Автореферат книги Агнец Божий. О богочеловечестве, ч.I. Paris. Ymca-press, 1933 246

The main guiding idea of ​​the author's Christology is God-Humanity, that is, the perfect unity of Divinity and Humanity in Christ, and further of God and the world in general, and in this sense his task is to build Chalcedonian theology. Thus, its tendency is directed equally against both pantheism and Protestant transcendentalism. His problem is a Christological one: how is the Incarnation possible, what does it presuppose and contain? The author begins with an extensive pathological introduction. He finds the Christological problem first posed by Apollinaris of Laodicea. After him, the schools of Alexandria (St. Cyril) and Antioch (Theodore of Mopsuet, Nestorius, Theodoret, etc., and in a certain sense Pope Leo the Great also joins here) dialectically express, as thesis and antithesis, the teachings about the unity and duality of natures in Christ. This antithesis is overcome by the synthesis of the Chalcedonian dogma of the duality of natures in a single hypostasis. However, here we have only a dogmatic, but not a theological synthesis, which to this day still constitutes what is sought for theological thought. Its attempt by Leontius of Byzantium in the doctrine of the “en-hypostasis” of two natures by the Logos is only a formal scholastic construction, imprinted by Aristotelianism, and cannot satisfy modern thought. Saint John of Damascus does not introduce new theological ideas into Christology, but only summarizes his predecessors. The monothelitic and dithelitic disputes, together with the definition of the VI Ecumenical Council, move on the plane of the previous theology and do not advance the Christological doctrine, but only give the Chalcedonian formula a more specific expression regarding the duality of not only natures, but also wills, theologically leaving the issue insufficiently clear, despite the works of St. Maximus the Confessor. At this point, creative thought in the field of Christology ends, and the desired theological synthesis in the teaching about Christ remains for the future, and, in particular, for our present era. The main question of Christology is how one can understand the union of two natures - Divine and human, in a single hypostasis of the Logos, not only from the negative side, as it is defined in the Chalcedonian dogma - four not: indivisible, unmerged, unchangeable, irreversible, but also from the positive. What is not only the Chalcedonian no, but also the Chalcedonian yes? In constructing Christology, the author absolutely decisively and openly relies on sophiology, the doctrine of the eternal and created Wisdom of God. The Holy Trinity has a nature, or ousia, which is not only the inexhaustible depth of life, but also the self-revelation of the Divine, and in this sense, ousia is also Sophia. Sophia is all-unity, the fullness of ideal images of the Logos, to which reality also belongs, like Beauty in the Holy Spirit. She is the fullness of God's life, and in this sense there is Divine peace. As the self-revelation of the Divine, she is not a hypostasis, but belongs to the triple hypostasis, is hypostasized, and the hypostasis directly addressed to Sophia is the Logos. The ideal All of the Logos is completed, and to that extent it is hypostasized by the Holy Spirit, and both hypostases reveal the Father. And thus in Usia, like Sophia, the consubstantial and indivisible life of the Holy Trinity is realized. It is ens realissimum (the most real being (lat.) - Ed.) as the Divine world, possessing the eternity of God. She is the Glory of God as Divine bliss in the trinitarian love of God for His own Divinity. At the same time, she is the pre-eternal Humanity as the Prototype, in the image of which man was created, and the Logos is in this sense the Heavenly Man in addition to His incarnation. Divine Wisdom, being the eternal Prototype of the created world in God, is the essential basis and content of creation, being immersed in formation. The divine world and the created world relate to each other as the eternal and created Sophia. While identical in foundation, they are different in their mode of being. The first is pre-eternally existing in God, the second, as having arisen “out of nothing,” is becoming, however, for him, Sophia is both the foundation and the purposeful cause, entelechy. The created world has its center in man, created in the image of the Divine Logos. Man has an uncreated spirit that came from God and was called by God to hypostatic existence and his own nature, which is the world, like the created Sophia, in his soul-physical organism. Sophia in the Creator and in creation is the bridge that connects God and man, and in this unity of hers lies the Chalcedonian yes, the foundation of the Incarnation. In Christ, as an uncreated hypostatic spirit, there is the Second Hypostasis itself, the Logos, and His two natures are Divine Sophia and created Sophia, Heavenly and earthly humanity - one and the same beginning in two images, Divine fullness and created formation. Therefore, both natures can be positively correlated, through the communication of properties, communicatio idiomatum, in the deification of created nature by the Divine. Sophia as God-manhood is the ontological basis of the Incarnation, which makes it clear how “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14). From this point of view, the identification of two names also receives its meaning: Son of God - Son of Man as applied to Christ, which we have in the Gospels about the God-Man. The union of two natures in the single life of a single Person can be understood only on the basis of the principle of self-diminution (kenosis) of the Divine nature in the God-man to the level of humanity. This kenosis, however, should be understood not as the abandonment by the Logos of His Divinity (as is interpreted in kenotic theories), but as His abandonment of the Divine Glory, the fullness of Sophian life with immersion in formation. This path of humiliation is traversed by Christ until His human nature becomes capable of accepting glorification. The incarnation of the Logos with the acceptance of the measure of human nature, as the abandonment of the fullness of Divine life and Glory, the “descent from Heaven,” is expressed in the fact that the border of the human is actually for Him also His own border. Therefore, the authenticity of His human development, ignorance, and prayer is accepted. Miracle-working is considered not as a manifestation of Divine power over the world, but only as the action of a spirit-bearing miracle worker, by analogy with human miracle-working. In the light of this general idea - about the immersion of Divine self-consciousness to the level of humanity - the Gospel image of Christ with His divine-human self-consciousness is considered. The features of the same God-manhood are also established in the doctrine of the three ministries of Christ. In particular, in the prophetic ministry, His humanity is noted, due to which the Divine truth proclaims Himself to people not from His own Divine Person, as God, but according to the type of prophets, although, of course, surpassing them - not as God, but as a “rabbi” and “teacher,” the God-man, revealing His Divinity in man and through man. All of His works also belong to the prophetic ministry, in particular the working of miracles, which were also characteristic of other prophets, and the main content of His prophetic preaching is Himself and His divine-human image. In the high priestly ministry of sacrificial obedience in love for the Father and people, the main significance belongs to redemption, also understood ontologically. The Incarnation is not only a means of redemption from sin, but also the elevation of man to God-manhood, to which he is called in creation. However, being a created being, created Sophia, man is separated from the Creator by an impassable abyss, which deepens even more as a result of sin as a consequence of the mutability of creation. And God-Love, creating man, in the eternal council takes upon Himself the responsibility of the Creator for the restoration of the creature, conveniently transformed in its freedom. By the sacrifice of the eternally slain Lamb, He redeems both this natural creatureliness and sinful corruption, elevating the God-man to the God-manhood destined for him. At the same time, redemption is revealed not only as the work of one Second Hypostasis, but also as a cumulative act of the entire Holy Trinity. The God-man, by virtue of the unity of His human nature with universal human nature, is identified with the Old Adam and by the power of compassionate love makes his sin His own. He accepts the wrath of the Father weighing on him, which entails abandonment of God and death. This acceptance of the mortal cup of sin is accomplished spiritually in Gethsemane, and physically at Calvary and ends in death. Christ suffers physically and spiritually, as it were, the equivalent of all human sins, all hellish torments for sins, and through this abolishes the power of sin, makes it seem non-existent, reconciles people with God who, with their freedom, want to accept and assimilate this reconciliation, this salvation; God glorifies Christ for this sacrificial obedience by which He restores man and becomes worthy and capable of receiving glorification. The latter is expressed in the Resurrection and Ascension, which are accomplished by the Father with the power of the Holy Spirit, but at the same time with the corresponding theanthropic power of Christ Himself. Glorification therefore also belongs to the high priestly service and presupposes an unfinished kenosis, which is finally accomplished only at the right hand of the Father of sitting. What remains for the royal service? Unlike the two preceding ones, it is not completed, but continues until the Kingdom of Christ is completed in the world and He hands over the kingdom to the Father. The royal dignity of Christ is revealed only symbolically in His Royal Entry into Jerusalem. It is accomplished by Christ's power in the world through His faithful servants, and the Apocalypse contains symbols of this reign in the world, and it is intended to be revealed and felt on earth until the end, before this age is fulfilled. Further parts of the book about God-manhood are devoted to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, ecclesiology and eschatology. Published by “The Path”... No. 41. November-December 1933. P.101–105 – Approx. edit