Book of Treasures about the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity

The triadological treatise “The Book of Treasures about the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity” (35 chapters or words) was written by St. Cyril of Alexandria either until 412, or in 423-425. The work is called the “Book of Treasures” because “it contains a great variety of divine contemplations” (see Prologue), i.e. a significant part of theological science. The treatise is addressed to the “hardworking brother” Nemesius and was written at his request. The purpose of the work is to warn readers against the heresies of Arius and Eunomius. St. Cyril cites numerous theses of heretics, which he then refutes with the help of syllogisms and Holy Scripture. Several chapters are devoted to the interpretation of controversial biblical passages. The essay is a collection of answers to difficult questions regarding the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Chapters 1-32, 35 are devoted to proof of the Divine dignity of the Son: His eternal birth from the Father by nature, His consubstantiality and equality with the Father, etc. Moreover, Chapter 32 is a collection of selected passages of the New Testament with brief interpretations, and Chapter 35 is a collection of fragments of Holy Scripture. Chapters 33-34 are devoted to proving the Divine dignity of the Holy Spirit. In this book St. Cyril demonstrates an excellent knowledge of the anti-Arian arguments of his predecessors (mainly St. Athanasius the Great) and quotes them liberally. *The title of the work in Greek is Θησαυρός; ῾Η βίβλος τῶν θησαυρῶν περ τῆς ἁγίας κα ὁμοουσίου Τριάδος. *The title of the work in Latin is Thesaurus de Sancta et consubstantiali Trinitate. Contents G.I. Benevich. St. Cyril of Alexandria and his work “The Book of Treasures” Activities and writings of St. Cyril before the start of the polemic against Nestorius About some features of the “Book of Treasures” G.I. Benevich. St. Cyril of Alexandria and his work “The Book of Treasures” Viktor Shklovsky once proposed a theory according to which “inheritance when changing literary schools does not go from father to son, but from uncle to nephew” 1 . It is difficult to say whether this is always true for the literary process, but in the Alexandrian Church of the first half of the 5th century. in the inheritance of the patriarchal see this happened literally. St. Cyril was the nephew of St. Theophilus of Alexandria, and St. himself. Cyril was succeeded by his nephew Dioscorus, whose reputation among the Orthodox (but not among the Monophysites) was no longer as impeccable as that of his uncle. Of the three patriarchs (popes) of Alexandria related by ties of kinship, it was St. Cyril made the greatest contribution to the Orthodox theological tradition, comparable in importance to the contribution of St. Athanasius of Alexandria, whom he most closely followed in theology (especially in polemics with the Arians, in particular in the “Book of Treasures” published below). However, already St. Theophilus, having found himself in Alexandria in his youth (he was originally from Memphis), received his education and upbringing in the house of St. Athanasius, so that the spiritual and theological heritage of the latter was first adopted by St. Theophilus, and then - from him - and St. Kirill, his sister's son. In addition to studying with St. Athanasius, St. Theophilus managed to study at the Alexandria Catechetical School with Didymus the Blind, who wrote important works on the Holy Trinity. When Theophilus became Patriarch of Alexandria in 385, Cyril was about seven years old; it is very likely that his uncle himself was involved in the education and upbringing of the boy. Kirill received an excellent education, which included not only religiously neutral mathematics, but also the study of ancient pagan literature, which for Christians was deprived of its religious content and has now become simply “literature.” The most important component of the further education of the future patriarch was rhetoric, the excellent knowledge of which is evident from his writings. Experts find his Attic Greek excellent 2 . It is not known whether St. Kirill philosophical education. In his writings, unlike St. Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, he rarely delves into philosophical issues, gives precise definitions of terms or discusses individual concepts, but widely uses rhetorical techniques, metaphorical language and references to Holy Scripture in his proofs. However, there is no doubt that St. Kirill knew the logic of Aristotle and Porphyry. In his early works, including in the “Book of Treasures,” logical terms are often found, and his argumentation itself often takes the form of logical reasoning, and sometimes he directly refers to Aristotle, responding to the arguments “from Aristotle” of his opponents 3 . However, his logical arguments are always subordinated to the main goal - the disclosure of Orthodox teaching. Logic as such does not interest him, but he is fluent in the techniques of logical proof, able to make the impression of maximum persuasiveness on the reader and listener. In his polemic against Julian the Apostate (i.e., against pagan claims to spiritual leadership in the Empire), St. Cyril showed a certain philosophical erudition; for example, he expounds in sufficient detail the treatise on the Providence of Alexander of Aphrodisias (the treatise itself has not survived), but even here he limits himself to a general overview, without going into details of the teachings of pagan philosophers. The main interest of St. Cyril lies in the sphere of Christian theology, which he fundamentally contrasts with pagan philosophy, considering the latter (in itself) to be useless in a spiritual sense. In the church tradition, he relies most on the theologians of the Alexandrian school, especially St. Athanasius and Didim the Blind, whom he knows very well. It is difficult to say to what extent St. Cyril knew the great Cappadocian Fathers, who in his time had not yet become “theological classics” so that their terminology in application to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and Christology became mandatory. St. does not always follow it either. Cyril, although he probably adopted some arguments, terms and ideas from the Cappadocians. In any case, in the Book of Treasures he is closer to them than to St. Athanasius, according to the logical structure of his polemics with the neo-Arians, which was largely due to the fact that the latter (unlike Arius) themselves (especially Aetius and Eunomius) began to conduct polemics with the help of logical proofs (syllogisms), which was not the case with Arius, whose speech in philosophical and logical terms was not particularly accurate. On the “stage” of church history, St. Cyril first appears in 403, when he accompanies his uncle to the “Council of the Oak,” which deprived Chrysostom of his throne. By that time St. Cyril became a reader and may have been the secretary of St. Theophila. When on October 15, 412 St. Theophilus died, St. Kirill, despite the resistance of some of the clergy and the military, who feared another “too strong” patriarch, managed to secure the majority of the flock and on October 18 was elected Patriarch of Alexandria, following his uncle. Since the work published below by St. Cyril belongs to the first period of his work (before the start of the controversy with Nestorius), it is necessary to at least briefly characterize this period of the life and work of the new Patriarch of Alexandria. In many ways, St. Kirill continued his uncle's course. Board of St. Theophilus and St. Cyril's tenure at the See of Alexandria was a whole era - 59 years. At the same time, in church-political terms they dominated the East of the Empire, extending their influence to the capital, Constantinople. The reign of these two patriarchs falls on the period when, after the Second Ecumenical Council, the Church determined its final Creed, i.e. the boundaries of Orthodoxy in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation 4. Having secured the support of the state, the Church during this period went on the offensive against paganism, Judaism and various Christian heresies, continuing to convert large sections of the Empire's population to its faith. The first years of the patriarchate of St. Cyril was characterized by harsh, sometimes bloody clashes between Christians of the ruling Church and Jews and pagans; Christian schismatics, the Novatians, were also persecuted. Among the victims of these clashes, in which the Christians of the dominant Church ultimately always emerged victorious, was the famous woman philosopher Hypatia (died in 415), who was the leader and a kind of “symbol” of the authority of the pagan intellectuals of Alexandria. This is not the place to discuss the question of whether Christians or Jews were responsible for her death (there are different opinions on this matter). What is certain is that in the end the civil authorities of the city, for whose influence the struggle in Alexandria was mainly taking place at that time, came under the strong influence of the patriarch. With the support of Egyptian monks and Christian masses, St. Kirill managed to strengthen and increase the power and authority of the Church that his uncle had already acquired for it. Works of St. Cyril, written before the start of the controversy with Nestorius, are very numerous. They clearly indicate that clashes with Jews, pagans and heretics in the sphere of political life in Egypt, especially in Alexandria itself, had a correlate of intellectual polemics with them, reflected in the writings of St. Kirill. Discourse of St. Cyril is the discourse of a faith that is confident in its rightness and well aware of its foundations and its teachings, belonging to those who declare their full rights to be the people of God, that is, the true Israel, and it is in this capacity that claims to be the dominant part of the population of the increasingly Christian Empire. It is difficult to say exactly in what order the works of St. Kirill. Here is the treatise “On Worship and Service in Spirit and Truth,” dedicated to the Christian interpretation of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments and an explanation of how Christianity as serving God “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23) differs from Jewish legalism, and numerous exegetical works (interpretations on St. Scripture), among which it should be noted interpretations on the Pentateuch (“Glafira”), interpretations on the books of the minor prophets, as well as on the book of the prophet Isaiah. All exegetical works of St. Cyril are aimed at reading the Old Testament as pointing to the coming of Christ and His economy in the light of the New Testament. Finally, the exegetical works written before the controversy with Nestorius include an interpretation of the Gospel of John, which has a clear anti-Arian orientation. In the last work of St. Cyril is already developing the doctrine of the Logos becoming flesh, which will subsequently form the basis of his polemic with Nestorius. Among the dogmatic and polemical works of the Alexandrian saint of this period, books devoted to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity stand out. This is “The Book of Treasures about the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity” (Thesaurus de sancta consubstantiali trinitate) (“Book of Treasures”) 5, which is published here for the first time in Russian translation, and “Dialogues about the Holy Trinity” 6, written a little later. As noted above, the “Book of Treasures” refers to the early writings of St. Kirill. It is a kind of generalization of the argumentation of the polemic with Arians and Neo-Arians, which was conducted before him, practically throughout the 4th century, but to the greatest extent it follows the Word against the Arians of St. Athanasius of Alexandria 7. The teachings of Arius, as well as the teachings of the transitional figure for Arian theology - the sophist Asterius, and the neo-Arians - Aetius and Eunomius, have been well studied, it was presented and analyzed in Russian patristics in sufficient detail 8. So there is no need to repeat in detail the main ideas of these authors. The basic ideas expressed in polemics with the Arians and Neo-Arians by St. Alexander of Alexandria, Athanasius of Alexandria and the great Cappadocians 9. Many of these arguments from St. Kirill repeats it in his “Book of Treasures”. The peculiarity of his polemics is not so much the arguments themselves, in which he, especially in this work, is often not original, but the systematicity with which he expresses them and the form in which he presents them. At this stage of the polemic with neo-Aryanism, when it was already generally defeated in the Empire and could hardly restore its influence, the main task of the Alexandrian saint was to clearly and convincingly present the Orthodox teaching about the Holy Trinity in polemic with the teaching of the Arians and neo-Arians, in order to arm the members of the Church against any arguments of heretics and those sympathizing with them, if any were expressed. St. Cyril formulates exactly this way the task of his work, written at the request of a certain “hardworking brother Nemesin”: “to lay down a word for the children of the Church as a pledge of help for the future” (Thesaurus 75. 12). Nemesin was probably one of those voluntary assistants of the Patriarch of Alexandria from the laity who defended and instilled church teaching among the population of Alexandria, which had very high intellectual demands. Perhaps Nemesin belonged to the Christian brotherhood of the Philoponians (φιλόπονοι, “lovers of labor, hard workers”), whose existence in Alexandria is better known in relation to the end of the 5th century. – beginning of the 6th century. (one of these “Philoponos” was the famous John Philoponus). The “Philoponians” engaged in polemics with educated pagans and heretics, possibly in catechism, and generally helped the clergy in every possible way. Thus, we are talking about a work that is a collection of answers to difficult questions regarding the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The most complex of these questions, obviously, continued to come from among the Alexandrians, who were familiar with the teachings of the Arians and Neo-Arians, which was in a number of parameters close to the middle and Neo-Platonic teachings, so that in the recent past, pagans who converted to Christianity could perceive exactly such a “model” of a hierarchically structured “Divine sphere”, which the Arians and Neo-Arians offered them, much easier to perceive than the Orthodox one with its “consubstantial” of the three Hypostases of the Holy Trinity. Paradoxically, the Arian-Eunomian (and therefore Platonic) model may have seemed more “monotheistic” than the Orthodox. This, in turn, could be the reason for the continued relevance of disputes around Arianism and neo-Arianism, as well as against the Doukhobors, who deny that the Holy Spirit is God and One of the Holy Trinity 10 (the last chapters - the so-called words - works are devoted to polemics with them). It is difficult to say to what extent, after the complete defeat of these heresies at the Second Ecumenical Council, they could pose a real threat to Orthodoxy in Alexandria in the first quarter of the 5th century, when, obviously, the “Book of Treasures” was written. Separate groups of Arians and Eunomians, however, existed in Egypt. However, the speech, apparently, is not so much about the fight against a real threat (St. Cyril’s polemic is couched in rather calm tones, there are relatively few invective against the Arians, which can be found in abundance in earlier works, when in the 4th century the intensity of the struggle was maximum), but about supplying the voluntary assistants of the shepherd with everything necessary to answer questions from both ideological opponents and simply curious (“co-questioners of this century”). The very history of polemics against the Arians, Eunomians and Doukhobors within the Empire moved from the phase of formation of the “Orthodox response”, which took place in the 4th century, to the phase of final formation 11. In this sense, the works of St. Cyril against Arianism refers to the writings against Arius and St. Eunomius. Athanasius, Didymus the Blind (partly the Cappadocians) as well as, for example, the teaching of St. John of Damascus about the two wills in Christ, given in the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, to the Theological and Polemical Writings of St. Maxim, written at the height of the controversy. For the history of dogmatics, of course, both are important, but when turning to each type of dogmatic writings, it is important to understand what exactly we are dealing with in this case. Having spoken about the church-historical context of the “Book of Treasures”, its place in the history of polemics with the Arians and in the heritage of St. Cyril, we can briefly touch on theological issues, looking at them not in a purely pathological context, as is usually done, but somewhat more broadly, in order to draw a lesson for the present, where polemics with the Arians are not so relevant, but the correct attitude to dogmatic theology, especially the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, does not lose its enduring importance. Speaking about the polemics with the Arians and Neo-Arians in the 4th–5th centuries. from the perspective of our (post-atheistic) time, it can be noted that one of the most effective arguments of the Orthodox against the Arians was the denunciation of their thoughts in “carnal wisdom,” i.e., in applying to the relationship of God the Father to the Son analogies of the relationship between father and son among people (where, in particular, the father is such before the birth of the son only “potentially”, and becomes in the full sense “father” only after the birth of the son) 12. And St. Athanasius, and St. Cyril, following him, repeatedly ridicules this way of thinking of the Arians and Neo-Arians, emphasizing the fundamental difference between the relationships within the Holy Trinity and the relationships between people, the incommensurability of the Divine and human realities as a whole 13 . This kind of criticism is fully consistent with the well-known thesis of atheists, for example L. Feuerbach, that people created God for themselves in their own image and likeness. As we see, Orthodox polemicists against Arianism accuse their opponents of precisely this, that they formed the concept of God by projecting onto him ideas about the human, and more often than not, simply the created sphere. At the same time, it should be noted that the Orthodox themselves, including St. Kirill, did not refuse to apply analogies from human reality to God, but they did it differently than their opponents. Here we should recall the well-known analogy of the Father and the Son with the mind and word (logos) of man. Proving that the Son was co-essential with the Father, St. Cyril notes that “the human mind indivisibly generates the spoken word from itself, and no change arises in it from this, but one can see the word in the mind, and the mind in the word, and each of them is depicted by the other, and none of the prudent will say that the mind can ever become wordless, for it will no longer be a mind without having a word.” And he immediately adds, realizing that there is still a time gap between thought and the utterance of a word: “...we mean a word not necessarily publicly pronounced by the tongue, but also mentally performed in the mind” (Thesaurus 75.56). So, the Orthodox also resorted to analogies from the field of human reality, speaking about God (obviously based on the fact that man was created in the image and likeness of God, and, looking at this image with a pure gaze, one can say something about the Prototype, if not in terms of knowledge, then in terms of explaining one’s faith). But the nature of this analogy can no longer be called “carnal wisdom,” if only because the subject of comparison is the human soul in its mental activity, even before uttering a word, in relation to the “inner word” in relation to his godfather. This means that the analogy of the Orthodox is spiritual (that is, “smart”), and not carnal, and this, obviously, was one of the reasons for their greater persuasiveness than the Arians. At the same time, one should not exaggerate the role of such analogies in St. fathers, especially eastern ones; as a rule, they served only as an illustration, but not as a way of knowing the Divine reality and, in particular, the “dispensation” of the Holy Trinity 14. This, as we know, is one of the differences between the way of thinking of the Greek fathers and the blessed one. Augustine, who in his treatise “On the Trinity” used analogies, including analogies with the structure of the human soul, to draw conclusions regarding intra-Trinitarian relationships, from which he, in particular, arose the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and from the Son. St. Cyril, like the other Greek fathers, does not go so far in the use of analogies 15. He uses them only to polemicize against heresy and to illustrate the Church’s faith in the consubstantial Persons of the Holy Trinity. Otherwise, based on the above analogy, a number of bewilderments could be raised. Let's say, are the mind and the inner word in a person hypostases in the same (or similar) sense in which the Persons in the Trinity are hypostases? Is there not one hypostasis in a person (i.e. and his soul), and how can there be any other “hypostases” in this hypostasis, and aren’t there three Hypostases in the Trinity, and not one? That is, any analogy of this kind, if we go beyond its use as an illustration, raises many “questions and bewilderments.” St. Cyril, like other saints. fathers, knew how to stop in time, without applying not only “carnal” (as the Arians did), but even simply human wisdom to the knowledge of the Holy Trinity. In the latter, they proceeded from the faith of the Church, from Holy Tradition and Holy Scripture interpreted in its light, and not from their own, albeit intellectually very lofty, constructions. But if the main thing for the Orthodox is St. fathers were the faith of the Church and Holy Tradition, then, one may ask, what exactly in Tradition was that “touchstone” or touchstone that served to test the truth of dogmatic teaching? Without claiming originality here, we will repeat a thing that is well known, but “discovered” in pathological research not so long ago, a little over a hundred years ago. In his teaching about the Holy Trinity, St. the fathers proceeded from the doctrine of salvation, understood as deification 16. Although not much space is devoted to the topic of deification in the Book of Treasures, there is nevertheless no doubt that for St. Cyril, as for those St. fathers, whose tradition he follows, first of all - St. Athanasius, it is the doctrine of deification that is the decisive moment in Tradition, which acts as a “touchstone” or regulative principle of the Orthodox teaching about the Son of God as God, consubstantial with the Father. This is how St. writes about it. Cyril: “If, in your opinion, oh inventors of all wickedness, the Word of God is a creation, then how do we then cleave to God and become deified, united with Him?” (Thesaurus 75.284). Or in another place: “If the Savior is faithful” (2 Thessalonians 3:3), since He makes those who come to Him faithful, strengthening them through faith, then He will, of course, be God by nature, since He makes those who trust in Him gods. For it belongs to the Faithful to make faithful (πιστοποιεῖν), and to God, accordingly, to deify (θεοποιεῖν); just as, of course, the work of light is to illuminate” (Thesaurus 75.492). More than once St. Kirill speaks about deification in Christ without mentioning this word 17. Arian soteriology places the creatureliness of Christ at the center, emphasizing it for the sake of the need for the Savior to participate in people. In this case, the emphasis is on the moral side of atonement - Christ fulfills the will of the Father, being a creature 18. It is by His will (according to the Arian and especially Eunomian teachings) that Christ is likened to the Father, that is, in Him the will of the Father is fulfilled. Here we are dealing with a purely moral theory of atonement, in which the “physical” side (the unity of the Divine nature of the Son with the Father) is completely absent, it is even considered to interfere with moral redemption, since Christ as a creature, from this point of view, shows participation in creatures, and we, in obedience to God the Father, believing in Christ, must imitate His example; this is how the work of salvation is understood. In contrast, at St. Cyril, the basis of his soteriology is the unity of the Divine nature of the Son with the Father and the possibility of deification and adoption by God the Father for the faithful through its participation in the Body of Christ. Thus, the polemic between the Orthodox and the Arians is, first of all, not a polemic between the “smart” and the “stupid” or even the “spiritual” against the “carnal” (among the arguments of the later Arians there are very strong philosophical and logical arguments 19 and even “spiritual” 20), but a polemic between people of different faiths. Everything else followed from here. Speaking about the relevance of the work of St. Cyril for our time, it is worth mentioning the disputes that have recently flared up with renewed vigor around the personalism of Metropolitan. John (Zizioulas) and X. Yannaras after criticism directed against them by J.-C. Larcher and a number of other modern theologians 21. One of the points on which there is a dispute relates to the question of the supposed primacy (according to Zizioulas) of the Hypostasis (Personality) of the Father in relation to the essence of the Trinity, i.e. and His own essence, and the essence of the Son and Spirit 22. It must be said that in this statement Zizioulas. turns out, in some way, to be a “dialectical pair” in relation to the Arians; for them, “God” is ontologically primary, who only by giving birth to the Son becomes “in fact” the Father. That is, their God the Father is, first of all, the unborn (and not yet begotten) God, and “secondarily” the Father. Moreover, it is ungeneracy that is the defining quality of the Divine essence, and God “before” the birth of the Son is precisely such an essence, while He acquires the hypostatic feature (and “character”) of the Father “later”, having given birth to the Son. In the personalism of Zizioulas, describing his trinitarian model in the most general terms, something surprisingly similar happens, although Zizioulas approaches his model from the other end and, as it were, starting from other premises. It is important for him to establish the primacy of the Hypostasis (in this case, the Hypostasis of the Father) in relation to His essence and the essence of the entire Holy Trinity. This is precisely how, in his opinion, the “personal principle” is ensured, which surpasses any essence (including the Divine) and being. At the same time, he correlates essence and nature with necessity, and Hypostasis with freedom. By the formulation of the question, this is similar to the “tricky” question that the Arians asked the “Nicenes”: did the Father willingly or unwillingly give birth to the Son? Defending the freedom of the Father in the birth of the Son, i.e., conscious intention in this birth (the Father did not involuntarily give birth to the Son, in fact!), the Arians derived from here the ontological primacy of “God” (which they primarily called the Father) in comparison with the Son, who, therefore, turned out to be a creation (albeit the first and the original). Larcher rightly notes that in Zizioulas's personalistic model of the Trinity, nature is correlated with necessity 23 . The Arians also challenged the Nicenes, reproaching them for the fact that in their concept of the consubstantial Trinity, the birth of the Son and the procession of the Spirit were subject to necessity. Treatise of St. Cyril in this regard is a real treasure, since it not only contains a reasoned answer to the corresponding teaching of the Arians, but also helps to find such an answer to the newest teaching of the personalists. The main thing that St. affirms in this regard. Kirill, - to nature, especially Divine nature, the concept of necessity and freedom opposing it is inapplicable. In this context, he speaks not only about the birth of the Son from the Father, but also about the Father Himself: “We should ask those who oppose Christ whether the Father of the Word Himself exists by will, or apart from His own will? If from will - and will must necessarily precede existence - then I am silent about the offensiveness [for God of such an assumption]; if, apart from will, then it means that He is of necessity that by which He exists. And who assigned this necessity to Him? If the Father exists neither from will nor apart from will, then the same must be artlessly adhered to in relation to the Son” (Thesaurus 75.89). In this passage and in a number of those preceding it, it is extremely important that in relation to the natural (primarily the Divine nature), the opposition between “free” and “necessary” is overcome. If the Arians said that “what happens apart from intention (παρὰ γνώμην) happens out of necessity” (Thesaurus 75.88), i.e. were in captivity of the opposition of these concepts, then St. Cyril said that the Son is not born from the Father “by intention,” just as He Himself does not exist “by intention,” but, of course, not by necessity. The “free” nature of the birth of the Son from the Father (as well as of God the Father’s own existence) does not require the previous “intention” (γνώμη) of God the Father to give birth or exist. So, in relation to the question of personalists, God the Father does not need an ontologically previous “hypostasis” of the Divine essence in order for Him to be God and give birth to the Son and bring forth the Spirit. He always 24, since He is a Hypostasis, and at the same time a super-essential Divine essence, always - not out of necessity, but also not out of some “personal intention” - gives birth to the Son, Who is always by nature, but not out of necessity, born of Him. This is just one example, like the work of St. Cyril can be of not only historical interest, but also serve as an aid in modern theological disputes, as well as shed light on disputes of the past. It would be appropriate to note here that in the 7th century. during the debate, Rev. Maximus and Pyrrhus discussed, among others, the question of the “necessity” of the natural. Pyrrhus argued (as we see, the Arians also said the same thing) that everything natural is necessary, and on the basis of this he denied the natural human will in Christ as a factor of unfreedom, which cannot exist in Him 25 . Rev. Maximus, however, objected to this that if the natural means necessity, then the Divine nature is also subject to necessity, which Pyrrhus, of course, himself denied. At the same time, as we know, Rev. Maximus, in his later writings, denied gnomic will and deliberate choice in God, in Christ, and in deified saints (in whom they are deactivated). Divine nature, like human nature in deified hypostases, is not subject to necessity, and, at the same time, deliberate choice does not operate in it 26. This approach, as we see, is already outlined in the work of St. Cyril, but not in relation to Christology and soteriology, but in relation to the Holy Trinity. Upon careful reading in the published work of St. Cyril, you can find many more theological treasures that will allow you not only to learn about the disputes of the past, but also to better understand the Orthodox teaching about the Holy Trinity and Christ, which is still discussed. This work is also very instructive from the point of view of studying the process of relationships between heresy and orthodoxy in Byzantium. In particular, it can be noted that it was among heretics that questions were often formulated that did not find immediate resolution among Orthodox authors close to them in time, but received an answer in a completely different context during other disputes. As an example, we can cite the Arian argument given by St. Cyril: if the Son of God is autocratic (αὐτεξούσιος), and this cannot be denied, then He has free will (προαιρέσει) and thanks to this he is “good” (καλός). But someone who turns out to be “good” by choice may not be so, i.e. He is potentially “changeable,” and only by free will, and not by nature, “good,” in contrast to God the Father, who is good by nature. This means that Christ is not God in nature 27. It is clear that St. Kirill has difficulty answering this argument; It is no coincidence that he says: “Where the answer in any case carries blasphemy, silence is preferable.” However, he partly finds a solution when he objects: does not God the Father also have autocracy, nevertheless, we do not say that He is changeable, and further St. Cyril cites many passages from Scripture as evidence of the immutability of the Logos. Nevertheless, the philosophical and theological question remains about the possession of will (προαίρεσις) by the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Autocracy, it would seem, presupposes the presence of will, and the latter implies the free choice of one good instead of another, lesser one (or, roughly speaking, the choice between good and evil) 28, but then it turns out that the Persons of the Trinity are “changeable,” at least in possibility (i.e., they can choose this or that). Another alternative is that they are good by necessity, that is, they are not autocratic, which cannot be admitted. St. Cyril does not give an answer to this aporia, piously avoiding it, and only two centuries later St. Maxim, in a completely different context, will be able to resolve it. The essence of his answer is known: he divided between himself the concepts of προαίρεσις in the sense of deliberate choice and natural will, and the natural will of God, according to Rev. Maxim, autocratic 29. The Persons of the Holy Trinity have a single natural autocratic will, but there is no deliberate choice, which characterizes rational creatures in an undeified state. Thus, if some of the St. fathers and attach προαίρεσις (and many of them do this, emphasizing God’s autocracy) 30, then it should either be understood more precisely in the sense of autocratic natural will 31, or, if the context does not allow this, admit that there was no clarity on this issue until a certain time, and opinions could be expressed that require correction in the light of the teaching developed later. From this example it is clear, by the way, that the arguments of the heretics do not arise out of nowhere, but whereas St. Cyril, having not yet found a clear answer to the question of the relationship between autocracy and arbitrariness, still remained firm in his faith; heretics, using the unresolved nature of this problem, found in this - in fact, philosophical difficulty - arguments in favor of their faith. Thus, reading the “Book of Treasures” by St. Cyril, you need to be aware that on a number of issues that are not neutral for this work, St. the father could have used concepts and formulations that were later refined in his own works and in the writings of other saints 32 . The patristic writings are not a set of ready-made formulas that just need to be memorized in order to preserve Orthodoxy. They reflect the life of Tradition, which is revealed at every stage of the history of the Church by each of the saints. fathers with some peculiarities of their own. So it would be naive to look in the early work of St. Cyril's refined formulations on issues that were clarified - and indeed were problematized - in later theological debates. At the same time, in the main thing, which was the subject of his polemics with the Arians and Anomeans, the “Book of Treasures” is the proper treasury of the Orthodox faith, from which one can take out a lot of precious things - “new and old” (Matthew 13:52). The very work of St. Cyril became part of the patristic tradition, and was resorted to more than once in subsequent theological disputes, many of which were conducted around topics raised in the Book of Treasures" 33 . In conclusion of this short preface, I would like to draw the readers' attention to several technical details related to this translation. The first concerns terminology. At St. Cyril uses many terms that either have already become “technical” in the Orthodox theology of his time, or will become so in later works, but are not yet used strictly terminologically or even in a different meaning. In such cases, the translator, as a rule, gives the term or phrase in Greek, so that the attentive reader himself can think about its meaning and evaluate to what extent its use by St. Kirill corresponds or diverges from previous and subsequent traditions. Another feature of the translation is that quotations from Holy Scripture are given in Church Slavonic. This may make it difficult to read, but on the whole it is quite justified, since St. the fathers who wrote in Greek used the Septuagint, and it was from it that the Church Slavonic translation of the Old Testament was made, so the use of the Synodal translation could lead to inaccuracies or would make the thought of St. father is incomprehensible. In addition, Church Slavonic is a liturgical language, and many of the quotes given by St. Kirill, are found in liturgical services in Church Slavonic, so that for a church-going reader it will be easier to correlate the liturgical use of a particular phrase from Scripture with its use in the context of dogmatic disputes. This does not negate the need to pass both of them through the mind, without falling into pious grandiosity. Shklovsky V. Hamburg account. Articles, memoirs, essays. M., 1990. P. 14. See: Russell N. Cyril of Alexandria (The Early Church Fathers). Routledge, 2000. P. 5. Thus, reproaching opponents for boasting of their knowledge of Aristotle, St. Cyril tries to show that they themselves sin against Aristotelian categories (Thesaurus 75.145). On the use of St. logic Kirill see: Loon H., van. The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria. Leiden, 2009; about the “Book of Treasures,” where the name of Aristotle or “Aristotle’s art” is mentioned seven times, see: p. 104–114. The latter will be clarified for several more centuries, but those who claimed to be Orthodox will have no doubt that the Word - the Logos, consubstantial with the Father - was incarnate and made man. Thesaurus de sancta consubstantiali trinitate//PG 75:9–656. De sancta trinitate dialogi i–vii. Ed. G. M. de Durand/Cynlled'Alexandrie. Dialogues sur la Trinité. 3 vols.//Sources chrétiennes 231, 237, 246. Paris: Cerf, 1:1976; 2:1977; 3:1978. See: Charlier N. Le Thesaurus de Trinitate de saint Cyrilled’Alexandrie. Questions de critique littéraire//Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique. T. 45 (1950). P. 25–81, especially p. 54. The author shows that the early work of St. Cyril in individual chapters is largely compilative in relation to the work of St. Afanasia. The most famous achievement of St. Athanasius, which is repeated by St. Cyril, there is a distinction between creation, which occurs according to the will of God (common to the Father and the Son), and birth, which occurs by nature. We did not dwell on this topic, which was studied in detail by Fr. Georgy Florovsky and many others. See articles by D. S. Biryukov about Arius, Aetius and neo-Arians in the Anthology of Eastern Christian Theological Thought. Orthodoxy and heterodoxy" (Vol. 1. St. Petersburg, 2009) and his numerous works on neo-Aryanism. See our article about St. Athanasius of Alexandria and articles by D. S. Biryukov about St. Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa in the same volume 1 “Anthology of Eastern Christian theological thought. Orthodoxy and heterodoxy." Articles contain links to modern research on this topic. The Arians and Anomeans, of course, also denied the Divinity of the Holy Spirit. This does not mean that the severity of the ideological confrontation with the Arians has diminished. Arianism, defeated and marginalized in the Empire, became in the 4th–5th centuries. the game of the barbarian tribes of the Goths and Vandals, who at that time represented the main threat to the Empire, especially in the West, but at the beginning of the 5th century. the Goths also threatened Constantinople. Thus, the defense of Orthodoxy against Arianism also turns out to be a defense of the faith that is constitutive of the Orthodox Empire in its difference from the faith of the barbarian peoples who threatened it. But in any case, St. Kirill compiled a manual for polemics not with barbarians, but, apparently, with people of the same culture as him. See: Thesaurus 75. 69 ff. In a slightly different context, St. Kirill says: “Rise a little, my dear, above bodies and what is natural for bodies to endure; We are talking about God” (Thesaurus 75.73). Nothing forbids, however, doing the opposite - making guesses about the structure and life of the human soul (especially in a state of dispassion, especially deification), created in the image of God, based on the doctrine of the Prototype, but this is no longer a matter of theology, but of philosophical anthropology, which St. Kirill didn’t do anything special. St. Cyril very clearly sets limits to the examples and analogies he gives. For example, using the well-known comparison of the birth of the Son from the Father with the emanation of light from the sun, he writes: “The Father radiated (ἐξέλαμψεν) from Himself the Son indivisibly and inextended, just as the sun [radiates] the radiance sent from it. But the latter is not independent (οὐκ ἰδιοσυοτυατον), nor is it perfect in essence in itself, for it has [its] existence in the sun; The Divine generation, having from [this] example only the fact that It came from the Father indivisibly and unextended, has its own existence, not separated from the Father, but in the Father and with the Father, conceived and existing” (Thesaurus 75.80). According to our observations, in Russian patrolology this topic is central to patristics and the teachings of Orthodox saints. fathers is already discussed in two well-known dissertations: 1) Orlov I.A. Works of St. Maximus the Confessor on the disclosure of the dogmatic doctrine of two wills in Christ (M., 1888, republished: Krasnodar, 2010), and in the context of a discussion of theology by St. Maximus and other St. fathers, 2) Diamonds A.I. The influence of Eastern theology on Western in the works of John Scotus Erigena (St. Petersburg, 1898, republished: M., 1998). Perhaps for the first time in Russian academic science, the topic of deification took its rightful place in these works as extremely important in the study of patristic theology. The famous work of I.V. Popov’s “The Idea of ​​Deification in the Ancient Eastern Church” (Moscow, 1909) was written later and without taking these works into account, although hardly without their indirect influence. See, for example, Thesaurus 75. 561 BC, which speaks of the interchange of properties - Divine and human, accomplished in Christ. See article by D.S. Biryukova on Arius: An Anthology of Eastern Christian Theological Thought. T. 1. pp. 127–128. This applies not only to Aetius and Eunomius. It is known that at the beginning of the 5th century. in Constantinople, among the Arians there were philosophically and philologically outstanding minds, experts in Plato and Aristotle, as well as Hebrew (see with reference to the church historian Socrates Scholasticus in Durand’s preface in: De sancta trinitate dialogi i–vii. Ed. G. M. de Durand/Cyrilled’Alexandne. Dialogues sur la Trinité. 3 vols. //Sources chrétiennes 231. Paris: Cerf, 1:1976 P. 18. Thus, the Arians, when they needed it for their argumentation, just denied the possibility of drawing an analogy between man and God, and St. Cyril, on the contrary, gave such an analogy, and went so far as to speak of man’s likeness to God in the birth of consubstantial beings from his own essence, while the Arians argued that due to the difference between the Divine and human spheres, this analogy cannot be drawn, and the Son was not born from the essence of the Father, but was created according to His will “from without” (see: Thesaurus 75.220). St. Cyril, however, ultimately elevated the concept of human birth, and did not belittle birth in God, saying that it is God’s nature to always give birth, and man gives birth only sometimes, in “imitation of God.” Thus, carnal birth in humans does not take place according to the same tropos as the Divine (see: Thesaurus 75.224). See: Larchet J.–C. Personne et naturë la Trinité, le Christ, l'hommëcontributions ;iiix dialogues interorthodoxe et interchrétien contemporains. Paris, 2011. Larchet J.-C. Personne et nature... P. 246. In the timeless, of course, sense of “always.” Disp. Pyrr.//PG 91, 294 V. That the “Book of Treasures” (he called it the Treasury) was well known to Rev. Maximus can be seen at least from the fact that in his theological and polemical writings he mentions it several times: in PG 91, 164D (St. Cyril’s description of the Gethsemane prayer is quoted: Thesaur.: PG 75, 397. 8–10); in PG 91, 169. And Rev. Maxim, justifying the concept of natural action, refers to St. Cyril (Thesaur.: PG 75, 105. 17–19), speaking about the correspondence between nature and its inherent energy and strength. Each nature has its own energy and strength. Although no one chooses “evil” as such. Same thing Rev. Maxim also speaks about the natural will of man: “Will is the natural autocratic movement of the autocratic (αὐτοκράτορος) mind, or the mind moved towards something spontaneously (αὐθαιρέτως). Autocracy (αὐτεξουσιότης) is a mind moved by nature, or a smart, autocratic movement of the soul” (Opusc. 26//PG 91, 276C). Thus, it is not the choice between good and evil (or even two goods) that characterizes the autocracy of the will, but “autocracy” in the pursuit of the object of one’s desire, which God possesses to the highest degree, and man possesses in the likeness of God (see: Disp. Pyrr.//PG 91, 325A). Athan. Contr. arian. //PG 26, 453C; Basil. Hexaem. I. 7: //PG 29, 17C;Greg. Nyss. Dean. et. res.//PG 46, 124B; Idem. Cat. magn. 1//PG 45, 13D (the list was given by D. Bradshaw in a report at a conference on St. Maximus in Belgrade in 2012, without mentioning St. Cyril). Wed. at Rev. Maxima in Opusc. 1 (PG 91, 29D), where he explains that he himself used προαίρεσις in this sense in earlier writings. This applies, for example, to the doctrine of (two) actions in Christ (cf.: Thesaur. 75. 453BC), where some find a hint of monoenergism (see: Lurie V.M. History of Byzantine philosophy. St. Petersburg, 2006. pp. 167–168), however, it must be said that Rev. Maximus, not without reason, from this same place extracted the doctrine of “natural action”, unique for each nature, and the same place can be interpreted in favor of dioenergism. Some expressions of St. will require clarification in the light of the debate about the Filioque. Cyril regarding the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Son (cf., for example, Thesaurus 75.585) and the Divine essence (see: Thesaurus 75.596CD, where the Holy Spirit is called “the living and hypostatic action of the Divine essence”). Such topics, for example, include the doctrine of the “ignorance” of Christ (see: Thesaurus 75, 377–380), which was discussed in the 6th century. in connection with the heresy of the Agnoites, or the interpretation of the Gethsemane prayer (Thesaurus 75.397) - the subject of a dispute with the Monothelites, or the interpretation of the expression “The Father ... is a greater one” (Thesaurus 75.141–148), about which a dispute will break out in late Byzantium (council of 1166), pneumatology and the doctrine of Energies God, which was debated in late Byzantium (cf. quote from Thesaurus 75.580, where the Holy Spirit is spoken of as the hypostatic and essential energy of God, from Nicephorus Gregoras: Hist. Rom.2.972.20). More than once St. Kirill also addresses the topic of “names of God,” which is of interest in the context of the ongoing controversy around name-glorification. You might be interested in: