About God-Humanity. Comforter. Part II

Part I • Part II • Part III Introduction. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit in patristic writing 3. Patristic age in pneumatology I. Tertullian subordinationism and Stoic philosophy. II. Cosmological subordinationism in Arianism III. Ontological subordinationism in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in Origen IV. Homoousianism in the Trinitarian Doctrine of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria V. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the Holy Spirit among the Cappadocians VI. Western system of Homousian trinitarian theology (St. Augustine) VII. Trinitarian and pneumatological doctrine in St. John of Damascus A book about the Comforter... There is a lot to say here for the theologian, important and necessary, forgotten and unknown. However, all words about the Spirit will remain poor and dead, devoid of the Spirit itself, His unutterable groanings and prophetic verbs. And the creature cries out to pray to the Spirit: COME AND Dwell IN US. Exhaustingly calling, fadingly thirsty. The Comforter is near, He is in the world, but not with the world, in us, but not with us... He is invariably available and clearly known in His breath, in His mysterious presence. Through the sacraments of the Church He gives us living communion with God. He protects Her and guides Her, by His power She is the highest reality for us, which is not taken away and will not be embraced from us - joy forever, the light of eternity in the world below: the Spirit who descended from heaven, sent by the Son from the Father, revealing the Father and the Son. But with the Divine in us is united – “inseparably and unmerged” – the human, which has the potential to be deified, to become divine-human. And how sad and even strange it is, this human thing, how it alienates the Spirit and runs away from Him, fears and does not want Him: and the guardians of the sacred fire, having the piety of the church, but alien to the piety of creative life, as well as completely ignorant of the sacred, its embittered detractors and deniers, sometimes not alien to the piety of life and the quest for creativity. Arrogance and bitterness, Pharisee and Sadducee: soullessness in the name of spirituality and blasphemy of the Spirit for the sake of the flesh, are united in agreement in the quenching of the spirit and the humiliation of prophecy: custodianism, which preserves the vain and false, stagnation, elevated to the law of life, and joyless prosaism, this leprosy of false spirituality, - on one side, and demonic warfare with the humanistic self-deification, animal indifference to the spiritual and immersion in the flesh - on the other. The tongues of fire that flare up in the darkness are extinguished angrily and powerlessly go out. The night of the world yawns with the darkness of emptiness, in the kingdom of the beast and the false prophet. But the world itself is already shuddering from this spiritual emptiness - and it thirsts for inspiration, seeks prophecy, revelation of the GOD-HUMAN about the HUMAN, about the world and man. Knows and keeps Divine, but does not know and cannot find the Divine-Human. And if God does not help, then man will not be saved... But God has already saved, for he came into the world and became a Man. And, ascending from the world, he sent the Holy Spirit from heaven and gave Pentecost. The Holy Spirit abides in the world, He is given to us, and woe to us if we are not in the Spirit. But we pray and tea for a new gift of a united Pentecost, a new answer to unanswered questions, new creativity, new inspiration, a life-transforming one, calling us to meet the Coming Christ. Not having the Spirit, we thirst for Him and faint for Him. Without Him, our entire historical era is shaking with mortal spasms. But mysteriously watered by the Spirit in the sacraments, with them and in them with the tea of ​​the new sacrament of life, the gift of the Comforter who has come and remains with us. And in its agony, the world knows Consolation and longs for the Comforter, like God’s Love for the world, and loves Love. He loves Love in its deeds, in its gifts, which are the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And our insatiable love wants to love Love itself - not only its power, but also its face, the hypostatic face, unknown to us, unmanifested, undiscovered. And our love seeks the reflection of this face, its appearance. She seeks and finds: in the known and unknown, earthly and heavenly glorified face of the Spirit-Bearer, the Bride of God and the Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, the glorified Queen of Heaven, who did not leave the world in the Dormition, but, as the Hypostatic Love of God, the Holy Spirit, abiding in the world and together above the world. Our eyes are blind to see this Glory in heaven, and yet we expect its revelation, its approach to the world, for in the Glory the Coming Christ will draw closer. Then the fullness of God-manhood will appear: Jesus - Mary, Logos and Holy Spirit, tearing away the Father. This fullness of revelation is a promise to a weary creation. With lofty minds and purified hearts, let us rise in the morning with lit lights to meet him, God-manhood. COMFORTER, SOUL OF TRUTH, COME AND Dwell HEY, COME, LORD VISUSE! BOTH THE SPIRIT AND THE BRIDE SAY: COME! AND HE WHO HEARS IT SAYS: COME! (Rev. 22:17). Sergievskoe Podvorye in Paris. The revelation about the Third Hypostasis, about the Holy Spirit, not as a gift of the Spirit of God, but about the Divine Person, the only being of the Holy Trinity, is captured in fiery verbs in the Gospel. Christ Himself announced “another Comforter,” whom He would send down from the Father after His departure from the world, and the name of this Comforter was loudly proclaimed by Him as part of the Name of the Most Holy. Trinity: "baptizing... in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." This baptismal formula is a general Christian confession of faith in the hypostatic existence of not only the Father and the Son, but also the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and, in particular, of the Person of the Holy Spirit, is revealed in the New Testament as an unshakable dogma of faith, which cannot be denied or diminished by reinterpretation, and, as such, it has always been perceived by the Church. Pentecost was the vital revelation of this dogma. The gifts of the Holy Spirit were poured out on Christians in the primal church so clearly and in such abundance that this dogma was completely self-evident for them, as evidenced by the entire content of the Acts of St. The apostles, as well as the apostolic writings. Holy Spirit was life itself for the primal church, and if St. the apostles knew Christ in His earthly life, then the apostolic church, although differently, but no less obviously, knew “the Comforter himself” living in it. This presence of the Comforter, His action and gifts, in their self-evidence, were evident not only within the church, but also outside it, to outsiders, for example. even for Simon Magus. And this divinity of the gifts of grace and the Holy Spirit who gives them had for itself an internal self-evidence and immanent certainty, which even the personality of the Lord Jesus did not have for the disciples of Christ. A long journey was necessary to prepare the disciples so that they would be capable of the confession expressed through the mouth of Peter: You are Christ, the Son of the Living God, and through the mouth of Thomas: My Lord and my God. This required (and requires) special insight, the absence of which is even forgiven by the Lord: “the sin against the Son of Man will be forgiven,” while in relation to the Holy Spirit. in the primal church, a person is faced with a certain divine self-evidence, which he can reject not only through weakness, thoughtlessness or misunderstanding, but out of direct will, “to lie to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:3), - having shown resistance to the Divine, why “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either in this age or in the future.” We can say that the entire book of Acts. there is a story about the Holy Spirit revealing itself in the Church, there is a vital revelation of the dogma about the Holy Spirit. And in the light of this self-evidence, the New Testament writing tells not who He is, the dispenser of gifts, but how He appears and what gifts He shares. As we move away from Pentecost into the opening depths of history and, as it were, move away from the source of light, the latter becomes weaker. However, even the post-apostolic age (the so-called apostolic men) is still in the blissful knowledge of possession. And he abounds in apostolic gifts, directly received by the first generation of Christians, and remains spiritual and charismatic. And therefore, in his self-awareness, as far as it is reflected in the writings of the “apostolic men,” the revelation of the Third Hypostasis, as well as Her very gifts, have the character of a factual given, for which it is enough only to be stated without dogmatic interpretation, which is what we find in early Christian writing. It still reflects the period of golden childhood, although already killing, nearing its end. The time has not yet come for dogmatic reflection, and especially for theological speculation. All we have here comes down to the actual testimony of faith in the Holy Spirit through His gifts. And in this sense, we can say that direct theology about St. The Spirit does not yet exist in the post-apostolic age, as the epistles of the apostolic men testify to this. 1 In the apologists we also find only a statement of the rule of faith, beyond which they, at least in pneumatology, do not go. As far as we can talk about their theology, it comes down primarily to logology: they face the theological problem of Logos, both in the theological and cosmological aspects. To justify their faith, defending it from reproaches of polytheism (at least in ditheism) and at the same time revealing the power of the Logos in the world and human life (not without the influence of Philo and, moreover, with a clear confusion or identification of the primordial Logos and created Sophia) was their natural task. Therefore, “generally speaking, in the order of thoughts prevailing among the apologists, there was no place for the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and if they still talk about Him, then in this one must see only traces of the influence of the general Christian tradition, which has little to do with them.” 2 This is, for example. mention by St. Justin the Philosopher, 3 in Athenagoras 4 and under. In attempts to immediately determine the relationship between the Logos and the Spirit, ambiguity and confusion result, so that, although the Spirit is in St. Justin is called prophetic, but at the same time “those who prophesied were inspired by nothing other than the Logos of God.” 5 The deliberate task of the apologists focused their attention on Christology, no matter how insufficient this latter was in them, and least of all on pneumatology. A special place among the writers of the 2nd century is occupied by St. Irenaeus, bishop Lyonsky, who in the fight against Gnosticism developed the doctrine of church positivism, based on regula fidei. The latter also includes, of course, the dogmatic teaching about the Holy Spirit, although, as one would expect, only secondary attention is devoted to it in comparison with issues of Christology. 6 “The Spirit leads to the Word, and the Son leads to the Father.” 7 The Holy Spirit acquires perfect power both during the creation of the world, when He was the instrument and hand of the Father (IV, praex 20.1; V, 6.1), and in the providence of the world. Man's salvation in Christ is expressed by the fact that the life-giving Spirit is returned to him, 8 and the image of God is restored in him. 9 With all the value of these soteriological remarks, it would be in vain for us to argue with the theologian of the Incarnation, St. Irenaeus, seek the theology of the Holy Spirit. This briefly summarizes what pneumatology provides in the first two centuries. She firmly preserves the regula fidei, commanded by the Gospel and apostolic preaching, in the fullness of living church experience and grace-filled life. The Holy Spirit is for him a gracious reality, constantly experienced in church communion. However, theological thought does not yet pose the problem of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the unity and composition of the entire Holy Spirit. Trinity and His place in It. In a word, the pneumatological problem does not yet arise in consciousness as a trinitarian one, which it essentially is, for the Holy Spirit, the only one of the Holy Trinity, can only be understood in connection with this pre-divine trinity. The 2nd century leaves this task not only unresolved, but also not posed for subsequent centuries, starting with the third. The third century was destined to, if not resolve, then, in any case, pose the Trinitarian problem in its entire breadth, and as part of it, in particular,; pneumatological: not only about what He does. The Spirit in peacemaking and world-making, but also about the fact that He exists in Himself and in the Holy Trinity, as the Third Hypostasis. The dogma of the Holy Trinity appeared before theological thought as a speculative problem, moreover; exceptional laboriousness, exceeding all hitherto existing religious and philosophical achievements and even the very problematics of the ancient world. There was nothing to rely on for the systematic construction and theological deduction of the Trinity dogma - the budding theology was left to its own forces. But it was easy to stumble and get lost in the labyrinth of pagan philosophy, with all the richness and diversity of its systems. At the same time, it was impossible to do without the help of this same pagan philosophy, which was a necessary and indispensable philosophical school for Christian theology, its natural Old Testament. This significance of ancient philosophy as theological propaedeutics is recognized from the history of dogma, as well as from the biographies of individual Church Fathers. Ancient philosophy was a kind of destiny for Christian theology, and one cannot help but see in this the highest predestination and pre-election. We can say that, if in general philosophy represents a necessary mental culture for theology, then ancient philosophy in this respect is the only and highest. Therefore, by itself, by the power of natural affinity and selection, just as Christian art took into itself the ancient, assimilating it, so Christian theology accepted the ancient philosophy, and thus there arose that legal or illegal, but, in any case, irremovable and inevitable μ ῖξις or κρᾶσις of philosophy and religion, which so characteristic of Christian theology (and is even sometimes called “die acute Hellenisierung des Christenthumis”). This mixture in its highest achievements is the transformation of pagan thought into Christian thought, a new creativity, which in essence is Christian theology, considered in the light of the history of philosophy. But this transformation is not always achieved in the same way, and sometimes mixed constructions actually arise, in which the astringency and bitterness of paganism is felt through the sweetness of Christianity. In a certain sense, it is sometimes possible to really talk about the Hellenization of Christian theology, about the excessive influence and undue introduction of alien principles into it. Such was the difficulty that confronted Christian theology beginning in the 2nd century, after the age of “apologists.” This was also apologetics, but no longer negative, consisting in eliminating misunderstandings, or rejecting slander, or the most accurate presentation of the “rules of faith,” but positive, with the task of overcoming and spiritual victory over a strong opponent, his final conversion to Christianity: instead of the Hellenization of Christianity, conversion to the Christianity of Hellenism, a task victoriously resolved by the Church. “You have won, Galilean,” was the recognition of history through the mouth of a belated romantic of the restoration of antiquity. However, this victory is achieved only in a difficult and dangerous struggle; it is not given immediately and is not easy. And we see in the first creative - and for that reason alone noble and courageous - experiments of Christian philosophy not only victories, but also defeats, and not only achievements, but also failures. Pagan philosophy actually sometimes penetrates into Christian theology without dissolving in it and, therefore, coloring it with itself, and therefore distorting it, showing undue, excessive influence on it. This influence, of course, remains subtle and unnoticeable to the theologians themselves. It is revealed most significantly not in certain doctrines, but most of all in the problematic, in the way of approaching the question, its very formulation, which already predetermines further paths of thought. In terms of problematics, ancient philosophy infiltrates Christian theology in different directions. The latter, as a rule, does not introduce into its constructions individual philosophical positions or doctrines as such, but it perceives them as some self-evident prerequisites that are imperceptibly included in the very composition of Christian dogma. This can be assessed in two ways: on the one hand, it is natural that pagan philosophy is, as it were, a natural prophecy of reason about the truths of Christianity, but on the other hand, we have direct philosophical influence here. In any case, in different systems of theology we can state the presence of such an influence of one or another of the philosophical systems. Most of all, this needs to be said about Platonism, which inevitably entered Christian dogma as the doctrine of eternal ideas, Sophian prototypes of the world in God. But Stoicism, Neoplatonism, and Aristotelianism color different systems of Christian theology, which therefore cannot even be properly understood apart from this influence. The Trinitarian problem, and in connection with it the pneumatological one, includes several separate problems that are in continuous connection. This is, first of all, a question about the divine trinity. The Trinity dogma, as it is given in the New Testament revelation, connects monotheism, which denies all polytheism with the Old Testament exclusivity, with the trinity of persons of the Holy Trinity, which are all equally honorable and equally divine - in Their Divinity they are equal to each other, and each of them is equal in Divinity to the entire Holy Trinity in Its unity and inseparability. Unity and trinity, separate personality and equal divinity of three persons - this is the side of the Trinity dogma with which religious philosophy first encounters in Christian theology. This question first comes before thought in Christian dogma. The latter is far from pagan polytheism, which Israel so jealously denied, having been protected from it by the first two commandments of God given at Sinai. Of course, pagan polytheism is clearly untenable in the face of both philosophical thought and religious consciousness. But abstract monotheism, to which Jewish dogma led, turned out to be equally alien and hostile to Christian dogma. The latter was, of course, unable to cope theologically with all the concrete teaching about God already contained in the sacred books of the Old Testament. Therefore, Judaism (like later Islam, which is theologically related to it) irreconcilably opposes the trinitarian dogma, as the preaching of tritheism, in the name of monotheism. Christian theology was faced, it must be said truthfully, with a completely new 10 and exceptionally difficult task, for which in ancient philosophy there was no corresponding ready-made scheme, but only more or less suitable means for finding it. The problem of trinity is not limited to trinity, as the trinity and consubstantiality of the Divine, but it also includes the distinction of individual hypostases in their specific relationship, in their intra-trinity compatibility and mutual determination. The Holy Trinity, according to trinitarian dogma, is not a divine trinity in abstracto, but a completely concrete Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the First, Second and Third Hypostases. Trinity theology includes the doctrine of each of the Divine hypostases and their relationship. At the same time, the trinity of the Divine in unity, as well as in the distinction of three specific hypostases, must be shown not only as a divinely revealed fact, which has the force of its facticity, but also as a principle, by virtue of which the Divinity is not a Duo or a quaternity, a quintuple, etc., in general a pagan Olympus, but precisely a Trinity, exhausting itself in its completeness and self-closure. Likewise, regarding individuals, the problem arises about their own specific place in the Trinity and its meaning for each of them. In particular, in pneumatology, the general doctrine of the Trinity includes and is complicated by the special problems of the Third Hypostasis, the Holy Spirit. Trinity theology in concrete is both patrolology and Christology. and pneumatology. For these specific aspects of the Trinitarian doctrine there is absolutely no data or analogy in pagan philosophy. So, Trinitarian theology had to establish both main sides of the dogma: on the one hand, the concrete trinity of the Divinity, in which it, being a triune absolute subject, 11 includes three equally divine, separate subjects while maintaining their divine equality; on the other hand, it is a specific relationship between the three persons of the Holy Trinity in their separate personal existence for themselves and for each other. The combination of both parts of the doctrine defines a specific triadology, in particular pneumatology. In this composition, the trinitarian problem is recognized only starting from the 3rd century and, strictly speaking, is solved and discussed in the patristic era only in the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries, and in later centuries these questions are touched upon only in passing or on another occasion: the entire field of attention remains occupied by Christology, and not pneumatology, and the epigonic summing up (in Damascene), of course, does not change this comparative indifference to the pneumatological problem as such. It becomes the focus of attention later, in the post-patristic era, from the 9th century, and only in a one-sided and specifically polemical formulation, precisely as the question of the filioque, with its pro or contra. Therefore, the truly creative century in the field of pneumatology is the III–IV–V centuries of patristics, and summing up the results of this era will at the same time sum up the general results of patristic pneumatology. It must be admitted that the third century of patristics, despite the fact that it gave the most significant and defining experiments in Trinitarian theology, did not solve the problem. On the contrary, he even evaded it by replacing or perverting it. Its main element, namely the dogma of equal divinity and equal honesty of all three persons of the Holy Trinity, fell out of the problematics of the Holy Trinity, being replaced by the opposite dogma of their inequality, unequal honesty, unequal divinity. Instead of teaching about St. The Trinity received the doctrine of a three-stage, in descending order, revelation of the one Divinity, and each of the subsequent lindens no longer contains the entire fullness of the Divinity and does not possess all of its uniformity, but only partial and gradually decreasing, so that the question may even arise about the very existence of the trinity, which is by no means a three-stage revelation of the Divine. Perhaps it is more appropriate to even speak in this case not about the trinity, but about the singularity of the Divine, having only a three-stage modality, in which the lower stages are included and subordinate to a single higher monad; as a triadology, a disguised monadology is obtained. This system of triadology is usually called by the Latin term subordinationism, which can be said to have affected, directly or indirectly, all the theological systems of the 2nd and some of the 3rd century. This subordinationism also finds its application in the second part of the Trinitarian problem, in the doctrine of individuals - prosopa - in prosolology, and in particular in pneumatology. If the entire Holy Trinity receives a subordinationist interpretation, then it becomes clear that, in particular, the Third Hypostasis, the Holy Spirit, is understood as the third in Divinity and the last: at the same time, in essence, it remains unknown even why it is the last, why it is impossible to continue this diminishing self-revelation of the Divinity further, beyond the limits of the three hypostases. This substitution and distortion, in essence, eliminates the very problem of pneumatology, and, consequently, its Orthodox doctrine is absent, and only a place remains for its subordinationistic surrogates. Unfortunately, this type of pneumatology is the only one known in patristic writing of the 3rd century. In this failure of patristic thought in relation to pneumatology, in addition to its general inexperience in the latter, along with the difficulty of the problem itself, the philosophical influences of antiquity are undoubtedly to blame. As has already been indicated, theology, in constructing such an incredibly complex teaching as triadology, could not manage on its own without turning to the help of ancient philosophy or, at least, without using it as a tool. But this necessary means turned out to be at the same time dangerous, and the weapon was reflected or, in any case, disobedient. It drew those who used it much further than they should have, or even to the wrong place where they should have gone. Imperceptibly, thought slipped to the side or turned out to be colored in the colors of pagan philosophical systems. The result was a syncretism of pagan philosophy and Christian theology, which these first systems of Christian speculation represent. This syncretism is slowly and difficultly - and by no means completely - later overcome in Christian theology. In early triadology, one can distinguish different types of subordinationism, in accordance with the predominant influence of different philosophical systems of antiquity in certain theological constructs. Thus, we have in Western theology the stoically colored doctrine of Tertullian, with Novatian and Hippolytus adjoining him; in Eastern theology we have the Neoplatonically constructed system of Origen, who left his indelible stamp on all Eastern (in particular, Alexandrian) theology: finally, we have the fermented teaching of Arius and his Arian successors, Macedonius, Eunomius, Aetius, etc., with Aristotelian yeast. As a reaction to subordinationism, however, along with it, in the form of, so to speak, negative subordinationism or its black shadow, various types of modalism can be placed, feeding - directly or indirectly - on the inspirations of antiquity. A closer acquaintance with these varieties of subordinationism will make what has been said more convincing. Before turning to the analysis of the Trinitarian doctrine of the 3rd century, it is necessary to establish that it poses a twofold problem: about the Holy Trinity in itself, in Her eternal existence regardless of the world - the immanent Trinity, and about Her in relation to the world - the economic Trinity. The ontological and cosmological formulations of the question in this case not only do not exclude each other, but are interconnected. However, here we have a case where the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is discussed with a predominant emphasis in the cosmological direction, mainly economically. And such a predominance of cosmological interest already predetermines much in the very nature of this or that teaching. In general, it must be said that the prevailing cosmologism in the understanding of the Holy Trinity naturally fits with subordinationism, moreover, it leads to it. In particular, Tertullian’s teaching exhibits typical features of the cosmological understanding of the Holy Trinity, or economic subordinationism. This is its basic style, this is its theme: to understand God in His revelation to the world as the Holy Trinity. The speculative theological formulation of this doctrine, the dogmatic content of which is given by the Old and New Testament tradition, is determined by premises borrowed from Stoic philosophy. The latter is a kind of philosophical monism with a bias towards religious, and then ethical pantheism. The One, living, intelligent, fire-like substance is a spiritual-corporeal, material-life-giving principle, in which everything corporeal is spiritual, and everything spiritual is corporeal. 12 It has in itself the beginnings of its own self-determination, properties (ποιότητες qualitates), by which it is concretized in its being, as well as the possibility of self-difference through relationships (σχέσεις relaü ones), which arise from here. In itself, it is impersonal (impersonalism, characteristic of Western theology, is already indicated here as the initial principle). Although hypostatic self-consciousness becomes inherent in it, however, in the order of a secondary, derivative determination, which is ontologically preceded by substantial, pre-hypostatic and extra-hypostatic being, substance takes precedence. She carries within herself the mind of the world and all its wealth (λόγοι σπερματικοί). The primary substance (ὕλη), qualified (ποῖος) by form, realizes these principles in being. In them, the substance is revealed in the diversity of the world, while maintaining its unity. In these general outlines, Stoicism approaches the classical systems of dynamic and static hylozoism or monism - Heraclitus and Parmenides. Spinoza and maybe. Leibniz. Religiously, this monistic pantheism is clearly characterized by naturalistic immanentism, with a non-accidental shade of anthropomorphism. Man in himself, expressing the self-consciousness of being, thereby also has God-consciousness: the soul finds in itself the certam animi notionem Dei, and also through knowledge of the world, man learns to cognize the world mind, fatum, and learns amor fati as the highest wisdom. This general scheme of monistic naturalism, apparently, little corresponds to the dogmatic teaching of Christianity: here is pantheistic monism, there is an insurmountable distance between God and creation; here the impersonalism of a qualityless substance devoid of any definition, there the concrete trinity of the Divine; here the doctrine of the universal corporeality of substance in God and the world, there the doctrine of God as the Absolute Spirit, etc. Tertullian perceives these features of Stoicism as not only consistent with Christianity, but also decisively incompatible with it. The latter should include the doctrine of the corporeality of substance, 13 as well as the absence of the concept of personality in T.’s ontology (even as a special term, the p. p. persona has the meaning of only metonymy, borrowed from theatrical and judicial usage). 14 How, one may ask, can a bridge be built from Stoic impersonalism to the doctrine of the Trinitarian God of church dogma? The saving plank here is the idea of ​​oikonomia, i.e. cosmological interpretation of St. The Trinity, for which, in itself, has no place in the Absolute, but it is found in determining the relationship of the latter to the world. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that the creation of the world is not at all a necessity for the Absolute itself in His self-revelation. It is - here we have a Gnostic influence - an emanation of the προβολή Divinity into the world, which then passes into “oikonomia” and is expressed in the creation of the world and man. With the beginning of this emanation and oikonomia, personal definitions arise in the Divinity, and, in particular, the Holy Trinity. God is a humanoid spirit. T[ertullian's] anthropomorphism has as much a Christian origin - from the idea of ​​the image of God in man, as it has a Stoic origin - from general religious immanentism. By virtue of the latter, man has direct self-knowledge rerum divinarum, as a bodily-spiritual substance, which, being self-satisfied and all-blessed, alone constitutes space, the world, and everything (Adv. Prax., p. 5), and this, essentially still impersonal or sub-substance, is God, corresponding in Scripture to the Father: Pater tota substantia est (9 p.). There was no Trinity, there was no First Hypostasis, there was a Divinity. “God was one (solus), but even then He was not actually alone, for He had with Him His Mind, which He had in Himself. God is a rational being, and Reason was in Him first, then from Him (received being) and everything. This Mind is His self-consciousness (sensus ipsius est). The Greeks call him Logos” (5 p.). “God did not possess the Word from the beginning (non sermonalis a principio), but He possessed Reason (rationalis) before the beginning (ante principium)... although God did not speak His Word, yet He had It in Himself with reason itself and in the mind itself, pondering and disposing of what He had soon to express through His Word” (ib.). Of course, this pre-worldly and even pre-Trinitarian Reason is only the power ἕξις inherent in God, an accessory, but not the hypostatic existence of the Son. When God said: let there be light, then His Word in the true sense was born from Him. “Then the Word receives Form and His adornment, voice and sound,” became the Only Begotten Son (unigenitus ut unus ex solo Deo genitus), existing separately from Him” 15 (Adv. Prax., pp. 7, 26). From here comes a completely Arian-sounding position: “there was a time when there was no Son, who made God the Father” (Adv.Herm., p. 3). When God wanted to bring “substances and species” into reality in Him, He brought forth (protulit) the Word in order to bring everything into being—univerealia—through the one with whose assistance it was thought out and predetermined” (Adv. Prax., p. 5). Logos-Sophia appears here as a mediator-demiurge (for Tertullian shared the general philosophical and ancient philosophical conviction that the Divine cannot enter into direct relations with creation). 16 The Holy Spirit has the same purpose, together with the Logos, called “ministri et arbitri of the Father (Adv. Prax. 12, p. 3), with whom He consults and who are His executive bodies, acting “according to His power and will” (Adv. Prax., p. 15). The specific meaning of the Holy Spirit remains not entirely clear. However, the conclusion that follows from the general tenets of subordinationism is completely clear and is characteristic not only of Tertullian himself, but also of his successors along this path. This is precisely the position that the Holy Spirit. as the Third Hypostasis, occurring after the Son, is less than the Son, since it comes from Him. Subordinationism receives a three-degree expression in the order of gradual decrease in the fullness of the Divinity, and the third Person in the Holy Trinity is interpreted as having a third place in the ontological hierarchy of the Holy Trinity. It participates in the substance of the Divinity as gradus, forma and species unius substantiae and is in this sense, together with the Son, consortes substantiae Patris. Tertullian also explains their relationship with an ill-fated physical comparison (favorite in patristics): a source, a stream and a river. According to the meaning of this comparison, the Holy Spirit is placed in a natural subordinationistic dependence not only on the Father, but also on the Son (this is exactly what a Patre per Filium means for him, one of the early expressions of the Western filioquistic doctrine). He is given third place, and He is thought to be less in the amount of Divine substance not only in comparison with the Father, but also with the Son: tertius enim est Spiritus a Deo et Filio sicut tertius o radice fructus ex fructice (Adv. Prax., p. 8). This difference corresponds to the later emergence of the Third Hypostasis - not before the creation of the world, like the Logos, but only after the Ascension of Christ, and the Holy Spirit is the continuer of His work on earth, the organizer of His Church. Just as the Logos - the Son received from the Father “his form and decoration,” so the Son Himself, upon His Ascension, “having asked the Father, gives existence to the Comforter” (Adv. Prax., p. 25). He “accepted the gift received from the Father - the Holy Spirit, the third name of the Divinity and the third degree of greatness, the interpreter of the economy” and “new prophecy” (Montanism), “the preacher of the whole truth” (ib., p. 30). Cosmological subordinationism is so sharply expressed in Tertullian that he proclaims the principle of later Arianism: there was a time when the Logos did not exist, and the question arises: for him, is not this Logos arising in time (and even more so the Holy Spirit) a creation of the Father? Stoic philosophy with its monistic impersonalism helps Tertullian evade this seemingly inevitable conclusion. Thanks to the universality and unity of substance, “homousianism” - the unius substantiae of all three hypostases is ensured in advance, for, in essence, there is even no other place for everything that exists than this single substance, which also has the convenience of being easily divided, so that Tertullian can say: Pater tota substantia est: filius vero derivatio etportio (Adv. Prax., p. 9). This divisibility is thought of as an internal distributio or distinctio of temporal-spatial relations. Divinity is the basic substance of which the Father, Son and Spirit are different species - unius substantiae, unius status et unius potestatis. We must not forget that fundamental impersonalism of the Divine, by virtue of which all hypostases arise within this impersonal substance: nec Pater potuit esse ante Filium (Adv. Herm., p. 3); tres unum sunt non unus (Adv. Prax., p. 35). The Trinity hypostases are only hypostasized (in accordance with the postulates of Christian dogma) ποιότητες, separate species (here Tertullian already anticipates the main theologem of Western Trinitarian theology about hypostases as relationships). Due to this difference in the signs of the hypostasis, on the one hand, they differ from each other, but at the same time they belong to a single substance, homousiyny: tres autem non substantia, sed forma (p. 2), They are isolated as alius, alius, alius, 17 differing not only in signs, but also in the measure of substance, entirely inherent only in the Father and only in decreasing parts in the Son and Spirit (sun - moon - the light of this ray). From here other consequences arise: the invisibility of the Father and the visibility of the Son, etc. Being only cosmological and economic, this distinction is apparently of a temporary nature, arising with the beginning of time and ending with its end, so that on the basis of this thought the very existence of the economic Trinity after the end of the present world becomes problematic. It is this idea of ​​the divisibility of a single substance with the difference of the parts or hypostases arising from this that gives Tertullian the opportunity to evade the purely Arian understanding of the Son as a creature, while preserving all the (relative) conveniences of cosmological subordinationism in the doctrine of the Son as the Demiurge (and the Spirit as His assistant). From the point of view of this Stoic monism, a general question may arise: is there any place here at all for the idea of ​​creation, i.e. the emergence of created being from uncreated by the force of a creative act? Or, rather, we have here a series of states or distinctions of the same single substance, starting from the emergence of the Trinity and ending with the incarnation of God, as a union not of two natures, but rather of two states of one metaphysical nature. In particular, here we find in Tertullian the idea of ​​God-manhood, the unity of divine and human nature, as a correspondence of the Logos’s own visible image before the incarnation (let’s not forget that all substances, and in particular the Divinity, are bodies that have a form, and the difference between the Father and the Son here is only that the Father is invisible, and the Son is visibilis ante carnem) with the human body He accepted. 18 To sum up Tertullian's Trinitarian theology, it should be said that it completely fails to achieve its goal - to provide a speculative theology of the Trinity dogma. Neither her one-sided cosmological interpretation of the Holy Trinity - with a decisive denial of Her immanent, eternal existence, nor her subordinationism, with a sharp deviation from the equal divinity of all three hypostases, can be recognized as satisfying the demands of Orthodox dogmatic consciousness. As for, in particular, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit (to which Tertullian, as a Montanist, would seem to have a special predisposition), it is the weakest part of this Trinitarian doctrine, both in terms of its least thoughtfulness and elaboration, and in its basic principle: The third hypostasis is relegated to last place in the sense of the fullness of the divine substance due to its origin - not directly from the Father, but only through the Son and, so to speak, for His needs. At the same time, this reflects the helplessness and, as it were, bewilderment in general in relation to the Third Hypostasis, which is characteristic, to some extent, of all patristic thinking, especially of the early period. Theology faces the fact that the Holy Spirit is preached in church teaching and revealed in the life of the Church, and therefore He, one way or another, at all costs, must be included in dogmatic schemes. However, there is no corresponding speculative idea, as well as theological motivation for this. From the early logologists, not excluding Tertullian, one gets the impression that the presence of the Logos, the Second Hypostasis, in the self-revelation of the Divine is really significant for them, and they - each in their own way - are not only church-positive, but also theologically convinced and really theologize about it. Regarding the Holy Spirit, they themselves do not know theologically what to do and how to give Him a place in the theological system. In essence, we can say that they themselves are not convinced of the necessity of this and, although they obey dogma, they could do without it altogether in their, rather binary than trinitarian, theology. Therefore, the thought involuntarily arises that, in the presence of external necessity, they could stop at the Dual, just as they could not even stop at the Trinity, but go further... In a word, it must be said that even the Montanist Tertullian does not have pneumatology proper. Cosmological subordinationism is a principle not only of Tertullian’s theology, but is also the general theological atmosphere of the century. In particular, the teaching of Hippolytus is so close to the Trinitarian theology of Tertullian that we should briefly dwell on it in order to once again be convinced by example where the internal logic of cosmological subordinationism leads in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The general scheme of Hippolytus's triadology is completely reminiscent of Tertullian's: the One pre-worldly God has nothing modern for Himself (Phil. X, 32). He alone exists, and in the beginning there was no one but Him. Being one, He was at the same time multiple, everything was in Him (Sophia?), and He was everything (p. Noet. IX). This one God, who in the beginning thought the Logos in Himself, gave birth to Him from Himself not as sound, but as the hidden thought of everything (Phil. X, 33). The Logos is the inner mind of the Father and, to that extent, constitutes one essence with Him, it is God (ib.). At a certain time, when God wanted, He revealed Him to the world, gave birth to Him as a leader, adviser and co-worker in the creation of the world, made Him visible to the world, publishing the Word (λόγος προφορικός) and sending Him before creation. From this time on, the Logos becomes πρόσωπον and exists as another (ἔτερος) God. The Hypostatic Logos becomes the culprit of all existence. Carrying within Himself the ideas that were presented to the Father from time immemorial (Sophia?), He realizes them in creation, creates everything (τὸ παν). The subject of His special work is man. He speaks to people through prophets. However, the Logos, considered in Himself, was not yet “the perfect Son” before His incarnation (p. Noet., p. XV); He becomes such only after union with the flesh. At the same time, the Son is characterized by a stoically understood consubstantiality: “to say the other, I do not claim that two are the essence of God: but (I mean two) as light from light, water from a source, a ray from the sun” (ib. p. XI), and “the Son is in the Father in power and disposition δυνάμει καὶ διαθέσει” (ib., p. VII), – again understood in the sense of the Stoic ἕξεις or ποιότητες. The Son, in fact, already fulfills the cosmological function completely, so there is no special need for the Third Hypostasis, and Hippolytus, even more than Tertullian, does not find a definition for it in his system. It appears only for dogmatic completeness, however, without its own special place. Hippolytus identifies the Holy Spirit with grace (which is generally characteristic of later pneumatology). “I am talking about one Father and two persons (πρόσωπα), and about the third economy (οἰκονομίαν) - the grace of the Holy Spirit. There is one Father, there are two persons, for there is also a Son, and the third is the Holy Spirit.” (p. Noet., p. xiv). Here the very hypostasis of the Holy Spirit is expressed very vaguely. “The concordant economy comes down to one God, for there is one God: the one who commands is the Father, the one who obeys is the Son, who communicates knowledge (?) συνετίζον - the Holy Spirit, the Father is present in all, the Son through all διά πάντων, the Holy Spirit in everything - ἕν πᾶσιν" (ib.). It is difficult to understand such a definition. In general, in Hippolytus, as in Tertullian, the Trinity cosmologically arises from a single Deity, and, in fact, only the duality (Father and Son) truly arises, and to it is added - without dogmatic necessity - the Third Hypostasis, so that in this subordinationistic trinitology pneumatology is characteristically absent. 19 20 The so-called modalistic monarchianism (Praxeus, Noetus with his school, Sabellius), which also has a cosmological triadology, is dialectically connected with cosmological subordinationism of the Tertullian-Hippolytan type. Both directions historically developed in struggle with each other, and dogmatically they are connected with each other as a dialectical opposition, thesis and antithesis, within the same general idea. The common ground of both directions lies in their cosmologism in the understanding of the Holy Trinity, and both of them proceed from the concept of a single (Stoic) substance of the Divine, which underlies the Trinitarian process. If Tertullian professed three unequal hypostases, however, unius substantiae, then for monarchist modalism the consubstantiality of the Holy Trinity (as far as we can talk about it here at all), homousianism, was the main dogma. Therefore, the very term ὅμοούσιος turned out to be compromised for a long time in the eyes of the Orthodox, even after the Council of Nicea, which gave it Orthodox use. 21 The Deity and the modalists have a single substance of the Stoics, as with Tertullian. There is one Deity (monad), which is different from the Father 22 and obviously must be understood initially impersonally. Only with further self-determination do hypostases arise in him - it expanded (ἔπλατύνθη) into the Trinity, and this emergence of an initially silent monad from itself is described by Sabellius with features close to Tertullian and Hippolytus. She gave birth to the Logos from herself, or better to say, she herself became the Logos. This verb of the monad is the creation of the world. 23 Thus, the spread of the monad into the triad is an essentially cosmological process. But unlike the subordinationists, the modalists could not come to terms with the difference in the divine hypostases, which, despite the unity and identity of the substance, was still violated by homousianism. Christological, in particular soteriological, considerations also spoke about this. The true redeemer and savior can only be the full, undiminished God, ὁμοούσιος in the Nicene sense. Hence the main postulate of the theology of modalism: the equal divinity of all three hypostases, and, in particular, the first and second. However, in order to implement this correct postulate, it was necessary to have a clear and distinct concept of hypostasis, introducing it and the initial definition of the hypostatic Deity, which, however, both Tertullian and Sabellius understood as non-hypostatic, faceless. In Tertullian’s construction, the hypostasis of the Logos and, in general, cosmological definitions of the Deity are given unclearly and vaguely and are not sufficiently different from his self-definitions, and only adaptation to the church dogma of the three hypostases of the Retinue Trinity makes it possible to call them hypostases. But the modalists tried to find a different way out of the same situation - to apply to church dogma through a direct and conscious interpretation of the hypostases as modes of one and the same, non-hypostatic or super-hypostatic Deity. 24 From here follow modalistic constructions of different shades. In some, the monad consistently takes on and just as consistently removes three definitions: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or it contains these modes within itself, only revealing them in accordance with the development of the world. In this sense, she is no longer first the Father, and then the Son, but in general the Father-Son or Son-Father, and with the end of the world process the Holy Trinity itself ceases (just as with Tertullian). Thus, here we have an attempt to build a system of church Trinitarian teaching based on non-Trinitarian, even anti-Trinitarian, Unitarian theology. But in essence, the theology of Tertullian and Hippolytus is also Unitarian-Stoic, with the only difference that the church trinitarian dogma is interpreted in both cases by two opposing theological constructions of trinity, as the revelation or realization of a single essence. Both directions, in their one-sidedness, represent half-truths, but both of them are equally alien to the Trinitarian dogma in its entirety, as having not only cosmological, but also ontological significance. It is interesting that the positive and negative sides of both teachings are distributed polarly, so that where on the side of one there is a plus, on the opposite side we have a minus. In the field of triadology: modalistic monarchism ensures the equidivinity of the persons of the Holy Trinity (plus), while subordinationism abolishes it (minus); but in the first the separate and simultaneous existence of these persons is abolished (minus), while in the second it is more or less established (plus). In the field of Christology: in modalism the full divinity of the Logos in the God-Man is ensured (plus), in subordinationism it has only partial application (minus); but in the first, Christ is not only one, but also the only hypostasis of the Divine, Son or Son-Father, along with which others do not exist at the same time (minus), while in the second Christ exists along with other hypostases - all the time with the Father and, starting from some time, with the Holy Spirit (plus). Both directions equally profess homousianism, more precisely, tauto-usianism or geno-usianism, i.e. one, unique, self-identical ousia, which is not at all a single ousia of three hypostases ὁμοῦ, together and at the same time, but is either a common source from which and from which different hypostases arise and exist, or is a single ousia of a single Divinity in three modes. Arianism has predecessors in the so-called dynamic monarchism, the leaders of which (Theodotus the Tanner and Theodotus the Moneychanger and Asklepnodotus) were representatives of Unitarianism in triadology and, of course, in Christology (where their main leader was Paul of Samosata, who made Christological conclusions from Unitarian theology in his teaching that Christ was an ordinary man, in whom only God’s power and wisdom were infused). The Antiochian tradition of Aristotelian rationalism, through Lucian, the teacher of Arius, also touched upon this latter, whose main ideas about God are colored by Aristotelianism. It represents in theology the direct opposite of Stoic pantheistic monism. Aristotle's God is completely transcendent to the world in his self-enclosed divine being. “God,” Arius taught, “is alone eternal, carefree, true, has immortality, wise, good, ruler... immutable, unchangeable and good.” He is a self-sufficient being, from time immemorial having his own Logos and wisdom, and is thought of in the spirit of Judaistic-Aristotelian monotheism. In such an attitude, the old, still Philonovsky question necessarily arises: how can the relation of this transcendental God to creation, i.e., be conceived? what is the mediation between God and the world? Arius, however, just like anti-Arian Orthodox theology, was completely alien to sophiological problems. Therefore, where it was necessary to ask about the divine principle or the foundation of the world in God, they argued about the divine Demiurge or Logos and His properties in relation to God the Creator himself. This incorrect problematic is equally characteristic of both Arius and St. Athanasius, as well as all subsequent patristic theology, which is alien to sophiology, although in fact it postulates its positions in its deductions. 25 Asophical theology, in defining God’s relationship to the world, irresistibly leans toward subordinationism, as we have already seen and will continue to see. The theology of Arius is predominantly colored by cosmological issues, and especially his Christology, which is entirely determined by the cosmological, and not the soteriological or any other aspect. At the same time, he proceeded from completely different ontological premises than earlier Tertullian and Origen. Aristotelianism, with its transcendence and self-enclosed self-sufficiency of the Divine, did not give any place to the divisibility of substance, identified with the world being, as in the Stoic theology of Tertullian, or to the emanative process, as in the Neoplatonic theology of Origen. Between the Aristotelian God-monad and the world there is a hiatus, an ontological abyss that can only be overcome salto mortale. This is what Arius accomplished in his doctrine of the created, created from the non-existent (ἔξ οὐκ ὄπτων) Son. The Son was created not from the divine meon, defined in itself as a trinity, as in Stoic and Neoplatonic subordinationism, but from the undivine and extradivine law 26 (οὐκ ὅν), who is therefore in no way similar to the Father: He does not know Him exactly and does not see Him perfectly, He is transformed and changeable, in everything separated and alienated from the essence of the Father. 27 As a creature, the Son arises in time, and therefore in this sense the Father also arises: “God was not always the Father, but it was when there was only God, and there was no Father yet; subsequently He became the Father. The Son was not always there... and it was when there was no Word; He did not exist until it happened... Desiring to create us, (God) created One One and called Him Word, Wisdom and Son, in order to create us through Him.” So, the cosmological origin and purpose of the Son is put beyond any doubt here, and He was created by an act of Divine will, or desire, which has no necessity in itself, but rather is an act of Divine arbitrariness. True, this creation, unlike all others, is perfect, it is destined to become an instrument of the creation of the world, the world's Demiurge, and then to inhabit man and become Christ. For our purpose there is no need to set out here in detail the well-known Arian heresy. It is only important to indicate this internal logic of cosmological subordinationism, which here, on the basis of the Aristotelian doctrine of God, leads to theological absurdity, i.e. to the final destruction of the dogma of the Trinity, with its replacement by frank unitarianism, moreover, disfigured by a dogmatic addition, the doctrine of the created Son. This subordinationist unitarianism is characterized by a complete absence of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and even worse than simple absence, but its replacement - to please the demands of church dogma - with the doctrine of the second degree of divine creation, namely the creation through the Second Hypostasis of the Third, through the Logos - the Holy Spirit. He is both ontologically and cosmologically assigned the third place of dignity. Essentially, Aria, of course, could not be interested in the pneumatological problem. In the final result, the three stages into which Arius divides the Holy Trinity turn out to be ontologically separated from each other by their content. “Separate by nature, disunited, separated, alien and not involved in one another in the essence of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and infinitely dissimilar in everything from each other in essence and glory: at least. The Word, as far as the likeness of glory and essence is concerned, is completely alien to both, both to the Father and to the Holy Spirit.” 28 Arianism received successors in the next generation in the persons of Aetius and Eunomius, 29 who further sharpened the doctrine, giving it a repulsively rationalistic form. At the same time, in the basic idea of ​​subordinationism, in particular as applied to pneumatology, they remained faithful to Arius, and if the Son is a creature for them, then the Holy Spirit is a creature of creation. The unborn God is one and only. The Son is a generation and a creation that did not exist before and therefore was created out of non-existence, alien to the nature of the Father; The spirit is third in order and dignity, therefore, third in essence. 30 So, in Arianism, with all its deadness, we find the extreme sharpening of two problems: cosmological, which should have been answered by sociology - and in the patristic era this problem remained unheard and unanswered - and trinitarian-subordinationist, in which the question of the consubstantiality (homousianism) of hypostases was raised, and with it the whole trinitarian problem. The further development of this problematic is that both the formulation and the very discussion of the last question are woven into the doctrine of non-cosmological, or, more precisely, not only cosmological, but also ontological subordinationism, precisely in the teachings of Origen, who left his stamp on all patristic theology. Origen, who is the true founder of Eastern patristic theology, bears in his teaching traces of the obvious influence of Neoplatonism. His main work, On the Elements, appeared earlier than Plotinus's Enneads, and Plotinus lived later than him. However, as a student of Ammonius Sacca, whose main ideas, according to Porphyry, were also expounded by Plotinus, Origen was imbued with the ideas of Neoplatonism, and he cannot be considered otherwise than in connection with Plotinus, who expresses the highest achievement of Hellenic philosophy, and indeed of natural reason in general, which does not know or, at least, has not accepted revelation. Let us outline in a brief outline the main points of Plotinus’ teaching. 31 It comes from the opposition of empirical multiplicity and its ontological basis in the transcendental One, which lies on the other side of all being, and therefore does not lend itself to any positive definition. In this sense, it corresponds to the absolute NOT of negative theology, expressing the complete transcendence of the Absolute to both being and knowledge. Mystically, Plotinus himself experienced immersion in the Absolute as a vision of intelligent light, in which the opposition of subject and object, knower and known, was completely abolished in ecstasy. But at the same time, he explains the One not only as absolutely transcendent, but also as relatively transcendent, which is only its first definition, which necessarily entails further disclosure. The One finds such self-revelation in self-contemplation or Mind. In eternity this Mind is born as λόγος, the internal self-revelation of the One, as His energy, a real manifestation of the powers and perfections contained in the One, as His image. He is the second God and already contains within himself the transition from the One to the plural, albeit still ideal, being. It receives life and reality already in the third image of self-revelation of the One through the Mind, namely in the World Soul, as the expressed energy of the Mind. She, as already standing on the edge of the world, is a lower, third principle in relation to the Mind. That. the result is a subordination of three “initial hypostases”, which are united by the eternity of their relationship, but at the same time by the diminishing genesis of being. This results in a kind of ontological subordinationism, since “that which gives birth is less than that which is born.” All three principles are consubstantial, but at the same time unequal; they, in varying degrees, in a decreasing order, realize this, being consubstantial in the three-degree nature of the One, Mind and Soul. From this side, there is an analogy with the principle of Stoicism - namely, the compression and expansion of a single substance, which in Tertullian’s Stoic theology was expressed as a kind of division of this single substance. Here there is no division, so to speak, quantitative, but there is an energetic one: the One is concretized by the transition from transcendence to immanence, through a certain heaviness, complication, which ontologically represents the decline of the Absolute, but at the same time is necessary for it. The Absolute One is an overflowing cup, which necessarily flows out of itself into outside itself, while what flows out solidifies and condenses into energetic existence. Here we touch upon one of the most curious features of Neoplatonism, namely the doctrine of the relationship of the One to the world. The world soul is already the ontological basis of the world, and the emergence of the latter occurs not through its creation from non-existence - an idea completely alien to Neoplatonism - but through a further falling away and, as it were, a heavierening of the ideally spiritual principles of being, condensing into the material - καταβολή. The emergence of the world, therefore, is a kind of metaphysical fall, the falling away of plurality from unity, which must be overcome by the reverse process of return, self-immersion. The world is evil in its origin, but good in its foundation. In any case, here we unexpectedly get a pantheistic sign of equality between God and the world. Absolute and being, which includes ambiguity already in the very basic idea. The One is first defined as a completely transcendent principle, characterized only by the features of apophatic theology. However, it turns out to be capable not only of specific definitions, so to speak, of immanentization, but by a two-step transition, through the Mind and Soul, it connects with the world, moreover, it is ontologically identified with it. Subordinationism in Neoplatonism takes on the already familiar features of cosmological subordinationism in Stoicism. The Neoplatonic trinity, beginning in ontology, ends in cosmology; with its beginning it is established in the airless heavenly space of the One, and with its end it rests on our earth. A system with such a metaphysical ladder as having two centers of gravity must be finally established only on one of them. If the world is such a center, then the cosmological trinity is inevitably colored by its features; it belongs to temporality, arises and ceases with the world, as we saw in the systems of cosmological subordinationism. In the opposite case, if the center of gravity is located in eternity and the relations between the “hypostases” are of an eternal nature, then eternity must inevitably be attributed to the world, which is what we have in Neoplatonism due to the absence of the idea of ​​creation in it. The world, so to speak, here enters into the eternity of God 32 (this thought turned out to be tempting for Origen as well). To the comparative characteristics of Neoplatonism it should be added that it also has features of the well-known monarchist ontological modalism. Regarding modalistic monarchianism, the question remains unclear whether the alternating modes of the Absolute in individual hypostases are replaced or whether their joint existence in its depths is preserved (the teaching of Sabellius, for example, is understood by St. Basil the Great in the second sense). The Neoplatonic Trinity is precisely such a monarchical modalism in which one beginning, the One, has three self-positions or modes that do not alternate temporarily, but coexist in eternity, along with the eternity of the world, but in relation to which these self-determinations arise. It should be added one more feature that is essential for Neoplatonism, especially in its relation to the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity, with which it is so unfairly brought together. 33 This is his radical and consistent impersonalism, which is in no way diminished by the use of such expressions as θεός, ὑπόστασις. The Absolute Dam is the One, Εν, but not the One, Εἵς, - it, and not I (and this is already in the post-philosophical, and together with the Christian era, when the ideas of Judeo-Christian personalism could penetrate into the general philosophical consciousness). Here Plotinus shares a feature common to all antiquity. And therefore, his imaginary trinity is not trinitarianism at all, but a triple self-position of a single impersonal principle. There are ontological relations between the One, Mind and Soul, arising from the self-position of the One, but these are by no means three hypostases as personal centers of a single divine life. There is a gulf between the monarchist trinitarian modalism of Plotinus and the Christian trinity, which needs, in any case, a bridge of additional constructions for a possible rapprochement and use of the philosophy of Neoplatonism for the purposes of Christian dogmatics. The first to attempt to erect this bridge was Origen in his system. 34 Origen mastered the basic principles of the philosophy of Neoplatonism, and with their help he built a system of Christian dogma. We can already foresee in advance both the exceptional value of this attempt and its seductiveness and difficulty. To begin with, Origen had to translate the impersonalistic system of Neoplatonism into the language of Christian personalistic, trinitarian theology, moreover, at a time when church theology was very little experienced in the problems of personalism, i.e. in the pre-Nicene and pre-Cappadocia eras. Origen does this without further ado, without deliberate deduction, through a simple substitution in the place of the One - the hypostasis of the Father, in the place of the Mind - the hypostasis of the Word, in the place of the Soul of the world - the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, almost without noticing such a substitution. However, it makes itself felt as soon as one has to more closely define both the hypostatic properties and the relationships of the hypostases. The Father in general receives the features of Plotinus' One and is defined mainly apophatically: He is incomprehensible, inexplicable, invisible, incorporeal, unchangeable. It is not easy to decide whether he is the essence or above the essence, and even above everything imaginable. He is unity and singularity. He is above wisdom, truth, light and life, which are all from Him. However, at the same time, He has complete and perfect knowledge of Himself (therefore, Origen denies the predicate of limitlessness ἄπειρον in favor of certainty and knowability). It should be noted that Origen’s concept of God the Father coincides with the concept of God (ὁ θεός or even αῦτο- Θεός - the first God in the language of Neoplatonism, already presupposing a gradation of the Divine in the second and third God). Neoplatonic subordinationism, therefore, creeps into this first definition. This feature is more fully revealed in the definition of the relationship between the Father and the Son. “We need to imagine the power of God (virtus Dei), which constitutes the basis of God’s existence... From this total and immeasurably great force (comes) evaporation, vapor, and, so to speak, power (vigor), which itself has its own hypostasis (in propria subsistentia effectus). Although this power comes from the power itself, just as will comes from thought, yet the very will of God also becomes the power of God. That. another force occurs, existing in its quality (in sua proprietate subsistens), a certain evaporation of the first and unborn force (primae et ingenitae virtutis) of God, from which it receives its being” (De princ. 1, 2, 9). This emanative idea of ​​the origin of the second power of God from the first, although, undoubtedly, introduces a distinction between them in the sense of ontological subordinationism, at the same time sufficiently affirms the consubstantiality, homocy, of both. The result is an external consonance with Arius, who produced the Son from the desire or will of the Father, which St. so persistently fought against. Athanasius, who affirmed, on the contrary, the origin of the Son from nature, and not from the will of God. Of course, there is no internal coincidence of ideas with Arianism in Origen’s intention here, for Origen establishes the origin of the Son not from non-existence, but from God, as “evaporation” or “the radiance of eternal light.” Thus, although imperfect in form, he lays the foundation for Homousian theology. 35 At the same time, he eliminates another feature of cosmological subordinationism, namely the temporal conditionality of the origin of the Son from the Father, relating it not to the peacemaking “oikonomia”, but to the eternal existence of the Divinity itself. “Just as light can never be without radiance, so, of course, the Son cannot be conceived without the Father. He is also called the imprinted image of His hypostasis (substantiae eius), and the Word, and Wisdom. How can one say that there was once a time when the Son did not exist? After all, to say this means to assert that there once was a time when there was no truth, when there was no wisdom, when there was no life, while in all this the essence (substantia) of God the Father is perfectly conceived; all this can never be taken away from Him and can never be separated from His essence” (De princ. 4, 28). Based on the basic ontological idea of ​​Neoplatonism, 36 Origen radically overcomes the cosmological subordinationism of both Tertullian and Aryan types: the Son is co-eternal with the Father and He is always born of Him (De princ. 1.2.2). However, this overcoming is accomplished by Origen only in relation to the created world, in which the distinction between creatureliness and the divine principle is firmly and consistently drawn, but not in the mutual relations of the hypostases, not in their equality and equality of divinity. Here, as already said, in Origen we have a sharp and consistent subordinationism of hypostases: the Father is higher than the Son (just as the Son is higher than the Holy Spirit, but more on that below). Although the Son is the fullness of the Father’s Divinity, actually realized, He is nevertheless addressed to the world, the shadow of which falls on Himself. God (Father) is a simple one. A son becomes many things. God is above wisdom. Son of wisdom. 37 The Father is the hidden God. The Son is the beginning of self-revelation to the world. The Father is one and simple. The Son is “the idea of ​​ideas and the essence of essences,” the beginning of every creature 38 Sophia (?!): “in this hypostasis of Wisdom (already) lay all the possibility and image of the future creation, and by the power of foreknowledge everything was intended and predetermined.” The Son is the beginning of the ways of God, including the very beginning (initia), forms and species (species) of all creation” (De princ. 1.2.3). This confusion of Logos and Sophia leads to the same thing as in Plotinus: recognizing the eternity of the Son, who is so directly addressed to the world and close to it, he must postulate the eternity of the world 39 saving one by the other (and from this logical necessity he could only be saved by the sophiological distinction between the Divine Sophia or the Divine world and truly eternal, and the Sophia of the world tare). Everything that makes the ontological difference between the Father and the Son so deep that one could fear for their homocy, if it had not already been established above as an eternal, immanent, and not only economic and temporary trinity. “The Savior and the Holy Spirit are incomparable, but immeasurably higher than all that have happened, and the Father is as much and even more superior to the Son as He and the Holy Spirit are superior to all others... Surpassing many and so high (angels and saints) - in essence, power, dignity and Divinity, He is in no way comparable to the Father. 40 From here, Origen naturally has the idea that prayer in the proper sense of προσευχὴ can only be addressed to the Father. This same subordinationism extends to the relationship of the Son to the Holy Spirit. Everything happened through the Logos, so that the Logos is higher than Him, precedes Him in being (In. J oh. I. 2, 6. Mg. t. 14, pp. 125, 128). The Spirit therefore stands in the same relation to the Son as the Son stands to the Father. The Son receives His being from the Father as food, but the Spirit also needs the Son not only for His existence, but also in order to be wise, and reasonable, and just, etc. (In. Joh. 10, 6). Accordingly, the sphere of influence and power of each of the hypostases differs: the Father contains everything, the Son contains only rational beings, the Spirit influences only the saints. True, this influence of all three hypostases is imprinted with the spirit of harmony, so that “to take part in the Holy Spirit is the same as in the Father and the Son” (De princ. 4, 32). However, it must be said that in Origen we do not find an exact concept of the Holy Spirit as a necessary moment in the life of the Divine (and he did not even speak definitely about His Divinity). The schematic inclusion of the Holy Spirit in Origen's theology owes first of all to church dogma, and then, of course, to the scheme of the Neoplatonic trinity. The place and tasks of the world Soul are indicated here clearly and consistently, while in Origen they are already largely given over to the Second Hypostasis (which he also identifies with Sophia), and nothing remains for the Third, and this confusion of such a powerful mind further emphasizes the lack of pneumatology, which is just as characteristic of him as of his predecessors and contemporaries. Subordinationism eliminates the possibility of pneumatology altogether. And, of course, Origen could learn a lot from Plotinus in the field of logology, to which, in fact, the theological interests of the era were limited, but not in the field of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, which was completely alien to Plotinus. We must give preference to formal consistency to Plotinus over Origen in the general system. Plotinus developed a system of dynamic pantheism, thanks to his obvious personalism, freed from many difficulties. Origen replaced the Absolute One of Plotinus with the Christian Trinitarian Deity. This was, of course, the work of a Christian theologian, but not of a systematic thinker. Because he placed trinitarian hypostases, divine personalities, where Plotimus had impersonal metaphysical principles, Origen’s system became, of course, more Orthodox, but by no means more harmonious. This replacement, as already said, was only factual and not fundamental; it received neither theological nor philosophical justification. Origen introduced into theology, together with Plotinus, the expression “three hypostases” of the One God. 41 He also created the problem of the consubstantiality of the Trinity, but not of the Most Holy One itself. Trinity, which is why he, in fact, lacks triadology (and in particular, pneumatology). Thanks to Origen, the doctrine of the Trinity in unity and unity in the Trinity did not move a single step and remained in the same problematics of logology, given by the apologists, i.e. Duos of Father and Son. Despite his ontologism, he not only did not distinguish between God and the world in his theology, but, in the end, united them, though not reducing God to the world, but elevating the world to God. T. Thus, neither subordinationism nor cosmologism in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity turned out to be overcome. Only one indisputable achievement can be recognized here: the question of trinity was understood in relation not only to the “economic” Trinity, but also to the “immanent” one. What has been said, of course, does not diminish the great merit of Origen in theology that he is the creator of the first system of Christian theology, which included, although with unequal clarity, its main problematics. The teaching of St. Athanasius is revealed polemically, on the basis of the struggle against Arianism, and the main interest of his theology is christological and logological. The central motive of his system is, in particular, soteriological, since only the incarnation of the true God is capable of achieving the complete restoration and deification of man. The revelation of this soteriological-Christological doctrine is obviously possible only on the basis of homoousianism, i.e. recognition of the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and this, in turn, leads to Trinitarian problems, although St. Athanasius does not proceed from them, but he cites them as why this part of his worldview is revealed in him much less clearly than the Christological one. The initial formulation of the Trinitarian problem in St. Athanasia is Neoplatonic-Origenistic, which by his time had already taken root. He proceeds, like them, from the definition of the Divine First Principle, the Father, as a simple, blissful and incomprehensible essence, inaccessible to definition, why one can speak of Him except that He is not. The “single principle” of the Divine is higher than essence and human imagination, higher than beauty or goodness.” “He is a simple essence, in which there is no quality” (Last Bishop 8). Along with this, the transcendental Deity is described (not without inconsistency) with positive features, as the fullness of love and perfection. Further revelation of the First Principle, in accordance with the scheme of Neoplatonism, takes place in internal self-disclosure, which St. Athanasius explores primarily in relation to the Logos. At the same time, the difference between the immanent and economic Trinity is established by itself, and, affirming with all clarity the eternity of the Holy Trinity, St. Athanasius decisively frees himself at this point from cosmologism in the doctrine of St. Trinity, both Stoic and Arian. The Father in eternity begets the Son, who is the eternal birth of the Father, and “God is the eternal source of His wisdom.” If there was a time when the Son did not exist, then this would mean that “the Father was without His own Logos and without wisdom, that there was once light without a ray, there was a waterless and dry spring.” The birth of the Son from the Father is not an act of free will of the Father’s will (like the creation of the Demiurge according to Arius), but of nature, although “desired” by the Father. The most important thing for St. Athanasius' definition of the Son is that He is from the essence of the Father, or the same essence, or consubstantial with Him, and as such He has all the divine properties, is God. The birth of the second principle from the first in St. Athanasius is not a work of metaphysical necessity, but an act of the personal life of the personal God. Here, in the impersonal ontological principles of Plotinus in St. Athanasius, like Origen, introduces hypostatic definitions, but accepted only dogmatically, without deliberate speculative theological research. Based on the radical homoousianism characteristic of St. Athanasius, it was not so easy to distinguish between individual hypostases, and, generally speaking, the attempt at theological deduction of the Trinity dogma is absent from St. Athanasius, which is why his position in the polemic with Sabellianism is theologically insufficiently protected. In general, the scales are with St. Athanasia dogmatically leans towards homoousianism rather than trinity. 42 Alien to cosmological subordinationism in logology and Christology, St. Athanasius denies the demiurgic purpose of the Son. Here comes a characteristic question in his polemic against Arianism. On the one hand, alien to cosmologism in the understanding of the Divine, St. Athanasius, in his own way, no less than Arius, affirms the insurmountable distance between God and the world, Creator and creation. “Everything created has nothing similar in its essence to the Creator,” “what a similarity between that which comes from nothing, and between the Creator who creates it from nothing.” The opposition between God and the world is taken in all its sharpness. But precisely based on this opposition. Arius, following Philo, postulated a created mediator between God and the world. Of course, this is only an attempt to fill the gap, which does not become smaller at all. St. Athanasius, in his polemic with Arius, refers to God's omnipotence, which is great enough to create the world without any mediation; on the contrary, “everything that God wants comes into being without delay.” To doubt the character of the ontological St. Athanasius responds only with reference to the omnipotence of God. Of course, this is by no means a solution to the difficulty, since the abstract reference to omnipotence is inapplicable to questions of ontology. However, according to St. Athanasius, created being “would not tolerate the unmoderated nature of the Father and truly the Father’s Lordship, and according to the Father’s love for mankind, the Word condescends to help creatures” (S. ar. II, 24). Logos is a creative principle that contains all the principles of being, and there is nothing in it that would happen or take place not in the Logos and not by the Logos. It should be noted here that in fact St. Athanasius, by the action of the Logos, essentially limits and exhausts the relationship of God to the world, leaving no room in it for the action of the Third Hypostasis. On the other hand, what is characteristic of Sophia is attributed to the Logos; it is He who is defined as the divine basis of the world. 43 One way or another, the relationship of the Duo - Father and Son, both in eternity and in creation, is sufficiently revealed. For this reason, the actual trinitarian problematics (in particular in the criticism of the teachings of Sabellius) for him are usually exhausted by clarifying the relationship of the Two. 44 Of course, church-dogmatically St. Athanasius confesses to St. Trinity, 45 however, theologically, his doctrine, although it contains the Duality, but, in essence, does not accommodate the Trinity, and his Trinitarian theology remains predominantly dyadic. Indicative in this regard is that side of the teaching of St. Athanasius, where he deals with the issue of St. Spirit, in his pneumatology. It is characteristic that in all works devoted to logology, Christology, soteriology, St. Af[anasius] essentially dispenses with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 46 while he professes, of course, the church dogma of the Holy Spirit, the action of which, as has already been said, is actually attributed by him to the Logos. 47 At the same time, he professes, of course, the church dogma about the Holy Spirit, but does not theologize about Him at all. The reason to take up this issue was given to him by the teaching of heretics (called “tropicists”), who denied the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, but considered Him to be a creature. This gave rise to the occasion to expound the Orthodox teaching in the epistles to Serapion of Thmuis, I. III, IV about the Holy Spirit, relying mainly on the testimony of the Word of God, as well as tradition. Affirming the divinity of the Holy Spirit and confessing the dogma of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, St. Athanasius, however, constructs the theology of the Holy Spirit only in relation to the Son, dyadic, so that if in his Christological writings we have the first dyad of the Holy Trinity: Father - Son, then here we have the second dyad: Son - Holy Spirit. Athanasius hardly deals with the relationship of the Father to the Holy Spirit (in particular, nothing is said about the procession from the Father, although the corresponding text of John 15:26 is given). On the contrary, he systematically traces the relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit, and their general relationship is expressed in the formula that just as the Son is the Image of the Father, so the Holy Spirit is the Image of the Son (K Serap. 3, 4). This Athanasian thought (found, however, in the symbol of St. Gregory the Wonderworker) was destined to have a long life in all patristic writing until St. John of Damascus inclusive The same unity with the Son is attributed to the Holy Spirit as the Son is with the Father. “If, due to the unity of the Word with the Father (they) do not agree to call the Son one of the created... then why is the Holy Spirit, who has the same unity with the Son that the Son has with the Father, called creation? Why didn’t they realize that, just as they preserve the unity of God by not separating the Son from the Father, so by separating the Spirit from the Word, they no longer preserve the one Divinity in the Trinity, dividing it? (1, 2). “Those who are unjust about the Holy Spirit do not rightly think about the Son” (ib.), and “The Holy Spirit should be named together with Christ” (1, 9). “When the Father is called, both His Word and the Spirit are present in Him. And if the Son is called, then the Father is in the Son, and the Spirit is not outside the Word. For grace alone is supplied from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.” (1, 14) 2). - “In the Son we can see the Spirit,” and “when we are enlightened by the Spirit, then Christ enlightens us with Him,” “having been filled with the Spirit, we drink Christ,” and “having received the Spirit, we are made sons” (1:19). “Having received the Spirit of wisdom, we have the Son in us, and through him we become wise,” “since the Son is life, it is said of us that we are made alive by the Spirit... and since we are quickened by the Spirit, it is said that Christ lives in us,” “so (and) Paul, if he did something by the power of the Spirit, he called it the works of Christ” (1:9). “As the Son abides in His own image - in the Spirit, so the Father in the Son” (1, 20). “One is sanctification accomplished by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. For just as the Son is the only begotten, so the Spirit given and sent by the Son is one. As the Son is sent by the Father...so he sends the Spirit. The Son... And as the Son glorifies the Father... so the Spirit glorifies the Son... so the Spirit receives from the Son... just as the Son came in the name of the Father, so the Son says of the Spirit: “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name” (John 14:26) (1:20). - “The Spirit is called anointing and is a seal” (1 John 2:27), but “the Spirit belongs to the anointing and sealing Word, for the anointing has the fragrance and inspiration of the Anointing One, and those who are anointed, having partaken of Him, say: These are the fragrance of Christ (2 Cor. 2:15). The seal has the image of Christ imprinting, and those sealed become partakers of this image... so all creation becomes partaker of the Word in the Spirit” (1, 2, 3). “The anointing and seal in us is not from created things, but from the Son himself, who unites us with the Spirit who is in Him. Father" (ib.). - “The Spirit is and is called the image of the Son.” “Whom Thou didst foretell, them also Thou hast predestined to be conformed to the image of Thy Son” (R. 8:29). “In the Spirit, the Word grants glory to the creation, adoring and adopting, bringing it to God... And whoever adopts the creation cannot be alien to the Son... In Him the Word adores created beings” (I, 26). “The Spirit is not separate from the Son. And, indeed, when the Lord says: I and the Father will come, the Spirit also comes, dwelling in us not otherwise, but also as the Son also dwells” (I, 31). “Therefore, since the Word abides in the prophets, they prophesy in the Holy Spirit itself,” and “when the Word descended on the Holy Virgin Mary, then the Spirit also descended, and the Word in the Spirit formed and made a body for Himself” (I, 31, cf. III, 6). “The Spirit is the Spirit of the Son (Gal. 4:6), and just as the Son says: what is Mine is the Father’s (Im. 17:10), so the Holy Spirit, called the Spirit of the Son, is the Spirit of the Father” (III, 2). “Just as he who has seen the Son has seen the Father, so he who has the Holy Spirit has the Son in himself” (III, 3). We have stated in the true words of St. Athanasius, his teaching about the Holy Spirit, found in the epistles to Serapion of Thmuis. Let us establish its main features. First of all, as already noted, it is not triadic, but dyadic, for it considers the relationship of the Holy Spirit only to the Son. This does not mean, of course, that St. Athanasius in some sense excluded (at least subordinationistically) the Holy Spirit from the composition of the Holy Trinity; on the contrary, he repeatedly testifies to the opposite. However, in fact, he considers the nature and action of the Holy Spirit only in relation to the Son and almost completely excludes from consideration His relation to the Father (and therefore does not particularly dwell on the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and in general about procession as opposed to birth). For this reason alone, his teaching about the Holy Spirit (or, which in this case is the same thing, about the Holy Trinity) is incomplete and is oriented one-sidedly Christocentrically, St. Athanasius remains primarily a logologist or Christologist in pneumatology. This is also where another one-sidedness or incompleteness comes from: to what extent the logology of St. Athanasius has not only an economic and cosmological character, but is rooted in the immanent, eternal life of the Holy Trinity, just as his pneumatology has a predominantly, almost exclusively economic character, and is presented in relation to the work of salvation carried out by Christ through the Holy Spirit. And this same, predominantly soteriological, aspect in the pneumatology of St. Athanasius also corresponds to another one-sidedness of his teaching about the Holy Spirit, namely, that He is not at all considered as the Creator in relation to the creation of the world, but exclusively as the One of grace, accomplishing the work of salvation, i.e. not cosmourgically, but charismatically. This corresponds to the already noted above feature of St.’s logology. Athanasius, that for him the Logos, understood rather as Sophia, is a cosmourgic hypostasis, to which the entire work of creation, preservation and provision for the world is attributed, i.e. not only what really belongs to the Word, but also what among the later holy fathers and in church teaching in general also refers to the Holy Spirit. With his gifts, the Holy Spirit brings about salvation, and has only the spiritual, but not the natural, life of the world as its subject of influence. This is, undoubtedly, a consequence of the one-sided soteriological Christocentrism in pneumatology of St. Afanasia. This same incompleteness and one-sidedness makes it defective in the sense that, strictly speaking, it lacks the teaching about the Holy Spirit itself, as the Third Hypostasis in the Holy Trinity. This hypostasis has its own place and hypostatic characteristics in Her, both in relation to the procession and the intra-Trinity life in general, and in the life of the world. This is a soteriological narrowing of problems in St. Athanasius, however, remains without influence on further patristic thought. But it receives a very special meaning in the doctrine of St. Athanasius, as a classic expression of the dyadic teaching about the Holy Spirit and the Son in relation to humanity and its salvation, Their indissoluble duality and unity in the work of salvation, in action on man and in man, in other words, in God-manhood. Epistles of St. Athanasius are remarkable in that in them he, who, like no one in patristics, revealed the Christological side of the doctrine of God-manhood, here understood and interpreted the work of God-manhood as the dyadic action of the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is the way this question is posed by St. Athanasius already has historical significance. We also lean towards it with our own problems in this study - about God-manhood as the work of the Son and the Holy Spirit, in Their indivisible Twoness, revealing the Father. Cappadocian Trinity - St. Basil the Great, his brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and friend, St. Gregory the Theologian, are of decisive importance in the Trinitarian theology of the East. They gave it that dogmatic formulation, which in general remains to this day, with all its strengths and weaknesses, in Eastern theology. Let us outline, as briefly and accurately as possible, the main features of this teaching. 48 First of all, we should note his purely terminological achievements, which are of no small importance for theology. Pre-Cappadocia theology did not have categories for the separate expression of personality and essence or nature, but terminologically, as well as logically, mixed the terms ὑπόστασις and οὐσία, hypostasis and essence, which were at its disposal for this. The term person who received the right of citizenship in Western theology - persona - since Tertullian, in Greek writing - πρόσωπον - seemed suspicious both in its proximity to Sabellianism and in general in its vague meaning, for it refers to everything that appears before the eyes - profile, mask, appearance and under. If πρόσωπον is found in St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Gregory of Nyssa, then only along with ὑπόστασις. as his explanation. 49 The concept of hypostasis is explained by the Cappadocians not in a personalistic sense, but in a material sense. The guiding principle here is the Aristotelian doctrine of πρώτη οὐσία, i.e. concrete being, in which only a concrete essence exists, outside of this concreteness representing a simple abstraction (δευτέρα οὐσία). This concrete reality is established by a special attribute of a thing, thanks to which a hypostasis arises in ousia. This concept of hypostasis can include objects of both inanimate and animate types: a stone, an animal, a person, an angel. God. In itself, it is completely devoid of personalistic meaning, and if it is actually invested in it, according to church dogma (as the existence in itself of καθ’ ἑαυτόν), then this meaning is in no way connected with the category of hypostasis itself. This Aristotelian distinction between ousia and hypostasis, as applied to the Holy Trinity, postulates for its implementation, on the one hand, the unity of the Divine essence, and on the other, hypostatic signs that would concretize this essence into trinitarian being, and such hypostatic signs, obviously, there should be three, corresponding to the triplicity of hypostases. The first requirement is satisfied by homoousianism, which, perhaps, with different shades of understanding compared to St. Athanasius (precisely in the direction of homoousianism), however, all Cappadocians clearly and firmly profess: the unity of the Divinity, as the Divine nature, represents their main dogmatic presumption. This is the unity of the Divinity of St. Basil the Great in his polemic with Eunomius (1.1) is defended by the reference to the fact that unity lies in the very idea of ​​essence. The ground for this recognition had already been sufficiently prepared by the previous development of Homousian theology and the Neoplatonizing Origenism that preceded it. The influence of Neoplatonism and Origenism - quite unexpectedly - is combined with Aristotelianism in the teaching of the Cappadocians about the unknowability of the Divine, which they had to develop in the fight against the rationalism of Eunomius (and then Aetius), who considered the Divinity to be completely rationally knowable. Against this teaching, the Cappadocians with all their strength profess apophatism - the unknowability of the Divine and, consequently, His transcendence. 50 The essence of God is incomprehensible, unnameable, indefinable, God is higher than essence, goodness, beauty, even deity. However, such a statement of the complete transcendence of the Divine in Neoplatonism and Origenism is logically overcome by subordinationism, which makes possible the transition from apophatic to cataphatic, to a positive teaching about God through the self-revelation of the Divine in the divine world. Here, with a strict denial of subordinationism, such a transition does not exist. Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism in the Cappadocian system stand one next to the other inconsistently: what is impossible in the order of negative theology turns out to be taken for granted here in cataphatic theology, where ousia receives its determinants in the form of hypostatic features. 51 So, the Divine ousia among the Cappadocians is, on the one hand, an incomprehensible, transcendental Deity, and on the other, a common essence that exists only concretized by hypostatic features. A comparison can be made in the spirit of St. Gregory of Nyssa in his letter to Aulavius: metal is a common material from which various vessels are made, or human nature exists in the form of individual people. But since hypostasized, concrete being is generally the only existing being, while general nature (“second” ousia) is an abstraction, a new difficulty arises on the paths of theological Aristotelianism: is the triply hypostasized substance not divided into three parts or, which in this case is the same, into three hypostases. In other words, doesn’t the logical specter of tritheism, from which subordinationist theology was, in any case, free, stand in this way? Being absolutely firm in this respect dogmatically by virtue of church dogma, the Cappadocians were by no means theologically protected on this side in their Aristotelism and had to repel possible attacks (St. Gregory of Nyssa to Aulavius ​​“on the fact that there are not three Gods”). According to Aristotle, hypostases (hypostatic signs) not only concretize, but thereby also divide substance, for only concrete being alone exists. Therefore, strictly according to Aristotle, it is possible to derive a trinity of hypostases, but not a trinity of them as a trinity. 52 And this same question turns to the other side: how do separate hypostases have a single essence as a common nature? In other words, how and to what extent is the Homoousian consubstantiality (which in St. Athanasius approached identical existence, tautousia) realized here?.. In the natural world, the “hypostases” split up their ossia - so all golden things contain a part of gold, as a whole, existing only for abstracting thought (in a similar way, the substance of the Divine was divided in the Stoic subordinationism). But is it possible, on the basis of Aristotelianism, to express the dogma not about common possession and not about separate possession, but precisely about consubstantiality? Here again, although the Cappadocians are extremely persistent in their defense of church dogma, they are not as firm theologically in ensuring the unity of the being of God in the three hypostases and their consubstantiality. 53 Within the categories of Aristotelianism in which the Cappadocians concluded their theology. in reality there is no place for the Divine trinity, trinitarian consubstantiality. and it remains a philosophically unjustified postulate. In relation to the single divine essence, the threefold images (τρόποι τῆς ὑπάρξεως) are determined, according to Aristotle, by distinctive hypostatic properties (γνωριστικὸν κατὰ τἡν ὑποστασιν σημεῖον). These characteristics are taken from the relations of descent in such a way that the first is designated as paternity, the second as sonship, and the third as descent. 54 In fact, an equal sign is placed between these γνωρίσματα, hypostatic signs, and the hypostases themselves, so that the Father is ungeneracy, the Son is birth, the Holy Spirit is procession. Here the path is already outlined, which Catholic theology subsequently decisively embarked on, albeit in its own way. In itself, this equation of hypostatic characteristics with the hypostases themselves has no basis. We must remember that Aristotle’s hypostasis has absolutely nothing to do with personal-hypostatic determinations. The Cappadocians actually apply his scheme to the already given dogma of the Church, and for the latter it turns out to be completely insufficient, precisely in order to establish the personal nature of hypostatic existence. But it achieves another goal, which the Cappadocians pursue in their problematics: it triples the Divinity, making Him trinitarian. This tripling, as we have seen, goes even further than necessary. What is required for the trinitarian dogma is not just three selves, but a triune self, the trinity in one and the one in trinity (to which the Cappadocians tirelessly testify). However, this triune Self in this construction is ensured only by the unity of the ousia, but not by the unity of the, albeit triple, hypostasis. And this is not enough, for the Holy Trinity is one not only in ossia or nature, but also in the Trinitarian subject. 55 And it is precisely the incompleteness of the doctrine on this side that results in its vulnerability from tritheism. The reason here is the material, but not hypostatic, nature of Aristotle’s categories, which are therefore in themselves insufficient when applied to the comprehension of hypostases and trinity, although for their time this brought a certain comparative clarity. It should also be noted as a feature of Eastern Trinitarian theology that, in the person of the Cappadocians, in the theological comprehension of the dogma of the Trinity, it proceeds not from the unity of ousia, but from the trinity of hypostases, in contrast to Western theology, which does just the opposite, proceeding from the unity of substance and in it seeking the emergence of three hypostases. The three hypostases are united in the Holy Trinity, which consists of equally divine hypostases. The teachings of the Cappadocians completely reject both subordinationism and cosmologism in the understanding of the Holy Trinity. She exists eternally in Herself, regardless of Her revelation in the world. This immanent character of the Holy Trinity is sometimes defined completely in the spirit of Neoplatonism (only without its subordinationism), even in its direct words. 56 Certain features of the metaphysics of Neoplatonism are here combined with the logical rationalism of Aristotle. The three hypostases are of equal honor in the Holy Trinity, although they are united in it by the beginning of the “monarchy” of the Father. 57 “We honor the unity of command... The Father is the parent and the maker, giving birth and bringing forth dispassionately, outside of time and incorporeally, the Son is the begotten, the Spirit is the utterance.” “They are from the Father, although not after the Father.” “It is true that the beginningless is eternal, but the eternal need not be beginningless. So, the Son and the Spirit are not without beginning in relation to the Author. It is known that the Culprit does not need to be more original than those. for Whom He is the Author... And together the Son and the Spirit are without beginning in relation to time” (f. 29). “They are not without beginning and together in some respect (which is the difficulty) are without beginning. They are not without beginning in relation to the Culprit... but they are without beginning in relation to time” (page 25, also in page 39). Here, instead of subordinationism, a new relationship is introduced between the hypostases: the Beginningless Culprit (αἰτία) and the beginningless, but having beginnings (αἰτιατοί) hypostases. This extremely important hierarchical distinction remains unclear both in relation to the basic concept of αἰτία, which obviously does not coincide with the concept of causality in the sense of occurrence, and in relation to the resulting hierarchism, which is put in the place of subordinationism. 58 The equality and equidivinity of the hypostases, in their relationship to the Beginning, is affirmed by the Cappadocians with energy that leaves no room for doubt. 59 The proclamation of this truth was prompted, on the one hand, by the acute neo-Arianism of Eunomius, 60 and on the other, by Doukhoborism, which relegated the Spirit to the position of a creature. Assessing the work of the Cappadocians in this area, it should be recognized that they dogmatically established, so to speak, the classical doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which can be accepted as the norm of church teaching: it is free from non-Orthodox deviations both towards monarchianism and towards subordinationism, ontological and cosmological, and in this sense it represents the middle “royal path” of church teaching, and the merits of the “ecumenical teachers of the church” cannot be exaggerated. At the same time, their teaching is a theological doctrine that includes as premises the most mature fruit of ancient speculation - the synthesis of Aristotelianism, Platonism and Neoplatonism. Moreover, each of these directions is superior in its religious and philosophical one-sidedness, and one is complemented, although perhaps not always organically, by the other. Such a synthesis, of course, cannot be final or complete; it bears the features of the limitations of the era, and this must be said about Cappadocian theology, which stands significantly lower than Cappadocian dogmatics. Its weaknesses are, partly already noted above, the following features: 1) The teaching of the Cappadocians, in fact, is not a teaching about the Holy Trinity, as a purely Trinitarian doctrine, although dogmatically it wants to be just that. It comes from the trinity of hypostases, from which the Holy Trinity is further formed, and this addition remains incomplete, in the sense that the result is three, united in one nature, but not a trinity. The unity of the Holy Trinity is established, therefore, not by the trinity of the Divine Person, which includes the trinity of equally divine Persons with a single nature, but only by the unity of this nature. As a single, trinitarian Deity, there is only the Divine It, and not the trinitarian I, the Divine trinity. This is the only aspect of the Cappadocian doctrine where the doctrine of the Trinity is presented not only inaccurately, but also downright incorrectly. The Unity in the Trinity is equally the Person, although trihypostatic, Elohim-Yahweh, and one nature, but it is not only the unity of nature. 2) Connected with this is another weak side of the Trinitarian doctrine of the Cappadocians, associated with their formal-logical Aristotelianism: the hypostases, each established by its own hypostatic attribute, remain unrelated to each other. They are united by the unity of their ousia or substance (with all the ambiguities of this definition, see above), but not with each other. They remain only side by side - three, not trinity - and the hypostatic trinity is replaced here by an auspicious unity. This stems from the formal-mechanical application of the Aristotelian schemes of ousia and hypostasis, with each separate, hypostatic property, γνώρισμα, giving a new hypostasis. The number of these hypostases is determined only in fact, by the presence of signs, but in itself it could be more or less than three. The (ontological) necessity of precisely three, as a trinity, is not shown or proven. True, this triplicity is motivated among the Cappadocians by three hypostatic characteristics borrowed from Revelation. They complete the ontological deduction of the trinity, which they began based on Aristotle, based on the dogmatic fact of the revelation of the three hypostases, but this factual completion does not replace the theological revelation. 3) Another basis by which the Cappadocians want to connect the Holy Trinity and theologically substantiate the trinity of the three is the idea of ​​​​monarchy, the distinction in the Holy Trinity between the Beginning without beginning and the hypostases that have a beginning: αἰτία and αἰτιατοί. But this important principle remains speculatively unclear in its theological meaning, and in any case must be clarified and defended by subordinationism. 4) Among the Cappadocians, due to a certain formulation of the question of trinity, order naturally occupies a prominent place: the succession of Divine persons, or τάξις, also in connection with the unity of command of the Holy Trinity. Borrowing from Revelation the order of the hypostases and applying it to the principle of unity of command, the Cappadocians do not give it a theological-ontological interpretation, which is a natural consequence of the lack of connection between the three hypostases in their Trinitarian doctrine. Meanwhile, the doctrine of taxis and its true meaning should occupy an essential place in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Turning, in particular, to pneumatology, one should first of all establish the thesis, common to all Cappadocians, about the deity of the Holy Spirit. All of them have to fight the pneumatomachians, who denied it. Confession of the deity of the Holy Spirit is a common theological feat of the Cappadocian Trinity, and the corresponding texts from their works testifying to this are very numerous. It is characteristic of the spirit of the era and the difficulty of this task that, despite all the decisiveness of this defense, St. Basil the Great, professing this very thought, avoided applying the word God to the Holy Spirit, for which he was subjected to criticism and reproach (even from his friend Gregory the Theologian). This should not be surprising if we remember that in the so-called Niceno-Constantinopolitan symbol, although the equality of honor and divinity of the Holy Spirit between the Father and the Son is confessed, He is also not directly called God. It can already be assumed in advance that the absence of the actual trinitarian teaching about the connection of the hypostases as a trinity (and not just a trinity) of the Holy Trinity will be reflected in the teaching about the Holy Spirit. In particular, at St. Basil, the question about the place of the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity arises in a polemic with Eunomius, who expresses the following thought: “The Spirit is third in dignity and order, why do we believe that He is third in nature.” To this St. Basil the Great answers: “if the Spirit is third in dignity and order, then what is the need for Him to be third in nature?.. For, as the Son according to the Father is second in order, even from the Father, and second in dignity, even though the Father is the beginning and guilt, since He is the Father of the Son, and because through the Son access and bringing to God and the Father, but by nature not second, because in both The Divinity is one: so exactly, although the Holy Spirit follows the Son in dignity and order (let’s assume that we completely concede in this), however, from this it is not yet clear that it would be fair to conclude that the Holy Spirit is of a different nature.” 61 This strange and obscure passage introduces a kind of subordinationism “according to dignity and order.” This thought can be interpreted in equal directions, but in the absence of Trinitarian doctrine it remains ambiguous and unclear. The place of the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity is determined by St. Basil the Great by two signs: firstly, by descending from the Father, according to the principle of monarchy, and, secondly, by a dyadic relationship with the Son, which we already know from the teachings of St. Afanasia. First of all, St. Basil the Great assimilates the basic thought of St. Athanasius that “the image of God is Christ... but the image of the Son is the Spirit, and the partakers of the Spirit are made sons according to what is written: Rom. 8, 29 "(the same text as St. Athanasius). And again: “The Son is the Word of God, and the Spirit is the verb of the Son. For it is said (Heb. 1:3). And since the Spirit is the verb of the Son, therefore it is the verb of God.” 62 The Holy Spirit, sent from God, is given through the Son. “There is no other way to worship the Son except in the Holy Spirit, and no other way to call on the Father except in the Spirit of sonhood.” 63 “Through the one Son the Holy Spirit is united with the one Father and with Himself completes the revered and blessed Trinity.” 64 “As in the Son the Father is invisible to us, so in the Spirit is the Son... there is worship in the Son, both in the image of God and the Father, and there is worship in the Spirit, since He in Himself shows the Divinity of the Lord... It is impossible to see the image of the invisible God except in the illumination of the Spirit” (chapter 26). The general idea about the dyadic relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit, characteristic of St. Athanasius, it turns out, is also inherent in St. Basil the Great, and it is, naturally, more fully revealed not in application to the immanent Trinity, but economically, in relation to the world. Here the action of St. Doula is revealed precisely in His union with the action of Christ, in the dyadic inseparability of the entire Holy Trinity. And first of all, this includes the classic text about the creation of the world: “in creation... imagine the original cause of everything created - the Father, and the creative cause - the Son, and the perfecting cause - the Spirit.” “Imagine the Three - the commanding Lord, the creating Word and the affirming Spirit” (chapter 16). In particular, the economy of man is accomplished by the Duo of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament construction is accomplished through the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit is inherent in the very flesh of the Lord... every action was performed in the presence of the Spirit. The spirit was present in those who were tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1). The spirit was inseparably present in the one who performs miracles (Matthew 12:28). The spirit did not leave him even when he rose from the dead (John 20:22–23). But isn’t the government of the Church clearly and indisputably accomplished by the Spirit? 65 The most remarkable and bold judgment of St. Basil the Great about the combined action of the Son and the Holy Spirit (by the way, generally little noticed) refers to eschatology: “and during the expected appearance of the Lord from heaven, the Holy Spirit will not be inactive, as others think, but will appear together on the day of the revelation of the Lord, on which the Blessed and the only Mighty One will judge the universe in righteousness... Those blessings that God has prepared for the worthy... and the crown of the righteous is grace Spirit... and by “chopped” we mean alienation from the Spirit... in hell... the help of the Spirit no longer resides..." (chapter 16). “Everything that needs sanctification is turned to the Holy Spirit... He is the giver of life” (chapter 9), through the illumination of the Spirit “abiding in God, becoming like God and the extreme limit of what is desired - deification” (ib.). In the works of the holy father there are many separate judgments about different aspects of the action of the Holy Spirit, which allow us to consider these creations as a treasury of teachings about the Holy Spirit. However, we will look in vain here for a complete teaching about His own place in the Holy Trinity, not about the spirit, but about the Spirit, not about His gifts, but about Himself, and this is due to the general state of the Trinitarian doctrine in this era. In particular, the main question of taxis, which was put forward most of all by the Cappadocians, remains unresolved: how to understand and what does the third place of the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity mean? The image used by St. adds little to the understanding of intra-Trinity relations. Basil the Great to understand the procession of the Holy Spirit, namely, that “He is the Spirit of the mouth of God” (just as others compare it with the breath that accompanies the spoken word). Physical comparisons, no matter how common they are in patristic writing, are not of any use in relation to the understanding of the Holy Trinity (as St. Gregory the Theologian recognized this with all his might in word 31). 66 St. Gregory the Theologian, like his friend St. Basil the Great (albeit the latter with verbal reservations), professes the divinity of the Holy Spirit against heretics. “So, what? The Spirit is God." Without a doubt. "And Consubstantial." “Yes, because God” (verse 31). However, despite the deliberate confession of St. Gregory the Theologian 67 regarding the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, we generally do not find in him anything original in the Trinitarian doctrine, and in particular in the teaching about the place of the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity, in comparison with the Holy Spirit. Basil the Great, in addition to the inspiration and eloquence that distinguish his word. He is more aware than other fathers that new revelations are still to come in the field of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and this thought is perhaps the most remarkable thing in his pneumatology. “During the centuries there were two famous transformations of human life, called two Testaments, and, according to the well-known expression of Scripture, upheavals of the earth (Ap. 2, 7). One led from idols to the law, and the other from the law to the Gospel. I also preach the good news about the third shock - about the transfer from here to there, unshakable and unshakable. But the same thing happened to both Testaments. What exactly? They were not introduced suddenly... Why? We needed to know that we are not forced, but convinced... I want to liken theology to this, only in the opposite sense. For there the transformation was achieved through cancellations, but here it is accomplished without addition... The Old Testament clearly preached the Father (?!), and not with such clarity the Son, the New revealed the Son and gave instructions about the Divinity of the Spirit; Now the Spirit abides with us, giving us the clearest knowledge of Him. It was unsafe, before the Divinity of the Father was confessed, to clearly preach the Son and, before the Son was recognized, to burden us with preaching about the Holy Spirit. It was necessary for the Trinity light to illuminate those who were being enlightened by gradual additions, as David says, by ascensions (Ps. 83:6), by income from glory to glory by “successes” (verse 31). May this thought be St. Gregory the Theologian and now a leader in the theology of the Spirit! St. Gregory of Nyssa fought with the same Eunomius, who recognized the Holy Spirit as a creature of the Son. 68 He also has to insist on the co-eternity and co-divinity of the Holy Spirit with the other hypostases of the Holy Trinity. In general, the line of his thought coincides with the teaching of St. Basil the Great. In particular, it should be noted that St. Gregory of Nyssa, the relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit comes out more clearly, not only in the economic aspect (mainly as in St. Basil and Gregory), but also in the ontological one. This means that the connection of the Holy Trinity in its three hypostases, the actual Trinitarian problem, is outlined somewhat more specifically by him than by them. The general concept of the ternary connection is expressed by his physical comparison of the Trinity with three lights. “We come from the Father through the Son to the Spirit. For, having entered into the comprehension of the born light, from here they immediately understood another Light originating from it, like a certain ray existing together with the sun, the reason for the existence of which (the ray) is in the sun, but the very existence together with the sun does not come later, with time, but is shown from the sun along with its appearance. It is better to say, let us imagine not a ray from the Sun, but from the unborn Sun another Sun, together with the representation of the First, co-shine with Him and identical with Him in everything that is seen in the sun, another similar light, in the same way not separated by any temporal distance from the born Light, but shining through Him, having the cause of hypostasis in the original light. Light, which itself, in the likeness of the previously imagined Light, shines, enlightens and produces everything else corresponding to the light.” 69 Leaving aside this physical comparison (in itself as fruitless as the others), it should be noted that the connection of the three hypostases with each other is established here, on the one hand, on the basis of the general distinction between the cause and the caused (αἰτία and αἰτιατοί) in the Holy Trinity, i.e. the causal dependence of the Second and Third hypostases on the First, 70 and on the other hand, the deliberate, dyadic connection of the Son and the Spirit, which is imprecisely and unclearly indicated in the expressions of causality 71 (thus giving reason to classify St. Gregory as a filioquist). It is precisely about the origin of the Holy Spirit through the Son that the epistle to Avlavius expresses itself as the mediation of the Son in the origin of the Holy Spirit: it is the Son who comes directly from the Father, and the Holy Spirit - Moreover, “the mediation of the Son and Him preserves the only begottenness and does not remove the Spirit from the connection with the Father by nature. Thus, at St. Gregory of N[issa] connects the Holy Trinity and overcomes the separateness and, so to speak, fragmentation of individual hypostases. It cannot be said that this thought was clear and complete and that the problem of trinity appeared in expanded form. It is rather only vaguely felt than clearly recognized. This is the type of teaching about the Holy Trinity and the Holy Spirit among the Cappadocians. His achievements are great, because in him the eternal, immanent character of the Holy Trinity, the equal divinity and equivalence of its hypostases is finally affirmed and established beyond doubt, subordinationism, both ontological and cosmological, is overcome. The features of individual hypostases are indicated, mainly in the cosmological and economic aspect. However, the general connection between the three hypostases in the Holy Trinity remains outside the scope of Cappadocianism. Therefore, by the way, despite individual touches or shades of thought (as in St. Gregory of N[issa]), not only the doctrine of the filioque is completely absent here, but, what is much more important, its very problem. The Cappadocian fathers are direct or indirect inspirers of the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381, which, according to the recently accepted opinion, complemented the Nicene Creed in relation to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Recently, the opinion about the actual belonging of the so-called Nice-Constantinople symbol to the Second Council has been called into question, and even for its supporters it does not have historical indisputability, 72 although, of course, one or another solution to this historical issue does not shake the authority of the symbol in church tradition. Much more important is that we do not have such a lack of information about any council as about the Second, and, in particular, it has not been preserved regarding the discussion of the issue of the Holy Spirit (the only direct source remains a very sad and negative description of it by St. Gregory the Theologian and brief instructions from historians of the 5th century). Knowing the level of theological literature and the issues that predetermined the council's decision, we can draw some conclusions about the course of affairs at the council, which considered this issue among other (mainly Christological) heresies. Before the council, the question of the Holy Spirit arose only in the situation that arose from the need to put an end to the pneumatomachians (“Macedonians”), who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Only this question required an answer from the council, which had to say yes or no. Whatever the origin of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan symbol, we have in it the answer that actually expressed the prevailing opinion (although by no means the dominant one, because at the council itself there were 36 Macedonian bishops) and was then authorized by the Church. This confession (the 8th member of the symbol) reflected the conditions of its historical emergence, both in what is in it and in what is not in it. First of all, it bears the stamp of evasiveness that was characteristic of the era on the issue of confessing the divinity of the Holy Spirit (which, as we know, even extended to St. Basil the Great). To the direct question: Is the Spirit God, to which St. also demanded a direct answer. Gregory the Theologian, it was not given, there was an answer, but only indirect. The idea of ​​the divinity of the Son is expressed descriptively: “We worship and glorify the Lord, who proceeds from the Father and with the Father and the Son.” From this divine procession and worship, of course, one cannot help but draw the conclusion that the Holy Spirit is not only “Lord” (in all the vagueness of this expression), but precisely God. And, however, this was not said directly: the Holy Spirit was not called God, as the Son was called: “Lord I. Chr... of the true God from the true God,” and this was not accidental oblivion, but deliberate silence and evasion, because the question was about this. In this incompleteness of the definition, the 8th member of the creed (is defective and needs to be replenished. This task of descriptively expressing faith in the divinity of the Holy Spirit, without directly calling Him God, corresponds to all of its definitions in the 8th member of the symbol, and, first of all: “He who proceeds from Osh.” Here - in the direct Gospel text - an indication is made of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, as emanating from the Father, but, of course, this does not formulate the general dogma of the procession of the Holy Spirit in all its accuracy and originality (that is, in the sense of the implied fî lioque, as they think in the West, or διὰ τοὺ υἱοῦ - in the East. This the latter, despite the inviolable definition in the symbol, was inserted into their dogmatic judgments by the holy fathers). The problem of the procession of the Holy Spirit only from the Father, or from the Father and the Son, or through the Son, or in some other way, was not raised then, and therefore could not receive direct resolution for itself in the symbol. “Coming from the Father” is not at all a dogmatic formula about the procession of the Holy Spirit (just as ὁμοούσιος was the formula for the consubstantiality of the Son). First of all, and most of all, it was a descriptive expression in the words of the Gospel of the not directly expressed thought about the true divinity of the Third Hypostasis, about God - the Holy Spirit. Of all the other possible definitions of the Holy Spirit, for some reason only one was chosen as a symbol, and, moreover, so to speak, the Old Testament one: the prophets who spoke. This sign, in its uniqueness, as well as in the incompleteness of the entire definition, is to a certain extent exemplary, especially if we take into account that the symbol completely lacks the New Testament teaching about the Holy Spirit, in particular, there is no mention of Pentecost, the Annunciation, the gifts and actions of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament Church. In a word, we have no dogma about the Holy Spirit, except for the descriptive expression of His equal divinity, in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan symbol. But not only do we not find it here, but we don’t have it at all. All ecumenical councils, from the first to the last, are devoted to issues of Christology, therefore, to the theology of the Second Hypostasis, and not a single one – to the Third. All heresies and disputes of the 5th–8th centuries belong to the field of Christology, and among them there is not a single pneumatological one, except for the pneumatomachians. The entire era of ecumenical councils in their dogmatic creativity passed by the teaching of the Holy Spirit. His mystery is surrounded by sacred silence. But the time has come for a word about the Holy Spirit, for all questions of dogmatics of our days relate primarily to pneumatology. VI. Western system of Homousian trinitarian theology (St. Augustine) Western theology in the 4th century develops along its own paths, in parallel, but independently of Eastern theology, and their mutual connection, as well as mutual acquaintance, is weak due to poor knowledge of the language and common historical reasons. Therefore, it is not at all surprising if their paths diverge precisely from the 4th century. Bypassing the trinitarian and, in particular, pneumatological views of St. Gilaria 73 and St. Ambrose, 74 who is the predecessor and, as it were, teacher of Bl. Augustine, let us dwell on the latter’s Trinitarian system, which he develops in various works, but mainly in his main work “De Trinitate”. This extensive work, consisting of 15 books, was written by Bl. Augustine for 16 years (400–416): juvenis inchoavi, senex edidi. This work represents the most systematic and, in this sense, the most remarkable treatise on the Holy Trinity, and in particular on the Holy Spirit, that exists in patristic literature. His distinguishing features are Homosianism as the original basis and relativism in the understanding of the Trinity, and in both of these features he is the real father of Western Trinitarian theology in its special type. In other words, his initial principle is not the trinity of hypostases, as with the Cappadocians, but the unity of ousia (essentia). 75 Here Tertullian’s impersonalist tradition still appears, although freed from his subordinationism. The unity of the Holy Trinity in three hypostases is ensured precisely by this unity of substance. 76 Therefore si quidquid de Deo dicitur, secundum substantiam dicitur. (1. V. pp. III, 4). In this one substance the three hypostases are distinguished non secundum substantiam, sed sec. relativum. (1. V, p. V, 6). Hypostases exist as mutual relations, ad invicem. The original axiom of Catholic triadology, the doctrine of hypostases as relationships (“in divinis omnia sunt idem, ubi non obviat relationis oppositio,” is expressed here. The Father is defined in relation to the Son as the Begetter to the Begotten, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as Spirator to Spiratus. The Augustinian doctrine of the filioque is also rooted here. The main principle here is the unity of substance. Pater ad Filium principium est quia gignit eum... Quod enim de Patre natum est, ad Patrem solum refertur cum dicitur Filius, et ideo Filius Patris, non est noster... fatendum est Patrem et Filium principium esse Sp. s-ti, non duo principia: sed sicut Pater et Filius unus Deus, et ad creaturam relative unus creator et unus Dominus, sic relative ad Sp. S-m unum principium (L. V, p. XIV, 15). The concept of a relativistic understanding of hypostases from relationships suffers from impersonalism, which is not noticed only because the given revelations about the divine Persons of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are substituted under the category of impersonal relationships. Relations in themselves do not establish hypostases (this is also clear from the fact that not all relations - notiones - have such a meaning), but only accompany and express them. Therefore, in the teachings of Bl. Augustine remains unconquered by modelism or impersonalism. Such monistic theology tends to more clearly understand those features that are inherent in the Trinity unity. Therefore we find at bl. Augustine has long discussions about who was the subject of theophanies in the Old Testament, a separate hypostasis or the Holy Trinity as one God. Its understanding differs from that in Eastern theology (for example, in St. Gregory the Theologian): Bl. A[vgustin] refuses to see separate hypostases here and, avoiding a decisive answer, nevertheless leans in favor of the interpretation of the appearance of the one God, in the Holy Trinity of existence (li b. II). 77 Similarly, in relation to Wisdom, which Eastern theology (and to this day) is inclined to consider a personal attribute of the Son, Blessed. A[vgustin] recalls the original unity of the deity of all three hypostases: Pater et Filius simul una sapientia sicut una esssenti, tametsi simul non unum Verbum.Sapientia est essentia. Verbum enim relative sapientia essentialiter dicitur (1. VII. p. 1. 2: cf. I. VI. with V, 7). 78 This same feature of the Trinitarian theology of Bl. Augustine confronts him with the problem of the incarnation of God, understood not only as an act of the Second Hypostasis, but also in a general trinitarian meaning, although I do not find the development of this extremely important thought in him. Sicut humanam illam formam ex virgine Maria Trinitas operata est. sed solius Filii persona est: visibilem namque Filii solius personam, invisibilis Trinitas operata, est. (De Trin.. II. p. X. 18. col. 857). (This thought, however, is only mentioned in passing.) The initial point of view of bl. Augustine's teaching on the Holy Trinity also allows him to feel more strongly than the Eastern Fathers the problem of the connection of the Holy Trinity in the relationship of the hypostases, which among the Eastern Fathers is to a certain extent replaced by their juxtaposition. On this way bl. Augustine makes a real discovery in trinitarian-pneumatological theology, expressing for the first time a thought completely alien to Eastern theology, namely the understanding of the Holy Trinity as Love. At the same time, the special meaning of the Third Hypostasis becomes clear, precisely to be Her love itself, the bond of love - amor or dilectio. Bl. A[vgustin] proceeds from the abstract scheme of love, in which amans, quod amatur et amor are distinguished (L. VIII. p. X. 14: 1. IX. p. XI). (He further complicates this threefold image of love, which he applies to the Holy Trinity, by introducing the element mens.). The Holy Spirit is in the Holy Trinity the love of both, the Father and the Son. Si chantas qua Pater diligit Filium, et Patrem diligit Filius, ineffabiliter communionem demonstrat amborum, quid convenientius quam ut ille dicatur chantas proprie, qui Sp. S-s est communis amborum (L. XV, pp. XIX, 37). (From this, St. Augustine also draws a filioquistic conclusion.) Unfortunately, bl. Augustine, without sufficient reason - and in this Western theology follows him - makes the equation: voluntas seu amor. The treatise “De Trinitate” gives a lot of space to analogies of the trinity in man and nature, external and internal. Bl. Augustine is, in contrast to the prevailing physical analogies in the East, the father of psychological analogies and seeks traces of the Holy Trinity in the mental faculties: memoria, intelligent ia, voluntas, mens, notitia, amor, etc., also in the external man (lib. IX-XIV). 79 St. John of Damascus sums up Eastern patristic theology, bringing it into a certain system. Eclectic in content, his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith represents an early prototype of the summae theologiae, a system of dogmatics. In the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in general, St. John of Damascus expounds the teaching of the Cappadocians, but streamlining it and reducing it to a certain unity. His merit, although predominantly formal, is the desire to understand the Holy Trinity not only in individual hypostases, but also in their mutual connection. Therefore, he considers the doctrine of God as not only about God in general, about the Word and the Holy Spirit (Book I, Chapter V. VI. VII) but also about the Holy Trinity (Chapter VIII), and this latter has his initial and guiding meaning. First of all, let us pose a general and preliminary question: in his doctrine of the One God, which precedes his doctrine of the Holy Trinity, does he overcome that impersonalism, traces of which we saw both in the East and in the West - among the Cappadocians as well as in Augustine? It is difficult to give a definitive answer to this question, h.p. it clearly does not arise in the thinking of the saint. John of Damascus, which essentially remains within the boundaries of ancient impersonalism, although a certain step forward can be noted here. In ch. V (“proof that there is one God, and not many”), he first refers to the texts: “I am the Lord Thy God” (Ex. 20.2; Deut. 6.4: Isa. 41.4; 43.10–11: John 17.3), but, without stopping at all on the unity of God as a Person, he moves on to general considerations about the unity of the Divine. The next chapter (VI) speaks equally vaguely about the Word: “So this one and only God is not without the Word. If He has the Word, then He must have a Word that is not without hypostasis.” Here we have a double inaccuracy: firstly, it is not clear whether this “one and only God” is meant as a Person or as a Deity, He or It; secondly, if Personality, then is this the one personal God who speaks of Himself in the Old Testament: “I am the Lord your God,” or is this the First Hypostasis, the Father? The final words of this chapter: “for as he is seen in the Father,” etc., give rise to the final judgment. Deduction of the Holy Spirit (chap. VII) is distinguished by the same inaccuracy: the Holy Spirit, as the breath of the Word, “is not considered a non-hypostatic breath,” but is “a force contemplated in its own and special hypostatic existence” (ἰδιαζούση ὑποστάσει), “like the Word, it exists hypostatically (καθ’ ὑπόστασιν)". Here we must remember that St. John of Damascus, like St. Vasily V., is a strong supporter of the Aristotelian doctrine of hypostasis as an individual quality by a special sign, which in itself is by no means personal. 80 Therefore, the question of hypostasis as a person is simply absent from his field of vision. If he speaks about the individual persons of the Holy Trinity, then, like his predecessors, he only submits to the teaching of revelation, which does not fit into his own theological categories. One more peculiar difficulty should be noted, arising from the eclectic nature of the theology of St. Io[anna] D[amaskin]. He proceeds from the apophatic theology of the pseudo-Areopagite about the unknowability of God, which is only to a certain extent overcome by revelation. But at the same time it remains in full force: “what God is in essence and nature is completely incomprehensible and unknown” (Chapter IV), and all that is known is that “God exists.” He is therefore defined only “through the negation of everything,” for He is “above all that exists, above all being.” This does not prevent St. John of Hamas to assert, on the basis of revelation, that “God is one,” although this, obviously, is already a positive definition. However, here there is clearly no opportunity to give this single Deity an appropriate definition according to Aristotle’s scheme, establishing not only the nature or ousia (“God”), but also the hypostasis - through accident. Therefore, for purely logical reasons, the “one God” can only be understood impersonally, as the Divinity, which is hypostasized by hypostatic signs only in three separate hypostases. But three is not yet a trinity as a trinity. The last one is from St. John[anna] D[amaskin] is constituted, like the other fathers, only as an ousia, a Divinity, and not a personal, trinitarian God. And this logical impersonalism, which then becomes theological, permeates his theology, as evidenced by the initial definitions in Chap. VIII "On the Holy Trinity". The long definition of "one God" (which takes up an entire page) lacks the features that point to a Person, but it speaks of "one principle, light, power, one power, one dominion, one kingdom, in three perfect hypostases knowable and worshipable," and then speaks of these hypostases separately. Obviously, the general scheme here is the same as in bl. Augustine, and further in Thomas Aquinas and throughout Catholic theology. The Deity, understood impersonally as the divine ousia or essence, is the ontological and logical prius, or the basis in which the hypostases arise and exist. The revealed truth proclaimed in the Old Testament that God is an absolute Person, I, in whom there is nothing pre-personal, or extra-personal, or impersonal, remains unincorporated into the theological consciousness, and the consequence of this is the false direction of the entire teaching about hypostases, as relations by origin, so to speak, about dialectics in the Divine. (Catholic Hegelianism in theology unexpectedly finds a parallel for itself in the impersonalism of the mystics: Eckhart, especially Boehme.) But God, as the Absolute Person, is thereby also a Trinitarian Person, truly the Unit in the Trinity and the Trinity in the Unit, not Three in one, but the trinity of the Divine Person and His life. 81 Impersonalistic thinking tends to equate the Divine Absolute Subject, the triune trinitarian Self, with God the Father. Through this, the impersonalistic understanding of the Divine is veiled to a certain extent. Such an equation is not alien to St. John [Ann] Damascene], as this, in particular, follows from his following words (Book I, Chapter VIII): “we speak of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit not as three Gods, but rather as one God, the Holy Trinity, since the Son and the Spirit are raised to one Author, but are not added up and merged, as Sabellius thinks” (and further). This identification of the “Divinity” with the Father appears even more clearly in the further judgment of St. Io[anna] D[amascina]: “When we look at the Divinity, at the first cause, at the sovereignty, at the unity and identity of the Divine... then we imagine one thing. When we look at that in which there is Divinity, or, to say more precisely, what there is Divinity, and at that which from there - from the first cause exists eternally, equally and inseparably, that is, on the hypostasis of the Son and the Spirit, then there will be three. Despite all the inaccuracy of these definitions, one can nevertheless conclude that in a certain sense for him the Father, in Origen’s way, is the Neoplatonic One, the primal deity, the first will, the first hypostasis (and not just the first hypostasis). But this is not true. God, as a triune, trinitarian Subject, as an Absolute Person, is not the Father, as one of three, although the First, hypostasis (and on this path one cannot avoid Origen’s subordinationism) - but He is a triune subject, in which three are one and one is three. This is, so to speak, the dynamics of trinitarianism, in relation to which only statics are usually noticed. And only on the basis of this idea is hypostatic subordinationism completely eliminated. In revealing the trinity of the Absolute Personality, it should be borne in mind that it itself - in its first position, so to speak - does not yet include hypostatic distinctions (γνωρίσματα ὑποστατικά), but is determined only by the triple self-position of the I, as I - I - I, or: I - We - You. The Absolute Self is sufficiently revealed for itself as such within the limits of these triple-hypostatic definitions, and all these three hypostatic centers of the single Self are equivalent or equally hypostatic, like I–you–he, mutually reflecting and only the secondary, further disclosure of the hypostatic subject in the life of the Holy Trinity, in its concreteness, complicates them with hypostatic qualifications, introduces hypostatic differentiation. The latter, however, does not eliminate their original hypostatic equivalence, for in this existence as hypostatic centers - the Self within the triune, absolute Self - they retain their, so to speak, equivalence. Therefore, the Damascene equation of the “one God,” i.e., the Old Testament Divine Self, with the First Hypostasis is not correct. He is not the First Hypostasis, just as he is not the Second or Third Hypostasis; he is not at all identified with any of the three hypostatic centers. (This is the plural-singular Elohim, I - We. ) But in this case, what does this I of the one God refer to, who says about Himself: “I am the Lord your God,” if this is neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Spirit? Does this not introduce a fourth hypostasis, as it were, a superhypostasis in the Divinity? Of course, it is not introduced, for this triune Divine Self, although it is neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Spirit in their distinction, is both the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit in their unity, as a triune intratransparent Self, existing in three Selves. Differing in hypostasis, they still remain one, and not only in relation to ousia, to the “Divinity,” but also in relation to hypostasis, like three lights merging into one. The dogma of the Trinity must be understood more broadly and deeply, not only in relation to the consubstantiality of the three persons, but also their hypostatic trinity. The impersonalistic formulation of the question of one God by St. John[anna] D[amascina] provides (as with St. Augustine) the homoousianism of the three hypostases, eliminates ontological subordinationism and justifies the equivalence of the hypostases. However, homoousianism in itself (as we have already seen in Tertullian and Origen) does not yet ensure the equality of hypostases and does not overcome intra-trinity subordinationism. The latter remained unresolved among the Cappadocians, who limited themselves to the side-by-side arrangement of three, without attempting to connect them into a trinity of trinity, although a step towards this had already been taken in the doctrine of the monarchy of the Father. This idea of ​​the monarchy of the Father of St. John Damascene develops it with special emphasis and builds his Trinitarian doctrine on it. What is this idea expressed in? In the chapter on the Holy Trinity we read: “We believe in one Father, the beginning of everything and the cause, not begotten of anyone, who alone has no cause and is not begotten.” “If we say that the Father is the beginning of the Son and is greater than Him” (John 14:28), then we do not show that He takes precedence over the Son in time and in nature, and does not take precedence in any other respect, if not in relation to reason - τὸ αἴτιον, i.e. because the Son was born from the Father, not the Father from the Son, that the Father is the author of the Son by nature... So, when we hear that the Father is the beginning and greater than the Son, we must understand the Father as the cause” (Chapter VIII). “The Father is innocent and not begotten, so he is not from anyone, but has his being from himself and from what he has, he has nothing from another; on the contrary, He Himself is the beginning and cause of everything, as it exists by nature. The Son is from the Father in the manner of birth, but the Holy Spirit is in the manner of procession.” “So everything that the Son and the Spirit has is from the Father, even being itself. And if it is not the Father, then it is neither the Son nor the Spirit; and if there is anything the Father did not have, neither the Son nor the Spirit has it; but through the Father, therefore, the Father exists, the Spirit also exists, and through the Father the Son has, and also the Spirit, all that he has” (ib.). “The Father is the source and cause of the Son and the Holy Spirit”... “for there is only one Author - the Father” (chap. XII). To understand the Trinitarian doctrine of St. John[anna] Damascina], in particular the “monarchy” and the culpability of the Father, it is extremely important to establish in what sense he uses this concept of the Father as the cause of other hypostases, especially since this concept acquires exceptional significance in further theology, both Eastern and especially Latin. 82 The simplest (and natural) understanding of this position, that the Father is the cause of the Son and the Holy Spirit and from Him they have “very being,” is Arian: they are created by the Father, the Son directly, the Holy Spirit through the Son. But, of course, such an interpretation of St. Io[ann] D[amaskin] is denied in every possible way. On the contrary, he resolutely affirms the equality of all hypostases, established by Origen. Thus, the birth of the Son “is timeless and without beginning, for the Son of God was not brought into being out of non-existence... but He was ever with the Father in the Father, from whom He was born eternally and without beginning... The Father without the Son would not have been called Father... So, it would be wicked to assert about the birth of the Son that it happened in time and that the existence of the Son began after the Father” (chap. VIII). 83 “The ever-present God gives birth to His Word without beginning and endlessly,” and although only the Father is ἀγέννητος, ungenerated, but the word ἀγένητος – uncreated “befits the three divine hypostases of the Deity, for they are consubstantial and uncreated” (ib.). The Holy Spirit also appears to the Father “consubstantial and coeternal.” In a word, St. John Damascene clearly and consistently pursues the idea of ​​the equal originlessness, uncreatedness, and eternity of the consubstantiality of all three hypostases, and, however, following here, of course, the Cappadocians, he affirms the uncausality of their First Hypostasis and, so to speak, the causality of the Second and Third, which have their existence from the First Father. But what does causality mean here, what meaning does this category have? On this question St. John Damascene not only does not stop, but passes by him as a matter of course. There is a fundamental ambiguity in this and, moreover, a defect in his Trinitarian doctrine, which had, one might say, a fatal influence on all subsequent theology. Causal dependence does not mean the emergence of two hypostases from the First, paragraph. h., being equal, they do not arise at all, but are pre-eternal. Meanwhile, the reason for St. Io[anna] D[amascina] means only the emergence (the source of “being itself”). If this category of guilt or “reason” is applicable in the doctrine of the Trinitarian Monarchy, then it must receive its own special philosophical interpretation, which is given by St. Io[anna] D[amaskin] is missing. Therefore, it remains unclear what exactly the idea of ​​a single culprit or cause actually means? If this is “origin” (processio), then how should it be understood? Meanwhile, a purely empirical interpretation imperceptibly creeps into the understanding of origin or causation, and in this form the Trinitarian doctrine is expounded and interpreted in Latin theology (in particular, in the doctrine of the filioque). Nevertheless, a clear and consistent presentation of the doctrine of the origin of hypostases from one cause in St. Io[anna] D[amascina] has the merit that he brings closely to the main problem of the trinity - namely, the connection of the Three Hypostases with each other, although he leaves it for the future. This connection here is established by the principle of monarchy, the culpability of the Father, just like among the Cappadocians, with the difference, however, that among St. John[anna] Damascene, it is carried out more specifically in relation not only to each of the hypostases to the Father, but also in their trinitarian relationship, and from here comes, by the way, the famous διὰ - from the Father through the Son - in the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit... The most general and preliminary meaning of this διὰ lies already in the trinitarian setting question. For St. John[anna] Damascene's question about the origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father includes the participation of the Son. Therefore, when he speaks of the Father as the Source of the Holy Spirit, he also speaks of the Son in His relation to the Holy Spirit, which is called “the power... emanating from the Father, resting in the Word and manifesting Him.” She “therefore cannot be separated either from God, in Whom she is, or from the Word, with whom she accompanies” (chapter VII, p. 165). “We believe in one Holy Spirit... who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son, who is rejected and glorified by the Father and the Son, as well as the only begotten and coeternal... who proceeds from the Father and is given through the Son... inseparable and inseparable from the Father and the Son” (chapter VIII, 171). “And about the Holy Spirit we say that He is from the Father, and we call Him the spirit of the Father, but we do not say that the Spirit is also from the Son, but we call Him the Spirit of the Son and we confess that He has been revealed to us and is taught to us through the Son” (ib. 175). “The Father is the Parent of the Word and through the Word the Producer of the Spirit who reveals it... (He is) the power of the Father, manifesting the hidden Divinity, proceeding from the Father through the Son... He is also the Spirit of the Son, but not because from Him, but because through Him it proceeds from the Father” (Chapter XII, 181). “God the Holy Spirit is the mean between the unborn and the born and through the Son is united with the Father” (chapter XIII, 184). The above judgments, which are far from distinguished by accuracy and clarity, represent, in any case, the beginnings of the Trinitarian doctrine, which is not satisfied with clarifying the relationship of the Son and the Holy Spirit to the Father separately (dyadic), but seeks to understand their threefold connection, symbolized here mainly by the formula: διὰ τοῦ υἰοῦ. This, undoubtedly, unfinished form is the teaching of the Holy Trinity of the last of the church fathers of the classical era, and in this form it is passed on to subsequent generations. In any case, it should be noted that it is built on the doctrine of origins (processiones) and is determined by this basis. Turning to pneumatology itself, it should first of all be noted that St. John of Damascus, according to the doctrine of origins, sees the hypostatic property of the Spirit in His procession from the Father, in contrast to the birth inherent in the Son. But “what kind of difference (between birth and procession) we do not comprehend... (but) the birth of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit occur simultaneously” (Chapter VIII, 172). Having complete consubstantiality, “the three fused hypostases are inseparably distinguished from each other by their hypostatic properties alone, distinguished not by essence, but by the distinctive property of each hypostasis” (ib.). In addition to the hypostatic character by origin, what is the hypostatic character of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity in St. Io[anna] D[amaskin]? He is called “the essential power (δύναμιν οὐσιώδη), contemplated in its special hypostatic being (ἰδιαζούση ὐποστάσει), emanating from the Father, resting in the Word and His manifesting... which, like the Word, exists hypostatically (καθ’ ὑπόστασιν), lives, has free will, moves by itself, is active, always wants good, accompanies desire with force in every will” (Chapter VII, 165). 84 The closest hypostatic characteristic, the proper place of the Holy Spirit as the Third Hypostasis in the Holy Trinity, we have in St. father, firstly, in the patristic thought already known to us that “the Son is the image of the Father, and the image of the Son is the Spirit, through whom Christ, dwelling in man, gives Him that which is corresponding to the image (of God)” (XIII, 184). 85 “We call Him the Spirit of the Son and confess that He was revealed to us and taught to us through the Son” (chapter VIII, 175). St. John[ann] D[amaskin] does not go further here than the definitions of St. Athanasius, which he briefly reproduces without explanation. A well-known attempt to understand the meaning of the Third Hypostasis in a Trinitarian way can be seen in his discussions where he explains the Trinity through comparisons taken from the natural world. It is he who interprets the relationship between the Second and Third hypostases as word and breath. In Chapter VII “On the Holy Spirit. Evidence from Reason” we read: “For the Word there must be breath, for our word is not without breath. But our breath is different from our being; it is the inhalation and exhalation of air, drawn in and exhaled for the existence of the body. When a word is pronounced, it becomes a sound, revealing the power of the word. And in God’s nature, simple and uncomplicated, we must graciously confess the existence of the Spirit of God, etc. His Word is not more insufficient than our word; but it would be wicked to think that in God the Spirit is something that comes from outside, as is the case in us, complex beings. On the contrary, as we hear about the Word of God, we do not recognize Him as non-hypostatic, but as one that exists hypostatically (οὒσιωδῶς ὐφεστώτα), has free will - actively and omnipotently; Thus, having learned that the Spirit of God accompanies the Word and manifests His action, we do not consider Him to be a non-hypostatic breath,” etc. (165). “The spirit... is not a perishable breath, just as the mouth of God is not a bodily member: but both must be understood as being God-appropriate.” 86 Others come to help with this comparison: source, river, sea; stone, branch and fruit; sun, ray, warmth; rose trunk, color and incense. 87 What can be said about this “deduction” of the trinity? For us now, these clarifications of the Trinity relationships by physical comparisons (in which physical phenomena, such as sound and breath, unexpectedly receive a hypostatic existence) are of no use at all and theologically simply do not exist (as, however, St. Gregory the Theologian devalued them). However, from the comparison of words and breath, one can extract the idea that the Holy Spirit is the principle of reality in the Holy Trinity, He accomplishes. This accomplished action of the Third Hypostasis was already more clearly revealed by St. Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers. St.’s own pneumatology does not go further than this. Io[anna] D[amaskin], which thus has a systematizing value, but does not introduce new ideas or problems. Theological meaning of St. John[anna] D[amascina] in pneumatology, which has received such an assessment recently in negotiations with Western confessions regarding the filioque and is essentially greatly exaggerated, is associated primarily with his formula about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son διὰ υἱοῦ. These are the general results of pneumatology in patristics. With all the guiding significance and value of individual teachings and comments, it cannot be said that they are of fundamental and decisive importance. The most general impression from the patristic teaching, from Tertullian and Origen to St. John of Damascus is such that in him there is a known, unconscious and directly unexpressed, but felt bewilderment regarding the very fact of the Third Hypostasis, as it is given in Revelation and, therefore, given by theology for understanding. It remains theologically undeveloped. This stands out especially clearly in comparison with logology: to the extent that the Son-Logos receives His indisputable place along with the Father as His Word about Himself and about the world, and both hypostases, so to speak, look at each other, the presence of the Third Hypostasis does not necessarily follow and is rather some kind of addition with which theology does not know what to do. The need for the Third Hypostasis in the Holy Trinity is completely insufficiently recognized by theology. Theology, which was actually forced to expound the doctrine of the three hypostases, in itself, however, was not trinitarian, and the only theological image of the Trinity that it had was Neoplatonic, in all the essentiality of its difference from the Christian. From such incompleteness of patristic pneumatology stems, first of all, involuntary subordinationism, due to which, in the decreasing progression of the Divine, the Third Hypostasis is derived from the Second and after the Second. But besides subordinationism. It is coordinated precisely by the Second Hypostasis (St. Athanasius and others), by which the Trinity is actually divided at the bottom of the binary: Father - Son and Son - Holy Spirit, and the proper place of the Third Hypostasis in the Holy Trinity remains still not found. On the other hand, the Trinity is understood as the actual presence and juxtaposition of three hypostases (why no more and no less, the answer is not given in theology), despite their common consubstantiality, differing in hypostatic characteristics. Their connection is established by the origin, the culpability of the Father, Who is the beginning and cause of the Second and Third Hypostases. In the Cappadocian understanding of guilt, the Trinity also consists of two Duos: Father-Son (birth). Father-Spirit (procession), the unifier is the “monarchy” of the Father. But does it sufficiently unite the Son and the Holy Spirit with each other, so that it is the Trinity, and not two Duos that have a common beginning? It turns out that the doctrine is binary, not trinitarian. Another version of the understanding of the Trinity as origins - the Western, Homousian - comes from ousia or nature, from which, by differentiating relations according to origin, three hypostases arise. This type is essentially impersonalistic in its initial definitions. Of course, here too three, and no more and no less, hypostases have the force only of a fact, and not of a principle. Of course, the Holy Trinity in essence can only be a given of Revelation, and not a deduction of autonomous reason. However, reason in theology is called upon to comprehend this given in its mental immutability and evidence, and not to limit itself only to its, so to speak, logical description, moreover, with dogmatic perversion (in subordinationism). The problem of the Trinity as such remains unresolved in patristic theology and even receives in it an incorrect or at least one-sided focus on origin. And outside the problem of trinity, the problem of the Third Hypostasis as such cannot be posed in principle. In essence, this is the same problem - about the place (ontological) of the Third Hypostasis in the trinity of the Holy Trinity. Patristic theology bequeathed this problem to the centuries to come. We do not consider the presentation of individual authors necessary here, referring to general works on the history of dogma and patristics (see Tixeron, Labreton, Sweet, etc.). The very idea of ​​the Trinity is not fully revealed, as is especially clear from the well-known passage in the Shepherd Ermus (Simil. V, 2, 5 and 6), where we encounter the idea that “the Son is the Holy Spirit,” and instead of the Trinity, a Duality is obtained, while Christ remains outside it as a witness. This passage is controversial in understanding among different commentators. Prof. A. Spassky. History of dogmatic movements in the era of ecumenical councils. 1906, p. 14. Apol. I, 13: “we know that. He is the son of the true God, and we place Him in second place, and the Prophetic Spirit in third place." "We glorify the Creator of all things through His Son I. Christ and through the Holy Spirit" (from the Eucharistic prayer) and so on. Christians confess “God the Father and God the Son and the Spirit and recognize their unity in power and difference in order (τάξει)” (Suppl. p. 10). Ap. I, 32; Wed also sar. 35 and 37. From the manifestations of dogmatic reflection, although essentially unclear, we note the definition of the Holy Spirit as Wisdom in Theophilus (Ad. Autolicum 11, 10). Also, as you know, St. Irenaeus of Lyons Adv. Haer. 4, 20, a. “The third position of the rule of faith is the Holy Spirit, by whom the prophets prophesied, and the fathers were taught divine things, and the righteous were brought into the path of righteousness, and who at the end of time was poured out in a new way on mankind throughout the whole earth, renewing man for God.” (“Proof of the Apostolic Preaching,” Christ. Thur. 1907, May, p. 669). Adv. Haer. 5, 36, 2. When determining this relationship between the Word and the Spirit, judgments are simultaneously encountered on the one hand, that “the Spirit shows the Word, and therefore the prophets proclaimed the Son of God,” on the other, that “the Word gives an image to the Spirit, and therefore It is the self-inspirer of the prophets” (Chronicles Read., 669). Moreover, the Son is the head of the Spirit, just as the Father is the head of the Son (U, 20, 2). “The Lord poured out the Spirit of the Father for the reunion and communication of God with man, establishing God in man through the Spirit.” (U, 6, 6), and through this “man received adoption, became the Son of God, contains within himself the Son of God” (III, 19, 1). A noteworthy feature of the anti-Gnostic theology of St. Irenaeus, that through the influx of the Holy Spirit, the image of God returns not only to the soul, but also the flesh received the image of God: “The Holy Spirit takes possession of the flesh” (V, 9. 3). One can, of course, refer to vestigia trinitatis outside of Christianity, in particular to the Indian Trinity. Without going into consideration of that. How little this trinity is trinity and how different it is from the Christian one, one must, in any case, remember that the visible influence of Hinduism in antiquity and Christianity is not noticeable (if you do not go into occult fantasies). See Chapters on Trinity. “Orthodox. thought", I. Stoicism in this regard is closest to the religious philosophy of occultism, as it is expressed in the theosophical and anthroposophical teachings of our time with their fundamental identification of the spiritual and the physical. “Everything that exists is a body of its kind. There is nothing incorporeal in that which has being” (De carne, II). “The substance of every thing is a body” (Adv. Herrn.. 35). “Who will deny that God is a body, although He is a Spirit?” (Adv. Prax., p. 7). “The soul of man is corporeal, and angels are also corporeal” (De resur. cam., p. 17). For a Russian presentation of Tertullian's theology in connection with the principles of Stoicism, see Anastasius Orlov. Trinitarian views in Hilary of Pictavia. 1908. Ch. 1. A. Spassky. History of dogmatic movements... Introduction. III. To this moment of the pre-temporal speaking of the Word, as an ideal prototype of things, Tertullian refers the main text on Wisdom (Prov. Sol. 22 ff.), thus believing, i.e., the beginning of that sad tradition that runs through all patristic theology, and is characteristic equally of its Orthodox representatives and heretics. We see that already here, at its first appearance, this interpretation has a non-Orthodox character, and is associated with the clearly heretical logology of Tertullian. At the same time, he makes a mistake, which further becomes communis opinio in patristics, precisely by equating the Logos of Sophia, making Him himself the Sophia foundation of the world, while not the Logos, but it is Sophia who actually belongs to this mediating place between God and creation. Duos enim definlmus Patrem et Filium et jani tres cum Spiritu Sancto. (adv. Prax. p. 13). Stoic philosophy turned out to be extremely convenient for Tertullian’s Christology in the matter of the union of natures according to Christ, where Tertullian is, as it were, a distant herald of the Chalcedonian dogma of two natures in one hypostasis. For this dogma, Tertullian applied a ready-made Stoic formula for the union of substance according to the type of μῖξις or κρᾶσις mixing, as their mutual penetration, however, while preserving each of the substances with its inherent properties. However, to this category Tertullian adds another, also Stoic category, σύγχυσις, a fusion in which not only substances are preserved, but also some new combination of them arises: aliud tertium est, quam umimque (Adv. Prax., p. 27). It is worth mentioning that in Hippolytus (maybe following St. Irenaeus), the Holy Spirit unites with Wisdom - Σοφία: “he arranges everything that happened through the Word and Wisdom, creating with the Word, decorating with Wisdom” (p. Noet. p. X). This idea does not find particular application in Hippolytus. Subordinationism, widespread in society, which in general, of course, prepared the ground for Arianism, became the lot of not only theologians, but hierarchs. This is evidenced, in particular, by the story of Dionysius of Alexandria in his clash with Dionysius of Rome (Athannsii, de sent. Dion., 13; Mg. ser. gr. t. p. 50). The theology of Novatian is also adjacent to Tertullian’s subordinationism, in which the very existence of the Holy Trinity is determined to be exhausted by the world process, with the Son, as “the second person after the Father,” “less than the Father,” and “Christ is greater than the Comforter” (cf. Orlov, ts. pp. 95–101). This term was first used by the Gnostics - the Valentians, who used it to determine the relationship of the eons to the Achamoth and Demiurge that gave birth to them (Irin. Haer. 1, 51). Among the Sabellian modalists it was widespread in the sense of unius, eiusdem substantiae. Of course, here he received a modalistic interpretation, applied not to the identity of the nature of different persons, but to the identity of them all in one nature or substance. (Finally, it was discredited by the fathers of the Council of Antioch in 269 as a “cunning” of Paul of Samosata). From this it is clear, by the way, how inaccurate and ambiguous this word itself was, since it could equally cover such different teachings as the Gnostics, Tertullian, Sabellius and, finally, St. Afanasia. The Council of Nicaea, having legalized it, gave it its own special interpretation, introducing it into its own dogmatic context. St. Basil the Great called this “an invention of hypostatic persons” (ep. 210). See Lamb of God, ch. I–II. For these concepts, see "Non-Evening Light". The main stoker about the teachings of Arius in St. Athanasius: against the Arians, I-IV For a Russian presentation of Arianism, see Spassky and Orlov. cit. With. Saints fight against Eunomianism in their anti-heretics. Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, from where we learn this teaching. Naturally, the development of Arianism subsequently leads to Doukhoborism, and Macedonius is traditionally presented as the head of the pneumatomachians (although historically, in fact, nothing is known about his judgments). This issue was discussed and received its relative resolution at the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381 (more on this below). Wed. an exposition of his negative theology in my “Non-Evening Light,” pp. 106–110. Wed. at Orlov, c. p., pp. 101 et seq., and in Spassky, c. With. 87 words The hopelessness of this dilemma: either God is the world, or the world is God, can only be overcome by sophiology with the recognition of the divine principle in the created world, as the tertium principium, a real ontological bridge. In Neoplatonism, the limit of the natural mind has been reached, striving by its own means, without the help of revelation, to comprehend the Mystery of the Divine Trinity, which transcends these boundaries and with its antinomies explodes any consistent system of philosophy with its logical monism. For philosophy, the same is shown in my book: Die Tragö die der Philosophie, 1929. In addition to his works (“On the Principles”, etc.), we have in Russian the classic work of Bolotov on the Trinitarian teaching of Origen. Origen's teaching on the Holy Trinity. See also c. With. Orlov and Spassky, etc. True, not to the term ὁμοούσιος itself, but only to the thought put into it. St. himself Athanasius of Alexandria could not find a single place in Origen with this expression, and if such are found in the current text, then this is explained by Rufinus interpolation (see Spassky, op. cit., p. 107 ff., Bolotov, ts. p. p. 269). However, we already know how differently this term has been used in history, and in this case it is not the word that is important, but the thought. Wed. comparisons in Spassky, 93–94. Origen also tends to equate Wisdom (Prov. Sol. 8.22 ff.) with the Son. This is sufficiently explained by the peculiarities of his subordinationism, on the one hand, and the lack of sophiology, on the other. Thanks to this, the Son takes the place of Sophia in relation to the world and becomes excessively close to him. The misinterpretation of the text, shared by Origen with the entire patristic era, characterizes this sophiological gap in his theology, thanks to which he is defenseless against cosmological subordinationism. Thanks to the just indicated sophiological confusion and confusion of the principles of Sophia, created and uncreated, Origen, calling the Son Sophia several times, also calls Him a creature (De princ. I, 4: 3. 9). “God cannot be called omnipotent and Lord if there are no beings on whom He would exercise His power: therefore, for the revelation of God's omnipotence, it is necessary that everything always exist. To assume that there were any centuries or stretches of time, when God was not omnipotent, would mean to allow in God some improvement and transition from a worse state to a better one” (De princ. I. 2. 10). In. Joh. t. 13, 25. Mg. s. gr. t. 14, p. 441, 444. Terminologically, the expression of hypostasis in Origen (as in Plotinus) but had, of course, no accuracy and, in particular, in relation to φύσις Comparisons from Plotinus and Origen in Spassky, c. With. page 103. approx. 8. “The Son has identity in relation to the Father” (C. ar. I, 22), “is from the Father, identical with Him, inseparable from the essence of the Father, and the Son and the Father are one” (de decr. 21). “Two in number, for the Father is the Father, and He is not the Son, and the Son is the Son, and He is not the Father, but the nature is one... And although the Son is other than birth, He is the same, God. He and the Father are one in the nature and affinity of nature and in the same identity of the Divine” (C. ar. III, 3). “This omnipotent, all-perfect, holy Father's Word, descending into the universe, spread His Powers everywhere, illuminating both the visible and the invisible, containing and holding together everything in Itself, leaving nothing deprived of His Power, but reviving and preserving everything in everything, and each thing in particular and suddenly everything in the aggregate; But the principles of every sensible essence, such as heat, cold, moisture and dryness, dissolving into one, He makes not opposing, but producing one consonant essence,” etc., etc. (De incarn. 42). In fact, here at St. Athanasius there is a mixture of Logos and Sophia, characteristic of the entire patristic cosmology, but for him it appears with particular clarity (as in the doctrine of Wisdom, which he, following Origen and Arius, equates to Logos. See about this The Burning Bush, excursion. About Sophia, see Lamb of God), We must admit that in such an interpretation of the Logos of St. Athanasius fails to overcome cosmological subordinationism. His Logos so merges with the world that in this sense it is already ontologically different from the Father, and here the teaching of St. Athanasia accepts the features of Plotinian-Origenian subordinationism. If one has two names, then this is Sabelli’s teaching: Sabelli says that one and the same is both the Son and the Father, and thereby destroys both of them... The Divine teaching knows the Father and the Son, the Wise and the Wisdom, God and the Word” (C. ar. 4, 9). The Father and the Son “are two, and together an inseparable and indistinguishable unit of the Divinity” (4, 1), “two are in number, so the Father is the Father, and not He is the Son,” etc. (3, 4) “The Trinity is not only by name and by way of expression, but in truth and essence itself there is a Trinity. For just as the Father is He, so He is God above all—His Word, and the Holy Spirit is not alien to being, but truly exists and abides” (Ad. Serap. 1, 28, 14). In letters to Serapion dedicated to the Holy Spirit, this idea is repeated several times (I, 28; IV, 3), although it is not developed. “The Father made everything with the Word as if by hand, and does nothing without Him” (S. ar. 2, 31). This comparison is also found in other fathers who speak of the Father’s two hands: the Son and the Holy Spirit. In St. Athanasius, due to the absence of the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit, there is no direct filioquism, but on the basis of this and similar sayings it is difficult to deny that from his pneumatology filioquism can be derived with greater justification than its denial (which is what the filioquists point out). This teaching is set out in more detail in my “Chapters on the Trinity” (Orthodox Thought, I). Wed. at Spassky, c. p., p. 492 ff.. also in Orlov, c. With. p. 254 ff. Wed. at St. Gregory the Theologian (word 21) has an ironic attitude towards the Romans for the poverty of their language, as a result of which they replace hypostasis with the word person. At St. Gregory of Nyssa, this statement is further aggravated by his skeptical-relativistic teaching about the names of God, which he anthropomorphizes, depriving them of ontological content and thereby essentially dooming theology to dumbness. One more feature should be noted: in Neoplatonism, in Origen and also in St. Athanasius, the fullness, or ousia, actually belongs to the Father, who, being himself unknowable and transcendental, is revealed in the Son and further in the Spirit. Therefore ν St. Athanasius uses an expression that also appears in the Nicene formula: For the Cappadocians, such an identification with the duck is impossible, for ousia belongs not to the Father alone, but to the entire Holy Trinity. Likewise, in the Constantinople symbol, the indicated expression of the Council of Nicaea disappears. St. Basil the Great in his famous dogmatic 38th letter (to brother Gregory), feeling this weak side, especially asserts that between the hypostases “there is nothing inserted, nor anything independent and different from God’s nature, so that this nature could be separated from itself by the insertion of an extraneous person, nor the emptiness of any unfilled space, which would produce interruptions in the unity of the Divine essence with itself.” themselves, dividing the continuous with empty intervals.” But, from the point of view of Aristotelianism, the question naturally arises: can such a single substance be triple hypostasized, is it not a monad? St. Basil V. uses the terms communion (κοινωνία) and community (κοινώτης): “some kind of ineffable and inconceivable communication”, “continuous and indissoluble communication”, so that “neither the difference of hypostases dissolves nature, nor community in essence merges distinctive features” (ib.). St. also speaks about the community and co-naturalness of nature. Gregory the Theologian (Speech 29). With a more specific definition of these characteristics, the Cappadocian fathers, although insignificantly, disagree with each other. St. Basil V., in a letter to brother Gregory (38), formulates the difference between hypostases as follows: “The Father is a certain force that exists unbornly and without beginning, and it is the cause of the cause of all things.” Everything came into being through the Son. “The hypostatic sign of the Spirit is that which is known through the Son and with the Son and has its being from the Father.” In the letter to Terentius Komit (214) and to Amphilochius of Iconium (230), the hypostatic characteristics are defined as patronymic, sonship and sanctifying power. At St. Gregory the Theologian (as with St. Gregory of Nyssa), these are the ungeneracy (of the Father), the birth (of the Son) and the procession - ἐκπόρευσίς ἔκπεμψις - (of the Holy Spirit) (or. 25, 29, 31), and the difference between birth and he considers the origin indeterminable. Regarding this, one can find places where the unity of the Holy Trinity directly refers only to the ousia, but not to the Trinitarian subject: it is required of the faithful that “they should not regard the Three as one (for they are not without hypostasis and do not constitute one hypostasis) and believe that the Three are one - one not by hypostasis, but by the Divinity, the Unit in the Trinity worshiped and the Trinity in the Unit headed” (St. Gregory the Theologian, word 6). Also: “we have one God, so there is one Divinity. And those who are from God are raised to the One, although they believe in the Three” (or. 31). In this form, this thought contains at least an inaccuracy, p.ch. The Unit in the Trinity is not only the Divinity (Usia or Sophia), but also a trinitarian subject, a triune Self. At St. Gregory the Theologian says - completely in agreement with Plotinus: “The Divinity emerged from singularity because of wealth and transgressed duality, because it is higher than matter and form, and was determined by triplicity because of perfection, so as not to be meager and not to spill into infinity: the first would show incommunicability, the second - disorder.” Elsewhere, St. Gregory quotes Plotinus: “the unit, which from the beginning moved into duality, stopped at trinity. And so it is with us (continues the Holy Father to Father, Son and Holy Spirit) (Homily 29). However, he does not agree to neoplatonistically understand the origin of the Son as an “overflow of goodness”, or as “the cup overflowing”, seeing in this “as if a physical and involuntary eruption” and thereby denying Plotinian emanation. About this wed. our “Chapters on the Trinity,” II, (Orthodox Thought, II). St. Basil the Great, in his interpretation of the text “The Painful Father I am,” is inclined to believe that here “painful” is said in the meaning of cause: “Since the Son began from the Father, therefore the Father is boliy as the Author and the beginning... in the meaning of beginning and guilt” (Against Eunomius, book 1). But in view of the fact that αῖτία is used here in an unexplained sense, doesn’t this mean explaining the unknown through the unknown? Wed. comparison of quotations from Spassky, c. pp., pp. 508–509,510–511,514–515. Eunomius poses the following characteristic question: “Either did God beget an existing Son, or a non-existent one? If it doesn’t exist, don’t reproach me for insolence. If there is an existing one, then... the existing one does not need to be born” (Against Eunomius, book 2, p. 497). St. Basil gives the answer to this in the sense of eternal birth (1501). Against Eunomius, book. 3 (start). This passage at the Council of Florence was also read with filioquistic interpolations. Creation 111, 163. St. Vasily V. himself stops at the question: “if the Son is the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit is the image of the Son, and if the Son is the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit is the verb of the Son, then why is the Spirit not called the Son of God?” (This doubt is eliminated by reference to the fact that in this case the plurality of the Deity is obtained). On the Holy Spirit (to St. Amphilochius), ch. 11. This is completely consistent with the classic place at St. Gregory the Theologian (word 31): “Christ is born - the Spirit precedes (Luke 1:35). Christ is baptized - the Spirit bears witness (John 1:33–34). Christ is tempted - the Spirit raises Him up (Matthew 4:1). Christ accomplishes the powers - the Spirit accompanies. Christ ascends - the Spirit succeeds.” “But since it was not content for Grace to exercise only in contemplation of Itself... then God first invents angelic and heavenly powers. And the thought became a deed, which was filled with the Word and completed by the Spirit” (page 38). This place suggests comparison with the corresponding place in St. Basil the Great: “The coming of Christ, and the Spirit precedes. Appearance in the flesh, and the Spirit is not separated. The action of powers, the granting of healings - from the Holy Spirit, demons were driven away by the Spirit of God, the devil was brought into inaction - in the presence of the Spirit, the atonement of sins - by the grace of the Spirit... Assigning us to God through the Spirit. The resurrection from the dead is by the action of the Spirit” (chapter 10). It is worthy of attention from the point of view of the history of dogma to what extent the theological thought of St. Basil the Great, feeding dogmatically from Revelation, remains philosophically imbued with Neoplatonism, in particular in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. This is shown with complete conviction by Prof. A. A. Spassky based on a comparison of the texts of the Enneads and the works of St. Basil the Great (ts. p., pp. 523–537). “Even of those who recognized Him as God, some are pious only in the heart, while others dare to be pious with their lips,” the saint bitterly complains. Gregory (ib.) With this confession, St. himself. Gregory also connects his abandonment of the Council of Constantinople and the See of Constantinople (de se ipso). “I will say clearly: the Spirit, the Spirit confessed by God. I also say: You are my God.” “The inventors of crafty heresies... They call the Father the creator, the creator, and the Son - the deed, the creature, the work. The Holy Spirit is the work of the work, the creation of the creature” (Against Eunomius, II, I). Contra Eun., 1 (quoted from Bogorodsky. The teaching of St. John of Damascus on the procession of the Holy Spirit. 1879. p. 84). The same idea is in the treatise “On the Holy Spirit”, 3. “About the fact that there are not three gods” (R. Gr. 45. p. 133). At the end of Book I. Against Evn. we read: “Just as the Son is united with the Father and, having being from Him, is not later than Him in being, so the Holy Spirit is united with the Son, who is only contemplated in thought in relation to causality (κατὰ τὸν τῆς αἰτίας λόγον) before the hypostasis of the Spirit.” In Russian cf. presentation of this issue in Spassky, c. s., ch. VIII. In Russian, see Orlov’s monograph, ts. With. See the monograph by I. I. Adamov. St. Ambrose of Milan 1915. ... reddere rationem, quod Trinitas unus et soius et verus Deus et quam recte Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus unius eiusdem substantiae vel essentiae dicatur, credatur, intelligatur (De Trinitatae 1. Ι, p. II). Pateret Filius et Sp. s-s. unius ejusdemque substantiae inseparabili aequalitate divinam insuant unitatem; ideoque non sunt tres dii, sed unus Deus (I. 1, p. IV, 7) (cf. 1. V, p. VIU, 9). However, the difficulty that he did not overcome with this understanding lies in the same impersonalism. Una essentia, which for him substantiates the unity of the Trinity, is itself impersonal and is personalized only in individual hypostases. The question arises: how could this impersonal essentia, so to speak, in addition to its hypostatic definitions, be the subject of Old Testament theophanies and revelations? It is curious that in this homous (essential) impersonalism of Bl. Augustine does not differ, as we have seen, from the Cappadocians, who also know three hypostatic persons, but do not know the trinitarian, triune subject: they see the three divine suns only in the horizontal, where they differ, but not in the vertical, where the three divine selves merge into the triune divine self. This unexpected rapprochement follows from the parallel one-sidedness of Eastern and Western theologies: the first comes from the trinity of divine subjects, which have a single ousia, are homoous, but do not merge into We or I, the second comes from unity, which is within itself tripartitely hypostatically differentiated. But the dogma of the Holy Trinity includes not only the trinity recognized by the Eastern (together with homocy) and the unessentiality of the Divine by the Western, but also precisely the Holy Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity, i.e. One Trihypostasis Subject and Three Hypostases of the same essence. In other words, there is no place in the dogma for any impersonalism, hidden or obvious, which nevertheless penetrates both Eastern and Western doctrine. And this trace of impersonalism remains unsurmounted in symbols, which also deal only with three hypostases separately, and not in their trinity. This is, first of all, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan symbol (as well as the shorter Apostolicum), which consistently expounds faith “in one God the Father” and “in one Lord Jesus Christ” and “in the Holy Spirit of the Lord.” This nature of the presentation is sufficiently explained by the historical circumstances of its origin and its special intention. However, from the outside, such a presentation may give the impression of tritheism, and, in any case, it must be admitted that the dogma of the Holy Trinity is presented here incompletely, only as a doctrine of three equally divine hypostases. The so-called Athanasian symbol of Quicunque denounces its Western origin - in the spirit of Augustinism - by the fact that the doctrine of three separate hypostases is preceded here by the Homousian doctrine of a single Deity, but impersonalistic. Fides catholica haec est, ut unum Deum (here, of course, not hypostasis, but essence, - not God, but Divinity. Deitas) in Trinitate, et Trinitatem in unitate veneremus, neque confundentes personas, neque subtantiam separantes etc. Based on the doctrine of the three symbols, it is impossible to find an answer to the question of how one should understand the one divine Self in the Old Testament revelation, which does not differentiate God according to hypostases, but at the same time knows Him only as the Divine Person: the God of Sinai. As we have seen, Bl. has already stumbled before this question. Augustine, and the eastern ones did not stumble only because they attributed these cherished revelations to only one Person (usually the Logos or, in particular, prophecies, the Holy Spirit: the Catholic symbol). Of course, what has been said does not call into question the truth of the confession of symbols, but only their completeness, which they never claimed. Also: et ideo Sapientia Pater. Sapientia Filius, Sapientia Sp. S-s; et simul non tres sapientiae, sed una sapientia: et quia hoc esse ibi esse quod sapere, una essentia Pater ei Filius et Sp. S-s. Nec aliud esi ibi esse, quam Deum esse (I. VII, p. III. 6). Augustine's analogies of the trinity in the human soul and nature are summarized in an easy-to-read table in an article about him in Diet. de dogm. cat. t. I, 2 (Portalie’). For an exposition and criticism of this doctrine, see “Chapters on the Trinity,” I (Orthodox Thought, I). For the deduction and disclosure of this idea of ​​trinitarian personalism, overcoming ancient patristic impersonalism, see also the “Chapters on Trinity” (Project 1). In "Dialogue against the Manichaeans" St. John [ann] Damascene examines the different meanings of the word ἀρχή - beginning, and, along with others, “the beginning is used in relation to the cause, and moreover in three ways: for there is a cause by nature φυσικὸν, as, for example, the beginning of the Son is the Father; or by creativity (ποιητικὸν) ... or by image” (Bogorodsky. The Teaching of St. John of Damascus on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, 1879, 120 – I). Based on a comparison of the texts of St. John of Damascus of Bogorodsky comes to the general conclusion that his “doctrine of unity of command is the doctrine of God the Father as the only cause in the Divinity in the strict sense of the word, i.e. as the only producer of the being of both the Son and the Holy Spirit” (ib. 125). St. John Damascene continues: “for we confess the birth of the Son from the Father, that is, from His nature.” He includes here the formula of the First Ecumenical Council, which was tacitly eliminated at the Second, as introducing an impersonalistic thought characteristic of Stoic-Neoplatonic terminology. This mixture of different layers of thought is characteristic of the eclecticism of St. Io[anna] D[amaskin]. We find a similar characteristic in Chap. VIII, 171: “The right Spirit, ruling, the source of wisdom, life for sanctification... The fullness, the Creator, the Almighty, the all-perfect, omnipotent, infinitely powerful, possessing every creature and not subject to dominion... sanctifying and not sanctifying. Comforter, as the one who mentally accepts everyone...”, etc., etc. It is not difficult to see that here the Holy Spirit is described primarily from the point of view of His equal divinity, and not from the hypostatic properties, and the difference between the properties “immanent” and “economy” is not given. The same thing is in the third “Word against those who reject icons”: “The Son is the natural image of the Father, not the least different, but in all respects similar to the Father. The Holy Spirit is the image of the Son, therefore, through the Holy Spirit we know Christ, the son of God and God, and in the Son we contemplate the Father” (chapter XVIII, 400). The use of such an image was characteristic of earlier fathers, and in particular St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa, in whose “Catechetical Sermon” a parallel is drawn between the Word and the Spirit and the word and breath (Bogorodsky, ts. p., p. 25). The quoted words are almost literally borrowed by Damascus from Chapter 2. "Great Catechetical Word" of St. Gregory of Nyssa (ib., 29). In the “Book of Heresies”, also in the “Dialogue against the Manichaeans” (cf. comparisons in Bogorodsky, pp. 71–2).