Venerable Anastasius of Sinaite: the inextricable connection between asceticism and theology

A subtle theologian and bright polemicist, the Monk Anastasius Sinaite, who lived in an era of dogmatic disputes, repeatedly participated in disputes with heretics, which is reflected in his main dogmatic work, “The Guide.” He also left us ascetic creations. In addition, he was one of the first to attempt to systematize Orthodox Christology. The rich heritage and teachings of this ascetic and fighter for the Orthodox faith are discussed in the report of the Secretary of the Academic Council of the MDA, Hegumen Adrian (Pashin). Recently, critical editions of the works of Rev. have begun to appear one after another. Anastasia Sinaita (VII century). Cypriot by origin, he was a resident of the monastery of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine in Sinai and was there under the spiritual guidance of the rector of this monastery, Ven. John Climacus. Then, probably, he was the abbot of the monastery. In any case, from the works of the holy father himself it is known that he was ordained to the priesthood. Turbulent events of the 7th century. - the struggle of the Church against Nestorianism, various currents of Monophysitism and against Monothelitism, the beginning of the Arab invasion on the outskirts of the Byzantine Empire - forced Rev. Anastasia leaves the monastery. To participate in debates with representatives of various Monophysite movements, with Monothelites and with Jews, he travels to Egypt, Palestine, Arabia and, possibly, Syria. All these events influenced the works of Rev. Anastasia. Disputes with heretics are described by him in his main dogmatic work, “The Guide” 1. These debates helped him to hone the philosophical and theological apparatus used by the Church in Christology (it is given in the first three chapters of the “Guide”), as well as not only in a polemical, but also in a positive sense, to formulate the Christological teaching of the Church (both in the “Guide” and in his other dogmatic and polemical works - in “Chapters against the Monophysites” 2, in “Three words about the structure of man in the image and likeness of God”, in “Florilegia against the Monothelites”, in “Chapters against the Monothelites” 3). Rev. Anastasius, in the Guide, was one of the first to attempt to systematize Orthodox Christology. In this sense, he is the predecessor of Rev. John of Damascus with his "Source of Knowledge". Being a brilliant polemicist with heretics and a subtle theologian, Rev. Anastasius also left us ascetic creations. These include “Soulful Narratives,” which are preserved in three handwritten collections 4 . The Reverend Father in this work summarizes the spiritual experience of the Sinai, Egyptian and other ascetics. Used by Rev. Anastasius, the form of “monastic stories” is easily accessible to any reader, like such the best examples of this type of monastic writing as “Lavsaik”, “Spiritual Meadow”, etc. 5 . The most voluminous creation preserved under the name of St. Anastasia Sinaita, are “Questions and answers on various topics” 6. It is noteworthy that this work of the reverend father, having gone through a very complex evolution in the manuscript tradition, was translated into the Slavic language at the beginning of the 10th century. (apparently in Bulgaria under Tsar Simeon) and formed the core of an outstanding monument of ancient Russian literature - “Izbornik Svyatoslav 1073” 7. “Questions and Answers” ​​cover a wide range of problems: dogmatic, exegetical, ascetic, eschatological, etc., placing, however, the strongest emphasis on problems of moral theology. Thus, the themes of sin and the paths of repentance, good deeds and faith are revealed here. The Reverend Father answers questions about the reasons for being abandoned by God, about the possibility of salvation for pious Jews and unbelievers, about the posthumous fate of unbaptized infants and many other questions from the field of moral theology. Among the surviving sermons of St. Anastasia, undoubtedly, “Conversation on the Sixth Psalm” occupies a special place. This sermon at the beginning of Lent, which is a hymn to repentance, can be considered one of the most valuable pearls in the treasury of patristic asceticism 8 . Let us quote from this sermon a prayer to the Lord: “Save me, who am in need of Your mercy. If You save a worthy person, there is nothing surprising in this. If you have mercy on a righteous person, there is nothing special about it, for he is worthy of it. If You glorify the diligent, there will be nothing great in this, for this is fair. But show Your mercy to me more, so that Your love for mankind may be glorified in me.” Rev. John of Damascus, often quoting the dogmatic works of St. Anastasia, in her prayer for the future to sleep, cites words that are a clear allusion to this place from the ascetic creation of Sinaite. Life of Rev. Anastasia testifies that he not only wrote ascetic works, but also embodied in life the instructions of his spiritual father, Venerable. John Climacus. Thus, during theological disputes with heretics, he “through private conversations with them and debates influenced them and, adding miracles to the preaching (once during a drought he asked for saving rain with his prayers), he converted many of the heretics to Orthodoxy” 9 . So, both in life and in his works, Rev. Anastasius Sinaite combined the two sides of a perfect Christian, which he himself speaks about in his work “Questions and Answers” ​​(questions 1–3). In order to be a true and perfect Christian, it is not enough to have the right faith and deeds of piety. Our mind, with the help of these virtues, equips the soul: “by faith and good deeds the house of our soul is built by our mind.” But if pride lives in this house of the soul, then Christ has no place there. But only that Christian is perfect in whom Christ has dwelt, according to the promise: He who loves Me will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our abode with him (John 14:23). And in the "Guide" Rev. Anastasius explains to his readers that neither knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and the works of the Holy Fathers, nor mastery of the philosophical and theological apparatus, nor outstanding polemical abilities will in any way help them in the fight against heretics if the Holy Spirit does not dwell in them as a guide 10. So, faith, together with theological research and good deeds, according to the Holy Father, are guided in a person by the One and the same Holy Spirit. These virtues are not just two different aspects of a Christian’s life, much less they are not opposed to each other. They assist each other, they together serve to ensure that Christ dwells in the soul of a Christian. By uniting with Christ, which is also served by ascetic deeds, a Christian comes to know Him, comes to know God. On the other hand, good deeds and ascetic deeds combined with an attentive spiritual life are a rich experience of self-knowledge. In the work “Three words about the structure of man in the image and likeness of God,” where Rev. Anastasius formulated his anthropological teaching; he talks about the relationship between self-knowledge and the knowledge of God. Moreover, the holy father says not only that knowing yourself is one of the ways of natural knowledge of God, that self-knowledge leads to knowledge of God: “Listen to the words of a certain sage who turns to you and gives advice: “If you want to know God, first know yourself, from your structure, from your combination, from what is inside you. Immerse yourself in yourself and, as if into a mirror, look into your soul, discern its structure and see yourself as existing in the image and likeness of God." According to Rev. Anastasia, there is also a reverse connection - true knowledge of God leads to self-knowledge: “Those who want to correctly comprehend the God-created prettiness of their face can see their own image and uniqueness of their face in no other way than through some pure mirror, thanks to which they, approaching the reflected image, clearly see some of their characteristic features, reproduced [by the mirror] in their image and likeness. So we, turning our gaze to the Divine ray of the intelligent Sun, as if to some kind of mirror, clearly see there the outline, appearance and image of our nature, [created] in the image and likeness of [God].” Thus, false self-knowledge, for example, as a result of sins, leads to false knowledge of God - to heresy, and heresy as incorrect knowledge about God leads to moral violations. The relationship between self-knowledge and knowledge of God follows from the fact that man is the image and likeness of God. One of the meanings of the image of God in man is St. Anastasius sees that the human soul is similar to the Divine essence. From this follow the properties of the soul, similar to the properties of the Divine nature: “if the soul originated from the mouth and breath of God, then from there all its essential properties originated: the rational and thinking principle, as well as the willing, acting and life-giving principle.” So, the properties of the soul, such as the ability to think, to freely will, to give life to the body, without which neither good deeds, nor thought of God, nor asceticism, nor the very existence of man as a free being is possible, stem from the theological fact that the human soul is created in the image and likeness of God. Being the image and likeness of God, the soul has an inexplicable beauty, which explains the hostility of fallen spirits towards the human soul: “the soul has an unimaginable and indescribable beauty, as a result of which hostile spirits lust and have a passion for it, for of all intelligent [beings] it [alone] bears the most beautiful image” 11. Based on the words of St. Methodius, to which the Rev. refers. Anastasius, demons show special hostility towards those souls who, striving on the path of salvation, try to preserve the image of God unsullied. Another meaning of the image of God in man for Rev. Anastasia is the image of the Trinity in the soul. The human soul itself, in the image of the Father, is simple, its mind, or spirit, in the image of the Holy Spirit, is singular and uncomplicated, and the mind (λόγοσ) of the soul is the image of the Logos. It retains unity and indivisibility, but has a dual birth: first in the heart as a thought, and then through the mouth as a spoken word. In this, the reverend father sees the image of the one Christ, having a double birth: first, eternally born from the Father and then born in time from the Virgin Mary. The fact that the human mind is the image and likeness of God the Word, who became our Redeemer and Savior after the Incarnation, imposes special responsibilities on our mind and on the words coming from our mouths. Words must come through our lips that demonstrate our virtues, just as the Word of God reveals the goodness of the Father: “When turning to your image and likeness, do not ignore the fact that through your bodily word, born from your mouth, the virtue, wisdom, prudence, strength, depth and knowledge of your soul and mind are known and made publicly available, showing you by this example that you are in the image and likeness of God. For [in the same way] through the birth in the flesh of God the Word, virtue, power, knowledge, wisdom and all the other blessings of the Father and the Holy Spirit were revealed in the world.” Due to the fact that the soul is created in the image and likeness of God, that the mind of the soul is the image of the Word of God, the soul has the highest purpose after bodily death. Rev. Anastasius, like no other of the holy fathers, extols the rational soul that has achieved salvation, placing it above the angelic world: “Therefore, our God-honored soul, after liberation from the body, is not sent to serve, as Angels are sent. The latter are serving and bonded spirits, but the souls of the saints, who [were worthy to be] in the image of God, are ruling spirits. After all, if a person, after his disobedience, was lowered in rank from the angels (cf. Ps. 8:6), as having become mortal, then, thanks to the hypostatic unity of God the Word with him, he was immediately much preferred to the angels. For having once been in the image of God, has now become together with God, and formerly participating in the image of God, has now become transmitting his image to God, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen". Rev. here. Anastasius speaks of another meaning of the image of God in man, the Christological meaning. This interpretation is revealed to him in the second Word from “Three Words about the creation of man in the image and likeness of God.” Sinait also uses the anthropological paradigm in Christology, as well as the Christological paradigm in anthropology, in his other works. Rev. Anastasius quite originally interprets the words of God, difficult for exegesis, spoken by the Creator after the fall of the ancestors: “The words: Behold, Adam became - after transgressing [the commandments] - as one of Us (Gen. 3:22) clearly and unambiguously represent the bodily flesh of the Incarnation of God the Word, One of the [Holy] Trinity... In the dispensation of the complex Adam it was clearly destined the sacrament of the Incarnation of Christ, and therefore he is said to have become as if one of the [Holy] Trinity.” Rev. Anastasius, as we see, claims that Adam became material and corruptible only after the Fall. Before eating the forbidden fruit, he had another body - incorruptible, immortal and close to immaterial - and only after being seduced by the serpent was he dressed in “leather garments,” that is, real flesh. By this, “Adam reflects and preimprints the Incarnation and the bodily fleshiness of the human birth of the incorruptible and immaterial God the Word” 12. The Word itself has not yet become incarnate, but in the Eternal Council there already exists a plan for the salvation of fallen man through the Incarnation. And Adam, dressed in white flesh, symbolizes our Lord Jesus Christ, who along with this flesh took on all human nature. Despite the fact that Adam was clothed in the leather garments of our mortal flesh after his fall, this flesh was created by God. This gives the basis for Rev. Anastasia to reject the dualism of the Gnostics and Manichaeans. The Church, rejecting the idea of ​​an evil God who created the material world, including human flesh, teaches “that man was created in the image of God; that after the crime [commandments] he again heard from God: behold, Adam has become like one of Us (Gen. 3:22); that, like a tenderly loving father, he was clothed by God in [leather] vestments, carefully prepared by Him as a covering [for the soul]; that Adam produced offspring, according to the blessing of God, which says: be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28); that [God] ordained him to be the father of the whole world; that his nature, having ascended to the throne of the Cherubim, is glorified by all the angelic hosts who worship him. And the Church, looking at the kind of blessings that Adam possessed after his crime, does not dare to say that some evil [god] is the cause and giver of such great blessings of ours.” Dualism has become the theological basis for all sorts of moral filth. The Apostle Paul speaks about the fact that errors in faith lead to shameful passions in chapter 1 of Romans 13. Rev. Anastasius, reducing Monophysitism and Monothelitism to Manichaeism with its inherent docetism, also says that the spiritual cause of these heresies is the sins of heretics. Monophysites deny the presence of a human will in Christ due to the fact that man, during the Fall, perverted his will so much that he lost the ability to do good without the direct intervention of God: “But,” [those who object to me] will say, “man perverted [this commandment].” And the heretics will contradict us: “[He completely perverted] everything human, therefore it is not proper and insufficient to say that in Christ there is a human will and human action.” Rev. Anastasius insists that the will of a person after the Fall can be in three states: 1. Natural divine will; will, consistent with nature; 2. Supernatural, Divine state of will; 3. The will is in a sinful state, unnatural, carnal, or devilish. The natural, or average state of the human will is the state in which it was created by God: “The natural God-created will of man is the rational movement of the desiring part of the soul, which, in accordance with nature (κατὰ φύσιν), encourages a person to unite with the object of desire.” The state of the human will in a supernatural state “is the hastening of innate and rational desire from that which corresponds to nature to that which exceeds nature (ὑπὲρ φύσιν).” The third state of the will is a sinful state, contrary to nature itself: “And the carnal will is a passionate perversion of the natural into the unnatural (παρὰ φύσιν).” The name “carnal will” for the sinful state of the human will comes from the words of the Apostle Paul: To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for they do not obey the law of God, and indeed cannot. Therefore those who live according to the flesh cannot please God. But you do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness (Rom. 8:6-10). These three states of the human will relate differently to the will, law and commands of God: “The divine will is the commands of God. The natural will of rational nature is to do the will of God. But the carnal will is disobedience to the law of God.” Like the Apostle Paul in the 1st chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, Rev. Anastasius believes that the teaching of the Monophysites and Monothelites, who deny the presence of human will in Christ due to its sinfulness, is rooted in their own sinfulness: “But those who are truly possessed by the devil, are kindled and inflamed to the point of madness by the flesh, are excited, defiled and soiled by the carnal will - they are unable to discern what is alien [to the original nature of man] and evil will and unnatural action, and what is the God-created and God-given, rational and desiring will inherent in the soul [originally], and what, finally, is its life-giving action, combining the body together.” Therefore, Rev. Anastasius accuses the Monophysites and Monothelites of Manichaeism for reducing the flesh to the level of created evil: “They, like the relatives and disciples of Mani, reject the God-created will of human nature and [thus], like the Manichaeans, condemn our God-created flesh, disgrace our God-given rational desire, thanks to which we, rushing towards the Divine, gain salvation; with their similar teaching they create enmity against the Creator.” In the presence of natural will and natural action, St. Anastasy sees a person’s ability to do good, fulfill God’s commandments, and do the Divine will. The presence of God-given will and action of a person is the basis of his ability to work out his salvation in collaboration with God. Without natural will and action, asceticism is impossible: “This very God-given will and action of ours are the only causes and workers of our salvation. After all, by the free will of [our] soul we believed, by our free will we acquire virginity, by our free will we indulge in asceticism, we sleep on the earth and perform deeds of love, by our free will we love our neighbor. Or to put it briefly: all spiritual, Divine and necessary virtues, which are in the image of God, as well as divine insights, revelations and successes are carried out by the rational will and action of our soul with the assistance of God” 14. We see that Rev. Anastasius, like all the Holy Fathers, considers certain Christological teachings from a soteriological point of view. Moreover, he, as a student of Rev. John Climacus and a true ascetic, who in fact achieved the indwelling of God into his soul, brings forward arguments from asceticism in polemics with heretics. According to Rev. Anastasia, the very possibility of working together with God to achieve one’s salvation, including through ascetic deeds, exists only with the Orthodox confession of Christ as the true God and perfect man with God-created natural human action and will. Even a Monophysite movement as close to Orthodoxy as Sevirianism leads to a violation of ascetic practice, to the denial of the possibility of doing good, and therefore leads beyond the possibility of salvation. Note that these same arguments can also be directed against Protestant teachings that deny the need for man to collaborate with God in the matter of his salvation, and deny the need to observe Christian moral commandments. Anastasii Sinaitae. Viae dux. /Ed. par K.-H. Uthemann. Turnhout, Leuven, 1981. (Corpus christianorum. Series graeca. V.8). Russian translation by A.I. Sidorov of the first three chapters: Anastasius Sinait, Rev. Selected creations. M., 2003. pp. 191–272. Our translation of the remaining twenty-three chapters: Adrian (Pashin), Hierom. “The Guide” of St. Anastasius Sinaite as an experience in revealing the Christological teaching of the Church: A dissertation for the degree of candidate of theology. / Typescript. Sergiev Posad, 2009. pp. XVIII-LXXXIV. They still remain unpublished (see: Clavius ​​Patrum Graecorum. V. III. P. 458). Critical edition of these works: Anastasii Sinaitae. Quastiones et responses. /Ed. par M. Richard et J. A. Munitiz. Turnhout, Leuven, 2006. (Corpus christianorum. Series graeca. V. 59). Russian translation by A.I. Sidorova “Three words...”: Anastasy Sinait, teacher. Selected creations. M., 2003. pp. 25–189. See: Clavius ​​Patrum Graecorum. V. III. P. 458–462. A complete critical edition of the Narratives is still being prepared by Pual Canart. Anastasii Sinaitae. Quastiones et responses. /Ed. par M. Richard et J. A. Munitiz. Turnhout, Leuven, 2006./ (Corpus christianorum. Series graeca. V. 59). Russian translation by A.I. Sidorov of the first twenty questions: Anastasy Sinait, teacher. Questions and answers. / Alpha and Omega. No. 2 (52). M., 2008. pp. 51–75. Bibikov M.V. Byzantine prototype of the oldest Slavic book (Izbornik Svyatoslav 1073). M., 1996. Two editions of the sermon, differing from each other in a number of details, are given in Patrologia Graecä PG 89, 1077–1116 and PG 89, 1116–1144. An earlier edition was preserved in Syriac and Coptic translations (see: Clavius ​​Patrum Graecorum. V. III. P. 456). Russian translation by M.V. Nikiforov is given in the publication: Anastasy Sinait, teacher. Selected creations. M., 2003. P.273–300. Filaret (Gumilevsky), archbishop. Lives of saints revered by the Orthodox Church, with information about the feasts of the Lord and the Mother of God and about the miraculous icons revealed. March-April. M., 2000. P. 195. The title of the treatise (Ὁδηγός) is taken from the words of the Savior: “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide (ὁδηγήσει) you into all truth” (John 16:13). Rev. here. Anastasius refers to the thought of St. Methodius of Patara: “We all come into this world gifted with incomparable beauty, akin and close to Wisdom... For He (God - I.A.), - this unborn and incorporeal beauty... created the soul in the likeness of His Image (i.e. God the Word - I.A.). That is why she is both intelligent and immortal; for she, having been created in the image of the Only Begotten... has incomparable beauty. Therefore, the spirits of malice (Eph. 6:12), out of unclean love for her, plot intrigues, trying to desecrate this god-like and desired appearance of her..., with their interference they try to tarnish and desecrate the verbal and rational beauty of our mind and want to commit adultery with every soul betrothed to the Lord" (Methodius, St. Complete Collection of Creations. St. Petersburg, 1905. P. 74). St. also points to this meaning of Adam’s nakedness and clothing. Gregory the Theologian in Homily 45 “On Holy Pascha”: “When, because of the wife’s envy and seduction, to which she was subjected as the weakest and which she carried out as skillful in persuasion..., a man forgot the commandment given to him and was overcome by bitter taste; then, through sin, he becomes an exile, removed at the same time from the tree of life, and from paradise, and from God, puts on leather garments (perhaps in the coarsest, mortal and opposing flesh), for the first time knows his own shame and hides from God. However, even here something is acquired, namely death - in the suppression of sin, so that evil does not become immortal” (Gregory the Theologian, St. Collection of Creations: In 2 vols. T. I. Minsk, M., 2000. P. 809). His invisible things, His eternal power and Divinity, have been visible from the creation of the world through the consideration of creation, so that they are irresponsible. But how, having come to know God, they did not glorify Him as God and did not give thanks, but became futile in their speculations, and their foolish hearts were darkened; calling themselves wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed creatures, and reptiles - then God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, so that they defiled their very bodies. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature instead of the Creator, Who is blessed forever, amen. Therefore, God gave them over to shameful passions: their women replaced natural use with unnatural; Likewise, men, abandoning the natural use of the female sex, were inflamed with lust for one another, men committing shame on men and receiving in themselves the due retribution for their error. And even though they did not care to have God in their minds, God gave them over to a depraved mind - to do lewd things, so that they are filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, greed, malice, filled with envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, slanderers, slanderers, haters of God, offenders, self-praisers, proud, resourceful for evil, disobedient to their parents, reckless, treacherous, unloving, irreconcilable, unmerciful (Rom. 1:20–31). During monastic tonsure, the Abba asks the person approaching: “Are you approaching the Lord with your free mind and free will?” (The order for the robe of the cassock and kamilavkha. The succession of the small image, which is the mantle. The succession of the great angelic image, which is the schema. St. Petersburg, 1998. L. 8 vol.)