ЧАСТЬ III. ДИЭРЕЗА КАК МЕТОД ДИАЛЕКТИКИ И МЕТАФИЗИКИ

3.1. Division and connection as dialectical methods Difficulty XLI speaks of the divisions and unions of created things. What tradition did Maximus the Confessor follow in his constructions? Before answering this question, let's consider what function divisions (and to a lesser extent compounds) performed in Maxim's predecessors. 3.1.1. Four Methods of Dialectics Commentators on Aristotle and Plato taught that dialectic 264 consists of four methods: division, definition, proof, analysis. Philosophers repeatedly talk about this four - Proclus 265, Ammonius (son of Hermias), Elius, David 266, and among Christians - John of Damascus 267 and John Scott 268. Wed. Ammonium: The dieretic method dissects genera into species, and the analytical method collects species into genera. Again, the determinant makes a whole out of parts, and the analytic moves from wholes to parts from which the whole emerges. Again, the demonstrative of the reasons proves what was caused, and the analytical one moves from the caused to the reasons. Thus, everyone has the opposite. At the same time, the divine Plato repeatedly uses all these methods, and praises them in different ways, as in Phaedrus - dieretic and defining, in Philebus - analytical and elsewhere - proving... Analytic is opposite to the other three methods of dialectics 269. According to Proclus, the difficulties associated with the study of ideas-species, with the problem of the relationship between the one and the many, are easily resolved by those who have mastered the art of dialectics 270. At the same time, he defines dialectics as the ability to discuss things that always remain identical to themselves 271. It is composed of four dialectical methods (αἱ διαλεκτικαὶ μέθοδοι), through which we cognize existence 272. If we distribute methods according to their importance, then the “least important” is “evidence-based”, it is surpassed by “definitive”, and the most important is “dieretic”. As said, “diaeresis” provides “definition” with its beginning, but not vice versa 273. “Analytical” is the opposite of all three of the above: it is the opposite of “proof”, as going from effects to causes, and “definition” - as moving from the composite to the simpler ones, “division” - as returning from the more specific to the more general 274. As for divisions, they distinguish the many from the one, they delimit entities that pre-exist uniformly in the Whole into their own differences, without adding differences from the outside, but seeing them as existing within the whole, in the genera themselves, as separating species from each other 275 . Apodeictic of Maximus: method of dialectics or rhetoric? In relation to the discussion of compounds in Difficulty XLI, Maxim's vocabulary is of interest, namely the repeated use of the words “reveal”, “show”, “prove” (δείκνυμι and ἀποδείκνυμι). At each connection, the achievement of greater community is described by him in terms of the demonstration or appearance of some common logos for the previously divided parts 276. The word demonstrate, on the one hand, emphasizes that the general logos does not arise from non-existence (it always exists), but becomes visible in a given being, since the existing becomes almost identical to this logos in the tropos of its existence. On the other hand, the verbs δείκνυμι and ἀποδείκνυμι are widely used in logic, meaning “demonstration through evidence” 277 . Thus, the vocabulary of Maksimov’s reasoning reveals the presence of a logical dimension. It is no coincidence that the concluding part of Difficulty XLI directly speaks of genera, species, individuals, distinctive and accessory characters. True, for Maxim, logos is not so much a logical as an ontological reality - something in accordance with which something exists 278 or maintains its unity 279 . However, this does not negate the logical-dialectical component of his reasoning. The question arises whether for Maximus apodeicticism is not a dialectical method, the opposite of division; method, when the hidden is demonstrated through the obvious, a transition is made from the caused to the causes? Moreover, Maxim considers “division” itself as a method of cognition (this is an imperfect, discursive method, which in the future, when the soul unites with God the Logos, will give way to “simple” contemplation of logoi and causes of existence 280). The question is not idle, for, as we have seen, the question of the methods of dialectics and their functions was constantly discussed among philosophers. However, if we accept that Maxim contrasts “division” (which is discussed at the beginning of Difficulty XLI) with “proof” (when it comes to the “demonstration” of common logoi for connecting parts), this will contradict the stable philosophical tradition, according to which the method “returning” from the composite to the simple and, thereby, from the multiple to the one, is “analysis”. For example, among Ps.-Dionysius and John of Scythopolis, “analytical” refers to the ascent from the diversity of sensory diversity to intelligent simplicity 281 or the return movement 282 . Thus, most likely, the repeated mention of apodeictic in Maximus refers not to dialectics, but to rhetoric 283. 3.1.2. Divisions as a sequence of dichotomies However, Maxim consciously uses the first and most important of the four dialectical methods - the dieretic one, and there were good reasons for this. Dieretics as a developed logical method was already demonstrated by Plato 284 . Aristotle uses this procedure more than once 285, but also does not overestimate its capabilities 286. In Aristotle's embryo one can find logical partitions, which later receive a complete form in the so-called logical tree of Porphyry 287. In Porphyry and his successors (Boethius, John of Damascus), the levels of the tree of divisions correspond to the hierarchical level of being (existent, animate, living, rational). It is important that the mentioned divisions were considered by ancient philosophers mainly within the framework of logic; no metaphysical conclusions were drawn from them. Christian authors, on the contrary, are primarily interested in metaphysical divisions. At the same time, they less often built extended sequences of divisions, limiting themselves to postulating the division of the created into the intelligent and the sensible: Gregory the Theologian 288, Gregory of Nyssa 289, Maximus himself 290 and others write about this. However, in Gregory of Nyssa (who was the source of Maximus in relation to the division into created and uncreated, as well as the division into male and female), one can also find more detailed sequences of dichotomies. For example, in the treatise Against Eunomius, Gregory twice mentions the sequence of universal divisions “existent, sensible and intelligible, created and uncreated,” in which the first and “highest” dissection is the division of “existent” into intellectual and sensible, and only then the intelligent is divided into created and uncreated 291 . This sequence of divisions is different from that discussed in Difficulty XLI, where the most common element is “creature.” Elsewhere, Gregory writes about the tree “existent, created and uncreated” 292. In each case, the highest element is postulated to be “being,” and “created” and “uncreated” are its types. From a dogmatic point of view, this kind of hierarchies of divisions are incorrect, because they postulate the presence of a community of “beings”, which includes both God and creation. In contrast to what we find in Gregory, the dichotomies of later Christian authors (cf. John of Damascus) no longer differ much from the Porfirievs. 3.1.3. Division into male and female As stated, the division of man into male and female plays an important role in Difficulty XLI. This type of division does not belong to the logos of human nature, but was introduced by the Fall. God created it in anticipation of the Fall so that the ancestors expelled from paradise could continue their race, reproducing no longer like angels (this mode of reproduction would have been available to them in paradise), but like cattle. Moreover, although the division into male and female is inherent in the vast majority of living organisms, 293 for the theology of Maximus the Confessor it is exclusively anthropological. The origins of this unorthodox theory go back a long way. If we talk about philosophy, then in ancient anthropology, the doctrine of the perfect person was developed, as a being free from the division of the sexes. In the dialogue Symposium, the myth of the androgyne is told by Plato 294. Aristotle in Metaphysics discusses the issue of the division of the sexes within the framework of logical science: “Why do not a woman and a man differ from each other in appearance, although the feminine and masculine are opposite to each other, and the difference in appearance is an opposition?... Since we have, on the one hand, definition (λ ό γος), and on the other, matter, then the oppositions related to the definition create a difference in appearance, and the oppositions associated with matter do not create such a difference... Matter does not create a species difference; therefore, [individual] people are not types of man, although the flesh and bones of which this man and this one consist are different. True, the composite whole here is different, but in appearance it is not different, since there is no opposition in the definition here... Male and female... do not belong to the essence, but are contained in matter and body, therefore from the same seed arises female or male, depending on what change it undergoes” 295. Proclus also writes on this topic 296. It is important that Philo of Alexandria, an authority for Christian authors, believed that man, created in the image of God, was different from the present sensory: he was intelligible, incorporeal and was not yet divided into male and female 297 . The gnostic doctrine of the identity of the biblical “leather vestments” with the earthly (different for men and women) body, added to the subtle body of the soul after the Fall 298, penetrated into Alexandrian theology and was further developed. Under the influence of the Alexandrian, post-Origenian tradition, Gregory of Nyssa 299 believed that, without the Fall, man would not have had a fleshly body in its current form, i.e. a body subject to growth and decrepitude, having primary and secondary sexual characteristics, reproductive function, etc. And man would multiply not in a carnal, but in a spiritual way, like the angels. Only in anticipation of the fall of people and their subsequent expulsion from paradise into rough earthly reality, God prepared them ahead of time for this kind of life, dividing man into man and woman 300. This division does not correspond to true human nature and is forced, conditioned by the free and at the same time sinful choice of the person himself. According to Gregory, after the resurrection from the dead, when man becomes like the angels, the division of the sexes will be abolished 301. As already noted, these ideas of Gregory of Nyssa were the starting point of the Difficulty XLI of Maximus the Confessor we are considering (section 2.3.7). 3.1.4. Connection via middle term Space is not only divided, but also connected. With regard to the topic of divisions and compounds in ancient philosophy, the epistemological component prevailed, and therefore divisions, which allow one to achieve precision in the consideration of existence, are considered in much more detail than compounds. Christian theology, on the contrary, was more interested in the metaphysical aspect - the connection of world gaps. That’s why Maxim pays more attention to connections. Connections are the inverse of divisions, so the natural way to represent them would be to move back through the levels of the logical tree, replacing the dichotomous descent with an ascent to the generalities that embrace the divided parts. Another way of connecting is to connect the extreme terms through the middle one. It can be used to connect edges that are spaced both vertically and horizontally. Let's consider this type of connection in more detail. Plato's discussion of "means and ends" can be found in a cosmological context. For example, in the “vision of Er” a light pillar-brace (ούνδεσμον) is described, connecting the vault of heaven, to the center of which the ends of the sky bonds are pulled together (τὰ ἄκρα αὐτοῦ τῶν δεσμῶν) 302. When Plato speaks of God’s composition of the body of the universe, he notes that “it is necessary that in the middle between one and the other some connection should be born that collects them,” i.e. opposites must be united by means of a middle term 303 . First, Plato speaks of numerical proportion, then of the combination of two-dimensional and, finally, three-dimensional bodies, the connection of which requires the presence of not one, but two terms 304. The cosmos is a whole, composed of wholes 305. In the arrangement of the cosmos, everything is adjusted to each other through means 306. The principle of connecting edges through the middle is widely used by Aristotle. In relation to logic, dozens of times the two extremes, connected by a third term (ὅ ρος μέσος), are spoken of in the Analysts (and, accordingly, in such commentators of Aristotle as Alexander of Aphrodisias). But the same terminology is also used to describe the combinations of the four universal elements. Developing what Plato said in the Timaeus, Aristotle postulates the presence of four simple elements (earth, water, air, fire), which are based on four properties (dryness, hotness, moisture, coldness). Each element is defined by a pair of these qualities, which provide mediation of opposites and interactions between elements 307 . Aristotle extends the principle of mediation to the field of psychology. Sensory sensation becomes the average that connects the extremes in the sensed 308. The terminology of “edges and middles” is also used by Aristotle in ethics. Virtue is associated with the mean, while excess and deficiency are associated with vice (in this case, of course, there is no question that virtue, as the “average,” connects vices through itself) 309. Proclus applies the rule of connecting means in almost all the cases described above, as well as when describing the heavenly divine triads 310. The work of Hellenic philosophers naturally entered Christian theology. Reasoning about the interaction of universal elements through four properties is reproduced by Nemesius of Emesa 311. He also talks about how man connects the world through the mediation of edges. Among the Church Fathers, man is understood both as a mediator between the sensual heaven and earth 312, and as a connecting link between the divine and the human 313. Christ was traditionally presented as the Mediator between God the Father and man 314. Following the ap. Paul Dionysius the Areopagite portrays Him in the role of the universal Reconciler, ending the enmity of all against all that is eternally raging in the universe, and ultimately reconciling man with God the Father 315. The image of the Cross, drawing the four cardinal directions to its center 316, has also become widespread. 3.2. Types and mechanisms of connections from Maxim 3.2.1. Connection as a transition to greater community A short text attributed to Maximus lists more than a dozen types of compounds 317 . In the original texts of the Confessor, the main attention is paid to the hypostatic union. The hypostatic union must meet two conditions: (1) the natures being united remain unchanged in it; (2) they come into contact directly (there is no intermediary between them). Hypostatic connections are understood by Maximus as σύνθεσις, “addition”, “composition” 318. The advantage of this term was seen in the absence of associations with bodily mixture, which were obvious in κρ ᾶ σις and μῖξις, terms borrowed from Stoic philosophy and widely used by the Cappadocian Fathers 319. Nevertheless, sometimes Maxim speaks of addition and perichoresis, carried out through mixing 320. According to Maximus, σύνθεσις is a combination in which, despite inseparability, the natures of the constituent parts are preserved 321. The idea of ​​this kind of unity, marked by the preservation of the polarity “non-fusion - inseparability,” was developed in Neoplatonism. For example, Proclus writes about how ideas-species (τὰ εἴδη) are mixed in their community. He says that in divine things there is at once both unfused unity and inseparable distinction (ἕ νωσιν ἀσύγχυτον καὶ διάκρισιν α᾿ δια ί ρετον), so that they are immediately found in each other and keep their purity intact. Intelligible species can be simultaneously united and differentiated (ἥ νωται καὶ διακέκριται), they do not lose either their unmixed purity in the connection, or their divine community in differentiation, but at the same time they are distinguished and mixed through the connection given by Eros. Such discretion, Proclus believes, simultaneously connects and distinguishes the thinking forces of the sensory world 322. This is precisely the character of hypostatic unity for Maximus the Confessor 323. In addition to the fact that the types of connections themselves are different, a more subtle differentiation within a connection of the same type is also possible. At the same time, the emphasis is on the mechanism by which such a connection is realized. For example, in Difficulty XLI Maxim builds a whole sequence of connections: the masculine and the feminine, the ecumene and paradise, heaven and earth, the sensual and the intelligible, are united. At the same time, the path of connections is presented as a process of ascent along the hierarchical ladder of being from more particular natures to more and more general ones. Each time Maxim speaks of the manifestation of a certain logos, higher and more general than the logos of each individual part 324. This leads to the fact that the logos begins to perform the function of αἰτ ί α συνεκτική, covering the parts subordinate to it. Moreover, each such logos begins to play the role of a middle term (cf. Proclus’s opinion in 3.2.3) between the more specific and the more general, and the sequence of connections itself is built into something like a logical tree. 3.2.2. Connecting the extremes through the middle term Section 3.1.4 examined examples of connections through the middle term in Maxim's predecessors; in 3.4.7 they will be considered in relation to Difficulty XLI. Here we will indicate several cases of their use in other writings of the Confessor. For example, in the triad “being, being, ever-being,” the first and third terms are called “edges,” and the middle one mediates them 325. The soul is the “middle ground” between mind and feeling, or between God and matter 326. Accordingly, through the medium of the soul the body is also assimilated to God 327. The mechanism of mediation is hidden from the human mind, and a person is unable to understand the mechanism of mixing the elements in his body, and can only state the existence of such a connection (1228C). Notable examples of epistemological means: thinking (νόησις) and thought (νόημα) serve as a connection between the mind and the thinkable (τὸ νοούμενον); sensual and feeling (τὰ αἰσθανόμενα) are connected through feeling 328: representation - imagination (τὸ φανταστικόν) and represented-imaginary (τὸ φανταστόν) are connected through image-appearance ( φαντασία) 329. The world is outlined by man, or more precisely by his spiritual forces - thought and feeling, and man himself, by virtue of his finitude, is outlined by the world in body and soul 330. Extremes come into contact through the middle, where their borders and limits meet 331. When extremes are connected to each other through means, they do not damage each other 332. This means that connecting the cosmos through the middle does not destroy the edges ontologically. 3.2.3. Assimilation and assimilation in connection When Maxim speaks of bringing together universal extremes through means, the middle terms are man’s own parts: his body, sensation, reasoning and mind. Maximus represents this kind of connection as the “assimilation” (οἰκε ί ωσις) of extremes to each other 333. As a parallel, one can cite the reasoning of Proclus, who said that likening (ὁμο ί ωσις) is carried out in three ways: (1) through a common subject, (2) through a higher cause, which collects those under it, (3) through a middle term, which serves as a connection between the two extreme ones 334. Difficulty XLI involves the last two 335s. 3.2.4. Exchange of properties and movement towards each other in connection What happens when different natures interact? They can (1) exchange properties when diametrically opposed qualities change places. Maxim speaks of such “perichoresis” not only in relation to the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in Christ, but also in relation to the interaction of created natures 336. In addition, the principle of collaboration is widely used: Maxim speaks of “reciprocal giving” (ἀντιδ ί δωμι) or interaction, the counter-movement of natures towards each other, their interdependence 337 (the principle as much as discussed in 1.17). 3.3. Epistemological aspect of connections: cognitive abilities and ontological hierarchy The third union (sensual heaven and earth) is accomplished in likeness to the angels in virtue. Fourth (sensual and intelligent) - through likeness to angels in knowledge. How do angels know? Why will a person in this State gain knowledge of everything that exists? Traditionally, three ways of cognition have been identified, corresponding to three levels of reality. God knows otherwise, an angel knows otherwise, and man knows otherwise. Types of knowledge correspond to three levels of the human soul: mind, reasoning, opinion. The mind (angel), which has risen to simplicity above the multiplicity of individual thoughts, does not comprehend separately and in particulars, but uniformly, in a condensed form, grasps everything through simple and undifferentiated intuitions. Reasoning (the soul or man in his discursive activity) cognizes through a consistent transition from what is already known to the still unknown. Maximus shares this vision not only with Ps-Dionysius and John of Scythopolis, but with Ppotinus, Proclus and Ammonius. Unlike theologians, Proclus and Ammonius discuss in detail the specifics of the cognitive abilities of the soul, as well as dialectics and its methods. According to Proclus, for the three levels of reality - intelligible, sensory, and intermediate (which includes the objects of geometry), there are three types of knowledge and cognitive activity: mind, opinion and reasoning. The mind grasps in “single comprehension” (προσβολ ῇ), indivisibly (ἀθρόως), in direct contact (ἐπαφ ῇ) with existence 338. The properties of reasoning, on the contrary, are the following: “phasing of his discretion (τὸ διεξοδικὸν τῶν ἐπιβολῶν), operating with objects [of consideration] separately (τὸ ταῖς διαστάσεσι τῶν ὑποκειμένων προσχρώμενον) and the preparation of some of its principles through others reduces it to a more modest category in comparison with nature, indivisible and entirely affirmed in itself” 339. Proclus writes about the relationship between mind and reasoning in relation to the specifics of their cognitive activity. The nature of reasoning is intermediate, it is characterized by stages, unfolding and unfolding of the folded grasps of the mind. At the same time, it brings the divided discretions back together and brings them to an intelligent unity: “Reasoning is inferior to the mind and higher knowledge (ἐπιστήμης), but it is more perfect, more accurate and purer than opinion, because, although it consistently reproduces (διεξοδεύει) and thereby unfolds (ἀναπλοῖ) the immeasurability of the mind and unfolds the convolution of the intelligent grasping (ἐπιβολῆς), it nevertheless reassembles what has been divided and brings it to the mind. Therefore, just as cognitions exist separately from one another, so the knowables differ in nature, and the intelligible surpasses everything in the uniformity of existence, and the sensually perceived is inferior in everything to the first essences” 340. Such ideas go back at least to Plotinus, who writes that in the realm of the intelligible: “everything is present [at once], so that there is no [reasoning] from one to another or transition from another to another ( ἐπ᾿ ἄλλο )" 341. According to Proclus, reasoning uses dialectics in its action. The latter is the crown of the sciences, standing above them all; it is the purest part of philosophy. Depending on the nature of scientific knowledge, certain methods of dialectics are used - analysis, definition, diaeresis and proof. Dialectics reveals generic and specific differences, teaches synthesis and analysis. Analysis is associated with reduction to perfection, diaeresis with discrimination, and definition and proof with mental activity in general. Analysis is opposed to synthesis: synthesis derives from the beginnings what follows the beginnings, and analysis goes back to the first and the beginnings. The mind from above provides reasoning with a starting point and leads it to perfection. After the completion of the dialectical operations inherent in reasoning, the “immateriality and purity” of mathematical science is raised back to the simplicity and immateriality of the mind, i.e. to the undifferentiated discretions of the cognized 342. The methods of dialectics are defined by Proclus as follows: the method of division (τὴν διαιρετικὴν) is responsible for establishing species, the method of definition is for determining the essence (τοῖς οὐσι ώ δεσι λόγοις), the method of demonstration is for transitions ( μεταβάσεσι) from the beginning to the wanted one, the method of analysis is when returning (ταῖς ἀνατροφαῖς) from the wanted one to the beginnings 343. 3.3.2. Ammonium (435/45–517/26) Ammonium highlights the intelligible, reasoning and imaginative abilities. The mind comprehends through simple intuitions (ἁ πλαῖς ἐπιβολαῖς). Rational activity belongs to the realm of reality intermediate between the intelligible and the sensible - to mathematical objects. It is this process that is carried out step by step, from one to another, with the help of inferences and evidence: “of the three cognitive powers existing in the soul (γνωστικῶν δυνάμεων) - intelligible (τῆς νοερ ᾶ ς), reasoning (τῆς διανοητικῆς ), imaginary (τῆς δοξαστικῆς) – neither the first nor the third, but only the middle one, can conclude (συλλογίζεσθαι). For the first, striving towards itself through enlightenment emanating from the mind, knows what it knows through simple intuitions. And the third receives only conclusions from the average. Therefore, it is also called opinion (δ ό ξα) from “receiving” (τὸ δέχεσθαι). And the middle one is the one that cognizes step by step from one to another (διεξοδικῶς ἀπ ό ἄλλου ἄλλο). That is why it is called reasoning (διάνοια) - from “passing” (τὸ διανύειν) or “exposition” (διεξιέναι). This inferential faculty cognizes and proves things in us through inferences. [It] is followed by an opinion that receives from it [only] the conclusions of the evidence. For example, through inference and evidence, reasoning (ἡ διάνοια) finds and knows that the soul is immortal. Bypassing the various evidentiary premises through which this is proven, opinion receives only this conclusion - “the soul is immortal” - and imagines without [the need for] evidence. And reasoning cares about inferences and evidence. Therefore, for us, reasoning is an inferential ability. 344 Again, among things, some are intelligible, others are sensible, and others are between the two. I mean that one does not conclude with respect to the intelligible, and not with respect to the sensible, but only with respect to the average [between them]. They do not make inferences about intelligible things, since the theologian cannot prove intelligible things through inferences, but he uses analogy and this is fair 345 . After all, inferences prove from the causes to the caused, and from the more general to the more specific. And intelligible things are the first and most general among all other beings. Therefore, it is fair that no conclusions are [made] regarding the former. After all, they cannot be defined through the cause itself, since definitions consist of genera and distinctive features. And there is nothing higher than the first. Inferences are not made regarding the sensory. For I know that milk is white not through inference, but directly through feeling. [Thus] there are no inferences either in relation to the first or in relation to the latter, but [only] regarding the middle ones, which are called rational (διανοητά), since they are known through inferences gradually and step by step (διανυστικῶς καὶ διεξοδικ ῶ ς), such as mathematical objects (τὰ μαθήματα). After all, they are known through inference. For [object mathematicians], of course, are not known through feeling. After all, geometers call knowledge of theorems (θεωρημάτων) through abstraction (ἐξ ἀφαιρέσεως). After all, a geometer talks about the general form of a triangle or a square in itself, abstracting from whether it is made of wood or copper, or simply matter and everything that is equally accessible to the senses. Thus, what is responsible for inferences among us is not intelligible, not imaginative, but reasoning” 346. 3.3.3. PS.-Dionysius and his scholiasts What Proclus and Ammonius discuss in relation to the various cognitive levels of the soul, the ps.-Dionysius and John of Scythopolis (younger contemporaries of Ammonius) apply to the cognitive activity of angels and people, who are correlated with “minds” and “souls” (and later, texts of this kind will form the basis of the fragment of Maximus the Confessor “What are and how many movements does the soul have” 347 and the basis of reasoning about the reception by man knowledge of equal angels in Difficulty XLI). Let us consider the representations of Ps.-Dionysius and John of Scythopolis in more detail. But first we must describe a higher cognitive level - the one that is characteristic of God himself. a) Divine knowledge. A characteristic feature of divine knowledge is that God knows everything in advance, from the inside and in its entirety, even before its emergence in changeable existence: ps.-Dionysius, BI VII, 2 (196, 12–16, 869A): “the divine Mind contains everything in knowledge, which is beyond everything. As the Cause of everything, He has in Himself in advance the understanding of all things. Before the angels came into being, he knows the angels and brings them into being. He knows everything else from within (ἔνδοθεν) and... from the very beginning, and leads them to being.” [Scholia 348 4 VS: “... God has knowledge [of creations] ... not from studying what they are. After all, [Dionysius] explained this, saying: “Not from existing things, studying existing things,” and: “not by looking at each one (κατ ᾽ ἰδέαν ἑκάστοις ἐπιβα᾿ λλων)" 348 - but, being the Creator of such, He has knowledge of His affairs, knowing what they are, as well as what for the sake of which He will bring them into formation"] 349. God knows beings not through the study of beings or through experience: ps.-Dionysius, BI VII, 2 (196, 17–197, 2; 869AV): “After all, the divine Mind, studying existing things, has knowledge not from Itself, but from Itself and in Itself. As the Cause, He preexists and precontains knowledge, knowledge and the essence of everything, not judging each separately (κατ ᾽ ἰδέαν ἑκάστοις ἐπιβα᾿ λλων), but knowing and containing everything, as a single Cause embracing them.” John of Scythopolis, scholium 348 6 D-349Ä “...God as the Cause has in Himself the knowledge of everything, not acquiring it from experience (τ ῇ πείρ ᾳ), since in this case God will turn out to be born later than knowledge, or for some time not knowing...” John of Scythopolis, scholium 429 3 B-431A to TB V: “God himself does not know existence as it is, i.e. cannot approach the sensible sensually or to beings as beings, for this is not characteristic of God 350 . People perceive what is sensible, either through sight, or taste, or touch; We understand the mental either through study, or through teaching, or through insight. God knows what exists, not using any of these methods, but possessing the knowledge appropriate to Him. This is what is meant by the expression “He who knows everything before he was born” (Dan. 13:42), showing that God knows things in a way that is not characteristic of the existence of things, i.e. not sensually, but in a different way of knowing... God knows things in an incomparable and superior way, without being likened to them.” [Another interpretation: Divine Nature, looking at Itself, does not know that there is a being in It according to the logos of [its] essence. He clarified this by saying “as it is,” since He is above all that exists and has acquired existence itself superessentially. Otherwise, it is impossible to say that God does not know His creations]. b) Angelic knowledge. Second after the divine is the way of knowledge characteristic of angels. It exceeds that of souls. Souls comprehend existence by studying it, but angels have more god-like knowledge, they comprehend without scattering. To the extent this is possible for souls, especially after the resurrection. John of Scythopolis, scholium 345BD to BI VII, 2 (195, 8, 868B): “angels... comprehend existing things in a manner immeasurably superior to that of souls, since souls comprehend (νοοῦσι) existing things from existing things themselves and are attached to them] through species (τοῖς εἴδεσιν ἐπιβάλλουσιν) 351, i.e. they think more from one to another (διεξοδικ ώ τερον) and [at the same time] go around everything in a circle. After all, angels, due to their inherent God-likeness (ἐνοῦσαν), comprehend the multitude of creation alone and are not divided, scattering among the diversity of beings (meaning sensory ones), like rational souls. To some extent, souls are also rewarded with this in imitation of the angels, when, knitting together the thoughts of many things, they collectively have everything in themselves incomparably differentiated. Nevertheless, souls have thinking as brought from without (ἔξωθεν ἐπε ί σακτον), while angels, being God-like, think from themselves and in themselves 352... And what we said about souls, that they think like angels, weaving many things together, they will have this to the greatest extent at the resurrection, when, again finding themselves in their bodies, they will perceive perfect knowledge (γνῶσιν) of existence. [This will happen in full at the resurrection of the righteous, according to what was said: “And so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17), and also: “Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face” (1 Cor 13:12), i.e. let us learn a clear knowledge of existence"] 353. The more human knowledge is involved in the mind and less in feeling, the more angelic it is. ps.-Dionysius, BI VII, 2 (197, 14–16, 869C): “Angels know what is happening on earth, not cognizing things with the help of their senses... but according to the power and nature inherent in their god-like mind.” John of Scythopolis, scholium 349BC: “The angels know about what is happening on earth, not through the application (προσβάλλοντας) of feelings to the sensory, as we do, but by the application (ἐπιβα᾿ λλων) of a higher ability they understand... [Note that it is not through the senses that the angels have knowledge of the sensible, for they do not use our senses, but the ability and nature of the mind]" 354. ps.-Dionysius, NI XV, 3: “in terms of feelings [man] is the least in comparison with other abilities of dumb animals, but surpasses everyone with the abundant power of his mind, the advantage of the art of speech...” John of Scythopolis, scholium 105 6 CD to NI XV, 3: “The dumb are characterized only by feelings, which guide them, being unreasonable. But for us, feelings play a small role, because we are guided not by them, but by the mind, which is why even after death we still exist, being a rational soul. And angels do not have feelings in the slightest degree, but what is characteristic of us is a rough imprint [of what they have]... [Angels do not use the feelings that are characteristic of us, but far surpass us in their abundant mental power, just as man, with his height of intellect and reason, dominates his dumb nature."]. c) The soul and its knowledge. Like Proclus and Ammonius, John of Scythopolis speaks of the undifferentiated intuition of the mind - ἁθρό ᾳ τοῦ νοῦ ἐπιβολ ῇ, and the ps.-Dionysius connects the activity of reasoning with phasing and moving from one to another 355: ps.-Dionysius, BIIV, 9 (153, 17–154, 1, 705B): “the soul moves, as far as... is illuminated by divine knowledge, not intelligibly and uniformly, but rationally and step by step, as if mixed and associated with the transition [from one to another] actions (μεταβατικαῖς ένεργε ί αις )" 356. ps.-Dionysius, BI VII, 2 (195, 12–16, 868BC): “Through divine Wisdom, souls are endowed with rationality, gradually and in a circle walking around the truth of beings. Because of their partiality and multifaceted diversity, they do not reach single minds, but by folding many things together, they are rewarded with equal angelic understandings, as far as it is characteristic and accessible to souls.” Scholia 348A to this place: “Gradually (διεξοδικῶς) and in a circle means that the human soul is crowned with divine knowledge not through the undifferentiated intuition of the mind (ἁθρό ᾳ τοῦ νοῦ ἐπιβολ ῇ), but receives true understanding (τὴν κατανόησιν) of existence from what is divided into parts (ἐκ τοῦ κατά μέρος), and therefore does not achieve angelic vision of God, [but] gathers around the one Cause the thought of what is contemplated in diversity and [then] rewarded with equal understanding of the angels.” The considered ideas undergo a significant transformation in Maximus the Confessor, but nevertheless remain recognizable. Maxim also talks about three cognitive levels - mind, reason and sensory sensation: “The saints teach about three universal, united movements of the soul: one corresponds to the mind, the other to reason/word (λόγον), the third to feeling. The first movement is simple and inexplicable (ἀνερμ ή νευτον). Unknowably 357 performing it around God, the soul cannot in any way recognize Him [departing] from any existing thing because of God’s superiority. Another movement defines the Unknowable as the Cause. Performing it in a natural way, the soul, through the activity of scientific knowledge (ἐπιστήμην), applies to itself all the natural and formative logoi corresponding to this knowledge of the One Whom it cognized only as the Cause. The third movement is difficult. Contacting through it with what is outside, the soul, as if from certain symbols, reproduces in itself the logoi of visible things” 358. Thus the mind deals with God, apprehending Him in docta ignorantia. Reasoning” is a word addressed to created beings, cognizing it in scientific knowledge. From the rational structure of the world, it finds that God exists as the Cause of a good world order. The lowest cognitive level is sensation, which deals with many individual sensory-perceptible forms. Cognition of existence as such is secondary for Maxim. The main thing is to discern in each created object its logos - the divine meaning, purpose and purpose. The understood and assimilated meanings should be offered as a gift to the Creator, ascending to him and chanting him: “If the saints ever moved towards contemplation of existing things, they did so not in order to... first of all contemplate and cognize this existing thing itself, but in order to glorify God in a variety of ways, who exists and is revealed through everyone and in everyone...” 359 Thus, from the side of the cognizing subject, the path of cognition becomes a process of consistent sublimation of the sensually perceived into the intelligible, and the intelligible into the pre-thought: “The feeling, containing only the simple spiritual logoi of the sensory, was raised by the saints to the mind through reason. They united the understanding, containing the logoi of existence, in one simple and indivisible understanding with the mind, and they brought the calmed mind, completely freed from movement in relation to all things and even from its most natural activity, closer to God, and in it [the mind] wholly reduced to God, they were worthy through the Spirit to mingle with God as whole with the whole” 360. Each cognitive ability has its own function: “The saints taught: the mind - to turn its thoughts around God alone and His virtues and unknowably perceive (ἀγνώστως ἐπιβάλλειν) the ineffable glory of His bliss; reasoning/word - to become an interpreter and praiser of the thought and to reason correctly about the troposes uniting it; the feeling, ennobled by reason and reproducing in the imagination (φαντασιουμένην) the various forces and actions of the universe, is, if possible, to proclaim to the soul the logoi of all things” 361. At the same time, a feature of Maxim’s ideas is the bifurcation of each of the cognitive abilities: “from God we received a soul that has a mind, reasoning/word and feeling, and this feeling feeling, in addition to the mental 362, as well as the spoken word, in addition to the internal (τῷ ἐνδιαθέτ ῳ), and the enduring mind (τ ό ν παθητικ ό ν), in addition to the intelligible, which [the enduring mind] is also called the imagination (φαντασίαν) of a living creature, since with its help other animals recognize each other, us and the places they have visited; and according to the sages, it is in this feeling that such images arise, for it is an instrument of the soul that perceives what appears to it (τῶν αὐτ ῇ φαντασθέντων)" 363. This duality of each faculty can be partly explained by the influence of Diadochos of Photikius, although the idea of the enduring mind as imagination-memory has a different source. It is characteristic that the triad νοῦς – διάνοια – αἴσθησις was transformed by Maxim into the triad νοῦς – λ ό γος – αἴσθησις. The transition from “reasoning” to “word” leads to the fact that the intermediate ability is no longer associated only with discursive thinking, but also with speech practice. Hence, logos is associated with the internal and spoken word 364, it glorifies the thought, etc. So, the mind circles around God 365. Reasoning using “dieretic methods” and in “scientific knowledge” explores the logoi of the created, comprehending that they are from God. It knows God only as the Cause. Sensation delivers sensory data, purifying them from the variety of external (“symbolic”) forms to logoi. Ascent of the mind to God. The path of gnosis and “philosophy” (φιλοσοφ ί α) is the path of reunion, the path to God. First, one must learn to distinguish, under the diversity of sensory forms, the spiritual logoi of beings - the spiritual meaning of things 366. Saints who see spiritual logos under the visible surface of things “proceed directly to the knowledge of God” 367, for the purpose of contemplating things is the praising of God 368. This is a cognitive process: sensation and reason refine what is perceived. sensory objects from visible forms to logoi, and in thinking many logoi are brought into a single knowledge 369. In the process of transition from one cognitive level to another, the subject of contemplation itself does not remain unchanged, but undergoes a personal transformation, which is “mental sublimation”: the saints elevate their feeling to reasoning, and reasoning to the mind, in order to ultimately bring the mind as a gift to God 370. However, the study of the logoi of existence is useful only up to a certain point. In epistemological terms, logoi are “tropos of what is perceived.” As such, they make possible only a partial comprehension of Wisdom 371. Knowing them does not help to comprehend God, but only leads to the discovery that God exists 372. During the spiritual ascent to God, at some point it is necessary to abandon the economic logos (the logos of creation, providence and judgment), which also become an excessively motley multitude. Just as before the contemplator was dissipated by the diversity of sensory forms, so now the very presence of knowledge about created things, the very presence of thinking, which presupposes a subject-object division, associated with the Dual, becomes a burden. sphere of material 373. Having ascended into God, into the Logos, which contains all logoi, the saint receives knowledge of all created logoi 374. Moreover, “logoi pertaining to God” become accessible to the holy mind: “[The mind] is rewarded with theological grace... when it finds itself in God and, as far as is accessible to the human mind, considers through the spirit the logos relating to Him (τὸν περὶ αὐτοῦ λόγον).”375 However, what becomes visible is not those logoi that reveal the divine essence, but the logoi of what is around God. The created mind perceives in God that which is directed towards creation, i.e. Its house-building properties: “When [the mind] finds itself in God, then it, inflamed by love longing, first of all seeks logoi, which relate to the essence of God 376, but does not find consolation in the fact that there is God Himself (ἐκ τῶν κατ ΄ αὐτὸν) 377, for this is impossible and beyond the strength of any arisen nature. Therefore, the mind is comforted by the fact that the surroundings of God (ἐκ τῶν περὶ αὐτὸν), - I mean, it is comforted by what relates to Eternity, Infinity and Limitlessness, as well as by what relates to the Goodness, Wisdom and Power [of Him], which creates beings, provides for them and judging them" 378. “When you are going to theologize, do not seek the logoi of God Himself (τούς κατ᾿ αὐτὸν λόγον), for neither the human mind nor any of those who are after God acquires them. But consider, if possible, what is around Him (τούς περὶ αὐ τόν), for example, what relates to His Eternity, Infinity, Infinity, Goodness, Wisdom and Power, which creates beings, provides for them and judges them. For among people he is a great theologian who reveals these logoi even to a small extent” 379. Thus, the object of the mind is still only the most luminous theophanies, which, however (as Maximus points out elsewhere), perform an anagogical function: “...the admiration of the mind by the divine and boundless light in the very impulse of prayer, when it does not feel at all itself or anything that exists, but only One Who so illuminates it with His love. Then, moving around the logoi that relate to God (περὶ τούς περὶ θεοῦ λόγους), the mind perceives pure and obvious images of Him that relate to Him” 380. And the logoi of God Himself are infinitely removed from all created nature. They are inaccessible to created beings. They cannot be thought because they exceed thinking and are beyond it. They remain unknown to man, since there is no connection between them and the nature of beings, by virtue of which it could perceive them (τὴν επώεχομένην σχέσιν). However, these divine logoi are paradoxically present within beings (τοῖς οὖ σιν ἐνυπάρχοντες), creating them and holding them in being. They also form the core of the logoi of Providence and Judgment 381 accessible to man. Ultimately, the question of knowledge of logoi is removed by itself, since at this stage all intellectual activity ceases and man becomes a god by grace, his soul and body are transformed, the tropos of human existence changes from human to supernatural and divine 382 . A transition is made from the knowledge of all things to the acquisition of divine blessings 383. Let us make a reservation that the transition of the body into the soul, the soul into the mind, and the mind into God, described by Maxim, does not mean the abolition of the body in the physical plane - it is only ennobled 384. The connections and ascensions discussed in Difficulty XLI are not an ontological process of “refining” the lower strata of being into higher ones. Natures remain unchanged. The existence of the subject undergoes changes, which is accompanied by psychosomatic changes (transformation of the body, changing state of consciousness). For a person, this means the transformation of reality “in the spirit” (the created spirit and the Holy Spirit). 3.4. Universal divisions and unions in Difficulty XLI 3.4.1. Difficulty in interpreting divisions Difficulty XLI begins with the words that the hypostasis of everything the created is divided into five divisions, the created is separated from the uncreated (i.e. from God) by ignorance, and itself is divided into the intelligible and the sensible; the sensible is divided into heaven and earth; earth - to heaven and the inhabited earth; “person” – into masculine and feminine. Man was brought into existence last, as the crown of creation. His task was to unite in himself all the dissections of the world, since he had within himself body, feeling, reasoning and mind merged into one whole. If man had not sinned in Adam, he would have been able to unite four of the five divisions mentioned. Through dispassion he would cast aside the distinction between male and female, becoming “only human”; through a holy way of life he would connect the inhabited earth with paradise, and through a life of virtue, which is identical with angelic virtue, earth and heaven (his body would become light, like that of the angels); through knowledge equal to that of the angels, he would unite the sensible and the intelligible (he would embrace with knowledge all created things, like the angels). At the last, fifth stage, through love and by Divine grace, the created would be united with the uncreated. The feat of five connections was carried out by Christ, who ultimately appeared in his humanity before the face of God the Father (cf. Ps 26:8). Out of context, Maximus's phrase about the separation of created nature from uncreated nature can be interpreted inadequately: it may seem like a pantheistic statement. Of course, for the Confessor there can be no talk of some single nature being cut in half. Before us is orthodox Christian philosophy, and the trajectory of the author’s reasoning is set by doctrinal dogmas. Between God and creation (between the nature of God and the nature of creation) there was an abyss (χάσμα). The author does not imply either a division of a certain totality, including both God and creation, or a division of God himself. There is also no dissociation from the creature on the part of God: He is at once transcendental to the creature in essence as irrespective (ἅ σχητος) and absolute (ἀπόλυτος) 385, and at the same time immanent to it, present in every thing in the form of logoi 386. God brings creation into being not by separating it from Himself, but in the act of creating it out of nothing. After excluding the above-mentioned options, there remains isolation on the part of the creature, especially since, despite the words about the separation of “created nature from uncreated”, which seem to delineate this pair as a certain totality, it is clearly stated that the “hypostasis of all that have arisen” is dissected into five divisions, i.e. only the created world 387. Thus, the first division takes place not within the created (separating its parts), but along its boundaries (separating the created as a whole from the uncreated). But what is the nature of this division, its context? This is not the only question that may arise. Having barely mentioned divisions, Maxim then focuses on describing compounds. Actually, they are the only ones that interest him. If you look more closely, you will notice that the effect determines the cause: the mentioned cosmic partitions (precisely these, and not others) are given to Maxim by the logic of connections, which he will discuss later. The divisions are natural and understandable only in the context of their removal, when Christ successively removes them 388. From the perspective of removal, rupture appears as something that requires merging and healing, which is carried out by the God-man. Here, too, there are a number of ambiguities. If the reunions brought about by Christ are seen as a good thing, does that mean that the world order in its current structure is something flawed that requires healing? But then why did the world become divided? Isn't this a consequence of the Fall? Was the world created by God in such a way that the divisions arose all at once, or did the divisions occur sequentially, in the reverse order to that described for connections? Maxim always associates “ignorance” with evil, which means that the “first division” happened as a result of the Fall? But Maxim himself gives a positive definition to the world order, calling it “bright,” and the book of Genesis teaches that what was created is “good” 389. The ambivalence of the ontological and, accordingly, axiological status of distinctions between created things is well expressed in the scholia to the Areopagite Corpus, compiled by John of Scythopolis: [God] remains Himself, although it seems that [His] will differs (διακρ ί νεσθαι) when bringing others into being. For the First Cause and Conqueror of all discrimination, i.e. the passage of everything into existence is the indivisible Genad of God” 390. The passage into being is equivalent to the emergence of distinctions. The Divine Genada, as leading creatures to being, is thereby indirectly the cause of the differences that arise in creation, which are not characteristic of Her herself (therefore, John considered it more appropriate to call Her not the cause, but the pre-cause of the differences). At the same time, She is the Conqueror of distinctions, as she preserves Her unity undiminished and, moreover, imparts it to all creation 391 . The same can be said regarding the function played by the logoi of creation in Maximus. On the one hand, as logoi of Judgment, they are associated with discrimination. On the other hand, they perform a connecting function, which is proven by the reasoning of Difficulty XLI. According to what was said above, the value status of universal divisions is also doubled. 3.4.2. Divisions and cosmogony A river flows from Eden to water Paradise and then divides into four ends Gen 2:10 If you are not familiar with the teachings of Maxim, then the first thing that comes to mind is that you can try to correlate the five universal divisions with Shestodnev’s narrative, but here inconsistencies immediately begin. In fact, on the first day of creation, the first creature was created - “heaven and earth.” If we take this literally, then we are immediately talking about the third Maximov division and it is not clear what the first two correspond to. The situation can be straightened out if, following some medieval exegetes, we assume that what is meant is “spiritual” heaven and earth, i.e. smart, angelic world. Then they will be the first creature, and we receive the first division. On the second day the firmament was created - the bodily sky, the first sensory essence. This is the second division. The appearance of land (corporeal earth) will be the third division. Then you will have to skip the rest of the first chapter of Genesis, including the story of how on the sixth day God created man, male and female, “in His own image and likeness.” Having also omitted Genesis 2:1–7, which once again speaks of the creation of heaven and earth, the creation of man “from dust,” we can correlate the narrative of Genesis 2:8–16 about the planting of paradise in the East with the fourth division. The fifth division will correspond to the story of the creation of Eve. It is clear that such an interpretation is unconvincing due to its artificiality, obvious stretches and direct contradictions to the teachings of Maximus 392. Nevertheless, whether Maxim intended it or not, the initial part of Difficulty XLI is perceived as a cosmogony. This is due to several reasons. The main one is that Maxim consistently describes universal divisions in a descending order 393 - from top to bottom and from general to particular (first, the created is separated from the uncreated, then within the creation the intelligible is delimited from the sensible; the sensible is divided into heaven and earth, the earth - into paradise and ecumene, that is, into an uninhabited and inhabited area; a person inhabiting this earth, into his the queue is divided into two floors). This descent from God to man and from the general to the particular gives the impression of describing the creation of the universe. And although we rejected the possibility of correlating Maxim’s divisions with the history of Shestodnev, some parallels are striking. In fact, the first chapter of the book of Genesis speaks three times about separation: “And God separated the light from the darkness... And he separated the water that was under the firmament from the water that was above the firmament... And God created... the lights... and set them in the firmament of the heaven... to separate the light from the darkness" (Genesis 1:4–18). The fact that we are talking about the beginning of the world is, as it were, emphasized by the subsequent argument, in which Maxim twice describes the process of reuniting world gaps. Such reunions belong to the sphere of eschatology, and therefore the divisions opposing them are naturally associated with the beginning of world history. The divisions were associated with cosmogony, with the narrative of Shestodnev already by Philo of Alexandria 394. In his treatise On Who Inherits the Divine, Philo has a lengthy discussion about divisions. God Himself unites everything with His Word and divides everything with Him - both the sensually perceived and the speculative (τὰ λόγ ῳ θεωρητὰ) - into innumerable and indescribable parts 395: In the same way that the Artificer divided our soul and our members in the middle, in the same way when He created the world, He divided the essence of the universe. Taking it, He began to divide (διαιρεῖν) it like this. First, he made two cuts (τμήματα) - into the heavy and the light, distinguishing the denser from the lighter. Then He once again divided each part: the light part into air and fire, and the dense part into water and earth, which He established as the fundamental sensory elements of the sensory world. And again He divided the heavy and the light according to other ideas: the light into cold and hot (and he called the cold air, and the hot by nature fire), the heavy into wet and dry, calling the dry earth, and the wet water. In turn, each of them received further cuts. The earth was divided into continents and islands, water - into seas and rivers, and countless drinking springs, and air - into summer and winter solstices, fire - into useful (after all, fire is insatiable and destructive), and by another division - into saving, which is allocated to make up the sky. And also, like the most important ones, He also cut apart the particular ones, some of which were inanimate, and others animate. And He divided the inanimate into those who remain in the same [place], the connection of which is structure (ὧ ν δεσμὸς ἕ ξις), and into those that move, but not by changing place, but by increasing, and this is the nature of living beings without imagination (ἀφάνταστος ἐζ ῴ ου )... And He did not [limit itself] to dividing only into inanimate and animate (after all, the latter are distinguished into the type of irrational and the type of rational), but also carried out another division, dividing the irrational into the type of wild [animals] and the type of tame, and the rational - into the type of immortal and mortal. But in mortals two parts were produced, one of which He declared to belong to husbands, and the other to wives. And He divided the other types of living beings into male and female. And they adopted other necessary dissections, separating the birds from the land-dwelling, the land-dwelling from the water-dwelling, and the aquatic again into two edges. This is how God, who sharpened His universe-dissecting Word (τὸν τομέα λόγον), divided the formless and qualityless essence and the four elements of the world isolated from it, and the animals and plants established through them 396. Philo further argues that God made the mentioned divisions exactly along the middles, so that the number of the heaviest (earth and water) is equal to the number of the light (air and fire), the number of the driest (earth) is equal to the number of the wettest (water), the number of the coldest (air) is equal to the number of the hottest (fire). And in the same way He separated light from darkness, day from night, summer from winter, autumn from spring, etc. 397 Those separated are equal not only in number, but also in magnitude. These are the parallel circles of the celestial sphere: equinoctial - spring and autumn, and tropical - summer and winter solstices. And on the earth there are belts, two zones equal to each other - at the poles, they are cold and therefore uninhabited, two more - bordering the previous ones and the hot zone, are inhabited due to the beneficial mixing [of extremes], and one of them lies to the south, while the other lies to the north. The next section (148–150) is devoted to divisions of time: Philo speaks of the length of days and nights, equinoxes and solstices, and the annual movement of the sun. He then discusses the parts of animals and their proportionality (151–152). Those who have learned the subtleties of what pertains to nature say that the four primary elements are in proportional equality (ἀναλογί ᾳ ἴσα ἐστίν), and the whole world is mixed and composed in the proportion of parts in order to remain perfect. Dryness, humidity, cold and heat are mixed in proportional equality, and we ourselves are nothing more than a mixture of four forces mixed in proportional equality (152-153). The structure of the smallest of living beings is proportional to the structure of the greatest, and therefore man is equated to the whole world, since both consist of a body and a rational soul, and therefore man is called a tiny (βραχύν) world, and the world is called a great man (154–156). Equality divided man into husband and wife for the production of a third like them (164), etc. This text by Philo demonstrates a developed practice of diaeresis that existed long before the Tree of Porphyry. Here this method is applied by Philo to Shestodnev’s narrative. World creation is associated with differentiation; the Word of God itself is “dissecting.” God, through Him, arranges and builds the world as proportionally balanced in extremes through means. At the same time, divisions are certainly good. In Philo’s reasoning, the ideas characteristic of Maximus about the separation of creation from the Creator, caused by the Fall, are completely absent. Therefore, divisions should not be overcome, etc. 3.4.3. Divisions in the context of Gnosticism and Pythagoreanism As has been said, the manner in which Maximus introduces the universal divisions, as well as the logic of the subsequent reasoning, gives the impression, albeit only apparent, that the beginning of Difficulty XLI is a kind of cosmogony. This evokes associations with other cosmogonies. Mythological, theological and philosophical systems offer only a few ways of creating the world. In addition to the Christian doctrine of creation from nothing (the laws of nature and logic do not apply here), this could be the demiurge’s ordering of existing chaos or formless matter (then the demiurge and matter coexist forever); it may be a manifestation of something hitherto hidden (for example, John Scott represents the emergence of the world as a transition from a potential state to an actual one). A special case is the idea of ​​a lower world that appears as a result of separation from the higher. It has already been mentioned that there is an analogue to such a concept in the first chapter of the book of Genesis, where God separates light from darkness, water from waters, which is natural, since every creation presupposes differentiation and design. In relation to cosmogonies, the concept of “division” or “separation” appears in Pythagorean sources describing the coming into existence of the Dyad. For example, in the Theologumena of Arithmetic attributed to Iamblichus, it is said that “the first Dyad separated itself from the Monad, and therefore is called daring” (τ ό λμα) 398. At the same time, the Dual is associated with matter and nature, the world of formation and the relative: “The Pythagoreans also bring matter closer to the dual, since matter is the beginning of otherness in nature, and the dual is in number” 399. In Valentinus' gnosis the division corresponds to what Neoplatonists would understand as emanation. It is believed that when Plotinus insisted that there are no breaks in the process of emanation, he did so in polemics with the Gnostics 400 . At this point, the Valentinians are closer than Plotinus himself to the neo-Pythagorean sources that they and Plotinus have in common. The themes of gnosis, ignorance of the Creator and the thirst to know Him, the motive of separation from a higher being are clearly expressed among the Gnostics. According to Valentinus, the Thought of Wisdom longed to explore the Father, and since He was incomprehensible, suffering penetrated into the Thought. Both of the latter were separated from Wisdom and Pleroma, and this is how the material world arose. In Christian circles this teaching was known through Irenaeus 401. The given parallel between the divisions of Maximus and the Gnostics at first glance seems too distant. However, in Maxim’s texts one can find repeated references to the material binary, which he associates with matter and passion. For example, in a commentary on the words of Gregory the Theologian that the saints overcame material duality, Maximus shows that he, like Gregory, is well aware of the associations of duality with matter and irrational lust: “In words, to become above the material duality... [Gregory the Theologian] says that the saints became above matter and form, from which bodies [are made up], or above flesh and matter... It is also possible that the teacher called anger (θυμός) and lust (ἐπιθυμία) the material duality, due to the fact that they are forces addressed to matter and passionate part of the soul" 402. Maxim devotes an entire chapter to refuting the doctrine that matter is co-eternal with God. At the same time, he represents God as a Unit, and matter as a binary: “The two is not limitless, not without beginning, not motionless... it cannot be the beginning of anything, being described both by unity and by division. By unity - as existing from the addition of units with which... it is encompassed, and into which... it can be dissected... (for nothing divided... or complex... can be infinite... Everything that is contemplated in relation [to something], and the infinite is without relation...); and by division - as moved by the number from which it began and by which it is embraced, since it does not by nature have an independent existence... The two moves as a number that receives its existence from units by means of connection... And the unit is immovable, since it is not a number, can neither be counted nor countable (for the unit is neither a part, nor a whole, nor a relation)... The Divinity is above all division and addition, and parts, and the whole... It is irrespective (ἄσχετον)... And this, probably implying, the great and divine Dionysius said:... The Divinity is neither a unit nor a trinity in our or anyone else's understanding... No one... will not be able to call a duality (or set) beginningless or, in general, the beginning of any being...” 403. Maximus speaks here a language of arrhythmology, virtually indistinguishable from the language of Iamblichus and Anatolius in the Theologumena of Arithmetic. Wed: “The two were also called “movement”, “becoming”, “change”, “division” (διαίρεσιν), “distribution”, “increment”, “addition”, “communication”, “relative” (τὸ πρ ό ς τι)... The two are hostile and... the most opposite to the monad, as matter is the opposite of God and the body is the opposite of the incorporeal. She is, as it were, the beginning and root of the otherness of number, in the likeness of matter; and it seems to be opposed to the divine nature, since it is considered the cause of decay and change of things, while God is the cause of identity and indestructible constancy... Duality (δυάς) is so called from “origin” and “transition” (διιέναι καὶ διαπορεύεσθαι ). The two were the first to separate from the one, which is why it is called “insolence” (τόλμα); if one represents unity, then the adjacent two represents division (διαχωρισμ ό ν). In addition, the duality posits the first beginning of a qualitative relationship (τῆς πρός τί πως σχέσεως)... It is also called “nature” because it is a movement towards being and, as it were, a kind of formation and spread from the seed logos...” 404. Dual is matter, it moves, it is relative, it is opposite to God. Moreover, for Iamblichus and Valentinus, the generation of the material is presented as a “separation”, so characteristic of Difficulty XLI. The material is characterized by “insolence”, associated either with a falling away from the Unity, or with a persistent desire to know the latter 405. Maximus more than once speaks of the “material two,” which he identifies with “rage and lust” (θυμὸν καὶ ἐπιθνμίαν) 406. Of course, Maximus the Confessor was neither a Gnostic nor a Pythagorean, but the way in which universal divisions are introduced at the beginning of Difficulty XLI brings to mind some of the characteristic features of the Gnostic cosmogony. When reading Maximus, parallels with Christian Gnosticism arise more than once, as happens when reading authors belonging to the tradition of Alexandrian theology - Clement, Origen. Let us recall that the key terms for Alexandrian theology and Gnosticism are “gnosis” and “logos” and are also key for Maximus. It is also characteristic that, in contrast to the way Philo presented divisions, for Maximus divisions are perceived through the prism of the Fall 407. 3.4.4. Divisions and the logical tree of Porphyria Many researchers interpret the five general divisions of Difficulty XLI as a modified Porphyry tree. The artistic persuasiveness and figurative brightness of the text play a significant suggestive role here. However, if you take a closer look, you will notice a number of fundamental differences. The Tree of Porphyry postulates the existence of a highest kind, an "essence", which is then subject to divisions. In the Middle Ages, these divisions were reproduced by Boethius 408 and John of Damascus 409. It is typical that they do this in special works on logic. In relation to the real world, the postulation of some higher givenness is problematic, since both philosophers and theologians do not always accept existence as the highest category. It is clear that for Christian theology - which has spent so much effort emphasizing the uniqueness of God, incomparable with anything created, 410 and emphasizing the ontological abyss separating Creator and creation - it is dogmatically unacceptable to talk about any community that includes both God and creation, since this makes God part of something greater than Himself. However, as we have seen, Gregory of Nyssa did not see the danger in postulating existence as a category common to both the Creator and the creature (section 3.1.2). Moreover, two Christian philosophers directly dependent on Maximus considered it logically permissible to talk about this kind of community. For example, the same John of Damascus writes that “essence, on the one hand, superessentially embraces (περιέχει) the uncreated deity (τὴν ἄκτιστον θεότητα), on the other hand, gnostically and circumstantially ( γνωστικῶς καὶ περιοχικῶς) - all creation..." 411. And John Scott (Eriugena) speaks of nature or “the universality that constitutes God and creation (universitas... quae deo et creatura continetur) 412. This view was an exception to the rule, but it was nonetheless formulated 413 and appears to have been influenced by the text of Maximus under discussion. After all, if above the “man Peter” and “man Paul” there is a genus “man,” then above the pair “created nature” and “uncreated nature” we can assume the genus “nature,” which is what John Scott does. There, however, in Maximus the beginning of the sequence of divisions is located no higher than the pair created / uncreated. Actually, there is no pair as such either, for Maxim does not write about the division of something into created and uncreated: it is said 1) about the five divisions of the very hypostasis of the created 414 and 2) that the created itself is separated from the uncreated (διαιρεῖν τῆς ἀκτ ί στου φύσεως τὴν κτιστὴν καθόλου φύσιν ). Here the accusative τήν is opposed to the genitive τῆς, and only subsequent divisions introduce partitions into one or another pair (εἰς ... εἰς ...), being traditional dichotomies. Thus, in Maximus the tree of divisions begins in the genus called “created nature.” In Difficulty XLI, Maxim writes that the generic characteristic of the created as a whole is its derivation from non-existence: that it is “existent.” “Created nature” here is identical to the “essence” of Porfiry. Further, in both authors it is divided into the intelligible and the sensory. Not only the root, but the top of the logical tree deserves attention, i.e. the last, fifth division. Where there should have been talk about the division of the ecumene, Maxim substitutes “man” instead, talking about its division into male and female (see section 3.4.7, Fig. 1). The difference from the traditional tree of partitions is that, if Porfiry’s criterion for partitions was ontological and logical, then Maxim’s divisions are essentially heterogeneous. The first three levels (created, mental-sensible, heaven-earth) are ontological (although the division into the intelligible and the sensory, introduced as ontological, is understood below in the explanations rather as epistemological). The last two divisions (paradise-ecumene, male-female) are not ontological. The roots of one are in the book of Genesis, the second in the anthropology of Philo, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. From Maxim’s explanations it is clear that their removal is perceived by him in the paradigm of ascetic theory and practice. Thus, the described sequence of pseudo-dichotomies is not a logical tree, although in the final part of Difficulty XLI Maxim claims to be so. Let us again resort to a comparison with a tree: we have branches, but there is no continuous trunk, moreover, in the space of Aristotelian logic it is impossible. 3.4.5. Higher connections are hypostatic The connections described in Difficulty XLI have the features of hypostatic connections. Let us note that in Christological treatises (in the context of which the idea of ​​this kind of connection was developed) almost always only two examples of hypostatic connections are given: the addition of soul and body in the hypostasis of a certain person, the addition of the divine and human natures in the hypostasis of Christ. Moreover, not all natures included in the hypostasis have an independent and real existence before the hypostatic synthesis. For example, the body and soul do not exist separately, they are created by God simultaneously; and human nature, assumed by God the Word, did not pre-exist as such, never possessed its own separate existence. She is real only as hypostasized, that is, as having received real existence in the hypostasis of another nature, in the hypostasis of the Word: she was not realized in a certain hypostasis of her nature, like the hypostasis of Peter or Paul. The originality of Maximus the Confessor in his interpretation of universal unions lies in the fact that he considers some of them as hypostatic, thereby extending the concept of hypostatic union developed in Christology to a wide class of created objects. This is fully consistent with such a fundamental principle for his thought as complementarity. Maxim recognizes the connections of earth and heaven, the sensory and the intelligible as hypostatic connections, moreover, he openly likens them to the connection of soul and body in the human hypostasis 415. This means that none of the components of such a pair exists without the other and does not preexist the other. Heaven does not exist without earth and does not precede it (and vice versa), the intelligible does not precede the sensible and is not possible in reality without the latter (and vice versa). Both of these parts constitute and fulfill a single world, which, in turn, fulfills them as its parts. In the hypostatic unity of the sensible and the intelligible, forming a single world, the very difference of natures is abolished, which, without losing their characteristics, exchange properties and replace each other in perfect perichoresis 416. Maxim even applies the principle of complementarity and reciprocity to the problem of the relationship between the general and the particular. He declares that “the general was realized in the particular, completely not accepting the logos of independent existence and implementation,” and therefore disappears with the destruction of the particular 417. At the same time, the natures that make up the hypostasis remain unmerged and undamaged. Here “hypostasis” means “tropos of existence.” The hypostatic unity of the parts of the created world has as its basis a supernatural principle. God, as the meaningful cause of all things, holds near himself things that are by nature distant from each other, forcing them to gravitate towards each other due to the single connection of each of them with Him, as with the Beginning. This single connection with the Origin covers all private connections, obscures their own existence with its glow 418. And just as in the Word of God the human nature He assumed was hypopostatized, so in the same Word the whole world is hypostasized. General divisions also have their own peculiarity. Formally, we cannot talk about hypostatic “divisions” at all, because the hypostatic within itself is inseparable by definition. Thus, we can only talk about hypostatic differences, about different natures that make up a complex hypostasis. Divisions truly exist only ἐν τ ῇ διανο ίᾳ or κατ ᾿ ἐρ ί νοιαν. When Maxim writes about the separation of the created from the uncreated, about the division into intelligible and sensible natures, into the nature of heaven and earth, we are talking about the natural difference (διαφορά) of the natures themselves, which has an ontological character and is not canceled, just as these natures themselves always retain their identity. Another thing is that, in addition to their natural difference, the same natures can be separated for a person due to the peculiarities of his own existence (falling away from God, preferring the sensual to the intelligent). Then the “difference” of natures turns into division within man. If “differences” objectively exist and are neutral in value terms, being outside the categories of “good” and “bad,” then “divisions” are most often perceived by Maxim as negative 420 and require elimination through a sequence of connections. According to Difficulty XLI, both distinctions and distinctions must be blocked for a person at the level of the tropos of his existence, when he ceases to feel them. Thus, it is no coincidence that Maximus begins Difficulty XLI with words about the five divisions of the hypostasis of the created. In fact, these divisions are anthropological: they determine the existence of man, but man can also change his perception of them and can surpass them. 3.4.6. Reversibility (ἀντιστροφή) of divisions When Maxim writes about how a sequence of divisions is replaced by a sequence of connections, he perceives this process as a “reversal.” Such a “reversal” of the vector of cosmic development is standard for Neoplatonists. Here the words of Proclus can serve as an epigraph to Difficulty XLI: By origin, things are separated (χωρίζεται) from each other - what comes from what remains at rest, what multiplies from what is united... This process distinguishes things from each other, makes one first, another middle, and another last; and the middle differentiates (διοριστικά) the last and the first... And the return again combines everything, and rolls it up into one, and collects it to a single object of aspiration for [all] existing ones 421. We find another example of reversal when Maximus says that just as now corruption has swallowed up the flesh, the flesh has swallowed up the soul, and the soul has swallowed up the “knowledge of God,” so after the resurrection everything will be reversed: the flesh will be swallowed up by the soul, and the soul by God 422 . The described return movement, reminiscent of the folding of a telescopic antenna, previously extended, speaks of the significant role that the logical-epistemological paradigm plays in Maxim’s reasoning, subordinating the development of metaphysical constructions themselves. It is easy to confirm what has been said with examples. 3.4.7. Two Paradigms for Considering Divisions and Compounds Logical tree. Representing the sequence of universal divisions and unions in the form of a quasi-logical tree of oppositions is the main paradigm for their description in Difficulty XLI. It is assumed that (1) the removal of oppositions is carried out through a transition to a higher level, to greater community and integrity, which embrace the oppositions. Thus the point at which oppositions unite is not between the opposites, but above them. (2) The apex and limit of all connections is God, and man is just one of the elements of the tree of dissections, moreover, he is located at the very bottom of the sequence of branches. Being such, a person, by definition, is not able to unite the world within himself. Graphically it can be represented like this: SENSUAL INTELLIGENT However, twice, fragments of a completely different paradigm, formulated in terms of “edges and middles,” are built into this picture. It assumes that the edges, separated vertically or horizontally, are connected through the middle located between them. This happens when it comes to a person who is a “bundle”, a “middle term” for the edges of the world, mediating them in himself 424. Only in this paradigm is man, as the middle, able to connect the world. Let's look at how Difficulty XLI combines both of these approaches. Maximus begins with a description of the five universal divisions (1304D 7 sqq.), the sequence of which imitates Porphyry’s logical tree. Accordingly, there is no mention of “middles” and “edges”. However, when it comes to the fifth division, the object of which is man, the main theme of “divisions” is superimposed by reasoning formulated in terms of “mediations”, “middles” and “edges” (1305A14-C7). This line does not become the main one, does not replace the main one, representing, rather, a chain of reservations indicating the possibility of an oppositely directed movement: a person is divided, although his purpose is to bind. Maxim says that a person “mediates the edges with himself” through his “parts” 425 (the nature of these parts will become clear only in the second part of the chapter), he is a “bundle” for universal edges 426. Connecting the whole world requires a sequence of mediations, in which a person begins with those “closest” to himself (characteristically, this is what Aristotle calls sensory entities) or with the “worst” (as they appear to the Platonists) 427 . Starting from 1305C7, Maxim stops mentioning “edges” and “middles,” and the “logical tree” paradigm remains the only coordinate system for a long time. The theme of “middles” and “edges” appears again in 1312A5-B2 when describing how Christ, by his humanity, connects the edges of the world. This reasoning presents interpretive difficulties 428 and therefore we will consider it in detail 429 . Maximus says about Christ gathering all creation: τὴν ἅ πασαν κτίσιν διὰ τῶν μέσων ὡ ς μερῶν ἰδίων τὰ ἄκρα καὶ περί έαυτόν ἀλύτως ἀλλήλοις διασφίγξας αἰσθητὰ καὶ ώς σῶμα καὶ αἴσθησιν καὶ ψυχὴν καθ ᾽ ἡμας ἔχων καὶ νοῦν ώς μέρεσι καθ ᾽ ἕ καστον τὸ ἑκάστ ῳ καθόλου συγγενὲς οἰκειωσάμενος κατὰ τὸν προαποδοθέντα τρόπον θεοπρεπῶς τὰ πάντα ?? δείζας, τ ῇ τῶν μερῶν ἑαυτῆς πρὸς ἄλληλα συν ό δ ῳ ... He embraced the entire creation in its ends through the middles, as its parts, and indissolubly pulled together paradise and ecumene, heaven and earth, sensual and as having a body, and a feeling, and a soul, like ours, and a mind, which, like parts, individually He mastered the universal edge, akin to each [part], in the manner described above divinely headed presented all creation as one in existence, like another person, executed through the convergence of its parts with each other and facing oneself due to integrity Christ “pulls together” creation according to his humanity. Conceptually, this once again leads to the imposition of the “edges and middles” paradigm on the “logical tree” paradigm. As a man, Christ is finite and limited, He belongs to the world, and therefore other natures can gather “around Him.” He “assimilates” the edges of the created world to his parts, each of which, at its own ontological level, acts as a middle term for the corresponding opposition. Christ embraces creation “through the middle.” What are they? The phrase about linking “paradise and ecumene, heaven and earth, sensory and intelligible” confuses the reader. Firstly, its elements are borrowed from the “logical tree” paradigm, (1) in which there is no place for middle terms; (2) the center of gatherings in which is not man, but God; and (3) which corresponds to the hierarchy “earth, sensory, created.” Nevertheless, the said phrase is incorporated into the center of reasoning conducted in the paradigm of (1) “middles and ends”; (2) the center of which is not God, but man; which (3) has its own, as yet unnamed, ontological hierarchy. The subordinate clause of the reason “as having ... a mind” for the first time names these middle terms - “body, feeling, soul, mind” - forming a hierarchy of “means” (these elements were already present in 1305AC, called there simply “parts” and “means”). The second difficulty associated with the phrase “paradise and ecumene ... and intelligible” is that only three pairs of oppositions are named in it (the connective “male and female” is not mentioned), so that numerically they are difficult to match with the four elements of the next line, and yet, as has been said, grammatically the latter is a subordinate clause of reason 431. The absence of the pair “male and female” is most likely due to the fact that they are not “universal edges”, being localized only in fallen man. The means with which Christ, in His humanity, connects the universal extremes are His perfect body (free from the division into male and female, not knowing the difference between ecumene and paradise), His sense (connecting the sensory earth and heaven) and His rational soul (logos), which contemplates all created things in its logoi. Apparently, it is no coincidence that the fourth “part” (mind) stands 108 in the list separately, having been added after καθ ᾽ ἡμας ἔχων. If only Christ's body, sense and rational soul participate in the union of the created, then the mind can be reserved for the union of the created and the uncreated, which is not discussed here in Difficulty XLI, but is discussed in Questions XLVIII (see below note 487). However, a more compelling reason for the mention of “mind” here, in relation to Christ, is the polemic with the Apollinarians. Speaking about the Incarnation, Maxim more than once uses the formula “flesh endowed with a rational soul and mind” in order to refute the followers of Apollinaris, who taught that the Word accepted only flesh and an unreasonable soul, and Itself took the place of the rational soul (reasoning) and mind 432. So, by the “means” through which Christ embraces creation, Maximus means His human body, sense and rational soul. They constitute the human nature of Christ, being parts of it; Christ possesses them in his human existence. Accordingly, the entire creation collected through these parts appears as a “different person”, united in the integrity of its being. Graphically, the “edges and middles” paradigm can be represented as follows (the circle symbolizes the divine nature of Christ): A text similar in idea and vocabulary, which partly clarifies the lines we are examining, can be seen in Difficulty VII (1092BC), where it is directly stated that all created natures are gathered around the human nature of Christ, 433 included in the hypostasis of the God-man: since man, by goodness, was created by God from soul and body, then... the soul... takes care of the body in order... and it... to be appropriated to God (οἰκειῶσαι θεῷ)... by itself mediating the indwelling of the Creator [into the body]... So that many things that are separate from each other by nature may come together, drawing together around the one nature of man, and so that God Himself may be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28), perceiving everything and hypostatizing to Himself (ἐνυποστήσας ἑα ντ ῷ) 434, since nothing that exists will no longer have a free and uninvolved movement of His presence... 435 Another parallel to Difficulty XLI is found in Letter XV (PG 91, 544C-576B; 634–640), in which Maximus points out that by hypostasis Christ is the Mediator (μεσίτης) for the parts of which he is composed; that Christ reduces in Himself the divergence between the edges, making Peace (εἰρήνη) and through the Spirit reconciling (ἀποκαταλλάσσων) human nature with God and the Father (PG 91, 556A). Concluding our examination of passage 1312A5-B2, we note that Maxim’s words that Christ showed the world as one in existence, “like another person” are an inversion of the image of Gregory the Theologian: The Word creates man... from invisible and visible nature... supplies, as it were, a kind of second world (κόσμον) - great in small; on earth another angel... earthly and heavenly... visible and intelligible, the middle (μέσον)... one and the same, who is both spirit and flesh... through attraction to God, deified 436. In the Questions and Answers, Maxim makes it clear that he is aware of the difference between the two above-mentioned paradigms. He points out the difference between connections according to the type of species tree and other connections (through average or through addition): it is not only, in relation to the same nature, the combination of parts into a general in accordance with the same logos of being, as, for example, individuals into species located above them, species into genera and genera into essence, uniformly combined with each other along the border [coming into contact] edges, so that the common logos of the parts appear in them (οἱ καθόλου τῶν μερῶν λόγοι) create... numerous and varied connections of the separated; but it is also [the union of] mind with feeling, heaven with earth, sensible [things] with intelligible things, the union of nature with [its] logos 437. At this point, Maximus, contrary to Difficulty XLI, clearly does not believe that the pairs mind/sense, heaven/earth, sensible/intelligible form a genus-species tree. However, the confusion of paradigms observed in Difficulty XLI is present here as well. At the beginning of the quote we are talking about logical connections (this is the paradigm of the logical tree), but here it is also said about “connections of extremes” (this is the paradigm of edges and middles). Further in the Questions and Answers, Maxim says that the knowing mind builds dogmas about the Incarnation, like pillars, from various speculations: establishing, by virtue of proper knowledge (ἐπιστήμην), true concepts (δόξας) about each [compound], the contemplative mind wisely erects ... intelligible pillars, that is, dogmas about connections, which are the bonds of these connections 438. Here the connections are made not by the God-man in reality, but by the contemplating mind within itself (ὁ θεωρητικὸς νοῦς), which forms true ideas according to its science-knowledge. A similar transition from the ontological to the epistemological plane is characteristic of Maxim 439. Wed. his words are that if, when cognizing the world, the soul used its five senses well (collected spiritual logoi with their help, bringing everything visible to itself), then it would create in its understanding a spiritual world, the four elements of which would be the four main virtues 440. In Difficulty XLI, the difference between the subjective and the cosmic is reflected in the vocabulary: after man had united the ecumene with paradise, the earth would no longer be divided “for him” (αὐτῷ, 1305D6); when a person would become light in body, like the angels, the sensory creation would not have “for him” (αὐτῷ, 1308A2) divisions in place and distance; and after he had become equal to the angels in knowledge, creation would not be divided “for him” (αὐτῷ, 1308A13) into the known and the unknown. When the same connections are carried out by Christ, they are realized in Himself: He united us with ourselves in Himself (ἐν ἑαυτῷ, 1309D9); thanks to Him, the earth lost (κατ ᾽ αὐτόν, 1309B6) its difference from paradise; He abolished the division of heaven and earth in Himself (ἐν ἑαυτῷ, 1309C3); He revealed in Himself the convergence of the sensible and the intelligible (ἐν ἑαυτῷ, 1309С10); finally, He headed everything in Himself (ἐν ἑαυτῷ, 1312 Α 3). 3.4.8. Why are there five divisions? When applied to divisions, the number five is natural. Antiquity knew many five-part divisions. Geography divided the earth into five zones 441, they were answered by five zones/zones in the sky in astronomy. In some systems, the world consisted of five spheres nested within each other, in each of which one of the primary elements predominated - ether, fire, air, water, earth 442. In the treatise on divisions, which was attributed to Aristotle, 15 paragraphs are devoted to five-part divisions 443. Plotinus had five categories 444. Porfiry proposed five predicabilities for the division of all things - “genus”, “species”, “difference”, “proper”, “accidental”, which have since been constantly reproduced by Aristotle’s commentators both in the East and in the West 445 . Maximus the Confessor himself proposed his five categories, calling them the five tropos of “natural contemplation” 446. In part, it was this five that determined the number of universal divisions of Difficulty XLI. On the other hand, there are five divisions of the hypostasis of the created because Maxim represents the created nature as five-part: “Everything that has arisen both exists and moves, and therefore is subject to nature and time: nature because of its existence, and time 447 because of movement” 448. “Nature is fivefold: it tends to be subject to the number five because of the sense divided into five parts to which it is subject; Moreover, [it is fivefold] because in addition to what is said about its division into four [elements] in matter, there is also form. For nature is nothing other than matter endowed with form, for form attached to matter constitutes nature” 449. What is missed in these arguments is that what is intelligible is not perceivable through sense, but this does not bother Maxim. Elsewhere, everything created is called five-fold, since existing things can be contemplated in five ways. Maximus writes that creation is for people the teacher of “the last and accessible logoi”, as well as the five modes of contemplation associated with them, through which “the saints divide (διαιροῦντες) creation into essence, movement, difference, confusion and position” 450. Let us recall that Difficulty XLI begins with the mention of the saints, who say that the hypostasis of everything that has arisen is divided into five divisions. Thus, we can state that Maximus has an associative connection between the five methods of natural contemplation and the five universal divisions. The divisions successively described at the beginning of Difficulty XLI arose outside of time - once and at once. Thus, they are static - given and unchanging. When Maxim describes the hypostasis of the created, dissected by these divisions, it is as if he sees in front of him an ancient geographical map, which depicts a world dissected by river divisions. One of the rivers washes the entire creation as a whole, like the Ocean River, encircling the entire earth in a circle, and the others delimit it from the inside: “from Eden comes a river to irrigate paradise and then divides into four ends.” 3.5. Alternate history When Maxim writes about how Man could have developed without the Fall, he essentially sets out an “alternative history” of humanity. Maxim paints an unprecedented picture, showing the possible but unrealized course of development of human history. History in the modern sense of the word is what happens to humanity on this earth (after expulsion from paradise). Accordingly, modern science is developing options for alternative or counterfactual history 451 . The “what if” approach was also applied to biblical history 452 . What is unique about Maxim is that he anticipates this modern approach by 13 centuries. In addition, he considers an alternative metahistory or prehistory, since the period before the expulsion of the first parents from paradise, as well as the period belonging to the eschatological perspective, are qualitatively different from history in the traditional sense of the word - the events unfolding on this earth and in this time 453. The course of this kind of history, in which there was no fall and expulsion from paradise, in which God’s foreknowledge of the Fall remained a virtual but unrealized possibility, is outlined by Maxim in 1304D-1308B. The opportunity open to man was not realized, death entered the world and the world's rifts were eliminated in the Word of God, which was embodied at the end of the ages. Maxim describes the stages of these reunions. The sacrament that took place in Christ at the end of the ages was a demonstration and fulfillment of what was missed in the forefather at the beginning. What was accomplished in a supernatural and paradoxical way was accomplished in a natural way 454 . Nevertheless, the result of the fact that the God-Man in Himself and together with Himself led human nature through all five connections was the granting of deification to people (even if for now only in a possibility). The ending of this story is expected in the historical future (metahistorical future). As Maximus himself writes, deification, which is potentially already given to all believers after the Incarnation of the Word, will actually be realized in an eschatological perspective, “at the end that will actually come by grace with the deification of the worthy” 455. Thus, Difficulty XLI describes two histories of connections, corresponding to two modes of reality: casus irrealis humanus - a story that a Man could have built while living in paradise, but which did not materialize; and casus realis mysticus - history that was supernaturally fulfilled in the God-man. Maximus does not say anything about the casus potentialis humanus - about the future development of man, possible after the Incarnation: eschatology in its traditional sense is absent in the text of Maximus under consideration 456. The absence of such a finale is explained both by the fact that the logic of the argument of Difficulty XLI does not require it, and by the fact that this kind of eschatology would turn out to be very reminiscent of the condemned Origen, in which the beginning and end of world history coincide 457. Maxim avoided this by presenting the connections that Origen (and later John Scott) considered as the objective course of the development of the universe, in the form of two histories - an alternative (virtual) human and an actual (mystical) Divine-Human one. 3.6. Features of divisions Difficulty XLI Both the first and second divisions deal with the created as a whole. The first draws the line between the created and the transcendental. It is directed outward, points to infinity, emphasizing the fact that the “created”, as a whole, corresponds to the ineffable concept of “derivation from non-existence,” since non-being for the created is “older” than being (1312B). However, in Difficulty XLI this division is introduced not only as ontological, but also as epistemological. The fact that creatures are separated from God in essence (according to the logos of nature) is obvious, and it would not be worth mentioning specifically. Speaking about the first division, Maxim means something different: the creature is isolated from the Creator along the tropos of existence 458, isolated by ignorance. God, in His goodness, created the bright world order of all things, although from this it did not become obvious who He is and what He is like, 459 and therefore the ignorance that distinguishes creation from God is called division. Therefore, they left unspeakable this division, which naturally separates the mentioned [creature and God] from each other and never accepts [their] union into one essence, as it cannot accept a single and identical logos (1304D11–1305A8). Here we have before us the creature’s ignorance of God according to His essence - of Who He is and What He is (τινὰ καὶ ὁποῖον), which is natural 460, as Maximus himself points out. Such ignorance is beyond reproach and corresponds more to “difference” than to “separation.” It cannot be removed, because even the angels do not know God in His essence 461. However, this incomprehensibility of God refers to local, discursive knowledge, which Maximus calls “relative.” There is another – “supernatural” – type of knowledge (see 1.7), called actual or experienced knowledge. This is grace-filled knowledge, the acquisition of which coincides with the achievement of deification. Compared with this kind of knowledge-by-experience, present-day knowledge appears defective, and the “difference” between created and uncreated, which is associated with it, appears to be separation. It is important that experienced, real knowledge is supernatural and, as such, unattainable in a natural way either before the Fall, much less after it. Speaking about the division separating the Creator and the creature, Maxim used the term “ineffable.” In the Bible, ἄρρητα represents karah, being used only once in relation to divine mysteries that cannot be retold and explained (2 Cor 12:4). There is nothing secret in the fact of the existence of the abyss separating the Creator and the creature; its presence is obvious. Thus, the term rather refers to the immediately mentioned union of the Creator and the creature. Maxim speaks of the impossibility of uniting the Creator and the creature into one entity. On the other hand, such a union is not only possible, but actually occurred in the Incarnation, to the consideration of which Difficulty XLI is devoted. It is not possible to explain the details of this connection. It remains a mystery, and therefore “ineffable.” Thus, mental immersion in Christological problematics forces Maxim to anticipate events and the theme of the final union of created and uncreated nature in the God-man begins to sound already in the introductory period of Difficulty XLI. Following the first division, Maxim lists the rest: The second division [the saints call] is that by which the entire total nature, which receives existence from God through creation, is divided into the intelligible and the sensible. The third is that by which sensible nature is divided into heaven and earth, and the fourth is that by which the earth is divided into paradise and inhabited [regions]. And the fifth is that by which man is divided into male and female, after all, through emergence, he was gracefully brought into existence, [in order to become] some kind of all-important forge of all kinds and in order to naturally mediate with himself all [that appeared] in all divisions of extremes (1305A8-B2). As can be seen, the second and third divisions are primarily natural ontological differences; divisions they are seen in the perspective of reunification, as well as from the point of view of the usual opposition between the intelligent and the sensual 462. The purpose and meaning of the creation of man and the world The question of man’s binding of all things is inseparable from the question of the purpose of his coming into existence. Man’s calling is to bridge the gaps in the world and, with God’s help, to bridge the gap between man and God. For this reason he was brought into existence. In the above-quoted passage 1305A8-B2, Maximus directly writes that man was created to unite around his nature everything that by nature is separated from each other 463. It is characteristic that when speaking about the reason for the creation of mankind and “for what sake it was a sacrament” 464, Maximus himself combines two (already discussed in 2.3.1) passages from Homilies 38 and 39 of Gregory the Theologian, which confirms the assumption that they also formed the basis of his reasoning in Difficulty XLI. In Homily 38, Gregory calls the reason for the creation of man the separation of the intelligent and the sensual, which is why not all the wealth of God’s goodness was known to the creature. God wanted to show the fullness of goodness by creating man as a small world connecting visible and invisible natures. The passage from Word 39 also says that man was created so that God would have worshipers not only among the angels, and so that all things would be filled with the glory of God. Thus, for Gregory, the reason for the creation of man lies in the division of the world, and the purpose of creation is to extend the glory of God to the sensory world, thus not leaving aside any part of the created world. If Gregory writes about the “reason” for the creation of man, then Maxim speaks of the “goal”. People were created to unite with God the Father through the Son, to become identical with God in deification through grace. In this context, the concept of God’s “plan” and “council - will” of God the Father, which existed before all ages and all creation, is important. God the Father predestined from eternity that people should be in Him (ἐν αὐτῷ ε ἶ ναι). To do this they needed to become members of the body of Christ. People were predestined for such a union and, in fact, this is what they arose for (ἐπὶ τούτ ῳ γεγενῆσθαι). The tropos that led them to this goal was the correct use of their natural powers. Already in Adam, human nature could acquire the likeness of God, could perceive the knowledge of God, gain unity and community with Him, receive adoption in the Spirit and the fullness of deification. After the Fall, this first tropos of achieving deification became impossible. Now, for deification it was necessary first to heal the consequences of the Fall and restore fallen human nature, so a different, amazing tropos was realized, carried out through the Incarnation, which gave man salvation and thereby re-opened the possibility of his deification 465. As Maximus himself writes, God’s eternal plan for us is not newly arranged (καινισμός) according to logos, although it was fulfilled by a different, new tropos, introduced after (ἐπεισαχθέντος) the previous one. Due to the failure of Adam, who was unable to fulfill God’s plan in his tropos of action, this plan was realized only through the incarnate Word 466. The sacrament that took place in Christ at the end of the centuries was a demonstration and fulfillment of what was missed in the forefather at the beginning of the centuries. What happened in a supernatural and paradoxical way was something that was not done naturally 467 . The word “communicated” with the person twice. The first communication took place at the creation of man, when God endowed man with his image. The second communication took place in the Incarnation, when the Word took on human nature in order, firstly, to restore the divine image in it, and secondly, to give human nature a divine likeness and fulfill the advice of God the Father, deifying it during His incarnation 468. In this regard, Maxim speaks of the possibility of mentally distinguishing in time the phases of the process of fulfilling God’s plan for man. The eternal advice was for God to become man, and man to become god. The first has already been achieved in the Incarnation, the deification of people is a matter of coming centuries 469. Nevertheless, since Christ embraces the centuries, the end that will actually come in the future for the worthy at their deification has potentially already reached people through faith 470. Understanding that the Incarnation introduces deification - potentially already now by faith, and in the future relevant for the worthy - we will not be perplexed when Maximus teaches about deification in relation to the Incarnation. In Difficulty XLI the purpose of the creation of man and the counsel of God the Father are spoken of in the aspect of universal connections. Man was given by nature the power to unite, and thanks to this power, the tropos of the existence of creation in a divided form 471 could reveal the great mystery of the divine plan, which consisted in the union of all things with each other and with God (1305B) 472 . However, man preferred the sensory to the Creator, using his natural ability to connect rather for separation, because of which he was in danger of going into oblivion 473. Therefore, natures are newly arranged, and God becomes man in order to save lost man: uniting with Himself the breaks in the universal nature of the world, the Word of God fulfills the great Council of God the Father and heads everything in heaven and on earth with Himself (1308CD). Having accomplished the five universal unions, the Son of God, conceived in terms of his humanity, fulfilled what He Himself, as God, predestined to happen. He accomplished all the counsel of God the Father regarding people who could not do it themselves (1309CD). The Son of God embraced with us and for our sake the entire totality of creation, and thus divinely headed everything in Himself, making the entire existing creation one like a certain man: fulfilled by the unity of its parts and concentrated in itself through the integrity of its existence (1312AB). Maximus repeatedly emphasizes that the divine plan was to unite with God not only man, but all creation, the totality of which in this perspective is seen as a “new man” 474. The semantic context for Difficulty XLI is provided by an excerpt from Question LX, which is similar in content and vocabulary: The sacrament of Christ, or the sacrament according to Christ... this, obviously, is the ineffable and incomprehensible hypostatic union of Divinity and humanity... leading... humanity to identity with the Divinity and from both creating a complex hypostasis... This is the blessed goal for the sake of which everything [created] was made up. This is the Divine plan, conceived even before the beginning of beings... [this is] the goal for the sake of which all [things] exist... With this goal in mind, God brought the essence of [all] beings into being. This is... the limit of Providence and those created... according to which the leadership in God of those who are from Him occurs. This is a mystery that embraces all ages, revealing the super-infinite and great Council-will (βουλήν) of God, infinitely and infinitely pre-existing to the ages, and the Angel of the Council was the Essential Word of God Himself, who became Man. [The Word] made clear... the deep foundation of the Father's Goodness 475 and showed in itself the purpose for which... the created and perceived the beginning of its existence 476. It is no coincidence that Difficulty XLI begins with the words that God created a bright world order out of His goodness. Plato's idea that a good God creates the world so that everything ultimately becomes like Him 477 had a strong impact on the Christian theological tradition, finding vivid expression in Maximus. Overcoming the fifth and fourth divisions. The fifth and fourth divisions were created by God in anticipation of the Fall of man, and therefore are divisions from all points of view. Man is divided into two sexes. Paradise is separated from the ecumene by sin. Ethical demarcation (breaking the commandments) was both an anthropological and ontological catastrophe, because it introduced division, decay and death into man and the world. The holiness of earthly life overcomes these divisions. Detachment from earthly things eliminates attachment to any part of the earth, which all - both the ecumene and paradise - becomes one for a person. Overcoming the third and second divisions These divisions are surpassed by the fact that man becomes equal to the angels. First equal in virtue, then in knowledge. Traditionally, the achievement of the equal-angelic state is narrated from an eschatological perspective - in relation to the resurrection from the dead 478. However, for holy minds this is possible already during life 479. The Areopagitica and its scholia speak of union with the angels through virtue, while virtue is renunciation from the material 480. At the same time, neither the ps.-Dionysius nor John of Scythopolis shared the doctrine of the perfect person as exceeding sexual differences (it is no coincidence that the ps.-Dionysius speaks of “divine power”, and the scholiast speaks of the superiority of the male over the female 481). Overcoming the first division Man was able to bind and unite within himself all created things. After completing four connections, in order to reach God, he had to complete the last - and most important - union of created and uncreated natures. However, not a single being can bridge this gap on its own. It cannot even comprehend it: the saints 482 left this division “inexpressible”, since for it there is no single and identical logos. Here we are talking about the absence of a “natural” logos, to the extent accessible to knowledge from the created side. In the absence of the aforementioned common logos, man had to unite the created and uncreated along the tropos of existence - through love 483. Then he would have revealed himself and God as one and identical (ἓ ν καὶ ταυτόν) according to the state of grace (κατὰ τὴν ἔξιν τῆς χάριτος, 1308 Β 7–8). This mission failed for the first man. The created and the uncreated already interpenetrate in Christ 484, in His hypostasis. Maxim also calls the union of deity and humanity ineffable, 485 as well as the first universal separation of the created from the uncreated. Thus, the relationship between the uncreated and the created is postulated to be incomprehensible both in the aspect of division and in the aspect of connection, as being carried out supernaturally. Nevertheless, even for such a connection there are logos that are no longer “natural” and can be known, but “supernatural” and unknown 486. The fact is that although all logoi, as the will of God, are supernatural, Maximus can find reasoning in which he introduces their hierarchy. Thus, in Question Answer XLVIII he seems to give a brief paraphrase of Difficulty XLI, which differs from the text we are considering in an essential detail. If in Difficulty XLI the logos of all created things is called the most general logos (1312B), then in the Questions and Answers Maximus rises one step higher and postulates the presence of supernatural logos and tropos for connecting the created and the uncreated: “Through Christ various unions of separated creatures were brought about. For He united man mysteriously, eliminating in the spirit the difference between male and female and making the logos of nature in both free from passionate characteristics. He united the earth, banishing the separation of the sensory paradise and the inhabited earth. He also united earth and sky, showing that the single nature of the sensory gravitates towards itself. He also united sensible and intelligible things, revealing the one existing nature of everything that came into existence, combined together according to a certain mysterious logos. Finally, He united created nature with uncreated nature according to the logos and tropos that exceeds nature.”487 Union with the deity for a person means deification, knowledge of God in experience and tasting Him: Through Christ, or the sacrament according to Christ, all centuries and that which is in these centuries received in Christ both the beginning and the end of their existence. After all, even before the centuries, the union of limit and infinity was pre-planned... 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 move by nature would stop - having completely left the movement in relation to themselves and to each other - around that which is completely motionless in its essence, and so that they would experience by experience the real knowledge of Him in Whom they were worthy to stop - knowledge unchangeable and self-identical, providing them with pleasure in the Known. Active knowledge bestows... an integral sensation of the Known, thanks to which in the future destiny we will perceive supernatural deification, operating continuously 488. Thus, the Incarnation also has an epistemological dimension. However, this is no longer gnosis, which relates to discursive, and therefore relative, knowledge, but super-mental knowledge-experience of divine reality. This is actual knowledge accompanying deification (see above 1.7). As noted in 3.6, at the beginning of Difficulty XLI Maximus postulates that there is no logos to unite created and uncreated nature into one essence, and therefore the division of created and uncreated remains “ineffable.” However, God and man were actually united in Christ according to the “logos and tropos that transcend nature.” The supernatural logos of the union of the uncreated and the created is incomprehensible to man. As a consequence, the term “ineffable”, which opened Difficulty XLI, also completes it. In the final paragraph, Maximus writes that the new dispensations of natures, brought about by the intrusion of the divine into the natural, at the same time they completely hide that ineffable and unknown logos by which they were accomplished, and reveal it: [they hide it as having happened] in a way that surpasses nature and knowledge, and [reveal it] with the logos of faith (τῷ λόγ ῳ τῆς πίστεως), through which it is common to comprehend everything that surpasses nature and knowledge” 489 . The phrase “logos of faith” is used here. What is it? Elsewhere Maxim characterizes him as follows: “the logos of faith (λόγον τῆς πίστεως) is cognized without thinking (ἀνοήτως) and neither... feeling, nor reasoning, nor mind, nor thinking, nor knowledge is relied upon above it...” 490. The "Logos of faith" or "reason of faith" transcends reason and reason. It can be correlated with “actual knowledge”, i.e. a supra-intellectual experience of contact with God, exceeding demonstrative and scientific knowledge. Where are the sources of the doctrine of experiential knowledge? Much points to the direct influence of the Gnostic chapters of Diadochos of Photicus (see above 1.7). However, there is another source - the teaching of the psalm - Dionysius about knowledge as experience. In BI II, 9 - one of the few places where the psalm Dionysius speaks about the incarnation - the doctrine of knowledge is formulated as the experience of the divine, through empathy with the divine leading to unity with the deity: “The creation of God (θεοπλαστ ί α) of Jesus is conformable to us... inexpressible by any word, unknowable by any mind... We mysteriously know that He was realized as a man (ἀνδρικῶς), but we do not know how He was created ( διεπλάττετο) He is - contrary to nature, according to a different law - from virgin blood..., as well as other things related to the supernatural physiology of Jesus... [Hierofei] excellently sang this same... revealed to him by some most divine inspiration, when he not only studied the divine (μαθ ὼ ντὰ θεῖα), but also experienced (παθών) it, and through... empathy (τῆς συμπαθείας) for it achieved perfection in unlearned and mysterious unity and faith 491. In Dionysius, the theory of knowledge as experience is not expounded in detail, but there is a lengthy scholium 492 to this point. The scholiast speaks of “knowledge through experience” as a process in which a person comes out of himself, and God inhabits him. It is also said about non-verbal initiation (μύησις) into the divine, about the imprinting of supernatural knowledge on the mind, about empathy with the divine: [When it is said of Saint Hierotheus that he “not only studied the divine, but also experienced it,” this means that, being enlightened by the divine through revelation, he came out of himself (ἐξ ί στατα ί ἑαυτοῦ). And it is beautifully said that he experienced this useful passion in order to become God's container. Another interpretation. [The Hierotheus] received initiation... not by teaching through the word, but was imprinted with divine radiance and was, as it were, marked in the understanding by knowledge that exceeds nature. [Dionysius] called such initiation into the divine “empathy” (συμπάθειαν), i.e. generality of state] 493 . Thus, faith is superior to knowledge. Maximus identifies such faith with “real knowledge”: All things that exist, they say, are comprehensible to the mind (νοούμενα)... But God is called incomprehensible to the mind. Of all the intelligible things, only one [His] existence is accepted on faith... For faith is true knowledge, possessing unprovable principles, being a hypostasis of things that exceed the mind and reasoning 494. This formula, which postulates that faith is “true knowledge,” combines the approach of the ps.-Dionysius, who defined “divine faith” as pure knowledge of all things, affirming in the truth 495, and the definition of the apostle. Paul: “faith is a hypostasis of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Difficulty XLI of Maximus the Confessor begins with the words that man is separated by ignorance from God, who by goodness created the world, so that the division of created and uncreated remains inexpressible (1304D-1305A). The Difficulty ends with the words that the mystery of the union of created and uncreated in the Incarnation can still be discovered, but not through rational procedures, but by the “reason of faith,” which comprehends “everything that transcends nature and knowledge” (1313CD). This is not the faith of the simple, identical to opinion and inferior to knowledge. On the contrary, it is a “reasonable” and “divine” faith, identical to “real knowledge” and superior not only to the “opinion” of the unscientific, but also to rational, “relative knowledge.” It exceeds the mind and, thus, is supra-intellectual, combining in itself the properties of the “divine faith” of Proclus and the “scientific ignorance” of the ps.-Dionysius (see 2.3.8), as well as the “intelligent feeling” of Diadochos of Photicus (see 1.7). The problem of title and rubrication of Difficulties Maximus the Confessor wrote two works devoted to the interpretation of difficult passages in the works of Gregory the Theologian and Dionysius the Areopagite. Each of the works is a collection of chapters in which Maxim comments on certain lines of Gregory and, much less often, Dionysius. Maxim's work can only be called a commentary with a great degree of convention. In many cases, this is a free discussion on the topic of certain lines of Gregory or Dionysius, which has its own logic and is far from the original context of the quote. The collection of chapters addressed to John, Archbishop of Cyzicus (On the Difficulties to John, PG91, 1061–1418) was created by Maximus in 628–630, while the collection of chapters addressed to the mentor Thomas (On the Difficulties to Thomas, PG 91, 1031–1060) was completed in 634 or somewhat later 496. There is now a critical edition of the Difficulties on Thomas, but for the Difficulties on John we must still consult the text published in the Patrology of Min. The problem is that Min’s both works were published under a common title – On difficult passages in the saints, Gregory [the Theologian] and Dionysius [the Areopagite]. However, the chronologically later Difficulties on Thomas are placed before the Difficulties on John, which is due to the fact that Franz Ohler, who published both texts in 1857, considered them as a single corpus, and in the Patrology of Min (1860) his edition is reproduced without changes (including the erroneous title Ambiguorum liber). The basis for such a merger is provided by manuscript tradition. Although some manuscripts contain only the Difficulties on Thomas 497, and others only the Difficulties on John 498, most often both works are present in the manuscript. As a result, in most cases the title of the second was omitted and both works were covered by the title belonging only to the first of them - Γρηγορίου πρὸς Θωμ ᾶ ν τὸν ἡγιασμένον. And this despite the fact that formally “difficult passages from Dionysius” are commented on only in the Difficulties to Thomas, while in the Difficulties to John only “difficulties from Gregory” are interpreted 499. Nevertheless, the tables of contents (πίνακες) of some manuscripts clearly distinguish these “books” 500. The two collections of commentaries on Difficulties begin to merge into one whole for the author himself. For example, in 645–646. in a letter to Marin (Opuscula 1, PG 90, 33) Maximus himself refers to “the seventh chapter of the essay On the Difficulties of Gregory the Theologian” (Περὶ δὲ τῆς ἐν τῷ ἑβδόμ ῳ κεφαλαί ῳ τῶν ἀπ ό ρων τοῦ μεγάλου Γρηγορίου κειμένης μι ᾶ ς ἐνεργείας σαφ ή ς ὁ λόγος ), while it seems to mean a place corresponding to PG 91, 1076C, i.e. an excerpt from Difficulty VII on a cross-cutting basis. From these words, among other things, it follows that individual Difficulties can be called “chapters”. In addition, this means that the title of the work should contain the word ἄπορα ("difficult passages"), and not ἀπορίαι, as in Ohler's edition (Περὶ διαφορῶν ἀποριῶν), prepared on the basis of a single manuscript XIII c. and reproduced by Min in Patrology. Other evidence supports this choice. First, this reading is confirmed by manuscripts. Secondly, the titles of Maxim’s other works are consistent with this. For example, the work better known as the Questions to Thalassius has the title: “On the Various Difficulties of Holy Scripture,” and Maximus himself names it thus 501. As for the Difficulties to Thomas, the publisher of their critical text, B. Jansens, also preferred (in the presence of other readings) the version Περὶ διαφόρων ἀπόρων. Thirdly, Maximus himself mentions “the difficulties of Gregory the Theologian” at least four times, each time using the word ἄπορον and never ἀπορίαι 502. Fourthly, ἄπορον in the meaning of “difficult place” is found in Maxim and in other works 503. Finally, and in general in the texts of Maximus, ἄπορον is found more often than ἀπορί a, which suggests that the title of the explanations to John, Archbishop of Cyzicus, should also include ἄπορα. On the translation of the word ἄπορα into Russian. Let us note that there are no convincing reasons for refusing to translate the titular ἄπορα (“difficulties,” “difficulties”) into Russian and for tracing the Latin ambigua (neutrum, pluralis), introduced in the 9th century. Eriugena. In addition to its unreasonableness, the phrases “Ambigva to John” or “in Ambigvah” are opaque, dissonant, and limited in use to the plural. In this case, the chapter of Difficulties will become “ambigwum” or, given the tradition of discarding the endings of Greek and Latin words during their Russification (like, individuum - individual), “ambigwum”. As for the names of the sub-chapters, then it is unjustifiable to call them “aporia.” Firstly, the word “aporia” in Russian has a stable meaning of “unsolvable contradiction,” while Maxim speaks only of places that require clarification, claiming to resolve difficulties. Secondly, in the Greek text, neither ἄπορα nor ἀπορίαι is used for the titles of subchapters, but only. θεωρ ί αι (“speculation”). About chapter numbering. In Patrology, the chapters of Difficulties are not numbered. The combination of the Difficulties on Thomas and the Difficulties on John under one title led to the emergence of a stable tradition of continuous numbering of their constituent chapters. In this case, Difficulties I-V are addressed to Thomas, and Difficulties VI-LXXI are addressed to John of Cyzicus (although the chapters of the Difficulties are not numbered in the Patrology). This numbering is not the only one accepted: there is also a rubric according to the Latin translation of the Difficulties to John 504 made by Eriugena. In addition, the recent Greek edition of Sakalis 505 introduced more detailed headings. Being short, the chapters of the Difficulties on Thomas retained their numbers (I-V), but in relation to the Difficulties on John, not chapters, but subchapters (“discussions”) became an element of continuous numbering. Thus, instead of seventy-one “chapters,” we have 179 “discussions.” The latter cannot be considered an independent unit of text. For example, if, in relation to Difficulty (Chapter) XLI, we limit ourselves to the translation of the first “consideration” (103rd according to Sakalis), then we will never learn anything about the “renewal of natures” included in the title of the chapter; this topic is discussed in the next discussion of the same chapter (104th by Sakalis). In the first complete Russian translation of all Maxim's Difficulties in Gregory and Dionysius, carried out by Archimandrite Nektariy, another type of rubrication was used. Thus, the only reliable link between the various editions remains the link to the column numbers in PG 91. In this publication we follow the strong tradition of end-to-end counting for two works. Thus, the chapter XLI (PG 91, 1304D-1316A) of the Difficulties we are considering corresponds to the Difficulty on John XXXVI (XXXVII in Eriugena) and the “discussions” 103–104 according to Sakalis. Sources in Russian translation are cited from the publications indicated below. In a number of cases, changes have been made to translations that are not specifically stated. Translations of quotes from works not included in the list (see below) belong to us. For works available in the text database Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (disc E), line numbers are given according to the editions presented on the disc. CCSG – Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca. PG – Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Graeca. SC – Sources chretiennes. BI - Dionysius the Areopagite, On the divine names, in the book: Dionysius the Areopagite. About divine names. On Mystical Theology, ed. preparation G.M. Prokhorov (St. Petersburg: Glagol, 1994). BS - Theological collection (issues I–XII, M.: Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute; issue XIII, M.: Orthodox St. Tikhon's Humanitarian University). BT – Theological works (M: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church). VO – Questions and answers to Thalassia (see below). IFE - Historical and Philosophical Yearbook 2003 (M.: Nauka, 2004). About difficulties (=Difficulties) - (PG 91, 1032A –1417C). Space and soul - SPACE AND SOUL. Doctrines about the universe and man in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (research and translations). Ed. P.P. Gaidenko and V.V. Petrova (M.: Progress-Tradition, 2005). NI - Dionysius the Areopagite, On the heavenly hierarchy, in the book: Dionysius the Areopagite. On the Heavenly Hierarchy, trans. M.G. Ermakova (St. Petersburg, 1997). RNGD - Venerable Maximus the Confessor. About various perplexities among Saints Gregory and Dionysius. Per. from Greek and approx. Archimandrite Nektary (M.: Institute of Philosophy, Theology and History of St. Thomas, 2006). TMI - Works of St. Maximus the Confessor. Book I. Theological and ascetic treatises, translation, introduction, article and commentary. A.I. Sidorova (M.: Martis, 1993). TSO - Works of the Holy Fathers in the Russian translation of the Moscow Theological Academy. CI - Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Church Hierarchy, in the book: Dionysius the Areopagite. About the church hierarchy. Messages. Ed. preparation G.M. Prokhorov (St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2001). Ambigua – Saint Maxime le Confesseur. Ambigua. Introduction par Jean-Claude Larchet. Avant-propos, traduction et notes par Emmanuel ponsoye. Commentaires par le Pdre Dumitru staniloae (P.-Suresnes: Les 6ditions de Hapsge, 1994) (complete French translation of the Difficulties to Thomas and to John). Ambigua ad lohannem – Maximi Confessoris Ambigua ad lohannem iuxta Iohannis Scotti Eriugenae latinam interpretationem. Ed. Eduardus JEAUNEAU, CCGS 18 (Turnhout, Leuven: Brepols, University Press, 1988) (Latin translation of the Difficulties to John by Eriugena). For a Russian translation of this Latin translation of Difficulty XLI, see: JOHN SCOTT, Periphuseion II, 529D – 541C, trans. V.V.PETROV, IFE, p. 97–110. Er. – Maximi Confessoris Epistulae XLV. Ed. F. COMBEFIS (PG 91, 364–649). Franz. lane see: Saint Maxime le Confesseur. Lettres. Introd. par Jean-Claude LARCHET. Trad, et notes par Emmanuel PONSOYE (Les Editions du Cerf, 1998). Opuscula – Maximi Confessoris Opuscula theologica et polemica. Ed. F.COMBEFIS (PG 91, 9–280). Franz. lane see: Saint Maxime le Confesseur. Opuscules theologiques et polemiques. Introd. par Jean-Claude LARCHET. Trad, et notes par Emmanuel PONSOYE (Les Editions du Cerf, 1998). 862–864, Latin: trans. John Scott (Eriugena), see Ambigua ad lohannem, p. 179–187. 1992, modern Greek: Διονυσίου και Γρηγορίου προς Θωμαν ήγνασμένον (Α᾿ – Ε και Α᾿ – ΡI Γ. Εισαγωγή, μετάφραση, σχόλια άπο τον Ιγνάτιο Σακαλή. νηπτικών και άσκητικών 14Δ (Θεσσαλονίκη, 1992), 424 – 439. 1994, French: see Ambigua, trans. and note. E. PONSOYË r. 292–299; comm. D.STANILOAË r. 487–493. 1996, English, in Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor (L-N.Y.: Routledge, 1996), p. 155–162; and comment: p. 212–213; 74–77. 2003, Italian: Massimo il Confessore, Ambiguä problemi metafisici e teologici su testi di Gregorio di Nazianzo e Dionigi Areopagita. Introduzione, traduzione, note e apparati di Claudio moreschini (Milanö Bompiani, 2003), p. 454–464; comments: p. 157–161; 697–700. 2003, trans. A.R. Fokina, Rev. Maxim the Confessor. About various difficult places (aporias). 103-aporia, VS XI (2003), p. 128–136 (fragment 1304D-1313B). 2004, trans. S.V. Month, Rev. Maximus the Confessor, To John about various difficult places (aporia) in the north. Dionysius and Gregory. Aporia XXXVII (fragment 1304D–1312B), IFE (2004), p. 122–127; 2005, trans. S.V. Month, Maximus the Confessor. About various difficult passages in Saints Gregory and Dionysius. Difficulty XLI (fragment 1304D–1313B), in collection. Space and Soul, p. 280–286; 2005, trans. S.V. Month, Rev. Maxim the Confessor. About various difficult passages in Saints Gregory and Dionysius. Difficulty XLI (1304D–1316A). – BT 40, ss. 5–11. 2006, trans. Archimandrite Nectarius (R.V. Yashunsky), Rev. Maxim the Confessor. About various perplexities of Gregory the Theologian to John, Archbishop of Cyzicus, ch. CI–CII (XXXVI–XXXVI, 1304D–1316A), RNGD, p. 277–286. Other Difficulties in Russian Translations On Difficulties I–V (= On Difficulties to Thomas, PG 91, 1032A-1060D), see: Rev. Maxim the Confessor. On the various perplexities of Saints Dionysius and Gregory to Sainted Thomas, trans. Archimandrite Nectarius (R.V. Yashunsky), RNGD, p. 14–37, approx. With. 384–393. About difficulties VI–LXXI (On difficulties to John I–LXVI (I–LXVII according to Eriugena), PG 91, 1061А–1256С), see: Rev. Maxim the Confessor. On various perplexities of Gregory the Theologian to John, Archbishop of Cyzicus, trans. Archimandrite Nectarius (R.V. Yashunsky), RNGD, p. 52–383, approx. With. 396–459. On the difficulties of X (fragments PG 91, 1124D–1125C; 1149С–1153С; 1176В-1181 А), trans. I.V. Prolygina, AO 2/40 (2004), p. 86–93. On the difficulties of X (fragments PG 91, 1133A–1137C; 1168AD); XXIII (1256С-1257С); LXV (1389C–1392D), trans. A.R. Fokina, BS XIII (2005), p. 151–162. On the difficulties XXXIII–XXXVII, XXXIX (PG91, 1285–1297В, 1301ВС), trans. I.V. Prolygina, AO 4/38 (2003), p. 38–46. Other works of Maximus the Confessor in Russian translations Questions and answers to Thalassia. Questions I–LV, trans. and comment. S.L. Epifanovich, A.I. Sidorov, in the book: Works of St. Maximus the Confessor. Book II. Questions and answers to Thalassia (M.: Martis, 1993). Questions and answers to Thalassia. Questions LVI–LVIII, trans. and note. A.I.Sidorova, JSC 3/14 (1997), p. 30–62. Questions and answers to Thalassia. Question LIX, trans. and note. A.I.Sidorova, JSC 1/19 (1999), p. 48–71. Questions and answers to Thalassia. Question LX, trans. and note. A.I.Sidorova, JSC 1/23 (2000), p. 40–50. Questions and answers to Thalassia. Question LXI, trans. and note. A.I.Sidorova, BT 38 (2003), p. 74–86. Chapters on theology and the economy of the incarnation of the Son of God – TMI. Ten chapters on virtue and vice - TMI. Dispute with Pyrrhus, in the book: St. Maximus the Confessor and Christological disputes of the 7th century, ed. D.A. Pospelova, trans. D.E. Afinogenova (M.: Church of Sophia the Wisdom of God in Sredniye Sadovniki). To Theopemptus Scholasticus – TMI. To Thomas, Another Epistle, trans. Archimandrite Nektary (R.V. Yashunsky), RNGD U s. 40–50, approx. With. 393–396. Letter 10, John Cuvicularius, trans. V. Asmus, BS X, p. 72–75. Epistle to John Cuvicularius about love - TMI. Various Theological and Economic Chapters 1–15 – TMI A Word about Ascetic Life – TMI. Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer - TMI. Interpretation of Psalm 59 – TMI. Paul Rorem, John p. Lamoreaux, John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus. Annotating the Areopagite (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) (English translation of the scholia to the Areopagite Corpus, attributed to John of Scythopolis). Athanasius the Great, Creations in four volumes (Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, 1902; reprint: M., 1994). Gregory the Theologian, Words I-XLV, in the book: Collected Works in two volumes, vol. 1 (reprint: Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, 1994). Gregory the Theologian, Definitions lightly inscribed, Ibid., vol. 2, p. 308–314. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Structure of Man, trans. V.M. Lurie (St. Petersburg: Axioma, 1995). Gregory of Nyssa, On the soul and resurrection, dialogue with sister Macrina, in the book: Eastern Fathers and Teachers of the Church of the 4th Century. Anthology II, ed. Hieromonk Hilarion (Alferov) (Dolgoprudny: MIPT Publishing House, 1999), p. 200–256. Gregory of Nyssa, Great Catechetical Discourse, ibid., p. 149–200. Diadochos of Photikie, One Hundred Gnostic Chapters – Diadochos, ep. Fotiki of Epirus, The ascetic word, divided into one hundred active chapters, filled with knowledge and spiritual reasoning, in the book: Philokalia in Russian translation, supplemented, vol. 3, 2nd ed. (1 M., 1900, reprint: Holy Trinity Lavra of Sergius, 1992), p. 8–74; critical ed. see: Diadoque de photice, Oeuvres spirituelles. 2-eme éd., Intr., texte critique, trad, et notes de Édouard des places (Paris, 1955). Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names. On Mystical Theology, ed. preparation G.M. Prokhorov (St. Petersburg: Glagol, 1994). Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Heavenly Hierarchy, trans. M.G. Ermakova (St. Petersburg, 1997). Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Church Hierarchy. Messages, ed. preparation G.M. Prokhorov (St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2001). John of Damascus - Works of St. John of Damascus. Source of knowledge, trans. and comment. D.E. Afinogenova, A.A. Bronzova, A.I. Sagardy, N.I. Sagardy (M.: Indrik, 2002). Irenaeus of Lyons, Refutations and Refutations of False Knowledge, trans. P. Preobrazhensky, in the book: St. Irenaeus of Lyons. Creations (St. Petersburg, 1900, reprint: M.: Palomnik, Blagovest, 1996). Macarius of Egypt, Spiritual Words and Epistles. Collection type I (Vatic, graec. 694). Preface, translation, commentary, indexes by A.G. Dunaeva (M.: Indrik, 2002). Nemesius of Emesa, On the Nature of Man, trans. F.S. Vladimirsky (Pochaev, 1904, reprint: 1996). Proclus, Commentary on the first book of Euclid's Elements. Introduction. Greek edition text, trans., intro. article and comment. Yu.A.Shichalina (M.: Greco-Latin Cabinet, 1994). Philo of Alexandria, Interpretations of the Old Testament, intro. article by E.D. Matusova, per. and comment. A.V. Vdovichenko, M.G. and B.E. Vitkovskikh and others (M.: Greco-Latin Cabinet of Yu.A. Shichalin, 2000). Karayannis, Vasilios. Maxime le Confesseur. Essence et energies de Dieu. Théologie historique 93 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1993). Larchet, Jean-Claude, La divinisation de Íhomme selon Saint Maxime le Confesseur (Paris: CERF, 1996). Riou, Alain, Le Monde et ÍEglise selon Maxime le Confesseur, Pro£acé de Μ-J. Le Guillou (Paris: Beauchesne, 1973). (Théologie historique 22). Sherwood 1952 – Sherwood, Polycarp. An Annotated Date-List of the Works of Maximus the Confessor (Roma, 1952). (Studia Anselmiana 30), Sherwood 1955 – Sherwood, Polycarp, The Earlier Ambigua of Saint Maximus the Confessor and his Refutation of Origenism (Roma, 1955). (Studia Anselmiana 36). Thunberg 1965– thunberg, Lars, Microcosm and Mediator. The theological anthropology of Maximus the Confessor (Lund, 1965). (Acta Seminarii Neotestamentici Upsaliensis 25). Thunberg 1985 – thunberg, Lars, Man and the Cosmos. The Vision of St Maximus the Confessor, with a Foreword by A.M. Allchin (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1985). Balthasar, Hans Urs von, Ecumenical Liturgy (fragments), trans. M. Gershina et al., AO 3/14 (1997); 2/16 (1998); 1/19 (1999); 1/23 (2000); 3/25 (2000); 2/36 (2003); 4/38 (2003). Brilliantov, Alexander Ivanovich, The influence of Eastern theology on Western in the works of John Scotus Erigena (St. Petersburg, 1898; reprint: M.: Martis, 1998), p. 212–234. Bronzov, Alexander Alexandrovich, “Preface by the translator,” 1894, in the book: Works of St. John of Damascus. Dionysius (Shlenov), hieromonk, “Gethsemane prayer in the light of the Christology of St. Maximus the Confessor”, in the book: Dispute with Pyrrhus. St. Maximus the Confessor and the Christological disputes of the 7th century, rev. ed. D.A.pospelov (M.: Church of Sophia the Wisdom of God in Sredniye Sadovniki, 2004). Afanasy (Evtich), bishop, “Prolegomena to hesychast epistemology”, BT 40 (2005), p. 74–121. Epifanovich, Sergei Leontyevich, St. Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine theology (1 Kiev, 1915; reprint: M.: Martis, 2003). Petrov V.V., “On the difficulties of XLI Maximus the Confessor: basic concepts, sources, interpretation,” in collection. Space and soul, ss. 147–271. Petrov V.V., “Connections and divisions of the hypostasis of the created in On the difficulties XLI (PG 91, 1304D-1316A) of Maximus the Confessor,” VT 40 (2005), p. 47–73. Petrov V.V., “. Knowledge: its meaning and functions in the theological system of Maximus the Confessor,” Points/Puncta 3–4/5 (M.: Institute of Philosophy, Theology and History of St. Thomas, 2005), pp. 7–25. Pospelov D.A., “Reverend Maximus the Confessor as a historical figure and theologian,” in the book. Dispute with Pyrrhus... (see above). Florovsky, Georgy Vasilievich, Eastern Fathers of the V – VIII centuries (Paris, 1933, 2 Paris: Ymca-Press, 1990). Proclus, In Platonis Cratylum commentaria (ed. G. Pasquali) III, 2, 5–12; In Platonis Parmenidem p. 982, 24–30; 1003, 10; In primum Euclidis elementorum, 42, 15; 69, 13. the triad ἀποδεικτική – ὁριστική – διαιρετική is mentioned by Iamblichus in the Life of Pythagoras 161, 8: “General knowledge, such as the doctrine of proof, definition and division , he [Pythagoras] conveyed to people” (translated by Yu.A. Poluektov). Ammonium, In Isagogen 34, 17–20, Busse; 36, 10–11; David, In Isagogen, p. 88, 8 sqq.; 97, 16–17; Aelius, In Isagogen 37, 9 sqq. John of Damascus, On dialectics LXVI, 34–44 (in Russian translation, chapter LXVIII): “there are four dialectical or logical methods (α ἱ διαλεκτικαὶ μέθοδοι ἤ γουν λογικαί): dividing (διαιρετική)... definitive (ὁριστική)... analytical (ἀναλυτική)... demonstrative (ἀποδεικτική), which proves the stated position through a certain average [term]". John Scott, De praedestinatione 1 (PL 122, 357C-358A): “Cum omnis piae perfectaeque doctrinae modus, quo omnium rerum ratio et studiosissime quaeritur, et apertissime invenitur, in ea disciplina, quae a Graecis pbilosophia solet vocari, sit constitutus, de ejus divisionibus seu partitionibus quaedam breviter edisserere necessarium duximus... Quae [id est philosophia] dum multifariam, diversisque modis dividatur, bis binas tamen partes principles ad omnem quaestionem solvendam necessarias habere dignoscitur, quas Graecis placuit nominare διαιρετική, ὁριστική, ἀποδεικτική, ἀναλυτική, easy demonstrate, resolve. Quarum enim prima unum in multa dividendo segregat, secunda unum de multis definiendo colligit, tertia per manifesta occulta demonstrando aperit, quarta composita in simplicia separando resolvit.” Ammonium, In Analyticorum priorum librum 1,1, 29; 8, 5–14. Proclus, In Parmenidem 984, 22–24. Ibid., 982, 15–32. As Dillon points out, if for Aristotle analysis is a method of studying individual things, then for Proclus, its goal is to isolate the general from the particular, see: John M. Dillon, "Introduction to Book V", in: Proclus' Commentary on Plató Parmenides. Trans, by Glenn R. Morrow, John M. Dillon (Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 324. See derivatives from δείκνυμι: ἐπιδίξασθαι (1305A 7, 1312B 5); δείξειε (1308В 7); δείξας (1308D7, 1309С 10, 1312А 14); δεικνύς (1309A5); and from ἀποδείκνυμι: ἀπέδειξε (1309G 2–3); ἀποδείξας (1312 Α 1–2). For example, Aristotle begins the First Analytics with the words that this is an essay on demonstration and demonstrative science (περὶ ἀπόδειξιν καὶ ἐπιστήμης ἀ ποδεικτικῆς 24a 11). In total, in both Analytics, derivatives of (ἀ πο) δείκνυμι occur more than three hundred times. Compare: “Man exists in accordance with his logos” (λ όγον καθ ᾿ ὅ ν ἐστίν, 1305D3); “the earth preserves the logos thanks to which it exists” (τὸν καθ ᾿ ὅ ν ἐστ ι λόγον, 1309B 11). Compare: On Difficulties XLI, 1309С 1–2: “sensible nature is one in its most general logos”; 1309C 9–10: “creation is one in its first and most general logos.” Maximus, Mystagogy V, 203–205: “the soul will, in simple intuition, know the logoi and causes of beings, thanks to which, probably, before its betrothal to the Word and God, it slowly advanced through dieretic methods (ταῖς διαιρετικαῖς ὑπήγετο μεθόδοις)". Wed: John of Damascus, On dialectics, ch. VÏ On division, ch. LXVI, 34–41 (Russian translation, chapter LXVIII, On four dialectical methods). ps.-Dionysius, NI VII, 2 (29, 16): “enlightened by the analytical knowledge of sacred diversity (ποικιλίας ἀ ναλυτικὴν ἐπιστήμην)”; and scholia: “With knowledge of the diversity... interpretation... of Tradition... For without interpretations that analyze (ἀναλυουσῶν) the multicolored wisdom of holy perceptions, it is impossible for us to understand them, nor for the first three rites...”; NI XV, 1 (51, 1 sqq.): “Having descended to... the multiform diversity of angelic forms, from them, as from images, again through analysis (αναλυτικώς) we return to the simplicity of heavenly minds. ps.-Dionysius, Epistles Π VII, 2: “the sun... moved back backwards (ἀναλυτικῶς α ὖ θις ἀναποδίζη)”; Scholium 540 4 D – 541B: “The sun performed a five-shaped movement, returning (κατὰ ἀνάλυσιν), as he said, “exactly back” (ἀναλυτικῶς)." Compare: ἀ ναλύω - return to Luke 12:36 . Wed. commentary by Basil of Seleucia on John 1:1–4, in which he praises John the Theologian: “In the beginning was the Word, - which showed (ἔδειξε) the beginninglessness of the [Filial] hypostasis; and the Word was with God, - which showed the [unity and] indivisibility of the [divine] essence; and God was the Word, - which showed the immutability of the [Divine] nature; It was in the beginning with God, - which showed the co-eternity of the Son with the Father; everything began to be through Him, - which showed that the creation [of the world] was completed freely" (Word for Holy Easter 2, 32-38 Aubineau, SC 187, p. 212, trans. P.B. Mikhailov). Plato, Sophist 219a-237a; Politician 258b-267 pp. Aristotle, Metaphysics VII, 12, 1037b 30–1038a 35; Second Analytics II, 5, 91b 12–92a 5; II, 14, 98a 1–12. Wed: ps.-Arstotle, Divisiones Aristoteleae. Aristotle, First Analytics I, 31, 46a 31–37. Porphyry, Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle II (View), 5: ἡ οὐσία " σῶμα " ἔμφυχον σῶμα " τὸ ζῷον I λογικὸν ζῷον " Wed: There same, IIÏ “Plato advised descending from the most general genera to stop at the most special species, and descending through middle terms, making divisions with the help of species-forming characters...”. Gregory the Theologian, Words 38 and 39. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Lord's Prayer IV (274, 1–28 Oehler), Russian. lane Creations of St. Gregory of Nyssa, part I, TSO 37 (M., 1861), p. 436–438. Maximus the Confessor, On Difficulties X (1153A): “every nature of beings is divided (διγιρ ῄ τ αι) into the intelligible and the sensible...” Gregory of Nyssa, Refutation of Eunomius I, 23 (I, 1, 295, 1–296, 1 ​​Jaeger, Russian translation, vol. 1, p. 119): “in the division of beings we recognize the following differences. First, since it is the first for our comprehension, I call the sensory; after this, through sensory guidance, it is perceived by the mind, and this, as we have said, is intelligent. And again, in the intelligent we recognize another distinction, dividing it into created and uncreated; and regarding the uncreated nature, we have determined that this is the Holy Trinity, and everything after It is and is called creation”; I, 23 (I, 1, 270, 1–272, 1 Jaeger, Russian translation: MDA, 1863, p. 110): “The highest division of all beings divides everything into the intelligible and the sensible... But reason also divides into two the concept of the intelligible: the uncreated nature, after which another, created, is taken. The uncreated creates the creature, and the created has a cause and the possibility of being in the uncreated nature.” Gregory of Nyssa, Refutation of Eunomius III, 6, 66, 1 Jaeger (Russian translation, book VIII, chapter 5, in vol. 2, p. 130): “The highest division of all beings accepts the division into created and uncreated... Both created nature and divine essence are separate and have no connection in terms of distinctive properties...”. Proclus, in Timaeum III, 283, 20: “this division [into male and female] is characteristic of living things (ζ ῴ ου γὰρ α ὕ τη δι αίρεσις).” Aristotle, Metaphysics 1058a 29-b 25. Proclus, in Timaeum 283, 17–284, 12. Proclus was inclined to believe that the division into male and female is inherent in souls even before any body, even a light-like one, is attached to them. Proclus notes that not in all cases souls end up in bodies of the same sex. He raises the question of whether the distinction between male and female does not appear at the moment when the Demiurge makes each soul a “living being” by attaching a chariot to it, because this division is characteristic of the living. The answer to this is that male and female souls are divided according to the gender of local living beings, not at birth, but change their properties, like types of lives - and some descend into a more feminine form, and others into a “stronger” one. The Selenic soul descends into the male nature, the Apollinian soul into the female. From the myth told by Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium (189d sqq.) it is clear that already in heaven souls are divided into male, female and the common of both. In addition, not in all cases male souls pass into the emergence of husbands, and female souls into the emergence of women. Philo, On the creation of the world 134. See: V.V. Petrov, “Body and corporeality in the eschatology of John Scott,” Cosmos and soul..., p. 731–734. Compare: Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul (PG 46, 148, 25–149, 2, Russian translation pp. 251–252): “Our nature, having become passionate, met with the necessary consequences of a passionate life... Everything that was mixed into human nature from the life of the unreasonable was not in us before, until humanity fell into passion due to vice... In the future life... we let us put off what was put upon us from the skins of foolish animals... [and this is the essence of carnal] mixture, conception, birth, uncleanness, breastfeeding, breastfeeding, ejaculation, gradual achievement of fullness in growth, flowering of strength, old age, illness, death...” What is foreknown by God from His eternity does not affect the free will of a being living in time. A person does not know his future, it is open to him. See: V.V. Petrov, “Origen’s teaching on the resurrection body and its influence on the theology of Gregory of Nyssa and John Eriugena,” IX Christmas Educational Readings. Theology and philosophy: aspects of dialogue. Collection of conference reports (January 25, 2001, Institute of Philosophy RAS), ed. V.K. Shokhina (M., 2002), p. 40–45(22–58). Plato, Republic X, 616p. He, Timaeus 31b 6–c 4: “God, when he began to compose the body of the universe, created it from fire and earth. However, the two themselves cannot be well composed without the third, for it is necessary that in the middle between one and the other some connection be born that unites them. The most beautiful of connections is the one that unites itself and the connected to the greatest extent, and this task is best fulfilled by proportion...” Wed. Proclus's commentary on this place (in In Tim., vol. 2, p. 13, 15ff), as well as Proclus, Plato's Theology V, 98, 22–27 (Russian translation pp. 385–386): “[the analogy] hypostasized the bodily combination formed from the four first genera, harmonizing the extremes through the middle ones (τὰ ἄκρα διὰ τῶν μέσων ἁ ρμόσασα), and mixing the middle ones With the special properties of the extreme ones and at the same time bringing them all into a single cosmos and into a single order, remaining unchanged throughout.” Plato, Timaeus 32a 7 – b 8: “If the body of the universe were to become a simple plane without depth, one middle [member] would be sufficient to connect it with the extreme ones. However, three-dimensional... are coupled through the two middle members. Therefore, God placed water and air between fire and earth... So he combined them, building from them the sky, visible and tangible.” Compare: Proclus, In Tim. vol. 2, 39, 19 pp. Plato, Timaeus 33a 7-b 1: “He built the cosmos as a single whole, composed of integral parts, perfect and unaffected by decrepitude and disease.” Ibid., 36d 9th 1: “God began to arrange everything corporeal inside the soul and adjusted both to each other in their centers.” Aristotle, On Origin and Destruction II, 3, 333a 30–331a 6 sqq. The elements are in two pairs. The extreme ones are fire and earth, the middle ones are water and air. Each of one pair is opposite to each of the other: fire (dry and hot) is opposite water (wet and cold), air (moist and hot) - earth (dry and cold), since they consist of opposite properties. Compare: Same, On the Soul II, 11, 424a 1–10: “What acts on an organ makes it what the effect itself is in reality, because it is such in potential. That is why we do not feel warm and cold, hard and soft, when they are the same [with our organs], but we feel when they are redundant (τῶν ὑπερβολῶν), since sensation is, as it were, a kind of middle between the opposites present in the sensed. Thanks to this, it distinguishes what is sensed, for the middle is capable of distinguishing, since it becomes different in relation to each of the two extremes; and just as it is necessary that what is to be perceived, white and black, should not be either of these colors in reality, but potentially be both (and in the same way with other [sensations]), so in the case of touch the perceiver must be neither warm nor cold.” Compare: Alexander of Aphrodisias, De anima 59, 8–12: “Sensation is a certain mean between the opposites present in what is sensed.” For the mean for each of the two extremes becomes capable of distinguishing both [extremes, being] different for the extremes” and opposite [to both], and therefore it can change into each [of them]: after all, change is [a movement] towards the opposite”; Alexander, On Sensation 27, 1–6: “Water is the mean of each of these extremes [i.e. for transparent and opaque]. What each of the excesses must comprehend [in comparison with itself] will necessarily be in the middle of both. For if it belonged to one of the extremes, it would not perceive the other as too distant and very far removed, since, as he [Aristotle] himself said in the second book of On the Soul, that by which we perceive must be [the average]. And water is like this in relation to other transparent [bodies]. Therefore, it is reasonable that the eye [consists] of it [water].” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1106a 29–32: “I call the middle of a thing that which is equally distant from both edges... The middle in relation to us I call that which is neither excessive nor insufficient...” 1106b 27–34: “Virtue, therefore, is a certain possession of the middle... Evil, as the Pythagoreans figuratively expressed it, belongs to the infinite, and the good is definite... This, therefore, is the reason that excess and deficiency are inherent in depravity, and the possession of the mean is in virtue”; 1107a 2–3: “There is a mean between two types of depravity, one of which is from excess, the other from deficiency”; 1108b 14–15: The extremes [in relation to mental inclinations] are opposite to the average and to each other, and the average to the extremes.” Compare: Clement of Alexandria, Teacher II, 1, 16, 4, 4–7 (Russian translation, p. 125): “Extremes are unreliable, but the middle [paths] are good; By average I mean the absence of a lack of necessities.” Proclus, Plato's Theology IV, 13, 25–14, 6 (Russian translation, p. 240): “This is how the [intelligible-intelligent] gods are divided into three orders. Through the top of their [rank] they come into contact with the intelligible, and through the completion of [the order] - with the intelligent, but in the middle, which completes the single connection of the extremes, they have equally one and the other originality and extend in both directions - to the intelligible and to the intelligent kinds of gods; this order will seem to be the center of two corresponding dispensations, homogeneously connecting their community; Comm., on Parmenides I, 677, 41–678, 2: “the extremes are always brought together by a connection [existing in] the middle, akin to both of them”; Fundamentals of Theology 147, 3-6: “If there must be continuity of the divine procession and each order must be connected to its means, then it is necessary that the peaks of the secondary be connected to the limits of the primary.” Compare: Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Heavenly Hierarchy IX, 2: “since there is no hierarchy that does not have first, middle, and last powers, the holy rank of archangels, thanks to their middle position in the hierarchy, unites the extremes in communication.” Nemesius of Emesa, On the Nature of Man V, 33–43 (Russian translation 77): “The elements are opposite to each other in the two opposite qualities they have, namely: water, being cold and wet, is opposite to fire, hot and dry, earth - cold and dry - to air, hot and wet. And since opposites cannot be combined with each other, unless some intermediate link is established between them, connecting them, the Creator installed water in the middle of the earth and air, which are opposite, giving it two qualities: coldness and moisture, by which it, in contact with the extremes, can connect them. themselves, and connected by them. This kind of connection is the most successful. Each of the intermediate elements is connected by one of its qualities to what is before it, and by another to what is after it...” Gregory the Theologian, Sermon 38, 11. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Constitution of Man I (PG 44, 129, 7–13): “So, since heaven and earth are diametrically separated from each other due to the opposition of their action, the creature located between the opposites partly participates in [both] adjacent ones, mediating between the extremes, so that the mutual contact of the opposites becomes apparent through this average mutual contact of the opposites”; XVI (181, 28–41): “Human nature is the mean between two extremes, separated from each other - divine and incorporeal nature and unreasonable and bestial life. Indeed, in the human composition one can see partly both of the above: from the divine - rational and reasonable, which does not allow distinction into male and female, and from the unreasonable - bodily structure and form, divided into male and female... The intelligent takes precedence in him [man], and at the same time, communication and affinity with the unreasonable is innate to man." Basil the Great (?), Against Eunomius IV (PG 29, 692, 30–33, Russian translation, vol. 3, p. 162): “That which by nature constitutes the middle between something comes into contact with both extremes. Therefore, if Christ is the mediator between God and us by nature, and not by economy, then God and creation are united by nature”; Leontius of Byzantium, Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos I (PG 86/1, 1289A): “Christ in relation to us and in relation to the Father exists as a whole [though formed] from parts, [i.e. Their two natures]. Through His parts He mediates the edges. Indeed, in relation to us, He exists as an integral hypostasis, [connecting with us] through [His] humanity together with the deity...” Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names XI, 2 (PG 3, 952A; p. 219, 14–19 Suchla): “The integrity of perfect Peace reaches all that exists... connecting everything and connecting edges through the middle with edges in one same-nature and conjugating affection... making everything related through unities, identities, connections, gatherings...” See: Ibid., XI, 5 (953B; p. 221, 9–10): “reconciling us to Himself in spirit, and through Himself and in Himself to the Father.” Basil the Great (dubia) Interpretation of the prophet Isaiah I (Trevisan, pp. 250, 14–23; Russian translation, p. 287): “Why was the dispensation of the incarnation accomplished by the cross? So that those who are being saved will be gathered from the four wings of the earth. For the cross is divided into four parts, so that each part of it faces one of the four parts of the world. And death on the cross is preferred, or - that all parts of the world should be brought to salvation by parts of the cross; or because before the wooden cross a mental cross was erected, coextensive with the whole world, in the middle of which the four parts of the universe touch, and the power of which, contained in the middle, passes into the four parts”; John of Damascus, An Accurate Statement of the Orthodox Faith IV, 9 (84) (Kotter 84, 36–39): “just as the four ends (ἄ kra) of the cross are held and fastened by the center, so by the power of God the height, and the depth, and the length, and the width, that is, all the visible and invisible creation, is supported.” See: Peter Van Deun, “L`Unionum definitiones (CPG 7697, 18) attribu έ ὰ Maxime le Confesseur: etude et έ dition,” Revue des Etudes Byzantines 58 (2000), 123–147. For a list of compounds, see: Leontius of Byzantium, Adversus argumenta Severi (PG 86, 1925C); John of Damascus, On dialectics LXV, 65–127 (on the union in general), LXVI (on the hypostatic union). Cf. also: Sherwood 1952, p. 30. Cf. Ep. 12 (PG 91, 496A). Compare: Gregory the Theologian, Homily 38, 11: “there has not yet been a confusion of mind and feeling, a combination of opposites”; Ibid., 38, 13 sqq.: “O new confusion! O wonderful dissolution! The Son begins being... The incomprehensible is embraced through the rational soul, which mediates between the deity and the gross flesh”; Epistle 3, to Kledonius (Er. 101, 13, 1–31, 6 Gallay, SC 208; Russian translation, pp. 9–10): “We do not separate in [Christ] man from divinity... For both are one and the other in the dissolution - and God became man, and man became deified, or whatever one might call it... In Christ the Divinity was essentially united and is conjugated... Both natures and names are dissolved, and pass (περιχωρουσῶν) one into another according to the law of fusion "; He, Definitions, lightly inscribed (PG37, 947, 9-10, Russian translation p. 308): "With my soul, reason and mind." Gregory of Nyssa speaks of the mixture of virtues and vice (in On the fact that there is no need to grieve for the dead); about the mixing of qualities from unreasonable life into human nature (On the soul 148, 24–149, 17; Russian translation, pp. 251–252); rus. pp. 23; In relation to the relationship between the human and divine natures in Christ, Gregory of Nyssa prefers to talk about μίξις and ἀνάκρισις, but also uses ἕ νωσις; and in the Great Catechetical Sermon (X, 4) he speaks of ἕ νωσις (“unity”) and προσεγγισμός (“bringing together”). With regard to the mysterious union of the soul with God, Gregory speaks of συνάφεια (“contact,” Accurate Exposition of the Song of Solomon I), but also of συμφυΐα (“fusion”) and συνδρομή (“descent”). “Ενωσις, συνάφεια and συνδρομή are also used to denote the union of soul and body. See J.-R. Bouchet, “Le vocabulaire de l`union et du rapport des natures chez saint Grí goire de Nysse,” Revue thomiste 68 (1968), pp. 533–582. Difficulty XVII (1228CD): “[what is] the connection of opposite [edges] with each other to compose [of them] a single world? ...[what is] the interweaving in our bodies of opposite [elements] through mixing through composition (κατὰ τὴν κρ ᾶ σιν διὰ συνθέσεως), bringing by nature things far apart from each other into friendly cohabitation and taming harshness in the middle extremes; helping them to pass harmlessly (χωρεῖν) one through the other; making the mutual transition of extremes into each other through mixing περιχώρησιν) means of preserving the things that are composed [of them]?” Proclus, In Parmenidem 768, 34 sqq. Compare: E.Corsini, II Trattato De divinis Nominibus dello Pseudo-Dionigi e i commenti neoplatonici al Parmenide (Torino, 1962), p. 40, no. 3: “The doctrine of ο ἕ νωσις and διάκρισις is developed by Proclus especially in the 2nd book of the Commentary on Parmenides 768, 34 sqq. (Cousin) and in Plato’s Theology VI, 12. For the identification of διάκρισις with πρόοδος, see: Fundamentals of Theology 35.” See also: Ysabel de Andia, L' union a Dieu chez Denys ÍAreopagite (Leiden-N.Y.-KShp: Brill, 1996), 49–55. Compare: Maximus the Confessor, Opuscula 18 (PG 91,213A-216A): “Connection according to hypostasis [is seen] in essences, that is, in the soul and in the body... Connection according to hypostasis is found in those of different essences”; Er. 12 (PG 91, 484AC): “The hypostatic union is, according to the Fathers, the descent of different essences (ἡ ἑτεροουσίων σύνοδος) into one hypostasis, in which each of the constituent parts in relation to the other [part] retains its natural originality as authentic in the union, unchangeable and indivisible." See above the final paragraph of the subsection “Logos of Individuals” in section 1.4. Ibid., X (1116B): “these are three universal (καθολικούς) troposes possible for man, in which God created everything (for He, having existed, created us for being, being and ever-being), and two of them are extreme and belong to one God, as the Author of [them], and the third is middle and depends on our choice ( γνώμης) and movement, and conveys to the extreme the true meaning of their name, so that if it is absent, then their naming becomes useless without the addition of “good-”. [The saints] realized that acquiring and preserving the truth contained in extremes, which is characteristic of goodness mixed among these extremes, is possible only by constant movement towards God.” Ibid., X (1193D): “the soul is in the middle between God and matter and has powers that connect it with both – I mean the mind [striving] towards God and the feeling [striving] towards matter.” Ibid., VII (1092B): “the soul... takes care of the body in order... to include it and assimilate it (οἰκειιῶσαι) to God as a fellow servant, mediating itself, so that the Creator would dwell [in it]... bind it with the bonds... of immortality...". Ibid., XVII (1228D-1229A): “the mind and the intelligible [converge] through the thinking that stands between them (νοήσεως), which is the connection that connects the divided surroundings [arising] from both thoughts (νόημα)... All sensible and sentient... [converge] through the feeling that stands between them, which is the common connection for the separated extremes (some - as through it perceiving the sensory; others - as through it being subject to [perception] the senses) around the [corresponding] sense organ (αἰσθητήριον)....” Compare: Dionysius the Areopagite, BI XI, 2 (Russian translation, p. 307–309): “Through a reconciling union... minds uniting with their thoughts are united with the thinkable, and then ascend to an unknown combination with That which is above the mind... Through Him [Pacification] of the soul, uniting and reducing to a single mental purity all their various logoi, march in their proper way and order through immaterial and partless thinking towards supermental unity.” Ibid., XIX (1236A): “the image (φαντασία) ... is a connection between the edges, mediating them through itself. I call the edges the ability of imagination (τὸ φανταστικόν) and the imaginary (τὸ φανταστόν), from which through the medium of imagination (φαντασίας), which is the connection between the edges, there is a vision ( φάντασμα), constituting the limit of action and suffering, - action in the faculty of imagination and suffering in the imaginary - edges combined with each other through the medium of image (φαντασίας), which is their connection in relation to this. Difficulty X (1153AB): “[the intelligible] is subject to thinking, and the [sensible] is subject to feeling through an inseparable force connecting [the elements of each pair] with each other, [and due to their] natural property of being connected, for the connection of the thinker with the intelligible and the feeling with the sensible is strong, and man, consisting of a soul and a sentient body, by natural feature [has] a mutual connection with each dissection creation is outlined and delineated: delineated by essence, and delineated by force, [delineated] as being divided into them [i.e. e. mind and feeling] in their parts, and [delineating] as through a union attracting them [intelligible and sensible] to itself through its own parts; for he is by nature delineated by the intelligible and sensible as [consisting of] soul and body, and delineates them by [spiritual] power as understanding and feeling.” Compare: Ibid., X (1113C): “the body and the world are ascetically dissolved, seeing that they are mutually embraced by each other - the body [the world] by nature, and the world [the body] through feeling - and one falls under the power of the other, thanks to certain features connecting one to the other, and that neither of them, by its own logos, is free from limitation, and considering it a disgrace for the soul to allow its immortality and everlasting movables to be corrupted and limited to the corruptible and limited”; X (1169BC): “For by nature the sensible are embraced by those who feel, and the sensible by the sentient are by sense, as perceived.” Maximus, On Difficulties XVII (1228D): “the combination (συνάφεια) of extremes with each other in the middle, where the boundary of each of them is (κατὰ τὸ ἑκάστου πέρας).” Ibid., Χ (1188D): “the connection (συνοχή) of the extremes with each other through the middles without any damage by them to each other due to their opposition.” In 1312A it is said that Christ, by his humanity, time after time appropriates one edge to another edge (οἰκειωσάμενος τὸ ἄκρον). Proclus, Comm., on Parmenides IV, 918, 21–24: “there are three reasons for becoming like: the one below, as the subject; the one above, as the one who gathers those who lead to perfection and those who are brought to perfection; and the one in the middle of these [two], like the connection of the extremes.” Although Maxim does not always strictly distinguish between connections realized by reaching a higher level and connections through the middle term. Maxim, Difficulty X (1169BC): “all [bodies] are embraced by all and turn [into each other] through the interchange of any properties inherent in each of them (περιτρεπόμενα τ ῇ ἐπαλλαγ ῇ τῆς περὶ ἕ καστον ποι ᾶ ς ἰδιότητος)". Ibid., VII (1084С): “the power... of mutual giving (τῆς ἀντιδιδομένης)... which deifies man for God... and God for man... incarnates, and makes, by a beautiful rearrangement (ἀ ντιστροφήν), man a god through the deification of man, and God by man through the incarnation of God.” Proclus, Commentary on Euclid I, 1 (3, 14–4, 8 Friedlein, Shichalin, pp. 43–45): “Plato... divided the knowledge of existence in accordance with the first, middle and final realities, and in the indivisible he saw intelligent nature [i.e. mind. – V.P.], separating intelligible objects without violating their universality and simplicity (ἀ θρόως καὶ μετὰ ἁ πλότητος) and surpassing all other knowledge with its immateriality, purity, uniform comprehension ( προσβολ ῇ) and touch (ἐπαφ ῇ) to existence; and with the divisibles involved in the last nature, that is, with the entire [area] of the sensory perceived, he correlated opinion (δόξαν), the lot of which is vague truth; with the average ones - and these are mathematical forms (τὰ τῆς μαθηματικῆς εἴδη) which are lower than the indivisible nature, but above the divisible - he correlated reasoning (τὴν διάνοι αν)." Ibid. I, 1 (3, 1–14 Friedlein, Shichalin, p. 43). Ibid. I, 1 (4. 8–18 Friedlein, Shichalin, p. 45). Plotinus, Enneads IV, 4, 1, 14–15. Proclus, Commentary on Euclid I, 14 (42, 9–43, 21, pp. 119–121): “Plato called dialectic in the Republic (534e) the crown of the sciences (μαθημάτων) ... Just as the mind is established over reasoning, and provides it with principles from above, and gives its perfection to reasoning, in the same way dialectics, being the purest part of philosophy, in its simplicity stands directly above all the sciences, and embraces their entire expansion, and from itself gives to the sciences their various abilities - leading to perfection, distinguishing and thinking - I mean analytical, dieretic, determinative and demonstrative. Being endowed with them and brought to perfection, mathematics (μαθηματικὴ) finds one thing through analysis, another through synthesis; and one expounds through diaeresis, another through definition, and in a number of cases grasps what is sought through proof. At the same time, it coordinates these methods with what is subject to its consideration, and uses one or another method to contemplate intermediate rational constructions; It is precisely because of this that analysis, definition, diaeresis and proof belong to it and are developed in accordance with the nature of mathematical knowledge. It is natural, therefore, that dialectics is the crown of the mathematical sciences, since it brings to perfection all its thinking ability, makes irrefutable the accuracy corresponding to it, and also preserves its inherent immutability in a stable state, elevates its immateriality and purity to the simplicity and immateriality of the mind, determines the first principles of the mathematical sciences through rational constructions, reveals generic and species differences in what is subject to consideration by mathematics, and teaches synthesis that deduces from the principles what is follows the principles, as well as analysis going back to the first and to the principles.” Ibid. II, 8 (69, 13–19, Shichalin, p. 169): “[Euclid] applies all dialectical methods (τὰς μεθόδους τὰς δια λεκτικάς): dieretic - when establishing species, determinative - when determining essence, demonstrative - during the transition (ἐ v τοῖς μζταβάσεσι) from the beginnings to the wanted, analytical - during the ascent from the wanted to the beginnings (ἐ v ταῖς ἀναστροφαῖς)." Wed. Maximus’s similar reasoning in Difficulty X (1112D-1116D) about the triad “feeling-reasoning-mind”. A.L. Dobrokhotov, “The Analogy of Existence,” New Philosophical Encyclopedia (M.: Mysl, 2000), vol. 1, p. 105; G.V. Vdovina, “Francisco Suarez on analogia entis: the problem of the analogy of beings in the scholasticism of the 16th century,” Puncta 1–2/6 (2006), pp. 78–100. Ammonius, In Aristotelis analyticorum priorum librum i commentarium 24,31–25,30. Difficulty X (1112D-1116D). Perhaps one should read not κατ ᾽ ἰδέαν, but κατ ᾽ ἰ δίαν. Compare: BI VII, 2 (196, 17–197, 2; 869AB): “not judging each individual individually (κατ ᾽ ἰ δίαν ἑκάστοις ἐπιβάλλων).” Reading ἰδίαν is confirmed by the context of the phrase and below: BI 197, 10: “God has no special knowledge (ἰδίαν γνῶσιν) of Himself, but another - a general one, in which He embraces all things” (ἑτεραν τὴν ko ιν ῇ τὰ ὄντα πάντα συλλαμβάνουσαν ). However, both ἰδέαν and ἰδίαν are found in the manuscript tradition of the Areopagite Corpus. Apparently, the scholiast had the reading ἰδέαν. , or chose one of the two (since the manuscripts of the Areopagitik were already from the very beginning accompanied by an apparatus in which discrepancies were indicated). Here and below, square brackets indicate text not found in the Syriac translation. This is the thought that Maxim expresses in relation to divine wills - logoi. Both νοοῦσι and ἐπιβάλλουσιν are pres ind act 3 pi. The word ἐπιβάλλουσιν itself can be understood as pres part act neut pi (as in Prokhorov’s translation), but in the context of the phrase this does not make sense. Compare: Scholium 120 8 B to CI I, 4: ["People, after all, from the outside (ἔξοθεν), i.e., from consideration of what is characteristic of creation, from teaching words and other similar things, receive true knowledge. And angels from within are enlightened regarding the mental power itself and recognize the divine will, i.e., they are formed for the imitation of God and the knowledge of existence"]. The last paragraph (enclosed in angle brackets) is missing from the Syriac translation. Compare: John of Scythopolis, scholium 429 3 B-431A to TB V: “The angels know it [existence] with reason (γνωστικώς), immaterially, and not like us - sensually.” Compare: Plotinus, Enneads IV, 4, 1, 14–15. John of Scythopolis, who often quotes Plotinus, may here demonstrate the direct influence of the latter. Proclus, Commentary on Euclid II, 8 (69, 13–19, Shichalin, p. 169): “[Euclid uses] the evidentiary method in the transition (ἐν τοῖς μεταβάσεσι) from the beginning to the sought.” ἀγνώστως can be translated both as “in ignorance” (in this case Maximus follows the concept of “learned ignorance” of the ps.-Dionysius) and as “in an unknowable way.” Difficulty V (10, 8, 1112D-1113A). Ibid., 1113D-1116A. Regarding “the perception of things” (τά τῶν ὄντων θεάματα) cf.: Chapters on theology I, 70: “possessing logoi as ways of seeing (τρόπους θεωρημάτων ). Regarding the knowledge of God as the Cause, cf.: Difficulty V (10, 8, 1116C): “By straining the visual power of the soul together with the understanding given to us here by nature... the saints learned to gradually, following the appropriate logos of nature, turn to the Cause of nature.” John Scott deduced from this the presence of a sense of internal and a sense of external, especially since further on in relation to the word it is said about the internal and the spoken. Compare: Nemesius of Emesa, On the Nature of Man XIV. Compare: VO XXV, 73–80: “the thought of the Word becomes the clear knowledge of the Mind that gave birth to It, since the Word reveals the Mind that exists in it in essence, to which it raises the [human] mind, striving towards identity by grace with God, freed in thinking from the difference and plurality of beings and united with the God-like Unit (μονάδα ) in the identity and simplicity of diligent and eternal movement around God." Compare: ps.-Dionysius the Areopagite, BI VII, 2: “And souls are endowed with a rational principle and they tend to move - progressively and in a circle - around the truth of beings...”. Mystagogy 4, 10–19: “logoi of sensible things, carefully purified in spirit from matter.” Wed. also: Difficulty (1112D-1113B). Ibid., 1160B: “if we want to piously judge those who intelligently consider the logoi of sensible [objects], then we will see them rightly walking the straight path to the knowledge of God and [things] divine.” Ibid., X (1113D-1116A): “But if the saints ever moved towards the contemplation of existing things (τὰ τῶν ὄντων θεάματα), then they moved not in order to contemplate them in themselves, or to cognize them materially, as we do; but in order to sing in a variety of ways through everything and in everything, God who appears in everything, and to gain greater power of amazement and a reason for praise.” Ibid., XV (1216AB): “the types and forms of feeling, through the power of reason, are naturally transformed into all kinds of concepts, and the multitude [embedded] in existing various logoi [belonging] to the power of reason is united into a single, simple, and inseparable thinking, according to which the so-called inseparable and ... unified knowledge is formed.” Ibid., Χ (1113AB): “feeling... was elevated through reasoning to the mind; reasoning... united with the mind... brought to God... the mind, and in it, completely taking [to] God, they were worthy to be completely dissolved in the totality of God.” Chapters on theology I, 70: “The whole world is determined by its logoi... possessing them as ways of seeing that are inherent in it by nature and make possible partial comprehension of the Wisdom of God in all... And when the manifestation of the perfect ceases the partial, then everything that is divinatory and dim passes away, the Truth appears face to face, and the one saved, having become perfect in God, will be above all worlds ( κόσμους), centuries and places by which he has been brought up until now like a child (1 Cor 13–13).” Chapters on theology 1, 9: “As for God, through these existent logoi one can only believe that He exists. He gives to pious people confession and faith that He truly exists, and [such faith] is more accessible than any proof. For faith is true knowledge, possessing unprovable principles, since it is a hypostasis of things that exceed mind and reason.” Compare: BI VII, 4 (198, 21–199, 12): “Logos is a simple and truly existing truth, around which (περὶ ἥ ν), as pure and undeluded knowledge of all, there exists divine faith, the constant affirmation of believers, in immutable identity affirming them in the truth, and the truth in them. So believers have simple knowledge of the truth.” Chapters on Theology II, 8: “Whoever, [overcoming his] separation [from God, which occurred] as a result of the transgression [of the commandments], unites [with Him], first of all separates himself from the passions, then from passionate thoughts, then from nature and the logoi inherent in this nature, and then from speculation and from the knowledge associated with them. Finally, moving away from the diversity of the logoi of Providence, he in an unknown way reaches the logos of the Unit”; ibid. I, 82: “he who participates in thinking to some extent does not yet go beyond the boundaries of the binary (τῆς δυάδος); the one who completely abandons this thinking finds himself in some way in the Unit (ἐν τῇ μονάδι) and removes from himself the ability to think.” Chapters on Theology II, 4: “He who is worthy to be in God comprehends by simple and inseparable knowledge all the logoi of created things that preexist in Him.” And also Mystagogy V, 199–207: “in this Word, as in the Creator and Creator of beings, all the logoi of beings are uniformly the same and exist in accordance with one and incomprehensible simplicity... [Having united with God] the soul itself will, in simple intuition, know the logoi and causes of beings, thanks to which it slowly advanced through dieretic methods before its betrothal to the Logos and God. And through them it is now carefully and harmoniously raised to the Contenter and Creator of every logos and every reason.” τούς περὶ τῆς οὐσίας αὐτοῦ πρῶτον λόγους . I am changing the translation of A.I. Sidorov: “seeks the logoi that are around His essence.” In relation to “what is around the essence,” one would expect an accusative after the περί, as is usually the case with Maxim. The genitive in τούς περὶ τῆς οὐσίας αὐτοῦ means logoi “relating to essence” (cf. ibid.: “that which relates to Eternity”). This understanding is supported by further reasoning. The deified mind seeks logoi related to essence, but does not acquire them, and is forced to be content with logoi related to what is around God. The latter are what is “around”. On difficulties XXXIV (34, 96, PG 91, 1288AB): “From what is in essence, that is, from the essence itself (ἐκ τῶν κατά τήν οὐσίαν, τουτέστι ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας αὐτῆς), it is never known what God is (τι ὑπάρχων). After all, the concept of what He is (ἡ περί τοῦ τί καθέστηκεν) is incomprehensible and completely inaccessible (ἀμήχανος καί ἄβατος) to any creature, both visible and invisible.” Ibid., II, 6. Compare: ibid. I, 98: “Contemplating visible [things], the mind seeks either their natural logoi, or what these logoi point to (τούς δι ᾽ αὐτῶν σημαινομένους), or seeks the Self The reason [for them].” VO XXXV, 20–24, 29–32, 42–44, 48. Chapters on Theology II, 88: “[the soul] becomes god through communion with God’s grace, ceases all actions of the mind and feelings, and at the same time the natural actions of the body, united with the soul through its corresponding participation in deification, cease in it. So that God alone becomes visible through soul and body, surpassing their natural properties by the abundance of [His] glory.” Difficulty X (1153BC): “without stopping [the knower] will pass by everything sensory and intelligible and every time, age, and place... and having supernaturally stripped himself of all action in accordance with feeling, reason and mind, he will be honored with divine pleasure that exceeds reason and mind...”; Op. cit., 1113D: “[the saints] have inseparably bound themselves to the one God... which is the fulfillment and end of all virtue and knowledge”; Chapters on Theology II, 90 “The Kingdom of Heaven is the comprehension of the pure and eternal knowledge of beings according to their logoi [abiding] in God. And the Kingdom of God is the acquisition by grace of goods that are naturally characteristic of God. The first [is acquired] at the end of things, and the second [is acquired] mentally after this end.” Ibid., 1113B: “as a result of this... philosophy, from which the nature of the body is necessarily ennobled, the saints... came to God.” Maximus the Confessor, On Difficulties X, 1153B: “God simply and infinitely surpasses everything that exists... and nature... time, age and place in which the universe is contained, since He is completely detached (ἄσχετος) from everything... God... surpasses word, knowledge and simply any relationship and is above nature...”; and XVII (PG 91, 1224A). Compare: John of Scythopolis, scholium 372D to BI IX, 4 (209, 14, 912С): “With God the unborn is especially and absolutely” (ἰδικῶς ο ὖ ν κα ί ἀπολύτως); scholium 373С to BI IX, 4 (209, 15 –210, 1, 912С): “God is unborn without cause and absolutely” (ἀπολύτως); scholium 385 4 CD to BI X, 3 (216, 3, 937C): “He speaks of God as absolutely unborn” (ἀπολύτως ἀγέννητον). Wed. also scholia, absent in the Syriac translation of Phocas bar Sergius (but hardly belonging to Maximus), scholium 269ВС to BI IV, 16 (161, 15, 713С): “irrelevant (ἀσχετόν) he calls the absolute (τό ἀπόλυτον), having nothing to do with anything (σχέσις), i.e. natural kinship (οἰκειότης φυσική)"; 381 3 D to BI IX, 9 (213, 13, 916С): “irrelevant (ἀσχέτ ῳ), i.e. absolute (ἀπολύτῳ)". Maxim writes more than once about these and other divisions and connections. Compare: VO LV, 179–183: “The general distinction [through the senses] divides between (1) those who had a beginning and those who did not have it, (2) between those comprehensible and incomprehensible to the mind, (3) utterable and ineffable, (4) created and uncreated, (5) perishable and incorruptible”; VO XLVIII, 66–78: “Scripture names the various unions of divided creatures brought about by Christ. For He united man, mysteriously eliminating by the Spirit the difference between male and female and making the logos of nature (which is [one] in both man and woman) free from passionate characteristics. He united the earth, banishing the difference between the sensory paradise and the inhabited earth. He also united earth and heaven, showing that the single nature of sensory [things] gravitates towards itself. He also united sensible and intelligible [things], revealing the one existing nature of [everything] that came into existence, combined together according to a certain mysterious logos. Finally, He united, according to the logos and tropos that transcends nature, created nature with uncreated nature”; VO XLVIII, 188–189: “[the union of] mind with feeling, heaven with earth, sensible [things] with intelligible things, and nature with [its] logos.” For how the saints distinguish and connect all created things through the five troposes of contemplation, see: On Difficulties X, 1134A-1137C. Compare: Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy (AO 2 (16), 1998, pp. 126–128): “with St. Maximus, the sensory universe can take on this double appearance: to be the good and best creation of God’s creative act and, nevertheless, to deeply accept into itself the influence of the Fall and death of man”; “The object of the highest approval is ultimately identical with the object of the decisive condemnation, for it is not the manifestations of nature, but its very essence that bears the mark of grace and rejection, like a red-hot brand.” As Thunberg notes, “None of the five divisions are evil in themselves, and they are not directly caused by the fall or sin. Only with the advent of sin do evil forces use these divisions to create sinful divisions” (Thunberg 1985, p. 81). John of Scythopolis, Scholium (PG IV, 232B-233A, No. 3) to BI I, 11 (137, 1–2, 649D). Compare: ps.-Dionysius, Divine names I, 1 (109, 13, 588B): “Genada, making every genada one.” For example, all the logoi of creation were created by God from eternity and at once, see: VO II, 7–9. When authors write about the divisions of the world, they most often talk about vertical stratification; this applies to both Christian authors (in this case citing ancient classics) and pagan ones. Compare: Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium VII, 19, 2, 1–3, 4 (Marcovich): “according to Aristotle, the world is divided into many and different parts. And that part of the world that [stretched] from the earth to the moon... And the part from the moon to the firmament...". Compare: Proclus, in Tim. I, 136, 29–137, 4. Proclus lists the divisions of the universe into various numbers of regions. In particular, the quaternary division distributes the elements in the universe into four; пифагорейцы говорят о небесном, эфирном, надземном и подземном. According to the fivefold division, the unified cosmos is made up of five parts and figures and is divided into the destinies of the corresponding gods - heavenly, fiery, airy, watery and earthly; in Cratylum 150, 25–3 Pasquali. Philo, On Dreams XIII, 76: And just as the sun distinguishes between day and night, so Moses says that God divided (διατειχίσαι) light and darkness, for “God separated (διεχώρισε) light from darkness” (Gen. 1:4). Ibid., XXVI, 130.4–131.4. Ibid., XXVII, 133, 3–140, 4. ps.-Iamblichus, Theologumena arithmetica 9, 5–6. Perhaps the following statement of Tatian is directed against them (Oratio ad Graecos 5, 1, 9–5, 2, 2 Goodspeed): “The Word of God was born by discernment (μερισμόν), and not by cutting off (ἀποκοπήν). For what is cut off is separated from the beginning. And what is differentiated accepts the division (δια ίρεσιν) of the economy and does not diminish the one from whom it came.” Just as from one torch (δᾳ δὸς) many fires are lit, and, moreover, the light of the first torch is not diminished by the lighting of many torches, so the Word, which originated from the power of the Father, did not deprive the Parent of the Word.” The image of many torches/lamps will later be used by Ps.-Dionysius in BI II, 4 (127, 4–12, 641AB). Ср.: Ириней, Против ересей I, 4, 1–2 (­1, 1,7, 2–34 Harvey): «Помышление ( τὴ ν ἐνθύμησιν ) вышней Премудрости... отделившись ( ἀφορισθεῖσαν ) вместе со страстью ( τῷ πάθει ) от Плеромы... стало вне ( ἔξω ) света и Плеромы... Таковы, говорят, были составление и сущность материи, из которой составился этот мир»; II, 18, 4: «Помышление было не что иное, как страдание от попытки постичь Непостижимого [Отца]... ибо оно мыслило о невозможном... Каким же образом известное состояние и страсть могли отделиться от Помышления и сделаться субстанциею материи?»; II, 20, 5: «Помышление, отделившись от зона... и создав все вне Плеромы по подобию того, что внутри Плеромы...»; I, 2, 4–5: «Отец... производит... Предел... который называют... и Отделителем... Помышление вместе со страстью отделено и отграждено Пределом [от Премудрости]...». Трудность X (1193С-1196А). Трудность X (1184D-1188С). Теологумены арифметики 8, 2–9, 10, пер. V.V. Bibikhina. Irenaeus, Against Heresies I, 2, 2 (I, 1, 2, 15–21): “[aeon] Wisdom... experienced passion (πάθος)... being seduced, apparently, by love (ἀγάπης), but in fact by insolence (τόλμης), because he did not have such a close one as he has Ум, общения с совершенным Отцом. Страсть же состояла в желании исследовать Отца...». TI X (1197D): “to defeat... the forces of the material duality - I mean [the forces of] rage and lust (θυμοῦ κα ί ἐπιθυμίας) - and the division corresponding to them (μερισμοῦ)"; ТИ X (1200D): «ярость и вожделение, которые воистину суть материальная двоица»; ТИ X (1204С): «от материальной двоицы – от ярости, говорю, и вожделения». Боэций, Комментарий к Порфирию, им самим переведенному III. О виде (PL 64, 103А-105В, рус. пер. с. 56–59): сущность (как οὐσία δευτέρα ); 1) incorporeal / corporeal; 2) неодушевленное / одушевленное; 3) бесчувственное / чувствующее; 4) животное: неразумное / разумное; 5) бессмертное (телесный бог) / смертное (человек): Платон, Вергилий. Но ср.: Боэций, Там же (рус. пер. с. 67): «Порфирий... говорит, что в отличие от семейных родословных, все существующие вещи не могут быть сведены к одному началу, что не может быть у всех вещей один общий род, но что над ними стоят, по утверждению Аристотеля, десять первых родов в качестве десяти первых начал: так написано в Категориях . И пусть никто не пытается, продолжает Порфирий, проникнуть дальше и найти еще более высокий род; давайте лучше уступим авторитету Аристотеля и поверим, что эти десять родов не подчинены никакому другому роду» (пер. Т.Ю.Бородай). Иоанн Дамаскин, Введение в основы догматики VII, 14–25 (PG 95, 105ВС). Difficulty X, 1153B: “God simply and infinitely surpasses everything that exists, encompassing and comprehended, and the nature of that without which they do not exist; I mean [the nature of] time, age and place in which the universe is contained, since He is completely detached (ἄσχετος) from everything... God... transcends word, knowledge and simply any kind of relationship (τῆς σχέσεως) and is above nature...”; and Difficulty XVII (PG 91, 1224A). John of Damascus, Introduction to the Fundamentals of Dogmatics VII, 26–28 (PG 95, 105C). John Scott, Periphuseion II, 117 (Jeauneau; PL 528B). For Damascene, "being" is the most general category, while Eriugena speaks of universitas or "nature", which embraces being and non-being or, in Maximus's terms, created and uncreated nature. Here we can recall that, according to Seneca, the Stoics placed a higher genus above “essence” - “something”, which was divided into existing and non-existent. Compare: Letters to Lucilius LVIII, 14–15: something / existing and non-existent (imaginary) / corporeal and incorporeal / animate and inanimate / animals and plants / mortal and immortal. Compare: John Scott, Periphuseon II, 70–74, 529CD (IFE, p. 97) (see: note 387). Mystagogy VII, 7–20: “The intelligible is the soul for the sensible, and the latter, in turn, is the body for the intelligible. The intelligible world exists (ε ἶ ναι) in the sensible, like the soul embodied (ἐνοῦσαν) in the body, and the sensible - in the intelligible, as the body joined (σνγκροτούμενον) to the soul. And there is one world consisting of both of them, like one person consisting of soul and body. Each of these worlds, fused in unity, does not reject or deny the other according to the law of the One who united them. And in accordance with this law, they contain the logos of a unifying force, which does not allow them to be ignorant, despite their natural otherness, regarding their hypostatic identity in unity ταυτότητα ). It is also inadmissible to assert that the originality, which closes each of the worlds in itself and leads to their separation and separation, has greater power than the friendly kinship, mysteriously given to them in unity. Ibid., II, 30–37: “the world is one and is not separated from its parts; on the contrary, by raising it to its unity and indivisibility, it abolishes the difference between these parts, which stems from natural characteristics. After all, they, changing places without merging (ἀσυγχύτως ἐναλλὰξ ὄντάς), are identical to themselves and to each other, showing that each can enter (ἐμβεβηκότα) into another, as a whole into a whole”; see also further: I, 37–44. Difficulty X (1189C-1192A). For more details, see above note. 56. Ibid., I, 4-25: “God, who created and brought into being all things with His infinite power, contains, collects and sets a limit to everything, intelligible and sensory, providentially connecting one with another and with Himself. And, being the Cause, the Beginning and the End, He holds near Him things that are by nature separated from each other, forcing them to gravitate towards each other due to a single connection with Himself, as with the Beginning... Everything is connected without confusion, since one Beginning and Cause inextricably connects and preserves them. This connection abolishes all particular connections and overshadows them... However, it abolishes them and overshadows them not through their destruction, destruction or bringing them to non-existence, but by conquering and appearing on top of them, manifesting itself as a whole in the parts, or a cause in the whole itself. In accordance with it, that is, in accordance with the total Cause shining on top of beings, both the whole and the parts of the whole naturally appear and exist. And just as the sun by nature and power appears above the stars, Cause, being the cause of effects, obscures their existence"; VII, 20–25: “In accordance with this kinship [is realized] the entire and unified way of the invisible and unknown presence in all kinds of meaningful Cause of beings, existing diversely in all and making all of them unmixed and inseparable both in themselves and in relation to each other, showing that these beings, according to a uniform connection, belong rather to each other than to themselves.” See: Difficulty XLI (1312A); Difficulty VII (1092С) – note. 463; 1097C - note. 467, as well as note. 67. Maxim does not always strictly terminologically distinguish between “difference” and “separation” (διαί ρεσις). Proclus, Comm. on Parmenides VI, 1130, 27–38. Compare: Maximus, Difficulty XXI (1249D-1252A): “This is what Gregory the Theologian meant in his funeral homily for Caesarea’s brother: “[the soul] and its kindred flesh... completely absorbing into itself and becoming with it one spirit and mind, and God... As flesh is swallowed up by corruption; and the soul is flesh; and the knowledge of God by the soul, so during the resurrection, in the reverse order that is to be realized (κατὰ τὴν ἀντιστροφήν), the flesh will be swallowed up by the soul in the Spirit; and the soul is God, the whole soul will show the whole God in everything. In the future, in everything that concerns us, the grace of resurrection will show the opposite (ἀντιστρόφως) to the present.” These same lines: Words 7 of Gregory the Theologian Maxim comments in Opuscula 8 (104AB). The principle of "reversal" will be adopted and reinforced by John Scott in the Periphuseion. Maxim learned this vision of man from his sources: Nemesius of Emesa, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Theologian, Dionysius the Areopagite. Difficulty XLI (1305A): “a person who naturally mediates with himself all the extremes that appeared during divisions”; 13056: “mediating with its parts the limits of the whole world”; 1305B: “mediating all extremes, being related to all limits due to the peculiarity of its parts, and clearly having by nature, in relation to the middles of all extremes, the power to unite...” Wed. words about a connection “consistently ascending” “from those near to those far” (1305B), and about “consistent advancement” to God “through the middle” (1305C). Ibid., 1305C: “moving forward through the middle members, finding the limit of ascent in God, in Whom there is no division”; 1305B: “the connection with each other of the limits of existence, ascending from the nearest to the farthest and from the worst to the best.” In 1305A 14-C 7, the vectors of development in the two paradigms are oppositely directed (in the paradigm of the logical tree - from unity to multiplicity, in the paradigm of the means - vice versa), so the reader immediately notices the transition from one coordinate system to another. In 1312A 5-B 2, such a transition is almost imperceptible due to the co-direction of these vectors in both paradigms (from multiplicity to unity). I am grateful to A.G. Dunaev and Yu.A. Shichalin, whose comments helped me understand the syntax and meaning of this passage. It turned out to be significant to interpret περιλαβών ... τὴν ἅ πασαν κτίσιν ... τά ἄκρα as accusativus relationis: “embracing the entire creation within its limits.” In this we disagree with John Scott (otpet creaturam per medietates ueluti propriarum partium extrema comprehendens), which most modern translators follow. In addition, the words ο ἷ ς ὡ ς μέρεσι are not understood instrumentally, but as an indirect addition to οἰκειωσάμενος, cf.: VO XXXVIII, 15–16: ο ἷ ς ὡ ς ἀνδράσιν όμιλήσασα, “cohabiting with them as with husbands.” A few notes about the translation of this line. (1) The aorist participle οἰκειωσάμενος, grammatically medial, has a transitive meaning here: Christ appropriates the parts of the edge (οἰκειωσάμενος τὸ ἄκρον μέρεσι), cf.: Difficulty VI (1068A): “the unreasonable powers of the soul... through reasoning... to assimilate to the mind (τῷ νῷ διὰ λόγου οίκειώσασθαι).” Here the medial aorist infinitive does not differ in meaning from the active one, cf.: Ibid., X (1112CD): “And the saints... understood how, through the medium of the soul (διὰ μέσης ψνχῆς)... and the flesh... to appropriate to God (τὴν σάρκα τῷ θεῷ ο ἰ κε ιῷσαι )" [repeated in Capita theologiae et oeconomiae V, 72 (PG 90, 1377D)]. For a similar transitional meaning of the aorist medial participle ἐναπομαξάμενος in Gregory of Nyssa, see: V.V. Petrov, “Corporeal eidos as a seal,” Cosmos and Soul, p. 620–621. (2) In relation to the “universal edge” cf.: 1305B: τοῖς καθόλου μεσιτεύων ἄκροις . (3) Being a dative of συγγενές, the word ἑκάστῳ means μέρει, “each part.” (4) The “parts” include καθ ᾽ ἕ καστον, for it cannot be connected with the “universal” edge: the individual (ἕ καστον) and the general (καθόλου) are always opposed, which is emphasized by the article separating καθ ᾽ ἕ καστον from ἄκρον. It is no coincidence that, in attempting to satisfactorily translate this passage, some translators deliberately omit one of the elements of this foursome. E. Laut discarded the “body” (“since he possesses like us sense and soul and mind”), E. Ponsoye discarded the “mind” (“en tant qúayant comme nous un corps, des sens, une ame”). Ep. 15 (PG 91, 553D): “Christ became completely man, that is, he became a perfect man through the obvious addition of flesh, possessing both a thinking and reasoning soul, which took on in Him both nature and hypostasis.” Compare: Opuscula 15 (PG 91, 64C): “the disciples of the wicked Apollinaris say that the body of Christ has no soul or mind”; there 8 (97ВС). In Opuscula 15 (PG 169D-172A) Maximus quotes a follower of Apollinaris: “Christ was God the Word united to the perfection of the flesh; [The Word] became man without mixing with Himself an attached mind, moved by natural will in relation to opposite things, but rather Itself became mind, making everything an immutable divine will.” Compare: Larchet, “Introduction”, Saint Maxime le Confesseur. Lettres. Introd. par J.-CI.Larchet. Trad, et notes par E. Ponsoye (Paris: Cerf, 1998), p. 16. Compare: 1305C: “bringing together in itself that which by nature is distant from each other at a great distance.” The words “hypostasis unto Himself” seem to mean that private logoi exist in the hypostasis of the Son of God, one of the divine hypostases. Wed. also: Er. 15 (PG 91, 560-561): “If, being by nature God, the Word, without changing, became man through the addition of intelligently animated flesh, then it is clear that He [Christ] is one of two [natures], and that through the one He reveals Himself as truly twofold, and that both [parts] have the same common and particular, through which He makes union and distinction in relation to the extremes. Through the natural difference of his own parts in essence in relation to each other, He [Christ] is united with the edges. And through their, that is, parts, identity in hypostasis, He differs from the edges.” Gregory the Theologian, Slovo 38, I, PG 36, 321, 45–324, 13, rus. lane 527. Wed. also: Philo, About him who inherits the divine 154–156. In addition to ἄνθρωπον ἄλλον of Maximus, corresponding to τινα κόσμον δεύτερον and ἄγγελον ἄλλον in Gregory, Compare: Maxim's story and Gregory's story. BO XLVIII, 189–193. Compare: Gregory the Theologian, Definitions, lightly outlined (PG 37, 952, 13, Russian translation p. 310): “opinion (δόξα) is [our] ideas about things (πραγμάτων φαντάσματα).” Wed. five ways of natural contemplation in: On the difficulties X (1134A-1137C). Difficulty XXI (1248CD): “the soul... if it used the senses well, collecting through its own powers all the logoi of beings, and could wisely transfer to itself everything visible in which God is hidden... then it, too, with its will, would create in reasoning the most beautiful spiritual world, uniting with each other in the likeness of the elements the four main virtues...” Compare: Strabo, Geography II, 2, 2: “The founder of the division into five zones, according to Posidonius, was Parmenides.” Thus, Proclus lists the divisions of the universe into various numbers of regions. In particular, according to the fivefold division, the unified cosmos is made up of five parts and figures and is divided (διῃ ρημένος) into the portions of the corresponding gods - heavenly, fiery, airy, watery and earthly (in Tim. I, 136.29–137.4). See: Divisiones quae vulgo dicuntur Aristoteleae (Leipzig: Teubner, 1906), 1–66, Enneads VI, 3 discusses essence, "quantity", "quality", "motion", "relation". Compare: Ammonium, In Porphyrii isagogen sive quinque voces 59, 8–13. On the important role of the number “five”, see: Macrobius, Commentary on “The Dream of Scipio” I, 6, 19–20. In Difficulty X, 1134A-1137C Maximus writes that the saints divide creation (διαιροῦντες τήν κτίσιν οίἅ γιοι) into "essence" (οὐσίαν), "movement" (κίνησιν), "difference" (διαφοράν), "mixture" (κράσιν), "position" (θέσιν). Maxim associates time with the number seven, but is also involved in the number five: it “is divided and collected by days and weeks, and months, and seasons, and years. And the year also - by hours and days, and weeks, and months, and seasons” (TI XLI, 46, 119, 1356D-I357A). Compare: Ps.-Dionysius, Epistles VII, 2: “The sun, on its way, interrupted its five-shaped movement for ten hours.” John of Scythopolis, Scholium 540 4 D-541B to this place: “The annual movement of the sun is accomplished by five changes (τροπάς): northern ascension, i.e. from the spring equinox to the summer tropic; northern descent - from then to the autumn equinox; southern descent - from the equinox to the winter tropic; thence again southern ascension to the equinox; and the fifth is the opposite of everything... The sun could return to the same part [of the zodiac] only by completing the five-shaped movement prescribed to it, i.e. after three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter... It made a five-shaped movement, i.e. annual cycle..." Difficulty LXVII (1397A). This thought is repeated below: “natural contemplation is fivefold (πενταδική), since feeling is by nature divided into five.” Virtual History: Alternatives and Conterfactuals. Ed. N. Ferguson (London, 1997). J. Cheryl Exum, “Why Virtual History? Alternatives, Counterfactuals, and the Bible,” Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches 8” 1–2 (2000), p. 1–7. Although, of course, for Maxim, the existence of man before the six days of creation was also history - divine history - developing not in temporary centuries, but in eternal centuries. Maxim, Difficulty VII (1097C). Maxim, VO XXII, 50–66. Compare: Chapters on theology and the economy of the incarnation of the Son of God II, 92: “The Kingdom of God and the Father is potentially in all believers, but in reality It is only in those who have completely abandoned the mental and physical disposition to all life by nature, having acquired spiritual life for themselves, and who can say: It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20).” This becomes noticeable when comparing this chapter with the final part of the Periphuseion - the treatise of John Scott (Eriugena). This ending, which is influenced by the text under discussion, describes a similar process of reuniting a broken world. In the Edict of Justinian directed against the Origenists (543), those who taught that the initial state of rational beings coincides with the final state were condemned: “If anyone says that the state of minds will be the same as before, when they had not yet descended or fallen, so that the beginning is identical with the end, and the end is the measure of the beginning, let him be anathema” (Epistle to Patriarch Mena (Edict of Justinian), PG 86, 945–989, see: Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, ed. Schwartz, t. Ill (1940), p. About this kind of not ontological, but existential abyss, see: Difficulty X (1172A): “with our minds we crossed the abyss (χάσμα) between God and people, voluntarily moving away from connection with the world and the flesh. For the truly terrible and great gulf between God and men is love and affection for the body and this world.” From the goodness and proportionality of creation, one can only infer the presence of a supreme Creator (but it is impossible to establish what this Creator is), cf.: Difficulty X (1176BD): “The saints, having comprehended the creation, its good order (εὐκοσμί αν), proportionality (ἀναλογίαν) and the benefit that each delivers to the whole, and the fact that everything in general was created wisely and by a Provider - but in accordance with the logos with which it was created... were taught to the Creator from His works... They learned that the Provider of existence is He Whom they knew [as] God and the Creator of all things. Who, contemplating the beauty and greatness of God’s creations, does not immediately think that He is the source of creation, as the Beginning and Cause of existence, and the Creator, and does not ascend with the mind (διανοί ᾳ) to Him... striving to immediately comprehend the One Whom he recognized in the creations? Wed. an important distinction between knowledge of the whatness of being and knowledge of the mere presence of being: Difficulty XXXIV (PG91, 1288AB): “From what belongs to essence (τῶν κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν), that is, from essence itself, it is never known what God is (τι ὑπάρχων ). After all, the concept (ἔννοια) of what He is (τί καθέστηκεν) is incomprehensible and completely inaccessible to any creature, both visible and invisible. And from the fact that around the essence, when it is contemplated correctly and piously, God reveals Himself to those who see only as Existing (ὅ τι ἔστι). And everything that is around the essence reveals not what He is (τὸ τί ἐστίν), but what He is not (τί οὐκ ἔστίν), such as unbornness, beginninglessness, infinity, incorporeality. And everything like this is located around the essence and shows what ό She is not (τὸ τί μὴ ε ἶ ναι), and not what ό She [is] (τὸ τι ε ἶ ναι)...". John of Scythopolis, Scholium 416 2 A to BI XIII, 4: “and for the angels what concerns God is incomprehensible... [although] the lowest of the angels, more than all church theologians, including the apostles, contemplates God’s”; 184 4 A to CI VII, 11: “Note that even the angels do not know everything.” Wed. An important passage for Difficulty XLI is from Gregory the Theologian: Homily 38, 11 (PG 36, 321С-324A, Russian translation p. 527). Wed. also: Difficulty VII (1092C): “let many things differing from each other by nature come together, gravitating towards each other around the one nature of man, and God Himself will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28), accepting everything and hypostatizing in Himself (ἐνυποστήσας ἑαυτῷ)... Thus, for this purpose, it arose man." In Difficulty VII (1093С-1096А) in relation to the question of the purpose of the creation of man, the Word 38, 11 (PG 36, 321С-324A, Russian translation, p. 527) and the Word 39,13 (PG 36,348D, Russian translation, pp. 538–539) of Gregory the Theologian are quoted. Difficulty VII (1097AC): “we are the members, and the body, and the fulfillment... of Christ God fulfilling everything in all things, in accordance with the hidden plan (σκοπόν) of the ages in God and the Father, headed into Him through His Son... For the mystery hidden from centuries and from generations, is now revealed through... the incarnation of the Son and God, who united our nature with Himself in hypostasis... and through [taken] from us... His holy flesh... deigning us to be one and the same with Him (ἔν καὶ ταὐτόν ἑαυτῷ) according to His humanity, just as we were predestined before the ages to be in Him as members of His body... [this sacrament] showed that we were created for this purpose and [showed] before the ages God’s most good plan for us, which did not accept any new dispensation according to its logos, but came to fulfillment in a different way, that is, introduced by a new tropos.” Difficulty VII (1097C): “God made us like Himself... and before the age planned for us to be in Him (ἔν αύτῷ ε ἶ ναι), and gave us a tropos leading to this all-blessed goal (τέλος) through the correct use of natural forces... Man autocratically rejected this tropos through the incorrect use of his natural sil.,, it was appropriate to bring [to execution] another instead of the former [tropos], so much more paradoxical and godly than the first, as far as the supernatural is higher than the natural. And this is... the sacrament of God’s most mysterious coming to men... The sacrament that was in Christ at the end of the ages is undoubtedly the manifestation and fulfillment of what was left missing in the forefather at the beginning of the ages.” Wed. 1092CD: “in the forefather, prepared for power, [man] used it [power] for the worst.” VO LIV, 275–286 (PG 90, 520CD): “The Word entered into communion with [human] nature by a second communication (κοινωνίαν), much more amazing than the first, since He first allocated [to this nature] from the best, and then of His own free will took on the worst, in order to save [His own image], to make flesh immortal and, uniting with [human] nature... again restore this nature to its original purity, [free] from vice, and thanks to deification make it even more excellent than the first creation. And since [the Word] made [the flesh] such as it was not from the beginning, It returned to it, [constantly] flowing, what was lost, thanks to its immutability, blocking the path to a new fall, and fulfilled in relation to it all the advice of God and the Father, deifying it with the power of Incarnation.” It seems that due to a misunderstanding of the connection between the Incarnation and deification, A.I. Sidorov omitted the word “deification” in his translation, although he retains it when translating another place where it was simply impossible to exclude “deification”, cf.: Interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer (PG 90, 873D): “by the advice-will of God the Father is meant ineffable exhaustion (κένωσις )... the Only Begotten Son for the deification of our nature... The work of God’s counsel consists in the deification of our nature.” IN XXII, 2–36: “Who brought about (ὑποστήσας) the existence of every creature, visible and invisible... before all ages and the very origin of created being, indescribably had the most good advice about it, consisting in... through a true union according to hypostasis... and Himself to become Man, as He Himself knows, and to make man a god through union with By itself... The Divine intention received real fulfillment in the Incarnation... Since the centuries predetermined by [God’s] intention for the realization of God becoming Man have reached their end in us... then we must already expect other centuries that are coming for the realization of the mysterious and ineffable deification of people.” Ibid., 50–66: “Let us also divide in the thoughts of the century and define some as relating to the mystery of the divine Incarnation, and others as relating to the grace of human deification; [then] we will find that the first are already at their end, and the second have not yet arrived. In short, some of the ages refer to God’s descent to people, and others to the ascension of people to God... Since the beginning, middle and end of all ages, past, present and future, is our Lord Jesus Christ, then, of course, the end of the ages - especially that end which will actually come by grace with the deification of the worthy - has reached us in possibility thanks to faith.” Wed. the difference between the potentially and actually present grace of adoption, VO VI, 8–16: “The tropos of our birth from God is twofold: one gives the grace of adoption, which is entirely present to those who are born in possibility, and the other, bringing all of it into reality, gnomically transforms all the will of the one being born in relation to the giving birth to God. The first image of birth contains grace present in possibility, in faith alone, while the other, beyond faith, through effective knowledge, brings into being in the knower a divine likeness to the Known.” For more details see: Larchet, p. 83–123; 221–273. Difficulty XLI (1309D 11 – 1312A 1): ὁ τῆς δι αφέσεως ... τρόπος . In 1305 B 2–12, Maximus writes that thanks to man’s ability to unite everything, the tropos of the emergence of divided natures, fulfilled in accordance with the Cause, was supposed to make manifest through itself the great mystery of the divine plan. I cannot agree with the translation of the highlighted words from Ponsoyer: “Grice ὰ celle-ci, selon la Cause de la genese de tout ce qui dijjere, ce trope une fois en s'accomplissant devait rendre patent le grand myst ὲ re du dessein divin...”, and from Larcher: “Par cette facult έ, conform έ ment ὰ la cause de la gen έ se des etres divis έ s, se parach ὲ ve le mode qui devait par lui-m ε me rendre manifeste le grand myst ὲ re du plan divin” (Larchet, p. 107). The expression τρόπος does not mean “the tropos that is fulfilled due to the emergence of divided ones,” but “the tropos that is fulfilled in accordance with the Cause of the existence of divided [natures].” Maxim wants to say that although the current mode of existence of creation is marked by separation, the world develops in accordance with divine Providence, the influence of Cause on the course of events does not cease. According to the Creator's plan, the world was supposed to demonstrate the unity of all existence. Compare: Mystagogy VII, 1–25: “it is impermissible to assert that special properties... leading to separation and dismemberment (διάστασιν καὶ μερισμὸν), have greater power than friendly kinship... In accordance with this kinship [is realized] the universal and unified tropos of the invisible and unknown presence in beings of the meaningful Cause, which is variously present in everyone and makes them unmixed and inseparable both in themselves and in relation to each other, showing that these beings, according to a uniform connection, belong rather to each other than to themselves.” This understanding can be supported by syntax analysis. In Maxim, in similar cases, the genetic construction refers to the closing noun, cf.: VO 6 0, 21–23: ἀκραιφνὴς ὁ κατὰ οὐσίαν ἑκατέρου τῶν Difficulty XLII (1317D-1320A): ... τὶς διὰ τὴν ἁ μαρτίαν τρόπος ... (“what is, in relation to the Cause, the primary logos of the emergence of man... and what is, in relation to the educational economy, the tropos of his birth as a result of sin”). Regarding the participle συμπληρουμένην cf.: Difficulty XLI (1312B): “[God the Word] divinely headed everything in Himself, making the entire existing creation one like a certain person: fulfilled by virtue of the convergence of its parts with each other and turned to itself by virtue of the integrity of its existence”; Mystagogy IÏ “smart world, filled with intelligent and incorporeal entities.” About God the Word as the Cause of all things, see: Mystagogy I (p. 157): “Being the Cause, the Beginning and the End, He holds near Himself things that are by nature separated from each other, forcing them to unite by the power of one connection with Himself as the Beginning”; On Difficulties X, 1137A: “Only God in the proper sense is... The Cause of any generally understood essence and movement, and differences, confusion and position...” On Difficulties VII (1077C): “God is the Word, as the Beginning and Cause of everything...”. Compare: Difficulty VII (1084D): [the sinner] “moves foolishly towards nothingness (πρὸς τὸ μὴ ὄν).” Wed: Er. 24 (PG 91, 609C): “He created us so that we might become partakers of the divine nature and partakers of His eternity, so that we would be like Him through grace in deification, for the sake of which all the creation and existence of beings, and the bringing of beings into existence”; Er. 43 (640VS). Compare: Ps.-Dionysius more than once represents the divine nature as indwelling, and the divine hypostases as the manifestation and emergence of divinity. For example, BI I, 4 (112, 14–113, 1, 592A): “The Trinity - due to the Trinitarian manifestation of super-essential fertility”; and scholium 196B to this place: “he speaks of the Trinitarian Trinity and fertility [as of] the Father’s coming forth into the manifestation of the Son and the Holy Spirit, which transcends thought.” Plato, Timaeus 29d 7–30a 7: “Let us consider for what reason he who created them arranged the creation and this universe. He was good. .. Being alien to envy, he wished that all things would become as similar as possible to himself (γενέσθαι παραπλήσια ἑαυτῷ). To see in this... the beginning of the emergence of space would, perhaps, be most correct..." Compare: Gregory the Theologian, Homily 38, 9 (320, 36–321, 4): “since for Goodness it was not enough to move only in contemplation of Itself, but it was necessary for the good to spill out and go further... then She invents... angelic and heavenly powers.” These words of Gregory are commented on in Difficulty XXXV (1288D-1289B). Wed: Luke 20:35–36; Clement of Alexandria, Extracts of Theodotus 22, 3: “We will rise equal to the angels (ἰσάγγελοι)”; Gregory of Nyssa also said that once man was, and after the general restoration he will again be equal to the angels (ίσάγγελος): On the dispensation of man 17 and 18 (PG 44, 188C and 196A); 592BC): “we will become incorruptible and immortal... and always... we will be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:17)... for, as the truth of the Sayings says, we will be equal to the angels and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection (Luke 20:36)”; 17–112, 1, 589C): “[the initiates] advance towards simplicity, having become equal to the angels through the resurrection and, according to the apostle, no longer have a “spiritual” body, i.e. composed and moved by the soul, but a “spiritual” one (1 Cor 15:44), because... they are freed from the complex diversity of thoughts and feelings, and thereby, being led, united in a gened of simplicity. After all, “those who believed,” it is said, “had one heart and one soul” (Acts. 4:32)"; Scholium 204BC 1 to I, 5 (116, 14, 593B: “god-like minds”): “imitating the angels, the god-like minds, being led, achieve, as far as possible, union with the holy powers, which he previously called angels. We must understand here our theologians, I mean the prophets and apostles... Calling theologians “minds,” he says that, being deified after the cessation of all earthly activity, they achieve, as far as possible, an angelic union with God”; Scholium 337 2 B to BI VI, 2 (191, 15–192, 5, 856D: “to husbands, as mixed ones, an angelic life is given, if possible; from the abundance of love for mankind, she draws and calls those who have departed to herself; and even more divine is that which is promised to us in its entirety, that is, souls with the bodies associated with them, to be rearranged to a perfect life and immortality"): “Now conveying the doctrine of the image of the resurrection, [Dionysius] shows that, consisting of an immortal soul and a mortal body, we are mixed. Life, which is the essence of the soul, he says, is less than the life of angelic beings, therefore he calls it “angelic” and not angelic, as not truly angelic, but only similar, and says that we are only partly verbal souls, since in general we consist of soul and body. He says about our bodies that they become immortal in the resurrection, noting that the doctrine of the resurrection seemed incorrect to ancient times, i.e. crazy teaching of the Hellenes, because becoming immortal is contrary to the nature of matter... Although the matter of resurrection is higher than nature in relation to real life, the conduct of which is associated with food, excrements and diseases, but for God nothing is contrary to nature and is not higher than nature, since He is the Cause of all life.” Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VI, 13, 105, 1: “He who first tamed his passions and learned dispassion, and grew to the benefit of Gnostic perfection, already here becomes equal to the angels (ἰσάγγελος)”; VII, 57, 7, 4: “the first saving change is from paganism to faith, and the second is from faith to knowledge. The latter, finding its limit in love, gives the lover to the Beloved, the knower to the Known. And perhaps such a one already here achieves a dignity equal to that of an angel (ἰσάγγελος)”; ps. – Dionysius, Epistle X: “already here some abide with God, being lovers (ἐρασταί) of the truth, moving away from addictions to material things and, completely free from all evils, in the divine desire (ἔρωτι) of all good things, loving reconciliation and sanctification and moving from the present life to the future, - living angelically among people, with complete dispassion, God-naming, holiness and other benefits.” BI VIII, 8: “people approach the angels in virtues when, in the pursuit of the divine... they move away from addiction to the material”; scholium 365 1 A k BI VIII, 8 (not in the Syriac translation): “It is possible to speak of virtue in relation to angels, as well as in relation to God, since it is said: “His virtue covered the heavens” (Hab 3:3).” Scholium 365 2 AV to BI VIII, 8 (not in the Syriac translation): “He says that the absence of passion for material things indicates great masculinity or valor, for those who are slaves to worldly and bodily passions are rightly called effeminate; and that divine justice, therefore, not wanting us to be seduced by sweets and perish, encourages us to neglect such ... " That is ap. Paul, Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory of Nyssa (see sections: 2.3.4, 2.3.7 and 2.3.8). Maximus the Confessor, Epistle to John Cuvicularius on Love, 54–56 (p. 146): “truly there is nothing more godlike... more elevating people to deification than Divine love... the sacrament of love, making us gods from people (θεούς ποιοῦν)... Love... leads those living in it to God... Love is fulfillment [faith and hope]: embracing with all of herself the entire ultimate object of desire and granting peace to their movement towards it, instead of faith in its existence and hope for its future fulfillment, it grants itself the taste of it in the present...” Compare: Diadochus of Photikius, One Hundred Gnostic Chapters I (p. 8): “love unites the very soul through virtues with God, comprehending the Invisible with an intelligent feeling.” As the Incarnation, Maxim also considered the presence of the Logos in the logoi of things, cf.: Difficulty XXXIII (PG91, 1285CD), as well as VO 35 (PG90, 377C): “the logoi of intelligible things will be, as it were, the blood of the Word, and the logoi of sensible [things] will be the manifest flesh of the Word,” so that “[the Word] will grant [to people] worthy the knowledge [contained] in the logoi of visible [things] is like eating the flesh [of the Lord], and the knowledge [contained] in the logoi of intelligible [things] is like drinking the blood [of the Lord].” Compare: Thunberg 1965, p. 81; Larchet, b. 95. Compare: VO LX, 10–14: “the ineffable and incomprehensible hypostatic union of Divinity and humanity, in every possible way leading... humanity to identity with the Divine and from both creating a complex hypostasis.” Compare: Ibid., XXV, 20–24, 29–32, 42–44, 48, where Maxim writes that in addition to the natural logoi of visible and invisible things, there are preconceived logoi related to the Divine (περὶ θεότητος). They are that unknown force that in an unknown way connects nature with eternal well-being through deification. Difficulty XL(1313CD). Various... chapters I, 9–0, 12–3, the authenticity of which is not in dispute, represent a parallel to TI XXXVI. It follows from them that the sacrament of incarnation will remain so. The part of the scholia that interests us is absent in the Syriac translation of Phocas, and therefore, with a high degree of probability, does not belong to John of Scythopolis. PG IV, 228 AC. The discussion of the experience of the divine as “going beyond oneself” and “receiving knowledge beyond nature” finds parallels in the works of Proclus. See the subsection “The Divine Faith of Proclus” (2.3.8) above, and also: Proclus, Platonic Theology I, 112, 25–113, 10, 109, 6–16 and 112, 1–6; ps.-Dionysius, BI VII, 4 (199, 13–18). Compare: Chapters on theology and the economy of the incarnation of the Son of God I, 9 (PG 90, 1088?). BI VII, 4 (198, 21–199, 12). For more details, see: E. Jeauneau, Introduction in the book: Ambigua ad lohannem, p. IX-XIII. Athos, Vatopedi 475; Cambridge, Trinity College O. 3. 48, etc. Miinich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Gr. 83 and 3; Sinai, Sinaiticus Graecus 398 (Bene§eviC 392), etc. The section titles of the Difficulties to John contain quotations only from the writings of Gregory the Theologian. Within the sections there are allusions, references and comments to Dionysius. Compare: MSS Cambridge, University Library Dd. II. 22, f. lr; Venice, Bibl Marciana, Gr. 136, f. lr: Τοῦ αὐτοῦ περὶ διαφόρων ἀπόρων τῶν ἁ γίων Διονυσίου καὶ > ἀρχιεπίσκοπον Κυζίκου περὶ διαφόρων ἀπόρων τοῦ Θεολόγου. Opuscula 1, PG 90, 30: ἐν τοῖς ... περὶ τῶν ἀπόρων τῆς ἁ γίας Γραφῆς ἐκτεθεῖσι. Compare: VO 39, 59–61: “You will find a more extensive interpretation in the Difficulties (τοῖς᾽A πόροις) to the Word of St. Gregory on Pentecost” (probably a reference to the Difficulties LXVI – LXVIII); and also Quaestiones et dubia 95, 1–2: "᾽E κ τ οῦ Εἰς τὸ βάπτισμα λόγου τ οῦ ἁ γ ί ου Γρηγορίου το ῦ Θεολόγου ἄπορον προφητικῆς λέξεως )” (reference to Difficulties XLII – XLIV? Β Quaestiones et dubia 104, 1–2 refers to). “difficulties” from the Word about good order in the interview γίου Γρηγορίου τ οῦ θεολόγου ). Compare: On difficulties XXXI (1280A): “let us consider the designated difficult place (τὸ προκείμενον ἄπορον) in a different way”; IN XXIII, 8: “This difficult passage (τὸ ἄπορον) [of Scripture]... has a completely clear and understandable explanation”; and also Quaestiones et dubia 93, 1–2: ᾽E κ τῶν ᾽ Ηθικῶν τ οῦ ἁ γίου Βασιλείου ἄπορον ἐν τῷ Περὶ νηστείας λόγ ῳ. The numbering of chapters in Eriugena has its own peculiarities (he numbers only the Difficulties to John and at the same time includes a dedicatory letter to John that precedes the work). Thus, for example, Difficulty X (according to the end-to-end score for both works) in Eriugena has number VI (10–5†1). See: Sherwood 1955, p. 31–32; а также Ambigua. Μαξίμου τ οῦ Όμολογητοῦ Περὶ διαφόρων ἀποριῶν τῶν ἁ γίων ( Α᾿ – Ε᾿ καὶ Α᾿ – Ρ Δ᾿ ). Εἰσαγωγή, μετάφραση, σχόλια ἀπὸ τὸν ᾽ Ιγνάτιο Σακαλή. Φιλοκαλία τῶν νηπτικῶν καὶ ἀσκητικῶν 14 Δ. Θεσσαλονίκη, 1992; and Μαξίμου τοῦ Όμολογητοῦ Περὶ διαφόρων ἀποριῶν ... (ΡΕ – ΡΟΘ᾿). Θεσσαλονίκη, 1993.