Personality and “Space” in the poetry of Gregory the Theologian

The article introduces the poetic work of one of the most prominent fathers of the Christian Church and, perhaps, the most prolific poet of his time - St. Gregory the Theologian. The central motif of his lyrics is considered - the opposition of the world (“space”) and personality. The article concludes that Gregory partially adopted the ancient ideas about personality as a “mask”, “guise”, but the central motif in Gregory’s lyrics is the view of personality as an incomprehensible mystery. An attempt is also being made to place a new, Christian view of personality on a conceptual level with the Trinitarian theology of St. Gregory. In recent years, it is gratifying to observe the awakening in our country of research and translation interest in the poetic heritage of St. Gregory the Theologian. In fact, the saint’s very difficult to understand verses, written in antique meters and a very archaic poetic language, although they were translated back in the 19th century, the translation was done in prose and, for obvious reasons, did not arouse noticeable interest. In fact, translating poetry into prose is perhaps the most thankless task for a translator. Let’s imagine a prose presentation of the poems of Homer or, for example, “Eugene Onegin” and ask a rhetorical question - who will read it? In recent issues of the “Theological Bulletin” of the Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary, a laudable attempt has been made to make the poems of St. Gregory accessible to the Russian reader in a poetic translation in the dimensions of the original 1. We hope that our article will continue this wonderful endeavor and will contribute to the study of the poetic heritage of the saint in our country. St. Gregory the Theologian (c. 329 - c. 390), Bishop of Nazianza in Cappadocia, the most prominent teacher of the Church and preacher, is somewhat less known as a poet. Meanwhile, according to W. von Wilamowitz, he is “the most prolific and remarkable poet of his era” 2. Indeed, the total volume of poetic lines he wrote is close to 19 thousand. However, this is not what makes the history of early Christian (and to a certain extent all European) literature incomplete without his name: but in many ways, the poetry of Gregory the Theologian directly anticipates the blessed one. Augustine and indirectly - all the later tradition of confessional literature (Dante, Abelard, Petrarch, Rousseau, Pascal, Tolstoy, etc.) 3 This work examines some of the most characteristic of St. Gregory and his era, ways to approach the philosophical problem of the relationship between the world and the individual. The most important element of the lyrics of St. Gregory is an intense dialogue with oneself, built in question-and-answer form. What was I born as? And who am I now? What will I soon become? 4 - these are the questions that open the short poem “On the insignificance of the external man” 5. I am. But what is this “am”? The old me has disappeared forever. Now I am different, and I will be different, if I am destined to be. In the general flow, I am just a stream... (“On Human Nature” 25–27. Col. 757). The essence of the “I” is comprehended through introspection, on the one hand, and the orientation of the “I” in relation to the external world, on the other. First of all, the “I” separates itself from the world, even calls it to litigation because it circles it like an ant (“Conversation with the World” 1. Col. 752). The sensation of a cosmic vortex, a wheel, a stream of variability that attracts a person is experienced extremely painfully 6 . In parallel, the theme of the duality of human nature unfolds: Created by the hand of Christ, different unity of elements - Above and below. After all, my body arose from dust, The great mind breathed the spirit into this inert flesh. (“On the corruption of human nature” 5–8. Col. 754) The antithesis of “spirit” and “flesh” permeates many poems: Is the mind associated with matter, the mind with the flesh, and lightness with the heaviness? After all, they tirelessly fight among themselves, (“On Human Nature” 66–68. Co1. 760). The enmity of spirit and flesh is compared with the eternal struggle between water and fire: Dual below myself, My body arose from the dust - So it is drawn down to its beloved land. God's breath - the soul - receives eternal thirst A better fate, striving to soar above the skies, So the spring water runs down, and the hot flame He knows only one true path: he jumps high, (“On the worthlessness of the outer man” L50–156. Col. 777) The idea of the universal flow of formation, fluidity and corruption of matter is known from antiquity - it is not without reason that Gregory contains direct allusions to Heraclitus 7 . However, for the ancient consciousness, the cosmos as a whole is still an enduring value, as is a person striving for harmony with it 8. St. Gregory, on the contrary, is denied the world as such, in its cosmic integrity: Winter again, summer again, spring gives way to autumn 9, My life is two nights and days with light and shadow. Sky, earth, ocean - nothing is new to me anymore - Does it stand firmly, or is it tossed like a whirlwind? Everything disgusted me. Oh, grant me a different and new life Space - for them I am ready to endure everything to the end 10, (“On the worthlessness of the outer man” 125–130. Col. 775) Rejecting the ancient cosmos, Gregory inevitably comes to the rejection of the unthinkable without this cosmos of plastic personality-mask 11. Above me is another face, man-made - if It will be torn down, alas! - scary to look at And again introspection, the beginning of which is a special kind of questions to oneself: Who am I? Where did you come into this world from? Covered by the earth Who will I be when I rise again from my grave? (“On the ways of life” 1–2. Col. 778) What was I born as? Who now? What will I be? I don't know for sure. And even the smartest of me hardly knows about that. (“On Human Nature” 17–18. Col. 757). The intensity of thought and emotion, reflected in the metaphor “I sat gnawing at my spirit” (θυμ�ν ε�δων - “On Human Nature” 2), sometimes prompts us to doubt (perhaps somewhat rhetorically) the unshakable truths of the Christian faith: If you are from heaven, soul, what kind are you from? Tell me! If the divine Spirit gave you to mortals as an inheritance, As you yourself believe, correct yourself, then I will believe... If you are not from heaven, what is your essence? Shameful It would be empty for me to be filled with pride. (“On Human Nature” 75–77, 85–86. Col. 761, 762) Penetrating the poems of St. Gregory, internal dialogue with oneself (soliloquium) continues the early antique tradition of confessional-type psychagogy, dating back to the Pythagorean practice of evening self-report 12. This tradition of “correction of morals,” subsequently adopted by the Stoics (Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius), had a huge influence on late antique philosophy. However, in antiquity soliloquium did not become a separate genre and did not receive any perfect literary expression 13. This happened, in our opinion, because soliloquium presupposes the unconditional priority of the given “I” over the external world, and therefore the detachment of the “I” from this world. Such a complex, prepared by Pythagoreanism and Platonism, is clearly formed in Christianity, which proceeds from the Old Testament concept of a personal God, i.e. divine Person. It seems far from accidental that Gregory the Theologian, who created samples of the most intimate lyrics, worked all his life to substantiate the dogma of the incomprehensible personality of the Trinity 14. It was the personality (hypostasis, persona) that was posed in the Christian theology of his era as the main problem of doctrine. Just as in his “Mysterious Chants” he gets lost in the contradictory predicates of the Divine, 15 he perceives the personal “I” as an insoluble riddle, a contradiction beyond all understanding. Awareness of the parallelism between the human personality and the divine personality is characteristic of Christian doctrine, starting with the revelations of the Apostle Paul 16. For this reason, dogmatic reflection on the nature of the Holy Trinity and the psychological analysis of one’s own personality in the work of Gregory the Theologian are inseparable, and the opposition of oneself to the outside world fully correlates with the supra-mundaneity and extra-worldliness of the three Persons of the Divine. Such an approach to man remained alien to ancient cosmic objectivism (which made itself felt even among the Stoics, who developed the most complete ideal of a self-valued personality, but never opposed it to the world), and soliloquium never took shape into an independent genre, close to the genres of parenesis and diatribe 17. Despite all the subtle intuitions of ancient poetry and philosophy, they not only did not solve, but did not even pose the problem of “I” as an individual-personal riddle, because man was perceived as a given and needed anything - beauty, intelligence, valor - but not an explanation 18 . In the poetry of Gregory the Theologian, the plastic ideal of the “square”, self-sufficient ancient personality is destroyed 19, and for the first time, as a fact of theology and, at the same time, high poetry, a new tradition of spiritualistic reflection on the mystery of the new “I” is laid 20. It is this tradition, the classic example of which was the “Confession” of Blessed. Augustine, defines by his personal pathos and psychologism of later European literature. Key words: personality, world, “I”, “dialogue with oneself” (soliloquium), Gregory the Theologian, early Byzantine poetry. PERSON AND THE WORLD IN POETICAL WORKS OF ST GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN (Institute of Russian language, Russian Academy of Sciences; St Tikhon’s University) The article introduces into some substantial topics of poetical works of St. Gregory the Theologian – one of the most eminent Fathers of the Christian Church and perhaps the most fruitful poet of his time. Author studies the central motive of St. Gregory’s poetical inspiration – namely, the confrontation between the world (cosmos) and a human person. As a result of the study the conclusion is made, that St. Gregory was surely aware of the antique concept of a human person as a mask (persona), but he definitely rejected this image to adopt a quite new idea of ​​person as an enigma and a mystery. It seems that this specially Christian view of human person stood in tight connection with the theological approaches of St. Gregory to the mysterious entity and unity of Persons in the Holy Trinity. Keywords: person, world, soliloquium, St. Gregory the Theologian, early byzantine poetry. Zuevsky A, priest. About the poetry of St. Gregory the Theologian // Theological Bulletin. 2004. 4. pp. 69–90; Genke St. Gregory the Theologian. Selected poems // Theological Bulletin. 2008–2009. No. 8–9. pp. 17–67. Von Wilamowitz-Mollendorf U. Die griechische Litteratur des Altertums // Die griechische und lateinische Litteratur und Sprache. Leipzig; B., 1912. S. 294. Von Christ W. Geschichte der griechischen Literatur. Munchen, 1924. T. 2. H. 2. S. 1419; Cantarella R. Poeti bizantini. Milano, 1948. Vol. 3. P. 55; Misch G. Geschichte der Biographie. Leipzig; B., 1907. Bd. 1. S. 344, 402. Here and below are fragments from the poems of St. Gregory is given by us in our own translation from the Greek in the size of the original. PG 37. Col. 766. Further, all references to the texts of St. Gregory are given according to this edition. “On the Corruptibility of Human Nature” 1–4. Col. 753; “On the ways of life” 25. Col. 780; "On Human Life" 1. Col. 787 etc. “On Human Nature” 31. Col. 758; “On Human Life” 16. Col. 787. See: Losev A.F. History of ancient aesthetics: Early classics. M., 1963. S. 39–40; He same. History of ancient aesthetics: Sophists. Socrates. Plato. M., 1969. P. 48. At this point one cannot help but recall the stanza of Horace’s immortal ode: Frigora mitescunt zephyris, ver proterit aestas Pomifer autumnus fruges eff uderit et mox Here, Horace anticipates the very idea of “frailty,” the fluidity of the world, which would later be characteristic of St. Gregory. However, for Horace, the transience of everything earthly is a reason to appreciate the world and rush to enjoy its beauty. Gregory draws completely different, ascetic conclusions from this idea. See the words of St. John of the Climacus: “Renunciation of the world is arbitrary hatred of the substance praised by the worldly, and the rejection of nature in order to obtain those benefits that are above nature” (Lairdance I. 4). On the ancient interpretation of the human personality as a mask, see: Averintsev S.S. Greek “literature” and Middle Eastern “literature” // Typology and interconnection of literatures of the ancient world. M., 1971. S. 217, 257 (note 30). Wed. pseudo-Pythagorean “Golden Poems”: Don't let sleep fall on your tired eyes, Until you consider each task completed in a day: “What have I done wrong? What did you do? What duty have I not fulfilled? Starting with this, sort it out in order. And then Repent of your bad deeds or rejoice in your good ones. (Quoted from: Unt Ya. “Reflections” as a literary and philosophical monument // Marcus Aurelius Antonin. Reflections / A.K. Gavrilov, trans., Ya. Unt, comm. L., 1985. P. 100). This also applies to the highest achievement of the Stoic culture of introspection - the Meditations” of Marcus Aurelius (Misch. Op. cit. S. 265; Unt. Cited. cit. P. 97). See: Florovsky G.V. Eastern fathers of the 4th century. Paris, 1931. P. 107. Averintsev S.S. Literature // Culture of Byzantium. IV – 1st half. VII century M., 1984. P. 305. See: 1 Cor 2. 11: “What man knows what is in a man, except the spirit of man that dwells in him? Likewise, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.” See also: Misch. Op. cit. S. 397. The view of a person’s personality as an image of persona divina is inherent in the entire Christian Middle Ages (Gurevich A. Ya. Categories of medieval culture. M., 1984. P. 306). Unt. Quote op. pp. 101–102, 110. See: Diogenes Laertius. About the life, teachings and sayings of famous philosophers. M., 1979. P. 181: “(according to Plato,) independent is something that does not need anything for its explanation, for example, a person, a horse and other animals - none of this requires explanation.” See: Losev. Quote op. P. 309. See: Cantarella. Op. cit. P. 61; details: Misch. Op. cit. S. 395–396, 401.