ЧАСТЬ I. ОНТОЛОГИЯ, ГНОСЕОЛОГИЯ И АНТРОПОЛОГИЯ

1. Conceptual system of Maximus the Confessor The conceptual apparatus, methodology and thought itself of Maximus were formed by contemporary Christological debates, as well as trinitarian disputes that had already become a thing of the past by his time. For him, any theorizing is theology. Therefore, even when discussing the created world, Maxim uses the concepts and principles developed in Christological polemics, always remembering the distinction between nature and hypostasis, the hypostatic union of natures, in which they maintain inseparability and non-fusion, interpenetrate, exchanging properties, but at the same time maintaining their logos unchanged, etc. You can understand his reasoning only by understanding the terms he uses. Let's look at the most important of them. Nature (φύσις in Maxim is for the most part identical to “essence” (οὐσ ί α) 7 and refers to the concepts of “common-whole” (καθ ᾽ ὁλου), “common, present in many” (κοιν ό ν), “genus” ( γένος) and “species” (ε ἶ δος) 8. General “human nature” is the essence as being in general (not only being human) together with a certain set of “natural characteristics” (τὰ φ ῠ σικά ἰδι ώ ματα, τὰ γνωρ ί σματα): this, as Porphyry called them in his Introduction to Aristotle’s Categories, is “corporality”, “animation”, “endowed with sensation”, “rationality”, “mortality” Maxim also refers to the natural idioms of “man”, which is inherent only in rational beings 9 General. human nature is actualized only in individuals, hypostases (numerically different people - Peter, Paul). Moreover, it is no longer limited only to natural (species, essential) characteristics (mortal, reasonable), but also to hypostatic (individual) characteristics (snub-nosed, tall). Moreover, in each individual hypostasis the whole of nature is present, and Peter is no less and no more “man” than Paul. Maxim does not mention non-general – private or individual natures. As Balthasar notes, the Phoenix bird, existing as a single individual, is impossible for Maxim, because for it there is no species nature 10. Although the common nature “does not divide,” always remaining common, Maxim speaks in a loose sense, for example, about the division of human nature in accordance with individual preferences (γν ώ μη). The denial of particular natures was dogmatically important. Although in the terms existing among “external” philosophers hypostasis could be called a private or individual nature, these concepts were compromised in the eyes of Maximus by his predecessors in the Christological disputes, which debated the question of what kind of human nature God the Word assumed at the Incarnation. For example, as Balthasar showed, according to Gregory of Nyssa, “Christ assumed an individual and concrete nature, and not a human nature in general, but through this particular connection He touched the whole, indivisible and continuous nature, by virtue of the vital unity of which He transferred grace, resurrection and deification to the whole body, uniting to Himself all men, and through them the whole creation” 11 . The positions of the parties in this complex debate are subject to various interpretations, and in relation to John Philoponus and Leontius of Byzantium we will limit ourselves to referring to the interpretation of R. Cross 12. Philoponus taught that God the Word assumed a private human nature. Such a particular nature differs from the general one, at least in that it is numerically separate (i.e., isolated and unique), and from hypostasis in that it is devoid of additional attributes. There are as many such particular natures as there are hypostases 13. On the contrary, Leontius of Byzantium did not accept the distinction between general and particular natures. For Leontius, nature in the form and nature in the individual are identical, so that the nature of Socrates is as general as the nature of “man.” It is not natures that are particular, but hypostases. However, Leontius accepted the existence of individualized natures, which include both general natures and adjunctive characteristics as their components. For him, hypostasis is a certain set of universals 14. Having rejected private natures, Leontius, nevertheless, speaks of natures that differ from the general one - about individualized natures (John of Damascus would later represent them as such). In the Epilisis, a fictional character representing the position of the opponents invites Leontius to admit that Christ assumed a “certain” human nature (τὴν τίνα φύσιν) 15. Leontius agrees, but insists that such a nature is identical to that seen in the form (τὴν αὐτὴν ο ὖ σαν τῷ ε ἵ δει) 16, apparently in order to emphasize that such a nature is not private. Thus, Leonty understands a “certain” nature as individualized, representing a unique synthesis of the general nature and common incoming features. As general, nature and characteristics have never actually existed, therefore one cannot speak of the pre-existence of such an individual nature. At the same time, the general human nature, which in such an individualized nature represents its part, was accepted into the hypostasis of the Word precisely as universal. Later, John of Damascus will reject private natures, admitting, however, the existence of a nature “seen in the individual,” i.e. individualized nature, which he also understands as a unique set of universals: both essential (reasonableness) and incidental (snub nose). According to Damascene, the human nature of Christ, as including additional attributes, is individualized 17. As for Maximus, Larcher insists that according to the Monk, Christ accepts the common nature of man 18. Larcher cites numerous quotations in which Maxim speaks of the salvation of the entire nature as a result of the Incarnation. On the contrary, Battrellos believes that in Christology Maximus follows Leontius 19 and that Larcher is mistaken in believing that Christ accepted and deified the nature of all people, opening the way to actual personal deification for the worthy. According to Battrellos, in Maximus, Christ accepted and deified an individualized human nature, which had its own distinctive private characteristics. However, the deification of this particular nature laid the foundation for the deification of all people 20. Although Larcher's position is more thoroughly supported by texts and more convincing than that of Battrellos, we will refrain from drawing conclusions regarding Maximus's understanding of the type of human nature assumed in the hypostasis of Christ at the Incarnation. 1.2. Natural movement (κ ί νησις φ ῠ σικ ή). Developing the idea of the triad “essence” - “ability to act” - “action”, which is first mentioned by Iamblichus, and then by his follower Nemesius of Emesa 21, Maximus considers any natural movement as essential and arising from the ability (or power) of the essence to act: “every action (ἐνέργεια) is an end-goal ( τέλος)... leading to it essential (οὐσι ώ δους) movement" 22. On this he builds his doctrine of natural will. Natural movement (action) refers to the logos of nature and therefore is identical and unchangeable in all individuals. The variety of movements correlates with the concept of the tropos of action. 1.3. Hypostasis (ὑπόστ ᾰ σις) or person (πρ ό σωπον) is formed by combining species nature (for example, “man in general”) with hypostatic characteristics. In this way - if we talk about created nature - “the angel Michael”, “the man Peter”, “the dog Argus” 23 arise. Due to a certain set of characteristics-features (τοῖς χαρακτηριστικοῖς ἰδι ώ μα σι 24) some individuals of a given species are different from others, and, in addition, are identical to themselves. The inseparable hypostatic characteristics are stable, and Peter in his youth is identical to Peter in old age. Thus, hypostasis correlates with individual existence, denoting “separate” (καθ ` ἕ καστον) and “own” (ἰδικόν). Once Maxim gives a “logical” definition of hypostasis: Hypostasis is that which in a certain [thing] (ἐν τῷ τινι) outlines and describes the general and the indescribable as special (παριστ ῶ σα καὶ περιγράφουσα ἰδ ίως), like, for example, “such and such” [person] 25. It seems that by analogy with the divine hypostases and in accordance with school logic, Maxim represents the transition from the general essence of “man” to the hypostasis of “Peter”, as a transition from a concept with a larger scope to a concept with a smaller scope. If the scope of a concept is the totality of objects to which the concept is attached, and the content is those attributes that are attributed to the concept, then the imposition of any attribute is a narrowing of the scope of the concept, a limitation (determinatio) of it. However, logic speaks only about species and genera. It does not deal with unique objects - individuals (created hypostases). The created hypostasis “Peter” is characterized by an infinite number of attributes, and the very imposition of attributes on the species concept does not “form” a hypostasis either ontologically or even logically, for it has an infinite number of them. Thus, the definition of hypostasis in the language of logic seems unsuccessful. Maxim can also find another, quite correct, definition: According to philosophers, a hypostasis is an entity with [its own] characteristics. And according to the Fathers, this is each person individually, different as a person (προσωπικῶς) from other people 26. Nevertheless, it is clear that hypostasis is something private 27. As has already been said, the term "private nature" has been compromised in Christological debates. Therefore, just as in his time Basil the Great preferred to give his own ontological name to the Person of the Trinity, denoting personal existence with the term “hypostasis,” and leaving the term “nature” for the essence common to all three Persons, so Maxim prefers to limit the meaning of the term “nature”: it is understood primarily as a generic essence, and rarely as a particular one. And what Aristotle called “the first essence” is called by him hypostasis. Since the action of formal logic does not extend to the level of hypostases, the latter were determined in other ways. Even earlier, Maximus began to correlate hypostasis with Aristotle’s τὸ καθ ᾽ αὐτο - that which exists in itself (καθ ᾽ ἑαυτ ὸ εῖναι) 28, independently, and, as a result, exists actually. The properties of the created hypostasis include the fact that it can be complex, i.e. consist of two or more natures: the hypostasis “man” is composed of body and soul, in the hypostasis of Christ there are two natures “humanity” and “divinity”. Here the hypostasis not only limits, but also connects. Hypostasis is associated with the idea of ​​existence (ὕ παρξις). In fact, in Difficulty XLI Maximus speaks of the hypostasis of all created things. If the phrase “hypostasis of the created” is a synonym for “created nature”, then “hypostasis” is no longer something “particular”, but is equivalent to “essence” - the highest genus that crowns Porphyry’s logical tree. But another interpretation is also possible. If we distinguish between essence and existence, and as will be shown below, for Maxim this is justified, we are talking about the “existence” of created nature. Hypostasis is a special “mode of being” of nature, it is a qualitative being, “as” being (πῶς εῖναι). Just as there are no non-hypostatic natures, so hypostasis is impossible without nature. Hypostasis is always a manifestation of some nature (essence), it is always “realized” (ἐνούσιον). Maxim says about the interdependence of nature and hypostasis: the fact that [nature] is not hypostatic does not make it itself a hypostasis, but only hypostatic, so that it should not be perceived only mentally, as incidental, but must be seen as a really [existing] (πραγματικῶς) species. And in the same way, the fact that [hypostasis] is not insubstantial does not make it itself an essence, but shows it as realized, so that it is recognized not as just a particular, but as truly [existing] together with that in which this particular [is] 29 . 1.4. Logos (λ ό γος). The concept of logos in Maximus is extremely vague 30. Maxim deliberately brought together lexically and terminologically different realities of philosophy and theology into one concept, so that logos is the ability to reason logically (διάνοια), this is a created essence (ousia), this is the thought of God (idea), this is the meaning of something, this is a word (pronounced and internal), this is God himself, etc. 31 All nature exists in accordance with a certain logos. Here the concept of “logos” almost coincides with the concept of “essence”. The Logoi were realized at once and before centuries 32 in the highest Logos, the Son of God. In Him the logoi are invariably and uniformly established. Many logos make up a single Logos (which, of course, cannot be reduced to their totality), and a single Logos is many logos 33 . Through logoi, God “knows” created things even before their emergence in sensory reality, and at the appointed hour, according to the latter, He brings things into sensory existence 34. In addition, logoi are divine wills 35. They are divine words-thoughts that form the core of a sensual thing, which, due to this, turns out to be ideal in its essence. Like everything divine, the logos is unchangeable, “immutable” 36; the immobility of the logos is the law (ν ό μος) for all nature that exists and arises in accordance with this logos 37. If it changes, the nature corresponding to it will be destroyed 38 . Therefore, distinctions and connections that do not destroy the natures of the constituent parts occur not at the level of natures, but at the level of existence, at the level of hypostases. There is one more aspect that has important consequences for all of Maxim’s constructions: logos is at the same time the beginning - the cause of a thing, and its end - the goal. Wed: each of the intelligent and reasoning, that is, angels and men, by means of the very thing by which it was created, the logos that exists in God and towards God, is and is called a particle of the Divinity, because of its pre-existing in God... logos. There is no doubt that if it moves in accordance with him, it will end up in God, in Whom the logos of its existence preexists as the beginning and cause... By ascending to Him [the being] becomes god and is called a particle of God... no longer having, after its beginning, both an ascent to the logos (by which it was created) and a restoration of where to move or how to move, since its movement towards the divine goal has clearly reached its limit in this very divine goal 39. Thus, every man and angel is a particle of the Divine through his logos: we are parts of God, since the logoi of our being pre-exist in God. The immersion of a thing in its logos. The logos of a thing is not only its beginning, from which the essence comes into this existence, but also the goal towards which it strives 40. It is no coincidence that Maximus says that logos “embraces” the thing 41. What has been said should be understood not only in the sense that logos embraces a thing, being its logical definition. In metaphysical terms, logos is the beginning and reason, “in accordance with which,” “for the sake of which,” and “through which” a certain being arises 42. Logos calls existence to itself as its goal cause, without the achievement of which existence cannot be perfect. Such a total immersion of a being in its logos forces us to raise the question of in what aspects creation (as another in relation to God, as created from nothing) differs from its divine logos, in what its independence consists (we must remember that Maximus is not a Neoplatonist, but a Christian philosopher). Potential and actual existence of the created. Everything that has arisen is created to become “actual” 43. The pre-eternal existence of a certain entity in logoi - in the form of a divine plan about it - is considered by Maxim as potential, and only when a thing is brought into sensory existence does it acquire actual existence 44. Maxim specifically says that in God the created cannot exist actual 45. It is characteristic that Shestodnev’s story seems to him to be a description of the creation of intelligent genus-species entities: God, having at once (ἅ παξ) fulfilled... the first logoi of what has arisen and the general essences of existence, still carries out not only the preservation of them for existence, but also the actual (κατ ᾽ ἐ νέργειαν) creation, emergence and composition of the parts contained in them in the possibility (δυνάμει) 46. Here “first”, logoi means “most general” 47. Thus, in the six days of creation, God simultaneously and once realized the logoi of sensible things and their general essences. The private and individual, as long as it remains in its logoi, has only potential existence. God has providence for each “part” and at the appointed time brings it into the actual, i.e. sensory existence, where it is “composed” with other parts, forming the things of this world. So, being in the Word (according to the logos) is potential, and being brought into sensory being corresponds to the “actual perception of being.” Then what does the creature’s achievement of its logos correspond to as an end-goal? When she returns to God again, then, at first glance, her final state is identical to the initial one, as is assumed, for example, by the Neoplatonists. However, in the Maxim system the situation is different. Creation again finds itself in God, but no longer in the form of His plan for itself, not as possessing potential existence, but this time as fulfilled, as possessing actual existence. Her existential life experience does not disappear. “Effect” is not identified with “cause”. The creature is ontologically preserved as an independent entity, it is identified with God by grace, by the tropos of existence, but the natural difference between God and the creature does not disappear, it does not dissolve in Him. Logos of individuals. The existence of individual logoi was not a problem for Maxim 48. He repeatedly writes that there are not only logoi of the general, but also “logoi of the particular” 49. Each creature is created by the will of God, God desires it, has Providence and Judgment for it, preserves it in existence. This completely concrete and unique His will and care for the individual, as well as for the whole, performs the function that universals play in philosophical systems: everything is in the Providence and mind of God, it is contained, connected, ordered, and brought to perfection. In Difficulty XLI Maxim speaks unequivocally: The logoi of everything divided and partial... are encompassed by the logoi of the general and generic. And if the logoi of the more generic and general are contained by [divine] Wisdom, then the logoi of the particular, in their diversity contained (ἐνισχημένους) in the logoi of the generic (τῶν γενικῶν) 50, are covered by Understanding, in which they first simplify and freed from the symbolic diversity that they possessed in the subject things, they are united by Wisdom 51, showing fusion with more general genera reaching the point of identity. The Wisdom of God the Father and Understanding is the Lord Jesus Christ, Who, being by nature the Creator and Provider of all things, contains by the power of Wisdom all things in general and by the Understanding of knowledge embraces the parts that complete them 52. In relation to the logoi of the particular, the definition “motley” is used twice, which in the philosophical tradition of Platonism meant an unordered multiplicity of individual private things. Thus, Maxim perceives these logoi as separate, hidden within individual sensible things under their external, “symbolic” forms. The general logoi, Maxim also calls them the first, are realized in Wisdom 53, while the “last”, private logoi 54, representing the meanings of individual things, are “seen in things.” Logos, as the divine plan for a specific being, is always a more primary and pure reality than actually existing nature, with its dissections, materiality and perishability. Therefore, logos is associated with reunification, restoration of integrity, the transition from division to unity. In Difficulty XLI, man overcomes the division into two sexes through union with his logos, according to which he was originally created (1305D); the incarnate Logos, Christ, connects the natural breaks in the universal nature of the world, revealing the integral logoi of that which has fallen into parts, the logoi with the help of which the connection of the divided must be carried out (1309A); the earth is one because it preserves the logos by which it exists free from division (1309D); the ascended Christ reveals all sensible nature as one in accordance with its more integral logos (1309D), and then reveals in Himself the unity and indivisibility of creation in accordance with its first and most integral logos (1312A). The entire creation, corresponding to the single concept of derivation from non-existence, receives a single, identical and completely undifferentiated logos (1312D). Species are pushed towards unity and identity with each other by the generic logos of nature (1313A). The genus is present in species as a whole in wholes in accordance with its logos/definition (1313B). The ladder of connections/ascensions described in Difficulty XLI is accompanied by the manifestation of increasingly integral and general logoi. Logoi, like the things associated with them, form a hierarchy and make up the tree of Porphyry. At the same time, more integral and generic ones cover more specific ones. More general logoi are contained in Wisdom, while Providence takes care of specific ones, although both belong to the Logos, the Son of God. The logoi of the particular complement the general logoi (1313D–1316A). Only the first division (between created and uncreated natures) is unable to accept a single and identical logos (1305A). The problem of universality. Once Maxim talks about the opposition between τὰ κ ᾰ θ ό λου and τὰ καθ ᾽ ἕ καστ ον, however, he does not solve the problem of universals in the sense as Porfiry posed it, i.e. does not pose the theoretical question of whether there is a general ante res, in rebus or post res. We are talking about particular and general bodies (the latter means the primary elements) 55, and the source of Maximus in this passage is Nemesius of Emesa, who reasoned that divine Providence cares not only about the general. Maxim seems to have contradictory arguments on this topic. His position seems to depend on the source he is currently following. When Maximus leans towards a collective theory of universals and denies the independent existence of universals, he demonstrates the influence of certain passages from Nemesius 56. In other cases, the general and the particular are interdependent to such an extent that they become equal. It can be assumed that in this case, Maxim is most independent and represents the general/particular pair in the form of constituent parts of a single hypostasis, like the pair “smart and sensual”: its elements can only be thought of as existing independently, but in reality they are the poles of a single hypostasis 57 . But there are cases when Maxim demonstrates dependence on Platonism (namely on ps.-Dionysius), without questioning the independent existence of universals 58 . 1.5. Tropos of existence (τρόπος ύπάρξεως). Maxim's definition of hypostasis as particular implicitly operates with the category “quantity”. In relation to tropos, the category “quality” comes to the fore. What is important here is not the hypostatic features that limit the essence into such and such a hypostasis, but changes in the very existence of nature (which in reality is always hypostasized). That is, as an ontological concept, tropos is connected with “how” - being (πῶς ε ἶ ναι) 59, with qualitative being. The tropos of existence is “the mode of existence of an entity, the way of applying a general principle, the action of nature, or, speaking of man, the use by a person of his natural abilities or the execution of their actions” 60 . The tropos of existence (τρόπος ύπάρξεως) of created nature in Maximus is mostly contrasted with the logos of nature (λόγος φύσεως). This distinction was introduced by Basil the Great during the Trinitarian controversy. In a close context it is found in Ps. Basil (Against Eunomius IV), Amphilochius of Iconia, Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret of Cyrus and was later used in Christological debates by Leontius of Byzantium 61. Maximus mostly uses this distinction in Christology, but also writes about tropos in relation to the physical world and the realm of ethics 62 . But if in previous authors the expression “tropos of existence” was for the most part synonymous with “hypostasis,” then for Maximus such an identification is impossible in many cases. Tropos is a certain way of existence, i.e. actions of the most hypostatic nature. Both in relation to hypostasis and in relation to tropos we are talking about the existence of nature itself, but considered in different aspects. It seems that Maxim’s appeal to the concept of the tropos of existence was caused by very specific reasons. As already mentioned (section 1.3), Aristotelian logic operates only with generalities - genera, species, tops. When it is necessary to consider singularities (objects of the created world) and changeable existence (i.e. when it is necessary to take into account the time factor), it encounters difficulties. What has been said is also true for theology (the divine is always unique - both in itself and when it invades the world of the created). Here reasoning in terms of logic - natures, hypostases, their characteristics - is impossible by definition. If we consider, as Maximus does, that divine intervention affecting one individual physically applies to the whole of human nature, then why does a change that occurs in one person not automatically manifest itself in all others? According to logic textbooks, changing natural idioms necessarily changes the properties of all species and individuals of a given nature. If in the Mother of God human nature recognized the virgin image of childbirth, then, logically speaking, this changed essential, species-specific property is now present in all people, and not only in women, but also in men. In order to avoid this, we can assume that only individual idioms change, when the changes affect only the hypostasis of the Mother of God. But Maxim insists: the whole of human nature has learned a new way of birth. Due to this kind of logical difficulty, in the era of Maximus the view was widespread that Christ was incarnated not in the general human nature, but in a particular (Philoponus), or individualized (Leontius of Byzantium). It seems that it was precisely in an attempt to resolve this kind of antinomy that Maxim went beyond the paradigm of reasoning in terms of genera and species and turned to the idea of ​​the tropos of existence. If the logos of nature ensures the immutability and self-identity of nature, then tropos is spoken of in relation to that which in action is changeable from hypostasis to hypostasis 63 . In this case, the agent of action is not the hypostasis, but the same nature. There are not only individual, but also universal tropos of the existence of nature. For example, in the existence of human nature, Maxim distinguishes (simply) being, good-being (evil-being) and ever-being (ever-being-being). All these are the troposes of its existence. Perhaps, due to their universality, such tropos have their own logos 64. Maximus gives examples of other universal tropos: for example, after the incarnation of Christ, the entire human nature recognized by the tropos of its existence seedless conception and virgin birth. Thus, it is clear that the tropos of the existence of nature is not identical to hypostasis 65 and vice versa. When we talk about tropos, we are dealing with the whole of nature itself. With this understanding, the salvific economy of Christ also affects and gives a new tropos of being to the entirety of human nature 66: He says that their hypostatic union with Him Who is the Cause of their existence was premeditated [by God] and happened by Providence, so that the existence of beings and in essence would be preserved, as far as nature allows, and - by divine grace, through the union with God, of all those who change into immutability - existence would appear (τὸ ὑποστῆναι) [in God], that is, “how” - being 67. Ontology and ethics in Maxim interpenetrate, and therefore tropos is understood not only as an ontological term, but also as an ethical concept. In this case, tropos means a certain attitude towards things developed by a person, which has become a stable state of his mental makeup. This understanding of the tropos allows Maxim to emphasize that the individual has the opportunity to freely define himself in relation to the logos of his essence. The disposition of the will and the free choice of a person determines whether it will exist in accordance with its nature or contrary to it (that is, whether it will move towards God or from Him), 68 its well-being depends (being and ever-being are granted by God). In relation to the Incarnation, the tropos of divine economy is contrasted with natural law and logos 69. Tropos is also considered as a way for an individual to use his natural abilities or properties 70 . In addition, Maxim often speaks of “tropos of virtues.” It is very likely that here he follows Gregory the Theologian. Wed. the last one: Character (τρόπος) is a disposition (ἕ ξις) towards things of a certain kind, and disposition (ἦ θος) is a manner that shows character 71. Consider the disposition (ἕ ξις) towards good as a virtue, and towards evil as a disease opposite [to virtue]. And recognize the former as a gift from God, and the latter as your invention 72 . The distinction between logos and tropos is significant for Maximus and in purely theological aspects, some of which we will consider. 1.6. New arrangement of nature. As follows from the title of Difficulty XLI, it is intended to clarify the words of Gregory the Theologian: “Natures are newly arranged (καινοτομοῦνται), and God becomes man” 73. What is the new order of natures and how does it relate to the distinction between logos and tropos? In the second “discretion” of Difficulty XLI (1313C-1316A), Maximus resolves this difficulty (ἅ πορον), explaining how during the Incarnation a new dispensation of natures is carried out, affecting both divine and human natures. As for God, He perceives carnal birth. As applied to man, the new dispensation of human nature consists in the fact that without a seed it grows flesh for the Incarnate, and the Mother of God gives birth without loss of virginity: Again, new natures are arranged: out of goodness and immeasurable love for mankind, the divine, by free will, supernaturally accepts our carnal birth, and our [nature] - through an unheard-of institution contrary to nature (θεσμῷ) - in an amazing way, seedlessly grows for the incarnate God flesh, endowed with a rational soul, identical in everything to ours and indistinguishable from her, except for sin, and, what is even more incredible, from the one who became the Mother, nothing was taken away by birth from the law of virginity. And the new dispensation is, strictly speaking, not only that God the Word, already born without beginning and indescribably from God the Father, was born in time according to the flesh, but also that our nature gave flesh without a seed and that the Virgin gave birth without corruption. For each of these [events], revealing a new dispensation, completely hides the ineffable and unknown logos by which it happened, and at the same time reveals it: [hides, as having happened] with a tropos that surpasses nature and knowledge, and [reveals] with the logos of faith, through which it is common to comprehend everything that surpasses nature and knowledge 74 . Why does the new dispensation of man occur during the Incarnation? To make him a sharer of the divine nature 75. The saving economy of the incarnate Word is aimed at the destruction of everything alien introduced into human nature after original sin 76. At the same time, Maxim distinguishes between “renewal” (ἀνακαιν ί ζειν), as the return and restoration of human nature to its original state, and “new dispensation” (καινίζειν) 77 as “the introduction of newness,” referring to both natures united in the hypostasis of Christ. In the God-man, the divine nature (as hypostatically united with human nature) and human nature are renewed: firstly, as hypostatically united with the divine nature, 78 and secondly, and especially, as recognizing in the Word a new (free from sin and corruption) tropos of carnal birth. Maximus clarifies that for both new dispensations, the logos according to which they occur is completely hidden, as ineffable and unknown. Thus, we are talking about “supernatural logoi” with which created things cannot have any connection (see 3.3.4). On the one hand, the logos of the new dispensations is inexplicable, as exceeding nature and knowledge; on the other hand, it is revealed through the logos of faith, through which everything that surpasses nature and knowledge can be comprehended. All cases of new dispensations are acts of invasion of the deity into man and other created natures: the tropos of the supernatural action of the newly arranged nature is determined by the act of divine intervention. In Difficulty XLII (PG 91, 1316A-1345A) Maxim gives examples of other new dispensations. And every time these are cases of deus ex machina. Maxim writes again that with his Incarnation, God renewed (ἀνακαιν ί σας) our nature or, even better, rebuilt (κα ί νισας) it, returned it to the original dignity of incorruptibility. The Incarnate One endowed human nature with the gift of deification, inhabiting the flesh in the same way that the soul inhabits the body. This is the lot of any other nature, when God, in His Providence and in order to demonstrate His power, wants to re-arrange it. In the Old Testament we see this in signs and wonders. For example, God acted according to the logos of the new dispensation when He transferred Enoch and Elijah from life in the flesh to another kind of life (Gen. 5:24; 2 Kings 2:11), not changing human nature, but changing the tropos and scope inherent in their nature. He did the same when he honored Abraham and Sarah with sons at an advanced age, beyond the limit and time natural for childbearing (Genesis 17:15–17; 18:9–15; 21:1–7). God set the thorn bush on fire so that it did not burn (Exodus 3:2); in Egypt he gave river water the properties of blood (Exodus 7:17), without at all denying its nature; for water remained water by nature, even after it had turned red. He made the rock the mother of water (Exodus 17:1–7); built a dry ford across the Jordan (Joshua 3:14–17); miraculously stopped the course of the sun and moon, making motionless the ever-moving nature of the heavens (Joshua 10:12–14). Maximus repeats that, by re-arranging the nature of the things renewed by Him, God performed these acts in relation to the tropos of action, and not the logos of existence (ὑπάρξεως). All the Old Testament new dispensations were providentially carried out for the sake of the subsequent Incarnation of God. The problem is whether we can rationally explain how a transformation of the action of nature can be considered a change in nature itself. A number of questions arise. What components of the triad “essence, power, action” change during the new dispensation? Can nature be considered changed if its essence has not changed? Are the logos of nature and its essence identical? What in this nature is different from its logos, which must remain unchanged? Answering the question about how exactly the new dispensation occurs, Maxim writes: the logos of human nature is being soul and body and nature [consisting] of rational soul and body, and tropos is the order (τάξις) of [carrying out] natural action and undergoing action; [the order] moreover changes and changes many times, but nature in no way changes along with it" 79 . This needs clarification. According to Maxim, during the new dispensation only the tropos of the action of nature changes, i.e. changes concern only the individual, the hypostasis. We are not talking about a change in natural action, which is the same for all hypostases of a given species (all people) and which, in accordance with the logos of this nature, is built into the triad “essence, power, action” of a given species nature. Only a change in natural action changes the species nature and opens up the possibility for all hypostases of a given nature to change their action. On the contrary, individual, hypostatic actions always vary, being not only natural, but unnatural, which in no way affects nature in its universality. In this regard, it is not clear how the new dispensations associated with the Incarnation changed divine and human nature. They relate to the tropos of the action of nature, which means they should not change it. Note that the examples of new structures given by Maxim are essentially different. In Christ, human nature was hypostasized (general or individualized?), which had never before had an independent existence. However, dogma demands that this event change the entire human nature: save and potentially deify. On the contrary, in relation to the Mother of God, supernatural metamorphoses are limited only to her separate human hypostasis, which actually exists. But here, too, Maxim says that human nature has learned a new way of conception and birth. A similar class of new dispensations is made up of Old Testament miracles, which are also the results of divine influence on some hypostasis, but this one-time volitional intervention of God does not entail a change in all of nature as a species. The development of a conceptually consistent theory capable of resolving difficulties in all three classes of new dispensations seems to have little prospects. Moreover, Maxim himself says that they are comprehended by the “logos of faith.” There are more questions than answers. Human nature does not change according to the logos either in the Fall or in the hypostatic union with the Divinity in Christ. But only logos (or rather, essence) determines the specific uniformity of the action of a given essence. If nature fell as a whole, but not according to logos, then, that means, according to the universal tropos. With regard to “corruption and division,” nature acts and exists contrary to its logos, moving away from it in the direction of non-existence. In relation to the “new dispensation”, nature acts supernaturally, i.e. also contrary to its logos (and here: what is the relationship between the individual and the general?). Maxim argues that new dispensations at the level of action and existence are not something external to nature, but affect its very being 80. If some scientists (Larchet) believe that, based on their distinction between logos and tropos, Maxim has the right to assert that the economy of God transforms human nature itself, then other researchers (Riou, Garrigues, Lethel) 81 believe that the beneficial influence is limited only by the tropos of hypostatic existence, i.e. affects “not on the plane of ontology and essence, but on the plane of intentionality and morality” 82 . It seems that reasoning in philosophical terms is useless when it comes to the supernatural. In new dispensations, human nature, by definition, acts in a supernatural manner. Remaining itself according to logos, nature begins to act in a way that exceeds the law established for it by nature. Something happens that is impossible by nature, but appeals to natural law are inapplicable. Let's remember the fairy tale about porridge from an axe. Common sense dictates that you can’t make porridge from the available ingredients - water and an ax. However, after tasting what the soldier cooked, the old woman-housewife finds that it is real and tasty porridge. The soldier succeeded in his trick, since adding an ax to the water (ideally) does not affect the taste of the brew. The latter is the result of additives that the old woman considered unimportant and secondary (cereals, salt, butter). But the “main” component - the ax - can be neglected in relation to taste and nutritional value. Nature, acting in accordance with the divine tropos, is like an ax from a fairy tale. We discuss it, but it is no longer she who acts: “I died to the law... and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:19–20) 83. 1.7. Leading (γνῶσις). "Knowledge" and "cognition" (γνῶσις) is one of the most important concepts in the theological system of Maximus the Confessor. In his writings, Maxim uses it in relation to all aspects of his teaching, repeatedly speaking about the role of knowledge in relation to anthropology, psychology, soteriology, eschatology, cosmology, etc. The knowledge of God is postulated by Maximus as one of the reasons for the creation of man and even as one of the goals of the Incarnation. This differs the approach of the Confessor from the approach of his predecessors, including the Cappadocians, who were authoritative for him. Human beings were created to ultimately be united through the Son with God the Father, 84 to become identical with God in deification through grace. Without delving into this extremely important topic for understanding Maximus’ theology, we note that the union of man with God also has an “epistemological” dimension: Even before the centuries, the union of limit and infinity was premeditated... of the Creator and the creature, of rest and movement - that union that became manifest in Christ at the end of time... so that those who by nature move would stop... around that which is completely motionless in its essence, and so that they would experience through experience the real knowledge of Him in whom they were worthy to stop - knowledge that is unchangeable and self-identical, providing them with pleasure Knowable 85. Relative knowledge and real knowledge. The actual knowledge that the Confessor speaks of is the highest, supernatural type of knowledge acquired at the stage of the saint’s achievement of deification. How does this kind of knowledge differ from the usual knowledge known to us from everyday life? As Maxim teaches, knowledge can be of two types. The first, lower kind of knowledge is relative (γνῶσις σχητική); a person is guided by it in earthly life. Relative leading, i.e. discursive thinking does not reach the Irrelative, however, it plays an essential role in the unification of the created. For example, in Difficulty XLI, the fourth connection, bringing together the intelligible and the sensible, was to be realized through human knowledge equal to that of the angels, and at this stage such knowledge would be the knowing knowledge (γνωστική ἐπιστήμη) of the logoi of beings 86 . Thanks to him, there would be an outpouring of a stream of true wisdom, imparting to worthy people the concept (ἔννοια) of God (1308 A10 - B4) 87. In Maxim's teaching, it is impossible to isolate epistemology into a special area. It is inextricably linked with anthropology and ontology. Two types of knowledge correspond to two ontological states of man. In Maxim’s terms, this is 1) a person, as having in himself the “image” of God, and 2) a person who has acquired the “likeness” of God. All people are created “in the image.” This is a given, which is obscured in the Fall, and which would have been preserved had man lived in accordance with nature. On the contrary, “likeness” is the lot of the elect. This is what is acquired when a person consciously and through his own efforts comes to God. The likeness of God is supernatural, exceeds nature and is a reciprocal grace-filled gift of God. From the point of view of epistemology, similarity is achieved at the stage of real (κατ ᾽ ἐνέργειαν) knowledge, which is also knowledge of God 88. This highest type of knowledge is acquired through personal experience (διὰ πείρας) or, better, experienced through personal experience (πε ί ρᾳ): Scripture knows a twofold knowledge of the Divine: one, relative (οχετικήν), as existing in reasoning and thinking alone; it does not possess a real sensation of the Known, acquired through experience - we are guided by this knowledge in real life. Another knowledge - truly true, valid and [acquired] only through experience, apart from reasoning and thinking - provides, by grace through participation, a complete sensation of the Known, thanks to which in the future [heavenly] destiny we will perceive a supernatural deification that acts endlessly... 89 Real knowledge exceeds both sensory and rational methods of cognition. Maxim calls it sensation, but it is not a sensation through the five senses, directed at the visible cosmos surrounding a person and located below reasoning and mind. The actual sensation is a supersensible and supermental experience of the Divine presence, a feeling of unity with God. At the level of perception of created things, one can also distinguish two types of sensation and knowledge: Feelings are spoken of in two ways. One is feeling as a [potential] ability (καθ ᾽ ἕ ξιν), which is the feeling of those sleeping when we do not perceive any objects - it is useless because it does not turn into action. The other sense is real (κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν) and through it we perceive sensible things. There are also two types of knowledge. One is scientific (ἐπ ι στημονική), which, by virtue of its properties alone (καθ ᾽ ἕ ξιν), reads the logoi of existence; it is useless because it does not strive to implement the Commandments. Another knowledge is active and real (κατ ᾽ ἐνέργειαν πρακτική), which truly cares about comprehension through the experience of beings 90. So, scientific knowledge, which does not conform its activities with divine instructions, is mechanical, relative, and therefore useless for the well-being and salvation of man. Only real knowledge, formed in the personal experience of the knower, becoming an existential experience, leads a person to a gracious identity with the divine Goal. The source of Maximus here is most likely Diadochos of Photiki. In the Hundred Gnostic Chapters, Diadochos calls supersensible sensation the “sense of the mind” (ἡ τοῦ νοῦ αἴσθησις), “mental sense” (τὴν νοερὰν αἴσθησιν), “immaterial sensation” ( τῆς ἀ ΰ λου αἰσθ ή σεως ) 91 . It is associated with an “experiential” experience 92 , with a “full authentication” 93 , with a “taste” or “tasting” of the divine 94 . Diadochos also says that the “natural feeling” of the soul was initially united, but after Adam’s crime it was divided into the strictly sensual and the intellectual 95 . Diadochos understands the last kind of αἴσθησις as a personally experienced feeling of God’s infusion into a purified soul, assurance of a good relationship with God. Αἴσθησις almost becomes synonymous with the concept πληροφορία (“complete confidence”), with which it is often associated. Thus, the words “with all the feeling and with full assurance of the heart” describe “the infusion of grace, the state of the soul, pacified by the truth and having found peace in it” 96 . For Maxim, the achievement of supersensible sensation means an elevation to a level that exceeds rational activity, which presupposes a subject-object division. Having united with God the Word so that He is “no longer outside of it,” the soul finds itself among the logoi contained in Him. They no longer need to be sought: “she will know logos and causes in simple intuition” (κατὰ ἁ πλῆν προσβολήν) 97. And since God inhabits man, the achievement of this kind of knowledge is at the same time the deification of man. At the same time, the grace-filled union with God changes the nature and depth of man’s comprehension of the created world. The knowledge bestowed by grace reveals to man the knowledge of the essences and logoi of bringing them into being 98 . Once Maximus says that Christ restores in man the “primordial” knowledge that he possessed before the Fall, 99 and this raises the question of how the first man, Adam, “knew” God. Balthasar points to Maximus's phrase that before the Fall of the first man “nothing prevented him from knowing God,” 100 interpreting this in the sense that there was a period when man “knew” God. But in the text, these Maxim’s words have a continuation: “and nothing prevented [him] from becoming closer to God through the movement that was about to arise towards Him.” Consequently, “knowledge” and “movement towards God” were given to Adam in the form of potential, and as we know, he failed to actualize it. Thus, we can assume that in relation to the first person, Maximus is talking about the possibility of a transition from imperfect knowledge, corresponding to a fallen state, to original knowledge, not spoiled by the fall. But this is not yet a blessed real feeling that one must strive for and which represents a fundamentally different, higher type of knowledge. The main thing is that with actual knowledge the quality of the creature’s knowledge of the Creator will change: [souls] will experientially [perceive] the active knowledge of Him in Whom they are worthy to abide—unchangeable and identical knowledge, giving them enjoyment of the Known 101. Human knowledge is not self-sufficient. It exists only insofar as there is genuine Knowledge and Self-Knowledge that created it, i.e. God 102. Divine Knowledge itself is incomprehensible to created knowledge. In the Gnostic chapters attributed to Maximus, knowledge is substantivized; It is said that no “knowledge” can be known at all. The Divinity, as Self-Knowledge, is all the more completely unknowable for beings 103. Cognitive activity is not considered as a separate process of abstract theorizing, unrelated to other aspects of an individual’s existence. On the contrary, to advance along the path of knowledge of God it turns out that it is necessary to use all the bodily, mental and intellectual powers of the individual. The energy of passions, redirected from vice to good, gives the saint the opportunity to focus and maintain attention on the highest Goal. Feeling, abstracted from the variety of fluid material forms, allows reasoning to discern the spiritual logoi at their core. The logos, uniformly reflected in the mind, are brought by the latter as a gift to their creator - God. The culmination of the ascension process is the interpenetration of God the Word, the supreme Logos, and holy man. The latter, in his love for God, renounces his selfhood and thereby goes beyond the limits of his finitude. The knowledge of all created things is revealed to him, so that in all creation there is no longer anything unknown for him. Where the soul of the seer of God is now located, any of the created logos is present “in a simple touch” and we know it. The highest of abilities, love, unites the created with the divine, so that the saint himself, by the grace descended upon him, becomes - not in essence, but in existence - god 104. 1.8. Ignorance (ἄγνοια). In Maxim's system, ignorance, as the opposite of knowledge, plays an important role. The monk writes about at least three types of ignorance. There is ontological ignorance by the creature of the essence of God - the creature does not know who God is and what He is like (τινὰ καὶ ὁποῖον, 1305 Α 2–3). This type of ignorance is due to the difference between the divine and created natures, and therefore cannot be eliminated 105. This is “blameless” ignorance. Another type of ignorance is positive and salutary. This is ignorance of the sensory, blindness to the fluid world of phenomena 106. But there is also negative ignorance - the creature’s aversion from God and preference for Him for sensory things 107 . For Maxim, such ignorance is the culprit for the separation of the creature from the Creator, its separation from Him in existence. Initially, two paths lay before man. The path of knowledge, which is identical to the path to God, and the path of ignorance, which is equivalent to movement from God into non-existence. Due to the Fall, ignorance of God and focus on the sensory became universal, ingrained in all human nature. But after the Incarnation, such ignorance can already be cured at the individual level (at the level of the “tropos of existence”) and can be replaced by genuine knowledge - the knowledge of God 108. If knowledge connects, then ignorance separates. This idea, expressed in the Areopagitica and the scholia of John of Scythopolis to them 109, was adopted by Maximus 110. Subsequently, this teaching, like the scholia of John of Scythopolis, even became associated with the name of Maximus. Compiled in the 11th century. 111 a collection of five hundred Miscellaneous Chapters attributed to Maximus (PG 90, 1177A-1392CV) included some scholia of John of Scythopolis 112 and those two passages from the Areopagite Corpus which speak of the separating function of ignorance 113 . 1.9. The Fall. Maxim knew two theories regarding the state of intelligent beings before the fall. One of them - the doctrine of the preexistence of souls - was preached by the followers of Origen. According to them, the true abode of rational souls is heaven, where souls are incorporeal. When, as a result of sin, they fall to the earth, they clothe themselves with bodies 114. According to the second theory, formulated by Gregory of Nyssa, God foresaw the Fall and, anticipating it, created man with a body already adapted to sensual carnal reproduction. In On the Difficulties, without naming the names of the authors, Maximus mentions both teachings 115; moreover, he admits that in the doctrine of the separation of the sexes as a consequence of the fall, he follows Gregory of Nyssa 116. Maximus himself writes almost nothing about the state of man before the Fall. His attention is focused on the state that will be achieved in the future, when the plan of salvation for man through the Incarnation, planned for him even before the fall, is fulfilled: when a person, through a transgression [of the commandments], left behind his beginning along with being, he could no longer penetrate with an inquisitive gaze into what was left behind. Since the beginning naturally outlines the movement of what comes from it, it is, of course, called the end (τέλος), in which, as the cause of the movement of the movable, their running finds its limit... Man could not... look for his beginning, which was left behind, but he was able to explore the end that was in front, in order to know through it the beginning left behind, since before that he did not know the end from the beginning... After all, after a crime [the commandments] there is no end is revealed from the beginning, but the beginning is from the end, and no one seeks the logoi of the beginning, but examines those logoi that move towards the end and lead to it 117. From the outside, this can be explained by his attempt to avoid equating the beginning of human history with its end (the Origenists were reproached for the latter) 118 . But the internal, fundamental reason for the absence of a description of heavenly bliss in Maximus follows from his anthropology, according to which man was not created perfect. He had to come to perfection and fulfillment of the potentials inherent in him as a result of his own efforts and through grace. According to Maximus, man fell “simultaneously with the emergence” (ἅ μα τῷ γενέσθαι), when he turned the spirit from God to sensible things, and therefore God, in order to put a limit to the unnatural movement of the mind, “rooted the law of death in the nature of the body” 119. Thus, the entry into existence and the fall occurred almost simultaneously or were separated by only a short period of time. With this understanding, Maximus continues a stable church tradition dating back to Irenaeus of Lyons (d. c. 202) 120 . According to the latter, man is not perfect simply because he is not uncreated. He is called to grow from infancy, to train in a perfect way of life. God did not give him perfection initially also because man was simply not capable of accepting such a gift. Therefore, likeness to God is the (tropological) realization of everything that is given as a possibility, due to the fact that human nature is the image of God 121. Unlike some Origenists or Gnostics, Maximus did not interpret the entry of the soul into the body, into the material world, or into the world of changeable existence as sin. Adam's sin was not ontological, but personal guilt. Maximus believed that Adam's body was originally incorruptible. Only when the will of his mind fell from good to evil, did his nature become corrupted; the emergence of sin led to a change in nature from incorruptibility to corruption 122. God arranged it so that corruption entered not only man, but the whole world 123. Thunberg believes 124 that the sinful state of man was not sustainable and, once crossing the line, he continued to fall deeper and deeper: Having transgressed the commandment, man fell into death and corruption. Then, [although] from generation to generation he was guided in many different ways by the Providence of God, he persisted in moving towards the worse, which brought him to despair in life. Therefore, the eternal Word appeared to mortals, showing an example of God-like life 125. Sin is not a fixed state, but a movement against nature that destroys a person. 1.10. Three powers of the soul. In accordance with the tradition of ancient psychology, Maxim speaks of three natural “forces” of the soul: the rational (λό γος), the appetitive (ἐπιθυμία) and the violent (θυμός) principles. Each of the forces has its own action: “The goal of the rational action of the soul is true knowledge, the lustful action is love (ἀγάπη), the ardent action is peace (εἰρ ή νη) 126. As a result of the Fall, these forces are abused when their action turns against nature. Accordingly, three greatest and main evils arise: ignorance of God (ἡ περὶ Θεοῦ ἄγνοια), selfishness (φιλαυτ ί α) and tyranny over one’s kindred (ἡ πρ ό ς τὸ συγγενές τυραννίς ). Maximus, following Diadochos, calls not for the mortification of passions, but for their “conversion” in accordance with nature. This becomes possible when God, having united human nature with Himself in hypostasis, again makes the “powers” ​​of the soul unsullied in order to renew (ἀνακα ι νίσ ῃ) the power of love 127. Thus, a person becomes able to: with reason (λόγ ῳ), instead of ignorance through knowledge, strive in search of the most unique God; lust (ἐπιθυμ ίᾳ), pure from the passion of selfishness, to be aroused in love longing (πόθ ῳ) for God alone; with rage (τῷ θυμῷ), separated from tyranny, to fight for one God. And from these is created divine and blessed love (and they through it), uniting the lover of God with God and revealing him [himself] as God 128 . 1.11. The image (εἰκ ώ ν) and likeness (ὁμο ί ωσις) of God. The pair image of God - likeness of God, which has biblical origin (Gen. 1:26), corresponds to the pair nature - hypostasis (or logos - tropos) in Maxim. The image of God is associated with the “essence” or “nature” of man as God created him 129 . The prototype for the image is God the Word, and not so much as the Incarnate One, but as the Creator and Logos of all logoi 130. In relation to the distinction we are discussing, the image of God in man is the logos of man, while the likeness of God correlates with hypostasis 131. If the image given by God corresponds to human nature, then the likeness is present in man only potentially. To reveal it, the subject’s personal efforts are required, depending on the direction of his intention (γνώμη) and will (προα ί ρεσις). If the logos of nature is revealed in the image, then the likeness reveals the way of life, the tropos of existence. Similarity is made up of virtues. The distinction between the image and likeness of God in man was well known by the time of Maximus. Already Origen noted a certain weakness in created man, believing that the divine image is seen only in the mind if the latter can be cleansed by asceticism from attachment to the body. But Maximus was directly influenced by Diadochos of Photikie. In his Gnostic chapters, Diadochus offers an interpretation reminiscent of Origen's. For him, likeness is higher than the image, having a supernatural character and being realized in virtues, as was the case with Origen 132. Maxim also believes that the image of God is given to man at the beginning and that the likeness is acquired later, in the process of spiritual achievement. In relation to the triad of being - well-being - ever-being, which is discussed in Difficulty X, the first and third elements (being and immortality) are correlated with the “image”, the second - with the “likeness”. God possesses well-being by nature, but man - by participation 133. Man becomes like God through the tropos of his life. Being the image of God by nature, he becomes His likeness by grace. 1.12. Difference, or difference (διαφορά), of natures is one of Maxim’s most important concepts, which is understood more positively than negatively. This understanding of “difference” goes back to Porphyry, who distinguished between component differences (διαφοραὶ συστατικα ί) and separating differences (διαιρετικαὶ διαφορα ί). The addition of constituent differences forms a certain species (“animate” and “sensing” form a “living being”), 134 and separating ones are spoken of in relation to the characteristics into which the species is divided (“living being” is divided into “mortal” and “immortal”). The Chalcedonian Creed said that in Christ, after the hypostatic union of two natures, their διαφορά 135 remains. In the Areopagite Corpus, the term is used in a cosmological sense: διαφορα ί are the inequality and characteristics of all things in their mutual relation to each other within the whole 136 and in the difference in essence (τὸ τῆς οὐσ ί ας δια᾿ φορον) between archetype and image 137. Leontius applies this term to all types of differences in the world of things 138, as well as to the peculiarities of a certain type (he even uses the term διαφοραὶ συστατικαί 139). Maxim writes about at least two types of differences: the difference in essence (διαφορὰ ουσιώδης), which remains forever, and the difference in hypostatic wills, which should disappear in the future 140. The first is ontological, the second is moral in nature. The first type of distinction is used by Maximus in Christology. He distinguishes διαφορά from διαίρεσις 141 by saying that διαφορά in Christ is preserved and saved (σώζεσθαι) even after the union of natures into one hypostasis 142, i.e. this is a natural and essential difference 143. In Chalcedonian terminology it is also called “unmerged difference” (ἀσύγχυτος διαφορά) 144. The concept of διαφορά is also used by Maxim in cosmology and anthropology. Thus, διαφορά ουσιώδης is defined as a logos according to which the essence or nature remains undiminished and unchangeable (ἄτρεπτος), unfused and unmixed (ἀσυγχύτος) 145, or as a logos according to which it is preserved otherness in relation to others. This distinction applies to both God and created things, Διαφορά, which characterizes the created world, is constituent (συστατική) and discriminating (ἀ φοριστική), which means that it will never disappear and that its meaning is positive, insofar as it expresses God's plan 146. The immutability of nature and essence in Maxim is opposed by the concept of “special” (ἰδι ό της), which is an individualizing element, and therefore not general, but particular (μερική) 147. Thus, Maxim balances the moment of unity and the moment of differentiation at all levels, both in Christology and in cosmology. Only God is above διαφορά and διάκρισις. The Mystagogy says that the whole world of beings... is divided (διαιρούμενος) into the intelligent world... and the sensory world... With all this, the world is one and is not separated from its parts. On the contrary, by raising to its unity and indivisibility, [the world] embraces (περιγράφων) the difference of these parts, resulting from their natural characteristics (τὴν ἐξ ἰδιότητος φυσικῆς διαφορά) 148. The existence of natural differences is a fundamental characteristic of the created world. Maximus uses Chalcedonian terminology, saying that the things of the world are inseparably distinguished, and their own properties are not fused with each other. And therefore, on the one hand, the one Logos is seen in them as many logoi, and on the other, these logos can be raised to the one Logos, which is the beginning and cause of everything 149. Thus, in the created world, the difference and unity of natures are interdependent, just as it happens in the natures that make up the hypostasis of Christ 150. On the contrary, if the difference described above is constitutive of the world and has a positive meaning, then the difference in the electoral will (διαφορά γνωμική) is associated with a violation of harmony: discord here prevails over agreement and the above-mentioned reciprocity disappears 151. Gnomic inequality and difference ( τὴν κατὰ τὴν γνώμην ἀ νισότητα καὶ διαφοράν ) of all people is eliminated by love by recreating man in the unity of logos and tropos 152 . 1.13. Separation (διαίρβσις) is a negative analogue of difference (διαφορά) of natures. It is important that in Chalcedonian usage it was customary to say that the unity of natures in Christ exists “without division” (ἀδιαιρέτως) 153. Thus, the ultimate goal of divine Providence is the destruction of all division. Maximus applies this principle to his anthropology and cosmology 154. He writes (in a Porphyrian spirit) that "distinction" of things distinguishes them and defines them, showing how they are constructed, while "division" cuts them into parts, so that things are separated from each other 155. Following Leontius of Byzantium 156 Maximus says that when applied to things, the difference in number does not introduce division 157 . Every number shows some difference, but not division 158; it introduces neither unity nor division 159. Just as in Christ two natures and two wills do not introduce division, so there is no division in relation to things. 1.14. Identity (ταὐτότης). Maximus repeatedly speaks of the future “identity” of creation and God, without regard to the axiomatic distinction between identity and similarity in theology 160 . The unusual nature of postulating such an identity immediately catches the eye, and, for example, John Scott in these cases always replaces “identity” (ταὐτότης) with “similarity” (similitude) 161 in his translation. Balthasar urges us not to take the term mentioned too literally, 162 since the identity that Maximus speaks of leaves the difference of natures unmerged. Union with God is a grace-filled “assimilation in inseparable identity as far as possible” 163; it is “community and identity perceived through likeness” 164, “the identity of being and movement” 165. We can say that this is an identity along the tropos of existence, which does not abolish the difference of natures and logoi. The meanings of the concepts essence and nature become different when distinguishing between the logos of nature and the tropos of the existence of nature. The essence (logos of nature) is unchanging, nature itself undergoes changes in existence. On the distinction between nature and hypostasis in Maximus, see: Larchet, p. 131–134. Dispute with Pyrrhus 295BC, 300CD, 305A. Balthasar, AO 1/19 (1999), f. 93. For more information about the categories of being, see: Ibid., p. 92–107. H.U.von Balthasar, Presence et pensee, Essai sur la philosophie religieuse de Gregoire de Nysse (Paris, 1942), p. 103. In this connection, Larchet (pp. 366-373) cites a number of texts from Gregory, among which is the Great Catechetical Oration XXXII, 4: “just as in our body the activity of one of the sensory organs brings into sympathy everything connected with this member, so, since the whole nature is, as it were, one kind of living being, the resurrection of the part extends to the whole, being transmitted from the part to the whole by the continuity and unity of the nature.” Richard Cross, “Individual Natures in the Christology of Leontius of Byzantium,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 10/2 (2002), 251–253 (245–265); and He, “Perichoresis, Deification, and Christological Predication in John of Damascus,” Mediaeval Studies 62 (2000), 69–124. See also Marcel Richard, “Léonce de Jerusalem et Léonce de Byzance,” Mé langes de science religieuse 1 (1944), 35–88; Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in the Christian Tradition, Vol. 2, Part 2: The Church of Constantinople in the Sixth Century, trans, by J. Cawte and P. Allen (London: Mowbray, 1995), p. 193. John Philoponus, Arbitrator, ch. VII, apud John of Damascus, On a Hundred Heresies, ch. 83 addit., 90–95 (Russian translation, p. 144): “human nature was united with the Word as that most particular existence, which alone of all was perceived by the Word. So, with this understanding of the word “nature,” nature and hypostasis mean almost the same thing, except that the word “hypostasis” also implies the characteristics added to each individual in addition to the general nature, by which they are separated (κεχ ώ ρισται) from each other”; Ibid., 140–147 (Russian translation p. 146): “The human nature of Christ had a special and delimited existence in comparison with other people, differing from the general nature of all other people in certain features... The humanity of the Savior, of course, was one of the individuals belonging to a common nature”; Ibid., 186–191 (Russian translation. p. 147–148): “If a particular nature (μερικὴ φύσις) united with the Word pre-existed, then it is absolutely necessary that its hypostasis also pre-existed, for it is impossible for one of them to exist when the other does not exist, that is, a private nature without its own hypostasis or a private hypostasis without its own nature. For according to the subject, both of them [nature and hypostasis] are one, which is why those who use these words often identify them...” The idea that a sensory-perceptible object is formed as a result of the convergence of ideal general qualities was shared by Plotinus, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, John Scott, see about this: V.V. Petrov, “Body and corporeality in the eschatology of John Scott,” Cosmos and Soul, p. 680, note. 183. Leonty of Byzantium, Epilysis (PG 86, 1917B 9). John of Damascus, An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, ch. XI, 55, 4–21: “Nature is seen either (1) by speculation alone, for in itself it does not exist, or (2) as common in all hypostases of one species, connecting them, and [then] it is called nature seen in form; or (3) it [is seen] in one hypostasis - entirely and with the addition of additional characteristics - and is called the nature seen in the individual. So, God the Word, having become incarnate, did not perceive either the nature, (1) seen only by speculation (after all, this would not be the incarnation, but a deception and the mask of the incarnation), nor (2) seen in the form (for He did not accept all hypostases), but (3) that which is in the individual, identical to the form, because He perceived the firstfruits of our mixture, not that which existed in itself and at first became the individual and then was already perceived by Him, but realized in His hypostasis... Therefore, it is the same thing to say: “the nature of the Word” and “the nature that is in the individual.” For this, in its own and only sense, does not designate either the individual, that is, the hypostasis, or the community of hypostases, but the general nature seen and examined in one of the hypostases. Wed. with the words of Leontius of Byzantium that Christ assumed human nature, which, on the one hand, is “some” (τίνα φύσ ιν), and on the other, is identical to the species” (τὴν αὐτὴν ο ὖ σαν τῷ εἴδει, Epilysis, PG 86, 1917B). It is no coincidence that John of Damascus further refers to Leontius. Larchet, b. 365–375. Demetrios Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ: Person, Nature and Will in the Christology of St Maximus the Confessor (Oxford University Press, 2004). We quote from the manuscript of this book prepared for publication (2002). Wed: Bathrellos, p. 208: [Maximus]: “In spite of the fact that Maximus adopts Saint Basil''s definition of essence as hypostasis, he, like the Leontioi, avoids the pitfall into which John the Grammarian had fallen. He is absolutely clear that the humanity of Christ had its own distinctive particular idioms. Furthermore, the idea that the humanity of Christ were merely notional or that it included the individual natures of all human hypostaseis is alien to his thought”; Ibid., p. 217: “The human nature of Christ along with its particular idioms is not a hypostasis, for it does not subsists separately [from the Logos] by itself.” Nemesius of Emesa, On the Nature of Man XXXIII, 56–59 (ed. Einarson, translated by F.S. Vladimirsky - chapter XXXIV, p. 154): “action (πρᾶ ξις) is connected with force, force with essence: after all, action is from force, and force is from essence and in essence.” Iamblichus, On the Egyptian Mysteries 1.4 and 11.3; Proclus, Theological Fundamentals of Theology 169; Dionysius, On the Celestial Hierarchy XI, 2 (PG 3, 284D). Chapters on the theology and economy of the Son of God I, 3 (PG 90, 1084B). Angels and animals are also hypostases, cf.: Er. 15 (549C). See: Balthasar, p. 98 Opuscula 23 (PG 91, 261 V). Opuscula 23 (PG91, 265CD). See also: 261B, 264C; Er. 15 (PG 91, 545A, 548D). In 545A Maxim refers to Basil the Great (see: Vasily, Er. 214, 4; 236, 6; 210, 5). Compare: Leontius of Byzantium, Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos I (PG 86, 1305BC); Adversus argumenta Severi (PG 86,1928BC). Opuscula 26 (PG 91, 276V). For the same definition, see Leontius of Jerusalem: “hypostasis is nature together with its own characteristics” (Adversus Nestorianos I, 11, PG 86, 1445B). Compare: Opuscula 14 (PG 91, 149B – 153C): “Essence and nature are one and the same. After all, both are something that many have and are common (κοινὸν καὶ καθόλου)... The essential union brings together different and many hypostases into a single and identical essence... Hypostasis and person are one and the same. After all, both are something partial and special... Hypostatic union brings together and unites different essences or natures into one person and into a single and identical hypostasis...” About this op. see Sherwood 1952, pp. 42–43. Opuscula 23 (PG91, 264B): “Nature has a general logos of being (τὸν τοῦ ε ἶ ναι λόγον κοιν ό ν), and hypostasis also has a [logos] of separate being (τὸν "Hypostases are divisible and exist separately (τὸ καθ ᾽ ἑαυτὸ ὑφεστ ὼ ς )", and Ibid., 1945AD, as well as: Aristotle, Metaphysics V, 18, 1022 a 25–36, which discusses the various meanings of the expression "τὸ καθ ᾽ α ὑ τό ". According to the fifth and last, it refers to “that which is inherent only in one thing and since it is inherent in it alone, therefore it exists separately in itself (ὅ σα μ ό ν ῳ ὑπάρχει κα ὶ ᾖ μόνον δι ᾽ αὐτ ὸ κεχωρισμένον καθ ᾽ αὑτό )". Opuscula 16 (PG 91, 205ΑΒ). The presentation of Maximus’s internally contradictory teaching about the logoi of existence is beyond the scope of this work, therefore in this section we do not discuss it in detail, intending to consider Maximus’s views in a special study. Compare: S.L. Epifanovich, St. Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine theology (M.: Martis, 2003), p. 62–64: “In relation to God, λόγοι are divine ideas, desires...; in relation to each thing - this is its formative principle, by which it received being..., its ὅ ρος ..,, law...; in relation to activity - its meaning, purpose, intention (σκοπός), plan..., rule... As the subject of our knowledge, λόγοι are divine insights of our mind and are perceived (subjectively) as thoughts..., concepts, ideas..., contemplation..., truth... [There are] λόγοι of providence and in general λόγοι, manifested in the moral world... Logoi can, however, be considered not only in relation to their Author and Bearer, but also in relation to the world they form, so to speak, in themselves. Such consideration of them takes us into the sphere of ontology, into the region of “natural (so to speak, philosophical) contemplation” of created being. All existence is essentially ideal. It is nothing more than a collection of logoi emanating from the Logos and intertwining with each other in various ways. All qualitative differences of being depend on different combinations of these logos. Their condensation forms a crude, sensually comprehended creature. The whole world, thus, is to a greater or lesser extent an “ode - whitening” or the embodiment of the Logos, mysteriously hiding in λόγοι under the shell of created being and in all His actions revealing His λόγοι providence and judgment. The task of ontology is to contemplate these λόγοι, their mutual interweaving and gradual whitening and, through their generalization, to ascend to the all-culpable Logos.” In relation to the logoi of existence located in the Logos, the Confessor uses the verbs ὑφ ί στη, ὑφιστάω, ὑφιστάνω, which can be translated as “to carry out (sya).” Compare: Mystagogy V, 196–207: “In this Logos, as in the Creator and Maker of beings, uniformly abide and exist (εἰσ ί καὶ ὑφεστήκασιν) ... all the logoi of beings”; scholium to VO XLI, 52: “their hypostatic union with Him Who is the Cause of their being was premeditated [by God] and took place according to Providence, so that... through the union with God of all those who change into immutability, existence [in God] (τὸ ὑποστῆναι) was manifested, that is, “as”-being ( πῶς ε ἶ ναι)." Such being-in-causes in relation to existence in space and time can be called pre-existence, cf. Chapters on theology and the economy of the incarnation of the Son of God II, 4: "all pre-existing (προϋφεστῶτας) in God logoi of created things”; VO XL, 127–130: “logoi of origin [of beings]... uniquely pre-existing in God (μονοειδῶς προόντας).” Among the Neoplatonists, ὑφίστημι, ὑφιστάω, ὑφιστάνω are traditionally used when some higher reality introduces a lower reality into being (although for Maximus the meaning of these verbs varies depending on the scope of application). The “realization” of the logoi of the created does not occur in time, it precedes the centuries. But still, the presence of a certain beginning for logoi is assumed. Therefore, John Scott, the first translator of Maximus, interpreted his teaching this way: the logoi are both created and uncreated. It is characteristic that at one point Maximus directly calls the supreme Logos the Contenter and Creator (ποιητής) of “every logos and every reason” (Mystagogy V, 207). “Created” in relation to the Word itself, and later to the logos, ideas, wills contained in It, has a long tradition, going back to Proverbs 8:22: “The Lord created (ἔκτισεν) Me the beginning of the ways for His works (εἰς ἔργα αὐτοῦ )" and Ps 103, 24: "You created everything in Wisdom" (πάντα ἐν σοφί ᾳ ἐπο ί ησας). Compare: John 1:3: “all things came into being through Him, and apart from Him (outside Him) nothing came into being that came into being.” Since it was traditionally accepted that the Son of God Logos is Wisdom, the question arose how to understand “created and created” in relation to Wisdom, and what does it mean “all things arose in the Word”? Athanasius the Great specifically notes that the meaning of the word “created” depends on the object to which it is applied (Against the Arians II, 152, 33–43, Creations, vol. 2, p. 264). Nevertheless, when speaking about Christ, he preferred to understand “created” rather in its application to created things, explaining that we are talking about the human nature of Christ. Athanasius writes that everything was put together and governed “in the Logos” (Against the Arians II, 3–4, PG 26, 152, 7–21, Creations, vol. 2, pp. 263–264; cf.: Against the pagans 40, 13–22). This phrase has been edited by Russian translators, although it is not accidental. Athanasius repeats the same idea in another place, while at the same time pointing out Ev. as his source. from John: and outside of Him nothing came into being (Against the Gentiles 42, 1–6 and 17–21; 42). This is counterbalanced elsewhere: “what is created... arises without” (Against the Arians II, 3–4, PG 26, 152, 7–21, Creations, vol. 2, pp. 263–264). On Difficulties VII (1081 BC): “Many logoi are one Logos, and One is many: according to the magnificent creative and all-encompassing procession of the One into beings, One [is] many, and according to the construction and providence that returns and directs many to the One, as to the all-powerful Beginning or the center of straight lines, receiving [their] beginnings from it, and as to the gathering of all, many [are] One." Ibid., VII (1080BC). Also cf.: 1080A: “For, having the logoi of creation abiding [in Himself] before the ages, He, according to [His] good will, created a creature corresponding to them, visible and invisible, from non-existence by word and wisdom... The Logos precedes... the creation of each of the powers and essences filling the upper world; logos of men; the logos of everything that receives existence from God...” Compare: On difficulties XLII (1328АВ, 1329ВС). Ibid., VII (1085AB): “These logoi, which I spoke about,” the holy Areopagite Dionysius teaches us, “are called by Scripture predestination and divine wills. Also, those who belong to the circle of Panten, who was the teacher of the great Clement Stromatevs, say that Scripture is pleased to call [them] divine wills... It is impossible for He Who is above beings to perceive [beings] in accordance with themselves, but we say that He knows them as His wills...” Wed: VO XIII, 6–9 (PG 90, 296A); Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names V, 8 (PG 3, 824C). Regarding the idea of ​​the logoi of creation among Maximus' predecessors, see Thunberg 1965, p. 77–78. On Difficulties XV (PG 91, 1217A); XLII (1345V). Ibid., XXXI (PG 91, 1280A). Compare: Interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer 677–679: “there is nothing contrary to reason in the logos of nature, since it is both natural and divine law.” Ibid., XLII (1341D 1–6): “Generally speaking, any new dispensation naturally occurs in relation to the tropos of the newly constructed thing, but not to the logos of nature, since the newly constructed logos destroys nature, which does not have an inconveniently counterfeited (ἀρ ᾳ διούργητον) logos, in accordance with with which it exists, while the newly established tropos, if, of course, the logos is preserved in nature, demonstrates amazing power, clearly revealing a nature that acts and endures what exceeds what is established for it.” Ibid., VII (PG 91, 1080BC). Ibid., Χ (1177A): “Every movement... has as its beginning a driving force, and its cause has a goal that calls and attracts it, towards which it moves”; VO XIII, 12–13: “[the logoi] reveal in every creation the divine Purpose.” See: Larchet, p. 118–119; A. Riou, Le Monde et l'Egliseselon Maxime le Confesseur (Paris, 1973), p. 57. On Difficulties VII (1081B): “everything created in essence and origin is in every possible way covered by its own logoi and the logoi of external [things] surrounding it.” Compare: On Difficulties VII (1101 A): “not the same logos of origin and essence. For the first shows when to be, where to be and in relation to what to be, and the second shows being, as well as what and how to be.” On the opposition between the general and the particular, cf.: Proclus, In Parmenidem 980, 30–33: when giving a definition, “we define the general that is in the particular”; 981, 1–5: when giving a definition, “we define the general, calling it “that which is” (τί can)... and not a being distributed in matter and, so to speak, a mortal being.” On Difficulties VII (1084D): “to his own beginning and the reason for which, for which and thanks to which he came into being.” Ibid., XV (1220A): “Everything that has arisen has arisen for activity, and every activity is towards a certain goal, so as not to be incomplete. For that which has no end to its natural actions is not perfect; and the goal of natural actions is to stop the movement of created things towards the Author of their existence.” Ibid., VII (1081 A): “The place of all is God, in whom (παρ᾿ ᾧ) the logoi of everything are motionlessly placed (πςπήγασι), by which He knows everything before its formation, even if it is not brought into being (ἅ μα) with its logoi, but each in its proper place term... is created, and actually perceives being consistent with itself”; 1081AB: “God is the Creator eternally and actively, but created things, when they are in God, are potential (δυνάμει), but not yet actual (ἐνεργε ίᾳ).” Ibid., VII, 1081B: “it is in no way possible for the unlimited and the limited to exist together (ἅ μα ε ἶ ναι), and not to prove in any word that essence and the super-essential could exist together, and not to reduce into identity the measurable with the immeasurable, the relative with the irrelatable and not having any kind of categories by which it could be affirmatively characterize with that which abides with all of them.” Wed: VO II, 7–12 (PG 90, 272A). On the contrary, see: On difficulties Χ (1133A): “We also recognize the logoi, the last (τελευταίους) and accessible to us, of which creation is our teacher (ἡ κτίσις).” On the problem of universals among the Alexandrian Neoplatonists, in the school of Ammonius (son of Hermias), see: Linos Benakis, “The Problem of General Concepts in Neoplatonism and Byzantine Thought,” Neoplatonism and Christian Thought. Ed. Dominic J. ÓMeara (Norfolk, Virginia International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, 1982), 75–86. Benakis records a number of significant differences in the understanding of the relationship between the general and the particular, developed in this school. Thus, he argues (p. 82) that (1) responding to Aristotle's criticism of Plato's doctrine of ideas, the Alexandrians postulate the separate existence of universals in a mode distinct from that of sensible and particular things; (2) commentators no longer speak of the realm of ideas that exist outside the natural world order; (3) ideas exist within private concrete objects, or rather, private objects express the very idea that appears in them. However, the manifestation of an idea does not mean that what is manifest (phenomenon) is identical to this idea; the phenomenon remains a representation of the idea, its copy, the way in which the idea manifests itself; what is manifest is always lower than its idea. The general does not cease to exist as a general when it begins to be present in the particular. Benakis concludes (b. 84) that in the school of Ammonius the general is ontologically primary relative to the sensory and the particular; with the destruction of the sensory (the first essence), it is not the general itself (the second essence) that ceases to exist, but only its comprehension by the mind. The general exists in three ways: as that which is before the many; that which is within a lot; that which relates to many and is thought in connection with them. Compare: Ammonius, In Aristotelis Categoria 26, 10–14: “The particulars are the subject of the generals, not so that the generals exist (for the generals preexist them), but so that the generals may be expressed in relation to them,” 40, 19–21: “The general needs the first, that is, particular entities, not in order to be composed (συστῇ), but so that to be expressed (ῥ ηθ ῇ) in accordance with them.” For the Alexandrian Neoplatonists, universal ideal entities not only have a reality independent of the knowing subject, but also an existence truer than that of sensible objects. The universal is truly the “first” essence (even if called the “second”), which is higher than particular entities on the ontological plane; the particular has an even more true existence within the universal than in itself (p. §1). The logoi of the general and the individual are clearly opposed in Difficulty XV (1228D): "And what, in turn, is the logos of the essence, nature, species, form, composition, power, action and suffering of the invid (τοῦ καθ ᾽ ἕ καστον)? And what, again, is the general logos (ὁ καθόλου λόγος), making the edges come into contact with each other through the average along the border of each [edge]..." Compare also: Difficulty XLI (1313 A): "The logoi of everything divided and partial are encompassed by the logoi of the whole and the generic... The logoi of the particular, manifoldly contained in the logoi of the genera" VII (1080A): “Having the logoi of creatures abiding [in Himself] before the ages, He... brought forth from non-existence a creature corresponding to them... having created and created both everything in general and each one separately... [And] the logos precedes... the creation of each of the essences and forces filling the upper world"; 1080B: “each of the rational and verbal, that is, angels and men, by means of the logos existing in God, according to which it was created, is and is called a particle of the Divinity”; 1085B: “He made each of the creations by willing [it]”; X (1133B – 1136A): “each of the creations, connected with the logoi according to which it was created, has [immutability]... The Creator initially judged each: about its being, and what it should be, and how, and what, and so realized it”; 1189A: “not a single logos of nature inherent in [any of the existing] is violated or merges or merges with another.” Compare: VO XXXV, 36–37: “hidden (ἐγκεκρυμμένους) in the logoi of providence and judgment, ineffable logoi related to the deity (περὶ θεότητος).” Difficulty V (10, 8, 11120–1113B): “Coming into contact through [sense] with that which is outside, the soul, as if from certain symbols, reproduces in itself the logoi of visible things... The feeling, containing only the simple spiritual logoi of the sensory, was raised by the saints to the mind through (διά μέσου) logos. They united reasoning/logos, containing the logoi of being, with the mind in one simple and indivisible understanding.” VO II, 7–12 (PG 90, 272A). Compare: Ibid., X (1169BC): “some of the bodies are sensory and perceptible, and universal (καθολικά); and they are all embraced by all and turn [into each other] from the interchange of any properties inherent in each of them. For the sensual by nature includes the sentient, and the sensuous are embraced by the sentient by the sense, as perceived. The universal is destroyed, turning into the particular through change (ἀλλο ί ωσιν), and the particular into the universal through decomposition (ἀνάλυσιν), the death of some occurs from the emergence of others. For the convergence of universals with each other, making the emergence of particulars, is the destruction (φθορά) of both [universals] from change; and also the decomposition of the particular as a result of the resolution of their connection with the universal, bringing destruction [of the particular], is the persistence and emergence of the universal... This is the structure of the sensory world - the destruction and mutual change into each other and through each other of the bodies that compose it, from which and in which it was realized.” Compare: Maximus the Confessor, Scholia in Ecclesiasten (in catenis: catena trium patrum), ed. S. Luc&, Anonymus in Ecclesiasten. CCSG 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1983), p. 12, 78–80: “our body, as receiving emergence from the destruction of universal elements, is again resolved in them, being destroyed.” Compare: John Scott, Periphuseon III, 706CD; 711D-712AD. Difficulty X (1189CD): “[we determine that God is the Provider] for the general and for the individual, knowing that when all the particulars, without being granted providence and preservation, are destroyed, then the general will be destroyed along with them (for the general tends to be made up of the particulars)... If the general is realized in the particular, completely not accepting the logos of independent existence and implementation, then it is clear to everyone that with the destruction of the particular, the general cannot survive. For parts are in wholes, and wholes are in parts and they are and have been realized. Compare: Nemesius, On the nature of man. Ch. XLIV, On Providence (42, 157–162 Einarson, Russian translation, pp. 191–192): “with the destruction of everything private, the general must also perish. After all, the general is made up of the totality of the particular. Indeed, species are equal to all particulars together and vice versa, and together with them they are destroyed and preserved" ... Ibid., X (1189D-1192A): “saying that Providence guides only the general, they forget that they themselves spoke about the existence of Providence and about the particular ones... For if they say that for the sake of abiding (διαμονῆς), the general ones are vouchsafed Providence [about themselves], then this will indicate that... the private ones will be vouchsafed it, in which [there is] abiding and existence ( ὑπόστ ᾰ σις) general. For one of these two introduces the other together due to the indissoluble natural connection (τὴν σχ ί σιν) of one with the other; and if one is preserved for abiding, then the other is not alien to this preservation. Likewise, if one is deprived of care for its preservation, then it is accordingly said that the other is not granted it either.” Difficulty XLI (131 CHAPTER): “nothing whole, comprehensive and generic can be completely separated from the particular, comprehensive and special, for something that by nature does not collect what is divided by nature cannot be a genus, but is shared with it and emerges from its own monadic unity. After all, every genus, according to its definition/logos, is unifying and indivisible, as a whole in wholes, present in the things subordinate to it, so that the individual from the point of view of generic characteristics is seen as a whole.” About the difficulties V (1052B 6–9): “We know that one is the logos of being, and the other is the tropos of “how”-being, one certifies nature, the other - economy”; X (1180B): “the very being of beings, which has not simple (ἁ πλῶς) but “how”-being (τὸ πῶς ε ἶ ναι), which is the first type of limitation (ε ἶ δος περιγραφῆς)...” Larchet, p. 144. In moral terms, tropos is also considered as a way for an individual to use his natural abilities or properties, cf.: Dispute with Pyrrhus 294A; Difficulty XXI (1248C): “if [the soul] used the senses well...”; XLI (1308C): “but since man did not begin to move naturally...”; XLI (1309D): "we who have been rendered useless by the abuse of the natural power originally given to us." For this distinction, see Sherwood 1955, ch. IV: The Distinction: Logos-Tropos, p. 155–166; Larchet, p. 141–151. On the Difficulties XLII (1341D, 1329A; 1345B); 31 (1280A); 15 (1217A); 36 (1289C). Opuscula 10 (137A): “For each of us acts not as a “someone,” but as a primarily existing “something,” that is, as [simply] a “man.” As “someone,” like Paul or Peter, he outlines a certain tropos of action, defined according to the gnomes by weakening or strengthening, this way or that. Therefore, in tropos we become acquainted with that which, in relation to activity, is changeable from person to person, and in logos, with that which is unchangeable in natural action.” Wed: Ibid., 3 (PG 91, 48AB): “It is not the same thing... to have the ability to speak and to speak. After all, one can always be capable of speaking, but not always speak, since one relates to essence, contained in the logos of nature, and the other to desire, determined by the will of the speaker (τ ῇ γν ώ μ ῃ τυπούμενον). By nature there is always the ability to speak, and by hypostasis there is always “how” to speak.” See: Sherwood 1952, p. 53–55. On Difficulties VII (1084B): “For he becomes (γίεται) in God through attention (προσοχής), without corrupting the logos of being pre-existing in God; and moves in God through virtues, acting according to the logos of goodness pre-existing in God, and lives in God according to the logos of ever-being pre-existing in God.” However, Maxim speaks not only of the “logos for the tropos,” but also, for example, of the “logos of the gnomes.” Larchet, b. 145–146; see: Ibid., paragraphs 127–129, where H.U. is criticized. von Balthasar, Kosmische Liturgie (Eisiedeln, 1961), p. 164; J-M.Garrigues, Maxime le Confesseur, La charite, avenir divin de Íhomme (Paris, 1976), p. 166; I.– H. Dalmais, “L'innovation des natures d'apres saint Maxime le Confesseur [é propos de VAmbiguum 42],” Studia Patristica 15 (1984), pp. 289–290; F.– M. L6thel, Theologie de Íagonie du Christ (Paris, 1979), pp. 69–70. See: Larchet, p. 262, where he argues with the interpretations of other researchers. VO LX, scholium 1 (to line 52). Opuscula 20 (PG 91, 23 6C): “[volition], since it is natural, does not contradict [God]; but since it moves unnaturally among us, it obviously contradicts, and since it mostly resists, sin follows. For it opposes law and logos through the tropos of movement through improper use, and not through the logos of ability by nature.” Er. 13 (PG 91, 517BC): “according to the tropos of economy, and not according to the law of nature, the Word of God came ineffably to men through the flesh”; Er. 12 (PG 91, 492A): “The God-originating Word did not come to us through the flesh according to the logos of nature, but renewed (ἀνεκα ί νησε) our nature according to the tropos of economy, completely uniting us with Himself according to hypostasis. Dispute with Pyrrhus 294A: “to want in a certain way - this way or that, this or that - this is the tropos of using desire, inherent in the individual, separating him by difference from other people”; and above, note. 63. Gregory the Theologian, Definitions, slightly inscribed (PG37, 954, 11–12, Russian translation P. 311): ἕ ξις δὲ ποιὰ πρὸς τὰ πράγμαθ ᾽, ὁ τρόπος ἦ θος δὲ πλάσμα τοῦ τρόπου κατήγορον . Compare: Ibid. (955, 4–5, Russian translation p. 311): “disposition (ἕ ξις) is some kind of permanent quality (ποιότης), and action (την evepyeiav) I call it generation”; (950, 6, Russian translation p. 309): “double-mindedness is deceit of character (τοῦ τρόπου)”, Ibid. (949, 5, Russian lane, p. 309). Gregory the Theologian, Sermon 39, To the Holy Lights (PG 36, 348, 50, Russian translation p. 539): ἄνθρωπος γίνεται. Wed: He, Definitions, lightly inscribed (PG 37, 959, 5, Russian translation p. 313): “The Incarnation of Christ is another creation (πλάσις) of me [man].” Difficulty XLI (PG 91, 1313CD). Compare: Various theological and economic chapters 10 (PG 90, 1182C): “Natures are newly arranged, and God becomes man; and not only the divine, stable and immobile moves towards [nature] movable and constant, so that it ceases to be carried away [by corruption]; and not only the human, seedlessly and in a supernatural way grows perfect flesh for the Word, in order to cease to be carried away [by corruption]....” VO LIII, 116–121: “God became man in order to, through Himself and in Himself, reconstitute (τὸ καινίσαι) the nature of man, which in itself had already grown old, and make it a sharer (κοινωνόν) of God’s nature.” Compare: On Difficulties XLII (PG 91, 1320A): “God [the Word] renewed (ἀνακαινίσας) or, more precisely, renewed (καινίσας) nature, returning it to the original beauty of incorruptibility, through His, [taken] from us, holy flesh endowed with a rational soul." Compare: Opuscula 15 (PG91, 156CD); Er, 12 (PG 91, 492A). Mystagogy VIII, 13–14: “By His coming... [the Savior] again returned [people] to the original grace of the Kingdom.” Larshe points out (p. 263, p. 215) that Maxim usually uses ἀνανεόω, ἀνακαινίζω, ἀνακαινόω, ἀνακαινισμός in the meaning “renew”, i.e. “to redo anew”, “to restore to its original state”, although sometimes καινουργέω is used in the same sense, as in Opuscula 15 (PG 91, 156CD). Maxim uses καινοτομέω to mean “renewal”, “new dispensation” (“introducing something new”), καινοτομία or, less commonly, καινίζω, although he also resorts to ανακαινίζω, while simultaneously emphasizing the unsuitability of this term, cf.: On difficulties XLII (PG 91, 78 1 320A). It is precisely this type of new dispensation, when human and divine natures are united along the tropos of hypostatic union - since neither of them changes in its logos - that is described by Maximus in Opuscula ?9 3 (PG 91, 48CD), see below, note. 79. On Difficulties XLII (1341D). Dispute with Pyrrhus 320C: “The God of all things, having become man, created a new order (ἐκαινοτόμησε) not the logos of nature... but the tropos, that is, into conception from a seed and birth through corruption”; Opuscula 3 (PG 91,48CD): “The Incarnation is a vivid demonstration of nature and economy. I speak of the natural logos of united [natures] and of the tropos of union according to hypostasis: the first fixes, and the second re-arranges (καινοτομοῦντος) natures without change or fusion.” Compare: Dispute with Pyrrhus 308D: the logos of nature is unchangeable, but “nature changes countless times.” Compare: Aristotle, On memory and recollection 452 a 28–30: “Habit (τὸ ἔθος) becomes nature... Just as in nature one thing follows another, so in activity, and frequent repetition makes nature (τὸ πολλάκις φύσιν ποιεῖ)", trans. S.V. Month. See: Larchet, p. 262, paragraph 211, where he polemicizes with the opinions expressed in: A. Riou, Le Monde et VEglise selon Maxime le Confesseur (Paris, 1973); J-M.Garrigues, Maxime le Confesseur, La chariti, avenir divin de l'Hotte (Paris, 1976); F.-M.L6thel, Theologie de Íagonie du Christ, La liberie humaine du Fils de Dieu et son importance soteriologique mises en lumiere par saint Maxime le Confesseur (Paris, 1979); F. Heinzer, Go ties Sohn als Mensch. Die Struktur des Menscliseins Christi bei Maximus Confesser (Friborg, Suisse, 1980). When we pronounce the phrases logos of nature and tropos of existence in succession, their syntactic parallelism pushes us to the false idea that both “nature” and “existence” are some different entities that have, respectively, logos and tropos. However, it should be remembered that there is no existence as a certain substance. Existence belongs to nature. So what we actually have is the logos of nature and the tropos of the existence of that same nature. In both cases, the subject of possession and being is identical - this is nature. Compare: On difficulties VII (1076BD), as well as notes. 455. In Difficulty VII (PG 91, 1097C) Maximus writes that God the Father intended from eternity that people should be in Him. To do this they needed to become members of the body of Christ. People were predestined for this union and, in fact, were created for this (ἐπὶ τούτ ῳ γεγενῆσθαι). The tropos that led them to this goal was the correct use of their natural powers. Wed. also: Difficulty XLI and the sources of this chapter, speaking about the reconciliation of man with God the Father through Jesus Christ: 2 Cor 5:17-20, and Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names XI, 1-5. (1) Through dispassion, man was to discard the distinction between male and female, to become “only human,” to achieve perfect unity with his own logos (1305B 2-3) [here, instead of γνώσιν, which Ohler accepts, one should read ἕ νωσιν, as John Scott does in his translation and in Ρ II, 532C, see: Larchet, p. 108, paragraph 85]; (2) Through a holy lifestyle he would unite the inhabited earth with paradise (1305B, 4–5), and (3) through a life of virtue, which is identical with angelic virtue, earth and heaven (Ibid., 9–10). At the last, fifth, stage, the created through love and by grace is united with the uncreated (Ibid., 5-6). Compare: Maximus, On Love III, 25: “God, bringing into being the rational and spiritual essence, in His highest goodness imparted to it four divine properties, through which He contains everything together, protects and saves those who exist: being, ever-being, goodness and wisdom... He gave existence and ever-being to the essence, and the abilities of the will - goodness and wisdom, so that the creature would communion became what He Himself essentially is. Compare: Diadochus of Photikie, One Hundred Gnostic Chapters 9 (Russian translation with. p. I): “The gift of wisdom and knowledge is the one Holy Spirit, like all divine gifts; but each of these gifts, like all others, has its own special effect (τὴν ἐνέργειαν). This is why the Apostle testifies that to one is given wisdom, and to another knowledge (1 Cor. 12:8). Knowledge through experience (πείρ ᾳ) combines (συνάπτει) the soul with God...” Difficulty XLI (PG 91, 1308 A10-B4). Compare: Maximus, On Love III, 25: “man is created in the image and likeness of God. In the image - as the existing [image] of the Existing and as the ever-present [image] of the Ever-present... In likeness - as good, [likeness] of the Good and, as wise, [likeness of] the All-Wise, being by grace what [God is] by nature. Every rational nature is in the image of God, but only the good and wise are in [His] likeness.” Maxim, Questions and Answers LX, 63–76. Maximus, Chapters on theology and the economy of the incarnation of the Son of God I, 22. Diadochos, One Hundred Gnostic Chapters, ch. I (p. 8): “... love unites the very soul through virtues with God, comprehending the Invisible with an intelligent feeling (αἰσθ ή σει νοερ ᾷ)”; Ch. XXIV (pp. 18–19): “Just as bodily feelings forcefully attract us to what seems beautiful to us, so our mental feeling usually leads us to invisible goods (ἡ τοῦ νοῦ αἴσθησις) ...”; Ch. XXXVI (p. 26): “No one, hearing about the feeling of the mind (αἴθησιν νοός), imagines that the glory of God is seen in a visible way... While we are infused into this corruptible body... we have no opportunity to visibly see either Him or His wondrous things in heaven”; Ch. LXXVI (p. 50): “I, from the divine Scriptures and from the very sense of the mind (ἐξ αὐτῆζ τῆς τοῦ νοῦ αἰσθήσεως) comprehended...” Diadochos, Ibid., Chapter IX (p. I): “Knowledge by experience ( πείρ ᾳ) combines the soul with God...”; ch. XXIII (p. 18): “but when we purify ourselves with more ardent attention (θερμοτέρ ᾳ προσοχ ῇ), we will receive in God what we longed for even more”; (p. 18–19): “we will surely achieve through experience the immaterial sensation (τῆς ἀ ΰ λου ο ὖ ν εἰς πεῖραν αἰσθήσεως), if through labor we refine [our] substance ( τὴν ὕ λην )"; Ch. XLIV (pp. 30–31): “we cannot refuse willingly the adjacent sweets unless we taste the divine sweetness with all sensation and certainty (ἐν πάσ ῃ αἰσθήσει καὶ πληροφορί ᾳ)”; GL. LXXII (p. 48): “The theologian... achieves his measures of dispassion in sufficient breadth... And the knower, strengthened by actual experience (ἐκ τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν πείρας), becomes above passions. And the theologian, if he becomes the most humble, tastes the experience of knowledge (τῆς πείρας τῆς γνωστικῆς), and the knower partakes in a certain measure of contemplative virtue if he has the discerning part of the soul infallible.” Diadochos, Ibid., ch. VII (p. 10): “The spiritual word brings conviction (πληροφορεῖ) into the mental feeling (τὴν νοεράν αἴσθησιν)”; chapter XL (p. 28–29): “to achieve the love of God in everything feeling and with full heartfelt assurance (ἐν πάσ ῃ αἰσθήσει καὶ πληροφορί ᾳ καρδίας)"; GL. XLIV (pp. 30–31). Diadochos, Ibid., ch. XXX (p. 22): “The sense of the mind (αἴσθησις νοός) is the true taste of the spiritual things discerned [by it]. Just as with our bodily sense of taste... we distinguish good from bad... so our mind... can richly experience divine consolation...”; Ch. XXXVI (p. 26): “the soul, when it is pure, feels divine consolation with some indescribable taste”; Ch. XLIV (pp. 30–31); Ch. LXIII (p. 41): “Who has been granted holy knowledge and tasted the sweetness of God...” Diadochos, Ibid., ch. XXV (p. 19): “The very act of our holy knowledge [i.e. Revelations. – V.P.] teaches us that there is one natural feeling of the soul, which, through the crime of Adam, was subsequently divided into two actions; but by the Holy Spirit it is again made one and simple”; Ch. XXIX (pp. 21-22): “as I said, there is [only] one natural sense of the soul (for the known five bodily senses differ according to the needs of our body), this the holy and philanthropic Spirit of God teaches us. But now, in the manifestations of the movements of the soul, it is divided into two, due to the creeping towards evil, which has invaded the mind through disobedience. Therefore, it is sometimes attracted by the passionate part of the soul... sometimes it delights in its rational mental movement... If the Divinity does not effectively illuminate the secrets of our heart, then we will not be able to taste the heavenly good with an inseparable feeling, that is, with the whole disposition of the soul”; Ch. LXXXVIII (p. 62): “For our mind, since it has slipped into the duality of knowledge, has a certain need, even if it does not want, to think good and bad at the same moment, especially for those who achieve the subtlety of reasoning.” E. des Places, "Introduction", Diadoque de Photice. Oeuvres spirituelles. 2-eme ed., Introd., texte critique, trad, et notes de Edouard des Places. SC 5 (Paris, 1955), p. 37–38. Maximus, Mystagogy V, 196–207: “when the soul becomes one, united with itself and with God, and when it is crowned with the first, unique and united Logos and God, then there is no longer any reasoning, in [its] imagination dividing it into many. For in this Logos, as in the Creator and Maker of beings, all the logoi of beings uniformly abide and exist, in accordance with a single and incomprehensible simplicity. Peering into Him, who is no longer outside the soul, but wholly within it, the soul itself will, in simple intuition (προσβολὴν), know the logoi and causes of beings, thanks to which, probably, it slowly advanced through dieretic methods before its betrothal to the Word and God. And through them, she is now carefully and harmoniously brought to the One who creates and contains all logoi and all causes.” Maximus, Questions and Answers XL, 127–130: “in the future God will honor those who exist with knowledge by grace regarding what they themselves and others are in essence, revealing to them also the logoi of their origin - logoi that are uniquely pre-existing in Him”; Chapters on theology and on the economy of the incarnation of the Son of God II, 4: “Just as the arrangement of straight lines diverging from the center is contemplated in it as completely inseparable, so he who is worthy to arise in God will know by a certain simple and inseparable knowledge all the pre-existing logoi of created things in Him.” Maximus, Questions and Answers XL, 135–140: “may Jesus restore to its original state our knowledge, “flowed out” through sin. And may He transform this knowledge into deification, expelling the mind from the [created] existence of beings, strengthening and, as it were, inciting to immutability... the knowledge of [our] nature.” Balthazar, JSC 2/16 (1998), p. 123. Compare: Difficulty XLV (PG91, 1353D): “The first man had nothing between (μεταξύ) God and himself that would impede knowledge (εἴδησιν) and interfere with his affinity [with God] for the movement to God through freely chosen love that should arise.” Maxim, Questions and Answers LX, 59–62. These words are very close in vocabulary to those of Diadochos. See A.I. Sidorov’s commentary to this place: AO 1/23 (2000), p. 44–47. Maximus, Questions and Answers LVI, 145–152: “God alone, as the Author of beings, is the natural Knowledge of beings; Moreover, He is Self-Knowledge (αὐτογνῶσις), as having by nature knowledge of Himself, and this knowledge of Him exceeds [every] reason. By His Infinity He completely and in all things infinitely surpasses the most infinite mind, as a result of which He, in every sense and in every way, is the Creator of knowledge, thus defined, and is inaccessible to any knowledge comprehended by the mind or expressed in word. Compare: Maxim (?), Gnostic chapters. “All knowledge is a connection that combines certain extreme beings, that is, it combines the knowers and the knowables, but it itself is in no way known by the knower and is not identifiable with the knowables. For it is not proper for knowledge to be known in any way. The Divinity, by Its very Being and by the fact that It is in essence, is Ineffable Knowledge, finding existence in the mind, mind and spirit. Therefore, the Divinity is completely unknown to those who exist, being Self-Knowledge. Or, to be more precise, the Divinity is incomparably superior to this Self-Knowledge” (translated by S.L. Epifanovich). Compare: Maximus the Confessor, Difficulty Χ (1153AB): “great is the connection of the intelligible with the intelligible and the sensible with the sensible; and man, consisting of a soul and a sensible body, through an interchangeable natural connection and peculiarity with respect to each of the two parts of creation, is limited and limited, [limited] in essence, and [limited] in possibility, since he is divided into his own corresponding parts and attracts them into unity with himself through his own parts; for by nature it is natural for man to limit himself to the intelligible and sensible, since he consists of soul and body, and to limit them as much as possible, since he thinks and feels.” On love as a means of achieving unity with God or the First One, see: Bp. Afanasy (Evtich), “Prolegomena to hesychast epistemology,” VT 40 (2005), p. 94–100 (74–121). On the Neoplatonic understanding of "eros": John M. Rist, “Α Note on Eros and Agape in Pseudo-Dionysius,” Vigiliae Christianae 20/4 (1966), 235–243; Anne Sheppard, “Proclus' Attitude to Theurgy,” The Classical Quarterly, New Series 32/1 (1982), 215 (212–224). Maximus, Questions and Answers LVI, 148-152: “By His infinity, God completely and in all things infinitely surpasses the most infinite reason, as a result of which He is in every sense and in every way the Creator of knowledge, thus defined, and is inaccessible to any knowledge comprehended by the mind or expressed in word”; Difficulty X (PG 91, I 29A): “A word that gives us the concept only that It exists, and absolutely nothing about what It is (ὅ τι ποτέ δέ ἐστιν)”; Difficulty X (1133C): “seeking the Cause of beings, we learn from them that Such exists (ὅ τι ἔστι), without trying, however, to know what She is in essence (τὸ τίποτε ε ἶ ναι τοῦτο κατ ᾽ οὐσίαν)" Difficulty XVII (1224 Α); ): “So, no totality of everything that is said about God or about what exists around God (περὶ Θεὸν) can ever be the essence of God, since the very thing in relation to which it is said cannot ever express the only position corresponding to the One God - non-relative and completely free from action in relation to anything).” In the same way, for a creature in its present state, created essences are also unknowable, cf.: Questions and Answers XL, 120–127: “not one of the existing things has in relation to itself or another knowledge of what it is in essence (τι ποτὲ κατ ᾽ οὐσίαν ἐστὶν)... the exception, of course, is God, Who is above all things: He simultaneously knows Himself regarding what He is in essence, and foreknew the existence of everything created by Him even before it comes into being”; Difficulty XVII (1224D): “the exact comprehension of even the most recent of creations exceeds the power of the action of our reasoning.” Maxim, Questions and Answers. Letter to Thalassius 410–422: “Let us strive only for divine love, and no one will be able to separate us from God... for through real knowledge, with love unwavering in us, we will receive from Him eternal and ineffable joy and affirmation of the soul. Having been rewarded with this, we will have a saving ignorance in relation to this world... [turning away] from the manifestation of sensory things, around which passions arise..." Maxim, Questions and Answers. Letter to Thalassius 303–313: “Evil is ignorance of the good Cause of beings. This ignorance, crippling the human mind and clearly opening up feeling, made it completely alien to divine knowledge and filled it with passionate knowledge of sensual [things]... Man, having already sinned in relation to the intelligible beauty of divine splendor, mistakenly mistook the visible creature for God and deified it...” Maxim, Questions and Answers. Letter to Thalassius 227–272: “Having neglected the movement of natural forces towards the Goal, the first man fell ill with ignorance of his own Cause, recognizing, on the advice of the serpent, as god that which the word of the divine commandment ordered to be considered forbidden. And, thus becoming a criminal and not knowing God, he firmly connected all [his] thinking power with all feeling and introduced a complex and harmful knowledge of sensual [things] that arouses passion... As much as a person cared about the knowledge of visible [things] by feeling alone, so much did he strengthen the ignorance of God in himself... From here the single nature was divided into thousands of pieces, and we, although we belong to one nature, ourselves, like reptiles and beasts, became prey for each other...”; ibid., 422–433: “Let us look... at the glory of God [shone] in virtues and spiritual knowledge, thanks to which [our] union by grace with God takes place, awakening the mind from all ignorance and fall. For just as, not knowing God, we made a creature sweetly known by sense as God for the sake of the structure of the body [communicated] by it, so, receiving the real knowledge of God accessible to thought, we, for the sake of the structure of the soul for being, well-being and ever-being, will not know any experience of any feeling. Dionysius the Areopagite, BI IV, 6 (150, 8–9; PG 3, 701B); John of Scythopolis, Scholium PG 4, 252B; Dionysius the Areopagite, BI VII, 4 (199, 8–9, 872D); John of Scythopolis, Scholium PG IV, 353C (for the text of these passages, see section 2.3.8). Another scholium (356B), missing from Phocas’ Syriac translation, reads: “He here calls fragmentation the instability and multiple divisibility of consciousness (gnomes).” Compare: John Scott, Ρ I, 535C: “ignorance - whether in angels (for we read that some of them are not yet completely cleansed from ignorance), whether in rational souls - creates separation, whereas in έ, knowledge becomes the cause of unification.” Compare: Maximus the Confessor, Difficulty XLJ (1305A); Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer 122–124 (Russian translation p. 187): “reason (λ ό γος) is the unity of the divided, and unreason (ἀλογ ί α) is the division of the united. So, let us learn to acquire reason for ourselves through action, so that we can not only unite with the angels through virtue, but also unite with God through knowledge of [Him] and detachment from [all created] things.” W. Soppa, Die Diversa Capita unter den Schriften des hi. Maximus Confessor in deutscher Bearbeitung und quellenkritischer Beleuchtung (diss., Dresden, 1922); M.T.Disdier, “Une oeuvre douteuse de saint Maxime le Confesseur: les cinq centuries th έ ologiques,” Echos d’Orient 30 (1931), 160–178; C. De Vocht, “Un nouvel opuscule de Maxime le Confesseur, source de chapitres non encore identifies des cinq centuries th6ologiques (CPG 7715)", Byzantion 57/2 (1987), 415–420; P. van Deun, "Les Diversa capita du pseudo-Maxime (CPG 7715) et la chaine de Nicetas d`H έ racl έ e sur l`Evangile de Matthieu (CPG C 113)", Jahr-buch der Osterreichischen Byzantinistik 45 (1995), 19–24. Compare: Various chapters V, 63–65; V, 67; V, 69 and, perhaps, according to the phrase in V, 83; V, 87–89. The Syriac translation contains only V, 64 (PG 4, 120C); V, 65 (204ВС, 205С); and the first half of V, 69 (344A). The attribution of V, 67 (227BC) is unclear. Scholia V, 87–89 are absent from Syriac and may belong to Maximus. Compare: ps.-Maxim, Various chapters V, 82, PG 90, 1384A (BI IV, 6, 150, 8–14, 701B) and V, 91, PG 90, 1388AB (BI VII, 4, 199, 8–18, 872D-873A). Origen's own position was more complex. Modern research suggests that “incorporeal” for him meant only the absence of a gross earthly body, but not the absence of a subtle, light-like body in general. The soul is always dressed in a body, but the density of the latter depends on its habitat. See: V.V. Petrov, “Body and corporeality in the eschatology of John Scott,” Cosmos and soul..., p. 669–671. On pre-existence, see: On Difficulties XLII (PG91, 1325D-1328A), on the foresight of the fall - On Difficulties VIII (PG 91,1104AB). VO I, 5–13 (PG 90, 269AB). In On the Constitution of Man 16 (PG 44, 185A), Gregory of Nyssa speaks of God foretelling a new method of human reproduction. This method is “bestial” (κτηνώδης), Ibid. 16; 17; 18 and 28 (PG44, 181V; D; 193V; 232C). On the distinction between man and woman, see: Ibid. 16; 17 and 22 (PG44, 185A; D; 189C; 205A). See also: John of Damascus, ch. XXX (44) – On foreknowledge and predestination (Russian translation, pp. 231–233). VO LIX, 262–283 (PG 90, 613D–616A). Thunberg (1985, p. 60) suggests that Maxim was trying to avoid this danger. However, Sherwood notes that Maxim sometimes thinks in terms of the identity between beginning and end (Sherwood 1955, pp. 90–91). VO LXI, 13 (VO, BT, p. 75). Compare, perhaps: Ibid., LIX, 262 (AO 1 (19), 1999, p. 67): “through crime, man left behind his beginning along with being (ἅ μα τῷ ε ἶ ναι). Balthasar understands ἅ μα τῷ ε ἶ ναι as “simultaneously with the entry into being” (AO 2 (16), 1998, p. 124). His opinion is shared by Larchet (see: Larchet, p. 187). Compare: Irenaeus of Lyon, Against heresies IV, 38, 1 (Russian translation, p. 433): “If someone says: what then? could not God have presented man as perfect in the beginning? then let him know that... [people] do not have perfection as not uncreated... They are in an infantile state, and therefore untrained and not yet trained in relation to a perfect way of life. Just as a mother can provide perfect food to a baby, but he cannot yet accept food from an older age, so God could at first give perfection to man, but man could not accept it, for he was still a baby”; 39, 2 (Russian translation p. 437): “How can one be God who has not yet become a man? How will something just produced be perfect? How immortal, who in his mortal nature did not obey the Creator? For you must first observe the rank of man, and then participate in the glory of God.” Wed. also: Leontius of Byzantium (PG 86, 1348D): “On what basis should the body of the one who was first created be incorruptible? He was not immortal by design, much less incorruptible. Because if he were in such a dispensation, he would not need to eat from the tree of life...”, trans. O. Dionysius (Shlenova). VO XLII, 7–18 (p. 110). Wed: Macarius of Egypt, Spiritual words and messages 45, 3, 2: “The body of Adam was not incorruptible, but was [something] in between incorruption and corruption,” as well as A.G. Dunaev, “Preface” in the book: Rev. Macarius of Egypt. Spiritual words and messages... p. 198 words Letter 10, to John Cuvicularius (Asmus, p. 72): “man, by the gift of God who created him, received as his inheritance dominion over the entire visible world and, by way of abuse, turned the movements of the natural forces of the mental essence that are in him to what is against nature, and brought into himself and into this whole world, according to the righteous judgment of God, the change and corruption that now possesses them, so that he, moving towards what is against nature, The immortal power of the soul was not preserved indefinitely, which is not only extreme evil and the most obvious falling away from the true essence of man himself, but also a clear denial of Divine goodness.” Compare: Macarius of Egypt, Spiritual Words and Epistles 4, 30, 10: “through the body of Adam, the first man, death destroyed the whole world,” A Word on Ascetic Life I (Russian translation, p. 75). Epistle to John Cuvicularius about love (Russian translation, p. 148). Chapters on Love III, 25. Dispute with Pyrrhus (PG 91, 324D): “man is the image of the Divine nature... The archetype by nature became also the image by nature”; VO LIII, 93–95 (PG90, 501B): “To one [i.e. the image] is inherent in accomplishing true contemplation of spiritual logoi, and the other [i.e. likeness] - to fulfill the exact and impeccable performance of the commandments.” Compare: Opuscula 1, scholia 2 (PG 91, 37ВС): “Person, that is, hypostasis; nature, that is, essence. For essence is what is conformed to the image, logos; and living according to the likeness is a hypostasis.” Diadochus of Photicus, One Hundred Gnostic Chapters, ch. 4 (p. 9): “We are all people in the image of God; to be in the likeness of God belongs only to those who, out of great love, have enslaved their freedom (ἐλευθερίαν) to God”; Ch. 89 (pp. 62–63): “Holy grace gives us two benefits through baptism that regenerates us, one of which is immeasurably superior to the other. It gives one thing immediately, namely, in the water itself it renews all the features of the soul that make up the image of God... and the other expects to be produced in us together with us - this is what makes the likeness of God... The holy grace of God first, through baptism, restores in man the features of the image of God, putting him in the state in which he was when he was created; and when he sees that with all our will (προθέσεως) we desire the beauty of the likeness of God... then virtue after virtue, blossoming in the soul... gives it the features of the likeness of God..." Maximus the Confessor, Chapters on Love III, 25: “God, bringing into being a rational and spiritual essence... imparted to it four divine properties... being, ever-being, goodness and wisdom... He gave existence and ever-being to the essence, and the abilities of the will - goodness and wisdom, so that the creature through communion would become what He Himself essentially is. That is why it is said that man was created in the image and likeness of God.” Porfiry, Isagoge sive quinque voces. Περὶ διαφορ ᾶ ς (ed. Α . Busse), p. 9, 24 – 10, 21: “[Differences inseparable and existing in themselves (καθ ᾽ αὑτὰς) are divided into] those according to which we divide genera into species, and those according to which divided [things] form a species (εἰδοποιεῖται ... For the essence of the living, “animate” and “sensing” are a constituent difference (ἡ διαφορὰ συστατική), for the living is an animate and sentient entity, and the differences “mortal” and “immortal”, as well as “reasonable” and “unreasonable” for the living are dividing differences ( διαιρετικαὶ διαφοραί ), for through them the genus ["living"] is divided into species)... The same [differences], applied in one way, become components, and in another - dividing, and all of them are called species-forming. There is a great need both for divisions (τάς διαιρέσεις) of genera, and for definitions (τούς ὁρισμούς)..." See: Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, ed. J. Alberigo, P. P. Jouannou, C. Leonardi, P. Prodi (Freiburg i. V., 1962), p. 62, 35 ff. Compare: Cyril of Alexandria, Epistle to Nestorius (PG 77, 45ВС and 48ВС): “we say that the Word, having united with itself by hypostasis flesh, animated by a rational soul, ineffably and incomprehensibly became a man, became the Son of man not by will alone and good will, not by the perception of the face only; but we say that the natures truly united with each other, although different, but of these two these natures there is one Christ and the Son. We do not imagine that in this union the difference of natures was destroyed, but that divinity and humanity, through an ineffable and inexplicable descent, remained perfect, revealing to us the one Lord Jesus Christ and the Son... Thus, we confess Christ as one and Lord, not in such a way that we worship the Word and at the same time man; no idea of ​​dissection is introduced here with the word “together”, but we worship the One and the Same... If we began to reject the hypostatic union as something unattainable and inappropriate, then we would have to recognize two sons, because then it would be necessary to make a division and call one the actual person awarded the title of Son, and the other the actual Word of God, as having the name and the very fact of sonship by His nature. Therefore, we must not divide the one Lord Jesus Christ into two sons.” BI VIII, 9 (PG3, 897C, Russian translation p. 271): “If someone interprets inequality (τὴν ἀνισότητα) as universal differences (δια φοράς) of everyone in relation to everyone, then Justice protects them too, not allowing that the resulting mixture (σνμμιγῆ γενόμενα) of everything with everything leads to complete disorder, but preserving everything that exists in accordance with the form of each in which it is natural for each to be.” There is a scholia for this place: “Notice that [Dionysius] speaks of inequality and the general difference of all in relation to all and that such inequality is protected by God’s justice. Note that there is also natural inequality (φυσικὴ ἀνισότης)”; cf.: XII, 4 (972B). Leontius of Byzantium, Adversus argumenta Severi (Epilysis) (PG 86/2, 1921C). Aka, Triginta capita adversus Severum 23 (PG 86/2, 1909A). Cf. J.P. Junglas, Leontius von Byzanz. Studien zu seinen Schriften, Quellen und Anschauungen (Paderborn, 1908), p. 70 ff. (Forschungen zur christlichen Literatur- und Dogmengeschichte 8/3). Compare: VO II, 12–22 (PG90, 272B): “God, through [His] Providence, likens particular [beings] to the whole (πρὸς τὰ καθ ό λου τῶν μερικῶν) until He unites through movement towards well-being their self-willed desire (την αύθαίρετον ό р μην) with their natural, more general logos (τῷ γενικωτέρ ῳ λόγ ῳ) rational essence, and will not make them identically moving and consonant with each other and to the whole so that the particulars have no gnomic difference in relation to the whole ( διαφοράν), but so that the same logos is contemplated by everyone, without being shared (διαιρούμενος) by the tropos of those in whom it is equally reflected (τοῖς τῶν καθ ᾽ ὧ ν ἴσως κατηγορεῖται τρόποις), and until He truly reveals the grace that deifies everyone.” Er. 15 (PG 91, 556A and 561AB). Opuscula 14 (PG 91, 149D): “Difference can also be essential, [that is,] logos, according to which the essence (or nature) remains undiminished and unchangeable, as well as undisplaced and unfused; and, accepting descent into one hypostasis with another, [belonging] to another species, does not at all lose the nature that is its own by nature.” Ibid., 21 (PG91, 249C); cf.: On the difficulties of LXVII (PG91, 1400С). It seems that here in Maxim ἀφοριστική is equivalent to Porfiriev’s διαιρετική; in a similar place, Leontius (perhaps for Christological reasons) additionally uses the term συστατική (Epaporemata [vel] Triginta capita adversus Severum) 13, PG 86/2, 1909A). Balthasar discussed at length the positive meaning of the concept of difference, considering it the most characteristic feature of Maximus' theology (Kosmische Liturgie, pp. 63 f. and 117; cf. pp. 153, 258 and 327). Mystagogy II (PG 91, 668C). On Difficulties VII (PG 91, 1077C): “Who, knowing that God brings beings from non-existence into being by word and wisdom, when it is reasonable, directs the contemplative faculty of the soul to the infinite variety of existing natures (τῇ φυσικῶν τῶν ὄντων ἀπείρ ῳ διαφορ ᾷ) and their diversity And with a testing mind will mentally distinguish (συνδιακρίνοι) the logos by which they were created, will not consider one logos to be many logos, co-differentiated in inseparable difference (τ ῇ ἀδιαιρέτ ῳ διαφορ ᾷ) emerged things, due to their characteristics, unfused (τήν ἀσύγχυτον ἰδιότητα) with each other and with themselves? and [will not count] many [logoi], by raising all [things] to it - one, existing, as in Himself unconfused (ἀσυγχύτως ὑπάρχοντα) [with others], realized and hypostatic to God the Father by God the Word, as the beginning and cause ( ἀρχήν καὶ αἰτίαν ) everything?” Compare: 1080AB: “We believe that... He Himself is ineffable and incomprehensible, and is beyond (ἐπέκεινα) all creation and the diversity and diversity existing or imagined in it (τῆς διαφορ ᾶ ς καὶ διακρίσεως); and that He is in everything that is from Him, in the appropriate way (κατὰ τὴν ἑκάστου ἀναλογίαν) splendidly appears and multiplies, and presides over everything in Himself...” In On Difficulties X (PG 91, 1169C) the same thing is said about the relationship between the general (τὰ καθόλου) and the particular (τὰ μερικά). Epistle to John Cuvicularius on love, p. 149: “[love] recreates man in the unity of logos and tropos, equalizes and makes all gnomic inequalities and differences equal in everyone.” At the Council of Constantinople in 553, διαίρεσις in Christ was rejected. As stated above, even before Cyril of Alexandria denied that in Christ there is φυσικὴ διαίρεσις (Ep. 40 ad Asac. Melit., PG 77, 196A), making a distinction between the permissible διαφορά (Scholia de incarn., PG 75, L385С) and rejected διαίρεσις (Adv. Nestor. 2, 6, PG 76, 85B). In relation to anthropology, cf.: Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul (PG 46, 157, 12–15, Russian translation p. 255): “The first ear of corn was the first man Adam, but... with the emergence of vice, nature was divided into many (εἰς πλῆθος ἡ φύσις κατεμερίσθη)". Maxim, Er. 12 (PG 91, 469V). Leonty, Epilysis (PG 86/2, 1920AC). Maxim, Er. 12 (PG 91, 473C). Scholium to the Church Hierarchy IV (153A and CI, p. 95, fn. 8): “[Even] if the image is indistinguishable from the prototype and is similar to it in everything, it differs in essence... Identity in both differs from likeness (ἡ ταυτότης τῆ ὁμοιότητι διάφορος)". The scholia mostly belong to John of Scythopolis and in some part to Maximus, who in any case knew them as a reader. John Scott's translation of Difficulty XLI was incorporated into the text of the treatise Periphuseion, where it is accompanied by commentaries. See: John Scott, Periphuseon II, 529D-541C, trans. V.V. Petrova, in the book: IFE, p. 97–110. Different meanings of the concept “identity” are considered by Balthasar in the Cosmic Liturgy (Russian translation, see: AO 1 (19), 1999, pp. 108–109). Mystagogy 13 (PG 91, 692D): “And after this [the Word] in an unknown way leads [the zealots of Christian teaching], who have already known all the logoi of existence... to the unknowable unknowable Unit (τὴν μονάδα), uniting (ἑνωθέντας ) them [with Himself] by grace and by participation (κατὰ μέθεξιν) to Himself, likening them in inseparable identity as far as possible (ὁμοιωθέντας τ ῇ κατὰ δύναμιν ἀδιαιρέτ ῳ ταυτότητι ). Ibid., 24 (704D): “By singing “One is holy” and what follows [means] the grace that unites (τὴν ἑνοποιὸν χάριν) us with God himself, and our kinship (οἰκειότητα) [with Him]. The Holy Communion of the most pure and life-giving mysteries is perceived by participation through likeness (κατὰ μεθεξιν δι ᾿ ὁμοιότητος) community and identity (κοινωνίαν τ ε καὶ ταὐτότητα) with God; whereby man is worthy to become god from man.” Ibid., I (665A): “everything is brought to the indestructible and unmerged identity of movement and being.”