Jacob's Ladder

Contents From the compiler Introduction: About the Heavenly Friend Chapter 1. Heaven and earth Chapter 2: Guardian Angel Chapter 3: Angels in the life of the world Chapter 4: The nature of angels Chapter 5: The life of angels Chapter 6: Theophany and angelophany Chapter 7: The disembodiment of angels Chapter 8: The angelic world and the incarnation of God Conclusion: About angels The subject of this work is the doctrine of Angels. Although it represents a completely independent whole, it is at the same time directly adjacent to two recently published works: The Burning Bush (1927) and The Groom's Friend (1928). These three parts together form one dogmatic trilogy, defined by the unity of the sophiological theme - about the Wisdom of God in creation, which is proclaimed by the Most Pure One and the Forerunner in the human world, and by the Angels in heaven. If we express this theme iconographically, it corresponds to the central part of the “Deesis row in the iconostasis: Deesis (the Most Pure One and the Forerunner praying to Christ) surrounded by Angels - the so-called. "smart sky" The doctrine of Angels, in itself, perhaps does not need new research: it is presented fully and, in general, uniformly in dogmatic manuals, moreover, without any particular differences, both in Orthodox and Catholic dogmatics. However, this certainty of dogmatic teaching is by no means equally consistent with its theological interpretation, which in fact constitutes the main task of the proposed work. Theology here sometimes has to grope, resort to hypotheses, and sometimes limit itself to questions alone, which, however, already contain the grain of an answer. But it is precisely in this theological incompleteness of angelology that the present work finds its justification. In his constructions, as before, the compiler used data not only from biblical and patristic theology, but also from liturgical and iconographic theology. It goes without saying that the doctrine of Angels is of not only scientific and theological, but also religious and practical interest for every Christian. And I would like to convey to the reader what the compiler was given to experience during this work - not only the joy of comprehension, but also great spiritual consolation. To them, our heavenly guardians and comforters, may our prayer be addressed throughout the day of their holiday: Archangels of the heavenly armies, we always pray to you, unworthy ones, and with your prayers protect us with the shelter of the immaterial wings of your glory. Cathedral of St. Archangel Michael and other heavenly powers. Introduction: About the Heavenly Friend God-Love created man for love. The human heart wants to love and longs to be loved. It suffers unloving and deprived of love. It wants to expand, to accommodate other lives within itself, into its life, many lives, all lives; it seeks, having lost its temper, to melt, to lose itself in another, to become another for itself, to drown in the ocean of universal love. To destroy your soul in order to save it is the law of love, as indicated by the Word who laid down this law. In spiritual poverty, to gain all wealth, to live not by oneself, but by everyone and everything, to become different to oneself in one’s entire life, not-oneself, in one’s not-oneself, being exhausted to be fulfilled, humbly to rise, to live in love, to become love, in the image of the Holy Trihypostatic and Consubstantial Indivisible Trinity - such is the limit for human nature. Self-isolation, limitation, selfishness, self-will, and self-worship are unnatural for a person. This is the lot of sinful, fallen, perverted human nature, and not the law of this nature itself in its power and glory. For both as a generic being - Adam and Eve - who received the blessing from the Creator to go out of themselves in the multiplication of offspring, and as the sovereign ruler of all creation, in his nature capable of loving it and understanding it in love, man was created by God - a microcosm in the macrocosm, a small world “contracted” with a focus not on himself, but on another, on humanity and on the whole world, and above everything and in everything - to Lord God. And a person lives only to the extent of what and how much he loves, and dies in what and because he does not love. The one who loves is rich, because in God-Love he grows rich. And created in the image of God, who created everything with love and embraced everything with love, man is called to embrace everyone and everything in his love. He is just beginning the first lessons of love, but before him is the life of the next century, all eternity, which can only be filled with love, for there is no life and no eternity in non-love. The power of love is the ability to become different, to contain something else, to be filled with universal life. However, this is only one image of love - natural, essential, ούσία, predicate, predicate. If the power of love were exhausted by him alone, then the personality would dissolve without a trace in cosmic love, drowning in it, would perish. The paths of expanding “cosmic self-awareness” through the extinguishing of the personal principle lead to such depersonalization: Plotinian ecstasy, Buddhist nirvana, and pantheistic merging with the world. But a person cannot and should not be impersonal in his love, the destruction of the soul is necessary to save it, and a person must love his neighbor as himself - therefore, there is a certain image of legitimate, God-established self-love. This is love for oneself, and not for one’s own, love for the hypostatic face. The hypostatic self in man is a kind of indecomposable, absolute point of God-likeness: the hypostatic created self looks into the hypostatic, trihypostatic, image of the Divine, finds itself and is established in it. It never goes out and never dissolves, it loves, for there is a lover, just as God is Love, not hypostatic, but hypostatic, trinitarian, the Love of the Lover and the Loving. The power of love, its elasticity is concentrated in the personal center, emanates from it and returns to it. The bliss of love is in this constant dying and resurrection of the personal self. Personality is an intelligent sun, exuding the rays of love and its warmth. She needs not only to give herself, but also to find herself, to love and be loved, to “love her neighbor as herself,” to love mutually. Such love is usually called personal love, in contrast to love as a general attitude towards everything. But this expression is, to a certain extent, even a pleonasm, so all love is personal, goes from person to person or to persons. It does not destroy the personality, dissolving it, but makes it more sensitive, demanding, multiplying the possibilities of love. In the love of the divine trinity, everything is personal, thoroughly imbued with personal properties: the Father has His everything as the Hypostatic Son, and lives by Him in the hypostatic Spirit; The Son has His everything, as the Father’s Word, quickened by the Holy Spirit; The Spirit has His life in the Father, who speaks the hypostatic Word. Divine fullness, Divine self-revelation, Sophia-Love of God contains within itself the revelation of the divine world, the Idea or Prototype of everything. However, it does not exist in original extra-hypostaticity or impersonality. She is eternally hypostasized in the Holy Trinity, in Her Hypostases. In creation, she is hypostasized in the created spirits, as bearing the image of God and, first of all, having hypostatic existence. Everything that truly exists is personal, including personal love and therefore mutual. God loves with personal love Himself in the Holy Trinity in an eternal act of love-reciprocity. He also loves His creation - man, in whom He wants to have a friend, that is, reciprocity of reciprocal love. And through love for God, every “feeling” of love in a person becomes love, that is, personal love-reciprocity. But can there be reciprocity of love between the supreme God and created nothingness? Isn’t man’s love for God a reverent veneration of the Divine in His “properties,” in His revelation, and not personal, mutual love? However, God created the world in such a way that He did not spare the Only Begotten Son, so that in Him He would reveal Himself to us conformed, accessible to our love. The Lord calls the apostles His friends, and through them He calls every soul to fellowship, to mutual love with Him. God descends from His pre-worldliness, becoming human and uniting with the world, He becomes accessible to mutual love. Christ is given to everyone to love with personal love and to find mutual love in Him. Christ is the All-man, the Second Adam: all of humanity is actually contained in Him, therefore, every being finds itself in its fullness and universal significance. In His face it also finds its own self, like a ray of the Divine Self. Christ's humanity contains within itself every person (besides sin) and every human person with its personal properties. It is universal, all-human, all-personal Self. Therefore, everyone loves Christ in his own way, in accordance with his own individual face, and, however, in the way of Christ, for he is also in Christ, who contains everyone and everything in Himself. Here is the mystery of the one Adam, the Second Adam, the one-hypostatic and all-hypostatic, divine-human plurality. Through Christ and in Christ we receive the ability to love our neighbor: “a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.” “Love your sincere as yourself” - this is still an ancient commandment, although confirmed by Him. But the new commandment about love is about love in a new way, according to co-humanity, not in Adam (to which the Old Testament commandment refers), but in Christ, and this is also evidenced by Christ’s questions at the Last Judgment, where His pan-humanity will be revealed. For here every person is identified with Christ, who is our all-encompassing “neighbor.” Christ in His human nature, as the New Adam, substantiates the possibility of all-human love. However, there is still self-love. It is allowed by God, or rather, it is the basis and outcome of love for your neighbor: love your neighbor as yourself. This self-love is not animal egoism, which simply represents denial or absence of love, selfishness, as limitation. No, this is also love, or at least it can become it. Every creation of God is worthy of love in God’s plan for it, and you cannot love everyone and everything, you cannot honor and respect all of God’s creation, but at the same time only despise and hate yourself. The destruction of the soul for the sake of saving it means something completely different. Here we mean a sacrifice only of one’s limited self-love, overcoming the negative boundaries of one’s personality, which also has a positive core of its being, the thought of God and the love of God. It shines for us in our neighbor, but it also exists in each individual person, as such. The need for personal love - to love and be loved - is embedded in a person as his ontological property. A person cannot know himself, see himself, and, consequently, love himself in his positive nature, without being reflected in another, and this search for another for oneself is a search for a friend (according to the testimony of the genius of the Slavic-Russian language) 1. Love is the divine power of all life, overcoming personal limitations and giving existence to everything and in everything, but in it a personal beginning is also found, in love for oneself in one’s own face. Ontologically, right self-love is finding oneself in another by another, through another, finding one’s self in another, as one’s own image and likeness, being in some kind of essential duality, syzygy. In the first, divine sense, love is a grace-filled gift of God, by the power of which a person surpasses himself in his individual path, becomes personally super-personal in the image of the Holy Trinity, living in his hypostasis outside himself, in others and with others, destroying himself and seemingly not noticing. In the second sense, love is the natural force of personal life, which, however, irresistibly strives to be realized outside itself, in another - a friend, to have it for itself and in itself as its other self, and although it renounces itself for the sake of it, it is in this self-denial that it affirms and finds itself. This is created love and in this sense natural. Omnis individuatio est negatio, individuality is not only essential content, but at the same time limitation, exclusivity. Created consciousness, having arisen from insignificance, cannot realize itself, include its content otherwise than through limitation, exclusivity, and repelling self-defense. In deification, in gracious love, the creature, as it were, loses its creatureliness and with it its limitations, dissolving in divine love. However, in this love there is no place for metaphysical depersonalization, death of hypostasis. On the contrary, just like the union in the Lord Jesus Christ of both natures, divine and human, inseparably and unmerged, in the adoring man his created nature, and in him the created hypostasis, individuality, although they expand in deification towards universal love, are preserved and affirmed in their created originality. As a hypostatic self, she is the absolute center, albeit of created life. And therefore, along with superpersonal love, personal love remains and asserts itself in the desire not only to reject oneself, but also to turn towards oneself, however, through love for another and through this other. The goal of world love is made up of rings of syzygic love, - dyads and various other dyadic connections, - metaphysical ἐνδιὰδυοιν. So-called personal love is this metaphysical self-love, i.e. love for oneself, like blind animal egoism, is not at all love that exists only between, or, in the expression of blessedness. Augustine, as amor unitivus amborum. Egoism is generally an unnatural state for a person, bordering in its extreme manifestations on moral insanity or, in any case, underdevelopment. With complete egoism, the ability of love would remain undisclosed and unfulfilled, and it is therefore, rather, some kind of abstraction for man, as a being by nature of a tribal being. Normal self-love - in the ontological sense, and hence in the empirical sense - is expressed in personal love, in the uncontrollable desire to love - a certain person or persons - and to be loved, to become different for oneself and oneself in others 2. “Ioanathan loved David as his own soul,” this image of friendly Old Testament love is combined with another Old Testament image: “on my bed at night I looked for the one whom my soul loves” ... “I sleep, but my heart is awake” (Song. 31, 52). The fiery power and mystery of love is expressed in the last words of the Song of Songs: “Put me as a seal on your heart, like a ring on your hand, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as hell; her arrows are arrows of fire; she is a very strong flame” (var: God) (Song 86). Personal love, the search for it, which has a fatal character, as a kind of divine fate, contains the self-revelation of the individual and must be considered in its ontological being. It is not a whim or whim, nor is it only a state or accident, but belongs to the very essence of the personality. In its intimacy, a person has a need to see, know and love himself in the spiritual mirror of another, to find his image through his likeness. Our self, as if our most inalienable property, does not belong to us individually, but strangely bifurcates, goes beyond itself in order to identify itself only through returning from this exit. It is as if I exist together, in pairs, syzygically, having my own double, and this double is for him a common postulate of love, like a metaphysical “place of dots.” It can be filled by one or more than one human being, at different times in different ways. This is, as it were, an algebraic quantity, correlative to the personal self, instead of which various concrete arithmetic quantities can be substituted. The axiom of love is that I am not alone, not alone, but pairwise, syzygically-relatively, knows and has itself only in connection with its double, in a duality that can unfold during implementation and into an indefinite multiplicity, or may not be realized at all in life due to the mysterious fatumamoris, as well as evil or good will, failure or self-cutting off. The self finds a place for itself in being, is affirmed in it and is finally convinced of it, only in syzygy, holding the hand of another. Through this metaphysical handshake it is brought out of the darkness of half-being and finds its power and its reality in the world. There are two images and paths of love: one is through self-destruction, self-denial in the love of God, - the ascent of grief from oneself, and there is another image - self-affirmation through the emergence of oneself - love in the world. Both of these images are inherent in created nature, and on both paths it is saved from non-existence and joins reality. There is a difference between them, but not a contradiction, for the second commandment about love for “neighbor” is similar to the first about love for God. However, the very image of this combination of both paths remains mysterious for us, like God’s thought about our human god-like being. Both the general and the particular have equal power; and self-denial and self-affirmation; both versatility and individuality; both personality and essence; both me and you; and you, and we, and they 3... Therefore, human love is not only impersonal (or omnipersonal), but also personal. Its implementation does not proceed from the general to the particular, but on the contrary - from the specific to the universal. In other words, not only the human being in general, man as such, humanity itself, is loved, but also the given, unique person, the hypostasis in itself; one loves not only what, but also who. And such personal love certainly seeks to become reciprocal, mutual, syzygic. Such love, existing alone, unrequited, is an unnatural sacrifice of love that does not come to fruition and therefore a source of suffering. Humanity knows different images of personal love: fatherhood, motherhood, matrimony, sonship, daughterhood, brotherhood, sisterhood, kinship and, finally, friendship, although love in the proper sense is the love between a man and a woman, husband and wife, accompanied or may be accompanied by carnal union. In general, human love, although it has a spiritual basis, is not detached from the physical image. It is always spiritual-sensual or spiritual-physical, and such is all human love, and not only between different sexes. Man is a spiritual-physical being, this is the completeness, the ontological norm of his existence. A purely spiritual understanding of human love is not sublimity, but an abstraction or unnaturalness. We love only God with spiritual love, however, God, having approached us, took on flesh and, becoming like us, made himself accessible to the fullness of our love: “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at, what we have touched with our hands” (John 10:11), in a word, the Theologian testifies to the sensory-bodily perception of God the Word, just as in the next century all nations will see Him appearing “in glory.” the Lord in the air,” after which “we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4.17). Loving the soul, we also love the bodily form, the individual-physical image of a person in his real physicality and, together, in his unique originality, with his personal properties: voice, laughter, the whole article. And love is nourished and manifested not only by spiritual communication, but also by bodily perception, affection, and loving contemplation. In the beloved, not only the soul with its properties is loved, but also the body with its features. Therefore, we worship and kiss the holy relics, as well as venerate the graves: spiritual veneration and love for the departed is not enough; a physical approach to them remains necessary. This is also answered by the dogma of icon veneration, which contains the fundamental possibility, so to speak, of the embodiment of love: the Church legitimizes and blesses the loving contemplation of the bodily images of saints, thereby rejecting false abstract spiritualism. And in this sense, all human love is not only spiritual, but also sensual, and this sensuality may not at all have a special carnal quality inherent in the relationship between different sexes. In this latter, only with the greatest severity and exclusivity, sometimes with a violation of spiritual balance, does the indicated specific character of love manifest itself. Of course, this twofold norm of love, due to its complexity, is fraught with the possibility of constant violation and limitation. The corporeal may not open, but close the spiritual. This imbalance, a deviation from the ontological norm, once occurred for the entire human race through original sin, where man became not spiritual-carnal, but carnal-spiritual, and the flesh received an undue primacy over the spirit, and this undue primacy manifests itself most acutely in relations between the sexes. Bodily sexual desire reaches such intensity and independence that it enslaves and leads the spirit: soul-body love (for it is not entirely bodily even in fallen man) becomes, as it were, independent of spiritual love and subjugates it to itself. “Love” is usually called precisely this passionate mental-physical attraction, which is captivity for the spirit. There may be no place for spiritual love at all. Such passionate states and emotions are distinguished by their conquering power when they possess a person, but their spiritual emptiness is revealed when they withdraw or are extinguished by satisfaction. In a Christian marriage, the original norm is graciously restored, but even here, with the nature weakened by original sin, it usually remains far from proper balance 4 . Other images of love, although free from lust, retain their specific spiritual-sensual character. By loving, we love the whole person in his spiritual-physical image, indissoluble, because it is primordial. The concreteness of love, connecting it with space and time, at the same time introduces into it all the limitations inherent in this connection. Everything spatial and temporal is transitory in the way of its existence. Although its ontological essence is preserved and perpetuated (on which the definition of eternal human destiny as a consequence of temporary earthly life is based), this essence is different and will appear to us beyond the threshold of existence differently than it appears in this life. Here it is necessary to exclude in advance numerous, even countless cases of inconsistency in spiritual and physical relationships: thus, physical kinship is often not accompanied by spiritual kinship, but on the contrary, a spiritual kinship (“spiritual birth”) is possible, which is not connected with the carnal; Also subject to exclusion are so many flare-ups of carnal passion that end in extinction and emptiness, leaving no room for any spiritual connections. But even if we exclude this obvious discrepancy, the stamp of limitation and relativity remains on any earthly human love, which, although it has its basis in eternity, can nevertheless deviate from its norm to such an extent that it becomes impossible to talk about its preservation in its concreteness. Asked by the Sadducees about which of the seven husbands their wife would belong to in the resurrection, the Lord answered: “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but remain as the angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). This clear denial of the perpetuation of the marriage bond beyond this life, accompanied by a mysterious reference to the life of the angels of God, must, of course, fortiori be extended to all other human relationships of love and kinship. Of course, through this all of them are not declared internally insignificant, but, being associated with the carnal life of the spiritual body, they do not directly extend to future life in the spiritual body 5 . This places the stamp of relativity on all relationships of human love. It contains for us an admixture of the temporal with the eternal, the corruptible with the incorruptible, which remains indissoluble and even vaguely discernible, which will, however, be eliminated by the power of God beyond the boundaries of temporary existence. It contains the stamp of fatal incompleteness, hidden by the exaggeration of partiality at the expense of wholeness. The other self is fragmented into other selves, in many ways a relationship of love (just as in the marriage about which the Sadducees tempted the Lord, the Church itself allows for a second and third marriage). This love is not only relative, but also correlative in its diversity. However, the latter not only makes it complete, but also fragments it, makes it incomplete and relative in each of its particular phenomena. Everything is love: parental love for children and children’s love for parents, and conjugal love, and friendly love, and kindred love. This entire gamut of love or the multicolored spectrum of the white ray of a single love, in its fragmentation mutually reflecting, is realized as a series of possibilities of love, a series of other selves for one universal self. However, this introduces not only the fullness of diversity, but also the limitations of each individual image of love, which always strives to be absolute. And this relativity in implementation makes, in a certain sense, the very value of all human love relative to such an extent that it turns out to be possible to fundamentally reject it without damaging the fullness of personal being, and, consequently, the fullness of divine love - in monasticism. The idea of ​​monasticism, considered from this side, is to renounce this relative love through ascetic confrontation with natural nature, which requires personal, human love, in the name of personal absolute love for God, in which there is no relativity. Monasticism in this sense is a kind of absolutism in love, not reconciled with any relativity and therefore renouncing all earthly personal love. This is a kind of negative absolutism of means in the name of an absolute goal, and this absolutism is expressed in the ascetic confrontation of the entire relativity of love. And in this same sense, monasticism is the adoption of an “angelic image.” However, this relativity is perceptible to every person to the extent of his consciousness, and in this perceptibility his own special voice sounds and contains his own revelation. Everything relative is known to us as such only in the light of the absolute, just as all colors and tones exist only in the presence of light and sound. And the call, and the longing, and the search for absolute, eternal and complete love testify not to its impossibility in this world, but precisely to its existence, for the given always presupposes the given. This search testifies to the knowledge of love as an absolute fact. Such an absolute fact of love is God’s love for us and our love for God, combined with knowledge of ourselves in God. But this same absolute love is also realized in creation, however, not in human love, but in spiritual love. For at his very creation, man receives not only the divine gift of love, but also the possibility of love; not only yourself, but also your other, and not only human friends, but also your spiritual friend. This other of every person, this Friend, unique and personal, characteristic of every person, is a guardian angel, a being of an otherworldly, not human world. When the noise of life subsides and its discordant voices fall silent, when the soul is washed by silence and filled with silence, when her childish element is exposed and her oppressive covers are taken away, when the soul is freed from the captivity of this world and remains alone with God, when the bonds of earthly nature are resolved, and the soul finds itself, when she separates from the earthly shell and finds herself in a new world, when it is filled with light and washed by the rays of immortality - then she feels a creature bending over her with inexpressible love, so close, so dear, so tender, so quiet, so loving, so faithful, so meek, so affectionate, so bright, - that joy, peace, bliss, unknown on earth, boil in the soul. She then feels her non-loneliness, and all rushes towards an unknown and close Friend. For the soul will recognize that Friend about whom it has been dreaming and yearning all its life, seeking to merge with another to the end, to surrender to it completely, to find its other self in it. This other for every person, this Friend, given by God and created for him, is his guardian angel, always vigilant over him, living the same life with him. He is the closest, although distant, because he is invisible, inaudible, inaccessible to any bodily or even mental perception. So quiet and meek is his spiritual touch that his very presence is unnoticeable to man. But language shows us that we unconsciously notice it. For we unwittingly, without understanding the meaning of our words, call our loved ones full of love, affection, meekness and care “our guardian angels.” They constitute light and air for us, but like those inconspicuous ones, they are recognized by us in all their meaning only when we lose them. Likewise, we, always overshadowed by the wing of our guardian angel, do not highlight this overshadowing in our consciousness, as if we do not notice it, although it is always with us. The Guardian Angel, a resident of the heavenly incorporeal world, does not have direct access to our material world, to our carnal nature. Of course, he could shake it or even destroy this mortal nature of ours with his terrible appearance (which is where the Old Testament horror at the appearance of an angel comes from: you cannot see him face to face and not die). But this phenomenon requires the direct will of God. Without her, there is no basis for this in the quiet meekness of the angel. He is formidable and irresistible in protecting us from the unclean and evil spirits that overwhelm us, as “the guardian of our souls and bodies.” In spiritual warfare, without this intercessor, our nature would be destroyed and poisoned, corrupted and destroyed. This strategist, this spiritual warrior always protects us from this. In this he is actively active, constantly tense, he acts with all his strength. But he does not rape his earthly friend, the person he protects, and does not want and cannot rape. He nurtures and cherishes his soul, his whisper in audible silence inspires her with good thoughts, born within herself, but in such a silence of meekness that the soul does not notice the suggestion. Silence is commanded to him, for “silence is the secret of the future age,” according to the word of St. Isaac the Syrian, and the guardian angel speaks to us only in silence. He looks into our soul and sees us, and this is enough for this mysterious silent conversation of the soul with its higher self 6 . When we surrender to the influence of a gentle and dear being, it never directly teaches us, but by its very existence and presence near us it awakens in us our best and already unknown forces, as if pouring into us from it. This phenomenon defies any calculation, but not from weakness, but from its depth and tender intimacy. It is like inspiration, through which a person’s own depth is revealed. There is the highest task of education and pedagogical tact - to awaken and protect good self-activity, to make sure that everything good in a person is not inspired from the outside, but arises in him, giving birth to and revealing it for himself. Otherwise, the very goal of education will not be achieved, which is for the person being educated to become an active worker, and not an obedient instrument in the hands of the educator. The task of the latter is to become completely inconspicuous, to be destroyed, merging with the will of the one being brought up. This task corresponds to the image of the influence of a guardian angel, who awakens our higher self within us. This heavenly pedagogy is many-part and varied, inexhaustible and inexhaustible. Just as the most tender mother monitors the awakening of dark and light movements in the soul of a child, in his life overwhelmed by the enemy elements, so the guardian angel always watches over us, but does nothing without us, besides us: “waiting for unauthorized correction and not forcing” (canon of prayer to the guardian angel); “You have acquired a guardian, a protector, an interlocutor, a protector, abiding, and offering salvation to me at all times” (ibid.). This is unceasing creativity, the unceasing work of a guardian angel on ungrateful and disobedient material in the midst of a sin-infested world. But this work is constantly being done. Each of us lives not alone, but together, together, inseparably. Friendly help is always with us, angel wings are always spread over us. In understanding the nature of the relationship between an angel and a person, one must completely free oneself from external, simplified mechanical interpretation. According to the latter, a guardian angel protects a given person, p.p. sent to this post, assigned to this by God, as an obedient instrument, and this is his ministry, which he performs like any other, and this external performance corresponds to straightforwardness, simplicity and error-free use of appropriate means. This idea of ​​spiritual extras or guards, placed in their places in advance and indifferently carrying out every order, is completely inappropriate. Any spiritual service is imposed not from the outside, but from the inside; it flows from the very essence of the minister, his life, calling, nature. The commands of God are imperative because they are ontological. Therefore, the service of a guardian angel for him is not his external assignment to this or that person, but it is his work in the universe, and to that extent it expresses his own being. A guardian angel is a friend, he loves the one who is entrusted to him, and this love for him is personal love, possessing its properties known to us, although it surpasses any earthly love in degree and purity and, most importantly, its absoluteness. He looks into our soul with a loving, gentle, affectionate, bright, joyful gaze, in which all the power of love shines. He never takes his gaze off us, does not weaken in love. In this love lies not only our salvation, but, as in any love, his own life. It has power, it is vital not only for us, but also for him. There is a being in the spiritual world who lives the same life with us, shares our destinies, and seeks our reciprocity. A guardian angel is this friend who loves us and therefore lives with us. His attitude towards us is determined not by external service, but by an internal connection of love, which already testifies to ontological unity. Of course, this service is intermediary in fulfilling the will of God. It is to him that the angels were called at the time of their creation, that is, messengers, messengers, performers in the proper sense. Also, the hierarchical height of the angelic rank, the vision of the face of God, gives him a height of knowledge, wisdom and holiness inaccessible to us. However, with all this, the guardian angel is addressed to us. By his created nature he unites with us in his own life and creativity. The care of a guardian angel for us is work filled with constant care, tension, anxious and protective love, filled with its own joys and sorrows. St. directly testifies to all this. The Church in her prayer appeals to her guardian angel, and this is a dogmatically immutable fact that must only be accepted and comprehended in all its power. The Guardian Angel is called “the indefatigable guardian of my soul” and “mentor and representative of life”, “faithful mentor, guardian of our souls and bodies.” An angel is not God in his knowledge, wisdom and power. He is only a creature, limited in everything, whatever his height, and he is also not a blind instrument of God's will. The angel is given a creative task. Although it exceeds, according to the height of the angelic nature, all human capabilities and achievements, it still remains within the limits of created, limited creativity. And this creativity flows in time, in which successes are combined with failures, sorrows dissolve with joys. Therefore, the work of love and the creativity of angelic love for people for the angels themselves naturally contains a source of special joys with man and for man, which they share with the human world. “Holy angels, by their closeness to holy men,” says St. Isaac the Syrian, “have fellowship in their sufferings and sorrows” 7 . But not only about holy men, but also about sinners, they rejoice over their salvation, and mourn over their fall 8. “By night and day by my evil deeds I grieve you, I insult and irritate you” (Can. 3, vol. 2). “I must not stop grieving my intercessor with lawless words and deeds: but do not become embittered, but wait a little longer” (paragraph 4, vol. 2). “Having foreseen the torment and torment that awaits me... having mercy on the walled and sad and decrepit, I am filled with gifts” (item 5, m. 3). “Below by one hour, but below the line and sowing sooner, I left the hedgehog to rejoice and rejoice in me and leap, sins ever growing together” (paragraph 5, glory). At the hour of death, “appear brightly to me with a grinning face and a joyful outlook” (item 7, m. 3), “that I may see you at the right hand of my damned soul, bright and quiet, my intercessor and representative” (item 9, vol. I). At the Last Judgment, “appear to me then calm and joyful, taking away my fear with the hope of salvation” (paragraph 8, glory). These sorrows and joys, successes and failures, smiles (“with a grinning face”) and tears of guardian angels about us, as St. The Church themselves testify that the guidance and protection of our lives is for St. angels and labor and creative task. It is constantly resolved by their love and creativity, although not entirely identically, however, just like in human creativity, and, moreover, with fluctuating success. The Apostle Paul has these mysterious and meaningful words: 1 Cor. 63: “Do not the imams judge angels?” This judgment of men over angels - doesn’t it testify that in the work of the angels themselves there can be more or less over men? Created limitation also excludes absolute infallibility and infallibility for them. Thus, guardian angels do not see our life from an unattainable height and inaccessibility, but they live with us, they create it, they themselves live it, for them it is their own life. Communicated to eternity in the bliss of their knowledge of God, they are subject to change in their attitude towards life flowing in time. They are connected in us and through us with human life, and therefore with our entire world; our life is also their life. Only God, the most peaceful and supreme of all creation, creates, preserves, saves, loves His creation, changing nothing in His eternal self-identity and all-bliss, accepting nothing from the life of the creature, remaining above any temporary formation, or change, or increment. An angel is not like that, although he is the highest creation in terms of his closeness to God. Initially, he is subject to variability by nature, as is revealed in the fall of some of the angels. According to the teachings of the Church, the angels who stood firm in goodness, fought against Satan and cast him out of heaven, were finally confirmed in the rightness of their path, and, consequently, in the bliss of their vision of God. To that extent they are unchangeable, and their life is already illuminated by eternity. However, since they are connected with the human world, the life of the world is also their life, its destinies are also their destinies. Of course, this dependence does not extend so far as to change the angels’ own final self-determination, but it is capable of determining the way they are in relation to our world. And the force that establishes the bond between both worlds is love. Angels serve the world because they are sent into it by God, but at the same time angels love the world they serve, just as a guardian angel loves his human counterpart. And if there is no love without sacrifice, in which is the power of love, then the love of the guardian angel for us is sacrificial love. It includes not only involuntary, by the command of God, but also voluntary, by the power of angelic consent and obedience, kenosis of angelic nature. This love represents a certain abandonment of the bliss of the angelic world through union with the life and destinies of the corporeal, plump, carnal nature. For the disembodied spirit, there is metaphysical self-exhaustion, ontologically kenosis, thanks to which his life is united through love with the life of a carnal person. This kenosis has a similarity for itself (and at the same time the final basis) in the kenosis of God the Word, who for our sake became impoverished and took on the likeness of human nature - incarnate and made human. Together with Him and following Him, the angelic nature does not become humanized, but becomes humanized, united by bonds of love with man. The Guardian Angel is deprived of the fullness and equanimity of his vision of God for the sake of man, in order to lead him to a higher rank, but to go with him himself, as if regaining what was already given to him (which, however, does not eliminate his simultaneous heavenly bliss). This kenosis of the angelic nature for the sake of the human is a free self-restraint, which, like any sacrifice of love, leads to new higher possibilities and relationships. Together with this natural kenosis, personal service, feat, self-sacrifice and, most of all, patience are combined. For tolerating our sinfulness and stupidity, persistence in evil and opposition to good, bestiality and demonization, endless laziness and spiritual torpor requires such intensity of merciful love, which we cannot imagine. All the images of patience of love that we know: a mother who forgives everything and gives everything for her worthless, prodigal son, a wife who endures everything from an unworthy husband, a friend or brother or sister who saves a spiritually decaying person - all these are only images of that patience, that love that our guardian angel shows to us. Likewise, suffering from the wounds of love inflicted by man on man is an image of the wound with which we constantly wound our incorporeal Friend, and these wounds sometimes consist of the final wound inflicted on him by the unworthy end of human life in sin or suicide. Suicide is a deliberate sin against the guardian angel, a desecration of his love. The suicide, pushing away his guardian angel, rushes into the arms of the demon. And in this feat of patience, angelic love, like any true love, does not seek its own - what can we give to an angel? For him it remains, according to the word of the Lord, “it is more blessed to give than to take.” The gifts of this love are similar to how a mother lavishes her love and affection on a child, without demanding anything for it, but only rejoicing in her love for him. And the only way we can respond to the angels and thereby reward their love is to give them the opportunity to rejoice over us, just as a mother rejoices at every success and smile of her child. But just as maternal love precedes any possibility of reciprocal love or joy, so angelic love awaits and protects us before we can respond to it. So, the angel participates, as best he can, in the creativity of human life and its salvation - through protection, instruction and prayer 9. Nothing in our life is accomplished apart from his observation and participation, unless we ourselves, through our evil and criminal will, become stuck in sin, make it difficult or impossible for ourselves to communicate with him, and remove our guardian angel from ourselves. However, even then, he, removed by us, grieving and crying for us, prayerfully watches over us, not taking his eyes off us and waiting for the first opportunity to help us, to work for us. His love never leaves us, and the all-bearing meekness of this love is immeasurable. This work of angels above us and with us is not directly known to us; therefore, as carnal beings, we do not experience the life of the disembodied spirit. However, we know that work for us, carnal ones, is always not only bodily tension and waste of strength, but also a kind of spiritual effort. And this spiritual work is performed by the guardian angel as evidence of the effectiveness of his love. How to recognize this love, this meekness, this care, this patience, this humility, this self-sacrifice of the guardian angel’s love for us? With eyes full of love, he looks into our soul, and she vaguely feels both this gaze and this love. But beyond this life, the soul will know that this Friend belongs entirely and has always belonged to her, that all his love and care was only for her. And then the most burning, inescapable thirst of a human being will be quenched - the longing for mutual love. This is his own, inseparably owned Friend, who will never be taken away from him, for he is his other, higher self. There was no time in a person’s life when a Friend was not with him: “from infancy, as a lover of mankind, you appointed him as a guardian” (Can. English Chronicle, paragraph 9, tr. 5), “given by me forever.” At the initial brink of life, in birth, a guardian angel meets us, and at its final brink in death, he also meets our soul and sees it off. They say that a person on his deathbed is left alone, and this is true in relation to people, our fellow humans, but he is not alone in this isolation, for his angel is with him. Looking into it, the soul comprehends and sees itself and its life, no longer with earthly eyes, but in eternity, to which the Friend belongs. He is a mediator, leader and teacher - for eternity... “For long hours and days I was in a fiery furnace. For the first time, I understood why and in what sense the Church loved this image of the fire in the cave so much. For I myself burned with my sins, they burned me, and together they burned in the fire. By the great mercy of God, I myself burned, but did not burn out, although it was natural for me to burn and die, and it seemed even impossible not to die. In this fiery cave, a certain coolness was sent to me - a guardian angel who appeared in the cave to the three youths, and came down to me, and cooled me, and saved me. This cannot be explained in words, but from now on I know that you can burn in a fiery furnace without being burned... And suddenly - after this burning - coolness and consolation penetrated the fiery cave of my heart... Suddenly my sin stopped burning me, ceased to exist, it was gone, and with all my heart I felt forgiveness, its immeasurable lightness and joy. The Guardian Angel, who was constantly with me, put this in my heart. I felt that everything was forgiven, that there was no wrath of God on me, nothing separated me from the Lord, for I was redeemed by my Lord. But this sacrament of forgiveness was revealed to me only in connection with the sacrament of death, because at the same time I felt that my life was over, I was dying. Where is it, the fear of death? There is none, there is only the joy of death, the joy of the Lord. A heavenly, inexpressible joy in human language filled my entire being... I recognized myself beyond the boundaries of the world. The realization appeared that everyone was equally alive and close, both the living and the dead. I felt everyone with me spiritually, and at the same time I realized that physical suffering would still not allow me to communicate with those at my bedside. I alternately called to myself, as if spiritually feeling my loved ones, long dead, as well as the living. I was transported wherever I wanted. And the presence of God reigned over everything... Then I moved, as if by some inner command, forward, from this world there - to God. I rushed with speed and freedom, devoid of any heaviness. I knew with some reliable inner feeling that I had already passed our time, had also passed the next generation, and behind it, in the middle of the next, the end was already shining. The indescribable lights of God’s approach lit up, the horizon became brighter, the joy inexplicable: “man cannot speak.” And at that time the voice of a companion sounded inside - I was not alone, but together with my other self, it was a guardian angel. He told me that we had gone too far and we needed to return... to life. I understood and heard with my inner hearing that the Lord was bringing me back to life, and I was recovering. The same call that freed me from this world and from life, at the same time, with the same word, returned me to it. Internally, I already knew that I would recover, although I was not feeling better yet. I came back to life from death. And all this time I knew that I was not alone, that a friend was with me, the closest, necessary and quiet. I didn’t see him with my eyes, he was hiding from them, but I heard and was aware of his presence...” But if in the days of our life, from birth to death, our Friend is inseparable from us, who is “assigned” to us, “chosen”, “given”, “accepted from God”, then what is his life before our birth and after our death? Did he belong to us, and we belonged to him in eternal angelic love, when we were not yet there, and, on the other hand, is this connection broken and terminated when we are no longer on earth? Will our guardian angel then receive another assignment, another soul, another friend? Will his love and friendship for us cease, replaced by a new service for him? Will a new, final loss await us beyond the boundaries of this world, and will we find ourselves left by the Friend in some kind of metaphysical loneliness? Of course, it is enough just to pose such a question to immediately see that there can be no other answer to it than a negative one. A person enters the world through birth, and his life begins in time, for each person in his own. But his guardian angel is not born with him, he exists before his birth, or rather, he pre-exists him. What is his attitude towards this very birth, the entry into the world of a new person? Is it effective or ineffective, positive or indifferent? But if the sending of a guardian angel to a person cannot be understood as an external assignment or order given, so to speak, to the next angel for the next service, without an internal relationship between what is sent and the one to whom it is sent, then, on the contrary, this relationship should be considered pre-established. What is this pre-establishment? Next. A guardian angel does not die with a person, for angels do not know death. But a dead person is only “deceased,” that is, asleep. Although he experiences a temporary separation of soul and body, he lives, however, not a full life, one soul, deprived of a body, in the hope of a general resurrection and a new union with it. So, is death also a separation from the guardian angel, who is consequently released from his ministry, so that this temporary connection with the earthly life of a person becomes a thing of the past and thereby falls into oblivion? Or, on the contrary, does it remain indestructible and persist beyond this life, in the afterlife, beyond even this century, in the life of the next century, in the resurrection? In other words, does the connection between a guardian angel and the person entrusted to him, which is angelic love in all its power and glory, only have an instrumental, auxiliary, and therefore temporary, conditional meaning? Or, like love, is it a personal connection, for personal love is an individual choice, moreover, absolutely individual, for it is not subject to any restrictions of time and place, just like other, even the most personal, human relationships? Perhaps another puzzling question will arise: doesn’t the guardian angel, after the death of a person, receive, so to speak, a new assignment, a new service to another person, and then to another, etc.? There is no direct answer to this question either in the Word of God or in church teaching. However, it should be borne in mind that in the Word of God there is not the slightest indication of this possibility: wherever angels are spoken of in relation to man, only a personal relationship is meant - especially Matt. 18, 10. There is no indirect basis for this in the ratio of the numbers of the human and angelic worlds. According to the generally accepted teaching of the Church, the number of angels is many times greater than the number of people (the parable of the 99 sheep abandoned to gain one - Matthew 18:12-13 - is sometimes used - although not without stretching - to determine the ratio of the number of angels and people). The decisive objections to such an assumption stem, however, most of all from the general relationship between men and angels, as will be outlined below. However, even if we conditionally agree to the assumption that guardian angels accept a new ministry, then it does not abolish or even weaken the personal nature of the relationship between a person and a guardian angel, which is the most important thing here. Angelic love is personal, but not exclusive, it includes, or rather, includes entire circles of existence, expanding to the whole world, and to all of humanity, and to all of creation. Therefore, even if one could imagine that one guardian angel is sent to protect many people, this would only mean that their souls and destinies are permeated with a common thread that unites them, and are in a deliberate mystical connection with each other. But even beyond such deliberateness, the bond of angelic love penetrates and connects all of humanity. Therefore, in order not to complicate our reasoning with this idle and unlikely assumption, which, moreover, does not change anything in the essence of the question, but only complicates it, we proceed from the position that each person is given his own guardian angel. But this particular relationship should be understood only on the basis of the general relationship between the angelic and human worlds. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). The generally accepted understanding of this sacred text, which denotes the most general outline of the entire created world, is such that it speaks of the creation of the intelligent heaven, or the angelic world of disembodied spirits, and the earth, as the primary substance and together with all the substances of our world, which has man as its head and center. At the same time, a certain parallelism is established between the creation of heaven and earth - a positive relationship, expressed by the word and. This word of the Word of God contains the teaching about the relationship between the angelic and human worlds, heaven and earth, 10 and one should, first of all, dwell on its disclosure. That angels were created earlier than the final creation of the human world, earlier than the end of the six days, and, in any case, earlier than the creation of man, this is a direct indication of the Word of God, on which the belief of the Church is based. “The mirrors of light are God-primary and the three-solar candles receive the radiance within themselves, since comprehending, having first conceived the angelic ranks, the divine mind was composed.” The question of when exactly the angels were created does not find a direct answer in the Word of God (here we learn, from the book of Job, 38.7, only terminus ad quem, namely, before the creation of the stars, i.e. the fourth day), and further does not have a uniform answer in church writing. According to St. Augustine, the creation of angels refers to the first day: let there be light, and here we mean the shining of not only physical, but also mental light, i.e., “second lights” - angels. By other fathers (St. Basil V., Gregory of God, John Chrysostom, Ambrose Med., John of Damascus, Blessed Jerome, etc.) it refers to the time preceding even the first day of creation, and this opinion seems to be the most appropriate (Gen. 1, 1). It is also the most natural based on the general relationship between the spiritual and human world, expressed in the meaningful and. The angelic world has a twofold appeal: like second lights, like God-bearing coals, kindled by the dawn of Your being 11, they are saturated with divine light, “the adored Divinity.” Their life in God is a “participation of unspeakable glory” and the praise of God. They plunge into the ocean of Divine life and ascend from light to light, taught and enlightened through nine-step hierarchies, from higher to lower. But at the same time, the disembodied forces are angels, and only by this name do we, humans, know them, and this name already contains the revelation of that mysterious and by which heaven and earth are connected. Heaven, that is, the world of mental forces and disembodied spirits, was created not separately and independently, but together with the earth and in relation to the earth. Disembodied spirits are defined in their existence not in relation to themselves, but as messenger angels, messengers, that is, also in relation to the earth. The angelic world was created with the thought of angelic service, this messenger participation in the destinies of the world, in other words, with the thought of the human world. Through their service, angels unite with the human world into one inseparable whole, so that neither the world exists without angels, nor angels without the world, and both together constitute one creation: heaven and earth. This closeness and connection between the angelic and human worlds is outlined by the Word of God in various respects. Angels are the guardians of natural forces: fire, heavenly bodies (according to ancient belief), and the inanimate world in general. By analogy, we can conclude that they are guardians of the flora and fauna. - They are the executors of God’s commands over man, as guardian angels of individual people and entire nations, kingdoms, individual churches, in general, the entire human race, both at the beginning, and in the middle, and at the end of this century - in the harvest of time. The Word of God indicates not all, but only some aspects of the angelic ministry, but there is no reason to understand this incompleteness of the calculation in a restrictive sense (for example, from what is said about the angels of water, fire and winds, but not about the angel of the earth or the flora and fauna, to conclude that these areas are alien to the protection of angels). Rather, this list is approximate and not exhaustive. Likewise, and on the basis of the indication of the existence of special angels of the kingdom of Persia and Judea or the angels of the seven churches of Asia Minor, no one draws the conclusion that they alone are characterized by angelic protection; on the contrary, the latter extends to all churches, kingdoms, peoples, even monasteries, cities, places, etc. In a word, it will not be an exaggeration to say that our entire world as a whole and in its parts constitutes the area of angelic service, and the angelic army includes among its number guardian angels not only of individual people, but of the entire earthly creation. Everything in the world is guarded by angels, everything has its own angel, everything has its relationship in the angelic world. This position, although not directly expressed in the church teaching about angels, nevertheless finds sufficient support for itself in it, and this is sufficiently clear from the impossibility of a reverse judgment. In fact, what can be pointed out in creation that would not have angelic care, that would bear the stamp of ontological rejection? But then it simply would not exist. A certain limitation, which is more of a clarification, can only consist in the fact that in a world distorted by sin, when the state of the creature is not in the proper state, ugly creatures or states can arise that do not find a direct ontological justification for themselves; this is the fruit of the devil’s negative creativity in the world he has captivated. One can say about these ontological monstrosities that they are extra-sophical or anti-sophical, or, to put it in the language of Platonic idealism, extra-ideological or anti-ideological beings. However, their complete non-sophia or anti-ideology is also impossible, because then they would not exist at all. Therefore, if such a limitation is allowed, it can also only be accepted in a limited sense. The devil cannot create anything, he only distorts what already exists, created by God. Therefore, the positive existential power of even these distortions has its support only in the God-created and angelically preserved foundations of existence (just as parasites or malignant formations can only exist in a living organism, and therefore by its own power). On the other hand, even the offspring of the kingdom of Abaddon, like the locusts, who have the power of scorpions (Rev. 9:3-11), since they are an instrument of the wrath of God, are under the control of angels. This is generally revealed in the Apocalypse in the appearance of seven trumpets (8.10) and seven bowls of the wrath of God (16), also poured out by angels (the result of which is disgusting purulent wounds on the body, and the transformation of water into blood, and excessive heat, and mortal melancholy). In other cases, angels are destructive instruments of God’s wrath, like the angel who destroyed the sons of Israel with a pestilence for the sin of David (2 Samuel 24), or the army of Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:35). Based on these cases, 12 it should be concluded that even in its painful sinful states, the world does not remain deprived of angelic watchfulness in fulfillment of God's providence for it. But the action of God's providence is accomplished through angels 13. Therefore, it can be established as a general proposition that nothing in the life of this world, except sin, remains alien to the angelic world, nothing in this world is accomplished without the participation of angels. Of course, in our present state, based on experience, we know little about this, which undoubtedly explains the general lack of clarity of the dogma about angels and the dogmatic poverty of knowledge about them. The Church, as always, in her life, in practical worship and worship, knows much more than is included in dogmatic consciousness and theology. It solemnly testifies to the constant communication of angels with us: both iconographically - the presence of icons of angels in the church is evidence of their genuine presence - and hymnologically - certificates of the prayerful co-presence of angels in the church are constantly repeated. From this depth of knowledge of the Church, doctrinal truths, new and at the same time old, rise to the surface of dogmatic knowledge, for nothing new that is not contained in this depth can be revealed in the consciousness of the Church, but at the same time it never fully accommodates this depth. The knowledge of the angelic world, vague and obscured, was not alien to pagan piety. The very appearance of the doctrine of angels in the Bible is now attributed by scientific criticism to either Persian or Assyro-Babylonian influence. In this opinion, the only thing that can be considered correct is that some knowledge of the angelic world is accessible to natural religious consciousness outside of Revelation, as is observed in relation to many other religious truths. The ancients in their immediacy heard the angels, knew their presence and expressed this knowledge with the general conviction that πάνταπλήρηθεών - everything is filled with gods, that is, personal manifestations of divine power - the angels of God. Each person has his own “demon,” δαιμόνιον, which was recognized with such marvelous clarity by Socrates, and every place has its own genius loci. Divine power flows and manifests itself everywhere: trees have their dryads, rivers and seas have their gods, cities have their guardians, and even sacred things have their spirits (“fetishism”). Polytheism knew about spiritual hierarchies, but never knew how to distinguish and contrast the Creator and the Creation. In it the knowledge of the angelic world is manifested with greater power and clarity than the knowledge of the Divinity itself. Being excommunicated from the true knowledge of God, the pagans were not abandoned by the angels. From the general relationship between the angelic and human worlds a number of further questions arise: how is participation in this ministry distributed among the various orders of angels? Do they all have this participation? On the other hand, in what areas of world life and how is this participation manifested? However, before all these particular questions, a general question arises - about the ontological foundations of this relationship itself, about the very meaning of the doctrine of heaven and earth. The world of disembodied spirits was created as angels to serve this world. The mediating place of angels between God and the world is thus depicted in Ps. 17:10–11: “He bowed the heavens and came down; darkness was under His feet. And he sat on the cherubim and flew and was carried on the wings of the wind.” Wed. Ps. 79.2. The image of sitting on cherubim (also characteristic of the vision of Ezekiel’s chariot) contains the idea that God approaches creation and relates to it through angels. The ministry of angels presupposes the existence of an ontological connection between the angelic and human worlds. The ascent and descent of the angels takes place along a ladder that exists between earth and heaven and was seen by Jacob. Not only is the guardian angel in a personal relationship with the one whom he protects, but also the angels of fire, and winds, and waters are in a similar relationship precisely to this area of ​​​​creation. Angels are sent to this or that service not indifferently, but in accordance with their own idea or personal nature, and this relationship, of course, has the highest expediency and concreteness. The angelic world has in its nature, although in its own special way, the entire composition, all, so to speak, the content of our world, and only by virtue of this relationship can angelic service be performed. Heaven and earth represent, as it were, two images of the existence of a single world, a single creation: άνω and κάτω “above and below”], the ideal and real world, above and below, which look into each other and relate to each other. The first words of the book of Genesis express the innermost basis of creation in its two images, in two worlds, but one of God’s creation: create - bara - God - elohim - heaven and earth, and created them in the beginning, i.e. originally and originally. Heaven and earth, as the totality of all the possibilities of creation, precede in their origin all further creation, the six-day one, and they already include it in themselves, as a possibility. Individual acts of creation should not be understood as some completely new creativity out of nothing, equal to the “initial”, or as ontological violence, imposing on the earth something hitherto alien and unusual. On the contrary, they contain a direct command to the earth to reveal its power: let the earth bring forth greenery (Gen. 1:11), let the water bring forth reptiles, a living soul (1:20), let the earth produce a living soul according to its kind (1:24). The earth looks into the sky, carrying within itself the entire creation already outlined in heaven, and, obedient to the command of God, it realizes it. But fundamentally, nothing new is created in the six-day period that was not created at the beginning 14, before the six-day period, or, so to speak, above the six-day period, and nothing more is said about heaven at all - to commemorate the fact that it was created in a single act to the fullness of its perfection (cf. Gen. 2:1: “so were heaven and earth and all their hosts created” 15, and about the earth added: “the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters” (Gen. 1:2). And it is brought out of formlessness and emptiness only in the six days. But heaven and earth were created “in the beginning,” that is, not only initially, but also initially, from or on the basis of a single creative peace-making principle - the Wisdom of God. The world was created by Wisdom, “thou didst create all Wisdom.” The wisdom of God, the self-revelation of the Holy Trinity, the Father in the Son by the Holy Spirit, contains the idea or prototype of creation - the Divine world, existing eternally in God. The Trinitarian God has one essence or nature, one life and self-revelation, and this self-revelation of the Divine, as existing in itself, is the Glory of God and His Wisdom. This same Wisdom is both the basis and goal of creation. “The Lord has made me the beginning of His ways from time immemorial” (Proverbs 8:22). Everything that God creates is contained in His Wisdom and cannot remain outside of it (remaining “in total darkness, external”, outside of existence). In relation to God Himself, His Wisdom is the eternal content of the Word of God, the word of the Word, and eternal Life, the reality of this word - by the Holy Spirit. She is God Himself in His self-revelation 16. In relation to the created world, it is the world before creation, κόσμος νοητός, the Divine world, primitive, containing within itself a sufficient and exhaustive basis for all things. In the beginning, ἐν ἀρχῆ - the first word of the book of Genesis was once again repeated by the Evangelist Theologian - there was the Word, and the Word was to God, and God was the Word: in the Beginning, that is, in the Wisdom of God, the Word of God, the Word of the Father, was, that is, from eternity has being and life (“in Him is life”) the Life-giving Spirit. This initial text of the Gospel of John contains a revelation not only about the Word, but also about the entire Holy Trinity. However, this cannot be otherwise, because the revelation of the Son already introduces the revelation of the Father, and it cannot stop at the Two, but necessarily introduces the Trinity. Therefore, it is necessary to interpret it not in the sense of a simple verbal connective, which is obviously inappropriate and insufficient in a text of such high theological content, but in the sense of a mysterious, hidden indication of the Life-giving Holy Spirit, uniting the Father and the Son as amor unitivus amborum (“and the Word is to God,” “This one from time immemorial to God”). This, like this to God πρὸςτὸνΘεόν, where the Father is clearly understood, is nothing more than an indication of the Holy Spirit. And this same thought is even more definitely expressed in Art. 4.: “in that belly there was, and the belly of ήζωή was the light of man.” Life here clearly denotes the Life-giving Spirit abiding on the Son, enlightening the world with the Holy Spirit. Understood in this trinitarian sense, the prologue of the Gospel of John contains the teaching not only about the Word of God, the Son of the Father, but also about the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, as is natural for the prologue of the pneumatological Gospel par excellence. However, the prologue of John's Gospel has not only trinitarian, but also sophiological significance. And first of all, the first word of the prologue at the beginning is the same as in Genesis (and, of course, in Proverbs 8:22). It obviously cannot mean time here in relation to the pre-eternal life of the Holy Trinity, but it has a general ontological meaning. If at the beginning of Genesis 1.1 can still be understood in a temporal sense, as far as it relates to the emergence of the world, then in the prologue, where, on the contrary, any emergence of the Word is implicitly rejected, but His original, i.e., eternal existence is affirmed, this temporary understanding of ἐνἀρχῆ is directly inappropriate and contradictory. Ἐνἀρχῆ here does not mean “at the beginning of time,” but “in the eternity of God,” and the first meaning of beginning is therefore eternity. But what else does the eternity of God mean if not his Wisdom and Glory? The sophiological meaning of the prologue is further evident from the fact that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is presented here in direct relation to the creation of the world: “all that was,” “the light shines in the darkness,” “The Word became flesh.” Here the teaching about the eternal life of God in Himself, in the Holy Trinity, and about God the Creator, proceeding from Himself to creation, illuminating with His light the “utter darkness”, that is, non-existence, created nothingness before creation, is compared and brought into connection. At the same time, the beginning connecting God with the world is Sophia, the Wisdom of God 17: “The Lord made Me (Wisdom) the beginning of His ways.” It can be said, therefore, that the beginning of the prologue of the Gospel of John is the eternal Wisdom of God, the divine world before creation, as the basis of creation. Addressed to the Divine, it contains the life of the Holy Trinity: Οὖτος ήν ἐν ἀρχῆπρὸς τὸν Οεόν - this is a trinitarian formula in a sophiological aspect: the beginning contains the revelation of the Father addressed to the Son and acted by the Spirit Saints. The beginning in the book of Genesis contains a revelation about the same Wisdom, but already in its appeal to creation, as the foundation of this creation: “in the beginning God created heaven and earth.” In the beginning means here: by the beginning, through the beginning, in accordance with the beginning, on the basis of the beginning. The Eternal Wisdom in God and it, as the beginning of the creation of the world, are not two different principles, but one and the same beginning, ἀρχῆ, addressed to God and to the world: in the first sense, it is the world, as the divine uncreated fundamental principle of creation, in the second sense, the world, as created from nothing by the will of God, created Wisdom 18, all creation, which includes, obviously, the world and angelic and human. So, the common foundation of creation for the entire created world, heaven and earth, is contained in the Wisdom of God. And it is this Sophian unity of the angelic and human world that must be realized in all its significance as applied to the issue under consideration. Angels, without a doubt, refer to that everything - πάντα, which arises through the Word in the Wisdom of God, that is, to the primitive ideas of creation. What place does the angelic world occupy in all of creation? Is this its own special world, along with the human one and, so to speak, in addition to it? Did its creation reveal the inexhaustibility of God’s creativity, thanks to which God, not being satisfied with the visible world, invents an invisible world besides it? 19 This consideration, more prompted by piety than by theology, does not pose the question in its entirety. True, it contains the indisputable idea that the angelic world represents an independent region of creation, different from our world, and in this sense independent of it. However, this idea about the independence of the angelic world from the human, which, of course, is valid within its limits, cannot be fully supported. Otherwise, it directly contradicts the connection in which the Word of God places both worlds, heaven and earth, and makes us forget about the angelic purpose of disembodied spirits. The naming of angels indicates their service, and this latter presupposes a direct connection and correlation between both worlds. We have already said that the service of angels to the human world cannot be understood externally, as something not arising from their own nature, but must be explained on the basis of the internal connection of both worlds, based on the ontological unity of creation. Angels serve the world and man because they are akin to him, and in a certain sense are identical in their main ontological theme, or, so to speak, in the motive of creation. The angel of fire is himself a fiery one in the sense that he carries in his nature the intelligible element of fire, just as the angel of water carries the water nature, etc. Guardian angels of individuals, peoples and societies are in a deliberate spiritual affinity precisely with these spiritual individuals. The common basis of this connection between heaven and earth, both worlds, is that both of them were equally created at the same beginning, at one beginning, and this one-at-one beginning of all creation is Sophia, the Wisdom of God, in which the prototypes (παραδείγματα) of all created things are pre-eternally inscribed. The angelic world and the human world differ from each other in the way of their existence, however, with the unity of the creative basis and the commonality of the ontological theme. Divine prototypes, ideas of the world, are realized in creation in two ways: in heaven - spiritually, not embodied, and on earth in incarnation. The one divine Wisdom gives existence to both worlds and connects them. This idea, of course, does not need to be understood narrowly and straightforwardly. Each of the worlds is characterized by originality in the implementation of a single creative theme. In particular, the way of being of the angelic world has its own differences, which can be briefly expressed in this way: in the angelic world there is no place at all for a special non-hypostatic, natural being, and even no place at all for nature or the actual world and cosmos, in which and from which and for which man is created. The angelic world, whether spiritual or incorporeal, is completely hypostatic, there is nothing in it that does not have personal existence, while in our world everything is subhuman, i.e. the inorganic and organic world is impersonal, it is hypostasized only in man and through man, while hypostatic existence is characteristic only of man. Further, the angelic world has its own hierarchical structure, resulting from the difference in the closeness of the angels to God, and therefore a special inner life in its ancestors. Finally, the angels’ own life in turning to God is determined by their presence before the throne of God and receives its special power from this. In a word, the angelic world is not a simple repetition of our world in the spiritual realm, for in general there can be no repetition in God’s creation. The unity of the ontological principle does not at all imply such repetition. However, it contains the basis for a positive relationship or unity between both worlds, by the power of which they live, with all their differences, and one common life. The creation of both worlds by the one Wisdom of God cannot be understood in such a sense that two independent principles are distinguished in it, one for the spiritual, the other for the physical world - no, the beginning is one. However, God, having moved to create the world, begins it with a spiritual, angelic, incorporeal world, and ends it with an earthly world. Why is this the order of creation and not the reverse? One cannot help but see an explanation for this in the natural hierarchy of creation. The Lord first realizes the creative images of His Wisdom in the creation of the incorporeal, angelic world, calls into existence created hypostatic faces, in which all the images of existence, its “ideas” are imprinted. The wisdom of God receives a personal, multi-hypostatic reflection in the “second lights” of the angelic world, located in close proximity to the Divine in its hierarchical cathedral. The angelic world in its own way is inherent in the entire fullness of creation; it is not part of the world, but the whole world, only in its own special, hypostatic-spiritual way of being. The Lord has the wisdom of God as the beginning of His ways, in which He created heaven and earth. It, of course, was reflected in its entirety in the angelic world, as a set of ideas, themes, paradigms of the world in a hypostatic way of being. In this sense, the angelic world is involved in everything created by the Word and contains it all. This fullness of creative ideas invested in the creation of the angelic world stems from the fact that the angelic world, just like the human world, was created by the Word of God, is equally headed by Him and in Him has a beginning and an end, the origin and purpose of its existence. “By Him all things were created, that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible: whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist" (Col. 1:16-17), "in the dispensation of the fullness of times, in order to unite all things in heaven and on earth under the head of Christ" (Eph. 1:10). An angel differs from a person in a different sense than the individual orders of creation, different “according to their kind,” such as greenery, herbs and trees (Gen. 1:12), birds and reptiles (v. 21), creeping things, livestock and beasts of the earth (24–5). Angels are not a kind of creation along with man and different types of creation, headed and united by man, angels are heavenly co-humans, the same world, but in a different way of being: heaven and earth. And yet, the angelic world, with all its created fullness, is not everything in the sense of the image of implementation, it is only the initial, first stage of creation, which is not exhausted by the angelic world, but continues behind it and beyond it - to the earth and to the human world. The angelic world is not the end, but the beginning of creation; it occupies an intermediary place between God and the world, as a personal μεταξύ, a living medium. God creates angels as angels, that is, with the thought of the future creation that they will serve, namely the human world. Of course, angels, as hypostatic spirits, themselves have an independent existence, a meaning of their existence, and apart from our world; they form within themselves their own realm of existence through their participation in God. However, the fullness of the image of angelic existence still remains subordinate to our world. Angels are intended to serve him, in this sense they have a service, instrumental meaning, they exist for our world. On the contrary, this world was created not for some other world, but for itself and in itself, although it looks in the angelic world, as in its own heavenly mirror, and presupposes it. How exactly the ministerial participation of angels in the very origin of our world is expressed, revelation does not say anything. The Church does not accept the Gnostic idea that the world was created by angels (it is also reflected in modern theosophical teachings about the origin of the world through the active participation of the hierarchy, such as, for example, in Steiner). However, this rejection does not at all exclude the idea that angels are executors of the creative word of God, that is, that their service to the world begins from its very creation. On the contrary, this thought is completely natural, as is the fact that the corresponding angelic faces work on the parts of the universe intended specifically for their care - on the corresponding days of creation. This idea is brought to us by the fact that service in relation to certain aspects of the universe is assigned to different angels (in particular, Lucifer is understood precisely as the supreme guardian angel of the world, who only through theft turned himself into the “prince of this world” and his god. In any case, it is impossible not to attribute the beginning of this protection and service to the creature to the very first days of creation, so that the presence of guardians constitutes, as it were, a condition for the very possibility of creation. 20 And just as in the God-created world there was nothing cursed or rejected by God, but over all of it there was God’s blessing of “great good,” then this entire world was placed under the protection and service of the ranks of angels, which for this purpose had to have within them the entire fullness of the universe. In this general sense, we have to say that the angelic world contains an ideological analogue of the universe in all its parts: all ideas or creative themes of this world are present in the angelic world and are realized only in its presence. The angelic world is truly a mediator between God and the world, a ladder from earth to heaven, without which our world could not bear the immediate proximity of God. It both connects and separates creation from God. This is the first, ontological, meaning of the vision of Jacob's ladder: the angelic world, as a mediation between God and man: “and Jacob saw in a dream: behold, a ladder stands on the earth, and its top touches the sky: and behold, the angels of God ascend and descend along it (Gen. 28, 12-3) 21. In this sense, the angelic world contains within itself the hypostasized prototypes of all world existence. That world of ideas-prototypes of being, which Plato saw through, only vaguely distinguishing its actual place in God and even merging it with the Divine, is in fact the angelic world in its relation to being, Jacob’s ladder. This is the true meaning of Platonic idealism. This does not prejudge the question of whether all the ranks and faces of angels are directly addressed to the world and are angels for it, or whether the highest hierarchy standing before the throne of God is in heavenly praise and is free from this direct appeal to the world. However, this very difference in the service of individual faces of the Gospel does not expel the basic ontological relationship between the worlds: although some faces do not directly take part in serving the human world, they do it mediocrely, since the life of the angelic council represents a certain unity and its entire created face is turned to the earth, there is Jacob’s ladder - ascension and descent. Let this ladder go to heaven at its highest end, but at its lowest end it rests on the ground. And in this sense, we can say about the entire angelic world that it is in a positive and significant relationship to our world. All disembodied spirits are angels, that is, servants of this world, united with it by the bonds of created nature. Therefore, even if we assume that there are higher ranks of angels, always present to God and therefore completely free from direct communication with the human world, they still remain in connection with it. However, a number of examples of the highest angels: Gabriel, who stood before the throne of God, the Archangel Michael himself, the prince of the Jewish people, then Raphael in the story of Tobit, and finally, the seraphim who touched the mouth of Isaiah with a coal (Isaiah 6:6–7), does not speak in favor of this assumption. This general connection and correlation between the angelic and human worlds is evidenced by the fact firmly established by the Church that not only guardian angels, but also all ranks of angels pray to the Lord for the human race, and the Church teaches us to pray for this intercession of the honest, ethereal heavenly forces, moreover, without any restrictions (cf. holiday on Monday), along with the prayer of the Mother of God and all the saints: holy archangels and angels, pray to God for us 22. (In some ancient rites of proskomedia, a particle of angels is removed from the 9-rank prosphora along with particles of all the saints; this remains, in any case, even now on the days of the celebration of the Holy Angels, i.e., first of all, November 8, November 26, March 26, September 6.) But the earthly world in its collectedness and integrity is the human world, he is a man who in individual existence is a microcosm, a “contracted world,” but in a generic being he embraces the entire macrocosm, which is why he was created on the sixth day, in the fullness of creation, and as evidence of his dominance it was said to him: “fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over every living thing” (Gen. 1:28). This possession and dominion stems from the internal relationship between man and the world - the entire six-day period can be considered as the gradual creation of man and the preparation of the world for man. From here it follows that everything related to this human world is, in a certain sense, also human or, more precisely, inhuman, conformable to man. “Man is the measure of things,” the word of Protagoras returns to us in a new and unexpected sense. And from here follows the humanity of the angelic world. Angels encroach upon man, and to that extent they exist with man and for man, who, in turn, is connected with the angelic world and is also, in a certain sense, consistent with it, co-angelic. However, man is an end in himself, the pinnacle of creation; it cannot be said about him that he exists for the angelic world. Although he accepts service from him, he does not serve him himself. And in response to this thought, the starry words of Revelation, containing a divinely inspired solution to the main problem of angelology, light up in the spiritual sky with a bright light. The Seer describes a vision of a new heaven and a new earth and a great city, holy Jerusalem, descending from heaven from God, having the Glory of God (Rev. 21:10–11). He has 12 gates with twelve angels on them, and on the gates are written the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel (v. 12). “And he measured the wall thereof one hundred and forty-four cubits, according to the measure of a man, as is the measure of an angel” (v. 17). THE MEASURE OF A HUMAN, AS IS THE MEASURE OF AN ANGEL - these words express the ontological relationship of both worlds. 23 This co-humanity of angels is the main purpose of their angelic service. This internal relationship is manifested in the fact that the appearance of angels to people occurs in human form, only with certain attributes, namely winging (but this feature is not universal) 24. Of course, they can say that angels appeared in human form in order to be visible to people. However, such a consideration would be guilty of naive and overly rational anthropomorphism. An image is not a guise that an appearing being accepts arbitrarily, without any internal basis, so other means could be chosen for such a phenomenon: fire, light, thunder, etc. This or that image is accepted only because there is an ontological basis for it in natural relationships 25 . The Lord Jesus Christ appeared in the form of a man, for he took on human nature and became a Man. But He did not take the form of an angel, because He did not take on the angelic nature. The fact that angels appear to people in a human form does not mean, of course, that they are human, especially since in other respects the image of their appearance differs from that of a human, but this indicates their certain conformity to man, or co-humanity. This does not contradict and is even more likely confirmed by the fact that the appearance of angels also took place in the form of animals - Ezekiel’s vision of four animals, of which it is said, however, that “their appearance was like that of a man” (Ezekiel 1:5), and a similar vision of four animals in the Seer of Secrets, and they have, like Ezekiel, four faces and a human face (Rev. 4:68), - with this the images of the four evangelists are correlated. The general meaning and basis of such an image is that man is also an all-animal (like all plants), he includes and generalizes, exhausts the entire animal world. On this basis, as if in some analytical decomposition, angelic co-humanity can also be depicted as all-animality (although it is not exhausted by this animality alone, which is directly indicated in the visions of Ezekiel and John the Theologian). Angels also assimilate individual features of the human or animal image: multi-purity, six-wingedness, etc. Paganism knew about this all-animality of man in vague forebodings, for example, Egyptian zoolatry and the iconography corresponding to it, and totemism also belongs here, to a certain extent. As guardians of the entire created world, angels are related to this world, in particular the plant and animal world 26 . But this co-humanity of angels as such, inherent in the entire angelic world as a whole, the totality of all its hierarchies, and revealed in the observation of all creation, is directly revealed in their relationship to the human world, in particular, in the existence of guardian angels. Guardian angels are our heavenly co-humans (or, as the same thought is sometimes expressed, a person is an angel who has taken on fleshly existence). This co-humanity of angels and the corresponding co-angelism of man, rooted in the image of God, as the common foundation of creation for both men and angels, is a basic dogmatic fact, and it must be revealed in all its meaning equally for angelology and anthropology (and further for Christology, soteriology and eschatology). “Be careful that you do not despise one of these little ones: for I say to you, for their angels in heaven always see the face of my heavenly Father” (Matthew 18:10). With these words, the Lord irrevocably testified that not one of these little ones is deprived of his guardian angel. The direct meaning of this text is that everyone has their guardian angels, and no restrictions are introduced into this idea. True, supporters of a restrictive interpretation, referring to Art. 10 additional definition of verse 6: “these little ones who believe in Me,” here we mean those who belong to the Church, that is, those who are baptized. However, in this text these words are present in the most general form, in any case, allowing for a more general interpretation. Moreover, this was said even before the saving passion and before Pentecost and the establishment of baptism (moreover, the form praesens: βλέπουσιν - “they see” has an all-time, metaphysical meaning). The existence of guardian angels for Old Testament humanity (hence also before redemption and before baptism) can be confirmed by the Holy Spirit. Texts 27. But also the presence of an angel of God near the pagan Cornelius (DA 10:3) indicates that it also extends to the pagans, at least on the eve of baptism 28. It is certain that everyone who is baptized receives a guardian angel, as it is said in the prayer: “St. angel... dedicated to me for the preservation of my sinful soul and body from holy baptism.” The opinion of St. Fathers are generally divided on this issue. Some (like St. Vas. V. and others) directly claim that a guardian angel is given under St. baptism and, consequently, is inherent only to the faithful, that is, first of all, members of the Orthodox Church, and then to those baptized outside of Orthodoxy. Others (like Tertullian 29, Origen, etc.) believe that guardian angels are given to every person at birth. The Church has not made a final determination on this issue, and therefore both opinions retain relative force. However, there is every opportunity to reconcile and unite them. It is undeniable that St. By baptism, which blots out original sin and thereby eliminates the mediastinum between man and God, the fruits of redemption are assimilated to man, and through this a new, more direct and immediate relationship is established with his guardian angel. Through the Fall, man alienated himself not only from God, but also from the angelic world. Its accessibility to humans has decreased, although it has not completely ceased, and it is this barrier that is destroyed by St. baptism. Here one of the consequences of the incarnation is manifested in the change in the relationship between angels and people (more on that below). And in this sense, we can and should, of course, say that the guardian angel is given to us in a new way, made close and tangible in the Holy Spirit. baptism. However, this teaching does not at all exclude the possibility that there is a positive ontological relationship between the angel who gains access to a person, is given to him in St. baptism, and by the same person earlier baptism. Does a given angel belong to a given person from his birth to baptism, or is he newly elected to serve, by the will of God, under St. baptism? The Word of God more than once says definitively: “an angel who delivers me from evil” (Gen. 48:18), “they said: this is his angel” (Acts 12:18), “their angels,” οίαγγελοιαὐτῶν (Matt. 18:10). The existence of a guardian angel for selected representatives of Old Testament humanity as a whole and individually is beyond doubt. However, in relation to baptism, are they not in the same position as the pagans? Before the atoning sacrifice of Christ and Pentecost, there were no grace-filled gifts of baptism in the world, but after Pentecost, both Jews and pagans were immediately baptized, and Judaism as a whole rejected Christ, and predominantly pagans accepted the preaching of Christianity. Thus, we must come to the conclusion that the presence of a guardian angel among Old Testament humanity eliminates the inextricability of its connection with baptism; it can exist independently of baptism. This connection arises in some other way, but how exactly? Obviously, the relationship between the guardian angel and man, which is based on personal love and election, is pre-established, rooted in the general relationship of heaven and earth. The fact that every person (let’s say, even just a baptized person) has his own guardian angel, his own heavenly Friend, already presupposes such a property and such friendship. And this, in turn, presupposes their certain affinity or identity, but with otherness. Otherness refers, first of all, to the general difference between human and angelic nature, as well as to the difference in their hypostases, while sameness or affinity refers to the unity of the ontological theme, idea. A guardian angel has an affinity of an individual nature with a person. To the extent that individuality exists at all, it consists only in a special as, in the image of perception for everyone of a single and identical world - the Wisdom of God, revealed in it. This difference does not make a difference in the meaning of the completeness of possession, and therefore does not abolish the unity of human nature, consubstantiality, just as in the Prototype of man, in God, the trinity of hypostases does not violate their consubstantiality, equivalence and equidivinity. Difference is introduced only into hypostatic being, which, as if repeating itself in many different selves, is at the same time individualized by them. We can say that there is a similarity between the hypostasis of a guardian angel and a person: this is one and the same individuality, living in two worlds, in Heaven and on earth. This similarity must be understood, of course, taking into account all the differences in the disclosure of individuality here and there. What is given in angelic existence in the form of a revealed and spiritually perfected personality, living in the fullness and bliss of the knowledge of God, is in man only a grain that gives rise to a sprout, and the plant itself is exposed to all the dangers and weaknesses of the world, and therefore may not unfold or bloom at all. In addition, the way of being in the spiritual and human world, in heaven and on earth, remains different. Here we cannot talk about identity, but only about correspondence or similarity 30. Sometimes this thought is expressed in the direct rapprochement of an angel and the human soul, upon liberation from the body it takes on a certain light-like shell similar to an angel (Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov). Sometimes this same thought takes the form of a poetic myth about a psychopomp angel bringing a kindred soul into the world (the prophetic insight of Lermontov’s Angel, in which something genuine is discerned). Every human being has its roots in the heavenly world, in it it finds its likeness, its Friend, in whom it looks and loves itself without selfishness. Therefore, when asking whether every person has a guardian angel, they are essentially asking whether every person is a person, has a human soul, and contains his own idea of ​​a human personality. The earth was created together with the sky and on the foundation of the sky 31. This does not mean at all that the human world is a repetition of the angelic world, which, like any repetition, is boring and idle. It would not correspond to the divine power and inexhaustibility of God's creative thought. But the unity of an ontological idea realized in two different worlds does not mean repetition, but completeness, unity in diversity. The angelic and human worlds not only exist one alongside the other, but they are mutually penetrated by the ontological rays of the sophia of Their existence. They are united in Sophia because the Wisdom of God, the Beginning of the world, is one, but they differ in the way of their being, with purity and clarity inherent in the disembodied world, completeness and complexity in the incarnate world. But this duality does not violate the unity of creation. The world is one, although it consists of earth and sky. This precisely concludes the idea of ​​identity without repetition and property without fusion. Everything in the world exists as another to itself, in two worlds, being ontologically one, doubles or “friends” in its existence. So, the guardian angel, “the faithful mentor, guardian of soul and body,” is not just a servant, but he is our heavenly self, the Sophia foundation in heaven of our existence on earth. We would not exist if it were not for him, just as he would not exist if it were not for us. Here there is complete ontological conjugacy, the unity of the ontological root in both worlds. From this conjugation stems the co-humanity of the angels, which unites together the destinies of the human and angelic worlds, despite the impassability of the border between them. In the same sense, of course, we can talk about angelic nature, or more precisely, the co-angelicity of a human being, as is hinted at at least by the possibility for people to accept the rank of angel. The genius of language is evidenced by this varied use of the word “angel” as applied to man. Guardian angels, entering the hierarchies of the angelic world and connecting with them in many different ways, directly reunite the angelic and human worlds. They are precisely the foundation of Jacob’s ladder, with which it is established on earth. And one cannot think that this direct connection between the two worlds concerns only guardian angels, moreover, each of them separately, regardless of the others. What speaks against the admissibility of the last assumption, first of all, is the unity of the human race, thanks to which each guardian angel, in the person of the person he protects, comes into contact with the life of the entire human race throughout its history. But also the saints themselves. angels, although they do not form a genus, but only a council or order, however, in their love and in their service they do not remain alien to each other (which is externally evidenced by the fact that angels appeared to people not only alone, but also in multitudes). It is further known that in addition to individual angels, there are guardian angels and patrons of human conciliarities, natural and spiritual - peoples, cities, places, states, churches. In all these conciliarities, the destinies of individuals, and, consequently, their angels, are intertwined. And the very existence of special angels for these conciliarities testifies to the fact that the relationship between the angelic world and the human world is not limited to the protection of individual individuals by guardian angels, but goes deeper and wider, although in ways unknown to us, but similar to human multi-unity. This connection extends not only in breadth and depth, but also upward, since low service hierarchies receive enlightenment, and therefore help, from higher ones. All ethereal forces, without exception, are called angels, that is, they are assigned to serve the human race. And in this general sense, we can say that all angels are guardian angels of the human race, some directly and directly, others indirectly, hierarchically. From here the common humanity of the entire angelic world is once again confirmed. This is indirectly evidenced by all those places in the Word of God where it speaks of angelic hosts in general, without reference to a specific person: thus, at the Nativity of Christ “there appeared with an angel (τῶ αγγέλῳ) a multitude (πλὴθος) of the heavenly host... the angels departed to heaven, οίἄγγελοι” ( Luke 2:13,15). In a similar way, it is said in the parable about the harvest of the world, which will be produced by angels: “The Son of Man will send His angels, τοῦς ἀγγέλου αυτοῦ” (Matthew 13:39,41). It also speaks of the joy of the angels of God (ἐνωπιον τῶν ἀγγέλων τοῦ θεοῦ) about the one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10) - here it is directly evidenced that the angels (without limitation) take a lively part in the destinies of individual sinners and to that extent they participate in the work and care of their guardian angels. Finally, about the end of the world it is said: “For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, μετὰτῶνἀγγέλωναὐτοῦ” (Matthew 16:27), or in another place definitely: “all the angels (πάντεςοίἀγγελοι) with Him” (25.31). This appearance of all angels at the Last Judgment of all men, when, in turn, “men will judge the angels” (1 Cor. 6:3), clearly indicates the relationship of the entire angelic world to the entire human race. Therefore, the particular question of whether guardian angels are chosen from all hierarchies or only from the lower ones loses fundamental significance, so that all angels participate in the works and concerns of guardian angels. This is indirectly confirmed by the prayer of the Church, addressed to all ethereal forces 32. Here we can incidentally touch upon some particular questions about individual angels, and, first of all, the question arises about the relationship of arch. Gabriel, standing before God in the highest cherubic ranks and, nevertheless, sent to the Virgin Mary, according to the prologue of the Gospel of Luke. He is also sent first to Zechariah to announce the conception of the Forerunner. However, on the basis of this last messenger no conclusion can be drawn regarding the arch. Gabriel to Zechariah himself or the Forerunner, especially since this very episode in context is given in connection with the Annunciation as an extraordinary preparation for the Nativity of Christ. The archangel is sent to the Virgin Mary personally and directly (which is why he remains forever united with Her in the icon of the Annunciation, crowning the Royal Doors). According to liturgical texts, Gabriel appeared to the Most Pure Virgin during Her stay in the church, bringing Her angelic bread and talking with Her 33 . Therefore, the Most Pure One was not surprised by his appearance at the Annunciation, and he did not need to call himself by name, as was the case when he appeared to Zechariah. The angel who appeared in a dream to Joseph (Matthew 1:20) and told him in brief words the same message of the Annunciation, is this not the same Gabriel? He, according to church tradition, announced to Her the approach of Her honorable Dormition, and he was also the leader in Her funeral procession. 34 His hierarchical presence at the throne of God makes him worthy to be a deliberate angel of the Virgin Mary. If the differences between the Trinity hypostases are also reflected in the ranks of angels, then it is natural to think that Gabriel, who announced to the Virgin Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon You” (and with this word the very descent of the Holy Spirit took place), is himself in a special personal relationship with the Third Hypostasis. Mary, as the Spirit-Bearer, the chosen vessel of the Holy Spirit, has the Archangel Gabriel serving the mystery of the incarnation also deliberately from the Holy Spirit. Does it not follow from this messengership of the Archangel Gabriel that he is, as it were, the Most Pure One’s own guardian angel? 35 His Hierarchical height would only correspond to the exclusivity of this ministry. It seems that this assumption does not contain any humiliation for the Mother of God. Although superior to all creation, “more honorable than the Cherub and more glorious than the Seraphim without comparison” in Her glorification, the Mother of God in earthly life still remains a person to whom nothing human is alien (except for personal sin). As a person, uniting with the entire human race, the Most Pure Humanity is united with the entire angelic world in the person of the supreme archangel chosen from eternity for this. However, a significant limitation must be made here. Holy angels, like heavenly ranks, exceed every human being in their holiness. But in this case the relationship is the opposite, for the Mother of God exceeds in Her holiness every creature - both the angelic council and the human race. The Most Pure One in Her glory therefore turns out to be holier than Her own guardian angel, whose humility bows before the Humility of the Servant of the Lord. Nevertheless, the blessed ascent of the Most Pure One begins from Her natural human state. She is a ladder along which the angels of God ascend and descend, but this ladder is established on earth, and it would be a derogation of Her humanity to deny for Her that which is inherent to man - to have for himself a point of support in the angelic world, a guardian angel. However, being the guardian angel of the Virgin Mary, in the sense of serving Her in Her earthly life, Arch. Gabriel is not Her heavenly prototype, which She, the Spirit-Bearer, does not have at all in the angelic world, like the most glorious Seraphim without comparison. If in man the image of God is realized through the medium of an angelic prototype, then the Virgin Mary is characterized by direct, immediate God-likeness (and is it not in this sense that She is called the Daughter of God - θόπαις and the Bride of Christ?). We see indirect evidence of this in the fact that, although Arch. Gabriel announced to Her about her departure from the world, but the Lord Jesus Christ Himself appeared to receive Her honest soul, as is depicted on the icons of the Dormition and in the service of the holiday 36. Gabriel only preceded the “undivine” ascent with the “heavenly power” in his hands. Based on the above, it should be concluded that Arch. Gabriel, the minister of the mystery of the Incarnation, although he is the personal servant of the Virgin Mary and remains in special unity with Her by the power of the Annunciation, however, he cannot be considered the guardian angel of Her human personality, for She does not have one at all due to Her closeness to God. Her personal image as the Spirit-Bearer is destined not in the angelic heavens, but in the very Heaven of heaven, where She dwells at the right hand of Her Son. Naturally, another question arises: what is the attitude of the Archangel Gabriel to the Forerunner, whose birth he was also sent to announce? This mission has a common basis in the connection between the ministry of the Forerunner and the Mother of God (as she is testified to in Deesis 37). However, other than the announcement of the birth of the Forerunner, there is no indication of a further personal connection between the Archangel Gabriel and the Forerunner. Did the Forerunner, the “angel” himself, even have a personal guardian angel, or did this not correspond to his special nature, as one called upon to personally reunite the human and angelic world within himself? And in the latter case, although his life in this world was protected by angels, and, among them, first of all, by the Archangel Gabriel, he did not have a personal prototype or friend in the angelic world, since he himself already belonged to it in his destiny. Another consideration comes to mind. The Forerunner is an angel, as the first standing of the entire angelic and human world together with the Mother of God before the Lord (Deesis), according to some, took the place of the fallen first angel (Lucifer). In this case, this place in heaven was empty after the fall of Lucifer, and earthly care for the Forerunner naturally became the work of the entire angelic world, as is shown in the example of Arch. Gabriel. The latter, although he took part in the construction of his destiny, according to the direct command of God, was not his guardian angel in his later life. There are, in any case, no indications of this. This corresponds to the highest position of the Forerunner both among the human world as “the highest of those born of woman,” and among the angelic world, as an angel-man who becomes its head. It is natural for the entire angelic world to protect in earthly existence its future head, the friend of the Bridegroom, the angel-witness to the incarnation before people. This has a connection with a more general question: the devastation in heaven that was caused by the fall of the angels could not have been reflected in the fate of the earthly world, which lost its guardian angels in the fallen angels and received instead hostile hordes of demons? This question in paternal writing is sometimes answered in the sense that man was created precisely to fill this void created after the fall of the angels (which is why the number of people, obviously, should correspond to the number of fallen angels, perhaps minus those who do not participate in this replenishment, for they are destined for eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels from the creation of the world). The creation of man is seen here as a consequence of the fall of the angels and is, therefore, an ontological accident in itself, the product of the shadow that fell over all creation after the fall of the angels. If you finish this thought, it turns out that man would not have existed if the angels had not fallen. Of course, such a strange and meager understanding would not correspond to the meaning of the biblical narrative of Gen. 1–2, nor the general foundations of Christian anthropology and angelology. Although there is a positive correspondence between heaven and earth, there remains an opposition at the same time, and therefore the replacement of a part of one world with a part of another is generally an ontological misunderstanding. Therefore, the question remains with all its force: does the fact that some of the angels, namely the fallen ones, have been lost to heaven have any significance for the earthly world? Didn't this leave the world incomplete or underprotected? To complete the formulation of the question, it must be taken into account that for the angelic army there was a need for a constant struggle with demons, first in heaven, and then, after the fall of Satan “like lightning,” both in the airy region of heaven and on earth for the protection and protection of the world and man. “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought against them. But they did not resist, and there was no longer room for them in heaven” (Rev. 12:7-8). “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and did not love their lives even to death” (12:11). Here is the name given to the power that enabled the angels to effectively defeat the dragon and his angels, that is, to fill the void created after the fall; this is the blood of the Lamb, the power of the Incarnation, the help of the God-man. But the angels themselves showed self-sacrifice “even to death” in this struggle. Consequently, the angels who remained faithful took upon themselves the work and tasks of the fallen, assisted by the power of Christ. This also needs to be extended, obviously, to guardian angels. It was not the human race that replenished the diminished number of angels, but the angels that stood firm and established themselves in the struggle took it upon themselves to fill the missing number of guardian angels, if there was such a deficiency. Of course, we cannot know whether among the fallen angels there were those who were supposed to become guardian angels. But such a substitution or combination of service requires from the angels creative expansion and replenishment of their strength, so that this new and, so to speak, extraordinary service finds a sufficient ontological basis. The Lord, in His foreknowledge, when creating the spiritual world, could have endowed it with this ability of substitutionary replenishment, of course, on the basis of sacrificial love 38 . Therefore, Divine Wisdom did not leave the human world deprived of complete protection due to the fall of demons? 39 A final, ultimate question arises in the doctrine of the guardian angel: did the God-Man have a guardian angel according to His human nature? In Orthodox theology, a negative answer to this question has already been given (Bulgaris), and such an answer is convincing, primarily because the hypostasis of the Logos is also His human hypostasis. She therefore cannot have for herself any likeness or prototype in the created, even angelic, world. The possibility of a personal guardian angel is obviously excluded here. However, this does not at all exclude the service of angels to His human nature (in addition to their unceasing worship of His Divinity), and in this service, of course, the entire angelic council participates (without any possibility of exception, because there is no such high rank of angels that would be too high for such service) 40. Thus, at the Nativity of Christ, a multitude of the heavenly host suddenly appeared (Luke 2:13) glorifying God. In the desert, after the temptation, “angels ministered to Him” (Mark 1:13; Matt. 4:11). This also includes the word of the Lord himself to Nathanael: “from now on you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51). However, besides these testimonies about the ministry of St. angels in general, the Gospel contains instructions regarding the service of individual angels to Christ, sometimes talking about one angel, sometimes about two. Let's look at the appearance of one angel in order. This is found, firstly, in the Gospel of Matthew about the Nativity of Christ: “Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream” with the message of the Annunciation (Matthew 1:20–24), as well as a warning about the impending villainy of Herod and the need to flee to Egypt (2:12, 19). Isn’t it most natural to see in this angel, essentially repeating the message of the Annunciation to Joseph, Arch. Gabriel the Evangelist? He is also entrusted with the further protection of the Baby and His Mother. We have the second case of the appearance of one angel in the Garden of Gethsemane, when “an angel from heaven appeared to Him” (άγγεΑοςάπ'ούρανοΰ) and strengthened Him (Luke 22:43). This angel is not directly named, and only speculation is possible about him. Is this not the Archangel of the heavenly army, Michael himself, who was at the head of the heavenly army, who defeated Satan, “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of his testimony” (Rev. 12:11), - the guardian angel of the Jewish people 41, from whom the Savior came in the flesh? He is the deliberate servant of the One Who appeared as the Glory of His people Israel 42 . In general, if Gabriel can be brought into a special connection with the Third Hypostasis by the nature of his service, then Michael is in the same relationship with the Second Hypostasis, as the prince of the Jewish people and the guardian angel of the human nature of the Lord 43. In the Gospel story of the Resurrection of Christ, we have parallel evidence of the appearance of one and two angels. It is in the evangelists Matthew and Mark that we find mention of one angel, in Luke and John - of two. According to the Gospel of Matthew, “an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb and sat on it and announced to the women about the resurrection” (Matthew 28: 2-3; 5-7.); at Mk. 16, 5–7: “a young man dressed in white clothing.” On the contrary, in the Gospel of Luke we read: “suddenly two men appeared to them in shining garments” and announced to the wives about the resurrection (Luke 24:4). Also in the Gospel of John: “and Mary Magdalene saw two angels in white (robes) sitting, one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus lay” (John 20:12). Isn't it natural to see an arch in one of these angels? Gabriel, messenger of St. The Spirit, by whose power both the conception of Christ and His resurrection were accomplished (Rom. 8:11), and in the second, Michael the Archangel? Isn’t it most natural to see the latter in that one angel who rolled away the stone from the tomb, which is spoken of in Matthew, as well as in Mark. the angel who strengthened Him in the Garden of Gethsemane naturally also appeared as a minister of the resurrection. Also, two angels are spoken of in D.A.’s story about the Ascension of Christ: “suddenly two men in white clothes appeared to them” (1, 10). Shouldn't we see the same angels of the Resurrection in the angels of the Ascension? So, Christ did not and could not have a personal guardian angel, which would not correspond to the eternal nature of the Logos, to whom everything was (John 1:12). However, according to His human nature, He was guarded and received service from the angels (Mark 1:13), in their entire army and separately from one and from both of the two supreme archangels 44. Christological data once again leads us to the question that we have already considered, namely, do all angelic ranks take part in the protection of the human race or only the three lower hierarchies (as taught by Pseudo-Dionysius, Pope Gregory V., etc.)? It must be resolved in the sense that no hierarchy can be considered excluded from this service, if not directly, then indirectly, which is why all disembodied forces are generally called angels. This general idea is not without reason connected with the text from St. Paul: Heb. 1, 14: “Are not all of them (i.e., angels) ministering spirits (πνεὐματα λειτουργικά), sent to serve (εἰς διακονίαν) for those who will inherit salvation?” This also includes individual facts (in addition to the above) regarding the ministerial participation of even the highest spirits in human affairs: the seraphim in Isaiah (6:6), burning the mouth of Isaiah with a coal, Gabriel appearing to the prophet Daniel (Dan. 16:9:21), the cherub with a flaming sword at the gates of paradise (Gen. 3:24), the archangel appearing to Jesus Joshua (Isa. 5:13–15). Chapter 3: Angels in the Life of the World Revelation of St. John the Theologian, among many others, shows the secret that human history, which has its spiritual focus, of course, in the history of the Church, is accomplished through the constant and active interaction of the angelic and human worlds. Human history is made by angels and men, and the image of this work is revealed throughout this prophetic book. Let us dwell briefly on individual visions. The first vision refers to the seven churches, perhaps containing a general typology of church life. The Son of Man holds in his hand seven stars and seven golden lamps, and “the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lamps are the seven churches” (Rev. 1:20). This already establishes a direct correspondence between the human and angelic churches 45, and in the future Christ addresses the churches in the person of their angels: “Write to the Angel of the Church of Ephesus” (2.1) and “Write to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna” (2.6), then Pergamon (2.12), Thyatira (2.18), Sardis (3.1), Philadelphia (3.14). Next comes the vision of chapter 4: one sitting on the throne and the twenty-four elders. They depict the fullness of the human world: the twelve Old Testament ancestors of the tribes of Israel, together with the 12 apostles, the ancestors of the new Israel 46. Joining them before the throne of the Lamb are four animals, representing the angelic worlds (and these four angelic animals are deliberately co-human, for they are also the symbolic companions of the four evangelists, who miraculously captured the fourfold face of Christ). Further, the “strong angel” (5.2) precedes the opening of the book of the fulfillment of the destinies of the world and the removal of seals from it, testifying to the power of the incarnation. “No one could, neither in heaven, nor on earth, nor under the earth, open and read this book” (5:6). “And when He took the book, then the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders (that is, the highest representatives of the angelic and human world, heaven and earth) fell before the Lamb... and they sing a new song, saying: “Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals from it: for Thou wast slain, and with Thy blood hath redeemed us to God from every tribe and tongue and nation; and he has made us kings and priests to our God, and we will reign on the earth. And I saw and heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, and their number was ten thousand ten thousand and thousands upon thousands” (5:11). “And every creature that is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea and everything that is in them, I heard saying: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.” And the four living creatures said: Amen” (5, 13–14). The Seer of Mysteries here gives an exhaustive expression of the unity of the angelic and human worlds, heaven and earth, in the worship of the Lamb; First, the elders and animals are named, then the especially innumerable angels are named, and, finally, every creature “in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and everything that is in them” joins the doxology, and it is confirmed by the amen of the angels. But this prayerful unity expresses, of course, life unity, unity of fate and common cause. Animal angels and human elders sing together: “You have redeemed us to God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and you have made us kings and priests to our God, and we will reign on the earth.” Angels, together with people, talk about their redemption by the blood of the Lamb and their reign on earth. These mysterious and full-meaning words testify with majestic brevity to the unity and community of destinies of the angelic and human worlds, which, in any case, presupposes the unity of their entire life. This is, as it were, an epigrammatic expression of the relationship between heaven and earth, a divinely inspired formula expressing the connection between angelology and anthropology in all their inseparability. When the first four seals are opened (chapter 6), each of the four animals precedes the appearance of the four horsemen with the words: “come and see.” After the 6 seals are broken, the seer sees angels standing at the corners of the earth and holding the 4 winds of the earth (7.1). But “another angel, rising from the east of the sun and having the seal of the living God” (7:2), stops their harmful action, “until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God” (7:3), and 144,000 were sealed, 12,000 from each tribe of Israel. After this, you again see in heaven: “a great multitude of people, which no one could number, from all tribes and peoples and languages” stood before the throne and the Lamb in white robes and with palm branches in their hands... and “all the angels (πάντεςοίάγγελοι) stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures,” worshiping and praising the Lord. – Again, all saved humanity and all the angels are united here before the throne of God (as it is said in the letter to the Hebrews: “you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to ten thousand angels, and to the triumphant council, and to the church of the firstborn written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the New Testament” ( Heb. 12, 22–23). This is followed by the opening of the seventh seal and the vision of 7 angels, to whom 7 trumpets were given. They are preceded by the offering of incense from another angel, who throws fire from the censer onto the earth, causing “voices and thunder and lightning and an earthquake” (8:5). What follows is a depiction of the disasters that result from the blowing of the angels’ trumpets (chapter 8, 6). On the sixth trumpet (9, 13), four angels are released, bound by the great river Euphrates and “prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year in order to kill the third part of people” (9, 15). Further, after the appearance of an angel clothed in a cloud and proclaiming the fulfillment of the mysteries of God (chapter 10), voices are heard through the trumpet of the seventh angel in the sky about the advent of the kingdom of Christ with the new worship of the 24 elders. Chapter 12 talks about the war in the sky arch. Michael and his angels against the dragon, about his overthrow, about the actions of the dragon on the earth after his overthrow, which are revealed in chapter 13. In chapter 14 we see “an angel flying in the middle of heaven, who had the everlasting gospel to preach good news to those who dwell on the earth and to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people” (14:6-7). The angel appears as the evangelist of the new Gospel, moreover, to all humanity, and he speaks of the approaching judgment of the world. This passage invites comparison with Matt. 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a testimony to all nations.” From this comparison it follows that the final preaching of the eternal Gospel is the work of this angel, although, of course, it will also be accomplished by apostolic succession. This angel is followed by another angel with the news of the destruction of Babylon and a third with reproaches against “those who worship the beast and his image.” Revelation does not say how and through what medium these angelic suggestions exert their effect on the souls of people; the only important thing is that they reach them and direct their will in their own way. The end of chapter 14 is characteristic, where it is depicted that the angel finally turns to Him who sits on the cloud and has a sharp sickle: “Let Thy sickle go and reap, because the time of harvest has come; for the harvest of the earth is ripe” (14, 15), and in response to this, He who sits casts His sickle into the ground. (In this case, by the way, the nature of the participation of angels in human history becomes clear: they are not just passive messengers for the execution of certain commands, as an instrument, but also active and responsible figures who appeal to Christ himself for timely and active intervention in the destinies of the world.) And further, after another angel with a sharp sickle came out of the church in heaven, another angel with power over fire and came out from the altar. With a great cry he cried out to the one who had a sharp sickle, so that he would use his sickle and prune the bunches of grapes, which he did (14, 18-19). (We have here a new example of the activity of angelic service: one angel calls and encourages another to responsible and timely action in the world.) Further (chap. 15, 6) seven angels accept the seven bowls of the wrath of God, given to them by one of the four animals, i.e., the highest angel (a new manifestation of the active initiative of the angelic world). One of these seven angels leads the seer and shows him a wife sitting on a scarlet beast, and explains the vision (chapter 17), and it is not said that this angel was deliberately sent by God for this admonition, but he does it as if on his own initiative. The next angel announces the fall of Babylon (chapter 18), and another angel throws a millstone into the sea to commemorate the same fall of Babylon. Chapter 19 contains an episode about how John fell at the feet of an angel, who announced to him the blessedness of those who were invited to the supper of the Lamb to worship him, but he did not allow this, saying: “I am a fellow servant (συνδουλος, co-servant) with you and your brothers, who have the testimony of Jesus, worship God” (19, 10). An angel standing in the sun calls with a loud voice the birds to the Great Supper of God to devour the corpses of the kings. Whatever the significance of these birds, in any case it is clear that here the action of the angel is expressed in the leadership and direction of certain spiritual, as well as earthly armies. In ch. 20 the angel chains Satan, and an indirect consequence of this is the onset of the 1000-year reign of Christ on earth (no matter how it is understood) and the “first resurrection.” In chapter 21, one of the 7 angels, who had 7 bowls with 7 last plagues, showed the seer the great Jerusalem having the Glory of God (10-11). “It has a great and high wall, and has twelve gates, and on them are twelve angels and names written, which are the 12 tribes of Israel” (12). This text must be compared (except, of course, Ezek. 48, 31) with the text of Deuteronomy 31:8: “When you divided the tongues on high, as if the sons of Adam were scattered, you set the boundaries of the tongues according to the number of the angels of God,” in LXX: κατὰ ἀριθμόνάγγελων Θεοῦ (on the contrary, in Hebrew text, Vulgate in Russian translation "according to the number of languages of Israel"), The general idea of ​​both texts is to establish a direct and positive connection between the angels and humanity, which has spiritual roots in the 12 tribes of Israel. But, in addition to this particular thought, this text also contains an even more general thought about the unity and internal correspondence of the angelic and human worlds, about the angelic humanity of creation. And this thought receives a final and general expression in the 17th century, already known to us: “He who spoke to me (one of the angels) measured the wall of it (the city) to be 144 cubits, with the measure of a man, the same as the measure of an angel.” These mysterious words seem to sum up the general summary of the revelation about angels and men that is contained in the Apocalypse, for they affirm commensurability, correlativeness and the underlying identity of angel and man in their common “measure.” It is also worthy of attention that the holy city coming down from heaven with all its details, and the river of life in it, and the tree of life in it, is shown to the viewer by the same angel. This eliminates the cherub with the revolving flaming sword, which once blocked the entrance to paradise and the tree of life (Gen. 3:24). And when John once again fell at the feet of the angel to worship him, he again said: “See that you do not do this, for I am your fellow servant... Worship God” (22:9). And in the last chapter of Revelation, the direct words of the Lord Jesus Christ are also spoken by this angel in the first person, and he seems to merge with the Lord Himself 47 . Certain features of the cited passages of the Apocalypse require appropriate interpretation and are sometimes difficult to interpret. But one basic fact is attested in it with thunderous force and final certainty: the history of the world and humanity is the common work of angels and men, it is not only human, but angelic and human. The active participation that the angelic world takes in human life is revealed personally in Revelation, although, of course, still not in full. This would not correspond to the objectives of this prophetic book, dedicated to depicting the history of the Church in its main moments and, in particular, in recent times. In the respect that interests us, the eschatology of the Gospels must also be compared with the eschatology of Revelation. This includes, first of all, the picture of the harvest of angels in the parable of the wheat and tares. “The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels... The Son of Man will send His angels and gather from His kingdom all temptations and those who practice iniquity” (Matthew 13:39,41). The same is true in the parable of the net: “So it will be at the end of the age: angels will come out and separate the wicked from among the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace” (13, 49-50). This also corresponds to the place of St. angels at the second coming of the Lord: “the Son of Man will come in the Glory of His Father with His angels” (Matthew 16:27 – Mark 8:38), “the Son of Man will come in His Glory and all the holy Angels with Him” (25:31), “at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven, with the angels of His power” (2 Thess. 1:7), “with the voice of the archangel” (1 Thess. 4:16), the curtain separating both worlds will finally fall, the unity of both worlds will become clear, the angelic world will become visible to people. However, this phenomenon of the end, of course, only completes the entire historical angelic-human process and, so to speak, flows from it. The Old Testament also testifies to the participation of angels in human destinies, but much more randomly and fragmentarily. First of all, it manifests itself as the ministry of direct executors of God’s commands, instruments of God’s will, in particular the wrath of God. Like living instruments, they mediate between God and the world. These are, in particular, the following cases: 2 Sam. 24.6 words: the destroying angel of the Lord, who struck the people for the sin of David; 1 Kings 13, 18; 1 Par. 21, 12: angel who spoke the words of the Lord to the Jewish people; 1 Kings 19, 5 and 2 Kings. 1, 3: angel who appeared to the prophet Elijah; 2 Kings 19, 35, Wed. 2 Par. 32, 21 – Isa. 37, 36: angel who destroyed 185 thousand Assyrians. (The same meaning also applies to Exodus 11–13, the story of the destruction of the firstborn of Egypt. However, here, although it is natural to expect the participation of an angel, it is said: “The Lord 48 struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt” (12, 29). This also includes the appearance of an angel to Daniel in the lion’s den (Dan. 6) and in the furnace of fire (Dan. 3), as well as the appearance of the archangel to him Gabriel (Dan. 8 ff.). A special place is occupied by the appearances of angels, in which the Lord Himself speaks; special mention will be made of them. Of great fundamental importance in the Old Testament, of course, are the texts relating to the ministry of angels as invisible guardians and leaders of earthly life for both individuals and entire nations. This includes, first of all, Jacob’s dying word before his sons, with the blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh: “Let the angel who delivers me from all evil bless these youths; may my name be called upon them and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they grow in multitude in the midst of the earth” (Gen. 48:16). These words can, first of all, be attributed directly to the guardian angel, but they also have a more general meaning due to the fact that in connection with the blessing of this angel, the naming of the name “mine and my fathers” is also performed. This makes us see in the “angel who delivers from all evil” not only a personal guardian angel, but a tribal one, belonging to the entire generation of Jewish patriarchs, and in them the entire Jewish people (Arch. Michael?). A passage from the book of the prophet should be compared with this. Daniel “about the prince” of the Jewish people (Michael). It also speaks of the “prince of the kingdom of Persia” (10.13.21; 12.1) and the “prince of Greece” (10.20). It is difficult to think that this list is exhaustive, that is, that of all the pagan peoples only these two are singled out as having their own “princes.” Rather, it is natural to understand that this indication is exemplary in nature. If the Lord “judges nations righteously and rules nations on earth” (Ps. 66:5), then it is natural to think that all these nations and tribes have their patron angels among the servants of God. The same idea is suggested by comparison with the fact that in the prophetic books there are prophecies about many pagan peoples - we can say that they were awarded prophecy. And their rulers, moreover, not only Cyrus, “My shepherd” (Is. 44, 28) and “anointed one” (45, 1), but also Nebuchadnezzar, “the king of kings, to whom the God of Heaven gave kingdom, power, strength and glory” (Dan. 2, 37–8, 5, 18–19) and even Belshazzar, about whose death a special mysterious sign was given from God in the form of a hand that wrote the letters mene-tekel-fares (Dan. 5), are clearly under the special supervision of God and, therefore, have their own heavenly patrons. Therefore, the corresponding teaching is usually set forth by the Church in the sense that all nations generally have guardian angels. The story in the prologue of the book of Job has a similar meaning: “And there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them” (Job 1:6; 2:1). Although what follows is a conversation between the Lord and Satan only, the subject of this conversation about life on earth can, not without reason, be attributed not only to Satan personally. At least, the Lord’s questions to him in themselves are not deliberate, but can be addressed to any of the sons of God who “came” with him. And the vision of the prophet Micah has a similar meaning (1 Kings 22, 19 ff. - 2 Chronicles 18, 18 ff.). “And Micaiah said, Hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven stood by Him, on His right hand and on His left. And the Lord said, Who would persuade Ahab to go and fall in Ramoth-gilead? And one said this, the other said differently. And one spirit came out, standing before the face of the Lord, and said: “I will bow him down,” etc. (Cf. Zechariah 3). This is again a clear picture of the participation of angels in the construction of history. Finally, we should also recall the book of the prophet Zechariah, in six chapters of which one can see an Old Testament similarity to the visions of the Apocalypse, explained to the prophet by angels. The first vision of a man on a red horse, accompanied by red, piebald and white horses, is explained by an angel through the lips of this man himself: “These are those whom the Lord sent to go around the earth. And they answered the angel of the Lord and said: We have walked around the earth, and behold, the whole earth is inhabited and calm. And the angel of the Lord answered and said: Lord, Almighty! How long will You not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which You have been angry for these seventy years? Then in response to the angel who spoke to me, the Lord spoke good words, words of comfort” (1:11-14), which he communicates to the prophet. The participation of angels as mediators and agents of history is clearly expressed here. In chapters 2–6, the angel explains to Zechariah various visions relating to the history of the Jewish people and the whole world. But, in addition to these prophetic visions and testimonies, the participation of angels in human history is directly revealed in the Old Testament through all the cases of the appearance and actions of angels, which we have already noted in another connection, starting with the cherub with a fiery sword that blocked the path to paradise. Perhaps the most symbolic meaning here is the appearance of the “chief of the heavenly army” with a drawn sword to Joshua near Jericho (Isa. 5:13-15) at that critical hour in the history of the chosen people of God, when their earthly armies were preparing to conquer the land promised to them by God and destined to become the birthplace of the Son of God. According to the above testimonies of the Word of God, St. Angels actively participate in the life of the human world; together with us they make its history. Of course, they carry out their share of participation, so to speak, from above or from the outside; they retain their angelic nature and do not mix with humanity, however, doing a common cause with it. From this basic fact, established on the basis of Revelation, a number of conclusions of exceptional, paramount importance clearly flow. We must completely abandon the understanding of angels as passive performers and not showing their own creativity. Such reduction of disembodied spirits to the role of mere instruments is equally inconsistent with both their dignity and their nature. Even in human relations, a true executor or messenger is not a slave or just an instrument, but makes the goal of his messengership his own task and creatively realizes it. And to an even greater extent we should think about the spiritual world, about the ministry of angels. Of course, angels are ministering spirits sent to serve (λατουργικὰ πνεῦματαεἰς διακονίανἀπεσταλμένα). However, this official purpose of theirs only testifies to the fact that the task and goal of their activity is not in themselves, but in the human world, with which their existence is therefore inextricably linked. But such a connection does not at all mean that angels are less active than humans and are less responsible in their service. Of course, in cases of exceptional importance, angels are directly sent by God for a specific accomplishment. The most important occasion when a direct message takes place is the Annunciation. Archangel Gabriel was sent first to Zechariah and then to the Virgin Mary. However, one cannot think here that he is only a simple instrument for transmitting the will of God, without himself having a deliberate, personal relationship to this. For the omnipotence of God, all means of proclaiming the will are open. However, if it was Arch. Gabriel, this election corresponded to his personal characteristics and his special calling. And the very fulfillment of his mission, the Annunciation, presupposes on his part a special feat of creative tension and inspiration 49 . And really this messengership, which is generally the pinnacle of angelic service, was not its goal and task already from that hour of God’s judgment over the fallen ancestors, when the heavenly gospel of the “Seed of the Woman” was announced? True, the Word of God testifies that the mystery of the incarnation and redemption was not revealed to the angels (1 Peter 1:2; Eph. 3:10). However, this does not at all exclude the possibility of their foreknowledge and penetration into the future paths of God, if only on the basis of prophecies given to people and known, of course, to angels B. 3. And the greatest knowledge and penetration is natural in the archangel, burning with the desire to serve this secret from the very beginning of the history of the human race, and he could not remain passive. It was necessarily expressed in the participation of the archangel in human affairs, in influencing their destinies, as this is partly revealed by the Word of God. Arch. Gabriel appears to the prophet Daniel to inform him about the fate of the Jewish people in connection with the history of the pagan kingdoms, in general in the context of world history. Through his lips, a plan for world history is outlined, leading to Bethlehem as its center (Dan. 8–12); he pronounces the word about seven weeks, which must be fulfilled before the coming of the Messiah, i.e., before the Annunciation (chap. 9), and finally, he prophesies to Daniel about the last terrible times, and about the appearance of the Antichrist (chap. 8, 11, 36) and about the last Judgment (chap. 12). In general, the Angel of the Annunciation is also the Old Testament interpreter of world history; his gaze penetrates the future and already sees in it the work that the Lord will give him to accomplish: the Annunciation. Attitude of the arch. Gabriel's approach to human history is not just a passive contemplation of what he proclaims, but also an active participation in that participation, according to his own testimony 50 . Therefore, we can say that in the person of Arch. Gabriel reveals the image of the relationship of the angelic world to the human world, namely the messenger of angels, which must be understood not only as the fulfillment of God’s command, but also one’s own inspiration and creativity, in accordance with it. This is especially emphasized in Revelation when it says (Rev. 12:7, 11) about the struggle of arch. Michael and his angels with the dragon, ending with the latter’s overthrow from heaven. Moreover, in this case, where we are talking about an event that took place within the angelic world itself, in heaven, there is no talk of angelic service as a messenger. However, here the self-sacrifice of the angels is especially pointed out, “who did not love their souls even to death” (Rev. 12:11) in this struggle. And the power of angelic service to the world is not only obedience to the will of God out of love for God, but also their own love for the world. This love of angels for man is evidenced by the words of the Lord about what “joy there is among the angels of God even over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10) 51 Angelic service is the sacrificial love of angels for people, but, because of this, their own creative self-disclosure. Likewise, the angels, established in goodness, with arch. With Michael at their head, through the fight against the dragon and his army, they gained new powers of sacrificial love, and through this they revealed themselves in a new way. Of similar importance for them in general is the degree and manner of their participation in the history of the world, in which they also grow and gain new self-disclosure. Although the angels have already finally decided on goodness, this does not exclude for them the possibility of further growth and self-revelation, for, as created beings, not being absolute, they have the ability to grow, first of all in eternal life in God, but, further, in creation along with the world and man. Creativity does not exist without freedom, but the latter is realized for a limited creation as the selection of one specific one from a number of possibilities. Therefore, for angelic service, as for all creativity, the law remains valid that it, as not having absolute perfection, which is characteristic only of God’s creativity, allows for different possibilities and fluctuations in its implementation. Mysterious text 1 Cor. 6:3: “Do you not know that we will judge (κρινοῦμεν) the angels?” - according to the natural interpretation, it has exactly this meaning. The historical destinies of the world and people depend not only on themselves, but also on the angels, and, consequently, on the degree of jealousy and the highest expediency of their actions 52. Angels are not omniscient or omnipotent. They did not fully know the mystery of the Incarnation, which they learned about only through the Church (Eph. 3:10), and, consequently, they did not fully understand the hidden meaning of world history and, in particular, the Old Testament, which is all understandable only from the Incarnation. They are surprised, according to the testimony of the Church in sacred hymns, at the introduction of the Mother of God into the church, and at Her honorable Dormition, and at her ascension from earth to heaven 53 . But as limited as their knowledge is, their action is equally limited. Of course, wisdom and knowledge, in accordance with the nature of disembodied spirits and their holiness, immeasurably exceed human powers (although we must not forget that their knowledge of our world is accomplished as if from the outside and in this respect, by its nature, turns out to be limited in comparison even with human ones). True, the contemplation of God and the outpouring of divine grace makes angels beings, although created, but filled with divine enlightenment, “second lights.” Nevertheless, angels, as created beings, remain limited, and due to this limitation, they remain relative or, what is the same, not infallible. That is why they are also changeable, that is, increasing. In other words, the history of the world exists not only for people, but also for angels, although in a different way, due to the difference in their nature. And, first of all, for them it is an area of ​​angelic service, and then creativity, which constantly sets its own tasks. Angels do not have the omniscience of God, and their understanding of what unfolds in the world process remains creaturely limited. However, this knowledge is essentially different from human knowledge. Angels are not born and do not come into existence in an earthly process. According to prevailing church teaching, all angels were created simultaneously at the beginning of the world. There is no birth here, no reproduction similar to marriage, for angels “do not marry and do not encroach.” Therefore, angels contemplate from the heights of a seemingly premium existence the flow of world life. But this contemplation does not remain idle or passive. Angels took part, as servants of God, in the improvement of this world in all its parts and beginnings. Through this service, angels understand the ways of God, but at the same time they determine their own relationship with this world. For just as “heaven” as a whole is reflected in the universe, so each angel in his own area forms a certain created prototype of the earthly world. Each angel finds himself in the universe and has his own area and task in it. (This does not change from the fact that not all angelic ranks directly have earthly service, even if this is indeed the case. By the unity of the angelic world, by the collectedness of its “cathedral”, the highest angelic ranks take their, although not direct, participation in the general cause of the world.) Both the angelic world as a whole, and each angel individually, carries out its own task, has its own calling in this world (even if it remained not yet revealed to it). It is difficult for us to isolate these separate ministries, which appear to us in the massive and majestic images of Revelation and other sacred books. This is most easily understood by us regarding the guardian angels, who, having been assigned to every person from his conception and brought closer through his baptism, “always see the face of My Heavenly Father” (Matthew 18:10). These angels have a direct and immediate task - to guard their friend, earthly relatives, their image and likeness 54. According to St. John of Damascus and other fathers, an angel has the image of God, just like a man. The image of God is imprinted in two ways: in the angelic and human world. This duality has its basis in the fact that the same idea or prototype of a given person exists in the angelic world, like an angel, and in the human world, like a person, and this unity of the Sophia theme forms the basis for the relationship between the guardian angel and man. But this pre-eternal plan of creation in God exists super-temporally, from eternity, while in the angelic world it is realized in time, but before the birth of a given person, as well as of all humanity. Having not yet been born on earth, man pre-exists not only pre-eternally in God’s creative plan, but also in the created world, however, not earthly, but heavenly, because his angel already exists in creation. We can say that through the creation of “heaven,” that is, the angelic world, “in the beginning” the Sophia seeds of the entire earthly, human world were already created. This world is not a repetition of the angelic world, for it still remains foreign to it, but it is sophically one with it on the basis of the unity of the Wisdom of God. The heavenly world is an ideal preliminary to the earthly, and the earthly world is the real fulfillment of the heavenly, and both of them together constitute a single creation “in the beginning,” that is, in the Wisdom of God, “heaven and earth.” It is in this sense that we can say that a guardian angel was pre-created for the person he protected who would come into the world. He loves his likeness, his friend, in advance, wills and awaits his coming into the world. Through him he has his own point of support in the world, he himself becomes involved in the universe. But this expectation cannot be understood as passive and inactive. If in the history of mankind everything has, so to speak, its own place, being connected by the unity and continuity of the pragmatic connection, the solidarity of all mankind in the common cause of history, we must accept this to no less extent regarding the angelic world. And for the angels, as far as they are in the service of man, this common cause has power. The guardian angel is connected with the person entrusted to him, not as a separate being, but as a member of the universal human family, in the closest way, as with the son of his time, people, family, and finally, descendant and son, father and ancestor. In the human family, no member can be isolated or isolated. Therefore, while serving his own task, the guardian angel inevitably expands it to universal human limits. The Guardian Angel prepares the implementation of his own Sophia idea in the world, the coming into the world of a person with whom he has a personal relationship as his friend. In this sense, he is God's servant in the work of his creation. In the angelic world, the idea of ​​a person precedes his birth and is preserved, of course, even after his departure from this world, after the death of a person, because his work, unfinished or spoiled, is continued and corrected by an angel from the angelic world. How, we now do not know, but God’s work cannot remain undone in the world. The image of the harvest, in which the angels separate the tares from the wheat and burn the tares, speaks precisely of this activity of the angels, who gather and through this replenish and correct the deeds of the sons of men. Angels make history together with man, but in their own ways, and, in particular, the life of each individual person is prepared before his birth and is directed by his angel to an extent that we cannot see this now. And this work of the guardian angel is a creative effort of his love, active love. She longs to pour herself out on her friend, to give him the fullness of her gifts and, at the same time, to unite with him in some kind of blissful syzygy, although this union of the angelic and human world refers only to the future age. This reunion is necessary not only for humans, but also for angels for the fullness of their life and bliss, to which they are called in their creation. The personal nature of the relationship of the guardian angel to his human likeness is indestructible, for it has an ontological basis in the unity of their Sophia root. The angel was created as a guardian and friend, another, of this particular human face, here is his own place in the world. However, there can be a discrepancy between him and the human person, just as there can be a discrepancy between the image and likeness of God in man. Man, having as an integral ontological basis the image of God, as an initial given, is called upon by his freedom to realize in himself the likeness of God, as a given, to create and in this sense, as it were, repeat in himself the image of God. But, being left in its implementation to human freedom, which already conceals within itself various possibilities, the similarity may not be realized. Then “whoever’s work will be burned up,” so that he “himself will be saved, but as if from fire” (1 Cor. 3:15), and “having been clothed, he will find himself naked” (2 Cor. 5:3). A person can, as it were, fail in himself, not in his divine foundation, which remains indestructible as the primary clothing, but in his created free realization - the image will not unite, but will be separated from its likeness. And the consequence of this human failure, in a certain sense, extends to the guardian angel, since, although he himself has his own image of God, realized in angelic likeness, he also needs human replenishment of this likeness. After the fall of Satan and his angels, the angels, according to the teaching of the Church, were confirmed in goodness to such an extent that they lost their created permutability. They surpassed their created freedom, in the sense that they overcame the various possibilities contained in it, leaving the only one - complete obedience to the Creator. They fulfilled it with dignity and thereby found themselves higher, on the other side of freedom. However, despite this, the guardian angels of fallen humanity remain without their personal human likeness. However, the work of angels is not in vain, nor is their love. They have its fruit in all saved humanity, which accepts the power of all humanity, just as the good angels accepted the fullness of the angelic world and with themselves compensated for the devastation in heaven caused by the fall of Satan and his angels. Here the power of the mysterious words of the parable is revealed: “Take the talent from him and give to the one who has ten talents, for to everyone who has it will be given and he will have an abundance, but from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away” (Matthew 25:29; Luke 19:26). “For whoever has, to him will be given and he will have abundance; and whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him” (Matthew 13:12 – Mark 4:25 – Luke 8:18). This speaks of the last metaphysical subtraction and multiplication, both in the angelic and human worlds. But this possibility of taking away and multiplying, carried out by the creative act of God's judgment, is a guarantee that no angelic work, like human labor, will remain fruitless, cannot be swallowed up by the sands of non-existence, but will bear fruit directly or indirectly 55. The entire harvest will be gathered into the Lord's granary, and only that which already belongs to non-existence will be burned and cast into oblivion. The guarantee of this is the divine infallibility and immanent purposiveness of the historical process, regardless of the confusion, complications and direct destruction that are introduced into it by created freedom, badly directed. But, of course, the most favorable opportunity for the creature is one in which everyone can find personal salvation from the fire and not lose their talent. This is precisely what the guardian angel directly cares about during the continuation of a person’s earthly life. However, this work begins long before man comes into the world. It would be more accurate to say that from the very creation of the world and man in it, this work begins, and it is impossible to indicate a time when the angel of God would abandon his loving concern for his human likeness. The emergence of the world before man is already preparing the place for human life. The creation of Adam is already the beginning of the life of every descendant, which means that it also provides for the task of every guardian angel. We do not know what this private matter of every guardian angel in the world is. However, we can confidently point out one of the images of this assistance of angels - prayer before the throne of God. And before earthly birth, and during our life, and after our death, and at the Last Judgment of Christ, the Guardian Angel prays for us before the Lord, he is our faithful friend. The presence of the angels of God at the Last Judgment, so expressively indicated by the Lord Himself (Matt. 16, 27, 25, 31; 2 Thess. 1, 7), doesn’t it indicate that St. Are angels, as servants of God in making the history of the world, as accomplices in human destinies, naturally called upon to testify about people, about the extent to which they have approached their heavenly prototypes? Isn’t this what the word of the Lord speaks about: “Whoever confessed Me before men, and the Son of Man confessed him before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8-9)? Angels will appear not only as natural and called witnesses, but through them the final division will also be accomplished: “So it will be at the end of the age: angels will come out and separate the wicked from among the righteous” (Matthew 13:49) 56. Our ignorance of the ways of God in human destinies prevents us from revealing the guardian angel's care for us before our birth. We only know that by our very birth we are empirically given and determined, being attached to some point in space and time. We are born from certain parents and receive a homeland in a certain place; we belong to a certain people and historical era. We live in a certain environment, cosmic, geographical, historical, sociological. We trace the threads of our connections and the roots of our origins as far as the eye can see. The biography of each person in this sense begins before his birth in the world at a given specific point in space and time, and the time and place of his birth in the world, of course, is not accidental. He ontologically belongs to this place and time, and Goethe’s saying that he who lived for his time, lived for all times, contains, of course, a self-evident truth (just as, conversely, fussy regrets that we were not born in other, better times, testify only to an insensitivity to oneself). All points in space and time of the world are equivalent and equivalent. Empirically, we comprehend infinitely little of this internal necessity of our biography and genealogy. However, it is revealed to us by the Word of God in the genealogy of Christ, as the central line of history. We must, in any case, postulate this necessity. It will be revealed to us with our own eyes only when the history of the world is revealed to us from beginning to end in its plan and connection. However, the postulate of faith arising from our love and reverence for our guardian angel is for us: the knowledge that he stood at the head of our cradle when it was still empty, that he brought our soul in his arms, receiving it from God at the hour of our birth 57 . In a word, he abides and watches over us even before the cradle; without him, without his assistance and participation, our birth would not have taken place, and we owe our entry into this world to him 58 . Of course, he is only the executor of God’s creative command, but this fulfillment already contains the participation of the executor. Equally unknown, and at the same time equally known to us, is the love of our guardian angel beyond this life. According to the teachings of the Church, a guardian angel stands at the deathbed and receives the soul, 59 he accompanies it through the ordeals and guides its life in the new world. It becomes visible and accessible to us upon separation from the body. When the bodily veil falls, there is an “opening of the senses,” an expansion of experience. The soul finds itself in the world of spiritual, ethereal beings and first of all recognizes its own guardian angel. This communication is one of the first enrichments of our spiritual life that the state of bodily death provides. And this communication with the guardian angel, unless the possibility of it is eliminated by grave sins, constitutes a school in which our soul grows and strengthens for eternity, recognizes itself through its heavenly Friend. The presence of the soul beyond the grave and its life, which, of course, can neither stop nor end, is generally little revealed by the Church. However, what is revealed is enough to not doubt the continued loving care of our guardian angel. The prayers of the earthly Church are effective for the dead; those living on earth can help the departed. We turn to the Mother of God and to all the saints with a prayer for help at the hour of death, and after death, and at the Last Judgment. This same possibility of help, of course, is not taken away from the guardian angel, whom the Church depicts as not abandoning us both on the brink of death and beyond, and even in resurrection, at the Last Judgment 60. And if his closeness to us beyond this life can be obvious, then isn’t he our educator in eternal life, isn’t he the one who reveals to us not recognized, but only foreknown secrets of the world and our own destiny? Doesn't he free us from that childhood ignorance from which we must emerge to full knowledge, don't his lessons make up for the fragmentary and short-term nature of our lives, which is the cause of our ignorance? For he is free from this limitation, he lives in peace all the time. And if earthly life is only a birth for the next century, is it not a tender mother who watches over us, giving the first lessons to the growing baby (as it is iconographically depicted in the image of an angel who receives our infant soul into the hands)? Isn’t our entire life, from the time of our emergence from non-existence to birth into the life of the next century, full of communication with our guardian angel, and through him with the angelic world? And will this blissful connection of love and friendship cease even beyond the boundaries of this world under the new heaven and on the new earth? But here the human word fails... Chapter 4: The Nature of Angels The entire angelic world is directly addressed to humanity by the face of guardian angels. In them, by them and through them, the co-humanity of the entire angelic world is established. Even if its division into hierarchies removes the highest ranks from direct service to the human world, then all the same, due to its spiritual unity, as well as the unity of the common cause, the entire angelic council takes part in the protection of our world, is its conciliar guardian. And since the world on earth is essentially human, has its focus in man, there is Man, then the angelic army serving this world is co-human and must be understood by its connection with man 61 . However, this connection in turn can only be understood in their own lives. Holy angels are the created glory of God, “second lights,” a created mirror of Divine powers and perfections. Their incessant praise is an effective reflection in their own spirit of this contemplation: The Glory seen by them, the Wisdom of God glorifies itself in them and through them, they are the created glory of the uncreated Glory. Glory in glory gives rise to the glory of Glory - doxology. Angels constantly plunge into the abyss of divine life and feed on it. It is also their own life by communion, but not by nature. Scholastic theology in the West always strives to distinguish between what belongs to the angels by nature and what is given to them by grace. But this distinction (as well as in anthropology) cannot be maintained to the end. For angels, by their nature, are already created as “second lights”: just as a fish lives in the water, a bird in the air by nature, so it is characteristic of the angelic nature to live not by itself, not in its own nature, which - in this sense, one might say, does not even exist, but by Divine life. Of course, one can object to this by referring to Satan and the fallen angels, who continue life having been cut off from God, therefore, as if in their own nature. However, their life is not the own life of ontologically self-legal beings; on the contrary, it remains parasitic - around man and his world as the self-proclaimed “prince of this world” and his minions. Outside of this parasitism, when the “prince of this world” is cast out, the demons will have no nature and no life of their own, but only an empty hypostatic face, devoid of independent nature, with only its thirst (hell fire, the second death, the lake of fire, the never-ending worm - all these images speak of burning without combustion, thirst without quenching). Angels are characterized by hypostasis, and it is in the literal sense ὑπόστασις, or substantia, a support or successor to divine life, which is, of course, supernatural and grace-filled for them. Their nature is to live by grace, like mirrors, second lights. They can be called gods by grace, by communion with the divine life, first and more immediate than man, and is it not about them that the psalmist speaks: “The God of a hundred in the assembly of gods, among the gods pronounced judgment” 62 (Ps. 81:1)? To this, perhaps, it will be pointed out that the same should be said about a person who is destined for deification and blessing. However, the difference between an angel and a person remains that a person has his own world and his own nature, which is preserved even with grace. Hence the Chalcedonian dogma about the inseparable, but also unfused union of both natures in Christ, divine and human. Humanity lives its own life and in its own world even when God is all in all. Angels do not have the meaning of their own nature and their own world in this. Therefore, their nature is completely transparent to God, and theophanies can also occur as angelophanies. Therefore, the Son of God could not accept the angelic nature, as emphasized in Poel, Heb. 2, 16 - His angelization would only mean His acceptance of His own nature and, in this sense, self-repetition. Therefore, the apostle deliberately testifies that “Christ will not succeed angels, but he will succeed Abraham’s seed” (Heb. 2:16). Therefore, for angels, both nature and their life are a direct acceptance of grace, participation in Divine life. The image of God in the angels, as evidenced by St. fathers, is realized for them only in hypostatic existence, personal self-awareness. It is connected, of course, with the possibility of independent life, characteristic of spiritual beings. However, the content of this life is determined not by the own nature of the angelic world, but directly and directly by the nature of the Divine. Therefore, if people are called gods in the Word of God and church literature, then in an even more direct and immediate sense this applies to angels, who are the rays of the Divine, createdly hypostasized. Sophia, the Wisdom of God, realized herself createdally in the hypostatic faces, the heavenly hierarchies, those who know her, who live by her. This is the creation of the angelic world. And already in connection with this creation and on the basis of it, she again realized herself as a creature in the human world, in the fullness of the image of God, that is, in the unity of the hypostasis with her own nature. She holistically and chastely became the created nature of humanity, multi-hypostatic, but consubstantial. It is impossible to talk about the consubstantiality of angels or about angelic nature in the same sense as about human consubstantiality, in the image of the Trinitarian and consubstantial and indivisible Trinity. From the absence of a self-nature in the angelic order, an important consequence follows regarding the individuality of angels in comparison with humans. Man, strictly speaking, ontologically does not have individuality, as far as his nature is concerned. He has a hypostasis, which, however, is not individuality in this sense, since the human race is consubstantial, of the same nature. Each person hypostatically exists for himself uniquely and individually, but at the same time naturally. He is the same in all hypostases, the one Adam - Christ, in His human nature including all the fullness of humanity and in it, in His Body, containing all human possibilities. Every person has the fullness of the image of God. And this means not only that he, having a hypostasis, can be collectively combined with other hypostases in plurality in the image of the Trinitarian God, but also that he has in himself the fullness of nature, just as God has His Wisdom, the Divine Sophia, the Idea, the Uncreated World. Man is sophistic in his nature, and this does not give room for natural differences in man, which lays the foundation for individualization through limitation, according to the principle of omnis individuatio est negatio. Of course, in the order of historical, temporary emergence, each person is limited and, therefore, individual, attached to any one point of existence. He is deprived of that universalism, the Sophian universality, which is hidden in him and will be revealed in the fullness of time. This is due to the state of darkness and heaviness of the entire sinful world as a result of Adam’s Fall. However, every person potentially already has everything in his nature; he has everything, it belongs to him from birth. Because of this, man is a generic, single, albeit multi-hypostatic being, occurring through birth, that is, self-repetition in multiple hypostases. A new creative act for the creation of each person is unnecessary 63, for man is one in his nature. Hypostases are modes of this single being, differing as different centers of self-consciousness of a single essence, but also completely similar to each other. On the contrary, an angel is, indeed, individual not only by his hypostatic face, which, due to this hypostasis, is unique and non-repeating, but also by his nature, since the latter is a single ray of the Divine Sophia in the created-hypostatic consciousness, but not the whole Sophia in its entirety. Of course, the concepts of partiality and divisibility do not apply here, as they exist in the natural world. Sophia is one and indivisible, but she allows for multiplicity, multicentrism in her created revelation, dynamic (and not mechanical) multiplicity. Each existential ray isolated from its unity, although it does not cease to reside in it, nevertheless lays the foundation for an individual, special existence. The existence of each angel is such a ray or radius emanating from the one sun. It exists together with other rays, is inseparable from them, and they all make up a “cathedral,” the completeness of the intelligent sky. However, angels could not arise through simple reproduction, that is, self-repetition, like humans, but were created, according to the teachings of the Church, at the same time, each by a special creative act. Therefore, they are inherent in the ontological individuality of being; each of them is not only a hypostatic image of being, but also a certain natural mode of it. This individualization of being would be a defect in their being, its limitation (according to the principle: omnis individuatio est negatio), if each angel had this natural nature for himself and in himself. However, this cannot exist (except for fallen angels, who have perverted their angelic being with their self-affirmation). Angels have their nature not in themselves, but in God, they live by participation in the divine life - or, as one might put it, not their own, but someone else's life (if only the life of the Divine can be called alien to any creation). Plunging into the abyss of divine life, they destroy their soul, lose their individuality as a limitation, joining the Divine Pleroma. However, this is possible provided that these individuals of angels, in their created relationships, like hypostasized rays of Glory, also remain in unity with each other. This unity, not being natural, can only be hypostatic, that is, conciliarity, complete agreement in the mutual love of the angelic hypostases. It is called the Church: the council of angels and, in contrast to it, the human race. The catholicity of the angelic world is not based on consubstantiality, like human conciliarity, in which only the consubstantial and multi-hypostatic human nature is realized - it overcomes the ontological individualization of the angelic nature with love. Therefore, it is built not on diversity (multihypostasis) in unity (like the human one), but on the unity of plurality, which is preserved but not absorbed by it. Such a unity, in which distinction is preserved, can only be hierarchical, and we know that the angelic world consists of nine-order hierarchies. The teaching about them, already outlined, although not completely, in the Epistles of the Apostle Paul (Rom. 8:38; Eph. 1:21; 3:10, etc.), was adopted by the Church from the work of the mysterious pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: “On the heavenly hierarchies.” According to him, there are nine orders of angels, distinguished by their closeness to God and transmitting from the highest to the lowest divine enlightenment and initiation into divine secrets: cherubim, seraphim, thrones, principalities, dominions, powers, authorities, archangels and angels. The closest comprehension of the hierarchical structure of the angelic world is inaccessible to man in the present age, but will be revealed in the future by the “sons of the resurrection,” who, according to the word of the Lord, will be “equal to the angels” (Luke 20:36). However, the general foundations of this hierarchical structure can still be comprehended today on the basis of the entire teaching about angels revealed by the Church. This distinction can, of course, find a subjective basis in the different spiritual power and ardor of angels, in general in their created freedom, due to which, and other things being equal, there can be differences in the degree of spiritual achievement. However, is it appropriate to transfer the properties of human freedom with its discursiveness to the angelic nature, which, after testing in freedom, which resulted in the fall of evil spirits, was irrevocably established in goodness and reached the utmost perfection, accessible to all in general and to each of the angels individually? Isn’t it more natural, on the contrary, to accept that each of the holy angels has realized all the fullness of holiness available to him? And if so, then it becomes a mistake to look for grounds for distinguishing hierarchies in the subjective moment, in the different degrees of perfection achieved by each angel in his rank. It is more correct to believe that all angels are subjectively equally holy, realizing the perfection available to everyone. Therefore, the basis of hierarchical differences should be seen rather in the objective-ontological principle, namely in the individualization of angels, in the difference in their Sophian ideas, in their actual dissimilarity to each other, non-consistency. The uncreated world, the Divine Sophia, the Divine Everything, Chastity and Wholeness, contains within itself a spiritual organism of ideas, prototypes of creation in general and the angelic world in particular. These ideas, in their spiritual articulation forming a divine unity, in the created revelation are a hierarchical whole, a cosmos in which every creative idea, the seed of being, has its own specific place, necessary and irreplaceable for the whole, in this sense, equal and, however, special, hierarchically defined. In other words, the hierarchy of angels is determined not by their subjective state or achievement (like human hierarchies, for there are no ontological differences between people), but by their original creation. In the earthly, visible world, everything forms a single being, and this is man, the microcosm and the macrocosm. However, all the differences between its parts remain valid: minerals from plants, plants from animals, animals from humans (of course, within each of the departments of the universe). In this sense, there is a cosmic hierarchy, determined by proximity and relationship to what constitutes the center and meaning of the life of the world - to man. Abstractly theoretically, we can say that everything in the world is equally necessary for this highest and only goal, for man, everything is man, and, however, the difference in the humanity or humanization of the elements of the cosmos remains as the basis for cosmic hierarchies. It is difficult, of course, to establish such a parallel, but we have to say that the hierarchical structure of the angelic world, like this, is rooted in differences in the spiritual world, in Sophian ideas, which in their entirety form the Divine cosmos, Heavenly Humanity. Of course, we cannot go beyond this general basis; no specific distinctions in the angelic world are available to us. Unless it only remains to remember what we know from revelation about the various ministries of angels - about the angels of the elements of the world, fire, water, winds, etc., about the guardian angels of different persons, peoples, kingdoms. Here the possibilities of hierarchical distinctions are already outlined. The next question regarding the hierarchy of angels is this: is the trinity of persons of the Holy Trinity reflected in its structure? In other words, do the individual ranks of angels all equally bear the stamp of the Holy Trinity, or do they have a predominance of Her individual hypostases? Although church hymns testify to their creation by the Holy Trinity 64 and their reception of the trisolar light 65, this does not yet indicate the indifferent attitude of all angelic ranks to individual divine hypostases. Angels are created in the image of God, which necessarily includes the trinity of the Divine, insofar as its reflection is contained in creation. Is this reflection inseparably imprinted in each of the angelic hypostases (and how?), or do the various angelic ranks reflect in their hypostatic existence primarily one of the Divine hypostases, and the fullness of the image of the Divine Trinity is imprinted only in the entire angelic council as a whole? There is no direct answer to this in church teaching. However, the doctrine of 9 = 3x3 ranks of angelic hierarchies, with its strict tricumber, hints precisely at the last thought. In this case, one should distinguish the triple structure of the council of angels, as standing before the entire Holy Trinity, but serving primarily one of Her hypostases. The Divine Sophia is the life and self-revelation not of any one (as is sometimes thought, the Second) Hypostasis, but of all three divine hypostases. Likewise, the angelic world, the incorporeal creation in the Divine Sophia, is not determined by the one hypostasis of the Word, by which all things were, but cannot in a separate unified spirit contain the image of the entire Holy Trinity. The latter is therefore revealed completely not in individual angels, but in the entire angelic council. And under this condition, it is inevitable that on individual angels (and perhaps entire ranks) one Divine hypostasis is especially imprinted, and thereby there appears a distinction between the angels who stand before the Holy indivisible Trinity, but are marked by the image of only one of Her hypostases. What this hypostatic imprint is is a mystery of the angelic world, beyond the reach of humans, but it can be brought closer to us on the basis of what is revealed to us about the difference of the Divine hypostases. Therefore, in the threefold hierarchy of angelic ranks, one can distinguish not only the triplicity of degrees of closeness to God, but also the triplicity of images of their presence to the three persons of the Holy Trinity. This is confirmed by the appearance of God to Abraham in the form of three angels (Gen. 18), in which the Church sees the revelation of the Holy Trinity, and, consequently, each of the three angels represents a separate triple hypostasis, imprinted by it. This understanding by the Church of this phenomenon is most clearly expressed in iconography; it was the image of three angels at a meal at the oak of Mamre that became our icon of the Holy Trinity, the feast of Pentecost. This tradition, absent in Western iconography, appears in the Russian Church at the end of the 15th century, with the famous icon of the Holy Trinity of St. Andrei Rublev, local in the Church of the Most Holy. Trinity Sergius Lavra. (It was written by the venerable icon painter in obedience to St. Nikon, a student of St. Sergius, and it is possible that the student here carried out the covenant of the very secret place of the Holy Trinity of St. Sergius.) Also, the icon of the Council of Archangels, according to the accepted version, contains as two central images the duo of Michael and Gabriel, as angels of the Second and Third Hypostases, holding a medallion image of the Savior Emmanuel, but among them (and somewhat higher) there is a third, usually nameless archangel (sometimes Raphael), and in front of him is the indicated image of Christ. Does this archangel, who cannot find a direct interpretation for himself, but is silently accepted in the iconographic tradition, correspond to the First Hypostasis? In this case, the icon takes on the meaning of explicit symbolism of the entire angelic world in the trinity of its hierarchies, corresponding to the trinity of the Divinity, with the three supreme angels surrounded by the entire countless heavenly army. And shouldn’t these two icons of St. be related in content? Trinity - three angels appearing to Abraham and a council of archangels with three archangels at their head? Moreover, the two angels named in the “cathedral”, Michael and Gabriel, can also be found in the appearance to Abraham (which is quite natural), while the third nameless angel is the one who is especially highlighted in the biblical story and is called “Lord” (Gen. 18, 13, 14, 17, 20, 22, 23) in contrast to the two “angels” who come to Lot. The first angel of the appearance of the Holy Trinity is primary, remaining nameless. However, the angelic council is addressed to the world through the Second and Third Hypostases. Therefore, their angels, Michael and Gabriel, are the “primary two” of the angelic rank for people 66, while the third primary angel independently remains as if unknown. The Father's hypostasis, which eternally reveals itself in the Son and the Holy Spirit, is Divine Silence, giving birth to the Word, and Divine Darkness, exuding the Holy Spirit. The highest angelic spirits, “covering their faces,” are immersed in this ocean of the Divine Mystery, and stand before the Throne of the Father in sacred horror. They form, as it were, the divine foundation of the entire angelic world. They are heavenly, pre-peaceful and not-for-peaceful spirits. They are entirely turned to God and are mediators of the revelation of the mysteries of God to the angelic world. This is the world before its manifested creation, in the depths of God, unspoken and unrealized. This is the beginning of creation. If, in the opinion of the teachers of the Church, there are orders of angels that do not serve the world and man, for their life is entirely before God, then it is most appropriate to think about the angels of the Father’s hypostasis, about these hypostatic movements of the Father’s Will, which is Goodness, about these substances of love, powerless in excess, amazed at the fullness, exhausted in the bliss of God’s Love! They are supramundane, but with the world and for the world, they are the eve of the creative day, the darkness in which the light lights up, the night in which creation is born, non-existence (μή öv), in which all being arises 67 . This is an analogy in the angelic world to the primordial “earth” of our world, in which everything is pre-created and pre-contained, although it is “invisible and empty.” This is an apophatic aspect in the angelic world, associated with the cataphatic existence of angels. This is the “heaven of heavens,” the heaven of heaven itself, which is spoken of in Solomon’s prayer during the consecration of the church: “heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You” (1 Kings 8:27 – 2 Chronicles 6:18). These are eyes looking at the Lord, these are circles of wings and eyes in iconography. Minds are angels who form the radiance of the hypostasis of the Logos. They are the very created, hypostatic Idea of ​​the world. They have within themselves a multi-unity of creative ideas that are embraced by the world-creating Word. The idea of ​​the world is pre-realized in them. They are the ideal image of the world, the world in idea, its ideal content, everything that “was” the Word (“all that was,” John 1:3). Here everything exists in an ideal prototype, in completeness, as a created image of the world, its basis is ideological and logical. (This is encompassed by the concept of Logos, which contains both the ideological diversity, the content of the cosmos, and its necessary regularity, the unity of connection, the logic of things.) The earthly world looks into the intelligent sky as its prototype, and it is reflected in it like the blue of the sky in the depths of the waters. This is the contemplated (theoretical) truth of the world, the world in its truth. This is the meaning of the earthly world, inscribed in the heavens before its creation. There is nothing truly existing (and not illusory, from the shadow of non-existence, from the play of light and shadows of emerging half-being) that would not exist in the angelic world, in minds many-eyed in contemplation and six-winged in execution. Intelligent forces are created Sophia in a heavenly image, as the prototype of the earthly, Sophia, as the word of things, the ideal everything. This is the starry sky that surrounds the earth and in its constellations contains its destinies written, with myriads of eyes seeing and perceiving the life of the earth. The angels, the servants of the word, contemplated His works in the creation of the world, when new images were called into being by the creative Word, ideas and forms were realized “with the general rejoicing of the morning stars, when all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:7, glory, t.: “when the stars were created, all my angels praised me with a great voice”). These are the intelligent forces of cosmourgic service, in accordance with the cosmourgic character of the Second Hypostasis. They approach the world and penetrate it as its ideal basis, ideas and forms. Their internal hierarchy is the hierarchy of world ideas, the ideal structure of the world, or rather, vice versa: the world in its composition bears the image of the hierarchy of the angels of the Word. The Logos of the world, as its ideal content and internal pattern, is inscribed in the heavens in these hierarchies, and everything that truly exists in world existence has a correspondence for itself in the angelic rank. Here we must once again recall Plato’s insightful teaching on ideas. The error of Platonism, which it has in common with the entire pagan world, is that it does not distinguish the sophistic nature of being from the Divinity itself and imagines expounding the doctrine of God, when in reality it teaches about the Divine Sophia 68, which is why it falls into polytheism (as this was clearly reflected in Neoplatonism, with its attempt at the philosophical restoration of paganism, with its magic against Christianity). Plato’s ideas are in fact the angels of the Word, and Plato’s insight, which forces us to recognize him as a “Christian before Christ” (according to the testimony of church writing), is that he recognized the need to justify the earthly world in the heavenly, becoming in existence, things in ideas. And with this he translated the revelation of paganism into the language of philosophy: πάντα πλήρηθεών, everything is full of gods. Paganism, in its elemental clairvoyance, knew the heavenly basis of the universe, but in the blindness of its hierarchy it equated the angelic gods, or more precisely, the gods, the “sons of God” (Job 1:6,2,1), with God himself. The Christian meaning and truth of Platonism is revealed only in angelology, as the doctrine of heaven and earth in their relationship. Plato's ideas embrace everything; this is the ontology of the world. But these ideas exist not as logical abstractions and schemes of things, but as hypostatic entities, angels of the Word 69. Blessed spirit-souls form the hierarchy of the Third Hypostasis, the Life-Giving Spirit, who creates everything into a “living soul” 70, the Giver of Life, who fulfills and completes everything, the Comforter, who comforts everything by being clothed with Beauty. “The Lord reigned, clothed in beauty,” the reign of the Lord is clothed in beauty, beauty, by the action of the Holy Spirit. The power of reality, which gives existence to the ideal image, may there be (fiat), as a single predicate to all subjects in the six days of creation, beauty, as a living manifestation of truth, is the domain of the Holy Spirit. The angels of the Holy Spirit, the blessed spirit-souls 71, belong to this area. They have a special understanding of reality and service to life as such. Everything in the world has not only its own inner word, ideal meaning, idea, but also being, mysterious and inseparably fused with the word-meaning. This fusion is reality, the power of life, so be it. But this fusion contains not only the internal word, as the truth and meaning of a thing, its idea, but also its existential, perceptible (in this sense, we can say sensual) image, the form that envelops this idea. This realization of an idea, in which it becomes completely transparent in existence, is the highest work of art, a perfect image adequate to the idea. This transparency of the image, adequate to the idea, is Beauty. Truth appears in Beauty, and Beauty reveals Truth as the life force of Truth. The Angels of the Holy Spirit are the servants of Beauty, she lives in them before her appearance on earth. The world is clothed in beauty. Beauty in nature nourishes the soul with its contemplation and fills it with wonder even for those who do not want to see the sky and look for the key to the cosmos in man. Man, they say, knows and loves beauty, for he creates it in his own image and likeness. Let it be so, but where does this beauty of the world come from in the great and small, everywhere where the human gaze penetrates, in the astronomical worlds and in microscopically small creatures, in the primeval thicket of forests and in the depths of the ocean, in the plant and animal world? Where, for whom and why is this beauty of innumerable wildflowers, which are more beautiful than King Solomon dressed, and, however, unknown and unknown to anyone, inhuman, so to speak, by no one and nothing? There are no words and no imagination is enough to exhaust this bottomless ocean of beauty with which the world of God is clothed. It is human, however, not in the sense that it was created by man or constituted only his subjective perception, but it is perceived by man as a microcosm containing the threads of the entire macrocosm. And those who have comprehended the objectivity and, so to speak, self-legitimacy of beauty in nature, find themselves forced to recognize the special aesthetic power diffused in nature (Haeckel), without noticing the contradiction into which they fall, at the same time interpreting nature as a mechanism of material or force atoms and at the same time attributing to it the ideal and completely spiritual ability of the creativity of beauty. But “the heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament declares the work of His hands” (Ps. 18:2), and “the invisible things of God, His eternal power and Divinity have been visible since the creation of the world through viewing creation” (Rom. 1:20). The beauty of the world is a victorious (and for many souls the most, even the only irresistible) testimony of God, the Creator of the world. God is Beauty, for He is Truth and Life, the Word and the Life-Giving Spirit. The beauty of the world is the beauty of the intelligent sky, which glows in it, just as the blue of the sky is reflected in the depths of the waters. The world is clothed in beauty, in it the intelligent sky approaches it, and the beauty of nature is a reflection of this sky. All the beauty of the world pre-exists in the angelic world in the spirit-souls of the Third Hypostasis. As executors of Her command, as guardians of the creature, they clothe it with beauty. The beauty of the world is brought to creation by the angels, who work on it and, loving it, clothe it with beauty. Do flowers not bloom by the power of an angel, according to the will of God invested in them? All forms of beauty, from the lower animals to the human body, are clothed with beauty from their guardians? We pray: “We ask the Lord for a peaceful, faithful angel, a mentor, a guardian of our souls and bodies.” This speaks not only about preserving the body from external troubles and diseases, but also in general about preserving the body, in all the perfection of its forms, which we can only remotely imagine. All the beauty of the world is something other than a clearing into the sky, the transparency of the angelic world for us. We involuntarily talk about “an angelic image, angelic beauty, angelic singing,” etc. - this genius of language testifies to some of our clairvoyance of the angelic world. The idea that the beauty of the world is the work of the angels guarding it should not be perverted in the sense that beauty is not inherent in the world itself and in man, that beauty is alien, that it is only light cast from another world. On the contrary, to the same extent that meaning and reality belong to the world itself, beauty also belongs to it. One can say even more: beauty is its only, true reality, while ugliness or ugliness is half-being or non-existence, their chiaroscuro. But this reality has a basis and prototype in heaven, in the angelic world. The azure of water and air does not cease to be real because it is also a reflection of the sky; it exists not alone, not on its own, but together and on the basis of the sky. And the real beauty of the earthly world reflects the ideal beauty of the rank of angels, guarding it according to God’s command in its “goodness.” The above makes it possible to clarify the general idea about the sophistic nature of beauty in the world 72. Beauty is Sophia, it is a visual, tangible revelation of the Divine Sophia, as the eternal foundation of the world. However, such a thought, without further explanation, is fraught with the possibility of a deviation into a pantheistic world-theism (up to a new hylozoism of the Haeckel type). Beauty is inseparably linked with the flesh of the world, which it clothes with itself. Therefore, the direct rapprochement of God as pure absolute spirit with the earthly world encounters philosophical and even more religious difficulties. For creation is completely transparent to the Creator, but the Creator in Himself remains transcendental in creation, although it is revealed to it, thus becoming immanent. But this immanence to the world is not realized directly, but through the medium of, albeit created, spiritual existence, which has support in the divine nature. The world is sophia based on the Divine Sophia, but through created Sophia, hypostasized in the angelic world. Therefore, the beauty of the world is influenced by the action of angels; it is the tangible presence and action of angels in the world. Our heart opens with the power of beauty, and the spirit ascends to the heights, to the angelic world. The world is a work of art that came out of the hands of the Great Master, and he is the Creator. However, the executors of His creative plan are St. angels, servants of God in the world. And therefore we can say that if the world is a work of art, then it is the art of angels, direct servants of Beauty, angels of the Holy Spirit. Is there a difference in the angelic world that corresponds to the male and female principles in man and determines the completeness of the image of God in him (“in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them,” Gen. 1:27)? It goes without saying that it is wicked and absurd to invent gender differences associated with marriage relations in the angelic world, since these differences are associated with the bodily existence of man, moreover, in a fallen sinful state, and with the way of reproduction of the human race, established by God at its creation (Gen. 1:28). Angels, unlike humans, were created by a one-time creative act. Being a cathedral, but not a clan, they do not know reproduction and have no body or traces; gender, as a bodily difference, completely disappears here. However, the difference between masculine and feminine principles is not only physical, but also spiritual. It is rooted in a different image of the spirit, a certain “personal property” of it, which is determined in the first case by the logical principle, the primacy of reason, thought over the feeling of beauty and over the activity of the heart, in the second, on the contrary, by the primacy of the aesthetic sense and heart over the mind. The primacy of Truth and the primacy of Beauty, equally subordinate to the primacy of Good, form the basis of the difference between the male and female principles in the human spirit. Both principles are present in it inseparably, however, with a decisive predominance of one of them, and both of them are mutually complementary to each other. The fullness of the image of God in the masculine or feminine spirit of man has a basis in the Divine Trinity, where the image of Truth, Logos, is the personal definition of the Second Hypostasis, and the image of Beauty, inspiration, is inherent in the Third Hypostasis, and both of them equally have one “beginning” from the good Father, the source of Good (“no one is good, only one God”). Accordingly, in the incarnation of the Word, the Son of God, took on the nature masculine, but the Holy Spirit for His indwelling chose the Most Pure Virgin Mary, feminine nature, and the fullness of the human image in heaven is Jesus Mary. Likewise, the human image is raised by the Apostle (Eph. 5:32) to the prototype of “Christ and the Church,” which is headed by the Virgin Mary, the Unbridled Bride of the Divine Bridegroom. Thus, the dual unity of the masculine and feminine principle imprints on the human spirit the fullness of the image of God in it. However, in man this duality exists only as a duality, making each human individual not self-sufficient, but seeking its own completion, not only its other or friend, but also, as it were, its own half. Therefore, gender is spiritual incompleteness, half-heartedness. In a life of grace, this half-ness is filled and overcome by union with Christ, in which there is neither male nor female” (Gal. 3:28), and by the acceptance of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Every soul, regardless of human gender, relates to Christ as the Church, the Bride of Christ to the Divine Bridegroom 73. And every soul in the Church is overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, inspired by Him, and has a Comforter in Him. This gracefully extinguishes the natural incompleteness of the human being. However, remaining in his own human sphere, man in his spiritual nature seeks completion, according to the word of the Lord about him: “It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper like him” (Gen. 2:18). Fullness of the image of God, St. The Trinity in man cannot be realized in a separate human personality, as one-hypostatic, but only in the pan-human race united in the Church. This fullness does not fit into the male or female being in their fragmentation, but presupposes their reunion. Such a reunion in a person’s earthly life is the establishment of marriage “in the image of Christ and the Church,” which has the purpose in bodily life of the reproduction of the human race, and in spiritual life the overcoming of the fragmentation of the human spirit in male-female unity (which is the “meaning of love,” spiritual-syzygy unity, insightfully indicated by V. Solovyov). Can this spiritual difference between male and female, by analogy with human nature, be transferred to the angelic world? This analogy has its basis in the common co-humanity of the angels, which has already been discussed and will continue to be discussed. According to the teachings of the Church, guardian angels are characteristic of human beings, male and female, without distinction. Does this human difference have any correspondence in the angelic nature or not? If guardian angels are generally correlated with the individual principle in man, understood in the broadest sense (which is why there can be not only individual but also collective patron angels of individual peoples and kingdoms, localities and cities, churches and communities, etc.), then is the difference between the male and female principles in man excluded from this individual quality? And if it is not excluded, then a new question necessarily arises about how exactly this correspondence can be expressed in one’s own angelic nature, since in general the relationship between a guardian angel and the person entrusted to him is based on a certain ontological affinity? On the other hand, this same question is directly posed in the Gospel, in the words of the Lord himself, whom the Sadducees tempted with the question of who would own in the resurrection the wife who belonged to the seven brothers. All three weather forecasters have this story. Let's start with the Gospel of Luke (20, 34-36): “The Lord answered and said to them, “The children of this age marry and commit violence. But those who are deemed worthy to reach that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor commit violence, nor can they die, for they are equal to the angels and are the sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” 74 . This evidence of a certain equality of the sons of the resurrection with the angels is attached, of course, first of all, in relation to married life, about which, in fact, the question was asked, and not to the impossibility for them to die, about which there was no direct question. The latter is obviously in connection with the first, as some kind of correspondence. In Matt. 22:23-30 it says: “You reproach, not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God, for in the resurrection they do not marry, they do not commit violence, but they are like angels in heaven” (25). Thus, the expression of St. Luke: “equal to angels” is here replaced by an equivalent in meaning: “they are like angels in heaven.” So, first of all, what is said and what is not said in the words of the Lord? Here the state of earthly marriage, which is given only temporary significance for earthly life, is rejected for the future century. Marriage has the immediate earthly thought of the birth of children, and this, in turn, is associated with dying, the change of generations, in which alone the human race exists in its unity. This (carnal) method of human reproduction is associated with the state of the Fall and the incarnation of man, and death is also associated with it (we do not know how the birth of a sinless and therefore immortal man would take place). In the resurrection there will be no place for either birth or death. All those who are born and then go through the gates of death have already been born and resurrected. They form an integral human race, not broken by death and change of generations, already possessing immortality. And in this he is like the angels, who, being created by a single act, always exist as an “angelic council”, which includes the totality of all angels (except for the fallen). Along with the cessation of reproduction and the elimination of death, marriage also loses its meaning, since it is associated with reproduction. And the change in our body from the carnal to the “mental” or “spiritual” (1 Cor. 15:44) leads to the quenching of carnal lust, that “attraction to the husband” (Gen. 3:16) of the wife and the reverse attraction of the husband to the wife, which were a consequence of the fall and putting on leather garments: in the next century “they will not marry” and “do not encroach,” Sex life dies with death. Human sex in its corporeality disappears, like carnal bondage, “encroachment,” and this is a new feature of equal-angelic existence, for angels, as disembodied beings, are, of course, free from sex, since it is associated with the body. The Savior’s words: “they do not marry and do not encroach” also contain another thought - about freedom not only from the bodily captivity of sex, but also from the mental and spiritual, from the thirst for love for the sake of its spiritual fulfillment, which a fragmented, non-self-sufficient being seeks (like the cut halves of a once bisexual integral being, according to Plato’s myth in the Symposium). The extinguishing of this fragmentation is the “meaning of love” in the earthly state of man. Man in the next century becomes a self-sufficient, complete being, who has not lost his inherent ability of love, but is satisfied with it, and this is a new feature of the equal-angelic state of his state. However, equality in the sense of likening does not mean identification, and if a person is spoken of as “equal to the angels” or “like the angels,” this in no way means that he himself becomes an angel, ceasing to be a man, losing his human nature. And, of course, it is wrong to go so far in exegesis of this text. And this is done when, on the basis of the Savior’s words, they affirm what is not said in them and is even tacitly rejected, namely, as if in the next century the difference between the male and female principles in man will cease altogether. The latter was initially, before the Fall, created by God as a man and a woman, therefore, both of them are destined for immortality. And this originality of the creation of man as man and woman is deliberately indicated, as if in His own name, by the Lord Jesus. He said in response to the Pharisees who tempted Him on the issue of divorce (Matthew 19:4): “Have you not read that He who created in the beginning made them male and female?” (Gen. 1:27). If the masculine and feminine in a person, as spiritual principles, have their highest basis in the personal properties of the Second and Third Hypostases, they are correlative, then they cannot be subject to destruction in the resurrection, for they are connected not only with the carnal, sinful life of the present plump body and its lust. On the contrary, they are subject to full disclosure, enlightenment, and perpetuation. For both the Lord Jesus Christ, sitting at the right hand of the Father, and His Most Pure Mother, the Ever-Virgin Mary, sitting at His right hand in heaven, preserve Their humanity, which is characteristic of Them in the form of male and female nature. It is Virginity, as an integral ontological quality, or Ever-Virginity, that frees the male and female principles from sex, which, like attraction to the other sex and dependence on it, contains the beginning of captivity and limitation. Virginity is freedom from sex, however, while preserving male and female nature. It is impossible to allow the sons of the resurrection to appear impersonal in their new immortal life, ceasing to be themselves, for the resurrection is the restoration and perpetuation of precisely the original state of man, but freed from the distortion of sin and the inferiority of existence in the flesh. But the masculine and feminine principles are not limited to physical, sexual differences, no, they extend to the spiritual being of a person and qualify him. It is not in vain that the Church perpetuates the memory of male and female saints in their own image, without depriving them of the human difference that they had in earthly life, just as Adam and Eve were brought out of hell by the Lord in their own, male and female, nature. So, the state of resurrection cannot be considered as a complete abolition of the masculine and feminine principle with its replacement by some average, qualityless state, which would be tantamount to the impoverishment and simplification of human nature 75 . And if a person is resurrected in a body, each in his own bodily image, then it is necessary to conclude from this that the difference between male and female natures in man, which already existed in the paradise state before the Fall, is preserved and perpetuated in the resurrection body. Of course, it is freed from what is associated with the life of the bodily sex (as some fathers point out, for example, St. Gregory of Nyssa). But man exists both spiritually and physically in two forms. Also, the Eternal Humanity in God, the Wisdom of God, is the self-revelation of the Father not only in the Son, the Heavenly Man, the New Adam, but also in the inseparable Holy Spirit resting on Him and with Him, descending on the Virgin Mary. This duality in man is expressed in the duality of his being, which is combined into unity. In earthly life, this pairing is associated with the life of sex and childbirth, “the sons of this age marry and encroach,” and this image of unity is established by God and sanctified in the sacrament of marriage. But if in the next century man is freed from sex and reproduction becomes unnecessary, will anything of the relationship between male and female nature remain? What exactly does the tempting question of the Sadducees refer to: “Which of the seven will she be a wife, for all had her?” (Matthew 22:28). No one will “have” it physically, for in the next century the very possibility and need for such possession will disappear. But, apart from this possession, is there any possibility of a relationship between the masculine and feminine principles in humanity? Without a doubt, it remains, and this possibility is love, connecting and mutually replenishing male and female natures in the image of Christ and the Church. Humanity, in its plurality and consubstantiality, even now does not represent a herd consisting of mutually indifferent individuals, but a family or clan, the members of which are connected among themselves by diverse types of concrete love-friendship (i.e., life in another and in others) with the whole gamut of shades of the masculine and feminine principles (not only mother and wife, but also father and mother, son and daughter, brother and sister). Thus, even now the masculine and feminine principles contain the basis for the diverse unity of humanity in love-friendship, in addition to sexual love and marriage. But marriage also has different possibilities for relationships, not only husband and wife giving birth to children and thereby entering the life of the family, but also friendship and purely personal love. Life “in one flesh” is, although sacred and natural, established in paradise (Gen. 2:23–24, cf. Matt. 19:5–6), but it is still a very Old Testament law, which has force in the life of the next century. But here the fullness of personal love comes into force, as mutual completion or in the proper sense of friendship, which constitutes the “meaning of love.” This friendship, moreover, in various forms - both male and female, and within the same beginning of emerging love - is already known to this century, but it becomes in full force the property of the future, due to liberation from gender, overcoming captivity by it. It cannot be allowed that in that life any of the relationships of love between people that already existed in this life could be lost; everything worthy of perpetuation will appear in all its strength. But new and endlessly developing possibilities of love and friendship will appear, for only in the age of resurrection will the human race exist in its entirety, and not in successive generations, the entire human race will become one family and community - in God. “The saved nations will walk (in the new Jerusalem) in the light of the Lamb, and the kings of the earth will bring into it their glory and honor... And they will bring into it the glory and honor of the nations” (Rev. 21, 24,26). And each person will preserve what constitutes the glory and honor of his life, his love, and will increase it. However, it is precisely this liberation from the bonds of the limitations of earthly carnal love that the Savior points to in his answer to the Sadducees. According to the meaning of their question, the difficulty of the situation lies, firstly, in who of the seven brothers will have a wife carnally, “for all had her” (to this the negative answer is given: “they do not marry and do not encroach”), and secondly, in who will have her in love-friendship? The last question, although not directly expressed by the co-questioners, is implied, for it is answered in the words of the Savior, who not only gives a negative explanation regarding bodily possession 76, but also adds: “you are mistaken, not knowing the Scripture, nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29 - Mark 12:19). The manifestation of this power of God, revealed in the Scriptures, is that the sons of the resurrection in the future century “are as the angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30 – Mark 12:25), “equal to the angels” (Luke 20:36). What is meant here about the “residence of angels” in heaven and the equal-angelic state of people? If this cannot be understood in the sense of a general abolition of the difference between human and angelic natures, then these words should be understood in relation to precisely the feature that is outlined by the question posed. We are talking about the relationship of reciprocity and possession between a man and a woman and, more broadly, about love in general (about the “meaning of love”): the nature of the relationship of human love, after removing the leather clothes of the sex from it, is determined in accordance with angelic love and is likened to it (therefore, the equation does not generally refer to the nature of angelic and human, which remain different, but to love). What content can be revealed in this answer? The angelic council is united into a multi-hypostatic multitude, in the image of the Holy Trinity, not through the unity of its nature, which is absent due to the absence of this nature itself, but exclusively through love, first of all for God, and then mutual love for each other. The angelic cathedral is united in the melting of personal mutual love, in which the angelic hypostasis, as it were, dies to itself in order to be resurrected and live in the cathedral, in the multi-united, conciliar, all-angelic self. This council of all-angelic love will become an image of all-human love after all of humanity ceases to be an abstract intelligible concept, but will be an immediate reality when people stop being born and dying, “being sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36). This is an image of church unity, in which the “council of angels” and the “human race” are united, constituting one Church (“one church made by angel and man”) 77. But this universality of love, which, however, remains, in any case, personal, concrete, presupposes not herdism, but the individuality of personal relationships, from which the common sensibility of love is woven, as in the nervous system. This same personal love is based on special choices and attractions, Wahlverwandschaften, which have their basis in individual properties. To fully understand this thought, one must perceive in all their power the mysterious words of the Lord: “they remain as the angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30), not only in a negative sense, in relation to the carnal sex and the marriage relations arising from it, but also in a positive sense, as an indication of the mutual love of the angels, connecting them into a single cathedral. In the fullness of this is the secret of the future century. However, the Lord in His answer also touches on it, moreover, referring to the Scriptures, and thereby testifies that now it is not completely hidden for understanding. The council of angels, which has as its foundation love for God and life in God, is held together by their mutual personal love, which is nourished by mutual loving contemplation of the individualities and personal properties of each angel. In the conciliarity of the angelic world, in angelic love, created Sophia lives in the angelic multi-hypostasis of her rays, fused into completeness by love. The heavenly world is created by love, there is a hymn to love and its flame. In the diversity of this love, no ontological property, no ray of the pleroma of the angelic world goes unnoticed and unloved - all-seeing love sees and loves everything. Of course, for us now this concrete fullness and, so to speak, the exhaustive multi-motivation and diversity of this love are beyond the pale; all that remains of it is an empty, because abstract, diagram. If the angelic world is qualified in a threefold way in the image of the three divine Hypostases, then this difference presupposes a special image of its mutual love. The distinction between the angels of the Second and Third Hypostases corresponds to the distinction between the male and female principles in the two, which we know in our human nature. Doesn’t this difference also contain the basis for a special mutual attraction of mutually replenishing love, syzygytic communication between the angelic faces of the Second and Third Hypostases in general, as individual bearers of the identical Sophia idea, but manifested in different ways as Mind and Feeling, Truth and Beauty? Isn’t the sophic nature of creation generally revealed in some primordial syzygytic duality, which, united in the rings of personal love, forms from them the golden chain of the universe? This idea is suggested by a direct analogy with the human world, which not only cannot be completely discarded, but must be applied in those cases, at least, when a positive relationship is established between angels and people, as is the case in the words of the Lord under consideration. He is asked which of the seven husbands this woman will marry. He replies that it is no one’s, because in the next century they will not marry at all, and therefore, the bearer of the masculine principle is not a man in the sexual sense, just as the possessor of the feminine principle is not a wife and a woman in the same sense. They cease to be male and female for each other, so that the animal principle of sex in man completely dies. However, this does not at all say that in general the husband and wife cease to be themselves, but pass into some average and “equal angel” state. Just as this is not said, it is not said anywhere—least of all here—that the image of angelic existence is determined by this average indifference, spiritual lack of quality. Gender is by no means exhausted, unless the masculine and feminine principles in the spirit are obscured and distorted. Man and woman, originally created as such, remain themselves forever, although they are freed from their leather garments. Their spiritual relationship, the rings of their love, are liberated only now, and it is in this liberation, and not in the transition to the qualitylessness of the average state, that their equal-angelicity is expressed, 78 and spiritual love does not have those boundaries that are characteristic of bodily possession. Therefore, the hidden answer of the Lord to the question of who exactly will belong to the wife of seven husbands in the future century can be understood as follows: to one of them who is close to her in spirit, who is in a spiritual syzygy with her (if there is one), and therefore, perhaps, to everyone, since spiritual love is not exclusive, but many-part and diverse. And to explain this spiritual communication (which can also be called spiritual marriage), the Lord points to the structure of the angelic world, which is the prototype of the human. Human existence returns to the norm, to the angelic prototype. But in this prototype there is not only a distinction between the images of possessing one’s ideal content, in accordance with the male and female principles in man, in the angels of the Second and Third Hypostases, but also the image of the First Hypostasis, fatherhood of a higher quality, but qualified in the images of the Second and Third Hypostases. This finds an analogy in human love, which has its basis in fatherhood and motherhood, parenthood in general, and in sonship and daughterhood, birth in general. And just as the life of the angels of the Second and Third Hypostasis in the angels of the First Hypostasis finds its beginning and source of incessantly flowing light, so the goal of human life, consisting of rings of mutually replenishing love, ascends upward to this beginning in universal sonship and fatherhood, named after the image of the heavenly Father (Eph. 3:15). In connection with the previous one, another question arises: is there a special spiritual relationship between a male or female human being and his guardian angel? From the general analogy between "heaven and earth" and the personal character of angelic service, we must conclude that such a positive relationship exists, and therefore angels are assigned to each half of the human race according to their image. This idea becomes especially convincing if we remember that the existence of a guardian angel precedes human birth and that he prepares it in the indicated sense. The immediate disclosure of this relationship remains inaccessible to us, and we can only express personal conjectures here. At first glance, it may seem that the angels of the Second and Third Hypostases are in direct correspondence with the male and female principles, as their heavenly prototypes. However, it should be taken into account that the hypostatic individuation of angels does not separate them from the fullness of angelic life. Likewise, man, equally in both male and female form, equally possesses the fullness of human nature. Therefore, there is no need for a direct correspondence of modality between the guardian angel and a person, as if their direct repetition. The service of an angel to a person in “keeping” him is to help him become himself, to ascend into the fullness of those creative tasks that he is called upon to solve in his self-creativity. But for this particular task, isn’t mutual replenishment better served than self-repetition? The male spirit seeks to creatively find itself, plunging into its element, in a tangible phenomenon in another. And the female spirit, from the depths of its sentient being, seeks to ascend to the creative light, which would illuminate it and appear in its mind. Each soul seeks itself, its manifestation in another, a friend. And this Friend, the heavenly Friend, “protects”, helping a person not with what he already has as a given, but with what he seeks as a given, cherishes as a dream, and loves in advance as a quenching of the thirst for being, as a consolation. And doesn’t the male spirit, already marked with the seal of the Logos, which carries Him within itself as the power of its being, more need a heavenly guardian of the image of the Third Hypostasis, inspiring and giving it joy and consolation? And vice versa: doesn’t the female spirit, already sealed with the seal of the Spirit of the Comforter and thereby endowed with the power of life and beauty, need the heavenly guardian of the Hypostasis of the Logos, Whom the trembling feeling element seeks and spiritually sees? 79 If this is so 80, then the idea of ​​living like the angels in the future century is revealed from one more side. Communication with his guardian angel, which is the property of the “sons of the resurrection” in the next century, will give every person absolute satisfaction of his thirst for spiritual love. This completely extinguishes the feeling of dissatisfaction and loneliness, which is the scourge of human existence today. He is not alone, he is together, he has his own, his undivided friend - a heavenly Friend, a guardian angel. He learns that it was about him that his earthly longing was about him. And along with liberation from sensual lust, he is also liberated from spiritual lust: “they do not marry and do not encroach.” A person becomes self-sufficient, maintaining his male or female nature. And through his guardian angel, in the revelation of love, he enters into communication with the angelic world. Of course, this angelic love does not close, but opens the paths of human love in all those connections of personal love that are given to man in his earthly life and, further, beyond it. Limitation and selfishness, even in love, is the law of our sinful nature, for which therefore the harsh commandment about hating loved ones, i.e., befits. about liberation from this limitation of love: “if anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and, moreover, life itself, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 22:26) 81. This speaks of the expansion of the heart from limited-personal love to universal love. The heart of man, created in the image of God, conceals within itself the limitless possibilities of love, universal and at the same time specific, in which the personal attitude and personal character of all love are not lost. Isn’t this liberation from limitations in love connected with the overcoming of that spiritual incompleteness, halfness (“sex”) that is inherent in man now, when personal love by the force of things becomes exclusive, repelling other possibilities of love? Universal love is the love of all for each and every one in Christ by the Holy Spirit, for all are united into the body of Christ. But this universal love of people, this universal spiritual marriage of male and female nature in man in the image of Christ and the Church already exists, destined in the angelic world. And thus the final meaning of the Lord’s words is revealed, that the sons of the resurrection live like angels or are equal to angels. This does not mean simplification and, as it were, a metaphysical impoverishment of their being, but the revelation of the power that brings together the “angelic council,” the power of universal love. The source of this power of chastity, which is universality, is also clear: this is the participation of the Divine Sophia, which is the wisdom of integrity and its effectiveness - chastity, perfect Virginity. Not only the Virgin Mary, who heads human nature in Her Sophia glory, together with the Forerunner, has Ever-Virginity, that is, the perfect integrity of her being and the positive overcoming of gender, fragmentation, half-ness of being, but also the “sons of the resurrection” who no longer “marry and do not encroach” will partake of this essential Virginity in their glory and in this they will also become “like angels.” God's." And from this it follows that the angelic being, participating in Glory, must also participate in this Ever-Virginity, which constitutes the true Sophia image of creation. What is accessible to man is, even before him, accessible to the angelic world, which, although significantly different from the human, is not poorer in spiritual gifts; on the contrary, in relation to them it transforms human achievements. And if angels differ from humans in the absence of gender, this does not mean that they do not participate in the power of Virginity 82 . On the contrary, this power is the single source of universal love, uniting both angels and men in their equal angelic existence, and this ever-virgin church council is headed by the most honorable Cherub and the most glorious, without comparison, ever-virgin Seraphim. Angels are completely holy, each fulfilling in himself the measure of perfection invested in them at creation. They are completely themselves and in this sense are sophia. Only the Lord God is holy by His own nature, and the holiness of every creation stems from its participation in the holiness of God. Therefore, in its implementation, created holiness depends not only on how much is given, but also how much and how it is received, in other words, not only on the degree of closeness to God and the corresponding height of creation, which it cannot surpass with its own strength, but also on created freedom, to which the degree of holiness available to it is entrusted not as a ready-made gift, but as its own achievement or deed. Holy angels, by their creation, occupy the highest place, for in general it is impossible to be closer to God by nature than “second lights”, “mirrors of the Divine light” 83. They do not even have their own nature, their life is participation in the nature of the Divine itself, they are created gods. The divine nature belongs to the Holy Trinity, the three Divine Hypostases, each separately and all in the Trinity. But, beyond this, the divine nature is the source of life for the created angelic hypostases, through the grace-filled communion of their life with this nature 84. Therefore St. angels are characterized by a different image of deification than that which is given by grace to people, and therefore are called gods by grace 85 . Angels by nature are sons of God, although they were created by hypostasis. And if grace in the precise sense of the word is called only that which is supernatural (supra-naturale), then for them natural nature and the gift of grace merge into one. Their life is grace-filled only in the sense that participation in divine life is given here to created hypostases that received existence by the will (θέλημα) of God, and not through a birth that exceeded all will 86 . But since the exact meaning of the concept “grace” means precisely supernaturality, it is wrong to distinguish and contrast (as Catholic theology does, and sometimes Orthodox theology follows) in the life of angels their natural state and grace-filled existence 87 . They have no nature other than divine. Although it is given to them as creatures, however, being given, it already constitutes their very being. It follows that the natural closeness of angels to the Divine, or their natural deification, can no longer be increased, and even the incarnation in this sense does not affect their being. The Incarnation as its ontological precondition has the presence and difference of both natures, Divine and human. The latter has its own, albeit created, originality, and only on this basis is the “inseparability and non-fusion” of natures in Christ possible, attested to by the Chalcedonian dogma. The consequence of the incarnation is the communication of divine life to man, his deification and gracious adoption by God. For the angelic world, this precondition is absent, for angels do not have their own nature other than the divine (and therefore God’s acceptance of the angelic nature, as indicated above, would only mean the perception of His own nature, self-repetition, which is ontological non-sens). On the other hand, the purpose of such a new deification of the angels is also absent, because they received it in full measure at their creation 88 . From the properties of angelic nature stems their personal immortality. Immortality in man at the beginning, before the Fall, is only a possibility (posse nonmori, but not nonpossemori), which was to become a reality by a human feat, assisted by grace, but after the Fall, through which death entered, it could only be given by the Incarnation, the power of the resurrection of Christ 89. Naturally, man does not have the power of immortality, although he could overcome the possibility of death, due to the same originality of his nature and its associated created complexity, which is the cause of the instability of the union of body and soul. This complexity is absent in the angelic nature, but along with originality. Angels have already been created immortal, not in possibility, but in reality, such is their nature. “Aphids have an unpleasant nature, the most divine minds of Your honor are the throne” 90. Even Satan is not punished by death for his fall, but remains as immortal as before him 91. Fall for him, of course, is also a kind of spiritual dying, as a state of life, but there is nothing in him to die in the sense of the cessation or interruption of life, due to the dissolution of his very being. Death in man is precisely such a dissolution of soul and body, which in their union form human nature. The soul does not die even after death, however, a soul without a body and outside the body is not a person; it is deprived of the fullness of its nature. True, the death of the soul is also spoken of as a sinful separation from God, but this refers to the state of life, and not to death, as the destruction (temporary or final) of nature itself, representing some ontological catastrophe. There is no place in angelic nature for such a catastrophe. The hypostatic spirit is immortal as such (without distinction as to whether it is an angelic or a human being), it itself has the power of transtemporality and the stamp of eternity, the prototype of the Divine Hypostasis is transparent in it 92 . Therefore, the hypostasis in itself cannot die. The possibility of death lies in its connection with the corporeal nature and in this latter. But angels, as explained above, do not have their own nature, for they participate in the life of the Divine and feed on eternity. Therefore, they are eternal, although with created eternity, that is, if they are not beginningless and not self-initiated, they have the infinity of life, or immortality. This power of life is drawn by them from their participation in God, for created beings do not have the source of life in themselves, but in the Word of God and in the Life-giving Spirit. Between their life and this source there is no intermediary environment, which may turn out to be an obstacle - this is for a person his nature, in particular, his physical being. The life of angels consists in this unceasing participation in God and in this unceasing vision of God. “Surrounding the throne of all the king, the ever-rejoicing angels of all ranks”, “the dawns enlightened by the Trinity” 93, “the surrounding of God’s coming archistratis” 94, “richly adorned with three bright dawns, the angels incomprehensibly receive Your light appearance evermore” 95, “O angel of God, the Holy One stands before us directly” To the Trinity" 96, "thou hast shown light, O wise one, thy angels are an immaterial being, filled with ineffable light" 97. Immortality is the natural property of such creatures 98 . As created beings, already immortal by their creation, they have the power of life not in themselves, but in the Divine, thanks to their participation in God. Spiritual beings, although they do not need bodily food, which is necessary for a person, however, they also need spiritual food. The “bread of angels,” which is sometimes spoken of, is this spiritual communion, the spiritual Divine Eucharist, in which the Lamb of God is eternally slain, by whom all things were born, in love for creation. The Church testifies to the active participation that heavenly powers have in our earthly Eucharist: “now the heavenly powers serve with us invisibly.” But the Eucharist of the Incarnation and the Sacrifice of Calvary is the fulfillment of the eternal Eucharist of Heaven, the sacrificial love of the Son in obedience to the Father and in acceptance by the Holy Spirit. And the holy angels standing before the throne of the Holy. The Trinity also beholds this Premundane Eucharist and serves it in its earthly fulfillment: “The King of kings and Lord of lords comes to sacrifice and be given food to the faithful, and angelic faces pass by,” and this passage connects the heavenly mystery of the Holy Trinity with its earthly appearance. One cannot think that St. angels participate in the Divine Eucharist only as ministers; they are also partakers, although they partake (and partake) of 99 spiritual communion. And this communion of the angels, by which they ascend from strength to strength, is the food of angels, the “bread of angels” on which they feed. (The Word of God deliberately emphasizes that when angels appear to a person, they either do not eat the food offered to them, as in the appearance to Gideon, Judges 6:20-21, in the appearance to Manoah 13, 15, 20, in the story of Tobit, Tobit 12:19, or they eat for appearances, like the three angels who appeared to Abraham, Raphael on a journey with Tobit, Tob. 12:19.) Eating earthly bread is real for them, because it does not correspond to angelic nature, 100 and angels, as immortals, do not need food in the earthly sense and do not know bread. Therefore, the testimony of tradition, also contained in our liturgical books, that the Virgin Mary, during Her stay at the church, was fed by the Archangel Gabriel with the angelic bread he brought, cannot be understood literally, as if, in addition to earthly bread, there is also angelic bread, heavenly manna. Eating heavenly bread can only be understood spiritually, as a message from the arch. Gabriel in the personal communication of that heavenly power that he himself receives in his presence before the throne of God - participation in God is the food of the angels. Therefore, the immediacy of communication with the angel is indicated here, and through him the grace that was given to Preev. Virgo in Her Childhood 101. As immortal and incorporeal beings, angels do not know material food and do not need it. But as created beings, who do not have the power of their immortality from themselves, they need food, but this is spiritual food, the bread of God, which gives life to the world (John 6:33), “the bread of life” (6:35), which, having come in the flesh, allows Himself to be eaten, together with the angels, by humans, giving them the power of immortality. Angels are holy by nature, which is divine. The impoverishment of divine life in angels is unnatural or unnatural for them, because it deprives them of their inherent nature. However, it is possible, because it corresponds to the freedom inherent in all created spiritual beings, both angels and humans. The holiness of angels is characteristic of them in a double sense: by their nature and in their freedom - as an initial given and as a possibility freely realized (or not realized) by them. The Lord does not create His creations as things that have the law of their existence within them, but as free beings that realize themselves, and by the power of their freedom accept for themselves their own law. The freedom of created beings is at the same time the seal of the image of God with which God honored His creation, and at the same time the seal of created nothingness from which God called creation into being. In the first sense, freedom is the fundamental property of self-moving and independent spirits, in their likeness to the self-existent God (their aseitas), while in the second sense, created freedom is the shadow of that nothingness from which creatures are called into being. It is a mistake to think that created nothingness in its freedom contains any new sources of life and creativity besides God, which contain something completely new that enriches God himself. Such an illusion is self-deception: emptiness that seems like depth, bottomlessness that seems like inexhaustibility, bad infinity that seems like eternity. In reality, created nothingness contains nothing in itself 102 (and in this sense is the opposite of Divine Nothingness, in the depths of which everything is hidden). He accomplishes one thing: the potentialization of existence, the acceptance of reality as a possibility, the transformation of ον into μή ὂν, meonization. Meonality, as a state of not yet defined certainty, of unfulfilled possibility, seems richer and deeper than itself, deceiving with its lack of form and amorphism. The theme of being, its divine idea and task, is given in the general sophistry of creation, but created freedom is given the opportunity to have it not as a given, but as a possibility, which is realized by created freedom. Therefore, created creativity is not creativity from nothing; the thought of such absolute creativity is godless and antisophic (this is the pose of Lucifer, deceiving and captivating others). Created creativity has its own theme, which becomes its own only insofar as it is mastered and not rejected for the sake of a non-existent nothingness, rebellious in the emptiness. This, however, does not prevent such thematic creativity from being not only unlimited, but also endless, for this theme is divine, and therefore contains unlimited possibilities for implementation. “Be perfect like your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:48). So, freedom is a realized, but not yet realized, opportunity - to become oneself. This freedom for spiritual beings is revealed in two ways: in the pre-temporal moment, on the verge of entering life, between non-existence and being, in the act of creation, and in time, already throughout life. The first self-determination of freedom, lying behind or on top of our created being, and at the same time at the basis of it, is connected with the fact that God creates us as free beings, not apart from us, not without our consent to ourselves, not without our, albeit created, acceptance of creation. Our self, called into being by God, as His image or self-repetition, is pronounced for the first time by our own lips, by ourselves, for this cannot be done for us or without us. This union of God’s creation with human self-creation is the mystery of God’s creativity, already pre-found as realized in our consciousness, but inaccessible to further disclosure. Our temporary memory does not retain memories of our creation, but it is preserved by ontological memory, our self-consciousness, which testifies to us that this cannot be wrong. In the act of creation, we accepted ourselves, agreed with ourselves, became ourselves in our thematic plan and task. But with this the act of original freedom exhausts itself, it becomes a kind of metaphysical reality in which freedom and the need for the self-existence of the individual, in its personal quality, in the impossibility of self-denial or metaphysical suicide and death are completely balanced and extinguished. This act of freedom in creation is exhausted for already created beings; it remains metaphysically behind *). On the contrary, the second aspect of freedom - in time, as becoming - only begins from here, it consists in mastering one’s own, in self-realization. In it, possibility is overcome by reality, potentiality by reality. The possibility of life as self-creation is revealed to the created spirit. This self-creativity is an exit from meonality to the ideological crystal of reality, the idea passes into becoming, γένεσις (in Plato). The presence of this freedom, as the originality of the spirit, as the God-like originality of life, as the will to be, is an integral feature of the spiritual being, the stamp of the image of God. But freedom as potentiality, expressed in the presence of different possibilities - both being and non-existence or half-being, partial being - is subject to overcoming; it is a kind of creaturely preliminary state, like spiritual immaturity, as a result of which an oscillating choice between different ways of realizing oneself becomes possible. But the already accomplished realization, having become the only possible and valid one, ceases to be free in the sense of spiritual immaturity and uncertainty, but becomes a nature whose life is both free, as a spiritual, self-initiated and self-legitimate being, and necessary, as the only one possible for it. She thus stands on the other side of freedom and necessity. And overcoming created freedom, as an unfinished potentiality, unfulfilled self-determination, is the goal and limit of the development of every created being, which becomes from perverse and changeable (τρεπτός), according to the strength of its created weakness, immutable (ἀτρεπτος), achieves stability in itself 103. But, obviously, this intransibility can only be achieved on a positive, and not on a negative path, in good, but not in evil, for evil, not having the positive power of being and being its parasite, does not contain its own depth, which would correspond to eternal life. God did not create evil, which came into the world from created nothingness, from created limitations and only feeds on it 104. Therefore, only in regenerating within oneself the divine seeds of one’s own existence, “in salvation” through the communion of the soul with Divine life, with holiness, lies the overcoming of created freedom with its evil infinity and self-creativity for eternal life. “Be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 19:2). Let us now apply these general considerations about freedom to the angelic world. The angels, created saints by nature, by their divine nature, had to manifest in themselves this holiness given to them and in personal freedom, through it to realize in themselves all their capabilities - themselves. The angels, already in their creation, were each determined to serve in their own hierarchical position, and already in the act of creation they accepted this divine determination, making it their own. However, even they, as created beings, could not escape the state of preliminary created freedom, as the presence of different possibilities, a state of potentiality, and the only way out for them could be free, final self-determination, eliminating this potentiality. The presence of such a state of potentiality is absolutely indisputably clear from the possibility of the fall of the “sinned” (2 Pet. 2:4) angels, who “kept not their dignity, but left their dwelling place” (Jude 6). This fall itself is ontologically possible only through the power of created freedom, testifying to the presence of spiritual incompleteness, which leaves room for a fall or, more precisely, a falling away from one’s own nature (“abandonment of one’s home”). Moreover, this event did not happen initially, but in time, as can be concluded from the direct testimony of the Word of God (“I saw Satan falling from heaven” Luke 10:18, cf. about the war in heaven of Arch. Michael with the dragon and his army and about the overthrow of the dragon as an event in a chain of others: Rev. 12:7-9). Satan, before his fall, was the highest of the cherubim, assigned to the earthly creation 105. Therefore, his fall did not occur immediately, but already in view of the creation of our world. Neither the time nor the image of this fall is revealed to us, and only some general considerations remain available. For angels, who always see the face of God, the temptations of world-theism, which is shielded from God by the world and falls into cosmism or atheism, are completely unusual. For them, the possibility of religious doubt is excluded. God is for them the only overwhelming, self-evident reality. Therefore, the fall here is free from any ignorance, delusion or misunderstanding, like in humans, and it occurs in the pure form of fighting against God, which has a single source in the extinguishing of love. Love for God and the mutual love of angels, their unity, is that image of their existence, outside of which they cease to be themselves. However, love can only be free, and God left His creation the opportunity not only to love, but also not to love Himself, because without this freedom love would not be possible. For angels, loving means being yourself. They participate in the divine nature through the power of self-denying love for God, through sacrificial self-sacrifice through immersion in the divine ocean, for they do not have their own nature. They overcome their individual partiality and join the whole of Divine Wisdom only in loving, communal unity with other angels. Self-love for angels is ontological suicide - not in the sense of self-extinguishing of hypostatic being (which is impossible), but in the sense of emptying oneself through separation from one’s own nature. In church writing, the main motive for the fall of angels is understood in three ways: carnal lust for the daughters of men (Gen. 6), pride in the desire to become equal to God, and envy from the powerlessness to be compared with God. But all these motives constitute only a series of consequences of the main fall, which is a sin against love, that is, selfishness. Angels can only live in love and love; it is the most self-evident truth, the law of their life. How could love for God and brothers fade away in the bright cherub, the morning star, the son of the dawn? This is the dark secret of created freedom, which conceals within itself an unsurpassed abyss of non-existence, ready to open up until it is completely overcome and reduced to potency, to a ghostly shadow. There can be no explanation or interpretation for this, because such freedom - the created freedom of non-existence, is absolute arbitrariness, irrationality, but at the same time it forms the core of the free self, until it outgrows it, having reached that spiritual age when this meonal freedom will cease to exist, being forever surpassed. However, before this overcoming, its reality - with all the possibilities hidden in it - is the reality of creation itself. It testifies to the sincerity of the intention of the Creator, who completely humbled himself before His creation, giving it true reality. Thus, this same reality is given to the absolute arbitrariness of non-sens-a [nonsense], as one of the possibilities of created freedom. Love can only be free, because unfree it is not love. And free love is disinterested (understanding self-interest in the most sublime sense - the possession of the benefits that accompany it). You can love not for these benefits or for the sake of them, for such prudence is selfishness and slavery, and not love. You can love only for the sake of love itself, for the sake of God himself. And this is precisely the love of angels - with such love they love God. A negative confirmation of this is the fall of Satan as a result of the extinction of love, which is erroneous and insane in its metaphysical profligacy, but precisely because of this it is an absolutely arbitrary, autocratic, free act, testifying to the high nature of former love. Also, the angels, led by Michael, who fought with him, out of love for God, “did not love their souls even to death” (Rev. 12:11), in other words, they also demonstrated freedom, selflessness and sacrifice of love to the end. (From these mysterious words it follows that in the struggle of Michael and the angels with the dragon and his angels, there was for them some kind of unknown danger “even to death.”) The extinction of love has as its consequence the most terrifying spiritual egoism and isolation, which a person cannot know, being after all a tribal being, as such connected by natural threads with his race. Such natural connections do not exist in the angelic world. They are connected by a relationship of personal love, in which and through which their unity in divine Wisdom is revealed to them. In love for God and in mutual love they realize their conciliar unity, which with the loss of it crumbles, giving way to lonely, cold individualism. Due to this property of the angelic nature, the fall of individual angels remains isolated and does not spread directly to the entire angelic world, just as through the fall of one man - the first Adam - sin entered the entire human race, and by the resurrection of One it is all saved from death. In the angelic world there was a division and “war”, which has no analogy in the history of mankind (war and division within one human race, the confrontation between Christ and Antichrist within its history, has a different, already derivative meaning). Although the fall of one first angel did not directly spread to the entire council of angels, it nevertheless infected individual angels and captivated them by its example. In Revelation it is said about the dragon that “his tail carried away a third of the stars from heaven and cast them to the ground” (12:4), and the means of deception were lies (the devil is “a liar and the father of lies” - John 8-44) and slander (“the slanderer of our brethren was cast down, who slandered them before our God day and night” - Rev. 12:10) 106. In heaven, the devil found a field for his satanic energy and “carried away” with his example and his slander other angels, “a third of the stars” (it is difficult to say whether this should be attributed directly to the number of fallen angels or whether it has a different hidden meaning). Spiritual communication between all angels, obviously, did not cease after the fall of Satan and his minions, and he still remains in heaven for some time before his overthrow. Whether this fall of the angels took place instantly or gradually, we have no indication. However, the devil finds the first field for his selfishness and lust for power already in heaven, until his overthrow occurred, and he fell from heaven like lightning (Luke 10:18). According to the testimony of the Word of God, his overthrow from heaven, from the spiritual world, did not occur through the omnipotent action of the punishing right hand of God, but through a “war of angels.” God did not violate the freedom of creation here either, but allowed it to determine itself in consciousness and action. Although only love truly unites, however, opposition to it, hatred, unites those who are angry with solidarity in evil, commonality of action and purpose. The domain of Satan therefore forms a special kingdom with its legions, which exists inseparably as long as it has the power and possibility of possession (cf. Matt. 12:25–26; Mark 3:24–25; Luke 11:17–18). It is impossible to say exactly whether the structure of this kingdom corresponds to the former hierarchical position of the angels, but it has a basis. Of course, this solidarity in evil remains strong only as long as a common field of action remains. Victory of the arch. Michael over the dragon and the overthrow of the devil and his angels from heaven is a decisive event for the entire heavenly world. A voice in heaven (obviously belonging to one of the angels) proclaims: “Rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them” (Rev. 12:12). This overthrow is the final localization of evil in the angelic world, after which it remains free from it. According to the belief of the Church, having gone through this trial and struggle, the angels were finally confirmed in love for God and acquired an immutable strength in goodness: “from the Holy Spirit, the sanctified angels who have gathered against evil remain motionless and adored to the first good ascent” 107 . The spiritual age of freedom, as the presence of various possibilities, not yet revealed potentiality, has passed for them, they have surpassed created freedom, turned to the original nothingness with its chiaroscuro, and are now irrevocably turned to the Divine light “even to the first good ascent of the adored.” Life of St. angels are constant deification in unity with each other. By analogy with humanity, here we can talk about the accomplished salvation of the angels, not from sin, but from the possibility of falling, and this self-salvation was accomplished by the forces of the angels themselves, their love for God, by the power of the Blood of the Lamb, shed from eternity for the salvation of the world. What could the life of fallen angels be like, and what are they based on? After their fall, having been torn away from God, they lost the opportunity to live by the divine nature and unite with the council of angels, replenishing each other in it. Their existence was emptied and became like spiritual death, and, however, personal immortality and the thirst for life remained inalienable to them. They retained the spiritual and emotional structure of life with all its possibilities: will, reason, the ability of mental movements, but all this became unnatural and empty. However, for the time being, this emptiness is filled parasitically, evil feeds from good and hatred from love by fighting them, initially in the heavenly world, and after being cast down from heaven in ours. “Woe to those who live on earth and on the sea, for the devil has come down to you in great rage, knowing that he does not have much time left” (Rev. 12:12). The fall of Satan occurred, so to speak, in view of the human world, in which he wanted to become the “prince of this world,” its god, to capture it from God and thereby make up for the lack of his own life. The existence of Satan and demons is parasitic, they feed on the evaporation of this world, are attracted to its sinful passions and strive to corrupt it, making it their own nature, which they lack. Therefore, already in the Garden of Eden, the seducer, the “ancient serpent” appears, having won victory over the ancestors, just as in the desert he tries to tempt the Lord as the ruler of the world, showing Him in a vision all his subordinate kingdoms. And then he wages an irreconcilable, final struggle with the true King of the world. He enters Judas after the piece was given to him (John 13:27) in order to destroy the Lord through him (“the prince of this world is coming” John 14:30), but he finds himself “condemned” (16:11) and “will be cast out” (12:31), and “the powers of the principalities and powers are taken away” (Col. 2:15). However, before this final expulsion from the world and eruption into the “lake of fire” (Rev. 19, 20; 20, 10), the devil wages a tireless struggle for this world, right up to the last uprising of Gog and Magog (Rev. 20, 7–8) and the last attempt to become human into “the man of sin, the son of destruction” (2 Thess. 2, 3–4 ). Thus, although, having separated from God, Satan and his angels closed for themselves the possibility of spiritual growth and knowledge, yet in their parasitic existence they reveal a certain progress in evil and the creativity of evil, their metaphysical egoism from static becomes dynamic, emptiness passes over effectiveness. But after the last division, when the world becomes the Kingdom of God, Satan and his angels will remain again and completely unnatural, plunging into a state of metaphysical emptiness: a hypostasis that thirsts for natural life and does not have it - a fire that does not go out and a worm that does not fall asleep - “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” through his expulsion from the world. This state of naked subjectivity without any possibility of freeing oneself from it and satisfying it, which is shared by people who have emptied themselves, represents the hellish fire of extreme metaphysical suffering, the unnaturalness of hypostatic life. It has its source in the coldness of egoism, freedom in non-love. God leaves Satan in his own will, in the spiritual dead end into which he has brought himself. Can this experience of emptiness, the final bankruptcy of rebellious creation, remain fruitless, and there is no longer a path to repentance? The Church prohibits this question, as incompatible with our current consciousness. The good angels, having surpassed created freedom with the variability arising from it, were forever established in life in God, and eternal life had already begun for them. The time of free self-determination and struggle with fallen angels represents in the angelic world a certain semblance of our age, as a time of testing, after which the life of the next century, eternal life, will come. But angels still remain created spirits, with created limitations. By joining the divine life, they do not receive the properties of the Divine itself: omniscience, omnipotence, immutability, self-sufficiency, super-temporality, super-spatiality, superiority, and in general absoluteness. The created limitations of angels are expressed, first of all, in their metaphysical finitude or formation. Angels necessarily have their own internal form, a certain way of being. This is not contradicted by their spirituality or ethereality. Formation has power not only for physical existence, but also for spiritual existence, and it simultaneously means the power of existence inherent in its reality, and at the same time limitation. Only God is free from any limitation, and therefore from any form, He is above form. This does not mean that in God there is no power of design, formlessness reigns; no, He has in His Wisdom the totality of all forms produced by Him in the creation of the world, He is the form of forms, as their absolute basis. However, although God unites all forms in Himself, He Himself remains not subject to them and is not determined by any form. On the contrary, everything created has its own, first of all, internal form - a created idea, which then reveals itself outside. But the formality of angels is already a metaphysical limitation, which establishes for them an insurmountable distance from God, and at the same time it quality their being, they receive the power of mutual distinction and relationship. The angels, belonging to the same council and, therefore, having a common spiritual image, at the same time differ from each other, and from this arises the possibility for their mutual relations, their “conciliarity,” for both beings completely alien to each other and completely identical, mutually repeating creatures are unable to “unction.” In relation to God, the life of angels is an unceasing knowledge of God through living God, an ascent that has no limit. In relations among themselves, the life of angels is the reciprocity of grace-filled enlightenment and leading each other into the image of a hierarchical relationship, and, however, the lower ranks retain their independent significance for the higher ones, for all angels are individually qualified and enter into the fullness of the angelic world (in the image of the structure of the body of the Church, consisting of many different and equally necessary members in their differences - 1 Cor. 12, 12-27). And this mutual knowledge and common life of angels for themselves has its own language, which, of course, differs from the human one in its intuitiveness. However, this difference can only concern the outer shell of the language - like the difference between different human languages ​​108, but not the word itself, which remains one for all creation, just as the Word itself is one, by which all things were (John 1:1-3). Language comes from words, and words in different languages ​​have as their content the single inner word of the things themselves, and these words-meanings-essences come from the Divine Word, with which God spoke the whole world. And this general truth is confirmed by the fact that the words of angels are also human. For the song of the angels was told to us by the prophet (Isa. 6) and the evangelist (Luke 2) in human language, and the speeches of angels to men are also spoken in human language, and - what is decisive here - the God-Man Himself spoke with this human language, and not only to men, but to His Father, who also answered Him in human language. All this clearly confirms that the inner language is one, for there is one Word 109. Therefore, the decisive significance here is not that the angels speak in a special way or in their own language (this goes without saying), but that they speak, have a word, and it is an image of their mutual enlightenment, and at the same time it is for them a means of praising God. It is useless to go into further speculation regarding the special properties of the angelic language. Of course, the language of disembodied spirits differs from human language in its spontaneity or intuitiveness. The “inner word,” or the meaning of the word, appears here unembodied in the outer shell, which the angelic word takes on only when meeting a human one. In this sense, we can say that the angelic language contains the ideal semantic prototype of the human language. No matter how high the St. angels are on the ladder of divine wisdom and mutual knowledge, however, while remaining createdly limited beings, they are also limited in their knowledge, which therefore can constantly be enriched and expanded. This applies both to their general penetration into the life of the Holy Trinity and comprehension of the Wisdom of God, and to events in the life of the world in which the creative will of God is manifested, in the construction of the salvation of the human race (for example, the angels rejoice over the one sinner who repents: Luke 15:10). Of course, the attitude of St. angels to the mystery of the Incarnation, foreshadowed by God to men in paradise, cannot be considered complete ignorance, however, for the completeness of this knowledge of this mystery, revealed in the Church, “angels also desire to enter” (1 Peter 1:12; cf. Eph. 3:10; 1 Tim. 3:16). Likewise, knowing about the second coming of the Lord with the holy angels and about the Last Judgment, they “do not know about it” (Matthew 24:36; Mark 10:32). Likewise, according to the testimony of the church song, the angels “marvel” at the fact that the events of our salvation took place in vain (see. choruses in the services of the twelve, the Lord's and the Mother of God holidays). Of course, this “surprise” should be understood in the sense not so much of being amazed by the new and unknown, but of penetration into a fully revealed accomplishment 110. One must think that both in the general life of the world and as part of creation, angels, being inextricably linked with it, know it to an ever greater extent, to the extent that they know themselves. (Here a comparison can be made with the gradualness of human world- and self-knowledge, which, although still obscured and complicated by sinfulness, already in its created nature contains the beginning of limitation.) Thus, in the life of angels it is possible to establish a certain development and growth, the presence of a real fullness of time, which is inherent in generally created existence in its limitation at each moment of time, and at the same time potential unlimitedness in the fullness of time. The facets of this development and its ages remain inaccessible to human discernment, except for those directly indicated by the teaching of the Church (in particular, the time of testing of angels). The angels standing before the throne of God, in their turn to the Divine, devote themselves to the knowledge of God, the thought of God, and theology. In their turning towards each other, they realize the knowledge of the forms of all things, which in human language we call philosophy (philosophy) and world studies (science). At the same time, they not only contemplate and cognize, but also glorify God, respond to His greatness with the creative movement of their spirit, like living mirrors of the Uncreated Light. The Holy Church in her prayers and hymns constantly testifies that St. The angels stand before the throne of God, “singing a song of victory, crying, crying and speaking” (these four expressions in different ways describe the singing of angels). The singing of angels is the prototype of all, in particular our human singing, the doxology of angels is the basis of our human doxology, in which, according to the expression of the Church, the saints also participate. angels. We have direct evidence of the praise of angels from Isa. 6, 3 – about the seraphim: “And they called to each other and said: Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts! The whole earth is full of His glory." This trisagion of angels is a praise to the Holy Trinity, which the seraphim, flying, call to each other. This important indication suggests that this doxology contains not only a personal appeal to God of each angel, but also forms the beginning of their mutual communication, common life, conciliarity: it is not only prayer, but also a common mutual creative inspiration, which in human language we call art. The vision of Ezekiel (chapter 1), which contains, in a certain respect, the image of the angelic world, occurs silently (except for the sound of wings). Words and sounds here are replaced by light and color: wheel rims full of eyes, the sparkling legs of angels, their appearance as burning coals or lamps and the radiance from fire and lightning, the likeness of a throne above their heads as if made of sapphire stone and flaming metal as if fire inside the likeness of a person, a certain fire and radiance around it, like a rainbow on the clouds during a fire. This phenomenon of the angelic world, “the radiance of the glory of the Lord” (10:4), is light 111 - (and only the prophet hears in connection with the vision “behind him a great thunderous voice: blessed is the glory of the Lord from his place!” - Ezek. 3:12, i.e. he also hears praise). The angelic doxology is performed here not through word and sound, but through light and colors, images and forms. In the language of human art, this name is art, the art of form and paint, light and chiaroscuro. The doxology of the angels was revealed to man even at the Nativity of Christ - in the appearance of “the numerous host of heaven, glorifying God and crying: glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:13-14). This doxology, unlike the vision of Isaiah, has as its subject a certain event in the life of the world - the incarnation of God. It contains the glorification not only of God in heaven, but also of peace on earth and goodwill shown to men, i.e. embraces heaven and earth, the life of the entire universe. This is also indicative of the angels themselves, who include the fate of creation in their praise. In the vision of the Seer (Rev. 4:6-8) four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind and inside, similar to those seen by Ezekiel, “they have no rest day or night, crying out: holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty, who was, is and is to come” - a doxology similar to that heard by Isaiah. This is a song to the greatness of God in eternity. But in Rev. 5:812 we already have a doxology to the redeeming Lamb: the four living creatures, together with the 24 elders, “sing a new song, saying: You are worthy to take the book and to open the seals from it; for Thou wast slain, and with Thy blood hath redeemed us to God... And I saw and heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and of the living creatures, and of the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand ten thousand, and thousands upon thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and meekness, and honor, and glory, and favor.” Here the glorification of the slain Lamb is performed, that is, already God the Savior and Redeemer, God in creation. And a remarkable feature of this doxology of the angels is that with them is united in the doxology “every creature that is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and everything that was in them, I heard saying: To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever” (5:13). Thus, in one doxology of the same content, the angelic and human worlds, all of creation, are united. The indicated images of praise, of course, do not exhaust all the images of the angels’ praise to God. And, testifying to their inexhaustibility, he appeals to St. to the angels the psalmist: “Bless the Lord, all His angels, mighty in strength, who do His word” (Ps. 102:20). “Praise the Lord from heaven, praise Him in the highest. Praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His might” (Ps. 149:1-2). Further, the psalmist makes the same call to all creation. Also in the song of the three youths in the fiery furnace (Dan. 3:58): “Bless the Lord, angels of the Lord, sing and exalt Him forever” (then follows the same call to all creation and to the sons of men). This also includes such testimonies of the Church as, for example: “Thy Resurrection, O Christ the Savior, the angels sing in heaven and make us worthy on earth,” etc. The doxology and hymn of angels has, first of all, as we learn from Revelation, a divinely visual and divinely thought content, relating to God in himself - to the mysteries of the Holy Trinity, to the holiness of God that surpasses understanding (trisagion), to the three Holy Hypostases separately, to the mysteries of the incarnation and economy, to God the Creator and the greatness of His creation. Theology is united here with the study of the world. Doxology is testimony to God as the Truth in itself and as the truth of all things. In our human language, we should call in this regard doxology God-wisdom or theology, philosophy or philosophy, and world-wisdom or cosmology. The Divine Logos is also the logos of the created world, its truth, meaning and regularity, and knowledge of the logic of things is connected with the knowledge of the Logos, just as the reflection of the sun is connected, and in a certain sense, identical in content with itself. Rising to the comprehension of the Logos of the world, the cognizing mind itself becomes the Logos due to its participation in it; it is the self-consciousness of the Logos in its created otherness 112. The Divine Logos is one in all creation, He is the same in the angelic world and in the human world. Therefore, we have the right to bring together, not in degree, but in quality, angelic knowledge and human knowledge and see in the first the prototype of the second. Next, we must again remember that the seraphim, in the vision of Isaiah, call out the thrice-holy song to each other: this means that the song, in its content, is a common and mutual work of the entire angelic world, it is, first of all, the angels’ own life for themselves, their knowledge, which by the power and truth of things becomes doxology. So, we must highlight in the praise of the angels the knowledge of God and the world, the power of thought and knowledge, as the creative element of their own life. And doxology should not be understood statically, as a motionless contemplation of what is invariably given, shown or seen, but must be comprehended dynamically, as unceasing creativity in knowledge, a deepening knowledge of the Creator in Himself and in creation. And this knowledge unites the angelic world with the human, as the direct evidence of the Word of God speaks of this - Revelation 5, 13, Ps. 102 and 142, song of the youths Dan. 3, 58 ff. - that man is called to praise together with the angels. And this applies, of course, both to doxology in general and, in particular, to its content, that is, to the knowledge of God. It is possible, however, to establish here the difference in the images of cognition of angelic and human, with the indisputable unity of their divine root. There is, first of all, a huge difference in the knowledge of God in terms of clarity of comprehension, which is characteristic of disembodied spirits and those clothed with human flesh. This is where the intuitive nature of angelic knowledge, in contrast to the discursive human one, comes from. The difference in world knowledge is determined, further, by what can be called the disinterestedness of angelic knowledge, in contrast to the involuntarily selfish, pragmatic, economic and technical attitude to knowledge in man, for whom the world is an arena of struggle for existence, labor by the sweat of his brow. This imposes on human cognition the stamp of subjugation and selfishness. On the contrary, angelic knowledge has freedom, generally inherent only in art; it is knowledge as creativity, as intelligent art 113. However, human knowledge, with all its pragmatism, also cannot completely renounce the loving-contemplative, freely disinterested attitude towards its subject, this is the pathos of knowledge, its angelic wings (and to that extent, reckless and unconditional pragmatism or economism in the understanding of knowledge, which has its ultimate expression in modern economic materialism, is slander against man). However, these wings are always connected, since a person in knowledge is not only a contemplator - an artist, a free seeker of truth, but also a master, who is at the same time a slave. For him, practical half-truths turn out to be more necessary and more important than truth, and the criterion of usefulness invariably argues with the criterion of truth. Therefore, the knowledge of angels invariably is praise, but in the human world - alas! – this is not the rule, but rather the exception. Moreover, for man, the existence of God is not such an obvious truth as for the angelic world; on the contrary, the existence of the world has a natural, forced evidence for man, which the existence of God does not have. From this it becomes clear that the sad phenomenon is that world knowledge and divine knowledge for man not only do not merge together, as in the angelic world, but are often mutually opposed. The world obscures God, and world studies not only are not theology and doxology, as in the angelic world, but they are usually even opposed to each other. The doxology of the angels is the contemplation and praise not only of Truth, but also of Beauty. In this sense, it is in its essence artistic creativity, art, in the true sense of the word. This nature of it is obvious from the fact that the doxology is a song and is called a song. By this it is imprinted as the creative embodiment of ideas of truth in images of beauty, as the creativity of beauty in the image of Beauty. “Singing” here is a general designation for art—art in general. Singing combines the art of words and sound, versification and music in their unity, and also, of course, separately. What is the art of words - a word clothed in the form of beauty, versification in relation to the word itself, as meaning? Here the semantic word and its connection with all other semantic words - logos and logic - are not abolished, for they are indestructible, as having a basis in the Logos, to which everything was. Everything in the world, all things are words and meanings in their mutual connection, and they speak themselves in a word (in this regard, it makes no difference - angelic or human). But in addition to logos and logic, there is something else in the element of the word that is not contained in the word-meaning and logical connection, although it does not cancel them. This is a form, a rhythm, a sound vestment, through which the word is dressed in beauty, illuminated with a new light, illuminated from within, becomes not just a word, but a song, a hymn, a glorification. In modern language, this art of words is called poetry, and hymnology is called versification, poetic speech, which includes not only poetic speech in the narrow sense, but also rhythmic speech in general, surrounded by the beauty of form (in contrast to prosaic speech, which is dryly semantic and logical). In general, we can say that speech is never separated from the artistic, poetic form, it is always formalized, and the beauty of the word is inseparable from the meaning, just as the life of the Hypostasis of the Word and the Holy Spirit resting on Him are inseparable. However, in human usage, along with general utilitarian pragmatism, prosaism, insensitivity to the beauty of the word, and a certain mediocrity in it invade. Words, deprived of life and beauty, dry up and turn, as it were, into credit tokens, replacing a full-fledged coin (this is how new words are now formed in our homeland). These are dry leaves, rustling like paper, but not ringing. The life of the word in beauty in the Church becomes the property of sacred, liturgical chant, and in the worldly realm it becomes the destiny of special artistic creativity, poetry. At the same time, the element of beauty in the word is revealed, the word not only as a divine meaning, but also as a divine form. The attitude towards this form connects, but at the same time also separates the human and angelic worlds. The angels sing unceasingly, “having no rest day or night,” like the four animals of Revelation (4, 8). Not knowing human exhaustion, they do not know human prosaicism. Their word is a song, their knowledge is art - the rhapsody of the world in angelic songwriting. And, however, there is a single Beauty, piercing heaven and earth with its rays, known to both angels and people. Human art has its prototype in the angelic, human art is related to the angelic, has its basis in it and together with it goes back to the original source of God - Beauty. “The Lord reigns, He is clothed with beauty”: clothed with beauty is the Kingdom of God coming in power. A word, clothed in the form of beauty, ceases to be itself, retaining, however, all its semantic power: it is already a super-word, a metalogos, not only meaning, but also beauty, beauty in meaning. Therefore, in the chant, human song is combined with angelic song, as in a certain sense homogeneous, which is why the possibility of joint service between humans and angels becomes clear. It follows from this that the difference between human and angelic language is not a dividing obstacle. This is also confirmed by the fact that the singing of angels, heard by a person, finds direct access to the human soul, is perceived by him or translated into human language. Isaiah tells about the song of the seraphim he heard, and the Seer of Secrets joins him in this. (According to Tradition, the Trisagion, sung by angels, was heard by a youth lifted into the air.) All this says that angelic singing is akin to human hymnology. However, here we must take into account all the difference that exists between human life and angelic life. That which in our life constitutes a rare holiday among the tedious everyday life - singing, the light of poetry, beauty - this is the element that fills the entire life of the saint. angels who know no rest either day or night in song. Another, even more important, difference is that thanks to the holiness of the angels, all their hymnology is praise to God, while in human hymnology only a little is direct doxology, and in the vast majority of cases a greater or lesser share of human, passionate and sinful nature is applicable to it, in general it is darkened and burdened with flesh and sin. However, the very power of beauty and creativity, even regardless of the subject, elevates a person to the heights of the angelic world, from where invoking praise is heard. But singing and praise contains, in addition to the beauty of the poetic word, another element, the beauty of sound, music. Sound in music is obtained from its natural source - the human organ of speech, and then from musical instruments. On this basis, musical accompaniment is possible, a combination of singing and music, which is captured by the psalmist: “Praise Him with the trumpet, praise Him with the psaltery and the harp. Praise Him with the tympanum and face, praise Him with the strings and the organ” (Ps. 150:3-6). This demonstrates a certain unity of human and instrumental, that is, non-human sound in music and chants, which is very significant and important. In nature, everything has not only weight, shape, heaviness, color, but also sound, although the latter cannot always be extracted or made accessible to our ear (“harmony of the celestial spheres”!). This universal fact is realized in different ways. Nature is full of non-musical sounds - noises from which we distinguish musical sounds and weave them into music. Leaving aside the physical-acoustic and musical-theoretical side of sound, we can say that if sound is some kind of self-detection, self-evidence of existence, then musical sound and music is the endowment of sound with beauty, a form that has power both for an individual sound and for their connection. Music, as such, is the beauty of sound, regardless of the word meaning. Musical sound is something different, greater and higher than simple sound. Sound, as the sound of matter, is a property or state of matter, while musical sound is already meta-matter, having matter as its substrate, it rises above matter, to the world of disembodied spirits. The genius of language testifies to this when we involuntarily talk about sweet sounds: angelic sounds, angelic singing. And truly, music and singing are audible messages from another, higher, angelic world, connecting the world above and below. Every living thing sings, blessing the Lord, and all creation is called to this song (in the psalms and the song of the three youths). It is remarkable that the ability to sing and musicality in general is the property of not only the human, but also the animal world, especially birds and some insects. In man, music becomes conscious creativity, art. In singing, man and all creation are truly united with the singing of angels, as such, despite all the differences in its perfection and quality. The difference here remains both quantitative and qualitative. Singing and music in the human world gilds only the surface of sound, the life of which consists of non-musical and even anti-musical ugly and ugly noises and cacophonies. Natural sound, heavy and inert, is impenetrable to music, like the matter of which it is a property. On the contrary, angelic sounds, the prototype of earthly sound, are musically transparent through and through, they are already music and singing. Also, in terms of its vital significance, human and especially animal sound serves, first of all, to express material, lustful and carnal life, passions and desires. And human music and singing serve to invest - if not beauty, then beauty - passions, high and low. Even that pragmatism, which we have already noted in the field of thought and knowledge, manifests itself here too, subordinating the musical life of a person to the needs of his mortal, carnal existence, to the events of his temporary life. We can say that only a certain participation in singing and music, which fill the angelic life, like doxology, is available to man and the human world. And, nevertheless, artistic creativity in sounds, the art of singing and music is a reflection of the angelic world, which penetrates the human world with its singing. This is one of the diverse expressions of the reality of Jacob’s ladder, along which the angels of God ascend and descend from heaven to earth. And the human soul remembers these angelic sounds in hours of inspiration: “and the sounds of heaven could not be replaced by the boring songs of the earth.” The basis for the art of sound is in the angelic world, in its harmonies. This is the true music of the celestial spheres, which the ancient Pythagoreans discerned in the movement of the luminaries. In human creativity there is another area - the art of light, color and form, fine art. It receives its church consecration, along with the art of sound, in church architecture, mural painting and icon painting. The art of visual (in painting), and together with tactile forms (in sculpture and architecture) reveals Beauty in the world, along with the beauty of nature. It also has a prototype for itself in the angelic doxology. However, there is no direct evidence of this, and one only has to conclude on the basis of the data of Revelation. Is the creativity of forms and colors, their singing, so to speak, included, together with verbal singing, in the angelic praise? It cannot help but enter, for it also has a basis for itself in the angelic world, in the region of pure forms and colors. Angels are the second lights, mirrors of the Uncreated Light, in which there is no place for any shadow and which is above forms. But the second lights, as created lights, called to life from non-existence, already contain within themselves the possibility of chiaroscuro and the need for a boundary, therefore, formality. The white ray of the Divine Sun is transcendental to color, it is colorless, because it is super-colored, it embraces all possible colors and colors. But the second lights already enter the realm of color and paint. The angelic world has in its chiaroscuro, which corresponds to its creation, as created from nothing, all the fullness and richness of form and color, both for the heavenly and for the entire earthly world. These forms and colors clothe the world with beauty, creatively contemplated in the visual arts. It consolidates these heavenly visions in the images of the earthly world and sees the supernatural in nature. Shapes and colors, like musical sounds, are directly related to matter, but they also overcome it. They are metamatter in matter, in them it surpasses itself, rises beyond itself. Beauty in the world and in art is for us a tangible ladder between heaven and earth 114. But is it possible to limit the existence of angels, as prototypes of all forms and colors, to only a passive state that does not have a creative beginning in itself, or, on the contrary, is it a kind of self-creativity, creative self-determination? It is enough to pose this question to recognize that only one answer is possible, namely, that the angelic nature actually has itself, effectively determines itself. The same applies to angelic praise, which is performed not only in songs and words, but also in pictures and colors. This can be indirectly confirmed by the consideration that angelic praise cannot be poorer than human praise. In human praise (church worship), all arts participate, not only verbal and musical, but also visual, not only word and sound, but also gesture, color, form, and fragrance. And to all this there is a correspondence and a fundamental basis in the angelic praise. Here it is appropriate to remember once again that in the doxologies of the psalms of praise and in the song of the three youths, the call to praise God is addressed to all creation (“bless all the works of the Lord the Lord, sing and exalt Him forever”), and then all his images are listed together with angels at the head: the elements and forces of nature, fish and animals, and finally, the servants of the Lord. What does this unity mean? How, together with the angels, can the sun and moon, the stars of heaven, all rain and dew, all the winds, fire and heat, cold and heat, dew and frost, nights and days, light and darkness, ice and frost, frost and snow, lightning and clouds, the earth, mountains and hills, the sea and rivers, whales and everything that moves in the waters, all the birds of the air, animals and all livestock along with the sons of men, praise, sing and extol the Lord? (Dan. 3, 58–82)? Obviously, together with the angels and in the angels, the entire universe sings and praises the Lord with all its qualities: color, light, shape, sonority, sparkle, transparency, fragrance, tactility. And don’t the angels of fire, winds, waters and other elements, about which Revelation speaks, also have something in the image of their existence that corresponds to precisely these elements? If beauty is diffused in all of them, in a variety of shapes and colors, then all this, like some kind of art, is included in the doxology of the angels. A hint of this is given by the iconography, which dresses the angels not only in “shining” Sunday vestments, but also in various, varied colors. Such is the praise of angels, their prayer life, creativity, revealing themselves and their being to the glory of God. But their prayer life is not limited to doxology and thanksgiving. It also includes their work of love for the world, prayer for the human race, and constant intercession for it, as evidenced by St. Church 115. Angels have no need to pray for themselves, as well as for their brothers, for in their lives that fullness and perfection has already been realized that will be achieved for the world only in the life of the next century, when “God will be all things and in all.” Their only prayer for themselves is doxology and thanksgiving. But while our world goes through the pangs of its birth, while “the whole creation groans and suffers together until now,” “waiting for the revelation of the sons of God,” and we “we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:19-23), the angels contribute to the world, in addition to their direct service, with unceasing prayer for it. In this way they not only serve the world, but also satisfy the needs of their own lives, for they were created by the God of love for love. However, unlike their own life in the doxology, here they are connected with the life of our world, with its changing state. Through this, to a certain extent, they themselves are drawn into the life of our world, which they serve, live a common life with it in all its incompleteness, participate in its historical process, as the Revelation of St. John the Theologian. Chapter 6: Theophanies and Angelophanies One of the most important features of theophany in the Old Testament is that God appears to people in the form of an angel, or vice versa, an angel represents the face of God. Let us establish, first of all, this very fact in its universality, on the basis of the biblical narrative. Genesis, ch. 16: the appearance of the angel of the Lord to Hagar in the desert, and, however, this angel speaks to her directly from the face of God: “By multiplying, I will multiply your descendants” (v. 10). “And Hagar called the Lord who spoke to her by this name: You are the God who sees me” (13), which is the name the source there received. Genesis, ch. 18–19: the appearance of three Angels to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre, in which the Church generally sees the appearance of the Holy Trinity. The conversation of one of the Angels with Abraham and Sarah goes like this: “and the Lord said” (18: 13, 17, 20, 26, 33). Genesis, ch. 31, 11,13: Jacob says: “The angel of God said to me in a dream: Jacob, I am God, who appeared to you at Bethel, where you poured oil on the memorial and where you made a vow to Me.” Genesis, ch. 22: Sacrifice of Isaac. The Angel of the Lord, who appeared to Abraham, speaks here on behalf of God: “I know that you fear God, and did not withhold your son, your only son, from Me” (22, 12, 15-18). Exodus, chapter 3: the burning bush appears to Moses. “And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a thorn bush” (v. 3) “And God called to him from the midst of the bush... and said: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob” (6ff., until the very revelation of the name of God Jehovah). This same thing is confirmed in the speech of the first martyr Stephen: “an angel of the Lord appeared (to Moses) in the desert of Mount Sinai in the flames of a burning thorn bush” (Acts 7:30), and at the same time it says here: “and when he came to look, the voice of the Lord came to him” (v. 31). And then even more expressively: “This Moses... God sent through an angel who appeared to him in a thorn bush as a leader and deliverer” (v. 35). On the Sinaitic legislation in Ex. 19:3 only says: “Moses went up to God (on the mountain), and the Lord called to him, speaking from the mountain” (and further in Chapter 19 it all the time talks about the commandments of the Lord himself, the manifestation of His Glory, etc. Until the end of the book of Exodus). And, nevertheless, this theophany is explained in the New Testament as angelophany, namely, in the same speech of Stephen it is directly said about Moses: “he is the one who was in the meeting in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai.” And just as definitely in the Epistle to the Galatians (3:19) it is said that the law was “taught through angels” (already plural, in contrast to the singular in Stephen). This also includes Heb. 24: “for if through angels (also plural) the word proclaimed was established,” then how careless we are about salvation, “which, having been first preached by the Lord,” was confirmed by God with signs, and wonders, and the dispensation of the Holy Spirit 116. Exodus 13:21–14: the precedence of Israel during the Exodus from Egypt of the Lord Himself (cf. Num. 14:14, Deut. 1:33; 4:37, Neh. 9:19), which, however, is also said: “and the angel of God moved, walking before the camp” (14:19). Wed. also Num. 20, 16 117. Exodus 23, 20–23: The Lord says to Israel: “Behold, I am sending an angel to guard you on the way... Watch yourself before Him and listen to His voice, do not persist against Him, for He will not forgive your sin, for My name is in Him.” Number 22, 23 v.: the story of the prophet Balaam, which speaks of the appearance of the Angel of the Lord, who speaks, however (vv. 32-3), directly from the person of the Lord (similar to Judgment 2, 1-4). Court. 6, 1–4: the angel of the Lord is spoken of appearing to Gideon, and the angel is further directly spoken of: “The Lord looked upon him and said”: (vv. 14,16, also 23), and then again the “angel of God” is spoken of. The same is true for the Court. 13, which tells about the appearance of the angel of God to Manoah, and the angel asked about the name answered him: “Why are you asking about My Name? it is wonderful” (13:18) (the words: “Why do you ask about My Name?” were literally said during God’s appearance to Jacob when he was wrestling with God). Finally, this also includes the naming of the “great council of the Angel” in Isaiah 9:6. Based on the above comparisons, one can see that the identification of the appearance of God and an angel, theophany and angelophany runs like a red thread through all Old Testament revelation. And this is so obvious that for a rationalistic understanding all that remains is to see only traces of the original polytheism. For a believer to understand this fact requires a deliberate explanation. The Old Testament does not know direct revelation of God. God is inaccessible (transcendental) to man. “No one has seen God anywhere” (19:1–18, 1 Tim. 6:16), only in Christ, the God-man, did the theophany take place: “the only begotten Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, made his confession” (John 1:18). The servant of the Word testifies to this theophany: “about what was from the beginning, what we heard, what we saw with our own eyes, what we looked at and handled with our hands about the Word of life - for life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you this eternal life, which was with the Father and was revealed to us” (1 John 1:1-2). The coming into the world of Christ, His incarnation, was the one genuine, perfect theophany, abolishing forever all preliminary theophany. However, perhaps it will be said that the Old Testament also knows its theophany. Doesn’t Jacob say after his nightly fight against God: “I saw God face to face, and my soul was preserved” (Gen. 32:30)? But this, obviously, speaks only of the reality of theophany, and not of its immediacy. Let us remember that Jacob did not even know Who he was wrestling with. Isn’t it said, further, about Moses that the Lord spoke to him face to face, “as if a man were speaking to his friend” (Ex. 33:11, cf. Deut. 34:10)? “I speak to him mouth to mouth, and openly, and not in fortune-telling, and he sees the image of the Lord” (Num. 12:8). However, this must be understood only in a relative sense, as evidence of the greatness of Moses even in comparison with other prophets, which is clearly evident from the words of the Lord Himself (in the same chapter 33 of Exod., v. 20.23): “You cannot see My face, because a person cannot see Me and survive,” “You will see Me from behind, but My face will not be visible,” and the Lord shows Moses only Glory God's Likewise, the words of God about Moses’ vision of the “image of God” (Num. 12:18) were spoken by God “who descended in a pillar of fire” (v. 5, cf. 11:25) 118. In the same way, the theophany to the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19:11-13) in the “breath of thin cold” was not a personal theophany. And this preliminary theophany of both Old Testament visionaries of God, Elijah and Moses, is opposed by the true vision of God, the appearance of the Son of God himself in the flesh, Whom they were privileged to see on the Mount of Transfiguration. What remains is the appearance of God to the prophet Isaiah - Isa. 6, 1–6. It says that he saw “the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his glory filled the whole church” (v. 1), “mine eyes have seen the Lord of hosts” (v. 5). However, this vision is explained not as a theophany, but as a vision of glory, doxophany, by the Lord Himself: “Isaiah said this when he saw His glory” (John 12:40-41), and this doxophany is also combined with angelophany. The vision of Ezekiel was also a manifestation of glory. The vision of the prophet Daniel (Dan. 7) was not so much a theophany as an eschatological dream in connection with other images (as the prophet himself called it at the beginning of the chapter containing the record of “the dream and prophetic visions of his head on his bed”), So, we definitely have in the Old Testament one group of theophanies as doxophany (we explained them elsewhere), 119 and a second group, along with it, as angelophany, which are now subject to our understanding. In the Old Testament we distinguish general theophany, which are simply stated: “The Lord appeared to Abraham” (Gen. 12:7; 17:1; 18:1; 26:2, 24; Exodus 6:3), to Solomon - in a dream at night (1 Kings 3:5; 2 Chronicles 1:7) and not in a dream (1 Kings 1:7). 9, 2; 11,8; further - prophetic theophany, about which it is said: “the Lord said to me” (Is. 8:1,5; Jer. 15:1; 19:1; 22:1), “and the word of the Lord came to me” (Jeremiah 1:4; 2:1; Ezek. 1:3 et seq., etc. in almost all prophetic books), “and the hand of the Lord was upon me" (Ezek. 1:3; 8:1 et seq.), and, finally, deliberate theophanies, especially noted as such - to Abraham (“and the Lord appeared to him as he sat at the entrance to the tent, during the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood against him" (Gen. 18:1-2), Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel This also includes all of the above listed theophanic angelophanies. It is more correct to consider the first group of epiphanies (general and prophetic) as revelations of God, mysteriously and ineffably communicated to man. This is God’s presence, directly or intuitively accessible to man, as the inner hearing of the word and vision of God’s will. The anthropomorphic nature of the verbal expression does not change the purely internal and spiritual nature of these epiphanies. Differing from them are theophanies in the proper sense, which are accompanied not only by a spiritual, but also by a certain sensory-physical perception of the whole person, as an integral spiritual-physical being. Here there is not only passive hearing of God and feeling of God, but a certain meeting with the Divine. It can be personal, “face to face” with the hypostatic Divinity, or it can be a meeting with the Divine as Divine power, glory, wisdom, but not Hypostasis. The last image of God appears in His Glory in a cloud 120, and it not only reveals, but also covers the face of God. In the narration of the appearance of God to Moses, the vision of the Face of God, as inaccessible to man, and His Glory, accessible to man, is directly contrasted (Exodus 33, 1923), and the same meaning has the presence of God in the tabernacle of Moses in the form of a pillar of cloud (Exodus 33:9–11) and in the temple of Solomon in the form of a cloud (1 Kings 8:11; Par. 5, 13–14), as well as the “breathing of a thin voice” in the theophany of Elijah and even in the vision of Isaiah, where also “fill the house of His glory” (Is. 6, 1). This tangible revelation of the presence of God, His Glory, the Radiance of the Divine, is the Light of Tabor on earth before the Transfiguration of the Lord. But unlike the Old Testament, non-hypostatic theophanies, manifestations of the Ever-Essential Light, its New Testament manifestation was essentially hypostatic, for it was the manifestation of the Divine Glory of God incarnate and thus drawing closer to man, the Son of God, who showed us the Father and revealed the Holy Spirit resting on Him - this is our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-Man. However, the Old Testament also knows hypostatic theophany, meetings of man with God, mutual communication, conversation. But such meetings, as we already know, take place only through theophanic angelophanies: God appears through an angel, and the angel speaks on behalf of God, the angelic hypostasis is endowed with Divine power. The mission of angels, their service to the world receives a completely exclusive purpose here - to represent God Himself in the world, to appear to him instead of God. How is this possible? First of all, we must take into account the entire inaccessibility (transcendence) of the Divine to fallen man, even in the depths of the Old Testament Church. Since the weapon of the cherub blocked access to the gates of Eden, where God came to talk with man (and even the very judgment of God for the Fall represents such a conversation that has not yet been interrupted), the possibility of direct communication with God has been eliminated. However, the love of God found the opportunity to meet with man through the medium of angels. The latter, being creatures, can be accessible to man, but at the same time, living the life of the divine nature, they are completely transparent to God. God made the created hypostases of angels, united with the divine life, a personal means for communicating with man 121 in His image. Angels are the created and hypostatic faces of the Wisdom-Glory of God, in which God hypostasizes It in order to appear to man until this Glory is revealed by the incarnate Word Himself, the hypostatic Wisdom and Glory of God, Christ. An angel, as a created ray of Divine Wisdom, as possessing life in God, is a created god, not only by grace, like man, but also by communion, although not by its created hypostasis. However, it is precisely this createdness of the angelic hypostasis that only makes it possible for a person to endure the unbearable fire of theophany. This is the extent to which a person can accept the appearance of God before His incarnation. But, of course, such a theophany has power only within the limits of a specific goal and is exhausted by it. In other words, it is completely devoid of the power that the one true theophany has, i.e., the incarnation, in which a person is clothed with the Glory of the Divine, not a created, albeit angelic, hypostasis, but the Second Person of the Holy Trinity itself. This theophany has universal, all-human and cosmic significance, and it abolishes, makes unnecessary and impossible the preliminary, representative Old Testament theophany through angels. The Lord Himself, the Great Council Angel, is sent by the Father to earth. So, theophanic angelophanies are Old Testament phenomena that pass away in the New Testament, just as night stars go out in the light of the rising sun. However, they must be explained in their possibility from the angelic nature. Here the highest, ultimate possibility of angelic service is manifested - mediation between God and the world, the union of heaven with earth. At the same time, the meaning of the vision of Jacob's ladder is revealed in a special sense. “And I saw in a dream: behold, a ladder stands on the ground, and its top touches the sky; and behold, the Angels of God ascend and descend on it. And so the Lord stands on it and says: I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac” (Gen. 28:12-13). God speaks to the patriarch as the angels descend and ascend. Although this is not said directly, it is clear in the light of all the other Old Testament theophanies that here too He speaks to man in angels and through angels. Therefore, in essence, here too we have only theophanic angelophany. One more question remains. The angels through whom God speaks in theophanic angelophanies are nowhere named or defined in their hierarchical position - they are simply called “angels.” On the other hand, God, who appears to man and speaks to him, is also not defined in relation to the three Hypostases. The mystery of the Holy Trinity, although contained, remains hidden in the Old Testament, which is why one cannot expect such a definition. In church writing this question is usually posed and resolved in the sense that in the Old Testament the Logos speaks, appears and acts before His incarnation. From here one can seem to conclude that the angel speaking on behalf of God in theophanic angelophanies belongs to the Second Hypostasis. In addition to other arguments, such an opinion can also be based on the fact that since the theophany is accompanied by a word, it thereby belongs to the Word. However, this consideration is weakened by the general fact that the speaker here is not God Himself, but an angel who, moreover, speaks to man in human language in order to be accessible to him. Therefore, the presence of a word in itself does not indicate that its speaker is the angel of the Word, proclaiming the Hypostasis of the Word. Therefore, it is necessary in each individual case to determine essentially whether a given revelation relates to one specific Hypostasis, or to the entire Holy Trinity in indivisibility. First of all, we should dwell on the appearance of the Lord to Abraham, in which the Church sees the mysterious appearance of the Holy Trinity. Three angels obviously belong to the areas of three Divine Hypostases, and the First is naturally highlighted, which speaks on behalf of everyone and is called the Lord (Gen. 18: 13, 17, 20, 22, 33), while the remaining two angels (Michael and Gabriel?) are not defined in their hypostatic affiliation. Perhaps this corresponds to the content of theophany, in which only a general and preliminary revelation about the Holy Trinity is given. Here only the “monarchy of the Father” is deliberately revealed, according to the meaning of which the entire Holy Trinity is the self-revelation of the Father in the Son and the Holy Spirit. The “personal” properties of the individual Hypostases are not revealed at all 122. The appearance of God to Abraham in the form of three angels is the only one where the theophany has externally manifested features of trinity, while in all other cases we have the appearance of only one angel. With the greatest justification one can see the revelation of the First Hypostasis, and therefore the Angel, relating specifically to its area, in the theophany to Moses at Mount Horeb, “in a flame of fire from the midst of a thorn bush” (Ex. 3:2). This can be thought on the basis of the revelation of the name of God, Jehovah-Yahweh, i.e. He who exists (“I am, Whom I am” - Ex. 3, 14). This Name of God, in which the hypostatic character of the Divinity is revealed as the absolute Self, most of all corresponds to the First Hypostasis, which begins the Holy Trinity from Itself 123. There is also reason to see in the angel who appeared to Abraham at the sacrifice of Isaac the messenger of the First Hypostasis, for here we have a prototype of the sacrificial message of the Son by the Father, and the test of Abraham’s faith, which God sends to him, consists precisely in the sacrifice of the Son. “God said to him: Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and... offer him as a burnt offering” (Gen. 22:2). And when Abraham raised his knife to kill his son, “the angel of the Lord said to him: Now I know that you fear God and have not withheld your son, your only son for Me” (22:12). This sacrifice is predetermined by the Father, who so loved the world that to save it He gave His only begotten Son (John 3:16), but He does not require it from man, who, however, is given, by showing obedience to God, to make its human prototype. It is much more difficult to say on behalf of which of the Hypostases the angel speaks and acts, who appeared to Hagar first alone, and then with Ishmael (Gen. 16, 7-13 and 21, 17-19), but by the nature of his words (“by multiplying, I will multiply your descendants” - 16.10, “I will make from him a great nation” - 21.18) one can see here the expression of the First Hypostasis, "Almighty". The Angel of the Second Hypostasis can be seen fighting with Jacob at night. (He is called, Gen. 32, 34, “someone,” but the prophet Hosea defines him as God and as an Angel 124. This fight against God is already an early harbinger of the approaching incarnation of God, in which the divine and human natures are “inseparably and unmerged” united in Christ. Doesn’t the Angel who led the Israelites out of Egypt also belong to the Second Hypostasis (see. Number 20, 16)? The Angel of the Third Hypostasis, who spoke the prophets, can be seen in theophanies of a prophetic nature. This includes (Num. 22, 20–35, 23, 4–5) the story of Balaam, his donkey and the one who prophesied, and this also includes the appearance of an angel to Gideon (Judges 6:11–24) and Manoah (Judges 13:3–22). Here the appearance of an angel is told, and then Manoah says to his wife: “We have seen God” (v. 22 et seq.) - in view of the prophetic nature of both appearances. Most likely, the appearance of the angel in the vision of Ezekiel should be understood in the same sense: Ezek. 8 words Thus, we come to the conclusion that theophanic angelophanies in the Old Testament cannot be confined to the Hypostasis of the Logos alone, but relate to all three Divine Hypostases, both in their trinity and separately. Chapter 7: The Ethereality of Angels Ethereal spirits are created as angels, ministering spirits, πνεῦματα λειτουργικά (Heb. 1:14). This angelic service has an ontological basis for itself in the internal relationships of the angelic and human worlds, and is rooted in this inextricable, essential connection 126. Angels are sent to serve the world because their own lives are connected with it, and if we keep in mind that the world headed by man is an essentially human world, then this connection of angels with the world can best be expressed as their co-humanity. This definition does not at all erase the indispensable line between the council of ethereal forces and the human world, but it expresses their internal, original connection from creation itself. In general terms, this connection was revealed above, but here we must touch upon only one aspect of it, namely the relationship of angels to corporeality. The main ontological difference between angelic nature and human nature is not that angels are spiritual beings, for a spiritual being is also a human soul. But man is an embodied spirit, has a body, and through it is naturally connected with the whole world, has the whole world within himself, is a cosmic being, while angels are disembodied spirits that do not have their own world or nature. Their closeness to God, resulting from their unnaturalness and immersion in the divine life, determines their height inaccessible to humans; but their unnaturalness makes their existence dependent on the human world, which replenishes created natural nature for them, and is also, in a certain sense, a necessary replenishment for them. (Possession of a body, as an ontological advantage of man in comparison with the angels, although it is a source of weakness and special discursiveness of his existence, is expressively noted by St. Gregory Palamas.) Only in the human world does creation reach its completion, as the area of ​​human dominance, the ontological focus in it. God created the world in order to have everything in it in everyone (1 Cor. 15:28), provided the world is ready to bear this acceptance. Angels simply stand before God, illuminated by His light, and this participation in God is their life, for them in general the only possible one (without the spiritual suicide that the fallen angels committed over themselves). Before his fall, God came to man in his own world to talk with him (according to the testimony of Genesis 3:8: “And Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise during the cool of the day”). God comes into the world in order to Himself accept human nature, inseparably and unmerged, and to ascend it to heaven for eternal residence in the God-man, in whom God Himself makes Himself co-human by the power of His descent to creation. God “does not accept angels, but Abraham’s seed” (Heb. 2:16), not because man turned out to be holier than the angels and more worthy of them. On the contrary, the fall of man is one of the reasons for the incarnation. The perception of angelic nature by God is ontologically impossible due to the absence of their own nature among angels. But the greater completeness and ontological independence of the human being, in comparison with the angelic, is clearly expressed in the fact that the most holy humanity of the Mother of God, by the power of unity with the Divine, deification, is above the angels, for the Mother of God is “the most honest Cherub and the most glorious without comparison (i.e. ontologically, naturally) Seraphim.” And following Her in closeness to Christ is the holy humanity of the Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord, the angelic man. These facts are sufficient to establish the basic ontological relationship between the angelic and human worlds, according to which man is the main and central axis of the universe, its end in itself (“God did not subjugate the future universe to the angels” Heb. 2.5), angels are essentially intended to serve the world. Such service in itself, of course, is not humiliation; on the contrary, it even presupposes the hierarchical superiority of angels over humans. However, not every hierarchical superiority is also ontological. In any case, the life of the angelic and human worlds should be understood not as the separate existence of two ontologically independent worlds, but as a single joint life of “heaven and earth”, in which the superiority of hierarchical height and divine participation belongs to the angelic world, and the superiority of completeness and self-integrity belongs to the human 127. The fellow-humanity of angels is metaphysically expressed in such a relationship between the angelic and human worlds, due to which the first contains the ideological prototypes of the second in the hypostatic angelic conciliar existence, and the second realizes them in natural human existence. This same co-humanity is expressed in the fact that the entire angelic world has a service-protective relationship with the human, just as individual angels are the guardians of individual people in their personal lives. The world was created for man and according to man, but it was transformed in the angelic world. From here follows the basic axiom of both angelology and anthropology, which is expressed in the words of Revelation: “the measure of a man is the same as that of an Angel” (21, 17). The same relationship is expressed in the fact that the heavenly Jerusalem, descending to earth, has twelve gates and twelve angels on them; On the gate are written the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel" (21:12). The twelve tribes express here the fullness of the human race, with which the fullness of the angelic world is juxtaposed in that it expresses the crown and fullness of creation in the heavenly city, where God will live with people. From this common co-humanity of angels comes the important consequence that in their relations with humans, angels accept human likeness and appear to humans in the image of humans (albeit with the necessary distinctive features). This human-likeness is the condition of communication itself, as is completely sufficiently attested by the Word of God, as well as the Holy Scriptures. Tradition. First of all, this is manifested in the fact that angels speak to people in human language, as noted above: the song of angels, their prayer, verbal appeals - all this becomes accessible to man, since it is done in human language. This means, first of all, the fundamental unity of the word, as coming from the Word, among angels and among men. And even in theophanic angelophanies, the word of God spoken by an angel is a human word. This means, further, the unity of the angelic and human words in content, since the earth in itself reflects the sky and everything that exists on earth ideally exists in heaven, the angelic world. “Heaven and earth” constitute one creation and have in themselves and about themselves one word, for about one. One thought - one word - one knowledge, although realized to varying degrees. The most important evidence of the fellow-humanity of angels is that in their appearances to humans they have a bodily image, human or even animal. Let us remember that three angels in the epiphany appeared to Abraham as “three men” (Gen. 18:2). Joshua saw the archangel of the army of the Lord as a “man” (Isa. 5:13), the prophet Daniel saw the arch. Gabriel as “a man clothed in linen” (Dan. 10:5), the New Testament appearances of the angels of the resurrection were also in the form of “a young man clothed in white clothing” (Mk. 16:5), or “two men in shining garments” (Lk. 24:4). Further, in the vision of Ezekiel, the cherubim have the image of animals with four faces: a man, a lion, a calf and an eagle (Ezekiel 1:10), and “their appearance was like that of a man” (1:5). Thus, this is, as it were, a detailed image of man as an all-animal. In Revelation, the four animals individually are like a lion, a calf, a man and an eagle (four symbols for different evangelists). Added to this humanity of the appearances of angels is the fact that they turn out to be subordinate to the boundaries of space and time. They come to a certain place, where they are sent for a certain time, after which they leave. In general, they seem to enter the life of our world, without ceasing to be alien to us, although not strangers. The VII Ecumenical Council established in the dogma of icon veneration the fundamental depictability, and, consequently, the co-humanity of the Divine, revealed in the incarnation; it also approved the depictability on the icon and St. angels. But with this depiction he also confirmed their humanity. In patristic writing, as well as in theological literature, there is a question whether angels have a body, even refined in comparison with a human one, and opinions are usually divided. Some fathers express the opinion that “every creature - angel, soul, and demon, by its own nature is a body; because, although they are refined, in their essence, in their distinctive properties and in their image, according to the refinement of their nature, they are subtle bodies, while our body is plump” 128. Sometimes this refinement of the body of spirits is defined in terms of natural science or occultism as ethereal or gaseous bodies, so that the difference in the degree of “whiteness” of the body of disembodied spirits and humans comes down only to different densification of matter 129. The opposite is less prevalent among the majority of St. fathers. At the sessions of the VII Ecumenical Council, the opinion of Bishop remained without objection. John of Thessaloniki that angels are not completely incorporeal, but have subtle bodies, and St. Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, confirmed the opinion “that angels should be depicted, for they are depictable” - τούς δὲἀγγέλους γράφεσθοα, ὁτι περίγραπτοίεἰςιν (“to write angels, for they can be described”), and the Council agreed with this (Mansi, XIII, 164–5). Prologues and lives abound with evidence of the appearance of angels and souls in a transparent light shell (ample material collected from Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov). So, on the one hand, angels are disembodied spirits, by nature free from connection with the body - gross or refined, it makes no difference; on the other hand, they are describable, trace., They have an image that is accessible - under certain conditions - to human perception, and this image is human. How to combine both of these seemingly contradictory provisions, each of which must be preserved in full force? It is impossible to in any way shake or limit the truth about the spirituality and incorporeality of the being of angels and souls, and therefore it is absolutely impossible to admit (without falling into materialism or occultism) the presence of some, even the most subtle, body inextricably linked with the angelic spirit and enveloping it. But at the same time, one cannot reject the well-known authenticity of angelophany in the human form; it is impossible to see here only an adaptation to the limitations of human perception, an illusion, a kind of Hallucination 130. An angelic being is incorporeal, but the appearance of angels in human form is also genuine. This question is resolved on the basis of the general teaching about the nature of angels in their relationship to the world, about their co-humanity. Angels are assigned or sent to serve the world not as an alien area, but close and even inseparably connected with their own. The angelic world, as having within itself the prototype of creation, contains within itself all its ideal-spiritual images, which in their realization also receive bodily existence, are clothed with a body, and become bodies. The body has not only material existence, but also an internal ideal form that forms it, its own entelechy, and this ideal form of the body, possessing all the fullness of reality, is precisely its primary reality. The incarnation of the soul is not a physical connection or investment of the soul in the body, as in a case; it is the internal connection of the spiritual creative principle, metaphysical energy or form with the plastic material it shapes. The soul, by the power invested in it by God, itself forms a body in its own image and lives in it. If we consider the soul outside the body and independently of the body, then it does not differ from the angelic disembodied spirit (and this is confirmed by the fact that both angels and the souls of the dead were visible in similar light images in the shape of a body). The difference (ontological) between them is that the soul contains within itself the image of its body as a bodily form (and in this sense is ideally already clothed with it), while the angel has only an internal prototype of this image. In relation to this ideal prototype they are akin and similar, but in relation to the embodiment of the spirit they are opposite. Angels are characterized by internal ideal images only in the awareness of their relationship to the world, and if they are perceived by a person, they correspond to the human image, or, rather, on the contrary, this latter realizes the angelic prototypes. It can also be said that angels are characterized by an ideal body shape, which is actually realized only in man, and the only question is whether these ideal images can be perceived, thereby becoming reality for our world. Obviously, this is impossible for our bodily perception, for which the spiritual world simply does not exist. If we assume that spirits and souls have some kind of, at least the thinnest, shell, i.e. corporeality (the degree of its density is not of fundamental importance), we thereby introduce them into our world, into the realm of bodily senses, even if their perception requires special refinement of organs, just as refined states of matter are determined only by special instruments, and we see the world of small creatures only through a microscope. (Occultism calls for the development of such organs of occult perception.) This removes the main difference between disembodied and embodied spirits, and all of them indifferently enter the area of ​​our embodied world. Forms or images do not have a corporeal, even the most refined, existence, but an ideal one. They are not shells at all, but ideal internal energy as a determining force. The form is not material (and is not a “shell”), but ideal, supermaterial, spiritual. The body is the product of this force, which the spirit has as its own internal form, entelechy 131. The vision of this form, if possible, is only spiritual, that is, with the same intuitive perception with which spiritual beings, angels (as well as demons), see and know each other. We see, and hear, and smell, and touch not with the body, but with the soul, only through the medium of the body. The soul has feelings: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and only because of this the body has corresponding organs created by it. However, in man, as a spiritual-physical being, this inner feeling is inseparably connected with the physical, so that all our images are spiritual-physical, ideally sensual. It is equally impossible to remove the ideal image from them, because, deprived of it, they fade away, lose their meaning and content, and to separate it from their bodily embodiment. This is the character, and the strength, and the fullness of human spiritual and physical existence. However, with all the unity and integrity of the human being, it remains complex, as composed of body and soul, the beginning of both worlds, and this complexity allows for their partial separation, which has no place in a simple angelic being. Such a separation of soul and body is death, but it is also similar to certain states of frenzy (ecstasy), when the soul is partially freed from connection with the body and then sees directly, spiritually, in the image of angelic existence. With this separation, the soul sees the spiritual world, which is closed to it by the veil of the body. When a person dies, the first thing that appears to him is the world of spiritual beings, angels and demons around him. Some God-pleasing people, by the special care of God’s mercy, receive this ability of spiritual vision even before their death, as in angelophanies. However, for all people it naturally comes with death, once manifested, it is no longer lost even after the resurrection, which is why human life in the next century will be in communion with the holy angels. It is a misunderstanding to invent some kind of light shells or gaseous bodies to explain the possibility of this vision. The very images within themselves simply become visible, like ideal forms. The real spiritual world is seen, existing before the material, behind it and above it, as it is in its immediate existence, by the power of spiritual intuition, which does not need any media for itself and does not allow any explanation. Of course, with any description of such a vision, an inevitable translation is made into the language of our sensory images, which coarse and even materialize the phenomenon. Otherwise, it is impossible to talk about it, to bring it closer to earthly consciousness. However, this is only a translation, not the original. So, man sees angels when he sees them, in their own image, and not in relation to our corporeality. Like is known only by like, spirit is led by spirit, and this vision itself testifies to the original connection and affinity of the angelic and human worlds, to the co-humanity of angels. This does not diminish the height and holiness that distinguish angels from humans, which is expressed in the special light-like appearance of their winged images, but this distinction does not diminish their essential co-humanity. This is the basis for their depiction in icons, which can be dogmatically comprehended only on the basis of their humanity. In iconoclastic disputes, the main controversy was caused by the question of the depictability of God, who is the Spirit. The founder of the dogma of icon veneration is the incarnation, in which God became human, and therefore depictable. As a Spirit, God cannot be depicted. However, this is where the difference between the Absolute Divine Spirit and the created, relative spirit appears. The Absolute Spirit is above all images and forms, although the basis of all of them contains within itself: The Form of Forms itself cannot have any particular form. However, we know that God appeared to man in the Old Testament in theophanic angelophanies through the mediation of angels. This means that the angel, although being a spirit, has an internal form or image, which is accessible to spiritual vision. That is why we can depict it, although the depiction of an angel is still only a translation into sensory language of supersensible images. Usually, when contrasting God, as the Absolute Spirit, and the angels, as created spirits, in order to distinguish them from each other, some corporeality is attributed to the angels due to the fact that only God is an incorporeal Spirit. However, in reality, this difference should be attributed not to corporeality and incorporeality, but to the formation of created spirits, angels - and to the superformation and therefore super-imagery of the Absolute Spirit. The createdness of the angelic spirit in itself does not make it corporeal in any sense, but it makes it limited, having a certain form or image, and therefore depictable. Therefore, the dogma of icon veneration in relation to the icons of the Lord Jesus Christ, and with Him the Holy Trinity, has its basis in the Incarnation, but in relation to St. angels - in their co-humanity. The latter, of course, is different and even in a certain sense the opposite of incarnation, which remains impossible for angels. The difference between the attitude towards corporeality of the Absolute Spirit of the Divine and the created spirit of the angels can also be expressed from the other side. God can be called incorporeal in the sense that He, like the angels, is completely alien to the material body formed from “earth” and constituting the ontological property of man with his entire world. However, this freedom from the body as applied to the Divine should not be understood in a restrictive, negative sense, due to which every positive basis of created corporeality is denied in God. Otherwise, where could it have arisen in this case? God is an incorporeal Spirit, free in His existence from bodily limitations, but, being free from corporeality, He also possesses it, as the fullness of ideas, images of all existence, in His divine world. This ideal corporeality is the divine world before its creation, that is, the Divine Sophia, which in this sense can also be defined as the spiritual “body of God.” The world, created on the basis of the Divine Sophia, in its created, earthly corporeality bears the images of this body. And since the world is Man (Adam-Kadmon) in its entirety, then the materiality of the world is human, receiving its perfect completeness in the human body. The human body, as an organ of the spirit, bears its stamp and is its revelation. The human spirit has the image of God, which extends to its physicality. Therefore, the Word of God also speaks about God in anthropomorphic bodily images. False anthropomorphism, condemned by the Church and consisting in the assimilation of the earthly human body to God, should not be an obstacle to true anthropomorphism, which has an indestructible foundation in the incarnation. After all, if Christ united in Himself, inseparably and unmerged, the Divine and human nature, and took on a true and not a ghostly body, then this means that there is a positive relationship between His deity and His humanity, which alone makes the incarnation possible. If God were alien to all corporeality, then He would be limited to it, and how could He incarnate, take on the body that on the Mount of Transfiguration revealed the perfect image of the Divine? So, the foundations of created, earthly corporeality are contained in the eternal Wisdom of God, a perfect organism of divine ideas, but, of course, completely free from earthly corporeality, from meonal matter. Man in his earthly corporeality has the created image of the Divine Sophia in her Sophia completeness. In this he differs from the angels, who, not having their own nature and world, are alien to the fullness of ideal corporeality. Each angel in his individually qualified existence contains a certain aspect of the Divine Sophia, and only the entire angelic council is characterized by its fullness. Thus, we come to the conclusion that the incorporeality of angels, as created spirits, has a different meaning than the incorporeality of the Divine. God, as the Absolute Spirit, is free from the body, however, He possesses perfect spiritual corporeality in the Divine Sophia as an organism of ideas, and in its image the earthly World and the human body in it were created. Angels individually do not possess corporeality at all, even in the spiritual sense, except for the deliberate private image inherent in each, and this expresses a certain ontological limitation of the angelic nature, as having no body. Nevertheless, to the extent of the sophicity of existence that is inherent in each of the angels, they have their own ideal images, and these images are conhuman, for the sophiacity of angelic and human existence is one, and the “joy” of the Wisdom of God, that is, its fullness, is still in the sons of men. A spirit can become perceptible to another spirit in various and varied ways. We can know this even from the experience of human relations: people are always in spiritual interaction with each other, and the influence of one spirit on another has different degrees and forms. However, in human relationships, interaction never remains purely spiritual, because it also occurs through the medium of the body. Human relations with the angelic world occur apart from any physicality; they are purely spiritual, which is why they are so subtle and elusive, so tender and difficult to notice. We sometimes feel in ourselves a certain inspiration of love for God, a surge of good desires, without thinking about where and why this unexpected and unusual inspiration, these or those good thoughts and aspirations came from. So sometimes in the presence of a person standing at a spiritual height, we feel ourselves different, we become better from this presence alone and from its direct influence. However, this presence is visible to us and can generally be noted by our bodily senses. But the presence of a bright spirit around us, which we experience ourselves, remains unknown to us, although effective. This explains that, without knowing it, we are always in the area of ​​influence and interaction with the angelic world, as long as we ourselves do not oppose it, and do not block the path with our sins. One should not think that the influence of the angelic world on us is limited only to direct angelophanies and does not exist outside of them. On the contrary, these appearances of angels are only manifestations that have become spiritually visible and tangible for us of what is constantly happening with us and around us 132 . These appearances of angels have a basis in a special divine vision, in their deliberate messengership. However, in themselves they do not contain anything inconsistent with the nature of the relationship between the angelic and human worlds, supernatural or unnatural; the unusual and extraordinary can be just as natural as the everyday and constant. Likewise, miracles represent an unusual evidence of the omnipotence of the Creator and His providence for the world, which, however, always manifests itself in the order of the universe established by God. We are always surrounded by the spiritual world and are in direct communication and interaction with it, 133 and the appearances of angels are only evidence of this. So, the appearances of angels are of a spiritual nature; they are seen not by the body, but by the soul, although upon perception it involuntarily gives them a bodily image. Therefore, the idea that angels have a body similar to ours, although refined, or that there is a special body or even soul bodies, as occultism teaches, is, at the very least, a misunderstanding. Sometimes this thought receives such an expression that an angel, being himself free from a body, can nevertheless create a body for himself to appear to a person, as a temporary shell or a means of communication. But this thought also contains a misunderstanding. It is fair that St. angels have the ability to directly influence the life of the world, as is sufficiently revealed in Revelation, not to mention other biblical evidence (an angel strikes 185 thousand Assyrians, tames the flames of fire in a fiery furnace, rolls away the stone from the tomb, frees the Apostle Peter from prison, etc.). It is necessary not only to support this idea with all our might, but also to give it the widest application in the sense that the angelic world is the ideal spiritual and energetic basis of this world, which exists only under the condition of the constant service of angels. But this power of angels does not belong to the number of natural forces of this world, in any sense (even through the adoption of a temporary body). This force is not physical, but metaphysical, spiritual energy that acts from within, on the very foundations of existence. After all, God’s miracle-working acts in the world not by entering into the number of its physical forces - God is the Absolute Spirit - but by influencing the metaphysical composition of creation. Therefore, the action of angels is so irresistible and powerful that the destruction of the metaphysical atoms of the world and its metaphysical structure is incomparably more effective than the corresponding physical processes, no matter how powerful they are. Therefore, it is the angels who are entrusted with the completion of the end of the world, the last harvest, the burning of the tares and the last division. With the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, the resurrection from the dead takes place (1 Thess. 4:16). “And He will send His angels with a loud trumpet, and they will gather His elect from the four winds and from one end of the heavens to the other” (Matthew 24:31). This metaphysical action has a corresponding expression in the natural world. Although it is difficult to comprehend it in the image of its accomplishment, it is not in its essence, which consists in the fact that our world is not closed in itself. He is open to the action of spiritual forces in such a way that his life and pattern are not only immanent-physical, but also transcendental-metaphysical. Creation has two patterns and two faces, one is turned to the natural world, the other to the spiritual, angelic. Considered in itself, the world is a mechanism and an organism of natural forces, but it has its spiritual or metaphysical basis in the angelic world 134. This is the basis for both the general relationship between the worlds, which determines the pattern of our lives, and their direct interaction. The angelic world is not just a collection of ideal prototypes, but consists of hypostatic spirits that have personal activity and are capable of manifesting it in the world, without merging with it, but never separating from it, therefore, both outside and inside. Thus, for this manifestation in the world or influence on the world, there is no need for angels, just as there is no metaphysical opportunity to become cosmic beings, to take root in our world, ceasing to be themselves. Therefore, the idea that angels, for their appearance, create for themselves a material body that belongs to our world, in this form must be rejected. It can only be accepted in the general sense that angels, while remaining themselves, extra-cosmic beings, nevertheless have the power of influence in this world on its elements. In this sense, one should understand, for example, the story that the angel rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb and sat on it: the angel here is not likened to a strongman, capable of performing an action that is beyond the power of a person (although freely performed by a crane). No, this means that the stone itself falls off under the metaphysical influence of an angel in this world, which defies any physical calculation. The world is not closed in on itself at any moment, at any point in its existence, but is always open to the influence of spiritual forces, which is determined and limited only by the will of God. However, there are still puzzling cases of deliberate anthropomorphism in the appearance of angels. In particular, how to understand, for example, the eating of food by three angels in the appearance to Abraham (“and they ate,” Gen. 18:8)? How to understand Jacob’s nighttime struggle, after which his thigh was damaged (Gen. 32:31–32)? Of course, it is impossible to give an exact answer to such questions; we can only indicate the general possibility of resolving them. In the book of Tobit, Arch. Raphael directly explains that he only took the form of eating food, traces, his companions remained in some illusion. The realism of the presence of an angel in his co-humanity for sensory perception is involuntarily expressed in such features that correspond not to angelic, but to human nature. However, sometimes such features are absent, as, for example, in the appearance to Gideon and Manoah (Judges 20–21, 13, 15–16). One thing is certain: the angels, who represented God himself in the appearance to Abraham, obviously could not eat earthly food, because they did not have earthly bodies 135. But we don’t know exactly how those around us could see this eating. As for Jacob’s nightly struggle, it must be understood, first of all, as a spiritual state of fighting against God, which, being inherent in all his descendants, had already formed an axis in the patriarch. This spiritual state was accompanied by a feeling of bodily struggle, according to the unity of the spiritual-physical nature of man, to such an extent that it was even expressed in bodily injury. In general, in this case, where theophanic angelophany takes place, the assimilation of any physicality to the Appearing One before His incarnation should be deliberately suspended. But at the same time, one cannot help but see here some kind of spiritual transformation and, as it were, anticipation, although incomprehensible to us. So, the appearance of angels in human form must be explained on the basis of the common humanity of the angels, but with the complete removal of the natural corporeality of this appearance in any sense. The co-humanity of angels is deliberately manifested in the exclusive attitude of the guardian angel to man. In this regard, there is one feature that deserves special attention. A Christian, receiving a Christian name at baptism, enters into a special relationship with the saint whose name he bears, and this saint is usually called his “angel” (and name days are “angel day”). This relationship between a name and its bearer can be defined in different ways, but there is no doubt that the one who bears the name of a saint becomes exceptionally close to him, becomes a member of his spiritual family, and to some extent is imprinted by his nature. The spiritual face of this saint is for him at the same time a spiritual basis and an ideal, a given and a given, like a kind of spiritual entelechy. There really is a parallel here with a guardian angel, and therefore it is no coincidence that the saint is also called an angel. Thus, it turns out that a Christian has two patrons in heaven - his saint and his guardian angel, who intercede for him in prayers. The difference between them, however, is that the angel directly stands before the throne of God, and in the fullness of his life there is no longer room for change or increase. The angels have already reached the utmost perfection after testing and victory over Satan, but the saints, no matter how great their current glory, remain in a preliminary state, for they are awaiting their resurrection in a glorified body, and their closeness to God is not yet final, ultimate. In addition, the guardian angel has one directly protected person, his prototype in heaven, while the “angel” saint has many who bear his name and make up, so to speak, one spiritual nest. In the glorified Church, special intertwined relationships arise between the angelic and human worlds in the common task of preserving and patronizing the human race. And this once again reveals the co-humanity of the angels. A name is not a nickname, but power: nomen-omen. The name of a saint received by a person is already his idea and entelechy power, and naming is a spiritual seeding. So this is clear in a person’s attitude to his baptismal name, received from some saint. But in the relationship between a person and his guardian angel, isn’t there also a heavenly name for a person, unknown to us, since it is an angelic name, and, however, existing, active? It is known that angels have their own names. This could already be assumed a priori, but this is also established a posteriori, for the names of the highest angels standing before the throne are revealed to us (of which the biblical names are: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael). There is absolutely no reason to think that they would be an exception to this and that the rest of the angels would remain nameless. On the contrary, each angel has its own individual place in the hierarchies and its own ideal basis or Sophia theme of its existence, but the idea is at the same time the word, for everything is involved in the word. A proper word is already a name. Therefore, angels are our heavenly counterparts, just as saints are our “angels.” This outlines a new relationship between the names of angels and humans. However, there is no direct evidence to further elucidate this relationship. Chapter 8: The Angelic World and the Incarnation The relationship of the angels to God is established by the image of their creation and is confirmed by their free self-determination in the test and the accomplished separation. After this, it is finally completed, and the existence of angels in itself does not need to be replenished and does not allow for significant change. The angelic order is perfect in itself, in addition to its relation to the Calvary atoning sacrifice, which saves the human race. The relationship of the angels to the Word and to the entire Holy Trinity is direct and immediate: “thou hast formed the ethereal minds of Thy ineffable glory, O Savior,” 136 “the coals of God-bearing, the dawn of Thy being kindled” 137. The relationship of angels to the world and to man is also fully established by the way they were created in connection with the world and to serve it, and its ontological basis is the presence of a direct and essential connection between the world above and below. This connection is indestructible, because it is based on more than affinity - on the ideal identity of both worlds. It constitutes the very condition for the existence of our world, without which, outside the custody of angels, it loses its existence. However, this relationship between both worlds, although not interrupted, is disrupted by the fall of the ancestors, which entailed the illness of the entire Universe. That this connection is not completely broken by him is clear, first of all, from the Old Testament angelophanies, as well as other evidence that angels watch over the human world in the destinies of individual people, individual nations and the entire natural world. Clairvoyance of this connection was given to Patriarch Jacob in a dream, when he saw a ladder connecting heaven and earth: “and behold, the angels of God ascend and descend on it” (Gen. 28:12). Although the Ladder of Jacob is interpreted by the Church as a prototype of the Mother of God, therefore, understood in the light of the incarnation that took place, its meaning also extends to the Old Testament, to which this very vision belongs. However, the Fall, which disrupted man’s relationship with God, and through that with the world and, above all, with himself, changed this relationship with the angelic world. The path for direct communication between angels and people was cut short after Eve, and through her Adam, entered into communication with the serpent, who became the “prince of this world” and spread his hellish influence over the entire human race. Accordingly, as man moved away from God and plunged into his bodily world, he also moved away from the angels of God. However, man’s removal from God was not unconditional and final, for the world cannot exist outside of God. Likewise, separation from the angelic world could not be a complete separation, for this would not correspond to their primordial and fundamental relationship. God reveals himself to Old Testament humanity, although he remains transcendent to him, in angelophanies, manifestations of Glory (doxophany) and prophetic insights, obvious and clear within the Old Testament Church, and vague and hidden outside its borders, in paganism. Likewise, the angels of God approach man, deliberately sent by God, but they do not retreat from him throughout his entire life, although they remain deprived of the fellowship with him that was pre-established for them. The co-humanity of the angels does not reach its fullness; the heavy shadow of man’s original sin has fallen on the angelic world. Not only out of compassionate love for fallen humanity, but also out of their own nature, for which life in unity with the human race was preordained, the holy angels looked forward to our salvation. Although they did not know in full the image of its accomplishment, they knew its path, for they themselves participated in its preparation. The history of the salvation of the world through the incarnation begins in paradise with the proclamation of the so-called. The First Gospel is about the Seed of the Woman, and it is accomplished as a living genealogy of the Savior, through the entire history of mankind. And St. The angels act in this “as intercessors of Your incarnation and honest uprising” 138. At all decisive moments in the life of the Jewish people, the saints approach their leaders and prophets. angels watching over the world. Their closeness, although not clearly, but vaguely, is already felt by the entire pagan world, for it is full of premonitions and knowledge of gods, geniuses, demons, Fravashi, etc., animating the world and enlightening man, the guardians of souls and bodies. The pagans, in their ignorance of the true God, were led and taught by angels, as can be seen from the history of Cornelius (Acts 2:13) and the prophecies of Daniel. But through the fact that heaven bowed to the earth and the Son of God descended from heaven and became man, the way was opened for the angels of God to that perfect union with humanity, which corresponds to their co-humanity. This is not a merging or mixing of both natures, for angels and men remain themselves. This is not the incarnation of angels, for only Satan follows this false path, who finally seeks to become man in the Antichrist. But this is the perfect union of angels and men in Christ and His Church: “You who inexpressibly united the heavenly, Christ, the earthly and one Church, having made angel and man, we unceasingly magnify,” 139 the Church testifies. The Incarnation in this regard has a double meaning: on the one hand, together with the Logos, in His Incarnation, the angelic world, as His servants, approaches the earth and comes to man. “And the faces of angels with all beginning and power come before this.” Gospel history testifies to the service of angels to Christ throughout the entire history of the Incarnation: in the Annunciation, in His Nativity, baptism and temptation, in suffering and resurrection and in the second glorious coming. At the same time, the power of redemption gives angels access to fallen but restored man. This is the meaning and strength of the testimony of the Church that a guardian angel is given to us at baptism and, therefore, in the real sense, approaches only the baptized. Thus, the union of the angelic world with the human world is accomplished through the power of both natures of Christ - divine and human - through the power of God's condescension and saving redemption. Strictly speaking, only the latter is entirely connected with the Fall of Adam, while the former can be considered independently, although in fact both of them are inseparably united for fallen man. Even if Adam had not fallen, then the incarnation, according to some theologians, would still have been for the sake of the perfect deification of man, and in it the angelic world would have been completely and finally reunited with the human. Thanks to the Fall, the Incarnation also becomes redemption. Therefore, in the meaning of the incarnation for the angelic world, it is necessary to distinguish between these two sides: the incarnation as redemption is needed only by fallen humanity and in itself has no power for angels. On the contrary, as the deification of man, possible after his restoration, it also has power for the angelic world, because without this divine means it remains deprived of the power to finally secure the golden chain of creation connecting heaven and earth. Thus, the incarnation is significant not for the angelic nature itself, as such, but for its relationship to humanity. “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18) - with these solemn words the Risen Lord testifies to the completion of His saving work. The circle of the universe, which begins through: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth,” closes with this final unification of heaven and earth under the authority of Him, by whom all things were (cf. Heb. 12:22–24). The significance of the incarnation for the reunification of the angelic and human worlds is solemnly attested by the Lord himself, also in a conversation with Nathanael: “Truly, truly, I say to you, from now on you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51). This text is of paramount importance for understanding the significance that belongs to the Incarnation in establishing relations between the angelic and human worlds. It is naturally cited in connection with the prototypical vision of Jacob's ladder (Gen. 28:12). In it, the Lord stands at the top of the ladder and from there makes a promise to the forefather, in whose loins the human flesh of the God-Man is already seeded, from Him those who descend are sent down and the ascending angels rise to Him. Here the Lord Himself is on earth, descending and ascending angels come to Him on earth, and heaven remains open. This also corresponds to the fact that the Old Testament knows only angelophanic theophanies, which the New Testament does not know at all. Here on earth God Himself appeared in the flesh and “lived with men,” therefore the angels approach Him in their own rank to serve God and together to Man and for complete reunification in Him with the human race. Thus, the incarnation and the atoning sacrifice are important, first of all, for the reconciliation of man with God, but also for union with the angelic world. “It pleased (the Father) that all fullness should dwell (in Jesus Christ) and that through Him he might reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through Him through the blood of His cross, both earthly and heavenly” (Col. 1:19-20) 140. In connection with the Incarnation is the glorification of human nature, which has personal expression in the Most Holy Theotokos, “more honorable than the Cherub and more glorious than the Seraphim.” The Mother of God, having united in the flesh with the One born of Her, through this becomes such a closeness to God that exceeds that of the angels. She heads with Her completeness the entire creation, which the angels only ideally imagine in themselves, and, moreover, not each individually, but only all in their own cathedral. Therefore, in Her the ultimate goal of creation is realized, which the angels themselves serve. But, obviously, the very possibility of the appearance of such a human being, who in himself combines all the power, holiness, purity and completeness of the angelic world with the whole reality of human nature, is a consequence of the elevation of man through the incarnation. It was accomplished by the influx of the Holy Spirit onto the Mother of God at the Annunciation, the conception of God and the birth of God. In the Spirit and Word, the Mother of God received and reunited in Herself everything that the saints have. angels, with human nature. In closeness to God, the Mother of God is followed by St. John the Baptist, who, according to the testimony of the Church, although not higher than the angels, like the Mother of God, is united with them in standing before the throne of God. However, being, moreover, a man, he surpasses them in the completeness and complexity of his angelic-human nature. This connection itself represents the mystery of the future age, to the understanding of which we can only approach. The Forerunner, as a man, is “the highest of all those born of women” and, as a baptist, placed above the angels by his ministry, he becomes involved in the angelic world. The image of angelic existence is that angels, not the name of their own world and nature, directly live by participation in divine life, while it is accessible to man only through the deification of his nature through the power of incarnation. In the Mother of God, by the power of Her Motherhood, both direct participation in God and the perfect deification of Her humanity are realized. But even in the Forerunner a direct, equal-angelic closeness to Christ is combined with his human nature, which, of course, is inalienable. Through this, the life of the Forerunner is established in both worlds, or more precisely, a twofold image of the relationship to God: angelic and human 141. The Mother of God and the Forerunner lead humanity saved and united with God. As a result of the redemptive work of Christ, angels receive a new opportunity for active love for the human race and participation in the common cause of the universe. Redemption from original sin for an individual is carried out in baptism, and that is why the guardian angel, inherent in us from creation, receives the opportunity internally, and not externally, only to approach and serve us from St. baptism. In this sense, it is sometimes said that a guardian angel is generally given from baptism 142. The participation of angels in bringing about the end, in summing up the results, separating the wheat from the chaff and burning the latter deserves special attention. These images express the historical and metaphysical participation of angels in the destinies of the human race. And this participation, this common life and common cause ends with the meeting of the entire human race and the entire angelic council in the last hour of the life of the world, at the Last Judgment. This meeting, which for everyone is preceded by his meeting after the grave, will no longer be interrupted by separation, except for those rejected, whose lot will be communication with Satan and the fallen angels in “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). This will be the inseparability and community of human life with the angelic world. It contains within itself the source of such unearthly joys, for which in our present existence we have neither knowledge nor imagination, which we cannot contain. And yet, foresight and premonition of them are still given to us. It is nourished and warmed in us by our love for St. angels, our prayer to them and our common praise and prayer to God... “Thy will be done as in heaven and on earth” - the Lord teaches us to pray about this, as about the highest, ultimate accomplishment. The Lord created the world as heaven and earth looking into each other. In heaven, the will of God is immutably done by angelic faces - the angelic world in its state corresponds to God’s plan for it. This is not how the earthly, human world is in its present existence. But man also needs to become conformed to Christ, so that in Christ all things earthly and heavenly may be headed. And through the fulfillment of God’s will, through the correspondence of creation to God’s plan for it, that harmony and unity of the angelic and human worlds, heaven and earth, which is the basis of the universe, is naturally established: “in the beginning God created heaven and earth.” The power of these words is mysteriously invested in the Lord's Prayer 143. The last revelation that is given by the Word of God about the revelation of the humanity of angels and together about the union of angels and men is contained in the last vision of the last book of the New Testament - the Revelation of St. John (21, 12–17). The Seer sees the Holy City descending from heaven for the eternal presence of God with people. This city has 12 gates and 12 angels on them, and on the gates are written the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel. “And he measured the wall thereof to be one hundred and forty-four (12 x 12) cubits, according to the measure of a man, as is the measure of an angel.” Both measures, identical from the beginning, coincided in the final accomplishment. The human measure, which is the same as the angel’s measure, is to reveal the meaning of these mysterious words of Revelation and constitute the main task of this work; they express its main and only thought. The holy angels get their name not from themselves (like humans), but from their service. Their purpose is to mediate between God and the world. This service is not only God’s will for them, but, by the power of their freedom, it is also their own self-determination, an image of angelic love. The power of love lies in its sacrifice, its image is the image of self-sacrifice. And the special image of angelic love is that their personal love for God and for the entire human race (for all love is, first of all, personal) is accompanied by natural, metaphysical exhaustion. In it there is a renunciation of the possession of one’s own, independent nature and the acceptance of the life of another, a human being. Angels, as disembodied spirits, are also unnatural. They live by participation in God, as second lights, and by fellow-humanity, as guardians of our human nature. With all their heavenly heights, they humble themselves with immeasurable humility in love for God, who has deigned this service to them, and in love for the human world, which could not accept existence and live its life without this service. “Love does not seek its own” (1 Cor. 13), and angelic love, truly, does not have its own and does not know its own: disembodied spirits, pure hypostases, in their free love renounce existence itself in themselves: they live only outside themselves, not with their own life, in metaphysical self-exhaustion, they are by nature only angels, hypostatic μεταξύ. This way of being may seem like a state of poverty and emptiness, generally a kind of half-being, non-existence. And, however, in reality there is an excess of being here, for in it the triumphant power of abundant love is revealed. The mystery of love and power lies in dying for resurrection, in life through death, for love is self-denial. Created love requires empirical self-sacrifice, sacrifice of one’s name or wealth, as is symbolically revealed in the Savior’s words to the rich young man, “who trusted in his wealth.” But angelic love is metaphysical self-sacrifice - not only from one’s “wealth”, but in general from all one’s own. This character of angelic love is negatively revealed in the image of the fall of fallen spirits, who desired precisely their own, seeking to find their kingdom with the “prince of this world.” But this solicitation was rejected by the good angels, “who did not love their own souls even to death” (Rev. 12:11). Such self-exhaustion, free because it is driven by love, in angelic love is an image of divine love. The life of the Holy Trinity is determined by the mutual self-exhaustion of the Divine Hypostases, which have themselves and their life not in themselves, but in others: the Father in the Son and the Spirit, and the Son in the Father and Spirit, and the Spirit in the Father and the Son. Likewise, angels have their lives in God and in the human world, leaving for themselves only the “incorporeal,” i.e. unnatural, although hypostatic being, its one possibility, without its power, as if potentializing itself. And further, the hypostatic divine love for the world, revealed in his creation, is another image of the self-exhaustion of the Divine, which, freely self-limiting, places next to Himself and gives reality to the relative existence of the world. God gives everything to this creation, accepting nothing from it for himself, as all-satisfied, all-blessed, self-sufficient. Angelic love for our world is similar: it does not seek its own, it only gives to it, “serves”, it helps a person to become himself for his own sake. But in the self-denial of angelic love there is contained the infinite wealth that it acquires. By the power of his love for God, St. angels join the life of the Divine Himself, and by the power of their love for the world they join the life of our world, live by it, remaining naturally transcendental to it. They thereby combine in themselves all the fullness of life that can only be available to creation: life in God and in the created human world. In the angels everything of the world was invested in their creation, but they themselves acquired it all through their service. The life of angels, as created spirits, differs from the divine; it is such by the gift of divine participation. It differs from the life of the human world, but it is also world-participating in the power of angelic service. But, above all, it is personal love, which finds Friend and friends in God and man. For the Lord in His creation, giving everything for it and accepting nothing from it, wants one thing from His creation - love, and in angel and man He wants to have for Himself another, a friend. The world is overshadowed by angel wings. Angelic eyes watch over us vigilantly. Between heaven and earth, holy angels continually ascend and descend. They join us in our prayers. The angelic armies continually praise the Creator of the worlds. The angels who stand before the throne of God live a common life with us, united by bonds of love. How great is the joy that comes to a person in the knowledge of this! Praise Him, His angels; praise Him, all His might! Holy archangels and angels, pray to God for us! Holy Guardian Angel, pray to God for us! In Greek ψίλος comes from φιλεω love, as does the Latin amicus from amo. The biblical image of this personal love-friendship is given in the relationship between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul: “the soul of Jonathan clung to his soul, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:1, 19:1). “And they kissed each other, and they both wept together, but David wept more” (20:41). In his song on the death of Saul and Jonathan, David says: “I grieve for you, my brother Jonathan; you were very dear to me; your love was for me above the love of a woman” (2 Samuel 1:26). It is noteworthy that in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom fully intact human nature was revealed, one can see not only perfect love for the Father and God and for the entire fallen human race, but also for individuals. The Lord had, according to His humanity, personal love or friendship, personal relationships: “Lazarus, our friend,” “Lazarus, Martha and Mary, Jesus loved them,” like the disciple John the Theologian, “Jesus loved him.” But doesn’t He say that whoever wants to follow Him must hate father and mother and children and brothers and sisters (Luke 14:26) and follow Him, therefore, opposing all personal love to love for Himself? Yes, this is to the extent that both types of love collide with each other in their paths. And yet, in other cases, the Lord did not at all reject the right to exist of all human love invested by God during the creation of man, and the apostles in their epistles could not be further from this rejection. And with the words about hatred we need to compare the words: “husbands, love your wives, like Christ the Church.” Isn't this indirectly evidenced by the fact that the divinely chosen births of the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist were performed by elderly parents with naturally extinguished passion of the flesh? “A natural body is sown, and a spiritual body is increased... But not the spiritual first, but the natural, then the spiritual... But I tell you this, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.” (1 Cor. 15:44, 50). “When feelings are enclosed in silence, they are not allowed to rush outside, and with the help of silence, remembrance becomes obsolete; then you will see what the natural thoughts of the soul are, what the very nature of the soul is and what treasures it has hidden within itself. These treasures constitute the knowledge of the incorporeal, which arises in the soul by itself, without preliminary thought about it and without labor. A person does not even know that such thoughts arise in human nature. For who was his teacher? or how does he comprehend that which, even though it is mentally represented, cannot be understood by others? Or who was his mentor in something that he did not learn at all from another? (Isaac the Syrian, word 3). Ascetic words. M., 1854, p. 386, word 58. Wed. story about the weeping guardian angel of the blessed one. Andrew, Christ for the sake of the holy fool. “For I have you as an intercessor in all my life, a mentor and guardian, given by God to me forever” (Can. English chronicle, paragraph 7., tr. I). “The guardian of my soul and body is the divine angel chosen by me from God.” “Having acquired thee as a guardian, interlocutor, holy angel, observing, accompanying, abiding and offering salvation to me ever” (item 5, tr. I). This idea about the creation of heaven and earth has a more widespread expression in the prayer of Ezra (Neh. 9:6): “And Ezra said: You are the only Lord, You created the heavens and the heavens of heavens and all their trees, the earth and all the trees that are in it, the seas and everything in them, and You gave life to all, and the heavens worship You.” Service to ethereal forces, voice 2, canon, paragraph I, tr. 1. In no. 77:49 even says: “He sent upon them His fire, and indignation and wrath, and disaster, an embassy of evil angels.” It is possible to understand this expression both as referring to the angels who are the messengers of God’s wrath and punishment, and as referring to the evil spirits themselves, who were allowed to manifest their action (for example, in the temptation of Job by Satan) and thereby appear as instruments of the providential power of God. This general idea is expressed in the canon of ethereal forces through the comparison of angels with horses, the bridles of which are held in His hands by the Lord, seated on a chariot for the salvation of the world. “Thou art mounted upon the angels as upon horses, O love of mankind, and the leader of them is received by Thy hand, and Thy salvation is speedily brought forth; Thou faithfully cry unto them: Glory to Thy power, O Lord.” (Chapter 8, paragraph 4, tr. 1). The same comparison applies, as is known, to the apostles. Blazh. Augustine taught that the world was created by a single act, immediately, and the days of creation correspond only to the revelation and creation of the seeds of being embedded in it. Ps. 88.12–13: Your heavens and Your earth: You founded the universe and its contents. See “Burning Bush” about this. The identical force of the expressions “beginning” and “wisdom” is established by the book of Proverbs Sol. 8, 22 ff., where both expressions are established precisely in their equivalence. This sophiological meaning of the prologue of John's Gospel is not contradicted by the special Christological, or rather, logological emphasis, which, in accordance with the special task of the evangelist, he places here on the Second Hypostasis. At the same time, what stands out is the deliberate appeal to the world of precisely this cosmourgic Hypostasis: “all things were by that (Word), and without it nothing would have been” (although in the word bysha one can already understand the life-giving action of the Holy Spirit in creation). “Since for the goodness of God it was not enough to engage only in contemplation of itself, but it was necessary that the good spread, going further and further, so that the number of those benefited was as large as possible, because this is characteristic of the highest goodness; then God invents, first of all, angelic heavenly powers; and thought became a deed that was filled with the Word and accomplished by the Spirit... since the first creatures were pleasing to Him, He invents another world, material and visible, or, what is the same, the harmonious composition of heaven and earth and what is between them” (St. Gregory the Theologian, word 38). Is this not confirmed by Revelation 9:14-15, which speaks of angels being prepared, albeit for destruction? “I heard a voice saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet: Release the four angels bound by the great river Euphrates. And four angels were released, prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year, in order to kill the third part of the people.” This text must be interpreted in connection with Gen. 1, 1: “in the beginning God created heaven and earth,” and here exactly the same comparison is used: “earth” as the base of the ladder and “heaven” as its upper base (“touches heaven”), and this living ladder consists of angels ascending and descending along it (an image of the constant participation of angels in the life of the earth). See the canon of the disembodied 8 voices, the canons of all saints and much more. On the contrary, “the number of the beast is the number of a man” (Rev. 13:14). And indeed, the fight against God of the earthly, animal elements, although inspired by Satan, belongs entirely to this world. As having no basis for itself in genuine existence, on the contrary, being entirely connected with the enemy of sin, it has no basis for itself in “heaven,” in the angelic world, and is limited to the human. In the visions of the prophet Daniel, in which the co-humanity of angels is shown with particular clarity, the appearance of arch. Gabriel is accomplished simply in the form of a husband. “And it came to pass: when I, Daniel, saw this vision and sought knowledge of it, behold, the form of a man stood before me. And I heard a human voice from the middle of Ulai, which cried out and said: “Gabriel, explain this vision to him” (Dan. 8:15-16). “As I continued to pray, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen before in a vision, quickly flew in and touched me about the time of the evening sacrifice” (9:21). And his appearance is also described in the following texts: “And I raised my eyes and saw: behold, one man, clothed in linen clothing, and his loins were girded with the gold of Uphaz. His body is like topaz, his face is like the appearance of lightning, his eyes are like burning lamps, his hands and feet are like shiny copper, and the voice of his speech is like the voice of many people” (10:5-6). Wed. also ch. 12, 5–7 (vision of two husbands). The angels at the resurrection of Christ are also described as young men in linen clothing. Ep. Ignatius Brianchaninov brings together the image of an angel and the human soul, freed from the body, on the basis of both his general considerations about the corporeality of angels, and on the basis of various visions (from the Prologue and Patericon). With this rapprochement, he sees the difference between the human and angelic world only in the incarnation of man: “What is man? The same created spirit as the angels, but clothed in a body. Other created spirits differ from man in that they do not have his body, his flesh” (vol. 3, p. 236). In the Shepherd of Hermas, in one of the visions (Vis. IV, I, 4) it is said that the angel of animals (τὸν επὶ τῶν θηρίων, named Θέγρε received orders not to harm him. Athenagoras teaches that there are spirits obliged to monitor the correct movement of heaven, earth and all the elements. Origen says that there are angels involved in the birth of animals, the growth of plants, etc. St. Epiphanius, according to pseudo-Enoch, knows the angels of thunder, lightning, cold, heat, and many others. This view, however, is opposed by St. Basil the Theologian and Blessed. Augustine. Life 24, 7,40: we are talking about the matchmaking of Isaac, to which Abraham sends his servant: The Lord “will send His angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son” Gen. 48.16: Jacob's blessing of Joseph: "Let the angel who delivers me from all evil bless these youths." Ps. 33:8: “The angel of the Lord encamped around those who feared Him and delivered them.” Ps. 34:5-6: “Let them be as dust before the wind, and let the angel of the Lord drive them away. Let the path be hard and slippery, and let the angel of the Lord pursue them.” Ps. 90:11: “His angel commands you: keep you in all your ways.” This also includes the story of Tobit (book of Tobit). The presence of guardian angels among pagan peoples, attested by the prophet. Daniel (“Prince of Persia”, “Prince of Greek”), shouldn’t it be extended to individual members of these nations? Omnem hominem in utero serendi, struendi, fingendi paraturum aliqua utique potestas divinae voluntatis ministra modulatur (De anima p. XXXVII, R. L. t. II, p. 756). Similarity is not equality, since similar figures can differ in size; it is not, in the literal sense, identity. And yet the similarity includes the sameness of the image or idea, which is revealed in each of the similar figures. The canon is ethereal. forces, ch.8, P. 1 Tr. 2: “Thou hast laid down the firstfruits for creation, an incorporeal being, more creative than the angels.” “The firstfruits of creation” can equally mean both an indication of the time of the creation of angels earlier than the human world, and the ontological foundation of creation laid in “heaven” for the earth. The Holy Church testifies: “The Archangelic forces, O Christ, standing before Thy throne, pray for the human race” (Servant of the Archangel and English, Art. on the G. Proclamation, Chapter 6). The troparion says the same thing: “may your prayers protect us with the shelter of the wings of your immaterial glory, preserving us.” Also the prayer “to St. to the angels”: “to you, as intercessors and guardians of my belly, I am a cursed one, falling down and praying,” etc. (Priest prayer book, p. 169). Service of Entry into the Church, verse, on G.V., glory: “Then Gabriel was sent quickly to You, all blameless, I write to bring you.” Verse after verse... “and nourished by the hand of an angel, all blameless”... “Rejoice, who received the good news of Your passage into the kingdom above, Rejoice, who received the joyful paradise from Gabriel who preached the gospel (Akathist of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, Ikos 4). “Let us cry, O faithful ones, to Gabriel, who belongs to the ruler” (Service of the Dormition). A similar opinion has already been expressed. “The special subject of the ministry of the arch. Gabriel was, but in the opinion of the Church, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Both the first and last years of Her earthly life were entrusted to His heavenly protection, and when the time came for Her departure from earthly life, the same St. the archangel announced this to the Mother of God” (Arch. Debolsky. Days of worship of the Right Catholic Church, ed. 7, St. Petersburg 1882, vol. 1, p. 274). At the litia of the stichera, Ioannovo: “The All-Immaculate Bride and Mother of the Father’s favor, who has been ordained by God, into His dwelling place of unmerged unity, today betrays the most pure soul to the Creator and God, even the powers of the flesh magnificantly lift up”... Anatoly’s: “Even the highest being of heaven and the cherubim, the most glorious and the most honorable of all creation... in the filial rune this day he betrays the all-holy soul "... (cf. and next, verse, also akathist) "Into the divine chamber of You, the Bride of God, the Groom calls, Bride of God, to dwell ever, divinely" (Praises, article I, burial service of the Mother of God). See my work “Friend of the Groom”. “You do not love your life even to death” (Rev. 12, I). Doesn’t the “death” of angels here mean precisely this free self-giving to a new service, which is accompanied, as it were, by a sacrifice of the original, one’s own nature? The angels defeated and expelled the fallen angels from heaven by taking their ontological place in heaven, becoming them themselves, as they were before their fall, thereby depriving them of a foothold in heaven, in the heavenly pleroma. Another question: the souls of those who at the Last Judgment will be sent into eternal fire, “prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41), are they not in a personal relationship with demons, having an affinity with them similar to that which exists between a person and a guardian angel? Of course, these people in their earthly life were not deprived of the guardianship of the angel assigned to them, whom they, however, rejected through their sins and fell into the hands of demons, their own true doubles. In this case, the heavenly division into angels and demons, to a certain extent, corresponds to the division of the human race into “goats” and “goats”. In church writing you can sometimes come across the opinion that every person has not only a guardian angel, but also his own demon-tempter, protected in two ways: on the right and on the left. In such a general form, this idea cannot be supported: a guardian angel is given by God, while a demon approaches according to a person’s sins in accordance with his sinful weakness. The presence of a demon near every person does not have the positive ontological basis that the presence of a guardian angel has. But isn’t there a difference here too between dark souls, marked by personal closeness to the demonic world and receiving eternal fire as their destiny, prepared for “the devil and his angels,” and other people, although due to sinful weakness and accessible to the approach of demons, they are not subject to them? The black shadow of the fall in the heavens covers some part of the human world, without being, however, able to distort it all. This can also be seen as indirect proof that the entire rank of angels takes part in serving and protecting all humanity in the humanity of Christ, although not all angels are guardian angels in the direct sense. As the prince of the Jewish people, Arch. Michael has a special relationship with Moses, his leader and prophet. This is confirmed in the mysterious instructions of Jude. 9: “Michael the Archangel, when he spoke with the devil, arguing about the body of Moses, did not dare to pronounce a reproachful judgment, but said: “The Lord rebuke you!” (Cf. 2 Peter 2:11). This indication (which is usually seen as a connection with the apocrypha Assumptio Mosis is interpreted in the following way in church hymns: “To you, the ruler of the Jewish tongue of old, Moses, Michael appeared, the ruler of heaven, and the divine guardian of your body” (Service to the Prophet Moses, September 4, canon, paragraph 7, tr. 3). There is an opinion that the arch. Michael was also the angel who descended to trouble the waters of Bethesda (John 5:4). When Israel entered the Promised Land, which was, as it were, the historical cradle of the Savior (according to His human nature), “the leader of the army of the Lord” appears to Joshua (Joshua 5:14–15), vol. arch. Michael, who first commanded him to take off his shoes from his feet, “for the place where you stand is holy” (as God spoke to Moses at Mount Horeb), and then he speaks directly as the Lord (6:1), i.e. on behalf of the Lord. Arch. Michael here is the messenger of the Word. “The preeminent duo of the Arkhangelsk assembly today,” St. calls out. ChurchSt. arch. Michael and Gabriel (canon free, chapter 6, paragraph 4, tr. 2.), and who, if not this two, is natural to see in the two of the angels of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ? True, the angels of churches are sometimes seen as bishops of churches. But even if such an understanding is allowed, it cannot be accepted in a restrictive sense; if bishops can be called earthly angels of churches, it is only because there are heavenly guardian angels, and therefore one interpretation not only does not exclude, but even presupposes another. In the interpretation of the image of the 24 elders, this option has been found since ancient times (in Andrew, Bishop Caesar.), however, not as the only one (some, for example, Zahn, object, citing the fact that the seer, and the supreme apostle himself, could not address one of the elders with such respect, calling him κύριε, “lord” (Rev. 7:13), and from him to receive clarification, while he himself, as an apostle, is among those). This consideration is weighty, but not indisputable, because in Revelation events are generally revealed not so much in temporal sequence as in internal connection, and therefore it is not impossible if the seer, remaining on earth in human limitations, accepts teachings from one of the patriarchs or apostles in their heavenly glorified state. It is also difficult to reconcile the understanding of the elders as angels with their song to the Lamb that “You have redeemed us to God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). Nevertheless, there is also another interpretation, which sees the elders as angels, but in a particularly close relationship to the 24 priestly orders - angels, so to speak, especially human. With this interpretation, animal angels respectively express the natural elements (the four cardinal directions, the four signs of the Zodiac, located along perpendicular diameters, the totality of the vital forces of nature). And then we have in the angelic world the fullness of the earthly world, both human and natural. And all the angels join in their praise and “create all things.” That is, angelologically and anthropologically, more precisely, the angelic-anthropological meaning of this picture, despite different interpretations of particulars, in general, remains the same. Perhaps a different understanding in this regard Ch. 22, 6 tbsp. It can be considered that from the 12th verse, or at least from the 16th, the speech of the angel is replaced by the words of Christ Himself. But this, in any case, cannot be said about what is adjacent to them within the meaning of Art. 7 and can be challenged by Art. 12–15. Here we have the opposite case to the usual one, when God Himself speaks in the appearance of angels. The Holy Church indirectly confirms this by expanding the brief words of the Gospel of the Annunciation into a whole conversation between Mary and the archangel - in the canon and stichera of the holiday (the service of the Annunciation). Arch. Gabriel says about himself to Daniel: “Now I will return to fight the prince of Persia, and when I leave, the prince of Greece will come. However, I will tell you what is written in the true scripture, and there is no one who would support me in this except Michael, your prince. So, from the first year of Darius the Mede, I became his support and reinforcement” (Dan. 10, 20–21–11.4). You must read these lines with open eyes. Some newer commentators (Charles, Lomeyer) see in the “mighty angel” (Rev. 10:1), ἰσχυρὸς, Hebrew gvr, the Archangel Gabriel. If this guess is correct, it only confirms our observation regarding the text of the prophet Daniel. This angel, placing one foot on the earth and the other on the sea, announces the last secrets, that “there will be no more time,” and gives the mystery book to the seer to eat. Other words of the Lord have a similar meaning: “Everyone who confesses Me before men, the Son of Man will confess him before the angels of God; but whoever turns away Me before men will be rejected before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8-9). Confession before the angels of God excludes, of course, their passive and indifferent attitude towards the world; on the contrary, it presupposes their deep participation in its destinies. (The version of this text in Matthew 10.32 is characteristic in this sense: “I also confess before the Heavenly Father,” Supreme Love) Perhaps, in development of the same general thought, it was said before that “the saints will judge the world” (1 Cor. 6:2), and the concept of “world”, as creation in general, is general, and then follows a more specific disclosure: judging angels (and, of course, men). Of course, surprise here means not only amazement at the unknown, but also admiration for the unfolding destinies of God and a new, deepest comprehension of them (this is the philosophical meaning of δαυμάζειν (“to be surprised”), which is the beginning of philosophizing). Nothing prevents you from seeing in the so-called. prevenient grace (gratia praeveniens) is the action of a guardian angel who is a mediator of gracious influence. In general, in the theological teaching about grace a place should be given to the influence of angels, which has not been done so far. This metaphysical moment of subtraction and multiplication, predetermined in its ontological necessity by the Word of God, is not exhaustive of all eschatology. The latter also contains further mysteries (at least the “salvation as from fire” indicated by the Apostle Paul, in which the final revelation of the futility of the work of angels and over sinners will take place). St. Basil Vel. notes in this regard: “therefore the apostle, knowing that angels are assigned to people as teachers and educators, calls them as witnesses” (On the Holy Spirit, chapter 13). This does not concern the question of the origin of the human soul (the hypotheses of creationism or traditionism). Our soul, in any case, has a divine principle within itself, which inhabits a person (this is what his birth consists of). During this infusion, the indirect, ministerial participation of guardian angels takes place. Therefore, malicious suicides, which in general, as a rebellion against life, are blasphemy against the life-giving Holy Spirit, are a particularly grave sin against the guardian angel, a rejection of his love and care. In a general tributary form, this is shown in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus: “the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22). It is remarkable that this truth was known to the pagan world. In Plato we read: “they say that the deceased is led by a demon (δαίμων) of everyone, which was given to him during life, leads him to a certain place from where those gathered, after learning, need to go to Hades.” (Phaidon, 130). “When the Judge and my God have to judge me and condemn the one condemned by my conscience, before that judgment do not forget your servant, my leader” (Can. English Chronicle, paragraph 7, tr. 2.). “When thrones are set up, and books are unbent, the old man of deeds sits, and men are judged, and angels appear, and the earth is shaken, and everyone is horrified and trembles, then show me your love for mankind and deliver me from Gehenna, begging Christ” (item 8, tr. 2). “When the terrible voice of a trumpet calls to resurrect me from the earth at judgment, then stand near me, quiet and joyful, taking away my fear with the hope of salvation” (paragraph 8, glory). In the apocrypha of Ascensio Mosis we find a characteristic expression: ὁ ἀγγελος τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος, angel of humanity. More clearly Ps. 96, 7 in Russian. translation (following, according to the Hebrew text): “worship before Him, all gods,” and, on the contrary, in LXX 1. in glory, trans.: “all His angels will worship Him” (also Heb. 1, 7). It is noteworthy that in this respect man is equated with representatives of the pre-human animal world. On the fifth day, God equally says to the created aquatic reptiles, fish and birds: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:22), as He does to man (Gen. 1:28). “The Father, who is God above all, the powers of the heavenly minds, the ugly and immaterial singers, brought forth their three-sun glory, and the only Word and Spirit” (Service of Arch. and English. Chapter 6, Art. on the Lord Voz.). “By Thy hypostatic Word, O Lord, Thou hast created an angelic nature, and having sanctified the Divine Spirit, Thou hast taught to bless the Trinity, O God, forever” (Canon, paragraph 7, tr. 3). “Mirrors of light are God-primary and trisolar candles, receiving within themselves the radiance, as it is comprehended, of the angelic ranks” (chapter 1, p, 1, tr. 1). “With the dawns of the Trinity, who sing in your faith, enlighten the archangels” (ibid.). “The preeminent duo of the Arkhangelsk assembly now, save those who flow to your protection from all troubles” (Service of the Archangel. Chapter 6, canon paragraph 4, tr. 2). Let us recall here that meonal non-existence is not nothing (οὐκ ὂν), from which the world was created by Divine omnipotence (it is said about this that the world was created from nothing). Maeon is already a creation, a nothing containing within itself everything that is something. I pointed out the sophilogical, but not theological meaning of Plato’s idealism in “The Unevening Light.” Hierarchies have a significant place in theosophical (and anthroposophical) teachings, and the certain value of these insights cannot be denied. However, they are devalued by the general context in which they are placed, more precisely, by theosophical theology, in which there is no God the Creator, but there is an evolving world of spiritual entities. This results in pluralistic pantheism, the world as a system of evolving hierarchies, a special polytheism combined with atheism, a kind of religion of angels without God. This is exactly what the apostle apparently warned against. Paul in the rather dark text of Colossians 2:18: “Let no one deceive you through self-willed humility and the service of angels, intruding on what you have not seen, being foolishly puffed up with your carnal mind.” 1 This expression is applied in the Bible equally to all living things: about the reptiles of the 5th day it is said: “a living soul” (Gen. 1:20), about the animals of the 6th day: “a living soul according to its kind” (1:24) and about a person: “and man became a living soul” (2:7). By denoting the angels of the Third Hypostasis with this name, we do not want to diminish their spirituality in comparison with the pure spirits and minds, the angels of the First and Second Hypostasis, but we want to designate their property, imprinted on them by the Third Hypostasis. It differs both from the closeness of the former and from the intelligent power of the latter. Wed. “The Never-Evening Light”, a chapter about the sophistic nature of the world. The words “they are the sons of God,” understood in the light of comparison with Job. 1.6; 2, 1, where the angels who appear before the face of God are called “sons of God”, the previous words are even strengthened: “they are equal to the angels,” for they once again confirm the equal angels of man. Some mystical thinkers abolish the male and female sexes by merging them in every being as male and female. They do not take into account the significance of the incarnation and motherhood of God, the presence of Man in heaven in the form of Jesus and Mary. This side of the answer is more succinctly expressed in Matthew. 22, 30 and Mk. 12, 25 and more extensively, through contrast, in Luke. 20, 34–35: “the children of this age marry and encroach (get married), but those who are counted worthy to reach that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.” Archang Canon. Ch. 8, paragraph 9, tr. 1. Monastics who accept the angelic image and reject gender, however, retain their male and female nature, which are never identified by the Church. For example, the boundary that separates women from priesthood service remains in effect. Isn’t it a contradiction to what has been stated that Arch. Gabriel, the angel of the Virgin Mary, can be considered to belong not to the Second, but to the Third Hypostasis, while, based on what is said in the text, it would seem that it should be the other way around? No, on the grounds that in the ministry of Arch. Gabriel to the Virgin Mary we have a completely exceptional relationship, not repeated in the relationship between a guardian angel and a person. As the Mother and Bride of the Logos, the Virgin Mary does not have a personal guardian angel who would be Her heavenly prototype, completion and Friend. Like all creatures, the most honest and superior to the entire angelic rank, the Virgin Mary is created Sophia Herself, the heart of the world, the personal head and embodiment of the Church, which embraces both the angelic and human world. The Virgin Mary does not have a guardian for herself among the angels, for Her Son Himself is Her Guardian. This is confirmed by the fact that He Himself, and not Gabriel, accepts Her honest soul at Her Dormition. Arch. Gabriel is Her deliberate servant in the mystery of the incarnation, but this service is essentially temporary and limited in nature, for he does not ascend with the Virgin into the Heaven of heaven, although he heads the service of the entire angelic rank to the human race. The Incarnation is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit who descended on the Virgin Mary, and therefore serving this mystery is the work of the angel of the Third Hypostasis. Therefore, this same archangel is also entrusted with the proclamation of the Nativity of the Forerunner of Christ, although he is also not his personal guardian angel. The Forerunner, like the Mother of God, does not have this, for he himself combines an angelic being with a human one. But it is also natural to conclude that the archangel, who through a special messenger of God announced the birth of the Forerunner, remains in a special relationship of deliberate guardianship towards him during his earthly life (although there are no direct indications about this). And in this sense, the attitude of the Archangel Gabriel to the Forerunner is similar to his attitude towards the Blessed Virgin (already directly attested in Tradition), with all the difference that exists between both ministries in relation to their importance. The prologue of the Gospel of Luke deliberately connects both missions of the arch. Gabriel, as serving his cause of incarnation. (See "Friend of the Groom.") An indirect confirmation of this idea can be seen in the story of Genesis about the birth of giants in pre-Flood humanity: “then the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, and they took them as wives whom they chose” (6:2, cf. 6:4). The interpretation of this passage about the “sons of God” is generally controversial, but there is an opinion that sees them as angels (in the book of Job 1–2, “angels” are undoubtedly called “sons of God”) and sees the cause of the fall of angels in carnal lust. This latter view is generally rejected in theology. However, without seeing here a story about the reason for the fall, nevertheless, it can be attributed to already fallen spirits who perverted their being to the point of desire for sexual intercourse with the “daughters of men”, in the desire for the closest possible rapprochement with the human world, for the sake of mastering it (“they saw that they were beautiful”). Of course, such communication for disembodied spirits is still impossible, and all that remains is to assume their effect on the corresponding people. This story basically assumes, in any case, some kind of difference between the sons of God and the daughters of men, as the possibility of a sinful union, based, however, on some kind of election (“which one chose”). Whether this is an original election, which is now perverted in its use, or an ad hoc one that has taken place, is unclear from the text. Shouldn’t we see an echo of the Talmudic thought about such a possibility in the words of the Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11:10): “a wife should have on her head a sign of authority (over her) for the angels”? However, the reverse understanding of this dark place is equally possible, precisely to express respect for the angels. And, in parallel to this, a positive disclosure of the same commandment using the example of love for the Mother: “He answered and said to him who spoke: Who is My Mother and who are My brothers? And pointing His hand to His disciples, He said: Behold My Mother and My brothers” (Matthew 12:48–49; Mark 3:33–34; Luke 8:20–21). It is clear that virginity does not have an exclusive relationship only with virgins, as bearers of feminine nature. Virginity is an image of integral being, which is equally inherent in both male and female natures, freed from gender and involved in universal life. “The disembodied angels who stand before the throne of God and are showered with merciful lordships eternally radiantly shine, and there is a second light” (Service to the disembodied, ch. I, stichera). An axiom of patristic theology, expressed especially by St. John of Damascus (Kr. isl. right. century. book. III chapter. IX-XI passim), is that there is no natural nature that is not hypostatic (ἀνυπόστατος), on the contrary, every spiritual being is hypostatic (ενυπόστατος). However, he also adds that it is not necessary for each nature to have its own hypostasis: it can be hypostasized through a hypostasis that already has its own nature. This is the incarnation, in which the human nature of Christ is hypostasized through the divine hypostasis of the Logos. Developing this idea, we can state that human nature, hypostasized by human hypostases in the first Adam, is again hypostasized in the Second Adam, Christ. Likewise, the divine nature, which belongs to the divine Hypostases, is also hypostasized in created angelic hypostases, the mirrors of the divine Hypostases, the second lights. This communion with the divine nature for them is a natural-supernatural, natural-blessed state. The problem of the relationship between hypostasis and nature in general is far from completely clarified in theology. A characteristic difference in word usage: angels are called (Job 1, 6; 2, 1; 38, 7) “sons of God” (of course, in the plural, in contrast to the only begotten Son of God) simply, as such. On the contrary, this requires a new, grace-filled birth for a person: “he gave power to become children of God, who were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God” (John 1:12–13). In the Arian disputes, the fact that the Arianists attributed to the Son of God precisely the birth from the Father from his own nature, but only by choice, applies, in reality, only to the angels, and not to the Son of God, who is “so much superior to the angels as to inherit a name more glorious than them” (Heb. 1:5). In general, a whole series of arguments regarding the necessity of mediation between God and the world, to which Arius gave a Christological character (and in this was completely refuted by St. Athanasius the Great), in reality could only apply to angels. True, in Orthodox liturgics one can sometimes find similar expressions. “Thou art rational in essence, incorruptible by Thy grace, O Christ, Thou hast made Thy angels to be singers for Thy Majesty, in the image of the incomprehensible” (Canon incomprehensible, paragraph 6, tr. 2.). However, in this context, the creation of angels is generally spoken of, and the expression “by Thy grace” indicates only their creatureliness. This very opposition is indirectly contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “And since the children share in flesh and blood, He also received them, in order through death to destroy the power of him who had the power of death, that is, the devil... For He does not receive angels, but He receives the seed of Abraham. Therefore He had to become like His brothers in everything” (Heb. 2:14, 16–17). It is an independent question whether the incarnation of God is necessary for the positive power of immortality even of unfallen humanity. This leads to an even more general question that has long arisen in theology: is the purpose of the Incarnation exhausted by redemption, or does it have a more general and independent meaning and lies on the path of the creation of the world and in addition to the Fall? Archangel service, ch. 6, canon, paragraph 4. tr. I. If it is applied to him about the “second death” (Rev. 20:14), then this does not at all mean the loss of immortality, but even presupposes it. See chapters on trinity, Orthodox. Thought, I. Archang service. Ch. 6, stichera. Tone 1, canon, paragraph 7, ir. I. “An unpleasant creature possesses aphids, Your most divine minds sit on Your throne of honor, You have inherited the source of immortality, you are more philanthropic” (chapter 6. 4, tr. I). In the prologue one can find an indication that an angel gave communion to the hermits in their hermitage. Is it natural to attribute this specifically to the spiritual, angelic communion of the Divine Lamb, “predestined before the foundation of the world” (1 Pet. 1:20). In a similar sense, it was sinful, because, among other things, and unnatural, the marriage of the “sons of God” with the “daughters of men” appeared before the flood (Gen. 6:2,4). The text of Ps. presents some exegetical difficulties. 77, 24–25: “And he rained manna on them for food and gave them the bread of heaven. Man ate the angel's bread; He sent them food until they were full. You fed Your people with the food of angels and sent them, who did not toil, the bread of heaven, ready-made bread, having every pleasant thing according to the taste of everyone” (Wisdom 16:20). Manna is called here heavenly and even angelic bread or, according to St. Paul, “spiritual food” (1 Cor. 10:3). But manna was a food miraculously sent by God, which, however, had all the properties of ordinary food: taste, color, weight, even the ability to spoil and become boring (Exodus 16:14–26, Numbers 11:7–9). And the Lord says directly, contrasting manna with the true bread that comes down from heaven: “your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and died. The bread that comes down from heaven is such that whoever eats it will not die.” (John 6, 31 ¬51). It follows from this that the naming of manna “bread of heaven” and “bread of angels” should be understood only in the sense of its miraculous origin, but not its quality, by which it did not differ from earthly food. And, of course, this cannot mean that angels feed on manna, for angels generally do not know material food, but only spiritual food. Blazh. Theodoret (in question 69 on Exodus) asks: “why did the prophet call manna the bread of angels?” and answers: “Because the angels served in giving it. The incorporeal nature itself has no need for food.” Wed. “Non-Evening Light”, section on creation: Created nothingness. Appolinary, who did not allow the union of two natures in Christ, divine and human, stumbled over the fact that human nature, as created, being by necessity τρεπτός, necessarily introduces variability into the divine-human being. But Apollinaris did not take into account at all the fact that created nature can and should become ατρεπτος in itself, which took place in the sinless human nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the never-exhausted religious-philosophical argument of St. Gregory of Nyssa against the eternity of evil, which does not contain the material for eternal life, and in this sense cannot be equated in eternity with good. In Isaiah’s prophecy about the king of Babylon, they see an image of the Lucifer (14:9–15): “How you fell from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the dawn. And he said in his heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mountain in the assembly of gods, on the edge of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.” Ezekiel’s prophecy about the king of Tire has the same meaning: “You are the seal of perfection, the fullness of wisdom and the crown of beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; your garments were adorned with all kinds of jewels; ruby, topaz and diamond, peridot, onyx, jasper, sapphire, carbuncle and emerald and gold, everything skillfully placed in your nests and strung on you, was made on the day of your creation. You were an anointed cherub to overshadow, and I appointed you to do so; you were on the holy mountain of God, walking among the fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, until iniquity was found in you” (28, 12-15 ff.). The mysterious story of the prologue of the book. Job (1-2) about the appearance of the sons of God before God and Satan “among them” contains an indication that Satan is trying to slander Job. Canon free, ch. 6, paragraph 4, tr. 3. The Apostle Paul speaks not about language, but even about the tongues of angels in his hymn of love (1 Cor. 13: 1): “If I speak in the tongues of angels and men, but do not have love, then I am a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal.” The very construction of the phrase, where angelic languages ​​are taken in the same bracket as human ones, indicates that language here is understood as an adverb, not an internal, but an external word, a dialect. It is hardly even possible to give this expression a dogmatic, and not just a rhetorical, meaning in view of the fact that an assumption is made here that is incompatible with the life of the angelic world - namely, the absence of love. We have a similar expression, which also does not have a dogmatic, but only a rhetorical meaning, in the Epistle to the Galatians (1:8): “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to us a gospel other than what we have preached, let him be accursed.” It is obvious that this very condition, like the supposed anathematization of an angel from heaven, is completely unacceptable and is taken here only for a more colorful expression of thought. Rom. has a similar non-dogmatic, but rather rhetorical meaning. 8:38: “I am confident that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor the present, nor the future, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It is obvious that angels, principalities and powers can never, willingly or unwillingly, separate from the love of God, and this entire list is only a rhetorical expression of the general idea that nothing, no force, can accomplish this. The development of these ideas is given by me in my work on the philosophy of name (handwritten), as an introduction to name-glorification (done as a report to a special commission of the department of the All-Russian Church Council of 1917–18). This corresponds to the philosophical meaning of the Greek θαυμάζειν, which means precisely philosophical surprise, reflection. (See page 94, note 2) The Mother of God aspect of this vision was explained by me in the Burning Bush, excursion. In the history of philosophy, this was felt most forcefully by Hegel. Philosophy is sometimes called the art of concepts in order to express its free-contemplative, disinterested creativity in knowledge. Here it is appropriate to recall God’s words to Bezaliel, in which the divinely inspired nature of true art is evidenced: “And God the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: look, I appoint Bezaliel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur from the tribe of Judah. And I filled him with the Spirit of God, wisdom, understanding and all skill” (Ex. 31: 1-3). “Beginless Word, with the sacred prayers of the cherubim, seraphim, authorities, thrones and divine powers, angels, archangels, principles, dominions, grant us Your rich mercies, as a lover of mankind” (canon to the heavenly powers and all saints, paragraph 1, tr. 1). “The powers, the powers, the thrones, the seraphim, the dominions, the angels and the archangels and the principalities now implore Thy powers, gracious Lord: be merciful to Thy people and save, as you are gracious” (item 5, tr. 1). Wed. also clause 6, tr. I, paragraph 8, tr. 9, paragraph 9, tr. 1. Service to the disembodied, ch. I, stichera, sedalene, canon, paragraph 9, tr. 2, etc. The Church’s testimonies about the prayer of angelic powers for us, as well as appeals to them with requests for prayerful help, can be said to be innumerable. They confirm the possibility and power of such an appeal to the angels, as well as the fact of their unceasing prayer for us. Indifference in the use of the singular and plural: angel and angels in our eyes has the meaning that what is meant here is not so much any specific angel, but the angelic world in general, as opposed to the Divine. But this, of course, excludes the possibility of seeing here the “great council of the Angel,” i.e. The Word of God (as it is sometimes understood). This is especially clear from the direct contrast between the angel and Christ in Poel, Heb. Ch. 2. The only and of its kind characteristic Old Testament opposition between an angel and God Himself, difficult to interpret, is found in Ex. 33, 2-3: and the Lord said to Moses: “And I will send an angel before you... (and he will lead you) into a land where milk and honey flow; for I myself will not go among you, lest I destroy you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” As we already know, Ex. 13:14–21, with parallels, speaks directly to the fact that at the very exodus of Israel from Egypt, the Lord walked before them. This apparent contradiction must be understood within the meaning of the general teaching about angelophanies as theophanies: here the manifestations of the power of God take place instead of the hypostatic appearance of the Lord Himself, which takes place only in the incarnation, when God appeared in the flesh. On the contrary, in Ex. 12, 23, 29 speaks of the Lord Himself where one would expect rather an angel - in the story of the slaughter of the firstborn of Egypt. A similar case, Num. 23, 3–4, 16, in the story of Balaam. These exceptions, we think, only confirm the general rule regarding the deliberate indifference of this use of words, in which we must see not archaic primitivism, but a deep revelation. Moreover, it must be understood in relation to Ex. 33, 20, 23 text Ex. 24:10 that Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel on the mountain “saw the God of Israel and under His feet something like work of pure sapphire and like the clear sky itself. And He did not stretch out His hand against the chosen ones of the children of Israel. They saw God and ate and drank.” Without a doubt, these words about the vision of God cannot be attributed to personal direct theophany, but to the vision of the Glory of God, to theophany as doxophany. This understanding is confirmed by the parallel story of Deuteronomy in the speech of Moses to the people, which says: “Behold, the Lord our God showed us His glory and His greatness, and we heard His voice from the midst of the fire; Today we saw that God speaks to man, and he remains alive” (Deut. 5:24-25). The Burning Bush, an excursion about the Glory of God. The Mother of God meaning of the appearance of the cloud is explained in “The Burning Bush,” an excursion about the Glory of God. As the book of the prophet Ezekiel says: “and the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even in the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when He speaks” (Ezek. 10:5). In the text of Genesis. 18–19, the difference between the “Lord” and the “two angels” appears so sharply that it is possible to see in them, indeed, only angels accompanying the Lord. However, such an understanding is rejected by the Church, which sees here the appearance of the Holy Trinity and therefore does not distinguish between angels in the degree of their divinity (Rublev icon of the Holy Trinity). Wed. my "Chapters on Trinity". Orthodox Thought, vol. I. Paris, 1928. “As he grew to manhood (Jacob) wrestled with God. He wrestled with the Angel and, being overcome, wept and begged Him” (Hosea 12:3-4). In Ex. 13:21 speaks of the exodus of Israel from Egypt: “The Lord went before them in a pillar of cloud, showing them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, giving them light.” On the contrary, Ex. 14:19: “And the angel of God, who walked before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood in their midst.” Wed. also Court. 2:1, where we read: “And the angel of the Lord came from Gilgal to Bohim and said: “I brought you out of Egypt and brought you into the land.” Therefore, it is a mistake to excessively divide and contrast their nature and service in the angelic nature, as we meet with the blessed one. Augustine: “Spiritus angeli sunt; et cum spiritus sunt, non sunt angeli; cum mittuntur, sunt angeli. Angelus enim of Ficii nomen est, non naturae. Quaeris nomen huius naturae, spiritus est; ex quod agit angelus est (In. ps. enarr., I, 15. Mg. s. 1.1. 37, 1348). It is in this sense that the ontological relationship between man and angels becomes the subject of deliberate explanation in Heb. 1–2. In the first chapter, a general clarification is made of the superiority of the Son of God over the angels on the basis of a number of comparisons of prophetic texts, and the ministerial purpose of spirits is definitely indicated (1, 14). In the second chapter, the exaltation of the Son of God is intertwined with the exaltation of man, united with Him by nature. Here we directly find the following comparisons: “For God did not subject the future universe of which we speak to angels; on the contrary, someone testified nowhere, saying: “What does man mean, that You remember him? or son of man, that You visit him? You made him a little lower than the angels, crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your hands; He put everything under his feet” (Ps. 8:5-7). “When he subdued everything to him, he left nothing unsubdued to him” (Ps. 2:5-8). Likewise, Jesus, in His humiliation, “was made a little lower than the angels, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for all” (2:9). And then it is deliberately emphasized that “He will not receive angels, but He will receive the seed of Abraham.” St. Macarius of the Egyptian creation. Ed. 4, pp. 27–28. Conversation 4, § 9. This point of view is expressed in the writings of Bishop. Ignatius Brianchaninov (“The Lay of Death” and an addition to it). Bishop's views Ignatius received a decisive rebuke, as inconsistent with Orthodox teaching and materialistic, from the bishop. Theophan the Recluse in his work: “The soul and angel are not the body, but the spirit.” Rightly denying all materiality of the soul, Bishop. Theophan, however, leaves open the question of whether the spiritual being of angels and souls is clothed with a “subtle material shell”, a “subtle ethereal body” or free from it. “Of these two opinions, whoever wants to hold on to it, stick to that one.” (10). In some cases of the appearance of angels, individual features are especially noted that do not have authenticity, in contrast, however, to the authenticity of the entire phenomenon. So in the story of Tobit, Arch. Raphael directly says to Tobius and Tobit: “all the days I was visible to you, but I did not eat or drink - only this appeared to your eyes” (Tob. 12, 19). In this regard, the following question is raised: ideal forms are inherent not only in human bodies, which belong to the rational conscious spirit with its energies, but also in plants and animals. In the grain, the plant already preexists entelechyally, just as in the seed the animal. How to understand this formative principle here, to whom does it belong? Occultists answer this question with the doctrine of the multifaceted nature of existence, and in its different planes there are different principles of existence: thus, the grain of a plant in the etheric plane already corresponds to its “spiritual” (in fact, refined bodily) form, the images of the animal world belong to the astral plane. What emerges is a system of universal corporeality of increasingly refined degrees, in which the fundamental difference between soul and body, form and matter (primordial “earth”) is erased. But if we keep this difference in all its clarity, then the question inevitably arises: to whom does the ideal form belong in a plant and in an animal, since there is no spirit, a true subject and bearer of ideal corporeality? These forms were invested by the word of God, spoken on the 5th and 6th days of creation, but they could not be heard and perceived by the “earth,” soulless, meonal matter, but only by the corresponding angels of creation, who fulfill the word of God. Angels are the souls of the plant and animal, non-human world; they own the ideal forms, the images of its existence; The plant and animal world is human, having its center in man, and in him the angelic world, which watches over creation, also has it. And in this sense, we can say that the ideal forms of everything extra-human - the mineral, plant and animal world - belong to the human spirit in its ontological depth, although this belonging is carried out through the mediation of angels, because if all creation is Sophia in its foundation, then only man has in himself the image of the Divine Sophia in its fullness. This is revealed with great clarity in the book of Tobit. Arch. Raphael says here to the pious Tobius before his parting with him through his departure to heaven: “When you and your daughter-in-law Sarah prayed, I offered up the memory of your prayer before the Holy One, and when you buried the dead, I was also with you. And when you were not lazy to get up and leave your dinner to go and remove the dead, your charity was not hidden from me, but I was with you. And now God has sent me to heal you and your daughter-in-law Sarah... I came not by my own will, but by the will of our God... I ascend to Him who sent me. And they got up and saw him no more” (Tov. 12, 12-21). “The Lord, the human race like all others, has clearly been appointed by angels to save this, for He has appointed this to all believers” (Sk. bespl., ch. 1, can. p. 7, tr. 2). “If you want all people to be saved, you have placed holy angels as mentors and light guides” (Can. English storage, p. I, tr. 2). This connection and unity of the angelic and human worlds, which have a common basis in Divine Wisdom, is outlined, although not completely, by the blessed one. Augustine in his doctrine of the knowledge of angels. According to this teaching of his (developed mainly in Ad Genesin litt., partly in De civitate Dei), angels comprehend the foundations of creation in God, and this is the true day of creation, daytime knowledge. (Blessed Augustine does not yet draw the further conclusion from this that the angels, cognizing the primal principle of creation in the Wisdom of God, thereby themselves are its created prototype, for metaphysically to know means to already be - by participation.) Further, contemplating these same prototypes in their earthly realization, they cognize with a darkened evening knowledge: “and it was evening,” cognitio vesperina. But, turning to the very Wisdom of God, they see them clearly - “and the morning came,” cogn. matutina. From this combination of evening and morning the day of creation arises, according to the characteristic usage of the book of Genesis: “and there was evening, and there was morning, one day” (5 et seq.), and night, corresponding to non-existence and ignorance, is completely absent in this calculation of metaphysical time (De Gen. ad lit., V, 18; IV, 31). This seems to be contradicted by the fact that these same two angels later became the object of the sinful lusts of the Sodomites (Gen. 19). However, this does not speak of their physicality, but only of the sensual depravity of the inhabitants of Sodom, whose spiritual eyes were opened to see angels in human form, but, however, their sinful blindness prevented them from being worthy of this vision. This case shows, among other things, that a vision of the spiritual world can be available to a person without direct correspondence to his spiritual state (for example, David, who sinned, although he repented, saw the destroying angel of the Lord with a naked sword stretched out towards Jerusalem - 1 Chronicles 21:16), even an unreasonable creature - Balaam's donkey, by the special providence of God, could see an angel blocking her path ( Numbers 22, 23–33). The exegesis of Gen. presents an exceptional difficulty. 6, 2, 4 stories about how the “sons of God” (and in some manuscripts even directly “angels of God”) took wives and went in with them. In addition to the general doubtfulness in the interpretation of this passage in relation to angels, even if, indeed, we understand this about angels, of course, fallen, we must understand this passage according to the general meaning of the teaching about the nature of angels, who, as incorporeal, cannot have bodily communication. However, fallen spirits can lust after it, enjoy it with people and incite them to do what the demons of fornication do. It is possible to understand this passage in precisely the same sense of spiritual, and not carnal, loosening and complicity in the carnal life of people, although it must be admitted that this is not directly indicated. The birth of giants, i.e. the excessive consolidation of humanity (“they are flesh,” Gen. 6:3) was a consequence of such a spiritual consolidation of the fallen angels, who so perverted their being that they lost the desire to be themselves, but wanted to live a bodily life. Free service, ch. I, canon, paragraph 9, tr. I. II. I, tr. I. “The seraphim immediately approach the God-giving Light and are saturated with it with many lips, with primordial radiances nervously and like the second lights that are, adored by the deity” (item 2, tr. 1). Service to the Archangels, ch. I, canon, paragraph 3, tr. 2. About the architect. Gabriel, the Church sings: “You are superior to the bodiless servants, the original commanded terrible sacrament to you alone, Gabriel, is gloriously entrusted, the ineffable Nativity of the Holy Virgin” (Service for the Cathedral of Arch. Gabriel, July 3 Sedalen). Architectural Service, paragraph 9, tr. 1. The words of Revelation about the struggle of the arch. Michael and his angels with the dragon: “they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (12, 11). It seems to follow from this that the Forerunner is for himself his own angel, and therefore for his human being he has no prototype in the angelic world. He is the “friend of the Bridegroom,” and therefore in Christ he has a Friend for himself, just as the Bride of God Mother has for herself a heavenly prototype in the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit indwelling Her. In the rite of the catechumen performed before baptism, in the 4th prayer it reads like this: “bind an angel of light to his belly, delivering him from all slander,” etc. The meaning of the petition under consideration is clarified from the place it occupies in the overall composition of the Lord’s Prayer. The mysterious meaning of its first part refers to the entire Holy Trinity: Our Father, who art in heaven, is the First Hypostasis. Hallowed be Thy name, the Second Hypostasis of the Word-Name. May Your Kingdom come (ancient interpretation by St. Gregory of Nyssa: may the Holy Spirit come), – the Third Hypostasis. This part testifies to the participation of the entire Holy Trinity in the industry of peace. And in fulfillment of this world-creating and world-providential action of the Holy Trinity, its ultimate goal is indicated to the world: “Thy will be done, as it is in heaven and on earth,” - may God be all in all. The following and further petitions relate to our present life on earth (for our daily bread, for the forgiveness of sins, for not being led into temptation and for deliverance from the evil one).