Глава II. Символический реализм Григория Нисского и символизм христианского искусства

The Holy Fathers, representing the tradition of the theology of icon veneration, repeatedly resort to the authority of the “great Cappadocians.” This allows us to consider the problem of the influence of the Cappadocians on the theology of the image. Since by the period of iconoclasm canonical art had already taken shape in general outlines, and the works of icon-worshipers state its presence and the truth of its images, it is appropriate to consider Cappadocian theology from the point of view of its influence on the origin and formation of canonical art at the initial stage of its existence. The works of Gregory of Nyssa: “Homily 19, spoken in Constantinople about the Divinity of the Son, about the Holy Spirit and about Abraham” and the treatise “On the dispensation of man” are quoted and commented by John of Damascus in “Three words of defense against those who condemn holy icons or images”; the fathers of the VII Ecumenical Council, which approved the dogma, rely on the authority of the “great Cappadocians” icon veneration. Historians of patristic aesthetics are attracted by the ekphrasis of Gregory of Nyssa with a description of the image of the scene “The Sacrifice of Abraham”. The Nativity homily of St. Gregory served as the plot basis for the image on a dish originating from Alexandria. The range of these monuments is indisputable evidence of the influence of Gregory of Nyssa on the theology of the image and on the artistic process of his time, which will be the subject of further consideration. In this regard, let us turn to the contents of the treatise “On the Structure of Man.” 2.1. The main ideas of the treatise “On the Structure of Man” Archbishop of Tikhvin Konstantin (Goryanov) 198 and academician A. A. Korolkov 199 turned to the history of the concept of “anthropology” in their research. Korolkov points to the appearance of the object and subject of anthropology in ancient philosophy, but the term “anthropology” is absent there; only once in Aristotle in “Nicomachean Ethics” is a close one used, which is translated as “speaking of man.” The term “anthropology” was coined in 1501 by Magnus Hundt, who titled his anatomical work “Anthropology on the Dignity, Nature and Properties of Man and on the Elements, Parts and Members of the Human Body.” Archbishop Constantine noted that the anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa is in the border region, partly relating to the sphere of revealed truths, partly coming into contact with philosophy, natural science, and medicine. Gregory of Nyssa uses the term "anthropogony", indicating the creation of man by God. An appeal to the content of the treatise involves an appeal to the researchers of the theology of Gregory of Nyssa, their observations and conclusions, which explains the abstract order of presentation in this paragraph. The first thing you should pay attention to is the holistic image of being and existence in his treatise by Gregory of Nyssa or, simply, the picture of the world of a person in the early Middle Ages. In it, God, man and the created world are interconnected. Vl. Lossky especially emphasizes the hierarchical, rather than temporal order of the creation of the world, indicated by the Cappadocians. He speaks about its spiritual aspect: the created world, devoid of free will, is involved in the grace of salvation, and is transformed only through the mediation of man. The doctrine of man borders on ontology, which is transformed into the ontology of salvation, and, in turn, subordinates cosmology and the theory of knowledge. Gregory's innovations in the field of ontology are: – the theory of the creation of the world, conceived not as a myth, but as a historical reality (in the formation of this idea it is difficult to separate his authorship from the participation of the Cappadocian circle); – “moral reason for creation” 200; – the theory of creation “out of nothing”; – theory of general (divine) and private (natural) laws of existence; – the theory of not a temporal, but a hierarchical order of the creation of the world; theory of the energetic nature of matter 201. In the field of cosmology, as mentioned above, the fundamental innovation is the theory of the creatureliness of time; in its details, the Cappadocians differ somewhat among themselves, but we should not forget about the inclusion in the treatise “On the Structure of Man” of the text of Basil the Great’s “Six Days,” which represents a more detailed theory than that of Gregory. The fundamental position of the teaching of the Cappadocians is not even the structuring of time, but an indication of the mutual dependence of the categorical definition of the creatureliness of time and Christological theology. This principle took shape during the controversy with the Arians, which was also mentioned above 202. In the field of epistemology, the innovation of Cappadocian thought was the affirmation of the fundamental knowability of God by actions and the fundamental unknowability of God by Essence 203. These theses, common to the Eastern and Western Middle Ages, were formulated by Gregory the Theologian. Gregory of Nyssa accepts them, but at the same time adds: – he extends the principle of finite unknowability to human self-knowledge and to the knowledge of things and phenomena of the created world; – to designate the unknowability of the Essence of God, he introduces the apophatic category “divine darkness”; – according to Gregory of Nyssa, “divine darkness” is a protective limit for the knowledge and contemplation of the Essence, but it is also a special mode of essential communication with God: a person communicates with the Essence of God, being united with Him by love; – Gregory of Nyssa formulates another position of the theory of knowledge: man, being the “image of God,” finds God not in space or “intelligible space,” but in the depths of his nature, which, according to Lossky Daniel, was a complete revolution of the Platonic perspective. Gregory of Nyssa sums up the previous stage of patristic thought about man, and on this basis the increments of his anthropology arise. The main ideas of Saint Nyssa are: – the doctrine of man as the “image of God”; – development of the theory of trichotomy (three components of nature, including body, soul, spirit); – the theory of the simultaneous origin of soul and body (as opposed to theories of metempsychosis; pre-existence of the soul; pre-existence of the body). “The Cappadocians gave a theological definition of face. Thanks to this, they found a metaphysical basis for the Hypostasis of man, the noumenon of the human personality, that is, they comprehended the theological-personalistic value of man,” 204 ​​notes Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern). He also emphasizes that the conceptual definition of the hypostasis of man in Gregory of Nyssa is secondary in relation to the definition of the Hypostases of God the Trinity in the Trinitarian dogma, the formulation of which was the theological feat of the Cappadocian fathers. In his treatise, Gregory of Nyssa turns to Plotinus, namely to his VI Ennead, which, according to A.F. Losev, constitutes the core of all ancient philosophy 205. In Chapter I of the treatise, in describing cosmogony, Gregory of Nyssa uses the categories “essence”, “movement”, “rest”, “identity”, “difference”. Categorical similarity highlights the discrepancy between texts in meaning. So in Ennead VI, 4, Plotinus writes: “The world of the truly existing is an all-encompassing world, but the visible world is only its likeness” 206. For Gregory of Nyssa, God is the creator of the first beginning and of all things: “And, I think, pointing precisely to this as [the very] first beginning, pre-arranged, according to the wisdom of the Creator, for the entire structure of existence, the great Moses says that in the beginning the heaven and earth were created by God, After all, all phenomena and creatures, brought into existence by the will of God, are the products of movement and rest” 207 . About “movement” and “rest” Plotinus writes: “It is clear that that true all-encompassing world is not located in anything else, because nothing else precedes it in existence. On the contrary, the world, which in its existence follows after it, of course, must already be in it and be established on it, and without it cannot exist, nor be in motion or at rest” 208. “Movement” and “rest” by Gregory of Nyssa are interpreted as “actions” (energies) that rule everything: “By the connection and affirmation of what was produced, divine art and power was imparted to the nature of beings, through two actions (energies) ruling everything: the emergence of non-beings and the persistence of existing things they arranged through rest and movement” 209 . Apparently, motion and rest are opposite “actions” or energies; in their unity they correspond to the particular (natural) law of creation, but in the created world they appear as the first principle, “pre-arranged for the entire structure of existence.” The created world is built along a certain scale connecting the poles: “And since heaven and earth are opposite to each other due to the opposite direction of the action (energy) of these separated essences, then the creature, located between the opposites, partly associates with its neighbor, mediating with itself between the extremes, so that through this average contact of opposites becomes apparent” 210. Already in Chapter I of the treatise, Gregory of Nyssa speaks about the created world – the created world is presented not as material, but as energetic; – to determine the gradations of existence, two scales have been introduced: “God is the created world” and “heaven – earth” (creature is located along this axis). Let us return to the beginning of the treatise. The gradations of being, according to Gregory of Nyssa, do not coincide with the doctrine of emanation by Plotinus. In Chapter II, Gregory of Nyssa deviates from Plotinus’ hierarchy. Between God and the created world he places man, who is created, but created in the image and likeness of God. He treats man as a microcosm, but with his godlikeness he is distinguished from the created world. The structure of man reflects the ontological hierarchy: human nature is determined by “vegetative”, “animal” forces, God-likeness - that is, Gregory of Nyssa formulates the theory of trichotomy. This hierarchy is not static, but dynamic: the harmonious existence of man is possible by observing the sequence of subordination of “animal” and “vegetable” forces to the likeness of God. If his will inclines toward the primacy of “substance,” a person loses his godlikeness, that is, correspondence to his essence: we are not talking about substance as the bearer of evil, but about the levels of being, and the gradations of “external” being are mirrored within the human hypostasis. The theory of trichotomy refracts the doctrine of being and existence; both the universe and divine existence are reflected by the very structure of man, therefore he is open to the capture of the divine and created worlds - here it is obvious that the theory of trichotomy was a link between ontology and the theory of knowledge. Both the doctrine of man and the theory of knowledge acquire ontological status from Gregory of Nyssa. The dialectic of Plotinus as the dialectic of number acquiring the meaning of intention-energy-eidos will be developed by Gregory of Nyssa. In Chapter XXIX, Gregory of Nyssa, criticizing the theories of the pre-existence of souls and the pre-existence of bodies, puts forward the theory of the simultaneous emergence of soul and body. In it, he talks about the intention of growth of both, realized in energies (actions): “After all, according to the apostolic instruction, our nature is comprehended in two ways: the visible and the hidden man (1 Peter 3:4). Then, if one pre-existed, and the other appeared after, then a certain imperfection of the Creator’s Power will be revealed, which is not sufficient for the instant creation of everything, but divides the matter and deals separately with each of the halves. But like a grain of wheat or any other seed, we say that in the possibility (potency) it contains (eidos) the ear - greens, stem, internodes, fruit, awns - and about none of this we say that according to the law (in the logos) of nature it preexists or pre-emerges the nature of the seed, but we say that in a certain natural order the force invested in the grain is manifested, and no other nature is mixed in, so we assume about human seed. So there is a soul in him. Although not manifested, it will manifest itself through its inherent natural energy, moving along with bodily growth... But just as in its bodily part we do not call it flesh, nor bones, nor hair, nor everything that can be seen in a person, but in possibility it is each of the above, which has not yet appeared visibly - so we say about the spiritual part that it does not yet have in itself the verbal (intelligible), concupiscible and irritable everything that can be possessed by the soul, but in accordance with the structure and improvement of the body, the energies of the soul increase along with the subject” 211 . In this fragment, the dialectic of number attracts attention: the “unit” of human nature is divided into the “two” of internal and external man; the outer man develops into the triad of “flesh”, “bones”, “hair”; while the internal is divided into the triad of “verbal”, “intelligible”, “irritable”. The quoted text clearly demonstrates both the dialectic of the transition of the theory of dichotomy into the theory of trichotomy, and the reflection in the image of the sacred meaning of the numbers of triadology and Christology. We are talking about the Powers of the Creator and the energies of the soul, in which a foreshadowing of theological thought about uncreated divine energies and the doctrine of synergy is discernible. The dialectic of number is important from the point of view of the appearance of eidos 212: the potential that arises instantly from the Power of the Creator contains an eidos that precedes actions (energies). From this relationship arise consequences that are important in the future of further considerations regarding the iconographic canon: – the meaning of number and proportion in the iconographic canon correlates with the number and proportion of ontogenesis and anthropogenesis; – the number is correlated with forces-potency-eidos-energies; – the concept of “proportion” is correlated with levels of hierarchy or gradations of being; – movement and rest are “actions” (energies); – a qualitative change in forces in action – opens a circle where the “beginning” coincides with the “end” 213. In pre-Cappadocia anthropology, a theory of dichotomy, the two-component nature of human nature is formed, the nature of which is determined, just like the pagan Neoplatonists, by a pair of oppositional concepts: “spirit” and “flesh”. The theory of dichotomy has two options: it talks about the “pre-existence of souls” (Neoplatonists, Origen), or the “pre-existence of bodies” (Clement of Alexandria); the concept of “perichoresis” (mixture, dissolution of the sensory-noetic) was attributed by Origen to the person of Christ, but is by no means transferred to man, created in His image and likeness. The doctrine of perichoresis is transferred by Gregory of Nyssa to anthropology, on its basis there arises the doctrine of the simultaneous emergence of soul and body (chapters XXVIII, XXIX), as well as the doctrine that the mind, as the godlike image of man, is inconceivable, and also that it is not concentrated in one organ. The dichotomy of Gregory of Nyssa is correlated with cosmology. He, like the ancient authors, calls man a “microcosm,” but says that only God-likeness determines the true dignity of man. The Godlikeness of man is revealed through a number of concepts: the mind or the rational principle, the verbal nature of man, royalty, free will, dispassion and the totality of virtues, the “diadim of righteousness,” the immutability of eidos and, most importantly, love. “And without love, all the features of the image change,” writes the Nyssa saint. For the logic of this work, it is important to translate the theory of dichotomy into the doctrine of the energy of grace. Connected with it is the apology of “honest matter” by Gregory of Nyssa in contrast to the diminishing subordinationism of Plotinus, which tears apart matter and spirit. At St. Nyssa's "apology". matter is based on the Incarnation of God the Word, who enipostasized human nature" 214. This apology for matter will form the basis of the theology of the icon, “Three words of defense against those who condemn holy icons or images” by John of Damascus. The theory of trichotomy, in a certain sense, “expands” the theory of dichotomy, differentiating the concept of “flesh” or “material composition of a person” through the concepts of “plant” and “animal forces”. It also contains the teaching about the energies of grace. According to this theory, man “originally... would have been perfect if nature had not been damaged by evil. Because of this, participation in passionate and animal birth does not allow the divine to immediately shine forth in creation, but consistently in a certain way leads a person to perfection from material and more animal characteristics. The great Apostle also teaches this teaching, in his letter to the Corinthians, saying: “When the child was like a child, he thought like a child; but when the man was a man, he rejected the child” (1 Cor. 13:11). It is not another soul that enters the husband, different from the one in the boy, so that the infantile understanding is rejected and the masculine one appears, but the soul, imperfect in one, reveals perfection in the other. After all, some spiritual energy that exists in plants does not reach sensual movements. Likewise, a certain spiritual strength manifests itself in growth among the dumb - and it does not reach the end, not containing the gift of speech and understanding. Therefore we say that the true and perfect soul is human, recognizable by all energies. Therefore, Paul, advising those who want to listen to achieve perfection, offers a way to improve what is sought, saying that we must put off the old man and put on the new man, renewed in the image of the Creator (Col. 3:9-10). But may we all return to the same God-like grace in which God initially created man, saying: Let us make man in Our image and likeness,” this is how Gregory of Nyssa expounds the “mysterious anthropogony” of Moses 215 . Here Saint Gregory anticipates the theology of icon veneration and the tradition of liturgical interpretation. The transformation of man or the “return to God-like grace” is accomplished by directing the “perfect energies of the human soul” towards renewal in the image of the Creator; for this, according to Gregory of Nyssa, there is no need for disincarnation, but in overcoming involvement in passion, which arose as a result of original sin. In the reasoning of Gregory of Nyssa there is no opposition between matter and spirit, but we are talking about the increasing radiance of the image of God in man: “Common nature, having accepted human nature, like a nurse, feeds it with its own forces, and this nature feeds in both of its parts according to each and obviously grows. Indeed, thanks to this masterful and skilful act of creation, the power of the soul associated with it is immediately revealed in human nature, initially seeming weak, but subsequently shining with the improvement of its instrument... the substance is given form. But even initially it would have been perfect if nature had not been damaged by evil” 216. Florovsky and Lurie draw the attention of readers of patristic works to the convergence of the concepts of “form” and “essence,” which is important for the theology of icon veneration. In symbolic realism there is no Neoplatonic division, opposition, contradiction between the material sign and the spiritual signified, since the liturgical image that goes back to the prototype does not dematerialize. The category “image,” subsequently common to liturgical interpretations and the theology of icon veneration, is, first of all, the image of God imprinted in human nature. The ascent of the image to the Prototype is transfiguration, communion of the “beautiful grace of the Creator,” putting off the sin of the “old man.” The perichoresis of the sensual and noetic in the anthropology of Saint Nyssa is due to his theory of the simultaneous emergence of soul and body, opposed to the Platonic theory of metempsychosis. The merging of the human and Divine natures in the Hypostasis of Jesus Christ acquires a similarity in human nature with the simultaneous emergence of soul and body, the potencies of which are revealed in harmonious growth. In the treatise, Gregory writes: “... just as in an adult person, spiritual energy manifests itself in more important things, so at the beginning of our composition, the assistance (synergy) of the soul, accordingly and in proportion to the real need, reveals itself in the fact that from the invested substance it arranges for itself a natural home for it. For we recognize it as impossible for the soul to adapt to itself other people’s dwellings, just as an imprint in wax cannot be adapted to another cut.” 217 In this fragment of the text, Gregory of Nyssa resorts to the interpretation, beloved by icon-worshipers, of the image as an imprint on a substance, in wax. This definition of the image is present in the works of John of Damascus, Theodore the Studite, and the fathers of the VII Ecumenical Council. Thus, not only the main opposition of Neoplatonism - the gap between the sensual and noetic - is overcome, but also the main division of classical philosophy into materialism and idealism, which allows us to state that the Cappadocians carried out a “philosophical synthesis”. The theory of dichotomy of Gregory of Nyssa requires a more detailed consideration in the aspect of the Byzantine theory of the image. In order to more clearly trace the line of Cappadocian theology, we will resort to comparing their teaching with the theory of the liturgical image of Maximus the Confessor, who developed the theme stated by Gregory of Nyssa. This continuity is revealed in his study by V. M. Zhivov, but he compares the theory of the image in Plotinus and Maximus the Confessor, limiting himself to only mentioning the Cappadocians. Therefore, the theory of overcoming dualities in the treatise “On the Structure of Man” should be considered in more detail. The Mystagogy of Maximus the Confessor is a liturgical interpretation. Based on the texts of Maximus the Confessor, Zhivov defines the liturgical nature of the image as follows: this is “the return of the image to the prototype -... the movement of an object towards its logos, that is, towards the eschatological realization of the divine plan” 218. Let us allow ourselves a lengthy quotation, later necessary in connection with the consideration of the treatise of Gregory of Nyssa: “The difference between the image and the prototype: to understand the nature of this movement, the opposition of natural logos... and the mode of existence is of fundamental importance. Since the mode of existence is consistent with logos, the movement of the object towards logos occurs; if there is no such agreement, there is no movement. The very speech about coordination suggests the idea of ​​will, but since material being does not possess a rational will, the question naturally arises of how it can move or not move towards its logoi. Man has this will; it is man who acts as a mediator of the salvation of the universe... It is through him that all created being comes to its logos, to its prototypes. This cosmic mission is determined by the concept of man as a microcosm, by the fact that man, as shown in “Mystagogy”... is the image of the world (about the connection of this speculation with the Cappadocians, see: Epifanovich, 1915, pp. 54–55) 219. By harmonizing his mode of existence with his logos, man had to overcome a number of basic dualities that divide the world and thereby separate him from God. With dispassion he had to overcome the opposition between male and female, and with holiness he had to overcome the separation of heaven and the universe. Then he had to live, in virtue similar to that of an angel, to make heaven and earth a single sensory world; after this, with knowledge equal to the angelic, to combine the noetic and sensual (...cf. Gregory of Nyssa, PG, 45, 25B-28I) and, finally, with love, to combine created nature with the uncreated... The overcoming of these dualities was not carried out by man because of the Fall, which made his way of existence contrary to his nature... Christ, having become incarnate and thereby restoring the nature of man, realized in Himself overcoming the above-mentioned opposites... Having done this, Christ, however, did not free man from his mission, but again gave him the possibility of its implementation... Since the Church and man (these are correlated objects and images of each other) carry out this mission, together with them the entire cosmos moves towards salvation, all objects... approach the logoi set before them...” 220. Let us consider how the above-mentioned problematics are anticipated by Gregory of Nyssa. Let us turn to the combination of anthropology and cosmology in the treatise from the point of view of the liturgical image, then to the interpretation of the theme of overcoming dualities. These problems are interrelated, since the combination of the doctrine of man and cosmology, which constitutes a specific feature of the teaching of the Nyssa saint, is due to the dichotomy of his anthropological views. The dichotomy in the anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa is due to the inclusion in the physical composition of man of the primary elements of the created world, on the one hand, and on the other, the imprinting of the image and likeness of God in man. The anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa is a mysterious anthropogony, based on the secret vision of Moses and on personal mystical experience, therefore it reveals the spiritual meaning of the two-part nature of human nature. In the first chapters of the treatise “On the Constitution of Man,” St. Gregory resorts to the ancient, or more precisely, Stoic and Aristotelian, theory of the primary elements, and surpasses it. He writes: “And since heaven and earth are opposite to each other due to the opposite direction of the action (energies) of these distant entities, then the creature located between the opposites partly communicates with its neighbor, mediating between the extremes, so that through this neighboring contact of opposites becomes apparent. For the air somewhat imitates the ever-moving and weightless nature of the fiery essence - both in the lightness of its nature and in what it has necessary for movement. But he, however, is not such as to be deprived of any affinity with the solid. Therefore, it does not always remain, and is not constantly flowing and dissipating. But thanks to its affinity with the other, the air became, as it were, the boundary of the actions (energies) of opposites, at once connecting and dividing within itself what is distant by nature. Likewise, the moist essence, by its dual qualities, is consistent with each of the opposites. After all, being heavy and tending downwards, it has a significant affinity with the earthly” 221. When discussing the human body, Gregory of Nyssa is based on the same theory of primary elements. Here are just some of the particular examples: “Just as from damp earth, when the sun illuminates it with warming rays, foggy vapors rise from the depths, so something similar happens to our earth, when food boils inside from natural warmth” 222. Or: “The air is introduced into the heart by a neighboring organ, which is called the lung and serves as a successor to the air, drawing in external air through its inlets through the adjacent respiratory canal leading to the mouth. The heart, enclosed inside the lung... following the action of a constantly moving fire, itself continuously moves and, like a blacksmith’s bellows, draws air into itself from a nearby lung, filling the cavities with it through expansion (diastole), and inflating its fiery (substance), blows it (fiery substance) into the arteries connected to the heart” 223. Speaking about death, Gregory of Nyssa resorts to the same categories: “But perhaps, looking at the elements of the universe, you will think that after the air that is in us merges with the element akin to it and also mixes with the warm, moist and earthy things that are similar to them, it will be difficult to return from the general to the characteristic of individuality” 224. This fragment of Gregory of Nyssa’s reasoning is devoted not only to death, but also to resurrection, and in this aspect, his words dedicated to man as a microcosm acquire special significance. “But let us return again to the divine voice: “Let us create man in our image and likeness.” How small and unworthy the nobility of man was dreamed by some of the outsiders, who tried to exalt humanity by comparison with this world. And they said that man is a small world... made up of the same elements as everyone else. But while praising human nature with this loud name, they themselves did not notice that they honored man with the differences (idioms) of a mosquito and a mouse. After all, a mosquito and a mouse are a fusion of the same four, because in each of the creatures, along with animate ones, they are necessarily seen in greater or lesser proportion, because without them nothing in nature can be composed of feeling. What great thing is it to honor a person as a distinctive sign and likeness of the world? And is it when the heavens pass away, the earth changes, and all their contents pass away along with them, when the contents pass away? But what, according to the church word, is the greatness of man? Not in likeness to the created world, but in being in the image of the nature of the Creator” 225. Gregory of Nyssa not only points out the dual nature of man, but also develops the idea of ​​the order of interconnection in human nature between his created nature and his likeness to God. Already in the initial chapters, Saint Gregory tells us that man is distinguished in a special way from the order of creation: the creation of man completes the creation of the world, and his creation is preceded by divine advice. Man's relationship to the created cosmos is one of royalty. “And besides, to become the image of the nature of the Ruler of all is nothing more than the fact that at the moment of creation the nature (of the image) was made royal” 226. Here, in Cappadocian theology, the idea of ​​“man as a mediator of the salvation of the universe” unfolds extensively, connected by Zhivov with discussions about the liturgical nature of the image of Maximus the Confessor. The ascent of matter to the divine plan for it (logos) is possible insofar as it belongs to man (as a king) and is included as primary elements in his bodily composition. “Man for the universe is its hope of grace and union with God; but it also contains the danger of defeat and loss. “The creation awaits with hope the revelation of the sons of God,” writes the holy Apostle Paul. And indeed, “the creation was subjected to vanity, not voluntarily, but according to the will of him who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself would be freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:20-21). Creation, through the fault of man, submitted to disorder and death, from him, who by grace became the son of God, awaits its deliverance,” writes V. N. Lossky in “Essay on the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church” 227. It is in this regard that he emphasizes that the order of peacemaking, according to the Six Days, is not chronological, but hierarchical. We have noted the theme of hierarchy partly in connection with subsequent discussions, and partly because in Gregory of Nyssa it underlies the theory of trichotomy. The image of God the Trinity is imprinted in human nature, therefore, resorting to the mystical interpretation of the mystical vision of Moses, Saint Gregory develops the patristic dichotomy into the theory of trichotomy, which became a distinctive feature of his anthropological teaching. Saint Gregory writes that the plant and animal forces (endowed with psyche, but lacking spirit) of the natural world are successively involved in the composition of man. “After all, we almost remained ignorant regarding the order of creation - why plants first emerge from the earth, then dumb animals appear, and then, after their creation, man... For the Word teaches us by this that in three differences vital and spiritual strength is seen. One force is only vegetative and nutritious, supplying what is needed for the growth of what is fed; it is called natural and is seen in plants. After all, even in plants one can notice a certain vitality, but not related to feeling. But, in addition, there is another type of life, which includes the first, but adds to it controllability through feeling...; it is in the nature of the dumb. They not only feed and grow, but also have sensory action (energy) and perception. And the last (perfect) life in the body is in verbal nature, that is, human: it is nourished, and sensual, and involved in the word, and controlled by the mind” 228. So, according to Gregory of Nyssa, a person can be called a microcosm not only because his bodily composition includes the same primary elements (elements) as the entire created world, but also because his structure corresponds to the hierarchy of the world, the Sixth Day. Anthropology in the patristic tradition, therefore, is not simply connected with cosmology, but is its completion, crown, absorbs it as a hierarchically lower level. Consequently, it turns out to be possible to ascend to God and transform the creature in man, together with man. This is how the cosmological aspect of the liturgical image is reflected in the treatise “On the Structure of Man”. As already noted, Maximus the Confessor also indicated another aspect of the liturgical nature of the image, namely, the overcoming of dualities by man. Let us turn to a more detailed consideration of it based on the material of the treatise of Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory of Nyssa interprets the meaning of the dual (dichotomous) structure of man as follows: “And therefore the Creator places a double support in his structure, mixing the divine with the earthly, so that by affinity with both and characteristic of each of them he would experience God through the most divine nature, and experience earthly blessings with a feeling similar to him” 229. And further: “But someone may be ashamed that, in the likeness of the dumb, our life is supported by food, and because of this, man seems to him unworthy to be created in the image of God. But let him hope that someday in his desired life nature will be granted liberation from this obligation. “For there is no reason,” as the Apostle says, “the kingdom of God is food and drink” (Rom. 14:17). “Man will not live on bread alone,” the Lord predicted, “but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). And since the resurrection shows us a life equal to the angels, and the angels have no food, then to certify a person’s (future) renunciation of such a duty it is enough that he will live in the likeness of the angels” 230. Overcoming the duality separating heaven and earth is seen by the Saint of Nyssa in eating food that satisfies the soul: “Eat my bread,” Wisdom commands the hungry (Prov. 9:5), and the Lord pleases those hungry for such food (Matt. 5:6). “If anyone is thirsty,” he says, “let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37). And the great Isaiah commands to drink joy to those who are able to understand the height of his thoughts (Is. 25:1)” 231. There is a significant development of this thought: Gregory of Nyssa speaks of a tree growing in Paradise, which has absorbed all good and is called the All (All), “by the participation of which a person is given the logos (word). After all, every idea of ​​good has as its nature a generic and superior logos, and every separate (good) is a whole” 232. So, Gregory of Nyssa traces the ascent of the creature to its logos through the medium of man and points to the ascent to the Incarnate Word of the Father - the Logos. The symbol in this narrative has a dynamic character: it moves from the story of “vegetative and nutritional power called natural,” that is, from the initial stage of the hierarchical structure of man and the world, and ends with the story of eating from the Tree of Life. The image of the plant is compared with the prototype of the Tree of Life. The transformation of the symbol is carried out, its qualitative change caused by the liturgical nature of the imagery. This level of symbolization is somewhat hidden, receding into the background of the narrative, since in the foreground there is a story about man’s ascent to God, to the knowledge of the logoi of creation. This removes the opposition “sensual – noetic”. The theme of overcoming dualities is associated with reasoning about the idioms of human nature - the division into male and female sexes. Zhivov and Lurie point to the Cappadocian origins of this idea in the teachings of Maximus the Confessor. According to Saint Gregory, this division has nothing to do with the prototype, with its self-identical and immutable nature, but is connected with the created nature of man. The Creator, foreseeing the fall of man, “arranges in nature such a method of reproduction that corresponds to those who have slipped into sin, instead of angelic nobility, implanting in humanity a bestial and dumb method of mutual succession” 233. V. M. Lurie notes in this regard: “The stated... view of the division of the sexes as arranged by the Creator in anticipation of the Fall is one of the most important provisions of patristic anthropology. The importance of this statement becomes especially noticeable in the context of dogmatics, as it is expounded by St. Maximus the Confessor. The difference between male and female within the human nature of St. Maximus names the first in a series of those differences that a person must overcome on the path of deification... Christ, born of the Virgin, restored the true method of reproduction of the human race. In this teaching of St. Maxim relied directly on the teachings of St. Gregory of Nyssa" 234. This is what Gregory of Nyssa writes about overcoming the duality of the sexes. He connects the division of human nature into male and female sexes with the temporary beginning of the existence of the world: “And when the birth of people ends, then time will receive an end, and so the decomposition of everything into elements (elements) will take place, and with the transformation of the whole, the human will change from the corruptible and earthly to the impassive and eternal” 235. This statement is preceded in the treatise of Gregory of Nyssa with the apostolic words: “For in Christ Jesus “there is neither male nor female” (Gal. 3:28), here the ontological status of the topic is obvious in its overlap with the theory of apokatastasis. So, the anthropological system of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, and in particular, his treatise “On the Constitution of Man,” anticipates the theological problems associated with the liturgical nature of the image as the main criterion of the canonical image. The treatise covers the issues of, firstly, the connection of anthropology and cosmology, and, secondly, the topic of overcoming the dualities inherent in human nature. This range of theological questions is connected with the principles of dichotomy and trichotomy of the anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa, developed by him in accordance with the Christological and Trinitarian dogma, thus it acquires a dogmatic meaning. The theme of overcoming dualities in the theology of Gregory of Nyssa is associated with the ascent of man as the image of God to the Prototype, God. This ascent of the image to the Prototype is revealed by the Saint of Nyssa, firstly, in a soteriological key: as overcoming sin; salvation is carried out at the will of the person himself - here an ascetic theme is introduced; secondly, the theme of the ascent of the image to the Prototype acquires an ecclesialogical interpretation as a movement from the hypostasis of man (private, personalistic) to the generic (usia). The ascent from the image to the Prototype is not limited to the ascent to the generic logos, but develops into the theme of the deification of man, who is involved in the Redemptive Sacrifice of the Savior: overcoming the first in a series of dualities - the division into male and female - has a guarantee in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Based on the material considered, the features of the fabric of the narrative in which ontology develops into soteriology become obvious; cosmology is associated with anthropology; the narrative has a dogmatic basis and a secret visual meaning. The crossroads or vanishing point at which this development takes place is the category “image,” which is key in the teaching about man of St. Nyssa. The liturgical image, revealing the mystery of the rebirth of the “old man” into the “new man,” has different levels of meaning, density, symbolism, and at the same time is endowed with the energies, actions of God and man. The semantic capacity of the liturgical symbol is due to the fact that its maturation was prepared by the Neoplatonic and Cappadocian “philosophical synthesis”, the Alexandrian exegetical tradition, mystical-ascetic experience, and the clarity of the categorical definition of dogmas. The symbolic realism of Gregory of Nyssa precedes the theology of icon veneration and the tradition of liturgical interpretation, becoming a turning point in the tradition of Alexandrian exegesis. The universe of the Middle Ages, discursively framed in the philosophical and dogmatic system of the Cappadocians, is embodied in the beautiful images of canonical art. 2.2. Anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa and the theology of the image In liturgical art, symbolic realism is a way of conveying divine Revelation in historical reality - this is the definition given to it by L. F. Uspensky in a systematic presentation of the theology of the image of the Orthodox Church 236. Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern) speaks of the emergence of symbolic realism precisely in the theology of Gregory of Nyssa: “The teaching of St. Gregory of Nyssa about the image of God in man is of particular interest to the historian of Christian thought for two reasons. First of all, the author tries to make a certain overview of previous opinions on this issue, as if summing up the known results of what was said before him. At the same time, Saint Gregory puts forward his own opinion on this issue, and in this he develops the ideas of that symbolic realism, which will become especially widespread in later Christian writing” 237. Up to this point in the work, the concept of “symbol” has been mostly used in its common sense, but it is appropriate to turn to its meaning in the culture of late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. The article by A. A. Taho-Godi is devoted to the definition of the concept of “symbol” in ancient culture. “The term “symbol” in ancient Greek literature” 238: “Greek. symballo – verb. Indicating a coincidence, connection, merging, meeting of two principles in one thing, and symbollon - as the result of this meeting and this connection, as an indication of them, as a sign of this unity" 239. In Gregory of Nyssa, the preservation of this original meaning is visible when he speaks of the interaction in the hypostasis of man of God's likeness and the material composition of man. Considering the historical existence of the term, Taho-Godi identifies two more meanings: “size”, “measure” and “mark” on the face. Such a “symbol” was left by the master on the slave’s face. The “mark” is similar to the “imprint” and “eidos” in the symbolic realism of the Saint of Nyssa, which determines the personalistic traits of a person, and “size” and “measure” are most directly related to the saint’s reasoning about the hierarchical transfer of grace in a “proportional manner.” Exploring the historical fate of the term, Taho-Godi states: “the pre-Socratics brought to the fore the mysterious meaning of the symbol (Pythagoreans), its generality, given in a collapsed form when designating an object (Democritus), its understanding as a certain unified unity (Empedocles). All these three points, expressed intuitively and as if by chance, will be strengthened and become integral in the development of the concept of symbol in the era of late antiquity 240. The Pythagorean origins of the meaning of the symbol, open to initiates, are also not forgotten by St. Gregory, neither in his “numerical” harmony of ontological constructions 241, nor in the detailed argument that “the Word makes music in man,” nor in the esoteric meaning of the symbol of “mysterious anthropogony.” Gregory of Nyssa assimilates these meanings of the symbol in their developed form, which they receive from Aristotle: “Everything opposite tends to each other like halves (symbola). Warm and cold, dry and wet, friendship and hostility seem to complement each other, for the opposite is “useful” to the opposite...” 242 Gregory has numerous passages illustrating this position; moreover, he elevated the combination of “the seemingly impossible” to a principle: “And to be precise, the very nature of each of the opposites is not at all unmixed with the other nature through its properties (idioms) ...” 243 Just as in Aristotle the symbol acquires an expanded meaning, going beyond the boundaries of the natural philosophical and artistic-philosophical context, into the area of ​​“natural, ethical and social nature,” in Gregory of Nyssa the text, multifaceted in content, is symbolic at all thematic levels. Apparently, the strengthening of the Aristotelian line in the understanding of the symbol by Gregory of Nyssa in a certain sense is a sign of opposition to Plotinus as a contrast between “reality” and “myth”; in this context, Callahan’s statement that the innovation of Cappadocian cosmology is that they interpret the creation of the world not as a myth, but as a reality, is also understandable. Taho-Godi notes “...the amazing phenomenon that, without ever mentioning a symbol, the founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus, uses myths precisely in their symbolic guise... for Plotinus, the word symbol is still too superficial and elementary compared to myth. Therefore, in the vast legacy of Plotinus, the symbol ... is not fixed terminologically” 244. The artlessness of the symbol, its completely natural, ubiquitous character, and at the same time its splendor and significance, were understood by the Stoics; in the symbol they see the integrity lost by the separateness of life, therefore it is philosophers who perceive life in symbols, judging the inner essence of objects 245. Echoes of this teaching are discernible in the discussions of Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa about the “seed logoi of the creature” and in the Neoplatonic perception of life as a focus of symbols. The encyclopedia of symbols of Greek culture was compiled by Plotinus’s student Porphyry in his commentary on the “Cave of the Nymphs”; the doctrine of symbols was developed by Iamblichus and firmly in the Neoplatonic tradition, where it was completed and systematized by Proclus. Gregory of Nyssa addresses Porphyry in the Nativity Homily; in the Christian tradition, the ideas of Iamlichus and Proclus 246 will also appear and receive their refraction, this will happen in the works of Dionysius the Areopagite. About the place and significance of the Areopagite in the formation of Christian symbolism, S. L. Epifanovich writes: “...The Areopagite touched and managed to introduce into the system of his mysticism the most vital side of interests in Byzantium - the church cult, which at that time was the sphere of lively creativity and general attention and increasingly attracted the hearts and minds of everyone, overshadowing even theological and philosophical interests. The Areopagite is the ancestor of liturgical symbolism. Here is the root of his popularity in the East" 247. The Cappadocian line in the theology of the Areopagite can be traced in the order of the relationship between cataphatic and apophatic theology in theology, going back to the “darkness of divine silence.” In this regard, it is appropriate to directly refer to Gregory of Nyssa, who pointed to divine darkness as a special mode of communication with God. Separately, the dialectical constructions of epistemology were considered above as the principle of symbolic realism of Gregory of Nyssa and as manifestations of this principle in the specific meanings of the text and its stylistic devices. The principle of hierarchism, developed in detail and subtly in the mystical theology of the Areopagitik, is laid down in the reasoning of the Cappadocians about the hierarchical, rather than temporal order of the creation of the world and world existence. According to the Areopagite, “Everything participates in God by being, life, movement” 248 - in this formula we recognize the categorical apparatus of Gregory of Nyssa. Echoes of the Cappadocian teaching about the “seed logoi of the creature”, which have Stoic origins, are manifested in the teaching of the Areopagite about different types of communion of the creature with the Divine and the manifestation of His desires and energies in the world. The doctrine of energies is preceded by the doctrine of Gregory of Nyssa about the energetic nature of matter; about the simultaneous emergence of soul and body (there we were talking about potentialities-energies-eidos); about apokatastasis (in the interpretation of evil as a lack of knowledge). As the “founder of liturgical symbolism,” the Areopagite is the heir of Basil the Great, with whose name the liturgy is associated, Gregory the Theologian, who determined the early stage of the formation of the rite of the Byzantine Church, Gregory of Nyssa as a seer and philosopher. All of the above is intended to shift attention in the history of the formation of liturgical symbolism from the result to the cause; from the Areopagite - to the Cappadocians. The indication of the continuity of Dionysius the Areopagite in relation to the Cappadocians is due to the fact that this issue is not controversial, so, in particular, in a work devoted to the history of liturgical symbolism, V. M. Zhivov contrasts the Areopagite with the Cappadocians due to his attraction to the Neoplatonists. The influence of Dionysius the Areopagite on the theology of Maximus the Confessor is undeniable, who “gave the first experience of the system of Byzantine theology, within the framework as it subsequently existed and as it was expressed in the “Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” by St. John of Damascus" 249. Epifanovich names Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Theologian, Athanasius of Alexandria and the Areopagite as predecessors of Maximus the Confessor. The definition of symbolic realism is given by Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, just like Zhivov, emphasizing the continuity of Maximus the Confessor in relation to Gregory of Nyssa: “Without going into details of the theology of St. Maximus, it is safe to say that for him the symbol (as well as the other more or less equivalent terms typos and eikon) is inseparable and, for practical reasons, subordinated to the central idea of ​​the sacrament, mysterion, which, at least in relation to the liturgy, is addressed to the sacrament of Christ and His saving ministry. This is the sacrament of the Incarnation and redemption of man and the world in Christ. Consequently, mysterion means the very essence of faith, the knowledge of the divine mystery revealed in Christ, and the saving power communicated through the Church and in the Church. In such a theology, the symbol is the mode of presence and action of the mysterion, and mainly, although not exclusively, his presence and action in the liturgy - the special seat of the symbol. Thus, the symbol - and this is very important - is the very reality that it symbolizes" 250. The figure of St. Maximus the Confessor is important from the point of view of the genealogy of Christian symbolism. A line of succession is being built leading from the “great Cappadocians” to Dionysius the Areopagite, then to Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus. The author of “Mystagogy” became the successor of the Cappadocians in terms of mysterious exegesis; in his occult science, he was the founder of liturgical symbolism. As a direct forerunner of John of Damascus, Maximus the Confessor enters the history of the theology of the image. It was the works of John of Damascus that preceded the approval of the dogma of icon veneration 251 by the Seventh Ecumenical Council; Canon 252 received its definition in the Acts of the Fifth-Sixth (Trullo) Council in 681 in 73, 82, 100 rules of the Council. The historical line of the formative influence of patristic theology on liturgical art allows us to outline a number of main milestones: IV century - the formation of symbolic realism in Cappadocian theology; transition from allegorical exegesis to secret visual interpretations; the formation of the rite of worship and the early stage of the formation of the rite of the Byzantine Church; the formation of a picture of the world of the early Middle Ages in the works of the Cappadocians; 6th century - the formation of liturgical symbolism in the works of Dionysius the Areopagite; 7th century - approval of the canon of icon veneration 253 by the Fifth-Sixth (Trullo) Council; the creation by Maximus the Confessor of “Mystagogy” as an experience of liturgical interpretation; his theological definition of a liturgical symbol based on the idea of ​​the Redemptive Sacrifice of Christ and the deification of man; VIII century - the formation of the theology of the image in the works of John of Damascus and other icon-worshipers in the context of the struggle against the iconoclastic heresy; approval of the dogma of icon veneration by the Seventh Ecumenical Council; The 9th century ends this large-scale period with the establishment of the Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy (843), which summed up the development of the theology of the image of the iconoclastic era. Our focus will be on two aspects: the influence of Cappadocian theology on the theology of the image and the formation of the canon system in Christian art. The theology of the image was directly influenced by two works of Gregory of Nyssa: “Homily 19 spoken in Constantinople about the Divinity of the Son, about the Holy Spirit and about Abraham” and the treatise “On the Constitution of Man.” Both works are quoted and commented by Rev. John of Damascus in “Three words of defense against those who condemn holy icons or images.” The corpus of Acts of the VII Ecumenical Council includes excerpts from the “Word”, which are commented by the fathers of the Council. “The Lay” attracted art historians such as D. V. Ainalov, K. Mango, Yu. G. Malkov, in it they see one of the early Byzantine ekphrasis; the depiction of the scene of the sacrifice of Abraham by Gregory of Nyssa seems naturalistic to Ainalov and Malkov. The description, removed from the context of the homily, is interpreted completely differently than by representatives of the patristic tradition, and this difference is fundamental. The theme of man is deep in the anthropology of the Cappadocians: it comes into contact with apophatic theology, the problem of the apophatic image in the iconographic canon is rather indicated than developed. The publication of Yu. G. Malkov “Some aspects of the development of Eastern Christian art in the context of medieval epistemology” 254 is dedicated to it. This work is remarkable for the concept introduced into scientific use, but it is not free from errors. One of them directly relates to our topic. The author believes that the description of the icon “Sacrifice of Abraham” was written by Gregory of Nyssa in a cataphatic spirit 255. But this judgment is only partly true. Yu. G. Malkov mentions Saint Gregory of Nyssa several times: “Thus, the cataphatic principle in art affirmed and continued the tradition of the ancient understanding of the image as a “picturesque likeness,” a “living image,” distinguished by “clarity of story,” and appealing to the sensory perception of reality, as an image that “comforts the eye” and “replenishes the word.” All these definitions are constantly repeated by Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa - theologians, in whose statements about art and its purposes the heritage of ancient kalokagathia most clearly emerges, although rethought from a Christian perspective...” 256 Or: “It is enough to recall the purely cataphatic criteria of beauty already cited above, found in Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa; here we can add the latter’s well-known descriptions of the painting in the church in the Euchaites, depicting the torment of Theodore Tiron, and the icon depicting the “Sacrifice of Abraham” - descriptions entirely in the cataphatic spirit” 257. As for the “Sacrifice of Abraham,” this is a classic example of a completely incorrect interpretation of the image created verbally by St. Gregory. In the “Sermon spoken in Constantinople about the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit and about Abraham,” Gregory of Nyssa reveals himself as a brilliant rhetorician. His entire narrative unfolds according to the law of a parable, elevating the mind from sensory images to ineffable spiritual meaning. He takes the Old Testament prototype - the story of the righteous Abraham, in order to gradually ascend, together with the listener of this “Word...” to the revelation of the Holy Spirit. His ekphrasis is not static, his image is an example of a liturgical symbol, endowed with the dynamics of ascension from the image to the Prototype. The ascent from the Old Testament “transfiguration” to the New Testament Revelation is even included in the name of the homily. Concluding his speech, Gregory of Nyssa says: “So the eyes of the soul, as if with some kind of pus, were covered with idolatrous charm, and could not personally see the pious truth about Existence... Who will mourn, as much as it should, the blindness of these pitiful ones, who, just as in our time the light of truth illuminates the whole universe with pious faith, alone do not notice this radiance” 258. In the “Sermon spoken in Constantinople about the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit and about Abraham,” Gregory of Nyssa, starting from cathophatic imagery, moves on to apophathesis, telling about the Holy Spirit. The text is an example of the symbolic realism of the Saint of Nyssa with a dialectically developing image or liturgical symbol. It is on this text that the fathers of the VII Ecumenical Council rely. “Theodore, the most holy bishop of Catania, said: “If Saint Gregory, tirelessly thinking about the divine, wept when he saw the picturesque image of Abraham; then how much more can a pictorial depiction of the economy of the incarnation of our Lord Christ, who became man for our sake, be of benefit and [cause] streams of tears from the audience?” His Holiness Patriarch (Tarasius) said: “If we saw an icon representing the Lord crucified, wouldn’t we cry? The Holy Cathedral said: “This is a magnificent sight; because in it the height of our humiliation for the sake of God made man is known” 259. In “Word 19,” the holy father ascends from the mimetic image to its mystical meaning, and this is where the property of the symbol manifests itself in the system of “symbolic realism.” The hierarchical relationship between reality and mysticism constitutes the essence of “symbolic realism” in theology and art. For the taste of the modern reader, these phenomena are separated by a fair distance and are polar. Gregory of Nyssa says about the relationship of opposites: “Then the entire content of our word will, perhaps, show the coherence and orderliness of what seems opposite, but is actually directed towards the same goal, because divine power thus finds hope for the hopeless and an outcome for the impossible” 260. In the treatise of St. Gregory of Nyssa “On the Structure of Man,” a number of themes or, more precisely, images are outlined that are further developed in the theology of icon veneration by St. John of Damascus, Theodore the Studite, the Fathers of the Fifth-Sixth (Trullo) and the Seventh Ecumenical Councils. In the treatise they are associated with Saint Nyssa’s categorical definition of human nature and, as such, will be imprinted in the figurative and stylistic system of Christian art. One of these themes, or rather images, is the image of royalty. Gregory of Nyssa speaks of the royalty of man as an integral property of his nature. By royalty, a person is likened to the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords: royalty is one of the manifestations of man’s godlikeness. The “image of God” has royalty in relation to the created world. Thus, royalty as an integral property of human nature determines his place in the hierarchy of the universe, both in relation to God and in relation to the created world. The theme of royalty is revealed by Saint Gregory in the text of the treatise mainly in the initial chapters, from the second to the fifth: “The sun is arranged - and no council precedes it. Likewise, the sky, to which there is nothing equal from creation, and such a miracle is created by one utterance, and the Word does not explain, from anything, nor like anything else like it. Likewise, everything else: the ether, the air in the middle, the sea, the earth, animals, plants - everything is brought into being by the word. But only the Creator of all things proceeds with caution to the creation of man, in order to prepare the substance for his composition, and to liken his form in beauty to the well-known prototype, and to propose the purpose for which he will be created, and to create a nature corresponding to him and suitable in its energies, as required for the intended purpose... The Master created our nature as a vessel for royal activity (energy), having arranged that both in mental advantages and even in bodily appearance it would be as required for reign. For the soul reveals itself to be royal, completely far from stupid humiliation, because, having no ruler over itself, and being autocratic, it autocratically disposes of its desires. And who can have this, except the king? And besides, to become the image of the nature of the Ruler of all is nothing more than the fact that at the moment of creation the nature of the image was made royal” 261. In the quoted fragment of the text we encounter not only the category of “royalty,” but also the category of “form,” which is most important for the tradition of icon veneration. Commenting on the treatise, V. M. Lurie shows that Saint Gregory translates the New Testament teaching about man as a vessel of grace into the language of philosophy; he resorts to Aristotle, borrowing from him the identification of “form” and “essence.” Aristotle speaks of material, formal, “active” and eidetic reasons for the emergence of a thing. The Aristotelianism of Gregory of Nyssa will be accepted by icon-worshippers, and it is precisely this that will precede the definition of the dogma of Icon-veneration in essence, that is, in content. Let us turn to another aspect of the quoted fragment. Gregory of Nyssa points to royalty as the godlikeness of man and the dominant property of his nature. But, first of all, royalty in this text is also designated as a property of the divine nature. Here I would like to point out that this same theme is present in the Acts of the VII Ecumenical Council, and, what is noteworthy, in the text of the Acts it is interconnected with the theme of the overthrow of Arianism, that is, it has a Christological meaning, which reveals the continuity of the VII Ecumenical Council, which approved the dogma of Icon Veneration, in relation to the Fifth-Sixth (Trullo) Council, which approved the canon Icon veneration. This consistent relationship of patristic texts reveals the continuity of icon worshipers in relation to the “great Cappadocians,” whose theological feat was the definition of Christological dogma and polemics with the heresies of Arius and Eunomius. This point is important, since in the history of the Church the victory over the iconoclastic heresy is identified with the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the struggle for the veneration of the icon is identical to the struggle for the true confession of the Incarnation. The icon shows the image of the Lord made man. The dogma of Icon veneration is based on the Christological dogma: this is the reason for the appeal of icon venerators to the Cappadocians, who gave the definition of the Christological dogma, and also defended the purity of religion in the fight against heretics (including the Arians). Let us cite the text from the fourth act of the VII Ecumenical Council, which contains a reading of the testimony of the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church about sacred icons and the reasoning of the Fathers of the Council on this matter. Reading regarding the 82nd rule of the Trullo Council: “Saint Athanasius from the fourth third word on the Arians, which begins with the words: “Arians who, having once decided to be apostates...”, and which a little further says: “but this closer another can see in the likeness of the royal image; because in the image there is the appearance and image of the king, and in the king there is the appearance of what is represented in the image; the likeness of the king presented in the image is not different from him; so that whoever looks at the image sees the king in it, and conversely, whoever looks at the king recognizes that he is represented in the image. And because of this indifference of likeness, which wants to see the king after the image, the image can say: “I and the king are one and the same; I am in him and he is in me. What you see in me, you will see in him; and what you saw in him, you will see in me.” Therefore, whoever worships an image worships the king in it, because the image is an image and a form” 262. It is noteworthy that the discussion about the portrait of the king illustrates Canon 82 of the Fifth-Sixth (Trullo) Council, which gave the canonical definition of the liturgical symbol and approved the transition from the allegorical image of the sacrificial lamb to the direct portrait image of the Savior. In this context, royalty is correlated with the divine nature of Christ as precisely His divine, and not human, nature, “form” and “image.” The second aspect of the quoted fragment is the following: it lines up discussions about the relationship between the image and the prototype, about the relative nature of the worship of the image. This topic will be included in the formulation of the dogma of Icon Veneration. In the quoted text, the emphasis on the relative nature of image worship is strengthened, since after the statement of Athanasius of Alexandria, the Word of Basil the Great is quoted against the Sabellians and against Arius: “Judaism is at enmity with Pharisaism, and both are at enmity with Christianity.” And a little further: “but the teaching of truth avoided contradictions on both sides. For where there is one beginning and one thing from the beginning, there is one prototype and one image: there the concept of unity is not violated. Therefore, the Son, being born of the Father, and naturally imprinting the Father in Himself as an image, is indifferent to the Father; and how birth preserves in itself those who are one in essence with Him. Whoever looks at the royal image in the marketplace and says that what is depicted in the picture is a king, recognizes not two kings, that is, the image and the one whose image; and if, pointing to what is written on the picture, he says: “this is the king,” this will not deprive the prototype of the royal title, or rather, by recognizing the image, he confirms the honor given to the king” 263. In this fragment, without mediation, the reasoning about the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father is compared with the thought of the relationship between the prototype and the image drawn by a skilled painter. This idea of ​​a hierarchy of images is formalized by Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, and is developed by John of Damascus in the “Third Defense against Those Who Blame Holy Icons or Images.” We will turn to these constructions of John of Damascus a little later, but now we will cite another statement of Basil the Great. In the text of the Acts of the Council, it is included after the words of Athanasius of Alexandria and before the already cited fragment from the “Tales against the Sabellians and Arius.” Here it is: “Although the image of the emperor is called an emperor, it is not two emperors, because neither power is divided, nor glory is divided; For just as the ruler and dominion that governs us is one, so our praise is one, and not many. Therefore, the honor of the image passes to the prototype” 264. The last words in this statement are so significant that they were included almost unchanged in the Council’s Definition: “The honor given to an icon relates to its prototype, and he who worships the icon worships the hypostasis of the person depicted on it” 265. In Gregory of Nyssa we also find the image of an artist creating a portrait of a king in Chapter VI of the treatise “On the Constitution of Man”: “For, as is customary among people, those who paint images of sovereigns should reproduce the features of the appearance and designate the royal dignity by being clothed in purple, so that the image is usually called “king”” 266. The image of “royalty” as man’s Godlikeness in patristic theology comes into contact with the image of “Caesar on brass”: a seemingly new branch of the theme arises, a new image - a relief image on a coin, a seal that leaves a mark, an imprint. An icon image in the theology of icon veneration is often compared with an image on a stone, seal, or coin, leaving the same imprint or mark on a different substance: clay or wax. The Slavic tracing translation of the word “icon” - “image” retains etymological proximity to the word “to cut” 267. The comparison of an image with a seal, a coin, a minted image is ancient and persistent. It is found in Theodore the Studite, John of Damascus, Basil the Great, Patriarch Nikephoros, however, its origins are still pre-Christian. Thus, Aristophanes, discussing the kalokagathia of the true citizens of the polis, says: “...Former citizens are an old, beautifully minted coin, that real and full-fledged money that was in circulation for both the Greeks and the barbarians. Today’s citizens are bad, vile - counterfeit coin...” 268 This is probably why Origen, when defining an image, relies on tradition: “what people usually call...” He distinguishes between two types of images: “Sometimes something that is usually depicted or carved on some material, that is, on wood or on stone, is called an image. Sometimes the born is called an image in relation to the one who gave birth, namely: when the features of the one who gave birth are completely similar to the features of the born” 269, 270. Of course, in the New Testament tradition, the parables of the lost coin (Luke 15:8–10), the denarius of Caesar (Luke 20:22–25), and the talents (Luke 19:11–26) are the source of the further existence of this imagery 271. About her presence with Gregory of Nyssa, Archimandrite Cyprian writes: “St. Gregory loves the Gospel symbol “Caesar's features on copper”; this is the image of God in man (De opific. homin. cap. 16 col.184 D). The woman sweeping the room and looking for the lost drachma teaches the same thing; the lost but not destroyed image of the Tsar on a coin is being sought. The coin is covered in dirt and needs to be cleaned (“De virginit”). All this will later be perceived by liturgical theology: the canon of Andrew of Crete mentions the Gospel drachma; the funeral troparia proclaim: “I am the image of Your ineffable glory, even though the plagues are the night of sins” 272. This statement indicates the interaction of the “image of royalty” and the “image on the coin” as the image of God. Let's return to the theologians of icon veneration. Theodore the Studite in his “Epistle to Plato on the Veneration of Icons” writes: “Then let there be a ring on which the image of the king is inscribed, and let it be impressed on wax, on resin, on clay. The print, of course, will be the same on all substances; substances are different from each other; (print) and could not remain unchanged on various (substances), as having nothing to do with materials; but, separated from them by thought, it remains on the ring. In the same way, the likeness of Christ, no matter what substance it is inscribed on, has nothing in common with the substance on which it is represented, remaining in the Person of Christ to whom it belongs” 273. Here is a parallel that we find in Gregory of Nyssa in the “Tale against Arius and Savely”: “... He is omnipresent, and there is no place where God is not, although the prince of evil was in some place. For the rays of the sun are not desecrated by falling on dirt and uncleanness, but even destroy them, drying them up with their heat: so our God is called a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29)” 274. One of the semantic levels of this imagery is the relationship between the matter on which the image of God is imprinted and the Prototype in the aspect of their fundamental difference. Let us also pay attention to the fact that Gregory of Nyssa resorts here to the image of God, naming or, rather, comparing it with light. This word usage is usual for him, and is also used in the treatise “On the Constitution of Man,” which will be discussed a little later. Let's turn to John of Damascus. In the “Third Defensive Word...” he writes: “... in the Gospels the Lord Himself asked Him with tempting intentions whether it was worthy to give kinson to Caesar, and said: show me the denarius; and brought him a penalty. And He said: Whose image shall I take? They said: Caesar. And He said: Render what is Caesar's to Caesar's, and what is God's to God. Since the penyaz has the image of Caesar, then he is Caesar, and therefore repay Caesar; also, give the image of Christ to Christ, because it is Christ’s... Likewise, through icon painting we contemplate the image of His bodily form and His miracles and sufferings, and we are illuminated... and we honor and worship His bodily image. And contemplating His bodily form, we imagine, as far as possible, also the glory of His Divinity. For, since we consist of two parts, made up of soul and body, and our soul is not naked, but is covered by the body, as if with a veil, it is impossible for us, apart from the physical, to come to the spiritual” 275. In the quoted fragment, the emphasis, in comparison with the cited texts of Theodore the Studite and Gregory of Nyssa, is shifted, since it speaks of the impossibility of ascent to the spiritual, bypassing the physical. Already here the influence of the anthropological ideas of Gregory of Nyssa is discernible: a clearly dichotomous idea of ​​the human structure and the idea of ​​perichoresis of the spiritual and physical. In the treatise “On the Structure of Man,” in its chapters XXVII–XXX, Gregory of Nyssa also writes about the relationship between the spiritual and the physical, resorting to the image of a seal, an imprint on a substance. He interprets this topic ontologically as the restoration in sinful man of the original divine plan for him, “God-like” in human nature, through man’s rational aspiration to the Prototype, likeness to God. Human nature is characterized by both flow and transformation, and something stable. With changes in the body (increase and decrease), “there is... an appearance that is not transformed in any way by itself, that does not lose the marks placed on it by nature once and for all, but with all changes in the body, it is expressed in its own characteristics. The only thing that can be excluded from this rule is a change from passions that changes the appearance (eidos). Then, as if with an alien mask, the painful ugliness hides the appearance (eidos), and after it is removed by logos (mind)... the appearance (eidos) hidden by passion in health again shows its own signs. Therefore, what is inherent in the God-like soul is not that which is in our composition current in change and transitory, but that which is permanent and self-identical in it. And since eidetic differences transform the qualitative differences of dissolution (dissolution is nothing more than a mixture of elements, and elements are what we call the structure on which the structure of the universe is based and what the human body is made of), then eidos necessarily becomes for the soul, as it were, a seal impression, so that what is imprinted by the seal can no longer remain unrecognized by the imprint, but during the rearrangement of the elements it will again gather into itself in order to come into agreement with the imprint eidos; what will certainly come into agreement is that on which the eidos was originally imprinted” 276 . The above is intended to show that the holy icon-worshippers of the VII Ecumenical Council rely on the authority of the holy fathers or the “era of Christological theology”, and also that the image of royalty 277 is not a private illustration in the theological constructions of the Cappadocian Fathers and icon-worshipers 278; the basic ideas of dogmatic theology are correlated with it. The treatise “On the Dispensation of Man” and the “Tale of the Holy Spirit and Abraham, Spoken in Constantinople” are repeatedly addressed by the Monk John of Damascus, 279 whose works precede the theology of the image of the holy fathers of the VII Ecumenical Council, which approved the dogma of Icon Veneration. Both John of Damascus and the fathers of the VII Ecumenical Council 280 quote and comment on the works of Gregory of Nyssa. So John of Damascus turns to two texts of Gregory of Nyssa, namely, the treatise “On the Constitution of Man” and Homily 19, spoken in Constantinople. Of no less interest is the fact that the concept of “icon”, “image” by John of Damascus is revealed through the concepts of “portrait” and “imprint” (“imprint”) - τύπος; Gregory of Nyssa uses this concept in his anthropological terminology, borrowing it from the tradition of Jewish exegesis. The development of the theology of the image determined the path of Christian art, which was originally the Tradition of the Church. A general overview of the ideas of Cappadocian theology allows us to outline the contours of the influence of their ideas on this process. The theological definition of the Christological and Trinitarian dogmas and the hypostasis of man determined a number of fundamental grounds for the formation of the iconographic canon. These include: – the transition from signs to personal images or the formation of iconicity of medieval art; its fundamental property is the relationship between word and image, designated in the treatise “On the Structure of Man” as the imprinting of the Logos in the hypostasis of man and Gregory of Nyssa’s designation of the verbal nature of man as God-likeness; – the formation of the personal iconography of Jesus Christ precisely in the 4th century during the period of the activity of the Cappadocians; – the complex of iconographic types of the Savior is borrowed in its entirety from the emperor’s iconography that had previously developed in the everyday life of the Roman Empire; The logic of this transplantation is the image of the King of the Reigns in similarity and superiority in relation to the main types of image of the king, in which one can see a pairwise comparison characteristic of the typology. But, mainly, the meaning of this transfer is based on the theological development of the category of royalty by Gregory of Nyssa, Basil the Great, and Gregory the Theologian. This pattern is the subject of a separate study by A. Grabar “The Emperor in Byzantine Art” 281, in which, however, the historical part is considered, but the theological part is absent; – the worship of the icon already has, initially, before the clear definition of the VII Council, a relative character (the honor given to the icon does not relate to the substance of the icon, but to the hypostasis of what is depicted on it) in accordance with the way in the life of the Roman Empire, the portrait of the emperor was the “deputy” of his person at official ceremonies; this topic was also developed by Gregory of Nyssa in his treatise “On the Structure of Man”; – at the same time, the personal iconography of the saints begins to take shape and from the 4th century the image of a halo as a “diadym of righteousness” appears in it, which demonstrated Gregory of Nyssa’s overcoming of dualistic teachings in the anthropology of late Antiquity and the dichotomy of pre-Cappadocia anthropology; this overcoming also influenced the classicizing tendencies in the style of early Byzantine art, which were fully manifested in the “classicism of Theodosius”, and in subsequent centuries - “sporadic outbreaks of antiquity” in Byzantine art, which V. N. Lazarev speaks of. This appeal to ancient kalokagathia did not have a “pagan” semantic load, which is why subsequently the art of the Palaeologian Renaissance will be marked simultaneously by the influence of hesychast theology and an attraction to ancient classics; – the image of an “imprint”, a “seal on a substance”, which appears in the treatise “On the Constitution of Man”, is ultimately identified with the “seals of the Holy Spirit”, and therefore acquires greater significance than one might expect. In the style of liturgical art, the composition is built in the likeness of a heraldic composition; it is symmetrical, static, and has a clear closed silhouette (which symbolizes the idea of ​​simplicity, integrity, unity, the “immutability and immobility” of God, the ultimate incontemplation of God and the “image of God,” man). In sculpture there is a “densification of volume”, a gravitation towards relief with incised lines. In icons and frescoes, the design is outlined with an incised line - a graph. It is noteworthy: early monuments of iconography are Eucharistic stamps, seals, images on coins, relief images on wood and ivory, on ceramic vessels. The influence of the theology of the image on the iconographic canon cannot be considered as a direct mechanical influence, which is due to the specifics of the fine arts itself. 2.3. Canon of icon veneration and iconographic canon The concept of “canon” in relation to the canon of icon veneration and the iconographic canon, as well as to the canon as the artistic style of the era, has different shades of meaning. “Canon” is an ecclesiastical legal term denoting a rule of faith, a mandatory norm of church discipline, one of the resolutions of the Ecumenical Councils. It is included in church terminology in the sense first defined in the letter of the Apostle Paul. 73, 82, 100 rules of the Fifth-Sixth (Trullo) Ecumenical Council in 681 laid the foundation for “what we call the iconographic canon, that is, a well-known criterion for the liturgical nature of an image, just as in the field of verbal canon the liturgical nature of a particular text is determined. The iconographic canon is a well-known principle that allows one to judge whether a given image is an icon or not. He establishes the correspondence of the icon with the Holy Scriptures and determines what this correspondence consists of, that is, the authenticity of the transmission of divine Revelation in historical reality in a way that we call symbolic realism" 282. According to Losev, in aesthetics and art history, “canon” is understood as the principle of formation of the artistic style of an era as a system of symbolic forms 283 reflecting the worldview of the era. (The definition of “canon” is general in nature, as it was formulated by comparing the canonical systems in the art of Ancient Egypt, Antiquity and the Middle Ages.) This principle has been preserved intact for centuries as a legal norm, usually being recorded in writing. Losev returns to the original meaning of the Greek word: “canon” is a straight stick that serves as a measure of length. In Losev’s interpretation, “canon” is a system of proportionation in the fine arts, reflecting the picture of the world of its time and correlated with the ontological ideas of the era. Losev points to aesthetic categories that equally describe the system of proportions in art and the order of ontological representations, calling them “structural terms” 284. Aesthetics in its epistemological aspect reveals the order of correspondence or transition of the ontological ideas of the historical era under consideration into the principles of the formation of an artistic style as a system of proportions. A comparison of the definitions of the canon proposed by Losev and Uspensky allows us to somewhat clarify and expand the understanding of the iconographic canon. The iconographic canon is the principle of an icon’s correspondence to the Holy Scriptures, which is implemented in symbolic realism as a method of expression or style, understood as a system of proportions. The formation of style as a way of transmitting divine Revelation in historical reality is influenced by the historical development of patristic thought in the sphere of ontology. Losev's research allows us to localize attention to the philosophy of the Cappadocians, since it is there that the range of concepts describing the majestic cosmos of Christianity is indicated. Anticipating confusion about how the image of man in Byzantine art is correlated with the image of the universe, let us resort to Basil the Great. He writes: “The soul is like heaven, because the Lord dwells in it; flesh is made of earth, and mortal people and dumb animals live in it... There is no need to look for traces of the Creator in the structure of the universe, but in yourself, as in a small world, you will see the great Wisdom of your Creator” 285. An appeal to the theology of icons and aesthetics does not exclude an appeal to related disciplines, the subject of which is also the problem of the iconographic canon. An independent branch of science is devoted to Byzantine art, the founder of which is the outstanding Russian scientist N.P. Kondakov 286 . The works of Kondakov and his successors are based on the iconographic method of studying monuments of medieval art. It is necessary to immediately contrast it with the iconographic method adopted in Western European art criticism 288 . In Western science, it is a classification method, on the basis of which archaeological monuments and art monuments are grouped and systematized in accordance with the plots that formed their basis - therefore it is schematic 289. Kondakov sees the tasks of the iconographic method differently. He writes: “Scientific formulation of the historical course of iconography. requires in each period to find out both the level of development of the artistic form and the content obtained in it through the development of iconic types” 290. Identifying form and content, revealing how stylistics in its small features gives symptoms of changes in content, Kondakov follows the thought of Gregory of Nyssa, who adopted the Aristotelian idea of ​​bringing essence and form closer together 291 . In his study of the iconographic types that form the basis of the iconographic canon, Kondakov reveals the principle of the formation of images in accordance with the Holy Scriptures and their historical imprinting in the diversity of ethnic traditions 292. In “The Iconography of the Mother of God,” Kondakov gives the following definition of the iconographic type: “The icon lives in tradition and is maintained by its care, both in types and in the compositions themselves and their construction. The iconography of the Mother of God is, or, more precisely, should be the history of her various historical, local and folk types, already because a type in art is a certain character and both one and the other constitute the content of a human portrait, and a portrait in the most ancient times of Christian art was called an icon and is actually an “icon” 293. The definition of the icon as a portrait by the founder of the science of Byzantine art indicates the importance of turning to the teaching of Gregory of Nyssa about man. Kondakov, in turn, was based on the definition of an icon formulated by St. John of Damascus, whose theology of the image preceded the establishment of the dogma of icon veneration by the Seventh Ecumenical Council. Kondakov’s statement is important for understanding the essence of symbolic realism in art. Returning to Canon 82 of the Fifth-Sixth Ecumenical Council, it should be said that it established the personal image of the Savior as a liturgical image, contrasting it with symbolic images of the sacrificial lamb as Old Testament signs and transfigurations of the sacrifice of the cross: “In some images there is a lamb shown by the finger of the Forerunner, which is accepted as the image of grace, through the law showing us the true Lamb, Christ our God. Honoring ancient images and canopies, as signs and destinies of truth, devoted to the Church, we prefer grace and truth, accepting it as the fulfillment of the law. For this reason, so that perfection may be presented in images to the eyes of all, we command from now on on icons, instead of the old lamb, to represent in human form the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world, Christ our God, in order through humiliation to see the height of the God of the word and be led to the remembrance of His life in the flesh, His suffering and saving death" 294 . The liturgical image in the iconographic canon is, first of all, a portrait. However, this is an imprint of the Truth, God the Word, in all the unknowability of His essence. Kondakov speaks with great insistence about the “religious feeling” that imparts life to images, and it is with this feeling that he explains the preservation of the tradition of Christian art. This moment was recognized by him with amazing subtlety and called “the essence of the matter” in the Orthodox tradition: “We must give thanks to Orthodoxy, which, not being a doctrine, like Protestantism, or a faith and service of the clergy, like Catholicism, but being the religion of the people and their general service, has always been full of peace and goodwill towards all aspects of the religious life of peoples, from its highest phenomena to the hidden, perhaps simple and base, but cherished and primordial aspects of faith and so-called superstition, remembering that the latter, rooted in the depths of the national spirit, is necessary to nourish religious feelings" 295. This seemingly natural movement of thought is not so publicly accessible and requires explanation. Kondakov, defining the subject and the corresponding research method, speaks of a “scientific formulation of the historical course of iconography,” but it is precisely this scientific construction that is based on sensitive attention to what he calls “religious feeling.” This inspired and “subtle” feeling of love, alas, has been forgotten in modern works on iconography. Let us give a typical example: “The icon does not show the face of an earthly person, but the face of a celestial being. Iconography does not ignore the individual characteristics and external distinctive features of the saint (gender, age, hairstyle, beard shape, headdress, etc.), but the saint appears transformed, detached from earthly passions, he already belongs to another world and looks at us from there, therefore the depiction of spiritual emotions and affects is excluded in the icon. The face is the most important thing in the personality of a Saint. But “personal” includes not only the face, but also the hands. Hence, the gesture in the icon is of great importance: blessing or prayer, hands raised to the sky or pressed to the chest, the hand of a person listening to God raised to the ear, etc.” 296 The scheme indicated in this fragment of text is borrowed from iconographic originals indicating “gender, age, hairstyle, beard shape.” Originals appear late, when there is a danger of extinction of the living iconographic canon; they exist in the craft environment 297. Their spread was driven by the desire to preserve the dogmatic foundations of the tradition after the fall of Byzantium in 1453 and in the face of Western influence. Since the 15th century, craft settlements of icon painters have also appeared, significantly different from the monastic centers. Accordingly, the nature of creativity changes. In the 16th century, the role of the model increased, “leading the style of individual icons and paintings... to direct copying of more ancient works, to a certain dryness and rigidity of the artistic language” 298. It turns out that modern authors choose the moment of ossification of the canon as the starting point in recreating the history of an icon. Kondakov warned against such a wrong train of thought. He writes: “Such a limitation of Christian iconography... also sins against the fundamental understanding of the essence of the icon, equating it in part to an “idol”, completely eliminating it or limiting to the extreme the artistic element, therefore, justifying the doctrine of Protestantism, which is hostile to the icon. Meanwhile, it is precisely this side of the doctrine that reveals its most deadness, lifeless schematism, which, because of the literal understanding of dogma, forgets the religious life of the people... The real-historical basis of an icon-portrait or likeness of a revered saint allows for all possible degrees of life representation, as long as the image expresses or evokes a religious feeling. ...The icon... in addition to the character and type depicted in it, gradually acquires, along with the progress of Christian art... a special line drawn on it by the very attitude of the prayer minister towards it, by which it becomes a “prayer” icon... as if it absorbs the personal feeling of the person praying and responds in works of art to his various moods, becoming an “image of piety” and Christian love” 299. The Bishop of Nyssa spoke about love as an integral and dominant part of the image: “God is also love and the source of love. For as the great John says: “Love is from God... and God is love” (1 John 4:7–8); The Creator of Nature did the same with our face. Consequently, without it, all the features of the image change” 300. Basil the Great echoes him: “...together with the structure of a living being, I mean man, there is a certain innate desire implanted in us (more precisely: a seminal logos), which in itself encourages us to communicate with the love of God... Having received the commandment to love God, we also acquired the power to love, which was invested in us during our initial structure. The proof of this does not lie outside, but everyone can find out for themselves and in themselves. For by nature we have a desire for the beautiful... What is more wonderful than God’s beauty? ...people by nature desire beauty; in its own sense, it is beautiful and most mercifully good; and good is God. Everything strives for good; therefore, everything strives towards God” 301. In our opinion, Kondakov grasped and placed at the center of his science of image an idea that originated long ago, among the “great Cappadocians”: “An image is not a substantial quality, something inherent and already ready in the mental make-up of a person. This is precisely the task, the need to reveal one’s creative beginning within oneself,” 302 – this is how Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern) retold Basil the Great in “The Anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas." He concludes: “This is the basis for the construction of a truly Christian aesthetics” 303. The theology of Gregory of Nyssa and, in general, the “great Cappadocians” reveals the peculiarity of symbolic realism in Christian art, revealing not only the duality of the nature of man, created, but created in the image and likeness of God, but also points to the infinity of the ascent of the image to the Prototype. “Our life is twofold: one is characteristic of the flesh, fleeting, and the other is akin to the soul, allowing no limit,” says Basil the Great 304. The image in symbolic realism is also twofold: it states reality in the portrait image of a person, but is a dynamic symbol that draws the image to the Prototype, as a liturgical symbol it serves the transformation of a person. The problem of the liturgical symbol in symbolic realism is one of the current topics in publications in recent years. The closest to our topic are the monographs by S. G. Savina 305, O. E. Etingof 306, and the collection of articles “Eastern Christian Church. Liturgy and Art,” in which special mention should be made of the publication by T. Matthews, “The Transformative Symbolism of Byzantine Architecture and the Image of Pantocrator in the Dome” 307. The general concept of these works is built on the basis of a comparison of images of Christian art not so much with individual liturgical texts, but with the liturgical context as a whole. The mentioned Matthews publication has a good conclusion. Discussing the Eucharist, the author says: “This mystical transformation of the Christian into a higher and more perfect being in Christ is an action that is associated with the image of Christ in the dome. Christ in the dome is a whole, perfect being, which one who looks at Him becomes in communion” 308. The general contours of the problem of the influence of Cappadocian theology on the formation of the iconographic canon can be expanded by remembering that the formation of the liturgical symbol is influenced by the order of worship. The rite of the liturgy belongs to the pen of Basil the Great; the initial stage of the formation of the rite of the Byzantine Church is associated with the activities of Gregory the Theologian. The Cappadocians came close to an apophatic definition of the unknowability of human noumenon: “Who was I?.. Who am I now? And what will I be? - asks Gregory the Theologian, - Neither I know this, nor the one who is richer in wisdom than me... I exist. Tell me: what does this mean? Another part of myself has already passed, another I am now, and another I will be if I ever will. I am not something indispensable, but the current of a muddy river that constantly flows and does not stand still for a minute. Which of these would you call me? What do you think most constitutes my “I”? Explain this to me, but make sure that now this very “I” who is standing in front of you does not leave you. You will never again cross the same river course that you crossed before. You will never see a person the same as you saw him before. At first I was contained in my father's body; then my mother accepted me, but as something common to both; then I became some kind of dubious flesh, something unlike a person, shameful, without form, possessing neither words nor reason, and my mother’s womb served as my coffin. And so we live from the grave to decay” 309. The Nyssa saint speaks about the ultimate unknowability of man: “I learned the solution to my perplexities by resorting to the same voice of God: after all, “Let us make man,” he says, “in our image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26). After all, an image is only truly an image until it is deprived of anything known in the prototype. But in that which falls away from the similarity to the prototype, for that part it is no longer an image. Consequently, since in what is contemplated in the divine nature there is the inaccessibility of the essence, it is absolutely necessary that in its image there should be an imitation of the prototype. After all, if the nature of the image were comprehended, and the prototype were beyond comprehension, then such a contrast to what is contemplated in them would expose the error of the image, and this is in the image of the Creator, it means that it is an exact similarity to the superior one. with its own obscurity, revealing a distinctive feature of inaccessible nature" 310. Since the treatise “On the Constitution of Man” is an exegetical work of the Alexandrian tradition, it is appropriate to point out that it connects pre-Christian Hellenic and Jewish exegesis with the theology of the image of the Orthodox Church. As a feature of Eastern Christian symbolism, one should highlight its mystical aspect (as part of symbolic realism) in contrast to the allegorical method, dating back to Euhemerus, which became widespread in the West 311. 2.4. "Cave of the Nymphs" The main stages in the formation of symbolic realism in the art of Byzantium The symbolism of artistic images and the symbolic realism of theology come together in the tradition of Alexandrian exegesis - this node will be the focus of attention. This interaction, from a historical perspective, determines the principles of the formation of a figurative system in the art of the Church: Constantinople, Byzantium, and the Orthodox ecumene as a whole. If we choose a retrospective development of thought from effect to cause, then we should identify the nature of the interaction between Christian symbolism and classical kalokagathia, which in combination give the symbolic realism of the canon. The closest approach to this problem, in our opinion, was achieved by V.N. Zalesskaya in the study “Applied Art of Byzantium of the 4th–12th centuries” 312. The moment of transition from early Christian symbolism to the symbolic-allegorical images of early Byzantine art is designated by her as “Byzantine antique.” In the history of liturgical art, a staged sequence is built: “signative signs” of early Christian art – symbolic-allegorical images of “Byzantine antiquity” – symbolic realism” of canonical art. These stages in the development of the figurative and stylistic system of Christian art attract attention in terms of their relationship to Alexandrian theology and – already – to the theology of the “great Cappadocians”. The sequence of reasoning requires justifying the choice of Alexandria not only as a center of Christian philosophy, to the traditions of which the theology of the “great Cappadocians” gravitates, but also as an artistic center that influenced the art of Constantinople. In this case, it is appropriate to resort to authorities. N.P. Kondakov spoke about the significance of Alexandria as an artistic center, which had a decisive influence on the Constantinople school and the formation of Christian art in general: “...Greek-Eastern art was formed long before Byzantine, and its center was Alexandria and the art of Christian Egypt or Coptic, the forms of which were disseminated by the art industry of Syria. The Christian culture of Asia Minor was then based on this flowering of Greek-Eastern art, which has long supplied all the coasts of the Black Sea and the countries of the Caucasus and Southern Russia with its works” 313. D. T. Rice, starting the history of Byzantine art from the time of Justinian, nevertheless sees its prehistory in the art of Antioch and Alexandria: “Alexandria and Antioch watched with distrust the rise of Constantinople, since Emperor Constantine made it the capital. Both cities really played a very important role at that time and, probably, would have retained it further if this entire vast region... after the middle of the 7th century had not been conquered by the Arabs” 314. Characterizing Alexandria as an artistic center, he continues: “In the art of Alexandria itself, for a long time after the adoption of Christianity, ancient themes and, to some extent, the norms of classical beauty continued to exist... Outside Alexandria, classical beauty gives way to frank sensuality, making one recall Indian art...” 315 At the turn of the 6th century, the Hellenistic style was replaced by the so-called Coptic style. However, it is to the Alexandrian tradition that the researcher attributes the oldest surviving icons to our time - the icons of the monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai (VI century), made in the Hellenistic manner. The problem of classicizing tendencies in Byzantine art is usually associated with a number of interacting factors. The founding of Constantinople determined the division between the "Greek East" and the "Latin West". In Byzantine culture as a whole, there is an increasing orientation towards the Greek heritage. Returns to the classics were a sporadic phenomenon in the culture of Byzantium; they nourished Byzantine culture, coming to the surface at times, from the moment of its inception until the end of the existence of the Eastern Roman Empire 316. In the initial period, ancient imperial customs became the vehicle for Greek influence: Roman culture since the time of Augustus has been characterized by turning to the heritage of Greece for the purposes of political ambition. The authority of New Rome is affirmed in a similar way. This tendency in the early Byzantine period manifested itself most clearly during the reign of Theodosius (379–395), which allows researchers of Byzantine culture to talk about the “classicism of Theodosius” 317. This trend created fertile ground for influence on Constantinople from the ancient centers of Hellenic culture in the East: Athens, Antioch, Alexandria, Pergamum, Ephesus - which, of course, was facilitated by the geographical location of the new capital. There is an intensification of the Greek heritage adopted by these centers during the existence of the empire of Alexander the Great. This reorientation towards the Greek heritage can be seen in the fields of philosophy, science, education, literature and art. It is also associated with a programmatic orientation towards antiquity, characteristic of Roman culture: “It is especially important that the philosophy of late antiquity (3rd century AD) uses the most ancient symbols of early Greek culture. Such restoration of antiquity is an extremely remarkable phenomenon for the era of decline of the classical Greco-Roman world,” 318 states A. A. Taho-Godi. The Greek component in the culture in the territory that experienced the “first wave of Hellenization” was important as a consolidating principle in the multi-ethnic state that was the Eastern Roman Empire. It also creates a certain filter for the perception of foreign influences. “The processing of these eastern forms took place with a strict selection of what could be combined with the ancient tradition” 319, notes O. Demus. The relationship of Byzantine art to the Greek heritage is one of the main topics in research on the history of Byzantium 320. It was declared by the first generation of Byzantinists. G. Strizhigovsky writes: “Byzantine art... does not stand close to ancient art, but only perceives its traditions and leads them to further development, so that it even represents the last flowering of ancient art itself. It combines all local varieties and flourishes in those places where ancient Christian art exists. His character is historical and dogmatic, and the day of his birth is the founding of Constantinople” 321. The most consistent development of this idea allows us to highlight Constantinople as the center that preserved the continuous life of the Greek heritage for the Middle Ages. To designate this trend in early Byzantine art, L. Matsulevich introduced the concept of “Byzantine antique,” ​​separating Byzantine monuments from early Christian ones. V.N. Lazarev notes “sporadic outbreaks of antiquity”, characteristic of the further fate of Byzantine art. V.N. Zalesskaya, in her monograph dedicated to “Byzantine antiquity,” identifies three main types. The first group of monuments is associated with imperial emblems and reflects the idea of ​​​​the continuity of Constantinople in relation to Rome. The second type of “Byzantine antique” is scenes associated with the philosophical interpretation of ancient myths, their images in an allegorical form serve as an illustration of Christian ideas. The third type is determined by the nature of the perception of the work as a kind of amulet, endowed with the function of protection against harmful forces; works with both an orthodox and heretical orientation can be classified in this group. In short, in contrast to L. Matsulevich, who considers “antique” as a stylistic phenomenon, and K. Weizmann, who analyzes the plot structure of “Byzantine antique,” ​​V.N. Zalesskaya formulates the task as follows: “We consider not only the special construction of the plot and the special semantic subtext of the mythological image, but also the various forms of its manifestation as a tradition, as a symbol and as a heresy” 322. The purpose of the object, the plot and the style of its decoration form a unity - this research principle is very precise, since the interpretation of the image is based on the convergence of essence and form. From this node stretch connecting threads to the plastically determined thinking of the Greeks, on the one hand, and, on the other, to the “perichoresis of the sensual and noetic” 323 in the culture of Byzantium. In “Byzantine antique,” ​​regardless of the different purposes of objects and their stylistic features, there are properties that unite them. These works can be contrasted with early Christian art on the principle of transition from early Christian signs (such as, for example, a peacock, a pelican, a grapevine) to symbolic-allegorical imagery. In contrast to the anthropomorphic images of ancient art, in this “neoclassicism” the allegorical meaning of the image acquires significance, and the sacralization of form is emphasized. “Byzantine antique” is a category that defines the stage of formation of the figurative system of Christian art at the stage of transition from early Christian symbolism to the symbolic realism of the canon. This category is related to the style of early Byzantine art if we are talking about the formation of the canon as the “artistic style of the era,” that is, in its deep and generalized understanding. If by “style” we mean a manner characteristic of a particular ethnic tradition, school, workshop, then “Byzantine antique” is very heterogeneous. In her experience of systematization, Zalesskaya by no means seeks to level out the diversity of stylistic ramifications within the functional groups of “antique”: she highlights the tendency of deliberate archaization of the image, the presence of elements of oriental art, as well as manifestations of folklore traditions, especially in the third type of works. Early Christian art is as eclectic as all later Roman art, but the internal order of this eclecticism should be indicated, for this difference is essentially important. Eclecticism reveals itself in the interaction of Christian and pagan motifs in early Christian art. It is preserved in the figurative structure of monumental art until the 4th–5th centuries. D.V. Ainalov wrote about him: “Panthers and geniuses - along with the caryatid in the form of an oranta and gospel and biblical scenes. Cupids and psyches, farces - next to purely Christian forms of ornament - a lamb and a cartoon, a bird with a branch, phoenixes" 324. In the style of early Christian art, the visual techniques of antiquity are developed, acquiring a new meaning. For example, in the paintings of the catacombs, white backgrounds begin to predominate, which, on the one hand, is convenient when the underground halls are insufficiently illuminated, and on the other, corresponds to the metaphysical interpretation of the principle of light. N.P. Kondakov notes the borrowing for the same purpose by Christian art of the technique of shading with gold (fining) characteristic of ancient painting 325. If in ancient art this decorative technique enhances the poetic imagery of pictures of nature, then in Byzantine art it subsequently develops, developing into a system of assist 326, its purpose is to symbolize the uncreated light. It should be noted that the centripetal movement of style towards the formation of new symbolism involves both the formal stylistic components of the figurative language, and its images and plots. It is well known: the images of ancient art acquire a new, Christian meaning. So, for example, Psyche becomes a symbol of the soul seeking salvation, Cupid - of divine love. As has already been previously noted, the absence of a clear and final demarcation between pagan and patristic Neoplatonism in pre-Cappadocia philosophy made the boundaries of symbolic formation transparent. Let us compare Christian symbols with the constructions of Plotinus: “The world soul is none other than Aphrodite, whose role is manifested in the myth of Eros and Psyche” 327. Symbols are often symbolic in nature. Jesus Christ is depicted as a lamb, a vine, a pelican, a fish, an anchor, and a phoenix. This same group of signs can include images of a ship, a dove with an olive branch, etc. Here the sign, it would seem, is formed according to the laws of Neoplatonic aesthetics, because has a religious meaning, mysteriously and allegorically indicates one of the properties of the Prototype. In the symbolic-allegorical images of Orpheus, the Good Shepherd, the most obvious echo is with the archaic, which is also close to the aesthetics of Plotinus. The most typical example of the “archaization” of an artistic form in Christian art is the iconography of the “Good Shepherd”. To illustrate the parables of the New Testament, the schemes of Creophorus and Moschophorus, which arose in the archaic era, are directly used. Plotinus’s “de-aestheticization” of the image manifested itself in the fact that at the initial stage of the formation of the personal iconography of Jesus Christ, two trends were in conflict: the formation of an “ideal” type and, on the contrary, a “reduced” image, where the Lord is depicted as having taken on the “form of a slave.” A.F. Losev, in a study on the aesthetics of late Hellenism, directly speaks of the influence of Neoplatonism on the symbolism of Christian art 328. This same point of view is shared by very authoritative scientists, such as S. S. Averintsev 329, A. Grabar 330, V. N. Lazarev 331, J. Matthews 332, Ts. G. Nesselstrauss 333, E. Panofsky. For example, in his monograph “IDEA” he writes: “The aesthetic teaching of Neoplatonism... saw in any manifestation of beauty only an imperfect symbol of its next higher form, so that visible beauty is, as it were, a reflection of the invisible, which in turn is only a reflection of absolute beauty. Such an aesthetic teaching, strikingly consistent with the symbolic-spiritual character of the artistic creations of late antiquity - in contrast to the creations of the classical period - could be accepted without changes by early Christian philosophy" 334. The problem of sacred form in figurative language is, indeed, identified in the philosophy of Plotinus. Plotinus separates secular and religious art: the “images” of the intelligent world have nothing in common with the images and images of human art. In the earthly world, these transcendental images correspond to sacred ideograms - hieroglyphs - symbols 335 ... a symbol is no longer art. The devalued sensual form here turns into a simple sign that helps the direct contemplation of ideas, but no longer has anything in common with a work of art” 336. In the Roman Empire, Neoplatonism became predominant. It can be said that the concept of the determining influence of Neoplatonism on medieval symbolism is entrenched. Indeed, just as Neoplatonism was assimilated into the patristic tradition, so it also influenced the aesthetics of the Middle Ages. But, having been assimilated by patristic thought, it was also overcome by it, otherwise the line between paganism and Christianity would have been accepted as insignificant. Regarding Christian culture, this interpretation of the historical and cultural process is not controversial: Neoplatonism is assimilated by patristic philosophy, but there is also a fundamental opposition between them. Paradoxically, in works on the aesthetics of the Middle Ages, this distinction between paganism and Christianity is often not given attention at all, or the authors are forced to enter into polemics with generally accepted opinion. The difference between early Christian images and Neoplatonic religious symbols is of fundamental importance, as V.V. Veidle points out 337. As already noted, he calls the catacomb paintings not emblems, symbols or images, but images of a signative type, since they “tend to depict not so much a deity as the function of a deity” 338. Their similarity with Neoplatonic symbols is determined by the de-aestheticization of the image and the formation of a sign indicating a certain spiritual meaning, but the difference is more significant. The idea of ​​salvation constitutes the mysterious or charismatic meaning of early Christian images. The acquisition of salvation through the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist forms the basis of the religious experience of the early Christian era. In this way, the monuments of early Christian art are fundamentally different from the works of Roman art that are related to them in externally stylistic features. Veidle explains the “Neoplatonic”, iconic character of early Christian symbolism by the fact that Christian culture is just beginning to be created, a holistic and detailed picture of the Christian cosmos has not yet taken shape, therefore it is in vain to look for it in early Christian art - it will have to experience formation in theology and, accordingly, in the art of Byzantium. Each of the images, which V. Veidle calls signs of the “signative type”, externally similar to Neoplatonic symbols, also deserves more attention. One of these is fish. This New Testament image is not uncommon in early Christian art. It is well known that the mark of the fish corresponds to an anagram of the name of Christ, or more precisely, to a religious formula. There are both independent outlines of this sign and the image of “water friezes”, which D.V. Ainalov talks about 339 . These are images of putti fishing. Water friezes were also well known in the East, as evidenced by the letter of Nilus of Sinai to Olympiodor 340. Clement of Alexandria, in a hymn addressed to Christ, writes: “Fisher of mortals, (fisherman) saved by You! You catch clean fish in the waves of hostility from the sea of ​​wickedness for a blessed life" 341. Tertullian reveals the meaning of the anagram in the following words: “We are little fish, born in our water, and we will be saved only by staying in the water” 342. If Tertullian is a contemporary of Plotinus, then Clement of Alexandria is his predecessor. The interpretation of one of the main symbols of the early Christian tradition, which we find in Clement of Alexandria, once again allows us to doubt the legitimacy of the direct projection of Plotinus’ philosophy on the formation of symbolism in Christian art. In great detail, L. A. Uspensky examines the origin and function of another “sign” - the image of a lamb, pointing to the Eucharistic meaning of this image 343. The source for the formation of “signs” in both cases are biblical texts. Along with symbolic (iconic) and symbolic-allegorical images, illustrations to the Old and New Testaments were widespread among early Christian art. Researchers often speak with considerable simplicity about the naturalism of these images. Among these scenes, scenes that go back to the Old Testament stand out: the image of the prophets Elijah and Jonah, Daniel in the lion's den, the three youths in the fiery cave, the crossing of the Red Sea, Moses pouring out water from the rock. These are prototypes of New Testament events. They do not fall into the classification of early Christian images as Neoplatonic “signs”, but are associated with typology. The author of a study on the history of the exegetical tradition, T. Miller, writes: “...The bearer of eschatological sentiments were commentaries (midrashim) on the Pentateuch and the books of the prophets. A special interpretation technique was applied to the text of these books, which consisted in the fact that the Old Testament story was considered as a prototype of what will come true and is already coming true. This logical operation was based on the same principle of similarity as in the allegories of the Greek philosophers, but here it was not different aspects of being that were correlated, as there were, but different historical events that did not coincide in time. This method of interpretation was called typology... It was used both where it was necessary to extract information about the future of the Mission from stories about the past, and where the assessment of the present had to be supported by references to the past” 344. The technique of typology does not belong to the tradition of Greek exegesis, but to the Jewish one. It is carried over into Christian exegesis and is applied in comparing the Old Testament promises with their New Testament fulfillment. In applying it, the Holy Fathers are based on the authority of the Four Gospels and the Apostolic Epistles, but by no means Plotinus. The relevance of typology as an exegetical device in the legacy of Plotinus can serve as a separate subject for consideration. In this case, one should agree with V.V. Bychkov, who points to Clement of Alexandria and Origen as predecessors of Gregory of Nyssa along the line of exegetical tradition. There is a need to significantly clarify the concept of “Neoplatonism” in relation to early Christian and early Byzantine art, and even more so to the Middle Ages in general. The “docking” of the Jewish tradition, the influence of painting and early Christianity in the centers of the Hellenized East is obvious on the material of the Dura-Europos paintings (Aurelia Antoniniana Europos), where several temples dedicated to the Palmyra gods, a synagogue, and an early Christian temple were discovered. Archaeological research was started by Egyptologist Brasted in 1920, Cumont and Renard in 1922–1923, then jointly by French and Israeli scientists under the leadership of Hopkins, and Russian scientists from 1932–35. (M.I. Rostovtsev and others). The double temple (two buildings connected by a passage) of Artemis-Nanaia and Atargatis with paintings made by Palmyra masters dates back to the 1st century, the synagogue dates back to 244–245, it was built on the basis of an older building; The Christian temple dates back to the early 60s. III century These monuments changed the understanding of the sources of the development of Christian iconography. In all monuments, researchers note the influence of Hellenistic style; the plot composition of the synagogue paintings anticipates the plot structure of Christian art; they depict Moses in front of a burning bush and the scene of the exodus from Egypt. The last scene is divided into three separately presented episodes of the Egyptian plagues, the parting of the sea and the death of the Egyptian army. Below them are depicted: the Ark of the Covenant in the land of the Philistines and the Temple of Solomon. The frescoes have not survived in their entirety. Similar images are preserved in the Beth Alpha synagogue (Eretz Israel). These archaeological discoveries suggest that before the 3rd century. In both Eretz Israel and the Diaspora there was no ban on figurative images, including the main characters of the Old Testament. Apparently, they were prototypes of early Christian plot scenes. In the Christian church in Dura Europos, the subject composition of the paintings corresponds to the rules of typology, since there, in particular, Adam and Eve at the tree of knowledge and the good shepherd are correlated. As researchers note, these scenes are united by the idea of ​​​​contrasting earthly and heavenly paradise. Typology as an exegetical device is projected onto the figurative structure and style of Christian art. As confirmation of this idea, we present an illustrative series representing the evolution of compositional techniques in the reliefs of early Christian sarcophagi. The general trend is the transition from frieze narrative scenes, like pagan reliefs, to the emergence of a new compositional structure. Its peculiarity is the division of the image into two tiers for pairwise comparison of scenes from the Old and New Testaments. It should be emphasized that in the composition of the sarcophagi, not only does the principle of correlating paired images emerge, but gradually the composition begins to reflect a hierarchical structure, which indicates the gradual assimilation of the picture of the world, designated by the Cappadocians, by Christian art. These are only the first harbingers of the hierarchical order of organization of the internal space of the church and its iconographic program. The compositional technique of comparing promise and fulfillment, prototype and image, is used in the paintings of the catacombs. Consideration of the system of paintings in individual rooms allows us to make the assumption that the symbolic images here constitute an integral iconographic complex, the meaning of which corresponds to the Liturgy of the apostolic and post-apostolic times. S. G. Savina’s study “Iconography. Theological essays of the iconographic version" 345. Liturgical art is formed and lives according to the same rules as the liturgical service itself. The iconic character of early Christian art is obviously an expression of the same “disciplinae arcanae” (secret teaching), which forbade revealing the secret teaching to the uninitiated, and did not allow written forms for the liturgical order of the sacraments 346. The adoption of the Edict of Milan, which led to the legalization of Christianity and its transformation into the religion of the universal empire, of course, changed the conditions for the development of Christian art. Church building and the creation of paintings at this stage are associated with the patronage of the emperor 347. It would seem that there should be a transition from “secret images” to direct evidence of the Gospel revelation. But the phenomenon of “Byzantine antique” shows that a simplified interpretation of the transition from late Hellenistic and early Christian art to symbolic realism is inappropriate. Let us turn to an example that characterizes the order of interaction between pagan and patristic Platonism. Let us turn to a fragment of a ceramic dish from the collection of the State Hermitage with the image of Nereids. Let us quote the remarkable attribution of V.N. Zalesskaya, which is directly related to our topic: “... the scene called “Cave of the Nymphs” by Porfiry of Tire turns out to be connected with a specific gospel event. The image of the “cave of nymphs” is repeatedly found in homilies, polemical treatises and letters of Gregory of Nyssa, most often denoting the earthly, sinful world. In special sermons dedicated to the Christmas holidays, “(cave)” meant the Bethlehem Cave. The Nativity homily of Gregory of Nyssa contains a phrase that was once imprinted on the side of a dish, of which the four Greek words read on the fragment are parts. It reads: “Lord, help me, contemplating the grotto, to see Your star in the darkness of the cave.” So, this scene was essentially a symbolic parallel to Christmas. It is quite possible to assume that such cheap, stamped clay objects, produced in significant quantities, could be suitable for modest gifts, like Roman strena, with the desire to see the “true light” 348 349. Somewhat anticipating the further narrative, let us ask the question: “For what reason does the Homeric image turn out to be an illustration of the mystery of the Nativity of Christ?” We find the answer in St. Basil the Great’s “Word to Young Men on the Benefits of Pagan Books” or “Instruction to Young Men on How to Use Pagan Works.” He writes: “I heard from one person who has deeply studied Homer that Homer’s entire poem about Odysseus is nothing more than complete praise of virtue” 350. In the same instruction, Saint Basil speaks of the desirability of studying “external sciences.” Turning to ancient culture is the initial stage of ascent to virtue and knowledge of God: “Painters first cover the canvas with the first layer of paint, and then put real paints on it, in the same way, so that our good reputation remains unchanged, we will first devote ourselves to the study of these external writers, then we will begin to listen to sacred and mysterious verbs, - first we will get used to looking, so to speak, only at the reflections of the sun in the water, and then we will turn our gaze to the very source of light" 351. The origin of the rhetorical genre of public preaching is associated with the names of Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa. The formation of this genre is directly related to the needs of the Church in the context of the adoption of Christianity as the state religion. In the sermon, the address is addressed to a semi-pagan population and, as a result, the rhetorician uses images familiar to the audience. In this case, the image is taken from the “illiterate teacher of all” - Homer. The image is typical of “Byzantine antique”. But let's treat it with more sensitivity. The Odyssey has been repeatedly interpreted by philosophers of various directions: natural philosophers, pre-Socratics, Pythagoreans, Sophists, Stoics, Cynics, Neoplatonists 352. Gregory of Nyssa resorts to the exegesis of Porphyry. Analyzing Porfiry’s treatise, Taho-Godi writes: “Porfiry turned to Homer’s verses precisely because he saw in them a picture familiar to every Greek: a cave of nymphs with a source of water, bees swarming in it and an olive tree, indispensable for the Greek landscape” 353. Indeed, as in apothegma, the image develops, starting from the ordinary, publicly accessible level. Further, Porfiry, behind each symbol: cave, Nereids, bees, olive tree, reveals the meaning behind them of pan-Greek mythological thinking. The range of his appeals is wider: along with the hymns to Orpheus, Dionysus and Apollo, the Leontian sacraments, he resorts to the text of the Septuagint and to Zoroastrian beliefs, to the priestly wisdom of Egypt. But, mainly, he enters into dialogue with his predecessors in the Platonic tradition: Plato, Numenius, Cronius, consistently moving towards one goal, Porfiry reveals the secret of the cave. The cave is a symbol of the sensual cosmos, but not only the sensual: “...and it is a symbol of the intelligible,” writes Porfiry, “because it expresses the inaccessibility of being to sensory perceptions, its stability and strength, and also because individual potencies, especially those associated with matter, are invisible” 354. The Nereids here are understood as the potencies of souls descending into the world of becoming 355. Determining the place of the treatise in the Neoplatonic tradition, Taho-Godi points out that his philosophical exegesis became “one of the first Neoplatonic constructions of the cosmos” 356. Gregory of Nyssa enters into dialogue with Porfiry. Gregory contrasts his reasoning about the zodiac circle, the reasoning of Numenius and Cronius about the constellations with one star that shone over the Bethlehem cave. To the non-poisons as “souls going into the world of formation” 357, Gregory of Nyssa contrasts the Nativity of Christ. The image is built on both continuity and opposition. Here the main idea must be clearly stated. Porfiry creates a Neoplatonic picture of the cosmos and relates it to anthropogenesis. This pairing of cosmology and anthropology is a key theme in the theology of Gregory of Nyssa. At this point his opposition to both the Neoplatonists and Origen is clearly visible. For the Neoplatonists - Numenius, his student - Plotinus and Plotinus' successor, Porphyry, the idea of ​​metempsychosis is characteristic; it is borrowed from Heraclitus and undergoes some changes. A passage from Numenius was quoted above; it is also cited in the treatise “On the Cave of the Nymphs” by Porphyry and follows it, speaking about the descent of souls in the incarnation, as well as about souls that have shed their corporeal shell after the “cold of earthly formation” 358. In his treatise “On the Structure of Man,” Gregory of Nyssa speaks very impartially about the Hellenic teachings, which “told fables about reincarnation” 359. In relation to discussions about Origen, not free from this heritage, St. Gregory recalls the words of Empedocles: I was once a boy, I was once a virgin, He was also a bush, he was also a bird and a dumb fish of the sea... 360 And he provides them with a commentary: “According to the judgment I have made, the one who says such things about himself has not departed far from the truth. After all, such teachings are truly worthy of the nonsense of frogs or jackdaws, or the dumbness of fish, or the insensibility of an oak tree, which say that one soul has passed through many bodies...” 361 St. Gregory sees in the theory of the descent of the soul the dialectic of its decay, the transition “into nothingness”: “once having slipped from the highest life, it cannot stop in any degree of vice, but because of this connection with the passions, it will move from the verbal to the wordless, and from the wordless will descend to the state of insensibility of plants, the soulless borders on insensibility, and the non-existent follows the soulless. So, quite consistently for them the soul will pass into nothingness. Consequently, it will inevitably become impossible for her to return to the better again” 362. Here the Neoplatonic hierarchy comes to a dead end; in its dialectic, Gregory of Nyssa condemns the transition “from stupidity to stupidity with a certain consistency” 363. Meanwhile, in his interpretation of the secret vision of Moses, he foresees the hierarchical structure of man. In the dichotomy, man is recognized as a microcosm, but he is honored in a special way and is distinguished from the ranks of creation by his godlikeness. In trichotomy, the plant and animal powers of the soul are surpassed by the same godlikeness, submitting to it, they are brought into harmony of coordination. The true nature of man is his godlikeness, royalty. This determines the inclusion (in order of subordination) of cosmology in anthropology in the philosophical and dogmatic system of Gregory of Nyssa. Discussing the soul, Gregory of Nyssa denies both the Hellenes and Origen, with their theory of the pre-existence of souls, and Clement of Alexandria 364, who talks about the pre-existence of the body. In the XXIX chapter of the treatise, he resorts to the Gospel image of a grain of wheat, which in its potency bears “greens, stem, internodes, fruit, awns.” In the unfolding of the grain, Gregory distinguishes the secret of the transition of potency into effectiveness, activity, energy. “But just as in terms of its bodily part we do not call it flesh, nor bones, nor hair, nor everything that can be seen in a person, but in potential it is each of the above, which has not yet appeared visibly, so we say about the spiritual part that it does not have in itself the verbal (intelligible), concupiscible and irritable and everything that can be seen in the soul, but in accordance with the structure and improvement of the body, the energies of the soul increase along with the subject.” 365. Here we encounter not only the “justification” of the body, opposed to the Neoplatonic idea of ​​disembodiment, but also the secret vision of the “energies of the soul.” This secret vision becomes clear from the context of the entire treatise, which speaks of the divine light imprinted in human nature. Gregory the Theologian briefly expressed this thought, saying that the Hellenes did not know the luminosity of the flesh. This perhaps overly verbose analysis of one of the monuments of “Byzantine antiquity” explains an important trend in the formation of artistic style. If you carefully examine the dish, you will notice along its outer perimeter the image of a rainbow, so common in the art of the early Middle Ages. This analogy comes to mind when compared with dishes created at approximately the same time: rays radiate from the bottom of the bowl to its edges, forming a rosette. Isn't the source of light not the star that shone above the cave, but God who shone inside the cave? – in the logic of “interior aesthetics” and epistemology of Gregory of Nyssa, such a move would be possible. Unfortunately, the fragmentary preservation of the dish allows only guesswork. In “Byzantine Antique” there is a clearly noticeable return from the Neoplatonic destruction of kalokagathia back to the kalokagathia of Greek art; this is exactly how we see the movement from early Christian and Neoplatonic “dematerialized” symbolism, conditioned by dualistic teachings and the dichotomy of pre-Cappadocia anthropology - to the allegories of “antique” and the emphasized sensuality of images, created outside of Alexandria. In the context of the formation of symbolic realism in the teachings of the Saint of Nyssa, the narration and the “perichoresis of the sensual-noetic” in the hypostasis of man, the strengthening of the classicizing channel in art and the maturation of the “classicism of Theodosius” acquires a clear meaning. The dish with the “Cave of the Nymphs” was purchased in Alexandria 366, which was the meeting place of the philosophy of Neoplatonism and the “great Cappadocians.” The example of his figurative and stylistic structure shows the maturation of the “new kalokagathia” of medieval art. The symbolic-allegorical images of the “Byzantine antique” were a transitional form from the “dematerialized” symbolic images determined by the dualistic teachings of late antiquity and the dichotomy of pre-Cappadocia teachings about man in patristic writing. The return to the holistic image of man is maturing in conjunction with the teachings of Gregory of Nyssa, but, unlike the ancient kalokagathia, these beautiful images are transformed by divine grace. Their spirituality has a paracletic character, in them, according to Gregory the Theologian, shines the luminosity of the flesh, unknown to the Hellenes: that is why the light of the Star of Bethlehem and the radiance in the depths of the Cave of the Child becomes the meaning of the image illustrating the Nativity homily of Gregory of Nyssa. Summing up some results of this part of the reasoning, we note: in the history of liturgical art a staged sequence is built: early Christian symbolism - symbolic-allegorical images of “Byzantine antiquity” - “symbolic realism” of canonical art. These stages in the development of the figurative and stylistic system of Christian art attract attention in terms of their relationship to Alexandrian theology and the theology of the “great Cappadocians.” 2.5. Treatise “On the Structure of Man” in the aspect of its influence on the figurative and stylistic structure of canonical art The doctrine of man by Gregory of Nyssa combined religious, philosophical, natural philosophy, natural science, and medical knowledge about man and his place in the world, and as such, can be compared with the image of man that developed in the art of Byzantium. In the treatise “On the Structure of Man,” the categories given by Saint Gregory to determine the essence and hypostasis of man give a projection directly onto the figurative and stylistic structure of art. These categories can be logical-rational and apophatic; they are projected onto artistic images, including “apophatic” (such as the image of “divine darkness”). The focus of this section of the work will be the treatise “On the Structure of Man” in the aspect of its influence on the formation of the figurative and stylistic system of canonical art, the embodiment in it of the picture of the world that took shape in the philosophical and dogmatic system of the Cappadocians. One of the features of the fine art of antiquity, of which Constantinople became the heir, is the ability to express philosophical concepts in plastically tangible images. Let us consider how the symbolic realism of the anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa influenced symbolic realism in art. Scientists involved in the history of aesthetic thought and art history are well aware that art reflects the worldview of its era. Art criticism acquired a scientific character, methodologically and methodologically approaching the exact sciences at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. “The Father of Art History of the 20th Century,” G. Wölfflin, in his work “Basic Concepts of Art History” 367, for the first time introduces into scientific use a toolkit that makes it possible to objectify the concept of “style,” previously this term was used arbitrarily, reflecting the subjective taste preferences of art connoisseurs. Wölfflin defines the artistic style of the era as “the history of art without names,” thereby showing that the artist is involuntarily an exponent of the attitude and worldview of his era. This research tradition was developed by M. Dvorak in his work “The History of Art as the History of Spirit” 368. A fundamental approach to developing the problem of style in art was discovered by E. Panofsky in the classic work “Perspective as a Symbolic Form” 369, where he showed that the spatial forms of religious architecture can become plastic symbols equivalent to the categories of philosophy and theology. In domestic science, A.F. Losev relied on Panofsky’s work; his work “The Canon as an Artistic Style of the Epoch” 370 is remarkable in that the scientist identified a complex of primary sources that determined the parameters of canonical systems in the art of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Byzantium. Studying these texts, Losev showed that the difference between one canonical system and another comes down to the difference in systems of proportions, which allowed him to narrow the concept of “canon as the artistic style of the era” to the equivalent concept of “system of proportions.” Further, Losev managed to identify the law of translatability of concepts, reflecting the worldview of a particular era, into a system of proportions: he identified a group of aesthetic categories, which he called “structural terms,” among them: “measure,” “symmetry,” “center,” “centeredness,” “rhythm.” On the one hand, these terms serve to determine proportions in sculpture and architecture, and on the other hand, these same terms have divergent semantic content in different historical eras; their meaning is reconstructed by expanding the context while relying on primary sources of a religious, philosophical, natural-philosophical, scientific nature. So, for example, to understand the category of “measure” in ancient art, Protagoras’ statement is important: “Man is the measure of all things, both visible and invisible.” Consideration of the medieval canon as the artistic style of the era involves, first of all, its comparison with other canonical systems in the context of the general history of art. This approach reveals the most general laws of symbolic formation, but somewhat weakens the attention to the originality of the artistic language of the Middle Ages, so further attention will be paid to the specifics of the medieval canon. In both cases, Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise “On the Structure of Man” will be primarily used as a basic source. Losev’s treatise “Artistic canons as a problem of style” in this case is interesting in connection with his other work “Dialectics of Number in Plotinus” 371, where the author writes about Plotin’s criticism of the categorical apparatus of the Stoics and Aristotle and about his appeal to Plato’s “Sophist”: “The five categories of the “Sophist” - being, difference, identity, rest, movement - are Plotinus’ smart categories. They are derived antinomically-synthetically, that is, purely dialectically” 372. A comparison of the “structural terms” of Gregory of Nyssa with similar concepts in Plotinus shows that the demarcation of the ancient and medieval canons in the field of fine arts begins not in the field of art, but in a completely different sphere - in ontology and in the doctrine of man. Following A.F. Losev, we will resort to considering the medieval canon as a system of proportions, relying on the treatise of Gregory of Nyssa “On the Structure of Man.” According to the interpretation of Saint Nyssa, proportion is a quantitative category that determines the “measure of human hypostasis” in contrast to the infinity of Divine existence: “The nature of man rules and holds that material hypostasis in which (material) it appears to the eye. So, while one possesses the other, participation in true beauty passes through the entire series in a proportional manner, decorating each time through what is located above that immediately adjacent to it” 373. This fragment clearly reveals the relationship between the concepts of “proportion” and “beauty”, “truth”. Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa call God the Artist and Creator of true beauty; through proportions, beauty is transmitted to creation. In the quoted fragment of the text, the concept of “proportion” is indeed, according to Losev, a “structural term” that defines in the theory of trichotomy the relationship between the material, created composition and the “intelligible principle” as the god-likeness of man: “But if this good affinity occurs, in other words, there will be, on the contrary, the superior to follow the inferior, then the substance itself, which has already departed from nature, will reveal its ugliness (because matter itself is formless and unstructured, and its formlessness will spoil the beauty of nature, which is decorated by the mind)” 374. It is appropriate to emphasize that man is defined by Gregory of Nyssa as an internally mobile, changeable being; violation of synergy, the divine order of communication becomes the cause of ugliness, the loss of the divine image. The aesthetic categories of “beauty” and “ugliness” acquire their semantic content in connection with the ascetic meaning of the theory of trichotomy; the order or violation of “good affinity” depends on the will of a person, his choice. Orderliness is given to matter by the “god-like” in human nature – the mind communicating with God. When the sequence is disrupted in the hierarchy, “...the ugliness of matter is transmitted through nature to the mind itself, so that the image of God cannot be seen in the features of the creature. For then the mirror-like mind creates images (ideas) of the reverse side of the good, and sweeps away the detection of the radiance of good, reflecting in itself the formlessness of matter. And thus the emergence of evil occurs, which occurs through the imperceptible deprivation of the beautiful” 375. Above, the relationship of this fragment of text with the dialectic of Plotinus’ number was noted, and in this regard, the ontological status of the “numerical” constructions of Gregory of Nyssa was discussed. The concept of proportion is a quantitative category. The quantitative definition of human nature in its relation to God is expressed by Gregory of Nyssa as follows: “The perfect form of goodness consists in bringing a person from non-existence into being and making him generous in goods. And since such a list of benefits is large, it is not easy to quantify it. Therefore, the Word, with his voice, collectively designated all this, saying that man was created in the image of God” 376. But here we are not talking about a specific person, but about man in general, all human nature “But for each of the creatures there must be some kind of limit and measure, measured by the wisdom of the Creator.... one person is encompassed by quantity throughout the body and there is a quantitative measure of his hypostasis, which is limited...” 377 Here is an additional definition: “God is by nature simple and immaterial, without quality, without size and without complexity and is alien to external outline, but every substance lies in spatial distance and cannot hide from sensory perception, being cognizable by color, by appearance, by volume, by quantity, by elasticity and by everything else, known in it, which cannot in any way be attributed to the divine nature” 378 - if this statement is compared with the works of mature canonical art, it is appropriate to suggest that the golden or neutral background in painting, the notorious “flatness” of the icon, serve to convey the “simplicity”, “immateriality”, lack of quality and complexity of God. The doctrine of proportion, which took shape within the philosophical and dogmatic system of Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century, had an impact on the artistic practice of Byzantine masters. According to E. Panofsky, the basis for the proportional construction of a figure on a plane is the system of “three circles” 379, its module is the diameter of the halo. This value is proportionally interconnected with the diameter of the dome, as V.V. Filatov showed in his historical and architectural study 380. The diameter of the dome, in turn, is a module for constructing the architectural volume of the church as a whole, as demonstrated by K. N. Afanasyev 381 on the basis of a geometric analysis of Sophia of Constantinople, an exemplary church of the Christian world. The interconnection of proportioning systems when depicting an individual figure on a plane and when creating the architectural space of a church indicates that the ideas of Cappadocian philosophy about the ontological significance of the hypostasis of man as the image of God were reflected in the symbolic realism of canonical art. It is no coincidence that it is the circle, a symbol of the eternal divine existence, that becomes the module of the system of proportions in the art of the Middle Ages. These ideas are reflected in a practical guide for icon painters - a manuscript discovered on Mount Athos - we are talking about “Erminia” by Dionysius Fournografiot. The construction of the “church as a cosmos” corresponds to the construction of the “church as a person” for one more reason: the system of measures of medieval architects was anthropometric, which once again forces us to place a particularly significant emphasis on the role of anthropology in the formation of the art of the Middle Ages. To reconstruct the principles of volumetric-spatial constructions in medieval art, the circle of primary sources can be expanded; the researcher will come into the field of view not only the doctrine of proportions of Gregory of Nyssa, included in the treatise “On the Structure of Man,” but also texts reflecting his cosmological views. They are set out in the works: “On the Soul and Resurrection”, in the “Word on Holy Pascha” in the “apologetic argument about the Six Days”, “Against Eunomius”, which was included in the treatise “On the Dispensation of Man” “The Six Days” by Basil the Great. The saint defines created being as “parting entities,” heaven and earth. The images of earth and sky (Gen. 1:1), identified by Gregory of Nyssa as primary entities, subsequently become important: – in the symbolism of the church (“the church is the image of heaven and earth”); – in the “preliminary”, the “dung” icons and the golden background determine the relationship between the “godlikeness” and “creatureship” of a person. According to Gregory of Nyssa, the “parting entities,” heaven and earth, are generated by oppositely directed “actions” (energies). The actions of these energies are expressed in rest and movement. Following Aristotle (meaning the treatise “On Heaven”), Gregory of Nyssa identifies two main types of movement: in a circle and in a straight line, they also dominate in the volumetric-spatial constructions of the art of the Middle Ages. In the architecture of a cross-domed church, these constructions are embodied in the interaction of movement in a straight line (from west to east: from the entrance to the altar and from bottom to top: from the dome square to the dome) and movement in a circle (apse, dome). In the architectural space of the basilica church, the motif of a procession, movement in a straight line, prevailed; it is associated with an early form of worship - stationary (processional) liturgy, which R. Taft writes in his study 382 as an early form of worship. The “breaking of the circle” in Cappadocian cosmology in comparison with the cyclical models of the cosmos in Antiquity is emphasized by Lurie, as discussed earlier. The motif of movement in a straight line, but directed towards a circular completion, is interpreted symbolically as a symbol of salvation, the exodus of God's chosen people, and as an eschatological procession. In the early Byzantine period, eschatological aspirations had a special coloration and were not associated with the later theory of “divine executions.” The Second Coming of Jesus Christ was perceived as a joyful aspiration, similar to the expectation of the meeting of the bride and groom of the Song of Songs, in this sense it is appropriate to turn to the exegesis of Gregory of Nyssa on the Song of Songs. The importance of the procession motif remains in domed basilicas, as evidenced by the arrows in the markings of the mosaic floor, discovered by archaeologists during the examination of Sophia of Constantinople. In the context of this work, special emphasis should be placed on these facts: in the anthropology of the Cappadocians, a person is interpreted as a constantly moving creature, similar to the current of a river. In icon painting, straight lines and circles form the basis of the so-called graphy, the graphic basis of the iconographic image. Upon closer inspection, any curve is divided into its constituent segments, as if the shape has a facet. Straight lines have an oval ending, thus, in the drawing there are two main types of movement: in a circle and in a straight line, which symbolically reflects the idea of ​​​​the energetic nature of existence, created by the forces (energies, actions) of the Divine Spirit. It is easy to notice that the laws of shape formation in the art of the Middle Ages are universal; they are implemented at the level of the microstructure of the work (in drawing) and its macrostructure (in architecture), endowing them with symbolic meaning. Another fundamental aspect of the Eastern Christian canon as a stylistic system is the principle of volumetric-spatial constructions in the reverse perspective system. The idea of ​​a reverse perspective reflects the basic epistemological principle of Gregory of Nyssa: the path of knowledge of God is internal, where being is not diminished, turning into a vanishing point, but grows into the eternity of God. The vanishing point of direct perspective in the icon is transferred into the space of the viewer. This, firstly, allows him to change his position in relation to the compositional center of the work (which expresses the idea of ​​the ontological freedom of man as his likeness to God), and secondly, the “small size” of the icon in front of the system of reverse perspective has the intention of the infinity of Divine existence. The semantics of the vanishing point in reverse perspective reflects the Gospel teaching about the “little ones of this world”, the epistemological idea of ​​interior knowledge of God by Gregory of Nyssa is preceded by the Judeo-Christian teachings about a spark flaring up into a flame, and the teaching of the Pythagoreans about an infinitesimal quantity, the smallness of which is the key to its transformation into the universe, the Pleroma 383. The system of volumetric-spatial constructions in Christian art corresponds to the purpose of the liturgical symbol, which contributes to the revelation by man of the image of God within himself, which is the main idea of ​​Cappadocian anthropology, which interprets man as the image of God. So, in the anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa, man, as a microcosm, includes the universe in his composition. The interior order of the knowledge of God determines the character of medieval aesthetics: the church is modest on the outside, but shines with splendor from the inside, like a humble righteous man. Just as the holy fathers and, in our case, Gregory of Nyssa, assimilated the ancient teaching about man as a microcosm, the medieval canon rethought the rules of the ancient canon, but, nevertheless, involved it entirely in the bowels of its creative laboratory. The medieval master’s vision of man is not devoid of extreme plastic concreteness and expressiveness. It is significant that the basis of Byzantine knowledge about the structure of the human body is the data of ancient medicine. V. M. Lurie points to the direct appeal of Gregory of Nyssa to Galen and Hippocrates. As mentioned above, Basil the Great also studied medicine; he probably founded the first Christian hospital; Gregory of Nyssa learned his professional knowledge and skills from his older brother, Basil the Great; it is believed that he had a medical practice. However, in this case, it is not the breadth of the saints’ horizons that seems significant, but the universality of medieval culture, coherently connecting heterogeneous spheres of knowledge. Here are just some fragments of the text “On the Structure of Man,” describing its bodily composition: “Bones, cartilage, veins, arteries, fibers, ligaments, meat, fat, hair, glands, nails, eyes, nostrils, ears, everything like this and a thousand more - all of this is separated from each other by various features...” 384 Or - here is an image that has a sculptural spatiality: “In the same way, one can assume about the heart that it is structured as if in a safe house, fortified by the hardest bones surrounding it. After all, he has a spine at the back, covered on both sides by the shoulder blades. On both sides, the encircling arrangement of the ribs makes what’s inside difficult to access. And in front is the sternum and a pair of clavicles, so that the heart is kept safe on all sides from outside disturbances” 385. This fragment provides a “horizontal section” that reveals the appropriateness of the structure of the human skeleton. In the “anatomical atlas” of Gregory of Nyssa, it is preceded by an equally impressive sight: “... this force is seen in the brain and its cortex, and from it all joint movements, all muscle contractions, all productive breathing and what is transmitted by them to each of the parts, revealing our earthen statue acting and moving, as if (under the influence of) some kind of mechanism” 386. The rigidity of the linear constructions of the Byzantine canon, as we see it, is based on a very precise knowledge of the mechanisms of movement, the structure of the entire skeleton as a whole and the structure of its joints, tendons and muscles that cover the bones. The graphic language outlines the mechanism of the “earth statue”. For example: “And vision is obscured by eyelashes, like lead devices - they are so heavy - which fall over the eyes. The hearing, coarsened by these same vapors, as if closing the auditory members with a door, remains at rest from natural actions” 387. Or: “... turns of the neck, throwing back and bowing of the head, the work of the jaw, the opening and closing of the eyelids and the movement of other members, which are carried out as if thanks to some kind of mechanical device” 388. Probably, Gregory of Nyssa's interest in the mechanisms of movement is due to the fact that the proof of human life is that he is “warm, active and moving.” In language there is not convention, but abstraction based on fundamental knowledge of general laws. It seems that precisely because within Byzantine culture, at its foundation, basic scientific ideas were preserved and developed, periodic outbreaks of appeal to antiquity, the so-called renaissances, were natural on their basis. So, the main image in the ancient canon and the medieval canon is the image of a person; the volumetric-spatial structure of this image is based on knowledge of plastic anatomy. A positive attitude towards anatomy is evidenced by the text at the beginning of Chapter XXX, which says that “everything can be learned exactly by the one who diligently draws the history of it from the books of those who are wise in such things. Of these, some studied by anatomy how each member is attached to its place in us, while others, in addition, comprehended and explained why exactly each part of the body was created...” 389. Lurie, in his commentary on this fragment, says that for Galen, anatomy was one of the main methods of research; in the medical practice of Byzantium, it was commonplace. The data of medical science, which forms the basis of this knowledge, belong to the same tradition, which, in turn, determines the continuity between the ancient canon and the medieval canon. Let's return to the human body. The iconographic canon preserves the cosmologism characteristic of ancient anthropology. The composition of human flesh includes the primary elements (elements) that underlie the universe. Discussing the anatomical structure of the human body, Gregory of Nyssa constantly remembers its co-naturalness with the entire created cosmos, the harmony and balance of the elements that make up human flesh: “Since the liver also has a significant need for the assistance of heat for the circulation of juices into the blood ... so that the remoteness of the calorific essence does not damage the entire economy, the vascular passage (called by the wise in these things artery), receiving the fiery breath, carries it to the liver, where it converges with the inlet channel for juices and heat kindles the moisture, giving the moisture something akin to fire and coloring the blood with a fiery color” 390. The elements that make up both the universe and the matter of the human body are the same. In the human body, they are correlated with three governing vital forces, “of which one warms everything with hot, the other moistens what is being warmed with moisture, so that, thanks to the equal action of each of the opposing qualities, the living being is maintained in an average position, and so that neither the moisture is burned out by an excess of hot, nor the hot is extinguished by the predominance of the moisturizing one. The third force contains the various joints in coherence and harmony, connecting them with the help of ligaments...” 391. Here, the anthropometry of Gregory of Nyssa fully continues the traditions of ancient medicine: so in Galen we find the following statement: “Chrysippus... calls the health of the body the symmetry of warm, cold, dry and wet”... 392 One of the “structural” terms is also present here - symmetry; Symmetry refers to the proportionality of the primary elements in the human body. The understanding of health as proportionality goes back to the teachings of the Stoics 393. Gregory of Nyssa sees in the structure of the human body the same elements and forces that are manifested in cosmogony. Man is depicted as a microcosm; this preserves the continuity of the patristic tradition in relation to ancient philosophy. The "structural terms" identified in the text of the treatise indicate this similarity. The difference in traditions is no less significant. The greatness of man, according to Gregory of Nyssa, is not in the likeness of creation, but in the presence in him of the image of God. According to the teachings of the Cappadocians, the universe is transformed in man and together with man 394. The stylistic elements of the Eastern Christian canon serve to imprint this idea. Volumetric-spatial constructions of art, testifying to the reality of earthly existence, simultaneously become a container of mystical meaning. The mutual translatability of theological and philosophical categories is an integral property of the symbolic realism of the teachings of Gregory of Nyssa. The teaching of Gregory of Nyssa about the energetic basis of matter was reflected in art. It corresponds to the “light symbolism” of painting and architecture. Gregory of Nyssa develops the theory of dematerialization of matter, arguing that it is nothing more than a “set of idioms (qualities),” the order of interconnection of which is determined by logos. “Idioms” are nothing more than “ideas” and are subject to “interpretive definition.” The logos of each individual idiom can be identified, which determines, according to Gregory of Nyssa, the order of perception of matter as contemplation, pheory. The qualitative characteristics of a substance (idiom) are considered by Gregory of Nyssa as a set of independent qualities in relation to the subject (let us first draw attention to the fact that in defining matter as the substrate of qualities, Gregory adheres to the Aristotelian tradition, which was noted by the translator and commentator of the treatise V. M. Lurie. This fact is significant in the perspective of further discussions about the relationship between the canon of the Byzantine and ancient canons) “But each type of quality is separated logos from the subject. Logos is mental, not bodily, contemplation. For example, when an object is contemplated - an animal or a tree or something else that has a material composition, then by mental discrimination we understand many things around the subject, and all these many things, contemplated together, have their own logos separately and unmixed. After all, there is a different logos of color, and a different logos of gravity, and again a different logos of quantity and features of tactile quality. After all, softness, length and all the rest of the above do not coincide in logos with one another, or with the body. And then, since the intelligent is color, the intelligent is elasticity, quantity and all other such features, and, moreover, with the removal of each of them from the subject, the entire logos of the body will disappear together, we must conclude: that in the absence of which we find the reason for the disappearance of the body, collected together, forms material nature. After all, just as there is no body that does not have color, appearance, elasticity, volume (space), heaviness and all other features, each of which is not a body, but in itself turns out to be something different from the body, so and vice versa - through the collection of these together, a bodily hypostasis is produced" 395. From the foregoing follows a conclusion applicable to the formation of canonical art: “structural categories” have a mental (logos) nature, they include categories of spatial construction, such as: volume, space, symmetry, center, pole, and other qualitative characteristics (color, heaviness, features of tactile quality). These characteristics are “logoi” and as such appear to be the ideal characteristics and parameters of the image. It is from here that, in the visual language of the canon, pure primary colors arise, divided into several distinct shades and tones, clear stereometry of volume, a line composed of two main types of movement - in a straight line and in a circle. The order of correlation of these logos determines the individual qualities of the object and its material composition. From the definition of substance given by the Saint of Nyssa, it follows that the order of perception of the icon can be defined as contemplation. At the same time, each individual quality of the image (color, volume, elasticity, etc.) is given “interpretative definitions.” Individual microelements of the image acquire a symbolic meaning, which can be identified already at the level of painting technology, its technique, and then - stylistics and figurative structure, for example, minerals used in icon painting as pigments (lapis lazuli, malachite, orpiment, etc.), as well as gold, clay (ochre) are interpreted on the basis of biblical and patristic texts. Gold is perceived as a symbol of royalty, chastity, martyrdom, clay - as the substance from which the first man was created. Gregory of Nyssa gives an example of such an ascent from a material image to its mystical meaning, discussing “purity”, “dispassion”, “bliss” as “colors” with which the image of God in man is depicted. The most important position of the cosmology of Gregory of Nyssa is the doctrine of the creatureliness of time. It is reflected in art: – created time is similar to created substance, and, as such, is reflected by personifications, symbols, allegories, and signs of the zodiac; – the image of time is captured in calendars and minologies, including the so-called tablets (icons that simultaneously served as worship icons, samples for icon painters, and a calendar) 396. Both Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa say that those who reflect on the beginnings of the world (“Six Days”) should not forget about the end. This idea is illustrated by facial Apocalypses, hagiographic icons depicting the Evangelist John on the island of Patmos, and the image of the Last Judgment. As noted above, in Gregory of Nyssa the idea of ​​the creatureliness of time is saturated with a Christological meaning, which is reflected in the images illustrating the time of the Savior’s earthly life (“festive rite” of the iconostasis, reflection of the “time of man” in the iconography of Christ (baby, Emmanuel, husband)). The solar symbolism of church art also has a Christological meaning: following Christ as the “Sun of Truth” 397. The division of time into segments from the creation of the world to the incarnation of the Savior and from the Coming of the Lord to the Second Coming is reflected in the “liturgical time” of church art; the technique of paired comparison of Old and New Testament images is based on this principle - the basis of Christian typology. This is the reason for the predominance of typology over other varieties of Jewish and Hellenic exegesis. The three-part division of time introduced by Basil the Great, who distinguished historical time (“the time of men”) from the eon (the time of angels) and the eternal existence of God is also reflected in the images of Christian art. Pre-eternal existence is associated with dogmatic timeless images of the Savior (Pantocrator, Savior Not Made by Hands, Savior in Powers, Great Bishop, etc.) 398 . The tripartite division of time is projected onto the iconographic program of the church and the high iconostasis and corresponds to liturgical time. The division of time into periods from the creation of the world to Christmas, from Christmas to the Second Coming is one of the particular manifestations of the law of triangulation, which is a general structure-forming principle in Christian art. This law corresponds to the theory of trichotomy in anthropology. The dogmatic basis of these constructions is the Trinitarian dogma. The law of hierarchy, discursively defined in the philosophical and dogmatic system of Gregory of Nyssa, is reflected in art, namely: – in the hierarchical structure of the church space; – in a hierarchical order of proportioning the image of a person and the structure of the church; – in the axiological principle of spatial constructions in the icon. The hierarchical division of spatial zones in the interior of the church is already outlined in the catacomb chapels and crypts; in early Byzantine basilicas, zoning reaches eight levels of gradation (catechumens, faithful, and clergy stand out; men are separated from women, deaconesses, virgins, widows, women with children, etc. have their place), which is legitimized and determined by episcopal decrees 399 and reflected in liturgical interpretations. Zoning corresponds to the order of the liturgy (liturgy of the catechumens, liturgy of the faithful, anaphora). Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise “On the Structure of Man” outlines a number of themes that were further developed in the theology of icon veneration by John of Damascus, Theodore the Studite, and the Fathers of the VII Ecumenical Council. The categories introduced by Saint Gregory to determine the essence and hypostasis of a person are both discursive and figurative; as such, they are directly projected onto the figurative structure of art. Gregory of Nyssa speaks about the royalty of man - the image of the three kings was used by Plato, that is, it is not new for the language of philosophy, Amelius resorts to this image from the Neoplatonists - Gregory of Nyssa uses it to designate the godlikeness of man: “... The Master created our nature as a vessel for royal activity (energy), having arranged that both in spiritual advantages and even in bodily appearance it would be such as is required for reign. For the soul reveals a royalty, completely far from stupid humiliation, because, having no ruler over itself and being autocratic, it autocratically disposes of its desires. And who can have this, except the king? And besides, to become the image of the nature of the Ruler of all is nothing more than the fact that at the moment of creation the nature of the image was made royal” 400. The importance of the image of royalty in the philosophical and dogmatic system of the Cappadocians was noted above; it is characterized by semantic diversity: royalty denotes the ontological freedom of man and his place in the hierarchy of being, the image is used in the development of Christological problematics; in discussions about perichoresis, it is used to denote the relationship between form and essence, which preceded the theological construction of the dogma of Icon veneration. The rhetorical aspect of imagery is important, since the sermon must be intelligible; in this sense, Gregory of Nyssa chose the image of royalty well: in the everyday life of the Roman Empire, portraits of the “king” were a common attribute of official ceremonies, at which they could serve as a “deputy” for the absent emperor. Developed in the anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa, the image of the king and royalty becomes the most important in Christian art, he determined the principles of the formation of canonical iconography. The definition of the hypostasis of man in the anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa, and the categorical definition of Christological dogma by the Cappadocians were the root cause of the formation in the 4th century. the iconography of Jesus Christ and the personal iconography of saints. The basis of the iconography of Jesus Christ was a voluminous block of stable types of imperial portraits; it was transferred to Christian art and became the basis for a number of editions: “Christ on the Throne”, “Crownment of the Saints with Christ”, “Adoration of the Lord”, “Offering to the Lord”, “Christ Trampling the Asp and the Basilisk” and many others. This material was studied and systematized by A. Grabar in his work “The Emperor in Byzantine Art” 401, however, A. Grabar did not reveal the connection between the existence of the “image of the emperor” in Christian art and the development of theology. The image of Pantocrator as the King of Heaven is the most important source in the iconography of Jesus Christ, both from a theological point of view and in the system of church decoration. Athanasius of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa, the concept of “Pantocrator” (Almighty) is applied not only to God the Father, but also to Jesus Christ. The theological operation of "transfer of names" was used by Athanasius of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa to indicate the divine nature of God the Son. The image of Pantocrator is used not so much in a portable icon, but in the canonical decoration of the apse concha and, as the architectural type of the cross-domed church became established, in the iconography of the dome, which is the subject of the study of T. Matthews 402. Matthews connects this plot with the anthropomorphic symbolism of the church and the meaning of the service, which unites the worshipers mystically into a single body, the head of which is Christ. The image of royalty influenced not only iconography, but also the style of canonical art. Let us turn again to the text of Gregory of Nyssa, to chapters IV and V of his treatise: “For as it is customary among people for those who paint images of sovereigns to reproduce the features of the appearance and designate the royal dignity by being clothed in purple, so that the image is usually called “king,” so human nature, since it was prepared for command over others through the likeness of the King of all, became, as it were, animate an image attached to the prototype with both dignity and name” 403. Gregory of Nyssa, speaking about the royalty of human nature, preceded the transfer of imperial attributes into the iconography of the Savior and the Mother of God: the porphyry color of imperial robes (the himation of Jesus Christ and the maphoria of the Mother of God), gold in the cutting of backgrounds, halos, the inscription of the name on the icon and the motif of the presence. Basil the Great also speaks about the difference between the motive of standing and kneeling, pointing out its not slavish, but royal meaning. That is why during Easter services, after communion and during the performance of solemn hymns, akathists, believers stand in the church - which is a sign of spiritual triumph, jubilation, and the royal dignity of man. Gregory of Nyssa writes: “It [human nature] is not clothed in purple and not with a scepter and diadem (after all, this is not in the prototype), but instead of purple it is covered with virtue, which is more royal than all clothes, and instead of a scepter it rests on the bliss of immortality, instead of a royal diadem it is adorned with a crown of righteousness, so that in everything it has shown its royal dignity. likening the beauty of the prototype" 404. Here the material attributes of royalty are removed, thanks to negative formulas, and in their place are put forward categories of a spiritual order. They, however, are each attached to a reduced but visual analogue and, thanks to it, acquire similar clarity and persuasiveness. Let us compare the above statement of Gregory of Nyssa with those stylistic elements that are natural for icon painting. Imperial portraits are easily combined in our minds with a special ceremonial positioning of the figure depicted, with the ritual or etiquette nature of his gestures. It is precisely this kind of ritualism that is characteristic of the language of icon painting, in which the “concretization of the archetypal form” occurs. M. Evzlin writes about it in his study “Cosmogony and Ritual” 405. The ritualization of a gesture corresponds to its increased semantic significance. In the icon, gesture has increased semantic activity; Klautova pointed out in her study the “dictionary of gestures”: questioning, answering, accepting grace, sorrow, etc. The clothes of saints are their stable attribute, recorded in iconographic originals; they correspond to the rank of holiness, just as the attire of warriors or courtiers is regulated; they also reflect the royal nature of man. “Crowns of righteousness” are also known to us: let us remember the image of the procession of martyrs and martyrs in the Ravenna mosaics, the saints carrying their crowns. Of course, the absolute mark of the “crown of righteousness” is the halo. “A halo, in the meaning of holiness, surrounds the heads of persons depicted in the painting of the catacombs, only from the second quarter of the 4th century...in the most ancient era, a halo almost exclusively surrounds the head of the Savior” 406. However, clarification is necessary: ​​not only the state imperial iconography was transferred as a basis to the iconography of the Savior, but also the imperial ceremonial underwent changes in the Christian empire. The influence was mutual. “Let me remind you that the imperial ceremony had a colossal influence on the formation of the Byzantine liturgy. Essentially, it developed in combination with palace processes, imperial entrances and exits. And the emperor’s very worship of the revered patroness icon (such icons were called proskynesis) was formalized in the most solemn liturgical manner,” writes V. Alymov in “Lectures on Historical Liturgics” 407. In the anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa, the very concept of “image” is the most important, since through this concept the essential property of the hypostasis of man as the image of God is conveyed. Gregory of Nyssa brings together the concepts of “image” and “imprint on a substance,” which was discussed in the previous paragraph of the work. With regard to the iconographic canon, the following is important: the concepts of “imprint on wax” or “seal”, or “stamps” are interpreted by Gregory of Nyssa as an imprint of the image of God. This “imprint” is endowed with the divine properties of simplicity (integrity, indivisibility into parts) and immutability. This leads to a very important consequence for Byzantine aesthetics. The concepts: “imprint on matter”, “image”, “eidos” (appearance) themselves determine the order and connection of the primary elements. The concept of “image” is dominant in Byzantine aesthetics, as it reflects ontological and soteriological content. Therefore, let us allow ourselves to express considerations that are contrary to the opinion of authoritative scientists: O. Demus, E. Kitzinger, L.M. Evseeva, which boils down to the fact that the basis of the creative method of Byzantine artists was a structural principle called by O. Demus “divisibility” (divisibility or composition of parts): “the pictorial technique of Hellenism was transformed into a system of three or four tones, in which the main tone is modified into one or two darker and the same number of light tones. The figures are divided into separate parts-components, assembled together, as in models. Compositions can easily be taken apart, and each part can be combined with another. This allows artists to express new content by slightly changing ready-made traditional forms” 408. Despite all the plausibility of the stylistic description, such a concept seems completely inappropriate to the subject under study - Byzantine canonical painting. The orderliness and semantic precision of individual elements of an artistic form does not transform the process of an icon painter’s work into “assembling a model” from construction kit elements. Such a “game theory” also displaces the very religious meaning of artistic creativity: in canonical art, the concept of image is the theme of the image of God in man and its likeness to the Prototype; I think it determines the basis of the artistic method. Note that the concept of “seal” in question was also used by Athanasius of Alexandria: “The spirit is called life-giving. anointing, and there is a seal... All creation is made partaker of the Word in the Spirit. And for the sake of the Spirit we are called partakers of God... Those in whom the Spirit abides are adored by the Spirit” 409 . Archimandrite Cyprian emphasizes, commenting on this statement, that deification is by no means a metaphorical expression, but “a transformed spiritual state of the entire psychophysical composition of a person” 410. These words express the essence of what Gregory of Nyssa said in his treatise. We are talking about the seals of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Gospel 411. In this context, let us again ask the question: is it legitimate to take the theory of “divisibility” as the basis of the artistic method of the Byzantines? It is the integrity of the image that allows it to be included in the hierarchy of images; the continuity of this hierarchy, connecting the image with the Prototype, is fundamental for medieval art. The image becomes a dynamic symbol in the hierarchy system, its purpose is to elevate the image to the Prototype and in this assimilation a return to the original concept of man is made, the transformation of him and the created world, the cosmos, which is part of man as a microcosm. The idea of ​​godlike integrity is expressed in Church Slavonic language by the word “simple” (as opposed to “simple”). It is not “divisibility” that is the law of the emergence of images in Eastern Christian art, but the transmission of “non-fusion and inseparability” - as in Andrei Rublev’s “Trinity”. In painting, the integrity of a work is determined by its composition. The structures of medieval art gravitate toward heraldic composition, as do images on seals and coins. The outline is easy to read, it is recognizable regardless of the size of the work: be it the silhouette of a saint on the golden background of an icon, or an image on a ring, or a mosaic, or a fresco. The material the artist uses changes, the size of the image changes, but not the image - like the reflection in perspective of pure mirrors. This metaphor entered the theology of the icon, being inherited from the philosophical vocabulary of Neoplatonism. “God-like” - the personalistic “eidos” (appearance) of a person is determined by the original divine plan for him; the eidos does not change with changes in age, but can be distorted by passions. It is restored to a repentant person. For a distorted appearance, Gregory of Nyssa uses the concept of “mask”. This usage is very symptomatic: Archimandrite Cyprian points out that the concept of “personality” was introduced by the Cappadocians in connection with the development of the category “hypostasis” in Trinitarian terminology. In ancient Greece, to denote a person’s personality, a word was used that served to designate a mask, the guise of an actor; in Rome, “persona” had a legal meaning 412. The consequence for aesthetics that follows from this opposition of “appearance” and “mask” is this: the icon denotes the deified dispassionate state of a person, his essential immutable eidos. Above, another image was introduced from the treatise “On the Structure of Man” - an earthen statue, a statue made of clay. It was demanded by Gregory of Nyssa as a metaphor, an illustration, but we will pay attention to it as an attribute of ancient culture. The ancient canon as an artistic style of the era is represented primarily by the sculptural canon, while the medieval canon is represented by icon painting. In the contrast between sculpture and icon, the opposition of symbols of ancient and medieval culture is visible. The contrast between the “earth statue” and the “imprint on the substance” (icon, image) in the text of the treatise of St. Gregory is symptomatic: it is a contrast between the “old” and the “new” man.” Gregory's metaphor simultaneously contrasts two theories: neoplatonic metempsychosis and patristic trichotomy in the interpretation of the question of the origin of soul and body. It is here that the difference in the understanding of symbols between Neoplatonists and Cappadocians is rooted; it is here that non-Platonic symbolism and symbolic realism are separated. In the statue, the material principle is predominant, while the soul partakes of the material, being burdened with vice. In the “imprint on matter,” neither the soul appears before the body, nor vice versa: “Since man, consisting of soul and body, is one, it is necessary to assume a common beginning of his compositions, so that he would not turn out to be either older or younger than himself, when the corporeal would take precedence in him, and the rest would follow” 413. Gregory of Nyssa repeatedly turns to the image of the sculptor. Let's look at another example: “You can see something similar with stone cutters. The artist needs to imagine the appearance of some animal in stone. Having set this goal, he first scrapes off the substance that has grown on it from the stone; then, having cut off the superfluous from it, it produces, imitating what was supposed, its first likeness, so that even an inexperienced person can guess from its appearance the purpose of the work. As he continues to process further, he comes closer to the desired image. Then, having conveyed a perfect and precise look, he brings the work to completion. By assuming something similar about the soul, we will not sin against reality. But just as in working with stone, the likeness was achieved gradually and little by little, at first weak, and after the end of the work - perfect, so when cutting into organs the image of the soul manifests itself in a similar way: imperfectly in the unfinished and perfectly in the completed...” 414 . Here again, as in the above fragments of Chapters IV and V, the image is a dynamic symbol. The image of an animal created by a skilled carver is compared with the image of God imprinted in a person. Several meanings coexist in parallel: firstly, the structure of the human body is an image of the spiritual structure of man, and secondly, it, in turn, is the likeness of God. The third stage of likening is also clearly present in this text. The visible inscribed image is compared with man as the image of God. The perfection of the imprinting of divine traits displaces in a person his created nature, his bestiality: “... participation in passionate and animal birth does not allow the divine image to immediately shine in creation, but consistently, in a well-known way, from the material and more animal characteristics of the soul leads a person to perfection” 415. Gregory of Nyssa illustrates the acquisition of godlikeness with the image of man’s ascent from the likeness of dumb animals to the radiance of the Divine. And in parallel: the transformation of rough and inert matter by divine radiance. Both the one and the other semantic series are well explained by Gregory the Theologian; he says that man is a “reasonable animal” in which God “mysteriously and inexplicably connected dust with mind and mind with spirit” 416. Gregory the Theologian “reproaches the Hellenes for the fact that for them the luminosity of the flesh was incredible” 417. Let us turn again to the reflection of these categories in the style of canonical art. The image is initially carved from a rough block of stone. Here is the ultimate designation of materiality, volume, a cutter that overcomes the resistance of the rock and leaves a mark. But at the end of the fragment, the original features in the same image are erased, as they are absorbed and permeated with light. If we consider the graphic and spatial structure of iconographic images, it has the stereometry of a crystal; they do not have the notorious flatness. A trace in icon painting or a fresco is scratched by the count 418, this drawing is not approximate, since it clearly testifies to the truths of faith, any blurriness or vagueness of the image in it is inappropriate. In a similar way, early Byzantine sculpture gravitates towards relief, the linear graphic principle is strengthened in it, the “materiality” of sculpture in Byzantine reception is transformed into “materiality”: in the cosmology of St. Nyssa, matter is energetic and has a spiritual (light) nature. An examination of the monuments of canonical art shows that icon painting inherited the principles of the ancient sculptural canon, but the ancient canon undergoes a radical change, as it acquires a new property - “the luminosity of the flesh.” The light principle as a sign of the divine presence causes an even greater compaction of the form, but at the same time, the light that embraces it and emitted by it changes the order of perception of volume and space in comparison with the ancient one. The laws of contrapposto, chiasmus, enchethelia, parataxis, foreshortening, proportioning were developed by ancient sculptors of the classical era. They were also adopted by Byzantine masters and passed into the iconographic canon. Let us remember that until the 7th century, Constantinople was fed by the artistic traditions of the old centers of Hellenistic culture in the East. This anti-inflammatory influence also determines the outbreaks of “renaissances” in Byzantine culture. The legacy of the ancient canon in Byzantine reception was also transferred to countries that adopted Christianity from the hands of Byzantium, which often did not have a tradition of depicting a person, at least comparable to the ancient one. The ancient heritage, which underwent dramatic changes in the culture of Byzantium, was also perceived in line with the Eastern Christian canon. The symbolism of light, which became a distinctive quality of works of medieval art, corresponds to the mystical content of the image and corresponds to the understanding of the icon as a “source of divine light.” In the system of artistic techniques, light is transmitted through the technique of writing (reflective white gesso, the predominant use of minerals with a crystalline structure for the production of pigments) and the sequence of applying layers of paint “from dark to light”, which creates the feeling of a light flow increasing in the darkness. The system of “movers”, “revivals”, “gaps” in works of mature canonical art symbolizes uncreated divine energies, which Gregory of Nyssa writes about in his treatise “On the Structure of Man”. He was the first to introduce the concept of the energetic, rather than material, nature of matter, thus anticipating the theology of hesychasm. In fairness, it should be noted that “intuitions of transparency” appear in Plotinus, and light symbolism is developed in Iamblichus. In the book miniatures of the ancient world, gold fining was used to decorate the landscape; in medieval art it would be consistently developed in the assist system. Gold and light in the icon are metaphors of divine love. Love occupies a special place in the epistemology of Gregory of Nyssa, only it exceeds knowledge and contemplation, transgressing the limits of the unknowability of the Divine Essence. “Divine darkness,” “impregnable stream of Divine light,” according to St. Gregory, is a special mode of communication with God, and not an impregnable barrier between man and the Divine Essence. The apophatic category “divine darkness” was introduced into theology by the Saint of Nyssa; apophatic imagery acquired a magnificent development from Dionysius the Areopagite. In works of Christian art, “Divine darkness” is depicted in various ways. For example, the darkness of the Bethlehem cave surrounds the figure of the Child, but the cave, being a symbol of the knowledge of God, retains the Platonic meaning of the image. “Divine darkness” fills the mandorla in the iconography of the “Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary” and the tetramorph of the “Savior in Powers”. Gold is used to depict the “impregnable stream of divine light.” Gold is applied to backgrounds, halos, assists - note that gold protrudes from the pigment range, being a metal, its “light” is impregnable. Symbolism permeates the entire figurative structure of the icon, but it is the artistic means that convey the divine light that create the fundamental difference between the icon and the painting. At the initial stage of the formation of the iconographic canon, the theological foundations of the symbolism of light in Christian art were developed by Gregory of Nyssa. In the treatise “On the Constitution of Man,” Saint Gregory appears as an exegete who made the transition from symbolic-allegorical interpretations to mystical ones. According to Gregory of Nyssa, the cosmos is included in the nature of man as a microcosm, therefore the created world is inherent in a mystical mystery, ultimate unknowability. By analogy with the teachings of Gregory, in the icon, not only the “personal”, but also the “pre-personal” is filled with mystical content: the landscape background, the image of animals, the clothes of saints. As a particular example, let us turn to the “chamber letter” - the depiction of architectural motifs in the icon. According to L.A. Uspensky, the architecture of the chamber letter expresses the logic not of the earthly, but of the heavenly world. The archetype of the ward letter in prelich is the image of the tabernacle. According to Gregory of Nyssa, the tabernacle not made by hands is the limit of Moses’ contemplation, the church not made by hands. In the “reverse perspective” of church art, the church can be thought of as a miraculous “sanctuary of God.” In it, Moses contemplates the intelligent forces that support the universe. This is where the cosmological symbolism of the church comes from, and in the iconographic program of its paintings there is an image of the heavenly hierarchy, which later acquires harmony under the influence of the works of Dionysius the Areopagite. Ainalov points to the fact that in early Byzantine book miniatures the image of the tabernacle served as a visual model of the universe 419. Ainalov points out that earlier the church decor was influenced by ancient illustrations to treatises on cosmology, and later by “Sacred Topography” by Kozma Indikoplov, in the illustration of which the image of the tabernacle was included as a symbol of the universe. In the developed iconography of the cross-domed church, scenes of the “Last Judgment” are written according to the scheme compositionally developed in the illustrations for “Sacred Topography” 420. As has been repeatedly noted, a feature of symbolic realism is the rapprochement of mysticism and reality. A clear manifestation of this principle was the organic coexistence of “mystical” and “real” planes of expression in the language of medieval art; in particular, ancient geographical maps could serve as a prototype for the mosaics decorating the floors of early Byzantine churches. Let us give another example: in the tabletop images, the ornamentation of the “mud” under the feet of the saints repeated the mosaic pattern of the real floor of the church. This technique suggested the unity of the Earthly Church and the Heavenly Church. Earthly and heavenly, matter and spirit were united in the hypostasis of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of the Father. Gregory of Nyssa devotes his discussions to the verbal nature of man. He emphasizes that the verbal principle is present in the entire composition of a person, not being connected only with the mind or with the heart: “... The mind is not contained in any one member, but is revealed in all and through everything, neither from the outside is it contained, nor is it contained from the inside” 421. A separate chapter (Chapter VIII. “Why a person’s appearance is straight and that hands are for words, and then some philosophy about the difference of souls”) in the treatise is devoted to the dependence of a person’s appearance on his similarity to the Incarnate Word. Gregory of Nyssa by verbal nature connects the upright posture of a person and the special role of the hands, free in such a position of the body. “After all, if a person were deprived of arms, then, undoubtedly, in the likeness of four-legged animals, the parts of his face would be arranged in accordance with the need to feed: the face would be elongated and thinner towards the nostrils, the lips at the mouth would protrude forward, calloused, hard and rough, as is necessary to pluck grass; a tongue would be inserted between the teeth, not like it is now, but fleshy, hard and lumpy, helping the teeth to chew what gets into the teeth, or moist, soft at the edges, like in dogs and other predators, protruding from the saw teeth through the gap between the jaws. Then, undoubtedly, a person would have to either bleat, or meow, or neigh, or roar like bulls or donkeys, or somehow growl like an animal." 422 Let us note that in the passage there is an appeal by the saint to the physiognomy of Aristotle, whose works Gregory of Nyssa knew well 423 . Comparison of facial features with the appearance of an animal to determine the characteristics of a person’s character was also known to Plutarch; physiognomy in antiquity almost turned into a separate science. The image created by Gregory by condensing “animal features” only evokes “The Temptations of St. Anthony.” This negative image is a set of human bestiality traits (according to trichotomy) - an allegory of the passionate dispensation of a person who has crawled into sin, having lost his likeness to the Word. Through the reverse, apophatic image, Gregory of Nyssa leads the reader to understand the meaning of walking upright and both hands and mouth for pronouncing words: “But now, when the body has been given a hand, the mouth conveniently serves the word. Consequently, hands are a feature of the verbal nature, invented by the Creator for the convenience of the word” 424. A preliminary comparison of this fragment of text with the semantic structure of the iconographic canon allows us to re-evaluate such stylistic features of the appearance of saints as the special straightness of the figure in the motif of the presence and the rigidly fixed semantics of the hand gesture. D. V. Ainalov notes in the mosaics of the 4th–5th centuries the correspondence of gestures to the rules adopted in oratory. For example, only the right hand always gestures or, for example, the index finger raised to the mouth - a traditional gesture of thoughtfulness. In this context, Ainalov mentions a manual on rhetoric written by Gregory of Nyssa. Klautova points out several groups into which gestures are divided: adoration, blessing, acceptance of grace, questioning, mourning, worship, etc. 425 - which has already been mentioned. The “verbal principle” in the icon is quite developed: the inscription of the name affirms the truth of the image and is an act of its consecration. The inscriptions on icons are varied: they can be both liturgical and clergy texts. Gregory of Nyssa develops the theme of the structure of human organs in accordance with his verbal nature. “The sky receives the sound coming from below with its cavity, and then drives it through two identical pipes going to the nostrils and, dividing the sound in two by two cartilages, which near the sieve, like protruding shells, makes the voice louder” 426. Here he moves on to the Pythagorean and Neoplatonic theme of musical harmony, likening the structure of the speech organs to the structure of a musical instrument: “The music of the human organ is, in a well-known way, the mixed music of the pipe and the lyre, as if singing together with each other in one joint sound” 427. “As we see among musicians that they perform different music depending on the type of instruments: they do not play lyres, and do not rattle on pipes, in the same way it should be that the structure of the organs should correspond to the word... For this reason, arms were given to the body” 428. The entire anatomical structure of man is created in such a way that in man, in the words of Gregory of Nyssa, “the Word makes music.” Musical harmony in ancient and medieval philosophy reflects the harmony of the universe. In fine art, the musical principle is reflected by the purity of graphic construction, smooth, melodious lines, color chords, and the attention of masters to the expressiveness of rhythm. To summarize, we note: Eastern Christian art is included in the “mysterion,” the sacrament of worship. The images of symbolic realism serve to transform a person. According to the teachings of the Cappadocians, the universe is transformed in man and with him. Gregory of Nyssa actually laid the foundations for the doctrine of the hierarchy of images, of the liturgical symbol as an image that goes back to the Prototype. Consideration of Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise “On the Structure of Man” leads to a number of conclusions: – Gregory of Nyssa’s development of the category “image” anticipates the logical-dialectical constructions of John of Damascus in the “Third Defense against Those Who Blame Holy Icons or Images” and the hierarchy of symbols in the theology of the Areopagite; in the trichotomy of Saint Nyssa, the “image” becomes a link between the concepts of “hypostasis” of Trinitarian theology, the “hypostasis” of man (at the same time as the “image of God” and as a “microcosm”); the semantic completeness of the image as a liturgical symbol unites gradations of meanings from the natural philosophical to the mystical into a dynamic unity, a hierarchy leading to the Prototype, God; in the philosophical and dogmatic treatise, the “image” became the focus of ontological, soteriological, cosmological, epistemological meanings of the Middle Ages; – in the doctrine of man as the image of God, Gregory of Nyssa lays the foundations of the theology of icon veneration, anticipating the categorical relationship of the Trinitarian, Christological dogmas and the dogma of Icon veneration, – laying the fundamental foundations of the theology of the image in the canonical definitions of the Fifth-Sixth (Trullo) Council, the dogmatic definitions of the Seventh Ecumenical Council and the Triumph Orthodoxy and, accordingly, the theology of the fathers of the era of iconoclasm: John of Damascus, Theodore the Studite, etc. In the Alexandrian tradition, the creation of the treatise was a milestone in the transition from symbolic-allegorical to mystical interpretations, it became the starting point of the tradition of liturgical interpretations, giving a direct projection onto the figurative structure of Eastern Christian liturgical art; – in the treatise, both continuity and demarcation of the ontology of Antiquity and the ontology of the Middle Ages are obvious (against the background of polemics with Plotinus); analysis of Gregory of Nyssa's appeal to the VI Ennead allows us to identify the most important structure-forming laws of the human picture of the world of the early Middle Ages: the order of the relationship between energy - potency - eidos, which allows us to consider the image in its relation to the mystery, the sacrament; the general provisions of ontology and epistemology, reflected in the treatise “On the Structure of Man,” give a projection onto the structural laws of the formation of the canon as the artistic style of the era: the system of proportioning “three circles”, reverse perspective, movement in a circle connected with movement in a straight line (as open) - in contrast to two types: “movement in a straight line” and “movement in a circle” - according to Aristotle); – the images of Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise themselves as such had a powerful influence on the formation and development of art: the transition from signifiers and symbolic-allegorical imagery to the symbolic realism of the canon; formation of a composition in accordance with the concept of “typos” (“imprint”) and the rules of typology; transplantation of imperial iconography onto the basis of Christological iconography; development of figurative analogues of the category of “royality”, etc. Analysis of the influence of the philosophical and dogmatic system of Gregory of Nyssa on the theology of icon veneration and the tradition of liturgical interpretation, on the main stages of the formation of Christian symbolism allows us to conclude that Gregory of Nyssa defined the fundamental principles of the formation of the system of the iconographic canon. The transition from late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages is based on a change in the philosophical foundations of culture, namely on the polarization of pagan and patristic Neoplatonism and the transformation of the latter into a philosophical and dogmatic system. In the philosophical and dogmatic system of the Cappadocians, the demarcation from Neoplatonism is rooted in the most important provisions of ontology. The philosophy of the “great Cappadocians” not only determined the picture of the world of the Middle Ages, but was rooted in culture, thanks to its institutional design, since it inherited the institution of the school developed by Platonism, where philosophy takes on a load that can be distributed between social, religious, educational institutions and science. In the philosophical and dogmatic system of the Cappadocians and, in particular, Gregory of Nyssa, the polemic with Plotinus’ doctrine of emanation is most obvious. Gregory of Nyssa precedes the formation of the theology of the Areopagite in the aspect of the doctrine of hierarchy. Just as the teaching of Plotinus is projected onto the imperial ideology of the time of Aurelian with the adopted new formula of the title “dominus,” so the patristic teaching on hierarchy formed the basis of the political ideology of the early Byzantine state. The idea of ​​Gregory of Nyssa about “the coherence and orderliness of what seems opposite” determined the features of Byzantine culture, such as: the combination in the theory of a symphony of state and church - social institutions with fundamentally different genesis and goals; the coexistence of “two philosophies” in Byzantium (ancient philosophy and the philosophical-dogmatic system of patristics); the mutual complementarity of monasticism with its spiritual authority and secular power. The Cappadocians develop a line of "apology for culture" going back to Clement of Alexandria and Origen. With the greatest consistency, they carry it out during the reign of the crowned Neoplatonist Julian the Apostate, contrasting paganism with Christianity, Neoplatonism with a philosophical and dogmatic system, and pagan culture with Christian culture. The active influence of the Cappadocians on culture is determined mainly by the fact that they developed the dogma, liturgy, ritual and homiletics of the early Byzantine church. The missionary, legal, and pedagogical nature of the activities of the Cappadocians intensified this impact. The philosophical aspect of the teachings of the “great Cappadocians” is reflected with maximum completeness by the philosophical and dogmatic system of Gregory of Nyssa. Its focus was the doctrine of man, defined as symbolic realism. The exceptional importance of anthropology in the culture of the Middle Ages is due to its soteriological meaning: anthropology is the doctrine of the incarnation of God and the deification of man. Gregory of Nyssa entered the history of philosophy as the founder of anthropology as an independent sphere of philosophical knowledge, combining medical, scientific, natural philosophy, philosophical and mystical-dogmatic ideas of his era. Gregory of Nyssa introduced definitions of the essence and hypostasis of man into the culture of the early Middle Ages. The theological aspect of Gregory of Nyssa's teaching about man is based on the Trinitarian and Christological dogmas. The philosophical aspect, including the development of the basic principles of early Byzantine ontology, anthropology, cosmology, and epistemology, served as the basis for both Christian culture as a whole and the picture of the world in liturgical art. The key concept in the anthropology and theology of icon veneration is the category of “image.” Its semantic richness is due to the genesis of the philosophical synthesis of the Cappadocians. The symbolic realism of Christian culture and art is based on the tradition of philosophical syntheses, Hellenic and Jewish exegesis, and the mystical dogmatic doctrine of Christianity. These sources of the theology of the image formed the basis of the anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa as a representative of patristic Neoplatonism. Cappadocian philosophy assimilated and overcame Neoplatonism, but it also became a link between the Alexandrian exegetical and philosophical tradition, on the one hand, and the theology of the image and the tradition of liturgical interpretation, on the other. The successors of Cappadocian theology were the fathers of the Fifth-Sixth (Trullo) Council, which approved the canon of icon veneration, St. John of Damascus, the fathers of the VII Ecumenical Council, which approved the dogma of Icon veneration, St. Maximus the Confessor and his successors in the line of liturgical interpretations. The stages of the formation of philosophical and dogmatic teaching were reflected in the development of Christian symbolism in culture and art, its figurative and stylistic structure. The stages of development of philosophy correspond to the main stages of the formation of the Eastern Christian canon: early Christian symbolism, the art of “Byzantine antiquity”, symbolic realism of the canon. Anthropology has its own influence on the figurative structure of each of these stages. Thus, the Neoplatonic theory of metempsychosis and the patristic theory of dichotomy underlie the dematerialization of the spirit in early Christian symbolism, and at the next stages (“Byzantine antiquity”, symbolic realism) the theory of trichotomy and the doctrine of perichoresis - the basis of the anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa - become decisive. The dominant property of the teaching about man of the Nyssa saint is the conjugation of the poles of the realities of earthly existence and mystical theology in the unity of the image. The liturgical image is endowed with “forces” (energies, or rather synergy) that bring a person closer to the mystery of the Divine Essence. The revelation of the image of God in man, the deification of man, determines the figurative and stylistic system of the canon. The provisions of Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise “On the Structure of Man” preceded the formation of symbolic realism in the culture of Byzantium, and in the applied aspect they determined the basic principles of the formation of the figurative and stylistic system of the iconographic canon (its subject-iconographic complex; reverse perspective; the system of proportioning “three circles”, etc.). It should be noted the direct influence of Gregory of Nyssa on the artistic process, as evidenced by the dish with a relief image and inscription from the Nativity homily of Gregory of Nyssa, as well as his ekphrasis. So, the provisions of Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise “On the Structure of Man” laid down the basic principles for the formation and development of the Eastern Christian canon, preceded the formation of symbolic realism in early Byzantine art and culture, and outlined the picture of the world of man in the Middle Ages. There is no doubt: to the extent that Christianity determined the foundations of European culture, its spiritual structure, symbolic realism preceded the formation of a picture of the world and symbolic forms in art that captured the totality of these ideas. // Shchipina R.V. Grigory Nissky. Creation of a canon. Study guide. – St. Petersburg: PbKO, 2013. Archbishop Konstantin (Goryanov). Know yourself. Life and religious-philosophical anthropology of Viktor Nesmelov. // All-Russian Council. 2003. No. 3. P. 51. Korolkov A. A. Spiritual anthropology. – St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg University Publishing House, 2005. pp. 7–9. These theories are pointed out by O. M. Callahan. These theories were identified by V.I. Nesmelov: Nesmelov V.I. The dogmatic system of St. Gregory of Nyssa. – St. Petersburg: Publication of the Center for the Study, Protection and Restoration of the Heritage of Priest Pavel Florensky, – 2000. P. 326–356. G.V. Florovsky draws attention to the background of the issue. The emergence of the theory was due to polemics with the Eunomians (Anomeans), who relied on the teachings of the Sophists. Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern). Anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas. – M.: Pilgrim, 1996. P. 139. Losev A. F. Dialectics of number in Plotinus. / Losev A. F. Myth. Number. Essence. – M.: Mysl, – 1994. P. 754. Plotinus. Selected treatises. – Minsk: Harvest, M.: AST – 2000. P. 145. Gregory of Nyssa. Like our father Saint Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, among the saints. About the structure of man. / lane V. M. Lurie. – St. Petersburg: AXIOMA, – 1995. P. 10. Gregory of Nyssa. Like our father Saint Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, among the saints. About the structure of man. / lane V. M. Lurie. – St. Petersburg: AXIOMA, – 1995. P. 9. Gregory of Nyssa. Like our father Saint Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, among the saints. About the structure of man. / lane V. M. Lurie. – St. Petersburg: AXIOMA, – 1995. P. 193–95. The idea as the Divine plan for a thing or the “seed logos of the creature” and eidos as an image, appearance are concepts brought together in the treatise of Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory of Nyssa's concept of change as a transition of forces in energy reflects a break with the ancient and Origenist idea of ​​development in a circle, where the “beginning” and the “end” coincide. Noted by V. M. Lurie: Gregory of Nyssa. Like our father Saint Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, among the saints. About the structure of man. / lane V. M. Lurie. – St. Petersburg: AXIOMA, – 1995. P. 138. Zhivov V. M. “Mystagogy” of Maximus the Confessor and the development of the Byzantine theory of the image. – “The artistic language of the Middle Ages” – M., 1982. P. 110. Gregory of Nyssa. About the structure of man. – St. Petersburg, 1995. pp. 109–110. Zhivov V. M. “Mystagogy” of Maximus the Confessor and the development of the Byzantine theory of the image. // Artistic language of the Middle Ages - M., 1982. pp. 108–127. Zhivov V. M. “Mystagogy” of Maximus the Confessor and the development of the Byzantine theory of the image. // Artistic language of the Middle Ages. – M., 1982. P. 116–118. Gregory of Nyssa. About the structure of man. – St. Petersburg, 1995. pp. 10–11. Lossky V.N. Essay on the mystical theology of the Eastern Church. Essay on the dogmatic theology of the Eastern Church. – M., 1991. P. 22–23. Gregory of Nyssa. About the structure of man. – St. Petersburg, 1995. pp. 22–23. Uspensky L.F. Theology of the icon of the Orthodox Church. – M., 1989. P. 66. Taho-Godi A. A. The term “symbol” in ancient Greek literature - Taho-Godi A. A. Greek culture in myths, symbols and terms. / A. A. Taho-Godi, A. F. Losev; – St. Petersburg: Alteya, – 1999. P. 329–361. The question of the influence of Iamblichus and Damascus can only be raised. Gregory of Nyssa. About the structure of man. – St. Petersburg: AXIOMA., 1995. P. 11. Taho-Godi A. A. The term “symbol” in ancient Greek literature - Taho-Godi A. A. Greek culture in myths, symbols and terms. / A. A. Taho-Godi, A. F. Losev; – St. Petersburg: Alteya, – 1999. P. 342. Taho-Godi A. A. The term “symbol” in ancient Greek literature - Taho-Godi A. A. Greek culture in myths, symbols and terms. A. A. Takho-Godi, A. F. Losev; – St. Petersburg: Alteya, – 1999. P. 362. Epifanovich S. L. St. Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine theology. – M.: Martis, 2003. P. 30. Right there. P. 32. The presentation of the teachings of the Areopagite is borrowed from S. L. Epifanovich. Alexander Shmeman, archpriest. Symbols and symbolism of the Byzantine liturgy: Liturgical symbols and their theological interpretation htpp://www.tipicon.ru lturgicbus_simbolism.html#1#1 Dogma is a Greek word derived from the verb to think, believe, believe; denotes a thought that has become fully established in the human consciousness, a firm conviction that has determined the unchangeable decision of the human will. Dogma in the church meaning of this word is a categorical definition of revealed truth, containing a reflection of the doctrine of God’s relationship to the world and man; it has a universally binding meaning for all members of the church. From the dogmatic definition of the VII Ecumenical Council it follows that an icon is an image of Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, angels or saints, painted on walls with paint or mosaics, or on roadside stones, or on vessels, or on boards with paints. The image is determined by the holy fathers, and is executed properly by the icon painter. The icon serves as evidence of the true, and not illusory, Incarnation of God, a reminder of God, saints and the events of Sacred history. The word of Scripture and the image mutually testify to the truth of each other. Worship of an icon is relative in nature, since the honor given to the icon does not relate to the substance of the icon (board and paints), not to the skill of the icon painter, but is attributed to the Prototype, God. “Canon” is an ecclesiastical legal term denoting a rule of faith, a mandatory norm of church discipline, one of the resolutions of the Ecumenical Councils. It is included in church terminology in the sense first defined in the letter of the Apostle Paul. The concept of “icon” is of Greek origin, its meaning is “image”, “reflection”, “image”, “vision”, “portrait” - “I have a resemblance”, “I resemble”, “I seem correct”. The icon (image) receives a theological definition from one of the founders of the theology of the image, John of Damascus. In “Three words of defense against those who condemn holy icons or images,” he reveals this term through the concepts of “portrait” and “imprint,” “imprint,” thereby indicating the relationship between the image and the prototype, the symbolic meaning of the portrait image. An extensive hierarchy of interconnected images was built by John of Damascus in the “Third Protective Word...”: “God Himself was the first to give birth to His only begotten Son and His Word, His living image, natural, in everything a similar image of His eternity; and created man in His own image and likeness,” - this context includes the concept of an image as an icon, a pictorial image. Malkov Yu. G. Some aspects of the development of Eastern Christian art in the context of medieval epistemology. // Soviet art history, 1977. No. 2. – M., 1978. P. 93–121. Malkov Yu. G. Some aspects of the development of Eastern Christian art in the context of medieval epistemology. // Soviet art history, 1977. No. 2. – M., 1978. P. 104. Saint Gregory of Nyssa. Homily 19. About the divinity of the Son and the Spirit and praise to righteous Abraham. - Works of St. Gregory of Nyssa. Part IV. – M., 1862. P. 377–378. Acts of the VII Ecumenical Council. – Kazan, 1891. P. 114. Gregory of Nyssa. About the structure of man. – St. Petersburg, 1995. P. 9. Saint Gregory of Nyssa, On the structure of man. pp. 15–16. Acts of the VII Ecumenical Council. – Kazan, 1891. Reprint. B.m., b.g. pp. 142–143. Gregory of Nyssa. About the structure of man. P. 15. Vasmer M. Etymological dictionary of the Russian language. T. 3. – St. Petersburg, 1996. P. 106. Quote by: A.F. Losev. Classical kalokagathia and its types // “Questions of Aesthetics”. Vol. 3. – M., 1960. P. 114. Quote by: V.V. Bychkov. Aesthetics of the Church Fathers. – M., 1995. P. 284. John of Damascus connects these two definitions, building a hierarchy of images connecting them. In the “Third Protective Word...” they are given a definition of an icon: “An icon (or image) without a doubt is a likeness and a sample, and an imprint of something, showing what is depicted. But, in any case, the image is not in all respects similar to the person or object depicted; for the other is the image and the other is that which is depicted.” (John of Damascus. Op. op. p. 100). Here is - briefly - the hierarchy he presented: “... The first natural and in everything similar image of the invisible God is the Son of the Father, revealing the Father in Himself... A similar and completely equal image of the Son - the Holy Spirit, has a difference (with Him) in only one respect: in that He proceeds... And this is the first image of the image: natural. ...The second type of image... His eternal advice. For at his council, what was predetermined by him, and what was indestructibly meant to happen in the future, was endowed with signs and images before its existence. The third type of image is that which comes from God through imitation, that is... man... The fourth kind of image is the one when Scripture creates images and views, and outlines of invisible and incorporeal objects, depicted bodily for the weak understanding of both God and the Angels: ... we are not able to rise to the contemplation of spiritual objects without (any) mediation, and in order to rise, we need that which is related and akin to us... The fifth kind of image is the one that represents and foreshadows the future, like a bush... The sixth type of image: an image established to remember what happened... This image is twofold: as through a word written into books. so through sensory contemplation...” (John of Damascus. Ibid., pp. 100–104). Here is an example of the use of this image in the Great Repentant Canon of Andrew of Crete: “I am, O Savior, who destroyed the ancient royal drachma of old: but having burned the lamp of Thy Forerunner, O Word, seek and find Thy image.” Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern) Decree. Op. P. 163. Venerable John of Damascus. Three words of defense against those who condemn holy icons or images. Venerable Theodore the Studite. Epistle to Plato on the veneration of icons. – Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra. 1993. P. 20. Works of Gregory of Nyssa. T. VII. – M., 1865. P. 20. John of Damascus. Decree. Op. P. 29. Gregory of Nyssa. About the structure of man. pp. 87–89. It should be noted that the theme of royalty in philosophy is present in Plato and Amelius. We are far from fully citing the theologians’ use of this particular image. Thus, in particular, Theodore the Studite and John Chrysostom resort to it. Venerable John of Damascus. Three words of defense against those who condemn holy icons or images. – Sergiev Posad: Publishing House of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, – 1993. Acts of the VII Ecumenical Council. - Kazan. [b.i.], – 1891. (reprint b.m., b.g.) Grabar A. The Emperor in Byzantine art - M.: Ladomir, - 2000. Uspensky L. A. Theology of the icon of the Orthodox Church. – M., 1989. P. 66. A.F. Losev points out that he, in turn, is based on the work of one of the founders of the iconological trend in art history, E. Panofsky, appealing to his work “Perspective as a “symbolic form””. Let us give just one example illustrating how “structural terms” are correlated with the worldview of their time. “Measure” (meros) is one of the categories that define the system of proportions in architecture and sculpture. It ceases to be abstract when compared with the context of the famous statement of Protagoras: “Man is the measure of all things, both visible and invisible.” Quote by: Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern). Anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas. – M., 1996. P. 146. On the significance of Kondakov as the founder of the science of Byzantine culture - V. N. Lazarev. Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov. / Byzantine painting. – M., 1971. P. 7–19., I. V. Tunkina., N. P. Kondakov: review of personal fund. // Archives of Russian Byzantinists in St. Petersburg / ed. I. P. Medvedeva. – St. Petersburg, 1995. pp. 93–119. For the first time, Kondakov’s iconographic method was designated and used as a working method in research: Kondakov N. P. History of Byzantine art and iconography based on miniatures of Greek manuscripts. – Odessa: type. Ulrich and Schulze. – 1876. History of European art history. Second half of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries. Rep. ed. B. R. Vipper, T. N. Livanova. Tt. I, II. – M., 1969. N.P. Kondakov expressed his critical attitude towards iconographic studies of this kind, speaking of them as “historical statistics, devoid of the necessary analysis to discover mutual connections and consistency in these types.” He also avoids the extremes of formal stylistic analysis: “The history of Christian art concentrates its characteristics of monuments and periods on a general assessment of artistic progress and concerns the content from the point of view of historical schemes: monumentality, decorativeness, nationality, etc. It is quite natural that, as a result, such an abstractly dry presentation of the artistic process, alien to concrete characteristics, deprives the presentation itself of any interest associated with the direct study of the subject.” - N.P. Kondakov. Iconography of the Mother of God. T. I. - M., 1998. P. 6. Kondakov N.P. Iconography of the Mother of God. T. I. - M., 1998. P. 7. This precise and significant conclusion belongs to V. M. Lurie: “The patristic category of “form,” as it was with Aristotle, is synonymous with “essence”... The anthropological concept of the image of God in man will later serve to justify another dogma - the veneration of icons. - Gregory of Nyssa. About the structure of man. – St. Petersburg, 1995. P. 123. In “The Iconography of the Mother of God” he writes: “...The type is determined by the national character or expression of folk traits, as the main ones or giving a peculiar typicality to the human image. But over time, a certain historical thought, or an idea of ​​a universal human nature, grows into this type, and such an “ideal” image again passes into the sphere of folk, historical art. The study of the gradual growth of folk and historical types and images... thus deals with the internal history of the spiritualization and ennoblement of folk character to the degree of universal significance, as the highest models and so-called ideals.” - N.P. Kondakov. Iconography of the Mother of God. T. I. - M., 1998. P. 2. Kondakov N.P.. Iconography of the Mother of God. T. I. - M., 1998. P.4. Quote by: L. A. Uspensky. Theology of the Orthodox Church icon. – M., 1989. P. 62. Kondakov N.P. Iconography of the Mother of God. T. I. - M., 1998. P. 5. Yazykova I. / I. Yazykova, abbot Luka (Golovkov). Theological foundations of icons and iconography. // History of icon painting of the 6th–20th centuries. Origins, traditions, modernity. – M., 2002. P. 15. Face scripts should not be confused with pattern books and craft books. The “Athos Book of Specimens” from the collection of the National Library of Russia was recently attributed to L. M. Evseeva: L. M. Evseeva. Athos book of samples of the 15th century. – M., 1998. Chapters 1 and 2 include a critical review of domestic and foreign literature on the problem, the history of the issue. Craft books are a special genre of recording technological recipes. This genre has been little studied; an example of the publication of texts of Russian medieval craft books and their study is the “Code of written sources on the techniques of ancient Russian painting, bookmaking and artistic craft in the lists of the 15th–19th centuries.” Tt. I, II. – St. Petersburg, 1995. Evseeva L. M. Decree. cit., p. 27. Kondakov N.P. Iconography of the Mother of God. T. I. – M., 1998. P. 2–3. Gregory of Nyssa. About the structure of man. – St. Petersburg, 1995. P. 17. Quote by: Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern). Anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas. – M., 1996. P. 147. Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern). Anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas. – M., 1996. P. 147. Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern). Anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas. – M., 1996. P. 146. Savina S. G. Iconography. Theological essays of the iconographic summary. – St. Petersburg, 2001. Etingof O. E. Image of the Mother of God. – M., 2000. Matthews T. Transformative symbolism of Byzantine architecture and the image of Pantocrator in the dome. // Eastern Christian Church. Liturgy and art. Ed. A. M. Lidova. – St. Petersburg, 1994. pp. 7–16. Quote by: Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern). Anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas. – M., 1996. P. 149. Gregory of Nyssa. About the structure of man. – St. Petersburg, 1995. P. 31. The distinction between these methods is the subject of theoretical research by V.N. Zalesskaya, to whom the author expresses special gratitude. Zaleskaya V. N. Applied art of Byzantium IV–XII centuries - St. Petersburg, 1997. Kondakov N.P. Archaeological journey through Macedonia. – St. Petersburg, 1913. P. 58 Rice D. T. The Art of Byzantium. – M., 2002. P. 12. Lazarev V.N. History of Byzantine painting. T. I. – M.: “Art”. – 1947. P. 34. Kitzinger E. Byzantine Art in the making: Main lines of stylistic development in Mediterranean Art 3rd – 7th Centuru. – Cambridge. 1977. Taho-Godi A. A. The artistic and symbolic meaning of Porfiry’s treatise “On the Cave of the Nymphs” // A. A. Taho-Godi, A. F. Losev. Greek culture in myths, symbols and terms. – St. Petersburg, 1999. P. 574. Demus O. – Quote. by: Averintsev S.S. Poetics of early Byzantine literature. – M., 1997. P. 262. This topic was most consistently developed in studies on the history of early Byzantine art by D. V. Ainalov, V. N. Zalesskaya, V. N. Lazarev, V. D. Likhacheva, D. T. Rice, G. Strzhigovsky. Strzhigovsky G. – Quoted. by: Ainalov D.V. Hellenistic foundations of Byzantine art. – St. Petersburg, 1900. P. 2. Zalesskaya V.N. Decree. Op. S. 5. Expression by V. M. Zhivov: V. M. Zhivov. “Mystagogy” of Maximus the Confessor and the development of the Byzantine theory of the image. // Artistic language of the Middle Ages. – M., 1982. P. 108–127. Ainalov D.V. Mosaics of the 4th–5th centuries. Research in the field of Christian iconography and the style of ancient Christian art. – St. Petersburg, 1895. P. 32 Kondakov N.P. History of Byzantine art based on miniatures of Greek manuscripts // Notes of the Imperial Novorossiysk University. T. XXI - Odessa, 1876. The term “assist” is common, but is not used quite accurately, because among icon painters, an assist is not the golden strokes applied with created or gold leaf, but the adhesive composition applied with strokes under gold leaf, to which it is attached. Taho-Godi A. A. The term “symbol” in ancient Greek literature - Taho-Godi A. A. Greek culture in myths, symbols and terms. A. A. Takho-Godi, A. F. Losev; – St. Petersburg: Alteya, – 1999. P. 344. Losev A. F. History of ancient aesthetics: recent centuries. – M.: Thought. – 1992. P. 413. Averintsev S.S. Symbolism of the early Middle Ages (Towards the formulation of the question). – http://www.geocities.com. katz_us_il aver Grabar A. Plotin et les origines de l’esthetique medievale // Cahies archeologiques. 1945. I. P. 15–33. V. N. Lazarev writes: “...neither Byzantine nor European art ever again abandoned that dualism in the interpretation of the image of a person, which was first identified in late antique art.” – V. N. Lazarev. Late Antique Art and the Origins of Christian Spiritualism. // History of Byzantine painting. T. I. – M., 1947. P. 34–37. Mathew G. Byzantine Aesthetics. London, 1963. Nesselstraus Ts. G. Decree. Op. pp. 9–26. Panofsky E. IDEA On the history of the concept in the theories of art from antiquity to classicism.. - St. Petersburg. 1999. P. 24. Let us turn to the previously cited terminological research by A. A. Tahoe-Godi, which clearly states the absence of the term “symbol” in Plotinus. Losev A. F. History of ancient aesthetics. Late Hellenism. – M., 1980. P. 530. Veidle V.V. Baptismal mystery and early Christian art - Veidle V.V. The Dying of Art. – St. Petersburg, 1996. pp. 163–192. Ainalov D.V. Mosaics of the 4th–5th centuries. Research in the field of Christian iconography and the style of ancient Christian art. – St. Petersburg, 1895. P. 14. Quote by: Golubtsov A.P. From readings on church archeology and liturgics. – St. Petersburg, 1995. P. 156. Uspensky L. A. Theology of the icon of the Orthodox Church. – M., 1989. P. 62–65. Miller T. Byzantine exegesis. // Patristics. New translations and articles. – Nizhny Novgorod, 2001. pp. 210–211. Savina S. G. Iconography. Theological essays of an iconographic version, St. Petersburg, 2001, pp. 19–64. Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern). Liturgics. Gymnography and eratology. – M., 1997. Konstantin and Elena visit the places of the earthly life of the Savior, the first churches are built there; the monumental painting that decorated them, as researchers suggest, served as a kind of model for the further development of iconography. Zalesskaya V.N. Decree. Op. P. 12. More details about the “Cave of the Nymphs”: Taho-Godi A. A. The artistic and symbolic meaning of Porphyry’s treatise “On the Cave of the Nymphs” - Taho-Godi A. A., Losev A. F. Greek culture in myths and terms. – St. Petersburg, 1999. pp. 557–576. About the Platonic image of the cave: Malkov P. The image of the cave in ancient and Christian symbolism // Alpha and Omega. No. 2 (13) – M., 1997. pp. 242–258. Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea of ​​Cappadocia. Instructions for young men on how to use pagan writings. – M., 1899. pp. 11–12. Taho-Godi A. A. The artistic and symbolic meaning of Porfiry’s treatise “On the Cave of the Nymphs” / A. A. Taho-Godi, L. F. Losev. Greek culture in myths, symbols and terms. – St. Petersburg, 1999. P. 558. There is also a link to the list of commentators on Homer M. Homerica dissertatio prior. In Homeri Ilias. Ed. W. Dindort. Lipsiae. 1855. Taho-Godi A. A. Decree. Op. P. 565. Porfiry. About the cave of nymphs. – A. A. Taho-Godi, L. F. Losev. “Greek culture in myths, symbols and terms.” – St. Petersburg, 1999. P. 579. Porfiry, same place. P. 581. Taho-Godi A. A. Decree. Op. P. 560. Porfiry. Decree. Op. P. 583. Gregory of Nyssa. About the structure of man. – St. Petersburg, 1995. P. 90. Right there. P. 66. The text is given by the commentator on the treatise of Gregory of Nyssa, V. M. Lurie. Chapter XXVIII of the treatise “On the structure of man, entitled “Against those who claim that the soul pre-existed bodies or, conversely, that bodies were created before souls. It also refutes the fables about the transmigration of souls (metempsychosis)” - Ibid. pp. 89–93. I express my deepest gratitude to the curator of Byzantine icons in the Hermitage, Yu. A. Pyatnitsky, for this certificate. Welflin G. Basic concepts of art history / G. Welflin. Basic concepts of art history. Problems of style evolution in new art. – M.: Publishing House V. Shevchuk., 2002. Dvorak M. Art history as a history of spirit. / M. 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