I. На маковце 2

One day F.K. Andreev 3 came to see me recently. He excitedly reported on his dispute with S.A. Tsvetkov 4 . They had differences of opinion about “morning” and “evening”, regarding the passage from the Book of Genesis: “and there was evening, and there was morning, one day” (Gen. 1:5) and further, identical to this, where “day” is defined through “evening” and “morning”. Tsvetkov understood “morning” and “evening” as synonyms for our day and night, and the biblical “day” as a synonym for our “day”. Not without bitterness, Andreev told me (“complained”) that “it was evening and it was morning” for Sergei Alekseevich - only “day and night - a day away.” He himself defended the special meaning of these expressions. I don’t remember exactly what I answered to Feodor Konstantinovich. But I remember: memories of many thoughts and experiences around this particular topic swam in my soul. They are very dear to me, but there is almost no hope that I will be able to explain them. The main thing is that you are afraid that instead of descriptions you will get a series of metaphors. But I'll try anyway. This way it will be easier for you to imagine our peaceful life closed in Posad. I’ll try, I say, to talk about what is more perceptible and expressible. There is a mysticism of the night; there is a mysticism of the day; but there is the mysticism of evening and morning. You will go out into the garden on a moonless night. The tentacles of the trees reach into the soul: they touch the face, there are no barriers to anything, the secret of the world is sucked into all the pores of the being. A soft, almost sticky darkness smears over your body, over your arms, over your face, over your eyes and thickens, as if settling on you, and you are almost not you, the world is almost not the world, but everything is you, and you are everything. More precisely, there is no delineated boundary between me and not-me. At the roots of existence there is unity, at the peaks there is separation. This unity is especially felt when you walk along a rural road on a moonless, starless summer night. As you move, you cut through the thick resin, and the things that have expanded and grown into each other smear them on your cheeks and forehead. The fundamental principle of existence has opened its depths, and you don’t know why a person is needed 5 . On a moonlit night, the certainty of nature is blurred in a different way. Trees, bushes, houses, fences - everything is ready to melt away like a ghost, in fact it sways like a phosphorescent cloud. But it is about to dissolve into nothingness - and a hostile force lies in wait for the moment, and is about to pour into your depths like a poisonous stream of mercury. The full moon sucks the soul. Cross yourself, hide in the shadows - around the corner of a house or behind a tree. “Get lost, you cruel, shameless woman!” At noon, exactly at noon, it’s even worse. Take a look around. The dry vapors of the arable fields stand in the frozen air: the earth is “burning,” the peasants say. The sultry breaths of the earth will not sway. The merciless luminary nails each leaf to the cracked, dehydrated soil, crushes it with streams of heavy light: then the sky pours a shower of molten gold. Even the dust doesn’t create dust; even her, submissive, is oppressed by a hundredfold oppression. It's hard and scary. In weak-willed horror, everything is silent, languid, hushed before the powerful Moloch, just so that the languid hour has passed. You run and someone is chasing you, someone is chasing you. If you want to shout, you don’t dare. And you are not alone: ​​all creation has withdrawn into itself, all creation, frozen, is waiting. It seems that the “midday demon” 6 is no more affectionate than the “midnight demon”. This mysticism is not mine. I'm afraid of her. Neither at night nor during the day will the soul reveal itself. And I wouldn’t want to die in these terrible hours. And he would have left the way he was born: at sunset. And when I am taken from here, let the one who remembers my sinful soul pray for it at the barely bright dawn, whether morning or evening, but then when the sky turns pale, like the lips of a dying woman. Let him pray at the dying sunset or at sunrise, with the still emerald transparent sky 7 . Then the “beginning of another being” trembles 8. Then the new life rejoices. Then her smile is pure and melodious. Do you remember Beethoven's laughing Septet (Op. 20)? The gold of the sunset and the incoming, life-giving coolness of the night, and the falling silent birds, and the evening dances of peasants and songs, and the sad joy of a blessed evening, and the jubilation of the fulfilling sacrament - departure - resound in it. Especially joyful and majestic Adagio, this truly victorious wide-winged hymn of the dying Sun. And - the soaring Adagio cantabile, this meek complaint of the dying dawn, beating with cold wings in a peaceful heart. Both always resonate in my soul. But a star always lights up in this dawn, as hope, as a pledge, as “another beginning of being,” as a cherished excitement: Hesperus is Phosphorus 10. This experienced star, this star felt in the heart, is not a whim of a dream or a conjecture of reason. Look, in the Revelation of John the Theologian we read: “And to him who overcomes and keeps My works to the end, I will give him authority over the nations, and I will give him the Morning Star. Have an ear to hear, so that he may hear what the Spirit says to the Churches” (Rev. 2:26-29) 11. The Apostle John is echoed by the Apostle Peter: “Do good, until the day breaks and Lucifer shines in your hearts” (2 Pet. 1:19). (This, by the way, is proof of the authenticity of the Apocalypse.) And, probably in consonance with John and Peter, the Apostle Paul writes about these very stars visible in the heart that “a star differs from the star in glory” (1 Cor. 15:41). “Different”; but they are also different - this, however, is all - One Star - the One who said about herself: “I am the root and family of David, and the Bright Star and the Lucifer” (Rev. 22:16). But it is not only the “victor” that this Star shines: in a weak and sinful heart it also flickers and radiates; like a lamp glowing under its arches, in the mysterious twilight and in the darkness of its spaces. Go inside yourself and you will see vast vaults. Below, leave your fear, go down into the cave. Your feet will step on dry sand, soft and yellow, giving rest. Your step is muffled here. It's dry and almost warm here. Drops of time fall from the arches and fall into the depths of darkness. The booming passages are filled with a roaring sound: as if countless pendulums are striking their blows. As in a watchmaker’s workshop, innumerable rhythms catch up and overtake each other, intertwine and unravel. The spindles of fate are humming elastically. The hearts of all beings pulsate in these depths. Here, from darkness and rays, all the things of the world are born. Here weaves, from rhythmic vibrations, fast and slow, dull and sonorous, from hums and cave echoes, a living cover that is called the Universe. Here, in the womb of the earth, stellar currents are collected, congealing into precious stones. It is here, under the cave vaults of the heart, that the Morning Star shines. Evening and morning are especially blessed. In the past, when arriving from Moscow on the night train, I usually went to wander through the dewy meadows. The East was just beginning to turn pink. And unspeakable joy and purity, along with the drops that showered me from some hazel tree, flowed in wide streams into the soul, and not only into the soul - into the whole being. The Morning Star hung like a drop on the horizon. But the heart knew that this Star was trembling not outside it, not in the vault of heaven, but in the inner spaces of the heart itself, expanded to the vault. And, rising into the heart, the rising Star was cool, and virgin, and pure. Sometimes, in the evenings, I wandered through the hills and meadows. The rushing coolness of the sunset washed my soul with excitement and anxiety. I remembered that primordial evening breeze, in which and to which their Creator spoke to the ancestors; and this memory ran down my spine with cool delight. The half-forgotten and always unforgettable golden time of Eden, like a sweet dream that had flown away, hovered around the heart, fluttered, touched with a wing - and again flew away, inaccessible. I was sad about the past, the past in centuries and somewhere eternally alive, living to this day; and the blessed sadness merged with the moist radiance of the Evening Star, so infinitely distant, shining from the transparent emerald abysses, and so close, entering the heart. Somewhere in the distance a shepherd's greenhouse flickered. And she was sweet. And everyone sitting nearby was nice. And, as before, in the Morning Star, so now, in the Evening Star, the heart loved – Someone. But the sorrows did not pass, everything became denser. They became unbearable, tormented to the point of pain, to the point of screaming. The Star pierced with a dim ray; the words of consolation were painful Then we started going in the evenings with A 12. We knew that the Angel, in a gentle embrace, brings us joy - our B 13. The lost Eden, which was not given to memory, was somehow remembered in our boy. And the Evening Star was our boy, descending to us through the heavenly spheres, “coming into the world” 14, and our boy was the Evening Star, worn under our hearts. We gave him a Star, it became his Star, but it also remained our heart. A transparent half-darkness fell on the world, but, condensing in the heart, it condensed there into the Morning Star: into the Pearl. The lost Paradise shone through in my son; the melancholy Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was forgotten in my son. The torment did not disappear again - it only softened and melted, and spread out in the heart like a boundless sea. But above the abyss of sorrows, the Morning Star shone under the arches of the heart, and in its rays the waves scattered like a long pearl stripe. And everything was fine: sorrow, joy. And everything was sad... Then the Merciful Lord gave me to stand at His Throne 15. It was getting dark. The golden rays rejoiced, and the Sun sounded a solemn hymn to Eden. The West turned pale resignedly - the Altar, located high above the earth, was facing the West. A ridge of clouds stretched over the Lavra, like a string of pearls. From the altar window clear distances were visible, and the Lavra rose like the heavenly Jerusalem 16. The All-Night Vigil ¼ "Quiet Light" coincided with sunset. The dying Sun descended magnificently. The melodies, as ancient as the world, intertwined and unraveled; Ribbons of blue incense were woven and unwoven. The reading of the canon pulsed rhythmically. Something in the semi-darkness was remembered, something from Eden, and the sadness of the loss was mysteriously kindled by the joy of return. And “Glory to Thee, who showed us the Light” marked the onset of outer darkness, which is also light, and the Evening Star then shone through the altar window, and the unfading joy of the cave darkness again rose in the heart. The mystery of the evening was united with the mystery of the morning, and both were one. In these brief memories of something that happened and that lives in the depths of existence - in these moments Dennitsa beamed and shone to the heart. These two secrets, two lights are the boundaries of life. Death and birth are intertwined and flow into each other. The cradle is the coffin, and the coffin is the cradle. When we are born we die, when we die we are born. And everything that happens in life either prepares for birth or initiates death. The Morning Star and the Evening Star are one star. Evening and morning flow into one another: “I am Alpha and Omega” 17. These same secrets, the secret of the Evening and the secret of the Morning, are the edges of Time. This is what the great chronicle of the world says - the Bible. From the first chapters of the Book of Genesis to the last of the Apocalypse, cosmic history unfolds - from the evening of the world to its morning. Heaven and earth were created towards evening. In the cool blowing evening wind the Eternal 18 revealed himself to people. There was no sorrow, no pain, no crying; there was no doubt. And people were like children, and the Tree of Life grew in the middle of Eden. Thus, in the evening, the Sacred Chronicle begins the history of the world. This story ends, in the Apocalypse, with the destruction and death of the world and a new creation. Again the Tree of Life is in the middle of the New Eden - the Jerusalem of Heaven. Again joy and jubilation. Again there is no sorrow and crying. There is no death again. Again the wedding feast. But this is no longer evening, but the morning of the coming eternal Light. Jesus - the “Bright Star and the Day of the Day”, Jesus, the “Morning Star and the Day of the Day”, according to another reading - rises in the New World. The Bible begins with Eden, and it ends with Eden, for the Lamb of the Apocalypse is the joy of Eden. It begins with marriage, and ends with marriage. It begins with the Spirit and ends with the Spirit. But it begins in the evening and ends in the morning of a non-evening day. Isn’t the history of the world flowing in the darkness of sin - just one night, just one terrible dream stretching into centuries - a night between that evening, full of sad mystery, and this trembling and jubilant morning? And the end of the world—isn’t it the birth of the Earth into a new life under the Morning Star? And the ends merge. The night of the universe is perceived as non-existent. The morning of the new world continues that primordial evening: “and there was evening, and there was morning, the first day”¼ “Morning” and “evening,” but the night seemed to never have happened. I don’t want to draw conclusions and summarize now; I don’t want to think through the connection of impressions that are fleetingly touched upon here. After all, if you explain what you have experienced, it will become coarser. Its entire fabric will become woody, but it is in living unity, and the tangle of individual impressions revolves around “and there was evening and there was morning” of the Book of Genesis. Makovets is a hill on which in the middle of the 14th century. The Monk Sergius of Radonezh founded a monastery in honor of the Holy Trinity. Subsequently, the city of Sergiev Posad was formed around the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, in which Florensky lived most of his life (1904 - 1933). Andreev Fedor Konstantinovich (1887 – 1929). In 1913 he graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy. The candidate's essay “Yu.F. Samarin as a theologian and philosopher” was written under the guidance of Florensky, one of whose closest students was Andreev. In 1914 – 1919 taught philosophy at the MDA, in 1919 - 1921. – at the Pastoral Courses in Petrograd, the Old Testament; in 1921 – 1924 – at the Theological Institute in Petrograd, apologetics and patrolology. In 1922 he was ordained a priest and enjoyed enormous love and respect among his flock. In 1927, he refused to accept the well-known declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, for which he was subjected to repression. He died of tuberculosis in 1929, having been released by the GPU to “die at home.” Tsvetkov Sergei Alekseevich (? – †1961) is a literary employee of the publishing house “Put”, where, under his editorship, V.F. Odoevsky’s book “Russian Nights” was published in 1914. Wed. with the book “Names” - the name “Paul”: “The character of Paul should be understood as very easily communicating with the fundamental principle of being”; “Paul always feels himself on the edge of an all-consuming abyss” (Sociological Research, 1989, No. 6, p. 142). The "midday demon" is mentioned in Ps. 90, 6. Wed. Florensky’s article “Heavenly Signs (reflections on the symbolism of flowers)” - “Makovets”, 1922, No. 2, p. 14 – 16. The picture of the evening sky, Florensky justifies here, the transition of light into darkness, accompanied by the play of colors, is a symbol of the spiritual world - God, the darkness of non-existence and Sophia, which is the facet of the created world, extremely close to the Uncreated Beginning. “The beginning of another being” is perhaps an inaccurate reproduction of the words of the Easter canon (canto 7, troparion 2): “We celebrate the mortification of death, the destruction of hell, the beginning of another eternal life.” The experiences Florensky describes here are focused on the “life of the future century,” the “eighth,” “non-evening,” Easter day of the cosmic history of the world—hence the image of the “morning star” of the Apocalypse. Free space was left in the manuscript and the typewritten original of the section “On Makovets”. A musical example is given at the appropriate place from a letter to V.V. Rozanov dated May 20 - June 4, 1913. Beethoven Septet op. 20. Esdur for violin, viola, clarinet, horn, bassoon, cello and double bass in six movements, created in 1799 – 1800. One of Beethoven's works for chamber ensemble most beloved by his contemporaries (score and clavier; see the edition of Peters, Leipzig). The first musical example is the introduction of the first movement, the second is the beginning of the second. Hesperus is one of the names of the planet Venus as an evening star. As the morning star, this planet was called Eosphorus or Phosphorus in Greece, and Lucifer in Rome. Hesperus and Phosphorus were considered different stars. Florensky here follows the second interpretation of Andrew of Caesarea, which, as a rule, the interpreter himself cited as more consistent with the truth. The interpretation of this text is also extremely important for understanding the foundations of Christian symbology, which Florensky followed in his works. “The morning star,” writes Andrew of Caesarea, “John the Theologian calls either the one about whom the prophet Isaiah proclaims: as the star of the morning has fallen from heaven (14:12), and promises, having crushed it, to put it under the feet of the faithful (Luke 10:18-19; Ps. 90), or the star of the morning, mentioned by blessed Peter, shining clearly in the hearts of believers (2 Peter 1:19), i.e. enlightenment of Christ. John the Baptist and Elijah the Thesbite, the forerunner of the first rising of the Sun of Truth and the forerunner of His second coming, are also usually called Lucifers.” (St. Andrew of Caesarea. Apocalypse. With an introductory essay by Iv. Yuvachev. St. Petersburg, Belarus, ed. P.P. Soykin, pp. 42 – 43). Florensky's wife Anna Mikhailovna, nee Giatsintova (1889 - 1973), with whom he married on August 25, 1910. Florensky's first-born son Vasily (1911 - 1956). For Florensky, he was “not just a long-awaited son, but a living reminder of a turning point in life” (Andronik hierodeacon (Trubachev). The main personality traits, life and work of priest Pavel Florensky, p. 15). From the priestly prayer at Matins: “Christ, the True Light, enlighten and illuminate every person coming into the world...” On April 24, 1911, Florensky was ordained a priest and from 1912 served in the church in honor of Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary Magdalene of Sergiev Posad, which belonged to the Society of Sisters of Charity of the Red Cross and located near the Lavra. From individual notes by Florensky: "1916.IX.10. The church in which I so significantly identified myself turned out to be directed not to the east, but to the west (against Obit). Isn’t this also a sign of my interest in paganism, in antiquity? Here I was given, in addition to the symbol of meaning, also the contemplation of beauty: the SUNSET and the Laurels. Our church is aimed at Pre Sergius – focused on Sergius.” Florensky alludes to a well-known place in the Old Testament, included in proverbs - the Third Book of Kings (19, 11 - 12), which says that God appeared to the prophet Elijah not in a stormy wind, not in an earthquake or in fire, but as a “breath of a quiet wind”, like a “subtle voice of cold,” according to the Slavic text.