Приложения

This section includes works by S.N. Bulgakov, which, being written at different times, intentionally or objectively represent excursions, “scholia” (explanations) or approaches to the major works included in this publication. “Hypostasis and Hypostasis” is a detailed explanation of the 1st and 2nd parts of “The Non-Evening Light,” (“Divine Nothingness” and “World”), where the author seeks to defend his sophiological doctrine from accusations of “quadrupling” the Christian Trinity. “The Holy Grail” develops the main theme of the 2nd part of the same book by Bulgakov: the “justification” of the world through the presence of the Divine principle in it. “Reflections on War” is thematically adjacent to the 3rd part of “Non-Evening Light” (“Man”), specifically to its third and fourth chapters (“Human History” and “Accomplishment”). “Two Meetings” can be considered the first sketch for the study “Icon and Icon Veneration.” (Scholia to “The Unevening Light”) First and only publication: Collection of articles dedicated to P.B. Struve on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of his scientific and journalistic activity, January 30 (1890–1925), Prague, 1925. P.353–371. 1. The Absolute as the Transcendent and as God. The Divinity in Itself is an unknown mystery, inaccessible to any creature. The living God is unapproachable in the light, Who no one has seen, but man can see below (1 Tim. 6:16). Everything that can be said about Him expresses only what He is not, it is pure NOT of “negative theology.” And yet, religion exists as the knowledge of God and His revelation, and it not only reveals God in the world, but at the same time gives knowledge about God Himself, about the mystery of the Holy One. Trinity, and thus the barriers of “negative theology” seem to be weakened and fall. No one has seen God anywhere, but the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, is the one who confessed (John 1:18). So, we have, on the one hand, complete ignorance (transcendence) of the Divine in His being (οὐσία), but at the same time the Absolute is revealed, becomes God for the world in His action (ἐνέργεια). This revelation, obviously, is not accidental for the Absolute (Its accident), or a whim, or a catastrophe in the Absolute (like the emergence of the world from the Unconscious in Schopenhauer’s system), it has a basis in the life of the Absolute, which, living in the impregnable light that covers His greatness, reveals His glory in creation. The first task of theology is to find this difference and recognize it as the main, initial one. 2. The nature of the spirit. God is spirit (John 4:24). The nature of any spirit consists in the inseparable combination of self-consciousness and originality, or self-foundation, hypostasis (ὑπόστασις, persona), and nature (φύσις, natura). Outside of self-consciousness, spirit does not exist: every spiritual being is aware of itself as “I”, is “I” (from this primary immediacy the indefinability of “I” is also evident). This “I”, connecting in a mysterious and ineffable way with its basis, is a way of being, a revelation of this nature, or that which, while not itself being a hypostasis, is hypostasized in the “I” and becomes the living soul. The “I” has its own depth into which it throws its light, and in this relationship between the “I” and the nature of the “I” the life of the spirit is realized as a self-founding, self-founding self-consciousness. It (“I”) exists in an absolute manner, bearing in this respect the image and seal of the Absolute Spirit. But it also bears the stamp of its non-absoluteness, or creatureliness, having its own border, and this border is the unity of the spirit. Every “I” is limited because it inevitably ends up in “you” or “we”, i.e. into other “selves” 451, and cannot but know about the possibility, and therefore the inevitability of such a way out. The attempt of the “I” to luciferically close itself within itself, loving itself with absolute love, makes it only a victim of this limitation of its own, affirmed as absoluteness (Fichteanism). The boundary of the “I” is vitally removed in love, where the “I” is preserved, destroying itself, going beyond its limits to another “I”, and then it becomes the image of the Absolute Spirit in relation to its hypostatic existence. The absoluteness of the hypostasis is resolutely opposed by the limitedness of the “I”, taken in the singular: it requires going beyond this line. But in created nature, this exit only reaffirms this limitation, for here other “I”s are placed next to one “I”, absolute centers multiply, and this multiplicity testifies to their universal relativity. This could be absent only in that one case, if the exit into another “I” does not appear as an exit beyond the boundaries of his being, but remains within him - therefore, it is accomplished not in a one-hypostatic spirit, but in a non-one-hypostatic spirit. According to Christian revelation, God is a trinitarian spirit, having three persons and one being, Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity: “The One, moving from the beginning towards the two, stopped at the Trinity” (St. Gregory of Nazianzus). The absolute one-hypostatic, having itself and everything in an unconditional way, would be not only a contradictio in adjecto, but also an expression of metaphysical egoism, absolute limitation, Satanism. But if the postulate of the non-single hypostasis of the Absolute Spirit is also accessible to the limited spirit, then the secret of this non-single hypostasis in implementation cannot be revealed by it itself; it becomes the subject of a frank teaching about the Most Holy One. The Trinity, which, to a degree accessible to created consciousness, brings us closer to its comprehension. 3. God-Love. God is Love (1 John 4:8) as a trinity in which the eternal act of reciprocity and self-giving in love is carried out. The One Absolute Subject reveals this absoluteness of its own in the act of mutual love of the Three, thereby overcoming the limitations of the “I”, emerging into another “I” through self-giving and self-exhaustion in sacrificial love, and in Him regaining this given “I”, so that the three hypostases in their unity are the realization, the revelation of the single absolute “I”. As an Absolute subject, a trinitarian existing “I”, God speaks of Himself: I am who I am (Exodus 3:14), I am the Lord your God (Exodus 20:2, 5, etc.). As a trinitarian existent subject, God speaks of Himself: Let us make man in Our image (Gen. 1:26); Behold, Adam became like one of Us (Gen. 3:22). Also, about the appearance of God in the form of three men to Abraham it is said: and the Lord appeared to him... and said (to Abraham the three): Master! (Gen.18:1-3). Each hypostasis is the true God, existing through other hypostases, inseparable from it, having one common nature, neither merging nor dividing, so that there are not three Gods, but Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, a single trinitarian subject. In the difference of hypostases, as having absolute significance, the secret of intra-Trinity life is revealed by their quality: with the unity of their nature and their equivalence, there is an ontological relationship between them: the first, second, third hypostasis is the Father, the primary, primary, original hypostasis, revealing itself in the second, in the Son, and proceeding from Himself to the Son in the Holy Spirit. But the one who opens, the one who opens, and the one who unites them are equally honest in the unity of their nature and in mutual love. The Father, the source, the first will, gives birth to the Only Begotten Son, His Word, transmits everything (Matthew 11:27; John 3:35) to Him, but the Son wants to be a revelation of the Father, doing His will: I and the Father are one, the Father in Me and I in Him (John 10:30, 38). But the love of two does not yet realize the absoluteness of the Subject, for it does not close its ring. By giving birth to the Son, the Father proceeds to Him with love in the life-giving Spirit, and the Spirit, as the living hypostatic love of the Two, closes the reciprocity of love in the trinity, through which the revelation of the nature of the Absolute subject, the discovery of the nature and power of “I” through “you” and in “we” is realized: I as the triune We, in which each hypostasis is revealed through the other, “I” through “you” and in “we.” In trinitarianism, the Absolute subject is revealed as the Living God, for love in the depths of the Subject itself is life in itself, which the monohypostatic spirit does not know. The Trinitarian spirit is incomprehensible to him. The life of the Trinitarian Deity is a mystery for every creation, angels and men, to which there is no approach within the limits of selfish monohypostasis. 4. God in Himself and in His revelation. The Trinitarian life of the Holy Trinity is all-blessed, or absolute, it does not allow for either strengthening or accretion. How is it possible for her self-revelation, which becomes accessible to the creature? Trinitarianism is not only the love of the Three for each other, but also the love of God for Himself as a Trinitarian Subject for His self-revelation. Monohypostatic self-love is a product of selfish limitation and pride, but the self-love of a trinitarian Subject is not the same, for it is the revelation of one’s own as not one’s own, the revelation of the nature of oneself as another, not the pride of self-affirming limitation, but the humility of self-denying, boundless love. This love of God is not only the pre-eternal act of life, but also its content, inextricably linked with each other, and in this connection lies the basis of the revelation of God’s creation, the transition from the transcendent to the immanent. God, who lives unapproachable in the light, is also a God who reveals himself. There is a self-revelation of God, the Glory of God, and it is this that becomes available to creation. 5. Self-revelation of God. The Father is eternally revealed in the Son as in the radiance of glory and the image of His hypostasis (Heb. 1:3) and in the Holy Spirit, testing the depths of God (1 Cor. 2:10). The birth of the Word from the depths of the spirit is, on the one hand, a saying, an utterance of a thought, an act of the word, but at the same time the birth of the thought itself in its content - the Word as not only an act, but also a meaning, or a fact (which corresponds to the double meaning of the word, λόγος, the word as word-speech and word-meaning). In the birth of the Son, the Father reveals Himself in Him, but in this same birth the content of the Divine Word, the Wisdom of the Father in the Son, is also revealed. The Father brings forth the Holy Spirit, life-giving love for the Son, which embraces the Son and, in response, the Father. In the act of inspiration, the creative impulse, or act, is also distinguished from its subject, or content, from the fact of creativity. In the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father to the Son, there is therefore not only the coming out of the Spirit from the bosom of the Father, but also His procession as an act of Divine life-creation. And that content, which is expressed in the Word and overshadowed (felt) by the Spirit, belongs to the Holy Trinity as Its Glory, the Revelation of the Father in the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is as consubstantial and inseparable in Its Glory, or in Its self-revelation, as in Its Essence. Therefore, the Wisdom of God cannot be attributed to only one hypostasis, namely the Logos. This will be correct only in the sense that, considered primarily in relation to the Second Hypostasis, the Word, Wisdom is the Logos, but it, considered primarily in relation to the Third Hypostasis, is the Kingdom of the Holy Spirit, the Glory of God, 452 and in relation to the entire Holy Trinity - the Kingdom and Power and Glory of God. What is the subject of God’s self-revelation, the content of Wisdom-Sophia? The divine world, everything, completeness: everything came into being through Him (John 1:3). All this is the revelation of the Father in the Word and in the Holy Spirit: the Word that has become tangible, from ideal to real. In terms of content and meaning, ideally, this is all determined by the Word of God, and in this regard we can say: Sophia is Logos (although it is incorrect to say the other way around: Logos is Sophia), but in existence, in reality, this is all the realm of the Holy Spirit. “Prime Sophia” is that “Kingdom and Power and Glory of the Father and the Son and the Holy.” Spirit", which is constantly glorified in priestly exclamations as a revelation of the entire Most Holy. The Trinity and all Her Persons, each in its own special sense, but not one exclusively. 6. “Energy” and “property”. The distinction made between God in Himself (transcendent) and in Revelation is not new, for it was made back in the 14th century. in Byzantium as a result of the so-called. Palamite disputes, when a difference was established between the being of God, οὐσία, the creature unknown, and the action of God, ἐνέργεια, and for the creature the energy of God is the revealed Divinity, ἐνέργεια θεός ἐστιν 453 (although not ὁ Θεός 454) (Palamas’ opponents accused him of introducing polytheism through the doctrine of energies). Essentially the same distinction, only in a different light, is expressed in the thought that the Wisdom of God, Sophia, is the revelation of the transcendental being of God. And as according to the teachings of St. Gregory Palamas, Divine energies are not confined to only one of the Divine Hypostases, but reveal the entire Holy Trinity, as well as each of the Hypostases, in accordance with Her eternal properties 455, just as Sophia as the Glory of God corresponds not only to the Second Hypostasis as Her personal property, but is in the possession of the entire Holy Trinity and, therefore, each of the Hypostases. Sometimes they try to abolish the essence of this question, believing that the name Sophia denotes only the “property” of God inherent in the Logos, and the “property” is understood in an abstract sense, completely inappropriate when applied to the Divine, and Sophia is reduced to a simple allegory. The doctrine of the “properties” of God, nurtured by Catholic scholasticism, and from here coming into Orthodox dogma, itself requires theological interpretation (unless one takes the position of Eunomius, who affirmed the complete knowability of the Divine and the adequacy of human thought to His essence). In any case, the “property” of God presupposes the discovery of the action of the Divine in the world, its differentiating reaction to the simple being of God, alien to the diversity of “properties,” and we are also talking about the justification of the world as the revelation of God. And “property,” if we are to talk about it, must be understood not abstractly-allegorically, but realistically, as an ens realissimum 456, existing not only for thought (ἐν ἐπινοίᾳ, as was said in the Eunomian disputes), but also in itself. For the thoughts and words of God are the works of God, and the breath of the Spirit of God is life-giving power. And just as much as the energy of God is not an allegory or abstraction, so is Sophia. 7. Love of Love. God's love for Himself as revealed Divinity is Divine Sophia, which is in this sense the Love of Love, the eternal object and content of God's love. Here, undue anthropomorphism must be immediately eliminated, in which it is forgotten that subjective human ideas, which are valid only in the subject and for the subject, cannot be applied at all in relation to Sophia. The Word of God as content does not remain only ideally speculative, but becomes truly tangible in the life-giving Spirit. Therefore, Sophia must be understood as a mental essence, as an unfolding world of divine energies, as a unity, a perfect organism of divine ideas, permeated by the Holy Spirit and revealed in truth and power. The wisdom of God, understood in this sense, must be strictly distinguished from the essence of God, or nature (οὐσία or φύσις); it is the same basis or being for all Hypostases. Nature - φύσις - is correlative to hypostasis as its basis, while Sophia is a revelation of the Trihypostatic God about Himself, the Glory of God, inseparable from the Revealed and, however, existing in itself as the content of divine revelation. Considered in relation to Rev. Trinity, she is completely transparent to Her and merges with Her; considered in itself, it is the divine fullness of all-unity, everything that has a basis in God, and in this capacity it is the eternal basis of being, although it itself is not yet being, since God is above being, but already outlines the exit to being (the “transcendental place” of being). This is the world in God before the creation of the world, its heavenly image and prototype, and in this sense Wisdom says about itself that “The Lord created (had) me at the beginning of His ways” 457. This thought differs significantly from pantheism, which identifies the life of the world with the life of God and sees in the world not the revelation of God, but, as it were, His own life and formation. On the contrary, here an insurmountable line is established between the living in Himself, the self-existent and self-sufficient Trinitarian God and the world, posited from non-existence to being by His omnipotence as His revelation. However, it is impossible to deprive the world of its divine basis, outside of which nothing exists, but by the power of which we live and move and are (Acts 17:28). And if the lie of pantheism (all-God) that everything is God is incorrect, then the truth is undeniable that everything is in God, or with God (pan-en-theism: Πάντα ἐν Θεῷ). Sophia, as the object of God’s love, as the Glory of God, or His Revelation, is necessarily a living, intelligent essence, for God does not love ghostly abstraction and deadness; everything concrete, worthy of love, is alive, has the power of life, receiving it from the life-giving Holy Spirit. 8. Hypostasis or hypostasis? 458 How should one think of Sophia in God as a living entity? There is only one source of life, one Life, eternal and original - the Trinitarian God himself. Sophia is inseparable from the Divine; she has her life in Him. But how? Is it so, as God and every hypostatic spirit created by Him has it, i.e. hypostatically? In other words, does Sophia, the Glory of God, have her own special “hypostasis”? Is there a special hypostasis in the Holy Trinity, namely the “fourth hypostasis”? Obviously, this very question is absurd and impossible: there is no fourth hypostasis, equal in honor and consubstantial with the Most Holy One. There is no Trinity and there cannot be; the Sacred Trinumber is self-closed and does not allow any increment. Nevertheless, the question remains: to the extent that Sophia is the love of the Holy Trinity as Her self-revelation, can she, being the object of love, not love in return? And can love not be hypostatic? This is the main reason why we have to raise the question of hypostasis as applied to Sophia. Sophia cannot have her own hypostasis, for this would mean an original existence, similar to the three hypostases, and would introduce a quaternity into the Trinity. But this denial of hypostasis in Sophia does not yet mean the rejection of hypostasis in her and the reduction of Sophia to an allegory or attribute of the Divine, a “property”, and not a living essence. The concept of hypostasis introduced here is equally different from both hypostasis and non-hypostasis, characteristic of everything that does not exist in itself, i.e. dead or distracted. So, in the realm of the spirit, along with hypostasis and its nature, another possible state is determined - hypostasis. This is the ability to hypostasis, to belong to a hypostasis, to be its revelation, to surrender to it. This is a special hypostatic state not through one’s own, but through another hypostasis, hypostasis through self-giving. This is the power of love, but passive, feminine, self-giving in the acceptance of love, but without the ability to become an active, hypostatic center of it. This is what the mystics called “eternal femininity.” 9. Hypostasis. To the extent that Sophia is not a hypostasis, it cannot be said that she represents an original, distinct beginning in the life of the Holy Trinity; it would be more accurate to say that it is in God, or with God, as His revelation. In relation to God, it merges with the trinity, both in trinity and separately and with each of the hypostases, for them it is completely transparent; this precisely means that Sophia is not a hypostasis. But God has it as His self-revelation, as the content of divine life, as an object of divine Love, as the Glory of God, the eternal cloud of the condensed radiance of the ever-present Light. Revelation 459 tells us about the Glory of God in massive and expressive images. It is inseparable from the essence of God, God has it, but to be with God-Love as its object, content, idea is possible only for a living essence that surrenders to this love, although passively, not as a hypostasis, but hypostatically, in the image of the hypostasis, as a hypostasized principle. Is such passive love, only accepting and responsive, possible if the activity inherent only in hypostasis is the very basis of love, its center? Is such “feminine” 460 or passive love possible? Yes, it is possible and, as follows from the previous one, even inevitable. There is a spirit as a hypostasis, which has its own nature, and there is a hypostasis that is hypostasized around this hypostasis as its content; there is a subject and a predicate, spirit and soul, or soul and body, there is possession and being possessed - only these two exist in the world, for dead, completely indifferent things and relationships do not exist in the world, they are illusory. Therefore, the Glory of God is not an allegory or a subjective reflection of the Divine in man, a “psychologism” explained as an anthropomorphic image, like the expressions: eyes, ears, hands, feet of the Lord (although these expressions would require a more significant interpretation). As the object of God’s love for Himself, Wisdom, or Glory (the first expression is more consistent with Sophia in the Second Hypostasis, the latter in the Third), loves God with reciprocal love, belonging to Him, surrendering to Him; this is God's reciprocal love for Himself. Here it is also appropriate to recall the idea of ​​the body, which is the name of the Church (1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 1:23; Col. 1:24). But what is a body? Is the mass of muscles and bones lifeless? However, one must abandon this idea, thinking about the prototype and essence of the body - spirit-bearing, spirit-obedient, spiritual. The body is a container and at the same time a revelation, a revelation of the spirit; the body belongs to the spirit, and not vice versa, as is the case in the sinful state of man. Christ has a Body - the Church, the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15); hypostasis in Christ has its own hypostasis, and in this sense in the Church every person is one with Christ, there is Christ living in everyone. And yet, His body itself is not Christ, but only Christ’s, belonging to Him in surrendered love. 10. Beginning. As the Glory and Revelation of God, Sophia occupies a place between God and the world. It contains the eternal, divine everything of this world, it is its intelligible prototype, the beginning of the ways of God. The Mosaic Six Days 461 depicts in hidden symbols the creation of the world, after which God rested from His works, for the universe was completed and revealed in its entirety as a perfect cosmos, a created image of the Glory of God (“the heavens preach the Glory of God” - Ps. 18:2). The world is a certain reality, for it has an abiding basis in God. His created basis is nothingness, from which he came into being; its divine basis is everything revealed in Sophia as the Word of the Father, filled with the Holy Spirit. But its “joy”, the pinnacle of creation, is “in the sons of men” 462. In its integral being, the world is humanity, and man is the living center of the world, the ruler of the world, its “god” (in purpose). Sophia as hypostasis is pre-eternal humanity. The creation of the world means the immersion of Sophia into nothingness with his involvement in the existence of the world as its lowest basis; he is given the opportunity to possess Sophia, as it were, in order to be possessed by her. In creation, Sophia receives her original existence, becoming the world as its divine substance, as God in the world. Her hypostasis, which in God does not have independent existence, receives it in the world. God's love for creation is so immeasurable that it not only allows creation to be the receptacle of Sophia, but God, as it were, gives up His place to the creature in relation to Sophia and as a hypostasis. In creation He, as it were, separates Sophia, His own hypostasis, from His Hypostases, from Himself, and gives it to the created hypostasis. By an ineffable and unknown act, God brings to life the image of Himself, i.e. creates a truly new, or created, hypostasis of man, and to him He cedes His throne in creation, He makes him a hypostasis to the world hypostasis, the soul of the world, He intends to become the possessor of the world in the same way as God possesses Sophia, His Glory. In created Sophia, i.e. in the world, man is given to be a world hypostasis, a created god. And in this sense, it must be said that the earthly Adam exists in the image of the heavenly - Christ. This is the ontological basis for the possibility of the incarnation of God, the reunification in a single hypostasis of the Logos of both natures, divine and human, of the uncreated and created world, testifying to their original unity in Sophia. Before Christ, man was the only hypostasis to the world hypostasis; in Christ the Logos appeared as this hypostasis, sharing a common hypostasis with man, having a Sophia nature in both of its aspects, heavenly and cosmic, or created. In Him the union of both these aspects took place through the founding of the Church, connecting the earthly with the heavenly. And the human created hypostasis, in the many faces of its repetitions in Christ, is united with the prototype and becomes His Church. The human image merges with the prototype, and, disappearing in it like a spark in fire, a person, as it were, renounces his created hypostasis for the eternal hypostasis of Christ, and the “salvation” of each person consists precisely in this, that, having “destroyed his soul,” he finds eternal life with Christ and in Christ and thereby realizes in himself the unconditional hypostasis, i.e., having overcome his multihypostasis, winning in love created limitation, having melted one’s “I”, pour it into the ocean of trinitarianism (“let us come and make our abode with him” - John 14:23). Sophia becomes not only the foundation and ultimate goal of the world, but also reality: there will be all kinds of God in everyone. 11. Incarnation and Motherhood. The incarnation of the Logos presupposes not only the condescension of God, but also the acceptance of God; Incarnation is also Motherhood. The Word is eternally born from the bosom of the Father and is embraced by the Holy Spirit, emanating from the same bosom, so that Sophia is the revelation of the Father in the Son, acceptable by the Holy Spirit. Created Sophia, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, receives strength to receive the Word, to be born of God. The world is the womb that gives birth to the Mother of God; all humanity is the Mother of God becoming in Her. Mary is intended in it as the truth and its fulfillment in Sofia (“previously named Mother and in the last year appearing Theotokos”, “named All-Tsarina” - stichera for the liturgy of the service of Entry into the Church). The world in a person, purified by the Holy Spirit, becomes obedient and transparent for him when he can say through the lips of his purest Being: behold, the servant of the Lord. The Incarnation was expressed in the fact that the hypostasis of the Logos took the place of the created hypostasis in human hypostasis; The birth of God was expressed in the fact that the created human hypostasis gave itself undividedly and without reserve to the Holy Spirit and became a hypostatic vessel receiving Him. Such is the Gracious, Most Pure, Most Blessed, Heavenly and Earthly Queen. But through this, in created Sophia, a special hypostatic center is designated, along with the Logos, Mary, the Mother of God. At the same time, both hypostatic faces, which represent the power of the incarnation of God, are united together (as usually the Mother and the Infant God are depicted in the Mother of God icons, with particular expressiveness in the icon of the Sign type with the eternal Emmanuel - not in the hands, but in the womb). Thus, Sophia is marked by the birth of the Father's Only Begotten Son, Matter. Motherhood differs essentially from fatherhood: only the latter gives birth; motherhood is not birth, but only possession in the womb, life-bearing of an already conceived, seeded fetus. Motherhood combines fatherhood with sonship as the possession of a fruit already born, acquired and felt in this birth. Fatherhood is the will to be born, sonship is the will to be born, motherhood is not a will, but a state of being born. 12. Ever-Virgin. Mary is a creation that has reached the heights of Sophia, and in this sense she is created Sophia, the Queen of heaven and earth, the human manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, She has that basic feature that distinguishes Sophia as the divine world. In this latter, everything is in a positive, internal, organic unity, like everything in everything and through everything, and each point in it is an all-existent and universal center, which corresponds to its integrity, chastity as the wisdom of this integrity. The Mother of God with all her family. And Her family can be the entire human race - and is the bearer of chastity. And just as chastity is a perfect turn to God in the absence of any polycentrism that destroys integrity, unfolds (corrupts) it, or the power of the eternal Virginity, then the Mother of God is the embodiment of Virginity: not just a Virgin, but an Ever-Virgin (ἀεὶ παρθένος), “the only unartificial one,” in which virginity has already become the very essence, and not only by condition. Integrity and chastity are primarily the action of the Holy Spirit, resting on the Mother of God and making Her the vessel of these gifts. Because of this, Mary is inherent in perfect holiness, for She is sanctified without measure by the Holy Spirit. Holiness is the nature of God, the only and integral “property” to which all others are reduced. Only the Lord is holy in Himself, and all created holiness is sanctification from the Sanctifier. Mary is sanctified to the only and perfect degree, therefore She is holy with divine holiness, although not by nature, but by grace, by receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit Himself living in Her. In this sense, Mary is the personal image of the Church. Although only the Son of God is “the only sinless one” as the Logos, who accepted only the “likeness” of the flesh of sin, the Mother of God also became Most Pure and Immaculate, sanctifying the world with her holiness. 13. Bride Unbride. The world as created Sophia in the incarnation of God is the Logos in its divine nature and Mary in its human nature. If, like the Logos, the created Sophia, or the world, is Christ (Christosophy), then like Mary she is the Church - the triumph in the created world of the heavenly Sophia. The world in Sophia is the Child of divine birth, and he is also the Mother, the Child-Mother. And to the extent that humanity in each individual hypostasis, through the power of churching, contains the intelligent ray of Sophia and to that extent it becomes Sophia, it turns out to be one with Christ and one with the Mother of God. In his true and hidden being, every person is a Child-Mother, Christ-Mary (of course, this applies only to the essence, has an ontological meaning, but in no way can it be attributed to his given state). The image of the Sign of the Mother of God, the eternal birth of God, is inscribed in human nature as its Sophia foundation, shining through creation. As the Church, creation is headed by the Mother of God. As a creature, and together the top and head of every creature, as a personal primate in the Church, the Mother of God is the “Bride of God,” the “Unbrided Bride,” and under these images she is depicted in the Word of God according to the general patristic understanding of the relevant texts 463. But this is not enough. In every human hypostasis in its Sophia face, the same internal relationships and self-determinations necessarily arise. As a creature that receives and incarnates the Logos, every human hypostasis longs for His birth in its soul and in the manger of its heart wants to become matter for Him, to partake of the motherhood of God. “His Mother is every pious soul” (Blessed Augustine). At the same time, every soul strives for Christ as its heavenly Bridegroom, wants to be one with Him, in the image of marriage “in Christ and in the Church”: the soul is a bride striving in spiritual communion to recognize the Heavenly Bridegroom. But, finding itself in this center of its being, in unity with the Logos, from it the soul strives back to the Church as its Mother, with whom it longs for spiritual union in the gracious bosom of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This spiritual aspiration of the human hypostasis in both directions, with the soul feeling itself simultaneously in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, in the Logos and in the Church, in Christ and the Mother of God, is the continuously occurring miracle of the revelation of Sophia in creation. 14. Soul of the world. For created consciousness, Sophia appears as the essence of the world in a cosmic face, hypostasized in man. God has Sophia with Himself, or in Himself, as His revelation; the creature has it above itself as its foundation, as its highest nature or homeland, as an internal law, or norm of life. Therefore, any created creativity is not absolute, for it is not from itself, it is determined by the sophistry of its nature. The created hypostasis is only the hypostatic center of self-existent nature, which it is called to reveal or contain in its consciousness and creativity. In her life, she joins the Sophia basis of her being, deepening and establishing herself in it not from the outside, but from the inside, through the power of chastity, for like is known by like. In this sense, it is man (according to St. Gregory Palamas) who is the soul of the world, or rather, he hypostasizes it. Therefore, the experience of saints as bearers of chastity is qualitatively different from the wisdom of this world, for in it creation is recognized not from the outside, but from the inside, not in the evil infinity of Kantian experience, but by the inner eye in integrity and unity. And in external experience the overwhelming power of Sophia is revealed as the mind of the world, its inexhaustible wealth and the beauty of its forms. But to the enlightened eye of the ascetic, the world appears as a living robe of the Divine, as His Word, clothed with the Holy Spirit. And therefore Sophia is wisdom, true, not false gnosis; it is the truth of truths, the beauty of beauties. It is the substance of the world, which alone makes the world a world, not illusory, but grounded in itself. The world exists in its originality, which overcomes pantheism, which is also acosmism. But the world is led by man. Ultimately, all creation has a human hypostasis; she herself has only hypostasis, the ability and desire to be hypostasized in a plurality of hypostases. All creation is permeated with Sophia's rays and bears the stamp of the Trinitarian God. 15. Liturgics and iconography. Based on all that has been said, the instructions that our Orthodox liturgics and iconography give regarding the manner of venerating Sophia become clear. These instructions have a guiding value and make up for the almost complete absence of school theology on this issue. Churches dedicated to St. Sophia, on Russian soil they usually time their church celebrations to coincide with the Mother of God holidays (the Nativity of the Virgin Mary or the Assumption), so that from the meaning of this celebration we have to conclude that in the prayerful consciousness of our ancestors her Mother of God face appears with great clarity. On the contrary, in Byzantium, the celebration of Sophia as the “lord’s” holiday (on the day of Christmas or the Resurrection of Christ), apparently, was dominant, and here, therefore, the hypostasis of the Logos takes on predominant importance. In the Russian service of the Divine Sophia, although she directly refers to the Logos as the Wisdom of God, along with this the Mother of God is called Sophia and the Church. Moreover, the entire service is inseparably connected with the service of the Dormition of the Mother of God, so that the general character of Sophia’s service is theotokos. This at first glance incomprehensible doubling finds a sufficient explanation for itself in the fact that Sophia is hypostasized for the creature as Christ and Mary 464. The same is true in iconography. Three typical versions depict Sophia: 1) as a complex composition of the Church in its most important representatives and with a crucifix in the center (Yaroslavl), 2) as the Mother of God surrounded by saints and angels in a seven-pillared church (Kiev), 3) as a fiery angel, with the Mother of God and the Forerunner on either side, and above him Christ and the Holy Trinity (Novgorod). The complexity of all these compositions completely excludes here the seductive simplicity of the formula that Sophia is simply the Wisdom of God, the Logos or “property”. A common feature of all these compositions is the connection of the heavenly and created human world, as well as the presence of an image of the Mother of God along with Christ. Here the idea is clearly expressed that, on the one hand, Sophia is the Church in her heavenly and earthly image, and on the other, that she is the revelation of the Holy Trinity; for its hypostatic revelation the faces of Christ and the Mother of God serve. The most difficult to interpret, and at the same time characteristic here, is the image of a fiery angel sitting on a throne in the center of the (Novgorod) icon. It depicts, in our opinion, Sophia as an angel of creation, the ideal soul of the world. There is no doubt that this is not just an angel as one of the representatives of the angelic world (the latter are placed at the top in the same icon). This exceptional significance is evidenced not only by its fiery transparency, but also by all its attributes, starting from the golden throne. This is not at all an image of a separate angelic hypostasis, no, this is an image of the entire intelligent world, the divine unity in Sophia. It itself does not have its own hypostasis, but only the ability to be hypostasized, to become the nature and content of any hypostasis, and therefore can only be depicted in the light of this hypostasis, as a living and personal being. In a word, the image of a fiery angel means: not hypostasis, but hypostasis, or Divine Sophia. (The Experience of Dogmatic Exegesis John 19:34) First and only publication: “Path” magazine, Paris, 1932, No. 32. P.3–42. For a cultural commentary on the original image around which the article is built, see: Averintsev S.S. Grail // Myths of the peoples of the world. M., 1987. T.1. pp. 317–318. Considering Bulgakov’s early fascination with “Wagner’s mighty mysticism” (see the essay “Two Encounters” in this volume), it is possible that Bulgakov’s approach to the theme of the Grail was influenced by his impressions of Wagner’s operas “Parzival” and “Lohengrin.” In the Gospel of John, in the narrative of the passion of Christ, we know one feature that is absent from the other evangelists 465. This is a story about breaking the legs of two thieves and about piercing the ribs of Jesus with a spear: “One of the soldiers pierced His ribs with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out - αἷμα καὶ ὕδωр 466. At the same time, this message is given special significance, the truth of this testimony is deliberately and solemnly confirmed: “And he who saw” (i.e., the beloved disciple of Christ) “testified, and his testimony is true; he – ἐκεῖνος 467 – knows that he speaks the truth, so that you may believe” (John 19:34–35). (And then follows another confirming reference to the Old Testament text: “that the Scripture may be fulfilled.”) This event occurred after Jesus “bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30), so that the soldiers, when they arrived, “saw Him already dead” (John 19:33). The flow of blood and water from a dead body is difficult to explain (although attempts at such an explanation have been made 468) 469; it is a sign (σημεῖον) in the sense of John’s Gospel, and the special meaning of this sign is determined not only by the fact that blood and water flowed from the dead body, but also by the condition of this body. Although it had already died after the spirit left him, it did not become a corpse with the beginning of decomposition, for “His flesh saw no corruption” (Acts 2:31; Ps.15:10). The death of Christ for His body was only a deep sleep or fainting. Although Jesus “committed His spirit into the hands of the Father” (Luke 23:46), the connection of the Divine spirit with the body was not completely broken. And this, although temporarily abandoned by the spirit, but a living body had blood in it, and it was once again killed by a blow from a spear. The consequence of this blow was the flow of blood and water; the body for burial remained bloodless and lost the necessary part of its composition, namely moisture. We know 470 that in the “blood is the soul of animals” 471, the life force of the body. The outpouring of blood therefore means the separation of the soul from the body, that is, the death of the body. True, even after the bleeding the Savior’s body did not become a corpse, for it did not give in to decay, but it remained in a kind of suspended animation, awaiting its resurrection. Blood is a completely special substance, which is remarkable in that it unites mental and material, living and inanimate nature, animal soul and body. She mediates between spirit and body, spiritual and material existence as a living connection between them. Blood, although it is only a special liquid belonging to the physical world, but it also conceals the mystery of life, contains the soul of the body, its animal entelechy. This connection and identification of the principles of living and nonliving (or containing only dormant forms of life) in their indecomposable unity is a creative act of God, a certain primordial gift of life-giving. Natural science comprehends with its methods how this act is, but not what it is, which remains indecomposable in its immediacy: life is life, all living things live, are animated, and the soul of animals is in the blood. Of course, the life of blood presupposes the presence of an organism with all its complexity, but this serves only as a general expression of the basic fact - the animation of matter, which the body represents. In the act of death there is usually no separation of blood and body; on the contrary, remaining in their inseparability, both begin to decompose, and with the decomposition of the blood they die, the animal soul dies. The soul living in the blood does not itself possess immortality and does not give it to the body - only the human spirit is immortal, and it is this that revives the soul, and through it the body. In resurrection, a person receives new power of the soul to revive a new body, but this, as it were, new soul, due to the self-identity of the spirit that inspires it, turns out to be identical with the previous one, or rather, is a continuation of the same life. The spirit preserves the potency of the soul (and through it the body), like a seed, according to the explanation of St. Paul (1 Cor. 15:42–44). Animals do not know that personal immortality that a person has because they do not have a spirit, but only an animal soul, and it completely decomposes along with the body and blood. Here we can only talk about the immortality of the race (“according to their kind,” as they were created: Gen. 1:21, 24–25). In the death of Christ, after being struck by a spear, there was a separation of the soul-blood from the body, and His lifeless, bloodless body in the resurrection, of course, again found a soul, and, consequently, blood: we partake of this blood of the glorified body of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist. But this blood of the resurrected, glorified body, although identical with the blood of the body that lived on earth, is also different from it, since the blood that has flowed out has already been separated from this body. The very body of the Savior that was in the tomb was resurrected. But the shed blood of the Savior 472 was no longer present in this body. The blood and water that poured out from the rib, as if they did not belong to the already resurrected body, remained in this world. Thus, we stand here before a fact of exceptional significance, solemnly proclaimed and witnessed by the Evangelist: the human nature of Christ, His living, inspired body was divided on the cross. He gave His blood and water to the world, and the body, deprived of blood and water, was buried and then resurrected. We are faced with the question of the dogmatic meaning of this fact. What do the outpouring of blood and water signify? Blood, according to the meaning of the sacrament of the Eucharist, is the animation of the body associated with the substance, its living soul. It represents, on the one hand, the seat of the spirit, it is, as it were, a body for the spirit (and in this sense, the blood of Christ corresponds to the Church as His body), on the other hand, it contains the soul of the body, living by the power of inspiration by the blood (“blood circulation”). We can say that the blood of Christ expresses His humanity (“From one blood God made the whole human race to live on all the face of the earth” - Acts 17:26), its psychobiological substrate. Water is the primary element of the world's substance, from which the world was originally formed (“... and the spirit of God hovered over the water” - Genesis 1:2; “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water and separate” - Genesis 1:6; “The voice of the Lord over the waters” - Ps. 28:3), in a certain sense, the metaphysical primary matter of the world - ὕλη - and the new, renewed ὕλη is water baptismal, Jordanian. The Body of Christ, of course, consisted of the same parts and the same elements as the human body in general, but if we express this diversity in unity, then such a unifying, all-dissolving and all-containing primary element of “earth” is “water,” from which the “firmament” arose 473. The unity of blood and water thus expresses the fullness of humanity as a combination of the spiritual, life-giving, blood principle and the life-giving, passive, material. This is a living physicality that emerged from the body of Christ left by the spirit on the cross. This separation was not accompanied by the destruction of the body itself, as is specifically indicated by the evangelist, who recalls (John 19:36) the image of the Passover lamb. The latter, in the indestructibility of his bones, prefigured the indestructibility of the Lord’s body: “This happened so that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “His bone will not be broken”” (Ex. 12:46). So, on the cross, a mysterious division of the corporeality of Jesus took place: His unbroken flesh was taken from the cross, laid in the tomb and resurrected, but earlier than that, His animated corporeality emerged from it as blood and water. We find confirmation of this understanding of body and blood as humanity in general from John the Theologian himself in the famous text 1 John 5:6–8 (the so-called comma Johanneum), the text about the three testifying in heaven, which is absent in the original manuscripts: “This is Jesus Christ, who came by water and blood δι’ ὕδατος καὶ αἵματος 474 (and the Spirit), not by water only οὐκ ἐν τῷ ὕδατι μόνον, but by water and blood ἐν τῷ ὕδατι καὶ ἐν τῷ αἵματι 475, and the Spirit (τὸ πνεῦμα) bears witness (to that), because the Spirit is the truth... For three are the witnesses, the Spirit, the water and the blood, and these three οἱ τρεῖς into one εἰς τὸ ἕν are the essence.” This text, which is a crux interpretum 476, according to its historical meaning, contains a refutation of the teachings of the Docetians 477. According to the latter, Christ only descended on Jesus during baptism with “water” in order to leave Him during His suffering. Against this teaching about the illusory incarnation, the apostle points out the true completeness and authenticity of the incarnation, which was accomplished “not only by water, but also by blood.” However, regardless of this historical context, although in connection with it, the dogmatic content of this text is that it affirms the necessity (and together the sufficiency) of blood and water for the completeness and truth of the incarnation of Christ. “Water and blood” is true humanity, in which dwells the “Spirit,” and the “Spirit” in John 5:8 is obviously the Spirit of Christ, the Logos made flesh and made man. Thus, a tripartite composition of Christ’s nature is obtained: Spirit-Logos, soul (blood), body (water), becoming “one” (1 John 5:7). However, in 1 John 5:6: “The Spirit bears witness of Him” - the Spirit is, of course, already the Holy Spirit. 478 But, one way or another, the important thing is that blood and water here clearly have the meaning of true humanity, inspired corporeality 479, so that blood is the soul, and water is the body 480. So, according to the solemn testimony of the Gospel of John, the human nature of the Savior was divided in His death, being, however, inseparable: blood and water, the spiritual and physical substance, poured out from the rib, and the body remained bloodless and dehydrated, although in the fullness of its entire composition. Let us delve into the significant and even, one might say, stunning meaning of this division. Let's start with the simple and more indisputable. First of all, this division is permanent in the sense that nowhere are there any indications that this shed blood and water would return to the resurrected body of Christ and thus their new reunion would occur. Of course, the resurrected body of Christ had all the fullness of humanity, i.e. it was an animated human body, therefore having blood. We have to make a twofold assumption: either there was still some blood (and water) left in the body, as is quite plausible, because a blow to the side with a spear was not at all an inevitable consequence of the outpouring of all the blood and water from the entire body; or the blood was restored in the resurrected body along with the returned life of the body (as it is constantly restored in every living organism). But with both assumptions, there remains a difference between the blood and water poured out from the side of Christ and the body and blood taught in the sacrament of the Eucharist, with their constant identity. What is this difference and what is this identity? First of all, it must be established that the very fact of the outpouring of the blood of Christ along with water from His side remained little noticeable in dogmatic exegesis; as far as it has been noticed, it is understood only Eucharistically. By the way, from this fact comes the cycle of Western legends about St. Grail. The Holy Grail, according to this legend, is the Eucharistic cup from which the Lord gave communion to His disciples at the Last Supper. Joseph of Arimathea collected the blood (and water?) that poured out of his rib into this cup. The legend does not add whether all the blood that poured out from the rib was collected in the cup or only part of it (Eastern tradition says that Adam’s head was buried on Golgotha, as is usually depicted on Orthodox crucifixes, and that a drop of Divine blood fell on it). Western legend in its own way takes possession of the plot of St. The Grail, complicating and even drowning this topic with various romantic details. This plot becomes the property of chivalric poetry, which the Catholic Church shuns. In general, in the Western interpretation of St. There are two versions of the Grail: one, it is the cup of the blood of the Savior, from Joseph of Arimathea, which came to England at Glastonbury (from here it is woven into the cycle of legends about the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table 481). The Holy Cup is hidden from people, but is worthy (Parsifal 482). According to another version, St. The Grail is a miraculous stone on which St. appears. cup – a kind of antimension 483 on a stone (according to Catholic custom) – “alatyr-stone” of the Russian song. Western Christianity was given the opportunity to feel and religiously perceive this theme - and this is the positive meaning of the legend of St. The Grail - but it was completely impossible to reveal it. The East completely passed over this topic as such, except for the fact that some features of the legend about St. The Grail was woven into the tales widespread in the East about the miraculous appearances of the Infant Christ in the Eucharist 484. It should also be especially noted that the interpretation of John 19:34, which follows the Orthodox proskomedia 485 at the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great. The holy lamb, upon removal, is pierced by the priest on the left side with a copy with the words: “One of the warriors pierced His side with a copy,” and then, pouring into the cup “the holy lamb.” combination" (wine with water), the priest pronounces the words: "And blood and water came forth," and after that, pointing his hand at the cup, he adds: "And he who has seen bears witness, and truly is his testimony." What does this symbolism mean? Doesn’t it also contain an identification of the blood and water poured out from the rib with the Eucharistic blood, with a denial of the difference between them? In our opinion, no, it does not. Proskomedia (like the entire liturgy) generally has a twofold content: first of all, it is the sacrament of the Translation of the Holy Gifts and Communion, but moreover, it is a commemoratively repeated Incarnation in its main moments, corresponding to various symbolic actions in the liturgy. In particular, at the proskomedia, at appropriate moments, the Nativity of Christ, His passion, and resurrection are remembered. But it is precisely in the order of such remembrance that the words of John 19:34 are pronounced, but thereby this moment is not introduced into the Eucharistic action itself. The sacrament is accomplished through the commemorative reproduction of the Lord's Supper itself and the utterance of the establishing words of the Lord, receiving final power in epiclesis 486, and here there is no longer any relation to John 19:34. Of course, the blood of Christ is substantially one and self-identical both in the Eucharistic Chalice and in its outpouring on the cross from the five wounds of Christ, and especially from His side. However, it is different in the images of its existence and appearance for humans. And in this sense, first of all, the blood of Christ is distinguished, intended for communion and not intended for it: eucharistic and non-eucharistic, sacramental 487 and direct. I have already drawn attention to the important circumstance 488 that at the Last Supper the Lord, who was directly present among the disciples with His own earthly body and blood, communed them, however, not with this latter, but with the mysterious body and blood into which the bread and wine were placed. Thus, already here, with the undoubted identity of the Eucharistic elements with the body and blood of Christ, the indicated distinction between them was made. We must maintain the same distinction here: the blood and water that poured out from the rib did not have a Eucharistic purpose. Therefore, only by virtue of the general identity of the blood of Christ, both poured out from the rib and the sacramental Eucharistic, the event on the cross is symbolically correlated with the corresponding act of proskomedia. The wound with a spear, instead of breaking the legs, is the completion of Christ’s saving sacrifice for the redemption of the human race. With this water and blood, human sin is washed away, and the New Testament Church is created with its grace-filled mystical gifts, baptismal water and Eucharistic blood. From the rib of the old Adam, the wife who seduced him into falling was created. But the wound inflicted on humanity by the rib of Adam is healed by the wound from the piercing by the copy of the body of Jesus. Blood and water poured into the world remain in it. They sanctify this world as a guarantee of its future transformation. Through these priceless streams of the blood of Christ and the water poured out from His side, the entire creation, the earth and the sky, our earthly world and all the star worlds, were sanctified. Image of St. The Grail, which holds St. The Blood of Christ expresses precisely the idea that, although the Lord ascended into heaven in His venerable flesh, yet in the blood and water that poured out from His side, the world received His holy relic, and the Holy Grail is its ciborium 489 and cancer. And the whole world is this chalice of St. Grail. He is inaccessible to worship; due to his holiness, he is hidden in the world from the world. However, it exists in him as an invisible force, and he becomes visible, appears to pure hearts worthy of it. This is the divine vision embodied in the legend of the Grail. If St. The Grail is the Eucharistic cup (according to legend), then the blood contained in it is not the Eucharist, for St. The Grail was given not for the communion of the faithful, but for the sanctification and transformation of the world. The Holy Eucharist is served as Divine food, through the eating of which believers are spiritually united with Christ. However, as food, it also shares its common destinies: the Eucharist does not remain in the world, but after fulfilling its direct purpose - communion - it ceases (the Holy Gifts are “consumed”). (In the legends about the Eucharistic apparitions of the Divine Child, this is expressed in the fact that angels carry Him to heaven after communion.) On the contrary, St. The Grail (as we will conditionally call the blood and water poured out from the side of Christ) is not served for communion, but remains in the world as its mysterious shrine, as the power of life, as that fire in which the world will be transformed into a new heaven and a new earth. For the Church, the body of Christ, is not only a “society of believers,” but also the entire universe in God. Just as man is a microcosm, and the world is an anthropocosm, so the area of ​​the Church and its power extend to the entire universe. All nature thirsts for the body and blood of Christ and partakes of them - in the blood and water shed on the cross. Nature also belongs to human nature, the body of Christ. The Holy Grail is not visible in the world with bodily eyes. The Church did not establish a special holiday for him and special veneration, with which she surrounded the cross of Christ, and its secret remains unsolved and even little noticed. However, once you have seen it, you can no longer forget it and not be satisfied with it. Ὁ Λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο – “The Word became flesh and dwelt in us” (John 1:14). This entry of the Logos into the world, although it constitutes the central fact of the entire life of the world, however, took place in time, at a certain point, and ended with the Ascension. In this sense, it is only temporary in the history of the world and man, like any individual life. The Divine from His transcendental eternity at one point touched the immanent temporality of the world. “The King of Heaven appeared on earth and lived with men” 490, in order, however, to “ascend to heaven” again, to return to the transcendental, leaving the earth orphaned and desolate... Is this so? And is the Ascension such abandonment? We already know that it is overcome by the miracle of the Eucharist, which expresses the connection of the ascended, glorified body with this world in the Eucharistic substance, in its mysterious transformation. However, is this connection exhaustive, or does the world, along with the sacrament, still have a natural connection with Christ, and what is it? As true man and the new Adam, Christ belongs to all humanity. In Him He already pre-exists before His incarnation in His ancestors, in that genealogy with which the Gospel begins. But this genealogy is the history not only of His carnal nature, but also of His human soul, which He received along with the blood of the Mother of God. Christ in His humanity is really attached to the human race as the New Adam, constituting its center; He is immanent to it. Is this blood connection broken after the Ascension, do the sons of men cease to be His relatives by blood, through His Mother, and His sisters and brothers, and His relatives, whose existence is so significantly emphasized in the Gospel? It is not enough to answer this question simply by pointing to the Eucharist. In it, indeed, the distance between the transcendental and the immanent is overcome through the transformation of bread and wine, the world's substance, into the glorified body and blood of Christ for the consumption of believers, and this overcoming, of course, has its basis in the once accomplished incarnation. However, this mysterious entry of the transcendent into the immanent, which is each time like a new incarnation of God, although identical with what was once accomplished, still does not express the immanence of the humanity of Christ to our world and our humanity. And first of all, a puzzling question remains: if the human blood of Christ constituted the central impulse of the entire life of the entire human race before His coming to earth in His genealogy, made Him “the son of David,” “the son of Abraham,” “the Son of Man,” was it really taken away from humanity through the Ascension, and now, after the Incarnation, it has become poorer on earth than before? Of course, one can object to the last thought by referring to St. The Eucharist, which humanity has, despite the Ascension, and the heavenly glorification of humanity by Christ, who sits with the flesh at the right hand of the Father and thereby raises humanity to the highest glorified state. However, it should be pointed out that the highest and most complete does not cancel the lower and preliminary; on the contrary, it includes it within itself due to a certain spiritual phylogenesis. The Divine Eucharist, like the heavenly glorified humanity in Christ, is distinguished from the natural connection of Christ's humanity with the human race, by virtue of which [we] are, so to speak, immanent in His body and blood. Can the earthly race of Christ fade away and His human genealogy be interrupted? 491 True, Christ brought a new sonship of God, the children of God, who are born not of flesh and blood, but of God, by water and spirit. However, this spiritual birth does not cancel, but presupposes the natural birth and natural life of man, although it crowns it with the grace of God. In a word, the question remains: does the Ascension of Christ interrupt His natural connection with us in humanity, raising it only to a new, mysterious (in the Eucharist) and heavenly (in the Ascension) image, or does Christ, even after His Ascension, remain belonging to our earthly humanity? Here we must also take into account the fact that the Mother of God in Her Dormition and Ascension was taken away from the world and with Her, as it were, the very human nature of Christ, which She personifies, was taken away. Thus, here, as it were, the connection between Christ and the world is finally broken, and the chain that began on earth in the genealogy of Christ goes to heaven. However, through this, earthly humanity is not devastated and is not deprived of what constitutes the hidden source of its life. Here we must take full account of the fact that the story of the Ascension is found in only two evangelists, briefly in Mark and more extensively in Luke (in the Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles). The Gospel of Matthew, which is silent about the Ascension, ends instead with the solemn promise of the Lord, which essentially explains and completes his idea: “And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen” (Matthew 28:20), and in John we have an indication of the departure to the Father only in the farewell conversation, but there is also no story about the departure in the Ascension. This makes us think that both testimonies are in a certain sense equivalent and in any case compatible: the Lord remains on earth until the end of the age, and He, having ascended, sits at the right hand of the Father 492. The compatibility of being in heaven, at the right hand of the Father, and some kind of being on earth should not be considered impossible and contradictory after it has already been approved by the Church regarding the sacrament of the Eucharist. However, there is no reason to associate the words of the Lord about being with us until the end of the age only to the sacrament of the Eucharist and thereby limit them. The Lord says about her: “Do this in remembrance of Me” - and thereby defines its meaning, as did the apostle. Paul: “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). But even this does not yet reveal the Lord’s promise to remain with us until the end of the age, which, after all, is the second coming 493. The Lord dwells with us on earth and at the same time He is at the right hand of the Father in heaven. “Heaven” and “ascension to heaven” here do not have the spatial meaning of a place - heaven is not a place located anywhere in astronomical space - but a metaphysical state of perfect glorification and deification of human nature, which thereby becomes inaccessible to human perception. This was how it was already after the Resurrection, even before the Ascension. However, then the Lord appeared to the disciples according to His will. And even after the Ascension He appeared to the apostle. Paul, therefore, and the transcendence of His presence in heaven does not place an impassable boundary for His appearance on earth (this also includes the appearance of Christ after the Ascension, preserved by tradition, for example to Apostle Peter; also, the icon of Christ is the place of His appearance for a prayerful meeting with Him 494. Thus, the Ascension does not only mean the removal of Christ from the world - which would correspond to His complete disincarnation (such a thought would constitute the most evil heresy), - as much as the glorification of His human nature, until His complete deification and sitting at the right hand of the Father. The Ascended Christ remains with us all the days until the end of the age, however, His presence became inaccessible to us after the Resurrection, while He ascended, but had not yet ascended to His Father, that is, He had not yet accomplished the full glorification of His humanity. It is even more inaccessible to us now that this glorification has taken place. this will change at the second coming, when all the tribes of the earth “will see the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:30). And this “coming” does not mean coming from one place to another, from “heaven” to “earth,” but such a change in a person in which the Lord will become accessible to our vision: this is a transition through death or a change equivalent to it: “We will not all die, but we will all change suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet” (1 Cor. 15:51-52). However, change also presupposes unity, the self-identity of the one changing, while the same human being remains, which is not removed from the world, although it is transformed along with the world itself, becoming “a new heaven and a new earth.” From this it follows that the ascended Christ lives in the world with Christ’s humanity. This life of Christ in humanity (“I live not for anyone, but Christ lives in me” 495) is the Church, the body of Christ. This is spiritual communication, in the Spirit of Christ, which is the Holy Spirit, who came into the world at Pentecost. The action and revelation of the Holy Spirit in people consists in the fact that it reveals and realizes Christ in them: “Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ is not His” (Rom. 8:9), “through the assistance of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:19). In this light, the connection and, one might even say, the identification of the Ascension and Pentecost, which constitutes a distinctive feature of the farewell conversation, becomes clear: “It is better for you that I go, for if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you, but if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7); “He will glorify Me, because He will take of Mine and proclaim it to you” (John 16:14); “I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you. A little while longer and the world will not see Me, but you will see Me, for I live and you will live” (John 14:18–19). And this antinomy of thought is deliberately intensified by Christ himself regarding the completely natural bewilderment of the disciples (John 16:17–18): “Are you asking one another about this, which I said to you: ‘In a little while you will not see Me, and then you will see Me again’” (John 16:19). In essence, the understanding of the Ascension as a removal from the world is already denied here (although at the same time it is said antinomically about the leaving of the world: “I came from the Father and came into the world, and again I leave the world and go to the Father” (John 16:28)), and this removal is overcome by the coming of the Comforter and through Him by communication with Christ. So, the Ascension, although it is the removal of Christ from the world in the sense of the exaltation of His glorified humanity to the point of His inconceivability in the world, it is not His removal from the world primarily in the sense of His presence in it spiritually, in the Holy Spirit, through the Third Hypostasis. This presence is even more immediate than bodily presence, for it is not limited by spatiality and manner of being: “The Spirit breathes where it wills, and you hear His voice, but you do not know where He comes from or where he goes: so it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). However, this spiritual presence also does not limit the presence of Christ in the world after the Ascension: there is also His physical appearance, albeit a mysterious, Eucharistic one. But is it the only and exhaustive one? This is a question that is usually not even asked, but it confronts us with all its force when our eyes are opened to the meaning of John 19:34. The Lord abides in the world not only spiritually and not only eucharistically, but also with His blood, along with the water poured out from the rib, with His humanity, as if divided on the cross: it was resurrected, transfigured and ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father in the indivisibility of the hypostasis of Christ, but it remained in the world, on earth, like poured out blood and water. How can we understand this division of the one and indivisible humanity of Christ? Theology does not have the appropriate concepts and terms to express this dogmatic thought. This is quite natural, because this question never arose before him. Of course, at the same time, we must forever remove any thought about the physical or quantitative division of Christ’s human nature, His animated corporeality. However, the idea of ​​some kind of dynamic dual unity of the presence of Christ’s humanity in heaven and on earth remains quite possible. The dogmatic idea of such duality or bipresence has already been accepted in Orthodox (and Catholic) theology, namely in the doctrine of the Eucharistic praesentia realis 496: according to the belief of the Church, the Lord is present “truly, effectively and essentially (vere, realiter, essentialiter)” in the Holy Gifts, persistently residing in heaven at the right hand of the Father, and this presence takes place on many altars at the same time and, moreover, is communicated in communion to every believer 497. The idea of ​​the dogmatic division of the indivisible nature of Christ in the Eucharist can also be extended to this case, in the matter of Christ’s presence on earth in His shed blood and water, despite His Ascension from the earth. This thought affirms no more than what is contained in the Eucharistic dogma: namely, that Christ’s presence in heaven is not an obstacle to Christ’s presence in the world, and this division of the indivisible, this combination of the transcendence and immanence of Christ to the world is precisely what takes place in the Eucharist. Between the presence of Christ in the blood of the Eucharistic, as well as non-Eucharistic, Golgotha, and the Cross, there is a difference only regarding the image of this presence, i.e. modal, not essential. And by the power of this already established possibility of overcoming the Ascension in the Eucharist, we can affirm another way of overcoming, namely through the division of the humanity of Christ, expressed outwardly by the fact that His body was buried, resurrected and ascended, but the blood and water belonging to His earthly body remained and remain in this world, just as they stayed in it during His life. And in them and through them He Himself abides on earth with His humanity, by virtue of His incarnation already inseparably connected with His spirit (“spirit, water and blood”). After all, if, according to firm church belief, the body of the Lord, even in His death, retained a connection with His divine spirit, then the same must necessarily be extended to the blood and water poured out from the rib. They cannot be considered as an excretion from the body, returned to the world by virtue of metabolism, but as the living and in death itself not dying corporeality of Jesus. Thus, we come to the unexpected conclusion that Christ, who ascended into heaven, leaving the world and departing from it, remains in it in His blood and water, and not mysteriously (as in the Eucharistic elements), although it is unknown to man, invisible to his eyes, secretly, but essential and real. Christ, by the power of His incarnation and entry into the world, remains on earth, without being separated from us, although no longer in His personal image, obvious and accessible to everyone, but in His earthly humanity. In blood and water, Christ remains with us on earth, and neither the Resurrection nor the Ascension in glory took this stay from her. This presence is not a mystery, which, despite all its mystery, is still always known, being confined to a certain place and time, but it is a mystery, a sacred, great, divine mystery of the world, its treasure, its shrine, the HOLY GRAIL. This secret is kept and revealed in the life of the Church, not only the past, but also the present and future. It is not at all surprising if it, not hitherto comprehended in theological-dogmatic consciousness, lived only in vague premonitions of Christian legend and poetry, in which the sacred myth was obscured by the attacks of the human imagination, romantic dreams. But in due time it can appear in the consciousness of the Christian world, and then the shrine of Monsalvat 498 will light up with heavenly light and lead the peoples towards the coming Christ. The whole world is St. The Grail, for it accepted and contains the honorable blood of Christ and His water, it is the cup of the blood and water of Christ, it partook of them at the hour of Christ’s death. And he hides them within himself. A drop of Christ’s blood fell on Adam’s head and redeemed him, but all the blood and water of Christ, poured out into the world, sanctified it. They made it a place of presence of the power of Christ, prepared it for the future transformation, for the meeting of the coming in the glory of Christ. The world has not lost the presence of Christ (“I will not leave you orphans” - John 14:18) and is not alien to Him, it carries Him within itself, lives by the power of Christ. The world has become Christ's, for it is already holy. cup, St. Grail. He became indestructible and imperishable, for in the blood and water of Christ he received the power of incorruptibility, which will manifest itself in his transfiguration. The world is already paradise, for it grew “the blessed tree, and Christ was crucified on it” 499. This premonition of the salvation of the world was expressed in the legend of the Grail, according to which the presence of the Grail (according to some legends, a precious stone from paradise) performs miracles in nature, provides wonderful food (therefore Joseph of Arimathea can remain in prison for 40 years without food), and generally contains the power that transforms nature into paradise, making it holy flesh. This supernatural power in nature imparts to her divine humanity and makes all of her the body of Christ. The accomplishment of this redemption of nature will be the action of the Holy Spirit in the transformation of the world, which already received power for itself at Pentecost (therefore, on the ancient icons of the descent of the St. The spirit is also depicted as an allegorical figure of the world, the cosmos). Thus, we can say that the world, which received Christ into itself, embraced His body and carried Him within itself, retained His physicality within itself both after His death and after His resurrection with the Ascension. And this humanity of Christ lives invisibly in the world and inwardly transforms it towards a new heaven and a new earth 500. The outpouring of the blood and water of Christ, further, has not only apocalyptic, but also Eucharistic significance. There is a direct analogy here with the Last Supper: there the Lord himself, being among the disciples in His flesh and blood, communed the disciples with the mystical body and blood through the sharing of bread and wine in them. And now the Eucharistic body and blood are also taught through the breaking of bread and wine, but Christ’s own blood and water remain in the world. Moreover, of course, between the sacrament of the Eucharist and the shed blood and water of Christ there is a certain identity, which is indicated in the symbolism of the proskomedia (see above). The substance of the world, which turned out to be worthy to receive the blood and water of Christ, is also worthy of the mysterious transformation of its elements in the Eucharist. Particularly noteworthy here is the feature in the symbolism of the Eucharist that the wine for the sacrament is dissolved with water (“holy union”) in commemoration of the blood and water poured out from the side of Christ. Therefore, not just wine (the blood of the earth), but also water are offered into the honest blood of Christ. Of course, wine, as a liquid, in any case contains moisture. But in “St. “union” water enters both as a special Eucharistic element and as such, obviously, is offered (although this is not expressed in a special Eucharistic proclamation, because when blessing the cup it is simply said: “I take this cup of the most precious blood of the Lord,” etc.). According to the symbolism of the proskomedia, the Eucharistic blood is placed in direct parallel with the Calvary outpouring of the “blood and water” of Christ. Here, however, we have only allegorical symbolism. What is much more significant is that, according to the rite of the Orthodox liturgy, hot water – “warmth” – is added to the Eucharistic blood after the transfiguration of the Holy Gifts, before communion. How is this possible? How should we understand this mixture of natural substances with the blood of Christ? The allegorical interpretation, expressed in the words 501 spoken at the same time, does not yet answer the main question. It can only be found in the consideration that the water mixed with the Eucharistic blood has already been sanctified as a natural substance by the outpouring of water from the side of the Savior. She became a partaker of His water, and by the power of this participation she is allowed to mix with honest blood. And this same meaning of water is also indicated by the proskomedia rite through the mixing of water with wine in a “holy union.” A similar consideration can be expressed not only regarding water, but also wine, to the extent that it is not directly a Eucharistic substance. Not only water in the form of warmth, but also wine is mixed with the divine Eucharist, precisely at the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, where a lamb, drunk with blood and, therefore, containing honorable blood, is lowered into a combination of water and wine (moreover, this combination in itself is not considered as the Eucharist: if the priest serves alone, then, while receiving communion, he does not drink from the chalice, according to the instructions of the missal, before consuming the Holy Gifts, so that the contents in the bowl are equated to “warmth” for him). Here there is a combination of the elements of wine and water - with the Eucharistic substance, which has its basis in the preliminary outpouring of blood and water from the side of Christ into the natural world. This outpouring also has another Eucharistic meaning. The Eucharist is a sacrifice, identical to that of Calvary, but it is not a repetition of it and does not violate its one-time and simultaneous nature, although in it we have the repeated appearance of this sacrifice for us (and in this sense, as it were, its repetition). In this uniqueness of its objective and plurality of its subjective, uniqueness and repeatability for us, lies a kind of antinomy of Eucharistic theology, which sometimes becomes exhausted in attempts to rationalize and sublate it in vain. The relationship between the Sacrifice and the victims, Golgotha ​​and the altars is not temporal-local, but dynamic - it is based on the everywhere - and always - presence of Christ in each of the moments of His earthly life. The Calvary sacrifice, once brought in time and in a certain place, is always brought, for a given moment in time lives in eternity, has all its power, and therefore significance forever and ever. This is the basis for its symbolically-real repetition in time as a remembrance: “Do this in remembrance of Me.” But this remembrance includes not only the transfiguration of the Holy Gifts with the sacrificial separation of body and blood (signifying the death of Christ) and their offering, but also the Calvary outpouring of blood and water, which also, once completed, retains its power for eternity. And it is not communion (corresponding to the Old Testament eating of sacrificial meat), but precisely the outpouring of sacrificial blood, which constitutes an essential moment in the Old Testament sacrifice. In particular, regarding the sin offering, the law states: “And the anointed priest shall take the blood of the bull, and bring it into the tabernacle of the congregation, and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle the blood seven times before the Lord before the veil of the sanctuary, and the priest shall lay the blood (of the bull) before the Lord on the horns of the altar of incense, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall pour out the rest of the blood at the foot of the altar. burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of meeting" (Lev. 4:5-7, 16-18, 25, 30). This is also performed more solemnly on the day of atonement behind the veil, where the high priest enters with the blood (Lev.16:14-15; Exod.30:10). And it is precisely this symbolism of representative sacrifices that the Epistle to the Hebrews explains as follows when applied to the atoning sacrifice of Christ: “Christ, the High Priest of good things to come... not with the blood of goats and bulls, but with His own blood, entered once into the sanctuary and obtained eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:11-12). If the Eucharist as a sacrament of communion is a “memory” of the Last Supper, then as a sacrifice it is a “memory” of Golgotha ​​and the sacrificial outpouring of blood and water from the side of the Lamb. This is symbolized by the already noted place of the proskomedia, and in the symbolism of the liturgy, the Eucharistic and Calvary blood, differing in purpose (as communion and sacrifice), do not differ materially in St. cup like the Blood of Christ 502. The outpouring of blood and water from the side of Christ gives in the symbolism of the Eucharist a special basis for its sacrificial meaning, strengthening it with a corresponding “memory”. The Eucharist becomes, by the force of this, not only a commemorative repetition of the Last Supper, but also of the Calvary action; blood (and water) in St. the cup contains not only the blood given for communion by Christ at the Last Supper in the person of the apostles to all Christianity, but also the sacrificial blood of atonement (this duality in the legend of the Holy Grail is symbolized by the fact that the cup of the Last Supper, which ended up in the hands of Joseph of Arimathea, also appeared as a vessel into which he received the honest blood poured out from the wound). The idea that the sacrificial blood of Christ, poured out of the rib along with the water, belongs to this world of ours and abides in it, is further revealed in application not only to the sacrament of the Eucharist, but also to the mystery of all human life, all of human history, to the “liturgy” (common cause) of the church and extra-church 503, world. Blood and water, according to the above, are the humanity of the Lord Jesus, soul and body, separated from His indivisible human nature, but also inseparably abiding with Him. This is His humanity remaining on earth and being in unity with our humanity. This is the continuing life on earth of the Lord incarnate after His Ascension and despite it. This is Christ in His humanity, with His humanity. The disclosure of this thought must be preceded by one theological consideration. In church circles, the idea of ​​recollective repetition, of entering into the power of the events of Christ’s earthly life, is generally accepted. In this case, it is implied as a general premise that the events of the life of Christ, once accomplished, retain this power of their accomplishment in time, for the life of humanity. This is the idea underlying the realistic understanding of the sacrament of the Eucharist as a “repetition”, more precisely, identification with the Last Supper and the Calvary sacrifice. The same idea underlies the realistic, perfect meaning of the feasts of the Lord and the Mother of God, the “twelve.” We enter into the power of these events and their joy just as we enter into the sorrow of Holy Week and its power. Our divine services are not theatrical performances, devoid of the power of reality and containing only an ideal memory, no, they are the very accomplishments for us. In them we are contemporaries of the earthly life of Christ; it enters into our own life. It happened not only for a limited circle of people who saw Him with carnal eyes, but it happens for all of Christ’s humanity in the Church (“blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” - John 20:29). But, strangely, this thought, which has a very definite dogmatic content, is not brought to full awareness. It is limited only to those fragmentary applications that are given to the so-called church year. It does not apply to the entire life of all humanity, although the Lord himself explains it this way, for he testifies in his speech about the Last Judgment (Matthew 25) that He lives in every person and in all humanity. When He lived in the days of His earthly coming, only an insignificant part of the then world saw and knew Him, and neither Rome, nor Greece, nor the entire universe of that time even suspected His existence. And yet they just did not know what was happening to them: for what happened in Palestine happened in them and for them, as well as for the whole world. The “darkened” sun and the “shaken” earth felt the event of Golgotha ​​and turned out to be more receptive than people, but this did not diminish the true power of the event. “The great Pan died” 504, - the human idols were crushed, - the world became the kingdom of Christ, and the prince of this world was expelled from it, although he lingers in it for the time being. In the same way, we, who have not seen or known the Lord, are in no different position than these His contemporaries; our humanity with His time already belongs to His humanity. And this must be understood even about humanity before Christ, because it also participated in the redemptive power of the incarnation. Theology sometimes perceives too one-sidedly the idea of ​​the Lord leaving the world in the Ascension, not heeding His words about being with us until the end of the world. It does not sufficiently realize in its constructions the idea that the humanity of Christ as the new Adam is pan-humanity, i.e. the humanity of each of us and all of us collectively. The well-known saying: homo sum et nihil humani a me alienum esse puto 505 - must be understood not only in the sense of belonging to the old Adam - homo, but also to the new Adam - Christ - not only to natural, but also to Christ's humanity. The removal of Christ from the world in the Ascension, which refers to the glorification of His humanity, but not to its abolition, does not destroy the dynamic unity or connection of Christ with His humanity. Only by its power can it be said: “I live not for anyone, but Christ lives in me.” And, therefore, we must take the next step in conclusion and say that even now Christ remains on earth in His humanity 506, at least on the same general basis as he remains in the celebration of the Church. Of course, this abiding is hidden, it is the mystery of God, inaccessible to people, but, however, already open and revealed to them. But Christians should better remember the words of the Lord with all their infinite realism: “Because you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me” (Matthew 25:45, 40. Compare also: Matthew 10:40; Luke 9:48, 10:16; John 13:20). For this sweet and stunning thought that the Lord always dwells on earth with His humanity, John 19:34, so solemnly attested to its truth by the evangelist as a particularly important and significant broadcast, provides a direct dogmatic basis. As explained above, the outpouring of blood and water means, in a certain sense, the sharing of Christ's humanity. It combines being on earth, in St. The Grail, - and the keeper of the Grail, or even the Grail itself as a vessel of the blood of Christ, is humanity itself - and passage through death, resurrection, ascension and sitting at the right hand of the Father. The outpouring of blood and water is a clear, tangible evidence of Christ’s presence on earth in them - the non-cessation of His earthly path, but its continuation: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” This truth of Christ’s presence on earth, His inseparability from humanity, is a new testimony of God’s love for humanity. This love is revealed here as an ongoing Golgotha, as Christ’s compassion for humanity in his human Golgotha. In the personal life of Christ all human life is integrated, and in His suffering all human suffering. The theological doctrine of atonement contains, among others, the idea that on the night of the Gethsemane struggle 507 our Lord spiritually accepted, suffered and experienced all human sins and shared all human suffering with a free feat: “not Mine, but Thy will be done,” His sorrow was all-sorrow, His suffering was all-suffering. On Golgotha, He accepted this all-sorrow and all-suffering to the depths of abandonment by God in death as His destiny: “it is accomplished” (John 19:30). But if we understand the Last Supper and the death of Calvary as an all-permanent event that reveals its power to us in the sacrament of the Eucharist, then can we also see in the sorrow of Gethsemane and the suffering of Calvary only a one-time event, separating it from all time and its course, and in it from our life? And, of course, they are not exhausted by this temporality, but all-temporality belongs to them. If we worship the suffering Christ, then this veneration relates not to mere historical memory, similar to memories of events in the lives of individuals or nations, but to some supra-temporal reality. In the earthly life of the Lord there is no place for the displacement of one moment of time by another, which occurs in our human life, but they are all combined and not a single one is abolished in the fullness of reality. And just as He abides, according to the testimony of the church song: “in the grave carnally, in hell with the soul like God, in paradise with the thief and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit,” similarly He abides on earth in the blood and water poured out from His side. Our life also participates in His life in His humanity, our suffering in His suffering... The Calvary mystery continues invisibly in the world. This thought is terrible and stunning in its significance, but it is sweet and uplifting in its consolation. It truly puts us before the face of Christ, makes His presence not distant and abstract, but close and concrete. Christ took upon Himself the sin of the world and its sorrow, He responds to the suffering of people with His own suffering, He, God, pays for His work of creating the world for the sake of love for creation. God is with us! I dedicate this wondrous, this holy, this terrible and strange, this saving thought to you, the suffering Russian people, because you are not alone in your suffering, Christ, who lives in you, suffers with you. Your Golgotha ​​is His Golgotha, with your blood His blood is shed. This is the secret of your suffering, and the meaning, and justification, because human suffering is also the suffering of Christ. When human eyes are opened on the day of judgment, it will be clear that if such suffering and sorrow were allowed by God, then Christ accepted them to the full extent of His love for humanity, for the Russian suffering people, with His suffering and weeping Matter. And if the suffering of Christ is a saving passion, the path to glory and resurrection, then your suffering and your election as a sacrifice for sin and the mistakes of history are a saving passion, leading to glory. You are not alone in your sorrow, Christ is with you, and He speaks about himself in suffering: “I am not alone, for the Father is with me” (John 16:32). This thought is the great and only consolation and justification for the fate of the Russian people. In the blood and water poured out from the rib, light and life flow. This life of Christ in His humanity, the fulfillment of Golgotha, is included in His work of redemption. God's love for man was accomplished not only in the Calvary sacrifice, but is also accomplished in His life with him, in His Way of the Cross. Christ is in glory in heaven, but also with us on earth. And His Calvary remains no less than His Nativity and glorious Resurrection. Nothing in the life of Christ became the past for humanity; Christ took upon Himself the burden of human sin and the torment of human sorrow not only as a whole, in the sorrow of Gethsemane and the suffering of Calvary, but also in all their differentiated composition, in the life of humanity. God's love for the world, Divine condescension towards it are not exhausted by a one-time and supra-temporal acceptance of its sorrow and sin, but are also revealed in a temporary process. The Incarnation made the God-man involved in all human life (of course, this is different for each individual person); all human life is embraced in His co-suffering love. Of course, this should not be understood in the sense of sentimental-philanthropic or humanistic pity for any suffering, which, on the contrary, is the greatest benefit for man, but in the sense of compassion with humanity on its way of the cross to resurrection. “We worship Your Cross, Master, and we glorify Your holy Resurrection.” Blood and water, poured out from the rib and remaining in peace, are the guarantee and power of this presence of Christ with His humanity, 508 signifying - in fulfillment of His own testimony in matters of the Last Judgment, that He Himself lives in suffering humanity. The Resurrection, in glory, the Ascension from the world and sitting at the right hand of the Father is combined with a stay in the world until the end of the age and compassion for humanity also until the end of the age: “When he has put all things in subjection to Him, then the Son Himself will be subject to Him who put all things in subjection, so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). But blood and water, the human life of Christ, abides in His humanity not only as co-suffering love, but also as the power of Christ with its effectiveness 509 in human history, being built in the visible “invisible church”: St. The grail of human society. The power of Christ acts in the world through the power of Pentecost: the Holy Spirit reveals Christ living in humanity with grace. But the power of Christ abides in humanity naturally, immanently, by the very fact of God’s incarnation, through His perception of human nature and being in the world of this humanity in the shed blood and water of Christ. If after the coming of Christ into the world “the great Pan died” and all nature changed, having partaken of Christ’s humanity, then humanity itself changed, precisely in its naturalness. She received new forces, new impulses for the establishment of the Kingdom of God not only within us, but also in us, among us, ἐντὸς ἡμῶν, and, moreover, all of humanity, both belonging and not belonging in consciousness (but somehow already belonging in re 510) to the Church. In humanity, the idea of ​​a universal achievement, a “common cause” 511, “progress”, a city of God on earth, which is by no means in contradiction with the idea of ​​​​Heavenly Jerusalem, lights up, on the contrary, there is an earthly “place” for it, a historical correlate for eschatology. This is the idea foretold by the prophets and announced by the Seer of the Mystics about the 1000-year reign of Christ on earth 512. There is no need to be embarrassed by the apparent naturalism of this idea, for it is inherent in the very doctrine of the incarnation, of Christ’s acceptance of human nature in general, of its healing and restoration. The fullness of the incarnation includes its effectiveness in nature (as evidenced by the miracles of Christ and the reciprocal movements of the natural world: the Star of Bethlehem, the eclipse of the sun and darkness at the hour of the crucifixion, the earthquake, etc.). It is absolutely impossible to allow human nature as such to remain deaf and indifferent to the fact of its perception by the God-man. And if we unquestioningly accept this action of his in relation to all non-human nature in its demonism and paganism based on it (“idols do not tolerate Your strength, fallen one” 514), then we must accept this in relation to human nature. The latter is healed by the incarnation of God from the inside, organically, as if by its new creation, which will be revealed in its power and glory under the “new heaven” on the “new earth”. Blood and water from the side of Christ in the world is the bond of the world, its indestructibility. False is pagan naturalism, which opposes itself to Christianity and thereby becomes anti-Christian, but there is also Christian naturalism, which cannot be eliminated in Christianity itself. Its denial is already Manichaeism, seeping here and there in pseudo-Christian variants of asceticism. The demonic possession of nature (“the great Pan”) lost its power after the incarnation of Christ, the spirits of wickedness in high places (Eph.6:12: ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις) together with the “prince of the power of the air” (Τοῦ ἀέρος - Eph.2:2) are expelled from nature and are limited to the outer region of the “heavenly places”, having access to nature only through man, through his deception. The “Antichrist” with his false signs is still a man, although deceived by Satan, hence the power of the “beast” over nature, but “his number is the number of a man” (Rev. 13:18). The human, natural power of man, his power over nature, which he receives in his history by the power of exorcism accomplished in the incarnation, cannot be considered alien or even hostile to the Christian “impulse” in history, on the contrary, and this is the revelation by man of his humanity, which is also the human nature of Christ. Therefore, the “regulation of nature,” which Fedorov speaks of as a Christian “common cause,” is a matter, although in itself not yet grace-filled, but Christian. It belongs to the fullness of humanity, which is the humanity of Christ; this is already the power of the redemption that is taking place. Of course, it is perverted by human sinfulness, but when this latter is overcome by grace, then this regulation itself becomes a matter of grace, of the church, of the Christian community. The Holy Grail, blood and water, received and preserved by nature and humanity in its bosom, although invisible and unknown, is the sacred ark of the New Testament, the pledge and banner, the sanctification of our human life, the fulfillment of our human history. It is no longer a barren and sad spectacle of the victory of darkness and the kingdom of the Antichrist, but is filled with tragic triumph as the struggle of Christ’s humanity for this true humanity with the prince of this world, the spirits of evil in high places and the element of sin living in created human nature. But this is not defeat, but victory, not the emptiness of failure, but the fullness of a common cause, earthly construction towards the heavenly. Christ is the God-Man, but also the Man-God (ἀνθρωπο-Θεός, as He was originally called in patristic writing). Earthly history is not decay (as it was slandered by false Christian Manichaeism), but creativity - the participation of our humanity, which is already Christ’s humanity, in the saving divine-human work. It, this creativity, is not an idyll, but a tragedy, because it is too serious, and difficult, and important, it is a spiritual struggle, but precisely because of this it is joy and triumph - the triumph of humanity. And what is symbolically designated in the sacred books as the “Antichrist” (to the appearance of which the Manichaeans reduce the only content of human history) is only an episode of history, the greatest tension of this struggle, but by no means its completion, for this completion on earth is the “first resurrection” and the 1000-year reign of Christ with the saints. The subsequent revolt of Gog and Magog (Rev. 20:7), although quantitatively extensive, but spiritually powerless, is the last surge of the tragic wave of world history, which ends and is accomplished by the second, glorious coming of Christ. And all Christian history is a preparation for the meeting of the Coming Christ, and the power and meaning of this preparation, as well as its limits, are revealed to us in the historical process itself, their awareness is the “common cause” of humanity 515. The humanity of Christ was indivisibly divided on the cross in an outpouring of blood and water, which remained on earth as the shrine of the all-human Grail. But it will be reunited in the fullness of time, at the second coming of Christ, when the division of heaven and earth will be abolished, when earth will become heaven and heaven earth, for Christ will live on it in His humanity. And then, according to the word of the prophecy cited precisely here by the evangelist, “they will look upon Him, His blood is broken” (John 19:37 – Zech. 12:10). They will look and recognize themselves in Him, and they will recognize Him in themselves, in their life, in their work, in the secret knowledge of the Holy One. The Grail and its service. And they will worship Him, who will be inseparably with them. “Both the Spirit and the Bride say: Come. And let him who hears say, Come. Hey, come, Lord Jesus!” ( Rev. 22:17, 20 ). This work of Bulgakov, which had been awaiting publication for many years, was first published by V. Beznosov in the magazine “Zvezda” (1994, No. 5) based on a manuscript stored at the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. The manuscript supposedly dates from 1940. Here it is reproduced from the journal text with a number of typos corrected. Reprint: Bulgakov S.N. Works on sociology and theology. M. 1997. P.650–692; comment by V.V. Sapova: pp. 779–782. This work, to which many threads extend from the study “The Holy Grail” published above, can at the same time be considered as the first draft of Bulgakov’s dying work created during the war years - “The Apocalypse of John (An Experience in Dogmatic Interpretation)” (Paris, 1948). Here the main points of Bulgakov’s exegesis of the Revelation of John the Theologian are already evident. The question of war is one of those “damned” questions that seem to be incapable of a final solution, despite its apparent simplicity. They come back to us again and again, tormenting our minds and conscience. Of course, there is nothing simpler than a moralistic condemnation of war following the example of Tolstoy or generally absolutized pacifism in connection with one or another of his doctrines. And, however, it turns out to be just as difficult and impracticable as the opposite: the militaristic and painless acceptance of war. The question of war, obviously, is one of those that does not allow for an absolute solution, but only a relative one, and this is where all its pain and difficulty lies. Here, in all its vital concreteness, opposite, but equally conscientious decisions are equally possible. It cannot be exhausted by the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” simply because the Old Testament, which gave this commandment, itself does not make a straightforward application of it to war, just like the New: neither the Forerunner, who addressed the soldiers (Luke 3:14), nor the Lord Himself, who did not at all demand either from Jairus 516 or from the centurion 517 the renunciation of his ministry, nor the apostles, nor the Church, which canonizes soldiers, did not give it such an interpretation, which is characteristic only of straightforward sectarianism. It cannot be resolved even if one is guided by a feeling of pity, which easily leads to a dead end of contradictions, because military inaction can turn out to be as cruel as action. Peace, in appearance, is, of course, a more acceptable and undeniable value than war, but this is by no means always indisputable. Not every pacifism quand même 518, which arises from a person’s natural and even irreducible desire for peace and security, represents a moral value and can be justified. We must take on our conscience the entire burden of this issue, without evading or hiding behind abstract principles with their deafness to real life. The entire insufficiency of such decisions is exposed in the face of life when, in its inexorable logic, it brings everyone face to face with this question, from which there is nowhere to “evacuate”, except in the abstract. Is it possible not to want to overcome the war? An idle question. And don’t we read in the most penetrating prophecies about this promise: “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation, and they will no longer learn to fight” (Is. 2:4). However, this is only a bright episode, which will be replaced by a new battle, even after the 1000-year reign of Christ (Rev. 20:7-8). In any case, the Word does not speak about the bourgeois selfish overcoming of war, but about irreconcilability towards evil. It is expressed in a merciless struggle even in heaven, in which the angels “did not love their souls even to death” (Rev. 12:11), representing an image of a holy war. Why is life not an idyll of peace, but an image of constant struggle, personal, class, national? Why is this axiom about peace as the highest and indisputable good not understood? Is it only because humanity is subject to sin, and extreme sin at that, which is any murder, or because war and murder in war are not at all an absolute, independent evil, but derivative, as one of its particular types? Military murder is not at all the only and exclusive way of death, but only one of many. The life of the world is aggravated by mortality, which is a consequence of original sin. This is the primary source of war, hatred and evil. Moreover, everything emanating from this primary source is intertwined with each other in contradictions; This is where all the relativity and correlation of good and evil in the world, and in particular in war, stems. In it, all the fighting parties can feel right and be affirmed in this truth. And it is difficult to imagine that the truth is always and in everything exclusively on one side and does not allow for this contradictory complexity, especially in psychological transformations and complications. The fate of war is that its beginning is terrible, which then automatically entails an increasingly complicated relativity of specific assessments. Of course, one can say that someone needs to start the cause of peace, i.e. stop the war. However, this possibility also comes with a specific complexity. The fire must burn out for peace to become possible and necessary, although in the end the war must be overcome not by iron, but by strength of spirit. Life is a tragedy, and tragedy inevitably presupposes suffering: illness, murder, death. The human mind and will, as far as they can, strive to overcome tragedy, but they are powerless to abolish it, unless this is really necessary. Happiness and harmony on earth are only a short moment or an illusion, and a tragedy lived out with dignity is higher than them, for it is the cross given to every person. War is also one of the varieties of the tragedy of life and the great bearing of the cross, which is its justification, although it is precisely this side of it that they want to eliminate. War is not an inherent evil, in the absence of which prosperity and peace would reign on earth. On the contrary, other images of evil are possible, even if not bloody, and universal death comes to a person not from war, but from illness and mortality. Tragedy is the path of human life, the final result of which is beyond its reach. This tragic plan of life is realized in its own way by every person as his path to death and to what lies beyond its threshold. In this, the most essential, there is no difference between war and non-war as images of human death and life after it. In life aggravated by original sin, there are different types of evil and suffering that mutually determine each other. Such is war with its evil of militarism, which ultimately leads to automatic ignition, when “the guns shoot by themselves.” This automatism increasingly determines the human will in its actions, giving them the character of machine technology. However, it does not abolish man himself with his freedom to the extent that it exists for him at all. Human freedom, being limited in its actions, encounters necessity and coercion on its paths. However, it is still indestructible in itself, in its internal self-determination, desires or reluctances, in animation or decline. Therefore, in war, and even more than anywhere else, since the question here is about human life, the traits of human will and, consequently, freedom are most manifested, and this despite iron discipline and mechanical technology, and even now, in the age of chemical warfare and all kinds of weapons. The possibility of heroism and self-sacrifice - in the fight against the natural sense of self-preservation - remains even now, they determine human actions. In human life, especially with the tension created by war, of course, an alternation of rise and decline, with equal or unequal strength, is inevitable, this is self-evident. However, here it is necessary to maintain proportion and observe the perspective in which these states of rise and decline occur, the top and bottom of human existence manifest themselves. In war, its depths are revealed, not only animal, but also human. Here not only human forces are manifested, but also inhuman, spiritual ones that generally act in the world. The prince of this world with the armies of demons, of course, also celebrates his own feast in military operations. There is demonic malice and hatred at work here, which finds satisfaction in human suffering and immeasurable grief, both for victims of war and their loved ones. Is it even possible to talk about the suffering into which the world is now plunging? However, no less than in these sufferings is the victory of the prince of this world accomplished in mutual malice and hatred, which flare up around the war and in this connection with it and poison humanity for many years and after it. We need special asceticism of the spirit in order to resist this spiritual self-poisoning of humanity, to remember the commandment to love our enemies who hate us. Of course, satanic power is also at work in war. However, is it only satanic? Doesn’t it manifest itself in it, along with the power of sin and malice (although where in human affairs is it not manifested?), a sense of truth, the dictates of duty and conscience, and sacrifice? Who dares to deny this? Is there truth in the fact that the Church canonizes worthy warriors as implementing the law of Christ’s love, and calls them - scary and strange to say - Christ-loving? If we see in war only coercion, which completely abolishes personal freedom, then it is equally impossible to talk about either the Christ-loving army or the satanic army, but only about the automata that carry out this coercion. But if we abandon this fiction and preserve man’s inalienable freedom even under coercion, then we will have to recognize the possibility of spiritual differences here too. In the highest tension of human tragedy, the highest tension of the human spirit is realized - self-sacrifice. Therefore, it is not enough just to stigmatize the war, but it should be judged in all its specificity 519. The nature of war is antinomic, like all life. War is, or rather, can be both the greatest atrocity and the greatest sacrifice, the cruelest violence and the highest self-sacrifice - both together, mixed and indistinguishable. The first side is most exploited by pacifists (Tolstoy of the last, but not the first period), the second by their opponents. Can such an unnatural action as the march of entire masses to mortal combat be accomplished without violence against oneself and without coercion, even if it is subsequently accompanied by a certain mental reaction such as inspiration for victory? In modern life, this coercion is carried out by the state leviathan. He is the true willing subject of war, supra-personal and collective, although manifested in the consciousness of individual subjects, a certain I - we. In the ancient times of the pre-state existence of peoples, these were the bearers of national consciousness, leaders, biblical judges and the like. Currently, these are the heads of state. But still, with any organization of power, it, in the person of its representatives, is the subject of a war in which there are always leaders and followers. The latter are thus victims, albeit passive ones. And, of course, without such organized coercion, war would not exist; it is the main background of the necessity in which various free movements of the human spirit realize themselves. Against this background, active sacrifice of military feats and military inspiration arises. It reaches its highest limit when it no longer needs coercion, but is self-sufficient: this is volunteerism in its various forms, generated by personal heroism, free sacrifice. In its specificity, war represents a complex and motley spectrum of different mental movements. If war is a sacrifice, then who makes it? Its subject is, first of all, the entire given collective, state or people, which has some kind of super-personal sensitivity, no matter how abstract it may sound. His existence makes itself felt in days of glory and shame, victory and defeat. It can dull and sharpen, but this very possibility indicates the presence of such a super-individual subject 520. The collective makes a sacrifice, dooming itself in advance to the loss of many of its best sons, who inevitably die in war; this determination is included in its general acceptance, and in a certain sense it can be said that it extends to all its members, of course, depending on their degree of consciousness, as well as on the nature of the war. There may be more or less here, but there is something to which this difference can be attributed. The most general here is also the least specific, and vice versa, this specificity increases along with the narrowing of this collective: a region, a city, a village - of course, they feel both their losses and their victims more strongly. But with unique and exclusive strength, this sacrifice of war is felt by a family that is deprived of its children or sacrificially giving them away. Strictly speaking, if we can speak in a strict sense about the victims of war among non-combatants, then, of course, most of them are mothers, together, of course, with fathers. Here this sacrifice is the most forced, it is to the greatest extent a disaster or misfortune, similar to a serious illness or a catastrophe in general. However, if these latter can - to the extent of personal faith - also be experienced sacrificially (“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord” Job 1:21), then parents can experience no less, if not more, the victims of war in their own children, although this is the hardest and most, so to speak, sacrificial sacrifice. Here its acceptance, which can only be a feat of freedom, is indistinguishably combined with the oppressive necessity, the coercion of war. The antinomy of freedom and necessity tragically tears the heart, but it itself is a sacrifice to God, already as a tragedy of life. Finally, there are people, by the will of God, who are away from the military fire and do not personally suffer from it, either themselves or in the person of their loved ones. However, for them there remains spiritual complicity in a common disaster and tragic accomplishment, of course, to the extent of each person’s spiritual strength. This is where the high, heroically sacrificial nature of war comes from. If it is the greatest disaster, then it is also a blessing, a heavenly bell calling for the sacrifice of Abraham 521 and the sacrifice of Jephtha 522. In general, one can single out war as the greatest disaster, as the cause of the greatest suffering, especially at the present time, when mass epidemics, at least in civilized countries, have already been overcome. However, it cannot be said that suffering from diseases, especially hereditary and childhood diseases, has been overcome now, and will ever be, as long as mortality exists. Of course, the difference remains that suffering from war is caused by man, and in this sense it could not exist, which cannot be said about diseases that are clearly insurmountable by human healing, except through the direct intervention of the power of God, such as the miracles of Christ, the healing of the apostles and saints. However, this possibility of avoiding war, as well as overcoming it altogether, remains only abstract for now. War appears as fate, disease, death. In the human experience of war, as well as in illness, the human personality is manifested with its freedom, but also with its limitations and powerlessness. But in war, as in illness, there are various spiritual opportunities and achievements. We can say that war, like other disasters, is a test and a cross, self-sacrifice, and not just murder. You can judge the individual actions of warriors, but not the army itself (as we find in the speeches of the Forerunner). One can condemn the war, citing the fact that the Lord did not bless it with His own example. Of course, such an example would be incompatible with the divine ministry of the Lord. But are various other human affairs, which, however, had His blessing on them, compatible with it and actually combined? He was surrounded by fishermen, whom he even commanded to cast the net, but He Himself did not participate in their work. He even allowed a publican among the apostles and instructed the traitor apostle to have a reliquary for the poor and for various needs. The Lord remained free from ordinary human needs and occupations (and even from His carpentry craft) and instead allowed the wives who walked with Him to serve Him from their estates. And in human affairs there is a certain hierarchy of ministries, which does not contain condemnation or rejection of some affairs in favor of others, but only their actual incompatibility. There is no need to strive for external “imitation of Christ,” for man is not given the power to do the works of Christ, to perform His miracles. Not a single human activity was characteristic of the Lord in such a way that it could become a matter of direct imitation of Him. This also resolves the issue of military affairs as a special profession related to the existence of the state, among various others. The possibility and presence of such a disaster as war brings us face to face with the most terrible and unanswerable questions about God’s relationship to the world and man, about God’s providence, on the one hand, and about human freedom, on the other, about this incomprehensible interaction of the omnipotence and wisdom of God and the weakness and powerlessness of humans. The simplest way of resolving this question is in which all the fullness of activity and power is attributed to the Divine, while man is only an instrument or object of them. Such an anthropomorphic resolution is characteristic of the entire Old Testament, in which only obedience (with the possibility of disobedience) to the command of God remains to the lot of man. In particular, the same applies to wars, the narrative of which fills its pages. God makes war and gives victory. He amazes and exalts. Examples of such evidence are, one might say, countless. Here is just one example: “This is what the Lord says to His anointed Cyrus: I hold your right hand to subdue the nations for you, and I will remove the belts from the loins of kings... I will go before you... I girded you, although you did not know Me... I... make peace and bring about disaster” (Isaiah 45:1-7). In the New Testament this worldview is no longer present. Of course, the Word of God, like the Old Testament, cannot simply be rejected by the power of the New, but it must be interpreted accordingly. Obviously, the images relating to Divine warfare must be understood in the general sense of God’s providence, His leadership in history. This providence in no way can abolish human freedom; on the contrary: it interacts with it, it is only realized through it. This freedom contains, first of all, various possibilities, to which God’s providence responds accordingly. These possibilities do not preclude the presence of a common plan; on the contrary, it is presupposed in the omniscience of God. However, the observance of freedom eliminates the entire effect of Divine omnipotence, by which the ways of the Lord would be directly and unerringly carried out, or, in any case, it is commensurate with it. In this combination of freedom and necessity, the given and the given are combined. The first is determined by the character of humanity, which is characteristic of it and manifests itself in a certain era. Here, on the one hand, the plan and completeness of divine creation, carried out in a certain place and time, is revealed, and on the other, its damage by original sin, due to which its plan is realized in history in a distorted and painful way, and freedom becomes a means for such perversions. Therefore, on the one hand, God leads the world to its goal by His providence, and on the other, the world resists this path by the power of the evil principle operating in the world. Есть два пути: богочеловеческий и сатанический, антихристов. The first path opens to Divine assistance, the second is traversed along the paths of fighting against God. The first requires openness of heart to God, a desire to surrender to Him, to fulfill His will. The main, necessary, most essential means for this is prayer as actual God-manhood, its very energy. The God-man Jesus prayed unceasingly, from the beginning of His ministry until His death on the cross. This means that, of course, not His omnipotent Divinity, but His God-manhood needed this prayer: “Thy will be done, as it is in heaven and on earth” to overcome the kingdom of the prince of this world. And, according to this image and example, prayer is the divine-human breath of all humanity; without it, its right path cannot be realized. Images of prayer are varied, just like religion. Although there is only one true religion, Christian, however, even beyond its boundaries there still remains prayerful communication with God. Just as there are different levels of prayer, prayer is also possible in different religions, no matter how different it may be. This does not mean indifference, but it is necessary to expand the concept of God-humanity so as to give a place in it to extra-Christian prayer and worship of God, although limited, but deeply Christian. Otherwise, the entire Old Testament worldview is completely incomprehensible, which not only contains, as fundamental, pre-Christian Judaism as a revealed religion, but also paganism, pious (like Cyrus) and even wicked (like Nebuchadnezzar). In general, the Providence of God is always accomplished on the basis of the interaction and cooperation of God and man. Of course, in the life of nations there is a given fact that does not depend on human freedom, but, on the contrary, predetermines its path. Nations appear in history, just as individual human personalities are born with their individual properties and destiny. The general plan of human history is outlined by mysterious writings in time and space. Here the direct will of God operates in accordance with the free personal self-determination of each person in his being. Nations are born and die, like individuals, and their destinies are accomplished in the sequence of time. The basis for this sequence is contained in the fullness of humanity, although already fallen and fragmented by the force of original sin, but it is given as a known predetermined fate, which is realized on the basis of freedom and the divine-human paths in history. When we talk about the Providence of God, acting in the interaction of God and man, we mean the transcendental action of God in the world, immanently realized. This is, for example, the creation of the world by God “out of nothing.” This descent of the transcendent into the immanent determines all created being, which receives the created originality granted to it in a world with created freedom and on the basis of it. The Divine, in His providence for the world, relates to it transcendentally, interacting, but not abolishing it. However, this is not the only and final image of the relationship between the transcendental and the immanent, in which their positive connection is preserved along with the entire abyss of distance separating them from each other. There is also another relationship in which this abyss is overcome, and divine and created human existence are united without separation and without fusion, like the God-manhood of Christ. Christ, as the God-man, is at the same time characteristic of being God in all the power of His transcendence to the world, as “the only Holy One.” Trinity" in heaven, and the God-man, who descended from heaven and became incarnate, ascended again into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father, but also coming in glory, His kingdom will have no end. He remains with us all the days until the end of the world and forever and ever. Such a union of Divinity and creation, God-humanity in one Divine Person, but two beings, represents an unknown mystery. It is beyond human comprehension, since it is turned to heaven, to the Divine life of the Holy Trinity. But it is accessible to man in its divine-human revelation. In understanding the relationship of the transcendental God to the created world, the question of His omnipotence arises. God is good and omnipotent, why does He allow evil and suffering? Why does He tolerate war without abolishing it by the command of His omnipotence? Why and why are all the horrors of life allowed? This is the eternal question of “theodicy,” the victorious presence of evil in the world, a question that is, in a certain sense, unanswerable, since it is associated with the irrational principle of freedom and sin, interconnected, if not directly identical and inseparable. In each individual case, we repeat, the question is unanswerable, since evil is irrational and does not admit of either justification or explanation. In the general plane of existence, evil and suffering in this age are so connected with created freedom as the basis of the universe that to destroy it means to abolish the world. Created freedom contains evil and the suffering associated with it as a possibility, which in original sin has already become an inevitable reality. The Providence of God, which rules the world in its fallen state, also takes into account it. This is the theodicy of the world created on the basis of freedom. Defeating the freedom of evil without destroying the world is only possible through a feat of freedom and goodness, i.e. the free sacrifice of Christ, the power of redemption, not the omnipotence of power, but the omnipotence of love and self-abasement of the God-man. This means that God Himself suffers from the suffering of man in the world; by his crucifixion He is crucified in His God-manhood. Here we are approaching the most terrible and mysterious question about the participation of the God-man in human suffering. If it could be resolved through the relationship between commanding omnipotence and obedient creation, then it would be extremely simple (although in this formulation the general question of allowing evil inevitably returns). But such an external, or rather, transcendental relationship of God to the world, although preserved in the aspect of God’s providential management of the world, cannot be applied at all in another aspect - God-manhood or God’s incarnation. Christ forever united His life with the life of man and - in a certain sense, identified them, of course, not in sin, but in its consequence - suffering, “for us for man and for our salvation.” And what comes from this and what does it mean? This means that even now Christ suffers and is crucified with man and for man, dying with him. This idea in general form was developed in application to dying (in the essay: “Sophiology of Death” 523), now it must be expanded and generalized in application to war as mass mutual extermination. How to understand the redemption accomplished by Christ in His suffering on the cross? Is this only a one-time act in which, having once suffered, Christ lived through suffering to the depths, but also to the end, after which, having risen and ascended into heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father, he contemplates human suffering in transcendence? Or does the God-man, despite all this, continue to suffer with humanity, incomprehensibly connecting this with heavenly glory? That's the question. Of course, there can be no doubt that redemption is universal and extends to all nations, not only after Christ, but also before Him, both in the Old Testament and outside it. And Christ’s suffering on the cross is also universal in the sense that it combines and overcomes all suffering and atones for all sin: “having been accomplished” 524 - although in a specific place and time, yet above all place and time, universally and absolutely. “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom.8:32). The once and forever acquired benefit of redemption is given to all who are worthy of it, as a kind of Divine power. “He makes intercession for us” (Rom. 8:34). Redemption means the removal of Christ from the world through his ascension into heaven and sitting at the right hand of the Father. But does such removal imply, so to speak, dehumanization? How should we understand the presence of Christ in relation to His humanity after this removal from the world? Is it really only as a Judge awaiting the future Last Judgment, at which a new meeting with humanity will take place? But such an understanding would directly contradict the undoubted belief of the Church in the mysterious presence of Christ on earth and, above all, in the Divine Eucharist, as well as other sacraments. Such an understanding would contradict revelation, which speaks of Christ’s active participation in human history, where He fights with the “beast,” with the kings of the earth and their armies, and also reigns with the saints for a thousand years (Rev. 19:11–21, 20:4) (no matter how we interpret these images more precisely). And, finally, isn’t this presence on earth, in history, in human life, spoken of by the outpouring of blood and water from the side of Jesus, the “Holy Grail,” which can only be interpreted in the sense of the invisible presence of Christ on earth, suffering from human suffering? We must not stop before combining what seems incompatible - different ways of life of Christ in His sojourn on earth and in heaven. We must think here in antinomies and combine the incompatible - the Ascension and the Holy Grail. The main idea here is that Christ, having ascended into heaven, remains in the world, being glorified, remains now suffering. The suffering of Golgotha, accepted by Christ, combines the burden of all human sins, since it atones for them. By accepting one, universal human sin as universal suffering, original sin is redeemed in its fullness. It, while remaining a single act, includes the multiple totality and completeness of all private, personal sins committed, being committed and about to be committed, on which, first of all, redemption is based. Christ identifies Himself with each of the sinners in order to burn away their sin with His atoning sacrifice. Therefore, the one, universal sacrifice of Christ, as it were, dissolves in the ocean of individual human sins, which it atones for. This multi-faceted nature of the atonement is beyond doubt, both in general and in each particular case. Every individual sin, like an individual sinner, needs individual atonement, which is accomplished through the power of Christ’s sacrifice. This idea about the one High Priest and the one Sacrifice for many is developed with particular force in the Epistle to the Hebrews, through the comparison of the Old Testament sacrifices, which are repeated multiple times, and the one and only Sacrifice that is not repeated. See especially chapter 10, especially Hebrews 10:11–13: “And he, having offered one sacrifice for sins, sat down forever at the right hand of the Father, waiting until His enemies were made His footstool” (Ps. 109:1). “For by one offering He has made perfect forever those who are being sanctified” [ Heb. 10:14 ]. However, what does this “expectation” of victory over enemies when seated at the right hand of the Father mean? Of course, this "waiting" is not a passive, inactive state in heaven, but refers to participation in ongoing history on earth. (For all this, see the essay “The Presence of Christ on Earth” 525). In other words, the question is: along with eternity, in which redemption was accomplished, does Christ’s participation take place in history, that is, in the temporal life of humanity? Is this compatible with Christ's heavenly presence? Can this latter be understood as indifference or indifferent contemplation of human life from the outside? When Christ came to earth, then, in addition to the direct purpose of His coming, redemption and salvation from sin, He performed many works of love for mankind, for which He was deliberately anointed by the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:18), as He Himself testified to this. The constant difficulty in interpreting these miracles of Christ is the fact that these miracles are scattered, isolated and seemingly random. Meanwhile, can we admit this regarding the love and mercy of God? On the contrary, it should be recognized that they are, as it were, exemplary and indicative evidence of God’s compassionate love for man, and their actual area is much wider than the visible manifestation, and this is even more miraculous. But you can take another step forward in this questioning, namely, ask yourself whether the love of the Son of Man for people is limited only to His contemporaries on earth, and does not extend to those who lived on Earth before or after Him: “seeing the crowds of people, He had compassion on them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). He walked throughout Galilee, “healing every disease and every disease among the people” (Matthew 4:23). And further, “having called His twelve disciples, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out and to heal every disease and every disease” (Matthew 10:1). This was the image of Christ’s love for mankind on earth. And isn’t it revealed with special force in the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, where it is said: “He himself was grieved in spirit and indignant... Jesus shed tears. Then the Jews said: Look how He loved him... Jesus, again grieving inwardly, comes to the tomb” (John 11:33-38). So, Jesus was pained for the suffering man in His earthly ministry and had mercy on him. And if this mercy, at least during the resurrection of Lazarus, was expressed as prayer, then there is no reason to deny it and, on the contrary, there is every reason to affirm the action and power of Christ’s unceasing prayer in other healings, according to His word: “this generation is driven out by prayer and fasting” 526. And so, the question arises: is this area of ​​philanthropy and the power of prayer limited only to cases of the earthly ministry of Christ, or is it not limited to them and is never limited to anything at all, either before or after, for “the Lord is generous and merciful, long-suffering and abounding in mercy” 527 . The image of His love for mankind and miracle-working is different than on earth; it becomes completely different and even impenetrable. However, He does not lose His mercy - isn’t this evidenced by the many different petitions, prayers and prayer songs that are offered to God for various human needs? Isn’t this direct evidence of Christ’s participation in history, of the prayerful interaction between God and man? However, this is not enough. It is not enough to assert that God helps man, and man helps God in this help, namely, in sending it down. After all, this can equally apply not only to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, but also to each of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, i.e. and to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and to the entire Holy Trinity, consubstantial and indivisible, as God the Provider. But there may also be a special talk about theanthropic help and the relationship between the Godman and theanthropy, and through this relationship, the entire Holy Trinity. This is what requires extreme attention and special clarification. The Incarnation forever united the Logos with man in the God-man, in His incarnation. It made Him accessible to human life and its suffering, compassionate to humanity. This compassion is expressed both in the death of Christ Himself and in His dying with man, according to the revelation of death and dying in our lives, in Christianity clothed in Christ (see “Sophiology of Death”). This compassion of Christ for humanity, even after His glorification, is absolutely certain, at least within the limits of Christianity, since it is given in our experience. But does it extend beyond its borders, to Christianity and beyond it, if at all it exists before and beyond? Of course, here we come to the edge of knowledge, beyond which it remains inaccessible to us. Nevertheless, here we, at least, do not have direct reasons to give a negative answer to this question, even if there are no reasons for a positive one. However, we have sufficient reason not to exclude non-Christian humanity from the totality of all human nature assumed by Christ. The mere acceptance of tongues into the Church of Christ sufficiently confirms at least this possibility, as does the spread of Christianity among the pagans. At least this applies to humanity before Christianity and beyond it, since it has not yet been preached. But if here we have a mystery that has not been revealed to us, then in relation to Christian humanity there can be no room for doubt regarding its unity with Christ. Christ in the fullness of His humanity shares his suffering. It is necessary to explain the image of this incarnation. First of all, it must be understood as Christ’s acceptance of the original sin of all mankind and its universal redemption through the power of this acceptance. This is a universal ontological act of acceptance of all human nature, relating to human nature. Each individual in his individuality participates in the power of this act, but the source of this renewal is one - the divine-human nature of Christ. This act of pan-human redemption is Christ’s own work, by which He gives man a new life of deification. In relation to this, humanity is a passive recipient of its salvation, although everyone receives it through a personal act and effort. In this work of salvation we have the completed and perfect God-manhood of Christ, glorified and ascended into heaven and, as a participant in the Divine life, “sitting at the right hand of the Father.” They give us life and salvation. But the question is: is humanity in Christ absorbed by this deification in its own natural life and human freedom, or is the latter preserved in such completeness that human history as a human affair remains possible. This is, at the same time, the same question as about the Holy Grail: whether Christ is separated from the earth in His ascension above it and is thereby taken away from earthly existence, or whether He, according to the Orthodox interpretation of the dogma of the Ascension, being in heaven, also resides on earth. “Having fulfilled your concern for us and united us on earth with the heavenly, you ascended in glory, Christ our God, never departing, but remaining persistent, and crying out to those who love You: I am with you and no one is against you” (Kontakion of the Ascension). This antinomian idea of ​​being together in heaven and on earth must be further developed in application to earthly sojourn. If through the Ascension the Lord moves away from space and time into the immutability and immeasurability of eternity, then His persistent presence with us keeps Him within the limits of earthly existence. Although His own humanity has already been glorified and exalted and is therefore super-temporal and super-spatial, His co-humanity in us continues to exist and is lived out in time and history. Not only that. This life continues on the basis of created freedom, which along its paths determines the earthly destinies of this humanity and thereby plunges into them every individual person in general, but at the same time the universal Co-Man Christ. And in relation to these destinies, as already determined by human freedom, Christ Himself again continues to be passively determined, suffering, sacrificial, led to free passion, although at the same time leading to salvation. There is nothing in humanity, except sin, that does not belong to the humanity of Christ, and would not be shared by it. And therefore they share the fate of this humanity, its weaknesses, illnesses and suffering. In other words, Christ crucified on the cross once, accepting the sin of the world on the way to Glory, resurrection and ascension. But He, in His humanity, still remains on earth, sharing its destinies and sufferings, not on the path to the glorious and saving resurrection and ascension, but on the paths of humanity’s own earthly life. This is His ongoing incarnation. One can boldly express the thought that Christ personally co-lives and co-suffers the personal life and destiny of every person, except only what is associated with sin and consists of it. However, suffering, as the consequences of sin, is also accepted by Him. This is the revelation of His incarnation, its fullness. Christ separates no one from His love and does not cast anyone out of His humanity. Christ is on the bed of suffering with those who suffer and on the bed of death with those who die. He is close and accessible to every person in his sorrow. He gives assistance in death as God, but He also dies co-humanly with each of us. Otherwise, death would be unbearable because of its mortality, which is weakened on the edge by the immortality of Christ, His resurrection. Christ’s perception also includes the actions of human freedom, its participation in human destinies. Since it is a factor of variability in these latter, introducing possible differences and changes into them (of course, within certain limits), it extends its humanity to the humanity of Christ. Christ, accepting human nature in its fullness, and, consequently, in its freedom, exposes Himself to free suffering for the sin of the whole world, not only original sin, but in it and with it for all human sins. There is a double acceptance here: expiatory suffering for sins and free compassion with a person in his life as a consequence of the Fall and damage to the primordial nature. This corruption is a consequence of original sin, and to that extent it is connected with it. But at the same time it is different from it and receives independent existence in the fallen world. This is primarily death, but also all kinds of suffering: “a child’s tear,” the suffering of children and adults from hereditary diseases or from any defects in general. They have a common cause in original sin and the fall, but this is not their particular cause. On the contrary, particular cases remain irrational injustices that cannot (and even should not) be justified. Otherwise, it will be a justification for Satan, who operates in the fallen world until he is finally driven out of it. This was the mistake of Job’s friends, who did not want to allow the obvious injustice that took place in Job’s fate through the cunning of Satan. But Job was a “type” of Christ, providing an example of personally unfair, undeserved suffering. And the “prototypical” meaning of the suffering Job lies precisely in the fact that in his image we see the fellow-suffering Christ. Christ knows no partiality and has compassion not only with Job, but with every person who is given the gift of suffering. The world is tormented and tormented by the prince of this world, who has achieved the fulfillment of his evil intent, the crucifixion of Christ. But together with the tormented man, Christ also suffers with earthly human torment, as if by ongoing co-crucifixion in love for man. The price of saving a person and bringing him to eternal life in resurrection is even greater than crucifixion and universal death accepted once. It also includes multiple repetitions or, more precisely, the fulfillment of this death and passion in the destinies of every person on earth. Christ in His Passion on the Cross rose above man, as it is said: “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:14–15; cf. Eph. 4:8–10), but He remains on earth with man “always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Christ in this sense continues His suffering on earth, being in heaven in the Glory of the Ascension. Therefore, by causing suffering to each other, voluntarily or unwittingly, we again crucify Christ. More than once you can find the image of the suffering Christ on the battlefield as the theme of an artistic painting. This idea about St. is expressed here in anthropomorphic images. The Grail, about the ongoing earthly suffering of Christ, in particular on the bloody field of human mutual destruction. The anthropomorphic perception in this deliberate portrayal of war as extreme evil and suffering. In the eyes of God, bourgeois decay, accompanied by peace and security, is perhaps an evil no less and even greater than war (“for the flesh is the essence” 528), by its very duration. However, one cannot diminish the horror that strikes war, this rider sitting on a red horse, to whom “it was given to take peace from the earth and that they should kill one another” (Rev. 6:4). Christ's attitude to this bloody pandemonium is not limited to divine contemplation or heavenly guidance, but is expressed by divine-human participation through suffering in His humanity. It may not even be alien to direct activity, as is expressed in the image of the warfare of the Lamb in Revelation: “He was clothed in a robe dipped in blood. His name is: the Word of God. And the armies of heaven followed Him... Out of His mouth proceeded a sharp sword, that with it He might smite the nations” (Rev. 19:12–21). No matter how one spiritualizes or allegorizes these images in their concreteness, one thing is clear that they testify to some kind of earthly activity of Christ in human history, at least at the end of it. But that's not all. Along with this activity, there is also a certain passivity, like the new co-crucifixion of Christ with humanity. Yes, truly so. Christ is present on the battlefield among the wounded and killed, the suffering and the dying, and not only as a victorious horseman, “clothed in bloody clothing” (Rev. 19:13), as he is in the fullness of time, but also as a victim of war, sympathizing with its disasters. He shares with all the victims of war the sorrow and tears of both themselves and those who lose them. If we love Christ and live with Him, then we must know that in war we crucify Him again, and He is crucified by us and with us, He by love, we by our stupidity and cruelty. War would be overcome and would become impossible if we saw and felt it as the crucifixion of Christ, and the passionate torments of humanity as melting His passion. Christ has compassion (as well as rejoices) not only in war, but in all human endeavors. His inseparability from humanity is the hidden power and source of life of the latter, despite the fact that history is made by man himself, while Christ only sacrifices His humanity in it. No matter how disastrous what is being done to humanity, and how destructive what it itself does, it cannot perish, because it is, after all, the co-humanity of Christ. And this passion of Christ in history is saving for man, just as His presence in humanity ensures the preservation of history from the destructive forces of Satan. At the end of the story, the King of kings himself, the Word of God, comes out on a white horse to defeat the beast and the false prophet, as well as those who are with him 529. Here we again encounter the usual antinomy for the theologian, the combination of his times and supra-temporal existence, divine governance of the world and human freedom. The Holy Trinity rules the world in His wisdom and omnipotence. In Her, Christ also rules the world, as “one of the Holy Trinity,” sitting in heaven at the right hand of the Father. This management of the world is combined with the preservation of its freedom in the incomprehensible interaction of the Creator with creation. Christ in the Holy Trinity acts as God in all His omnipotence. However, Christ, in the kenotic self-abasement of His incarnation, is in interaction with the world, and He no longer rules the world, but, as if on the contrary, He Himself is obedient to the destinies of the world, sharing them in His humanity. And since God, in interaction with human freedom, allows war, without destroying it with His omnipotence and without prohibiting it with His power, the God-Man Himself becomes its victim, suffering it in His humanity as His earthly fate. There is an antinomy here: the one who commands is also the one who is commanded. Here we have the application of the doctrine of the co-humanity of Christ, expressed in the speech about the Last Judgment, where Christ testifies to His sharing of all human suffering: Matt. 25: 35-40, 42-45. Christ here identifies Himself with suffering humanity, “hungry, thirsty, strange, naked, sick or in prison.” Of course, this list is not exhaustive, but only approximate, and it quite naturally can and should include complicity in the suffering of war, wounds, captivity and all its other disasters. This identification is expressed, moreover, in the strongest and most unlimited form: “I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me”; and this is the same in addressing both the righteous and sinners: “as you did (or did not do) to one of the least of these my brothers, you did (or did not do) to me.” There is no reason to see in these words a simple allegory or only an expression of sympathy for the suffering. No, it is said here with all power and without limitation: To me (cf. Matthew 10:40: “Whoever receives you receives Me.” However, here, as in other similar cases, we rather have only a comparison: Luke 10:16: “He who listens to you listens to Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me”; Wed Luke 9:48; John 13:20). The dogmatic content of the speech about the Last Judgment is usually limited only to the division of humanity into lambs and goats, placing some on the right hand and others on the left. But it also contains a more general, and therefore more important thought - about the universal co-humanity of Christ with “His lesser brothers,” i.e. about the mystery and power of the Incarnation, with the life of Christ in humanity. The whole force of this identification of Christ with his lesser brothers testifies to precisely this. The idea of ​​St. The Grail is expressed in its own way in these words, and there is no reason to diminish their power by allegorizing, on the contrary, they should be taken in their direct meaning. Therefore, the general idea about the co-humanity of Christ must be extended to others, to all paths of history, and in particular to war, as an area of ​​​​human action connected with the most disastrous suffering, which includes its various images, as they are noted in the speech about the Last Judgment. Such is this “panchristism,” the pan-humanity of Christ, which is expressed in it. To this we can also add some considerations expressed in the sophiology of death. The antinomy now indicated must be extended to the entire Holy Trinity, although not directly, but indirectly. The Death of Christ, although it refers to the second Person of the Holy Trinity, incarnate and made man, however, in a sense it extends to the other Persons, the Father and the Holy Spirit, in Their unity of love and life. The earthly connection of Christ with all humanity extends to the entire Holy Trinity, accordingly for each of the hypostases. The Lord is present on earth as the only one of the Holy Trinity, and therefore any of His hypostatic self-determination or action entails the participation of other hypostases - the Father, who sends, and the Holy Spirit, who performs. Here we have the ongoing incarnation of God, which took place by the will of the Father, who sent the Son to earth, and by the action of the Holy Spirit, who accomplished the incarnation (through the Most Holy Theotokos...). In this regard, the meaning of prayer in the life of the Lord is determined. We said that prayerful invocation is a direct way to attract Divine help to oneself and, to this extent, to introduce one’s life to communion with God, to the extent of making it divine-human. This applies in general to any prayer addressed to God, as well as to the Mother of God, angels and saints, but first of all and directly to Christ as the God-Man, and through Christ and in Christ to the Father and the Holy Spirit, the entire Holy Trinity. Further, prayer to the Mother of God, Angels and saints, directly related to them, is offered by them to God, and, therefore, is also a prayer to God, although indirectly directed. The validity of this prayer cannot be questioned, no matter how it appears. War and all kinds of disasters are a school of prayer as a struggle against evil force and victory over it, and in this sense, prayer is also a spiritual war. Earthly human efforts are multiplied by the help of prayer. This applies to the Christian world. But even the non-Christian world is not devoid of its prayer, albeit perverted and misdirected, but still addressed to God. And this prayer is in an unknown way accepted by the God-man in His co-humanity with people and ascends to the Father. Here is the mystery of God's love, the love of Christ. The God-Man Himself also prayed unceasingly in His earthly life, prayed to the Father about His service, as well as about humanity and its needs, prayed as the God-Man in His humanity. By prayer, by its power, and not by the omnipotence of God, as if by some new creative act, His miracles were performed and help was given. He could impart this power to His disciples, sending them to preach. This was so during the earthly ministry of Christ, but also now, after His ascension. But even now He speaks of His imperishable, abiding priesthood, by the power of which He “is able always to help those who come to God through Him, being always alive to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:24-25). It speaks of the High Priest, who offered Himself once as a sacrifice, “to take away the sins of many” (Heb. 9:28), “by one offering to perfect forever those who are sanctified” (Heb. 10:14). But what does this single offering mean, which for us humans is revealed in its power, as making perfect those who are sanctified? Being one and one-time, it is realized as multiple, with which we “have boldness to enter into the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus Christ” (Heb. 10:19), and to it “we approach with a sincere heart, a new faith” 530 (Heb. 10:22). This means that we combine our prayer with the prayer of Christ, offering it “for everyone and for everything.” We pray in Christ and with Christ His Eucharistic prayer, into which He imparts the power of salvation and help. The single prayer of Christ’s sacrifice is the diverse and effective prayer of Christ, by which the world is held together and humanity is saved. The prayer of the Mother of God, who does not leave the world even in the Assumption for the sake of help in earthly sorrow, and covers the world with Her protection, is also immediately obvious to us. The Church pleases the Mother of God as the Intercessor of all who mourn, praying for Her Son for all: “Pray for all Your Son, Christ our God, and cause all to be saved.” However, already from this testimony it is clear that the prayer of the Mother of God, like her power, is different from Christ’s; it is addressed to Christ as God. Although this is the prayer of the Queen of Heaven, it is still a created prayer - from the face of creation to the Creator. But at the same time, it is still a divine-human prayer, since in the person of the Mother of God the very human nature of the God-man, in all the power of incarnation, prays and intercedes before the Eternal High Priest. If Christ Himself prays to God with human nature in His God-manhood, then this human nature has a hypostatic existence in the Mother of God. She is, as it were, His human voice, His human existence, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. In this sense, the unity and inseparability between Christ and Mary in their one God-manhood is essential. Humanity, having been received by the Logos, became Christ's God-manhood, belonging to Him. But the same humanity, deified by the incarnation of God, in the Virgin Mary also has its own hypostatic existence, although it is in inseparable connection with the Divinity of the Logos through the Mother of God. Due to this connection, the Mother of God directly penetrates the God-Man; it is, as it were, His love for humanity. If Christ’s prayer for man directly penetrates into heaven, saving all humanity, then the prayer of the Mother of God is offered from the face of hypostatic human existence, making it, as it were, original in relation to the God-man, although it is a created hypostasis. Motherhood of God is God-human, like Christ's human nature, with, however, a significant difference from it. It is in Christ that it resides in the inseparable and unmerged union of divine and human nature. In the divine-humanity of Mary, divinity descends on humanity, preserving all its originality. We have here a kind of divine-human bridge connecting the heavenly and earthly 531. The Mother of God, who “did not leave the world in the Dormition” 532, prays for the world and with the world, as the head of creation, and She suffers with it and for it. According to the revelation of the Feast of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary, She cries for peace, and therefore would it be bold to say or think that now She cries for humanity, exhausted on the battlefields, in all the horrors of war. Below the Most Holy Theotokos, but together with Her stands the creature praying to God, holy people. They belong to the glorified and deified humanity of Christ. They live in this world with humanity and suffer for it, and they assist it with prayerful help and grace-filled power. Therefore, it cannot be allowed that their help, both in general spiritual assistance and personal participation, is not particularly manifested in the disasters of war. Perhaps such participation is based on the special proximity of one or another saint to a person. The humanity of the saints establishes a special personal, kindred, closeness, which is felt and realized in personal relationships. When the horrors of war or other social disasters occur, the spiritual forces of the saints who have departed from this world are especially strained to help, to meet his needs and prayers. However, heavenly help to suffering humanity is not limited to this. What is also happening is what can be called spiritual mobilization. Angelic armies come to the aid of the human world. Revelation gives knowledge about this, like other sacred books. Service of St. angels in relation to the created world is defined as continuous assistance to it. Particular attention should be paid to their struggle with the dark forces of the prince of this world. Just as there is a good providence of good, God’s guidance of the world, carried out through holy angels and holy men with the Queen of Heaven at the head of all, there is also a dark providence of evil, the destructive action of satanic forces. Again, Revelation sufficiently testifies to this. After the war in heaven, Michael and his angels, the dragon and his angels were cast down to earth in rage (chap. XII): “and they went to make war” with “those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 12:17). As the forces of evil operate in history: the harlot is the temptations of false civilization, the beast is the military power of the state with its violence, and the false prophet is the preaching of false teaching. They transfer their seductions, deceit and powers to the kings of the earth, who will wage war with the Lamb (Rev. 17:14). After the fall of Babylon (chap. XVIII) the last battle begins “of the beast and the kings of the earth and the armies they have gathered to fight with Him who sits on the horse and with His army” (Rev. 19:19). And finally, right before the very end of the history of the world, Satan, once again freed from prison, will come out to deceive the nations and gather them for battle, their number as the sand of the sea (Rev. 20:7–8). But here comes the end of the story. So, satanic forces act in history as a beast - organized imperialism or self-sufficient totalitarian statism, nationalism and despotic communism, as a false prophet of poisonous rationalism with the scientific mastery of the forces of nature for the sake of power, and as a harlot, the corrupting pleasure of wealth and luxury. And all these forces unite in one common result - a war of all against all. This state of the world is difficult to maintain in balance through self-interest and fear. However, sooner or later it is violated and the rebellion of Gog and Magog 533 begins. However, it would be an unacceptable simplification to stylize historical forces and events as a mere opposition: war or peace with a pacific denial of war. War is a disaster, but not yet an absolute evil - in any case, it is not always and not evil in everything; it exists mixed with good, like everything human. The world is also not always and not everything is good. In addition, in a war there are always fighting and arguing sides, which obviously cannot all be equally and at the same time right. In distinguishing between good and evil, truth and untruth, one cannot therefore limit oneself to external criteria, but must go back to the internal state. Moreover, war is a long series of events in which various human states develop and change, from the highest to the lowest, as well as vice versa. Standing in the face of death (since it is not dulled by duration or even habit) opens up unknown depths in a person’s soul, gives new revelations, but can, on the contrary, lead to bitterness and coarsening. There is no need to go either way, but there is room for free self-determination. In general, war is the greatest shock, which with a tragic blow breaks the usual way of bourgeois life with its decay and stagnation. This is the spiritual face of war from the perspective of its various possibilities. Therefore, it is wrong and unfair to deny any possibility of its spiritual and Christian elimination and to reject the presence of a Christian principle in war, and, consequently, in soldiers, first of all - in terms of goals and objectives (protection of values ​​of the spiritual and cultural order), national wars, within certain limits, even estate and class wars. Here we have concrete judgments of history. Therefore, it still remains possible, at least in principle, to be a Christian, and in this sense, a Christ-loving army (it goes without saying that the love of Christ is not the exclusive advantage of the army; on the contrary, it can manifest itself in other ministries, although, of course, not always and not in all). Abstract condemnation, like praise of war, is of no use. Before our eyes, a picture of a pagan war and the onset of nationalism is unfolding. Of course, here too it would be excessive and unfair to directly condemn all participants in even such a war. Human assessments are limited and one-sided; they can even be biased and generally relative. The cruelty of war obscures and dulls the conscience, especially when the war is the methodical and technical extermination of both the belligerent and non-combatant populations. With a certain level of technology, its corresponding methods become inevitable, until war destroys war through the extermination of the population itself, both fighting and non-fighting, at least in a certain part. “You will hear about wars and rumors of war... nation will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in different places” (Matthew 24:6–7). “And if those days were not shortened, no flesh would be saved, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened” (Matthew 24:22). The words of Christ foretell this possibility of complete mutual destruction of humanity, but it will not become a reality and history will not yet end in wars. “You will also hear about wars and rumors of war. But this is not the end" (Matthew 24:6). According to Revelation, the last war of the Lamb against “the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies,” which ends with the casting of the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire and the killing of “the rest” (Rev. 19:20–21), also does not end the story. This is followed by a 1000-year kingdom, i.e. the era of the triumph of peace and goodness, and only after this the final war of Gog and Magog, and only then comes the end of history, the casting into the lake of fire, “where the beast and the false prophet are,” of the devil himself (Rev. 20:7-10) and, obviously, the second coming of Christ. And all this is foreshadowed as inevitable: “See that you are not dismayed, for all these things must come to pass” (Matthew 24:6). Of course, this inevitability is the fruit of sin and “the cooling of love in many” (Matthew 24:12), but people do not live by sin and enmity alone in these terrible days. The main task and meaning of these tests is to maintain faith, to see God in the horrors of earthly history, and not to lose Christ in your heart. Even more than that: the greater the horrors and the more difficult the faith, the closer Christ is, the more a person needs to love Him. A new love must be kindled for Christ, crucified and tortured on the battlefields. And this new love will reveal Him in a new way, bring Him closer to the earth, call Him to His new, second and glorious coming. In the thunder of war, let the prayer resound: come, Lord Jesus. Every great war represents this image of the final clash of good and evil, angels and demons, Christ and the prince of this world, in which there are always two fighting sides. If we do not include the 1000-year kingdom due to its mystery and, perhaps, even its invisibility, then history, even according to Revelation, is a series of military waves alternating with each other until the last rebellion of Gog and Magog. Pacifism as such is already powerless to win because the instigator of war is the personal bearer of evil in the world, the prince of this world and his servants are the Antichrists. And perhaps we should say this directly, the world is not kind, satanic pacifism can become not good, but corruption, a person cannot tolerate free peace, philistine well-being with impunity. Carrying the cross, of course, can remain purely spiritual, for what is essential is not this or that image of the cross, but itself, its power. However, the spirits of evil never lay down their weapons until they are cast out of the world into the abyss of non-existence, until the world is freed from them. Along the paths of the spiritual struggle taking place in the world, wars almost inevitably arise. War is not the only, and perhaps not the worst, type of evil in the world to openly combat. There are different sides to this fight. Spiritual victory may not coincide with military victory, for it is intertwined with it into one complex complex, with plus or minus on both sides. War is a world fire of history, in which much is burned, valuable and perishable, much is melted down and renewed to life. And in that sense, it is still the beginning of life, and not death, albeit through mortal means. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). This life is brought to the feet of the Source of Life, the Resurrector of the dead, Who leads the world beyond the threshold of death - to a new life of resurrection. There are so many lives worthy But only one death is worthy: Only under bullets in calm ditches Believe in the banner of the Lord - the firmament. Second part: War and the sophistry of creation In the face of war, its great trials and terrible temptations, doubts and temptations inevitably arise regarding the power of good and truth in the world. The darkness approaching the world obscures the light in the soul, and in it the temptations of ancient Job arise about the powerlessness and inaction of God in the world, and they inevitably lead, if not Job himself, in which his personal faith still wins, then the logic of his thoughts, to the denial of His very existence. There is only reigning evil in the world, the world is ruled by the prince of this world. This conclusion is prompted by spiritual fear, which is accompanied by mental and physical exhaustion. A person becomes blind and deaf to good while he remains seized by this horror, terror antiquus 535, is in its power. However, such a state is only a temporary affect, which ceases along with the cause producing it - with some lull in the war or its cessation. However, even after this affect has passed, and even apart from it, all those questions that are awakened by the presence of war in the world, by its very possibility, remain valid. How is war possible and what does such a possibility mean? This question is naturally considered in the light of theodicy, or the justification of God in the world, as it is posed in the book of Job, and Job’s friends simply want to evade it, inventing Job’s non-existent guilt, while Job himself comes face to face with it with all its irresponsibility and the secret hidden in it - namely, the actions of Satan in God’s world, Satan’s work along with the Divine. The answer to this question is given eschatologically, i.e. outside and above historical achievements, as a postulate or revelation of faith: “I know that my Redeemer lives... and I will see God in my flesh. I will see Him myself, my eyes, not the eyes of another will see Him” (Job 19:25-26). Such a confession testifies to the transcendence of good in a world that, in its immanence, is immersed in evil, “the whole world lies in evil” (1 John 5:19), according to the direct testimony of the apostle. In this sense, the problem of theodicy, as a justification of the world in its present existence, cannot even exist, since it belongs to the kingdom of the prince of this world. Internally he is freed from this dominion as a result of the expulsion of the prince of the world by Christ, but in his state he remains in his power to this day, as he was before Christ. This satanic condition of creation does not relate to its very existence, for the world created by God is supported in it by the power of God, and at its core it is God. However, having been snatched away from God by Satan through the deception of man, the world still remains in Satan’s possession. Of course, the ways of Satan end in a dead end, for they cannot lead the world to anything, neither to salvation nor to destruction, for for this latter Satan still remains powerless. Not destruction, but the state of destruction, destruction, not satanocracy, for which he is also powerless, but demonization are the lot of the world lying in evil, in which, however, the seed of the Kingdom of God matures and grows: “Thy kingdom come.” The world lies in evil, but there is still good, for it is God’s creation. How can we understand this union of two kingdoms existing in one world, how is there a place for their competition and struggle, how is light and darkness combined in one common being, how can the world of God lie in evil? All the contradictions of existence and its mysteries are brought to this antinomic connection. The problem of theodicy relates precisely to this combination in one being of the transcendent omnipotence of the Creator and the immanent self-legitimacy of the world. In its immediate form it is undecidable, since the transcendent, as such, remains outside and above the immanent. However, this opposition does not leave them completely alien to each other, as if existing in a mutually impenetrable duality, but makes room for a certain duality in which their meeting and even interpenetration takes place. This latter is accomplished on the basis of God-manhood as the divine presence in created being, in other words, the sophia of the created world. It is she who establishes a bridge over the abyss between the transcendental and the immanent, their actual identification, although not identity. This is the relationship between the Divine and created Sophia, the Divinity in creation and creation as having a divine beginning within itself. The creation of the world consists of this connection and interpenetration of both principles. God created the world out of nothing. This means that in the world there is divine fullness and power, but in it there is also a receptive, becoming being, i.e. incompleteness, weakness, some abiding ontological minus, emptiness, nothingness, “from” which and in which God created the world, attaching its nothingness to being, i.e. to divine fullness. This basis of creation is indestructible, although it contains emptiness as a possibility realized in becoming. The world was created “with goodness”, and this goodness is inherent in the entire composition of the world as the basis of being in each person individually and in all of humanity and its history as a whole. There is no unconditional evil in the world with a complete absence of good as the divine principle of being, for such an undivine or extra-divine being would fall into the abyss of non-existence, pre-created or extra-created nothingness, i.e. it simply wouldn't exist. No matter how differently good and evil or being and emptiness are combined, in each individual image of such a union it belongs to being, exists according to its divine basis. But such a created being has an edge and through it comes into contact with non-being, “from” which it was created, borders on non-being, plunges into it, “lies in evil,” although it strives from it to turn to good or to being, to be completely immersed in it. Non-existence in creation, however, is not only a passive principle, a complete emptiness, for such does not exist in creation, in a world already created, called from non-existence into being, after in the creative act the emptiness of nothing was once forever filled with being. As such, it turned into an opportunity or task, received the theme of its existence for thematic development and corresponding execution, and became something that is already defined as something on the basis of created self-creation, i.e. creaturely freedom. This latter is not absolute and not omnipotent, not conditioned by a task in creation or givenness: freedom, although in all its limitations and relativity, is included in the very essence of being, just as the divine principle of any individual being is included in it. Created freedom is not absolute not only in the sense of the absence of omnipotence, but also of infallibility, both in setting goals and in their implementation. It inevitably goes through trials and temptations. This leads to the possibility of falls and the inevitability of mistakes. The path of human freedom is even more complicated, since its passage is accomplished with the participation of spiritual forces, in which it was already initially realized, i.e. ontologically before man, the possibility of falling. Its consequences extend to the human world, which, being involved in the fall, becomes the lot of the prince of this world, falling under his tempting influence. Thus, temptation and even fall actually turn out to be the price of created freedom and, in a sense, its synonym. The mixing of good and evil turns out to be its way; it exists as a created being, although it does not constitute it. However, such confusion is not a final and irresistible state, but only a path to overcoming freedom in its limitations and the error of its ways. The final goal of the path is liberation from created freedom in its meaning. Freedom from freedom cannot mean its loss by free beings, which is impossible, because it would mean the destruction or reduction of all created being; on the contrary, it is an elevation of the state of the created world to the fullness of its self-control. However, this image of created freedom is precisely what gives it the character of relativity, which marks all human decisions and actions. Relativity is generally a property of every created being as determined by the beginning of created freedom and the formation based on it. These two principles, relativity and created freedom, related to each other, and in a certain sense even identical, must be interpreted sophiologically, based on the relationship of the Divine and created Sophia, which determines created existence. The Divine Sophia, eternally existing in God as His self-revelation, is His revelation in the world as the entelecheic basis of the universe, its immanent purposeful cause, revealed in its formation through created freedom. But this image of the revelation of world sophia through created freedom presupposes not only the presence of imperfection, from which an ascent to perfection occurs, as from incompleteness to completeness, from task to fulfillment, but it is accomplished inevitably and through the confrontation of positive and negative principles of being, plus and minus, good and evil. Relative freedom, tempted by its power, can become not only the good, but also the evil genius of man, since, in addition, it becomes obsessed with inspirations, if not directly satanic, then man-divine. The absence of infallibility, inherent in created freedom in its limitations, makes created creativity, although Sophia in its foundation, eternally wavering, contradictory, always seeking, but not always finding. Such is the life of creative sophia as becoming. Life in its intensity is the highest good, just like creativity in its sophistic aspiration. In a certain sense, it can be said that even an evil life, in which the principles of sin are expressed, but in a certain connection with the forces of positive being, is higher and ultimately more sophic than passivity, lifelessness, inaction, and a-sophia. God created man to cultivate and preserve paradise, and not only admire it in inaction, and endowed man with the creative power of his image. A person is entrusted with a talent that should not be buried in the ground, but multiplied. This parable has a sophiological meaning; it talks about Sophia’s treasure of vitality given to every person: live and multiply your vital energy, even regardless of what and how it is multiplied. Of course, in other places in the Word of God it is defined what this energy should be devoted to when multiplying talents, but in this parable only one thing is said: do not bury what is given to you in the ground, like a lazy and crafty servant. The talent that is given to a person cannot be understood as a motionless and unchanging treasure, but as constantly changing grace-filled gifts of life, which must be creatively perceived in human activity. The contrast here is between givenness and givenness, passivity and creativity, which, thus, is the only way for the manifestation of sophia in the world. But this path presupposes not only active creative tension, but also struggle, of all kinds, with spiritual forces, human confrontation, with one’s own inertia. Every person is called to be a creator, poet and artist in the field of his life, to whom Christ says: “I brought fire to earth, and how I would like it to flare up” 536. And not only this, but also: “let everyone take up his cross and come after Me” 537. This is the creative task of shaping the life of the world and one’s own, each according to his own strength. Of course, Christian creativity is under the control of Christian consciousness; it must serve the structure of the Kingdom of God and be determined by this. However, we must never forget the relativity of such service, which is by no means available as an immediate task, but is only a guiding general goal. The Divine Sophia in the created world shines with rays of sophia, which man strives to catch with his consciousness - in his “justification of good” 538 - in the sophia of the world. Therefore, it is impossible to absolutize what is not an end, but a means. However, you have to creatively choose your path and establish yourself on it. It has to be sought both positively, by affirming a certain way of life, and negatively, through confrontation. Based on these general principles, we now have to turn directly to our paradoxical topic: war and sophia, or the sophiological justification of war. Can such a connection be made or such a justification found? Isn’t this questioning itself blasphemous in relation to the Wisdom of God or a betrayal of the very principles of sophiology? Indeed, in the darkness of war, obscuring the sunlight, in its melancholy and torment, plunging the world into a state of numbness, in the ocean of blood, tears and all kinds of torment, is it not necessary to abandon, as a blind illusion, the very thought of the sophic nature of the world, about the indestructibility and invincibility of its sophic beginning in it? Should we not rather recognize the world as the kingdom of the prince of this world, which can be understood rather not in the light of sophiology, but of Satanology? These are the questions that now burn the consciousness and require an answer with all the power of sincerity and truthfulness, as from Job, lying on the rot and saying to his sensible and optimistic friends: “So now you are nothing; they saw a terrible thing and were afraid” (Job.6:21), “you are all pitiful comforters” (Job.16:2). We, the confessors of the sophianity of the world, as having its divine basis in Sophia, the Wisdom of God, must now, fearlessly looking into the face of tragic reality, not shy away from confessing and preaching our faith, no matter how weak and dull our voice may be. And through this human weakness she herself speaks, the Wisdom of God. We must confess not with Job’s friends, pitiful comforters, but with the suffering righteous man himself: we know that the consolation of the world is alive, and it will reveal itself to the world. Sophia's creation, Sophia's history, and - we have to admit - in its own, special sense, sophia's war, i.e. manifested in her, or rather, in spite of her, but through her, are the Sophia principles of life. And therefore the question is: is there a manifestation of creativity in war - not only in the preservation, but also in the multiplication of talents? Are the bloody threads of war woven into the fabric of history as necessary or, at least, inevitable - like the state and law, art, thought and knowledge, in general, every human activity in history - is the sophiodicy of war possible? All these questions can and should be answered in the affirmative, albeit in all the relativity that is inherent in history. War is not an absolute evil, a satanic failure of the universe, devoid of any ontological content, and finding no justification in its cruelties. But in that case, what is it? Of course, war is the most tragic page of history with all its cruelty, both objective, in the sense of the inevitability of victims and suffering, and subjective, in the sense of awakening in a person brutal instincts, base feelings, blind horror. Here we can repeat the words of Job: “they saw a terrible thing and were afraid” (Job.6:21). And in this sense, war, especially modern war, is so terrible that it’s scary to even talk about it. Anyone who even approaches her mentally is filled with horror before her. And this horror closes the lips and paralyzes the thought. However, is it permissible to remain in spiritual silence and some kind of thoughtlessness about what requires and awaits an answer, and not from our fearfulness, but from spiritual courage? One may not be confirmed in the ability to stand in the truth when a test comes (and everyone who dares thereby dooms himself to this judgment), and yet the truth commands one to testify about oneself fearlessly. And one cannot allow rejection of war only out of fear, because it is possible - and in fact exists - that it is no less, but more spiritually terrible than war, and yet not so frightening in its threat. It is even permissible to express such a paradox that war can be spiritually less terrible than a world that does not know its burning, but also cleansing fire. In general, we need to overcome the understanding of war as an absolute evil, we need to see and recognize the good in it, of course, only relative, and understand its possibility. If we proceed from the Word of God, then here we are faced with the fact that the Old Testament is fulfilled, one might even say overflowing with recognition and testimony of the holy war in which God Himself fights through His angels and saints. The entire “sacred history” taking place under God’s leadership of the chosen people is, according to the Bible, a series of continuous wars. It represents, one might say, an apotheosis with the opponents of the chosen God-bearing people, in their depths bearing the seed of the incarnation of God, and this alone contains a certain, not only factual, but also ideological justification for the war. It is impossible to make an excuse here by referring to historical age and generally reducing all this to primitive barbarism, even though it would be impossible to deny it. It must simply be said that in this case one would have to reject most of the Old Testament, for the history of the holy war is no less an integral part of it than the law and the prophets. This Old Testament recognition is an amazing fact, and, consequently, the justification for war, which we prefer to brush aside, allowing it only “historically” for the Old Testament. But these wars, being theocratic, in any case have a certain Sophian basis. Therefore, the question arises, so to speak, about the Old Testament sophiology of war, if it is clearly connected with the historical destinies of the theocracy in Israel, these same latter with the Incarnation. Paradoxical as it may seem, the holy wars in the Old Testament, together with the entire Old Testament history, prepare the appearance in the world of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the personal manifestation of Sophia in human nature. Thus, we have to come to the conclusion that wars cannot be eliminated from the Divine plan of incarnation. In order to more fully and deeply understand the meaning of theocratic war, it is necessary to dwell on one more fact from the life of the spiritual world, namely: the warfare of the holy angels, on earth and in heaven. The sword is an unchanging emblem characteristic of the Archangel Michael, who appears to Joshua in the form of a man with a drawn sword, with the words: “I am the leader of the army of the Lord” (Joshua 5:13–14). According to the testimony of the Old Testament, angels fight alongside men (Dan.10:13, 20). In this theocratic warfare of angels with people, his Sophian character is clearly imprinted. There are no instructions given in the Word of God regarding the manifestation of this warfare; of course, it belongs primarily to the area of ​​spiritual influence, although figuratively cases of even direct participation in human battle are not excluded, no matter how it is understood: this includes, for example, the beating of the firstborn of Egypt by angels (Ex. 12:29). True, it says here: “The Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt,” but, according to biblical usage, this obviously means an angel of God. This also includes the beating by an angel of 185 thousand of Sennacherib’s horde (2 Kings 19:35): “and the Lord sent an angel, and he destroyed all the brave men and the captain and commanders in the army of the king of Assyria” (2 Chronicles 32:21). The theocratic nature of the war is expressed here quite clearly. But for understanding the sophiology of war, perhaps even more important than this angelic-human army is the understanding of the heavenly confrontation, the war of the Archangel Michael and his angels with Satan and his army (Rev. 12: 7-12). The basis of this war is also indicated here. We are talking about the power of Christ: “now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ have come, because the slanderer of our brethren, who slandered them before God day and night, has been cast down” [10]. Whatever this “slander” in the sky means, it is clear that here we are talking about a clash of two principles, irreconcilable and incompatible with each other. But what can the war of angels mean here? It is said about her that “the angels did not love their souls even to death” (11). Of course, there can be no talk here of death in the literal sense of disembodied and therefore immortal spirits, but of a state that corresponds to readiness for death, of ultimate sacrifice and fearlessness, of the highest feat and intensity of love for God and the Lamb. Here, too, there can be no talk of cruelty, which is inevitable in human war, but of that spiritual tension that results in the final separation of good and evil, which is expressed in the overthrow of Satan and his angels from heaven. The angelic sky now belongs to angels alone, therefore, angelic life is filled only with divine principles, i.e. definitely sophia. This is, obviously, the highest level of good, the ultimate achievement, which was not given by Divine power (of course, by this power Satan could be cast out of heaven and in addition to the war with the angels), but had to be spiritually conquered. Consequently, war, understood as spiritual sacrifice and tension, is included in the plan of heavenly construction and angelic life. True, this necessity of war, as well as its inevitability, is associated with the rebellion of Satan and the resulting division in the ranks of the heavenly army. There might not have been a war, both on earth and in heaven, apart from this rebellion. However, in this case, some spiritual equivalent of this war remains inevitable, i.e. the creative tension that corresponds to it. Non-creative passivity cannot take place here either, for it does not correspond to the law of the sophia of creation, and this law has equal force in heaven and on earth. And if there is no war in the literal sense, then there remains a war with oneself, in oneself and for oneself, i.e. with uncreative passivity for active, creative, for givenness. This is the meaning of war in heaven. In this regard, its meaning is revealed on earth - and not even in the Old Testament church, but in the Christian one. War can be a way, or rather, one of the ways to make a creature sophisticated. Otherwise, it cannot be accepted or accepted at all. When discussing the general question of the Sophian meaning of war, one must first set aside the particulars regarding this or that war in its truth and untruth, but take it in a general form - about war as such in history. It is only in such a general historical context that this problem can be posed, because war belongs to history and cannot be excluded from it. Is Sophia’s history as an apocalypse (and is history also an apocalypse)? An idle question, because it already contains the answer. Of course, history is the created Sophia, revealing itself in the development of the world. History in this sense is this formation, the germination of Sophia's seeds of being in its non-being, the meon of being (according to Plato's expression). The meonic character of history lies in the fact that here, in an incomprehensible way, being and non-being (ukon) are fused in becoming: good and evil, beauty and ugliness, yes and no. Therefore, it is impossible to exclude anything from the Sophia existence of history just because it is not perfection, because then the whole history will have to be crossed out. To recognize the sophistic nature of being, on the contrary, one must look in it for those positive principles, apart from which created being does not exist at all. Therefore, it is necessary to highlight such principles in war, although they are combined here with horrors and destruction. War is accompanied by mutual extermination of the warring parties, or rather, it is such. War is also murder, as if contrary to the direct commandment of God: Thou shalt not kill. It is, of course, indisputable that war includes murder, however, not as a goal, but as a means to victory through the “extermination of enemy manpower” along with other means that do not include direct destruction (blockade, captivity). The simplified and tendentious stylization of war wants to see only the direct and only goal in murder. Thus, it simplifies and even eliminates the very problem of the sophistic nature of the war. Evil murder out of personal hatred is, of course, evil and only evil, already due to its goal, namely the destruction of life given by God. Murder cannot be a goal as murder for the sake of murder, and the more conscious and malicious it is, the more sinful it is, and therefore the more antisophic. So, if you see in war what is in it, and not what is not in it, then it cannot be considered as an absolute evil, but first of all it is a disaster or tragedy, which has its justification in inevitability. So, the question is: can the inevitability of war be recognized, i.e. its justification as a necessary means in protecting the highest values. This question can be answered in the negative in the only case where human life represents the highest and final value, incomparable with anything, about which it could in no way be said: “do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28), “and therefore cannot do anything [more]” (Luke 12:4). Earthly life is temporary and subject to illness and all kinds of dangers; most importantly, it is not an end in itself, but must be devoted to some higher purpose or service. This applies to one’s own life, about which it can be said that every person should be ready to sacrifice it for the sake of the highest good (primarily for faith, but also for the homeland, for loved ones, etc.). But this cannot [not] be applied to the life of another, if this other himself gives his life, putting himself in the position of an enemy. If at all there can be a value higher than human life, which is undoubtedly, then there can also be a legitimate, justified state of war as a struggle for this value, and therefore non-resistance to evil is unjustified. The whole question is whether such incompatibility of vital principles fighting among themselves can be recognized. In each case, this question cannot be given an a priori answer, but only an empirical one. However, one can with sufficient grounds affirm the a priori inevitability of the collision and struggle of different principles along the paths of history. This inevitability stems not only from the general nature of the formation of both the historical process of osophia, and from the presence of evil in the world, energy and inertia, and in general the action of original sin: “the world lies in evil.” In other words, the Sophian process is antinomic and at the same time dialectical in the sense that the presence of antinomy here is not resolved or removed within history, but only outside it (not in the apocalypse, but in eschatology), however, it is dialectically raised to a series of synthetic achievements. Therefore, one cannot even wish for the elimination of historical contradictions and struggle, because this means wishing not for perfection, but for stagnation, decay, hibernation, and a person must be an actor in history on all its paths with all the means lying on them. Not every war is inevitable as such a means, because there may be unnecessary, fruitless and harmful wars (however, just as not every preservation of peace is valuable as such), but it is important to recognize in principle that in history there is, at least, although within certain limits, the inevitability, and to that extent, the justification of war. If war lies on the paths of history, is woven into its fabric, then this means its inclusion in the Sofian plan. Although it is a disaster, it can, however, include the highest good; Moreover, in certain cases this is a good and cannot be achieved in other ways. In judging what can be called the sophistry of war, two sides must be distinguished: the subjective-human and the objective-historical. Let's start with the first one. It goes without saying that Sophia’s service necessarily presupposes tension and identification of a person’s higher, rather than lower, energies, as well as his gifts. And, first of all, it is sacrificial selflessness - the destruction of one’s soul for the sake of saving it. This is the case in different areas of service, whatever it may be, if only it is truly dedicated to a higher, good goal, and to the extent that it is guided by it. But this is how it is, perhaps to the greatest extent in war, where life and, perhaps even more than that, health are sacrificed. Of course, not every death or wound that cripples a person comes from a free act of sacrifice; in many cases, if not most, we are dealing only with coercion exercised in “universal conscription.” Let us even admit that the feat of self-sacrifice is rather an exception. However, it is precisely based on it that we must make a judgment about value. What is important is that war can give place to self-sacrifice and reveal it; in it, human qualities are tested and tested, first of all in battle, but also in the rear, and all this is done under the greatest tension. In a word, war is characterized by heroism and sacrifice, and, moreover, to an extent that can hardly be compared with any other service. Of course, since this is aimed at crushing the power of the enemy and is expressed in his extermination by all available means, this is a disastrous war. But as far as this applies to the combatants themselves, and to both or, more precisely, to all sides, sacrifice is manifested here, which in a certain sense is the equivalent of love, one of its manifestations. Of course, in human life good and evil are mixed with each other, and this is especially the case in war. But it is important to establish in it the presence of heroism and self-sacrifice as arousing the enthusiasm of fighters. Moreover, these same traits are manifested and cultivated not only on the battlefield, but also in the rear, deep and close. War condemns the entire population of the country to hardship and suffering, and also requires labor and dedication to care for the wounded and sick. If in general serving those suffering from illness is one of the images of self-sacrificing love, especially pleased by the Lord in the speech about the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:34-40), then when applied to wartime conditions it requires the greatest labor and care, when the whole country turns into a hospital or hospital. It may seem paradoxical, but one should recognize, along with the heroism and selflessness inherent in war, a special idealism, sacrificial service to the ideal, which is not often found in everyday life. War is not fought for the sake of personal interest, which usually guides people in their lives, but for the sake of a common goal. Regardless of what this goal is, its very presence raises the psychology of war above the ordinary level, makes people - often against their will - idealists, instills in them a desire for common goals, and elevates them. True, this, however, indisputable fact can be objected to by citing the opposite, no less indisputable: the decline of morals, savagery, barbarization, everything that usually manifests itself after the war in all life. Here again we have to remember that in humanity good is mixed with evil; if war fosters bad instincts in him, then it also awakens in him uplifting feelings, and it is absolutely impossible (and not necessary) to sum up the pluses and minuses in the overall balance of war. In any case, the tragic shock of life, which is associated with the war, brings a person out of a state of spiritual hibernation, bourgeois equilibrium, and this awakening, at least in a certain way, calls him to a new creativity of life. There is no need to confuse and identify the terrible and difficult, on the one hand, and the bad and decaying, on the other. The energy of war contains such potentialities of new life, which outside of it would be in a dormant state, but are now awakening in their openness to good and evil, to new creativity. In a word, when assessing the subjective side of war, we must refuse to see in it only an image of sheer villainy. Without exaggerating its positive aspects and without belittling its bad ones, we must see in it a kind of tragic action, in which both the higher and lower properties of humanity are manifested in a new force, and this tension also gives the fruit of history in its sophistry. The same must be applied in relation to the objective side of war, its theology. In war, it is usually not personal, but objective goals, in relation to which it is a service, that are pursued. These goals can be different: the crusades for the liberation of the Holy Sepulcher and the war of the northern and southern states for the liberation of blacks, the last world war due to political competition, economic and colonial wars, the war for liberation from the communist yoke, as well as for its establishment, etc., etc. The reasons, reasons and goals of the war are as diverse as the colorful fabric of history. Of course, different wars may have different qualifications. The fighting sides confront with different, even simply opposite, assessments of events; each side wants victory, considering itself right, although, of course, the very fact of victory does not in itself testify to this rightness. If “the winners are not judged” in the immediate course of events, where might is right, then they are judged by the supreme court of history, which itself is a revelation of sophia. Therefore, every victory is not the last word of historical truth, it can have as much positive as negative meaning on the paths of the opening Sophia. Here a lot of relativity is used in specific assessments. Mutual rightness here is relative for each of the fighting parties; here we have precisely the struggle of different principles, with each side asserting its rightness and bringing it to the supreme court of history. A historical battle is taking place, which takes place not only in military, but also in spiritual struggle. Man is not given infallibility of judgment at all, but he needs some quasi-infallibility, confidence in his own rightness, without which no action is possible, and the enervating Hamletism remains irresistible. This is how the common cause of history is created, and the faith of this common cause is determined by the level of spiritual and historical consciousness. It is changeable to the point of opposites, ranging from a war of mutual destruction to a war with mortality, which was called for by the herald of the future world Fedorov. But still, war is a way of serving a common cause and as such is a powerful lever of history, shaking the world, but also in some sense renewing it. People are not sighted enough to see the full significance of the war in history, and, consequently, in its sophistry. In such an exceptionally complex historical phenomenon as war, the law of heterogeneity of goals manifests itself with the greatest force, which consists in the fact that, along with the direct goal and even contrary to it, but also in connection with it, other, directly unintended results are achieved. However, this is the general manifestation of sophia in history. Man carries within himself, together with the image of God, the calling to reveal in history the beginnings of sophia, but in the struggle against non-existence and evil, in mixing with them. The manifestation of sophia in its pure form is not given to man except through divine inspiration, which brings about the “ecclesiasticalization” of life. The question is whether such a “churchification” of war is also possible through the “Christ-loving army,” or whether war is a minus of good, to which Christianity only says its decisive no. Of course, such a no is said to war as a disaster, as a bloody solution to issues that can, and, therefore, should be resolved bloodlessly. Of course, the solution brought by war comes not from the Church, but from the outside, from the life of the world. However, this does not mean that the Church cannot give (although it may not give) its blessing to the war, or at least condoning it, even to the point of allowing the clergy to go to war (although, of course, not of their own free will, but out of loyalty to the state that requires it). At present, all peoples, at least of Christian upbringing, alien to the spirit of war quand même, are looking for a peaceful outcome in difficulties. However, in pacifism as such there is still no Christian spirit, since war is not the last and always indisputable evil, which can also be found in peace. In general, here, between war and peace, there is no such indisputable choice as between good and evil, for war can be a greater good, or at least a lesser evil, than peace bought at any price. Therefore, in certain cases, peace proposals not only can, but also must be rejected. This is the specific logic of history, although it thereby leads us to heavy personal and social sacrifices. In any case, peace can represent a positive value only when it stems not from weakness or cowardice, but from a sense of truth and duty, and in order to be worthy of a good peace and capable of it, one must be capable of war, which is the possible price of life. In general, from judgments about war and peace, it is necessary to eliminate hedonistic motives, the desire to preserve peace or attachment to comfort, if along with it there is no heroic sacrifice, replaced by relaxation of the will and fear of deprivation. In judgments about the disaster of war, its destruction for the development of culture, the paralysis of science and art, and barbarization in general are indicated everywhere. All this, of course, is indisputable as the consequences of a war that takes into account only its direct goal, “the extermination of the enemy’s manpower.” For this purpose, she is looking for new, more effective means and stops at nothing. This is especially noticeable when war is waged by peoples of different levels of culture, although, unfortunately, at present this difference is increasingly erased. In war, the very instinct to honor cultural values ​​weakens. However, in the question of “justification of war” the comparative value of culture is also not decisive. Culture is not yet the highest value that could be used as a criterion for determining what is acceptable or unacceptable. The calamity of war also includes cultural destruction, which should be avoided at all costs. This is true, just as it is true that barbarization is the greatest evil, threatening the destruction of historical peoples. However, this calamity is not an absolute evil that would be able to eliminate the inevitability of war, once it is recognized as consistent with higher goals. The more significant this misery in the field of economy, culture, civilization, statehood, etc., the greater the sacrifice to the goals of war increases, from which it is impossible to retreat if they are recognized in this case as supreme. War does not stop at any sacrifice in its duty, this is its axiom. Of course, it would be a great happiness for the world if the beginning of war were completely eliminated from it and swords were beaten into plowshares. But for this it is necessary that the microbe of war, its causative agent in the spiritual and human world, be eliminated. This kind of overcoming of him is spoken of in connection with the 1000-year reign of the Apocalypse, during which “Satan was bound for 1000 years” (Rev. 20:2). The victory of pacifism only for the sake of preserving cultural values, but with general spiritual relaxation, will not be a victory of good, but rather an evasion from the fight for it, adaptation, spiritual opportunism. “Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war any more” (Is. 2:4), for “He (the God of Jacob) will teach us His ways” (Is. 2:3), and “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Is. 11:9). Only such a victory over war is a true good, pleasing to the Lord. War itself is, first of all, a disaster, and not a sin, although it can be one and, of course, its disaster entails many sins. War is a historical catastrophe, shattering the usual way of life, exploding the frozen crust, from under which molten lava flows. In this sense, war, in all its irrationality and heterogeneity of goals, in its age-old inevitability, which comes from a certain moment, is not only the action of humanity as a free will, in which they look for and relatively easily find the culprit (each side in its own way), but a certain rock, fate, God’s permission, let’s face it, a manifestation of God’s Providence in history. And in the sacred history of the Old Testament this is absolutely clear: the exodus from Egypt and the conquest of the Promised Land, the wars of David, the captivity of Babylon, the destruction of Jerusalem, various wars with one or another outcome according to the direct determination of God 539 - all this gives the war the character of a predetermined nature, which therefore lends itself to prophetic foresight and prediction. In the New Testament this is less obvious, or even not obvious at all, because it is complicated by human initiative and free self-determination. However, the absence of direct evidence does not at all mean that things would be different here, but that there would be no providential determinism, which makes historical events to a certain extent fate, a kind of historical fate, although this fatalism is connected in an incomprehensible and strange way with free self-determination, human creativity in history. Clear evidence of this is Revelation, this New Testament historiosophy. Here, wars and upheavals are depicted as accomplishments that occur simultaneously with the participation of heavenly and earthly forces, while the last war (chap. XIX) with the participation of Christ Himself, as well as the action of the seduction of Satan (XX), i.e. clearly by the action of meta-empirical and even meta-historical forces. The philosophy of war, which is contained in Revelation, is not at all reconciled with rationalistic-humanistic pacifism, but forces us to see in war also the action of superhistorical forces that penetrate human history. Of course, this very insight is given in images and emblems, rather in apocalyptic schemes than in the pragmatism of history (and attempts to interpret these schemes in relation to specific historical events are a priori erroneous). In the prophetic book of the New Testament, on the one hand, the forces acting in history are defined, and on the other, their maximum capabilities are indicated (the 1000-year kingdom), which can become reality only to the extent of their free implementation. The Apocalypse does not give facts, but only their historiosophical profile. The entire historical tragedy is depicted here as it lies in the depths of history. It is determined by the struggle of spiritual forces in history - good and evil. But here's what's important. Revelation is not only historiosophy, but also the sophiology of history, and it must finally be understood as such. It cannot be otherwise, because the true meaning of history, revealed in its depths, is, of course, the created Sophia, in which the Divine basis of the universe, or Divine Sophia, is the creative, creative principle in the meonic existence of the created world. At the same time, here there is not only the introduction of being into non-being, which is filled with Sophia energies, but also a separation of positive and destructive forces is taking place with the release of the latter to the edge of being, into total darkness, “this is the second death” (Rev. 20:14). “The prince of this world is cast out” 540 from the world, from existence itself. The Apocalypse is therefore naturally and inevitably the sophiology of war, since it describes the confrontation between the Sophian and anti-Sophian potencies, with the King of kings and Lord of lords seated on a horse at the head of His armies, on the one side, and Gog and Magog, driven by Satan, on the other. Since, without any doubt, human energies and historical events are depicted here, here, obviously, we have the symbolism of the Sofian and anti-Sophian war. Other images and antitheses of the Apocalypse also belong to this symbolism: angels and saints, on one side, and the armies of the beast, on the other; the woman clothed with the sun and the Babylonian harlot sitting on the beast; the beast and the false prophet and the two witnesses to the truth; The 1000-year kingdom as a manifestation in the world of Divine Wisdom and the city of God descending from above, heavenly Jerusalem, and the kingdom of the beast, with the last and final victory of the Sophian fullness of being (chap. XXI-XXII)). What is important is not only the general and basic idea, so to speak, of the Sofian dynamics revealed in Revelation, but the basic scheme of the world tragedy, as an apocalyptic, Sofian war that fills all history. This war is, first of all, of course, spiritual, but it would be wrong to limit ourselves only to such an understanding of apocalyptic images, spiritualizing them. On the contrary, events are depicted here both in heaven and on earth, but taking place in human history, and, therefore, the sophiology of war is outlined. Since world history is this dynamics of sophia, one should also see in Revelation the sophiology of war. The sophiology of war contained in Revelation has a pronounced sociological character. Here we are talking not so much about individual personalities (except for two witnesses, it seems that there are none at all), but about spiritual and historical forces that are symbolized in different images. Such images are characterized by the nature of tendencies or patterns that generalize individual actions, although they do not abolish them... They express fate, fate, regularity, social formation, in which it is not individuals who act, but what stands above individuals or behind them. This does not remove personal responsibility and does not eliminate individual initiative, but it strongly emphasizes their social cohesion, which is visible behind the atomizing individualism. This connection is the conductor of that common connection that introduces a super-individual element into personal destinies. Such is war, which is a highly social phenomenon, not only uniting, but to a certain extent also absorbing the principles of personal action. The latter can never be completely absorbed, with the complete abolition of personal responsibility and will, but here the social principle clearly appears, which sometimes takes on demonic and bestial features, but is capable of containing the opposite, like some kind of fusible form or transparent vessel. This is where all the weakness of rationalistic and individualistic pacifism, which does not know the strength of the whole, stems. It is not without reason that such a whole in apocalypticism is invariably described by the features of a living being, a spiritual organism. But this very integrity in relation to personal, individual existence has the character of a given, which becomes inevitable to accept, and, therefore, to obey it. This is where the character of war as fate or destiny comes from. In the end, the issue of war and peace is decided not by personal will and understanding, but somehow on top of them, although this does not prevent individuals from being exponents of this super-personal instinct or inspiration. Then they become leaders of nations, and personal responsibility for the war falls on them. However, in addition to their well-known personal talent, they are more destined to be an advertisement for history, its engines. The extent of this personal influence may vary, but the important thing is that super-individual forces operate in history, determining historical destinies. Here we encounter again the idea of ​​historical regularity, which was born in modern sociology (in particular, in Marxism) in connection with the problem of historical foresight and prediction. This idea is nothing more than a rationalistic translation of apocalypticism into the language of abstract concepts, and what is depicted here as living and internally connected turns out to be mechanized there, subordinated to sociological necessity. However, there remains a fundamental similarity in both cases in that a super-individual path of history is established, in which individuals are included only as atoms, while the real reality belongs to the whole, the collective. But here is what is important in the religious historiosophy that we have in the prophetic style - apocalypticism in general and the New Testament Apocalypse in particular: here these achievements are accepted not only as common destinies, but also providential actions, God's judgments on history. In this sense, the content of the New Testament Revelation is instructive. First of all, the entire content of history in the destinies of the future is depicted as a book in the right hand of Him who sits on the throne (in the general context - the Creator and Almighty, Rev. 4:2–3, 11, 5:6–7), “written within and without, sealed with seven seals” (Rev. 5:1). This book is taken from the hands of Him who sits on the throne by the Lamb, i.e. The God-man, and His power to take the book, i.e. to guide the destinies of the world is recognized in heaven and on earth (9–13). The Lamb sequentially opens each of the seven seals, which correspond to various acts of historical tragedy in different images: four horsemen bringing disasters to the earth (in particular, the second rider on a red horse, “and to him who sat on him power was given to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another, and a great sword was given to him” - Rev. 6:4, and the fourth horseman on a pale horse, “whose name was death, and hell followed him, and authority was given to him over the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and with the wild beasts of the earth” - Rev. 6:8). All these images contain prophecies or spiritual foresights, as it was said to the seer who ate the book at the command of an angel: “You must again prophesy about peoples and nations and languages ​​and many kings” (Rev. 10:11). This is the vision of seven angels with trumpets, and the voice of each of them is accompanied by corresponding disasters (chap. VIII-IX, XI, XV). Next come images of the kingdoms of the earth - the beast to which “it was given to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and power was given to him over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation” (Rev. 13:7), as well as “another beast” that deceives with great signs and wonders (Rev. 13:11, 14); finally, there are “seven angels having the seven last plagues, with which the wrath of God ends” (Rev. 15:1, 16:1–21). The beast and the kings with him “will make war with the Lamb, and He will overcome them” (Rev. 17:14). This is followed by the fall of Babylon (XVIII), after which the victorious battle of the Lamb and His angels with the beast and the kings of the earth takes place (Rev. 19:11–21). It will be followed, after the 1000-year reign of Christ on earth, by the rebellion of Gog and Magog and the final battle with them, followed by the end of history and judgment (Rev. 20:7-15). The last chapters XXI-XXII are devoted to metahistory, eschatological achievements, the descent of heavenly Jerusalem to earth and the accession of Christ in His kingdom. We will not dwell on individual images of the entire apocalyptic scheme; we will highlight only the guiding ideas that are important for our problem of the sophiological understanding of war. First of all, what is striking here is that wars and other disasters are definitely the destinies of Providence, sent in connection with corresponding human actions and self-determinations. From here we necessarily come to the conclusion that history is not only created by people in their freedom, but it is also made from above, as the fulfillment of the will of God, in response to this freedom. The result is a kind of synergy, in which, however, the participation of both sides is not equal, for the final paths of history are determined by the command of God. From here follows a very important distinction regarding what in history is historical fate, determination, and what is a matter of human freedom. This ratio remains unchanged for different eras of history, since history is a divine-human process in which God acts in man and through man. This also matters for the comprehension of war, in which it exists, or rather, it can be as much the fault of man as it is the judgment of the “wrath of God” or in general the action of Providence, for although it is a disaster, it is not yet an unconditional evil, or at least may not be one. At least in the depiction of the Apocalypse, i.e. already in the New Testament Revelation (to which chapters XXIV–V of the Gospel of Matthew correspond) war is depicted not only as a human affair, but also as an act of God’s Providence, its allowance. And to that extent, the responsibility for the war exceeds the personal strengths and capabilities of individuals, who are already instruments of the highest will. Pragmatically, we can, of course, look for and find the culprit or culprits of the war, the “aggressors” (for example, in the person of Hitler and others like him). Without diminishing their guilt and their significance in this sad set of circumstances that led to war, although everyone wanted to avoid it in every possible way, it should still be said that war is not only committed by people as their personal sin and crime, but also occurs as fate, historical fate, God's allowance. And in this latter sense, being a disaster, it is also a relative blessing, at least it can become such by the power of God's Providence. In the journalistic empirical interpretation of events, the idea of ​​the action of God's Providence in such matters and events that are of a super-personal nature and are not only done by people, but also happen to them, is too easily lost. They are similar in this respect to other disasters that happen to humanity: pestilence, famine, cowardice, flood, etc. They must be attributed either to the realm of evil that is inexplicably inexplicable, or in them, no matter how incomprehensible it may be, one must affirm by faith a higher expediency, although not revealed in this century. So, events defined by Divine determinism, as actions of the will of God, contain the highest purposiveness. Their meaning may remain inaccessible to man for some time, appearing before him as fate or evil fate, whereas they are the essence of God’s actions. This is the content of Revelation. However, they can and should be perceived in their relation to humanity, so to speak, anthropomorphically, even if incompletely and one-sidedly, only in relation to human understanding. And in this sense, the fate of humanity is God’s judgment over it, of course, not the final and terrible judgment that comes after the end of history, but preliminary and historical. Everyone looks at these mysterious writings of events in their own way, seeing in them judgment and punishment or admonition. Such are modern events: are they not for us an expression of God’s wrath at the bourgeois materialism of our era, manifested in different ways both in capitalism and in socialism and communism, at its godlessness and idolatry, for nationalism and totalitarianism, for militarism with the enslavement of the weak, etc., etc. All this is now exposed by life itself in its lies and destructiveness. Of course, not everyone heeds this judgment: there is still room for freedom of human perception. Some people want to ignore the meaning of events and turn away from them in fear. After the great earthquake and shaking of all nature (Rev. 6:12–14), “the kings of the earth, and the nobles, and the rich, and the captains of thousands, and the mighty, and every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and caves of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks: Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:15–16). However, people who did not die from the plagues “repented not of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons and idols of gold, silver, copper, stone and wood... and they did not repent of their murders, nor of their sorcery, nor of their fornication, nor of their theft” (Rev. 9:20-21). On the contrary, in response to the sorrowful trials, only “the pagans became furious” (Rev. 11:18). And even when the kingdom of the beast became dark, people “bite their tongues from suffering and blasphemed the God of Heaven from their suffering and did not repent of their deeds” (Rev. 16:10-11). According to the symbolism of the Apocalypse, an agreement takes place between historical figures (seven heads - seven kings, ten horns - ten kings, who “have one mind and will transfer their power and authority to the beast” - Rev. 17: 9-13). They “will hate the harlot and destroy her... because God has put it in their hearts to do His will, to do one will, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled” (Rev. 17:16-17). The ways of God are fulfilled even through thoughts and deeds of those who wage war with the Lamb, as well as with those “who are with Him, those who are called and chosen and faithful” (Rev. 17:14). In a word, the lessons of Divine pedagogy are perceived unequally by different people. However, for those who are capable of spiritual growth, they become a source of admonition, first of all as a punishment of God’s judgment, and then the revelation of His truth. Only God owns the power and reason of punishment: “Vengeance is mine and I will repay,” but people are capable of judging only post factum. But they must be enlightened by the thunder of events and read the book of God’s destinies, which are its writings. This is how the tragedy of history is outlined. War, first of all, means the tangible approach of death, which also gives a deepened tragic feeling of life. A person involuntarily frees himself from ordinary worldliness. The organ of sophia, the sense of the divine in the world and in history, awakens in him. The solemn ringing of eternity begins to sound in the soul. Of course, this sense of God fights and mixes with the roar of the animal kingdom. War is an organized brutality at least as much as it is an enthusiasm for sacrifice. But sophia as the revelation of created Sophia in history is the same confrontation between light and darkness. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot embrace it.” The era of war is an intense revelation of history with its light and shadow, greatness and baseness. War is a destructive element, a fire, a catastrophe. She, of course, therefore assumes the previous construction of history, in which the positive revelation of sophia is manifested. However, history cannot be built without tragedy if two forces are fighting in it, irreconcilable with each other. In war, the depths of man are revealed to him, as in any great trial. In the special intensity of history, which is characteristic of the era of war, the main spiritual fruit is the change that takes place in human souls. It is known only to the Providence of God in His ways. Here the pages of history are revealed and turned over, a new maturity begins, although it is bought at a high price. It is not war itself, of course, that is the revelation of the Wisdom of God, but in it and through it it inscribes its inscriptions in man. All human life and history is the unity of the Divine and created Sophia, the sophization of creation, for which history is the path, while war is history par excellence. The Divine principle, the Wisdom of God, is revealed in man not only in its direct inspirations, revealed in the creativity of the spirit, but also in the trials and teachings of life experience. War, like catastrophes and misfortunes in life in general, is characterized not by a positive, but by a negative revelation, through combustion, destruction, shock. Sophia was primarily the history of Israel, and not only in prophetic revelations, but also in trials, not only in the sacred books, law and cult, but also in the Egyptian captivity, the Babylonian captivity, holy wars and disasters. The prophets were not only messengers of the Will of God, but also leaders of their people - Moses, David, Isaiah, Solomon, Jeremiah, Daniel. Therefore, let us not be overcome by cowardice and, as it were, abandoned by Divine Wisdom. Sophia is the God-human, divine-created beginning. Created nature lives in him with all its strength, although, being transparent and permeable to the divine, it becomes his revelation even in those cases when it seems to resist him. It can never and under no circumstances extinguish its inner light, which shines in darkness and cannot be enveloped by this darkness. In a series of events that develop with natural necessity, God's destinies are revealed and Divine possibilities are opened. Sophia is never interrupted or extinguished in the nature of history. There are no layers or events in it that would be completely empty of its revelation or, on the contrary, would be entirely filled by it alone (except for direct Divine revelation, the content of the sacred books, which, however, is also clothed with historical veils). The genealogy of Christ consists of kings and kingdoms of very different, even opposite natures and, however, it is thoroughly permeated with the God-bearing principle. To a certain extent, it depends on us to comprehend this content of revelation both in horrors and disasters, to realize it in ourselves and serve it. Therefore, in the hour of trial, let our loins be girded and our lamps burning. In us, may our faith in the Divine Sophia, revealed in the world, not waver, and may our vision not be darkened for her vision. On the contrary, let new historical upheavals lead us to a new comprehension of the truth. The spiritual fruit that is born through them is a new appearance of Christ for us and a new appearance of the Mother of God - the incarnate and embodying Wisdom of God. This is a possible and desirable outcome of the war in its sophistry, which can be overcome and its bestiality abolished. And is it only in war alone that this bestial principle manifests itself, and is the well-being of the world, immersed in limited earthly sensuality, alien to it? Or is it sometimes better to break this limitation and overcome absorption? We do not dare boldly call for tragedy, but we can even less deny it when it is sent. What is required of us is to face tragic destinies with Sophia’s faith and dignity. And then the sun will not be eclipsed, but will rise in our souls, and the work of history that God wants from us will be accomplished. Co-dying with Christ is somewhat self-evident as the discovery of a personal connection with Him for an individual. But this connection of co-dying is realized for all humanity, not only in personal destiny, but also in universal destiny. Therefore, bewilderment involuntarily arises: how is this personal and common co-dying with Christ, which is so essential for human life, compatible? This abstract question receives concrete expression in events such as, for example, an epidemic and especially a war with its widespread mutual extermination. Can it be combined with personal co-dying with Christ? However, this question does not require or allow an answer. In fact, does its difficulty lie in the number of dying people, who may therefore turn out to be incompatible, so to speak, with this co-dying with Christ, as if it were feasible only in cases of a single death? But this is an absurd and naive idea. All humanity dies with Christ and in Christ, although in different ways and in different senses, and in this there is and cannot be any exception, for such would thereby be excluded from humanity itself. You can also ask yourself how these many and different images of dying, both simultaneously and at different times, can be contained in Christ and in co-dying with Him. But this is also a puzzling question. There are no boundaries for the humanity of Christ; it contains all of its images, and in particular all the images of dying, both quantitatively and qualitatively. If for us massacres on the battlefield are filled with especially stunning horror, as a deliberate and exceptional manifestation of death with its triumph, then in the order of intense, so to speak, co-dying there is no such difference. Christ co-dies equally with humanity in every person. This leads to the paradoxical conclusion that death in war is not more deadly than any other death. It can only have different spiritual shades for itself in accordance with the state of warring humanity, in life, and to that extent in death. So, Christ co-dies equally - inseparably and unmerged with each individual person and with all humanity. For the first time – lifetime publication “Russian Thought”, 1923–1924, No. 9–10. The posthumous reprint (Bulgakov S. Autobiographical Notes. Paris, 1946. pp. 103–113) has a number of discrepancies with the text of the RM. Reprinted from: Op. T.2. pp. 627–636, where the text of the lifetime edition is reproduced. ...And I’m in the carriage, alone, with my thoughts. At times you feel almost dizzy from their internal pressure, and the small field of consciousness seems too narrow to accommodate their creeping clouds. As if you want to fill your whole chest with air, but you can’t breathe. Along with the catastrophes and... miracles of this century, you experience your own catastrophes, also with their miracles, and joyfully naive, grateful surprise quietly and powerfully embraces the soul. And in fact: aren’t they wonderful, and these new, unexpectedly unfolding pages in my clumsy life and dark fate. Here I am now, at the end of my life, traveling from Prague to Berlin, where I was only a quarter of a century ago (all my adult life I “boycotted the West”, being a Slavophile, and almost never traveled abroad). And then I was a stupid, stupid, naive, naive Marxist, looking with reverence at the very street along which the “leaders” walked, and I delighted in all the nausea of ​​the Berlin asphalt and the murderous soullessness of the streets. My acquaintance then also consisted exclusively of the “leaders” of German Social Democracy - Kautsky and Bebel, Brown and Adler - I did not notice others. At that time I was in a tender correspondence with Plekhanov 541. This state of the young social-idiotic puppy, of course, did not last long, and “shedding” began very soon and quickly. But even then, the starving soul knew how to find the keys of living water - in art, which was not completely prohibited by the catechism, and, of course, it concealed within itself the power of spiritual revolutions and upheavals. And even in the darkest days of my Marxism, I remained inseparable from Mussorgsky and Dostoevsky, Goethe and Pushkin, and it was in Berlin that I experienced the powerful mysticism of Wagner, 542 surrendering to it, perhaps more unrestrainedly than I should have. I walked through the art galleries, as befits a foreign tourist, probably looking rather lop-eared, remaining indifferent and cold until this unexpected and blissful meeting occurred. Something happened that only happens in decisive and defining fatal moments. I saw and at first sight took into my heart the Sistine Madonna of Raphael in Dresden. This was not a purely artistic impression, this meeting was an event in my life - or rather, it was a real spiritual shock, the grateful memory of it lives to this day, and its trace remains in the heart throughout my life. I once tried to express the inexpressible with a silent word. I can’t do it better now; I’ll repeat what was said then. “A new wave of rapture for peace came... the first meeting with the West and its first delights: “culture,” comfort, social democracy... And suddenly an unexpected, wonderful meeting: Our Lady of Sistine, in Dresden, You Yourself touched my heart, and it trembled from this call. While passing through, we hurry on a foggy autumn morning, as tourists do, to visit Zwinger with its famous gallery. My knowledge of art was completely negligible, and it is unlikely that I knew very well what awaited me in the gallery. And there the eyes of the Queen of Heaven looked at me, coming in heaven with the Eternal Child. They had immeasurable power of purity and insightful sacrifice, knowledge of suffering and readiness for free suffering, and the same prophetic sacrifice was seen in the childishly wise eyes of the Baby. They know what awaits Them, what They are doomed to, and they are freely coming to give Themselves, to do the will of the Sender: She is to accept “an instrument in the heart” 543, He is Golgotha... I did not remember myself, my head was spinning, joyful and at the same time bitter tears flowed from my eyes, and with them the ice in my heart melted, and some kind of vital knot was resolved. It was not an aesthetic excitement, no, it was a meeting, new knowledge, a miracle... I (then a Marxist!) involuntarily called this contemplation prayer and every morning I tried to get to Zwinger, while no one was there yet, I ran there, in the face of the Madonna, to “pray” and cry, and there are few moments in life that would be more blessed than these tears ... " (“Non-Evening Light.” Calls and meetings.) That's how it was then. But in the subconscious now other, still indistinct whispers are heard, some new impressions await. How everything has changed since then! The boyish social idiocy was long forgotten, Slavophilism faded away, and my church destinies were finally determined. “Und B-ff ist fromm geworden!” 544 – they conveyed to me Kautsky’s exclamation filled with comic indignation or bewilderment regarding the promising Parteigenosse 10 years ago. Over the years B-ff ist Priester geworden 545 . And with the feeling of a certain Doppelgänger 546 I enter the streets of that former Berlin, which, of course, has long been gone, just as that naive, pious Marxist youth has long been gone. However, now I have nothing to do with the streets of Berlin, I know this: I no longer have any “romance” here. But my heart beats in advance at the thought of a new meeting with the creation that so amazed and shocked me then. And the hope for this meeting and the thought of it appeared in me immediately from the very moment when, at the behest of fate, I again unexpectedly received an indefinite business trip to Europe 547. Here, precisely here, I need to check, understand and see something significant, even if it means I might have to lose or bury something close, dear, and important... The situation in Dresden between trips. I rush my way, hurrying and worrying, to Zwinger. But why is there no joy in the soul, but rather anxiety and uncertainty? I run through the hall, looking straight into that treasured room without looking at anything... With difficulty I raise my eyes from excitement. The first impression was that I was in the wrong place and it wasn’t her in front of me. But I soon find out and am convinced that it is she, and, however, really, not she, or I am no longer - he. Alas! The hot blood did not hit the heart like a joyful wave, it did not tremble, it remained calm. Has it really cooled down that much over its long life? But no, not that, not that: my meeting did not take place, here I did not meet what I expected. Why hide and dissemble: I did not see the Mother of God. Here is beauty, only wondrous human beauty, with its religious ambiguity, but... gracelessness. Pray in front of this image? - yes, this blasphemy and impossibility! For some reason, these angels and the perfumed Varvara in a luscious pose with a flirtatious half-smile especially hit the nerves. I remember that this always bothered me before, but somehow I dealt with them relatively easily. But now I felt this as outright impiety, unbelief and some kind of blasphemous familiarity: is it possible, after a vision of the Mother of God, to take such a tone as if to mock one’s own shrine? Is it possible to be lax in… an icon? But I somehow stepped over this now, and fixed my eyes on the faces of the Mother and Baby. Without inspiration, with a gnawing pain from the emptiness in my heart, at the same time I did not want to tear myself away from contemplation; I remained in front of her all the time until closing and, it seems, would have sat until the very evening, peering, drinking in this image with its mysterious charm, with its magical appeal. Now I surrendered to it without delight and without worship, but aware of its full significance and now trying to unravel it in a new way. One thing became clear to me at first glance - alas! - undoubtedly: this is not the image of the Mother of God, the Most Pure Ever-Virgin, not Her icon. This is a picture, superhumanly brilliant, but with a completely different meaning and content than the icon. Here is the appearance of beautiful femininity in the highest image of sacrificial self-giving, but it seems “human, too human.” A young mother with a prophetic baby is coming with a firm human tread through thick, heavy clouds, as if through melted snow. This may not even be a Virgo, but simply a beautiful young woman, full of charming beauty and wisdom. There is no Virginity here, and especially Ever-Virginity, on the contrary, its negation reigns - femininity and woman, gender. Ever-virginity is also free from femininity, for it is above gender, it frees it from captivity. Therefore, the Most Pure Ever-Virgin cannot be considered as a woman, although She expresses the female hypostasis in man. Feminine is not yet gender. The ever-virgin - ἀεὶ παρθένος - is above gender. Ever-Virginity - ἀεί 548 - here there is not a temporary definition in the sense of a state, but an ontological one in the sense of essence: in the Ever-Virginity of Mary there is no femininity, in a woman she is involved in sin, but only virginity reigns entirely, in the Female form. That is why any naturalism when depicting Her, no matter how sublime and refined it may be, turns out to be powerless, because it is false: it controls only naturalness, and the latter knows only a woman. The dazzling wisdom of the Orthodox icon is in charge of this relationship: I clearly felt and understood that it was she who made Raphael tasteless for me, along with all the naturalistic iconography, she opened my eyes to this blatant discrepancy between means and tasks. In the ascetic symbolism of strict icon writing, after all, there is, first of all, a conscious rejection and overcoming of this naturalism as unsuitable and inappropriate and illuminates the vision of a supernatural, blessed state of the world. Therefore, the icon has nothing to do with portraiture, for naturalism inevitably lurks in it, to which religious painting fatally gravitates. And this is why the latter never achieves its goal if it sees its achievement in a religious rather than a picturesque effect. This determines the fate of the entire Renaissance, both in painting and in sculpture and architecture. He created art of human genius, but not of religious inspiration. His beauty is not holiness, but that ambiguous, demonic principle that covers the emptiness, and his smile plays on the lips of Leonard's heroes 549. Raphael's creation is distinguished by its special tension; it seeks to reveal the Mother of God by means of this ambiguous and already in this ambiguity of sinful beauty. And it is this task that creates that special complication and special embarrassment that I felt for the first time only now. At the same time, I involuntarily remember how disapprovingly my stormy admiration for Madonna was met at one time by my “comrades” of a more strict style, and one of them insisted persistently and defiantly that Madonna, in his intact Social Democratic consciousness, evokes... only male lust. I was so indignant at this barbarity at the time that his words somehow did not reach my consciousness and remained only as a rare example of spiritual rudeness: it was as if the person had found nothing better than to swear unprintably in church. I had an example of similar sophisticated rudeness regarding the Madonna in a conversation with L. Tolstoy, at our last meeting in Gaspra 1902 550, when he was recovering from a dangerous illness. I had the imprudence in conversation to express my feelings for Sistine, and this mere mention was enough to cause an attack of breathless, blasphemous anger, bordering on obsession. His eyes lit up with an evil fire, and he began, gasping for breath, to blaspheme. “Yes, they brought me there, put me on this Folterbank 551, I rubbed it, rubbed it..., didn’t sit through anything. Well, the girl gave birth to a little one, the girl gave birth to a little one, just everything, what’s special?” And he looked for more new blasphemous words - it was hard to be present at these convulsions of the spirit. I remember these antics of both the valiant thinker of Social Democracy and the “great writer of the Russian land” because now they seemed to me more revealing than then, and I understood what they were referring to. Now I saw and felt the impurity, unchastity of Raphael’s painting, the voluptuousness of his brush and its blasphemous immodesty. In the image of the Madonna, one can subtly sense, indeed, a man's feeling, man's love and lust. Whether the artist humanized the image of the Blessed One too much, or whether he was powerless to find means to bring it closer, one thing is certain: here an internal breakdown occurred, as a result of which a substitution results, and I felt it painfully now. And again I can’t help but think: how wisely, with what accuracy church iconography acts here, without making concessions to sentimentality and without giving any encouragement to sensuality: everything is covered and inaccessible to the eye, except the face and hands, but they are invariably covered with a transcendental style, stylized. The icon does not give room to lust and its subtlest pleasures, therefore it is dry and meaningless for their lovers, but therefore one can pray to the icon soberly and without temptation. And here? It’s as if my eyes were just now opened for the first time to the pure feminine charm that the artist wanted to show here, and to all the deliberate immodesty and subtle sensuality of this image: and this slightly more open hair, the tenderness of the skin and the turn of the neck, the outline of the mouth, the beauty of the hands and feet - all this feminine charm with which the master himself was involuntarily seduced. This love, this so inappropriate and shocking eroticism, is the soul of the picture. From here the whole familiarity of her framing becomes natural and understandable: the angels and Varvara, some kind of wink or grin. The artist’s soul shines through the painting, regardless of its subject; it resounds in it with some unknown overtones. Raphael's painting undoubtedly has such a sound. And what does this sound like? It is strange that this question is given a completely accurate and clear answer by our clairvoyant Pushkin, who, of course, never saw Sistine, in one of his most amazing insights - in the poem “Poor Knight” 552. In this small “romance,” a dazzling light is so unexpectedly cast on the secrets of the Catholic Middle Ages and chivalry, as well as on their further fate in the Renaissance. The “poor knight” had, as befits a knight, a “beautiful lady,” whom he adored accordingly. Its letters “he inscribed on the shield,” and these letters are A (ve), M (ater), D (ei). 553 (Dostoevsky does not seem to notice this blasphemy and, carried away by the romanticism of the situation, in “The Idiot” he simply gives Aglaya these letters to replace with others 554 belonging to another “beautiful lady.”) In the original (and even more significant) version of “The Poor Knight” 555 Pushkin much more openly finishes his thought about the “poor knight”, for some reason veiled in the final text, with individual features that make one remember even the Gabrieliad. This false and sinful mystical eroticism of the attachment of sex to spiritual life was reflected in Russian literature, here, following several mystical aberrations of the muse Vl. Solovyov, this theme was at one time a favorite of the poetically gifted, but mystically helpless and religiously dark Blok, whose element Pushkin predicted in advance and exhausted in “The Poor Knight” (and now others equate him with Pushkin!..). Here the matter ended in inevitable breakdown and dead end (from the “beautiful lady” to the “stranger”). This peculiar sin and aberration of mystical eroticism, which made the Ever-Virgin, the Most Pure and Immaculate, the object of male feelings and sighs (which never happened in the East, except in the foggy lowlands of Gnosticism), deeply penetrated the soul of Western Christianity, along with the spirit of chivalry and its cult. And this familiarity with the Divine, this mystical worldliness prepared that general worldliness, the triumph of the pagan worldview, the victim, and at the same time the instrument of which the figures of the Renaissance became. Beauty, ambiguous and seductive, covers the spiritual world here with a pink cloud, and art becomes the magic of beauty. And enchanted and mesmerized by this magic, I sat in this very place a quarter of a century ago, not being able to understand what was happening to me. But then I trembled with religious delight: not knowing prayer and not knowing how to pray, I prayed before her. Now, maintaining complete composure, I contemplated only a work of art. And it was qualitatively different from what was experienced then... And thoughts rushed like a whirlwind, interrupting one another and arguing. After all, this is evidence of the spiritual state of the Western world, more authentic and convincing than all the tomes of theology. How could it appear, remaining unnoticed, this pagan man-god in a holy place? And if people don’t see or understand this substitution, mistaking it for completeness and strength, then what a horror it is! And what a direct road from here, through this, opens into the “new time” with its emptiness and fall. Here the soul involuntarily asks for a comparison of the European West and the Byzantine East, which, for all its heresies, sins and crimes, did not know mystical fornication at all and did not sin with pagan man-theism, although it was precisely it that was the hereditary guardian and successor of antiquity. And here, in the West, they took advantage of antiquity, with its still pre-Christian naivety and, in its own way, purity, in order to mistreat it. The spiritual illness of the descendants and heirs of the “poor knight” is revealed in the work of the Renaissance, with its pagan Christianity, in these images, painted at the will of the popes for churches as icons and, however, not allowing for a religious attitude, and this is all the more so the more artistically perfect they are. After all, what I felt with such acuteness in Sistine has the same force for all religious painting of the Renaissance. All of it is the humanization and secularization of the divine: aestheticism as mysticism, mystical eroticism as religion, naturalism as a means of iconography. If we express this in theological terms, then a kind of artistic Arianism or Monophysitism has triumphed here. Only the human element in the incarnation of God was felt, the divine became dim and overshadowed by human beauty, seductively ambiguous, like the smiles in the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, and the human without the spirit ceased to be human and became carnal. This consolidation of humanity leads to the religious decline of modern times. And all this happened in the depths of the Spirit, in the depths of artistic self-awareness, and this is more powerful than Luther and the Reformation, or rather, this is what gave birth to it... The separation of the West from the East, the fatal church schism, spiritually deprived the West in a more significant way than the East... But the Renaissance is for us already a historical past, which we currently comprehend both in its limitations and in its errors. One of these is the opinion that Raphael’s painting (like many works of this era) is an icon and, in general, a “Madonna”. But if we abandon this misunderstanding - and it is necessary to abandon it - then the picture will not lose its charm and power. On the contrary, freed from false pretensions, she will appear before us as powerful and beautiful humanity, as heroic art. Here are images of wondrous beauty, a baby and a mother, to express tragic sacrifice and the will to it, the highest amor fati 556, and what is revealed here attracts and excites, artistically captivates and conquers. This picture should be perceived as an image of the path of human ascent, which is at the same time a tragic fate. Tragedy excites us with the highest artistic excitement, it gives cleansing enlightenment, its power is catharsis. Here a human tragedy is revealed, and what we deny in the religious order as blasphemy is acceptable as a tragic comprehension of human destinies in art. Only in religion is tragedy resolved and overcome, but the tragic path necessarily leads to religion. Tragedy can be interpreted religiously as a spiritual birth, the cutting of the carnal heart to ignite the divine fire in it... Therefore, will I be ashamed of the religious delights of my youth and will I doubt what is shining for me in the past as a meeting, a revelation, an event? I now see no grounds for this senseless and cowardly desecration of the sanctity of the soul. Yes, now I find myself spiritually on the other side of Sistine, and everything seems to me in reverse order, re-evaluation becomes inevitable. Then my understanding of life corresponded to the petty-bourgeois comedy of socialism, and in relation to it, any tragic perception of life is already a spiritual liberation. Not yet being a religion, it internally led to it, becoming it through religious ascent. And the true religious instinct saw the religious behind the tragic. And if then I experienced this meeting as a revelation of the Mother of God, then why do I now dare to suspect this, if for me it was so? After all, I did not see or feel then the ambiguous and perverse thing that I now felt, and I was not at all tempted by it. The same human tension that shocked me, it still retains strength and inner conviction, if you do not attribute inappropriate meaning to it and do not confuse the human and the grace-filled. Of course, now for me this revaluation was a disappointment; I felt like I had lost, buried forever something dear. But at the same time it was joyful to feel the eternal nature of the spirit, which never remains in one place, but always lives; It was difficult, but intelligible, to suddenly feel in one moment the outcome of a life lived with some enormous significance, and despite everything, one cannot help but marvel in grateful surprise at the power of creation, which, as if timeless, looks into the soul from its canvas and measures the times and periods of the soul with itself. I left in excitement and thoughtfulness. However, when I passed Dresden a few days later, I wanted to quickly pass it - it was somehow difficult to look in the direction where this pain had been experienced so recently. And not at all in the “not-I”, as Fichte builds his system. Here, for example, in Simeon the New Theologian, Divine Hymns, 1917, p. 132: “O circles of flame, produced in me by You and Your glory, unfortunate, by glory I mean and call Your Holy Spirit, co-natural and equal in honor (to You), the Word, homogeneous, monosubstantial and one of the same essence with Your Father and You, Christ, God of all! Energy is God (Greek), - with a small letter and without a member, i.e. coming from God. S. Gregorii Palama. Capita phys. theol. etc. Migne patrol., ser gr., tom C, col. 1144–5. Proverbs 8:22–30: “The Lord made me the beginning of His way before His creatures from time immemorial. From eternity I have been anointed, from the beginning, before the existence of the earth. I was born when the deeps did not yet exist, when there were no springs abundant with water... when He laid the foundations of the earth, then I was an artist with Him, and I was a joy every day, rejoicing in His presence all the time.” “She is the breath of the power of God, the pure outpouring of the glory of the Almighty... a reflection of eternal light, a pure mirror of the action of God and the image of His goodness” (Wisdom 7:25-26). She has cohabitation with God, who loved her (ibid., Pres. 8:3), sits at His throne (Wis. 9:4), was present with Him when He created the world, and knows all His works and everything that is pleasing in His sight (Wis. 9:9). “I came out of the mouth of the Most High and, like a cloud, covered the earth... Before the world began He brought me forth, and I will never end” (Sir.24:3-10). Here we outline a slightly different presentation of this difficult issue than that given in “Never-Evening Light”, M., 1917, pp. 212–213, not different in essence, but more accurate. [Cm. respectively pp. 193–194 of volume 1 of this edition. – Approx. comp. ]. “And the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the Glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses could not enter into the tabernacle of meeting, because a cloud overshadowed it, and the Glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:34–35; Exodus 16:10; 1 Kings 8:11; 2 Chronicles 5:14, 7:2). Ezekiel saw (ch. 1) “a vision of the likeness of the Glory of the Lord,” “And there stood the Glory of God, like the Glory that I saw on the river Chebar” (Ezek. 3:23, 8:4, 9:3, 10:4, 18, 19, 11:22–23 et seq.). Of course, we use this expression to designate a certain spiritual principle or state, namely reciprocal appeal, passivity, passive love, without any relation to gender, therefore femininity here has no relation to femininity, and especially to a woman. This includes, first of all, the content of the Song of Songs, where both individual passages about the sister-bride and the general concept refer to the Virgin Mother (in particular: Song 1:8–16, 2:2, 3, 6, 4:1, 6:3, 9). Also Psalm 44 about the Virgin Queen brought to the King; Rev.12:1, 19:7, 21:2). Troparion: “The great and ineffable wisdom of God, O Sophia, preeminent, in the most venerable church of the fiery throne of Christ our God: for the Word of God and the flesh of God dwell ineffably in you, and, like a child-loving and merciful queen, look upon your people...” Ikos: “...the intercessor of the world, the immaculate virgin bride, sing I dare. You called her virgin soul your divine church, and for the sake of your incarnation you called Sophia the wisdom of God, that is truly the wisdom of God, the companion and canopy of heaven and the giver of all good things...” “You created a church for yourself in the most honorable womb of the Virgin Mary and that named Sophia, the wisdom of God, which is the virgin soul.” Also, three of the stichera on the Lord, I lifted up are addressed to the Mother of God. On the contrary, the theme of the canon is: “I am the wisdom of all, who speaks in the presence of the Lord: my advice and affirmation, who is the Only Begotten Son and the Word of God” (canto I, troparion I). However, in some manuscripts the text of John 19:34 is transferred to the Gospel of Matthew 7:49. Wed. A critical and exegetical commentary on the Gospel according to St. John. By J. H. Bernard. Edinburgh, 1928, vol.2, p.646. By ἐκεῖνος, some commentators here mean Christ himself. Consumed without a penis. Obviously, the writer meant to indicate the substance of blood and water rather than their identity. Here this feature is not decisive. Wed. the same: 1 John 5:6. See the note to this testimony of the evangelist in the book. prot. Alexandra Men “Son of Man” (M., 1991. P.407): “According to doctors, this “water” is a liquid that accumulates in the area of ​​the heart as a result of rupture of the heart septum. This rupture is caused by cardiac necrosis. With this kind of death, an involuntary cry escapes people. Wed. Matthew 27:50; Mark 15:37." Wed. our essay “Eucharistic Dogma” (“The Way”, 1930, No. 1 [20], 2 [21]). Compare: “...the life of every body is its blood...” (Lev.17:14). Also not present, of course, was “His sweat, like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44), as well as His saliva, from which He created clay when healing a man born blind, and in general all those constituent elements of His body that He received from the world and returned to the world according to the general law of metabolism. However, there is an essential difference between this metabolism in the act of life and the near-death outpouring of blood and water. This corresponds to the image of the “glass sea” (Rev. 5:2), on which those who defeated the beast and his image stand. Also without a member, like John 19:34. A term appears here to make the expression being repeated more specific. A place difficult to interpret (lat.). Docetes are followers of the heresy of Docetism (see note above). However, if we insist that the Spirit in 1 John 5:7 is certainly the Holy Spirit, then we can understand Him also as the performer of the incarnation at the Annunciation: “The Holy Spirit will come upon You and the power of the Most High” (the Word) “will overshadow You” (Luke 1:35). A common interpretation in both church and critical literature sees in water and blood the symbolism of two sacraments - baptism and communion. But this interpretation, more allegorical, is in any case not exhaustive and does not capture the entire context. This is not contradicted by the fact that in John, water in a different context, regardless of , means new spiritual power and new spiritual birth (John 3:5, 4:14, 7:38; cf. Rev. 22:1, 22:17). In relation to blood, water is the element of “earth”, the primary matter; in relation to the spirit and in combination with it, water is a spirit-bearing, spiritualized substance, and here it is not its cosmic nature that is emphasized, but its spirit-bearing power: the sanctification of water is also the sanctification of the water element of the world, i.e. already the world itself. (And it is remarkable that of all four elements: air, fire, earth and water, it is this last one that is sanctified as having, in a certain sense, representative significance for the whole world.) Celtic in origin, the plots of the medieval stories about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are intertwined around the 11th century. with the theme of the search for the Grail as an absolute saving principle. See Tennyson's poetic reworking of them - Kings Idylls. – “Idylls of the King” (English) – a cycle of poems by Alfred Tennyson, based on the “Arthurian” legends (1859). Bulgakov was probably familiar with the Russian translation of the poems (1903–1904). Parsifal (Perceval, Parzival) - one of the knights of the Round Table, a seeker of a saving shrine, the hero of the work of Chretien de Troyes (XII century) “Perceval, or the Tale of the Grail”, as well as the knightly novel by Wolfram von Eschenbach “Parzival” (late 12th century). Antimins - a quadrangular board with a sewn-in piece of relics and depicting the position of Christ in the tomb; it is placed on the throne in the altar, and the consecration of the Holy Gifts is performed on it. See: N. Tunitsky. Ancient legends about the miraculous appearances of the Christ Child in the Eucharist. – “Theological Bulletin”, 1907, No. 5. P.201–229. Proskomedia is the first part of the Christian liturgy, during which the clergy prepare the substance for the Eucharist. Epiclesis - Greek. : invocation (of the Holy Spirit); in the Eucharistic canon - the priestly prayer before the consecration of the Gifts. Mysterious, i.e. mysterial - acquired during the celebration of the sacrament of the Eucharist (translation of the Eucharistic wine into the blood of Christ). Wed. my article “Eucharistic Dogma”. Ciborium - a dome over the throne in the altar as over the symbolic place of the crucifixion of Christ. Verse from the Sunday stichera on the Lord I cried. Perhaps in this formulation of the question others will see hidden or obvious Nestorianism, dividing natures and isolating the human nature of Christ. But the teaching of Nestorius - Archbishop Nestorius of Constantinople (5th century), recognized as a heresiarch, separated God the Word and the man Jesus, born of Mary (however, in general now requiring the most precise presentation and understanding) refers not to the duality of both natures in Christ, but to the duality of the hypostases, Divine and human, with their separation. The authenticity and, so to speak, ontological reality of Christ’s humanity against Eutychianism (see note above), this reality, which dissolved in the divinity of His nature, was established by the IV Ecumenical Council with its definition of the non-fusion and immutability of both natures in Christ. This same antinomian thought is expressed in the kontakion of the Ascension: “Having fulfilled your watch over us, and having united us on earth with the heavenly, you ascended in glory, Christ our God, but did not depart at all, but remained persistent, and cried out to those who love Thee: I am with you and no one is against you.” Some evidence from St. Apostle also suggests the same idea. Paul, who sometimes speaks about his communication with the Lord as if there was no Ascension at all, in particular, 1 Cor. 15: 5–8, where he lists: “... and after all he appeared to me, as to a certain monster” (Prof. S.S. Bezobrazov drew my attention to the special meaning of this text). The words sound similarly: “I received from the Lord Himself what I also conveyed to you, that the Lord Jesus took bread on the night on which he was betrayed...”, etc. (1 Cor. 11:23–25). Ap. Paul writes here as an evangelist. See my Icon and Icon Veneration, YMCA-Press, Paris, 1930. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). Real presence (lat.). The antinomy of this inseparability-separability is clearly expressed in the words uttered by the priest during the fragmentation of St. lamb: “The lamb of God is fragmented and divided, fragmented and undivided, always eaten and consumed by no one.” Montsalvat is a mountain where, according to one version of the legend, St. Grail. From the canon on the Exaltation of the Honorable and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord (irmos 5). The outpouring of blood and water from the side of Christ has hitherto not had a corresponding vision in Orthodox liturgics (except for a symbolic mention in the rite of proskomedia and passing references in connection with the passion of Christ). The Catholic rituale has a special celebration on July 1: the feast of the holy blood of our Lord Jesus Christ (established on the occasion of the victory with the help of French troops in 1849 over the revolution, during which the pope was expelled from Rome). In special hymns the outpouring of blood and water is sung, without any special dogmatic explanation, except for the general idea of ​​redemption in His blood. The special celebration of the outpouring of the blood and water of Christ into the world in Orthodox liturgics is most appropriate in conjunction with the worldwide erection of the cross, when the Gospel is read specifically about this event (or even better, place it on the post-feast day, September 15). However, the dogmatic meaning of this event should not be dissolved and absorbed by the feast of the cross, but it should be especially emphasized. “Blessed is the warmth of Your saints” and “fill the warmth of faith with the Holy Spirit.” The prayer of the liturgy (before the epiclesis) clearly highlights this moment of “remembrance” of Golgotha ​​and the accomplishment of our salvation associated with it: “Remembering this saving commandment” (the institution of the Eucharist) “and everything that was for us: the cross, the tomb, the three-day resurrection, the ascension to heaven, the sitting on the right hand, the second and glorious coming.” In the Latin Mass, in the offertorium and in the consecratio, - offering and consecration (of the Gifts) - lat. , in particular, in the prayer Unde et memoris. – “Therefore, remembering...” (Latin) – prayer after the consecration of the Gifts in the Catholic Mass. Extra-church liturgy is one of the central concepts of the “Philosophy of the Common Body” by N.F. Fedorov. See: Fedorov N.F. Essays. M., 1982. Subject index. The legend about the death of the Great Pan (the ancient Greek deity of herds, forests, fields and, more broadly, the elemental forces of nature), set forth by Plutarch in his essay “On the Fall of the Oracles,” is usually understood as evidence of the end of the ancient, “pagan” world. “I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me” (lat.). Therefore the poetic verse: In slave form, the King of Heaven The final lines of the poem by F.I. Tyutchev “These poor villages...” (1855) - can be understood as evidence of some reality, and not just as poetic license, just as accurately as the full-fledged words of the clergy with which they greet each other at the liturgy: “Christ is in our midst.” - “And there is and there will be.” See Matthew 28:36–46; Mark 14:32–42; Luke 22:39–46. The question may be posed: how should one understand Christ’s relationship to humanity that lived before His incarnation, and is it not, as it were, deprived of the co-suffering love of Christ? This question can be answered within the meaning of the general teaching about the meaning of the atoning sacrifice for Old Testament humanity. The work of the New Adam extends to the whole of Adam the Old. Likewise, the compassionate love of Christ - in anticipation of the completed incarnation, but at the same time in its fulfillment, already accepted from the ages in the eternal plan of God (“the lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world”) - accompanies him at all times of his existence, before the incarnation of Christ as well as after it. Here (as in Eucharistic theology) we must remember that for God Himself there are no boundaries of time for His action, although set in time. – “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” – Rev. 13:8. “The Impulse of Christ” – Christus-Impuls, as the anthroposophists put it. In reality, actually (lat.). This idea could serve as one of the foundations for Fedorov’s theology of the “common cause,” which is still missing. Does not the theology of St. differ in similar naturalism? Athanasius with the doctrine of φάρμακον τῆς ἀθανασίας? – Medicine for immortality, healer of immortality (Greek) – an expression related to the Eucharist; first found in the Epistle to the Ephesians by St. Ignatius the God-Bearer, Bishop of Antioch (c. 110). From “Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus” (ikos 6). This thought constitutes the main pathos and wisdom of Fedorov’s philosophy: “Truly, truly, I say to you: he who believes in Me will do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I go to My Father. And if you ask anything in My name, I will do it, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:12–13). Bulgakov's memory error: Jairus, whose daughter was resurrected by Jesus Christ (Mark 5:23), was not a military man, but one of the leaders of the synagogue. This refers to the Gospel episode with the healing of the centurion’s servant (a leader over a hundred soldiers) from a fatal illness (Matthew 8:5–13; Luke 7:1–10). In socio-political relations in which war is being prepared, it is difficult to make an absolute judgment. Bolshevism in Russia, represented by its rulers, represents the satanic beginning of lies and hatred in the world. So be it. And now the world is trembling in the face of the union and unification of both “leaders”: Hitler and Stalin. However, can we forget that only recently representatives of two “democracies” fought in Moscow, seeking an alliance with one of them (of course, against the other)? Now they are in great anger that the Moscow Sultan turned his merciful gaze not to the west, but to the east, having concluded an alliance with Hitler. Who is more truthful and better? Or is it getting worse? Of course, neither one nor the other, or rather, both. – We are talking about unsuccessful Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations in the summer and autumn of 1939 in Moscow. After the Munich Agreement, when Anglo-French politicians “surrendered” Czechoslovakia to Hitler, the Soviet leadership began a bilateral diplomatic probe. Negotiations with England and France regarding mutual guarantees in the event of an attack by an aggressor power proceeded extremely sluggishly and soon reached a dead end. Much more energetically, especially after the resignation of such an opponent of Hitler as the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs M. Litvinov, German-Soviet negotiations took place, ending with the famous Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact (Aug. 23, 1939) and an additional secret protocol to it, which decided the fate of the Baltic states. See: Boffa J. History of the Soviet Union. In 2 volumes. M. 1990. T.I. pp.547–555; Geller M., Nekrich A. Utopia in power. History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the present day. M. 1995. T.I. pp.351–35; Subject to disclosure. USSR - Germany. 1939–1941. Documents and materials. M. 1991. P. 6, 10. Thanks to S.I. for indicating the sources. Larina. In the language of the Bible, this is expressed verbally by designating peoples with their own names: Israel, Assur, etc., which is, in any case, more than a metaphor, but points to some reality. The Israeli military leader Ievthai (Jephthah), after defeating his enemies, sacrificed his only daughter to God as a burnt offering (Judges 11:30–40). Bulgakov’s work “Sophiology of Death” was first published in the journal “Vestnik RHD”, 1978, No. 127. 1979, No. 128. For a modern reissue of “The Sophiology of Death”, see the book: Bulgakov S.N. Quiet thoughts. M., 1996. P.273–306. Bulgakov's work under this title has not been published. However, perhaps the work “Holy Grail” is meant (see it above). See: Gen.6:3. “And the Lord said: My spirit will not forever be despised by men; because they are flesh..." The accepted translation of this verse is “...with... full faith.” “Rejoice, heavenly ladder, from which God descended. Rejoice, bridge, bring those who are from earth to heaven" (Akathist to the Mother of God, Ikos 2). From the troparion of the Feast of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. King Gog and the country of Magog (according to legend - 7th century BC) are mentioned in the book of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 38:2, 39:1) as opponents of Israel, who defeated their multi-tribal army. In the prophecies of the Apocalypse, this is the name given to “the nations located at the four corners of the earth” (“their number is like the sand of the sea”) and opposing the “camp of saints” and the city of Jerusalem after the expiration of the “millennial kingdom” (Rev. 20:7). The first stanza of the poem by Gumilyov N.S. “Death” (1915; according to the poet’s note, “written in early October at the front”). Included in the book of poems “Quiver” (1916). Ancient horror (lat.). Apparently, an allusion to the title of L. Bakst’s painting (on the plot of the destruction of Atlantis), about which Vyach. Ivanov wrote an article under the same title (see: Vyach. Ivanov. According to the stars. St. Petersburg. 1909). – Comment by V.V. Sapova. The title of the treatise by V. S. Solovyov (1897). This is what the Lord says to His anointed Cyrus: “I hold you by the right hand, so that I may subdue the nations for you” and further (Isa.45:1-3; 2Chron.36:23). Wed. Daniel 11:3–4. On Bulgakov’s Marxist connections abroad, see the book: “Emancipation of Labor” Group. Collection 5. M.-L., 1926. P.214; Collection 6. M.-L., 1927. P.251, 257. Five letters from Bulgakov to Plekhanov for 1908–1909. published in the collection: The first Marxist organization in Russia – the “Emancipation of Labor” group. M., 1984. P.241–247. See also: Philosophical and literary heritage of G.V. Plekhanov. M., 1973. T.2. The latest publication of autobiographical letters from S.N. Bulgakov - see journal. "Logos". 1992. No. 2. Notes about. Sergius to his correspondence with Plekhanov, written at the request of Plekhanov’s widow Rosalia Markovna in 1930, see: GPB ADP. F. 1093. Op. 3. D.V. 73. 16. – Information kindly provided by M.A. Kolerov. Wed. in a letter to E.K. Medtner dated April 19. 1915 (OR RSL. F. 167. K. 13. Item 21): “Wagner is complex and contradictory. At one time I unconsciously had it as a surrogate for religion (in Marxism), then I was religiously afraid, now I’m not afraid and aesthetically love it, but I feel it little religiously and not positively.” See: Luke 2:35: “And a weapon will pierce your own soul...” (from the prophecy of Simeon the God-Receiver). “And Bulgakov became pious!” (German) Bulgakov became a priest (German). In his memoirs, “My Ordination,” Bulgakov notes about Kautsky’s exclamation: “... this can be meaningfully conveyed as follows: “Bulgakov obediotel!”” // Autobiographical Notes. P.37. Doppelgänger - double (German). A hint at the plot of the poem by G. Heine “The city fell silent, engulfed in slumber...” from the cycle “Return to the Homeland” (1823–1824). We are talking about the expulsion of Russian philosophers in 1922. By the way, only Dostoevsky knew such beauty, testifying to the presence in it of both Sodomist and peacemaking principles, seeing in it the arena of the struggle between God and the devil. It cannot be said about this beauty of the Renaissance that it could “save the world,” because it itself needs saving. L.N. Tolstoy was in Crimea, in Gaspra (the estate of Count S.V. Panina), from September 8th. 1901 to the end of June 1902, during which time he suffered from pneumonia and typhoid fever. Apparently, this means June 10, 1902, when Tolstoy “talked with S.N. Bulgakov about his article “To the Working People” (finished on June 20)” // Gusev N.N. Chronicle of the life and work of L.N. Tolstoy. 1891–1910. M., 1960. P.419. Folterbank – torture bench (German). I had to write about “The Poor Knight” in both versions in the collection “Quiet Thoughts.” M., 1918. – Link to the article “Vladimir Solovyov and Anna Schmidt” included in the collection “Quiet Thoughts” (M. 1918) (about the “mystical eroticism” in this poem, see pp. 98–101). Ave, Mater Dei. - Rejoice, Mother of God (lat.). Aglaya speaks about “The Poor Knight” (and it seems that Dostoevsky himself speaks through her lips (cf.: “The Idiot.” Part 2. Chapter VI // Dostoevsky. Complete. Collected Works. T. 8. M. 1973. P. 207., quoted with an omission), who at least himself did not utter a single word regarding the strangeness of the very object of knightly adoration): “There, in these verses, it is not said what exactly the ideal of the “poor knight” (??) was, but it is clear that it was some kind of bright image, “an image of pure beauty” (??), and the loving knight, instead of a scarf, even tied a rosary to himself with ours... Be that as it may, it is clear that this poor knight no longer cares: whoever his lady was and whatever she did. It is enough that he chose her and believed in her “pure beauty”, and then bowed before her forever... The poet, it seems, wanted to combine into one extraordinary image the entire huge concept of medieval knightly platonic love of some pure and high knight; Of course, this is all ideal. In the “poor” “knight” this feeling reached the last degree, to asceticism. “The Poor Knight” is the same Don Quixote, only serious, not comic.” This refers to Pushkin’s poem “Once upon a time there lived a poor knight...” (1829). In an abbreviated form, it was included in his “Scenes from Knightly Times.” Pushkin could not help but know Raphael’s painting from lithographs and engravings. See in his poem “Her Eyes” (1828): “Raphael’s angel will raise / Thus contemplates the deity.” Amor fati - love of fate (lat.), one of the commandments of Nietzsche's superman. In the publication of "Autobiographical Notes": November, not February. Perhaps this is not a typo, of which there are several, up to the omission of part of a phrase, but a deliberate clarification by the publisher, L. A. Zander, a friend, student and biographer of Bulgakov, who had access to his archive.