John Chrysostom"

Aporia 103 is part of the treatise of St. Maximus the Confessor “Difficulties to John” (about 628-630 or until 633-634). The work is aimed at refuting the Monothelite doctrine, which asserts the presence in Christ of only one (Divine) will and one energy. The following questions are raised in Aporia: - Christ has two natures - Divine and human - with all their properties, including will; - the unity of the personality of Christ (two natures are united in one hypostasis (personality) of the Savior); - The divine and human wills of Christ do not contradict each other, but are in harmony and agreement. The human will of Christ is subordinated to the Divine, but at the same time it is not annulled and retains its freedom. The denial of the human will in Christ leads to the denial of the fullness of His humanity and, therefore, to the impossibility of the redemption of mankind; - the human nature of Christ, being united with the Divine, is deified, which allows it to act in accordance with the Divine will, while remaining free; - the energy emanating from Christ manifests both Divine and human will, but without their fusion. This is the essay of St. Maximus the Confessor played a key role in the condemnation of monothelitism and monoenergism and in the approval of the diophelite doctrine (two wills in Christ) at the VI Ecumenical Council. *The title of the work in Latin is Ambiguorum liber. “Natures are renewed and God becomes man” (from Word XXXIX of St. Gregory the Theologian on Holy Lights 1) 1. The saints, having received many Divine mysteries, which were transmitted to them by succession through their predecessors from the followers and servants of the Word, who directly learned the knowledge of existence from there, say that the hypostasis of all created things has five divisions. According to them, the first of them is the one that separates created nature as a whole from the Uncreated nature, which received existence through creation 2. Indeed, as they say, God, in His goodness, created the glorious structure of all things, from which it is not yet clear who He is and what He is like. That is why they called separation [also] ignorance, which in this respect distinguishes creation from God. After all, they left unspeakable [that division] that naturally separated the Creator and the creature from each other and did not allow them to be united into one essence, since it is impossible to admit the same logos for them. The second [division] is that according to which all nature, which came into being through creation, was divided by God into the intelligible and the sensible. The third is that according to which the sensible nature is divided into heaven and earth. The fourth is that according to which the earth is divided into paradise and the rest of the earth 3. Finally, the fifth is the one according to which man is divided into male and female, [placed] above everything, like some kind of all-encompassing workshop, and naturally mediating with himself between all the extreme limits of any division 4 . Being gracefully introduced into existence through creation 5, he, thanks to the central position between all the extreme limits, naturally has all the power [for their] connection through that feature that connects [in him] all the extreme limits of his own parts. Through this ability, that replenishable image in which, according to [its] reason, the divided parts [of the world] arose, should of itself clearly show the great mystery of the Divine plan and bring to the end a harmonious, harmonious, consistently accomplished connection of the extreme limits of existence with each other, extending from near to far, from lower to higher and ultimately culminating in God. 2. For this purpose, man is introduced into existence last, as a kind of natural connection, through his own parts, mediating between the extreme limits of the universe and in himself bringing together that which by nature is separated from each other by a great distance, in order to bring about the union of everything with God as the First Cause. Beginning with his own division, gradually moving forward through the middle [parts], successively and in order, he would reach in God the limit of the highest ascent, passing through everything in accordance with unity - [the limit] in which there is no longer division. [To do this], man had to, through a most dispassionate state rooted in divine virtue, [first of all] completely throw off from [his] nature the peculiarity [of the division] of the sexes into female and male, which was in no way included in the original Divine plan for the emergence of man according to [his] basic logos. As a result of this, man, thanks to the perfect knowledge of his own, as I said, logos, according to which he possesses being, would appear and would correspond only to the Divine plan, not being divided by name into male and female sex and not having those parts that he has now, according to the logos by which he was originally brought into being. Following this, man, through his holy life, uniting heaven and the rest of the earth, would make the whole earth one and not divided into different parts for him, but rather united, since he would not experience any dependence on any of its parts. After this, he, having become in his life in everything identical with the Angels in virtue, as far as is possible for a person, would make the entire sensory creation united and completely indivisible in himself, which would not be separated at all by spatial distances for him. After all, his spirit would become light and would not be drawn to the earth by any bodily weight and would not experience any obstacle to ascending to heaven thanks to the complete insensitivity to [all] this of [his] mind, which would truly rush to God and wisely make a procession, consistently reaching out to Him, and, as on an ordinary road, naturally moving forward step by step. Then man, thanks to equality with the Angels in knowledge, in addition to this uniting the intelligible and the sensible, would make all creation one and not divided for him according to knowledge and ignorance, since he would achieve complete knowledge, equal to the angels, of the logoi contained in existence. In accordance with this knowledge, there would be an infinitely generous outpouring of true Wisdom, which, as far as is permissible, in the purest and most immediate way would provide worthy people with an incomprehensible and inexplicable knowledge of God. Finally, after all this, man, through love, uniting created nature with Uncreated nature (oh, how great is the miracle of God’s love for us!), would show them to be one and the same in the quality of grace, the whole himself, completely mutually penetrating into God and becoming everything that God is, except for identity in essence 6, instead of himself receiving the whole of God and, as if a reward for ascending to God himself, having acquired the most unique God, Who is the final goal of movement [of all] moving, unshakable and motionless peace of [all] rushing towards Him, limitless boundary and limitless limit of every definition, institution, law, concept, mind and nature. 3. And so, man did not follow the natural movement given to him at creation towards his motionless Origin (I mean God), but, on the contrary, voluntarily, unreasonably and unnaturally moved towards that which is lower than himself, over which he himself received a command from God to dominate. He abused the natural ability given to him at creation to unite the divided [and directed it] rather to divide the united, so that he himself was almost in danger of going into oblivion again. That is why “natures are renewed,” 7 and what is completely motionless by nature, miraculously, supernaturally and, so to speak, motionless, moves towards that which is mobile by nature. And “God becomes Man” 8 in order to save lost man and fulfill the great council 9 of God and the Father, having headed everything that is in heaven and on earth 10 in Himself, in Whom it was created, by Himself connecting the gaps in the universal world nature and [in Himself] showing universal logos that are superior to particular [logoi] and which tend to unite what is divided. In fact, He began the universal union of everything with Himself from our separation, [for] He became a perfect Man from among us, for our sake and in accordance with us, having in Himself everything that is ours without exception, except for sin 11, and without any need for this in natural marriage relations. At the same time, in the same way, He, it seems to me, showed that it was possible that there was another way of reproducing people, provided by God, if the first man had kept the commandment and would not have cast himself into an animal state by abusing his own abilities, but would have expelled from nature the difference and division into the male and female sexes, which, as I have already said, man did not need at all in order to come into being. After all, you can probably do without them. And there is no need for this [separation] to remain forever, because, as the divine Apostle says, in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female (Gal. 3:28). Then Christ, having sanctified our inhabited earth through His human life, after His death passed unhindered into paradise, as He falsely promised the thief, saying: Today you will be with Me in paradise (Luke 23:43). From there, since for Him the earth where we live is from that moment no different from paradise, He again appeared on it, after resurrecting from the dead, communicating with His disciples. [Thereby] He showed that the [entire] earth is one and indivisible in itself, keeping free from differences and divisions the logos according to which it exists. Further, Christ, through His ascension into heaven, united heaven and earth, and ascending into heaven together with this earthly body, which is of the same nature and consubstantial with ours, [thereby] proved that all sensible nature is one according to its more general logos, having in Himself erased the distinctive property of the division that cut it. Then, in addition to this, Christ united the sensible and the intelligible, passing in order together with soul and body, that is, with our perfect nature, through all the divine and intelligible armies in heaven. Thus, He showed in Himself a completely inseparable and immovable desire for the unity of all creation according to its original most general logos. Finally, after all this, Christ, conceived in His humanity 12, came to God Himself, that is, He who, as the Word, was in no way separated from the Father, as Man, according to Scripture, appeared for us in the presence of God the Father (Heb. 9:24), and as Man, by unquestioning obedience, actually and truly fulfilled what He Himself, as God, predestined to happen. [Thus] He fulfilled all the advice of God and the Father for us, through abuse making useless the ability that was originally given to us by nature for this purpose. [So], first He united us in Himself with Himself through the elimination of the distinction between male and female sex, and instead of men and women, in whom the image of this division is precisely observed, He revealed [all] to be simply people in their own and true sense, who in everything became consistent with Him and bear His whole and completely undistorted image, not in the least affected by any of the signs of corruption. Further, together with us and for our sake, He declared in [Himself], as the extreme limits of His own parts, the whole creation through what is in the middle, He around Himself indissolubly connected with each other paradise and the inhabited earth, earth and heaven, sensible and intelligible. Since He had a body, feelings, soul and mind corresponding to us, through which, as [His own] parts, He, in the previously indicated manner, one after another, assimilated to Himself all the universal extreme limits akin to each [of His corresponding parts], and in a godly manner headed all 13 in Himself. As if some other Man, He showed as one all existing creation, which is replenished by the union of its own parts with each other and inclines towards itself by the totality of existence, according to a single, simple, indefinite and indifferent concept of bringing [it] from non-existence [into being]. According to this concept, all creation, whose existence was preceded by non-existence, can receive the same logos, devoid of any differences. 4. In fact, all things that exist after God and through creation have existence from God, according to the true logos, coincide with one another, at least in some way, even if not entirely. After all, in general, nothing that exists, and even that which is supremely valuable and excellent, is by nature completely devoid of a generic relation to that which is supremely unrelated 14 . And [on the contrary], none of the most insignificant things in existence is by nature completely devoid of or alienated from the generic relation to the most precious. Indeed, everything that differs from each other due to special, intrinsic differences is united due to universal and generic identity. And [everything] is pushed towards unity and identity with each other by a certain generic natural logos, as, for example, one genus, due to its essence, is united with another and has unity, identity and inseparability. For nothing from the universal, all-encompassing and generic is completely separated from the particular, comprehensive and particular. After all, that which does not unite what is divided by nature cannot be generic, but is divided along with it and is deprived of its own individual unity. In fact, everything generic, according to its own definition, is entirely, inseparably and uniformly inherent in everything that it embraces, and everything individual is entirely contemplated in relation to the genus. Likewise, species, being freed from various differences, become identical to each other in genus. And individuals, being united with each other in species, acquire complete unity and identity with each other, thanks to the same nature, receiving non-difference and freeing themselves from all dissimilarity. Finally, adjunctive properties, being united with each other thanks to the subject, have a unity that is in no way divided in the subject. 5. A true witness of this is the true theologian, the great and holy Dionysius the Areopagite, who in his work “On the Divine Names”, in the chapter “On the Perfect and the One,” says the following: “After all, the multitude is not deprived of participation in the one, but that which is plural in parts is one in the whole, and that which is plural in accidents is one in the subject, and that which is plural in number or in powers is one in appearance, and that which is plural in appearance is one in genus, and that which is plural in processes is one in origin, and in general, there is nothing among beings that does not participate in the one” 15 . Briefly speaking, the concepts of everything divided and particular are said to be embraced by universal and generic concepts. Both universal and generic concepts are embraced by wisdom, and particular concepts, variously present in generic ones, are embraced by understanding, according to which they are first simplified and freed from the symbolic diversity of the things that are subject to [them], and [after this] they are united by wisdom, acquiring affinity leading to identity with more general [concepts]. The Wisdom and Understanding 16 of God and the Father is the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power of wisdom contains the universal [principles] of beings, and with understanding and knowledge embraces their component parts, as the universal Creator and Provider by nature, bringing Himself into one divided, abolishing the enmity present in existence and leading to peace, love and indivisible unity of mind all that is in heaven and on earth, as the divine Apostle says 17. That is, on the feast of Epiphany. literally “through arising.” literally "universe", "inhabited earth". The Monk Maximus drew this idea of ​​the division of created nature from some unknown ancient source. Putting it all together, we can build the following diagram: II. sensual intelligible A definite, but not exact parallel to it is the so-called “tree” of the Neoplatonist Porphyry, also reproduced by his Christian commentator Boethius (see his Commentary on Porphyry, book 3, chapter “On Species”): III. feeling insensitive In turn, it influenced the concept of the four natures of John Scotus Eriugena, which he outlined in his famous work De divisione naturae (“On the division of nature”): IV. Uncreated, non-creating literally "according to origination." In the anthropology of St. Maximus, there is a clear distinction between the “emergence” of man as a result of the Divine creative act, and the “birth” of man, which arose after the Fall and had no place in God’s original plan for him. See, for example: Quaest. ad Thai. XXI; Ambigua // PG 91. Col. 1316 d-1317 b. The teaching of St. Maximus on the deification of man is based on the idea of ​​the closest energetic connection in him of created and uncreated nature, their interpenetration and interchange of properties, which he more fully develops in his Christological treatises. See: Saint Gregory the Theologian. Word XXXIX. 13. See Isaiah 9 (after LXX); Jer 39 (according to LXX). Compare: Eph 1:10. This ancient concept of the “heading” of everything in Christ, the origin of which is found in the Apostle Paul, and the continuation of which is found in St. Irenaeus of Lyons and St. Maximus. Var.: according to the [Divine] plan for humanity. Compare: Eph 1:10, see above, note on p. 132. Or "uncertain". Apparently, this means low-quality matter. Dionysii. De divinis nominibus, XIII.2. Cp.: Eph 1:8; 1 Cor 1:24. Compare: Eph 1:10; Col 1:20. St. Maximus here clearly has in mind the ancient philosophical concept of world love and enmity, first found in Empedocles (fr. 31).