Глава 1. Христианская традиция первого тысячелетия об обожении

1.1 The general view of modern researchers on patristic works on deification Some researchers, following Adolf Harnack, argued that the theology of deification was entirely dictated by the influence of Hellenistic philosophy and mystery cults on the Church; it only obscures the content of the Gospels, and therefore should be completely forgotten. 1 However, already in the 30s of the 20th century, a number of works appeared that showed that the theology of deification is a biblical idea in Greek garb, the equivalent of which in the West is the theology of sanctifying grace. This theology, in terms characteristic of the culture of that time, reveals the teachings of St. Paul about participation in the Body of Christ and the idea of ​​the Evangelist John about the Incarnate Logos as the source of divine life. The need to understand Revelation posed many questions for church authors. In what sense can people be called “gods” (Ps. 82 (82):6)? How is the destiny of a Christian connected with the economy of the Incarnation? What does a Christian thinker mean by “likeness to God”? How can the elevation of the soul to the divine state be reconciled with the fundamental difference between the created and the uncreated? How can one be “involved” with God while at the same time remaining a creature? What exactly is the role of the Sacraments and morality? 2 Despite the fact that theological understanding of the question of man’s involvement with God is one of the important themes of Christian authors, the Church Fathers of the first centuries, speaking about involvement with God, did not consider it necessary to explain in detail the meaning of the terms they used. They most often spoke of deification metaphorically. The meaning of the concepts used was clarified from the context. The formal definition of deification (ϑέωσις) as “the acquisition of godlikeness and the greatest possible union with God” belongs to Pseudo-Dionysius, a 6th-century author. And only St. Maximus the Confessor in the 7th century made the discourse on deification an independent theological topic. For works written after this time, we should no longer talk about the metaphorical, but about the technical use of terms and clear definitions. 3 Norman Russell, exploring the question of how the early Church Fathers use the language of deification, proposed a convenient classification. According to him, they talk about deification in one of three senses: nominal, analogical or metaphorical. When it comes to the nominal sense, it refers to the biblical use of the word “god” as a title of honor when applied to a person. Analogical usage somewhat expands the nominal: for example, Moses was a god to Pharaoh in the same sense in which a wise man is god to a foolish man; or men become sons and gods “by grace,” as opposed to Christ, the Son and God by nature. Metaphorical application is more complicated: there are possible approaches here, ethical and realistic. The ethical approach assumes that deification is the acquisition of godlikeness through asceticism or philosophical effort, when a believer acquires certain divine attributes through imitation of God. The realistic approach means that a person is transformed in one way or another in the process of deification. The basis for this kind of discourse was the doctrine of participation (μέϑεξις) in God. It arose initially within Platonic philosophy and denoted the essential participation of one element in the existence of another element belonging to a different ontological type. To say that a saint “participates” in holiness meant that there is an essential (not external) and at the same time asymmetrical connection that does not imply a relationship between equals. 4 Analogy, imitation and involvement form a single continuum, not being fundamentally different types of relationships. Moreover, the realist approach based on the participation model has two aspects, ontological and dynamic. The ontological aspect is associated with the transformation of human nature in the Incarnation, and the dynamic aspect is associated with the acquisition by the individual of the deified humanity of Christ through the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. 5 In the first period, church authors most often used the language of deification nominally or analogically. The beginning of this tradition can be observed in the works of Philo of Alexandria. The realist approach goes back to the rabbinic exegesis of Ps. 81 (82):6, who spoke of achieving immortality through faithful observance of the Torah. Subsequently, the realistic approach prevailed in the Alexandrian tradition, and the ethical approach in the Cappadocian one. 6 1.2.1 Greek ante-Nicene authors In the pre-Nicene period, the deepest foundations of the theology of deification were laid by Irenaeus of Lyons, who developed the idea of ​​likening Christ. His works emphasize the holistic perfection of man, including his body, and not just individual non-corporeal elements, as an eschatological goal. First of all, Irenaeus emphasized not the ontological aspect of identification with God, but following the life example of Christ as described in the Gospels. He does not have a special term for deification, but he writes that thanks to the union of human and divine natures in the Incarnation of the Son of God, His life, death and Resurrection, it is possible to restore the righteous state of man, his incorruptibility, adoption to God and seeing God face to face. 7 It is important that Irenaeus does not consider the restoration of original righteousness to be the ultimate goal of man. Speaking in Adversus haereses, 4.33.4 about recapitulatio, he describes the endless process of man's self-transcendence towards perfection. He also has expressions that explicitly indicate the problematic of deification: through Christ a person can “transition into God” (transiet in Deum) 8. According to Adversus haereses, 3.17.1, Christ gives the disciples the power of "restoration into God" (regenerationis in Deum). 9 The active force of the divine salvation of man, according to Irenaeus, is the Holy Spirit, who personally dwells in Christians. For the deification of man, the cooperation of the human spirit with the Holy Spirit, the source of divine life, is necessary. The Father grants man incorruptibility and immortality through his two “hands,” the Son and the Holy Spirit. Thus, deification is a Trinitarian action that grants vision of God, achieved through divine adoption. At the same time, Irenaeus does not erase the ontological difference between God and man, and speaks of the realization of the potential of man inherent in creation to become not only the “image”, but also the “likeness” of God as the goal of human existence. 10 Speaking about the origin of the theology of deification, we should mention St. Justin and especially his Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew. Justin was influenced by the aforementioned rabbinic exegesis of Psalm 81(82):6 - he argued that since the Church is the new Israel, the followers of Christ are exactly the gods that the Psalm speaks of. Justin uses the expression θεός ϒίννομαι (to become God), meaning the reconciliation of man with God, the restoration of justice, eternal life in the glory of God, free from suffering and corruption. For him, this is a consequence of being adopted as sons to God. 11 Justin, who used many provisions of Greek philosophy in his works, pointed out the ontological connection between the beginningless God and created man. He was characterized by the doctrine of λόϒος σπερμάτικος as the means through which man’s involvement with God is realized: it is these seeds of the Logos that allow man to receive knowledge about God. However, the fullness of perfection and wisdom is only available through Christ, the Incarnate Logos. The human mind is unable to see God unless it is enlightened by the Holy Spirit. 12 In Theophilus of Antioch in his letter to Autolycus, as in the writings of Justin, we find the expression θεός ϒίννομαι, but he already has the idea that a righteous person after the resurrection can surpass the level of human existence and become something greater than the first Adam was. 13 Although, of course, he does not consider the state of immortality achieved by man to be in the full sense equal to the state of God. 14 Clement of Alexandria, speaking about deification, introduces a variety of language: often he even calls a Christian, a “true Gnostic,” a god - θεός. 15 He (like another author of that period, Hippolytus of Rome) describes the sanctifying action of the Incarnate Logos in the Christian with the infinitive θεοποέιν, from which Clement formed the substantive form θεοποίησις, which later became a technical term among many Greek Fathers. He writes: “That the Word of God became man can be seen from the fact that man can become god” (ἄντροπος ϒένεται ϑεός) 16. Despite the influence of Hellenistic philosophy, his understanding of deification is associated with the most important Christian motifs: adoption to God, theology of the glorified state, martyrdom. He claims that only Christ is the image and likeness of God, other people are just an image, or more precisely, an image of an image. Clement speaks of God using the Platonic term νοῦς, and the “image of God” does not refer to the whole human being, like Irenaeus, but only to the soul, the seat of the mind. He describes the likeness to God in terms of Hellenistic philosophy, but in a Christian context, substantiating it Christologically, and not relying on the Platonic principles of divine ideas. 17 At the same time, he accepts many of the theses of the Stoic and media-Platonic philosophical systems: he associates human advancement along the path of perfection and the achievement of God-likeness with the elimination of emotions, purification, contemplation, the search for God, and detachment from everything sensory-perceptible. The presence of reason, according to Clement, constitutes the ontological connection of man with God. And at the same time, Clement (Stromata, 2.16.74.1) points to the transcendence of the divine nature: “God by his nature has nothing similar to us.” 18 Human nature cannot be identified with divine nature, not only ontologically, but also in terms of virtues. It should be noted that Clement speaks only about the subordinate position of rational created nature in relation to the divine, but not about the difference in God’s essence and energies, as Gregory Palamas later did. 19 The result of deification for Clement is immortality, an angelic existence and the gift of spiritual vision - the ability to contemplate God (τὸ ϑεόν ἐποπτεύμεν) with the help of the Holy Spirit. 20 Origen borrowed from Clement both the terminology of deification and the Platonic view of man. For him, redemption does not lead to the unification (recapitulatio) of all in Christ, as with Irenaeus, but to the restoration of the original state of heavenly harmony, lost due to the fact that certain intellectual substances turned away from God, resulting in them becoming men or demons. For Origen, the very physicality of man is a defect - this idea is in line with Plato’s philosophy. With the general resurrection, all people will receive a spiritual body without flesh and blood; the idea of ​​bodily resurrection seemed to Origen a misunderstanding of the meaning of Scripture. 21 Unlike Clement, he considered deification not a process of moral purification of the “Christian Gnostic,” but in the participation of a rational creature in the divinity of the Father through the action of the Son and the Holy Spirit. His emphasis was not on ethics but on the dynamic relationship with the self-existent God. Such attributes as goodness, life, immortality are not proper to the created, but belong in the full sense to the Father alone. The creation is the more deified the more these attributes are communicated to it through the second and third Persons of the Trinity. 22 Imitation of God becomes more accessible to man through the Incarnation of Christ; “if God once became a man, then you must also be like Him... you must become god (te quoque necesse erit deum) in Christ Jesus.” 23 The goal of man, according to Origen, is to return to the state of mind that was before the initial fall - apocatastasis. 24 We can say that we are talking about the restoration of deification, that is, the knowledge of God, the likening of the contemplator to the contemplated (which is reminiscent of Aristotle’s epistemology) in the direct vision of God. 25 This is rather a restoration of the original state than deification in the proper sense. In the ante-Nicene period, the development of the doctrine of deification was continued by such Greek-speaking authors as Gregory the Wonderworker († 270) and Methodius of Olympus († 311). Gregory united in a single synthesis such disparate aspects of deification in Origen as moral likeness to God, virtuous life, and mystical union. Through self-knowledge, a person gains the ability to purify his mind so much as to contemplate the reflection of God in the soul. Methodius insisted on the physical aspect of deification, polemicizing against the dualistic tendencies of Origen; in thought he is closer to Irenaeus of Lyons. 26 1.2.2 Latin Ante-Nicene theology on the problem of deification The doctrine of the deification of man, although it developed mainly in the Greek-speaking provinces of the Roman Empire, was not limited to them. The fundamental principle of Irenaeus of Lyons, that the Son of God became man so that we could become like Him, was widely known in Latin-speaking territories, although it was not the main theme of the theology of Latin authors. 27 Their terminology for deification was not as broad as that of the Greeks. Most often, they simply transliterated the Greek word θέωσις, and the word ἀποθέωσις was translated as consecratio, the official term used in the Roman Empire to declare the deceased emperor a god. 28 It should be noted here that although many of the terms of Christian discourse on the deification of man first appear in the Greco-Roman world in the context of the cult of Roman emperors or Hellenistic rulers, Christian authors imbue these words with a completely different meaning, emanating from divine Revelation. In order to convey the very idea of ​​the deification of a Christian, Western authors used the Latin word deificatio, which arose in a pagan context. Tertullian was the first Latin-language author to use the terminology of deification in a Christian context. He asserted the supreme superiority of God, denying that the text of Ps. 82:1.6 leads to polytheism. While the supremacy of God is undeniable, divinity, according to Tertullian, is not something completely unattainable for people. Commenting in the work Against Hermogenes on the words “God became in the company of gods; pronounced judgment among the gods,” he explains that the possession of divine attributes by people is possible only by the grace of God, and not by some strictly human quality. He believes that the “gods” of the Psalm are those who have been adopted by God by grace. Referring to 2 Pet. 1:4, Tertullian anticipates Origen's commentary on this verse, written ten years later, and writes about man's participation in the divine and the acquisition of an incorruptible nature. 29 1.3 Post-Nicene Greek theology In general, the Ante-Nicene Fathers spoke of deification more metaphorically than metaphysically. However, after the adoption of the Nicene Dogma about the deity of Christ, the question of assimilating Christ began to give rise to deeper reflections on the assimilation of man to God. 30 The possibility of such an assimilation follows from the Incarnation of the Son of God, which presupposes a higher goal for man than simply restoring the status that he had before the Fall. St. Athanasius of Alexandria, in disputes with the Arians, defended the divinity of the Son, relying on the argument that “the Word became flesh so that we could be deified.” He introduced the noun ϑεοπόιησις into the language, and, following Origen, developed the theology of man's dynamic participation in the divine life. But, unlike Origen, he took a more apophatic position, and spoke about the involvement of people in the deified flesh of the incarnate Logos. Through this participation they participate in the divinity with which the body of Christ was endowed, and therefore inherit immortality and incorruptibility. 31 The Incarnation does not abolish the ontological difference between God and creation, does not eliminate the incomprehensibility of the divine nature, but makes it accessible to man. 32 Athanasius's emphasis on the transcendence of God and creation ex nihilo created some tension with the rationale for the possibility of human participation in God. Athanasius, following Clement and Origen, solved this difficulty by pointing out that a person can participate in God as much as his nature allows (κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν). Considering later debates about the difference between essence and energy in God, it should be noted that Athanasius does not have such a division; thus, he describes the Logos as the “essential energy” (ἐνούσιος ἐνέργεια) of the Father. 33 In the 4th century, the theme of deification gradually gained popularity. Influenced by the works of St. Athanasius, who relied on the argument of deification in the fight against the Arians, the problem of the deification of man gradually acquires great importance for Christian spirituality. Cyril of Jerusalem (315–87), in his Catechetical or Mystical Catecheses, without any preliminary explanation, speaks of the Holy Spirit as the one who deifies (ϑεοπόιον). The Cappadocian fathers adopted the doctrine of deification from the Alexandrian school. They do not say that people are deified in a realistic sense; the emphasis is on the ascent of the soul to God, as well as on transformation in the Sacrament of Baptism. To be a Christian means to imitate the life of Christ, which he deified in the body he accepted, so that we can regain the godlikeness we have lost. This imitation is not something external. Although it mainly consists of overcoming the passions and freeing the soul from the limitations that the physicality imposes, it also consists of putting on Christ through baptism. We can never become gods in the proper sense; it is impossible to bridge the gap between created and self-existent being. Norman Russell argues that for the Cappadocians, deification is nothing more than a figure of speech. Gregory of Nazianzus, who was the first of the Church Fathers to use the noun ϑέωσις, speaks of deification in the strict sense only in relation to the life of Jesus; Gregory of Nyssa - in relation to the physical body of Christ (he speaks of the Incarnation as the unity of God and humanity, as a result of which the latter is deified) and the Eucharistic bread. But none of them applies this concept to believers. 34 Basil the Great in his works almost did not use the specific language of deification (when he uses it, it is most often in a negative sense, protesting against equating creation with God), limiting himself to biblical terms and images. However, he developed the very theme of deification: union with God, acquisition of grace and holiness, overcoming death. He was the only Cappadocian who accepted the distinction introduced by Eunomius between the essence and energy (i.e. action) of God. Vasily wrote that we know God from his energies that reach us, but the essence of God remains incomprehensible and incomprehensible: as far as it is concerned, human knowledge is limited by the awareness of the incomprehensibility of God. 35 In general, the language of deification in the 4th century was used primarily as a rhetorical tool, and the question of deification itself remained on the periphery of other theological debates. Clear definitions had not yet been developed, and systematic development of the issue was still to come. In the fifth century, the Alexandrian tradition reached its full development in the writings of Cyril of Alexandria, who engaged the discourse of deification in polemics with Judaism, Apollinarianism, and Nestorianism. In many ways, he continues the thoughts of Athanasius. In his works, for the first time in patristics, the phrase about “partakers of the divine nature” from 2 Pet. 1:4. The term ϕύσις (nature) for Cyril, according to Norman Russell, had a more dynamic meaning than ὀυσία (essence), and did not represent the divine essence itself, but such an aspect of the divine that can be transmitted. Participation in the divine nature is understood by Cyril as the restoration of God's image and likeness, which is expressed in sanctification, adoption to God, and the acquisition of incorruptibility. 36 The main role in the Byzantine theology of deification was played not so much by Cyril of Alexandria as by Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor. For Dionysius, deification is, first of all, the acquisition of mystical unity and similarity. He borrowed the language and concepts for his discourse both from Gregory of Nazianzus (talking about the exaltation of the soul) and from the Neoplatonist Proclus (when it comes to the desire for mystical union). 37 However, it should be noted that Christian authors sought to avoid terms typical of the vocabulary of later Neoplatonic authors: for example, the word ἐκϑέωσις is extremely rare among the Fathers of the Church. 38 Pseudo-Dionysius, combining Neoplatonic and Christian elements, and continuing, in a certain sense, the direction of the apologists for the synthesis of philosophy and theology, developed a systematic approach to the theology of deification, including ontological, metaphysical, epistemological, liturgical-sacramental and anthropological dimensions. After Dionysius, deification (ϑέωσις) became the most important principle for Byzantine theology. 39 Each rational being, according to the synthesis of Dionysius, can participate in God to the extent determined by the ontological hierarchy, and accordingly transfer the knowledge of God to lower hierarchical levels. From the angels, the knowledge of God is communicated to people, and further spreads according to the human hierarchy (through the apostles and hierarchs). The process of deification includes purification, enlightenment of the mind and perfection of man. Ultimate perfection is the knowledge of God to the extent determined by ontological predisposition. All beings participate in God ontologically, receiving existence from him, but only rational beings can participate epistemologically (they have an innate desire to know God). Only epistemological participation in God (gnosis) can be called deification. 40 For Dionysius, the mystical knowledge of God is the experience of transcending beyond the limits of apophatic ignorance, when, thanks to participation in the transcendence of God, not only the limitations of reason, but also ontological reality are overcome. This experience can be called the understanding of what is beyond being (ὑπερούσιον ἐπιστήμην). 41 The apophatic theological approach was called VIa negativa by Latin authors: it points out that we cannot find adequate terminology to describe our experience of God. 42 Maximus the Confessor, who relied heavily on the Corpus Areopagiticum, with his writings established deification as a central concept in Byzantine theology. 43 Deification is a state of the saved that begins in Baptism, is strengthened in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and opens the mind to divine illumination. For Maximus the Confessor, the main question was not one of unity and plurality, but how a mortal person can be involved in the transcendental God. He generally accepted the approaches of Dionysius, but made significant adjustments, since Dionysius says very little about the Incarnation. Maxim writes that God controls the world through his divine energies. By analogy with the Christology of perichoresis (περιχορέσις, in Latin theology denoted by the concept communicatio idiomatum), which was developed by Maximus, in a believer, human and divine energies penetrate each other without mixing or merging. 44 John of Damascus (675–750) continued the traditions of previous Greek authors, especially Athanasius the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor. He writes that already in creation God endows other beings and things with his existence, giving them the opportunity to exist due to their participation in himself. At the same time, rational beings are most involved in God (Accurate presentation of the Orthodox faith, 1.14.24; 4.13.11). 45 The very reason for the creation of man was so that he could participate in God. “Damascene asserts that initially human nature was dynamic, intended for gradual growth in communion with God. In fact, the very act of creating man by God already serves as an ontological basis for deification.” 46 Damascene pointed out that although human nature was deified in the Incarnation, this does not mean automatic deification for every person: grace would not be such if it did not take into account the will of man. Deification means that human nature has been restored to its former glory and has achieved immortality. 47 Deification, according to John, begins in this life and ends in the Kingdom of Heaven. Man's ultimate goal is union with God. 48 The means to achieve this goal are, first of all, the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. 49 Anna Williams points out that feature that makes it similar to scholasticism is that Damascene, speaking about union with Christ now, refers the intellectual vision of God to a future life, and union in this life is a prototype of future participation. 50 1.4 Latin theologians of the 4th-5th centuries about deification The next Latin author after Tertullian to write about the deification of man was Hilary of Poitiers, called “Athanasius of the West.” After spending several years in Phrygia, he studied the Greek language and became acquainted with Greek theology, including the works of Origen. In his treatise on the Trinity, he writes: “The Incarnate Word did not lose his divinity, but brought it to man... for the purpose that man could become god.” 51 The most important author for Western theology, who influenced the subsequent development of the Latin tradition, was St. Augustine (354–430). The key point of his theology was the doctrine of divine simplicity, the basis of which is the biblical text about the name of God (Ex. 13, 14). Augustine interpreted the name Jehovah (ὁ ὤν, according to the Septuagint) as a designation of Being (ipsum esse), that which is in the full sense from which all things receive their being (form). God has no distinction within himself, and not only neither spatial nor temporal, but also no distinction pertaining to the attributes of God. In his treatise on the Trinity, he explains that if God were not identical with his perfections, he would have them by participation, that is, he would be lower than what he participates in, and therefore God is a supremely simple essence (summe simplex essentia) (cfr. De Trinitate VII.1.2). 52 As Norman Russell reports, Augustine, unlike Tertullian and Hilary, was not well acquainted with the Greek language, and his understanding of deification (deificatio) was influenced less by the works of Origen than by the translations into Latin of such non-Christian Neoplatonists as Plotinus and Porphyry. Even in his later works, such as De CiVItate Dei, Augustine quotes these authors with approval. According to Neoplatonists, God is always present in the human soul, and man is involved in God by the mere fact of his existence. After 396 he largely moved away from Platonic positions and relied more on traditional biblical exegesis, but certain traces of Platonism are visible in Augustine's later works. Agreeing in De CiVItate Dei 9, 17 with the Neoplatonists that the ultimate goal of man is to acquire likeness to God, he writes that imitation of God entails deification (De CiVItate Dei 19, 23). Thus, imitation and deification are two aspects of the same process. As a reward, the faithful will, like the angels, be imbued with “intelligent light” (lumen intellegibilis), and will be able to enjoy eternal happiness and communion with God (De CiVItate Dei 10, 2). People who, unlike angels, cannot directly participate in lumen intellegibilis, need a divine mediator - Christ. Redeemed by the grace of the Savior, men are exalted above the condition of man, and become “gods”—not by nature, but by grace, through Christ and through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The same God justifies and deifies, giving people the power to become children of God (cf. John 1:12). Those who became children of God became gods - by the grace of adoption, and not by birth (Enarrationes in Psalmos, 49, 2). 53 Commenting on the story of Moses' meeting with God on Mount Sinai and the mention of St. Paul about the experience of the “third heaven,” Augustine wrote that these biblical texts are about contemplating the substance of God. He, starting from the fact that God is not different from His attributes, made no distinction between the substance of God and His glory. Modern researcher David Bradshaw notes that such intellectual contemplation of God echoes Aristotle's teaching about intellectual contemplation as the highest goal of human life. Augustine's teaching that the knowledge of God constitutes man's highest blessedness created the background for the later doctrine of VIsio beatifica. 54 For Augustine, as for his contemporary Cyril of Alexandria, the deification of man is the reason why the Word became flesh. Through baptism people receive the possibility of deification; At the same time, the church aspect is emphasized. The ability not to sin is acquired through participation in the qualities of God: it does not belong to natural human attributes. In De CiVItate Dei 22, 30 he writes: “For it is one thing to be God, and another to be a partaker of God. God cannot sin by his very nature, but he who participates in God receives the impossibility of sinning from God.” 55 Although the saints participate in God, Augustine does not refer to 2 Pet. 1:4. This is probably due to the fact that the Pelagians pointed to this verse in their polemics, arguing that since the human soul participates in the divine nature, it has the opportunity to be completely sinless. Pelagius's student Celestius, speaking about this involvement, expressed the extreme optimism about human nature characteristic of the Pelagians, although he hardly meant that the human soul is a part of God. In any case, for Augustine the doctrine of Celestia meant a statement about the independence of man from God's grace and the unnecessaryness of the Sacraments. 56 According to Augustine, we cannot be the same as God, although we are united with him in one Body through the Sacraments. In De Natura et Gratia 33, 37 he writes: “Creation can never become equal to God, even if perfect holiness is achieved in us. Some believe that in the life to come we will be changed into what He is; but I’m not convinced of this” 57. Augustine himself did not seek to express participation in God in terms of Platonic philosophy; he understood that, in the end, deification exceeds the possibility of human explanation: ‘Ut deos homines faciat, diVIno est intelligenda silentio’ (“That He will make men gods should be understood in divine silence” - Contra Adim. 93, 2). We can talk about this analogously, this is achieved through Baptism and the Eucharist, it is fully realized only in an eschatological perspective, but still remains a mystery. 58 1.5 Brief conclusions regarding the development of theology of deification in the first millennium It can be said that until the end of the 4th century, the metaphor of deification developed in two different directions: on the one hand, as the transformation of human nature due to the Incarnation, and on the other, as the elevation of the soul through the practice of virtues. The first line, based on the teachings of St. Paul on entering the Body of Christ through Baptism and the Eucharist was represented mainly by Justin, Origen, Irenaeus and Athanasius. This line is characterized by a realistic approach to deification. The second line, largely determined by Platonic philosophy and reflecting ethical and philosophical approaches, was represented by Clement and the Cappadocians. At the end of the 4th century, these two lines - realistic and philosophical - begin to merge into one. For Cyril, the realistic approach is spiritualized through his exegesis of 2 Pet. 1:4. In Maximus the Confessor, under the influence of post-Chalcedonian Christology, the philosophical approach increasingly focuses on ontological aspects. 59 The Antiochian Fathers followed a different path. They spoke of people as gods only by way of analogy; their theme of deification is closely connected with Christology. Unlike the Alexandrians with their theme of metaphysical union, the Antiochenes speak only of moral union; the lesser influence of Platonism in their works excluded a philosophical approach to the issue of deification. 60 In general, we can say that if Eastern theology paid more attention to the doctrine of deification, Western theology emphasized the issue of justification (iustificatio). One of the few Western authors of the first millennium to systematically consider the problem of deification was Augustine, who accepted the basic thesis of Athanasius the Great: “God became man so that men could become gods.” 61 Beginning with Augustine, there has been a noticeable difference in the approaches of Western and Eastern theologians to a number of issues. This primarily concerns the simplicity of God, his knowability to the intellect, and the ultimate purpose of human life. In Byzantium, the influence of the metaphysics of the divine essence developed by Augustine was almost not felt, and the development of Greek theology followed the path of the apophaticism of Pseudo-Dionysius. 62 cfr. Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, New York 2004, 3 cfr. Vladimir Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis in the Theology of Pseudo-Dionisius The Areopagite, New York 2006, 9 cfr. N. Russell, Doctrine, 1 cfr. V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 47 cfr. V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 43–44 Protrepticus, 1.8.4, cited in V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 64 V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 60 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata. Books 1–3, St. Petersburg 2003, 300 cfr. V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 62 V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 78 N. Russell, Doctrine, 12 cfr. V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 83 N. Russell, Doctrine, 75 cfr. V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 84 N. Russell, Doctrine, 321 cfr. V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 30 N. Russell, Doctrine, 326–27 cfr. V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 34 N. Russell, Doctrine, 13, 343 cfr. V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 103 N. Russell, Doctrine, 13 cfr. V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 124–26 V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 8–11 V. Kharlamov, Concept of Theosis, 353 N. Russell, Doctrine, 14 Complete collection of works of St. John of Damascus. Volume I, St. Petersburg 1913, 186. 309 Evgeny Zaitsev, V. Lossky's teaching on theosis, Moscow 2007, 85 Himmerich Mauris, Deification in John of Damascus, Milwaukee 1985, 132–133. Anna Williams, Deification in Thomas Aquinas and Gregory Palamas, Yale University 1995, 68 N. Russell, Doctrine, 327 David Bradshow, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom, New York 2007, 224–225 N. Russell, Doctrine, 329–30 D. Bradshow, Aristotle, 227–29 Blessed Augustine, On the City of God, Minsk-Moscow 2000, 1291. N. Russell, Doctrine, 331 Quoted in N. Russell, Doctrine, 332 Isaac Chae, Justification and deification in Augustine, Illinois 1999, 190 D. Bradshow, Aristotle, 229