that event. This is possible under the only condition that the didactic element was in the genuine facts, and therefore their real effect is transferred to the process of sacred writing itself.
It is also edifying from the time of its origin to the present day, for the phenomena depicted were portentous in the past and edifying now. The didactic importance of the Bible is established on the essence of its matter and in this has its perfect justification. The biblical story is always true to its subject and it is for this reason that it turns out to be a source of continuous moral sobering. Any other understanding is unacceptable here. We are well aware that in scientific circles it is customary to look at biblical books as chronographic monuments, whose authors only sought to reproduce in detail what happened using available manuals. This, of course, is indisputable, but one cannot ignore the fact that this view captures only one side of the origin of written documents. With it we should not obscure the more fundamental fact that the motives for the writers did not lie in their individual desires and were determined by the most factual data, which were retained for future centuries due to their inalienable and transient salvific value.
Naturally, the selection of materials is strictly regulated by this trend. Each biblical work is not a weather record of various indifferent particulars, but a holistic recreation of the past according to its inner idea in the gradual revelation of the will of God in world history. The opposite opinion may be theoretically impeccable, but, in any case, it is decisively inconsistent with the true biblical view. It is imperative to state it clearly and, without substituting your own judgment, to understand the matter in accordance with it, so that an impartial assessment is then permissible. For her, in the Apostle of Languages we find that in written presentation, Old Testament episodes are always instructive even for Christian maturity, since they really were such. It is clear that this took away any pretext for subjective commentary on biblical texts, if the latter were accepted exclusively in their objectively real content.
What we have said is sufficient for the immediate interests of a comparative study of the exegetical method of St. Pavel. His cardinal conviction on this issue was that the historical movement of human life is fueled by a world-power providence and is imbued with a soteriological spirit. Therefore, in the external concatenation of particular moments, the envisaged gradualism of the progressive discovery of saving plans inseparably dominates. In this harmonious combination, the earlier naturally serves the later in fact and illuminates it in a broad perspective for our mind, which is why it helps us in establishing normal relationships with the present. Hence, the past is an authoritative lesson for the present, for they are truly connected by a union of solidarity in expressing the will of God and mutually contribute to its complete assimilation. Their analogy is entirely factual and belongs to existence itself.
In this sense, description is simply an inevitable means of preserving the memory of actual events, and is instructive in strict proportion to their objective nature. It is clear that even for distant readers, biblical stories are edifying only insofar as through them one obtains undoubted information about the “known things” of divine pedagogy that enlightened humanity. Everything leans towards finding real facts in their successive grouping, where they proceed with the harmonious intensity of the clearest consolidation of their idea. In this combination, the past, in turn, casts its rays onto the past and outlines it more clearly in the tactile visibility of a better realization. The point of departure in apostolic parallelism is not accidental - individual, but again factual, acquired in the living contemplation of the completion of the “ends of the ages.” 387
These are the fundamental principles of the exotic rapprochements of St. Pavel. For him, the entire Old Testament was a preparation for the new, and the entire Bible was an incessant pre-verb of the Christian mysteries or a continuous prophecy about Christ the Redeemer and Savior. 388 This gave rise to a rich typology, but it is not enough to say about it that it is not externally mechanical, 389 until we precisely determine its fundamental properties. They boil down to the fact that here events are harmoniously united by the course of history, and they express different stages of the general theological process. From this side, each of them contains an “allegory” of the future, since it is adapted to it and designed to achieve its goals in it. The Apostle builds his exegetical allegorism on this, and for him the apologetic excuse that such examples are rare 390 and do not have philological immensity will no less be too weak. 391 Quantity here is rather indifferent if it is not established on qualitative premises.
And from this side it is especially dear that the “other meaning” of each episode is recognized as hidden in its reality and is naturally perceived further with the same energy, when they actually become mutually “allegorical”, presupposing each other in their very existence of individual integrity. An allegorical interpretation will be a simple testimony of what is objectively given in historical reality.
As a result, we find that St.’s understanding of the Bible. Paul is everywhere motivated by factual considerations, relies on them and is exhausted by them. If we apply this yardstick to the writings of Philo, we will see the exact opposite to the point of irreconcilable contrast. For the Apostle, moral accommodations of Old Testament episodes are justified by their identity with others according to the same primary source, when everything is resolved by the unification of effects according to the essential equality of a functioning cause, and this is extracted from the very nature of biblical events. There is no subjective imposition of such properties that are not actually given, which is why violation of real outlines is also impossible. The starting point of the exegetical logic of the Alexandrian theosophist is exactly the opposite. The Egyptian Jewish commentator was animated by the fantastic idea that the holy books of the Jews preached all the sublime truths of Hellenism, 392 since the latter learned them from Moses.
393 But in its religious practice, paganism represented an ugly mixture of naturalistic rudeness and ethical connivance, and in every nomist it evoked only disgust, horror and disgust. It was necessary to eliminate all these real elements in advance and focus exclusively on philosophical and theoretical abstractions. They were the support for philonic parallels. It is now clear that the living plasticity of the biblical image lost its true value and was destroyed in its entirety, since it imparted a typical individuality to all moments and did not allow them to merge with the myths of classical antiquity. At the same time, the reality of the biblical content was inevitably undermined if it lost all factual predicates. For all that, their presence was too irresistible and forced a reasonable interpretation of biblical specificity. It is naturally inherent in all biblical documents and therefore must be recognized as original and intentional.
From here the hermeneutic thesis is formulated that the biblical authors deliberately expressed their views in realistic symbols that had no real basis. Philo's sense of the historical phenomena of divine revelation turns into a purely literary adaptation of didactic tendentiousness. For her, all means are indifferent, for their dignity is determined by the success of edification, where everything is inclined ad doctrinam utilitatemque disciplinae potius, quam ad naturam veritatis. 394 But then the qualities of the perceiving environment will be an absolute regulator and, through their weakness, lower inspiration to their own level. 395 On this side, deceptive tricks are permissible with Moses no less than with skillful doctors and prudent gentlemen who try to teach with lies, since the truth is useless. In a similar way, the legislator says about God that He is like a man (Deut. I, 31) and not like a man (Num. XXIII, 19) - the first for the pious, moved by love, the second for those in need of intimidation.
396 It is clear that biblical realism, being an empty appearance, often turns out to be unreliable. 397 These fundamental premises determine the entire course of philonic exegesis in all its elusive convolutions. First of all, there is no doubt that the literal meaning of the Scriptures is completely inconsistent with their essence and is a pedagogical method for educating ignorant people, incapable of rising beyond the boundaries of cosmic visuals. This is a ghostly shell that envelops a mysterious object, and it must be thrown off in the interests of clarity and accuracy of contemplation. Therefore, Philo decisively rejects the direct meaning of the biblical word, and all references of this kind are reduced to homiletical exhortations. Speech loses the character of objectivity 398 and ceases to be a tool for concrete witnessing of events. But since the latter are inaccessible to us in any other way, then they also lose their reality, transforming themselves into a special method of literary impressiveness.
All objective foundations are finally taken away from the Bible, with their arbitrary absorption into symbolic teaching. 399 Such a result was inevitable and is stated categorically by Philo. He fearlessly admits that in the laws almost everything or most of it is conveyed allegorically 400 and serves as a symbol of the hidden 401 in incorporeal things. 402 The entire Old Testament history will be a fantastic personification of intellectual mirages 403 and is exhausted by parabolas of religious and moral theorems. 404 Biblical figures are equated with tropical descriptions of the psychic gradations of the soul, in its relation to knowledge and the acquisition of virtue, 405 resolving into pointless shadows. 406 These are “animated and reasonable laws”, 407 more general, 408 than written ones. 409
We now see that, according to their very hermeneutical principles, the Hellenic evangelist and the Egyptian theosophist are diametrically opposed. 410 For the Apostle it is all about the fact; for Philo it almost does not exist at all. It is not difficult to guess that this difference extends to all exegetical applications, the properties of which are inevitable in principle. If everything in the sacred books is not actually said, then their direct interpretation is impossible, since it would not correspond to the author’s intentions. For these reasons, only a rational interpretation of biblical symbolism is necessary and legitimate in order to penetrate the full depth of its significance. These realistic layers were invented to enlighten people and in their field are normal and useful. Naturally, they allow ethical adaptations for educational purposes.
However, such methods are suitable for sensory contemplation, which does not rise above cosmic gloominess, and do not lead to adequate insight into the pure truth, which is why its dignity is in no way superior to biblical accommodation. In this case, normal explanations are fatally subordinated to symbolic ones and are suppressed by them. 411 Then the main task will be to understand differently from the direct energy of writing, so that its inner strength is revealed. This meant that Philo’s interpretation turned out to be entirely allegorical and acquired the imprint of unparalleled originality. Its subjective dignity is undeniable, but for us it is important only because of its individual inalienability, which eliminates any dreams about reflection in the apostolic epistles. In them we find a convergence of events according to a natural unity, which is imparted to them by the creative factor and is confirmed by the actual imprinting of a related element in them.
Here, allegory and technology are not required and not allowed by the biblical text until they are actually revealed in the tactile phenomena of divine providence. Therefore, everything here is created and limited in fact without violating historical reality, which is firmly established. In the absence of it, allegorism in Philo is the only key to the Old Testament word and receives the energy of absolute immensity, capturing every iota and feature. All his theoretical postulates forced the commentator to do this. According to them, all biblical content was an accessory shell, and it had to be broken down to the smallest particles in order to find the nutritious grain. It is inevitable that a literal understanding is completely unthinkable where there is neither material nor justification for it, if all Scripture is an allegory. 412 It is obvious that the difference between the Christian evangelist and the Jewish mystic is far from sedate and quantitative.
413 Arithmetical features are rooted in the adversativity of the main exegetical views and are motivated by the fact that the Apostle read the Bible in the light of the actual performance, and for Philo it was a book of hieroglyphs that allowed for all sorts of experiments of insightful ingenuity. 414
Due to the loss of objective support in historical reality, the exegete had at his disposal simply an external conglomerate of random icons. They are important not because of their connection with authoritative reality, which is often not assumed, and their entire dignity lies in the artificial relationship of certain ideological concepts. The literal - grammatical meaning of the Scriptures is replaced by the meaning of the letters. However, even these do not express what the ordinary eye sees, since they must be carriers of unspoken abstractions. From this side, direct meaning is only suitable for sophists 415 and leads to deception. But it is no less certain that under these conditions we will not have indisputable means of penetrating into the realm of the biblical word. Verbal exercises - without a guiding compass and without a real foundation - dissolve into a vast sea of exhaustingly meticulous dreams.
The letter serves for them as a random point of departure and is then completely forgotten in theosophical wanderings, which is why inexhaustible virtuosity does not even have grammatical interest. As a result, the supposed biblical foundation completely disappears. And if at the same time the guise of exegetical argumentation is still preserved, then the indelible conviction is obtained that such a commentary is simply ridiculous, 416 and no one has ever dared to say this about St. Pavle.
Another circumstance is quite naturally added here. When the letter cover is fundamentally deprived of its direct role as the closest instrument for consolidating an idea, then its matter is qualitatively indifferent. It is not determined by the essence of thought and is rather contrary to it, because it is adapted to the alien sphere of sensual human rudeness. In this regard, it makes no difference what elements are included in the letter combinations. The importance will always be in exegetical insight, for which only an occasional impulse is needed. This frees up the space for the Alexandrian Ermineuto to exclusively concentrate on the Greek translation. The actual reason was, first of all, lack of competence in Jewish philology. 417 There is no great fault in this, but it is noteworthy that Philo, whenever possible, utilizes the meager reserves of his Hebraistic information for the solidity of biblical argumentation.
He well understood the value of this manual, and yet, with amazing carelessness, he does not care about mastering it 418 and calmly interprets the Greek version as the original 419 or the most sacred text. 420 This cannot be comprehended otherwise than under the hypothesis that need itself was turned into all-sufficient wealth. This is exactly what happened with Philo. He took away from the letter the natural significance acquired by universal human use, and destroyed the factual correspondence with the expressed image. The rational word has been replaced by a graphic symbol, which in turn does not speak in a generally accepted language and only hints to us, causing the work of rational soaring. Here only one’s own idea is valuable, and for it it is enough that the reason is authoritative. It is then inevitable that the commentator elevates the Greek Bible to the level of auditory sacredness. But again, the motives for this were not real and were imposed by an arbitrary hermeneutics of the complete depersonalization of the Old Testament writings.
Everywhere there is a tendency to dazzle the pagan world with the philosophical brilliance of Jewish teaching. It is not surprising now that the Greek translation is portrayed as inspired, 421 and this property of it, as the work of “hierophants and prophets,” 422 is characterized by terms taken from the lexicon of Greek mantics and belittled to a pagan level. 423 Of course, it goes without saying that this fictitious inspiration is subordinate to the author’s goals and has no independent originality. Therefore, it is not at all absolute 424 and Philo fearlessly assimilates it into his inalienable property. 425 It is equally necessary that its influence embraces the actual literal side and will be purely verbal, likened to the impact of the keys of a typewriter, where all participation is limited to the distinctness of the pressure. In view of the noted data, one cannot help but accept that this is a crude theory of mechanical inspiration, 426 not corresponding to the subject and serving only the whimsical interests of the theosophist.
With her help, he easily justifies all sorts of twists in his theoretical productivity under the false guise of a strictly biblical presentation in an allegorical illumination of all the details in the appearance of writing. 427 Literalistic interpretation abolishes objective commentary, and due to its philological groundlessness it is always arbitrary and often only curious. We admit that St. Paul does not always rely on the original text and more readily prefers the Greek interpretation. 428 But - in addition to its better fame for the Christian firstborn from Hellenism - he had no compulsory need for letter punctuality. His gaze turned to the definition of the events themselves, which appeared equally clearly with all their typicality in every transmission. The Apostle has divine real manifestations of the supreme leadership and from them written documents borrow their impressiveness, which is why he rarely quotes in named phrases and loves general formulas, but for this reason the direct voice of the speaking God sounds everywhere.
429 The literal appearance could not claim special attention beyond its natural role and, in its Jewish coloring, was inconvenient for missionary purposes, for here it merged inextricably with the school Jewish layers of rabbinic particularism. Despite all this, the evangelist nowhere mentions the divine inspiration of the Greek textual tradition and everywhere uses it to comprehend genuine historical phenomena. In this case, everything was directed towards understanding the ways of heavenly providence, which was the creative principle of both the Old Testament incidents and biblical books. In this sense, the Apostle was again a servant not of the letter, but of the spirit (2 Cor. III, 6). Scriptures, some of which were revealed through them in the actual course of history. 430
On the contrary, Philo cut off all access to residential concreteness and, having withdrawn it, was left with only grammatical vocables that speak indistinctly and contrary to themselves. There was no indisputable criterion for interpretation, just as there was no inviolable subject for it. The subjective acuity of rational insight was rewarded with all the privileges of uncontrolled despotism and inevitably led to arbitrary guesswork. But in this regard, there was no restraining norm, so that at least external harmony with the analyzed evidence was maintained. It is not difficult to understand that this created all the fatal conditions for their tendentious distortion. The expected is met with many sad illustrations in the writings of Philo, let us note the closest one. Nadab and Abihu were punished by death for introducing “strange fire” (Lev X, I ff.). The punishing wrath of God, with its unusualness, shows us the full depth of the sin committed with such relief that there are simply incredible exegetical tricks here.
Nevertheless, in Philon’s treatment the whole picture is transformed beyond recognition, and the fate of Aaron’s sons is a comforting symbol of the happy absorption of mortal life by the stream of immortality, for they perished before the Lord, and not the dead, but the living ascend to Him. 431 This means that the Alexandrian exegete does not want and cannot understand the Bible in its direct dignity. Therefore, his allegorical method was actually a means of perverting the Old Testament writings 432 and, unconstrained by either letter or content, in its unlimited use 433 was accompanied by continuous subjective dreams in favor of. 434 It is undeniable that Philo was a meager interpreter, 435 meanwhile, with the Apostle, the wealth of sacred prophecies receives a natural increase in the immeasurable fullness of their gracious fulfillment. 436
With such disparity, a deep difference in the very principle of exegetical research is inevitable. If contrary properties are seen in a general subject, this makes one think that the basic views on it are completely non-original. And since on one side we notice a violent violation of a specific integrity, it follows that not all predicates are captured. Then the particular is unlawfully elevated and, suppressing everything else, gives the wrong outline. This, undoubtedly, is already a philonic exaggeration of the symbolically-proto-educational element to the point of individual exclusivity and is irresistible in another respect. The Egyptian mystic wanted and strove to justify his faith before Hellenism, which was professed by God's chosen people in reality. In his aspirations, he merged with his fellow tribesmen and with vain zeal for national orthodoxy, 437 considering traditional Judaism to be the perfect religion.
438 But at this point the latter was purely nomistic both in his convictions and in the life of piety - with oblivion of all other moments of historical revelation. In the word of God, the Torah acquired incomparable primacy and in it a special predominance was acquired by legal principles, which pushed aside and subordinated all scriptures. It is natural that Philo was animated by nomistic ideas, 439 which were for him the unshakable foundation of all constructions. 440 In turn, these were created exegetically, and therefore in the biblical books legal monuments were brought to the fore. For this reason, the entire Philonian system develops on the basis of the Pentateuch, and almost all the works of the Alexandrian Jew are exhausted by commenting on it. Needless to say, all the usual qualities of artificial hermeneutics are reflected here with dazzling clarity.
For her, the entire Bible was a solid allegory, 441 and against this background the figure of Moses stands out sharply above all, 442 and he is revered as a symbol of pure reason, 443 preaching abstract ideas, and overshadowed all other heralds of truth. 444
It goes without saying that the Sinaitic law receives an arbitrary meaning despite its immediate expressions. But to all that precedes this does not seem unexpected news, but it is important for us for a special characterization of Philo’s biblical and exegetical contemplations. He reduces everything to the legislator and rarely uses the other sacred authors, 445 to illustrate nomistic thoughts, 446 which in essence no longer need either justification or confirmation. Prophetic passages are interpreted randomly, 447 are released even when there is a clear need 448 and in their influence they do not absolutely exceed borrowings from documents that were apocryphal for rabbinism. 449 Everywhere the thesis is defended with dogmatic apodicticism that the law of Sinai is the best, 450 why it is unchangeable and eternal, 451 - even in its Greek interpretation, 452 - and its mediator is higher than all the prophets, 453 who were only his simple followers. 454 Compared to the Torah, everything else served only as an addition. 455 This judgment was extremely unfavorable in an exegetical sense.
First of all, under him, legalistic formulas were applied to far from identical concepts and robbed them of their typical individuality and original energy. Naturally, then all the other scriptures lost their special content and were misunderstood - with the elimination of what in them helped the further development of the primordial covenants. Along with this, the law was renounced from its historical basis and was awarded an inappropriate absoluteness in its very historical appearance, although it was actually adapted for temporary pedagogical purposes. As a result, both sides suffered to the same extent, as they were pushed against each other with brutal violence. 456 And the root of all troubles lay in the fundamental conviction that God's revelation to the world had an adequate and complete imprint in the nomistic code, which did not allow the slightest addition. Therefore, it was necessary to reduce everything to indifference before the legalistic norm.
Here again, elastic allegorism was a convenient tool for merging law and prophets in nomistic theosophy, where all their true shades were smoothed out. 457 At the same time, the internal affinity of both was inevitably abolished, since in the latter not everyone has historical autonomy, meanwhile, only with it is the genetic connection of progressive continuity conceivable, when all stages are harmonious acts of a functioning factor and are united in it by friendly solidarity based on the commonality of the active cause and its essential goals. Without this, law and prophecy find themselves in a bifurcation of hostility, which is why Philo did not comprehend their natural unity 458 and crippled all the harbingers of a glorious future in an allegorical dungeon. But for the Apostle, the most important thing in the Old Testament writings was precisely the prophecies about the coming Messiah, and for him the entire Bible was an incessant foreshadowing of the mysteries of grace. For him, prophecies were the best lights in the darkness of pre-Christian gloom - and here there is the deepest contrast with Philonism.
459 At the same time, the law received an appropriate assessment as a link in the continuously growing chain of factual revelation and was determined by its historical professionalism - despite the incongruous universalism of the Alexandrian-Judaic interpretation. 460 However, there was no reverse extreme of legalistic insult here. The institution of the Sinai commandments did not extend beyond its sphere precisely because it had the objective reality of a historical institution and satisfied the immediate tasks of a certain period. His historical existence and dignity were undeniable and indelible. Naturally, prophecy does not absorb or destroy legalism, but continues the nomystical action. In this case, they enter into the relationship of internal agreement in the forward movement of the historical process, in which they are located with the chronological independence of the progressive strengthening of their unchanged basis. All events are imbued with essential kinship and in this form are reproduced in written memories.
The former prepare and explain each other, which means that the latter also require mutual omens. The apostolic allegory is again outlined before us according to its factual supports and, in exegetical treatment, is affirmed on the cardinal principle of the unity of divinely inspired writings 461 according to the unity of the subject in its single primary source. 462
Philo had no such factual center, and his interpretations lack objective strength. Despite all this, there is still no inevitable motivation for a stubborn struggle against the direct meaning of the simplest expressions. It is obvious that the commentator deliberately introduced his concepts into the biblical words, for he could not accept them in their entirety. This marks the second property of philonic hermeneutics, that, being tendentiously Jewish in its initial principles, it was also unbiblical in its final aspirations. It all came down to bringing the Old Testament contemplations of Israel closer to the philosophical teachings of Hellenism due to the identity of their content.
Since it did not exist, hence the need arose for artificial reconciliation of heterogeneous quantities. Each of them lost its individual isolation for the sake of the other, and as a result, specific typicality was completely erased from them. And this is far from a side effect, because all efforts are directed towards it. The historical part of the Bible was imprinted with national color and did not allow expansion beyond the local framework to which it was limited in its influence. Any expansion beyond these limits could be achieved only by destroying this barrier by eliminating the historical element. But the matter did not end there. Legally - religious regulations had to be embodied in the life of the Jewish people, adapted to their entire make-up and absorbed the racial imprint. In turn, the creative principle for them was the didactic axioms that supported the entire structure of the Old Testament theocracy, where they received their real form.
Legal - dogmatic content - in its historical discovery - was externally closed and attached to the national soil. It was necessary in advance to take away all factual outlines from the biblical revelation and depersonalize it in the interests of suitability for all modifications. For these purposes, Philo inevitably put forward an allegorical interpretation. 463 In his hands it was a “magic wand”, 464 with the help of which the historically accommodative was transformed into a creative scheme of pointless vagueness. 465 Allegory was inevitable in the essence of theosophical hopes 466 of despotic syncrenism 467 and captured all of Scripture without a trace. 468 That is why the Alexandrian exegete artificially seeks out 469 it in the Bible without any special need - and this indicates that there was a compulsory need for it by the nature of the system itself. The latter was borrowed from an alien sphere and did not fit the Bible with natural naturalness.
Therefore, biblical exegesis was the result of dissimilar elements and cannot receive normal development when everything is determined by the nature of a given thing. Allegorical devices of this kind do not contain internal integrity and acquire the character of elusive elasticity. And if Philo speaks, then this is only a traditional methodological premise, with great dependence on the Stoic school, and does not at all inform the interpretation of the consistent pattern, because for it there is no support in the integrity of the document being analyzed. It is not clear in its real merit and is rewarded with the most unexpected predicates, and here no rule is conceivable other than dialectical resourcefulness in the face of difficulties encountered. For this reason, all energy is directed solely to ensuring that there is no outward disharmony between philosophical theses and biblical truths. And since the material for reconciliation is not taken from biblical documents, they do not actively participate in creative work and are not considered according to their individuality.
It is not surprising now that in his exegetical experiments Philo wanders between the lines of the Old Testament writings, 470 not at all embarrassed by them. It is clear that this assumes sufficient agreement between the text and the intermediate glosses. “The maxims and gnomes of ancient philosophers become vessels of new content,” 471 but they themselves convey from their excesses. Biblical books acquire an unusual coloring of theoretical intellectualism, and in contrast to the nationalist masorah of rabbinic punctuality in Philo we see a number of sigils of theosophical symbolism. In the translation of the LXX, Pythagorean-Platonic speculations are persistently embedded, 472 and the entire revelation is illuminated subjectively. And this is so inevitable that it is done in complete confidence about the photographic accuracy of the reproduction of biblical teachings, which is why Plato’s theory of ideas is for the theosophist. 473 At this point, the rationalistic attitude towards the Bible 474 reaches its apogee and finds its fundamental justification in Hellenistic inclinations, which forced the neglect of literal tangibility.
From this side, allegory turns out to be a means of philosophical reinterpretation of the Jewish scriptures, 475 as a necessary tool for bringing Old Testament views closer to the concepts of reason. It goes without saying that when applied to the biblical field, it is resolved by extravagant violence 476 due to the disparity of the material.
This means that Philo’s allegorism is something alien in origin and subjectively tendentious in mood. Of course, the motivating principles of this exegesis are impossible for the Apostle, and here the substantive similarity is absolutely unacceptable. Criticism emphasizes only the analogy of the same usefulness of the outlined method, even for different reasons and for opposite purposes. For this they highlight as if St. Paul read the Bible with dogmatic prejudices and, not finding them present, had to resort to the generally accepted methods of exegetical forgery. Hence, his allegorical interpretation is actually akin to Filonov’s and is imbued with equal tendentiousness. 477 The truth in this case lies only in the fact that the evangelist contemplated everything of the Old Testament in the light of Christian illumination and reduced all the rays of the hay flickers to it. But at the same time, the fundamental truth clearly stands out that this was the true source and actual focus of all private radiances.
It is quite natural that they all merge in their qualities, with differentiation according to the degree of brightness, while their nature is identical. In this case, the rapprochements were not invented by personal tension and were not selected according to logical requirements for the roundness of the system, because regardless of the will and desire they were actually given. Any confusion on this issue is resolved by denying the genetic connection of Christian grace with Old Testament pedagogy and does not actually affect the theoretical merit of apostolic exegesis. There will always be no doubt that it is based on actual continuity in the discoveries of divine providence. And this is dogmatically indisputable and forces us to agree that the Old Testament was a prescribed period of preparation for the New. And if we do not want to fall into Marcion’s dualism, then it is imperative for us to think that the first was completely imbued with faith in the kingdom of God, 478 which is realized in the second.
Then the reciprocity of the Old Testament scripture and the New Testament revelation is transferred to the events themselves, and the allegorical parallelism will be real - factual. For this reason, the objective inviolability of the Jewish past is the foundation of all constructions and is an integral guarantee of their strength. Therefore, even the most typological epistle to the Hebrews rests everywhere on factual supports 479 and only superficially resembles Alexandrian dreams. 480 All transformations are motivated by the fact that the biblical word did not have an exact factual application, or the Old Testament persons and institutions, due to their typical differences, do not fit into the historical framework and are sent to the future, where they receive factual consolidation. It is unshakable that for this apostolic monument philonism could not be the prototype. Nevertheless, this is permissible for other biblical devices of St.
Paul, since he follows the factual interpretation everywhere and explains everything from Christianity only because it was the completion of the historical process and serves as the key to a true understanding of its reflections in the sacred scriptures. And since we are shown that the difference does not exclude a direct dependence, 481 to this we note that any similarity in allegorical devices is certainly philonic, which requires internal affinity, 482 without which borrowing is impossible. 483 Otherwise, all genetic connections will be in vain and will rather help to clarify the fundamental contrast. For allegory, everything is expressed in a short formula: for Philo it was subjectively tendentious, for the Hellenic evangelist it was biblically factual. And since it embraces all the hermeneutical resources of the Alexandrian Jew, we are now finally convinced that the exegetical apparatus of the Apostle of Languages is not copied according to the models of the Egyptian fabrication of the scattered sons of Abraham.
All the preceding considerations, of course, protect the originality of the hermeneutical principles, exegetical method and interpretative practice of St. Pavel. At the same time, the path to an accurate understanding of his doctrine is provided. More cautious authors claim that his commentary is dominated by a right-wing spirit, but the external form is not necessary, because it was borrowed from modern school reserves and contributed to free handling of the Bible. 484 This creates logical legitimacy for the idea that the same exegetical freedom can be applied to the messages of the Hellenic evangelist himself, when it turns out that the Gospel of Christ is clothed by him in inappropriate clothes and must be understood outside the influence of his own phraseology. 485 In this case, the whole point will be to evaluate literary technique in order to capture in its variations cardinal ideas that are not sufficiently expressed in words and are comprehended sufficiently through observations of peculiar combinations of terms.
The bearer of genuine thought and the instrument of its knowledge will be the characteristic properties of the writing style, where detailed selection and factual combinations are imbued with the individual tendencies of dogmatic contemplation and reveal it in relief. From this side, the evangelist finds himself on the same level with Philo, because for the latter, “convinced philosophical beliefs are contained more in allegorical interpretations than in notes on the letter of Scripture.” 486 For both, a similar appearance is based on the views themselves, and the similarity of the first necessarily presupposes the identity of the second. Thus, in criticism, the axiom about the material subordination of “Paulinism” to Philonism is born and strengthened, and we are directed to a comparative consideration of dogmatic concepts.
The course and essence of the analysis are predetermined by the qualities of Alexandrian theosophy. Its Judaizer Cicero 487 tried to extract exegetically his speculations, which were the fundamental elements of his religious system. But it was designed for universal acceptance and defended the universalism of Jewish teaching as absolutely binding on the sound human mind, appealing to a sense of unquestioning devotion to the aspirations of Israel. In turn, the Apostle of Languages sought biblical justifications and with them provided his teaching with authority for all nations. The evangelical immensity of Christian salvation is likened to the philonic immensity of the Old Testament in the equality of biblical support for them in the solidary recognition that the religious confessions of the patriarchs were universal. Hence the thesis that Philo “in the language of the Greek schools said the same thing that Paul preached at the same time in the synagogues, that Abraham, who was the father of only one people, was even earlier destined to be the ancestor of countless offspring.”
488 For the Hellenic missionary, Abraham was the bearer and harbinger of faith, which is why, by this convergence, the apostolic gospel is made dependent on Jewish theosophy on the most important dogmatic issue, which expressed the essence of “Paulinism” as a theological doctrine. Such a coincidence would be extremely decisive even in its singularity, since everything else is additional in the construction of the theological apostolic system. The danger is very great, and its fatal power arouses involuntary doubt that the most original doctrine was simply borrowed. A careful examination of the subject fully confirms these perplexities and leads to the opposite result. 489
Philo pays a lot of attention to Abraham 490 and the testimony of Gen. 490 quoted by the Apostle (Rom. IV, 3; Gal. III, 6). XV, 6 is mentioned about ten times. It is necessary that the question of faith is also touched upon. What is she by nature? To make the answer clear, it must be taken into account that the patriarch first lived among the Chaldeans, and they closed themselves in the sphere of the finite and did not allow a higher cause. The relocation of the forefather to Harran depicts a “change of false opinion.” Then Abraham became imbued with the desire to know God and in this direction “did not rest until he reached a clear understanding (of non-essence, for this is impossible, but) of existence and industry, to the best of human abilities. Therefore, it is said about him first (Gen. XV, 6) that he believed God, since he was the first who had an unshakable and firm conviction that there is a higher cause and that it provides for the world and those in it. And having acquired this vision, which is the most durable of the virtues, he at the same time acquired all the others, so that those who accepted him were considered a king (Gen.
XXIII, 6) not because of his suitability for this dignity (for he was a simpleton), but for the spiritual majesty of his royal understanding.” 491
The content of faith will be the confession of God as the final principle of all world life. Next, it is necessary to determine why exactly such knowledge is called faith and is revered above all other virtues. In praise of Abraham, Moses also writes that he believed God. “This saying is very brief, but the matter itself is extremely great. And in truth, what else can one believe?” Everything on earth is fleeting, illusory and deceptive, does not provide strong support and is not accompanied by constant success. In this case, “the true and solid good is only faith and, moreover, faith in God, the consolation of life, the fullness of bright hopes, the deprivation of evils, the abundance of blessings, the rejection of misfortune, the recognition of piety, the inheritance of bliss, the all-round improvement of the soul, surrendered to the Author of all things, who can do everything, but wants only the best.
For just as those walking on a slippery path stumble and fall, while those moving on a dry and smooth path walk unhindered; Thus leading their souls along the paths of the physical and external always fall inevitably, since all this is slippery and does not have the slightest strength. On the contrary, those who hasten to God through contemplations aimed at virtues keep a safe and solid path. Hence it is absolutely indisputable that he who believes them does not believe God, and he who does not believe them believes God. But the sacred sayings not only testify to his (Abraham’s) faith in Jehovah, the queen of virtues, but also the first is called the oldest.” This is because only one “lover of prudence and wisdom or faith in God is rightly considered to be the elder, as is hinted at in Greek. And God rewards such a (wise) person for faith in Him with assurance, confirming with an oath the promises of gifts,” and then “what is more fitting for people than to unwaveringly believe what God promises?” 492
Consequently, the most important property of faith is that it chooses an objectively unshakable foundation for itself. With it in hand, Abraham decides to sacrifice Isaac, “the beloved and lawful fruit of the soul, the clearest image of autodidactic wisdom, based on the conviction of the divine strength in which he believed.” 493 Moses says (by God to Abraham) in the future tense: (go to the land) as I will show you (Gen. XII, 1) - “as a testimony of faith, which the soul believed in God - not out of gratitude for what has happened, but in anticipation of the future, for wholly clinging, but in anticipation of the future, for, completely clinging to a happy hope and without hesitation considering as existing that which does not exist for a reason firmness of the promise, as a reward she (the soul) received perfect good in faith, 494 as it is again said (Gen. XV, 6), that Abraham believed God." 495 Under such conditions, “it is good to believe God, and not vague reasoning and not strong guesses [following the example of Abraham, who] believed God, and imputed to him the truth (Gen. XV, 6) ...
If we rely entirely on our own reasoning, then we will prepare and build a city for the mind that destroys the truth... True teaching is to believe in God, and to believe empty reasoning is a lie. In general, it is unreasonable to believe both rational reasoning and the mind that destroys the true.” 496 Of course, it is not easy to reach such a peak of contemplative hope, and the patriarch did not immediately rise to the proper height. Abraham's laughter (Gen. XVII. 17) seems to show that he hesitated about the birth of Isaac, which he had previously believed, but immediately after the prediction: this will not be your heir, but the one who will come from you added: and Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him as righteousness (Gen. XV, 4. 6). “Since it is inappropriate to doubt what has been accepted by faith, the doubt seems short-lived: it extends only to the tongue and lips, but does not affect the thought itself, in its moving sharpness.”
497 In life, the opposite occurs, and here “man takes created things for uncreated things, mortal things for immortal things, corruptible things for incorruptible things, and even man for God.” Meanwhile, human “faith must be so strong that it does not differ in the least from that which is characteristic of Being, perfect and complete in everything, for Moses says in his great song (Deut. XXXII, 4): God is faithful, and there is no unrighteousness in No." 498 In this spirit, “Abraham’s faith was in God, but he believed not as a man, so that you would recognize the peculiarity of a mortal and understand that his confusion resulted only from the limitations of our nature. Since it was short and insignificant, gratitude also befits him (the patriarch). 499 In any case, Abraham's knowledge was not complete and even resembled the instability of a beginner in divine contemplations. 500 Therefore, the patriarch needed a long preparation in order to free himself from the body, sensuality and vain idle talk. 501 In this tone, Philo comments on all the enumerations of Abraham.
502 Chaldea marks the deceptive opinion of 503 astrological dreams, entirely confined to the sphere of externally cosmic causes, which acquire an exaggerated dignity. Removal from here indicates the rise of the spirit above the level of world realities with the conviction of the existence of a higher principle. 504 However, even now a person does not completely renounce the ties that bind, because Harran in translation means “cave” or immersion in the realm of the sensory 505 with the help of bodily organs of perception, 506 where the purity of knowledge is clouded by dependence on insufficient means. Only upon entering Canaan does the thought become freed from all obstacles and is imbued with self-satisfaction in the unobstructed vision of the One, since the Promised Land is found between Egypt and Euphrates (Gen. XV, 19), and the first is attached to the body 507 and embraces external goods, while the second symbolizes spiritual benefits that bring true joy, which stems from wisdom and other virtues. 508
In the course of all these considerations, there is no doubt that for the Alexandrian theosophist, faith was a theoretical-intellectual force and objectively equals an irresistible argument of reasonable argumentation. 509 Its superiority is exclusively quantitative, which is why its relation to moral energy remains unclear. Abraham's righteousness rather expresses the fact that he was right in his faith in God, and his hope was then justified in fact. “Added: Abraham’s faith to God is to the praise of him who believed. But others will say: can this be considered worthy of praise? Who will not listen when God speaks and promises, even if it were the most unrighteous and wicked person? To this we answer that it is impossible, without proper investigation, to deprive a wise man of due praise, nor to impart to the unworthy the most perfect of virtues or faith... 510 It is not easy to believe in God alone without outside assistance, due to our close affinity with mortals, which inclines us to believe in riches, glory, dominion, friends, health and strength of body, and much more.
To reject all this and not to believe in a creation that is essentially untrue, but to believe in God alone, the only and truly true one, is the work of a great and sublime mind, which is not deceived by anything that surrounds us. Therefore it is well said that “faith was imputed to him as [Abraham’s] righteousness,” since nothing is so righteous as to be entirely guided by pure faith in God alone. Despite all this, being righteous and reasonable, this seems strange to our nature due to the unbelief of many of us, which is why it is said in reproof that to firmly and unswervingly rely on the one Existence is marvelous for people who do not possess undeceitful blessings, but not marvelous under the reign of truth, since this is a work (or direct revelation) of righteousness. 511 Naturally, “the culprit of this God-loving opinion, the first to change his arrogance for the sake of truth, (Abraham), using didactic virtue for improvement, receives faith in God as a reward. 512 And for those who, by innate happiness, acquire virtue on their own and without a teacher [or Isaac], the reward is joy.
The crown of the one who achieves good through exercise and intense, tireless labor is the vision of God [Jacob]. To believe in God, to rejoice throughout your life and always to see the Existence - what could be more useful and rewarding than this? "... "He who unfaithfully believed in God was imbued with disbelief towards everything created and corruptible... And whoever managed to despise everything corporeal [earthly] and incorporeal [heavenly], but rely on the one God with unshakable conviction and unshakable - firm faith, is a truly happy and blessed person." 513
This means that faith is the completion of the didactic feat - and Abraham turns out to be the embodied type of teaching, in contrast to the natural nobility of nature (Isaac) and the privileges of ascetic conviction (Jacob). 514 He is a symbol of didactic valor, 515 which rises from astronomical tactility to the thought of Being. 516 Accordingly, faith will be a purely intellectual energy. 517 True, sometimes it is inextricably linked with piety, 518 which is also called the highest and greatest virtue, 519 but this is rather indifferent to the matter, since the second also expresses the strictly theoretical aspect of sound knowledge of God. 520 In a fundamental sense, they only note different aspects of the reflection of didactic success. 521 From this side, the change in the name of the patriarch means “a transition from a naturalistic understanding to a moral one and a turn from contemplation directed towards the world to the understanding of the creator, from where piety, the best of possessions, is acquired.”
522 With such an intellectualistic interpretation it necessarily follows that Abraham “believed that he would be the heir of wisdom.” 523 Here the starting point is to withdraw from everything cosmic. In the story about the forefather, “under the earth the body is destroyed, under relatives - sensuality, under the father’s house - the word. The order to leave them does not amount to an essential distance, for this would lead to death, but it instills alienation of the mind in order not to submit to anything like that and to be above all such things. They are subjects and should not be rulers. Being a king, rule, and do not submit, and know yourself in everything... Get away from the tight-fitting earthly shell, run away from the unclean prison or body and its guards in pleasures and passions... Get away from your relative - sensuality: now you are borrowing someone else's goods from her and are deprived of your own. After all, despite the general silence, you know that eyes, ears and all the multitude of their relatives attract you to their dear one.
And if you want to return your loans and receive your property without the slightest damage, then you will acquire a happy life and will always enjoy the fruits of your own benefits, and not those borrowed. They also avoided the word from the side of its external form alone, so that, being deceived by the charms of speeches and names, they would not be separated from the beauty of truth.” 524 According to this recipe, “the few who have truly preserved the holy and inviolable faith sacrifice their soul, feeling, and word to God. Not from themselves, but from Him, they received all this and therefore assimilate to Him the energies of all of them: from the mind - thoughts, from the word - interpretation, from feeling - perception... Having received them not from themselves, but from God, they bring it to Him in sacred integrity, directing the mind so that it does not think about anything else except God and His virtues, accustoming the word with incessant lips in praises, hymns and beliefs of magnitudes.
The Father of all, and towards this one thing, direct all your powers of interpretation, and your senses will be arranged in such a way that, reflecting the entire sensory world - heaven, earth and the beings between them, animals and plants, their powers and properties, movements and positions - it announces them to the soul accurately and clearly. For, according to the will of God, the mind comprehends the mental world directly, and the visible world through the senses. And if anyone is able in all respects to live more for God than for himself, penetrating with his senses into the sensory in order to find the true, with the help of the soul philosophizing about the mental and truly existing, using the organ of speech to praise the world and the Creator, he will lead a happy and blissful life.” 525 Therefore, “the new good of inheritance is wisdom, inaccessible to sense and perceived by the purest mind; through it the best of migrations is strengthened, because the soul passes from astronomy to naturalistic philosophy, from unsteady guesses to solid comprehension and, speaking in all truth, from the created to the uncreated, from the world to its Creator and Father.
And the Scripture says that the followers of the Khaljean opinions believed in heaven, and those who left them believed in the ruler of heaven and the leader of the whole world, God. This inheritance is wonderful and, perhaps, exceeds the strength of the recipient, but is fully worthy of the greatness of the giver.” 526 The offspring is found to correspond to the intellectual character of its producer in theological faith. “After the soul leaves a mortal, God rewards it, first of all, with the gift of discovering before it and contemplating the immortal, but then contributes to the multiplication and increase of dogmas regarding virtue... The beginning and end of greatness and many blessings are the constant remembrance of God and the invocation of His assistance in the treacherous, confused and continuous struggle of life... God is always ready with the necessary help, and the ruler himself approaches those who deserve it.” 527 “He promises a twofold blessing to the one who preserves himself blameless: firstly, to make him the guardian of the blessings of the divine covenant and, secondly, to multiply them to an unlimited amount.
The expression: I will establish My covenant between Me and you (Gen.XVI, 2), shows the duty of protecting the truth entrusted to a noble person, and... by repeating the words (I will make you grow) Zelo Zelo (XVII, 6) denotes a multitude or multiplication of the people, i.e. human virtue." 528 And “when the soul acquires participation in the divine and incorruptible virtue, it conceives and gives birth to different nations... This is because each of the eternal virtues is subject to numerous laws, reminiscent of nations and kingdoms. Virtue and the types of virtues are something royal, they naturally delight in royal power and have no need for slavish knowledge.” 529 Thought rises above the sensual and soars in the heavenly. “The mind endowed with virtue is rather a stranger in the body than a permanent inhabitant. His true fatherland is the air and the sky, and the earth and the earthly body where he lives are only a colony.
Therefore, the Father, in his mercy, gives him royal power over all earthly things forever and in eternal possession, so that in the future he will not be ruled by the body, but will invariably be master and ruler, having the body as an obedient servant.” 530
As systematically as possible, we have given all of Philo’s judgments about the Abrahamic faith. She is depicted as the final act of spiritual growth of the patriarch, and all her greatness is built on her. At this point, Alexandrian theosophy comes into contact with the apostolic gospel, where the most important dignity of the forefather is that he was a believer. But this external coincidence is far from equal to the internal identity and only more sharply highlights the fundamental dissimilarity of views. We will not emphasize the tendentious features of philonic concepts and will take only the most analogous. And here a decisive contrast in the assessment of faith immediately strikes the eye. With all the rhetorically pompous praises, it was not for Philo the highest quality of intellectual and religious contemplation. Its advantages are comparative and rest only on the insufficiency of cosmic knowledge, which in it is immeasurably exceeded by the confession of the truth of one God as the universal cause of existence.
Faith reveals the Existence among the ghostly phenomenal, and a person’s further relations to the supreme principle are arranged in addition to it, although on the data communicated by it. Therefore, the natural nobility of Isaac and the “asceticism” of Jacob completely replace the faith of Abraham, which turns out to be a subordinate and transitory moment in the process of mastering all the riches of wisdom. We see something completely different in the Apostle. Here faith, exhausting the entire individuality of the patriarch, acquires the character of eternal vitality and absolute obligation. And Christians, solely by this property, perceive the blessings of God’s promise: since they are believers, they are blessed with Abraham, for he is faithful (Gal. III, 9). In this case, this is an anticipation of grace, and is illuminated by it in its unflickering brightness, which does not allow for intensification in brilliance. For St. For Paul, faith serves as the end of knowledge of God and the only source of moral success, while for Philo it is simply the beginning of theology and a preliminary to ethics.
This reveals other fundamental differences on the issue under consideration. According to the Egyptian theosophist, faith directs the soul to the final cause and encourages one to concentrate all thoughts on it. It offers a goal and a model for religious aspirations, but is by no means the very means of discovering them. This is something later, formed according to its own type in different variations of “exercise”, leading, etc. Faith draws a worthy object before us and then falls silent; Our religious behavior itself is created apart from it and will be an independent continuation. From Philo's point of view, such an interpretation is certainly logical and inevitable. No less than that, it is impossible for the Apostle. He is not talking about an object of religious veneration, since for the patriarch it was undoubtedly that this was God. Naturally, now the whole task is to accurately determine our relationship to the Almighty. In this sense, faith turns out to be the all-sufficient norm and, with its supremacy, displaces all other means. This causes irreconcilable opposition to her legalistic work.
Here is the whole importance of the historically dogmatic problem for the evangelist, who sees in the Abrahamic faith a harbinger of the true method in establishing and consolidating our connections with God. This point is not at all included in the concepts of Philo and St. Paul could not learn from him what was not there. For one, faith is a reliable guide to the promised land; for another, it is the basis and regulator of civil prosperity.
This difference in application irresistibly indicates that the special content of this factor for them was far from equal. Therefore, it is unacceptable to assume that in his teaching on faith the Apostle only uses theosophical premises, 531 but develops them in his own personal interests. Then philonism would be for him a fertilizing soil on which a luxurious garden of Christian contemplations blooms, closing their precedents before us. This requires that there be an internal affinity between both quantities, but in fact there is not even a minimal degree of it. What is faith for Philo in a particular example and in its fundamental dignity? It is an unmistakable conviction and in this sense marks the purely subjective energy of our understanding. It goes without saying that such inviolability is unacceptable. This is prevented by the weakness of human abilities, which are easily carried away by mirages and are much more often mistaken in their beliefs, which are mutually negative and directly hostile.
In view of this, Philo shifts the center of gravity to the object itself and sees all the typicality of faith in the fact that it rushes towards God. As the ruler of everything, He is not subject to cosmic variability, is always equal to Himself and ensures eternal stability for His idea. In this case, faith is truly true and not false, because it is based on the real truth of the deity. In this way it receives religious sanction and outwardly resembles the pisteological dogma of the Apostolic Gospel, where everything rests on religious elements. For all that, the external analogy does not in the least express the coincidence of the material. The religiosity of Filonov’s interpretation was forced and rests on a compelling observation of the ephemeral nature of all other intellectualistic constructions. Nevertheless, for their creators these too are immutable in recognition of their corresponding real strength. It is clear that here every generally accepted opinion is necessarily awarded with divine authority, and Chaldean astrology was the deification of the sky.
Philo eludes any scale to enclose the peculiarities of the faith he defends, and he turns to a sedate assessment, categorically putting forward that only his God is true, and not the fruit of darkened human shortsightedness. This would be fair if it were impossible to hesitate on this score regarding the independent indisputability of the religious idea. These arguments are again not found in the philonic system. Everything in it is focused on the fact that faith confesses a single cause from which all secondary ones arise. But in this spirit the Chaldeans and all other peoples talk about themselves, putting the impulses of their religious feelings into religious form. Why is Abraham right and not them? – Philo does not substantiate this at all and thereby reveals that his religious objectivism has no foundation for itself outside the theoretical postulates of Theosophy.
Once again, everything is colored with a thick subjective coloring and comes down to simple human insight. It contains all the advantages of both the patriarch himself and his faith. And we saw that Philo everywhere refers only to the fact that the God of Abraham was truly existing, while for others these were products of a fantastic exaggeration of cosmic principles. Consequently, all the superiority of the forefather will be in the sharpness of his insight and in the greater accuracy of the definition of the sought-after principle. It doesn’t matter to us how indisputable this is in fact from the point of view of the correspondence of what has been assimilated historically. For our immediate purposes, the road is the only technique of Filonov’s pisteology. It clearly outlines that faith itself creates a venerable object endowed with attributes of incomparable greatness. Naturally, all the fruits of the believer's admiration will be entirely subjective as the own differences of the believer's mind.
The most important of these qualities is the infallibility of human trust, because it relies on an immutable figure who is firm in all his functions and unyielding in his activity. In this sense, faith is inseparable from hope for the simple consideration that the expected result is inevitably guaranteed and will certainly be achieved at the right time, where it is fully justified in its objective truth. This means that her righteousness lies in the fact that she was right in the content of her convictions, since they were later fulfilled in fact to an adequate extent. There is no need to add that all this is accomplished exclusively by the object itself and is in no way determined by our religious and moral mood. Therefore, righteousness, being the basis of faith, belongs only to God and does not indicate the ethical state of a person. This is the fundamental thesis of Philonov’s theosophy, which is resolved by him and in it has its final support.
But at this very point the contrast of her apostolic preaching reaches diametrical incompatibility. St. Paul treats of various points for acquiring righteousness into one's own possession and understands the individual quality of the ideas themselves. This is clear already from the adversative nature of law and faith, as two antithetical methods in receiving the Spirit and His power. And since the latter actually operate among Christians, we must think that faith has produced its charitable results in the justification of those blessed. In this logical connection, the reference to Abraham states that faith was actually credited to him as righteousness with the dignity of a personal moral and religious act. And Christians are the children of the patriarch because they merge with him in faith and in it they draw rights to the inheritance promised to him (Gal. III, 5-7). By repeating their ancestor to improve the truth, they testify that their forefather possessed it according to the same method of religious assimilation.
It is irresistible that the evangelist’s faith gave Abraham subjective righteousness or was justifying, which is why it is actually justified. This is also illuminated from a historical point of view, which clearly highlights the fact that faith is imputed to righteousness. To those who justify the wicked (Rom. IV, 5) and through this assign to him predicates of the opposite type. In this form, faith transfers the righteousness of God to the person himself and makes him religiously correct, satisfying the obligatory ideal. It is clear that - contrary to Philo 532 - in St. Paul, righteousness turns out to be a property of faith, for (Rom. IV, 13) Abraham accepted the promise of inheritance through the righteousness of faith. The second becomes the producer of the first (cf. IV, 16) 533 and its creative principle. For this reason, the apostolic faith is imbued with an energy unusual for theosophical contemplation. In it, faith is a theoretical conviction and is alien to any vitality outside its circle in which it is born and closed. And such is our mind, moving away from the cosmic and rising to the truly Existing.
Then the Lord of all serves as the foundation of infallible calculations for us, because in them His eternal attributes are stated. But this is a purely intellectualistic concept, conditioned by the correctness of rational discovery and further conclusions. The actual arbiter of all processes remains the person himself, and the only guarantee is our thinking ability. Therefore, faith was a transitory moment for Philo and marks only the first stage of theological development. For the Apostle, it is the crown of religious and ethical progress and the basis of all its real functions in the accuracy of knowledge of God and in the normality of pleasing God. And this feature is rooted in the fact that his faith does not just show us the righteousness of God, but brings it into our own possession. The firmness of God infuses us, acting according to its inherent inviolability and protecting all the hopes of the believing heart.
Hence, God himself will be the guarantee of fidelity - not in the abstract of a theoretical postulate, but in a living reflection of His will, regulating and arranging our ethical ability. Philo does not have such natural communication, accompanied by the introduction of the power of God into us. Therefore, with him everything is limited to our knowledge of it and is based on our intellect. Here the soul itself is motivated by its own faith and in it finds its unshakable support; there faith in the union of righteousness is protected by divine absoluteness.
In this case, phraseological parallels, with their undeniability, help to formulate internal disparity more specifically. The superiority of Abraham among the evangelist is focused on the fact that the patriarch believed with hope beyond hope, did not faint in faith and was not shaken by unbelief, and was known to be able to eat and do what he promised, which is why this was counted to him as righteousness (Rom. IV, 18-22). Similarly, Philo writes that the prophecy about the earth (Gen. XII, 1) was granted to the forefather. 534 The similarity in letter is not small and is sometimes commented on in the spirit of the direct literary dependence of the Christian teacher on the Egyptian Jew. 535 However, the commonality between them is far from essential and is limited to the simple thesis that God is firm in His promises. For Philo, this is the justification that the soul itself anticipates the future and honors it as if it were the present. The decisive role belongs to our theoretical calculation according to the logical laws of the inevitability of consequences given the causes, which are not constrained in their activity.
And if the expected result undoubtedly occurs, this will be a factual confirmation of all our rational considerations. The effect occurs outside of us, but is entirely determined by us, because it is achieved by our infallibility. 536 In the Apostle this idea is revealed in a completely different direction. He starts from the thought that - by His omnipotence - God calls the non-existent to be. At the moment of our faith, this realization is ensured by creative power and in it becomes an indestructible reality. In this case, faith is filled with the content of divine action and through it achieves all benefits in individual application. Here God functions in human faith and seals the righteousness inherent in it; in Philo, our mind protects our faith with the absoluteness of God and assimilates its objective strength. Therefore, at St. For Paul, faith is as much a natural concomitant of inheritance as it is an obligatory precedent, while for the Alexandrian theosophist it itself is the reward of mental tension, which was not the believer’s own.
In the end, Philonov’s faith, devoid of life-giving undying and justifying energy, again loses its religiosity, since it only precedes and prepares it, leading a person to God, from Whom unshakable confidence is then perceived. 537 At this point her mission is interrupted, and then without her we extract from the divine treasury all the riches of virtues. Faith here does not actively participate as a producing factor and remains a moment of the past. It is necessary that its fruits do not correspond to the apostolic ones either in their origin or in their essential character. We are not talking about theosophical combinations, which are both inimitable and faulty, because they are too subjective and could not be assimilated in isolation from their premises. Only the cardinal points in the episteological conclusions deserve our attention. And we know that by faith Abraham inherits the wisdom of recognizing God, from which, in turn, a holistic view of impeccable dignity is formed.
With such assistance, the entire moral makeup of the individual is illuminated and imbued with religiosity, which gives rise to countless offspring of virtues. The latter also bear an intellectual imprint, and the godlike ones themselves are revered as the privilege of the sage. 538 Nevertheless, then life proceeds normally and according to the will of God, testifying to the moral purity of the religious mood. If you like, this will be the righteousness of Paulinian terminology. And the whole question now is how to acquire these prerogatives. On this score, it is indisputable that they are not borrowed directly from faith, since it expresses only a simple conviction in the existence of God. Through it we are brought before the Lord, but we do not yet enter into Living unity with him, which rewards us with moral integrity. This task has further moral tension in the implementation of theoretical understanding. Therefore, for Philo, righteousness does not at all flow from faith and requires for itself new instruments of natural ennoblement (Isaac) and ascetic hardening (Jacob).
Faith itself does not possess righteousness, which will actually be independent of it. Then the first turns out to be completely unnecessary for justification due to the absence of the need for atonement. 539 This sharp and indelible contradiction to all apostolic dogma is accompanied by the deepest dissonance regarding the method in which a person achieves his own justification or virtue. 540 For Philo, the only basis is our enlightened and illuminated mind in its individual, egoistic and proud isolation from the historical conditions in the covenant of God. 541 He coordinates all our actions with the commands of God and entrusts the soul to ethical infallibility. But for this, first of all, accurate knowledge of divine holiness is needed, so that feasible copying is possible. Vera is completely unsuitable for this role. Its entire religious heritage is embraced by the bare formula that the highest reigns above cosmic causality, alien to subordination and conquering everything.
The immediate real properties are not outlined even in the faintest outline. They are not explained from the special materials of Philonov’s system, since the cardinal thesis was that the deity is without quality and without predicate. On all sides the normalizing ideal eludes our moral aspiration. This is where philosophical-theosophical helplessness saves under the shadow of national-religious hopes. Together with them, she confesses the God of Israel with all the obligatory nature of His commandments prescribed to the Jewish people and preserved in the books of Moses. In them, the supreme providence of moral and religious education is enshrined in the Law of Sinai, which, before publication, was embodied in the patriarchs and should be a universal principle for all lovers of God. Consequently, the righteousness of our likeness to God is permissible and possible only on the basis of nomism. Along with this there is another observation. A person reaches the truth of the First Existing One through a rational path of personal insight.
In this respect, he is, of course, autonomous and autocratic, which is why the anticipation of an ethical revival will be a human matter. And such independence extends to the entire moral process. Confidence in the deity does not provide the slightest content for the real seal of our obedience to him - other than readiness and determination. Therefore, everyone approaches legalistic norms according to intellectual predestination, applies to himself according to the logical compulsion of wise reasoning, and implements them to the best of his ability and diligence. In this case, everything is accomplished by human will, and every success will be the merit of individual achievement. Thus, for Philo, Abraham's faith led to the nomistic creation of his own righteousness, 542 while the Apostle rejected both of these elements with equal inexorability. Therefore, one cannot think that philonism was even the threshold of the apostolic gospel, which is characterized by complete opposition at the very starting point. 543 For St.
For Paul, faith was necessary and righteousness with the prerogatives of filial inheritance. The Alexandrian commentator absolutely did not allow such a combination, and the named moments were not in the least connected internally. Therefore, the Egyptian theosophist was simply incapable of understanding the apostolic concepts and, of course, would have branded them with the anathema of doctrinal intolerance. Hence the converse is indisputable, that St. Paul would not have been a herald of the faith of Christ, holding on to Philo's convictions. For these reasons, any rapprochement will be deceptive and least of all allow us to talk about genetic reciprocity. External analogy only more clearly demonstrates the fundamental adversativity of mutual negation.
As a result, we have that the Apostle’s faith is outlined in the spirit of unconditional originality, eliminating any guesswork about borrowing or imitation, which allegedly reached the point of direct assimilation of philosophical dogmas. 544 This convinces us that even in the processing of the Old Testament prototype he was free from extraneous influences. The temptation here was all the more tempting because the story of Abraham had long occupied Jewish authorities and was the subject of debate in synagogues on the point we are considering. 545 Before the evangelist, it was also put forward by the Christian-Judaic polemic, 546 which defended the obligatory nature of legalistic practice in order to acquire for oneself through personal achievement all the prerogatives of inheriting the great promises to the patriarch. But there was another movement that believed all the importance in faith of the orthodox Jewish confession 547 and eliminated in Christianity the inevitability of promoting it with love. In its essence, this interpretation threatened with equal danger and inclined towards the same results.
It dissolved the inseparability of faith and justification with its reflections in the specially grace-filled fruits of the Spirit, where Christian adoption of God actually reproduces divine properties and does not need legalistic normalization (Gal. V, 22-23). 548 Then the very profession of faith became in Judaism a matter of original participation in the covenant 549 and an unchanging union with it, from which the duty of strict obedience to all its statutes was prescribed. 550 Philo adhered to this view and in theosophical development was always on Jewish soil. 551 The Apostle is outside all these trends and gives an original interpretation of the religious and moral character of the founder of the Jewish people. 552 He has the forefather of Israel and at the same time the father of all Christians (Rom. IV, 1.16), who receive his blessings and enjoy the property predicted to him. The latter was a gift and possession of God, remains with the Lord and is borrowed from him.
Therefore, to receive, the closest union with the supreme possessor is required in order to have access to the divine treasures, take them with undeniable right and use them with natural fitness. This means that inheritance requires kinship with God. It is actually provided for us by Christ the Savior, for, merging with the Son of God, we are naturally adopted through Him to the Most High in all the dignity of a similar power. It is inevitable that we will receive all the foretold divine mercies. But all this is created by the Redeemer, so that people are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise, not otherwise, if they are Christ’s (Gal. III, 29). In this case, Christians obviously satisfy all the testamentary conditions of legal claim, and it is acquired in the divine Deliverer through union with Him by faith. From this it follows that it is the believers who are the children of Abraham, which is why they are blessed with faithful Abraham (Gal. III, 7.9), sharing all his privileges. It is clear that treasured riches are obtained solely through faith.
And since it serves as the only key to the commanded good, then it is necessary to think that everything rests on it in its very original condition. Further, it turns out with inevitability that all the prerogatives of the patriarch were created by faith, which, by its righteousness, earned him the favor of God.
The apostolic conclusion is entirely based on Christian contemplation, illuminating the distant past of Old Testament pedagogy. Any external aids here are unacceptable both dogmatically and in fact, since everything is built on the basis of gracious principles and is commented on in their spirit and strength. For all that, this is not tendentious - a Christian exegomesis of a purely subjective illumination of an indifferent historical reality. In all the above-mentioned considerations, the dominant idea is clearly visible that the Christian present is the immediate and final crown of the previous educational period, which is important in its propaedeutic anticipation and - like the dawn - disappears in the radiance of day. In particular, this is true for Abraham, because he was intended to be and indeed is the father of all nations. In this sense, descendants, continuing their ancestor with strict accuracy, turn out to be his best embodiment as living bearers of family ideals.
It goes without saying that only through them can we unmistakably comprehend the past, since now it is revealed with tactile clarity and typical comprehensiveness. And as soon as this completion is achieved in Christianity, then only from it all precedents are illuminated. It is not surprising that the Apostle views Abraham’s entire life and the feat of his unshakable hope from a Christian point of view. At this point for St. Paul's remark is especially true that "if his faith depended on his exegesis, then his exegesis depended even more on his faith." 553 At the same time, history is preserved intact, because it was the actual preparation and the real foundation of Christian existence, which protects its inviolability. But because of this genetic linkage, the realization will be the most authoritative and exclusive explanation of the whole long process at the various stages of its gradual movement towards its outcome.
Such was the Lord Christ, and in the “fullness of times” all disparate moments are composed with the harmonious harmony of mutual solidarity and are revealed in their inner dignity in the faith of justification that penetrated them. 554
We see how St. Paul, everything is steadily directed towards the divine Deliverer and is drawn from His saving Gospel of gracious redemption. Previously, it was argued that all his biblical concepts were based on this in principle and detailed formulation. Therefore, extraneous influences were eliminated for him by the saving “confession” of the incarnate Son of God. Any external participation will only be possible with the conviction that the Apostle did not rely on a genuine event and looked at it through the prism of borrowed theorems. From this side, all Philonian anthologies lead with fatal inevitability to the conclusion that for the evangelist the Messiah was an artificial image of the Philonian type. This cardinal result cements the fatal importance of all the petty parallels, which play the role of auxiliary siege weapons to replace the cornerstone of apostolic dogma.
Naturally, due to its essential drives, genetic logic is forced to proclaim that Apostolic Christology was a fragment and modification of the ideas of Alexandrian-Jewish theosophy.
Thus we turn to a special analysis of the Christological problem in the teaching of St. Pavel. The whole course is outlined here by the question itself in its critical formulation. It does not at all touch on the objective value of the apostolic doctrine in terms of its correspondence or contradiction with the true historical picture, but everything is limited to the characterization of the distinctive elements with an explanation of their origin from modern religious systems. With such an effort, it is imperative to grasp in advance the individual characteristics of peacock contemplation according to its fundamental premises. It's not difficult to guess them. All the attention of the evangelist is absorbed in the fate of man and is occupied with understanding the past, so that development will be normal in the future. But here the terrible drama of a difficult struggle with constant falls of increasing hopelessness opened before the Apostle’s gaze. This made sure that evil is rooted in human nature itself, since it is carnal - sinful due to the cosmic frailty of its first bearer and the actual culprit of all future generations.
For this purpose, each member is necessarily imbued with sinful elements, and passes them on to his descendants. To get rid of it, you need to get out of this poisonous atmosphere, which requires natural rebirth. In turn, this is possible only in a new humanity, which would be alien to earthly gravity and not subject to its fatal influences. since the former received sinful slavery through natural carnal inheritance from its head, then in the outcome of the renewed there must be a representative similar to it with diametrical qualities. From this it follows that for St. Paul's Messiah was the second heavenly Adam, because anthropological views fatally led to this. 555 A similar thesis is justified here by the naturalistic interpretation of the apostolic amartology, but it is also achieved in a slightly different way. They emphasize that the evangelist everywhere defends the idea of irremovable sinfulness, which everyone acquires along with birth itself.
This means that the source of this universal property is in the human forefather, who communicates the infection of his disobedience to all people in their earthly corruption. For this reason, the Redeemer eliminates our ancestor in the dignity of antitype, as the head of the human family related to Him. Again we have that “starting from the Jewish teaching about sin, Paul thought of Christ as another Adam.” 556 The dominant interpretations of the apostolic “Gospel” also tend towards this. People usually think that it is entirely focused on human history, is built on it and adapts to its interests. Man turns out to be the foundation and focus of all Christian dogma. This anthropocentric theory 557 inevitably invades the Christological field and predetermines a similar coverage of all its moments, when the personality of the Lord Savior is outlined primarily from the human side and endowed with purely human predicates.
All these considerations support the hypothesis that in “the idea of the “second Adam” the entire Pauline Christology is concentrated,” 558 for this is its vital nerve. 559
Let us now see in what form the entire apostolic gospel is portrayed under these assumptions. Before the observer was the indisputable fact of indelible human fallibility - without the slightest exception or interruption. The examining mind involuntarily agrees that the reason for this lies in human nature itself, which is also reflected in the entire innumerable mass of private individuals. Their whole problem lies in the accuracy of reproduction of their kind according to genetic continuity with its original embodiment. Without this, the tragedy of human existence will be a strange mystery, and we will never comprehend the laws of such a continuous repetition of long-punished mistakes. It is clear from everything that the essential principle of human existence operates here with equal intensity, since everything flows from it. But we are talking about a real phenomenon - and its precedent will belong to this category, being a living personification of human sinfulness. It is natural that she is perceived by others by her very kinship with him.
This is the key to the mystery of human cosmicity, and to understand it St. Paul allowed in the early prototypical earthly man, varying in the individual fragmentation of his successors. 560 The result is that this was the Apostle's own theoretical invention for understanding factual irresistibility. However, his blessed soul saw before him a more gratifying prospect with reverse tones. Humanity left the sinful sphere, gradually freed itself from carnality and successfully became spiritualized. This was the second reality, which with its happy surprise confused the analyzing thought even more. If there was a harmonious sequence of mutual cohesion, then here everything arises ex abrupto, without any anticipation and even with the opposition of irreconcilable contrast. This diametricality is only permissible on the condition that from now on the opposite energy begins to function with no less intensity of the strictest reproduction of the original in its copies.
People are justified only because they are a righteous father. Jesus Christ serves for the evangelist as a historical support for understanding the act and process of redemption in the worldwide brotherhood of the saved. For them, He is a head parallel to Adam, and, therefore, also a man, 561 although “second” and with adversative properties, which are testified by believers. Christians are holy and satisfy everything that is desirable given their limitations. However, this dignity is not acquired by their personal valor and is consolidated apart from their own zeal, but is acquired by them with the ease of inheriting all the prerogatives of their ruler. We are irresistibly convinced that all the best of the regenerated was contained in advance in the Lord the Deliverer, Who rewards with His riches. In this case, the task of Christology will be to collect the scattered rays of the blessed radiance, and in this way we approach the very sun of truth. But Christian brotherhood in its new creation is spiritual humanity and alien to everything earthly.
Therefore, Christ “is a spiritual and heavenly man,” one in whom, unlike all the sons of Adam, the spirit, the divine life principle, is dominant. This is a man as God thought and wanted him from eternity in heaven, or a prototypical, ideal man.” And “for the Apostle, everything that Christ was for humanity is exhausted in this idea of the second Adam, the spiritual first man.” 562 In this way, the Redeemer realizes in himself all the divine plans to the fullest extent, and the will of God finds an adequate coincidence on the basis of humanity and in human forms. The human approaches the divine and is deified in human nature itself, becoming divine-human. 563 After his death to sin, Christ is resurrected glorified or purified from it, and - in connection with our race - this metamorphosis is accompanied by a similar transformation among people. They draw from the Lord the power of God’s holiness, and He is a life-giving spirit for them.
564 This indissolubility testifies that even in His exaltation the Redeemer retains his original human outlines: He is not God, for He was and remains only the highest bearer of ennobled human nature. 565 With all this, His advantages were unattainable for others and they have them secondarily - by simple borrowing from Him. This makes us think that something unusual for mortals comes here and then reveals itself in the cosmic sphere. Obviously, Christ existed before His earthly appearance and in it gradually realizes His premium potentialities. He must be given the predicates of pre-existence 566 with the recognition of equal closeness to God and man. He is the mediator between both sides, 567 why His divinity should be commented on in the Christian spirit 568 of the reflection of God. 569 But the fulcrum for the Apostle was Christian reality, which required sufficient causal justification, and this could only be prior and beyond human boundaries.
In these interests, the evangelist applies the school logological scheme to the historical Deliverer, 570 when the human principle is endowed with supercosmic attributes with the ability to radically transform the entire previous order. Consequently, this is a dogma of limited – subjective theology, where everything arises and rests on the idealization of the fact through the transfer of the real into eternity. 571 It is not surprising that in this theoretical projection all the elements of abstraction are preserved - and the pre-existent Christ will be for the saint. Paul only as a “heavenly man.” 572 Thus the pre-eternity of the plan of redemption is applied to its organ 573 and the categories of finitude (purpose) and power are addressed to the category of being and substance. 574 The real divinity of the pre-mundane Christ turns out to be a “metaphysical idol,” 575 and in this respect the elimination of the speculative idea of the Son of God in no way amounts to a denial of the Christian belief in the divine dignity of Jesus.
576 The second is ensured by the religious experience of undoubted Christian holiness, convincing of the divine prerogatives of the author of our salvation with an indisputability identical to the very presence of the justified. On the contrary, the dogma of the divine pre-existence of the Lord is distinguished by its derivative nature 577 as a secondary theological interpretation, 578 permissible only for religious and moral exhortations. 579 In detachment from them, this will be a purely theological opinion, 580 where the content of Christian life is thought of as given in advance 581 and in this way is explained in its independent reality. 582 Along with this, the special personality of Christ is a simple echo of the believing conviction in the complete originality of the regenerated humanity, which is not at all connected with the offspring of Adam and has its head in a similar individuality. 583
As a result, we find that all the actual material of the Apostle was limited to idealized humanity. It is easy to see that with such reserves it was impossible to rise further than the extreme limits of this circle. Therefore, the Orthodox Christ will be the typical embodiment of the privileges of grace or the “second Adam”, 584 who was by nature a man, 585 created 586 and does not change essentially in deification. 587 What He achieved actually coincides with the moment of reconciled possession in the role of mediator of God and men, 588 but so far this is a bare theoretical concept, 589 that the Lord from time immemorial was the human archetype of the reborn. 590
From this general position arise different theories regarding the detailed characteristics of the Son of God. If the pre-prepared Messiah was only a heavenly being without natural divinity, 591 then all the foundations for a truly divine identity are taken away from Him. And since it is categorically affirmed by the believing consciousness, it will further follow that all this is created precisely by the latter. In reality, Christ was only an exponent of a special theoretical - practical principle. 592 Everything else is caused by purely logical postulates and rests on the productivity of an all too vivid imagination. Naturally, then the extra-cosmic anticipation will be absolutely ideal without any objective content. 593 This is a mirage of misunderstanding or delusion, and everything in it is exhausted by the thought of saving the world and people. Therefore, in accordance with the historical end, the beginning itself appears under the form of spiritual humanity. The worldly pillars of Christianity are collapsing irrevocably and drowning in an ocean of tendentious and illusory fantasticality. 594
Not everyone is capable of agreeing to such sacrifices and does not go to such extremes. Nevertheless, even now the cardinal conclusion remains unshakable. It is important here that the work of Christ was the implementation of eternal plans to deliver humanity from earthly spontaneity and to reward it with heavenly spirituality. What was foreseen in advance was achieved. And as long as we are talking about the deity, we are obliged to admit that the prototype of the pneumatic - bodily man was presented to the wisdom of God from eternity. 595 It is inevitable that he is closest to and closely associated with the future executor of the supreme will, placing the characteristic stamp of a special individuality in specially human traits. From this point of view, the already pre-existing Christ must have had in Himself certain human definitions. 596 In this tone, even in the Apostle Paul, all speeches about pre-existence are applied to the historical person of Jesus, which is why the “diminution” mentioned in the Philippian Epistle involves the God-man, and not the Logos.
597 Likewise, the first witnesses of the Lord, turning their contemplation to the past, invariably pictured Him to themselves as divine-human. 598 This conclusion is also forced by the personal unity of the Redeemer. “He is identical with Himself in all stages of His history, and therefore the reality of the human element must be recognized as belonging to His essential nature, although it is difficult for us to comprehend this fact. 599 In this spirit, “some theologians have defended that Christ from all eternity was the God-man, the Son of God and the son of man, the image of God and His revelation to His creatures, the ideal or archetypal man after whom the human race was created. The incarnation was not the actual perception of human nature, since even before creation Christ was man and our brother, and consisted only in the assimilation of our flesh.” The opinion about the eternal humanity of the Lord rests on these considerations. 600 Others say that this happened at the moment before the origin of the world 601 for creative purposes, when the Son of God became the firstborn and the author of all cosmic existence.
602 This difference is strictly speculative and does not affect the fundamental conviction that - according to His creative - redemptive dignity - the Logos, before his earthly appearance, possessed naturally human qualities.
For everyone, the agreed result will be that in the heavenly spheres 603 Christ was a human subject. 604 At the same time, His advantages are necessarily diminished by our inseparable limitations - and in the eyes of St. Paul He seemed not to be God at all. 605 However, this does not deprive Him of all ontological predicates. Rather, the opposite will be true, because transcendence is not alien to the inherent materiality with which everything spiritual is permeated. In parallel to the celestial bodies, the spiritual second Adam is endowed with a similar corporeality, 606 and this gives him real strength. 607 From this side, the premium first man is a heavenly 608 human form, 609 drawing all its supplies from a special celestial matter. 610 If personal pre-existence is entirely expressed by heavenly physicality, 611 then, of course, it will not extend into the truly divine life and will turn out to be only angelic.
612 Between God and Christ there will always be a distance between the Creator and the creature, 613 and without divinity 614 the pre-worldly Logos is only the “highest spirit” 615 and the “hierarchical leader” 616 At the same time, all His superiority in the host of angels is embraced by creative - redemptive activity in humanity, which ensures mutual kinship. It is clear that even with this interpretation, in the pre-incarnation period the Lord remained a missionary personality or a pneumatic man, in view and for the reason of which the world was published. 617 In Him the latter was ideal in the thought of God, then the prototype himself will also be an ideal 618 heavenly man. 619 True, the Apostle says little about this stage and uses figurative descriptions, 620 but the messianic-providential role of the Deliverer presupposes in Him natural abilities and means to fulfill such a mission. In this case, for St. Paul's Christ was essentially the heavenly typical Adam and therefore had no absolute pre-existence. 621 Similar to Moses - His nature will be luminous from the beginning.
622 Again all theological speculations are resolved by the previous result. All currents are reduced to it and given the character of dogmatic inviolability. Naturally, the newfangled doctrine 623 soon acquired all the rights of citizenship - and it is now considered almost generally accepted that the Hellenic evangelist recognized the pre-mundane Christ as the heavenly prototype of humanity 624 or the archetypal form. 625
This is the categorical summary of modern scientific interpretations of apostolic Christology. All inquisitiveness is directed here towards clarifying the historical genesis and, in appearance, serves to protect the preaching of the great educator of languages. We are told that he was certainly the first of the Christian writers to assimilate the Messiah's superior nature and pre-worldly pre-existence. 626 But this inevitably breaks the continuity with the primary Christological view, if the concept before us is absolutely original and individual. This is a purely theoretical formula without sufficient historical background. 627 Of course, it is sometimes assumed that the Redeemer Himself confessed and proclaimed Himself the ideal bearer of humanity, 628 however, this is simply a personal conviction, not undoubted for everyone and does not destroy the real fact in genuine historical reality. Meanwhile, St. Paul does not characterize it in objective terms, but adapts it to his logical questions.
Therefore, others directly declare that Christ “of the synoptic tradition would not have recognized Himself at all in the second Adam, a bishop according to the order of Melchizedek, in whom all the fullness of the deity dwelt bodily.” 629 Here, “a greater or lesser deviation from the simplicity and practically - humanitarian religious interests of the true Gospel of the great Teacher towards theological speculation and in combination with the ideas of the age” is noticeable. 630 The reference to John the Theologian. “The historical accuracy of Jesus’ statements about His pre-existence is irreconcilable with the testimony of the Synoptics and does not agree with His real humanity, which would be deeply shocked if Jesus carried within Himself the consciousness of the Existence preceding His earthly ministry, if His teaching were only a memory of a supernatural life in the divine sphere, if the divine substratum hiding behind the human “I” was the final basis of His personality. But such. the interpretation of the apostolic doctrine from the teaching of Jesus does not illuminate Paul's Christology for us at all.
Any attempt to bring it closer to the tradition directly coming from Jesus himself, and to the actual sayings - as transmitted by the Twelve - is in flagrant contradiction with the genesis of the theological thought of the Apostle and with his most distinct and categorical statements (Gal. I, 16). Neither appeals to divine inspiration, which should reveal with increasing clarity the mystery of the pre-existence of the Son of God, nor direct appeal to the teachings of Jesus, who allegedly spoke positively about His heavenly life before appearing on earth, do not help in the least to resolve the problem.” 631 Pavlov’s entire system loses its objective basis and in Christology “is based not on historical facts, but on speculation.” 632 The Second Adam is an “empty abstraction” 633 without any vitality and is characterized by “spiritual poverty.” 634
Criticism now has free space for its own interpretations. It is easy to foresee that - after the removal of all factual barriers - there will not be the slightest check left for fantastic tendentiousness. Thus, monstrous hypotheses are born and preached without restraint, as if the apostolic idea of the heavenly man, being similar to the philonic one, 635 successively ascends through it 636 to Mazdaism 637 and has some connection with the cult of Mithra. 638 In this, Jewish writers acquire sufficient right for blasphemous thoughts, as if Christianity was under the influence of Jewish Hellenism in the processing of St. Paul reduced the biblical dogma of God to pagan forms. 639 This, of course, is an extreme, which is completely useless for the purposes of the immediate scientific commentary, since no one seriously thinks that in Christology the evangelist would penetrate so far to find suitable materials. But from this it follows irresistibly that the noted view must determine the source of the apostolic Christological concepts.
They do not reflect the actual image of the Redeemer and are not in solidarity with the early Christian views, but developed, strengthened and took shape due to a special theological logic. From a subjective point of view, their origin does not present any difficulty, as long as we assume that this is the original creation of the Apostle. However, for a clear and detailed disclosure, ready-made elements are required so that the entire structure does not hang in the air. Here it is axiomatically accepted in advance that “the theology of the rabbis provided him with the whole frame of thought,” 640 and in the question of the pre-existent Christ he adapts to Jewish schemes, 641 why for him “the idea of Christ is a Jewish idea.” 642 The whole peculiarity in the immediate outlines of the second Adam rests on the fact that new ingredients are added to the actual dreams, which were the fruit of Christian-mystical soaring. 643
This conclusion is already well known to us and does not require detailed analysis. 644 We limit ourselves to a few additional considerations that are important in critical interests, because these pave the way for further genetic twists. For now, everything is focused on the conviction that it is Pharisaism that helps to fully understand the Christological apostolic system. According to critical observations, in it the reconciled Lord is depicted similarly to the Angels, 645 from which they guess that the dogma of pre-existence was borrowed from Jewish pneumatology. 646 But at this point the contrast is undeniable and when applied to the doctrine of spirits. Naturally, it retains all its poignancy in Christology, where the divine Redeemer supersedes everything with His immeasurable greatness. For this reason, direct rapprochement is absolutely impossible and eliminates particular parallels.
And the defenders of genetic aspirations themselves agree that the initial principles of the compared quantities are too disparate: Judaism affirmed transcendentalism and wanted to protect the deistic inviolability of the Almighty, while Christianity states His close communication with the world. 647 From this fundamental difference follow others, no less fatal for critical expectations. According to its tendencies, rabbinism should be energetically, removing the deity from the cosmos, which is deprived of creative support and seized the prerogatives of autonomy. This served as the basis for the emergence of sporadic opinions about independent primordial matter, organized by divine omnipotence into a coherent order of world harmony. 648 But such dreams were irreconcilable with the absolutism of Jehovah and never had either distribution or authority. Therefore, the only salvation was spiritual intermediaries, who were the connecting chain of diametricalities.
However, they also contributed to their natural distance and therefore were only the highest facet of human spirituality, not possessing a shadow of divinity. Otherwise, the heavenly would become akin to the earthly and disappear into its reality. And since rabbinism did not want to destroy the deity itself in its eianatic merging with cosmicity, it was necessary to expel the entire spiritual hierarchy from the heavenly spheres and include it in the category of earthly creatures. Naturally, materiality will be a property of the very nature of Angels, even if only as an etheric-light physicality. They always remain cosmically transitory and are an impenetrable mediastinum between God and people. 649 Quite the opposite is seen in Christianity. His intentions are completely the opposite and are aimed at consolidating possible continuity. It is clear that the culprit is, first of all, rewarded with divine advantages, inevitable for the implementation of ironic plans.
On this side, impartial authors consider it a “well-attested historical fact” that “in the eyes of Gamaliel’s disciple, the Carpenter of Nazareth stood infinitely above men and Angels, in a position of exceptional dignity and unique proximity to God.” 650 Contrary to Jewish pneumatological concepts, for the Apostle of tongues in the Mediator of the new covenant, the dominant moment was the moment of superiority, and our grace-filled union is motivated by the voluntary condescension of God. Therefore, the fundamental discrepancy between theological inclinations is clearly reflected in the typical depiction of the face of the divine Savior, Who is described so sublimely that there can be no question of transferring the angelic predicates of Judaism to Him. Then we find out that in the latter the school opinion about supernatural humanoid creatures was similar.
This justifies the hypothetical idea that the image of the second heavenly Adam is built according to the Jewish template. In discussing this subject we found that in Palestinian rabbinic theology there was no actual pre-existence and no confession of ideal humanity. 651 This result of our analysis is fully confirmed by later scientific works. 652 It was sometimes noted that in Judaism two Adams were recognized, but this is true only for the “first”, 653 meanwhile this does not occur until the Zoharic literature and Kabbalism. 654 Hence, naturally, the suspicion that this is not at all, of course, adversativity, which, of course, is not possible without duality. Then it is much more reasonable to think that primacy is acquired by the ancestor simply in comparison with his offspring and does not require a heavenly antipode for itself. The rabbis' references to dual creation also do not imply two subjects, for they interpret it as to whether the forefather was created immediately with carnal differentiation or whether it was produced by a special act of creating a wife.
In turn, other instructions are also indecisive. 655 They talk more about two parts of human nature with different attractions that divide people into good and evil. The distinction in Adam between the image itself and its earthly reflection seems to be of Greek origin 656 and did not necessarily lead to the duality of people, 657 since the Angel was considered the prototype of what was created. 658 Of course, the beginnings of such an interpretation were here and were later developed accordingly. Only this happened already in the post-apostolic era and does not adequately coincide with the theory of St. Pavel. The unity of the face was always and strictly maintained, and all division was limited to stating two stages in the state of primitive innocence and sinful fall. Kabbalistic documents more clearly formulate that earthly man was created through heavenly man. However, the second has too little individual strength and, with the help of ordinary rabbinic paranomasia, directly merges with Aaron. Later (in the Spanish work Neve Schalom, tract. IX, cap.
9) he was also attributed to the Messiah, but in part this was not done without the influence of Christianity and in part it was not akin to it, because the Jewish Messiahship is not associated with personality. The apostolic term is not found in Judeo-rabbinic writing and in meaning, since in it there is no such combination of the Deliverer with Adam’s humanity, which would be proclaimed pre-worldly and prototypical. 659 Therefore, it is unshakable that - alien to the Bible, 660 - the heavenly ideal man does not allow rabbinism, 661 and the concept of him could not be borrowed from here. 662
On Jewish-rabbinic soil, genetic criticism suffers a final defeat and is unable to justify its defeat and is unable to justify its interpretation of Apostolic Christology. 663 Despite all this, she is not at all inclined to abandon her pre-occupied tendencies 664 and stubbornly defends the factual truth and scientific fruitfulness of her thought, as if St. Paul, the pre-existent Christ appeared by transferring the Jewish idea of the Messiah to the Galilean prophet. 665 The only difficulty is the tactical modifications, which further emphasize the firmness of the last pillars of reconstruction. In this case, it is energetically put forward that Philo’s concept of the heavenly Adam goes back to the Palestinian midrashim 666 and the Logos of Alexandrian theosophy was formed in the Jewish elements. 667 In this direction it is even admitted that the idea of the originality of the Word was taken by Philo, the letter to the Colossians and Christian authors (Theophilus) from a lost Jewish work. 668 All this is far from indisputable and in many ways is downright doubtful.
Nevertheless, one cannot but agree that the Shekinah, Metatron, and Sephiroth belong to a homogeneous speculation 669 and testify to the living need of Judaism in such images. Philonism will be a natural Jewish product, although original in its detailed constructions and theoretical argumentation. Some continuity is being established between rabbinical scholasticism and Egyptian theosophy, and it is illogical to deny that the Apostle used this bridge and along the beaten path reached Philonov’s laboratory. 670 Thus, it is inadmissible to object to the fact that the evangelist used its reserves for his own purposes when the inescapable doctrinal needs of the faith itself inclined him to do so. Given these premises, it is quite normal for critical aspirations that in apostolic Christology rabbinic elements are combined with philonic ones, 671 from which such an unexpected conglomerate is obtained, developed in Christian dogmatics.
This remedy is so necessary for genetic reasons that it is also accepted by those who are aware of the impossibility of determining the historical relationship between the copy and the original. 672 In the absence of other methods, we are forced to assert that in his views on the Lord the Savior, St. Paul is on a common level with Philo, 673, and the teaching of the former about Christ as the heavenly Adam closely resembles the theosophical dreams of the latter. 674 This protects the Jewish guess that Christianity was a transformation of the Philonian system and owes its logology to it. 675 And among the modern ideas constitutive of the apostolic gospel - along with rabbinism - theosophical schemes are especially put forward, 676 in which they try to discover the source of the truths of the Trinity 677 and the reconciled Word. 678 Regarding two people, both doctrines are united according to their Jewish fundamental principles, 679 but their inner closeness will be much clearer when we allow St. Paul is a logical continuation and Christian adaptation of the Alexandrian original.
680 Accordingly, the Apostle of Languages allegedly “shared Philo’s contemplation of the twofold creation of man, arising from the transcendence of Platonic philosophy,” considering the pre-existent Christ to be the heavenly human prototype. 681
This critical conclusion is created on the basis of identification, but the latter is impossible without the natural affinity of both phenomena in all the most important properties, and this, in turn, is acquired by an objective, precise description of them. Therefore, the immediate task of analysis should be the presentation of the teachings themselves, and the immediate integrity of one will be a guarantee of its independence and, with analogy, provide it with primacy in comparison with others. What does Philo preach on this subject?
The fundamental support for him was the idea that everything that happens in the phenomenal rests on the embodiment of the ideal and does not arise without it. “There would be no good imitation without a good model, or perfect in the sensuous without the reflection in it of an archetypal and mental idea. Therefore, God, wanting to create this visible world, predestined the mental one, in order to create a corporeal one with the help of an incorporeal and god-like model, which, being a young imprint of the elder, embraces as many sensory genera as there were mental genera, as there were mental ones.” The Lord, having decided to “found a great city, first produced in his mind types, from which he composed (first) the mental world and (then) - according to this model - the sensory world.” 682 True in general, this judgment retains special power for people. Regarding Gen. II, 7 Philo writes: “There are two kinds of men, for there is a heavenly man, but there is also an earthly man. The heavenly, as being in the image of God, is not involved in the corruptible and entirely earthly essence; earthly is produced from scattered matter, which (Moses) called dust.
Therefore, he (Moses) says that the heavenly is not created, but minted in the image of God, but about the earthly (notices) that it is a creation, and not the product of the Artist. By a man from the earth we must mean a mind (only) introduced into the body, but not yet implanted. This mind is truly earthly and corruptible, if God had not breathed into it the power of true life; since (only) then does it happen (and not (initially) be created) into the soul - not inert and incapable of its own formation, but rational and truly living.” 683 Until then, the earthly will be simply an aggregate of material particles. Therefore, the expression “breathed in means spiritualized or revived the soulless.” 684 God himself is by nature a pure monad. For this reason, “it is not good for any man to be one, for there are two kinds of men – those who were made in the image and those who were created from the earth. It is not good for “man to be one in the image”; he strives for (this) image, since the image of God is the archetype of everything, and (any) imitation attracts what it is an imitation of, and is established in continuity with it.
Moreover, it is (not only) not good for a created being to be one, but it is also impossible, since feelings, passions, vices and countless others of the like are closely connected with this mind. For the second person (understood in the sense of the mind), the helper is, first of all, a created one (since (Moses) says: “Let us make him a helper”), and then the youth of the one whom he helps: for (God) formed the mind first, intending (then) to create a helper for him (who actually turns out to be later). But this allegorical interpretation is fair and natural, since feelings and spiritual passions are the most important assistants of the soul. 685 Here the relationship of both people is not directly noted. In other places, Philo also focuses more on their features. In his opinion, in the words of Gen. II, 7 Moses “with irresistible clarity highlighted the greatest difference between man who was now created and who formerly was in the image of God.
For the created one is already perceptible to the senses, has quality, consists of soul and body, is male or female, and is mortal by nature; and the one who is in the image is a certain idea, or genus, or seal, mentally intuited, incorporeal, neither male nor female, immortal by nature. About the sensual and individual man (Moses) says that he is organized by the most complex of earthly essence and the divine spirit: the body came into being in such a way that the Artist, taking dust, formed a human figure from it, and the soul was not at all borrowed from anything mortal, but from the Father and Lord of all, for he breathed, of course, the divine spirit sent here from that blessed and all-satisfied nature for the benefit of our race, so that the latter, although mortal on the visible side, would be immortal on the invisible. Therefore, it could be rightly said that a person borders on both death and immortal nature, receiving from each to the extent necessary and being together mortal and immortal - mortal in body, but immortal in mind.
686 The whole connection is exhausted by what is fragmented in the earthly, the heavenly is realized and individualized. The second must be in cash in advance. And God “arranges the genera before the species, just as He did in relation to man, since, having predestined in advance the generic man, in which there was a male and female gender, He finally arranges the species, or Adam.” 687 The first already contains the second. And the writer of everyday life, “having called the genus man (Gen. I, 24), distinguished the species quite well, saying that (God) created husband and wife when they were not yet individuals, since the basic properties of the species are co-present in the genus and, as in a mirror, are seen by insightful contemplation.” 688 In this dignity, the “eldest” person will be closest to the Creator and is ideally the mediating creator of earthly things. In this spirit, Philo comments on the term “east” in Zechariah. VI, 12. “This is a completely new saying, if you apply it to something composed of body and soul.
But when you understand (here) that incorporeal man, not different from the divine image, you will agree that the name of the East was given to him in the highest degree aptly. For the father of all shone forth this eldest son, whom in another place he called the firstborn, and the one born, in imitation of the ways of his father, looking at his archetypal models, formed species. 689 In this sense, “unconditionally beautiful” is also mentioned about the image, since “nothing earthly is like God so decisively as man.” However, everything concerns only the mind and does not apply to all people, among whom there are many “lawless” people, 690 which is why the heavenly man makes more sense. 691
These are all the essential features of Filonov’s theory. It is extremely lacking in detail and leaves a vague impression of confusion. The whole task is focused on finding out the origin of space intelligent creatures. For the Alexandrian theosophist they were no small mystery, rooted in theological antinomies. From a fundamental point of view, God is the cause of everything, and He is not involved and cannot be a condoner of the evil that is undeniable in our world. We will see a sharp dualism that eliminates direct connections. According to these requirements, a prototypical human model is supplied in the middle, which is alien to materiality, but ideally identical to the earthly one. However, this model gravitates exclusively towards the Almighty and does not contain data for a direct transition to the cosmic. Therefore, the image of God extends to Philo only in the mind. In turn, the latter is a secondary reflection and does not merge with its original, as a completely spiritual reflection of divine glory in human forms.
According to these motives, the pre-existence of souls is allowed, 692 gradually absorbed by corporeality and becoming real individuals. 693 The whole process is resolved by the fact that spiritual potentialities, falling away from their original source and being imbued with materiality, are necessarily realized in individual individuals. 694 The result is the following gradation: Jehovah - heavenly subject - spirits - earthly Adam, in which the penultimate are united with the Lord through the second and with him are raised to the common beginning of all existence.
Everything that has been said convinces us that Philo needed to understand the conditions for the emergence of earthly man and, from this side, reflected all the heterogeneous influences of the theosophical conglomerate. 695 Naturally, imitation here would be unthinkable without the assimilation of all theosophical premises. From this point of view, genetic desires necessarily incline towards a corresponding interpretation of the biblical story of the emergence of the first human couple. We find an attempt at this character in a writer with an apologetic mood. His efforts are, of course, honorable and pure, but in trying to save the “rationality” of biblical truth from skeptical attacks, he himself adapted to them and actually works for their benefit. In his opinion, the relief of the ancestors with leather vestments means that now they “received—as punishment (for sins)—fleshness akin to animals” 696 with a change in their previous bodily properties.
697 The previously hidden potentiality of sexual differentiation was awakened by the position of the assistant and then expressed itself in carnal corporeality, which also invades the dominant mental area, imparting to it animal qualities, when a person truly becomes the focus and abbreviation of the entire universe. 698 Called to conquer his naturalistic diametricalities and thereby consolidate his godlikeness, he succumbed to duality. 699 Then his original etheric somaticity is replaced by a carnal one, which has not existed before, 700 and the primordial one plunges into the world below animals. 701 This is the “church made with hands” mentioned by the Apostle, which burdens us with the pain of incessant groaning (2 Cor. V, 4), since it was a sinful appendage and not at all original. 702 Adam himself created it for himself, calling to life the dormant carnal desires of satanic sarcasticity 703 and equating it with animality, which will be essentially ungodly and can only indirectly be attributed to the will of God. 704 This interpretation is justified in another way.
There is no doubt that death has always been and will be an abnormal phenomenon. 705 Its burning sharpness is in no way softened by the limitation of this factor to the bodily sphere. On the contrary, the principle of our individuality is the soul, therefore any somaticity is incredible without its participation and is inherent in it by nature. It further follows that it already had in advance a special primary physicality from the “subtle weightless and intangible” elements of the earth. 706 In this sense, the forefather was equally the image of God and in the body, which is a necessary revelation and condition of human existence. Here, bodily mortality is absolutely unacceptable, and its invasion is based on the fact that a person has disturbed the carnal potencies in his soul, and they have developed into a mortal body. 707 The latter is not at all original, 708 and its reception marks the “first death” of biblical terminology. 709 In this regard, mortal humanity is far from exhausting the creative act and presupposes a preliminary in the previous heavenly Adam.
This supposedly biblical construction bears all the characteristic differences of philonic contemplation. But it is directly applied to the Apostle and makes us see in him a continuer of the traditions of the Alexandrian Jew. It is not surprising if criticism comments on the entire teaching of St. Paul in this spirit. Her own party tendencies are so happily intertwined with the dreams of a conciliatory orthodoxy that they seem quite secure. Then it is not difficult to justify them exegetically. So we have it as if the Hellenic evangelist confesses a twofold creation - the heavenly man, Christ, and the earthly one. 710 In turn, he coincides with the Messiah, Who “has always been a heavenly being, but later becomes earthly when the heavenly man Christ, created - according to Gen. I, 26 – in the image of God, after the fulfillment of times, Jesus appeared in earthly man in order to lose the messianic death.”
The Jewish heritage of Gamaliel’s pet is gradually transformed under the influence of life experience in the Damascus conversion, which illuminated the entire redemptive feat of the Savior, and reaches completeness through the involvement of the concepts of Alexandrian religious philosophy, from where “Paul’s entire messianic view grew.” In it, the sinlessness of the Messiah is guaranteed by the recognition that He was “created by a heavenly man or from heaven (1 Cor. XV, 47). As such, He is the image of God (Gen. I, 26 and cf. Cor. IV, 4), together (2 Cor. III, 17), i.e. the spirit of God in its own form of existence with a celestial body composed of light matter. In this form there is a venerable son of God in the spiritual sense (Gal. IV, 4 - 6. 2 Cor. IV, 4, etc.). Now He is Christ, the anointed son of God, a naturally pre-existing heavenly man, and only Paul speaks about pre-worldliness for the first time.” 711 Then there is a union with earthly man, which is revealed according to the accepted Jewish schemes, in which the historical Deliverer is associated with the pre-eternal Lord of the human type. 712
If we think about this interpretation, we will easily notice that in it the apostolic Christology is almost identified with Philo’s genesis of humanity. It is inevitable that one is explained from the other 713 and becomes closer to it in content. That’s why he says that “the differences in the double story of the book of Genesis about creation - heavenly and earthly Adam, as does, for example, Philo, St. Paul was forced to see in the heavenly Adam that luminous human image that was the beginning of creation - before the sun, moon and star. And Philo could not avoid this combination, which was involuntarily caused by the continuation of the heavenly man. He also gave a synthesis of the heavenly Adam with Plato’s ideal man, which he introduced into the news of the everyday writer. 714 Hence, the evangelist - contrary to the Pharisee's second David - portrays the Messiah as the second Adam, imparting to humanity the dignity of the new creation. 715 The same biblical basis is given in 1 Cor.
XV, 45 ff., which states “the double existential form of man, since God created the heavenly Adam in the pneumatic world (Gen. I, 26) and the earthly one from dust for this sensory world (Gen. II, 7). Apparently the earthly Adam appears first (although he was created later) according to the law that the coarser matter precedes the subtlest.” The Heavenly Adam is called the second most discovered in human history, 716 Pofilon's is characterized by the image of God and endowed with pneumatic corporeality in a miraculous and eternal church. 717 But, towering above all the world's contrasts of races and nationalities, he - like the Angels - is asexual, for everyone in him is neither husband nor wife, neither Jew nor Greek. “The heavenly Adam, being the prototype of the glorified, is free from all differences of sex and tribe with all other earthly distinctions, and has only the essential generic predicates of human nature.” This is ideal - a real human form, identical to Philon's heavenly man, who coincides with Plato's.
718 Then the premium Logos will occupy a primary place among the stars and is the flower of the sky, 719 - just as earthly man was the crown of creation - and as the incarnate Redeemer he qualifies as the second progenitor. 720 In the end, it turns out that what Philo established speculatively became a positive religion for Paul. 721
This categorical recognition directly notes the fundamental support for the unshakable confidence in the internal kinship and actual dependence of the systems being compared. In all critical constructions it is clearly put forward that in both there was an identical need for an ideal - heavenly prototype. But for the Alexandrian theosophist this was motivated by the consideration that otherwise the origin of earthly man would have been impossible. Given genetic obligatory nature, the Apostle inevitably had to express precisely such convictions. And we now need to decide to what extent such an expectation is justified exegetically.
There is little material available on this subject. The lack of objective data opens up convenient scope for tendentious soaring, which easily carries obedient thought into desired areas. This is an undeniable advantage of critical reconstructions, but it is associated with extremely great dangers. It’s easy to guess about them without any special reminders. If apostolic Christology were established on philosophical cosmological premises, then St. Paul, first of all, would formulate them with the utmost precision, so that his building would not be deprived of its foundation and would not be doomed to collapse. In this case, the unusual question was imbued with the dogmatic importance of the main thing and - along with the latter - acquired the right to a comprehensive theoretical explanation. In reality, this is not the case at all, from which we naturally conclude that for the evangelist there was not the slightest need for this due to the absence of the task itself, which is imposed on him by criticism.
For this reason, his fleeting and sporadic indications lose the special coloring of the genetic authors and take on a nasty meaning. It is quite undeniable and - barring the elimination of critical reinterpretations - obvious to any impartial reader.
The Apostle seeks to dispel confusion about the resurrection of the dead and for this he emphasizes that for them all is not lost with the carnal organism, which far from exhausts all forms of real human existence, for “there is a natural body, there is a spiritual body” (1 Cor. XV, 44). In the context of the entire speech, it is irresistible that what is being interpreted is not actually different corporeality, but that with its participation there are corresponding individualities. An integral subject is taken, and he is provided with a dual existence on the bodily side. It is in these interests that it is evidenced that this duality was and remains an obligatory fact. For one, it is unshakable according to the biblical word (Gen. II, 7) that “the first man Adam became a living soul” (1 Cor. XV, 45). In this capacity, the forefather possessed vitality, but only because he had a soul with vitality inseparable from it. The latter protected and limited the property of all Adamic life, which was purely mental. It is clear that with the invasion of spirituality everything would change radically.
And since it has not yet existed, we are obliged to discern in this the theological law of succession, where the spiritual comes before the spiritual, which appears later (XV, 46). And again it is true that the first man did not have this dignity, since he was from the earth and therefore his origin was conditioned by a natural connection with the producing soil. This natural cohesion is physically acquired by all descendants, which is why they are no less ringed, bearing the image of their ringed ancestor (XV, 48.49). Here the progenitor of the earthly is equated with all members of the human race until adequate fusion. This is where they usually find support for genetic connections. The transfer of the later to the earlier supposedly forces us to recognize Adam as sinful due to his earthly physicality, which will be the source of sin in all humanity. Therefore, they guess that St. Paul, could not consider the primordial being a direct creation of God and allowed something in between them (third) - without cosmic materiality. Here was the fulcrum for Philon's theory, and it is repeated in apostolic anthropology.
If so, then the second should have been accompanied by an equal result.
This conclusion, although seemingly solid, is actually achieved through exaggeration and through the substitution of the particular for the whole. The evangelist goes from the forefather to his heirs in the human family, and not vice versa. Consequently, here natural definitions of Adam are attributed to the successors, but this in no way says that after him there were no additions that were not originally there. This is more rationally confirmed by the fact that everything is concentrated on the moment of origin without any mention of further existence, as if it strictly responded to its beginning and developed it without the slightest deviation. Therefore, for the progenitor, both rise and fall are quite conceivable while maintaining the fundamental typical difference. The Apostle is silent on this point, and we must agree that for him it is not yet reduced to the earthly thing, which it was by virtue of creation from the earth. By analogy with all other people, it is rational - a bodily organism, functioning by the soulfulness of a living individual. But even this did not end all prospects for him.
It will rather be true that here was only the initial stage of the desired progression. The emphasis on the envisaged replacement of the spiritual with the spiritual clearly expresses that the second was not adversative to the first, which could be transformed and spiritualized. 722 And since this ideal was not achieved in human history, it follows that normal growth was delayed and suppressed by a fatal catastrophe, which introduced irreparable disharmony into the world. This necessarily implies a paradise crime that violated primitive innocence.
With such convictions, St. Paul did not need philonic techniques to weaken cosmological antimonies, because they do not exist. the intermediate spiritually-celestial person is completely superfluous for him and is even completely excluded, for the whole process begins with earthly and spirituality serves for him simply as a goal of aspiration. It goes without saying that Adam’s education will not be illuminated theosophically, when it rests on the single will of God, autocratically and omnipotently invading with its influence. All avenues are closed to criticism, and it makes a hopeless attempt to impose on the Hellenic evangelist the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls. 723 These interests attract his saying: I sometimes live outside the law; But the commandment that came was made sin unworthy (Rom.VII, 9). Relating these words to man in general, one finds in them a hint of two periods of life - in the forms of extracosmic and carnal. – Duality, of course, is undeniable, but it is not associated with the duality of the spheres of human existence itself.
724 On the contrary, the old “I” appears everywhere, and all originality consists in the addition of a new factor. In turn, this does not reward the personality with unexpected qualities that would require the inherent element of carnal somaticity, which burdens and damages spiritual integrity. It not only awakens and causes hidden sin, which acquires the destructive acuteness of blinding trampling. Sinfulness will have to be associated with pre-worldliness itself, and this reinforces the materialistic interpretation of spirituality, accepted in critical circles as an axiom of impartial historical and genetic research. 725 – This triumph is purely tinsel and is achieved at the expense of one’s own defeat. With it, we will first of all receive that it is not conditioned by fleshiness and is inseparable from spirituality itself.
But this fatally breaks all Philonian principles, and for further application all Philonian principles, and for their further application to the apostolic gospel, there will be no support, since the transition of the heavenly into the earthly would not require the dust of the earth, being a natural act of spiritual materialization. Meanwhile, St. Paul decisively declares the emergence of Adam from the earth and thereby eliminates any conjecture about an early morality of the pneumatic type. And we read that “lawlessness” refers to the area delimited by the entry of the commandment, and - therefore - falls on the earthly moment of human history, interrupted by sinful revival. 726 There is no place for celestial anthropological preliminaries. The whole event rests on the fact that he who was taken from the earth became a living soul and, of course, by giving him the corresponding energy.
This means that earthly Adam does not presuppose his ideal - human precedent and was caused directly by creative omnipotence. In this case, he would needlessly complicate a simple phenomenon by bursting in without any reason or reason. It is hardly likely that St. Paul allowed the invention of deliberate obstacles that confused all views into chaotic confusion. From this side, criticism condemns itself in advance to sterility, since all its resources are borrowed from a few expressions that are commented on contrary to the true meaning. In contrast to the first man, the Apostle mentions that “the last Adam is a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. XV, 45). But there is a biblical justification for this, why it is allowed for this in Philo’s understanding of Gen. I, 26. 727 However, as if this interpretation was not entirely suitable for the evangelist, who had before him the historical Christ of a later era - and he tries to protect his exegetical modification, which is inevitable for factual reasons.
For this purpose, it is used (in XV, 46) so sharp that it would be deprived of logical law if it did not serve to reveal the reason why the worldly - the ideal turns out to be secondary. Therefore, it is emphasized with particular intensity that this is the law of the implementation of the supreme plans. In this system, the supermundane Logos could not be primordial, and - to put an end to all sorts of perplexities - it is added to the everyday writer’s abstract about the empirically “first” that it is only a person. 728 Thus, an internal affinity with Philo’s theosophems is preserved in the conviction that for the Apostle of the divine the Deliverer was the embodiment of the ideal human type of the Alexandrian mystic.
It cannot be disputed that the interpretation is very skillful and successfully saves the prerequisites for genetic similarities. However, it is no less clear that all this is selected and cleverly combined to protect the pre-established theory by eliminating the unpleasant instances of the apostolic text. From here we are convinced that the message does not speak in the spirit of newfangled hypotheses and contains something completely different. The whole question is whether projected violence is necessary for it - and we answer with an apostolic “no”. The whole task is for St. Paul was in the argumentation of the differences in bodily organisms, not embraced by the frailty of the flesh and ensuring the bodily revival of the dead through the transformation of the earthly into the heavenly. Naturally, both of them must really exist in order for actual transformation to be possible. Here, irresistible facts were required, which are stated with all firmness. Therefore, speech about the Lord will only be evidence of reality 729 and will not require biblical and exegetical support. 730 Conjectures regarding its connection with Genesis.
I, 26, in Filonov’s coverage, are absolutely idle 731 and do not evoke the commented phrase. And if in the first half of it there is a biblical quotation, then there were satisfactory reasons for this in the remoteness of the phenomenon itself. It has long passed and is inaccessible to human gaze, and then an authoritative guarantor was required for its authenticity. For the second part this was unnecessary, because it dealt with the individuality known and undeniable in the historical Christ. 732 The extraordinary advantages of this antipode were also understandable without any exegetical guarantees, since it was stated and proven unshakably that the Redeemer was resurrected and is life-giving for all who perished in Adam (1 Cor. XV, 20-22). 733 In this sense, the use of the term “man” does not contain the shades of emphasis assigned to it and even unites the forefather with Christ, Who is directly named (XV, 47). This rather expresses that the second will reveal itself in relation to the first or in its human existence of a redemptive feat.
Again it turns out that the Apostle notes a bare historical fact. To do this, there was no need at all to resort to other people’s words - and we are again inclined to the opinion that the analyzed saying was not borrowed from anywhere and was only externally built according to the biblical Old Testament structure. 734 Filonov's cosmological cohesions crumble into dust and therefore in the course of further apostolic reasoning. 735 Naturally, there is no imposed prejudice in it. Alla the Evangelist limits the said primacy to the antithetical. According to his chronological tradition, it was easy to think about internal superiority, but this is wrong, as we see because “not first the spiritual, but the spiritual, then (already) the spiritual.” Such is the movement of historical progress that this gradation is strictly maintained in it. However, its truth is verified only by factual data and in itself is not tangible for everyone. It was necessary to start from the established fact so as not to raise new questions. St.
Pavel takes the qualitative element from the previous one, stating that here there was first the mental and then the pneumatic. The formula under consideration will be a simple extraction from the previous one and has equal inviolability, drawing all its strength from that one. For this reason, it is unable to justify its own foundation and does not serve to clarify it. In this sense, contrast cannot capture the most equal moments. And there it was expressed that the body, buried by the spiritual, grows spiritual. 736 Factual probability rests on this continuity and, without it, gives rise to the fierce objections of skepticism. But this is vain suspiciousness, devoid of foundation, since historically there is no doubt that the spiritual followed the spiritual. This means that for the Apostle, of course, the event of our future revival, 737 and his amendment has no relation to the past in peaceful human existence. 738 It is clear that the philonic echoes of theosophical cosmology are not heard in it. Everything focuses on factual observations from the circle of earthly phenomena and prepares for their completion.
Further speech is conducted in this tone, which serves as an indestructible stronghold for criticism. It is believed that, although not identical with the first Adam, Christ was still a man. The only difference is that the body of our forefather was from the earth, while with the Lord it is from heaven, which is why He Himself is heavenly. This meaning characterizes a bodily property, but also marks the location when the Savior will be a human image in the heavenly spheres with a special body. Of course, the latter becomes available for people to assimilate only after the resurrection of Christ: - with all this (in Art. 45 - m) it necessarily indicates not a transition from one form to another, but an origin, which is determined by its parallelism (Art. 47). This result is also supported by the fact that the life-giving spirit originally belonged to the second Adam, who will always be such in his pre-worldly existence. The Eternal Logos was the ideal human type before his incarnation.
739 Now “it is immediately striking how closely this Pauline idea of Christ comes into contact with Philo’s Platonic idea of the heavenly man, who, being the image of God, is the prototype and representative (totality) of humanity, where he is ideally reflected in sensual-carnal differentiations.” 740 Under such conditions, even more independent ones recognize the similarity to Philon’s concepts in the passage under discussion, 741 agreeing that it literally gives theosophical cosmology and reveals the Hellenistic theory about Christ. 742
In this argument, everything is based on two expressions: that the Lord was from heaven and heavenly. To understand them accurately, it is necessary to reproduce the entire connection of the apostolic context. It had previously been revealed that psychological man historically preceded pneumatic man, who succeeded him after. This gradualism revealed a fundamental law, and this would have been impossible without a sufficient reason. It needed to be depicted with all clarity. Therefore St. Paul does not remove himself from the earthly environment and examines former individuals from the inside or according to the dominant elements that determine their fate. It was said about one that it was a living soul that did not yet possess spirituality, which was not even immediately conceivable in it. It is inevitable that there were natural obstacles to this in nature itself. It is then specifically mentioned. But here there is no doubt that the “first man from the earth” and in it has a source of typicality that distinguishes him. Naturally, this is identical to its manufacturer.
Consequently, the forefather, as earthly, was also earthly, striving to decompose into dust. Here all forces are concentrated on suppressing this gravity and are locked in the fight against it. All energy is delineated by the boundaries of the personality itself, and success will be in protecting it from earthly absorption. It is clear from this that Adam was only a living soul and had the means to preserve only his existence, since all reserves were directed to him and were exhausted in him. 743 Psychicity is motivated in Adam by his earthly emergence and will actually be later. These properties are also expected in the “second person” in a corresponding modification. But if he were not similar to the first, then the comparison that is required precisely by their real similarity would be in vain. Therefore, what is not completely indisputable textually is sometimes crossed out, 744 although this is not convincing for everyone. 745 However, even with him there is no doubt that we are talking about the historical Christ in the incarnate God-man. In this form He draws closer to Adam.
However, underneath this similar appearance lies a deep disparity, for this man is from heaven and therefore Lord. In this case, of course, all identity disappears. But to do this, you must first accept that this is objectively true. Meanwhile, the Apostle does not have the faintest hints to justify such an important thesis, and we must think that all this is contained in the opposition itself. In the atypical subject, it is reliable according to the biblical message, which also testifies to the inextricable connection of this predicate with mental vitality. In it, the pneumatic is created on the earthly, and their indissolubility allows one to conclude from the preceding to the subsequent and vice versa. Then, in the antipode, the presence of one moment will be an actual indicator of another. And in this regard it was noted that the “last Adam” became a life-giving spirit. This quality far exceeds simple liveliness. The most important thing about it is that the spirit creates life itself, which will be essential for it.
There is an unnecessarily intense effort to ensure it, because an earthly attraction to dust is not innate to it. It is clear that this face is not from the diametrical sky.
As a result, it arises with inevitability and will be inapplicable. This means that this definition is parallel and in this sense indicates the origin. It is difficult to fight such a conclusion, and we accept it without any reservations. But this is not the main interest of this formula. In contrast to the other - and it determines its basis for the well-known consequences, which consist in the fact that the “second man” was a life-giving spirit. It is clear that this quality will be later and derivative in comparison with its precedent, which marks not the identity of the “second Adam” with the earthly, but its distinctive property - life-giving according to heavenly spirituality. This eliminates all critical misinterpretations and clears the way for true understanding. They are trying to confuse him with a reference that has equal dignity for both Adams and corresponds to the beginning of their existence. From here it is concluded that Christ was no less created 746 and was essentially imprinted with humanity already in his pre-mundaneity.
747 Chronologically, causal continuity does not allow for any interpretation and clearly emphasizes that the event that concerns us was later and relates to what actually existed. Here a new stage is described in life itself, which will be independent of its own manifestation and is only revealed in it on one side. 748 Then we must not forget that we are talking about the “last Adam.” He became a life-giving spirit and, of course, only when he acquired this advantage in relation to the human race, becoming the head of his people, different from the natural descendants of our forefather. Then it turns out that the Apostle is not talking about personality itself, but about its animating influence in humanity. 749 Now we need to find the nearest point for this identity. For this it is necessary that the previous order be destroyed with the predominance of the higher, displacing the carnal order with its superiority. Life-giving pneumaticity presupposes a process of real overcoming, culminating in absolute victory.
In turn, it is not intended for the hero himself and ensures an invariable continuation in joint posterity. Therefore, it cannot be associated with the act of incarnation in the conviction that Christ was life-giving for the perceived carnal corporeality. 750 This is allowed for the sake of conformity with the earthly Adam, who at his origin was a living soul, which is why it is also assimilated to the heavenly one. However, comparison extends to actions, and their incommensurability rather indicates that the subjects being compared were disparate from the beginning. If so, then the named difference expresses that the “second man” did not suffer at all from the fleshly shortcomings of the first and was not subject to the constraining restrictions of earthliness. This forces one to think that the conditions of Christ’s incarnation were different in all its functions and, in their unusualness, turn out to be miraculous. St. Paul fully confirms the Gospel narratives of supernatural conception and sanctiones the apostolic tradition, 751 sharing it with all the determination of unshakable faith.
This ensured for him the achievement of pneumaticity, which again would be within the framework of the human history of the Redeemer. From this point of view, it is inevitable that we picture the resurrection of Christ, which gave the Savior the actual power of all rational creatures. 752 Personally, the Lord has always been an autonomous spirit, not subject to the frailty of earth, but from now on He is life-giving for others and in others. The power of His single individuality extends to all whom it embraces, and is accompanied here by identical results. 753 Her unheard-of originality would have been unthinkable without sufficient support in the very nature of the Deliverer. It is obvious that there were necessary reasons for this in the origin of the “second man”, from where Christ brought all the reserves of pneumaticity and through it achieved universal life-giving. These terms delineate a special element that raises its owner above the level of other people and naturally distinguishes him from the earthly forefather, i.e. depicting him as neither earthly nor corporeal.
For this reason, in this element it is impossible to see the material of a special somaticity, the “new Adam,” since this embraces only a part and, moreover, alien to universal humanity. 754 The addition (in Art. 47) would be inappropriate due to its inconsistency with the entire amount in the whole under discussion and - in the absence of textual guarantors - is directly eliminated, 755 although it would not be false and only anticipates the ideal course of the apostolic argument. 756 On the contrary, a guess about a substance delays its logical flow and returns it to the previous one, because everything that was included in the content of the type under consideration was previously attested. All hypotheses on this subject will be deprived of exegetical support and will be dreams of genetic bias. 757 However, it is not entirely suitable for philonic rapprochements, since the Alexandrian theosophist had it, 758 although not unconditionally. All these questions do not affect the evangelist, and he simply finds out to us on what the analyzed dignity rests.
On this score, it is said that its roots are in heaven, where all the means for overcoming carnal inertia and transforming it into spirituality are found. But neumaticity was the property of earthly feats. And since it is precisely this that is motivated by causation, we get that this characterizes Christ incarnate on the basis of His life-giving nature. In this sphere, the factor put forward works continuously and then blossoms in all the splendor of spiritual vitality. Consequently, it acts from the very beginning of the described existence and inseparably accompanies it at all stages of historical development, as a vital element. Therefore, the “heavenliness” of the Son of God embraces in the God-man the entire earthly field of the Redeemer, without any distinctions, and here it always serves as the creative foundation of all factual discoveries.
Again we have that the Apostle outlines the entire personality of the Lord in His divine-human superiority over others due to the property of heavenly origin. 759 It is easy to see that the latter is most important for its influence, accompanied by the exaltation of the “second Adam” and revealing the exceptional mystery of his greatness. From this side, the source will be a real dignity of nature and certifies that Christ was born on earth as a messianic king 760 with all the makings of further success. 761 The happy ending was already predetermined during the incarnation, 762 but it did not come immediately and required preliminary preparation in gradually ensuring the saving goal. In this sense, the opinion that prophecy predicts (solely or primarily) the descent from heaven during the “parousia”, when the Son of God will come in a glorified body to bring all those born to the Father through a corresponding transformation of their somatic structure, is completely erroneous.
763 There is not the slightest hint of this yet, because everything is focused on the “second Adam” without mention of His direct active role among people. 764 Before this, it was necessary for Him Himself to acquire into actual property everything that was rooted in the special conditions of entry into this world. This happened in the resurrection, 765 in which the spirit again produced the interrupted life 766 and turned out to be truly life-giving. 767 But the immediate point of application was the suffered and buried flesh, which henceforth lost its natural shyness and thereby raised its natural shyness and thereby raised Zrist to an incomparable height. From this it follows that it was precisely through physicality that the Lord was hitherto in everything similar to mortals. For these reasons, we must recognize full humanity in natural (hypostatic) unity with the borrowed, and because the selection of the “new Adam” from all people is impossible without complete homogeneity and assimilates Him to its own merit.
For all that, others did not have such privileges due to carnal inertia, which did not give in to the too weak pressure of human pneumaticity, which did not extend beyond the maintenance of individual originality, lost its intensity with each step forward and then was exhausted to the point of inertia in carnal collapse. With a life-giving spirit, all this disappears and is replaced by a diametrical one. For this, it is absolutely necessary that earthly frailty loses its gravitation of earth and, of course, through separation from its natural soil into dust. For this purpose heavenly means were added. The guarantee of dominance over created cosmos was rooted in them, and they practically fulfilled their mission flawlessly. It is clear that the unsuitable has submitted to them in an essential way and has been transformed into an adequate coincidence.
As a result, we get that the one who was from heaven, by his independence from purely human qualities, becomes heavenly by humanity itself and eludes cosmic control. In this way, the “second man” moves to the last stage of the whole process, and its original result is expressed entirely by spirituality in the absence of any obstacles, and they were in the flesh, which is why the observed effect primarily extends to it. According to this connection, it is correct if this epithet refers to the “spiritual body” of Christ. Only we must not forget that the latter grows through the spiritualization of the present and therefore was not primordial, as would be the case if we interpret it as if this at once outlines for us the origin and nature 768 according to the material of humanity, and not according to the merit of unusual life-giving. The only thing that is true is that now nature turns out to be identical to its origin and - along with it - is heavenly. This is no small difference.
It is indisputable that the Lord has always been the master of His flesh, but nevertheless it was the moment of His humiliation, instinctively reflected by its weakness and, before suffering, caused a mortal struggle in the moral feat of Gethsemane triumph. All examples of Christ's power over the cosmos were acts of divine omnipotence and were evoked by its special use for the saving education of the people and for the strengthening of disciples. With pneumaticity, all this is already a natural property of the entire divine-human organism. In this form, such an advantage is based on the success achieved, attracting others to it. 769 Here we see the application of what was extracted in the further expansion of activity. The resurrection led directly to this, being a necessary preliminary. Consequently, the Lord is conceived not exclusively risen, 770 but with completion in the exalted 771 and seated at the right hand of the Father. 772 Having reached the heavenly abodes, He now opens to all people access to the same ascent with the assured ability to transform them spiritually.
In this dignity, Christ is actually the ancestor of the endless brethren and is called the “second Adam,” 773 since he supplanted the old one in his unjustified desire to acquire sonship with God. 774 Therefore - in parallel to earthly - the Heavenly One creates heavenly ones similar to Himself - and it is clear that they will perceive His image when they are stripped of their mortal church (1 Cor. XV, 48 - 49). But in us, the ancestral inheritance is not naturally suppressed by the heavenly elements, being limited to the participation of faith in the benefits of the Lord, and therefore will be completely destroyed with His help in raising the dead and changing the living.
This completes the entire redemptive work, and the Apostle interrupts his speech about the “second Adam.” Together with him, we return to our exegetical observations to summarize them in the special interests of assessing genetic interpretations. A few words from St. Paul on this subject, however, each of his sounds is imbued with deep content, and contributes to the relief shading of the contrast between the ancient and modern forefathers. The later eliminates the earlier by its superiority in the general direction of producing related offspring. In this regard, Christ had every opportunity, because He Himself became a “life-giving spirit,” capable of creating life, which is in His personal power and therefore freely transmitted to others. For this, a special foundation was necessary, which allowed the Lord to rise above the rest of humanity and immediately put Him above the ordinary level. For this reason, it is necessary to think that - according to its source - the origin of the Savior was different, giving Him special prerogatives.
The comparative nature of this construction irresistibly convinces us that we are talking about similar quantities, with the definition of mutual gradations between them. Then it is indisputable that human existence is being considered. For him, it will be said that the roots of everything unusual and superhuman in the individuality of the “second man” are hidden in heaven, which is why both his appearance in the world and all activities in it were motivated by celestial factors. In this case, spiritual life-giving will be their exact detection and is actually revealed by the creation of disruptive vitality. It is clear that here the triumph of the real trampling of death and, of course, the resurrection of Christ is celebrated. Here the godly force achieves activity identical to itself in perfect conformity with its natural principles. The result of all development coincides with its outcome and through this is united with it according to a common primary source. 775 This means that Christ in His spiritualized humanity returns to His original homeland in heaven.
So: birth, resurrection and ascension - these are all the moments that are covered by the Apostle in the analyzed passage. There is no question of pre-existence, 776 if one understands humanity. The gaze of St. Paul closes the period after the incarnation and outlines its extreme importance in the destinies of human history. In it, the Redeemer abolishes the abnormalities of the carnal system, correcting the prevailing shortcomings through rewarding with inexhaustible strength and leading everything to the true path of God-likeness. He is both the restorer and reorganizer of the human race and therefore displaces the earthly forefather forever. However, they are far from covering each other. The first Adam was only a “living soul” and possessed only personal strength, which invariably needed support, protection and approval. All tension tended towards the acquisition of personal identity and was limited to its own sphere.
Therefore, even with the best success, our earthly ancestor provided only for himself and did not have the surplus to reward each of his successors with his prerogatives, who required the previous feat, even easier in the sense of repetition and in the nature of imitation. On the contrary, the richness of Christ's vitality is absolutely immense and is perceived by everyone in all its divine autonomy. Here the birth itself into Christ is accompanied by a real endowment, and not by the mere potentiality of a convenient fulfillment of an eternal task. The service of the Lord was not a simple elimination of the harmfulness of the paradise Fall and is not resolved by the bare restoration of primitive innocence, for the latter is now a natural property in its highest form and extends to everyone at their very grace-filled emergence. But despite the difficulties in universal sinfulness, the work of Christ immeasurably surpasses the ancestral integrity both quantitatively and qualitatively.
777 Nevertheless, his immediate goal was the abolition of cosmic anomalies, so that the desired harmony of God’s creative will would then be established in people. This is delivered by the “second Adam” according to the method depicted by the evangelist in the Corinthian Epistle.
It is irresistible that this term expresses the soteriological element of the Lord’s earthly life in the deliverance and blessing of humanity. 778 Further it directly follows that all support for him had to lie in the genuine facts of this category, since it is they who are understood. In these interests, only unmistakable awareness of all the details of the commented event was necessary. Naturally, any external assistance will certainly be unnecessary if the whole issue is resolved without them with indisputable satisfaction. We consider it unshakable that this thesis does not require deliberate argumentation. All sacred writers categorically preach about our redemption through Christ and in Christ, which is why the content of the apostolic title in question is certified by the entire New Testament 779 and - in its truth - will be an echo of the self-testimony of the Lord. For these reasons, it is not without right that the synoptic name “Son of Man” is brought here. For all its mystery, there are enough undoubted points in it.
First of all, according to the biblical use of similar combinations, it turns out that in our example, perfect humanity is established, which is indisputable for all people by the descent of a son from his father. However, in Christ it was distinguished by individual independence from ordinary constraints and, obviously, was associated with special energy. 780 Not subject to cosmic restrictions, this force will be extra-mundane 781 and therefore leads its bearer to where he was before (John VI, 42). It is inevitable that it is followed by full humanity, which was essential in the complete personality. And this is not an individual prerogative confined to a single person. On the contrary, with his ascension on the cross, the “Son of Man” attracts everyone to Himself to participate in His benefits (John XII, 32.III, 13 – 17). Now we get that the indicated name depicts the return of all human nature to God through spiritual transformation in the incarnate Savior of the whole world.
It is hardly necessary to add that this idea is assimilated with impeccable precision in the apostolic teaching and is preserved in all its original integrity. 782 The whole difference is only in the relief of the shades. In them, the evangelist more sharply highlights the moment of victorious crowning in acquired spirituality, coloring humanity itself at all stages of historical existence. 783 But this is natural given the completeness of the entire process, in which the final result was primarily important, because it was not on the preparatory process, but on it, that both the healing and the revival of people were built. 784 It is equally natural that the Savior spoke gloomily about His future glory. With all this, both proclaim with all firmness that the incarnate Son of God renewed humanity in Himself through the familiarization of everyone with His life-giving spirituality. After this, the consent of St. Paul with Christ will be a scientific axiom.
785 It is not surprising that such a conclusion is accepted even by those authors who allow dogmatic differentiations in the Christological views of the New Testament and church writers. But since the Apostle of Languages reproduces the self-designation of Christ 786 and justifies it with the most redemptive feat, then his doctrine turns out to be an objective reflection of the actual fact in all reality. 787 Here the didactic structure is only a means to a convinced perception of the fruits of the Calvary sacrifice. And all the messengers of the Crucified One strove for this, and for all, only the historical incident was equally important. In this sense, it is more legitimate to think that the entire New Testament and each of its books are based on the redemptive service, in it they are united objectively and therefore are mutually solidary. 788 Then the faith of the Hellenic evangelist in the Lord the Savior will be identical with all other Christians.
789 In this capacity, it is in every possible way independent of private confessors and could draw its material from the indisputable tradition, which should be considered the true source of Pavlov’s referent about the “second Adam.” 790
Thus, our exegetical observations are guaranteed definitively also from the side of genetic requirements. It is clear that the addition of external influences is accompanied by the confusion of a perverted interpretation of the apostolic words. Criticism did not escape its fate in the obvious artificiality of imposing tendentious fabrications on the commented text. She finds in him the idea of a heavenly man. This is logically natural and apodictic as stated by Philo. 791 To weaken this revealing contradiction, it is usually suggested that such a violation was allowed for the sake of chronological continuity in cosmic existence, where the prototypical person was later. 792 With this assumption, we find that the evangelist describes the actual sequence in the course of earthly history and is determined by its data. In this regard, he steadfastly adheres to the chosen tone, and intensifies it to extreme tension. Therefore, we have not the slightest reason to transgress the limited boundaries into the sphere of miraculous speculation.
And this conclusion is caused by all the features of the rapprochement. In it, two persons are compared according to the dignity of ancestors in human generations. Each of them is taken on their own “academic” role. Naturally, their location is indicated according to this scale of real detection. In this regard, our forefather, by his sin, prepared a corresponding correction and was a harbinger of the coming Savior. Hence it is said about him (Rom. V, 14) that this is an image of the future. It is remarkable that it is interpreted specifically about the significance of both subjects in the creation of offspring. 793 In this case, in this area, similar anticipation is not permissible, since the change of continuation dominates in it. 794 Here the “Heavenly” takes the place of the earthly in the previous aspiration and is “second” not so much chronologically as in fulfilling all the obligations of the first, as a real double of the ideal destiny. In this way, the intended human perfection reaches its highest imprinting 795 and therefore does not need further improvements.
Then repetitions are only possible by coincidence and in imitation of the result, and not in solving a long-established problem. The “second” will necessarily be the “last” in the matter of fulfilling the “Adamic” calling and in this field does not allow either additions or reforms, for it is desirable only to preserve what has been obtained in the continuous blessing of the members of the new creation. 796 Apostolic terminology acquires reasonable energy only in the earthly ministry of Christ and is not suitable for the pre-eternal period. 797 Otherwise, to see that even then the Lord was the firstborn for His brothers, and this contradicts the clear testimony of the evangelist about the moment after the Incarnation. In addition to the fact that earthly man was a secondary example of the realization of the human type by reproducing the heavenly one, which would then be both the first (pre-worldly) and the third (phenomenal - in our cosmos).
His humanity belongs entirely to earthly history and does not extend beyond it. And since being itself does not begin in it, it is irresistible that it was not previously human. Criticism is deprived of all support for tendentious reconstructions on a theosophical plan, 798 imbued with a completely different spirit. 799 Her perseverance is in no way rewarded by her success in securing Philo’s predicates to Christ. Among them, the most important was the one that is the root of all human gradations and contained them potentially without fragmentation into specific shades of male or female properties. 800 He was not bisexual (androgynous), but asexual. 801 According to the hypothesis of mechanical copying, it turns out that in the premium phase the Redeemer was for St. Paul as a generic subject with generic content of realistic individualities. 802 This strange idea is justified by reference 803 to the apostolic formula that in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female (Gal. III, 28). Externally, the phrase is similar to Filonov’s, but its internal disparity of irreconcilable opposition is even sharper.
804 We are informed that the named isolations do not exist, and, however, they have always remained in people of all times and nationalities. The genetic interpretation states an absurd absurdity, hardly plausible for a sane writer. Naturally, we do not find it when we carefully read the message. In it, negation does not concern actual presence, which is tangible for everyone and irreducible for everyone. For this reason, we can talk about its influence, which does not exist outside the natural dimensions of known energy. Thus, the evangelist places a strict limit on human gradations with the abolition of their intrusion into someone else’s environment. All reasoning is conducted in this tone. It examines the ways in which man can achieve divinely filial righteousness. It is affirmed by the Son of God and, according to His human nature, is accessible to all earthly beings through attachment to the all-powerful possessor. This is achieved by faith, which leads to the life-giving source of the truth of Christ and in it confirms all the needs of the thirsting soul.
Christian blessings are revealed in the world without human participation and are received by everyone without regard to cosmic classifications and individual isolations. Their existence is not destroyed directly, but only deprived of their inappropriate role. Christianity does not destroy national-political, economic, racial, sexual and family orders, but establishes itself above and beyond them and gradually transforms it in its spirit. Socialist dreams, sometimes falsely colored with Christian coloring, do not have the slightest support in the New Testament, because it preaches about the kingdom of salvation according to the inner man in his independence from the flesh. Likewise, the Apostle of Languages speaks only about grace-filled rebirth, where everything is God’s and is drawn through the assimilation of divine power in the Lord the Redeemer. In this act, human differences are ineffective and are swept aside as worthless. This means that all attention is focused on the conditions for creating special privileges of Christian adoption, why St.
Paul gives a comparative assessment, elucidating the soteriological dignity of the listed categories. 805 In this application they are decidedly useless and, of course, because they are not capable of such a mission. It follows that the evangelist defines the named headings as justifying means and from this side reduces them to “no,” confessing the entire reality of the noted facts in the cosmic order. At the normal completion of the entire process, it is necessary to expect that the analyzed shades will not even declare their existence, although this is associated with the possibility of the opposite and should not be confined to the glorified state on purely logical grounds. We see now that the Apostle does not preach sexual anonymity and motivates non-involvement itself as an instrument of weakness in the emergence of Christian renewal. Concluding from the members to the Head, we get that Christ in His feat was not determined by the energies of human nature, which is thereby categorically attributed to Him with the entire sum of natural functions.
But the Lord invariably defeated them, and this requires higher elements that are not subject to the control of universal humanity. For these reasons, behind the outer shell of the “Son of Man” He will have his own element, alien to everything cosmic in being and in his personal expression. Thus we are convinced that, in terms of individual forms, the pre-world period did not entirely coincide with the earthly period and does not contain the makings of perceived humanity. It goes without saying that then guesses about the peace of sexual divisions are also inappropriate, since these ideas are borrowed from the cosmic circle and are essentially contrary to the spiritual divinity of the “Heavenly”. In this indelible contrast to Philo, as a generic, 806 already carries within itself the rudiments of sexual differentiation of the generic type in particular varieties. 807
Now the last analogy between the apostolic gospel and Alexandrian theosophy disappears, and it is enough for us to summarize the cardinal results of the detailed analysis. St. Paul mentions two people because they belong to the earthly realm. Therefore, verbal similarity is far from material identity; 808 and monosounding words have completely different meanings. 809 Likewise, the foundation will be different - in the saving service of redemptive deliverance and grace-filled restoration. It is clear that in these interests only accurate historical information was dear, illuminating the true fact in its true outlines, and all this was certified by the testimony of nearby spectators and gleaned from their reports. The only source of apostolic teaching will be authoritative tradition. Biblical justifications are unnecessary with it, since they did not give the desired event, and genetic authors trumpet in vain, as if the Apostle relied on Philon’s interpretations of the dual story of Moses about the origin of people on earth 810 and from here derived his entire Christology.
811 This was not necessary to depict the historical personality of the Savior. Therefore, the desire of commentators to reduce the apostolic words about the “second Adam” to the lost Greek version, which was subjected to artificial exegetical operations, similar to Kabbalistic ones, is vain. 812 Beyond these exceptions, there will not be the faintest hints in the apostolic text for the idea of a twofold creation of man, 814 and the similarity on this point turns out to be all the more illusory the more zealously it is defended. 815 In this way, all incentives and materials for distinguishing in humanity itself the pre-worldly and earthly moments are eliminated, as long as we are talking about only two historical subjects. This means that the idea of a heavenly man is not contained in the evangelist 816 and is imposed on him through a tendentious reinterpretation. 817 Alien to everything Holy. Scripture, 818 - it was not confessed by the Apostle of Tongues 819 and was even denied by him with dogmatic inexorability.
820 Therefore, scientists who sympathize with genetic aspirations agree, 821 that philonic convergences introduce new elements into the apostolic system that are not contained in it, 822 and their presence is considered unsubstantiated 823 due to a significant difference. 824
It goes without saying that critical hypotheses will be subjective fantasies, 825 which are not suitable for the subject under study and, by their sterility, rather convince of the independence of the great preacher of the grace of salvation. 826 But this resolves only part of the question. We found that in the passage analyzed, Christ is characterized by His correspondence and adversativity to the earthly forefather or in the redemptive dignity of the historical Redeemer. The Lord became such because of the superiority of His nature, which triumphs in the most cosmic constraints and has a heavenly source. This directly expresses that His existence does not begin with the incarnation, but preceded the latter. 827 It is still indisputable about this period that life at that time was not purely human. Due to its negativity, such a definition does not provide us with either the concept of approximateness or its properties and requires further research. For criticism, space is again freed to continue genetic reconstructions according to the usual template.
And she carries out this task with sufficient logical steadfastness and with considerable factual justification. If the Hellenic evangelist's Christology is not limited to anthropological predicates, then Philo was not limited to them and developed the idea of Logos with special love. This concept, apparently, is closely related to the apostolic views and is applied to them for this simple reason that it was associated with dreams. True, the Logos is not the same as the “heavenly man,” and the second is created first. 828 Nevertheless, in theosophical speculation they are so intertwined with each other that 829 the passage from one to the other sometimes resembles a coincidence. Here is the characteristic reasoning of the Alexandrian commentator. He writes: “If no one is worthy to be called the son of God, then let (everyone) try to decorate through imitation His firstborn word, which, being the oldest of the Angels, i.e. Archangel, with many names, for he is called both the beginning, and the name of God, and the Logos, and man in the image, and the beholder or Israel.
Therefore, a little higher, we praised the virtues of those who say: we are all the sons of one man (Gen. XLII, 11), since even if we did not have the right to be considered children of God, we were nevertheless such for His formless image in the most holy Logos, because the oldest Logos is the image of God. 830
For us, the exact relationship of both phylonic types is not at all interesting. What is important is simply the fact itself, which is of particular importance for critical purposes and provides abundant food for achieving them. And when we refer to the insufficiency of heavenly humanity for all the richness of the apostolic doctrine, we are answered by attracting auxiliary aids in Philonian logology for understanding the person and work of the “eternal” Lord. 831 Naturally, all the places where Christ is depicted (2 Cor. IV. 4) in His pre-worldly birthright (Col. I. 15) are dated here. But the latter is equal to pre-existence, which is inevitably subject to the influence of the Alexandrian doctrine of the Logos in 2 Cor. VIII, 9, which contains in nuce all the data for Philip. II, 6 ff., developing a purely Philonov idea. 832 Especially clear traces of philonism are seen in the epistles to the Hebrews and Colossians. 833 Both of these documents are considered monuments to the Hellenization of “Paulenism” through the assimilation of Philon’s religious philosophy.
From it the entire characteristic of the “image of God” is borrowed, because it reflects the “invisible” God, and this is a metaphysical postulate of philonism, according to which the self-closed Being needs an alter ego for its manifestation and functions entirely through it. The birthright of the Son of God before all creation is not covered by similar apostolic expressions (Rom. VIII, 29.18), because St. Paul speaks of the historical Christ, while here he is interpreted of the pre-worldly Christ in Philon’s sense. Therefore, the Lord is recognized not only as the mediator of peacemaking, but as its ultimate goal and unchangeable cosmic principle, leading the believers in Himself, being the bodily bearer of the fullness of divinity, just as for Philo the Logos was the place of the divine powers that filled it. According to this dignity, all redemption consists in the mediating reconciliation of cosmic discord through the restoration of primary harmony - following the example of the intercessor of Philon’s speculations.
834 According to the above interpretation, all Christological elements will be directly philonic and are explained by borrowing from the reserves of Alexandrian theosophy 835 - to the detriment of the historical accuracy of the image. 836 All originality is limited to slight revision for the sake of adaptation to Christian interests. But - with all the changes - in the Ephesian and Colossian Epistles the Alexandrian basis is visible everywhere, 837 and they are categorically accepted as the catholization of Philonian-Gnostic formulas. 838 At the same time, it deserves attention that in the authentic writings of Paul, Christ is closer to Philon’s Logos than to the Eternal Word of St. John the Theologian, 839 - and yet is not clearly endowed with divine pre-existence. 840 Hints of this kind are vague, and the later complete development requires a sufficient source for itself in Philonov’s logological concepts. 841 Their typical reflection is seen in all Christological sayings and then they are brought closer to Plato’s theorems, 842 finding close analogies. 843
It is easy to notice that in these interpretations all the power is concentrated on the idea of pre-existence, which is commented on philosophically. Along with this, they emphasize that it does not occur in the subjective depiction of the historical Redeemer, since here everything is exhausted by real facts, alien to metaphysical overtones. And even if they indicate theosophical schemes of heavenly humanity, then all the more certain is the philonic borrowing for later Christological contemplations. The whole question now is how fair both of these theses are, and to solve it it is necessary to first examine the value of genetic premises exegetically by analyzing the apostolic theses.
The Christological teaching of the Colossian Epistle is inseparable from the soteriological one and serves as a dogmatic foundation for it, elevating the historical feat of deliverance to the level of a divine act. Through this work of Christ there is a revelation of the essential and eternal will of God and for its recipients it is accompanied by communion with God. Through redemption by blood and forgiveness of sins, He introduced us into the kingdom of His beloved Son (Col. I, 13.14) and through this He called us to the participation of the saints in the light (I, 12). Here believers return to their Supreme Father, because they are united with Him by the Lord's death on the cross (I, 20). These are the great fruits of Christ’s sacrifice, and for them there must be a sufficient reason in the natural properties of its culprit. In the course of the speech, it is expected that we will be given a justification for the work of Christ from the personal advantages of the performer of salvation. With such a movement of thought, the proper object of apostolic characterization must be the historical Deliverer according to His natural dignity. It is to Him that all private qualifications refer.
First of all, it is stated that this is “the image of the invisible God” (I, 15). In this capacity, Christ reveals to people the supreme Lord of all, to the point of visual tangibility, allowing him to be comprehended by ordinary weak eyes. God himself still remains unapproachable and is seen only in adequate reproduction. It is clear that the Son is the image of God for humanity, which receives in Him the living and concrete incarnation of the Father. 844 This directly demonstrates that we are seeing a process of grace-filled vision of God through assured unity with Christ, and this was conditioned and created only through the incarnation. This means that the display concerns the earthly period when the invisible became visible to people. 845 Then the whole difference between the copy and the original will lie in phenomenal forms with identity in essence. Otherwise, it would not be God who would be visible in Christ, or at least not with absolute fullness. But if all particularity relies on appearances, then it is undeniable that for both quantities being is the same (John XIV, 9. 2 Cor. III, 18).
846 From here we again see that, of course, this is not a peaceful stage of the life of Christ. With all its continuity, by nature, it would have the equal invisibility of its model, as Philo preaches. 847 It goes without saying that it would be unnecessary to focus on the invisibility of God, since it is no less characteristic of the Son. Since the Lord now does not have it, we are forced to admit in Him a new element, accessible to human perception and leading us to the secret places of an unknown deity. 848
So: Christ for the invisible God was a visible image in the sphere of the visible. In other words: - this expresses that the Redeemer was visible to God. By such observations it is irresistibly suggested to us that the nature of Christ is truly divine, since without this an accurate reproduction would be impossible. The latter rests on the natural affinity of complete divinity and eliminates created limitations. Hence the second definition, that the Son of God is the firstborn of all creation (I, 15). With this thesis the writer defends his previous statement, which stated that Christ was the bearer of the Father. For this reason, natural intimacy between us is required so that there is no contrast between the discovery and its subject. It is inevitable that this requires a special attitude of internal solidarity. It is no longer difficult to guess his most particular features. Only the incarnate Lord “professes” God to the world (John I, 18). This says that the former in himself is not capable of penetrating into the sphere of deity due to his created non-originality.
If the Redeemer does not suffer from this weakness, then we must think that He is not created. After this, the only way left for the Son is in fertility. But it is important in the God-man because it eliminates the mediastinum of invisibility created by creatureliness. Therefore, the intelligible act will belong to the realm of the invisible, when everything is embraced by pure divinity in its incomprehensible isolation. It is indisputable that birth appears to precede creation, which was later. According to these observations, it turns out that the main emphasis falls on the qualitative side, 849 and the chronological moment is borrowed from it and plays a subordinate role. The Son was begotten and therefore before all creation. Consequently, the correlation in time does not in any way introduce Christ into the category of the created, but decisively excludes him from this category, 850 for His superiority rests on the individual difference of birth, 851 in its contrast with conspiracy.
On the contrary, the slightest appearance of creatureliness would be accompanied by the usual result of farsightedness and would eliminate the very possibility of “iconization.” That is why this shade is put forward, which certifies that the Son was before the creative process and all its products. 852
As a result, the historical mission is motivated by the uncreated birth of pre-worldly existence. All other predicates were supported by negative uncreatedness, and the author actually justifies it by citing the fact that through Christ all 853 were created - up to and including the hosts of angels. 854 Of course, in this case, all of the above will be a dogmatic axiom, according to the simplest logic, that the Creator is not a creature. However, so far this dignity does not flow anywhere and evidence of it is not guaranteed against suspicions of subjectivity. We need to find real support in the fact of mapping. In it, the visibility of the embodied imprint is inseparable from its original infallibility in the invisible state. This means that the Lord from eternity was the image of God, as He later revealed His Father to people. From this point of view, redemptive revelation will be a special mode of the natural activity of divine enlightenment and its final development in the world.
855 This directly expresses that the emergence of world existence was conditioned by the participation of the Son's reflection and was the primary function of external detection. The “imagery” of the Lord already contained all the energy of the accomplished creation, not only in omnipotence, but also in the desire for the further continuation of the divine image. That is why it is said about Christ (I, 16). This combination is materially related to the causal one, which is later replaced, but it also emphasizes that the instrumental execution of the creative will was not mechanical mediation and was in strict agreement with the natural forces and internal drives of the Lord. 856 And this is unshakable, since peacemaking serves as a partial manifestation of the primordial properties of the Son 857 as the image of God. 858 With a similar motivation, every creation is possible only through Christ. Not the slightest exception is acceptable here, because these would be uncreated if they were not obliged to the divine Logos.
But to these considerations Filial creativity is not limited to earthly cosmicity, and heavenly immateriality in its invisible spirituality belongs equally to it. All this is the fruit of the eternal reflection and rests on it. It is clear that creation will be a secondary act, predetermined by the essential dignity of the reflection of God, in which it is raised to a common primary source in the Father. This is how it is formulated with the affirmation in the Lord of the mediating author of all creation in the sense that in it God is revealed through His own image in the Son. Christ is an active creator in His pictorial effectiveness, and this corresponds to the will of God and has its final foundation in it. Therefore, the supreme principle of everything in existence is God, but the actual implementation is arranged by the Son, who produces creation through Himself and without any outside assistance.
In this dignity, the creature serves, as it were, as an external realization of the premium filial relations, consolidates them in its cosmic totality and gradually develops them in its historical progression. 859 For her, the only support of appearance and the exclusive purpose of life was to constantly justify her reason, rooted in the very nature of creativity. And if it was a reflection of the Filial reflection, then its final ideal will be in possible likeness to its prototype due to a natural desire for it. Through this, the actual creator of creation also turns out to be the central point of all drives. It is not surprising that the creative turns into the teleological, where all created currents are directed and where they must merge. In a brief formula, this states that what was created by the Son and was created for Him or with such an adaptation, 860 so that in everything, everywhere and always it is inclining towards Him.
861 According to this connection, the fundamental moment of purposefulness will be the fullest revelation of creative beginnings through approaching the one who caused them in created convention and embodies them with absoluteness. Christ is the “end” of the world from the side in which He was the creator. 862 And in the second case, the Lord acted as the image of God, which is why it also happens in the first. Then we find what defines creation by its imagery and is motivated by the very emergence of the creature. Being a reflection, it is preserved only in constant continuity with its image and gravitates towards it instinctively, satisfying all ethical requirements. It is clear that the Apostle speaks of the nature of created existence, which stems from the image of God and is entirely animated by its reproduction. Consequently, this in no way eliminates or denies the direction of the world process towards God (Rom. XI, 76) and is even categorically confirmed, since Filial ingenuity relates to the Father 863 and leads to Him.
864 But for the writer it is important to state that the world was created and is maintained according to the image of God in the Son. Hence it was natural that the saving industry was regulated and crowned by Christ, for this is a natural continuation of His creative energy, designed for the perfect assimilation of the image of God by all created things. 865
The thesis taken earlier is argued comprehensively, and St. Paul summarizes all the details with the categorical phrase that the Son goes beyond this created framework and really exists, first of all, with essential divine dignity, 866 as the source of creation according to his ethical order. But He is also the goal of every creature, why everything created in Him has the support of its normal existence, through Him it actually became and stands by Him to this day (I, 17). It is obvious that the grace-filled growth of the redeemed will be similar to the Son's peacemaking in all its creative elements. All further speech rests on this parallelism. First of all, there is no doubt that the church structure is completely imbued with Christ no less than the rest of creation. Then we will have the thesis that the body of the Church draws its life and lives only through the Lord, who is its ruling and animating head (I, 18). For this reason, we are convinced that the entire source of church existence is in Him.
This is unshakably justified by the entire personality of the Redeemer, because He is the fundamental principle of the church organism in all functions, precedes everything everywhere and causes everything with His energy. An illustration of this is in the birthright from the dead, where the Son Himself is numbered among the dead in order to quicken them in Himself and provide the path to immortality. It turns out that here too - in the order of grace - Christ turns out to be primary and dominant for all members. This expresses more than a simple chronological anticipation and marks the internal support for the actual appearance of everything that follows. Blessed phenomenality grows out of its primacy and is motivated by it. Here, historical anticipation marks the creative superiority in the nature of the divine figure who anticipates his own work. This is unthinkable without natural divinity, and it is indisputable for the Savior, since - by the good pleasure of the Father - all the fullness (I, 19) 867 of His natural wealth (II, 9) dwelt in the Son.
868 Naturally, Christ could accomplish His redemptive feat with the creative omnipotence of the abundance of the Fatherly prerogatives. At the same time, it is inevitable that the incarnate Logos, as it were, replaced God Himself and therefore was His tangible image.
At this point, St. the writer categorically confirms his initial position, and we are shown that all his Christological contemplations were internally inseparable and mutually consistent, being an exact reproduction of the original phenomenon. 869 In this case, for them there must be an objective unity in the object itself, which always remains identical. This is Christ the God-man. On earth He was the visible image of the invisible Father, because He was pre-eternally born of His reflection and secured this property in His creation, which moves and exists by Him, which is why He is saved by Him. This is the basis for the incarnation of the Son and reveals the nature of His mission in realizing the will of God for us and among us. This equally explains the dignity of redemptive and gracious service in the fullest revelation of essential divinity.
In this construction, everything is based on the historical fact of the saving work, from which the divine-human face in its pre-worldly and embodied state is necessarily illuminated. 870 The Epistle to the Ephesians, less clearly, but equally strongly, holds this point. In it, the Deliverer is depicted as a universal reconciliator (I, 10), the culprit and external regulator of grace-filled church development (I, 22 – 23, II, 6, 21. IV. 16), ensured by His triumph of ascension above all others (I, 20 – 21, III, 10). This result was the immediate crowning of the earthly period and is confirmed by the identity of immeasurable greatness, which will no longer be cosmic. Therefore, the ascension is forced to postulate an adequate descent for the embodiment of 871 and all its advantages are assimilated to the descendant (IV, 8 – 10). The historical Lord, due to the success of the feat, necessarily appears to be divinely pre-existent, and then the roots of His relationship to the world will lie in pre-worldly existence.
They are given in that God created everything by Jesus Christ (III, 10), who even before creation contained in Himself all the potentialities of the world process. Therefore, our choice of grace-filled renewal was in Him before the foundation of the world (I, 4) according to the decree of God (I, 5, 9, 11) and is fulfilled in the Lord made man (III, 11). Again we find the familiar logic of inference from the historical to the eternal, where the importance of the first is protected by the authority of the Father and imparts natural divinity to the second.
With the connection described, the divine claims of the Redeemer are completely legitimate even in His very earthly humiliation, the greatness of which is measured by the contrast of inconsistency with the original superiority. This idea permeates the famous classical passage 872 of the Epistle to the Philippians (II, 6 chapters). In the entire New Testament it is not easy to find another example where the disagreement between exegetes and dogmatists would reach such acuteness for a fundamental understanding of all Christian theology. The details of all these ecclesiastical and critical interpretations are not needed for us, and we limit ourselves to the closest Christological predicates. 873 About Christ Jesus it is said that “He, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God” (II, 6). This means that the Lord felt His absolute right to do this. Therefore, the image of God was natural equality with God. 874 Otherwise, appropriating the noted privilege would be a (vain) attempt on what does not belong or daring usurpation.
Since this is categorically denied, it follows that the behavior described was, of course, normal according to the characteristics of Christ. But then it would be superfluous to even mention predation, 875 since the object is an inalienable and indisputable possession without any restrictions, 876 in its entirety 877 and with all detections. 878 And if this is treated specifically, then it is obvious that a special element is being conceived here, for which the rational act was not a quality of nature itself. 879 With all this, there would not be the slightest theft for him, which is why it is indisputable that he actually has the prerogatives under discussion. 880 This formulates that the dignity of the image of God is preserved inviolably, 881 despite the external unusualness of the actual expression. 882 Such a combination of all shades irresistibly testifies that the primordial light retains all its radiance even with the shell enveloping it, 883 and for the Son of God such a position is possible only after the incarnation.
884 It is clear that we are talking about the historical Savior, 885 as He also happens to be an accessible model for the life imitation of believers. 886 Natural law is certified for Him and the application of the latter is ensured, 887 meanwhile, in fact, we see something completely different, when - outwardly - force is almost completely suppressed. 888 This results in a sharp contrast between the actual and the should and expected, but this contrast is called according to the owner’s own initiative and rests on the energy of his self-restraint. The whole importance lies precisely in the refusal, 889 from which the corresponding results inevitably follow. 890 Therefore, one cannot particularly insist that the further characterization, embracing the entire earthly ministry of the Lord until His glorification, requires purity of superiority in the previous one. If it were fair, then we would have the adversity of humanity to the deity, each of which is considered separately. It goes without saying that such an abrupt dissolution is unthinkable, since the union would be accompanied by a complete loss of natural human differences.
They remain immutable and, by their real passivity, convey to the incarnation the special derogatory quality of the delaying factor. 891 Its presence is obligatory in advance, so that later a detailed description is permissible. Again it turns out that we are talking about the God-man. For Him, the incarnation was truly a derogation, for here the Son of God was embarrassed by the inherent reality, although it was an irreducible function of nature and needed enhanced self-regulation. 892 Therefore, humanity was a kind of “emptiness” for the activity of sonship of God, 893 as “vain” in its peace. 894 From here it is revealed that the incarnation of man, being “exhaustion,” turned out to be at the same time “slavery” 895 from its very origin. The only reason for this qualification lies in the fact that the Redeemer even now continued to be the master of all, 896 why the human form necessarily appeared to Him as slave. 897 He is in slavish subordination only because man absorbs the original dominion, which is enslaved in him.
898 This means that Christ Jesus could be a ruler in humanity, since even equality with God would not be robbery for Him. 899 It is not surprising that for the unceasing supremacy, the humble role of the earth-born was enslavement. 900 For ordinary understanding this was far from self-evident, and therefore the Apostle adds that the eternal Logos humbled Himself in the form of a slave at the time when He actually became like men. 901 This again emphasizes that even now there was no Lord and contained within Himself a higher principle, for which humanity was a voluntary result of self-abasement. 902 While the incarnation is everywhere considered from the point of view of the inseparability of the image of God and is base before it. Nevertheless, after His incarnation, Christ did not deny His slave state and, on the contrary, adapted to Him in all His behavior. 903 In all His outward discretion, He declared Himself to be a man and was viewed as such by everyone with irresistibility. The outcome was harmoniously connected by Him with a similar continuation in human slavery for the inherent deity.
From here we are convinced that the beginning was not a simple physical deprivation, but was motivated by ethical impulses that supported the inevitability of fulfilling one’s duty. In this direction, the God-man crowned the humility of self-devotion to saving deliverance with unconditional obedience to the will of God until the shameful death on the cross. All this was not caused by sonship of God and was allowed, of course, not without deliberate goals, which were fully justified and should bear fruit. On the other hand, obedience could not but be rewarded with approval. 905 In this case, a sufficiently motivated consequence 906 was the “exaltation” of the Redeemer. In contrast to the previous humiliation, this will be the exaltation of humanity through the assimilation of superior created or divine virtues, 907 which now for him will not be “theft”, but a gift from God in the adoration of human nature (cf. Matt. XXVIII, 18).
Naturally, everyone bows before them, and rational beings confess that Jesus, as Christ the Messiah, became Lord 908 and through his glorification served for the glory of God, since in this respect He showed Himself worthy of His Son. The Divinity returns to Its original source, but humanity acquires, in continuity with it, extraordinary advantages that previously belonged to it only by incarnating the “image of God.” 909 There is the emergence of the divine-human feat, here the completion is entirely in agreement with it, because the achieved result - in principle - was already contained in the very origin of the process and was affirmed on essential sonship. 910
It is clear that the latter, being divine, is considered by the Apostle in its human manifestation and illuminates the entire redemptive feat. All attention is focused on the historical face of the Deliverer and reveals His inner dignity. At this point, the analyzed passage is parallel to the analyzed testimony of the Colossian Epistle in terms of the object of speech and the method of its depiction. The only difference is that in the second there is divinity. The incarnation is argued by His superiority, and in the first it is taken as an axiom and protects the importance of the entire matter of incarnation. For all that, both speak about the God-man of earthly history and comment on its most important facts. This tendency is well known to us from the depiction of the “last Adam” and vouches for the unity of the author in St. Pavle. 911 Therefore, it seems doubtful in advance that there would be a contradiction on this subject, forcing us to think that before us is a later writer who has deviated from the Hellenic evangelist to Philonism.
All critical attempts in this sense remain unsuccessful and illustrate the fundamental solidarity of all concepts. We readily admit that the Apostle of the tongues preached the historical Christ everywhere, but this in no way denies His transcendental divinity, which permeated his earthly ministry and actually preceded it. 912 However, it is stated, as if indisputably, that the apostolic “four epistles (Romans, 1 - 2 Corinthians and Galatians) do not know about the existence of the person of Christ before birth and - even more so - before the world, or, at least, leave it under the greatest doubt, 913 without giving a clear and concrete image of pre-existence. 914 In this sense, the very idea of pre-existence is almost directly rejected. And if it is noted about the spiritual stone that soldered Israel that it was Christ (1 Cor. X, 4), then this supposedly confirms no more than what the ministering Angels do (Heb. I, 7), which requires the premium reality of only the “spirit” of Christ, who became incarnate later. 915 The conclusion is fair, but it is necessary to add to the premises that for St.
Paul Christ was the term of the greatest divine prerogatives, which are communicated to the premium “spirit”. His qualities are more closely determined by the fact that everything and we ourselves came into existence through Him (1 Cor. III, 6). From here it follows that the mediator was first of all his work, and this is equal to the anticipation of every created being 916 and being referred to the region of extra-cosmic eternity. 917 Despite this, it is emphasized that everything here is limited to the recognition that the Lord is the Son of God, really existing from a certain time. This is still very far from peaceful. And the formula does not at all state it, because it supposedly does not express an indispensable creation and rather points to industry in maintaining the world order 918 or to “mediation in everything that relates to the goal of the beneficial influence of divine grace. 919 In itself, such an interpretation is possible, but it is not favored by particular predicates.
True, with “we” we mean those redeemed and blessed by Christ, and these people were before and are now only provided with a normal continuation of independent life. However, we must not forget that there was a revival for St. Paul with the creation of a new man, from where for everything cosmic we must allow the creative participation of the Lord. This is also suggested by the comparison of Him with the Father, Who, being the source of everything, has in Christ the actual culprit of the appearance of creation. Therefore, we worship Him along with God, as being naturally close to Him.
From this point of view, it is not entirely convenient to understand the exclusively glorified Savior, when space opens up for the elimination of His identity with the reconciled. According to this hypothesis, before the incarnation there was only the “spirit of God”, which had no personality and acquired it in the Redeemer. It is clear that individuality did not exist before, and it does not coincide with the animating force that awards it with typical characteristic and transfers it to the highest stage of originality. 920 Here the incarnation was not a “diminution” for humanity, but the beginning of a gradual elevation to sonship with God in the unfused hypostasis of the historical Savior. From this side, the mention (in 2 Cor. VIII, 9) of the “impoverishment” of the Lord describes the only feat of voluntary humiliation on the cross, 921 when He, the righteous, became a curse (Gal. III, 13) and sin (2 Cor. V, 21) for our revival. Wealth denotes goodness or grace, and poverty indicates the state of giving up supplies for the benefit of others.
In general, verbs express the state of things and actions in a certain period; Accordingly, it marks the fact of poverty (= being poor), but not the act of deprivation (= making myself poor) of what is lost and no longer exists. On the contrary, in the first case, “impoverishment” is inseparable from possession and is limited to the renunciation of inherent prerogatives for the sake of our welfare. Here wealth is inseparable from impoverishment and - along with it - refers to the era of the redemptive exhaustion of Christ. For all this they say that in the apostolic phrase of interest no one would have looked for the doctrine of pre-existence if pre-occupation had not prompted it. 922
In this reasoning, it is indisputable that St. Paul is interpreted about our grace, which is created on self-determination on the cross - and the whole question will be whether this exhausts the fullness of apostolic contemplation. To answer, it is important to take into account that the poor Lord is depicted not as simultaneous to our enrichment, but as preceding and conditioning it. For this reason, the “impoverishment” of the Calvary sacrifice refers to the presence of abundance in the previous one. It is hardly necessary to argue that in the cosmic sphere Christ, as a man, did not have extraordinary prerogatives and did not intentionally reveal His divinity, why there was no special deprivation in appearance. It is even less fair to attract saving love here, since death on the cross was its best embodiment. We undertake to admit that this was non-human wealth contained under human forms; therefore, it is timeless 923 and does not actually deplete even with visible impoverishment.
By this, the Calvary “impoverishment” in the suffering martyr forces us to see the deity with all individual properties, and this will be the pre-existence of the 924 Son of God in detachment from humanity, which contains Him within itself. We agree that the perception of flesh and blood is not directly considered a humiliation concentrated in the feat of the cross; however, all human life was only a cover for the original divinity and could be characterized by the words of the Philippian Epistle. To put it briefly: the Lord’s poverty convinces us of His divine dignity, which was before the glory of the resurrection and ascension, not identical with earthly greatness and - therefore - peaceful.
This clearly emphasizes the idea of real pre-existence in the Hellenic evangelist, 925 as it is also visible in the mention of Christ, independent of Philo, in connection with the spiritual subsequent stone (1 Cor. X, 4). 926 We have so far found that before His incarnation Christ was the benevolent trustee of Israel and possessed a personality with the superiority of divine mediation in peacemaking. 927 All this naturally prepares for the depiction of the Lord in His eternal existence. It is clear that the picture painted by St. writer before the Colossians and Philippians, is a natural continuation and harmonious addition of the apostolic proclamation and will have a common source in the insight of St. Pavel. Other aids would be permissible only if the concepts being compared are internally disparate. Criticism does not find it difficult to put forward this inconvenience in order to secure for itself the right of genetic interpretations of predicates of pre-existence from the Hellenistic elements.
In these interests, they energetically insist that in the Apostle of Languages Christ is everywhere considered exclusively from a soteriological point of view, while in the Colossian and Philippian Epistles an unusual cosmic role is assigned to Him, 928 hitherto not clearly noted. 929 Let's assume that this is true. From this it will follow no more than that in both cases different relations are reported, which cannot coincide with each other, but also do not eliminate each other. Then we know that the cosmic properties of the Logos are closely connected and protected in their greatness on the peaceful wealth of the incarnate deity. Mutual solidarity at this point is unshakable 930 and postulates a unity of origin. 931
More serious is another indication that for the Hellenic evangelist the entire world process, arising from God, rushes entirely towards Him. The Son only contributes to this happy conclusion and, upon achieving it, Himself fades into the background in submission to His Father (1 Cor. XV, 24 - 28). This is not at all what is evidenced in the Epistle to the Colossians, where all created things are directed to Christ, by Whom they are created and supported (Col. I, 16-17). – In fact, these features are undeniable, but they in no way border on contradiction and are easily reconciled with an accurate assessment of each of them. Before the Colossians, Christ is illuminated in the dignity of the image of God, in which all functions are concentrated on the fulfillment of this mission of reproducing the prototype. With this understanding, the entire world-making was a mode of natural reflection and, being a secondary copy, had to strive for possible assimilation. In this sense, Christ was and remains the goal for creation due to the teleological nature of its entire development.
This does not at all affect the truth that the final destination for created existence is God. Or rather the opposite will be true. By reaching the Lord, everything created satisfies its original task of imitation of the Son’s imagery within its capabilities and through it imprints the ultimate primary culprit in the Father. On this path, the Son is the only available model and therefore turns out to be the final boundary for created tension. In itself, it cannot extend further, but at this stage it is a worthy reflection of the glory of the Father and is perceived by it. So: the creature, according to the ethical requirements of its origin, is directed to the Lord and in Him returns to God having justified its calling. This judgment, of course, is in agreement with the apostolic teaching of 932 and has a close echo in the doctrine of the tradition of the kingdom of Christ with the obedience of His head (1 Cor. XV, 24 - 28). It is obvious at first glance that the speech concerns the fate of the redemptive work and determines its organizer only in relation to it.
Here there will be an absolute triumph of rescue plans, because they will gain unconditional dominance with the abolition of all opposition. But this is fulfilled no other way than through voluntary admiration or forced submission to the life-giving Son. Therefore, He turns out to be the crown of created rebirth in parallel to what was the ideal for created reflection. In this case, the mission of Christ is resolved with the greatest success and ends due to the unnecessaryness of grace under the complete dominion of grace. Naturally, the renewed merge with the Lord and through Him and in Him enter into communion with the Father, Who is now “all in all.” It is clear that everything created, in accordance with its natural gravity, reaches God only by concentrating all its energy on unity with Christ and, of course, through an adequate reflection of Him in itself. This harmoniously fits with the concepts of the Colossian Epistle, where the Lord is depicted as the primary model for the secondary.
Before Corinthians, it is only revealed that this requirement is fulfilled through grace-filled life, which is created by the incarnate Son and continues by Him as long as there is actual need for it. It follows from this that the removal of the Redeemer from supremacy is caused realistically and is motivated by the data of the feat itself in its normal historical course. For this reason, it is unnecessary and vain to think that the Apostle Paul took advantage of Philo’s idea of the temporary mediation of the Logos, eliminated by the strengthened insight of pure contemplation. 933 But - first of all - the evangelist does not actually speak about Christ and describes the results of His activity, and then all support will be contained and drawn from the genuine event of spreading and increasing redemptive dominion according to its foundation. Then: in Alexandrian theosophy, auxiliary participation is interrupted by its insufficiency and suppressed by the higher.
The Apostle proclaims the diametrically opposite, that through the Son all perfection is achieved, not allowing for further improvement. Therefore, the Lord is not passively suffering and retains autonomous activity to the end: He Himself transfers His kingdom and He Himself submits, since now His grace-filled property has become the Father’s acquisition. It is clear that here the greatness of the receiving Father is accurately reflected in the Son’s feat. Therefore, submission does not express the subordination of the lower to the higher; it marks the cessation of the redemptive headship of Christ upon the disappearance of the slightest deviation from the supremacy of the Father, just as the subjugation of everything to the Son marks the destruction of all discord. From this side, the work of the Lord confirms His natural divinity and ensures for Him the dignity of the true “image of God,” which is assimilated to Him by the Apostle (in 2 Cor. IV, 4). It is true that this saying does not always express the moment of identity (1 Cor. XI, 7) and is now applied to the exalted Christ. With all this, we have the right to find here a qualification of the very nature of the Deliverer.
He reflects God precisely according to His glory, for this is the glory of God, shining to us in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. IV, 6). In its essence, a reflection is equal to a light and, therefore, is no less essential in a historical medium, being integral to its very individuality. 934 The result is that the glory of Christ was divine in Him both naturally and originally. Then the whole difference between the original and the copy will be that the first is contemplated by people only in the second, since the glory of the Father is available to us only in the glorification of the Son. There is hardly any need to remind us of the substantive similarity of this position to the testimony of the Colossian Epistle that the Lord was the visible reflection of the invisible God. 935
All the most important points of apostolic Christology have an internal affinity with the cardinal elements of the doctrine of pre-existence, developed by the priest. writer before the Ephesians, Colossians and Philippians, why they are in vain approaching Philonism. 936 Before His incarnation, Christ was the true leader of Israel, and His personal separateness preceded the world being created through Him. By all this He is equated with God, and therefore on earth he was the bearer of divine wealth and the image of God. In this way, the illumination of a peaceful personality was naturally prepared and necessary; then information on this issue from the Apostle of Languages will be quite normal and should not cause confusion regarding the author. This protects the apostolic origin of the ideas of pre-existence, and one cannot speak of them apodictically, that they were borrowed from Philonism, for they are unthinkable in the mouth of St. Pavel.
The most important support of genetic reconstructions collapses irrevocably, and criticism is forced to admit that the Hellenic evangelist himself could not independently acquire the analyzed concepts and owes them to external suggestions.
It is easy to guess that this interpretation categorically states that the actual data did not call for and - in part - excluded the concepts we are analyzing. To ensure this cardinal thesis, various techniques of tendentious argumentation are used. Thus, they testify that “on the basis of history, the (two) ideas of the pre-existence of Christ and the supernatural conception by the Holy Spirit exclude one another. According to the second, Christ did not exist before conception and He was born only through the union of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary; on the contrary, according to the first, Christ was called by the Creator to be before other heavenly spirits, and the Holy Spirit did not play any role in His incarnation.” 937 With such adversativity, it is irresistible that pre-existential predicates could not arise from a living observation of objective reality and were imposed on it by force. It is inevitable that with this pressure the object itself is distorted and deprived of its true outlines. Hence, in the Apostle, the historical Deliverer almost completely disappears in the fog of speculative abstractions.
It is even asserted that “the dominant character of Paul’s Christology consists in blotting out the person of Christ (le caractere dominant de la christologie de Paul est d’effacer la personne du Christ), so that the work He accomplished would seem all the more grandiose as a transformation of humanity and the world, analogous to the new creation.” 938 For this reason, in the Christological system of St. Paul's most remarkable is the depersonalization of the Lord the Redeemer. 939
Both of these critical statements are closely related to each other and mutually support themselves, but that is why they collapse together. As for the dogmatic-theoretical reference, it is enough to emphasize that it rests on a strange reinterpretation and gross desecration of biblical truth. 940 It confesses that before the incarnation Christ was not a man, 941 - and this not only does not deny, but even directly confirms His pre-worldly existence in another form. From this point of view, earthly existence was conceivable in no other way than through an unusual perception of earthly elements 942 in communication with the former individuality. 943 Then the embodied state was the bearer and exponent of divinity. It is natural that the latter was comprehended precisely through the contemplation of historical service, revealed in it and strengthened by it for our conviction. In this case, Christological metaphysics arose and was created precisely by the real facts of the life of Christ. It is not surprising if St. also focuses on it. Paul in his teaching about the superiority of the Lord.
His closest object was everywhere the historical Savior of mankind, and the dignity of the feat was determined by pre-eternity in all properties. We know that Christ is portrayed as the creator and ruler of the world, but this is far from a theoretical maxim obtained by logical operations. The point of departure and the indisputable basis is the experimental position that the Redeemer was on earth the visible image of God and coincided with Him in nature. Here the conclusion naturally suggested itself that this is the essential Son of God, reflecting from eternity the Father, whom He revealed in time. Contrary to criticism, here premium relations are illuminated in a redemptive tone, and all their particular shades are gleaned from historical discovery. Christ was for us the author, the source and center of gracious justification; - accordingly, peace happens in Him, through Him and for Him. Particularly important for us is cosmic teleology with the fixation of all created aspirations and attractions on the Lord. All this is explained by the parallelism of the world with redemption and the understanding of the first in the spirit of the second.
But the “imagery” of the type described is equal to consubstantiality, which is testified by the Apostle in his letter to the Philippians. We will even agree that when talking about the non-admiration of God's equality, of course, it is exclusively the pre-peace period. And then one cannot help but pay special attention to the fact that the humiliation of the incarnation and the ethical value of humility on the cross are understandable only in contrast to the divinity that is inseparable from them. Without this, the humanity of Christ would be normal and not at all humiliating, and the death of the crucifixion would receive the imprint of reprehensibility. But the incarnation was a derogation because it covered with itself and in itself the primordial glory of the deity, while suffering prepared for exaltation, since it was an act of voluntary self-devotion of God in man. This means that in this classic place, the evangelist is motivated by soteriological considerations, which inevitably led to the idea of the purely divine nature of the Redeemer, who had a detached originality or primordial personality.
Apostolic Christological teaching necessarily culminates in the thesis about the second hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, 944 moving from concrete observations of divinity in the blessed feat of rebirth and in the abundance of glorification. 945 On this side, it is certainly true that “Pauline Christology does not consist either in the simple transfer of messianic attributes to the person of Jesus, or in the application to this person of metaphysical concepts taken from Alexandrian philosophy. It is a strictly original doctrine, starting from the very fact of salvation and logically following from the doctrine of the atonement." 946
As a result, we formulate that the Apostle of Languages did not have the slightest incentive to borrow, as long as he was guided by the factual information of historical experience and subordinates all his knowledge to the latter. 947 Further, it inevitably turns out that there was no place for such external layers. Let us look into the depth of the apostolic contemplations on the issue under study. In them we everywhere notice a continuous interweaving of the elements of the divine and human in their harmonious combination. In the language of critical schools, we will have to express that the Hellenic evangelist does not separate the historical Christ from the supermundane. He has no such isolation at all, and - on the contrary - mutual interpenetration appears everywhere. 948 These are not two individuals - ideal and real, artificially merged according to theoretical interests. Before us is one complete individuality, essentially divine in its effectiveness of humanity. Therefore, the New Testament also testifies in the Redeemer of God as He was from before eternity.
949 With such a correlation, it is necessary that faith in the divine superiority of the Lord is inseparable from His very confession, 950 and therefore was universal among Christians 951 and is, undoubtedly, no less real than the existence of Christ. 952 Of course, it would be an extreme exaggeration to think that the idea of pre-existence was only a logical extraction and insightful understanding of historical facts. 953 This Christological rationalism does not extend beyond the recognition of the great genius of the Savior and, in any case, provides Him with only an ideological eternity, 954 and not a personally divine one. However, it is also indisputable that it was impossible to confess the eternal Christ, denying and not accepting the historical. And this is for the irresistible reason that the secret of the inner life of the deity in the triple hypostasis is completely inaccessible to a limited mind and is assimilated by it according to factual immutability. And the premium Logos is known to us only because and to the extent that we are in communion with the divine Redeemer (cf. John I, 1 - 3). Here the earthly - of itself gave the transcendental.
Therefore, the conversion of Saul was actually the appearance of the Son of God to Paul (Gal. I, 15-16).
In this way, it is revealed that the concept of the pre-existence of Christ was original with the Apostle and was invariably proclaimed in all the epistles, 955 being an echo of the speeches of the Lord 956 and other self-visionaries. 957 It is clear that outside participation here is in no way permissible, since everything is gleaned from the very object of religious belief. Otherwise, there would be a mechanical imposition of alien predicates during a rational discussion of the event, while in the evangelist we find a calm observation of harmonious solidarity in the genuine subject. And if its sphere is not closed by earthly outlines, then the basis for this lies in the extra-cosmic nature of the divine nature. To put it briefly: according to the apostolic teaching, it was impossible to believe in the Lord who suffered and rose again without assuming His descent from the spheres of absolute divinity. And once St. Paul preaches about the superiority of Christ, which states that the historical Savior was revered as the incarnate Son of God by His very earthly ministry.
In this case, the Christianity of the Apostle would be unthinkable if pre-eternity was not objectively real and was attracted later, for in this case the divine Deliverer would also disappear, turning into a stumbling block and temptation. The superiority of Christology is rooted in the Christian faith itself 958 and cannot be carried away. 959
This impartial conclusion prepares for a comparative solution to the question in its genetic formulation. All preconditions are extremely unfavorable to critical hopes and undermine rash rapprochements. First of all, the dogma of the pre-existence of the material agrees with the original principles of the “Gospel” of the Hellenic missionary and does not at all require a different culprit in the admirer of philosophical metaphysics. Then: it is provided and protected actually from the event itself and in this regard does not need secondary means for its content. Finally: this concrete justification is inseparable from the apostolic conviction in the exact correspondence between the concept and the real object, and therefore for the first nothing other than the second is unacceptable. What has been said now, external producing factors are already eliminated in advance when the doctrine under analysis arises, which will be a direct reflection of its object. Naturally, philonism is also unsuitable as a source and lacks internal kinship.
This is fundamentally inevitable and is irresistibly illustrated by comparison on all the most important points. For St. Paul they are summarized in the following theses. Christ brings people into filial communion with God, because He Himself most peacefully possessed the divine nature and fully affirmed it in humanity. This mission was rooted in the being of the Logos. From time immemorial he was the image of God and actually reflected the Father in the creation of the world. It is inevitable that the latter is drawn to be likened to its prototype and is saved from the weakness of sinful deviation through pious atonement. The Lord is God, creator and redeemer. With such definitions, any personal distinction would easily be lost in equal divinity, and the Apostle protects it by revealing the closest and continuous relationship of the Son of God to creation. In this case, the thought comes from the fact of the unity of the divine with the created-human and rises to pure divinity, which penetrates and affirms the dignity of the Incarnate in His great service.
Here is the course of Christological construction and its dogmatic result for the Hellenic evangelist. According to critical interpretations, we should expect for these moments a harmonious consonance in Philo's theosophy, since it is copied by St. Pavel. What turns out to be the case?
Philo wanted to be the herald of biblical teaching, and in cosmology it was expressed in brief maxims that Jehovah created and governs all created being. This mutual closeness was the guarantee of strength, meaningfulness and comfort for created development in its entire historical course. But on the other hand, it also contained a too formidable warning against any moral disorder, where all the apologetic shades of limited weakness were suppressed by the horror of a daring insult to the majesty of God. Meanwhile, unfeigned experience testified that even the chosen people with their lives blasphemed the Creator more than glorified Him, and the predominance of legal views made everyone tremble before the inexorability of vengeance at the divine court. This is how the consciousness arose and grew stronger that the vision of God entails death for a person. Hence, with no less certainty, the instinctive desire of the fallen ancestors flared up in the soul to hide from the face of God.
It was on this basis that later Jewish pneumatology grew and rested, partly connecting and partly separating the world from the Almighty. 960 Starting from this point, Philo goes much further in developing the idea of the inaccessibility and inaccessibility of the deity, 961 why ordinary means were insufficient for him. Rabbinicism focused specifically on the fact of sinfulness, which, as a volitional phenomenon, had to have its own beginning and allowed for complete cessation. True, natural fleshiness was most strongly revealed in it, but - in itself - the latter received activity only by human consent and was imbued with bad impulses due to the absence or weakness of regulatory control. Therefore, it is quite conceivable here that this energy was once at rest and can again be paralyzed in primary indifference. Then all the ethical shamefulness of sin disappeared, from which the rabbinic doctrine is clear that the innate fleshly “evil desire” even serves as a condition for human progress.
962 The result is the contact of the Creator with the creature of irremovable obstacles of a metaphysical nature. For all that, the noted theory was not distinguished by its logical roundness, and in its depths lurked the fatal conviction that in a comfortable environment the raft always and necessarily expresses itself sinfully. And if this was an inevitable function, then it must have a natural support in the very nature of the thing. It is not surprising that they merged with each other by nature and cast their dark shadows over the entire totality of cosmic existence. His limitations seemed not only distant, but also contrary to the holiness of God. This Jewish idea of Jehovah's transcendentalism 963 corresponded to the tasks of Philonov's theosophy and - in the interests of mutual rapprochement of the Bible and Hellenism - was directly endowed with the features of the dualistic views of paganism. 964 In this way – along with God – Philo recognized a second ontological principle in matter, 965 which was disparate and irreducible.
966 In this case, a literal understanding of Moses' story about the origin of the world was impossible 967 and is eliminated by the application of Platonic ideality. 968 The presence of the cosmos became an impenetrable mystery, 969 because the materiality of the second “nature” was incapable of orderly self-disclosure, and was separated from the Lord by an impassable abyss of incompatibility. It was necessary to find a satisfactory way to reconcile these extremes, so that the formation of the world would become understandable in its origin and continuation. It is hardly necessary to add that here nothing could be invented better than the hypothesis of intermediaries in special potencies, 970 similar to the biblical ministering spirits 971 and filling the world in all its parts. 972 Religious and philosophical demands equally inclined towards this conclusion 973 and provided him with the theoretical inviolability of the savior of the entire philonic system, 974 which has all its specific features in comparison with the philosophical concepts and dogma of the Old Testament writings.
975 But the intermediate forces are concentrated in the connecting Logos - and in it is the crown of Philon’s tensions and the resolution of all fatal difficulties. From this side, Filonov’s logic was an integral member of the entire reconstruction and successfully bore the brunt of indelible antinomies. 976 Both her happy success and her school importance are undeniable no less than the insight of the culprit. It goes without saying that this dignity is conditioned by prerequisites and is inseparable from them in its quality. Here the entire doctrine is valuable only subjectively and is deprived of all meaning from other points of view on the subject. Then, in order to transfer Filonov’s “intercessor”, solidarity will be required in all the initial principles that determine its appearance and stability. Otherwise, borrowing will be incredible, because in someone else’s sphere it could not bear vital fruits. But in this regard, between Philo and St. Paul is dominated by the contrast of energetic mutual negation.
The first is motivated by dualistic tendencies, the second is based on the reality of the combination of the image of God with the sign of the slave in the historical God-man. With such an adversative foundation, the task of theosophical construction did not exist for the Christian evangelist, who did not have the slightest need for philonic aids due to their complete unsuitability. It is equally obvious that under them the Apostle would not have allowed incarnate divinity, from which the complete independence of his Christology is revealed, where the Redeemer is rewarded with divine predicates. Consequently, logical schemes are inapplicable to the gracious Deliverer and do not affect the understanding of a type unrelated to them, because they were caused by diametrical requirements.
So: the initial support of Philonism is anti-Christian, 977 and on it rest all the particulars in the active illumination of the intermediary principles that were supposed to protect God from contact with cosmic filth. 978 Naturally, even in the immediate outline, material similarity in the spirit of genetic desires is impossible. To confirm this, it is enough for us to note the formation of Filonov’s concepts. So far we have before us the duality of God and matter. Their metaphysical alienation does not allow for minimal contact, yet it is irresistibly evidenced by the existence of the world, which convinces of the fact that mediation has actually taken place and is invariably preserved. But if the latter is necessary for cosmic phenomenality, then it is comprehended from it in all its desirable properties. And around us we see an order of meaningful harmony in friendly subordination. Therefore, it is also obligatory for mediators to accept the reasonable solidarity of their strict conformity and adaptation to a common goal.
World order turns out to be a reflection of ideal orderliness and will be its material implementation. 979 With the removal of this empirical appendage, we are left with a number of generic abstractions, devoid of realistic fragmentation in the mass of concrete individuals and objects. It is clear that the intermediate types for them will be generic types, and the entire process of world existence is resolved by their transition into the types of certain things. In this case, on top of phenomenality we receive a circle of ideas adequate to it. This is the primary attribute for the intermediate principles of Philonov’s cosmology. Further features are outlined no less clearly, as soon as we try to accurately imagine the method of world formation. Ideal essences materialize in it when they take possession of inert formlessness and dismember it into their corresponding real units. 980 This categorically states that ideas are isolated from cosmicity and are endowed with the activity of energetic influence on qualityless inertia.
On these sides they acquire dynamic properties and become “forces”. It is not difficult to guess that Platonic ideology, 981 colored by stoicism, 982 and only a few touches taken from the biblical description of Angels, is perceived here in its entirety. 983 But Philo does not stop there and introduces a new element, the most important in his contemplations. Ideas illuminate for us the harmony in individual cosmic groups and in this sense are completely sufficient. However, de facto we find a combination of generic complexes in the supermarket. There is no data for this in private ideal monads, and from them we will not understand at all why they begin to function together and work in harmony with each other, why heat is not destroyed by cold, light is not paralyzed by darkness, etc. By analogy with everything preceding, it is inevitable to assume a higher potency for the forces themselves, among which it will be dominant and controlling. 984 According to such reciprocity, it is certain that the greatest intelligence belongs to it, connecting with the deity and serving for us as its best echo.
Based on these features, the found member is rightly called Logos, as the rational word of God.
From the genesis of Filonov’s logology it follows that it is invented in the interests of a rational interpretation of the origin and structure of the material cosmos by eliminating metaphysical contrasts. 985 Therefore, it is reasonable to think that it is not God, but the world, who is hypostasized in the Logos. 986 This relationship determines the exact assessment of the signified concept. 987 It is accepted and defended solely because without it cosmic phenomenality in its origin is incomprehensible. In this case, the presence of real being necessarily eliminates and absorbs the mediating cause. Its mission is exhausted to the ground with the beginning of the world process, and this entails the evaporation of the agent himself, because he has no other functions and is not allowed. The separate reality of the Logos coincides with the reality of the world 988 and is covered by it to the point of identity. 989 With the second, the first does not exist detachedly and blurs into simple abstraction.
Such an end suggests to us that the Logos had no identity of its own at all, 990 and then its ontological peculiarity is extremely problematic, almost downright incredible. This is how it turns out for purely theological reasons. They state that God is the culprit of all cosmic forms. But with Him, thought is inseparable from action 991 and is immediately accompanied by actual imprinting. 992 From this point of view, not the slightest gap is possible between the creative idea of God and creation itself. 993 There is neither place nor time for a mediator. 994 In all seriousness, it is impossible to even talk about any real independence of the Logos, even in comparison with private forces. 995 In them, independent life in the appropriate world would be more likely to be imagined, if it were not for the certainty that he resides precisely in the Logos and shares his fate.
As a result, all mediating reality disappears, turning into theoretical postulates for the sake of suppressing the invented dualistic irreconcilability. Then all speech is permissible only on the subject of the tone in which the philonic qualifications of intermediate potencies should be understood. To answer, it should be taken into account that virtually any mediastinum between God and the mother is destroyed, as long as no real demarcation of mutual communication is seen for them. Naturally, all preparatory operations for creative ordering will have to be carried out solely in the mind of God, when the emerging determination is cast into a completed plan. This will be the Logos with the mental cosmos. Of course, it is obvious that both of them still rest within the deity and are locked in it with their entire being, 996 differing only formally - logically. 997 Again, real separateness does not work out, and the Logos coincides with the mind of God 998 during the period of peacemaking energy, which turns out to be an ideal project.
999 It is not surprising that such a Logos is characterized by divine epithets, but they refer exclusively to Jehovah and do not mark a second subordinate reality. 1000 At this point, Philonism, without betraying its sympathies for Platonic ideology, 1001 comes quite close to rabbinic Judaism, which preached the ideality of the divine council about creation and salvation 1002 and almost hypostasized the law with the assimilation of the features of divinity to it. 1003 Thus, outward orthodoxy was preserved in the recognition of the truth that the divine Logos is actually God himself.
However, the divine determination cannot be delayed and is immediately realized. 1004 In this case, God comes out of Himself ad extra, and His creative thoughts become active. Logos and ideas are now dynamic factors and seem to be torn away from their original source. But all this simply expresses tension towards mastering matter and, before the desired success occurs, is exhausted by the use of divine energy to achieve one’s goals. 1005 Therefore, only the will of God functions here objectively, and its creative potentialities are not real before the material world is formed. In this case, the Logos is identified with the universal harmony of harmonious integrity, 1006 is the guarantee of its indestructible firmness 1007 and almost merges with its best expression in the Old Testament law, 1008 as private forces turn into generic ones, connecting vast groups of specific phenomena.
1009 It is not necessary to add that at this stage the mind of God passes into the mind of the world 1010 and does not differ sharply from the cosmic soul of the Stoics, 1011 whose philosophical dogma Philo quite skillfully combined with Platonism. It is clear that in this form the Logos is vitally real and divine only to the extent that these qualities can be attributed to the world. Along with this, it is no less inevitable that the entire effectiveness of the Logos is encompassed by the world movement, and its further peculiarity has no objective basis for itself.
The role of the Logos ends with the emergence of the world process, because its individuality diffuses into external phenomenality and disappears there in its independence. 1012 Therefore, any considerations about the subsequent fate are devoid of theoretical importance and are indifferent to our special interests in comparing Philonian teaching with the apostolic one. The data obtained is enough for us to achieve solid results on this issue. The fallacy of approximations often rests on the vagueness of the logical system and the imprecision of terminology, 1013 deceiving with its verbal consonance, and adaptation to biblical authorities is accompanied by the most unexpected metamorphoses in the assimilation of unrelated extremes. Meaningful borrowing from such a conglomerate was impossible without careful selection, when the perceived material was analyzed and found to be suitable.
For these reasons, the solution of genetic problems requires not just a bare statement of the philonic doctrine in all its immediacy, but also a determination of objective value. In the end, all this will lead to a categorical answer as to whether “peacockism” grew out of philonism, as criticism insists, or whether they are disparate. The first presupposes their material unity, the second emphasizes their material unity, the second emphasizes internal diametricality. Let's compare both sides to find the most true and unshakable.
Regarding the pre-existence of Christ, it is indisputable that the Hellenic evangelist confessed it with all inflexibility. 1014 All bewilderment is limited to quality, and many comment on it in the Jewish spirit of the pure ideality of the self-consciousness of God, which abstractly precedes all created history. But if we take the entire group of apostolic epistles, the inconsistency of this interpretation reveals itself. We see that the most peaceful Lord is portrayed as a mediator of peace and through this he is rewarded with personal attributes. And they are secured with all other details. First of all, creativity is revered as a moment of primordial “selectivity”, the supreme culmination of which was the incarnation. This means that the personality of the Redeemer is characteristic of him even during creation, as an independent and real person. It is even more irresistible because of its very influence on the creature. Christ does not simply contribute to its production as a mechanical instrument, losing all connection with its product once the effect is achieved.
On the contrary, He, being the originator of created existence, serves as the final goal of its aspirations and draws them towards Himself. The Lord has the autocratic activity of creating materiality and subordinating its inert spontaneity to His plans. These features provide Him with the dignity of divine superiority over creation in the sense of natural divinity. On earth He was for her a bright “image of the invisible God.” In this regard, the immediate application of this phrase to the pre-worldly or redemptive period is rather indifferent, because its historical understanding states that even after His incarnation the Son of God retained His worldly predicates. To understand their true power, one hardly needs many considerations, which are usually brought here for tendentious reasons of various shades. It will always be a strong exegetical axiom, and cannot be poorer in its content. 1015 And the second combination characterizes the real humanity of Christ, which is why the first certifies His perfect deity.
Denial and belittlement of this advantage necessarily cause the docetic abolition of the flesh of Christ with the destruction of the objectivity of grace-filled salvation. But with the Apostle everything is focused on the actual feat of the historical Redeemer and thereby affirms in Him the natural divinity that existed from eternity and is preserved in the world.
So: the Son of God was, before the incarnate appearance, a real individual with divine prerogatives. Are all these moments found in Philo in similar outlines? Let us begin with the real personality of the theosophical mediator. Opinions on this subject are inconsistent to the point of diametricality, and the split has not yet been smoothed out. Many believe that the Alexandrian mystic gravitated towards a personal view of the Logos 1016 and even directly proclaimed him as a person. 1017 Others equally categorically reject this 1018 and see in the “intercessor” an empty abstraction of a lifeless form. 1019 In addition to the vagueness of the commented judgments, 1020 - a way out of these antinomies is usually found in the theoretical premises of the entire system, commensurate with the ruling principles of its era. The transfer of modern categories would be an unlawful attack on direct originality, which acquires and should be illuminated in its own environment.
And here there was no question of personality, which did not arise at all before Philo and is not touched upon by him at all; 1021 this should not be asked. 1022 Such a mood is all the more likely because in the beliefs of that time, the isolation of being did not in the least affect its concreteness or individuality. On this basis the interpretation of philonism rests, as if its powers are separated from objects, not being separate objects, 1023 and the Logos is a living reality 1024 with the fullness of real being 1025 in detachment from the Supreme God, 1026 although it is not qualified by personality. 1027
It is difficult to accept all these conclusions in all their apodicticism. We readily admit that Philo does not give a categorical answer, but this does not mean that he did not have a need for it. And in itself, it is unnatural for any mind that isolated being should not be thought of in one form or another, and the non-predicateness of the Self-Existing theosophist expresses only His unlimitedness, which is indescribable in its immensity, 1028 and the lack of quality of matter is equal to chaotic inertia, devoid of concrete fragmentation. Here everything is quite clear, and if we notice a strange deviation for intermediaries, we should rather consider it either intentional or forced silence. The reason for this lies in the fact that the fundamental principles were inclined to mutually contradictory conclusions that could not be expressed without destroying the entire structure. It is natural that this point is left in the shadows - and, nevertheless, Philo’s attitude to the problem under analysis will be tangible for us to the point of transparency.
Thus, the permissibility of using the scale of personality is protected on all sides, and it would be a direct abnormality to renounce the fundamental drives of the thinking spirit. In this case, dead objectivism is possible only if a reasonable understanding of the phenomenon under study is rejected. For us, this is unacceptable already because genetic similarities must necessarily be considered only from an apostolic point of view. His two elements are evidenced for the pre-mundane Christ - reality and individuality in their indissoluble inseparability. The first seems to be dogmatically required by Philon’s premises in ontological dualism, where the opposites of God and matter are connected in reality and, of course, by real quantities. This is only true in terms of the phrase. The fact is that individual materiality contains the simple potentiality of being and does not receive it before cosmic ordering, when it turns out to be truly real.
Before this moment, its presence will be purely ideal among logical operations and will not have objective vitality. Philo treats this illusory quality seriously and with shades of concreteness, but all this is in the theoretical interests of philosophical schematism. For him, absolute creation from nothing, proclaimed by biblical revelation alone, was unimaginable, 1029 and the Alexandrian mystic takes from Hellenism the idea of a second primordial principle, serving as a material basis for the creative activity of God. It goes without saying that the material support does not actually exist outside the material world and, obviously, does not have an identity independent of cosmic discoveries in the totality of all parts of the universe. Then the very minimum interval for the existence of extra-objective matter is impossible, which is why it did not really exist. And once the objectivity of the mediated is eliminated, the reality of the mediator disappears along with it, turning into an intellectualistic concept.
This categorically confirms our earlier observations, and we conclude that the Logos of Philo was realistically conceivable, but did not really exist. In this case, the contrast of St. The Apostle Paul is irresistible and does not favor genetic lusts. With all this, it must be stated that the dispute is far from ending, but is taking a new turn. It is formulated in hypnosis that the Christian evangelist assimilated Philonov’s concepts and associated them with the historical personality of Jesus, in whom they also acquired prominent features of reality. The modification will be random and retains its kinship with Filonov’s prototype, which is also in harmony with critical guesses about the arbitrary invention of the premium Christ. Of course, the latter is contrary to the church faith and is rejected by it, but this member can easily be discarded, and everything is limited to the thesis that the actual pre-existence of the Lord is described in Philonian terms.
Thus we are directed to the analysis of pre-existential predicates. Between them, the Apostle sharply emphasizes that the Son of God was a personal subject with personal activity in his separate existence. Again Philo, in appearance, adheres to this view, since it was caused by the demands of his theosophy. In this matter it is chaotic - without quality due to its inability to take autonomous initiative for cosmic formation, and therefore the mediator of this process will have both independent initiative and its own energy of a thinking and willing individuality. For the Logos there will be strictly personal qualities, depicting him similarly to the eternal Christ.
This would undoubtedly be the case if the Alexandrian mystic understood anything separate from God. De facto this is not the case, and all we are talking about is only the property of God. 1030 Such a conviction is instilled and supported by all principled considerations. On the theological side, it is proclaimed an axiom that - except for evil - every being and everything in being is determined entirely by the supreme deity. Then a double equal to him would be an unnecessary complication of the task, because for him, too, the ontological difficulty of the Creator’s contact with material limitation remained as acute as before. Then the only possible way out is that this second participant is derivative and created, but this, perhaps, would only further complicate the complexity of the whole problem. By itself and in its isolation, the created is devoid of creative autonomy and would be completely unsuitable for cosmopic purposes. Therefore, it is necessary to attribute to it divine energy, which works in addition to its carrier.
From this it follows that God directly approaches matter through His power, and this testifies that Philo personifies the dynamic potency of God, 1031 and not a subject or object. The same result is given by cosmological aspects. In them, the main obstacle is ethical abnormality, which cannot be assimilated to the deity. For these reasons, it is associated with material insufficiency, and materiality itself is considered original. With such preliminaries, all creativity of divine contact will be accompanied only by the overcoming of chaotic confusion 1032 in harmonious order, 1033 is expressed by the triumph of moral principles and turns out to be quite possible, because it entails adequate consequences. True, they are far from ideal, but the fault for this is solely in matter, which is not capable of assimilating all divinity. Naturally, Philo puts forward a dynamic moment that does not absorb all individuality.
Physical and moral evil fell to the lot of primordial matter and, relieving Jehovah of all moral responsibility, allowed the characteristic application of His active omnipotence.
It is absolutely irresistible that the Egyptian theosophist personifies the divine power and does not at all imply a specific personality. 1034 For him, everything is exhausted by the fact that God interrupts the state of self-imposed peace with a reasonable striving for peacemaking 1035 and appears before us in a new form of His unchanging personality. 1036 This takes away from the Logos the most important predicate of the apostolic eternal Christ and makes clear the internal disparity of the detailed characteristics. In it we find almost the entire set of evangelical terminology in a consonant series of such names as “image” and “firstborn Son of God”, “second God” and the author of the cosmic world. In a strict sense, these qualifications evaluate the dignity of peacemaking energy by its connection with its original source, from which it is inseparable, which is why it reproduces it with identical clarity. It is clear that - in real meaning - these will be metaphors for stating the loyalty of the Absolute Lord to himself in all his discoveries.
On this point, Philo is, of course, infallible, but he does not provide support for genetic convergences, which require strict isolation, even if purely speculative. And in this case, the image will be a reflection and, without merging with its prototype, leaves the divine sphere and only distantly points to it, 1037 as a shadow of the one Existence. 1038 Since a split in the deity is unacceptable for a Jew, we hence obtain that this is the highest of creations. The crown of such is man, humiliated by materiality, with the withdrawal of which the specific content for godlikeness is acquired. This is the motivating reason that Philo associates the latter with ideal humanity. 1039 And this connection is extremely rare, then we must be convinced that the immaterial extra-divine image of God, united with the Logos 1040 was a great incomprehensibility for theosophical logic. 1041 At the same time, it did not have individual outlines.
They are produced by differentiating matter - and without it there will be a simple abstract idea, for which there is not even a name in our language. 1042 This is a purely artificial idea, truly possible only in the mind of God, which in advance bears within itself the image of animate creatures. 1043
What appears before us is simply an objectified divine thought. 1044 It is clear that in this direction the attempt to renounce the deity does not achieve success and returns the contemplator to the beginning of the vicious circle. It is no less obvious that the entire emphasis in it rests on the superiority of the creative plan in comparison with the creature that copies it. Here supremacy is necessarily only gradational, 1045 and the fulcrum for it is the imperfection of material limitation. This is the whole power of the names “firstborn Son of God” 1046 and “second God.” 1047 Primacy is consolidated not because it does not allow imitation and remains singular. On the contrary, it is calculated and refers to its repetition in the material cosmos, with which it is included in the same rank and, separating from Jehovah, is degraded in its dignity to the degree of primus inter pares, like a creature. 1048 Then all the difference will lie in immaterial speculativeness. She, as a reflection of God’s self-determination in thinking, is ideologically divine, but not beyond its correspondence with divinity itself.
And in this regard, the addition of a material element contributes only to phenomenal discovery in fragmented figures, without taking away their general property. Naturally, on the ideal side, the sensory world has divinity on a par with the Logos, and all its peculiarities are limited to quantitative shades. However, they also do not have serious significance, because they actually state carnal truism that a thought is more adequate to itself than its conditioned imprinting. Despite all this, this does not destroy their inner identity. It is not surprising that Philo ascribes sonship and divinity even to the cosmic universe and loses their absoluteness. 1049
Despite all the pomp of euphymic praises, Logos uncontrollably loses all means for creative influence on material inertia. 1050 In this form, it is far from autonomous activity and is only a mechanical tool, 1051 created for private needs and disappearing in it. It is irresistible that God himself will be active everywhere, 1052 and all qualifications characterize for us the creative energy of God. 1053 Then we are obliged to think about her that she is absolutely divine. Consequently, even the clear creative determination of God is imperfect and introduces shadow touches into the being of God. The Creator and the creature imperceptibly draw closer to each other, and all processes of the world’s existence are based on this. As usual, everything is shrouded in a haze of theosophical nebula and eludes precise control. Only the general line of possible construction is seen. In primogeniture, the ideal is closely connected with the real, and they mutually share their qualities. 1054 As a result, it turns out that, by assimilating its orderliness to the chaotic mass, the former borrows a share of materiality from it.
In these interests, it is not indifferent that, unlike the apostolic Logos, Philo always has a different name. In the theosophical system the difference here is very considerable. The word used by the evangelist is taken from legalistic nomenclature and marks such privileges that are not repeated even with the most accurate comparison. Another shade of activity of the generating subject is also emphasized, when it is quite normal that - with autonomy in his own sphere - he can transfer his natural advantages, just as in legal primogeniture the son completely replaces the father in all his special rights. Hence equality, 1055 excluding the created dependence of the born on the begotten. 1056 Contrary to this, Philo puts forward the passive side and directly certifies the birth that has taken place in the totality of all its members. Before us will be a continuous group of those born, identical in the conditions of origin.
1057 For them, all peculiarities are reduced to temporal classifications, and temporal anticipation in the detection of general strength does not extend beyond quantitative differentiations. We easily admit that at first the cause works more intensely and then weakens, from which the products of an arithmetical multiplicity of varieties are obtained, with the same nature. From this point of view, the material cosmos will be the end of a consistent creative process and forces us to look for refined materiality in its initial stages. Throughout its entire duration, creativity is cast in the gradual reification of the divine idea, which must materialize in the very emergence. It is natural that the Alexandrian dreamer’s powers are rewarded with material ethereality, 1058 and Logos is its extreme refinement, 1059 which is why they all serve as stages of emanatic materialization, 1060 crowned with ordered cosmic spontaneity.
1061 Here the verdict of those who consider Philo’s system to be Gnosticism sui generis or its harbinger, 1062 distorting genuine apostolic Christianity, which will be independent of it, is not false. 1063 True, under the pressure of religious and metaphysical principles, emanatism does not endure steadily and to the end; For this reason, this tendency dogmatically asserts that divine power is realized in the cosmic, even with the participation of matter.
All phenomenality is essentially imbued with divinity, which dynamically inclines the entire world. On this path, Philo made very dangerous concessions in favor of pantheism and went straight to meet it. 1064 The inevitable fate of any theory of the naturalistic omnipresence of God led to this, but logology itself also contributed to this. 1065 Its subject ensured by its implementation the highest lawfulness and impeccable rationality, since it in re coincided with God. 1066 The trouble was that this dignity took away his originality. Naturally, his intrusion into the cosmic process also attracted the hidden deity, whose inner mind was now embodied in cosmic harmony. The Logos becomes reality, and this acquisition again does not serve him well, since he merges with cosmic harmony. With such inseparability, both will be inseparable throughout, and the superiority of the mediator is fundamentally unacceptable, and his eternity no less belongs to the created world and is only conceivable with the deification of the latter.
As for the content, it is guessed quite simply and unmistakably. Given the primordial nature of matter, we will be left with the individualizing and unifying form of specific objects. 1067 This is a law of nature that does not exist anywhere else but in nature. In relation to him, it would be absurd to talk about personality when there is no own reality. Rather, something else will be true. Low-quality materiality in itself is inert and incapable of organizing development. All this is caused and regulated by the waves of the intermediary “word of God.” One cannot see dead potentiality in it, since it stimulates and normalizes cosmic life. The Logos is the cosmic soul 1068 in all Stoic severity, 1069 up to and including materialization. 1070 This is the highest point of Philo’s personification without the completeness of the pagan model, where she categorically rejected the biblical idea of the supreme God - the Creator. The Jew could not confess this with all determination and was forced to confine himself to intensified personifications of the thought of God.
1071 Therefore, the Logos is identified with the animate world, to which it is equal both in eternity and in divinity, possessing them with the most energetic relativity. For criticism, we recall that such a view is contrary to the apostolic in its very cosmic character, for St. Paul depicts the eternal Son of God not in the world, but above the world and with the Father.
We have exhausted all related aspects of theosophical contemplations. They were based on fatal extremes - theistic monism and philosophical dualism. Logology was appointed for their mutual reconciliation, 1072 but the impossible task did not give any hope for a successful resolution, which is why the tension was wasted in vain and the best remedy was spoiled by unnatural reconciliation, being virtually destroyed. And we see that in its divinity the Logos is absorbed by the Self-Existing One and will be inseparable from Him by the mind of objectifying striving. Any exit from this sphere threatens, first of all, with the loss of divine privileges, from which it is inevitable that in attempts at realistic autocracy, the Logos is degraded to a creature and is only the first in a series of creations. 1073 If he brings all divinity into this environment, then - due to the dualistic incompatibility of two ontological principles - the second is completely dissolved in cosmic materiality, and pantheism eliminates not only the highest deity, but also any other being.
The result mercilessly abolishes all its precedents, just as they bitterly quarrel with each other, because Philo wanted to impose a logical scheme alien to the Bible. 1074 It is not surprising that when such elements are combined, a strange inconsistency in the concatenation of inconsistencies results. 1075 In this disorderly accumulation, objective clarity disappears, 1076 and due to its elusiveness, the object is a mirage, inadmissible to logical definition. 1077 It will take a miracle of creative influence for the light of the gospel of Christ to shine out of this chaos 1078, 1079 which does not need it due to the absoluteness of its source. The apostolic teaching cannot be derived from philonism in the usual ways, because the ferment of self-destruction reigned in it. Therefore, external analogies in terms do not at all indicate historical affinity and material solidarity, for the similarity is illusory, since the meaning of the same words in both systems is different, 1080 sometimes to the point of diametricality.
1081 This convinces us of their fundamental disparity, 1082 in which parallels serve only to highlight the indelible contrast more clearly. 1083 And for the analyzed example this is completely indisputable, since Philo could not provide either the reality and personality of the Son of God, or the divinity and personality of Christ. Under such conditions, private disagreements for St. Paul, no less than for the Apostle John, cease to be random dissonances in general theosophical music and acquire the merits of external and tactile discoveries for the natural mutual negativity of the concepts taken in basis and development, in spirit and material, in purpose and content. 1084 And if in the positive characterization of Christology we found that for it the evangelist did not need to leave the soil of the facts of gracious revelation, now we find that he could not commit himself to Philo’s dreams, alien to the most minimal similarity and rich in all sorts of inconsistencies.
In any case, it is irresistible that the apostolic doctrine of the individual - real pre-existence of Christ is least similar to Philonian logology and is not derived from the latter. 1085 Therefore, in the interests of genetic convergence, a new twist is given to critical considerations. Starting from the familiar idea that St. Paul, following Philon’s model, only transfers the personality of Jesus into pre-worldly existence. 1086 And if at the same time humanity fell away, then it is natural that only the extraordinary power that singled out and exalted the Redeemer could be subject to apotheosis. Hence, the entire divinity of Christ will be in the power of God that animated Him, which is revealed in the Gospel (Rom. I, 16. 1 Cor. I, 18. 27), as in Philo the “book of the existence of heaven and earth” is identified 1087 with the “perfect Logos.” 1088 By this rapprochement 1089 all theosophical principles are saved in the dynamic illumination of the “mediator”, and therefore attempts to guarantee the noted interpretation are understandable.
For the sake of this, the superiority of the Redeemer by nature is smoothed out with the deprivation of its God-equal feature, since the “fullness of divinity” that dwelt in Him (Col. I, 19. II. 9) is similar to the fact that the Logos “was completely filled with immaterial potencies.” 1090 Therefore, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, placing the Son above the Angels, seems to be simply developing a philonic theory, according to which the Word is the substitute of all revelation, subordinating all concelebrating spirits. 1091 It is not surprising that the dignity of the Lord is actually resolved by the birthright among many brothers (Rom. VIII, 9) - in parallel with the exhortations of the Theosophist, 1092 so that people become like at least the first-born Logos. 1093 Of course, in this way the Apostle ensures equal sonship with God for believers, but here a conscious deviation from the wisdom of the Alexandrian is noticeable, at a propaedeutic cost to him. 1094 To put it bluntly, according to genetic hopes, the evangelist exaggerates theosophical schemes to the extreme and draws them the more realistically, the more vivid the contemplation of the historical incarnation was, although it embraces the entire personality.
This means that in the early there will be a dynamic anticipation that does not imply original divinity.
This most important point of critical constructions is devoid of objective strength, for the reality of the personal pre-existence of Christ is undoubted in general and is confirmed even by the passages quoted. In the Gospel, only the power of God acts and is perceived: this is true, and then we must admit that its actual source was God incarnate. Divine preeminence is proclaimed with all apodicticism, and it cannot be limited to the discovery of the energy of God: otherwise, the “whole fullness” of its incarnation would take away all content from the Father and transform Him into an empty mirage of ideality. And since every thought about the descent to earth of Jehovah himself is rejected, then it is further necessary to admit - along with Him - a special deity. This is more clearly evidenced by the comparison of the Son with individual Angels when all predicates of creation are removed from Him and with the assimilation of truly divine absoluteness to Him. All this is supported by the fruits of a gracious rebirth.
In him, the Lord became the firstborn for the entire mass of the renewed and - as an older brother - unites with them naturally. Here He is personally separated from God and yet binds Christians to Him according to the dignity of the Son of God. Which will be no less separate. 1095 Without this, it would again turn out that the Most High, merging with Christ from eternity, coincided with Him in earthly appearance and lost independence in His adequate reflection. This would secure the divine majesty of the redemptive ministry, but would violate the whole character of the apostolic motivation. In it, the earthly is revered as an exact reflection of the heavenly in all its advantages, whence it is inevitable that the individual divinity of the period of salvation was an essential property of true sonship with God.
This means that the cardinal tendency of apostolic Christology is contrary to Philo’s idealization. In turn, the second is imbued with internal disparity and cannot be reconciled. Logos, as the power of God, in its fullness and intensity is separated from materiality precisely because it resides in the sphere of the deity as a function of his own life. For this reason, it expresses the peace-making energy of God. It is clear that the latter precedes its implementation and is the primary model for it, but this shows that - in reality - it did not previously exist outside of God, and it acquires detachment from the moment of its immediate imprinting, where differentiations are created by materiality, and not by pure divinity. Therefore, in the incarnate Christ everywhere he puts forward natural closeness with the Father. Based on this adversativity, it is obvious that the dynamic idea of Philonov’s logology is not suitable and sufficient for the apostolic gospel.
They retain in all their indelibility the previously stated contrast, which excludes any guesswork about mutual dependence. The Alexandrian theosophist did not admit a second pre-eternal divine reality. All attempts of this kind were only personifications, where all vitality rested on the plasticity of the description of the functioning power of God. Its real existence will necessarily be created, 1096 and therefore Philo took away either divinity or real individuality from the Logos. 1097 But in the first case, there will no longer be a true worldliness of Christian teaching, since in fact everything is embraced by the cosmos. Naturally, here too the Egyptian mystic did not go beyond prototypical humanity, in which there is no divine originality at all and is only a theoretical idea.
1098 The reduction of Philonian concepts to rabbinic doctrine 1099 and - in particular - to the doctrine of “memra”, 1100 when it is attributed to the feophanies in the historical process of the supreme care of Ishmael, 1101 although it will not be better even when interpreting it in the sense of hypostasis, 1102 because it is not identical with the Messiah, does not help the matter. 1103 and, approaching the Kabbalistic metatron, 1104 is not analogous to the Christian Logos - the Son of God, 1105 for in the biblical belief she was only the mediator of creation, 1106 being created and for Judaism. 1107
From all sides, Philonism turns out to be helpless in its unusual role as the founder of the Christological dogmatics of St. Pavel. The evangelist confesses the pre-existence of the Lord as the basis of earthly ministry, deriving from it his independence and authority. 1108 Here, real pre-worldly existence with the corresponding predicates of individual divinity is necessarily required. The apostolic concept of pre-existence categorically affirms the actual reality of its object, and all New Testament writers agree on this. The Epistle to the Hebrews is most distinguished by its Alexandrian flavor and, however, is completely alien to philosophical dreaminess. Everywhere in it pre-eternity is noted, which is why the radiance in the Son with His individually incomparable superiority over the Angels even before the introduction of the First-born into the universe. The entire providential history of the Jewish people is organized according to the participation of the hypostatic “image of God,” which inspired and directed all the leaders of Israel to their goals.
Their exploits were a precursor to redemptive deliverance and foreshadow it in their written reproduction. Typology and allegory rest on the certainty of the personal activity of Christ before the incarnation and attest to His separate deity. All this is alien and unbearable for philological ideality and is rather denied by it with the elimination of material affinity. 1109 And for the Epistle to the Hebrews, not without right, they say that “the closer (its) similarity (with Philonism) in appearance, the greater the contrast in essence” 1110 and in general in Christology 1111 and in its particular points, 1112 which is why all parallels are tendentiously deprived of genetic energy. 1113 This unshakably protects the originality of Paul's doctrine, for which any secondary aids are unnecessary. An illustration of this is in its no less adversative nature throughout the entire trend of Jewish theology, because in messianism the rabbis allowed only the ideal predestination of the eternal decision, 1114 and this was entirely adopted apocryphally - apocalyptic literature.
1115 Hence, it is indisputable that the divine pre-existence of Christ is presented by the Apostle in a completely non-Jewish way, does not follow from Jewish sources and, therefore, should not be commented on in their tone according to the conditions of origin and the nature of the content. 1116 In both respects, St. Every path for borrowing from other cities was blocked for Pavel. He unshakably believed in the divine pre-eternity of the Redeemer, but this was because he saw in Him an exact reflection of the “invisible God.” Here everything was caused and created by historical revelation and does not require other factors for itself other than the actual testimony of the incarnate Son of God. The very idea of a second real divinity could be born in the mind of a Jew only out of an irresistible compulsion 1117 and in it acquired all its original outlines.
From this point of view, the Christological contemplations of the Apostle are explained quite satisfactorily in their genesis and proper dignity, and such a positive justification finally strengthens the conclusion reached that philonic influences are not at all involved here.
As a result, we have that the divine personality of Christ the Savior does not find parallels in Alexandrian theosophy, is not deducible from it 1118 and does not reflect Philonov’s logology. 1119 But if a person is original, then all his functions are independent. Therefore, further critical approaches are devoid of systematic strength and resemble random notes regarding the work of Christ in himself and according to its fruits among those blessed. Nevertheless, they think that on these points the evangelist adhered to the philonic instructions of the evil through the good. 1121 This bare diagram does not yet touch upon the essential elements of the apostolic teaching and refers to the most partial comparison. With such an assessment, genetic attempts are immediately exposed in their vanity. Philo’s fundamental view of the subject was subjectively unique and determined by his cosmological and anthropological theories. According to them, the appearance of a living person is marked by the darkening of the ideal in materiality, 1122 which binds spirituality and subordinates it to its natural sinfulness.
1123 The whole problem lies in innate depravity and poisonous carnality. 1124 This inevitably prescribes a special task for moral deliverance. Since the spirit suffers only from connection with harmful physicality, the whole point will be about possible liberation from this prison. But complete separation would be death 1125 and is accompanied by happy success only with complete liberation from bodily defilement. Therefore, the first condition should be renunciation of the carnal principle with apathetic indifference to its instincts, so that it does not introduce its infection into our ethical practices. We can easily see that the best and most legitimate means for this lies in the spiritual concentration of everyone, when all spiritual virtues are developed through gradual effort. Together with them, the desired triumph is achieved, from which it is clear that for Philo the messianic salvation was the spread of virtues. 1126 This does not require external intervention, for everything is acquired by autonomous growth.
The spirit by its nature is incapable and inaccessible to sinfulness, and therefore does not need rebirth and has all the resources for its own progression. On this path of ascension, manuals are no less unnecessary, since all stages of it are feasible for the individual’s own diligence. All that matters is attention to the voice of divine suggestion; with it, everyone through “training” comes to “ascetic exercise” and, strengthening in it, rises to the natural steadfastness of unperturbed contemplation of Being. We already know enough that this process is purely intellectual in nature and is aimed at eliminating all mediation. Here special heavenly participation would, at the very least, be a vain violation of the natural order. At the same time, it would be completely aimless. If all evil is in our connection with fleshly materiality, then with it redemption cannot be individual - universal and must be repeated by each subject in all detail.
In turn, corporeality does not allow transformation into sinlessness or infallibility, since this would be its destruction, ending human existence itself. Man, by his carnal organization, inevitably in the world, is necessarily sinful, and not a single individual gets rid of this except through personal cleansing.
The noted theosophical principles are far from favorable to personal divine intervention, leaning entirely in favor of human independence in the elimination of carnal bonds and in the cultivation of spiritual independence. This is the basis that messianic expectations were alien to Philo’s doctrine, 1127 where there was no scope for them, 1128 why they are belittled 1129 and obscured. 1130 The Alexandrian mystic was cold to these bright aspirations of his people 1131 and - due to his unsuitability for his system - understood them little and spoke about them reluctantly. 1132 According to his judgment, the restoration of Israel will occur not through the Messiah, but through the sin of the paracletes - intercessors - in the mercy of the Lord, the piety of the patriarchs and the accumulation of their own virtues. 1133 The external revolution in the fate of Abraham's descendants is causally motivated by the internal one, but the latter is in no way conditioned by the heavenly Deliverer and in itself causes a worthy crowning in the manifestation of the glory of the Lord. 1134 Naturally, messianic ideas are weakly and not clearly developed in Philo.
1135 They appear here as a reflection of religious faith 1136 and are imbued with the usual spirit. 1137 All this is clearly illustrated by the actual words. The misfortunes of the scattered Jews are great, but “if they accept them not for destruction, but for admonition, being ashamed with all their souls, they will turn - with reproaches to themselves for their errors - and openly confess with purified thought the sins committed against themselves, first in an urgent and clean conscience, then with their tongue for the improvement of those listening; then in this case they will achieve mercy from the gracious savior - God, who imparted to the human race the excellent and greatest gift of affinity with His word, from which, as if from a model, the human mind originated. Then, even if they were the last on earth, enslaved by captive enemies, everyone will be freed in one day, as if by a wave, for their sudden change towards virtue will amaze the masters so much that they, ashamed to rule over the best (themselves), will let them go.
Then, having received this unexpected freedom, all, recently scattered throughout Hellas and the barbarian country, across the islands and continents, will arise by a friendly attraction and rush from everywhere to the indicated place under the guidance of some vision, surpassing human nature in its comparative divinity, invisible to others and clear only to the saved. Upon their arrival (in Palestine), the hitherto destroyed cities will be rebuilt again, the desert will be populated, and the barren land will become fertile. 1138 What is worthy of special attention in this testimony is that regeneration is attributed exclusively to personal and independent initiative, eliminating the need for a special redemption of the world. 1139 At this point, Philo, perhaps, did not recognize the deliberate Deliverer at all. The entire revolution is caused by people’s own transformation and is rewarded with corresponding fruits, which will be entirely political and social, since all the descendants of Abraham are already replete with moral benefits.
1140 And here the theosophist is faithful 1141 strictly to national Jewish ideals, 1142 devoid of ethical justification, 1143 as they are also visible in the exaltation of Israel. 1144 Now the Jews can only enjoy 1145 the privileges they have acquired, 1146 - and we are presented with a jubilant picture of the triumphant movement of the saved towards sacred Zion. 1147 By analogy with the journey from Egypt, “divine vision” is also mentioned, but it is attracted artificially and serves only for glorification from God, without playing an active role and contributing only to enhancing the brilliance of the shining victory. In the best case, this is a theophanic revelation of God’s favor in the Shekinah, 1148 in the form of a cloudy pillar of fire, 1149 and not at all the Word 1150 as a separate subject. 1151
There are no redeeming qualities here, since there are no minimal obstacles to triumph during public worship. 1152 This means that it is completely unfair to think that Philo allowed for the messianic appearance of the Logos in docetic form. 1153 A much more reasonable interpretation is that here is messianism without the Messiah. 1154 It is not directly found in another mention, where, when discussing the cessation of everywhere hostility after people turn to God, the Egyptian mystic first points to the subjugation of animals to man, who would be ashamed to be lower than the animals, which is why universal peace will be established. Any violators of it will be subject to consumption. “Some run away when no one pursues them except fear, exposing their rear to their opponents, so that it is easy for the entire army to perish. For a man will come forth, says the prophecy (Num.
XXIV, 7) is a formidable and warlike commander, and will conquer great and populous nations when God sends this help befitting the pious, and this is the indestructible boldness of souls and the insurmountable strength of bodies: both of them are terrible for enemies; if they meet together, they are downright invincible. But others of the enemies, as the prophecy says, will not be worthy of being defeated by people: to them - for shameful destruction - (God) will oppose whole clouds of hornets (cf. Ex. XXIII, 28. Deut. VII, 20), fighting for the pious, meanwhile, these will not only receive a decisive victory in the war without (shedding) blood, but also the unshakable power of domination over the world. the benefit of the subordinates - whether they submit out of love, fear or reverence - for the pious possess the three greatest qualities essential for dominion - holiness, fearfulness and beneficence. Of these, the first evokes respect - horror, the third - love; if he is united in the soul, then the subordinates will (voluntarily) obey their superiors.”
1155 In this discussion there are no precise hints about the future of Israelite history and the messianic era. 1156 The speech is conducted in a general tone, and the biblical quotation taken does not stand out from a number of similar references given unnecessarily. Philo argues empirically - psychological truth, why he attributes it precisely - to the Old Testament word, and we should not look for more, exaggeratedly asserted that it is certainly said about the personal Messiah 1157 or about the new incarnation of the Logos. 1158 However, let this be an involuntary messianic echo. 1159 Agreeing with this, we are obliged to accept that the Theosophist was presented with a political conqueror according to the rabbinic template. 1160 Consequently, only fragmentary echoes slip through him, devoid of originality and not quite clear without connection with the rattling marches of Judaizing Palestine. 1161 St. Paul would rather have recourse to the original source; however, even from there he did not draw, and even less could lend himself to a secondary intermediary. Much more significant is another observation, that again the relationship between the Messiah and the Logos is not noticed.
1162 Reverse interpretations are random and unfounded. 1163 Both ideas are nowhere brought closer together to the weakest degree, 1164 because their synthesis was not accessible to Philon’s system 1165 and is not expressed in it. 1166 Now we will have the following dilemma: either by confessing the theosophical Logos in Christ, the evangelist would be forced to take away his messianic dignity, or with the second it would be necessary to reject the first. But the recognition of the messiahship of Jesus is the foundation of the Christian faith itself, 1167 and permeates all apostolic convictions. Naturally, St. Paul, honoring the Lord as the promised Savior, could not see in Him Philo’s mediator and did not use Judeo-theosophical reserves in Christology.
The conclusion reached is finally confirmed by a further point of Christian soteriology. It is all based on the fact of redemption, but its objective support and subjective vitality for people rest on the great mystery of piety, that salvation was accomplished by God in the flesh (1 Tim. III, 16). Incarnation is the root of the grace-filled existence of the whole world and the initial principle of all Christian dogma. Therefore, philonism was absolutely opposed to the cardinal issue. To eliminate any misunderstandings that arise, we emphasize in advance the most important points of the apostolic doctrine. It unshakably accepts the comprehensive reality of the corporeality of Christ, and genetic criticism exaggerates this axiom with its false reduction of the Lord to an ordinary human level. Less often, other opinions are expressed that the Hellenic missionary was inclined towards Jewish concepts, and considered the body to be a temporary form, as happened with the manifestations of spirits. 1168 All this is the tendentiousness of idle dreaming - and the truth of the full humanity of Christ remains forever unshakable.
Then references to the possibility of the physical detection of the Logos are unsuitable, because - according to the same Old Testament theophanies - it would be illusory. 1169 The complete human individuality of the Apostle is inseparable from the peaceful divine personality, and for them only a natural union is conceivable. From this point of view, there is little purely spiritual insight, which is used to parallel the Gospel (John I, 14) “the flesh became.” They say: “the human soul, according to Philo, (can be a worthy abode of the Divine and) can not only absorb the Logos, but even rise above it. Through it, the Logos can fill and animate the whole person: it can be born in a person if God opens the womb of his soul. It became possible that the difference lies not in this, but in the Christian content of the doctrine of the Logos, which could not exist in Alexandrian philosophy, which developed without any relation to Christ and the Gospel. 1170 This interpretation is so vague that one can doubt its accuracy.
In fact, everything is exhausted by biblical inspiration, and according to theosophical understanding, it was achieved by the sage himself or served as a primary and auxiliary impulse for autonomous development, where everything proceeds without outside participation. Here it is not the Logos that is embodied in a person, but a person that embodies the Logos in his mind. In all rigor, this is a difference in degrees of intellectual progress, where there is no room for the reciprocity of the influence of isolated principles. This is also irresistible due to the philonic hope that the soul is an emanation of divinity, and for both, real communication is resolved by likeness. In any case, in this way there is no direct contact with material limitation, yet this is the whole importance for St. Paul, who beheld God in the natural man. For Filonov’s metaphysics these were diametric extremes that did not allow communication. 1171
Therefore, the Logos, taken in abstraction from the cosmos, in its divinity, is absolutely alien to materiality and is incapable of assimilating human nature. In this regard, the most energetic tension of the theosophist breaks down in helplessness from the mediastinum he has erected. Here is a relief example. Philo writes: “The Father, who gave birth to everything, gave the Archangel and the eldest Logos an excellent gift, so that, standing between them, he could separate what was created from the creator. He is the ever-present prayer book to the imperishable for the distressed mortal, being the envoy of the military leadership to the subordinate. And he rejoices at such a gift and, pleasing him, explains in words: I stand between the Lord and you (Deut. V, 5), being neither uncreated like God, nor created like you, but serving as a providing middle for both, for with the Creator it is a guarantee that everything created does not fall apart in unbridledness, choosing disorder instead of orderliness, but He inspires the creature with the bright hope that the merciful God will never despise His own work.
I am a messenger of peace for creation from God, who, as the ever-present guardian of peace, has decided to abolish wars.” 1172 In this reasoning, where the Word is the connection of the universe, 1173 not a little reminiscent of the apostolic teaching about the intercession of God and man in Christ (1 Tim. II, 5) - and yet this is a simple physiological appearance. Of the two opposites in the Theosophist's Intercessor there is neither one nor the other, and in reality he states their absolute isolation of ineradicable natural hostility. This means that, to the extent that the Logos is conceivable in divinity, incarnation is impossible for him, 1174 which was absurd 1175 for Philo, since he considers even creation and industry humiliating for God. 1176 It is clear that the Apostle, faithful to fact and prophecies, 1177 could not commit himself to his denial - and to the previous observations we have added a new authority, crushing for any genetic attempts. If it was found there that the messianic faith in the Lord did not give St.
Paul's support for attracting logological dreams, we now have that the living Deliverer of Christian history and dogmatics could not be Philon's Logos.
We see that the mystery of the messianic personality and the redemptive work of the God-man is beyond the understanding of Philo. 1178 Hence it is inevitable that the Christian revival of people is incomprehensible to him and is not depicted in theosophical colors by the Hellenic evangelist. According to its fundamental tendencies, criticism is forced to think differently and tries to find supporting justifications in apostolic anthropology and amartology, where all the prerequisites for both the saving feat of the Lord and the teaching on this subject lie. And if careful authors state consonances with Alexandrian philosophy in psychological terms, 1179 then members of the genetic school directly explain Pavlov’s entire anthropology as a conglomerate 1180 of Judaism with new elements taken from Hellenism. 1181 In this spirit, 1182 all the Apostle’s views on the flesh and the relationship of sin with the body are commented upon, 1183 with the necessary crowning in a special pneumatic eschatology, 1184 which replaced the primary Jewish ideas with their radical transformation.
1185 All private critical interpretations are based on this basis: they usually seem to be quite firmly justified according to all the rules of scientific solidity, which is obligatory for any reasonable belief, and they affirm genetic convergences, 1186 but it is here that the foundation for them is least strong and turns out to be fictitious. In theology, Philo was a dualist 1187 due to his metaphical antinomies, 1188 fatally intruding into the psychological sphere through heterogeneous media. 1189 Matter was an independent principle for him, 1190 and only writers who agree with him 1191 dare to challenge the sober judgment that the Egyptian mystic imposes its pre-existence on Moses, contrary to the biblical text. 1192 But eternal and independent materiality 1193 must necessarily be antithetical to spirituality, which for the human soul will also be given in advance. 1194 It is logically formulated that natural adversativities are combined in a particular person. It is inevitable that for the higher it will be barbaric enslavement by the lower and constraint by frailty.
Therefore, Philo willingly accepts Platonic (Cratyl. 400 C) equality with all its psychological prerequisites and considers the body an intolerable prison. 1195 Painful for the spirit, this forced communication is also harmful for the material substrate, which itself awakens from its inertia and acquires the energy of rebellious hostility. Then eternal matter empirically becomes stoically the vital mass of matter 1196 and is imbued with active opposition to good spiritual inclinations. 1197 The body is a coffin for all spiritual impulses 1198 and, fettering them, forces them to serve its interests. But the latter are not akin to the soul and deviate it to desecrate its own aspirations, 1199 why corporeality is harmful and sinful to the soul, 1200 is fraught with evil 1201 and is its accomplice 1202 and source throughout the world. 1203
All of Filonov's psychology is built on the dualistic method of Platonism 1204 and applies it to anthropology 1205 with cruel inexorability. 1206 This is a disgrace to all genetic claims. We have spoken at length on the issues noted and here we can limit ourselves to brief and categorical theses. First of all, the Apostle of Tongues was never at all a dualist 1207 and in vain is declared such, 1208 since it is not bodily desires that are sinful, but their renewal. 1209 Consequently, it is the spiritually willing subject who is guilty here, 1210 why the flesh is sinful in fallen humanity due to the fall, 1211 and not by nature, 1212 and does not exist for him without the original prison. 1213 From this side it is difficult not to agree with the excellent sentence that St. Paul, we have the Gospel as much in body as in spirit. 1214 Psychological analogies with Philonism cannot extend beyond the phrase, 1215 and even then with great doubt, since regarding the cardinal concept, the evangelist is directly eliminated Hellenistically - Philonian elements.
1216 In connection with physicality, spirituality must, of course, be illuminated in its own way, from which arises a skeptical suspicion even regarding the Apostle’s knowledge of the corresponding theosophical views. 1217 It is indisputable that the apostolic psychology is completely different 1218 and inexplicable from Philonov’s. 1219
Under such conditions, a contrast is inevitable in the depiction of the actual precursors of Christian redemption. The latter presupposes that people have sinned and cannot independently regain their lost purity, but are willing and able to assimilate it as a divine gift. Philo thought completely differently. For him, sin was an essential property of material flesh, and in its perception was the entire fall of the first parents. The serpent - the tempter personifies sensual desire, 1220 which caused bodily endowment with all sinful functions. It is clear that there is neither primitive innocence, nor the devil as a seducer, nor original sin. 1221 But corporeality is necessary for our earthly existence 1222 and is the same everywhere. 1223 This directly states 1224 that all people are sinful with an irreducibility that certifies ethical indifference, abolishing any difference between good and evil. 1225
If we consider all this with impartial seriousness, then we easily lose sight of part of the petty and unsystematized critical apparatus where philonic parallels are drawn on the question of the unique state of man in the era of grace and in the period of Christian renewal. 1226 It is enough to make small restrictions for the mirage of genetic seduction to dissipate. – It is emphasized that in amartology the Apostle defended the naturalness of sin and exclusively legal sanity (Rom. V, 12.13 and cp. III, 20) with the ineradicability of internal discord in man (Rom. VII, 18.20) contrary to the convictions of conscience (Rom. II, 15) 1227 and the ardent desire for deliverance from mortal corporeality ( Rom. VII, 24). This supposedly reflects the theosophical beliefs of 1228 about the innateness of carnal sinfulness and mortality (De gigantibus § 7 ap. Mangey I, p. 266; Cohn - Wendland II, p. 47; Yonge I, p. 335, although the struggle always continues. But Philo states the identity of sinfulness and the flesh, and St.
Paul only inhabited the first in the second 1229 with the inheritance of the fall of paradise, 1230 meanwhile the Egyptian mystic was completely incomprehensible to infantile irrationality. 1231 Therefore, for the theosophist, internal yearnings and desires were witnesses of natural and incorrigible human helplessness, while for the evangelist they are recognized as a reproach for drowsiness and a guarantee for vigilance. 1232 Hence, the coincidences in the characterization of pagan perversion (Rom. I, 20. 23. 25. 27) do not extend further - verbal consonances, far from mutual literary dependence, since the facts themselves are illuminated diametrically - in one from the side of everyone’s responsibility before the voice of nature and conscience, in the other as a sharp example of indelible human insignificance. 1233
Then the analogies of 1234 regarding natural knowledge of God (Rom. I, 20) turn into antinomies. Both start from the simplest truth, that the Creator is recognized through creation, and, however, their difference is enormous. For Philo, the world was not the direct work of God and therefore provides only negative predicates for the idea of the Self-Existent. For all that, everyone is constrained by materiality, and space will be the only real way to penetrate into the divine spheres. 1235 We are unable to get out of ourselves and measure the divine by our own attributes, 1236 of which are primarily physical for us, because our mind is invisible and incomprehensible. 1237 The limited turns out to be the only instrument for the knowledge of God and thereby rises to the point of being without exception. Along with this, the Stoic Logos functions with equal energy both in cosmic orderliness and in special inspirations - and its manifestations are everywhere adequate. For pure zeal, these sources are equivalent, and every sage achieves the original possession of the gift of prophecy.
1238 As a result, we find that for Philo all the special revelation of God to Israel was embraced and exhausted by the natural. - At St. Paul does not see even a shadow of such dreams. For all his conviction in the cosmic adaptability of noism, the Apostle invariably considered it his own “word of God,” which awarded Jews special privileges. Broadcasts in nature did not at all merge in degree with the instructions of the priest. scriptures, but did not degrade themselves to actual insignificance. It is not surprising that in created things we contemplate the most “invisible” being of God in its active outlines, when for Philo it was absolutely inaccessible. This outlined the fundamental principle for theosophical epistemology that, lacking autonomy, here too we are actually a passive element. And truly, in this life we are controlled rather than dominated, we serve more as an object of knowledge than we ourselves know, for the soul knows us without being known to us (De Cherub. § 32 ap. M. I, 159 - 160); C.W. I, 197; Yonge I, 203.
Such is the essence of all knowledge that in it a person withdraws into himself, sees only himself and through this “I” sees everything else, including God. The Apostle does not narrow the horizon of thought to such an extent and defends the opposite thesis, that we come into direct intellectual contact with cognizable objects, and on this rests our knowledge of the world and - with it - the Lord Almighty. For this reason, the same immediacy of communication is required for the deity. It is clear that this is contrary to Philonism, it is not at all in the theosophical spirit, 1239 but to eliminate it, since 1) it is not about self-knowledge, 2) human blindness is motivated by alienation from God and 3) its cessation is allowed in the regenerating “epiphany” with the provision of the fullness of our knowledge in Christ. Therefore, the darkness of our contemplation, as if through a glass darkly (1 Cor. XIII, 12) for the Apostle is a preliminary and anticipation of contemplation, but this was incredible for Philo, 1240 and attracts him (De decal. § 21 ap. M. II, 196), in the role of a lender it would be simply unsuccessful.
He did not allow the perfection of knowledge, and in the soul of everyone there remains much hidden from himself and from others, although the Father of all sees everything (De somn. I, 15 ap. M. I, 634). The evangelist, in his speech about the Lord’s illumination of the secrets of darkness and the counsels of the heart (1 Cor. IV, 5), puts forward a different contrast - in the very understanding of man, which at the judgment of God will be deprived of the opportunity to be deceived or deceived in assessing facts by their irresistible brightness. Given the disparity of content, the 1241 dependence would be unnatural.
The very idea of God, self-sufficient (Acts XVII, 25. 1 Tim. VI, 15), wise (Rom. XVI, 27. 1 Tim. I, 17) and Savior (Tit. III, 4. 6) is motivated by the Apostle by His relationship to the world, and by Philo it is illuminated by detachment from everything cosmic. This disagreement extends to the “inaccessibility” of God (1 Tim. VI, 16), which for one was ethical, 1242 for another naturalistic, 1243 as the wealth of goodness (Rom. II, 4) differs among them in the moral height of God’s love for creation and in the qualitative greatness of the creature itself. 1244 In connection with other prerequisites, this convinces that the righteousness of God and one’s own (Rom. III, 5. V, 8. IIV, 2. X, 3. Philip. III, 9) is characterized either by the sinful independence of the individual, or by the denial of any originality. 1245 Therefore, when considering and discussing the law of St. Paul does not hesitate like Philo, 1246 who arbitrarily took away from him the real content of historical discovery and proclaimed the eternal obligation of the legalistic principle for human frailty.
1247 The latter was replaced by the evangelist with guilty crime, from which it followed that the nomistic institution, being divine in source, was a temporary pedagogical institution. All these interpretations harmoniously merge with each other and rest on a complete view, explaining that fulfillment of the law requires spiritual sincerity from the person himself and without this it can be carnal - mechanical and ostentatious (Rom. II, 28. 29). This places the center of gravity in the subject itself, and in Philo the gradations of nomistic fruitfulness are determined by distinctions in legalistic elements. 1248 In the second, legalism is considered an opus operatum. On this the allegorist builds his plans for a glorious future for Israel, as the dedicated firstborn, who will remain intact - like a root renewed with fresh shoots. God's faithfulness to His people is undoubted for St. Paul, 1249 but it is justified not in its own growth, which entailed the destructive rejection and drying of the branches, but through the grafting of the grace of God into the olive tree (Rom. IX - XI).
There, salvation is thought of as necessarily secured; here, for everyone, it is both a gift and an acquisition, with the same possibility of losing what was received. And the noted similarity 1250 in the preference of the humiliated and humble (1 Cor. I, 27. 28. 2 Cor. VII, 6) is illusory because the Apostle emphasizes the shame of the people of Israel when they are exalted by the Theosophist. 1251 For the latter, this quality is inseparable from the inner pride of claim, indisputable for every sage due to physical kinship with the Logos, crushing for opponents who turn divine dogmas to their own detriment. The Evangelist no less professes reward according to works (Rom. II, 7-9), but so specially that the fragrance of the Gospel is depicted as a smell of death (2 Cor. II, 16) 1252 primarily for the Jews and not because of abuse, but because of the inaccessibility and deprivation of life-giving benefits.
In all particulars, Philo reveals psychological duality, where the material baseness of spiritual consolidation is suppressed by the extreme conceit of natural godlikeness. Human poverty is easily replenished from itself and does not require outside intervention. Legalistic exceptionalism finds support in anthropological autonomy, and both underscore the idea of Christian redemption. New parallels that are given for the apostolic images of the regenerated life of likeness to Christ and the mysterious union with Him, 1253 inevitably stand out in their antithetical nature and, when analyzed, immediately lose all genetic qualities. They say that the “effects of grace” are described in consonant language 1254 and are equally (2 Cor. III, 5) affirmed on the inability of man, covered by divine generosity. 1255 But the Apostle is talking about the strength and inviolability of grace-filled ministry, where divine power functions everywhere, which exceeds our natural means and is unattainable by them.
Philo interprets something completely different, that all our mental and sensory potentialities are given by God (De confus. lingu. § 25: M. I, 424; C.W. II, 253; Yonge II, 27). This humility is more than pride, and in the Alexandrian sage it grows into a self-praising conviction that everything belongs to him personally, while the renewed one draws it only through Christ and in Christ (1 Cor. III, 22). 1256 This means that here it is necessary, first of all, to communicate with the Lord in faith, which is gradually imbued with the hope of the hope of its Head and crowned with the love of self-sufficient and all-healing perfection characteristic of it. This is the path of Christian triumph with the assimilation of heavenly privileges to us, unattainable by individual effort. In Philo, this triad is presented in a different light with capricious tints of shine and shadow, unusual for an evangelist.
1257 Love is equated with comparison and motivated by universal human weakness; in turn, the latter is not actually destroyed by the hope of theoretical certainty, but this very discrepancy only highlights the intellectual energy in the definition of unsightly tactility more clearly. It is clear that this faith neither delivers nor revives, but only bullies and despises an invulnerable enemy. 1258 And if Moses, by his own inspiration, “is transformed into an adversary” (De vita Mos. I, 10 ap. M. II, 89; Richter IV, 126; Yonge III, 14), then this is rather fictitious, when our transformation from glory to glory (2 Cor. III, 18) is certainly true, although it is arranged by the Lord’s Spirit. 1259 Therefore, our inheritance to God ( Rom. VIII, 17; cf. Eph. I, 30) actually by participating in the benefits that reside in the deity itself, but from Philo the soul receives the “inheritance of divine blessings” through the original effort of detachment from the sensory and through soaring to the heavenly. (Rom.
VIII, 26) is the highest associate of 1261 and his influence does not at all resemble Philo’s theory of the dwelling of the Logos, 1262 which simply signifies the best and purest spiritual aspirations and is partly subordinate to them. Thus, a person must be directed towards the possession of an integral being. On this path, the Word helps us inseparably and, however, does not lead to crowning, because God is comprehended not by rational proofs, but by intense admiration. Naturally, the Logos loses its regulatory importance and itself becomes a companion of mortal contemplation. 1263
According to their spiritual nature, people are characterized by St. Paul and Philo are different. This is also true for the flesh, since the first extends the concept of the church of God to everything regenerated (1 Cor. III, 16), and the second categorically limits it to spirituality 1264 and is identified with the predominance of sensuality, when the Apostle’s strongholds of plans require for their destruction non-carnal weapons of warfare (2 Cor. X, 4). 1265 Again, the disparity of the psychological basis is revealed, since in Theosophy the body is only together with rationality and is stubbornly removed by it in the interests of self-preservation, while in the gospel it is portrayed as a rational sacrifice to God (Rom. XII, 1). 1266 Therefore, the reference to the example of athletes (1 Cor. IX, 24. 25. 27; cf. 2 Tim. IV, 7. 8) does not express in St. Paul of dualistic hostility in the flesh and encourages its enslavement in the service of spiritual tasks, when in Philo this justifies absolute rejection and complete concentration on mental gymnastics. 1267 For the Apostle, mere carnality was infantile imperfection, and the milk of faith (1 Cor. III, 1.
2) noted the most important truths of the Gospel; according to his metaphysical tendencies, the Alexandrian mystic applies this image to the carnal-animal coarseness that precedes elementary and deceptive learning. 1268 In the absence of any shadows of hatred towards the cosmic, the evangelist’s illustrations from worldly relations “according to human reasoning” are quite understandable - and the apostolic exhortations for the material assistance of preachers 1269 and generous reciprocity are only reinforced by biblical quotations (Deut. XXV, 4. Ex. XVI, 18), and are not at all extracted from them, as is always the case with Egyptian allegorist, for his own condition he belittles the use adapted from St. Paul (1 Cor. VII, 31) to the implementation of gracious plans. 1270 For Philo, virtue is also placed in heaven 1271 and the righteous are counted as living there for this reason, that he considers everything in the world to be pure evil, meanwhile, in similar apostolic sayings (Philipp. III, 20. 21; cf. Heb. XIII, 14. XI, 13. 14. 16) allows for bodily transformation to the point of likeness glory of the Lord. Christian independence from slavery (1 Cor. VII, 21.
22) expresses dominion over everything cosmic and is not equal to Philon’s concealment from it in the freedom of spiritual disunity, 1272 similar to the proud freedom of nomism. 1273 In this area, the betrothal of a pure virgin to a single husband (2 Cor. XI, 2) marks 1274 the union with the Creator not of the whole person, but only not of a bad thought (De profug. s. De fuga et inventione § 21 ap. M. I, 563; Pfeifer IV, 272. 274; Richter III, 134; Yonge II, 217), for which bowing to someone else’s yoke (1 Cor. VI, 14) will be a “violation of the law of nature” (De creatione principum § 11 ap. M. II, 369 – 370; Richter V, 164 – 165; Yonge III, 404 – 405), and not a violation of the grace of the living God who has dwelt in us. 1275
Partial comparisons help us more clearly grasp the essence of Philo’s moral views. His entire ethics is built on the principle that - as a bodily-cosmic subject - man is insignificant both in origin and in being, which is why the only support for him can be hope in the mercy of God. 1276 Hence, faith is a cry of incurable impotence, and it would be simply absurd to equate Philo’s concept with the apostolic one, 1277 which states rebirth, and the indestructible strength of the growth of Christ’s Salvation of mortals will be in approaching the Almighty, and now the whole task is in the selection of suitable means. They are determined by the fact that god-like spirituality is “buried” in the body and must be liberated from it. 1278 Therefore, all moral tension is concentrated on withdrawal from the world and matter, 1279 subordination of the sensory to the mental 1280 and on physical self-mortification 1281 in the solitude of the desert.
1282 This somatic-ascetic element typically colors Philonov’s ethics and, we think, deprives it of its true value, because this does not affect the moral development of the spirit itself at all and, perhaps, is not even required, as long as dualistic opposition ensures its natural purity. From this side, a righteous life was much more difficult for the Apostle, and for him difficulties began where everything ended for Philo, for for Christians the most important thing is spiritual growth, transforming carnality. Naturally, on this point, formal similarity conceals complete diametricality. 1283 However, with all its zeal, physicality does not allow philonism to dream 1284 of perfect virtue, as inaccessible. You need to get out of the physicality and withdraw into the mind, and this one delivers the vision of God 1285 and rewards the people of God with absolute sinlessness. 1286 In this respect, ascetic drill is absorbed into contemplation 1287 and culminates in ecstatic admiration.
1288 A penchant for mysticism 1289 and contemplative sympathies 1290 of philonism 1291 again speak of spiritual passivity, alien to the Christian vigor of limitless progression. 1292
So far all the active morality of the Theosophist comes down to the suppression of sensuality 1293 through Stoic discipline 1294 in harmonious agreement with the Stoic explanation of evil 1295 and the Stoic ideal of the sage 1296 and moral correctness 1297 about living in harmony with nature. 1298 In turn, ascetic exercises have only a negative advantage, contributing to spiritual purification and mental sophistication. In this respect, ascetic valor is lower than rational, 1299 because it prepares it and is for it the lowest stage of propaedeutic education. Everything culminates in mental insight, which serves as both the object of moral efforts and the guarantee of their eventual success. Virtue will be in knowledge, 1300 which leads to wisdom and the use of God. 1301 This intellectualistic character of Philonov’s morality is certainly not akin to the apostolic hopes, where the opposite was rather true, that knowledge was subordinate to the moral structure.
Such intellectualism rested on the factual conviction of the natural inviolability of the spirit, which autonomously radiates truth from itself and is the original deliverer of humanity. Therefore, the Messiah for Philemon was Greek philosophy, in which almost all divine revelation is absorbed and dissolved, 1302 but for the Apostle, autonomous human “wisdom” was an irresistible witness of mental weakness, 1303 requiring grace-filled redemption, from where all the resources for healing and maturity were drawn. Despite this appeal to natural salvation in spirituality, the Alexandrian theosophist found a criterion for its impeccable productivity and the best imprint in the biblical teaching of Orthodox Judaism. Therefore, the just idea of the preparatory action of the Logos throughout the world 1304 received from him the meaning that everything beautiful and good in philosophical systems was a dark echo of the broadcasts of Moses and acquired brightness only with the illumination of the law.
It is inevitable that intellectual absolutism actually amounted to the despotism of rabbinic theology and - in the traditional spirit of 1305 - affirmed the universalism of Judaism. 1306 At this point, the most terrible and monstrous thing is the critical guess about apostolic solidarity with Philo. True, St. Paul eliminates Israel for the sake of the Gentiles, contrary to the dreams of Judaism, 1307 but without any striving against common sense, 1308 because this was the tangible reality of Christian history, and it did not follow the theosophical path. There is no Philonov’s artificiality in the elevation of Hellenism through its identification with Judaism, for so far what is being evidenced is not a combination, but a repression. No less than that, violence is not seen in the assimilation of world dominance by the second through the enslavement of all pagan wisdom to him, since in the kingdom of grace everything is absorbed by the energy of God, who saves and has mercy.
Therefore, the duty and ideal of believers is to secure divine properties for themselves, and since they are available to us through the incarnate Son of God, they are drawn and developed in us precisely through the Lord the Savior. In this form, the very sphere of Christian life is inaccessible to Philonov’s ethics; it is created in the divine realm and is shaped by divine principles. 1310 It is clear that here the human spirit is an object of supreme influence along with fleshiness, when in Philo it turns out to be autonomous and intact, out of connection with materiality. Naturally, with the Apostle the whole person is transformed, who achieves bodily glorification, but with the Egyptian mystic everything is sacrificed for the sake of the spiritual side.
1311 Thus, metaphysical antinomies are accompanied by psychological - moral ones and culminate in an eschatological contrast, because one preached the spiritualization of corporeality and its revitalization, the other was rather inclined to the materialization of spirituality and categorically rejected any hints of the resurrection of the body, 1312 which is why the indication of similarity in eschatology is false.
We have traced the difference between apostolic piety and Jewish theosophy in every possible direction, and have found it for the origin, development and termination of cosmic existence, with no small reflection on divinity itself. This directly convinces of the fundamental and indelible disparity. It is not difficult to comprehend it based on the overall result of our observations regarding the Filonov system. She sought to protect Jewish theology and make it dominant throughout the universe, for which purpose the language of Plato and the Stoics is called to Moses and the prophets - as long as Plato and Zeno spoke Jewish. In this regard, Philo had the broadest plans and wanted to be the Apostle of Judaism and the majestic interpreter of its teachings for civilized circles around the world. 1313 And his orthodox Jewish tendency is undeniable, even if in fact it was not realized at all.
The Alexandrian theosophist, as a panagyrist of Judaism, who wants to stand on the solid ground of Russian philosophy, everywhere reveals his exclusive preference in favor of the law of Moses, and for him the latter is not just the beginning of the written revelation of God, but its absolute criterion, interpreting all biblical content. On this side, philonism retains all the nomistic severity even among the allegorical transformations that abolished almost the entire Bible. Hence, the only means of religious prosperity was the path of rabbinic legalism in its irreconcilable opposition to the grace-filled order. Nomism was the guarantee of one's own righteousness and eliminated all external interference in its closed work, which functioned normally and successfully. For this reason, salvation seemed to be a product of original human zeal and, being a merit of achievement, further required only its own reward.
Then deliverance was deprived of any reviving influence and was entirely exhausted by the continuous glorification of victorious triumph. This type of messianic hope, with its worldly gloominess and national conventions, was dominant in the beliefs of Philo and decisively eliminated the Redeemer and renewer of people.
It turns out that in its Jewish elements, theosophy, considering the Torah as the eternal Gospel, was identical with rabbinic intolerance to grace-filled rebirth and, of course, could not be a commentary on it in the apostolic gospel. All of Filonov’s original applications do not bring them closer together, but rather alienate them. In them, biblical concepts are completely obscured by the cloud of Hellenic wisdom and dissolve in it until they disappear. Even the ancients successfully noticed and clearly emphasized the Platonism of theosophical matters 1314 and expressions. 1315 Scientific analysis fully confirms and explains this. Alexandrinism sought to merge Judaism and Hellenism with the ennoblement of the latter, but in this high and fruitful mission it immediately made a fatal mistake, recognizing their similarity not in the source of enlightenment, but in the quality of its radiance, where the mutual connection was reminiscent of an attempt to drain little and water. 1316 Therefore, philosophy dominantly burst into the biblical field and occupied a place in it along with divine revelation.
Judeo-Alexandrian apologetics tried to preserve and argue for Platonism from the Old Testament, 1317 combining them - with a mutual violation of inviolability. Philo was “a typical representative of Hellenistic syncretism” 1318 and, continuing his predecessors, was in many ways an innovator and creator, 1319 in whom it is easy to clearly see the invasion of Hellenic ideas, 1320 because he, wanting to remain a Jew, wanted to be a Greek philosopher. The mixture of philosophical elements with Old Testament doctrines is substantiated by biblical monuments and assimilated by them. Judaism became a preacher of Stoic-Platonic theorems as its own 1321 and turned into a formal principle for processing pagan-philosophical material. But it is clear that this union of the faith of Israel with Greek philosophy was a combination of a wife and a concubine 1322 and could not be a union of natural attraction. 1323 It is not surprising that theosophical schemes are not in harmony with the Bible and are attached to it with artificial violence.
This is also the basis of Filonov’s allegorical method, which was supposed to contribute to the plausible attraction of alien materials 1324 while maintaining the conviction of pure orthodoxy. 1325 It is clear that this was not an interpretation, no matter how bad and unsuccessful, but a complete forgery, almost unprecedented in the entire history of the world in terms of degree and size. In this regard, all Philonian exegesis is a deceptive seduction of systematic substitution. If we look closely at all the details, we will find that there are not even the rudiments of genuine commentary. Everything is resolved by the fact that the lines of the biblical text served as a transparency for Philo, and he used them for the external correctness of his designs, without caring about their true dignity. 1326 The Bible had a purely formal meaning and spent all its special capital on irrevocable loans to accept all sorts of rubbish that filled its entire area.
Apart from the difference in the intentions themselves, the Apostle does not find analogies even in the exegetical manner, which was intended to find objective biblical content and illuminate it in its teleological sense. All critical attempts at convergence turn out to be false and do not eliminate fundamental differences in the properties of hermeneutical techniques. The Alexandrian interpretation takes parallel currents and - contrary to all considerations - thinks that they merge together by themselves. The evangelist states continuity with the reciprocity of actual preparation and solidary continuation. The first has an unnatural identification of two dissimilar quantities with the absorption of one by the other; the second has a progressive development from lower to higher with a common basis. For Philo, biblical revelation was complete from the very beginning, as the source of all wisdom, which, enriching everyone, allows no additions, no improvements, no amendments.
This again protected the nomistic depersonalization of all Old Testament writers, which is why the prophets partly speak in the language of the law and are mostly repressed due to the unimportance of their repetitions of the old. At St. Paul - on the contrary - the Institute of Sinai and the Pentateuch are imbued with a foreshadowing of their future growth and clarification. Hence, prophecy is considered the completion of pre-Grace pedagogy, and the New Testament is depicted as its implementation in the messianic “confession” of the Father by the Son, while for the theosophist everything that was to come was concentrated in nomistic absolutism. It is then incredible that “Philo’s disciple was, perhaps, more likely to be able to accept the Sermon on the Mount than the yoke of the law,” which was proclaimed as a guarantee of freedom. 1327 But the allegory was accompanied by the abolition of biblical identity and the appropriation of Hellenic wisdom.
The Philonian system was a combination of Old Testament theology with the doctrines of the “sacred union” of Greek thinkers, combined monotheism with Hellenism and Jewish mysticism was associated with Platonism even in the doctrine of God, where the living Jehovah of Israel was replaced by a vague abstraction 1328 and rationalism was resolved by the usual inconsistency, that belief in the incomprehensibility of the Lord led to agnosticism, and the idea of the omnipresence of God inclined towards pantheism. It is easy to understand that the internal community did not work out, and on all the most important issues we are left with just a chaotic conglomerate. Diligent smoothing necessarily led to the desecration of both sides with the deprivation of their real-typical outlines 1329 in a strange mixtum compositum. 1330 Thus, Philo equally arbitrarily transforms both Judaism and Platonic idealism, and on the Procrustean bed of the latter, all biblical content is mutilated in philosophical reinterpretations of the position of faith. This ugly creation did not have the slightest inclinations of vitality and was doomed in advance to the inevitable decomposition of intense self-mortification.
Therefore, it remained without sufficient influence in the history of Jewish theology in 1331 and was only later reflected indirectly by its Kabbalistic tendencies in combining the infinite and the finite with intermediate mediators. 1332 Alexandrian theosophy was alien to the reigning and dominant Pharisaic-rabbinic dogma, 1333 and only in the 16th century. Philo is first mentioned by name (2 Kings XII, 25) by a Jewish writer (in a treatise of the work) with expressions of doubt about his orthodoxy. As for the Gospel of Christ, in a pre-criminal sense philonism was the prototype and forerunner of Gnostic syncretism and in its disciples prepared the worst opponents of the Catholic Church. “This school has strayed too far from a frank worldview for its students to be receptive to an unimpeded acceptance of Christianity. She stayed close to him and in her offspring was even more hostile to him than rabbinism.” The unhappy continuation gives us evidence of a sad beginning, where the contrast will, perhaps, be even more energetic and sharper.
Philo's Judaism was adversative to the Christian hopes of St. Paul, and theosophical attempts were destructive both for the son of the old covenant and for the participant in the new. The gracious atonement was the realization of Israelite sonship and affirmed its propaedeutic importance, which Philo destroyed without a trace. And the defenders of the preparatory role of Alexandrinism beat themselves when they agree that all Christian roots lie in the law and the prophets. Along with this, Philonism tried to reward biblical elimination in such a way that the entire future seemed guaranteed forever and no other factors were allowed in it except specifically theosophical ones. It is clear that in its biblical relations, the Philonian system takes away the historical basis for the emergence of Christianity and deprives it of all rights to a separate existence.
Under such conditions, similarity is conceivable only with the complete merging of the compared phenomena in the philonic absorption of all Christian originality. But at this point we see the last antinomies, which finally remove from the queue the question of the genetic dependence of the apostolic gospel on Jewish mysticism. Alexandrian-Jewish apologetics did not reconcile, but identified monotheism and Hellenism according to their real merit. Of course, this task was insoluble and forced mutual repression. For the Bible, it extended to all content while maintaining its formal normativity. The theosophical system is not at all nourished by the Jewish elements of 1334 and, being the fruit of the invasion and dominance of Greek intellectualism, was actually Hellenic philosophy, weakly colored by Hebraistic coloring, and was resolved by rational supranaturalism. Inevitably, “secular” authorities assumed a dominant role and suppressed biblical writers.
Therefore, for his compositions, Philo extracts more from the Timaeus than from the book of Genesis, 1335, and in it he is depicted before us as an admirer of “most holy Plato.” 1336 All his ideas are not from the Old Testament - except perhaps the unity of God, 1337 although even here there is a noticeable reflection of the concepts of pagan Hellenic productivity, 1338 to which all logology entirely gravitates. 1339 And if the Alexandrian sometimes assigned originality and priority to Moses, then the latter for him was actually only primus inter pares in the ranks of the sages, and salvation, rather, was from the Greeks.
It is necessary that this rejected both the ideal and the reality of Christianity. The latter was created by the divine Son and for confessors it was regenerating through the “Lord and God.” The personality itself is mired in squalor and is unable to rise from it, from which the condescension of the Almighty in the incarnation is obligatory. In it our nature becomes a partaker of divine life and is renewed in its entire composition, growing by the Spirit of God. Philo has it all back. The deity is completely separated from the creature, and communication between them will be impossible. The means for them are actually unacceptable and in all rigor can only be ideal, and when affirmed with all objectivity, it fatally leads to the destruction of one extreme by the other in the pantheistic deification of the cosmos, which does not need outside deliverance and achieves it through the independent tension of trampling on flesh and materiality. This was the self-deification of human individuality, convinced of its identity to the point of unshakability.
And it would be erroneous to recognize such “faith as a bridge to the understanding and acceptance of Christ,” 1340 if there was no place for Him there at all, why is it unshakable that in the kingdom of grace there are no points of attraction for philonic influences.
With such adversativity, theosophical soarings were absolutely inapplicable to Christian facts, which were not explained by them. Therefore, the Apostle’s distinction cannot be limited to the fact that he leads us out of the foggy gloom of ideological dreaming in the light of historically objective contemplation, for this would require agreeing that the evangelist revered the Lord as the fulfiller of Philo’s expectations. But this is an obvious absurdity, unacceptable due to the diametrical nature of the doctrines themselves, between which there was neither anticipation nor imitation. 1341 For them, the dilemma will be false in all its parts, since the idea was the negation of the event, and it abolished it with its real exclusivity. Alexandrinism was not the mother of Christianity and could not provide content for Christian dogma. All the positive elements of philonism were hostile to gracious redemption and, of course, unsuitable for its interpretation.
And their contrast is strengthened by the very external similarity, which, upon closer assessment, turns into a fundamental opposition, which cannot be eliminated even for authors “who have a party interest in Christianizing everything pre-Christian.” 1342 This is the verdict of an authority who has worked a lot on the selection of parallels. 1343 From him we read about Philonov’s and Paul’s Christian teachings that “both have the same desire to give the highest unification of Judaism and paganism with the importance of the concept of a subsequent being connecting God and the world, God and man. Both had a common view of the complete sinfulness of the human race and regarding the ethical task of achieving freedom from sin. But the differences were much deeper. Philo's idea of God is more pagan-philosophical than biblical, 1344 meanwhile in the New Testament it bears the features of the living God of Israel. Philonic logology leans toward pantheistic understanding, while New Testament logology rests entirely on the basis of theism. In ethics, the assimilation of evil exclusively to physicality is absolutely alien to N.Z.”
Under such conditions, it is more fair to think that Philo did not influence any of the New Testament writers, if they knew him, although this is doubtful. 1345 For St. Paul's dependence would have been too humiliating, making him look like a pathetic compiler when he turned out to be the enlightener of the universe. All coincidences are random and - despite the difference in meaning - do not at all indicate literary borrowings, rooted in the very spirit of the time, its powerful demands and forced answers from the treasury of the Old Testament tradition and faith. 1346 All analogies that are caught from the boundless ocean of Philonov’s works are weak and all the less convincing because they are immensely suppressed by differences of the most fundamental nature even in the details of pre-criminal argumentation. The Apostle’s acquaintance with Philo is extremely controversial, and the influence of the second on the first is simply incredible and unprovable. There was such a gap between them that only the Holy Spirit could fill it and connect the extremes. 1347 Here the antipathy was mutual and equal in intensity.
The Alexandrian theosophist was imbued with the self-deluded pride of nomism and intellectualism, and drew from them the bliss of boundless satisfaction in the sweet anticipation of obligatory glorification. He carried all the abundance within himself and was not afraid to waste it by using it. It is impossible to accept something else if you don’t even expect or desire something better than your own hopes. Therefore, Philo was insensitive to the hopes of St. Paul and was hardly able to part with his Judeo-rationalistic slavery for the sake of a Christian future. 1348 The Egyptian mystic wanted to cover the Jewish gaps with autonomous rationality and from this side was an exponent of the process of negative preparation of humanity for grace by the awakening of an indomitable and unquenchable thirst. 1349 All union attempts ended in the fact that new patches tore apart the old clothes of Judaism longer and more, revealing its unsuitability for the realization of the bright aspirations that were instilled in the decrepit Hellenism. But this was a by-product.
In reality, revival was recommended as a replacement for biblical revelation, 1350 when for the Apostle it was fruitless precisely because of human helplessness to consolidate his divine norms. 1351 It is clear that Filonov’s tendencies did not weaken the illness, but raised it to the point of unbearability, and repelled the seeker of God’s truth. 1352 And their connection cannot be proven 1353 for the reason that it is actually unacceptable. For the evangelist, real healing was required, which became a source of life and was explained only from itself, eliminating philonism and all other aids. 1354 Philo dreamed of being saved by limited reason, and everywhere in his work “we see the powerlessness of Hellenistic rationalism,” 1355 although its fruits remained completely unknown to paganism. 1356
St. Paul “emptied himself” of everything and borrowed all the energy of spiritual truth, unity in the Lord the Savior, which is why his word and preaching are not in the transcendent human wisdom of words, but in the manifestations of the spirit and power through Christ - God’s power and God’s wisdom (1 Cor. II, 4, I, 24).
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Chapter two. "Gospel" of St. Apostle Paul and the Book of Wisdom of Solomon
Hellenistic influences assimilated by St. to the Apostle Paul through the book of the Wisdom of Solomon on the basis that - despite the insufficiency of rabbinism - it provides a natural transition from Jewish views to Hellenistic ones, with shades of Christian transformations, much more natural than Philo, for 1) it contains purely Jewish Old Testament elements (maybe even of Solomon origin), 2) it is imbued with the Alexandrian-Hellenistic spirit, 3) concludes some elemental philosophies and 4) through the Epistle to the Hebrews brings it closer to Christianity, which receives Hellenistic overtones. – I) The question of Hellenistic concepts to which anthropology and eschatology are reduced. Pr.
Sol., but a) pseudo-Solomon does not have a clear dualistic doctrine with the ideas of the pre-existence of matter and souls and with the recognition of the essential sinfulness of the body, since evil and death of the empirical helplessness of people in the world occur due to human weakness after and because of the fall, why correction and resurrection are conceivable; in turn, the Apostle Paul considers the mortality prevailing in the cosmos to have arisen as a result of sinfulness, and in comparison with the book of the Wisdom of Solomon, he does not mention in the first about the own participation of each individual and in physical decay itself he sees spiritual perniciousness, requiring real healing in atonement (not imputative) for sinful perversity, which was always and equally for the evangelist spiritual in origin and character as mortal - a disastrous anomaly, which the Jewish author depicted as somewhat ordinary and not so sinful in relation to physical destruction.
– b) Incompetence in the knowledge of God is also not equipped in a dualistic way, for pseudo-Solomon it is motivated by spiritual relaxation, unable to rise above material bones, while for the Apostle it is believed in the enslavement of spirituality by carnality, the sinfulness of which was unclear to the Jewish writer, although both have no dualism here, nor the basis for its emergence. – c) Eschatology is alien to dualistic properties in the Jewish anonymous person no less than in St. Paul, for corporeality is not excluded from the composition of the integral human personality, and the possibility of resurrection is permissible, which for the evangelist was not an immediate posthumous act and was associated with the special appearance of Christ the Savior, so that the idea of "parousia" was not an accidental and transitory moment of apostolic theology and protected the truths of the final judgment and general uprising, eliminating the theories of chilism and apocatastasis, with the destruction of sinners; the absence of special Hellenic features in fundamental points and in particulars.
– II) Pneumatology, where Wisdom is supposedly thought of pseudo - by Solomon as a stoically all-pervading spirit - in the interests of reconciling dualistic extremes, however, these concepts themselves are not mutually identical and do not have a directly strict personality, and therefore do not express understandable tendencies at all and do not serve them, the Apostle himself reveals the Old Testament predictions on this subject and in assessing the latter remains faithful to the true fact of his grace experience and insight; therefore, he a) does not move away from the early Christian tradition, which supposedly professed only the amazing actions of the Lord the Savior in extraordinary outpourings of the Spirit, when a calm functioning is stated in him, but in the first case the ever-present inseparability of sanctifying life-giving spirituality is affirmed, and in the second its unusual manifestations in spiritual gifts, which rest on faith and are regulated by it, are accepted.
b) This interaction of Christ and the Spirit does not at all speak of their personal identity, if divine spirituality was invariably assimilated by the Apostle to the Redeemer, and the jointness of the influence of grace in Christian experience rather indicates a personal peculiarity. c) This also shakes the guesses about the results of the transformation in the Apostle’s assimilation of the duality of views on the principles of faith, which was based on the ethical foundations of moral growth, and with the aspect of the Spirit it was enthusiastic, meanwhile in St. Paul, both of these factors act in close collaboration in their emergence and action.
– III) The doctrine of predestination is attributed to pseudo-Solomon in vain, because he accepts only moral necessity in accordance with the actual behavior of people and defends only the idea of \u200b\u200bthe election of the people of Israel, but the Apostle everywhere departs from the concept in the sense that it can neither change nor violate divine plans, for the latter do not depend on man and are determined in everything by God alone, as required by the internal analysis of all parallels. – IV) Both writers report on the origin of paganism on the basis of factual data, and their interpretation by the evangelist is objectively true and does not coincide with the pseudo-Solomon’s recognition of a certain naturalness of pagan darkness for human flesh, deprived of the treasured blessings given to Israel, since the Apostle proclaims pagan error as a free fall from the original truth, but guilty and sinful in all its forms. – The identity of St.
Apostle Paul in relation to the content of the “Gospel” of Christ that he proclaimed, which was not drawn from the Hellenistic elements.
RABBINISM was the spiritual environment in which Saul, a zealot of the law, grew up and matured, and therefore it is natural that the gospel of St. Paul had to stand in a certain relationship to this intellectual and religious property. Hence, at first glance, there was a theoretically possible hypothesis 1357 that the Christian apostolic doctrine was a bold and radical transformation of Jewish dogma, applying it to a new object in the person of the recognized Messiah, the Lord Redeemer. But careful analysis and careful comparison convince even the most biased authors irresistibly that the rabbinical system alone is not enough for the purposes of this genetic interpretation, if we were to add to the number of materials also popular trends or private opinions of Jewish sectarianism 1358 and apocalyptic dreaminess. 1359 The contrast turned out to be too deep and involuntarily inspired every researcher that completely original elements were required for its emergence, far superior to all Orientalist modifications of Jewish beliefs.
Here the Alexandrian theosophist Philo naturally came to the rescue, who adopted the Hellenic worldview into Jewish forms and, in religious terms, was the herald of special views, where the free spirit of humanistic universalism, reconciliation and universal salvation, was noticeable throughout. Thus, broad hopes open up for purely historical interpretations of Christianity 1360 through the natural succession, adaptation and fermentation of heterogeneous ideas. 1361 A calm and sober examination of all related facts is again resolved by absolute disappointment and in the end gives no more than the previous ... denial. Philonism was an artificial combination of completely unrelated quantities and, in a mechanical generalization, did not lead to organic intercommunication. Deprived of his own inner vitality, he had no fruitful influence in Judaism, and even less could he serve as the founder of Christian energy, which renewed the entire ancient world and hitherto functions with unremitting intensity.
From this side, Philo’s theosophy does not count and is eliminated irrevocably, and we will have only its main ingredients in Judaism and Hellenism. At the same time, the genetic problem remains in its usual mystery - without any hint of a satisfactory answer. It is easy to see and understand that the Jewish element was accessible to St. Paul directly, and he absolutely did not need Philo’s help, for he was immeasurably superior to him in competence in the given field. This means that there is not and was not new data necessary for the rational-historical exegesis of the apostolic “Gospel”. As for the theosophical transformations in rabbinism itself, they were only external and, due to their transparency, did not contain life-giving embryos capable of biogenic development. For this reason, in this way the natural connection of the Jewish principles with the Hellenic ones was not ensured at all.
Therefore, this did not create a direct transition to the Hellenic systems, and Philo’s present example was hardly an exciting incentive to become familiar with them on his own. As a result, it turns out that with the noted means, criticism cannot lead Saul out of the vicious circle of rabbinic hopes and does not reveal to us either the sharp turning point in his life or the qualities of Christian preaching. Moving forward in this direction would be in vain and a waste of effort in empty attempts to cross the abyss when a bridge has not been found or constructed. And if we do not want to go back, then, obviously, we must find such a connecting link where the old - for all its integrity - would contain healthy shoots both for its flourishing and for the cultivating ennoblement of the soil itself. In this sense, even the meagerness of immediate actual acquisitions is the most valuable, since with the natural ease of gradual progression it turns the Jewish schoolchild to the unknown reserves of the Hellenic genius.
It is clear that the champions of genetic views on the apostolic gospel were not slow to use this technique. The entire course of previous experiments inevitably leaned towards this, but it was also prompted by the extraordinary fate of an ancient and familiar literary-biblical monument, which suggested or permitted the most unexpected and versatile contacts.
Thus, in genetic reconstructions, the book of the Wisdom of Solomon is called to the stage and attracts concentrated attention, which opened up scope for attracting all sorts of influences and teachings, meanwhile, from time immemorial it was considered known to the New Testament writers by many church authorities. The criticism did not amaze with tendentious innovation and had at its disposal a wealth of ready-made observational material. The fact is that the name of the glorious king of the Jews was a brilliant guarantee of the high merits of the creation in question and gave it the sanction of a biblical document. And as long as the fiction of Solomon's origins persisted, it was quite normal to think and assert apodictically that - along with the other biblical writings of the royal sage - the Apostle Paul could read and study with equal respect the work in question. Over time, views have changed; but new interests emerged that favored the preservation of the prevailing formulas on this issue.
Skipping particulars and details, we will note only the most important moments of later history. In the Latin West, non-canonical books have always been of great importance and at the fourth meeting of the Council of Trent (on Thursday, April 8, 1546) they received a solemn approbation. From then on, Catholic theologians were obliged to assimilate to them an equally divine character, no less than canonical, which is what they are called directly, for the whole difference is exhausted only by the fact that in ancient times they were not so widespread and generally known. Therefore, these works are distinguished by the title “Deuterocanonical” as biblical monuments of the second order or category, but this is a completely unnecessary limitation, because their writing was under the influence of the Holy Spirit (“dictante Spiritu Sancto”), governing the author’s pen. It was necessary to protect and justify such bold provisions, which raised eyebrows and objections. In these interests they tried to convince ad exempia that Christ and the Apostles used and revered these writings, which are quoted with respect throughout the New Testament.
A large number of parallels gradually accumulated in this work, and it was not difficult to illuminate them in the spirit of genetic endeavors and crown them with a halo of sources for New Testament teachings and teachers. When such prospects became clear, various tendencies were not slow to interfere with the issue, and the outcome of everything was favorable for critical desires. Catholicism valued the biblical “apocrypha” for the sake of reinforcing its special confessional opinions. By its very opposition, Protestantism gravitated towards the opposite extreme, and trends of this kind were invariable in it. Despite all this, non-canonical books continued to occupy their place in the Bible and served as a living reproach and reproof for nasty theories. This contrast affected reason and conscience and must be resolved by a crisis, which was sharply expressed in two disputes on this subject (in 1825 - 29 and in 1850 - 53). The spark was thrown in England, but the fire broke out in Germany and found abundant food.
1362 The debaters were divided into two hostile camps and enthusiastically mutually appealed to the ultima ratio in the New Testament canon. It is not surprising that the rapprochement of predators took on the appearance that the “apocryphal” works were almost identical to other Old Testament writings, since they were equally used in the New Testament ones. 1363 Again, whole rows of contacts of all sorts of shades were put forward. Opponents were put forward by a whole series of contacts of all shades. Opponents, of course, did not agree with such judgments, and if they were not always able to eliminate the latter based on the arguments themselves, then they did not shy away from the inevitable conclusions. Sometimes the refutations were not radical and focused on the intimidation of the logic of the development of the analyzed theses ad absurdum in the tone that when the use of “apocrypha” in the New Testament is allowed, this will have to be confirmed, at least for Philo, since for both points of similarity one cannot talk about their internal value.
1364 But even here the idea of the usual process of the emergence of New Testament literature is already visible, from where it was only a step to the idea that not all parts in it have an equal degree of canonical dignity, since some of them are based on ordinary manuals. since all the ingredients were combined with each other under the shadow of the Bible, the noted suspicion spread to their entirety. This created a convenience for substantiating the rationalistic view of the entire biblical composition from its highest completion, because by continuous quotation the New Testament degraded all components to the level of “apocryphal” productivity of the simple human mind, where sincere piety often does not exceed fantastic legend. The 1365 Canon was an ordinary collection of Jewish works and - due to the loss of its sacredness - did not restrict the freedom of scientific reconstructions of religious history.
This has been an important motive for many writers in the selection of parallel passages between the non-canonical and New Testament books, 1366 - and industry in this area has been accompanied by corresponding results in increasing the volume and energy of reasonable parallels. The same was facilitated by other requests for scientific sophistication, for example. in the desire to more firmly provide a guess about the unique Alexandrian canon of the Old Testament writings on the authority of a homogeneous New Testament quotation from all parts of the Greek Bible, both translated and original. 1367 But what was noted above was enough for little by little to form an extensive apparatus of analogies, tested and approved by the most hostile parties, which with rare solidarity proclaimed the use of “apocrypha” on the part of the New Testament. There was even an inclination towards adapting these data for the services of a natural interpretation of revealed doctrines. All this made it easier to attract New Testament teachings in general and the gospel of the Apostle Paul in particular that were suitable for the purposes of genetic disclosure.
The inconveniences of the practiced methods of rational exegesis were eliminated by the usual means quite happily, because everything was done without disruption or surprises, according to ready-made models and in tune with respectable scientific voices. Disappointment gave way to blissful hopes of successful genetic reconstructions, and all that was needed was to ensure that one actually met the requirements of the task. In this regard, it was the book of the Wisdom of Solomon that clearly stood out, about which it was already stated in various studies that it could satisfy all the needs of genetic theory. Let us recall the most important thing in this sense.
It was shown above that it is necessary to ensure the transition from insufficient Judaism to promising Hellenism, of course, through a document that combines both elements, but, in any case, the first should serve as a point of departure and is therefore desirable above all. And here, for the named non-canonical monument, the guarantee was its usual title. If we were convinced of the Solomon origin, it was impossible to doubt the Jewish character of the book due to the nature of its religious views and hopes. If this was not said, it was understood by itself. The opinion did not disappear after that either. For Catholic circles, it was both a natural reflex and an inviolable guarantee of the Tridentine definition, which is why it was categorically stated that the entire work was written in Hebrew and then processed in Greek according to this “archetype”, where Solomon remained the creator of all thoughts, for he was the author of the Hebrew original, betrayed in the Greek edition.
Independent persons did not hesitate to see in this “absurdity”, unworthy of scientific refutation, and, nevertheless, not everything was clarified to the point of irresistibility. Therefore, statements continue to this day that there are sufficient arguments from the primordial tradition and the book has a special connection with the wisest king of the Jews. It further follows from this that the Greek compiler had the now lost works of Solomon as sources. This insistence could seem like confessional stubbornness of low scientific value, and it could be tolerated without violating the prestige of impartiality. Things changed significantly when a scientist, innocent of confessional sympathies and school party affiliation, joined the outcasts. True, this opinion about the Jewish original of the Wisdom of Solomon was met with sharp denial in the camp of Jewish erudition, which was not inclined to admit that such an alien plant, which contained a huge amount of Hellenic-pagan juices, was conceivable on Palestinian soil and in the rabbinic atmosphere.
1368 It is also indisputable that Christian experts joined in with their approval, while others unceremoniously interpreted the entire hypothesis as a “strange opinion.” The innovator was not embarrassed by the friendly chorus of condemnations and censures and repeated his conclusions with unremitting energy, although he very rarely heard sympathetic reviews regarding agreement. On the contrary, it was openly expressed that this was simple critical eccentricity of a low standard, 1369 - and yet the writer defended his views without changing or sacrificing even in details. These observations suggest that not everything here is ephemeral and that in the mass of subjective fortune-telling there is some truth hidden. It is assumed that the book being analyzed is in many ways a midrash on the Pentateuch and was written by Solomon, and his text was deliberately destroyed by the Jews when Christians began to use this creation for polemics against them. Worthy of the royal name due to its internal superiority, the analyzed work was translated into Greek first of the entire Old Testament, before its other parts, 1370 for example.
the prophet Isaiah, and this Greek interpretation was already known to the son of Sirach, so for her a solid date would be no later than 270 BC. Chr. In the current edition there are traces of absolute certainty of copying from the Hebrew, from which all the mysterious readings are explained. In the speech on idolatry it is mentioned that “what is done together with the one who did it will be punished” (XVI, 10). But for any thing this is impossible and in vain, given its isolation, and in the case of jointness with the person who arranged it, it is unfair due to lack of motivation. All difficulty disappears when we think that there is an inaccuracy in the Aramaic interpretation, which was used with the Hebrew meaning of “honor,” closely coinciding with the course of the argument about the vanity of idolatry; this guess is confirmed by 1371 midrashic citations (§ 96 on Gen. XLVII, 29), which speaks of the punishment of both the admirer and the revered.
1372 The rather strange formulation of the warning “do not lust after death” (I, 12) is smoothed out through the Jewish equivalent by the call to “not acquire” it for yourself; the mysterious “animal enemies” (XII, 24) conveniently turn into predatory ones and “pernicious poison” (I, 14) ceases to be a stumbling block and a temptation for exegetes, because the author understood destructive power.
All these considerations are distinguished by great wit and bring their light into a dark area, although they rest primarily on theoretical premises and, without factual support from historical tradition, are unlikely to rise above the level of fortune-telling, for the copy is considered too free. But the very idea that the Greek compiler had Jewish Solomon fragments should be considered quite probable, as it certainly harmonizes with all other views, even of the opposite nature. Not all the wisdom of David’s successor is embodied in the available biblical editions, who filled the entire earth with his mysterious parables (Sirach. XLVII, 17), of which the ancient historiographer numbered three thousand, along with a thousand and five songs of the most varied content (1 Kings IV, 33-32), and their prevalence and preservation were ensured by the worldwide fame of their culprit and protected by the written confirmation of their contemporaries (3 Kings. XI, 41; cf. 2 Chron. IX, 29) in memory of future generations.
Therefore, what was known to Sirakhov’s son could no less be accessible to our compiler, who successfully used it for his own purposes. This is also the most satisfactory explanation of the title, which, if not original, is undoubtedly justified by its entire content. Of course, pseudonymity was practiced in later Jewish literature and, according to the customs of that time, was not shameful, which is why it is permissible in the present case. However, our situation is somewhat different. The name taken for everyone served as the etiquette of classical religious philosophizing of 1373 and, indicating the content, combined this book with Ecclesiastes. This revealed a clear claim to an objective reproduction of the genuine views of the Solomonovs. 1374 Such a claim can neither be interpreted nor excused as if the mention of the royal representative of wisdom expresses that these are general beliefs and not personal views.
1375 Such an interpretation is pure sophistry, because the anonymous author’s own attempts at the universality of Solomon’s contemplation still do not in the least guarantee their success and - without factual basis - will invariably be subjective concepts even with the most successful adaptation to someone else’s system. Naturally, this scripture had no right to reveal itself as the concentration and focus of all philosophical currents coming from Solomon, since it does not perceive them in reality. Without this, there will be an ordinary treatment of the literary falsifications that were proliferating at that time, meanwhile, there are no such properties in this work, judging by the tendency and method of depiction. On the contrary, everything will become clear to us as soon as we accept that Solomon’s work has at least a basis, the loss of which would not be incomprehensible or incredible if the Hebrew text of the book of Jesus son of Sirach was found only at the end of the 19th century. This assumption would clearly reveal the secret of the appeal of the author of the Wisdom of Solomon to the judges and rulers of the nations.
Until now, no one has explained this technique with certainty, but it was completely natural in the mouth of Solomon, since “they came from all the kings of the earth” to listen to him (3 Kings IV, 34; cp. X, 1 ff. 2 Chron. IX, verses Sirach. XLVII, 19).
As a result, the connection with the Solomon monuments turns out to be quite plausible and, within the outlined boundaries, is argued with solid strength. However, we have no special interest in defending this thesis. The only thing that is dear to us is that they clearly note the qualities of a document that is obviously strongly imbued with Jewish flavor, when a hypothesis about its Jewish origin is put forward with complete scientific seriousness. This is where all the fundamental importance lies in our question. Equally, there is a noticeable solidarity of assessment on this point. It is almost indisputable for everyone that the theological basis of the book is entirely borrowed from the Old Testament, and - brought up in its spirit - the author, as a “good Jew” and a true Israelite, is everywhere and entirely determined by Jewish-biblical views, which he preserves in its pure form, being supposedly more Jewish than the writer of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. 1377 In any case, he agrees with the first and with the son of Sirach in his guiding convictions and is established on the foundations of the ancient faith.
1378 This Jewish mood leaves its typical stamp even on the outer form itself, which is closest to the Palestinian tributary, although not strictly expressed. And under the magnificent attire of Hellenic art and Greco-rhetorical floridity, 1379 the individual appearance of literary Jewish construction is clearly visible, for example. in the prevailing parallelism of speech.
There is no doubt that the book of the Wisdom of Solomon does not separate the reader from the biblical-Jewish soil and would be a convenient starting point for the pupil of the Pharisee Saul. But – then – won’t we again be locked into a purely Jewish sphere without any access to the wide arena of Hellenistic trends, which are required for genetic reconstructions? A categorical “yes” is apparently inevitable if a Jewish original is assumed, but even this extreme judgment is deprived of fatal energy for critical logic. If they state that under given conditions philosophical influences are impossible, then others will formulate the opposite conclusions with no less theoretical plausibility. Tradition professes the kinship of the Wisdom of Solomon with Ecclesiastes, and this only indirectly sanctiones the newest opinions in favor of the later emergence of the second creation, 1380 which takes on the philosophical coloring of its ally.
1381 It is not surprising that these philosophical interpretations do not weaken, but rise to an energetic sharpness, 1382 as if the royal “preacher” was speaking the actual Heraclitean truths, covered with a faint touch of Jewish concepts. 1383 The entire Old Testament is infected with Hellenism, and the apologetic tendency in bringing the New Testament writings closer to the biblical ones receives an unexpected direction, such that the New Testament is also imbued with these elements, and the influence of Heraclitus is noticeable to the point of tangibility even in the “prologue” and in the content of John’s Gospel. 1384 All this is far from inviolable both in basis 1385 and in application, but nevertheless this actually justifies the likelihood of a close combination of philosophical intellectualism with Hebraism in the sphere of the latter’s dominion. Then, it is very significant that the supporters of the Jewish genealogy of the Wisdom of Solomon do not defend the orthodox correctness of the Greek text.
On the contrary, we hear that the translator acted with the widest freedom and aimed more at creating a model of Greek rhetoric than at photographic accuracy of reproduction. Now it is impossible to determine even approximately the size of the original and to clarify the nature of the original language, which experienced Greek influences, 1386 and the Greek editor introduced Platonic and other philosophical elements. St. Paul used a Greek copy, and - along with its Hebrew prototype - it is equally important for us to reveal what it represents according to the prevailing ideas?
Upon careful observation, experienced connoisseurs involuntarily notice the classical grace with which the Greek style of the Wisdom of Solomon differs in many of its features. 1387 In turn, this forcefully suggests that before us is a Hellenic - a cultured person, brought up on philosophical ideals and who has mastered all the sophistication of their characteristic language. With such preliminaries, it would be downright unnatural if the work of such a person remained untouched by the products of Hellenic genius, and therefore the whole question will only be in the immediate disclosure of the sought-after factors. On this subject significant allusions reach us from remote antiquity, since the anonymous author was sometimes seen in Philo. No, this guess is rejected by the majority of scientists; instead, it is confessed that the Book of Wisdom “turns out to be Philonism” 1388 and - therefore - the ancient tradition deserves attention in its pre-indicative meaning. Even the hypothesis of Filonov’s origin was renewed, 1389 which is also accepted in the newest works.
1390 These exaggerations only more convincingly reveal the inviolability of the truth that the Greek writer was an Alexandrian Jew and his creation is a monument, undoubtedly Alexandrian, at least pre-Philonian, containing a completely Alexandrian doctrine, similar to Philonian, since both grew from the same soil. The Greek form of speech itself inclines towards this understanding, and it has all the guarantees of material dignity. It is more firmly accepted that the Book of Wisdom reflects developing Alexandrinism, being a preparatory step to Egyptian theosophy of 1391 on the part of an eclecticism related to Philo. 1392 Being the forerunner of the latter, this anonymous person also appeals to pagan readers, and the appeals themselves are the preaching of Israel in his name and with the call of the Hellenes to him, 1393 if this is achieved through the medium of the Egyptian world. 1394 According to this task, here we find a combination of Jewish wisdom with Greek speculation and nationalistic beliefs with ideas about the spiritual kingdom of God.
1395 In its essence and in all truth, these are the qualities of the highest type of Jewish syncretism, from which it follows that, in its philosophical appearance, this writing is depicted as a “true product of the Alexandrian spirit,” for it is deeply imbued with religious and philosophical views. There are sometimes protests against exaggerated Alexandrian influences, 1396 but even with the assimilation of the Wisdom of Solomon, the role of an intermediate - borderline link from Palestinian to Hellenistic literature perhaps speaks of Platonic-Stoic influences. Now it’s easy to guess what broad prospects opened up for criticism, and it developed them with all the more courage because it met with energetic help from among moderate theologians, who collected the most suitable materials for free. Thus, if Catholics were sophisticated in artificially praising the “apocrypha,” then Protestants deliberately humiliated them and looked for all sorts of errors with the passion of tendentious polemics.
1397 In the latest debates, opponents of non-canonical writing, also with partisan zeal, highlighted all dubious passages and persistently commented on them in an unfavorable light, and for the book of the Wisdom of Solomon this is evident from the accusations of its exaggerated miraculousness and pagan fable. With these interpretations, it was normal to classify it as a special Judeo-Alexandrian performance with all its inherent consequences. 1398 But it is known that the main task of Alexandrian Judaism was the desire to reconcile the national religious heritage with intellectual Hellenic acquisitions through assimilation of them. Since our author was also inspired by these plans, then it will not be surprising for him to say moderately that he was deeply affected by ideas that were directly borrowed from philosophical schools.
The very adherence to the covenants of the fathers only led to the fact that we notice a duality of consciousness in him - and, of course, the old is maintained rather by tradition, while the new attracts all sympathy and governs the entire structure of thought. Then purely Jewish contemplation is supplanted by original forms of rational thinking, and the writer, occupying the middle between Sirakhov and Philo, will already be an “Alexandrian-Jewish philosopher.” 1399 Being truly such, he gives a unique philosophical system and is so passionate about the originality of the human genius that God is depicted in him mainly from the side of the highest intelligence and wisdom. Anonymous “emerges from the narrow circle of the Jewish spirit” into the wide expanse of humanitarian rationality and here he comes into significant contact with all its most important currents.
Under such conditions, it would be almost unnatural if, with such a philosophical character, the book of the Wisdom of Solomon did not contain and reflect Hellenic influences, since the philosophical fruits became common property. Therefore, the whole question is only where to look closest for these influencing factors. In particular, they were found in Pythagoreanism (IV, 12 XV, 12. XIX, 6), in Aristotle, Anaximander and Socrates, but these analogies are considered by many to be completely unconvincing and not quite impressive, which is why it was said that this philosophical knowledge is accidental, fragmentary and superficial. It is clear, however, that with more fundamental convergences, an opposite thesis was inevitably formulated for the personality of the mysterious “preacher”, and in this sense, sufficient agreement has long prevailed in science. First of all, it is taken almost as an axiom that the anonymous Jew was imbued with Platonism and shared it on many important points, 1400 about which there is no need to talk in detail yet.
In any case, this has now become a school truth, and the difference concerns only the exact dosage. Others believe that in the creation under study, the Stoic elements predominate in comparison with the Platonic-Socratic ones and exceed them in intensity and size. More is taken precisely from Stoicism, and it is noticeable both in the main and in the secondary. 1401 From there comes ethics, colored with a stoic flavor, 1402 but there, for example, the definition of the feeling of fear is also borrowed (XVII, 11). 1403 This close relationship with such deep and complete systems, extending into the theoretical and practical areas, could not but cause corresponding echoes. In this regard, it is stated that the Jews, while gaining in culture through contact with paganism, no less lost in faith, which is why, according to the Book of Wisdom, it seems certain that in the dispersion the latter was touched by Hellenism. This creates a solid basis for bringing our monument closer to other philosophical creations.
More than once, in the first, some parallels with Heraclitean sayings were emphasized, at least in II, 3, while others directly asked whether something was quoted (in XIII, 2) going under the title of the “dark” sage of Ephesus. Hypotheses about its indirect reflection through Stoicism gave way to theories of direct influence, which extends to the entire composition of the book we are considering in its essential foundations and detailed outlines. This does not at all reject other philosophical elements, but they are only subordinated to the Heraclitean ones, supposedly dominant in Ecclesiastes. This idea, greeted with disbelief by the luminaries of the same specialty as the inventor, found a warm welcome among theologians. Even with negative judgments, many striking Heraclitean coincidences were allowed, 1404 and private disagreements did not prevent the adoption of the cardinal result of 1405 as a scientifically reasoned position.
It is said that the unshakable Heraclitean influence has been proven, and from it we have characteristic echoes about the mysteries (VI, 24 ff.), metaphysical and natural philosophical concepts (chap. XVI), in comparison (XIX, 6) world harmony with musical harmony, etc. In the end, this interweaving is drawn to such an extent that the debtor himself pays the lender in equal coin. Seven Heraclitean letters are known in literature, and they are thought to preserve only some of the material of this philosopher, but do not belong to him, since, for example, the fourth, being of pagan origin, in the 1st century. was revised by a Jew or a Christian. This mixed content involuntarily resembled the Book of Wisdom, and therefore it was not a strange guess that those documents, especially Nos. IV and VII, fabricated 40 - 30 years BC, were also indebted to its author. Chr. It is now clear how little of what is purely Jewish remains in the unknown Jew, if he tries to propagate a weakly updated pagan philosophy and carries out his intentions with considerable success.
Then the indistinct strokes of the biblical monument will be symptoms of the most serious philosophical teaching, in the spirit of which we will have to interpret the entire religious - moral worldview, taking biblical data as simple material, characteristic more of previous habits than of unchanging inner hopes. It is no less clear that through the Book of Wisdom all this is transferred to the New Testament - and the importance of the whole theory for the latter has already been noted. True, the idea regarding the pseudo-Heraclitian letters is not shared by everyone and is sometimes strongly questioned, but the very possibility of its emergence and scientifically systematic development is significant. For our immediate purposes, it is not this aspect that is actually valuable, but its fundamental basis, that Hellenism invades the sanctuary of revealed beliefs and becomes a powerful factor in religious evolution, which, having begun in Judaism, continues and flourishes in Christianity.
Thus, through the book of Wisdom of St. The Apostle Paul is transferred from rabbinical doctrines and Pharisaic hopes to the area of specially philosophical soaring. We have seen how far this way leads him into the Hellenistic sphere, where the natural Jew loses all Jewish guise and is completely transformed into a philosophizing pagan. One cannot but agree that this metamorphosis is too radical and striking, which is why serious concerns arise about its true suitability. It goes without saying that there is no gradualism of natural genesis here, and this again does not ensure the desired connection between the new and the old. But if the Hellenic participation will be controversial for Gamalilov’s pet, then it turns out to be even less natural in the evangelist of Christ, because it turns out that Saul turned to the confession of the Crucified One not with benefits, since they were not needed and did not play the slightest role in the very emergence of Christian existence.
The desired Jewish transformation, reaching through the Hellenism of its negation, remains unmotivated until the philosophical invasion is weakened to the universalistic norm of Christian spirituality - contrary to the religious formalism and material comfort of the children of Israel after the Maccabean era.
We are heading towards abandoning the extremes of the philosophical interpretation of the Book of Wisdom, but through this we are only closer to our task, since its Hellenic-Christian mood is revealed to us, with which criticism is endowed by the Apostle of Languages from this source; then the further process of consistent disclosure of the acquired principles does not involve any particular difficulty. The basis for such modifications is the universal axiom that the anonymous compiler was still a Jew and labored in the name and for the sake of Jewish ideals. His primordial convictions had an indestructible elasticity and, from collisions with alien schemes, they were tempered in their vital essence, smoothed out from national layers and, losing their particularistic sharpness, acquired ideological sublimity. Therefore, he directly borrows from pagan philosophy, 1406 but not contrary, but in accordance with the Old Testament dogma, 1407 to which the Jewish Platonist adapts this system to the extent of solidarity and cutting off everything dissimilar.
1408 External philosophical influence was more formal 1409 and by its very contrast contributed to the fact that - brought up on the Old Testament - the Jewish author valued hereditary truths even more highly than all others. Platonism did not penetrate the recesses of his mind, 1410 and pseudo-Solomonov adheres to genuine biblical views in everything. 1411 The outer Hellenic-philosophical shell does not at all indicate the opposite, for it is possible that in Palestine there could be Jews capable of writing in Greek with satisfactory grace. 1412 How does it turn out that the document being analyzed gives us biblical contemplations, purified of everything accidental and illuminated in all their inner dignity. Along with this, the moment of origin inevitably moves towards the Christian era, since the outlined pomp of views would have been a historical surprise in early times. 1413 From half of the 2nd – 1st century. to r. Chr. Ave. Sol. transferred to the very border or beginning of a new period, 1414 and the author, who was called the peer of Philo, is the face of the Christian era.
For the traditional understanding, this chronology involuntarily suggested the idea that such a document would hardly have remained without the influence of Christian trends. On this basis, the consciousness gradually grew and strengthened that this was a Christian book. 1415 Interpretations of this kind retain the private character of subjective conjecture, and in the mention of the tree (XIV, 7) - instead of the cross of Christ - the ark of Noah is seen, and the interpretation of the suffering of the righteous as applied to the Redeemer was allegedly found to be erroneous long ago. With all this, the second position from antiquity is still confessed by many, but the strength of all observations will be in the general conclusion that the Greek editor of Wisdom, less than the Alexandrian theosophist, moves away from the sacred aspirations of his fathers and draws closer to Christian truths than him, even painting us - at least unconsciously - a prophetic picture of the death of Christ. Then the whole creation becomes an integral member in the Praeparatio Evangelica - in the preparation of that entire atmosphere which was a favorable environment for the Gospel of grace.
From their point of view, such judgments are readily shared by even the most extreme critics, because they can easily be turned differently and adapted for the benefit of the reconstruction of Christianity from the available religious and intellectual property. With such solidarity, in general, it was not difficult to find a particular unification at the very point of real connection between both phenomena in direct relation to the gospel of the Apostle of tongues. About the latter, they guess that he became familiar with Alexandrian philosophical schemes through Apollos, and this one is sometimes proclaimed a disciple of Philo and, in any case, is undeniable in his moderate Alexandrinism, which, without shock, breaking or violence, merged with Christian insight and fruitfully served his goals. It immediately strikes everyone how much this eloquent Jew has in common with the author of the Book of Wisdom. On the other hand, already in patristic antiquity he mastered the Epistle to the Hebrews, for which many eliminate St.
Paul and are called - near Barnabas - especially Apollos, 1416 is often without mention of other competitors. Despite serious opposition, this opinion among many retains its former authority and tries to be as plausible as possible. The tempting question then naturally arises, are these related works not indebted to our Alexandrian? And this is not at all an idle and empty fantasy. Here's a visual illustration. Scientists are not inclined to identify Apollos and pseudo-Solomon, however, determined opponents assert the deep dependence of the Christian monument on the Jewish one, although they also emphasize the important contrast between them not to the benefit of the latter. Obviously, the intimacy here must seem real, as it is illustrated by many details. For the sake of content, it will be enough to note that Platonism is adopted by the Book of Wisdom, and the Epistle to the Hebrews (VIII, 5) some - in addition to the uncreatedness of matter - even impose the Platonic doctrine of ideas, although others reject this.
The first is presented with excellent distinction in its good Greek language, and here only the named Christian document is likened to it. Therefore, the genetic connection of these literary mysterious phenomena is assumed almost automatically and is amply substantiated by all sorts of parallels. Let all this be unconvincing and doubtful for us. 1417 The point here is only in the literary presence of such hypotheses in serious scientific circles. At the same time, what follows in our question is self-explanatory for everyone, because it is logically natural and forced. If both writings coincide so much and cover each other mutually, then it is quite likely that they had a common author, but for the epistle to the Hebrews Apollos is accepted, why - theoretically - it is permissible that the latter can also lay claim to the Wisdom of Solomon. In such a concept, such a thought will not be at all strange and acquires the solid impressiveness of a clear example regarding versatile participation in the process of formation of Christian ideas.
In this regard, it is worthy of deep attention, although for the first time it surfaced somewhat unexpectedly and was not guaranteed by the scientific thoroughness of the disclosure. The considerations put forward are rather hypothetical and they boil down to the following. The book came out of the Judeo-Alexandrian sentiments in apostolic times, and these qualities are undeniable in Apollos, who will be its editor. 1418 Here, of course, there is an unmotivated leap, and everything here is justified only by conjectural arguments. This Alexandrian in his Christian views seemed to differ from St. Paul according to the very understanding of the cardinal points of the gospel, at odds with the Palestinian pillars and with all the superiority. Apparently, Apollos did not want to abandon the fundamental principles of the philonic type and everywhere put forward the “wisdom” that the Apostle so sharply condemned. But pseudo-Solomon defends precisely this point of view and appeals with it to all the rulers of the earth, from which it is likely that before us is the Corinthian rival Pavlov, who decided (about 38 - 40 AD).
Chr.) to defend in writing his own understanding of the subject, although without special polemics. It hardly needs saying that everything here is completely doubtful. If we accept the imagined contrast between student and teacher, then we will not understand its echoes simply because there are no distinct Christian elements in the book. Since they are irresistible in the epistle to the Hebrews, this emphasizes the insurmountable difficulty in thinking that both these disparate works originated from the same writer with equal Christian convictions. It was necessary to push them apart by a significant gap, sufficient for religious transformation in a person. The new modification rests on this possibility. The facts remain the same everywhere, only they are applied and illuminated differently. Careful observation shows that the literary monuments under consideration have an extremely striking similarity, which can only be satisfactorily explained by the unity of the culprit.
The commonality of the author's predicates is completely exhausted by the peculiarities of the Alexandrian-Jewish religious worldview in material and formal terms. However, this mood is alien to philonic exclusivity and is imbued with broad universalistic inclinations, capable and ready for Christian transformation. But such is the scrupulously accurate portrait of the fiery, eloquent and wise Apollos. Then it is legitimate to think that he owned both the book of Wisdom and the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the second was addressed to the Essene-therapeutic readers, especially in Egypt, as many assumed for the first. True, in terms of Christian coloring they are very far from each other, but this only excludes the unity of view, and not of face. From the totality of all considerations, it follows that, under the cover of Solomon, Apollos wrote before converting to Christianity, and this change was the reason that the work was not brought to the planned completion.
Christian insight has significantly changed the view of “wisdom,” and Apollos offers it in a new formulation for the edification of his fellow tribesmen. In this edition of the hypothesis, tactile perplexities are eliminated - and from the theoretical side, the most important and crushing objection to it will be that it has no factual, real basis and is entirely designed for bare probability. Then, in the structure itself, tensions of internal inconsistency are visible everywhere. The convergence of documents is revealed in such a tone that the difference between spiritualized philosophical Judaism and Christian evangelism is smoothed out, meanwhile, given their adversative nature, it will be incomprehensible that the author retains the support he rejected and does not directly express his opposition, although severe Corinthian complications forced him to do so. It is not surprising that this attempt did not gain either sympathy or distribution in the scientific world. But for our purpose it makes no difference.
In any case, the fundamental idea remains that the book of the Wisdom of Solomon, in its content, is internally in contact with Christian dogma and consistently leads to it, and St. Paul may have been familiar with this “apocrypha” through Apollos. This thesis alone is important in genetic interests, because it crowns all efforts in favor of the natural transformation of the Jewish Zealot into a Christian Apostle.
Let us briefly recall the most important points in scientific research, and we will see that – from the outside – natural transformation is ensured quite firmly. Pseudo-Solomon was undoubtedly a Jew and firmly devoted to the religious and national covenants of Israel. Therefore, the Pharisee pupil found something similar here and willingly assimilated it without breaking or pressing his hopes. This means that the Book of Wisdom will be in every possible way a natural starting point for the religious and intellectual development of the schoolboy Gamalilov. But, perceiving the primordially Jewish element, the latter had to capture everything connected with it to the point of inextricability. And in this regard, completely unexpected prospects opened up before the rabbi’s gaze, where the sky is different and the sun shines differently. The power of original human autonomy and the spirit of rational humanitarianism involuntarily attracted an unaccustomed gaze, enchanted with its universalistic comprehensiveness and directed to the rich sources of philosophical creativity and cultural genius of civilized peoples.
Inspired to a rational revision of the traditional heritage by his productive mind, Paul received inexhaustible benefits accumulated over the centuries. Thus narrow particularism collapses and the unlimitedness of Hellenism triumphs. However, this new element no longer comes in the pagan brutality of its alienation from God and is in advance fertilized by the eternal vitality of the Old Testament biblical truths. Therefore, it loses its naturalistic astringency and expands to the Christian universality of individual salvation on the foundation of an intelligence common to all, assisted by the divine spirit.
According to this outline, it is irresistible that the Book of Wisdom serves as a ladder from the callous Jewish lowland to the expanse of Christian sublimity. According to it, Saul mechanically rises above the level of rabbinic particularism and enters the free atmosphere that this literary monument breathes. Imbued with its life-giving elements, the former zealot of the Pharisees' traditions is now entirely determined by new trends and is transformed by them to such an extent that all originality evaporates. Here the Alexandrinism of pseudo-Solomon clearly reveals that, feeding on it, the Hellenic evangelist has almost nothing of his own, which has enriched theology with unheard-of revelations or amazing combinations, and with it, for all of Christianity, such identity turns out to be in the past that one can completely despair of its originality. Hence the first proposition, that the apostolic theology, with minor modifications, is borrowed from the Wisdom of Solomon, which convinces us that “there were peacocks before Paul.”
But this type developed in the Hellenic environment and was its direct product. In this case, these contacts suggest to us that the evangelist, using ready-made Judeo-Hellenistic materials, received through this the inclination and convenience to turn to the reserves of pure Hellenism. From this side, the scripture in question was a connection between Platonic idealism and Christianity, which renounced Jewish realism and was largely based on the principles of Greek philosophy in its hopes and beliefs.
We see that the particular question of literary relationships is acquiring fundamental importance for understanding the origin and very essence of Christian doctrine. The latter will be the offspring of Judaism, ennobled by the Hellenistic juices of dispersion, and will reach its completion with the active participation of the unpretentious Hellenism, at least of the formation of that time. In this sense, it is not even the degree of similarity that is significant, but precisely the fact of it. Cautious authors emphasize in advance that the spiritual individuality of the Apostle of Tongues was too independent and for the main views did not allow side incursions that were more than a formal nature. But it goes without saying that with this autonomous elasticity, the more characteristic and impressive becomes the trend of this book, as necessary for understanding “Paulinism” itself, where the same - not always reconciled - unification of Jewish and pagan elements is seen with clear evidence of the kinship of Platonic-Stoic constructions.
These remarks deny their premises and rather speak of the author’s helplessness in communicating and adapting the collected aggregate of all sorts of opinions and theories. Here acquaintance turns into slavery to simply copying other people's ideas, 1419 and at the same time there will be no obstacles to interpreting borrowings from Phaedo 1420 with the assimilation of mentoring Plato. Ultimately, this method eliminates any need for unusual sources and aids for Christian dogma.
From all that has been said, it follows that the book of Wisdom has a twofold interest for us. First of all, with its own content it pulls the admirer and imitator out of rabbinic isolation, and St. Pavel often departs from the memories inspired by her and follows her in the development of cardinal thoughts. Therefore, the basis of apostolic theology is not purely Palestinian and through this document is enriched by its original Alexandrian concepts. But it is difficult to agree that, having found precious mines of enchanting knowledge, the evangelist limited himself to a single copy and did not try to go further and get to the very roots. Hence the second thing will be that the rapprochement with the pseudo-Solomonov supposedly “guarantees us for the study of other Hellenistic writings.” This extensive erudition kept the mind in the sphere of intellectualistic pomp and developed an inner admiration for it, serving as an excellent propaedeutic for immersion in the world of Hellenic philosophical productivity with all the fruits of pagan culture.
Giving much, the Book of Wisdom directed to the immensity and compensated for the insufficiency of the Jewish-rabbinic schemes with such abundance that the entire apostolic system is derived with all the logic of natural genesis.
It is now indisputable that the problem that concerns us is far from indifferent to the assessment of Christianity. And when the connection between the Old Testament “apocrypha” and the New Testament canonical monuments is affirmed, 1421, this does not at all affect the school needs of literary sophistication, why it is impossible to accept “yes” or “no” with equal indifference. 1422 On the contrary, a categorical decision is needed here - and in relation to our goals we must accurately investigate the attitude of St. Paul to the Wisdom of Solomon. What is the scientific voice on this subject? The fair answer would be that there is an overwhelming tendency towards a positive outcome with inevitable conclusions. On this basis, people of the most hostile camps meet again and with their solidarity they already illuminate the result in advance as an objectively unshakable truth, compulsory for everyone.
Free researchers consider it indisputable that the Apostle knew, read 1423 and used the Book of Wisdom, if it was compiled after his conversion to Christianity; 1424 in turn, Catholics believe “without a doubt” such an “application” of it is in the dignity of the ingredient part of the 1425 sacred scriptures. It was accepted as probable and a priori for general reasons that the Hellenic missionary took advantage of such characteristic and widespread works of Hellenic culture, ennobled by the seeds of the saving promises of the God of Israel. This strengthened the conviction in contact with the pseudo-Solomon of the New Testament writings, which directly or indirectly adopted the phrases themselves, in particular St. Paul, at least the latter did not protect the authority of the “apocrypha”. Small restrictions 1426 gradually gave way to firm steadfastness that the Apostle became acquainted with this creation most closely, studied and became close to him, which is why he was attracted to him with the passion of a free owner who disposes of his property.
1427 From here it is clear that among the references to other apocryphal documents, the book of Wisdom stands out from the evangelist, known to him also because awareness of it was necessarily prompted by the Greek edition of the LXX that he adopted, which introduced him into the field of Alexandrian religious and philosophical contemplation, 1428 which is expressed with attractive balance under the name of the Slavic king of the people of God. The traces of the influence of this monument on the Christian preacher are quite clear, and then it was discovered that they are much more numerous and deeper, as is true for all the apostolic writings and for the most important of them - Romans and 1 - 2 Corinthians. 1429 This is now proclaimed as a definitively reasoned axiom, 1430 and from here it is logically normally deduced that what pseudo-Solomon addressed to too wide a circle of St. Paul applied to local Christian communities and specific relationships.
We now have before us a scientifically sanctioned fact of literary acquaintance, but it is put forward for the sake of the fact that the Apostle here borrowed Hellenistic concepts and through them went back to the very source in genuine Hellenic concepts. In all genetic convergences, the presence of purely Hellenic views in the Book of Wisdom is assumed in advance and apodictically, because in their absence or insufficiency, a new life-giving factor is not obtained that can abolish the deadness of rabbinic scholasticism and cause a magnificent flowering of the revival, and the natural transformation of the Pharisaic nationalist into a Christian universalist will be completely illusory. In this case, agreement with the bare thesis for the purposes of a natural reconstruction of the apostolic gospel will become absolutely useless, for it adds very little to what Gamaliel’s pet drew from the canonical Old Testament writings.
It is equally important for all parties to find out the extent and degree of Hellenistic influences on pseudo-Solomon, and only after that all his analogies with the Apostle receive true interest.
This decisively predetermines the entire nature of the scientific consideration of the task taken, and the point of departure for us is the observation that everywhere and always we are in the field of religious questions, alien to simple intellectualistic curiosity. From this side, every person, first of all, focuses on himself, trying not so much the past as the future as the outcome of his existence. Thus, anthropology is in the foreground and eschatological aspects are addressed in it before other points.
On this subject the adherents of genetic exegesis give us a peculiar picture of apostolic growth. It began with the preservation of all the indigenous rabbinic dogmas, which acquired in Christianity only an unexpected reinforcement of their original energy. During this period, the Apostle saw in death the inevitable reflection of ancestral sin, which poisoned the innocent human nature and depleted it to the point of physical decay. But along with the cause, its manifestation necessarily disappears. Therefore, grace-filled deliverance is the guarantee of our natural healing and an unshakable guarantee of triumph over all destructive forces. The Pharisaic belief in the bodily resurrection received Christian confirmation, and St. Paul confessed it with all the harshness of limitation, which was similar to the nationalistic isolation of Judaism, because only the confessors of the Lord Savior were considered worthy of life in the next century.
Then this theory changes significantly, and we hear about the immediate posthumous blessing of the righteous, for whom permission from the earthly church is not deprivation, but liberation from embarrassing and burdensome bonds; - for them, bodily rebellion is not only not necessary, but is unacceptable and impossible according to the very meaning of the fundamental Christian hopes. From now on, a completely different picture of the future fate of people opens before us (for example, in 2 Cor. V, 1 - 4 and Philip. I, 23) than in the early apostolic epistles, for the expectation of bodily revival is displaced and suppressed by Plato’s conviction in the natural immortality of the soul, resurrected immediately after the physical disintegration of the individual. Such a radical change took place under the pressure of the Book of Wisdom (IX, 15. VI, 20), which is clearly reflected in these innovations and - in general - transformed the entire apostolic eschatology in the spirit of Hellenic philosophy. The influence here is deep and significant.
Behind this transformation lies a hitherto unusual recognition that corporeality is unworthy and essentially incapable of the vitalization characteristic only of spirituality. This indicates the absolute incompatibility of the two principles in their primordial and ineradicable adversativity. Hence we have a sharp metaphysical dualism, which embraces all being, penetrates the relationship of God to the world and is always rooted in human nature. It is clear that the latter is mortal not by the inheritance of the sinful destruction of the ancestral sin, but by its very essence. Then the future salvation of everyone must be from this painful burden, which is why the deceased cannot expect a secondary perception of the former bodily shell and everyone receives without it only spiritually. And if bliss is focused on spiritual pleasure, then the torment of sinners will begin to affect their soul and, through gradual exhaustion, will lead it to complete destruction, while the righteous are provided with a special spiritual physicality in their individuality.
In any case, the resurrection is completely eliminated, and without it, the renewal of the universe, the final judgment, and other “eschatological accessories” of Jewish fantasy also disappear. St. Paul no longer listens to her, but denies her with unconditional inflexibility.
According to this essay, it is undeniable that the genetic interpretation affirms the very radical change in the apostolic views. It is clear, however, that it could not appear by itself, and for this an appropriate reason is required. Along with this, it is no less true that, confining ourselves to the sphere of rabbinic contemplations and keeping them intact, it was difficult to achieve such an unexpected result, so hostile to all former hopes. It is obvious that outside participation with a contrary content and with the energy of dominance and domination over the old is necessary. Here the appeal to the Hellenistic elements is quite normal, as is their influence through the convenient environment of the Jewish transformation. Based on the strength of all this, it is necessary to agree that the metamorphosis in the eschatological views of the evangelist was caused by Hellenistic reflections and - most closely - through the Book of Wisdom.
And since the renewal was accompanied by a radical change in all beliefs, then it will be irresistible to everyone that, on the point under consideration, the influence of pseudo-Solomon on St. Paul was not limited to formal imitation and materially affected the entire apostolic system, rewarding it with original ideas that led to the collapse of all former hopes.
All this happened, of course, because the Apostle completely assimilated all the dualistic premises from this source. The presence of the latter serves as the basis for the entire genetic theory, which without them loses all support. Therefore, when analyzing critical reconstructions, it is necessary to decide in advance to what extent there is such dualism in non-canonical scripture and to what extent it is visible, and anthropologically - in the eschalogical judgments of an unknown author?
On this issue, it is almost unanimously stated that the literary monument that occupies us is imprinted with Platonism and borrowed from it all dualistic principles. The Book of Wisdom seems to directly confess the sincerity (eternity) of matter (XI, 18), and the entire process of peacemaking will only be in the ordering of this primary chaotic mass. In the latter, metaphysical malice is clearly recognized, which is rooted precisely in materiality itself and is not for it an external appendage of a later layering or abnormal deviation. It is clear that the combination of matter with spirituality is not entirely natural, and the solution for it will be in the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls (VIII, 20), which are successively sent down from above into earthly bodies, and these, being for them a prison and seat of sin, serve as a burden for the mind (IX, 15) and distort the inherent goodness.
Hints of this kind are found even in rabbinism and in various Jewish documents, where we find indications of pre-world cosmological elements, which is why it is assumed that the pseudo-Solomon here owes something not to the Greeks and was borrowed from Judaism. 1431 However, careful observation indicates such a departure from the Old Testament concepts that the hesitation about the origin of this view from the interpretation of the Old Testament from external intrusions is resolved against the first part of this dilemma. On the contrary, everything convinces us that, adhering to Platonism, pseudo-Solomon not only approached it, but directly reproduced its doctrine with the involvement of some other elements, for example. Pythagorean. As a result, a thesis was formed about the complete belonging of the soul to the heavenly world and about its natural immortality.
From the totality of all this, it turned out that “in anthropology (the Wisdom of Solomon) the soil of Jewish contemplation is completely abandoned, and instead of the Jewish hope for the resurrection of the body, we have here the Greek view of the eternal continuity of the soul,” as was inevitable for Platonic-dualistic psychology.
In all these data there is quite enough material for transformation into peacocking, but are such interpretations true in their entirety, if we recognize the actual grain of truth in them? The same Philonian concepts serve as a guarantee for them, but the accepted method of interpreting the book under study in the spirit of Philo and through him is capable of arousing suspicion about the ordinary inviolability of the results, since they are not extracted from the commented monument itself, but are introduced into it, even from a related source. Under such conditions, defenders of the biblical “apocrypha” acquire scientific legitimacy to say that there is nothing specifically Platonic in the noted projects. In particular, this is energetically affirmed for the thought of pre-existing matter, because it is not at all mentioned in philosophical relief. The original testifies to the “almighty right hand” of God.
It is undeniable that the author used a Platonic term, but this does not mean at all that this is the idea itself; meanwhile, this phrase does not contain even a hint of the eternity of the material substratum. The speech concerns the present well-ordered world and emphasizes that it was preceded by the disorder of the foundation from which it arose. This course of creativity is also confirmed by the Bible, where cosmic organization replaces primary chaos. Therefore, there is no obstacle to attributing the “ugly substance” of pseudo-Solomon to the “motionless and empty earth” of Moses (Gen. I, 2), and then this will be an orthodox judgment in a Platonic shell. Apologists sometimes even directly find the dogmatic truth of creation, where materiality is depicted as having received being through creative power. However, this saying actually treats the purpose or purpose of what happens and, without extending into the depths of the past, does not determine the method of origin of cosmic phenomenality.
If the whole verse is understood to mean that only after and because of creation “everything, therefore, be” - according to the creative intention of God, then here too it is permissible to limit world harmony to specific generic components of the cosmic whole, without referring to the materiality itself in the previous stage. In any case, this feature is not clearly put forward and should not be categorically adopted by the book of Wisdom. But the reverse attempts at Platonic exegesis are no less exaggerated. They are not convincing because they do not appeal to facts and are affirmed only on the logical consideration that pseudo-Solomon, to illustrate divine omnipotence, would rather have referred to absolute creativity if he had professed it, meanwhile, this whole consideration is eliminated by itself, since for the immediate admonitions of the author there was enough world-building activity, which exactly corresponded to the judgment revealed in the context that God is able to support the established (moral) order and punish arbitrary violations.
Everything else has no more objective strength than that of the opponents, for the mention (XIX, 6) that “all creation was again transformed from above in its nature” only speaks of cosmic formation from a ready-made substance, and with all efforts it cannot be concluded from this that the latter was not created, but co-eternal with God. This means that regarding the doctrine of matter, the only thing that is true is that pseudo-Solomon uses Greek philosophical terminology.
Another question is much more complex and difficult - about the pre-existence of souls. It is nowhere attested with categorical separation and is derived by analyzing one indication, which is commented on differently to the point of mutual negation. Here the author, describing his efforts to impart wisdom, recommends himself in these words (VIII, 19. 20): “I was a gifted youth and received a good soul; Moreover, being good, I entered into a clean body.” All the subtle physiological details that occupy exegetes are not of their own importance for us, and we will limit ourselves to the most important points. Already at the very beginning, the soul is perceived by lot, and this leads us to guess that the autobiographer imagines a kind of stock of souls, from where a choice is made for each particular case, where God produces only a combination of two ready-made natures. This is precisely consistent with the observation that the best characterizes the qualities of the spiritual-physical structure - its external beauty, prettiness and mental orderliness of a strong and well-functioning organism.
Further, the constituent elements are described, but at the same time the whole phrase actually became incorrect to the point of absurdity, since - due to the separation of spirituality - the receiving subject turned out to be a fleshy mechanism. Understandable in everyday conversation, this statement was inconvenient for serious reasoning, and the philosophizing Jew hastens to introduce significant corrigenda. Therefore, it is not just an addendum and is not an explicative “in addition,” it means “rather,” “more accurately,” and serves as a proof to the preceding one, which must be understood in this particular tone, even if contrary to immediate verbality. From this point of view, it is revealed that the true “I” of each person does not touch the physicality and exists before, because it enters it with all the dignity of original individuality. In turn, bodily “purity” will be only a necessary echo of spiritual “kindness”, which predetermines the entire structure of earthly human life. Along with the pre-existence of the soul, we also find a “pre-established harmony” of the anthropological type. 1432
All this argumentation has the undoubted persuasiveness of an objective commentary, but here everything is based on a certain interpretation, which therefore does not itself eliminate fundamentally other interpretations. They are no less legitimate until their comparative or absolute weakness is discovered. In them, sometimes all the energy of evidence is placed in the final analysis of the analysis we have reported, that pseudo-Solomon teaches about the intended correspondence between body and soul. It is indisputable that such proportionality is considered to have been given before their combination, but it is not at all stated that then it was completely real, and not just ideal, which should then be expressed concretely, through the interaction of both sides - with the primacy of pneumaticity. Therefore, allowing in Judaism opinions with shades of Platonic doctrine, conservative researchers find that pseudo-Solomon “contains nothing more than that souls come from God or that they pre-existed in the mind and intention of the divine.”
Hence, in a real individual, inequality will not be chronological and is stated only by the superiority of the nature of spirituality, which necessarily influences passive physicality. And since this happens after their union in a living person, then in the early one everything is exhausted by the foreknowledge of God regarding the souls sent down by Him. Then the actual course of development of the human personality is depicted with a favorable confluence of all factors, that strengthening in the best and growing in all that is good, the soul gradually cleanses all physical impurities, prepares and arranges for itself a clean organism, into which it “enters” as it progresses, functioning in it with exact adequacy to its successes. Everywhere here the subject remains - a living spiritually - bodily individual, which is why the second half of the quote in question does not so much explain the first, but adds to it what then happened to the mentioned good boy - beyond his natural differences, which were also accompanied by worthy fruits.
The apodictic recognition of Plato's theory as obvious in pseudo-Solomon is weakened by the statement that this in itself is unclear in his particulars, and, in the end, is irrevocably rejected.
The apologetic emphasis on the similarity with the apostolic gospel defeated itself and rewarded criticism with excellent tools for genetic operations, the inevitability of which was proclaimed in advance by opponents. Now this danger has been eliminated, but is the enemy crushed forever and is there no empty fictitiousness in all the triumph of an imaginary victory? The doubt here is all the more appropriate since all anti-philosophical efforts are considered dogmatically-tendentious, since they do not have an objective exegetical-philological basis for themselves. We need to turn again to the original text and accurately determine its immediate energy.
In this case, a dispute arises, first of all, regarding the very subject of the discussion, since some see here simply as a characteristic of a real person, while others assume its origin. But there is no question that the “boy” refers to the famous king of the Jews already during his search for wisdom, which he strove for from early youth (cf. VIII. 2). It goes without saying that for the success of such an enterprise it was necessary to have the necessary data. In turn, the result achieved without them would, of course, be fragile, for it was quite permissible to think that Solomon came to the consciousness of the absolute obligation of divine grace only because he was deprived of natural resources, under which things could have been completely different. In the interests of arranging these perplexities and to ensure his position, the author asserts with particular expressiveness that he had all the necessary reserves of spiritual kindness and physical innocence. For this reason, a single experience will be inevitable for everyone and acquires fundamental inviolability.
In this connection, the entire speech is a depiction of the actual properties of a living subject and focuses on this one point, without directly touching on genealogical aspects.
In general, this result is impeccable in every possible way and is quite unfavorable for the defenders of Platonism, although in the details they find no small justification in their favor. Accepting the formulated thesis for the whole in a specific individuality, these scientists add that the pseudo-Solomon describes those elements from which the “gifted youth” was composed. Opponents sometimes object that the epithet affects more the physical side, and then what follows serves as an indication of its complement in spirituality, the combination of which was accompanied by happy physical development. One cannot but agree that the foundation of this construction is far from indestructible, even if it emphasizes only spiritual qualities, without affecting the physical. 1433 True, this observation is not, of course, unsuitable in other cases, 1434 however, it must be admitted that in a treatise on the acquisition of wisdom it would hardly be convenient and expedient to bring forward somatic differences. Therefore, it is more reliable to understand the “nobility” of mental and physical well-being.
This is where the opposite interpretations come from: after mentioning the soul, the author wanted to correct himself, but refrained from doing so, because he did not share the usual view of the origin of man’s spiritual being along with his conception. The inclination in this direction is rejected by the categorical addition, which says that - on the contrary - this spirituality is before. Here, along the entire logical course, a different turn would have been expected, and the anonymous author does not use it only because, being an Alexandrian streetualist, he confessed axiomatically that the true basis and true “I” of individuality is the soul, which descends from the superworldly into the physical - bodily shell.
From our very presentation it is clear that this interpretation allows for too much that is not in the text. If we take the latter in all its integrity, we note that pseudo-Solomon argues for his characterization of “plausibility” and for this refers to the lot that befell him to receive a good soul. At this point, the flow of thought is interrupted by an insertion, understood as a correction of an incorrectness. Here is perhaps the most important point of disagreement, affecting the entire content of exegesis. This connotation of the analyzed term is categorically denied by some researchers, replacing it with simple exilication. The factual material forces us to testify that this is the extreme of artificial exaggeration. Already the comparative degree indicates that it expresses more than the previous one and therefore more accurately, clearly than what is smaller and weaker for the subject of interest. This shade is found in many examples where the taken position is strengthened (1 Cor. XIV, I. 5 Eph. IV, 28. V, 11), which thereby corrects the good for the better.
This is also observed for the death of Christ, since it is salvific only in inseparability from its crowning in the resurrection (Rom. VIII, 34). In all these cases, the addition takes the most important moment of the previous one and represents it in the pure form of uninhibited energy. Naturally, this emphasizes the internal principle of the known real data that they hold and create. In this spirit, Elizar, having rejected under Antiochus Epiphanes the insidious proposal to simulate eating meats sacrificed to idols, obeyed “a good thought worthy of his age and respectable old age and the glorious gray hair that he had achieved, and the pious upbringing from childhood, and - most of all - the holy and God-given law” (2 Macc. VI, 23). In this phrase, the second half reveals to us the true dignity of the predicates listed in the first - according to the property of the norm they embody. Similarly, Ptolemy Philopator says about some of his friends (3 Macc. VII, 5, - ff. - Russian 4), that “they brought the Jews in chains with violence, as slaves or, better, as slanderers.”
In reality, the accused were neither one nor the other, but their treatment was such that it would be more like for the latter category of people, if assessed with theoretical and fundamental accuracy. In the same way - despite the previous alienation from God - Christians now have good knowledge, but in all strictness they do not so much know God as they themselves are known by Him (Gal. IV, 9), for the human here is preceded and conditioned by the divine. Everywhere we have what corrects the earlier through its strengthening and fundamental justification, and then it is indisputable that this new differs only in degree, being the same in essence. At the same time, it is irresistible that this in no way eliminates or condemns the former. This conclusion from all the analogies considered is clearly justified by the words (3 Macc. VI, 31, - ff. - Russian 28), that the Jews liberated and delivered from death (under Ptolemy Philopator) were previously in reproach and were near hell, or, better, descended into hell.
It is hardly necessary to mention that the addition affirms a phenomenon that actually did not occur, which was true precisely as a fundamental characteristic of the mortal burden of the innocent sufferers.
Applying the information obtained to the biblical passage we have chosen, we must note that it does not at all reject or deny that the gifted youth received a good soul. On the contrary, this is unshakable and immutable, but it will be even better if we say that - rather - being good, he entered into a clean body. From this combination we see that the amendment completely gravitates towards the previous one, and all hypotheses about its relationship to unspoken thoughts, which are sought by commentators guesswork, disappear - without objective support and with tendentious bias. since the epithet is repeated in both parts, the difference can only concern the subject qualified by it and the connection with it. The soul was called such - and this is true, except for the harsh connotation, as if it is interpreted about its natural property, which in others is diametrically opposed, again due to the natural innateness of this soul, evil from the beginning.
The proof rejects such a conclusion, energetically noting that Solomon’s undoubted spiritual kindness was not perceived as something ready-made, but served as his own acquisition and conditioned physical purity. At the same time, the awkwardness that the recipient of the soulfulness turned out to be independent of it is smoothed out, while this was in every possible way intolerable. Now it is revealed in all relief that the actually rational “I” of a specific individuality is taken, which preserves itself and remains good until now. This also suggests to us that the initial characteristic of natural spiritual-physical inclinations is supplemented by a description of what was achieved later and what is “existent” until now. Why is the second, along with the first, posterius, a later moment in the development of natural elements. It is clear that these speeches cannot be applied to the former before the emergence of the “nobility” under discussion, which is considered not by origin, but by continuation.
By exegetical analysis we again find that in the quoted text there is no direct data about the pre-existence of the soul, for it is depicted according to its real existence in the human person. This is the first thing. Then, no less and even more firmly, “kindness” is considered to be the own result of human activity, from which it follows that the supreme duality of mutually opposed souls is not depicted, since qualitative definitions are always created and everywhere there is the willful individual himself, achieving certain advantages. True for the soul, this principle will be all the more true for the body. This affects the second element, physically – the fleshy one. For him, it is predetermined in advance that his actual properties are non-original and are caused by conditioning anticipation, although at the beginning of the phrase the opposite was permissible, as if physical kindness were independent of the spiritual kindness that was established in it. Now it is directly explained to us that the autobiographer entered a pure body because he remained kind.
This means that in this, not without right, they notice a new correction to the conjecture, possible given the design taken, that the constituent parts of our body are obtained in an individual state with ready-made qualities, without any of their interaction and mutual influence. However, in addition to this permissible actitesis, the main idea itself is dear to us. It testifies to the correspondence of bodily integrity with spiritual kindness. When exactly did this combination actually take place? – that’s the whole question. Regardless of the chronology we have adopted, which is controversial for many, it naturally means the formation of a living personality in which physicality is in harmony with the former spirituality. The defenders of the Platonic interpretation argue in this tone. But since the whole essence lies in the coincidence of agreement, there are other ways to understanding, for example. in the recognition that such proportionality is established by their simultaneous origin in conception itself.
Supporters of pre-existence consider this hypothesis to be theoretically acceptable and reject it only because it was unusual for contemplation at that time. This argument is not solid enough and rests on unsaid premises. It would be much more serious to state the observation that entry does not exist without an enterer who exists before this act. This confirms the gradual succession of prius and posterius in all their reality, and if the second embraces birth, then the first will be in the premium. Apologists for the biblical orthodoxy of the Book of Wisdom often answer that this process is assumed in the mind of God and is depicted realistically for the simple consideration that it necessarily comes true through the power of divine foreknowledge, which actually collapses into predestination. The unprejudiced reader of the original text involuntarily and irresistibly feels all the artificiality of this theory, which, being universal, would not need special mention and now violates the immediate energy of all the words of the phrase.
It must be unshakable for everyone that both moments are considered real equally. One of them is that Solomon entered into a pure body and, of course, remains in it. This is a fact that happened and, moreover, in the realm of earthly existence. But - according to great views - it was secondary and was motivated by spiritual preparation. For this reason, the latter will be chronologically prior and is often commented on as an allusion to the pre-somatic period. With all this, it is worthy of extreme attention that the anticipatory subject remains to this day in all its individualistic typicality, which was inseparable from this personal “I”. This means that we are not talking about him and not about his life, since then the determining influence on physicality would be primordial in him, and neither place nor time would be open for entry. In this way we get that we interpret the achieved difference in the achieved “kindness”. The latter is a preliminary precedent, and it especially emphasizes her intactness in her own virtues.
It is obvious from everything that the possibility of damage and loss is imagined under those conditions under which this did not happen to the royal youth, although it happens to others. From here the conclusion is inevitable that the anonymous sage describes events from the realm of earthly phenomena, where Solomon acquired and retained spiritual kindness, while the environment threatened it and took it away from many completely.
This clears the ground for further research. For them it will already be unshakable in advance that here we should not find echoes about the very origin of human bodies, since everything happens in the sphere of earthly physicality with a difference in unknown stages. This is true for chronological reasons, but the same is required by all other data. It is enough to recall that - beyond the elimination of optological matters - all reasoning was exhausted by the genesis of quality and was entirely focused on it. If this is true, then even then the object will be the same, since only quality is caused, created and produced by quality, and not being itself. It is quite consistent with this that the logical stress falls not on the object, but on the epithet. No less than that, the character of this term, by its grammatical structure and use, simply expresses the result of a successful struggle against all sorts of defilements, as happens with incorruption (1 Peter I, 4) and gentleness (Heb. VII, 26) by rejecting what is contrary to them.
Therefore, cleanliness presupposes the presence of existing and observed purity (James I, 27), for example. in the chastity of a woman (Prov. Sol. III, 13 and cf. IV, 2) or marriage (Heb. XIII, 4) and in the holiness of the church of God (2 Macc. XIV, 36. XV, 34). Everywhere, the integrity of the taken object, subjected to unfavorable pressures, is resolutely and exclusively affirmed. Based on the strength of these observations and in the analyzed text, we are presented with the result of past tension in the process of encountering various defilements, and the body was in danger of being darkened by them and, however, remained in its purity. It is clear that the pseudo-Solomon does not describe the acquisition of physicality at all, but that stage of her real life when she emerged victorious over seductive attacks and strengthened in her innocence by rejecting carnal vices and being assured of non-involvement in them. This is already a later stage of physical development, guaranteed by the moral justification of individual achievement. This also reveals complete solidarity between the members of the argument.
It testifies to the sincerity in it, that from this side the royal sage did not betray his good inclinations and remained kind. Likewise, for the physicality, he did not allow defiling attacks and achieved innocence in it. And here and there a moment is taken in the progressive increase of a given beginning, which already exists, functions and is revealed by certain fruits. This parallelism significantly confirms our interpretation of the first half in the sense of characterizing not the genesis, but the dignity of the actually functioning spiritual individuality, and for the second it serves to convince us that this is talking about the moral and spiritual acquisition of purity for the body, which is in solidarity with the psychic level in its gradual improvement.
In the end, he makes sure that, being kind, the author himself kept himself physically clean. The only thing that is somewhat unusual is the verbal expression for this idea, presented under the form of “entry”, while the meaning is “stay”. To ease natural bewilderment, they refer to Jewish phrases, where such terminology means precisely acquisition, achievement, etc. (I [3] Kings XIV, 13 and cf. Job V, 26. Ex. LXIX [LXVIII], 28. Ezek. XVI, 7. Gen. XVIII, 11. Joshua XIII, 1). Indisputable for the Hebrew original of the Bible, this observation is not justified by the Greek translation, which uses different words, and in the book of Wisdom itself, out of six cases (IV, 20. VII, 7. 11. XII, 12), only one has an approximate analogy for ours (VIII, 20) (XV, 5). With all this, we must remember that the difficulty will be no less when attributing the entire expression to the perception of the earthly body by the pre-existing soul, since the latter is assimilated unpreparedly and is formed with physiological haste. Therefore, it is considered possible to apply the phrase to the praestabilita harmonia of the jointly formed soulfulness and physicality.
To this it must be added that, thinking Jewishly, the author unwittingly and necessarily wrote herbaistically. And for him it was all the more convenient and legitimate because, imitating the language of religious and philosophical literature, he encountered in it an identical combination that was not prohibited. Consequently, this philological feature does not at all authorize pseudo-Solomon to assimilate the concept of Plato’s optological innocence for the body, which in this endeavor was supported by the inviolability of spiritual kindness, from where, in general, spiritual-physical consistency in the entire organism was obtained. But I noted this very point before, and therefore we return to it again, since in it all the elements considered converge and coincide jointly. This again defends our earlier thesis that the wise king of the Jews depicts in interesting words the “nobility of his adolescence” through a detailed disclosure of how it appeared to him with the mutual and friendly participation of both parts of his spiritual-physical being.
Here it would not be a serious objection to indicate that, of course, it is a “boy”, for whom the process of original and persistent development of his moral and physical maturity will be quite strange. The thing is that in ancient times paer did not have the current chronological limitations and - on average - embraced the age of about 12 - 15 years, when the spiritual personality of a person is formed and rounded off. The described state of searching is exactly suitable for her, which receives true direction only later and precisely after the experimental knowledge that wisdom is acquired as a gift of God. Such a mood is possible and natural in a “witty youth,” which is why efforts for spiritual kindness and bodily innocence are conceivable for him in the past.
All the details easily boil down to the fact that the pseudo-Solomon depicts a progressive increase in spiritual and physical forces that are actually united in a particular person and functioning normally. This is the immediate tone of the argument, and all its details are perfectly concentrated in this conclusion. Contrary to this, Platonic interpretations are not indicated in the text even in general outlines and are argued with the exegetical artificiality of tendentious squeezing and hypothetical imposition. In all this, scientific impartiality obliges us to accept the truth that - in itself - the varied evidence does not at all speak in favor of the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls.
Both for the pre-eternity of matter and on this issue, it will be true for now no more than that the mysterious anonymous person uses terms that in religious-philosophical systems and theories were used for similar opinions. It is indisputable for everyone that it does not at all follow from this that they are the same in their energy everywhere and for everyone. In fact, it often happens that in everyday and colloquial use all the special shades are smoothed out, and of these, the most typical formulas turn out to be maxims with content of a general nature. In the mouth of a Jew, we are obliged to understand them in the Jewish-biblical spirit, unless there is decisive evidence to the contrary. This requirement is completely unconditional in our case. And first of all, it is important that according to the Platonic interpretation, it turns out that the soul was good before its earthly incarnation and was distinguished by an immaculate body for this pre-incarnation valor. It is indirectly emphasized that there are souls with opposite qualifications and a corresponding bodily fate of physical unfitness.
But such a mataphysical dualism in mentality is alien to the ideology of the famous philosopher and does not meet with an adequate coincidence in the later modifications of his system. It is true that Philo recognizes some gradations in the world of spirits, but the best of them are not involved in material corporeality - initially or after passing and withstanding the test and purification in the bodily settlement. It is clear that in these schemes the incarnation is actually incarnation and is called the punishment of temptation and retribution. In the Book of Wisdom, on the contrary, it is interpreted about a bodily reward for spiritual goodness, and this was a blatant absurdity for any platonic transformations. This is a radical contrast, which in turn entails new difficulties. According to platonic principles, somaticity, being a burdensome burden, rests on admitted sinfulness, causing pedagogical vengeance.
Without this mournful precedent, even the very origin of animated flesh is impossible, and in pseudo-Solomon it arises without such a preliminary, if everything is painted in bright colors of approval and encouragement.
Then it is inevitable to agree that the Jewish author - in his thoughts - is far from Platonism and fundamentally betrays it, or else equal elements of the amartological variety must be discovered in him. A few attempts of the second kind try to utilize in their favor the evidence that Wisdom “preserved the primeval father of the world, who was created alone, and saved him from his own fall, she gave him the power to rule over everything” (X, I, 2). In these words, it is as if “there is no doubt that, according to the theory of Alexandrinism, there is a fall from grace characteristic of man as such, during which he, who was hitherto a pure spirit, is associated with the earthly,” of course, due to a gravitation towards it, revealed in an active attraction. This is supposedly obligatory according to the structure of all similar concepts and for non-canonical scripture it is argued by the fact that the devil (II, 24) is identified (through Gen.
III, 1 ff.) with the serpent and together with him refers to (originating in the soul) sensual lust, which shoots out from the celestial spheres into the region of cosmic materiality. Everyone sees that the commentator looks at the subject in the color of philonism, and this mirror is so accepted for clarifying our book that even scientists who do not sympathize with such extremes are inclined towards the idea of expelling souls into material corporeality for their pre-worldly transgression, while they do not find a clear reproduction of the views of the Writer of Genesis (Gen. III. 1 - 6). Again, in the space of pre-occupation, textual prose expands much beyond its true dimensions. The Adam we mean here, of course, can be attributed to Philo’s “heavenly” prototype, but this is not favored by a genuine connection, because the subject is depicted as the ancestor of the current cosmic order and is ranked among the same earthly relations as the father belongs to the order of being common with details. Everything speaks about the events of our world history, and this is supported by the note that the primordial one was created alone.
Such news is in exact harmony with the biblical data about the ancestors and is illuminated from them in all its content with absolute naturalness. Any other attempts will be artificial and will lead to the despotic imposition of Alexandrian dreams of the primary androgyne, dismembered and bifurcated into man and woman already in the historical process of world life. Such an exegesis would be arbitrary, since the material and justification are not drawn from the document itself, where there are no weak hints of this category. Therefore, then further violence against the phrase will be necessary, since there is a pre-incarnation fascination of the soul with sensuality. In this case, the role of wisdom becomes mysterious for the theory itself. The genuine one preaches the inseparability and inevitability of the fact that mental darkness is accompanied by a proportional immersion in the abyss of seductive and mastering materiality.
In our example, everything happens the other way around, because “deliverance” consists in “extraction” from the region of fall, in elimination from it with a transition to the previous sphere, while the completely opposite would be expected in the inexorable submission to the shackles of corporeality. This irrationality gives rise to a new mystery in the incomprehensibility of the dominion acquired by the saved, which is self-evident as restitution in integrum or will again be mysterious for the Alexandrian philosophers themselves, where such amazing compensation for sinful offense is not allowed. All oddities disappear if we think about the period after expulsion from paradise, during which Adam retained sufficient dominion, although not in terms of the energy of natural virtues, but in terms of the participation of God’s saving providence. At the same time, in the early one there are two stages - heavenly sin and preservation from it in original innocence. The relationship between these two steps is not outlined with tactile relief. The elements and shades of terminology undoubtedly reflect the Alexandrian style.
Hence the likelihood of commenting on the entire view according to the actual model with the difference between androgypic loneliness and sexual duality, which served to ensure human existence, undermined in the fall. The first point lends itself quite easily to this interpretation, but the second requires great stretches, which are completely unnecessary when compared with pure biblical ideas. But all scientific laws always and everywhere take advantage of the simplest solution, and therefore philosophical aids for the evidence of interest are certainly incredible. With them, there will still be no proper mental clouding, as long as it is confined to the earthly history of the progenitor, and the whole hypothesis turns out to be unsuitable for the book being analyzed.
A direct addition to this observation is the logical conclusion that pseudo-Solomon looked at the origin of earthly human life neither philosophically nor platonically and did not consider it to have arisen from impulses of sinfulness, unclean in source and externally revealed in filthy physicality. Therefore, for him, the physical “nobility” of the entire spiritual-somatic whole is possible during its perception and later development. All this would be unattainable with metaphysical maturity, and no clear opinions are expressed anywhere in our writings about its pre-existence in autonomous-oppositional independence. Accordingly, for earthly intelligent individuals there is no need for pre-mundane mental individuals, because (neither for creationism nor for traditionalism) there is no reason for the entire human body to be composed and formed together. And de facto in the non-canonical monument there are no tangible echoes in the tone of philosophical convictions regarding the pre-existence of souls.
Everything in this concept is harmonious - solidary and imprinted with biblical contemplation, which shines through with brightness through the philosophical - Alexandrian outfit of Greek phraseology. The emergence of human existence is not motivated by a tragic catastrophe, and its fatal influences do not weigh down intelligent creatures with their sinister fate. Here the beginning predetermines – the end is fundamental and inherent. Under the inevitable pressure of ontological dualism, internalized by the herald of sacred Jewish wisdom, categorical judgments were inevitable that his entire eschatology was exhausted by Platonic hopes of immortality due to mental indestructibility. The union of soulfulness with physicality was accomplished through sinful abnormality, and their disintegration would be a happy act of liberation, which in itself instinctively excluded any new fusion. Therefore, pseudo-Solomon does not accept the resurrection of the body, and at this point Alexandrinism radically deviates from the prevailing biblical doctrines.
Then the fate of the righteous human soul could only be in the eternal enjoyment of its abnormality - analogous to philonic dwelling in the mental world. It is clear that in this eschatological construction there is nothing new compared to Philo, despite the identity of the primary foundations of psychological - ethical and eschatological platonism. Under him, incorruptible spiritual depravity was deprived of all support for continuation with the loss of its earthly vessel, because it was in it that it received sinful food, and without it it was incapable of self-preservation, since for this it would first have to become spiritualized goodness, meanwhile this is essentially unacceptable for it. Here, with undeniable legality, strict logic comes into full play, which categorically asserts that under such preconditions only the righteous will be preserved, while sinners will evaporate in their mentality, although for some this will happen immediately after death, for others - after the expiration of a certain interval in the retribution of gradual painful evaporation.
Balance is restored with the help of the doctrine of blissful immortality according to the Essene doctrine of the eternity of souls descending into the prison of the body from the highest spheres of the subtlest ether. As a result, the connection must certainly be interrupted by a return to the previous harmony, when what is unsuitable for it disappears without a trace. This means that the whole course of human existence is such that, arising from the fall through the perception of evil materiality, it is limited by the labor and illnesses of the inseparable burden and inevitable struggle on earth and is crowned by a detachment from somaticity either in spiritual infinity or in mental nihilism. Here tetium non datur, because this outcome is rooted in a dualistic source, for which only one of the two is possible and nothing third is permissible. But once the question is formulated in principle, then the entire answer in the totality of the stated opinions is subordinated to the absolute consideration that it is correct only if its theoretical guarantees are certain and to the extent of their internal strength.
And we argued that the Jewish author has not yet been convicted of dualistic predilections either in metaphysical soarings or in anthropological applications, since he does not see two ontological oppositions and their forced convergence in concrete individual forms. Therefore, a real union will most likely be a mutual attraction of both sides. This is also expressed by defenders of Platonic interpretations, rejecting that “souls are good or evil by creation itself, if God is understood as completely good and a lover of souls. Therefore, the ethical character of the soul when it enters the body seems to be the result of its own action in the past. Discarding arbitrary additions, we will find no more than what pseudo-Solomon teaches about the combination of affinity and community with the primacy of spirituality.
This beginning contains everything for a progressive flowering in an increasing bond, where the break - at least for the best people - will be distressing and require correction in a return to the interrupted indissolubility of the elements according to their internal interpenetration. For the Book of Wisdom, the possibility opens up of such a view that the physical-spiritual human existence, being normal according to the conditions of origin and existence, is not forever disrupted by bodily death and will then end in bodily resurrection. We do not say that all these truths are confessed and proclaimed there with direct expressiveness. It is only important for us to note that such a mood would be logically impeccable in doctrinal inclinations, not colored by a dualistic flavor. In any case, this reconstruction will remain on par with the Platonic one until we have the need to move from the fundamental position of the outlined premises.
In turn, for this it will be necessary to agree that in actual use the latter did not stand up to their idea and were desecrated at their very core. Harsh experience often, and perhaps more often, destroys lofty plans, which is why a fatal catastrophe is theoretically permissible for our subject. What exactly happened?
With this question we turn to empirical anthropology and focus on the characteristics of historically cosmic humanity. Here we have two pictures with a contrast between the expected and the real by their very properties. First of all, we are taught (I, 13 – 14) that “God did not create death and does not rejoice in the destruction of the living, for He created everything for existence, and everything in the world is salvific, and there is no harmful poison, and there is no kingdom of hell on earth.” There are many terminological reciprocalities in the quoted words, from which the most reliable must be extracted. The phrase describes the actual from the side of negativity to the should, and this helps to comprehend the revolution that has taken place in terms of source, quality and results. Death was not a creative act of God, but it is clear that it already exists with inexorability; The Almighty is not pleased with her, although she steadily carries out her dirty work. Such is the dark force that violated the primary harmony with its invasion into space, where it did not exist from the beginning, when the latter was created.
This is the compelling meaning of the phrase, because in the phenomenally present it distinguishes between the divine itself and what has come to it from the outside after the first has been done. This means that in world history there was an era of the absence of mortal dominion, and what it consisted of - this must be guessed from the sphere of its distribution. The second member shows that this death extends to the living and captures the truly living. From this point of view, death was only the cessation of being among viviparous, not equal to corruption. The parallelism of Hebraistic construction, which usually reveals a general idea under two forms, also tends to this. However, we should not ignore the consideration that both parts are not mutually covered until they coincide mathematically. On the contrary, the addition about “harm” certifies that for the proclaimed principle this is a specific illustration that has its own special characteristics.
Therefore, we are obliged to think that among living creatures capable of biogenic continuation, death is already revealed by their destruction, which does not extend to everything else to all the peripheries of the mortal power. Of course, the causal connection emphasizes that a justification is given for the previous exhortation to people so that they do not hasten mortal destruction for themselves, but this does not at all require the limitation of energy to application to living creatures. It would be more correct that the argument gains a lot in its strength if it is indisputable both for the principled and for the factual. Moreover, even earlier (I, 12) death is considered independent of the person who only attracts it to himself. The phraseology here is extremely difficult and the saying is usually understood ironically, that the wicked are jealous of death, as if they find their joy in it. Perhaps this will be the most immediate and sufficient in context, although through this means death is again individualized in its action, which is more extensive.
The lawless go in step with it and thereby clear the way for its unhindered and rapid attack. In this regard, they already compete with death and compete with it in destructiveness through the delusions of their belly, just as the “ear of jealousy” (I, 10) competes in defending the interests of truth. In any case, death affects people with a specific destructiveness (I, 12), for which they are personally guilty of their sinfulness. This thesis of a formidable warning is best ensured by the affirmation of the comprehensive illegality of death, for it was not caused by God and does not give Him pleasure in human sacrifices.
Now we get that everything created was once not involved in mortality, which now engulfs all existence and can be detrimental to man. This position is explained later (I, 14) in the justification, and therefore “everything” must contain “living” in itself. However, the unconditionality of the term does not allow it to be narrowed within a narrow framework that would be unsuitable. In the text we find that everything created had a purpose and was intended to support its created existence. For this, it needs appropriate resources for self-preservation. By logical combination, it turns out that this reinforces the teleological dogma, which is why there is undoubtedly a material affinity between them. For them, it is stated that they are saving for themselves or have reserves for saving the cosmic existence inherent in everyone. Guaranteed autonomy was paralyzed by hostile pressure. From the negativity we conclude that this is the poison of murder for the named salvificity, and their compatibility is impossible in principle.
Because of this, the absence of “destructive healing” falls on the very moment that the “integrity” of three births, and along with the latter, characterizes the entire totality of the cosmic by the creative nature with which it was formed by the hand of the Almighty. Therefore, it certifies only the ideal side of the created, without in the least hinting at its continuous and unrelenting functioning or at its internal inseparability from contaminated phenomenality. Through this, the guess is eliminated that the pseudo-Solomon recognized the current order of things as a completely normal embodiment of the creative intentions of God, despite all the vanity in the entire universe. Such an interpretation is not required by the movement of argument and would in fact be an absurd battle against the cruel experience of one and all that poison permeates all cosmic elements. No less unnecessary will be another interpretation, which in the real distinguishes what is happening from what is essential in it, even if it is not revealed.
Moreover, everything dark would be a simple accident of the world order, bearing in its depths true incorruptibility. But this antithesis would be too eccentric a plane of paradox, as if in the sphere of what happens there is not what is in it... According to the most favorable assessment, this would affirm pure negativity, realistically dead and inactive, and then it could not be the support of phenomenal existence. In this form there would not be the slightest persuasiveness for a call for moral sobering, unless everything would be an invitation to the bearer. The whole sermon acquired a captivating seriousness only on the condition that this joyful thing at one time was a living reality, which was disrupted and supplanted by present mortality. This continuity is in good agreement with the incompatibility of opposites established above and provides them with equal cosmic presence. Naturally, given their absolute adversativity, the original no longer exists after the installation of the later.
Hence the negative construction of the phrase, where the negated is not bare potentiality, but is taken from the sphere of the real - cosmic. Therefore, we agree that the Book of Wisdom depicts the created world in the era of “all good is evil” (Gen. I, 31) not in a purely fundamental sense, but with the assimilation of a certain real continuity to such a state. Along with this, the opposite is no less decisively evidenced in the dominance of the destructive poison, which will be a secondary appendage or painful anomaly. Without it, obviously, there would be no victims of rampant destruction, and we would not have a terrible dominion on earth, which now fills hell with its slaves and subjects. Here we discover how the Jewish author believed that in the initial stages of world history there was a period of immortality, which then completely disappeared.
This guides us to the outcome of all considerations for combining the obtained results. Everywhere the cardinal point was that death was not created by God and in fact did not exist. If in nature everywhere the opposite is seen in the death of the living and the poisonous poisoning of the elements themselves, then we must think that all this came later, contrary to creative dictates and in the distortion of all the beauty of their primary expression. A severe change in the past is necessary, upsetting the entire order of the cosmic whole. Based on all these observations, it would be the greatest stretch to say that the pseudo-Solomon proclaimed the integrity of the world and considered its vanity to be primordial, even if only as an inevitable enemy. The truth is completely different, that he envisioned a sad catastrophe when everything dark and evil penetrated. In this form, he distinguishes two realistic extremes, which alternate mutually on the world stage with such opposition that none of them can be an accidental addition to the other.
Therefore, the non-existent now is not really for the internal essentiality of things with the contrast of its external phenomenality, but is evidenced in the name of an undivided and unremarkable functioning in the past. Then everything turned into irreconcilable hostility towards the ex. The main feature of this new way of life is death and, of course, the unlimited nature of vanished immortality. In the living it manifests itself with the originality of destruction, and yet it is a simple application of a general and unchangeable force that extends to the entire totality of created things. It captures everything created in order to “be” and ensured for this by self-preservation in everything that happens, not involved in the poisonous poison. Consequently, the fundamental property of this factor is that it destroys being, robbing it of the energy of continuous continuation. Of course, due to the dissimilarity of the medium, the refractions themselves are not identical, but this, rather, affirms the unity of the main agent.
Then it is inappropriate here to contrast people with everything else in such a parallel: “God did not predetermine the fate of blissful immortality for man and eternal death, by which this fate is destroyed, in the same way as the world of lower creatures was awarded the resources to continue and maintain itself, and each of them used its natural moment, without having the innate element of destruction, which shakes the original purpose of the Creator.” In the human family, all transformation is centered on spiritual ruin, and hence the plausibility is formulated for the author of the Wisdom of Solomon that "man was destined to be mortal, and physical death was not an introduction from the devil or a consequence of Adam's sin," since bodily mortality was not introduced by the sinfulness of the first parents through Satan's initiative. It is easy to guess that this interpretation smooths the way for any hypotheses about the nature of mergers, etc.
All this will be permissible not before and no more than the certainty of the fundamental thesis, and - according to our considerations - it is devoid of the slightest strength. There is no admitted adversativity in the text, and even the dynamic identity is brought into sharp focus in terms of its destructiveness for being in its entirety. The latter is not the same everywhere and is wider among people, which is why we find destruction among them - with simple destruction in all other cosmic creations, but this is a difference in application, which is everywhere revealed by the collapse of the present and for the spiritually rational element will be moral murder. This interpretation is given with immediacy and shines through in all phraseological combinations, meanwhile, the projected one is far from being in solidarity with verbal tangibility, forcing us to narrow the natural breadth of the words used, when the justification emphasized by pseudo-Solomon disappears, because the death of the physical of all created things cannot yet motivate or justify eternal destruction for humanity.
It will be necessary to again admit a limitation (in I, 14) contrary to the indisputable absoluteness that being was created without any exception for the entire created realm. It is clear that death is equally present for both rational and irrational creatures, although it is realized in them with individual characteristics corresponding to the difference in the objects themselves. The simultaneity of its invasion into the entire sphere of the created is also indirectly noted, and here it is only permissible to conclude that pseudo-Solomon does not contain the idea of St. Paul (Rom. VIII, 20) and later Jewish writers about the subordination of creation to vanities for the sake of man. Only here it is necessary to remember that for the Jewish author, cosmic death was also a grave abnormality against the plans, intentions and commands of God, and thereby refers to the active confrontation of reluctance to fulfill what is due. Obviously, this requires a moment of free trampling and, of course, on the part of a free being.
1435 However, for us, all interest is exhausted by the fundamental thought of the entire passage, that the world was once dominated by immortality, which was replaced by death later and in violation of the original harmony of continuous existence. In this we again see the material agreement of the author of Wisdom with the biblical teaching of the Writer of Genesis, and this is natural given the general biblical mood of pseudo-Solomon, for he often reproduces the news of the Israeli legislator on the history of peacemaking. With the view we reject, there will be a sharp dissonance with the Torah, and for reconciliation we are forced to appeal to such an extreme hypothesis, not supported by the weakest analogies, that Adam’s sin only caused the premature death, which would have come without it, but later. It is absolutely inevitable that one artificiality entails many others, and this fatal linkage clearly convinces of the falsity of the starting point.
Hence we in turn commit ourselves to the adoption of a contrary theory, which is alien to such shortcomings and is imprinted with the character of organic wholeness in the solidarity of all parts. With it, it is formulated dogmatically that the world does not grow out of discord in the rapprochement of hostile elements and is revealed by the continuous coordination of goals, means and implementation in the provision and development of created being. Therefore, actual disharmony does not indicate ontological dualism in the cosmos and is itself exposed in the secondary nature of its origin and dominance, why it does not belong to the pure nature of creation and serves as a perversion of it. This marks a painful world crisis, when the reign of death and destruction has established itself.
So: if there were no metaphysical antinomies, then there is no primordial dualistic fragmentation in the entire universe, where all sorts of abnormalities turn out to be a later invasion. In all this, the Jewish anonymous man suffers in no way from the tendency of ontological duality and gravitates more towards the opposite contemplation. But what is correct in general must also be true in particular, so that from the universally cosmic we conclude to the individually human. On this point, it was previously recognized for the whole world that “nobility” of strict correspondence between soul and body is really possible in people. Nevertheless, this proportionality does not exist for everyone and not always, and is not completely preserved for anyone and never. The spiritual tendency towards individual continuity is innate to everyone and is essential in human nature itself, which is why it had to be realized in reality. If this is not the case in experience, it follows that a deep shock occurred in human history, which stopped the normal process and set it on a destructive path.
This is exactly what happened in the image of the book being analyzed. In it we read (II, 23 – 24): “God created man for incorruptibility and created him in the image of His eternal existence; but through the envy of the devil death entered the world, and those who belong to his inheritance experience it.”
These words illuminate the “mysteries of God” (II, 22) while reflecting the theoretical and practical materialism of madmen. In eliminating their references to the universality of life’s bitter prose, they state that this is a deviation from the natural flow, which will be restored in those who have reached the norm. Of course, this indicates the actual ideal goal, which was not actually fulfilled, but it was not a pure abstraction either. The fact is that this was not only an ethical task for people, but also the main idea of the creative act itself, which was imbued with it from its very origin and could not take place without it, and - if accurately executed - necessarily embodied the thought of its culprit. For our example, we have that the assumption was fulfilled, for God created Adam according to His decision, which was expressed with all reality. Therefore, it is emphasized that man was created in order to remain in the incorruptibility he received.
This means that the latter was already in actual possession of the empirical personality of cosmic existence and in this form embraces the entire bodily-spiritual individual, who was immortal in his entire body. Incorruptibility existed in our world and extended to the entire created subject, although now this does not exist. The body is not at all deprived of such a high good, bestowed by the Almighty on the entire primordial being. With all this, material corporeality is exhausted by cosmic elements, and there was no need to talk about it when the whole was known. In the spirit of Jewish parallelism, pseudo-Solomon in the second member puts forward special features, That God made man His truest image. Reproducible properties are characterized in the textual tradition by different terms that are not inferior to each other in their unusualness. This is more plausible and logical. The above-mentioned continuity of everything that happens undoubtedly served as an imprint and reflection of the “personality” of God.
Naturally, by being isolated from this circle, a person acquires something new and advantageous. Hence the tense intensity in the expression itself, which approaches the Jewish construction of similar phraseological combinations. With such convergences for the speech under consideration, the predicates, being truly typical individually, extend to broad classes of objects and in each are fixed equally in the strength of their necessity for being itself. Not so in our case, since the named specialty is inalienable personally and is not naturally transmitted to others. In this sense, man, being a reflection of the Almighty, along with other creatures, also turned out to be an image of the very being of God. Therefore, it is clear that he could rightly and successfully claim the incorruptibility inherent in God. This absolutely ensures primordial immortality by the inviolability of its principle.
But this close connection of strict conditionality testifies that the bare fact of immortality is motivated not ontologically, - not by its inevitability in existence itself, as is indisputable for everything cosmic. In man, this dignity is affirmed not by being itself, but by its quality, and is certainly ethical, because people become and remain immortal by their divinity. It is clear that a double loss is possible for them, although a single loss is conceivable. It is inevitable that without a cause there will be no result, and with the effacement and darkening of the divine typicality, incorruption is lost. The opposite cannot be considered unproposed, since the consequence is often not achieved simply by silencing the factor, which is constrained and suppressed by various obstacles, without which, or in a new sphere, it will again appear in all its splendor. As long as these obstacles did not exist, the infinity of human vitality would have been expected. If it is not there, it convinces that the described law has been violated.
Now, naturally, an adversative maxim is formulated, and this eliminates the guess that it was introduced by a Christian hand. The content itself is no less clear from the previous one. Since immortality is from God, then mortality is not from Him - and in fact, its producer will already be contrary to Him. The devil appears before us, through whose envy death has entered the world and dominates it. The dominion of this new beginning was accompanied by the abolition of the old and is known precisely by it. And there it was obtained that the empirical phenomenon was depicted in ethical light, which should be here too. Then we will see that this was the enemy of divinity, in contrast to the fact that man had to develop it incessantly. We now have before us a subject with the opposite tendencies towards crushing the plans of God, but his success secures extraordinary energy for him.
But it does not possess boundless and irresistible compulsion, for it works only because the owner himself does not display the usual firmness in inalienable use, in which dignity would still be at inviolable disposal. This directly speaks to the possibility of far from hopeless resistance. Thus, we find that death in the cosmos invaded through a spirit similar to the human spirit, although exceeding in intensity and anti-divine in mood, moreover, it already works in the cosmic sphere and, directed towards phenomenal divine reflections, does not dare to encroach on the deity itself. With such predicates, it is completely incomprehensible to us if in this teaching they see an “Ahrimanian” understanding in the sense of an approximate dualistic primordial origin of two hostile principles, where the devil - in the tone of neo-Pythagoreanism and related systems - will be the second anti-divine principle. There are not sufficient materials for these conclusions, since the identity of the killer is equated with human convention.
No less than that, it is not seen through a different type and as the very result of the devil’s activity. Through her, death entered, settled and lives on earth, which truly embraces our created world. The last term is not limited contextually in its scope, but we must accept that the infected ulcer affected all cosmic elements and produced among them the characteristic destruction. For materiality and irrationality this will, of course, be a physical disaster of discord among the elements and the transience of particular combinations in special objects. There is no special attitude towards people, and we are obliged to think about them no more than that they, too, had to suffer as they belonged to the cosmos. This directly highlights the moment of physical perniciousness, which is consistent with the truth revealed above about the former availability of bodily incorruption. For all this, we do not consider scientifically substantiated the prevailing opinion that pseudo-Solomon interprets only spiritual death in deprivation of bliss and eternal condemnation.
Along with the assimilation of this thesis to our author, it is also assumed that bodily mortality was a natural phenomenon in the human race. The concepts of dualistic interpretation are created on these premises. It successfully points out that - in parallel with natural independent materiality - spiritual murder will be motivated in the same way out of original essential malice. But there can be no serious talk about such antitheses and rapprochements, since we are presented with the most general proposition that death penetrated into the created cosmos and infected it in all functions of created existence. This is the poison of “physical” existence both for creation and for every creature in all real cosmic expression. Nothing more than a simple confirmation of this fact is contained here, as according to the source, free voluntariness acted in the devil with equal subordination on the part of man, without any hint of the eternity and invincibility of demonic anti-divinity.
There is no exaggerated dualism at all, and the entire discussion will be a meaningful reproduction of the biblical story about the temptation of Eve by the serpent, which cannot be philosophically understood as a sensual - passionate attraction. And in general it is formulated before us in the end that the book of Wisdom accurately holds the Jewish doctrine of anthropology and amartology.
On the second point, we had an argument that physical death had reigned in the world. In this form, it affects all space objects in all their natural compactness. It is necessary that when there is dissimilarity in the nature of creatures, there are also different consequences, for in each specific example all its ingredients are embraced. But man served as an exceptional image of divine essentiality, and therefore it is not surprising that his fate turns out to be special. It is inevitable that the physical moment of incorruption is now lost. Everyone agreed on this, and hardly anyone thought otherwise. However, among people, physical quality was strictly conditioned by the moral feat of preserving and developing the individual properties of the divine reflection. since they are all mortal, it follows that the very root from which the fruit of the eternity of human existence was supposed to grow was corrupted. The universality of results certainly extends to the cause.
From this point of view, the absence of the expected is postulated to deny the effectiveness of a given factor, which does not function and does not manifest itself. Naked negativity appears before us, and it is punished accordingly through the deprivation of the secured superiority. Now we find that in humanity the image of God has darkened and is not really reflected with its inherent clarity. It is easy to see that pure privacy is actually an ideal point of indifference, which does not actually exist in specific individuals. After all, in fact it was the case that a rational subject lost good by suppressing it with evil. This means that the theoretically allowed indifference is equal to mathematical zero and does not occur in practice, where there will necessarily be two extremes - the desire to return what was taken away or incline to the side of the one who stole it. In the second case, a person assimilates the power of mortality that originally caused it - he does not just perceive it, but produces it in himself and through this “tastes” it experimentally. 1436 In this tone it is said about death that “those who belong to the lot” of the devil “experience it.”
Of course, everyone who chose the devil’s lot entered the devil’s region and became saturated with the devil’s elements. In this transformation, he becomes like the devil and shares his fate by tasting death. It is clear that the latter will be a personal and personal application of the deadly principle and is therefore rightly characterized as a whole practical application, exhausting its energy to the bitter end and without derogation. But this happens through the infection of the devil with envy in the God-given privilege of incorruptibility and through opposition to the commands of the Almighty. The lack of active closeness to the essence of God is compensated through the devil's mediation by hostility towards him with a distance from the divine treasures revealed through participation in the primordial “imagery”. Naturally, “eating” is resolved by spiritual death of the demonic type. Therefore, the most important predicate becomes the removal from the enjoyment of divinity, which was embedded in the primordial nature and connected with God.
This, undoubtedly, is the spiritual death of dooming oneself to the demonic predestination of unsuitability for the light of God - in the spirit of everyday life narrative. 1437 It is no less normal that in the spiritual, every reflection is spiritual. Therefore, destruction does not necessarily require that the spiritual principle itself be destroyed by it. This shade is not caused by a logical progression, since in it the isolation of a part of mortal humanity is motivated only by the active embodiment of corrupting influences, contrary to the passive suffering of others. From here on it must be that everyone suffers in the same area, although to varying degrees. Then, in fact, everything happens through identification with the devil, and he remains in individual identity. True, its destruction in the future is possible, but this is far from entirely plausible for the pseudo-Solomon. If a secondary and weakened action leads to ontological destruction, then its perpetrator would undergo this with the inevitability and inseparability of a necessary function.
Since this is not the case at all, we have no reason to allow the imitator to suffer a bitter punishment. On the contrary, the only thing that is indisputable is that the evil bring upon themselves the spiritual destruction of rejection from divine goodness and being in satanic darkness. For this, it is imperative that they first join the destiny of Satan and thereby choose the position characteristic of him. For us now it doesn’t matter how this is done - freely or involuntarily, by our own zeal and desire or by a fatalistic decision. In both cases it will be true that destruction does not extend to all people and affects only those specially suited for it. Then others are necessarily removed from the power of demonic corruption and are made worthy of spiritual life in closeness to God as His image grows in them. At the same time, the very foundation for primitive incorruptibility, which turns out to be possible, is again affirmed with all its strength. Here the permissibility of the idea of bodily resurrection is revealed, at least for the class of righteous people.
However, this is already a logical conclusion, but this is textually exhausted by the fact that the pious are rewarded with bliss.
We see that cosmic abnormalities are not at all caused by premium and eternal oppositions: they are not mentioned with sufficient relief, and therefore the cosmic harmony in purpose and primary discovery of world existence is quite understandable. The confusion in it was caused by a serious catastrophe, although its influence is not universal to the point of absoluteness. In nature, death poisons everything physically and interrupts the simple continuation of existence, but for spirituality both the death of alienation from God and the salvation of blissful vitality are possible. Consequently, at the beginning of cosmic discord, it does not at all turn out that the future of all members of humanity is predetermined inexorably by the conditions of its origin, inevitable and unchangeable by the efforts of reason and will. To do the opposite, we will have to accept that later, during the world life of the fallen race, new elements of cruel destruction were added. Was this in fact, according to the view of the book of Wisdom?
For her, it was found that man was once in possession of incorruptibility, but lost it, and now everyone receives mortal nature at their very birth or by adoption from their parents, about whom one must think the same. In this way, along a chain of unbroken succession, we go back to the historical source in the perversion of creative destiny through satanic participation. It follows from this that mortality is transmitted and acquired by inheritance from the time of its installation. Therefore, Solomon calls himself (VII, 1) mortal along with and on an equal basis with all people precisely as a descendant of the primordial earthly being. In this sense, corruption will be perceived and mutually communicated from our forefather, since he became mortal. Subsequently, all considerations depend on whether this fate is considered primordial or acquired? We are inclined to the second answer, and this opinion is somewhat supported by the words quoted.
In them, reference to heredity would perhaps be unnecessary if people were mortal by their very human dignity, because then all justifications of necessity would be in vain. As soon as a special motivation is offered, this indicates that Adam is the culprit of universal mortality entirely because he was a man, i.e. not naturally, but morally and personally. Mortal corporeality does not coincide with the primitive created one and, deprived of incorruptibility, turns out to be distorted. This is how it happens in all individuals of the human family by the very inheritance from their ancestors, from whom the body borrows mortal depravity. It is clear that the author of Wisdom fundamentally allows for the transmission of bodily poisoning. This means that humanity fell to death not due to the metaphysical incompatibility of spirit and matter and not due to the inevitability of the dissolution of their violent union, but due to the perversion of material integrity, capable of incorruption.
But in fact, the preservation of being was built on ethical differences in the imprinting by spirituality of the properties of the divine essence and disappeared only through the spiritual trampling of moral dictates. Bodily mortality rests on spiritual damage and is inseparable from it. Due to this connection, it is irreducible that the first certainly carries with it its cause, for bodily corruption is always, everywhere and necessarily sinful in its very nature. From this point of view, it is difficult to comprehend when the inheritance of sinfulness from Adam is denied, while in death one sees a naturally perceived factor of physical destruction, which for the pneumatic element is accompanied, of course, by spiritual destruction. This would be a flagrantly illogical self-contradiction, and we have no right to impose it without compelling arguments. 1438 It will be completely different with the spiritual interpretation of the ascended death, for, while it affects the only spiritual principle, it does not in the least affect the physicality, and this is perishable and is rejected on its own.
It is clear that with such an interpretation, it is absolutely impossible to conclude from bodily decay and its natural transmission to disastrous spiritual traditionism. Here the rejection of the latter is theoretically quite legitimate and is usually ensured by Solomon’s note (VIII, 20) about himself that “being good, he entered into a clean body.” However, this evidence is convincing for such an application only if it has assimilated the doctrine of pre-existence, from which it is concluded that the soul sometimes, and in some people, retains supreme purity. We recognized this comment as dubious and prefer to understand the spiritual kindness of a personal noble feat. At the same time, we formulate a position consistent with the previous one, that human perversity is not fatally hopeless and allows for relative correction, despite its inseparability in each of those born of wives. In particular, this truth is especially clearly illustrated by the fate of the Canaanites, who are spoken of (XII, 10.
11) that “their race is worthless and their evil is innate, and their thoughts will not change forever; for their seed was cursed from the beginning.” Here the natural property of unworthiness is based on the fact that it serves as the development of a destructive seed, cursed in every individual and therefore worthy of the same anathema in everyone due to their inherent sinfulness. In agreement with other observations, there will be a sharp and nationalistically extreme reflection of the doctrine of the heredity of sin, and the exaggeration of the image turns out to be a “clouding” of biblical teaching under the influence of the particularistic tendencies of Jewish intolerance. This is the impartial result of objective exegetical research, and its supports are so unshakable that writers of a different camp are forced to accept the data itself, although for them the latter will not be an echo of a general worldview, but an echo of new trends and are considered preparation for the aforementioned dogma.
In any case, pseudo-Solomon admits hereditary sinfulness, without extolling it as either natural or irresistible even to the slightest degree.
Summarizing everything we have learned, we find that human mortality is not primordial and does not warrant thinking that it is rooted in the very nature of materiality - as an eternal antagonist to the spirit, from which it is uncontrollably striving to fall away. If so, then material corporeality is accessible to the dominance of spirituality and, by its insubordination, only confirms the weakening of the second. Mortality, being hereditary, entails with it the sinfulness that creates it. This means that the second also does not constitute an integral and ineradicable property of human nature itself, which is why, being practically everywhere, it is not absolutely indestructible. In all this, the dualistic contrasts that are fatal to human fate are completely unnoticed, which, on the contrary, somewhat succumbs to free ethical tension, from where the possibility of choosing between two extremes is available - spiritual death and eternal bliss.
This joyful glimpse into the future illuminates with its approving radiance the earthly human journey, providing a reasonable incentive for the success of ethical work and inspiring it with the happy hope of a crowning reward.
Here we have come directly to the empirical agreement of mankind and have prepared the ground for a principled judgment about it from this side. Based on the preliminary findings, it logically follows that in this area, the despotism of spontaneous hostility is completely incredible, in which a person is helpless with all his efforts to change his inevitable fate for the worse or for the better, since the latter is predetermined by the essential features of the natural human organization. Rather, it is not the fatalistic indifference of despair that awaits, but the struggle of confidence in achieving one’s desires. The result will depend not on fate, but on the difference in character, the intensity of aspirations and the qualities of the means used. Theoretically, this should be the view of the book of Wisdom. However, systematic harmony is not always maintained even by the most well-trained minds, and despite all the careful care for the strictest development of their ideas, we encounter sharp contradictions among them.
All the more possible is any inconsistency in our author, who was carried away by the most diverse trends and multilateral influences. For him, the decisive factor will not be theoretical calculations, but accurate observations. Let us restore the actual facts and see what is said about the empirical position of humanity in the analyzed monument.
In it, the task of human existence is clearly indicated by the very origin of people who, being the image of God, must do the commandments of the Lord! To do this, you need to clearly comprehend all the ways of the Almighty, but is this accessible to mortals? The king of Israel’s conviction on this subject was not comforting, and he, asking for the wisdom that sits at the throne of God, categorically testifies (IX, 5-6, 13-17) about himself: “I am Your servant and the son of Your handmaid, a weak and short-lived man and weak in the understanding of judgment and laws. Yes, even if someone was perfect among the sons of men, without Your wisdom he will be recognized as nothing... For what person is able to know the counsel of God? or who can understand what pleases the Lord? The thoughts of mortals are unstable, and our thoughts are erroneous: for the corruptible burdens the soul, and this earthly church suppresses the over-concerned mind. We barely comprehend what is on earth, and we hardly understand what is under our hands, and what is in heaven - who has examined?
Who would know Your will if You had not bestowed wisdom and sent down Your holy spirit? In this picture, a person appears before us in a very unsightly form, and his helplessness begins with the formulation of his intentions, since true knowledge is unattainable for him. Everyone has only good inclinations, but these bright impulses of spirituality are certainly paralyzed by the indirect and natural unsuitability of the material body, which constrains us with its inert pressure. This is how the contrast between matter and spirit is outlined, where the energy of both gravity confirms their natural suitability. It is clear to everyone that this is essential antitheticality, and then we will have all the sensory properties of anthropological dualism, which is assimilated by the book of Wisdom. In particular, the passage cited is considered to be a “truly dualistic rationale for human limitations” and thereby suggests fundamental supports in a systematic view. Therefore, an appropriate source is required here.
In connection with other analogies, Plptonism has long been attracted, and now convincing arguments are presented in favor of direct borrowing from it. And earlier the similarity of these words with the testimony of the Phaedo was noted. 1439 Moreover, the fourfold coincidence is now emphatically emphasized in unusual and characteristic terms to support the idea of direct quotation, even if only from memory. Please note that all content is given in the mention of Plato preceding our excerpt. Pseudo-Solomon supposedly expresses the same thing that is understood here. The parallels are so striking that they are accepted by scientists as irrefutable justification for the hypothesis about the Jewish Hellenistic writer’s own acquaintance with philosophical dialogue. From here the entire interpretation of the doctrine in question is determined. In it, the opposition between spirit and body is revealed with extreme sharpness precisely because the latter is illuminated by purely Platonic concepts.
Subsequently, it inevitably followed that burdened corporeality is the source and seat of sin, its cause and root, for it contains “the principle of all evil and all unrighteousness.” Genetic applications are easy to guess without undue stress. And if the Catholic apologists say that all this is wrong, since it is also found in St. Paul, then they answer this with categorical inexorability that the Apostle of the tongues from the analyzed document took up Platonic-dualistic ideas that bring him closer to Philo, and from this point begins the spiritual-religious transformation of the evangelist with a complete inclination of his Christian dogmatics to Hellenic-philosophical contemplations. This reveals the great seriousness of genetic comparisons and gives the whole question such wide importance that in the interests of impartial objectivity it is necessary to carefully weigh the facts. What do they say for the Book of Wisdom?
Here we are taught that no man can know either the advice of God or what is pleasing to the Lord; Consequently, everyone is equally powerless both in the theoretical sphere of knowledge of God and in the practical sphere of pleasing God. Both are indisputable for everyone, because human thoughts are fragile and deceptive, and the spiritual soaring of the mind is suppressed by bodily frailty, which is why people barely comprehend only earthly things and are no longer completely competent in relation to heavenly things. As a result, everything mortal inevitably needs divine illumination to fulfill its created purpose. This position concentrates all the considerations of the author, who (through the mouth of the famous king of Israel) wants to attract his readers to this confession. For this reason, it is revealed to one and all that “even if someone was perfect among the sons of men, without the wisdom of God he will be considered nothing” (IX, 6).
Hence, there is no doubt that each imperial personality is proclaimed joylessly pitiful in its renunciation of God, when, shutting itself up in the autonomy of an imaginary originality, it thinks and tries to understand and carry out the divine work on its own in the predetermined role of dominion and control of the world (X, 1 – 2). To protect this truth, irresistible supports are selected from the surrounding reality of human misery, which forces everyone to continuously and incessantly cry out for divine help. In this case, all the talk about the weakness of earthly creatures will be evidence of factual reality, which necessarily requires higher reinforcement. Here, human insufficiency is important only in its persuasiveness for the author’s purposes, and for this, the only thing that is valuable is that the picture be an impeccably accurate reproduction of the original phenomenon. It is obvious from everything that a fact is simply stated before us from different angles, but no direct causal explanation is given to it.
Naturally, among the particular moments of the description it is impossible to establish such a strict causal relationship, as if people are theologically weak solely or mainly because their soul is burdened by the body. On the contrary, pseudo-Solomon considers these properties to coexist, without any guesswork regarding their mutual conditionality. The latter refers exclusively to the main idea of the passage about the need for divine help, and before this thesis all the substantiating points will be coordinated, composed among themselves by the general design of the argument. This weakens in advance all exaggerated interpretations, as if in the text itself bodily frailty is put forward as the original and complete factor of human misery. There was no need for such a division, since for the intentions of the pseudo-Solomon it was desirable nothing more than that - in general - the unfortunate phenomenality is not denied for everyone.
By directing his exhortations to everyone and allowing neither restrictions nor exceptions, the writer thereby expresses that his evidence will not meet with objections or bewilderment. In this dignity they acquire the character of universality, and everyone finds in them clear echoes of their own observations. This means that the philosophical anonymous person takes refuge under the authority not of an abstract theory at all, but of universal experience, to which he appeals.
This is the foundation of all parenetic exhortations, and for them it was quite enough to refer to what people experienced. From this point of view, it was, perhaps, almost idle curiosity to find out why this happens everywhere and always. But if such a problem arose, then the nearest answer would, of course, be that all members of the human family are identical due to an insurmountable humiliation. On this subject our book speaks with a logical rigor that extends to the very root of empirical clarity. The mutual and close similarity of all individuals, being universal, must rest on nature itself, received by each of them and not subject to personal zeal. Then we have that the marked initiality postulates the sameness of origin. This truth is proclaimed through Solomon, who says about himself before God (IX: 5) that “I am Thy servant and the son of Thy handmaid, a weak and short-lived man, weak in the understanding of judgment and law.”
All the threads boil down to the fact that the king, by his sonship from a slave, or by his very birth, was a limited human being. But other people are also “sons of men” (IX, 6) with all the human predicates of their fathers, which is why everyone is tied to the earth (IX, 18) and mortal (IX, 14). It is not surprising now that there is unity in equal failure towards autonomous autocracy, since it does not exist and cannot exist under the conditions of the emergence of human existence. This already contained a fundamental statement of experimental data, which from now on turned out to be inevitable by the very origin of man, as earthly and therefore incapable of independence in the divine. This was enough for the special tendencies of the Hellenistic Jew, for the motivated fact did not allow destructive perplexities, which would be an absurd protest against the absolutely unchangeable order of things in the cosmic world flow.
It is clear that in a theoretical sense this is far from the end, but all this will lie outside the author’s perspective, where all sorts of apodictic interpretations find neither material nor justification. With these preliminary steps, further investigations should be carried out. For now, they have learned that human nature is weak in everyone. This happens now, but has it always been like this? Human frailty dates back to people and is actually determined by their genetic inheritance. Pseudo-Solomon recognized that humanity is not eternal, but created (at least from the ready-made elements of spirituality and materiality). Therefore, the chain of genetic succession will not be continuous and will stop at the primordial one. Through this, our whole problem is focused on him and formulated by the question, was Adam so wretched from the beginning, or did he become so later? With the first solution, it would turn out that the Lord’s creative plans could not have been realized better due to the unsuitability of the irreducible elements of human organization, which they immeasurably degraded in comparison with the greatness of the divine idea.
However, we heard that the sad cash was not primitive and does not lead from the Almighty. All people are mortal, but God did not create death, and it later entered the world through the envy of the devil, meanwhile man was created for incorruptibility. Now everything about him is frail and has the character of earthly illusoryness, while he was created as a living reflection of the most essential particularity of God. It follows that human nature could be and was all-perfect, and in it there is no natural dualistic confrontation between two incompatible principles, mutually constraining and suppressing each other. The whole trouble is that she deviated from the creatively predetermined path and - moreover - not at all due to an innate inability to maintain self-control, for the damage was caused by an outside satanic invasion. Therefore, humanity is vain - perishable only in a fallen state, and its helplessness will be not so much naturalistic as ethical, resting on sinful perversion.
All this was not required to ensure the call to divine wisdom and is not clearly expressed in the chapter under consideration, but there are characteristic hints in it. Solomon's prayer opens with the confession that God “has created man to rule over creatures and rule the world holy and just and to carry out judgment in the righteousness of the soul (IX, 1 – 2). Nowhere is it mentioned or implied that these intentions were not fulfilled and encountered insurmountable obstacles in their implementation. The biblical disposition of the theistic contemplations of the author directed him to the idea of an adequate coincidence, and earlier it was stated with complete accuracy. Along with this, it is all the more striking that the king of Israel was “a weak and short-lived man and weak in the understanding of justice and laws” (IX, 5), and even a perfect one “is not counted as anything” (IX, 6). They end up with a blatant contradiction, for the master is slavishly weak and the righteous judge is not far off in jurisprudence.
And if this contrast did not exist during creation, then we are obliged to admit that reality was damaged and worsened during the period of its cosmic existence. Apparently, the ideal of a divine creation was relegated to the level of creaturely limitation and became human, not exceeding the dimensions of cosmically-conventional humanity, which had previously been elevated by its “imagery” to the transcendence of a deity. Divine kinship was squeezed out by human genesis, but the second appeared only to replace the first. This duality is categorically confirmed by Solomon. He is the son of a slave and therefore is a pitiful subject for human succession. However, having arisen at the creative behest, a person can live only by creative inclinations, without having the slightest reserves of his own. In each of the people, what is essential for their existence and for normal functioning is not the strictly human, devoid of original support, but the divine, which produces, protects and regulates cosmic life.
Therefore, not finding this most important element in existence, we are forced to think that it was once real and then lost. The connection with heaven was severed, and then everything became confined to the earthly framework. It is clear that servile sonship was preceded by divine sonship. In this combination, the mention of the children of God is especially noteworthy, from whose midst Solomon does not want to be rejected, asking for this to be granted the wisdom that sits at the throne of God (IX, 4). Under her, the king will be the son of God, knowing what is pleasing to the Lord, favorable in his affairs and a fair judge of his subjects (IX, 10, 12). Here all the requirements of the creative calling to dominion, rule and judgment are fulfilled. It follows that – as a “child of God” – man is the living embodiment of divine greatness. This kinship acquired a cosmic quality towards divinity, which emerged from phenomenal chance. On this side, the Jews, by their spiritual and religious closeness to Jehovah, are called the people of God (IX, 7, 12), which no longer consists of the sons of men, for it is composed of the sons and daughters of God (IX, 7).
The children of men were a distortion of the ideal primordial nature of God's sonship and their insignificance does not at all testify to the primordial metaphysical incapacity of human nature, where the dualistic clash of spirit and matter kills all impulses towards the heavenly. It is true that in his present position, each of the mortals is wretched due to his earthly humiliation, but this is solely because he has ceased to be a “child of God,” a bright image of the glory and strength of the Most High. It is clear that the root and exclusive cause of human misery lies in the obscuring of the original divinity, which was suppressed later and, therefore, not naturally, but arbitrarily and unnaturally.
So, humanity became a fool as a result of its fall. The miserable state is only its inevitable result and is therefore determined by ethical factors, without any regard to ontological dualism. Let us delve into the depths of the disastrous catastrophe, and it will be revealed to us that the description of the Wise One is an accurate and objective statement of this inevitable outcome. By his origin and recognition, man was the “son of God,” who possessed and possessed the properties of divinity. Here all the advantage rested on the dignity of “imagery”, reflecting in itself the supreme divinity. The support was not in the created and was rooted in what exceeded it and belonged to heaven. Everything cosmic served only as the material and organ of the divine principle, which was the foundation of everything that distinguished man and endowed him with truly human superiority. The dominion of the divine over the cosmically limited and the complete subordination of the second to the first: this is the ideal type of God-born human creation.
But it goes without saying that this could only last as long as filial communion with the divine father was maintained. We know that unity was also abolished, and man henceforth became simply a son of man. Of course, at the same time he received no more than what creatureliness could give in its self-confinement. Once the union of filial intimacy with God has disappeared, people will have one cosmic spontaneity. She is not imbued with the divine, because she has been cut off from him, and therefore withdraws into her own sphere and makes do with the resources of her limitations. It is necessary that under its supremacy, those elements that are especially drawn and chained to cosmic chance achieve predominance. It is indisputable for everyone that from now on the material physicality is taking over the overwhelming influence due to its natural attraction to the earth.
If previously with his spirituality a person rose beyond the line of the cosmic and soared in the heavenly, now he is deprived of this ability and without it he will only have a naked desire that does not have the strength to overcome material inertia. Hence, it is quite natural that bodily materiality, freed from the energy of God’s sonship that carried it away, itself begins to oppress pneumaticity, forcing it to work in favor of its interests. Spiritual impulses are not at all and are even turned to achieve base somatic goals. The revolution in the combination of the elements of human nature is accompanied not only by deprivation; - it is inevitably destroyed by the fact that a spiritual being betrays its teleological duty and, by its very spirituality, indulges in the cosmic, tramples and insults all its spiritual needs. The perturbation, ethically motivated in the fall of the ancestors, is reflected in ethical shortcomings in the sinfulness of the offspring.
We formulate in strict genetic gradualism three moments of the amartological history of mankind: the first is negative in the loss of communion with God, the second is physically neutral, certifying the transformation in the ratio of constitutive ingredients, and the third is positive, expressed in the sinful slavery of spirituality to somaticity. Despite all the empirical strength, the connection between sin and carnality happens later, and this is how it is depicted in the pseudo-Solomon. What comes first for him is the weakness of human knowledge of God (IX, 13), and it is justified by the fact of the instability of human thoughts and the fallacy of our thoughts (IX, 14). This does not reveal a strictly moral error, since it is spiritual exhaustion that appears everywhere. Being the result of the falling away from God, it testifies to it with all the independence of experience everywhere, but is not at all the cause for it, being a secondary reflection.
In turn, this mental weakness is argued by referring to the fact that the soul is burdened by the body and the over-concerned mind is suppressed by the earthly church (IX, 15). Again, this is an inseparable companion of spiritual exhaustion and convinces us of it as a consequence, which in its reality is impossible without the same real support. The hegemony of perishable corporeality is itself conditioned by pneumatic scarcity and is caused by it, and does not serve as a source for it. Of course, in fact, the supremacy of somaticity further degrades and kills spirituality, but its establishment was motivated by mental decline, which opened up space for bodily despotism. The latter continues the process and thereby speaks of its beginning, for it is built on it. According to this concept, it is unshakable that for the Book of Wisdom, bodily burden was not at all primordial, since for its existence it required many preliminary things, from which its very existence arose. This means that it cannot be placed at the center of all considerations and all other predicates cannot be derived from it.
Their mutual causation is such that the fact reinforces the productive basis, why by bodily frailty we judge mental weakness and from it goes to reflection of God. The author focuses entirely on real properties and their casual connection illustrates the fundamental incompetence of human autonomy, which irresistibly ensured his call for divine help. This protects our previous observation that the anthropological description - closest of all - states the empirical reality that convinces us of the need for higher support. Above all, the relationship between all stages is revealed to us. In them, from the further to the earlier, since - in fact - the second was an obligatory precedent of the first and therefore itself is proven from it. This exhausts all the importance that through them, along the causal chain, from the empirically visible we rise to the conditioning.
From this it is clear that bodily heaviness is an incidental phenomenon and is built on mental instability, which it aggravates, but does not create. Then the dominance of bodily pressure will be accidental and later, and not primordial and natural.
This result is unshakable in its genesis from all sides and finds allies everywhere. At its head was the position that man has lost access to God and does not comprehend His greatness, the fulfillment of which it is still in vain to dream of. It is very characteristic here that all speech is conducted solely in this tone. Everything concentrates on issues of knowledge of God. The writer starts from this point with a mention of the incomprehensibility of God’s counsels, illuminates it with the fallacy of thoughts nailed down by somatic oppression, and ends there with a mournful cry about the inscrutability of the heavenly will. Everywhere we see the theoretical moment of our intellectual powerlessness to penetrate into the divine spheres. This is completely normal and logical from the point of view we have taken, that man has deviated from the divine realm and lost the very path to where he should go. Therefore, practical results are not spoken of categorically, because they are already derivative, although inevitable.
On the contrary, with a dualistic interpretation of the reasoning of pseudo-Solomon, everything will be mysterious, since here people were not and cannot be closer to the Lord than they are now, and they would only emphasize practical ignorance, since it was vain and useless to discuss innate ignorance. If, on the contrary, all the tension is directed towards this object, then it follows that the root of real error lies in cognitive insufficiency. Moreover, the second will be no less sinful and, therefore, guilty of the personal participation in it of human disunity with the divine Creator. It is necessary that then people - by their very remoteness - do not see the Lord and do not hear His voice, and it is unthinkable for them to dream of the fulfillment of the unknown. For these reasons, it is clear why the creative element is sharply emphasized in the Book of Wisdom, since it was primary and conditioned everything else.
But separation from the divine was inseparable from immersion in the cosmic, and it obscured everything divine for our gaze, which did not see through this veil of sensory phenomenality. In this case, the absolute impossibility of knowledge captured only religious matters in their essence and relation to the moral tasks of human existence. For everything earthly, tangentially turns out to be more physical and immediate, because man grows to the earth, draws all his definitions from it and does not extend beyond the boundaries of the cosmic horizon. This advantage is inseparable from the most deplorable inconvenience, which destroys the expected benefits. It is easy to guess that the student is on a general level with the objects themselves and can experience them in every possible way, in all ways and with all his organs. This guarantees thorough accuracy and punctual awareness.
For this reason, the observer, being on the same plane with the objects and limited by their cosmic environment, does not have a true perspective in front of him and does not see the taken detail in wide light in conjunction with the whole. Therefore, there is no understanding here of the mutual connection of all particulars, nor of the nature of the entire cosmic unity, which is why true knowledge is not achieved. 1440 Details lose their relativity and grow to an inappropriate degree, and this violates the entire proportionality of individual links in the chain of world phenomenality. It goes without saying that this way does not at all grasp the actual created dependence, which is not accessible without correct and distinct religious contemplations, but then there will be no proper assimilation of all qualities according to their real dignity. Upon its completion, such knowledge is the same as the knowledge of the blind, striking in its clarity regarding details and the darkness for their complex combination in a real complex. In this sense, we barely comprehend what is on earth only with sufficiency (cf. VIII, 8. XIX, 18. Jer.
XXV [XLVI], 23), i.e. through consideration from similar to similar, moving as if by groping; even finding with difficulty what is in the hands (IX, 15), although this is within the power of touch, and not just sight. In this and other cases, what we need is at our complete disposal and is known by our perception directly and comprehensively. The whole fault of failure, obviously, will be in the fact that we cannot grasp the real meaning of any nearby thing and, not being able to discover its own place among all the others, must judge them sufficiently and choose what is needed by digging through the entire mass at hand. In the end, it turns out that all failure is caused by the inaccessibility of the nature of the divine Creator to our intellect. This indirectly confirms that the misery of human misery rests on willful apostasy, alien to any attacks of naturalistic dualism, for which the highest insight itself would be absolutely fruitless. Therefore, the same thing actually occurs in the space region and the most detailed awareness is possible for everyone.
And this is not at all limited to epistemology, for it extends to everything where human diligence is applied. It is permissible to think that such a triumph is achievable in all particulars. From here it is formulated (IX, 6) that among the “sons of men” there are perfect persons who have taken advantage of everything in the cosmos in a brilliant way, orient themselves unerringly and achieved the best. Despite all this, they too are “counted as nothing” without divine wisdom, since they do not understand the known realities in the light of the mind of God.
It is again revealed to us that the root of all evil lies in the loss of filial unity with the source of all phenomenal existence, since without this all man is deprived of everything necessary to rise above cosmic frailty in theoretical and practical respects. It further follows that there is no indelible hostility in the natural elements, which deprives spirituality of any support for penetration into the material sphere. Again it testifies that all this is feasible and, with good effort, can be excellent, and this confirms the only suitability of human pneumaticity for subordination to materiality for the coordinated service of its goals and interests. If the opposite prevails in reality, then there is simply a serious abnormality. In this capacity, it is not at all essentially hopeless and is curable even in space conditions. And we read from pseudo-Solomon that the wisdom of the Lord gives everything desired both for knowledge of God and for pleasing God.
With her and through her, the paths of those living on earth are corrected, people learn what is pleasing to God and are saved (IX, 18 – 19). For us, the exact energy of this entire doctrine is not yet important, but its immediate reflection is valuable, that human weakness is surmountable and even in the cosmic period can acquire an intense strength that lifts us above the physical and connects us with the heavenly. And at this point there is no noticeable inconsistency with other anthropological beliefs, when we would have before us mutually disparate schemes that are combined with the mechanical compilation of an eclectic and do not explain each other at all. On the contrary, with harmonious harmony, the entire course of the author’s logic states that the all-wise divine is not assimilated by autonomous human efforts; for them it is inaccessible and is given from above as a special gift from God.
From this internal coherence of ideas we have the right and duty to judge that if men, with supreme assistance, are able to rise above the cosmic level without violating their individual integrity, then in the constitutive ingredients of human organization there are no metaphysical obstacles to spirituality, and they will be defects of ethical depravity. Otherwise, the pneumatic triumph would require the destruction of flesh, yet everything happens with its participation. Obviously, its hegemony is lost, and hence it is indisputable that the former slave has acquired dominion. By contrast, it is certain that immutability was caused by the loss of these powerful prerogatives, without which the more powerful principle of cosmic corporeality prevailed.
So our thought, through an objective analysis of the text, returns to the original position that the source and cause of all human troubles are hidden in the rejection of the creature created by Him from its Creator. The latter, having moved away from God, has lost the support of its pneumatic supremacy over cosmic materiality, which itself seizes primacy and is the center and regulator of all activity. Naturally, in man, too, the body rises above the soul, although it becomes perishable, not receiving the same support from weakened spirituality. Hence, somatic supremacy is established with all the necessary reflections. Among them, it is inevitable that physicality, having become autonomously active, prevails over spiritual passivity, and this functions materialistically, with an insult to religious and ethical demands, and thereby commits a sin. The amortological element is not connected by reason with somaticity and always arises and develops on spiritual soil, which produces tares because it is clogged and darkened by bodily frailty.
Therefore, sinfulness is not directly elevated by the bodily organization and does not naturally merge with it even when it is damaged. Physicality itself is distinguished only by a cosmic attraction to the earthly and interferes with spiritual impulses in their attraction to heaven. In this sense, the body is only an obstacle to the spirit and in no way gives rise to sinful practices, which are solely due to spiritual transgression. Without it, we will only have an organized material mass, physically indifferent and incapable of leaving its cosmic boundaries; if she acquires inappropriate space, then it is not her fault at all when the field is cleared in advance. Therefore, it cannot be said that for pseudo-Solomon “the body was a source of uncleanness” and sin, as evil, since this ethical coloring is given by spiritual complicity.
From this side, the Jewish author logically correctly motivates sinful mortality with devilish seduction, meanwhile, with this interpretation, it remains unclear what the “influence of Adam’s fall on all humanity” was, since the latter was essentially sinful in its bodily nature. This imposed and abnormal contradiction, in turn, convinces us that the body can be an inert brake on spiritual aspirations and acquires an anti-moral imprint in human corruption. This means that sinfulness is reinforced and aggravated by new materials and impulses of somaticity, but it is excited, nourished and accomplished by the spiritual energy that was caused on earth and initially.
The amortology of the monument under consideration is captured by a fairly consistent harmony and is revealed everywhere with the same gradualness. It is based on the fact of spiritual relaxation, which frees up space for bodily dominance. This order gives rise to the grave moral anomaly of slavish service of the higher to the lower. The unnaturalness of this revolution with instinctive irresistibility testifies to everyone that it has surpassed the violent distortion of the God-created world flow and rests on the disastrous catastrophe of a moral upheaval. In this case, the harmony of the physical and spiritual innocence of the ancestors is necessarily assumed. The original integrity of the entire structure, its unauthorized violation, spiritual exhaustion and bodily usurpation: these are all the elements of the amortological system of the Book of Wisdom.
There is hardly any need to argue that this is the general biblical view of all Old Testament writers, and it does not require the introduction of Platonism, but the reproduction of biblical teaching, where there is no doctrine at all about the natural innateness of sin in matter itself. The closest and most basic application of the entire doctrine does not exceed this: that man, with all his zeal, cannot reach the Lord and therefore is not able to do His will. Again, there is no doubt that this was the main theme of all biblical documents, and our anonymous author does not differ significantly from them in his statement of the difficulties of knowing God for fallen humanity. As for shyness from the flesh, here pseudo-Solomon appeals to the immediate feeling of each and every one. In this regard, it is true that it is assumed that the constant human experience with the accumulated results of centuries of history was a tool for formulating amartological contemplations.
Let us try to imagine what the unfavored subject must have experienced, and we will see that it is here that all the gloomy tones are drawn for somatology. In man, the bright light of the image of God, cut off from its sun, faded, but the features of divine spirituality were not completely erased. Therefore, the person invariably remains spiritually intelligent and strives into the spiritual spheres. Corporality blocks the path itself and rivets us so tightly to the earthly that our gaze everywhere rests on the impenetrable wall of corporeal materiality and cannot get over it. This is exactly how the actual position of the fallen should have been depicted for the pseudo-Solomon, who, being the son of the covenant, did not have any special divine illumination and without it did not find a bright light from the surrounding darkness. With it, the body becomes a prison for the soul, and this one is tied to cosmic frailty and is enveloped by it on all sides as a prisoner. To deny this truth would be an unscientific oddity.
With all this, the justification for such a belief for everyone is the result of observations that are indisputable for every member of the human family. This was an empirical theorem without any special theoretical justification, which it did not need at all - contrary to contrary interpretations. It is not surprising that everything is resolved by the general concept of bodily burden, and the cardinal point about ethical depravity is not addressed with clarity.
We are faced with a walking everyday maxim, and above it it would be absolutely inappropriate to bring in special philosophical premises, even from Alexandrian theosophy. It is inevitable that, commenting on everything in this direction, the egzaget chooses the wrong road and is forced to fatal fluctuations in the final goal. And we, indeed, do not find the desired solidarity in the most specific views. Most scientists accept that Platonism is copied in the analyzed fragment, but others add Pythagoreanism or Stoicism to it, while others assign an overwhelming advantage to Stoic influences. This precariousness of genetic connections shows that the passage under discussion does not have a specific, individual physiognomy reflecting a strictly defined mood. Therefore, its echoes are found in the most diverse monuments, and we read similar considerations about the incomprehensibility of the ways of the Lord, for example, in the Apocalypse of Baruch.
1441 This again protects that pseudo-Solomon is built on universal empirical data and extracts from them the simplest summary. For this reason, neither his gaze nor his hopes extend beyond this empirical framework. The author puts up with them as an irreducible fact of human existence itself, and the only concern is to smooth out realistic inconveniences with the help of divine wisdom. 1442 Submissive to his unsightly fate, the unknown Jew found himself sufficient pleasure to satisfy his spiritual inquisitiveness. He is content with this and therefore does not speak about liberation from captivity, but only about loosening the bonds. Apparently, the person is under the pressure of a feeling of heaviness, but has not yet discovered a saving way out and does not dream of eliminating the depressing oppression. Nowhere is there seen the triumph of rational thought, which has conquered cosmic obstacles and soared above them. Everything ends with a prayer for the return of what was lost through divine adaptation.
In the meantime, living impressions of immediate, ubiquitous and ever-present perception are being recorded. Being unchanging and stable, it developed its own language, which was no less stereotypical and is used by all schools and all intelligent people when it comes to this subject. Naturally, pseudo-Solomon also uses the literary accepted and most characteristic Greek terminology. Hence the close coincidence with Plato’s vocabulary is normal and understandable. For this there is not the slightest need for the hypothesis of borrowing, bordering on plagiarism, because everything typical was in wide use. Of course, it does not in itself seem incredible that a Hellenistic Jew was familiar with Plato’s dialogues. At least based on excerpts in circulating collections of philosophical samples. It is equally possible that for the same phenomena he used ready-made technical vocabulary, which was a convenient and well-known method of literary expression.
But even in this case, duo dicunt idem, et tamen non est idem, since the wise anonymous person has neither the original hostility of the constitutive elements of human nature, nor the own sinfulness of the body after the disorder that has arisen.
Combining the disparate details, we will have that when depicting the empirical position of man, the author of the Book of Wisdom does not change his basic biblical view and in the pre-criminal content does not at all incline towards Platonic concepts. For genetic kinship with him, the shades of dualistic anthropology are missing, without which all anthologies will be in vain. But they object that in other places of Jewish writings physicality is considered both the cause and seat of sinfulness. Two verses are named - in I, 4 and VIII, 20. In the first of them it is read that “wisdom will not enter into an evil soul and will not dwell in a body enslaved to sin.” It is stated that here the bodily part of human nature is declared “essentially and ineradicably evil” in accordance with the properties of primordial matter.
This radicalism, in its extreme extreme, is so out of harmony with the entire tone of religious contemplation that even supporters of philosophical interpretations of the document under study add that this is a random note that did not receive further application and did not have a significant impact. This is where an important confusion arises. If this wedge was driven without any reason and confused the systematic order, then was the author really so stupid that he did not see this glaring anomaly? Since it was clear to him by its tangibility, then its preservation would be an incomprehensible mystery. It is clear that exaggerations and stretches are allowed in the interpretation. In fact, in the text the soul is deliberately declared “evil-artistic,” from which it is indisputable that this quality was acquired and not natural, for in the second case there would be no need for special epithets. By the simple and direct parallelism of the members, it turns out that this idea is equally applicable to the second element, where the known properties will be perceived and not innate.
This categorically eliminates the tendentious reinterpretation of the entire phrase in the sense that the body is always corrupted by sin, why they are essentially inseparable, and somaticity is sinful by nature. But here again the division in an apparently indissoluble combination turns out to be strange, while it is grammatically indisputable that both objects are separated as special quantities. Hence it is inevitable and understandable that what is being said is the abuse of corporeality by sinfulness, which will already be a hostile force, destroying and perverting the pliable mass in its own way. This means that the latter in itself is rather disgusting to the enslaver and, in any case, is indifferent before subordinating to her. It is clear that per se somaticity is not sinful at all and becomes vicious in spite of itself when distorted by the action of prevailing sin. For this reason, an undefiled body is also possible, which it decisively testifies to (in VIII, 20).
For all these reasons, one cannot help but accept as a solid exegetical truth that the analyzed verses completely reject the Platonic thesis about sinful materiality, and all the arguments in its favor suffer from the strains of artificiality, devoid of factual justification. For this reason, indirect arguments are even less convincing, although they are put forward with sufficient vigor. They emphasize that all the fundamental prerequisites incline pseudo-Solomon towards an ascetic view, but it invariably reflects dualism and rests on it. The closest and most obvious example is Philo. Then, by external reflex, we are obliged to conclude that dualistic contemplation is hidden behind it. Most scientists reject this opinion due to its inconsistency with the original. It is indisputable that both the barren woman and the eunuch are pleased in him (III, 13 – 14). However, the importance here is not in bare reality, for only barrenness is praised in the absence of defilement. It is not the simple absence of a physical act that is valued, but the high moral feat of maintaining purity.
In this combination, even the hypothesis that by “barren” means a virgin is quite indifferent, since everything is focused on the moral moment. With all this, it usually characterizes a childless widow, and this is supported by a note about the reward of spiritual fruit, of course, in replacement of bodily fruit, which was not obtained with the availability of the means themselves, or through marriage. At the same time, the Wise One does not at all condemn marriage and marital cohabitation, from which we are forced to admit that he is talking only about a special case. According to the grammatical connection, this will be the childlessness of the wife of the wicked, where joy in childlessness is also natural, if through it the terrible fate of damnation over generations of wicked people is averted (III, 12). By the very exclusivity of the incident taken and by the author’s zeal for consolation, there is no doubt that infertility is considered a depressing misfortune. The desired rule will be the opposite and refers to a marriage happy with its offspring.
The infertility in question is good only as a lesser evil, eliminating the worse, and acquires its own dignity only for ethical reasons, in the observance of carnal purity. This systematic emphasis on moral and spiritual aspects irresistibly suggests that pseudo-Solomon did not introduce anti-moral qualifications into the being of materiality and somaticity, why, even empirically, the sinful body was for him only a shy obstacle to the soaring of spirituality.
Now we find that even in the particulars of his reasoning, the writer of the Book of Wisdom did not change his fundamental contemplations of the biblical structure and content. He does not profess or preach dualistic adversativity and incompatibility between materiality and pneumaticity. Therefore, one does not assume unnatural unnaturalness in the organic combination of spirituality with physicality in people. This clearly illuminates soteriology and anthropological eschatology. With platonic interpretations, it is necessary that all salvation comes down to liberation from bodily shackles. But this dissolution is the fatal and inevitable fate of everyone and always occurs with physical inexorability. Here outside participation would be absolutely pointless and in vain. Therefore, they say that the unknown Alexandrian Jew radically deviates from the most sacred foundations of the religion of Israel and, as required by his theory, did not recognize the Messiah, whose incarnation would be unconditionally unthinkable for him.
At the same time, any need for special redemption, which was expected from wisdom and, in its external manifestation, was understood in the Philonian spirit of judgment carried out over the wicked in their very death (IV, 10. 14) disappeared. If earth-born people suffer under the burden of bodily oppression, then to soften it, it is enough to just believe in the inevitability of the burden and get rid of it. In this rational way, a better future is fully ensured, as soon as a person begins to live according to the outlined ideal of higher rationality - in hostility to carnality and materiality. The body must perish, but for the soul Sophia is the complete savior. She directs and arranges so that the individual self will enjoy pneumatic detachment from everything corporeal. These Platonic dreams are reflected in verbal consonance (with Phaed. 63.69.80) in the depiction of the afterlife bliss of the saints, that they will enjoy closeness to God (VI, 19), but shades of Parsism are also emphasized, supposedly in the afterlife wanderings the soul is accompanied by virtue or sin.
A bodily resurrection would be a return to previous misery and is therefore not allowed. The entire connection with the earth is limited to the preservation of good memory (IV, 1) in the tone of Socrates’ hopes, and although the latter source is denied as unnecessary given the abundance of similar data in the Old Testament, it is still argued that in relation to our world, pseudo-Solomon accepted only mnemonic immortality for the deceased. For the righteous it is clear and understandable that they are offered the peace of pneumatic pleasure. In the case of spiritual indestructibility, this would be the fate of all sinners - with a blatant violation of all moral postulates. At this point, the true outcome of the difficulties is created on the basis of exegetical apologetics, which protects the book being analyzed from critical violence. It is stated with apodicticism that the doctrine of immortality was borrowed from Plato and, therefore, should be developed in this direction. Careful comparison shows very significant differences and does not allow such continuity and internal identification.
On the contrary, the peculiarity that clearly emerges before us is that the philosopher bases his eschatological teaching on the natural properties of the soul - on its indestructibility, while the Jewish anonymous person focuses everything on ethical requests that need satisfaction and, not meeting it on earth, receive it in heaven. On this point, the merits of pseudo-Solomon are enormous and undeniable. With his moral illumination, he ennobled eschatology and spiritualized it so much that - in comparison with the prevailing Jewish materialism of expectations and beliefs - the proclamation of incorporeal or purely pneumatic immortality seems original news. Under such conditions, the future of each individual was based on moral merits and was determined by himself according to his special qualities - in addition to various external relations and positions.
From here eschatological individualism arises and is created, which was the greatest acquisition of religious consciousness, since in the Old Testament the predominance of national Jewish collectivism suppressed and obscured personal participation in the arrangement of the afterlife of man. It is clear that with this involvement of the subject himself, the whole process lost its shades of gloomy fatalism and physical fate and acquired the character of a deep ethical act, where the tangible and in every possible way impeccable truth of strictly proportional and pre-prepared retribution triumphed for everyone. From all these points of view, it is unshakable that in the appropriate places of this book (I, 11. III, 16. IV, 19. V, 19) the best eschatological system is presented, which largely dispels the gloominess of the Old Testament fortune-telling, for it ethically protects the achieved advantages of individuality and thereby imparts the true meaning of moral work and its result.
In connection with this, eschatological pneumatism opened the doors of a happy future for each soul according to its moral feat and thereby paved the way for universalistic theories, alien to the limitations of racial and other cosmic accidents. However, all this is something distant, even if inevitable. The immediate application of the noted premises is that the whole future is predetermined by the present; here, given the clarity of the first, the second is clear by itself, which is why pseudo-Solomon speaks about posthumous retribution without sufficient clarity. It’s easy to predict and provide for everything here according to the law of correspondence. We have seen that the bliss of immortality is guaranteed by the fact that a person carefully eliminates the pernicious attacks of fleshly materiality and preserves his spirituality, which naturally is indestructible, unclouded. Such eternity rests on an ethical basis and is virtually impossible without it. Now the opposite is both inevitable and understandable.
Anyone who submits to carnality borrows its inherent frailty and gradually kills pneumatic vitality with it. Therefore, carnal ruin is necessarily accompanied by spiritual evaporation, if it does not occur immediately. This means that sinners will be completely destroyed and will not introduce dissonance into the harmony of triumphant pneumaticity. Thus, the idea of “optional immortality” culminates in apokatastasis, which represents the final completion of all world history.
Theoretically, everything in this interpretation is harmonious, but it lacks the necessary exegetical strength. And the reason for this lies in the prejudice that for our monument the body and sensuality were essentially sinful. However, this is not in such an exaggerated extreme - and human fleshing turns out not to be a physical detriment to existence itself, but to its moral distortion. Of course, the punishment will be proportionate in the ethical deprivation of what is the privilege of spiritual zeal. It is not surprising that science is now more inclined to see pseudo-Solomon as a defender of the usual biblical doctrine about the removal of sinners to the darkness of the underworld, about the loss of bliss and torment, and not about anthological nihilism. True, in relation to the wicked, death is more often interpreted, but in fact, their painful afterlife deserves only this name.
In the absence of metaphysical dualism, the spiritual-physical organization of people will not be at all unnatural and in need of salutary dissolution, which, in turn, becomes painful for the empirical-created integrity in a living person. Therefore, a return to normal continuity is permissible and desirable. And if physical death entered the world, then it is clear that physical immortality was allowed, and there are no fundamental motives to deny its repetition. On the contrary, they find it probable that under the influence of terrible pictures of pagan obscenity, pseudo-Solomon (XIV, 23 ff.) formulated the apostolic exhortation (1 Cor. VI, 6-20) about keeping the body clean for the future resurrection, 1443 times he (IV, 20) is interpreted about the future judgment. Given such data, it is quite legitimate to make a categorical statement that - along with the continuation of personality in posterity and the preservation of a good name - the book of Wisdom also accepts bodily revival.
According to all this, human flow is not at all conditioned by naturalistic adversativities, in which any extraneous intrusion is unnecessary and useless, as long as it does not change natural properties, and people have everything to choose one of two extremes and thereby predetermine their future. Human helplessness is not at all fatal and for God’s creation causes divine reinforcement, which, when recreated, will be identical to what was at the moment of creation and will be reduced to the direct discovery of the power of God among people. This frees up space for messianic deliverance. It is true that there are no direct speeches about the Messiah, 1444 but it is no less true that it is categorically said (in III, 7.8) about the messianic-theocratic kingdom, when the people will achieve righteousness and closeness to the Lord and, of course, through Him, if on their own they now do not know how to achieve such prerogatives.
However, the only negative point that is important for us is that pseudo-Solomon does not at all reject the need and possibility of messianic redemption for weak humanity. He does not expand on this subject, since he appealed with his righteousness to the pagans and hardly considered them capable of perceiving this dogma. Then, the latter in the details and particulars of its implementation was far from clear even for the Jewish Old Testament consciousness, where the everlasting hope for salvation was only a religious aspiration and did not include awareness of the method, means and nature of fulfillment. Perfect light was introduced only by the fact itself, which determined bliss and the path to obtaining it no less than the opposite. Before the establishment of Christian grace, which dispersed the sinful fog of the present and illuminated the mysteries of the future, all these points were inevitably gloomy and appear with such features in all biblical documents.
Such a quality will not be extraordinary for the Book of Wisdom and does not in the least indicate that it is permeated with the concepts of philosophical dualism, alien to the Jewish outlook. Contrary to this, we hear everywhere the breath of sublime biblical elements, not akin to pagan naturalism, and the ethical structure of fundamental beliefs and anthropological-eschatological applications testifies to the biblical belief in the superiority of the spirit over materiality, from which comes the hope for the establishment of harmony between them with the elimination of the current cosmic discord and with a return to the primary incorruptibility of the image of God.
In this outcome, the end of all theoretical contemplations and practical applications is precisely consistent with the very beginning by the identity of the fundamental views, in which there are neither significant fluctuations nor radical deviations. Everything in them is closed within a biblical framework, and only for the sake of form there is no doubt the use of philosophical terminology, noticeable throughout the book and sometimes reaching close consonance with pagan examples. But this observation does not mean more than that the author successfully adapted to the needs of his chosen pagan public and used the means suitable for it, although it was generally impossible to do without the use of a developed language, accepted by everyone and understandable to everyone in speech about well-known subjects. From this point of view, even direct copying of classical philosophical works - with quotations from them - would only certify the writer's erudition, without in the least indicating doctrinal dependence. Rather, a diametrical thought would be fair.
Contact with pagan methods of word expression was a great temptation to material coincidences, which, in a similar situation, many allow unintentionally. If pseudo-Solomon, despite his close rapprochement with pagan religious and philosophical systems, does not submit to them and retains his originality at all the most important points, then we are obliged to recognize in him all the dignity of a seasoned biblical scholar. This is not a mechanical compiler who betrays himself at every temptation, but a consistent thinker, in whom, behind the external philosophical attire, the radiance of the biblical revelation of the sacred writings of the people of God shines through everywhere.
It goes without saying that in this form, the genuine religious and moral view of the non-canonical book of the Wisdom of Solomon did not at all distract from biblical dogma and did not push the reader into the arms of pagan intellectualism. In this case, acquaintance with this document did not introduce new factors causing a radical transformation in the very structure of fundamental beliefs. For this reason, the awareness of St. The Apostle Paul in this monument and the use of it cannot serve as an argument, and that through this medium the evangelist came into internal contact with philosophical Alexandrism and for the sake of it sacrificed the former biblical foundations of his “Gospel”. Thus, having avoided analyzing genetic similarities for a long time, we did not move away from our task, but rather came closer to it and simplified its solution so much that the undoubted similarity will not justify critical conclusions, since the object of comparison does not contain the required support for them.
If we agree that the great Apostle studied the document in question and extracted doctrinal theorems from it, then it will not work here either, as if he abandoned his Jewish heritage and reworked it in the spirit of Hellenism. First of all: it was impossible to borrow Hellenistic contemplations where they are not present to the expected extent, why there is no incentive for dogmatic metamorphosis, without it there will be the original biblical truth of Christian insight, mutually solidary in all its parts. Therefore, cases of coincidences will serve as a clear confirmation of this thesis and a refutation of critical reinterpretations. In this sense, a detailed analysis of all the put forward parallels acquires fundamental support and, in turn, tangibly reinforces the theoretical result with real facts. Let's see now, what exactly do they represent?
In our considerations, everything is based on the fact that in the Book of Wisdom there are no pagan-philosophical elements. With an opposite assessment, there will, of course, be a completely different conclusion, which is equally inviolable. But on this score it is expressed that the anonymous author shared and accepted the Platonic idea of the creation of the world from a ready-made material substrate, which is a beginning independent of spirituality and adversative to it. Therefore, the soul is depicted in the tone of pagan-philosophical systems, as pre-existing in the purest abstraction from all matter, and the union with it in the somatic organism will be violent, disastrous for spiritual kindness and requiring dissolution with a return to the former isolation. This is direct dualism, which necessarily transforms both anthropology and eschatology in its type. It is easy to guess that this unusual stream of Hellenism should have caused almost a hurricane in the alien Jewish atmosphere.
Here was the invasion of Platonic idealism into the sphere of Jewish realism, and naturally from here a radical change occurred in the corresponding views. True, sometimes they admit that St. Paul still continues the struggle between two amartologies, that sin is either from Adam or from the flesh, but in the first case it is said about the deception of Eve through the serpent (2 Cor. XI, 3), that the devil, being the culprit of sinfulness, turns out to be the sovereign king of the world. Further, dualistic pessimism, alien to Christ the Savior, is directly affirmed. Now it is not difficult to understand that through this the view regarding the dignity of the current state of people most closely changed. For them it was confessed that all disaster lies in sinfulness, but by its very hostility the latter was exposed in its unnaturalness. This means that it contains only an accidental and later appendage of a harmful infection, and therefore, with the removal of this growth, humanity will achieve the desired normality in the conditions of spiritual-physical existence, which requires the resurrection of what was stolen by death.
Here the future rests entirely on amartological data. But they are thought to be - to a greater extent - “they are taken from the teaching of the synagogue. There, a tendency towards evil was allowed in the very nature of the human subject, but only through the sin of Adam did it gain insurmountable dominance over the attraction to good. This doctrine was simply reproduced by St. Paul in sharp forms and included in his anthropological system." What was original was that – according to him – “freedom was again acquired through the redemption of Christ, understood as the second Adam or the head and representative of the new and spiritual offspring of the elect.” This predetermined the judgment of natural man in a favorable direction, that he has the strength and is capable of creating his own salvation, although later the Augustinian-Lutherian, even Calvinistic, view, in “etherosoteriological” interests, often emerges and finally dominates, as if our deliverance is accomplished through the mediation of another - the Lord Jesus.
In general, Jewish complacency prevailed, that in people there is no essential corruption associated with the very naturalness of flesh. And now the spirit of Hellenistic Platonism of the Book of Wisdom bursts into this environment. It is argued that its noticeable Hellenistic influence was clearly reflected in amartology, which henceforth develops in a dualistic tone and is enshrined in the well-known testimony of Rome. V, 12. This opinion meets with the most cordial reception among supporters of various directions, and it is equally defended by champions of historical and genetic interpretations, Protestant and Catholic “patrons of biblical apogryphs.” It is not surprising that it has become an axiomatic maxim that creeps into the reconstruction of impartial authors, and is attracted by the categorical denial of critical conclusions and by confidence in the relationship of the said apostolic testimony with the narrative of the Writer of God. 1445 The last feature should be especially characteristic and impressive, despite all outward good intentions.
After all, if the evangelist was not satisfied with the source of sacred dignity, then it is obvious that he considered it insufficient and saw in the second an essential addition of no less importance and obligation. At the same time, all sorts of transformations in dogmatic hopes were normal. The indicator here is the consonance in the phrase about the entry of sin into the world, from which they guess that St. Paul was in solidarity with Pr. Sol. II, 23 – 24 and about the results of this catastrophe, that human mortality is established not only by Adam’s fall through the envy of the devil, but also requires the participation of individual sinfulness - similar to the accumulation of pseudo-Solomon to the satanic lot.
As a result, this would say that death is caused by everyone in an original way and therefore human nature has always been and remains mortal potentially, and not actually. But this idea is absolutely unfair for both quantities being compared. In the wise anonymous man we have a contrast between the initial incorruption in the typical image of God and the later mortal invasion. Due to such adversativity, it is indisputable that at this turning point the former was completely destroyed, which is why the original incorruptibility now did not exist and could not exist. It is necessary to agree that by the test of death through belonging to the devil’s lot, the Jewish-Alexandrian writer (in II, 24) means far from the simple fact of physical collapse, since it is inevitable and irremovable for everyone. In this regard, it is logically inevitable and irrefutable that he already interprets mortal fruits, which occur beyond the physical act, although inseparably from it.
And - which is generally incorrect for the entire process - here the widespread interpretation will be completely unshakable, that through the mouth of the glorious king of Israel the author speaks of spiritual death in attracting satanic destruction. 1446 Therefore, real physical corruption will be everywhere, although superficial and unnatural. The apostolic painting has many of its own touches, and in them it specifically differs from the Jewish sketch, without at all contradicting it in the basic biblical background and color. For our purposes, there is no need for details that are sufficiently analyzed and known. It is enough to extract the main points. St. Paul first states that sin entered the world, through which - then - death entered it. It is clear that the second is only a companion to sinfulness, but this one joined the existing one and was not in it until then, whence it is obvious that then the mortality caused by it did not exist empirically.
By all accounts, there is no doubt that the human primordial state did not contain naturally destructive sinful poison, and it was capable of immortality, just as after damage it does not physically possess it. Then: death was produced by sin and, being inseparable from it, passed into all people in such solidarity. Death is always and everywhere sinful. Naturally, we should think about all people that they have sinned, for they are mortal. since the mortality of the marked sinful quality is perceived successively from the progenitors through whom it invaded the cosmos, then we are forced to admit that the deadly sinfulness comes from them, that in Adam everyone and everyone sinned, since everyone is mortal through his fall. Here it is obvious to the point of irresistibility that the Apostle actually concludes from the effect to the cause and understands both phenomena in the same fundamental sense, reduces them to the original source and motivates it. Everything that was most particular and further was self-explanatory and served only as a continuation and repetition of the original indissolubility.
Therefore, the evangelist does not mention at all the participation of personal sinfulness in relation to the death of individuals. This feature, in comparison with the Book of Wisdom, is closely combined with another property of the apostolic amartology. It is quite reasonable for her to point out that in the eyes of St. Paul, man was an “indivisible whole”, for which the distinctions between physical and spiritual, temporary and eternal death were really impossible, since they collectively affect a single subject; therefore, fidelity to the divine narrative does not lead to immersion in abstract refinements and abstract sophistication, alien to the apostolic mind. In our example, this property comes out in full relief. In it, mortality is depicted primarily as a natural reflection of the sinfulness that it implies in any given case. Such a death is invariably and certainly sinful, and at the same time spiritual.
It is not surprising that, without denying the physical frailty of the created fleshly human organism and all world materiality, the Apostle sees in the real dominance of corruption both punishment and disaster, since here the physically natural process of material decay began to be motivated ethically and was the retribution of sinful guilt. In every death, the spiritual side itself is inseparable and important, inevitable due to the sinful conditionality that is necessary here. Hence, in Paul’s contemplation it is normal that the vanity of all creation and its deliverance are placed in a close causal relationship with the corresponding acts and stages of human history (Rom. VIII, 19-22). On the contrary, it is no less logical that in pseudo-Solomon this point is quite obscured and is not clearly put forward.
For him, mortality was also not a simple physical process, but its sinful quality was obscured by the bare ubiquity, because the Old Testament man, not blessed with grace, had to put up with irremovability and consider it as if natural, and some hope for salvation from all the burden of sinful mortality was revealed to him. This is the root of the energetic Old Testament distinction between physical and spiritual death, since in this way people ensured their deliverance from the second while fatally dependent on the first, and thereby weakened the mortal yoke, without spreading sinful destruction to everyone with equal immensity and intensity. In this spirit, pseudo-Solomon separates its spiritual fruits from the fact of mortality and does not have a deep inner insight into the mystery that the phenomenon of death in essence is necessarily sinful. Therefore, for the Old Testament consciousness, mortal guilt was affirmed to include sinfulness, which was not taken together with death.
On this basis, the Pharisaic-rabbinic doctrine of legal imputation through legal atonement through the theoretical transfer and assimilation of other people's merits develops with exaggerated extremes. In the opposite mood, the Apostle formulates a truly real justification, where there are no shadows of illusory imputation, and it is not at all evidenced by the legalistic coloring of the image, because the Old Testament law itself was intended to be the norm of actual relations between God and man. 1447 From this disparity it will not be enough to say that the similarity between St. Paul and the Book of Wisdom is exhausted by a brief statement and could be independent. The remark is, of course, correct, since similar expressions about entering the world of death are found, for example, in rabbinic writings. However, it is much more important that in the doctrinal justification and understanding of the general subject, fundamental deviations are discerned, which then extend to soteriology.
A non-canonical biblical document does not contain materialistic amartology and could not award it to others. Otherwise, one will have to think that the evangelist created everything in contrast to his manual and proclaimed what he rejected as an integral part of his Christian symbol. This is the support for dualistic interpretations of the apostolic references. It is categorically stated that St. Paul did not share the teachings of pseudo-Solomon and Philo about the ancestral fall, for he did not accept the status integritatis and its violation of our forefather and did not allow demonic participation. In the Epistle to the Romans we find very striking reminiscences from the Wisdom of Solomon, and in V, 12 the phrase is so similar that the deviation can only be intentional. Moreover, in other places the Apostle deliberately avoids hints at any connection between Adam and the serpent, in whom he too could see the devil.
His anthropological speculations followed their own path and moved within the framework of the dualistic opposition of two prototypical people, with the nature of Adam and all descendants being the same. 1448 This interpretation introduces anti-biblical elements of dualism into the apostolic structure, and naturally they should have caused the collapse of the main foundations of the former, clearly Jewish system. The results of such a revolution would be downright radical for all branches and areas of apostolic theology. But it’s easy to see right away that this mountain of Hellenistic elements hangs itself on the very thin thread of hypothetical fortune telling and doesn’t really even move from its place. An impartial analysis explains all the features of the compared texts without any imposition of tendentious corrections and takes away their scientific probability. Pseudo-Solomon departs from the adversativity of what is due to the real. In the first, everything was from God, as His creation and a reflection of the property of the eternal essentiality of the Lord.
If in the historical world flow everything was the opposite, then it is necessary to think that this cosmic turmoil is not divine both in character and in origin. Further it will be inevitable that this perturbation must have an anti-divine ancestor, and Satan was revered as such, and he is being imposed quite legally. This satisfactorily reveals that the Wise One needed to put forward precisely and primarily the devil, who, through his envy, destroyed the original beauty of world harmony. However, it goes without saying that the satanic pressure was actually accompanied by the deprivation on the part of man of the former privileges of incorruptibility and was reflected in the human fall, but all this was an indisputable empirical tangibility for everyone; there was no need to treat it specially, and only sufficient motivation was required for it. In the speech of pseudo-Solomonova, human disobedience remains in the shadow of satanic seduction, although the latter is attracted precisely for its sake. This is the outline of the book of Wisdom.
The Apostle’s entire argument develops in a completely different tone. For him, the object of comparison and the foundation of argumentation was Christ in His feat of reviving people and correcting them to their original normality. In this capacity, the Savior is the creator of a new humanity in eliminating the prevailing corruption, which in turn required its producer, no less than a single one. In all this, St. Paul was forced to name “one man” who was the antipode of the divine Deliverer. In this regard, there is not the slightest point of support for the remark about demonic temptation, since everything is focused on the question of metamorphosis in cosmic phenomenality, without direct mention of the reasons why, and regarding Christ, it is not deliberately emphasized that HE accomplished the atonement by the will and power of God in the dignity of the Son of God. 1449 As a result, it turns out that the entire technique of apostolic considerations is explained from them and has absolutely no need for external assistance from the rejected author.
Therefore, it is impossible to edit the apostolic phrase in the sense that the evangelist states that sin entered the world through man, and not through the devil. Pseudo-Solomon has no material for such adversativity, because for him death is caused by satanic envy and sinfulness is not clearly communicated.
On both sides, the hypothesis being examined turns out to be fantastic and groundless. Then, would a detailed investigation and justification be permissible? Doesn’t the silence testify to the devil’s envy, that the Apostle understood deadly sinfulness from a materialistic and primordial point of view? But here everything is decided by a simple reference that clearly emphasizes the crime (Rom. V, 15. 17. 18) and disobedience (V, 19) of Adam, who will be personally responsible for the entire tragedy of human misery due to his moral fall, which has no naturalistic justification. Therefore, the forefather is called (V, 16) “sinned” in the same way as all other people, although in an exceptional way, since the descendants before the law are not in the conditions of the ancestor (V, 14). But the difference concerns only the nature of the discovery and does not affect the preceding acts, which will be ordinary reflexes of free will. Then two periods appear in Adam’s life, and in the second a new thing is established that was not in the first. This is death (V, 15), invaded by ancestral sin and functioning in everyone in one way or in union with it (V, 12).
It is obvious that it did not exist previously, but immortality reigned, parallel to present mortality. Hence, even the most critically impeccable and trustworthy scientists naturally assume that - along with the entire nature of the cosmos - a physical change took place in Adam, when the fleshly body became mortal and sinful. In this case, it is empirically unfair and should not be compared ideally with the created, about which, on the contrary, it would be more accurate to think that it was alien to the current destructive qualifications. This means that human somaticity in itself was not mortal - sinful, and the last predicate is purely ethical, but not materialistic. Hints of this kind can be found even in the compared phrase (V, 12), despite its overall conciseness. It will not be an exaggeration to insist on the mention of sin, although it would be unnecessary in a dualistic amartology, where matter is always and necessarily sinful.
In addition, it is characteristic of gas that Adam is outlined in antithetical parallelism with Christ and in the history of mankind appears with actions that are destroyed by grace and are contrary to it. This is a kind of minus replaced by a plus. The Divine Redeemer improved what actually happened and corrected what was abnormal, being Himself an incarnate ideal, why should it be assumed about the progenitor that he worsened what actually happened and corrected the abnormal, being Himself an incarnate ideal, why should it be assumed about the progenitor that he worsened and spent what was available, including himself. This confirms the fatal catastrophe, and the later world will be identical to the earlier one in its negative elements. Along with this, one can judge similarly about the producing factor itself. For deliverance this was righteousness of high spiritual and moral purity in accordance with obedience to the will of God.
According to the structure of adversativity, we have that Adam, through disobedience by divine command, introduced religious and ethical impurity, which is incapable of continuous vitality and is resolved by the death of the subjects infected with it. The motivating source is illuminated by its hostility to grace-filled salvation, where all qualitative definitions for it are gleaned. Apostolic amartology is entirely based on soteriology and Christology and borrows from them all its special content, as absolutely Christian, bestowed by the face and deed of the Lord Jesus. At this point, of course, the objective observation is unshakable that the teaching of St. Paul on sin, being Christian, cannot be pre-Christian or Pharisaic; its essence and all its consequences were revealed to the apostolic gaze at the cross of Christ, and not at the feet of Gamaliim. In this form, the entire doctrine acquires complete incomparability and independence in origin.
At the same time, this outlines its most important character, that it is alien to materialistic fatality and is established on the ethical incentives of unauthorized deviation from creative plans. In this sense, it is very successfully emphasized that the evangelist appeals to the fall of the first man precisely in order to confirm the truth about the free predestination of sinfulness. And contrary to the short-sighted or insidious belief in the necessity of everything inevitable in the current cosmic world flow, sin turns out to be a great miracle of freedom. Therefore, for him, imputation and responsibility are legitimate for all modifications and for the entire duration of existence, which in its very anomalies acquires ethical reason. For all this, the apostolic explanation will be the only moral one and will not postulate the idea of naturalistic material sinfulness, which is found in a wide variety of applications. 1450 But this dignity is achieved only through Christian contemplation and does not allow other means beyond those given in grace-filled redemption.
In this regard, the participation of the Book of Wisdom in the development of the apostolic amartology is again eliminated, since its imaginary dualistic-materialistic properties are not found even under this assumption, which is rather unfavorable for this hypothesis due to the absence of such materials in the non-canonical document itself.
This means that it is still unshakable that in the Apostle of Languages everything in amartological constructions bears a strictly spiritual and deeply moral imprint. For materialistic interpretations, it will be necessary to accept that then a turning point occurred with a tendency towards dualistic tendencies, displacing the previous biblical foundations. In these interests, it is noted that the influence of pseudo-Solomon’s amarto-logical considerations (in Prov. Sol. I, 13. 14. II, 23. 24) was especially reflected in the apostolic analysis of internal discord in man, where the law of death reigns in the members, invincible and - therefore - natural, determined naturally - by the physical sinfulness of the flesh. On this subject, even now they proclaim apodictically, as if first (in Rom. V, 12 ff.) the evangelist reduced sin to the fall of Adam, and then (in the VIIth chapter) directly associated it with the flesh. Here, for the book of Wisdom, it is assumed that it speaks of the satanic possession of human somaticity, which becomes demonically sinful in its naturalness. So be it.
Let us yield to critical preoccupation and see whether it is justified by the apostolic picture of internal conflicts in the process of moral human growth. Here the role of law in human history is actually assessed. It is stated about him that his sinfulness has increased both intensively and extensively, but he himself is not directly guilty of this. The whole trouble was that the law did not meet its sacred spirituality in the inertia of the flesh and awakened it to active opposition. If previously the flesh followed its own path of lawlessness and illegality, then from now on it is fixed on the denial of legalistic aspirations and will be meaningfully illegal. Hence the inevitable struggle, which will not stop until the clothing inadequacy for spiritual desires and needs disappears. But the heart of the author of the epistles to the Romans was already filled with eternal grace to God through Jesus Christ (Rom. VII, 25) and suffered from destroyed discord.
Therefore, it is indisputable that the preceding describes the helplessness of the unregenerate, who is painfully tormented, does not find the slightest outcome and does not see the weakest gaps. However, the assessment of this situation is due to a mind that is not under the law, and its sharp clarity would be inaccessible to the Old Testament insight. For every servant of the Mosaic covenant it was an axiom that the latter contains all the data for the delivery of righteousness and rewards all zealous zealots with the full vitality of the future blissful existence in the kingdom of the Messiah. At this point, nomistic rigorism was so self-confident that it inspired all the sons of Israel with happy hopes, and did not exclude the most obscene ones. The Pharisee Saul, who took up arms against the Crucified One primarily in the name of legalistic purity and inviolability, reasoned no differently. Since the Apostle now testifies to almost the exact opposite, this asserts that the event is analyzed from a Christian point of view and is revealed from Christian concepts.
The experience of unregenerate man is viewed through the eyes of regeneration and interpreted by the regenerate mind. The immediate result of all these considerations will again be that in the commented section all the features are imbued with the Christian spirit and only in it find their complete and all-perfect explanation. Deliverance is brought by the divine Redeemer and comes only from Him. Consequently, the law does not communicate this good, yet it was designed to create it. In this case, the unsatisfactory nature of nomistic pedagogy shows that the commandment, being itself sublime, could not realize its intentions due to the intractability of the subject subject, which is both unspiritually - somatic and carnal - anti-pneumatic. This is where clothing anti-spirituality grows with all its qualities. It appears before us from the Apostle of Languages in the radiance of Christian illumination and is therefore alien to materialistic naturalness.
The important observation in the apostolic text is that the enchantment of the flesh begins and is caused by legalistic intrusion. Until then, the flesh did not function sinfully, even though it was sinful. Therefore, sinful activity does not belong to the essence of the flesh, which otherwise could not be preserved without the sinful activities necessary for it. If sinfulness were an essential quality of carnal somatism, then it would be revealed in its very being. Since this is not the case, it directly follows that sin, being a later historical phenomenon, is an incidental and relative quality. This is confirmed beyond doubt and by the most precise description that all abnormality lies in the opposition between spirituality and carnality (Rom. V, 14). Then it is irresistible that the second is shameful not in itself, but because of its inconsistency with the spiritual principle. At its very origin, this situation would theoretically be only a simple disharmony, not entailing further complications - except for the bifurcation of these quantities and their removal in different directions.
In fact, much more is needed. Spirituality is not presented to a person as an indifferent factor, for whom it is completely indifferent whether he is accepted or rejected. No, for human consciousness it is also an imperative of what is due and our obligation to good (V, 15. 16), and therefore here any deviation will already be sin and evil (V, 17. 19. 20. 21). Disagreement certainly gives way to sinfulness, because it is accompanied by trampling on the good of spirituality. And since this is done contrary to human desire, we are thereby convinced that carnal despotism is established thanks to our weakness and gains dominance through the fault of our powerlessness to fulfill spiritual greatness and desires. Thus, the last cause of carnal power turns out to be spiritual weakness - and we formulate the thesis that the flesh is not sinful from the beginning, but after a collision with spirituality and precisely because of its anti-pneumatism, which gained freedom due to the lack of power control and strong energy capable of overcoming material inertia and lifting it to itself.
In the absence of such restraining and governing authority, the flesh itself seizes the supreme rights, and in contrast to the spiritual law of conscription, the sinfully fleshly law of confrontation actually functions in the members (V, 23). The flesh is not a natural antithesis, but an active antagonist, cognizable in religious and moral experience, which is why its very concept is given not by a psychological analysis of the nature of soulfulness, but by an assessment of its activity according to the scale of proportionality with the divine will. This fundamentally rejects all the predicates of dualistic materialism with all further critical conclusions and desires. The sinfulness of carnality is entirely motivated by spiritual relaxation and is rooted in it, from which it follows that it rests on our weakness in all that is good and in fact does not happen before it. This is both a reflex and a symptom of our spiritual sickness, not normal and not primordial.
But the more unnatural such dominance is, the more evil and disastrous it is - primarily for its instrumental means, which are spoiled by it in all parts and become absolutely useless outside the usual sphere of all kinds of evil. Henceforth the body inevitably becomes mortal and impedes spiritual vitality. therefore, salvation is conceivable here only under the condition of deliverance from corporeality in its carnal enslavement to sin (V, 24.25). Along with this, a return to normalcy is expected in the dominion of the autocratic spirit and in the obedient submission of our organized somaticity to it.
We have before us two points of apostolic observation that carnal sinfulness is 1) secondary and 2) of spiritual origin, but for that very reason it is especially formidable and needs radical collapse. There is no need to add that for genetic interpretations of the Platonic type this contains a categorical denial. To conclude, it is also important to examine whether all these elements are found in the book of Wisdom, proclaimed the source of apostolic views. Our previous investigations contain all the materials for an accurate answer. There is no doubt that mortality in the world is not original, but arose due to the devil’s envy and, therefore, it is a sinful creation. In this pseudo-Solomon, he simply states the fact of the appearance of sinful mortality as an anomaly, but rests in the fact that it has become common and from this side is natural. If this is evil, then evil is inevitable and therefore completely ordinary, as a necessary accident in the empirical process of cosmic world flow.
Sinfulness ceases to be inseparable from physical mortality, and then, behind the external visibility of the frailty of the flesh, the inseparable sinful qualifications of the latter are almost completely forgotten. The Wise One does not express the apostolic idea of the fallibility of somatic fleshiness, which in the fall only lost its primitive loop, having suffered only in material creation. It is not surprising that for the Wisdom of Solomon, mortality without sinful destruction is completely conceivable, and he extends the second only to those who choose this lot. For him, fleshly ruin is not necessarily sinful individually - in everyone whom it befalls, although in the sent and distorted cosmos it is anonymous and limitless. In this case, fleshiness, even in its perversion, is not depicted as sinful and anti-pneumatic; rather, it is just not spiritual and serves as a constraining inconvenience, far from the hostility of an incorrigible factor, which must be interrupted in advance in order to achieve success.
This obstacle is unpleasant, but the Jewish writer puts up with everyday life because it deflects the threat of spiritual destruction. Therefore, bodily burden does not evoke in him the apostolic cry (Rom. VII, 24) about carnal deliverance, and this certifies that he overshadowed physical mortality with its inherent sinfulness, since he valued fallen carnality more by its now inherent corruption than by its motivating sin. This was legal for the Old Testament insight, which had not yet comprehended the full depth of its misery and had become accustomed to it, having no other savior beyond the cosmic-accommodative law. Under these conditions, there was no true light for natural intellectual tension to understand the inner nature of corruption, and without this it is impossible to even think about the abolition of carnal hegemony, since there were no means for struggle and victory.
But the Apostle, in the abundance of grace, revealed eternal redemption and in its radiance he clearly saw and loudly proclaims that damaged and mortal flesh is sinful everywhere until it is freed from the perniciousness that has grown together with it.
The difference noted reveals apostolic independence. for all that, it has a gradational character and does not equal objective contrast. General formulas of pseudo-Solomon St. Paul gives a fundamental revelation on the basis of Christian experience and - therefore - without the participation of extra-Christian aids. Therefore, both of them remain on the same line, and they are allowed to touch at other similar points. According to critical interpretations, the flesh is decisively and naturally anti-spiritual, which is why it is immutable that genuine and true spirituality is completely inaccessible to it. The second would convince us of the first and would incline us to accept the hypothesis of a materialistic-dualistic amartology. In this application, further genetic convergences of the named type are logically legitimate and dogmatically serious. They put forward and utilize the harmonious solidarity of both writers on the question of the degree of human competence in the knowledge of God.
The Jewish sage, in a tone of pessimistic denial, confesses the unknowability of God's counsels and the inaccessibility of divine commands to the wavering fallibility of mortals. Under the pressure of a corruptible body, they barely comprehend earthly tangibility, and are completely incapable of assimilating the will of God without the wisdom of the Holy Spirit (Prov. Sol. IX, 13 - 17). The Hellenic evangelist agrees with this and sometimes speaks so similarly that they suspect that he “exactly reproduces” this quote when (in 1 Cor. II, 6-16) he states the helplessness of soulfulness for spiritual understanding. The particular influence, focusing on anthropology due to its special importance, extends to all of Paul’s theology, into which the transforming currents of Hellenism rush in. This thesis is also defended by Catholics, even drawing on Rome for comparison. XI, 34 (cf. Sol. IX, 13). Confessional bias supports genetic interests and surrounds them with an aura of good intentions and dispassion.
But behind this appearance lies the conviction that from the Wisdom of Solomon the Apostle drew a Hellenic-philosophical idea about the natural disparity of corporeality and spirituality, so that the former not only did not differ from the latter in nature, but was naturally opposed to it, being both essentially and actively anti-pneumatic. Here ignorance also means that the theme does not tolerate light and is not compatible with it.
The conclusions are very broad and radical, however, is there appropriate support for them in the non-canonical monument itself? In all rigor, it only testifies to the empirically ubiquitous and indisputable fact of human weakness in the autonomous understanding of the divine. As for the reason, the main one is the instability of thoughts and the erroneous thoughts of all mortals. This factor is unchanged everywhere, and theological epistemology is perhaps the most vivid and striking manifestation of its activity, which functions equally in all other areas. Therefore, the cognitive weakness of people for everything earthly is stated in advance, and the unknowability of the divine will is further deduced. It is clear that the whole trouble lies in limitation - in the fact that humanity, by its very origin, is weak, short-lived and meager in its understanding of justice and laws (IX, 5). This quality is privative, and naked insufficiency does not allow us to interpret the positive property of anti-divinity in somatic matter.
Such a judgment is irresistibly justified by the immediate characteristic of human helplessness. It is conditioned by the fact that “the corruptible body burdens the soul” (IX, 15), and the latter is not able to lift this burden with all its desire and desire to overcome mortal inertia. This general property is also manifested in particulars, since “the earthly church suppresses a busy mind” and, with its mechanical pressure, does not allow the realization of mental impulses. The blame for everything is spiritual exhaustion due to lack of energy to prevail over cosmic humiliation. Material corporeality is only an obstacle, because it is not spiritual and is physically attracted to its own earthly environment, not possessing the necessary reserves for flight into the pneumatic spheres. This is a simple hindrance, and there is no active confrontation in it due to natural hostility towards the spirit. Then the result would be the subordination of spirituality with its gradual materialization, meanwhile both sides continue to maintain relative independence.
Everything ends with the fact that the flesh paralyzes spiritual needs and interferes with their implementation. In this sense, it turns out to be typically unrelated and, apparently, should take advantage of its victory to consolidate its own goals and to enslave its vassals. In fact, this is not noticed at all, and hence it is unshakable that there are no special tendencies in physicality other than the inherent gravity of the earth, which acts mechanically. Here again we will have before us a passive quantity, powerless and unsuitable for absorbing another principle with the supremacy of sovereign control over it. Therefore, for spiritual weakening, all its influence is exhausted by the negative result that the desired is not achieved, and for this no other factors are required. For any cognition, rapprochement with the underlying object is necessary. In our case, it will be a divine life, alien to material decay and cosmic gloom.
Since the human spirit is fettered by bodily bonds and locked into a material framework, it does not contain the minimum inclinations even to begin the cognitive process. On the contrary, wisdom from eternity sits at the throne of God and has always been with the Lord, which is why it knows His works and knows what is pleasing to Him (IX, 4. 9 ff.). But all the secrets of the world are hidden in God, according to their origin and destiny from the Creator, who assimilated all existence according to His plans and for the sake of His intentions. From this point of view, any knowledge of the world is possible only through the knowledge of God, which reveals to us the inner mind of everything created. For pseudo-Solomon, it is logical and irreducible that true awareness of nature is acquired theologically, and true knowledge of cosmology, astronomy, zoology, meteorology, botany is equally bestowed by the wise artist of everything (VII, 17 v.). There is no special difference in this for theology, since all the peculiarity will be only in degree, although even in the divine, people learn through wisdom what pleases the Lord (IX, 18).
It is again revealed that epistemological incompetence is everywhere and equally covers the material-cosmic region, from which it is clear that there is no dualistic adversativity here, since then the corporeality would turn against itself. We must now agree that all evil lies in the relaxation of the knowing subject, where the mind has lost its conquering energy and is paralyzed by inert intractability. But this inaccessibility of the deity does not rest on the mutual exclusivity of the nature of the divine and the created. The latter, being connected by physicality, indirectly comes into contact with the spiritual through wisdom - upon receiving clarifications from it. With all this, this gracious helper descends from above, and does not raise to the highest, about which she reports. Therefore, a person’s knowledge is complete only for the cosmic, for the subject of study is at hand and accessible to direct testing.
In relation to the divine, both sides still remain separated and distant, so that people comprehend only to the extent of their capacity, which is bodily limited for the divine immensity. And since there is no talk about bodily deliverance, humanity is forever and fundamentally doomed to theological insufficiency. Here the correct remark is that for pseudo-Solomon and with the aid of wisdom, perfect knowledge of the Supreme Being was unthinkable. This comes close to the philonic concepts of absolute divine unknowability, assimilated by St. Pavel. The Alexandrian flavor favors this judgment all the more so since the book mentions the uncommunicated name of God (XIV, 21), and the Jewish-rabbinic concept of its ineffability in the sacred tetragram is attributed to the influence of Egyptian religious custom. 1451 Despite the outward probability, this hypothesis is erroneous in its groundlessness.
The Jewish author emphasizes only human weakness for rising to divine heights, but there it instinctively and uncontrollably strives. Failure is motivated by external causes of bodily burden and is not considered naturally incorrigible. In humanity - even empirical - one does not see an essential and naturally unchanging dissimilarity for the assimilation of everything divine. This is even more certain for the deity, who hastens with his heavenly illumination to every sincere call of a mortal. There are no elements of philonic dissolution between them. Here rapprochement is possible and it does not achieve the desired completeness solely because the spirit is powerless to subjugate somaticity, for even with enlightenment by wisdom it remains unregenerated. Dualistic philonism is eliminated, and the entire view of the non-canonical document is expressed by ordinary biblical data, confirmed by the daily experience of human frailty.
This confirms the non-preoccupation of the entire epistemological construction, in which all the shortcomings are created by spiritual relaxation, incapable of prevailing over earthly frailty, and do not at all imply natural earthly frailty, and do not at all imply a natural dualistic dissimilarity between the human-material divine-pneumatic.
According to genetic prerequisites, we are now obliged to accept that the Apostle, having not encountered dualism in his source, does not profess it himself. Let’s focus on this positive application for now. As for Rome. XI, 34, then here the closest parallel is the prophetic judgment (Isa. XL, 13), and the content expresses the axiomatic truth of the superiority of the work of God before any human reason, which is not even able to guess about the divine plans before their implementation. Any side tendencies are alien to this place. The second testimony is much more complicated (1 Cor. II, 6 ff.). It treats of the hiddenness of the wisdom of God, which was the main subject of the apostolic gospel. This is the truly divine feat of deliverance on the cross. His divine dignity is indisputable, for he was intended before the ages and therefore beyond any conditionality by anyone other than God. This was also confirmed practically, since the authorities of this world did not know this secret. So, before us is complete divinity.
But everywhere the absolute law is that like is known by like, that recognition requires mutual communication, which requires affinity and gravitation on both sides. The innermost part of a person is known by the human spirit that dwells there, which is why the divine is known only by the Spirit of God. The cosmic ignorance revealed by anti-Christianity necessarily convinces us of the absence of congeniality with the divine, which then, of course, cannot be understood. It is clear that in the Apostle man struggles in detachment from the divine with his cosmic self in opposition to it. With such a deliberate contrast of one’s “I” with the divine, the personality is deprived of the most essential conditions for knowledge of God, because it stubbornly distances itself from the cognizable object. This diligence of createdness to measure its unlimitedness in every possible way is abnormal and is a barbaric temptation to its natural created individuality, and - therefore - unnatural.
This immediate result does not at all speak of an epistemological inability of a dualistic nature, because it would be natural and the only legal one, meanwhile, it is now depicted as ethically sinful. Obviously, the point is in no way the materiality of the human body itself. It is inevitable that it is not spoken of directly and is not given primary importance. The whole emphasis is on the fact that each of the people described is spiritual (1 Cor. II, 14). He does not accept even the Spirit of God out of imputed reluctance, and for that very reason he is not mere materiality. At the same time, rejection is allowed for special reasons and refers to the dazzling rationality in which the elements of a self-aware and self-determining human spirituality are inherent. A clear reference to it categorically tells us (II, 12. 13) that Christians received the Spirit of God, and not the spirit of the world, common in human wisdom. Therefore, “psychicity” will be a pathological phenomenon of spirituality itself.
What is the essence and expression of this strange disease? She considers the spiritually divine to be madness and, of course, not without a reason, which is the lack of an appropriate scale, meanwhile, “this must be judged spiritually,” the spiritual with spiritual judgment, evaluating and weighing in spiritual ways. Without this, divine spirituality does not find a consistent standard in the human mind and, due to its dissimilarity, turns out to be an absurdity, a violation and violation of intellectual norms. In “psychicity” such people are unsuitable for the divine-spiritual and are contrary to it. From here it turns out that psychic spirituality is sometimes untrue to itself and functions unspiritually, borrowing criteria not from its spiritual nature, drawing it from the material sphere. Wisdom of this kind, being human (II, 4. 5. 13), is cosmically worldly (II, 6), building everything according to materialistic reality. Nothing else is possible for her (II, 14). “Soulfulness” is closed in its horizons by materiality, embraced by materialistic barriers and unable to penetrate beyond them.
The spirit is chained to the material and communicates only with the cosmos, and this, in turn, happens with self-limitation by its corporeality, which connects it only with the same environment of materiality. Hence, in the terminology of the Apostle Paul, the epithet “spiritual” is equated with the qualification of “carnality” with the same opposition to the truly spiritual (see especially 1 Cor. III, 1). This illuminates the entire typicality of this situation. In it, “spirituality” is not destroyed and does not disappear, but descends to the degree of animating somaticity and focuses on the revitalization of organized bodily substance. At the same time, the latter absorbs and punishes for its interests all the “psychicity”, which serves them slavishly in spite of its natural properties and rejects the divine with unnatural criminality. By all accounts, there is no doubt that this is an abnormal state for human nature and least of all postulates dualistic legality.
Then: the fault and reason for this lies in spirituality itself, in its deviation from its spiritual inclinations and ideals towards cosmic lowland. Here there is an even greater and fundamental disparity with dualistic materialism, where everything is built on the essential evil of matter, unsuitable either for spiritual activity or for spiritual understanding. The understanding of the actual result of spiritual depression is no less different. Its main predicate is the adaptation of spirituality to the material level, pneumatic materialization to the degree of carnal animation. In a sense, the spirit materializes here. In proportion to this, the flesh is spiritualized either through the absorption of spirituality, to the extent of its acceptability, into “psychicity,” or through the obedient transformation of itself by spiritual elements into “pneumaticity.” Therefore there is a body, both mental and spiritual (1 Cor. XV, 44).
In Paul's theology, spirituality and physicality enter into all sorts of combinations with each other and, according to their created structure, are destined for friendly solidarity, but in fallen humanity the balance is lost with the renewal of the lower. However, this anomaly also grows out of mutual communication and rests entirely on it. It is hardly necessary to remind now that this contains a decisive denial of all Hellenic-dualistic foundations, which do not allow any other contact between materiality and “pneumaticity” - except for the eternal antagonism, which disappears only with their dissolution. At this point, for sober observation, it is unshakable that in the analyzed apostolic texts (1 Cor. II, 14. XV, 44) the dominant language is not Hellenistic, but Jewish or, more precisely, biblical. It expresses and consolidates the primordial biblical view that “pneumaticity” should spiritualize fleshiness and raise it to its height.
It is inevitable that their combination cannot be naturally anti-divine and does not naturally contain essential obstacles to knowledge of God. Even with the most extreme perversion of incarnation, theological epistemology is not at all denied, for the trampling and rejection of false understanding is noticeable. This is not so much ignorance as non-recognition of what is perceived in its own extent. From this side it is impossible to talk about the unknowability of the deity, why it is difficult to expect it from the other. True, they emphasize that St. Paul strongly puts forward (in comparison with Jesus Christ) the idea of the (Jewish) transcendence of God, but all this is allowed for ethical reasons of divine sublimity, inaccessible to cosmic-material obscuration. Because of this, it is equally possible theoretically and practically realized that, out of His love for creation, the Almighty descends to it. There is no Hellenism here, not even Judeo-Hellenism, and there is not the slightest trace of the cosmic dualism of the systems of Plato and Aristotle.
In Paul's anthropology there is no Hellenistic transformation, and epistemological considerations do not in the least inspire confidence in the hypothesis of Hellenistic influence on the dogmatic apostolic teaching itself. In the subject being analyzed, everything is revealed from the Christian interpretation of biblical elements in their relationship with Christian insight, which is the support and scale of contemplation. Naturally, everything special remains specifically Christian, does not need non-Christian aids and cannot be derived from them. This shakes all guesses about the material dependence of the evangelist on the Book of Wisdom - in addition to the biased application. It is reasonable to state that everyone’s thoughts move in different areas, and St. Paul is not discussing the will of God in general, but about its special manifestation in the great sacrament of salvific rebirth, which was presented to divine care from eternity and achieved an adequate crown in the Lord the Redeemer.
But this is not all and leaves room for the trick that the broad concepts of the Jewish anonymous were interpreted by the Apostle in a narrow Christian sense, and thus their sharpness increased. Much more important is another indication that in pseudo-Solomon’s epistemological failures, it is not the body that plays a responsible role. On this point, the most precise explanations will be useful so that the true strength of the noted consideration is revealed. In the non-canonical document, corporeality is depicted almost exclusively in terms of its mechanical pressure and physical attraction to the earth. It is not even attributed to any activity, since it emphasizes with exaggeration the physical frailty of all people who, being earth-born, are also tributaries of mortality. No shades of the idea of sinfulness are heard, and death itself is considered not so much ethically evil as inevitable. Therefore, all attention is focused on the fact of perishability without a clear relationship with amartology.
All the inconvenience of somaticity does not exceed the dimensions of a mechanical brake, dangerous only for weakness, unable to use it for its own purposes. Naturally, corruption in the Wise One does not play the active role of a cultivating sinful principle; it constrains the spiritual horizon due to the inevitability of forced contact with “pneumaticity,” but does not exploit it in its own way and does not itself have its own energy to transform it in its own image and likeness. The materialization of spirituality, which would be imbued with somatic principles and tendencies, is not imagined or assumed here. In the most extreme despotism, purely external communication does not allow for fleshiness, which is why for pseudo-Solomon the concept of ethically functioning flesh does not exist at all. At this point we have approached the most radical and decisive difference. In view of its self-evidence, a few explanatory remarks are sufficient here. At St.
According to Paul, sin always and everywhere remains a phenomenon of an entirely spiritual nature, however, by the very nature of betrayal of spiritual purposes, it refers to its non-spiritual expression. The dominant amartological connotation of negative quality in the Old Testament - inability and failure to achieve the goal - is intensified and replaced by direct evasion from it. This will already be serving bodily interests, which thereby acquire dominant importance. The corporeality absorbs spiritual power, is enlivened by it and gains the opportunity to act autonomously in the sinful enslavement of spiritual desires. This is what density is. In the question about it, all the originality of the evangelist in comparison with the Old Testament judgments stands out especially sharply.
Hence the conjecture of Hellenistic influences arises, at least in the doctrinal formulation of this thesis, but even these writers agree that the book of Wisdom does not even provide the very point of departure for apostolic speculation, since there is no sought-for distinction there, which merge in the idea of animal corporeality. 1452 There is no means here for the material side. As for the spiritual, in the apostolic system it is put forward in contrast to carnal depravity, as a return to what is due and obligatory - in spiritual self-imprisonment.
This illumination of the greatness of spirituality through comparison with material baseness is reminiscent of dualistic theories - and therefore they admit that with their teaching about the life of St. Paul was paving the way for the onslaught of Hellenism. For the actual former, this is true and indisputable. Ethical opposition was a convenient soil for instilling dualistic concepts, under which it itself turned out to be much more understandable to ordinary understanding and was justified even in its most terrible abnormalities. It is not surprising that Platonism and similar philosophical movements burst into Christian theology in a wide wave and were often established in it with the dignity of autocracy. However, this historical experience is not an objective interpretation, but an abuse and perversion of Paul's principle. 1453 In the latter there was a radical negation of Hellenistic dogma, where only the hostility of incompatible diametricalities, physically inaccessible to internal communication, was proclaimed.
The Apostle affirms quite the opposite in the harmonious relationship between spirit and body according to creative predestination and in the dominance of the second over the first during the human fall. This interpenetration of the named quantities was an insurmountable obstacle to any Hellenistic attempts. 1454 Subsequently, the difference in the very view of spirituality is revealed. For dualistic rigor, it was completely adversative to everything material and, as such, was not naturally united with it, and therefore did not lead to its original source and did not provide knowledge of God. Everywhere and everywhere there was only the divine spirit, forcibly captured by the material environment. But in turn, matter also needed a vitalizing element due to its very malicious activity. As a result, the ancient hylozoic doctrine of a special empirical spirituality is necessarily accepted, which is a refinement of materiality and - along with it - is not akin to true “pneumaticity”.
Therefore, their close union is incredible; without it, human knowledge of the Lord is not guaranteed. We find all this in Philo and the authors who agree with him, but we do not find it in the evangelist. His spirit is in close contact with materiality by its constant expectation, and even more inseparably from the divine by its very nature. Therefore, the whole task of pneumatic revival will not be renunciation, but the liberation of spirituality. It flows from God and draws everything from Him, so that it is absolutely weak in its final isolation when it falls under material oppression. This is a new deviation from the dualistic arrogance of one’s own pneumatic autocracy, contrary to which the necessity of internal enlightenment and transformation from the Spirit of God is confessed. At the same time, access to the premium secrets of the deity is obtained and its comprehension is guaranteed. On all these issues the book of Wisdom does not contain or give Hellenistic extremes.
Therefore, the scientists themselves, inclined to bring it closer to the apostolic preaching, categorically express that there is no support for the Hellenic invasion, which is alien in its entire structure, since St. Paul, ancient Israeli ideas dominate in pneumatology.
According to such observations, it is quite normal if for all psychological constructions they testify that in them the evangelist is not at all dissociated from the original Jewish views; in particular, the doctrine of the spirit only formally resembles Aristotelian schemes, actually merging with biblical ideas (about ruach). However, it would be hasty to conclude that they are completely identical, at least through the medium of pseudo-Solomon. Insufficient to explain carnality, the latter does not contain all the elements of the apostolic interpretation of spirituality, because it considers it more in opposition to inert and mortal somaticity. From this side, it is legitimate to emphasize that Peacock originality was created through personal moral experience and self-knowledge. If we eliminate the overtones of false theories about the purely empirical origin of the apostolic system from the generalization of all the particulars of Christian experience, 1455 then in the end it turns out that the essential and typical were borrowed from Christian insight.
It illuminated the foggy darkness of sinful troubles, and with it all the outlines were more clearly outlined and more accurately defined. The gracious atonement was a rebirth of the spirit and death to the body. Consequently, earlier spirituality was deathly, and physicality was vitally active. This scale is now applied by the Apostle to the main biblical data. In them, “somaticity” is depicted as a passive boneness, enlivened by spiritual penetration. Since things are different now, this convinces us that corporeal materiality not only uses “pneumaticity,” but has also taken it into its power. Thus, bodily passivity turns into the energy of the antimorally ruling flesh, expressed in spiritual materialization.
This irresistibly states the weakening of spirituality; since it was indestructible and inexhaustible in its connection in the divine source and was protected by it in its ethical supremacy, it follows with compulsion that the sinful anomaly rests on the rupture of this union with the loss of all conditions for strengthening. It further turns out that the human spirit is not simply weak due to material burdens and does not get rid of it by external liberation, as the Book of Wisdom proclaims according to the prevailing Old Testament understanding. No, the spirit itself is sick and, first of all, needs its own healing, from which the peacock concept of fleshiness was highlighted again and more clearly. Again he only illustrated the whole vital impracticability of these axioms, which were affirmed on dogmatic considerations, and it is natural that St. Paul made use of empirical materials, being “a master in self-observation.”
However, this was only an auxiliary aid to clarify the theoretical truth, which predetermined the entire course of restoring the disturbed normality. The improvement of human spirituality will be accompanied by the return of stolen energy and the reduction of physicality to its characteristic inertia and admiration for strength. But this is not achieved by dissociation, since it would not eliminate the cause and would only soften the painful sensation caused to the sick spirit by mechanical irritation. A radical recovery is needed in restoring the broken connection with the divine “pneumaticity.” At the same time, natural affinity is again established in the inner proximity of the human to the divine. It is inevitable that with such unity there will be real knowledge, for which there is ready soil and a true criterion in adequate spirituality.
In this, all the requests of the Corinthian Epistle are fulfilled, that in the sphere of divinity the only knowledge of like by like is possible through the comparison and judging of the spiritual with the spiritual (1 Cor. II, 13.14), when comprehension is resolved by recognition. Here Christian demands find Christian satisfaction.
In the end, apostolic theological epistemology appears to us as Christianly independent, for it is revealed in its characteristics only from special Christian premises. The same was achieved for all of anthropology, where Christian elements dominate everywhere. From all these points of view, borrowing from the Book of Wisdom is not permissible in principle, and general coincidences are reduced to their fundamental basis in biblical contemplation. Under such conditions, there seems to be no incentive to turn to alien Hellenic-philosophical influences, for which there will be no scope given the Christian self-isolation of the apostolic view. A careful analysis convinces us that they are not truly found in cash. The past and present of human existence are understood by St. Paul in the Christian sense, but they inevitably condition their completion, which is why apostolic eschatology is also corresponding in its Christian individuality.
If regeneration is enhanced by natural communication with the Lord the Redeemer, then His destiny will certainly be repeated in the members of the Christian brotherhood, while those not favored will remain outside of these advantages. The first will be resurrected to participate with Christ in the bliss of sonship with God, the second will remain in the torment of inevitable deprivation. In this scheme, everything develops with logical harmony as long as the premises retain their inviolability and do not suffer from the attack of unusual elements, internally disparate and discordant. Their arrival would certainly cause a breakdown of the entire process - with the negation of the old in the new - in successive stages of eschatological transformation. But “genetic” commentators see Hellenistic influences in the most anthropological concepts of the apostles, which predetermine various eschatological metamorphoses. They only need a starting point, and it is revealed precisely in the Book of Wisdom. In it St.
Paul drew theoretical support for the practical certainty that death would not separate him from God. He once harbored hopes of living to see the “parousia,” but harsh experience shattered these dreams, and the Apostle is saved in the idea of inseparability with the Lord, to whom bodily separation only brings him faster and closer. This forced and empirically conditional belief is protected by the spiritualistic Alexandrian hopes in spiritual immortality, proclaimed by pseudo-Solomon. 1456 Through this medium, Platonic idealism was established in the sphere of Jewish realism, which was instilled by the Hellenistically educated Apollos 1457 and combined with the solidary Pauline doctrine of the life-giving spirit through its possession of life. Here psychological and theological motives meet in equal gravity to the original understanding of the afterlife of human destiny, and hence it is quite natural that the old is retained in the unsystematic head only by tradition and is completely transformed in the essential.
It is no less clear that such a change will no longer be a formal act of theoretical - terminological modification, but rather a material update of the very content of the doctrine. And we have seen that for such reasons in the eschatology of the Apostle there are even several revolutions, where the continuation forgets its beginning. Having eliminated extremes, such views are now recognized as generally accepted and declared to be the final result of scientific research. Four stages of sequential development are distinguished with the gradual falling away of the original Jewish ideas. At the first of them (in 1 - 2 Thessalonians), the main points boiled down to the fact that there would be a “retreat” and the Antichrist, then a “parousia” and judgment, and everything would end with the resurrection and bliss of believers. In the second period (1 Cor.), the starting point is not mentioned at all and the idea of apocatastasis (even through the destruction of sinners) is more clearly put forward.
The coming of the Lord and judgment are preserved at the third stage (2 Cor.), but to this is added the teaching about the universal expansion of the kingdom of Christ on earth and the resurrection refers to the time immediately after the departure from this life. In conclusion (Phil., Col. and Ephes.) the eternity of Christ's dominion is united with the idea of the extension of redemption to the world of spirits.
From this diagram it is clear that a progressive spiritualization of eschatological contemplations is accepted. In connection with this, in the early days it was assumed that they genetically grew from Jewish seeds and were imbued with Judeo-materialistic realism, and this, in turn, necessarily yielded to the pressure of Hellenic spirituality. Based on all this, it is indisputable that St. Paul affirms the presence of two elements - materialistically - Jewish and spiritualistically - Hellenic. It is considered self-evident that a Jew thought like a Jew in everything, according to crude popular aspirations and nationalist school mentalities, even if this was contrary to the Bible. It is inevitable that for such dilapidation, any free influence was accompanied by destruction, and the whole question now is: where and what caused this new breath? In this case, it helps to draw closer to the book of the Wisdom of Solomon, about which they say that it determines the entire beginning of the fifth chapter of the second letter to the Corinthians; in particular, 2 Cor. V, (1.) 4 (5. 7. 9) and Ave. Sol. IX, 15 (16. 17.
IX, 9), and here the dependence of the Apostle is declared undoubtedly and unconditionally. But this passage of a non-canonical document is thought to be a copy of Plato's text, and this is consistent with the unknown author's assimilation of Platonic concepts regarding immortality. As a result, it is decisively stated for the eschatological hopes of pseudo-Solomon that “Greek influence played a very large role in their formation.” And if Catholic apologists object to these interpretations that, mutatis mutandis, the same is found in St. Paul, then this only makes the work of “genetic” commentators easier, since the sought-for identity will be unshakable for everyone, and with it all the predicates of its source are automatically transferred to the evangelist. It is thus formulated that in this way the Apostle submits to Hellenic speculation, 1458 for he sees in the body a burden 1459 and a brake on the mind according to the Hellenistic book of Wisdom, being in agreement with Philo.
Everything material is now absorbed into the spirituality of spiritualism, which displaces all the biblical reserves of the Jewish heritage.
All the originality of the eschatological maturation of the Apostle, in essence, rested on a dualistic assessment of corporeality, as this view was adopted by him from the non-canonical monument that occupies us. But one cannot assume that it is not, and this axiom is quite applicable to the example under consideration. The tendentiously imposed pseudo-Solomon platonism is exaggerated to the extreme, although the external similarity only reveals the internal disparity more sharply. It is true that the empirical situation of man is not depicted as very pleasant, but not at all due to attention to naturalistic fatality. The body burdens the soul and the earthly church suppresses the over-concerned mind due to their natural gravity inherent in mortal nature. Therefore, the entire action is purely mechanical in nature, constraint and obstacles without any activity of confrontation and ineradicable hostility. Here all success is built on the weakness of the other side, which cannot repel and overcome this pressure.
With all this, she must certainly strive for such triumph, if this is precisely her innate attraction. Hence, the only task of human tension is exhausted by acquiring spiritual strength and prevailing over bodily inertia, when space opens for spiritual development, and the spirit will subjugate the body. Is such a high spiritual strengthening achievable for human zeal and is it not better to desire simple liberation from bodily fetters without it? - this is quite indifferent for our subject. In any case, the actual inconvenience is not at all motivated by dualistic adversativity, and therefore in the organic combination there is no primordial abnormality that is incorrigible without dissolution, since people on earth are saved by wisdom (Prov. Sol. IX, 18.19) from the described depressions. This abolishes the fundamental dualistic premises, which is why, by assimilating their pseudo-Solomon, it is impossible to assert the difference between St. Solomon and him. Pavel.
For this, it is absolutely true that through this medium the latter did not receive Hellenic theories and did not use them to depict posthumous destinies with the denial of bodily resurrection. This is also expressed by free scientists when discussing the facts themselves, where it is remarkable that the contrast is emphasized not between body and soul, but between an earthly church and a dwelling not made by hands. For them, the difference lies in mortality and eternity, as the isolating qualities by which these “dogmas” are one way or another. This means that these are only the properties of a thing capable of accepting unequal qualifications. For this reason, the second does not require the ontological collapse of the object itself and arises through transformation, where “the dead will be devoured by the belly.” At this point, the evangelist deviates all the more from spiritualistic desires because he does not have the very basis of Hellenic immortality, while the Apostle’s spirituality served as an accessory to created frailty.
In all this there are no echoes of Alexandrian spiritualism, and everywhere the usual connection with biblical contemplation, which is imprinted here with Christian distinctness, is preserved. Therefore, there is no dualistic disdain for the body, which is simply characterized by corruption in its earthly composition. On this occasion, they sometimes even say that the apostolic words about our burden, which causes groaning (2 Cor. V, 4), do not in the least concern the physicality and are an echo of fears about the unknown “endowment.” This is hardly fair and, at least, unnecessarily exaggerates the true shade. This interpretation is not favored by the immediate meaning of all members of the phrase, for here everything is connected precisely with being in an earthly hut. As for the context, it is not the gloominess of the future that aggravates the burden. On the contrary, we do not want nakedness, which, being naked deprivation, would force us to take care of what is present and try to preserve it.
Our expectations, by their very superiority to the present, aggravate the painful burden, from which it is obvious that the latter already existed before and was determined by bodily pressure.
This ensures the right for new aspects to the apostolic picture. In it, corporeality is doomed to be deposited for the greatest benefit for man. Hence it is determined that this part is not necessary in the organism of individuality, which is actually exhausted only by pure spirituality. For this understanding of the spiritual “I” as the true center of the human personality, the Apostle allegedly found support in the book of Wisdom. But if this means Hellenistic contempt for sinful somaticity, then the proponents of this hypothesis themselves testify that the Hellenistic influence was small, since St. Paul, everything is directed towards the closest communion with Christ and is illuminated on the basis of spiritual experience, when physicality turned out to be an obstacle to the full realization of the ideal, why bodily “ruin” should have facilitated access to the Lord. For this construction there was no need for outside aids.
Even more important is another observation that the evangelist is not talking about the destruction of the bodily church without any replacement and is convinced of the receipt of a heavenly dwelling, parallel to the previous one and inseparable from it in chronological continuity. The whole peculiarity will be in the taking away of the predicates of created frailty, calling to the earth, and in their absorption by eternity not made by hands. For this reason, during bodily death, it is not expected to liberate the personality, but only to provide space for its activity, delayed by cosmic layers. The departure from the body is considered the best from the point of view that through it we are ensured to be established with the Lord (2 Cor. V, 8), from unity with Whom we were removed by bodily barriers (V, 6). In this contrast, everything is built on the Christian principle of 1460 gracious brotherhood with the Redeemer, where natural communication requires complete conformity with His theanthropic Orthodoxy in the equal transformation of our body (Philipp. III, 21) with correspondence in spirit.
The individual “I” remains identical everywhere and always and, therefore, includes an element of corporeality. Everything is built on the arrangement of random appendages that do not affect itself, as a limiting form of individual existence. This predetermines further eschatological questions. And first of all, we must agree that - according to the apostolic view - for individual completeness, a person needs a bodily outline; with universal inevitable mortality, this is achieved only through bodily restoration without previous deficiencies. So for St. Paul obtains a non-Hellenistic doctrine of the resurrection of bodies, 1461 which are spiritualized with the falling away of corruption, which the Savior proclaimed without deliberate justification (Luke XII, 24). This result is also indisputable due to the unity of the believers with the Redeemer, for they will participate in His rebellion, and the latter, according to the “word of the Lord” preserved by tradition, is understood (in 1 Thessalon IV, 15-17) by the evangelist precisely and solely in the form of the revival of the body placed in the tomb.
But “somaticity” is invariably and certainly carnal. By the strength of this, Paul necessarily understands this teaching in the sense of the resurrection of the flesh. Of course, she is now sinful - just not metaphysically or not by natural naturalness, because she is so ethically and due to the inheritance of damage; the apostolic judgment about it is identical to Hellenistic concepts and is not covered by Hebraistic ones, being the original tertium quid of the new Christian insight.
There is no radical dualism and does not entail a denial of the future world transformation. Eschatological completion is pushed back to the moment of bodily revival, which is why it is clear that immediate posthumous relief by special physicality is not allowed, just as it is not true that everyone would have a resurrection immediately after death. It is no less obvious that the idea of vitalization does not allow us to dream of a special somaticity that develops immanently in the human subject and reveals itself upon his dormition. All these disadvantages indirectly confirm the apostolic independence from Platonism, because later similar views arose in church circles more under the influence of Platonic philosophy. St. Paul radically contradicts it, since he does not limit himself to the framework of disembodied gratification and presupposes somatic revival. 1462 The intermediate period will be a time of separation, when a person remains without a bodily shell.
1463 This tone says that it is supposedly contrary to bodily death and indissoluble from bodily life, and therefore only captures those who have lived to the “parousia”, who will have a new vestment in addition to the somatically perishable one, subject to absorption. This interpretation does not simplify the image and does not preserve all the realistic features in it, because two garments still do not work if the eternal abolishes the mortal. Then it is absolutely indisputable that the Apostle argues in relation to the fact of our physical destruction. Then it turns out that even when we die, we hope to shine. However, this does not at all suggest that in the posthumous state people are covered with a special body that is revealed after the resurrection. The speech is conducted precisely in view of the last event and simply describes the whole process from the point of view that in it the mortal will be “closed” by the incorruptible. This indirectly confirms our conclusion that our carnal nature will be resurrected, and its transformation testifies that revival is necessary for everyone - and for those “living” no less than for those who have died.
At this point, the evangelist did not deviate from his previous convictions 1464 and did not break with general biblical eschatology. And that conservatism is quite understandable, because the body was not talking about a secondary and indifferent subject. No, this was a cardinal question of the Christian confession itself, so that if it were answered negatively, our faith in its essence would turn out to be vain (1 Cor. XV, 12 ff.). here was an exact reflection of the victory of the Lord the Redeemer, and the reflection must necessarily correspond to the light itself. Otherwise, the shadows, first of all, would fall on the second and shroud the sun itself in thick darkness. In this case, any hesitation would cause fatal upheavals in the entire dogmatic system. For the Apostle this is fundamentally unacceptable. For him, our resurrection was motivated and ensured in all its properties by the rebellion of Christ. And since he had clear and unchanging views about the latter, radical transformations about the former are also impossible.
1465 Therefore, we take it as an axiom that here a conscious change due to subjective - forced desires or logical considerations is completely unthinkable.
In the end, we will have the truth of the resurrection of the dead unshakable for the apostolic “Gospel”, in agreement with the preaching of Christ. But death is inevitable for all people, and none of the earth-born will escape this fate. If they are unable to hold on to their “church,” then it is crazy to dream that the return of what they have lost will be possible for them. For this reason, there is no doubt that the act of human quickening will require a special appearance of Christ. Through this the continuity of the eschatological development of St. is again protected. Pavel. 1466 It has long been believed about him that he awaited the coming of the Lord within the boundaries of the apostolic generation. These “parousia” hopes are the basis of all scientific reconstructions, and it is not surprising that in them the Christian gospel is portrayed with an extremely one-sided coloring.
And dogmatic-theoretical contemplations, and vital-practical norms for the religious-church system and socio-political relations, and views on the completion of the kingdom of God and the tasks of missionary service - all this and much more is despotically adjusted to the idea that the revelation of the “day of the Lord” will happen in the apostolic age. Since this did not actually follow, it follows that the original beginning was false and the system erected on it turned out to be erroneous. It is clear that then everything is modified for the sake of such disappointment. But in turn, this transformation will be externally conditioned and may not be based on objective data, since everything is done according to the requirements of experience, and not according to attention to the fact, which is equally unknown and equally measured by school categories. If before there was Jewish illumination, now it will be Hellenistic. Their fundamental value is the same, and they differ from each other only in the superiority of purely theoretical security and adaptability.
Instead of the gospel, which reproduces the true truth of Christ’s deed, the result is religious and philosophical abstraction, and its dignity may be lower even because it is distinguished by theoretical sublimity and roundness. This danger cannot be eliminated for critical-genetic interpretations and is stated by them with all sharpness. But for them it is strictly true that the point of departure was accepted as incorrect. “Parousia” was not proclaimed as an isolated moment of a “situational” nature and was always depicted as the completion of the redemptive work of Christ. In this form, it is absolutely necessary dogmatically and guarantees the fact of the resurrection associated with it chronologically and causally. Because of this, it is confirmed for the apostolic consciousness by references to bodily revitalization, which is caused by the coming of the Lord. By the strength of this, we are convinced that the “parousia” aspirations were preserved unshakably and therefore were not accidental, but had a dogmatic importance, everywhere reflected by the inherent results.
Consequently, in this subject there was no support for eschatological transformations, since during the period of the second letter to the Corinthians the Apostle continued to teach about the resurrection of the dead through Christ.
But, being the author of the regenerated being itself and its individual restoration, the Lord Savior inevitably becomes an ethical scale for the resurrected and distinguishes them according to the degree of likeness to Him. The life of grace must be a repetition of the redemptive sonship of Christ in all brothers, and therefore they will necessarily be differentiated according to the degree of approach or distance from the ideal in its divine bearer. Such differentiation is, at the same time, a moral choice. This explains the Last Judgment of Christ, which we read about in the analyzed apostolic appeal to the Corinthians (2 Cor. V, 10). On this issue it is sometimes emphasized that St. Paul focuses everything on faith, but it, being self-sufficient, contains within itself the denial of all one’s own doing, and the basis for judgment disappears. From this side, pisteology will be adversative to the doctrine of retribution and comments in this direction. Already for th Cor.
XV they find that here there are two disparate and unreconciled ideas of the dominant Jewish-apocalyptic movements about the glorification of the transfiguration and the resurrection of judgment. This interpretation rests on the extreme of reinterpretation. Faith frees one from oath imputation and in this sense produces legal liberation. However, the removal of the old is indissoluble from the connection with the new. Whoever got rid of Adam's sin united with Christ and received grace-filled privileges. Therefore, it is rightly stated that a purely legal understanding is erroneous in all respects and applications. Naturally, for the Hellenic evangelist, faith was not a simple threshold to entering Christian life, but introduced into it why justification brought with it righteousness itself - being an act not so much legal as mystical and ethical. This faith is not just a renunciation of all deeds, but a commitment to responsible fruit-bearing.
The legal element is not at all the only one and does not even cover the episteological contemplations; 1467 rather, it serves as the basis for substantiating the positive teaching about the development of a truly Christian life. Christianity is not limited to the theoretical conviction of recognition and confession. Such a state in him is directly impossible if deliverance itself is inseparable from union with the Lord in the union of brotherhood and the penetration of all movements by the spirit of Christ. 1468 Christian existence presupposes a vital fusion with the Redeemer, which is given in reality and even before it is comprehended by reason and argued theoretically. 1469 In it a person believes intellectually as a Christian only because and to the extent that he lives as a Christian. Here the moral uplift must be the exact imprint of religious hope. This axiom about the close and necessary relationship between religion and morality is indisputable both for the Apostle of Languages and for the general Christian view.
The fullness of grace-filled revelation in people is not exhausted by the faith of justification and requires the manifestation of righteousness, from which the assessment of a person by his deeds will also be normal. One causes the other through actual coupling. 1470 Here at St. Paul there is not the slightest internal antinomy on the issue of future rewards and punishments, 1471 which are not preserved as a remnant of Jewish views. 1472 The doctrine of justification and the dogma of retribution are not in mutual contradiction and the second in no way obscures the pure soarings gained in the contemplation of grace. 1473 The latter, giving man a mysterious union with Christ, lifts him above all cosmic accidents. For her, physical death will not be a deviation from the goal and even brings her closer to it, eliminating the external obstacle of somatic gravity that chains her to the earthly.
With all this, grace serves as a guarantee and guarantee of complete assimilation, so much so that we will become like the Lord, sharers of the kingdom of God and achieve His glorification in the same way as He condescended to our weakness. The “imagination” of Christ in itself, being spiritual, presupposes a corresponding form in a glorified corporeality, similar to the body of the exalted Savior. It is obvious that the pneumatological understanding of the final destiny of man - in the sense of the spiritually grace-filled triumph of eternal life in union with God through the Redeemer - does not at all undermine the roots of the “parousian” hopes of bodily resurrection, but spiritualizes them with ethical Christian principles and the naturalistic process turns into a grace-filled act of crowning the redemptive growth of humanity. These moments closely harmonize with each other and complement each other in the Christian illumination of a distant fact.
Now it is unshakable that for the writer of the second letter to the Corinthians the idea of bodily rebellion and judgment was not a simple relic of a rejected understanding and was internally in solidarity with the new. And if it was conditioned by fundamental eschatological premises, then they will be identical. This indirectly destroys all hypotheses about radical upheavals in apostolic eschatology, for which the necessary materials were not found, since the invasion of the Hellenistic elements is not seen. We remain with the same biblical-Christian view that “those of Christ” for communion with the glorified Christ will be raised up in conformity with the glorified corporeality. But we know that the resurrection must certainly be accompanied by ethical distinctions between members according to the degree of reflection of grace-filled properties. And since such a judgment befalls those who were called and those who did it, then it is hardly possible to find a reasonable justification for the fact that stubborn sinners and ignorant atheists will escape it.
For this reason, the resurrection of all people is mandatory, without the slightest exception for the unworthy and unrepentant. If this revival were at the same time gratification, then, of course, attracting the entire wicked mass would be abnormal. And once a divine thing happens - an immutable analysis - here the very truth of God demands that everyone receive their price according to the use or trampling of grace in strict proportion. 1474 This confirms the simultaneity of the resurrection of the lawless and unfaithful with the righteous, and its result will be the establishment of the kingdom of God. 1475 There is no pause between the uprising of the “Christians” and the end of our world existence, without which all chiliastic dreams are automatically abolished. Everything will end at once and forever. Moreover, the very concept of a report contains a threat of condemnation for the subject and does not allow for a vain pardon. The circle of retribution necessarily includes punishment, proportional in its gradations.
It is irresistible that the Apostle of the tongues could not proclaim apocatastasis in universal salvation and on this point he was in solidarity with Christ no less than in other eschatological hopes.
The above warnings create a solid basis for judgment on controversial eschatological issues. They are put forward by advocates of genetic reconstructions, not without correlation with the idea of the dependence of the Hellenic evangelist on the book of the Wisdom of Solomon. This monument speaks especially energetically about the peace of God for the righteous and about the death of the wicked, from which it is concluded that the afterlife is determined ethically and extends only to the pious, without capturing sinners. This doctrine is then adopted by St. Paul, who allegedly preached the resurrection only of the justified, and commented on it in the light of Platonic spiritualism through Alexandrian mediation (cf. St. Sol. IX, 15. III, 1 f. VIII, 13. 17. VI, 20 and 2 Cor. V, 1 f. Philip. I, 23) in the sense of spiritual satisfaction. Here eternity is provided by the person himself and belongs to everyone only potentially. Thus, the familiar idea of optional immortality, achieved by the actual personal zeal of the individual, is applied to the evangelist.
Natural immortality is considered alien to the Bible, which does not affirm it, just as Christ did not testify to it. It owes entirely to the Platonic influences of a later era. Biblical contemplation rejects sinners from the blissful eternity and limits it to an ever-present emphasis on this ethical point. Therefore, it cannot be presented as an axiomatic dogma that the wicked will undoubtedly be destroyed, but the tilt in this direction is undeniable, since they also have neither justifications nor reserves for eternal existence. As a result, optionality is destroyed by ontological nihilism for the unworthy part of humanity, 1476 at least in the process of gradual evaporation. 1477
However, this theory cannot claim absolute dominance, and the very signs of its Christian application provide support for completely opposite interpretations. The salvation of people is achieved in vain without any merit and solely by the grace of God. Everything is built solely on divine mercy, which is why the final result will actually be a matter of the goodness of the Lord. But in redemption the latter was not embarrassed by the extent of human sinfulness and therefore should not be shrinking at its highest revelation. And if restrictions on cosmic abnormalities are now observed, then in the absence of such there will be a universalism of revival, commensurate only with the inexhaustibility of the love and condescension of the Almighty.
Then - in replacement of the eternal torment of Jewish theology of 1478 - the doctrine of apocatastasis is naturally attributed to Christianity, which is most clearly formulated, supposedly, by St. Pavel. However, he was not a pure innovator and did not break away from accepted traditions. The apostle develops in detail and dogmatically motivates what others have said, for example. among the Synopians, 1479 and through this achieves doctrinal firmness, roundness and complete clarity, where all the base Jewish appendages are eliminated in the highest insight according to the strength of the beneficial Hellenistic influence. In this way, diametrically hostile consequences are drawn with equal correctness, and this shows that the authors’ own logical sophistication is at work here, while for biblical matters only an objective selection of facts and the establishment of a given connection between them is permissible, even if for our theoretical inquisitiveness all this was felt to be insufficient. In this case, there is not even that.
The whole mystery of the disagreements is that different shades are not reconciled in the spirit of solidary compatibility, but develop with exaggerated extremes to the point of mutual exclusion, while the narrow scale of the logical categories of a limited mind is a very dangerous measure for Christian existence. In the example under consideration, the exaggeration affects both comparable quantities. Pseudo-Solomon says that those who belong to the devil’s lot experience death (II, 24), but this is not at all ontological abolition. Since everything is subject to actual destruction with inexorable innocence, then from here we get that what is being thought is not a physical moment at all. Therefore, the proclaimed mortality will be ethical, which removes all support for exegetical hypotheses in favor of the destruction of sinners. 1480 Accordingly, the bliss of the righteous turns out to be a special property of eternity as a happy mode in being itself.
It is the personal privilege of the owner - and it is clear that its assimilation is conditioned by individual diligence, for which the grace of God provides the opportunity and ability to succeed in this work. All these moments are not alien to apostolic theology, where they acquire a special clarity of Christian typicality. The evangelist saw before him a truly realized ideal of human perfection, which was also revealed to everyone by the accessibility of fraternal identification with the Lord the Savior. For St. Paul, every occurrence had value only in relation to this norm, from which it is inevitable that chronological duration fell out of consideration and remained in the shadows. True life is conceivable and achieved only with the inseparability of fusion with Christ, when human existence blossoms in all the splendor of its godlikeness. This means that this is an advantage compared to what is available to everyone and occurs in everyone.
For him, the ground in the most universal vitality is obligatory, but, not coinciding with it, such superiority will be private and limited to the worthy. All others will be deprived of these differences and will not enjoy their benefits, since they themselves cannot produce, but have moved away from the source. The chosenness of the saved is inseparable from the alienation of the lost, who themselves take away from themselves what was provided to them by divine generosity. The Christian future is depicted by the Apostle of Languages from the side of qualitative gradations in being itself, which serves as their factual basis. 1481 There is neither ontological destruction for sinners, 1482 nor blessing everywhere. Both are abolished by a strictly ethical view, which, while illuminating realistic effectiveness, is not absorbed by the physical element and does not itself suppress it. In everything there is undoubtedly a close analogy with the Book of Wisdom, but this does not in the least indicate apostolic dependence on it.
And first of all, we must remember that the non-canonical document affirms human immortality in union with God, for people originated from Him and draw their life from Him. This thesis holds everything together, and additions do not at all guarantee final conclusions resting on the dogmatic foundation of biblical anthropology. It goes without saying that in all main and important things the teaching of pseudo-Solomon will be purely biblical. Platonic reinterpretations of it are tendentious, and for a pure biblical scholar there is an incredibly transformative influence of Alexandrian philosophy. 1483 Fundamental truths are borrowed from the sacred books of divine revelation, which precisely says that the Almighty created everything for being and for being. And according to all other observations and research, it is indisputable that the Bible with its entire content confirms the immortality of the soul. True, this is interpreted more in an ethical sense, but this also categorically presupposes a real factor, as an object of moral illumination.
And if the biblical writers do not speak directly about the natural indestructibility of the soul, then, in any case, there is no doubt that this truth is necessarily required by all fundamental biblical beliefs. The author of Wisdom was not an innovator and simply expounded accepted biblical doctrine in the religious-philosophical forms of cultural Greek. And the Apostle did not need to turn to a secondary manual, given the full knowledge of the main monument. Then: St. Paul not only repeats his predecessors, but brings in a lot of personality. This is inevitable already because before us is a Christian herald. And where pseudo-Solomon argues using the idea of creatureliness, here the evangelist builds everything on the fact of grace-filled rebirth. The Old Testament community of anxious expectation acquires the unshakable clarity of realized steadfastness.
Therefore, the lack of knowledge of the will of God, which arouses fears of timidity in the earthly, is replaced by the absolute inviolability of the discovery of saving love, inexhaustible, even for the abyss of sin. Eschatological aspirations, previously protected by the expectation of the personal attraction of delivering wisdom, now receive divine support in the gracious installation of the power of God in people. It is clear that through this immortality is better illuminated in its prerequisites and in the Lord Christ has a bright example of its future, which was hitherto the subject of dark fortune-telling and insufficient insight. At the same time, the methods of achievement were indisputable in their very factual tangibility, which is why the results of abuse or deprivation were also clear.
At all points and at all stages we find in the Apostle an original relief of direct contemplation, and everywhere he immeasurably surpasses the gloominess of the pious insight of a non-canonical book. Everything new is gleaned by him from his own observation of true reality and is outlined in strict accordance with its characteristics. Consequently, side sources are unacceptable for this surplus. It is not surprising that such people are not found, as all the guesses of this nature convince us of. Most often they speak out in favor of the influence of the Hellenic idea of immortality through the pseudo-Solomon. In its logical development, the latter led to spiritualistic isolation with the exception of bodily restoration. But the factual invincibility here is sometimes stipulated that St. Paul did not go to this extreme, and the resurrection is withheld from him. But herein lies a categorical denunciation of such interpretations.
We have seen and know that the pneumatic view of the spiritual triumph bestowed by the mysterious union with Christ was applied to the fact that a person is not subject to the cosmic accidents of phenomenal fluidity and through the physical collapse of the “earthly church” does not in the least move away from the goal. Not subject to material frailty, spiritual vitality must necessarily prevail over it in its outer revelation, which requires its contact with the glorified Lord in the equality of all conditions between the members and the head of the brotherhood of God. For these reasons, physical resurrection serves as a necessary expression of immortality, which the Apostle cannot imagine without it. Due to the indissolubility of both points, it is unshakable that if the first of them can least of all be Platonic, then this denial is equally applicable to the second, which will also be biblically Christian. This provides a solid basis for impartial judgment about tendentiously exaggerated comments.
They note the textual convergence of apostolic eschatology with pseudo-Solomonian eschatology, and in many ways the verbal similarity between them is striking and undeniable. 1484 With all this in the being of St. Paul is entirely determined by grace-Christian principles and from them he borrows his doctrinal incomparability. Therefore, supporters of genetic reconstructions accept only the formal influence of the Book of Wisdom, 1485, and then the unnecessary hypothesis about the penetration of spiritualistic views through this document and through the mediation of the Apostle is automatically eliminated. All the more inappropriate are further attempts to claim that – inexplicable from the entirety of Jewish monuments – the posthumous “nakedness” emphasized by the evangelist (2 Cor. V, 3) was transferred by him from Plato, who admits the essence of posthumous nudity. External similarity according to the terminological letter is again inseparable from internal disparity.
For the ancient philosopher, this did not mean anything other than the addition of physicality, and this was liberation from the bonds of prison and was a happy event in the discovery of the whole truth of spiritual existence. 1486 We see something completely different from the Apostle in the very fact and in relation to him. Here we meet the desire not to remain naked after death, from which it is clear that it is not covered by bodily ruin. In this sense, both options are equally decisive, although they are not equal. When read carefully and fully clothed, it is self-evident that nudity is considered possible even with the covering completed and therefore does not contain any hints of the process of undressing, which does not exist and is not intended. If we introduce the unclothed edition into the apostolic text, then we will have that nudity is a special moment during exposure and beyond it, why does not coincide with it. This is something higher and worse than mortal physical deprivation, which establishes us with the Lord. Therefore St. Paul evaluates in a sharply opposed tone, indicating the difference in the objects of speech. And when Plato (resp.
Socrates) is filled with joyful feelings of spiritual deliverance, despite him, the Christian evangelist is imbued with the anxiety of painful fear with concern that this does not happen. It is irresistible that platonic principles did not happen here. It is irresistible that Platonic principles do not apply here. Further, it is equally natural that they are attracted only with the inevitable violence of the perversion of apostolic concepts. From this point of view, it is natural to hear from “genetic” critics, supposedly with considerations of “2 Cor. “The resurrection of Christians becomes not only unnecessary, but also completely impossible.” And this would be the truth of logical inevitability if the Apostle adhered to Platonic principles, and the consequences would testify to their premises. For this reason, the opposite conclusion will be no less unshakable.
And we found, in agreement with independent scientists, that the pneumatic understanding of eschatology does not at all eliminate “parousia” aspirations and - rather - dogmatically ensures the Christian obligation of physical restoration in a transformed corporeality, analogous to the glorification of the exalted Redeemer. Since this is true, this categorically rejects all Platonism with all its varieties and modifications. The Apostle is again left with pure biblical data, discussed according to the idea of Christian salvation and illuminated by its rays. But the first were the common property of Israel and existed from time immemorial with the evangelist in completeness; the second rested on factual objectivity and was determined by it in its content from the time of its fame, which could then neither be repeated nor changed.
And since the basic elements of the view were always the same, then it itself remained identical in relation to the factual truth it expressed, even if the latter was revealed and theoretically motivated differently in materials, techniques and method. With such immobility, fundamental transformations are impossible. Therefore, it is not surprising that “genetic” commentators find it difficult to determine the time, size and quality for them, differing to the point of irreconcilability. Thus, they declare that the only modification was allowed only for messianic expectations, where supposedly St. Paul, being the son of his age, at first was in solidarity with the Jewish dreaminess of materialistic imagery; however, in the first such report of his eschatological hopes (1 Cor. XV, 12 ff. 35 ff.), the Apostle proclaims the “spiritualistic doctrine of the resurrection,” and this was his last step in breaking with Jewish eschatological theology.
But then the initial and intermediate links leave the circle of Christian documentation to the period of “Judaism,” which is why, after its cessation, the harmonious integrity of Christian contemplation will be obtained, true to itself despite all the theoretical modifications of the presentation. Therefore, criticism is forced to agree that the eschatological transformations assimilated by the Hellenic missionary are almost simple fantasies of our imagination, 1487 devoid of real justification.
In this case, we have that, in terms of its doctrinal dignity, apostolic eschatology does not suffer from the inconsistency of mutual negation at different stages of exaggerated development. It has always been based on biblical foundations and inspired by the trends of Christian revelation. There are no alien Hellenistic applications in it that transform the old, and the book of the Wisdom of Solomon would not have endowed the Apostle with them if it had such reserves, although this is highly controversial. since the future of a person is predetermined by his past and present, then during theoretical consideration, eschatological considerations are built on anthropological ones and, in turn, reinforce and illuminate them. From this side, a harmonious correspondence is noticed in the apostolic system, and we are again convinced of the purely biblical nature of our own anthropology.
And regarding it, indeed, it was found that the biblical-Christian nature is not touched by Hellenistic influences and does not reflect the features of cosmological dualism, just as the non-canonical monument does not profess it.
As a result, it turns out that the pseudo-Solomon, not alien to the Alexandrian outlines in appearance, did not reward St. in the least. Paul by Hellenic concepts and was not attracted to him by the desire to understand religious subjects in the Greco-philosophical spirit, even at the expense of objective truth or replacing it with subjective productivity. The evangelist was always only a witness to what was accomplished and communicated by God and therefore remained Christianly independent from any intrusions and aids that could cause a radical revolution in dogmatic beliefs. Ensured in principle and comprehensively, this provision does not allow private seizures and accidental deviations. Therefore, the small parallels put forward by criticism on the analyzed issues deserve only a brief listing, perhaps for clarity, as living illustrations of the apostolic steadfastness in faith and teaching.
The reason for the creation of pseudo-Solomon believes the gracious love of God (XI, 24. 25), and this is considered a truly Jewish (biblical) view, but Philo associates it with Platonic expressions. However, on the issue of world government, the Book of Wisdom adopts directly Stoic beliefs (in XIV, 3. XVII, 2), sometimes (in VI, 7) with shades of Stoic democracy. In general, about providence (for example, in VI, 7) and implementation, the author draws his views from Stoicism, from where he borrows (in XVIII, 19) even the idea of divine suggestions through dreams. In relation to this, the entire view of life is commented on according to Stoic schemes, to which judgments (in XII, 8) about the natural dignity of man and the entire ethical system are adjusted. With such combinations, the indication that the Apostle writes about the supreme leadership of the Jews wandering in the desert (in 1 Cor. X, 4) according to a non-canonical monument (Prov. Sol. X, 17. XI, 4) is of particular interest, and he, of course, had to assume Stoic prefaces.
In many ways, the facts here are exaggerated, and, for example, the idea of divine providence, reflecting Old Testament concepts, differs significantly from the Platonic one. Then: between the compared authors, all the similarities are only in the fact that all the wonderful phenomena of this period for both are explained by the direct action of God, and this was the ready-made biblical understanding, traditionally preserved and passed on among the Jews. In particular, each has its own special features. For the Book of Wisdom, here was the greatest and best seal of the saving goodness of the Lord, and it did not admit of any expansion or addition. Therefore, all such observations led pseudo-Solomon to a narrowly nationalistic understanding of divine mercy, limited by the circle of its historical implementation in the people of Israel, 1488 and the property of completeness prompted the fact that everything factual was interpreted pneumatically - as a shell of functioning.
Therefore, the Jewish sage spiritualizes the entire factual history and does not see in it simply an allegorical omen. For the evangelist, everything lies precisely in the latter, and in the soldered stone he sees the pre-arrangements of the gracious redemption of Christ, in which the past becomes a reproach for Jewish religious-racial inertia and is illuminated by the radiance of its universal fulfillment. In this sense, the entire economy will be internally unified in its divine factor and main purpose, but the different stages are revealed to our minds only in the process of implementation. Until then, external appearance often does not allow one to penetrate into the entire depth and does not cover it completely. Therefore, there even seem to be hesitations and deviations, while the result is that - contrary to our calculations and unknown to us - the will of God achieved its mysterious plans for world deliverance.
The Apostle comprehended all this in contemplation of the feat of the cross at Golgotha, which was so incredible for human thoughts, and yet marvelously concentrated in itself all the “ends of the ages” (1 Cor. X, 11) and illuminated with its radiance all the darkness of the past. And when universal disobedience served the interests of immense mercy, St. Paul admires (in Rom. XI, 33. 34) the words of the prophet (Isa. XL, 13) about the unexpectedness of such an event, why it is strange to attract pseudo-Solomonic speeches (IX, 13. 14) about the knowledge of the works and advice of God only to the eternal wisdom. A similar mystery is permissible in the New Testament kingdom itself until its most perfect revelation. It is natural that they talk about the “mystery” of the bitterness of Israel (Rom. XI, 25), the “change” of all people during the “parousia” (1 Cor. XV, 51) and the marriage union (Eph. V, 29-32) despite their outward inconsistency with Christian principles and hopes.
The idea of the unsearchable hiddenness of God does not coincide with these Christian concepts, which cannot be brought closer to the non-canonical book (VI, 23 [24]) due to verbal consonance also because this term was not at all uncommon. For this reason, of course, original for Jewish nomism was the apostolic judgment (Rom. VII, 9) that under the “commandment” sin came to life. Wanting to impose on the Apostle Paul and John the Theologian (Heb. XX, 2) the doctrine of pre-existence and the pre-mundane fall of souls, they refer to dependence on the remarks of pseudo-Solomon about entering into a clean body (Prov. Sol. VIII, 20). This is a vain mirage, since the Greek term does not contain any formulated nuances, and the evangelist states only the historical fact of the awakening of the sin that existed in humanity to conscious criminality. Moreover, there is no exaggerated pre-existentiality. Moreover, there is no exaggerated pre-existentiality in the “apocrypha,” which is far (in VIII, 20) from the dualistic devaluation of corporeality to identity with sinfulness.
Then the guesses about the Apostle’s imitation of a non-canonical document (Rom. VIII, 3) from Christ the Savior are automatically eliminated. In actual application, legalism was the denunciation of proud Jews - and by condemning others, they only certified their inexcusability (Rom. II, 1). Everything in this remark is simple to the point of elementaryness, but the reproach to all Judaism is understandable only from the apostolic point of view. This eliminates all verbal analogies from pseudo-Solomon (XVII, 8), which treats of pagan idolaters. In the sphere of grace-filled growth of St. Paul recommends that Christians be always vigilant against the wiles of the devil and invites them to guard themselves with spiritual armor, described under the guise of military weapons (Eph. VI, 11. 13 – 17). These metaphors are already found in the book under analysis (Prov. Sol. V, 17 - 20), and due to the redeeming nature of their use, they think that here we have an original and a copy.
But real objects could be known independently to the evangelist no less than to his imaginary creditor, and the tropical use was imitative rather among the Hellenistic Jews, because in the spirit of Isaiah (LIX, 16. 17; cf. XI, 5. XLIX, 2) he speaks of the Lord, while in the New Testament text members of the Christian brotherhood appear. In all this and in the most particular development of images, it is reasonable to emphasize the “absolute difference” - and it should be all the more undeniable for supporters of Plato’s interpretations of the Wisdom of Solomon, that for the Apostle the “warfare” is not directed at all against flesh and blood and is of a spiritual nature. For these purposes, attempts to find dualistic elements in the apostolic epistles are understandable. Such is the opposition between Christ and Belial with the cosmic contrast of light and darkness (2 Cor. VI, 14-18), whereby carnal vices physically separate from the kingdom of God (1 Cor. VI, 6-20), with the brilliance of which these dark deeds of the former darkness are incompatible (Eph. VI, 1-14); the source here was supposedly Pr. Sol. I, 14 ff. XIV, 23.
In this case, dual perversion is allowed. The “Kingdom of Hell” is depicted by pseudo-Solomon as not primordial and not distinguished by dualistic naturalness, and carnal defilements are motivated by the pagan licentiousness of idolatrous apostasy. For the Apostle, the physical antithesis serves only as an illustration of the spiritual adversariness between righteousness and lawlessness, by which all human actions are measured in moral brightness against carnal gloom. In this case, moral activity is naturally opposed to cosmic annihilation (1 Cor. XV, 32.IV, 9) and is reproduced much more plastically and clearly. On the contrary, the idea of the strength of the hope of faith in the midst of sorrows is common not only to the evangelist (Rom. V, 2 ff.) and pseudo-Solomon (III, 4) and the first is not associated with the idea of immortality, and the second’s hint regarding the violent death of the righteous is not found in the apostolic mention (2 Cor. V, 1) about the bodily collapse of the human body. Our corruption is conditioned by sinful lusts (Eph. IV, 22) with the inevitability of sowing and reaping (Gal. VI, 7.
8), as according to the Wise One, death is attracted by errors (I, 12). The last place is far from unclear and cannot be a prototype for the apostolic one, where sinful life itself is called corruption. However, there is no fatalism, and the wealth of God’s goodness, meekness and long-suffering through repentance is available to the fallen (Rom. II, 4). Pseudo-Solomon also testifies to divine mercy (XV, 1) covering human sins through this means (XI, 24) of arousing a repentant mood (XII, 10. 19). It is hardly necessary to argue that in this form repentance was a kind of biblical dogma, and did not require borrowing, which would be resolved by sharp disharmony, for the Apostle sees a conviction for Israel where the "apocrypha" finds high approval for it. However, the Lord God is the perfector of our renewal everywhere, and grace and mercy descend from Him. This combination (1 Tim. I, 2) is raised to pseudo-Solomon terminology (III, 9.
IV, 15) is completely unfounded, because its specifically Christian content is just as little exhausted by the Hellenistic Jew as by the similar use of Greek paganism. The unlimitedness of the absolute love of God in Christ Jesus also embraces the latter, although the Greeks did not seek the Almighty (Rom. X, 20), and in this the evangelist agrees with the prophet (Isa. LXV, 1), when in the non-canonical book quite the opposite is commanded - in the search for the Lord by the believer in trust without temptation (Prov. Sol. I, 2). God works all things for the good of those who love (Rom. VIII, 28), but this is affirmed not by His goodness alone (Prov. Sol. III, 9) and not by the examples of the wondrous protections of Egyptian fugitives through unreasonable nature (XVI, 24 and cf. 17), but by Christian conviction in the complete divine action among those who are called. The mutual relations of believers are characterized by apostolic joy that the Philippians (IV, 10) remembered to take care; this rare verb in pseudo-Solomon (IV, 4) is applied realistically to blossoming in the branches of offspring and in the Apostle it denotes the duty of exclusively Christian reciprocity.
For everyday behavior it is instilled in St. Paul's obedience to the authorities (Rom. XIII, 1.6), and now - with a gradual penetration into the secrets of the then government policy - we can better understand all the wise, foresightedness of this commandment, which, in its theological argumentation, was not at all unusual among Jewish biblical writers (Dan. II, 21.37) and secular and therefore does not need pseudo-Solomonic creativity (VI, 3 - 5), where a threat to the kings is proclaimed, and not obedience to them for the sake of conscience, and the phraseology is not the same in everything. If the past is comprehended only through the commentary of Christian fulfillment, then the future only in it receives its support and clarity. Naturally, any aids for the essence of the apostolic concepts are unacceptable, and the convergence of the figurative in 1 Cor. III, 15 with Jewish dreams of the afterlife purgatory fire would be a dangerous darkening of Christian insight with the fantastic legend that is traced in Parsism. 1489 And the apostolic hope in view of death (1 Thess.
IV, 13) does not at all reproduce the pseudo-Solomonic hope, although it is inseparable from faith in the consolation of the day of judgment (III, 18), since in St. Paul, everything is ensured by our unity with Christ, which is why we, dying with Jesus, will rise with Him. The final conclusion for the Jewish author was the judgment of the righteous over the tribes and dominion over the nations (Prov. Sol. III, 8). This advantage is compared with the Christian privilege that “the saints will judge the world” (1 Cor. VI, 2), 1490 for they “will reign in life” (Rom. V, 17 and cf. 2 Tim. II, 12) by analogy with how in Prov. Sol. VI, 19. (20) “the desire for wisdom leads to the kingdom.” It must be accepted that the non-canonical book thereby testifies to the aspirations of the resurrection of 1491 and captures the same moment as that of the evangelist. But in it righteousness itself was understood nomistically and limited the triumph to the close circle of the sons of Israel. This nationalistic particularism did not give room for the immensity of the apostolic perspectives, for which there were biblical foundations (eg Daniel VII, 18.22.27) and clear instructions from the Savior himself (Matt. XIX, Lk. XXII, 30).
The apostle motivates everything with grace-filled autonomy, which does not allow sinful subordination to cosmic power, and with his considerations he states the Christian principle, alien to any external attacks, that holiness contains within itself its own justification of sonship with God and in it is drawn a true condemnation of evil in all its forms - sinful cosmicity and pneumatic resistance.
All examples and analogies are not convincing, undoubtedly, even in the Apostle’s acquaintance with the book of Wisdom, and the defenders of this theory themselves testify that such zeal is often not rewarded with the desired success. It is even less possible to argue with such parallels the invasion of Greek philosophical elements into the biblical environment, which supposedly naturally transforms and, in a consistent process of rational implementation, achieves Christian systematicity. Particular approaches clearly prove the inviolability of fundamental observations that in cosmology, anthropology and eschatology, St. Paul comes into contact with pseudo-Solomon only on the basis of common biblical views that are equally accessible to both. It is certain that the evangelist drew upon them independently, and these were the only intellectual elements in the apostolic exposition of the gospel doctrine.
Everything else is borrowed from the contemplation of the work of Christ itself and in it acquires an incomparable and incommensurable originality, which does not allow the inclusion of unnecessary and inappropriate Hellenistic aids.
The apostle for now remains exclusively a servant of the Lord, proclaiming the truth of the great redemptive feat. But this deliverance was necessary for the reason that man is powerless in the consciousness of his own salvation. At this point, a close consonance with the Jewish author is again revealed, about whom it is commonly thought that he professed “philosophical” helplessness in overcoming dualistic oppositions, irreconcilable and ineradicable by natural human means. Wasn’t the great educator of paganism imbued with the same tendencies here? This question is answered by “genetic” hypotheses regarding the doctrine of the divine spirit.
The position and meaning of this point in pseudo-Solomon are completely clear with critical interpretations of the book in question. It supposedly preaches the complete powerlessness of the individual in the knowledge of God and the corresponding work due to the predominance of materiality, which completely suppresses the spirit, being originally incompatible with it by nature. But - on the other hand - the Jewish writer fully accepted divine revelation and saw in it an exact revelation of the will of the Almighty, sufficient for knowledge - along with the obligation and accessibility of execution. There was a serious conflict between philosophical premises and theological data. To eliminate it, it was necessary to admit the presence of supermundane energy, which more or less inseparably lives in the chosen “sons of God” (among the people of Israel) and “saves” them from naturalistic squalor. Thus, in a non-canonical document, the concept of “wisdom”, the artist of the cosmos and the educator of people, naturally appeared.
This idea was not new to biblical doctrine, but it was put forward according to special doctrinal and theoretical requirements and, when they were satisfied, it had to acquire a similar coloring. Hence it is necessary that when detailed, the whole concept loses its traditional theological identity and dissolves in philosophical elements. They note that in the character of “Sophia” Platonic and Stoic traits merge, while others also add the influence of Heraclitus. According to the meaning of dependence, St. Paul from pseudo-Solomon, all this passes on to the evangelist and, at least indirectly, affects his Christology. By this, the latter significantly renounces its usual soil in the preaching of the Lord Savior and the confession of the primacy of the Church, but for this, continuity is maintained in the dogmatic development of the Apostle, who, without breaking ties with the Jewish elements, finds in them support and material for further constructions.
Hellenistic elements again penetrate through the non-canonical book, causing a radical transformation in Christological views when combined with judgments about the Spirit. It is clear from everything that these original additions helped to move forward and, serving the future, certainly had to triumph over the old reserves, suppress and displace them irrevocably. This process was fundamentally inevitable and was accompanied by the falling away of the Jewish and biblical resources of the apostolic “Gospel”. Therefore, “the faith of the pagan church created by Paul was initially nothing more than Christianized Hellenism, and this is a direct development of pre-Christian Hellenism, which through Paul’s proclamation of Christ received the historical foundations for the formation of (church) society and its liberation from the shackles of national-Jewish positivism.”
This conclusion, of course, will be logically flawless if 1) the non-canonical monument contains similar doctrines and 2) the Apostle borrows them and applies them according to a critical plan. We will focus our attention on these conditions.
By the very intentions of pseudo-Solomon, wisdom occupies a central position in his creation. However, the Jewish anonymous man appeals in the name of revealed truths and therefore had to draw all his wealth from them. This is stated by everyone in agreement, which is why it is not surprising that scholars of various persuasions see the source of explanations regarding sophia in the Old Testament and, more particularly, in the book of Proverbs. Not so in commenting, where opposite trends are already observed. While some consider the concept itself to be originally Jewish and in its development they see elements for the New Testament doctrine of the Trinity, while others categorically state that from the Old Testament poetic personification the mysterious sage made an artificial philosophical theory. It is natural that several currents are concentrated here. Combining them, the writer gives (VII, 22 ff.) a versatile description of wisdom, but this also reveals the influence of Stoicism, which taught about the multiplicity of attributes in the world soul.
Therefore, the qualifications themselves are purely stoic with the assimilation of qualities. On this path, the author became close to Stoic pneumatism and took advantage of speculations regarding the world spirit and God as an all-pervading and immanent mind. Here not only the terminology of the Stoics, but also material definitions are similar to it. Differences are also pointed out using the concepts of Plato, Heraclitus 1492 and Alexagoras. With all this, the overall flavor will be sharply stoic, 1493 and this justifies the corresponding conclusions. Even in well-intentioned interpretations, wisdom is personal, since, although not a person, it is, nevertheless, not a simple property of God and not an independent substance, as it is sometimes imagined. As a result, it retains only the dignity of an integral emanation from the divine essence as an expansion or “outpouring” of the latter.
With such judgments, Sophia turns out to be the deity poured into the world through his divine energy, why in pseudo-Solomon we are obliged to admit a softened Stoic pantheism, and this one - according to its nature and origin - contains traces of Stoic materialism, expressed in some predicates. With its properties, wisdom exhausts all divine effectiveness and, being hypostasized by the power of God, is like a “second god.” With it, another equal value is unthinkable. And, in fact, the threefold (IX, 1. 2. XVI, 12. XVIII, 15 ff.) mention of “logos,” rooted in the Old Testament, is alien to philosophical typicality and does not exceed the dimensions of a poetic personification of the omnipotent word of God or reproduces Stoic logology. In the remarks about “spirit” we simply have different names for a common object, and it is identical with sophia and is outlined in the book of Wisdom. This substantive unity is accompanied by substantive solidarity.
It is stipulated that – with Stoic concepts and terms – there are no pantheistic overtones, but at the same time it is verified that the “spirit” is both different and integral from God, being His breath. This coincidence, in its most important respect, forces us to transfer here all other descriptions of wisdom. Here, moderate exegetes also treat of light touches of Stoicism in speech about the spirit, while others discover indelible Stoic features with all the inevitable consequences. The very combination of both concepts is analogous to the Stoic confusion of wisdom with divinity as an all-pervading spirit, and is equally associated with communication idiomatum. And since the first is revered as a “light outflow from God” and, by its sharply emanatic origin, is imprinted by materiality, then the latter is no less affirmed, emanatically detached from its original principle; although not to the point of complete independence. Again, a harmonious agreement is obtained, and this helps the correct comprehension of the bearer of all the listed objects.
By the entire nature of its relationship between the Creator and the cosmos, this subject is a necessary connection for them, for it is recognized as a soul of the Platonic type and at the same time emanatively generalized with the Almighty. It follows from this that both sides could not otherwise come into contact with each other, and this already shows echoes of metaphysical-ontological dualism at the beginnings of the idea of the transcendentality of the deity. Therefore, cosmic existence is not directly obliged to God and arises only through wisdom, for which He is the cause, and the mission of the world organizer falls to the lot of sophia, which plays an active mediating role. In this form, it carries out all the functions of the logos of ancient Greek philosophy and later Alexandrinism and therefore serves as a historical preliminary and natural preparation for the latter. Thus, according to various motives and influences, wisdom is rewarded with a share of originality necessary for the success of mediation.
On this subject we hear only isolated voices that this is a simple figure of living poetic depiction. Most people think quite the opposite. It is believed that personification goes further than bare substantiality, since independence is revealed - along with God and for the world. Sophia will be, as it were, a personal being with all the properties of personality. 1494 True, this hypostasis does not reach completeness and is not molded into a distinct idea of personality. Nevertheless, the peculiarity is accepted with determination, 1495 and the result will be that the pseudo-Solomon did not bring his development to the level of Filomon. Pneumatological contemplations precisely correspond to this observation, for the spirit as a mediator is endowed with the features of personal hypostaticity.
As a result, we find for the entire body of data that in the philosophical treatment of the main biblical views, the author, evading the latter, approaches the formal hypostasis, later proclaimed in Alexandrian logology, with which he is very closely related in consolidating speculative-philosophical concepts behind the Old Testament idea of wisdom.
This point concentrates all the importance of the question taken both for understanding the very object of our speech and for genetic applications to the apostolic gospel. In the first case, the mediating personality supports beliefs in the dualistic premises of the book, which reconciles the original opposites in it. Then the concept itself will be forced theoretically by conditional philosophical needs. This is an artificial dogma, devoid of any real meaning. But St. Paul actually picks up and adapts all these elements, why should we think that with him the second divinity of the supermundane Christ has the equal dignity of doctrinal abstraction without real justification, and all the predicates found necessarily apply to it. For the Jewish writer, the spirit is identified with wisdom and perceives some materiality, and therefore it is no less true for the Apostle that he has the Holy Spirit.
is not a real personal principle and coincides with the exalted Christ, whose pneumatic divinity will be a completely theoretical fiction, for it does not exceed the level of the philosophical doctrine of “apocrypha.”
If you consider all these diverse aspects, then it will not be difficult to comprehend and agree that everything here is focused on the idea of the personal independence of the intermediary, as invented for theoretical needs and - therefore - philosophically - lifeless in its appearance. Without this - with realistic personifications of the properties of God - there are no materials for the doctrine of the second divine hypostasis, and the Hellenic evangelist will appear independent in his Christology, for which new supports and a different illumination of all the details are necessary. In general, the object of borrowing must be in advance, and for us the whole task comes down to finding whether it is indisputably in a non-canonical monument with all critical typicality.
“Genetic” interpreters answer in the affirmative, and in this case the voice of Catholic, orthodox-conservative and (partly) Orthodox commentators is for them. The latter state doctrinal progress in the fact that, exposed to verbal expression, the Jewish principles are personified with such boldness that wisdom almost ceases to be a divine attribute and is “as if a special hypostasis of the Divine” as a “special power different from Him,” although it is not completely rejected. Others go further and directly find transcendental wisdom, which, equated to the deity, is no longer a creature or a simple personification, but an absolute hypostasis - second next to God. By the subjective dignity of self-conclusion, it is depicted as divinely personal in itself and in its revelation as a “word,” distinguished from its objective revelation in the finite world, where it approaches the Stoic logos and is therefore characterized by Stoic predicates.
The originality of pseudo-Solomon does not lie at all in the fact that he did not rise to philonic hypostasis, but in the negation and rejection of all created definitions.
Thus, the mediator turns out to have the characteristics of divinity and will be the forerunner of the New Testament Son of God. 1496 From this point of view of Christian dogma, such an understanding is quite possible and legitimate, since it is permissible for it to even speak of plurality when faith in the Holy Trinity is professed. However, such a transfer of the later to the earlier is not entirely appropriate, as long as we describe the latter in its true historical outlines and in all the darkness, not yet dissipated by the illumination of the implementation, before which much of what later became irresistible for everyone was not even foreseen... The main thing for our special purposes is that this technique is far from genetic interests, imbued with reverse aspirations to explain the latest from the previous one. Here everything is directed towards an independent depiction of the second, with strict compliance of the content with the conditions of origin. Here the emergence is motivated by the need for reconciliation between ontological extremes.
And if this is fulfilled perfectly by wisdom, then with it another similar value is impermissible due to its very excess. This is where speculation about the spirit is important. It is sometimes assumed that it is parallel and, as it were, independent on a par with Sophia, but then it will have no reason or purpose for being itself. Hence it is natural that the identity of wisdom and spirit is critically affirmed with the assimilation of this understanding to the Apostle Paul, who was supposedly generally determined by the pneumatology of apocryphal writing.
Critical calculations are saved, and, however, the very accuracy indicates that in them all the parts fit together. This does not speak about the objectivism of impartiality and makes us guess about other stretches of the interpretation being analyzed, in which the spirit is suppressed by wisdom, not without a desire to akin these concepts to Philon’s theory, where the first is almost completely unnoticeable and is completely absorbed by logos. All these observations oblige us to strictly consider the actual facts. In them, sometimes wisdom and the Holy Spirit of God are put forward in the equal dignity of mutually replacing designations (Prov. Sol. IX, 16), - only both of them are united not in themselves, but according to their source in the sending from God and in this respect are identical with each other, like two reflections that agreeably reveal before our eyes the radiance of the impregnable sun from different sides. This means that this community only indicates the inseparable combination of all qualities, without merging them with each other. Naturally, enlightening divine wisdom (IX.
10) pseudo - Solomon calls it not just spirit, but the spirit of wisdom (VII, 7) - to express its special property in rationality. Therefore, it does not cover itself entirely and is for her (I, 4 – 6) the holy spirit of education and love for mankind, which is inherent in her nature. Consequently, wisdom simply contains some properties of pneumaticity, which does not disappear in it without a trace. Now the converse also necessarily follows, that wisdom is not absolutely adequate to the spirit and does not exhaust its entirety. And we believe that “in wisdom there is a spirit” (VII, 22, Latin est enim in illa spiritus intellectus – intelligentiae), which through this is included in the scope only in the first part, which is why a little lower wisdom is directly mentioned (VII, 24) according to the peculiarity of its own being. If we look closely at the structure of the phrase, we will see that it states the equality of wisdom with spirit only under its known definitions, according to which it is likened to sophia, without being it in the totality of its merits.
And if the enumeration captures the entire mass of pneumatic traits, then we will have to accept that wisdom, having yet new specific attributes, is richer than the spirit and again differs from it. In all these points, the difference is quite characteristic - and the defenders of the opposing view themselves do not hide the fact that the pseudo-Solomon, who conveyed about the incorruptible Spirit of God abiding in everything (XII, 1), distinguishes it from wisdom according to the reflex of his primordial Jewish religious contemplation. In this case, we do not have the right to encroach on the author’s beliefs and smooth them out according to our own considerations.
Undoubtedly, there will be some difference in spirit and wisdom. But along with it, their close solidarity is no less undeniable, in which the spirit is in wisdom, and wisdom is inseparable from the spirit, for (VII, 7) not genitivus appositionis, where the appended more precisely designates the same object, as just such. This conjecture is not confirmed by the 1497 parallel mention (I, 5), since it contains an irresistible qualifying energy, which in a similar saying emphasizes that wisdom is characteristic of the spirit. This interweaving of two disparate currents - separation and fusion - is extremely important and helps to accurately understand both factors. Their relationships, disparate almost to the point of exclusivity, are revealed satisfactorily only on the assumption that they themselves are identical in their source and differ only in the reproduction in themselves of its special manifestations. It is natural that in their bearer the latter are combined and therefore can be equalized and replaced in a solidary testimony to the incarnating principle, in which the power of God is spiritual (XI, 21).
In turn, it is equally true that reflections of different sides, without connection with their subject, are certainly separate, revealing different aspects to the perceiving subject. Subsequently, it turns out that this feature does not have an independent ontological support, since each member of the pair draws its existence from its object and, when separated from it, cannot exist in the same way as a ray disappears when the sun disappears. This directly suggests that the personality of a literary image does not exceed the dimensions of poetic personification and does not in the least speak about an individual personality, even if vaguely depicted by the author. For the speaker sometimes with characteristic hypostaticity (Prov. S. I, 7), this is sufficiently illustrated by the cited example (VII, 7), in which the “spirit of wisdom” sent down from above is identified with the divinely enlightened human mind. This means that in pseudo-Solomon the spirit does not turn out to be strictly personal even by design itself - and this is quite natural for the Jewish contemplation of 1498 in the pre-Grace era. 1499
In this case, the universally accepted affinity of pneumaticity with wisdom involuntarily inclines one to an equal judgment about the second. What do the closest qualifications give on this issue? They are collected in abundance with a detailed description (VII, 22 ff.) of the wise artist of everything and, apparently, are designed for absolute comprehensiveness. Here Sophia appears to be the true teacher of humanity in everything hidden and obvious, and the basis for this is that she has a spiritual nature (VII, 23) with all its most important properties. The latter ensure her perfect fulfillment of her educational mission, however, under the condition of handling her, when her spirit penetrates into all intelligent, pure, subtle spirits (VII, 23). In this case, wisdom will be in line with others, which will assimilate its own three predicates and even with intensification (cf. VII, 22). That’s why the whole difference between them is more power-like or quantitative than qualitative-essential. And about the second group there can hardly be any doubt that it simply assumes minds capable and worthy of divine illumination.
This is indisputable by the very mixture of signs of pneumaticity, since in wisdom itself they mark certain qualities and do not at all indicate personalities. Otherwise, we would get the extremely strange idea that personal sophia contains many individualities. And since this is in every possible way impossible and unnatural, then the “spirits” will be simple personifications of intellectual and moral human differences, which are mentioned (VII, 27) with the expressiveness that wisdom, passing from generation to generation into holy souls, prepares the friends of God and the prophets, but is inaccessible to the evil soul (I, 4). With this understanding, we will have to accept that - due to its complete congeniality as personification - wisdom itself does not emerge from the boundaries of living poetic hypostasis. However, this does not destroy it at all into mere abstraction, since by the meaning of the rapprochement itself it turns out to be the inseparable and always effective power of the all-wise God.
In the meantime, the personality is not found, and further enumeration does not provide it, for here its insight is causally motivated in sophia by reference to the purest natural mobility (VII, 24), which is justified by natural purity as the purest divine outpouring (VII, 25), which wisdom is in the dignity of the bright radiation of eternal light (VII, 26). This sequential selection of images is connected by mutually subordinate ones and through them all its members converge to their starting point in the disclosure and justification of its wisdom, the everywhere penetrating pneumaticity, with which all its typical features necessarily and completely share, since they characterize them. But according to this pneumatic insight, wisdom in no way appears to us as a person, and therefore even less can it be such according to other predicates that describe an already personified property.
And no matter how high the plasticity of this most relief delineation, where the author exhausts all the colors to bring his figure to life as much as possible, - with all this, we do not have strong exegetical urges to see a person in her until it is convincingly argued that the object of this characteristic is personal - in the “spirit” of wisdom. The second is seen to be the opposite, which is why the first will be a corresponding personification that does not directly testify to the existence of its own hypostasis. This is reinforced by the final result, in which wisdom, in its superiority, is opposed to malice (VII, 30), and the latter is never declared personal, even if it refers to the personal culprit in the devil.
So far we have not gone beyond personifications. What do the numerous other qualifications say? In them, wisdom determines the competence of knowledge and states its actual saving power among people based on historical examples. On the authority side, its advantages are unshakable. She dwells in holy heaven at the throne of the glory of God (IX, 10), sits on the throne of God (IX, 4) and is, as it were, the cohabitant of the Lord (VIII, 3). With such intimacy, she is inseparable from the Almighty, actively participates in all His functions, and knows everything. She is with God, understands His works and was present at the very consciousness of the world (IX, 9). In this title, wisdom is naturally initiated into all the secrets of the mind of God and, in the conceived divine plans, chooses the best for implementation (VIII, 4), served as a mediator of fulfillment (IX, 1) in the cosmic dispensation (VII, 21), which incommensurably exceeds all human art (VIII, 6).
All this, of course, protects the prerogatives under discussion, but only because wisdom is close to the Almighty. All the gravity of pseudo-Solomon’s considerations is directed towards protecting this continuity, which provides such exceptional awareness. This tendency already does not favor the hypothesis of termination, which is alien and, perhaps, hostile to the special author’s intentions. And if we weigh all the particular predicates in all their energy, then Sophia will appear before us only as the wisdom of God and will merge with God in integral individuality. Any attempts at disunity will lead to the fact that, despite its divine advantages, it would supplant the deity itself. This is not a simple meeting at all, but Sophia takes on the high role of independently implementing divine projects, among which she evaluates the degree of suitability.
It is clear that with personal interpretation, the active divinity suppresses and obscures the ideally inventing one, turning it into an abstraction, when once again the only wise God remains. Consequently: if the tendency of the entire description is not in harmony with the bifurcation, then realistic details, which do not allow a strictly literal understanding, do not affirm it. In them we should see the poetic plasticity of a living image of the living power of God. This is undoubtedly true, but it is clearly inappropriate to apply them to different objects. Thus, wisdom “has cohabitation with God” (VIII, 3), but Solomon “decided to take her into cohabitation” (VIII, 9); the second does not presuppose personality, and therefore the first does not clearly testify to it.
This means that in this group it is impossible to see direct evidence in favor of a special individuality precisely because of their sharp hypostaticism, almost tilting towards bigism with the absorption of God in His wisdom. It goes without saying that for the Judeo-Biblical thinking of the anonymous writer, the completely opposite was dogmatically more reliable. 1500 This also illuminates references to the facts of discovery in history. Here, wisdom was the divine savior for the chosen ones from the time of the fall of Adam (X, 1 ff.), always appeared benevolent in his righteous descendants and especially patronized the people of God when she delivered them from oppression, resisted kings with miracles and signs, was a cover during the day and replaced the starry body at night, led them through the Black Sea, drowning their enemies, and throwing them out of the abyss, etc. The reader of the New Testament books involuntarily recalls the corresponding concepts regarding the providential actions of the divine Son and in this insight considers similar speculations of the distant past.
But through this, the natural gradualness in the revelation of the mysteries of God is disrupted. Here an objective judgment must prevail, which, recognizing the factual identity of the phenomenon, considers each stage of discovery among people in a given historical perspective. From this point of view, the pseudo-Solomon picture takes on a slightly different character. Her supreme figure is truly full of inexhaustible vitality with all the prerogatives of divine individuality. Wisdom is imbued with divine greatness and functions with the autonomous authority of the arbiter of the destinies of the world along with God (cf. X, 5). Jehovah Himself seems to fade away before her, almost to the point of disappearing, because Sophia stands up for the Almighty in all His incomparability. Then we will have that with wisdom there is no longer room for God, and since this is absurd, it is clear that here is the Lord before us,