Учение о благодати божьей в творениях свят. отцов и учителей церкви до бл. Августина.

The grace of God is a concept used in a broad and narrow sense. In a broad sense, it is used in Holy Scripture and in St. fathers and teachers of the church, both eastern and western, to the bl. Augustine, and the Greeks - and after him throughout the patristic period, in a close sense it begins to come into general use in the West from the time of the Pelagian disputes. Following the sacred writers, the ancient saints. the fathers and teachers of the church contemplated the grace of God in its, so to speak, historical manifestation and 1) from its sources: its primary culprit, God the Father, the organizer of everything; the second is the guilt of the Son - the organizer and the Holy Spirit - the perfecter and sanctifier, the bestower of the grace of the Father and the Son. Considering grace 2) from the side of the manifestation of the creative-saving action of the Triune God at all times of the existence of the world, the ancient holy fathers saw the joint and together special action of the Son and the Spirit in all moments of the existence of the entire rational world, both higher, angelic, and lower, human (grace in the creation and structure of the angelic world and in the creation of man), then - in the Old Testament (Old Testament grace, lesser) in theophany, revelations, prophecies, and in the New Testament (higher, greater grace) in the incarnation of the Son of God, His humiliation, the most perfect revelation of God and enlightenment, in redemption and, finally, in the descent of the Comforter Spirit into the world to arrange the salvation of each individual person, for his sanctification, and they put forward the seemingly preferential, although not exclusive, effect of sanctification of us By the Holy Spirit, in a word, for the ancient Fathers, speaking about the grace of God meant the same thing as depicting the diverse works of the wisdom, goodness and love of God in the space of all existence and life of the rational world. True, they did not omit from attention, in particular, the assimilation of salvation to us in Christ, accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit. They also spoke about the combined action of the power of God with human forces, outlined and distinguished moments of the influence of grace and movements in the human soul corresponding to this influence, and depicted the process of gradual progress of a person blessed with grace. But all this constituted for them only part of a broad, multi-component whole, and, moreover, the last, final part, on which, although they dwelled, it was not exclusively, not even predominantly, and in any case, comparatively not for long. Since the advent of Pelagianism and the struggle against it and its offspring, according to the demands of circumstances and the needs of the time, as well as according to the mindset of the Western mind, a change has taken place in the point of departure, in reasoning about grace. That with which the ancient fathers concluded their contemplation begins, serves as the beginning, the starting point. Grace begins to be considered more specifically - as the power of the Holy Spirit assisting our forces in the assimilation of salvation, and the process of salvation, consisting of the combined action of grace and human will, becomes the subject of primary attention and consideration. A discussion begins of the degree of participation of one or another figure, the time of the beginning of their action, etc. At the same time, although the participation of the Father and the Son in our sanctification is not denied, the depiction of this participation no longer focuses on itself such attention as did the ancient Fathers of the East. They do not go from the Father through the Son to the Spirit, and from the Spirit they do not ascend through the Son to the Father, like the ancient patristic contemplation, but from the Holy Spirit. they go to a person and stop here, analyze the changes occurring in him from the action of grace and from a certain share of his own participation and efforts in the matter of salvation. The above-mentioned direction of patristic thought up to the bl. Augustine, but also the circumstances of the time: the struggle against Judaism and pagan views, against Gnostic and Manichaean errors, against anti-Trinitarian heresies. It was necessary to show that God the Father, through the Son and the Spirit, is the creator of the world, the author of both covenants - the Old and the New, with all their gifts, grace, that through the Son and the Spirit He created, arranged, accomplished and is still doing everything in the world and through Them, i.e. through the Son and the Spirit, reveals his Triune divinity in the works of creation, providence, redemption and sanctification. Thus, the breadth in contemplation of the grace of God and its manifestations was determined as much by the data of Holy Scripture and the mindset of the ancient Fathers of the East, and partly also of the West (not excluding Tertullian and Cyprian), as by the circumstances and needs of the time. Exactly the same must be said about the subsequent direction of theological thought, starting with the Pelagian debates. Instead of the East, the West appears with its demands, the needs of the time and with its own special, different from the Eastern, mentality - practical. Questions of a very particular soteriological nature are raised - about grace and human will, in their mutual relations. The centuries-old works of the West on soteriology begin, reminiscent of the great and also long-term works of the Greek East in the field of theology and Christology, although less successful than the latter, invariably revolving around grace and human will and human powers in general in union with divine power (grace). Soteriological questions constituted, one might say, the vital nerve of medieval scholasticism; they also came to the fore during the period of the Reformation and highlighted the most important features of the Roman and Protestant doctrines. The same questions continued to worry both the Protestant world (disputes between adherents of Luther and Melanchthon, the so-called synergistic disputes) and Roman theologians (Jansenist and Jesuit disputes of the late 17th and 18th centuries). The result of all this work of Western theological thought was the emergence of a large number of developed and harmonious, although more or less one-sided, systems of soteriological teaching. The soteriological works of the West are far from unimportant for theology, despite their, in most cases, one-sidedness. Thanks to them, the doctrine of the grace of God acquired isolation in the system of dogmatic theology, appeared as a special department of the system and received the formulation in which it is interpreted in science at the present time - not only in the West, but also here, in the theology of our Orthodox Eastern Church. Such a statement of the said teaching is not only very natural for the West, but is necessary and obligatory for our Orthodox theology. To change it and completely move to the ancient patristic Eastern broad contemplation would mean to refuse to satisfy the urgent needs of the time, to clarify the differences between our Orthodox soteriological teaching and the teaching of Western faiths, and to formulate the former by denying what is false in the latter. Nevertheless, if for anyone, then it is for the Orthodox theologian that it is very useful and even necessary from time to time to go from the point of view of the close meaning of the teaching about the grace of God and turn to the ancient patristic teaching, which was the fruit of deep, multifaceted contemplation, fiery imagination and a lively feeling of reverence and gratitude to God for all His great benefits (grace) to the human race. Ancient patristic contemplation, like living water, will fertilize our dry and sluggish thought, will more clearly reveal the deviation of Western theology from the true knowledge of God, will provide a reliable weapon in the fight against Western false teachings in the field of soteriology, and, moreover, will give the doctrine of the grace of God in the science of dogmatic theology a character most consistent with the task and goals of this science in general and the department about the Sanctifying God in particular, i.e. the nature of the teaching is more theoretical-theological than practical-moral, which it is here both in the West and in our country. Thus, a possible and to a certain extent extendable unification of both points of view seems to us to be the ideal goal of the science of dogmatic theology in this department. The formulation of the Orthodox dogmatic doctrine of grace, in accordance with the indicated task 23, is the ultimate goal of science. In order to become acquainted with the broad patristic contemplation of the grace of God and to restore, as far as possible, the whole fabric of the patristic views on this subject (a fabric, fragments of which, in the form of variegated shreds, usually form prefixes to the provisions of dogmatic science), we take upon ourselves the trouble of expounding the doctrine of the grace of God in the works of the ancient saints. Fathers and teachers of the church until Bl. Augustine, namely: 1) the apostolic men, 2) the most ancient apologists, 3) St. Irenaeus of Lyons, 4) Tertullian, 5) St. Cyprian of Carthage, 6) Clement of Alexandria, 7) Origen, 8) St. Cyril of Jerusalem, 9) St. Basil the Great, 10) St. Gregory the Theologian, 11) St. Gregory of Nyssa, 12) Ave. Macarius of Egypt and 13) St. John Chrysostom. But since the patristic teaching, both in general and in this case, was nourished by the word of God and developed on the basis of Holy Scripture, not only in terms of content, but also in form and method of expression, then first of all, the biblical teaching about the grace of God should be presented. Only in the light of Holy Scripture, when approaching it, does the patristic teaching about it become completely understandable in all its breadth and characteristic features. Therefore, the teaching of Holy Scripture requires special attention, not only because of its irrespective importance, but also because of the close connection with it of the patristic revelation. It is impossible to recognize the formulation of the doctrine of grace that exists in our theological science as completely perfect. True, we have a very valuable, excellent experience of such formulation in the work of Fr. Protopresbyter I.L. Yanyshev - “Orthodox Christian teaching on morality” (Moscow 1887), but - from the point of view of the task and goals of moral theology, and not dogmatic, and although the said work gives a lot of value for the latter, it does not relieve dogmatic science from developing the issue from the perspective of its own requirements and tasks; as indicated in this work. You might be interested in: