Синтез христологии 213

The image of the Savior stands at the center of the thought of God of St. Maximus the Confessor. As the monk Maximus becomes Maximus the Confessor, the aspect of his Christology becomes different: the Alexandrian world Logos, in its predominantly Eastern modification, acquires more and more human and Evangelical features. The grueling close combat with the Monothelites, which reached its climax in the dispute with Pyrrhus in Carthage (645), leads the mystic to the need for the sake of his own eternal salvation to accept and apply the formula of the Council of Chalcedon, which established the “non-fusion” (άσυγχύτως) of both natures of Christ and excluded any possibility of the dissolution of the human essence in God down to the most remote logical consequences. However, the “Introduction” itself indicates that the Chalcedonian formula dominates even in the early mystical works of the Confessor. The original structure of the entire existence of the universe is synthesis, not mixture. Already in the interpretations of the works of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, this unprecedented in boldness transfer of theological truth into the field of philosophical, ontological and cosmological thought was carried out. And in this, St. Maximus stands on a par with Hegel, who clearly developed his synthetic thinking based on the Bible, or more precisely, the anthropological dialectic of the Old Testament, as well as from Christology, located at the intersection of the Bible, Hellenism and the all-unifying synthesis, understood primarily in the spirit of the Apostle and Evangelist John (and in practice in the Alexandrian way). However, with Hegel the theological starting point is hidden, while with St. Maximus it is open and clear: everyone understands that his ontology and cosmology is an extensive Christology, since the hypostatic synthesis is ultimately God’s first plan for the world. If until now the structure of this synthesis has been revealed mainly from the philosophical side, we should now consider its historical origin as well as its essential principles: in the central synthesis of God and the world, grace and nature, fulfilled in the hypostatic unity of Christ. Here this principle receives its justification; for only in the appearance of Christ did it become indisputably clear that creation is not a pure negation of God, and therefore cannot be saved solely through mystical dissolution in God, but - with all its elevation to participation in God, with all the transience of this world - only in the preservation and completion of created nature. Judging by the range of ideas that the Confessor uses, his Christology is not innovative. Just as the early aspect of his discussions of the Logos goes back directly to Origen (even quoting verbatim), so the later aspect - Christology - is built on the basis of the neo-Chalcedonian theology of the 6th century, especially Leontius of Byzantium, as well as ideas received by the Monk Maximus from St. Sophronius, with whom he stayed in an African monastery around 630 214 . But St. Maximus not only in a number of places corrects and deepens the dry, often leading into emptiness, speculations of the neo-Chalcedonians, not only theologically develops and improves the dogmatic constructions of St. Sophronius, the great achievement of St. Maximus remains the choice of the Christological formula as the core basis of the worldview. Here his insights border on the insights of the greatest Christian thinkers, who, like Blessed Augustine in his struggle with Donatus and Thomas in his polemic against Averroes, were able to move from a seemingly particular situation from the field of history of thought to a universal one and, starting from individual attacks on Christianity, build a powerful system. The very reverent tone in which St. Maximus presents Christological questions makes it possible to understand that he is not participating in a tournament of concepts, but is facing the central mystery of the universe. “Of all the Divine mysteries, the mystery of Christ is most filled with mystery, for it predetermines the place of every existing or future accomplishment of every being in every spiritual contemplation” 215. The “ineffable image of the union” of both natures in Christ is ultimately incomprehensible. “For who can know how God takes flesh and yet remains God? How He, while remaining true God, is nevertheless true man. This can only be comprehended by faith that silently reveres the Word of God” 216. If our mind is truly directed towards things in the world and nature, how can it not recoil if it finds this very nature transferred to a different, supernatural mode? And since this mode is Divine, and God is opposed to the entire universe, will not this unity seem contradictory? “For the super-essential Logos, who, together with nature, involved in this ineffable conception also everything that belongs to it, had no intention of introducing anything human and natural that would not at the same time become Divine and sublime thanks to the supernatural image of its existence. The contemplation of these things goes beyond the limits of reason and cannot be strictly revealed, but is comprehended only by the faith of those who worship the mystery of Christ in spirit and truth” 217. Only faith sees in the mirror of the sensory appearance of Christ the extrasensory appearance of the eternal. And yet, what we contemplate awakens in us a burning desire to comprehend and contemplate. The mysterious conjugation of light and mirror, sanctifying and sanctified, truth and allegory, manifest and hidden - operating in the relationship of both natures of Christ - contributes to the concentrated manifestation of the mystery of the world in its center, as in an inconceivable burning glass. The transition from appearance to truth is comprehended either here or nowhere. Here lies the articulation of that compass, one leg of which is in the world, and the other in God. Thanks to his incarnation, the Lord became “His own Forerunner” 218. As St. Maximus writes, sharpening the thought of Origen, He became “an allegory and parable of Himself; He was able, starting from Himself, to symbolically testify to Himself and to elevate all creation through Himself, revealed, to Himself, unmanifested and hidden in every possible way” 219. Thus, Christian love cannot cease again and again to explore and question the mystery of these two essences, the “supernatural physiology” of Christ μυστήριον lit. “the great mystery of the supernatural physiology of Jesus” 220). Beginning with Ephesus and Chalcedon, the approach to this is limited by apophatics: it must lie in the middle between the heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches, between the doctrines of two persons and one nature in Christ. “Separation” (διαίρεσις) must be avoided, as well as “union” (συναίρεσις) 221; and not in the sense that Eutyches united “too much” and Nestorius “too little,” but in the sense that both of them divide and unite falsely, not knowing what the unity actually consists of. They mistakenly sought synthesis at the level of nature itself and therefore described it as a synthesis of natural potencies (Nestorius) or as natural unity (Eutichius). Thus, the solution remains impossible, as long as one abandons all other parameters of being, except for nature and essence, that is, the parameters of ancient Greek philosophy. For from this “one-dimensionality” it followed that every “essence” (ουσία, φύσις) as such also had reality, or at least was an element, structure, pattern of something that really exists. The path from this one-dimensional space to the completed formation of the second dimension in the scholastic doctrine of being is a long path and fraught with many complications. The discovery of this dimension, which reveals as the fundamental essential content of every created being the non-identity of essence and being (Latin essentia and existentia) is the fruit of Christian consciousness, which first of all became accessible to the connection between the creating God and the fundamental structure of the world. But thanks to this connection, it was possible for the first time to see the conceptual completeness and metaphysical essence of personal existence as that extreme point of sovereignty and freedom in God, which contains all the relationships and objectivity (Das and Was) of creation, as well as with all the consistency - for creation is the image of God - that last point in created beings, which forms the extreme center of the free potency of being above all “nature” and “essence”, but at the same time adhering to the idea of the ultimate relationship to God. And even if the essential relationship between these two conjugations – essential-existential and essential-personal – has not yet been clarified, it is already quite obvious that in that transitional period of philosophy both polarities should have been in close contact: both expressed one single fundamental view, struggling for conceptual clarity in the absence of a complete idea of ​​essence and nature. Christological battles, largely due to the inevitable confusion in the development of the loose and unstable conceptual heritage of ancient philosophy, contributed significantly to the purification of the Christian sphere of thought. And even a dogmatic formula often precedes the completeness of philosophical mastery of a new concept: the formula is created with dreamlike precision, and only subsequently the full versatility of its meaning is revealed. How great was the risk when the Council of Ephesus chose between two equally incomplete and imprecise formulas and accepted the one that was less alien and promised a more certain perspective; and the Council of Chalcedon took the same risk, which - contrary to all apparent logic supporting the Monophysites - with all clarity boldly interpreted the Ephesian formula (μία φύσις “one nature”) contrary to its literal meaning - and in the exact opposite sense! And again, with what courage did the neo-Chalcedonians desire to fit the entire Christology of St. Cyril into the framework of the Chalcedonian formula, in order only in this way to overcome the Monophysite intuitions to which they were inclined! Words that have been used for centuries in either precisely established or everyday vague meanings had to outgrow their natural volume in order to reflect new objects. The Christology of St. Maximus always appears in this double light: his daring and formulations are both fluid and intense, thanks to which powerful lines and directions and even brilliant intuitions emerge, which are obviously worthy of further complementary description. Some of these descriptions suggest that the battles over the essence of Christ were just a noisy verbal tournament of ghosts without any living modern meaning. But the following presentation is intended to create a different impression. Even if from what St. Maximus said about the image of Christ, much seems too abstract, others inaccurate, others too far into the realm of everyday ideas about Christianity, nevertheless, the synthetic thought of the Confessor as a whole remains evidence of the most living struggle for the main secret of the universe. The unity of God and the world in Christ could not be expressed in the language of pure philosophy of “essence.” If it was considered as "physical" or "ontic" (ενωσις ουσιώδης, ενωσις φυσική), then the consequence was the confusion of both poles being connected into a new "essence" (ουσία, φύσις ); but when trying to avoid this confusion, only an accidental, external, “moral” unity was obtained due to the “spiritual connection” (σχέσις) between both natures 222. True, both positions - Eutychian and Nestorian - each consider only part of the truth 223. However, the very plane on which they struggle is generally incapable of promoting a true solution; in this plane one can only arrive at the empty dialectic of thesis and antithesis. For the sought-after synthesis here is constantly in danger of slipping either to the separation of halves (έξ ήμισείας μερίζεσθαι) 224, or to the type of “equilibrium” (άντίρροπον) 225 – “medium”, “intermediate” (μέσον, μεταίχμιον), which, due to its neutrality, is incapable of either unification or interpenetration of poles (μηδετέρςι φύσει των έξ ών έστι κοινωνούν) 226. The solution proposed by the monophysite Sevier, who wanted to establish simultaneous natural unity and natural distinction of the poles, could only lead to open contradiction ( άνατρέποντες ) 227 . But in this case, natural unity would be perceived as a given, and then it would abolish the internal independence of the poles and lead to a docetic denial of the truth of the Incarnation 228. If, therefore, two great heresies apophatically delimit the path, then the already revealed reasoning about the Divine Trinity cataphatically directs us to achieve the goal. For it was precisely this that first led to the establishment of the concept of personality. St. Maximus always resolves the complexities of Christology by turning to the doctrine of the Trinity. Against the objection of Sergius, who, based on the intuitively understood personal unity of Christ, insisted on the strict unity of personal action and will, he again and again opposes the trinitarian counterargument: Sergius’s thesis leads with irresistible force to the postulation of three wills in God. Perhaps at first this use of intra-divine relationships to clarify the essence of Christ seems unconvincing. Even if the relationship between nature and personality in God is fundamentally describable, do not they here have a completely different, hardly comparable meaning? Pyrrhus did not miss the opportunity to draw attention to this in his debate: “What was taught to us by the Holy Fathers in the aspect of the doctrine of God is not applicable in the aspect of Christology. Therefore, it is not an intellectually honest argument to use in Christology what they thought about the Trinity and use it to prove its inconsistency.”229 But the Monk Maxim looked further: in fact, both questions are juxtaposed not without connection: the Logos incarnate remains precisely as the Logos, One of the Three Divine Persons; thus the Christological thesis cannot abolish the Trinitarian 230. Because of the inner intertwining of both problems, what little we gain by distinguishing between nature and person in God is sufficient to enable us to make a similar distinction in Christ. For if the incarnation gave rise to a synthetic nature, then the Son would no longer be of the same nature as the Father, and we, willy-nilly, would become Arians 231 . The Trinity would expand into a quaternity, 232 not to mention the fact that such a nature of Christ would be unlike our human nature 233 and thus could not save us. So, Sergius’ seductive conclusion that “the number of wills determines the number of those who will,” in its consequences leads either to Arius or to Sabellius: to the natural division of divine Persons or to the dissolution of Persons in pure Divine naturalness 234; “personal will” destroys the very concept of the Divine nature 235. So, one should not go in the direction of the “complicated thing” 236; the mystery is not located in the plane of “things”. The mysterious mode of connection (“mysterious image of connection”) 237 lifts us above the plane of parts. But here a difficulty arises: if the resulting unity is not something third, consisting of parts - in this case, Christ is nothing more than the “Hypostasis” of the parts 238 - then how can this unity be distinguished from its parts? How to define and express an entity that does not belong to the order? The exclusion of Nestorianism and Monophysitism initially offers two definitions that delimit the problem. It should be objected against Sevier that unity is free and is not the result of natural processes and that therefore it still does not cease to be “physical” (in the sense of “ontic”). It is personal labor: αύτουργία “own labor” 239. Against Nestorius, it is enough to point out that this free and spiritual action is “ontic”, and not only “moral” (ουσιώδης, κατ᾿ ούσίαν “existential, in essence”); nor does he need to be “natural” (έν ούσίςχ “in essence”). But this achieves only a little. One would have to find a category that colors or grades existence without at the same time establishing a qualitative distinction of the existing essence. They tried to achieve this, starting with Amphiolochius and the Cappadocians, by defining for the Trinity a “mode of existence” (τρόπος τής ύπάρξεως “mode of existence”). Is it not possible to transfer this definition to the problematic field of Christology? Doesn't it help us, taking a phenomenological look at the appearance of Christ, to understand that this definition shows us a Being, whose entire course of action, down to the last word, to the slightest gesture, reveals human nature, but human nature transferred as a whole to another mode of this-worldly existence? Everything human is regained in this new image 240, and yet from this it does not become “purely human” (ψιλός άνθρωπος) 241, “only human” (άπλώς άνθρωπος) 242, but appears as mysteriously “lived” by another (τώ ένοικεΐν) 243. At the same time, this living is given to such an extent as internal and intimate as it can be conceived (ούδέν ένικώτερον); it took care in the most subtle way to preserve and save everything human and natural within itself (ούδέν σωστικώτερον) 244. Such is this “new image” 245, this “Divine mode” 246, this “image of precisely this and no other existence” (του πώς εΐναι τρόπος) 247, this new quantity, not affecting quality 248, which can show us the path to the sought-after unity. It is already clear that the chosen directions of thought will in no way lead us into the realm of the existential in the modern sense. It is not awareness 249 that determines hypostatic unity; Therefore, we must treat the concept of personality with particular care. Initially, hypostasis is the concept of formal ontology, but therefore the very formulation of the question takes us beyond the boundaries of ancient Greek thought. At the same time, the real distinction between essence and this-worldly being forms the latent underlying basis of this Christology, and concepts shift to this invisible point of convergence, although they themselves do not explicitly fall under its law. Of course, in this sense, the problem of the “existential” is already implicit here in all its vagueness and urgency. With these latter Greek thinkers, the clear geometric mental space is transformed into a “spherically curved” 250, concepts are stretched outward relative to their old meanings, often a new “existential” meaning is explicitly juxtaposed with the original classical one; Often a change can be noticed only by the use, tone, and context of the word. However, on the other hand, does not this double illumination represent the purest situation of human thinking? A clear division between the spheres of the essential and the existential would presuppose a complete conceptual, that is, essential, comprehensibility of this fundamental distinction of created being (which for a creature would be an internal contradiction), but would decompose vitality as such to the level of a dead juxtaposition. The mystery admits of no clear resolution; rather, its character as a mystery is directly revealed to the extent that thinking strives for it. The Christology of St. Maximus and his time is at the center of this struggle and deserves an honorable place in the history of thought. It would be useful to review the basic concepts in advance and clarify their Christological meaning 251 . Deacon Mikhail Pershin. o-special-character:line-break'> For Aristotle, the highest and all-encompassing category of existence was ousia - this-worldly essence. Both aspects - this-worldly existence and essence - converge for him in ousia; This is most clearly shown by the fact that form, by virtue of its being a form, also imparts (this-worldly) existence to matter. At the same time, ousia is initially indifferent to the duality of essence and being and basically remains so in the future. St. Maximus uses the word usia in a double sense, which corresponds to the use of this word already in Leontius 253. The first sense (not to be confused with the sense of Aristotle's "second ousia", the universal essence, for which the term physis, "nature" was subsequently adopted) embraces all things as the highest ontological category. In this case, ousia contains all genera and individuals 254? For St. Maximus, logical universalities are at the same time existential universals (καθόλα), therefore, for him, ousia, to the same small extent as once among the Cappadocians, who introduced this word into their Trinitarian theology, means a simple universal concept; rather, it is the real totality of the universe with the inclusion of distinctions and individualities that it distinguishes only conceptually. In any case, this concrete-total concept of ousia is threatened by the Christologically conditioned hierarchical reduction of the hypostasis, which increasingly eludes inclusion in the scope of the concept of ousia, without, however, becoming a simple universal concept 255. But while Leontius ranks God with ousia, the Monk Maximus, faithful to his teachers Origen 256 and Dionysius 257, elevates Him above ousia: God is not ousia, He stands above ousia 258. Thus, he interpreted ousia both as the most general and as an ontic unit of world existence. In the second sense, ousia, according to St. Maximus, as well as according to Leontius, is approximately equivalent to nature, fusis, and means a single private nature (ουσία καθ ’ έκαστον) 259. But as soon as we pay attention to this particularity as such and define it, for example, as an isolated being-for-itself ( ουσία των καθ ’ έαυτά ΰφεστώτων ), the meaning becomes obscured, because at first it seemed that the essence of a particular ousia seemed to consist precisely in this particular being-for-itself. But on the other hand, the universal law of the universe, which St. Maximus, being a theologian, has the right to extend to God Himself, shows that individual nature as nature never coincides with its individual existence; in other words: it is never limited to a single “instance” 260. Therefore, the Phoenix bird, which should be the only individual of its species, according to St. Maximus, is internally impossible and contradictory. Every nature is universal (γενική), every particular ousia as such is also generic (είδος άτομον “indivisible species”); in its order, being-for-itself, violating the principle of the generic, does not occur. But as soon as one notices the non-identity of being private (καθ᾿ έκαστον) and being-for-itself (καθ ’ εαυτόν) - although concrete ousia can never exist without some kind of being-for-itself - does not the possible separation of both at least pass into the plane of the permissible? At least in such a way that the ousia was already divided into these completely defined, each time individual individuals and into no others, not due to the fact that it becomes particular in the dynamism of “diastole,” but rather because this individuality was brought into it from somewhere outside? This thought experiment reveals the severity of the problem. Such a ousia would also be universal, without becoming, by virtue of this universality, a generic concept (είδος) for those that exist once for themselves (but only for particular ones). Usia, eidos, physis are nevertheless forced out, due to their opposition to the elements of what we call for ourselves, into a single area of ​​essence for them 261. In contrast to it, the realm of true being opens up. Along with ousia is the concept of being, είναι. Used for the most part very vaguely, it, taken in the material sense, covers 262 the same scope of the concept as ousia (the word 263 derived from this). However, it is clear that είνα emphasizes the existential side of being. We have already seen that St. Maximus rejects the idea of ​​some “being”, which would not be in its origins a qualitatively determined being (πώς είναι) 264 - at least as an idea in the super-existent God. God Himself stands above being 265, internally and essentially temporal 266, derivative 267, conditioned, divided into multiplicities 268. In this sense, all worldly (this-worldly) existence is always qualitatively colored. Even if the spirit, in the primary act of its thinking, has encountered “being in general,” it must immediately give this community the status of a qualitatively determined being 269 in order to comprehend it as real. The Monk Maximus hardly comprehended world existence and the real distinction between existence and essence as a metaphysical component, since for him the interpenetration of the poles seems to go up to mutual conceptual compatibility. Thus, he may well identify λόγος του είναι, the internally rational and bright beginning (“logos”) of being, and ουσία “essence” 270; he says that Christ in His person unites “both different λόγοι του είναι parts” 271; believes that the elements were united by genus and type κατά τόν αυτόν του είναι λόγον 272 (according to the very logos of being), and it even seems that he is almost playing with the tension between ousia and being. For example, when he says: “Not because soul and body, being soul and body, are a dual being in an essential relation (εΐναι δύο κατά τόν). ουσιώδη λόγον “two beings in the essential sense”), each of them is also a different essence in relation to the existential (αλλήν ουσίαν κατά τόν τού είναι λόγον “another essence in relation to being”)” 273. Εΐναι occasionally becomes the opposite complement of ύποστήναι; in contrast to it, it then emphasizes the this-worldly existence of some essence on the basis of the essence itself 274. However, related words grouped around είναι have an existential focus. This is especially noticeable when the concept is applied to “degrees of being”, representing an identical essential idea in various modes of existential realization, for example, life in “only” living, in a sentient, capable of inference, intuitive essence 275 or, respectively, in freedom 276. If these concepts do not find identical expression in different degrees (of being) (ούχ όμονύμως λέγεται “not called with the same name”), then not primarily because of essential differentiation, but because of the increase in “intensity of being” (πλέον ζήν ... "full life") 277. Yποκείμενον, “sub-lying” (lit.), laid down as the basis, is used by St. Maximus relatively little; he takes the term as a traditional concept without further analysis. It designates a specific and existing bearer of qualitative characteristics 278 . As in the sphere of essence, “everything created is composed of ousia and random properties” 279, so in the universal realm - from ousia and υποκείμενον, which coincide only in God 280. But it is precisely this last remark that shows that ύποκείμενον does not mean the same thing as hypostasis; obviously this is rather a point of correlation of the logical attribution of nature as an ontological reality 281. However, this dimension of non-existence also points to the core of the riddle of essence and being: if a specific bearer of essence is determined on the basis of “universal and characteristic features” 282, which can describe it in more and more detail, primarily by the way of its activity, 283 then it will nevertheless never be able to completely move into the realm of essential features. “So, for perfect knowledge of things, it is not enough to name the many characteristics characteristic of them, such as corporeality, fertility, transience - everything that can still be located around υποκείμενον; It is imperative to identify the essence of these properties, the basis on which they rest, in its qualitative existence, if we want to completely and perfectly correlate the object of thought with the given. For we are talking either about a person, or about a cow or a horse, which, however, are not bodies, but corporeal things, not essence and transience, but something becoming and transient” 284. We learn little about the qualitative side of this knowledge, since St. Maximus nowhere gives a developed teaching about knowledge. It is only clear that ecstasy and contemplation of God raises us above the dualism of ousia and υποκείμενον, and also gives us an understanding of the latter only as something surpassed by us, left behind. Ύ παρξις “existence” is an ancient way of expressing the existence of a person with God, at least in the phrase way of existence (τρόπος τής ύπάρξεως). But the fact that St. Maximus contrasts the “trinity of the mode of existence” not only with the “monad of ousia” of God, but at the same time with the logos of being 285 shows that the philosophical conceptual system does not keep pace with the theological one. The indefinite character of being, which extends from the pole of essence (ουσία) to the pole of existence (ΰπαρξις), is not able to truly reveal the decisive opposition 286. Of course, the above fragment is intended to highlight precisely the absolute unity of essence and being in God and even indicates that ousia ends (τέλεια ουσία) only in trinitarian existence (τρισυπόστατος ΰπαρξις). Therefore, St. Maximus quite consistently demands strict correspondence of the unity of essence and the unity of existence to created things, since single (albeit composite) essences cannot have multiple existences 287, although the existence of the whole does not explain the new, third through the existence of parts 288. The existence of parts subordinate to each other is homogeneous in everything, and thus the entire created world, since it is the totality of the created, has an “undifferentiated identity of existence” 289. Hypostasis 290 is the great stumbling block and identifying mark of Christology. Initially, this word has the same meaning as prosopon (“mask”, “face”) 291 and denotes the three Persons in God 292, that is, it is a reality that is expressed and described through a “mode of existence” or “arising” 293. In its essence, at least in the realm of the created, it is “being-for-itself” (καθ ’ εαυτόν) ousia, that is, that by which a specific entity differs from other entities of the same kind (είδος) 294. At the same time, it answers the question who (in a broad sense): τόν τινα τής ουσίας έμφαίνει 295 (“manifests the subject (literally whom) of the essence”) this is a sign of I and an indication of it: του τινός έστι δηλωτική 296 (“there is its revelation”). In the broad sense of the word, we say, since hypostasis is the ontological subject of the fate of a being, and not the consciousness of this subject; according to St. Maximus, animals, plants, even stones have hypostasis 297. “Just as action should be raised to the active, so nature should be raised to the hypostasis” 298: the relation of the type “raised to the basis” expresses the relationship of both. True, on the one hand, this relationship is identical to the reduction of the general to the particular; this is a concentration of 299. But on the other hand, such a narrowing of the essence is still of a different nature than the reduction that was described in connection with the dynamics of the general and particular essence: in that there was only room for various more abstract or more concrete ways of being, but here, on the contrary, concentration is associated with possession, with a way of having essential being. This relationship is based, on the one hand, on the fact that “it is impossible to conceive of a hypostasis without nature” 301, on the other hand, that no nature can coincide with its own hypostasis; both concepts necessarily exclude each other everywhere, right up to God 302. Hence the difficulty in determining the hypostasis. For to whatever extent it may at first seem that it has been satisfactorily described as άτομον είδος (“indivisible species”) through ousia with all its isolating characteristics, since they clearly separate in the species nature the individual from the general 303 , nevertheless it actually includes in addition that active active assimilation, the result of which alone can be the individual 304 . Therefore, it is quite acceptable to consider that hypostasis as such is not ατομον είδος (“indivisible form”) to the extent that the latter remains a category of the essential sphere 305. In any case, such a hypostasis would thereby elude any actual definition, moving, as was mentioned, from more general entities to more isolated ones 306. But shouldn’t hypostasis as such always elude definition in this case? Of course, it is always embodied in a certain nature, it is always “realized” (ένούσιον), but is not limited to being just a property (ψιλον ιδίωμα, lit. “naked property”) of nature. Rather, nature could name its property, that is, what it possesses. And of course, among the individualizing characteristics, a distinction can be made between “essential characteristics” (ποιότης ούσιώδης), which distinguish the stages of species nature, and “hypostatic characteristics” (ποιοτης υποστατική), which as such relate to an individual in much the same way as nose shape or hair color 307 . But these latter remain only a sign, an indication of the “being-for-itself” hidden behind them, and they themselves still belong to the essential structure. As a result, in order to express the pure hypostatic differences, only the number 308 remains. But what could be more unsuitable for expressing precisely the unique and individual of each existing thing? However, we have already stated above that the number itself is only a “sign” and as such does not relate to reality in a direct and conceptual way. Thus, hypostasis can be described through a simple rapprochement of two sides that complement each other: nature and its increasingly limiting properties (being “possessing” hypostasis) and the very act of assimilation of this nature. St. Maximus compares both of these definitions. “Hypostasis is an existence that lasts separately within itself; therefore, hypostasis is defined as ousia together with individual characteristics, thanks to which the number differs from other equally essential (things)” 309. But now it is known that the hypostasis had the general property of stability and existence from the beginning. This usage is visible in the verb ύποστήναι “to exist” 310, in the adjective άπόστατον “non-existent” 311: for example, evil is spoken of ΰπόστασιν ούκ έχει “hypostasis” does not have”, that is, does not exist as a being 312. This original meaning still sounds in such a narrowly specialized term as being-for-itself: the mysterious point at which all essential signs are united and collected, itself appears as the “most concrete” of nature, which, being in itself abstract and as often transmitted as desired, thereby acquires a resemblance to “existence”. But at the same time, one cannot lose sight of the fact that in the time of St. Maximus, ousia and thysis themselves were devoid of a uniquely abstract meaning and thus could not form a pure opposition with the existing one. The ancient Greek unity of essence and being is still fully alive in both of them. Thus, here, too, a phenomenon of a kind of interference is formed between theological terminology and its philosophical processing - after all, as has already been mentioned, the immediate need of theological polemics for sharp (not to say irresistible) words can in some cases get ahead of philosophical reflection and thereby prevent its maturation, which threatens it with sterility. Nevertheless, it is precisely this need for conceptual clarity that remains a powerful stimulus for philosophy and opens up for it paths and problems that it would not have found on its own. Here an area of ​​tension opens up between existence and idea. Hierarchical subordination, within which being correlates with its specific carrier, reveals the non-identity of essential and existential structures. And although this non-identity has not yet been thematized - it is noteworthy that the connection between ΰποκείμενον, "sub-lying", and hypostasis in St. Maximus is not explained - but it is precisely this intermediate stage between the pagan philosophy of identity and the subsequent scholastic real distinction, which believes that the poles can be separated in an extremely simple way, is fruitful for history thoughts. The tension is revealed in the thesis in which the author of scholia to theological polemical treatises explained the thought of St. Maximus: “Nature is what was created in the image, the existential plane (λόγος). Hypostasis is that which was created in the likeness, life (βίος)" 313. After all, image and likeness have long been considered the key words for an abstract scheme: on the one hand, the “generated” nature of the creature, on the other, concrete, free self-realization and assimilation of this nature 314. However, plan and life as the great polarity of any world existence cannot in any way be understood as “parts” of this being in the sense of “metaphysical components,” for every plan is, first of all, the planning of life, and every life is the vitality of the plan. “Hypostasis without nature is completely unthinkable: ούκ εστι νοήσαι 315. On the contrary, the dimension that opens thanks to the original tension is rather the original dimension of “become what you are.” Therefore, it can only consist in the progressive realization (in the sense of Newman's realization) of one thing in the other or through the other. A freely realized and assimilated image as such is a similarity, moreover, the two cannot coincide. And for such a formation to become possible, an initial two-sided interpenetrating being is necessary: “The fact that there is no nature without hypostasis does not make it itself a hypostasis, but only a hypostasis (εν – υπόστατον), so that it should be considered not as a simple property that is only mentally different from hypostasis, but in its very thingness ( πραγματικός) as an essence (είδος). And in the same way, the fact that the hypostasis is not insubstantial does not make it itself an essence, but shows it as realized (έν – ούσιον); Thus, it cannot be known as a simple property [of nature], but must be known as really [existing] together with that in which the properties are rooted" 316. As a result of this mutual living, all hypostatic nature exists (τό ένυπόστατον δηλοΐ το ένύπαρκτον “the hypostatic appears to exist”); thereby it is endowed with the ability to influence and self-realize (ένεργόν, ένεργητικόν) 317. And vice versa, every realized hypostasis is the realization of the plan of nature and therefore of rational existence accessible to reason; thus, it is not opposed to nature as an unrelated irrational “existential”. Thus, the Monk Maxim was able to answer the weighty objection of the Monothelites. According to their reasoning, what is personal in a person, except for that last point of free will, from which the impulses and abilities of nature initially flow and thanks to which they are ordered? This freedom, answers the Monk Maxim, is in its origins the freedom of nature itself; only its implementation, its “liberation” through assimilation is the work of the individual, in which it ascends to itself. So, the idea of ​​“freedom of nature,” which was destined to play such a significant role in the Monothelite dispute, very consistently merges with the concept of hypostasis 318. To act and be realized is the work of nature; hypostasis appears only as a realization. This advantage of nature is in the creature its own sign of its “generacy”, its creatureliness. But in Christ this independence of nature becomes precisely the condition of His true hypostatic unity. “But,” asks Pyrrhus, “is it not at the direction of the Logos, united with the flesh, that it moves?” “If you say that,” the Reverend objects, “then you are tearing Christ apart” 319. For in this case, the human nature of Christ is only an external instrument, a puppet controlled from a transcendent “hypostatic” center. And here - and precisely here - the most dangerous tendency of all patriotic Christology is overcome, namely the scheme of the relationship between the Logos and the flesh, which allows that the Logos manifests itself (with an instantaneous transfer or smooth transition of the rational soul) in a vitally personal way in the totality of the flesh, governed and animated by Him; this scheme, with various variations, was laid down by Arius, St. Athanasius, Apollinaris, and in fact was not overcome by St. Cyril of Alexandria, and after the defeat of Antiochian Christology it was again revived in many different ways in Monophysite and neo-Chalcedonian theology. The spiritual victory of St. Maximus over monoenergism meant a victory not only of the Alexandrian school, which in the end was able to say what it constantly wanted to say, without, however, finding an appropriate way of expression, but no less so of the Antiochian school, whose rightness - above all condemnations - was equally established, and the bonds that bound its language were dissolved. The nature moved by the Divine Hypostasis is passive to the same small extent as the nature of a simple person acting as an individual. Those who want to preserve the highest possible unity through passivity, like the Monophysites and Monothelites, “tear Christ apart.” Correlating with this is the thesis of St. Maximus, according to which in all manifestations of the primary action (actus primus) of nature there is explicitly present the implementation of the actus secundus, the secondary action emanating from the personality 320. We already have a presentiment of how deep prospects will open up here in relation to the way of being of Christ, Who “as a Man had the ability to will, but moved and expressed by the Divine will” 321; Thus, the ability of volition was directly revealed during its implementation not to the level of its own hypostasis, but to the level of the Divine hypostasis, without nevertheless ceasing to be a truly human ability. We again meet here with the “natural” optimism of St. Maximus, who does not even think of opposing freedom (as arbitrariness) to nature (as mechanical determinism), as the nominalists do, but allows its emergence from the basis of the latter. This unity of natural and personal freedom in a certain way raises the creature above the opposition of necessity and freedom, likening it even to God Himself. “If you call volition natural,” objects Pyrrhus, “and everything natural proceeds in uncompulsory necessity, then how then should He preserve any free movement?” To this the Reverend replies: “Not only the Divine and uncreated nature, but also the creature endowed with a spirit is not bound within itself by any coercion. For the essence, by nature rational, has, as a natural property, spiritual-rational impulses, which are also called the will of the intelligent soul. As a result of these impulses, our thinking and reasoning are based on the will (θέλοντες λογιζόμεθα “wishing, we reflect”) just as our will and determination are based on thinking (λογιζόμενοι θέλοντες βουλόμεθα “thinking, desiring, wanting”).” Having explained this interpenetration of will and spiritual thinking, the Reverend concludes: “therefore, there is no compulsion in the nature of the spiritual essence” 322. This understanding in turn means the completion and elimination of a long struggle, a long-term threat; its culmination is in Origen, but it smoldered even later: freedom is not identical to the possibility of choosing between good and evil; otherwise, the falling away of the creature would be expected with demonic necessity. The freedom of Christ shows St. Maximus the infidelity of this concept of freedom, just as liberation through Christ showed it to Blessed Augustine. Free self-determination for good in following the law of his likeness to God, in obedience to one’s own internal natural attraction to God - in this, according to St. Maximus, the personal freedom of the creature should be realized 323. Thus, in the central concept of hypostasis, Christology merges with the general philosophy of the Confessor. The last remark is appropriate: the new dimension that opens up for philosophy between essence (nature) and existence (personality), with a certain consistency, pushes the first pole towards the abstract mode of being, towards simple “possibility”. If it is incorrect to assert, together with Harnack and Luf, that St. Gregory of Nyssa, Leontius of Byzantium and, in the opinion of some, even St. Maximus 324 recognize in Christ not a separate human nature, but a universal, embracing all individuals, essence of man in general - today this view no longer needs to be refuted - then the tendency towards an abstract understanding of ousia and nature is undeniable. In Saint Gregory of Nyssa it is opposed by the Aristotelian-Stoic-Neoplatonic idea of ​​“Universale/concretum in re” (“universal/concrete in a thing”), which as such was thought of simultaneously both a priori and a posteriori 325 . For St. Maximus, such concreteness of the universal is maintained thanks to the concept of existential universality (καθόλα) he uses. But nevertheless, he poses a problem: if Christ took on “our nature,” then does He thereby involve “our natures,” considered as individual, into the hypostatic unity 326? We have already encountered the concepts of ένυπόστατον and ένούσιον, hypopostatized and realized. Junglas shed light on the history of the first of them, the more important, going back to Neoplatonism 327. At first it had the same general meaning of existence as ύπόστασις and ΰπαρξις, hypostasis and existence; in Christology it emphasized the true reality of human nature (as opposed to the existential illusoryness [άνυπόστατον] and the immateriality [ανούσιον] of Docetism). Then hypostatic could mean the reality of both nature and personality. Only in the course of Christological debates did this word begin to mean (which is clear from Leontius) that average degree of existence between non-existence (or accidental being) and complete hypostatic existence. Junglas finds a point of contact for this teaching in the idea of ​​Porphyry given by Nemesius 328, according to which an ousia can enter as a part into the existence of another ousia, of a higher order, without sacrificing anything of its own nature and perfection. According to Porfiry, the body and soul of a person, without diminishing, are preserved in the fullness of their nature. This example was destined to play a significant role in Christology. St. Maximus retains traces of the old meaning of the word, in particular when he speaks of the Logos, ένούσιος και ένυπόστατος (realized and hypostatized) to the Father 329. Yet here, too, the meaning of ένυπόστατος is conveyed not so much through “what actually exists” as through “[in the Divine Being] deeply hypostatized.” This is evidenced by another place in Ambigva, where St. Maximus refutes the theory that the unity of the Being of God is present in the Three Persons and by nature unfolds in Them (ϊνα χεθή φυσικώς εις πλήτος όδεύουσα). On the contrary, “unity is the hypopostatized being of the consubstantial Trinity” (ένυπόστατος όντότης τής όμοουσίου Τριάδος), just as the Trinity is also not a synthesis of three Unity, but “the actual existence of trinitarian unity” (ένούσιος ύπαρξις τρισυποστάτου μονάδος) 330. Elsewhere 331 The Second and Third Persons 332 in God are called ένούσιος και ένυπόστατος (consubstantial and hypostatized) for the good of the Divine Essence. Thus, in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the word ένυπόστατος (hypostatized) has a double meaning, allowing it to often reveal the personal image of the existence of the Essence of God and the image of existence of the Divine Persons rooted in the Essence. In Christology this meaning is even more limited. “The fact that άνυπόστατον (non-hypostatic, or not possessing this-worldly existence) does not exist does not yet include that something is a hypostasis, just as from the fact that there is no body without form, it follows to an equally small degree that any body as such is a form” 333. The same reflection is found regarding the place of ένούσιον (realized) in the essential hierarchy 334. Both concepts, in addition to their high theological value, are very useful to philosophy in order to explain the space between the poles of essence and this-worldly existence; they are also suitable for describing those levels and forms of existence that arise from the dynamic insight of the elements of created existence. That dwelling of the hypostasis in nature, thanks to which its realization (ένούσιον) occurs, gives nature the opportunity to hypostasis so that the poles do not coincide. St. Maximus gives two examples of such being-in. “Hypostatic is that which never exists for itself, but is in another, such as, for example, a genus in the individual entities falling under it, or as that which is united with another when a new integrity arises in the combination of what is essentially different. In this case, (the part) in its essence differs to the same extent in the properties that describe it from things of the same kind (for example, the humanity of Christ from the “humanity” of other people), in which it is hypostatically identical and uniform to the corresponding part” 335. Both possibilities relate to an identical ontological situation: in the first case, the generic essence is hypopostatized into its natural individuals (which then become simultaneously άτομον είδος “indivisible species” and ύπόστασις “hypostasis”), and in the second, the generic essence is hypostasized into an “alien” hypostasis, and then individual characteristics ( ιδιώματα), that is, those “essential” qualities that indirectly reveal a hypostasis should be correlated with this “alien” hypostasis 336. The same could be said about ένούσιον (actual). Thus, both concepts, allowing insight without confusion, serve the greatest thought of the Confessor about ένωσις άσύγχυτος - unity without coincidence. This is the material that is capable of providing saving-protective synthesis (σύνθεσις σωστική). Three words related to this synthesis can complete this discussion of concepts. The first, synthesis, sounded different for St. Maximus than for us. Extremely indefinite, it can designate any modes of composition - from what arose from the outside, like a pile of stones, through all forms of mixing (for example, liquids) to the highest images of unity. Thus, “synthesis” speaks less about the active beginning of a unifying complex than about a passive result, indifferent to the method of achieving it. The "active" result is clearer in the word ενωσις, although it can often be used in the same sense as the first word. This result is a single being (ένότης), which arises in God, and in addition, from “the drawing together of different things to unity” 337. For true unity, duality is necessary, true unity and preservation of the uniting elements. The more both of them are simultaneously realized, the more perfect the unity. According to the physics of the Stoics, the mutual existence of parts in each other is already carried out in the realm of the body, where bodies, without suffering damage, are able to penetrate each other (χωρείν δι άλλήλων άλυμάντως) 338. This law can be applied in various ways, for example, to the unification of the four Gospels into one single spiritual law: they are “united without confusion, distinct without division,” 339 just like the four elements that form a single world substance. Skillfully applying this law, St. Maximus does not forget that synthesis remains a great mystery and miracle of created existence, which can never be fully clarified 340. And yet, it remains the fundamental law of all created things, with which everything is related, for nothing complex can in any way have an original existence, since it is necessarily secondary and derivative 341 . This warns us against taking too literally the third expression, so generously used by St. Maximus: ταυτότης - sameness, identity. It can be used to express the unity of parts in an existential universality (καθόλα), which is nevertheless relatively independent of them and precedes the movement of unity (άπαράλλακτον έν όλοις ταυτότητα) 342; and also to designate the emerging synthetic unity (ένίζεται ταυτιζόμενον) 343. In this sense, “the composite hypostasis in itself contracts the natural separation of the poles into a strict identity” 344. With a more detailed description (according to the principle of unity) of this identity of the different, first of all, the important concept of the indifference of parts (άπαραλλαξία) 345 is emphasized, which simultaneously produce the negative implementation of their positive identity according to the same principle of unity. This description provides identity with a specific space of action, divided into various degrees and forms. Thus, St. Maximus already speaks about the identity of intention and will among lovers (κατά τήν γνώμην ταυτότητα) 346, about the identifying power of love in general (κατά μίαν ταυτότητος δύναμιν) 347, about the identity of the wholeness in its parts 348, about the identity of the hypostasis in its natures 349, and in the latter case, identity, due to the absolute unity of the hypostasis, is a “perfect identity” 350. Finally, St. Maximus even speaks of the identity between God and creation, which is realized in the depths of the analogy between both and is “identity in difference” ( διάφορος ) 351 . The latter identity is the result of grace-filled assimilation and approach to God (όμοιωθέντας τη κατά δύναμιν άδιαιρέτω ταυτότητι) 352; since it is gracious, it, within the limits of the distinction of components, always remains likeness and community (δι ’ όμοιότητος κοινωνία καί ταυτότης) 353, thanks to which we belong to the family of God; He alone is truly identical. And the identity of the world, if we consider it based on itself, ultimately rests on the identity of its non-being as God 354 - and therefore on its own seeking desire for Divine identity (ταυτότης κινήσεως) 355. M. Zhurinskaya, M. Pershina, M. Chernyaeva 356 . In connection with the wishes of readers, we are resuming the publication of sections of the monograph Ecumenical Liturgy by Hans Urs von Balthasar. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. The significance of the theological and philosophical themes touched upon in it is revealed in the presentation of the Christology of St. Maximus, who describes the mystery of the Hypostasis of the incarnate and made man Word. 3. Synthetic Personality The previous terminological analysis has made it easier for us to access that central secret of the world formation of St. Maximus, which contains the solution to all the world’s mysteries: the unity of God and the world, eternal and temporal, infinite and finite in the Hypostasis of the only Being - the God-man. This decision itself again introduces mystery; all the efforts of the Monk Maximus to clarify it, to a greater extent, refute false starting points and theories, rather than unravel the essence of Christ Himself. When, in the heat and irreconcilability of the theological battle, he forms clear concepts and, with a kind of intolerance, hammers them into his listeners and readers, then it is in this external “rationalism” that the essence of dogmatic positions and their theological interpretations is revealed: they limit the mystery, send away from the limits of the expressible into its inaccessible space and, paradoxically, turn out to be - in comparison with the seemingly deeper, more “religious” inspiration of the heretics - much more fulfilled awe and even “existentiality.” The abstractness of Christology in St. Maximus finds in this reverence its final positive foundation. He “interprets” with that and only that breadth that the service of “preservation” requires. However, it is also part of the protective service that it often, against his will, drives the thinker out of the safe area of ​​dogmatic formulas into the non-obviousness of close combat with the enemy, which means taking the risk of his own thinking, combination and intuition - not out of love for empty speculation, but in order to defeat the enemy with his own weapons and on his own territory. Since the Monk Maxim could not, like his friend Bishop Saint Sophrony, speak on behalf of the authority of the Church, he ventured into the unknown of the battle. He “had only personal authority; his provisions were weighty to the extent that he could prove them. Saint Sophronius could limit himself to setting out the relationship and subjectivity (Daß and Was) of truth; Reverend Maximus had to reveal its properties and causality (Wie and Warum)" 358. The lack of philosophical conceptual material with which he had to work as a son of his time could not but affect itself in decisive places and aggravate the lack of clarity. But the work of the Confessor remains that he pushed back the boundaries of what can be expressed in this vagueness. The well-known opacity of philosophical reflection (primarily, obviously, in the distribution of the concept of hypostasis between existence and person) and a certain additional refinement and hence the abstractness of the formulas used will not prevent us from delving into the true philosophical and Christian pathos of his constructions. a) Intraworld analogies Like most theologians before him (and above all Leontius), the Monk Maximus, when explaining the divine-human unity of Christ, begins with the analogy of the unity of body and soul in man 359. Two “natures” unite here existentially and, without mixing, penetrate each other in order to form a single hypostasis and “face.” Both Orthodox and heretics agreed on the meaning of this analogy, since it was based on the (moderate) Platonic view that both parts of the human being have relative autonomy and independence (and thus the actualizing form is not opposed, as in Thomism, to purely potential matter). This obvious analogy seems to shed light on a number of points. First of all, this mysterious fact is intended to clarify that, on the one hand, man is “something other” than soul and body, and on the other, since he is precisely their unity, he is more than the sum of the parts taken by themselves. For St. Maximus, this dual nature of the unity of soul and body is decisive. He boldly explains that the whole is “nothing other” than its parts: it has “no other natural existence” (ΰπαρξις) 360. On the contrary, it is the being of its parts. Integrity is only the pure interexistence of parts, an aspect of identity with all their differences 361 . The whole is the “hypostasis” of its parts (in the double sense of person and being) and, thus, their unity 362. In this sense, the human nature of Christ only through its being in the Logos would have existence and personality in Him 363. In order to understand the full meaning of this teaching, it is necessary to keep in mind the previous discussions about the mutual interexistence of wholeness (καθόλου) and parts (μερικόν). As has been pointed out, wholeness exists only in its parts and is in the true sense a product of them; however, the parts exist only in their whole, which in no less genuine sense is their basis. For mediating unity, the maintenance of non-unity is necessary; for the equalization of tension, the preservation of the poles is required. A ποφάσει των άκρων ούδέν έστι μέσον 364 “when extremes are denied, the mean disappears.” From here the constantly repeated formula becomes clear, relating both to man and to Christ: the parts “of which and in which and as which man exists” 365; Christ, “who exists, consisting of them and in them and as they” 366. Outside of this threefold relationship there is nothing more (ούχ ετερόν τι) 367, and between the relationships themselves there is a strict equivalence: “of which Christ is, also in such He is, and in which He is, also such He is” 368. Hypostasis is indistinguishably the product of the unity of parts and being-in 369 unity in the parts caused and contained through it. There is an absolute reciprocity of causation and causation: “for just as one [hypostasis] arises from two (that is, from two natures, one as a whole from parts in relation to hypostasis), so through one as a whole both parts (in relation to nature) are formed as two.” 370. So: “not only from some [parts], but they themselves, and not only themselves, but also in them, since wholeness is from parts and wholeness in parts and through the parts" 371. Thus, ultimately, the relationship of the whole to the parts is equivalent to the relationship of the parts among themselves: “So, if the hypostatic identity of the whole with respect to its own parts is preserved undistorted, or, to put it more precisely, the mutual identity of the parts according to the synthesis of the whole that is composed of them, then in this case it is also clear that the parts, since the hypostasis is completed from them, do not differ from each other in any respect” 372. This is how unity is formed, and even identity, which cannot be more perfect (ούδέν νικώτερον), although it itself is capable of existing only through the complete preservation of its own being of the parts (ούδέν σωστικώτερον) 373. Let this all seem too abstract and sterile, but the constant repetition of this universal world law remains nevertheless the great achievement of the Confessor, which not only makes an apology for the finite world existence in relation to the superior power of the world of ideas; ultimately, the acceptance of the correlation between God and the world (in hypostatic union) provides the world as such, directly in its otherness to God, with final existential justification and “conscientiousness.” Saint Sophronius emphasized precisely this positivity of the finite when he noted that Christ “kept His undiminished nature,” the “descriptibility of the body,” the “image” of the human “species” (σχήμα) “forever and will preserve into boundless eternity” 374. That which is less surprising in the anti-Origenist Saint Sophronius should acquire all the higher value in the Venerable Maximus, who here balances his own Alexandrism. However, it should be asked whether the transposition of the philosophical-cosmological and anthropological synthesis gave anything for Christology? The cosmological synthesis of the whole and the parts assumed only the equivalence of the parts and therefore does little for the synthesis of absolutely unequal components - Divinity and humanity (human nature - Transl.) - in Christ; moreover, its application as a Christological scheme could seem to be a clear victory for Antiochene Christology. On the contrary, the scheme of the relationship between body and soul, without further clarification, directly led to monophysitism, since man is undoubtedly one nature, even if he is composed of two (quasi-)natures. It seems that Sevier 375 is playing a win-win game here: if the nature formed from the unity of body and soul can simultaneously be regarded as a hypostasis - this is how St. Cyril once understood natural unity (μία φύσις “one nature”) - then it must be precisely nature in order to achieve the existential (ενωσις φυσική), and not just moral (σχετική) unity. b) From Leontius to St. Maximus Leontius of Byzantium was the first to direct the spearhead of his thought against this conclusion. By using the concept of the hypostatic as a mediating link between natural and hypostatic being, he drove a wedge into Sevier’s argument. But his Origenism 376 forced him to platonically define the human soul (which pre-exists independently as incorporeal and independent) as an “incorporeal, immortal essence” 377 . Hence, the soul and body, considered in themselves, are “perfect substances”, which initially should not complement each other by nature (as required by Aristotelian definitions 378), but are regarded as “imperfect” in relation to hypostasis 379, therefore their union is explained not by a natural inclination to unity, but by the positive will of God (embedded in the basis of the decision “to condemnation”) 380. Of course, considered in itself, a person cannot be called “one nature”; he can be considered as such only insofar as he is considered as an instance of the genus (είδος), the abstract-universal characteristic of which lies precisely in this penetrating composition of “two natures,” of body and soul 381. In the union of two previously separated hypostases, a single one freely arises, saving the unity of man, while the body, although it still remains nature, is not an independent hypostasis, but a hypostasized nature 382 . But after death, the body and soul are again as independent hypostases as they remained independent natures when combined 383 . If we were to transfer this understanding of man into Christology, then an apparently simple formula would be obtained: the unity of Christ could be understood as purely hypostatic in the two remaining natures, and the independent pre-existence of the soul, which is not internally distorted by union with the body, made it possible to provide an excellent analogy for the immutability of the Divine Nature and Person in the hypostatic union. But the disadvantages of this formula far outweighed its advantages. Not only did the hypostatic unity of Christ lose the character of a sacrament, becoming one case in a thousand, but, in addition, the denial of His true natural unity with humanity was a dangerous, unfounded concession to Monophysitism, and the structural analogy between human existence and Christ could only strengthen its fallacy. From now on, the whole difference was limited to the fact that Christ could not be considered an instance of the race and precisely because of this he formed “one Person”, but not “one nature” 384. Reverend Maximus, on the contrary, had only to remember his polemic with Origenism in order to find a means to correct Leontius’s speculations and to create a sharpened weapon against the Monophysites. Leontius was on the right track when he saw the difference between Christ and human nature in that the latter forms a race. Consequently, the universality of eidos indicates that the unity of body and soul cannot be purely hypostatic, yet the distinctive property of this unity is not universal existence, but existence specifically for itself. The Monk Maximus goes even further to meet Leontius; he concedes to him in that this non-hypostatic character of the unity of man could be derived not so much from nature as such, but from the genus: in fact, even in its unity with the body, the soul retains its own ousia - it remains “considered in essence” (κατα τον ουσιώδη λόγον “according to the essential logos”), from him distinguished by 385. However, the Monk Maxim does not strictly adhere to this usage, and he has good reasons for this. For Leonty, the generic was little more than a logical statement about the basis of the similarity of individuals. For St. Maximus, as a philosopher of existential totalities (καθόλα), it is the ontological structure of a fact. Man is not only a synthetic personality, but also a “synthetic nature” 386, since, being a species entity, he is built into the cosmic connectedness of the universe; he is an “element” 387 of the world, he depends on thousands of threads, influences, destinies, he is “passive”, in short, he is not a purely personality. And in this respect, “it is in no way superior to other species essences inherent within the nature of everything (η καθ᾿ όλου φύσις)” 388. It is no coincidence that in this place the solemn Stoic word about the “catholic” nature of everything (ή καθ ’ ολου) emerges φύσις), about that great world unity from which thousands of individual entities are always generated in order to disappear again into it. For it is precisely this natural arising and passing away that makes man a being of “kind” and “nature”. In a strict sense, the connection between body and soul is “binding,” and even natural, physical compulsion (έξ άνάγκης εΐρμώ τινι φυσικώ) 389; Moreover, personal being is only a product of an impersonal process: it is “generated” and not independently. The mutual existence of body and soul is a sign not only of freedom, but at the same time of “need”: the soul, having a body, is at the same time subject to it. “The soul, without wanting it, has its own body and to the same extent it must be subject to it; without wanting it, she gives him life precisely through her being in him; by nature she participates in his suffering (πάθος) and illnesses due to her inherent passivity” 390. This passivity is based on the absolute simultaneity of soul and body, in which their mutual internal, metaphysical conformity is revealed 391. That ultimately neither the soul can exist before the body, nor the body before the soul lies in the decisive need of both for each other, which excludes this illusion of a free and independent union. The unity that they are forced to form surpasses both of them, it imposes on them that which is higher than themselves: the race, “all nature.” Therefore, an individual person, even where he is a personality, always remains a member and an additional part of the whole, εις συμπλήρωσιν 392, εις ολου τινός κατ ' εισυμπλήρωσιν 393 (“in the execution of a certain whole in accordance with the form”). “Every synthetic nature has its origin in simultaneity [of parts] and in generation (ακούσιον “forced”), since it exists as a created thing, described through space and its own world” 394. But such coercion is impossible when it comes to Christ. He did not come in order to “replenish the ancestral integrity as a part” 395. Both of His natures are in no way “simultaneous”; His Hypostasis owes its emergence not to natural formation (γένεσις), but to sovereign, voluntary perception (πρόληψις). “The One who was before all the eons, or better: the Creator of the eons (of centuries - Ed.), in a voluntary decision to come down to us people, humbled himself without coercion and purified, and became human for the sake of restoration and renewal of everything, and not its addition” 396. If it is metaphysically just as impossible for the existence of a world individual who does not belong to the genus (like the mythical bird Phoenix) 397, then Christ, being a Hypostasis, is not affected by this law: as such He is neither an “individual” (άτομον), since it always belongs to a species, nor a species (γένος), since it always contains many individuals 398. So, a hypostasis can be called “composite” for two reasons: firstly, because it is a product of the synthesis of two natures; in this case it is “composite” as the “identity” of two poles. Secondly, since she herself is at the same time “nature” and, therefore, falls under the next genus in order: man, for example, as a “reasonable living being” 399. Here Leonty was moving in the right direction. “The fact that what is common to all individual beings of a species initially (προηγουμένως) means that the species of both essence and nature can be found in all individuals. But what all individuals who fall under the composite species nature have in common is composite being. Therefore, composition in the individuals falling under it primarily means nature, and not hypostasis” 400. But if such a species nature is absent, nothing prevents the first case from taking place and the hypostasis as such being called and primarily “composite”. This requires further consideration. The presented ideas about the synthetic nature of man were based on a constant parallelism between “physical” synthesis (body and soul) and “metaphysical” synthesis (individual being and species nature). This equalization was desirable; there was a virtual identity between the origin of the human hypostasis (from the synthesis of its “physical” parts) and the origin of the human individual as a generic entity 401. Both beings - the one that marks the personality as such, and the one that marks it as a generic essence - themselves, on the contrary, do not differ. Thus, we again see here the convergence of the concepts of existence and person into the concept of hypostasis. The identical natural synthesis determines both the coexistence of both “physical” parts and the unity of the hypostasis 402. Hypostasis indirectly (χαρακτερίζεται) manifests itself in the area of ​​definitions of essence through the inseparability of the synthesis of the individual qualities of soul and body; hence it can be described as a synthesis of the individuality of both parts 403 . However, it has already been established that these definitions of essence are not enough to determine the hypostasis itself. In addition, it must be transferred into the realm of existence. In other words, one must try to express the synthesis of two images of existence (τρόπος τής ύπάρξεως) in one individual and hypostatic, revealing the formation of a “synthetic hypostasis” 404. In the field of Christology, the difficulty is that with the convergence of the concepts of person and existence, the former, which absorbs the personal aspects just described, is excluded. The “physical” composition of the Divine and human natures entails the loss of the “metaphysical” composition. As already mentioned, the reason for this lies in the absence of generation and in the simultaneity of parts. Synthesis is not passive 405 . The eternal existence of the divine Logos excludes any natural synthesis: the perception of human nature is not a natural replenishment of the Divine. Consequently, Christ as a “composite hypostasis” is absolutely singular (μονώτατος) 406, and it is this singularity beyond each nature that allows Him to be identical in nature on the one hand with the Father, and on the other with people; it proves that His unity is purely hypostatic. In man, the abilities of the soul and body are arranged in a mutual hierarchy and overlap, but in Christ such a correspondence between natures is excluded 407. But precisely in this discrepancy is the only way to deify human nature, for in this way it can, without losing its naturalness, participate in the divine Hypostasis; her hypostasis can be the Logos Himself, since this deifying hypostasis, on the contrary, secures and preserves her in her essentially human existence. d) Essential and existential Christology But this still does not reveal the great mystery: how this composite Person can be conceived. Therefore, to begin with, it would be good to separate the aspects of essence and existence here. For the essence aspect there is an analogy of man. Body and soul have characteristics that clearly individualize both, distinguishing them from other bodies and souls. According to St. Maximus, the result of the synthesis of these characteristics is the uniqueness of the hypostasis 408. The same is true when we talk about Christ. “The hypostatic features (ίδιότης) of both parts, forming through their synthesis the integrity of Christ and adding a common sign of nature, together form that recognition of the parts that characterizes the hypostasis, from which I call this self-replenishing Hypostasis common, since it manifests itself as the only and completely unique (ίδικωτάτην) result of the synthesis of the parts. Or better: she is the Hypostasis of the Logos, the same before and after the union; but first unconditioned, simple, non-composite, and subsequently, on the contrary, (... without change) truly composite” 409. So, there is nothing left but to recognize the paradoxical nature of the fact that the Hypostasis of Christ is at the same time a thesis and a synthesis, and also at the same time a cause and a composite effect. The explanation of St. Maximus leaves nothing better to be desired: “In those features in which the flesh [of Christ] differed from other people, this difference does not distance it from the Logos, and on the contrary, in those features in which it differed from the Logos, it does not differ from us. But in those features in which she differed from us, she retained unity and even identity with the Logos in the Hypostasis” 410. The same thing takes place in the Divine nature: what distinguishes the Logos from the Father is no more different in combination from what distinguishes the Incarnate from other people 411. In this statement formal Christology reaches its highest point. St. Maximus is not afraid to clearly articulate this bold position. This aspect of hypostasis as a product or result of union cannot remain an aspect of causing being. Both parts complete the Hypostasis (πρός εν άμφω συντελεΐν πρόσωπον “to the Face at the completion of both”) 412, which is obtained from their mutual descent (εις μίαν ύπόστασιν σύνοδος “union into a single Hypostasis”) 413, as a whole from its parts (έκ τούτων ώς μέρων ολον “from them as from parts a whole”) 414. Indeed, “one single synthetic hypostasis” 415 arises, which is indeed quite surprising (παράδοξον) 416. For how is the character of the Divine immutability before and after the union to be thought of as compatible with the Hypostasis as a synthetic result of this very union? How can the Logos, as the subject of synthesis, simultaneously be its fulfillment (πρός έαυτόν ήνωται “reunite with Himself”) 417? This question acquires all its urgency only in the aspect of existence. Being a unity of individual characteristics of the essence and only a designation and proof (γνώρισμα “sign”) of the hypostasis, the aspect of the essence was unable to give it itself 418. On the contrary, here (in the aspect of existence - Transl.) two “ways of existence” meet and penetrate each other, which must unite in a single existence. In this area, the constant ambiguity of the concept of hypostasis, which simultaneously covers the concept of person (καθ ’ εαυτόν) and existence (ΰπαρξις), ultimately becomes a problem in its entirety. It seems that in this position of his thought, St. Maximus is completely approaching the later solution of the Thomists, as it was first formulated by Capreol and renewed by Maurice de la Taille 419: the act of being that is actually distinguished from essence in the same way imparts a unique, unmixed personality. As St. Maximus now formulates, the actual existence of human nature (Christ - Ed. ) as such is the reality of the Logos as a divine Person: ώς δι ’ έκεΐνον και έν έκείνω (“as through One and in One”) 420. This makes it clear why the human nature of Christ, despite its integration into the essential hierarchy, is still not a human person. It retains and receives its own synthetic unity from the Divine reality of the second Person. Therefore, it is not impersonal (άνυπόστατος “non-hypostatic”), but is only perceived into hypostatic reality (έν – ύπόστατος “hypostasis”), without being its own hypostasis. At the same time, one must not lose sight of the fact that the (school-)Thomist teaching presupposes a real distinction between essence and being, which St. Maximus never came to unambiguously. We remember texts that describe the mutual existence of nature and personality as a complete mutual dependence of logos 421 and life, the existential plane and life's fulfillment 422: such polar and dynamic reciprocity is laid down as tension or, in other words, as a real distinction (difference - Trans.) in the generally accepted understanding. It seems that the revelation of the logos of the essence in vital existence equally necessarily leads to the establishment of the human hypostasis. In other words: in the end, it is impossible to make a pure separation between the individualizing features of the essential and personal order, since a pure separation of ordo essendi and ordo existendi 423 is generally unproducible. True, if a straightforward school solution is thereby impossible, then the convergence of (super-essential) being and personality, felt by St. Maximus, still remains a significant indication: being as the pure reality of pointing participation in God, being above any essential disunity, is also the sphere of the direct call of the spiritual essence through Divine personal intimacy, and its call into personal existence. Therefore, this is the sphere in which - in the deepest mystery of Divine freedom - what is called can one day be the calling one: the response (to the calling primordial Word), once fulfilled, can be surpassed in the primordial Word itself. This is possible only because the original Word in God Himself (in the Trinitarian aspect) is the response to the call of the Father, and therefore (in the economic aspect) in His eternal response is able to embrace and fulfill the entire personal responsive existence of the creature. Such reflections lie entirely within the broad limits of the Christology of St. Maximus. It is only necessary to first note that in this case the concepts are decisively elevated from indifferent theological use to the realm of exclusively Revelation. But in this case, hypostasis could no longer be used as a universal category of world existence (which took place already in the 6th century, when they said that each world entity has its own hypostasis), but would have to be primarily limited to human spiritual personalities, and henceforth one would have to fight the temptation to subsume the Hypostasis of Christ under the concept of personality thus obtained. But, perhaps, it is possible and necessary to establish a dynamic relation of the divine Person of Christ to His divine nature, which in this case is analogous to the relation of the human personality to its human spiritual nature, and if this divine Person also perceives such a relation to human nature, then this Person can indeed be called synthetic - not in the sense of being the passive product of two converging natures; rather, it acts in itself and through itself in the highest freedom of this convergence - so that it is called synthetic in the sense of synthesizing. But is this really what is meant, and not rather the opposite: is the personality itself synthesized? But then from what and how? f) On the other side of Antioch and Alexandria The solution is not yet contained in a simple indication that human nature, through its perception into the Logos, is “hypostatized” into His Hypostasis 424, for this being-in is always described as the result of a hypostatic unity, and not as this unity itself as a process. It is also not enough to indicate that St. Maximus never allowed any kind of temporary gap between the creation of the human nature of Christ and its unity with the Logos 425 and that, consequently, this nature never had an existence other than in the Logos 426; What we are talking about here is not a problem of fact, but of essence. And it is the texts that speak of the synthetic hypostasis that should be considered in connection with this issue. Leonty regarded as possible (but not actual) the case when a person, who was previously supposedly a pure person, could hypostatically unite with God. “For it is not the time of unity, but the mode of unity” that was decisive for him 427. For him, it was only a matter of relevance that the humanity of Christ did not exist before the union. These speculations again fit completely within the line of Byzantine Origenism. Such a perception can be found in a tempting way in the Monk Maximus, but for him it would mean the following: although the human hypostasis is synthesized together with the Divine into a single “synthetic personality,” the divine Hypostasis still could not undergo any change in this synthesis. Therefore, as it seems, the synthesis would occur only in the form of the disappearance and absorption of the human hypostasis, after which it would still be possible, albeit formally, to talk about synthesis, but in fact, the remainder would be precisely the divine Personality as a “product” and the human nature of the Personality hypostasized into its nature. Is this thought experiment, clearly not carried out anywhere by St. Maximus, still capable of shedding light on his latest concept? The synthesis revealed by this assumption would be, in its foundations, nothing more than an existential correspondence to what St. Maximus himself portrayed as the essential synthesis of individual essential characteristics in the direction of universal individuality. But after all that has been said, we still cannot escape this existential perspective: we are talking about the unity of two images of being λόγους “both different logos of the being of parts”) 428. The Monothelites believed that they had discovered a simple solution: synthesis through the "prevalence" or "prevalence" (κατ᾿ έπικράτειαν) of the Divine will (and being) over human nature. The Monk Maxim did not want to hear about such a solution, for, as he astutely noted, it still presupposes passivity in the winning part. “The victorious is conquered by the vanquished in the same way, only less,” just as gold mixed with a small amount of ore, although it remains gold, is contaminated 429. And yet one day, when the Monothelite disputes had not yet gone so far, the Monk Maximus proposed this theory in an appendix to the Word of Nazianzus (“του κρείττονος έκνικήσαντος” “the stronger has won”): “Through dominance over the perceived part, the Logos introduced flesh into a hypostatic identity and deified it” 430. Thus, one should not classify the Monk Maximus as a latent Nestorian: he would be the first to reject any “double Face” (δυάδα προσωπικήν) 431. However, the concept of a “synthetic personality”, considered from the Antiochian point of view, leads to such a way of considering. Of course, any quantitative compromise should be immediately excluded 432; but in this case, one must still come to terms with paradox in order for the part and the whole, the cause and the result, to have equal reality. In the mystery of Christ, both find their combination: “for He, who was the only truly Existing One, was given the opportunity by His immeasurable power to become what He was not yet, doing this without transformation or confusion, and to remain both: what He was and what He became” 433. This is how the original Christological formula is fulfilled: “from which – in which – by which.” So, does the incomprehensibility of how Christ can be a perfect Man without being a human person diminish, if the latter is now not simply dropped out, but, as it were, absorbed into the hypostatic synthesis? For if even after the synthesis God turns out to have not changed in any way, then He is no longer “only God” (γυμνός Θεός “naked God”). So, in this Christological concept, the resolution of the existential analogy in general is manifested in its sharpest form, so that through the this-worldly existence of the world there occurs no “greater being” than when God existed “Alone.” For a long time, the entire church Christology, both Antiochian and Alexandrian, was directed towards this concept. Theodore of Mopsuestia, the first fighter against Apollinarian radicalism, in genuine, not falsified Apollinarian fragments of his work On the Incarnation, defended existential and personal unity with remaining natural differences (he proved the latter by the fact that both God can exist without man, and man can exist without unity with the Divine), a unity that, however, he thought ontically 434 by analogy with the unity of body and soul, while still not being able to metaphysically more accurately define the relationship between the ontically unified and the naturally dual 435 . Saint Cyril of Alexandria moved much closer in his main formula. He also did not want to further separate the hypostases (of natures) after the union, when there was a άσύγχυτος των υποστάσεων σύνοδος “unfused union of hypostases” 436, which first of all prohibits from now on expressing the signs of united natures otherwise than as relating to “one nature-hypostasis of the incarnate Logos”: although the united “elements” remain distinguishable, the defined object is still singular 437 . One can ask the question whether Theodore does not emphasize existential (ontic) unity more strongly than St. Cyril, at the center of whose thinking on God is the communion of properties? The terminology of both oscillates between the existential (ontic) and personal approach, without achieving clarity of consideration; both remain within the framework of the abstract dialectic of one and two - also brought together through Platonizing anthropology - both suppress the dynamic solution of Apollinaris. This moment of dynamism reappears in Sevier and ultimately needs to be addressed in the Christological synthesis. The Monk Maximus takes into account the positions of the Monophysites, who completely substantiated their denial of the balance of natures in synthesis by the embracing and mastering act of the divine Logos, which act, through the paradox of the real movement of the Divinity, despite this remaining unchanged, revealed the personal hypostasis of conditioned existential events 438 . On the other hand, the moment of hypostatic synthesis of both (even if unequal) natures preserved in their particularities - as a prototype of the entire cosmological-anthropological synthesis - cannot be removed from the teaching of St. Maximus, therefore, for this thinker, the idea of ​​“absorption” has some chance of finding justification. If we try to combine these aspects of the thought of St. Maximus, then the following can be said in conclusion about the formal Christology of the Confessor. Undoubtedly, the incarnate Logos, considered “from above,” is a synthesizing force, and precisely inseparable in His personal freedom as in the absoluteness of His Divine existence. Both should always be considered together, for it is not the Personality that only becomes a man, but through the Personality the true and real God. The personality of the Savior is both the divine act of being and the infinite personal freedom of the Son, which (in unity) form a synthesis and thereby “unmerge” hypostatically determine the synthesized humanity 439. If we consider this synthesis “from below”, then it is possible to distinguish three points 440: a) Synthesis from body to soul. It also occurs in the absolute Person, therefore, in the essential aspect, the peculiarity (ιδιότης) of this flesh, which Divine freedom established and preserves and which therefore cannot, due to fatal necessity, be given over to the destructiveness of πάθη (“suffering, passions”). All true suffering is determined from the ultimate Divine point of freedom and is preserved by a personal quality lacking in any other human flesh. At the same time, the aspect of existence is still found in the translation of the entire bodily event without damaging nature into the Divine mode (ό υπέρ φύσιν τρόπος “supernatural mode”). b) Synthesis from soul to body. It occurs in the same way in the absolute Personality, Her being and Her freedom, as a result of which in the essential aspect it is the peculiarity (ιδιότης) of this soul, the expression of the Divine personal and existential (or natural) freedom in its own human free will; its free conformity 441 to the free decision of the Logos is (since He, being God, is the final foundation and justification of all natural logoi) at the same time the true freedom of nature (θέλησις), excluding any indifferently stating and shaky assumption about a deviating path (γνώμη “opinion”), which, on the other hand, saves the God-man from fatalism fall without affecting His human nature. In this place, without a doubt, it would be possible to allow the soul of Jesus to be even more obscured by suffering, as St. Maximus himself agreed to allow this, for the difference between undergoing “reproaches” (πάθη τής άτιμίας), which no longer simply belong to nature, but “disfigure” it, and the same undergoing punishment (πάθη τής έπιτιμίας), insofar as Christ could take it upon Himself - this distinction is vague, and the distinction is left to the style and feeling of the corresponding theologian 442. To what extent for St. Maximus the “assimilation” (οικείωσις) of both shameful passions and the destruction of fallen human nature occurs through the divine Physician is the second question, which is preceded by the essential statement that in this case, again, as in the case of the body, the free active action of the Divine Hypostasis supports the unfree passivity of mental suffering and also dominates His “mode.” The spontaneity of the will to human existence and to suffering is precisely what preserves human nature as such and saves before this vestment in natural Divinity - and yet at the same time gives it supernaturality, distinguishing it from all other purely human personalities, which, as stated, always and only arise (on a generic basis) from a bodily-spiritual synthesis. c) The synthesis between human nature as a whole and the divine Person becomes clear only to the extent that, from this perspective, nothing more needs to be absorbed or absorbed. The intrahuman field of tension between nature and personality has become the space between the divine Personality and human nature, and only to the extent that it is still possible and should speak of a “synthesized personality,” since the essential and existential peculiarity (ίδιότης) of human nature arises in the body and soul because the personality of the bearer is not human, but Divine. So, the synthesis of personality consists only in the fact that the thesis (the divine Personality, Who at the same time is the Existing God) has freedom, being, in the created dimension, also outside of Itself. In this final battle with Sevirus, the whole essence of the aspirations of the Alexandrians and Antiochians, and even Apollinaris, is truly captured. But in the characterization given here, St. Maximus already uses the results of the Monothelite battle; this position of the Confessor still needs to be specifically considered. 4. Healing as preservation A dangerous consequence of the Monophysite dispute was Monothelitism, which drove the problem into a corner. The range of questions narrowed from the problem of nature in general to its personal expression and abilities, so the focus of thought on the specific remained. Now the focus was no longer on the formal relationship between nature and personality, but on the living reciprocity (άντίδοσις “mutual exchange”) of both in the accomplishment of the drama of incarnation and in its culmination - Redemption. This direction from formal ontology to vital concreteness, from logos (λόγος) to life (βίος), was at the same time supposed to become a test of truth for Christology. St. Maximus consistently unfolds the whole meaning of his soteriology, starting from his formal Christology, and here the preservation of both natures without confusion lays the foundation for a decisive synthesis. Only this preservation of human nature allows her, without prejudice to the fullness of its positive content, to present it for connection (άνελλιπώς πάντας τούς φυσικούς λόγους “all natural logoi without exception” 444) as material for the great bridge between God and peace. “Precisely because Christ was the Mediator between God and people, He certainly had to retain a natural kinship with the mediated poles, Himself being both of them” 445. There is no natural communication between these poles (“nature and Nature do not communicate in nature” 446): “for it is not through the negation of opposites, as some believe, that the average is established” 447. Of course, it is unexpected and yet quite logical that in the synthesis it is the mutual difference of the poles that is emphasized and consolidated: δι έκατέρου δέ μάλλον πιστούμενος θάτερον “through one the other is more verified” 448. It is precisely in that case when God and man come very close together and meet in a single Person that it becomes extremely clear that God is an eternal and unattainable Other than man, and that therefore man should not seek his own good in renouncing his nature. Therefore, the great word of Chalcedon is salvation (σώζειν): the preservation of the peculiarity of both natures 449. It was used by all the great defenders of the Council: both Leontius 450 and St. Sophronius 451. For St. Maximus, this word becomes the central concept of the universal system of Redemption, for it combines both aspects of Christ’s healing: healing salvation and preserving strengthening. Exalted by grace, nature acquires strength and perfection in itself. In man's communion with God, humanity, that is, man's createdness, is fulfilled. The unity of God and man is “maintained by the preservation of [difference], preserved by conservation. For the unity of the poles is fulfilled to the extent that their natural difference is preserved" 452. Only if Christ fully retains His kinship with the Divine Father and the human Mother, He is “completely consubstantial with things higher and things lower” 453. So, restoring and saving (διέσφζε) 454 by His death on the Cross human nature from destruction, He restores it from the self-alienation of its sinful will to be like God and, giving it itself (την φύσιν πρός έαυτήν άποκαθίστησιν “restores its nature”) 455, He returns to each of us himself (ημάς έαυτοις άποδιδούς) 456. For “He did not come to undermine the foundations of nature, which He Himself created, being God and the Word” 457. This preservation is accomplished precisely through the highest unity of nature with God, who establishes and affirms it; in its deification the world receives its completion as such. And since he is such, each of us becomes a gift to himself, when God in Christ gives Himself to the world and to us, “creates from it a new sacrament” 458, and transfers it and us to Himself: διδούς ημάς έαυτω 459. The remaining distance between natures can no longer be mistakenly understood as only an external relation of coexistence maintained between them. In the Hypostasis of Christ, “strict independence” 460 of both natures has been achieved, producing living penetration and germination in them (πρός άλλήλας συμφυΐα και περιχωρήσει “growth with each other and interpenetration”) 461 or mutual exchange of properties, as between fire and iron glowing in it 462. Of course, one can talk with the Cappadocians about a kind of “mixture of both natures” 463, according to which there can be no talk of pure difference (ψιλή διαφορά “pure difference”) 464; rather, it substantiates the internal community of being and cooperation (συνεργάτις σάρξ “flesh-worker [with the Word]”) 465. Based on this intergrowth is the possibility of a “connection by exchange” of names imposed on individual natures, which allows us to “also call God the suffering one” 466 and human nature – the Son of God and God. But this transfer still rests on the (ontological) identity of the Hypostasis and thus can only be accomplished by and through Her 467 . Although this mediation connects natures in itself, to the same extent it maintains their separateness, so that only indirect (ού κυρίως “in the improper sense”) predication of a natural feature of another nature is possible 468. This synthesis and its result - a kind of indirect identity of God and man - remains the greatest world miracle, for it retains the identity of the ultimate and decisive “opposite” 469. But since it cannot be the opposite in itself, the contradiction in it must both be preserved and removed. This sublation is not simply a meeting of two opposite beings in the third being, where non-identity is united, for Hypostasis, of course, is not a third being relative to natures; being Divine, She is one with absolute being and immanent with it, and by virtue of this unity of being, human nature has a hypostatic existence in the Logos. Thus, despite all the indirectness, the mutual reciprocity of natures becomes the highest, existential unity, determining mutual transformation and assimilation. Death and suffering necessarily belong to specific human nature as a manifestation of its weakness and fallenness. But through the Incarnation they simultaneously become freedom and a manifestation of power 470. On the contrary, the combination of Divine freedom and power with human suffering and death determines that Divine exhaustion (κένωσις), which subjects God to the undivine. Both together constitute redemptive suffering on the Cross: “He suffered, so to speak, divinely, since he suffered freely” 471 . In the identity of Divine exhaustion and the superhuman image of suffering, the unity of opposition is fulfilled, for the kenosis of God is that “super-infinite power” 472, which is at the same time freedom and love and gives God the opportunity “through the endless desire for man himself in all authenticity to become physically the object of His desire” 473. At the same time, He does not lose His remaining freedom, for this “for our sake, complete desolation” 474 itself marks and reveals “super-infinite power” 475. It is this image of the emptiness of God that is at the same time His supremely Divine Divinity, that highest freedom and love, which, as if being on the other side of both natures, has the ability to build from both of them a single manifestation and testimony of itself and is really capable, in the sense of Nicholas of Cusa, of realizing coincidentia oppositorum “coincidence of opposites.” Thus, everything can be raised to this highest point: “susceptibility to suffering and dispassion, uncreated and created, limited and limitless, earthly and heavenly, sensual and spiritual, comprehensible and incomprehensible” 476. Here “we are surprised how the finite and the infinite—things that are mutually exclusive and cannot be mixed—can be connected and mutually revealed in Him. Boundlessness is inexpressibly limited by the border, while the limited superessentially opens up to the limit of the limitless" 477 . This greatest paradox of the hypostatic center of freedom in any nature and beyond any nature - the center on which all world events depend - is now correcting what in the soteriology of the Greek Fathers seemed overly “physical” or “ontological”. The Monk Maxim no longer pays special attention to the assimilation of the entirety (totality) of human nature through Christ and its “automatic” cleansing from sin and deification, which was more clearly manifested by St. Athanasius and the Cappadocians, but to that last hypostatic point of being where freedom, love and being coincide 478 . b) The meaning of the doctrine of two wills But at this peak also lurks the last heresy of patriotic Christology - monothelitism. Everything seemed to speak in favor of identifying this highest personal freedom with the only “hypostatic will” of Christ. Pyrrhus asks whether the identity of man does not already imply an identification that, despite His two natures, nevertheless performs one single and free action through both of these natures? St. Maximus, in front of the external brilliance of this “personalistic” philosophy, defends the sobriety of his principles: spiritual nature is defined through spontaneity (αύτοκίνητον “self-movement”) and freedom (προαίρεσις “free will”). Let us recall the position from the ontological doctrine of motion: all things are similar to themselves in that not one of them is different, each of them is not similar to another; “difference lays the existential foundation and differentiates” (διαφορά συστατική και άφοριστική “formative and delimiting difference”) 479. But in order for this facet to have significance and a positive basis for being, it cannot be imposed only from the outside; it must flow from existence itself as action and delimitation. By acting, the finite being is determined 480. Natural freedom cannot be founded deeper than in this ontology of finite being. Thus, man, of course, also has a separate free will, but precisely because he is still not a separate hypostasis, but also a separate nature (κατ ’ είδος μίαν ένέργειαν “one species action”) 481. Thus, in Christ it is necessary to recognize dual action and will, connected only in the unity of the Hypostasis, and not in natural unity. Nestorius tried to find unity in the subject of double will. He was right that the unity of the object is in no way conditioned by the unity of the will. Consequently, Pyrrhus could not draw a conclusion about natural unity from the general manifestation of the action of Christ. More precisely, this single manifestation also reveals the duality of the cause 482. When Christ walks on the waters, then walking as such is a human action, but walking on the waters is superhuman. In a single blow of a red-hot sword, I can distinguish what in the wound received is the result of a cut and what is the result of fire. Thus, everything that Christ does is both human and superhuman; but the superhuman in no way abolishes the purely human, the truly human. Christ does not possess a “spiritual existence,” but an earthly existence in its entirety and precisely as such, deified; surely the divinity of His action is ultimately guaranteed by the undiminished and unimpaired authenticity of His humanity. It is what He speaks, breathes, wanders, what He hungers, eats, thirsts, drinks, sleeps, cries, fears - this is the distinctive area of ​​manifestation of Divinity. Of particular value here is the extremely strict principle of proportionality (μέχρι έως “until”) 483: to the extent that the distinctively human is supported, to that extent God is manifested. Or even more sharply: to the extent that both wills remain without mixing themselves, they are able to unite in unity (μοναδικώς “single”) 484 actions. Then this unity is “organic penetration” 485, and on the basis of its indissolubility 486 it can be called “divine action” 487 (or “divine energy” - Trans.), and even, according to the opponents’ formula, “one action” (or “one energy” - Trans.), understanding it not naturally, but hypostatically 488. Even the example of a person given by Pyrrhus can be turned against him. Is dualism impossible in natural human action and will (δυϊκώς ένεργείν “dual action”) if we, for example, are able to simultaneously talk about one thing and think about something completely different? It is said about Moses that while he was speaking to the people, he continued to talk with God 489. The fight with Pyrrhus intensifies around the enemy’s last objection: “If there is a One and Only Actor, then there is only one action - the action of this One!” St. Maximus: “Doesn’t He have two natures, yes or no? If so, then the action is also double.” Pyrrhus: “But from the fact that He acts in two ways (δυι᾿κώς), it does not follow that He has two energies. On the contrary, since He was One Actor, He could have only one energy." Reverend Maxim: “What was this action like? Divine or human? Pyrrhus: “When we call the action of the Divinity and humanity in Christ, we do not mean at all the nature, but the image of the union.” Reverend Maxim: “This is meaningless: this action must go back to nature - either Divine or human!” 490. We see that in the end the controversy describes a circle: the last remark cannot bring the problem closer to its resolution. These two perceptions of personality clash harshly with each other. For Pyrrhus, personality is significant only as an irrational quantity beyond any naturalness. By denial, he wants to preserve her absolute spontaneity and autocracy. Thus, in some respects, monothelitism predates the personalistic nominalism of the late Middle Ages and modern times. On the contrary, for St. Maximus, personality is realization, the own life of rational nature, and, since realization refers to its source, it is the original center of action of rational nature itself, an emanation of essence. Only for narrow rationalism is this dynamic actualizing moment in being “irrational”; comprehended more deeply (as Aristotle, Aquinas and Hegel understand it), it is the active realization of being itself. The internal logic of Monothelitism shows that St. Maximus penetrated deeper, despite his apparent “naturalism.” The irrationalization of personality could come from the desire to think “existentially” and “personalistically,” but it leads to lifelessness of thought. Nature, from which the internal dynamics of desire is taken away in favor of the individual, descends to the level of a puppet. The new Docetism was the logical result of an insidious spiritual heresy and thereby a denial of the last basis of Christianity. It is possible not to elevate the “personal” into a “system”, but always relate it to the given only in nature and in nature 491. As a final step, it remains to apply this extended teaching to the drama of redemption. The deepest reason why Christ must have created freedom is the basis of the integrity of history: the healing of nature required a descent right down to that tragic depth of man where the opposition to God - sin 492 - took place. To overcome sin internally, Christ Himself needed to somehow become sin. But how could He “become sin” 493 without sinning Himself? How could He, in His Person, experience and reflect the tragic opposition between man and God, without being torn apart by it Himself? We already know the difference between “mental” and “spiritual sin.” The latter is formed by the passionate properties of nature to the extent that they are punishment. By the fact that Christ takes them upon Himself, without “earning” them, He breaks the magic circle between pleasure and death 494. Like a consuming fire, He burns out of passion (πάθος) the seat of greed 495, in death He blots out the character of the curse 496. Consequently, He must possess those natural πάθη (“passions”) which, although associated with sin, are yet so deeply rooted in the essence of nature that they seem to have been introduced into its very constitution. Such a passion was the fear of Christ in Gethsemane. “There is nothing reprehensible in the fact that the flesh does not want to die. It belongs to nature" 497. And here nature means not only a blind, vital impulse towards life, but a spiritual and rational will. For in the spiritual essence, a natural striving (θέλημα φυσικόν or θέλησις) is at the root always already a spiritual-rational striving (θέλημα λογικόν) 498, which must first of all embrace the undifferentiated, not basic potency directed at a single object (απλώς); and it was further qualified through an indefinite act of will (ποιά θέλησις) and became “aspiration” (βούλησις “intention”). The latter considers the object as desirable, however, so far only in pure representation, not yet caring about its reach or inaccessibility (όρεξις φανταστική “representing attraction”) 499. Only if attention is turned to the way and means does aspiration become a deliberate search (βουλή "will" or βούλησις "intention") 500. Although it immediately excludes the unattainable, the path of implementation is most often not obvious due to the limitations of our knowledge, and the result of the activity is unknown. This is the distinctive situation of man: his search for what he desires and his craving for it, although capable of discovering an object, cannot include it in the system of world causes and effects with such a degree of clarity that volitional anticipation could already become active grasping. Thus, search and research are first transformed into determination in the sense of an aspiring mood of the heart (ορεξις ένδιάθετος “internal attraction”), into an impulse, which, however, has as much from a “pre-established opinion” as from an objective grasp of the subject in itself. St. Maximus calls this complex state, however, affecting a certain very specific reality, γνώμη 501 (“opinion, intention, selective or gnomic will”); this is the immediate basis and soil from which the free decision of the will arises (προαίρεσις “will”), which, therefore, on the one hand, is based on the dual situation of natural will-necessity, and on the other, on a not entirely obvious possibility. Freedom to choose is not pure perfection: it is limited by the double necessity of making a choice on the basis of the inevitability (generativity) of the realization of one’s being and, in addition, the obligation to choose without having complete recognition. Let's return to Christology. How does the psychological phase of will manifest itself in Christ? His fear of death is a natural and at the same time spiritual impulse. “For there must necessarily be harmony between nature and spiritual aspiration, and in nature there must be a desire not to die, but to be committed to real life” 502. But on the other hand, the Divine will of Christ desired death; So, wasn't there a contradiction between them? First of all, here it is necessary to clearly distinguish between two types of opposition (διαστολή “separation, delimitation”): contraritic or simple opposition (έναντίωσις) and contradictory contradiction (άντικείσθαι). The first reigns between sensuality and spirit, the second - between life and death. But now, says St. Maximus, it is impossible for there to be a contradiction between two natures as such, for everything natural goes back to a single common source - God, 503 therefore they are not mutually destroyed as a contradiction, which can only be applied to the characteristics of nature, but not to its very essence. But in Christ, the fear of death always moves within pure naturalness, inherent in nature by God Himself (even if as a punishment for sin). Therefore, this is an ordered, and not a disordered fear, possible only at the level of γνώμη 504. But with Christ γνώμη is impossible, since it rests on the unclearness of the goal and means and therefore on sensation and search. This gnomic will, which “in a special way is a matter of person and hypostasis” 505, does not befit Christ, since in His One Divine Hypostasis there was no room for hesitation and indecision. Of course, moving further, we can say that all the natural compulsion and “generativity” of the human essence must already be captured and held by the sovereign freedom of His Person, so that, thus, She herself “remains free for our sake.” “For in Christ the natural does not, as with us, precede free will; on the contrary, since He hungered and thirsted, although in a true way, but still not like us, but superhumanly, for voluntarily, He also perceived the fear of death in a true way, but a superhuman fear” 506. The very natural fear of death was supported by the fundamental Hypostasis freedom, which bore the entire integrity of Its nature. Thus, Hypostatic identity supports and withstands the natural opposition of both natures and, in its highest personal indifference, resolves this opposition to the same extent that it sets it. But because the bonds of natural punishment for sin are first broken, sin itself has not yet been “overtaken.” And are not passion (πάθος) and sin so closely intertwined that there is, as it were, an unsteady transition from one to the other, so that from pure opposition we are transported by ourselves to mortal contradiction? And did not Christ enter into such a close union with human nature that this hidden basis of every human soul - rebellion against God - remained unknown to Him? Shouldn't He have known this “experience”, since He had experienced the experience of passion (πάθος) 507? The Monk Maximus responds to this with the doctrine of economic “assimilation” (οικείωσις). It can be twofold: assimilation of relation (οικείωσις σχητική), or correlative assimilation, and assimilation of nature (φυσική). The first is accomplished through an intentional act. Thus, in the case when our love is mutual, we recognize and assimilate each other’s actions and sorrows, even if we ourselves do not commit or suffer them 508. On the contrary, the second is ontological assimilation, existentially transferring into our ownership what has been appropriated. From now on it is clear that Christ, who existentially possesses our nature as His own, “owned” our human will as nature in the same way as we do in ourselves, and expressed and reflected it. But our sinful will, which He could not existentially assimilate, He made His own through correlative assimilation. "Passion (πάθη) has two aspects - punishment and guilt. The first marks our nature as such, the second distorts it. The first was voluntarily and existentially accepted by Christ along with human existence, thanks to which He strengthened nature as such and freed us from the curse that lay on us. On the contrary, He economically assimilated the second one in His human love, destroying this guilt in us just as fire consumes wax, and the sun consumes the evaporation of the earth, in order to bestow His own benefits instead.”509 This second assimilation Christ accomplishes through His ministry as the Head of the mystical Body, 510 which is related to the actions and sufferings of all members in a relation of sympathy, for love. But can this last type of assimilation be called the assimilation of pure correlation - assimilation from which any existential connections are excluded? Yet the very union of Christ with human nature is existential, and the inherited guilt is rooted precisely in the universality of this nature as such. In a conversation with Pyrrhus, this universality becomes clear: Christ, by His submission to the will of the Father, subordinated not only His Own humanity, but also humanity in general 511, all humanity, and humanity precisely in its disobedience (ό ήμέτερος άνυπότακτος τρόπος “our disobedient image”) 512. He reflected our rebellion in Himself (τυπών τό ήμέτερον “reflecting ours”) 513, like an image in a stage performance. Thus, He adopted not only our natural dispensation, but also our freely choosing will (προαίρεσις) 514. Now the full significance of the Gethsemane conflict becomes clear. The “stage” on which both wills appear as characters was, together with both of them, His identical Personality, which, for the sake of our salvation, was plunged by Him into contradiction in order to immediately resolve this contradiction in Her. “Not as I will, but as You will” (cf. Matthew 26:39): if the will of this You was consubstantial with the will of the eternal Son, then from now on it became no less than the will of this I. He “overcame His Own will” 515 in order to completely subordinate it to the Father. Once again we see how, with secularization, Christology leads to dialectic, and in its original theological form overcomes it. If the hypostatic self is determined through nature, then one should appreciate what Hegel said: “Both extremes are each the self itself - relation and retention; the relation itself is such in the unity of the one who fights and in the struggle of what unites. Or: I am the struggle, since the struggle is precisely this contradiction, which is not the indifference of both [extremes] as different, but their interweaving. I am not in a struggle of concepts, but both fighters and the struggle itself. I am fire and water, and the contact and unity of that which escapes as such” 516. To the extent that the previously identified controversial aspects of the philosophy of sex indirectly cast a shadow on Christology - since the fallen and passionate nature is in some way sinful in essence - the danger zone is not completely demarcated here. But it is precisely in Christology that St. Maximus carefully strives to eliminate all contradiction and thereby all dialectics and seduction from the realm of this-worldly existence and the essence of Christ. An abyss separates him from Hegel. For in Hegel, the struggle itself lays the foundation for synthesis, while in St. Maximus everything rests on the previous sovereign and free act of the Personality, which controls the struggle “from above,” as well as on the voluntariness of Her “inexpressible exhaustion” 517 . The opposing will is already subdued: Not as I want, but as You want. If sin really appears on this inner theanthropic stage, then it is still only as an empty hollow form, which is already empty of its own sinful content. The question is inevitable: how can this predetermined struggle be considered a struggle in earnest? If human nature has no choice, no γνώμη, no hesitation, then is it not deprived of the crown of merit? St. Maximus denies the human nature of Christ γνώμη. For the gnomic will, on the one hand, goes back to the darkened contemplation of the true good, the goal and its means, and thus means powerlessness, inapplicable to Christ 518. On the other hand, γνώμη is a hypostatic experience and implementation of natural aspiration and will 519, that is, “qualitative will” 520. Consequently, it cannot be absent from Christ without being replaced by the perfect hypostatic realization of nature. If γνώμη means the personal exercise of freedom as imperfect, testing and therefore electing, then Christ must “through His naked being, that is, the Divinity of His mode of existence, have a natural affinity and skill for good” 521 and thus maintain the moment of perfection γνώμη in the ultimate sense (to the highest degree). In fact, St. Maximus always describes the healing of human γνώμη as the return of natural correctness, consisting in the revelation of natural will in accordance with the norm of the Divine will 522. So, the ability to choose is less perfect than the non-circumvention of natural necessity. In the five proofs of free will given to Pyrrhus, St. Maximus reveals that spiritual nature is always only “sovereign” (αυτεξούσιον), independent and autocratic. This property is equated with spirituality and rationality 523. And since spirituality is the property of nature, freedom is no less the same. Sovereignty (αύτεξούσιον) and spiritual will (θελητικόν) are one and the same 524. This does not prevent this very will from being in creation a dynamic striving for something outside 525 - ultimately, through all partial goal-setting, towards God. For this impulse itself, although all-natural, is free. Of course, St. Maximus first of all reflects only on freedom from fatal necessity (ούδέν ήναγκασμένον εχει “he does not experience any [compulsory] necessity”) 526, but ultimately there is no split between natural and personal will. He explains in detail to Pyrrhus that virtue is nothing more than nature itself in its true revelation (φυσικαί εισιν αί άρεταί “virtues are natural”), since it is alive and active. Here he repeats the fundamental principle of Evagrius: nature as such is good 527. Ultimately, the goal of all asceticism is to remove from the path everything that interferes with this natural spontaneity 528 . Thus, the Monk Maxim again returns to the main thought that runs through all his reflections: good is nothing more than an act of being. Being reveals its power as eternal good, revealing itself in the world for good and achieving in this its eternity as its final justification and crown (είναι – εΰ εΐναι – άει είναι “being – being-being – ever-being”). The space that separates in us the possibility and habitual state from implementation and action is the space of “tension” and not suspension 529. This eliminates the difficulty that in Christ, in the aspect of humanity, there is no γνώμη and freedom of choice. Since any created nature can only be thought of as dynamically revealing itself to hypostasis, in hypostasis and as hypostasis, then in Christ there should not be an imperfect stage of choice, in a sense already too free. His incomparable “merit” lies precisely in the fact that He overcame this hesitation regarding the good in the perfection of His power and His submission to the will of God. The drama of Gethsemane is the acceptance of the utmost possible severity and evidence of obedience. Physically, the “assimilation” of our rebellious will and its healing, which thus became possible, saved humanity by returning to it an uncorrupted will in accordance with nature. But this physical Redemption is entirely a spiritual drama: a struggle between the natures of God and creation for life and death in the arena of the Hypostasis. Consequently, this requires from us a spiritual co-fulfillment and co-participatory entry together with the Savior into this identity of Divine “exhaustion” with the human will, which comes into the Hypostasis of Christ, since He is the Head of the mystical Body. 5. Synthesis of world salvation The Garden of Olives, where the struggle between the natures of God and the world takes place in the individual soul, is not only the focus of Christ’s ministry, but also the core of all syntheses through which the universal salvation of the cosmos in God must be progressively accomplished. In contemplation of this synthesis, St. Maximus brings to completion the Alexandrian idea of ​​“regression” 530 - the reuniting ascension of the creature in God. In Origen, this return was thought of in the image of the gradual ascent of the soul to an eternally spiritual essence under the control of the logos, always transforming into ever higher [essences]: “And perhaps, just as in the church there were certain steps along which a person ascended to the Holy of Holies, the Only Begotten of God is all our steps, the first, as if the lower, is His humanity, through which we pass on to the subsequent ones, of which all are He; so that man moves upward through Him, Who is also an Angel and other powers” ​​531. St. Maximus, on the contrary, replaces this straightforward scheme with a scheme of synthesis in accordance with his basic idea of ​​tension and polarity of world existence. And here he fundamentally included the vision of the thinker in the network of the Christian worldview. Through the depth and divinity of His suffering, Christ became the “highest consecrated” (τελετάρχης) “Sun of all aeons” 532, under whose rays the universal harvest is gradually ripening towards unity in God; this is the greatest mystery that the Apostle Paul speaks of. “This is a great, hidden sacrament. This is the blessed end and the purpose for which all things were created. This was the Divine purpose, which was presented to the beginning of every essence. Applying to this purpose, God called into being the nature of things. This is the limit to which Providence and the things preserved by it rush and at which created [beings] make their return to God. This is a mystery that embraces all aeons and reveals the super-limitless and super-incomprehensible great Council of God, pre-existing to all aeons. For it was for Christ or for the sake of the mystery of Christ that all aeons and all aeonic entities received their beginning and their end, for before all aeons this synthesis of the border with the limitless, the measure with the immeasurable, the limit with the infinite, the Creator with the creation, rest with movement, was already thought out - a synthesis that in recent times was revealed in Christ, fulfilling God's Predestination" 533. According to this text, there is no doubt that the Monk Maximus (in contrast to the Monk John of Damascus 534) in the scholastic dispute without hesitation took the side of Eriugena: not salvation from sin, but the union of the world in itself and with God is the cause of the Incarnation and, as such, the first thing set before all creation by the original plan of the Creator 535. Of course, St. Maxim is alien to the premises of this scholastic dispute, which proceeds not from the real, but only from the possible (sinless) order of being. For him, the "pre-existent will of God" is identical with the realm of "ideas" and "possibilities"; at this highest point the hierarchy of entities and the hierarchy of facts coincide. St. Maximus cannot stop glorifying “all the various syntheses of divided creatures carried out by Christ” 536. Having defeated the hostile air forces, the Savior restored the connection between Heaven and earth “and showed that heavenly and earthly beings, participating in the distribution of Divine gifts, form a single festive round dance.” For “By the blood of His Cross He established peace both in heavenly and earthly things” (cf. Col. 1:20); “Now human nature, having the same will with the heavenly powers, sings with them the glory of God.” And “after Christ fulfilled His Household for our sake and ascended along with the received body, He united Heaven and earth through Himself, connected the spiritual with the sensory, and thus showed the unity of creation in the polarity of its parts” 537. In one [synthesis] there are five great syntheses leading to unity. Christ “unites man and woman the earth, eliminating the division between the earthly paradise and the other inhabited world, earth and heaven, sensual and intelligible things, and finally, in an inexpressible way, created and uncreated nature” 538. These syntheses are more widely revealed in another respect: the first, in the area of ​​gender, in the initial premonition of a distant unity overcomes the reproach of the punishment for sin: in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female (Gal. 3:28); here the power of conception finds its way back to that original spiritual fruitfulness that preceded sin. Consequently, this first synthesis already presupposes the completed second synthesis, foreshadowed in the words of the Savior on the Cross, now you will be with Me in paradise (Luke 23:43): the cursed earth and the original Eden became one, “the whole earth is redeemed through its return through death to paradise.” The unattainable desired land became a reality here to the extent that the earth passed into its sinless existence. “For for Him our earth was no other reality than paradise, and that is why He showed His apostles on it and showed care for it after His Resurrection and showed how from now on the earth becomes unified and reunites itself” 539. In His eyes, “the earth is no longer split into different regions, but, on the contrary, gathered for Him, and He does not tolerate any of its regions being torn away from another” 540. After this, “He ascended into heaven” (cf. Acts 1:9-11) and thus united the heavenly sphere with the earth, thanks to which it was proven “that the whole sensible creation is in accordance with the universal concept of it - this is unity. And the originality of his (the creation) of the differences that divide him recedes into the background” 541. However, the Ascension does not end in the sensible heaven, “He ascended above all the heavens” (cf. Eph 4:10) and irrevocably united spirit and matter, placing the sensible body and soul among the angelic faces and thus binding together all creation 542. But He “presents the creation thus reunited to the Father” in His Own Divine wholeness (totality): “By reuniting the universe in Himself, He shows the unity of the universe as the unity of an individual person, the universal (cosmic) Adam. For being God, He has “a body and sensory sensations and a soul, like us, and a spirit, and these as some parts.” He connects all parts into integrity, and is able to unite it itself into a higher totality 543. And while Christ, being the All-Man, submits to the Father, “He unites the created nature with the uncreated in love - oh the miracle of the tender human friendship of God! - and shows that by grace both are one and only one. The whole world in integrity passes (περιχοορήσας) into all of God and becomes everything that God always is, with the exception of the identity of nature, and in its place takes the integrity of God” 544. Thus, St. Maximus integrates the Alexandrian doctrine of deification into his synthesis, tearing out its Neoplatonic-spiritualistic sting. In the form of reflection presented, nowhere does the danger of pantheism await us. However, it is also true that John Scott Eriugena had to build his system precisely on such texts. But the pantheistic intonations introduced by his teaching about the four natures cannot be found in St. Maximus. The Eastern impulse towards deification is limited by the non-confluence (άσυγχύτως) of Chalcedon. The syntheses accomplished by Christ are projections of other syntheses that should invest the world and each individual with the power of His grace. Thus, in the final part, it remains to consider the synthesis that Christ accomplishes in us, His members, and with us. The theme thus revealed covers what can be called the “spiritual teaching” of St. Maximus – his asceticism and mysticism. It seems more correct to describe the spiritual heights of the worldview according to those works in which St. Maximus appears in all his originality - these include Questions and Answers to Thalassia, Ambigva, Mystagogy, Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, Epistles - and not according to those where he is primarily occupied with the transformation and assimilation of the spiritual tradition, that is, not according to both Meetings of Centurions. This is not a strict division, for St. Maximus everywhere serves the general tradition, being in everything (often barely noticeable and then quite real!) a transformer. Therefore, in the first group of creations their form entirely goes back to him, and in the second he reworks previous forms; This is the difference between the latter and the former. Translation from German by M. Pershin. Translation of Greek quotes by A. Fokin. For the beginning, see No. 3 (14) for 1997, No. 2 (16) for 1998, No. 1 (19) for 1999, No. 1 (23), 3 (25) for 2000. On the relationship between the ideas of Leontius and St. Maximus, see Grumel V. L’union hypostatique et la comparaison de l’âme et du corps chez Léonce de Byzance et Saint Maxime le Confesseur // Echos d'Orient. 1926. P. 393–406. The Monk Maximus does not directly quote Leontius anywhere, but there remains no doubt about his direct or at least indirect influence (p. 400). For the essential connection between Saint Sophronius and Saint Maximus, see Hefele. Sophronius und Maximus über die zwei Willen in Christus // Tüb. Theol. Quart. 1857. S. 189–223, which, however, does not directly say about the influence of Saint Sophronius on the Monk Maximus, but contains an analysis only of the Council Epistle of 634 and the dispute with Pyrrhus in Carthage of 645. Straubinger gives us little more: Straubinger. Die Lehre des Patriarchen Sophronius von Jerusalem // Der Katholik 87. 1907. S. 81–109, 175–198, 251–265. Ibid; 113B, cf. Combefis note. Dispute with Pyrrhus; 91, 348С. Creations; 91.85V; There are also 91, 116AC. Ambigwa; 91, 1058С. On the question of tritheism in the 6th century, cf. below Sotnitsa about love 2, 29. Ambigwa; 91, 1044D-1045A. Ibid; 1052A: την καινότητα των τρόπων “newness of the image.” As Loofs wanted to show regarding Leontius of Byzantium (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Altchristlichen Literatur. Lpz. 3, 72, 778). Cp. my “Apocalypse of the German Soul” (1937) I, 419. Translation of the subsequent chapters of the section Synthesis of Christology of the monograph by X. Urs von Balthasar “Ecumenical Liturgy” was published in the journal “Alpha and Omega”: ch. 2 Terminology (1999. No. 1 (19). P. 92–110); Ch. 3 Synthetic Personality (2000. No. 1 (23). P. 67–87); Ch. 4 Healing as preservation and ch. 5 Synthesis of world salvation (2000. No. 3 (25). P. 115–135). – Per. End. For the beginning see No. 3(14) for 1997, No. 2(16) for 1998. Leonty: ουσία άπλώς - “usia simple” - indicates ύπαρξις “existence”, under which everything that exists falls, but does not indicate “what or how” (PG 87, 1921C). Venerable Maximus: Questions and Answers to Thalassia (hereinafter referred to as Questions and Answers, PG 48; 90, 440D). About Divine Names 5; 4, 321CD. About Divine names 1.1; 13, 3, etc. So does John of Scythopolis’ commentary. to “On the heavenly hierarchy” (II.2; 4, 41 A). St. Maximus always calls God υπερούσιος “supersubstantial”: Ambigva 91, 1036B, 1081B, 1224B, etc.; About Divine Names 1; 4, 188A: πάσης γάρ ουσίας ύπέρκειται ό Θεός “for God surpasses every substance.” Ambigwa; 91, 1228D; About Divine Names 5; 4, 321 D. Ibid., 264B: ή μέν φύσις είδους λόγον μόνον έπεχει , 488 Β ουσία and φύσις are identical, one of their aspects is being – είδος. Compare, for example, Epistles 12, 91, 485CD. About Divine Names 13; 4, 412 C (inaccurate). Ambigwa; 91, 118 °CD-1181A. On Divine Names 1:4, 188A. About Divine Names 1; 4, 185D-188A. Mystagogy 23; 91, 700D-701A. Questions and Answers 48; 90, 440D. About Divine Names 5; 4, 313 V. Dispute with Pyrrhus, 91, 324D-325A. Chapters about love 4, 9; 90, 1049V. Gnostic chapters 2, 3; 90, 1125D. Wed. the already quoted text, where, together with υποκείμενον ushii, υποκείμενον of thinking is mentioned (as “subject”, “premise”). The definition of an object lies primarily in the concept of its essential activity; if it is removed, then υποκείμενον necessarily disappears. In Mystagogy 25; 91, 701A τρόπος τής ύπάρξεως “way of existence” (and ύπόστασις “hypostasis”) are contrasted with ούσία, essence, which in turn is interpreted as λόγος τοΰ είναι “logos of being.” Mystagogy 1; 91, 665A; Wed Creations; 91, 265D, where fusis is defined precisely as ή ποιά τώ παντί ΰπαρξις. We extend this important concept to all the fullness of meaning with which it is distinguished by St. Maximus, in whom all the streams of tradition merged together. On the history of the term before Chalcedon, see Richard M. Hypostase // Mélanges des Sciences Religieuses. 1945. – P. 5–32, 245–270. After the Council of Chalcedon, the fate of this word was determined by two Leontius. Based on the distinction of the great Cappadocians, fundamental to the history of concepts (ousia, the general essence, originally understood in the Platonic sense; hypostasis, individuality), Leontius of Byzantium introduces “being for oneself” into the definition of hypostasis (τό καθ ’ έαυτό); Wed Richard M. Le traité “De Sextis” et L. de Byz. // Revue de l’Histoire Ecclésiastique. 1939. – P. 700. He states purely apophatically that natures co-existing in hypostasis do not complement each other into a holistic essence (Against the Nestorians and Eutychians 1; PG 86, 1280A). Leontius of Jerusalem was the first to introduce the interpretation of ύφ᾿ έ v στάσις (PG 89, 1816A; cp. 1529C, D), implying the essential unity of various substances, together constituting an indivisible unity (κατά τό αυτό ... εν μόνον ατομον), which in itself belongs to the sphere of essences not at all necessarily, but rather due to existing being, ΰπαρξις. Consequently, the status of ύφ ’ εν shows that here the entities fall into dependence on the uniting One of all things. This gratifying vision is supplemented by Leontius of Jerusalem by the fact that he restores this kind of unity for all levels of being from top to bottom, right down to the inanimate. Epistles 12; 91, 469D; there 15; 91, 545A. Right there. In: συνάγουσα,… τέμνουσα (“connecting… tearing”). It is by no means unimportant here that the Cappadocians define the Trinity Hypostases not only through “individual characteristics”, but mainly through the method of primary origin of each Person: through the άγεννησία (unbornness) of the Father, γέννησις (birth) of the Son, έκπόρευσις (proceeding) of the Spirit. These are the ways in which each Person “possesses” a common Essence. Here, in absolute being itself, ousia transcends to the level of the Person, the way of existence as a way of possessing the Essence: τρόπος τής ύποστάσεως: “way of hypostasis,” see St. Gregory of Nyssa in PG 45. Controversy with Pyrrhus, 91, 308–309A. Ambigwa; 91, 1261D, 1349D. About Divine Names 4; 4,504D. Wed. Gnostic chapters 1, 13; 90, 1088ВС: οΰτος τώ φυσικώ κατ᾿ εικόνα καλώ προσέθηκε τό καθ᾿ όμοίωσιν γνωμικόν άγαθόν ; see also Chapters on Love 3, 25 (90, 1024BC). T. Didier (M. Th. Disdier. Les fondements dogmatiques de la spiritualité de S. Maxime le Confesseur // Echo d'Orient 29, 1930. - P. 296–313) raised to the level of the original basis of the spirituality of St. Maximus the Confessor the difference between the image (natural similarity with a tendency to moral improvement) and likeness as humanly free and divinely graced likeness to God (lost in Adam and given again in Christ). Dispute with Pyrrhus.; 91, 297A. Ibid.; 292D-293A; Op.; 91, 48AB. Dispute with Pyrrhus; 91, 293BC. P. Sherwood (Sherwood P. St. Maximus the Confessor. The Ascetic Life. The Four Centuries on Charity. L. 1955. - P. 55 f.) showed this clearly. S. Möller (in: Chalk I, 714) also points out this change in the concept of freedom when turning to Christology, and adds: “I consider this moment fundamental.” Weser H. S. Maximi Confessoris Praecepta de incarnatione Dei et deificatione hominis (Dissertation. Berlin. 1869). – P. 19 et seq.: Christ was not an individual, but possessed a universal human nature. Cp. Urs von Balthasar H. Présence et Pensée. Essai sur la Philosophie religieuse de Grégoire de Nysse. Paris, 1942. – P. 27. Dispute with Pyrrhus; 91, 305C et seq.; Wed what was said above about ousia. Junglas. Leontius von Byzanz // Forschungen zur christlichen Literatur- und Dogmengeschichte VII, 3 (1908). – S. 148–162. S. Meller confirms the conclusions of Junglas (Chalk. I. - S. 706, cp. S. 685, 692, 706). In the note to hypostasis (note 4 on p. 97) it was mentioned that Leontius of Byzantium’s treatise “On Sects” (VII, 2) clearly gives the word a double meaning: it can mean (in-itself) being and being-for-itself, that is, being “hypostasis” (ένυπόστατον), which is revealed by its opposition to άνυπόστατον - empty being, or being-in-another (like accidents in substance): PG 86, 1240D-1241A. The second meaning of άνυπόστατον in the treatise “On Sects” is the only meaning of ένυπόστατον in Leontius (PG 86, 1277D; 1500BC). The author’s difficulties are not rooted in the application of this successful term, but in the fact that he transferred being-for-itself from the definition of substance (according to Aristotle) to the definition of hypostasis, as a result of which the truly philosophical distinction between substance and accident, which both find their reality in hypostasis, has henceforth disappeared - and that, on the other hand, the hypostaticity of Christ’s humanity is in God the Word (Logos), in turn, is overthrown along with others, which would be true only for the Origenist Leontius of Jerusalem; see about this: Richard M. Le traité “De Sextis”, I. p. – P. 704–705; It's him. Léonce et Pamphile // Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques. 1938. – P. 32–33. All this shows that the theology of the 6th century as a whole no longer appealed to genuine existential thinking and, with all its conceptual arsenal, at best could prepare material for its successors. On the contrary, St. Maximus opposed the super-significance of hypostasis, which in Leontius remains the abstract subject of predication (ύποκείμενον), first of all, the restoration of the rights of self-conscious and free nature (fusis) and only then created the prerequisites for genuine thinking about personality, since it stands out from the entire hierarchy of essence. Ambigwa; 91, 1077D; The Council of Antioch (260) spoke similarly about the reality of the Logos against Paul of Samosata: ώς ζώσαν ένέργειαν καί ένυπόστατον (Mansi I, 1036 V). John of Scythopolis designates ideas in the Platonic sense as παραδείγματα ένυπόστατα “hypostatic paradigms” (On the Divine Names 5, 4, 332 C), and angels as ένεργειαι ένυποσταται “hypostatic energies.” (Ibid. 4, 4, 24 °C). We contextually translate the German Person either as a person or as a person. – Per. Messages 15, 91, 557D-560A. Almost the same thing is said even more clearly in Creations 91, 149BC, cf. 91, 261–264. About the Divine names 1, 4, 189AB (John of Scythopolis). Ibid., 1184BC; Wed about this: comm. John of Scythopolis to “On the Divine Names”: 8; 4, 372V. Ταυτότης ό στιν άπαραλλαξία καθ᾿ ήν ό του σημαινομένου λόγος τό (Epistle, 15, 91, 561 A). Questions and Answers..., Proleg.; 90, 245D. Ibid., B; Creations; 91, 61C. Homilia 4 on book. Eccl.; 4, 153A. The translators thank E. Shokhina for her assistance in the work. For the beginning, see No. 3 (14) for 1997, No. 2 (16) for 1998 and No. 1 (19) for 1999. Straubinger H. Die Lehre des Patriarchen Sophronius. Bonn, 1906. S. 91. To the history of this problematic analogy: further passages in Grillmeier A., Bacht H. Das Konzil von Chalkedon. Geschichte und Gegenwart. 3 Bande. Würzburg, 1951–1954 (hereinafter referred to as Chalk. I). S. 133, 447–451, 473, 705 ff. [Cm. also approx. 5 in Urs von Balthasar X. Ecumenical Liturgy. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. // Alpha and Omega. 1999. No. 1 (19) P. 104.] In later manifestations it is Apollinarian. Τάς φύσεις , ών αύτός ύπόστασις ήν ... ών αύτός ενωσις ήν “natures, of which Himself was the Hypostasis... of which He Himself was the unity.” – Ambigwa; 91, 1044D; Wed Creations, 91, 36BC: ών ύπήρχεν ύπόστασις ,… ών αύτός ενωσις ήν [“of which the Hypostasis existed,… of which Himself was the unity”]. Ἐν αύτω τω Θεω καί Λόγω καί τό είναι καί τό ύποστήναι λαβουσα “who perceived being and hypostasis." - Epistles, 11, 91, 468AB; Wed 56°C. Dispute with Pyrrhus, 91, 348A. Philosophical interpretation of being-in (In-Sein) cf. in Heidegger M. Being and Time. M., 1977. pp. 53–54. – Ed. Saint Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem. Conciliar Epistle // PG 87 (III), 3173AB. (Russian translation: Acts of the Ecumenical Councils. Vol. 4. St. Petersburg, 1996. P. 151). Lebon J. La Christologie du monophysitisme syrien (Chalk. I. S. 441–450). Cp. Loofs. Leontius von Bysanz, Texte und Untersuchungen / Hrsg. v. Harnack. 3 (1888). S. 274–297; Richard M. Léonce de Bysance était‑il origéniste? // Rev. Et. Byz. 5 (1947). P. 54 pages; Moeller Ch. Le chalcédonisme et le néochalcédonisme (Chalk. I. 638 ff.). Ἐντελέχεια πρώτη σώματος φυσικού “the first entelechy of the natural body.” “The fact that this composition [compose] suits a multitude of similar beings does not represent anything new in itself and in reality turns out to be nothing other than an accidental difference from the composition in Christology - a difference that does not in the least detract from the depth of the comparison” (Grumel I with Echos d'Ortent 398). Thus, the author of the treatise “On Sects” proposed an anthropological argument in its entirety. Wed. Richard M. Le Traite “De Sextis” et Léonce de Bysance (Revue de l’Histoire Ecclésiastique. 1939. P 706 seq.). Lat. elementum primarily means "element". – Per. Epistles, 12, 91, 489B. Leontius already saw this “coercion” in approximately the same way, but due to his Origenist understanding of the soul, he could only establish coercion from the outside - from God. From his point of view, although the soul (unlike the Divine), because of its finitude in itself, is passive and subject to suffering, this passivity as such is not a potential focus on the body (PG 86, 1284D-1285A). But Saint Sophronius, without taking into account the philosophical background, emphasized this compulsion by nature in strong terms: τυραννικώς, άναγκαστώς, βουλήτως (PG 87 [III], 3173D). Epistles, 12, 91, 488D. As already mentioned (see Urs von Balthasar X. Ecumenical Liturgy. St. Maximus the Confessor. // Alpha and Omega. 1999. No. 1 (19). P. 104), Sherwood pointed out that St. Maximus in this text from the year 642 resolves the dialectical problem of suffering (πάθος): if the soul is passive already in the corporeal-spiritual fusion, then there is no need to associate all sensual suffering with guilt (Sherwood P. St. Maximus the Confessor. The Ascetic Life // The Four Centuries on Chanty. Translated and annotated. Ancient Christian Writers XXI. L., 1955. P. 66.). Ambigva, 91, 1321D-1341C. Creations, 91, 64D. This is the deepest definition of the essence of all synthesized nature: όρος καί λόγος καί νόμος “definition and logos and law.” – Epistles, 13; 91, 517V. Κατά την αμα πρός είδους γένεσιν ψυχής τε καί σώματος σύνοδον … τό όμοούσων (καί)… τό έτερουπόστατον “in accordance with the union of soul and body, simultaneous with the emergence of the species… consubstantial (and)… other-hypostatic.” – Messages, 15; 91, 553B; cf.: Epistles, 13; 91, 529V. Κατά τήν αμα τφ εΐναι πρός αλληλα σύνοδον ποιείται χαρακτηριστικά τής συμπληρουμένης μίας ύποστάσεως “the characteristic features of the replenished single hypostasis occur in accordance with the mutual connection of [the parts], simultaneous with [their] existence.” – Messages, 15; 91, 552С. The origin of this terminology lies in “neochalcedonism”. Leontius of Jerusalem specifically used it (Contra Nestorianos. I, 24; PG 89, I, 1492B, II, 1528B, etc.), as Richard showed, serving the union policy of Emperor Justinian (Richard M. Léonce de Jerusalem, Mel. Sc. Rel. 1944, 58 ff.). Justinian himself often uses this formulation (Schwartz E. Drei dogmatische Schriften Justinians, Abh. Münch. Ak. NF 18 [München, 1939] S. 16, 18, 76, 86) and thereby meets Sevier, who prefers to talk about synthesis, but for whom the formulations are identical: μία φύσις σύνθετος “one complex nature” and ύπόστασις σύνθετος “composite hypostasis” (Lebon J. La Christologie du monophysisme syrien (Chalk. I, 472 ff., 486 ff.)). Blessed Theodoret of Cyrrhus rejected this formulation (Chalk. 1.185, note 14). But following the emperor, all neo-Chalcedonians use it, in particular Eulogius (PG, 2944B). The V Ecumenical Council also accepts Justinian’s formula about ενωσις κατά σύνθεσιν ήγουν καθ ’ ύπόστασιν “union according to synthesis, that is, according to hypostasis” (Mansi 9, R. 377; Dz. 216). This word does not appear in Leontius of Byzantium: his system does not need this means. άπατώς “impassionate, insensitive.” Epistles, 13; 91, 532A. Κατ᾿ ούδένα λόγον άναλογούσας εχων … δυνάμεις . "[Christ] having in no way corresponding...powers." - There, V. Balthasar describes the mystery of the personal existence of the Savior, one in His divine Nature to the Father and in His human (after the Incarnation) to people, but hypostatically different from the Father and from people. – Per. “Actuation crée par Acte Incréé” “created implementation by uncreated action.” – Recherches de Scientifiques Religieuses. 1928. P. 253–268. 3here we are talking about logoi (λόγοι) as the formative principles or ideas of the universe in all its diversity. See also: Epifanovich S. L. St. Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine theology. M., 1996. pp. 64–74. – Per. See Urs von Balthasar X. Ecumenical Liturgy. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. pp. 100–102. We talked about this several times in the book “Apocalypse of the German Soul” (Apokalypse der deutschen Seele. Salzburg, 1937–1939). First of all, see the chapter on Goethe (Bd. I. S. 407 ff.), on Husserl (Bd. III. S. 111, especially S. 125-126), Scheler (Bd. III. S. 144-145, note) and Heidegger (especially Bd. III. S. 261 ff.). A λλ ’ ένυπόστατος ώς έν αύτώ καί δι᾿ αύτόν λαβοΰσα τοΰ είναι την γένεσιν “but as [nature] having perceived in [Logos] Himself and through [Logos] Himself the formation of hypostatic existence.” Ontically – (Greek) lit. existentially; the term is used in the language of philosophy as different from the term ontologically - Transl. Richard M. Hypostase // Mélanges des Sciences Religieuses. 1945. No. 2. P 21–29. For Theodore of Mopsuestia, just as the human soul can exist after death without a body and yet, being one with the body, constitutes only one person, so the Divinity of Christ has its own Hypostasis and yet forms a single Hypostasis together with human nature. Richard, without denying the contradictions of Theodore’s system, explained that he did not have any other formed conceptual material than that provided to him by the Apollinarism he had overcome. PG 76, 408V. Thus, it is clear that St. Cyril could also speak of one nature as two, especially after the union of 433. Richard M. Decree. op. R. 243–252. Lebon J. La Christologie du monophysisme syrien (Chalk. I, 431 ff.). Humanity as the human nature of Christ. – Per. We anticipate here the next section, which will more fully clarify the terms used. Conformity is here the correspondence, conformity of the natural wills of the Savior’s human nature with His divine decisions and institutions. Having become incarnate, the Logos perceives that human nature, which at the moment of the creation of man entered into existence, having assimilated His laws and institutions, called by St. Maximus, “natural logoi.” Therefore, the coincidence of created and Divine freedom in Christ is due to the sinlessness of His human nature, which naturally follows the natural logos that were originally infused into it and reflect the goodness and perfection of the Logos. Thus, the incarnate and incarnate Logos, being not involved in original sin, realizes in His freedom the fullness of the synergy of human and Divine natures. – Per. Temus J. Das Seelen- und Bewußtseinsleben Jesu (Chalk. III, 114) Here, probably due to a typo, two Greek terms are confused. For the beginning see No. 3 (14) / 1997, No. 2 (16) / 1998, No. 1 (19) / 1999, No. 1 (23) / 2000. Denz. (11 Aufl.). No. 148. PG 86 (I), 1281A; the term comes up frequently. Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer; 90, 877D (Russian translation: Works of St. Maximus the Confessor. Book I / Translation, introductory article and commentary by A.I. Sidorov. M., 1993 (hereinafter referred to as Creations, book I). P. 186). In the letter to Dionysius, 4, 533C. Ibid., 91, 1068 ff. Leontius already taught quite clearly about the communication of properties. Creations, 91, 109C, ibid., 193AC. A μέλει έξουσία γνώμης εργά πεποιηκώς τα πάθη τής φύσεως “without a doubt, free will produced actions - natural passions”: Ambigva, 91, 1053С. This is especially clearly expressed in the Word on the Ascetic Life (90, 916D-924C), therefore Weser is wrong in assuming a “mechanistic” theology of the Redemption in St. Maximus. Κίνησις δύναμις ειδοποιός , ποιούσα του υποκειμένου τόν ορισμόν “movement is a species-forming force that gives definition to the subject; it is the basis and preservation of every special property” (Ibid., 201A). Ορος γάρ του πράγματος ό λόγος τής ουσιώδους δυνάμεως κυρίως έστίν “the logos of essential force is, mainly, the definition of a thing” (Ibid., 200B.). Dispute with Pyrrhus, 91, 336C. Συμφυώς κατά την ένιαίαν περιχώρησιν “merging together according to a single mutual penetration.” Creations, 232A. Dispute with Pyrrhus, 91, 337CD. We pointed out that the doctrine of hypostasis also in St. Maximus is not without shortcomings. Perhaps, in addition to the clarity of the conceptual scope, he also lacks a correct perception of the relevance of the problem, which may partly explain the (very regrettable) “abstractness” of its disclosure. But it would be unfair to demand from a 7th-century Greek a vision of the problems of Eriugena. In the end, this anticipates the decisive understanding of St. Thomas Aquinas and the possibility of shaping the problematic field of modern personalism on these grounds, without resorting to their deformation. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). Questions and Answers, 21; 90, 313V. Questions and Answers, 21; 90, 316AB. Creations, 91, 21D; κατ ’ αϊσθησίν τε καί νοΰν όρέγετα . - There, 12C. For an explanation of the meaning of this concept by St. Maximus, see Sherwood R. St. Maximus the Confessor. The Ascetic Life // The Four Centuries on Charity. Translated and annotated. Ancient Christian Writers XXI. L., 1955. P. 55–65. Religionsphilosophie (2 Aufl 1840) I, 64 (Glöckner XV, 80). Creations, 91, 56B; Dispute; 308D-309A. Ibid., 21D; Dispute, 91, 308C. Disputation, 91, 309A (I read: τώ θεικώς ύποστήναι “to exist in a divine manner”). Commentary on the Lord's Prayer, 90, 880A. Ambigva, 91, 1044A. Τό ... φύσει λογικόν και φύσει αύτεξούσιον “reasonable by nature and free by nature”: Dispute, 91, 304B – D. For the Russian-speaking reader, the word regression is more likely associated with degradation, which is explained by the fact that the word progress “out of habit” is perceived as having a positive meaning. Here, however, “going back” is conceived precisely as an ascent, which is explained by the author here. – Ed. PG 14, 536CD (Commentary on John 19, 1). Questions and Answers 60; 90, 621AB. Wed. Russian lane entire fragment: Sidorov A. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. Questions and answers to Thalassia. Question LX // Alpha and Omega. 2000. No. 1 (23). pp. 42–44. An exact exposition of the Orthodox faith, 3, 12; 4, 4; PG 94, 1228–9; 1108. Here Wagemann (Realencyclopädie für protest. Theol. XX1, 129-144 or IX2, 430-443) rightly objected to Straubinger (Die Christologie des heiliges Maximus Confessors. 1906, 126, 130). Only if one does not take into account St. Maximus's own character as a theologian and mystic can one consider his philosophical anthropology as the center of his worldview. In such a perspective, which, however, does not provide an objective image, man is brought into the center of the universe in the place of Christ, while the Savior is reduced to a means of serving salvation. Questions and Answers 48; 90, 436A (Russian translation: Creations, book II. P. 125). Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer; 90, 436AB (Russian translation: Creations, book I. P. 187). Questions 48, 90, 436AB. Wed. Russian lane of the entire fragment “For He [Christ] united man, mysteriously eliminating by the Spirit the difference between the male and female sexes and making the logos of nature (which is [the same] in both man and woman) free from passionate properties. 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 creatures, combined together by some mysterious reason. Finally, He united, in accordance with the supernatural logos and method, the created nature with the uncreated. – Creations, book II P. 125.