New theology

Contents Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII Part IX Part X Part XI Part XII (Inaugural lecture given in September 1916). It is your custom to gather for the first lecture of each year in a number incomparably greater than the number of people attending the lectures during the year. It attracts not only students from “its” course, but also from other courses. Something special is expected from the first lecture: it should not be just one of many lectures, which refers to a number of other readings, - it should represent something whole, replacing the entire series of readings, something substantial, exhibition, ostentatious. I do not like this custom, and I have never followed it halfway. The introductory lecture should introduce students to the course of readings; it addresses only those who will listen to subsequent readings; An abnormally elevated tone does not suit her; it can't help but disappoint effects lovers. In my opinion, it is not normal for the first lecture to be more interesting than subsequent ones; on the contrary, it is in the order of things that interest should increase over the course of the course - for regular listeners, so that the early effect gives way to gradually revealing content. Therefore, the abundance of listeners at the introductory lectures always confused me. But this time I want to take advantage of your one-time meeting and offer you a topic that, without losing the character of the introductory lecture, would be important for casual listeners. I want to concisely, within the tight confines of one lecture, describe to you the main features of my theology, indicate to you the main direction of my religious thought, acquaint you with the type of my system, its method, its original beginning, its latest tasks, its ultimate aspirations. The official name of our department is “moral theology.” But I do not recognize moral theology, as it is outlined in the traditional seminary curriculum, and as it is presented in seminary textbooks and, partly, in academic courses. The pitiful state of this science has already been spoken about many times; I consider this science itself, in its ideal, to be a fiction, a stillborn invention of scholasticism, some kind of pathetic misunderstanding. However, the place that deals with moral theology is a holy place; this science conceals a deep inquiry, an endless perspective. What do I put in the place of moral theology? Two disciplines: one takes the place of moral theology, as a higher discipline, and the other - as an educational discipline. The highest, creative discipline, which, according to my plan, should replace traditional moral theology, can be built either within the narrow, special framework of science, or in the full scope of a philosophical system. In a highly specialized sense, as a special theological science, this highest discipline is the moral teaching of Christianity. It should stand next to dogma, that is, with the dogmatic teaching about Christianity, and in scope be commensurate with the latter. All positive theology should be divided into two parts, its entire area should be divided between two sciences: the dogmatic teaching of Christianity and the moral teaching of Christianity. The difference between the division of positive theology I propose and the traditional division is that until now the division of theology into dogmatic theology and moral theology was a division into parts of the very subject of theological science, so that one part of the Christian religion, one of its areas - say, theoretical - was devoted to dogmatic theology, and the other part - say, practical was devoted to moral theology. For the old theologian, every substantive question of theology bore the stamp of belonging to one or another field, to one or another science. The question, or teaching about Christ, is a dogmatic question, belongs to the field of dogmatic theology; questions about faith, hope and love, about fasting are practical questions, belong to moral theology. And in this substantive sense, the division of positive theology is not limited to dogmatic theology and moral theology, but next to them stand other theological sciences - liturgics, canonism, etc. At the same time, it was considered quite possible to judge the importance of the parts of the Christian religion divided between different theological sciences, in particular, between dogmatic theology and moral theology - namely, the subject of dogmatic theology was always placed above the subject of moral theology, and in terms of the importance of the subject, dogmatic theology was considered higher, more important than moral theology. There the doctrine is presented about God himself, and here only about man, there about objective salvation, and here only about its subjective assimilation, there about Christian Truth itself, and here nothing more than its practical application. This is how the old theology was divided; by the division of theology into the dogmatic teaching about Christianity and the moral teaching about Christianity, I mean something completely different. When I talk about the division of positive theology into the dogmatic teaching about Christianity and the moral teaching about Christianity, then I mean not the parts of the Christian religion, not different parts of the subject of theological science, but the method - different methods of studying the single Christian religion: the dogmatic teaching about Christianity is the teaching about Christianity according to the dogmatic, i.e., objective method, and the moral teaching about Christianity is the teaching about it according to the method moral, i.e. moral-subjective, or simply subjective. It is necessary to especially emphasize the originality of the moral-subjective method, since the dogmatic teaching about Christianity remains the old dogma, while the moral teaching about Christianity, that is, the teaching about Christianity according to the morally subjective method, is something completely new, unheard of in theology and, in any case, different toto genere from the old moral theology, having nothing in common with it. The old theology knew, from the substantive side, only one dogma. There was a time when among theological sciences there was no moral theology at all, when only dogmatics was taught in theological schools. In the words of Philaret: “Only dogmatic theology was taught, using a too school-like method; hence the knowledge is dry and cold.” Theology was interested only in dogmatic, abstract questions. The old theology was not only in its subject matter an exclusively dogmatic theology, but in its method it was an exclusively objective theology. It was interested only in dogmatic questions, and it unconsciously adopted an exclusively objective method of relating to religious truth. It posed only dogmatic questions to which the objective method corresponds, and it did not know, did not imagine any other method possible for itself than the objective one. Over time, “practical” or “active” theology, and later moral theology, also appeared in the curriculum of the theological school. To characterize the old theology, it is very important that moral theology in it, even until yesterday, was extremely neglected, completely abandoned. Even more important is that moral theology was developed by the same objective method as dogmatics - the only objective method of the old theology. In moral theology, the moralizing, edifying, preaching element was strong, and with the presence of this element they hoped to give moral theology a specific form, to distinguish it from dogmatic theology. But the edification of science does not constitute, and no matter how strong it was in moral theology, the method of moral theology cannot be judged by it. And what was scientific in moral theology, in general, the moral problem in the old theology was solved only by an objective method, discussed only from the objective side, and the teaching about morality was not in the slightest degree a moral-subjective teaching about Christianity. Therefore, for the dogmatic teaching about Christianity it turns out to be possible to leave the familiar, customary objective method, in other words, it is possible to preserve it in the form of the previous dogma, while for the moral teaching about Christianity it is necessary to postulate a new, moral-subjective method. Significant reform is also required for dogmatic theology. The old theology applied the objective method - the only one it knew - scholastically, or more fully, rationalistically and scholastically, since scholasticism is a bad kind of rationalism. Theological scholasticism extracted all content from reason and was guided by the most bad taste, vulgarly and crudely amused itself with abstract, lifeless operations. So, just as the time of scholasticism was a time of exclusive cultivation of dogmatics, scholastic habits became accustomed to dogmatics, and to this day it remains a nursery for the bacteria of scholasticism. It is worth great efforts to reform dogmatic theology, to cleanse it of the scholastic heritage, to turn it into a genuine science, namely into a historical teaching about dogmas, in parallel with which moral theology should become - in a strict, specially scientific sense - a teaching about Christian life, about Christian experience. With all this, dogma is nothing more than an objective truth, a dogmatic worldview is nothing more than an objective teaching about Christianity, and the purification of dogma from the scholastic tradition does not in the least affect the objective method of dogmatic theology: for dogma, the well-known, familiar objective method is preserved. And although its features are completely clear when compared with the new moral-subjective method, although only the distinction of methods makes it possible to pose the question of the method, of the methods of theological thinking, the speech about the moral-subjective method is new, and the very question of the methods, of the method of theological thinking is reduced to the question of the moral-subjective method, posed in relation to the moral teaching of Christianity. The theological task of our time is to find out that the moral teaching about Christianity is the teaching about Christianity according to the moral-subjective method, considering it from the moral-subjective side - that the moral-subjective method is a special, original method of theology. The moral teaching about Christianity, or the teaching about Christian life, as before, moral theology, is given full right to independent existence by the fact that this discipline applies its own special, specific method, morally subjective, to the consideration of Christianity, to the study of Christian Truth. It cannot be part of a single theology, dogmatic theology: it fulfills a task that dogmatic theology cannot in any case fulfill. It is not the same as the practical application of Christian Truth, which is of secondary importance, since its task is to cognition of this Truth, like dogmatics, but by a different method, different from the objective dogmatic one. Therefore, it occupies a place next to dogmatics in a completely special sense than other theological sciences - liturgics, canons: together with dogmatics it forms a special, privileged, aristocratic pair, since only two methods are possible in the study of Christian Truth, objective and subjective, which are used by dogmatic and moral theologies. Only these two theologies of all theological sciences have the task of knowledge, a positive presentation of the Christian Truth itself, and there should be no more, but no less than two - corresponding to the two methods of cognition of the Truth {We say this, ignoring artistic knowledge, both because the latter has nothing corresponding among the theological sciences, and because artistic creativity is completely different from objective and moral-subjective knowledge, so that objective “philosophy” and spiritual philosophy, but there is no artistic philosophy (aestheticism is a direction of either theoretical or practical philosophy). In other words: speaking about the two ways of cognition, we first mean by subjective cognition both moral-spiritual and aesthetic, but then, according to the above consideration, we separate the aesthetic and leave only the moral-subjective under the name of subjective cognition}. Dogmatic theology and moral teaching about Christianity differ from each other in method, and not in subject. The subject of both theological sciences is the same: all of Christianity, all of Christian Truth. The moral teaching of Christianity deals with the same material as dogmatics, but approaches it from a different, moral-subjective side. Christ, the Holy Spirit can be objects of both dogmatic theology and moral teaching: dogmatic theology teaches about Christ and the Holy Spirit detached from human experience, regardless of the human point of view - just as physics, physiology, pathology in the description of the underlying phenomena detach themselves from the subjective states of man - from sensations of heat, cold, satiety, pain - it considers Christ and the Holy Spirit as they exist in themselves, worldly and invisible, and what they did for the world and man objectively. On the contrary, Christ and the Holy Spirit, as historical-psychological facts, as the content of human experience, as a specific historical-psychological reality, as a value for man, constitute the subject of the moral-subjective teaching of Christianity; it studies them in the very atmosphere of historical and psychological reality, in the warmth and richness of human experiences, in the inextricable environment of visions, meetings, sensations and states of the believing soul. Likewise, all of Christianity can be surveyed from afar, from the outside, with a cold mind, more geometrico, stated in abstract formulas - and this will be a dogmatic teaching about Christianity; and it is possible to view all of Christianity, without omitting anything, in an exhaustive manner, from within the human soul, to look at it with intimate vision, to approach it from the side of spiritual sensations, spiritual taste, to understand it with the heart, to comprehend it with immediate faith, to evaluate it experimentally - and this will be a moral-subjective teaching about Christianity. It sets forth the doctrine of how God created man and redeemed him; here - how man came to God and found his salvation, his good. There all of Christianity is presented as a thought about a person, as an idea; here also all Christianity is presented as the experience of man, as his experience. And the old theology knew these terms - objective and subjective. Thus, it taught about objective salvation, the concept of which included Christ’s satisfaction of divine justice, and about subjective salvation, as the personal assimilation by a person of what Christ had already accomplished for him. But this use of terms is not at all what we are talking about. In the teaching of the old theology about salvation, the terms objective and subjective were applied to the parts of salvation, divided among themselves temporarily, just as the preparation of food in the kitchen is separated from the consumption of it by guests in the dining room. The methodological use of these terms has a different meaning: methodologically, objective and subjective considerations are not separated from each other by time and spatial existence of the object, but refer to absolutely one and the same object, which is completely exhausted by both. Every moment in the life of Christ, every act in His work, every manifestation of the Holy Spirit, every point of Christian teaching can be, in its inseparability, embraced and expressed both objectively, in concept, and subjectively, in its specific content, in its spiritual value. Two methods are possible in the knowledge of Spiritual Truth: objective-dogmatic and moral-subjective, and they correspond to two positive theological sciences: dogmatics and the moral teaching of Christianity. Can one of these sciences be said to be superior to the other? No. These are not two stages of the same knowledge, lower and higher; these are two equal methods of cognition, each of which is suitable for its own purpose: dogmatics gives an objective concept of Christianity, its subjective, spiritual, life, experimental assessment, and reveals moral teaching. Depending on what is required, objective, abstract knowledge, or internal comprehension, one or another method must be applied to research, one must turn to one or another science. And none of them can give what the other gives, cannot replace the other. As sciences, dogmatic theology and moral teaching about Christianity each play their role in the matter of knowing Christian Truth, which turns out to be two-sided. As sciences, both these theologies are equal, equivalent and mutually independent. The idea of ​​two methods in constructing science - the objective-abstract method and the moral-subjective method - has already been expressed in the philosophical methodology of the sciences. I will name the most famous names. This is Dilthey. Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften in Abhandlungen der k. pr. d. W.), Wundt (Logic and System of Philosophy) and Münsterberg {And other supporters of the Marburg school: Cohen, Natorp and especially Stammler} (Grundzüge der Psychologie V. 1 and Philosophie der Werte) scientific knowledge in content into two groups of sciences - the sciences of nature (Naturwissenschaften) and the sciences of spirit (Geisteswissenschaften), Windelband (Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft, - Präludien, Russian translation of Preludes), Rickert (Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, p. and. Borders natural science education of concepts, - Naturwissenschaft und Kulturwissenschaft, p. and. Sciences about nature and sciences about culture), which distinguish two groups of sciences according to the method - sciences about nature and sciences about culture, our sociologists Lavrov, Mikhailovsky, prof. Kareev – so-called Russian subjective sociology. All these authors contrast the social sciences and history with the natural sciences, as sciences about concrete reality, and introduce the principle of moral and subjective assessment into the socio-historical sciences. Familiarization with their theories is very useful for the theologian, especially for the moralist. However, in contrast to the natural sciences, these theories deal with the actual method of historical science, and not with the method of spiritual science. The morality applied in them to the construction of socio-historical science - ethics, as the logic of the spiritual sciences, according to Cohen - is a conditional social morality. It is necessary to recognize as more successful not the terminology of Münsterberg, who distinguishes between objectifying and subjectivizing methods of scientific knowledge, but the terminology of Rickert, who adopts a generalizing method (generalisierende Auffassung) for natural science, and an individualizing method (individualisierende Auffassung) for history. Equally, Rickert’s theory of historical knowledge is richer in the sense that he finds it possible to apply to historical development not a moral assessment (Wertung), but only an attribution to historically recognized values ​​(Wertbeziehung). In the full sense, the moral-subjective method of cognition can be a method of spiritual science and can be applied to the knowledge of spiritual truth. Since the time of O. Comte, who divided sociology into statics and dynamics, it has become widely used to distinguish between static and dynamic points of view in the science of man. In particular, the distinction between these orders of systematization of material in the philosophy of law has become stronger. Two orders of legal assessment are recognized here: static-dogmatic and dynamo-teleological. (See, for example, A.L. Baykov Legal meaning of the clause “rebus sic stantibus” in intergovernmental relations, 1916). Hence, the philosophy of law breaks down into two parts: statics and dynamics of legal relations. Prof. I. V. Mikhailovsky in the book. Essays on the Philosophy of Law, vol. I (1914) department Dynamics of legal relations begins with the following words: “Until now we have studied legal relations at rest, their statics. But specific legal relations are in continuous motion, reflecting the movement of life. They arise, change, cease, various rights are violated or protected in one way or another. It remains for us to consider the reasons, conditions and forms of movement of legal relations, their dynamics” (p. 572). Applying this methodology to theology, we will understand the mutual relationship between dogmatic theology and the moral teaching of Christianity: dogmatics is static theology, moral teaching is dynamic theology. The methods of theology we have indicated, dogmatic-objective and moral-subjective, can also be called: dogmatic-static and moral-dynamic, subjective-dynamic. Dogmatics deals with the abstract formula of Christianity, and moral-subjective teaching recognizes Christianity in its vital mobility, in its living rhythm, in its concrete dialectic. As sciences, dogmatic theology and the moral teaching of Christianity are equal, equivalent and equal. But the moral teaching about Christianity, appearing in the form of a special science as a teaching about Christian life, almost imperceptibly passes into Christian philosophy, in other words, the moral teaching about Christianity as a science about Christian life, is separated from Christian philosophy by an elusive line: Christian philosophy is the highest form of moral teaching about Christianity. I also want to say that the science of Christian life reaches its full completion only in the expanse of Christian philosophy, it has an inevitable tendency to turn into a system of Christian philosophy, it is the only theological science that requires a philosophical formulation, system and creativity, and that Christian philosophy, as a system of religious thought, can be strengthened by its roots only in the science of Christian life, can only be built by a moral-subjective method, can only be creative-subjective system {Strictly speaking, the moral teaching of Christianity as a science can not exist separately, but as the starting point of Christian philosophy, its starting point, its support, its scientific form, distinguishing “scientific” Christian philosophy from the unscientific, ignorant - although, perhaps, deeply heartfelt and poetic - Christian worldview. In this form, the science of Christian life does not exist separately, but as an application of other theological sciences, mainly biblical theology}. In the vastness of Christian philosophy, the moral teaching of Christianity has clear advantages over dogmatic theology. And dogmatic theology, being a science, as a historical doctrine of dogmas, can take the form of philosophy. And Christian “philosophy” itself, not as Christian (in content) philosophy, but as “philosophy” in Christianity - this is dogmatic theology. Just as Christian dogmas are an expression of Christian truth in terms of pagan philosophy, so dogmatic philosophy operates entirely with philosophical concepts - epistemology, ontology and mainly metaphysics. And if the moral teaching of Christianity must be built in the form of Christian philosophy, then dogmatic theology has a natural psychological bias towards “philosophy”, towards speculation. To this it should be added that the old theology did not know dogmatics at all as a science - the science of dogmas; for it dogmatics was a dogmatic system, and it identified the theological system with the dogmatic system. Even with the introduction of “active theology” into the circle of theological sciences, only dogmatics continued to be considered theological science, only it was considered theological knowledge, moral theology next to it was not a theological science, but was only an applied discipline. A Christian is required to have knowledge and faith, on the one hand, and a good life, on the other. Theological knowledge is offered in dogmatics, and moral theology teaches a good life, instructs, edifies, instructs. Theological science is dogmatics, the theological system is a dogmatic system - such was the principle of the old theology. The old theology represented the worst kind of Christian “philosophy.” If it did not know dogmatic science as a historical teaching about dogmas, then it did not know “philosophy.” It did not distinguish between science and “philosophy”, but was a single, indivisible scholasticism. There was no theological science in it, but there was no religious and philosophical creativity. Identifying the theological system, theological science with dogmatics, the old theology set the task of dogmatics as the entry of the dogmatist into the mainstream of the dogmatic definition of faith, comprehension of dogma by reason, assimilation of dogmatic thought, merging with it the investigating, testing mind. This is how the theologian looked at his work: “Every Orthodox work on the dogmas of faith and, in general, on positive truths must inevitably borrow its material from the Holy Scriptures. Scriptures and from the writings of the fathers or general - from the Tradition of the Church. The whole dignity of the writer lies here in the fact that he is able to use this rich material properly, is able to extract the appropriate evidence from these sources, assimilate it and dispose of it as if it were his own property, combine and arrange it according to a certain idea, combine, revive, supplement it with his own considerations and explanations and present it in his work as one harmonious whole. This is how Orthodox theological systems and private theological studies are written, and no one calls them not original for one thing, that the main thing, their main content is the texts of the Bible and the testimonies of the church fathers” (Macarius Histor. VII, 226-227). The thought of the dogmatic formula here provided all the main content to the theological construction; the theologian did not make the slightest attempt at an objective study of this thought, nor did he introduce anything new or creative into its content; he did not have any support of his own for its reproduction; only the possibility of its logical assimilation and disclosure was open to him, that is, a systematic, harmonious and logical presentation of its evidence, explanations, apologia, etc. The main prerequisite for such theology was, to one degree or another, a positive solution to the question of the relationship of reason to revelation - and at the same time, the problem of the participation and competence of reason in theology was the most difficult, almost insoluble. The participation of reason in theology, without which there would be no place for theological science itself, was nothing more than its participation in dogmatic teaching, to which the authority of revelation belonged, and the participation of reason in revealed teaching can only be affirmed with extreme caution. Without the use of reason, theological science is impossible; reason is necessary for the assimilation of divinely revealed truth, but divinely revealed truth is entirely given to reason, and it exceeds its strength. “What should be the attitude of reason towards revealed speculative teaching, and what is its progress in relation to the latter? They say that revealed truths cannot be the subject of scientific proof, since they must be acquired by faith and are objects of faith, and the area of ​​faith, they say, is completely different from the area of ​​scientific knowledge: faith excludes any participation of rational activity and belongs only to feeling, and not to the mind, to which knowledge belongs. On the other hand, revealed theoretical truths that make up the content of theological science are eternal, unchanging, incomprehensible truths, therefore, there can be no place for scientific and free activity of the mind and, therefore, they object, theology as a science is also impossible. The latter is enriched every year with new discoveries and acquisitions, while Christian truths remain the same, only repeated in different ways. What can I say to all such judgments? (E. Uspensky Christian speculation and human reason. Rational justification of the essence of Christian doctrine against rationalistic views on it). In these very questions that the old scholastic theology posed to itself, everything is characteristic; already in them the entire rationalistic formulation of theology is predetermined. And how did the theologian answer these questions? He agrees that theology can be neither science nor philosophy. “While every science, regarding method, begins with analysis and ascends to synthetic truths, as the desired result found analytically, theology follows the completely opposite path: it accepts and must take as its starting point truths that are already ready-made, given in revelation, the content of which it must then reveal through analysis. Further, while in science the progressive discovery of new unknown truths through known truths is possible, in theology this is completely impossible, since its content is unchanged and given once and for all: there were and are no new discoveries in it, the invention of new truths unknown to mankind is impossible in it. Theology cannot be a scientific philosophical system, because the latter is still looking for truth for itself and in its research is guided by shaky considerations of the mind and does not know the limits of its inquisitiveness" (Ibid.). The role of theology is much more modest in comparison with science and philosophy, its task is unique. “With all this, progress or development is possible in theology, but only a unique development, not similar to the development of all other sciences... True, the revealed truths that make up the subject of theological science are unchangeable in their content and, apparently, exclude any activity of the mind in relation to them, because they are not the products and thoughts of the human mind, but are revealed by God Himself and are, so to speak, the thoughts of the mind of God, which man cannot handle according to his personal arbitrariness and discretion; nevertheless, one cannot help but recognize another side in them, subject to the activity of our mind. Being unchangeable and imperfect in their content, revealed truths can and should have some kind of development and perfectibility; this perfectibility does not consist in changing the very content of revealed truths, not in inventing a new teaching to replace the latter, but in clarifying the meaning, in revealing and understanding them with our mind. In other words, the truths of Christianity themselves are unchangeable, but from the perspective of human consciousness they change and improve, or, more precisely, it is not the very truths of Christianity that change, but our assimilation and understanding of them. And in theology, progress is possible, albeit peculiar, progress not in relation to the content of its subject (the mind cannot discover any new dogma), but in relation to this or that disclosure and assimilation of this subject by the human mind. The possibility of theological science is based on this; the latter cannot limit itself to merely repeating Christian church teaching, which should serve only as material for it, but must engage in analysis and development of it, one way or another of its presentation according to known scientific techniques and methods. And in this respect the mind has to show its wide participation; firstly, by the power of his initiative, he must not superficially, but as deeply as possible, reveal and clarify the meaning of dogmas, putting them in a harmonious relationship with scientific concepts and views; in addition, the activity of reason can and should also be expressed and manifested in the refutation of various objections to Christian dogmas. Further, secondly, reason must clothe Christian speculative truths in a certain form, expressing them, if possible, in a more intelligible and clear language, and must also show the greatest significance and their internal connection, and the extraordinary logical consistency of the entire system of revealed teaching” (Ibid.). This is speculative theology - this dogmatic philosophy. It is pitiful and barren, it has neither deep roots nor broad prospects. It is a matter exclusively of the mind, whose wings have been clipped. Theology approaches dogmas only by the power of the mind, but they are incomprehensible to the mind. Theology has a secondary job left to do: it is the gatekeeper to whom the sanctuary of Truth is inaccessible. This is the theology that deservedly deserves contempt from representatives of science and philosophy. In the new theology, the whole matter is posed differently, it takes a completely new path, finally overcoming the old scholasticism. It strictly distinguishes between science and philosophy. it pursues two different objectives - scientific and philosophical. Theology is first of all a science, in the strict sense of the word. For a long time now, in the broad field of theology, fundamental or elementary theological branches have acquired a completely scientific character - the doctrine of Scripture (bibliology) and the doctrine of Tradition (church history). In the very last days, the scientific method is being introduced into the field of systematic, or better yet, positive theology. According to the new view, dogmatics is nothing more than the science of dogmas. Here the fact that is subject to scientific and theological research is the dogmatic formula. Dogmatics should be the science of the dogmatic formula, the historical and philological study of it. “The task of scientific-critical dogmatics is 1) to determine with the most possible accuracy the boundaries of what is dogmatic, that is, what is obligatory in the doctrine of the Church, namely a) to list everything that is obligatory in the Church (in the doctrine) and b) to mark the limit to which each dogma and the entire dogmatic area extends, and 2) to establish as clearly as possible the meaning of dogmatic formulas. More specifically, scientific dogmatics must determine the sources of church dogmas and restore the historical and philological genesis of dogmatic terms. Abstinence from any interpretation of dogmas, from introducing into the system everything subjective (personal opinions) and controversial, everything calculated to satisfy curiosity, the gnostic itch - is meant as a virtue of such a dogmatic system.” One can see that with such problems dogmatics has the opportunity to be completely scientific and that, even, such problems can only be solved by scientific means. The question of the mutual relationship between revelation and reason, the participation of reason in dogmatic creativity, the competence of reason in the matter of knowledge of God - has not the slightest relation to the scientific work of a dogmatist. He does not in any way enter into the mainstream of dogmatic creativity - for him, the existing dogmatic formula is an entire fact, which he examines from the scientific, historical-philosophical and philological side. One must strictly distinguish between essential theology and technical theology. Essential Theology is the word or teaching about God, and such a word about God can only be the word of God himself: God's word about God. Scientific theology in no way coincides with this essential Theology, does not bear a single feature of this Theology: it is only the science of Theology. Likewise, “dogmatic theology” is the theology that is contained in dogmas: the creed is actually dogmatic theology, and dogmatics is not dogmatic theology, it is only the science of dogmatic theology. And dogmatics is the science of dogmatic theology in the fullest sense. Theology is a science in which no boundaries are placed for reason more than those that exist for reason, for knowledge in any science. He is quite competent here; he himself poses questions here, and these questions can only be resolved by his means. How does the church teach on such and such a point, and how does this or that church father teach? When was this or that dogma formulated, from what philosophy were its terms borrowed, what did they mean there, in what sense did they formulate a dogmatic formula? These are all purely scientific questions; Scientific dogma should not appear from their circle, but within their borders it is quite competent. So theological science is, first of all, dogmatics, that is, the doctrine of dogmas, the science of dogmatic theology. We have already seen that scientific theology is not limited to dogma: it is, moreover, the science of Christian life, which is called moral theology. Moral theology should be the science of Christian life - personal (spiritual) and church. Nothing more than science. It is not her job to teach Christian morality, to preach, to educate in Christian life: her task is to give teaching about Christian life, and nothing more. Positive theological science is the teaching of dogma and the teaching of Christian life. But the most typical of these teachings for theological science is dogmatics, which is fully consistent with the fact that dogmatics is in fact the most developed, while moral theology is an unestablished science. We can decisively say that positive theological science is dogmatics proper, that is, the science of dogmas. The concept of theology as a science, of theological science, postulates a new sphere of theological thought - Christian philosophy. Theological science, not only in the form of the doctrine of Scripture and the doctrine of Tradition (church history), but also in the form of positive theology as the science of dogma (and the science of Christian life), does not have a constructive, creative nature, does not yet give a Christian worldview, a Christian understanding of life - it is by its nature entirely objective. At the risk of being misunderstood, we can say: the science of Christian dogmas can be expounded, as well as being a church historian, even by an unbelieving scientist. Constantine the Great reasoned with the fathers of the Council of Nicea about consubstantiality, without even being announced. Or, at least, let's say this: in theological science, in the strict sense of the word, faith should not show its creative power, there should be no place for anything subjective, in it all the creative potential of personal faith cannot be revealed, and all the needs of the believing heart cannot be satisfied. For all this, the place is not in theological science, but in Christian philosophy, which must be dissociated from science and built by its own method. Christian philosophy, a system of religious thought, must be the reason of Christian experience, the dialectic of the Christian spirit, and it is built solely by a subjective method, and is clearly a personal religious thought. Christian philosophy is already entirely the fruit of a believing mind, an appraising heart, and not a matter of logic, discursive thinking; therefore, it has a close affinity with the moral teaching of Christianity, as with the science of Christian experience, of Christian life. Unlike the old rationalistic theology, Christian philosophy is least likely to meet Gnostic quests halfway and is in no way bound by the limitations of human knowledge. Just as the old scholasticism is overcome in the scientific field of the new theology, so rationalism and Gnosticism are overcome in the philosophical part of the new theology, in Christian philosophy. Establishing itself on theological science and being scientific in this sense, Christian philosophy is no longer a theological science: it deals with Christian experience, which it processes and systematizes with a special, subjective method. As a result of Christian philosophy, what is obtained is not a universally binding rational truth, a logical construction, but a subjective understanding of life, which meets the needs of one’s own heart and acts on minds intimately, seeks consonant hearts, and unites kindred souls. Unlike old rationalism, Christian philosophy, scientific in its basis and subjective in method, deals not with speculative revealed truth, which requires faith and is accessible to reason only from the formal side, but with the content of dogma, with mystical experience filling its formula. In relation to his own experience, in the matter of systematizing it, the Christian philosopher is an unlimited master. He branches off from a historically given trunk, he tastes the one Christ for all, but perceives Him personally, goes to Him on his own path. Objectively, dogmatically, Christ is understood by all members of the church unanimously, but experientially He is comprehended in innumerable ways. The Christian philosopher is rooted in the depths of his own experience. Not only is he not bound by the need to repeat the old, not only can he diversify generally binding formulas by adding personal opinions; no, he can, relying on personal, non-repetitive experience, say a new word, illuminate Christianity from a completely new side - and not only can, but also must, because in the novelty of experience, in the originality of religious thought, the only basis for the emergence of a system of Christian philosophy. And there is no limit to original creativity in this area, because there is no limit to the variety of personal experiences. It is enough to compare the scholastic system of dogmatic philosophy with the idea of ​​a new theology in its two parts: theological science and Christian philosophy, in order to see all the wretchedness of the scholastic system, all the superiority of Christian philosophy over the old dogmatic (speculative) philosophy. But if we imagine dogmatic or speculative philosophy as pure as possible from the old scholastic methods of thought, it still cannot be Christian philosophy. Christian philosophy, as a discipline distinct from special theological sciences, must be uniform for all parts of Christian thought, comprehensive. Meanwhile, a dogmatic, speculative system cannot have such a comprehensive meaning. Namely: it does not contain moral and spiritual experience. The theological system, which places dogmatics as its center and has a dogmatic orientation, recognizes moral theology as a practical and applied discipline. But as a practically applied discipline, moral theology does not deserve the name of science. Hence the contempt for him among the theologians of the old school. Even in 1900, Prof. P.I. Gorsky-Platonov wrote (The Voice of the Old Professor p. 16): “Moral theology, pastoral theology, only according to Tradition coming from the Middle Ages (?), are usually called sciences, although these supposed sciences have no scientific content. They couldn't even come up with a satisfactory name for themselves. Indeed, theologia moralis, theologia pastoralis - what is it? Of course, not a moral teaching about God, not a pastoral teaching about God, but rather God’s teaching about morality, God’s teaching about shepherding. Where or what is the concept of science attached to? Read the Ten Commandments, read the Savior’s Discourse on the Mount, or: read the pastoral letters of the Apostle Paul, read Chrysostom. What next? Then, according to your talent and desire, indulge in eloquence, rhetoric, and idle talk.” P. I. Gorsky and theologians like him did not realize that they themselves were to blame for the low level of moral theology, that in this case the proverb “according to Senka’s hat” was fulfilled on them: they could only accept moral theology in such a pitiful form because they did not suspect the possibility of anything other than theoretical, spiritually-experiential knowledge of the Christian Truth, which is carried out in a discipline independent of dogma - science and philosophy. In a theological system built from a dogmatically objective angle, under the dominance of dogmatics, strictly speaking, there can be no place for moral theology, as a science of Christian experience, or even as a practical applied discipline. Dogma is a church-generally obligatory belief; in practice, it corresponds to the church-binding rules of activity that determine liturgical and canonical church practice. In a dogmatic system, the practical and applied disciplines are canon and liturgy proper: where is the place for moral teaching, for the science of Christian experience? And naturally, in the old theology, moral theology turned out to be a stillborn child. Prof. S. S. Glagolev in Art. About Theology, originally published in Prav. Theologian Encycl. (ed. Lopukhin) volume II (1901) and then reprinted in the book A Guide to the Study of Basic Theology (1912), had the courage to admit this state of affairs. Prof. S. S. Glagolev belongs entirely to the old theology, but his article stands out favorably from the literature of that school by its consistency of thought. He divides theology into theoretical and practical. Theoretical theology is dogmatics. Dogmatics also includes the disclosure of religious and moral truths, so that moral theology is a branch of dogmatic theology that has grown to the size of an independent science. Moral theology is part of a unified theoretical theology, but it is not “practical theology, teaching how to live by faith and lead others to faith. These are the tasks of applied theological sciences, among which there is no moral theology... Theoretical theology speaks about religious and moral commandments, but practical theology teaches how to implement them. The first gives general formulas, the second shows how to apply them to special cases. The commandment “love your neighbor as yourself” is a formula, but the set of rules on how to instruct the Russian peasant in the truths of faith and morality, that is, how to express your love for him in the best possible way, is a practical guide. Love for one's neighbor is expressed in prayer; in a religious society it should be expressed in public prayer. The rules on how to organize prayer or liturgical meetings, drawn up under the influence of historical circumstances, are practical rules. There can be a lot of applied practical sciences. Among the most important of them are liturgics and church law. The sciences of practical theology include pastoral theology, catechetics, homiletics, and asceticism. All practical sciences find their initial principles in theoretical theology.” So, the circle of theological sciences falls into two sections: theoretical theology - dogmatics, which may not devote part of its theology to moral, can alone cope with its task, and applied practical sciences, among which there is no moral theology. There is no place for moral teaching in a dogmatic system. This means that dogmatic philosophy, constructed according to an objective method, has no access to spiritual life, to Christian experience, which remains elusive to it. There is no place in it for what is most precious, most profound in Christianity, what constitutes Christian life itself, what forms the Christian personality, what is the spirit and meaning of Christianity, what the human heart yearns for, what the Christian religion gives life to and nourishes the human soul. I have always been amazed by the official composition of the theological sciences: everything is provided for, everything is divided between individual teachers, each of whom knows his own kennel and not one will interfere in the sphere of the other, but no discipline is forgotten, no teacher is given the most important thing, one and indivisible, Christianity itself is forgotten, like a precious pearl, like the highest chain of bones in the world, its own “innermost” content, its soul, is forgotten. Let a believing Christian enter the theological school, already instructed and educated by experienced shepherds and spiritual elders, and who wants to illuminate his faith, his spiritual life with the light of science, to comprehend it with theological reason. Where, to which theological science should he turn? – I would like to know about what happens between Christ and the soul, about the real, genuine Christian Truth, about its sweetness, about its reason and meaning. The dogmatist will not respond to his request. His task is to formulate Christianity in philosophical terms: ονσια, φυσις, ϑελημα. He teaches about what happened when there was nothing, what happens in heaven, and what will happen beyond the grave. About what is happening in the Christian soul, here on earth, now, he has no terms, no words. His language is completely unsuited to such topics. Would you like to argue about traussubstantiatio, about δυο φυσις? Moral theology teaches about duties, virtues and vices. “The duties of a Christian in relation to God. Sins that are contrary to faith: superstition, coldness and indifference to faith, doubt and skepticism, apostasy, unbelief. The duties of a Christian towards himself”... All this is too superficial, fractional, and mechanical. Not a word about freedom and spirit, about the Christian meaning of life, about the proper content of the Christian idea. The science of Christianity is not among the many sciences into which theology is divided. Such a science can only be the moral-subjective doctrine of Christianity, Christian philosophy. While the dogmatic system of theology does not embrace the content of Christian philosophy, what is most important in Christianity, Christian philosophy, on the contrary, does not exclude dogmatic theology and gives it its place. Christian philosophy is composed by a subjective method; it deals with the intimate side of Christian facts, with their inner value and meaning. But this does not mean that its conclusions cannot be expressed objectively. The relationship between subjective and objective knowledge is similar to the relationship between the causal and teleological series, which are mutually reversible. Any thesis of subjective comprehension can be translated into the language of objective knowledge. It's possible. This is also psychologically natural, just as we see the sun moving across the sky and after we learn that the earth rotates. The objective expression of spiritual-experiential knowledge, mystical comprehension, is in many respects expedient. Spiritual experience can be made generally understandable only by giving it a theoretical, abstract formula. Therefore, public teaching and announcement cannot do without an objective system. Dogmatics is specifically school theology. It gives scope for evidence. apologetic and polemical theology are adjacent to it. Thus, subjective-mystical knowledge is clothed in rational concepts. Insisting on the originality of subjective-mystical inquiry, we do not deny either the necessity or the usefulness of rational methods of thought. However, we have the right to desire that the rational vestment of religious thought be applied consciously - with a clear awareness of its limits and purposes. Objective-rational concepts in a religious system of thought are permissible only to the extent that they cover religious experience, embrace mystical content, since they are not divorced from spiritual reality until they begin to live an imaginary original life. The subjective-mystical orientation of Christian philosophy does not exclude the use of objective-rational concepts - it does not reconcile with rationalism, with objectivism. It does not allow only for reason to be considered the source of religious ignorance, regardless of spiritual and mystical experience, so that, in other words, the religious system satisfies human curiosity. One who has tasted the sweets of spiritual knowledge can no longer have a taste for Gnostic speculation. The laboratory, decomposing water into its constituent elements, leaves the everyday use of water untouched; she is content with her scientific goals. Spiritual philosophy does not encroach on the social application of objective rational concepts; in its exclusive jurisdiction it leaves the hidden depths of religious knowledge, the inner content of the rational concepts of religion. The difference between the rational-objective system of Christian philosophy and its subjective-mystical orientation is established not on the surface of the practical achievements of church society, but in the depths of the selfless requests of one’s own heart. Christian philosophy is not needed for the immediate purposes of church catechism and school teaching; it is necessary when the question of revising established concepts and norms, reforming modern religious consciousness, updating frozen orders, and fundamentally restructuring the spiritual edifice is raised. It is necessary when you need to descend into the hidden laboratory of the spirit, where spiritual values ​​are first determined, into that underground depth where the very roots of the spiritual tree are born. The unselfish but living request of the believing heart leads into this depth; in this laboratory, the ruler and creator, the categorical legislator and judge is the free spirit of a Christian. Anyone who has managed to descend into this depth, to visit this laboratory of spiritual values, can apply rational-objective formulas with full awareness of their useful significance. On the contrary, objectivism, as a system of religious thought, does not adhere to the utilitarian role of objective religious concepts; it unconsciously jumps over their service boundary, it satisfies the gnostic thirst, irritated curiosity. This is the point where a choice must be made between the objective system of religious thought and the moral-subjective (mystical-subjective) system of Christian philosophy. This is a choice between a barren, albeit selfish, Gnosticism, this philosophy of bad taste, and a spiritual philosophy, fruitful in intimate comprehension, rich in internal content and fraught with results, although unselfish in motives. The middle member, the rational-objective vestment of spiritual experience, both psychologically inevitable and expedient in the matter of church catechumen and school teaching, remains inviolable. Even more can be said about the mutual relationship between dogmatic theology and Christian philosophy. What are dogmas? These are beliefs fixed and raised to the level of universal obligatory nature by the church. And beliefs naturally arise on the basis of spiritual experience. Spiritual experience is the experience and believing recognition of religious, absolute values. Spiritual value, undoubted in itself for the believing heart, poses a whole series of questions to the Christian mind, which together constitute religious metaphysics. These are the questions: what is the transcendental origin of these values, what is their transcendental destiny? Whoever believes in the absolute value of spiritual good, recognizes Christ as God, cannot help but believe and hope that God’s omniscience and omnipotence guarantee the safety of spiritual good in the midst of the conflict of world forces and for its transcendental significance. Christian experience, organized by faith, serves as a source from which a whole swarm of beliefs-hypotheses arises, individually diverse. The Church elevates some of these beliefs to the dignity of universally binding dogmas. Beliefs and dogmas have broad practical significance: they give rise to motives for a Christian’s loyalty to the spiritual good. The explanation of human history by the Fall and redemption, hope in the grace of God, expectation of reward from beyond the grave for the righteous and sinners, hope for a new heaven and a new earth in which the truth of God dwells - all this strengthens the Christian’s fidelity to his calling. This is the moral meaning of dogmas, or the dogmatic justification of Christian morality. No matter how important it is in practical terms, no matter how prolific the psyche of Christians has developed in church history around dogmas, clearly manifested in church art, in principle the moral significance of dogmas is not high. According to the explanation of the holy fathers and the latest authoritative theologians, motives in the life of a Christian should not play a significant role, they are useful at the first stages of spiritual growth; an accomplished Christian should do good out of selfless love for God. Much more important is the contact of dogma-beliefs with spiritual experience on the other side - the emergence of the dogma-beliefs themselves from the depths of spiritual experience, which can be called the moral or mystical justification of the dogmas. The dogma-beliefs themselves grow on the soil of spiritual reality and are postulated by it. They are determined by the content of spiritual reality. What a person is, what his faith is, such are his beliefs and aspirations, such are his religious ideas. It is a branch appearing on the trunk of the Christian life. The reverse impact of dogmatic beliefs on life does not prevent the fact that they have spiritual experience as their root, and this is most significant in the relation of beliefs to life. Beliefs are needed for spiritual life, just as an army is needed for a state; they strengthen and protect faith; but just as the army should not rule the state, so beliefs should correspond to the spiritual good, stand at its height, be useful for spiritual growth, feed on the juices of spiritual reality, not break away from it, and be eternally renewed by its content. Christian philosophy, as a dialectic of spiritual experience, cannot but value dogma-beliefs, gives them the deepest justification, but it itself is independent of dogma, for it grows on what is more basic than beliefs. It digs deeper than the layer to which beliefs belong. While dogmas create motives for a good life, which are of secondary importance, Christian philosophy is in charge of the roots of dogmatic theology itself, the origins of beliefs. The highest level of moral teaching about Christianity is Christian philosophy, and this Christian philosophy, growing out of the moral teaching about Christianity, organizing spiritual and mystical experience, and not a dogmatic system, is a genuine - in creativity, depth and comprehensiveness - system of Christian thought, Christian philosophy. Christian philosophy is what, secondly, I put in place of the old moral theology. What is the moral teaching of Christianity and the Christian philosophy that grows out of it in comparison with the speculative system? What is the main, basic character of this direction of religious thought in comparison with other directions - dogmatism, Gnosticism, mysticism, aestheticism? In his vitality. Here Christianity is seen as life, as a religion of life, and not as a concept or solution to a metaphysical problem, not as an experience that separates one from life. The deepest meaning of the moral category consists in considering an object in the framework of life, in applying to it the questions, what is it, as a moment of life, in a specific experience, what is it for life? The subjective method, spiritual and mystical experience - all this flows from the same spring: life, experience, as the center of everything, as the final criterion of value and truth. Moral subjective assessment of Christianity. Ignorance of its spiritual and mystical basis means knowing it from the depths of life. But as a living fact, as a concrete experience, Christianity is an island in the boundless sea of ​​living life, and Christian philosophy is part of the philosophy of life. Let this be a central island, let this part be the most important, decisive, but still a part. This is the peculiarity of the moral teaching of Christianity and Christian philosophy among other theological sciences, that this science, the only one, presupposes a living, concrete, historical person - not in the abstract dogmatic teaching about the Fall of Adam, about salvation in Christ, about saving grace, but in the living dialectic of his consciousness, the requests of the heart, spiritual assessments. Christianity, as a living experience, exists only in a dialectical connection with natural consciousness, just as a grain can sprout only in the soil. Christianity exists in reality, not as a concept, but as a living experience, only in the consciousness of man, only in the dialectical transition to it from natural consciousness, in the rebirth of man. But life confronts Christian consciousness not in the disorder of mental decay, but in the highest organization of natural consciousness, in the form of a philosophy of life. And no matter how important and decisive the Christian moment of life is for the very organization of natural consciousness, for the philosophy of life, the originality of the philosophy of life is not weakened in the slightest. As a teacher, raising a son and heir, prepares in him a free creator of life; Likewise, Christianity calls a person to free creativity. In the depths of Christianity itself, in its spirit, lies man’s call to freedom, to a self-creative solution to the world problem. What a person adds to Christianity is that he pronounces and interprets the same gospel word as a person. Talk about the development or improvement of Christianity is depressingly absurd: the Gospel can never be surpassed. The idea of ​​the third testament conceals within itself, like the idea of ​​endless progress, the denial of any meaning of history, the impenetrable meaninglessness of the world process. Progress undoubtedly exists, but it forms the upper, surface current in world history, below which a reverse current occurs. The depth of world life must be represented in reverse order: the most perfect in it lies at the beginning, and not at the end. The first man, the real Adam, is the genuine Adam Kadmon, who concealed within himself, not in the sense of an idea, but in the sense of a concrete embryo, the entire future history, just as in a newborn baby his entire destiny is already wrapped up. So in Christ all Christianity has already been realized, and it can no longer be significantly, basically, improved. Just as all natural history comes from Adam, the head of humanity, so Christ is the eyes of all spiritual humanity, the eyes of all subsequent history until the end of the age. The Holy Spirit no longer adds anything new to the work of Christ: He only repeats His work in man. Only man can add to Christianity - not in the sense of improving Christianity, but in the sense of repeating or resolving the Christian task by man on his own. Christianity carries within itself limitations not in the sense that a more perfect religion than Christianity is possible, but in the sense that it is too sublime to say the last word, which remains with man precisely because he is lowered before the angels and crowned with glory and honor. Christianity is half of life, true, the absolute half, but still presupposing another, relative half, which man combines with Christianity. He is called by the Gospel to utter the last word. The Gospel tells him “you,” only he himself can say “I” on his own behalf. Here we will once again point out the difference between the dogmatic and Christian-philosophical principles of the system. The dogmatic principle requires only obedience from a person, since dogmatics statically formulates the revealed Truth, the perfection revealed in Christ; According to the Christian-philosophical principle, a person is called to creative work. To say the same in the language of the methodology of the spiritual sciences - Christian philosophy itself transfers its work to the philosophy of life. The last system of thought created by the moral-subjective method is a system of philosophy of life. It is possible to hold thought on Christian philosophy only artificially: it must complete its creative work by creating a philosophy of life. The philosophy of life is created by the same method as Christian philosophy, a subjective method, which here is revealed in psychological elementaryness and scientific character. Morally-subjectively and spiritually-mystically, in this system all concrete human life in all its ease is surveyed and assessed, the meaning of life is learned in its own terms. Philosophy of life is what I, thirdly, put in place of the old moral theology. Now I will not speak in more detail about the philosophy of life, and I now mention it in the interests of theology itself. The idea of ​​Christian philosophy is essential for the construction of a philosophy of life, which, after all, embraces Christianity as the highest turning point in the history and psychology of man, which determines the very formulation of the philosophy of life. And conversely: the idea of ​​a philosophy of life, the idea of ​​justification of life serves as an essential condition for the most correct, most profound construction of Christian philosophy. The moral teaching of Christianity finds its completion in Christian philosophy, and Christian philosophy is correctly illuminated by the idea of ​​a philosophy of life. Philosophy of life, as a moral-subjective, spiritual-mystical philosophy, is a special type of philosophy that relates to other areas of philosophy in the same way as Christian philosophy relates to other areas of religious thought. The struggle of this type of thought with philosophical objectivism (positivism, rationalism, idealism) was determined in the history of philosophy earlier than in the history of theology, although here, too, the subjective type of thought developed only in the recent history of philosophy and, in strict consistency, is characteristic only of our days. I will point out some of the relevant foreign philosophical literature. Here, before others, the moralist-mystics of modern times should be named, outstanding for their enthusiastic speech, but who did not bring their thoughts into a system: Emerson (Assays), Carlyle (Past and present, - Sartor resartus, etc., also The correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson), Kirkegaur, Maeterlinck (Le church enseveli, - Le trésor des humbles, - La sagesse et la destinée and etc.), partly Nietzsche and Guyot. The other row consists of systematic thinkers following Kant, Fichte, Schleiermacher and Feuerbach with a more or less successful bias towards historical-psychological empiricism: Lotze, Dilthey (in addition to the previously mentioned works one can note Das Wesen der Philosophie in Systematische Philosophie), Eiken (Die Einheit des Geisteslebens in Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit, – Der Kampf tun einen geistigen Lebensinhalt. Neue Grundlegung einer Weltanschauung, – Grundlinien einer neuen Lebensanschauung, – Der Sinn und Wert des Lebens, etc.), Rickert, Sabatier (Esquisse d'une Philosophie de la religion d'après la psychologie et l'histoire, – Les religions d'autorité et la religion de l'esprit). It is impossible not to mention the former metaphysical mystics Schelling and Ravaisson and the new thinkers of the mystical movement Bergson and James. Among the metaphysicians, the English authors of the theory of self-realization deserve special mention: Green (Prolegomena to ethics), Bradley (Appearance and reality, - Ethical Studies), Seth (A study of ethical principles), Mackenzie (Manual of ethics). Related to this theory is the theory of personal idealism, whose supporters published a collection of this name in 1902: Personal idealism. Philosophical essays by eight members of the University of Oxford. (However, back in 1901, Howison published the book The limits of evolution and other essays, illustrating the metaphysical theory of personal idealism). Also PringlePattison (Hegelianism and personality, – Man's place in the cosmos), Gibson (A philosophical introduction to ethics. An advocacy of the spiritual principle in ethics from the point of view of personal idealism). Through F. C. S. Schiller, one of the participants in the collection Personal idealism (Art. Axioms as postulates), James's pragmatism (W. James Pragmatism. A new name for some old ways of thinking. Popular lectures on philosophy, his The will to believe, and other essays in popular philosophy; here one can also name his main work The varieties of religious experience. A study in human nature), to which Schiller gave a more ethical bias, accordingly, and called it humanism (Humanism. Philosophical essays, - Studies in humanism, - also in Intern. journal of ethics 1903: The ethicalbasis of metaphysics). The principle of personality is the basis of ethics based partly on Plato and even more on Aristotle Paulsen, which he called energeticism (System der Ethik mit einem Umriss der Staats - und Gesellschaftslehre, - also an article in Systematische Philosophie) and Lipis (Die ethischen Grundfragen). Special literature on the theory of value should also be included here: Ehrenfels System der Wert theorie (1897), Krüger Der Begriff des absolut Wertvollen als Grundbegriff der Moralphilosophie (1898), Kraus Zur Theorie des Wertes (1901), Kreibig Psychologische Grundlegung eines Systems der Wert-theorie (1902), Meinong Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Wert theorie (1894), Ritscht Ueber Werturteile (1895), Scheibe Eine Bedeutung, der Werturteile etc. (1893), W. Ml. Urban Valuation, its nature and laws (1909), Rickert Values ​​of life and cultural values ​​(Logos 1912–1913), On the system of values ​​(ib. 1914)... If a reader, familiar or familiar with the literature mentioned, tells me that the authors of various trends are named here, which do not fit into one direction, and that all of them, taken together, did too little, did almost nothing for the construction of spiritual-subjective philosophy, then I will not argue with him much... I outlined the program of my department on its highest, creative level. Its educational type is the Systematic Course of Moral Philosophy, or Ethics. Of the elementary disciplines of philosophy - logic, ethics and aesthetics - the educational form of moral teaching about Christianity, Christian philosophy and, ultimately, the philosophy of life is not logic, not aesthetics, but ethics. Ethics is narrow for the moral teaching of life, for moral-mystical philosophy, but only in terms of ethics can the idea of ​​this philosophy be educationally expressed. To put it educationally, the philosophy of life is, of course, an ethical system, a moral philosophy, and not an epistemological and logical-metaphysical system, not an aesthetic system. Ethics, as an educational form of spiritual-mystical philosophy, can no longer be positive ethics. Moreover, it cannot be simply idealistic and, in particular, formalistic ethics: it must perceive in a certain way a spiritual-mystical principle, which must give it a special character and a specific direction in all parts. And yet it will remain ethics, it will solve the same problems of this discipline that are posed in all ethics. A systematic course of moral philosophy, or ethics, is what I put in the educational sense in the place of the old moral theology. This is a philosophical, not a theological science. This is how she needs to be recognized. As one of the sciences of the spiritual school, ethics will necessarily take on not only the character of a philosophy of life, but also a certain, specific direction of Christian philosophy and the moral teaching of Christianity. Nevertheless, it (like logic and psychology) will remain a philosophical science and will proceed from the natural principles of moral life. And it is not difficult to justify the presence of this philosophical science among the circle of sciences of the theological school. Christianity presupposes a natural soil into which it throws its seeds. A person must be naturally prepared to perceive it, to know its value, to evaluate it. Morality turns out to be such a soil. Christianity is prepared and realized by moral consciousness, and not by logical or aesthetic development. Therefore, the doctrine of human moral consciousness has - more directly than logic, aesthetics - theological interest, it is appropriate in a theological school, and is not replaced by theological sciences. And it must retain the character of an independent science, because it is necessary as a doctrine of autonomous moral consciousness. And formally, ethics cannot even merge with the moral teaching of Christianity, with Christian philosophy and the philosophy of life, not to mention dogmatic or moral theology. It is not difficult to make a guide to moral theology, in which the introduction, or one eye, will correspond to ethics, the other will contain the dogmatic teaching about the moral nature of man, the third - Christian philosophy, the fourth - asceticism, etc. Such a guide cannot, like any anthology, claim educational value. To have scientific significance, ethics must be a special course, just as Christian philosophy and the philosophy of life must be presented in the form of special courses... I presented to you the complete program of my science. The most important and typical is its upper, philosophical, floor, in the central part - Christian philosophy. The typicality of this system is most clearly expressed in the subjective method of thought. The subjective method is the method of the new theology. Subjective method, subjectivism... Not one of my listeners, not one of my readers, imagined, at the mere word about the subjective method, the gaping “gates of fiery hell”, ready to devour both the author and future supporters of the “subjectivistic” system. But is the subjective method as terrible as the guardians of the foundations, losing their heads with fear, paint it as? The most famous is the logical and psychological use of the term subjective. Deviation of thinking from logical norms under the influence of mental reasons, violation of objective truth under the influence of personal preferences, the influence of feelings on thought - this is what is most often known as subjectivity. Individual characteristics, idiosyncrasies, mental life, peculiarities of sensations, feelings, this is also known as subjective. Individual limitation is a synonym for subjective Need it be said that the methodological application of subjectivism has nothing to do with this logical and psychological meaning of subjectivity? To understand the idea of ​​the subjective method, one must move from the lower realm of elementary logic and psychology to the higher realm of systematic thinking and here compare it with the objective method. The complete and characteristic objectivism of knowledge is represented in positivism. How does positivism talk about the historical and psychological content of human life: about vices and virtues, ideals, beliefs, conscience? Positivism explains all spiritual content genetically. Decomposing all the complex complexes of spiritual life into simple elements, for each of the latter he looks for a causal explanation, “considers human actions and aspirations as if it were a matter of lines, planes, or bodies.” Let us turn, for example, to Sutherland’s book The Origin and Development of the Moral Instinct. The author sets the goal of his book to show how, from the needs of spiritual life, as they arise and develop, there grows, first with extraordinary slowness, and then imperceptibly accelerating its development along with its forward movement, that moral instinct, which, with its attendant reason, constitutes the noblest phenomenon ever seen on our planet. “This development will be traced by us in its continuous gradualness, starting from the primitive savage and ending with the noblest representatives of humanity - as a biological process.” The author himself stands outside the spiritual process, remains a stranger to it, at most he admires it from the outside, aesthetically. This is how he, in particular, solves the problem of debt. “When,” he writes, “sympathy among a certain race has found its expression in rules or laws, then behavior consistent with the average level of this sympathy is supported by the whole force of public opinion, with its punishments and censures, with its rewards and approvals, then a sense of duty arises - the consciousness that an individual must comply not only with what his inner feeling tells him, but also with the external environment - with what the average level of his race demands. This feeling, strengthened by the sanction of direct commands corresponding to the altruistic ideas of a given time, develops in the individual from early childhood and, as a result, takes on that absolute, unconditional form that characterizes the sense of duty, although in reality it is completely relative and depends on the character of the given people and the era in which the individual had to live.” The author looks at not only the lower stages of moral development, but also the highest forms of moral consciousness with the same outside eye. “But in its most noble form,” he continues, “morality appears when sympathy, duty and self-respect are illuminated by aesthetic feeling, when good behavior evokes that enthusiasm that flares up within us at the sight of something beautiful. When the stage of development has been reached at which the idea of ​​beauty is concentrated around the good, pure and truthful, then morality acquires the highest form known to us.”... Thus, the author explains genetically morality, the sense of duty, ideals, but does not reveal the inner content of spiritual life, does not look at it from the side from which it is addressed to the subject himself, has internal attractiveness and persuasiveness, he always talks about others, but not about himself. Bentham, the founder of the utilitarian doctrine, in his book Introduction to the Foundations of Morals and Legislation, directs his reasoning not to the moral agent, but to the legislator, teaching him to act on the will of citizens through pleasures and pains. In general, positivism does not recognize and does not know the internal, subjective nature of the spiritual process, its intimate, internally comprehended value. Therefore, a positivist can compose a philosophy of religion, or better to say, a science of religions, and not a religious philosophy, a philosophy of morality, scientific ethics, and not a moral philosophy. On the contrary, what can we, believers, say to refute positivism, to eliminate its interpretation of the spiritual process? We will say that the genetic explanation of religion, morality, and law leaves open the fundamental religious, ethical, and legal problem, since the spiritual and cultural process has an internal side, intimate evidence, and is accessible to internal assessment. Just as the thought process, in addition to the psychological side, also has a logical nature, which is completely elusive for mental explanation; Likewise, the spiritual, religious and ethical process, in addition to the socio-psychological side, which is explained causally, is accessible to internal consciousness, immanent comprehension, mystical revelation. A historian, a sociologist, a psychologist can causally explain the inspiration that gripped the participants in the crusades, but I myself understand, I comprehend the inner beauty of a heroic act, Christian self-denial, spiritual freedom, and this comprehension of the inner beauty of the spiritual process is completely convincing and self-evident for me. This is what we believers oppose to positivism. But this is a subjective, moral-subjective, spiritual-subjective consideration of human life. To renounce spiritual subjectivism, from spiritual mysticism means to completely yield to positivism, to renounce all sacred things, from spiritual beliefs, from spiritual knowledge. All this exists for the subject, for the spiritual personality, and cannot be established in a purely objective way. Only theoretical truths can be established by an objective method, but spiritual truth exists for the heart, for the personality, for the subject, and is revealed in the heart, in self-consciousness. Spiritual truth is not objectively known, but subjectively (intimately, spiritually-mystically) comprehended. G. S. Skovoroda persistently spoke about self-knowledge as a principle of spiritual life, and about the subjectivity of spiritual knowledge. “We,” in his words, “are too curious, zealous and insightful in extraneous surroundings: we have measured the sea, the earth, the air and the heavens and disturbed the bowels of the earth for the sake of metals, we have demarcated the planets, we have searched for mountains, rivers and cities in the Moon, we have found countless worlds, we are building incomprehensible machines, we are filling up the abysses, we are prohibiting and attracting the desire of the waters, every day there are new experiences and wonderful inventions. My God! What we can't do! What we can't do! But the grief is that despite all this, it seems that something great is missing. There is nothing that we cannot say: we only know that something is missing, but we do not understand what it is. It looks like a dumb baby: he just cries, unable to know or say what he needs, he only feels annoyance. Couldn’t this obvious displeasure of our souls make us realize that all these sciences cannot satiate our thoughts? The spiritual abyss, you see, is not filled with them. We have devoured countless circling systems with planets, and planets with mountains, seas and cities, yes, but we are greedy; Our thirst is not quenched, but rather born. Mathematics, medicine, physics, mechanics, music with their wild sisters; The more abundantly we taste them, the more our hearts burn with hunger and thirst, and our rough stupor cannot guess that they are all servants to their mistress and a tail to their head, without which the whole body is not valid. And what is more insatiable, more restless and more harmful than the human heart, armed with these slaves without its boss?... What does it not dare to do? The spirit of hunger drives, the outfit promotes, strives for inclination, like a ship without a helmsman, without advice, and foresight, and pleasure. Having hungered like a dog, with a murmur, forever swallowing the dust and ashes of the perishing, the usury is alienated from lies, having gone astray from the womb, having missed the essential truth above the spiritual abyss that thunders within us: “I am.” And since they have not corrected themselves, what is the most urgent need for them, and what is the limit, line, and edge of all desires and intentions, in order to lead all their affairs to this most important and most reliable point, then they have neglected the queen of all these ministering spirits or sciences from the earth and returning to the earth, having passed through her merciful door, which opens the exit and leads our thoughts from the base meanness of the shadow to the bright and essential truth of unfading happiness. Now think, my friends, and tell me, what is the most urgent need? What is best and most desirable for us? What can make you happy? Reason in advance, get out of the ranks of dissolute travelers who themselves cannot say where they are going and why! Our life is a journey, and the outcome to happiness is not short. If the sunny west turns red, we prophesy that tomorrow will shine bright, and if the east turns red, there will be cold and bad weather today, we all say - and it happens. Tell me, perhaps, if a resident from the cities inhabited on the Moon came to us on our globe, would he not be surprised at our wisdom, seeing that we understand the heavenly signs so skillfully, and at the same time, our sleepwalker would become beside himself when he learned that we are senseless in saving our tiny world and are perfect drones - we do not notice anything and do not care about the most amazing system of our body. Tell me, perhaps, would we not deserve from our guest the name of a stupid mathematician, who firmly understands a compass that contains many millions of miles around him, but cannot feel the same power and taste in a small golden ring? Or would that crazy scribe give us, in all fairness, a name that words and letters of 15 arshins can be understood and read, but the same as Alpha or Omega written on a small piece of paper or on a fingernail is completely incomprehensible to him? Of course, he would call us a witch who finds out what food is boiling in other people’s pots, but in her own home she is blind, careless, and hungry. And perhaps such wise men are not from among those wives who neglect their homes, whom the great Paul calls red tape. I do not blaspheme science and approve of the latest craft; One thing that is worthy of blasphemy is that, relying on them, we neglect the highest science, to which the door is open to every age, country and article, sex and age, that happiness is necessary for everyone without choice, which is impossible to say about any science except it. In it the entire human race learns its own kind of happiness, and this is catholic, that is, national science.” But “no one wants to abstain from the affairs of this life and purify his heart so that he can delve into the depths of the hidden, in the most holy biblical church of the sweetest truth, which is most necessary for the national happiness. All sciences, all trades and everything are dearer to us than that which alone finds us when we are lost and returns us to ourselves. And this means being happy - to know, to find yourself. Hypocrites, we are told, you have learned to understand the face of heaven truly well, but why don’t you notice the laws, so that you, as if on a trail, get to the truth that has to make you happy? You have and can do everything, except that you yourself don’t know and don’t want to find. And it is truly worthy of surprise that a person lives for 30 years, but could not notice what is best for him and when the best thing can be done with him.” Prof. spoke even more clearly about the subjectivity, the heartfelt intimacy of spiritual knowledge. Yurkevich. “The heart is the basis of religion and morality. The basis of the religious consciousness of the human race lies in the human heart. Religion is not something extraneous to his spiritual nature; it is established on natural soil. It is true that revelation communicates to man truths that are inaccessible to his reason, but it is also true that man is not an animal only taught by God; the soul itself carries within itself the rudiments and predispositions to this extraordinary learning. However, we cannot find these rudiments and predispositions in the field of ideas and concepts; they are revealed to us as something that cannot be described and defined, as a true feeling of the infinite, only in the heart. And if blessed Augustine, examining the various foundations of faith, finally said: nemo credit nisi volens, then the source of faith is indicated in these words with indisputable truth, because desire and will are determined by the immediate inclinations and needs of the heart. The same is true in the moral sphere. The mind, as the ancients said, is the governmental or sovereign part of the soul, and mysticism, which is immersed in the immediate desires of the heart, without translating them into abstract, calm and solid ideas or principles of the mind, is contrary to the properties of the human spirit. But governmental and sovereign power is not a creative power; it is a rule that extends to such content of the moral world that is born from the deepest being of the spirit and in its immediate form or in the first and fundamental manifestation is love of good. The significance of the principles and general rules of reason in the moral field can be expressed through the Gospel image, which in its accuracy will always arouse surprise in an impartial observer: for living - and not just imagined - moral activity, a lamp and oil are required (Matthew 25: 1-10). As the oil of love dries up in a person’s heart, the lamp goes out: moral principles and ideas darken and finally disappear from consciousness. This relationship between the lamp and the oil, between the head and the heart, is the most common phenomenon in the moral history of mankind. Morality is a commandment, it is a law: but just as it is said about the law of grace that it will be written on the hearts of ordinary people, so people, left to themselves, reveal the lawful work written in their hearts.” The subjective, spiritual-mystical area is the area of ​​concrete mental life. This is everything that is internally experienced by a person, recognized, felt by him. This is the psychic area. However, the spiritual-mystical, subjective method is not a psychological method. Psychology belongs to natural science, and the psychological study of mental life is a natural scientific, objective study. Psychological science does not master or comprehend mental life intimately, internally; it does not substantiate religion and morality, does not create spiritual philosophy. Subjective, mental, spiritual-mystical life is cognized adequately, in indecomposable formations, in that depth and complexity to which theoretical knowledge does not reach, in that subtlest spiritual breeze, spiritual aroma, which is not perceptible to psychological science, but constitutes the true content of the spiritual personality - mental life is cognized by establishing values. The spiritual life of the individual, the human heart, is in love, in the perception and creation of the kingdom of values, and the method of knowing the spiritual, heartfelt life is the method of establishing value. Just as beauty is cognized and created aesthetically, so the world of the heart is cognized and organized by the method of spiritual assessment. The subjective method of spiritual philosophy is precisely the method of heartfelt knowledge, the method of attitude towards moral values. The method of spiritual philosophy - Christian philosophy and philosophy of life - is the highest, consciously organized stage of the method of heartfelt life itself. The creator of spiritual philosophy is aware, thinks and feels in the direction of the heart. Just as theoretical knowledge corresponds to the nature of logical truth, just as aesthetic creativity corresponds to the nature of beauty, so spiritual philosophy, spiritual-mystical knowledge corresponds to the nature of the heart, the spiritual personality. The theorist thinks in abstract concepts, the artist thinks in images, the Christian philosopher, the philosopher of life, thinks in living moral values. This is spiritual dialectics, the mind of the heart. To create a spiritual philosophy means to create a spiritual dialectic: to perceive and create spiritual values ​​and establish a connection between them, to organize them into the kingdom of values. This is spiritual knowledge, knowledge of Spiritual Truth, and we must remember that knowledge is not only theoretical, but also spiritual and practical, and it is in this way that Spiritual Truth is comprehended. Spiritual philosophy is the highest level of spiritual knowledge, its highest organization. This is a completely unique kind of knowledge. Just as a true artist will never stray onto the theoretical path, so the spiritual sage, moralist-mystic will never stray onto the path of theoretical (abstract) objectivism and spontaneously impersonal aestheticism. He will never stray onto the path of theoretical objectivism. This will hurt his ear and sound like dissonance. He thinks exclusively and consistently with heartfelt, moral and mystical assessments, exclusively and consistently weaves spiritual dialectics, creates a system of spiritual benefits. Spiritual philosophy finds, collects, systematizes spiritual values, teaches them to recognize them, cultivates a taste for them, convinces them of their inner beauty, and reveals their harmony. An objective attitude to the matter is impossible here; on the contrary, a taxonomist of religious thought knows with his soul, thinks with the blood of his heart, tears every thought from his soul, speaks of what is dear to him. And he turns to living individuals, seeks a whole soul, longs for consonant hearts, expects to meet friends and enemies. Spiritual wisdom also differs from the aesthetic sphere in that it relates to the moral sphere. It is necessary to distinguish lower morality as the application of commandments, as the order of duties and virtues, from higher morality, religious or mystical, as the realm of selfless values ​​and benefits, as the mysticism of personality, the mysticism of self-awareness. Spiritual philosophy deals with the highest morality, with the realm of spiritual values; nevertheless, the life of the heart is a moral sphere, which distinguishes spiritual thought from artistic creativity. Art does not have an internal dialectic, while the moral life of the heart, the kingdom of spiritual values, is impossible without its own spiritual mind, and is inevitably expressed in spiritual wisdom, in a dialectical system of values. Therefore, spiritual philosophy, as a dialectical system of values, is the most characteristic property of heart knowledge, the highest language of the heart. What science is for the mind and knowledge, what art is for beauty, so for the moral life of the heart is spiritual philosophy, a system of subjective spiritual dialectics. Here Truth and Beauty are perceived solely as spiritual good; all wisdom here is deeply practical, in the highest sense of vitality, spiritual experience; all attention here is focused on specific experiences, on spiritual taste. This is pure intuition of the soul, continuous music of the heart. And again, this is not a vulgar sermon, not an eloquent appeal, not a persistent suggestion; on the other hand, it is not a pointless irritation of sensitivity, for this is about the very knowledge of Spiritual Truth, about the initial establishment of spiritual values. Here the sincere mind acts as an organ for comprehending spiritual reality, and the only point is that this spiritual reality is experienced not from the side of objective certainty, but from the side of spiritual consistency, spiritual taste. The cognized, if you will, scientifically cognized, (and not fantastic, as in art) reality, historical and psychological, is tested, but this reality is reconsidered according to a different criterion, according to the judgment of the heart, and is rebuilt anew into a higher spiritual reality. This does not require proof of logical certainty, transcendental awareness, foresight of the future, no, it is enough just to listen to the voice of your own heart: the intimate value of the phenomena of life is determined, a spiritual verdict is pronounced over them, everything is decided by one’s own will. In this way, against the background of objective reality, a new truth, a different self-evidence, a new connection between the phenomena of life, a new illumination of world history is revealed. The subjective method is the only one suitable for spiritual knowledge, and it is as fruitful as one can wish for spiritual science. Only with this method is it possible, and it is entirely possible, to reach to the deepest roots of the world of values, the kingdom of God, to directly touch the mystery of the origin of the spiritual world, to the generative power of the Holy Spirit, to look into that secret cell, hidden in the depths of the heart, in which for the first time, in the very embryo, spiritual good is determined. Only this unselfish, alien to any personal predilections, free from smart calculations, from pressure from external knowledge, a pure method of the heart, manages to answer the question of what is the highest spiritual value, which serves as the measure of every good, every human act, where is the highest God's truth, which serves as the guiding star of our life. This highest value is that spiritual reality, upon contact with which our heart burns with a bright and pure flame, for which a person is ready to lay down his soul. Only a pure heart can answer this question, and the subjective method of spiritual knowledge must be protected from the admixtures of cognitive objectivism (and artistic aestheticism). Just as in life there are people of intellect and knowledge (and there are people of feeling and aesthetics), and, finally, there are people of heart and spiritual life, so spiritual philosophy must operate with a pure subjective method, spiritual dialectics. The product of the consistent application of the subjective method to religious-poetic philosophy is spiritual mysticism, the mysticism of self-consciousness: spiritual mysticism appears in the history of philosophy as a special direction of spiritual thought, a special type of philosophy that has almost no past and to which the future belongs. This is how the reviewer (A. M. Tuberovsky) characterizes the method of my system: “Tareev strives to penetrate into the intimate essence of Christianity, to creatively reproduce it. Not to mention the results of the plan, the very formulation of such a task is very original and deeply respectable. We understood the absolute superiority of this particular “philosophy” of Christianity. Let us explain our idea with a comparison. Instead of the Gospel, let's take Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear. The attitude of scientists towards this masterpiece of dramatic creativity may be different. One will state that King Lear belongs to Shakespeare or, conversely, that this tragedy is not authentic; such is the attitude of the apologist and the negative critic towards the Gospel. Another will argue that King Lear is a very smart and moral work, that it is quite worthy of Shakespeare; this is an ideology in the style of Solovyov and Nesmelov. Finally, King Lear is read by an artist who is himself a Shakespeare at heart. He has no doubt that this tragedy is “Shakespearean”: no one but Shakespeare could have created it; it must belong to someone, and the one who created it is the true “Shakespeare”, the author of “King Lear” and other similar masterpieces. After all, it is not the name that creates the glory of creations, but on the contrary, the creations “proclaim.” For such a congenial thinker, every line, every verse of a tragedy, even a separate expression is an organic part of the whole, perceived intuitively as a pearl of creativity. From one such expression he could reconstruct the whole, just as a paleontologist reconstructs the skeleton of an extinct animal type from a preserved vertebra. Whether such a restoration is correct in all details is another question; it is important that it is the only means of understanding the extinct species. In addition, experiencing direct pleasure from reading “King Lear”, with breathless excitement, and not cold fingers, he turns page after page and finds what the first one missed, what the second one faintly felt, but which makes up the whole essence, all the charm of this creation. And this “everything” lies not at all where the former connoisseurs-ideologists of tragedy assumed, not in its agreement with reason (after all, this is too elementary a requirement from the author of “King Lear”), not in the moral character of the work (a generally obligatory requirement), but in the unique, unrepeatable beauty of the creativity of this form. This is precisely Tareev’s attitude to the Gospel that reveals to me in the Gospel, every word of which is characteristic of the divine life that appeared in Christ, the self-valuable - in addition to and above rationality and goodness, the magnitude, “beauty” of the new highest form of revelation of divine life, which has its own reason and its own good. Of course, for prof. Tareev’s church norms remain in force, but he does not place the main burden of his work in them, but in the personal experience of Christianity. Wine requires a vessel, “skin” for its preservation, but one cannot judge the taste of the wine by the skins or the label: this requires experienced tasting. Such a tasting of Christianity, contained in the norms of church teaching, is carried out by Prof. Tareev, finding that the gospel wine is sweeter than all existing drinks, that it is divine nectar. Of course, everyone has their own taste, and “there is no arguing about tastes,” and a taste test may be erroneous, but the very method of experience, tasting, is the only way to determine the quality and value of a wine, which has objective significance. In establishing this method and in its brilliant implementation in the system of Prof. We see Tareev’s greatest merit, an exceptional fact of Russian Theology, in which all errors can only have a petty significance."} You, I hope, are sufficiently convinced of the deep uniqueness of my “subject,” my department, my theology, of its immeasurable importance, of the decisive typicality of the subjective method and spiritual mysticism. But you also see the novelty of the Christian philosophy I am projecting and its unpopularity. Christian philosophy with its moral-subjective method is new. Indeed, from classical antiquity to the present day, the highest spiritual creativity of man has manifested itself in two forms: in theoretical philosophy and in art. Philosophy until our time was only theoretical, objective philosophy. Only metaphysics was considered the final solution to the “damned” questions, and in theology – dogmatics. And only now is a new subjective method of spiritual philosophy emerging. Humanity has been living a spiritual life for a long time. Man's spiritual experience is measured over many centuries, and his legacy is incalculable. On its soil has grown luxurious spiritual literature - preaching, pastoral, ascetic, liturgical, but it has not yet received scientific and philosophical treatment. There has not yet been an immanent philosophy of spiritual experience, constructed by a subjective method adequate to it, and it is only just emerging. As soon as it is born, it already shows all the signs of unpopularity. Gnosticism, mysticism, occultism, magic are popular (science is popular, art is popular). Hint to the crowd that you possess higher knowledge, that you have access to transcendental secrets and hidden forces, solve questions about what is happening in heaven, what will happen to the soul after death, describe the order of Gehenna, discuss the means of achieving salvation after the grave - and you are guaranteed popularity. But spiritual philosophy is not for the crowd. It is too simple and too difficult. To know only oneself, to be guided only by the voice of the heart, which is accessible to any simple layman and therefore too democratic, but requires refined taste and aristocratic selflessness, which does not imply principled, deliberate esotericism, but represents complete factual esotericism, this does not captivate from the first word, it postulates a long personal search, a request that has matured in silence, a thoughtful readiness to try new paths. That my “system” is too new and unpopular was loudly testified by literary criticism, which revealed not curiosity, but hatred of my new word. I collected the instructive pearls of this criticism in the appendix to my book Philosophy of Life (1916). Since that time, some reviews of my books that were not noted there have become known to me, and some new ones have appeared - in the same spirit of misunderstanding, hatred and enmity. To one zealot of church Orthodoxy, “subjectivistic Tareevism” inspires “a heavy sense of fear before the gates of fiery Gehenna, where the professor of theology is rolling, as if on an inclined plane, dragging his readers along with him and, what is even more sad, his young listeners” (Russian Banner, 1916, No. 119, “Philosophy of Life” by Rev. Serapion). Hierod. Benjamin, a (former) student of the Kyiv Academy, classifies me (in the book Asceticism or asceticism about Christ the Savior God, 1906, p. 89–90) to the fans of Baal and Astarte: “Modern proud, antichrist man has idolized himself, his earthly mind and his vile sinful flesh, completely surrendered to disastrous passions and created for himself special earthly gods and the cult of Baal and Astarte (Rozanov, Merezhkovsky, Tareev and the like), the cult of Dionysius and Baal, the cult of Bacchus, even the cult Satanism." In the Reviews of the Diocesan Bishops on the Issue of Church Reform (Part III, p. 23) I am briefly called a “worshipper of the flesh” {This did not stop, however, Hierarch. (now bishop) Alexy (Kuznetsov) take the central pages 146–148 of his book Foolishness and Styliteism literally and in full from the Fundamentals of Christianity (vol. III, pp. 104–107), without, however, desecrating the pious text of his dissertation by mentioning the name of the author of the Fundamentals of Christianity}. My “esoteric theology” (Voice of the Church, 1916, No. 4–5 “Esoteric theology of M. Tareev” by Aivazov) is accused of a “rationalistic spirit” (Arch. Klitin in the journal Wanderer) and “Protestant individualism” (N. A. Berdyaev) {N. A. Berdyaev’s consistent reviews of my system are quite instructive. For the first time he spoke about the Fundamentals of Christianity in Art. The experience of philosophical justification of Christianity (about Nesmelov’s book “The Science of Man”) Rus. M. 1900 Sept. The note says: “It is also impossible to deny the talent and originality of the professor at the Moscow Theological Academy M. Tareev, who recently published a four-volume work, The Fundamentals of Christianity. But his interpretation of Christianity is a form of Protestant individualism. The powerlessness of religious thought on the basis of Protestantism is clearly visible in N. Aiken’s recently translated book “The Main Problems of the Philosophy of Religion.” To understand this suspicion of N.A. Berdyaev to Protestant individualism, we must remember that at that time he stood in the position of the Christian community: we radically disagreed. Again N.A. Berdyaev remembered the Fundamentals of Christianity in his book The Meaning of Creativity (1915), where on page 341 he writes: “The need to free the absoluteness of the gospel spirit from the relative values of the world has recently been perfectly recognized by M. M. Tareev in his Fundamentals of Christianity and Prince E. Trubetskoy.... On this basis, M. Tareev comes to a purely spiritual Christianity, breaking with all visible church... And M. Tareev and Prince. E. Trubetskoy is aware of all the painfulness of the problem of the relationship between Christianity and life and all the falsity of ordinary solutions. But both come to the affirmation of an extra-divine, non-religious, neutral worldly life, with which religious consciousness can come to terms only conditionally and temporarily... Neither M. Tareev nor the book has a solution to the painful question. E. Trubetskoy, because they do not believe in the possibility of a new revelation.” However, N.A. himself Berdyaev now, in this book of his, decisively takes the side of individualism, and already writes: “Loneliness is completely compatible with universality; in solitude there can be more of a universal spirit than in a herd society... One should never forget. that the religious path goes from the individual to society, from the internal to the external, to the cosmos through individuality... In the strict sense of the word, Christian culture is impossible” (pp. 120, 152). Now we have already become close to N.A. Berdyaev, but, strangely, he still retains the same view on the Fundamentals of Christianity. N.A. Berdyaev returns to my system once again. In Types of Religious Thought in Russia (P. M. 1916), he dedicated paragraph VII to me in the section Spiritual Christianity. “A unique religious thinker who developed an entire system of spiritual Christianity is M. M. Tareev. standing quite apart among the professors of the Theological Academy. Tareev has a stronger consciousness than that which exists in our folk sectarian spiritual Christianity, and he managed to consciously distinguish between the sphere of the absolute and the relative. He is a decisive and extreme dualist, and his system is built on the opposition of absolute, divine life and relative, natural-historical life. Christianity is an exclusively personal religion, addressed to the endless spiritual life of the individual, and it is completely inapplicable to carnal, natural and historical life, to the state, society, family, and culture. The sphere of relative, natural life must be liberated and must develop according to its own laws. In the spiritual Christian life there are no steps, no evolution, nothing relative, everything there is absolute, everything is incommensurable with natural life... Tareev is stronger in his criticism, in his negative divisions and oppositions, than in the positive. He is powerless to tie ends meet, and his dualism becomes fruitless, there is no way, there is no way out. Types of religious thought pp. 64–69 and August art. To the dispute between the book. E. N. Trubetskoy and D. D. Mureshov, esp. pp. 45, 48, we already read the following: “There is no absolute moralism in Christianity. Christianity is not a religion of law; it is not essentially a normative religion. As far as there is a law in Christianity, it is entirely taken from the Old Testament and is only its confirmation. Specifically, New Testament revelation is a revelation of grace, love and freedom, and not of law and norms. Gospel morality is a morality of love, and not a morality of law; it would be impossible to discover traces of a categorical imperative in it; it does not have this formal, moralistic pathos. In the Gospel, the Sabbath is for man, and not man for the Sabbath... The absoluteness of Christian truth is the spirit of new life operating in us, and not an immutable law standing above us. And it is absolutely impossible to apply Christian absoluteness to natural and historical relativity in a straightforward and mechanical manner. History is a manifestation of the absolute, but in the historical itself one cannot assert the absolute as a norm and law... War cannot be Christian and the state cannot be Christian; only the spirit and the kingdom of the spirit can be Christian.” So, N.A. Berdyaev now speaks without hesitation in the language of the Fundamentals of Christianity, but the review of this system, for some unknown reason, is still retained by the old one, which he formed during the period of the “Christian public”. In the best cases, traditionalists are repelled by my system by its novelty. P.V. Levitov, in his correctly written article Spiritual perfection as the supreme ideal of human life (V. and R. 1916, No. 8–9), openly states: “The opinion of Prof. M. M. Tareeva is so contrary to the established theological tradition - that we would not dwell on it.”... It is new, therefore it does not deserve attention: with such a reservation of supporters of the old theology, it is difficult for the new theology to count on widespread and rapid success. We must add here the specific unsuitability of spiritual philosophy as a subjective system, to be a school subject, to fit into paragraphs, to result in a template scheme of “programs” of the educational committee, and you will understand why I do not count on a bountiful catch among you. I am allowed to rely not on the obvious attractiveness of my system, but on my own initiative, on the personal initiative of one or another of you, not on those of you, many of whom I would choose, but on those few who themselves will choose spiritual philosophy, not on those who are pleased with the beaten path, but on those who are attracted by the fate of the lonely, who like to fight for new paths. However, I will tell you something else that will seem extremely unexpected to you. That new path of theology to which I am calling you, for which it is hardly possible to point out some analogies in modern Western philosophy - the path of spiritual mysticism is a path for which the Russian soul has long been passionately sighing. Spiritual mysticism, subjective spiritual philosophy, philosophy of the heart must emerge as a national Russian philosophy. I affirm this as a historian of Russian theological science... The philosophy of the heart is our Russian philosophy, as opposed to Western rationalism. This is not enough. The philosophy of the heart distinguishes the Russian genius from the old Greek spirit with its intellectualism and Gnosticism. Therefore, for the idea of ​​a new theology, the question of Tradition is necessary and fatal. Christian philosophy, morally subjective in its method and spiritually mystical in the type of religious thought - spiritual philosophy, philosophy of the heart - is our Russian religious thought, our national contribution to the treasury of religious ideology. Here we naturally start from both Byzantine Gnosticism and Western rationalism. This is our element, in which the unique Russian genius will be revealed, our spiritual face will appear. The history of Russian theology testifies that it has already manifested itself, at least in general outlines, that the Russian religious word has already sounded, in its basic idea, that the system of Russian religious thought has already been outlined - in its main features {All our speech presupposes our research on the history of Russian theology, which will soon see the light}. If we have not yet won complete victory here, have not made all the acquisitions, have not revealed all the potentials, then the explanation for this lies in our church history, and the blame falls on Byzantine Gnosticism and Western rationalism, which are hostile to us. The development of our religious thought took place under heavy pressure from Byzantine and Western influences. Western scholasticism has dominated our theological school for the last two centuries. Nowadays, our slavery to Western rationalism is realized by wide circles, and the fight against scholasticism has been declared quite decisive. In recent years, the years of the ill-fated world war, started by the Germans and most difficult for Russia, calls for liberation from German dominance, from the power of “German rationalism”, and for the construction of an original theology have become popular slogans in spiritual journalism. The situation with the old Byzantine influence is not so favorable. It began from the time of the introduction of Christianity in Russia, with the first appearance of spiritual writing in the Russian language, reigned supreme over Russian minds until the introduction of Western science among us, sporadically entered into struggle with the latter, but in general coexisted peacefully with it, and continues until the very last days. For a long time it was absorbed by the people's soul unconsciously, since for entire centuries it reigned supreme and was the only spiritual food among us, the goodness of which there was nothing to compare with. It was supported by the authority of the church hierarchy - the first centuries of our church history - by hierarchs from the Greeks, for whom the dominance of the Greek tradition was a national interest, and later and always by all representatives of church power, since the principle of “fatherland”, as our old theologians (Zinovy ​​Otensky) expressed it, visibly and indisputably strengthened the very idea of ​​church power. It is curious that the campaign against German dominance in theology that has flared up in recent years and the calls for an original theology have not, by analogy, raised the question of the original Byzantine dominance; on the contrary, the call for an original Russian theology is identified by everyone with a return to the Greek tradition, with the strengthening of the Byzantine type of religious thought. “It’s time for us to throw off the yoke of German rationalism, we need to build an original theological system on the basis of the patristic tradition,” this is what is heard invariably, this is the cliché slogan. It does not even occur to anyone that freedom is not given by the transition from one slavery to another, by a return from the later German dominance to the original Byzantine yoke, that spiritual originality requires complete freedom, that the liberation that has begun on one side must spread to all other sides, must be carried out along the entire line of religious thought. No one wants to understand that it is a matter of indifference whether our theological creativity is suppressed by what yoke, German or Byzantine, that the old dominance cannot be more honorable than the later. We can safely say that the dominance of the Greek tradition was and remains more dangerous, more fatal for the birth and flourishing of the original Russian theological system, for the original Russian Christian philosophy, than the legacy of Western scholasticism. Byzantineism embraces a wider circle of ecclesiastical society than Western theological school skills; it has penetrated deeper into the soul of the Russian people and requires more effort of the mind and heart for its awareness; finally, the tendencies of Byzantine theology are supported by other areas of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, canonical, liturgical. Turning to the everyday sphere of everyday relations, we can easily notice that the principle of “fatherland” is a demand so familiar to our ears, both from the side of the church authorities and from the free guardians of the established order: “We need to theologize according to the fathers!” – this principle, this requirement, instills fear and trembling, paralyzes spiritual energy, extinguishes spiritual thought. Nothing else like the scale of the fatherly tradition, like this menacing cry: “After our fathers!” - does not so irresistibly strengthen any supervision over theological thought, does not so hopelessly fetter all theological productivity. However, we are now interested not so much in the formal freedom of theological thought as in the question of the spiritual and mystical direction of religious thought, the assessment of all social conditions and historical influences as favorable or hostile to this direction of Christian philosophy. One has only to think about the basic character of spiritual-mystical philosophy, and we will come to the conclusion that Greek Gnosticism is no less hostile to spiritual science, the philosophy of the heart, than Western rationalism. After all, these are phenomena of the same order, phases of the same intellectualism. Of course, the bottom of Western intellectualism, negative rationalism and positivism, will not remind us of Plato, Plotinus and Christian admirers of ancient philosophy, but its top, German idealism, doesn’t it reproduce classical Gnosticism? {Wed. and M.A. Ostroumova History of philosophy in relation to Revelation}. One must have the courage to recognize the same nature of Greek thought and later Western intellectualism, the sediment of which is rationalistic scholasticism, one must understand the same hostility of these stages and forms of intellectualism in relation to the philosophy of the heart. Greek thought, and ancient philosophy and later Byzantine theology, have the honor of the most vivid and consistent, the most typical manifestation of an intellectualistic worldview. And if the best interpreters of ancient and Byzantine intellectualism turn out to be later Western intellectualists, especially German idealists, then the last essence of idealism, as well as its negative - rationalistic scholasticism, is revealed in the image of the old Gnostics. Therefore, the struggle for the freedom of Russian religious thought and clarification of the basic character of spiritual philosophy through dissociating it from hostile trends must begin with Western scholasticism and end with Greek intellectualism. In the name of spiritual-mystical philosophy, we need to overcome scholasticism, we need to declare war on rationalism, we need to free ourselves from German dominance, but we cannot stop there: we also need to overcome Byzantine Gnosticism, we need to free ourselves from the Byzantine yoke. Only then will we clear the ground for original Russian theology and clarify the soul of Christian philosophy. But the question of Byzantine tradition is, apparently, a question of Tradition. I can already hear an alarming cry: “You deny Tradition,” “you are Protestant!” The question of Tradition stands in our way, and we need to clarify, at least briefly, but if possible at all essential points, from all the most important sides, our position in this regard. The sources of Christian teaching are: Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. This is unshakable. Undoubtedly. What is the comparative significance of both sources? They are equal. “The testimony of the Catholic Church is no less valid than the Divine Scriptures. Since the author of both is the Holy Spirit, it makes no difference whether one learns from Scripture or from the universal church” (Ecclesiastical Eastern Patriarch Part. 2). It makes no difference whether one draws from Scripture or from Tradition: they are of equal authority. But having equal authority, can Scripture and Tradition replace one another, do they coincide with each other? Obviously not. If Scripture and Tradition were mutually interchangeable, mutually substitutable, if they coincided with one another, if these were two editions of the same truth, then one could be content with one of these sources; or by Tradition, as Catholicism does, or by Scripture, as we see in Protestantism, then Catholicism and Protestantism would not be considered to be in error on the issue of the sources of Christian teaching. Scripture and Tradition are equivalent, but heterogeneous: they are equally necessary, but in different respects. Scripture is comprehended intimately, it is the inner word of Christ to the believer, it is the mind of spiritual experience; Tradition is ecclesiastical, it is generally understood and legally binding. The Ecumenical Tradition in teaching is a dogma, which is characterized by these features - universal understanding and legality. Learning through the word of Christ, the comprehension of Scripture, refers to a specific area of ​​​​spiritual, or Christian, experience; on the contrary, dogma is a logical-abstract, speculative expression of Christian truth, which, precisely as a logical-abstract expression of Christian truth, can be both churchly understandable and churchly binding. The value of Scripture, as a source of Christian teaching, is the value of the internal, concrete content of spiritual life, or Christianity; the value of dogma in the unity of church life. Dogma is necessary because the church is united, because the unity of church life is necessary. The unity of the church is the first feature of church life, which determines the entire definition of church-Christianity, it is the least that gives a Christian the right to be called a Christian, and, therefore, the most primary, the most obligatory. With the loss of organic unity, the church cannot exist, cannot be holy, catholic, apostolic, and without the church Christianity cannot survive. Whoever does not belong to the church, whoever falls away from the church, does not preserve the Christian spirit, and loses the essence of Christian life, which is love. The most general expression of church unity, its most obvious symbol, is the unity of beliefs, dogmatic unity. “Unity of dogma is the only necessary, sine qua non, condition” for church unity, as Filaret of Moscow said in a conversation with Khomyakov. That is why the most primary, elementary-fundamental thing in Christian teaching is dogma; The very first requirement from a Christian from the side of the church is Orthodoxy. “The Holy Church, accepting new members to itself, certainly requires from them first knowledge of the dogmas and confession of their faith, and while it tolerates sinners against the commandments in its bowels, it excommunicates the unfaithful and evil-believing from itself, like dead and rotten members” (Dogmatic Theology of the Most Reverend Anthony). But - this should be firmly remembered - such an enormous significance of dogma, dogmatic orthodoxy, is nothing other than a church significance. Dogma is a necessary condition for church unity, without which (without church unity!) Christian life is impossible: but this does not mean that “dogmas actually contain the foundation and essence of the most holy religion of Christ, as a revelation of the divine,” that “without knowing the dogmas and not having faith in them, one cannot know and assimilate the entire religion of Christ, and therefore one cannot have participation in the benefits that are bestowed by it.” (ib.). Dogma is the very first thing in church life, but not the most important in Christianity - not the most important, that is, not the deepest and most complex. The deepest and most complex, the most primordial in Christian life is intimate spiritual life, the reason of which is contained in Scripture - in the word of Christ. In church terms, Orthodoxy, dogmatic unity, and the teaching of Tradition are more important; in a Christian sense, spiritual life and the teaching of Scripture are more important, for this is the most intimate, most complex content with which church unity and dogmatic confession are filled. Dogma is ecclesiastically necessary: ​​but the teaching of Scripture is also necessary, constituting the reason for spiritual life, without which church unity would be dead. Protestantism lacks church unity, church communion, without which Scripture becomes a simple literary monument; but even in Catholicism there is no full life: there is church unity without the spiritual life that enlivens it, spiritual freedom, a church formula without internal content. Now we see how Scripture and Tradition, constituting elements of Christian teaching, equally necessary, but mutually irreplaceable, are complemented by one another. Let's look at one side of this relationship - let's see in what sense the teaching of Scripture is conditioned by the teaching of Tradition, the dogmatic teaching. The question here is not so much about theological science in the strict sense, but about Christian philosophy. The science of dogma, the science of Christian life, without setting itself constructive tasks and being entirely a matter of reason, does not know any special boundaries or restrictions. On the contrary, Christian philosophy, which develops a system of Christian thought according to a subjective method, cannot fail to take into account what is obligatory in its teaching. Being a philosophy of Christian experience and, therefore, relying on the teaching of Scripture as the reason of spiritual life, Christian philosophy cannot escape the dogmatic boundaries of Christian thought. And it turns out that these boundaries, having very real force, are not in the least restrictive for Christian philosophy, since it, using the subjective method, moves in a different area. Dogmatic formulas, relating to the area of ​​beliefs, are boundaries on the ecclesiastical plane, and Christian philosophy, being constructed by a subjective method, moves not along the plane, but in the direction of personal depth and height: it forms the filling of dogmatic formulas with mystical content, a personal deepening of the generally understood and ecclesiastical obligatory. Christian philosophy, feeding on the intimately active word of God, the word of Christ, satisfying the personal needs of the Christian soul, not asking for any ecclesiastical-practical tasks, not claiming to be universally binding, cannot encounter dogmatic formulas, which are precisely the ecclesiastical-binding expression of Christian truth. They are always obligatory for a Christian thinker, and he encounters their invincibility in the event that, betraying the method of Christian philosophy, he begins to crawl along the plane, speak in logically abstract language, and claim objective persuasiveness, the ecclesiastical significance of his system. The dogmatic shackles for religious thought are felt only by that religious thinker who leaves the soil of experience, lowers his ascending wings, loses spiritual freedom, sells the right of spiritual birthright, that is, the immediacy of spiritual experience, for the lentils of socio-practical results. If the church-dogmatic teaching and the teaching of the word of God, revealed in Christian philosophy, each retain its own character, one - the character of the church-obligatory, the other - the character of the intimate, then they, mutually presupposing each other, since the dogmatic formula postulates mystical content, and Christian philosophy does not pretend to have a unifying, legally binding meaning, do not collide with one another, since the church-dogmatic teaching does not capture depths of personal mystical life, and Christian philosophy does not speak in ecclesiastical objective language. In Orthodoxy, which embodies the fullness of principles - the principle of Scripture and the principle of Tradition - the ecclesiastical obligation of dogma and personal freedom of spiritual life are harmoniously combined, which is most worthy of attention, without deliberate efforts on either side, except for those required to suppress illegal claims, and this is what we see in Catholicism and Protestantism in the West or in Catholic and Protestant tendencies in our country. This tendency is represented by the inclusion of patristic teaching in the circle of Church Tradition, in other words, the expansion of dogmatic authority to the patristic writings (the principle of “fatherland”). To protect the interests of theological science and, more closely, Christian philosophy, it is important to understand what new such an extension of dogmatic authority to the patristic writings introduces into the relationship between the principle of Scripture and the principle of Tradition. While church dogmatic teaching consists of logically abstract formulas that do not inspire any mystical, experiential content and therefore do not hamper the creative path of Christian thought, the patristic writings represent a series of individual systems. Therefore, to elevate the patristic teaching to dogmatic dignity means to make complete systems of theology mandatory and thereby put a limit to any progress of Christian thought. In Catholicism, the theological system of Thomas Aquinas is authorized, and therefore, in principle, there can be no scope for theological science and for free Christian philosophy. The same would have happened in Orthodoxy if dogmatic significance had been attached to the patristic systems, despite all the superiority of the patristic systems over the scholastic sum of Thomas Aquinas. I, of course, also mean the personal opinions of the holy fathers, which can often be heard; but in addition I am talking about their personal systems of religious thought. After all, little effort is required to ascertain the diversity of theological systems among Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Macarius of Egypt, John Chrysostom and others. And, further, I raise the question of the dogmatic meaning of the patristic writings, and not of their edifying meaning; these two sides must be strictly distinguished. The edifying meaning of the patristic works knows no bounds of time, and the edifying power of the words of the holy fathers and ascetics, exceeding the possible power of a simple shepherd and especially a layman, is directly dependent on their holiness, on their asceticism; but this is not a church-dogmatic, church-obligatory meaning. So, the basis of Christian philosophical thought should be the sole word of God, from which the mystical content of Christian teaching is drawn, by a subjective method. We have outlined our view of the comparative significance of Scripture and Tradition for Christian philosophy. Next, we would need to move on to the conclusion from the revealed provisions, which the thoughtful reader already foresees; but before that we will make a digression in which we will give a more complete concept of Tradition, so as not to leave room for misunderstandings. The above discussions about Scripture and Tradition already represent a deviation from our direct subject; but we are forced to deepen it even more: we will show that our view does not contradict the strictly scientific concept of Tradition, that we do not ignore the special literature of the issue. We turn to the special dissertation of St. Filevsky Doctrine of the Orthodox Church about Sacred Tradition. The term “Tradition” can have either a broad or narrow meaning. In a broad sense, Tradition means the entire Christian revelation, the entire content of Christian doctrine and life, in all its integrity and completeness. Here, all historically given Christianity in teaching and life is true Tradition, divine revelation, religious self-existent and real truth of faith. The word Tradition in a broad sense contains the concept of all Christian, revealed teaching, whether it comes from the spoken word or from Scripture. Obviously, from the point of view of precisely this word meaning (tradition), Scripture itself, as the true word of God, is only an integral part of Tradition. Here Tradition is defined as a teaching of faith or a rule of Christian life, accepted from others through Scripture, or, even more clearly and precisely, Tradition is the most sacred. Scripture (2 Thess. 3:5; Acts 6:14; 1 Cor. 11:23; 1 Tim. 6:20, 2:1–14). Scripture is written Tradition (παραδοσις εγγραφος), and Tradition is unwritten revelation (παραδοσις αγγραφος). This use of the word Tradition has a solid foundation and at the same time is filled with deep meaning. Christian revelation and faith are not some theoretical invention of the human mind, like some philosophical or scientific system. This is not even just religious teaching (doctrina), but something more (1 Cor. 1:22-24). This eternal life, or the teaching of faith, insofar as it is intended for church-religious life, is the very life of Christ. Of course, it also has “its own fundamental ideas,” and it is richer in these ideas than all ancient and modern philosophy and ethics. The true Christian has deeper and more sublime thoughts and mental contemplations on matters of religious knowledge than any pagan sage or worldly writer. But the divinely revealed fundamental principles and sources of Christian religious faith are entirely rooted in the ever-living teaching and history of pan-church salvation in Christ. Here is the whole essence of the dogmas and rules of Christian morality. All historical Christianity (in its inscrutable mysteries) rests in the bosom of Jesus, is entirely embraced by His divine face and is historically realized in His redemptive work, in His church. And it is communicated to people, to all of humanity, not by the intellectual power of the human mind, as a matter of logical knowledge and philosophical proof, but solely through churchly correct Tradition, constituting an integral circle of divine truths of faith and life. In revelation and teaching through Tradition, the Christian doctrine is precisely designated, correctly outlined, revealed in detail and inviolably preserved to our time, in all its completeness and perfection, in the church-religious life and history of the human race, Orthodox Christian, God-loving (pp. 517–518). The broad understanding of Tradition is deep and true, but it does not eliminate the possibility of a narrow meaning of Tradition as opposed to Scripture. Tradition can further be understood in a subjective sense. Under the name of Tradition, in the subjective sense of the word, we mean religious consciousness and the life of the Orthodox Church. This consciousness and this life are unchangeable, always identical, eternal, for they flow from God and are the revelation of God. From this side, Tradition is the divine word and deed, eternally living in the church, in the hearts of true believers and those who honor God. This is the true church spirit of the revelation of Christ (Christ’s faith), “coming from Christ” and through the apostles entering forever into the depths of church self-consciousness and life, dissolving here, ever reviving the church, constituting the internal dogmatic essence, the indivisible grain of its absolute truth, its true knowledge of the teachings of Christ (2 Peter 3:18; 2 Cor. 4:13). Since the church is the faithful repository of the revelation of God, then by Tradition in this respect we mean the never aging, or eternal memory of the church, otherwise - the religious self-consciousness of the church has never (since the time of the apostles) interrupted its existence and life. Here Tradition is designated as an original, constantly existing in the church, Orthodox Christian worldview, spiritual, luminous. In terms of the method and power of historical transmission, it is not only an inevitable medium for the dissemination and preservation of the “results of ancient times,” but at the same time it is also an ever-living source of new life, a creative source. This is not a lifeless “dead word of religious teaching”, preserved in one mental memory and completely mechanically transmitted from ancestors to descendants, but an inexhaustible source of spiritual creativity, church religious and moral work, the Orthodox creation of the kingdom of Christ in the power of God. From this side, Tradition is the ideal essence of the real organization of the Orthodox Church in its teaching and life (635 seq.). And the subjective understanding of Tradition is very important, but it does not eliminate the possibility of the objective meaning of Tradition. Tradition can be understood in a narrowly objective sense. Although from a broad and subjective point of view it is possible to establish a difference between Orthodoxy and heterodox confessions, in essence these points of view are common to Orthodoxy with Catholicism and Protestantism: the difference between them stands out more clearly with a narrowly objective concept of Tradition. But the narrow and, moreover, objective meaning of Tradition allows for two points of view: formal and material. In a formal-objective sense, Tradition is understood, on the one hand, as the historical dissemination and establishment of Christian doctrine in the church through the spoken word and living deeds, in contrast to written instruction, i.e., from the book dissemination and establishment of Christianity, through written recording; on the other hand, all historical sources and methods of true knowledge of the Christian revelation, except for biblical books, that is, without them. As for the historical and vital way in which the Christian religion or church was introduced “to all people,” no prudent researcher will dispute the Orthodox Church fundamental principle that the oral word, living deed, organic church experience, in a word - Tradition served as the deepest foundation of the faith, teaching and life of the first Christians, that is, the initial apostolic church. Scripture came after Tradition and in many respects came from Tradition. The Church of Christ, as a living religious organism and a spiritual organization of religious and moral life, undeniably existed before the apostolic books. For its emergence and establishment, it needed only one living work of evangelical preaching, the oral tradition of Christ’s disciples. But even later, after the appearance of the New Testament Scripture, oral church instruction was inevitable. And now, as in the beginning, all people, through Church Tradition, always and everywhere receive initial instruction in Christian teaching, are converted to Christianity, and are introduced into the house of God. The Word of God and the life of Christ are carried and brought by Orthodox missionaries to the wild pagan peoples orally. Pagans, who are not Christians at all, must first, with the help of one living word and church deed, must incline the “hearing of faith” to perceive and assimilate the Christian revelation, and then receive from the hands of the church the Scriptures, the book of God. This is the universal law of the Orthodox mission, of evangelical preaching. By the spoken word and living example of the priests of the Orthodox Church, infants are “led to Christ” (Mark 10:13) at home and at school. For many thousands and even millions of non-literate people, the path of Tradition is the only possible religious path. For all Christians in general, religious faith and life are created by the living word of God, spoken in the church, in dogmatic teaching, in the moral rules of life, sacraments and customs (pp. 523–527). If the broad and subjective meaning does not eliminate its narrow and objective meaning, then the narrow objective-formal meaning of Tradition not only does not eliminate, but even postulates the objectively material meaning of Tradition. Every person who fears God receives “gospel faith” (Phil. 1:27) and “communion of the Spirit” (Phil. 2:1) through living Tradition, that is, through oral instruction from the church, and this faith and life by faith find revealed truth communicated and revealed in Scripture. Every person becomes and is, first of all, a living member of the Church of Christ, Apostolic, Orthodox, in order to become and truly be a true Christian through the Church and its sacraments (p. 527). When we talk in the paragraph under consideration about oral Tradition, in contrast to the written communication of the revealed word, we are not at all saying that the written word is excluded from the number of epistemological and methodological means that the church has always used to disseminate and establish Christian teaching. We also have no mention of the fact that Scripture itself is more likely to be an “inappropriate addition” or “introductory episode” than a necessary source of doctrine. We also do not have the idea that Tradition is the exclusive norm and rule of faith (p. 532). In a narrow and, moreover, objective-material sense, it is necessary not only to distinguish Scripture (sacred) from Tradition (oral or written, but in any case super-biblical), but also to distinguish Tradition as divine, apostolic and ecclesiastical Tradition (p. 607 next). So for Tradition, churchliness becomes an essential feature, while Holy Scripture is the word of God (Christ), intimately addressed to every believer. There is no need to separate the Divine and Apostolic Tradition from the Church Tradition, there is no need to adhere to the Catholic theory of Tradition only of the Church (traditio mere ecclesiastica); accepting that true Tradition is invariably divine, apostolic Tradition, we consider ecclesiastical character to be an integral sign of Tradition: divine truth becomes Tradition only under the condition that it accepts ecclesiastical expression. This is how, in particular, dogmas are defined. Dogmas, as defined by St. Sylvester, the essence is: 1) the truths of the Christian faith: 2) they are divine and therefore indisputable and immutable; 3) they are truths defined or formulated by the church, and 4) truths of a kind that have the force of a legally binding rule for every believer who wants to be saved. In particular, this dogmatist writes the following about the ecclesiastical character of dogmas. By making its decisions or definitions in the doctrine, the church by no means introduces anything new into the field of faith, does not in the least increase the range of its content, but, borrowing everything ready-made from divine revelation, it makes of it only its own special application, gives it its own special form, in accordance with the needs of circumstances and time. The dogma of faith expressed by the church in its definition is not anything different or new in relation to the doctrine contained in revelation, but in its inner essence is one, internally inseparable from this doctrine; it is, therefore, the same dogma {It would be necessary to say: the truth} of the revelation itself, directly and clearly, or only in a twisted and hidden way, but contained in it itself. The Church, through its definitions of faith, also does not communicate anything essentially new to the internal dignity of dogma {Truth}, as revealed truth, since dogma, as revealed truth, is in itself divine; and this property is an internal and inalienable property of it. But at the same time, the church here performs a very important and great service in relation to revealed dogma {Truth}. Not to mention the fact that it illuminates with a clearer and more necessary light, as far as possible from all sides, the internal richness of its content, which gives it a more accurate and corresponding to the real requirements form {Logical-abstract form} - it also gives a guarantee of its very divine dignity, declaring openly before everyone its full faith in it, as divinely revealed, and therefore completely indisputable and indisputable {Not entirely accurate: is it Does the gospel of love become controversial because it is not expressed in dogmatic form? The point is the social-ecclesiastical common sense and legal bindingness of the dogma} truth. It goes without saying what importance this ecclesiastical act has, by means of which the church, extracting from revelation the known truth of faith, puts it before the eyes of everyone, as if placing it on a candlestick, or, what is the same, raises it to the level of undoubted, indisputable truth, or dogma - which can be called dogmatization (δογματιζω) of a known truth, or recognition by the church of it dogmatic meaning. Under the condition of this church act, and only under its condition, the known truth of faith, although it lies in revelation and is in itself divine, can rise to the level of truth undeniable for everyone {It would be better to say: to the level of logical-abstract and legally binding truth, constituting the condition of church unity}, or dogma. Without this, it would not have had the opportunity to receive dogmatic meaning, or, what is the same, to become a dogma of faith. If, therefore, there were no church with the God-given rights and means necessary to communicate the truths of faith, so to speak, dogmatic sanction, there would be no dogmas of faith. And where, therefore, there is no such church as, for example. in Protestant societies, there are not and cannot be dogmas of faith in the strict sense of the word (The Experience of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, vol. I, ed. 2, pp. 18–19). The priest repeats the same with literal accuracy. Filevsky (p. 612). The ecclesiastical nature of dogma and Tradition in general has been clarified by Rev. Sylvester is great. Tradition, in the strict sense of the word, is ecclesiastical, while Scripture, the word of God (Christ), is intimate. In the revealed concept of Tradition, it is necessary to emphasize the side in the relation of Tradition to Scripture that Tradition, complementing Scripture as its church formula, does not add to it anything new in content, that Tradition is not a complement to Scripture in content. The opposite understanding of the matter is dated to Acts 1:6 and is accepted by the Catholic Church. “By the name of divine Tradition (traditio divina) custom is meant the teaching that came directly from the mouth of Christ (ore tenus a Cristo), who secretly taught His disciples (Acts 1:3)” (p. 608). Orthodoxy relates Tradition in this sense to church practice. “This Tradition relates primarily to the church teaching about the sacraments (1 Cor. 11:24), about which there is no detailed indication in Scripture” (p. 608). Particularly instructive is the judgment of St. Basil the Great on Tradition. He calls dogma not what we now call dogma, and distinguishes it from preaching (άλλο δόγμα, και άλλο κηρυγμα). “Doctrines are kept silent, but sermons are made public.” Along with the κηρυγματα, which we now call dogmas, he also recognizes “the unpromulgated and ineffable teaching, which our fathers preserved in a silence inaccessible to curiosity and prying out, having been wisely taught to guard the sanctity of the sacrament with silence, for what would be the propriety of the Scriptures to announce the teaching of what it is not permissible for those uninitiated into the sacrament and view.” Catholics attribute Acts 1:3 to dogmatic teaching and have created a theory of purely ecclesiastical Tradition. “In the Catholic Church, the category of Church Tradition was invented in order to subsume under the general concept of true Tradition that which cannot in any way be called Tradition, insofar as it must relate to the teaching that originates from Christ and the Apostles. Here by “ecclesiastical Tradition” is meant the absolute power of the Roman Church (jus absolutum) to create its own new dogmas, “to create new teachings ex ipsa ecclesiae autoritate.” This shines through especially clearly in the “dogmatic material” of all Catholic theology in its entirety and in its parts. If, according to the Orthodox view, the teaching of Tradition precisely designates the teaching authority of the church, which unshakably affirms and completely preserves the revealed truth according to the dogmatic-epistemological sources and norms that have existed in it from time immemorial, then among Catholics, along with this, with special zeal, the own full rights of the Roman Church are exposed to increase the content and volume of divine and apostolic traditions” (p. 613). From here follows a clear difference between Catholicism, which in traditio oralis sees a material addition to Holy Scripture, Protestantism, which does not want to know any Tradition as an addition to Holy Scripture, and Orthodoxy, which looks at Tradition as an addition to Scripture in the sense of its dogmatization, but not as an addition in content (pp. 629–634). From what has been said, the conclusion follows that the most characteristic sign of the truth of Tradition is its agreement, or conformity, with Scripture, as the only content of Christian thought. The Holy Church itself points to this sign when in the Orthodox catechism it teaches us: “We must observe Tradition, which is in agreement with divine revelation and Holy Scripture,” and in the Rite of Orthodoxy, among other things, it says: “To those who reject the councils of St. father and their traditions, consonant with divine revelation and preserved by the Orthodox Catholic Church, are anathema" (Macarius Introduction to Orthodox Theology, p. 508). It follows further that the sign of true Tradition belongs, in the field of teaching, to the only common voice of the church, spoken at ecumenical councils. We have sufficiently substantiated the following conclusions: the only source from which Christian philosophy extracts its content by a subjective method is the word of God; Church Tradition, without adding anything in content to this source, gives it an abstract and legally binding formulation; Tradition in this sense, that is, church teaching with the character of infallibility, is the only dogma defined at ecumenical councils, and not the patristic teaching, not the personal opinions and systems of the holy fathers. We can give direct support to all these conclusions in the form of authoritative quotes, which for many will be extremely unexpected. The first conclusion stands unshakably. The most famous Russian theologians, pillars of Russian religious thought, Archbishop. Feofan (Prokopovich), m. Platon (Levshin), m. Filaret (Drozdov), St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, unanimously (and not without continuity) recognize the one and only source of Christian teaching - without ignoring the meaning of dogmas - the word of God. For my part, I offer a commentary on this fundamental principle of Russian theology: the word of Christ, intimately comprehended, constituting the mind of spiritual experience, serves as the only source of the content of religious thought. However, now we are not focusing our attention on this conclusion. That the Church Tradition in the doctrine, i.e., the legally binding, infallible church teaching, is only the dogmas defined at the ecumenical councils, and not the personal opinions and systems of the holy fathers, this was recognized even by Stefan Yavorsky. “The Holy Cathedral and Apostolic Church is not subject to error. What are cathedrals if not churches? Nowadays, at ecumenical councils there are shepherds from all over the world, but every shepherd is in the person of his verbal flock, like an envoy in the person of the whole kingdom. Especially in private, even if they can go astray, just as there are multiplicities between shepherds and teachers, who write differently in private, and in some do not agree. But at ecumenical councils, where meetings are held in the name of the Lord, the dogmas of faith are established with one mouth and one heart: it is by no means impossible to eat in the members of the faith. Otherwise, the entire church would be subject to error” (Stone of Faith). And Rev. Macarius, whose works have reigned for so long in our theological school and are respected by some and condemned by others as the support of scholastic traditions, writes on this issue in the Introduction to Orthodox Theology in the spirit of our best theologians. “The teaching of the Christian religion, which constitutes the subject of Orthodox theology, lies in divine revelation or the word of God, which, therefore, is the one and only source of Orthodox theology. But since God himself deigned to communicate his revelation to us in two ways: orally and in writing, and having communicated it, he entrusted it to his saint. church for safekeeping and teaching to all, then with equal justice we can say that, in particular, there are two sources of Orthodox theology: St. Scripture and St. Tradition, and, moreover, understood only according to the understanding of the Orthodox, that is, the true Church of Christ, the divinely established guardian and interpreter of both” (§ 107). The Church is the guardian and interpreter of all divine revelation, but Tradition is more directly connected with the voice of the Church, so we can talk about Scripture and Church Tradition. “In order to verify the authenticity, canon and inspiration of the sacred books, in order to correctly understand and interpret St. Scripture, it is necessary to adhere to the sacred. Legends; and to ensure the authenticity and integrity of the saint himself. Traditions and to be able to distinguish true apostolic traditions from false ones, it is necessary to follow the testimony of the Orthodox Church. The conclusion from here is obvious: it means that the Orthodox Church is the custodian and interpreter of all divine revelation, that is, not only St. Tradition, but through Tradition and St. Scripture" (§ 133). The Church is more directly connected with Tradition not only in the sense of witnessing, but also in the sense of expressing Tradition: by the Church Scripture is only preserved, and Tradition is formulated. This is what it says in the Orthodox Confession: “Dogmas are of two kinds, some are given in writing and are contained in the divine books of Holy Scripture; others were handed down orally by the apostles, and these were explained by councils and holy fathers. Our faith is based on these two kinds of dogmas. The authority of the church is determined by the use of Scripture, but the closest reference to it is the question of Tradition. The Church is infallible: this is a necessary point in the teaching of Tradition. “The author and the only source of the infallibility of the church is the Trinitarian God. Consequently, it is not the people who actually make up the church - the body of Christ, but the Trinitarian God himself, or, more precisely, the Lord himself - the head of the church, by the power of the All-Holy Spirit, preserves in it, in all its purity and integrity, His own teaching, and protects it from errors" (§ 136). And, further, the question “about ways for the Church to express its infallibility” is also part of the doctrine of Tradition. “The only way to express the infallible witness of the church regarding this or that revealed truth is the unanimous consent, in reasoning of this truth, of the entire teaching church. To express such consent of the teaching church, two ways are possible: the heads of private churches can express it by purposely gathering for this purpose all together at an ecumenical council; but they can express it, not by gathering in councils, but through mutual relations, each remaining in his place, in the usual state of affairs” ($ 137). From here it follows, first of all, that “teaching infallibility itself belongs to ecumenical councils, and teaching legal bindingness can be attributed to the dogmas established at them!” (§ 138). From here also follows the dogmatic importance of the teaching of St. fathers and teachers of the church (§ 139, 140), but such importance does not belong to the teaching of St. fathers separately. “Attributing full authority to all the fathers and teachers together, when they agree to affirm something in the teaching about the subjects of divine revelation {We have the right to ask: what is generally accepted among the fathers and teachers of the church other than what is contained either in Scripture or in dogma? Apart from this, there is nothing, not a single truth, not a single opinion in which all the fathers would agree}, we must remember: a) that it is absolutely impossible to attribute the same authority to each father separately. With all his holiness, with all the abundance of spiritual gifts, St. the fathers were not inspired by God like St. prophets and apostles, and therefore the writings of the fathers should never be compared with the canonical books of the saints. Scriptures. The Holy Fathers were not individually infallible; on the contrary, they could sin and some actually did sin, while St. the prophets and apostles were individually infallible and presented to us in their inspired writings only one pure truth, b) that the same authority cannot be attributed to fathers and teachers in cases where they disagree with each other; on the contrary, the voice of the fathers themselves must then be verified by the voice of the universal church” (§ 140) {A. I. Strunnikov. Faith, as confidence, according to the teachings of Orthodoxy, II, 4: “No matter how wise and holy in life this or that individual shepherd may be, or even a member of the church in general, in no case can he be attributed complete infallibility in teaching, and St. the church never revered any of those whom it called its fathers and teachers, divinely inspired in the same sense in which it recognized St. the apostles and their writings." Priest Filevsky op. cit. pp. 570–572: “This is the main difference between the apostolic and patristic Tradition, that the apostles are infallible, each individually and always, and the patristic quotation is given infallible authority only by a well-known biblical parallel.”} The matter seems quite indisputable: the infallible Church Tradition lies only in the dogmatic definitions of the ecumenical councils. This is the voice of the church, which regulates Orthodox Christians’ understanding of the word of God. The systems and private opinions of the church fathers do not have legally binding teaching significance. The vulgar view that writings written by a holy man, a holy ascetic, must be recognized as infallible and legally binding - this view, which causes immeasurable difficulties in the study and dissemination of Christian truth, disastrous for theological science and Christian philosophy, has no solid ground. A highly remarkable judgment on this issue poured out from the indignant soul of M. Plato (Levshin) in his inscription on one schismatic manuscript. This inscription was cut out, in order to avoid temptations from the frank words of an authoritative theologian, by the hand of M. Philaret, but, by a happy accident, was preserved by Gilyarov-Platonov in the Collection. op. Vol. II art. A truncated document (cf. Snegirev’s Life of m. m. Plato I, 71). Valuable document! “It is impossible for the shepherd of the Church of Christ,” wrote Plato, “and for the most enlightened one, to have a debate with schismatics and to convince them of error. For in a debate on both sides there must be a single beginning or foundation on which all evidence is established. But if one side has a different beginning, and the other has a different one, then it will never be possible to agree. For the affirmation of all the truths of the faith of Christ, the God-enlightened Christian theologian recognizes no other beginning than the one word of God or the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; and the schismatic, in addition to this principle, which he has little respect for, because he understands little, also recognizes as equivalent to the word of God all the rules of councils, and all the writings of church teachers, and all kinds of stories found in church books, and even respects them more than the word of God, for they are more understandable to him. But just like the rules of the councils, they either belonged to those times or were written out of bias and unenlightened ignorance; and in the writings of church teachers there is much that is sinful and inconsistent with itself; and in the stories there are a lot of fables, fables and nonsense; then the rules of the fathers and the stories should be accepted no other way than when they agree with the word of God and serve as explanations for it. But the schismatic does not accept this and considers it blasphemy if it were revealed to him that the councils or fathers erred in other opinions, and many of the stories are incredible. “How,” he exclaims, “did the holy fathers sin? Yes, we honor them as saints, they performed miracles, their writings are inspired by God.” What does a theologian have to do with this? He can easily object, but he will not dare, lest he seduce not only schismatics, but also his weaklings and do great evil.” {Prof. V. O. Klyuchevsky in his Course of Russian History (III, 390) states about the church power of the 17th century: “The highest shepherds of the church were afraid of their flock and even the subordinate clergy,” and adds, “and the flock did not regard their shepherds at all.” The same relationship between pastors and flock remains with us to this day: the church authorities are afraid to touch upon popular superstitions, adapt to them, and the flock, itself outgrowing its superstitions, pays pliable shepherds with neglect}. “Here,” they will proclaim, “he doesn’t honor the holy fathers, he rejects councils, he laughs at church stories!” So, God-enlightened theologian, be silent, but the schismatic will lie and persuade other fools to join you” {On the need to “educate schismatics from the Gospel” cf. arch. Feodor Bukharev in the book. On Orthodoxy in relation to modernity pp. 299–302}. Metropolitan Philaret, who cut out Plato’s inscription to avoid temptations and persecuted Archpriest. Pavsky for his frank comments about the authority of the church fathers, he himself, however, valued the word of God as an incomparable source of Christian truth, and resolutely refused to assimilate the dogmatic meaning of the patristic teaching. So in a letter to the rector of the academy, Archimandrite. Alexy, (No. 56) dated 1849 Nov. 11 he wrote: “Aren’t we theologizing according to fashion? Previously, they affirmed themselves on the Holy Scriptures and paid little attention to Tradition. Then they noticed this flaw with force; the words: Orthodoxy, Tradition, began to sound more often and merge into one sound; and began to theologize according to Tradition, sometimes leaving the Holy Scripture behind, and some even humiliated the Scripture. The New Testament sacred writers wrote after the descent of the Holy Spirit on them, and they also testified about the Old Testament ones that the holy people of God are enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Is it really possible to determine the moment when a church writer became a saint, and therefore not just a writer subject to ordinary human shortcomings? The Church, of course, has thought about this issue, and teaches to recognize traditions that agree with the revelation of God. And therefore, isn’t it more correct to base the teaching mainly on Holy Scripture, and supplement it with Tradition, explain it, and protect it from the wrong-minded?” Our brilliant theologian, pillar of Orthodoxy, author of the accepted catechism, returns to the same question in a letter to Archimandrite. Anthony (No. 1140) dated January 1857. 28. Here he wrote the following about “the word of St. Demetrius about the Mother of God: I adore your sinless conception from holy parents.” “The words of Saint Demetrius can be understood about a pure conception from voluntary sin, for this happened after a long honest life, in old age, not according to the desire of the flesh, but in obedience to the prophecy of an angel. But it is not incredible that he understood them in the same way as they are now philosophizing about this in the West. He received his initial education in a way that included Western teachers and Western books. The opinion met, marked by reverence for the Mother of God, could be accepted out of a feeling of this same reverence, while it did not occur to the idea to strictly examine it in relation to the dogma of the redemption of the human race from original sin solely through the blood of the incarnate Son of God. At the same time, I remember my conversation with Pustyn Archimandrite Ignatius (Brianchaninov). He disapproved of the book about the imitation of Christ so much that he forbade it to be read. I objected to him that Saint Demetrius cites the words of this book, stipulating that Thomas a Kempis, although a foreign merchant, brings good goods. The archimandrite answered me: we do not know when Saint Demetrius was introduced into the grace-filled dignity of a holy father, and perhaps what I indicated was written even when he was simply a pious writer or preacher. And St. Barsanuphius the Great says that the holy fathers, under the protection of the grace of God, wrote the pure truth; However, meanwhile, sometimes, without protecting themselves with prayer, they wrote opinions heard from mentors, not strictly tested, which the reader, without insulting the holy fathers, can and should put aside, without being obliged to accept them.” In one of his letters (No. 19) to Muravyov, Filaret wrote about St. Gregory the Theologian: “The wisdom of Gregory the Theologian about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is also a fruit that I would not advise feeding anyone, for it is not for everyone.” The question we are talking about, perhaps, as we were convinced of this earlier, is formulated as follows: does the patristic teaching have the authority of Tradition? Does Tradition coincide with patristic teaching? Catholics and Protestants answer this question in the affirmative, Catholics - recognizing Tradition in this sense, and Protestants - rejecting it. Orthodoxy recognizes Tradition, but does not identify it with the teachings of St. fathers. This is what the archbishop answered. Filaret (Gumilevsky), one of the great Russian theologians, criticizes his venerable work Historical Doctrine of the Church Fathers. “The love of criticism for Tradition,” writes Archbishop. Filaret, is worthy of all respect,” but in places he even pathetically says that the teaching about the fathers is the teaching about Tradition. Is his thought correct? There is not a word about the fact that the church fathers in their teaching adhered to Tradition, where necessary, just as they reverently described the deeds of the church and individuals. But they thought about the word of God, about the objects of faith, about the rules of life, they argued and spoke, philosophized and were philologists, and, moreover, they even made mistakes. Therefore, to say that the teaching about the Fathers of the Church is the same as the teaching about Tradition means not understanding the Fathers of the Church or, having deliberately closed our eyes to the subject, interpreting it arbitrarily. If you want, you can extract the teaching of Tradition from the teachings of the church fathers, but this will be a special work for you, but not the teaching about the fathers. In the same way, if you wish, you can extract the text of the Gospel from the writings of the fathers; but will this be a teaching about the fathers? Still another will compose the rules of hermeneutics in the words of the fathers: and will this be a teaching about the fathers? The fourth and fifth will study the philosophy of the church fathers; the fruit of their labor will be a wonderful and entertaining part of the teaching about the fathers, but only a part. The critic is so naive that he just says directly: “Patrology should not at all be engaged in reviewing those works where the church fathers are ordinary scientists, philosophers, experts in the natural sciences, etc.” “What is this from?” you ask. You see, the critic decides to show you the father of the church in the form he wants, the critic, and not in the way the father of the church really was. Will you say that this does not agree with the meaning of the historical teaching about the fathers, that this smacks of unscrupulous papism? Does a critic really want to be dressed like that? Yes, the honor of the Orthodox is that he is neither a Protestant nor a papist, or, as the late Khomyakov wrote, he is not willful, he does not become clever either in the manner of papism or in the manner of Protestantism” (see also I. S. Listovsky Philaret, Archbishop of Chernigov, pp. 407–408). Now imagine what is happening in our school and popular theology, in church journalism. For each question, “church teaching” is displayed for reference; each paragraph, each paragraph begins with the words: “The Orthodox Church teaches.” How is church teaching obtained? The opinion of some father is cited and presented without the slightest hesitation as church teaching. “The Orthodox Church teaches: St. Macarius of Egypt writes,” etc. “The Church teaches: St. Basil the Great writes this way.” Does the voice of Macarius of Egypt already exist? the voice of the church? Is the opinion of Basil the Great already a church teaching? Is the teaching of St. Fathers already have eo ipso Church Tradition? Look at all these statements of church teaching on marriage and celibacy: usually they only take into account the group of ascetics who look at marriage negatively - they forget that there are fathers and teachers of a different direction in their view of marriage, they do not think of finding the actual church teaching, which is alien to one-sidedness, and putting the teaching of Christ above all. There is not the slightest skill to distinguish the teachings of the church, church Tradition from the private systems and opinions of the patristic people. One can imagine what a hindrance on the path to Christian truth is the traditionally vulgar view of the infallibility and legality of the patristic teaching. This is not enough. It is necessary to note something even more outrageous in the attitude of our school and spiritual literature to patristic authority. After all, it is undeniable and even striking that the teachings of the fathers and teachers of the church are full of errors, inaccuracies, and ambiguities. All scholarly studies of patristic teaching note these shortcomings of patristic literature. Take any pathological or other theological work in contact with the fathers, composed more or less scientifically. I unwrap the first books that come to hand. Prof. Chetverikov About God as a Personal Being, p. 327: “Eastern theologians, while remaining by their direct faith true representatives of the revealed teaching about the trinity of persons in God, when explaining this dogma, they allowed ambiguities, inaccuracies, and sometimes even deviations from church teaching.” Prof. Zarin Asceticism according to Orthodox Christian teaching, I, 2 pp. 398: “...Much more important and significant is the observation that in patristic literature sometimes the doctrine of the equivalence and inseparability of the “contemplative” and “active” moments, which we find consistently expressed and invariably given in St. Scripture. In patristic works, very often the moment ϑεωρια is given decisive preference over another moment - πραξις - or, at least, both of these moments are too sharply and decisively isolated from each other. The main reason for this phenomenon was the general direction of the philosophy of that time.” I could still refer to many dozens of books, but I don’t see the need for this. What remains to be done by those theologians for whom patristic opinions and systems have legally binding force, who in their theology rely on the holy fathers? They allow themselves to excuse, clean up, tint, correct the works of the holy fathers, take them under their protection, although they cannot hide their embarrassment for their mistakes. Even reputable theologians do this. Rev. Sylvester, in volume IV of his Experience of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology in §§ 98–101, sets out the church-father teaching about the redemptive work of Christ. The dogmatist has encountered strange opinions among fathers and teachers since the 4th century. “Some of the teachers of this period, having begun to repeat the previous image of the liberation of people from the cause of sin and death through a ransom at the cost of Christ’s death, at the same time began to mix into it some completely new opinions of their own, namely: that it was as if the ransom for the souls held captive by the devil was given by Christ in His bodily death, by mutual agreement, to the devil himself.” The dogmatist takes church teachers under his protection and tries to soften their views. “We do not think,” he writes, “that the said teachers take everything in this image in their own sense.” And “nevertheless,” the dogmatist cannot help but admit that “the image of the concept of this subject” of the “above-mentioned teachers” is “in itself inaccurate and in particular incorrect.” Among theologians of lower rank, the patronizing and condescending tone towards church teachers is more rude. Jerome. Kirill (Lopatin) in his dissertation The Teaching of St. Athanasius the Great on the Holy Trinity writes (pp. 13–14): “The attention of every reader of the works of church writers of the first three centuries is drawn to inaccuracies in terminology. In the teaching about God the Father, what strikes the reader most is the very widespread use of the word God instead of the word Father. But this use of words should not confuse the reader at all. Along with the replacement of the name Father with the word God, in the works of writers of the time under consideration, attention is drawn to the very widespread use of the names God the Father - First-God, Self-God, Entirely God, etc., as if inspiring the idea of ​​​​the non-originality of the Divinity of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, or at least about their subordinate relationship to God the Father according to the Divinity itself. But this terminology can be recognized as nothing more than a scientific error of the writers in question, and in no way a sign of their dogmatic error, and therefore it should not be considered particularly reprehensible for their authority as church teachers... The indicated writers may even be completely justified in this terminology,” etc. (cf. pp. 31, 33, 35, 36, 45, 46, 48 and etc.). Among theologian-publicists, the matter of familiar patronage of the holy fathers is conducted in a clearly offensive tone for ancient church writers, whose significance is revealed only with scientific and historical coverage of their works. We come across obvious hypocrisy among them; they obscure the true image of the church teachers they dispose of and simply invest their own petty meaning into their great creations. Theology in its proper form is presented in this way. Its sources are the word of God and church dogmas. The Word of God, the word of Christ is the one and only source of the content of Christian truth, and dogmatic teaching will give it an abstract, objective church form. The teaching of the word of God and church dogmatic teaching (Tradition) convey the same truth: in the first it is comprehended intimately, from the side of spiritual experience, while in the second it is stated objectively, generally understandable and legally binding. Both in the same sense constitute the subject of theological science, but Christian philosophy, constructed by a subjective method, constituting the reason of Christian experience, dealing with faith, and not with beliefs, is actually the philosophy of the word of God, the philosophy of the Gospel. We do not deny that a philosopher may be akin to, congenially, another word, for example. system of Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius the Areopagite {Cf. recognition of N.A. Berdyaev in the book. Philosophy of freedom}. But since we believe in Christ, and not in Dionysius the Areopagite, not in Gregory of Nyssa, not in Isaac the Syrian, then Christian philosophy must be the philosophy of Christ, His Gospel, which may well be the subject of objective science and the subject of subjective philosophy, the philosophy of the believing heart. And for Christian philosophy, church dogmatic teaching is mandatory, against which it must not sin. But the whole point is in the difference in methods, in the peculiarities of the subjective method, due to which the church-dogmatic formula lies in wait for Christian philosophy only on the threshold of its appearance in the church atmosphere, and does not extend to its own intimate area. Since Christian philosophy is clothed in an objective form, it encounters dogmatic boundaries, against which it must not sin; but as long as it remains in its own intimate area, it is the reason of spiritual experience, the subjective deepening of Christian truth - it does not “fit in”, is not burdened by a dogmatic formula. Just as the Holy Scripture (Gospel) is the word of God, the word of Christ - creative, so Christian philosophy is the word of a believing Christian, also creative, free - not initially, not original, not self-sufficiently creative, like the word of God, the word of Christ, but creative and free “in the image and likeness of Christ,” as a creative reproduction of the word of Christ. And this freedom of Christian philosophy does not fit in with the legal bindingness of the dogmatic formula, whereas, according to the principle of love that reigns in the Church of Christ, it not only does not cause division, but even serves as cement, welding spiritual society from the inside, uniting it with stronger ties than the formal unity of dogmatic confession. It is this freedom (in the elementary phase) of Christian self-awareness, (in the highest development) of Christian philosophy, escaping from external church-administrative control, and can cause church authorities to authorize certain types of patristic teaching, with which it is already aligned and suppressed: and this is a Catholic tendency. Orthodoxy recognizes two types of Christian teaching: the teaching of the word of God and the teaching of church dogmatics. Catholicism and Protestantism hold one-sided views on the issue of the sources of Christian teaching: Catholicism recognizes exclusively the principle of Tradition (the principle of churchliness, the principle of church magisterium), and Protestantism recognizes exclusively the principle of Scripture (the principle of Christianity). Despite the apparent opposition of these principles, there is something in common in the one-sidedness of Catholicism and Protestantism. After all, if it makes no difference whether one learns from Scripture or from Tradition, then there is still no irreparable error in recognizing one Tradition or one Scripture as the source of Christian teaching. Teach according to Tradition, but do not leave the area of ​​ecclesiastical obligatory, and you will not sin against Christian freedom; teach according to Scripture, but do not cross the boundaries of personal self-awareness, intimate philosophizing, and you will not sin against church unity. Obviously, the mistake of Catholicism and Protestantism is not that they each choose one part from two, but that they each take one part instead of the organic whole, so that each part becomes a dead stump: Catholicism professes the principle of Tradition for the sake of suppressing spiritual freedom, and Protestantism professes the principle of Scripture for the sake of overthrowing Church Tradition, for the sake of violating church unity. As a result of this, it turns out that already in the positive part of the Catholic and Protestant principles, that is, in the Catholic recognition of the principle of Tradition and in the Protestant recognition of the principle of Scripture, there is an error of one-sidedness. In other words: teaching according to Tradition alone, if it is not accompanied by the suppression of spiritual freedom, will not be Catholicism, and teaching according to Scripture alone, if the teacher remains in the church, does not violate church unity (freedom in the church), will never be Protestantism. It is precisely the Catholic recognition of Tradition and the Protestant recognition of Scripture that are one-sided, and Catholicism and Protestantism have something in common: it is in putting human arbitrariness in the place of organically integral truth. Catholics say: Scripture can be a reliable source of teaching only in ecclesiastical explanation, which is given in the entirety of patristic Tradition, and in the final instance - in the authority of the living pope. Christian truth is what the pope says, or is the system (of Thomas Aquinas) that the pope authorizes. This is what, in the arbitrariness of the pope, lies the motive of the Catholic principle of Tradition: in Catholicism, the principle of Tradition turns into the unprincipledness of papal arbitrariness: ecclesiae inagisterio subordinata est Scriptura et Traditio, - this is what Catholic theology teaches {This motive of the Catholic principle of Tradition is clarified in the research of: A. P. Shostina Sources and subject of dogma according to the views of Catholic theologians of the last half century (1889), priest. I. Filevsky The Teaching of the Orthodox Church on Sacred Tradition (1902) and P.P. Ponomarev Sacred Tradition as a source of Christian knowledge (1908). The first notes in Catholicism the established desire to expand Tradition, so that everything is dominated by the will of the pope, who can say about himself: Tradition is me (pp. 80, 84–95 ff.). Priest I. Filevsky writes: “Most Roman Catholic theologians usually consider the “patristic period” to last until the 13th century. But, in essence, in the Roman Church the “patristic cycle” is endless. There are no time limits and there shouldn’t be. The ancient patristic Tradition is directly continued by medieval theologians, mainly scholasterei. In the long line of “medieval fathers”, a special place is given to pii doctores and various “angel-like”, “seraphim”, “shining”, “irresistible”, “all-permissive” and so on. theologians and writers. But a look at the “period of the scholastics,” recognized as media, seibos transmissa est. primiliva dogmatica traditio, quibusque tuto cognosci potest, is so confused by numerous reservations, conditions and exceptions that there is simply no way to examine this point accurately and in detail. It is enough to know for an approximate idea of ​​the difficulty of this patristic proof among Catholics that the main features of the Roman Catholic ars critiea are concentrated here in the doctrine of the omnipotence of papal teaching authority. But si ita est, nullum unquam haec disquisitio exitum habitura est - the patristic principle of Tradition in the Roman Catholic Church serves as a kind of epistemological beginning of papal teaching. Popes are primarily “Holy Fathers.” An unbroken series of popes (continua suecessio romanorum cpiscoporum) is the main guarantee of their infallible authority. Papal decrees are the real nerves of the patristic Tradition and therefore the historical authenticity of this Tradition is confirmed exclusively by papal authority. This is precisely the only useful tool and use of the Roman principle of patristic Tradition. The Roman see itself already outweighs the various opinions of St. fathers and teachers - some he approves and chooses into his system, while others he condemns and rejects, the Jesuit “revaluation” of the patristic testimonies is especially noteworthy. In it, the pseudo-historical “patristic proof” of the truth of all Roman Catholic teachings, which contradicts genuine historical facts, is primarily carried out and improved. Here they do not teach about fathers, but the fathers themselves are taught. The Roman See thinks to know all the Traditions of St. fathers are better than themselves. It is here that the entire weakness of the Catholic “argument from St. fathers." And since the consensus patrum is a disadvantageous acquisition for the Roman see, imposing on everyone very heavy obligations to conform to the teachings of universal antiquity, it is understandable that in the Roman Church they are trying in every possible way to free themselves from it, resorting to the infallible authority of the pope. In this circumstance, from this side, the entire sectarian illusory nature of the Roman proof from the patristic Tradition is revealed” (pp. 572–574), etc. P.P. Ponomarev points out the difference between Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the doctrine of the church, as the guardian and interpreter of Christian truth, in that “Catholicism narrows the Orthodox concept of the universal church to the concept of a teaching church, or to the so-called church magisterium, by which is meant such a magisterium, which, having been established by the word of God, always and continuously preaches the truth of God in the person of the primates of the church, united among themselves by law the primacy of Peter’s successor and fulfilling their teaching duties either personally through themselves, or through ministers specially appointed for this purpose” (pp. 531–533), etc.}. For the same motive of arbitrariness, Protestantism has shifted the center of gravity to the opposite side: it considers the Bible as the only source of Christian truth as understood by each Christian community and even each Christian individual. The difference from Catholicism is that there the Bible is subject to arbitrary interpretation by the hierarchy and the pope, but here it is subject to arbitrary interpretation by every Christian. There, in addition to dogmas, the authority of infallibility and eternity is given to private opinions; here the boundaries of dogmas are violated for the sake of everyone’s opinion. Now we can evaluate our home-grown principle of patristic Tradition - the principle of “fatherland”. Without the arbitrariness of the church hierarchy, which gives the authority of infallibility to private opinions and systems and suppresses Christian freedom, there is still no Catholicism; and without the arbitrariness of individual beliefs that violate church-dogmatic unity, there is still no Protestantism. Conversely: the arbitrariness of the church hierarchy in Christian teaching is already Catholicism, even if it does not come to the recognition of the pope, just as in the arbitrariness of personal beliefs there is already Protestantism, even if the word of God is not recognized as the sole source of theology. The principle of patristic Tradition is the Catholic tendency in Orthodoxy - the suppression of Christian freedom by the arbitrariness of church power. It is manifested in the recognition of the principle of “fatherland”, i.e. in the dogmatization of patristic systems and opinions. Since the idea of ​​papal arbitrariness is impossible for us, the principle of patristic Tradition, the principle of “fatherland,” is the only possible detection of hierarchical arbitrariness for us. Here is the diagram: “The papists have the legislative word of the pope, it solves all the confusion that may arise in determining the meaning of any saying of St. Scriptures. Lutherans in this case are guided by their own judgment. And the Orthodox Church has one support for this, the most solid and unshakable support - the voice of St. Fathers of the Church" (Prof. Chistovich History of Bible translation into Russian, 2nd ed., pp. 301–303). In this principle, the Catholic tendency manifests itself much weaker than in the idea of ​​papal infallibility; this is only provincial Catholicism, but the motive of hierarchical arbitrariness is reflected quite clearly in it. This is easy to notice by observing the eras of the most intensive implementation of the principle of patristic Tradition. Such was our era of church (and political) reaction, which began at the end of the first quarter of the 19th century, which M. M. Filaret fought so energetically {See. prof. Chistovich History of Bible translation into Russian; his own Leading figures of spiritual education in Russia in the first half of this century. ; his History of the St. Petersburg Academy; A. N. Kotovich Features and conditions for the development of Russian theological thought in the era of Nicholas I; works of Sushkov, Korsunsky, Titlinov and others}. Its church head was M. Seraphim, an ally of the notorious Arakcheev and the no less notorious archimandrite. Photius (“half-fanatic, half-rogue,” as Pushkin defined him), and she reached her highest tension under the Chief Prosecutor, Count. Protasov, a Jesuit student. Its main motives were the suppression of personal freedom by church authority, and opposition to the word of God of church Tradition. In particular, it was directed against theological science, against the translation of the Bible into Russian. 1) The reaction was directed against the scientific position of the theological school, which the reform of 1808–1814 gave it, and sought to turn it again towards Latin scholasticism. M. Filaret presents the significance of the reform and the direction of the reaction as follows: “Before the transformation of theological schools, some of these schools placed their glory in their superior knowledge of the Latin language over others. Hence, the priests, who knew Latin writers better than sacred and church writers, spoke and wrote better in Latin than in Russian, were more capable of shining in the circle of scientists with selected expressions of a dead language, rather than shining the light of living knowledge of the truth among the people.” Theology was taught only dogmatically, dryly and coldly; scholasticism reigned. “Since the transformation of theological schools, in 1814, the teaching of active theology was introduced; In this way, theological teaching became closer to application in life. Instead of disputes between a few about a few, tests were introduced for all students in all subjects of study; Thus, monitoring progress in learning is more accurately aimed at improving students and the learning itself. It is allowed to teach theological lessons in Russian.” We have our own textbooks. “But in 1825, the Commission of Theological Schools ordered theological schools that no one should teach their own lessons, that theology should be taught exclusively in Latin, that the classic book should be the theology of Theophylact, copied from the Lutheran theology of Buddeus, etc.” M. Filaret extremely disapproved of “this reverse move from intelligible teaching in natural language to Latin scholasticism”... 2) The reaction was directed against the translation of the Bible into Russian, therefore, against the distribution of the Bible among the people. On the contrary, she proceeded from the idea that the word of God was not given to the people, but to the hierarchy; In connection with this thought, the idea of ​​canonizing the Slavic translation was floated. M. Seraphim saw in the dissemination of the lithographed translation of the Bible “the sad consequence of those false concepts regarding the use of the word of God, which, having once been brought to us by Gentiles and captivating the minds of some among us, threatened the hierarchy - by undermining its power, the people - by instilling in them a seductive, but at the same time disastrous sense of independence from the church, Orthodoxy - by the overthrow of its root principles, for according to the teaching Orthodox Church of St. The Scripture was transmitted by God not to the people, but to the class of shepherds and teachers, and through them to the people” (see Priest M. Ya. Moroshkin, Materials for the history of the Orthodox Church during the reign of Emperor Nicholas I: A.I.R.I.O. vol. 113 p. 23). It is known with what constancy M. Philaret defended the cause of translating the word of God. The archbishop who sympathized with him. Tver Gregory wrote to him: “One thought about prohibiting the reading of the sacred. Writing to ordinary Christians fills me with fear. I cannot understand where this opinion comes from. Isn’t it the invention of always secretly acting agents of Latinism? (Rus. Art. XXVIII, 119). About the attempt to canonize the Slavic translation of the Bible, M. Philaret later (Aug 18, 1857) wrote this: “The late Count Protasov, who, with good intentions, through the influence of his upbringing, sometimes accepted Latin opinions under the name of Orthodoxy, gave the late Sovereign Emperor the idea to declare the Slavic translation of the Bible self-authentic, like the Latin Vulgate. Accordingly, the opinion of three metropolitans was required; and, probably, they were counting on the consent of the Metropolitan of Kyiv. Not seeing that this assumption is not in the spirit of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and that it would lead to confusion, like the Tridentine definition of the Vulgate, I decided to give an opinion in the sense of rejecting this assumption... I communicated my opinion to the Metropolitan of Kyiv and the current Metropolitan of Novgorod, took advantage of their comments, received their consent, and then presented my opinion to the Holy Synod. There were no consequences; and this means that no one objected to my opinion, and that Count Protasov’s assumption was left without action” (Collected copies and reviews IV, 260). According to the same saint, “The Holy Synod did not proclaim the Slavic text to be exclusively independent and thus shrewdly blocked the way to those difficulties and confusions, which in this case would have been the same, or even greater, than those that in the Roman Church arose from the declaration of the independent text of the Vulgate” (Appendix to the Tv. St. O. 1858, III, 479: Chistovich Ist. trans. b. 130). 3) Especially on the question of the relationship of Tradition to Scripture as applied to theological school, the Catholic reaction adhered to the expressly expressed principle that “the teaching of theological sciences in religious institutions should be raised to greater perfection, to systematic correctness and uniform order with the closest adaptation not only to the dogmas, but also to the traditions and orders of St. Orthodox Catholic Church" (Extracted from the report of the Prosecutor of St. Syn. for 1837, pp. 55–56). The principle of patristic Tradition has never been expressed with such clarity in our country. In particular, to implement this principle, the following measures were taken (see Prof. Chistovich Ist. transl. b. p. 125 next): publication of Patriarchal charters, introduction into educational use of the Orthodox Catechism of Peter Mogila, revision of textbooks and drawing up seminar course programs. a) Count N.A. Protasov, soon after joining the administration, found the so-called Patriarchal charters in the Synod and instructed Moscow Metropolitan Philaret to translate and correct them. His Eminence Philaret read the corrected version to the members of the Holy Synod. It was suggested to print it. Everyone agreed to this, with the exception of M. Jonah, who said that it would be better not to print. The diplomas were printed, sent to all theological educational institutions and were obligatory distributed to all seminary students upon completion of their course. In the “Patriarchal Charters” on the reading of the priest. Scripture says the following: “Everyone who is godly is permitted to hear the Scriptures, so that he may believe in his heart the truth and confess with his lips for salvation; but not everyone is allowed to read some parts of Scripture, especially the Old Testament, without guidance. Indiscriminately allow the unskilled to read the Holy Scriptures. Scripture means the same thing as offering strong food to infants.” b) “Another very important phenomenon of this time was the introduction of the Orthodox Confession of Faith of Peter Mohyla, translated from Greek into Russian by the priest. I. D. Kolokolov, in the academy and seminary, in the leadership of theology. The order of the Holy Synod on this followed in 1838. In the Orthodox Confession, in addition to the commandments of the Lord, there are also church commandments, which Orthodox theology did not introduce into its circle and which, therefore, were not in the Catechism of the Right Reverend Philaret, published with the approval and permission of the Holy Synod. Count Protasov, at the zealous suggestions of one trusted official from the Uniates and therefore more sympathetic to the Latin consensus than to the Orthodox Church, insisted that the Catechism (Reverend Philaret) mention predestination and church commandments. The Metropolitan explained that the doctrine of predestination is a theological subject; and church commandments, as human commandments, are unnecessary and inappropriate with the commandments of God” (Sushkov Notes on the Life of Philaret 117). c) “At the same time, in 1837, a revision of the classical and auxiliary books on theological sciences used in theological academies and seminaries was undertaken. The consequence of this consideration was, among other things, the introduction into the curriculum of seminaries of Patristics or the doctrine of the Fathers of the Church, from which academies and after them seminaries made a science, but which was actually introduced in the form of practical familiarization of spiritual pupils with the father’s writing or - church erudition.” M. Seraphim (see Moroshkin p. 25) wrote: “Interpretations of the priest. Scriptures based either on the interpreter's own judgment, or on a comparison of the patristic interpretations of one with another, as well as the Hebrew text with the Greek, can weaken the reverence nourished by the Orthodox for St. fathers and make objects of faith the subjects of one cold study.” Archim. Afanasy (Drozdov), whom gr. Protasov made him his closest collaborator in the matter of “establishing Orthodoxy on ancient principles”; he was reputed “for a fanatic, a champion of that Orthodoxy that adheres not to the meaning, but to the letter of religion, and which respects Tradition more than the Gospel” (review of Nikitenko in Kotovich 838). Rev. Filaret (Gumilevsky) wrote about this to Archpriest Afanasy. A.V. Gorsky. “... It’s not easy to talk to these people (about Protasov), very difficult. And Father Afanasy! Oh, great Athanasius! But may the Lord, who is great, forgive me for such things that I would never want to hear about. I confess that although his deeds were not bright before, but now? My God, my God! What passions bring us to! What can outraged wild pride lead to? A person will burn people at the stake, will hand over saints to reproach, and, however, will remain half-confident that he is doing all this for the benefit of humanity. Unhappy man! What a pity that Afanasy is like this now. Forgive me, my friend, for calling him a Judas. Too cruel? But if I have sinned, Lord, forgive me. My friend, I feel that I am writing to you only about my feelings and not showing my actions. But what should I do with my soul? She is so indignant that she cannot speak otherwise, cannot help but call things by their name, burdened by the blackness of names. Athanasius, yes, Athanasius, and not another who preaches: for me the confession of the Grave and the Helmsman is everything, and nothing more. Athanasius, and no one else, is a desperate tool and actor in the looks and will of shaved schismatics. Whatever they need to do, everything is ready to do and does. My God, save us! Yes, our sins have brought us to this point. Lord, let me see my sins! Unhappy man! An ulcer for your soul! A devastating plague for the whole church!” This is Athanasius, appointed rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy and editor of Chr. Thurs. , replaced (since 1842) the previous epigraph, usually printed on the title page of each magazine book: “created on the foundation of the apostle and prophet, which is the cornerstone of Jesus Christ himself.” To others, in the spirit of the new direction of concepts that has arrived: “Yes, show how it is fitting to live in the house of God, even though the church of God is alive, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (Chistovich 128). The general characteristics of this direction “toward Tradition” and the general impression of it were highlighted by Philaret of Moscow in a letter to Gabriel, Archbishop of Ryazan, in June 1842, regarding “Sacred Hermeneutics,” which was then under consideration by the Holy Synod. “By coincidence,” wrote Filaret, “I had the opportunity to review this work in a time crunch, before my departure from St. Petersburg. I hastily put down a few comments on paper. There was no time to confer, and matters, in my opinion, require advice. Please take the trouble to read the accompanying notes. If you find them correct, help protect the teaching from deviations that are well-intentioned with the goal of protecting Tradition, but unsafe with thoughts that degrade the dignity of Holy Scripture” (Read in O.I. and D.R. 1868, II, 167). So, before us, with sufficient convexity, the frame of the reactionary stream in the Catholic spirit emerges, into which, in the era of its greatest tension, the principle of patristic teaching was inserted, i.e., the identification of the teaching of the church fathers with Church Tradition, that system of church direction, which constitutes a natural environment for the principle of “fatherland”. This is a system of suppression of spiritual initiative by the authority of power, alien to Orthodoxy, suppression of spiritual freedom by administrative arbitrariness. If we descend from the expanse of the open sea of ​​church life, the highest church administration, into the bays, lakes and even swamps of the actions of individual, local representatives of the church authorities, who carry out the same principle of “fatherland” locally, in the provinces, in private cases, then we now have the right, even in the absence of appropriate documents, to judge the motive that guides them. When the head of some theological school or a visiting auditor fills the classrooms with the cry: “For the fathers!” - then it always has the same leitmotif: according to the fathers, that is, according to that patristic system (for example, ascetic), which was chosen from a number of others by the taste of the leader, according to those patristic opinions that he likes or is accidentally known to him. “According to the fathers” means above all the personal taste of the one who proclaims this principle - it means there is no place for self-sufficient theological science and Christian philosophy. The principle of “fatherland” is the principle of Catholic arbitrariness, the principle of provincial, district popes. However, this is the meaning of this principle if it is proclaimed from above. But the same principle becomes the principle of Protestant arbitrariness within Orthodoxy when it is exposed from below, practiced by the theologian himself. Such a metamorphosis is quite possible, because arbitrariness remains common, equally characterizing both Catholicism and Protestantism. It is customary for us to think that Protestantism consists strictly in the principle of Scripture and is exhausted by it. When a theologian considers the word of God to be the initial principle of religious thought, they say about him: “This is a Protestant, this is a Protestant system.” This is one of the superstitions that is extremely harmful to religious thought. The truth in this case, as often happens, goes against the evidence. It seems obvious: the Protestant principle is the principle of Scripture, the Christian principle; Consequently, an Orthodox theologian who places exclusively the word of God as the starting point of religious thought and builds Christian philosophy is a Protestant. In fact, this is a false proposition. The Protestant principle is not simply the principle of Scripture, but the principle of Scripture with the rejection of the church-dogmatic boundaries of religious thought, with a violation of church unity. In Protestantism, spiritual subjectivity moves from the realm of spiritual experience to the realm of beliefs and here it crosses the border of the churchly obligatory, Christian freedom degenerates into rationalistic arbitrariness, the beginning of a spiritual personality, and is replaced by individualism. Therefore, within the framework of the (Orthodox) church, within dogmatic boundaries, building a system of religious thought on the basis of Scripture alone will in no case lead to Protestant results, so there is not the slightest reason, out of fear of Protestant arbitrariness, rationalistic individualism, to renounce Christian freedom. In order for the principle of Scripture to result in Protestant thought, for this a Christian must become a sectarian, separate from the church. Within the church, within dogmatic boundaries, theology according to the principle of Scripture, according to the Christian-subjective principle, does not become Protestant, because it does not become the beginning of a personal production in the sphere of beliefs approved by the church. In the very essence of the principle of Scripture, the Christian principle, lies the freedom of a Christian’s intimate relationship with the Heavenly Father, the freedom of spiritual experience; but this spiritual freedom has nothing to do with freedom from dogma, with isolation from Church Tradition, from church unity; it is integral to Christianity and is recognized by the Orthodox Church. Even more than that: spiritual freedom, intimate comprehension of the word of God, fitting within the framework of church unity, directs the energy of the Christian soul away from Protestant, rationalistic arbitrariness. The limitlessness of spiritual experience, its super-rationality, makes Protestant arbitrariness psychologically impossible. Understanding spiritual freedom in the church makes one deeply feel some kind of ignobility, some kind of vulgarity in sectarianism, in rationalizing individualism, some kind of philistinism, provincialism. Essentially, on the paths of Christian freedom, Protestant arbitrariness is impossible, it is not achieved here, as its limit, it does not lie in this direction, and it is psychologically unthinkable for Protestant arbitrariness within the church, within dogmatic boundaries, to follow the path of Christian freedom, spiritual mysticism, the principle of Scripture. For Protestant theology within Orthodoxy, for the Protestant tendency in the church, the only possible path remains the patristic principle. If an Orthodox theologian begins to truly, and not imaginary, according to the false judgment of thoughtless critics, Protestant, then he, unlike sectarians and renegades who Protestant according to the principle of Scripture, will inevitably choose the path of the patristic principle of theology. This is the same path that our Catholic tendency follows, with the difference that the principle is proposed from below, that is, it is actually practiced by the theologian himself, the initiator in its application is the theologian himself. As an indecisive, provincial, Catholic tendency within Orthodoxy reaches in theology only to the principle of patristic teaching, and not to the idea of ​​papal infallibility; so the timid, or crafty, or unconscious, Protestant tendency within Orthodoxy stops in theology on the same principle of patristic teaching. Protestant among Orthodox theologians are those who profess the principle of “fatherland”. This is true, although paradoxical. Think about it. There is no single patristic teaching, but there are patristic systems and opinions that are chosen by the theologian at his own discretion. We usually consider the association of Holy Scripture and personal reason to be inseparable: Holy Scripture in personal understanding, and this association is contrasted with the objective patristic teaching. The situation is usually presented in such a way that those seeking personal understanding resort to Scripture, and the patristic teaching protects against the abuse of personal reason. But this is a false and extremely hypocritical presentation of the matter, and the theologians who defend it should listen to an offensively elementary lesson from a secular writer. N. N. Neplyuev rightly says to such theologians: “After all, the works of St. We will perceive our fathers with the same mind of our own, we will draw conclusions from them with the same mind of our own. Why is the same reason so dangerous when reading the Gospel and becomes so harmless when reading patristic literature? The only difference is that when reading the Gospel, the personal principle appears openly, and this prevents the degeneration of spiritual freedom into personal arbitrariness, and the patristic principle hides the rampant arbitrariness of interpreters. Yes, the principle of “fatherland” serves as a cover for conscious or unconscious Protestant arbitrariness in theology. Under the name of Church Tradition, which is systematically replaced by patristic opinions, Protestant arbitrariness spreads widely in our theology. If we look at our theologians from this angle, we will come to terrifying conclusions. Imaginary objectivism has become insolent, and now here we call black white and white black. Prot. Stelletsky, exposed for widespread plagiarism, is justified by the fact that he “presents not his own subjective human views, but the objectively revealed divine teaching of the Orthodox Church on the solid basis of divine primary sources.” A reviewer of Stelletsky’s book rightly notes: “If the work of an objectivist was reduced to rewriting the New Testament and conciliar decrees, one could agree with this. But, after all, oh. Stelletsky speaks on behalf of himself, the Germans, and Russian theologians. And all this is not subjective human views? What is it? Not human, so what? “An objectively revealed divine teaching,” says Fr. precisely and powerfully. Stelletsky" (see Church and Life, Art. Theological Objectivism). The reviewer adds: “This is the grief of the Russian Church, in particular, Russian theological science, that churchliness, general church consciousness and action have been replaced by the arbitrariness of personal will.” We have lost the criterion of church teaching, we have lost the ability to distinguish between what is legally binding in doctrine and personal opinions. What has not been passed off in our country, through patristic quotations, as church teaching! Our theology is a complete falsification of Christian teaching, covered by the principle of “fatherland”. However, the most expressive example of Protestant arbitrariness on the principle of patristic teaching is the theology of the Slavophiles, the theology of Khomyakov. Khomyakov considers the Bible to be an expression of the inner content of church life, an expression of the truth for which the church is the primary source: it is the thought of the church community, its inner faith, it is the Scripture of the entire church. There are no limits to Scripture, for every Scripture that the church recognizes as its own is sacred Scripture, so that “another sacred Scripture” is possible. According to Samarin, Scripture and Tradition are only two manifestations of the living revelation contained in the church. Among spiritual theologians, a similar thought is expressed by Bishop. Sylvester. For this entire direction of theological thought, Khomyakov’s theses are most characteristic in their decisiveness, and they are the easiest to spot his weaknesses. Khomyakov, according to the critical remark of Rev. A.V. Gorsky, “mixes the inspired Scriptures with the works of the church proper.” The verdict is as fair as it is irrevocable. The strangest thing about Khomyakov’s teaching about the church is that he allows himself to speak for the church and does not consider it his duty to determine how the church itself views Scripture: his teaching about the church is striking in its extreme dogmatism of speech. A conscientious critical examination would show that the church preserves the word of Christ and the epistles of the apostles, and indicates in the origin of the sacred Scriptures the basis for its authority. Khomyakov’s concept, in his mixing of inspired scriptures with church works, reveals a Catholic tendency - a tendency of Catholic arbitrariness. But since he did not reach the pope, his church authority turns into personal, that is, Protestant arbitrariness. Extracting everything from the concept of the church, he presents the very concept of the church dogmatically; Submitting everything to the authority of the church teaching, he subjugates the authority of the church to his personal understanding: the last interpreter of the inner content of church life turns out to be A.S. Khomyakov {Khomyakov himself admitted his Protestantism in one of his letters to M. S. Mukhanova. “I myself re-read my brochure and could not help but admit that the impression it should make on the Russian reader may not be entirely beneficial for me. Why? This is the question you aroused in me. The attack on Protestantism in both little books (that is, in two of Palmer's three pamphlets) is very strong, and I think it has hardly ever been more expressed, and the impression has something Protestant in it. It seems to me that the reason is that I took away from the Orthodox not only the pope, but also any substitute for the papacy (whether a Synod, a monk, or a confessor, or whatever). I presented freedom not only as a right, but also as a duty, and in this I consider myself right; but I did not say a word about the limits of Christian freedom and in this I condemned myself,” etc.}. This side of Khomyakov’s views, his Protestantism on a visible church-patristic basis, was astutely noted by the intelligent P. S. Kazansky. “Khomyakov,” Kazansky wrote in a letter to A.K. Bakhmeteva, “created his own concept of the church, and all his schismatic, even heretical thoughts, naively deceiving himself, covered up with the voice of the church. This imaginary devotion to the church gives him a free hand to treat the divinely inspired words of St. without any respect. The Scriptures, to reinterpret the sacraments in your own way, to exhaust the bottomless sea of ​​the mysteries of God with a small handful of the mind - this is life in the church; or rather, Khomyakov represented the phenomenon of complete freedom in religious consciousness. But this is by no means the only phenomenon; for no matter how many times I happen to meet secular teachers of the church, they all have complete freedom in their religious consciousness. Everyone talks about faith in such a way that there are no traces of church teaching. But Khomyakov knew the dogmas; in essence, he was far from distinguished by complete freedom of religious consciousness. He obviously did not understand in his hobbies that he directly contradicted the teachings of the church. He studied Christian teaching using the same Western books and was influenced by both Catholicism and Protestantism. From the first he borrowed devotion to the church, and from the second his free-thinking disrespect for the church in practice. He reproached the English for not being able to get rid of papism; it was the same with him. He involuntarily inhaled the atmosphere of his opponents. Having made this vinaigrette from two confessions of the West, he unconsciously called it Orthodoxy. This is not a joke, but a real characteristic of Khomyakov. Only from Catholicism could he borrow that reverence for the church with which all his writings are imbued; Only from Catholicism could he borrow the opinion about Holy Scripture that it has meaning only from the voice of the church, that it is not as holy and immutable as the teaching of the church. Only the Catholics, pushing aside the Holy Scriptures, did not say that it is unimportant, that its letter is not obligatory; they kept silent about this. Khomyakov made up for this omission from their teaching from Lutheranism and, moreover, in its extreme developments. He objects to Bunsen not because Bunsen views sacred Scripture as a simple product of the human mind; in this Khomyakov agrees with him, but because he understands and interprets some passages differently than how Khomyakov understands them. Such a teaching, such a view is not Orthodox; I think that these weaknesses could not hide from the Westerners. But to us Orthodox, his errors are clear.” The principle of “fatherland”, applied from above, is the principle of provincial Catholicism; applied from below, it is the principle of disguised Protestantism, it is always the principle of arbitrariness. Leontyev openly placed the patristic teaching above the word of God. From very recent times, a spectacular example of the crafty application of the principle of the fatherland is the book of St. Florensky's Pillar and the Statement of Truth. Both in the title of the book and in its text, the author advertises church and patristic sources, but his book in its content does not have a single feature of Christian philosophy: it is nothing more than spiritualistic philosophy. Under the flag of the church and fathers, he sets out only his philosophy. “Florensky,” according to the fair observation of his reviewer, Archimandrite. Nikanor, “the whole thing comes down to personal discretion in the matter of choosing even fathers.” So: “Its external coincidence with the letter of individual passages or works of liturgical and patristic church writing, passed through the prism of their personal understanding or interpretation by our author, hardly guarantees the good quality of the theology of Fr. Florensky." Our entire study of Tradition is closely related to the question of the existence of theology as a science and as philosophy, for the “fatherly” principle threatens the very existence of theology. We focus our attention on the special significance of this principle for the content of theological science, or more precisely, Christian philosophy, for its national identity: we return to the main theme of our treatise. From time immemorial, the “fatherly” principle of theology plays the role of the enemy of the birth and flourishing of Russian religious and theological thought. He does not give room for the very possibility of Russian-national creativity in theology. Fatherly" theology is Greek theology, and the principle of "fatherly" theology perpetuates the national Greek methods of Christian thought, the Christian worldview, the national Hellenic religious philosophy {Strunnikov Faith, as confidence: “Just as the Old Testament bears the stamp of Judaism, so Orthodoxy to this day bears on its shell the irresistible imprint of the wondrous Hellenic genius.”}. The question of the principle of “fatherland” is the question of the Greek type of Christian worldview, its claims to universal and all-embracing significance and the right of the Russian people to an original Christian philosophy. A positive solution to the question of patristic Tradition means that next to the Greek type of Christian philosophy there is no place for other types, in particular, the Russian type of religious thought; on the contrary, a negative attitude towards the principle of “fatherland” opens the way for Russian-national creativity; in theology, for the freedom of Russian religious thought. And here the whole point is in the difference between the Tradition of the universal church and the patristic Tradition. The Church-Ecumenical Tradition does not belong to any one people, it is the property of all peoples; whereas the patristic tradition, composed of systems and opinions, is a national tradition. In historical reality, the patristic tradition is the treasury of Greek theologians, and the principle of “fatherland” is specifically dogmatization, or perpetuation of the Greek type of Christian thought. Since the Greek tradition has never found such favorable soil as in Russia, where for many centuries theology consisted of repeating Greek writing, without the slightest trace of criticism and free revelation of one’s own soul, the principle of “fatherly” theology, as the actual principle of the Greek tradition, received its full disclosure in the relation of the Greek tradition to the Russian people. And conversely: for no other people does the question of the “fatherly” principle take such an acute form of the question of national religious and philosophical creativity as for us. The Greeks identified their national cause, their national Christian-philosophical thought with Church Tradition. “The Greek Byzantine-Constantinople Church has the greatest merit that it has successively preserved Orthodoxy in all its typicality and saved it from destruction and absorption. We owe it to her that, amid the difficult and terrible vicissitudes of history, Orthodoxy did not perish under the yoke of Islam and did not succumb to the pressure of heterodox propaganda - especially from Catholicism, which has long and strenuously strived for complete dominion in the East. Greek nationalism historically merged with Orthodoxy and protected it with its very self-preservation, in turn finding in it the spiritual basis for its identity. Orthodoxy and Hellenism united in close dependence, which is why the first began to be classified as the second. And Christian Hellenism carried out and developed this union precisely in a nationalist spirit. The religious moment was a factor in national aspirations, was subordinate to them, and not only among the Phanariotes was turned to the service of pan-Hellenic dreams. The latter were deeply woven into the religiously Orthodox element and imparted their own flavor to it, endowing the dignity and rights of an “ethnarch” for all the Christian peoples of the East precisely with the Byzantine patriarch, who was revered as a living and animated image of Christ (Matthew Vlastar of the 14th century in “Syntagma”). As a result, it turned out that all spiritual Christian superiority belongs to Hellenism and can only be secondarily perceived by others from it. For Orthodoxy this meant that it was entirely contained in Hellenism and distributed by it under its domination and control. In this regard, the enlightened Gregory Byzantios (Βυζάντιος, or Byzantine, born in Constantinople, Metropolitan of Chios from 1860, died of Irakli from 1888) categorically testified that “the mission of Hellenism is divine and universal.” Hence the primordial and ongoing claims to the exclusive supremacy in Orthodoxy of Hellenism itself, as its owner and dispenser. According to the first answer (from May 1576) to the Tübingen theologians of the Patriarch of Constantinople Jeremiah II (d. 1595), who spoke as “the successor (διάδοχος) of Christ” (introduction), the Greek “holy church is the mother of churches, and, by the grace of God, excels in knowledge, boasts without reproach the purity of the apostolic and paternal decrees, and, being new, old in Orthodoxy and placed at the head,” why “every Christian church should celebrate the liturgy in the same way as it,” the Greek-Constantinople Church (chapter 13 sub fin). “In Constantinople they have always discovered a tendency towards church absolutism in Orthodoxy and did not at all favor the development of national-autonomous churches, not easily recognizing them even with hierarchical equality” (N. N. Glubokovsky Orthodoxy in its essence). In particular, and in particular, the claims of Hellenism were revealed in its relation to the Russian Church and specifically in the field of education. The conceit of Hellenism permeated the entire actual dominance of the Greek tradition, which characterized our ancient teaching. Vratya Likhuda in his work Akos wrote: “There has always been light for the Greeks and there will be even to the end of the age; and from the Greeks the light is received and accepted by all languages, either written or unwritten, or from the works and writings of the Greeks, or from the mouths of their teachings, either (or not) from them, and through them other languages ​​see: all philosophers are Greek, all theologians are Greek; not following this, without meaning and without punishment and violence, and for this reason the speech and this: everyone is not a Greek barbarian. The teachings (cunning) of the divine scriptures and other things of the holy fathers were written in the Hellenic dialect, and it is fitting for everyone who dangerously and sincerely wants to lead, and the sincere intention and reason of the divine writings of the fathers to lead well the Hellenic dialect, otherwise they work in vain and the end of all - the burials lie in the darkness and smoky cave of ignorance, and they will never see the light of the east. Even if you don’t know the Hellenic dialect, below the Slavic dialect the message, below the knowledge, the sincere thought and mind of the divine scriptures and fathers, interpreted into the Slavic dialect, can be understood” (see also N. F. Kapterev Relations of the Jerusalem Patriarch Dositheus with the Russian government p. 142). These claims of Hellenism were met by our primordial self-humiliation and self-spitting. And if in actual devotion to the Greek tradition the principle of “fatherland” was not always clearly recognized as the actual type of national Hellenic religious thinking, by mixing the Greek heritage with universal truth, then under favorable conditions there was no shortage of such recognition of the principle, and this is even in our days, as we are convinced of from the article of Archbishop. Anthony (Khrapovitsky) Whose Constantinople Should Be (Shepherd and Flock 1916). “So, does this theologian ask, do we really need the Greeks to understand our Orthodoxy? Yes, he answers, it’s absolutely necessary! Many of us embrace Orthodoxy in our hearts better than the Greeks, but we embrace it as prayer, as feats of humility and mercy, as the creation of church splendor, and we do not have Orthodox consciousness, expressed in clear definitions as opposed to the errors of the West, - Orthodox citizenship, consistent with an intact understanding of Christianity, in Russian society and almost none in Russian academies. We are good Christians, but we are not philosophers, and in order to contrast our own with someone else’s who has stolen into our lives, we need not only to feel warmly, but also to think clearly and express ourselves accurately. The Greeks know how to do this. Take even their modern interpretations of St. Scriptures (P. Anthima of Tsados ​​and Anthima of Jerusalem): here you see the creativity of religious thought like that of the ancient fathers, and in the Russian interpretations either medieval scholasticism, or plagiarism from mediocre, unprincipled German dissertations, which talk about type, and different readings - and never about the religious meaning of God’s speeches” (cf. vol. II, p. 35). I protest against this hypocritical thought of Rev. Anthony, who specialized in spitting on Russian theologians. Russian theology is no longer inferior to Greek, including patristic theology; it is only of a different type. We already have our own spiritual philosophy, our own Christian worldview {How necessary is the awareness of the Russian religious idea now, and how eager am I to publish my work on Russian theological science as quickly as possible}. If we measure our theological thought by the scale of Greek theology, yes, our theology will turn out to be inferior to Greek, just as Greek theology will turn out to be insignificant according to the type of Russian religious thought. Suum cuique. We do not need to forget the services that the Greek genius, Greek philosophy rendered “to the task of the Orthodox expression of Christian truth,” there is no need to forget “the feat of the Greek people,” the feat of their national self-denial in submission to the universal truth (see On the Arch. Vol. III). We just do not confuse universal dogmatic thought with the national Greek concept of Christianity, and we believe that the national Greek concept of Christianity is one of the types of religious thought, while other peoples each have the right to their own Christian philosophy, and the Russian people are called to have their say. No one dares to block our access to the primary source of Christian truth and to our original understanding of it. I consider the preaching of Russian self-humiliation before the Greek tradition to be a disgrace for the Russian cause. I join Ivan the Terrible, who told Possevino: “Don’t point us to the Greeks, they are not the Gospel for us. We hold to the true Christian faith, not the Greek one.” What came out of Ivan the Terrible’s mouth in the heat of polemic must be presented as a conscious beginning of theology. All peoples are called to cooperate in the field of Christ, and it is time for us to shake off the ancient Greek yoke and demand our place of honor at the spiritual table of Christ. And modern theologians have the right to exist next to St. fathers. After all, “St. the fathers for their time were only theologian thinkers. History has shown their relative importance, and, undoubtedly, they cannot now be placed on a par with our contemporary theologians: the church accepted the fathers as faithful exponents of its teachings and relied on them in its definitions of faith. But for the future, there may be holy fathers among our contemporaries. Along with fathers, they also have the right to free thought.” In what content, in what concept of Christianity the Greek spirit was reflected is well known. The Greek genius manifested himself in Christian philosophy through intellectualism in its extreme form, namely, Gnosticism, which, together with magic, forms the main composition of mysticism and which is inevitably accompanied by asceticism: Greek theology is characterized by ascetic Gnosticism and Gnostic asceticism. Greek Christian theology inherited its intellectualism and gnosticism from ancient philosophy. Addiction St. fathers and teachers of the church from Greek philosophy, especially from Plato it Plotinus is a generally accepted fact: if we began to prove it, we would be banging on an open door. All the studies of our theologians that have scientific value - patrolological, church-historical and philosophical-historical - are full of indications of the Platonism and Neoplatonism of patristic theology: Bolotov, Melioransky, Spassky, Brilliantov, Nesmelov, Popov, Martynov, Zarin, Ostroumov, etc. The general nature of the influence of pagan religious thought on Christian theology, in the extreme form of this influence, Prof. Nesmelov depicts with true features: “The pagan champions of the apostolic preaching thought that the soul alone receives salvation, while the body is perishable by nature, and that for the salvation of the inner man, only the knowledge of ineffable greatness is sufficient, that is, the knowledge of the fullness of divine existence as the true goal of rational human souls. Therefore, the whole essence of the Christian religion for them naturally came down to the ideological essence of any philosophical doctrine - to reliable knowledge of the eternal mystery of existence. Believing the apostolic word that in Christianity the wisdom of God was revealed to people, secret, hidden, about which no one in the world had yet known, they actively sought to find this wisdom of God and, by reinterpreting the apostolic teachings, created such fantastic doctrines in which the mere mention of the name of Christ with the names of His apostles can indicate their historical origin during the period of the existence of Christianity. Orthodox theological thought also worked in the same Gnostic direction, restrained by the rule of faith. Prof. Brilliantov writes about the intellectualism of Eastern theology, especially Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor. “The fact of the predominance of theoretical interests in the church life of the East is well known. Representatives of Eastern theology inherited the inclination and ability for a scientific and theoretical study of truth from the pre-Christian Hellenic world, receiving from it a rich literary heritage and having behind them a number of thinkers of classical antiquity; the inheritance they received was not alien to them, it was not their own native property. And in Christianity, without completely neglecting the practical side, the Greek nevertheless paid primary attention to its theoretical side. The theoretical character of the East found expression in both the method and content of Eastern theology. In Eastern theology, a person’s attitude to Revelation is presented as the attitude of the mind that contemplates, or perceives objectively existing truth and places it as the basis for its conclusions, as something reliable in itself. Mind (ѵоυς), the ability of contemplation, according to the Greek view, is the main ability of man and is used to express the concept of spirit. In its content, Eastern theology wants to be, first of all, the development of the data contained in Revelation, through the application of logical operations of the mind to them, and not a reflection on the experience of a person’s own life and activity. Making God and His revelation the starting point, given the impossibility of the human mind to embrace the revealed truth in its entirety, Eastern theologians naturally begin when understanding the concept of God with the most abstract definitions, relying on the results of Greek philosophy (Alexandrian school and Platonism), so that later, as the revealed teaching of God is revealed, they can fill them with more specific content (Justin the philosopher, Clement Alex., Origen). Abstract definitions continue to exist in later times. Works known with the name of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, are in their content the actual implementation of the theoretical aspirations of Eastern thought in the field of theology, one might say, unique in their character even in the extensive theological literature of the East. They represent an attempt to apply to the data of the Christian Revelation, and namely, primarily in the doctrine of God, methods of abstract philosophical thinking, striving to reach the highest level of abstraction, which the philosophical thought of the Greeks managed to achieve in the last period of its development in Neoplatonism and which is possible only for the mind that came out of the Neoplatonic school. At St. Gregory of Nyssa we encounter a characteristic teaching about the mind as the center and essence of the human being, which determines further details of the anthropology of this father, and the view of man held was not the view of only Gregory and even the Eastern fathers and teachers in general, but the entire Greek East. St. Maximus the Confessor, completely establishing himself on the views of Dionysius and proceeding from them as a foundation, at the same time accepts the anthropology of St. Gregory and strives to embrace in an integral philosophical and theological worldview the results of the previous five centuries of work of thought in the field of theology {Intellectualism of St. Maximus the Confessor clearly appears in the presentation of his system by S. L. Epifanovich. St. Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine theology: St. Maxim posits sin in ignorance (62), and salvation in the communication to man of true knowledge (72), which is given a taste of the existence of the divine (103): asceticism in St. The maxim is divided into three stages: the lowest stage is action, the middle stage is contemplation and the highest is theology, that is, the ineffable knowledge of Bora in ecstasy, which constitutes the highest goal of life (92-169). In general, “in full agreement with the mystical-idealistic mood of his spirit, the reverend father in theology prefers apophatic knowledge of God (sacramental theology) to cataphatic knowledge, in ontology he resolves all being into ideas, in asceticism he puts forward the tasks of spiritualization of man and spiritual γѵоςις, the knowledge of ideas (λоγоι). So everywhere and in everything, the spiritual, ideal, mysterious, is decisively and irrevocably preferred to everything carnal, real, external” (112-113). Prof. Epifanovich fully approves of the Gnostic system of St. Maxima (113–114). The affinity of this system with the Neoplatonism of Prof. Epifanovich admits: “At St. Maxim has many points of contact with the Neoplatonists. And the language, and the dialectical technique, and the metaphysical doctrine of λоγоι, of the spirituality and immortality of the soul, and, finally, even the scheme of the philosophical system, with its main points - the doctrine of the First Principle, the descent from It of created being and the return return to It through ascetic detachment from existence and premental merging with It - all this is similar in St. Maximus to Neoplatonists! (132). But the significance of this affinity seems to be weakened by the fact that Neoplatonic influences on St. Maximus went through the medium of Dionysius the Areopagite}.” According to prof. Zarina, the religious meaning of the heart “in patristic literature - in contrast to St. Scripture is often limited, and sometimes directly obscured, by the meaning of reason, which often receives primary, overriding importance, while the heart, as a result of this, naturally recedes into the background and itself is subordinate to reason. This feature of patristic psychology undoubtedly owes to the influence of psychological views that grew and developed on the basis of Greek philosophy.” Prof. Popov about St. Athanasius of Alexandria writes: “All the distinctive features of the teaching of St. Athanasius’s ideas about salvation are reduced to the influence of Platonism and are conveniently explained from here.” Prof. Chetverikov expresses a general observation: “Christian writers, from whom philosophy takes precedence over their immediate faith, adopted from St. Scriptures and St. Traditions appear to be in the teaching about the personality and inner personal life of God under the influence of the Greek philosophical systems of that time. The church writers themselves did not notice all the unfavorable consequences of their borrowings.” The patristic teaching - we have firm grounds to say this - is complete Gnosticism, Greek Gnosticism. Gnosticism is essentially connected with asceticism (cf. Prof. Bolotov Lectures), which is part of the main structure of patristic teaching. Borrowed from Greek paganism at the time of its decline, with the widespread influence of Eastern teachings, the ascetic tendency in Byzantinism reached an extreme degree of development. Byzantinism is an ascetic system of life; Byzantine literature is specifically ascetic literature... Gnosticism and asceticism are what the Greek tradition gave us. This fact explains why the question of Tradition is of general cultural interest to us: patristic literature was a conductor into our culture of an alien, national-Greek, decadent, Gnostic-ascetic worldview and understanding of life. In the meaning of Gnosticism and asceticism, this is the center of gravity of the question of the principle of “fatherland” in theology. Gnosticism and asceticism are the sworn enemies of the Russian genius. Gnosticism and asceticism are hostile to us in the sense that they are deeply and organically alien to the Russian soul. They are our enemies also because they crushed and crippled the soul of our people for many centuries. Greek Gnosticism fettered Russian religious thought, stifled our theological creativity, did not allow our own philosophy of the heart to emerge, dried up its roots, burned its sprouts. Byzantine asceticism poisoned our will and distorted our entire history. The fight against the Gnostic-ascetic worldview is our next spiritual task of immeasurable importance. And if the negative path goes from overcoming Gnostic-ascetic theology to the flourishing of the spiritual type of religious thought, our native spiritual philosophy, then the positive path of developing spiritual philosophy leads to our complete liberation. An original spiritual, mystical and life philosophy is the main factor in our national revival.